#gustav wied

[i12bent]

Valdemar Schønheyder Møller (Jan. 6, 1864 - 1905) was a Danish painter, who briefly studied at the Royal Academy before shifting to P.S. Krøyer’s school.

He befriended Vilhelm Hammerhøi there and assisted him with model photography - a new approach in Denmark in the 1880s.

In the 1890s Schønheyder Møller frequented Skagen (Anna Ancher painted his portrait), but soon relocated to Paris where he singlemindedly started painting canvases with sunlight as the dominant element. The locals called him Le peintre du Soleil…

Schønheyder Møller was bipolar and spent his last five years in a mental hospital in Aarhus, Denmark.

Above: Portrait of Gustav Wied, 1894 - oil on canvas (Skagens Museum)

[dent-de-leon]

The sea always welcomes him. Sunlight dapples soft cresting waves, the last rays of dawn dashed upon the jagged rocks and burning shores. He can just catch the faint shimmer of scintillating scales deep beneath the murky waters. Frilled dorsal fins breaking tide, barely skimming the surface. 

Kingsley hangs onto the railing and leans over the edge. He always did like to peer too far into the deep, straining to gaze past the bleeding red tide on a Ruidus flare night. The Eyes were red too. Nine of them. Always staring, ever watching, gawking back at him in unblinking silence, phantom mirages of a red moon haze. The sight of those ghastly crimson eyes stirs something in his once dead heart, a voracious hunger from long ago. The numbing ache of all consuming Emptiness.

He hears whispers. Snatches of slithering words, an otherworldly hiss in some primal, ancient tongue from when the gods still walked this world.

Gustav’s caravan was a dazzling array of color in the bleak, dreary isles of Darktow. Peeling paint of silver moons and golden stars, tinkling little crystals and curious baubles dangling from the roof, all clattering together in a lilting chime. And he always kept the swaying lantern lit, even on nights when Kingsley was far from home. Even when there was hardly any oil left to burn. (The whalers don’t come to Darktow anymore, Desmond says. “They’re all dead, hunted down just like the whales,” someone who looked not quite like Desmond said.) 

“I made a deal with the devil,” he joked once, with a wry grin that was far too grim. 

Kingsley passes a handful of gold coins to Gustav over drinks, and his showman’s smile wavers in the harsh firelight. 

“Where’d you get all that, lad?”

“You know, here and there. Been shipping crates for Fjord. Go up to that wizard for trade some nights. The money’s been good, enough to get by. Might even be able to buy a real ship soon.” 

He doesn't mention the shadows that stalk Fjord's ship, the crates of cargo that vanish on moonless nights at high tide, swallowed by the starving sea. They always lose something, that shipping company. A crate of unmarked cargo. The first mate's ring. And on the last miserable job, one of King's very own tarot cards--not that the card itself was stolen, no. It was wiped clean, as though it had never been touched by ink. What was once the image of a smiling woman, her face beaming under the moonlight, warm and playful. Never to be seen again. The only remnant of her left was an empty title, the scrawling script in his own hand. The Maiden.

No matter how long he stared at the empty card, he could no longer remember her face.

He doesn't speak of the Hunger in the captain's eyes, or the temple lying forgotten in the depths.

Gustav’s keen stare makes his skin crawl—far too much like that damn wizard. The face of someone who knows you better than yourself, who can pick out a lie and pry it apart like a fish flayed alive. 

“You shouldn’t waste all your money on another man’s debts," he says, inflection cold and empty.

“We’re circus folk, and we stay together. Remember? You taught me that.” 

The haggard ringmaster reluctantly pockets his coin. And when King slips a bit more into his coat before bed, he mercifully doesn’t say a word. 

Kingsley sets off again at dawn, sailing back toward the one beacon he's drawn to again and again.

The Magician is beautiful. Kingsley was struck by those eyes from the moment they met—bright blue as the Lucidian Sea, lovely enough for the fairest merfolk to envy. His voice a soft, lilting calm of midmorning tide and warbling shallows, heartbreakingly gentle and trusting. 

The wizard’s tower is a phantom, a trick of the fog. It only appears on certain nights, emerging from the mists like a passing ship on the horizon. There one minute, vanishing into endless dark sea the next, swallowed up by the crash of void black waves. (There’s night, there’s darkness. And then there’s the vast emptiness of eternal abyss, when you set sail at the witching hour. It’s different, that hungry, pitch black nothingness. Darker, deeper; an all consuming, oppressive presence that blankets the whole world in suffocating silence. If you let the lights go out, there’s nothing. Just…nothing. Just you. Alone in the dark with whatever lurks beneath.)

The wizard is always waiting when he drops anchor and tosses his rope to the dock. Caleb keeps the lanterns lit for him from dusk til dawn. A copper kettle whistling beside an ancient cauldron, luxurious blankets and a warm bed. 

Kingsley remembers his first time stumbling upon the phantom manor, crashing into the dock amidst roaring thunder and torrential rain, a dead man washed ashore until the wizard found him. 

“Your vessel is in no condition to travel like this, and the storm will not let up for hours yet. I…I know I am a stranger to you, but. Please, stay for the night in my tower. I have plenty of room to spare, and…I swear it is far safer than taking your chances at sea.” 

“You’d let me wait out the storm for the night? What’s the catch?” 

“Nein. I don’t require any repayment, just—I have watched many foolish sailors perish on these waters, and I would rather not see you die on my watch.” 

Caleb waits for him at the edge of the water, a hand ready to haul him to shore, globules of light floating out to sea, flickering softly.

“Kept you waiting, did I?” King quips with a crooked grin, taking the hand at once. 

Even with his darkvision, he can't quite see the wizard flush. But it's an easy enough thing to imagine.

“Well? What did you bring me?” 

“I...found a book,” King says. 

Dark leather, decrepit pages. Bloodied, torn apart journal entries, chronicling a life lost at sea. Drawings of those nine red eyes, over and over, their omniscient, all seeing gaze boring into him night after night.

His skin crawls, itching and burning beneath the black leather gloves he never takes off. He hasn't let the Magician see the Eyes that brand his own skin. Not yet. It felt like revealing that would be...some kind of betrayal. Like the man with such gentle, haunted eyes would break if he knew the kind of person Kingsley really was. That some monster had walked in his skin before--and he himself had invited them in.

At the mention of that damned book, Caleb remains carefully neutral. Though King swears his eyebrows raise just a bit. How rare, to see his interest truly piqued. A spark of desire beyond the usual amusement at little baubles and trinkets.

“Oh? Well, there are many curiosities that get swept out to sea.”

"You'll buy it, right?" Moonweaver, he just wants to wash his hands of the damn thing. 

"Of course. Name your price--I assume it isn't coin." 

"You know me. I want something a little more interesting," Kingsley purrs, tail arching in a lax curl. 

A story, a song--and once, a stolen kiss, the wizard beaming as Kingsley pulled him in.

He remembers, faintly, the echos of a half forgotten dream. A deal with the witch, the fierce hunger in her eyes as she reached for her prize, a relic lost to the ages, begging to be reclaimed. A whispered promise between the soft rustle of turning pages, the allure of power beyond his wildest imagining, the stolen paradise that lies within eternal dreams. 

[patchesproblem]

hey its the brick cocaine anon again no pressure whatsoever to respond. I'm just a beta male and can't interact publicly on twt Your mini Einstein/Tesla historical facts thread inspired me to add that Einsteins irl wife was also serbian(Mileva Marić) and that she was also a scientist much like Tesla himself I KNOW ITS A FAR FETCHED REACH but its a silly coincidence to me how in every universe (irl lame beta male Einstein + cute anime lesbian Einstein) Einstein has a thing for. serbian scientists specifically Its meant to be anyway sorry for atism

I want it to be known that I'm going to refer to you as the brick cocaine anon now. I'm sorry for it being your new name, but it's law now /lh/j/nm

FUN FACT!!! Writing this after AFTER the fact but Frederica Nikola Tesla shares MORE SIMILARITIES WITH MILEVA THAN TESLA HIMSELF

SO I started looking into her more and I've learned some very interesting things! I'm shoving this in after the fact before posting this and I can't be bothered to rewrite the next few paragraphs so sorry about that.

Welcome to history lessons with Tes! I'm your host, a mentally ill person who likes history and gets way too invested in dumbass things.

IRL Deadmen / Dead woman under the cut / similarities between Mileva and HI3 Tesla.

So this got me looking into her more out of curiosity, and I've learned a few interesting things.

So when writing Einstein, Planck, Karl, Schrodinger, and Edison they based their relationships off of how they actually viewed each other in real life.

Emma Planck = Max Planck

Karl Gustav = Carl Jung

etc. etc.

HOWEVER.. Tesla's a huge exception to this. Yes she was inspired partly by Nikola Tesla, however she actually takes way more inspiration from Mileva Marić than Tesla himself. Tesla was actually a very.. Interesting man.

Actually for the most part the main things they really took from irl dead man Tesla was his engineering skills, relationship with Edison, and the fact he felt humiliated and insulted by humanity, though that's a HEAVY stretch. I only bring that up since she's often clowned on for her experimentation, which will come up later because she shares that trait with Mileva.

I spoke about this on twitter, however the real Nikola Tesla and Albert Einstein actually did not care for each other. Tesla was a hater and was critical of EVERYONE. While Einstein had met with the others on multiple occasions, there's zero recording of Einstein and Tesla ever meeting. They didn't care about each others existence At All. It's possible they met due to the short distance between them, however again it was never recorded. I doubt they'd go out of their way to meet each other either honestly.

So in HI3 Tesla and Einstein met through Emma Planck, this is paralleled with Mileva and Einstein meeting through their schooling as well.

The two met and became Extremely Close Extremely Fast. She'd often study with him in private since he didn't particularly like attending lectures. They were inseparable as well. And well we know how Tesla and Einstein in HI3 are. In their letters there's a constant theme between them missing each other and them working better together.

Mileva excelled in experimental work, similar to Tesla. Einstein was also the only one to get his degree. Mileva never got hers just like Tesla. Even their ages line up (Mileva being 20 and Einstein being 17).

However, their similarities really end there for both HI3 Tesla and Einstein. The rest of the story is just. Depressing and fucked up, similarly to how every woman in history was treated. She got fucked over by him and was erased from history while he took the credit for her work. It's sad, honestly...

TLDR; Frederica Nikola Tesla shares more in common with Einsteins wife than Nikola Tesla himself. This is more than likely because they're HEAVILY implied to be in love (VN lines, as well as lines from IN GAME)

Idk I just find this interesting honestly.. It's funny how they took more inspiration from Einsteins first wife than the man she's named after. Especially with how they refuse to confirm them in game and prefer to make continue the implication that she's dating the child she raised since he was 8 lmao..

[wausaupilot]

Wausau area obituaries August 23, 2024

Obituaries are a community service courtesy of Helke and Brainard Funeral Homes.

Carol A. Hagen Carol Ann Hagen, age 79, of Wausau died on August 19, 2024 at Benedictine Living Community in Wausau surrounded by her loving family. She was Born in Chicago, IL on July 23, 1945 to Gustave and Pauline Overbeck. Her family moved to Rothschild, WI where she would spend most of her childhood. It was here that she met John Hagen. The two were united in marriage on April 23, 1966 in…

[blog-aventin-de]

Der Uhrmacher · Gustav Meyrink

Der Uhrmacher · Gustav Meyrink · Prag · Fiktion Abraxas

»Die? Richten? Damit sie wieder geht?« fragte der Antiquar erstaunt, schob seine Brille auf die Stirn und blickte mich verdutzt an; »warum wollen Sie eigentlich, dass sie wieder geht? Sie hat doch nur einen einzigen Zeiger ... und keine Ziffern auf dem Weiserblatt«, setzte er hinzu, die Uhr beim grellen Schein der Lampe versonnen betrachtend, »nur Blumengesichter, Tier- und Dämonenköpfe statt der Stunden.« Er begann zu zählen, sah mich fragend an: »Vierzehn? Man teilt den Tag doch in zwölf Teile ein. Hab’ noch nie ein so seltsames Werk gesehen. Ich rate Ihnen, lassen Sie sie wie sie ist. Schon zwölf Stunden im Tag sind schwer genug zu ertragen. Von diesem Zifferblatt die richtige Zeit abzulesen? Wer gäbe sich heute die Mühe. Nur ein Narr.« Ich wollte nicht sagen, dass ich ein Menschenleben lang ein solcher Narr gewesen war, nie eine andere Uhr besessen hatte, vielleicht deshalb sehr oft zu früh gekommen war, wo ich hätte warten sollen – und schwieg. Der Antiquar schloss daraus, ich wolle auf meinem Wunsch beharren, sie wieder gehen zu sehen, schüttelte den Kopf, nahm ein kleines Elfenbeinmesser und öffnete behutsam das edelsteinverzierte Gehäuse, darauf in Email ein Fabelwesen gemalt war, auf einer Quadriga stehend: ein Mann mit Frauenbrüsten, zwei Schlangen statt der Beine, einem Hahnenkopf und in der rechten Hand die Sonne, in der linken eine Peitsche. »Vermutlich ein altes Familienstück«, riet der Antiquar. »Erwähnten Sie nicht vorhin, sie sei diese Nacht stehengeblieben ? Um zwei Uhr? Der kleine rote Büffelkopf mit den beiden Hörnern bedeutet doch wohl die zweite Stunde?« Ich war mir nicht bewusst, etwas derartiges gesagt zu haben, aber tatsächlich war die Uhr in der vergangenen Nacht um zwei stehen geblieben. Mag sein, ich hatte davon gesprochen, jedoch: ich konnte mich nicht erinnern, ich fühlte mich noch zu angegriffen – ich hatte um dieselbe Zeit einen schweren Herzkrampf gehabt und geglaubt, ich müsse sterben. Im Wanken meines Bewusstseins hatte ich mich noch an den Gedanken geklammert: wenn nur die Uhr nicht stehen bleibt. Im Dämmer meiner schwindenden Sinne musste ich Herz und Uhr in den Begriffen verwechselt haben. Vielleicht denken Sterbende ähnlich. Vielleicht bleiben aus diesem Grunde so oft die Uhren in den Todesstunden der Menschen stehen? Wir kennen die magischen Kräfte nicht, die bisweilen einem Gedanken innewohnen. »Es ist merkwürdig«, sagte der Antiquar nach einer Weile, hielt sein Vergrößerungsglas in die Nähe der Lampe, so dass der blendende Brennpunkt scharf auf die Uhr fiel, und wies mir eingravierte Buchstaben auf dem inneren goldenen Deckel. Ich las: summa scientia nihil scire. »Es ist merkwürdig«, wiederholte der Antiquar, »diese Uhr ist ein Werk des Wahnsinnigen, ist in unserer Stadt gemacht worden. Ich glaube nicht zu irren. Es gibt nur sehr wenig solcher Stücke. Ich hätte nie gedacht, dass sie wirklich gehen könnte. Hab sie für Spielerei gehalten. Eine kleine Marotte von ihm, in alle seine Uhren die Devise zu schreiben: Höchstes Wissen, nichts zu wissen.« Ich begriff nicht recht, was er meinte; wer mochte der »Wahnsinnige« sein, von dem er sprach? Die Uhr war sehr alt, sie stammte von meinem Großvater, aber was der Antiquar soeben gesagt, hatte doch geklungen, als lebe der »Wahnsinnige«, aus dessen Hand sie hervorgegangen sein sollte, noch heute! Ehe ich fragen konnte, sah ich im Geiste – deutlicher und schärfer, als ging er durchs Zimmer – einen Mann durch eine Winterlandschaft schreiten, einen schlanken hochgewachsenen Greis, ohne Hut, mit vollem, im Wind wehenden schneeweißem Haar, der Kopf sonderbar klein in Kontrast zu der ragenden Gestalt, das scharfgeschnittene Gesicht bartlos, die Augen schwarz, fanatisch blickend und dicht beieinander stehend, wie die eines Raubvogels. In einem langen, verschabten, verschossenen Mantel aus Samt, wie ihn einst die Nürnberger Patrizier trugen, schritt er einher. »Ganz recht«, murmelte der Antiquar und nickte zerstreut, »ganz recht?« dachte ich bei mir. »Es ist ein Zufall«, wusste ich sofort; »leere Worte sind’s, nichts weiter. Ich habe doch den Mund gar nicht aufgetan. Er hat dies , ganz recht’ nur gebraucht, wie es so oft geschieht, wenn man einen soeben gesprochenen Satz bekräftigen will; es hat keinen Bezug auf den alten Mann, den ich als Erinnerungsbild gesehen habe, keinen Bezug auf den - Wahnsinnigen! Als ich, ein kleiner Junge damals noch, in die Schule ging, musste ich immer an einer langen, kahlen, mannshohen Mauer vorbei, die einen Park von Ulmen umschloss. Jahre hindurch, Tag für Tag war mein Gehen zum Laufen geworden, wenn mich der Weg daran entlang führte, denn jedes Mal packte mich eine unbestimmte Furcht. Vielleicht – ich weiß es heute nicht mehr – weil ich mir einbildete – oder gehört hatte – ein Wahnsinniger zuhause darin, ein Uhrmacher, der behauptete, Uhren seien lebendige Wesen …… oder irrte ich mich? Wäre es eine Erinnerung an ein Erlebnis aus meiner Schulzeit, wie konnte es sein, dass etwas, was ich wohl tausendmal gefühlt, bis zum heutigen Tag in meinem Gedächtnis schlummernd gelegen hatte, um jetzt erst mit solcher Lebendigkeit aufzubrechen?….. Freilich, wohl vierzig Jahre waren seitdem vergangen; aber gab das eine Erklärung?« »Vielleicht habe ich es in der Zeit erlebt, die meine Uhr mehr zeigte als eine gewöhnliche!« sagte ich belustigt. Der Antiquar blickte befremdet auf und starrte mich verständnislos an. Ich grübelte weiter und kam zur Gewissheit: die Mauer, die den Park umschließt, steht heute noch. Wem hätte daran gelegen sein können, sie einzureißen? Damals hat es doch geheißen, sie sei die Grundmauer einer Kirche, die später zu Ende gebaut werden sollte. So etwas zerstört man nicht! Vielleicht lebte auch der Uhrmacher noch? Sicherlich würde er meine Uhr, die ich so liebte, wieder richten können. Wenn ich nur wüsste, wann und wo ich ihm begegnet war? Es konnte vor kurzer Zeit unmöglich gewesen sein, denn jetzt war Sommer, und in der Erinnerung – soeben – hatte ich sein Bild in der Winterlandschaft im Geiste gesehen! Zu tief in Gedanken versunken, als dass ich der langen Erzählung hätte folgen können, in der sich, mit einem Male redselig geworden, der Antiquar erging, vernahm ich nur in Pausen einige abgerissene Sätze. Sie rauschten auf mich zu, verstummten und kamen wieder, wie brandende Wellen; dazwischen das Sausen in den Ohren; das Brausen des Blutes, das der alternde Mensch vernimmt, wenn er lauscht, und nur im Lärm des Tages vergisst; - das unablässig, drohende, ferne Sausen des aus den Schlünden der Zeit her langsam sich nähernden Geiers, Tod,….. Ich wusste kaum: war er es, der da, die Uhr in der Hand, zu mir sprach, oder war es der Mund jenes Wesens in mir, das zuweilen aufwacht in einem einsamen Herzen, wenn man verschlossene Schreine berührt, welche die vergessenen Erinnerungen heimlich behüten, damit sie nicht zu Moder verfallen? Manchmal ertappte ich mich dabei, wie ich dem Antiquar zunickte und dann wusste ich: er hat etwas gesagt, was mir bekannt gewesen war, aber wollte ich mir die Worte überlegen, so gelang es mir nicht, sie glitten nicht, wie es sonst gesprochene Worte tun, in nahe Vergangenheit hinab, aus der ich sie zurück fangen und mit dem Verstehen hätte betasten können, nein, sie erstarrten zu leblosen Gestalten, dem Ohr fremd und unfassbar, kaum, dass ihr Klang erloschen war. Ich begriff ihren Sinn nicht mehr; sie hatten sich aus dem Reich der Zeit in das Reich des Raumes verirrt und umstanden mich als tote Maske. »Wenn doch die Uhr wieder gehen wollte!« sagte ich laut in meiner Qual mitten hinein in die Rede des Händlers. Ich hatte damit mein Herz gemeint, denn ich fühlte, es wollte vergessen zu schlagen, und mir graute bei dem Gedanken, der Zeiger meines Lebens könnte plötzlich stehen bleiben vor einer phantastischen Blume, dem Gesicht eines Tieres oder eines Dämonen, wie der Weiser auf jenem Zifferblatt mit den vierzehn Stunden. Ewig gebannt wäre ich in geronnener Zeit. Der Antiquar gab mir die Uhr zurück – er glaubte wohl, ich spräche von ihr. Als ich durch die verödeten nächtlichen Gassen schritt, geradeaus, dann kreuz und quer über schlafende Plätze und an träumenden Häusern vorbei, von blinkenden Laternen geleitet und doch meines Weges gewiss, da musste ich denken, der Antiquar habe mir anvertraut, wo der Uhrmacher ohne Namen wohne, wo ich ihn finden würde und wo die Mauer stünde, die den Ulmenpark umschließt. Hatte er denn nicht gesagt, nur der Alte könnte meine Uhr wieder gesund machen? Woher wüsste ich es sonst: auch den Weg zu ihm musste er mir geschildert haben, und hatte ich selbst mir ihn auch nicht gemerkt – meine Füße schienen ihn genau zu wissen: sie führten mich hinaus aus der Stadt auf die weiße Straße, die zwischen sommerhauchenden Wiesen hinein in die Unendlichkeit lief. An meine Fersen geheftet, glitten die schwarzen Schlangen hinter mir drein, die das grelle Mondlicht aus der Erde gelockt hatte. Waren sie es, die mir die vergifteten Gedanken schickten: Du wirst ihn nimmermehr finden, er ist vor hundert Jahren gestorben! Um ihnen zu entrinnen, bog ich scharf ab nach links in einen Seitenpfad, und da tauchte auch schon mein Schatten aus dem Boden und schluckte sie in sich ein. Er ist gekommen mich zu führen, begriff ich, und es war mir eine tiefe Beruhigung, ihn so unbeirrbar und, ohne zu wanken, schreiten zu sehen; beständig blickte ich auf ihn hin, froh, des Weges nicht achten zu müssen. Allmählich kam jenes unbeschreiblich seltsame Gefühl wieder über mich, das ich als Kind gehabt, wenn ich für mich allein das Spiel spielte: mit geschlossenen Augen festen Schrittes vor mich hin zu gehen, unbekümmert, ob ich fallen würde oder nicht: -- es ist wie ein Losreißen des Körpers von aller irdischen Furcht -- wie ein Jauchzen des Inneren, wie ein Wiederfinden des unsterblichen Ichs, das da weiß, mir kann nichts geschehen! Da ließ der Erbfeind von mir ab, den der Mensch in sich trägt: der nüchterne, kalte Verstand, und mit ihm der letzte Zweifel, ich würde den, den ich suchte, nicht finden. Dann, nach langer Wanderung, eilte mein Schatten auf einen breiten, tiefen Graben – entlang der Straße – zu, schwand hinab und ließ mich allein; ich wusste: jetzt bin ich am Ziel. Warum hätte er mich sonst verlassen! Die Uhr in der Hand stand ich in der Stube dessen, von dem ich wusste, nur er allein kann sie wieder in Gang bringen. Er saß vor einem kleinen Ahorntisch und blickte durch eine Lupe, die an einem Kopfband vor seinem Auge befestigt war, regungslos auf ein glitzerndes winziges Ding auf dem hellgemaserten Holz. Hinter ihm an weißer Wand – im Kreis geordnet, wie ein großes Zifferblatt stand in verschnörkelter Schrift der Satz: summa scientia nihil scire. Ich atmete tief auf: hier bin ich geborgen!…. Der Bannspruch hält alles verhasste Denkensmüssen fern, jegliches Rechenschaftsfordern: wie bist du herein gekommen, durch die Mauer, durch den Park? Auf einem Bord, bezogen mit rotem Samt, liegen Uhren: wohl an die hundert – aus blauem, aus grünem, aus gelbem Email – juwelengeschmückt, graviert, gerippt, glatte und geperlte, manche flach, manche bauchig wie Eier. Ich höre sie nicht: sie zirpen zu leise, aber: die Luft, die über ihnen schwebt, muss lebendig sein, von dem unmerklichen Geräusch das sie erzeugen. Vielleicht rast dort der Sturm eines Zwergenreichs. Auf einem Postament steht ein kleiner Felsen aus fleischfarbenem Feldspat, geädert, bunte Blumen aus Halbedelstein wachsen daraus: mitten unter ihnen, als plane er nichts Böses, wartet der Knochenmann mit der Sense, sie abzumähen: eine 'Tödleinsuhr' aus romantischem Mittelalter. Wenn er mäht, dann schlägt er mit dem Griff seiner Sense auf die feine Glasglocke, die neben ihm steht, halb Seifenblase, halb wie der Hut eines großen Märchenpilzes. Das Weiserblatt darunter ist der Eingang zu einer Höhle, darin Zahnräder starren. Bis hinauf zur Decke des Zimmers, links und rechts sind die Wände mit Uhren behängt, mit Uhren: alte mit stolzen ziselierten Gesichtern, kostbar und reich, gelassen die Perpendikel schwingend, predigen sie mit tiefem Bass ihr ruhevolles Tack-Tack. In der Ecke steht eine Uhr in gläsernem Sarg, ein aufrechtstehendes Schneewittchen, tut, als schliefe es, aber ein leises rhythmisches Zucken mit dem Minutenzeiger verrät, dass es die Zeit nicht aus dem Auge lässt. Andere, nervöse Rokokodämchen – das Schönheitspflästerchen als Schlüsselloch – sind mit Zierrat überladen und ganz außer Atem, so trippeln sie sich ab, einander den Rang abzulaufen, und den Sekunden zuvor zu kommen. Daneben die winzigen Pagen, sie kichern dazu und hetzen: Zick - Zick, Zick. Dann eine lange Reihe Uhren, strotzend, in Stahl, Silber und Gold – wie schwergeharnischte Ritter; sie scheinen bezecht zu sein und zu schlummern, denn bisweilen schnarchen sie laut auf oder rasseln mit ihren Ketten, als ob sie mit dem Gott Kronos selbst einen Streit auszufechten gedächten, wenn sie aus ihrem Rausch erwachen. Auf einem Sims sägt ein Holzknecht mit Mahagonihosen und funkelnder Kupfernase die Zeit entzwei in Sägespäne…. Worte des Alten rissen mich aus meiner Beschaulichkeit: »Alle sind krank gewesen, ich habe sie wieder gesund gemacht.« Ich hatte seiner so gänzlich vergessen, dass ich zuerst glaubte, es sei das Schlagen einer der Uhren gewesen. Die Lupe an dem Kopfband saß, empor geschoben, jetzt an der Mitte seiner Stirn – wie das dritte Auge des Schiwa – und ein Funke glomm darin: Widerschein der Ampel an der Decke. Er nickte mir zu und hielt meinen Blick mit dem seinigen fest. »Ja, krank sind sie gewesen; sie haben gedacht sie könnten ihr Schicksal ändern, wenn sie schneller gehen oder langsamer. Sie hatten ihr Glück verloren an den Dünkel, sie seien die Herren der Zeit. Ich habe sie von diesem Wahn befreit und ihnen die Ruhe ihres Lebens wiedergegeben.« »So mancher findet, wie du, in den Nächten des Mondes im Schlaf den Weg aus der Stadt heraus zu mir, bringt mir seine kranke Uhr, klagt und bittet, ich solle sie heilen, aber am nächsten Morgen hat er alles wieder vergessen – auch meine Arznei.« »Nur die, die den Sinn meines Wahlspruches erfassen«, er deutet über die Schulter auf den Satz an der Wand, »nur die lassen die Uhren hier in meiner Obhut.« Ich ahnte dunkel: in dem Bannspruch lag noch ein Geheimnis verborgen. Ich wollte fragen, aber der Greis hob drohend die Hand: »Nicht wissen wollen! Lebendiges Wissen kommt von selbst! Dreiundzwanzig Buchstaben hat der Satz; sie stehen als Ziffern auf dem Weiserblatt der großen unsichtbaren Uhr, die eine Stunde weniger zeigt als die Uhren der Sterblichen, aus deren Rund es kein Entrinnen gibt« »Darum spotten die Verständigen:-- sieh da! der Wahnsinn! – sie höhnen, sie sehen die Warnung nicht: Lass dich nicht fangen von der Kreisschlinge Zeit! – sie lassen sich führen vom tückischen Zeiger Verstand, der ewig neue Stunden verspricht und immer nur alte Enttäuschungen bringt.« Der Alte schwieg. Ich reichte ihm mit stummer Bitte meine tote Uhr hin. Er nahm sie mit seiner schönen schmalen weißen Hand und lächelte kaum merklich, als er sie geöffnet und einen Blick hinein geworfen hatte. Behutsam tastete er mit einer Nadel in das Räderwerk und nahm die Lupe wieder vor. Ich fühlte ein gütiges Auge spähte mir ins Herz hinein. Nachdenklich betrachtete ich sein ruhevolles Gesicht. Wie habe ich mich nur – als Kind – so vor ihm fürchten können, fragte ich mich. Dann fasste mich ängstlicher Schrecken an: er, auf den ich doch hoffe und vertraue, ist nicht wirklich – jetzt, jetzt wird er verschwinden! Nein, zum Glück: nur das Licht der Ampel hatte geflackert und meine Augen zu täuschen versucht. Und wieder starre ich ihn an und grübelte: heute zum ersten Male hab ich ihn gesehen! Das kann nicht sein! Wir kennen uns doch seit….? Da durchzuckte mich Erinnerung wie ein heller Blitz: niemals war ich als Schulbub an einer weißen Mauer entlang gelaufen; niemals hatte ich mich vor einem wahnsinnigen Uhrmacher gefürchtet, der hinter ihr hausen sollte; das leere, mir unverständliche Wort »wahnsinnig« war’s gewesen, das mich geschreckt hatte in frühester Jugend, als man mir drohte, ich würde »es« werden, wenn ich nicht bald zu Verstand käme. Aber, der Greis da – vor mir -, wer war es? Auch das glaubte ich zu wissen: ein Bild – ein Bild, kein Mensch! Was konnte es anders sein! Ein Bild, das – eine Schattenknospe meiner Seele – in mir heimlich gewachsen war; ein Samenkorn, hatte es Wurzel gefangen, als ich zu Beginn meines Lebens in einem kleinen weißen Bett lag, an der Hand gehalten von der alten Kinderfrau, und ihre eintönigen Worte in den Schlaf hinüber nahm…. ja, wie hatten sie nur gelautet? Wie hatten sie nur gelautet?… Bitterkeit stieg mir in die Kehle, brennende Trauer: so war also doch alles haltloser Schein hier rings um mich! Vielleicht nur eine Minute noch und ich stehe – ein erwachter Schlafwandler – draußen im Mondlicht und muss wieder heimwärts wandern zu den verstandesbesessenen geschäftigen Lebenden – Toten in der Stadt! »Gleich, gleich ist’s vorüber!« hörte ich des Uhrmachers beruhigende Stimme, aber es gab mir keinen Trost; denn mein Glaube an ihn war aus meiner Brust genommen. Wie haben die Worte der Kindesfrau gelautet? – wollte, wollte, wollte ich wissen… -- Langsam, langsam tauchten sie mir wieder auf – Silbe für Silbe: »Bleibt in der Brust das Herz dir stehen, bring’s ihm nur; jede Uhr macht er wieder das sie geht.« »Da hat sie recht gehabt«, sagte der Uhrmacher gelassen, legt die Nadel aus der Hand, und im Nu zerstoben meine düsteren Gedanken. Er stand auf und hielt die Uhr fest an mein Ohr; ich hörte, sie ging – regelmäßig und genau im Takt mit dem Pulsschlag meines Blutes. Ich wollte ihm danken – fand die Worte nicht, erstickt von Freude und von – Scham, an ihm gezweifelt zu haben. »Gräm dich nicht!«, tröstet er, »es war nicht deine Schuld. Hab ein kleines Rad herausgenommen und wieder eingesetzt. Uhren wie diese sind sehr empfindlich, sie vertragen bisweilen die zweite Stunde nicht!« »Hier! Nimm sie wieder, aber verrate niemand, dass sie geht! Man würde dich sonst nur verhöhnen und dir zu Schaden trachten. Sie hat dir von Jugend an zu eigen gehört, und du hast an die Stunden geglaubt, die sie zeigt: vierzehn statt eins bis – Mitternacht, sieben statt sechs, Sonntag statt Werktag, Bilder statt toter Zahlen!« »Bleib ihr weiter treu, doch sage es niemand! Nichts ist dümmer, als ein eitler Märtyrer zu sein! Trage sie verborgen am Herzen, und in der Tasche trage eine der bürgerlichen Uhren, der staatlich geeichten, mit dem braven schwarzweißen Zifferblatt, damit du auch immer nachsehen kannst, wie spät es für die anderen ist.« »Und lass dich nie vergiften vom Pesthauch der Zweiten Stunde! Tödlich ist sie wie ihre elf Schwestern. Rot fängt sie an, verheißungsvoll wie Morgenrot, schnell wird sie rot wie Feuersbrunst und Blut. Die Stunde des Ochsen nennen sie die alten Völker des Ostens. Jahrhunderte versinken, und friedlich läuft sie ab: der Ochs pflügt.« Read the full article

[mrcowboytoyou]

50 Art Piece pt 1

This contains the first thirty. All sizes are in inches unless specified otherwise. Sequel post found here.

Prometheus Bound

Jacobs Jordaens

Oil on canvas

1640

96.5 x 70

Death on a Pale Horse

William Blake

Pencil, pen and ink, and watercolour

1800

15.5 x 12.2

The Acrobats

Gustave Doré

Oil on canvas

1874

88 x 72

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Viktor Vasnetsov

Oil on canvas

1887

28.3 x 53.5

Neptune's Horses 

Walter Crane

Oil on canvas

1892

34 x 85

Dream Idyll (A Valkyrie)

Edward Robert Hughs

Gouache and pastel on paper

1851-1914 (1902)

43 x 31

Sacro-Wi-Dance (sun dance)

Oscar Howe

Casein on paper

1965

28 x 22.5

Valentine

James Bidgood

Photography

1965 approx

31 × 31

Barberella

Boris Vallejo

Oil paint on board

1968

Size unknown

Paladin Charge

Roger Dean

Mixed media

1972

24 x 41

Trans-fixed

Chris Burden

Performance, documentary photographs

1974

Size NA

The Girl who Loved Horses

Paul Goble

Watercolour, ink, and crayon on paper with acetate overlay

1977

Size unknown

Rest Energy

Marina Abramović and ULAY

16 mm film, 4:07 min.

1980

Size NA

A Portrait of the Artist As a Shadow of His Former Self

Kerry James Marshall

Egg tempera on paper

1980

8 × 6 1/2

The Haunted House

Stephen Gammell

Pencil

1981

Size unknown

Fuga da New York

Renato Casaro

Tempera on cardboard

1981

27 x 39

Harold

Stephan Gammell

Pencil

1991

Size unknown

Untitled (Men in Cities)

Robert Longo

Charcoal, graphite and ink on paper

1984

49 1/2 x 37 3/4

Army of Darkness

Michael Husser

Oil painting on a wooden board

1992

Size unknown

Butterwings

Robin James

Coloured pencil

1993

Size unknown

Recipes for Disaster

Gary Larson

Ink

1994

Size unknown

Arches Mist

Roger Dean

Oil on board

1996

48 x 72

The Weather Project

Olafur Eliasson

Semi-circular screen, a ceiling of mirrors, and artificial mist

2003

Size unknown

This Is Just So Emotionally Crippling

Billy Schenck

 Oil on canvas

2006

55 x 50

Officer of the Hussars

Kehinde Wiley

Oil on Canvas

2007

108 3/16 × 105 7/16

Cathedral Royal

Rafe Terry

Acrylic on panel

2008

 36 x 24

One Floor Up More Highly

Katharina Grosse

Soil, wood, acrylic, styrofoam, clothing, & acrylic on plastic

2010

25½ × 55 × 271 feet

Gnarled at Arches

Erin Hanson

Oil paint

2011

40 x 30

Hellblazer283

Simon Bisley

Acrylics on bristol board

2011

Size unknown

Loose Lips will Kill You

Billy Schenck

Oil on canvas

2012

36 x 36

[aeronis108]

200 Words A Day #29

*This is part 1 of the Baron 1898 story, the dive-coaster in the Efteling. I have translated a few important words, behind which are the Dutch names.*

-:-

1894...

It was a dark night and a man was traveling on his own. He had been wandering for a while and his feet had been hurting the last few miles.

He huffed and panted as he made his way through the swamp, he looked at the horizon.

What was that?

Light! A village! He had been saved!

The man was almost running by the time he entered the village.

He ignored the funny looks the residents kept giving him. He walked further with his head held high.

There was one boy who didn’t seem to look down upon him, but rather with curiosity. The young boy couldn’t be older than 14 summers old.

“Excuse me.” The man approached the boy. “Would you mind telling me where the nearest inn is?”

“Of course, sir!” The boy said. “I work at The Sundew, the only inn in Heathside! My father is the owner. I could take you there.”

The man nodded at him. “Thank you.”

“My name is Jochem, what’s yours.” The boy asked while leading the man to The Sundew.

“Gustave.”

“It’s good to meet you, Gustave!”

Gustave and Jochem entered the inn, the boy immediately greeted his father and explained the situation.

The innkeeper asked Gustave for his first and last name.

“Just Gustave, please.”

“Sir, I need your last name.” The innkeeper insisted.

“I can’t give it to you.” He smiled. “Just Gustave is fine.”

Jochem’s father raised an eyebrow with a sigh but signed his name as Gustave anyway. “All right, then, Sir. Room 8 is yours for the night.” He handed him a key with an eight imprinted on it. “Is there anything you need?”

“A hot meal and a bath would be nice.”

The innkeeper nodded once, then turned around to approach the cook working in the kitchen.

Her brown hair was tied back in a ponytail and her sparkling eyes were a dark hazel colour. She seemed to be around Jochem’s age, maybe a year older.

“Dorothy!” *Doortje in Dutch* “Prepare a meal and a bath for room 8, please!”

“Will do!” The girl yelled back.

The innkeeper looked back at the man in front of him. “It should be read in an hour or so.”

Gustave nodded at him, then sat down at a table and laid out his maps in front of him, studying.

The boy from earlier, Jochem, tried to sneakily look at what he was doing.

Gustave noticed and replied in an amused tone; “You could just ask, you know?”

“S-Sorry, Mr. Gustave.” Jochem hastily looked away.

“There’s nothing wrong with being curious, Jochem. Here, sit.” He patted at the seat next to him.

Jochem sat down and looked at the map. There was Heathside and Gustave had marked a route to the port of Antwerp.

“I need to get there tomorrow, only this route will take two days.” Gustave explained. “It will get me to South America, Dolores is waiting for me there.”

“Dolores?” Jochem asked.

Gustave smiled. “My betrothed.”

“Tomorrow, you say?” The boy pointed at a shady spot on the map. “If you take the Swampy Heath...” *De Zompige Heide in Dutch*

The inn fell quiet at Jochem’s words.

His father came over to them. “Jochem! You can’t actually mean to say what I think you are going to say!”

“Will that be faster?” Gustave asked.

“If you were to leave early in the morning, you would reach the port just before the evening would start.” Jochem said.

“The Swampy Heath is cursed!” One man yelled. “Cursed, I tell you! The Wailing Women would never allow someone to step foot on their land! Not to mention the Witch Hill!” *Heksenbult in Dutch* “Bagh! Is this you’ve raised your son, innkeeper?”

“I have been there loads of times.” Jochem argued. “Together with Dorothy. Nothing ever happened.”

“Dorothy?” Gustave asked.

“Yeah, we-we’re friends.”

Gustave looked at the boy’s father. “Perhaps if he were to join me. I would be able to make it to the port in time and leave to South America.”

The boy’s father pinched his nose. “Jochem?”

“I wouldn’t mind, honestly, father. I will be able to take him there.”

“Fine, on one condition: You will be back before it gets dark.”

“Of course.” Gustave answered. “I will make sure he will come back unharmed.”

Words: 719

[fagderolo]

not to like disassemble yr whole ship basis or w/e but molly left forehead kisses on no less than 3 members of the carnival and if i had to bet id say that gustav used that technique to help molly when he first arrived lmao

[readwebcomicsgdi]

It’s that time again!

Are you ready for some more webcomic recs! you better be because they are ready for you

Curse of the Eel By Jorge Santiago Jr.

Introverted, goth Connie is bullied. One day, she summons up an eldritch-like creature and her life changes forever.

Very traditional black-and-white Japanese Horror comic, I bought the books from Jorge at a convention recently and they’re REALLY fun to read on paper, but the entire thing is also up for free online! Spooky and gory the way you’d expect a Junji Ito comic to be, so do keep that in mind before you click through.

https://curseoftheeel.tumblr.com/

Tourist Unknown By Gustav Carlson

Tourist Unknown follows the various adventures of the Tourist, a woman trapped in a machine known as The Projector. This device sends her consciousness anywhere across the whole of space time, and then constructs a body made of unused local matter for her to inhabit. And it’s broken. Or set to shuffle. The Tourist isn’t really sure. Suffice to say she has no control of where she is going, nor how long she’ll be there. It’s a big universe and she is seeing it all one trip at a time

I found this one pretty recently so there may be some news I’m unfamiliar with; I THINK it’s still running despite what the archive says? It’s also not as long as you’d expect given the dates it’s been running; none of the completed arcs run more than 40 pages so don’t let the abbreviated archive spook you. I just had to include this one because it reminds me so much of Doom Patrol; it’s very comfortably in that category of like, “doing exactly what it wants On Purpose” that I love so much. Check this one out if you’re looking for something different!

https://www.touristunknown.com/

Next Town Over By Erin Mehlos

Mysterious and mechanically-inclined, Vane Black will pursue wanted rogue John Henry Hunter to the ends of the frontier ... with explosive and unfortunate results for anyone in their path.

Frontier fantasy full of steam, sorcery and secrets!

Next Town Over was doing Steampunk before it was cool, but to be honest I feel like it’s grown beyond that and it’s sort of a disservice to view it as solidly A Western or any particular genre because it’s gotten so goddamn comfortable with itself, which is one of my favorite things about webcomics. It’s also nearly finished! Settle in on a rainy weekend and treat yourself to the whole archive, then follow Erin on twitter so you can hop on board the next thing they do.

https://nexttownover.net/

Nox Hill?

This one is getting an abbreviated mention because uh, I can’t find anything official about it lmao. The main website only links to a comic twitter, which doesn’t link anywhere else, and there’s no plot summary or even any indication of who makes it beyond the name “Zee”. That said! The art is good, it’s running on its own website the artist obviously designed themself with specific intentions, and it seems like a fun haunted house story that’s just getting started. After some digging I found a link tree for the artist, which you can look at here.

https://noxhillcomic.com/

I’d also like to mention Cheap Thrills and Rigsby, WI by SE Case, which you have almost certainly heard of before and doesn’t need any help from me BUT I reread them both again recently and it’s a wonderful example of someone making their own work on their own terms, which is kind of the entire point of what I’m doing here. Rigsby is a “reboot” of Cheap Thrills so you don’t need to read them both, but in my opinion my experience with the story is better for having seen where it originated so it doesn’t hurt to check them both out in that order! I like webcomics y’all.

And as always, mine is here too:

Kidd Commander by Aria Bell

It’s a world at the mercy of uncaring gods, and Phineas Kidd is a heretic with a chip on her shoulder and enough fury to outshine a supernova. Armed only with aggressive enthusiasm (and an explosive left hook), Phineas sets out to gather up a merry crew and travel to Kairos Crossing to catch the sun, an urban legend that has tempted countless dreamers to a bloody end.

Kidd Commander is a romantic comic that’s mostly concerned with ambitious characters doing cool anime stuff while being subjected to trauma and dealing with said trauma! Rated T for lots of (cartoon) violence and swearing, and a good deal of irreverence for topics some folks might prefer to leave revered. If any of that sounds like it might make you uncomfortable this comic may not be suitable for you!    

http://kiddcommander.com/

If you’d like a comic (yours or otherwise) to end up in one of these, send me an ask or whatever and I’ll add it to my list of stuff to check out! The only requirements I have are I’d prefer for it to be a bit lesser known and it needs to be accessible in places other than tapas or webtoon because I am physically and emotionally incapable of engaging with either of those sites. Happy reading!

[lotuscayrp]

Our Faceclaim Master List!!!

Our most updated faceclaim list:

agatha chelsea

alanna panday

Aldo Londero

Alex Roe

alina nitschke

Amelia Zadro

amelie weissenberger

andrei king

Anna Kendrick

ash hardell

ava cantrell

Breana Rose Gonzales-Ochoa

bridget hollitt

casey jackson

celeina ann

Choi Siwon

daniel padilla

Darwin Gray

dawid harper

Drew Van Acker

ella cruz

elliot page

emily alyn lind

Emma Watson

erika tham

esther povitsky

Fola Evans-Akingbola

gabrielle wangs

garrett hedlund

Gustav Morstad

hannah zeile

harry shum, jr.

henri rudolph

Hero Fiennes Tiffin

isabela merced

jake zyrus

JayR Tinaco

Jennie Kim

jess conte

Jessica Yang

joceline somer tan

John Krasinski

Jorge Del Rio (Romero)

justin crichlow

katherine ouz

kelly aliandra

kimiko glenn

laura nodge

lauren donzis

lauro jesus morales

Liam Jay Ward

lily macapinlac

Lucas Bryant

madelyn cline

Madison Bailey

maia bliudnikas

maine mendoza

malcolm lindberg

mason temple

mat barzal

matthew pollock

maurice sinclair

Mike Mioduszewsky

mollee gray

moritz hau

Natalia Dyer

oliver brynnum

olivia holt

Orlando Bloom

paddy mitchell

Phoebe Tonkin

Pietro Boselli

rachel evancho

raissa machado

Rebecca Rittenhouse

Ruby Rose

sabrina carpenter

sadie sink

saige peterson

Samsara304

sarah marley

sarah tran

Scott Eastwood

sean odonnell

selena gomez

Simu Liu

Sophie Thatcher

Stephanie Medina

Stephen Amell

takako saito

thomas langhendries

vanessa merrell

veronica merrell

Vrix Gallano

wi ha-jun

william roepstorff

wolfgang novogratz

ylenia riniti

BUZZ BONUS!Follow the #lotuscayrp tumblr account and get a BONUS two faceclaims/characters to start the game with!

[pretty-ionic]

Hedy Lamarr

Actriz, ingeniera de telecomunicaciones e inventora cuyo glamour eclipsó sus otras facetas, dejó sus estudios de ingeniería para convertirse en actriz. La película que la llevó al estrellato en 1932, no pudo ser más polémica. Éxtasis, filmada en Checoslovaquia bajo la dirección de Gustav Machaty, fue el primer film en mostrar el rostro de una actriz, completamente desnuda, durante un orgasmo. Fue tachado de escándalo sexual y se prohibió su proyección en las salas de cine. Le llovieron censuras y condenas, incluida la del Vaticano.

Durante su mal matrimonio, donde se sentía completamente atrapada retomó sus estudios en ingeniería, su marido era uno de los hombres más influyentes de Europa y, antes de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, se dedicó a surtir el arsenal de Hitler y Mussolini, ella aprovechó  esto para aprender y recopilar información sobre las características de la última tecnología armamentística nazi. La vigilancia continua llegó a resultarle tan insoportable que decidió huir. Estando su esposo en un viaje de negocios, escapó por la ventana de un restaurante y huyó hacia Paris. No llevó más ropa que la puesta. Sólo cogió las joyas para conseguir el dinero que le permitiese alejarse de allí. La fuga fue angustiosa, los guardaespaldas de su marido la persiguieron durante días. Finalmente, logró llegar a Londres y embarcarse en el trasatlántico Normandie con destino a Estados Unidos. Allí coincidió con un viajero muy especial, el productor de películas Louis B. Mayer que le ofreció trabajo antes de llegar a puerto. La única petición era que se cambiase el nombre para que no se la relacionase con la película Éxtasis. De los nombres que le eligieron se quedó con el de Hedy Lamarr en memoria de la actriz del cine mudo Bárbara La Marr. Sobre las aguas del Atlántico Hedwig firmó su contrato con la Metro-Golwyn-Mayer. Hedy Lamarr, la actriz más glamurosa sobre las pantallas, había nacido.

Pero lo más importante es que cuando empezó la segunda guerra mundial ella quería aportar algo, por esto ella desarrolló la teoría del espectro ensanchado. Actualmente, los vestigios de aquella tecnología se hallan en los métodos de codificación de datos empleados en conexiones Wi-Fi, telefonía móvil y otros campos de la comunicación inalámbrica.

[mariacallous]

In the bleak mid-winter (Holst, arr. Wilberg) | Carols from King's 2020

[wausaupilot]

Wausau area obituaries December 6, 2023

Obituaries are a community service courtesy of Helke and Brainard Funeral Homes.

Obituaries are a community service courtesy of Helke and Brainard Funeral Homes. Frederick R. Lehrke Frederick R. Lehrke, age 89, passed away on December 3, 2023 at home in Rothschild.  Born October 22, 1934 to Gustave and Dorothy (Worthman) Lehrke in La Crosse, WI.  Fred grew up learning to love hunting and fishing on the Mississippi river and the bluffs of La Crosse.  Fred was a competitive…

[timeless-hollywood-classics]

Hedy Lamarr, born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler (November or September 9, 1914 – January 19, 2000), was an Austrian-American actress, inventor, and film producer. She appeared in 30 films over a 28 year career, and co-invented an early version of frequency-hopping spread spectrum communication.

Lamarr was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, and acted in a number of Austrian, German, and Czech films in her brief early film career, including the controversial Ecstasy (1933). In 1937, she fled from her husband, a wealthy Austrian ammunition manufacturer, secretly moving to Paris and then on to London. There she met Louis B. Mayer, head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studio, who offered her a Hollywood movie contract, where he began promoting her as "the world's most beautiful woman".

She became a star through her performance in Algiers (1938), her first United States film.[5] She starred opposite Clark Gable in Boom Town and Comrade X (both 1940), and James Stewart in Come Live with Me and Ziegfeld Girl (both 1941). Her other MGM films include Lady of the Tropics (1939), H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941), as well as Crossroads and White Cargo (both 1942); she was also borrowed by Warner Bros. for The Conspirators, and by RKO for Experiment Perilous (both 1944). Dismayed by being typecast, Lamarr co-founded a new production studio and starred in its films: The Strange Woman (1946), and Dishonored Lady (1947). Her greatest success was as Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949). She also acted on television before the release of her final film, The Female Animal (1958). She was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.

At the beginning of World War II, Lamarr and composer George Antheil developed a radio guidance system using frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology for Allied torpedoes, intended to defeat the threat of jamming by the Axis powers. She also helped improve aircraft aerodynamics for Howard Hughes while they dated during the war. Although the US Navy did not adopt Lamarr and Antheil's invention until 1957, various spread-spectrum techniques are incorporated into Bluetooth technology and are similar to methods used in legacy versions of Wi-Fi. Recognition of the value of their work resulted in the pair being posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.

Lamarr was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in 1914 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, the only child of Emil Kiesler (1880–1935) and Gertrud "Trude" Kiesler (née Lichtwitz; 1894–1977). Her father was born to a Galician-Jewish family in Lemberg (now Lviv, Ukraine), and was a successful bank manager. Her mother was a pianist, born in Budapest to an upper-class Hungarian-Jewish family. She converted to Catholicism as an adult, at the insistence of her first husband, and raised her daughter Hedy as a Catholic as well, though she was not formally baptized at the time.

As a child, Kiesler showed an interest in acting and was fascinated by theatre and film. At the age of 12, she won a beauty contest in Vienna. She also began to associate invention with her father, who would take her out on walks, explaining how various technologies in society functioned.

After the Anschluss, she helped get her mother out of Austria and to the United States, where Gertrud Kiesler later became an American citizen. She put "Hebrew" as her race on her petition for naturalization, a term that had been frequently used in Europe.

Still using her maiden name of Hedy Kiesler, she took acting classes in Vienna. One day, she forged a permission note from her mother and went to Sascha-Film, where she was hired at the age of 16 as a script girl. She gained a role as an extra in Money on the Street (1930), and then a small speaking part in Storm in a Water Glass (1931). Producer Max Reinhardt cast her in a play entitled The Weaker Sex, which was performed at the Theater in der Josefstadt. Reinhardt was so impressed with her that he arranged for her to return with him to Berlin, where he was based.

Kiesler never trained with Reinhardt nor appeared in any of his Berlin productions. After meeting Russian theatre producer Alexis Granowsky, she was cast in his film directorial debut, The Trunks of Mr. O.F. (1931), starring Walter Abel and Peter Lorre. Granowsky soon moved to Paris, but Kiesler stayed in Berlin to work. She was given the lead role in No Money Needed (1932), a comedy directed by Carl Boese. Her next film brought her international fame.

In early 1933, at age 18, Hedy Kiesler, still working under her maiden name, was given the lead in Gustav Machatý's film Ecstasy (Ekstase in German, Extase in Czech). She played the neglected young wife of an indifferent older man.

The film became both celebrated and notorious for showing the actress's face in the throes of an orgasm. According to Marie Benedict's book The Only Woman In The Room, Kiesler's expression resulted from someone sticking her with a pin. She was also shown in closeups and brief nude scenes, the latter reportedly a result of the actress being "duped" by the director and producer, who used high-power telephoto lenses.

Although Kiesler was dismayed and now disillusioned about taking other roles, Ecstasy gained world recognition after winning an award in Rome. Throughout Europe, the film was regarded as an artistic work. However, in the United States, it was banned, considered overly sexual, and made the target of negative publicity, especially among women's groups. It was also banned in Germany due to Kiesler's Jewish heritage. Her husband, Fritz Mandl, reportedly spent over $300,000 buying up and destroying copies of the film.

Kiesler also played a number of stage roles, including a starring one in Sissy, a play about Empress Elisabeth of Austria produced in Vienna in early 1933, just as Ecstasy premiered. It won accolades from critics.

Admirers sent roses to her dressing room and tried to get backstage to meet Kiesler. She sent most of them away, including an insistent Friedrich Mandl. He became obsessed with getting to know her. Mandl was a Viennese arms merchant and munitions manufacturer who was reputedly the third-richest man in Austria. She fell for his charming and fascinating personality, partly due to his immense wealth. Her parents, both of Jewish descent, did not approve, as Mandl had ties to Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini, and later, German Führer Adolf Hitler, but they could not stop their headstrong daughter.

On August 10, 1933, at the age of 18, Kiesler married Mandl, then 33. The son of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, Mandl insisted that she convert to Catholicism before their wedding in Vienna Karlskirche. In her autobiography Ecstasy and Me, Mandl is described as an extremely controlling husband. He strongly objected to her having been filmed in the simulated orgasm scene in Ecstasy and prevented her from pursuing her acting career. She claimed she was kept a virtual prisoner in their castle home, Castle Schwarzenau in the remote Waldviertel near the Czech border.

Mandl had close social and business ties to the Italian government, selling munitions to the country, and, despite his own part-Jewish descent, had ties to the Nazi regime of Germany. Kiesler accompanied Mandl to business meetings, where he conferred with scientists and other professionals involved in military technology. These conferences were her introduction to the field of applied science and she became interested in nurturing her latent talent in science.

Finding her marriage to Mandl eventually unbearable, Kiesler decided to flee her husband as well as her country. According to her autobiography, she disguised herself as her maid and fled to Paris. Friedrich Otto's account says that she persuaded Mandl to let her wear all of her jewelry for a dinner party where the influential austrofascist Ernst Stahremberg attended, then disappeared afterward. She writes about her marriage:

I knew very soon that I could never be an actress while I was his wife. ... He was the absolute monarch in his marriage. ... I was like a doll. I was like a thing, some object of art which had to be guarded—and imprisoned—having no mind, no life of its own.

After arriving in London in 1937, she met Louis B. Mayer, head of MGM, who was scouting for talent in Europe. She initially turned down the offer he made her (of $125 a week), but booked herself onto the same New York-bound liner as he. During the trip, she impressed him enough to secure a $500 a week contract. Mayer persuaded her to change her name from Hedwig Kiesler (to distance herself from "the Ecstasy lady" reputation associated with it). She chose the surname "Lamarr" in homage to the beautiful silent film star, Barbara La Marr, on the suggestion of Mayer's wife, Margaret Shenberg.

When Mayer brought Lamarr to Hollywood in 1938, he began promoting her as the "world's most beautiful woman". He introduced her to producer Walter Wanger, who was making Algiers (1938), an American version of the noted French film, Pépé le Moko (1937).

Lamarr was cast in the lead opposite Charles Boyer. The film created a "national sensation", says Shearer. Lamarr was billed as an unknown but well-publicized Austrian actress, which created anticipation in audiences. Mayer hoped she would become another Greta Garbo or Marlene Dietrich. According to one viewer, when her face first appeared on the screen, "everyone gasped ... Lamarr's beauty literally took one's breath away."

In future Hollywood films, Lamarr was often typecast as the archetypal glamorous seductress of exotic origin. Her second American film was I Take This Woman (1940), co-starring with Spencer Tracy under the direction of regular Dietrich collaborator, Josef von Sternberg. Von Sternberg was fired during the shoot, and replaced by Frank Borzage. The film was put on hold, and Lamarr was put into Lady of the Tropics (1939), where she played a mixed-race seductress in Saigon opposite Robert Taylor. She returned to I Take This Woman, re-shot by W. S. Van Dyke. The resulting film was a flop.

Far more popular was Boom Town (1940) with Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert and Spencer Tracy; it made $5 million MGM promptly reteamed Lamarr and Gable in Comrade X (1940), a comedy film in the vein of Ninotchka (1939), which was another hit.

She was teamed with James Stewart in Come Live with Me (1941), playing a Viennese refugee. Stewart was also featured in Ziegfeld Girl (1941), in which Lamarr, Judy Garland, and Lana Turner played aspiring showgirls; it was a big success.

Lamarr was top-billed in H. M. Pulham, Esq. (1941), although the film's protagonist was the title role played by Robert Young. She made a third film with Tracy, Tortilla Flat (1942). It was successful at the box office, as was Crossroads (1942) with William Powell.

She played the seductive native girl Tondelayo in White Cargo (1942), top-billed over Walter Pidgeon. It was a huge hit. White Cargo contains arguably her most memorable film quote, delivered with provocative invitation: "I am Tondelayo. I make tiffin for you?" This line typifies many of Lamarr's roles, which emphasized her beauty and sensuality while giving her relatively few lines. The lack of acting challenges bored Lamarr, and she reportedly took up inventing to relieve her boredom. In a 1970 interview, Lamarr also remarked that she was paid less because she would not sleep with Mayer.

Lamarr was reunited with Powell in a comedy, The Heavenly Body (1944). She was then borrowed by Warner Bros. for The Conspirators (1944), reuniting several of the actors of Casablanca (1942), which had been inspired in part by Algiers and written with Lamarr in mind as its female lead, though MGM would not lend her out. RKO later borrowed her for a melodrama, Experiment Perilous (1944), directed by Jacques Tourneur.

Back at MGM, Lamarr was teamed with Robert Walker in the romantic comedy Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945), playing a princess who falls in love with a New Yorker. It was very popular, but would be the last film she made under her MGM contract.

Her off-screen life and personality during those years was quite different from her screen image. She spent much of her time feeling lonely and homesick. She might swim at her agent's pool, but shunned the beaches and staring crowds. When asked for an autograph, she wondered why anyone would want it. Writer Howard Sharpe interviewed her and gave his impression:

Hedy has the most incredible personal sophistication. She knows the peculiarly European art of being womanly; she knows what men want in a beautiful woman, what attracts them, and she forces herself to be these things. She has magnetism with warmth, something that neither Dietrich nor Garbo has managed to achieve.

Author Richard Rhodes describes her assimilation into American culture:

Of all the European émigrés who escaped Nazi Germany and Nazi Austria, she was one of the very few who succeeded in moving to another culture and becoming a full-fledged star herself. There were so very few who could make the transition linguistically or culturally. She really was a resourceful human being–I think because of her father's strong influence on her as a child.

Lamarr also had a penchant for speaking about herself in the third person.

Lamarr wanted to join the National Inventors Council, but was reportedly told by NIC member Charles F. Kettering and others that she could better help the war effort by using her celebrity status to sell war bonds.

She participated in a war bond-selling campaign with a sailor named Eddie Rhodes. Rhodes was in the crowd at each Lamarr appearance, and she would call him up on stage. She would briefly flirt with him before asking the audience if she should give him a kiss. The crowd would say yes, to which Hedy would reply that she would if enough people bought war bonds. After enough bonds were purchased, she would kiss Rhodes and he would head back into the audience. Then they would head off to the next war bond rally. In total, Lamarr sold approximately $25 million (over $350 million when adjusted for inflation in 2020) worth of war bonds during a period of 10 days.

After leaving MGM in 1945, Lamarr formed production company Mars Film Corporation with Jack Chertok and Hunt Stromberg, producing two film noir motion pictures which she also starred in: The Strange Woman (1946) as a manipulative seductress leading a son to murder his father, and Dishonored Lady (1947) as a formerly suicidal fashion designer[verification needed] trying to start a new life but gets accused of murder. Her initiative was unwelcomed by the Hollywood establishment, as they were against actors (especially female actors) producing their films independently. Both films grossed over their budgets, but were not large commercial successes.

In 1948, she tried a comedy with Robert Cummings, called Let's Live a Little.

Lamarr enjoyed her greatest success playing Delilah opposite Victor Mature as the biblical strongman in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949). A massive critical and commercial success, the film became the highest-grossing picture of 1950 and won two Academy Awards (Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design) of its five nominations. She won critical acclaim for her portrayal of Delilah. Showmen's Trade Review previewed the film before its release and commended Lamarr's performance: "Miss Lamarr is just about everyone's conception of the fair-skinned, dark-haired, beauteous Delilah, a role tailor-made for her, and her best acting chore to date."[48] Photoplay wrote, "As Delilah, Hedy Lamarr is treacherous and tantalizing, her charms enhanced by Technicolor."[49]

Lamarr returned to MGM for a film noir with John Hodiak, A Lady Without Passport (1950), which flopped. More popular were two pictures she made at Paramount, a Western with Ray Milland, Copper Canyon (1950), and a Bob Hope spy spoof, My Favorite Spy (1951).

Her career went into decline. She went to Italy to play multiple roles in Loves of Three Queens (1954), which she also produced. However she lacked the experience necessary to make a success of such an epic production, and lost millions of dollars when she was unable to secure distribution of the picture.

She was Joan of Arc in Irwin Allen's critically panned epic, The Story of Mankind (1957) and did episodes of Zane Grey Theatre ("Proud Woman") and Shower of Stars ("Cloak and Dagger"). Her last film was a thriller The Female Animal (1958).

Lamarr was signed to act in the 1966 film Picture Mommy Dead, but was let go when she collapsed during filming from nervous exhaustion. She was replaced in the role of Jessica Flagmore Shelley by Zsa Zsa Gabor.

Although Lamarr had no formal training and was primarily self-taught, she worked in her spare time on various hobbies and inventions, which included an improved traffic stoplight and a tablet that would dissolve in water to create a carbonated drink. The beverage was unsuccessful; Lamarr herself said it tasted like Alka-Seltzer.

Among the few who knew of Lamarr's inventiveness was aviation tycoon Howard Hughes. She suggested he change the rather square design of his aeroplanes (which she thought looked too slow) to a more streamlined shape, based on pictures of the fastest birds and fish she could find. Lamarr discussed her relationship with Hughes during an interview, saying that while they dated, he actively supported her inventive "tinkering" hobbies. He put his team of scientists and engineers at her disposal, saying they would do or make anything she asked for.

During World War II, Lamarr learned that radio-controlled torpedoes, an emerging technology in naval war, could easily be jammed and set off course.[53] She thought of creating a frequency-hopping signal that could not be tracked or jammed. She conceived an idea and contacted her friend, composer and pianist George Antheil, to help her implement it.[54] Together they developed a device for doing that, when he succeeded by synchronizing a miniaturized player-piano mechanism with radio signals.[40] They drafted designs for the frequency-hopping system, which they patented.[55][56] Antheil recalled:

We began talking about the war, which, in the late summer of 1940, was looking most extremely black. Hedy said that she did not feel very comfortable, sitting there in Hollywood and making lots of money when things were in such a state. She said that she knew a good deal about munitions and various secret weapons ... and that she was thinking seriously of quitting MGM and going to Washington, D.C., to offer her services to the newly established National Inventors Council.

As quoted from a 1945 Stars and Stripes interview, "Hedy modestly admitted she did only 'creative work on the invention', while the composer and author George Antheil, 'did the really important chemical part'. Hedy was not too clear about how the device worked, but she remembered that she and Antheil sat down on her living room rug and were using a silver match box with the matches simulating the wiring of the invented 'thing'. She said that at the start of the war 'British fliers were over hostile territory as soon as they crossed the channel, but German aviators were over friendly territory most of the way to England... I got the idea for my invention when I tried to think of some way to even the balance for the British. A radio controlled torpedo, I thought would do it.'"

Their invention was granted a patent under U.S. Patent 2,292,387 on August 11, 1942 (filed using her married name Hedy Kiesler Markey).[58] However, it was technologically difficult to implement, and at the time the US Navy was not receptive to considering inventions coming from outside the military.[35] Nevertheless, it was classified in the "red hot" category.[59] It was first adapted in 1957 to develop a sonobuoy before the expiration of the patent, although this was denied by the Navy. At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, an updated version of their design was installed on Navy ships.[60] Today, various spread-spectrum techniques are incorporated into Bluetooth technology and are similar to methods used in legacy versions of Wi-Fi. Lamarr and Antheil's contributions were formally recognized in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Lamarr was married and divorced six times and had three children:

Friedrich Mandl (married 1933–37), chairman of the Hirtenberger Patronen-Fabrik

Gene Markey (married 1939–41), screenwriter and producer. She adopted a boy, James Lamarr Markey (born January 9, 1939) during her marriage with Markey. In 2001, James found out he was the out-of-wedlock son of Lamarr and actor John Loder, whom she later married as her third husband.

John Loder (married 1943–47), actor. James Lamarr Markey was adopted by Loder as James Lamarr Loder. During the marriage, Lamarr and Loder also had two further children: Denise Loder (born January 19, 1945), married Larry Colton, a writer and former baseball player; and Anthony Loder (born February 1, 1947), married Roxanne who worked for illustrator James McMullan. They both appeared in the documentary films Calling Hedy Lamarr (2004), and Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (2017).

Ernest "Ted" Stauffer (married 1951–52), nightclub owner, restaurateur, and former bandleader

W. Howard Lee (married 1953–60), a Texas oilman (he later married film actress Gene Tierney)

Lewis J. Boies (married 1963–65), Lamarr's divorce lawyer

Following her sixth and final divorce in 1965, Lamarr remained unmarried for the last 35 years of her life.

Lamarr became a naturalized citizen of the United States at age 38 on April 10, 1953. Her autobiography, Ecstasy and Me, was published in 1966. In a 1969 interview on The Merv Griffin Show, she said that she did not write it and claimed that much was fictional. Lamarr sued the publisher in 1966 to halt publication, saying that many details were fabricated by its ghost writer, Leo Guild. She lost the suit. In 1967, Lamarr was sued by Gene Ringgold, who asserted that the book plagiarized material from an article he had written in 1965 for Screen Facts magazine.

In the late 1950s, Lamarr designed and, with husband W. Howard Lee, developed the Villa LaMarr ski resort in Aspen, Colorado. After their divorce, her husband gained this resort

In 1966, Lamarr was arrested in Los Angeles for shoplifting. The charges were eventually dropped. In 1991, she was arrested on the same charge in Florida, this time for stealing $21.48 worth of laxatives and eye drops. She pleaded no contest to avoid a court appearance, and the charges were dropped in return for her promise to refrain from breaking any laws for a year.

During the 1970s, Lamarr lived in increasing seclusion. She was offered several scripts, television commercials, and stage projects, but none piqued her interest. In 1974, she filed a $10 million lawsuit against Warner Bros., claiming that the running parody of her name ("Hedley Lamarr") featured in the Mel Brooks comedy Blazing Saddles infringed her right to privacy. Brooks said he was flattered; the studio settled out of court for an undisclosed nominal sum and an apology to Lamarr for "almost using her name". Brooks said that Lamarr "never got the joke". With her eyesight failing, Lamarr retreated from public life and settled in Miami Beach, Florida, in 1981.

In 1996, a large Corel-drawn image of Lamarr won the annual cover design contest for the CorelDRAW's yearly software suite. For several years, beginning in 1997, it was featured on boxes of the software suite. Lamarr sued the company for using her image without her permission. Corel countered that she did not own rights to the image. The parties reached an undisclosed settlement in 1998.

In 1997, Canadian company WiLAN signed an agreement with Lamarr to acquire 49% of the marketing rights of her patent, and a right of first refusal for the remaining 51% for ten quarterly payments. This was the only financial compensation she received for her frequency-hopping spread spectrum invention. A friendship ensued between her and the company's CEO, Hatim Zaghloul.

Lamarr became estranged from her son, James Lamarr Loder (who believed he was adopted until 2001), when he was 12 years old. Their relationship ended abruptly, and he moved in with another family. They did not speak again for almost 50 years. Lamarr left James Loder out of her will, and he sued for control of the US$3.3 million estate left by Lamarr in 2000. He eventually settled for US$50,000. James Loder was the Omaha, Nebraska police officer who was charged but then acquitted of the killing of 14 year old Vivian Strong in 1969.

In the last decades of her life, Lamarr communicated only by telephone with the outside world, even with her children and close friends. She often talked up to six or seven hours a day on the phone, but she spent hardly any time with anyone in person in her final years. A documentary film, Calling Hedy Lamarr, was released in 2004 and features her children Anthony Loder and Denise Loder-DeLuca.

Lamarr died in Casselberry, Florida, on January 19, 2000, of heart disease, aged 85. According to her wishes, she was cremated and her son Anthony Loder spread her ashes in Austria's Vienna Woods.

In 1939, Lamarr was voted the "most promising new actress" of 1938 in a poll of area voters conducted by a Philadelphia Record film critic.[95]

In 1951, British moviegoers voted Lamarr the tenth best actress of 1950,[96] for her performance in Samson and Delilah.

In 1960, Lamarr was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to the motion picture industry, at 6247 Hollywood Blvd adjacent to Vine Street where the walk is centered.

In 1997, Lamarr and George Antheil were jointly honored with the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer Award.

Also in 1997, Lamarr was the first woman to receive the Invention Convention's BULBIE Gnass Spirit of Achievement Award, known as the "Oscars of inventing".

In 2014, Lamarr and Antheil were posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology.

Also in 2014, Lamarr was given an honorary grave in Vienna's Central Cemetery, where the remaining portion of her ashes were buried in November, shortly before her 100th birthday.

Asteroid 32730 Lamarr, discovered by Karl Reinmuth at Heidelberg Observatory in 1951, was named in her memory. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on August 27, 2019 (M.P.C. 115894).

On 6 November 2020, a satellite named after her (ÑuSat 14 or "Hedy", COSPAR 2020-079F) was launched into space.

The 2004 documentary film Calling Hedy Lamarr features her children, Anthony Loder and Denise Loder-DeLuca.

In 2010, Lamarr was selected out of 150 IT people to be featured in a short film launched by the British Computer Society on May 20.

Also during 2010, the New York Public Library exhibit Thirty Years of Photography at the New York Public Library included a photo of a topless Lamarr (c. 1930) by Austrian-born American photographer Trude Fleischmann.

The 2017 documentary film Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, written and directed by Alexandra Dean and produced by Susan Sarandon,[108] about Lamarr's life and career as an actress and inventor, also featuring her children Anthony and Denise, among others, premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival.[40] It was released in theaters on November 24, 2017, and aired on the PBS series American Masters in May 2018. As of April 2020, it is also available on Netflix.

During World War II, the Office of Strategic Services invented a pyrotechnic device meant to help agents operating behind enemy lines to escape if capture seemed imminent. When the pin was pulled, it made the whistle of a falling bomb followed by a loud explosion and a large cloud of smoke, enabling the agent to make his escape. It saved the life of at least one agent. The device was codenamed the Hedy Lamarr.[109]

The Mel Brooks 1974 western parody Blazing Saddles features a male villain named "Hedley Lamarr". As a running gag, various characters mistakenly refer to him as "Hedy Lamarr" prompting him to testily reply "That's Hedley."

In the 1982 off-Broadway musical Little Shop of Horrors and subsequent film adaptation (1986), Audrey II says to Seymour in the song "Feed Me" that he can get Seymour anything he wants, including "A date with Hedy Lamarr."

On the Nickelodeon show Hey Arnold!, there is a running gag in which whenever something unfortunate happens to Arnold's grandfather, Phil, he constantly states how things would have been different if he had "married Hedy Lamarr instead!". In one episode, it is revealed that he carries a photo of her in his wallet.

In the 2003 video game Half-Life 2, Dr. Kleiner's pet headcrab, Lamarr, is named after Hedy Lamarr.

In 2008, an off-Broadway play, Frequency Hopping, features the lives of Lamarr and Antheil. The play was written and staged by Elyse Singer, and the script won a prize for best new play about science and technology from STAGE.

In 2011, the story of Lamarr's frequency-hopping spread spectrum invention was explored in an episode of the Science Channel show Dark Matters: Twisted But True, a series that explores the darker side of scientific discovery and experimentation, which premiered on September 7.

Batman co-creator Bob Kane was a great movie fan and his love for film provided the impetus for several Batman characters, among them, Catwoman. Among Kane's inspiration for Catwoman were Lamarr and actress Jean Harlow. Also in 2011, Anne Hathaway revealed that she had learned that the original Catwoman was based on Lamarr, so she studied all of Lamarr's films and incorporated some of her breathing techniques into her portrayal of Catwoman in the 2012 film The Dark Knight Rises.

In 2013, her work in improving wireless security was part of the premiere episode of the Discovery Channel show How We Invented the World.

In 2015, on November 9, the 101st anniversary of Lamarr's birth, Google paid tribute to Lamarr's work in film and her contributions to scientific advancement with an animated Google Doodle.

In 2016, Lamarr was depicted in an off-Broadway play, HEDY! The Life and Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, a one-woman show written and performed by Heather Massie.

Also in 2016, the off-Broadway, one-actor show Stand Still and Look Stupid: The Life Story of Hedy Lamarr starring Emily Ebertz and written by Mike Broemmel went into production.

Also in 2016, Whitney Frost, a character in the TV show Agent Carter, was inspired by Lamarr and Lauren Bacall.

In 2017, actress Celia Massingham portrayed Lamarr on The CW television series Legends of Tomorrow in the sixth episode of the third season, titled "Helen Hunt". The episode is set in 1937 "Hollywoodland" and references Lamarr's reputation as an inventor. The episode aired on November 14, 2017.

In 2018, actress Alyssa Sutherland portrayed Lamarr on the NBC television series Timeless in the third episode of the second season, titled "Hollywoodland". The episode aired March 25, 2018.

Gal Gadot is set to portray Lamarr in an Apple TV+ limited series based on her life story.

A novelization of her life, The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict, was published in 2019.

[thejellycat]

something I really love about caduceus is that he uses that high wis to amazing effect. like he's silly and light hearted when there's no threat or when he knows the others have things covered, but then we get moments like with gustav in the jail or the dinner with trent. cad gets very quiet and just... listens. he listens and observes and when the moment is right he just reaches out and grabs onto someone's deepest insecurities, secrets, and self-deceptions and very candidly and politely pulls them all out for everyone to see.

[ansgar-martinsson]

The Best Intentions - Part 13

He smiled behind her finger. “But, I’m always crass,” he said. “Something you will come to learn in short order, darling.” He caressed her arm, ghosting his fingers along the fine hairs he found there, and wrapped his hand around the back of hers. She moved, but he held her hand in place, her finger still extended atop his lips.

“Crass and crude and vile,” he murmured. She opened her mouth to speak but he silenced her, transforming her words into a deep, moaning growl as he took her finger in between his teeth. He closed his mouth around her, pressing his tongue, wet and warm to the pad of her finger, drawing in his cheeks to suck hard. “And you are delicious.’

There was a quiet rap at the door, and Ansgar, her finger still poised on his lips, said, “Come in.”

Gustav himself brought the dessert – thick coffee accompanied by two towering slices of white almond cake served on a wooden platter, and decorated with sugar ivy leaves, small flowers, and a bright red rhubarb sauce. The man’s eyes went slightly wide at the sight before him, of Ansgar’s wry, hungry smile, of Jolene’s flushed breast and cheeks. The head chef cracked a grin of his own, shared a knowing glance with Ansgar, bowed gracefully, and backed out of the room, closing it behind him with a soft click.

Jolene turned in her seat to face the table, and lifted her fork to tuck in to her dessert. Ansgar, a hand on her arm, stopped her. “No,” he said. “Don’t eat that yet.”

She frowned. “Why?”

“Because I get my dessert first. Face me.” He turned her chair so that they sat knee to knee behind the table. “Stand up,” he commanded, tugging at her hands. “Now.”

Her breaths came sharp and hard at his commands, but she obeyed.

“I have a query of you, Jolene,” Ansgar said, his voice heady and rough. He stayed seated, but scooted himself closer to her, taking her hands in his. “And I want an answer, maybe not straight away, but you will give me an answer.”

“Oh– okay,” she said.

“And don’t worry, it’s not that question. I’ve only just met you.”

“Oh. Good,” she breathed. “You had me worried for a minute there.”

“Trust me. Yes?” He peered up at her, his eyes intent and narrowed as he curled his hands around her thighs, just above her knees. “Trust me,” he repeated as he pushed up and inside the fabric of her skirt, as he hooked his fingers into the silk of her knickers. “Trust me.”

“Y-yes.”

His gaze still burning upon the hearth of hers, he pulled, dragging his fingers back down their previous path, taking the prized garment with them. He bent, then, carefully lifting her feet one at a time to remove it, and to surreptitiously tuck it away in his jacket pocket.

“Are you ready for the question, now?” He returned his attention back to her, insinuated his hands beneath her skirt once again and squeezed, his palms cupped hard into each muscled side of her bared buttocks.

She squirmed under his touch, braced her hands on his shoulders and threw her head back with a low, deep moan. “Yes.”

He shook her gently. “Look at me.”

She did.

He spoke slowly, dangerously, carefully, his words clear and intent, his meaning echoed by the dance of his fingers between her legs, upon her now bared flesh. “How… do you want me to fuck you, Joline?” he said. “How, when you were making love to your vibrator, ah ah ah, no! Don’t you move….”

“No, you bastard, I – “ She’d tensed up, piqued at the perceived ridicule about her prior admission, about how she’d wanted him so badly that she’d spent hours alone, in her bed, bringing herself to the peak of pleasure by way of a plastic sex toy.

“Shhh, now. I’m not scoffing at you, Joline,” Ansgar soothed her. “I truly want to know.”

She relaxed, and he began his explorations of her most intimate place anew. “I will ask again,” he said. “How, when you were in your bed, with your vibrator, making yourself come, did you imagine me? What was I doing to you? What images did your beautiful mind conjure up to bring you to the peak of pleasure? Did I fuck you slowly, gently? Or was I rough – my hands about your throat, or against the wall?”

She moaned, her eyes clamped shut and her mouth dropped wide open. “Hmmmmm. All of it.”

“Tell me. Be specific.”

“Mmmmm, Ssssgar,” she whined.

“Tell me, Joline. What can I do to bring your fantasies into reality?”

“Just,” she hissed. “Just… touch me. Just touch me.”

“Touch you… like this?” He sat her back down and spread her legs wide, such that they were hanging off the sides of the chair. He drew his long, thin middle finger up between her southern lips, shifting them apart – up up up up to find the pearl at the top, where he pressed gently, circling the tip of his finger over her. “Should I touch you here?”

“Hmmmm hmmm,” she writhed, her hands clamped around the chair edges, her hips thrust forward, pushing herself further into his ministrations. “Yes. Yes, you were… were touching me there. T-touch me there.”

“Or better yet,” Ansgar’s voice cracked with desire. He couldn’t help it. The feel of her, slick and warm and inviting, the scent of her want of him…. oh! As much as he wanted to play the suave, debonair seducer, his want of her threatened to overpower his intellect, cloud his mind. “Or better yet,” he repeated, more smoothly, “in your dreams, was I kissing you here?” He spread his fingers, widening her flesh as he lowered himself to his knees before her. “Were my lips on you, just here? My tongue inside you? My teeth grazing over the centre of your pleasure? Did I… bite?”

“Yessssss,” she hissed. “Bite.”

“Hard?” He snapped his teeth together.

“Yes!”

“Do you want me there now, Joline?” He moved closer to her, and wrapped his arms around her backside. He tipped her forward and situated himself between her legs. “Do you?” He huffed, his nose flared, his breath coming hard and fast in his chest. He licked his lips and sneered, transformed from man to beast in a bespoke suit. “I want this. I want my dessert, and I want it now.”

He didn’t wait. He dug his fingers into her flesh and lifted, bringing her to his mouth. He growled at the first taste of her, his moan deep and long and keening. He ravished her, his tongue working, pressing, curling, pumping inside her, his lips closing tightly around her southern lips. And, as promised, he bit, nipping gently and not so gently at her apex, soothing the flesh with flicks of his tongue, with short bursts of air. He growled as he feasted upon her, lifting himself higher on his knees, bringing her roughly with him so that her shoulders rest upon the chair, her torso suspended high above.

Her arms flailed for a moment before finding Ansgar’s elbows. She clutched to him for dear life as she cried out, as she moaned and writhed and kicked, her Louboutin heels digging roughly into the silk of his Takahashi suit, threatening to tear and rip.

And… she screamed.

“SSSSSSSGGGGGGGGAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!”

All the tension soared from her body in a long exhale. The quake began somewhere behind her bellybutton and rippled outwards, increasing with every pulse. The seismic charges beat through her flesh and then echoed through her bones. Pleasure, absolute, complete and all-consuming rapture ripped through her, fraying her nerves until she felt like a mass of sensation. Nothing more.

Even as Ansgar lowered her back into the seat of the chair, his smug grin glazed with her release, Joline was still in the throes of blissful tremors. Her body thrummed, specks of light and fire pinged along her pores. He was better than her aroused brain conjured on the artificial high of her plastic toy. Silicon couldn’t read her moans and strains like he did to create such a tumultuous response within her.

Ansgar’s fingertips lingered over her sex as the pulsing within her slowed to a stop. His thumb brushed over a decorated piece of flesh along her hip, above her sex, near the crease of her leg. A single pink magnolia graced her skin. He bent into her once more and pressed a kiss to the center of it. While there, he gnashed his teeth into her thigh claiming his territory with a mark.

Above him, the panting woman cried out again wordlessly in pleasure pain, the sting a craving, the heat a base desire, the want of it surprising.

The lion roared back, unfolding himself into his throne. “Another hidden treasure.” His eyes zeroed in on her left hip and the pink petals that colored her skin.

A rare attack of modesty and vulnerability seized her, Joline suddenly adjusted her skirt and shut her legs. She shrugged, her eyes following the grated steel trellis behind his head. “Reminds me of my more feminine side… that I’m a woman.” The shadow of something deeper crossed her face, a hint of something she didn’t want to bring into their night.

“Joline,” he broke into her inner musing, “Make no mistake. You are all woman.” Her eyes finally met his again from the wall behind him, as he shook his head, “It’s a beautiful tattoo but nothing more than a weed compared to the woman who wears it.”

As stealthy and as graceful as a feline, Joline was back in his lap, the demure quiet reflection gone as quickly as it had come. She hiked up her skirt, the material pooled around her hips. Painting her fingers down the length of his face to land on his broad shoulders, she murmured, “You’re surprising.” She nibbled at his bottom lip, tasting a tease of herself there. “I shouldn’t be shocked that you made me come in a restaurant.” She tilted her head to swipe her tongue over his lips, moaning in the process. “I shouldn’t be shocked that you’re not the selfish prick when it comes to sex.” She rolled her hips over him as her teeth grazed the bristles of the goatee on his chin. “But somehow I am.”

“Why is that, do you think?” He smirked for he knew the answer, but he fancied her loose tongue and means of seduction.

“You’re sexier than any man I’ve ever been wi - ever met. If you’re that talented with your tongue…” She hooked her elbow around the back of his neck and yanked him into her hungry mouth. She fed him her tongue and desirous moan, her hips canting slightly below. The furious kiss softened into a sensual dance, his hands scooping her ever closer. “I m-may split in half when you give me your cock and I’ll only beg you to do it again.”

His hands snaked up her body to clutch her head roughly, one hand fisting her hair. “I’m generous for purely selfish reasons. To keep you coming back to my tongue, myfingers, my cock and my bed.”

She whimpered when he bit her neck, not because he hurt, but because she wanted to be devoured by him. One of her hands raked down the expensive threads to reach for the stiff flesh beneath her.

Ansgar shut his eyes, growling lowly at the press of her hand against him. When she caressed the length of him, he swallowed hard, fighting the beastly animal in him to tear into her flesh and seek the end to his torture, to finally sate their craving for each other. A quick fuck on the floor wouldn’t do much to quench his thirst for her. He wanted… no, needed to indulge in her for hours. The anticipation made it all the sweeter when he finally had her.

She nuzzled against his thick neck at the line of his collar, “What details you need,” her hand pumped him, her fist tighter, “I’d rather give you all of them than talk about it. Take me to yours and fuck me into your mattress.

“Fucking Christ…” he exhaled, the suave seducer losing some of the playing field in her offensive.

“Time for my dessert,” she announced with a slight tremor in her voice. She played rough, but she wasn’t immune to her own talk or his. Although she’d had one orgasm, she craved the next and the next and the next after that. She rotated a bit to the table, fetching a sugar ivy leaf from the neglected treat upon the table and smearing it into the red sauce. She brought it towards him. Instead of placing it to his lips, she swiped a slash of rhubarb along his neck.

She was quick to use her tongue and lips to wipe it away again. After her teeth grazed the path, she pressed against his ear, “We could fuck right here.”

“A quick tumble on the floor, Joline? Is that how you want it? Or right here in the chair?”

Comically, Joline reached to the table and grabbed a fingertip full of almond cake to shove into his mouth. “No attitude, Mister patient seducer. Only meant to take the edge off.” She pressed her fingers against his lips, his jaw working to swallow the unexpected piece of dessert. “You brought me to a three hour dinner, burgled my panties, went down on me, made me come, and you could’ve had me in the car.” Her eyes sparkled in her mirth as her mouth grew into a pleasing smile. “You’ve got me at your mercy, maddening bastard.”