#credit to anna sophia for a lot of this! credit

[rotzaprachim]

I absolutely love the autistic Nicky headcannon! It’s such a good interpretation and I hope there ends up being some good fics about it. Personally, I’d like to see “inexperienced with romance but still a competent badass” autistic Nicky fics. It really represents the disasters like me who can still be competent as hell while still being utterly hopeless in the romance department

this is such a lovely comment thank you! i have a few ideas but tbh... it’s sort of like i’ve suddenly gotten more AH HA clarity to the way i’ve viewed and written him, but I’ve always viewed/written him that way, even if i couldn’t quite put my finger on it? but yes actually i would like. this exact fic. done well. because i too am Competent as hell at like, certain specific things (by which i mean competitive speed debating about complex topics i started to learn a week ago but NOT spelling words or easily being able to tell left and right apart) but have two different and completely opposite bizarre bending romance situations! it’s a vibe. 

anyway under the cut for being slightly nsfw but

my friend and i were joking around with that headcanon that after all the years of seminary + the military Nicolo was in fact very sexually experienced by the time of his first death, because it’s sdafsdfdsf hilarious. but anyway we love an odd couple/romantic dramedy situation, and absolutely picturing some situation where Nicolo and Yusuf had extremely good sex shortly after they stopped killing each other and afterwards Nicolo was like ah ok now gonna go wash off and then go fall asleep over there with my own bedroll six feet apart this is gonna be another one of those Friends With Benefts/Brothers in Christ Situations and then Yusuf “Most Romantic Man Alive” Al Kaysani was like where are you going... all the way over there... obviously we were going to cuddle and fall asleep spooning and then watch the sun rise tommorrow morning... make breakfast and kiss each other softly on the forhead.... and Nicolo was like ???? ok so THAT is the part i am not Comprehending 

[thehouseofthedead]

Russia and Ability Users

Please note, I am not actually Russian so anything written here has come from my experience living there and from research. If you have things you want to add or discuss I am absolutely open to it :). 

Please also note: Much of this was developed with the aid of @glasses-dog and @straylcved​ so they take just as much credit for the notes below :) 

- Evidence of Ability Users manifesting in Russia dates back to pre-revolutionary times, but there was little record of who exactly these users were and what they could do. Much of their abilities were put down to witchcraft and treated with either respect or fear depending upon the region. Much of the writings have been lost or deliberately destroyed. 

- However it is speculated that Peter I, Boris Gadunov and Ivan the Terrible may both have been ability users. But there is no absolute concrete proof. 

- The first recorded ability users appeared during the reign of Tsar Nicholas II, as measures were taken to register abilities and put a watch on those with particularly dangerous capabilities. Tsar Nicholas hoped to utilise these people in warfare in order to increase Russia’s damaged prowess, but he and his family were slaughtered before this could come to fruition by the revolutionaries. 

- Multiple ability users flocked to the Bolshevik cause, partly by the influence of Lenin himself (It is thought he may have been an ability user of some kind, but it either never fully manifested or was too subtle given the busy circumstances around them to have been noticed). They were registered, but not treated unfairly. Lenin considered abilities to be an embodiment of revolutionary spirit and thus beneficial to the socialist revolution in Russia. 

- However. The Soviet Union was not kind to Ability Users when leadership changed to Stalin and from then onwards. There was interest in researching deeper into abilities and how they manifested, as well as a growing desire to cultivate stronger ability users than those in the United States. The NKVD were tasked with tracking down ability users to bring them in for research. Facilities at Moscow and St Petersberg State Universities were founded in order to conduct this research. 

- Conditions were dreadful, and experiments continued throughout and after the fall of the Soviet Union. But despite the inhumane treatment, a lot of results into abilities were produced. It is thought that Russia is one of the forerunners in ability knowledge, so much so that they have begun progress into artificial abilities and creation/removal of these powers. Russia was also the first nation to produce papers detailing how abilities can be inherited and passed between siblings. 

- This has not come without considerable backlash. Multiple protests lead by activists and university students protesting the cruel treatment of ability users have sparked actual terrorist raids on the facilities. Moscow State University’s facility has been raided twice, resulting in multiple ability users escaping. Following this the FSB introduced a state registry of ability users known to them. 

- As such. The status for ability users in Russia is considered extremely unsafe. Whilst general public may be accepting, the risk of being captured for experimentation is high. Many parents of ability users often abandon their children or attempt to keep the child’s abilities suppressed where possible to avoid detection. A notable sign in many ability users lives is moving constantly so as to avoid detection. 

KNOWN  ABILITY USERS AND THEIR CURRENT WHEREABOUTS

Fyodor Dostoevsky -  CRIME AND PUNISHMENT - Registered - Formerly interned at the Moscow Facility - Escaped and whereabouts now unknown - was seen as affiliated with Terror Raids by activist groups. - Level: EXTREMELY DANGEROUS

Lev Tolstoy - WAR AND PEACE -  Unregistered - Known as ability originally registered in elder siblings before being inherited. - Family interned at the Moscow Facility, all now deceased. - Pursued but has evaded capture. Whereabouts unknown - Level: DANGEROUS

Sergei Lukyanenko -  THE NIGHT WATCH - Unregistered - Escaped capture after reports from family about ability manifestation. - Pursued but has evaded capture, whereabouts unknown. - Level: DANGEROUS @straylcved

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - ONE DAY - Registered - Under watch whilst at university, however was imprisoned for murder in Siberia where watch was increased. - Plans made to intern at St Petersberg facility, however he has disappeared. - Level: POTENTIAL THREAT

Izabella Akhmadulina - THE CANDLE - Registered - Under watch whilst at university due to ties with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - watch increased following his felony however trail was lost. - Level: POTENTIAL THREAT @afirethatneverburnstoembers

Anna Akhmatova - REQUIEM - Registered - Interned from infancy in Moscow facility - Successful modification of ability recorded. - Recaptured after first raid - Missing since Second Raid - Whereabouts unknown. - Level: EXTREMELY DANGEROUS

Marina Tsvetaeva - THESEAFARER - Unregistered - Difficult to trace due to poverty and has evaded capture. Whereabouts unknown, speculated she may have spent time overseas. - Level: POTENTIAL THREAT @afirethatneverburnstoembers

Sophia Parnok - I AM NEITHER FLESH - Registered - Known to have associated with activist Vladimir Mayakovsky and under tight watch. - Known Terrorist and likely to be working with overseas forces - Level: EXTREMELY DANGEROUS @afirethatneverburnstoembers

Dmitri Glukovsky - THE DARK ONES - Unregistered - Ability reported by the army however he escaped capture. Likely fled underground. - All attempts at capture have resulted in multiple mass deaths. - Has been missing several months. - Level: EXTREMELY DANGEROUS

Vladimir Mayakovsky - TO HIS BELOVED SELF - Registered - Known activist and likely to have been involved in instigating terror attacks on facilities.-  Difficult to capture due to ability causing sickness. - Missing for several months since raids. - Level: EXTREMELY DANGEROUS

Yevgeny Zamyatin - WE - Registered - Interned in St Petersberg Facility for 4 years. - Escaped. Method unknown but likely using his ability due to slip up by staff. - Missing since escape and has evaded recapture. - Level: EXTREMELY DANGEROUS

Mikhail Lermontov - THE DEATH OF THE POET - Registered - Interned in St Petersberg Facility for 8 years. - Known to associate with Aleksandr Pushkin. - Failure to harness ability’s potential. - Escaped, method unknown. - Level: POTENTIAL THREAT

Ivan Goncharov - THE PRECIPICE - Registered - Interned in Moscow Facility for over ten years. - Known to associate with Nikolai Karamzin - Successful manipulation of ability at cost of mental health - Escaped during raid and whereabouts unknown - Level: DANGEROUS

Aleksandr Pushkin - FEAST IN A TIME OF PLAGUE - Registered - Interned in St Petersberg Facility for 8 Years - Known to associate with Mikhail Lermontov - Virus ability strengthened under testing - Escaped, method unknown - Level: DANGEROUS

Mikhail Bulgakov - MANUSCRIPTS DON’T BURN - Registered - Employee at Moscow Facility to care for dangerous ability users - Known to have looked after Anna Akhmatova - Speculated involvement in raids on facility and Akhmatova’s escape. - Whereabouts now unknown - Level: DANGEROUS

Nikolai Karamzin - SOLOVEY  - Registered - Interned in Moscow Facility for over ten years - Successful manipulation of emotions and ability usage - Known to associate with Ivan Goncharov - Damaged and taken during first raid - has evaded recapture and whereabouts unknown - Level: DANGEROUS @glasses-dog

Maxim Gorky - SONG OF THE STORMY PETREL - Registered - Interned in Moscow facility for several years until used as agent - Ability strengthened through testing - Escaped. Known to have been involved in raids on facilities. - Speculated he may be in contact with unregistered ability users - Level: EXTREMELY DANGEROUS @glasses-dog

Vladimir Nabokov - LOLITA - Unregistered - unknown other than from reports to authorities - speculated may have gone overseas but nothing certain. - watch ordered but difficult to trace - Level: UNKNOWN @straylcved

[spaceexp]

Sequencing the Station: Investigation Aims to Identify Unknown Microbes in Space

ISS - International Space Station logo. April 25, 2017 Building on the ability to sequence DNA in space and previous investigations, Genes in Space-3 is a collaboration to prepare, sequence and identify unknown organisms, entirely from space. When NASA astronaut Kate Rubins sequenced DNA aboard the International Space Station in 2016, it was a game changer. That first-ever sequencing of DNA in space was part of the Biomolecule Sequencer investigation. Although it’s not as exciting as a science fiction movie may depict, the walls and surfaces of the space station do experience microbial growth from time to time. Currently, the only way to identify contaminants is to take a sample and send it back to Earth.

Image above: NASA astronaut Kate Rubins poses for a picture with the minION device during the first sample initialization run of the Biomolecular Sequencer investigation. Image Credit: NASA. “We have had contamination in parts of the station where fungi was seen growing or biomaterial has been pulled out of a clogged waterline, but we have no idea what it is until the sample gets back down to the lab,” said Sarah Wallace, NASA microbiologist and the project’s principal investigator at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “On the ISS, we can regularly resupply disinfectants, but as we move beyond low-Earth orbit where the ability for resupply is less frequent, knowing what to disinfect or not becomes very important,” said Wallace. Developed in partnership by NASA’s Johnson Space Center and Boeing, this ISS National Lab sponsored investigation will marry two pieces of existing spaceflight technology, miniPCR and the MinION, to change that process, allowing for the first unknown biological samples to be prepared, sequenced and then identified in space.

Image above: NASA astronaut Kate Rubins not only became the first person to sequence DNA in space, but the sequenced more than a billion bases during her time aboard the space station. Image Credit: NASA. The miniPCR (polymerase chain reaction) device was first used aboard the station during the Genes in Space-1, and, soon to be Genes in Space-2 investigations, student-designed experiments in the Genes in Space program. Genes in Space-1 successfully demonstrated the device could be used in microgravity to amplify DNA, a process used to create thousands of copies of specific sections of DNA. The second investigation arrived at the space station on April 22, and will be tested this summer. Next came the Biomolecule Sequencer investigation, which successfully tested the MinION’s ability to sequence strands of Earth-prepared DNA in an orbiting laboratory. “What the coupling of these different devices is doing is allowing us to take the lab to the samples, instead of us having to bring the samples to the lab,” said Aaron Burton, NASA biochemist and Genes in Space-3 co-investigator. Crew members will collect a sample from within the space station to be cultured aboard the orbiting laboratory. The sample will then be prepared for sequencing, in a process similar to the one used during the Genes in Space-1 investigation, using the miniPCR and finally, sequenced and identified using the MinION device.

Image above: Student Anna-Sophia Boguraev, winner of the Genes in Space competition, is pictured with the miniPCR device. The miniPCR will be used with the minION to prepare, sequence and identify a microorganism from start to finish aboard the space station. Image Credit: NASA. “The ISS is very clean,” said Sarah Stahl, microbiologist and project scientist. “We find a lot of human-associated microorganisms - a lot of common bacteria such as Staphylococcus and Bacillus and different types of familiar fungi like Aspergillus and Penicillium.” In addition to identifying microbes in space, this technology could be used to diagnose crew member wounds or illnesses in real time, help identify DNA-based life on other planets and help with other investigations aboard the station. “The Genes in Space-3 process will increase the scientific capacity of the ISS by facilitating state-of-the-art molecular biology research for both current and next generation ISS researchers,” said Kristen John, NASA aerospace engineer and Genes in Space-3 project engineer. “The team has put a strong focus on generating a spaceflight-certified catalog of general laboratory items and reagents, and developing common methods and easily customizable reaction conditions for miniPCR and the MinION to enable other ISS researchers to use this technology.”

Cosmic Carpool: DNA To Go

This process will give scientists on the ground real-time access to the experiments going on in space, allowing for more accuracy and a more efficient use of the time on the space station. “If you could get a snapshot of the molecular signatures of your research as it was occurring on the ISS, how would you change your experiment?” said Wallace. “Would you change your time points? Provide a different nutrient? Alter growth conditions? You can imagine how, if you had that data, you could adjust your experiment to enhance the insight being gained.” Closer to home, this process can be used to provide real-time diagnosis of viruses in areas of the world where access to a laboratory may not be possible. The ISS National Laboratory is managed by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS). For more information about research happening aboard the space station, follow https://twitter.com/ISS_Research. Related links: Biomolecule Sequencer: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2181.html miniPCR: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1913.html Genes in Space-1: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1913.html Genes in Space-2: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2437.html Genes in Space-3: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2461.html Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS): http://www.iss-casis.org/ Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html Images (mentioned), Video, Text, Credits: NASA/Kristine Rainey/JSC/Jenny Howard. Best regards, Orbiter.ch Full article

[biofunmy]

Piero Tosi, Who Outfitted Stars of Italian Films, Dies at 92

Piero Tosi, a costume designer whose careful research and intuitive eye were prized by leading Italian directors like Vittorio De Sica, Mauro Bolognini and especially Luchino Visconti, died on Saturday in Rome. He was 92.

The Franco Zeffirelli Foundation announced his death on Facebook. Mr. Zeffirelli, who died in June, and Mr. Tosi had been friends since their student days in Florence, Italy.

Mr. Tosi dressed some of the biggest stars of the day — Sophia Loren, Maria Callas, Claudia Cardinale, Marcello Mastroianni, Burt Lancaster. He was nominated for the costume design Oscar five times — for the Visconti films “The Leopard” (1963), “Death in Venice” (1971) and “Ludwig” (1973); for Édouard Molinaro’s “La Cage Aux Folles” (1979), sharing the nomination with Ambra Danon; and for Mr. Zeffirelli’s “La Traviata” (1982).

Although he never won that prize, in 2013 he did receive an Honorary Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Board of Governors, the first costume designer to do so. The citation called him “a visionary whose incomparable costume designs shaped timeless, living art in motion pictures.”

Mr. Tosi was born on April 10, 1927, in Florence. He attended the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, where he studied under the painter Ottone Rosai.

In a 2013 interview with Port magazine, Mr. Tosi described how his friendship with Mr. Zeffirelli led to his entree into the film business. He was in Florence in the late 1940s, he said, when Mr. Visconti turned up there to direct a stage production of “Troilus and Cressida.” Mr. Zeffirelli made the introductions, and he was offered a job as third assistant to Maria De Matteis, the production’s costume designer.

“Of course I was so pleased and accepted straight away,” he told Port. “This is how my career started, really. I was later asked by Visconti to work as a costume designer on his next movie, ‘Bellissima.’”

“I was only in my early 20s,” he added, “but I was very courageous, strong and passionate.”

That film, released in 1951, starred Anna Magnani as a mother trying to get her young daughter into the movie business. Mr. Tosi is said to have taken an unusual approach to his first assignment as costume designer, asking strangers on the street for their clothes.

Deborah Nadoolman Landis, a costume designer and historian and founding director of the David C. Copley Center for the Study of Costume Design at the University of California, Los Angeles, recalled a story Mr. Tosi once told her about sitting at a train station in Milan, taking photographs of women as they got off trains, searching for the right look for Ms. Magnani’s character. One woman’s coat struck him; he approached her and offered to buy it. The startled woman balked until he explained that the coat would be for a film role for Ms. Magnani, one of Italy’s biggest stars.

“And she looked at him,” Dr. Landis said in a telephone interview, “and she took off her coat and said, ‘For Anna Magnani, you can have my coat.’”

Mr. Tosi would frequently be involved in hairstyles and makeup, unusual for a costume designer. Why? “Because the face is fundamental,” he explained in a 2006 interview with the journal Framework. “You know, you do a lot on the costumes, but then the whole scene is focused on the face.”

As for the clothes, he said, achieving the proper look involved melding cloth, actor and character.

“I gradually shape the costume on the actor,” he said. “I work on the actor, step by step. After that, one has to find the nature of the character. In the end the costume is not just clothing any more, but it becomes the skin of the character.”

This symbiosis, not simply designing and making clothes, was what interested him, as he acknowledged after his work on Mr. Visconti’s “The Damned” (1969), a film set in the 1930s, brought him a lot of attention.

“When ‘The Damned’ came out, a film which was successful in America, I was asked by a fashion company to design a clothes line inspired by the 1930s, but I could not accept that,” he said. “I could never design modern clothes for an anonymous person, something you shape on a mannequin.”

Mr. Tosi was a believer in costume authenticity “right down to the undergarments,” as a 2009 article in The New York Times put it, since foundation garments affect how people move and carry themselves. He often worked on period films that required him to resurrect underwear of yore.

“Just as dress was becoming looser and less formal, women were abandoning their girdles, and some would soon be burning their bras, in the Italian film world the whalebone corset was brought back with a vengeance,” the Times article said.

Yet, Dr. Landis noted, Mr. Tosi wasn’t a slave to historical re-creation. She recalled a story from his work on “The Leopard,” a film set in the 1860s. An aide had researched cavalry uniforms of the period, determining that they were a particular blue, but Mr. Tosi didn’t like the shade. The aide raised the authenticity issue. “And Tosi said, ‘Well, we’re just going to make it a much better blue,’” Dr. Landis recounted.

His contributions to a movie could be subtle; for a key nighttime scene in “Rocco and His Brothers,” a 1960 Visconti film, he put the actor Alain Delon in a dark sweater with a white V at the neck, to help make him visible. Or they could be eye-popping. For “The Leopard” he designed 300 19th-century gowns for a ball scene — one that was filmed in Sicily’s August heat. “Everything was melting under my eyes,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2013.

Mr. Tosi racked up most of his costume design credits from the 1950s through the ’80s, but he continued to work on films into the last decade. All told, he served as costume designer on more than 65 movies, and would surely have worked on more but for his aversion to travel. When Ms. Cardinale accepted his honorary Oscar for him at the 2013 Governors Awards in Hollywood, she told the crowd that he had never been to the United States.

In 2003 Mr. Tosi received the Costume Designers Guild’s inaugural President’s Award. His work has been the subject of several exhibitions, including one last year at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, as part of the Rome Film Festival.

Information on his survivors was not immediately available.

Dr. Landis said that while many people conjure period dramas when they think of a costume designer’s contributions to filmmaking, the anecdote about Mr. Tosi and the train passenger’s coat showed a more important side, one involving meticulousness and insight.

“Here’s Tosi,” she said, “sitting on a bench in a Milan train station, waiting, waiting, waiting for that Anna Magnani to come off the train.”

Sahred From Source link Arts

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[lindsaynsmith]

15 Women Horror Directors Jason Blum Can Add to His List

15 Women Horror Directors Jason Blum Can Add to His List https://ift.tt/2CSXHKW

Blumhouse Productions founder Jason Blum stirred up controversy Wednesday when he claimed his studio hasn’t produced a theatrical release by a woman because there weren’t “a lot of female directors period, and even less who are inclined to do horror.” Many people took to Twitter to criticize Blum’s unqualified statement, with one user saying it took just one “quick Google search” to find the plethora of women at the helm of horror films. (Blum did say that he had tried to hire “The Babadook” director Jennifer Kent but she turned him down.)

Later that day, at the premiere for “Halloween,” which he produced, Blum apologized and said “Today was a great day for me because I learned a lot and because there are a lot of women out there that I’m going to meet as a result of today so I’m grateful for it.”

For Blum and anyone else who might not be noticing how many strong female voices are out there, here are 15 directors perfect for the next cannnibal, zombie or slasher movie:

  Karyn Kusama Since breaking out with her feature film debut “Girlfight” in 2000, Kusama has proved her versatility with efforts across genres and mediums. Her horror resume is especially impressive, having steered the 2009 horror dark comedy film, “Jennifer’s Body,” which has become a cult hit for its biting dialogue and female-centric perspective, as well as 2015’s “The Invitation” (2015) and the 2017 anthology horror film “XX.”

Julia Ducournau A lesser filmmaker could have turned the idea of a lifelong vegetarian craving human flesh into a campy, one-note thesis, yet in the deft hands of French writer and director Julia Ducournau, 2016’s “Raw” became a terrifying, beautifully shot, and thoughtful reflection on primal hunger.

Leigh Janiak It’s hard to tell that 2014’s “Honeymoon” was Janiak’s first feature film, as her confident direction made the intimate horror come alive, letting dread creep into full-blown nightmare as new bride Bea (Rose Leslie) exhibits increasingly erratic behavior. With credits including two episodes of “Scream: The TV Series” and the upcoming TV horror movie “Panic,” Janiak’s talent is bound to alert even Blum’s seemingly dull radar.

Coralie Fargeat 2017’s “Revenge” is a horror flick ripe with bloodshed and feminine rage as Matilda Lutz’s Jen goes on a rampage to take down the men who either raped her or ignored her anguish. Fargeat imbued the film with such style and passion, upon finishing the movie, audiences will immediately both want to smash the patriarchy and buy tickets for Fargeat’s next project.

Issa Lopez Lopez is a powerhouse in her native Mexico and could easily make a name for herself in American cinema. She wrote and directed the 2017 fantasy horror film “Tigers Are Not Afraid” (“Vuelven” in Spanish), about children orphaned by the drug war in Mexico. The movie has been acclaimed by both Stephen King and Guillermo del Toro, with the latter announcing in March that he would be producing her next films. If the two modern maestros of horror and fantasy are paying attention, surely everyone else will soon be as well.

Catherine Hardwicke Hardwicke’s feature film debut “Thirteen” (2003) was a harrowing portrayal of teenage life and nabbed 17 awards and nominations, including a win for dramatic directing at Sundance. Since then, Hardwicke has proved her versatility with blockbusters like 2008’s “Twilight,” romance horror with 2011’s “Red Riding Hood,” and action with the upcoming thriller “Miss Bala” with Gina Rodriguez set for 2019.

Ana Lily Amirpour Called the first “Iranian feminist vampire romance,” “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night,” is luminous and atmospheric, with Amirpour masterfully blending her own voice with elements of spaghetti Westerns and neo-noir. With the 2014 film, Amirpour established herself as a storyteller tuned to both frights and emotional resonance.

Jodie Foster Foster’s lauded acting roles may steal the spotlight, but the Oscar winner is a formidable director as well; her horror training goes as far back as 1985, with a segment in the anthology “Stephen King’s Golden Tales,” and most recently on the “Black Mirror” episode “Arkangel.” She has also collected numerous nominations for her directorial work on “Orange Is the New Black” and “House of Cards,” so if Blum is looking for an actor-director double threat for his apology-tour movie, Foster is the one to call.

Claire Denis Denis should be on every filmmaker and studio’s radar: her works have helped shape European cinema since she broke out in the 1980s and few others directors pay such close attention to landscape and the usage of space and subjects. Denis has also shown incredible thematic range, from tackling existentialism in the 2001 erotic horror film “Trouble Every Day,” to 2018’s “High Life” that explores humanity on the verge of apocalypse.

Mary Harron Harron gets eternal kudos for directing and co-writing the classic 2000 psychological horror film “American Psycho,” an often darkly humorous take-down of materialism, toxic masculinity, and greed. She has also worked on numerous thriller and horror projects since, most recently directing the acclaimed Canadian crime drama series, “Alias Grace.”

Jovanka Vuckovic Vuckovic has a deep knowledge of the genre unrivaled by most in the industry. She literally wrote the book on horror, publishing a history of zombies in 2011, and serving as the longtime editor in chief of the horror publication Rue Morgue Magazine. Vuckovic has the directing chops too: Her first short was executive produced by del Toro and in 2017, she produced the horror anthology “XX,” which featured a short she also directed.

Kimberly Peirce If studios are looking for a director who can carry big-budget films, Peirce’s work in the stunning 1999 film “Boys Don’t Cry” and 2013’s “Carrie” remake should place her at the top of the shortlist. Peirce is a fearless auteur who is down to tackle any subject from race, class, to violence toward LGBT communities.

Jenn Wexler Wexler’s list of producing credits on horror projects runs impressively long, and March’s “The Ranger” proved her directing legitimacy There’s plenty of punk rock, spunk, and action to be found in her homage to ‘80s slasher movies, and the film solidifies Wexler as a director to watch in 2019.

Anna Biller A true multi-hyphenate, Biller has acted as director, producer, writer, editor, and even costume designer on all six of her shorts and feature films. Her works, including 2016’s horror comedy film “The Love Witch” always explode with color and camp, while simultaneously telling deceptively dark stories dealing with the male gaze and gender roles.

Sophia Takal Hollywood rivalry is at the forefront in Takal’s 2016 “Always Shine.” Jealousy between two friends with competing careers devolves into destruction, and Takal approaches the subject of internalized misogyny with a terrifying, almost claustrophobic intimacy.

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via Variety http://variety.com October 18, 2018 at 06:57PM

[clusterassets]

New world news from Time: Rescuers Search For Those Still Missing in Deadly Wildfires in Greece

(MATI, Greece) — Rescue crews were searching Wednesday through charred homes and cars for those still missing after the deadliest wildfires to hit Greece in decades decimated seaside areas near Athens, killing at least 79 people and sending thousands fleeing.

There was no official indication as to how many people might be missing, and some took to social media and Greek television stations with appeals for information on their loved ones.

Fire service spokeswoman Stavroula Malliri said the death toll had increased by five to 79.

More than 280 firefighters were still in the area to the northeast of Athens in the wider Rafina area, dousing the remaining flames to prevent flare-ups. A further 200 firefighters backed up by a water-dropping helicopter were tackling the second forest fire west of the capital, near Agioi Theodori, where local authorities pre-emptively evacuated three nearby communities overnight, according to the fire department.

Flags across Greece were flying at half-staff after the prime minister declared three days of national mourning for the victims.

The two fires on either side of the Greek capital started Monday within hours of each other, and were fanned by gale-force winds that hampered firefighting efforts.

Read more: Photos Show Scale of Devastation From Deadly Athens Wildfires

The speed with which the fire northeast of Athens spread took many by surprise, and is believed to have contributed to the high death toll.

“We couldn’t see any fire. The fire came suddenly. There was so much wind, we didn’t realize how it happened,” said Anna Kiriazova, 56, who survived with her husband by shutting themselves in their house instead of trying to flee through the flames.

Kiriazova said they doused their house in the Mati area near Rafina with water from a garden hose, and credited the fact that their window frames were metal instead of wood for their home being spared.

“We shut ourselves in the house, we closed the shutters, we had towels over our faces,” she told The Associated Press. “The inferno lasted about an hour. I have no words to describe what we lived through.”

Her 65-year-old husband, Theodoros Christopoulos, said the couple decided to take shelter in their home because the narrow roads outside were jammed with cars.

“There was a great panic because the whole street was blocked by cars,” Christopoulos said. “Shouting, hysteria, they could see the fire was coming with the wind. It already smelled a lot, the sky was black overhead and in no time at all the fire was here.”

Hundreds of others abandoned cars and fled to nearby beaches, from where they were evacuated hours later by coast guard and private boats. Dozens swam out to sea despite rough weather to escape the intense heat and choking smoke blanketing the area.

With the number of missing unclear, authorities appealed for people to call them if they were searching for loved ones. Some people also turned to Greek television and radio stations, asking for information from the public for relatives they hadn’t heard from since the blaze.

The story of one man desperately searching for his children highlights the plight of many families looking for relatives.

Yiannis Philipopoulos appeared on television early Wednesday appealing for help to locate his missing twin daughters, who he said he had spotted on television footage arriving in the port of Rafina in a fishing boat during the evacuation of people from beaches overnight Monday to Tuesday.

Yiannis Philipopoulos said he and his wife recognized 9-year-old Sophia and Vasiliki in the news footage after spending a fruitless day searching hospitals and giving DNA samples at the Athens morgue. He had contacted police, who were helping search for the girls.

Philipopoulos said the girls had been with his parents, of whom there was no sight in the footage. Speaking on television stations Skai and Alpha, he said the images gave him hope his children were alive, and urged anyone with information to contact him.

The footage showed two girls among other people, many clad just in swimsuits, disembarking from the fishing boat. Philipopoulos said he went with police to the TV station and saw the footage in higher resolution, and was sure the children were his daughters. But he had not heard from them since the fire.

The captain of the fishing boat said authorities had recorded the names of rescued people as they disembarked. The names of the two girls, however, appeared not to be among them.

July 25, 2018 at 01:19PM ClusterAssets Inc., https://ClusterAssets.wordpress.com

[investmart007]

MATI, Greece | Rescue crews search for missing in Greek wildfires; 79 dead

New Post has been published on https://is.gd/BPQLot

MATI, Greece | Rescue crews search for missing in Greek wildfires; 79 dead

MATI, Greece — Rescue crews were searching Wednesday through charred homes and cars for those still missing after the deadliest wildfires to hit Greece in decades decimated seaside areas near Athens, killing at least 79 people and sending thousands fleeing.

There was no official indication as to how many people might be missing, and some took to social media and Greek television stations with appeals for information on their loved ones.

Fire service spokeswoman Stavroula Malliri said the death toll had increased by five to 79.

More than 280 firefighters were still in the area to the northeast of Athens in the wider Rafina area, dousing the remaining flames to prevent flare-ups. A further 200 firefighters backed up by a water-dropping helicopter were tackling the second forest fire west of the capital, near Agioi Theodori, where local authorities pre-emptively evacuated three nearby communities overnight, according to the fire department.

Flags across Greece were flying at half-staff after the prime minister declared three days of national mourning for the victims.

The two fires on either side of the Greek capital started Monday within hours of each other, and were fanned by gale-force winds that hampered firefighting efforts.

The speed with which the fire northeast of Athens spread took many by surprise, and is believed to have contributed to the high death toll.

“We couldn’t see any fire. The fire came suddenly. There was so much wind, we didn’t realize how it happened,” said Anna Kiriazova, 56, who survived with her husband by shutting themselves in their house instead of trying to flee through the flames.

Kiriazova said they doused their house in the Mati area near Rafina with water from a garden hose, and credited the fact that their window frames were metal instead of wood for their home being spared.

“We shut ourselves in the house, we closed the shutters, we had towels over our faces,” she told The Associated Press. “The inferno lasted about an hour. I have no words to describe what we lived through.”

Her 65-year-old husband, Theodoros Christopoulos, said the couple decided to take shelter in their home because the narrow roads outside were jammed with cars.

“There was a great panic because the whole street was blocked by cars,” Christopoulos said. “Shouting, hysteria, they could see the fire was coming with the wind. It already smelled a lot, the sky was black overhead and in no time at all the fire was here.”

Hundreds of others abandoned cars and fled to nearby beaches, from where they were evacuated hours later by coast guard and private boats. Dozens swam out to sea despite rough weather to escape the intense heat and choking smoke blanketing the area.

With the number of missing unclear, authorities appealed for people to call them if they were searching for loved ones. Some people also turned to Greek television and radio stations, asking for information from the public for relatives they hadn’t heard from since the blaze.

The story of one man desperately searching for his children highlights the plight of many families looking for relatives.

Yiannis Philipopoulos appeared on television early Wednesday appealing for help to locate his missing twin daughters, who he said he had spotted on television footage arriving in the port of Rafina in a fishing boat during the evacuation of people from beaches overnight Monday to Tuesday.

Yiannis Philipopoulos said he and his wife recognized 9-year-old Sophia and Vasiliki in the news footage after spending a fruitless day searching hospitals and giving DNA samples at the Athens morgue. He had contacted police, who were helping search for the girls.

Philipopoulos said the girls had been with his parents, of whom there was no sight in the footage. Speaking on television stations Skai and Alpha, he said the images gave him hope his children were alive, and urged anyone with information to contact him.

The footage showed two girls among other people, many clad just in swimsuits, disembarking from the fishing boat. Philipopoulos said he went with police to the TV station and saw the footage in higher resolution, and was sure the children were his daughters. But he had not heard from them since the fire.

The captain of the fishing boat said authorities had recorded the names of rescued people as they disembarked. The names of the two girls, however, appeared not to be among them.

___

Becatoros reported from Athens. Menelaos Hadjicostis contributed to this report.

By COSTAS KANTOURIS and ELENA BECATOROS,  Associated Press

[anujtikku1974]

I booked into a hotel in Kiev that was not too fancy costing Rs 2500 for one night. As I arrived at the hotel, I asked for my luggage to be taken upstairs. The hostess at the reception politely declined and said this is a three-star property, sir. You have to take it up yourself. I coolly walked into my room which was small but cosy. Kiev gave me the first glimpse of an Eastern European country with tardy roads, garbage on the street and graffiti on the walls. The women here are beautiful but the men are very serious looking more like army soldiers. I booked a package tour from a local agency on my third day in the city. An eight-day package tour around the city of Kiev and Lviv cost me 800 Euros with hotel and airport transfer along with an entire day tour of Chernobyl.

My guide for the tour around Kiev was Anna, a beautiful girl who was my hostess through the maze of the city. Our first stop was the Red University near Taras Shevchenko Park. I took out my GoPro and let Anna be the companion for the day. It was through her eyes that I would take the journey around the city.

Red University near Taras Shevchenko Park

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Anna spoke fluent English and thus, was a great anchor for my Travelthon. She kept talking and I followed with my GoPro behind her. This was going to be one great partnership. With the rain, the weather was almost freezing. St. Vladimir’s Cathedral, Opera House and Golden Gate was our next stops.

St. Vladimir’s Cathedral

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We walked a lot during the day and took short breaks of coffee and sausage buns. “You know Anna, I would love to see an Opera in Ukraine. It would be fun. I have never seen an opera.” Anna smiled “Well, let me see if we can arrange one for you on the weekend”.

Opera House

Golden Gate

The Sofia Cathedral was very beautiful and the old Renaissance architecture stood out from rest of the old buildings. Fresca paintings of saints and Christ on the ceiling and the walls of the cathedral gave it that spiritual look as people burned candles to say a prayer to the Lord.

Sofia Cathedral

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I lit a candle to pray for my father’s soul as I usually do in all the spiritual places around the world. I was now getting the true flavour of this ancient yet delightful Eastern European country and I knew there was a lot more waiting for me to see and discover. At night, I settled down for a meal of Minestrone soup, beef and potatoes again. Sour cream is something heavily used in meals in this part of the world. I bid goodbye to Anna for the day and retired to bed dreaming about the fresco paintings of the Sophia Cathedral and the golden domes that adorned the churches of the city.

Anna and the Kiev Merry Go Round I booked into a hotel in Kiev that was not too fancy costing Rs 2500 for one night.

[londontheatre]

Stephen Boxer and Natalie Simpson in The Cardinal – Credit Mitzi de Margary

I’m pleased I wasn’t the only one in the audience that hadn’t had much if any, previous interaction with the works of James Shirley (1596-1666). As I never tire of saying when it comes to rarely performed works, there must be a reason why a play like this doesn’t have more productions. At least this one had its early life curtailed by country-wide politics as opposed to the show itself being panned. The Cardinal has gone down in history as one of the last ‘extant’ plays (some others presumably having been lost) to have been written and performed prior to the English Civil War of 1642 to 1651. At the start of this war, all theatres in England were closed down by order of Parliament.

Shirley’s relatively straightforward – less flowery and more direct – script makes it far more accessible to audiences then and now than something like Shakespeare’s plays. Not much is lost in terms of emotional impact, quite the opposite in this case – how pleasing to note that even in the reign of Charles I, less sometimes meant more. Naturally, not every element makes sense for someone seeing this show for the first time in 2017, and I suspect this was a play written for discerning audiences who understood the socio-political climate of the day. Some of the lines proved educational for me – I wasn’t aware of tarantism, for instance, before it was mentioned in this play.

Perhaps the original script does not call for it anyway, but it was surprising how little staging there was. There’s nothing aside from a raised platform and, in one scene, some sheets and pillows to denote a bedroom. Thus in this tale in which the dramatis personae included miscellaneous people of importance, there’s a King (Ashley Cook) supposedly without a throne, and a Cardinal (Stephen Boxer) supposedly without a prayer stall.

The sound design (Max Pappenheim) was quite extraordinary, making a small performance space seem much bigger than it really is, with voices echoing as they would in the King’s palace or the Cardinal’s church, but without them being unpleasantly ear-piercing. With the audience sat on three sides, the cast move about very well, ensuring that there is no significant disadvantage wherever someone’s vantage point of proceedings is.

In the title role, Boxer’s Cardinal is performed as one of those characters that one loves to hate, and in so doing became quite likeable for me, from the outside looking in. Unlike his nephew, Columbo (Jay Saighal), who takes an ‘I don’t care who you are, I shall speak my mind regardless’ approach, he has a calculating darkness, and would probably be an excellent ‘spin doctor’ for a political party today. It was certainly the most believable performance of the lot. Of the supporting roles, Natalie Simpson’s Duchess Rosaura takes on the full gamut of human emotion – she has to, given the rapid turn of events in Act Three. Valeria (Sophia Carr-Gomm) and Celinda (Rosie Wyatt) provide humorous asides and observations.

That this play from 1641 gives women such pivotal roles in the narrative goes down well in the twenty-first century. Granted, such characters would, at the time, have been played by male actors – one punchline, “I know not whether she be man or woman” (Act Four, Scene Two, line 93) doesn’t have any resonance at all in this particular production, what with men playing men and women playing women.

But, as with older plays, the audience is directly addressed a lot of the time and kept abreast of characters’ thoughts and feelings. Yes, it adheres strictly to dramatic conventions in tragedies that stretch back as far as Aristotle, so few marks for originality, but it doesn’t stop this being an absorbing and entertaining production.

Review by Chris Omaweng

The state of Navarre is in crisis. An unscrupulous Cardinal has the ear of the King and is hungry for power. The Duchess Rosaura longs to marry the Count D’Alvarez, but the Cardinal wants her for his brutish nephew. To tighten his grip on the Kingdom, the ruthless Cardinal will stop at nothing to secure the marriage. But in the Duchess it seems he has finally met his match…

Hailed as James Shirley’s tragic masterpiece, The Cardinal (1641) was one of the last plays staged in England before Oliver Cromwell’s ban on theatre. With remarkably lucid and fast-paced dialogue, it is the captivating story of a religious monster and his relentless pursuit of power.

Starring Stephen Boxer (King Lear, National Theatre) and Natalie Simpson (King Lear, Hamlet and Cymbeline, Royal Shakespeare Company), directed by Justin Audibert (Snow in Midsummer and The Jew of Malta, Royal Shakespeare Company) and produced by Troupe (After October, Flowering Cherry and The White Carnation, Finborough Theatre).

Creative Team Director – Justin Audibert Designer – Anna Reid Lighting Designer – Peter Harrison Sound Designer – Max Pappenheim Fight Direction – Bret Yount Movement Direction – Natasha Harrison

Cast Stephen Boxer, Sophia Carr-Gomm, Phil Cheadle, Ashley Cook, Marcus Griffiths, Patrick Osborne, Jay Saighal, Natalie Simpson, Timothy Speyer, Paul Westwood, Rosie Wyatt.

Troupe presents The Cardinal by James Shirley 26TH APRIL – 27TH MAY 2017

Venue: Southwark Playhouse 77-85 Newington Causeway London SE1 6BD

Homepage

http://ift.tt/2oSFodp LondonTheatre1.com

[teachanarchy]

Lesbians are well-known for our unique ability to find a girlfriend and then turn that romantic relationship into an all-consuming life partnership — starting businesses, pursuing activism, revolutionizing social services, erecting schools, liberating marginalized groups. This is true today but has also been true since the beginning of time. Back in the day, many women were held back from activism and entrepreneurship by the demands of marriage and motherhood, making some women-loving-women uniquely able to pursue civilization-shifting ventures. (Although many managed to do both!) We’re gonna talk about some of those relationships here today.

For the purposes of this list, I defined “power couple” as a relationship through which both women were able to achieve greater professional, artistic or service-related success because of their relationship with each other. I leaned towards couples that actually made or did things together — whether that be starting a school, hosting a nightclub, creating social services for disadvantaged humans or making films. Also, as usual, the word “lesbian” is used as an adjective to describe a same-sex relationship, not the sexual orientation of the women in the relationship.

Sources include Elisa Rolle’s Days of Love: Celebrating LGBT History One Story at a Time, Lilian Faderman’s To Believe in Women: What Lesbians Have Done For America – A History and Christina Anne Wooner’s incredible thesis I stayed up late reading last night, “The Famous Lady Lovers: African American Women and Same-Sex Desire from Reconstruction to World War II.” Most other sources are linked within the post. I found a lot of contradictory information throughout my research so I imagine many of you will have some of your own!

For this installment, I’m focusing on couples who began their courtship prior to 1940. Future installments will obviously be more racially diverse as we move into eras where non-white people had more access to “power” and also more recorded histories.

16 Lesbian Power Couples, 1830s – 1940s

Rebecca Perot and Minister Rebecca Cox Jackson (1830s-1871)

Rebecca Perot, aka Rebecca Jackson (There are no known pictures of Rebecca Cox Jackson) via shaker museum sketchbook

Rebecca Cox Jackson was raised in an African Methodist Episcopal family but, following a spiritual vision that put the voice of the divine within her, she broke off from the patriarchal church to start her own thing. Her success as a preacher led to her divorce, which led to her traveling around Pennsylvania and New England sharing her gifts, eventually falling for the community she found within a woman-led group of Shakers. She became a Shaker minister and met Rebecca Perot, with whom she joined a sect of the Watervliet Shakers. Eventually the two women — whose “mystical visions” had feminist and homoerotic undertones and often featured the other in divine contexts — decided they’d had it with white people and started their own family of black Shakers in Philadelphia, combining black female praying band traditions with Shaker theology. When Jackson died in 1871, Perot re-named herself “Mother Rebecca Jackson Jr” and took over the Philadelphia family.

Sallie Holley and Caroline Putnam (1848 – 1893)

photo via civil war women

Sallie and Caroline met at good ol’ Oberlin College, and the noted “anti-slavery team” became agents of the American Anti-Slavery Society immediately after graduation. They traveled on the abolitionist lecture circuit, often along with the legendary Sojourner Truth. After the Civil War, Sallie stayed up North giving talks, raising money to educate freed slaves in the South, and Putnam went to Virginia to teach freed slaves, eventually starting The Holley School, which became America’s first settlement house. Sallie then joined Caroline in Lottsburg, where they integrated themselves with the community, operated their school year-round and unlike some future suffragettes, were dedicated to enabling, preserving and protecting the right of Black men to vote even when white women could not yet do so. Sallie died in 1893 and Caroline in 1917, at which point the school was deeded to an all-Black board of trustees and continued operating for decades.

Harriet E. Giles and Sophia B. Packard (1855-1891)

image via keeping & creating american communities

Giles met Packard in in the mid-1850s when Giles was a student at the New Salem Academy in New Salem, Massachusetts, and Packard was the preceptor. They hit it off right away, and shortly thereafter shuttled off to Atlanta to start a school for Black women who had been newly released from slavery. Packard was the first president of the school, then known as the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary and now known as Spelman College, when it opened its doors in 1888. Giles took over after Packard’s death in 1891. The two women are now buried next to each other in Silver Lake Cemetery.

Ellen Gates Starr & Jane Addams (1877-1892)

Ellen Gates Starr met Jane Addams at the Rockford Female Seminary in 1877, and it was through their relationship that Addams got the confidence to embark on the GROUNDBREAKING AND INFLUENTIAL Hull House Project in Chicago. The Hull House was part of a movement to provide social and educational opportunities for working class women, mostly recent immigrants; offering classes in literature and history, hosting public concerts, providing child care and putting on free lectures. The two women taught classes, served as on-call midwives, sheltered victims of domestic violence, and advocated for legislative reforms that are now seen as the first models for “social welfare.” Ellen was far more religious than Jane, which may have played a role in their eventual breakup. Jane subsequently moved right along, in classic lesbian fashion, to Mary Rozet Smith, the daughter of a wealthy Chicago industrialist, who was very helpful to Addams’ various missions through other means.

Edith Anna Somerville & Violet Florence Martin (1887-1915)

Edith, an Irish novelist and her cousin/girlfriend (listen it was a different time), Violet, co-wrote fourteen stories and novels under the name “Martin Ross.” Their most popular titles were The Real Charlotte and The Experiences of Irish R.M.. After Violet’s death, Edith was inconsolable, and decided to keep writing as Martin Ross, convinced the two were communicating through spiritualist séances, which I personally feel is totally legit.

Ethel Mars & Maud Hunt Squire (1894-1954)

image via pinterest

These two American artists met at the Cincinnati Art Academy in the 1890s and stayed together for 60 years, living for patches in France and in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Maud was known for her book illustrations and color etchings, Ethel for her painting, color woodblock prints and drawings. They collaborated on projects like illustrating the legendary Child’s Garden of Verses. The couple were regulars at Gertrude Stein’s salon in France (and the subject of her word portrait Miss Furr and Miss Skeene). Also, The New York Times says they “loved to behave outrageously.”

Mabel Reed & Mary Ellicott Arnold (1894-1963)

Mary Ellicott Arnold, via wikipedia

Mabel and Mary were together for around 69 years, having met as children in New Jersey, and went on to be prominent urban organizers, philanthropists and social activists. After five years of middling success farming a 50-acre plot, they put in time at the City and Suburban Homes Company, which provided housing solutions for the working poor. They were then positioned as “field matrons” at the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation, where they defied pressure to enforce white cultural values upon the Natives who lived there, and wrote the book In the Land of the Grasshopper Song. Later organizing projects included cooperative cafeterias and apartments in New York, credit unions for lobster fisherman and cooperative housing projects for coal miners, as well as many other housing projects throughout the Northeast. They became widely regarded social activists and organizers, known for their drive to include women in their husband’s housing decisions and unconcerned by critics of their unconventional behavior — wearing divided skirts, riding horses through the backwoods, living in non-white areas, and thwarting conventional Victorian female ideals.

Fannie Johnston & Mattie Edwards Hewitt (1901-1917)

These two photographers met at the 1901 Pan American Exposition in Buffalo. Johnston was a pioneer in her field as one of the most successful female photographers in America, snagging cool gigs like shooting Edith Wharton’s Paris-adjacent villa, Booker T Washington’s face and Alice Roosevelt’s wedding. Hewitt was then working as an assistant to her husband, also a photographer, who she officially divorced in 1909. Thus, after eight years of an intense epistolary long-distance love affair with Fannie, Mattie U-Hauled with Fannie in New York, eventually opening an architectural photography studio together. Like so many great power lesbian couples, Mattie’s admiration of Fannie’s work was instrumental in what drew them together. They were commissioned to photograph buildings like the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and the Hotel Manhattan. Then in 1917 they had a huge blowout fight and broke up forever.

Gertrude Stein & Alice B. Toklas (1907-1946)

One of the most revered lesbian couples of all time, Gertrude Stein was an American novelist, playwright and poet with an unconventional style and a Modernist art collector. She met Alice B. Toklas, who would serve as her “confidante, lover, cook, secretary, muse, editor, critic and general organizer,” the day Toklas arrived in Paris. Stein fell hard and fast for Toklas, and by 1910 they were hosting a salon in their home on 27 rue de Fleurus that is now known as one of the most influential gathering spots in the history of arts, literature and queerdom. Guests included Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemmingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Thornton Wilder, Sherwood Anderson, Henri Matisse, Ethel Mars, Maud Hunt-Squire, Eleonara Sears, Eva Le Galienne and Francis Cyril Rose. Toklas hosted the wives and the girlfriends and Stein handled the men. The duo hit the big time with the mass market publication of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas in 1933, which led to an extended U.S. lecture tour. Toklas and Stein were together until Stein’s death in 1946.

Frances Witherspoon & Tracy D. Mygatt (1908-1973)

via Days of Lore

Frances and Tracy both graduated from Bryn Mawr in 1908, and then committed themselves entirely to the causes that mattered to them: world peace, pacifism, women’s rights and civil rights. But pacifism was always their number one passion. During World War I, they advocated for conscientious objectors: Tracy helped organize the Anti-Enlistment League and Frances founded America’s first-ever organization to support the rights of objectors as well as those persecuted for free speech, the Bureau of Legal Advice. The BLA is considered the forerunner of the American Civil Liberties Union, which was founded shortly thereafter, and which worked in tandem with the BLA towards common causes. They joined the Socialist Party in New York upon moving there in 1913, and helped organize shelters and food distribution programs in churches for the homeless. They were inseparable for 65 years, even dying within weeks of each other, which everybody knows is the ultimate lesbian love act.

Ethel Collins Dunham & Martha May Eliot (1910-1969)

Martha was a headstrong and stubborn young woman from the jump, refusing to marry and insisting on a life of travel and learning. She met Ethel, who’d felt uninspired by the socialite lifestyle she’d been living, at Bryn Mawr, and the two decided to attend medical school together, become doctors together, and live together forever and ever. AND THEY DID. They got their medical degrees from Johns Hopkins, where they were active in the local suffrage movement, but were then separated by subsequent work placements. Eventually they were reunited at the brand-new department of Pediatrics at the Yale hospital in New Haven. Martha undertook a study of rickets amongst low-income children, which launched her career in community pediatrics and then got her a gig as director of the Child Hygiene Department of the Children’s Bureau, around the same time that Ethel became one of the first female professors at Yale’s School of Medicine. Their ambitions, extensive research accomplishments and subsequent appointments — including President Truman naming Martha chief of the Children’s Bureau and Ethel becoming the first female member of the American Pediatric Society — often meant spending a lot of time apart, but as Faderman wrote in To Believe in Women, “they seem to have believed that their relationship gave them sustenance for the challenges and that their work and their life together were inextricably connected.”

Ethel Williams & Ethel Waters (1910s-1920s)

“The Two Ethels” met at the Alhambra Theater in Harlem — Ethel Waters was a popular blues singer and Ethel Williams was a dancer. They fell in love and summarily merged: Waters got Williams a job working at the cabaret where she worked, they lived together in Harlem and Waters took Williams with her on her first nationwide tour, where Williams would dance to warm up the crowd before Waters’ performances. In the touring revue Oh! Joy! they even did a little bit about being “partners” that winked at queer audience members while refusing mainstream identification. Waters’ managers at Black Swan Records manufactured gossip about Waters, once pushing a piece about how her recording contract stipulated that she couldn’t get married to explain her not having a male partner. Eventually, Ethel Williams left Waters and her job to marry a dancer named Clarence Dotson.

Florence Yoch and Lucile Council (1921-1964)

Considered “two of the finest garden designers and landscape architects in California,” Lucile started out as Florence’s “apprentice” at her firm and then became her “partner,” as you do. They designed estates, parks, movie sets and botanical gardens. Notable works include The Getty House gardens, the film sets for the exterior of “Tara” in Gone With the Wind and the estate of Howard Huntington. Their collected works are documented in the book Landscaping the American dream: the gardens and film sets of Florence Yoch, 1890-1972.

Dorothy Arzner and Marion Morgan (1927-1971)

via Lesbian News

Arzner was the only successful female film director of Hollywood’s golden age, and she met her beloved Marion on the set of Fashions for Women. Marion Morgan was a vaudeville dancer and choreographer who led her own performance troupe. They began working together on films and in 1930 and commissioned architect W.C. Tanner to build them a Hollywood Hills estate — Florence Yoch designed the gardens. They lived there for 40 years, until Morgan’s death in 1971.

Mabel Hampton and Lilian Foster, 1932-1978

Mabel Hampton, born in 1902, had a tumultuous childhood that took her from North Carolina to New York City to New Jersey and eventually to a job dancing in Coney Island just as the Harlem Renaissance was in full swing. She performed with stars like Moms Mabley and Gladys Bently and lived openly as a lesbian, eventually giving up dancing and becoming a domestic worker — for the family of the now-famous Joan Nestle. She met Lillian Foster in 1932, and they were inseparable until Lilian’s death, living together on 169th street in the Bronx and calling each other husband and wife. They were active in the Gay Rights movement, ran their own laundering business, and worked together to collect and organize a wealth of documents, newspaper clippings, photographs and books, including programs from the opera performances she and Foster loved attending, that would help form the Lesbian Herstory Archives, of which Joan Nestle named Mabel a founding member. Mabel’s oral history was preserved by Joan in the archives.

Ruth Ellis and Ceceline “Babe” Franklin, 1936 – 1971

Ruth C. Ellis met Ceciline “Babe” Franklin in 1936, and then they moved to Detroit and launched Ellis and Franklin Printing, which made Ellis the first woman in the city to own her own printing business. Franklin worked as a chef. They bought a house in 1946 which became known as the “Gay Spot,” a gathering place for the local black gay and lesbian community. It was a welcome refuge for black folks who weren’t given access to the white bar scene. “Gay people didn’t have anyplace else to go,” Ellis said in Family: A Portrait of Gay and Lesbian America. “Everybody would bring a bottle. We used to dance a lot. We had a piano in the basement and we’d sing and play. We’d dance and drink and play cards.” They gave lodging to gay black men newly arrived from the south, and helped young folks through college. Since 1999, The Ruth Ellis Center in Detroit has been a place of refuge for homeless LGBTQ youth, so her incredible legacy lives on.

If you know of a lesbian couple who got together before 1940 and did cool shit, tell me about it in the comments!!!