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cyberneticlagomorph · 5 months

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The venue, because that's what it is not a court house or anything of the sort, is a grand old theater with a blazing marquee that proclaims "TRIAL TODAY" in bold black letters.

A red carpet has been spread out from the theater's wide open double doors like a tongue lolling from a toothless mouth. Either side is lined with jostling reporters and flashing cameras that summon a seizure aura almost immediately. You grit your teeth against the sensation and hope it's something small this time and not a fit of spasms.

Vehicles of every shape, size, and description stands in an anxious line at the opposite end of the red carpet, with their occupants exiting with just as much awe and applause as if this were some Hollywood get together and not a bid for a little boy's life.

When your turn comes the crowd falls to a hush as the Great Crow slowly spirals down from a gap in the clouds and deposits the cage at the edge of the carpet. You exit first, sunglasses on in a feeble attempt to block out the buzzing flashing seething crowd that pulsates around you like ravenous corpse worms. You spot a familiar face in the crowd the same second he spots you, but you're faster by a mile and haul the scrawny brown haired man up by his neck.

"YOU!" The word isn't a word, it's a bark, a hiss, a growl between clenched teeth.

One Peter Benjamin Parker writhes in your grip like a bug with its legs pulled off.

How fitting.

"It's PASSOVER! PASSOVER!!!" Peter, or Benji as you used to call him when you were kids, gasps as he tries to loosen your grip. He says the words like a payer, like they mean something. "You.... promised... Aunt... May..." You scowl and drop him, watching him quickly scramble to his feet, rubbing at a neck that's already starting to bruise.

"I should kill you where you stand."

"You should, I totally agree with you on that BUT you promised my dear Aunt (may her memory be a blessing) that you wouldn't, no matter what I did." Benji gives you the biggest set of puppy dog eyes he can give you, though the effect is lessened by just how many eyes that actually is.

"She moved to FLORIDA Ben, stop telling people she's dead."

Benji clasps his hands together and does his best to look somber, "Sometimes I can still hear her voice..."

You try and fail not to smile at his dumb joke.

Benji holds up his camera, "C'mon just a few shots, my rent is due and I PROMISE I'll make you and the kid look good."

You scowl again and flex your fingers in a surprisingly threatening manner.

Benji shrinks back just a little, "...I'll even turn my flash off?"

You punch him somewhere tender and keep moving up the carpet, ignoring your growing migraine and the dangerous roar of your empty belly.

Any other reporters that get to close face your wrath and end up with their skeletons rearranged without breaking their skin.

Zeb is flanked on all sides by family members and snarling hyenas, safely hidden from the ravenous paparazzi as you make your way inside the darkened maw of the theater.

#ic #action post #trial by liar

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film-classics · 28 days

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Marlene Dietrich - The Queer Icon

Marie Magdalene "Marlene" Dietrich (born in Berlin, Germany on 27 December 1901) was a German-born actress who often blurred the feminine and masculine, making her "The Queer Icon."

Dietrich's earliest appearances were as a chorus girl in 1922. Making film history, she was cast in Germany’s first talkie The Blue Angel (1930) by director Josef von Sternberg. With the success of the movie, von Sternberg took her to Hollywood under contract to Paramount Pictures. She soon had hits like Morocco (1930) and Shanghai Express (1932).

When war broke, she set up a fund to help Jews and dissidents and toured extensively for the allied effort. After the war, she limited her cinematic life.

In 1953, Dietrich appeared live at Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas. This was so successful that she also appeared at Café de Paris in London and Broadway.

She continued to tour as a marquee performer until 1975, when she fell onstage. She spent her final years mostly bedridden, passing away at 90 in her Paris flat from kidney failure.

Legacy:

Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for Morocco (1930) and a Golden Globe Best Actress for Witness for the Prosecution (1958)

Received a Special David at the David di Donatello Awards for Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)

Given a Special Tony Award in 1968

Received German Film Awards Honorary Award in 1980

Is the namesake for asteroid 1010 Marlene in 1923

Inspired the Marlene pants in 1932

Has a Mercedes-Benz model, the 500K Marlene, named after her in 1936

Received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1947, the Commander of the Legion of Honour in 1950 and Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in 1983 from France, the Order of Leopold in 1965 from Belgium, and Medal of Valor of the State of Israel in 1965

Published an autobiography Nehmt nur mein Leben in 1979

Granted the Council of Fashion Designers of America Lifetime Achievement Award in 1986

Honored with a plaque at her birth site in 1992 and became an honorary Berlin citizen in 2002

Has a permanent exhibit at Deutsche Kinemathek, the Marlene Dietrich Collection Berlin, since 1993

Ranked #60 in Empire's 100 Sexiest Stars in Film History in 1995

Honored with street names: the Marlene-Dietrich-Straße in Munich, Dusseldorf, Weimar, Ingolstadt, and Neu-Ulm, the Marlene-Dietrich-Allee in Potsdam, the Marlene-Dietrich-Platz in Berlin in 1997, and Place Marlène-Dietrich in Paris in 2002

Commemorated by Deutsche Post with a stamp in 1997

Listed 43rd in Entertainment Weekly's 100 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time in 1998

Depicted in a musical, Marlene on the West End in 1997 and Broadway in 1999, and a biopic, Marlene (2000)

Named 9th-greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema in 1999 by the American Film Institute

Inducted in the Online Film and Television Association Hall of Fame in 2003

Honored by Montblanc with a fountain pen in 2007 and by Swarovski with a dress in 2017

Awarded a star in Berlin's Boulevard der Stars in 2010

Honored with a Google Doodle on her 116th birthday in 2017

Honored as Turner Classic Movies Star of the Month for May 2018

Featured in songs, including Suzanne Vega's "Marlene on the Wall" (1985), Peter Murphy's "Marlene Dietrich's Favourite Poem" (1989), Black Midi's "Marlene Dietrich" (2021)

Depicted onstage in Marlène Dietrich, The Blue Angel's White Nights in 2017 at Théâtre Trévise and Marlene in Hollywood in 2023 at Theater Lindenhof

Featured in exhibits, such as "Marlene Dietrich, Creation of a Myth" at Palais Galliera in 2003, "Marlene Dietrich: Dressed for the Image" at National Portrait Gallery in 2017, "Play the Part: Marlene Dietrich" at International Center of Photography in 2023

Is a muse for designers, including Vivienne Westwood, Thierry Mugler, Jason Wu, Max Mara, David Koma, and Dior

Has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6400 Hollywood Boulevard for motion picture

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whisperthatruns · 5 months

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An Aria

How do I get my mind back? Yes, my mind. The fascist, that murderer of half a million, never had my body. My body has been owned, but not by him. I never liked backtracking. Brush Road, Born Street. I’ve walked those roads before, barefoot. There is no going back to Born. No mind left behind to recoup. It’s like donated clothes you try to buy back from the sucker who’s already wearing them. But there is something to be claimed. Some comrade to bust out of jail who can’t see the way forward even when you crack the chains. In my pre-tit days, I’d walk to the empty outdoor theater and sit on the playground equipment beneath the screen. Everything in that place was silver. Gravel, playground horses, and rocket ships whose paint had chipped away by wind and time. I knew nothing larger than that screen. No god so sublime. Silver-white against the whiter clouds. Peppered with purple bird shit. When night falls, anything can project itself against a face like that. Cartoons, or Vixen, rated X. When the free-show man came to town, he’d hang a sheet between two trees and project cowboy movies against it. Kids sat on the grass eating popcorn from greasy paper bags, watching ads scroll down the screen. Popcorn wasn’t free. A free show is never really free. Do you think someone didn’t die on that sheet hung between two trees? I once received a letter from the current lover of the love of my life telling me he’d overdosed and died. She wrote on thin blue paper etched with flowers. An act of grace I hadn’t earned. I’d left him behind knowing it was just a matter of time. My mind has grown wooden around love, like a tree that has nearly swallowed a garden gate where lovers met at moonrise when the air was thick with Hesperis. A musty, fatal scent, like punks who refused to bathe. Lovers long dead, gate now opening only to the tree’s heartwood. My son’s first love was Anne Frank, after he read her diary. He was eight, drawing portraits of her day and night. I must have Anne, he said when I tucked him in, though he knew she was dead, whatever that means. This is the mind, sepia, color of dried blood. Maybe the first love is the best love. The first loss, the worst. If so, mine came early. The rest is repetition compulsion, iterations until the ink runs dry. Still, remembering wakes my mind a little, or some facsimile of the mind I used to be. All activities of the mind now seem quaint, like dolls with lace faces unearthed from beneath the attic stairway. My feelings, too, smothered like a kingdom of bees so the buzzing doesn’t draw attention to their honey. Now, to unmuffle myself, I read Keats’ love letters, written in a tubercular fever, then listen to Marquee Moon, album by Television, that Tom Verlaine band, so aggressive live it made me start my period, leave a lyric bloodstain on the chair. Then I play “Gimme Shelter” on repeat to be awash in the supremacy of Merry Clayton’s background vocals. Called into the studio in the middle of the night, cold, hair in curlers, pregnant, pushed out her scream- song aria three times, and miscarried a daughter the next day. She blamed it on the song but not her voice. When she woke after a car accident, years later, with amputated legs, she asked only about her voice. Mother, may I sing again? May I see again, not a symbol of a flower but Hesperis, tolls again in the wind again. Flower of an hour. A fragrant hour. Its face, skin, smile, its opening again, the curtain of petals closing over its face again. May I take the murdered world in? Sing of it again?

Diane Seuss (The Adroit Journal, 2024)

#diane seuss #an aria #poetry

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where-the-flash · 9 months

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"The Henpecked Duck": A Morbidly Intensive Reflection (Part 1)

(image: vcrfromheck.tumblr.com)

What you see before you is a facsimile of a VHS tape my grandmother mysteriously owned in the early nineties. The tape was specifically for my older sister and myself in the hopes that it would pacify us if we got too rowdy. My grandmother eventually donated it once we were older....without asking my permission. We're not on speaking terms at the present moment.

The videotape was entitled "Cartoons R Fun", which is embossed on a rainbow you might see arched over Mount Ararat post-Deluge. Indeed, cartoons "r" fun, if you forgive the juvenile usage of a homophonic letter as a plural present tense of the verb "to be".

Daffy Duck, proudly standing on a tan blob with thin pencil lines to signify a nest (one that's peacefully floating on a violet overcast sky), is holding a freshly-hatched, over-sized duckling in his hand, as a quaint HOME SWEET HOME knick-knack looks on lovingly. Not an accurate depiction of the advertised short, but we'll cross that poorly-drawn bridge when we get to it. However, the tilted Dr. Caligari-esque shadow of a window in the background is indicative of the mood of the short in question.

(image: vcrfromheck.tumblr.com)

The tape was top-loaded with four chortle-filled public domain follies produced between 1937 and 1941. Those amusements being, The Henpecked Duck, I Wanna Be a Sailor (see?), Robinson Crusoe Jr., and A Coy Decoy, as the tape advertises in a tacky brush font, on a showbiz marquee being lugged about by two (presumably) unpaid simian laborers, "Henpecked Duck and MANY MORE..." ("Henpecked Duck", as you might have noted, is missing a definite article, adding to the lackadaisical charm of the proceedings).

These tapes were not the best quality. I know this because the last ten seconds of A Coy Decoy are cut out, missing the all-important punchline of Daffy procreating with a toy duck. (it took me fifteen years to discover this, thanks to the miracle of www.youtube). The tape was too short so it ended on a blue screen of death. The shorts were not in black-and-white, nor are they in color, as the box cover deceptively advertises with its omnipresent "all color" rainbow. Rather, it's presented in a dusty sepia-tone (the shorts fell into public domain so I can incorrectly presume that the sepia is an after-effect of neglected film preservation). This in itself is not a bad thing. I like my cartoons to look like the first act of The Wizard of Oz. They look pristine and well-preserved, like something perfectly bronzed to a fine sheen. If I were to flick my finger, the film would make an audible 'ding'.

Anyway, the cartoon that sticks out the most (obviously, it's the main feature) is The Henpecked Duck. Released on August 30th, 1941 (about three months before the United States entered World War II....this was back when the epidemic of housewives battering their husbands with frying pans was of more pressing concern than Hitler), it was directed by Bob Clampett (the insane bad boy of the Warner Bros. animation department) and written by Warren Foster. It concerns a married Daffy Duck getting into some hot water after accidentally misplacing their unborn child. It is an intense piece of marital melodrama framed through the irreverent filter of Looney Tunes.

I've always been drawn to it. Not in any sort of substantive way (I'm not a child of divorce or anything of the sort), but in the sense that it's a piece of media that I've consumed to such a inordinate degree that it gains a kind of vague meaningfulness. It's also an overlooked short that I feel should have a little light drawn towards it, as a way of saving it from the gaping maw of obscurity. And since every piece of media has been discussed to death on the internet, I thought I could annoy you and place my minuscule stakes on this 7-minute short from 1941. Hopefully, this will be the final, definitive word on the subject. My legacy depends on it.

Let's examine this short in embarrassing, navel-gazing detail, shall we?. Not just gazing, mind you, I mean gripping my hairy belly between my two mitts and, depending on how much bendable flexibility I still have stored in my rapidly fading youthful figure, blow into my umbilicus scar, until you hear an audible plop-plop-plop.

(note: I put a sepia filter on these black & white screencaps to simulate how I experienced The Henpecked Duck as a child.)

WAH WAH WAH WAH WAHHHHHHHHHH. Doodly-doo, doodly-doo, scattily woo woo woo woo doo, doodly-doo, doodly-doo, doo doo. (That was obviously Mendelssohn playing over those overlapping rolling pins.)

The short opens on darkness, a cacophony of plaintive whinging blooms on the soundtrack. People are demanding divorces left and right. The camera suddenly springs back from the darkness to reveal the shadowy entrance of what appears to be a ramshackle barn or chicken coop. It's hard to tell considering the entrance takes up the entire frame. The lack of a proper wide establishing shot and the numerous disembodied voices only adds to the feeling of anxious dislocation. A wooden plank leads forbiddingly into the darkness. A crudely written sign hangs over the entrance, "Court of Inhuman Relations."

(A small reservation I have is the sound mixing on the voices being too loud. You can almost hear Carl Stalling's score which, from the few strains that I'm able to eke out, carry an foreboding menace).

Transition to a close-up of Porky's gavel (Porky is presiding over this raucous kangaroo court) rapping on the judge's stand with an aggressiveness too intense for the viewer to even process in these first few seconds. The camera rapidly pulls back from the gavel, to a wider shot of Porky, to an extreme low-angle long shot of the aisle as the crowd quiets down. Already, we have two instances of the camera springing back rapidly from close-ups to establishing shots, as if the cameraman was suddenly dropped out of the sky and is quickly trying to adjust to the foreign scenario he has just encountered. Needless to say, it has a startling effect.

Porky Pig announces the first case of the day: Duck vs. Duck. He orders Mr. Daffy Duck to approach the stand. There is a shot from Porky's perspective where we can see the entire courtroom with Porky's gavel and water jug hugely prominent in the foreground (they take up almost half of the frame, symbolizing the firm grip that the rural judicial system has even over the lowliest waterfowl). The courtroom is a surreal scene indeed. It consists of barnyard animals, from a duck with an abnormally long neck, to a dopey-looking black mutt, to a fat hog sitting uncomfortably on one of the benches, and a snoring elderly hen (who provide a few visual gags near the end of the short).

Daffy Duck slowly shuffles up the aisle. His overbearingly grim disposition are not unlike a POW during the Bataan Death March, with his slouched posture and hangdog eyes. Stalling's score is just as slow and methodical; a prominent trombone emitting a onomatopoeic 'wah-wah'. He walks past the onlooking crowd, eerily still and blurred in the background. The few figures he walks past in the foreground are featureless and emit a dull glow like bronze statues. The stillness of the crowd make Daffy's isolation unbearable.

Daffy approaches the stand as Porky calls up Mrs. Daffy Duck. Before I move on, I must point out a glancing detail and a naggingly under discussed trope of old 30's-40's cartoons: glassy eyelids. Daffy blinks a few times as he looks up at Porky on the stand. His eyelids have a glassy, polished tint, as if run through a shoe buffer. It is an unsettling detail, adding to the surreality of the mise-en-scène.

Mrs. Duck, unlike Daffy, charges up the aisle with a straw boater cocked at an angle, in the manner of old-time gangsters, and a ridiculous poofy ball bouncing from it (what else could one call it but a 'poofy ball'?), giving off a unexpectedly violent energy. Unlike the pathetic trombone used on Daffy, Stalling utilizes blaring trumpets, giving her entrance a martial air. I must amusingly point out that Mrs. Duck is essentially Daffy with a hat and skirt (no pronounced Minnie Mouse eyelashes either).

Shot from an intense low angle close-up, Mrs. Duck, the perennial battle-ax stereotype, chants the four most iconic words of my salad years: "I WANT A DIVORCE! I WANT A DIVORCE!" It's amazing how a single moment can be so easily etched into such an impressionable young mind. The immediacy of it (no one in real life can shout banal declarations with such dramatic relish) and its startling bluntness struck me as unusual in a Looney Tunes short. It's so dramatically heightened when compared to the more relatively light-hearted tone of other Warner Bros shorts. Though as I've grown older, I can't help but see a bit of the parodic in it; melodrama bursting to the brink of burlesque. Not to mention the almost shrill string section that accompany these outbursts.

Mrs. Duck rains a flurry of invective on Daffy (with a couple of thwacks on the head from her vanity parasol). We get a closeup of Daffy, where we get some fine acting on his end. As she twaddles on, he winces and grimaces, being verbally battered into submission. At one point, she commands him to respond. In a subtle bit of comic acting, Daffy opens his beak in an air of sarcasm (noted by the over-exaggerated intake of breath), and just as he's about to speak, he automatically snaps his beak closed just as she tells him to shut up. Henpecked, indeed, if you are unironically tickled by the avian-adjacent pun of its title.

The Honorable Porky Pig orders Mrs. Duck to calm herself and explain the origins of this particular domestic strife. I must point out that as Porky speaks, we get a two-shot of Mr. and Mrs. Duck. It's almost a still shot, except for the poofy ball on her hat, which slowly bounces until it comes to a stop, like a toy soldier winding down. It's a minute detail that adds to her energetic characterization. Even when she's still, she's moving.

At this point we are launched into the dramatic thrust of the short. We are spirited backward into the past by way of flashback. This is where the real fun begins.

We arrive at the abode of the Ducks (we get no exterior establishing shot) where silhouettes (projected on a wall of two by fours, adding to the rural decrepitude) of the couple hover over a nest with a plump half-oval of an egg nestled on top. A framed embroidered artwork of the words "Home Sweet Home" adds a touch of ironic bonhomie (the music of "Home Sweet Home" is gently playing in the background). Mrs. Duck is lovingly instructing Daffy to manually incubate the egg while she goes to visit her mother. She walks past the camera and out of frame. She then violently (and comically) juts her face back into frame (her beak thrusting like a dagger) with an idle threat of strangulation (the music suddenly turns menacing).

Daffy sits obediently on the nest, replying to every matrimonial trumpet blast with the soft-spoken yet seethingly sarcastic, "Yes, m'love." Daffy's comic acting is brilliant here. The frozen smile, the disingenuously coy eye-blinking, the listless, non-committal head nodding. Not to mention Carl Stalling's expressive soundtrack, with Mrs. Duck's dialogue highlighted by stormy percussion and Daffy's highlighted by softer staccato variations on the "Home Sweet Home" theme. When Mrs. Duck leaves, Daffy gets up off the nest and vents out his frustration, mocking her with multiple "Yes, m'love's" (we also get a sense of the wide space of their sparsely furnished house, giving it the feeling of a stage). The omniscient Mrs. Duck suddenly bursts through the door screaming, "What's that?!" Daffy springs back to the nest (the music oddly spring-like itself), a eerie moment of silence before Daffy quietly, obediently says, "Yes, m'love." Mrs. Duck leaves.

After an indeterminate passage of time, Daffy is still sitting on the egg (his arms uselessly crossed as opposed to the demure limpness he expressed when the missus was about), looking bored and restless. Carl Stalling's score here is particularly striking, giving this little interlude a weird note of foreboding. Daffy decides to examine the egg, shake it, and balance it precariously on his digit. How I relate to Daffy's fascination! There is something miraculous about that ovoid vessel. Its perfect shape and dimensions. Its firm yet fragile shell, its smell reminiscent of sticking your hand out of a speeding car window, then smelling the palm once retracted. When you put a knife to a boiled egg, you see its uniform circularity with its white outer layer and its yellow yolk (sans zygote, of course).

Daffy, in a fit of pure sponteneum, lays to rest the age-old chicken-or-the-egg conundrum by rendering it moot. We get an extreme close-up of his hand fondling the egg then pressing the egg between his palms until it is squeezed out of existence. Even Harry Handcuffs couldn't pull off a feat of such trickery. Daffy, standing confidently on his nest like a master sleight-of-hand, chants some magical hoodoo ("Hocus pocus, flippety flam, razzmatazz, and alacazam!") and the egg reappears between his two fingers (with an amusing "boing", clearly a human's voice).

He is amazed by his newfound abilities and addresses the audience with cross-eyed relish. Notice that the borders of the frame move inward so there there is a thick black outline underneath and to the sides. We cut to a wide shot of Daffy stepping off his nest (making a hearty reference to Major Bowes, an old "Gong Show"-esque radio program) and then stepping forward and out of the frame, his feet planted on the black. It's meant to be a fourth-wall gag but it's awkwardly executed because you notice the frame retracting in preparation for the gag. Frankly, I'm not quite sure why they had to break the fourth wall at that particular moment.

Daffy makes the egg disappear again. I must point out Stalling's lovely rendition of Juventino Rosas' waltz, "Sobre las Olas" (Over the Waves), a calming Wurlitzer standard, but like its title, suggests that Daffy is heading into choppy waters. He repeats the magic words and, lo and behold, the egg does not reappear. Daffy's eyes bulge out of his head and looks at the audience, shrugging with uneasy reassurance. He tries again. Same result. The tempo of the scene steadily grows faster (along with the score) as Daffy desperately tries to make the egg reappear. Daffy is now hysterically banging the floor, imploring an indifferent deity to make his unborn child whole again. Of course, it wouldn't be Looney Tunes if they didn't make Daffy break the fourth wall ("Say, is there a magician in the house?"), then immediately falling back into character (now that felt like a more appropriate fourth-wall gag than the previous one). A clock ticks on unrepentantly.

(continued in Part 2...I hoped to fool you and claim it's Part 1 as a dramatic cliffhanger for this intense marital thriller...it's only because Tumblr allows 30 images per post so I had to break it up into two parts....I apologize if I have completely demystified this [allegedly] mature and thoughtful examination)

#looney tunes #movies #henpecked duck

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news24news · 8 years

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A Trump Tower Goes Bust in Canada

The failure this week of Trump Toronto showcased a familiar scenario: big promises, glitzy image, a Russian-born financier, aggrieved smaller investors – but few losses for the mogul himself.

The 65-story Trump International Hotel & Tower Toronto has all the glitz and ambition of the luxury-brand businessman with his name in giant letters near its spire. It’s the tallest residential skyscraper in Canada, and probably the fanciest. The hotel’s sleek cream-and-black interiors were inspired by Champagne and caviar. Every room features Italian Bellino linens and Nespresso coffeemakers. Guests can book a Trump Experience outing through the Trump Attache concierge service. Their furry friends are eligible for the Trump Pets program, which “will fill your best Fido’s tummy with gourmet treats, and see them off to sleep on a plush dog bed.”

This Trump-branded and Trump-managed jewel is also, as a business venture, a bust.

On Tuesday, a Canadian bankruptcy judge placed the glass-and-granite building into receivership, just four years after Trump and his children cut the ribbon at its grand opening. Once it’s auctioned off, whether or not Trump is the leader of the free world by then, his name may well vanish from its marquee. Trump is not the project’s developer or even an investor; one of his partners, a Russian-born billionaire who got rich in Ukraine’s steel industry, controls the firm that’s in default. The Trump Toronto is still a posh hotel, and even though nearly two thirds of the tower’s condo units remain unsold, they’re still upscale residences. Still, the saga of the property’s glittering rise and rapid fall is classic Trump, featuring a tsunami of litigation and bitterness, money with a Russian accent, and a financial wreck that probably won’t hit its namesake particularly hard.

Trump has vowed to run the country the way he runs his businesses, and Trump Toronto is yet another reminder that his businesses do not always run smoothly. Even before the bankruptcy, the Trump Organization was already mired in litigation over management issues with the project’s owner, Talon International—led by Alex Shnaider, the steel magnate who is perhaps better known for buying a Formula One racing team and hiring Justin Bieber to sing at his daughter’s Sweet Sixteen. The project also faced lawsuits filed by middle-class investors who claim they were suckered into buying time-share-style units in the hotel with wildly overstated projections of Trump Toronto’s performance. Now it’s in receivership, which will produce new ownership and, quite possibly, a new brand.

Trump Organization spokeswoman Amanda Miller noted that the company still has a long-term deal to manage the Toronto property, no matter who controls it after the auction. “This has been a record year for the hotel, and we look forward to its continued success,” Miller said. “Guests can expect to receive the same superior level of service and quality that is synonymous with our brand around the world.”

But it’s not clear that Trump Toronto will keep its name, much less its management team. Toronto is one of the world’s most multicultural cities, and Trump’s run for the presidency, especially his provocations against immigrants and Muslims, have made his hotel a target for protests. And one insider familiar with the bankruptcy proceedings said that local rivals in the luxury condo and hotel market, notably the Four Seasons and the Ritz Carlton, have dramatically outcompeted the Trump property. Court documents show that even though investors in the hotel units were told the “worst case scenario” for occupancy rates would be 55%, they’ve ranged between 15% and 45%. The average room rate, despite the snazzy crystal sconces and in-mirror bathroom TVs and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Lake Ontario, has been nearly $100 below the initial projections.

“The whole business model has been overpromise and underdeliver, and it’s Trump’s name on the thing,” the insider said. “You can’t put all the blame on him and his people. But if they did a terrific job, do you think it would be in bankruptcy?”

Trump first got involved in the project 15 years ago, when he held a press conference with Toronto’s mayor to announce his plan to build a new Ritz Carlton downtown. That plan fell apart when it came out that his development partner was a fugitive who had been convicted of bankruptcy fraud and embezzlement in the U.S. Trump then forged a licensing and management deal with Shnaider and another Russian-Canadian named Val Levitan, whose name comes up a lot in the documents because he had no development experience. Talon pre-sold 85 percent of the units at near-Manhattan prices before the groundbreaking in 2007, but most of the buyers backed out after the global financial crisis ravaged the real estate market, and Levitan was eventually forced out.

It is clear from affidavits in the fraud cases and the bankruptcy case that the buyers have taken a financial beating. A warehouse supervisor named Sarbjit Singh, who was earning about $55,000 a year, testified that he borrowed money from his father, a retired welder, for the deposit on his hotel unit; he never closed on the deal, but he says he still lost $248,000. Se Na Lee, a homemaker who was married to a mortgage underwriter, borrowed money for her deposit from her parents; she did close, and ended up losing $990,000 through December 2014, she says.

A judge later described Talon’s prospectus and other “deceptive documents” as “a trap to these unsurprisingly unwary purchasers,” and ruled that they could sue Trump as well as Talon. The surnames in the court filings reflect the global diversity of the people who put their trust in the Trump brand and the Talon sales representatives: Ayeni, Surani, Yuen, Rhee, Okwuosa, Gupta, Radhakrishman, Varadarasa, Akinkuotu. Some said they were assured that Trump’s involvement would make it easy for them to get mortgages, but banks have shied away, even as the local real estate market has become one of the hottest on the planet.

These problems were already simmering when Trump—along with his children Eric, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, who oversees his worldwide hotel operations—stepped out of a Cadillac Escalade for the hotel’s ribbon-cutting in April 2012. There are snippets of the event on YouTube, where you can see Trump smiling dutifully as he congratulates hotel staffers, accepting a Maple Leafs jersey with his name on the back, and watching a speech by Toronto’s late mayor, Rob Ford, who would later become a household name after a crack-smoking scandal.

By 2015, Trump and Talon were suing each other, with the Trump team alleging a Talon scheme to take over the management, Talon alleging a Trump scheme to devalue the property in order to buy it at a discount, and both sides accusing each other of shoddy financial record-keeping. Talon also disparaged Trump’s performance running the hotel, but the dispute is now in mediation. It probably won’t matter, because Talon is about to lose the property, most likely to JCF Capital, a U.S. investment firm that purchased its $225 million construction loan.

Talon’s attorney, Steven Rukavina, would only say that the company is cooperating with the restructuring, and views the court’s appointment of a receiver as “a positive step forward toward achieving that objective.” JCF declined comment, though it has said in its filings that it intends to honor Trump’s contract if it assumes control of the property.

But Trump’s campaign, with its hostility towards foreigners, progressives, and others, has not played well in Toronto. A city councilor has called for the property to change its name. Hollywood types reportedly blackballed the hotel—along with its 31st-floor restaurant, which is actually called America—during this summer’s Toronto Film Festival. There have been protests outside the building by union workers, women’s groups, and Muslim groups. The Trump brand is under siege, which has delayed the opening of a similar Trump-licensed hotel and condo project in Vancouver until after the election. The colorful mosaic celebrating multiculturalism at the entrance to Trump Toronto, titled A Small Part of Something Larger, now seems to clash with the nominee’s white-backlash message.

Trump has presided over four corporate bankruptcies, and the flurry of lawsuits and countersuits over Trump Toronto’s broken promises is rather typical for a Trump property. But this is Talon’s bankruptcy, not his. The project was built with other people's money; he just got paid for the use of his name and his hotel management team. It’s not clear how much he ever knew about Talon’s high-pressure sales tactics. It’s also not clear how much he ever knew about his Russian-Canadian partner's business activities in Eastern Europe.

“We heard fantastic things about [Shnaider],” Trump told a Forbes reporter by phone from his 2005 honeymoon. “But sometimes people say wonderful things whether they mean them or not.”

Then again, Trump did license his name and his brand to Talon. This isn’t his main concern this week, but he can’t deny all responsibility for the failure of a Trump project, especially when the Trump Organization is running the Trump hotel. The project's partners, investors, and lenders all got a Trump Experience, one that isn't available from the concierge.

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sophietv · 1 year

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Really enjoyed your post on how folklore and evermore aren't about T and K ending things, and wanted to throw my two cents in on Closure, Happiness and Gold Rush. Happiness was the last song she wrote for evermore, and I think it's about her best friend Abigail's marriage ending, which happened close to when evermore came out. I always picture Gold Rush about T being smitten with K at the VS show but hesitating about going for it because she doesn't trust the feeling, and she's afraid ('feels like flying til the bone crush'/'everybody wants you but I don't like a gold rush'). Closure to me has always been about the sale of her masters. The discordant sound of machinery falling apart during the song is a Big Machine breaking. I think it's to Scott Borchetta- the song tells the story of someone she was close to writing her a false apology letter to smooth over his reputation. Why would K need to smooth her reputation when their relationship was secret? But SB would, after T put him on blast for betraying her (totally agree w you that My Tears Ricochet is also about this situation, especially because her teardrops are ricocheting off her guitar in angry songwriting now whereas on her debut, which he was instrumental in, 'Teardrops on my Guitar' was one of her marquee songs). Anyway, my two cents on these songs but totally agree that these are not albums about a definitive breakup but about weathering life together in a committed and trusting relationship.

Thank you for your interpretation of those songs! I love that!!

I LOVE your interpretation of Gold Rush and it makes so much sense with the start of the song too: "Eyes like sinking ships on waters So inviting, I almost jump in"

Because during the 2013 VSFS, there was a part of the show named "Ship Wreck" and Karlie walked in it.

Comparing My Tears Ricochet with Teardrops On My Guitar is brilliant! I love it!

I agree with everything you said in there.

Thank you again!

#kaylor #lsk

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leam1983 · 2 years

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On Owning Bigots

There is precisely one Trumptard on the payroll, and while we haven't exactly advertised our relationship in bold marquee letters, Walter, Sarah and I are now known to carpool together fairly frequently. Add Walter turning into my defacto mobility aid between the office lobby and the car park, and some heads began to turn. At least one of them was mean-spirited.

So. We're coming back from lunch hour and said bigot notices how I've got an arm hooked through Walt's own bent forearm. A few others are strolling past us and aren't so much as looking in our direction.

With zero prompting, she belts out "Hello, ladies!" loud enough to startle a few commuters in the car park. They turn and stare. She grins at us, likely feeling happy that she's exposed us.

Walt takes one look at her, sizes me up in an instant - and then slams his lips against mine, thrusting his weight against mine while bracing me against him to prevent any falls. I end up dipping back ever so slightly, and Walt makes the kiss last a tad longer than it really needs to.

By the time he parts from me, his attack's effects are obvious. The onlookers are cheering us, and the would-be humiliator is now speed-walking for the front door, where we're both sure a rather irate boss is waiting for her.

"Jesus Christ, you're hot," I tell him, in a breath. He mimes stroking his overcoat's lapels. "I try my best," he jokes, adding a fun tinge of false modesty to the proceedings.

#work post

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alchemyweddingdesigns1 · 8 days

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amorlangosta · 2 months

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alchemyweddingdesigns · 2 months

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event1212 · 3 months

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tea-and-waffles-errday · 8 months

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Bright Ideas for Crafting: Utilizing Mini LED Lights Effectively

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luisauthornews · 8 years

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A Trump Tower Goes Bust in Canada

The failure this week of Trump Toronto showcased a familiar scenario: big promises, glitzy image, a Russian-born financier, aggrieved smaller investors – but few losses for the mogul himself.

November 02, 2016

This Trump-branded and Trump-managed jewel is also, as a business venture, a bust.

Trump is not the project’s developer or even an investor; one of his partners, a Russian-born billionaire who got rich in Ukraine’s steel industry, controls the firm that’s in default. The Trump Toronto is still a posh hotel, and even though nearly two thirds of the tower’s condo units remain unsold, they’re still upscale residences. Still, the saga of the property’s glittering rise and rapid fall is classic Trump, featuring a tsunami of litigation and bitterness, money with a Russian accent, and a financial wreck that probably won’t hit its namesake particularly hard.

“We heard fantastic things about [Shnaider],” Trump told a Forbes reporter by phone from his 2005 honeymoon. “But sometimes people say wonderful things whether they mean them or not.”

#Trump

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