#bobbysoxers

[arokel]

WIP WEDNESDAY

aka time to unveil my hyperspecific 1960s lesbians au

The fair had been open for a week now and the day was cloudy and threatening rain, but Bobbi Moch couldn't have cared less. She hadn't even brought an umbrella. Well. She might have cared a little. Because right beside her in line for the Monorail was Don, and Bobbi might have gone a little heavier on the hairspray than usual just to make sure her updo would stay nice the whole time they were out. Even though Don had seen her sweaty and red-faced in Old Nero, hair tossed by wind and frizzed by the spray from their oars, she wanted to look as nice as she could for just this one day. It was a special day, after all - one Bobbi had been waiting for with just as much excitement and anticipation as Century 21. That Don had even accepted her invitation to the exposition was special in itself. Don didn't like crowds, and she didn't really like going out with other girls to places where it might look like a date - especially with Bobbi, tiny compared to Don in her plaid dress and patent leather shoes, her glossy hair flipped up at the ends and her pale pink lipstick. Standing next to Don in her trousers and blouse, curly hair cut short around her ears, they might have looked to some people like boyfriend and girlfriend. That sort of misconception always made Don even shyer than normal. Only this time it really was a date. Or at least Bobbi hoped so.

aka aka

thanks to @jondoe-inspiration for the tag! tagging @icegreyrose and @strangethings-everywhere and anyone else who wants to jump in <3

[chutty2thiq]

I'd like to ask why I saw you and Cynthia Clawdrown chatting at the Crow's Inn hotel lobby on Thursday the 32nd of November! No nut November is a very serious matter and shouldn't be taken otherwise forage him'eth such.

hey! hey, you! it isn't no nut november! no nut november was a hoax invented by q-anon, and I don't support their goals in this community. it's actually crow chut December! yeah, that's right! ill take a crow out to dinner if it pleases me to do so! and, if you must know, cynthia clawdrown is a recently deceased phantom of whomst i fancy a banter with! so, keep your talons in your own honeypot, you bobbysoxing wench!

[chaoticbuggybitchboy]

(This is genuinely my thought process when I see/hear the song Bobby Sox by Green Day)

Bobby Sox… like.. Kobracola??? ENDANGERED GAYS!!!! NO FREAKING WAY

:D omg an irl endangered gays ref!!!! /j

[thezombieprostitute]

Trick or treat, again!

My costume is the whole 50s bobbysoxer/poodle-skirt getup.

And my babe is Andy. 😏 Is this a bald-faced attempt to force you into writing something nice about Andy?? Yes. Yes, it is.

I realize that just by admitting this, I'm jinxing myself into a trick. 🤣

You get, a Treat!

Andy is jittery with excitement at getting to take you out for Halloween. He was wearing a high school football jacket from the thrift store while you looked beautiful in your poodle skirt getup.

"Just remember the deal," you tell Andy as you get out of the car. "I get at least half of your fries.

Andy smiles as he pulls you close, "always."

[cheapsweetsrocks]

🏳️‍🌈Queer music for Pride Month🏳️‍🌈

This year I figured I’d mark Pride Month by posting a song by a different queer artist for every day in June; I’ll be collating links to each of the songs/posts into this masterpost as I go along.

This is never going to be comprehensive, but I’ve tried to include as wide a variety as I could, in terms of the artists, genres and eras of music (I’d love to hear of any other favourites, or anything important that I might have missed!)

I mostly stuck to songs where there was an actual, good quality video available, which did unfortunately restrict me in some areas (I would have loved to include something by Tribe 8 for example), but there are a few exceptions where I’ve either picked a visualiser, or just the audio track (where I felt the audio was much better than a live set, or where the only videos had flashing lights, which I've tried to avoid).

Anyhow, happy Pride!

Dope Saint Jude - Alphas

2. Judas Priest - Breaking The Law

3. Rina Sawayama - Frankenstein

4. Water Spirit - Chaos Euphoria

5. Green Day - Bobbysox

6. Hayley Kiyoko - For the Girls

7. George Michael - Outside

8. Vile Creature - Glory, Glory! Apathy Took Helm!

9. Pansy Division - I Really Wanted You

10. Skunk Anansie - Weak

11. Banshee - Birth of Venus

12. 100 Gecs - Doritos & Fritos

13. Bloc Party - Hunting for Witches

14. Chappel Roan - Pink Pony Club

15. The HIRS Collective feat. Shirley Manson - We're Still Here

16. Janelle Monáe - Water Slide

17. Dusty Springfield - I Only Want To Be With You

18. Backxwash feat. Ada Rook - I Lie Here Buried With My Rings and My Dresses

19. R.E.M. feat. Patti Smith - E-bow The Letter

20. Faetooth - Echolalia

21. Fever Ray - North

22. Clowns - Formaldehyde

23. Grace Petrie - Northbound

24. KEiiNO - GET UP

25. The Doubleclicks - Dimetrodon

26. Angel Electronics - RETURN TO THE SKY

27. Big Freedia - BDE

28. Sunrot - Gutter

29. The B-52s - Good Stuff

30. Sleater-Kinney - LOVE

[arbitrarygreay]

"Oh, Alder is so ancient, which means she must be old-fashioned and out of touch with modern things--" Please, Alder is the most up to date on the pop culture she could possibly be, she is constantly replacing Biddies and getting mind dumps on what the youth are into these days. Alder learns the new slang and memes before the sergeants do. She knows all of the names of TV and movie and music celebrities and probably also hot dating gossip, against her will. Do you really think that Alder never picked up a Bobbysoxer or a Trekkie or an Otaku (dare I say...a Fujoshi) or a Riot Grrrl or even a Mall Goth as a Biddy? Hell, I wonder if part of the Biddy candidate process is to pick people with the most new technology acumen, to continually update her perspective. (Do y'all think that Lucy Lawless played Sarah Alder in the inevitable biopic? Or did they make said biopic during the studio age, which would um increase the chances that it was a musical lmao)

[feixshal-selfshipping]

Feixshal hanging out with his bestie Alastor

And Ne Zha and Feixshal training together/sparring

🎨 - BOBBYSOX on ToyHouse

[wayvment]

Winwin First Solo Fansign in Beijing (230513)

©bobbysoxers

[jojoblessed365]

The Bachelor and The Bobbysoxer or The Happiest Millionaire

Hi!

So, I'm going to go with The Bachelor and the BobbySoxer, cause A- I'm more familiar with it, and B- it's my absolute favourite movie, so anyone who loves that movie, loves me ; )

Anyway, going into the movie, I loved that the premise is incredibly absurd but incredibly satirical at the same time, because of how relevant relationships with age gaps are today and in that era, and I think that's what the recent American Fiction tried to do, but with race. I also liked that one of the film's core message is the power of charisma- so, in two instances of the film, both sisters envision Cary Grant's character Richard Nugent as a knight in shining armour, but with two different goals- the younger sister Susan, played by Shirley Temple, is taken in by Nugent's voice and his charisma as a renowned "artist", while Margaret, Myrna Loy's character, is taken in, but only after she has experienced Richard as a person (after a conversation on her porch with him detailing that he was earnest and not flirting with her and his attempts to win the overall race for her sister's sake) and not as a troublemaker/criminal. I may be wrong about that last part, but again, it's a moral that charisma is a very powerful tool and you must read it the right way.

I think the jokes have aged well, I love Cary Grant being paired with women his age, and I may come across as offensive for saying this, but when I watch him acting across women who were younger than him (like Audrey Hepburn, Eve Marie-Saint, Deborah Kerr to name a few), I personally cringe. But I also like when the story's self-aware of this age difference and that Cary Grant was aware of this too (?). I really wished that Cary and Myrna had more romantic scenes besides their dance, and those scenes were in their last collaboration Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream House, released the following year.

Personal afterthoughts- I loved the sibling relationship between Myrna and Shirley, it was a little of the opposite of Gilmore Girls, if I'm being honest; the "you remind me of a man" audience-participation game; Rudy Vallhee as Tommy, a man who rather aggressively courts Myrna's Margaret, a big change from the man he portrays in The Palm Beach Story (1942); and the fact that it's very much a screwball comedy, that you can watch it over and over again, like What's Up Doc? (1971), Bringing Up Baby (1938), and The Philadelphia Story (1940/41).

Well, those are my thoughts. thank you so much for the ask. : )

[popculturelib]

It's Crustacean Week at the BPCL, and we have another Crab Monster for you!

Roger Corman is a prolific director and producer known for his independent science fiction and horror films, among others. One of his earliest films was Attack of the Crab Monsters in 1957, which features a group of scientists who travel to an island in the Pacific to investigate why the previous scientists went missing. Turns out, they were killed by giant, telepathic crab monsters mutated by nuclear radiation. This two-page spread is from Roger Corman: King of the B Movie : Crab Monsters, Teenage Cavemen, and Candy Stripe Nurses (2013) by Chris Nashawaty and features a behind-the-scenes look at the film's production.

The Browne Popular Culture Library, founded in 1969, is the most comprehensive archive of its kind in the United States.  Our focus and mission is to acquire and preserve research materials on American Popular Culture (post 1876) for curricular and research use. Visit our website at https://www.bgsu.edu/library/pcl.html.

Transcription below the cut

Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)

In 1957, Roger Corman directed nine movies. Shot on the cheap and usually cranked out in ten caffeinated days, Corman's output during that Eisenhower-era annus mirabilis included such drive-in diversions as Rock All Night, The Undead, and The Saga of the Viking Woman and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent. All of these films (well, most of them at least) have their merits. But there's one that stands out for its willingness to grapple with weightier questions than the fates of bobbysoxers and bargain-basement bogeymen -- the luridly titled Attack of the Crab Monsters. Distributed by Poverty Row studio Allied Artists, Crab Monsters was released on February 10, 1957, as part of a Corman sci-fi double bill alongside Not of This Earth. Taken together, these two cautionary tales form the backbone of Corman's early obsession with the apocalyptic power of the A-bomb and the hubris of well-meaning scientists who, a short decade earlier, had unleashed a new form of wrath on the world in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Written by Charles B. Griffith, who would go on to pen several other Corman classics line 1960's The Little Shop of Horrors and 1975's Death Race 2000, the $70,000 Crab Monsters kicks off with a crew of scientists arriving by seaplane on an unnamed deserted island in the South Pacific. They're there to find out what happened to a previous research team that went missing. Could it have something to do with the fact that the island is smack sab in the middle of a nuclear testing zone? Before they have a chance to find out, things go disastrously wrong: One of the seamen bringing them ashore by raft falls overboard, only to resurface missing his head. Then, as the seaplane lifts off to return to the mainland, it explodes in midair. The table is set.

The team of stranded brainiacs include Dale Drewer (Richard Garland in an ascot), Martha Hunter (Pamela Duncan wearing more makeup and tighter sweaters than one might expect in the jungle), and Hank Chapman (a pre-Gilligan's Island Russell Johnson). Soon, they discover a journal filled with ominous entries of distress and hear the mysterious disembodied voices of the dead summoning them to the island's caves, where they finally come face-to-face with...huge, radioactive, papier-mache crustaceans with claws operated by piano wire able to absorb the thoughts of any human brain they nosh on! At one point, a crab monster telepathically warns: "So, you have wounded me! I must grow a new claw, well and good! For I can do it in a day! But will you grow new legs when I have taken yours from you?"

As the victims of this atomic retribution start to pile up, Corman's chilling allegory of nuclear folly becomes a briskly paced meditation on our most destructive impulses. We've played God and now must pay for our sins. In more ways than one, Attack of the Crab Monsters is a B movie with a bite.

[image caption]

Above: Production shot from the set of Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957). Pamela Duncan practices running in terror, lest she become the next entrée in Corman's seafood smorgasbord.

[nelson-riddle-me-this]

Cataloging more records bc I can't sleep. On my family's classical selection. (1) Weird that Disney doesn't credit these orchestras or the conductors. (2) These are probably all from my grandparents - on either side. (3) Everytime I see Leopold Stokowski's name I hear the "Leopold" whispers from that one Bugs Bunny cartoon [I wanna say it's Long Haired Hare the one I love with that bobbysoxer Bugs drag bit]

[twittercomfrnklin2001-blog]

Thank Your Lucky Stars

During World War II, most of the major studios produced all-star musicals, usually built around some kind of benefit performance, to raise money for the war effort. David Butler’s THANK YOUR LUCKY STARS (1943, TCM) was the first of two such films Warner Bros. made to support the Hollywood Canteen, which is natural as it was founded by two of their biggest stars, Bette Davis and John Garfield.  Early on, aspiring composer Joan Leslie says of a makeshift community of show-biz hopefuls, “It’s either very quaint or very corny.” I wasn’t feeling well last night, so I leaned toward the former as a cure for what ailed me. The plot is negligible. Producer Edward Everett Horton and composer S.Z. Sakall want to do a benefit with Dinah Shore, but since she works for Eddie Cantor, they can’t find a way to get her without letting him take over the show. Meanwhile, aspiring singer Dennis Morgan tries to get into the show with help from Leslie and an actor who can’t get work because he looks too much like Cantor. Yes, it’s Cantor in a double role, though the joke is that Cantor as Cantor plays a nightmarish egomaniac while his double is more like Cantor’s real image. Arthur Schwartz and Frank Loesser wrote some catchy upbeat songs — including the title number, impeccably sung by Shore, and Davis’ “They’re Either Too Young or Too Old” — and some soupy ballads. Part of the film’s charm is seeing performers not noted for musical skills sing and dance, with special honors to Garfield for doing a version of “Blues in the Night” that spoofs his screen image. Choreographer Leroy Prinze deserves a lot of credit for coming up with a dancing style to suit Errol Flynn’s image, throwing Davis into a jitterbug number, turning Olivia de Havilland (dubbed) and Ida Lupino into bobbysoxers and staging a bang-up number headed by Hattie McDaniel, who should have done more musicals. Watch closely and you’ll catch Ruth Donnelly as a surgical nurse, Henry Armetta as a barber, Frank Faylen as a sailor, Mike Mazurki as Cantor’s trainer, Mary Treen as an autograph hound and Butler and producer Mark Hellinger as themselves. As icing on the cake, you get to see Spike Jones and his City Slickers do “Otchi Chornya.”

[mountainmavensandmuses]

💄Lipstix & BobbySox

[jeffament]

the bachelor and the bobbysoxer has been the insanest cary grant movie so far. i’m going crazy

[project1939]

Day 69: “That’s the trouble with the world. We all despise ourselves.” 

50s slang of the day: “I would guess the Bobbysoxers are just crazy about you!” (I would guess teenage girls are crazy about you!) 

Best/worst quote of the day: “That’s what we are- all of us are amateurs. We don’t live long enough to be anything else.”

Song of the day: “Rocket 69,” by Todd Rhodes. This was a completely cheeky pick for today, because it’s day number 69. This song is yet another early 1950s R&B record with wonderfully audacious and suggestive lyrics. Sixty-nine meant the same thing then that it does today, you can be sure! 

Highlights: 

I made Jello mold number 9! Ever since I got sick, I can’t even think about weird or creamy kinds of molds, but I can handle the clear fruit ones. This was a vintage recipe with raspberry Jello, peaches, and raspberries. I’ll take it out and try it tomorrow.  

And speaking of vintage recipes, I tried a casserole recipe I found in the September issue of Good Housekeeping. It’s a shrimp and rice dish, and it’s good! It’s one I may make again with some more modern tweaks. 

Betty Furness was finally selling a new product on Westinghouse Studio One! It’s been weeks since she’s shown something new, so silly smitten me was excited. 

The radio show Bright Star was really fun. 

Getting to see Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton do a comedy routine together. It may not have been the funniest thing in the world, but seeing the two of them share the same stage gave me goosebumps. 

Lowlights: 

Why do old men always write movies about girls/young women falling in love with them? (I know why, I’m not stupid, but it just really annoys me.) 

[plungermusic]

If this doesn’t cheer you up, check your pulse …

Serendipitously arriving exactly at the moment the UK slides into the rain-lashed gloom and early frosts of autumn, Terra Lightfoot’s latest album Healing Power will bathe you in musical sunshine, perk up your pineal and kick your SAD blues right where it hurts.

The twelve tracks fizz with energy (and often a barely suppressed glee) whether in what Plunger think of as more ‘traditional’ Terratunes or the more ‘out there’ tracks. The former include Kept You In My Pocket, its latinate slink, sophisticated Tin Pan alley arrangements, organ wash and tinkling piano giving a late night dive vibe, topped with impassioned vocals and an abrasively furry baritone sax break; the quirkily confessional warm-and-snuggly The Only One Of Your Kind with its poppy singalong “Oooh ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh” chorus; and the muscular Youngian chug of Someone Else’s Feelings, the raw guitar offset by high soaring bvs and vox.

Plunger already encountered ‘out there’ with the late 70s electronica / 80s Sunset Strip-cruising rock mash-up of lead single (and album opener) Cross Border Lovers [https://tmblr.co/Zc96bkeMsA_gWy00] and there’s plenty more where that came from. Anyone But Me takes a smoky, bluesy 50 torch song and gives it the Soft Cell treatment with syndrums, loping 80s bassline and a dreamy chorus - before giving that chorus a monster, Townshendesque flailing-guitar rock makeover. Penchant For Love similarly crosses bobbysox poppy soul (velvety voice, piano and xylophone trills) with a boisterous defiant Nu Metal chorus with windtunnel vox, sinewy guitar (and probably a bassist wearing shorts!)

More 50s flavours underpin Come Back Around, this time twinned with a strobing left/right channel electronica pulse and driving new wave bass, Old Skool synths and slick call-and-response bvs. That pulsing theme (that runs through a lot of the album like, well, a pulse) is picked up by a throbbing glass harmonica-like synth in Fired My Man, where the hallucinatory feel is heightened by effects-laden guitar, ticking rim shots, sweeping lush synth strings and Terra’s soft ethereal vocal, and also in the heavy vibrato and volume-swell guitar of Out Of Time, aided by half-speed hip hop-meets-N’awlins shuffle beats, filling-rattling bottom end bass and some tricksy timings to create woozy, hazy stoner waves, all topped with cracking swooping harmony vocals.

Plunger’s picks from this corker of an album are the Martha And The Muffins-do-Get It On glammish boogie groove of You Don’t Get Me Now with its electrifying tambourine-driven gospel bv chorus; Long Way Down, where a raw riff (reminiscent of the seminal 12345 678910 1112, for those old enough to remember) collides with seductive sinuous Donna Summeresque vocals over an insistent Motown snare; and the totally grin-inducing Need You Tonight - phased garage rock guitar + burbling tweeting sequencer + slick West Coast multi-vox chorus = a head-bobbing, wave-your-arms-in-the-air rave psychedelia-meets -Joe Walsh hit of happiness.

Another sublime effort from Terra: in Plunger’s eyes she can do no wrong - musically questing and inventive she’s unfailingly hit the mark with each new outing, and vocally there is none to beat her. She could sing the Hamilton telephone directory and it would be an exhilarating listen. 

So don’t be SAD, get some Healing Power!

Healing Power is out on Sonic Unyon Records on October 13th, available to stream/buy here: https://orcd.co/terralightfoot-healingpower while limited issue vinyl can be bought here: https://sonicunyonshop.com/collections/all/products/terra-lightfoot-healing-power-lp