#The House on Telegraph Hill

[holyviolence]

WATCHED IN 2023: I had a strange feeling that Aunt Sophie saw through me. I wondered, if I could have spoken to her, whether she would have understood. She did look kind and wise. Yet I couldn't help myself from feeling that something was wrong in this house. 

THE HOUSE ON TELEGRAPH HILL (1951) DIR. ROBERT WISE

[the-best-of-letterboxd]

The House on Telegraph Hill (1951)

[kristenswig]

#55. The House on Telegraph Hill - Robert Wise

[directorsnarrative]

The House on Telegraph Hill • Director Robert Wise

[byneddiedingo]

Valentina Cortese and Richard Basehart in The House on Telegraph Hill (Robert Wise, 1951)

Cast: Valentina Cortese, Richard Basehart, William Lundigan, Fay Baker, Gordon Gebert, Steven Geray, Herb Butterfield, Natasha Lytess, Kei Thin Chung, John Burton, Katherine Meskill, Mario Siletti. Screenplay: Elick Moll, Frank Partos, based on a novel by Dana Lyon. Cinematography: Lucien Ballard. Art direction: John DeCuir, Lyle R. Wheeler. Film editing: Nick DeMaggio. Music: Sol Kaplan.

The key to a successful thriller is to keep the audience from asking those questions you're not supposed to ask: Why did X do that instead of that? What caused Y to act that way? Would a sane person really behave that way? And when the film ends, have all the loose threads been accounted for? The House on Telegraph Hill just barely manages to dodge those questions, except at the end. It's sometimes rather clumsily put together. For example, we are led to believe at the beginning that the film is being narrated in voiceover by the protagonist, Viktoria Kowalska (Valentina Cortese). But in mid-film we watch a conversation that Viktoria could not have overheard. We later find that the voiceover is actually Viktoria telling her story to investigators, but the momentary break in point of view is jarring. The ending, too, feels rushed. We have invested enough time in the story that we need a clearer outcome for Viktoria and others. The premise is a familiar one, given a postwar spin: A woman pretends to be someone she isn't and suffers the consequences. In Viktoria's case, she was a prisoner in the Belsen concentration camp, where she befriended Karin Dernakova (Natasha Lytess), who died there after telling Viktoria that she had a son who had been sent at the start of the war to live with her aunt in San Francisco. When the camp is liberated, Viktoria, who has no family of her own left in Poland, finds it expedient to assume the identity of Karin, whose papers she has been given for safekeeping. Viktoria is well-meaning; she doesn't really plan to defraud anyone, but through a rather rushed-through series of circumstances, she winds up in San Francisco pretending to be the mother of Karin's child, Chris (Gordon Gebert). Not only that, she also marries Chris's guardian, Alan Spender (Richard Basehart). So now she finds herself in an elegant mansion on the top of Telegraph Hill, playing mother to a boy who stands to inherit a fortune. And of course she also finds herself in danger. Cortese's performance makes some of this credible, but it was her only important film in America: She married her co-star, Basehart, and returned to Italy. He went with her, but except for Federico Fellini's La Strada (1954) and Il Bidone (1955), his European films were undistinguished, and he returned to the States after their divorce in 1960. The House on Telegraph Hill is plenty watchable, if only because of cinematographer Lucien Ballard's use of the San Francisco location.     

[bens-things]

The House on Telegraph Hill

1951 Directed by Robert Wise

[nerd-at-sea5]

yellowjackets fav books from my books hc's

lottie - the haunting of hill house, a hero born and the song of achilles

natalie - the locked tomb series, radio silence and last night by at the telegraph club

van - one last stop, percy jackson - specifically the titians curse and the lord of the rings series (+ the hobbit)

tai - infamous, all 7 harry potter books, and the a good girls guide to murder series

shauna - the goldfinch, a secret history and the hunger games series (+tbosas)

jackie - the six of crows dulogy, the seven husbands of evelyn hugo and the mixed-up files of mrs. basil e frankweiler

[salemsdog]

faut faire danser les femmes.

My story begins in the end. With the sun beginning to char my porcelain, riding red and violet over miles of atomic mass. By the end of the road, my shoes were worn with broken nature. But before my death, I rode a mountainous sea away from a barrel-chested man, namely put as my husband. The rock first came to me in a nightmare while aboard the SS. Mary. I had traveled overseas before, and it was a quirk of fact that the ship, no matter how goldy, always cradled like a misrun carriage, bumping over unpolished granite. So shook the landscape in my nightmare as well. There was a mincer in front of me. It was placed beside a rock. In the dream, the widescape was covered in thin sheets of sand. The trees were wild and howled like wolves strewn into the raging sky. Careful she crept; she was not me because the I in my dream had no feet. Simply an eye of the mind that granted a view of myself from whatever window looked down onto this horacescape. I directed her to walk closer to the mincer. It was then that the rock started to bellow out in simple waves of anguish. It was yelling to be set free against its ugly titanium restraints. She almost pitied it. The woman would take the mincer with a static, almost illuminary hand but stare at the rock with an unmoving notion. Salt wavered into the air as her limbs began to feel spent; she could feel the boat pulling her back to the shores of minimal consciousness closer every nanosecond, grappling her away from the original deed. The rock was lying dead like a cold fox, claiming its early spot in hell. Waiting for the final gut of termination. She could crush the rock, but what then?

It didn’t make her a predator.

I would have vowed to never harm my husband once I had awoken in my saddened condition and out of that harsh story. For it would bring me lower than the man himself. I knew I was now truly running, running away from the midwave heat that bit close to my clothes and flamed the cage that once housed my books, my telescopes that let me talk to the stars late in the evening when my husband singed tableside decks with his less than pleasant cigars. That did not stop the wafting from following up to my attic window desk of cinnamon and sage. My hand would soon slip during a Sunday night preparation. Sending the iron stove into flames. I had no children and no cathel. Only the prophetic nightmares that came with sniffing the dark herb that crawled its way around our lowly manor of the Greylands. This city chewed with iron teeth and ordered around symmetry like no other grandiloquent beast of the nile. My husband’s old trophies of gunfire gave proof to that undeniable fact of discord that harbored no matter what section of the earth you journeyed forth. They sit stacked mildly rusted under his mantleplace, topped with fleets of dust and mice shit. Before settling, I knew no bounds to fiction. I was as free as a clipped animal could ever get. But once trapped inside a new hellish biome, those old newspapers and telegraphs of the world above became my primary resource as another additive to my perpetual escape. Meconium, isocyanate, the air of another hellnever roadside three thousand miles from ours. All futile in my grand ruse of escape. So I ran, caught to the nearest station west of that long country road. Farther and farther till the SS. Mary was no longer a dream on a yellow postcard lost among the plethora of letters sent in from faraway ports of the world. A secret subscription I had along with the many other secrets I kept from my man.

It rose above anything I had ever seen in my life and took me far, far away.

There was a shortage of oil on our land being stolen by a neighboring townscape just north of the rolling hills. The red men they were called. Their thieves would hound every plant that drenched oil from the underearth. Weaning in heinesy and destruction caused an uproar in an already fatale patriarchy. Our people were starting to see straight through tradition and into welfare. It took the turn of a thousand tides—the crease in the economy—to fully shelter this idea of severity. Our foundation was losing itself. Soon there were no more ports to transfer goods, no more fleets to deliver those postcards I so greatly admired per month. So there I sat, perched between litters of luggage and briefcases of fine men and women boarding the middle-class section of Mary’s idiom. Watching as the moon followed our ship to the enemy lands. Waiting for the sky to shift into a new sun, waging a war blessed foul. A great woman once said sweat is the tears from God shedding down a lubricant for the wind. It took running from my husband to fully furnish the belief and inspire a devil within me to work this war like it was my bitch. Down a winding road and past crowds of townsfolk once I had reached beyond the Pillsbury pines and down crossroads over the next.

Once I had pitted rest, I could breathe into an air of freedom. Though this was the land of thieves, I had never felt such liberation. It had been shrouded by a hand of doubt along the journey, but once I set food on that port, the sky seemed to smile, though it was dark. Lines of people stretched beyond the dock. I bristled my way through the red men and women, most likely refugees from our gray land, returning with the upcoming tension. For it was better to die in your homeland than in a foreign region of gray.

My first pit stop arrived at a little colosseum of wine and scum. A harlet house off the ends of the coast, needing but a small stroll to reach. There I thought more about the rock in the dream, furrowed the lace fabric between the tips of my fingers and composed a conversation with a stranger. I introduced myself to the other woman by the name of Aerodromea. She returned with Venetia Lamauth. Venetia wore the dress of service, a reminder of another blast upon destiny the more she spoke of her life in a mellow, rustic voice, strands of blonde curtaining her cresed forehead. Though she’d chuckle and promised matters of satisfaction with her life, there were patches of fur on her coat. Her Greek nose tinted pink and a swooping tail tucked under the bench. This she could not see. She would speak of hellhounds and endless labor while I poured additional liters into her glass cup, eyeing her hawk-eyed husband all the while. Locals seemed to take my untimely visit rather cautiously. For good reason, of course. By the time dawn was heaving shots of navy into the dark skies, I had visited more women than postcards had ever visited the steps of my manor in those five years of unbearable habitance. Their tails were always tied messily, some with oozing blisters and painful-looking creases where the fold had been tied. Their noses were sometimes swollen or greased with expensive lotions in an attempt to mask the protruding fact, etching closer and closer to the surface of realism.

In the dark hours, they’d complain of an instrumental burden. God, it was loud they’d say, leeching my hands as if I had been the only acknowledgement of liability in centuries. The screeching strings blended against the howls of wind in a sorrowful juxtaposition. Waning restless nights for them all.

The first I took was Venetia. I instructed her to leave her coat and wreath of restlessness. She brought forth her finest Jane shoes and let down her honey lemon hair. We plowed hand in hand through the forest. I begged God to keep this opportunity close in hand as we followed those breathing strings through shrubs and dry logs left for dust in the dark. The first glimpse of the violin-wielding beast appeared behind the shade of a red willow. For it had been my first time seeing the thing face to face as well. My grip only tightened in Venetia’s hand as she held still, her breath shallow. For I had but a dream to go off of; this was a foreign sight to Venetia’s eyes I had to remember. Soon the plains were not reliant on the two of us. Both the houses were empty and scarce of life. The grasslands are blooming with thin-nosed critters. The beast’s violin became rushed and ridgid throughout the nights to come. Weaving in knowledge to me that we were improving and changing as a people. The hunt persisted and, in turn, the absence as well. Left for catharsis in the wind and rid us of this ancient rigorous distraction on the forest floor. Pooling like thick oil.

“Who am I if not misunderstood?” her gayety was sweet as jewels.

Venetia murmured in a hushed tone as she clasped my hand in hers, her gaze lingering over the carcass. We welded the night together as air raids rang out, shaking the dirt around our feet. Every limb of the beast was strewn in a puddle of rubicund. By dawn, Venetia’s eyes were glassy and her fingers blistered and bruised in destined work. A morning croaked, and a chorus of silence followed. Charing my skin and lacing back the cradle of the Mary. Both lands were quiet now; not even the rock under us spit a tune.

[citizenscreen]

Valentina Cortese and Richard Basehart at home with their son, Jackie. Cortese and Basehart met while making Robert Wise’s THE HOUSE ON TELEGRAPH HILL (1951) married in March of 1951 and divorced in 1960.

[snailobsession]

Recommending my favourite LGBTQIA+ books for Pride Month :)

The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo.

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart.

The Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever

Not My Problem by Ciara Smyth

Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling

[cinemaautomobilia]

1950 Mercury Convertible - "The House on Telegraph Hill" (1951)

[usafphantom2]

NGAD EXCLUSIVE: Air Force secretary cracks door for unmanned next-gen fighter

In an interview with Breaking Defense, Frank Kendall suggested the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter decision is farther off than estimated, as the service rethinks the threat landscape.

Michael Marrow

Lockheed Martin Skunk Works concept art of a sixth-generation fighter

Lockheed Martin Skunk Works concept art of a sixth-generation fighter. (Lockheed Martin)

FARNBOROUGH AIRSHOW 2024 — Amid a revolution in air combat, the head of the US Air Force said Saturday he’s “reasonably confident” America’s next-generation fighter aircraft will have a pilot, leaving the door open, however slightly, for a radical departure from a fully manned system.

“I’m confident there’s going to be a sixth-generation fighter. I’m reasonably confident that it’s going to be crewed,” Kendall told Breaking Defense in an exclusive interview over the weekend.

That the Air Force is seemingly unsure whether the aircraft will need a pilot, and presumably a cockpit to house them, suggests the service may need to revisit even the most basic requirements for its Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter, even as it had originally planned to award a contract for the aircraft sometime this year. Speaking broadly of potential changes, Kendall said it would be “reasonable” to conclude the Air Force needs to go back to do a more substantive analysis on the NGAD’s design and capability requirements.

“We’re having conversations right now about what to do and how to move forward,” Kendall said, pushing back on recent comments by Air Combat Command boss Gen. Ken Wilsbach that a down select for NGAD was likely coming in 2024. “What [Wilsbach] said is not the last word on that.”

Kendall has recently raised the prospect of serious changes to NGAD, suggesting in previous interviews that the Air Force was working to ensure the service has the right concept — and for a reasonable price. Expanding on his thinking, Kendall said a key consideration is the overall price encompassing the air vehicle and engine, noting that the powerplant is “just a piece of it” and “not by itself a big driver.”

RELATED: GCAP partners showcase new concept for next-gen fighter jet based on evolved design

Floating the potential for an unmanned NGAD in the wake of his comments about the need to redesign the jet may set off alarm bells among the Air Force’s infamous “fighter mafia,” who take great pride in the service’s pilot tradition. But, analyst J.J. Gertler of the Teal Group said, it is a sign that Kendall is taking a serious approach to considering all his options to avoid “driv[ing] the team in one direction or another.”

“We knew that [the Air Force was] reconsidering the design of the system; we knew that they were measuring at least twice before cutting checks. Like any good pilot, they are running through a final checklist before getting in the air,” Gertler said.

And, he wrote in email, it makes sense to at least consider an optionally manned design because “really any modern combat air system that is not designed to be uninhabited is still optionally crewed.”

For example, modern technology like networking and fly-by-wire controls means “it doesn’t matter where the operator is sitting. In fact, the decision to make a platform inhabited drives the design and capabilities much more than a decision to make it uninhabited. So in a very real sense, uninhabited becomes the default unless there is a reason to put a person in the platform,” Gertler said.

Air Force officials have telegraphed for years that NGAD will be expensive, with Kendall frequently using a metric of costing “multiples” of the already pricey F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. But with pressing modernization needs and ballooning costs for other critical programs, officials are now openly questioning whether their ambitions are affordable.

“If you look at what we do in our five-year plan — that is on the Hill now — to our foundational accounts in the out years, it’s clear we did something there that’s not going to be, you know, sustainable,” he said. “We’ve got to fix that problem too. So we’ve got a number of affordability issues over the five-year plan that we had to address. And we also have to go to look at and verify, if you will, that we had the right concept [for NGAD].”

Another consideration, according to Kendall, are the facilities that underpin the fighter’s operations. “The infrastructure that’s required to support an F-22 class aircraft, if you will, leads to some vulnerabilities. Runway length, for example,” he said.

Gertler observed that judging from previous comments made by officials like Kendall, “some delay in the central airframe component of NGAD not only appears likely, but is already underway.”

“It may not have been a common practice in the past, but there’s a lot to be said for designing to include reality rather than the world as it was when you started the program or as you wish it might be 40 years from now,” he added. “A procurement schedule that doesn’t allow adaptation to changing reality won’t yield a relevant system.”

SecAF Kendall speaks at SLOC

Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall speaks with students and guests during the Senior Leader Orientation Course at Joint Base Andrews, Md., July 24, 2023. The course provides training for newly selected brigadier generals and senior executive service members. (U.S. Air Force photo by Eric Dietrich)

An ‘Accumulation’ of Threats

Since the advent of the F-22 program, the Air Force’s concept for achieving air superiority has revolved around the idea of a stealthy sensor-shooter that can slip past enemy air defenses and take out threats before being detected — an operational concept the service calls “penetrating counter-air.”

Kendall said that concept hasn’t changed much since the early 1990s, when he briefed Dick Cheney, then the defense secretary, about what was considered the gravest set of threats the F-22 could face: the layered Soviet air defense systems of Syria.

But battlefields have changed in the decades since, and Kendall said the Air Force now stares down a list of Chinese threats that include increasingly sophisticated air defenses, advanced counter-stealth technologies, and new sensors and weapons built to vastly increase the range a target can be detected and destroyed.

RELATED: As Air Force deliberates sixth-gen fighter plans, much is at stake for Boeing

When asked whether a new technology had emerged that had potentially blunted the NGAD concept, Kendall characterized the growing threats as “an accumulation over time.” But he also hinted that an alternative operational concept could drive changes to NGAD requirements.

“It is natural to assume that, if you have a certain generation of something, that you’re going to go buy the next generation of that, and then it’s going to have some similar characteristics, a similar operating concept, but be better than the one you already have,” Kendall said.

“That philosophy was what drove where NGAD is headed. But we’re not up against Syria anymore. We’re not up against the Soviet Union anymore,” he said. “We’re up against China, primarily, as the pacing challenge. And we’ve got to be sure we’re doing the right thing.”

Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with AeroDynamic Advisory, noted that the Air Force’s consternation over NGAD’s operational requirements “point to the idea that true air dominance and air superiority might no longer be feasible” – an idea further underscored by both Russia and Ukraine’s difficulty establishing sustained control of the skies throughout the war in Ukraine.

“It speaks to a world where there’s a lot more lethality, there’s a lot more diffusion of threats, and there’s less of a chance of truly obliterating the other side’s air defenses, in which case your use of resources looks very different,” he said.

Ultimately, Aboulafia said that he believes the Air Force needs a crewed sixth-generation fighter, but the service faces a “fundamental contradiction” in its design requirements and budget that could drive delays. Affordability concerns would naturally push the service to a smaller aircraft with less range, but a more advanced Chinese threat could necessitate a larger, more capable, long-range jet that would cost more money.

“I don’t know which is the [right option] and it’s possible that they don’t know, but if there is a redesign, it’s two very contradictory directions,” he said.

Kendall, for his part, said NGAD is not just about the platform’s capabilities itself, but how it fits into a budding kill web that synchs up forthcoming drone wingmen known as Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), space capabilities and a new crop of weapons.

“It’s going to need to work with CCAs. It’s going to need to work in an architecture which includes space-based support and other off-board support and an architecture that uses our most advanced weapons,” he said. “So we’ve got an opportunity here to really just be careful and make sure we’re on the right path before we make the final commitment.”

@Defensecomnews via X

[oldshowbiz]

The House on Telegraph Hill (1951) is mostly filmed on a Hollywood backlot, but it does feature a couple San Francisco locations that basically look the same today.

Among the actual locations are the Union Grocery at 301 Union Street and the dead end overlook of Montgomery Street.

[posttexasstressdisorder]

Crazy, man, crazy...

https://www.cchrint.org/2023/01/06/cia-psychiatrist-jolly-wests-1960s-lsd-mind-control-experiments/

[ladyhoneydee]

30 Day Song(fic) Challenge: Day 5

Today's Song(fic) Challenge prompt was "A song by the first artist you ever loved", and so I have a confession: for the first six years of my life, I was a massive Parrothead. That's right! My first beloved artist was none other than Jimmy Buffet. I had such a dream of going up on stage at a concert during the song "Brown Eyed Girl" (as I was, importantly, a girl with brown eyes. However, for today's song, I went for a spin on "Coconut Telegraph", a classic about a very gossipy town, featuring our favorite Hateno!

I Swear, It's Just Between Me and You

Game: Post-Breath of the Wild

Pairing: Zelink

Word Count: 1435

Keywords: NPC POV of relationship, except it's the whole town, hehe

Their first mistake was to be new in town, and therefore very intriguing to the locals, who always loved a mystery. Their second was to tromp right past Seldon on horseback—sharing a saddle, did you see?!—with faces plied with exhaustion—just why were they exhausted, hm?! Their third was to cozy up in their little love nest for weeks—has anyone even seen the blonde girl leave the house once?—building up the anticipation to staggering heights. And their final mistake was for their love story to be so interesting.

Read the fic on Ao3, or under the cut!

“Did you hear?”

“Did you hear?”

“I heard that—”

Word spreads fast in Hateno, for a village where a third of the residents are under ten or over eighty (or both, but they try to ignore that weird Sheikah scientist up on the hill when they can), and another third are in the fields all day. After festivals, rumors ripple up and down the hills of the town, passed from mouth to eager ear. Every villager knows of a newcomer within a day, no matter how transient their stay may be. And nothing stays secret for long. 

Still, that couple tucked next to Firly Pond make it almost too easy. 

Their first mistake was to be new in town, and therefore very intriguing to the locals, who always loved a mystery. Their second was to tromp right past Seldon on horseback—sharing a saddle, did you see?!—with faces plied with exhaustion—just why were they exhausted, hm?! Their third was to cozy up in their little love nest for weeks—has anyone even seen the blonde girl leave the house once?—building up the anticipation to staggering heights. And their final mistake was for their love story to be so interesting.

“Did you see that?” hissed Amira to Nikki from across the washbasin, eyes wide.

“Walking arm-in-arm like some antiquated knight and lady! It’s just the main street of town. What do they think they’re playing at, all fancy?”

Nikki gleefully shared the news over dinner, and Nebb had some compelling details to share. “That’s the swordsman who showed me all the weapons! Maybe he really is a knight!”

Nikki had been quick to tell her son that the Hyrulean military had died with its royal line a century ago, but that didn’t stop the rumor of the knight spreading like wildfire through the village kids and home to their parents.

Weeks passed with little change, and the gossip threads stretched thin. The Knight would escort the Lady to the general store, and they’d buy goat butter and fabric by the yard, and return to their home after a circuit around town. 

“I think she’s making her own wardrobe,” Amira said one evening, prodding Pruce in the side to get his attention. “I work with clothing all day, you know—those cuts and styles of fabric are for everyday essentials. I wonder why she needs replacements for everything?”

“Why are we discussing this in bed?” groaned Pruce. 

“I heard that her entire town was burning down, and he rode in on a white stallion and saved her! Her leg was trapped under a beam and she couldn’t get free, but he saved her!” Azu crowed to the gaggle of surrounding kids. “That’s why she has no clothes, you know.”

“She has no clothes?” gasped Narah. “How terrible!”

“I heard from Narah that she walks around town…naked?” 

Uma gave Prima a dubious look. “Your inn is in the middle of town. Have you ever seen her walking around town naked?”

“Well…no. No, I haven’t.”

“Shouldn’t believe the first thing you hear from a little anklebiter!”

And yet, the next morning, a pair of nearly-new chemises were waiting on the Lady’s front porch for her, just in case. 

A few weeks later, the town was humming again, because the Lady was out and about.

Nebb would tell anyone who would listen how pretty she was in her green dress, how well it brought out her eyes. Tamana wanted to braid her lovely blonde hair back in intricate patterns suited to her station. Sayge placed a very pointed notice on the bulletin board with an offer for new residents to come ‘round to the dye shop for one free garment.

“She’s a little odd, I think,” Senna said surreptitiously. Thadd, one eye out for suspicious activity, leaned in closer to hear. “I saw her playing in the mud like a child, fitting together guardian parts! And then she ran all the way up the hill to the lab! She’s not very ladylike, I’d say.” She perked up. “Although if she gets mud in her dress, she might want to come dye it!”

The Knight got his fair share of talk, too. Koyin and Ivee privately agreed that if he wasn’t obviously meant for the Lady, they would both be interested in his sturdy frame and strong-and-silent personality, but as it was, they supported her wholeheartedly. Manny, recognizing the Knight from his failed attempt to woo Prima, attempted to spread rumors about him—“He eats rocks! I think he only bathes in the pond outside his house!”—although these crashed and burned just as badly as his romantic overtures.

The day that the Knight and Princess took their turn around town holding hands…now that one fed the gossip mill for weeks. Especially when, two sightings later, they were back to linked arms.

“Oh, I hope that everything is alright for them! The Knight’s eyes look so pained when he looks at her, all that longing…and the way she looks at him when she thinks no one can see! They must be in love, don’t you think?” 

Rhodes patted Ralera’s hand. “We’ll just have to believe they can find the same happiness we did.”

They did end up holding hands again, if you were curious. But shh! That’s a secret!

And then…there came the day of the spring festival.

The Knight and the Lady had lived in the house next to Firly Pond for two seasons now, and the townspeople had grown used to the Lady’s antics—and the Knight’s, as well, which had been unexpected, to say the least; no one had actually believed Manny when he’d said the boy ate rocks. What they hadn’t seen before was the young couple dancing or drinking.

“I know we call her the Lady, but it really seemed like she was doing some sort of court dance at first! Dear thing, I’m glad she lightened up after a few reels.” Clavia tutted her tongue concernedly.

“Did you see the way they packed away those wildberry spritzers? Their faces were as red as the juice by the end!”

“That might’ve been blushing, though. Did you see how they were looking at each other? How closely they were dancing by the end? Save room for Hylia, I say!”

“The way he dipped her, I swear, I would’ve just fallen over on the spot.”

“That’s because you’re just clumsy, Sophie. How about the way she spun him out and led him from behind, though? I would’ve swooned.” 

It was agreed that they were, perhaps, a very dangerous couple. Truly, it was for the best that they were falling in love with each other, and no one else. 

The summer was long and sultry. The fields sizzled with humid warmth from the ocean, and the townsfolk lazed about in the heat, stories flowing off the tongue with even greater ease than usual. The Lady and the Knight hadn’t been that interesting lately, but it was the principle of the thing that counted. Depending on who you asked, you might hear of a betting pool slowly building, about when the couple might approach Reede for a marriage license. The mayor—“Killjoy!”—was very zipped-lipped about the whole thing, much to the bettors’ disapproval.

Of course, it was on the most normal of dog days that the biggest bombflower of them all ignited.

“Teebo, Teebo! I saw the Knight and the Lady kissing!”

“Karin said they were walking down the path towards the beach, and just stopped right there! She had him pinned against the tree by the end of it, and they were both smiling like fools when they finished!”

It was the hottest topic of the summer. That one kiss kept the town buzzing for weeks, until…they started doing it everywhere. All the time. The center of town. On horseback, heading west. Frolicking on the beach. Walking up to the tech lab on the hill. In front of the goddess statue. It just wasn’t quite as interesting to share if everyone had the chance to see it for themselves.

If you were to look very closely at the faces of the Knight and the Lady after a kiss shared in the middle of town—which, of course you wouldn’t, because that would be rude, you have to give them privacy and only stare a little bit—you might see a subtle flavor of amusement, buried beneath the desire. Some theorizing might net you the thought that maybe, just maybe, the jam they’d planted in the cogs of the rumor mill might be intentional. Some sweet, silly revenge, perhaps, from an adoring, fun-loving couple, on a town that never quite stops talking.

Of course, you didn’t hear that from me!

[noloveforned]

it's a holiday weekend here in the u.s.a. and i'm 'celebrating freedom' with my typical friday evening freeform radio on wlur. you can tune in from 8pm until midnight for the live fireworks. if you're celebrating elsewhere tonight you can always catch up with last week's show streaming on mixcloud.

no love for ned on wlur – june 28th, 2024 from 8-10pm

artist // track // album // label the double // dawn of the double (excerpt) // dawn of the double // in the red dom sensitive // r&d // leather trim // dinosaur city mope grooves // forever is a long time // box of dark roses // 12xu antietam // shively spleen // antietam // hoemstead surveillance // on my way // less than one, more than zero // celluloid lunch loose lips // here she comes // loose lips cassette // (self-released) laughing // easier said // because it's true // celluloid lunch hot tubs time machine // no thanks, google maps // fifty shades of marcus 7" // spoilsport moss lime // dreamboat // zoo du quebec ep // telephone explosion the pretenders // message of love // pretenders ii // sire birthday girl dc // house of cards // birthday girl ep // army brat oh, rose // that do now see // that do now see (remastered) cassette // antiquated future danny paul grody duo // hawk hill // arc of night // three lobed fuubutsushi // new flora // meridians // cached media kronos quartet and laraaji // daddy's gonna tell you no lie // outer spaceways incorporated- kronos quartet and friends meet sun ra // red hot organization yea big and tatsu aoki // the mind and the heart // the hand and the moon, pt. 1 // for practically everyone william parker, cooper-moore and hamid drake // processional // heart trio // aum fidelity joe henderson // afro-centric // power to the people // milestone rome streetz // what i'm used to // i been thru mad shit // bad influenyce previous industries // white hen // service merchandise // merge homeboy sandman // the place i want to be // rich ii // dirty looks maxo // same hoodie since '05 // smile ep // smile for me yaya bey // chrysanthemums // ten fold // big dada jimmie green // dance // eccentric soul- the shoestring label compilation // numero group the garment district // the island of stability // flowers telegraphed to all parts of the world // happy happy birthday to me advantage lucy // solaris // fanfare // eastworld smile too much // memorial park // ep two cassette // dandy boy lunchbox // heaven only knows // pop and circumstance // slumberland shonen knife // elephant pao pao // burning farm // oglio korea girl // under the sun // korea girl // asian man