#celluloid lunch

[dustedmagazine]

Laughing — Because It’s True (Celluloid Lunch/Meritorio)

“Will She Ever Be a Friend of Mine” jangles like a long-lost Byrds tune, or maybe an out-of-print single by the Jayhawks. The Sadies, at their least bluegrassy, could sometimes pull off a similar trick, putting a psychedelic shimmer on exuberant country rock, and they’re certainly not alone. Big Star, certain iterations of R.E.M., Robyn Hitchcock and the Minus Five all come to mind as Laughing’s first LP spins. Still, to my mind, the touchstone above all others is Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend, the most effortless and heartbreaking of the genre, full of yearning harmonies and indelible hooks and some mighty fine guitar work from one Richard Lloyd. Like Sweet more than a generation ago, Laughing nails power pop’s ease and inevitability, and that’s impressive. It’s one of music’s most difficult forms, not least because it should never look like you’re trying.

This is the first album from Montreal-based Laughing though its members are mostly veterans of other bands. Notably Josh Salter, one of three guitar/bass/singers, plays bass in Nap Eyes. Cole Woods led Winnipeg’s Human Music. Laura Jeffery, the drummer, was in Fountain. André Charles Thériault, the lone exception, hadn’t been in a band for over a decade when he joined.  What brought the four together was power pop and nailing its sweet but rowdy jangle-i-ness.

Well, mission achieved. Consider, for example, the single “Bruised,” with its yearning vocals (“When you said you didn’t care/I felt something inside me tear”), its rough slashes of guitar, its battering drum line, its seething harmonies, its spiraling licks. The song is nearly perfect in its roughed-up, cowlick-sticking-straight-up messiness. Barbs of dissonance jut out from its breezy choruses, like rusty wires in cotton candy; not too sweet, not too rough.

“Secret” is slower and more vulnerable—and it’ll give you a powerful jolt of Sweet-ish-ness, “You Don’t Love Me,” maybe or “Nothing Lasts.” The guitar rings like bells, the bass buzzes underneath, the drums shimmer and pulse. “Won’t you tell me something/no one else knows/let’s get as close as we can and put on one another’s clothes,” the singer intimates, echoing Girlfriend’s exuberant, “You can wear my clothes.”

That’s the final song, a silky comedown from bangers like “Easier Said” and “Sour Note.” It’s a nice ending to a near perfect summer album, which rocks and jangles and keens, balancing on a knife edge of hard and soft, joy and sadness, as all summer albums should.

Jennifer Kelly

[oarworm]

Everything Around You - Feeling Figures

[billlaotian]

[daggerzine]

MY FAVORITE RECORDS OF 2024!

MY FAVORITE RECORDS OF 2024 (in no particular order)

Chime School- The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel (Slumberland)

Mary Timony- Untame the Tiger (Merge)

Weak Signal- fine (12XU)

Dummy- Free Energy (Trouble in Mind)

The Softies- The Bed I Made (Father Daughter)

The Tyde- Season 5 (Spiritual Pajamas)

Best Bets- The Hollow Husk of Feeling (Meritorio)

Jessica Pratt- Here in the Pitch (Mexican Summer)

Ducks Ltd- Harms Way (Carpark)

Peter Perrett- The Cleansing (Domino)

The Sharp Pins- Radio DDR (self released)

Lightheaded- Combustible Gems (Slumberland)

Beachwood Sparks- Across the River of Stars (Curation)

The Reds, Pinks and Purples- Unwishing Well (Slumberland)

The Infinites- Archetypes (Meritorio)

The Lemon Twigs- A Dream is All We Know (Captured Tracks)

Redd Kross- S/T (in the Red)

Yea-Ming and the Rumors- I Can't Have it All (Dandy Boy)

Humdrum- Every Heaven (Slumberland)

Jim Nothing- Grey Eyes Grey Lynn (Meritorio)

WAIT HERE'S 20 MORE!

Lovejoy- ..and it's love! (Shelflife/Spinout Nuggets)

Class - A Healthy Alternative (Feel It Records)

Bloodstains- S/T (self released)

The Hard Quartet- S/T (Matador)

Michael Head & the Red Elastic Band- Loophole (Modern Sky)

The Resonars- Electricity Plus (self released)

Mythical Motors- Seven is Circular (self released)

Sad Eyed Beatniks- Ten Brocades (Meritorio)

Club 8- A Year with Club 8 (self released)

Torrey- S/T (Slumberland)

Pale Lights- Waverly Place Jigsaw)

The BVs- Taking Pictures of Taking Pictures (Shelflife)

Deep Tunnel Project- S/T (Comedy Minus One)

Mt.Misery- Love In Mind (Prefect)

Winged Wheel- Big Hotel (12XU)

Lunchbox- Pop and Circumstance (Slumberland)

Tears Run Rings- Everything in the End (Shelflife)

Nada Surf- Moon Mirror (New West)

Savak- Flavors of Paradise (Ernest Jenning)

Kevin Robertson- The Call of the Sea (Futureman)

AAAAAAND....HERE'S 10 MORE!

Steve Wynn- Make It Right (Fire)

Pernice Brothers- Who Will You Believe (New West)

Laughing- Because It's Better (Celluloid Lunch)

Outer World- Who Does the Music Love? (HHBTM)

Rachel Love-  Lyra (The Cat Collects)

Wussy- Cincinnati Ohio (Shake It)

The Armoires- Octoberland (Big Stir Records)

Boyracer- Seaside Riot (Emotional Response

Being Dead- Eels (Bayonet)

Quivers- Oyster Cuts (Merge)

I ALSO REALLY LIKED RECORDS BY:  2nd Grade, Mo Dotti, Water Damage, The Folk Implosion, The Umbrellas, Laughing, Lupe Citta, Feeling Figures, Flowertown, Trust Fund, Chimers, Smashing Times, Ned Collette, Kim Deal, Metz, Sleveens, Cathedral Ceilings, Soup Activists, Bill Ryder-Jones, Neutrals, Pete Astor, Buffalo Tom, GospelBeach, The Shop Window, Lions of the Interstate,  The Caraway, Extra Arms, J. Robbins,  The Grain Hoppers, The Yellow Melodies, Mark Bacino, The Proctors, Penny Arcade, Magic Fig, Seasonal Falls, The Reflectors, Chanel Beads, etc. 

MY 15 FAVORITE REISSUES/COLLECTIONS OF 2O24

The Saints- I'm Stranded box set (In the Red)

Galaxie 500- Uncollected Noise New York '88-'90 (20/20/20)

Shop Assistants- S/T (Chrysalis)

Birdie- Some Dusty (Slumberland)

The Rain Parade- Emergency Third Rail Power Trip (Label 51)

The Ladybug Transistor- Albermarle Sound (Merge)

Love Child-Never Meant To Be (1988-1993) (12XU)

Velocity Girl- Ultracopacetic (Sub Pop)

East Village- Drop Out (Heavenly)

A Girl Called Eddy- S/T (Last Night From Glasgow)

David Kilgour- A Feather in the Engine (Merge)

Linda Smith- Nothin Else Matters (Captured Tracks)

The Fluid- Clear Black Paper (Sub Pop)

Drop 19's- Delaware (Wharf Cat)

High Llamas- Hawaii (Drag City)

MY 5 FAVORITE��EPS OF 2024!

R.E. Seraphin- Fool's Mate (Safe Suburban Home/ Take a Turn) 

Finnogun's Wake- Stay Young (What's Your Rupture)

Cori Elba- Full Stop (self released)

Slack Times- Gone Things (Meritorio)

Surfing Pointers- S/T (BirthDIY)

[zippocreed501]

FROM THE B-MOVIE BADLANDS...

...images from the lost continent of cult films, b-movies and celluloid dreamscapes

Momma! Bad Mothers in horror movies

I've made a little packed lunch for you, my darling. There's a few potted meat sandwiches, a little piece of fruitcake, lemonade and a bone saw. You have a lovely day now...

Psycho (1960) Whoever Slew Auntie Roo (1972) Carrie (1976) Friday the 13th (1980) Mother's Day (1980) Aliens (1986) Braindead/Dead Alive (1992) Serial Mom (1994) House of 1000 Corpses (2003)

[sydmarch]

A COLD LOOK AT CANADIAN HORROR IN BRANDON CRONENBERG’S ANTIVIRAL

When Americans think of Canada, they usually think of preternaturally-polite hosers sitting in igloos, drinking Molson or Labatt beer, watching hockey on the CBC as they dunk their Tim Hortons doughnuts in maple syrup, all the while dreaming of clubbing seals (much to Morrissey’s dismay). I don’t think Americans give much thought to Canada at all, and that’s okay. We’re not a threat to national security (despite our nationwide legalization of cannabis), we supply you with a steady stream of actors and comedians, and we’re your #1 economic trading partner, so what’s to worry about? Except that Canada concocts your nightmares, dear friends, and the irony is simply delicious: who would expect a bland nation-state of moose-loving people to be sinister sadists? It’s particularly omnipresent when watching Canadian horror films. Our film industry is, well, a speck of dust compared to the mighty Hollywood machine, but, occasionally, our celluloid chillers travel south of the 49thparallel and feast on your delicate minds. Since 1961’s The Mask (in 3D!), Canada has impacted the horror genre with its domestic terror: Black Christmas, My Bloody Valentine, Prom Night, The Changeling, Curtains, Blood and Donuts, Cube, Ginger Snaps, and more recent fare like American Mary, Pyewacket, and the Wolf Cop films. Who else would make a movie about an insane killer with a pickax terrorizing Moosehead-swilling Nova Scotia miners? Only in Canada, eh? This collection of Canadian horror helped inspire a new generation of talent to make big impressions with small budgets with such films as Beyond the Black Rainbow and Antiviral, the latter a film so American in its examination of celebrity worship, but at heart very Canadian, with a distinct connection to its filmic past.

In order to examine Antiviral, one cannot ignore the influence of Canada’s greatest and best-known filmmaker, David Cronenberg. With his over-sized glasses and gangly appearance, Cronenberg looks like an English major who shuns sunlight in order to read Angela Carter stories in a library basement, but his dark creativity has no equal. If the term body horror applied to any one filmmaker, it’s Cronenberg.  With his full-length debut, Shivers (made with Canadian government money—”screw you, taxpayer”, as the Kids in the Hall used to say), Cronenberg created a nightmare vision of an isolated luxury Montréal apartment tower gone awry; not unlike J. G. Ballard’s novel, High-Rise, but with a parasitic-organism twist. Despite its low-budget exploitation origins, Shivers was more than just schlocky fun—it heralded the arrival of a unique cinematic voice in a national film industry known more for documentaries than narrative cinema. With each film, Cronenberg expanded his obsession with the human body and technology, culminating with Videodrome (1983) and The Fly (1986), arguably his two most acclaimed films. Cronenberg’s breakthrough in the USA helped fellow Canadian filmmakers like Atom Egoyan, Patricia Rozema, Bruce MacDonald, Guy Maddin, Lynne Stopkewich, and a handful of others impress the American independent film community; Canadian film budgets were on par with the likes of Jim Jarmusch and Hal Hartley. By the ’90s, Cronenberg moved away from horror, but horror never truly left him: from adaptations of two of his literary heroes, William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch (1993) and J. G. Ballard’s Crash (1996), to eXistenZ (1999), Spider (2002), A History of Violence (2005), and his last (and possibly final) film, Map to the Stars (2014).  Outside of The Fly, his films have never electrified the box office, but they have always been profitable worldwide, allowing him to remain in Toronto with his loyal film crew; a rarity in an industry that often forces Canadian creatives to flee to Hollywood for exposure and employment. Cronenberg has been an influence on aspiring Canadian filmmakers and his influence on contemporary Canadian cinema, including Antiviral, is evident.

Antiviral is the product of artist/filmmaker Brandon Cronenberg, son of David, so it’s no coincidence that the film draws influences from Cronenberg Senior’s work. I’m reminded of a quote from Superman, “The son becomes the father, and the father…the son.” I don’t seek to diminish Brandon’s work in Antiviral by referencing his famous father, but rather acknowledge a debut so accomplished, even as raw as it is, that it can be attributed partly to the influence of his father’s work. And make no mistake, there are elements in Antiviral that wouldn’t seem out of place in Papa David’s work. The film played at Cannes and TIFF in 2012, received mostly good reviews, and then disappeared, which is a shame, as it’s a rewarding low-budget film that will connect with film aficionados who like their cinema on the cold and satirical side.

In an unnamed Canadian metropolis, Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones), an employee of Lucas Clinic, aids people in becoming closer to their favorite celebrities by injecting them willingly with various viruses collected from the rich and famous. Lucas Clinic’s number one celebrity, Hannah Geist (Sarah Gadon) is nearly too popular to keep all their clients happy. Syd steals viruses to sell on the black market by injecting himself surreptitiously, transferring them into the Ready-Face console, a revolutionary machine that identifies the “face of the virus” for copyright protection from competitors, removing it from the incubator—Syd—and preventing the virus from spreading to another host. When a fellow Lucas Clinic salesman is arrested for viral theft, Caleb is instructed to obtain a strange new virus Geist has contracted in China that is sure to be highly profitable. Syd wrecks his machine trying to transfer the new virus and the media has reported that Geist has died. Realizing that he’s dying from the same disease, Syd tangles with corporate competitors and black marketeers in the hope of finding a cure. 

Brandon Cronenberg doesn’t make it easy for the casual filmgoer to enjoy Antiviral: it is, by intention, a cold film—we’re talking Kubrickian cold—so it’s not one to pop into the Blu-ray player on a sleepy weeknight. The film’s characters and setting don’t provide humanity or warmth and it’s highly apparent in the desaturation of color: the Lucas Clinic (likely named in honor of George Lucas and his first film, THX 1138, a fellow dystopian film drained of color and humanity) is a sterile monochromatic shrine to all things white. Syd’s apartment is also white and spartan, save for the Ready-Face console hidden away in his closet. Lucas employees, mostly men (save for a woman who’s in charge of the clinic’s pathogen storage), all wear dark suits and white shirts uniformly—there are no pops of color, stylish glasses, or fun pocket squares. Even Lucas Clinic’s competitor, Vole and Tessier, is no less drab, its corridors equally lifeless and industrial. Everyone looks pale, particularly Syd, even before he injects himself with viruses; people everywhere appear ghoulish because they’re not living, they’re merely existing, consuming nothing but celebrity news (and maybe a side of celebrity brisket). Most shots feel like fluorescence was used for lighting and it aids in the ghoul factor, if not making for a beautiful image. Antiviral’s exterior shots of Toronto and nearby Hamilton (often—and unfairly—ridiculed by Torontonians as being the “Pittsburgh of Canada”) indicate a cold, drab, overcast sky over a city without beauty—nothing but an industrial wasteland (sorry again, Hamilton). 

The film borrows from several famous dystopian sources, but it’s Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World that Antiviral shares the strongest connection (not to disrespect George Orwell’s 1984, which I think is a fine dystopian novel, great for teachable moments in school, kids, but I’ve always felt Huxley’s novel is far more subtle and insidious of a society that lacks genuine human interaction and emotion, courtesy of soma and feelies).  In Antiviral, there is no connection between people—everyone stares transfixed at TV screens that display endless celebrity gossip. Drugs don’t appear to be a distraction—it’s the allure of feeling connected to a celebrity that’s as powerful as any drug. Everyone is subdued, and there is little in the way of emoting unless it’s reacting to a celebrity’s death or accident. Before he can transfer his purloined pathogens to the Ready-Face console, Syd’s landlady observes that he looks like he’s becoming ill (something his co-workers state repeatedly), but not out of care or concern; his well being is an obstacle to her perpetual gossip consumption. Outside of minutiae, the only thing discussed between the two is Hannah Geist. His co-workers discuss with him the types of maladies suffered by celebrities, but nobody asks personal questions. They stand in line to pick up the latest disease (Aria Noble, another deified celebrity, has a flu virus labeled S-915) to pass along to their customers; no small-talk about weekends spent or marital problems, just work work work. Syd speaks softly to his clients, inspiring them with the chance to be close to their favorite celebrity via a unique disease, but it’s just a polished sales pitch. Black marketeers assault Syd in order to steal a virus (oh and a sample of that rash) in casual fashion because humans are a commodity, thanks to the rich and famous who sell their illnesses to greedy corporations. Humanity is not a never-ending series of adventures, it’s a means to one end: feeling like being in a celebrity’s skin. 

Antiviral also shares a connection to Philip K. Dick with the Ready-Face machine, something the infamously-paranoid author could have easily conjured in one of his many fever dreams. Like much of Dick’s classic science fiction novels, the Ready-Face is a remarkable piece of technology and innovation, but its collection of gears and clunky parts suggest otherwise. The idea that a private corporation has developed a technology to identify person’s unique disease and prevent its “unlawful” duplication is also something akin to Dick’s world of tape-spewing simulacrums used for corporate profit. Lucas Clinic’s founder, Dorian Lucas (Nicholas Campbell), repeatedly spouts bland corporate platitudes about serving the public’s celebrity worship and “propriety rights” of pathogens, selling his thinly-veiled dream of avarice to his employees in a staff gathering. The Ready-Face technology is incredible, but nothing else in the world seems as it should—some people think the film is set in the near future, but if so, it’s one in which smartphones and other personal devices don’t exist. I like to think of Antiviral as existing in a parallel reality, one in which HD TVs exist, but everything is analogous to analog technology—Syd uses a flip alarm clock radio (ask your parents, kids!). Perhaps budgetary limitations are at work, but I think it’s fitting: in a world where there is only celebrity obsession, how could innovation exist beyond the desire to exploit a profitable opportunity? Syd’s world is akin to the Earth as depicted in Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (the inspiration for Blade Runner), in which all the ambitious, innovative humans have left their home world for dazzling colonies in the solar system; the people who remain on Earth are the disenfranchised, the unambitious, the sick and elderly, and the criminal dregs of society. In the world of Antiviral, there is no societal progression, only stasis, as people are content only to be close to their beloved celebrity. 

As a piece of satire, Antiviral is truly horrific—people paying great sums of money, willing to endure painful maladies to feel close to a famous person is completely absurd, especially in 2012, when the film was released, but even seven years later, the volume of media focused on celebrity has grown exponentially. Many of us watch TMZ daily for celebrity news (or to be “culturally aware”, as Lynne, a dear former co-worker described it). We use smartphones and apps to track the movements of celebrities; traditional advertising using celebrity spokespeople isn’t just found on TV and magazines (while they exist), but in social media apps. People on Instagram are often called “influencers” (which truly makes my blood run cold), desperate to attract more followers by pitching companies’ wares for free swag or remuneration. The Kardashians, a cabal—sorry, a family–of craven, profit-hungry individuals who are not famous as the result of any creative endeavor, but because they’re simply wealthy (their dad knew OJ!) are the antecedent to Antiviral’s Hannah Geist. As a celebrity, she is nearly god-like: her image is everywhere and worshipped, but she’s unobtainable unless one experiences one of her diseases. Even her personal doctor, Dr. Abendroth (a wonderfully subdued Malcolm McDowell), a man of science, is not immune to her power as a goddess. He confesses to Syd that Hannah isn’t just a patient to him, and the viewer suspects he has genuine personal feelings for her, but, alas, he too is under her spell, as he proffers an arm that features several skin grafts of Hannah and others (Papa Cronenberg would be proud). Society continues to distract itself by “living” vicariously through a chosen few, stagnating at the expense of that devotion. All the positive attributes of humanity are missing: no pursuit of knowledge, no ambition to improve oneself, no progression of any kind. There is only corporate greed exploiting an inert society and the black marketeers want a piece of that action: “I don’t even think ‘dignity’ is still a valid currency,” remarks one unsavory marketeer, confirming how devolved humanity has become. 

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the butcher shop, Astral Bodies Meat Market. Oh, it’s a window into a different time, when a customer could go walk in, the jingle of the door bells alerting smiling butchers, and calmly pick up a couple of pork chops and a side of bacon. In Antiviral, ye olde butcher shop has transformed into something hilarious and yet terrifying: it sells celebrity meat (Soylent Green indeed)! During my initial viewing, I thought the butcher shop nicknamed cuts of meat with celebrity names, but no, it is literal human muscle tissue, grown from cells sold to them by said celebrities. The butcher, Arvid (a calmly creepy Joe Pingue), who moonlights as a pathogen black marketeer, slices celebrity skin nonchalantly, offering a sample to Syd, free of charge (it’s even wrapped in craft paper and butcher’s twine). When Hannah dies from her mysterious illness, the demand for her “meat” increases, creating a lineup outside of Astral Bodies, customers impatient to buy what few cuts remain (don’t worry—Arvid is harvesting those cells for a future limited-time-only sale). One could argue that Astral Bodies is a bit of heavy-handedness, but I think it’s demonstrative of the celebrity communion theme in Antiviral; it’s funny and creepy at the same time, but it’s a satirical note in the unhealthy devotion to unattainable people.

What’s also very telling is that at no point does the viewer learn what specifically has catapulted Hannah into stardom. I thought she was a famous actor, but multiple viewings confirm her enigmatic celebrity. Sarah Gadon appears angelic (Brandon having borrowed from his father’s repertory company), but she doesn’t appear very much in the film; her character, however is always present in some form, always discussed, and the impetus for corporate espionage. The only flourishes of color involve Hannah, whether by flowers surrounding her bed as she recuperates from an illness in China (but not too sick to sell it to Lucas Clinic) and a video recreation of her (the film’s analog “virtual reality”) surrounded by red velvet curtains. Even Syd feels the pull of her power–in one pivotal scene there is a Christ-like communion involving Hannah’s blood that he performs in her honor. Color is only worthy of a god—Hannah’s worshippers can must remain in a monochromatic existence. Her mother, Dev (Sheila McCarthy), and Dr. Abendroth are concerned about her health as she succumbs to the disease, but it’s not so much for her well being as it is for her value as a commodity and status as a god. Dev Geist is a stand-in for Kris Jenner, she of the nauseating sobriquet “momager”, a woman with a vested interest in her daughter in order to acquire additional wealth and power. Dev and the doctor concoct a bit of subterfuge by faking Hannah’s death, as it’s revealed that Vole and Tesser are behind Hannah’s unknown illness, compliments of corporate sabotage. Syd is the key to finding an antidote, so he has value, but not as a person, but as another means to an end; altruism is very dead in Antiviral. The faked death has unintended, but profitable consequences for some: Syd, slowly deteriorating from Hannah’s disease, is kidnapped by one black marketeer in order to film his descent into death: “Since her tragic passing, many of Hannah’s admirers have experienced what could be described as an uncomfortable narrative gap between her life and funeral.” Syd is to be a living-yet-dying testament to Hannah for all to see: he’s placed in a sterile white room containing only a cot and Hannah’s visage adorned to each wall. It’s all part of an elaborate corporate scheme of legal loopholes and immorality that is depressing and inhuman as one can imagine. Everyone is a commodity, voluntarily or not.

Brandon Cronenberg’s Antiviral is a clever piece of satire, able to tell its story on a modest budget and it succeeds. Syd is not a likeable character by design; he’s a vessel, literally and figuratively, to narrate an unnerving tale of a society that has ignored its own needs for the sake of worshipping others. The film is unrelentingly bleak, much like David Cronenberg’s best films, and there is no happy ending—it exists as a Swiftian warning to the viewer: wake the hell up! Focus on your own life, don’t be a sycophant or a disciple who shrivels away in distraction. Beware of the false idols, lest ye sacrifice thine own humanity (does that sound Biblical enough?). Antiviral is an impressive introduction to Brandon Cronenberg and I’m giddy with anticipation for his second film, the upcoming Possessor (with Jennifer Jason Leigh!). Getting a film financed isn’t easy, particularly in Canada (I imagine a grant submission to Telefilm Canada is a nightmare in its own right), so Brandon Cronenberg’s Antiviral is an artistic accomplishment, itself an inspiration for the next wave of Canadian filmmakers, but one that wears the father’s influence proudly and reverently. 

[opera-ghosts]

Tenor Tom Burke as Mario singing an aria from Act II Puccini's opera 'Tosca'.

How pit lad Thomas Burke, ‘The Lancashire Caruso’, conquered the world but died in obscurity.

By Alan Whittaker

Few people today have heard of the tenor known as the Lancashire Caruso. But at his peak Tom Burke enthralled discerning opera audiences at La Scala in Milan and New York’s Met.

Although he was comparatively unknown in Britain, Dame Nellie Melba, one of the era’s great divas and a woman of formidable authority, heard him sing in Italy and insisted he appear as Rodolfo opposite her in a 1919 production of La Boheme at Covent Garden – a performance that earned him four encores at the end of Act One.

‘At last an English tenor with a voice of pure Italian flavour,’ enthused one critic.

Away from the opera circuit his lyrical voice and vibrant personality endeared him to packed provincial theatres in Britain who delighted in his repertoire of sentimental Irish songs and popular Edwardian drawing-room ballads such as The Minstrel Boy, Killarney, The Mountains of Mourne, Roses of Picardy, Mary, Because, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, and You Are My Heart’s Delight. He was billed as The Minstrel Boy.

Tom’s career was as dramatic and turbulent as any opera storyline, and in the space of 20 tumultuous years he enjoyed wealth, fame and the favours of many beautiful women, only to sink into penniless obscurity as a barman in a golf club.

Tom’s early recordings are now rarities; crackling, scratchy remnants of the Celluloid Age of cylinders – as distant as the Jurassic Age from modern recording studios with their sophisticated electronic gadgetry.

But there is no mistaking the quality of the voice first heard at the coal face of a colliery entertaining fellow miners; the feeble yellow glow of helmet lamps for footlights and a huddled audience of intensely respectful coal-streaked faces sipping cold tea from tin cups, a mile underground and four miles from the pit shaft.

It was a voice that years later, when Burke was an international celebrity, intrigued King George V, not the most mentally athletic or artistically inclined monarch in Europe. After seeing Burke perform the King decided he would like to meet the singer. It was a command, not a request.

Tom’s response was not the most courteous or diplomatic. “Tell the old bugger to wait,” he told the hapless royal emissary.

It was a stupid throw-away gesture but typical of Burke who carried an invisible coal wagon of smouldering contempt and loathing for the wealthy toffs from privileged backgrounds who seemed to control the destinies of working class people without ever working or making any contribution to society or caring about the plight of poor families.

It was an attitude carved into his character from bitter childhood memories. Tom was born in 1890 and brought up in the Lancashire pit town of Leigh, the eldest of nine children of an impoverished Irish miner. Like so many of his generation, memories of his childhood, often in relentless poverty, left an indelible scar that refused to heal. Bread and margarine as a meal, no milk for a pot of tea, slum housing in Mather Lane, four children in one bed, scavenging for coal on slag heaps during the pit strikes, the queue of disconsolate decent people at the charity soup kitchen and the sight of his mother Mary patching piles of second hand clothes by candlelight. Even in ‘good times’ meat was a luxury reserved for Sunday lunch.

It was a scandalous scenario all too familiar to hundreds of poor families but light years from Sandringham or Balmoral.

As a small boy, Tom acquired a love of singing from his father, Vince, who would sit him on his knee and sing Irish lullabies. He left school aged 12 and after a year working FULL TIME in a silk mill, he became a coal miner, joined Leigh Brass Band and learned to play the cornet. But singing was his greatest pleasure.

Vince and Mary were loving parents and with two wages now coming in decided to buy a second-hand piano. Mary pawned her precious sewing machine to help pay the weekly instalments.

It was a four-mile walk from the pit head to Mather Lane and by chance a music teacher heard Tom singing as he made his way home with a group of fellow miners. He liked what he heard and was instrumental in sending the 17-year-old to a singing teacher in nearby Atherton, who suggested Tom should enrol at Manchester College of Music.

To raise the tuition fees, Tom sold tripe in pubs, entertained customers by singing, and worked as a waiter. When he was 19 he walked from Leigh to Blackpool to hear the world-renowned tenor Enrico Caruso sing at the Winter Gardens. It was a wearying round hike of some 60 miles but it inspired young Burke to dream of becoming a professional singer.

He auditioned for the Halle Choir but was rejected by the musical director as ‘too ordinary’. The orchestra’s conductor thought differently and arranged for Tom to sing for London impresario Hugo Gorelitz, who was in Manchester searching for talented vocalists. He reckoned the raw young lad from Lancashire showed promise and after an audition Tom was given a contract, told to enrol at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and pay his fees by singing at various venues selected by Gorelitz. His voice coach was Edgardo Levi and he persuaded his friend Caruso, who had popped into the Academy for a chat, to listen to his pupil.

Whether Caruso was genuinely impressed or merely humouring an old friend is not clear but over a warm hand clasp he told the wide-eyed Burke: “One day you will wear my mantle, but first you must go to Italy. There you will find your voice.”

Burke took his advice and headed for Italy with his young wife Marie, who came from a well-to-do show business family. In Milan he learned the language, lost his flat Lancashire dialect, sang in several opera houses and once stepped in as a substitute for Gigli, the world famous tenor.

The Great War of 1914-18 saw Tom back in London and ready for military service but the Army authorities decided he would be far better employed entertaining the troops than slogging it out in the infantry.

Following his appearance opposite Melba at Covent Garden he made 14 records for Columbia and during the next decade became the toast of London society.

He appeared at Covent Garden in 1920, with Beecham conducting, and the composer Giacomo Puccini, who heard him at rehearsal, was so impressed he insisted Tom be given roles in two more of his operas. It seemed as though the world was at his feet for that same year he was offered £400 a performance – the highest offer ever made to a British singer – to appear in America. He and Marie set sail for New York.

Then the wheels came off. His agent had advertised him in the States as ‘Ireland’s greatest ever tenor’ – not the smartest publicity stunt when John McCormack was around, delighting packed theatres, and proving the nostalgic voice of Home to every Irish exile in America. It was the equivalent of attempting to pass off George Formby as the new Elvis.

The critics were unanimous and venomous. “John McCormack can sleep easily,” wrote one. There were concerts in small theatres but the £400 a night flow dried up and Marie, an accomplished singer, returned to England to raise cash. She appeared in the London stage production of Showboat with the incomparable Paul Robeson. But Tom’s philandering had strained the marriage and they were divorced.

Left to his wayward ways, Tom regularly made the headlines with his drinking and womanising. There had to be questions about his judgement. Would any sensible person pick a quarrel over a pretty girl with Jack Dempsey, the undisputed ex-world heavyweight boxing champion who was known as the Manassa Mauler? Or cross a Mafia boss in a dispute involving another woman; an altercation that left Burke in hospital with a gunshot wound and a compelling urge to get out of town?

A surprise offer to return to Britain with an engagement at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall with John Barbirolli conducting was gratefully seized. He couldn’t quit America too soon and left the next day leaving a pile of debt.

Back home he visited Leigh where he was given a rapturous welcome by the adoring mining community that spawned him, but London and the bright lights beckoned. He sang to a packed Albert Hall and toured the country enchanting provincial theatre-goers. It seemed The Minstrel Boy was back in business; his American experience an unfortunate hiccup. He could afford a flat in the West End, a Rolls-Royce and a butler.

But the self-destructive streak was never far from the surface. He quarrelled with Barbirolli, agents and impresarios, and even slated the people who queued at Covent Garden to hear him perform. “They are not music lovers,” he sneered. “They go to opera because it’s the thing to do, rather like appearing at Royal Ascot. Just showing off.”

His philandering lifestyle – revolving around booze, broken promises, and attractive women – made him unreliable and on many occasions he failed to turn up for singing engagements. As a result he was shunned by agents and theatre managers and earned nothing for a year. He was an outcast.

Worse was to follow. He lost £100,000 – an enormous amount at the time – in the Wall Street Crash and in 1932 was bankrupt. By 1934 he was renting a tiny threadbare room; a washed-up, disgruntled has-been. The man who had taken Covent Garden by storm became a bookies’ runner, steward at a golf club, and a waiter.

He tried running a club in Leigh but a police raid and charges of illegal drinking forced its closure and Tom moved to Sutton, Surrey, where in 1969 he died aged 78.

A selection of the recordings he made during the 1930s with film of him entertaining soldiers wounded in the Great War can be found on YouTube including Puccini’s soaring Nessun Dorma, a rigorous test for even the most talented tenor. Tom’s version would have pleased the composer.

He is buried in the cemetery at Wallington, Surrey, and the inscription on his headstone reads: ‘Never have I heard my music so beautifully sung’- Puccini.

The glitzy, costumed world of grand opera may no longer remember the Minstrel Boy but for some time after his death a group of admirers in workaday Leigh would meet occasionally to play his records and, over a few beers, talk with pride about the local lad who became The Minstrel Boy and the Lancashire Caruso.

[noloveforned]

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

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

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

[seekingstars]

To The Film Industry in Crisis - Frank O'Hara

Not you, lean quarterlies and swarthy periodicals with your studious incursions toward the pomposity of ants, nor you, experimental theatre in which Emotive Fruition is wedding Poetic Insight perpetually, nor you, promenading Grand Opera, obvious as an ear (though you are close to my heart), but you, Motion Picture Industry, it’s you I love!   In times of crisis, we must all decide again and again whom we love. And give credit where it’s due: not to my starched nurse, who taught me how to be bad and not bad rather than good (and has lately availed herself of this information), not to the Catholic Church which is at best an oversolemn introduction to cosmic entertainment, not to the American Legion, which hates everybody, but to you, glorious Silver Screen, tragic Technicolor, amorous Cinemascope, stretching Vistavision and startling Stereophonic Sound, with all your heavenly dimensions and reverberations and iconoclasms! To Richard Barthelmess as the 'tol’able’ boy barefoot and in pants, Jeanette MacDonald of the flaming hair and lips and long, long neck, Sue Carroll as she sits for eternity on the damaged fender of a car and smiles, Ginger Rogers with her pageboy bob like a sausage on her shuffling shoulders, peach-melba-voiced Fred Astaire of the feet, Eric von Stroheim, the seducer of mountain-climbers’ gasping spouses, the Tarzans, each and every one of you (I cannot bring myself to prefer Johnny Weissmuller to Lex Barker, I cannot!), Mae West in a furry sled, her bordello radiance and bland remarks, Rudolph Valentino of the moon, its crushing passions, and moonlike, too, the gentle Norma Shearer, Miriam Hopkins dropping her champagne glass off Joel McCrea’s yacht, and crying into the dappled sea, Clark Gable rescuing Gene Tierney from Russia and Allan Jones rescuing Kitty Carlisle from Harpo Marx, Cornel Wilde coughing blood on the piano keys while Merle Oberon berates, Marilyn Monroe in her little spike heels reeling through Niagara Falls, Joseph Cotten puzzling and Orson Welles puzzled and Dolores del Rio eating orchids for lunch and breaking mirrors, Gloria Swanson reclining, and Jean Harlow reclining and wiggling, and Alice Faye reclining and wiggling and singing, Myrna Loy being calm and wise, William Powell in his stunning urbanity, Elizabeth Taylor blossoming, yes, to you and to all you others, the great, the near-great, the featured, the extras who pass quickly and return in dreams saying your one or two lines, my love! Long may you illumine space with your marvellous appearances, delays and enunciations, and may the money of the world glitteringly cover you as you rest after a long day under the kleig lights with your faces in packs for our edification, the way the clouds come often at night but the heavens operate on the star system. It is a divine precedent you perpetuate! Roll on, reels of celluloid, as the great earth rolls on!

[53951683139]

I wrote a add in paragraph for the great Gatsby for my English class. Can people pls give me constructive criticism? I would first like to say that I have never considered myself a good writer so try to be nice if u can?

idk i googled Tribune 1922 to try and find ads and found this

I tried to add as much unnecessary description as possible

Also I’m pretending his train was at about 6-10 (sunrise) instead of 4

I think I did a decent job if I say so myself

Start of Chapter 3:

I wandered through Pennsylvania Station, the rising sun seemed as though it was electric bolts coursing through my eyes and into the back of my head. I slunk away from those glass panels, made into a prison by the wrought iron bars, forcing a weightless fragility. Should some street rat or one of the suited wall street men through a rock upwards the glass might come shattering down, but those wrought iron bars would continue to hold the thousands of travelers prisoner in its inflexible arms. I shook my head to knock myself back into active consciousness and looked with utter confusion at the Tribune sprawled across my lap; J.C.Penny promised new dress ginghams, perfect for summer, the American Bank inquired about my money’s safety, Ford’s one-ton truck was on sale for only $540, not for long though. I turned the page to a woman pointing directly at, her ink eyes staring through my soul, “J’Accuse” the words screamed in bold font, causing a shiver starting at my feet and traveling though every inch of my body. I threw the newspaper at my feet, had it suddenly lit on fire, prompting a sheepish girl with round spectacles that overwhelmed her unassuming face to stare audaciously at me with pointed blue eyes, while a crowd only looked sideways at me, pretending they did not notice. Embarrassed, I slowly reached to my feet to retrieve the newspaper, like a guilty child who knew his parents were waiting for him to return from boarding school with his report card preceding him. Opening it slowly, cautious as though the woman might jump out at me with her pointed nail like a sword, instead I half-laughed seeing that it was a movie, made by Abel Gance, promising the greatest climax in celluloid. The sheer absurdity of my abject terror to a movie advert was increased relizing this woman had nothing for her to j’accuse me of. I rested my shoulders back on the unforgiving iron of the bench to try to ease the heartbeat trying to break out of my head. As I let my brain wander through the open meadows of my mind, I smiled faintly. Last night still felt blurry and far away, like some distant childhood activity where details flow in and out on the waves of memory, but it had an air of pleasentness that I could not place. I was starting to piece the events together; Tom hit Myrtle, her blood flowed across that tapestry of faux luxury, I left the room about then, I think, McKee was in the elevator too and we made plans for lunch…

With the suddenness of a crash I couldn’t breath, everything narrowed into a cramped space as I fell to my knees choking for breath, each one feeling more ragged and desperate than the last. The world swirled around me into one of those new abstract paintings that disfigure reality. My throat clamored unsuccessfully for air, like Tantalus reaching for the taunting fruit so close to his head. My eyes wer pushed through a dark tunnel, fleeing from the disfigured world. Every breath took tremendous effort to gasp, I was drowning in an invisible sea, and the water was filling my lungs as I gasped and fought for each short hesitant breath.

As the world recentered and my breath regained some semblance of consistency, I could see a crowd gathering around me, murmuring incessantly, thousands of morbidly curious voices pushing closer, shoving me back into that disorienting painting. The burning taste of some stong whiskey from the sheepish girl’s small metal flask brought me close enough to reality to leave the crowds and head into the chill morning outside the train station. I was still gasping, struggling to maintain my lungs, grasping anything that’d hold me as though I was dangling over Niagara falls, every breath taking all of my focus to control and not slip back into that suffocating sensation. That memory, it had to be fake, some drunken invention. But just the thought immediately worsened my state so I repressed it until acknowledge it properly.

Once I had made it back to my humble house, like a molehill in the presence of great mountains, my thoughts still stuck in a thick, disorienting, mist. I collapsed onto the bed with a Gin Rickey in my hand and fierce determination to regain my composure completely. I let my mind wander back to that drunken night, there they were, all of them; Tom and Myrtle, Catherine, McKee… McKee. He stuck in my mind like “On The Alamo” and sang that one line over and over, and in all my dreams it seems I'll go where the moon swings low. I closed my eyes allowing the drunken remembrances to march back, like war weary soldiers, different men then those who marched on the battlefield with bloodthirst glory in their eyes; Tom and Myrtle, the blood, the elevator, then… It couldn’t be, not even in my drunkenness, I wouldn’t of, couldn’t of… But even with the intense shame, it was intensely alluring to recall… I don’t know what I’m saying, of course it was an awful thing to do, but… No that ridiculous, I’m stronger than the musings of a diseased mind. I have never given in to those perverted thoughts, those twisted daydreams that torture my closed eyes in moments of weakness.

Firmly I scolded myself and drifted into a restless slumber till a sharp knock, like a crack of thunder bombarded my door, reverberating off every room till it raced in and out of my ears. Like a somnambulist, I migrated slowly towards my door, grasping at couches to prop up my half-dead figure. At the door, a frighteningly correct butler, middle aged with a sturdy frame wrapped in a suit that had never seen a wrinkle in its life, looked straight at me in unspoken disapproval. My clothes from last night had embedded into my flesh and were peeling out as I struggled to stand upright, propping myself up with the doorframe.

“Mr. Carraway,” the butler said in a respectful tone that was painfully discordant, “Mr. Gatsby wishes for me to deliver this invitation.” I stuttered out a half thanks, lost in a haze, a deep fog shrouding my thoughts. The butler handed me the note, putting it in between my fingers to ensure it stayed in my hand and did not flutter to the ground as he removed his hand. He nodded in that almost sarcastically polite way and turned to leave me staring at the innovation from my elusive neighbor.

Yeah that’s it. Idk not awful I hope

[ghostbustershq]

Unsung Heroes: Ghostbusters II's Pastrami Sandwich Guy

As has been mentioned countless times on our 300+ episodes of the Interdimensional Crossrip podcast, when you watch a film that is so rich with detail enough, you notice something new almost every time. And so, after viewing five-million three hundred and one of Ghostbusters II, I’d like to present to you the unsung hero in the corner of the frame who now cracks me up every single time that I see him…

Ladies and gentlemen: Pastrami Sandwich Guy.

Pastrami Sandwich Guy commands about a minute worth of screen time. And he chews both his sandwich and the scenery through the entirety. From first frame of celluloid to last, it literally doesn’t matter to this man that the world is coming to a cataclysmic end and chaos reigns around him — he’s finishing his deli, dammit.

With what looks like a delicious pastrami on rye in hand, Pastrami Sandwich Guy epitomizes New York. He does such a great Marx Brothers-like job of listening and watching the action unfolding around him, but the entire time won’t put down his sandwich and certainly won’t cease his slow and methodic mastication. Ben Stein informs us there’s a shell around the museum they can’t dent (holding a photo of Libby’s pedestal)? Pastrami Sandwich Guy observes but continues eating. Hardemeyer is thrown out of the conference room? Pastrami Sandwich Guy tracks him out the door then returns back to lunch. It’s hilarious.

And the best part, as the entire office gathers at the window to watch the sky grown dark with an eclipse and a vortex seemingly swallow the sky whole, who is absent? You guessed it, Pastrami Sandwich Guy can’t be bothered.

Just a brilliant unsung performance by someone probably just making a scale day rate. So who was this mysterious sandwich loving man? I’ve begun my quest to find out.

Best I’ve been able to figure, Pastrami Sandwich Guy got his time under the lights on Thursday, April 27, 1989. The INT. CONFERENCE ROOM scenes were pick ups toward the very end of production on The Burbank Studios lot. For reference, principal photography of Ghostbusters II had wrapped on Wednesday, April 5th. But about a week of pick-ups occurred later in the month, mainly to finish out the final showdown with Vigo.

As we’ve learned over the years, a cameo featuring Eugene Levy as Louis’ cousin Sherman was cut from the film at zero hour, and with it a huge plot hole of Louis asking his cousin to release the Ghostbusters. Not only that, but Hardemeyer receiving his comeuppance by being sucked into the slime wall around the museum had also been cut. This brilliantly rescripted scene smooths out the absence of both plot points, putting the onus on Mayor Lenny to need the Ghostbusters released and also having Hardemeyer thrown out all in one swoop.

Traditionally, only those with speaking or featured roles in the film receive end credits, so it’s tough to figure out who played our sandwich-eating hero. I did some digging into the GBHQ production archives and also came up pretty empty.

While David Margulies (“Mayor of NY”) and Kurt Fuller (“Hardemeyer”) are typed onto the call sheet, several of the actors in the scene are written in as last-minute additions. Ben Stein is written on the call sheet as “Public Works Official” as is Erik Holland and Philip Baker Hall both as Fire and Police Commissioners. My only guess here is that, because these were pick-up days, the cast of players outside of Lenny and Hardemeyer were in constant flux. Most likely, Ivan Reitman had to call in a handful of favors to his friends to come play that Thursday.

Why do I think that’s the case? The first thing filmed that Thursday was a pick-up shot with a dock supervisor witnessing the arrival of the Titanic, played by long-time Ivan Reitman friend and would-be Stripes star Cheech Marin. Who is also written by hand onto the call sheet.

So the best I can figure is that Pastrami Sandwich Guy was a family friend of Ivan’s, background player from Central Casting, or was someone close to the production who stepped in to fill out the scene. Outside of someone out there identifying him, or getting my hands on a Day Out of Days or other production materials that may have shown who this wonderful man was on the day, it will remain a mystery. But whether we know his real name or not, the man is brilliant and deserves a curtain call.

Anyone out there know who he might be? In the meantime, check out the clip below to enjoy Pastrami Sandwich Guy - long may he enjoy lunch.

[bandcampsnoop]

6/11/24.

There's no shame in Teenage Fanclub worship. They engaged in Big Star worship and so on. I can't seem to get enough of bands who have their own take on the guitar centric power pop peddled by early Teenage Fanclub releases.

Montreal's Laughing must love the Fannies, and I Was A King. They must. They probably love Dinosaur Jr. and The High Water Marks too.

Celluloid Lunch Records (also based in Montreal) is releasing this gem that was mastered by Mikey Young.

[oarworm]

Everything Around You - Feeling Figures

[daggerzine]

The Submissives- "Friend Named Betty” single (Celluloid Lunch)

This is the first I’ve heard by this Montreal bunch, but it looks like they’ve got a few other singles out. I was thinking from the name of the band it might have a bit of a punk flavor, but this is definitely more in the minimal pop side of things. In fact, if you had told me this was an obscure cut by some UK band on Rough Trade in the late 70s, I would probably believe you.

The guitars and voices happily clink along, while the rhythm section perfectly keeps up. This song has definitely piqued my interest and I want to hear more. And since their full album, Live At Value Sound Studios, comes out next week, I’ll be able to hear the whole darn thing!

This one came out of leftfield to me and I can always go with that. Heck, I played leftfield for a while.

[whyisthebreadbleeding]

Just friends. That was all. 

Didn’t stop him from picking out his favorite pair of undies - pale blue polka-dots with a bit of sweetheart lace. 

Black panties? Well, that just means you’re a slut!

“Ow, ow ow—” Nikky wiggled slightly, trying to get his arm through the strap so he could uncatch the other strap, or lace or whatever, from one of the pins keeping his hot curlers in. One, two —  the brunette huffed softly — free! — let the straps settle on his shoulder, smoothing it down he— 

...It was on backwards. He scrunched his nose and crossed his eyes before he glared at the mirror. Nikky wiggled the silk slip up to his shoulders, turned  it around the right way before shrugging his arms through the straps. Soft white fluttering against pale skin. He took a half step to the right, twiring to face the vanity. Grab a bobby pin just before the song ended. All his makeup was sitting in a celluloid tray next to his ipod; the candles burning - vanilla, and something bourbon julep iced tea - necklaces hanging from the decorative knob on the mirror; (but that was all costume jewelry, the expensive pieces were in the vault—)

The things he didn’t want to look at. 

Nikky hummed softly, settling down for a half moment to finish touching up his foundation. He wasn’t going to use lead - he didn’t care much for products marketed to vampires at all. That left him with a blend of covergirl and some halloween clown paint. ← him if he expected anything out of today. 

He wasn’t as pale as cousin Dorian

It was just an invite for … coffee? 'Dude' had suggested ice cream, though, and he wasn’t really sure why…? But he was kinda looking forward now to pistachio. Damn. Not that that mattered to him. It wasn’t a date-date. A - friend-date. Even if ‘dude’ was kinda (pretty) hot (no he wasn’t gonna ask what sort of nickname that was, he wasn’t even American). Tall, dark, mysterious. Ugh. He just needed friends, that’s all. He couldn’t keep bugging poor Honey for company, even if he felt a tug of guilt not texting as often as he should. Friends. Non-murderous buddies. Purebloods had weird fucking ideas of ‘fun’, and he was more than happy to talk to literally anyone else. Where the fuck was his eyeliner pencil—? 

But if he had to be honest with himself, he knew he was still kinda-sorta-really hung up on Ahmed. That ‘don’t text me again’ remained a shrine on his phone, untouched. ‘I want a man by my side, I hate that ‘Fatima’ - that’s all you do is hide!’ … No lipstick. That’d be coming on too strong. Gloss was fine for these sorts of occasions, right..? Maybe coral? 

Dating sucked.

Making friends — sucked. He didn’t want to do more than lunch with his work colleagues, and he so did not want to go back to school right now or try to force himself into those cliques or whatever. (Right side looked pretty even to the left and he was pretty alright with that.) He reached into his drawer and fished out a pair of nylons, taking a moment to tug them on (god, fucking, claws). 

He wasn’t going to apologize. Not to the girl he’d almost punched at the club the other night after her boyfriend bought him a drink. Not to the poor guy he’d almost accosted at the campus (Seriously?). Not to cousin Feliks for fucking existing. Not to Edmund fucking Rockefeller and his stupid white teeth and his equally stupid, punchable face and the two weeks the spent in San Salvadore on the Côte d'Azur. Or his mum for borrowing her card for that trip and lying to her about why he needed it. Her cold demeanor lately said enough. 

The dhampir leaned back against the chair, letting his attention meander back to the mirror (damn fine). ..What else was he going to do, sleep for another week? Summer just started — he leaned back slightly, but the music was the only thing he could hear. Merri and mum were (probably) sleeping still. He kept his potions in the false bottom drawer and maybe he could argue, these things keep him functioning. 

The things he didn’t want to deal with. 

Nikky contemplated his reflection for a moment, his vision glazing over slightly … something he was forgetting. Or — whatever. It mustn’t be that important. Mum wasn’t gonna be happy if he left without letting her know, but it was whatever, whatever, whatever. 

He reached up and started pulling the pins out, tossing them into a creepy ceramic fruit dish (the jewelry holder had been a gift but it’d felt more like a threat—); carefully unspooling the curlers from his hair (shame on you ♪) ..and setting them back in their holder. It took a while; spritz with setting spray, gently brush out each curl, spritz again. But the soft halo of deep black framing his face was worth it.  

Besides, ‘dude’ said he wanted to talk about plants. Mum had taught him in the first place; and he felt pretty confident in figuring out what the mage(?) wanted. It was kinda sweet. …He was probably straight as all get out. They always were. Probably had a nice girlfriend, too. Damn, Aphrodite. He plucked a gold chain from another dish, a moment to fiddle with the clasp - a single ruby star settling between his collar bones. Nikky pushed back from the table, shrugging the yellow dress over his shoulders. Didn’t stop him from choosing a summery print, a floral pattern on the skirt piece. He’d gotten this in Honolulu when he— when — 

So Friday night, Holy Ghost, take me to your level — show me the one I need the most, I need the most,

Nikky closed his eyes as he fiddled with the buttons, swaying slightly to the music. One foot in, two steps back. 

“..Wish I knew you when I was young — could have got so high; now we’re here it’s been so long; two strangers in the bright light—” 

He fluffed his inky locks out and fiddled with the dress collar a moment before he glanced back at the mirror, shoulders sinking slightly. 

Ah. Whatever.

Ready? Ready. 

Cardigan, clutch, keys - blow the candle out, turn off his ipod. Phone? Phone. Nikky darted out the door, shutting it quietly behind him. 

He’d return a moment later to grab a pair of white kitten heels from his closet before finally heading out.(x)

[indiejones]

OF 1963: THE YEAR THAT CHANGED MEENA KUMARI FOREVER! ... OF 'OPERATION MEENA KUMARI' IE THE 'OPERATION CHINESE WHISPERS' !

Pradeep Kumari once, in fact many a times, described Meena Kumari as "the nicest person he'd ever met" & "a veritable angel on earth". Even going on to add, "I don't think there is any person on earth who couldn't fall in love with Meena Kumari".

The media narrative around Meena Kumari was always very sober & dignified & respectful. Till 1962.

You see Meena Kumari was always a very big star, from 1952 (& 'Baiju Bawra') yet not in a league of her own, but in the very top rung with 2-3 other actresses.

But her cinematic career took on a whole different trajectory in 1961, when the film 'Bhabhi Ki Chudiyan' released, & "The Bollywood Goddess" was born!

In many expert & mass assessments till today, one of the greatest performances by a female on celluloid, in history ever!

This was followed by 1962, with 3 more legendary performances in 'Main Chup Rahungi', 'Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam' & 'Aarti', & March 1963's 'Dil Ek Mandir', & within a gap of exactly 2 yrs & 5 Films, 4 of which are in The Forever All-Time Top 50 of Indian Cinema, Meena Kumari had gone from sure-shot No. 3 Of All Time, to, the most likely 'FOREVER NO. 1 ACTRESS OF INDIAN CINEMA", infact challenging the WORLD NO. 1 tag too!

Such was her craze & hold on public imagination then, that Filmfare did something they've never ever done for anyone else till today ever! - They nominated her in all the nomination slots for 'Best Actress" that year, as a mark of salutation, & as a statement indicating the "Crowning of Bollywood's First Queen nee First Female Megastar"!

Wonderful. But scary.

The reason this was or atleast should've been very scary & a warning sign for Meena Kumari, is that 'Bollywood Estt' or 'Deep state Bollywood', & the faction or rival groups that control it, akin to the criminal underworld, if we know anything till today, doesn't give free lunches, & extracts much more than it gives! .. If they were heaping away so much free historic praise upon her, were impossibly unlikely to try leave anyone even with the potential to overrule their dictat or narrative hold over the masses, & were sure to quietly bts extract more than their pound of flesh too!

AND A RANSOM WAS SOON PLACED ON HER REPUTATION, WITHIN THE FRATERNITY, WITH REGULAR REWARDS FOR THOSE THAT SUCCEEDED!

And that's when, mysteriously enuf by 1964, Dharmendra entered her film life, & via it, her life in general! Film magazines all of a sudden sprang to life, & news of "the crazy uncontrollable affair btwn Meen & Dharam" made it to all film headlines, to be continued in same vein for good more yrs thereafter. Stuff like "Dharmendra arrived at a airport one night all drunk, & upon being stopped, shouted, "Oh but I must get back to Bombay, I must. Meena is waiting for me!" were actually splashed all over the next morning's papers. Even further, of things like how Meena got so agitated in a outdoor shoot seeing her Dharmendra not sitting with her on way to the location, & having gone by another entourage car, stopped her car, & went to the middle of the road, sat on the road & started loudly repeating "Where is my Dharam! Oh where is my Dharam!", were being read by the Indian masses & classes on a daily basis now on. Going a step further, they even created fist fights & slapping incidents btwn the 2, & how she'd be regularly restraining her lover from brawling in drunken fights over her, were now the new norm. They then, took it to a tangential emotional plane, by renaming her "The Tragedy Queen", even in real life, equating her performances with some necessary strain in her own life. People began regularly being witness to Dharam entering Meena's room everytime, & leaving w/o fail in a sobbing state, & when asked about this reaction, saying things like "I just cant help it!". They even went after her husband,labeling her a wife-hater, & of how he egoistically once refused to hold Meena's purse, got publicly enraged at being called Meena Kumari's husband, etc etc. And how his secretary'd manhandle Meena & refuse her freedom. All false!

IT WAS THIS RELENTLESS MEDIA WAR DIRECTED AT THE COUPLE, WITH NOT A SHRED OF EVIDENCE TO SHOW FOR EVEN ONCE, THAT TOOK IT'S TOLL ON KAMAL OVER COUPLE OF YRS, FORCING HIM TO DECIDE TO LEAVE MEENA'S LIMELIGHT, TILL THIS OUTSIDE MADNESS CONTINUED.

Anyone with half a assessment, can see how Kamal's entire professional life,revolved around & was devoted to making her wife the best!

This was the final straw! & Meena took to drinking to numb herself to the world, determined to not lose & to continue working at her best. Do you know, 'deep state' even took away her most personal possessions, in return for her continuing career!?

Sadly,she didn't have the arms or tactfulness of Rajesh, to carry on next 18 yrs, nonetheless managing good 6-7 yrs within this 'golden solitary confinement Bolly jail' at the top!

(Watch Polanski's 'The Tenant'(76), for better feel on how this troll/suicide army works!)

Of the supreme sacrifices, India's legends made, to leave us awe-inspiring cultural history & worldly life lessons too.