#Melvin Rowe | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

wickedsrest-rp · 10 months ago

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Ghost Tours (3D) || Group Thread

TIMING: Current PARTIES: Inge, Nora, Jonas, Archie, and Helene SUMMARY: A fun ghost tour turns ghastly when the guide is revealed to be more than anyone expects. As the tour group is decimated in service of a mysterious entity, survivors are left wondering what they have just seen, and what is to come.

Dirty gray buildings lined what used to be a scenic little cobblestone road. The old maple tree that used to sit proudly at the end of the road was long gone and replaced by cold concrete. It was a shame, Helene decided, that a living relic of the past that could have survived turned into a park bench littered with obnoxiously colored bags. It was a small kindness that her feet made no sound or that she couldn’t really feel the ground at all. She had always loved the sound of the leaves crunching under her boots. There may have been a stray vibrant red leaf still left on the tree this late in the season, but most of them would have turned a shade of rust and fallen to the ground.

She rounded the corner anyway though the path remained largely unfamiliar to Helene. It had been a month now, she believed, and she was so close to having delivered her end of the bargain. She didn’t like to remember Wicked’s Rest this way, as it was now. This wasn’t her home and the wear on the buildings as they approached the part of town called Worm Row indicated that it hadn’t been for quite some time. The path she followed was the only she knew of the abnormality. Someone on one of the tours commented that the drive they were walking down now was private land, but it was long abandoned. The one shed she could make out at the end of shades of slate never showed even a flicker of light or life.

The group chattered absently behind her as they finally reached a small shack of a house labeled ‘historic’ by the town. This was admittedly Helene’s favorite story of the tour, one she got to tell with a wicked glint in her eyes because the Farfoots had gotten what was coming to them. “This was once the home of an author named Madison Farfoot. He was a boisterous man,” she narrated with a smirk playing at her translucent lips, “They call it the roarin’ 20s now and even by his own account, he was a loud man.”

Too loud, she remembered. His main home where he threw all his lavish parties had been taken by the flat some time long after his death, but his death had been here in this shack. Something about that delighted Helene. “His book The Rest Way Home went on to become a bestseller, though that was posthumously, but their land had a rich history.”

The land had been her family’s once, after all, but betrayal had much more dire consequences in a place like Wicked’s Rest. Helene didn’t worry much about that herself. She’d been long dead, long trapped under the black darkness of the abnormality. After tonight, she could feel something besides the earth and rocks one last time before going to live out the rest of her numbered days far away from the town that was as wretched as its name suggested.

Perhaps she was a little wretched, too, leading her last group of patrons closer and closer to the abnormality. They would be taken under it too. Helene had to think they’d understand once they’d lived it. Perhaps died it was more apt.

“The business deal that led to the Farfoot family acquiring the land that once went all the way out toward the mineral abnormality had been questionable to begin with. Handshake deals often are,” Helene recited, “But it was ultimately a squabble over inheritance that led to the end of the family line. Both brothers had very different ideas of what to do with the land. Madison wanted to build a hotel and shopping center, his brother Melvin wanted to farm tobacco believing it would be far more profitable.”

Their precious land belonged to the flat now too.

“The small house here was a den of sorts where Madison did much of his writing. Many today say they can still hear the sound of his typewriter in the darkest hours of the night.” She wondered if any knew or lived the strange anecdotes she would share over the rest of their tour. The small little evidence of phenomena that marred the path to the flat. “Keep close,” she advised with a falsely cautionary smile that gave some air of caring what happened to the living who uglied her town with metal and gray walls, “The hour is approaching twenty two hundred.” She turned back to the crowd, looking up at them from above her brow bone in a way she knew could chill. Scaring them wasn’t actually part of her bargain, that was more for entertainment value. “The hungriest hour of the night.”

—

Wasn’t there something ironic about it, going on a ghost tour when you were undead yourself? Sometimes she almost felt like a ghost herself, or at least those past versions of who she was. Ingeborg de Jong had been a young girl, raised in a country reeling from past war, the middle of five children of whom only four would live to adulthood. That had been a different girl, a different woman, a different wife — and though Inge might pretend she was gone and someone different, she remained.

Like a ghost in the lives of her siblings, of her ex-husband, of her former friends. Not dead, not really, but not there either.

Ingeborg Endeman was hardly a ghost. She was delightfully undead, but as present as any alive being was — and though she might flit from one plane to the other, and though she might haunt like some ghosts did, she thought herself more whole. Still! She felt a pull towards those fellow creatures that existed between the blurred line of alive and dead, and that was maybe why she was here. Enthralled by their tour guide, more keen to listen to her stories than to focus on her surroundings too much.

Worm Row, was, as neighborhoods went, a bad luck charm after all. The indent on her arm, where a piece of flesh was and would forever be missing after her altercation with that zombie. The presence of a Cortez hunter. The sheer threat that hung in the air. That last one didn’t scare her the way it would have scared her former, mortal self, though.

Her eyes moved across the people on the tour with her, a smile spared to the girl who could cast illusions. Was she here for inspiration as well? Inge moved nearer to her, eyes glued to Helene again. “Do you intent to cause some havoc tonight?” It was asked with a level of excitement, because it would be glorious, if the tiny thing was to explode in some kind of ghostly phenomenon and scare all those present.

She listened to the story, too, amused by the way Helene spoke of the late hour, glancing at the small house, “And how did their family line come to an end, exactly?” That was the story Inge was more intrigued by — she was well aware that the night was the time where the monsters came out. It was when she was at her strongest, when she could appear and disappear at will and haunt any person’s dreams and transform herself into something monstrous, stronger and more terrifying than her boring, mortal-seeming form. No, she wanted to hear about a story of what she hoped was fratricide, eyes gleaming as she hungered for a dramatic tale.

—

Were he a being capable of critical thought, maybe Archie would be able to stop and wonder why he hung onto every word of Helene's. Maybe he would be able to notice that in any other circumstances, this would bore him to death. But Archie was never the smart one, never a man of details, and Leon made no appearances here to guide his brother down a realistic (more like deeply pessimistic) path.

However, as much as Archie was stuck in Helene's stories, he retained almost none of the information, flying in one ear and out the other at twice the speed. And yet, he didn't wander off like he would if his will was his own. What truly caught his attention, was Inge's morbidity. Despite having met death, the concept of it feels so far removed from him. It was easy to remove himself from it, after all, he spent every moment he could pretending to be something he wasn't: a beating heart. "Ooo!" He exclaimed, almost cutting off Inge's words. "Yeah, how did they die? Was it like one of those old-timey shoot outs? Did they have guns back then?"

Helene's smile sent a shiver down his spine. Archie isn't sure if he'd felt such a sensation since coming back wrong. He laughed, nervous but with enough energy to attempt to mask it. "When are we gonna see some spooky shit?" He asked, not aware of what he was really asking for. "You know, you should definitely sell booze here. Drunk people are way easier to scare." He chuckled, then he turned to Inge, leaning in close to whisper. "You don't have anything for us on you, do ya?"

—

Jonas had dealt with many ghosts in his time, but having one lead a tour was definitely a first. Normal ghosts did not possess enough power to be projecting themselves in front of a small crowd while talking, what was even more strange was the fact that he wasn’t the only one who could hear her. Or at least that was what he was gathering from the reactions of his tour group members. It was hard to keep track of that many lips, it didn’t help that he was in the back of the group. He fiddled with his cardigan as he tried his best to keep up with the conversations. He should have gotten Lil to come along.

Still his focus was the ghost more than those walking with him. Jonas had come with the intent to help her move on, but he hadn’t wanted to interrupt the tour and make a show in front of everyone as he suddenly made their tour guide disappear. He also thought that perhaps if the ghost got to show off she would be more amicable to his desire to help her move on. Though her level of power was a bit worrying. Normally only poltergeists were so strong.

Jonas wasn’t affected by ghost stories the same where others were. He had been talking to ghosts since he could form words so no fear was held for them only pity. “I hope Madison is not still there trying to type.” He mumbled out. Blue huffed a little at her boy, he couldn’t understand the conversations happening but she could and she was thinking these people were strange and that Jonas was focusing on the wrong thing.

—

There had been a rumbling in the graveyard about ghosts who didn’t know their places. Ghosts who could be seen by the mundane and not just the exceptional. Ghosts who would bring in a new age, destroy the living and put ghosts at their rightful place. At the top. The ghosts in this town were ambitious, Nora would give them that. Nora followed along the party, in the outskirts, hands shoved in her pocket where another ghost was nestled safely. Tied down by a hair tie and paper clip to stop him from making a scene. The group consisted of one woman she did know and then other people she didn’t know. But the woman she did know was a question, because Nora was curious to see if this fellow fear eater was here to help cause panic in any way necessary, going to help the living, or just in the right place at the right time.

“Someone should tell Madison no one wants to hear his typewriter at night.” Nora mumbled, shifting her gaze to look over their tour location. A man was joking with the professor about getting drunk to be easier to scare. For a brief second Nora allowed one of her illusionary monsters to flicker in his sight. In honor of it being a ghost tour, she recreated the man himself, dead and ghostly, approaching the man, arms outstretched before it disappeared into nothingness. Maybe that would be a good indication if he was drunk or not.

Another man seemed interested in the story and was talking about Madison’s typing as well. He didn’t want Maddison to type more. Nora, having never read any of Madison’s work, assumed it was because his stories were the worst ever read and that was how he obtained his posthumous fame. But Helene was talking about the hungriest hour and Nora’s stomach let out a large grumble that reminded her it’d been awhile since her last meal. Her pocket ham had run dried and now she was scraping by on scraps she could find around town. “Yeah, I am hungry.” Nora agreed. “Are you going to feed us?”

—

Much like the town, the people seemed to have taken a turn for the more agitating as well. Helene wondered if that was just the natural progression of time. She wasn’t sure she remembered what that was like, but she was certain her former acquaintances had the decency to retain their manners during a tour. Really, who raised these people? They knew nothing of manners or tact. It was easier that way. She supposed she might feel a thread of guilt if she were to find any of the tour-goers likable. They were a means to an end.

“There is a bar up the road we can stop at if you insist upon refreshments,” Helene relented with a roll of her eyes. The form she had been granted had been given its own allure of sorts, they wouldn’t go too far, but she still couldn’t risk them getting bored of her tour and running off all the same. She couldn’t bear another night trapped in this hellscape of a town she once called home. “I was not under the impression that food and beverage was customary on ghost tours,” she spoke with an air of indignance, “I am certain you will find the offerings at the 9/13 to be more than suitable.”

Not that Helene had tried anything there herself. Even if she was visible to the people of the town, her hands still passed through objects and the drinks they sold would do nothing to cure the sense of yearning she’d lived and died with all these years. The woman’s question made her perk up a bit. At least someone was interested in the spirit of the tour… though the fellow who wanted a drink wasn’t too far off. The scares would be there soon enough and surely there would be regret in having asked for them in the first place.

“Perceptive woman,” Helene turned to Inge with a pleased grin, “Most can’t resist a tale of family betrayals. The whole thing was rather bloody… yes, they had guns at the time, but their fight was far more gruesome.” She turned to the group with a wicked chortle. “Madison was something of a collector and fought his brother with an ax… curious choice of weapon, really though Melvin did have his hunting knives on him. Clearly… Madison was better equipped. The reports at the time said Melvin died with 22 ax marks decorating his corpse.” It sounded like Madison got out scot-free and she shook her head with a bit of delight. “Madison did take some stab wounds from his brother, though nothing quite so deep or fatal. It was infection of the wounds that led to his ‘untimely’ death.”

The only thing untimely about it was it hadn’t happened decades sooner, but Helene tried to tell the tale absent of her own tie to it. “The house is locked this time of day,” she looked at Jonas with a daring glance, “It is open during the day. I suppose you could listen for him then if you’d like.”

—

Archie and Nora prattled on about drink and food as if either of them really needed it to sustain themself. Inge found it amusing, eyes flicking between the two familiar faces and wondering how many of the others here were like them — supernatural. With Nora’s skills, they could create their own ghost story here, after all. She leaned towards Archie, shaking her head, “I don’t, no. Carrying a flask around is a little bit gauche.” He had a point, though: inebriated people were easier to scare. Their dreams were more chaotic, too.

She raised her voice, “It’s fine. We can grab a bite after,” Inge said, glancing at the tiny bugbear with a look of amusement. If she was hungry, she could use her illusions to scare the living daylights out of everyone around them. She’d like to see it. For now, though, she wanted this Helene to answer her questions and explain why this place was allegedly haunted.

And on she went, lifting the veil and speaking of a family betrayal. Gruesome murder, a tale you might hear on a podcast hosted by men with grating voices who threw in a sponsor for beard oil in between speaking about gore-y actions. “Twenty two ax marks …” Inge found it easy enough to imagine what it must have looked like, but had to admit she was on Melvin’s side, here. Anyone who brandished an ax as a weapon was something she considered an annoying individual, if not possible hunter. The memory of Sanne’s beheading was far in her head, nagging. “So a slow but painful death? I suppose that’s what you get for instigating a fight like that, hm?” She looked at the house, then back at Helene. “Can’t you open it to us? Or is it … locked for our own ‘safety’?” She used air quotes around that lsat word.

—

"Maybe our good mate Madison is having a grand ol' time typin' away!" Archie suggested humorously to the faces he didn't recognise. "Who are we to get in the man's way–" The jovial zombie halted all of a sudden. What was once fluid movements and loose shoulders were quickly seized into a tense bundle of muscles. Leon's face appeared, but it wasn't his presence that stitched discomfort into his features. It was the un-Leon-ness of it all.

The ghost reached for him, wordlessly, arms outstretched. "What're you–" Archie mumbled as the ghost drew closer. Perhaps someone else would scream, maybe they'd take off running and wouldn't stop till their lungs were empty and stinging. Archie only moved his head back when those ghostly hands got too close. There was no horror on his face, only confusion when he blinked and Leon's face was gone. Archie looked over his shoulder, no awareness for how strange his movements might look to those who don't see what he saw. He cleared his throat, and the jovial zombie was back.

"I ain't been on a ghost tour before, ain't got the faintest clue what's customary." He dragged out the last word almost mockingly, a far too sophisticated choice of vocabulary for a man who didn't so much as pass secondary school. "Wait, twenty-two? Seriously? Damn. Savage. They really didn't like each other, huh…"

Features softened by laughter morph into confusion as he leaned closer to Inge again. "Did you just say gooch?" Confusion kept his brows furrowed, but Archie began to laugh again. "I feel like you're too much of a lady to say gooch at a ghost tour." He laughed again, the notion of Inge being an upstanding woman in society was plenty amusing.

"C'mon, Helene! You can't tell us it's spooky in there and then refuse to let us in! What, you forget your keys? 'Cause listen, I can get the door open. If none of you tell on me for a bit of light breaking and entering."

—-

Jonas was not one who was very big on going to bars. Normally when he drank it was over heart break and those nights always ended with him at home bent over a bucket. He was a little glad the woman in the front suggested skipping it. He didn't want ot show that side to some strangers, it would be a horrible first impression. Not that he was really here to get on their good sides, he tried to remind himself that he was here for the ghost and what she needed. Though that didn't stop him from going through his many pouches and pulling out a packet of skittles along with a packet of peanuts and offering them to the younger woman in the group. “If you are hungry you are more than welcomed to have these.”

“If it is closed we should leave it till morning.” Jonas was used to a little breaking and entering but that was usually done when a client forgot to give him their keys and normally it as Lil who did the deed. Though he did make a note to come back and help Madison move on. Even if he did something as horrible as killing his sibling he was a danger to people if left alone especially if he carried anger still towards his brother.

It wasn't the first time he heard of siblings doing horrible things to one another, but it was always a little hard for him to understand why. Perhaps it was his closeness to his own siblings that made the thought of someone else killing theirs something he just couldn't wrap his mind around. Sure, sometimes siblings had disagreements but it was never something to get violent over.

—

The scare got a little frightened reaction, but it wasn’t as deep and wonderful as Nora had wanted. However, she was rewarded with a bag of peanuts. Which was a very bad reward, but Nora was a homeless young adult who, now that Emilio’s house was sludged, didn’t have access to a steady kitchen. Nora gobbled down the bag in one giant swallow, shoving the plastic bag into one of her many pockets. She’d tuned out of most of the conversation until the topic of breaking and entering entered the discussion.

“We don’t even have to mess with the locks.” Nora was good at locks, but locks weren’t the only way of getting into buildings. Nora looked down at the ground around them until she found a suitably big garden rock. “Oh no,” Nora dead panned, making direct eye contact with the ghost who told them they were not allowed to enter the house at this time of day. “My hand slipped.” The rock soared out of her hand and shattered the glass to the nearest window. “Looks like we’ll have to go in and clean up.”

—

The moment was approaching. As Helene watched the group banter and make suggestions about entering the house, a mixture of frustration and amusement danced behind her old eyes. She hadn't anticipated this level of eagerness to break in. Something like jealousy flashed through her. Oh, to be able to revel in such chaos like these simpletons. She was long past the point of such earthly emotional pleasures, but her time would come soon. "Breaking and entering was never part of the tour package," she chided, a wry smile on her face. "I'm afraid you'll have to content yourselves with the stories for now. The locks are for your safety as much as for the preservation of this... historical site."

And then came the rock. Helene felt the hour in her insubstantial bones, and she was determined to make this work. So what if they didn’t follow the script. She would flip it in her favor. “You’re right, child. Go in, go clean. In fact, why don’t we all get a long look at the history hidden away inside? You might even become part of it, part of this town forever.” A sudden cold gust of wind swept through the area, rustling the leaves, but sending not a shiver down Helene’s spine. Her form flickered momentarily, transparent figure wavering in the breeze. Now. It had to be now.

A subtle shift in the air signaled the impending change. Could they feel it? Even mortals such as themselves had to be attuned to such great power on some level. It started as a faint shimmer, barely perceptible, then the earth rumbled, a fierce blue glow beaming from the cracks. And out poured the abnormality. It coated the ground, obsidian-like rock and blue crystals circling the group and the old house. The young man happened to be in the epicenter. The abnormality crept, enveloping and hardening around him in seconds, his screaming turning muffled and distant as he was sealed to the ground, to the town.

And Helene, for the first time in so many years, felt a surge of power run through her body, her real body. She floated from the ground, no longer caring to keep up the harmless charade, and the black and blue substance hardened in a lattice pattern around the remaining souls-to-be-trapped.

—

Inge was not immune to being swept up in the excitement and she found the prospect of breaking into an ancient house increasingly exciting. Of course, their host was against it and she huffed, “The stories would be embellished if we could actually properly go on site though, wouldn’t you say?” She wasn’t even sure if her words carried much weight, as they were with plenty and there was enough being said.

Besides, she was quick to forget her words, quiet admiration for Nora spreading through her. She was an aspirational young thing, that one. Much more skilled and clever than Inge had been at that age, decisive in a way that made actual moves. The window shattered and it seemed something else shattered with it. The notion that all this was just a ghost tour — as if there was such a thing in a town like this, where two undead were part of the clientele and a bugbear was causing a havoc. There was something strange about Helene’s words, something strange about the air and she wondered, for a moment, if she should be thrilled or wary.

There it was: the earth seemed to be shattering next, pouring out that goo she’d been avoiding, the crystals she’d up until now managed to not touch. Hasty boots jumped back, tip-tapping until she found a clear spot — but her eyes soon fell on Archie, who had not been so lucky. “No —” Inge was surprised by the exclamation that fell from her lips, her proximity to Archie rather shallow, but still. He was good company and undead like her, and she very much disliked hearing his screams, nay, his cries.

Helene was rising and she supposed it was time to be wary, or even better, time to run. Inge had never been much of a hero and preferred to run from the fights she got into, and that was what she intended to do now. But a strange woman was stumbling, grabbing her arm for balance and she was stuck, unable to reach her darling astral. “Let go of me you –” She busied herself with prying off the terrified hand on her coat, eyes flicking to Nora and the others around her. Despite her wariness, Inge wanted to know what was bound to happen next — call it her incessant need for inspiration, and stared daggers at Helene, “What is this?”

—

Jonas felt his breath hitch in his throat as the rock flew through the window. He frowned, turning to say something to the girl next to him when the ground began to shake as Blue wrapped herself around him. The dog began to growl as the ghostly figure ascended to the sky. Others in the party were panicking and the young man who started the conversation about breaking and entering ended up engulfed by the abnormality. Jonas’ hand went to his mouth and he gasped at the sight. He had avoided the goo rather successfully until now, his only run in was when he went with Lil to see if he could talk to other ghosts about what was happening, that was how he learned of this tour in the first place.

His hands gripped Blue’s fur as he tried to refocus on the now. It wasn’t his first time in a dangerous situation made by a ghost, it wasn’t his first time seeing someone die either which wasn’t a very pleasant thought. He looked up at Helene, if she was a poltergeist, as everything was now suggesting, then there was little Jonas could do. It would be better to focus on getting the other members out of whatever trap Helene had just forced them in. “She may not answer you. It would be best to get away for now.”

—

Pride swelled through Nora at the sound of the shattering glass. Pride that was quickly diminished as their ghost tour guide went wild with it. Nora didn’t understand, it was just a house, and Helene was a ghost, she didn’t need a house anymore. But rock was surrounding them, eating one of their numbers and capturing them. “No.” Nora reached into her deep pockets, pulling out a knife. She was tired of the geological abnormalities in this fucking town. Rocks weren’t supposed to take people away. “Give him back.” Her monotone was shifting into something emotional, something angry.

Knives didn’t work on most ghosts. Most ghosts couldn’t summon hordes of obsidian rocks to eat people. The others, unrecognizable faces, in the tour group were panicking. Sheep to the slaughter, doing nothing except cry and scream. Not a single one of them capable of fighting for their lives, except Inge, Nora knew. Call it the influence Cass was having on her, but Nora wasn’t going to let these people die because she broke a window. “GIVE. HIM. BACK.” Or he would always be the nameless man she’d gotten killed. Another death on her shoulder. A new sin.

Nora propelled herself on the shoulders of strangers, using them as a ladder to scale the slick rock wall. Emerging from the top Nora threw her body at the ghost, knife aimed to strike down through her neck. The knife slid through the ghost like air, quickly followed by Nora, tumbling onto the grass, winded from a rough landing. “Fuck.” It would have been so sick if that had landed.

—

A couple from the group were spirited, Helene would give them that. On another day, she might have enjoyed toying with them a bit, but this was her time, and the minutes spent dealing with these pests were the most valuable ones in her long, long afterlife. She would not let them take it from her. She brushed at her shoulder as if wiping off dirt, but of course, the child who leaped at her had just fallen right through. Helene took pleasure in the rough landing. “He’s gone now. There is no giving him back. He’s not just trapped, like the others. His life has been extinguished.” Helene looked at the older of the two of them. There was an inner strength to this one. Yet she was breaking, and that made pride swell within her ghostly chest. “It’s a ghost tour, dearie. You signed up for it. Didn’t you read the fine print on those waivers? We are not responsible for any harm that may come to you from the ghosts.” She cackled, like the old bat she was. That was enough of that.

The crystals poured up from the earth, mazelike and jagged, growing tall and dividing up the group. They were fish in a barrel now. The two troublemakers split from the cautious little boy and his dog, who were both split from the unruly, confused crowd she intended to lap up. “I will deal with you later,” she said, turning to the two who knew too much. Not that they seemed especially brilliant, but they weren’t terrified and suppliant like most. She found herself smiling at them, wicked and full of more life than any ghost should possess. How long had it been since she’d really felt such glee? If her turning away from them incensed them even more, well, she didn’t mind. They needed to learn their place – which was as nothing more than fodder for the Great One. But first, they needed to see how small and insignificant they really were. With a flick of her wrist, a small window formed within the tall crystal – just enough for the two to peer through and see what was about to become of the others on the tour.

She floated higher. She wouldn’t let that child take another leap at her during such a momentous occasion, and she wished to soar as high as she felt. Helene watched, the smile never leaving her face, as the crystals encircled and closed in on the clamoring crowd. An old woman, a father with his sons, a large family donning tourist shirts, a man who just looked like a lost tagalong. One by one, the goo spiraled around them, climbing up their legs. As the ooze hardened over their faces, their screaming was quick to die. Helene could feel the energy, the life, being siphoned away from them. A meaningful but meager portion was diverted to her, but the rest would be for the Great One. “Quiet at last,” she said, looking back at the two that remained. She didn’t bother checking on that little boy and his dog. They were no threat to her, and she’d had her fill.

But these two, she would relish giving over. “You two are plucky, aren’t you? Did you enjoy seeing all of those people die? It’s the crown jewel of the tour.”

—

There was a genuine look of horror on her face as she tried to process what had just occurred. Inge hadn’t thought the goo a problem for herself and her ilk, had assumed that the undead could not die again and properly by the ooze. She had assumed they’d get trapped, but that the lack of oxygen, water and food would not bother them — but Helene said his life was extinguished. (Maybe she didn’t know, what Archie was, maybe she didn’t know, about undead: but she was a ghost, and she seemed to know everything and Inge figured assuming the worst was wisest in a high stakes situation.)

Nora was angry, was jumping into action whereas Inge remained grounded and silent. It felt like a betrayal to all she knew, that Archie might be gone, truly and fully. She should go, but something tugged at her — and when she and the other were trapped by crystals she felt something dissatisfying: responsibility. She couldn’t leave Nora behind with this woman. Even if it would be so easy to disappear and reappear in the safety of her own home.

So she didn’t jump to the astral, not when the goo started forming around the rest of the tour’s crowd. Humans, all so very human and mortal in their existence — so very different from herself and Nora. Fear-eaters. Was the other getting her fill? Inge tried to search within herself and she wasn’t sure what she felt. It wasn’t horror. It wasn’t her usual intrigue, either. It was a kind of anger. She didn’t like it when the tables were turned on her, she didn’t like it when she was made watcher in stead of instigator. She did not enjoy their screams, because she wasn’t causing it — and though it didn’t quite break her heart, it didn’t sit well with her either. Especially in the case of the children.

There was no point to this. Her nightmares, those had a point and purpose. What she and Siobhan had done to Rhett, that had been for good reason — but this? This was plainly and simply stupid. Never mind what Helene’s motivations might be. Inge found she didn’t much care about the woman’s story: why she was dead to start with, how she managed all this. She cared most about her own back and also, surprisingly, about that of Nora. She was stoic and silent, slow to turn around and glower at the ghost. “It was a sight,” she said, her jaws clenched but her tone mostly controlled. “Seemed rather pointless to me.” Why kill so many? Death had never enticed her. She liked her nightmares and her art; she liked being alive, and those things were part of being alive. Decay and decease were ugly things, best avoided unless it was portrayed in dreams or paintings. She didn’t look at Archie. She couldn’t look at what had once been Archie. “Well. Then. Now that we’ve had the crown jewel, I reckon you’re finished?” Nothing to be done about those kids, those tourists, the little lady any more. Inge figured the next best thing was to run — but not alone. She looked at Nora, inquiring.

—

Knife didn’t work. Knife didn’t work. Knife didn’t work. The words ran through Nora’s head over and over again. A constant and unhelpful barrage. What was the point of all this training? The late nights of work if the knife didn’t work? Knife didn’t work. Stop it. Stop. It. Nora’s fingernails dug into the palm of hands, gripping hard enough to feel the skin break away and small pricks of blood pool under her grimey nails. She would just have to accept that knife didn’t work. Sometimes you can't help everyone. Sometimes you need to stop obsessing and think. Think. But how could she think? People were dying, people who hadn’t done anything. Nora’s breath was hitched in her chest, memories flashing over her, the hunter’s head rolling on the ground, her knife in Debbie’s chest, now this. Knife needed to work.

Inge was next to Nora, as Nora stood up and brushed her clothes off. A useless activity, considering they were already coated in a thick layer of dirt since before the tour. Truly, what were a few more falls in the dirt at this point? “You need a new crown jewel.” Nora snapped back at Helene. Her fingers reached into her jacket, shaking uncontrollably as she fumbled around inside. “Not now, but soon.” Nora mumbled, a response for Inge. Inge was right, they needed to run. Her fingers landed on a warm metal object. She would need to work on her shock reaction, her fingers couldn’t keep trembling like this when there were things to be done. Nora pulled the lighter out of her pocket. One flick. Two flick. Three. It finally lit. “You’re also going to need a new home.” Nora announced to helene before tossing the lit lighter into the home of the ghost tour. “Now I’m ready to run.” Hands still trembling, she took Inge’s in her own. Boots met ground as a burst of speed pushed through her.

In the movies, the house would have exploded behind them. There would have been a fortunate oil spill or gasoline bottle nearby and the house would have been eaten alive by the licking flame. Helene’s body would have been burned inside, sending her to whatever hell she deserved to live in. This wasn’t a movie, and Nora didn’t look back to see if the fire took. Nora hoped it would catch on something, but she was aware that the likelihood was it wouldn’t take and die, just like everyone they’d been touring with. Nora would be back with gasoline.

—

“No!” As she watched the lighter fall, she called out of reflex, more out of surprise than fear. She had lived a long life, an even longer afterlife, and the work was done. Setting the house alight was smart – smarter than trying to charge through a ghost with a knife. Helene watched, fire reflected in her otherwise empty eyes, as the home of her body caught flame. Old floorboards creaked and a beam snapped, causing a section of the roof to cave in as huge plumes of black smoke billowed out. She wasn’t sure what would become of her, though she was ready for anything. She had new power, but she was not alive, and that old lump of bones buried beneath the home was what tethered her to this place. It was possible the lives she had just snuffed out broke her free of that connection, but at the end of the day, she suspected, a ghost was a ghost, and this would be her true end at last.

Helene could feel her toes grow numb, then searing, sensing something for the first time in a great many years (and how awful, yet rapturous, for that something to be pain). She knew now that this was it for her. But she would grant these troublesome lives no satisfaction. They turned to run, and Helene’s voice, though laced with a kind of self-righteous desperation, surrounded them no matter how far they and fast they darted away. “What’s done is done,” she howled, turning into the wind itself, “you have no idea how momentous tonight is, how lucky you are to be witness to such a great power resurfacing. I may be gone, but so are any chances you might have had of getting answers from me. Unprepared as you are, soon you will know.” As the flames ate away at the house, it crumbled and crumbled, and pain spread across Helene’s ghostly body just as it lapped up her remains. She yowled as her ability to speak was stolen from her.

In place of her voice was a low and ominous rumble that made the air tremble with static and vibration – building gradually and swelling into a terrible thunderclap, that seemed in equal parts to come from above and below. Now? Already? Even Helene was shaken, though she didn’t have bones for the sound to pour into and rattle and, soon, she didn’t have any substance at all, even metaphysical. But the sky quaked once more, and the last thing Helene felt, had thought, had known, as she became nothing but ash, was the knowledge that she had served her Great One.

#group writing #ghost tours 3d #season 2

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ask-emerys-melvinborgs · 9 months ago

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hai

first, have their icons- with the debut appearances of miracleborg, orwellborg, and melvin borgeron on the bottom row HEHEHEH,

and then all the squad memes i did with them (thank you to the folks on the discord server lmao)

(the rest will be in a reblog)

#melvinborg au #tetocu au #melvinborg #looseleaf #decayborg #robemasterborg #society of robes au #stellar decay au #phantomborg #phantom of the opera au #miracleborg #miracle musical au #melvin borgeron #harrison bergeron au #orwellborg #rockafire explosion au #SORRY TO TAG ALL OF THEM BUT THEYRE LITERALLY ALL HERE LMAO

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sondheim-girly · 1 month ago

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still thinking about how from the first row you can see that Melvin and Sergei still have their makeup on during run run brother, so I have this really distinct memory of watching Melvin move a plank and him looking all glam with his blue eyeshadow 💅💅

#jean has thoughts #the outsiders musical #the outsiders broadway #Melvin the outsiders #sergei the outsiders

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ivyastral · 3 months ago

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Here’s an excerpt from my next chapter of my KunZoi college AU fic, Coincidences Become Chances (I’m considering changing the title). It’s getting close, hoping to post it this month.

Kamil was still agitated when he got to his class. For a moment he couldn’t remember exactly what he wanted to teach that day, so he started with, “Any questions about the last readings?”

The class was silent for a moment, then Minako raised her hand. “Um, this isn’t about the readings,” she said apprehensively. “But is Liam O’Sullivan not in the class anymore?”

“Liam O’Sullivan isn’t real,” Kamil snapped, more forcefully than he intended. He was met with a simmering tense silence, and when the class started to break into whispering, Kamil added, “His name is Xavier Zoisite. He’s a third year music student. He was a prank from the music department.”

“Seriously?” gasped Ann. "You have some kind of rivalry going on?"

Thinking fast, Kamil replied, “I suppose we have a long-standing rivalry in the way we approach language. It was inevitable that tensions would eventually boil over.” The students started to giggle and whisper. "But the way the prank disrupted your class was very unprofessional," Kamil quickly added. "I apologize for not figuring it out earlier, and I'll make sure to get them back twice as hard."

“Can we help?” Ann said. “Like, if we come up with some linguistics-related prank against the music department, can we get extra credit?”

“That could be interesting,” Melvin spoke up. “It could be an opportunity to observe and compare these rival approaches.”

“We’ll talk about it later,” Kamil sighed. He took the poster out of his bag and handed it to Minako in the front row to pass around. “If you’re interested in learning more about language and music, some of the students are in this performance next week. These three are also in a Celtic rock band that plays at O’Sullivans, and Xavier sings in Irish. And on that note,” he continued. “Let’s talk about how that relates to this week’s readings, which were about the creation of sound with language. Does anyone have any comments on that?” He hoped that would bring the class back to earth, and they would forget about any extra credit schemes, although he liked how they seemed to be more interested in the material.

#kunzoi #kunzoi fanfiction

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patrik6090 · 3 months ago

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Mew .row mrlwn melwn!!!!!

MELVIN‼️❓

Wait holy shit!!!!

Ur right!!!!

#village favorite

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myhauntedsalem · 1 year ago

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The Boogeyman of Baltimore 1951

The summer of 1951 was a weird time in the city of Baltimore. The city sweltered under a heat wave and only the wealthiest residents of the region could afford air conditioners at the time. And there were no air conditioners to be found in O’Donnell Heights, a housing project on the southwest side of the city. This was a place where steel mill and shipyard workers lived with their families. For those folks, though, the steamy heat was less of a worry than the specter that was stalking their streets.

At some point in July, a tall, thin figure, dressed all in black, began sprinting across the rooftops of O’Donnell Heights. It leaped on and off buildings, broke into houses, attacked people, enticed a young girl to crawl under a car and played music in the nearby graveyard. Groups of young men patrolled the streets, while others waited by their windows at night, keeping a sleepy watch for the “Phantom Prowler” that eluded his pursuers and vanished into the cemetery before he could be caught. By the end of the month, police were arresting people for disorderly conduct and carrying weapons, but the phantom had disappeared and was never seen again. What in the hell happened in O’Donnell Heights in the summer of 1951? To this day, no one knows.

O’Donnell Heights was only eight years old when the mysterious stranger began making his appearances. Built as a housing project for defense industry workers at Bethlehem Steel, Martin Aircraft and Edgewood Arsenal during World War II, it was never meant to be either durable or attractive. Tightly-spaced, two–story row houses went up on sixty-six acres of what used to be farmland, a brickyard that belonged to the Baltimore Brick Co. and part of St. Stanislaus Kostka Cemetery, one of several graveyards in the immediate area. The others included Evangelical Trinity Lutheran Congregational, Mount Carmel, St. Matthew’s and Oheb Shalom Congregation Cemetery, but the phantom would show an affinity for St. Stanislaus and often appeared nearby.

By the time that the local newspapers realized that something very strange was happening in the Heights, the panic was almost over. Most of the stories that remain today come from the back pages of the Baltimore Sun and Evening Sun, which printed a handful of articles between July 25 and July 27, when the sightings came to an end. Reporters approached it as a “tongue in cheek” story with cartoon illustrations. No one seemed to know when the events had started, but on July 24, Agnes Martin told a reporter that the phantom had been seen for “at least two or three weeks.”

The first definite date discovered by researcher Robert Damon Schneck was on July 19, although the figure had undoubtedly been seen a number of times prior to that. On this date, though, there was a full moon and nighttime temperatures were in the 70’s. It was around 1:00 a.m. when William Buskirk, 20, ran into the phantom. He reported, “I was walking along the 1100 block of Travers Way with several buddies when I saw him on a roof. He jumped off the roof and we chased him into the graveyard…” One of the other boys interviewed with Buskirk stated that, “he sure is an athlete. You should have seen him go over that fence – just like a cat.” The fence that surrounded the cemetery was six feet in height and trimmed with barbed wire around the top. According to the witnesses, the figure in black had leapt over it with ease.

Hazel Jenkins claimed that the phantom grabbed her some time the same week. She saw it twice at close-range and may have been attacked when the figure tried to break into the Jenkins home (the article isn’t clear) but her brother, Randolph, saw it soon after. He told a reporter, “I saw him two nights after he tried to break into our house… He was just beginning to climb up on the roof of the Community Building. We chased him all the way to Graveyard Hell.”

The phantom next visited the family of Melvin Hensler, breaking into their house on July 20, but stealing nothing. After this unnerving experience, the family went to stay with Mr. Hensler’s brother, but Mrs. Hensler returned to the house the next day and found “a potato bag left on the ironing board,” which she was convinced belonged to the intruder. Mr. Hensler was so exhausted from staying awake that his eyes ached and he had started talking in his sleep.

Storms on July 23 lowered the temperatures, but had no effect on the phantom. In fact, on July 24, he was especially active. Newspapers reported, “At 11:30 p.m. officers Robert Clark and Edward Powell were called to the O’Donnell Heights area where they were greeted by some 200 people who said that had seen the oft-reported ‘phantom.’ Clark said that they pointed to the rooftops and someone yelled: ‘The phantom’s there!’” The police drove around and arrested a twenty-year-old sailor carrying a hammer. He was fined $5.

A reporter from the Sun found thirty of forty people waiting around the back stoop of a house on Gusryan Street, waiting for the sun to come up. One of them, Charles Pittinger, had armed himself with a shotgun. He interviewed several of them, who passed along rumors and told of their own experiences. Some of them claimed the phantom lived in the graveyard and a woman who lived on Wellsbach Way, adjacent to St. Stanislaus, suggested that the phantom was doing more than jumping fences and breaking into houses: “One night I heard someone playing the organ in that chapel up there. It was about 1 o’clock.”

The phantom was also reportedly seen beckoning to Esther Martin from underneath an automobile, saying, “Come here, little girl.”

The consensus of the crowd was that the phantom easily leaped from two-story buildings, flew over fences and was a general nuisance in the neighborhood. A man named George Cook admitted having mixed feelings about what was happening. He did not deny the reports of the phantom, just the possibility that something extraordinary was involved. In the end, he blamed the media. “It’s ridiculous to believe that a man can jump from a height and not leave a mark on the ground. Yet this character does it all the time. It’s my idea that when this thing is cleared up… it’ll turn out to be one of these young hoodlums who has got the idea from the movies or the so-called funny papers, and is trying to act it out. This sort of thing appeals to detective story readers who are mainly looking for excitement.”

Meanwhile, the police were busy ignoring the phantom and rounding up the “usual suspects.” On the morning of July 25, they arrested four boys on disorderly conduct charges at an unidentified cemetery. Around 10:00 p.m. that same night, officers arrested three boys on an embankment near the cemetery. Their six companions, all on the lookout for the phantom, fled the scene. An hour later, the police responded to a call from a resident who heard footsteps on his roof, but nothing was found. At some point the next day, Mrs. Mildred Gaines heard the sound of someone trying to break into her house and ran outside barefoot screaming, “It’s the phantom!” It was actually the police breaking down the door to serve a search warrant on the premises. Mrs. Gaines and four male companions were arrested on bookmaking charges.

By this time, the newspaper coverage – which had started off with reporters as baffled as the residents of O’Donnell Heights – turned humorous. The stories poked fun at the sightings, reported pranks by neighbors pretending to be the phantom, and carried a story about a phantom sighting on a rooftop that turned out to be a ventilation pipe. On July 27, the Evening Sun announced there were no more reports and that, “Police think it might be a teenager.” The phantom was gone, but the heat was back, with high humidity and temperatures in the middle 90’s. Like most bizarre “flaps” of this type, there was no satisfying resolution to the panic created by the Phantom of O’Donnell Heights. An unofficial version claimed that residents finally chased it into the cemetery, where the phantom jumped into a crypt and vanished for good.

No one can say who, or what, this figure may have been, although based on the sheer number of sightings, something weird was happening in the neighborhood. Descriptions of the phantom were fairly consistent, considering that that the encounters were brief, took place in the dark, and he was usually moving at a good clip. William Buskirk said, “He was a tall thin man dressed all in black. It looked like he had a cape around him.” The only one who mentioned the phantom’s face was witness Myrtle Ellen, who said it was horrible. She also agreed about the dark costume. The newspapers described the phantom as “black robed,” suggesting long, loose-flowing clothes. Mrs. Melvin Hensler, discoverer of the discarded potato sack, saw the phantom three times and said that during one sighting, it looked as though he had a hump on his back.

Theories abound about the “Horror of the Heights.” Sociologists have described the events in O’Donnell Heights as an example of an “imaginary community threat,” suggesting that the 900 families living there experienced some type of mass hysteria, whipped up by rumors and the media. It’s true that misconceptions undoubtedly played a part in the events, but they don’t explain the relatively straightforward experiences described by William Buskirk and other witnesses. The police never denied that people were seeing something but, like George Cook, thought it would turn out to be a “young hoodlum.” But if it was, he was never caught, exposed or confessed.

It’s also hard to accept that the newspapers played a part in creating any hysteria. The two local papers ran only six articles on the phantom, two of them mere fillers, and they were printed as the sensation was coming to an end. The only one that might be called “sensationalistic” ran on July 25 and included the experiences of a number of witnesses. However, it ended on a sober note: “The question of the prowler of O’Donnell Heights continued to be not one of the phantoms, but of people reacting to (and possibly creating) the unknown with their imaginations.”

Some have taken the phantom’s affinity for St. Stanislaus as evidence that it was an actual ghost. Part of O’Donnell Heights was built on land that once belonged to the cemetery, which contains a great many unmarked graves from the influenza epidemic of 1918. Also, bodies were exhumed and reinterred when Boston Street was extended in the 1930s, but it’s hard to see how this would stir up a spirit in July 1951.

There has also been the suggestion that the phantom was some sort of mysterious entity like the “Mothman” of West Virginia or the “Mad Gasser of Mattoon,” which plagued a small town in Illinois in 1944.

Whatever it was, it remains a mystery and one that – like far too many others – will simply never be solved.

#The Boogeyman of Baltimore 1951 #paranormal #supernatural #ghost and hauntings #ghost and spirits #haunted salem #myhauntedsalem

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jpbjazz · 7 months ago

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LÉGENDES DU JAZZ

CLORA BRYANT, ‘’THE WOMAN WITH THE HORN’’

“Those male trumpet players guard those positions like a bulldog on a bone. We got a tough row to hoe with the trumpet.”

- Clora Bryant

Née le 30 mai 1927 à Denison, au Texas, Clora Larea Bryant était la plus jeune des trois enfants de Charles et Eulila Bryant. Bryant avait deux frères, Frederick et Melvin. Le père de Bryant était manoeuvre et sa mère était maîtresse de maison. Bryant avait seulement trois ans lorsqu’elle avait perdu sa mère.

Bryant avait d’abord commencé à apprendre le piano avec son frère Melvin. Bryant avait adopté la trompette après que son high school ait décidé d’établir un orchestre et un ensemble de cors et clairons. Durant son enfance, Bryant avait aussi été membre de la chorale de l’église baptiste locale. Même s’il était peu fortuné, le père de Bryan l’avait toujours encouragée à devenir musicienne et lui avait même payé des cours privés. Comme Bryant l’avait expliqué plusieurs années plus tard, "Nobody ever told me, 'You can't play the trumpet, you're a girl.' Not when I got started in high school and not when I came out to L.A. My father told me, 'It's going to be a challenge, but if you're going to do it, I'm behind you all the way.' And he was."

Lorsque son frère Fred s’était joint à l’armée, il avait laissé sa trompette derrière lui, et Bryant en avait profité pour apprendre à jouer. Durant ses études au high school, fascinée par la musique de jazz qu’elle entendait à la radio, Bryant avait d’ailleurs joué de la trompette avec l’ensemble de cors et clairons de l’école.

Après avoir refusé des bourses pour aller étudier dans les meilleures écoles musicales au pays dont le Oberlin Conservatory et le Bennett College, Bryant avait commencé à fréquenter le Prairie View College de Houston en 1943. Fondée en 1876, Prairie View était la première école entièrement réservée aux étudiants de couleur à avoir été reconnue par l’État du Texas. Bryant avait choisi Prairie View parce que le collège avoir avait un groupe de jazz féminin de seize membres, les Prairie View Co-eds. Comme Bryant l’avait précisé plus tard: “When I found out they had an all-girl band there, that’s where I was going.”

Devenue membre du groupe, Bryant avait fait le tour du Texas, avant de se produire au célèbre Apollo de Harlem en 1944. Après que son père ait décroché un emploi dans un chantier naval de Los Angeles, Bryant avait été transférée à UCLA en 1945. Après avoir entendu le trompettiste Howard McGhee jouer au club Down Beat de la Central Avenue, Bryant était immédiatement tombée amoureuse du bebop.

DÉBUTS DE CARRIÈRE

En 1946, Bryant s’était jointe aux International Sweethearts of Rhythm, un big band qui avait été fondé deux ans auparavant par Clarence Love et qui était alors le groupe de swing féminin le plus important au pays. Après avoir obtenu sa carte de l’Union des musiciens, Bryant avait finalement décidé d’abandonner l’université.

Fascinée par le bebop, Bryant avait laissé tomber les International Sweethearts of Rhythm pour se joindre à des jam sessions dans des clubs de Central Avenue comme le Club Alabam, The Downbeat et The Bird in the Basket (aussi connu sous le nom de Jack’s Basket Room). Comme Bryant l’avait expliqué des années plus tard dans le cadre d’une entrevue d’histoire orale: “I would not go without my horn. If I knew there was going to be somebody there, I’d have my horn with me, because I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to try to learn something.” Un jour, Bryant se produisait dans un club d’Hermosa Beach lorsque Charlie Parker était monté sur scène avec un saxophone qu’il avait emprunté. Pour la mettre en confiance, Parker lui avait alors chuchoté à l’oreille: “Stick to what you can do. And know what you can’t.” “I almost wet my pants”, avait déclaré plus tard Bryant.

Par la suite, Bryant était entrée dans le groupe Queens of Swing (comme batteuse) et était partie en tournée avec la formation. En 1951, le groupe, qui comprenait la saxophoniste Minnie Hightower, s’était produit à la télévision sous le nom des Hollywood Sepia Tones dans le cadre d’une émission de variétés d’une demi-heure diffusée sur les ondes de la station KTLA. La formation était ainsi devenue le groupe de jazz féminin à faire une apparition à la télévision. L’émission avait finalement été annulée auprès six semaines faute de commanditaires. À l’époque du tournage de l’émission, Bryant était enceinte de sept ou huit mois. Après la naissance de sa fille, Bryant s’était jointe à la revue entièrement féminine d’Ada Leonard. Malheureusement, Bryant avait dû quitter la revue après seulement une semaine après que la direction ait reçu des plaintes des spectateurs réclamant son congédiement en raison de la couleur de sa peau...

Durant la majeure partie des années 1950, Bryant avait dirigé régulièrement des jam sessions dans les environs de Los Angeles. En 1951, Bryant avait fait partie du groupe-maison du club Alabam, ce qui lui avait permis d’accompagner des chanteuses comme Josephine Baker et Billie Holiday. Toujours en 1951, Bryant avait été membre d’un sextet entièrement féminin dirigé par Ginger Smock avec lequel elle avait joué, non de la trompette, mais du violon. Le groupe, qui s’était produit durant six semaines dans le cadre d’une émission diffusée sur le réseau CBS, était ainsi devenu le premier groupe entièrement de couleur à animer une émission de télévision.

En 1954, Bryant était retournée à New York, car elle n’avait plus le goût de jouer avec des groupes. Deux ans plus tard, une autre pionnière du jazz féminin, la tromboniste Melba Liston, qui faisait alors partie du groupe de Dizzy Gillespie, l’avait présenté à ce dernier. Ébloui par le talent de Bryant, Gillespie était devenu son mentor et lui avait obtenu du travail. Gillespie avait même fait cadeau à Bryant d’une de ses embouchures qu’elle avait utilisée par la suite durant des années. Comme Gillespie l’avait expliqué en 1989 dans le documentaire “Trumpetistically, Clora Bryant”: “If you close your eyes, you’ll say it’s a man playing. She has the feeling of the trumpet. The feeling, not just the notes.”

En 1957, Bryant avait enregistré son premier et seul album comme leader, ‘’Gal with a Horn’’ À la demande de la compagnie de disques Mode Records, mais contre son gré, Bryant avait chanté sur les huit pièces de l’album, même si c’est son talent à la trompette qui avait surtout impressionné, révélant les influences tant de Louis Armstrong que de pionniers du bebop comme Dizzy Gillespie et Fats Navarro. Pour obtenir plus de contrats, Bryant avait même commencé à imiter la voix d’Armstrong dans le cadre de ses concerts. Et ça avait fonctionné. Comme Bryant l’avait expliqué en 2014 dans le cadre du documentaire The Girls in the Band: “And I was a hit, honey. They loved me!”

Au milieu des années 1950, Bryant était retournée à la vie de musicienne itinérante, se produisant particulièrement dans les clubs de Chicago et de Denver. Bryant s’était également produite à Las Vegas avec Louis Armstrong et Harry James. En fait, Armstrong avait été tellement impressionné après avoir entendu Bryant jouer dans un club qu’il avait insisté pour monter sur scène avec elle dans un club de Las Vegas en 1960. Bryant précisait: “He was in the big room and I was in the lounge, where he’d been catching my act in the back. And one day, here comes Louis with his whole band, coming from the big room, walking through the entire casino and coming up on stage and singing and playing with me!”

À la fin des années 1950 et durant les années 1960, Bryant avait fait la tournée des principales villes américaines, souvent dans le cadre d’un hommage à Louis Armstrong. À Las Vegas, Bryant avait aussi joué avec Damita Jo, Harry James, et Sammy Davis Jr., avec qui elle avait fait une apparition dans le film ‘’Pepe’’ en 1960. Dans les années 1960, Bryant avait également fait un séjour à La Nouvelle-Orléans avec le groupe d’Horace Henderson.

De 1962 à 1964, Bryant avait collaboré avec le chanteur Billy Williams à Las Vegas avec qui elle avait participé au Ed Sullivan Show. Bryant avait même composé une pièce de l’album “The Billy Williams Revue.” De 1964 à 1966, Bryant avait fait équipe avec son frère Melvin, qui était chanteur, acteur et danseur, dans le cadre d’une tournée autour du monde. Ils avaient même eu leur propre émission de télévision en Australie. Après la naissance de son quatrième enfant en 1969, Bryant s’était inscrite à un baccalauréat en musique à UCLA, s’intéressant plus particulièrement à l’histoire de la musique afro-américaine.

À la fin des années 1970, Bryant s’était produite avec différents groupes de Los Angeles, dont le Bill Berry’s LA Band. En 1975, Bryant avait rendu hommage à son idole et mentor Dizzy Gillespie dans le cadre de la suite “To Dizzy with Love”. En 1993, Bryant avait de nouveau rendu hommage à Gillespie en dirigeant le concert Trumpet Summit aux côtés de Clark Terry, Jon Faddis, Freddie Hubbard et plusieurs autres trompettistes. Vers 1980, Bryant avait également assuré la relève de Blue Mitchell dans le big band de Bill Berry.

Souvent victime de discrimination en raison de son sexe et de la couleur de sa peau, Bryant n’avait créé son propre groupe qu’après son retour à Los Angeles en 1979. Tout en dirigeant le groupe Swi-Bop (son fils Kevin avait même été le batteur de la formation à la fin des années 1980), Bryant avait terminé son baccalauréat en musique à UCLA et travaillé avec le sextet du saxophoniste Teddy Edwards. Elle avait aussi joué du Dixieland avec les New Orleanians de Roger Jamieson. Au cours de la même période, Bryant avait également collaboré avec le big band de Gerald Wilson, tout en travaillant avec Jeannie et Jimmy Cheatham, la chanteuse Nellie Lutcher et le pionnier du rhythm & blues Johnny Otis.

En 1982, Bryant avait enregistré un dernier album avec la chanteuse de blues Linda Hopkins. Parallèlement, Bryant avait continué de se produire sur scène, participant notamment au North Sea Jazz Festival avec le Sweet Baby Blues Band de Jeannie Jeannie et Jimmy Cheatham en 1987 ainsi qu’à plusieurs festivals de Los Angeles.

Loin de se décourager du peu d’occasions qui lui étaient offertes d’enregistrer et de se produire sur scène, Bryant avait même écrit personnellement au président Mikhail Gorbachev en 1989 en lui proposant de devenir “the first lady horn player to be invited to your country to perform”. Sans doute pour plaisanter, Gorbatchev avait fait parvenir à Bryant une invitation formelle de venir jouer en URSS. Prenant Gorbatchev au mot, Bryant avait financé son voyage grâce à l’aide de la communauté musicale de Los Angeles. Un an plus tard, Bryant avait fait la tournée du pays avec ses fils, devenant ainsi la première musicienne de jazz à faire une tournée en URSS.

DERNIÈRES ANNÉES

Au début des années 1990, les contrats étant devenus de plus en plus rares, Bryant avait été contrainte de vivre sur la sécurité sociale. Elle avait même dû céder deux de ses trompettes à un prêteur sur gages afin de pouvoir survivre. La majorité de ses biens avait également brûlé lors des émeutes de Rodney King en 1992 qui avaient emporté la plus grande partie de sa maison.

Après avoir été victime d’une crise cardiaque et avoir fait l’objet d’un quadruple pontage coronarien en 1996, Bryant avait dû cesser de jouer de la trompette. Elle avait cependant continué à chanter. Bryant avait aussi commencé à donner des lectures sur l’histoire du jazz dans les collèges et des universités. Bryant avait également co-dirigé un livre sur l’histoire du jazz à Los Angeles intitulé ‘’Central Avenue Sounds: Jazz In Los Angeles (1921-1956)’’, dans lequel elle avait évoqué la glorieuse époque du jazz sur Central Avenue. Elle avait aussi écrit deux livres pour enfants et travaillé dans les écoles élémentaires de Los Angeles. Une des plus grandes satisfactions de Bryant était cependant d’avoir réussi à obtenir une étoile pour son idole Dizzy Gillespie au Hollywood Walk of Fame en 1991.

Consciente de la nécessité de transmettre ses connaissances aux futures générations, Bryant avait précisé: ‘’When I grew up there were legends everywhere, and now the legends don't make themselves available to young people anymore… these days people just get in their limos and away they go, and it hurts my heart."

Le 6 mai 2002, la carrière de Bryant avait été couronnée par la remise du Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Award décerné par le Kennedy Center de Washington, D.C. C’est le légendaire pianiste Billy Taylor qui lui avait remis son prix. Bryant avait même chanté quelques-unes de ses compositions dans le cadre de l’événement. Le Conseil municipal de la ville de Los Angeles avait également décerné à Bryant le titre de légende du jazz et d’ambassadrice de bonne volonté en 2018. Bryant avait aussi remporté deux prix de composition et de performance de la National Endowment for the Arts.

En 1989, la cinéaste Zeinabu Irene Davis a consacré à Bryant un documentaire intitulé ‘’Trumpetistically, Clora Bryant.’’ En 2014, la trompettiste avait également été en vedette dans le film de Judy Chaikin intitulé ‘’The Girls in the Band’’

Bryant avait épousé le contrebassiste Joe Stone en 1948. Stone, qui voyageait souvent en tournée avec T-Bone Walker et Jimmy Witherspoon, avait rencontré Bryant alors qu’elle se produisait dans les environs de Los Angeles. Le couple avait eu deux enfants: April et Charles Stone. Le mariage s’était terminé sur un divorce. Bryant avait eu deux autres enfants de sa liaison avec le batteur Leslie Milton, Kevin et Darrin Milton.

Clora Bryant est morte le 25 août 2019 au Cedars-Sinai Medical Center de Los Angeles après avoir été victime d’une crise cardiaque à sa résidence. Elle était âgée de quatre-vingt-douze ans. Ont survécu à Bryant ses quatre enfants, April, Charles, Darrin et Kevin, neuf petits-enfants et cinq arrrière-petits-enfants. Ses frères Frederick et Melvin étaient déjà décédés au moment de sa mort.

Avant même d’amorcer sa carrière, Bryant avait toujours su que le double handicap posé par son sexe et sa couleur serait un obstacle à sa reconnaissance comme trompettiste de jazz. De fait, mis à part la période où elle avait accompagné Billie Holiday au club Alabam de Los Angeles, Bryan avait souvent été reléguée dans des groupes exclusivement féminins comme les Queens of Rhythm avec lesquels elle avait même joué de la trompette et de la batterie simultanément après que la batteuse en titre ait quitté la formation. C’est seulement au milieu de sa carrière que Bryant avait été considérée comme une musicienne à part entière dans les groupes et les big bands de la région de Los Angeles. Faisant référence au peu de reconnaissance dont Bryant avait été l’objet au cours de sa carrière, le saxophoniste Teddy Edwards avait déclaré: “You know, she’s as good as any man. She has range and ideas and enough talent to go to the top.”

Décrivant le style de Bryant, le journaliste Dick Wagner avait écrit dans le Los Angeles Times en 1992: “When Bryant plays the blues, the sound is low, almost guttural, a smoldering fire. When she plays a fast tune, the sound is piercing — the fire erupts.”

Consciente de toutes les épreuves qu’elle avait dû traverser au cours de sa carrière, Bryant ne s’était pas gênée pour comparer les trompettistes à un ‘’Boy’s Club’’ au cours d’une entrevue qu’elle avait accordée au réseau NPR en 1993. Bryant avait déclaré: “Those male trumpet players guard those positions like a bulldog on a bone. We got a tough row to hoe with the trumpet.” L’un des fils de Bryant avait confirmé: “It was a man’s world and that made it hard for her. But it only fueled her fire, made her more determined.”

Même si à la fin de sa carrière, les autres musiciens de jazz lui avaient démontré beaucoup plus de respect, tel n’avait pas toujours été le cas des propriétaires de clubs. Comme Bryant l’avait déclaré au cours d’une entrevue qu’elle avait accordée au New York Times en 1998, “When you put that iron in your mouth, you run into problems. The other horn players gave me respect, but the men who ran the clubs considered me a novelty.”

Se considérant simplement fière d’avoir pu jouer la musique qu’elle aimait, Bryant avait ajouté: “I’m sitting here broke as the Ten Commandments, but I’m still rich. With love and friendship and music. And I’m rich in life.”

Évoquant ses débuts sur la Central Avenue de Los Angeles, qui était un peu l’équivalent de la 52e rue pour New York dans les années 1950, Bryant avait commenté: “When I came out here, there weren’t any girls playing in jam sessions on Central Avenue. Hey, I had nerve! I’d get my horn and just walk up there and start playing. And I was the only female who did that. I had antennae like you wouldn’t believe.”

Un peu comme sa grande amie la tromboniste Melba Liston, Bryant avait servi de modèle à plusieurs musiciennes de jazz qui avaient été trop souvent confinées à un rôle de pianistes et de chanteuses. Comme l’avait déclaré la trompettiste canadienne Rachel Therrien, “Clora Bryant was an unforgettable and powerful role model. She’s inspired me to push forward as a jazz trumpeter and a bandleader. While I never got the opportunity to meet her personally, I am forever grateful for all her hard work, which opened the path for future generations of women like myself.”

Malheureusement, Bryant n’avait jamais obtenu toute les chances qu’elle méritait, non seulement parce qu’elle était une Noire, mais aussi parce qu’elle était une femme.

#jazz

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beardedmrbean · 10 months ago

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A student has been jailed for a minimum of 21 years for the murder of a fellow undergraduate in a drugs dispute.

Melvin Lebaga-Idubor, 20, stabbed 19-year-old Kwabena Osei-Poku - known as Alfred - near the University of Northampton in April.

Lebaga-Idubor was given a life sentence having been convicted during a trial at Northampton Crown Court last year.

The victim's mother, Joyce Osei-Poku, described her son as "my baby, my precious…my best friend".

During the trial, the court heard there had been a dispute about drugs before the murder and Mr Osei-Poku, from Peterborough, had been robbed of a large quantity of cannabis.

On the night of 23 April, the student was found with serious stab wounds in New South Bridge Road near the university's Waterside Campus. He died at the scene.

Police said that night, Lebaga-Idubor had arranged to meet Mr Osei-Poku under the pretence of wanting to buy cannabis from him.

But, his real intention was to steal the victim's drugs and warn him off dealing on Lebaga-Idubor's patch, the force said.

The court was told Lebaga-Idubor stabbed Mr Osei-Poku "not once but twice", with the fatal injury being a "stab wound to the neck".

Lebaga-Idubor, from Abbey Road in Barking, east London, was convicted of murder and having a bladed article in a public place.

He was also sentenced to three years - to run concurrently - for carrying a weapon in public.

In a victim impact statement, Ms Osei-Poku said: "Alfred was such a loving soul. My first true love."

She said that, when he died, "my heart was ripped from inside of me".

His brother Aaron described Mr Osei-Poku as a "cool and amazing person".

"Alfred was the definition of a perfect older brother. He would do anything to keep us safe. I would cling to him like he was my parent. Alfred was the person who brought us all together," he said.

"He was a third parent and will never be replaced. I'm not sure we will ever get over the loss of Alfred."

During sentencing, judge David Herbert KC told Lebaga-Idubor: "You were aggressive and snatched the bag of drugs.

"I am not sure you intended to kill him; however, you intended really serious injury at least."

The judge said this was "sadly another case… highlighting the dangers of young people who are prepared to carry a knife in public… anyone who does so stands only a short step from murder".

#nunyas news

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fischerfrey · 2 years ago

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family lines; the quinn twins

aaron tveit and elizabeth debicki as melvin quinn and irene quinn, née fawcett

tom glynn-carney and hermione corfield as stephen quinn and charlotte quinn

naomi watts and liam cunningham as gwendoline quinn, née greengrass, and stephen quinn

danny griffin, alex pettyfer, and lucy boynton as camron quinn, stephen quinn jr. and bessie quinn.

charlie rowe and danny griffin as olly enfield and camron quinn

austin butler and cole sprouse as edmund ‘baby’ quinn and rome st. james

liv tyler and lucy boynton as delphine vixen and bessie quinn

hunter schafer as stephanie quinn-vixen

olly and rome belong to @potionboy3

delphine and stephanie belong to @endlessly-cursed

#the quinn family #irene quinn #melvin quinn #stephen quinn sr #charlotte quinn #gwendoline quinn #camron quinn #bessie quinn #stephen quinn jr #olly enfield #edmund 'baby' quinn #rome st. james #delphine vixen #stephanie quinn vixen

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the-rewatch-rewind · 2 years ago

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Three Cary Grant movies in a row!

Script below the break

Hello and welcome back to The Rewatch Rewind! My name is Jane, and this is the podcast where I count down my top 40 most rewatched movies. Today I will be discussing number 28 on my list: RKO’s 1948 comedy Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, directed by H.C. Potter, written by Norman Panama and Melvin Frank, based on the novel by Eric Hodgins, and starring Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, and Melvyn Douglas.

Yes, I’m talking about yet another Cary Grant movie – I warned you there would be a lot of them. In this one, he plays Jim Blandings, an advertising executive who lives in a Manhattan apartment with his wife Muriel (Myrna Loy) and their two children. Tired of feeling crowded, and taken in by an advertisement, they decide to purchase an old house on a large property in Connecticut. They initially resist the idea that the house must be torn down, but ultimately get excited about being able to build one to their own specifications. However, this is not nearly as simple, or as affordable, as they anticipate.

The first time I watched this movie, it was late at night and I was very tired, so I remember almost falling asleep without really getting into it. But I enjoyed it a lot more the second time, and it’s grown on me over the years. I watched it for the first time in 2003, then twice in 2004, and then once each in 2006, 2008 through 2013, 2015, 2016, 2018 through 2021, and then twice in 2022. And while I could barely keep my eyes open the first time I watched it, now I find it difficult to tear them from the screen when the movie is on.

As I’ve said several times in previous episodes, Cary Grant was a brilliant comedic actor, and once again, he is very funny in this movie. Just watching his morning routine in the apartment at the beginning is hilarious. Jim Blandings is very sure of himself, even and especially when he shouldn’t be, and Cary plays that very convincingly and humorously. Myrna Loy is probably best known for playing Nora Charles in the comedy-mystery Thin Man movies, so it should come as no surprise that she is also very funny here. Muriel occasionally tries to rein in some of Jim’s recklessness, but also gets caught up in the dream of the house, and Loy portrays that flawlessly. Apparently critics thought these stars were too old for these roles (they were both in their mid-40s at the time), and that it would have made more sense to show a naïve young couple not knowing how to build a house, but personally I think it works better to show a middle aged couple who have every reason to believe they know what they’re doing find out that they have no clue. The movie also makes it clear that it’s only because Jim is older and more established in his career that he’s able to do this. At one point when he’s venting about how everything’s costing way more than they were anticipating, Jim points out that if he can barely afford it, there’s no way a young couple ever could. And looking at this movie from a modern lens is kind of surreal because like, imagine a single-income family of four being able to afford a house! To put things in perspective, Jim Blandings was making $15,000 a year in 1948, which is the equivalent of approximately $190,000 in 2023, and the final cost of his dream house was $38,000, or approximately $480,000 now. It certainly costs a lot more than he initially thinks it will, but it’s still doable for him – although he does nearly lose his job at one point – whereas it would not have been for a young couple just starting out. And again, Cary Grant and Myrna Loy are so delightful to watch that I cannot comprehend wanting to replace them.

The acting and the writing encourage the audience to laugh at both Jim and Muriel while still finding them sympathetic. There’s a rather beautiful poetic justice in the story of an advertising executive, who spends all day figuring out how to convince people to buy things they don’t need and can’t afford, getting convinced by an ad to build a house he doesn’t need and can’t afford. And yet, we still want him to succeed, and share his frustration when things go wrong. Muriel’s extremely specific demands for the house can be ridiculous, but we still want her to get the dream house she desires. Perhaps her greatest moment in the film is when she spends several minutes describing in detail the exact shade she wants each room painted: one should exactly match the color of fresh butter, one needs to be white – not a cold, antiseptic hospital white, but not to suggest any other color but white; another should be practically an apple red, somewhere between a healthy Winesap and an unripened Jonathan, etc. When she finally gets distracted and walks away, one of the painters says to the other, “You got all that?” and the other replies, “Red, green, blue, yellow, white.” It’s very funny, but also maybe a little bit sexist, in a “These silly women and their ridiculous obsession with detail” way, but at least the movie makes fun of Jim too. He’s constantly taking charge of things he doesn’t understand and making them worse – from illegally authorizing the old house to be torn down to inadvertently instructing builders to rip out their work. So rather than making fun of Jim and Muriel specifically, the movie is really making fun of the gender roles they feel obligated to fulfill, and the way society has made basic needs like shelter immensely complicated to obtain. And while some of that is rather painful to face, this movie manages to make the overall experience mostly enjoyable. It’s thought-provoking without becoming too upsetting.

While a lot of what I love about this movie comes from Grant and Loy, I also love Melvyn Douglas’s performance, and his character, Bill Cole, is probably my favorite. Bill narrates portions of the movie, and introduces himself to the audience as “Jim’s lawyer and quote best friend unquote.” He’s kind of the voice of doom regarding the dream house project, pointing out all the ways Jim gets taken advantage of along the way and repeatedly advising him to give up, but far from being a stick in the mud, he has an excellent sense of humor, and goes along for the ride only slightly reluctantly. There’s a trope that’s especially common in movies from this era of a married couple having a male “friend of the family” who is interested in the wife and kind of waiting for her to either leave her husband for him, or at least have an affair with him. The character of Hank Entwistle in Monkey Business is like this, and there’s a character in the movie I’m going to talk about next week like this. Bill Cole is almost like this, and Jim certainly sees him like this for a good chunk of the movie, but the way I see him, he’s not actually interested in Muriel that way, and is, in fact, if not canonically queer, certainly queer-coded. We do know that he dated Muriel in college. At one point when Jim asks Muriel why Bill’s always hanging around them instead of getting married, Muriel says it’s because he could never find another girl like her, but this doesn’t seem like it’s meant to be particularly serious. When Jim objects to the fact that Bill always takes his leave by shaking Jim’s hand and kissing Muriel on the cheek, Muriel dryly inquires if Jim would prefer it the other way around. There is also a running joke about Jim and Bill getting stuck in a closet, so modern audiences might interpret that to mean that they’re secretly gay, although I’m pretty sure the closet metaphor wasn’t commonly used in 1948. Bill doesn’t seem to really show any attraction toward either Jim or Muriel, so of course I’m inclined to headcanon him as aroace. We do find out that Muriel somehow ended up with both Bill’s and Jim’s fraternity pins – which the Blandings daughters find along with her old diary in the process of moving into the new house. When Jim then confronts Muriel about her having been in love with Bill, she laughs and responds with, “Of course I was in love with Bill! In those days I was in love with a new man every week!” She considers her time dating Bill to be relatively meaningless, and currently sees him as a good friend. Most of Jim’s bouts of jealousy in the movie seem to be misplaced frustration with the way things are going with the house and/or his job, rather than in response to any of Muriel or Bill’s behavior, which is part of the film’s effective commentary on how gender roles leave men feeling like they can’t express their emotions honestly.

Anyway, one evening, when Jim is working late because a slogan he’s been struggling to come up with for months is due the following morning, Bill stops by the new house to visit Muriel, and there’s a major rainstorm. A neighbor informs Muriel that her phone isn’t working and a nearby bridge is out, so her children can’t get home from school, but they’re staying with a different neighbor on the other side of the bridge. This also means that Bill can’t get home, so he’ll have to spend the night in the house alone with Muriel. When he half-jokingly gasps, “Think of my reputation!” Muriel responds with, “Don’t worry, Snow White, you’ll be just as pure and unsullied in the morning as you were the night before,” and he says, “That’s the story of my life.” Now, I feel like there are a couple different ways to interpret this. One way – the allo-heteronormative way – is that they would like to sleep together, but she’s happily married, and he respects that, so they resist. I’m not saying that’s an invalid interpretation, but something about the way they deliver those lines, and the way they interact in the rest of the movie, doesn’t quite feel like that to me. Another interpretation is that they don’t want to sleep together, and they just want to make sure they’re on the same page about that. Think about how much better it makes the scene if Bill is asexual, and his “Think of my reputation!” is his way of making a joke out of not feeling comfortable with the situation, and her response is reassuring him that she understands and doesn’t see him that way either, and his “That’s the story of my life” is him trying to pretend to be disappointed because an allonormative world tells him he should be, but he’s actually relieved. This could also be because Bill is gay, or straight or bi and just not attracted to Muriel, but even then, the point about defying social expectations still stands. Since long before I knew the terms “aromantic” or “asexual,” I have been drawn to stories about people who are expected to fall in love and/or sleep together and then don’t. It has always felt so encouraging to see adults maintaining close platonic relationships, even when society tells them they shouldn’t be platonic. So I love that Bill and Muriel are friends who can spend the night in the same house without becoming overwhelmed by passion or whatever seems to usually happen in situations like that.

Of course, in this particular case, due to production codes there was basically no chance that they would commit adultery anyway, and all of this is probably definitely me reading way too much into something that’s barely there. The following morning, when Jim makes it back home – after giving up on the slogan even though he knows he’ll be fired – and finds out that Bill spent the night, there’s a bunch of other stuff going on with the contractor telling them about more expenses they’ve incurred, but Jim is particularly upset about Bill being there. Then one of the workers shows up at the house and declares, “There’s a matter of twelve dollars and 36 cents” and Jim loses it, going off on a whole rant saying things like, “Why stop there? Just take everything I have!” until the worker clarifies, “No, I owe you $12.36.” Suddenly Jim’s anger melts away, and he also loses every trace of jealousy and suspicion. This certainly supports what I said earlier about Jim’s jealousy really being misplaced frustration, which I also think supports the idea that Bill is asexual, and that even if people didn’t use that term at that time, at least on some level both Jim and Muriel understand that Bill is not a threat to their marriage. Jim is only jealous because he feels like he should be, and it’s a convenient and socially acceptable outlet for his real feelings. The last shot of the movie is of the Blandings family enjoying their front yard, with Jim reading the book the movie is based on. He looks up and says to the audience, “Drop in and see us sometime” and then Bill moves into frame and adds, “Yeah, do that, won’t you?” implying that he has been accepted as practically part of the family, and that if he is aroace, he’s certainly not alone, and I absolutely love that.

I’ve mentioned before that part of why there are so many Cary Grant movies in my top 40 is because I have a multi-day marathon around his birthday every year, and Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House is almost always part of that. I tend to watch this one on his actual birthday because the only specifically Cary Grant-related item of clothing I own is a long-sleeved t-shirt I got for Christmas in 2007 with a quote from this movie on it, which I will probably wear every January 18 for the rest of my life, even though I kind of have mixed feelings about the context of the quote in the movie. The slogan that Jim gives up on during that fateful stormy night is for a product called Wham, which is a brand of ham. He spends all night trying to come up with an acceptable slogan, but they’re all terrible. I would like to point out that he’s working on this with his female secretary, which means he has even less reason to be jealous of Muriel spending all night with Bill, but that’s not really important. I also feel the need to tell you about my favorite bad slogan he comes up with: “This little piggy went to market, as meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks when they slipped him the axe; he KNEW he’d turn out to be Wham!” The extremely concerned look on his secretary (played by Lurene Tuttle)’s face when she hears that is so perfect. But anyway, he finally gives up and goes home, and after all the drama of finding Bill there and owing more money but also getting a refund, the maid Gussie (played by Louise Beavers) is serving breakfast, and when the girls ask if there’s ham, she replies with, “Not just ham; Wham! If you ain’t eatin’ Wham, then you ain’t eatin’ ham!” And Jim does a double take and then exclaims, “Give Gussie a $10 raise!” and then we see a magazine ad featuring Gussie’s face and this slogan, and I have some questions. What exactly did he mean by a $10 raise? Ten dollars per hour? Per week? Per year? Also did he actually give her credit for coming up with the slogan, or did they just use her words and likeness without her really getting anything out of it, apart from this ambiguous raise? Part of me likes to think that she got hired by Jim’s advertising agency after this, but I feel like the more likely explanation is that a white man took credit for a black woman’s work. So again, I have some mixed feelings about my shirt that has a picture of a ham on it with the words “If you ain’t eatin’ Wham, then you ain’t eatin’ ham!” But despite its weirdness and its flaws, I mostly have positive feelings toward this movie. And I will never forget the joy I felt the one and only time someone who hadn’t watched this movie with me recognized the quote from that shirt, so shout out to my 12th grade history teacher.

Thank you for listening to me discuss yet another Cary Grant movie. I do apologize if you’re getting tired of hearing about him, but at least each of the four Cary Grant movies I’ve talked about so far has been from a different decade, so hopefully that has added enough variety to keep things interesting. Next up is another 1940s movie, although Cary Grant was not in it, so you’ll get a break from hearing about him, for now. In previous episodes I’ve ended with a single line from the next movie, but for this one I have to quote a three-line exchange between two people, because it’s my favorite part of the movie and I can’t help myself. “And then I heard a noise, and then I saw-” “What kind of a noise?” “…Like a sound.”

#mr blandings #mr blandings builds his dream house #cary grant #myrna loy #melvyn douglas #aroace headcanons #rewatch rewind

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