#delaware is the fictional state Beach City is in

[reasonschillplace]

No, no, listen, Delaware is the alternate universe US state that Steven Universe lives in.

hold on a fucking second. delaware is a state?? i thought it was a river? or is the river more important than the state? why don't i know this? (i should mention i don't like in america, i'm just confused)

there is delaware (state) and delaware (river) 

both are equally strange

the state is a tiny little cryptid thing

the rive is a monster that spans new york, pennsylvania, new jersey and delaware. also washington crossed it once and that was like kinda a big deal i guess. like crossing the rubicon in rome.

the state tries to me more important with its “im the first state!!!” bs (seriously its even on the fucking license plates) but we all know. its the river.

[yourfavisfromnewjersey]

Greg Universe from Steven Universe is canonically from New Jersey (kinda)! explanation below the cut:

At one point in the show (I can't remember the episode, it might be "Gem Harvest") it is confirmed that Greg and the rest of the Demayo family (excluding Steven, who was born in Beach City) are from Jersey, which is the name for the state of New Jersey in the Delmarva verse, which is the fictional universe that Steven Universe (the show) takes place in! If you know of an earlier example where it is stated that Greg is from Jersey, feel free to let me know!

[darthkvznblogs]

Why didn't you use San Fransokyo as in Big Hero 6?? remember that Steven Universe also has fictional states like Delmarva

I decided against San Fransokyo because, quite frankly, I don't think the city of San Francisco would rename itself no matter how much Japanese immigrants helped them get back on their feet after the 1906 earthquake. Just not something I see happening, though I do picture the city with some added Japanese architecture.

Also, while Beach City remains a fictional location, I've set it in Delaware, in place of the real life coastal town of Rehoboth Beach, which provided some inspiration for the creators.

[masterge77]

Whether you like the show or not, there’s no denying the impact that Steven Universe had on western animation, but if there’s one thing about the show that I felt was largely ignored by the writers, it was this:

One thing about Steven Universe I always liked is how it was set in an alternate history, right down to the geography being different. Asides from the map pictured, you had states with different names, like Pensylvania being "Keystone State" (which is actually PA's nickname) or Delaware and Maryland being a single state called "Delmarva", as well as implications like Kansas being where movies are made rather than in California, or the dollar bill having a different design and such. It’s heavily implied that this was caused by the Gems trying to terraform the planet, or the effects of the Gem Rebellion War 6000 years ago.

What annoys me is that the series did almost NOTHING with it! At most we just see Gem structures like the Galaxy Warp and the Kindergarten, but with a world map like this where the geography is completely different from our own world, as well as some of the things being stated and established (like there being 39 US states rather than 50), you could go in so many directions. You could have entire spin-off series separate from the main story that explore this world in detail, and yet the writers refused to stray away from Beach City and the Gem ruins for whatever reason.

You just can’t establish something like this and then sleep on it like it means nothing, you have to follow up on it beyond showing stuff about ancient aliens and telling us that Kansas is where movies are made. You can go in all sorts of directions, show how different this world is from our own, show how the Gem’s effects on the planet affected the development of human civilization. Go beyond the base!

And it annoys me because I’m someone who loves alternate history stories, it’s one of my favorite tropes in fiction, and most of the time it’s just limited to time travel related stuff (see Biff’s future in Back to the Future 2) or the occasional steampunk Britain/France setting, or “What if the Nazis won World War II” kind of stuff. Then you have THIS WORLD MAP from Steven Universe, and I get sad because it just feels like wasted potential.

How the heck do you avoid potential world-building like this? You literally see more of the Gem Homeworld than the alternate history Earth, and while it’s cool that you get to see this advanced alien empire’s capital world, you have a problem when the planet the series is set on 90% of the time is underdeveloped in comparison to this alien empire.

Point in case: Show, don’t tell!

[sqermygeco]

The accuracy depth and attention to detail of the characters mentality

I can’t fucking make things happen. It’s like my executive dysfunction goes into the world of fiction and I cannot for the life of me get a person from point a to point b. Help

This marvel space fanfiction. It’s really cool I just don’t care enough

TMA but in the world of secret life

Welcome to earth. It is my pride and joy

lol absolutely not. I do it when I feel like it and it’s honestly very good for me

‘"You become you. I’m just a couple of runaways. But I know I’ll always be me. " Garnet smiled idly, looking at her open palms. "Ruby never imagined she could matter. That she could be the one changing history. Sapphire never imagined history could be changed. But then she did, and it was. I know Homeworld doesn’t believe that the decision and conviction of just some gem can get in their way. I know I’m just a manifestation of insolence to them. I don’t care. Look at Rose. She’s just a random quartz soldier, but she made a choice. She made a difference, and she’s no different than any of us. If she can, I can. You can."

Pearl stared pointedly out, to where the ocean met the sky. There was a pit inside her.’

Released the first chapter. Wasn’t at all recent tho

I don’t think I have enough posted to answer that

Neutral. Except nighttime hurts my eyes

Plantser? Idk I’ve planned a lot but then the actual individual scenes tend to be quite random. Depends what I’m writing I tend to go very dialogue heavy

Oh god pass

Sometimes. I’m not opposed

Steven universe probably. Or amethyst. Or Gwen Bouchard

Fucking things happening if only it would stop LILTING

I write em coz I want em to exist so yeah. Also like I think back on old things I wrote and am like Thats So Cringy and then I read it and I popped off

Tales of a revolution/welcome to earth - I need to express how much I love Steven universe and all other ways have failed me

In all aspects, making things happen

A spin-off about Greg’s life

The flowers on the ground near the kindergarten in NWOFA are vastly mountain laurels and I figured this out by cross referencing the art with ‘pink flowers native to Maryland’ the website because Delmarva is a combination of Delaware Maryland and Virginia but based off of beaches and boardwalks that inspired beach city it can be assumed that but OUR us states it would be in specifically Maryland, near the bottom. That part was just general knowledge but mountain laurels apparently smell like specifically grape coolaid which is so specific but that is what the Americans say. This all for a throwaway line describing the air as smelling sweet. Anyway

Precise, meaningful, positively messy

Bisexual Greg, straight rose

All the young dudes. Yk, the comforting one.

Satellite monsters it’s very fuck the government let’s do human experiments. That’s the marvel one. It also requires such research as; what happens when a person gets chucked into space? What is the lowest temperature your body can go before your blood bubbles?

Probably writing on average but when I get sucked in to something I hibernate

What is your favourite thing to write about? Fandom wise, genre wise, and style/scene wise

Fanfic Ask Game (the movie, the sequel)

In celebration of me actually working on a fic, I made y’all an ask game instead of continuing to work on that fic. Pls enjoy.

💖 What do you like most about your own writing?

😐 What embarrasses you most about your own writing?

👻 What is one WIP you think you may never pick back up?

👀 Do you have any WIPs that you would never let see the light of day? If yes, what are they about?

📥 What is your fave fic to receive comments/messages on?

✏️ Do you write every day?

🖊 Post a snippet from a current WIP.

🏅 What is something you recently felt proud of in regard to your writing (finished a fic, actually planned for once, etc).

😈 Is there anything you enjoy doing that you think your readers hate?

🌙  What time of day do you prefer to write? Why?

👖 Are you a planner, plantser, or pantser? Is it consistent?

📊 Current number of WIPs

👨‍👧‍👧 Do you tell people in real life that you write fic? 

🌝 Who is one character you haven’t yet written for that you would like to?

📝 What is one growth area you have for your writing?

📚 Do you read your own fic?

🌈 What inspired you to write [insert fic here]?

🤔 What is the hardest part of writing fic?

🧠 What’s an idea you have that you can’t quite call a WIP yet?

💻 Do you do research for your fics? What’s the deepest dive you’ve done?

✨ Choose three adjectives to complement your own writing.

💭 What is a headcanon you have about your own work?

🍰 Name one of your fave comfort fics (doesn’t have to be your all time fave).

👩‍🏭 If one of your fics was going to get you arrested, which one and why?

⏰ Do you spend more time reading fic, writing fic, or do you do both equally?

💋 [Freeform - what is something you want to know about one of poster’s fics?]

[xxtaymanixx]

can we also discuss how Beach City is in the fictional state of "Delmarva" which is literally the DMV, or the Delaware, Maryland, Virginia area???

[blackkudos]

Wendy Williams

Wendy Williams Hunter (born Wendy Joan Williams; July 18, 1964) is an American television host, actress, author, fashion designer, and former radio personality. She has hosted the nationally syndicated television talk show, The Wendy Williams Show, since 2008.

Prior to television, Williams was a radio DJ and host and quickly became known in New York as a "shock jockette". She gained notoriety for her on-air spats with celebrities and was the subject of the 2006 VH1 reality TV series, The Wendy Williams Experience, which broadcast events surrounding her radio show. She was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2009.

She has written a New York Times best-selling autobiography and six other books, and has created various product lines including a fashion line, a jewelry collection and a wig line. On her 50th birthday, the council of Asbury Park renamed the street she grew up on, to Wendy Williams Way.

Early life

Williams was born on July 18, 1964, in Ocean Township, Monmouth County, New Jersey, a suburb of Asbury Park. She is the second of three children born to parents Thomas and Shirley Williams, She grew up in the Wayside section of Ocean Township. Williams graduated from Ocean Township High School, and from 1982 to 1986, she attended Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, where she graduated with a B.A. in communications and was a DJ for the college radio station WRBB.

Personal life

In her biography, Wendy's Got the Heat, she uses the pseudonym Robert Morris III to refer to her first husband and describes him as a salesperson. Williams and her first husband have since divorced. On November 30, 1997, Williams married her second husband Kevin Hunter. Williams gave birth to their son, Kevin Hunter Jr., on August 18, 2000. Wendy is Christian.

Radio career

Williams began her career working for WVIS in the United States Virgin Islands. Less than a year later, she obtained an afternoon position at Washington DC-based station WOL. Williams commuted between DC and Queens, New York, to work an overnight weekend shift at WQHT.

In 1989, Williams began at urban contemporary WRKS (now WEPN-FM) in New York City as a substitute disc jockey. WRKS hired her full-time for its morning show. A year later, Williams moved to an afternoon drive-time shift, eventually winning the Billboard Award for "Best On-Air Radio Personality" in 1993. In December 1994, Emmis Broadcasting purchased WRKS and switched Williams to the company's other New York property, hip-hop formatted WQHT ("Hot 97"), as WRKS was reformatted into an urban adult contemporary outlet. She was fired from Hot 97 in 1998.

Williams was hired by a Philadelphia urban station, WUSL ("Power 99FM"). Her husband, Kevin Hunter, became her agent. She was very open about her personal life on air, discussing her miscarriages, breast enhancement surgery, and former drug addiction, and helped the station move from 14th place in the ratings to 2nd.

In 2001, Williams returned to the New York airwaves when WBLS hired her full-time for a syndicated 2–6 p.m. time slot. Williams' friend, MC Spice of Boston, offered his voiceover services to the show, often adding short rap verses tailored specifically for Williams' show. The New York Times stated that her "show works best when its elements – confessional paired with snarkiness – are conflated," and cited a 2003 interview with Whitney Houston as an example. During the highly publicized interview that "went haywire" and included "a lot of bleeped language", Williams "asked [Houston], insistently, about her drug and spending habits".

By 2008, she was syndicated in Redondo Beach, California; Shreveport, Louisiana; Wilmington, Delaware; Toledo, Ohio; Columbia, South Carolina; Emporia, Virginia; Lake Charles, Louisiana; Tyler, Texas; and Alexandria, Louisiana, among other markets.

Williams left her radio show in 2009 to focus on her television program and spend more time with her family. She was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame.

Lawsuit

In 2008, Nicole Spence, talent booker for The Wendy Williams Experience, filed papers with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission suing Williams. Spence claimed Williams' husband, Kevin Hunter, demanded sex from Spence on many occasions and created a hostile work environment by threatening and assaulting his wife on company premises. On June 11, 2008, Spence filed a sexual-harassment lawsuit against Williams, Hunter, and Inner City Broadcasting Corporation in federal court in Manhattan. Both Williams and Hunter deny the charges.

Television

The Wendy Williams Show

In 2008, Debmar-Mercury offered Williams do to a six-week television trial of her own talk show. On July 14, 2008, Williams debuted her daytime talk show, The Wendy Williams Show, in four cities during the summer of 2008. During the tryout, The New York Times snarkily remarked that the show created a "breakthrough in daytime" by introducing the genre of the "backtalk show.".

After a successful run, Fox signed a deal with Debmar-Mercury to broadcast the show nationally on their stations beginning in July 2009. In addition, BET picked up cable rights to broadcast the show at night. In 2010, BET started airing the show internationally in 54 countries through BET International.

Williams has received multiple nominations at the Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Entertainment Talk Show Host and the show itself was for Outstanding Talk Show/Entertainment. The show attracts 2.4 million daily viewers on average, with Williams trading off daily with Ellen DeGeneres as the number one female host on daytime television.

“The Wendy Williams Show” has been renewed through the 2019-20 television season on the Fox Television Stations.The renewal will keep “Wendy” on air through its 11th season. During the November 2015 sweeps period, the talk show finished either No. 1 or 2 in the key demo of women 25-54 in 55% of the U.S. and 20 of the top-25 markets.

Other television appearances

Williams has made appearances in the television series Martin (1992) and in the soap opera One Life to Live (2011).

Williams filled in for Jodi Applegate on WNYW's morning television show, Good Day New York (2007), and hosted a game show for GSN called Love Triangle (2011) for which she and her husband Kevin Hunter served as executive producers.

Williams played a judge on the Lifetime network show Drop Dead Diva (2011) and served as a guest judge on The Face (2013). She was also a contestant, paired with pro Tony Dovolani on season 12 of Dancing with the Stars (2011); she was eliminated second.

In February 2013, it was announced that Williams and her husband and manager, Kevin, were launching a reality television production company, Wendy Williams Productions. that will produce unscripted content, including reality television and game shows. Williams was an executive producer on the show Celebrities Undercover (2014).

Williams also executive produced the Lifetime biopic Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B, which premiered on November 15, 2014. In September 2015, the documentary series Death By Gossip with Wendy Williams premiered on the Investigation Discovery channel, both hosted and produced by Williams.

Film

Williams appeared in the film adaptation of Steve Harvey's book, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, titled Think Like a Man (2012) and its sequel, Think Like a Man Too (2014).

In 2012, it was announced Williams would enter into a "production alliance" with producers Suzanne de Passe and Madison Jones to create movies and television shows aimed at multicultural audiences. These projects will appear under the heading "Wendy Williams presents" and their first project will be VH1 adaptation of a Star Jones novel.

FilmographyFilmTelevision

Theater

In 2013, Williams announced she was going to play the role of Matron "Mama" Morton on the Broadway musical Chicago. Williams officially began her tenure on July 2 and finished her 7-week run on August 11, 2013. Her preparations for the musical were documented in the TV Guide docuseries, "Wendy Williams: How You Doin', Broadway?!", which was produced by her own production company, Wendy Williams Productions.

Business

ProductsHSN Clothing Line

By partnering with the Home Shopping Network (HSN), Williams debuted a line of dresses, pants, sweaters and skirts fit for the everyday woman.The household name media mogul debuted her HSN Clothing line on March 28, 2015. The debut was a "sell-out success" and Williams even told viewers on her talk show that according to HSN, the debut was their most watched premiere since the onset of the program. The Wendy Williams line is sold exclusively at HSN.

Adorn

Williams sells a line of jewelry products on the home shopping network, QVC, called "Adorn by Wendy Williams".

Williams and her husband, Kevin Hunter, commissioned the Chinese-based manufacturing firm, Max Harvest International Holdings, to make 12,140 pairs of shoes bearing the logo of her brand, Adorn. The owners of Max Harvest International Holdings were said to have gone into hiding after the owner of the shoe factory who made the shoes kidnapped one of their managers and held the man prisoner for two weeks before releasing him, and Williams' failure to pay was cited the reason, reported by the New York Daily News. The manager and his wife retained lawyer Staci Riordan of Los Angeles. Their representative says they've been in negotiations for several months in order to reach a settlement. Williams declined to comment on the matter.

Endorsements

Williams was previously a spokesperson for Georges Veselle champagne. She posed for PETA's "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur", ad campaign in 2012.

Books

Williams is a seven-time New York Times best-seller and has published several books, including:

Non-fiction

Wendy's Got the Heat (2003), coauthored with Karen Hunter Atria; 1 edition (August 5, 2003)

The Wendy Williams Experience (2005)

Ask Wendy: Straight-Up Advice for All the Drama in Your Life (2013) ISBN 9780062268389

Fiction

Drama Is Her Middle Name: The Ritz Harper Chronicles, Vol. 1 (2006), coauthored with Karen Hunter

Is the Bitch Dead, Or What?: The Ritz Harper Chronicles, Book 2 (2007), coauthored with Karen Hunter

Ritz Harper Goes to Hollywood! (Ritz Harper Chronicles) (2009), coauthored with Zondra Hughes

Hold Me in Contempt: A Romance (2014) ISBN 978-0062268419

Awards

Radio Personality of the Year awards from Billboard, Black Radio Exclusive, and Radio & Records industry magazines

2009: named to the National Radio Hall of Fame

Hosted the 2013 Soul Train Awards Red Carpet

Hosted the 2014 Soul Train Awards in Las Vegas, which aired on November 30, 2014.

Nominated for The 42nd & 43rd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Talk Show/Entertainment and Outstanding Talk Show Host.

Stand-up comedy

Before Wendy turned 50, stand-up comedy was on her bucket list

In 2014, Lipshtick called Williams to participate in their first all-female-based comedy series at the Venetian in Las Vegas.

Williams made her sold-out comedy debut on July 11, 2014

Williams comedy tour was called "The Sit-down Comedy Tour."

Williams returned to Lipshtick on October 31, 2014 and November 1, 2014 after she made a sold-out debut in July.

Williams hosted her "How You Laughin'" Comedy Series at NJPAC on November 15, 2014 featuring Luenell, Jonathan Martin, Pat Brown, Hadiyah Robinson, and Meme Simpson.

In 2015, Williams announced a 12-city comedy tour called, The Wendy Williams Sit Down Tour: Too Real For Stand-Up.

Wikipedia

[thegreatwhiteferret]

87 Random Questions

I was tagged by @edwardtheloser because JJ just wants the world to burn. 💖💖💖

1. Where do you live? I currently live in Delaware...yeah, the tiny ass state everyone forgets about.

2. One cool item you own? I’m trying to think of something really deep and meaningful...I have a Texas charm with golden star on it that I wear with a cross on a chain around my neck and never take off. 

3. Moon or stars? The stars (High key one of the things I miss most about Texas)!

4. Places you’d like to travel to? Either to London or to Disney...both are related to Peter Pan for reasons.

5. Favorite song? I cannot possibly pick just one song...music is everything. Praying by Kesha has me all sorts of in the feels right now.

6. Do you have any fears? I am afraid of so many things. I am afraid of the dark, germs, going into anaphylaxis, letting people down, not being good enough...I should stop now, right?

7. Do you feel different than you did last year? I mean I guess. The past year has been really bad for me, but I’ve just recently started feeling really hopeful about the future.

8. What is your race? I am white as white can be. I’m 75% Canadian (25-British, 25-Irish, and 25-French with a bit of Native American mixed in) and then 25% mystery that is most likely German or Dutch. 

9. Pet peeves? People being assholes when they disagree with something and people smacking when they eat. (These two just stuck out, there are more, I’m petty as hell)

10. Any siblings? I have 3 sisters.

11. Are you a gamer? Only if The Sims and Dream Daddy count. Hand eye coordination is not there.

12. Sexual orientation? Pansexual Princess 

13. Does a broken mirror mean bad luck? I don’t know, but I will steer the fuck clear!

14. What do you feel is your mental age? Depends on the day. Sometimes I feel like I’m sixteen some days I feel like I’m forty. There is no consistency. 

15. How old were you when you started dating? My family was super strict, so no dating officially until after I went to college.

16. Where do you do most of your online shopping? Forever21 and Amazon.

17. Favorite animal? Bears

18. What’s one film from the 2000s that you like? Psssssh, so many. School of Rock and Mean Girls were my shit though.

19. What’s your favorite scary movie? IT. I am a scaredy cat, so the fact that I love this movie so much is amazing.

20. Fun fact about yourself? I convinced my 5th grade teacher that I had elaborately schemed to get rid of my baby sister when I was only three years old to avoid actually having to write a serious paper. I won a damn award for my story too.

21. Shoe size? 9.5 or a 10 in Women's. 

22. Which fictional character(s) do you relate to the most? Junie B. Jones. She’s a real hero of mine. (JK, Stanley Uris and I are one in the same).

23. Where do you see yourself living in ten years? Philly, Boston, or Chicago. I need some excitement in my life.

24. Ever wore clothes that were just wayyy too tight? I mean I wore a corset around just for the hell of it the either night so....

25. What’s on your mind? How many stories I have in my queue to write and the fact that I am not doing that right now...whoops.

26. Are you religious? I’d still identify as Christian, but I have a lot of questions. I also don’t believe in pushing your religion on people, that’s an asshole move.

27. How tall are you? 5’8″

28. Favorite band? HOW DO YOU EXPECT ME TO PICK ONE??? Jesus, I’m going to see AJR in a few weeks so let me give them a shoutout.

29. Do you remember 2009? Yes. It sucked.

30. Cats or dogs? DOGS! You can fight me on this one @edwardtheloser they are freaking flawless and amazing.

31. Fruit or vegetables? Por que no los dos??

32. Do you want to get married? Yes. That would be nice.

33. Do you want children? I DO. So so bad. It’s a problem.

34. Flamingos or peacocks? Meh. Birds. (Only difference between me and Stan tbh)

35. What superpower do you wish you had? Telekinesis or Shapeshifting.

36. Are you a germ freak? Yes. I have severe food allergies and I break out when I touch the allergens, so I kind of have to be. Also, people are gross.

37. Did swearing baby, ghost car, or ghost caught on tape scare you as a kid? I don’t know what any of these are...

38. Do you prefer sweet or salty? Por que no los dos?

39. Tea or coffee? Give me all of the non carbonated caffeine.

40. Are you superstitious? Yes. I knock on wood. I won’t walk under ladders or on cracks in the sidewalk. I do counting things as coping mechanisms. I’m so bad.

41. Do you like stripes? Sure, but plaid is better.

42. Favorite shows as a kid? The Big Comfy Couch, Rugrats, The Wiggles, Doug, Arthur, Zoom...I liked TV a lot.

43. Favorite shows growing up? Lizzie McGuire, Boy Meets World, That’s So Raven, Sabrina the Teenage Witch...again, I liked TV a lot.

44. Favorite musical? I LOVE MUSICALS. Hamilton, Hairspray, High School Musical, Rocky Horror, Annie. All of them. RENT is my absolute favorite though, I bawled my eyes out when I saw it live.

45. Favorite movie? Inglorious Basterds, IT, and Goonies.

46. Birthday? October 1st.

47. Are you a grammar Nazi? Yes. It kills me not to correct people.

48. Ever gotten drunk? Hahahahaha. Yes.

49. Do you have a carrier bag? I switch between a small backpack, a big satchel bag and a small hot pink cross body purse. As long as my epi pen and wipes fit, I’m good.

50. What would you do if you were the opposite gender for a day? Some very NSFW things...I’m not sorry.

51. If you were the opposite gender what would you change your name to? Oliver, Ollie for short.

52. What song is stuck in your head? The Kids Aren’t Alright by The Offspring

53. Celebrity crush? Hilary Knight, Taron Egerton, Chris Evans, Hayley Williams, Joe Keery...so many. I love all the people.

54. If you could live in a non-English speaking country, where would it be? Sweden

55. Are you a good dancer? I try...

56. Have any allergies? Gluten and Dairy. Deathly allergic and people think it’s just a diet fad smh...

57. Any bad habits? Procrastinating and shoving my feelings down.

58. Ever broke a bone? Yes. My mom broke my leg when I was three, we fell down the stairs and if she hadn’t pushed me behind her and landed on my leg I would have gone head first into a brick wall. My mommy saved my life. 💖

59. Are you a city or country person? Both. I like the feel of the country with the convenience of the city.

60. Do you like your home country? United States of Go Fuck Yourself

61. Sunflowers or daisies? Sunflowers 

62. Tulips or roses? Tulips, they remind me of living in the Netherlands as a kid.

63. Oak or maple? Maple. I’m Canadian, eh.

64. Disney or Nickelodeon? BOTH! I WILL NOT CHOOSE!

65. WYR be obese or anorexic? I’m in recovery for both anorexia and bulimia and have been since I was twelve years old, body dysmorphia since I was seven because I’ve been overweight my entire life, and this question can go fuck itself. Jesus fucking Christ. Those are serious issues not choices. Fuck.

66. WYR be over 6 feet or under 5 feet? Under 5 feet, I hate being tall.

67. Rubies or sapphires? Sapphires

68. Are you stubborn? I am so stubborn that it hurts.

69. Have you been in scouts/Girl Scouts? Yes! And I loved it.

70. What type of music do you listen to? Everything. I love music.

71. Favorite vine? Uhmmmm...I was never into vines...sorry.

72. Beaches or castles? Castles. Real life Disney Princess y’all!

73. Pick the closest book to you, and write the line you opened to:

"I mean, a superhero. My heart almost squeezes to a stop. Blue loves superheroes.” -Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda

74. Anyone in the same room as you right now? Yup. My mama and the dogs. Pip is sleeping on my lap.

75. Which is worse; throwing up or diarrhea? I mean I don’t love either...

76. Butterflies or lady bugs? I don’t like bugs...butterflies qualify as well. 

77. Do you say “K” when you’re not mad? I never do this, because I am so cautious of how others will feel from it. You can’t take back hurt feelings.

78. How do you react when purposely scare you? I usually have some form of anxiety attack. My sister has made me cry and panic just from making me watch a YouTube video...I’m easy to scare guys.

79. Most overrated celebrity? Every Kardashian except for Khloe, I love her.

80. Do you have a globe in your room? No, I have a print of the world, but that would be so cool!

81. Do you have a dream catcher in your room? No, this would also be cool.

82. What do you see when you look out your window? Well it’s nighttime now so darkness.

83. Have you been on an airplane? Yes, I’ve been flying since I was a month old.

84. Do you believe in aliens? Yes. It’s stupid to think that we are alone in the universe.

85. Do you believe in ghosts? Absolutely. I don’t fuck with spirits, all respect.

86. Do you believe in God? I believe in a higher power, and I do still have faith in the Christian God, but I do have so many questions.

87. Do you believe in yourself? I’m working on it, y’all. That’s all I can say.

I am tagging randomly because I don’t know who has done this yet... @billbenbev @its-reddie-bitch @not-reddie @theriodiaries @demianhill @dannybriereisaliferuiner @thebroadstreetdarling @milagric and whoever else would like to do this, consider yourselves tagged! 💖💖💖💖💖

[littleeyesofpallas]

SU's fictional Delmarva state refers to the DelMarVa(Delaware, Maryland, Virginia) area. But Beach City is actually based specifically on Rehoboth Beach, DE.

cartoons → where they take place

[hub-pub-bub]

Let’s talk about the fantasy of the “writer’s lifestyle.” Most writers and most readers are familiar with the basics: the writer is typically an educated person of modest background who knows famous and wealthy people; the writer is an aloof guest at their parties. The writer keeps an irregular schedule, needs deep solitude in order to work, has dysfunctional personal relationships, and is not good for much except the brilliant prose they occasionally produce. Money is scarce, but the writer somehow always lives alone; the landlord is always angry, but the writer is never quite evicted. The writer spends a lot of time in cafes with huge, flaking mirrors behind the bar; even more time is spent in lofts and attic apartments, places with casement windows and creaking staircases.

The writerly apartment in this fantasy is bare and minimal; the walls are unpainted plaster, or the wallpaper is peeling; the heat is faulty or not there; there are books stacked on the floor. It looks this way because it’s Paris struggling out of the deprivation and destruction of a world war, or New York soldiering on through the Depression, living in the wreckage of 1920s glamor. The writer spends hours in cafes, working and drinking, because the cafes are heated and the apartment is not. The aesthetic of this fantasy is permanently frozen in the first half of the 20th century, in the cities (and occasionally the beach resorts near cities) of Europe and the United States. The reason the fantasy writer lifestyle is set in such a particular time and place is that the interwar and postwar American writers who went to Europe for cheap rents have exerted a massive influence on the American idea of what literature is. Who casts a longer shadow across American fiction and curricula than Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Baldwin?

While considering the specificity of these images, recently, something came to me: It’s an Anthropologie catalog.

For years I got Anthropologie catalogs even though I had never bought anything from them. I requested the catalogs from their website, and signed up again every time I moved. The catalogs are beautiful, and they gave me that slightly doubled feeling that you get, as a consumer, when you encounter marketing that understands your desires better than you would like to admit. You resent the presumption but are compelled by the material.

The girls of the Anthropologie catalog flit through a perpetually wrecked version of Europe; they lounge in decaying colonial hotels in the Caribbean and Southeast Asia. The war has always just ended. Stretched canvases lurk in the background. The settings are grand but derelict, suggesting that a quirk of history has made them available to you, the ordinary person. “This old place?” the Anthropologie girls say, gesturing at a ruined terrace overlooking the Adriatic Sea. “It’s falling apart, you can stay here for a song.”

That was the reality that Americans encountered in Europe after World War I. It’s easy to forget that Hemingway and the rest went to Paris because it was cheaper than staying at home, and that it was cheaper because a catastrophic war had just laid waste to the continent. These writers produced so much material about each other, in fiction and in letters, that they accidentally crystallized a specific time and place in the American imagination as the essence of what a creative life looks like. This was not only a setting: it was a particular economy. Not only was rent cheap, but print was still the king of mass media. It was possible, for a brief moment in time, to make a living selling pieces to magazines. As a result, the image of the writing life created in this period includes no non-writing day jobs whatsoever. Nobody teaches; nobody is a nurse or a bank clerk, a receptionist, a soldier. Writers write, and that’s it. They are free to keep odd hours, travel cheaply by rail, drink more than they should, and become overly involved in doomed relationships. No one has to get up in the morning.

  “This fantasy image does us a disservice. It leaves us with no model to follow when we try to integrate art-making with functional lives.”

  This aspect of the fantasy is present in the Anthropologie catalogs too. I challenge you to look at these catalogs and integrate the images presented with the notion of having a job in any conventional sense of the word. Now, you may be objecting. “What do you mean? Do you expect them to show people commuting in the clothes? Washing out the coffee maker in the breakroom? Wearing a headset?” I don’t, of course. But consider a point of comparison: the equally mighty J.Crew catalog. J.Crew also shows beautiful young women wearing their clothes, occasionally in lovely destinations, but there are fewer of these location shoots and more images of models on white backgrounds, which the consumer can easily project into her own day-to-day life. More importantly, J.Crew actually sells clothes that a person could wear to a job that is high-status enough to pay for said clothes: wool pencil skirts, silk blouses, tidy trench coats, most of it in subdued colors and prints. The photos of Palm Springs or wherever have the aspirational gloss of a nice vacation taken by a rising partner at a whiteshoe law firm.

Anthropologie girls, on the other hand, are loaded with beads, fringe, eyelet lace, and bright prints; their natural modes are the sundress and the cape. You could wear these clothes to work if you were a kindergarten teacher or a a choreographer, but in neither case would you make enough money to buy them. In January 2018, the landing page at J.Crew features a sheath dress called the “Résumé,” while the landing page at Anthropologie shows a woman in a fringed top and white shorts sitting in golden-hour light on some kind of ancient parapet. The brand presents the eternal bohemian enigma: so much travel, so much leisure, with no plausible gesture toward the making of money at all. Trust fund, the images whisper. Or, alternately: brilliant mid-century writer, paid so well that she is never pressed for time. She stops off in Trieste, files some copy at the Western Union office, waits for her money to be wired in, and gets on the train again.

This fantasy image does us a disservice. It leaves us with no model to follow when we try to integrate art-making with functional lives. That period when a person could make a living writing fiction for periodicals was a blip, and it’s over; we’ve long since returned to the baseline, which is that the vast majority of fiction is written around and beside a whole lot of other work, and it’s the other work that pays the rent. As such, there is no writer’s lifestyle; your lifestyle is determined by what that other work is. I’m baffled when I come across interviews where writers laughingly allude to the solitude, say, or the introspection of the novelist’s life. No matter how solitary or introspective you are while you’re writing novels, you are likely spending many more hours each week at another job, or commuting, or raising kids, or trying to keep your house clean. I spend more time on the subway each week than I spend writing, and I’ve written two novels.

Those of us who are lucky enough to be living this fairly obvious reality can feel at times like we’ve failed. I have the pleasure of my work, but where’s my glamor? Why doesn’t it look the way I thought it would when I was 14? The cruel edge on the bohemian fantasy is that it pretends that leisure can be had for free. As every adult knows, leisure takes capital. All that peeling paint and cracked tilework creates a convincing impression of accessibility, at least to the naive teenagers that many of us were when we first started to imagine what our future lives as artists would look like. But it’s an illusion, the result of almost a hundred years of an economic fan-dance in the popular imagination.

Still, there’s a pleasure in moving from fantasy to reality. The fantasy writer is a traveler and an outsider, perpetually passing through. She wanders in pursuit of material and stops for a time in places where other writers have gathered, like flocks of  migratory birds. With no need for a regular job at a fixed address, the writer is shallowly rooted. The freedom is heady, but there’s a loss there too. The Anthropologie girl is never at home, unless she actually lives in that unpainted Scandinavian cabin with the reindeer in the yard, which seems unlikely, since she’s wearing a $300 sweater and suede shoes. She’s probably just visiting.

Setting aside the catalog fantasy means being able to interrogate the idea that the writer is always observing, standing at the edge of the party, never unpacking all his suitcases or renewing his lease. Most writers are, in fact, as deeply rooted in their communities as anybody else. But that’s hard to picture. We know how it feels, but what does it look like when the writer belongs to a health care workers’ union and is on the PTA? Has opinions about local taxes? Organized the repast when a neighbor died? How would it look if we pushed that rootedness to the center, valorized it, acknowledged it as the norm?

If I were speaking to my 14-year-old self, who had already fully assimilated the writer-lifestyle-fantasy from various sources, I would say this: First of all, good news. You’re going to write books. Second, you’re going to spend very little time on terraces or piazzas of any kind. There will be vintage tilework in your future, but it will be the lavender-and-black extravaganza of your circa-1986 bathroom in Queens. Your train travel will mostly take place on New Jersey Transit, which is nothing to sneeze at if you’ve ever enjoyed the views over the swamps of Secaucus, or criss-crossing the Delaware River on the way to Philadelphia. There will be cafes with huge flaking mirrors, because this is New York, but you won’t linger in them long because all the tables will be taken by people on laptops. When you stay up too late and sleep through your writing time, it will be because you were watching Bob’s Burgers online, not carousing with jazz musicians. Carousing will lose most of its appeal when you move to a train line that goes local after 10:30 pm. The important thing is, though, that you will get to write.

[nyslovesfilm]

Save the Date: Film Festivals and Events

Film Festivals take place in New York State throughout the year. The following is a list of upcoming festivals and industry events: Roosevelt Island’s Outdoor Summer Movie Series – Through Aug. 3 The Roosevelt Island Summer Movie Series, which kicks off at the Island’s Southpoint Park, offers  free admission and includes contests and prizes, food vendors, a state-of-the-art sound system, pre-movie music, and a 40-foot-premium screen. The festivities begin at 7 p.m. and the movies start at sunset. Visitors are encouraged to arrive early and bring their own lawn chairs and blankets. HBO Bryant Park Movie Nights – Through Aug. 12 Bring a blanket and sit on the Lawn to enjoy great food, friends and a feature film. Lawn and food and wine concessions open at 5 p.m.; the film begins at sunset. Movie Nights are presented by Netflix with support from Chandon and Vulture. Rooftop Films – Through Aug. 23 The Summer Series is officially here—explore the city with NYC's largest outdoor film celebration. Your membership will provide you with free and discounted Summer Series tickets, priority entry at screenings, invitations to special events and first-access to Summer Series tickets. Movies With a View in Brooklyn Bridge Park – Through Aug. 29 There is no better place to be on a hot summer night than watching a classic film and enjoying the breeze off the East River with the dazzling Manhattan skyline before you. This year's theme is "Better the Second Time Around" and will feature popular films shown over the series' history. Long Beach International Film Festival – July 31-Aug. 3 The Long Beach International Film Festival (LBIFF), an annual international film festival founded in 2012, takes place in Long Beach and in Rockville Centre. LBIFF celebrates the art of storytelling through cinema. The festival presents shorts, fiction and documentary formats with a  mission  to exhibit films that convey a fresh voice and differing perspectives. New York City International Reel Film Festival – July 31-Aug. 1 The New York City International Reel Film Festival screens the best of today's independent cinema. NYCIRFF is held annually at the legendary Anthology Film Archives in Manhattan, home to celebrated filmmakers such as Andy Warhol, Jonas Mekkas, and Stan Brakhage. NYCIRFF is particularly interested in maverick filmmakers of any orientation, ethnicity, religion or country.  Hip Hop Film Festival NYC – Aug. 1-4 Out of over 5,000 festivals in the world, the Hip-Hop Film Festival is the only festival to focus on writers, directors and producers who grew up in the global culture of Hip Hop. This season the festival hosts more than 100 directors, producers and screenwriters from around the world, featuring every genre. It is also the only film festival that seeks to share the profits with the filmmakers selected to participate. Festival of Cinema NYC – Aug. 2-11 Festival of Cinema NYC is a competitive festival that accepts films and media of all lengths, genres and subjects. Awards in over 15 categories include Best Feature and Short Narrative, Best Documentary, Best Animation, Music Video & Experimental and Best Web Series. Audience choice for Feature and Short film are also awarded.  Lucille Ball Comedy Festival – Aug. 7-11 The Lucille Ball Comedy Festival, an annual festival that takes place in Jamestown, realizes Ball’s vision of a comedy festival supporting rising comedians in her hometown.  In the 1980s, Ball worked with the Arts Council in Jamestown to develop the festival, but  The festival, started in 1991,   attracts thousands of Lucy fans and contemporary comedy lovers alike. Capitolfest – Aug. 9-11 Capitolfest is a celebration of classic films of the silent and early talkie eras. All movies are shown in the Capitol Theatre, a 1928 movie palace, and the silent films on the bill feature live accompaniment on the Capitol’s original installation Moller theater organ. The aim of Capitolfest is to recreate the experience of seeing these 80-110-year-old films when they were new. New York Latino Film Festival – Aug. 12-18 Come partner with the country’s leading Latino/Multicultural film and digital conference. The New York Latino Film Festival offers customizable, dynamic and activation friendly venues and one of a kind events and tailored programming to connect with your brand. With long-term partners, a loyal, global community of fans and followers along with authentic engagement of film lovers, celebrities, influencers, millennials and non-millennial, all familia! The festival is a cultural entertainment event unlike any other.  Central Park Film Festival – Aug. 13-15 Join us for the 2019 Central Park Conservancy Film Festival, which will be hosted in Central Park in recognition of the Conservancy’s ongoing commitment to the public. Flame Con – Aug. 17-18 Flame Con, the world’s largest queer comic con, returns for its fifth year—featuring a two-day comics, arts and entertainment expo, showcasing creators and special guests from all corners of the LGBTQ fandom. It features thoughtful discussions, exclusive performances, screenings, cosplay, and more! Geeks of all types are invited to attend and celebrate the diversity and creativity of queer geekdom and LGBTQ contributions to pop culture.  New York State Fair Drone Film Festival – Aug. 21-Sept. 2 The NYS Drone Film Festival is dedicated to educating audiences and empowering filmmakers and companies around the world to tell their stories with the use of drones. Amateur, professional, students and companies worldwide are invited to enter their films or photographs. Our mission is to help educate the public about the many positive and beneficial ways drones are being used to better society and capture the panoramic beauty of our planet. This competition is open to content filmed anywhere around the globe.  Fan Fiction Festival – Aug. 22 This event offers writers at all levels the opportunity to hear their scripts read aloud using professional actors and showcased online for thousands to see. It gives the writer the opportunity to have their fan fiction read by professionals and showcased to the industry and world. Writers will receive full feedback on scripts by our established reading committee. Brooklyn Women’s Film Festival – Aug. 22-25 Brooklyn Women’s Film Festival is a female-focused film festival, run by women, about women, and for everyone. BWFF showcases films made by female writers and/or directors and gives special preference to films that contain women in key creative roles. Our films are fierce, edgy, and relevant. Trekonderoga – Aug. 23-25 Star Trek original series set tour weekend in Ticonderoga offers Trek fans events and tours of the original series set rebuilt by super Trek fan James Cawley. The sets are complete recreations built using the original blueprints, hundreds of hours of serious research and thousands of photographs – both period images and images culled from extensive review and capture from the original episodes.  Village of Brewster Film Festival – Aug. 23-Sep. 3 This festival brings high quality, independent film to Putnam County and introduces new stories, new ideas and new dialogue through films, panels, and studies. Started in 2012 on one night and on one lawn, the festival has grown to be a weeklong event with other programming throughout the year. Coney Island Film Festival – Sept. 13-15 The mission of the Coney Island Film Festival is to bring people together to celebrate the power of independent film through cinema and the Coney Island experience. We also aim to provide the South Brooklyn neighborhood of Coney Island with an educational and cultural experience that enriches the lives of its citizens and contributes to the local economy. WilliFest – Sept. 14 Now an online competition, the Williamsburg International Film Festival was established to provide a platform for the creative visions of today's emerging artists of all disciplines. IFP’s Independent Film Week – Sept. 15-20 IFP continues to champion the future of storytelling by connecting artists across various media disciplines with essential resources at all stages of their career and projects’ development. IFP fosters a vibrant and sustainable independent creative community, represents a growing network of storytellers around the world, and plays a key role in developing 350 fiction and nonfiction works each year. Niagara Falls International Film Festival – Sept. 18-21 The Niagara Falls International Film Festival (NFIFF) invites filmmakers, young and old, from all over the globe to one of the world’s most majestic and historic locations. The NFIFF captures the essence of what filmmaking is all about and the essence of the filmmakers themselves. Urbanworld Film Festival – Sept. 18-22 Urbanworld is a five-day festival, anchored in film, showcasing narrative and documentary features, short films, spotlight screenings and conversations, and live staged screenplay readings. The festival’s Urbanworld Digital track convenes industry experts sharing insights on the evolving landscape of content creation, financing, distribution, and marketing, all through the lens of digital opportunity. Big Eddy Film Festival – Sept. 20-22 Like the pool of water in the Delaware River that inspired its name, the Big Eddy Film Festival flows against the main current, providing a thoughtful and entertaining viewing experience for the Catskills, Delaware and Hudson River Valleys, and beyond. It aims to advance the traditional art of storytelling by showing the newest and best independent films from around the world and our own backyard. Revolution Me Film Festival  – Sept. 20-22 The non-profit Revolution Me Film Festival brings you a new generation of filmmakers. It is important for every artist of every culture to stand for something in their own unique way, to creating stories that can change the world.  Manhattan Shorts Festival – Sept. 26-Oct 6 Manhattan Shorts is not a touring Festival; rather, it is an instantaneous celebration that occurs simultaneously across the globe, bringing great films and great artists to great venues and allowing the audiences to select their favorites.  New York Film Festival – Sept. 27-Oct. 13 As an independent constituent of the world’s foremost performing arts center, Film at Lincoln Center presents year-round programming that includes premieres of new films from an international roster of established and emerging directors, major retrospectives, in-depth filmmaker talks, and high profile events.

[worldfootprints]

Benjamin Franklin gestured dramatically toward the moldering gravestone of the Revolutionary War soldier. “And then,” he proclaimed, pausing for effect, “He killed ‘im dead!” Twelve adults and a handful of children stared at him wide-eyed as he finished the dramatic account of the Yankee soldier’s death. “Follow me, I will take you to Old North Church and the site of the Boston Massacre.” He whipped Paul Revere’s woodcutting of the Boston Massacre out of a pocket and displayed it with a flourish. A camera flashed. Benjamin Franklin posed for a second photo.

Obviously, our downtown Boston tour guide was not actually Benjamin Franklin. To be honest, he wasn’t even pretending to be—although I thought the tour company was missing out by not taking advantage of the fact that this man was the spitting image of the famous figure. Eleven-year-old me soaked in every aspect of the spooky graveyard tour, trying to pretend I was fending off the October chill with a deerskin coat rather than a windbreaker and imagining what life might have been like long before Boston became characterized by skyscrapers of chrome and glass. Even after a decade and a half, the memory of this adventure in Boston is clear in my mind.

History Road Trips

Boston was the first stop on our family’s history tour of the East Coast, our annual family “field trip.” Instead of the summer vacations to the beach, we took autumn trips to historical or geological sites around the United States. One thing my sister and I loved about the trips is that they counted as school days. This was one of the many perks of being homeschooled, although it didn’t mean we got to skip out on finishing our math workbooks! Just because the trips were considered “school” didn’t mean they were boring. My mom, a teacher, and my dad, a geology aficionado, built up our expectations of the trip through a semester of historical fiction, vivid storytelling, period-accurate toys, movie nights, and projects both recreational and educational. By the time we arrived on the East Coast from Arizona, we felt like we were old friends with George Washington and Paul Revere. We were excited to see everything, and the opportunity to spend money we earned by memorizing geography facts certainly didn’t dampen our enthusiasm.

Statue of Paul Revere in Boston.

There are many benefits to taking an educational East Coast vacation. First, it’s fun! Both my sister and I were voracious readers, and my love of history mixed with her interest in photography set the stage for fun on our East Coast road trip. However, touring the history of the East Coast can be a blast even if you or your kids aren’t particularly enamored with books or dusty artifacts. Creepy graveyard tours will excite Ghostbusters wannabes, art lovers will revel in the many museums, foodies will find Heaven on Earth in fine New England eateries, movie buffs will enjoy the many film settings, and the mischievous among us will get a kick out of trying to make Plimoth Plantation actors break character. There’s so much to see and do!

Secondly, of course, a tour of the United States’ roots provides a rich educational opportunity. Experience this region’s history, government, art, geography, marine life, architecture, music and more in real life, and you’ll never see them the same way again. Take your kids on a trip like this, and they’ll have to try to fail social studies tests in the future. There’s just nothing like reading original documents or seeing historical sites in person.

Points of Interest on an East Coast History Tour

When touring the East Coast, why not start where the Revolutionary War began? Boston is not only the birthplace of the American Revolution, but it’s also a great northerly point to start at so you can work your way south. You can see pretty much all of Boston’s history if you take the Freedom Trail. Squint your eyes a bit, and you can almost block out the rush of traffic to imagine 18th Century crowds moving through the cobbled streets. The urban path leads past nearly twenty historic sites, including Boston Common, Granary Burying Ground, old North Church, and the USS Constitution. Don’t forget to see where the Boston Tea Party took place at Boston Harbor. If you want to enjoy some scientific excursions, the MIT Museum and Boston Aquarium are rather impressive. Of course, you can’t leave Massachusetts without a visit to the settlers and Natives at Plimoth Plantation.

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Heading south from Boston, you can stop in Fort Griswold Battlefield State Park in Connecticut on your way to New York City. Once in NYC, you’ll have to pick your favorite attractions! I recommend bypassing the Statue of Liberty to tour Ellis Island, although if you’re short on time, you can view both from a distance by taking the Statin Island Ferry across the harbor. If your heart is set on seeing a Broadway play while you’re in Manhattan, you can keep with your historic theme by getting tickets to Hamilton. Of course, you can’t miss the chance to get a glimpse of the Chrysler Building, the Flatiron Building, or the Brooklyn Bridge, but don’t forget to have some fun on the century-old Coney Island Cyclone roller coaster.

View of Ellis Island

Philadelphia, Delaware and D.C. Sites

Emerge from the lightning-speed pace of New York City life into the antique air of historic Philadelphia. Thanks to National Treasure, you might already be pretty familiar with the major attractions: The Liberty Bell, Washington Square, Old City Hall, and Independence Hall. Depending on your interests, you might also like Battleship New Jersey or Morris Arboretum.

Delaware, as the nation’s first state, certainly deserves a quick visit, which can be achieved with a visit to Fort Delaware. From there, head to Washington, D.C., where you’ll wish you had more time to explore, no matter how long you stay. Where do you even begin? Well, the National Mall is a good place to start. You can burn a lot of calories walking from the White House to the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the Capitol, and the various Smithsonian Museums. You might not have time for all the Smithsonian Museums, but you can pick your favorites. I was a fan of the Air and Space Museum and the National Portrait Gallery. After all that walking, you can try to spot senators while refueling at some of the fancier restaurants, like 1789, a popular institution named for the year the Constitution was adopted and offering an 18th-Century experience. If you can plan ahead, book a tour of the White House or your representative’s office. Finally, end your road trip with a jaunt down to George Washington’s estate, Mount Vernon in Virginia.

When you walk the streets of the historic East Coast, the past comes alive! Next time you open an American history book or watch a documentary, you’ll be able to say that you were there. From the centuries-old brick of Boston to the sprawling countryside of Virginia, there’s no better way to learn about the roots of American culture.

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East Coast History Road Trip Benjamin Franklin gestured dramatically toward the moldering gravestone of the Revolutionary War soldier. “And then,” he proclaimed, pausing for effect, “He killed ‘im dead!” Twelve adults and a handful of children stared at him wide-eyed as he finished the dramatic account of the Yankee soldier’s death.

[beckylower]

Henry Flagler is an icon of late 19th and early 20th century Florida history. A county, a beach, streets, buildings, museums, businesses, bridges, and a college all bear his name. As a Gilded Age industrialist and speculator, Flagler made and lost several fortunes before uniting with J.D. Rockefeller in the founding of Standard Oil. By 1872 Standard Oil was the largest producer of refined product yielding 10,000 barrels per day. Standard Oil moved its company headquarters from Cleveland to New York City in 1877 and Flagler and his wife, Mary, and their young son took up residence at their grand new home at 509 Fifth Avenue.

  Their happiness was not to last, however, for Mary suffered from lifelong ill health, which worsened in 1878. Her doctors prescribed a warmer climate and sunshine, so Henry took his family to Jacksonville, Florida for the winter. Only three years later, Henry was left a widower. He married Mary’s former caregiver, Alice Ida Shrouds, in 1883 and took his new bride to St. Augustine where they found the nation’s oldest city to be charming and quaint, but seriously lacking in adequate lodging facilities and transportation systems. Flagler decided to correct those inadequacies. He became so enamored of the state that he gave up his day-to-day responsibilities at Standard Oil to concentrate on opening Florida’s east coast to development. His foresightedness anticipated the tourist mecca that Florida is today. His greatest contributions to the state’s growth were the building of lavish hotel resorts like The Breakers in Palm

The Breakers, originally called The Palm Beach Inn.

Beach, the founding of agricultural industries, and the acquisition of the Jacksonville, St. Augustine, & Halifax Railroad, which he would rename the Florida East Coast Railway. It is not an exaggeration to call him the father of modern Florida. By extending railway service first to Palm Beach, then on to the saltwater marshes that would become Miami, and ultimately to Key West, he opened south Florida and made possible the Florida Land Boom of the 1910’s and 20’s.

Henry Flagler seated beside his private railcar at the Palm Beach Depot

Early in the marriage, Alice Ida began exhibiting signs of mental illness and Henry ultimately had her committed to an institution in 1885. Henry continued his building and development of Florida, bringing jobs and money into the state. He used his wealth and influence to have a bill passed by the Florida Legislature declaring incurable insanity grounds for divorce because he had fallen in love with a young singer and pianist, Mary Lily Kenan. She was 24; he was 70. He married for the third and final time in 1901 during the height of his Florida development and expansion period.

As a wedding gift to his bride, he hired architects John Carrère and Thomas Hastings to design and construct Whitehall, a 75 room, 100,000 square foot Beaux Arts mansion that looks west over the bay that separates Palm Beach from West Palm Beach. When the couple moved in on February 6, 1902, the New York Herald declared Whitehall to be “More wonderful than any palace in Europe, grander and more magnificent than any other private dwelling in the world…”

During their reportedly happy marriage, the Flaglers hosted lavish balls where young Mary would entertain their guests at the piano and the partying would continue into the wee hours. Henry and Mary would observe their guests enjoying the evening from gilded, brocade covered chairs that resembled thrones upon which European monarchs sat. One must assume the allusion was not lost upon their guests. One of the more interesting features of the house is the secret stairway that leads from a hallway just outside the ballroom to the second floor master bedroom. Being so much older than Mary, Henry would tire of festivities long before an evening drew to a close. He would make his escape discreetly via a nearly invisible door opening on the secret staircase. It was down these stairs that he fell, suffering injuries that led to his death on May 20, 1913 at the age of 83.

If one looks closely, the hidden staircase and secret door can be seen in the lower left in a hallway just outside the ballroom.

Whitehall is now the Flagler Museum. The website describes the house as follows.

Carrere and Hastings designed the exterior of Whitehall, the interior layout and completely controlled the design of the marble entrance hall and its grand double staircase. The façade of Whitehall is marked by massive marble columns and topped with a red barrel tiled roof. Built around the central courtyard, the house consists of two floors, an attic and abasement. Besides the grand public rooms on the first floor there are twelve guestrooms, house servants rooms on the west side of the second floor and guests servants rooms in the attic along the east side. Also included were a pantry and kitchen as well as private offices for Mr. Flagler and his secretary.

Whitehall was constructed on Brelsford Point, situated on the eastern bank of Lake Worth with Flagler’s Hotel Royal Poinciana located to the north and The Breakers Hotel to the east. Whitehall is surrounded by a highly decorated wrought iron fence, one of the most impressive fences of its period.

The New York firm of Pottier & Stymus designed and executed the interior look of the home. Pottier & Stymus decorated the interior of the house with period rooms in styles such as Louis XIV, Louis XV, Louis XVI, the Italian Renaissance, and Francis I.

Whitehall was built to rival the “cottages” of New Port, but with an aesthetic and design that took into account the pre-air conditioning subtropical climate. The house went through difficult times after Henry’s death. Mary Lily remarried and rarely visited Palm Beach. The house was ultimately sold to a group of investors that operated Whitehall as a hotel 1925-1959. The Whitehall website gives the details of its evolution to museum.

In 1959, the entire building was in danger of being razed. Henry Flagler’s granddaughter, Jean Flagler Matthews learned of this and formed a nonprofit corporation, the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum, to purchase the property in 1959. The following year, Whitehall was opened to the public with a grand “Restoration Ball” on February 6, 1960.

Henry Flagler’s private Railcar No. 91 is exhibited in the Museum’s Flagler Kenan Pavilion. Built in 1886 for Flagler’s personal use, the railcar was acquired by the Museum in 1959 as an artifact of Florida history and an important part of Flagler’s story. In 1967, much research was done to restore Railcar No. 91 to its appearance during Flagler’s day. Since then, new information about the original appearance of the railcar has become available from the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, the Delaware State Archives and the Hagley Museum and Library. These documents, including the original shop order for Railcar No. 91, are the basis for its current conservation.

The interior and exterior of Railcar No. 91 car have been restored to the original 1912 appearance, when Flagler traveled by this railcar along the Over-Sea Railroad to celebrate this phenomenal engineering feat and the completion of the FEC Railway from St. Augustine to Key West.

Today, nearly 100,000 people from around the world visit the Flagler Museum each year.

Take a Virtual Tour of Whitehall

  Gallery

      Further Reading

http://historicpalmbeach.blog.palmbeachpost.com/2002/10/09/many-places-named-to-honor-flagler/

https://flaglermuseum.us/history/flagler-biography

https://www.flaglermuseum.us/history/whitehall

http://www.miamighostchronicles.com/stranger-than-fiction/henrys-doomed-wives

Linda Bennett Pennell is an author of historical fiction set in the American South or about Southerners traveling far from home. While she writes about the land of her birth, anything with a history, whether shabby or regal, ancient or closer to our own day, has fascinated her since early childhood. This love of the past and the desire to create stories of it probably owes much to her Southern roots.

Southern families are filled with storytellers who keep family and community histories alive. It is in their blood and part of their birthright. Linda’s family had many such yarn spinners who entertained the family on cold winter evenings around her grandmother’s fireplace and during long summer afternoons on her wraparound porch. And most important of all, most of those stories were true.

Click here to connect with Linda and find out more about her writing.

    Whitehall: a Castle Built for a Trophy Bride Henry Flagler is an icon of late 19th and early 20th century Florida history. A county, a beach, streets, buildings, museums, businesses, bridges, and a college all bear his name.