#burke catalogue

[tlbburke-blog]

LAZARUS PROJECT S2 airs on 15 November. It's definitely on Stan at 2pm AEDT in Australia. 9pm in uk 🇬🇧. Apart from that, I can only suggest check the carrier that showed S1. Not sure if the whole series will drop at once.

[gravalicious]

“Today at the Getty (as at Yale) Harwood’s sculpture is titled, “Bust of a Man”. Its name has changed over the last two decades, reflecting a history of increasing institutional sensitivity about race, and at the same time a subtle re-inscription of blackness as a type of racial alterity. In 1987, when Christie’s purchased the bust from a private dealer, it was called “Bust of a negro”, and referred to also as “Bust of a Blackman”. At this point art dealers assumed the sitter’s identity to be an eighteenth-century servant and athlete named Psyche. In one catalogue advertisement it was dubbed “The Property of a Gentleman”,[14] and in another, “The athlete that outpaced the aesthetes” (fig. 8).[15] The value of the bust was thus articulated respectively with the language of the slave trade, and the commodification and superior performance of black bodies in sports. We should also note that the client for whom it was sold by Christie’s (for the high price of £99,000) had wanted it out of his own house because “it was so ugly and terrifying that his children became frightened.”[16] Such a reaction could have been taken straight from a page of eighteenth-century aesthetics, as in Edmund Burke’s description in 1757 of the sublime terror (“Darkness Terrible in Its Own Nature”) invoked by a “negro” woman’s body in the eyes of an impressionable white child.[17] This denigration of the bust seems a far cry from its current status as an exquisite, or at least exotic thing of beauty that has been included in special exhibits at Tate Britain and the Palazzo Pitti, and placed alongside works by luminaries Joseph Nollekens, Joseph Wilton, and Antonio Canova.”

Cyra Levenson and Chi-ming Yang - Haptic Blackness: The Double Life of an 18th-century Bust (2015)

[ukrfeminism]

A man who murdered his girlfriend and three members of her family in south London has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 46 years. 

Joshua Jacques, 29, killed Samantha Drummonds, 27, her mother Tanysha Ofori-Akuffo, 45, her grandmother Dolet Hill, 64, and Ms Hill's husband, Denton Burke, 68, in Bermondsey in April 2022.

The scene found by police was described as being like "a horror movie". 

There was a cry of "coldblooded murderer" as Jacques was sent down. 

Addressing Jacques in the Old Bailey dock during sentencing, Mr Justice Bryan said the defendant's offending had been contributed to by an increased daily intake of skunk cannabis, and that he was "well aware" of the impact on his mental health.

'Salutary lesson'

The judge told Jacques it was a "horrific catalogue of murders inflicted by you in the most brutal of circumstances on three generations of the same family".

"It is a salutary lesson to all those who peddle the myth that cannabis is not a dangerous drug," Mr Justice Bryan added as Jacques appeared emotionless.

The defendant had murdered his girlfriend and three members of her family at the home in Delaford Road for "no apparent reason", he added.

The judge said the jury had heard Jacques had doubled his consumption of skunk cannabis in the days before the killings. 

'Drug-induced psychosis'

It was likely that Jacques had had a row with his girlfriend Samantha, which had triggered the killings that followed, the judge said.

"You and you alone bear responsibility for any such row, and for what occurred during your drug-induced psychosis," Mr Justice Bryan told him.

He added that Jacques had expressed no remorse prior to the sentencing hearing, during which the defendant had had a statement read out on his behalf in which he apologised and said he was "disgusted" with himself.

The judge paid tribute to the victims' family for their dignified manner during the trial, adding: "No sentence will ever be enough to reflect their loss." 

Following the hearing, Ms Hill's daughter Tracey-Ann Henry told reporters outside the court that Jacques should have been handed a whole life order, meaning he would never be released from prison, but added: "Justice has been served."

Chyloe Daley, Mr Burke's niece, agreed, saying: "We'll accept this for now but there is no bringing them back."

'I've lost four family members who won't come back'

Every morning, Tracey-Ann Henry, the daughter of 64-year-old victim Dolet Hill, awaits a phone call that never comes.

"I spoke to my mum every day," she explains in the run-up to Jacques' sentencing hearing. "Sometimes, four times in the day, even when I'm at work."

Ms Henry said she realised something was wrong when she tried to call her mother as usual and she did not pick up.

Ms Hill had been recovering from cancer and had just completed her final radiotherapy treatment when she was murdered in the home she shared with her husband and fellow victim Denton Burke.

Another of her daughters, Tanysha Ofori-Akuffo, also known as Racquel, sometimes stayed at Ms Hill's home to help care for her. She was also killed by Joshua Jacques that day. 

Granddaughter Samantha Drummonds, Jacques' girlfriend who was another of his victims, had been living there too because her own flat was undergoing renovation.

Concerned that she could not get hold of her mother, Ms Henry rushed to the house but found it cordoned-off by police.

"I said, 'I want to talk to my mum'," she recalls. She said the police officer asked what number she lived at, and then went to check with a colleague. "He said, 'oh, you need to sit in the car with me'."

Growing increasingly worried on her way to the police station, Ms Henry said she had used her phone to check the news headlines, remembering saying: "Four people are dead, that's mum, Racquel, Samantha and Denton."

The shock was so great, Ms Henry can barely recall what happened next, although she does remember police wanting to ask her what she knew about a man called Joshua Jacques.

He had been arrested at the scene by armed officers, who found him naked in an upstairs bathroom, screaming "Allah, take me", "kill me now", and "God please forgive me".

Later, at Lewisham Hospital, Jacques said: "I ain't even in the wrong, I did them for sacrifice," and warned: "I will do something stupid again."

Ms Henry said she had only met Jacques once, a few days earlier. "He was like a normal person," she said. "It's not like he was acting strange or anything."

Family members said it was difficult to listen to the evidence in court. "It felt like he had no remorse," Asheka Jones, the niece of Mr Burke, says. 

"Having mental health issues is one thing, but when you are abusing drugs, it's just horrible. I've lost four family members who won't come back."

Ms Henry said she would remember her mum as a "loving, bubbly person. She loved to cook, you won't come to the house and don't get fed" she added.

Although she had been trying to think of the good memories they had shared, she said she found it difficult to look forward to the future.

"If I go on holiday, most of my holidays are with my mum, so, it's really hard for me."

"Things will never be the same, there will always be that empty hole," Ms Jones agrees. "When I think of them, I think of this warmth they had, the humour. I feel like everyone was filled with such joy that can't be replaced."

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 01/06/2024 (Central Cee & Lil Baby, Bring Me the Horizon's POST HUMAN: NEX GEN, Zach Bryan)

Sabrina Carpenter’s still dominant on the UK Singles Chart as “Espresso” spends a fifth week at the top - welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

content warning: language, discussions of death, trauma, drug addiction

Rundown

As always, we start with our notable dropouts, songs exiting the UK Top 75 - which is what I cover - after five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40. This week, we bid adios to Eurovision tracks like “Europapa” by Joost and “The Code” by Nemo, as well as “Family Matters” by Drake (telling that these three couldn’t make five weeks), “Outside of Love” by Becky Hill, “Jump” by Tyla, Gunna and Skilibeng, “Home” by Good Neighbours (Good riddance) and finally, “Back to Black” by the late Amy Winehouse.

We see one big return with Katy Perry’s catalogue streams rising thanks to some American Idol news or something - I don’t care, I imagine the catalogue sales for her biggest records are high enough anyway. This does mean “Teenage Dream” - the title track - is back at #72. It peaked and debuted at #2 for two weeks in 2010, being blocked by Olly Murs’ “Please Don’t Let Me Go” and Alexandra Burke’s “Start Without You” respectively, though I think we can agree which one of these three have actually managed to pass the test of time. To be thorough, the Glee cover peaked at #36 the next year. As for our gains, we have a small but notable batch of boosts for “Never Lose Me” by Flo Milli at #61, “Right Here” by Becky Hill at #60, “Smalltown Boy” by Bronski Beat at #55, “Miles on It” by Kane Brown and Marshmello at #47, “The Man Who Can’t be Moved” by The Script at #38, “The Door” by Teddy Swims at #35 and finally, all the way up in the top 10 for the first time, Myles Smith with “Stargazing” at #9.

The UK Singles Chart’s top five this week consists of Billie Eilish’s “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” spiking off of the debut up to #5, whilst Central Cee and Lil Baby debut right at #4 with their new track “BAND4BAND”. Following them up is the top three staying the same as last week’s: Shaboozey at #3 with “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”, Eilish again with “LUNCH” at #2 and of course, “Espresso” at #1. Now for what ended up debuting in the lower realms of the chart this week.

New Entries

#73 - “Fall Back” - Lithe

Produced by Lithe

Do I pronounce this “life” or “live”? It doesn’t matter, this is a blog. However you pronounce it, Lithe is from Melbourne and this is his viral breakout hit for an otherwise underground artist who seems to have produced and released this all by himself. This may explain why it’s garbage. Lithe strikes me as the kind of person who would make for a great additional vocalist on a maximalist project by, say, a Travis Scott type, because his vocals, which are very Travis as well, lure you into a mumbling Auto-Tuned atmosphere very effortlessly due to the layering of murmured ad-libs. The problem here is the utter shit production, consisting of rote trap presets in such a static and typical pattern that it almost stands out how frozen and dull trap beats can be because of one weird snare choice that sounds way too loud and mechanical. I know this is very nit-picky but there’s so little to this song, which relies entirely on Lithe for its melodic element considering the blank grey synths that practically could be completely absent under the looming trap dirge. Don’t ask about the lyrics, it’s bottom-of-the-barrel flexing, but at least this song is very uniquely terrible. It uses basic trap tropes, for sure, but Lithe is taking his own approach to things and creates a bad song that is bad in ways more established artists probably couldn’t pull off. That’s a compliment, genuinely.

#66 - “The Craving” - Twenty One Pilots

Produced by Tyler Joseph and Paul Meany

I think it’s somewhat telling that Bring Me the Horizon nabbed three debuts this week, but the usually more accessible Twenty One Pilots, with a higher-peaking album at #2, could only snatch one at #66. I usually care at least a little to check out these guys’ records but the lore aspect has always somewhat bothered me in that I know without fully emerging into it, I’ll never get the full intended effect and relationship with the music that they intend. This week’s effort, Clancy, was one I just straight-up didn’t bother listening to, especially on the grounds of not liking those singles at all. I was thinking that hopefully this could give me some reason to check it out, and, well, there is something to this one.

“The Craving” is available in two versions, with the version on the album being subtitled “(Jenna’s Version)”, referring to his wife Jenna and… yeah, the stripped-back, ukulele rendition on the record is pretty devastating. Starting with a static that obscures Jenna’s voice lamenting the fact their relationship may be deteroriating or stalling out as she grows older, the song is a ballad expressing Tyler’s inability to communicate and express the simple gestures that he loves her. It’s a pretty simple song compositionally but that makes complete sense as it feels like a song he can only sing improvisationally in her presence, but not with her listening. This may be a stretch, but I’m imagining “(Jenna’s version)” refers here not to dedicating the song and playing it to her but her being the muse for this version, which sounds like it could have been written very quickly in a night where he can’t fall asleep thinking about the subject matter whilst she’s fast asleep. The song explains that he can’t communicate this to her, and the visual it gives is Tyler playing the song quietly to himself as to not wake her up but knowing fully that he won’t be able to sleep for the rest of the night without it being expressed. The final chorus ends with an utmost declaration of his dedication to the marriage, complete with a voice crack, but that outro simply writes it off: once she’s awake, the promises mean nothing, and he can’t bring himself to all he promised: the simple act of reminding her that she’s loved. I will be 100% honest: this song kind of fucking broke me, and the imagery surrounding those choruses being one of waiting until demise, wherein the “she” who looks for Tyler as he lays down and tries to sleep could be both Jenna and God, made this a very affecting listen for me, or rather, several listens. I never know exactly what to expect from TOP, but I didn’t expect to be crying.

The single remix, co-produced with Spencer Stewart, is much lighter and breezier with its folk-pop production that’s reverbed to Hell and back and covers some of Tyler’s vocal faults with harmonies and whistling that makes it a bit too saccharine for my taste. I still think it’s a brilliant song but as a performance and production, not so much, and this puts me in a weird position because as far as OCC is concerned, these are both the charting song, I just happen to prefer the very slightly less streamed acoustic version a lot more. Personally, I think adding drums to “The Craving” may be an inspired touch because it takes that fear of death and adds a frolicking carpe diem feel to it but it also touches my soul a bit less by detaching Tyler further from reality: the problem isn’t that he’s separated from his wife, it’s nearly the opposite, with her continued presence acting as both why the song exists and why the emotion is so palpable. Regardless, if more of the album is this personal and honest, less lore-focused as the lead single really scared me off with, maybe I’ll find more to like on it because this acoustic version is genuinely shattering, might be their best song ever.

#57 - “LiMOusIne” - Bring Me the Horizon featuring AURORA

Produced by Zakk Cervini, Oli Sykes and Dan Lancaster

Another week, another album debuting three songs that I haven’t heard. I’ll be fair and say I probably should have listened to Billie’s record before the chart week, and I have since heard and greatly enjoyed her album, but for this one, can you blame me? Firstly, look at the way the tracks are stylised, secondly: whilst I did like the first edition of this POST HUMAN series from 2020, the incessant delay and consistent flow of really mediocre singles that leads to an album that seems a bit bloated compared to the last one’s conciseness because I guess all of them needed to be included. Thirdly, they lost their keyboardist Jordan Fish, also a major songwriting contributor to the band, who now has just a few more lyrical credits on this record than BloodPop, I’m genuinely quite weary that this’ll be another disappointing mess from Bring Me the Horizon. Regardless, I’ll give them this: they always experiment, and these three next songs are going to be interesting and weird, at least in comparison to what usually charts, so it’s good we have them all lined up consecutively. BMTH’s latest, POST HUMAN: NEX GEN, debuted at #5 on the albums chart and naturally, we have three debuts as that’s all OCC’ll allow.

The first to chart, “Limousine” (I’m not doing this, guys) features Norwegian singer AURORA, who had some viral success with “Runaway” a few years back, a song I never really liked and I honestly haven’t heard much else, so maybe I’m missing something by not checking her out - I’m definitely going to be missing something with these songs given the added context of understanding the album’s theme and narrative is pretty important for what seems like a loose concept album, though BMTH records can be so eclectic that it flies out of the window. See amo for a clear demonstration. This particular track takes us into the easy and quick blast frontman Oli Sykes gets from doing hard drugs and the power, authority he feels when he’s off them, hence the “Limousine” - it’s a luxury car you’re in the back of, drugged and being driven around, but you still feel in control. It does this through grinding metal riffs and some of the most strained vocals I’ve heard from Sykes, not in the sense that he hits any insane notes or belts but more so because he stretches out these melodies beyond their need, especially in the pre-chorus, with pitch correction not doing that great of a job to cover it. That sounds like an insult, but it’s really not: when he’s refuting the need for closure and the chorus starts with a stuttered glitching of the song’s last section out of existence, his slow luxury chauffer ride to death feels particularly potent and fittingly gruelling. There’s a seductive and sinister nature to some of the lyrics, AURORA kind of blends into the background which is perfect for this as Sykes’ streams drowning out the clearer, beautiful voice of reason is thematically perfect, that bridge with the keyboards is genuinely moving before everything crashes into shit in the screeching breakdown. That breakdown, however, demonstrates the one time this song succeeds in the mixing department for me, as there’s a muddiness to everything here and an unnecessary vocal focus that seems to push the heavier and cathartic elements back, which does not serve a track like this very well, when the progression into chaos should come from something that is genuinely unnerving and inescapable. A more immersive mix could have done wonders to what is structurally a very sound track that has great performances.

#50 - “YOUtopia” - Bring Me the Horizon

Produced by Zakk Cervini, Oli Sykes, Dan Lancaster and Lee Malia

We can actually split this episode quite nicely into the two songs below the Horizon, the two songs above them, and the Horizon itself. It works out quite nicely too because according to Sykes, “Youtopia” acts as a counterpart to “Limousine”, and I can definitely tell that from the lyrics, wherein Sykes begs for the ability to give his partner the best version of himself, a “youtopia” so to speak. He desperately wants to connect himself and his partner to that utopian setting, but can’t bring himself to do the self-improvement that would enable that kind of perfect relationship, one that you can kind of tell from the imagery either doesn’t exist or has been buried so far deep into obscurity by the constant perpetuance of negativity in everyday life. To be completely honest, I was worried that Bring Me the Horizon’s lyrics would turn as basic as some of the structural songwriting had been on the singles so I’m glad I can still both get a lot out of analysis and resonate pretty heavily with their notions, it’s the most frustrating feeling wanting to be something that no-one but your own insecurity expects you to live up to, so it just seems fruitless to achieve.

As for how it sounds, well, that basic songwriting is there for sure, but oh, my God, this is an insanely nostalgic sound for me. That late-2000s early-2010s Kerrang! TV post-hardcore sound combining fuzzy electronics with the lackadaisical guitars of 2000s emo-pop and often Auto-Tuned vocals - both the clean and unclean vocals, sometimes - as well as just killer hooks and chasm-esque mixing that makes the drums go so hard once they pound into full relentless chorus mode. Of course, BMTH take it into further electronicore territory with the sampled-sounding female vocals, tiny little vocalised riff in the first verse that’s an adorable touch, the birdsong passages of ambiance that mesh so well with the cleaner guitar build, and the hip hop drums in the second verse that actually go for a 2000s R&B groove instead of the typical trap skitter, which I commend them for doing - trap metal feels way too easy and wouldn’t have fit a longing song like this. The harmonies from Sykes and the filtered Dan Lancaster in the bridge are excellent, and whilst the guitar solo is in what I like to call Weezer-meter (very obviously and shamelessly just repeating the chorus lead melody), it’s oddly brief and inessential to the song, as the final post-chorus kind of takes its place with the string swell and incredible drumming from Matt Nicholls that winds down in an industrial squirt for the outro. Apart from once again some mixing that acts as a disservice - when there’s this much going on, I understand the difficulty in making it sound that dynamic, and thematically, sometimes it just wouldn’t make sense to - this is pretty much something I’d inject to my veins any day. I know I say this every time BMTH show up because they’re the country’s biggest left-field rock act currently, but something like this charting in the top 50 in 2024 never fails to put at least a smile on my face.

#41 - “Top 10 staTues tHat CriEd bloOd” - Bring Me the Horizon

Produced by Zakk Cervini, Oli Sykes and Dan Lancaster

This final song is titled like a WatchMojo video, and is a very clear single - the lyrics and songwriting are pretty basic woes, wound up in generic metaphors that Sykes and the lads have sung before. It’s got a pessimistic chorus and a vaguely motivational bridge, and so many lyrics that vaguely allude to prior singles that I can’t tell if these are purposeful references or they’re just that far into their careers that their attempt at being an “average” BMTH track is an amalgamation of all of their other obvious singles. Those lyrical allusions definitely make it a bit more obvious and distracting that this is the case, but musically, it’s in similar territory. They have a brief, cutesy electronic intro, this time slightly hyperpop-esque, before crashing into a catchy alt-metal riff and, yeah, it’s just obvious that this is pulling the tricks of their own trade in a very typical way. Sykes performs incredibly well as he pretty much always does, you can’t take away his passion, but the screaming and sound effects may be a bit much in that second verse. They even have a stop-and-start rhythm built into the chorus melody which feels very Bring Me the Horizon to do: stopping and starting is basically their motif and songwriting approach if we boil it down to borderline offensive essentials. They have an aggressive breakdown with rapid drumming and video game samples, a trap drum pattern in the final pre-chorus, a stuttered vocal, it’s all very by-the-numbers and that’s fine. We can’t all be zingers, sometimes we need to write something accessible and given the album is assumingly a mess (all BMTH albums kind of are, it’s by nature), something like this could be particularly refreshing within its context, and they did care enough to place an atmospheric ambient outro that may contextualise it even further. This is a perfectly cromulent Bring Me the Horizon song, but a bit underwhelming to end on here.

#31 - “Pink Skies” - Zach Bryan

Produced by Zach Bryan

Country star Zach Bryan is back, presumably, he’s got a 30-song album on the way and this is his lead single. As always with Mr. Bryan, it feels wise to discuss the lyrics here in some detail, as this paints a vivid picture of the life that a mother has left for her children at the time of her funeral. The kids who came from that small town are back there to celebrate their late mother’s life, and reflecting on those lessons they learned from the mundane outskirts: appreciating the “pink skies” as a sign of youthful vitality and peace and cleaning the old house as if it were never populated (which feels stereotypical but is very much true for how parents can behave), though with the caveat that those memories remain physically as what appear to be faults in the house but are unavoidable reminders of the life lived within it. The second verse and especially the chorus sing a pretty funny ode: she’d be proud of where her kids are but would still lightheartedly mock them as “yuppies”, and he even has the snark to comment that God probably heard her coming, which I assume she means that she never shut up. For a parent, that’s a great thing to have the ability to do, and it’s reassuring to think that in the afterlife, she still cares too much about her kids’ well-being. This hits particularly close to home for me, and the fact that this song makes great use of my favourite instrument, the harmonica, does not exactly help this from not being a bit of a personal tearjerker for me. Bryan’s smoky drawl comes with his typical homegrown organic instrumentation - though with a higher focus both lyrically and instrumentally on choppier rhythm which I find interesting - and the light female vocals panned into the left channel. Sonically, you could argue it’s a bit safe or easy for Bryan to come out with something that sounds like this, but think of the content: why shouldn’t he be back at home, and invite you into that warm, comforting place as openly as his mother would have? This guy already put out some of my favourite songs of last year, some of the art that emotionally resonated with me the most from that year, and it doesn’t seem like he’s stopping this year either. I adore this.

#4 - “BAND4BAND” - Central Cee and Lil Baby

Produced by Ghana Beats, Geenero and Aasis Beats

This is just such a neat week. We begin near the very bottom with pop-trap from the Anglosphere outside of the US and book-end it near the very top with a UK rapper, whilst sandwiched in the middle are rock and alternative acts, two of which are personal ballads by slightly more mainstream and lighter in sound, closer to more accessible genres they emerged from before developing their sound, and both on either side of three Bring Me the Horizon tracks from the same album. Thiss week just makes sense systematically, damn it, and I love to see it. Also, Central Cee and Lil Baby, I guess, the song’s fine. It’s a bit undercooked because - I repeat, Central Cee and Lil Baby - but the basic rising synth loop, even if very obviously just a basic and lazy implementation of a loop, has enough tension to make way for the heavy-hitting drill rhythm, which is a lot cleaner than some other drill tracks, but also uses much louder, mechanical hats - again, something it has in common with Lithe, and the grey cover arts are just furthering it all - that give an industrial and intense feel to this beat. As for our rappers, this is much more typical: Cench’s complaining about people not being real Muslims, talking about his Lambos, using rhyme schemes that prominently implement acronyms, being distracted by big booties and most importantly, going “Alllright”. It’s almost like “Top 10 Statues that Cried Blood” because Cench feels like an amalgamation of himself on here, though this isn’t a bad thing, he still has more energy than many other rappers and it was cute for him to exchange bars with Lil Baby. Lil Baby then continues to take the song over entirely, as the beat switches up slightly with that crawling trap skitter and Baby goes for his typical frog-throat, running-off-on-the-beat flow that goes insanely hard, bizarrely, without drums, as it builds into a very well-done beat drop. He’s similarly being an amalgamation of himself and his running themes, but there’s some cold wordplay with the birthday lyric and there’s always been something compelling about his relentless approach to just going on and on regardless of what the beat actually asks of him. Overall, I know I’ve sounded nit-picky but this is good, probably great even when taking it outside of the larger context and just treating it as a banger reaching across the Atlantic. There’s a real intensity and hunger to this that there hasn’t been for either in these guys in a while, and it’s refreshing to know that those efforts paid off for a very high and very deserved top five debut.

Conclusion

Considering this is a week mostly consisting of rock acts, it makes complete sense that it’s one of the best weeks for me. Hey, I listen to everything, but some genres will hit closer to home than others. As for the Best of the Week, it is genuinely an incredibly difficult decision, but unsurprisingly, Zach Bryan takes it for “Pink Skies” and the only reason that happened is because of the second single edit of “The Craving” by Twenty One Pilots that I do not care for, because Jenna’s version would run away with Best of the Week, it’s heartbreaking from the first vocal sample of Jenna herself to that final line. Unfortunately, due to the double billing, it’ll have to take Honourable Mention, and on any other week, I would easily be giving all of this praise to a song like “YOUtopia”, which I still love, or Hell, even “BAND4BAND”. Lithe takes Worst of the Week for “Fall Back”, obviously, and I hope the next batch of songs is either just as good as this one or gives me a lot less to talk about because sheesh, this is one of our shorter weeks and I’m still maxxing this word count out. For now, thank you for reading, rest in peace to Charlie Colin, and I’ll see you next week!

[thehauntologicalsociety]

Paperhouse is a 1988 British dark fantasy film directed by Bernard Rose. It was based on the 1958 novel Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr. The film stars Ben Cross, Glenne Headly and Gemma Jones. The original novel was the basis of a six-episode British TV series for children in the early 1970s which was titled Escape Into Night.

While suffering from glandular fever, 11-year-old Anna Madden draws a house. When she falls asleep, she has disturbing dreams in which she finds herself inside the house she has drawn. After she draws a face at the window, in her next dream she finds Marc, a boy who suffers with muscular dystrophy, living in the house. She learns from her doctor that Marc is a real person.

Anna sketches her father into the drawing so that he can help carry Marc away, but she inadvertently gives him an angry expression which she then crosses out, and the father (who has been away a lot and has a drinking problem, putting a strain on his marriage) appears in the dream as a furious, blinded ogre. Anna and Marc defeat the monster and shortly afterward Anna recovers, although the doctor reveals that Marc's condition is deteriorating.

Anna's father returns home and both parents seem determined to get over their marital difficulties. The family goes on holiday by the sea, where Anna finds an epilogue to her dream.

Charlotte Burke - Anna Madden, Ben Cross - Dad, Glenne Headly - Kate Madden, Elliott Spiers - Marc, Gemma Jones - Dr. Sarah Nichols, Jane Bertish - Miss Vanstone, Samantha Cahill - Sharon, Sarah Newbold - Karen.

Marianne Dreams is a children's fantasy novel by Catherine Storr. It was illustrated with drawings by Marjorie-Ann Watts and published by Faber and Faber in 1958. The first paperback edition, from Puffin Books in 1964, is catalogued by the Library of Congress as revised.

Marianne is a young girl who is bedridden with a long-term illness. She draws a picture to fill her time and finds that she spends her dreams within the picture she has drawn. As time goes by, she becomes sicker, and starts to spend more and more time trapped within her fantasy world, and her attempts to make things better by adding to and crossing out things in the drawing make things progressively worse. Her only companion in her dreamworld is a boy called Mark, who is also a long-term invalid in the real world.

[scotianostra]

20th December 1862 saw the death in London of Robert Knox, the Edinburgh surgeon and anatomist.

Knox was a renowned lecturer of anatomy, esteemed zoologist, ethnologist and doctor but  is most infamous for buying bodies from the West Port murderers Burke and Hare. I’ve covered Knox and the West Port murders many times, todays post I shall concentrate on the career of Dr Knox up until then.

Robert, the eighth child of an Edinburgh Schoolmaster, was born in 1791 and educated at the High School of Edinburgh (later the Royal High School) where, in his final year, he was Gold Medallist and Dux of the School. He entered the Medical Faculty of Edinburgh University in 1810 and graduated MD four years later. As an undergraduate he attended the extramural Anatomy class of Dr John Barclay, then regarded as the foremost anatomist in the British Isles, who considered him to be his most brilliant pupil. After a period of Army service as a regimental surgeon during which he spent three years in South Africa, Knox returned to Edinburgh in 1822 and joined the staff of Dr Barclay’s anatomy school as an assistant lecturer. He began to publish scientific papers on a wide variety of anatomical and pathological subjects and, in 1823, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 1821, Dr Barclay had offered to the College his large personal collection of anatomical specimens on condition that it would be properly displayed in a purpose built hall. Three years later Knox with Barclay’s encouragement submitted to the College a plan for a museum based on the Barclay collection and offered to supervise the establishment of such a museum within the College. This could not be done in Old Surgeons Hall and it was Dr Barclay’s gift and Robert Knox’s museum plan that convinced the College of its urgent need for new premises, Knox’s proposals were accepted by the College Council and, early in 1825, he was formally appointed to the newly created office of Museum Conservator. Later that year Knox was admitted a Fellow of the College and granted full partnership with joint charge of his extramural anatomy school by Dr Barclay. On Knox’s recommendation the College in 1825 purchased Sir Charles Bell’s extensive anatomical and surgical collection; he also supervised its transfer from London to Edinburgh and made arrangements for its safe storage until such time as the College acquired new premises in which along with Dr Barclay’s collection it could be adequately housed.

Dr Barclay died in 1826 leaving Knox in sole charge of the anatomy school to which increasing numbers of students were attracted by his remarkable abilities as a teacher. The University Chair of Anatomy was at that time held by the lazy and incompetent Alexander Monro tertius, of whom Charles Darwin, then a student famously remarked “ He made his lectures on anatomy as dull as he was himself”. There could be no greater contrast to Monro’s dull pedantry than Knox’s brilliant lectures, which were always vividly illustrated by expert dissections. A major attraction of Knox’s extramural class was his guarantee that students attending his course would see the human body completely dissected and for the fulfilment of this promise he obviously required an ample provision of anatomical “subjects”. Knox’s success aroused the jealousy of other anatomists and surgeons conducting extramural classes and their hostility was exacerbated by his intellectual arrogance and his ill concealed contempt for their professional abilities. His major achievements as Museum Conservator were the preparation of the first comprehensive catalogue and the advice on the requirements of the Museum, which he gave to William Henry Playfair, the architect of new Surgeons Hall.

Knox’s teaching commitments increased rapidly and, in the academic year 1827-28, just over 500 students were enrolled in his extramural anatomy class. He employed a number of assistants and demonstrators, some of whom such as William Ferguson ultimately gained fame in their own right as surgeons and anatomists but it was at this time that Knox became involved in the macabre events which ultimately brought about his ruin.

Burke and Hare sold the bodies of their 16 victims to Knox’s anatomy school but there is no evidence that he had any awareness of the provenance of these particular “subjects” and according to most sources, it is said that he never met either of the two murderers. 

The discovery of the murders in November 1838 provoked a furious public outcry and, although Knox was never accused of any crime, the Edinburgh populace at large regarded him as being only marginally less culpable than Burke and Hare. He was publicly vilified and the Edinburgh mob attacked his house but, although they smashed its windows, they were unable to force an entry.

Knox left Scotland in disgrace, but continued having a successful career in London  until his death on this day in 1862.

Knox was buried in Brookword Cemetery near Woking but his grave was neglected and forgotten until in 1966 it was rediscovered by Professor Eric Mekie, his lineal successor as Conservator of the College Museum. Professor Mekie and Sir John Bruce arranged for the clearance of the weeds and foliage which had overgrown the grave, the original memorial was a flat ledger stone which may or may not have included an inscription.The small granite block on top of this ledger stone was placed there in 1966 by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

[pnwnativeplants]

Common names are often unspecific, but all the berries colloquially known as "huckleberries" are very closely related. Theyre all a part of the genus Vaccinium, along with blueberries and cranberries. (Blueberries and cranberries are native to north america too!) There are at least 10 edible Vaccinium species native to the PNW alone. The most common of which are evergreen huckleberry (blue/black) and red huckleberry (red). You can check out Burke Herbarium's catalogue of vaccinium species here.

I can’t remember a time in my life where the summers weren’t full of berries to eat. Every trail has at least a few bushes offering their wares to people walking by.

Many of them aren’t monetized, they don’t keep well, not appealing enough for the bother of cultivating them. Salmon berries, huckleberries, thimble berries. We have black and blue berries, too. But you don’t see most of our local berries in the grocery store.

One of my most precious memories with my beloved was our earliest hike together. They didn’t grow up native to the area and exclaimed in alarm when they saw me reach casually toward a bush to pick a berry as we walked by.

“You can’t just eat berries! What if it’s poisonous?!”

“It’s not,” I said, puzzled. “I guess there’s some poisonous berries around here but I don’t eat those ones, it’s really easy to tell.”

“Those are safe to eat?”

I laughed and popped it into my mouth only to immediately realize it was horribly unripe. Salmon berries come in two colors you see, orange and red.

I’d mistaken an unripe red berry for a ripe orange one. It had felt soft enough to be ripe but it was so bitter it hurt. So an instant after asserting it was safe to eat I opened my mouth with a “bleh” to let it fall back out.

“They- they’re not poisonous it just wasn’t ripe,” I insisted.

My beloved looked skeptical but scanned the bush and plucked another berry to me. “Try this one.”

The sun shone beautifully through the dappled tree canopy, illuminating the gleaming berry in their hand, a perfect snapshot of a romantic summer moment. I took the berry, my fingers brushing their palm to bring the little fruit up to my lips while looking into their smiling eyes.

I had to spit it out.

It was as overwhelmingly bitter as the last one, but I didn’t mind the way my beloved laughed at me.

[anthonysstupiddailyblog]

Anthony’s Stupid Daily Blog (427): Thu 18th May 2023

To my amazement I managed to finish the whole of Mr Whites Confession in a single day. It’s an absolutely gripping read and I had no problem staying out for a good three hours to finish it in almost one sitting. As stated in a previous blog the book is about a man named White who has a poor memory so he catalogues his daily activities in his diary. When he is accused of commuting a murder he can’t say for sure that he didn’t. He is eventually found guilty and sentenced to life in prison but eventually grows to love prison life because he can be alone to document his thoughts. Cleverly they never state who the killer is (so I guess it could have been White) leaving the reader to decide who it was…if the identity forge killer even matters that is. This was a fucking fantastic book and more than makes up for Cimmaron Rose, the last shitty book in the series that I plowed through. I can’t even remember when I started my challenge to read all the books that have won the Edgar Award for Best Novel but it was when I was still working at the cafe so it’s been a good few years (I think it may have been the start of 2020). Back then I never could have imagined that I still wouldn’t be finished the thing by May 2023. The awards started in 1954 and Mr White’s Confession was released in 1999 meaning that the only books left to read are the 23 that have won the award this century. Normally I can’t finish a book in one sitting but because I’m that determined to finish this challenge I’m going to power through the remaining 23. On my days off I’ll just plonk my enormous arse in a comfortable chair and sit there until my eyes have devoured another detective / thriller novel. If the 46 books I’ve read as part of this challenge there have only been a half dozen or so I would label as truly brilliant. I’m hoping that changes and that the 23 I have left to read are all absolutely dynamite. Next up is “Bones” by Jan Burke so I ordered it off of Amazon and feverishly await its arrival. While looking on Twitter tonight I saw that the terms “3x3”, “Lee Mack” and “Inside No 9 were trending. I realized that I’d forgotten tonight was Inside No 9 night on BBC 2 and I would go on to regret his because Reece and Steve pulled off yet another one of their televisual pranks that you need to be watching live at the time to get the most out of. At the start of the episode the announcer said that there was a change to the schedule and started broadcasting 3x3 a new quiz format hosted by Lee Mack. I’m hindsight it’s pretty obvious that this was phoney because this quaint, simplistic little quiz is that sort of thing they’d put in at half five in the afternoon not ten at night. Regardless this was played completely seriously by Mack and the cast with. I thing to suggest that there was anything below the surface of this inoffensive little quiz. However the episode culminates with one of the contestants revealing that she’s telekinetic and the result of a laboratory experiment, conducted by her own abusive “mother” whose head she then males explode. Man I wish I had been watching this live. I really hope that there were some people who were completely unaware of what Inside No 9 is and just watched this episode after channel hopping for a bit and settling on this innocent looking quiz. The best thing is I suspect that this is the kind of episode that gets better upon multiple viewings when you’re looking for clues as to what’s going to happen. For example, this exchange between Mack, the telekinetic / psychic kid and her mother: Lee Mack: What do we do about Stephen? Catherine: (To Margaret) What do you think? Margaret: You know what I think This is why Reece & Steve are the best writers in the world. They dangle clues in front of you and you have no idea it's happening

[tlbburke-blog]

There is a modern remake, but I turned it off almost immediately; just couldn't even looked at someone else being Hester, let alone Freddie.

[historyhermann]

Climate Change and the Military: Examining the Pentagon’s Integration of National Security Interests and Environmental Goals under Clinton [Part 1]

Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Environmental Security Sherri Goodman at an environmental conference, June 2, 1997. Goodman was a negotiator in Kyoto and a major advocate for Pentagon efforts to emphasize environmental security as a part of national security policy. (Photo credit: National Archives at College Park)

This post is reprinted from the National Security Archive website and my History Hermann WordPress blog. Archived here.

Published: May 26, 2022

Briefing Book # 794

Edited by Burkely Hermann

For more information, contact: 202-994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu

Related Links

National Security and Climate Change: Behind the U.S. Pursuit of Military Exemptions to the Kyoto Protocol

The Clinton White House and Climate Change, Part II: Engaging the Oval Office

The Clinton White House and Climate Change: The Struggle to Restore U.S. Leadership

Kyoto Redux?

U.S. Climate Change Policy in the 1980s

The U.S. and Climate Change: Washington’s See-Saw on Global Leadership

Washington, D.C., May 26, 2022 – The Pentagon’s role in U.S. environmental policy expanded during the Clinton presidency as the Pentagon became a more active player at international climate change conferences and pressed for acceptance of policies favorable to the U.S. military, according to declassified documents posted today by the nongovernmental National Security Archive.

For example, the Defense Department pushed for military exemptions to the Kyoto Protocol and gained defenders for that provision among U.S. climate change negotiators despite calls from other countries and nongovernmental environmental organizations to close what they described as a “loophole.” Partly responding to pressure from these quarters, the Pentagon also committed to adhering to practices that were more environmentally responsible.

The records in today’s posting primarily focus on perspectives of U.S. diplomats and officials who realized the importance of issues like bunker fuels, but also describe the Defense Department’s energy consumption, role in environmental policy, and interagency cooperation on climate change issues. This e-book also includes views of President Clinton’s closest advisers and shows the importance to the U.S. delegation of exemptions won in Kyoto after the third Conference of Parties in 1997.

President George H.W. Bush signing the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN Photos)

These documents have particular relevance as a recent Munich Security Conference report concluded that climate change was a more pressing threat than war, while the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission voted to consider how pipelines and other projects affect climate change and greenhouse gas emissions in their future assessments. [1]

Frank Loy, under secretary of state for global affairs in Clinton's first term. (Wikipedia)

Virtually all of the documents posted here are the result of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. They appear in the latest collection from the Digital National Security Archive, The Diplomacy of Climate Change: U.S. Policy from the Montreal Protocol to the Paris Agreement, 1981-2015, edited by Dr. Robert A. Wampler, consisting of 2,440 professionally catalogued and indexed records, plus numerous finding aids, published by ProQuest and available at many major libraries.

© 2022-2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

[sitp-recs]

Hi Liv. I know you mostly read shorter stories now days but a while back you recommended criminal by @the-sinking-ship (at least I think it was you) and it is one of my favorite drarry stories, so I was just wondering if you’ve got anything else like that? Were Draco is sort of shady with the law and harry is sort of a cop? Preferably a bit on the longer side but anything is good!

Hi anon! Absolutely, I love Criminal and I highly recommend checking Sly’s catalogue for more incredible long fics. Chasing Dragons is one of my personal favourites! 🙌 as for fics with that specific (and delicious!) trope, here are some recs:

Mens Rea by @lqtraintracks (2022, E, 3k)

Mens Rea: the mental element of a person's intention to commit a crime; or knowledge that one's action or lack of action would cause a crime to be committed.

Two Zinnias and the Scent of Lemon by @the-starryknight (2021, M, 16k)

The Ministry didn’t turn bad overnight. Harry didn’t suddenly turn rogue either. Between covert Legilimency links and Polyjuice disguises and running and running and running, Draco has forgotten what it is like to have a safe harbor that isn’t a person. If there’s an art to fighting back, then they’ll find it hand in hand.

Exiled by A_factorygirl_69 (2013, E, 16k)

Draco is declared persona non grata by the Ministry after the War. Harry has been tasked with keeping an eye on him, ensuring he stays out of England.

The Good Guys by Frayach (2014, E, 26k)

The Second Voldemort War is limping into its fourth year, and the Forces of Shining Light are slowly turning into the Forces of Expedient Grey. When Draco Malfoy is captured red-handed trying to sell an illegal potion to a clerk at Borgin & Burkes, he is handed over to the Department of Essential and Necessary Truth’s newest interrogator. And as soon as he sees Malfoy, bound and waiting in his cell, Harry Potter knows he’s in trouble. Deep trouble.

Vis-à-Vis-à-Vis by @vukovich (2022, E, 50k)

Harry's assignment was simple. Close out Draco Malfoy's missing persons case so he can be declared dead. But who's making withdrawals from Malfoy's vaults? How is a death omen-turned-Unspeakable involved? Is an organization known as the Moirai to blame?

A Pocket Full of Stones by @amywaterwings (2022, E, 68k)

A curse is spreading through the wizarding world, erasing memories of the war. Harry Potter is on the case! Where Draco is the DMLE’s most wanted dark wizard and Harry is the private investigator tasked with bringing him in. It goes as well as one might expect.

Crown Witness by @slytherco (2020, E, 70k)

After the war, wizarding society is oppressed by a new kind of plague—an organised crime group calling itself the Family. When Harry Potter goes to interrogate a potential witness, he doesn’t expect to end up on the run again, trying to keep Draco Malfoy alive, while a manhunt follows in their footsteps, adamant on eliminating the one witness that could ruin everything.

Super Rich Kids by @thusspoketrish (2020, E, 81k)

Draco Malfoy has become disillusioned by the glitz and glamour of the scandalous lives of the Post-Second Wizarding War Pureblood Elite. Enter: one existential crisis, one group of thieving cynical friends, and several terrible, terrible decisions.

The Darklist by dysonrules (2014, M, 87k)

When Draco Malfoy, wanted criminal, strolled into the Ministry to give himself up, he seemed destined for Azkaban until he offered to hand over information to avert an upcoming crime. Of course, he refused to divulge that knowledge to anyone but Harry Potter.

Nor All That Glisters by @sweet-s0rr0w (2021, E, 110k)

Lonely and frustrated on house arrest, with no prospects for the future, Draco begins brewing Felix Felicis in an attempt to improve his lot. Just in the short term, of course. He isn’t a total idiot.

And here’s a subversion of that trope with Auror Draco and criminal Harry 👌🏼

Violent Delights by @primavera-cerezos (2021, E, 20k)

Draco Malfoy's life should be going very well. He's engaged to a wonderful man and in line for the Head Auror job. He's been made lead investigator on a serial murder case, trying to figure out who is killing off the scum of the wizarding world, one by one. So what if he's kind of miserable? Things always get better.

[ashleysingermfablog]

Wk 3, Feb 24th, 2024 Research

Floriography

Ashley singer, fuchsia ii, 2024, film

From the text: Floriography: The Secret Language of Flowers in the Victorian Era…

Victorian botanical research created the fundamental understanding of modern symbolic flora interpretations.

Classifying the plants of the known world to a value of emotional fact was part of the Enlightenment’s late 18th century interest in aligning scientific understanding to all elements of life. 

Historical and classical values of known species were carried into human rationale for what the particular meaning of a flower could be. International discovery allowed  botanists to  illustrate and travel back from foreign lands with new species. Joseph Banks (1743-1820), a notable naturalist/botanist, travelled with Captain Cook and catalogued an estimated 30,000 plant specimens and was the first European to document 1,400. Banks was the president of the Royal Society and advised George III on the development of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, sending botanists internationally to collect species of plants. His published work expanded the public’s fascination with the natural world and allowed authors to use these discoveries to publish their work. Henry Phillips’ Floral Emblems was published in 1825, The Language of Flowers with Illustrated Poetry by Frederic Shoberl was published in 1839 and The Illustrated Language of Flowers by Mrs L. Burke in 1856 set the standard for the botanical and poetic meaning of flora in jewellery design. 

Known as ‘floriography’, the cataloguing of flora was an important philosophical exercise for understanding the meaning of poetry. The relationship between poetry and written English in jewellery relates directly to poesy rings and the designs of sentimental jewels. Men and women could customise their jewels with the designs of flowers, outlining the hidden meaning between lovers. In the 18th century, the English language was developing into a universally understood language through education and mass publication. Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755, bolstering the public’s accessibility to understanding the written word. The printing press allowed for gazettes, magazines and newspapers to be rapidly printed and circulated within society. The Enlightenment’s fascination with the cataloguing of the natural world, combined with the poetry of the late 18th century’s Romantic movement, led to a public demand for understanding the emotional/symbolic meaning of flora. Mary Wortly Montagu (1689-1762) introduced floriography to England in 1717, as she was a prolific writer and traveller to Turkey. Gazettes and magazines of the late 17th century published work from travellers about their adventures and ignited the public’s imagination. Her contemporary, Aubry de La Mottraye (1674–1743), introduced floriography to the Swedish court in 1727. One of the earliest publications was Joseph Hammer-Purgstall’s Dictionnaire du language des fleurs, published in 1809, followed by Louise Cortambert’s Le Language des Fleurs in 1819. 

1736, A book of jewellers work design’d by Thomas Flach in London. V&A Museum.

Floriography is simply a fancy name for the language of flowers. Within the art of floriography, every flower carries its own special meaning or symbolism, and this can also be influenced by its variety and colour. Some of the hidden meanings of flowers and other vegetation, come directly from the root name which was sometimes based from mythology, i.e. “narcissus” would correspond to egotism. Other meanings came from the flowers directly.  The colors, medical properties and even “magical” superstition surrounding these flowers helped create this hidden “language”.  Below are some of the more obvious connections from the Victorian Era.

The coded language of floriography meant that Victorians could express affection, desire or disdain, allowing a society governed by strict etiquette to show its true feelings. Now the language of flowers is popular again, writes British author Emma Flint.

Flowers have a longstanding tradition as a means of emotional expression. When we wish to convey our affection, joy or condolences, and words won't suffice, we rely on their beauty. Through the art of floriography, a coded means of communication more commonly referred to as the language of flowers, emotional intimacy has been allowed to flourish where it may otherwise be repressed. 

"Flowers, as gifts or for special occasions, can be all the more thoughtful when using the language of flowers. This could be based on the colour, or the type of the flower, or both," explains Harriet Parry, a florist for Bloom & Wild. "Floriography has been around for thousands of years, but we still have customers today asking for flowers that mean something special to them, either personally or through their symbolic meaning."

"Young women of high society in this era embraced the practice, sending bouquets as tokens of love or warning, wearing flowers in their hair or tucked into their gowns, and celebrating all things floral." Roux explains. "Many of them created small arrangements of flowers, called tussie-mussies or nosegays, by combining a few blooms in a small bouquet. Worn or carried as accessories, these coded messages of affection, desire, or sorrow allowed Victorians to show their true feelings in an enigmatic and alluring display." 

Charlotte de la Tour's Le Langage des Fleurs, published in 1819, was the first book of its kind that detailed the immense symbolism of flowers. 

fuchsia, ashley singer, 2024, film

I love the bead like quality of fuchsia, they hang as a collective and fall if knocked onto the garden floor

[gimmeromance]

Ask from a user who wants to remain anonymous:

Can you make this anon?

Lately I've been reading a bunch of romance and it's always with alpha males. I'd really love to read more romance like The Rakess with an alpha heroine where the woman is the dominant personality and the man is not. BDSM is fine so long as it is actually romance and not just erotica. I want to see women in heterosexual relationships being awesome and dominant and the dude totally being okay with it. (Like Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff.)

` 

Please help! It feels like romance tends to forget that het/bi/pan women with alpha personalities need love too.

Alpha females are definitely not the norm in most romance, you’re quite correct. We’re glad you already discovered The Rakess by Scarlett Peckham; that author has written a couple of submissive males in her BDSM historicals. Also weirdly enough, some old school historical romance totally gets into this trope - probably because Elizabeth Bennet/Mr. Darcy is the original Alpha Heroine/Beta Hero (unless you count the Taming of the Shrew which depending on the production and interpretation is viable.) And as you likely already know, OP, having an alpha personality doesn’t mean that the woman has to be unfeminine. It just means that in the relationship the woman is the dominant partner.

We’ve scoured around and found a few more you might enjoy!

Historical

The Duke Who Didn’t by Courtney Milan - M/F, Victorian Romance, Asian Romance (heroine is Chinese, hero is half-Chinese), alpha female, Open Door

Duke of Pleasure by Elizabeth Hoyt - M/F, Regency Romance, Open Door, heroine is a masked vigilante

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - M/F - Regency Romance, No Sex, Heroine is Gentry. Classic Romance.

Desire in Disguise by Rebecca Brandywine - M/F - French Revolution, Open door, heroine is a pirate, Old School Romance.

Skye O’Malley by Bertrice Small - M/F - Elizabethan England, Open Door, Interracial Romance, Old School Romance, CW: Rape, Domestic Abuse, and Sexual Slavery. Book 1 of a two book series. Heroine is Irish and head of her Clan and Captain of a fleet of ships.

An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole - M/F - Civil War America, Open Door, Interracial Romance, CW: Slavery, Rape, Racism (all the racism). Heroine is a Spy

A Duke Will Never Do by Darcy Burke - M/F - Regency Romance, Open Door, CW: Alcohol Abuse, Withdrawal, Sexual Assault. Heroine is a Spinster.

An Eye for an Earl by Jean Wilde - M/F - Regency Romance, Open Door, CW: Rape, Sexual Assault, Heroine is a Courtesan.

---

Fantasy

Tinker by Wen Spencer - M/F, Fantasy Romance, Mechanic Heroine, Elf Hero, Near-Future, Unknown Heat Level - book 1 of 4, HFN in Book 1.

The Stormbringer by Isabel Cooper - M/F. Fantasy Romance, Warrior Heroine, Epic Fantasy, Open Door. Book 1 of 3, each featuring a different couple, heroines are all warriors.

The Edge of the Woods by Jules Kelley - M/F Bisexual (MFC referenced having past relationships with women), Shifter Romance. Open Door - heroine is alpha wolf of her pack, hero is not a shifter

Moon Called by Patricia Briggs - M/F, Shifter Romance, Urban Fantasy Romance, Native American heroine, Interracial romance, Love Triangle, Open Door - book 1 of 13 (and counting) in the Mercy Thompson series

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse - M/F, Post Apocalyptic Romance, Urban Fantasy (Magic User), Native American Heroine, book 1 of 2 and likely more.

Alpha Night by Nalini Singh - M/F - Urban Fantasy (Shifter, Psychic), Book 19 of a 20 book and counting series, Heroine is the Alpha of her Pack.

Men Are Frogs by Saranna DeWylde - M/F - Contemporary Fantasy - Fairy Tale Retelling, Interracial Romance, Heroine is a Wedding Planner, Book 2 of a 3 book and counting series.

----

Science Fiction

Finders Keepers by Linnea Sinclair - M/F, SciFi Romance, Smuggler Heroine, Open Door - you cannot go wrong with Linnea Sinclair. Her entire catalogue fits your ask. Try Gabriel’s Ghost or Games of Command or An Accidental Goddess, too.

Grimspace by Ann Aguirre - M/F, SciFi Romance, Pilot Heroine, Closed Door - book 1/6 in the Sirantha Jax series. Each book has an HFN and book 6 Jax and March get their HEA.

----

YA Romance

You’ll actually find quite a lot of kickass heroines (and the heroes who adore them) in the YA genre. From Katniss in The Hunger Games to Celaena in Throne of Glass and Jaenelle in the Black Jewels trilogy. However, these are not always romance, in that they don’t always fulfill the promise of the HEA or even HFN (Jaenelle doesn’t get either, in particular). It’s very common for the HEA not to come until the end of the series, so bear that in mind when looking at the recommendations below (and any other YA series).

Graceling by Kristin Cashore - M/F. YA Fantasy Romance, Unknown Heat Level, Assassin Heroine - book 1 in a series of 4.

Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers - M/F, YA Fantasy Romance, Open Door, Assassin Heroine - book 1 of a trilogy.

Cinder by Marissa Meyer - M/F, YA Science Fiction Romance, Open Door, Cyborg Heroine. Book 1 of a series of 4; each featuring a different strong heroine.

Hunted by the Sky by Tanaz Bhathena - M/F, YA Fantasy Romance, No Sex, Magic User Heroine, Book 1 in a Duology.

----

Contemporary Romance

Vanessa’s Winter Romance by Christina Rose Andrews - M/F - Open Door - Interracial Romance, Law School Heroine, Black Heroine, Hispanic Hero, Beta Hero. (Bood 2 of a 3 book series)

Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert - M/F - Open Door, Interracial romance, College Professor Heroine, Black Heroine, Muslim Hero, Bisexual Heroine, Beta Hero (Book 2 of a 3 book series)

Dirty Sweet Wild by Julie Kriss - M/F - Open Door, Disabled Hero (Amputee and PTSD), Sex Worker Heroine, Veteran Romance, Billionaire Romance (Book 2 of a 4 book series)

Tramps Like Us/Kimi wa Pet/You’re My Pet by Yayoi Ogawa - M/F - Open Door - MANGA Series, CW: Homelessness, Love Triangle. Heroine is a successful Business woman.

*These suggestions are not endorsements. Please read the description and the reviews to decide whether you want to read the books!

[usnatarchives]

Army AV tech inspects motion picture reel, NARA ID 6399202.

CALLING ALL FILM BUFFS! 🎥

FILMS OF STATE - 1st-ever VIRTUAL Gov't Film Conference April 7-9 Register online for this special FREE virtual event - in partnership with U-MD - and join us for screenings, presentations, panels, and “how-to” film research guidance. Open to filmmakers, press, film students/historians/scholars, and anyone else interested in gov't films! Full schedule here. Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero will welcome participants. Learn more in Audrey Amidon's Unwritten Record blog, Introducing Films of State.

Session highlights include:

Uncle Sam Presents: 75 Years of Government Films

Vaccine and Antidote: US Military Psychiatric Films in WWII

Correcting Corrections: Instructional Films for Corrections Officers Post-Attica

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Government Films’ Second Life on the Small Screen

A Federal Vision of Black-Owned Land in Rural Georgia: the US Information Service’s Men of the Forest (1952)

Jean Bridget (L) and Ethel Burke (R) examine some of the millions of feet of film at the National Archives before cataloguing it. 10/8/1944. NARA ID 208-FS-3221.

As you well know, the National Archives holds the permanently valuable records of the federal government. In addition to 14 billion documents, including the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights, the agency also holds an estimated half a million reels of motion picture film–the world’s largest public domain film collection. The Motion Picture Preservation Lab physically handles about 2 million feet of film per year – if laid out end-to-end, it would be greater than the distance between College Park, MD, and Boston, MA.  They include the Apollo 11 raw footage, the Iwo Jima Flag Raising, The March on Washington, and the first color film of Yellowstone National Park!

NARA staffer in the Nitrate Motion Picture Film Storage Vault, NARA ID 12168512.

Glenn C. Henry with NARA Motion Picture Film, 10/12/1937, NARA ID 5928166.

[prettywordsyouleft]

The Cowboy - Part 10

Summary: Leaving the city for a rural area called Blayne seemed simple enough. Your task was to convince the people to agree with selling their land for a resort redevelopment. But once there, you soon realise that your city ways are entirely different to theirs. Winning their trust was going to take some effort, and when you start to fall for a local cowboy, you wonder if you really needed Blayne more than the city life after all.

Pairing: Jung Jaehyun x female reader

Genre: cowboy au / drama / romance / if you squint there’s some enemies to lovers up in here.

Warnings: Jung Jaehyun is a cowboy, need I say more? (a bit of angst and drama, and it sometimes might feel like you’re reading a Nicolas Sparks book, so I’m told lol) -- swearing, and I’ve never been to a rodeo in real life so I probably didn’t make a fully realistic scene, so don’t hate me, it’s fiction lol

Word count: 2281

This series will be updated every Thursday and Friday.

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It truly was another world. The country music was playing live from the stage nearby and the endless row of stalls selling assortments from horse gear to food overstimulated you. You had lost Avery in the crowd, the tall man crossing paths with a group of women from high school.

Jaehyun smirked. “He’s always been the popular one.”

“And you the troublemaker?” you offered and Jaehyun laughed, shaking his head.

“You’re the troublemaker. How do you propose I deal with worrying about you when I’m warming up Trickster soon? Maybe you should come with me.”

“I’ll be fine exploring whilst you do that. I’ve seen you ride so much now, I’m convinced your butt is a perfect shape to mold to any saddle seat.”

“Well, you should know, having seen my butt how many times now?”

“Jaehyun!” you gasped, slapping his upper arm and looking around yourselves. You relaxed, realising you saw no familiar faces nearby.

He seemed to read your mind. “Avery knows about us. He’s helping me out by keeping his mother clueless.”

“Would anyone else come from Blayne today?” you asked, and Jaehyun shook his head.

“Not really. It’s more so people from the town over that will. And whilst you’re a household name in Blayne, you’re not on familiar terms yet with others. Which means…”

“Which means?” you repeated, grinning when Jaehyun reached for your hand, interlocking your fingers. You looked down at the gesture. “I felt that tremble, Jaehyun.”

“What tremble?” he feigned innocence for only a moment. “Maybe I have some butterflies about today. I want this to go well.”

“It will. I know it will.”

“Because I have your support?” he teased, and you shook your head, trying not to roll your eyes.

“Because it’s a passion of yours. I can tell you want this opportunity.”

“It would be real nice. Joey told me if I qualify, he can help me with the training. I’ll need to find extra time to do it, maybe travel to his barn a few times a week for evening training but it’s doable.”

“You’re so cute, you know that?” you said, recycling one of Jaehyun’s lines. He picked up on it and laughed. “I like seeing you this hopeful.”

“I’m hopeful about us too.”

“You are?”

“If I win today, my Dad will be pretty chuffed. Maybe we could tell him about us.”

“No more acting like teenagers over this. We’re grown adults, Jaehyun. Regardless of if you win or not, let’s tell him. I’m planning on meeting with him on Thursday for my business proposition, so if that goes well, I doubt he’ll have any concerns about us.”

“This is my Dad we’re talking about. There’s a whole lot about him, about us, that you don’t know.”

“Are you hiding someone in the attic?!” you asked, gasping dramatically. Jaehyun rolled his eyes. “You’ve got an entirely different life kept behind closed doors? How about being the culprit to-”

“Here you two are,” Avery interrupted, eyeing your linked hands with high interest. “Is this why you wanted to come today, Y/N? Away from the prying Blayne eyes, you can finally go on a date with your beau?”

“A date?” you pondered before looking up at Jaehyun. He grinned. “We’ve been on a few of those already in Blayne.”

“And no one knows that you two are together? Woah, I’m impressed with how well you’ve covered them up.”

“Not for long,” Jaehyun announced and you smiled happily, nodding in agreement. “But I am mighty glad you’re back, Avery. Can you keep an eye on this one? I’m sure if left to her own devices, some of the sellers in the market here will have her pulling out money she doesn’t need to spend.”

“You’re insulting my judgment so easily!” you called after Jaehyun’s departing back.

Avery grinned. “Well, you chose him over me. I’ve been doubtful of your taste this whole time.”

“Avery McConnell?”

Spinning to see another woman approach you both, you grinned. “He’s all yours. I’m going to go watch from the stadium.”

An hour had passed by, and you were struggling with the concept of being at a rodeo. On one hand, it was thrilling to watch but also reckless. You knew there was a danger behind the sport, as there was with most sports. But you didn’t realise how easy it was to fall off at this calibre of competition.

You gasped as a young girl, no older than fifteen hit into a barrel and her horse was deep in the turn, losing its footing and the pair fell, the horse landing on top of her. With bated breath, you watched as she managed to get back to her feet, albeit with an evident hobble.

“Your first time?” an older woman asked knowingly, and you nodded. “Not from around here?”

“Originally from the city,” you admitted sheepishly, and the woman laughed.

“Called that by a mile.”

“Do I stand out that much?”

“You’re no country pumpkin like me, that’s for sure.”

“Ah.” You looked her over and smiled. “I think you’re lovely.”

“I wasn’t meaning how we look, love. You’re here to support your boyfriend, aren’t you?”

“How did you know?”

“And he’ll come out here soon, and you’ll be the type to cheer. Don’t. It’s really tacky and could throw him off. Do you even know what barrel racing is about?”

“Some. There’s three barrels, and you have to make it through the sequence with the fastest time and without touching them.”

“It’s a dangerous sport. The horses are trained athletes. It might be all over in fifteen to seventeen seconds, but during that time, it’s a race against their life. They need to move without any issue, carry the weight of their rider perfectly, and dig deep to get around and then gallop off again. And the riders are just as focused. It’s more than just a sequence. Everything counts.”

“Wow, and he had a chance to go pro for this?”

She laughed loudly then. “All cowboys will tell you that, sweetie. Who are you rooting for?”

“Jung Jaehyun,” you mentioned and her amused expression dropped, scooting closer to you. Leaning back from her sudden invasion of your space, you laughed weakly. “Is that a problem?”

“Oh, he’s good. He’s back on the circuit? He took time off ever since the fire. I didn’t think he’d be back to this level.”

“What fire?”

“Blayne’s fire,” she replied, her eyes now peeled to the catalogue, checking out Jaehyun’s details. She gasped. “Joey Newman’s horse?! He didn’t come to mess around today.”

You smiled politely at the woman, slipping into your thoughts. You knew this was a big thing for Jaehyun, but was he that big of a deal in this world? The new information explained the nerves, but he had downplayed this to you all day long. The barrel racing was one of the last sports on the schedule for this rodeo, and for hours beforehand, Jaehyun had assured you it was like a training event. Yet, this woman now had you believing otherwise.

“Can I ask something?” you enquired, coming out of your reverie and the blonde woman nodded. “What happens if he makes the top five today?”

“He’ll be scouted. Perhaps he already is getting calls. He held the fastest time for five years straight in this region. Everyone wanted a piece of him before his father pulled him out.”

“Pulled him out?” you breathed, blinking rapidly. “Why did he-?”

“How about you ask your cowboy that you’re having a fling with all about it, once he’s done racing the clock, if you have further questions.”

“It’s not a fling,” you corrected and she smiled sadly at you.

“Darl, I was dating Billy Burke. You might not know that name but everyone around here did. He went pro, won the Nationals and become a million dollars richer.”

“A million dollars?!”

She shrugged. “I was pregnant with his baby at the time he got offered to go pro. We were supposed to get married. But, you know, it was his dream to go pro. When given the choice between love and the race, he chose the latter. So what if he has money? He has all that fame now too. All I have is his kid who hasn’t met his Daddy once. Let me warn you, cowboys might charm you with their country hospitality but they all have bigger goals than the farms they run back home. Once Jaehyun is given the chance, he’ll forget that Blayne even exists.”

“I doubt that,” you defended. “I’m sorry to hear of your circumstances, and even if Jaehyun and I end, I can confirm Blayne means more to him than-”

“You really don’t know what he did to Blayne, do you?” Pity for you emerged in her eyes. “What do you know aside from his body then?”

Getting up, you stormed out from the bleachers you had been sitting upon, feeling foolish for being so worked up by a stranger. Before you could leave, however, Avery leapt up towards you and clapped his hands together. “He’s next up. Where are you going?”

“Oh, I uh, need fresh air.”

“Worried about him falling off? Don’t be. He’s the best here today, you’re about to see it. No one else can go from being a farmhand to a decent barrel racer without practising than Jaehyun. Come on, you can get air after his run.”

Nodding numbly, you allowed Avery to push you along, taking a seat again. Avery greeted a few of the people around you, and you watched the horse and rider before you now, finishing their run with ease. You looked to the sidelines, wondering where Jaehyun was.

“I thought you said he was next.”

“He is. He’ll be making his way in any second now.”

The grating voice of the commentator muted as soon as you saw the spotted horse come racing into the arena, your eyes peeled on the pair heading towards their first barrel. Clasping your hands together, you watched on intensely, praying Jaehyun and Trickster would make it around safely.

The woman had been right. It was a sport that relied on precision and speed. You had always considered a minute to be such a short period of time, but as the seconds went by, you found yourself changed. Every second counted now.

Jaehyun and Trickster rounded the final barrel and galloped to the exit, Avery’s screams and sudden shaking your arm jostled you out of the blur that had been your vision towards the end.

Fifteen seconds was all it took to give you clarity on your feelings.

“He made it! That lucky son of a bitch!” Avery rejoiced, and you stood up jarringly, walking down the aisle to the exit. Avery was still full of energy at your side. “He’ll be cooling Trickster down, Y/N. Come this way to the holding pen.”

You followed along in a slight daze, your heart thumping with the thoughts within your head. You disregarded all the information, the warnings that stranger had given you. When you saw Jaehyun walking the heavily breathing animal around and patting his neck, you almost broke into a run to reach the side of the pen faster.

Noticing your arrival, Jaehyun grinned and walked the horse over. “Well, what did you think?”

“I think I’m in love you,” you announced sincerely.

“After seeing only one run?!” Avery joked, but Jaehyun’s expression grew serious, not shifting away from yours even as he continued to walk the horse around.

Distractedly, Jaehyun called out for the groom of Joey’s ranch and dismounted, walking over to you and ducking under the metal bar that separated you from him. “You mean what you say?”

You nodded, choking on the sudden emotions that had come with your confession.

“You can’t take it back after I give you this chance, Y/N. You mean it?”

“I love you,” you repeated, and that was all it took for Jaehyun to crash his lips upon yours.

There was no thought to the professionals around you, nor Avery who had stepped aside to give you albeit a tiny amount of privacy. You didn’t care at all who watched you lock lips with Jaehyun right now.

Because it felt right.

You hadn’t expected to arrive in Blayne and find yourself looking in different directions for your life. It had always been well-planned out. You would build your career and work hard during these years, so when you had achieved all you set out for you could relax into love and create a family.

The country didn’t work like that. The values were so different from what you had experienced in your fast-paced life. And now that you had been given the opportunity to slow down a little, to take in the world outside of an office and not be attached to a screen day in and out, you were finding your desires were changing too.

You liked the idea of waking up in someone’s arms and falling asleep whispering sweet nothings to one another. During those fifteen seconds, you imagined your life without Jaehyun in it, and it made you want to do absolutely everything in your power to remain at his side.

You meant the love confession. You had never spoken of love to another person before. It was liberating, fulfilling. As Jaehyun burned his lips into yours, you knew he felt the same.

It hadn’t been long between you. But this summer romance was shaping your world more than you believed it had for his parents all those years ago.

You couldn’t imagine going back to the city now.

_________________

Part 11

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It’s been a while between posts here at the Parallel Julieverse, but we have finally managed to clear a bit of time from work, life, and other such annoyances to get back to what really matters: all things Julie!  And in this post we highlight an interesting tidbit of trivia from late-1950 when Julie was appearing in Red Riding Hood at the Theatre Royal Nottingham, the subject of a recent 70th anniversary tribute post.

Although she had only just turned 15 when she was cast as the eponymous lead in Red Riding Hood, Julie Andrews was already an established juvenile star of considerable note. Her debut star-making turn as a 12-year-old child prodigy in Starlight Roof in 1947/48 garnered widespread media attention and it catapulted the young singer into a whirlwind period of touring performances, radio programmes, West End pantomimes, and even early television appearances. Julie’s subsequent casting as the resident singer in the hit BBC radio series, Educating Archie, augmented her fame further, bringing her voice into the sitting rooms of Britain on a weekly basis and making her a household name. 

With this growing renown came equally expanded opportunities for cross-promotional marketing such as celebrity endorsements and advertising. A particular variant of celebrity promotion popular in the era was the staged 'star visit’ or what today might be termed ‘celebrity event marketing’ (Segrave 2005). Here the star would be invited to appear at a particular event or special occasion as a way of boosting public and media interest, while serving in return as a form of value-adding PR for the star and his/her professional ventures. 

Julie was involved in several such ‘star visits’ during the three month run of Red Riding Hood. During rehearsals in mid-December 1950, she was invited as a VIP guest and honorary judge at the Annual Dance for Booth and Son, a major British apparel manufacturing company (‘Ilkeston’, 1). Around the same time, she paid a special visit to the Nazareth House for Children in Nottingham (‘Night’, 2), as well as the Borough Green Air Training Corps Cadets Open Night where “[p]art of the evening’s entertainment had to be cancelled in order to allow the enthusiastic younger generation to get her autograph” (‘Julie stopped’,  3). 

One of the more fascinating such events -- and the one that we profile here -- was a courtesy visit to famed music impresario, Lawrence Wright. Today, Wright is little remembered, save by a handful of theatre history enthusiasts, but he was a major figure in the British entertainment industry of the early twentieth century (Wright 1988). Popularly dubbed the ‘Daddy of Tin Pan Alley’ and the ‘Monarch of Melody’, Wright started as a music composer in his hometown of Leicester where, under the pseudonym of Horatio Nicholls, he penned a string of popular songs such as “Down by the Stream", “Blue Eyes”, “Toy Drum Major”, and “Among My Souvenirs” (‘Alley’s Daddy’, 3). 

Wright’s greatest success, however, came as a sheet music publisher and entertainment entrepreneur. In 1910, he chanced upon a catchy tune written by a local Leicester street singer called “Don’t Go Down the Mine, Daddy”. He promptly purchased the rights to the song and published it as part of his embryonic music company. A week after the song went on sale, there was a tragic mining disaster in Whitehaven in which 147 men and boys lost their lives. Recognising a potential marketing angle, Wright had a snipe printed across the top of the sheet music declaring that “Half the profits from the first ten thousand sold will go to the relief fund for the Whitehaven pit disaster” (Wright, 4). The song became a national sensation, selling over a million copies, and making Wright a small fortune. With the proceeds, he moved to London and set up shop as the ‘Lawrence Wright Music Company’ in Denmark Street, establishing what would become the city’s ‘Tin Pan Alley’.

Under the slogan, ‘You Can’t Go Wrong with the Wright Song’, Wright became the single biggest music publisher in the UK with an eventual catalogue of over 5000 songs which he leased to major theatre producers and singing artists of the day. In an era when many homes had a piano and singalongs in the parlour were a popular social pastime, Wright also sold his sheet music direct to the public through a nationwide chain of ‘Lawrence Wright Music Shops’. Ever the canny entrepreneur, Wright diversified his business holdings with a host of affiliate ventures. In 1926, he founded The Melody Maker, the first British periodical devoted to popular music, which remained in continuous publication right into the early-2000s. He launched a popular series of self-paced musical tutorials which taught a generation of young Britons how to play everything from the piano to the banjo. Wright also moved into theatre producing, mounting an annual summer revue, On With the Show at the North Pier Pavilion in Blackpool, which ran for 32 years and served as a showcase for many of the nation’s biggest variety acts (Wright 1988). 

One of Wright’s more legendary professional pursuits was in the area of entertainment publicity. An inveterate showman, he would do anything to advertise his latest song or business venture, often falling foul of the authorities with some of his more colourful efforts. To promote his 1927 song, “Me and Jane in a Plane”, he chartered a bi-plane to fly at low altitude around the Blackpool Tower, while Jack Hylton and his Band played the song on board and dropped advertising leaflets to the startled crowds below. He offered £1000 to anyone who could disprove the title of another Wright song, “I’ve Never Seen a Straight Banana”, with the result that Denmark Street was awash with truckloads of fruit sent in by eager contestants. And what better way to launch a tune called “Sahara” than to dress a bevy of beautiful blondes as Arabian princesses and ride them on camels around Piccadilly Circus (Wright, 11; ‘King’, 7).

Less extravagant, but no less important to his business success, was Wright’s promotional use of stars. Across his fifty year career, Wright forged key professional relationships with many leading musical artists of the day. He even married a star: variety singer and comedienne, Betsy Warren, in 1933, though their union ended in divorce after only a few years. More enduring were his collaborations with the scores of stars who sang his songs and appeared in his shows. In 1960 to mark his 50th year in show business, Melody Maker published a special golden anniversary tribute to Wright that was brimming with congratulatory greetings from a cavalcade of stars old and new: everyone from George Formby, Jack Payne, and Billy Cotton to Harry Secombe, Connie Francis, and Frankie Vaughan (Wright, 18).

It was in this context that 15-year-old Julie Andrews found herself paying a promotional ‘star visit’ to Lawrence Wright in late 1950. The precise circumstances surrounding the visit are unknown. The young singer had an existing professional relationship of sorts with Wright, having included several of his songs in her concert repertoire such as “The Dream of Olwen” and “I Heard a Robin Singing”. Indeed, an article in the trade press from this time makes mention of Julie in relation to a newly published Wright number, “The Song of the Tritsch Tratsch” which she had started to perform in some of her concerts and, she was quoted as saying, it “always gets a grand reception” (‘Song Notes’, 4). Another likely influence behind the visit was Tom Arnold, the producer of Red Riding Hood. Arnold was a close business associate of Wright’s and one suspects he may have been instrumental in engineering the visit as a way of promoting his panto. Either way, at some point in November/December 1950, Julie dutifully trotted off to Wright’s office where, with photographers conveniently on hand, the young “panto starlet” was received by the impresario and what press reports termed a chorus of “his stars”.

It is this “chorus of stars” that makes the visit especially interesting from a theatre history perspective. While the names of the five female stars assembled to greet Julie may not ring many bells today, they were all celebrated theatrical luminaries of their day:

Carole Lynne (1918-2008): A glamorous actress and singer of the 1940s, Lynne starred in a string of big West End musicals including Black Velvet (1939), Old Chelsea (1943) opposite Richard Tauber, and a revival of Jill Darling (1945). She also appeared in a number of wartime comedy films such as Ghost Train (1941) and Asking For Trouble (1942) with Max Miller. In 1946, Lynne married famed theatre impresario, Lord Bernard Delfont -- the brother of Sir Lew Grade who would play a major role in Julie’s career -- and, after retiring from the stage in the early 50s, she became  a prominent society hostess and patron to many theatre charities (’Carole Lynne’, 62).

Dorothy Ward (1890-1987): A noted beauty of the Edwardian stage, Ward rose to prominence in West End operettas such as The Dairymaids (1906) and Tom Jones (1907). She achieved her greatest fame, however, as a dashing pantomime Principal Boy, appearing in over 40 pantos across her 50 year career. In many of these shows, she played opposite her husband, Shaun Glenville, a noted panto Dame, and few Christmases passed without the pair “on the same stage, he in skirts and she in tights” ( ‘Obituary: Miss Dorothy Ward’, 14).

Marie Burke (1894-1988): A singer of remarkable versatility, Burke originally trained for an operatic career but found her niche in the lighter fields of operetta and musical theatre. She made a high profile debut as Isolde in Charles Cochran’s controversial 1919 production of Afgar, after which she spent several years touring in the United States and Australia. Burke had her greatest stage success playing the part of Julie in the premiere London production of Show Boat (1928). Thereafter, she headlined several major operettas including the London premiere of Waltzes from Vienna (1931-32) and its Broadway transfer as The Great Waltz (1934), and Don Juan de Mañara (1937) at Covent Garden. Burke had an equally successful screen career, appearing in over 70 films and TV programmes from the teens till the 1970s (‘Obituary: Marie Burke’, 12).

Patricia Burke (1917-2003) : The daughter of Marie, Patricia Burke was born in the proverbial trunk while her mother and father, tenor Tom Burke, were on a concert tour in Milan. Inevitably, she took to the boards herself as a teen, singing and dancing her way to fame in a string of West End musical successes of the 1930s -- with more than a few Julie connections. She made her professional debut in the 1933 premiere of Cole Porter’s Nymph Errant starring Gertrude Lawrence and later appeared alongside Beatrice Lillie in Happy Returns (1938). One of her greatest West End successes was as the female lead in The Lisbon Story (1943), a show which introduced the popular standard, “Pedro, the Fisherman” which Julie would later record. Following the war, Burke made an unexpected move into 'legit’ theatre, playing the female lead opposite Trevor Howard in a well received 1946 Old Vic production of The Taming of the Shrew, followed with a number of other equally high profile performances in classics such as As You Like It (1948), Jonson’s The Alchemist (1948) and Shaw’s Saint Joan (1948). Burke never forgot her popular roots, though, and she continued to alternate dramatic roles with musicals and pantos, as well as appearances in film and TV programmes (‘Patricia Burke’, p. 44). 

Marjorie Browne (1910-1990): Another popular performer of the mid-century, Browne started her career in the mid-twenties as one of producer Charles Cochran’s ‘Young Lady’ beauties, scoring a major success in his revue One Damn Thing After Another (1927). Browne went on to perform widely in hit West End shows such as On Your Toes (1937) and Chu Chin Chow (1940), as well as touring productions of Rose Marie (1942-3), Hit the Deck (1944) and Good Night Vienna (1946). She also appeared in a number of British film musicals of the 30s and 40s including Lassie from Lancashire (1938), Laugh It Off (1940) co-starring Tommy Trinder, and I Didn’t Do It (1945) with George Formby. 

It was, thus, quite the illustrious welcoming committee on hand to receive our young Julie. And, as much as the visit was a factitious PR event staged for the cameras by the ever-wily Lawrence Wright, there is still something deeply moving about its symbolic enactment of a generational passing of the theatrical torch. As representatives of the outgoing old guard, the five grand stars stand at the rear, poised with the confidence of a lifetime’s experience, charging their glasses in warm salute to the rising star of the next generation. That the women are bedecked with the emblematic accoutrements of mid-century celebrity -- furs, coiffure, champagne -- while, in the foreground, an adolescent Julie -- perched rather awkwardly on the corner of the desk, lanky legs akimbo -- is garbed in a homey juvenile ensemble of woollen coat, tartan skirt, ankle socks and Mary Janes -- cradling that perennial icon of cosy British domesticity, a cup of tea -- only adds to the symbolic poignancy.

By 1950, the tide was also starting to ebb for Lawrence Wright. Musical tastes were changing and audiences were fast moving on from the fireplace singalongs and end-of-pier entertainments with which he had built his career. A few short years later, he would stage his final summer revue in Blackpool in 1956, going into semi-retirement before passing in 1964 at age 76. His voluminous catalogue of songs, however, would endure. Prized as a valuable commercial property, the Lawrence Wright catalogue has been owned, at various times, by the Beatles and Michael Jackson, before being bought up by the Universal Music group (Horn, 595). 

As a final Julie connection, years after her 1950 ‘star visit’ to the great man himself, Julie would once again sing a Lawrence Wright song when, as Gertrude Lawrence in the 1968 musical biopic, STAR!, she performed the classic WW1 music hall number, “Burlington Bertie from Bow”. Wright had purchased the rights to "Burlington Bertie” when it was first written in 1914 and it would remain a valuable possession of his corporate trunk. Even though “Burlington Bertie” was not in fact a song ever performed by Gertrude Lawrence, it perfectly captured the flavour of Edwardian music hall and provided an ideal showcase for Julie’s combined vocal and comic talents. The song was also something of a personal favourite for Julie. She had recorded the song previously for her 1962 album of music hall standards, and had even shared the stage in the late-40s with the original “Burlington Bertie” herself, the legendary Ella Shields (Andrews, 116). Julie’s performance of “Burlington Bertie” in STAR! would prove a highlight of that otherwise troubled film and she would continue to perform the number in concert well into the 1980s, proving indeed that “you can’t go wrong with a Wright song”!

Sources:

‘Alley’s Daddy Dead’, 1964. The Stage and Television Today, 21 March: 3.

Andrews, Julie. 2019. Home Work: A memoir of my Hollywood years. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

D.G. 1964. ‘The King is Dead. Long Live the King!’, The Illustrated Chronicle. 22 May: 7.

Heyes, Joy 1991. ‘Obituary: Marjorie Browne.’ The Stage and Television Today, 21 February: 30.

Horn, David 2004.  ‘Lawrence Wright Music Company’ in J. Shepherd et al, eds. Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World : Media, industry, society. London: Continuum, pp. 594-95.

 ‘Ilkeston Firm’s Event’, 1950. The Nottingham Evening Post. 16 December: 1.

‘Julie stopped the show at cadet’s open night.’ 1950. The Chronicle and Advertiser. 15 December: 3.

“Night of their Lives: Children at panto. dress rehearsal’, 1950. The Nottingham Evening Post. 23 December: 2.

’Carole Lynne: Glamorous actress and musical theatre star who as Lady delfont became one of London’s leading theatrical hostesses’ 2008. The Times, 22 January: p. 62.

‘Obituary: Marie Burke’ 1988. The Times, 23 March: p.12

‘Obituary: Miss Dorothy Ward’ 1987. The Times, 22 January: p. 14.

‘Patricia Burke: Thirties musical star who proved her range with Shakespearean roles, but retained a love of pantomime.’ 2003, The Times, 27 November: p. 44. 

Segrave, Kerry, 2005. Endorsements in Advertising: A social history. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland.

‘Song Notes’ 1950. The Stage. 16 November, p. 4.

Wright, Lawrette, 1988. Lawrence Wright: Souvenirs for a century. Chards: Matthews Wright Press.

Copyright © Brett Farmer 2021