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chiseler · 3 years ago

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Gnostic Boardwalk

Canonical stature is a fragile and contingent thing, which is why powerful institutions seek to shore up the various canons of art with rankings and plaudits. We’ll play along by asserting that one of our favorite “B” movies was originally screened by Henri Langlois at the Cinematheque française with Georges Franju in attendance. Night Tide (1961) was an unlikely contender for this particular honor—shot guerrilla style on an estimated $35,000 budget, and intended, by its distributors at least, for a wider, less demanding audience seeking mostly air-conditioned escapism.

With its hinky cast—nonfictional witch, Marjorie Cameron; erstwhile muse to surrealist filmmaker Jean Cocteau, the undersung Babette who usually appears en travesti; and lecherous, booze-addled, fresh-faced Hollywood castoff Dennis Hopper—Night Tide invades the drive-in. A tarot reading at the film’s heart gives Marjorie Eaton her time to shine, traipsing into nickel-and-dime divination from her former life as a painter of Navajo religious ceremonies. Linda Lawson might have issued from an etching by Odilon Redon, with her raven locks and spiritual eyes, our resident sideshow mermaid. Not surprisingly and despite such gentle segues, the film itself traveled a rocky road from festivals to paying venues.

Night Tide had spent three years languishing in the can when distributor Roger Corman smuggled the unlikely masterwork into public consciousness, another of his now legendary mitzvahs to art. And the sleazy-sounding double bills that resulted also unleashed an aberrant wonder: the movie’s compact leading man, a force previously held captive by the studio system—looking, here, like some homunculus refugee from the Fifties USA. Dennis Hopper, in his first starring role, would later recall that it represented his first “aesthetic impact” on film since his earlier appearances in more mainstream productions such as Rebel Without a Cause and Giant had denied him meaningful outlets for collaboration.

It’s the presence of its featured players—certainly not their star power—that lends the film its haunting and enduring legacy, and elevates the term “cult classic” to its rightful place in the pantheon of cinema. But we argue that Night Tide remains outside these exclusive parameters—upholding an elsewhere-ness that defies commercial, if not strictly canonical, logic. Curtis Harrington’s first feature film escapes taxonomy, typology or genre—gets away—fueling itself on acts of solidarity instead. If Hopper contributes his dreamy aura, then Corman rescues the seemingly doomed project by re-negotiating the terms of a defaulted loan to the film lab company that was preventing the film’s initial release. His generous risk birthed a movie monument that would add Harrington’s name to a growing collection of talent midwifed by the visionary schlockmeister responsible for nursing the auteurs of post-war American cinema. And here we enter a production history as gossamery as Night Tide itself.

Unlike his counterparts entrenched within the studio system, Harrington was an artist – i.e. a Hollywood anachronism, with aristocratic graces and a viewfinder trained on the unseen. We see Harrington as Georges Méliès reborn with a queer eye, casting precisely the same showman’s metaphysics that spawned cinema onto nature. By the time moving pictures were invented, artists were moving away from a bloodless representational ethos and excavating more primordial sources for inspiration. The early stirrings of what surrealist impresario André Breton would later proclaim: “Beauty will be CONVULSIVE or it will not be at all.”

Harrington owned a pair of Judy Garland’s emerald slippers, and according to horror queen/cult icon Barbara Steele, also amassed an eclectic array of human specimens: “Marlene Dietrich, Gore Vidal, Russian alchemists, holistic healers from Normandy, witches from Wales, mimes from Paris, directors from everywhere, writers from everywhere and beautiful men from everywhere.” On a hastily constructed Malibu boardwalk, Hopper would be in his milieu among the eccentric denizens of California’s artistic underground—most notably, Harrington himself, a feral Victorian mountebank of a director who slept among mummified bats, practiced Satanic rites, and hosted elaborate and squalid dinner parties. One could almost picture the mostly television director in his twilight years as Roman Castavet of Rosemary’s Baby; a spellbinding raconteur with a carny’s flair for embellishment and enticement. Enthralled by the dark gnosticism of Edgar Allan Poe that had started when the aspiring 16-year-old auteur mounted a nine-minute long production of The Fall of the House of Usher (1942), Harrington would embark on a checkered film career that combined his occult passions with the quotidian demands of securing steady employment. Night Tide, a humble matinee feature whose esoteric underpinnings would spawn subsequent generations of admirers, united the competing forces of art and commerce that Harrington would struggle with throughout his career. Like Méliès, Harrington pointed his kinetic device towards the more preternatural aspects of early motion pictures to seek out the ‘divine spark’ that Gnostics attribute to transcendence, and the necessary element to achieve that immortal leap into the unknown. What hidden meanings and unspeakable acts Poe had seized upon in his writing were brought infernally to life with a mechanical sleight-of-hand. It was finally time for crepuscular light, beamed through silver salts to illuminate otherworldly and other-thinking subjects.

Curtis Harrington

By the time Harrington had embarked on his feature film debut, a more muscular celluloid mythology based on America’s proven exceptionalism was in full force, taking on a brutalist monotone cast in keeping with the steely-eyed, square-jawed men at the helm of a nascent super-power, consigning its more feminine preoccupations to the dusty vaults where celluloid is devoured by its own nitrate. Harrington would resurrect the convulsive aspects of his chosen vocation and embed them deep within the monochrome canvas he’d been allotted for his first venture into feature filmmaking, and combine them with the more rational aspects of so-called realism. In the romantic re-telling of a familiar myth, Harrington was remaining true to gnostic roots and the distinctly poetic language used to express its cosmological features.

In Night Tide, Harrington would map the metaphysical terrain that held up Usher’s cursed edifice as a blueprint for his own work that similarly explored the intertwined duality of the natural and the supernatural. The visible cracks that reveal a fatal structural weakness and a loss of sanity in both Roderick Usher and his doomed estate are evident in Night Tide’s conflicted heroine compelled to choose between her own foretold death underwater, or a worse fate for those who fall in love with her earthly human form.

A young sailor (Dennis Hopper) strolling the boardwalks of Malibu while on shore leave offers the viewer an opening glimpse into the film’s metaphysical wormhole, and a not so subtle hint of the director’s queer eye, stalking his virginal prey in the viewfinder. A beachfront entertainment venue is, after all, where one would casually encounter soothsayers and murderers, sea witches and perverts, as the guileless Johnny does, seemingly oblivious to the surrealist elements of his surroundings as he makes his way on land.

Harrington’s carnival-themed underworld is both imaginatively and convincingly presented as a quaint slice of post-war America, effortlessly dovetailing with his intended drive-in audience’s expectations of grind house with a dash of glamor—not to mention his own avant-garde leanings, which remain firmly intact despite Night Tide’s outwardly conventional construction and narrative.

Harrington is able to present this juxtaposition of kitsch Americana and the queer arcana of his occult fascinations. Indeed, Night Tide’s lamb-to-the-slaughter protagonist could have wandered off the set of Fireworks, Kenneth Anger’s 1947 homoerotic short film about a 17-year-old’s sadomasochistic fantasies involving gang rape by leathernecks.

Anger would later sum up his earliest existing film as “A dissatisfied dreamer awakes, goes out in the night seeking a ‘light’ and is drawn through the needle’s eye. A dream of a dream, he returns to bed less empty than before.” Harrington (a frequent collaborator of Anger in his youth) seems to have re-worked Fireworks, or at least its underlying queer aesthetic into a commercially viable feature film that explores his own life long occult fascinations.

Both Anger and his former protégé would view the invocation of evil as a necessary step towards the attainment of a higher level of consciousness. Harrington coaxed a more familiar story from the myths and archetypes that informed his unworldly views for a wider audience; a move that would be later interpreted by sundry cohorts as selling out. Still, Night Tide shares a thematic kinship with Anger’s more obtusely artistic output as acknowledged by the surviving occultist, who confirmed this unholy covenant at Harrington’s funeral by kissing his dead friend on the lips as he laid in his open coffin.

The hokey innocence of Dennis Hopper as Johnny Drake in his tight, white sailor suit casts a homoerotic hue on the impulses that compel him to navigate a treacherous dreamscape to satisfy a carnal longing, just as Anger’s dissatisfied dreamer obeys the implicit commands of an unspeakable other to seek out forbidden pleasures.

As he makes his way on land, the solitary, adventure-seeking Johnny will be lured into a waiting photo booth, his features slightly menacing behind its flimsy curtain, and brightly smiling a second later as the flash illuminates them. Johnny has entered a realm where intersecting worlds collide, delineating light from shadow, consciousness from unconsciousness. The young sailor’s maiden voyage into the uncharted waters of his subconscious is made evident in the contrasting interplay captured by the camera, where predator and prey overlap in darkness. Here, too, we get a prescient preview of the deranged psychopath Hopper would subsequently personify in later roles, most significantly as the oxygen deprived Frank of Blue Velvet—a man who seems to be drowning out of water. But here, Hopper convincingly (and touchingly) portrays a wide-eyed naïf, still unsteady on his sea legs as he negotiates dry land.

As a variation of Anger’s lucid dreamer in Fireworks (and later Jeffrey of Blue Velvet) Johnny will have abandoned himself quite literally (as his departing shadow on a carnival pavilion suggests, before its host blithely follows) to his own suppressed sexual urges; a force that eventually compels him towards denouement.

Moments later, inside the Blue Grotto where a flute-led jazz combo is in progress, Johnny spots a beautiful young woman (Linda Lawson) seated directly across from him. Her restrained and almost involuntary physical response to the music mimic his own, offering the first indication of a gender ‘other’ residing in Johnny; an entombed apparition cleaved from the sub-conscious and projected into his line of vision. Roderick and Madeline Usher loom large in Harrington’s screenplay and Usher’s trans themes lurk invisibly in the subtext. Harrington is arguably heir apparent to Poe’s vacated throne, pursuing similar clue-laden paths and exploring the dual nature of human and the primordial creature just beneath the surface poised to devour its host.

The near literal strains of seductive Pan pipes buoyed by the ‘voodoo’ percussion sets the stage for Harrington’s reworking of the ancient legend of sea-based seductresses and the sailors they lure to their graves.

Marjorie Cameron (or ‘Cameron’ as she is referred to in the opening credits) makes a startling entrance into The Blue Grotto as an elder of a lost tribe of mermaids seeking the return of an errant ‘mermaid’ to her rightful place in the sea. Cameron, a controversial fixture in L.A.’s bohemian circles and one-time Scarlet Women in the mold of Aleister Crowley’s profane muses, would later appear in Anger’s The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, and as the subject of Harrington’s short documentary The Wormwood Star (1956).

The inclusion of a bonafide witch, along with a host of less apparent occult/avant-garde figures, is further evidence of Night Tide’s true aspirations and its filmmaker’s subversive intent to sneak an art-house film into the drive-in, and introduce its audiences to the heretical doctrine that had spawned a new generation of occult visionaries influenced by Edgar Allan Poe. Decades later, David Lynch would carry that proverbial torch, further illuminating the writhing, creature-infested realm underlying innocence.

Johnny approaches the young woman who rebuffs his attempts at conversation, seemingly entranced by the music, but allows him to sit, anyway. Soon they are startled by the presence of a striking middle-aged woman (‘Cameron’) who speaks to Johnny’s companion Mora in a strange tongue. Mora insists that she has never met the woman before, nor understands her, but makes a fearful dash from the club as Johnny follows her, eventually gaining her trust and an invitation the following day for breakfast.

Mora lives in a garret atop the carousal pavilion at the boardwalk carnival where she works in one of the side show attractions as a “mermaid.” Arriving early for their arranged breakfast, her eager suitor strikes up a conversation with the man who runs the Merry-Go-Round with his granddaughter, Ellen (Luanna Anders). Their trepidation at the prospecting Johnny becoming intimately acquainted with their beautiful tenant is apparent to all except Johnny himself, who is even more oblivious to Ellen’s wholesome and less striking charms. Even her name evokes the flat earth, soul-crushing sensibilities of home and hearth. Ellen Sands is earthbound Virgo eclipsed by an ascendent Pisces. (Anders would have to subordinate her own sex appeal to play this mostly thankless “good girl” role. She would be unrecognizable a few years later as a more brazenly erotic presence in Easy Rider, helping to define the Vietnam war counterculture era.)

As Johnny ascends the narrow staircase leading to Mora’s sunlit, nautical-themed apartment, he almost collides with a punter making a visibly embarrassed retreat from the upper floor of the carousel pavilion. Is Johnny unknowingly entering into a realm of vice and could Mora herself be a source of corruption? Her virtue is further called into question when she not so subtly asks Johnny if he has ever eaten sea urchin, comparing it to “pomegranate” lest her guest fails to register the innuendo that is as glaring as the raw kipper on his breakfast plate. Johnny admits that he has never eaten the slippery delicacy but “would like to try.” Moments later, Mora’s hand in close-up is stroking the quivering neck of a seagull she has lured over with a freshly caught fish, sealing their carnal bond.

Their subsequent courtship will be marred by an ongoing police investigation into the mysterious deaths of Mora’s former boyfriends, and her insistence that she is being pursued by a sea witch, seeking the errant mermaid’s return to her own dying tribe. Her mysterious stalker will make another unwelcome entrance after her first appearance in the Blue Grotto—this time at an outdoor shindig where the free-spirited young woman reluctantly obliges the gathered locals who urge her to dance. The sight of ‘Cameron’ observing her in the distance causes the frenzied, seemingly spellbound dancer to collapse, setting off a chain of events that will force Johnny to further question her motives and his own sanity.

Mora’s near death encounter through dance is an homage of sorts to another early Harrington collaborator and occult practitioner. Experimental filmmaker Maya Deren had authored several essays on the ecstatic religious elements of dance and possession, and later went on to document her experiences in Haiti taking part in ‘Voudon’ rituals that would be the basis of a book and a posthumously released documentary both titled Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti. Note the Caribbean drummers whose ‘unnatural’ presence, in stark contrast to the more typical Malibu beach party celebrants, hint at the influence of black magic impelling the convulsive, near heart-stopping movements that eventually overtake her ‘exotic’ interpretive dance.

The opening sequence of Divine Horsemen includes a woodblock mermaid figure superimposed over a ‘Voudon’ dancer. The significance of this particular motif was likely known to Harrington, a devotee of this early pioneer of experimental American cinema. Deren herself appeared as a mermaid-like figure washed ashore in At Land (1947) who pursues a series of fragmented ‘selves’ across a wild, desolate coastline. Lawson with her untamed black hair and bare feet could be a body double of Deren’s elemental entity traversing unfamiliar physical terrain to find a way back to herself.

Mora’s insistence that she is being shadowed by a malevolent force directly connected to her mysterious birth on a Greek Island and curious upbringing as a sideshow attraction compel Johnny to investigate her paranoid claims, hoping to allay her fears with a logical explanation for them. The sea witch (or now figment of his imagination) will guide the sleuthing sailor into a desolate, mostly Mexican neighborhood where her departing figure will strand him—right at the doorstep of the jovial former sea captain who employs Mora in his tent show as a captive, “living, breathing mermaid.”

The British officer turned carnie barker is in a snoring stupor when Johnny first encounters him, snapping unconsciously into action to give a rote spiel on the wonders that await inside his tent. Muir balances Mudock’s feigned buffoonery with a slightly sinister edge. When Johnny arrives at his doorstep to find out more about the ongoing police investigation into her previous boyfriend’s deaths, the captain’s effusive hospitality takes on a decidedly darker tone when he guides his visitor to his liquor/curio cabinet where a severed hand in formaldehyde, “a little Arabian souvenir,” is cunningly placed where Johnny’s will see it. The spooky appendage serves as a reminder to Mora’s latest suitor of the punishments in store for a thief.

Captain Murdock’s Venice beach hacienda is yet another one of Night Tide’s deviant jolts: a fully fleshed out character in itself that speaks of its well-travelled tenant’s exotic and forbidden appetites. The dark, symbol-inscribed temple Johnny has entered at 777 Baabek Lane could be a brick-and-mortar portal into this mythic, mermaid-populated dimension that Johnny’s booze-soaked host thunderously defends as real.

Before falling into another involuntary slumber, Murdock will try to convince Johnny that while he and Mora merely stage a sideshow illusion, “Things happen in this world”—or, more to the point, Mora’s belief that she is a sea creature is grounded in fact.

Murdock’s business card that Johnny handily has in his pocket while tailing his dramatically kohl-eyed mark is oddly inscribed with an address more likely to be an ancient Phoenician temple of human sacrifice (Baalbek) than a Venice Beach bungalow. A lingering camera close-up offers another tantalizing, occult-themed puzzle piece—or perhaps a deliberate Kabbalah inspired MacGuffin. The significance of numbers as the underlying components for uniting the nebulous and intangible contents of the mind with the more inert, gravity bound matter, existing outside it, as the ancient Hebrews believed, wouldn’t have been lost on Night Tide’s mystically-minded helmer. Mora’s explicitly expressed disdain for Johnny’s view of the world as a rationally ordered, measurable entity that could be mathematically explained, reinforces Harrington’s world view, his love of Poe, and those French Symbolist artists who interpreted him.

In Odilon Redon’s Germination (1879), a wan, baleful, free-floating arabesque of heads of indeterminate gender suggests either a linear, ascending involution, or a terrifying descent from an unlit celestial void into a bottomless pit of an all-too-human, devolving identity. Redon’s disembodied heads gradually take on more human characteristics, culminating into a black-haloed portrait in profile. The cosmos of Redon’s etching is governed by an unexplained, inexplicable moral sentience, which absorbs the power of conventional light. Thus black is responsible for building its essential form, while glimmers of white, hovering above and below, prove ever elusive; registering as somehow elsewhere, beyond the otherwise tenebrous unity of the picture plane.

Night Tide has its own unsettling dimensions, of course, this black-and-white boardwalk where astral, egalitarian bums want to tip-toe; and, somehow, practically all of them do. Not a movie but an ever-becoming place, crammed into low-budget cosmogenesis unto eternity. We won’t discuss the ending here, since it hasn’t happened yet.

by The Lumière Sisters

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blasphoeme · 6 years ago

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First Lines Meme

RULES: List the openings of the last ten stories you published. Look to see if there are any patterns that you notice yourself, and see if anyone else notices any! Then tag some friends.

This is really interesting! Thanks for tagging me you wonderful peeps @callmedewitt @smoldany @thescarletgarden1990

Going to keep this solely Jonerys despite not all my last ten fics published were Jonerys hehe.

1) I Love You More Than Ice Cream

“Here you go!” Leaning over the counter, Dany handed a vanilla baby cone over to the outstretched hands of a little girl in a pink tutu.

“Thank you!” The child about three exclaimed, her cherubic face lit up in glee. Her green eyes darted all over her ice cream looking for a right place to attack. Her mother lifted her child up, perching her on her hip before taking a cup of cookies and cream from Dany.

“Thank you so much.” The slightly frazzled mother said. Yet, despite being tired, she couldn’t help gush about her baby: “This rascal did so well for her first ballet class so we agreed she could get a treat.”

“That’s so wonderful! Well done, little one.” Dany said, tapping the girl on her nose which prompted a shy grin from a pair of vanilla ice cream stained lips.

Waving at the mother and child as they left through the front door, the little girl now spotting an ice cream moustache and a dollop of ice cream on the very tip of her nose, Dany smiled. She loved her job so very much.

2) Their First Time

The heavy wooden door swung shut with a resounding slam that went unnoticed to the ears of the two individuals enclosed within the cabin. The day he stepped into her throne room, she would have never envisioned this happening. This stubborn man irked her so much and frustrated her for days, refusing to do as she asked. Oh, how he perplexed her so. He was a man she just couldn’t figure out and that only made her want to know him more. The urge to uncover every mystery that shrouded this king from the north grew stronger with time. He was the first man who wanted to know the woman beneath the crown. He wanted to know Dany. He was the first man who gave her his loyalty for who she was, not because of her dragons or her titles and her armies. He pledged himself to her because he saw her heart. Jon Snow was different with that he intrigued her. When he took her hand that very day on this very same boat, a gesture of comfort that she didn’t know she desired, things started to change between them. They were growing closer to one another. The stolen glances from across the room that lingered and all those unspoken words of longing had been culminating to this moment.

No one knew who bridged the gap first, all they knew was they needed to get closer to the person in front of them, whose eyes reflected an image of themselves. In his eyes she saw absolute desire, a hunger that she was eager to appease and a softness that she yearned to drown in. In her eyes he saw a vulnerability that he wished to cherish and a longing that he craved so much to satiate.

3) Splish Splash

“Mama.”

The child cocked her head to a side, curls as black as night bobbed gently by her cherubic cheeks as she moved. Her mama wasn’t acknowledging her, so busy absorbed in her documents. Demolishing her block tower and pushing aside her toys, one palm and a knee in front of the other, the determined little one started her expedition to reach her mother.

“Mama.”

A sweet insistent voice pulled Dany’s focus away from her work. She looked away from her parchment only to see that her baby girl had crawled over from her pile of toys and plopped her little bum onto the ground by her outstretched legs. Her baby’s chubby little hand lay splayed open on her knee.

“What is it, Ellie?” Dany cooed tapping the baby on her button nose.

“Play, mama.” Little chubby fingers reached towards her, stretching up in the air, flexing and curling, beckoning Dany to join her fun in her own childish, endearing manner.

4) Heroic Idiocy

Outside, the cicadas buzzed and chirped as the Queen of Westeros stood by one of the numerous open windows of her chamber, looking out at nothing in particular. She sighed again, losing count of how many times she had done it that day. Her emotions were a tangle, struggling between telling herself that she should just wait for him to come to her and throwing all restraint to the wind and running to him instead. To apologize, leap into his arms and never let go because she’d been missing him all day. There was also some precious news that she needed to share with him. But was today the right day to disclose it?

The doors to their bed chambers swung open and slammed shut, startling the queen from her thoughts, so hard she could almost feel the floor vibrating under her feet. Her husband had returned.

Great.

From her position by the window, she could hear him banging around behind her, letting out his frustration on the innocent furniture with every item of clothing that he shed, until all that was left were his simple under shirt and linen pants.

“How’s your wound?” Dany spoke up, her voice cutting through the tense atmosphere like a hot knife through lard.

“So now you decide to talk to me.” Jon said rolling his eyes with his back turned to her still. After the incident, Dany had all but refused to look at him, talk to him, giving him the silent treatment. Why couldn’t she understand that he had to do it?

5) Flowers For Papa

It was yet another peaceful day in Kings Landing. The sun was shining with nought a cloud in the sky. In the nursery of the Red Keep, the three Targaryen children were enjoying a quiet afternoon of play with their babysitter for the day while their mother took some time to plan a welcome home surprise for her husband’s return from his trip to the North. It was the first time he’s left his family since the twins were born and to be away for two whole weeks, his family missed him dearly.

“This is a lion.” Aedon’s chubby hands held up a wooden lion figurine, one of ten hand whittled wooden animals by their father’s advisor and friend, Ser Davos, for the twins’ second birthday. Grinning, Aedon offered it to their uncle who lounged upon the chaise by the window of the nursery, his usual goblet of wine in hand.

Patting the child on the cheek, the queen’s trusted hand nodded, his voice a bit slurry from his drink. “Yes. You are quite right. That is a lion.”

6) Paper Planes

Everyone said she was a romantic, ever since she was a small child, a romantic with her mind in the clouds, a dreamer. The very moment her soul mark manifested on her collarbone one morning, she had all but ran around her house shouting in glee, telling each member of her household that she had a soul mate and she was going to meet them one day, just like her mummy and daddy did. She was ecstatic. She couldn’t wait to meet whoever they were that bore a mark that was a pair with hers.

“How will I know if I’ve met the right person? How will I know that they’re mine, mama?” The little girl asked, rubbing at her mark with a finger, her eyes bright with anticipation, with hope.

Her mother gave her button nose a playful pinch. “You’ll know when your mark starts to grow warm.” Giving the girl’s chest a tap, she continued, “That warmth will then spread to your heart.” Her finger moved down further, the woman then gave her daughter’s belly a poke. “And make you feel all fuzzy in here, like butterflies taking to the sky.” The little girl giggled and dove into her mother’s arms. “When you lay eyes on them, you just know.” She couldn’t wait for that day to come.

7) Love Thought Lost

Swimming through the layers of sleep towards the surface of consciousness, Dany couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so well, so deep and dreamless. Lying on her side, she cracked open blurry eyes slightly and wooden panelled windows of her cabin came into view. The sky outside was still not too bright, the early dawn crepuscular sun rays cut through the dimness of the room providing a little bit of light. The candles that were lit from the night before and the fire in her hearth had long gone out but she didn’t feel cold. In fact she felt so very cosy and warm, combined with the rocking motions of the ship, could very well lull her back to sleep in this comfortable nest of sheets.

Stretching the stiffness out of her sleep idled limbs, her feet bumped into something firm. That something let out a groan from behind her, a very manly groan. That something proceeded to snake an arm around her waist and pulled her to it. Her back came in contact with a muscular bare chest.

There was someone in bed with her. Her eyes widened slightly as awareness flooded her mind once more, along with the memories of the night before. That someone was a very naked Jon Snow.

8) Fun in the Snow

Snowflakes fleeted down to join the collection on the ground as Dany stood by the gates waiting for Jon. The grounds of Winterfell were blanketed in white, fluffy snow after the storm that blustered through the night before. His words telling her to meet him by the castle gates once they were done with their duties came in quiet mutterings as they lay bundled up under the furs of her bed, watching the flurrying white snow fall down from above outside the window with the sun in the background creeping up upon the land. He told her that he wanted to bring her to a place only he knew about. Probably a guise to spend some time alone amongst the mess that was their lives. The time they got alone was finite these days. This tender intimacy was new territory to be explored and any chance they got together was precious. They didn’t know how long they could keep their romance under wraps, maybe everyone around them already had an inkling about what their rulers were up to, sneaking into each other’s chambers every night. But no one seemed to be aware; at least they didn’t seem to be. Dany dared to think they were all right for the moment. So there she was, waiting for him, feeling a little giddy, like a young lady waiting on her beau. Not that she was a lady she was a queen. Jon however, was most definitely beau material. Their nightly romantic dalliances were venturing outside the confines of their chambers. Would this be akin to the days on her ship, under the sun with the eyes of their friends on them, where they couldn’t be as free in their displays of affection?

9) Flowers for Mama

The echoes of his wife’s shrill screams reverberated through his skull. His ears were ringing; his hands were numb under the herculean grip of her smaller clammy ones. Her grip was so hard that they were beginning to cut off the circulation to his fingers, but he held on with his jaws clenched, keeping his fingers closed tightly around hers, giving her all the support he could. The pain appeared to be worsening, judging from the shorter increment of her screams and the tremors running through her petite frame. He wished futilely, willing the waves of pain wracking through her body, as she lay cradled between his arms against the front of his body to lessen even just a fraction. Alas, this was an endeavour that only his queen could overcome, only a woman could overcome. The endeavour of childbirth.

10) Flowers of Jealousy & Apology

Dany and Jon have been married for about a month now, to be returning to Essos as a married woman was interesting to say the least and for her honeymoon no less. Since the war ended, they hadn’t had the time to just relax and be themselves. They were quickly caught up in the task of ruling all seven kingdoms of Westeros. So, they decided it was time for them to finally take a break from living in a stuffy castle to travel and enjoy their marriage, away from responsibilities for a while. It was also the perfect chance for Jon to experience the sight and smells of some of the places Dany grew up in, where she left her foot prints; where she first rose to power; where she did so much good.

Observations:

I like to use descriptions a lot hehe. Sometimes I might mix it up with dialogues :).

I seem to write a lot of fics in Dany’s POV haha

My openings are sometimes long af cos idk how long to go on for lol.

These fics remind me of the good old days when I first started my journey into the world of fan fiction hehe~~ I think I've grown a bit? Although I feel like my writing can still evolve hmm... I have much, much more to learn.

Tagging: @adecila @tomakeitbeautifultolive @ktwrites @lawonderlandwriter @xxthewolvenstormxx @fierypen37 @drakhus

#fanfic writing

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sophiarmando-blog · 7 years ago

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hey hi loves! i’m hannah or han, either is great! i’m nineteen, love chipotle and netflix, i use she/her or they/them pronouns, i’m still speechless that i’m here like holy shit!! i’m still quaking in my boots and i’m so so so much ah, so scared and so joyful to be playing my bb! i just have no words and i’m simply an awkward anxious noodle who writes too much, always. i can’t believe i’m here, i’m literally so grateful, blessed and honored to just be amongst you all and i, ah, anxiety!! i’m so psyched and jazzed! i have to go see a show and then take down the set and possibly have rehearsal as well tonight so i’m gonna be really really busy but i’ll be on mobile all day and then will be back on my laptop for hours bc i have no social life outside of rp and homework. but here’s her long bio and um um her muse blog has a ton of stuff and all of those things with her connections but pls pls pls IM me while I cry tears of joy.

estates enclosed by iron gates, glamorous garments only fashioned by those of the highest caliber, and gilded lifestyles of unfeigned extravagance – this is the life you’ve always dreamed of – or at least some semblance of it. your parents, however, lived lives of utter deprivation. they were deprived of the financial stability they worked so hard to provide for you, and in their youth, they weren’t exceptionally well off but you wereit was your father who saw to your family’s content. and though at times he could be a hard and somewhat brutish man, he was an honest worker – never once succumbing to depravity in order to make a living. although, with all that he endured throughout his life, it wouldn’t have been outrageous if he had. he had enough of working part time to make ends meet and began to pick up acting gigs among his shifts at the station.your mother was once a woman who thrilled in losing herself to blissful displays of ignorance. she was like a feather forever floating in the wind, with no moral compass pointing her due north. no one ever expected she’d bear a child, let alone raise one. it was always presumed she’d flee, merely adhering to the whispered tales of her heart and its demands that she avoid responsibility – to always know full fledged freedom. nevertheless, she did settle down, and she found that having a family filled her life with monumental joy. it gave her a sense of purpose, something she had long felt her life was lacking.they were always two very different people, ramona and santino armando but they brought you into the world, thus many years ago, they found love despite their differences. you inherited your father’s intense desire for control and your mother’s innate beauty (some of her more notorious traits as well, though they hadn’t yet developed). you used both feats to your advantage and sought to conquer the world around you – to flip it inside out and make it something better – prettier. however, it was always a question of whether you desired to make it better for yourself, or those around you.you inherited your father’s intense desire for control and your mother’s innate beauty (some of her more notorious traits as well, though they hadn’t yet developed). you used both feats to your advantage and sought to conquer the world around you – to flip it inside out and make it something better – prettier. however, it was always a question of whether you desired to make it better for yourself, or those around you. you found that it was easy to make things work in your favor with the unmistakable allure you possessed. still, your puppeteering endeavors were always innocent, as you never harbored any ill intent, and it was enough for a little while – making yourself out to be the victim so others might be like putty in your hands, or exaggerating your benevolent nature so they’d feel obligated to be at your disposal. unfortunately, as storm clouds loomed above, you began to shed your beautiful and vibrant, yet aged petals, blossoming anew. your desire and need for more heeded to the change of season as well; specifically your sense of self-righteousness. she, ramona was a dreamer – always had been, for her parents taught her to be – her father especially. santino relentlessly stressed the importance of perseverance and self expression, as such a thing was a commodity throughout the span of his youth. both of his parents were junkies, and he grew up not knowing love, for he was born out of hate into a painfully lonely existence. he might have been condemned to the same fate as his parents had it not been for his exceptional drive and meeting ramona.the tale of her father’s upbringing and her parents’ ultimate love story has always been sophia’s number one motivator. that’s why when she looked up at the stars in all their ethereal beauty, searching for clarity, and procuring an almost psychedelic sensation, she knew. knew that she was destined for greatness, for she was born only out of love, hope, and pure intentions. she was born to make her parents proud and affluent in wealth, happiness, and everything in between. not the struggling part time actors, waitress and cops, so as the world around fell into a deafening silence, her “calling” came to her like a whisper in the wind – head conjuring up some hazy, crepuscular depiction of her name up in lights. she drank in that image like it was a tonic of bottled sunshine, for it was soaked in liquid, golden glory. that particular magical day marked the beginning of something new. something white and pure like winter snow, something that made her heart reverberate and swell with a deep and perceptible yearning.though sophia sent money back and forth to her mother as she worked part time jobs as a math and science tutor at the local elementary school in between classes at the local university. she didn’t move far but far enough away for a bit of space., alcohol and drugs warped ramona and sophia’s relationship, fueled a habit of her own; a deep resentment, a fear, an anger she hasn’t gotten rid of. , in meeting the ones she connected with, sophia shed her newly developed exterior – the sad, angry, bitter girl and adopted a new one. or rather, a plethora of exteriors, as it didn’t really matter who she was, so long as she wasn’t sad sophia who everybody ignored. she hated it – feeling like she could simply disappear and no one would notice. she hated the world, she hated that her father’s affair had affected her so greatly and transformed her world into an ugly, bleeding thing, and more than anything, she hated that she carried so much hate in her heart. maya didn’t want to be herself anymore, so she decided not to be.when you are made up of nothing but a series of plausible facades you lose sight of yourself, and everything you’ve ever been. you lose your moral values – and ultimately, you lose everything that ever made you you. so you pour yourself into work. find faith resolve, resistance and safety in the stars, in your best friend, your roommate. your softness, your tenderness, your care on display, the resentment, the pain, the bubbling underneath. that she could never get out, never express to those around her. so she writes, love letters to the stars, every night in her journal, thanking them for their presence, the space, the wide open spaces, the silence that inhabit the night. the moon and the stars ever present unlike all the things in her life. she is kind, gentle, careful, compassionate but there is sorrow, deep sorrow as open and bleeding as the stars in the sky. she is growing, feeling and changing as she works to find utter serenity and peace amongst her reality. so she pours herself into the unknown. but there is softness in her self-doubt. i feel compelled to also share and include a brief poem by sophie bowen, written in 2014 to round out the section.

Suddenly, a hole opens in the year and we slip into it, the riptide pull of strange, lonely dogs and broken phone lines. You forgive me if I mistake hunted for haunted, but I do like to rearrange things in my body every few years. Take a can of gasoline to the frayed and ghosted. Lights out. All hands on deck. Still you wonder why I keep losing my shoes in the road and coaxing cats in the alley with cans of tunafish and a flashlight. Why my contentment is beautiful, but highly improbable, sort of like four leaf clovers or an ice cream truck in the middle of the night. This tiny thing breathing between us that aches something awful. By summer, I am slipping all the complimentary mints in my coat pockets while you pay the check. Gripping the railings on bridges to keep diving over. Some dark dog in my throat when I say hello. - the hole is space, and sophia is lost in the sky, content with its beauty.

#milford:ooc #milford:intro #✩ » ❛introduction #i have so much anxiety and feels and ahhh #i'm such a bean

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nofomoartworld · 7 years ago

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Hyperallergic: A Painter’s Dreams Go Up in Smoke

Brandi Twilley, “Rainy Night” (2017), oil on canvas, 46 x 64 inches (all images courtesy Sargent’s Daughters)

Brandi Twilley is understandably haunted by her childhood, which included her home burning to the ground in 1999, when she was sixteen. A year ago, she had an exhibition of ten paintings of her living room, all recreated from Polaroid photos, Internet searches, and memory, which I reviewed here.

In her second exhibition, Brandi Twilley: Where The Fire Started, at Sargent’s Daughters (July 12 – August 18, 2017), the artist returns to the subject of her ravaged house, this time her bedroom, and to library books on Picasso and Titian that she had borrowed just before the fire. One thing is clear: Twilley, who was in high school at the time, had decided to become an artist before the fire.

I don’t think it is surprising that I thought of Gaston Bachelard while I had Twilley’s work in my head. “Childhood,” he wrote, “lasts all through life. It returns to animate broad sections of adult life […].” And yet, even as Bachelard’s writings came to mind, I was struck by how at odds Twilley’s childhood circumstances seem with Bachelard’s musings. In his best-known book, The Poetics of Space, he wrote:

If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters daydreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.

Brandi Twilley, “The Fire” (2017), oil on canvas, 46 x 64 inches

The house that Twilley grew up in was well on its way to the abyss by the time the fire started. And yet, it was clearly where she started dreaming of becoming an artist. And more than that, it was where she made art and studied it by borrowing books from her local library. Her bedroom was a hermetic bubble: plywood sheets covered both of the windows, one completely and the other nearly so, with only the tops of trees visible above the plywood edge. The ceiling leaked when it rained, and many of its cheap tiles had long ago fallen. Twilley slept in the bottom of a bunk bed, partially protected from the rain by the top bunk, and covered herself with a blue tarp in order to stay dry. Buckets were used to collect the rain.

There is nothing self-dramatizing in these paintings. In the pictures of her bedroom, Twilley is attentive to the warping of the cheap, prefab wallboard; the electric blue of the plastic tarp; the wood grain of the plywood; the ceiling in decay; the stuff of hers littering the floor. Everything gets her attention. Her approach is straightforward and she does not succumb to the temptation of elaboration.

Brandi Twilley, “The Hallway” (2017), oil on canvas, 46 x 64 inches

In “Rainy Night” (2017), the artist carefully invokes surfaces, tonalities, and detritus, such as tin cans and coffee cubs. The electric blue tarp glows in the crepuscular light. Raindrops are visible as they fall unimpeded into the room. While the room did not allow Twilley to dream in peace, she dreamed anyway, as evidenced by the two art books lying on the floor, one of which has a painting from Picasso’s Blue Period on the cover. Twilley uses the bedroom as an occasion to test her painting chops: can she be true to the drab and artificial colors, to surface textures, to stains, tin, and plastic, and to the gloomy light?

The painting “Cat in the Roof” (2017), offers a partial view of the room, glimpsing the edge of a dresser, a space heater sitting on a chair — the likely reason the fire started — and a stained wall and door. The stained surfaces look as if someone stuck her hands in grease and rubbed them onto the cream-colored door and the wavy grooves of the warped prefab wallboard. Another smear the color of dried blood descends the wall. According to the gallery press release: “A stray cat and her kittens had been living in the roof above the fireplace and had died, causing maggots to rain down into the fire.” Twilley does not go for sensationalism, so that the russet smear is the only clue as to what happened. It is more than enough. Meanwhile, an apple core stands next to a coffee cup on the edge of the dresser, near the stained mattress.

Brandi Twilley, “Cat in the Roof” (2017), oil on canvas, 48 x 60 inches

The nuances of atmospheric light are impressive: Twilley wants to see what she once inhabited with a detachment that denies sentimentality, nostalgia, and even sympathy. Despite the depressing circumstances of her childhood, she recognizes that her situation did not become an overwhelming obstacle, and that she did become an artist, what she dreamed about. Any painterly move meant to play on our empathy would have struck a false note, and there is none of that in these terrific paintings. They are both tough and tender.

Along with the paintings of her bedroom and one of the fire blazing through her window, Twilley did a group of smaller works depicting the books she had that survived the fire. In these works, she placed the open book on her easel and painted what she saw. This includes smudges, masking tape, paint and pencil marks, and unidentifiable stains. In another painting from this group, she places her copy of a book on Titian next to one on Picasso: the covers are stained and the binding of one is coming undone. Twilley is committed to being true to the material state of an object, while also recognizing paint’s elasticity: it can be thin and washy, smeary or luminous.

Brandi Twilley, “The Tempest” (2017), oil on canvas, 16 x 20 inches

One might view these paintings as an archive of the variety of ways paint has been applied to a surface over the past 75 years. This is what sets Twilley apart from other contemporary artists committed to observation and realism: her merging of technique with believability, the combination of which arises out of necessity. Her feelings of being haunted have not prevented her from making paintings that show no signs of inner torment. The paintings are not about her, but about something disastrous that happened to her earlier self, who had little control over her circumstances, except the desire to be an artist. Twilley did a lot to nurture that desire in extremely trying circumstances, and in the process has become a wonderful, arresting, and challenging artist, whose only agenda appears to be a commitment to some undeniable truth.

Brandi Twilley: Where The Fire Started continues at Sargent’s Daughters (179 East Broadway, Lower East Side, Manhattan) through August 18.

The post A Painter’s Dreams Go Up in Smoke appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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urskekyagvi · 5 years ago

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The Scientist's latest prisoner only twitched, a minuscule reaction compared to the harsh conduct. Long fingers paused in their dance across strings, and their mouth snapped shut with an adjourning sound of teeth clacking together. For a moment, only the dying vibrations of a song radiated in the corners of the crepuscular chamber.

The hissing did not disturb them. It had been expected that the Scientist would react in such a way, although the song had been an attempt- or rather, an entreaty- at a sort of peace between keeper and kept. A smile twitched at the well-worn corners of their mouth.

"I see my song is not quite music to your ears, Tourmaline," the Dreamer cooed kindly, "and so I will put the sitar down to rest for now. Would that please you?"

@urskekyagvi / sc.

to one unaccustomed to it, the low sound going from scientist to stale air is positively vitriolic, hissing akin to fanged beasts. but to the trained ear, it’s hushing, a raspy shhhh … though that doesn't make it void of skekTek’s signature frayed nerves, of course, one hand’s balled tight and slammed upon the dried wood desktop. “ BE SILENT. ”

#vliya

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lifeaftera-blog · 8 years ago

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Congrats, Bee! Your application has been accepted! Stellar writing samples, thank you so much! We’ll be waiting your accounts for both Ali & Erin to be submitted within the next 48 hours. Really excited to have you!

Name/Alias: bee/b Age: nineteen Timezone: est Activity Level: 7.5/10. i have finals to finish but once they are done i should be free because summer and then may be spotty occasionally on the days i babysit/work that haven’t figured out yet. but i’m an insomniac so i’m like always around tbh. Character(s) Applying For: alison dilaurentis & erin fitz Preferred Ships: (if any)- emison, spalison (ali), ezria (erin) Anything else?: banana! it’s what my fam calls me lol

Writing Sample – i’m super extra and included three like the writing dweeb i am.

1) first a lil bio i made

it was your father who saw to your family’s content. and though at times he could be a hard and somewhat brutish man, he was an honest worker – never once succumbing to depravity in order to make a living. although, with all that he endured throughout his life, it wouldn’t have been outrageous if he had. he had enough of working part time to make ends meet and began to pick up acting gigs among his shifts at the station.

your mother was once a woman who thrilled in losing herself to blissful displays of ignorance. she was like a feather forever floating in the wind, with no moral compass pointing her due north. no one ever expected she’d bear a child, let alone raise one. it was always presumed she’d flee, merely adhering to the whispered tales of her heart and its demands that she avoid responsibility – to always know full fledged freedom. nevertheless, she did settle down, and she found that having a family filled her life with monumental joy. it gave her a sense of purpose, something she had long felt her life was lacking.

they were always two very different people, ramona and santino vasquez but they brought you into the world, thus many years ago, they found love despite their differences. you inherited your father’s intense desire for control and your mother’s innate beauty (some of her more notorious traits as well, though they hadn’t yet developed). you used both feats to your advantage and sought to conquer the world around you – to flip it inside out and make it something better – prettier. however, it was always a question of whether you desired to make it better for yourself, or those around you.

you inherited your father’s intense desire for control and your mother’s innate beauty (some of her more notorious traits as well, though they hadn’t yet developed). you used both feats to your advantage and sought to conquer the world around you – to flip it inside out and make it something better – prettier. however, it was always a question of whether you desired to make it better for yourself, or those around you. you found that it was easy to make things work in your favor with the unmistakable allure you possessed. still, your puppeteering endeavors were always innocent, as you never harbored any ill intent, and it was enough for a little while – making yourself out to be the victim so others might be like putty in your hands, or exaggerating your benevolent nature so they’d feel obligated to be at your disposal. unfortunately, as storm clouds loomed above, you began to shed your beautiful and vibrant, yet aged petals, blossoming anew. your desire and need for more heeded to the change of season as well; specifically your sense of self-righteousness.

she, claudia was a dreamer – always had been, for her parents taught her to be – her father especially. santino relentlessly stressed the importance of perseverance and self expression, as such a thing was a commodity throughout the span of his youth. both of his parents were junkies, and he grew up not knowing love, for he was born out of hate into a painfully lonely existence. he might have been condemned to the same fate as his parents had it not been for his exceptional drive and meeting ramona.

the tale of her father’s upbringing and her parents’ ultimate love story has always been claudia’s number one motivator. that’s why when she looked up at the stars in all their ethereal beauty, searching for clarity, and procuring an almost psychedelic sensation, she knew. knew that she was destined for greatness, for she was born only out of love, hope, and pure intentions. she was born to make her parents proud and affluent in wealth, happiness, and everything in between. not the struggling part time actors, waitress and cops, so as the world around fell into a deafening silence, her “calling” came to her like a whisper in the wind – head conjuring up some hazy, crepuscular depiction of her name up in lights. she drank in that image like it was a tonic of bottled sunshine, for it was soaked in liquid, golden glory. that particular magical day marked the beginning of something new. something white and pure like winter snow, something that made her heart reverberate and swell with a deep and perceptible yearning.

though she sent money back and forth to her mother, alcohol and drugs fueled a habit of her own; a deep resentment, a fear, an anger she hasn’t gotten rid of. though she is reckless, in meeting the ones she connected with, claudia shed her newly developed exterior – the sad, angry, bitter girl and adopted a new one. or rather, a plethora of exteriors, as it didn’t really matter who she was, so long as she wasn’t sad claudia who everybody ignored. she hated it – feeling like she could simply disappear and no one would notice. she hated the world, she hated that her father’s affair had affected her so greatly and transformed her world into an ugly, bleeding thing, and more than anything, she hated that she carried so much hate in her heart. maya didn’t want to be herself anymore, so she decided not to be.when you are made up of nothing but a series of plausible facades you lose sight of yourself, and everything you’ve ever been. you lose your moral values – and ultimately, you lose everything that ever made you you. so you pour yourself into work. into applications and writing and loving someone, your childhood friend who somehow managed to keep you whole.

2) tw: death mention

baby, i’m not moving on, i’ll love you long after you’re gone…“You’re a fucking idiot.” She mumbled into the air, her eyes going over the name that was engraved into the stone. It shouldn’t have been there. She shouldn’t have been reading ‘Calliope Salazar’ on a place like this. “But I miss you..” Bailey choked, rubbing her eyes as she didn’t want to cry. Callie was worth her tears, she always had been, but she felt like she needed to show her that she was strong. Strong for her son, Calliope’s godson, strong enough to accept that she was the one that got away, strong enough for their families, the community– everyone had been having such a hard time with it all and she had been everyone’s rock and she just wanted to prove to Calliope that she was doing okay without her there– that wasn’t exactly the case though. “Dylan misses you.. he’s gotten so big since you l-left.” She whispered to the stone, sinking down to her knees before she sat in front of her. The five and a half year old didn’t understand that Calliope wasn’t ever coming back and she didn’t know when it would sink in for him. Auntie Callie was different, not like his daddy. Waiting for that scared her– she didn’t want to see her boy go through the grief once he realized it, dealing with another loss, but it would just be another bump in the road. It was something that would eventually be okay, even though she thought nothing would be okay. “He started little league last week. I made sure he got there on time and he tried out for shortstop. I know how much you wanted that.” She mused with a small laugh, chewing on her lip as she moved to pull out a picture of her from her bag. She didn’t want to talk to a rock, she wanted to talk to her. A few seconds passed by and all she heard was silence. No birds, no wind– there was nothing. It was like the world knew she was gone. Setting the picture in front of the tombstone, Bailey finally let a tear roll down her cheek and a shaky sigh escaped her lips. “I hate you. I hate you for everything you’ve put us through. How could you d-do this to me? To Dylan? It’s… I-It’s miserable without you, the absolute worst..” It wasn’t her fault in anyway and she knew that she would’ve been by her side if it was her choice, but she was angry at her, at the universe for taking away the love of her life, and hated even more that after a week of mindless dating under the warmth of the summer sun, later on, a failed one night stand with Dylan’s father and other mindless relationships, she could never build up the courage to tell Callie her true feelings. That she wanted those warm afternoons that summer back, that she wanted an us. “I fucking hate crying, you jerk. You fucking know this.” She growled, shaking her head as she tried to remove off the evidence of tears from her cheeks although they kept falling from her crystal blue orbs. “I’m sorry…it’s just, I lost Martin after Dylan was born and god..ever since that summer…that week, we tried things…I know I said I did..b-but..I never got over it, over you.” After a few minutes of silence, she moved from the ground with a few sniffles. “I, uh.. I gotta go pick Dyl from school.. he started school, can you believe that? Anyway, I, um, don’t wanna be late cause the school gets all pissy and then they yell at me about being on time and it’s just a mess and.. I wanna show them all I’m a good mommy and that I can do this still even though it’s hell without you, without your guidance, advice, babysitting.” She rambled on, running her fingers through her hair as she looked from the picture to the stone and she leaned down to pick up the tattered piece of paper. “I’ll bring Dylan by this week to see you.” Bailey mentioned, kissing the photograph before she simply began to back away from the grave. Her eyes went up to the sky and they trailed the clouds as if she was looking for a sign from the woman she missed so much. “You’re not going to get rid of me that easily, Cal..” She mumbled to her, letting out a small laugh as she bit her lip and she moved further away from the site to leave. “Forever and always…for life.. remember that…it should have been you, it always was, always will be. ”

3) tw: domestic violence, graphic descriptions of violence

The last thing Delaney could remember was waking up on her hardwood floor, choir dress torn, lip bleeding and surrounded by shards of glass. As she sat up on the cold floor, she winced as noticed her freshly bruised ribs, now a nightly occurrence. Her head throbbing and vision blurred, the young girl could hear nothing but the crashing of kitchen utensils hitting the floor over the venomous screams of her father. He had come home angryagain.And when Brian was angry, there was always consequences. If dinner was still in the oven when he got home, it was a black eye or a bruised stomach, a few dishes in the sink, slammed against the wall and a kick in the ribs. But worst of all, if she didn’t seem happy enough to see him. Then it was all of the above plus forcing himself on top of her, holes in the wall and endless screaming.This was Delaney’s norm. But it hadn’t always been this way. When her parents first got married, the summer after high school graduation, they were madly in love. All set to build a life together, Brian off to work at his father’s legal firm and her mother Katherine to a local college to major in English and eventually education. That all fell apart when Brian’s father died, leaving him penniless and in no way to support their suddenly growing family. To make matters worse, her mother died during childbirth leaving her husband with a newborn as he spiraled into a funnel of alcohol and prescription drug abuse. So here Delaney was, the white picket fence and all, forced to keep the dark secrets within. No one could ever know what her father did to her. Not now, not ever. She had worked so hard to escape the clique of the freaks and geeks, putting all of her focus into dance, using makeup like the older girls and most of all, abandoning her former friend Aubree. The sound of the doorbell startled her from her thoughts on the floor, as she pushed herself off of the ground, wrapping her shreds of a dress around her body. Dazed and confused, she opened the door, the cold air biting at her bare legs and feet; she was startled by the police officer standing there. “H-How can I h-help you?” she stammered.As the officer rattled on and on about the little girl’s obvious bruises, frail disposition and the crashing sounds around her, Delaney ran a tired hand through her hair. “Officer, thatreallywon’t be necessary. You see, our next door neighbors are elderly so they don’t really know what they hear. I dropped a glass while I was headed to the kitchen and it startled both me and my dad. I’m an absolute klutz. I’m fine, he’s fine, we’re both just fine. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go help him clean up.” the young brunette lied effortlessly as she began to close the door, her stomach tightening with nerves at the sight of the gun.How on earth could the officer know this much and so quickly? Did she really look that bad? That didn’t matter, all that did was that the police had been called because Edith and Maxwell McDonald had been worrying about her again, Edith was bringing her casseroles and sending her teenage granddaughter over to “befriend her”. She would just text and ask about school and the thirteen year old would always feel uncomfortable but she know she meant well so there was nothing she could do about it. She had to get back inside before her father noticed the silence and brisk air amidst his tirade.

#application #submission #acceptance

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tinymixtapes · 8 years ago

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Daniel Menche reveals epic, triple-CD edition of Sleeper, shares track “Sleeper IX”

Maybe it’s all those lazy, hazy, sighing, swaying, lush, beautiful TREES up there in America’s foggy Pacific Northwest finally catching up with him — because Portland, Oregon-based composer Daniel Menche (heretofore best-known for such visceral and cold, acidic showers of noise compositions as 2013’s Vilké, 2015’s Crater, and last year’s Cave Canem) seems to have finally inhaled enough of their thick, tranquilizing gasses to begin mellowing-out BIG TIME. Late last year, he quietly released the digital iteration of a new, introspective ambient album called Sleeper on his Bandcamp page. Within its three hours(!) of running-time, Menche sought an answer to the question “why the hell do I gravitate to compositions that stresses people out?” and endeavored to re-evaluate his erstwhile compositional and philosophical strategies through the medium of pure sound. Seeking to “amplify the re-imagined traces of light and dark across the inner eyelid of the dreamer caught in that crepuscular moment between wake and sleep,” Sleeper plunged into the more ghostly harmonic dissonance employed by minimalist masters like La Monte Young and Charlemagne Palestine, still as-ever shrouding his “ephemerally half melodic loops and unfurled sonic tapestries” in the kinds of unsettlingly spooky glass coffins he’s known for. And now, at long, sleepless last: Menche’s ephemeral, Ambien-laced recordings have received a proper tangible HOME courtesy of a luxurious, brand-new triple-CD set on Sige Records. You can order these sleep-aids today, but you’d better shake off that drowsiness and act quickly: these “custom offset tri-fold CD jackets on heavy stock, black metallic ink” — featuring photography by Menche and art/design by Faith Coloccia — are limited to an edition of 500. And while you wait for Mr. Sandman to arrive, help yourself to a free sample of the eerie bliss you’re liable to feel via the track “Sleeper IX,” which is streaming down below. (WARNING: do not drive or operate heavy machinery.) Sleeper by Daniel Menche Sleeper tracklisting: 01. Sleeper - I 02. Sleeper - II 03. Sleeper - III 04. Sleeper - IV 05. Sleeper - V 06. Sleeper - VI 07. Sleeper - VII 08. Sleeper - VIII 09. Sleeper - IX 10. Sleeper - X 11. Sleeper - XI 12. Sleeper - XII http://j.mp/2qY2XTD

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chiseler · 5 years ago

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The Last Light

There is a moment in David Lynch's Twin Peaks: The Return that on its incandescent surface could have been lifted, weightless, from the great post-war dream of materialist deliverance: The top on the convertible is down, the radio on; The Paris Sisters are singing I Love How You Love Me as a reincarnated Laura Palmer lifts her face to a cloudless sky. Within the tapestry of this early Phil Spector production — his trademark reverb eternally associated with Romance and Death (two conditions Spector knew all too well) — the voice of Priscilla Paris is a siren sound from the American Beyond. We could be hearing a dream goddess lullaby from the whispering gallery, or sweet nothings from the crypt. We don't know. We'll never know. Just as Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood keeps us guessing with the elusive murmur that “Sharon Tate will never die,” granting her a gaudy, wondrous L.A. to cavort in where it's 1969 forever and movie stars still matter, so we find ourselves in Tarantino’s version of paradise (complete with flame throwers to the face). In this oneiric echo chamber, momentarily shared by Lynch and Tarantino, Surrealism smiles down upon a vision of American blondness; muscle cars soaked in sunlight; the terrible ecstasy of unending motion; candy for the eye and ear.

David Lynch’s favorite film, to this day, remains Otto e Mezzo, directed by Western Europe's sorcerer of confectionary delights, Federico Fellini; the man who put the “dolce” in La Dolce Vita. And here you have a fleeting taste of ideologies swirled together and spun like ribbon candy: a blur of four-wheeled luxury from the New World, zooming past regional splendor into that fraternity of man: the socio-economic nirvana imagined by Karl Marx.

Careening from one via to another at harrowing, white-knuckle speeds, Fellini was heard to lament that “Some of the neo-realists seem to think that they cannot make a film unless they have a man in old clothes in front of the camera.” George Bluestone, recording these words in 1957 for the pages of Film Culture, was sittings in the literal passenger seat of the ideal metaphor of post-war ebullience in action: that famous Black Chevy skirting the Italian Scylla (the Vatican) and its equally dogmatic Charybdis (the Party); expert, 20th century precision guiding them through Roman streets with graffiti-scrawled churches proudly bearing the hammer and sickle. At those velocities, anything could make sense.

“What for you is the greatest human quality?”, Bluestone asks. Fellini responds, “Love of one’s fellows,” a period-appropriate oath that rings true to his brand of ecumenical solidarity.

“The greatest fault?”

“Egoism.”

Try, if you will, to imagine our more locally sourced egoists nodding along with Fellini in soulful agreement on that one. As a kind of compatriot of Edgar Allan Poe, David Lynch (and, to some extent, Tarantino) spawns from his abiding axiom that “The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetic topic in the world.” In Lynch’s hands, American television has become a brightly lit seance for Poe’s ethereal dead. Immortal creatures afflicted with the dream of physical existence, then afflicting the dreamers. Twin Peaks: The Return modifies Poe's axiomatic truth with great help from Amanda Seyfried's Becky and her pair of visionary's eyes, melting Spector's dark edifice of sugar in deathless, Sternbergian close-up — iridescent search lights, ever more urgently scanning the sky above for a sun to swallow her whole. We can only witness and internalize this shimmering ingenue trading places with Old Sol, as if the drugs she's consumed have entered our system and not hers.

Filmmakers like Fellini and Lynch celebrate bodily extremes in intriguing, if differing ways that should naturally gallop right beyond the pale but nevertheless become wholly, weirdly digestible. It is perhaps the innocent glee, even wonderment, of these artists in the vast variety of shapes the human body can assume; innocence which acts as a giant eraser for every awareness on our part of how physical representation in the age of political correctness is meant to function. Lynch is able to present the disabled as by turns childlike, mysterious or magical beings without ever worrying about lending them agency (The Elephant Man's John Merrick is a passive whipping boy for seemingly the whole of Victorian London) or the lie of adult sophistication (the latest Twin Peaks iteration includes a pint-sized hitman who whines like a puppy when his icepick is broken).

Fellini's dwarfs and grotesques, on the other hand, emerge from the struggle of a one-time Marc'Aurelio cartoonist willing one-dimensional images into three-dimensional embodiment. His big women, of course, are fetish figures. They always were. Gargantuan beauties, evidence of a sexual ideal formed in infancy: the big Italian mammissima, seen from below. As Fellini grew into a rather large adult himself, this ideal was simply re-scaled accordingly (even the icy mountain of Anita Ekberg takes on new implication). Goddesses all, they are, however, not meant for conventional movie stardom.

And what of Tarantino? Once Upon a Time's Margot Robbie IS the no-longer-doomed Sharon Tate as she watches herself on the big screen; enjoying a thrill that few have ever known so guilelessly that any half-baked charges of narcissism shrivel to nullity before they can escape a single throat. Here before us is an essential glimpse into the vanishing phenomenon of movie stardom itself, reflexive handwringing from the woke balconies notwithstanding. Tarantino has at last achieved something transcendental: even his grotesques — slack-jawed, gap-toothed, gormless members of the Manson Family conflated with more contemporary Identitarian cultists on the lookout for 'Lookism', knives unsheathed — are downright mythic. Robbie's Tate is a visage both generically perfect and possessed by the angels, every one of them a blond resident of LA County, sincere and unknowable as desert light.

The vampires, creatures of night slain by sunlight, infiltrated the movie theaters in the 1920s and never left. They sit next to us in the dark, having ceded the power to hypnotize us to the glowing screen itself. Photochemical vagaries invariably allow movie darkness to behave in impossible ways; as if the physical properties of film itself knew no rules, and thus invited us to accept its essential anarchy without question. Before us is a darkness that GLOWS.

A Black & White image flipped into negative can produce black fire, or the black sunlight which illuminated the Transylvanian forests of Nosferatu, through which a box-like carriage rattles at Mack Sennett speed. But with only the smallest underexposure, a little dupey degradation of the print, or even a little imagination (such collaboration is not discouraged), this liquid blackness will spread anywhere, everywhere; the most luminous pestilence known to creation. Be it in the laughing nightmare of Fleischer cartoons of old (Out of the Inkwell, indeed) or Jean Epstein's photogenie phantasmagoria, we're left to wonder. Is daylight burning out the corner of a building, or is it the blackness of the building which is eating into the sky? As with so many such questions, film permits us no answer. We are to simply watch as characters smudge, their shadows emanating out beyond themselves, pulsing and flickering with an obsidian internal flame.

By the time Jean Epstein adapted The Fall of the House of Usher in 1928, it could wisely be said that Poe had been already aggrandized through the mechanism of carbon-arc projection; which is but one way to say that the vision that once seemed unharnessable, had at last been industrialized. Dragooned. Pressed into an ever more modern service at a pace to be measured in frames-per-second. Artists like Epstein and Chomon were the first generation to wield an immense cultural and commercial instrument; at once abidingly real and totally incomprehensible. No medium of expression predating cinema could so thoroughly lift audiences from linear time, or could as convincingly, in the words of Jean Epstein, render death as a conscious state.

Transcendentalism barely scratches the surface here. A more apposite term — the one he nuances in his film theory, “photogenie” (a genesis out of light) — pulls transitory moments, otherwise escaping human perception, into focus. If Poe engrosses us in Romantic conceptions of death as a means to visionary truth, Epstein reveals that same supposedly “elusive” end in our earthly world of telephones, sports cars, Kodak cameras for the every-man and moderne manicures for up-to-the-minute dandies.

The Victorians were falling away. And with them a system of reality contained in narrow, overwrought performances. Withered technique as a means of reflecting Nature — or, to quote Balzac, the “conjugation of objects with light” — was displaced, uncrowned by Jean Delville’s Death (1890), which embodies an altogether different kind of virtuosity, one no Academy could ever comprehend. The charcoal drawing and ode to Edgar Allan Poe’s Masque of the Red Death yearns with a combination of verve and starkness toward a capital “G” Gloom destined to escape salons.

Coming of age in a series of shady elsewheres — the fairgrounds, nickelodeon parlors and movie palaces of an Edwardian America — nitrate and its twinkling mineral essence gave Poe's crepuscular light its time to shine and thereby illuminate the world. No longer held in the solitary confinement of a page of reproduced text or an image, however still, rendered in paint or ink. Poe's singularly tormented vision was finally written alchemically, in cinematographic rays beamed through silver salts; into moving images of such aggressive vitality as to blast every rational thing from one's mind.

All hail magic mirrors! Celestial mandalas! Giant eggs and butterfly women! Segundo de Chomón's The Red Spectre (1907) ruthlessly invades our eyes with a wraith-magician dissolving through his coffin lid in a red, hand-tinted, flame-flickering hell. His caped, skull-masked presence was to herald the manic new thespic truth that, from this moment forward, the art of acting is in how you respond to light, and how light responds to you. The Specter of Chomon's dark bauble is in every element Poe's Red Death — japing and performing tricks for us, his adoring fans and welcome guests, before announcing our doom — literary metaphor slammed against a literal backdrop of amber stalactites, pellucid as an ossuary.

Doctor Pretorius might have been musing on the history of cinema in 1935’s The Bride of Frankenstein when he said: “Sometimes I have wondered whether life wouldn't be much more amusing if we were all devils, no nonsense about angels and being good.”

by Daniel Riccuito, Tom Sutpen and David Cairns

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chiseler · 5 years ago

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Gnostic Boardwalk

Night Tide had spent three years languishing in the can when distributor Roger Corman smuggled the unlikely masterwork into public consciousness, another of his now legendary mitzvahs to art. And the sleazy-sounding double bills that resulted also unleashed an aberrant wonder: the movie’s compact leading man, a force previously held captive by the studio system—looking, here, like some homunculus refugee from the Fifties USA. Dennis Hopper, in his first starring role, would later recall that it represented his first "aesthetic impact" on film since his earlier appearances in more mainstream productions such as Rebel Without a Cause and Giant had denied him meaningful outlets for collaboration.

Unlike his counterparts entrenched within the studio system, Harrington was an artist -- i.e. a Hollywood anachronism, with aristocratic graces and a viewfinder trained on the unseen. We see Harrington as Georges Méliès reborn with a queer eye, casting precisely the same showman’s metaphysics that spawned cinema onto nature. By the time moving pictures were invented, artists were moving away from a bloodless representational ethos and excavating more primordial sources for inspiration. The early stirrings of what surrealist impresario André Breton would later proclaim: “Beauty will be CONVULSIVE or it will not be at all.”

Moments later, inside the Blue Grotto where a flute-led jazz combo is in progress, Johnny spots a beautiful young woman (Linda Lawson) seated directly across from him. Her restrained and almost involuntary physical response to the music mimic his own, offering the first indication of a gender 'other' residing in Johnny; an entombed apparition cleaved from the sub-conscious and projected into his line of vision. Roderick and Madeline Usher loom large in Harrington’s screenplay and Usher’s trans themes lurk invisibly in the subtext. Harrington is arguably heir apparent to Poe’s vacated throne, pursuing similar clue-laden paths and exploring the dual nature of human and the primordial creature just beneath the surface poised to devour its host.

by The Lumière Sisters

Special thanks to Danny Kasman and David Cairns

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