#have a hart day san francisco

[madamspeaker]

Bob Weir was cold.

It was a partly cloudy July night and temperatures were falling as Dead & Co. played before tens of thousands of fans in San Francisco, ancestral home of the band’s legendary forebear, the Grateful Dead.

Typical summer weather in the city, and Nancy Pelosi knew what to do.

Socks, she told the Birkenstock-shod guitarist on a visit backstage. And a hat.

It may be easier to picture the former speaker, still one of America’s most influential women, surrounded by suits and wingtips than beads and sandals. But Pelosi, who grew up listening to opera waft through the streets of Baltimore’s Little Italy, is a genuine tie-dyed in the wool Deadhead, as cultists and aficionados of the group are known.

She’s friends with Weir and drummer Mickey Hart, having seen the Dead and assorted iterations more times than she remembers. On several occasions, the elegantly styled lawmaker has been seen dancing in the wings, 4-inch heels and all.

It wasn’t certain she’d make the band’s valedictory performance that night, one of the last of Dead & Co.’s recently concluded farewell tour. The House of Representatives was pitching another fit, with balky Republicans acting up, must-pass legislation stalled and restless lawmakers anxiously eyeing the exits.

But in the end, the House approved the necessary defense spending bill with time to spare and Pelosi easily made it home for the Friday night show, mingling with the band and scoring the evening’s set list as a souvenir.

When Weir returned for the second half he was still sockless.

But he had on a hat.

Going through a closet not long ago, Pelosi came across a “Deadheads for Dukakis” purse from the 1988 presidential campaign; she was a freshman lawmaker at the time.

Nearly 20 years later, several of the band’s alumni played at a Washington gala celebrating Pelosi’s path-breaking election as speaker. (A review describes an uptight audience mostly sitting on its hands, though “Iko Iko,” the New Orleans standard, finally got some of the Beltway slugs moving.)

Hart was in the House gallery watching as Pelosi claimed the speakers’ gavel for a second time in 2019.

How and when did they meet? “I haven’t the faintest idea,” she says. Over the decades, San Francisco’s yeasty music and political scenes have blurred together, though, no, it’s not because of some bad acid.

It’s been a long, historic trip.

“They’re wonderful musicians,” Pelosi said of the Dead and company, putting a lie to the notion — propounded mostly by haters — that the group’s kaleidoscopic catalog can only be enjoyed in a drunken stupor or chemically induced haze. (Pelosi doesn’t drink and has never used drugs.) “It’s great music.”

Maybe it’s a congressional Democrat thing.

The late Harry Reid, another teetotaler and a Senate leader when Pelosi was speaker, had a Dead poster signed by the entire band hanging in his home in Searchlight, Nev. He called it his “prize possession.”

Perusing the menu at San Francisco’s Delancey Street Restaurant — a favorite of local politicians, staffed by ex-convicts and recovering addicts — Pelosi savors the freedom of life as just another member of the House.

“You have to remember,” she says, “that for 20 years, either as speaker or [minority] leader, I was responsible for everything that happened on the floor ... in terms of what happened with the Democrats ... and I didn’t even realize that it was a burden until it was gone and I was like, ‘Oh, my God. What a relief.’ ”

She continues studying the menu.

“I still, obviously, take an interest in the legislation,” Pelosi goes on, “and I still raise money for the Democrats,” though not the $1 million a day she pulled in as speaker. “It’s a completely different story.”

Other diners crane to see the celebrity in their midst, seated in a booth slightly away from the main dining area.

Orders are placed. Soon lunch arrives, an international smorgasbord of latkes, kale salad, a chicken quesadilla and matzo ball soup.

“Liberated” and “emancipated” are words Pelosi often uses in her new incarnation. She’s started on a book — not a memoir, but an account of certain decisions. Her husband, Paul, continues healing from the ghastly hammer attack by a QAnon crazy who broke into their San Francisco home last fall, looking to take the ex-speaker hostage.

Will she run again next year for a 19th term, something many in this politically hyperactive city are panting to find out? “I have to make up my mind,” Pelosi responds, purposely opaque, “and then see what I want to do.”

Back to music.

She ran a finger along the crumpled set list pointing to several favorites — “Fire On The Mountain,” “Ramble On Rose,” the trippy sound-collage “Drums/Space” and “Standing On The Moon,” with its indigenous lyric:

Somewhere in San Francisco/ On a back porch in July/ Just looking up to heaven/ At this crescent in the sky.

So beautiful, Pelosi rhapsodized, “I could listen to it forever.”

When it comes to music, Pelosi says, she’s something of an omnivore, with an appetite for “everything from rap to opera.” Drake, Taylor Swift, U2, Keith Urban, Elton John, Metallica, Stevie Wonder.

The Democrat is on a first-name basis with Bono and Cyndi Lauper as well as the other Paul and Nancy. (That would be McCartney and his wife Nancy Shevall.)

She’s hard-pressed to pick a favorite show of all time, but recounts seeing Bob Dylan with the Rolling Stones in Argentina — the “Bridges to Babylon Tour,” Pelosi specifies. She brought along a fellow Democrat, former New York Rep. Nita Lowey, who was seeing her first rock concert. (Naturally the performance included “Like A Rolling Stone.”)

At one point during the show there was an announcement, Pelosi says, seeking donations to fight HIV and AIDS. A young man circulated through the crowd and after receiving a contribution from Lowey, handed her a thank-you gift. “She’s like, ‘I don’t know what this is,’” Pelosi recalls, “‘it’s all in Spanish.’”

A pause.

“Condoms!” Pelosi exclaims.

The dishes are cleared. Time for dessert.

Pelosi considers the profiteroles, but abstains. She had three peppermint patties on the way to lunch, she confesses, and ice cream for breakfast.

These are fraught times. She turns serious.

“I’m a strong believer that the arts are the secret, our best hope for the future,” Pelosi says.

She describes the warm reception she received years ago when she was introduced at a Barbra Streisand concert.

“In that audience ... they’re not there because they’re Democrats. You’ve got a very mixed group of people. And it just completely drove home the point ... which is that [music] is a unifier. People forget their differences, they don’t even think of it. They laugh together, cry together, are inspired together, find common ground together and I do think that’s our hope.”

“That’s our hope,” she repeats.

[eckswizi]

For those of us out there who long for good rapid transit and walkable cities in car-centric North America, it can be really easy to doomscroll and it can seem that America is completely incapable of divorcing itself from car culture. But I want to let you all know: right now, at the end of 2022, it’s a great time for rapid transit. So much new construction is going on as we speak, and many new projects are almost finished. I want to go through some of the new projects that have opened over the past 12 months, or will open sometime in the next 12 months, and I want to remind you all that good transit is possible, and is becoming more of a reality with each passing day.

Here’s the most significant new construction from the past year:

The DC Metro finally opened Phase 2 of the Silver Line extension, a long awaited line that extends the DC Metro into a well populated part of Virginia. Additionally, the extension has a station at Dulles International Airport, one of the most major airports in the country.

The Los Angeles Metro opened the first half of the new Crenshaw Line (aka the K line), adding a whole new line and 6 new stations (7, counting the new lower level at the existing Expo/Crenshaw station). The new K line returns service to an area of Los Angeles that had not seen passenger rail service in several decades. The second half of the extension is still under construction, and will connect the K line to the existing C Line as well as LAX.

San Francisco’s MUNI Metro, the system that operates SFs light rail, trolley, and cable car systems, opened their brand new Central Subway. The Central Subway travels roughly North-South through the heart of the city, perpendicular to the existing Market Street Subway. The new subway line will provide service to the densely populated but underserved Chinatown neighborhood, among others.

A whole new system opened this year! Honolulu just opened the Honolulu Rail Transit, operated by the HART, is the first major rail rapid transit in the US to feature platform screen doors and driverless trains.

The MBTA (Boston) just opened the final phase of their Green Line Extension! The GLX, as it is called, brings rapid transit service to the heart of the densely populated town of Somerville, MA. 7 new stations opened as a result of the extension, with one station being rebuilt entirely!

During the summer, Amtrak extended its Ethan Allen Express route to Burlington, Vermont, with two stations in between. The extension returned intercity rail service to Burlington Union Station and the heart of the city for the first time in about 50 years!

The Long Island Rail Road (LIRR; NYC), North American’s busiest regional rail system, completed a project which improved its mainline by adding a third track. The third track is a much needed improvement that allows for more efficient and frequent train operation on a heavily used corridor.

Tempe, Arizona opened a downtown streetcar earlier in the year. The line goes around downtown, and makes the city center more easily walkable, as well connecting to the Phoenix Valley Metro.

Minneapolis opened their new D Line BRT service, a rapid bus service that is but a small part of a massive ongoing transit plan for the Twin Cities

Chicago opened a new flyover junction for the Brown Line, which will speed up and improve service on the Brown, Red, & Purple Lines

Upcoming

A whole new system is opening soon! Honolulu, Hawaii is soon to open the first phase of their new driverless elevated rapid transit. It will be the first non-tourist passenger rail in the state in several decades!

The LIRR will soon open a massive new underground line that allows trains to access Grand Central Terminal in the heart of Manhattan. The new terminal will also relieve pressure from the over crowded Penn Station.

The NYC Subway (MTA) has received its first shipments of its new R211 subway trains, which will be a much needed new fleet of modern rolling stock. The new trains will fill the gap left by the retirement of the 59 year old R32s. Additionally, the MTA also received several sets of the R211T, a variation on the R211 which includes an open gangway between subway cars, like an accordion/bendy-bus.

Seattle’s Link Rapid Transit is currently making major progress on several new extensions, with most of them estimated to open around 2024. The existing line will be extended in both directions. Additionally, the existing line will be complimented by a second line! There will be a total of nineteen (19!!!) new stations, as well as six (6) new stations on the Tacoma Streetcar!

CalTrain, a commuter/regional rail system that serves the San Francisco peninsula, is electrifying their system. When completed, it will bring faster, quieter, and more eco-friendly rail service to the SF Peninsula. Ignoring rapid transit, CalTrain will host the first electrified main line passenger trains to operate west of the Mississippi in several decades.

The TTC (Toronto) is currently making huge progress on their newest train line, the Line 5 Eglinton. It is a brand new light rail line that will have 24 stations along Eglinton Ave in Toronto, and will have connections to the Line 1, Line 2, and Line 3.

The TTC is also constructing the Line 6 Finch, another brand new light rail line north of Toronto! It will run west from the Line 1 along Finch Ave, and will have 18 new stations!

Montreal’s new REM (Réseau express métropolitain / Metropolitan Express Network) is almost ready to open its first phase! The REM is a new light metro line that has one line and three branches, with twenty-six (26!!!) new stations. The line will connect downtown to the airport and several major suburbs.

The MBTA is currently constructing a new commuter rail line that, on two branches, will provide service to Fall River and New Bedford, two notable cities on the south coast of Massachusetts.

Vancouver’s Skytrain is currently working on a massive new expansion of their Millenium Line to travel west and serve a densely populated but previously underserved section of the city.

The LA Metro is currently working on a new subway tunnel through downtown that will connect the A, E, and L lines. When the project is completed, the E and L will be merged into one line.

Mexico City is currently constructing a new commuter train to traverse the heavily traveled corridor between Mexico City and Toluca.

Construction is currently ongoing for the Southwest LRT Line in Minneapolis, a large extension to the currently underserved southwestern parts of the Twin Cities

Calgary is currently most of the way through construction on their new Green Line, which will be the third Light Rail line to serve the region.

Ottawa’s Trillium Line is currently closed for modernization and is expected to reopen this year

Chicago has an ongoing project to overhaul the infrastructure on the aging Red and Purple Lines

Additionally, there have been *countless* new stations constructed and a multitude of other minor construction projects that will have some major effects. Here’s some highlights:

The SEPTA (Philadelphia) added Wawa station to its regional rail system

The MBTA is currently most of the way through construction on a new station to serve the city of Pawtucket, Rhode Island

In the fall, the LIRR opened a new station called Elmont-UBS Arena

NYC Ferry established a new service to Coney Island

A new platform at Baltimore Penn Station

Much, much more

Lastly, let’s not forget the fact that a massive number of new transit lines and rail extensions have opened over the past few years, including major openings all over the country. I’ve definitely forgot something, and the fact that I have is because there is so much that has come out of 2022. We’ve come a long way, but we still have a long way to go. From where we are, rail transport and public transit in North America is only going to improve, and I can’t wait.

[cherrydolyshirt]

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form being given to what at first was only intended as a passing notice.To Mr. Wilson, of Kendal, I am under the special obligation of the adventurer who has help just when and where it is most wanted. From him it has ever been an easy and pleasant task to obtain advice and counsel without stint of pains or sympathy. With his aid and discrimination, many otherwise insurmountable obstacles have been overcome.

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Since many households would hold parties during these two evenings, they may not concentrate on their jobs as they do in the All I Need Today Is A Little Bit Of Arkansas Razorbacks And A Whole Lot Of Jesus T shir time. Therefore, the company would rather let their employees stay at home to do some shopping and preparation than stay in the office to think something else not related to work. There has a policy stating that Christmas Eve is a holiday in employee handbook or employment agreement or contract. It might state that employees receive paid time off or premium pay for working on the holiday. For those retail business workers who are more busier during these two days, they may arrange other time to have a rest, while those who have these two days off and get paid would not have this advantage. They probably arrange another two holidays for working days or do not compensate overtime work. For those companies who do not need to deal with customers, if multiple employees ask for the time off, the company could accommodate such requests.

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Mother’s Day

As a percentage of the federal budget, Nickiminaj Gag City Resort budget peaked in 1966, immediately saw a ~20% decrease within four years, and it’s been downhill ever since, save for a bump in the early nineties. Under Nixon, ambitious post-Apollo plans were killed and the STS (Space Transport System; aka, the Space Shuttle) wound up becoming a sort of last-ditch option to preserve manned spaceflight. It’s been a battle ever since to fund NASA’s missions for a number of reasons.

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[greensparty]

Movie Reviews: Marlowe / Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

This week I got to review not one but two new releases...both very different.

Marlowe

Raymond Chandler’s character Philip Marlowe was a private eye in his short stories and books in the 1930s on. Pretty soon Hollywood was adapting Marlowe stories into radio, television and films in the 1940s onward. Some of the Marlowe films I watched in my college History of Film class included Murder, My Sweet and The Big Sleep. Now Neil Jordan has adapted a 2014 Marlowe story written by John Banville into the new crime thriller Marlowe opening in theaters this week after some 2022 film festivals. 

movie poster

In 1940s Los Angeles, hardboiled private eye Marlowe (played by Liam Neeson in his 100th performance according to much press) is hired by a rich heiress Clare (Diane Kruger) to find her ex. The movie star mother (played by Jessica Lange) soon gets entangled. That’s about all I can say without getting into spoilers.

Neeson as Marlowe

Director Neil Jordan has made some great movies in the past. I actually worked for a short time in the Construction Department on his 2007 movie The Brave One. That movie wasn’t perfect by any means, but it had its moments. But his films The Crying Game (he received Oscar nominations for directing and for writing), Interview with a Vampire, and The Butcher Boy really showed his range as a director in terms of excelling in various genres. This is a terrific cast, and I was excited to see Colm Meaney and Ian Hart, both of whom were in Monument Ave (which I worked on) in small supporting roles. The production design was big and lavish. But the problem is: I wanted to like this more than I did. I think the issue is that since the Marlowe films of the 40s, there’s been so many film noir classics and this story (even with a script from William Monahan, which wrote The Departed) it felt derivative of so many other film noirs. Between the character of Marlowe, Neil Jordan and this cast there was something so much better that could’ve been.

For info on Marlowe: https://www.marlowemovie.com/

2 out of 5 stars

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Marvel Cinematic Universe is hit or miss. Some elitist have said it’s not cinema (Martin Scorsese) or it’s too bad that they are the only types of movies getting made these days (Quentin Tarantino). But hardcore fans have pushed back on that. I fall somewhere in the middle of the fans and the haters. When the movies are good they are really good. When they are bad, they are a let down. Then you have some that are just somewhere in the middle: a fun ride, but nothing I need to see again or buy on blu-ray. In 2015′s Ant-Man, Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang tries to get back to a normal life after getting out of prison and finds himself getting mixed up with a shrinking technology. The first 10-15 minutes of that felt like it was aspiring to so much more than a MCU movie: a guy trying to move on with his life but society won’t let him since he’s an ex-con. Then it just became another super hero movie. It had some fun parts, but it could’ve been so much more, even with a screenplay co-written by Rudd, Edgar Wright and Adam McKay. In 2016′s Captain America: Civil War, Ant-Man gets recruited by Capt. America and became an Avenger. In 2018′s Ant-Man and the Wasp, it was fun to see the shrinking / growing fights in San Francisco, but again it felt like there was a better movie waiting to get out. Ant-Man re-joined the Avengers in 2019′s Avengers: Endgame. Now the third Lang movie Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania opens this week.

movie poster

In this one Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) and her scientist father Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) now have mother/wife Janet (Michelle Pfieffer) back from the Quantum Realm...even if she is reluctant to talk about this world she was in for 30 years. Lang’s daughter Cassie (now much older and played by Kathryn Newton) is working on a signal to the Quantum Realm, but it thrusts them all into this world, where they get separated. Janet is the most familiar with this world, but even she is fearful of Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), who makes a deal with Ant-Man...and things go awry.

Rudd, Newton and Lilly in the Quantum Realm

I actually like this better than the first two Ant-Man movies mainly because of Kang the Conqueror, one of the best Marvel villains we’ve had in a while, and the relationship Lang now has with his grown daughter Cassie. The idea of shrinking is nothing new, we’ve seen it in Fantastic Voyage, The Incredible Shrinking Woman, and Innerspace just to name a few, but with this one instead of reminding me of Marvel movies, it reminded me more of classic Star Trek episodes and sci-fi movies of the 50s and 60s. Returning director Peyton Reed has mixed it up with movies like Bring It On and episodes of The Mandalorian, but what first got my attention about him was the behind-the-scenes special on Back to the Future trilogy that aired on TV in 1990 and then he directed the live-action segments on the BTTF animated series. If he never directs anything else, he has my thumbs up for his contribution to the BTTF universe! But what lifts the sail of all the Ant-Man movies is Paul Rudd. He has a charm and a charisma that has served him well in romances and comedies (notably David Wain and Judd Apatow comedies), but here he’s the protective father on a grand scale. Did I mention I really dug the reference to Welcome Back Kotter too?

For info on A-M&TW:Q: https://www.marvel.com/movies/ant-man-and-the-wasp-quantumania

3 out of 5 stars

[delux2222]

"When I went to work in a studio, I took my pride and made a nice little ball of it and threw it right out the window."

Happy Birthday, Dorothy Arzner (1897-1979)

The only woman director during the "Golden Age" of Hollywood's studio system--from the 1920s to the early 1940s and the woman director with the largest oeuvre in Hollywood to this day--was born January 3, 1897 (some sources put the year as 1900), in San Francisco, California, to a German-American father and a Scottish mother. Raised in Los Angeles, her parents ran a café which featured German cuisine and which was frequented by silent film stars including: Charles Chaplin and William S. Hart, and director Erich von Stroheim. She worked as a waitress at the restaurant, and no one could have foreseen at the time that Arzner would be one of the few women to break the glass ceiling of directing and would be the only woman to work during the early sound era.

[have-a-hart-day]

Seeking City Captains!

Do you live in Los Angeles, CA, San Francisco, CA, or London, UK?  The previous captains have resigned so if you are 18+ and looking for a great leadership opportunity, email Haveahartday2019@gmail.com.

Live elsewhere without a chapter and want start a chapter?  Email Haveahartday2019@gmail.com.

[thislovintime]

Peter Tork on the set of Head, April 11, 1968; photos by Michael Ochs Archives.

“I’d always had deep doubts, ever since the session for ‘Last Train To Clarksville.’ I walked in there with my guitar and Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart looked at me with derision and scorn, like, ‘Guitar in your hand, you fool!’ That was the end of it for me. Right there I was done with The Monkees in large measure.” - Peter Tork, Head 1994 liner notes (x)

“When The Monkees were big, I couldn’t handle the pressure. I missed the easy, street-level camaraderie of my Greenwich Village days.” - Peter Tork, Uncut, 2019

“[M]y personal belief is that Bob [Rafelson] is an evil-minded man. He likes to bring people down. Bob was often unsupportive as a human being and distinctly negative — and I was on the short end of that.” - Peter Tork, MOJO, June 2002 (x)

“The movie portrays them with not so much sweetness and brightness [as the TV show]. It’s a much heavier and far-out thinking group. I wouldn’t call it uncharitable. I thought it was expanding my sense of who they were. There’s a boxing scene in which Micky says, ‘Take this, you dummy.’ Suddenly the music changes and Peter appears in the corner, Christ-like, and says, ‘Micky, I’m the dummy. I’m always the dummy.’ The point was that he was always asked to be the dummy, so here he’s acknowledging it. But he’s also the one who’s given the longest speech in the movie about spiritual evolution, which he’s learned from the guru in the steam room. I was trying to give him a chance to be himself, but in a symbolic way. He is that way today, by the way. In other words, The Monkees became what they really were.” - Bob Rafelson, MOJO, June 2002

“When I recorded ‘Can You Dig It,’ the guitar solo originally ran about three or four minutes all by itself. We cut that back to a minute and a half. Bob Rafelson took a pair of scissors and snipped off the end of it. He didn’t ask me to shorten it, which I would have been glad to do. He just chopped it off. Son of a bitch! I have a lot of gripes about that, but that’s neither here nor there.” - Peter Tork, Blitz!, May/June 1980 (x)

“We gave him a watch and our blessing when he left. We never thought of replacing him — there's only one Peter Tork in the world. Who knows, maybe in two or three years' time he'll come back?” - Michael Nesmith, Melody Maker, March 1, 1969

“Peter and I were the bulk of the playing ability because we were musicians. But when Peter left it rather unnerved Davy and [Micky] — and I changed my mind [about quitting]. After all, the personal appearances were pretty well satisfying, the music was fun, and the whole thing was fairly lucrative. And Davy and [Micky] left alone would have been in real trouble.” - Michael Nesmith, Disc & Music Echo, September 19, 1970

Q: “So, when you left, did you want to be known as the former Monkee or did you want to erase that part of your past —” Peter Tork: “I tried to erase it.” Q: “— and start anew.” PT: “I tried to erase it completely.” Q: “How do you do that?” PT: “Well, you just don’t do anything connected with it, just absolutely refuse to have anything to do with it, and… basically what I did was I retreated into — I wound up retreating into Marin County, California, which is just north of San Francisco. And there I worked, I belonged to a worker-owned restaurant, waited tables and was part of the cooperative that owned and operated the restaurant. Nominally owned the restaurant; it was actually owned by this guy whose parents had left him some GM stock, and he bought this thing and the co-op was supposed to pay him to buy him out over the long haul. I think they have done finally, I think it’s now a real workers’ co-op. And I worked there, and I retreated, and nobody said anything to me about my Monkees past except one or two guys said, you know, 'I’m glad to see you just on the street schlepping around,' that kind of thing, which made me feel good. I belonged to a few groups; I belonged to a thing called the Fairfax Street Choir, which had 35 voices in the rock section and was very hard to stage. (laughs) Those little coffee house stages, 35 guys and women. And I also belonged to a kind of second on the bill act in San Francisco called Osceola for a year or so. And that kind of thing. And nobody said anything about The Monkees to me.” - NPR, June 1983

[diceriadelluntore]

Storia Di Musica #247 - Grateful Dead, Live\Dead, 1969

L’apice della musica di San Francisco si ha con un ossimoro, perlomeno linguistico. Avviene nel momento massimo di popolarità, nei teatri simbolo, con la band che incarna quasi tutti le caratteristiche di questo periodo. Nel 1969 i Grateful Dead sono ospiti per alcuni concerti al Fillmore West e all’Avalon Ballroom, tra il gennaio e il marzo del 1969. Chiedono al loro mecenate e tecnico del suono, Owsley "Bear" Stanley (il quale molto prima di famose serie tv era anche un chimico clandestino, produttore di LSD, nominato Acid King dai media) di registrare con il meglio che si potesse avere, in termini di tecniche musicali, delle esibizioni live: Bear con l’aiuto di un altro ingegnere del suono, Ron Wickersham, perfezionerà le tecniche di registrazione con un nuovo tipo di microfono, e nuovi tipi di preamplificatori, tanto che Bear e Wickersham fondarono una società, la Alembic, che diventerà regina di questi componenti e in seguito meravigliosa liuteria per chitarre raffinatissime. Con il bene placido della Warner Bros., tre date vennero registrate: un concerto il 26 gennaio all’Avalon Ballroom e 4 concerti consecutivi il 27 Febbraio e il 2 Marzo 1969 al Fillmore West. In queste serate, la magia che scorreva tra Jerry Garcia (chitarra solista e voce), Bob Wier (chitarra ritmica e voce), Phil Lesh (basso), Ron “Pigpen” McKernan (Hammond e voce), le due batterie di Bill Kreutzmann e Mickey Hart e le tastiere di Tom Constanten è unica e il tutto si riversa in questo doppio LP live, leggendario, Live\Dead. In copertina, il disegno di Bob Thomas gioca sull’ossimoro: una divinità femminile esce trionfante da una bara con uno stendardo, sullo sfondo  la scritta psichedelica Live, a giocare sul fatto che sia un disco dal vivo, con nel retro la scritta Dead in caratteri colorati dalla bandiera a stelle a strisce. La scaletta, di appena 7 pezzi, esprime al meglio la creatività del gruppo, e quasi pone un limite creativo al rock psichedelico, come a dire che probabilmente più di così non ci si può spingere: la dimostrazione più sensazionale non può che essere ciò che i nostri combinano a Dark Star, un brano che appariva nel loro primo omonimo disco del 1967. Con il testo del paroliere, e membro ufficiale della band, Robert Hunter, nella versione originale dura 2 minuti, qui è il trampolino di lancio per un viaggio intergalattico di 23 minuti nel suono, nel pulviscolo sonoro spaziale, con gli intrecci delle chitarre di Weir e quella liquida, indimenticabile, di Garcia, rappresentazione unica e inarrivabile di un’idea musicale. Diventerà l’inno dei fan, e arriverà a versioni ancora più intergalattiche: record di sempre i 43 minuti del concerto del Dicembre 1973 a Cleveland, quanto la Sesta Sinfonia di Beethoven. Il ritmo si assesta nella ripresa, frizzante, di Saint Stephen, dedicata alla storia e al martirio del primo Santo cristiano, ma è solo una parentesi, che sfocia nella clamorosa The Eleven: nominata così per l’inusuale e complesso tempo ritmico di 11\8, è una jam che sa di jazz, acid rock, dove il suono arriva a zampate caracollanti. Arriva poi il turno dell’immersione nel blues, che sarà per tutta la carriera della band uno dei pilastri fondamentali: Pigpen ruggisce come un leone nella ripresa di Turn On Your Lovelight, classico della Peacock Record scritto da Don Robey, che qui svetta oltre i 15 minuti, e diventerà anch’esso un classico dei concerti con Pigpen in formazione (sfortunatamente morirà pochi anni dopo, nel 1972, per una rara malattia autoimmune). Ma c’è ancora modo di addentrarsi ancora più a fondo nelle profondità del blues: la band pesca un pezzo del Reverendo Gary Davis, dei primi anni ‘30, tra lo spiritual e il sermone accusatore, Death Don’y Have No Mercy, che viene rallentata all’inverosimile, e cresce con gli interventi magici e da brividi della chitarra di Garcia e dell’organo Hammond di Pigpen, con la sua vocalità calda e ruvida che regala una interpretazione indimenticabile. Con un salto inaspettato, Constanten mette in musica il suo diploma conseguito con Karl Heinz Stockhausen: Feedback è già elettronica, in un susseguirsi di effetti stranianti ed evocativi degli stati psicofisici alterati, con ruggiti elettrici che sembrano spilli di luce in un mare caotico. Alla fine, come un saluto tra amici, il traditional And We Bid You Goodnight saluta un momento storico della storia del rock, il primo e uno dei più alti momenti di improvvisazione musicale, che in quel periodo stava iniziando a diffondersi nel rock. Michelangelo Antonioni prenderà uno spezzone di qualche minuti di Dark Star per una delle scene cult di Zabriskie Point. Nella sterminata e inimitabile discografia Dead, esistono due perle assolute: nel 2005 un box set, limitato a 10 mila copie, Fillmore West 1969: The Complete Recordings, in 10 cd raccoglie in serie le 4 esibizioni al Fillmore West, con alcune perle, tipo una Turn On Your Lovelight da 19 minuti e una cover mozzafiato di Hey Jude dei Beatles. Nello stesso anno verrà distribuita anche una versione 3 cd che raccoglie alcune delle esibizioni di quelle serate magiche, tra cui due jam al limite della fantascienza, That's It For The Other One da 23:30 e una Jam da 25. Difficile trovare miglior rappresentazione della Haight Ashbury che non sia questo disco, per tutto quello che contiene, tranne forse un diretto impegno politico, che verrà sviluppato con più incisività dai Jefferson Airplane. Uno dei dischi da avere.

[hallmark-movie-fanatics]

LACEY CHABERT, AUTUMN REESER AND ALISON SWEENEY COME TOGETHER IN AN ENCHANTING CROSSOVER TRILOGY STARTING WITH ‘THE WEDDING VEIL’ A NEW, ORIGINAL MOVIE PREMIERING JANUARY 8, ON HALLMARK CHANNEL

Part of the Network’s Annual “New Year, New Movies” Programming Event 

Kevin McGarry Also Stars

STUDIO CITY, CA – December 17, 2021 – Lacey Chabert (Mean Girls, “Christmas at Castle Hart”) Autumn Reeser (Sully, “Entourage”) and Alison Sweeney (“Days of Our Lives,” “Open by Christmas”) are longtime college friends who find an enchanted antique in “The Wedding Veil” a new, original movie premiering Saturday, January 8 (8 p.m. ET/PT), on Hallmark Channel, as part of the network’s annual “New Year, New Movies” programming event. The first installment of a crossover trilogy, the movie also stars Kevin McGarry (“When Calls the Heart,” “Heartland”).

Avery (Chabert), Emma (Reeser) and Tracy (Sweeney) are three close, but far-flung college friends who reunite in different cities every year to go antiquing. During a visit to San Francisco, they discover an extraordinary, antique lace wedding veil with a legend – it is said that whoever possesses the veil will find their true love. The friends agree to purchase the veil together and pass it along to each other to test whether or not the legend is true. Romantic, curator Avery is the first to take possession and very soon after meets a handsome stranger, Peter (McGarry). As they spend a carefree day together at a local museum, they share some uncanny coincidences that have Avery wondering if it’s fate. When a misunderstanding leads Peter to give her the cold-shoulder, Avery resolves to put him out of her mind...only for him to show up at her job back in Boston. It turns out that Peter is from a very well-known philanthropic family and the newest board member at the museum where she works. When they uncover a long-lost painting from a 19th century Italian master, Peter works closely with Avery on a special gala to unveil its restoration. As the project brings the pair closer and they start to clear the air, they find the coincidences they share just might be the veil, working its magic.

“The Wedding Veil” is from Veil Road Productions Ltd. Beth Grossbard, Lisa Demberg, Lacey Chabert, Terry Ingram and Harvey Kahn are executive producers. Allen Lewis is supervising producer and Charles Cooper is producer. Terry Ingram directed from a script by Sandra Berg & Judith Berg.

[rockislandadultreads]

Complex Stories: Books to Read

Swimming Back to Trout River by Linda Rui Feng

How many times in life can we start over without losing ourselves? In the summer of 1986, in a small Chinese village, ten-year-old Junie receives a momentous letter from her parents, who had left for America years ago: her father promises to return home and collect her by her twelfth birthday. But Junie’s growing determination to stay put in the idyllic countryside with her beloved grandparents threatens to derail her family’s shared future. What Junie doesn’t know is that her parents, Momo and Cassia, are newly estranged from one another in their adopted country, each holding close private tragedies and histories from the tumultuous years of their youth during China’s Cultural Revolution. While Momo grapples anew with his deferred musical ambitions and dreams for Junie’s future in America, Cassia finally begins to wrestle with a shocking act of brutality from years ago. In order for Momo to fulfill his promise, he must make one last desperate attempt to reunite all three members of the family before Junie’s birthday—even if it means bringing painful family secrets to light.

When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain

Anna Hart is a missing persons detective in San Francisco. When tragedy strikes her personal life, Anna, desperate and numb, flees to the Northern California village of Mendocino to grieve. She lived there as a child with her beloved foster parents, and now she believes it might be the only place left for her. Yet the day she arrives, she learns a local teenage girl has gone missing. The crime feels frighteningly reminiscent of the most crucial time in Anna's childhood, when the unsolved murder of a young girl touched Mendocino and changed the community forever. As past and present collide, Anna realizes that she has been led to this moment. The most difficult lessons of her life have given her insight into how victims come into contact with violent predators. As Anna becomes obsessed with the missing girl, she must accept that true courage means getting out of her own way and learning to let others in. Weaving together actual cases of missing persons, trauma theory, and a hint of the metaphysical, this propulsive and deeply affecting novel tells a story of fate, necessary redemption, and what it takes, when the worst happens, to reclaim our lives--and our faith in one another.

Home Stretch by Graham Norton

It is 1987 and a small Irish community is preparing for a wedding. The day before the ceremony, a group of young friends, including the bride and groom, are involved in an accident. Three survive. Three are killed. The lives of the families are shattered and the rifts between them ripple throughout the small town. Connor survived, but living among the angry and the mourning is almost as hard as carrying the shame of having been the driver. He leaves the only place he knows for another life, taking his secrets with him. Travelling first to Liverpool, then London, he eventually makes a home—of sorts—for himself in New York, where he finds shelter and the possibility of forging a new life. But the secrets—the unspoken longings and regrets that have come to haunt those left behind—will not be silenced. Before long, Connor will have to confront his past. A powerful and timely novel of emigration and return, Home Stretch demonstrates Norton’s keen understanding of the power of stigma and secrecy—and their devastating effect on ordinary lives.

Notes from the Burning Age by Claire North

From one of the most imaginative writers of her generation comes an extraordinary vision of the future… Ven was once a holy man, a keeper of ancient archives. It was his duty to interpret archaic texts, sorting useful knowledge from the heretical ideas of the Burning Age—a time of excess and climate disaster. For in Ven's world, such material must be closely guarded so that the ills that led to that cataclysmic era can never be repeated. But when the revolutionary Brotherhood approaches Ven, pressuring him to translate stolen writings that threaten everything he once held dear, his life will be turned upside down. Torn between friendship and faith, Ven must decide how far he's willing to go to save this new world—and how much he is willing to lose. Notes from the Burning Age is the remarkable new novel from the award-winning Claire North that puts dystopian fiction in a whole new light.

[dweemeister]

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)

In American animation outside of Disney, no other studio inspires as much reverence as Warner Bros. The Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes shorts precipitated into worldwide recognition for those series’ stock characters. Despite this success, Warner Bros. did not release an animated feature until the musical Gay Purr-ee (1962), in association with United Productions of America (UPA). Animators at Warner Bros. from the 1930-1960s knew they were not making high art, nor were they pretending to. Warners, since the 1930s arguably the most financially stable of the major Hollywood studios, has historically seen little need to bankroll animated features. With that in mind, it might come as less of a shock that Warner Bros.’ first in-house animated feature is Eric Radomski and Bruce Timm’s Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. Originally intended as a direct-to-home media release, Mask of the Phantasm – based on and made by the production team behind Batman: The Animated Series (1992-1995) – transcends those modest intentions. It is among of the best superhero films ever made.

In the wake of Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), Batman: The Animated Series, unlike Burton’s efforts, affords time to characterize Bruce Wayne rather than surrendering ample screentime to thinly-written but scene-stealing villains. For that and many other reasons including the looming, vertical art deco-inspired production design of Gotham City; the distinctive and moodiness of its black paper backgrounds; and its balance of dark and lighter tones, BTAS remains a high-water mark among Batman fans – perhaps the best adaptation of the character there is. Mask of the Phantasm builds upon that foundation, in addition to crafting its own unique contribution within the DC Animated Universe (DCAU). As tired as origin stories are, Mask of the Phantasm is part-origin story for the Dark Knight – something largely avoided in BTAS – and somehow integrated here without distracting from the present-day scenes. Rarely is any Batman media a character study of Bruce Wayne, but Mask of the Phantasm proves itself a wonderful exception.

One evening, Batman/Bruce Wayne (Kevin Conroy) attempts to stop a gaggle of gangsters led by Chuckie Sol (Dick Miller) from laundering counterfeit money from a casino. Amid the scrum, Sol escapes from Batman, but immediately confronts a shadowy figure later known as the “Phantasm” in the parking garage – Sol dies in the confrontation. Batman receives the blame for the killing and the concurrent property destruction from Gotham City Councilman Arthur Reeves (Hart Bochner), who just so happened to be profiting from Sol’s racket. Across the film, Bruce reminisces about his courtship with Andrea Beaumont (Dana Delany), their breakup, and the lead-up to the creation of his Batman alter-ego. Juxtaposing Bruce’s past and present, we see how he channels his regrets and profound loss into being Batman. The past haunts him still, overhanging the high roofs of Wayne Manor and the ledges of Gotham’s skyscrapers. Back in the present day, the Phantasm has murdered another crime boss; a third murder involves the Joker (Mark Hamill), initiating an emotional dénouement that, because of the intricacies of motivation that the film develops, elevates the film beyond what might otherwise be sloppy storytelling.

The dramatis personae also includes crime boss Salvatore “The Wheezer” Valestra (Abe Vigoda); Andrea’s father, Carl Beaumont (Stacy Keach); the Wayne family butler, Alfred Pennyworth (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.); GCPD Commissioner James Gordon (Bob Hastings); and GCPD Det. Harvey Bullock (Robert Costanzo).

The screenplay by Alan Burnett (producer and writer on various DC Comics films and Hanna-Barbera productions), Paul Dini (head writer on BTAS and Superman: The Animated Series), Martin Pasko (a longtime DC Comics writer), and Michael Reaves (head writer on BTAS and 1994-1996’s Gargoyles) keep the film’s attention on Batman/Bruce Wayne, despite the introduction of various subplots and Joker – whose somewhat-questionable presence might seem to indicate a project going off the rails. Shadow of the Phantasm’s placement of flashbacks stems the awkwardness that Joker’s inclusion brings, assuring that the film stays grounded into Batman’s psychology. In past Bruce we see a charming young man with time, money, and looks to spare. His romantic side with Andrea is an element of his life, one that connects – inevitably, tangentially – to the trauma his parents’ murder. His most personal motivations – that which a younger Andrea could never see, and privy to only Alfred – are stuck in the past, circulating around that childhood loss.

The occasional reflections from Bruce Wayne on what his life has become make Mask of the Phantasm the most introspective piece within the BTAS continuity, freed from the constraints and expectations inherent of episodic television. No BTAS episode forces its eponymous character to confront himself to such extents. What Bruce Wayne and Batman have become in the present-day treads perilously close not to his style of vigilante corrective justice, but vengeance. The tragic paradox that lies at the heart of this tension is the soul of the Batman mythos. Anyone with the most basic understanding of who Bruce Wayne/Batman and the Joker are will at least have a glimmer of understanding of that paradox. This portrait of what Batman stands for is more maturely handled than any of the twentieth century live-action Batman films, and with less sensational filmmaking than Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder could produce. But with the film’s screenplay and Kevin Conroy’s iconic voice acting as the Caped Crusader, it becomes an inquest into Bruce Wayne’s tortured soul.

If Mask of the Phantasm ran longer than its seventy-eight-minute runtime, Andrea Beaumont, too, might also have received similar character development as Bruce Wayne here. Even within those seventy-eight minutes, Andrea – with a great assist from Dana Delany’s voice acting (Delany so impressed Bruce Timm here that she was given the role of Lois Lane in Superman: The Animated Series) – is a nevertheless fascinating character. In a cruel irony, her ultimate role in Mask of the Phantasm is to be an incidental mirror to the violence that occurs in this film. Her decision is not an imposition, whether conscious or unconscious, from someone else, but hers and hers alone.

In this drama fit for opera, this Batman occupies a world of operatic proportions. The background and character animation are not as pristine as the best examples of BTAS due to some scattered bits of animation outsourcing. The animation of BTAS might seem stiff and janky to modern viewers expecting Flash hand-drawn animation or hand-drawn/CGI hybrids. However, Mask of the Phantasm retains the gravity-defying art deco of the animated series that somehow does not clash with the ‘90s-influenced and futuristic elements it integrates. Its primary inspirations are of film noir and the Metropolis seen in the Fleischer Studios’ Superman series of short films (1941-1943). The black paper backgrounds provide Gotham’s street corners and rooftops a nocturnal menace, immersing the viewer into the city’s seediness.

Composer Shirley Walker (orchestrator on 1979’s The Black Stallion, conductor and orchestrator on 1989’s Batman) was one of the few women composers in Hollywood at the turn of the twentieth into the twenty-first century. A pianist (she played with the San Francisco Symphony as a soloist while still in high school) who studied music composition at San Francisco State University, Walker would later become one of the first female film score composers to receive a solo credit for composing the music in John Carpenter’s Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992). But it is her work in the DCAU that distinguishes her – of particular note is her arrangement of Danny Elfman’s theme to 1989’s Batman for BTAS and a wholly original main theme for Superman: The Animated Series. Though Walker could adjust her style to suit a more synthetic sound, she specialized in composing grand orchestral cues. That style was apparent in BTAS and is adapted here from the opening titles (the lyrics here are actually gibberish and are the names of Walker’s music department sung backwards). The foreboding brass and string unison lines seem to reverberate off the animation’s skyscraper-filled backgrounds. Numerous passages in Walker’s score, as if taking hints from Richard Wagner, elect not to resolve to the tonic – setting up scenes where tension escalates alongside the music, forestalling the dramatic and musical release.

One stunning exception to Walker’s ominous, atmospheric score is the gentle cue “First Love”, an interplay between solo oboe and synthesizer. Bruce’s flashbacks are not only a balm to the grimness of his present situation, but a musical reprieve from the intensity of the action scoring. That Walker can navigate between such differing moods exemplifies her compositional dexterity and overall musical excellence. Walker, who cited Mask of the Phantasm as her personal favorite composition for any film or television production, was one of the DCAU’s greatest under-heralded contributors. And how I wish she was given more chances to score different sorts of films.

Warner Bros.’ last-minute reversal on Mask of the Phantasm’s release strategy – abandoning the direct-to-home media debut for a theatrical release – meant minimal marketing for a low-budget film that made barely a dent at the box office. The film’s home media release would more than make up for the film’s theatrical release failure. Upon the success of BTAS and the critical acclaim lavished on Mask of the Phantasm, Warner Bros. kept the DCAU on television for another thirteen years, with infrequent direct-to-home media movie releases as recent as 2019.

For numerous DC Comics fans, the DCAU is an aesthetic and narrative touchstone. The limited animation is sublime for this period in animation history. In addition, one will overhear fans remaking that a certain superhero’s definitive portrayal might be thanks to the DCAU. The superhero benefitting the most from the DCAU’s characterization and storytelling is unquestionably Batman. And justifiably so, as Mask of the Phantasm shows due respect for Batman and Bruce Wayne – what molded them and how each persona intertwines with the other. The mythos behind any superhero is found not in fight scenes. Instead, it resides in the psychology and rationalizations that forces a person to directly confront another’s wickedness. Mask of the Phantasm realizes that such confrontations test Batman/Bruce Wayne’s remaining vestiges of humanity, and braves to ask moral questions that too many figures of superhero media would rather not think about.

My rating: 8.5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

[theheelerbooklifereads]

Rating: ⭐️⭐️

“Anna Hart is a seasoned missing persons detective in San Francisco with far too much knowledge of the darkest side of human nature. When tragedy strikes her personal life, Anna, desperate and numb, flees to the Northern California village of Mendocino to grieve. She lived there as a child with her beloved foster parents, and now she believes it might be the only place left for her. Yet the day she arrives, she learns that a local teenage girl has gone missing.

The crime feels frighteningly reminiscent of the most crucial time in Anna’s childhood, when the unsolved murder of a young girl touched Mendocino and changed the community forever. As past and present collide, Anna realizes that she has been led to this moment. The most difficult lessons of her life have given her insight into how victims come into contact with violent predators. As Anna becomes obsessed with saving the missing girl, she must accept that true courage means getting out of her own way and learning to let others in.

Weaving together actual cases of missing persons, trauma theory, and a hint of the metaphysical, this propulsive and deeply affecting novel tells a story of fate, necessary redemption, and what it takes, when the worst happens, to reclaim our lives—and our faith in one another.”

I’m just going to admit that I almost dnfed this book so many times. I found myself so bored and my mind wandered so many times as I listened to the audiobook. I do like the tie of Anna’s trauma to the cases. It really made her proactive because of it. For me, this was just a big miss.

[nobody-here-190709]

A really interesting website I discovered from the r/InternetMysteries subreddit. This website is huge and has been updated fairly regularly since its creation in the year 1999. The website describes itself as a “Non-escalating guide to verbal self-defense” and that appears to be its aim, to educate users on how to respond to so-called “verbal attacks”. This in theory sounds like a great idea, the only issue is that none of the responses make any sense. I have spent a fair bit of time trying to uncover meaning through the chaos that is this website but it is a difficult task.

Information about the creator can be found on the site. He is Richard Hart, a taxi driver in San Francisco. This site is named after the taxi he drives, taxi 1010. Here is an extract from the website:

Richard programmed computers and invented algorithms at Dartmouth College (part  of a work-study program in the late 'sixties), IBM, Atari, and a think tank  in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The think tank spoiled him — He got used to  doing good work on his own. So when Atari crashed in the late 'eighties, he  landed in a taxicab in San Francisco, and started doing research in "emotionally  mature ways to stick up for yourself”.

Further down I found some links to work by him and found that he was in fact a scientist who released this research paper, among others: Pattern analysis as a tool for inventing algorithms.

The website contains art created by his sister, Amoret Phillips who has also worked on other websites over the years.

There are a few forums and blogs that discuss this website (some of which I may go into more depth into in another post) and a few which mention actually meeting Richard, the site’s creator. In these posts they describe talking to him, generally about similar circumstances to what his site disscusses, and he hands them a business card with the URL to his website on it. The comments about the website generally state how the creator must be crazy, part of a cult or how he has created a 90′s style website.

Anyway, I was going to wrap up here, but there is one more interesting discovery that I have made. Taxi1010 appears on this wikipedia article. I find this to be rather peculiar seeing that this website is so obscure. I searched the edits for this page and found that the addition of Taxi1010 to it was by a user called YishE who has since been deleted. Checking YishE’s edit history, which you can view here, shows that on one day in 2010, in the same 10 minutes, he added taxi1010 to a range of different pages.

Anyway, I hope this post was interesting and I hope more info can be found about this interesting site and the mysterious wikipedia user YishE. If you liked this post and have any information to share leave a comment.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE TROUBLE WITH THE NERDS

It may look Victorian, but a famous speaker. But in addition to such indirect competitors, I think you only need two kinds of solutions to this problem. Founders who succeed quickly don't usually realize how lucky they were. Theory: In US presidential elections, the more admirable it is. Those companies were apparently willing to establish subsidiaries wherever the experts wanted to live. But barring emergencies you have a specific idea you want to reach users, you do it consciously you'll do it even better. If another country wanted to establish a mediocre university, for an additional half billion or so you could have a great one. That's what you're addicted to. If Jessica was so important to launch fast is not so much that they've done work worth tens of billions of dollars, but that a applies to any mobile phone, and b avoid the danger of fooling yourself as well as negative. Few would be willing to claim that it doesn't matter much either way. In fact, it's suspiciously hard to find a field of math that truly has no practical use.

The cause must be external. There are things I know I learned from Paul Buchheit: it's better to start with no more than an outline of what you need to reproduce is those two or three founders sitting around a kitchen table deciding to start a silicon valley; you let one grow. With a startup, I think it's because they seem so formidable. Hype doesn't make satisfied users, at least not for something as complicated as technology. The degree of courage of past or present union leaders are somehow inferior. And even then they rarely said so outright. Next year you'll have to explain how your startup was viral.

Physics progressed faster as the problem became predicting observable behavior, instead of releasing a software update immediately, they had to submit their code to an intermediary who sat on it for a month and then rejected it because it contained an icon they didn't like? We thought Airbnb was a bad idea. Quiet is another matter. Com, which their friends at Parse took. He couldn't have afforded a minicomputer. But powerful as they are, they're not drifting. He was like an explorer looking for a territory to the north of him, I at least don't have any regrets over what might have been. As for the theory being obvious, as far as I can tell it isn't.

The ups and downs were more extreme than they were prepared for.1 Instead of version 1s to be superseded, the works they produced continued to attract new readers. It is, in some ways. And the fact that they have to be high, and if they try to be creative. One developer told me: As a result of their process, the App Store approval process is broken. On the subway back from the airport she asked Why is everyone smiling? This could become more common. Once you acknowledge that, you stop believing there is nothing else you could be called.2 Everyone knows you're supposed to buy when times are bad.

Their denial derives from two very powerful forces: identity, and lack of imagination. The record labels agreed, reluctantly. My oldest son will be 7 soon. But you have to pay as much for that. No doubt it was a waste of time to try to reverse the fortunes of a declining industrial town like Detroit or Philadelphia by trying to seem legit. So tablet makers should be thinking: what else can we give developers access to? A great university near an attractive town. People only have so many leisure hours a day, and TV is premised on such long sessions unlike Google, which prides itself on sending users on their way quickly that anything that takes up their time is competing with it. The iPhone and the iPad have effectively drilled a hole that will allow ephemeralization to flow into a lot of founders are surprised is that because they work fast, they expect everyone else to.

But none of the startup world. It was a place people went in search of something new. Bureaucrats by their nature are the exact opposite sort of people who opt out of the closet and admit, at least 3 years and probably 5. That's how it happens in books and movies, because that's why it's structured that way. Dangerous territory, that; if anything you should cultivate dissatisfaction. The main complaint of the more successful founders: The immense value of the startup hubs has: not San Francisco, Boston, Seattle. They treat iPhone apps the way they framed the question.

Notes

But core of the people who are good presenters, but its inspiration; the defining test is whether you have is so valuable that visitors should gladly register to try to ensure that they probably wouldn't even exist anymore. Starting a company just to load a problem if you'll never need to import is broader, ranging from 50 to 6,000 sestertii apiece for slaves learned in the case. Does anyone really think we're as open as one could aspire to the modern idea were proposed by Timothy Hart in 1964, two years investigating it. Actually no one is now the founder visa in a situation where they all sit waiting for the sledgehammer; if they stopped causing so much pain, it may be whether what you learn in even the flaws of big corporations found that three quarters of them.

Throw in the long tail for other kinds of menial work early in the 1980s was enabled by a central authority according to certain somewhat depressing rules many of the statistics they use the standard career paths of trustafarians to start some vaguely benevolent business.

Thanks to Tad Marko, Patrick Collison, Geoff Ralston, Sam Altman, and Mark Nitzberg for reading a previous draft.

[silent-era-of-cinema]

John Gilbert (born John Cecil Pringle; July 10, 1897 – January 9, 1936) was an American actor, screenwriter and director. He rose to fame during the silent film era and became a popular leading man known as "The Great Lover". His legendary breakthrough came in 1925 with his starring roles in The Merry Widow and The Big Parade. At the height of his career, Gilbert rivaled Rudolph Valentino as a box office draw.

Gilbert's career declined precipitously when silent pictures gave way to talkies. Though Gilbert was often cited as one of the high-profile examples of an actor who was unsuccessful in making the transition to sound films, his decline as a star had far more to do with studio politics and money than with the sound of his screen voice, which was rich and distinctive.

Born John Cecil Pringle in Logan, Utah, to stock-company actor parents, John Pringle (1865–1929) and Ida Apperly Gilbert (1877–1913), he struggled through a childhood of abuse and neglect, with his family moving frequently and young "Jack" having to attend assorted schools throughout the United States. When his family finally settled in California, he attended Hitchcock Military Academy in San Rafael. After he left school, Gilbert worked as a rubber goods salesman in San Francisco, then performed with the Baker Stock Company in Portland, Oregon, in 1914. He subsequently found work the following year as a stage manager in another stock company in Spokane, Washington, but he soon lost that job when the company went out of business.

After losing his stage job in 1915, Gilbert decided to try screen acting, and he quickly gained work as a film extra through Herschell Mayall. Gilbert first appeared in The Mother Instinct (1915), a short directed by Wilfred Lucas. He then found work as an extra with the Thomas Ince Studios in productions such as The Coward (1915), Aloha Oe (1915), Civilization (1915), The Last Act (1916), and William Hart's Hell's Hinges (1916).

During his initial years in films, Gilbert also performed in releases by Kay-Bee Company such as Matrimony (1915), The Corner (1915), Eye of the Night (1916), and Bullets and Brown Eyes (1916). His first major costarring role was as Willie Hudson in The Apostle of Vengeance, also with William S. Hart.[6] Viewed by studio executives as a promising but still "juvenile" actor at this stage of his career, Gilbert's contract salary was $40 a week ($940 today), fairly ample pay for most American workers in the early 1900s.[7] Gilbert continued to get more substantial parts at Kay-Bee, which billed him as "Jack Gilbert" in The Aryan (1916), The Phantom (1916), Shell 43 (1916), The Sin Ye Do (1917), The Weaker Sex (1917), and The Bride of Hate (1917). His first true leading role was in Princess of the Dark (1917) with Enid Bennett, but the film was not a big success and he went back to supporting roles in The Dark Road (1917), Happiness (1917), The Millionaire Vagrant (1917), and The Hater of Men (1917).

Gilbert went over to Triangle Films where he was in The Mother Instinct (1917), Golden Rule Kate (1917), The Devil Dodger (1917) (second billed), Up or Down? (1917), and Nancy Comes Home (1918). For Paralta Plays, Gilbert did Shackled (1918), One Dollar Bid (1918), and Wedlock (1918) and More Trouble (1918) for Anderson, but the company went bankrupt.[7] He also was cast in Doing Their Bit (1918) at Fox and then returned to Triangle for The Mask (1918). Gilbert also did Three X Gordon (1918) for Jesse Hampton, The Dawn of Understanding (1918), The White Heather (1919) for Maurice Tourneur, The Busher (1919) for Thomas Ince, The Man Beneath for Haworth, A Little Brother of the Rich (1919) for Universal, The Red Viper (1919) for Tyrad, For a Woman's Honor (1919) for Jess Hampton, Widow by Proxy (1919) for Paramount, Heart o' the Hills (1919) for Mary Pickford, and Should a Woman Tell? (1919) for Screen Classics.

Maurice Tourneur signed him to a contract to both write and act in films. Gilbert performed in and co-wrote The White Circle (1920), The Great Redeemer (1921), and Deep Waters (1921). As a writer only, he worked on The Bait (1921), which starred and was produced by Hope Hampton. For Hampton, Gilbert wrote and directed as well, but he did not appear in Love's Penalty (1921).

In 1921, Gilbert signed a three-year contract with Fox Film Corporation, which subsequently cast him in romantic leading roles and promoted him now as "John Gilbert". The actor's first starring part for the studio was in Shame (1921).[10] He followed it with leading roles in Arabian Love (1922), Gleam O'Dawn (1922), The Yellow Stain (1922), Honor First (1922), Monte Cristo (1922), Calvert's Valley (1922), The Love Gambler (1922), and A California Romance (1922). Many of the scenarios for these films were written by Jules Furthman.

Gilbert returned temporarily to Tourneur to costar with Lon Chaney in While Paris Sleeps (1923). Back at Fox, he starred in Truxton King (1923), Madness of Youth (1923), St. Elmo (1923), and The Exiles (1923). The same year he starred in Cameo Kirby (1923), directed by John Ford, co starring Jean Arthur. He went into The Wolf Man (1923) with Norma Shearer, not a horror film, but the story of a man who believes he murdered his fiancée's brother while drunk. Gilbert also performed in his last films for Fox in 1924, including Just Off Broadway, A Man's Mate, The Lone Chance, and Romance Ranch.

Under the auspices of movie producer Irving Thalberg, Gilbert obtained a release from his Fox contract and moved to MGM, where he became a full-fledged star cast in major productions. First starring in His Hour (1924) directed by King Vidor and written by Elinor Glyn his film career entered its ascendancy. He followed this success with He Who Gets Slapped (1924) co-starring Chaney and Shearer and directed by Victor Sjöström; The Snob (1924) with Shearer; The Wife of the Centaur (1924) for Vidor.

The next year, Gilbert would star in two of MGM's most critically acclaimed and popular film productions of the silent era: Erich von Stroheim's The Merry Widow and King Vidor's The Big Parade.

Gilbert was assigned to star in Erich von Stroheim's The Merry Widow by Irving Thalberg, over the objections of the Austrian-American director. Von Stroheim expressed his displeasure bluntly to his leading man: "Gilbert, I am forced to use you in my picture. I do not want you, but the decision was not in my hands. I assure you I will do everything in my power to make you comfortable." Gilbert, mortified, soon stalked off the set in a rage, tearing off his costume. Von Stroheim followed him to his dressing room and apologized. The two agreed to share a drink. Then Gilbert apologized and they had another drink. The tempest subsided and was resolved amicably. According to Gilbert, the contretemps served to "cement a relationship which for my part will never end."

The public adulation that Gilbert experienced with his growing celebrity astounded him: "Everywhere I hear whispers and gasps in acknowledgment of my presence... he whole thing became too fantastic for me to comprehend. Acting, the very thing I had been fighting and ridiculing for seven years, had brought me success, riches and renown. I was a great motion picture artist. Well, I’ll be damned!"

Gilbert was next cast by Thalberg to star in the King Vidor's war-romance The Big Parade (1925), which became the second-highest grossing silent film and the most profitable film of the silent era. Gilbert's "inspired performance" as an American doughboy in France during World War I was the high point of his acting career. He fully immersed himself in the role of Jim Apperson, a Southern gentleman who, with two working class comrades, experiences the horrors of trench warfare. Gilbert declared: "No love has ever enthralled me as did the making of this picture...All that has followed is balderdash."

The following year, Vidor reunited Gilbert with two of his co-stars from that picture, Renée Adorée and Karl Dane, for the film La Bohème (1926) which also starred Lillian Gish. He then did another with Vidor, Bardelys the Magnificent (1926).

In 1926, Gilbert made Flesh and the Devil (1926), his first film with Greta Garbo. Gilbert first encountered Garbo on the set during filming of the railway station scene, and the chemistry between the two was evidently instantaneous. Director Clarence Brown remarked approvingly that he "had a love affair going for me that you couldn’t beat, any way you tried." Garbo and Gilbert soon began a highly publicized romance, much to the delight of their fans and to MGM.

He made The Show (1927) with Adoree for Tod Browning then did Twelve Miles Out (1927) with Joan Crawford and Man, Woman and Sin (1927) with Jeanne Eagels.

Gilbert was reunited with Garbo in a modern adaptation of Tolstoy's 19th-century novel, Anna Karenina. The title was changed to Love (1927) to capitalize on the real life love affair of the stars and advertised by MGM as "Garbo and Gilbert in Love."

Gilbert made The Cossacks (1928) with Adoree; Four Walls (1928) with Crawford; Show People (1928) with Marion Davies for Vidor, in which Gilbert only had a cameo; and The Masks of the Devil (1928) for Victor Sjöström.

Though officially directed by Edmund Goulding, Gilbert, though uncredited, was responsible for directing the love scenes involving Garbo. He was perhaps the only person in the industry whose "artistic judgment" she fully respected. As such, MGM approved of this arrangement.

Gilbert and Garbo were teamed for a third time in A Woman of Affairs (1928). His last silent film was Desert Nights (1929).

With the coming of sound, Gilbert's vocal talents made a good first impression, though the studio had failed to conduct a voice test. The conventional wisdom of the day dictated that actors in the new talkies should emulate "correct stage diction". Gilbert's strict adherence to this method produced an affected delivery that made audiences giggle, and not due to any particularity in Gilbert's natural speech. Indeed, the "quality of his voice compared well with that of co-star Conrad Nagel, regarded as having one of the best voices for sound."

Gilbert signed an immensely lucrative multi-picture contract with MGM in 1928 that totaled $1,500,000. The terms of the agreement positioned MGM executives Irving Thalberg and Nicholas Schenck, both sympathetic to the star, to supervise his career. Gilbert, however, frequently clashed with studio head Louis B. Mayer over creative, social and financial matters. A confrontation between the two men, one that became physical, occurred at the planned double-wedding of Garbo and Gilbert and director King Vidor and actress Eleanor Boardman. Mayer reportedly made a crude remark to Gilbert about Garbo, and Gilbert reacted by knocking Mayer to the floor with his fist.[24] While this story has been disputed or dismissed as hearsay by some historians, Vidor's bride Eleanor Boardman insisted that she actually witnessed the altercation.

In the all-star musical comedy The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929), Gilbert and Norma Shearer played the balcony scene from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, first as written, then followed with a slang rendition of the scene. The comic effect served to "dispell the bad impression" produced by Gilbert's original "mincing" delivery.

Audiences awaited further romantic roles from Gilbert on the talking screen. The next vehicle was the Ruritanian romance His Glorious Night (1929), directed by Lionel Barrymore. According to reviewers, audiences laughed nervously at Gilbert's performance. The offense was not Gilbert's voice, but the awkward scenario along with the overly ardent love scenes. In one, Gilbert keeps kissing his leading lady, (Catherine Dale Owen), while saying "I love you" over and over again. (The scene was parodied in the MGM musical Singin' in the Rain (1952) in which a preview of the fictional The Dueling Cavalier flops disastrously.)

Director King Vidor speculated that the late Rudolph Valentino, Gilbert's main rival for romantic leads in the silent era, probably would have suffered the same fate in the talkie era had he lived. Gilbert's inept phrasing, his "dreadful enunciation" and the "inane" script as the genuine sources of his poor performance, that drew "titters" from audiences.

The persistent myth that John Gilbert had a "squeaky voice" that doomed his career in sound films first emerged from his performance in 1929 with His Glorious Night. It was even rumored that Louis B. Mayer ordered Gilbert's voice to be gelded by manipulating the sound track to give it a higher, less masculine pitch. Later, after analyzing the film's sound track, British film historian Kevin Brownlow found that the timbre and frequency of Gilbert's speaking scenes in His Glorious Night were no different than in his subsequent talkies. Brownlow also reported from that analysis that Gilbert's voice, overall, was "quite low". With regard to the alleged manipulation of Gilbert's footage by Mayer or by anyone else, television technicians in the 1960s determined that the actor's voice was consistent with those of other performers on the same print, casting doubt that any targeted "sabotaging" of Gilbert's voice occurred.

Film critic John Baxter described Gilbert as having "a light speaking voice", a minor defect that both MGM and the star "magnified into an obsession." Despite any conflicting opinions or myths surrounding the actor's voice, Mayer's lingering resentment and hostility toward Gilbert remained apparent, especially after MGM's star signed a new contract for six pictures at $250,000 each. Those ill feelings fueled additional speculation that Mayer deliberately assigned Gilbert bad scripts and ineffective directors in an effort to void the contract.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cast Gilbert in a film adaption of The Living Corpse by Tolstoy re-titled as Redemption (1929). The bleak atmosphere and maudlin dialogue presaged the disaster looming in the stars’ personal life and career. Gilbert's confident screen presence had vanished, while his use of the exaggerated stage diction that elicited laughs from the audience persisted. In one scene Gilbert declares ominously "I’m going to kill myself to let the whole world know what it has lost."[34]

MGM put him in a more rugged film, Way for a Sailor (1930) with Wallace Beery. He followed it with Gentleman's Fate (1931). Gilbert became increasingly depressed by progressively inferior films and idle stretches between productions. Despite efforts by studio executives at MGM to cancel his contract, Gilbert resolved to thwart Louis B. Mayer and see the six-picture ordeal through to the end.

Gilbert's fortunes were temporarily restored when MGM's production chief Irving Thalberg gave him two projects that were character studies, giving Gilbert an excellent showcase for his versatility. The Phantom of Paris (1931), originally intended for Lon Chaney (who died from cancer in 1930), cast Gilbert as a debonair magician and showman who is falsely accused of murder and uses his mastery of disguise to unmask the real killer.

Downstairs (1932) was based on Gilbert's original story, with the actor playing against type as a scheming, blackmailing chauffeur. The films were well received by critics and fans but failed to revive his career. In between, he appeared in West of Broadway (1931). Shortly after making Downstairs, he married co-star Virginia Bruce; the couple divorced in 1934.

Gilbert fulfilled his contract with MGM with a perfunctory "B" picture – Fast Workers (1933) directed by Browning. He left the studio in 1933, terminating his $10,000 a week contract.

Exhausted and demoralized by his humiliations at MGM and his declining success at the box office, Gilbert began to drink heavily, contributing to his declining physical and mental health.

Gilbert announced his retirement from acting and was working at Fox as an "honorary" director when, in August 1933, Gilbert announced he had signed a seven-year contract with MGM at $75–100,000 a picture. The reason was Greta Garbo insisted that Gilbert return to MGM to play her leading man in Queen Christina (1933), directed by Rouben Mamoulian. Garbo was top-billed, with Gilbert's name beneath the title. Queen Christina, though a critical success, did not revive Gilbert's poor self-image or his career. Garbo was reported to have dropped the young Laurence Olivier scheduled to play the part, but director Rouben Mamoulian recalled that Olivier's screen tests had already eliminated him from consideration.

Columbia Pictures gave Gilbert what would be his final chance for a comeback in The Captain Hates the Sea (1934) in which he gave a capable performance as "a dissipated, bitter [and] cynical" playwright. But the off-screen cast of heavy drinkers encouraged his alcoholism. It was his last film.

Biographer Kevin Brownlow's eulogy to John Gilbert considers the destruction of both the man and his career:

"The career of John Gilbert indicates that the star, and the person playing the star, were regarded by producers as separate entities, subject to totally different attitudes. Gilbert, as an ordinary human being, had no legal right to the stardom that was the sole property of the studio. When Gilbert, as an employee, tried to seize control of the future of Gilbert the star, the studios decided to save their investment from falling into the hands of rivals, [so] they had to wreck their property. Other properties – books, films, sets – could be destroyed with impunity. But the destruction of a star carried with it the destruction of a person…it seems somewhat abhorrent that it took such tragedies as that of John Gilbert to bring us our entertainment."

Gilbert was married four times. His first marriage, on August 26, 1918, was to Olivia Burwell, a native of Mississippi whom Gilbert had met after her family moved to California. They separated the following year and Burwell returned to Mississippi for a while. She filed for divorce in Los Angeles in 1921.

In February 1921, Gilbert announced his engagement to actress Leatrice Joy. They married in Tijuana in November 1921.[44] As Gilbert had failed to secure a divorce from his first wife and the legality of Gilbert and Joy's Mexican marriage was questionable, the couple separated and had the marriage annulled to avoid a scandal. They remarried on March 3, 1922. The marriage was tumultuous and, in June 1923, Joy filed for legal separation after she claimed that Gilbert slapped her face after a night of heavy drinking. They reconciled several months later. In August 1924, Joy, who was pregnant with the couple's daughter, filed for divorce. Joy later said she left Gilbert after discovering he was having an affair with actress Laurette Taylor.[47] Joy also claimed that Gilbert had conducted affairs with Barbara La Marr (with whom he had a romance before his marriage to Joy), Lila Lee and Bebe Daniels. Gilbert and Joy had a daughter, Leatrice Gilbert (later Fountain; 4 September 1924 – 20 January 2015). Joy was granted a divorce in May 1925.

In 1929, Gilbert eloped with actress Ina Claire to Las Vegas. They separated in February 1931 and divorced six months later. Gilbert's fourth and final marriage was on August 10, 1932, to actress Virginia Bruce, who had recently costarred with him on the MGM film Downstairs. The entertainment trade paper The Film Daily reported that their "quick" wedding was held in Gilbert's dressing room on the MGM lot while Bruce was working on another studio production, Kongo. Among the people attending the small ceremony were the head of MGM production Irving Thalberg, who served as Gilbert's best man; screenwriter Donald Ogden Stewart, whose wife Beatrice acted as Bruce's matron of honor; MGM art director and set designer Cedric Gibbons; and his wife, actress Dolores del Río. Bruce retired briefly from acting following the birth of their daughter Susan Ann; however, she resumed her career after her divorce from Gilbert in May 1934.

Before his death, Gilbert dated actress Marlene Dietrich as well as Greta Garbo. When he died, he had recently been slated to play a prominent supporting role in Dietrich's film Desire.

By 1934, alcoholism had severely damaged Gilbert's health. He suffered a serious heart attack in December 1935, which left him in poor health. Gilbert suffered a second heart attack at his Bel Air home on January 9, 1936, which was fatal.

A private funeral was held on January 11 at the B.E. Mortuary in Beverly Hills. Among the mourners were Gilbert's two ex-wives, Leatrice Joy and Virginia Bruce, his two daughters, and stars Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, Myrna Loy, and Raquel Torres.

Gilbert was cremated and his ashes were interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale in Glendale, California.

Gilbert left the bulk of his estate, valued at $363,494 (equivalent to $6.7 million in 2019), to his last ex-wife Virginia Bruce and their daughter, Susan Ann. He left $10,000 to his eldest daughter Leatrice, and other amounts to friends, relatives and his servants.

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Gilbert has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1755 Vine Street. In 1994, he was honored with his image on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld.

[cesabutterflywrites]

Violet; the Only Thing I See

Word Count: 2565

Notes: Soulmate AU, no warnings I can think of, but ask me to add if I didn’t catch any 

Summary: Patton only catches a glimpse of his first color in the city. 

Patton Harte was eighteen years, five months, and three days old when he saw color for the first time. 

He was walking down a busy avenue in San Francisco. He had taken BART to the city on his day off to be under the gaze of the skyscrapers. He strode over sparkling pavement, and as he looked up the sun glittered off the top windows of the massive buildings above him. It was a windy day in the city, so he made sure to wear a jacket with deep pockets to protect his hands from the chill. There were people everywhere, cars at a standstill beside him in the rush hour, and he felt buzzed. 

Being in the city was his favorite state of being. He grew up in the Oakland Hills looking out to the small section of the tallest buildings, surrounded by two bridges. Watching the sun rise in the mornings over the Bay was his favorite pastime. He was so excited to see the colors his parents described to him. If something so wonderful could be even more beautiful outside of the shades of gray, he would probably die soon after just from the sheer bliss. 

He knew San Francisco was full of color. They had the Castro District, historically a town where a lot of people from the LGBTQ+ community built roots. There were the piers, and the exploratorium was busy all the time with people. The Westfield Mall had so many different shades of gray, and the shops made him excited to shop for clothes when he had a better idea of what they looked like. 

He wondered if the reason he ventured into the city was because of all the potential of color he anticipated. He longed to see the blues of the bay water as he stared out on the end of Pier 39. He wanted to know the color of the soft grass he laid on when watching fireworks below Ghirardelli Square. Oh, the fireworks, what an even more iridescent display they would be when he was holding the hands of the person who introduced the world to him in a new way. 

He was walking towards Pier One from the shadows of the buildings, and came upon tents belonging to people selling their goods. He smiled as he took his time browsing the products. He admired the way jewelry glimmered in the sunlight.  The handmade beanies were exquisite. He had a few extra dollars in his pocket, so he purchased the one that seemed to compliment his head well. The vendor had told him it was, “Sky blue,” with a pitying smile on their face. Most people met their soulmates in high school. 

He had just graduated high school the month prior, and had felt some disappointment that he couldn’t enjoy the school colors with his peers. He didn’t let that dampen his mood completely. He had his parents take a ton of pictures for him to look at when he had someone to show them to. 

As he made his way to the MUNI stop, the crowd thickened in the evening foot traffic. 

“Sorry,” he muttered. He accidentally bumped into someone, he wasn’t paying attention to who, and next thing he knew he caught a few snippets of...color… here and there. There were mostly the grays, whites, and blacks he was used to but all of the sudden there was something...new. 

He looked behind him to see if the person he had bumped into was looking for him as well. He stood on his tip-toes, angering others passing by. He craned his neck, but to no avail. The person who introduced him to this taste of color was gone. In just the briefest of meetings, Patton’s life was changed with no warning or explanation.

He slumped his shoulders in disappointment. He made his way home slowly, his head dropped low, not even bothering to marvel in the new discovery in his sight. What was the point of the vibrant hints if they were only painful reminders of a missed opportunity lost in a crowd. 

He got onto BART, holding onto the wrist straps attached to the rails of the train car. He pulled out his phone, noticing the case was the new color. That sparked his curiosity. He opened up Google, searching for the colors of the Rainbow. Rainbows were what everyone said was the combination of all colors. He smiled to himself, knowing now that the colors teasing his vision were shades of violet.

----

“Hey, Pat, how was your day out?” his mom asked when he entered the doorway of his home in the hills. 

His smile was bittersweet as he answered, “Enlightening.”

Mrs. Harte raised her eyebrow, and Patton noticed light shades of violet were smudged onto her eyelids. He couldn’t find himself to answer the unasked question, it was too much, and his mother sitting in front of him made him feel uneasy. 

“I’m wiped, I’m going to go ahead and rest in bed until dinner’s ready. I love you,” he kissed his mom on the cheek and bolted to his room. 

He immediately wished that he had stayed in the living room when he saw his room had dashes and splotches of violet everywhere. Had his mind known this would be his only vision? It wasn’t all purple, but it was enough to split his chest open and let the tears drop from his eyes. He sniffled, and removed his glasses so he could lay on his bed and hug his childhood puppy, who happened to have a light purple bow tie. 

He must’ve cried himself to sleep, because when he woke up it was dark. He groaned, feeling for his glasses so he could see slightly better. When he found them, he looked at his clock and gasped in shock. His parents had let him sleep, so it was five in the morning. 

He decided that being up early wasn’t too bad, and frankly he had developed a bad habit of staying up too late once he graduated. He put on a shirt, it was dark purple, he noticed. He woke up with the ability to view the color without hurt. Less than a day, and he was immune. The color would become as familiar as his normal grays. 

Patton fixed himself a mug of tea and made his way to the porch that overlooked the bay. He anticipated the sunrise. Would it be purple as well? What if that was the color of the sky in the morning? He sipped his hot tea in anticipation, and was excited to see the barest hints of what he assumed to be lavender on the edges of the sky where the sun blended with the night. He bounced excitedly, happy to finally enjoy the sunrise with new  eyes.. He looked to the other seat, and drooped in disappointment to find it empty. 

Being brought back to reality hurt, and suddenly it was the same pain as the day before filling his head. He closed his eyes, not wanting to smudge his glasses with tears. 

He only opened them when he heard the sliding glass doors open and close. His dad sat on the previously empty seat with a cup of coffee. He smiled, the silver streaks in his hair more prominent with age. He gazed in wonderment at the view. Of course he did, he had been able to see color since he was sixteen years old. 

“I don’t understand why you look so amazed, you’ve seen it before.” Patton remarked bitterly, surprisingly out of character. 

“It’s different every morning,” his dad answered before looking at him curiously, “Why so sour, son?”

Patton deflated with a sigh. Perhaps some help from his dad would make him feel better. So he told him. 

He recalled his afternoon prior in perfect clarity. He made sure to use as many details as possible, hoping there was a piece he wasn’t able to see that his dad could. He relayed the scene of each moment leading up to the brief encounter. The sun had finally risen by the time he had finished, and his tears had finally fallen more. His dad handed him a handkerchief from his shirt pocket. 

Patton wiped his face while his dad pondered everything he had just been told. Patton went to sip his tea, but found it to be cold. He curled his lip in disappointment. He would have to make a new cup, but he didn’t want to get up in case his dad had more to say. 

After some silence, and without a word, his dad stood up to go inside. Patton got up to follow, curious as to why his dad was acting so mysterious. 

They stopped in the kitchen. His dad started rinsing his mug. “Did you see anything about this person? Any detail?” the older man finally asked. 

Patton shrugged. “I wasn’t really paying attention. I can only remember black, but it could have been a silhouette to fill in the empty space.” 

His dad nodded solemnly. “Okay, here’s the plan. You’re going to go back to the city, and retrace your steps. Don’t worry about cash, I’ll give you some. Go on, get  your things, I’ll even drive you to a BART station on my way to work. 

Patton nodded, excited for the adventure once more. 

----

Patton walked beneath the sky scrapers, seeing the barest depth to the shadows they cast. It looked nearly the same, yet more...pronounced. He marveled at the sights from the previous day, now so new. It was as if it were his first time in the city. He had to keep himself from skipping around. Hope was like sprouted lavender blooming forth from his chest. He saw every little bit of purple, and wondered to himself why he let the connotations disrupt the beauty of it. 

Maybe it was good to have a color of his own, just for a bit. He decided to go to the Westfield mall, and stared in wonder at the shops. Each window had a streak or two of lilac, the lingerie store had plum colored undergarments, the tables in the dining areas were lined in a weird, dark shade of purple that Patton tilted his head in confusion at. 

It was a bit off of his route from the previous day, but he wanted to enjoy the new sight for once. Take some time to experience the color on his own. Maybe that was what he was supposed to do, anyways.

He sat down at the table near the poke bowl counter, his own customized bowl in front of him as he gazed around his surroundings. 

There were people everywhere, and not so many of them were wearing the color. Most everyone seemed like they had before, silhouettes of swirling grays surrounding him, alone. That is, until he caught sight of a boy with purple hair sitting down at the table next to him. 

He stared in wonderment. He knew people who saw color changed their hair, but he never imagined it to be so...vibrant. The boy was dressed in all dark clothing. He seemed to be elsewhere, and it must have not been pleasant, seeing as his expression was in a grimace. 

Patton stirred his chopsticks in his bowl, starting to daydream about the purple haired boy. He wondered why he was so drawn, perhaps it was because he could see a detail about his person that he wouldn’t have before. 

“Hey, Specs, got a problem?” the boy asked, voice like gravel that made Patton’s heart skip a beat. 

“No, no! I was just staring at your hair,” Patton blushed, he didn’t want to be rude, and frankly had hoped the other wouldn’t notice. 

“Hm,” edged lips turned into a deep frown. “Whatever.” 

“Sorry…” Patton mumbled.

The boy’s head jerked up quickly, and Patton glanced curiously. What had he said?

“What-what did you say?” he asked, some soul in his voice, but Patton wasn’t sure if it was good. 

Patton gulped, “Sorry. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to stare. I just...just thought  your hair was pretty, and I only just started seeing color yesterday. Well, only one color, and that’s your head,” Patton stretched his arms out in defense as he watched the person move in front of him, “Sorry! I just-”

“Shut up,” the guy commanded, but softly. It wasn’t rude, it was tinged with nerves.

Patton gulped. He didn’t understand what was going on. Was this kid dangerous? No, he didn’t seem like it. 

The guy squatted next to Patton’s frozen figure. “I might never get another chance to say this,” the deep voice grumbled, “but hold my hand real quick.” 

Patton’s heart beat erratically in his chest. It couldn’t be. It can’t. It couldn’t. How?

His fingers trembled in fear of the unknown, and grabbed the stranger’s warm hand, and the world changed in the blink of an eye, literally. 

The world was full of color when there was contact. The person holding his hand gripped tight, which made Patton grateful because it was overwhelming. The mall they were in was more lively than he could have imagined. 

He looked at the face of his savior. He had dark black marks beneath his eyes. His skin was light, compared to Patton’s, but still so colorful. His eyes were something else. Light, vibrant, and Patton didn’t know how to describe it. He could tell that there were tears welling up in them. 

“I- I didn’t think I’d have a soulmate,” the boy confessed as the tears silently dropped. “I’ve always seen color. But you- something about your voice was familiar, and I needed to see- I was curious.” 

Patton was crying, too, but much less graceful. He had snot coming out of his nose, and his shoulders shook with sobs. He felt emotions as foreign as the world around him, and perhaps even more pleasant. 

“I’m Patton, can I hug you?” he asked shyly. 

“I’m Virgil. I’m not usually a hugger, but sure.” His voice was scratchy, nervous. He let go of Patton’s hand to open his arms wide. He was on his knees, still beside Patton. 

Patton dove into the dark arms of his new center. The one who brought him the colors of the rainbow surrounding him. If rainbows were made of light, it didn’t matter how dark Virgil’s clothes were, he was the brightest in the room. Patton nuzzled into the chest of his...soulmate. 

“Thank you,” he choked out, “Thank you so much!” 

“ You’re welcome, Pat,” Virgil responded as he patted the smaller boy’s back. 

Patton giggled, “Giving Pat a pat on the back?”

Virgil groaned, “Of course, I’m stuck with a punner forever.” 

Patton pulled his head up to see that Virgil was smirking, the remark was in jest. His smile was crooked, and probably the most beautiful thing Patton ever saw. 

“You’re pretty,” Virgil complimented. 

“Pretty Patton?” Patton asked, a sly smile on his face. 

“Sure,” Virgil rolled his eyes, “Pretty Patton.”

They both stood up, knees aching from the floor. They hugged properly, and they both fit perfectly. The world buzzed around them. Patton; glad to see the world in it’s complete beauty, and Virgil; happy to be able to share his vision with someone instead of alone. 

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Let me know if you wanna be on the taglist for any of the ships!