#My favorite part was their discomfort at certain parts of the film

[letteredlettered]

hi! ive been following your writing for a few years now and i drop by periodically to check if you have anything new posted, and im really surprised that you seem to be enjoying the untamed? im curious what you think about the show - its story and characters, the acting, the production, etc. idk if you know, but the untamed is the most successful example of a current trend in chinese entertainment, where popular online novels centered around a gay romance is adapted into a 'safe' drama.

continued:

due to the many explicit and implicit restrictions imposed on creative media in china, many crucial plot points have to be changed (often badly) or removed, including the nature of the relationship between the main characters. the untamed is considered the most loyal adaptation so far, but like all other works in the genre, it received criticism for weak acting and queerbaiting. that's why im really curious about what you think of the show as it is, as itself, free from its context.

if you're interested, you could also check out guardian! it features much better performance and chemistry by the leads imo, but the story was heavily botched bc the original incorporates and reinvents a lot of classic chinese folklore beautifully and stuff like that is considered disrespectful and not-pc. i think it's really sad how so many great pieces of writing with complex world-building and plotlines are simplified into... idek what to call them, but just, less than what they are.

im sorry this turned into a rant. as a mainland chinese person with oh so many frustrations about our current society, it's hard to comprehensively describe my feelings about the untamed's popularity. it's the first mainland chinese show/movie to gain this much organic interest abroad so i should be glad? but, but. anyway, yes, im sorry.

There’s no need to apologize for ranting, but I admit to some confusion as to whether you want your question addressed or the rant. Because I’m me and tend to be thorough, I’ll address everything, in reverse order.

First of all, I’m sorry that this show is sad to you. I’m sorry that the popularity of it is difficult. I’m also deeply sympathetic to your frustrations about your society, as I too am deeply frustrated by my own.

Secondly, yes, I’m aware of the context of The Untamed. I’m aware that the book it’s based on is a BL novel, and that, in order to align with Chinese politics, overt queerness was erased from the adaptation. I’m aware of the censure laws of gay media in China. I’m also aware that some aspects of necromancy and morality were adjusted to make the show more palatable for general audiences, but I’m fuzzier on those details. Lastly, I’m aware that the popularity of the show calls attention to certain things, such as fanfic, and that attention results in more censorship,

The fact of this erasure and this censure provokes a lot of questions: by consuming this product, which contains erasure and censure, do we engage in the erasure and censure? By posting gifs and writing fanfic and talking about this product, do we increase its popularity, thereby encouraging additional erasure and censure? By increasing the popularity of this product, do we diminish the popularity of the original gay morally gray canon, thereby decreasing representation? Do we discourage other authors in China from writing explicitly gay morally gray material? In short, are we allowed to enjoy this media?

I don’t know the answer to these questions. However, I do know that boycott is a very effective tool when it can inflict economic pain on the producer, or when it can exert pressure on an entity to change. That said, I feel like a lot of the calls to boycott certain media these days are a lot like telling people to stop driving their cars to stop climate change: it’s suggesting that individuals can solve the problem, which presupposes individuals are the problem, and therefore fails to address the scope of the problem, or present the possibility of a real solution. Not watching The Untamed isn’t going to change laws about portrayals of homosexuality onscreen in China, partly because the laws in China are a much bigger problem.

The other part of it is that The Untamed is coded queer, so if you run a successful boycott against it, you end up with . . . less queer TV. I know a whole lot less about China than I do about the Hays Code, but if you had told gay people during the Golden Age of Hollywood that they couldn’t enjoy movies that were coded queer because they weren’t explicitly queer, they’d have said you were crazy. In fact, many people will tell you that media that was coded queer was a big reason we got more explicit queer stuff later. And as I’m sure you’re aware, the US is still fighting that battle . . . partly because it wants to sell movies to China.

So then there’s a question about whether me, an American in the US, liking something coded queer from China but not explicitly queer--does that encourage Chinese censorship? Should I only support texts that are explicitly queer? But the answer is the same--it’s not addressing the scope of the problem, and by supporting texts that are coded queer, you could be paving the way in the future for something brighter.

But you weren’t talking about boycott! You were talking about your discomfort with the popularity with this show, which I accept. I understand feeling uncomfortable. I can only hope it makes you a bit more comfortable to know that plenty of fans are deeply aware of the context and do wrestle with the question of what liking this show means in the context of a society that would never allow aspects of the original to be portrayed onscreen.

Thirdly, I’m not against trying Guardian at some point, but by comparing the acting and chemistry of the leads to The Untamed, I feel like you prove our tastes are very different in these regards. I love the acting of the leads in The Untamed; I found their chemistry off the charts. It’s okay you don’t feel the same.

Lastly, you asked my opinion of The Untamed: its story and characters, the acting, the production, sans context of the canon upon which its based and censorship laws in China.

a. I love the overall story, but the plot has deep plot holes. Quite a few segments do not actually make sense to me, because the plot is so haywire. However, I’ve never cared that much about plot, except when it gets in the way of characters and themes, and for the most part, this plot serves its characters and themes, except when the parts they leave out are so confusing that I cannot follow the story. As for the story, it feels like it’s built for me, because ultimately it’s about moral decisions and how to make them; it’s about guilt and paying for mistakes; it’s about learning, changing your mind, and remaking yourself. Really, I’m not sure there are many stories I love more--except they killed my favorite character, and I almost quit. So, that certainly put a damper on things.

b. I love the characters most of all, although the villains are really two-dimensional. However, large parts of the plot are not Hero vs Villain, they’re Hero vs Society, and then some Hero vs Himself in a way that suggests the Hero is no longer a hero. I could talk about the characters forever, but suffice it to say I think they’re really strong. Also, the relationships are really exquisite, particularly when it comes to family dynamics. Unfortunately, they killed my favorite character off. Also unfortunately, there are six women in this show, only two of them are main characters, and every single one of them dies. It disgusts me.

c. I think the two leads are exceptional, in particular Xiao Zhan . . . when he’s not being too broad, which he is quite a bit. However, I do wonder how much of this is direction and production style, because in many instances, he’s quite subtle, and the choices he makes are astounding. Then there are times where it’s like they needed more footage, or wanted to drive home a point, and he turns on the extra, and it’s awful. It could just be him, but I actually feel it’s the case with most of the actors, which does make me think it’s a directing issue. Meng Ziyi never really has that problem though, because she is the most perfect of all. But then take He Peng, who I actually thought could be incredible, but every scene was just SO BROAD that I began to feel sorry for the poor dude having to act that part. But there is nothing to be said for Wang Zhuo Cheng, who really is just terrible, which is sad, because it’s a great part.

d. Production-wise, it’s really hit and miss. So much of the locations are truly beautiful. A lot of the costumes are too, unless the shot is too close. I actually don’t mind the wigs; I love the long hair. The CGI is terrible. And then while a lot of the shots are beautiful, some of them are awkward, and the pacing is really difficult, imo. It really seems like they wanted to drag it out, and there are so, so many scenes where I’m sort of embarrassed that we’re in the same scene or that we’re still looking at someone’s face, or that everyone is just standing there waiting for the shot to finally end.

I will say that film is a language that does differ from culture to culture. It could be that both the broadness of the acting and the awkwardness of the editing are my cultural lens based on American and a lot of western film. When I watched older Hollywood films, the acting is a lot more broad and maybe a little less “true” feeling, but I understand that it’s not the case everyone in the past was a bad actor. It was just a different style, so I’m not sure I’m equipped with the cultural knowledge of Chinese acting, cinematography, and editing to be able to really judge the value of these things.

I do know how I feel, which is that the editing is the biggest hurdle for me while watching the show. However, I feel that the beauty of it makes up for a lot, and the strength of the characters and themes really carries it.

I hope I addressed your points adequately, and I wish you well.

[jcisthebestfightme]

BJYX Song #15: Summer’s Wind

BJYX Song List

Disclaimer: This is all a dream. Actually though, I’ve procrastinated this song so much that it started haunting me in my dream as an overdue assignment for school so I definitely need to write this to get it out of my system.

The song I wanted to write about today is “Summer’s Wind (夏天的风)” by Landy Wen in 2004. This song’s melody was written by Jay Chou, one of dd’s favorite artist. This song wasn’t super famous back then but now is often seen in tiktok in China because of covers. I’m not sure if it was as widely popular when gg quoted in 2018. Gg knows a lot of songs and often dig up sorta obscured (at least not super popular) songs that he likes. 

An extensive backstory about gg’s post on this song and his trip in Japan can be found in this amazing post written by @twolonesomestars. The most important kadian about this post is that it was the 521th Weibo post and 18th Weibo video (he had to delete some stuff to get here.) Also, something that wasn’t mentioned was that his post kadian at the time “12:43″ and 2:43 in the song corresponds to the line “I look at your cool smile, yet there are times when it’s shy.” I think this line perfectly describes dd and also gg has said that his first impression of dd is shy, instead of the cold aloof description other people usually give him. This kadian further strengthens that this song is about dd. We have also seen gg kadian the time of his post to the lyrics of songs before, as seen in “Nan Hai” and a song from the album “Kepler” (not that song though). 

I’m going to channel in gg’s circumstance after filming TU and Japan trip for this analysis.

七月的風懶懶的 (July’s wind is lazy)

連雲都變熱熱的 (Even the wind became hot)

不久後天悶悶的 (Soon, the weather is getting stuffy)

一陣雲後雨下過 (Rain came after a cloud went by)

Right off the bat, as with the title, there are a lot of motifs we’ve already seen before like “wind”, “cloud”, and the over theme of “summer.” To me, “wind” is something this is transient and can symbolize feelings that can come and go. This is probably something gg was struggling with, whether his feelings for dd or dd’s feelings for him is transient like “July’s wind”. The first stance also described the discomfort of summer’s heat, which we know they complained about when filming CQL. Metaphorically though, I think the heat and “stuffiness” represents stuffed-up emotions, and the “rain” that came washes away those feeling and brought some clarity, which may be what gg came to realized post-Japan.

氣溫 爬升到無法再忍受 (Temperature, has climbed to a point of unbearable)

索性閉上了雙眼 (I just closed my eyes)

讓想象任意改變 (Let imagination morph and change freely)

I think the “temperature” and “heat” described can be about the electrifying connection and feelings between two people. It’s almost like the sexual tension has climbed to a point of unbearable limit for them, but they don’t know what to do with it. With reality that is hitting them after filming, they can only imagine all the different scenarios and happy ending they can have. 

場景 兩個人一起散著步 (The scene is two people walking together)

我的臉也輕輕貼著你胸口 (My face softly rest against your chest)

聽到心跳 (I hear your heartbeat)

在乎我 和天氣一樣溫度 ([You] care about me, just like the weather’s temperature)

Doesn’t this entire part just sounds like a very vivid picture of the entire filming of TU, especially since the first line even said a “scene”? Two people walking together, one in white, one in black. While filming, gg often have to rest into dd’s arms. It’s all very pure and romantic. No wonder this song can remind gg of the summer in 2018.

夏天的風 我永遠記得 (Summer’s wind, I will always remember)

I think summer’s wind is something carries feelings for gg. He said he will always remember that summer and those feelings. After filming wrapped, I think he wasn’t sure how long this wind will carry. There was too much uncertainty at that moment. In the end of 2019, we know he sang a song about summer’s wind lasting throughout the year into other season so we received the answer that this wind, and thus love, will persist. But in end of summer in 2019, this certainty was not there. All gg can be sure of is that he will always remember that summer, those wind, those mountain, because it’s very precious to him. 

清清楚楚的說你愛我 (Clearly say you love me)

I can see dd being very honest about his feelings that summer. Dd is not the type to hide what he feels and he probably expressed to gg clearly how he felt. But I think gg needed some time to think so he went to Japan, also to shed the character of WWX and his love for LWJ. But I think this line is gg acknowledging that he knows of dd’s feelings and how candid, sincere, and unambiguous dd’s feelings are. It also juxtaposed gg’s possibly jumbled feelings. I don’t think it’s that gg love dd less or that he’s uncertain of his feelings. I personally think he was certain of his feelings on 6/22/18 when he posted “If I were a song”. But I think he has a lot of different emotions that is coming to him all at once and he need some time to sort them out one by one. I can relate to having overwhelming emotions and also thoughts due to too many concerns and I think gg is also the type to get in that state.

我看見你酷酷的笑容 (I saw your cool smile)

也有靦腆的時候 (There are also times when it’s shy)

This is the line that I think gg kadian to describe dd. “Cool smile” is a very good description of dd, and probably the way most people who don’t know him well will say that is their first impression of him. Dd seems aloof and is overall a cool guy but unapproachable. But gg was the only that said that dd was “shy” to him on first impression. He saw through dd right away, that dd is hiding behind a shell of ice because he’s scared. Dd is a very sensitive person and he’s afraid that others won’t like him or how others see him so he protect himself by acting cold. But like this line and also gg’d interview that he has said before, once dd opens up, he’s very warm and adorable, and that dd likes to laugh a lot. It’s such a precious relationship to have someone that truly understands you and see the best of you. 

夏天的風 正暖暖吹過 (Summer’s wind, is currently warmly blowing)

穿過頭髮 穿過耳朵 (Going through hair, going through ears)

The “summer’s wind”, which are the emotions from the summer is currently passing through the entirety of the body, so it’s enveloping all parts of gg and dd. “Hair” and “ears” also also parts of the body that ggdd like to touch each other often when filming, as we seen from the bts clips. If I remember correctly, gg’s ears are very sensitive and doesn’t really like other people touching them (I remember a clip of his X-Nine’s member either touching or blowing into his ears and he flinched away.) But we can see dd touching gg’s ears in the TU bts. This means that gg lets dd have these intimate touches, just like these summer’s wind.

你和我的夏天 (Yours and my summer)

風輕輕說著 (The wind is softly saying)

This line is probably the most straightforward part of the song. The “summer” that just ended in gg’s post in 2018, belongs to 2 people. This the message of “summer’s wind”. The wind is saying that this summer is love between 2 people, and these 2 people can only be ggdd. 

溫柔懶懶的海風 (Gentle and lazy ocean’s wind)

吹到高高的山峰 (Blow up high to the mountain’s peak)

溫的風 山的鋒 (The warmth of the wind, the peak of the mountain)

吹成了山風 (Has became mountain’s wind)

This part to me is signifying change in feelings. The “gentle” and “lazy” warm ocean’s wind is like the ambiguous, fun, but uncertain relationship they had in the summer. They’re in a warm and safe place for these feelings to be able to developed, since they were  pretty sheltered when filming. But once filming has ended, this warm “ocean’s wind” has converted into “mountain’s wind.” Mountain’s wind to me is much colder and harsher, and signifies the harshness of reality and the difficulties they will need to face going back to the real world. But it can also be that this warm, soft wind has now strengthened, that it can become sharper, and able to face the harsh climates of the mountains. 

為什麼你不在 (Why are you not here?)

問山風你會回來 (Asking the mountain’s wind if you will come back)

Gg went to Japan with his friends (I think friends from college. He did not go with wzc btw, I just found this out like 2 weeks ago lol.) But dd was not there. And I think part of gg’s reluctancy at this moment is that he wasn’t sure if dd will always be as certain of his love as they did that summer. I don’t think it has anything to do with dd’s age, character, or anything he said. Honestly for anyone that has ever been in love, especially when the relationship just started, there will be some insecurity and you worry if the other person will love you forever or if they will change their minds and abandon you. I think this is a feeling that we can all relate to. So right now, gg may feel like it’s just him and “mountain’s wind”, which is the converted version of his love form the summer, and he’s unsure if dd will come back for him but it seems to me like gg is waiting on the mountains if dd every come, just like how WWX waited at the end of TU on the mountain for LWJ to come get him.

Overall, I think this song “Summer’s Wind” represent an end of gg’s ambiguous feelings of flirtation in the summer of 2018 while filming TU. In this post, he said “Summer’s wind has ended.” But I don’t think this necessary means his feelings for dd has ended (Spoiler alert, it didn’t.) It’s just that that stage of their relationship has come to a close and they need to find a way to open up a new chapter of their life together. 

[ducktracy]

183. porky’s double trouble (1937)

release date: november 13th, 1937

series: looney tunes

director: frank tashlin

starring: mel blanc (porky, killer), tedd pierce (narrator), sara berner (petunia)

the end of an era—this is the final cartoon to feature “fat porky”. though he’d been dieting since late 1936 and steadily throughout 1937 with the other directors, frank tashlin was the last one to skinny him up. ironic, since he was such a stickler for streamlined designs! nevertheless, this is an exciting change, as porky is finally completing his transformation into the pig we know and love today.

not only that, this is the final appearance of frank tashlin’s petunia as well. she’d go on a hiatus all throughout 1938, only to be revived by bob clampetts with a totally new design in 1939. unfortunately, she was only kept for two more shorts before being discarded again. parting is such sweet sorrow!

we deal with not one porky, but two: an escaped convict kidnaps porky and steals his identity in order to successfully rob a bank. it’s up to petunia to put a stop to this criminal’s crime spree... or is it?

a silhouette of a pig furtively creeps under a blanket of typography from the title card. the pig isn’t our favorite stuttering porcine, but rather a grisly, stubbly porky doppleganger attempting to escape from prison. he jumps and growls at the spotlight that shines on him, shooting at the offscreen subjects. not only does he whip out two pistols, he even flips them--such a small detail of flamboyant dramatics goes a long way.

prison guards shoot back at the convict, silhouetted against the night sky, illuminated only by the glow of the searchlight and the stylized white bullets raining down below. the composition is stellar, its flatness reminiscent of the backgrounds of the early ‘40s cartoons, primarily from the likes of frank tashlin, chuck jones, and even norm mccabe at times. a whistle screeches as the prisoners run along, rifles in hand. in all, the dramatic opening rampant with silhouettes feels quite reminiscent to the opening of little beau porky, another tashlin entry just a year prior.

callbacks are more blatant as we undergo the signature Frank Tashlin Expositional Montage, footage of cop cars racing out into the street reused from tex avery’s the blow out, while a close-up of a newspaper press is also reused from avery’s porky the wrestler. all the while, a shot of the convict, identified as “killer” by one of the newspapers in the montage, oversees the chaos, his eyes drifting along to survey the action, his lips parted in a sneer. the narration (tedd pierce?) is the cherry on top--often times, narration has a tendency to feel redundant, as if it’s a crutch to support the gags (i.e. some of tex avery’s earlier entries), but here it elevates the theatrics of the entire prison escape.

speaking of narrators, ours introduces us to a gangster hideout--an abandoned all girls school by the name of katz school for girls, a nod towards studio business manager ray katz--no doubt a place frequented by killer. tashlin’s cinematography is in full swing as we iris in on an exterior shot of the hideout before panning along the interior, an arsenal of weapons littering the schoolroom of years past. a smooth, clever transition of pans from the classroom to a grandiose hallway, focusing on a door.

killer’s lackeys crowd around a table littered with alcohol bottles and playing cards, but most importantly, newspapers highlighting killer’s escape. his cronies all mutter words of praise in thick brooklyn accents (”yeah, dis guy’s clever, jus’ like who-dun-y! he can get outta anyt’ing!”). the conversation between the gangsters is surprisingly natural and fun to listen to: one of the lackeys likens killer to “clark taylor”, a humorously false remembrance of actors clark gable and robert taylor combined.

 knocking outside the door prompts the cronies to whip around with their guns drawn, all crowing “who’s ‘dere!?” in unison. outside the door stands a rather spherical caricature of mae west--if there’s a mae west cameo, it must be a ‘30s cartoon! funnily enough, tashlin gets an animation credit on buddy’s beer garden, a cartoon whose mae west caricature is relatively integral to the plot as well.

mae informs the boys that she comes peddling a message from killer. furtively, they all crowd around the door, stacking on top of each other, each peering out of their own peephole door. the silent film inspiration is strong in this shot. not only that, its composition also reminds me of some of the shots in tashlin’s porky pig’s feat, a personal favorite of mine. 

all hesitation to let newcomers in is dropped once the cronies spot their curvaceous company. they’re instantly smitten, batting eyelashes and all, one of the cronies going so far as to stroke mae the messenger’s face. tashlin’s cartoons always had a promiscuous flair to them, especially in the ‘40s--here is no exception. perhaps it’s only natural, seeing as this entire cartoon is one large parody of all of the gangster pictures churning out from warner bros. at the time (marked woman, kid galahad, san quentin to name a few.)

“he said...” mae lunges a haymaker, causing all four cronies to domino together and knock into the door as mel blanc settles out of his falsetto, “NOT T’ FOOL AROUND WITH DAMES, YA LUGS!!!” killer strips out of his outfit (even removing an iron barbell from where his chest is), growling “let that loin ya a lesson!” as always, mel is fun to listen to--his falsetto voice sounds rather similar to the voice he’d use for his lou costello caricatures. 

killer eyes a stray newspaper, gloating “once i was only public enemy numba NINE!” at the sight of his new title as public enemy #1. (it should be noted that in tashlin’s first picture, porky’s poultry plant, another “public enemy” gag is used. gag continuity is always fun to see!) his eyes drift over to an article on the other side of the page (if you look closely, the date is “thoisdays octember 42nd”, the paper addressing the denizens of “porkysville”.):

“hey! what’s dis? da guy looks just like me! he could be me twin brudda!” frank tashlin’s disgruntlement with porky can be felt multiple ways here. not only did he hesitate until 2.5 minutes into the cartoon to introduce him, the underscore is “puddin’ head jones”, a frequent score associated with porky on numerous occasions offering not-so-subtle commentary about his intelligence (or lack thereof.) 

killer ushers his lackey to take a glimpse at his bank-teller doppelgänger, whispering a plan to them involving porky and the bank, the narrator clueing us in that “the evildoers carefully plan another hideous crime.”

it’s not a tashlin cartoon without his signature up-shot: we iris in on an impressive up-shot view of “worst national bank”, a score of “plenty of money and you” and even the extravagant car horn of a limo solidifying that yes indeed, this here’s a bank! inside, porky dutifully deposits the goods of his spherically designed patrons. even by 1937, these mathematically proportioned designs were out of style--i suppose tashlin got the memo, though, seeing as this is the final “fat porky” cartoon, indicating a transition into more modern, streamlined designs. 

bob bentley animates a close-up of porky depositing the cash of a scottie dog. cue the ever prevalent “cheap scotsman” gag, the scottie’s coin purse (a sock with a lock on it) revealing a swarm of moths upon its opening. he deposits a lone dime, porky happily obliging to sign the bank book. the scottie leaves, and it only takes a few bloated seconds for porky’s brain to catch up with him, realizing that he just signed a bank book to deposit a measly dime. he smacks himself in the face, a carl stalling favorite cue of “you’re a horses ass” providing musical commentary as porky glowers into the camera, hand sliding down his pudgy face. stereotypes aside, this is a fun little scene. it gives porky some personality, accentuating his gullibility (a persistent factor of his character, no matter who is directing him), and bob bentley’s animation is extremely appealing. no discretion to volney white, who animates the next scene, but there’s a noticeable difference in bentley’s and white’s styles, bentley’s animation much more dimensional. i absolutely love how he draws porky.

secretary petunia, once again voiced by sara berner, coos at porky to come over to her desk. she wastes little time flirting with him, asking that the two “step out” for the night. volney’s animation of porky is hysterical--his discomfort is exceedingly visible. porky gets cold feet, a stuttering mess (more than usual) as he sputters “geh-eh-g-eh-g-g-gee, miss petunia, i’m, uh, buh-beh-bashful... huh...heh, you’re so eh-peh-purrty, and eh-uh-i’m, uhh... yee-you’re, uh...” cue one of my favorite deliveries ever by mel blanc as the lunch bell rings. porky grins, realizing he’s saved by the bell. he doesn’t stutter once as he declares breathlessly “it’s time for lunch, g’bye!” and rushes off. the comedic timing, both from mel’s delivery and volney’s animation, couldn’t be better. 

porky strolls outside, where he stumbles across killer (disguised as mae west again) hammering away at a car. porky’s good nature prevails, which often leads to trouble: with a polite tip of the hat, he asks if the woman needs any assistance. “would you be so kind?” 

as porky works on the vehicle, killer prepares to strike, hammer in hand. his motives are thwarted as porky turns to offer assurances that the car will be fixed in a jiffy, killer impatiently hiding the bludgeoner behind his back. the charade continues, porky turning and talking, putting a stop to the nefarious deeds. as porky turns to say “eh-nuh-neh-nuh-now, it’s in the beh-beh-eh-beh-bag!”, killer grunts in his normal voice “SO ARE YOU!”, kicking porky under the hood (bumpy ride!) and peeling off in the car to certain doom.

the transition from killer kidnapping porky to killer putting on porky’s clothes (who’s bound and gagged in a chair) is surprisingly snappy, yet comprehensible and smooth. of course, the narration does contribute to the clarity, but regardless, such a quick transition can be difficult to convey smoothly and clearly. tashlin does it very well.

volney white animates killer’s taunts to porky: “and, wit’ your sissy clothes on, i can rob da bank! and YOU’LL take da rap, see!? AHAHAHA!” volney’s animation is fun to watch--before i saw this cartoon for the first time, i only ever saw google images of it, this scene being one of those images. volney’s eye takes amazed me at how anachronistic they seemed, and i remember likening him to joe murray if he made cartoons in 1937. very fun eye takes indeed!

speaking of fun, bob bentley does a neat little scene involving a brawl between killer and his reflection in the mirror. he goes to check out his new pilfered duds (”now i look like da squoit!”), admiring himself in the mirror. suddenly, his reflection grows a life of its own, sticking its tongue out. real killer gets pissed (if you notice, when he does a take of surprise, you can see where the cel of the reflection gets cut off) and punches the mirror, leaving the glass broken, his reflection now touting a blackened eye. while the “reflection becoming sentient” gag may seem tired, i enjoy how interactive killer’s reflection is, all without saying a word. the staging feels incredibly natural and nonchalant.

with that, killer makes his way to the bank, whistling along to the underscore of “with plenty of money and you” beneath the words of the narrator. you can spot a bit of camera trouble as the camera pans out from the sign at porky’s desk reading “PORKY PIG -- OUT TO LUNCH”: the pan janky, the picture briefly turning blurry before resuming to normalcy. it’s more interesting than detrimental, especially considering warner bros never did retakes.

cue a montage of “porky” stowing away the goods of the townspeople into his pocket, pretending to deposit them in the bank. the minor key rendition of “puddin’ head jones” is a nice reminder of killer’s similarities and differences. similar in appearance, maybe, but not much else. 

petunia engages in her routine from before, attempting to seduce “porky”. mel blanc’s genius shines as killer responds to petunia’s calls in a gruff, scratchy “YEAH, WHAT IS IT!?” he catches himself, and responds in an authentic porky voice “ye-ye-ye-yes, wuh-weh-wuh-weh-what is it?” the transition is seamless. whether it was on one take or two separate recordings, i don’t know, but it remains just as entertaining either way. i especially like how killer switches from “yeah” to “yes”--porky’s personality, while still relatively thin at this point, is certainly coming clearer. at the very least, frank tashlin knows that porky wouldn’t respond by saying “yeah”. it’s a little detail, but it says a lot.

and, just like myself, petunia also understands the distinctions between killer and porky--especially when killer plants a kiss on her as soon as she pulls the same “how ‘bout you and i stepping out tonight, big boy?” routine. killer grabs her in his arms, sneering “why wait until tonight, baby?” and gives her a kiss, prompting petunia to smack him and declare “why, you’re not porky pig!” killer’s response is full of careful wit and thoughtfulness as he so eloquently answers: “SO WHAT?”

ringing the burglar alarm, that’s what. petunia discreetly sets the alarms off, prompting a flurry of bullets to whiz at killer offscreen (they sure have good security!). killer retaliates with his own shotguns, but quickly speeds off to his hideout, goods still in his possession.

killer and his lackeys admire the treasures stacked on the table, eager to pounce. a clever pan to porky, still writhing around in his ropes as killer sneers “AND DEY ‘TINK YOU DID IT!” 

tashlin’s artistry strikes again as we peer at the hideout through the bars of iron gates outside. truck out to reveal police officers crowding around outside, crouching on the ground to remain discreet. the shot is composed rather nicely, with the ground level nearing the horizon line, elevating the subjects to the middle plane. even though the shot itself doesn’t linger very long, the clarity is easy to see. a tree placed off to the side cleverly frames the two officers who are on the screen--little things like that make a big difference.

one of the lackeys notices the cops are lurking by, alerts the others, and immediately shoots his machine gun out the window. watch all of the stuff flying out of his pocket as he shoots--playing cards, knives, guns, jewelry, even a wig! definitely a fun scene to freeze frame and pick apart all the details. 

the cops retaliate, and an all-out shootout occurs. a gag reused from i’m a big shot now (another gangster parody cartoon) and porky’s duck hunt ensues as a cop shoots up at the building, the impact from his rifle driving him into the ground as each shot digs the hole deeper and deeper. another rather fun gag includes a woodpecker drilling into a tree, causing the officer in the branch to clutch his heart and moan “they got me!”

in the process, stray bullets from down below shoot out of the floor, conveniently ripping the ropes bounding porky to the chair. a quick bird’s eye view of the hideout, and it’s onto porky to take action. because we all remember porky as a suave, charismatic crime fighter, it’s only natural for him to jump onto a chandelier hanging from the hallway and knock all of killer’s cronies into a door. (do cartoon characters have stunt doubles? surely they do! don’t they?) 

volney white’s animation prevails for the remainder of the cartoon. porky hops down from the upstairs landing, plopping down right on top of killer himself. both come to fisticuffs, volney’s hilarious facial expressions and treg brown’s masterful sound effects combining to make quite the amusing amalgamation. certainly a scene worthy of freeze-framing for all of the funny faces!

perhaps even more amusing, however, is the drastic tone shift as soon as the cops arrive: no time is wasted during the transition between the fight and an armed cop probing “alright, who’s the killer!?” the fight breaks up in an instant off screen, and porky (his voice un-sped) pleading “i’m uh-puh-peh-puh-peh-porky!” the transition is almost too swift, but is comical over everything else, so i’m not too slighted by it. killer insists in his own gruff voice “I’M porky!”

the cop isn’t convinced, and tries again. both insist that they’re porky. that’s when it’s petunia to the rescue, who assures the cop that she knows how to find out. she cozies up to the real porky, once more enacting their “big boy” charade from earlier. as porky flops over his words in all of his collar-tugging glory, petunia gloats “that’s porky.” porky nodding along to her affirmation is a nice, subtle touch.

as we’ve repeatedly discovered, frank tashlin was no fan of porky. even though he outwardly admits that he didn’t like to work with him, there are multiple clues throughout his pictures solidifying his disdain. here is no exception, as petunia outright screws porky over. 

her sultry demeanor changes from reassuring to duplicitous as she heaves a sigh and coos “how that killer can kiss!” porky rightfully grows angry, and, in a pattern we’ll observe in many a cartoon, allows his jealousy to triumph his bashful, reserved nature as he grabs petunia’s arms and pulls her in for a kiss. killer’s eye-boggling, affronted expression and porky’s triumphant, chest-puffing stance after the fact are both hilarious. volney white does a wonderful job of conveying personality through his animation.

here’s the kicker. despite getting her kiss from porky, she still isn’t satisfied. she coldly remarks “i STILL take the killer!” with that, porky can only gawk in awe as petunia and killer march arm-in-arm out the door, petunia cooing that she’ll wait until killer gets out of prison. iris out.

the voice acting steals the show in this cartoon. mel KILLS it (no pun intended) as killer, from the falsetto to the porky impersonation--which is just mel doing his regular porky voice--to killer’s evil belly laughs. sara berner does a fine job as petunia, and tedd pierce’s narration is always a joy to hear. i’m unsure of who voices the lackeys, as they don’t quite sound like mel, but nevertheless, they too are fun to listen to, especially their introductory dialogue. if anything, you should check out this short for the voice work alone.

frank tashlin’s eye for cinematography sparkles as it always does. the opening montage is particularly impressive, especially the use of silhouettes. very bold and striking. his layouts are very well structured, and the cartoon flows very nicely. it’s a snappy one, but it hardly feels like it drags. there’s a lot packed into these 7 minutes! 

though i do pity porky, especially at the end, i will concede that the end IS a good shocker, even if petunia is straight up cruel. porky’s personality is slowly weeding its way out of the woods, with some traits (good natured, gullible) sticking to his character all throughout his career. progress is being made! and, as i said before, as much as i enjoy the fat porky design, i won’t shed too many tears over this being its final appearance, because it marks a new step forward for warner bros. cartoons are becoming funnier, snappier, wittier, the disney influence continually waning. good things await.

i definitely recommend you check this one out. while it’s not my all time favorite tashlin cartoon, there’s a lot to admire, from voice direction to animation to even the layouts. 

link!

[joecial-distancing]

July Roundup

Lifestyle:

I’ve been getting back into running this summer. It’s been about 4 years since I’ve done any serious running, and I have been made painfully aware of the differences in my body at age 29 compared to 25. My knees hurt more, I need to attend to stretching much more seriously than I used to. I’m coming at the task with better self-knowledge than last time, though; I know how far and how fast I’ve been capable of pushing, and I find an enormous amount of comfort and strength from that familiarity. 

I’ve also been applying to jobs, a process which started as nauseatingly daunting, but has gradually settled into just a regular chore of the week (ideally chore of the day, if I’m to keep up with new years resolutions). Getting a resume mushed into a satisfying shape has felt nice, as has getting together a form cover letter that I know hasn’t hurt my chances of getting my foot in doors. Annoyance Boxes checked off, and the rest is getting familiar with the rest of the grind. Interviews have been and will be the same process.

Games:

I’ve also been playing a lot of Sekiro. I’ve always “liked” Fromsoft games, but it’s been rare that I’ve been able to justify the time investment. There’s an appeal in the structure, endless chances to bash myself against a problem until it clicks, being able to run drills when stuck or inadequate (and there is a hook in the inadequacy; nothing frustrates me more than being unable to Just figure out a solution, or requiring too much time to get there. I have a tense relationship with time and deadline pressure. Impatience is one of my greatest vices). So with school finished, I’m diving into this as a treat to myself. The systems are fun, and the camera is so fucking awful that I get unreasonably angry about it. One thing I always do with these games that I think is anathema to a lot of their fans is to spoil myself on what I’m up against. In dark souls I would always have open area maps, rather than try to navigate the combat and exploration simultaneously. It put my mind at ease, I didn’t like the discomfort of the tension of untriggered surprise. And with Sekiro, I know roughly the zones I’m up against, I’m not above watching videos of the boss fights to learn the proper counters etc. No shame, no honor, that’s not what I get out of these games, really.

As with running, so with jobsearch, so with Sekiro, the method is diligence, the appeal is the pleasure of feeling my improvement over time. There is nothing more exciting to me than casually accomplishing something that I know would have annihilated me only a short time ago. I can finish 2 miles in 20 minutes, I want to get it down to 15. This also means the videogame tends to lose out on the priorities list—if I’m wanting to dedicate myself to practice, there’s almost always a different outlet that’d be better outcomes in the long run

very 8 of pentacles mood overall, lately.

Books:

I’m almost done with Pynchon’s Against the Day, which had taken up all of my Reading attention span this month. Unless it does something in the final 8% to lose me hard, it’ll probably clock in as my 2nd favorite of his stuff, behind Gravity’s Rainbow.  Anarchism as expressed against American mining companies, European empires, and the Mexican state; searches for a lost paradise city; warfare between schools of mathematics; the nature of Light. At face value, it feels closest to Gravity’s Rainbow and Mason & Dixon, compared to the rest of his work (I know there’s a lot of subtext and referencing going over my head with all of these in terms of both history and literature; I noticed a lot of reviews of AtD focused about the variety of genre style work that he’s pulling from in certain sections, nearly all of which is lost on me. It has, however, been very fun to me that I’m able to keep up with the mathematic academia infighting depicted in this). There’s a “fairy tales coming to life” quality to all three, if instead of Grimms’ stories it’s historical models of the world: Supersonic rockets wreck the flow of pavlovian cause & effect, the destruction of natural landscape in the course of linear surveying becomes a direct conduit for a massive influx of evil energy, quaternion mathematics casting time as real and space as imaginary allow a yogi to contort himself out of sight and into the imaginary plane. The aether is experimentally disproven in the beginning of Against the Day’s timeline, which doesn’t stop holdout engineers and mystics from working wonders with it.

It feels like there’s about as much going on in here as GR, but where GR is claustrophobically overstuffed (which is also part of the reason it’s a better book) and Mason & Dixon gets kind of plodding, the material here is given space to breathe, without losing momentum. It probably helps that the characters in this are a.) numerous, and b.) unusually solid as far as Pynchon goes.

It’s also got many great examples of something else I really like about Pynchon, which is that he is willing to commit 110% to incredibly stupid jokes. There’s an Elmer Fudd reference in here that completely knocked me on my ass.

Viz:

Watched the Bo Burnham netflix, which was mostly pretty good, though I’m completely out of patience for ostentations self-awareness or fake debate where the ~comedian~ who’s concerned about being ~white privileged mannn~ feels guilty he might be ~taking up space~, doesn’t know that he ~deserrrrves it~... out of patience because I already know what he did with that guilt (if genuine) — he didn’t scrap the project, he released the fucking thing anyway. What am I to do with this, Bo Burnham? Would you like my permission? Would you like an “it’s ok dude” from people of marginalized groups within your audience? Why am I watching along for a decision you’ve quite literally already made? I don’t trust displays of vulnerability before an audience of this size.

Also watched through I Think You Should Leave, which... sure it’s funny, and also very effective at making me uncomfortable, which is clearly what it’s aiming to do, but. I don’t really get why it’s got such a strong cultural draw within the online spheres I’m normally checked into. Saw some discourse about how the quotability is somehow distinct from regular memeing, which, alright get over yourselves jesus christ.

speaking of flavors of the month, watched 50 shades and lmao. I’ve been told by a trusted source the books are worse which is hilarious.

also speaking of flavors of the [century], S.O. and I have been doing a rewatch of pre-MCU comic book movies, which has been some fascinating anthropology. It meant, though, that we had to sit through howard the duck, an absolutely wretched film. Other highlights so far: willem dafoe power rangers acting, the soundtrack on affleck daredevil (incl a fuckin choice Evanescence exercise montage), Blade & Blade II still hold up.

We’ve also made it to the final season of pre-reboot xfiles. Duchovny’s mostly gone from this last season, replaced largely by robert patrick of T1000 fame, who is a better actor but a worse character, dude’s basically just A Cop. The writing’s weirdly probably better than the last couple Duchovny seasons, but the show doesn’t work without him — his bad acting was the main thing keeping things together, the tone’s all off now.

[redrobinfection]

Batgirls’ Favorite Mentor

Babs & Batfam || Babs & Cass || Babs & Steph || implied DickBabs || Implied JayTim || Read on Ao3 || Happy Birthday, Barbara Gordon! ❤

<< A sequel to last year’s “Dick’s Favorite Person”

~*~

After Barbara's birthday dinner, Tim, Cass and Steph dragged everyone down to the Wayne Manor home theater to watch movies-- 'everyone' including Bruce, Damian, and her father, all three of whom seemed uncomfortable at the prospect of spending the evening participating in normal family bonding activities rather than heading back out into the night to fight crime, even if they couldn't acknowledge that they all three shared that discomfort.

(She was pretty sure her father knew everything--that she had been Batgirl, that Bruce was Batman, and about all the Robins and succeeding Batgirls--or at least suspected most of it, and had for a long time now, but he would never admit as much in order to maintain his plausible deniability).

Barbara struggled to contain her amusement every time she glanced over at them sitting side-by-side, stiff and awkward, on the couch. Oh, the rich irony.

While Steph, Tim and Cass convinced her to pick out a few movies for the family to watch, Dick and Jason helped Alfred clean up from dinner and make some popcorn, and then they escorted the grandfatherly man down to join the little party as well. Barbara picked the Ghostbusters series--including the new reboot film--for their watch party, feeling a little pre-halloween excitement for the first time in a long time, thanks to her good mood.

Her father stayed through the first film--it was something special having her father on one side of her on the big sectional couch, Dick on her other side, and the rest of her chosen family around her, laughing and making witty remarks about the movie--and then he excused himself.

Bruce, Damian, and Alfred persevered through the second, after which Bruce excused himself to "check on an ongoing case"--Barbara knew there was no ongoing case, but she was sure Bruce would also mind his manners around the Birds of Prey, seeing as he had promised her he was fine with them taking over for the night, so she let it slide--and Damian followed, muttering excuses of helping his father.

Alfred sighed and apologized to her, saying he should probably go down and ensure they didn't get up to too much mischief. His tone and the way he phrased it made Barbara giggle and she kissed him on the cheek with a quiet thank you for the dinner and everything else before letting him leave.

That left Barbara, Steph, Cass, Tim, Jason and Dick to watch the reboot film together, and Barbara had to say she enjoyed the extra quality time with her Robins and Batgirls. After that Tim, Jason and Dick also took their leave.

From the sounds of it Jason planned to drag Tim back to their apartment where he had apparently made and hidden extra portions of the mocha frosting used on the cake he gave her earlier and had some creative ideas about where to apply it only to lick it off again--Jason kept his tone low, but Barbara, being Barbara, overheard anyway. She smirked, but also blushed, making a note to avoid watching the surveillance video records for their apartment during these next couple of hours unless it became absolutely necessary.

Dick, blissfully oblivious of Tim and Jason’s plans, wandered off after them, probably headed up to bed or down to the cave to train for a bit before turning in.

After the boys left, Steph and Cass got even more excited and energetic, pulling out nail polish, face masks, and makeup. Barbara chortled at the idea of them doing makeovers and manicures like teenaged girls at a sleepover, but she went along with it with grace. Despite being Batgirls, the three of them weren't overly feminine, but every now and then it was fun to do some normal girl stuff and laugh together at how silly some of it felt.

They put the ridiculous Halle Berry Catwoman movie on in the background--Selina hadn't been overly impressed with that cinematic take on her persona, but Steph vehemently claimed that Halle Berry, acting in that role, had been a crucial part of her gay awakening--and then they did facials and manicures while they talked about boys--not boys in general, and definitely not daydreaming over dating them, but specifically the batboys, commiserating long and loudly over how ridiculous they could be, particularly Bruce.

At a certain point, Steph began not so subtly steering the conversation toward something that was not yet apparent, but Barbara was the one who had taught Steph the finer points of redirection, so she would know, even if she hadn't spotted the end goal as of yet.

"Y'know," Stephanie said, "it's nice when the Birds of Prey come and help out around Gotham. They always do a good job and work well enough with the boys, too." She glanced over as Cass and gave her a pointed look. Cass grinned back at her and began nodding along to the words very deliberately.

"Yeah, that's true…" Barbara allowed cautiously, suppressing the urge to shake her head at their painfully-obvious non-verbal signaling. Their poor attempts to manipulate the conversation notwithstanding, she was curious to see where this was headed, at the very least.

"I mean you should totally ask them to come take over for a couple of days, sometime," Steph went on in a carefully casual tone as she finished the second coat of polish on the fingernails of Barbara's left hand. "Y'know? Maybe take a vacation? Get out of Gotham for a while?"

Barbara sighed and began waving the hand, encouraging the wet polish to dry. "I appreciate what you guys are trying to do," she replied, looking them each in the eye in turn, "but I just don't have the time, what with Halloween and then the holidays. This is such a busy time of year for the crazies--and even for the not-so-crazies--and Bruce will never-"

To her surprise, Cass crouched down right in front of her and cut her off, both with her patented Cassandra Cain stare and with the words, "Yes. But listen."

Barbara blinked, then nodded. Cass smiled slightly then looked up to Steph and nodded for her to continue.

Steph nodded back and dropped the faux-casual tone, saying, "It's already done, Babs. We asked every single Bird on the roster to come by during the second week of November, right after the Halloween crazy-fest and just before the holiday madness.

"Kara, Donna and Koriand'r agreed to rotate out to keep an eye on things from above, Cass convinced Bruce to let them all to bunk here at the manor-" Barbara's eyes boggled while Cass nodded smugly "-and all the boys are on board with the plan and ready to play nice. Cass and I will be here too, just to make sure everyone gets along." Cass cracked the knuckles of one hand and grinned, nodding ominously.

"So, you see, it's all settled," Stephanie finished, looking smug. "You just have to say yes."

Barbara blinked rapidly, struggling to process all the surprises that had just been dumped on her. "Wait… so…I get a choice? To say yes or not?"

Steph laughed. "Yes, Babs, of course; this our gift to you, not a mandated vacation! So what do you say?"

Barbara shook her head, not sure how to respond. "Look, even if I had the time, I haven't exactly saved up to, you know, do anything special or go anywhere...I wouldn't even know where to go..."

"Well, Dick said he would go with you, if you wanted some company," Stephanie said, "Or he would stay here to help hold down the fort if you prefer but, as for paying for the trip…"

Cass walked up to the double doors to the den, pushed them open a crack and stuck her head out into the hall. "Hey, Dick, get your dick in here."

Steph choked on air and then burst out laughing. Barbara couldn't help but grin, especially when Cass backed up far enough to allow an upset and confused Dick Grayson entry into their den of Batgirls.

"Cass, that uhhh…isn't how that saying goes…" he began slowly, looking at Steph and Barbara in alarm.

"She knows that," Steph replied with a smug smile. She shot Cass an appreciative look that Cass returned with a grin and a wink.

Dick simply shook his head and let it go. "So we're doing the gift now?" he asked, glancing at Barbara, but directing his words to Stephanie.

"Yes," Barbara replied, barely concealing her amusement at their 'sneaky' tactics--What had Dick done for an hour in the hall while waiting to be called back in again? Since when did Dick Grayson have the patience for subterfuge anyway?--"Steph and Cass just explained to me that I'm being sent on vacation-"

"If you want!" Steph blurted.

Barbara laughed out loud. "If I want, apparently, and that you've also volunteered to go with me." She raised an eyebrow and adopted a mischievous tone. "Is the part where you offer to be my personal cabana boy? Or to bring your police uniform and strip for me every night?"

Dick grinned. "No, but those aren't bad ideas." He sobered and went on, saying, "No, this is the part where I offer to fly you anywhere in the world--out of my own BPD savings--and give you the choice to go and explore on your own, or to take me along for the ride if you want someone to keep you company and have your back while you're on the road."

Barbara stared, feeling her eyes go misty. "Dick, I...wow. That's…Yeah, I'd really like that."

Dick's grin brightened into a genuine smile, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Stephanie fist pump and then fist bump Cassandra. Barbara thought about it for a few seconds and then said,

"The Italian Lakes."

Dick tilted his head questioningly. "In the Italian Alps?"

Barbara nodded decisively. "I know it will be chilly in November, but I want to go there. I've always wanted to see them and stay in one of the villas."

Dick laughed and nodded. "Like that one they used for the Naboo lake country in Star Wars Episode II?"

Barbara rolled her eyes but smiled. "Yes, you closeted-nerd, exactly like that."

"Consider it done," Dick replied without hesitation.

"Thank you," she replied sincerely, turning her gaze onto all three of them. "You all had to have talked about this extensively, probably weeks in advance, and done so much leg work to get everyone on the same page…" she narrowed her eyes, suddenly suspicious, "and you still managed to hide it from me of all people?!"

"Yes, from the all seeing Oracle," Steph laughed, grinning infuriatingly.

How even, Barbara mouthed, shaking her head incredulously.

"By only speaking in-person in electronics-free areas," Steph replied, smiling conspiratorially. "By passing each other coded notes and-"

"Smoke signals," Cass added, nodding sagely.

"And messenger pigeons, too, of course," Dick finished, his eyes sparkling with mirth.

Barbara shook her head at the three of them then shook a finger at one in particular. "Dick, you son of a bat, you lied to me," she accused, smiling broadly. "You totally had a gift all along and you led me on all evening!"

"Yeah," Dick admitted with a sigh, running a hand through his hair, "I didn't want to spoil the surprise, but it was sooooooo hard, I really wanted to give you something--anything--so much earlier..."

"I'm glad you didn't," Barbara cut in. "The surprises--both of them--were wonderful. Thank You." She looked Stephanie, then Cassandra in the eyes. "All of you. Really. This means a lot."

Steph swooped down to give her a hug. As soon as she straightened, Cass leaned down gracefully to give one of her own. Barbara squeezed each of them tightly in turn, trying desperately to relay the gratitude beyond words that she felt for their thoughtfulness as well as she could through the contact. The knowing smile Cass gave her as they separated told Barbara her unspoken message was received and understood.

"Only the best for the best mentor," Cass replied quietly.

Stephanie nodded. "We wouldn't be the Batgirls we were-" she glanced at Cass "-and are today if it weren't for you. You're the MVB forever."

Barbara frowned for a moment, then smiled. "Most Valuable Batgirl?"

Cass and Steph nodded and Dick nodded too, in the background.

"Forever," Cass repeated.

"Awwww, Batgirls…" Barbara cooed, feeling tears prick at the corners of her eyes. She motioned them back in and drew them into a tight group hug, all three of them slinging their arms around each other, laughing when their heads eventually clonked together. After a moment Barbara noticed Dick smiling fondly at the three of them from a discrete distance.

She raised her head and cleared her throat. "Okay, all non-Batgirls, please vacate the room. The official Batgirl spa night continues now."

Steph and Cass giggled but stepped away and busied themselves with rewinding the movie, giving Dick an opening to approach Babs before leaving once again. He stopped beside her chair, leaned down, and kissed her gently on the forehead, murmuring, "Happy Birthday, Babs."

She caught him by the chin and drew him down into a quick kiss, murmuring her thanks against his lips. He smiled, stood, then left quietly through the double doors.

To one side, Steph and Cass scrutinized bottles of nail polish with undeserved concentration, clearly trying to give Barbara and Dick some privacy. Barbara smiled.

"Okay, so, back to business. We’ve finished facials and fingernails, so...how about pedicures now?"

Steph and Cass blinked in surprise. "Are you sure?" Steph asked. She and Cass never made a big deal out of Barbara's paraplegia--often openly discussing it with Barbara as the situation required--but they'd also tried to avoid activities that would highlight her differences, such as pedicures.

"Yeah, I know, I wouldn't be able to feel it, but, you know, it's been such long time since my feet have had a chance to get fancy. It's my birthday, so…why not?" Barbara replied lightly, smiling slyly at them.

Slowly their faces brightened until Steph was beaming and Cass' eyes were reduced to delighted slivers.

"Absolutely!" "Of course!"

~*~

Alfred’s Favorite Barbara >>

[aion-rsa]

Why Turner Classic Movies is Reframing Problematic Hollywood Favorites

https://ift.tt/3rnt3hu

Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a movie Alicia Malone fell head over heels in love with during childhood. Seeing it more times than she can remember in her native Australia, the future author and Turner Classic Movies host still recalls failed attempts to launch a high school film club with Audrey Hepburn’s Holly Golightly as the star attraction.

“I thought for sure people were going to get excited about classic movies if they watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s because it has so much life to it!” Malone says today. How could they not fall for Hepburn’s iconic performance, which Malone still describes as luminous? “Holly Golightly is a complex female character, and for the times it was quite sexually progressive.”  Yet there was always another element, even in those halcyon days, which Malone recognized as uncomfortable—that discomfort has only grown to modern eyes.

Beyond the movie’s bittersweet romance between a pseudo-call girl and the kept man living in the apartment upstairs, there’s a grossly racist caricature of Japanese Americans in the movie’s margins, and it’s portrayed no less than by Mickey Rooney in yellowface makeup. It’s technically a small part of the movie, only appearing briefly and sporadically, but each time the character arrives, it’s like a sledgehammer swung across the screen. For decades the performance has been rightly criticized by Asian American advocacy groups, and even Rooney acknowledged late in life that if he knew people would become offended, he “wouldn’t have done it.” Nevertheless, the shadow that character casts over the movie has only loomed larger with time.

“I just kind of hold my breath and half shut my eyes every time Mickey Rooney shows up,” fellow TCM host Dave Karger says during a Zoom conversation with Malone and myself. “Mercifully, he’s gone pretty soon, and I’ve chosen actively not to let that performance ruin the movie for me, because ‘Moon River’ and the party scene, and George Peppard looking so great—there’s just so much to love and appreciate, so I actively choose to focus on that.”

Despite those personal struggles with the movie, Karger and Malone are both unafraid to examine the full implications of Rooney’s Mr. Yunioshi head-on. It’s why they hosted, alongside Ben Mankiewicz, a lengthy discussion of the character’s legacy last week during a special Turner Classic Movies presentation. That conversation was part of TCM’s Reframed series, a new season of content from the network which looks at some of the most beloved Hollywood classics of the 20th century—the crème de la crème, as Karger describes them—and studies why they can also be problematic and, in some cases, stunningly offensive. In the case of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, that can even lead to larger discussions about prevailing anti-Japanese attitudes and stereotypes in American society that persisted in the immediate decades after World War II… and can still be found as echoes in the anti-Asian stereotypes of today.

For Karger and Malone, these are the types of discussions TCM hosts have been having off-screen for years. So bringing those dimensions to the forefront for new generations of viewers felt only natural with Reframed.

Says Malone, “We often talk to each other about how we approach certain films when it comes to writing our scripts for our intros and outros for each individual film. We also talk with the producers about what we should bring up, what we shouldn’t bring up; if we should talk about an actor or director’s problematic past during that particular film, or if it doesn’t go with the content of the movie.”

So the five main hosts of TCM–who also include University of Chicago Professor Jacqueline Stewart and author Eddie Muller–were eager to have these frank discussions on screen while offering historical context from a modern perspective.

“All of us at TCM are watching the world change and watching the culture change,” Karger says, “and even though we show movies by and large from the period of the ‘30s to the ‘60s, we all realized that it doesn’t mean we can’t be part of today’s cultural conversation. It’s not a stretch at all to talk about classic movies from a point-of-view of the 21st century; that’s very possible to do, and I think a lot of our fans are looking for that kind of context when they watch the channel.”

The Reframed series, which was spearheaded in part by Charlie Tabesh, the TCM head of programming, and organized by producer Courtney O’Brien, looks to balance what Karger describes as the push and pull between nostalgia and criticism. Both Malone and Karger are acutely aware of the hesitance some classic movie fans might have about evaluating works from nearly a century ago through a 21st century prism, however the new program is intended to renew engagement with these movies—particularly in an era when there are just as many loud voices that attempt to dismiss or wipe away the legacies of these film’s from the cultural canon.

“That’s really important to remind everyone that this series is not here to shame these movies or to tell anyone that they can’t love these movies,” Karger says. “And if there’s a frustration that I’ve had in this last month, it’s to see some of the reaction to this series be along the lines of ‘you’re part of cancel culture with this series.’ It could not be more the opposite of that. We’re not cancelling anything; we’re showing the films a hundred percent in their entirety, we’re just talking about them.”

Malone further emphasizes this is what can keep so many of these movies vital in an era when sequences like the aforementioned Rooney scenes in Breakfast at Tiffany’s are being deleted from a Sacramento film festival—effectively erased from the collective memory.

“I think everyone at TCM sees this as the way forward,” Malone says, “the way that we can continue to make sure these movies stay alive for younger generations. We can continue talking about them, discussing them, they can change over the years, our feelings can change about them; you can love a film and not be able to justify parts of it at the same time. What’s so important though is just to have the discussion, to talk about these problematic areas and face up to them rather than hiding them. To me, if you take out a film from existence or you just delete parts of a film, you’re in a way saying these problems never existed.”

Indeed, even the opinions of folks as steeped in this history as the hosts of Turner Classic Movies can evolve as the culture does. Ben Mankiewicz, for example, is TCM’s unofficial statesman but he surprised some viewers two weeks ago when he revealed during a Reframed discussion that he can no longer comfortably watch Gunga Din (1939), a rollicking adventure movie set in British India. Based on a Rudyard Kipling poem, that classic film’s influences can still be felt in more modern blockbusters like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). However, Gunga Din is also a movie that glorifies the British Empire at the expense of then-contemporary Indian independence movement, with the villain being a character who Mankiewicz noted is physically modeled after Mahatma Gandhi, who would’ve been seen as subversive by some white audiences in the ‘30s.

“I’ve never been a huge fan of that movie, even though Cary Grant is my favorite actor,” Karger says. “And I was even a little surprised when Ben and Brad Bird included it on [the TCM program] The Essentials last year. Not because it’s not a revered classic movie, but because it’s more than a little offensive. And it was fascinating to be part of that conversation with Ben, talking about the evolution of his feelings for Gunga Din, because he’s been with the network 15 years. I can’t imagine how many times he’s talked about that movie, and it’s just showing you that culture and history are living, breathing things.”

Opinions change. Malone had a similar experience when she joined Mankiewicz and Muller to discuss John Ford’s seminal Western, The Searchers (1956), a movie where the director began reckoning with his depiction of Native Americans on screen. The film is a touchstone to this day for filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and George Lucas. Mankiewicz and Muller note that Ford is grappling with the racism of his earlier films via John Wayne’s lead character, an unrepentant bigot who becomes both the movie’s protagonist and antagonist. However, the film still bathes Wayne’s character in heroic imagery, and still relies on Native American stereotypes.

“Watching The Searchers again with the lens of talking about it during Reframed, I just saw so much,” Malone says. “I know John Ford was trying to have a conversation about racism involving Native Americans, but there’s just no doubt that many of his films contributed to the very dangerous and horrific stereotypes based around Native American people. And I think Native American people have suffered greatly because of the way they’ve been stereotyped in Hollywood films.”

That subject of intent comes up quite a bit during the Reframed series; Karger describes the movies they discuss as running the gamut from mildly problematic to extremely offensive, yet that ambiguity should invite education about the times they were made in, as opposed to preventing audiences from knowing about those eras.

Says Malone, “I think [Reframed] does show an attempted evolution on the parts of the filmmakers, and that’s interesting. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and The Searchers, and My Fair Lady are trying to comment on a particular issue. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers comments on the sexism of the brothers in the film; My Fair Lady comments on the misogyny of Henry Higgins; and The Searchers comments on racism. But at the same time, they are also sexist, misogynistic, and racist.” She ultimately concludes movies can be both progressive and not progressive because of the times they’re made in.

Read more

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From Hitchcock to Star Wars: What Makes a Great MacGuffin

By David Crow

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Was John Wayne High Noon’s Biggest Villain?

By David Crow

My Fair Lady (1964) will be the centerpiece of TCM’s final night of Reframed programming this Thursday. A lavish big screen adaptation of Lerner and Loewe’s Broadway musical, which itself was an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play, Pygmalion, it deals with the story of cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) being remade into Professor Henry Higgins’ (Rex Harrison) ideal woman through diction lessons. And the fact the musical, written in the 1950s, changed the more transgressive ending of the original play where Eliza leaves Higgins behind, will invariably come up on Reframed.

“Some people would look at that and say, ‘My Fair Lady? What could be the problem with that? It’s a very strong female character who stands up for herself and has so much agency and power in the movie,’” Karger admits. “But then when you really look at specific scenes, particularly the end of the movie, which is what I think we talked about a lot, there are certain things that just kind of make the movie, for me at least, have the tiniest bit of a sour note.”

The question of whether My Fair Lady is a sexist movie or rather a movie about sexism became the heart of its Reframed discussion.

Adds Malone, “We also talk about the fact that that ending has been changed by some stage productions. That is happening now, and we also talk about the idea of the makeover movie. I think the Pygmalion myth is something that’s fairly sexist and outdated when you look at it, but there’s also so much to love about My Fair Lady.”

The opportunity of having these discussions has been a gift for Karger and Malone. They both stress they don’t have the answers to all the questions they raise, and that even with added time for the outros on Reframed, there is no way to cover everything that needs to be said about a film in a handful of minutes.

“I thought about multiple things I wish I said or I forgot to say, or just didn’t have time to say,” Malone says. However, she hopes the series gives viewers the tools to begin engaging more seriously with these films and embrace a greater curiosity about the past. On tonight’s line-up alone, Malone and Karger will both get to engage in discussions of films they lobbied to have included in the Reframed series.

“I had just a brief conversation with Charlie [Tabesh] about including something around the idea of gender identity, or the transgender community, because I wanted to delve into that,” Malone says. “And of course from there, it becomes what do we have the rights to? What’s in license, what can we show? So there are certain limitations on the types of films we can show in the series.” The film they ended up agreeing on is Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.

“I love the fact that it is one of the classic movies that everyone should watch, a horror classic,” Malone adds.

Karger by contrast will be discussing another Audrey Hepburn movie, this one dealing with Hollywood’s history of depicting LGBTQ characters on screen.

Says Karger, “I will never forget watching the documentary The Celluloid Closet in the mid-1990s when it was released, and that was one of the seminal moments for me, as far as looking at film critically. This was a history of LGBT characters in film history over the years, and one thing you learn when you watch a documentary like that, there was this trope in films where if there was a character who was gay, that character would not live to survive at the end of the movie. That character would either be murdered, have some kind of horrible accident, or end his or her own life.”

He continues, “So you think of The Children’s Hour in the early 1960s and at first you think, ‘Oh this is something to applaud. Shirley MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn playing two women who may or may not be lesbians. Wow! This is a great thing to bring attention to.’ And then you realize they couldn’t even use the word lesbian in the movie… then the character who ends up being gay also ends up being dead by the end of the movie, and I just think it’s this unfortunate trope that tells people, consciously or not, that you can’t be gay and you can’t be alive in society… It’s a shame, because it came so close to getting it right but you realize it didn’t have the opportunity to get it right in 1961. It couldn’t with all the restrictions in the film industry and society in general.”

It will be the last night that TCM dives so directly into the murkier waters of some of Hollywood’s legacy, although both hosts hope for a second season of Reframed. Karger, who admits he shouldn’t spend so much time on social media, has seen the predictable social media reactions of “you’re ruining these movies” by talking about these elements. But he’s also been heartened by responses from fans who wished TCM provided Reframed discussions on movies that aired later in the evening, like Stagecoach (1939) or Tarzan, The Ape Man (1932). Karger says if he has it his way, they’ll include all those movies in a second season of Reframed.

Meanwhile Malone would really like to continue a thread begun with the screening of the Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy classic, Woman of the Year (1942), from several weeks ago.

“I love having discussions for films where we talk about the representation of female characters,” Malone says. “That’s something I’ve done a lot of work on, so that’s something I’d like to continue—to talk about the way women have been portrayed in films throughout Hollywood history, and we could talk about that in terms of their beauty and how that was seen to be the most valuable quality a woman could have, or the way they could search for love. I love all the women’s pictures that forces the woman at the end to give up everything for love, but for most of the movie she is a fantastically independent woman.”

Other examples of this trope she cites are His Girl Friday (1940), and nearly every movie Katharine Hepburn made after The Philadelphia Story (1940).

Karger conversely would be interested in revisiting movies with extreme age differences between couples.

“I’d love to look at films like Gigi or Love in the Afternoon,” the host says, “because I think there are some people who have issues with the much older man and much younger woman pairing. And I think I’d love to hear what my fellow TCM hosts have to say about that, because you never see it in the opposite direction.” In fact, based on just this one comment, Malone began thinking aloud about all the ageist movies spawned by Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), a camp horror classic that kicked off what Malone describes as “hagsploitation.”

When it comes to revisiting (and reframing) Hollywood classics, the options for learning more are limitless. Not that the lessons should be intimidating.

“I think it’s quite exciting the way things change,” Malone says. “Society changes so quickly, and you learn more and have different opinions, [including] on films. I love being more educated and finding out more of my own blind spots and trying to fix them.”

Reframed continues that search on Thursday March, 25, beginning with My Fair Lady at 8pm EST.

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[theliterateape]

History is a Puzzle Box of Rashomon

by Don Hall

I’ve often said that the scariest thing to ever come out of my mother’s mouth was the declaration “Let’s go on an adventure!”

For my mother an adventure must include a lack of preparation, potential for danger, and a sense of I can’t believe we just survived that! She once decided she wanted to do a charcoal sketching of a gravestone from the grave of one of our Appalachian Baptist fire-and-brimstone preacher ancestors. My dad drove her up into the mountains and they started seeing patches of purple paint on trees and rocks.

Turned out that was the locals’ way of telling outsiders they'd get shot if they trespassed. My dad clutched his pistol the rest of the way.

Mom got her charcoal sketch. I can’t believe we just survived that!

When I was a kid and we lived in Arizona, mom decided we were going on adventure. My little sister, mom, and I loaded up in her brown Gremlin, a bag of sandwiches, some sodas, and all of our swimming gear and headed out for an afternoon at Lake Pleasant.

All was copacetic until she thought she saw a shortcut to he lake. It was not a shortcut. It was simply desert. It started out as a bit of a dirt path that sort of petered out about an hour into the drive. We were driving in the open desert in the vehicle equivalent to a Pinto.

Of course we blew a tire. Of course we didn't have a spare.

Being a melodramatic kid, I went into a full-blown faux-survivalist panic. After a few minutes of wailing about our imminent demise I set out to figure how to get water out of cactus, the thorny testaments to the heartiness of desert foliage fending off my un-callused hands and delivering exactly no water.

This being decades before smartphones, we were stuck. We had no clue where we were in terms of the comforts of civilization and while mom put on a brave face (and occasionally got the giggles at my histrionics) our fate was sealed. Unless someone miraculously drove into the middle of the desert to save us, we were doomed.

And then the miracle occurred. A beat-up red Ford pickup truck coming from the other direction popped up on the horizon. I shrieked in relief; mom flagged the truck down.

We were about a mile from a highway but we couldn't know that. The driver of the pickup was taking a shortcut from the highway.

Here's where the story gets odd. To this day, my mother's version of this adventure and mine are identical. Word for word the same until we get to the driver of the Ford. On my life, I swear it was an older Native American man who stopped, hitched up the Gremlin to his vehicle, and towed us the mile to the highway and on to a gas station. 

My mother will go to her grave insisting it was a family of four Mormons.

What?!

We’ve had family arguments about this story. Both my mother and I are intractable in our insistence of our specific endings of either Native American man or family of Mormons. We both were there. We both can see ourselves in the tale. The endings are as different as could be.

There is conclusive scientific research that demonstrates how the memory of an event subtly changes the actual memory as it is retold. The more you tell the story, the more it transforms into something similar but wholly different in the margins.

If my mother and I can have such divergent differences within a memory of an event we both shared, how many splinters are there in a collective re-telling of a larger event encompassing many more tellers? How many completely incompatible versions of the attacks on New York on September 11, 2001 are there? How many versions that don’t quite line up with one another are there of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941?

Moving forward and backward in history, if we are to accept (and I do) that our memories are more Silly Putty than Lego Bricks, how much does film, television, books, and social media come into play in the constant morphing of objective truth to the collection of subjective memories and finally commonly accepted reality?

There is conclusive scientific research that demonstrates how the memory of an event subtly changes the actual memory as it is retold.

Back in the olden days when one could watch something horribly incorrect in the political sense without it becoming a ringing endorsement of your personal "brand" or a scathing indictment on who you are as a fellow human, I went to a screening of Griffith's The Birth of a Nation. It was at an esoteric video shop/screening theater on Fullerton Avenue in Chicago called Facets Multimedia and there were six or seven others in attendance. I was the only white person in the room.

Historically, Griffith's opus is significant in several ways. 

First, it was among the earliest epic uses of film. Released in 1915, it was the first blockbuster Hollywood hit. It was the longest and most-profitable film then produced and the most artistically advanced film of its day. It secured both the future of feature-length films and the reception of film as a serious medium.

Second, it was the first modern popular culture example of an artistic achievement attempting to force a certain perspective on the larger culture (the idea that the KKK were the heroes of the Civil War) it was initially released with the title "The Clansmen" and reframed the war, Reconstruction, and white hooded sheets in tandem with lynchings as the preferred story of American history.

Third, while propaganda has been around since men could talk and write, it was the most pervasive use of a medium that communicated on a newfound mass level to promote a horrifying ideology and was embraced by President Woodrow Wilson as a personal favorite.

Following the three-hour screening, there was a sense of discomfort as the lights came back up. My guess at the time it was the other viewers in the room wondering if I, the sole white person in the room, was as offended by the revised perspective the film espoused as the rest in the small cadre. I suppose I wasn't as offended because I wasn't black and I knew what I was getting into when buying my ticket. I can imagine seeing the film without some context would be like a slap in the face.

One of the things I learned doing stage combat around the same time was that a slap in the face never hurt as much as you'd think. It wasn't the pain of the blow but the surprise of it that gave it impact. Going in cold to see the KKK presented as the true patriots wouldn't hurt but the surprise might be a shock.

In a very different way but in the same vein, I remember being the only white face in a crowded theater in Fayetteville, Arkansas at the opening night of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. The looks of inquisition for my reaction to the film from the predominantly black faces followed me out into the lobby and into the parking lot.

I read recently that one of the reasons the scars of that Civil War in America have never fully healed is that we’ve never, as a nation, agreed on a single narrative of why we fought the goddamned thing. The subjectivity of truth in the re-telling of that dark period is confounding and subsequent attempts to force one perspective or the other or multiple angles on the causes of the War of the States has only confused the issue. Thus the recent beheadings of statues glorifying Southern generals and the re-naming parties of public schools to eliminate anyone associated with slavery.

I understand and empathize with this impulse to reverse the whitewash of history from our streets and schools. So much of our literature and symbols in real life have been created with, maybe not a D. W. Griffith subjectivity, a revisionist historical perspective that paints over the ugliest parts of our history to re-tell the narrative and erase those most subjugated by it. I expect over-correction (like the New York Times 1619 Project which casts our history as steeped in nothing but racism and slavery without acknowledging the contributions set apart from those stains) and, after reading that San Francisco schools are eliminating Abraham Lincoln's name, I decided to re-watch Spielberg's Lincoln.

I don't know if it was actually Lincoln or screenwriter Tony Kushner who came up with the following analogy but I found it instructive in the push to reframe the story today.

A compass, I learnt when I was surveying, it'll... it'll point you True North from where you're standing, but it's got no advice about the swamps and deserts and chasms that you'll encounter along the way.

If in pursuit of your destination, you plunge ahead, heedless of obstacles, and achieve nothing more than to sink in a swamp... What's the use of knowing True North?

The film paints the fight for the 13th Amendment as a dark political game, cajoling and persuading the legislators of the day to codify in the Constitution a formal revocation and rebuke to the forced enslavement of other human beings. It also portrays Lincoln as a deeply pragmatic leader. The speech is one he gives to Thaddeus Stevens, a zealous abolitionist, who rightly sees true north but, up to that point, would rather be righteous than successful in abolishing slavery.

Both men are long dead so the question of whether both men would tell the same story, in their re-telling of those pivotal moments leading up to the vote, or if their stories would radically diverge, is wholly academic. That’s where the trappings of art collide with authenticity. This is the version Spielberg and Kushner decided upon and it will be the version millions who watch the film and decide to simply accept it as the one true version.

This is not to say there is no objective truth. It is to suggest that our inability to separate fact from our subjective fictions makes us pretty fucking lousy arbiters of that fact.

On the other hand, we have celebrated author Mark Manson, whose book Everything is F•cked: A Book About Hope is being banned in Russia by Putin because it speaks directly to atrocities committed by Stalin. Putin is looking to re-write Stalin's history. 

There is a big difference between revising a history shown to diminish the effects of overt racists in one country and purging a country’s history of established monstrosities but the mechanism remains the same: reframe the story and tell it enough times that the meaning changes over time. Keep pushing the new narrative (right or wrong) until the soft memory of an entire nation bends to the will of the teller.

That’s all history is, after all. A slew of stories we tell over and over to indoctrinate a sense of national pride. It grows more perilous when those revising the stories weren’t present. The source of the tales becomes less reliable and the reframe more suspect. When the source is a film or video of an event, we feel as though we’ve experienced it but our perspective is entirely subverted by what the camera shows us and the narrative promoted when we watch it.

One of the techniques that Griffith practically invented was the camera’s use to tell the story from his view. Frame things in a certain way, in a certain order, and our very eyes are deceived, our minds accept the deception, and we believe.

In 1950, Akira Kurosawa gave the world the reigning example of individualized subjective point of view. Rashomon shows us three different perspectives on one specific event. The film makes the point so clearly that the term used popularly to label the he said/she said/they said dilemma is a rashomon.

This is not to say there is no objective truth. It is to suggest that our inability to separate fact from our subjective fictions makes us pretty fucking lousy arbiters of that fact. Show me someone absolutely 100% certain of the sort of events they've only seen on an iPhone video moderated by Faceborg and spun by both the media and some random stranger and I'll show you someone deluded and quite probably dead wrong.

Even when we're there to witness events in person we get it wrong so the concept of getting it right through the mediation and manipulation of amateur videographers and activist pushing a narrative is nothing short of lunatic fringe.

Bizarrely, we all know this to be true.

We know that social media is almost entirely unreliable. We know that film is a highly manipulative art form. We know that Robert Downey, Jr. never flew in a suit of armor, that Keanu Reeves is not Neo, that as much as he embodies who I hope Abraham Lincoln was like, Daniel Day Lewis is an actor and couldn't possibly know what the man was actually like in person.

We know this to be true but we need to be right. We need to believe and so we take that leap of faith, that gut level adherence to what makes some sort of sense in the story and run with it. More so, if the fiction supports things we already have chosen to believe in, we are adding it to the arsenal of defenses against any other sort of view of our story.

We know there's more to the story of the Antifa takeover of Seattle. We know there's more to the January 6th breach of the Capitol. We know there are more sides to the story of Michael Brown. We know that with everyone filmed in a Walmart screaming about her right to forego a mask there is something else before and after that moment that may demonize her just a bit less.

We know but we don't care. Context and considering the framing takes too much work. Too much time. In an existence flooded with too much information, too many stories, too much video, too many opinions, it's just fucking easier to settle on the story that suits you and roll with that.

That's why—no matter what my mother says—it was definitely not a family of Mormons and I'll go to my grave with that.

[danobre3]

In 1966, French film director Robert Bresson would release in May of that year a film that I belatedly came to know and admire for his ability to communicate in a way not so common in the history of World Cinema. It was Robert Bresson's "Au hasard, Balthazar" - part of the Criterion Collection # 297.

Bresson is used with efficiency and with a lot of intelligence a bet that in the present day and cinema is almost unthinkable. Minimal dialogue, minimal music and non-professional actors in order to achieve the necessary "chemical" call to modestly make a grandiose film. This task is not easy and requires a director with great precision in order to succeed in his mission of not simply making a film, but CINEMA in essence.

The seemingly simple story of a donkey that is named after Balthazar (one of the wise men of the Bible) seems unlikely to potentially generate a certain discomfort in the audience of the time by almost forcing us to reflect on our human condition. This is no small feat for an hour and a half film.

Permeated by mystery the story develops in two lives that unfold in parallel. Balthazar's being the main story as well as that of the beautiful Marie (wonderful actress Anna Wiazemsky in her first film) who has known Balthazar almost since he was born and she will accompany him directly and indirectly during the almost total presentation of this film. The relationship between the two is represented in a child's love for her favorite animal, but in this case philosophically transcends.

During the film we watch time go by and the characters take positions for life that is not always easy, on the contrary quite hard and heavy in a rural area of ​​France. Other characters appear in the path of both because Marie who at the beginning and a little girl knows Jacques (a boy just little older than her) who still as children make conjectures of a very far future and even more distant marriage, but when the same Jacques moves out of the village where they lived Marie on the other hand stays and grows in this village.

Meanwhile Balthazar also grows and changes to different owners who constantly, but not always, abuse the donkey. Marie in turn ends up meeting Gerard a rebel boy and his gang who take advantage of the poverty situation in which the girl lives with her family.

What unfolds before our very eyes is a kind of mystery that communicates directly with our belief in right and wrong as well as the film seems to speak directly to our subconscious in a way that even today I don’t quiet remember having this feeling of sadness and beauty at the same time. Throughout the film, the sensation of the donkey's divinity permeates so that Bresson does not allow us to fall into this concept. It simply permeates the divine with an elegance that really makes it difficult to categorize this film.

Bresson was well known for his constant choice of non-professional actors, making the characters always dialogue when strictly necessary. This economy is also present in music and what always prevails are the sounds produced by noise such as a door opening / closing or a letter being removed from its envelope (just to name a few).

It is images without dialogue that communicate directly with our feelings and emotions. There is no way not to notice in Balthazar when he felt pain, pleasure, and sadness just by watching his gaze and his modest and limited movements, as well as the close-ups of Marie's face or her gestures. I mentioned in my video review of this film and here I end with Marguerite Duras's words about her impressions about this film: "What only previously could be expressed through poetry and literature, Bresson expressed with CINEMA".

You also can see my video review here: https://youtu.be/S3540pMc-4A Thank You. DN

[steves-on-a-plane]

Cordonians On Set: Brothers, Actors & Allies.

Words: 3426  Pairing: Maxwell Beaumont x MC/Riley Brooks Timeline: The Royal Heir Book 2 Chapter 12 Summary: You and your friends are on the set of your husband’s big movie when you start to realize Maxwell’s made more than a few “minor” tweaks to the events. Mostly notably he’s made himself the star of nearly every scene. Your father-in-law Barthelemy isn't helping matters much either. Can you help smooth things out between the brother’s Beaumont and bring Maxwell’s head down from the clouds? Author’s Note: Basically I read Chapter 12 this weekend and was less that thrilled about it. (My MC is married to Maxwell.) So I tried to fix it. I know it’s a bit on the longer side for a one shot, but hopefully it’s worth the read. 

“Wow!” You gasped as you stepped out into the soundstage with the rest of your friends. It was the first day of shooting the movie based on Maxwell’s memoir and you’d all been granted access to watch the filming. The first set you’d been taken to was an impressively accurate recreation of the Cordonian Castle’s ballroom. You, Hanna, Drake and even Liam were stunned by the craftsmanship and detail that had gone into creating the set. Maxwell and Bertrand would have also been impressed if their attention hadn’t been captured by a familiar figure standing in the center of the faux ballroom. It was their father, Barthelemy Beaumont.

“Ah, King Liam, Duchess [Y/N]! My two sons!” Barthelemy greeted everyone with a practiced smile.

You adjusted your grip of the princess in your arms. It had become a bit of a nervous habit at this point to make sure that your daughter was snuggled close to you around people you didn’t trust. Sure, technically Barthelemy was family, but he didn’t quite feel it. You hadn’t mentioned this aloud to anyone but there was just something about your father-in-law that felt off to you. Maybe it was the fact that all of Cordonia had acted like he was dead until a few months ago. It might have been the way he always seemed treated Bertrand as if he were still a child.

“Father? What are you doing here?” Bertrand asked the question you really wanted an answer to yourself.

“I know I arrived a bit early,” Barthelemy sighed dramatically. “But the crew was very accommodating of Maxwell Beaumont’s father!” There it was again, that gnawing feeling in the pit of your stomach. Barthelemy had name dropped Maxwell and didn’t seem the least bit apologetic. You wanted to call him out on it, but you looked at Maxwell who was positively elated that his father was there. You decided to take a page from Bertrand’s book and offered your father-in-law a stoic but slightly critical remark instead.

“I think he means what are you doing in LA.” You commented.

“I wanted to show my support to my sons!” You fought back the urge to scoff as he continued on. “To see the set of Maxwell’s movie firsthand and to offer my assistance to Bertrand once again. Whether that be with House Beaumont duties or lending a hand with Bartie. I still regret that you had to shoulder so much in my absence. This is a chance to make amends.”

“I assure you, I have everything well under control.” Bertrand replied coldly. It was the sort of calm displeased tone you were used to Bertrand using with you back when you were vying for King Liam’s hand. The tone that implied Bertrand was upset but willing to forge ahead.

“Are you certain?” His father frowned. “I would…” But Bertrand wasn’t hearing another word on the matter.

“I said I don’t need your help!” The Duke of Ramsford hissed indignantly. For anyone else it would have been upsetting enough to see them snap at their parent like that, but for Bertrand? It was practically shouting. It was worse than the time you almost used a dessert fork during the salad course.

“Well I…” Barthelemy took a beat to compose himself. Much like the rest of you, he wasn’t used to Bertrand lose his temper.

“Come on Dad, let me help you find a good seat!” Maxwell suggested. He guided his father away to a collection of chairs slightly offstage. You weren’t sure if Maxwell finally decided to intervene for his father’s benefit or his brothers. The others moved off to find their seats too. You reached out and touched Bertrand’s arm causing him to stop and look back at you.

“Bertrand, are you okay?” You questioned.

“Just as I told my father, I’m fine.” He grumbled. He was still irritated, but clearly not with you.

“Actually, what you told him was that you didn’t need his help. And honestly, you seem pretty not fine, to me.”

“Pardon me if I’m offended by my father following me to the far side of the earth to tell me that I can’t handle my affairs.” Bertrand cast a forlorn look in his father’s direction. You sympathized with Bertrand because you knew how import family and the legacy of House Beaumont were to him. All Bertrand had ever wanted was to build something that would make his father proud. And all Barthelemy did was criticize him. “Maxwell and I got along perfectly fine without him all this time.” He added still seething with anger.

“Maxwell seems pretty happy to have him here.” You said, not able to think of anything else to comfort him. You both watched as Maxwell sat next to his father and animatedly told the story about how he convinced you to come to Cordonia in the first place.

“He was rather young when our father got sick.” Bertrand recalled.

“Let’s let Maxwell and Barthelemy have their moment, they can sit up front together and we’ll sit in the back. We’ll blame it on Maxine. We can say that she should sit in the back so she doesn’t make too much noise. I’ll even let you hold your favorite niece slash Heir to the Cordonian Throne.”

“Very well.” Bertrand agreed. He held out his arms expectantly. You passed your daughter off to him the two of you claimed two open seats in the back row.

With everyone seated and the set cleared, the actors arrived and took their places. The first scene filmed was your debut at the masquerade ball. You watched as quietly as possible from behind the cameras. Truth be told you weren’t entirely interested in watching the filming. You all knew from the book reading awhile back that Maxwell had stretched the truth in some instances when it came to his novel and you certainly weren’t expecting the Hollywood adaptation to get much more factual. It also didn’t help that the actress cast to play you appeared to be a weirdly dedicated method actress with little regard for personal space. You’d mostly come to LA to support your husband and to meet the mysterious former Queen of Rivala.

While everyone else was focused on the actors in front of them, you were still thinking about Bertrand, Maxwell and Barthelemy. Things couldn’t go on much longer the way they’d been since Bertrand’s wedding. You wondered if Maxwell could sense the tension that Barthelemy had brought into the family by behaving the way he did; he must have. Maxwell was carefree and optimistic, but he wasn’t stupid. He had to know that on some level Barthelemy was toxic. After all wasn’t he part of the reason House Beaumont had needed Bertrand’s saving in the first place?

“That’s it?” You heard Bertrand remark suddenly. “Aren’t I in this scene?” He asked, looking directly at the back of Maxwell’s head. Maxwell turned and looked back at his brother.

“Well, you weren’t actually there when [Y/N] was introduced at court.” He reminded his brother.

“No.” Bertrand frowned. “That can’t be true. I wouldn’t have missed such an occasion.”

“I’m afraid it is.” You told Bertrand regrettably. “I didn’t even meet you until after the Masquerade was almost over and then you, Max and I all went to bed early. Our first real conversation was the next morning in the car ride to the Derby.”

“I remember now.” Bertrand sighed. “I was working on House finances that evening.”

“Don’t worry.” Maxwell smiled. “I’m sure you’re in some scenes coming up later.” Maxwell turned back around while the director ordered everyone to reset and shoot the scene again. As if she could sense her Uncle’s discomfort, little Maxine reached out and wrapped her had around one of Bertrand’s fingers. For a minute at least, this managed to crack through his mask and Bertrand smirked. He wrapped the rest of his fingers around her tiny hand.

As the day went on the filming moved to shoot the night of Anton Severus’s attack. The same night you were officially recognized as the Duchess of Valtoria. The scene started out much the same as everyone remembered. The actors were placed around the ballroom set all listening to the actor who portrayed King Liam give a rousing speech and welcome you as Cordonia’s newest Duchess. The creative liberties started when the Maxwell character stepped forward to thank Liam instead of you. It felt out of place because, well why on earth would Maxwell be giving a thank you speech in that moment?

Then the lights on the set flicked off before turning back on. There was a loud pop. The Drake character had a line about there being “More fancy fireworks for the fancy party.” And then the Maxwell character was ordering the guards to usher King Liam to safety. He had a corny line about it being “time to unleash the kraken!” before confronting an extra who pointed a gun in his direction. The Drake character then sprinted in out of nowhere and knocked Maxwell to the ground. You didn’t pay attention to what happened next. You looked away from the train wreck of a scene until the director called out for everyone to take a break.

“That was just how I envisioned it when I was writing this scene!” The real Maxwell announced proudly.

“Maxwell, that’s not at all what happened.” You told him. “I knew you made a few minor tweaks here and there in the story but you kind of made everything about you.” Maxwell seemed to take what you said to heart. He looked at the set and back at you. Maybe he had changed things too much.

“I thought it was very heroic!” Barthelemy announced. You wanted to comment that no one had asked what he thought, but you remembered Bertrand seated next to you. You imagined what advice he might give you and, in your head, you recalled Bertrand’s best lecturing voice.

“You’re not just a scrappy waitress from New York, Lady [Y/N]! You’re a Duchess. The Duchess of Valtoria, and a Duchess can’t be seen shouting and ranting to her Father-In-Law on some backlot in the middle of Los Angeles.”

So, you let the subject drop for the moment. There would be plenty of time for you to speak to Maxwell later when the two of you were alone in your hotel room. The director motioned for everyone to follow him to the next set so that production could continue. As Maxwell and Barthelemy lead the charge to the new set, you and Bertrand wandered slightly behind everyone else. Hana hung back too. She had been reading the troubled expressions on your face since the last scene.

“I heard the director say that the next scene is the Beaumont Bash.” She told you. “I’m sure there’s not much Maxwell could have changed there. I remember it being a pretty crazy party.”

“Ah yes, that’s when I was first introduced to the Champagne Sword Trick.” You recalled fondly. “Or as it’s better known now, the champagne and the closest weapon to Maxwell trick. I guess it will be fun to see the actors attempt that.”

“Yeah.” Hana nodded with a smile. “Plus, Bertrand I remember you being there that night, so you’ll finally see your character in action!”

“Thank you for reminding me, Lady Hana.” Bertrand smirked. “I do seem to remember having a lot of fun that night.”

“How about you let me hold Maxine for this one?” She offered. “Then the two of you can sit upfront next to Maxwell.”

Bertrand was less enthusiastic about being in close proximity to Barthelemy again, but he did want a good view of the Beaumont Bash. You were also not happy about being near him again, your urge to call him out on his behavior was still strong. However, you let Hana take Maxine and float off to the back row of chairs. You sat next to Maxwell who was taking to his father about what a fantastic success the Beaumont Bash had been that year. Bertrand sat on your other side and quietly commented what a good job the set designers had done.

“It almost feels like home.” He whispered to you.

You agreed that the set was yet another remarkable recreation, this time of the Ramsford Estate. As the filming begins the actors playing you and Maxwell were positioned at the top of the staircase. When the director called “Action!” Your character welcomed everyone to the Beaumont Bash. While the Maxwell character leapt up onto the banister. He shouted his own line of welcome before effortlessly sliding down the bannister and uncorking a bottle of champagne with a sword. It seemed more dramatic and coordinated than anything the real Maxwell could do, but that was the magic of the movies.

As champagne spilled from the bottle in the Maxwell character’s hands, horses were led onto the set with acrobats riding atop them. Some background music began to play and extras dressed as waiters and servants walked the set with trays of drinks and Hors d'oeuvres. The cameras gather footage of all the actors mingling and partying before a door onset opens. A new actor you haven’t met yet steps into frame with a scowl on his face.

“Did I miss the sabering of the champagne?” The actor sighed. “Not for the third year in a row.” The actor looked dramatically into a nearby camera as it wheeled in for a close-up. “If only my dukely duties didn’t keep me so indisposed. I hardly have time for anyone or anything of late.”

It didn’t register with you at first, but this actor was meant to be portraying Bertrand. He wasn’t by any means a bad actor, but they way he’d been written was awful. This version of Bertrand almost felt like he’d been written as a parody, a joke.  You wanted answers from Maxwell and you wanted to comfort Bertrand, but you couldn’t take your eyes off the set when the Bertrand character uttered his next line.

“I wish I could be as fun and carefree as my wonderful younger brother, Maxwell.” The camera held on the Bertrand character moping for a few more seconds before the director ended the scene. He ordered everyone to take their lunch, promising they would return to the scene again after the break. While the actors and crew dispersed around you, it seemed the real Bertrand couldn’t hold his tongue any longer.

“Maxwell is that really how you see me?” He asked his brother looking genuinely hurt. “As some sort of fun deprived sad sack?”  

“What?” Maxwell looked shocked, as if he hadn’t predicted this reaction from him at all. “It’s just…you weren’t there for some things. Liam’s bachelor party, a lot of [Y/N]’s debut, a lot of Bartie’s first…”

“Is this meant to be comforting?” Bertrand huffed.

“Yeah.” Maxwell struggled. “I mean you had House Beaumont stuff to do. I get it. And I’m sure Bartie and Savanah get it.” That was when you decided to step in.

“Maxwell, I don’t think you’re being fair to Bertrand.” You told him. “He didn’t willingly miss any part of Bartie’s life. In fact you and Savanah decided on your own to keep Bartie a secret for so long so it’s hardly fair to throw that back in his face now.”

“I wasn’t trying too…” Maxwell started to say but he could tell that you weren’t finished.

“I’ve been trying to keep quiet today because I wanted to make sure that today was about you, but you made sure of that on your own.” You said. “Not including your brother in events that he wasn’t there is fine. What’s not fine is rewriting everyone else’s lives to make yourself out to be the hero in every single situation. Drake didn’t run across a ballroom to take a bullet for you so that you looked like some big action star. He jumped in front of gun for me because he happened to be the closest person and I was in real danger. Bertrand didn’t mope around and complain through the entire Beaumont Bash either! I remember him laughing and having fun with us.”

“Now, [Y/N] I think…” Barthelemy tried to jump in.

“I think I wasn’t talking to you.” You huffed, not looking away from Maxwell. “Maxwell, your brother has always supported you. Think of all the times he thought you’d wasted family money on things like Jet skis. Lesser people might had kicked you out or cut you off, but Bertrand never did that. Instead he worked harder to manage the house. He sacrificed so many things for himself to keep you happy and to keep House Beaumont in good standing. He has stood by every questionable decision you’ve made since I’ve known you. He stood by you when you told him you brough back a New York waitress as the hopeful future queen. He stood by you when you then told him that you fell in love with said waitress and she was no longer going to marry the King.” You breathed out and sucked in another deep breath. You hadn’t expected so many words to come flowing out of your mouth.

“And lastly, I love you Maxwell. I love that you’re a carefree, optimistic, lovable guy. You don’t need to invent some other version of you where you’re a suave action hero just to impress people. The people closest to you already love you just the way that you are. So I don’t care what you have to do, I’ll pay for the re-writes myself if I have to, but you fix this script so that we all get to see the Maxwell and Bertrand Beaumont that we know and love. Because the rest of the world deserves to see who you really are too.”

“Well, that was certainly some speech, [Y/N]. I had no idea my daughter in law was such a peacemaker.” Barthelemy said. You couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not.

“Maxwell and Bertrand are my family.” You told him, your tone just a hint icy.

“I’m going to check on Hana and Maxine.” Maxwell decided. He placed a gently kiss on your forehead before adding, after that I’m going to talk to the writers and see what we can do about the script. With Maxwell gone Barthelemy mumbled something about joining the others for lunch. You were about to do the same when Bertrand called out to you.

“[Y/N] wait,” You turned back to him. Bertrand’s expression was blank and unreadable. “Thank you, for speaking with Maxwell.”

“Bertrand, I know you don’t need me to defend you.” You added. “But I also know from your courtship with Savanah that sometimes you’re not the best at articulating your feelings. I’ve been boiling about Maxwell’s behavior all day and I was going to wait until we were back in our hotel room to say something but that last scene…it sent me over the edge for some reason. You worked hard and took care of Maxwell most of his life. He should give you more credit.”

“Be that as it may, perhaps it’s time to admit that I have taken on too much between Duchy Ramsford, my family and my duties to the crown.” Bertrand explained.

“Bertrand, I know I didn’t grow up in Cordonia and I don’t know every apple related historical moment,” You smirked. “But I’ve seen quite a bit of recent history and I know that you single handedly pulled House Beaumont and your Duchy from the brink of financial ruin. No other Cordonian is as dedicated to their Kingdom and if anyone can juggle a family and a Duchy it’s you. But it is okay to ask for help sometimes too. Asking for help isn’t admitting defeat. It’s adding in allies to the battle.”

“How could I ever be defeated with the great Duchess [Y/N] Beaumont of Valtoria, formerly New York, as my ally?” Bertrand questioned.

“Exactly.” You smiled.

“For the record, [Y/N], I am eternally pleased that you chose to marry Maxwell.” Bertrand confessed. “While I am glad to have you as an ally on the battlefield, I’m much happier to call you my sister.”

“Right back at you. I meant what I said Bertrand, you’re family and I’m happy to help you in any way I can.” You assured him. “Now I have an important question for you, what is the royal protocol for eating with plastic utensils?”

[kyliwrites]

HELNIK

"I can't believe you don't like Disney movies."

Pairing: Nina x Matthias

Word Count: 2k+

Fluff or Angst?: Fluff

Oneshot?: Yes

Proofread?: No

Unsurprisingly, when Nina suggested a stay-at-home movie night, there was a good deal of discourse about which movies to watch. As usual, everyone had a certain Opinion™ about which Marvel films were trash and which were alright (which dissolved into a debate about Marvel vs. DC; poor Wylan was clueless and shrunk into the sofa when the choruses of “SPIDERMAN!” and “IRON MAN!” grew to a screaming match that became a pillow fight between Inej and Jesper). And most of all, Kaz’s choices were… well, they were a far cry from the general mood Nina had intended to set for the night.

All she’d wanted was a night of peace and relaxation, and maybe to shove everyone else off the sofa to cuddle with Matthias, but no one needed to know that part. The point was, she hadn’t planned on the utter chaos that her friends left in the wake of determining a movie to watch, though she probably should have.

Her entire living room was trashed.

“Did you guys really have to shred my favorite throw pillow?” Nina groaned, flicking a feather off of her sleeve with a pointed glare at Inej. The girl hoarded knives like a madwoman, and Nina had no doubt the mess of stuffing strewn across the navy carpeted floor was her doing.

“I’m sorry,” Inej said, ducking her head sheepishly and looking decidedly unsorry.

“Mmhm, sureeeee you are.” Nina glanced to Jesper, who sat covered in little white wisps of pillow insides. He grimaced and made an attempt at defending his honor, but Wylan spoke first.

“He deserved it. He threw one first,” he said, sounding unbothered by the catastrophe that had befallen Nina's apartment. He smirked at his boyfriend from where he’d curled up a safe distance away from the rough-housing. Kaz, leaning against the wall, raised his brows in dry, contented amusement.

“What!?” Jesper placed a hand on his heart, mock offended. “You wound me, merchling. Aren’t you supposed to jump to my defense? Go on, love, yell, 'He’s not to blame!’”

Satisfaction danced across Inej’s face as she slid off of the sofa and dusted feathers off of her leggings. “You’re the one who insulted Spiderman. You got only what you asked for.”

Matthias huffed out a breathy laugh and strode forward to wrap his arms around Nina. He placed a kiss to the top of her head. “Regardless. I’m sure we can all agree that the best superhero of all time is Thor.”

There had been a time when he would have recoiled at the very thought of such public displays of affection, back when he’d just immigrated to New York, but now it was their trademark. Where Nina and Matthias were, little whispers and giggles followed - bets on when they’d forego common decency and, point blank, start making out.

It never happened - well… not often, anyway. There was that one time when two of her managers had walked in on a somewhat passionate kissing session in the back of the restaurant Nina worked part-time at, but that was a story for another day (and a miracle that she wasn’t fired then and there). She didn’t like to think of Zoya’s disappointed face or Genya’s broad smirk at the moment… regardless of the fact that Zoya’s disappointed face was Zoya’s regular face and Genya always smirked.

Nina leaned back into Matthias’s embrace and smiled up at him with an, “In your dreams, Thunder Thighs” and a grin.

Amused exasperation replaced the sweet smile that had been on his face moments prior. “You’re all uncultured swine. Thor is the best superhero, and that’s that. You can’t change my mind.”

Jesper arched a brow. “That sounds vaguely like an invitation to change your mind. Ever heard of—” Inej smacked him with a pillow.

“You can’t seriously intend to argue yourself into another pillow fight, Jes,” Wylan retorted. He shifted away from Matthias, Inej, and Jesper, ever the pacifist.

Actually, that was a lie. He had once shoved Kuwei Yul-Bo into a garbage can on Broadway Street when he asked Jesper on a date—coincidentally, it was while Wylan and Jesper were on the way to see Kinky Boots. On a date.

Wylan was by no means a pacifist—it was more that he was currently done with everyone's shit

Nina sighed, knowing she was going to have to break apart World War III on her own. Kaz was watching them with narrow eyes, humor evident in his wry smile, and Matthias, Inej, and Jesper seemed ready to face off like it was a three-way nineteenth century Russian duel.

“Okay, guys, stop. No superhero is the best—”

All three offenders opened their mouths to object.

“—let’s stop arguing about Marvel and DC and… watch a Disney movie?”

Jesper and Inej closed their mouths, and after a moment, they nodded in reluctant agreement. Wylan beamed, and Kaz merely shrugged. He had a sadistic streak when it came to Disney—cracking jokes when Bambi’s mother died, pointing out continuity errors, essentially ruining their childhoods—the like. Nina had suspected he loved witnessing their discomfort from the moment he had the audacity to laugh at the scene in Pocahontas when John Smith was shot and say, “They died of STDs. Fucking idiots.”

But Matthias had never watched a Disney movie with them before - he was the only ‘yes’ left before they could get on with picking which movie (another battle to be waged later).

When Nina turned to gauge his reaction, a look of pure disgust and confusion was etched on his face. Disbelief sprouted across her own.

“Matthias… don’t tell me. You’ve never seen a Disney movie? What kind of household did you grow upon?”

He frowned. “We didn’t have Disney movies. My family does not support the company.” Nina caught her friends' gazes as they all rolled their eyes simultaneously.

“Let me guess, you were put to work the second you could lift your refrigerator at the tender age or six months,” Jesper drawled, leaning back on the sofa.

“I could not lift my fridge at the tender age of six.”

“Ohh, right. Your parents never taught you what a joke is. You have my sincere apologies, Thunder Thighs."

“Matthias,” Matthias corrected, but before this debate could get out of hand, Nina flung her arms out and shouted, “Well, this has been great and all, but is anyone concerned that Matthias has never, not once, seen a Disney movie?”

“No offense, but it’s not exactly on my bucket list, love.” Matthias brushed a strand of copper hair out of her eyes.

“Well, now it is on my bucket list to get you to watch a Disney movie. Oh, I’ve got it! Hercules. Since you’re the classics major.”

No one offered any objections, aside from an attempt from Matthias that was quickly silenced by a kiss on the lips from Nina that left him red-faced and speechless.

And thus, five minutes later, the lights had been flicked off and all (most) of the couples were not-so-discreetly cuddling. Inej and Kaz were… sort of sitting together underneath a hand-woven blanket, but that was as close as it got with those two. Nina counted it as a silent victory.

Wylan and Jesper were literally just spooning, and Nina’s head was in Matthias’s lap as the sounds of sweet mythological-themed jazz filled her ears. Bless these powerful African-American ladies for their roles as the Muses.

The peace didn’t last, of course, because their group was undeniably the most dysfunctional gang ever to exist.

"Hercules? You mean Hunkules!”

“That was the worst joke I have ever heard,” Matthias growled, making a face.

“Shhh, you oaf, you have to listen to the story.” Nina swatted his chin affectionately.

“I don’t want to listen to the story,” he insisted, rubbing at his stubble where he’d been Swatted. “I know it already. I’m majoring in classics.”

“Sh! Save it for later.”

He obeyed with an uneffected roll of his eyes.

She was surprised he’d managed to keep his biting remarks to himself throughout the introduction, but it wasn’t too much of a shocker when he started at Hades’s appearance on screen.

“That is not Hades. Tell me that’s not supposed to be Hades.”

“It’s supposed to be Hades.”

“That is wrong!”

“It’s a kids’ movie and he’s the villain, of course he looks wrong. Now shut up and watch it.”

Matthias let out a beleaguered sigh and cast his gaze back toward the television screen.

Most of the movie progressed uneventfully from that point onward, but during the ending, Matthias sucked in a breath and Nina just knew he was going to rant about the inaccuracy of a children’s movie and Greek myths for a solid twelve and a half minutes.

“First of all, why was Hades portrayed so *horrendously?*”

“You laughed at his jokes.”

“I laughed because they were stupid. But why was he so- so-”

“Gay?” Nina suggested with a wriggle of her brows.

Matthias’s neck was red with the determination of a man who was not going to back down from a fight. “Yes? Well…” He considered it for a moment. “No, that part was actually spot-on. All of the Greek deities were tragically bisexual—”

“Can I get a pin that says that? ‘Tragically bisexual?’” Jesper laughed.

“Make it yourself,” Matthias retorted and returned to his rant. If Nina was being honest, she tuned him out after the words, “scrawny golden white boy" were uttered, opting instead to watch his entire face move with his mouth.

It was addicting, seeing his eyes alight with passion and flare. He seemed so relentless, so full of emotion that he was bursting at the seams with it, and it was a relaxing change to what Nina was accustomed to seeing… the frigid, daunting mask of stoicism he wore around everyone else. It was why she’d fallen in love with him in the first place. He was strong, well-mannered, but most of all, he had conviction in his beliefs, a fire behind his ice that melted it into water—even if he hadn't always clung to the... correct... beliefs. He hadn't always been so open-minded.

She liked to believe that she'd somehow changed him, that the goodness in his heart had been stirred into awakening by her hand. That she'd made him a better man. That she'd taught him to love her as an equal. She liked to imagine that one day they might return to his family and spread what he'd learned. The Helvars were good people deep down, but uneducated in the ways that mattered—in the emotions and hardships of those less fortunate than them. They had prejudices of their own that Nina dreamed of helping them overcome... and some people had prejudices against them she wished to eliminate. Maybe these were the foolish ramblings of an optimist, but she had her hopes, and if they worked together they might overcome the biases of the world.

Nina cursed herself. Oh, this heart of hers. She was getting sappy in the midst of an argument about Disney.

“For God’s sake, Matthias,” Jesper was saying when she finally tuned back in, as exasperated as ever. “It’s Disney.”

“That’s precisely the problem." Matthias’s eyebrows were knit together. "Children are being educated wrong! All of them will grow up having learned the myth incorrectly. Do you know how difficult it is to relearn a topic after years of—"

Jesper cut in with an, "Okay, I can’t sit here and listen to this anymore. I’m leaving.” Wylan made a noise of protest, clearly unwilling to be deprived of the warmth of his boyfriend’s arms, but Jesper tugged the blanket away and started to rise.

Nina, chuckling fondly, gestured to the door. “Then get out of our apartment. I’ve got classes and work tomorrow, and I’m not staying up any later than this. Besides, Matthias needs his beauty sleep.”

“Alright, alright,” Jesper grumbled, slinging an arm around Wylan as they took their leave.

Matthias poked her chest with an affectionate glare. “My beauty sleep? Isn’t that what you need?”

“No, because I”—she prodded him right back—”am already stunning, thank you very much.”

Matthias’s teasing expression fell, and was replaced with something kinder, softer. “I know. You, Nina Zenik, are the most stunning, gorgeous, beautiful—ridiculously beautiful, might I add—”

Nina grew flustered.

"Obviously," she said, though her cheeks were pink, and she pushed him gently.

Matthias was undeterred. He was gazing at her with depthless tenderness. “—most amazing, talented”—at this, Nina snorted—”woman I know.”

An awkward clearing of the throat interrupted Nina before she could even reply to that.

Kaz. Oh shit, she thought.

“Oh shit," she said.

“If you could take that elsewhere, that would be just stellar,” Kaz whispered.

“No, why don’t you leave my house? And why are you whisper—oh.”

Inej had lain her head on Kaz’s shoulder and was out like a light.

“Yes, oh.” Kaz scowled, shooing them away. “I don’t intend to move, because this one sleeps about as often as I do. Now go cuddle elsewhere.”

“Kicking me out of my own living room? Brekker, you’re a riot.”

“Fuck off, Zenik.”

Nina snickered and Matthias whisked her away with a firm glare at Kaz. He practically carried her towards their bedroom, ignoring her giggles and protests, and kissed her sweetly before drawing the covers over her shoulders.

“So how did you really feel about the Disney movie?” She asked when they were both comfortably snuggled beneath the comforter.

Matthias groaned. “It’s midnight, Nina.”

“Answers, Helvar. I demand them.”

There was a pregnant stretch of silence, and just when Nina was sure he wasn’t going to answer, he said, “...It was inaccurate and a mistake was made by ever producing it, but… it was alright.”

She let out a whoop of victory at which Matthias rolled his eyes and turned on his side.

“I win!” Nina cawed, drawing him back towards her. “Ha!”

“Oh, lovely. You’ll be insufferable now.”

“You love me, though.” Nina kissed the back of his head, content to breathe in the scent of him as she buried her nose in the crook of his neck.

“That I do. I most definitely do.”

“Good,” she murmured. “Because I love you, too.”

[sevensstories]

I Thought I Knew You Chapter 2: Contraband

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel Characters: Angel Dust, Alastor, Charlie, Vaggie, Husker, Niffty, Cherri Bomb, Fat Nuggetz Ships: Radiodust slowburn Updates: Maybe every Thursday depending on my schedule Warnings: Alcohol mention, drug mention, mature content, mature language

Chapter 1: House Arrest Chapter 2: Contraband You Are Here Chapter 3: Day 1 Chapter 4: Day 2

Read it on AO3, or just read under the cut!

Alastor was a sadist.

That was something he could never deny. One of his favorite pastimes here in hell was watching lesser demons struggle through their miserable lives. Truth be told, that was one of the only reasons he signed up for the hotel in the first place. So he could entertain himself with the sight of Hell’s lowliest continuously trying to better themselves, only to fail miserably and fall into the pits of despair time and time again. It was quality entertainment at it’s finest.

However, when the tables were turned, that was an entirely different story. He did not appreciate feelings of fear or discomfort, and nothing made his ever-present smile falter more than the thought of himself displaying such weakness to another demon. Luckily for him, he was terrifying enough that anyone testing him was an extremely rare occurrence. Unless, of course, that anyone was a harlot named Angel Dust. 

Alastor had to admit, part of him was impressed by Angel Dust’s lack of preservation instinct. Most demons took one glance at him and turned tail. Angel Dust, on the other hand, had offered to suck his… well. What exactly he had offered was not of importance. What was important was that looking him dead (haha, dead) in the eyes and suggesting such services took either incredible courage or stupidity. From what he knew about Angel Dust, he would have to assume it was the latter. Regardless of the cause, the end result was the same. Angel Dust flustered Alastor, and Alastor hated it . So, when the opportunity arose to make Angel Dust squirm, Alastor jumped at the chance to return the favor.

Posing as Angel Dust’s warden should, if nothing else, prove to be an interesting way to pass the time. He was sure to catch the other demon doing something he shouldn’t, and he would delight in the opportunity to spoil whatever contraband fun he could. Angel Dust had pushed him too far for too long,  now it was Alastor’s pleasure to return the favor.

Speaking of his new duties, he did believe now was the prime opportunity for what would soon become a routine room search.  Charlie had given Angel Dust the afternoon as one last sweet taste of freedom (Supervised, of course, and at Alastor’s suggestion. Nothing was crueler than showing him exactly what he would be missing for the next month), so his room would be uninhabited for the next couple of hours. This was the perfect time for Alastor to get better acquainted with Angel Dust’s room and all of its potential hiding places. 

Humming a gentle tune, Alastor made his way to the room in question. He only hesitated for a moment before opening the door. He would be lying if he said part of him wasn’t troubled with what he would potentially find. Alastor had no doubt Angel Dust had a hidden stash of alcohol and his beloved drugs, but that wasn’t what concerned him. There was one thing Alastor was sure Angel Dust had to have hidden away and, as much as Alastor would much rather ignore it, he couldn’t very well let him go on keeping it. Confiscating his, ahem, toys , would hit far harder than any missing substances. Although Alastor would never go on looking for such things of his own accord, watching Angel Dust agonize over their loss would be more than worth it.

He glanced around, taking in the room around him. He had never come here before, and he wrinkled his nose a bit when he was reminded why. It was very pink , the color making up the majority of the decor with both black and white accents. The bed was in the shape of a heart, because of course it was, with silk sheets and incredibly plush, fluffy pillows. A soft, light pink rug rested near the foot of the bed, large enough to cover the center of the room. A television was pressed back onto the far wall, along with a small dresser. A bookcase sat near the bed along with a nightstand with a small, pink lamp. The dimmed lights of the room set a suggestive tone that made Alastor scoff, and the entirety of the place smelled very much like the night clubs he so adamantly refused to set foot in. Overall, Alastor could safely say it was exactly what he had been expecting, save for two small details. The tidiness of the room and the fact that the bookcase was definitely not empty, and he had a hard time believing Angel Dust actually read . He ventured closer, peering at the titles out of curiosity. What was it that the other demon enjoyed from the literary arts?

Oh.

Alastor’s smile faltered for just a moment before he turned away. Those were not, in fact, books, but rather his very extensive collection of his own… films . He vaguely remembered Charlie mentioning letting him keep them, as they were something he made rather than indulged in, and of course he would keep them front and center. How tacky. 

Doing his best to put the films out of his mind, he continued to explore the small room. Now, if he were a certain sex-obsessed demon, where would he keep his stash? There were no obvious hiding places, not unless Angel Dust was simple enough to hide things under his bed.

...Alastor decided to check under the bed. 

He bent down and pulled up the bed skirt, mentally preparing himself for anything he may find. He was surprised to find absolutely nothing.

“Hm. Maybe not so simple after all.” He let the skirt fall before he straightened up, glancing around the rest of the room. Where else to check? He peeked in the drawers of the dresser next, pleasantly surprised with what he found. Although there were a few more risque lingerie items, the majority of the casual wear looked to be more for comfort and less for style. Oversized, soft sweaters, loose shorts, clothing he never would have thought Angel Dust found appealing. He peeked under the clothes and felt around the drawers, checking for hidden items and false bottoms. Surprisingly enough, he found nothing. Alastor pursed his lips as he scanned the rest of the room, arms tucked behind his back as he took slow steps around the perimeter. If he were Angel Dust, where would he-- 

A soft creak underneath his foot caught his attention. That was odd, the floorboards of the hotel rarely made a sound. He looked down, brows furrowed. The floor had creaked from under the rug. The perfect cover for if someone had wrenched up one of the floorboards and wanted to hide it. His grin widened as he knelt and shoved the rug aside, quickly spotting the one board that was up slightly higher than the rest. Pulling it back took little to no effort on his part, and he was greeted by the sight of a rather extensive stash of bottles of liquor and several bags of white powder.

“There we go!” His giddy tone betrayed his delight. “Now, I knew you were struggling, dear Angel Dust, but my my if you don’t keep enough to truly indulge .”

He wasted no time emptying the crevice, making sure nothing remained before he put everything else back the way he found it. There, that was one less thing Angel Dust could abuse during his house arrest. Although, Alastor couldn’t help but notice that there was something missing. Angel Dust specialized in one thing, and Alastor was well aware that he had an assortment of tools. He had mentioned his fondness for them on a number of occasions, much to Alastor’s disgust. If he hadn’t put all of his contraband in one place, where else could he have possibly hid them?

Alastor had to admit, Angel Dust was more clever than he had expected.

He spent the next few minutes searching the rest of the room, looking everywhere from behind the television to the insides of the bed posts. When his search proved fruitless, he was left frustrated and at a loss. Alastor knew Angel Dust had ties with the mafia during his former life, and that that meant he probably was no stranger to finding wonderful hiding places, but this was absolutely ridiculous. Angel Dust was definitely not one of the craftier demons in hell, and Alastor would be damned if he was outsmarted by a drug addicted, sex obsessed harlot.

He scanned the room one last time with a sigh. He had searched everything . Maybe he had been mistaken in his assumption. Maybe Angel Dust hadn’t managed to keep his beloved “toys”. Maybe the only thing he had kept from his former life as a pornography star was the collection of films that lined his bookcase.

Alastor’s eyes widened. The bookcase . He had been so eager to avoid it that he hadn’t bothered to examine it for possible hiding places. He hesitated for only a moment before he dared venture over, inspecting the thing far closer than he ever would have liked. Nothing out of the ordinary on the surface, just rows of films that Alastor would much rather had not been there. He considered a moment before he pulled them off the shelf one by one, opening the case and inspecting it before closing it and putting it back in its place. Well, he certainly wasn’t hiding anything inside of the cases, which meant Alastor had exposed himself to those graphic covers for nothing. There were parts of Angel Dust he would have been happy living the entirety of his afterlife without seeing, and he would really have rathered it had stayed that way. Oh well.

He leaned to look at the back of the bookcase, eyes running over it to spot and irregularities. He was highly disappointed to find none. It was clearly an ordinary bookcase, much to his disappointment. He supposed confiscating the drugs would have to do. He gave the bookcase one last glance over before heading out, but something made him stop. The bookcase was fairly wide from front to back, that much was clear from examining the sides.Then why, pray tell, were the shelves so shallow? There was hardly room for even the films to fit, the disc cases pushed nearly to the very front edge. He paused before stepping closer to the shelf, bringing up a hesitant hand to knock on the back wall. He was rewarded with a soft, hollow sound.

Alastor’s grin widened with the discovery, his eyes glinting deviously. He had to admit, a false back was crafty, more clever than anything he would have expected Angel Dust to come up with. Once he cleared the shelves of films, he was able to see just how seamless the set-up was. Nearly flawless, save for the back of the shelf not lining up with the back of the case. Really, it was brilliant, but not brilliant enough. He removed the false back, revealing rows of instruments that could only have one purpose. Alastor sighed and materialized a bag into his hand. Although he would rather not touch any of these, especially while knowing where exactly they had been, it would be more than worth it when Angel Dust found them all missing. 

Alastor just hoped that he was around to hear his cries of anguish at the discovery.

-xxx-

Angel Dust made his way back to his room, Fat Nuggetz cradled in his arms. If this was going to be the last time he was going outside for a while, it was only fair that his pet got to go too. He doubted anyone would be willing to walk them, and they needed the not-so-fresh air as much as he did. He stepped into his room and sat Nuggetz down with a sigh. “Alright, Nugz, guess this starts now…”

Angel Dust stopped and tensed. Something was wrong. 

He scanned the room, looking for anything that may have caught his attention. Was it just him, or was the rug just slightly off? His eyes widened. Oh, oh no, not the rug. Angel Dust didn’t hesitate to kneel and rip the rug up, eyes darting to the floor board he had pried up when he first moved in. It came up easier than usual and he was greeted with the sight of an empty cavity. He sat there in shock for a moment before he felt rage begin to bubble up in his stomach. Vaggie and Charlie had both been out with him, so this left only one culprit.

“My drugs! That son of a bitch!” He snarled, gripping the floorboard tight enough to crack it. “Nuggetz, I swear to fuck, when I find that dial-eyed bastard I’m gonna rip him to pieces!” 

Of course, when Angel Dust took a moment to consider, it was very clear that there was nothing he could do to Alastor for this. Even if Alastor wasn’t powerful enough to make challenging him impossible, there was no way to confront him without admitting he had the stash in the first place. It was the perfect crime, and it really pissed Angel Dust off. He took a deep breath to calm himself so he could think. Okay, so Alastor had taken his drugs and alcohol, and withdrawal was probably going to be a bitch. But at least there was one thing he hadn’t found. His eyes wandered over to his bookcase, his personal collection perfectly in place. Just as he had left it.

“At least I get to keep somethin’ ,” he murmured to himself as he stood and walked over to the shelves. With practiced hands he took out the false back, not even disturbing the DVD cases that rested in front of it. However, his smile was quick to fade when he discovered that this too was empty. “No, no no no no no , how?!” He ripped off the backs of the other shelves, desperate to find something that remained. He threw the boards down on the floor with a cry when his search proved fruitless.

“ALASTOR, YOU MOTHERFUCKER, I’LL KILL YOU!”

-xxx-

“ALASTOR, YOU MOTHERFUCKER, I’LL KILL YOU!”

Alastor glanced up from his book as Angel Dust’s voice echoed through the empty hotel hallways, a satisfied smile playing on his lips. Ah yes, there were the cries he had been waiting for.

[angelofberlin2000]

by Natalie Finn | Fri., May. 17, 2019 3:00 AM

When Keanu Reeves was asked the other night, "What do you think happens when we die?" interviewer Stephen Colbert probably wasn't expecting such a deep—or assured—answer from the movie star.

"I know that the ones that love us will miss us," the 54-year-old actor said sagely, rendering the Late Show host��unusually speechless.

It was a sincere, thoughtful response—vintage Reeves, really—from someone who's had reason to think about such things.

"I haven't really thought about my career future, or what was going to happen, until really recently," he also told GQ in February. Asked why he started thinking about it, he replied, "Death!"

Watch https://www.eonline.com/videos/289305/how-keanu-reeves-training-for-john-wick-3-compares-to-the-matrix

How Keanu Reeves' Training for John Wick 3 Compares to The Matrix

The still eerily youthful-looking Reeves, who's back in theaters Friday in the third installment of the blockbuster John Wick franchise, has become a brand unto himself, the name "Keanu" signifying not just movie stardom but also a certain kind of performance and even a state of mind: chill, zen, blissfully checked out ("Sad Keanu" meme notwithstanding). His name—which has lent itself to a comedy about a cat and a recent hit song by Logic, and which of course a studio exec wanted him to change when he first came to Hollywood—does mean "cool breeze over the mountains" in Hawaiian, after all.

But still waters run deep, and despite being in the public eye for more than 30 years, he's one of the least-known people whose chiseled face you would recognize anywhere. Few play it as close to the vest as Reeves, who, though he does the occasional interview and shows up to fulfill his side of the bargain in promoting his films, does not talk about his personal life. And not in the way that most celebrities don't really talk about their personal lives.

As in, it's entirely unclear if he even has one, although—look at him—he must.

"I came to Hollywood to be in movies," Reeves told Parade recently. "I feel really grateful that I've had that opportunity, but I'm just a private person, and it's nice that can still exist."

He doesn't even publicize his charity work, but his causes include children's hospitals, fighting cancer, the arts and the environment. 

"I always find it surreal that complete strangers come up and ask me personal questions," he told Parade back in 2008. "I don't mind speaking about work, but when the talk turns to 'Who are you?' and 'What do you do off-screen?' I'm like, 'Get out of here.' I've been in situations where people have felt they had a relationship with me or something and I didn't even know who they were."

Not that Reeves is an anti-star. He lives in the hills above West Hollywood, spent plenty of time enjoying the local nightlife in his youth and has starred in countless quotable action movies—and gets paid handsomely for them, enough so that he can take off and do passion projects like his first (and only, to date) directorial effort, 2013's The Man of Tai Chi, or show up unheralded on a Swedish sitcom (Swedish Dicks, now on Pop) or in any indie film he so desires, like the recent Destination Wedding, an acerbic comedy that reteamed him with Bram Stoker's Dracula co-star Winona Ryder.

He's perfectly congenial yet usually looks somewhat serious, but not because he's taking himself seriously—more as if he wants to answer even the most lighthearted of questions with respectful gravity. But hey, as Stephen Colbert just found out, if you ask Reeves a potentially loaded question, prepare to get an answer.

Asked by Parade in 2008 if he believed in aliens, because he was playing the alien Klaatu in a remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, he replied, "Some days I do. Some days I don't. There's so much unexplained and unexplainable phenomena that's presented to us. But beyond that, the cosmos is so vast. We can't be the only sentient entity. It might not look like us, but it's going to be out there."

His signature Keanu cadence used to be mistaken for a sign of vacuity, but Reeves attributed however he came off in interviews to his overall discomfort with talking about himself.

"I've never played stupid to keep someone distant," he told Vanity Fair in 1995. "I don't play stupid. Either it's been a failure on my part to articulate, or my naivete, or ingenuousness, or sometimes it's the nature of the form... And you know, I find myself more able to give an explanation of a project five years later than in the middle of it. It's so present-tense! I can tell you how I feel, but its context is harder to explain... Sometimes when I'm interviewed I'm not ready to do that. So you say...'excellent!' And you know what, man? It's OK."

It certainly was.

Ted Theodore Logan, Johnny Utah, Jack Travern, Neo, John Wick: all characters that had to be played by Reeves. He's done everything from Shakespeare to sports flicks to A Scanner Darkly, and soon you'll be hearing his voice as Duke Caboom, a motorcycle-riding stuntman with a wistful backstory, in Toy Story 4, which will probably sneak in to top The Matrix Reloaded, which made $742 million worldwide, as his single highest-grossing movie.

"So I made Duke a little more gravelly but still tried to give him energy and a big personality," Reeves shared with Entertainment Weekly in March. "I just thought that Duke should love what he does. He's the greatest stuntman in Canada! I wanted him to be constantly doing poses on the bike while he was talking, to have this great extroverted passion."

He turned down Speed 2 to play Hamlet onstage in Canada. He was one of the first big stars who memorably jammed on the side with his own band, Dogstar, in the '90s and now he co-owns a custom bike shop called ARCH Motorcycle in Hawthorne, Calif, because he loves motorcycles as much as you think he does.

"Riding can be a place to think and feel. It's a way to work things out," he recently told Parade, noting that inclement weather doesn't stop him. "I like riding in the rain. It's a little more sketchy." He rides mainly alone, but he and the ARCH crew cruise Pacific Coast Highway on Sunday mornings.

And if motorcycles provide one soul-soothing salve for Reeves, acting provides another.

"In acting, you're constantly discovering new feelings and thoughts and exposing yourself to them," he told Parade in 2008. "I guess it could be considered psycho-therapy. All I know is that, as an actor, I can tell you a story that you'll listen to. Maybe it won't just entertain you, it might also teach you something. I think film has the power to change your life if you want to let it.

Combine his real-life inscrutability with his is-it-genius-or-does-he-just-do-the-same-thing-every-time approach to acting, and he's become more myth than man—and that, too, is a huge part of his appeal. He's just so Keanu.

"I don't own a computer and I don't e-mail," he said in the 2008 

Parade

interview. "I'm fascinated by people who freak out when they don't get an instant response to an e-mail. It's like they expect as soon as they send an email to get the answer back and if they don't it's like awful. I just hope people won't totally lose the ability to write letters because it's a good way to communicate."

He preferred typewriters, Reeves said—and we can only hope he and Toy Story star Tom Hanks had a chance to talk about typewriters together.

"I only have good things to say about him," Swedish Dicks star Peter Stormare, who met Reeves doing Constantine in 2005, which led to the actor's role on his show, told GQ. "Once a year, we'll have a beer together and talk about life and things. He's very private. He leads his life the way he wants to lead it. And I guess it can be lonely sometimes. But I think he's just like me. There's a comfort in being alone sometimes, especially when you're working on something."

"We bonded over motorcycles, bass guitar, and Harold Pinter," Alex Winter, the Bill to his Ted, also told the magazine. "Reeves had a really good book collection."

Reeves was born in Beirut, to a Hawaiian father and English mother, but they divorced when he was about 2. Mom Patricia remarried in the US., but after that didn't work out she settled with a 7-year-old Keanu and his younger sister, Kim, who was born in Australia, in Toronto. Reeves reportedly hasn't spoken to his dad since he was 13. 

"We were latchkey kids," he told Esquire in 2017. "It was basically 'leave the house in the morning and come back at night'. It was cool." But, he told Parade, "Even for a runaway English girl, my mother gave us a proper upbringing. We learned manners, respect for our elders, formal table settings. I also learned a nonprejudicial, nonjudgmental acceptance of other people."

His favorite part of school was doing plays and studying Shakespeare in English class, so he dropped out at 17 to try his hand at acting.

"My attendance record was very bad. I was lazy," Reeves told Vanity Fair. "I knew I wanted to act when I was halfway through grade 11, I guess, and school wasn't important."

His first acting job came on the Canadian series Hangin' In in 1984. Then he moved to Los Angeles and made his big-screen debut in the Rob Lowe-starring drama Youngblood in 1986. Later that year he won his first major role in the gritty teen crime drama River's Edge, which went on to win Best Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards.

So it was off to the races for Reeves, who in the next five years made a wildly diverse array of movies, including the very-'80s comedy The Night Before, Dangerous Liaisons, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (and its sequel, Bogus Journey), Parenthood, Point Break and My Own Private Idaho.

He was very much living the fast Hollywood life, and it wasn't all charmed.

In 1993, River Phoenix died of an accidental drug overdose—another painful thing Reeves didn't want to talk about, but he spoke fondly of his friend and My Own Private Idaho co-star.

"I enjoyed his company. Very much," Reeves told Rolling Stone in 2000. "And enjoyed his mind and his spirit and his soul. We brought good out in each other. He was a real original thinker. He was not the status quo. In anything."

As for Phoenix's death, "It's something he thinks about all the time, something he never really talks about," a friend told People. "Friends know not to go there with him."

In 1994 his estranged father, Samuel, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for drug possession in Hawaii, but was released in two. "Jesus, man. No, the story with me and my dad's pretty heavy. It's full of pain and woe and fucking loss and all that s--t," he told RS around that time. In 1995, he told Vanity Fair, when asked why he didn't want to know more about his dad's case, "Why would I want to find out what I didn't know?" He called the situation "pretty incredible," and that was that.

Reeves has a massive scar on his abdomen from when he suffered a rupture spleen in a motorcycle crash while riding in L.A.'s Topanga Canyon in 1988. He went into a hairpin turn going about 50 mph.

"I call that a demon ride," he reflected to Rolling Stone. "That's when things are going badly. But there's other times when you go fast, or too fast, out of exhilaration...I remember saying in my head, 'I'm going to die.'"

"I remember calling out for help," he continued. "And someone answering out of the darkness, and then the flashing lights of an ambulance coming down. This was after a truck ran over my helmet. I took it off because I couldn't breathe, and a truck came down. I got out of the way, and it ran over my helmet."

Also while his star was on the rise, his sister Kim battled cancer for years starting in the late '80s. "He helped me through," she told Vanity Fair about her brother. "When the pain got bad, he used to hold my hand and keep the bad man from making me dance. He was there all the time, even when he was away."

Actor and Dogstar bandmate Roger Mailhouse told Rolling Stone about Reeves in 2000, "He's a really giving person. He'd give you his last shoe. Really smart, too. He's incredibly booksmart. He's a really interesting person who doesn't talk a lot of s--t."

Asked how his friend had changed over the past decade, i.e. the '90s, Mailhouse said, "I don't worry about him as much. I used to worry about him. Because I think of him as one of my best friends in the world, was he going to crash his motorcycle, or this or that. We did some wild things. I guess it's just growing up. I don't know—maybe it had something to do with River Phoenix, maybe. Losing someone close to him. But now I'm just proud of him. He's getting to do it the right way."

For years you'd be much more likely to see Kim or Patricia on Reeves' arm at a premiere or other big event—such as when he got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005—than any girlfriend, and the actor hasn't been publicly involved with anyone for years.

Not that he hasn't been linked to a bevy of his co-stars, including Sandra Bullock and Charlize Theron, but if he's in a serious relationship, it's not with a celebrity.

On The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2013 he was wearing what anyone would take for a wedding band on his left ring finger, but no revelations ever sprang from that accessory choice.

When Parade asked recently if he remained a bachelor, Reeves replied (squirming a bit, according to the magazine), "Well, I'm not married."

Through the interviews he's given over the years, a theme running through them is the visible discomfort he starts to evince when the conversation veers toward the too-personal. And some topics are just off-limits altogether.

Reeves started dating actress Jennifer Syme after meeting her at a party in 1998 and they were expecting a baby together—but the child, a girl they named Ava, was stillborn at 8 months. They laid her to rest in January 2000, according to People, and broke up weeks later.

Read

Sandra Bullock Almost Starred in The Matrix Instead of Keanu Reeves

They remained close up until Syme, who suffered from severe postpartum depression, died in 2001 when she crashed her Jeep Cherokee into several parked cars on a L.A. street and was thrown from the vehicle. In 2002, her mother, Maria St. John, sued Marilyn Manson, who had thrown a party that Syme attended that night, for wrongful death, alleging he had given Syme  the cocaine that an autopsy found in her system. 

"After Jennifer was sent home safely with a designated driver, she later got behind the wheel of her own car for reasons known only to her," Manson, who knew Syme through filmmaker David Lynch and had worked with her on Lost Highway, said in a statement.

The rocker continued, "This lawsuit, which is completely without merit, will not bring back Jennifer's life. It serves only to reopen the wounds and the pain felt by all who loved Jennifer. It is a pity that St. John sullies her own daughter's reputation by filing this baseless claim."

They reportedly reached a settlement out of court, but Manson maintained he had nothing to do with Syme taking drugs that night. 

Reeves has never spoken publicly about his relationship with Syme, which certainly fits right into how he was before, let alone since. But he grieved. And he eventually had something to say about that.

"I think, after loss, life requires an act of reclaiming," he told Parade in 2006. "You have to reject being overwhelmed. Life has to go on."

The actor continued, "Grief changes shape, but it never ends. People have a misconception that you can deal with it and say, 'It's gone, and I'm better.' They're wrong. When the people you love are gone, you're alone. I miss being a part of their lives and them being part of mine. I wonder what the present would be like if they were here—what we might have done together. I miss all the great things that will never be."

So he knew exactly what he was talking about when he told Colbert, "I know that the ones that love us will miss us."

Calling it "unfair" and "absurd," Reeves told

Parade

, "All you can do is hope that grief will be transformed and, instead of feeling pain and confusion, you will be together again in memory, that there will be solace and pleasure there, not just loss."

"Much of my appreciation of life has come through loss," he concluded. "Life is precious. It's worthwhile."

He said at the time that he would like to have a family, and reiterated the sentiment a couple years later, but Reeves told Esquire in 2017 with regards to "settling down": "I'm too… it's too late. It's over." Asked to clarify, he added, "I'm 52. I'm not going to have any kids."

Famous last words from a litany of 50-something men, and he was reminded of that. Reeves just said, "That's a whole other… But no. I'm glad to still be here."

"I'm every cliché," he continued. "F--king mortality. Ageing. I'm just starting to get better at it. Just the amount of stuff you have to do before you're dead. I'm all of the clichés, and it's embarrassing. It's all of them. It's just, 'Oh my God. OK. Where did the time go? How come things are changing? How much time do I have left? What didn't I do?' I'm trying to think of the line from the sonnet… 'And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er / The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan / Which I new pay as if not paid before.'"

"So, yeah," he added, reportedly with a smile. "I'm that guy."

In turn, Reeves can't help but come off as the solitary figure he so often plays in his films, from Constantine to The Matrix to John Wick. Heck, even Duke Caboom sounds a little melancholy.

At the same time, you're just as likely to see him in a romantic tear-jerker or a quirky comedy as a shoot-em-up. He's played heroes and hustlers, sweethearts and cruel villains, teachers and  slackers, doctors and lawyers.

"For me, it's just continuing to be able to work with great artists and tell stories that people enjoy," Reeves told Parade. "I was always hoping, even when I was young, that I could do different things," he says. "I'm really grateful for that. I'm

Though he had no idea John Wick would be such a hit, Reeves was in top form in the 2014 action extravaganza as a retired hit man who goes on a revenge spree after gangsters kill the beloved dog that was a gift from his late wife.

It made almost $89 million on a reported $20 million budget. Sequel time!

"You hope and you dream but the reality is even sweeter," he told E! News in 2017 about the first film's surprise success when he was promoting John Wick: Chapter 2. "It's great to be involved in a project that has so much affection."

Chapter 2 made $172 million worldwide.

Now back for John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum, Reeves has revealed that he started training heavily about three months before filming began to get back into dynamo shape, and he still goes whole-hog (or horse, in this movie's case) in the action sequences, right up until a car runs into him.

"I'll do some fight scenes and then John Wick will get hit by a car," Reeves explained to Colbert on The Late Show, "and that's Jackson Spidell, who's an amazing stuntman." Spidell has been Reeves' stunt double in all the John Wick movies. "He gets hit by the car, then I'll get up from the car, then I'll do a whole bunch more of, like, gun-fu and whatever, jujitsu, judo—and then, if I get thrown off something, Jackson does his thing."

Even more exciting for some fans, however, depending on whether you like your Keanu dark or more dude-like, is the news that he and Alex Winter are finally set to start shooting Bill & Ted Face the Music, the much-discussed follow-up to 1989's Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and sequel Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, which came out in 1991. The years-in-the-making comedy is tentatively due out in 2020.

And so on his latest press tour, Keanu Reeves left his usual trail of breadcrumbs. They may not lead you straight to his door, but they'll definitely keep you on the path.

[irondadgroupie]

Tony introduced to Disney

Tony does not watch Disney movies, he just didn’t do it. Of course he saw some of them in his childhood but anything released after 1980 he knows nothing of, nothing more than the name and what magazine articles told. Once Peter made a Lion King reference but Tony was totally lost “Hakuna Ma-what now?”

Peter was so shocked his jaw nearly hit the ground.

“You don’t know the Lion King?”

“I know of it, just never seen it.”

“YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN THE LION KING?!?”

So for their frequently unfrequent movie night, Peter brings his childhood DVDs.

“What do you want to start with? Shall we begin with the best” He points to The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast ,”history,” Pocahontas ,” comedy,” Emperor’s New Groove ,”feminism,” Mulan ,” or literature?” Hunchback of Notre Dame.

“What?” Tony sat up straighter and grabbed the case. “When was this made?”

“Um.. like in mid 90s.”

“How the hell did I miss that?”

“You know the story?”

“Had to read it in boarding school,” The man answered while reading the synopsis. “This story is- really fucking dark and gritty. I have no idea how to make a children’s movie out of it.”

“It’s gorgeous,” Peter nodded while putting on the DVD and settling back on the couch with the remoter. “But yeah, bit of a flop.”

The movie started.

“I like the music,” Tony nodded along with the first song. Peter munched on the popcorn. “So, do you want a commentary-”

“On what is different from the book?” Peter shrugged. “Why not, just don’t be a bitch.”

Song continued.

“Frollo was not a judge,” The man pointed out. “He was an archdeacon.”

“Wow, you have excellent memory.”

“Talking to a genius here, kid,” Tony took a gummy worm.

Quasimodo appeared.

“He is- well- alright, I guess that would be grotesque but adorable.”

“That is a compliment coming from you.”

“But he was deaf in the book so-”

“But it’s a children’s movie, they can’t make their main character deaf.”

“Why are not sjw’s demanding this movie be remade so deaf don’t feel left out.”

“Don’t tempt them.”

Frollo appeared and Peter watched Tony for any sign of discomfort. The man looked at him.

“What?”

“It’s just- I know you had a shitty father-bond so-”

“You think this might harm me? No, Pete, I promise, my father was never that bad. It was mainly emotional absence.”

Out there- song.

Tony’s eyes were wide as he looked at the scenery: “Just, wow...”

“I know, I love this song,” Peter grinned and lifted one leg to the couch so his thigh rested against his chest.

“The budget for this must have been insane.”

“So you don’t hate this?” The boy looked at his mentor.

“A-a-ah,” Tony pointed at him. “Not too soon, we have- what, an hour left.”

Esmeralda appeared.

“Wow,” Tony breathed out. “Is it weird to be aroused by a cartoon character?”

“Hey, what do you think anime is for?”

The movie continued.

“So, any major differences?”

“Yeah, Phoebus was a jerk in the book and Esmeralda was much younger. She was looking for her mother.”

“Creative differences, you mean.”

“Exactly.”

The movie continued onto the Feast of Fools.

“It’s a bit jarring this tone change, though,” Tony rubbed his neck. “Like, what is this movie supposed to be?”

“And hey,” He pointed at the screen. “That clown- he is the narrator?”

“He is a jack of all trades.”

Esmeralda’s dance begun and Tony’s eyes nearly bulged out of his skull.

“Holy shit,” He whispered. “That dress- just-”

“She is hot,” Peter admitted. “My first childhood crush.”

“Watched this movie a lot, huh?”

“One of my favorites, I know the script by heart.”

“That’s- that’s pole dancing! She is basically a stripper- no, I cross it, this is like 16th century, she is a prostitute!”

Quasimodo was punished and the tone changed again.

“Oh yeah, so clearly a children’s movie.”

During Esmeralda’s escape from the guards, Tony kept face palming.

“Just basic running away would have sufficed- did the director demand to have all these ridiculous tricks?”

Esmeralda in the church and Frollo finds them.

“At least Phoebus isn’t a complete dumbass in this one.”

“Yeah, he’s a cool guy.”

Frollo grabbed Esmeralda and sniffed her hair.

“What the fuck?” Tony mouthed silently and Peter burst into laughter. 

Esmeralda’s song Tony rated pretty and passable. Her interaction with Quasimodo heartfelt and touching.

“Nice that they have scenes together, builds a bond. In the books, Quasi was a bit- well, he was deaf so interaction was limited.”

Peter grabbed a handful of chips, pleased that his mentor was enjoying himself.

“But yeah, maybe the morals are a bit to your face.”

“Hey, it’s Disney. Ever seen Frozen, that one was a mess?”

“Nope, but I still have heard Let it Go.”

“Oh you poor thing.”

Tony glared at him. 

Then came Hellfire and Tony had to rub his eyes to be certain they were not lying. 

“What the hell am I watching?!”

“One of best Disney villains,” Peter felt the urge to sing with.

“How the hell is this okay in a kid’s film?”

“You know, it’s Disney.”

“Yes, but still. This lusting for a woman, racial prejudice, how can you explain this to kids?”

“They grow up to it. By the way, was Frollo in love with Esmeralda-”

“Yes, he was but it was not this pronounced.”

Then Paris began to burn-

“About gargoyles,” Tony took a bit of the chocolate Peter was offering him. “Like, I get it, you need humor in a movie that is this dark and stuff but- so much of it. And it is mostly slapstick and what is this- what the hell is going on- they get a song?”

“What?” Peter whined. “It’s a good song!”

“Look, I admit, all the songs have been good, the music is amazing, I am definitely finding this on Spotify but still, this script needed work. Remove the gargoyles, or make them less annoying.”

The song ended and Tony saw the gargoyles were once again plain stone.

“Wait?” The man straightened up. “What is this? What? They are stone again? So, others can’t see them?”

“Umm,” Peter thought. “Yeah, only Quasi talks to them.”

“So,” Tony thought ,”in a way- wow, they could be a fragment of his imagination. Like, isolation does make a person lose their sense of reality.”

“Good theory but no,” Peter shook his head. “They take part in the last battle.”

“Huh, spoilers much,” Tony laughed and poked the boy’s shoulder. 

Esmeralda comes to the cathedral to hide Phoebus and they kiss.

“What a bitch,” Peter shook his head.

“She never led him on.”

“She kissed him on the cheek.”

“Yeah, Quasi took it wrong but it was not her fault.”

“What a horrible lessons for children, if you are ugly you won’t get the girl.”

Quasimodo and Phoebus went to the Court of Miracles.

“There is that clown again!”

“Clopin,” Peter corrected Tony.

“Whatever the hell- just what is his deal. Is he like the God of this story? How does he know about Quasi being in the bell tower?”

Peter shrugged.

“Oh, that is just nice, almost killing our heroes.”

“Well, they were a threat, you do anything for a family.”

Frollo arrived to the hideout and lied about Quasi telling them the truth. Esmeralda doesn’t believe.

“Thank God!” Tony breathed out. “That plot line has been so overused. Like fucking learn to communicate! Don’t jump to conclusions!”

“You’re one to talk,” Peter taunted his mentor.

“Don’t you start now-”

Esmeralda was about to be burned on the stake.

“Okay, in the book it was hanging but yeah, this is more dramatic.”

“Plus doesn’t hanging pretty much kill the person instantly.”

“Not always,” Tony shook his head as the choir began to sing and Quasimodo broke the chains. “Ideally it breaks the neck and yeah, instant death, but done wrong, you choke to death and that can take minutes. But by God, this scene is gorgeous!”

“Seconded.”

Quasimodo cries over Esmeralda’s body.

“Check her pulse,” Tony muttered and Peter snickered. “Come on, check her pulse, check her pulse-”

“Stop!”

“It’s not my fault these people are idiots! They knew back then what heart is!”

“You actually think Frollo taught him anything?”

“He - wait, can Quasi write? Or read?”

“Here comes Frollo!”

The last battle happens.

“Well, he is at least an effective villain. Menacing, cruel, manipulative- I wonder how Quasimodo isn’t more fucked up.”

“The same can be said about Harry Potter.”

“I have only seen four movies and think the boy should be getting intensive therapy.”

“Order of the Phoenix after this one?”

“You got it, bud,” They did a fist bump.

The movie ended and Tony smiled softly as Quasimodo was finally accepted as a human being.

“I really liked the dynamic between the trio. It was a good addition to have Phoebus save Quasi-”

“I know! There was no competition between the two!”

“Now, in the book-”

“Okay,” Peter curled up against Tony, awaiting a story. “Tell me how it really ended.”

“Well,” Tony started. “The details are of course a bit vague but yeah, Esmeralda was hanged, she died and was buried, Quasi killed Frollo and then curled up with Esmeralda’s body and died of starvation. Eventually the grave was robbed and their bones turned to dust.”

Peter stared at the distance for a long time. Tony was afraid he had broken the boy. He waved a hand in front of his eyes.

“Earth to Petey.”

“What?” The boy blinked out of his trance. 

“A big shock, huh?” Tony grinned and Peter shrugged.

“So, did you like it?”

Tony did not think for a moment: “Yes, it was much better than I expected.”

“Really?” Peter raised an eyebrow, voice laced with skepticism. “Because the commentary was quite harsh in places.”

“Oh please, you make fun of Harry Potter yet love those movies.”

Peter chuckled: “True. So, bathroom break and then we start with the new movie?”

“Took words out of my mouth.”

[yvkkao-blog]

Blackboard Prompts

One lump post - might be in other parts of the daybook, but should all be here:

#1:

I have answered this in other entries, but the image that I had of London was one of a fantasy. London is a place where supernatural things happen. It is the setting for books and films. It must be a fantastical place, near mythical. That rather contrasted with the things people would tell me about the weather and the food in London, but I found things like the London fog charming. It gave me a visual of a city draped in a perpetual shroud of mystery. That being said, I knew virtually nothing about London beyond what I know of any big city. I have traveled quite a bit, and big cities often share some things in common, such as public transit, noise, and crowds.

I’m not expecting much of the food or the people, to be honest, but that is because I have a lot of respect for hospitality customs in America. People are often friendly and open to conversation. The food quality is dependent on the place, but usually, big cities have better food options and more diversity. This is not my first trip to Europe, so I have some idea of what to expect. I have not, however, ever been to London, so I might be surprised. I have doubts, though. I fully expect it to be as beautiful as I’ve always imagined, but my faith in people and food is not as rose-tinted. At last, though, I will be able to say that I have been to London, and I cannot wait.

#2:

My experience flying to London was odd, yet typical—an interesting contradiction, which is amusing to me in recollection. I arrived far earlier than I need to at the Pitt County airport, and I felt bad for several reasons. It was nice to meet everyone again, but I can never sleep before a big trip, especially before a plane ride. This is deliberate. I need to be able to sleep on a plane, or the discomfort drives me insane (as do the pressure changes). Usually, I try to sleep for the majority of any plane ride, from boarding through landing. However, TVs were invented, and not only that, everyone gets one on a plane. To commemorate the occasion, I admit that I watched a good deal of British-based TV/film on the way to London. It was a long enough plane ride that I had time to watch TV and catch up on sleep. It was probably one of my more comfortable long plane rides, so I have no real complaints.

As for the first day in London, the first day is always hard to acclimate to. I try to adjust to the new time zone as soon as possible whenever I go anywhere. The first day is always difficult (yes, it bears repeating). People are tired, hot, hungry, overburdened, lost, and overwhelmed in general. I did like getting out to see some of London that first day, however. I want to learn the transportation system as quickly as possible, but I’m not worried. The London Tube is much easier to navigate, from what I’m seeing, than the Metro in Italy (or most other cities). It’s quite time-consuming, I’ve noted. I try to factor in travel time when I’m planning excursions, and this might cut into my plans somewhat. We’ll see how things go.

#3:

I have to say, my initial perception of London has not really changed, even over this past week. Maybe I am jaded from an excess of travel experiences, but I have not really been shocked by anything. I wasn’t even surprised about the scaffolding mummy that is currently Big Ben, the clock tower, and part of Parliament. The same has happened anytime I have gone anywhere; it becomes a familiar frustration and feeling of resignation after a time. You cannot change your timing to such a large degree, so maybe if I ever get the chance to come back to London, something else will be in the midst of restoration.

I have been a bit disappointed by British tea, I will admit. I can be a bit of a tea snob, but I grew up with strong Chinese teas. I entertained the myth that British tea is without peer, but mainly, it seems to be unmatched in expense. At least the pastries are good, and I got a huge kick out of trying London cuisine that I have read about in books, such as meat pies and British biscuits. I think the thing about London that is superb is the architecture, the buildings and structures of old. I would never want to live in a castle—too many steps, and that’s not a mindset that will ever change for me—but I love to tour through them. Seeing a castle in the middle of a modern city never fails to make me feel like I’m standing in a fantasy land. It’s so much fun, and there is history, and more, in every stone. I want to see as many castles, museums, and art as I can.

#4:

I once got into a discussion about “natural” vs. “supernatural” vs. “hyper-natural,” and I loved that topic because the words themselves have certain connotations, and nothing is easy. For me, I make the distinction between natural and supernatural as reality versus fantasy. I try to be honest with myself and to keep separate libraries about the real world and the fantastical narratives. Nature is natural. A magnificent waterfall pouring over a cliff. A bird building a nest. These things usually happen without human contrivance. When not reading fantasy books, I often think of human designs as unnatural. We often appreciate those human constructions just as much. Things like Stonehenge and the Great Wall are precious to us because they are not naturally occurring spaces.

I looked at the London Eye, and it is incredible, but it is the unnatural mimicking something natural. If we want a “bird’s eye view” of London, well, we can’t fly, but humans can build things that will accomplish supernatural goals. We create folklore legends to explain things that defy explanation. Supernatural is something not natural but more than human. I love discussing supernatural tales, learning about where they came from and why they came about. Science often takes away some of the mystery, which can be riveting in and of itself but boring if you like narratives.

#5:

I miss air conditioning. I knew to expect it, but AC might be the sole reason I never want to live anywhere other than the U.S. That lack never gets easier to bear (unless it’s not summer). If I were to create a monster in a novel, it would be wreathed in flames and too hot to bear to be around. It would also probably be from a swamp—with roots from living in a floodplains area, but such is inspiration. I don’t think I would feel bad about acknowledging these things, either.

As for things that have gotten easier, getting to and from the Tube, and the buses, has gotten easier. It is such a common mode of transportation here that it is beginning to feel natural. I’ve only used one taxi, and that was near day two. I miss my car, though. The Underground is terribly loud, stuffy, and generally uncomfortable. I have come to associate travel with discomfort, which makes me think of Richard and Door. They can’t fly like Peter Pan. Even though Door can open doors, they often have to get around the mundane way. It’s nice to come home to creature comforts after a long time away.

#6:

The “monsters” in the novels came as no surprise to me, particularly with A Monster Calls. Ursula le Guinn and Lloyd Alexander, to name a couple, did something very similar in their writing, although I must admit that Ness’s monster was far more three-dimensional as a character, which I approved of. I love narratives and studying narrative structures, but sometimes this makes things predictable, which is also usually fine. Twisting a trope on its ear must be done right. I most enjoyed reading about the conceptions of monsters from “Monster Theory” and then applying those constructions back to our readings. That gave everything more depth, and I loved burrowing into the history, the culture, and the folklore surrounding these “monsters.”

Since I prefer the fantasy genre almost exclusively to read, I often think of going to see plays as a special treat. The play might have the same text, but the company might interpret it in startlingly different ways. I laughed so hard during A Midsummer Night’s Dream; that has always been my favorite Shakespeare play. It was shocking, and it was glorious. The “monsters” were rather more difficult to pin down in those four plays, however. I can make several arguments, but it often boils down to human nature. The same could be said for the poetry anthology. Poetry interpretation is not my strong suit. I prefer to look at syntactical strategies rather than semantic interpretation. A lyric poem is a beautiful thing, and I know that I want the poems in my anthology to make me smile whenever I hear them. Cacophonous discord can be hard to appreciate without the right context.

Time is trickling away, and there is still so much to see and do. It is hard not to be able to read to my heart’s content when traveling, but I know it is important to do all you can when visiting a new place you may never return to again.

#7:

Synthesis for Essay:

I have learned/decided that I want to dedicate myself to the study of narratives. This was not necessarily a new revelation, but the work we have done here has helped to cement the decision. Experiencing London as we read novels and other materials—often featuring London—has been a novel experience, as it were. For my synthesis essay, I plan to use narrative as my theme. I will draw in the study of our readings and class discussion and try to make connections to multiculturalism, children’s literature, poetry, and folklore. Since our readings have covered that spectrum, the difficult part may be bringing in my experiences around London. I want to discuss the bridge between fantasy and reality, and reading fantasy while standing in a real London location might be the perfect time to do so.

I have learned a lot, and I value trying new things. I would like that to be reflected in the essay. I think it is important to be familiar with the place you are trying to write about and/or include in your writing, but more than that, I treasure the little moments when something incomprehensible happens. When the bus breaks down, when the giant raven eats your sandwich, things like that. Those are the moments that make life unique and exciting. The setting is spectacular, but the people and other things in it define those moments. That’s why I think that level of attention to detail is so important in a book, even a novel that is trying to teach an overarching life lesson or twelve. Sometimes, it is the small things that happen along the way that are the most memorable.

My essay will probably include snippets from my daybook entries and speculation on narrative themes and structures. Everything has a story. Everything is a story. The plays we’ve been to, the novels we’ve read, the poetry we’ve shared, and even the London Dungeon—those all are narratives or use narratives. As participants and observers, we make connections and try to delve deeper into these connections. These, too, create some wonderful moments, and I hope that my synthesis essay will properly convey my appreciation for studying narrative using multiculturalism, poetry, children’s lit, and folklore as frameworks.

#8:

Things I will miss in/about London List:

-stunning architecture

-the Thames

-Chinatown

-museums

-parks and gardens

-King’s Cross Station

Things I will not miss in/about London List:

-London Underground and the Tube

-city noises and smells

-lack of AC

-crowds

Some of these things might seem like they clash, but I have my reasons. Why will I miss King’s Cross Station and not the rest of the Underground? Simple. King’s Cross is a hub, and you can go to many other places from there. The Tube lines tend to be more limited, and they’re packed and stuffy. Similarly, I won’t miss the city noises, smells, and crowds of pushy people. I have had to wear ear plugs every time I so much as set foot outside the flat, and the cacophony of people noises makes me want to jump out of my skin. I hate being crowded. I will miss all of the beautiful gardens and parks and historical structures, though. I love how beautiful those are. And I will miss the museums. I think if a city has a museum, it really has something that people should want to come in droves to see, and they’re often splendid buildings.

I will NOT miss the heat. I need my air conditioning, and that’s that. I did love the Thames and Chinatown. The sound of the water is always a balm, and I can never get enough authentic Chinese food. Most of all, I will probably miss interacting with people. I am a bit of a recluse, so getting to spend time with people beyond the classroom is always welcome.

#9:

I’m packing many, many, MANY photos and memories. This has been a unique experience for me. I usually travel with family members. The last time I went on a trip with peers was more than a decade ago. I had forgotten how much fun it could be. Those photos and videos might not be physically in my travel backpack, but I had resolved not to get too many souvenirs this time. In the past, I have been careful to get at least one present for my loved ones, something special. However, we’re all grown now, and we don’t need anything random. We’re all more interested in putting money towards the next big trip. Consequently, I have only a few keepsakes.

What will forever be in my London suitcase is my London suitcase, as it were. I have a travel backpack that goes on every big trip with me, and it is vital to keeping my stuff where I can keep an eye on it. However, I will be toting home a couple of very nice scarves and some books. I will not be toting home a couple dozen protein bars. We always travel with rations, but I’ve never noticed this tactic doing anything except encouraging us to eat out (avoidance). I will be different, of course. I’ve learned and done so much in London, and I think this will have a huge effect on my as a student. I now know what I want to do for research. I keep mentioning this, but it is important to me. And I want to come back to London someday. That might be the best endorsement I can offer. I will always treasure the memories, the people I traveled with, and the things we did. Those cannot be replicated, and I’m eager to share my tales of adventures when I get home.

[eddie-redmayne-italian-blog]

Eddie Redmayne to Play Serial Killer Charles Cullen in ‘The Good Nurse’

Sheryl OhAugust 8, 2018

Jessica Chastain will also star as the opposing force to Redmayne’s “Angel of Death.”

Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain will soon be working together, and although I would naturally hope for a more charming offering involving two of my favorite redheaded actors, the actual details of their latest project are of a much gorier nature. As reported by Deadline, Redmayne and Chastain will headline the truth-based movie The Good Nurse, a thriller that will track the abominably lengthy career of one of the most notorious American serial killers, Charles Cullen.

Frequent Thomas Vinterberg collaborator Tobias Lindholm will make his English language feature directing debut with the film, having previously dipped his toes into the true crime adaptation field with Netflix’s superbly chilling crime series Mindhunter. Krysty Wilson-Cairns of Penny Dreadful fame rounds out this exceptional creative quartet, bringing her scriptwriting talents to The Good Nurse.

Based on Charles Graeber’s book “The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder,” the movie unpacks Cullen’s exploits. He was a nurse who was implicated in the deaths of hundreds of patients who were in his care, from the late 1980s through the early 2000s, thus being dubbed the “Angel of Death.”

On the surface, Cullen (who will be played by Redmayne) was not only a family man but a celebrated caregiver wherever he worked. However, he also participated in a killing spree across nine hospitals in New Jersey and Pennsylvania which went on over the course of 16 years. Furthermore, a flawed healthcare system lacking in transparent accountability failed to subdue Cullen, allowing him to easily move from hospital to hospital each time he was suspected of wrongdoing. Finally, two former Newark detectives caught up with his murderous habits with the help of Cullen’s co-worker (Chastain).

Ultimately, what makes Graeber’s account of Cullen’s murders so compelling is its simultaneous indictment of the inexcusable practices at the hospitals where his heinous crimes took place. At the time, there was an egregious lack of responsibility to report suspicious deaths in these facilities due to the fact that any possible penalty for not reporting them was relatively small. Hospital employers also resisted giving bad referrals to terminated workers in a bid to avoid being slapped with lawsuits. Even when Cullen eventually developed a creepy reputation in the workplace, individual employees had to speak to other members of staff – informally or in private – to prevent his hiring.

Of course, Cullen’s presence is far from absent in Graeber’s book — it wouldn’t be a classic true crime story if those details were left out. Admittedly, this is likely the toughest thing to get right in a film adaptation. The book leans a hair too close towards empathizing with its reprehensible subject in an attempt to discern his motivations. Cullen is described as “a surprisingly intelligent and complicated young man whose promising career was overwhelmed by his compulsion to kill” in the synopsis of the book, which is absolutely inappropriate given what he actually did.

Whether or not these issues will translate into any kind of onscreen glorification of Cullen at least makes me wary about The Good Nurse to a certain degree. The Hollywood machine totally endorses fixating on and pathologizing serial killers on screen, whether they’re fictional like Hannibal Lecter or based in reality like any number of Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer portrayals.

These are supposedly larger-than-life characters that any actor would jump at the opportunity for, and so making movies about them is certainly understandable. Such unnerving anecdotes and reports make for confrontational and distressing cinema at the most basal level. There is even an added layer of discomfort in the Cullen story — the fact that his job description dictates that he helps others. Depicting that kind of cognitive disconnect is definitely a worthy challenge to undertake.

And as long as The Good Nurse sticks with a concurrent focus on a failing healthcare system and the quest to bring Cullen to justice, the film could still tell a fascinating story without indulging in overt veneration. Crime movies that lack explicit empathy for their subjects can still be extremely gripping, after all.

A good example of this is David Fincher’s Zodiac. That film focuses so doggedly on the chase for the truth and relishes in the fear of the unknown that the eponymous killer’s motivations never become the inordinate focal point of the storyline. Well, it does for one protagonist who takes a vested interest in the ordeal. However, Zodiac posits that justice can be — and should be — just as gripping as the myths surrounding a serial killer.

Adapting The Good Nurse in such a way wouldn’t rob Redmayne of a chance to embody such a disconcerting character either, and it would be a win-win situation. With his recent big-screen efforts, we have become more accustomed to watching him earnestly wield a magic wand against evil in the Wizarding World or transform into an admirable historical figure like Stephen Hawking. Hence, the choice to take on the Cullen role is a notable shift for him. Still, Redmayne’s career isn’t only filled with shining examples of morality, and that’s what’s exciting about this casting choice.

Redmayne has definitely played villains in the past, with the most obvious one being his ludicrous whispery baddie in the Wachowskis’ high-concept sci-fi extravaganza Jupiter Ascending. More often than not, though, Redmayne doesn’t treat antagonism blandly. Despite having depicted deeply questionable or sometimes repugnant characters in films like Savage Grace and Hick, Redmayne is anything but two-dimensional. I wouldn’t say he makes the characters likable, but he understands how to translate their emotional turmoil for the camera.On Chastain’s part, she will be filling the shoes of a wonderfully resilient character partially responsible for the downfall of corruption, and that is completely in her wheelhouse. Miss Sloane, The Zookeeper’s Wife, and Molly’s Game have all demonstrated that institutions ought to quake when one of her characters decides that enough is enough. These roles have given Chastain the chance to build her brand on portraying determined and proactive women. It’s easy to see how Chastain will fit into the fabric of The Good Nurse. And as an aside, I’m more inclined to look out for this project than a certain other that she signed on for recently.Clearly, The Good Nurse has all the right ingredients for a gripping crime thriller. With no reason to distrust Redmayne and Chastain’s star power, we may very well have a hit on our hands.

https://filmschoolrejects.com/eddie-redmayne-to-play-serial-killer-charles-cullen-in-the-good-nurse/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

[stretchjournalemerson]

The Lost and the Holy People: Worship of Musicians as a Religious Behavior and Possible Substitute for Religion

By Chloe Callahan - 

I was last in line for The Struts VIP experience. In the small, dark space that was the Paradise Rock Club, I stood at the top of the stairs, looking down at the stage. I was starting to get bored; I had been standing in line for three hours. My then-boyfriend and I had been at a Red Sox game earlier in the day and we were exhausted, but I had been dreaming of this day for so long I resolved to push through the discomfort.

The VIP manager, who had disappeared nearly half an hour earlier, came back into the stage area and announced that “the boys” were coming.

Suddenly the whole line was energized. I watched hungrily as The Struts came from underneath the stairs opposite me, one by one. Luke Spiller, Adam Slack, Jed Elliott, and Gethin Davies. My heroes. A scream went up from the VIP line. There were only about twenty-five of us, but we filled the club with our excitement.

My eyes locked onto Luke, all but forgetting my poor boyfriend behind me.

“He’s even prettier in real life,” I sighed.

However, as I waited my turn to meet the band I had been worshipping for four years, I noticed something: they were wearing their street clothes. Luke Spiller, known for flaunting fabulous ensembles worthy of Freddie Mercury, was wearing a Jurassic Park t-shirt, a sherpa-lined jacket, and Keds. Looking down at him from the top of the stairs in the dim lighting, he looked human.

A little part of me sunk in disappointment. I wanted to feel the hot pink silk of his famous angel kimono; I wanted to be dwarfed by him in his glittery, high-heeled boots. The man standing before me was a mere two inches taller than me, and we were practically wearing the same outfit.

When I reached the front of the line, Luke was the first to hug me. He was solid, yet I felt I had been touched by a divine being. I hugged the rest of the band, and they asked me questions, joked around with me, and told me maybe I could drum with them one day. They really were human, I saw, just real people I was having a conversation with. The fact would be lost slightly when they emerged later in their heavenly stage ensembles, but for now they were just chatting with me like we were old friends.

It was a conversation worth the three hundred dollars I paid for it.

***

Celebrity Worship Syndrome is a psychological condition that has been heavily studied in recent years. Defined as “an abnormal phenomenon whereby individuals become virtually obsessed with one or more celebrities,” it affects a wide range of people who may or may not realize that they are affected (“Extreme” Maltby et al. 247). There are three levels of Celebrity Worship Syndrome (CWS), which are often measured using the Celebrity Attitude Scale created by Dr. Lynn E. McCutcheon, one of the leading researchers in the field of celebrity worship. The first dimension is entertainment-social, which is a healthy interest in the works and career of a certain celebrity, and the desire to share such interest with friends and family. The second dimension is intense-personal, which includes “intense and compulsive feelings towards one’s favorite celebrity.” This dimension is associated with some psychological disorders such as depression and anxiety, neuroticism, body-image issues, and poor relationships. The final dimension is the borderline-pathological dimension, which is associated with extreme dedication and “maladaptive forms of admiration” that push individuals towards “criminal behaviors and addiction.” (Zsila et al. 654)

Several studies have linked religious behaviors to celebrity worship syndrome, though not a lot of research has been done on whether certain religious behaviors fall into certain dimensions of CWS. Therefore, this essay will not focus on extreme degrees of behavior; rather it will focus on how CWS affects the average person. More specifically, it will focus on the music fan.

Rock stars have long been the standard for fame. Particularly in the latter half of the twentieth century, to achieve rock star status would be to achieve the ultimate level of success. In recent years, as the popularity of rock music has faded, the pop or rap star has risen as the new standard. However, this essay will be primarily focusing on rock musicians, as rock and religious behaviors were intertwined for so long.

This essay will explore how people who worship musicians may substitute music for religion, what behaviors come of this, and why this behavior might occur.

***

Music and religious worshippers have long shared similar behaviors. The most important of these is the ritual of the concert. The rituals differ between each band or musician, just as rituals differ between each faith of branch of a religion. However, one thing that is universal is the presence of some form of preacher spreading their message to an eager audience.

Rupert Till is the Associate Dean International in the School of Music, Humanities, and Media at the University of Huddersfield (“Rupert Till”). In his essay “The Personality Cult of Prince: Purple Rain, Sex and the Sacred, and the Implicit Religion,” Till notes the way in which Prince overtly played on religion in and conducted his concerts as if they were sermons. In particular, his film Let’s Go Crazy begins with the phrase “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today,” which “places [Prince] in the position of Christ or deity, marrying, possessing, and becoming one with his worshippers…” (Till 148). This kind of intimacy between musician and fan mimics the connection to God religious worshippers seek when attending church services.

In addition to connecting with their idol, the concert is also one of the best ways for fans to connect with each other. I created a survey with Google Forms to gather information about people’s associations between their favorite musicians and religion, as well as their level of celebrity worship through the use of the Celebrity Attitude Scale. The survey was posted in a Facebook group for Struts fans called “Strutters - The Struts original authorized fan group.” At the time of this writing, the group contained 4,996 members. Of the fifty-three respondents to this survey, thirty-two said they enjoyed listening to their favorite musician while with a large group of people (Callahan). The feeling of being part of something larger than oneself is clearly appealing to both religious and musical worshippers. Till mentions how Prince has his audience “mimic his hand movements,” which allows the audience to feel connected to Prince and to each other (Till 148). The connection between all these separate souls could very well be seen as a spiritual experience. One respondent to my survey wrote, “The front row of a Struts concert is very much like a religious experience. I liken it to Rapture- a total euphoria of the senses that at the same time controls you and heightens your emotions while moving your entire being…” (Callahan). Both concertgoers and churchgoers can exalt in this sensation of losing themselves among their faith during their respective rituals.

Some music worshippers invest so much of themselves in these rituals that they make pilgrimages. Author Kevin McCarron traveled to five major rock and roll attractions in England. While two of them “official” tours and museums were made for tourists, the other three “unofficial experiences” held a sense of sanctity (McCarron 169). Strawberry Fields, where John Lennon’s ashes were scattered, the house where Freddie Mercury died, and the site of Marc Bolan’s car crash have all been converted into shrines to those artists. There are no “official” tours to these sites, so individual travelers have to make their own way there to leave offerings such as flowers and messages on nearby walls. (McCarron 169) At the site of Mercury’s death, among countless messages, one in particular perfectly summarizes the theme of the comments: “Freddie you are a God” (McCarron 170). These pilgrims, as McCarron refers to them, clearly had deep, intense personal connections to their favorite artists. They were willing to travel from great distances to pay their respects, just as religious pilgrims might. In Islam, making the pilgrimage to Mecca is a form of dedication to Allah. It is a long journey to prove one’s devotion to their religion. A pilgrimage to Strawberry Fields or Mercury’s house suggests a similar level of dedication.

***

Why do people form these intense religious bonds with their favorite musicians? There are several reasons one might be drawn to these behaviors and allow music to fill the role of religion in their lives.

The relationship between religion and CWS was studied by Dr. John Maltby, another lead researcher in the field of celebrity worship. He found that the tendency to worship celebrities decreases as religiosity increases (“Thou” Maltby et al. 1157). This might suggest that those who worship celebrities in similar ways to how one might worship a god are using celebrity worship as a substitute for organized religion. This aligns with celebrity mental health expert Donna Rockwell’s theory that celebrity worshippers are looking for guidance and a sense of identity that they cannot find within themselves (Rockwell). Those who subscribe to recognized religions often worship their gods for a similar reason. They are asking for help and guidance from their god.

In agreeance with Rockwell’s theory, Till argues that music fans feel that something is missing from themselves, so they turn to musicians to fill that part of their identity (Till 143). He describes in detail how similar this is to religious practices:

“This is preceded by katharsis or purification, the emptying out of self, addressing the void, stillness, and space, so that the “divine” popular icon can indwell the empty vessel. The process is also similar to the concept of theosis in Christian theology, the transformation of believers into the likeness of God, including transforming the mind, character, and self, as well as the imitation of, or union with, God (Finlan and Kharlamov 2006). . . . As members of the audience imagine themselves being or possessing a pop star, they are then embodied as larger than life characters, godlike beings, possessing the star as they consume them and becoming possessed themselves by the character of the star” (Till 144).

This is the greatest appeal of worshipping a musician: the power that comes with admiring such a powerful being. When I asked the Strutters what they found most appealing about their musician, the large majority said stage presence, personality, or lifestyle (Callahan). People are drawn to the exciting life that comes with being a rock star, and they wish they had that form of power. Therefore, they look to musicians to fill that hole in their identity.

There are several things that make the rock star lifestyle so attractive. Maltby found in his study that respondents tended to choose their favorite celebrity based on entertainment value (“Thou” Maltby et al. 1168). This correlates to the answers from my study, particularly for the twelve respondents who named stage presence or some variation thereof (energy, live shows, interactions with crowds, etc.) as the most appealing factor of their musician (Callahan). The excitement of watching someone with such lively energy tends to create a desire to mimic that energy.        

In fact, the love of a performer’s energy might stem from a fan’s desire for sensation. Patrick Litle and Marvin Zuckerman of the University of Delaware found that “high sensation seekers,” or people who have a higher desire for stimulation and thrills, prefer to listen to rock music and dislike religious music (Litle and Zuckerman 576). This is consistent with Maltby’s negative relationship between celebrity worship and religiosity. Those who worship musicians, particularly rock musicians, are craving a higher sense of excitement than traditional religion can provide.

In a similar vein, Maltby also found that there was a large overlap between “intense personal feelings” towards a celebrity and the celebrity’s sex appeal (“Thou” Maltby et al. 1169). The arousal caused by a musician’s stage presence certainly lends to a fan’s attraction to them. Till noted how Prince used his androgynous, homoerotic sexuality to set himself apart from other musicians (Till 144). This played into his “mediapheme,” or his persona as a cultural icon, and was a major contributor to his success (143). Most stars today incorporate their sex appeal into their personas to attract the kind of attention Prince had. Three respondents in my survey claimed sex appeal or appearance as the most appealing quality of their favorite musician (Callahan). While this may not seem at first to have any relation to religion, Till writes that a widely recognized definition of religion is “that relating to the sacred and profane” (Till 142). Many people view overt sexuality as “profane” or offensive to their religion. By playing off of this and emphasising their sexuality, then combining this with the sermon-like nature of their concerts, musicians create a perfect blend of the sacred and the profane.

***

Another strong appeal for music fans is community that comes from other fans. Maltby claims that religious individuals seek “protection or comfort” and “participation in a powerful in-group” from their religion (“Thou” Maltby et al. 1159). A religious group finds strength among its numbers; members of churches tend to form special bonds between each other and their god. They hold church events, such as potlucks, extra prayer services, drama productions, and fundraisers. They form an exclusive community for those who think the same way they do.

Music fans seek the same community. For most of music history, concerts were the way to find that community. Now with the advent of social media, community does not have to stop at concerts. It can be found in Facebook groups, Reddit threads, and Tumblr blogs. In my survey, thirty-seven of the fifty-three respondents agreed that they love to talk to other people who admire their favorite band or rock star. In addition, forty respondents said they enjoy just being around others who like their favorite musician. (Callahan) These fans find comfort in being part of an “in-group” as Maltby phrases it. When asked what they find most appealing about their favorite band, several people mentioned the community of fans surrounding the band. One respondent said “They have a great fan community, and I’ve met people who I consider lifetime friends now. Karl, who is like a member of the band gets us into venues early when he’s able and the fanclub, takes great care of us” (Callahan). Members of these fan groups help each other out, just as a church group might help a member.

Considering that people who worship celebrities tend to be less religious, it is likely that people seek out the community of a music fandom when they feel alienated from other religions. The youth audience, in particular, tends to turn away from religions that might alienate them for various reasons. They may be LGBT, struggling with issues that cause them to feel abandoned by their family’s god, or disillusioned with the church’s teachings. For many of these individuals, music fills the void in a more relatable way. Indeed, in my survey, 54% of respondents between eighteen and twenty-nine said they might associate religion with their favorite musician and 54% said they definitely would associate their musician with worship. This was a larger positive response than any other age group. (Callahan) People in this age group are, at the youngest, just moving into college, and at the oldest, usually still figuring themselves out. Their newfound freedom might help facilitate a break from their family’s beliefs and lead them towards musical worship.

My Chemical Romance, one of the hallmark bands of the emo genre, appealed most heavily to people around this age, particularly if they came of age post-9/11. According to Sia Michel’s article for the New York Times, “...the hit single ‘I’m Not Okay (I Promise)’ became a rallying cry for a growing base of alienated kids weaned on war, school shootings, and constant terrorism threats” (Michel). Religious institutions might be hesitant to approach these issues beyond offering “thoughts and prayers,” but bands like My Chemical Romance address them openly, offering comfort and hope.

Similarly, Hayley Kiyoko rose to stardom through the worship of young people. Her first hit single “Girls Like Girls” was an anthem of sapphic love, and Kiyoko gained so much popularity that people started referring to her as “Lesbian Jesus” (Pollard). The LGBT community has been historically alienated from most religious communities, so it appears that young LGBT people have sought out their religion in a musician who sings about feelings and sensations that they can relate to.

***

Most people would argue that they are not celebrity worshippers. They may not realize how much CWS affects their life. Maltby found that “many religious persons either ignore [the Christian teaching to worship no other Gods] or, due to compartmentalisation, they fail to perceive that celebrity worship is actually a violation of that teaching” (“Thou” Maltby et al. 1170). This implies that people who exhibit any of the aforementioned behaviors may not actually realize that they are acting religiously. In other cases, they may realize they are doing so, but be hesitant to admit it. One respondent to my survey wrote, “My intellectual side knows better than to ‘worship,’ but it’s such a ‘special’ thing when you love the music and message of an artist and that feeling can sometimes be so strong it borders on worship!” (Callahan). Whether one is willing to admit it or not, there are clear connections between the worship of musicians and religious behavior. It may not be a recognized religion, but music has the potential to fill that role in someone’s life, particularly if they are looking for community or identity.

***

I never got the name of the woman standing in front of me at the Struts concert, but if Luke Spiller is the Jesus of rock and roll, then she was an apostle. She was older, probably in her late forties, and her 80s-style perm was starting to gray. She held a handmade sign that read “Pittsburgh to Boston, 17 shows.” This pilgrim had been following The Struts around the country for two months, and she had been at every show since the Body Talks Tour began.

This was my first Struts show, and the woman welcomed me into the community. She let me hang my bag on the front row barrier with hers so I wouldn’t keep tripping on it, and when someone in the back threw a beer at my boyfriend, she pushed us in front of her protectively. I was delighted to learn that the Strutter community was just as friendly and welcoming in real life as they were online. Among fellow fans, with the woman’s maternal protection, I was free to enjoy the religious experience that was front row spots at my favorite band’s concert.

I wish I had asked that woman her name, and more than anything, I wish I had her life. I would have loved to become a pilgrim like her, travelling around the country to hear the words of my rock gods, surrounded by fans who felt the same as I did.

Unfortunately, the concert ended and I was beckoned back into the real world. However, from that moment on, the Paradise Rock Club became a sacred place for me, a place where I had felt for the first time like I truly belonged to a religion, singing and dancing along to the messages from the band that meant so much to me.

Notes

The title of this essay, “The Lost and the Holy People” comes from the song “People” by The Struts.

The survey “Rock Idols Survey” was posted in  “Strutters - The Struts original authorized fan group,” which contains 4,996 members at the time of writing, on March 30, 2019. The survey contained two parts. The first part gathered general information. Questions included age, gender, level of dedication to traditional religion, number of times the respondent has seen their favorite musician live, how far they would be willing to travel, how much money they would be willing to spend on tickets and merchandise, their experience meeting their favorite musician, and if they would ever associate the words “religion” or “worship” with their favorite musician. Part two contained the Celebrity Attitude Scale, created by Dr. John Maltby. The scale is comprised of 34 statements and asks respondents to choose a number between 1 (Strongly Disagree) and 5 (Strongly Agree) to indicate how strongly they relate to the statement. 53 people responded to the survey.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Luke Spiller, Gethin Davies, Adam Slack, and Jed Elliott for providing me a religion. Thank you to Professor Mary Kovaleski-Byrnes for her insights, as well as my Research Writing classmates for their excellent workshopping skills. In particular, thank you to Eitan Miller, Matthew Pifko, and Rachel Lamarre for their in-depth peer reviews. Thank you to the 53 Strutters who took my survey, and finally, thank you to the nameless Strutter woman who made my first Struts concert a magical experience.

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