#honorary 93 line

[justinsentertainmentcorner]

Jacqueline Mansky and Mike Barnes at THR:

James Earl Jones, a commanding presence onscreen who nonetheless gained greater fame off-camera as the sonorous voice of Star Wars villain Darth Vader and Mufasa, the benevolent leader in The Lion King, died Monday. He was 93. Jones, who burst into national prominence in 1970 with his powerful Oscar-nominated performance as America’s first Black heavyweight champion in The Great White Hope, died at his home in Dutchess County, New York, Independent Artist Group announced. The distinguished star made his big-screen debut in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) and was noteworthy in many other films, including Claudine (1974) opposite Diahann Carroll; Field of Dreams (1989), as the reclusive author Terence Mann; and The Sandlot (1993), as the intimidating neighborhood guy Mr. Mertle.

For his work on the stage, Jones earned two best actor Tony Awards: for originating the role of Jack Jefferson — who was based on real-life boxer Jack Johnson — in 1968 in Howard Sackler’s Great White Hope and for playing the patriarch who struggles to provide for his family in a 1986 Pulitzer Prize-winning production of August Wilson’s Fences. Jones, the recipient of an honorary Oscar at the 2011 Governors Awards and a special Tony for lifetime achievement in 2017, was one of the handful of people to earn an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony and the first actor to win two Emmys in one year. “You cannot be an actor like I am and not have been in some of the worst movies like I have,” the self-deprecating star said when he was given his Academy Award. “But I stand before you deeply honored, mighty grateful and just plain gobsmacked.” Jones’ rise to become one of the most-admired American actors of all time was remarkable considering he suffered from a debilitating stutter as a child.

[...] Jones, of course, also was known as the “voice” of CNN. “I just emptied my mind, then filled it with the thought of all the hundreds of stories — tragic, violent, funny, touching — that could be following my introduction,” he said when asked about his motivation. “And then I said, ‘This is CNN.’”

James Earl Jones, who provided the voice for Darth Vader in Star Wars and provided CNN with the “this is CNN” line, dies at 93.

[whileiamdying]

James Earl Jones, Whose Powerful Acting Resonated Onstage and Onscreen, Dies at 93

He gave life to characters like Darth Vader in “Star Wars” and Mufasa in “The Lion King,” and went on to collect Tonys, Golden Globes, Emmys and an honorary Oscar.

James Earl Jones in 1980. He climbed to Broadway and Hollywood stardom with talent, drive and remarkable vocal cords.Credit...M. Reichenthal/Associated Press

Published Sept. 9, 2024 Updated Sept. 10, 2024, 1:30 a.m. ET

James Earl Jones, a stuttering farm child who became a voice of rolling thunder as one of America’s most versatile actors in a stage, film and television career that plumbed race relations, Shakespeare’s rhapsodic tragedies and the faceless menace of Darth Vader, died on Monday at his home in Dutchess County, N.Y. He was 93.

The office of his agent, Barry McPherson, confirmed the death in a statement.

From destitute days working in a diner and living in a $19-a-month cold-water flat, Mr. Jones climbed to Broadway and Hollywood stardom with talent, drive and remarkable vocal cords. He was abandoned as a child by his parents, raised by a racist grandmother and mute for years in his stutterer’s shame, but he learned to speak again with a herculean will. All had much to do with his success.

So did plays by Howard Sackler and August Wilson that let a young actor explore racial hatred in the national experience; television soap operas that boldly cast a Black man as a doctor in the 1960s; and a decision by George Lucas, the creator of “Star Wars,” to put an anonymous, rumbling African American voice behind the grotesque mask of the galactic villain Vader.

Mr. Jones in 1979 as the author Alex Haley on “Roots: The Next Generation.” Credit...Warner Brothers Television, via Everett Collection

The rest was accomplished by Mr. Jones himself: a prodigious body of work that encompassed scores of plays, nearly 90 television network dramas and episodic series, and some 120 movies. They included his voice work, much of it uncredited, in the original “Star Wars” trilogy, in the credited voice-over of Mufasa in “The Lion King,” Disney’s 1994 animated musical film, and in his reprise of the role in Jon Favreau’s computer-animated remake in 2019.

Mr. Jones was no matinee idol, like Cary Grant or Denzel Washington. But his bulky Everyman suited many characters, and his range of forcefulness and subtlety was often compared to Morgan Freeman’s. Nor was he a singer; yet his voice, though not nearly as powerful, was sometimes likened to that of the great Paul Robeson. Mr. Jones collected Tonys, Golden Globes, Emmys, Kennedy Center honors and an honorary Academy Award.

Under the artistic and competitive demands of daily stage work and heavy commitments to television and Hollywood — pressures that burn out many actors — Mr. Jones was a rock. He once appeared in 18 plays in 30 months. He often made a half-dozen films a year, in addition to his television work. And he did it for a half-century, giving thousands of performances that captivated audiences, moviegoers and critics.

They were dazzled by his presence. A bear of a man — 6 feet 2 inches and 200 pounds — he dominated a stage with his barrel chest, large head and emotional fires, tromping across the boards and spitting his lines into the front rows. And audiences were mesmerized by the voice. It was Lear’s roaring crash into madness, Othello’s sweet balm for Desdemona, Oberon’s last rapture for Titania, the queen of the fairies on a midsummer night.

Mr. Jones as Othello in the Broadway revival of the play in New York in 1981. Credit...Martha Swope/The New York Public Library

He liked to portray kings and generals, garbage men and bricklayers; perform Shakespeare in Central Park and the works of August Wilson and Athol Fugard on Broadway. He could strut and court lecherously, erupt with rage or melt tenderly; play the blustering Big Daddy in Tennessee Williams’s “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” (2008) or an aging Norman Thayer Jr. in Ernest Thompson’s confrontation with mortality, “On Golden Pond” (2005).

Some theatergoers, aware of Mr. Jones’s childhood affliction, discerned occasional subtle hesitations in his delivery of lines. The pauses were deliberate, he said, a technique of self-restraint learned by stutterers to control involuntary repetitions. Far from detracting from his lucidity, the pauses usually added force to an emotional moment.

Mr. Jones profited from a deep analysis of meaning in his lines. “Because of my muteness,” he said in “Voices and Silences,” a 1993 memoir written with Penelope Niven, “I approached language in a different way from most actors. I came at language standing on my head, turning words inside out in search of meaning, making a mess of it sometimes, but seeing truth from a very different viewpoint.”

Mr. Jones playing the fictional former U.S. President Arthur Hockstader in Gore Vidal’s “The Best Man” on Broadway in 2012. Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Another of his theatrical techniques was to stand alone for a few minutes in a darkened wing before the curtain went up, settling himself and silently evoking the emotion he needed for the first scene. It became a nightly ritual during performances of Mr. Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “Fences” (1987), in which Mr. Jones portrayed a sanitation worker brooding over broken dreams, his once promising baseball career cut short by big league racial barriers. It ran for 15 months on Broadway, and Mr. Jones won a Tony for best actor.

Voice of Vader

Mr. Jones’s technique in the first “Star Wars” trilogy — “A New Hope” (1977), “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980) and “Return of the Jedi” (1983) — was another trademark. To sustain Vader’s menace — a voice to go with his black cape and a helmet that filtered his hissing breath and evil tidings — Mr. Jones spoke in a narrowly inflected range, almost a monotone, to make nearly every phrase sound threatening. (He was credited for voice work in the third film, but, at his request, he was not credited in the first two until a special edition rerelease in 1997.)

Mr. Jones was one of the first Black actors to appear regularly on the daytime soaps, playing a doctor in “The Guiding Light” and in “As the World Turns” in the 1960s. Television became a staple of his career. He appeared in the dramatic series “The Defenders,” “Dr. Kildare,” “Touched by an Angel” and “Homicide: Life on the Street,” and in mini-series, including “Roots: The Next Generation” (1979), playing the author Alex Haley.

Mr. Jones and Diana Sands in the 1960s in the dramatic television series “East Side, West Side.” His prodigious body of work included nearly 90 television network dramas and episodic series. Credit...Everett Collection

Mr. Jones’s first Hollywood role was small but memorable, as the B-52 bombardier in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 satire on nuclear war, “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”

While drama critics recorded his steady progress as an actor, Mr. Jones did not win film stardom until 1970, when he played Jack Jefferson, a character based on Jack Johnson, the first Black boxing champion, in “The Great White Hope,” reprising a role he performed on Broadway in 1968. He won a Tony for the stage work and was nominated for an Oscar for the movie.

Mr. Jones as Jack Jefferson in “The Great White Hope.” He won a Tony for his stage work in the role and was nominated for an Oscar for the movie version. Credit...George Tames/The New York Times

Although he was never active in the civil rights movement, Mr. Jones said early in his career that he admired Malcolm X and that he, too, might have been a revolutionary had he not become an actor.

He said his contributions to civil rights lay in roles that dealt with racial issues — and there were many. Notable among these was his almost overlooked casting in the 1961 play “The Blacks,” Jean Genet’s violent drama on race relations. It featured a cast that included Maya Angelou, Cicely Tyson, Louis Gossett Jr. and Billy Dee Williams, some wearing gruesome white masks, who night after night enacted in a kangaroo court the rape and murder of a white woman. Mr. Jones, the brutal and beguiling protagonist, found the role so emotionally draining that he left and then rejoined the cast several times in its three-and-a-half-year run Off Broadway.

But the experience helped clarify his feelings about race. “Through that role,” he told The Washington Post in 1967, “I came to realize that the Black man in America is the tragic hero, the Oedipus, the Hamlet, the Macbeth, even the working-class Willy Loman, the Uncle Tom and Uncle Vanya of contemporary American life.”

James Earl Jones was born in Arkabutla, Miss., on Jan. 17, 1931, to Robert Earl and Ruth (Connolly) Jones. About the time of his birth, his father left the family to chase prizefighting and acting dreams. His mother eventually obtained a divorce. But when James was 5 or 6, his frequently absent mother remarried, moved away and left him to be raised by her parents, John and Maggie Connolly, on a farm near Dublin, Mich.

Abandonment by his parents left the boy with raw wounds and psychic scars. He referred to his mother as Ruth — he said he thought of her as an aunt — and he called his grandparents Papa and Mama, although even the refuge of his surrogate home with them was a troubled place to grow up.

“I was raised by a very racist grandmother, who was part Cherokee, part Choctaw and Black,” Mr. Jones told the BBC in a 2011 interview. “She was the most racist person, bigoted person I have ever known.” She blamed all white people for slavery, and Native American and Black people “for allowing it to happen,” he said, and her ranting compounded his emotional turmoil.

Years of Silence

Traumatized, James began to stammer. By age 8 he was stuttering so badly, and was so mortified by his affliction, that he stopped talking altogether, terrified that only gibberish would come out. In the one-room rural school he attended in Manistee County, Mich., he communicated by writing notes. Friendless, lonely, self-conscious and depressed, he endured years of silence and isolation.

“No matter how old the character I play,” Mr. Jones told Newsweek in 1968, “even if I’m playing Lear, those deep childhood memories, those furies, will come out. I understand this.”

Mr. Jones playing a South African priest in “Cry, the Beloved Country” (1995). Credit...Miramax, via Alamy

In high school in nearby Brethren, an English teacher, Donald Crouch, began to help him. He found that James had a talent for poetry and encouraged him to write, and tentatively to stand before the class and read his lines. Gaining confidence, James recited a poem a day in class. The speech impediment subsided. He joined a debating team and entered oratorical contests. By graduation, in 1949, he had largely overcome his disability, although the effects lingered and never quite went away.

Years later, Mr. Jones came to believe that learning to control his stutter had led to his career as an actor.

“Just discovering the joy of communicating set it up for me, I think,” he told The New York Times in 1974. “In a very personal way, once I found out I could communicate verbally again, it became a very important thing for me, like making up for lost time, making up for the years that I didn’t speak.”

Mr. Jones as Big Daddy in a 2008 Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams’s “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” With him was Terrence Howard. Credit...Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Mr. Jones enrolled at the University of Michigan on a scholarship, taking pre-med courses, and joined a drama group. With a growing interest in acting, he switched majors and focused on drama in the university’s School of Music, Theater and Dance. In a memoir, he said he left college in 1953 without a degree but resumed studies later to finish his required course work. He received a degree in drama in 1955.

In college, he had also joined the Army under an R.O.T.C. commitment, then washed out of infantry Ranger School. But he did so well in cold-weather training in the Rockies that he considered a military career. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in mid-1953, after the end of the Korean War, and was subsequently promoted to first lieutenant.

In 1955, however, he resigned his commission and moved to New York, determined to be an actor. He lived briefly with his father, whom he had met a few years earlier. Robert Jones had a modest acting career and offered encouragement. James found cheap rooms on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, took odd jobs and studied at the American Theater Wing and Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio.

A Run of Shakespeare

After minor roles in small productions, including three plays in which he performed with his father, he joined Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival in 1960; over several years he appeared in “Henry V,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “Richard III” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” During a long run as Othello in 1964, he fell in love with Julienne Marie, his Desdemona.

They were married in 1968, but they divorced in 1972. In 1982, he married the actress Cecilia Hart, who had also played Desdemona to one of his Othellos. She died in 2016. They had a son, Flynn Earl Jones, who survives him, along with a brother, Matthew.

In the 1970s and most of the ’80s, Mr. Jones was in constant demand for stage work in New York, films in Hollywood and television roles on both coasts. He took occasional breaks at a desert retreat near Los Angeles and at his home in Pawling, N.Y., in Dutchess County.

Mr. Jones in 2017 when he accepted a special Tony Award for lifetime achievement. Credit...Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

But his long run with “Fences” in 1987 and 1988, including a national tour, proved too taxing. He did not return to Broadway for many years, and made movies almost exclusively. His notable film roles included an oppressed coal miner in John Sayles’s “Matewan” (1987); the king of a fictional African nation in the John Landis comedy “Coming to America” (1988), a role he reprised at 90 in 2021 in “Coming 2 America”; an embittered but resilient writer in the baseball movie “Field of Dreams” (1989); and a South African priest in “Cry, the Beloved Country” (1995).

Mr. Jones received the National Medal of the Arts from President George Bush at the White House in 1992, Kennedy Center honors in 2002, an honorary Oscar in 2011 for lifetime achievement, and in 2017 a special Tony Award for lifetime achievement, as well as an honorary doctor of arts degree from Harvard University.

In 2015, Mr. Jones and Cicely Tyson appeared in a Broadway revival of D.L. Coburn’s 1976 play, “The Gin Game,” portraying residents of a retirement home making nice, and sometimes not so nice, over a card table. For the 84-year-old Mr. Jones, it was, as The Times noted, his sixth Broadway role in the past decade.

In 2022, Broadway’s 110-year-old Cort Theater was renamed the James Earl Jones Theater.

[themovieblogonline]

James Earl Jones: A Legacy Voiced Across Generations

The world bids farewell to a true icon, as James Earl Jones, the man whose voice became as legendary as his presence, has passed away at 93. Known for voicing the menacing Darth Vader in Star Wars and delivering unforgettable lines in Field of Dreams, Jones’s legacy spans across decades of film, stage, and television. It’s not every day that an actor can make audiences fear the dark side and tear up over baseball with the same intensity. But James Earl Jones wasn’t just any actor. The Voice That Launched A Thousand Villains (And Dreams) When you think of Darth Vader, one of the greatest villains of all time, you don’t picture a man in a black suit—it’s the voice that haunts your memory. That deep, commanding timbre, punctuated by lines like “I find your lack of faith disturbing,” was the James Earl Jones effect. His portrayal of Darth Vader in Star Wars cemented him as a household name. But Jones wasn’t just about darkness and destruction. In Field of Dreams, he played Terence Mann, a reclusive author with a voice that calmed as much as it inspired. His famous speech, reminding us that "people will come," brought a poetic rhythm to a film that’s more than just about baseball. Jones had this uncanny ability to be both the villain and the mentor, the voice of authority and compassion. From Broadway to The Big Screen: A Master of Every Medium Before he became the voice of Vader, James Earl Jones dominated the stage. His breakout role in The Great White Hope earned him a Tony Award and an Academy Award nomination, making it clear that his talent transcended genre. Whether he was portraying historical figures or bringing Shakespeare to life, Jones delivered every performance with an unmatched intensity. It’s no surprise that he was one of the few actors to achieve EGOT status—Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. Even when the Academy didn’t award him a competitive Oscar, they made sure to recognize him with an Honorary one in 2012. And who could forget Mufasa in The Lion King? Jones’s rich, powerful voice gave life to yet another iconic character. When you hear, “Remember who you are,” it’s hard not to get goosebumps. From animated films to Broadway classics like Fences, he was never just playing a role—he was the role. A Legacy of Love and Loss in Field of Dreams In Field of Dreams, Jones showcased another side of his acting prowess—heartfelt, genuine, and inspirational. The film, which lost the Oscar race to Driving Miss Daisy, still managed to touch hearts around the world. His portrayal of Terence Mann brought emotional depth to an already moving plot. Field of Dreams showed us that James Earl Jones wasn’t just a voice—he was a storyteller. His role in the film remains one of his most beloved, and for good reason. Jones could make you believe in baseball magic, with just a few powerful words. The Man Behind the Voice Born in 1931 in Arkabutla, Mississippi, Jones’s journey from the small town to the big screen is the stuff of Hollywood lore. He grew up with a stutter, and yet, this man whose voice became synonymous with power and authority started his career in the most unexpected way: struggling with words. Over time, he found his voice—literally and figuratively—and dominated every stage and screen he touched. Jones didn’t just act—he commanded attention. Whether he was narrating CNN’s iconic tagline, “This is CNN,” or appearing in cult classics like Coming to America, his presence was undeniable. Farewell to A Legend As news of his passing spread, fans and colleagues alike mourn the loss of a man who not only entertained but inspired. James Earl Jones’s career spanned over 60 years, with nearly 200 screen credits and countless stage appearances. He earned Lifetime Achievement Awards from SAG-AFTRA and the National Board of Review and left an indelible mark on cinema, theater, and television. He may have passed on, but as Darth Vader once said, “The force will be with you, always.” James Earl Jones passes, but his legacy? It’s immortal, echoing through generations—much like that unforgettable voice. Read the full article

[dreamaze]

BFFL 22/∞   ↪ the “hi hello that’s my Best Friend have you SEEN him” ending fairy

[scotianostra]

On October 8th 2012 ,Captain Eric Lomax died aged 93.

Lomax, who was captured at the fall of Singapore in 1942, was among thousands of servicemen who were used as slave labour by the Japanese on the railway. Years later he came to terms with his treatment by meeting his interrogator from torture sessions and writing about his experiences in his book, The Railway Man.

His book was adapted for a movie in which Oscar-winning star Firth plays him in later life, with Jeremy Irvine playing him in his younger days. The Railwayman was one of the landmark books of the 1990s.

The horrific conditions of the prisoners as they built the line, with a terrible loss of life, famously formed the basis of David Lean's 1957 film, The Bridge On The River Kwai.

Lomax endured savage beatings when guards found a radio he had helped to build within his prison camp.

He went on to become a lecturer at Strathclyde University, but was haunted by his treatment and met the interpreter who had interrogated him while he was tortured, Takashi Nagase, after he wrote about his remorse in a book.

Lomax's wife, Patti, contacted Nagase and both men returned to Kanchanaburi to meet in 1993 and eventually became friends, it really shows the measure of the man and his compassion with the forgiveness to the man who must have inflicted many beatings upon him.

Lomax was born on 30th May 1919 in Edinburgh and was a Royal Signals officer attached to the 5th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery. He was commissioned into the Royal Corps of Signals in 1940 and was a lieutenant when he was captured by the Japanese at the fall of Singapore.

In 1945, Lomax returned to Edinburgh following three and half years of interrogation and torture. He was awarded the Efficiency Medal (Militia) in 1949 and was granted the honorary rank of captain.

Lomax wrote about his experiences during the war and his reconciliation with one of his former torturers on the The Forgiveness Project website, which is a  charity that explores how reconciliation can be used to help people's lives.

Captain Lomax wrote: "After my retirement in 1982, I started searching for information about what had happened in Siam. The need to know is powerful. In the course of my search I learnt that Nagase Takashi – my interrogator and torturer – had offered to help others with information.”

"I learnt that he was still alive, active in charitable works, and that he had built a Buddhist temple. I was sceptical. I couldn't believe in the notion of Japanese repentance. I strongly suspected that if I were to meet him I'd put my hands round his neck and do him in.”

"After our meeting I felt I'd come to some kind of peace and resolution. Forgiveness is possible when someone is ready to accept forgiveness. Some time the hating has to stop."

[ickle-ronniekins]

duet | see you soon then

DUET MASTERLIST

NOTE FOR ALL READERS: this is an installment of a series. the masterlist for a catch-up is linked above. this particular chapter is to fall between [im]mature and silky smooth. thanks!

desc: things had been a bit rocky when the twins told you they were leaving hogwarts before graduation. you’d been so hellbent and obsessed on spending time with george that you’d sort of neglected fred. emotions are running high, but the three of you fall into a comfortable routine and suddenly you’re bursting at the seams with happiness. but since it’s finally time for them to leave, you have absolutely no luck in trying to suppress your tears. they’re making their dreams come true, so why is it so damn hard to say goodbye right now?

a/n: yo! sorry its been a while. school has been kicking my ass and also I genuinely had no inspiration to write this chapter. it was actually supposed to look a little different which is what I think was evidently holding me back. but leeann’s the best and has been incredibly patient with me as I worked through my writer’s block and we bounced ideas off of one another. i..... am so sorry for this. full masterlist is linked above, loves.

word count: 3.4k

warning(s): just sadness bc boys are leaving :(

Things had been… tense, to say the least. Your arguments with both of your best mates had caused quite a bit of discomfort between you all. And not to mention that the Easter holidays were rapidly approaching, which only seemed to speed up the pounding in your chest.

You’d been making progress, though, coming around to the idea of finishing school without them. What an incredible opportunity this was for them, wasn’t it? While your feelings of dread and sadness were still very much prominent, you couldn’t help but be bursting at the seams with pride, too.

They were damn brilliant individuals and it was about time more people recognized that, right?

It still didn’t lessen the pain in your heart, though. It only seemed to elevate it. But you supposed, you’d only learn to grow from it.

The three of you had fallen into a somewhat comfortable routine. Spending lots of time with one another -- you’d also been very conscious about how much time you spent chasing after George. You didn’t want to embarrass yourself any further than you already had. Plus, you’d sadly forgotten how lovely it was to be with just Fred -- he was your absolute best mate, after all, and while yes, there had been times when the two of you had very angrily bumped heads, it only made your friendship that much stronger. You owed it to him. You owed it to yourself.

And you’d taken to spending more time with the Gryffindors too, when that ghastly toad look-a-like of a woman wasn’t around. What she didn’t know wouldn’t kill her. They were your friends, too, after all -- Ginny, Ron, Harry, Hermione, Neville -- the lot of them. And by the light of the common room fire reflecting in Fred’s eyes, and the very bright grin George had painted onto his face nearly every evening, you were pretty certain they were genuinely happy to have you there.

“What’s this one?”

“Ah -- an extension of our latest and greatest inventions, Y/N,” Fred beamed, examining his own creation as he twirled it in his fingers, “Wildfire Whizbangs.”

“You mean you’ve created something even bigger than those blasted fireworks you’d let loose in the courtyard a few weeks ago?” you asked, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you’re about to set the bloody Great Hall on fire -- I’ve got exams coming up, you know.”

George laughed and pulled out yet another wildly vibrant colored whizbang from their trunk. “Can’t make any promises.”

You’d been spending so much time in their common room, in fact, that people had just ended up making you an honorary Gryffindor. You did miss yours, though -- the warmth hues of the yellow lining, the cozy armchairs near the fire with books next to it stacked so high they touched the ceiling, the tiny, potted plants on the windowsill. You were placed in Hufflepuff after all, so it was only normal that you’d miss the coziness of your own spot.

You couldn’t help it, though. You found yourself with your friends until the late hours of the evening, and sometimes you’d ever crash in the girls’ dormitory in Gryffindor tower because it was far too late to even attempt to sneak back down to your own common room, and the boys didn’t want you to risk getting into some type of trouble. Who’d have thought? The Kings of Mischief, worried about you getting into trouble. The irony was wonderfully funny.

You’d even found yourself working less and less on your assignments, just to spend time with them. It was, truthfully, the closest the three of you had been since you’d met. Absolutely nothing could squash your happiness.

Until you realized one evening when you were pulling on your silk pyjamas and thinking about how good things had been, that you had exactly one week left with them. One week. Seven days. Most of which would be spent studying for exams.

Some type of knot shot up into your throat and you found that your eyes had begun to water more so than normal. Sometimes, you couldn’t quite believe the effect this was having on you.

And so you swallowed down your feelings and forced yourself to sleep, hoping that the next day, you wouldn’t think about the limited time you had left with them before they fled school, but only about just how much you enjoyed your time with them.

-- -

“Please don’t cry. If you cry, I’ll cry, and I’m a bloody ugly crier.”

You knew that Fred was doing his best to make you laugh. He always had a particular knack for making you burst out into giggles at the most inappropriate of times. But even so, the mischievous glimmer in his eye and the lopsided grin on his face couldn’t make you laugh. Not this time.

You’d sort of distanced yourself this last week. Not purposefully, mind you, but because there was studying to be done. You had exams, didn’t you? And the boys needed to pack all of their belongings for their adventure into adulthood. It sounded so silly when you thought about it. But it also sent a soul-crushing feeling straight through your body.

You hated crying in front of them. Sure, you were a bit dramatic at times, but you tried your absolute hardest not to break down in front of them if you could help it. But this was different, you reckoned. This was them leaving with a permanence that could not be undone. This was goodbye… for now.

“I -- I’m just --” your voice sounded raspy and weak, like someone was gripping your vocal cords and strangling them. You watched through blurred vision as Fred’s lower lip began to wobble, and he bit down on it to keep you from noticing. But you noticed. Of course you did. How could you not? You knitted your brows together to keep the tears from falling, but your emotions were far too high for anything to work. You searched desperately for the words that were filling up your heart, though were proving very difficult to leave your lips. “I’m.. I’m really…”

And Fred, who found himself sometimes turning to mush around you, let his shoulders collapse as tears welled up in his eyes, too. He couldn’t believe they were really doing this -- really leaving. Hogwarts had been their home away from home for so many years, and you, the second sister he didn’t know he needed.

When he spoke, his voice didn’t have the usual cheeky sound to it, that mischievous tone you grew to know and love so much. It was soft, and tired, and pleading with you to please not be angry. You could hear it in the way that he said, “I know,” before pulling you into his chest. He interwove his fingers in your hair and pressed his lips to your forehead before sucking in a breath. You tugged gently on the drawstring hanging from his sweatshirt. It was hard to stay mad at either of them. You forced your eyes shut and bit down hard on your bottom lip, causing you to suck in another breath due to the pain. You felt your heart snap perfectly in half when you heard his voice shake a bit. “I’m really going to miss you, too.”

That was one of the most intimate moments you’d ever shared with Fred, letting each other cry into one another’s shoulders. The vulnerability hanging in the air between you both was so intense, it almost didn’t seem real. But as quickly as this new side of Fred had appeared, it vanished when he pulled away from you and held onto your shoulders to steady you. He sniffled a bit and tried to nonchalantly wipe away a tear from his eye. “But you’re coming to visit, yeah? First thing after graduation?”

“Of course,” you playfully swatted him with the sleeve of your robe. “Have got to make sure you two don’t find yourselves in any mischief, right?”

Fred threw his head back and laughed. “Great thing about our shop is that mischief is more than welcomed, darling.”

You both continued to laugh through tears, until everything became still and silent between you both. You bit down on your bottom lip again and repeated the address back to him very slowly. “Number 93 Diagon Alley.”

“Number 93 Diagon Alley,” he echoed you. His grin was so large, you began to see traces of that thirteen-year-old boy you’d first met all those long years ago. He was so excited, wasn’t he? You felt a pull at your heart. And you were so excited for them. “I love you, kid. Don’t forget to write, and definitely don’t forget to study. Molly Weasley would be so disappointed.”

He pulled you in for another hug before making his way down the corridor. You folded your arms across your chest and raised an eyebrow. “You? The King of avoiding schoolwork at all costs is actually telling me to study?”

“What can I say?” Fred shrugged his shoulders. Your best mate. Your best mate in the entire world, known for his pranks and laughter and everything in between was pointing a finger at you and telling you to get a jump start on your school work, like he’d done a complete one-eighty. “You just bring out this side of me.”

“I love you, you absolute git.”

“I love you more.”

Your breathing intensified as he vanished down the corridor.

“Wow,” you heard a voice from behind you, “can’t believe you somehow got my brother to tell you to study. What has the world come too?”

When you whirled around to come face to face with George, his face was an exact carbon copy of Fred’s -- but his sparkling eyes and lopsided grin made your insides twist in a way that Fred’s didn’t. All you wanted to do was run up to your dorm and cry, thinking about the entirety of your schooling where you could’ve been wrapped up in his arms if he’d just felt the same way. But that wouldn’t help you in any way. You had to be thankful for what you had.

“It definitely won’t be the same with you two gone.”

You couldn’t help it -- the words escaped you before you could register your own thoughts. You could see George’s expression fill with guilt, something that had been happening more often than not, so you offered him a tremendous grin that split your face in half, despite the tears that were falling generously now. You stuck your hand out to pull him into you. “I hope you know how proud I am of you both.”

He breathed a sigh of relief, took your hand in his and walked toward you. He pulled you into a bone crushing embrace, one you’d definitely feel the effects of a few days from now. He cradled your head in his hand the exact same way Fred did, and also placed a kiss onto your hair, but the way your blood bubbled at his touch was so very different from the way you felt with your best friend.

“I just want to thank you.”

“For what?”

“For.. everything.” George’s voice was raspy. He pulled away from you but didn’t let go. He slid his hands across your shoulders and down your arms before intertwining his fingers with yours. He slowly caressed his thumbs over the tops of your hands as he chose his words carefully. “For being my best friend, for believing in this ridiculous idea, for dealing with my antics. For everything, all of it. I reckon Hogwarts would not have been the same had I not met you in Charms.”

“It was my favorite lesson, you know.”

“Mine, too.”

You forced yourself to continue to smile at him through your tears, because you didn’t want you blubbering like an idiot to be the last thing he’d see before leaving the castle. As if this entire exchange hadn’t been dramatic enough, you were really considering telling him how you felt -- right as he left. You could shout out I love you!, couldn’t you? It would be the perfect time, too, because he’d already be off and you could run up to your dormitory without worrying about having to face him or your own intense feelings! The words were right there, on the tip of your tongue --

“Save a pygmy puff for me, yeah?”

But those were the words that spoke instead.

George raised his eyebrows and held up a finger. “Oh! That reminds me. Have got something for you.” You threaded your eyebrows together in confusion as he reached into his pocket. He very gently pulled out a ribbon, the colour a perfect blend of purple and pink, same as the puffs, with sparkles dancing across it as if it were charmed. Which, knowing George, it probably was. He fiddled with it slightly in his hands before looking up to meet your gaze. “You’ve inspired us. Got a whole line of these things in the works. So I want you to do me a favour.”

Your voice was a whisper. You’d nearly forgotten how to formulate coherent sentences. “What?” you asked him.

He then took a very deep breath and reached out to move your hair. He gently placed the ribbon behind your ears and tied it into a small bow on the top of your head. “When you’re feeling poorly about your exams, or about finishing school, or about anything, because I know you will -- put this on. Think of us. And just remember that we’re only a letter away until graduation, alright?”

As he watched more tears well up in your eyes, he considered telling you the truth: that it had been him this whole time, sending you these letters and gifts. It’d been him since the beginning, he’d just been too afraid to tell you. He wet his lips and watched as you brought your fingers to the ribbon and touched it gently. He was going to do it, it was time. Probably a few years too late, but he couldn’t worry about that now. He was leaving in five bloody minutes, and he had to seize his chance, when the vulnerability was thick and the emotions were high and he wasn’t going to chicken out completely --

But just as he found his confidence, Fred softly called his name from round the bend before disappearing again. You threw your arms around the back of George’s neck and stood on the tips of your toes to hug him. There was no mistaking the sound of your wobbly voice in his ears -- you were crying fully now. “I’m going to miss you.”

If his emotions weren’t sky high, he would’ve noticed just how easily the tears came to the front of his eyes at your simple, five word phrase.

“I’m going to miss you, too.”

He wished it could be yesterday, or the day before. Or last month. Or last year. He wanted to be back in Charms in your third year. He wished he could go back in time, any amount of time, just to have more with you, because this couldn’t possibly be the end. It couldn’t be.

Through sniffles and sobs and the cracks in your voice, he swore he heard you say, “I love you.”

Fire shot through his veins, but bloody hell, he didn’t have time to unload all of that. Fred was calling his name again. “I love you, too.”

George pressed his lips to your hairline and stayed there like that for a few more seconds you wished could last a lifetime. You didn’t even bother trying to hide your tears anymore -- they were cascading down your cheeks, and violent sobs were involuntarily escaping from your overused lungs. Every single ounce of your body hurt due to all of the crying you’d been doing the last couple of days. It felt so stupid and so dramatic and so absolutely awful, because the truth was, it was only a couple of months until you saw them again. Until you saw him again. A few months was nothing.

But the idea of being here without them hurt more than you could begin to fathom.

When he pulled away, you noticed how red and blotchy his cheeks were alongside his bloodshot eyes, his messy hair. But you beamed at him again and squeezed his hand and said, “Congratulations,” and watched him as his fingers let go of yours and he walked toward the other end of the corridor.

“Hey,” you called, thinking of something. George spun around quickly and peered longingly at you. You just needed a few more seconds or so. “How’re you two getting out of here, anyway? You know Umbridge has all the entrances sealed. You think it’s going to work, whatever you two’ve got planned?” There was a sliver of selfishness that hoped it didn’t, but you suppressed it. You were overflowing with pride for your best friends.

And then there he was -- that young boy filled with adventure and reckless abandon, looking at you as if only seeing you for the very first time. His grin deepened when he replied, “Don’t worry -- it’s in typical Weasley fashion.” He stopped in his tracks and placed his hands in his pockets, and peered at you with a type of intense sincerity that made every muscle in your body ache all over again. “I’ll see you soon, then?”

Your lip quivered again. “Yeah,” you replied, willing yourself to believe it. You would. “I’ll see you soon, then.”

You shook your head at him and watched as he disappeared around the bend, but not before that signature wink he loved to offer.

About thirty minutes later, after you’d had a good cry and rinsed the runny mascara off of your cheeks and from underneath your eyes, you heard a bit of yelling from inside the castle. You were sitting in the courtyard basking in the glorious spring weather, forcing yourself to focus on what you needed to study, when a group of students began to huddle near the windows.

Confused, you shut your spellbook and wandered over to where they were gathered, wondering what the bloody hell could be going on inside. Weren’t the fifth years supposed to be taking their OWLs?

And then two red headed figures zoomed out of the castle on their broomsticks, followed by a firework dragon the size of the real dragon Harry had fought just last year, with more sparklers and pyrotechnics behind them brightening up the sky. Students flooded into the courtyard and cheers were nearly shaking the whole entire structure of the castle. You looked around at all of the students, beaming with exuberance, and wondered just how many of the Wildfire Whizbangs had gotten caught in Umbridge’s hair, setting it aflame. You smiled to yourself and began to clap, too.

For as blue as you felt, you were ten times happier for them.

George and Fred were now hovering in the air beneath a very large firework in the shape of a ‘W’. Fred was busy cheering along with the crowd, clearly pleased with the feedback from all of the students -- and even some teachers. Was that Flitwick he spotted below? Had he made his Charms teacher proud?

But George wasn’t cheering -- he was focused. Focused on scanning the crowd, focused on bouncing his eyes from student to student until he found the familiar one he was looking for.

“You alright, Georgie?” Fred called over the roar of the dragon, now swimming through the clouds.

“Yeah,” George replied, though he didn’t fully believe it -- not until he saw you, in the middle of a sea of Ravenclaws, peering up at the two of them with nothing but admiration plastered onto your face. George breathed another sigh of relief and didn’t take his eyes off of you. He couldn’t. “Yeah, I’m alright.”

“To new adventures!” Fred cheered and raised his hands in delight. More students began to scream and cheer and wave to them from the grounds. He proceeded to do a backflip on his broomstick in the air.

When your eyes met his from below, he watched as your smile slowly grew a bit larger and your clapping became more exuberant. He could already count down the bloody days until you were finished with school and walking through the front doors of their shop, a grin on your face so large it could cure diseases! But for now, you had to study, and he had a business to run.

He turned toward his brother, who had never looked more excited or proud in all his years. George stuck out his hand for a high-five as he wobbled slightly on his broom. To Fred, George replied, “To new adventures, mate.”

tag list: @georgeweasleyx @seppys-return-to-madness @fopdoodledane @fredd-weasley @iprobablyshipit91 @darling-details @laneygthememequeen @lupinsx @keoghans @helloallthethingsilove @waschbiber @dreamer821 @feffffffy @the-hufflepuff-of-221b @62442-am @wtfweasleyy @obsessedwithrandomthings @sleep-i-ness @shadowsinger11 @harrysweasleys @shadychaoticcollection @haphazardhufflepuff @afriendlyneighborhoodhufflepuff @hood-and-horan @geeksareunique @insearchofnewdreams @notstandingstill-imlyinginwait @lumos-barnes @thatfuckingliardavidtennant @slytherinqween @xinyourdreamsx @skiving-snackboxess @wildfire-whizbangs @dwarfwizard-from-panem @diary-of-an-onliner @answer-the-sirens @woakiees @black-widow-fangirl @theheirofnightandday @summerstardust @whysoseriouspadfoot @chocok22 @myhopesareanchoredinyou @siriusblackisme @illusivedaydreamer @zeeneee @writingwitchly @wolfpotter12 @obsessedwithrandomthings @carolinesbookworld @shadowsinger11 @pit-and-the-pen @summer-writes-words @peachesandpinks @gweaslvy @alpineweasley @letsfightsomeorcs @theweasleysredhair @purpleskiesstorm @hxfflxpxffs @wand3ringr0s3 @finecole @angelinathebook @highly-acidic @90shermione @zreads @susceptible-but-siriusexual @hollands-weasley @andromedaa-tonks @bbystrawberry0421 @cappsikle @mytreec @imseeinggred @idont-knowrn @flyingserpxnt @auroraboringalis57 @godricsswords @jejegu @annasofiaearlobe @starlightweasley @alwaysasadaesthetic @thisismysketchbook

[moon-lords-lower-body]

I posted 107 times in 2021

14 posts created (13%)

93 posts reblogged (87%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 6.6 posts.

I added 29 tags in 2021

#terraria - 13 posts

#happy pride :] - 2 posts

#oh this is so cool - 2 posts

#long post - 2 posts

#true - 2 posts

#my art - 2 posts

#:o - 2 posts

#woooooooooo - 2 posts

#its terraria related enough but mostly go give money to my friend - 1 posts

#i was gonna say me in 5th grade when i first got into the game but tbh? me now also - 1 posts

Longest Tag: 137 characters

#ive still got the two versions operating simultaneously and the terraria one i think is still decently in line with how he was originally

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

"Fuck you my child is fine" your child has the full zenith crafting tree memorized with the swords and materials to make the other swords

34 notes • Posted 2021-01-09 17:05:10 GMT

#4

This is a crossover niche that like 2 people are gonna understand but since ive got simultaneous Lobotomy Corporation and Terratia brainrot allow me to share some things on my mind

- Lunatic Cultist abnormality. Probably one of those ones thats like an aleph disguised as zayin or like, Brings Forth an aleph like punishing bird to apocalypse bird or plague doctor to whitenight. Like hes a zayin or teth that Can escape and like, if you dont get to him fast enough when he does escape he summons the moon lord which obv is a big ol aleph.

- Nothing There hardmode crimson monster, especially in bipedal ultra death kill mode

- empress of light honorary magical girl

- OH OH OK SPEAKING OF ZAYIN/TETH ABNOS THAT ARE SECRETLY ALEPH? The guide.

- something something if like, an agent dies with the guide's gift on them (a guide voodoo doll obv) then the guide dies/escapes/smth aaaand bam wall of flesh its aleph time baby! Can you tell i like alephs

- id kill to see a terrar texture pack that replaces certain weapons/armors/accessories even? With lobcorp EGO gear. That may already exist

- idk anything abt library of ruina sorey

36 notes • Posted 2021-09-10 16:26:57 GMT

#3

Hmm yes today i am going to share one of my terraria charas not connected to mlsp (that i shouldve shared llike a month ago but is ok)

"Tv" "Personality" IRON DYNAMO

Made him for a multiplayer thing w some friends :] former tv host from basically 1970s america who Died and was put in hit 2011 video game Terraria with most of his body parts replaced with mechanical parts, his head replaced with a tv, and his general form Very Radioactice. Strange fella indeed. :]

Other various art ⬇️

- alt outfit that i like a lot

- ref for his diff Screens which in fact are just the diff screens for the tv head vanity item in terraria

- beach episode :D

- pixel art that i just think is neat

- wht he looked like before dying but also its in the style of that game Smile For Me its a very good game you should play it or watch a playthrough of it

36 notes • Posted 2021-05-06 18:22:26 GMT

#2

10 years!! 10 YEARS!!!!!! Terraria is now officially as old as i was when i first started playing terraria fun fact

im drawing smth more Extravagant later but its gonna be A Lot tbh so in case i get that out late here's this

38 notes • Posted 2021-05-16 17:04:45 GMT

#1

straight friend groups be like: *blonde girl* *chad* *the funny one* *kyle* *brunette girl* *frat boy* 

Gay friend groups be like: *the guide* *the merchant* *the nurse* *the dryad* *the arms dealer* *the demolitionist* *the goblin tinkerer* *the mechanic* *the clothier* *the

270 notes • Posted 2021-07-10 15:55:47 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[shirlleycoyle]

Before TikTok, Witches Traded Their Spells on This Ancient Internet Forum

Long before the witches of Gen-Z claimed TikTok as their digital coven, and even before the Geocities-scattered digital landscapes of Web 1.0, a thousands-strong community once formed via the world’s phone lines to trade spells, advise on sigils, and correspond on spiritual guidance. It was called the Pagan And Occult Distribution Network, or PODSnet: a slice of occult internet history that helped pioneer mass online collaboration.

Today, it’s easy to take for granted that online communities are only a few taps away, but in the 1980s and early 1990s, finding like-minded individuals in niche subject areas was practically revolutionary. And in the case of PODSnet, it provided an unusually free space to discuss the esoteric arts—for many of its members, for the first time ever.

"In the 1990s and 1990s, accessing the social media of the day was very different than it is today,” Farrell McGovern, a PODSnet cofounder who came to Paganism through books about quantum physics such as The Dancing Wu Li Masters, told Motherboard. “It was louder, slower, and connectivity was perilous.”

In the early 1980s, computing enthusiasts began using Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) to communicate with each other. These systems were a precursor to the World Wide Web, and although relatively primitive, paved the way for the always-on communication of today.

Because BBS ran on phone lines, discussions were asynchronous and often confined to local groups due to the dramatic costs of dialing farther afield than your own state. What’s more, the boards were isolated from one another: an analogy might be if every single subreddit needed its own website, and you could only speak to users in your immediate area.

But in 1984, artist and technician Tom Jennings created FidoNet, a network that could connect all of these BBS systems. With the advent of cheaper modems, FidoNet’s popularity exploded into a huge 20,000-node network that connected users all around the world. Eventually, something called Echomail was introduced by a system operator, or sysop, called Jeff Rush, allowing for the support of public forums.

Instead of simply picking up your smartphone, BBS users would have to connect their computer to a modem, which was linked to a phone line—translating digital 1s and 0s into audio information and back again to the modem and terminal operating the BBS.

Popular BBSes would frequently return a busy signal: unlike today, actually logging off was necessary because only one connection was allowed at a time. A successful login returned a screen of text and a list of messages grouped into categories, with the software tracking the ones you had read. Here, users would respond to text, download what they could, and hang up.

Here, a BBS called "Magicknet" flourished, but one problem in particular spurred its users to found their own splinter network: Christian fundamentalists had infiltrated the group to spy on members.

This infiltration led to a number of incidents, including McGovern being written up in the magazine of infamous cult figure Lyndon Larouche as a “well-known witch from Toronto”. Given the various tabloid-led "Satanic panics" at the time, founding an independent BBS was not only right for promoting lively metaphysical discourse, it was a matter of safety too.

“People were losing their jobs, child custody, etc,” McGovern told Motherboard. “People had to move to escape persecution in some areas: very much so in the Bible Belt, but in other places, too. Unless you were in a major metropolitan area, and even then, you ran some degree of risk if you were outed.”

McGovern was first involved in his local BBS scene around Ottawa in the mid-1980s. Working at a local computer store that sold Apple and IBM PC clones, McGovern set up the Data/Sfnet BBS to advertise the business. In doing so, he became a SysOp—a system operator who ran, maintained, and in many cases built a network—granting him honorary entry to the computing elite at the time.

Being based in Canada, McGovern was the first to help Magicknet go international before it split into PODSnet, which would swell to 10,000 members who accessed the BBS by dialling into the 93 "zone number"—a reference to Thelema, the spiritual movement developed by Aleister Crowley.

The logo of the PODSnet bulletin board system.

For author and occult store supplier Dorothy Morrison, who was raised Catholic but eventually joined a coven of practicing witches in California before forming one of her own, discovering PODSnet was an “incredible way to find so many people of like mind at one place”.

“It was a place where I could be myself, regardless of the fact I really was living in a very conservative, buttoned-down state,” Morrison told Motherboard. “It wasn’t just a safe haven for me, it was an escape from having to appear to be someone I wasn’t for safety reasons."

“When someone wants to burn you at the stake—at that time Missouri was not a place that would’ve taken kindly to Witches—you certainly don’t tell them where you keep the gas can,” she said.

The atmosphere on PODSnet was typically collaborative and friendly, said Morrison, and the most arresting dramas on the board she was aware of usually related to the enormous phone bills that came from connecting to the network. (Although once or twice these charges “damned near landed some folks in divorce court.")

But, like the internet today, there were hints of gossip, rumours, and fake news. One popular cause for the community was the supposed persecution of 9 million witches by Christians (The whole idea was based on bad scholarship, according to McGovern). At one point, there was a six-year-long debate on whether or not Kate Bush is Wiccan—perhaps one of the most heated internet disputes of its time.

Whatever the topic, much of these PODSnet discussions would have been lost to time were it not for a community effort to archive the cherished message board. Still accessible in its archived ASCII form today, PODSnetters worked together to produce what was perhaps the first mass collaborative online project of its type: a massive, crowdsourced digital grimoire  called the Internet Book of Shadows.

The name of the enormous seven-volume text references the catch-all "Book of Shadows," a name commonly used for tomes of spells and rituals, and the text covers the A-Zs of alternative spirituality from "Asatru to Zen Buddhism." Chapter one alone is 70,000 words long, and there’s a varied store of stuff available within, including an essay about bashing fluffy bunnies (the tendency among some well-seasoned practitioners to troll newbies, as opposed to bashing actual rabbits), a guide to cleansing rituals called "smudging," and an introduction to the suppressed traditions of Gnosticism.

Plenty of contributors to the Book of Shadows remain involved in esoteric spiritual communities today, and some, like Morrison, became authors in their own right.

One of Dorothy Morrison’s favorite contributions to the Internet Book of Shadows.

Morrison says the book of rituals, spells, stories, legends, and “other magic-related miscellany” took seven 5-inch loose-leaf binders to contain it when she once decided to print out the information the community had amassed. The community then began compiling the grimoire into downloadable digital files.

Once it was finished, PODSnet users agreed to offer the Book of Shadows as a gift, free of charge, to the community. While they were copyrighted, they were free to use and copy under the proviso that there was no charge for their acquisition—leading to later frustrations about unauthorized reproductions of the manuscript for profit.

“It’s probably the largest collection of pagan thought that was freely available to copy for non-commercial use,” McGovern added.

According to Dan Harms, an author and librarian at SUNY Cortland, magick practice has thrived on community-produced documents throughout history. Even during the print era, there was a “tremendous sort of traffic in books, manuscripts being passed back and forth between people,” chopping and changing aspects of the manuscripts they liked before copying them out.

“What was really different here, is that when the material was copied or created, it’s put up online for everybody to see,” Harms said. “It becomes a collective memory. It’s not something that’s stuck on somebody’s shelf, it’s something everybody can get into.”

Harms told Motherboard that communities like PODSnet were of enormous importance for establishing networks of occult practitioners and helped lay the groundwork for driving a boom in occult publishing.

“I was growing up in rural Kentucky with an interest in these kinds of arcane topics,” said Harms, who wasn't involved in the occult internet at the time of PODSnet but was an active Usenet user. “It was just so hard to find any sort of information – you would have to rely on the local library.  But the local library in rural Kentucky is probably not looking to fill up its shelves with books about magic and paganism and things like that.”

Today, what was once a recondite pocket of the primordial internet has hit the mainstream, with even the Financial Times covering the "WitchTok" phenomenon. Speaking with PODSnetters, there’s a sense that in today's online spaces, community and information exchange can often take a backseat to clout and hostility. “[But] how much of that is getting older and yelling ‘get off my grass’,” asks McGovern, “or true insight – only time will say.”

Whatever the case, PODSnet—which closed around the turn of the millennium before hopping to Yahoo Groups, LiveJournal, and now with its remnants on Facebook—proved that digital technologies can bring disparate people together in a meaningful way, where they are happy to create and produce for the good of their communities.

“I remember those I met along that journey, what they taught me—not only about the Craft, but about myself—and the connections I made," said Morrison.“I remember how fortunate I was that PODSnet was there for me. To a large degree, that experience formed the person I am today, and I'll be forever grateful.”

Before TikTok, Witches Traded Their Spells on This Ancient Internet Forum syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[365days365movies]

April 3, 2021: Duck Soup (1933)

Time for talkies! That sounds weird, doesn’t it?

The year after The General, the first writing was put on the wall for Keaton and Chaplin with the controversial film, The Jazz Singer. In that movie (which, yes, prominently features blackface, but moving on for now), the eponymous Jazz Singer talks on screen, with the audio being synched up to his mouth moving. This was the birth of the “talkie”, or a film with diegetic sound (sound coming from the film itself, rather than the score). The silent film industry heard the death knell rapidly approaching.

But from the death of one, comes the birth of another. Sure, slapstick would still persist in talkies, inheriting the remnants of the vaudeville era that Chaplin and Keaton heralded from. But now that sound was available, a whole new form of film comedy could be introduced. Enter: The Marx Brothers.

Leonard (born March 22, 1887), Adolph (born November 2, 1888), Julius (October 2, 1890), Milton (October 23, 1892), and Herbert Marx (February 25, 1901) were all born in New York City to German and French Jewish immigrants. Unsurprisingly, at least one of their parents (their mom, Minnie) was a performer, in a continuing trend with all of these guys. Her entire family were performers, especially her brother Abraham, a very successful vaudevillian who went by A Shean. The five brothers soon also fell into this profession.

The began with their uncle in vaudeville, and they became fairly successful. Originally known for their singing, they shifted to comedy after a performance in 1912. The two eventually fused, turning them into a comedy act with music in it. And at some point during this time period, the brothers were playing a poker game with a cartoonist, who gave the brothers their iconic names. Respectively, they became Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo, and Zeppo. And a new troupe was born, but only on stage. It’d be another 17 years before they broke into film. Well, except for Gummo, who went to World War I, then never came back...to the theatre. Just wasn’t his thing. He went into the raincoat business! Anyway...

By 1929, two more things had happened: the first talkies had been introduced, and the Marx Brothers were one of the most popular theatre acts in the country. They also had some competition in that arena from two other acts. On stage, three brothers, Moses, Jerome, and Samuel Horwitz, also Jewish and also from New York City, joined up with a man named Ted Healy, and a comedian named Larry Fine, and formed the vaudeville group known as the Three Stooges. 

Meanwhile, in silent film, British comedian Stan Laurel teamed up with American comedian Oliver Hardy, and the two made a lot of short silent films together, all of which were shorts. The tall, talkative, and rotund Hardy and the thin, stoic, childlike Laurel were a perfect pair and were known as, of course, Laurel and Hardy.

These two groups were worthy competitors, both for the Marx Brothers, and for Chaplin and Keaton’s form of comedy. And their popularity similarly built over the course of the 1920s. But the Marx Brothers were then given a unique opportunity, before any of the others had the chance. In 1929, Paramount Pictures funded a film, 93 minutes long, which brought the Marx Brothers to the big screen. And this film was a talkie, called The Cocoanuts.

The Cocoanuts was pretty successful, and certainly launched the career of the Marx Brothers. Laurel and Hardy had a talkie come out earlier that month, but it was a short rather than a feature film. And the Stooges wouldn’t be in a film at all until the following year! The Marx Brothers made the leap to the silver screen with verbal comedy, arguably before any other major comedians had the chance to.

The next year, Animal Crackers came out, launching them to even greater fame. This is especially in the case of Groucho Marx, whose greasepaint mustache and quick wit was a huge hit with audiences all over. They moved from New York City to Hollywood, and became bonafide movie stars. Monkey Business in 1931 was their first production not based on their stage acts, and was also a big hit. Horse Feathers in 1932 increased that fame EVEN FURTHER, and there was absolutely no way their stardom could increase from there.

Right?

1933. The Marx Brothers meet up with Leo McCarey, a director you may remember from An Affair to Remember, back in February. They reunite with Margaret Dumont, a comic foil to the brothers who had been in The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers, and the honorary fifth Marx Brother, according to Groucho (sorry, Gummo). Paramount Pictures funded them for the last time, and the brothers would make a film that wouldn’t perform well in the box office...but is considered their great work on film, basically universally.

Let’s watch it, shall we? Time for some Duck Soup! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap

After the opening credits, which includes a bunch of ducks in a bucket ON FIRE, JESUS, we enter the country of Freedonia, a small, bankrupt, and fictional country. The leaders, including President Zander (Edmund Breese), are asking wealthy widow Gloria Teasdale (Margaret Dumont) to give them ore money. She agrees, on one condition: that the President step down, and that a man named Rufus T. FIrefly (Groucho Marx) be appointed new leader of Freedonia.

At a party celebrating his ascension, we met Ambassador Trentino (Louis Calhern), the ambassador of a rival nation, Sylvania. With his beautiful spy Vera Marcal (Raquel Torres), he plots to take over by having her woo Firefly. At this point, his secretary, Bob Roland (Zeppo Marx), arrives to the hall, and the group questions where Firefly is. They note that he’s always on time, and begin to sing the national anthem in anticipation of his arrival. Sucks that he’s still in bed.

He slides down a fireman’s pole as they continue to repeat the anthem, as if repeating a theatre cue, and begins...well, he begins being Groucho Marx. He spits out so many lines at such a rapid pace, it’s genuinely difficult to keep up with it while typing. Check out the scene yourself, if you’re curious! Best part is when Teasdale is talking about her late husband.

Get used to clips; I’ll be adding a lot of them, I’m sure. This segues into another song about the new laws that Firefly is planning on imposing with his administration. He forbids whistling, so I’m never going here. He also bans dirty jokes, smoking, chewing gum, amongst other things. He also basically promises that the country’s going to be far worse than it’s been before. So, yeah, promising.

This is interrupted by an appointment to see the House of Representatives, and he heads there with the help of his car’s driver, Pinky (Harpo Marx). However, the sidecar somehow isn’t hooked up to the motorcycle, and Pinky drives off without Firefly anyway. Funnily enough, the silent Pinky is actually a spy for Trentino, along with Chicolini (Chico). They go to report back to Trentino.

Their report reveals two things: they were tailing the wrong person, and they’re very bad spies. Disappointed, Trentino sends them back out for some reason, and they eventually get into a fight outside, which also involves a short-tempered lemonade vendor. Which is, unsurprisingly, another very humorous exchange.

After destroying both his livelihood and sanity, the two pose as peanut vendors and are quickly found by Firefly, who basically IMMEDIATELY appoints Chicolini to a government position, as the Secretary of War. Just then, Pinky steps in, answering a phone with his signature horns as a response.

After replying to all of Firefly’s questions with various pictures on his body (again, this is very funny), Pinky also leaves, only to be replaced by Bob the Secretary, who suggests trying to get rid of the two-faced Trentino by insulting him, with the intent to get Trentino to slap him, and give him cause to get rid of him once and for all. He once again gets in a car driven by Pinky to go there, only for Pinky to take off once again.

At the party, Trentino is trying to woo Mrs. Teasdale, in order to get her money. Firefly shows up, insults Trentino, only for Trentino to insult him back. He slaps Trentino in response, leading to the opposite intent, and Trentino declares that the countries are now on the verge of war. That night, Teasdale speaks with Trentino, who is to be summoned back to his country. However, he promises to remain if Teasdale can convince Rufus against war.

Rufus agrees to come over, and proceeds to flirt with/intensely neg Mrs. Teasdale. He meets with Trentino once again, who is also with Vera. After another confrontation in which Rufus makes a reference to an old song about my African Americans exist (it’s not called that, and it’s SO BAD, but it’s not with malicious intent; just ignorance), and war between Freedonia and Sylvania is even more likely than before.

That night, Pinky and Chicolini are sent by Trentino to infiltrate Mrs. Teasdale’s place, as Vera has discovered that the war plans were given to her for safekeeping (which we actually saw previously). As they search the house, Teasdale calls Firefly, and asks him to come over and take the plans. He agrees, and Chicolini (who was waiting for him at his room), takes the opportunity and locks him in his bathroom. He dresses up as Rufus and impersonates him to get the plans.

However, Pinky does exactly the same thing, leading to three of them in the same house. Chicolini and Pinky run downstairs, and Chicolini heads to get the plans, now knowing their location. He accidentally turns on a speaker, and runs off. He accidentally runs into a mirror, breaking it. This is just as Rufus heads downstairs to look for his imposter, and that...leads to arguably the most iconic comedy sequence of all time.

It’s in almost complete silence, and the two are so perfectly synchronized, it’s unbelievable. And it is VERY funny. I mean, it’s famous for a reason. It’s just genuinely a great sequence. But, at the end, Chicolini is caught, and we next jump to a trial, which is, you guessed it, very funny. It also produces on of Groucho Marx’s best and most famous one-liners.

Gentlemen, Chicolini here may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot, but don’t let that fool you; he really is an idiot!

However, Mrs. Teasdale makes one last ditch effort to prevent war. However, Rufus talks himself out of the effort, slaps Trentino again, and it’s officially war. And what follows is...well, what I can only define as Marx Brothers musical number chaos. It’s war.

Also, I think that’s the last video I can add on this post. Damn, didn’t know there was a limit for that. Anyway, the whole thing is a crazy-ass production, followed by an insanely chaotic climax on its own. Pinky finds a woman he was looking at romantically earlier, and it turns out that she’s the wife of the lemonade vendor from before. He hides in the bathtub as he’s coming in, then erupts out of the bathtub playing a bugle when he comes in. It’s...it’s hard to describe, but it’s pretty funny.

War begins in earnest VERY quickly, and while this entire sequence is pretty amusing...it just reminds me that World War II is yet to happen, and that these guys have NO IDEA how bad war is going to get in the next few years. Whoof. Anyway, Chicolini and Pinky switch sides a couple of times, until eventually siding with Firefly. But pretty soon, the war destroys most of Freedonia, and Rufus, Chicolini, Pinky, Bob, and Mrs. Teasdale are all together in a shelter.

Trentino shows up, and he gets trapped in the door, as if he were in the stocks. The guys pelt fruit at him while he’s caught in there. Declaring victory, Mrs. Teasdale sings the Freedonia national anthem. The boys respond by throwing fruit at her instead, and...that’s it!

Yeah, that’s Duck Soup! Holy shit, that was...both exactly what I was expecting and not really what I was expecting at all. Huh. I’ll get into it, but it was at least very funny! See you in the Review!

[anonymoushouseplantfan]

Peter Hunt's latest for The Spectator (you can register for free for 5 articles/month); emphasis (bold) is mine.

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2020/02/the-queen-has-crushed-harrys-sussex-royal-delusion/

"The Queen has crushed Harry’s ‘Sussex Royal’ delusion"

Feb. 21, 2020

It’s taken just 44 days for a royal pipe dream to well and truly bite the dust. Last month, Harry and Meghan tried to bounce the ancient institution into giving them a ‘progressive new role’ as part-time royals, part-time money makers.

Harry’s 93-year-old grandmother doesn’t take kindly to being bounced or indeed being blindsided. With government regulations and royal rules on her side, the Queen has imposed her final restriction on the couple embarking on a self-imposed exile. Sussex Royal can be no more. A freshly branded website will have to be re-branded.

Their supporters will argue it’s no great loss. Like Boris and Oprah, Harry and Meghan have global first name recognition. Meghan remains a duchess and Harry a prince and a pretender, at a distance, to the throne.

But it will hurt. Nothing is left of their half-baked plan to change what it meant to be a senior member of the royal family. The status quo has been sustained. What’s striking is that Harry, with his deep insider knowledge of how his family functions, clearly thought they might succeed. He convinced himself that he could live and earn in Canada and remain Captain General of the Royal Marines.

A harsh Windsor reality has replaced that misguided optimism. But the palace portcullis isn’t fully lowered. The prince’s honorary military role won’t be filled for 12 months. Princess Anne, who’d been tipped to replace her nephew, remains in the wings. By April next year, the Queen will be 95 and who knows what shape the monarchy will be in. No one could have predicted these last few months, not least those enmeshed in it. So only the foolhardy would wish to say with any certainty that this is the last we’ll see of Harry and Meghan as full-time royals.

They have a few more engagements to fulfil. Body language experts will likely be deployed by the tabloids to analyse how the royals behave when reunited, briefly, at next month’s Commonwealth Day service. If Meghan chooses to leave her son Archie with a nanny back in North America – and Harry agrees to such a move – it’ll be a clear sign of what she thinks of the family she’s extracted herself from.

It’s a family that has weathered many crises. Now, it’s got to adjust to the significant loss of a couple who reached parts of the population at home and abroad that were untouched by other royals. It’s a family that’s also still dealing with the ongoing damage Prince Andrew and his lack of judgement have inflicted on them.

The continuing fallout from the death of Jeffrey Epstein is not something the royal family can control or draw a line under. Their only option is to observe from the sidelines and live in trepidation of how events may yet unfold.

Not for the first time, thoughtful royals and their thoughtful officials (both do exist) have had plenty to mull over. What with Prince Andrew, Harry and Meghan, recent months have seen royal brief against royal.

It has not been a good look.

[bccity]

MARCH 2019 BC ENTERTAINMENT SCHEDULES & REVIEW

Members may earn 3 points each (up to 6 points) for writing, by the end of March 31 KST:

A solo para of 400+ words based on their monthly schedule (does not count toward your monthly limit).

A thread of six posts (three per participant, including the starter) based on the monthly schedule.

Threads and solos do not have to take place directly during an important date listed on the schedule, but must be related to what the muse is mentioned to be doing in the paragraph explaining their schedule/the company’s schedule for the month and/or their thoughts on the mentioned activities or lack thereof.

These schedules may be updated throughout the month if new information needs to be added.

Overall Company

Four of the company’s six groups (Decipher, Lipstick, CHARM, and WISH) have quickly approaching tours, and another (Knight) is planned for a tour before the end of the year, so many of the staff of BC are busy with getting out overseas promotions and arranging rehearsals, concert mixes, and set lists. There’s not a lot going on on a company-wide level for the idols because of this.

Important dates:

March 11: Lotte World CF Filming.

March 18: Lotte World Mall & Aquarium CF Filming.

BC Soloist 1 - currently unavailable

BC Soloist 2

His first comeback in over a year happens at the end of the month, so the rest of the month is occupied by pre-promotional work, including a continuation of his radio appearances.

Important dates:

March 1: Guest on KBS World Radio radio show.

March 20: Guest on MBC Starry Night radio show.

March 22: Guest on Kiss The Radio radio show.

March 25: Guest on Youngstreet radio show.

March 29: Release of “Dayfly”, promotions continue until April 29.

Decipher

Decipher’s tour dates for their Can You Feel It? summer Asia tour have been finalized and will be announced this month to begin in May and end before their next comeback. This means preparations are underway filming greeting videos announcing ticket sales for each area they’ll be visiting (South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan) with a promotional photo shoot and teaser video filming this month. They’ll also be spending a lot of time in the studios at the BC building practicing the set list, which will include releases from the last few years as well as their greatest older hits. On top of this, they’re continuing their variety show filming, which they’ll be finishing next month before embarking on the tour.

Important dates:

March 7-10: Tour promotional images and videos filming.

March 20: Filming of seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth episode of variety show. (links are references of format, flexibility of details is possible!)

              ↳ Decipher R & V

No schedules for the month.

BEE

Due to continuing attention from the success of “Something”, BEE have been chosen as new honorary ambassadors of Plan Korea’s “Because I Am A Girl” campaign, a campaign intended to bring awareness to gender inequality and encourage education for young girls around the world. They’ll perform a guerrilla concert with all proceeds going to Plan Korea as part of their ambassador appointment ceremony, and will take a three-day trip to Thailand at the end of the month to do (mediaplayed) volunteer work aligning with the organization’s mission. In the meantime, BC is also fielding demos to finalize a track list for BEE”s next mini-album, planned to be a summer release.

Important dates:

March 5: Guerrilla concert for Plan Korea in Myeongdong, Seoul (performing “Expect”, “Something”, “Loving U”, and “Give It To Me” and talking about the organization with the crowd)

March 25-27: Volunteer work trip to Thailand for Plan Korea (leaving very early on the 25th and returning in the early morning of the 28th.

Knight

Comeback promotions continue, and they’re doing well like Knight always does despite everything they’ve been through, but the title track and the album are doing less well than BC expected in a way that’s been noticed mostly only by antis and investors who still see Knight as a liability to the company (and are pushing to prioritize CHARM). They’ve been scheduled for a group appearance on Knowing Brothers, which is a big deal for the group, as their group variety presence has largely been withdrawn over the years to preserve their reputation. The focus of the episode will be showcasing their teamwork and group connection. In-dorm filming for their reality show also continues as it nears its close, with the members born ‘96 to ‘94 being tasked to cook a surprise dinner for the members born ‘93 to ‘90 earlier in the month, and vice versa in the latter part of the month, and are urged to reflect on their time living together in the dorms on camera.

Important dates:

March 1: Filming of Knowing Brothers episode (airing March 8), OneK Concert in Seoul (with Alien, 7ROPHY, Lucid, and Element).

March 2: Fansign in Seocho, Seoul.

March 4: In dorm surprise dinner cooking filming (’96 to ‘94 line cooking).

March 8: Fansign in Yeouido, Seoul.

March 16: Fansign in Seocho, Seoul.

March 21: End of “Love Shot” music show promotions

March 25: In dorm surprise dinner cooking filming (’93 to ‘90 line cooking)

              ↳ White Knight

White Knight have been scheduled for an encore of their 2018 Japan Magical Circus tour in May before the full group embarks on another tour later in the year, so the members of the sub-unit will be in and out of fittings, promo shoots, and tour prep this month to prepare for it.

Lipstick

Gun's lukewarm results have caused BC to push ahead on plans for a summer single release that they hope will see similar success to Lipstick’s past summer releases, though this risks infringing on the summer niche their seniors BEE have done well in for over the past few years and there’s an underlying feeling of BC trying to determine which of their senior girl groups will be most profitable in that market. Their second major world tour is planned to begin in June (their first world tour having been around three years ago), so the members will be in for costume fittings (for reference, costumes can be assumed to be similar in style to costumes found in this video and this video) a couple of days this month. Parts of the fittings will be filmed for behind the scenes concert on the planned concert DVD. Mid-month, they’ll hold a group live stream to officially announce the tour, which there have been many rumors of in fan communities, and they’ll do a Q&A with fans (without dropping too many details) to get them excited.

Important dates:

March 10: First costume fittings.

March 17: Group VLive to announce tour.

March 20: Second costume fittings.

              ↳ Lip Gloss

Lip Gloss has been tasked with recording an OST for the new drama “It’s Okay, That’s Love” that’s more in the style of their first few singles and will be officially released for streaming following the finale of the drama in May. The sub-unit will be in the studio for that, though further schedules for the unit are unclear.

CHARM

BC is releasing a pre-release MV before CHARM’s comeback to ramp up the hype, but their official comeback is on the 18th. High expectations continue to hang in the air with it being clear the comeback will be directly compared with Knight’s overlapping one on the higher levels of the company and failure to outperform their seniors in at least some areas won’t be received well by executives who’ve promised investors this will be CHARM’s big break to the very top of the boy group pack. For promotional activities, they’ll be holding fan signs and airing a VLive the day after their comeback to play a few live games of Mafia and talk to fans.

Important dates:

March 7: Release of pre-release “Getting Closer” MV.

March 17: Pre-recording for You Make My Dawn showcase.

March 18: Release of “Home” & release of (pre-recorded) You Make My Dawn album showcase videos, promotions continue until April 18.

March 20: Fansign in Yeongdeungpo, Seoul.

March 25: Fansign in Gangnam, Seoul.

March 31: Fansign in Mapo, Seoul.

WISH

After a relatively relaxed February schedule, the focus for March is on their Japanese album release and preparations for their fast approaching spring Japanese Dome tour and May comeback. When they’re not in the studio or in meetings for their approaching comeback, they’ll be busy recording promotional content for the release of #WISH2 at the end of the month and filming a new Japanese CF for Y! Mobile.

Important dates:

March 7: “Likey -Japanese ver.-” release.

March 22: “What Is Love? -Japanese ver.-” release.

March 23: Y! Mobile CF filming.

March 31: Release of #WISH2 Japanese “best” album.

[themovieblogonline]

James Earl Jones: A Legacy Voiced Across Generations

The world bids farewell to a true icon, as James Earl Jones, the man whose voice became as legendary as his presence, has passed away at 93. Known for voicing the menacing Darth Vader in Star Wars and delivering unforgettable lines in Field of Dreams, Jones’s legacy spans across decades of film, stage, and television. It’s not every day that an actor can make audiences fear the dark side and tear up over baseball with the same intensity. But James Earl Jones wasn’t just any actor. The Voice That Launched A Thousand Villains (And Dreams) When you think of Darth Vader, one of the greatest villains of all time, you don’t picture a man in a black suit—it’s the voice that haunts your memory. That deep, commanding timbre, punctuated by lines like “I find your lack of faith disturbing,” was the James Earl Jones effect. His portrayal of Darth Vader in Star Wars cemented him as a household name. But Jones wasn’t just about darkness and destruction. In Field of Dreams, he played Terence Mann, a reclusive author with a voice that calmed as much as it inspired. His famous speech, reminding us that "people will come," brought a poetic rhythm to a film that’s more than just about baseball. Jones had this uncanny ability to be both the villain and the mentor, the voice of authority and compassion. From Broadway to The Big Screen: A Master of Every Medium Before he became the voice of Vader, James Earl Jones dominated the stage. His breakout role in The Great White Hope earned him a Tony Award and an Academy Award nomination, making it clear that his talent transcended genre. Whether he was portraying historical figures or bringing Shakespeare to life, Jones delivered every performance with an unmatched intensity. It’s no surprise that he was one of the few actors to achieve EGOT status—Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. Even when the Academy didn’t award him a competitive Oscar, they made sure to recognize him with an Honorary one in 2012. And who could forget Mufasa in The Lion King? Jones’s rich, powerful voice gave life to yet another iconic character. When you hear, “Remember who you are,” it’s hard not to get goosebumps. From animated films to Broadway classics like Fences, he was never just playing a role—he was the role. A Legacy of Love and Loss in Field of Dreams In Field of Dreams, Jones showcased another side of his acting prowess—heartfelt, genuine, and inspirational. The film, which lost the Oscar race to Driving Miss Daisy, still managed to touch hearts around the world. His portrayal of Terence Mann brought emotional depth to an already moving plot. Field of Dreams showed us that James Earl Jones wasn’t just a voice—he was a storyteller. His role in the film remains one of his most beloved, and for good reason. Jones could make you believe in baseball magic, with just a few powerful words. The Man Behind the Voice Born in 1931 in Arkabutla, Mississippi, Jones’s journey from the small town to the big screen is the stuff of Hollywood lore. He grew up with a stutter, and yet, this man whose voice became synonymous with power and authority started his career in the most unexpected way: struggling with words. Over time, he found his voice—literally and figuratively—and dominated every stage and screen he touched. Jones didn’t just act—he commanded attention. Whether he was narrating CNN’s iconic tagline, “This is CNN,” or appearing in cult classics like Coming to America, his presence was undeniable. Farewell to A Legend As news of his passing spread, fans and colleagues alike mourn the loss of a man who not only entertained but inspired. James Earl Jones’s career spanned over 60 years, with nearly 200 screen credits and countless stage appearances. He earned Lifetime Achievement Awards from SAG-AFTRA and the National Board of Review and left an indelible mark on cinema, theater, and television. He may have passed on, but as Darth Vader once said, “The force will be with you, always.” James Earl Jones passes, but his legacy? It’s immortal, echoing through generations—much like that unforgettable voice. Read the full article

[dreamaze]

BFFL 11/∞    ↪ first pick(s)

+ ... guys you’re making him feel bad

[joestories]

In a bit of local activism, someone has been putting up stickers around Nostrand Ave that say “John Van Nostrand was a slave owner.” I pointed this out to a friend as we walked by, and she said, “They should rename it.” And my initial reaction was, oh man, it’s so hard on everyone to rename streets.

And I started wondering how often streets have been renamed in New York. There’s the honorary street names, but I don’t think one of those has ever overtaken its original name. Like, you wouldn’t tell a cab driver, “Take me to People with AIDS Plaza.”

Right off, there’s one renamed street I know about: Malbone Street. It was renamed after the Malbone Street wreck in 1918. It was a subway wreck where a wooden subway took a curve too fast and derailed, killing 93 people. This happened on what’s now the S line, where the train goes into a tunnel under Empire Boulevard. Only, it wasn’t called Empire Boulevard back then. It was Malbone Street. But the accident had created a bad connotation for Malbone Street, so it was renamed.

And I remember Orange Street, because I used to live on Baxter Street, and it was renamed that from Orange Street. This was part of a coordinated effort on the part of the city to break up the five points. You know, the Gangs of New York stuff. A park was installed where the streets used to meet, and the streets were realigned and in some cases, renamed.

I discovered a site called oldstreets.com which lists now defunct NYC streets. There’s a lot of them. Here’s some of the more interesting ones.

Alphabet City’s Avenue A and B used to continue up the east side of Manhattan. Sutton Place and York Avenue both used to be called Avenue A. They would appear and disappear as the curvature of the island required. They both existed in sections all the way up to the Harlem River.

There was a Bache Street named for a person with that weird last name. Over time, it was simplified to Beach Street, even though it’s in Tribeca and nowhere near a beach.

There was a place called “Bible House” that occupied an entire city block and was considered an address. It even had its own unique address system. In the 50s, it was demolished after the people running Bible House disappeared mysteriously. It was replaced by the Cooper Union engineering building.

There was a place called “Bone Alley” which was home to a colony of junk merchants. In 1896 it was turned into Hamilton Fish Park.

I should have remembered Clermont Street, because it’s mentioned in Hamilton (renamed for old General Mercer).

"Dirty Lane" was an anglicization of "Slyck Steegh” and eventually became the much more boring-sounding South William Street.

At this point I realized an hour had passed and I was only through four letters and immediately I lost interest in this project.

[viktorbezic]

Constraint Stories: How a Discarded Magazine Sparked Gordon Parks’ Life of Creativity

The youngest of 15 children, Gordon Parks, came into the world the stillborn in the year 1912. Almost left for dead, Parks's life is saved when Dr. Gordon, who he will be named after, kickstarts his heart by dunking him in ice water (1). His life didn't get any easier. Raised in Fort Scott, Kansas, there was no shortage of racism. In his Memoir, Parks refers to Fort Scott as "The Mecca of Bigotry" (2). As a student in an all-black class with a white teacher, prejudice was learned at an early age. The teacher would tell the students what their lives would amount to. She said, based on their skin color, the most they could hope for would be to become porters and waiters (3). In high school, similar to many of his black classmates, Parks would be barred from participating in activities outside of the classroom, including sports and any high school social events. The teachers discouraged African American students from pursuing higher education (4). 

Tragedy would strike the Parks family, and Gordon's mother died when he was only 15. This would set off a chain of events that would make him leave Fort Scott, Kansas, and move in with this sister in St. Paul, Minnesota (5). His stay with his sister would be temporary when a fight with his brother-in-law got him kicked out. He'd find shelter at a local pool hall, where he knew a friendly manager, who was kind enough to let him crash there as long as he ran errands and racked balls. After 6 days of being homeless and starving, Gordon fell asleep on a streetcar. Woken up by the conductor, Parks pulls a knife on him. He couldn't pop the blade as he immediately saw an image of his father and was ashamed. The conductor looked at Gordon's trembling hands with the knife and asked, "You hungry son?" Parks responded, "No…no sir. Just thought you'd like to buy a knife." To which the conductor responded, "Nope. I'm not needing one (6)." His turmoil would force him to drop out of school to seek work of any kind. He was so desperate that he became a piano player at a brothel. 

Gordon would continue his hunt for stable work. A friend's father gave him a job as a busboy at a Minneapolis hotel. With the onset of the Great Depression, the hotel would go broke. Once again, Parks was out of the job (7). Parks would then find a gig in a band that's on their way to New York. He and the rest of his bandmates are promised pay after their show. But once the group arrives in New York, their manager is nowhere to be found. They were effectively ditched with no warning and no way of getting in contact with the manager. Gordon decides to stay in New York and finds a room in Harlem. When he runs out of money, he enlists in the army and heads to Fort Dix. This would guarantee him a bed and 3 meals a day. He wouldn't have to go hungry for the time being. Upon leaving the army, Gordon returns to Minneapolis and finds a job as a waiter on the North Coast Limited train line. 

One day Parks notices a magazine one of the passengers leaves behind. He explores the images of the dispossessed in the spreads of the magazine. Parks would describe these images as powerful. All of the photographers were tackling the evils of poverty that still gripped the nation in 1938. Their work was part of President Roosevelt's New Deal agency, the Farm Security Administration (FSA). The FSA had renowned documentary photographers, such as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, and Jack Delano. Gordon kept the magazine stashed away in his train bunk. Parks would continuously refer back to the magazine in a cycle of what he described as repeated thinking and looking. From this magazine, Gordon developed a sense of fascination with photography and its possibilities (8). 

On a train trip to Seattle, he finds a pawn shop and stops in after seeing a camera in the store window. Parks walks in and asks for the camera. He negotiates down to a price of $7.50. Neither the pawnshop owner nor Parks knew how to load the film in the camera. Luckily another store patron knew how and showed Gordon how to do it (9). When parks returns to Minneapolis, he walks into every large department in the twin cities asking to shoot fashion photography. He lucks out and finds a patron in Mr. Murphy after being repeatedly rejected. Entirely self-taught, within a month, he has his 1st exhibit at a local Camera shop (10). He also had photographs in Murphy's store, which catches the eye of Marva Louis, the model, and wife of boxing champion, Joe Louis. She contacts him and asks him to shoot for her, but also encourages him to move to a bigger city, Chicago. Where there would be no shortage of work. When one of Park's close friends, the black painter David Ross, hears about Marva Louis's advice, he connects Parks with a friend with an empty darkroom at the South Side Community Art Center that needs a photographer. They couldn't pay him, but they would let him use and live in the studio rent-free (11). Parks ultimately decides to move Chicago with his wife in 1940. 

In the same spirit of the documentary photographers he admired, Parks wanted to show the injustice of poverty within America's inner cities. He Photographs struggling families on the South Side of Chicago. Parks exhibits of these photos at the Art Center alongside his other fashion and landscape work. Jack Delano, whose work graced the magazine that Parks cherished as a waiter on the train car, stopped in from an ad he saw in the paper. Parks couldn't believe it. Delano told Parks, "You should be working with us. Perhaps you will someday." Referring to the FSA program. Delano ends the conversation with, "Well, have to catch a plane. Be seeing you. Congratulations." And with that, Delano was gone. This show won Parks a grant from the Julius Rosenwald Fund. When asked where he wanted to serve his apprenticeship, he chose the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and proceeded to move to Washington, DC, with his young family (12). 

In Washington DC, he is stunned by the segregation in the capital. His new boss, Roy Stryker, knowing Parks was not ready for Washington, gives him two assignments without his camera. One is to get a jacket for himself and eat dinner at a restaurant called "White's House." Gordon is denied service at the department store. When he goes White's House, Parks is asked to go the back to get his food. Blacks were barred from eating there. His boss wanted to give him a taste of the segregation of Washington, DC, as a form of motivation to document racial issues of the times. Stryker's recommendation was to express the feeling he had from being discriminated against and channel them into pictures. He recommended speaking with older Black residents in and around Washington (13). 

He strikes up a conversation with Ella Watson, a black caretaker in the FSA building. Parks asks her to tell him about her life. She proceeds to tell him what seemed to be a never-ending nightmare. A father lynched by a mob, a mother's untimely death, a high school pregnancy, and a husband shot two days before their daughter's birth. A teenage daughter bearing two illegitimate children, one of which experienced paralysis. And Watson's struggle to support the whole family on just $1000 a year. Parks would take one of his most well-known photographs. He remembered Grant Wood's painting at the Art Institute in Chicago "American Gothic", and had Watson pose in front of the American flag with her mop and broomstick in a similar pose as the painting. Parks would name this photo, "American Gothic", after the painting that inspired it. The photo would expose the nation to the unfairness of segregation (14).  Politicians would sneer at the photo as an indictment of America. Gordon would follow Watson around and document her family, proving to his boss that he could story-tell with his camera. 

In 1943 the FSA would close. Undeterred Parks builds a successful photography career. He continues to take photographs for the Office of War Information and the Standard Oil Photography Project. Gordon would proceed to become a freelance photographer for Vogue, and developed a unique style emphasizing the garments in motion. He also maintained his interest in documenting inner cities; when he relocated to Harlem, he created a photo essay on a Harlem gang leader, which won him the position as the first black staff photographer for LIFE magazine. Parks held this position for 20 years, expanding his subject matter to include sports and entertainment, alongside his fashion photography, and inner-city photography. Gordon also had the opportunity to capture portraits of African American leaders, including Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and Muhammad Ali (15). He would also become a godparent to one of Malcolm X's daughters. 

In later years he'd expand his creative practice by composing music, writing novels, and directing films. In 1962, he published the autobiographical coming of age novel, "the Learning Tree." And when it was turned into a movie, he became the first African American to write and direct a feature film. Not only did he write the screenplay, but he scored and produced the movie as well. This would later lead him to the opportunity to direct Shaft in 1971 and its sequel in 1972. 

Through his art, Parks pursued what he described as "the common search for a better life and world (16)." He became a master of multiple mediums, developing his writing and poetry and becoming an accomplished composer. Parks, who was never able to finish high school, was awarded the National Medal of the Arts and held more than 50 honorary doctorate degrees. Gordon Parks would succumb to cancer at the age of 93 in New York City and would be laid to rest in his birthplace of Fort Scott, Kansas. 

References

Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America, by Carole Boston Weatherford and Jamey Christoph, Scholastic Inc., 2015, p. 4.

A Hungry Heart: a Memoir, by Gordon Parks, Washington Square Press, 2007, p. 8.

Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America, by Carole Boston Weatherford and Jamey Christoph, Scholastic Inc., 2015, p. 6.

"Gordon Parks." Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 9 July 2020, www.biography.com/artist/gordon-parks.

A Hungry Heart: a Memoir, by Gordon Parks, Washington Square Press, 2007, p. 8.

A Hungry Heart: a Memoir, by Gordon Parks, Washington Square Press, 2007, p. 14.

 Idem, p.17.

Idem, p. 56.

Idem, p. 63.

Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America, by Carole Boston Weatherford and Jamey Christoph, Scholastic Inc., 2015, p. 10.

A Hungry Heart: a Memoir, by Gordon Parks, Washington Square Press, 2007, p. 68.

Idem, p. 75.

Idem, p. 79.

Idem, p. 23.

"Gordon Parks." Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 9 July 2020, www.biography.com/artist/gordon-parks.

Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America, by Carole Boston Weatherford and Jamey Christoph, Scholastic Inc., 2015, p. 32.

[dailykhaleej]

COVID-19: Flypasts and promotion for UK’s WW II veteran ‘Colonel’ Tom as he turns 100

Second World Battle veteran Captain Tom Moore along with his daughter Hannah, as they react to Battle of Britain Memorial Flight flypast of a Spitfire and a Hurricane passing over his house as he celebrates his 100th birthday, in Marston Moretaine, Britain, Thursday April 30, 2020. Picture Credit score: AP

London: British World Battle Two veteran Captain Tom Moore, who has grow to be a nationwide hero after elevating tens of millions for the well being service, celebrated his 100th birthday on Thursday with a promotion, army flypasts and a message from the prime minister.

Earlier this month, Moore started a fundraising mission for charities that assist front-line Nationwide Well being Service employees battling the COVID-19 disaster by finishing laps of his backyard with the assistance of a strolling body, initially getting down to increase simply 1,000 kilos.

As he celebrated his centenary, the quantity he raised topped 30 million kilos ($37.four million), the Guinness World Document for essentially the most cash raised by a person by a stroll.

He has additionally grow to be the oldest particular person to notch up a primary single in Britain’s principal music chart, that includes on a canopy model of “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, along with his endeavours profitable the hearts and admiration of the general public.

To have a good time his birthday, Moore was appointed the primary Honorary Colonel of the Military Basis School, based mostly close to the city the place he grew up, a place that got here with the approval of Queen Elizabeth, the defence ministry stated.

He has additionally been re-presented along with his World Battle Two Defence Medal which he had misplaced.

A birthday message for Captain Tom Moore is displayed on the promoting boards in Piccadilly Circus in London on April 30, 2020 as the nation celebrates his 100th birthday. Picture Credit score: AFP

Historic World Battle Two plane carried out a flypast above “Colonel” Moore’s house in Bedfordshire, central England, early on Thursday, with a second fly over by trendy Royal Air Drive helicopters due later.

Moore, who stated he was nonetheless “Captain Tom”, stated he was honoured by his promotion and all the type messages he had obtained.

Served in Southeast Asia

“If people choose to call me colonel, well thank you very much,” he instructed BBC TV with a chuckle. The veteran, who served in southeast Asia in the course of the struggle, waved on the World Battle Two fighter planes as they flew over his house.

Since Monday, Britain’s Royal Mail has added a particular postmark to all stamped put up with a congratulatory message to Moore, whereas greater than 125,000 birthday playing cards have been despatched to him by well-wishers, so many {that a} close by college has needed to open and show them.

“I never, ever anticipated ever in my life anything like this, it really is amazing. I must say … thank you very much to everyone, wherever you are,” Moore stated.

His exploits earlier this month have been heralded by politicians and royalty alike. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who returned to work on Monday after recovering from COVID-19 himself, recorded a particular message for Moore.

“I know I speak for the whole country when I say we wish you a very happy 100th birthday. Your heroic efforts have lifted the spirits of an entire nation,” Johnson stated.

He stated Moore was a “point of light in all our lives”.

The royal household have additionally despatched messages of congratulations, together with a card from the queen.

“I was most interested to hear of your recent fundraising efforts for NHS Charities Together at this difficult time,” stated the 93-year-old monarch, who historically writes to centenarians on their birthday. “I send my congratulations and best wishes to you on such a special occasion.”

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