#like the 1890s portrayed in the 1990s

[verynonspecific]

FRANCIS: Isabel. You are radiant. And you're a teacher too! ISABEL: I'm not interested in your false flattery. Do you have any idea how hard it was to get control of that class?! FRANCIS: You're a poem! ISABEL: To knock the poetical nonsense out of the children's heads! FRANCIS: You simply arrive, and there's a lesson in grace and beauty. ISABEL: What are you on about? FRANCIS: Well, your eyes for one thing! How they blaze with anger! ISABEL: Oh, was that your purpose in coming back to Blair Water, to make me angry?!

[alphynix]

Retro vs Modern #12: Edmontosaurus annectens

Hadrosaurs were first discovered during the 1850s in North America, with the eponymous Hadrosaurus being both one of the most complete dinosaurs known at the time and also the first dinosaur skeleton to ever be mounted and displayed.

Like many other dinosaurs of the time hadrosaurs were initially reconstructed as bipedal with an upright kangaroo-like pose. Early in the history of their study their wide flat "duckbill" snouts were thought to indicate they were semi-aquatic, and they were frequently portrayed swimming and wading while feeding on soft water plants.

While elaborately bony-crested hadrosaurs like Parasaurolophus have become some of the most famous and recognizable members of the group, the species that's gone through the most radical changes in our understanding in recent years is probably Edmontosaurus annectens.

1890s-1960s

Edmontosaurus has had an especially messy taxonomic history with various specimens spending decades under many different names, commonly being labelled as Anatosaurus and Trachodon for much of the 20th century. For the sake of avoiding a lot of confusion I'm just going to keep referring to it here as "Edmontosaurus", even though the naming issues weren't properly sorted out until the 1990s.

The earliest specimen of what we know call Edmontosaurus was discovered in the 1890s, and the first to actually bear the genus name was the closely related species Edmontosaurus regalis discovered in the 1910s. For many decades it was mostly reconstructed in the then-typical "tripod" posture and seen as being highly aquatic, with an exceptionally well-preserved "dinosaur mummy" specimen being used to support that view – skin impressions around its hands were interpreted as paddle-like webbing used to swim.

The mummy also showed fairly thin and delicate skin, with a pattern of many tiny scales dotted with clusters of larger scales, and what appeared to be a fleshy skin frill running along Edmontosaurus' neck and back.

2020s

The idea of amphibious hadrosaurs was finally challenged in the mid-1960s, at the start of the Dinosaur Renaissance, with details of their anatomy, possible stomach contents, and the environments that their fossils had been preserved in all being used to help reinterpret them as fully terrestrial herbivores that walked on four legs and ran on two. The discovery of Maiasaura nesting colonies in the late 1970s also revealed a lot of new information about the life history of these dinosaurs, and helped to popularize the image of them as social animals living in herds and caring for their young.

From the 1990s onwards new discoveries of additional "mummies" of both Edmontosaurus and other hadrosaurs have given us even more insights into the soft parts of their anatomy. Their necks and tails were much more thickly muscled and chunky than their skeletons alone suggest, the frill may have had a sort of rectangular segmented appearance, and the webbing on their forelimbs was actually more of a "mitten" that bound their hands into fleshy weight-bearing pads. And instead of a broad "duckbill" they actually had large hooked beaks covering their snouts, giving then more of a horse-like head shape.

We now know Edmontosaurus lived during the very end of the Cretaceous, about 73-66 million years ago, with the older part of that time range represented by Edmontosaurus regalis in Western Canada and the younger part represented by Edmontosaurus annectens in Western Canada and the Western and West North Central United States. It was one of the largest known hadrosaurs with most adult specimens around 9-12m long (~30-39'), but some of the very largest known partial remains suggest the existence of rare enormous "super-adults" that were about 15m long (49').

Edmontosaurus was probably a grazing animal primarily eating tough low-growing foliage like horsetails, cropping off mouthfuls with its beak and then grinding them up with batteries of hundreds of teeth in the back of its jaws using a unique complex chewing motion.

Its skin had a complex texture of varying scale shapes and sizes across its body, and one mummified specimen of Edmontosaurus regalis shows a raised bumpy pattern of large scale clusters on its neck and a fleshy crest on the top of its head. It's currently unclear if these were sexually dimorphic features and we don't know if Edmontosaurus annectens actually had them too, but I've speculatively included them in this reconstruction anyway.

And despite being one of the most intensely-studied and completely known non-avian dinosaurs in the world, Edmontosaurus is somehow still continuing to surprise us. Parts of the mummy specimen nicknamed "Dakota" are still being carefully prepared, and in late 2019 the North Dakota Geological Survey teased an unexpected discovery – a large single hoof-like nail on the front of its hand, unlike anything ever seen before on a dinosaur, and suggesting that Edmontosaurus may have been much more specialized for purely quadrupedal movement than previously thought.

Official details on the "hoof" still haven't been published yet, but whenever it happens it'll be exciting to find out just what's actually going on there.

———

Nix Illustration | Tumblr | Twitter | Patreon

[tsc-clave]

Everybody say happy birthday to Magnus Bane!

Our amazing warlock turns 400-and-something, he was born on the 8th of December in the early ‘600s in odiern Jakarta, Indonesia.

He has been portrayed by Godfrey Gao, who unfortunately left us a short time ago, in the movie adaptation of City of Bones...

...and then by Harry Shum Jr in the tv series.

what do you need to know about him?

he was born in the old Dutch East Indies, from a Dutchman and an Indonesian woman. when they discovered that he was a warlock they associated him with the devil and his mother hung herself in the barn

his true father is Asmodeus, one of the most powerful Greater Demons and Princes of Hell

his warlock mark is yellow cat eyes, plus the normal absence of the belly button

monks and Silent Brothers took care of him, in Madrid, and they gave him the name “Magnus Bane”

he stopped aging at around 19, but he started lying about his true age way sooner

he’s 6’2

he loves fashion, he dresses in a very peculiar way and make-up, glitter and sparkly rings are a must

he unwittingly started a mock-cult, the Crimson Hand, whose aim was to help people and warlocks in poor conditions. later on it became a serious Asmodeus adoration cult, where Magnus was known as the “Great Poison” – which is the translation of his name –, but fortunately he fixed that

he is “freewheeling” bisexual, and his known lovers are Imasu (1890, a mundane, he left him after discovering his magic nature), Etta (1938, she left him after years because she realized she wanted a family and she refused immortality), Camille (19/20th century, a vampire, he left her when he discovered she lied to him saying that she was in France while she was in St. Petersburg with another lover) and Alec (2007, a Shadowhunter, they are now a family)

he gifted Camille a chain with a huge ruby as a pendant, it was enchanted to signal her if demons were around. it is now a possession of the Lightwood family

he had a lot of adventures with his warlock friends Ragnor, Catarina – who he saved from being burned alive as a witch – and Tessa, but he has been banned from Peru without proper explanation

over the centuries he tried several hobbies, such as playing charango, collecting stamps and growing bonsais, but he found that throwing unforgettable parties is what truly suits him

during the Prohibition Era he owned a speakeasy, “Mr. Dry’s”

he owned lots of cats, but only two are known: Great Catsby (1990s) and Chairman Meow (2000s). in addition, he was the one bringing Church to the US

he is fluent in different languages, but it is known that he can speak Indonesian, Spanish, Mandarin, Purgatic, Gehennic and Tartarian

when he first saw the Lightwoods, during a battle involving the Circle, he called their little son (Alec) a “doubtless repellent brat” but oh boi was he wrong

in the Shadow Market of Los Angeles people can buy a map of the city with Magnus on it signaling where he caused chaos

when he holds witchlight with Alec it sparks different colors, this comes from his demonic heritage because his father once was an angel

his magic is blue, a color that is exactly like Alec’s eyes

he helped the Clave lots of times, he even owned a seat in the Downworlder section of the Council. in fact, he was the one summoning Raziel to receive the Glorious in order to cut the demonic connection between Jace and Sebastian

he is the High Warlock of Brooklyn

he helped Jocelyn concealing the Sight of her daughter Clary, a spell so powerful that even him couldn’t remove without risks

he is Alec Lightwood’s husband, becoming Magnus Lightwood-Bane

he is the father of a young blue warlock, Max Lightwood-Bane, and a Shadowhunter, Rafael Lightwood-Bane

he was one of the heads of the Shadowhunter-Downworlder Alliance

he gifted Alec with a notebook containing his adventures

he wrote a book named “The Biggest Little Kitten in Brooklyn”, dedicated to Chairman Meow

he likes his coffee with sugar

he once had a pet monkey named Ragnor

( credits to @cassandrajp and to the owners of the gifs )

[blackboxoffice]

We’re in a golden age of black horror films

by Robin R. Means Coleman, Vice President and Associate Provost for Diversity; Professor, Department of Communication, Texas A&M University

In the horror genre, black is definitely back.

The movie “Ma,” which premieres on May 31, will star Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer as Sue Ann, a lonely middle-age woman who clings to a group of teens to the point of obsession.

“Ma” comes on the heels of Jordan Peele’s critically acclaimed “Us,” which is also led by an Academy Award winner, Lupita Nyong'o. And let’s not forget that Peele’s previous film, “Get Out,” won the Academy Award for best screenplay last year.

Black actors have always had a role in horror films. But something different is taking place today: the re-emergence of true black horror films.

Rather than simply including black characters, many of these films are created by blacks, star blacks or focus on black life and culture.

Objects of violence and ridicule

For most of film history, black actors have appeared in horror films in supporting roles. Many were deeply problematic.

In my 2011 book, “Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present,” I describe some of these tropes.

In the early 20th century, many films – horror or not – had white actors appearing in blackface. The characters could find themselves on the receiving end of especially horrific violence. For example, in 1904’s “A Nigger in the Woodpile,” a black couple’s home is firebombed and the pair staggers out, charred.

In the 1930s, there was a spate of horror films that took place in jungles, where blacks were depicted as primitive – sometimes indistinguishable from apes. A decade later, black characters started appearing in horror films as objects of ridicule. Actors like Willie Best and Mantan Moreland appeared as comic relief – characters for audiences to dismissively mock.

Above: Willie Best plays Clarence in the 1941 film ‘The Smiling Ghost.’ John D. Kisch/Separate Cinema Archive

To be sure, there were some instances in which black actors assumed leading roles. The 1934 film “Chloe, Love is Calling You” starred black actress Georgette Harvey as the vengeful Mandy. In 1957, Joel Fluellen portrayed the smart and reliable Arobi in “Monster from Green Hell.”

However, often these characters existed to support the survival of their white counterparts.

From placeholders to full participants

For a brief period, in the 1960s and 1970s, horror films began to treat blacks as whole and full subjects.

Many of these narratives centered on black culture and experiences. More often than not, blacks played the role of hero. For example, the 1972 film “Blacula” begins in 1780 and is an indictment of the slave trade and its lingering effects. In the 1974 film “Sugar Hill,” a black female protagonist named Sugar, with the help of her black zombie army, lays waste to a murderous white crime boss and his cronies.

Then there was Bill Gunn’s 1973 art-house horror film, “Ganja & Hess.” A gorgeous and deliberative treatise on race, class, mental illness and addiction, it won the Critics’ Choice prize at the Cannes Film Festival. However, no Hollywood studio was willing to distribute the film.

The classic of the era is George Romero’s 1968 “Night of the Living Dead,” which stars Duane Jones as Ben, a strong, complex black character who leads a group of whites during a zombie apocalypse. Confounding the clichéd trope of “the black guy dies first,” Ben is the lone survivor of the terrifying battle.

Above: Duane Jones as Ben in ‘Night of the Living Dead.’ Wikimedia Commons

In a turn of realism, he emerges triumphant – only to be summarily shot down by a militia of white police and civilians. Ben’s death, which comes at the movie’s conclusion, is as unexpected as it is powerful. The scene demands that audiences consider who among us is truly monstrous.

Sadly, these glimpses of blackness faded as many horror films in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s reverted to well-worn tropes. In some, like “The Shining” and “Annabelle,” black characters operate as the “sacrificial Negro” who dies to save a white character’s life. Then there are the dozens of films, like 1987’s “Angel Heart” and 1988’s “The Serpent and the Rainbow,” in which black characters appear as wicked Voodoo practitioners.

Black is back

Jordan Peele’s films should be thought of as an homage to “Night of the Living Dead” and “Ganja & Hess” – films that have strong, complex black protagonists. In fact, Peele has noted that Ben’s fate in “Night of the Living Dead,” which was released as the U.S. mourned the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., weighed heavily on him when he wrote the ending of “Get Out.”

Peele’s character – unlike Ben – survives.

While Peele has shown that the genre can be a daring, unflinching examination of politics, class and race, the black horror renaissance has been brewing for some years.

Over the past two decades, Ernest Dickerson – who directed “The Purge,” “Bones,” “Demon Knight” and episodes of “The Walking Dead” – and Rusty Cundieff, the director of “Tales from the Hood” and “Tales from the Hood 2,” have been stalwarts of the genre. They’ve paved the way for Peele, as well as newcomers such as Meosha Bean, Nikyatu Jusu and Deon Taylor.

The horror genre is maturing and becoming more imaginative and inclusive – in who can play hero and antihero, and who gets to be the monster and savior. The emergence of black horror films is just one chapter in a story that includes women taking on more prominent roles in horror films, too.

It’s about time. As Jordan Peele noted in an interview in the documentary film “Horror Noire,” the fact that there had been “such a small handful of films led by black people” was, to him, “the horror itself.”

[classicmollywood]

Films New to Me - May 2019

*I apologize for this being so late! I have been extremely busy*

1890s - 0

1900s - 0

1910s - 0

1920s - 0

1930s - 1

The Adventurous Blonde (1937)

I had always been curious about the Torchy Blane films and even though I picked a random one as my first introduction to her, I must say she is a great character. I like that she is a smart woman who seems to know more than everyone else. However, why in the world is she with Steve? He is so annoying and honestly seems toxic. But this the ‘30′s and unfortunately a smart woman still needs a husband. Also the plot was interesting but the script was complete mush. I think the Torchy Blane films were more of an escape during the Depression than cinematic gold. 

1940s - 2

That Uncertain Feeling (1941)

This cast was amazing! Merle Oberon, Melvyn Douglas, and Burgess Meredith, oh my! Now the plot was meh BUT I loved how the script had some fabulous innuendos in it. This was a fun watch and I might peek at it again in the future. 

Nightmare Alley (1947)

Thank you TCM Noir Alley for introducing me to this Film Noir! I had been dying to see it for years. I saw Joan Blondell and Tyrone Power’s names on the cast list and knew it had to be good. This was one of the most intriguing Film Noirs I had seen in a long time and I loved seeing Power play against type. He just was magnificent at playing a not so great guy and I wish Hollywood let him play more characters like that than the handsome leading men types. 

1950s - 0

1960s - 0

1970s - 0

1980s - 0

1990s - 0

2000s - 0

2010s - 3

The Love Witch (2016)

This was my first Anna Biller film and it was so weird but I loved every minute of it! Samantha Robinson was perfect as Elaine. She was so great at portraying her descend into psychosis. I loved that this film had a ‘70s feel to it and the set and costume design was very well done. I also really enjoyed the unfolding of the story and will certainly be watching more Anna Biller films in the future!

Avengers: End Game (2019)

BEST. AVENGERS. MOVIE. EVER. This film was everything I wanted it to be and needed it to be. I didn’t mind its long running time because it was so good, it flew by. It is the end of an era, but a great end to that era.

Aladdin (2019)

At first, I was not excited to go see this film. I feel like Disney is banking too much on the nostalgia factor of millennials and that is why I hadn’t seen any of the live action remakes of my favorite films. Well, this one proved me wrong because it was so well done. I loved how diverse the cast was and how Will Smith put his own spin on the Genie and didn’t just copy Robin Williams’s performance. I thought this film was so fun and loved the Bollywood inspired dance scenes! 

[justforbooks]

Harland Sanders was born in 1890 and raised on a farm outside Henryville, Indiana (near Louisville, Kentucky). When Sanders was five years old, his father died, forcing his mother to work at a canning plant. This left Sanders, as the eldest son, to care for his two younger siblings. After he reached seven years of age, his mother taught him how to cook. After leaving the family home at the age of 13, Sanders passed through several professions, with mixed success. In 1930, he took over a Shell filling station on US Route 25 just outside North Corbin, Kentucky, a small town on the edge of the Appalachian Mountains. It was here that he first served to travelers the recipes that he had learned as a child: fried chicken and other dishes such as steaks and country ham. After four years of serving from his own dining room table, Sanders purchased the larger filling station on the other side of the road and expanded to six tables. By 1936, this had proven successful enough for Sanders to be given the honorary title of Kentucky colonel by Governor Ruby Laffoon. In 1937 he expanded his restaurant to 142 seats, and added a motel he purchased across the street, naming it Sanders Court & Café. 

Sanders was unhappy with the 35 minutes it took to prepare his chicken in an iron frying pan, but he refused to deep fry the chicken, which he believed lowered the quality of the product. If he pre-cooked the chicken in advance of orders, there was sometimes wastage at day's end. In 1939, the first commercial pressure cookers were released onto the market, mostly designed for steaming vegetables. Sanders bought one, and modified it into a pressure fryer, which he then used to fry chicken. The new method reduced production time to be comparable with deep frying, while, in the opinion of Sanders, retaining the quality of pan-fried chicken. 

In July 1940, Sanders finalised what came to be known as his "Original Recipe" of 11 herbs and spices. Although he never publicly revealed the recipe, he admitted to the use of salt and pepper, and claimed that the ingredients "stand on everybody's shelf". After being recommissioned as a Kentucky colonel in 1950 by Governor Lawrence Wetherby, Sanders began to dress the part, growing a goatee and wearing a black frock coat (later switched to a white suit), a string tie, and referring to himself as "Colonel". His associates went along with the title change, "jokingly at first and then in earnest", according to biographer Josh Ozersky. 

The Sanders Court & Café generally served travelers, so when the route planned in 1955 for Interstate 75 bypassed Corbin, Sanders sold his properties and traveled the US to franchise his chicken recipe to restaurant owners. Independent restaurants would pay four (later five) cents on each chicken as a franchise fee, in exchange for Sanders' "secret blend of herbs and spices" and the right to feature his recipe on their menus and use his name and likeness for promotional purposes. In 1952 he had already successfully franchised his recipe to his friend Pete Harman of South Salt Lake, Utah, the operator of one of the city's largest restaurants. 

Don Anderson, a sign painter hired by Harman, coined the name "Kentucky Fried Chicken". For Harman, the addition of KFC was a way of differentiating his restaurant from competitors; a product from Kentucky was exotic, and evoked imagery of Southern hospitality. Harman trademarked the phrase "It's finger lickin' good", which eventually became the company-wide slogan. He also introduced the "bucket meal" in 1957 (14 pieces of chicken, five bread rolls and a pint of gravy in a cardboard bucket). Serving their signature meal in a paper bucket was to become an iconic feature of the company. 

By 1963 there were 600 KFC restaurants, making the company the largest fast food operation in the United States. KFC popularized chicken in the fast food industry, diversifying the market by challenging the established dominance of the hamburger. 

In 1964, Sanders sold the company to a group of investors led by John Y. Brown Jr. and Jack C. Massey for US$2 million (around US$15 million in 2013). The contract included a lifetime salary for Sanders and the agreement that he would be the company's quality controller and trademark. The chain had reached 3,000 outlets in 48 different countries by 1970. In July 1971, Brown sold the company to the Connecticut-based Heublein, a packaged food and drinks corporation, for US$285 million (around US$1.6 billion in 2013). Sanders died in 1980, his promotional work making him a prominent figure in American cultural history. By the time of his death, there were an estimated 6,000 KFC outlets in 48 different countries worldwide, with $2 billion of sales annually. 

In 1982, Heublein was acquired by R. J. Reynolds, the tobacco giant. In July 1986, Reynolds sold KFC to PepsiCo for $850 million (around US$1.8 billion in 2013). PepsiCo made the chain a part of its restaurants division alongside Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. The Chinese market was entered in November 1987, with an outlet in Beijing. 

In 1991, the KFC name was officially adopted, although it was already widely known by that initialism. Kyle Craig, president of KFC US, admitted the change was an attempt to distance the chain from the unhealthy connotations of "fried". The early 1990s saw a number of successful major products launched throughout the chain, including spicy "Hot Wings" (launched in 1990), popcorn chicken (1992), and internationally, the "Zinger", a spicy chicken fillet burger (1993). By 1994, KFC had 5,149 outlets in the US, and 9,407 overall, with over 100,000 employees. In August 1997, PepsiCo spun off its restaurants division as a public company valued at US$4.5 billion (around US$6.5 billion in 2013). The new company was named Tricon Global Restaurants, and at the time had 30,000 outlets and annual sales of US$10 billion (around US$14 billion in 2013), making it second in the world only to McDonald's. Tricon was renamed Yum! Brands in May 2002. 

By 2015, the company was struggling, having lost business to other retailers and being surpassed by Chick-fil-A as the leading chicken retailer three years previously. To combat this, the company launched a new initiative with a plan to revamp its packaging, decor and uniforms, as well as expanding its menu. Additionally, beginning in May 2015, a new series of advertisements was launched featuring Darrell Hammond as Colonel Sanders. Subsequently,  in a planned rotation of actors, Norm Macdonald, Jim Gaffigan, George Hamilton and Rob Riggle portrayed Sanders in similar ads through the fall of 2016. In January 2018, Country Music icon Reba McEntire was chosen to be KFC's first female Colonel Sanders.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[beatrice-neuman]

For my Portfolio Proposal, I choose to portray the transition from one season to the next as the seasons change. Spring represents the beginning of something new and the turning of a new leaf. I decided to use a leaf/flower as my subject in my photographs, as well as water, to reflect the changing of the seasons, more like botanical photography. Spring is a time to meet new people and do new things, to discover yourself and change into a new person. Spring is a time for taking chances and overcoming fears, as well as for growth and transformation. Spring marks the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. The type of photography that interests me the most, I would say, is Still Life. This type of photography in which immovable subject matter, usually a small group of objects, is represented. It is the introduction of photography to the still life artistic approach, like still life painting.  

 I will be taking landscape images for a botanical style photograph, like how Karl Blossfeldt and Vincent van Gogh have at their times. From 1884 until 1890, Karl Blossfeldt worked as a sculptor, completing apprenticeships at the ironworks and foundry in Mägdesprung and the Kunstgewerbeschule (Institute of the Royal Arts Museum) in Berlin. (“Karl Blossfeldt | MoMA”) Working with Moritz Meurer, who believed that natural shapes were recreated in art, he went across Italy, Greece, and North Africa from 1890 to 1896. Blossfeldt taught at Berlin's Kunstgewerbeschule from 1898 to 1930, building a collection of thousands of images of plants that he used as models to instruct his students. Vincent van Gogh, full name Vincent Willem van Gogh, was a Dutch painter who lived from March 30, 1853, in Zundert, Netherlands, to July 29, 1890, in Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris, France. (“33+ vincent willem van gogh paintings - UdelFestia”) He is widely considered the greatest painter after Rembrandt van Rijn and one of the greatest post-Impressionists. His story's bold colour, strong brushwork, and curved forms strongly impacted the modern art current of Expressionism. After his death, Van Gogh's art became incredibly popular, especially in the 1990s, when his work sold for record-breaking sums at auctions across the world and was featured in massive travelling exhibitions. (“Vincent van Gogh · English reading exercise (advanced level) | bitgab”) Van Gogh has been lost to history in the popular imagination as the ideal suffering artist, thanks in part to his numerous published writings.

Finally, I choose to portray the transition from one season to the next as the seasons change for my Portfolio Proposal. To symbolize the shifting of the seasons, I decided to use a leaf/flower as my subject in my shots, as well as water, to make it more like botanical photography. I'll be photographing landscapes for a botanical style photograph, like what Karl Blossfeldt and Vincent van Gogh did in their respective eras.

Work cited:

“Karl Blossfeldt: Moma.” The Museum of Modern Art, https://www.moma.org/artists/24413.

“Vincent Van Gogh.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vincent-van-Gogh.

“Vincent Van Gogh.” Van Gogh Museum, https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/art-and-stories/art/vincent-van-gogh.

Picture 1 : “Karl Blossfeldt. Hordeum Distichum. 1898–1932: Moma.” The Museum of Modern Art, https://www.moma.org/collection/works/83719?artist_id=24413&page=1&sov_referrer=artist.

Picture 2: “Vincent Van Gogh - Sunflowers.” Van Gogh Museum, https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0031V1962.

Picture 3 : “Vincent Van Gogh - Irises.” Van Gogh Museum, https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0050V1962.

Picture 4: “Karl Blossfeldt. Acanthus Mollis (Soft Acanthus, Bear's Breeches. Bracteoles with the Flowers Removed, Enlarged 4 Times). 1898–1928: Moma.” The Museum of Modern Art, https://www.moma.org/collection/works/83972?artist_id=24413&page=1&sov_referrer=artist.

[nightingveilxo]

With Its Sex Crimes and Corruption, 'The Alienist' Doesn't Feel Too Distant

By Scott Porch January 22, 2018

In an era of unlimited TV, the new TNT crime drama The Alienist understands it has limited time to get your attention. Within the first minute of the series, a title card explains that an alienist was a 19th-century expert who studied mental illness, a police officer discovers a severed hand in the street, and a drop of blood lands on the officer’s face from above.

The alienist in The Alienist is Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, and the show revolves around his investigation of the murders of “boy whores"—underaged boys working in a high-end prostitution ring—in New York City in 1896. Just as Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale spoke to early 2017 anxieties about authoritarianism and women’s rights at the beginning of the Trump administration, The Alienist—starring Daniel Brühl, Luke Evans and Dakota Fanning—tackles early 2018 anxieties about sexual misconduct, immigration and political corruption.

Brühl, who plays the title role, sits down with Playboy ahead of the series’ Monday premiere. He discusses the show’s use of the earliest forms of psychological profiling and forensic science, what it’s like to enter the mind of a serial killer and the uncomfortable echoes the series has in the current political conversation.

"Halfway through the production of the show, we started seeing both of those things all over the news, and it didn’t feel as historical anymore.”

The title of the show refers to your character’s profession. Was an alienist something like the 1896 equivalent of a psychologist?

That’s right. The study of psychology was very new then. For a long time, psychology was a branch of philosophy. It was only in the 1870s that it became its own science. The first laboratory was founded in German, and all these famous Austrians like Sigmund Freud came up with a lot of their studies and theories in the 1890s. Alienists were specialists trying to analyze human behavior and emotions. It was fascinating to dive into that.

What we see in the show seems fairly sophisticated for that time. Did that surprise you?

It was. My wife is a psychotherapist, which was pretty handy for me. She gave me a lot of stuff to read about the origins of psychology. There were sophisticated, brilliant minds at that time. I read a lot about William James, who was an important early psychologist in the United States.

And you had Caleb Carr’s book The Alienist, which delves into a lot of the psychology.

Exactly. What’s fascinating about the book is that those characters are all confronting their own demons and finding out more about themselves over the course of the story. Dr. Kreizler is so good at analyzing the people around him and figuring out these murders, but he’s overwhelmed by his own demons. I was very interested in that.

You liked the book, I take it?

I did. Caleb Carr makes me think of Sherlock Holmes, Jekyll and Hyde, Edgar Allen Poe, Jack the Ripper. I’ve always enjoyed that atmosphere and darkness.

Dr. Kreizler is investigating these murders, but he’s not a part of the police department like you’d see today. What’s the source of his access to the investigation?

In those days, the psychologists were all doctors who had become specialists. He’s crucial to the investigation by being able to put himself into the mind of a serial killer. People thought alienists were charlatans, which made it quite difficult for them to be taken seriously. He surrounds himself with pioneers in their own fields. What’s very endearing about the book and about the show is that you see so many beginnings—the beginning of forensics, the first woman to become a detective in the New York Police Department, an artist’s renderings becoming an important part of an investigation.

The Alienist has a similar fascination with new science in a historical context as The Knick and Mindhunter.

The fascination with serial killers was interesting to watch in Mindhunter. The Knick is a show I really like, and I actually re-watched it before I started on The Alienist.

Teddy Roosevelt is a character in the series, and it’s the youngest I think I’ve ever seen him portrayed on film or TV. Did you come away from The Alienist with different ideas about who Roosevelt was?

It was such a history lesson. I knew him as a president, but I didn’t know about his years as the New York police commissioner. There’s a great book called Island of Vice by Richard Zacks about the corruption in politics and in the police department at that time, and there’s a lot about Teddy Roosevelt. He was fighting massive corruption in those years.

You work in a lot of different languages and play a lot of different nationalities. Are you going where the roles are, or do you like jumping around from culture to culture?

My mother is Spanish, my father is German and a lot of my family is French. I grew up in a multicultural environment and really enjoyed that. You can express certain things better in certain languages, and I enjoy working in different languages. My father told me when I was young that Charles V, who was the king of Spain and the emperor of Austria, had been quoted as saying he spoke to God in Spanish, to his mistress in French and to his horse in German. [Laughs]

How many languages do you speak?

I speak German, French, English, Spanish and Catalan. I would love to learn more, but I don’t know if I’ll ever have enough time to learn Chinese or Russian or Japanese. But I’d certainly love to.

There are a lot of big sets in the series. There’s a giant bridge in episode 1, a packed opera house in episode 2. Can you tell the difference in the production value between film and TV anymore?

I was blown away by the production design on The Alienist. There was so many people paying attention to every detail and with so much passion about it. The New York set that we had in Budapest was just remarkable. The opera house is one of the most beautiful buildings I’ve ever seen. Coming from German film set in different periods, I’ll see a script that says, “Fifty carriages and 200 extras,” and then arrive on set to see one carriage, two extras and a horse with three legs. [Laughs] On The Alienist, you could turn 360 degrees, and the whole thing looked like New York in the 1890s.

Two things in the series struck me as pretty timely. One is the egregious sexism that Dakota Fanning’s character endures, and the other is the extreme hostility to immigrants. Did either of those strike you during production as issues that would be in the air when the series came out? Yeah, we talked about the fact that those things seem to be more prominent now than when the book came out in the 1990s. Halfway through the production of the show, we started seeing both of those things all over the news, and it didn’t feel as historical anymore.

[breakingnewsalert1]

Combat Magnum: The Story of the S&W Model 19 .357

Bill Jordon applied his experience as a Marine in WWII and Korea and along the Southern Border with Mexico to help produce the concept that later became the S&W Model 19 (Photos: Richard Taylor/Guns.com)

SEE S&W M19S AT GUNS.COM FROM $617

Designed with input from an early legend in the gun community, the Smith & Wesson Model 19 Combat Magnum has been a hit with wheel gun aficionados for generations.

To get the appeal of the Model 19, understand that S&W first debuted their medium-framed swing-out cylinder revolvers, known today as K-frames, back in the late 1890s with the Hand Ejector and Military & Police models. Then came the larger N-frame hog legs in 1907 with the advent of the Triple Lock or New Century. While the “Ks” typically ran in .32 to .38 calibers, the “Ns” were offered in beefier chamberings like .44 Special and .44 Russian. Fast forward to the 1930s and when the dream team of Elmer Keith, Phillip Sharpe, and D. B. Wesson joined forces to create the .357 Magnum cartridge, they developed an N-frame model to run it, the Model 27.

And so, it remained for decades until S&W heard from a WWII and Korean War-veteran Marine officer and U.S. Border Patrol supervisor, William “Bill” Jordon, about the what would make the perfect “combat” duty revolver. In short, Jordon advocated a K-frame-sized double-action chambered .357. While today these seems as logical as peanut butter and jelly, it was revolutionary at the time and, after some R&D and trial and error, the K-framed Combat Magnum was created in 1955.

The standard Model 19 runs a 4-inch barrel with a ramp front sight and adjustable rear. Although chambered in .357 Magnum, they also accommodate .38 Special rounds as well. (Photo: Richard Taylor/Guns.com)

“Surely nothing could be more disconcerting to the accuracy of an adversary than a .357 Magnum slug applied judiciously in the region of his belt buckle! It will beat kicking dirt in his face every time!” said Jordon of the caliber in his 1965 book, No Second Place Winner.

Outfitted with a shrouded barrel with an enclosed ejector rod and an adjustable rear sight, the Combat Magnum that hit S&Ws catalog in the mid-1950s was built on a 4-screw frame with a square butt. The frame sported a larger yoke and a fluted cylinder that had been counterbored. Unlike the Model 27 which was offered in numerous barrel lengths, the original Combat Magnum only came in a 4-inch format as standard. While a nickel finish was offered, most were in Smith’s bright blue finish of the time.

Who doesn’t like nickel when it comes to vintage wheel guns? (Photo: Richard Taylor/Guns.com)

“In this country, we are fortunate that we have available to us the finest double-action weapons made in the world: The .357 Combat Magnum,” said Jordan, who later went into a second career as a writer and exhibition shooter. “Better guns cannot be bought at any price, anywhere. You can’t go wrong with one of these hanging by your side.”

By 1957, the Combat Magnum’s name switched to the Model 19 and the rest, as they say, is history.

As later generations of the Model 19 went into production, the general concept of the .357 K-frame endured with additional barrel lengths (2.2- and 6-inch) offered while round butt designs were added to the catalog. The popular revolver was the gold standard across legions of lawmen of the age and was issued to both the Border Patrol and the FBI before those agencies ultimately shifted to semi-autos in the 1990s. This led the medium-framed magnum to become a staple in small-town law enforcement, period bowling pin matches, and for use as a home and personal defense gun.

In turn, a myriad of fictional lawmen portrayed on screens both big and small carried the Model 19 including Danny Glover as Det. Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon franchise, Clint Eastwood (as both Texas Ranger Chief Red Garnett in A Perfect World and Agent Frank Horrigan in In the Line of Fire) and by numerous cops on Hill Street Blues.

Contrary to the he-man grips on the N-frames, the more medium-sized Model 19 K-frame guns allowed those with slightly smaller mitts to carry and use a .357, especially if the factory grips were changed (Photo: Richard Taylor?guns.com

By the early 1990s, the nickel offerings fell out of favor as Smith had previously introduced the satin stainless version of the Model 19 under the standalone Model 66 designation. For those wanting a more “budget” Model 19, the fixed-sight heavy barrel Model 13 M&P K-frame debuted in 1974.

We have several 19s on hand including some earlier 1960s-70s vintage 19-3 and 19-4 models as well as both blued and nickel finishes and specimens with 2.5-, 4-, and 6-inch barrels. (Photo: Richard Taylor/Guns.com)

Sadly, after a more than 40-year run, the Model 19 went out of production in 1999, a deficit that Smith corrected last year by bringing what could best be described as the 19-9 “Classic” back to their lineup.

Got to give the people what they want.

SEE S&W M19S AT GUNS.COM FROM $617

The post Combat Magnum: The Story of the S&W Model 19 .357 appeared first on Guns.com.

from Guns.com https://ift.tt/2ZxVFYv from Blogger https://ift.tt/2KhvaRR

[sashibunbun]

Ah, but here's the thing, i could definitely go into torture horror (like Saw) where the killer is shown a bit more sympathetically or how the big trio of slasher horror are portrayed outside the actual media they're from (seriously Freddy was used to sell a lot of shit to kids). Or I could even go so far as to point out that you're retreading a 300 or so year old idea that only massively consetvative people hold onto. I mean this is the same thing said about novels when they were novel, or movies, or comic books, or anime, or video games. Basically I'm pointing out that you have taken on something that's been show for 300+ years to not be true. Sure we can empathize with characters (only thing studies have found where fiction affects reality), but at the end of the day, unless we are severely mentally disturbed, we know these aren't real people.

So once again, get out of the 1700s, 1890s, 1950s, 1990s, and early 2000s. Because frim where I'm standing, all I see is the same old retread idiot conservatives have retreaded since at least the 1700s, only this time it's supposedly progressive.

It’s fucking fanfiction. 

Write whatever the hell you want.

[baadfabrykittyadv120-longposts]

The Poetics of Advertising

Within the ‘Poetics of Advertising’ ‘Art and Crafts’ Andrew McStay describes the reformulation of creativity in advertising and how it has changed throughout periods of time to become what it is today. Within our own seminars, it has been demonstrated that creativity in advertising is difficult to define, and is neither ‘art’ nor ‘craft’ as McStay suggests. Nevertheless, key characteristics of advertising creativity are evident within each time it has shown to re-shape, as McStay says creative advertising “possesses a functional dimension and overtly interacts with a range of aesthetic practices”.        

McStay begins with Art Nouveau and the French art establishment as posters began to be recognized at a “high art status”. Advertising creativity was therefore considered at this time to be evolving, the reputation, as McStay expresses progressing mainly due to the leading artists acting as designers. This was, for instance, Jules Cheret who created “a new medium for art by applying art to commercial and industrial printing”. Working in the 1890s he created poster ads for cabarets, music halls, and theaters, but all of his posters and illustrations have an incredibly vivid expression to them. Combined with acting as promotional material, this meant that Cheret became widely recognized as a major force in advertising, and his style synonymous of advertising creativity. In terms of McStay’s ‘arts and crafts’ discussion this era ties with the idea of advertising creativity as ‘art’ because of the way it started to be well respected by the consumer.

Irreverence, wit, humor, and subversion were all characteristics that revolutionized how we experienced art and saw creativity, rejecting rationality in the artistic movements that came after such as DADA, Surrealism, and Modernism. The use of ready-mades and assemblage implemented other creative principles such as ‘chance’ to the movements. This further challenged the notions of art and creativity, and additionally argues more to the side of ‘art’ in contrast to craft, as “the craftsperson will know what he or she would like to make before making it”. Within the interest of creativity in advertising iconic advertisements bring links to movements like DADA and Surrealism as they evoke meanings that feel strange and odd. McStay suggests art has to do with “indirectly arousing emotions”, so it can be assumed that advertising creativity is, therefore, more of a ‘craft’ in this sense, as the response the consumer has is usually controlled in the interest of the client/producer. ‘Dadaist’ irreverence of pitting contrasting imagery against each other and playing with the audience’s sense of balance with the ideas portrayed has been shown as a potentially very effective way of adding creativity to advertisements. I have seen Eurostar as a company who consistently interpret haphazard cuttings of contrasting imagery into engaging statements while still provoking the viewer to use their services.  A London guard having their helmet shaven as if it was a full head of hair, or having Elton John perversely trying to kiss a seemingly very untaken businessman feel fresh, clever and cool.

It is worth noting that in advertising creative principles such as irreverence, wit, humor and a general interest in subversion and destabilization from the expected is celebrated. D&DA have involved themselves within what McStay describes as “highlighting the value of commercial creativity and craft skills”. Such industry bodies promote ‘commercial creativity’ as acting across a diverse range of artistic disciplines. This responds to the argument of advertising creativity as ‘art’ or ‘craft’ and almost accepts that its position “among art, craft, and the agreeable arts is unclear”. Although the lack of distinction it cannot be disputed, “pushing boundaries and experimentation more usually associated with art” is continuously changing the environment we associate with advertising, and creativity is becoming a more democratized, developing community.    

The shift from read only media to the birth of the Internet and read, write media in the 1990s has, much like the DADA movement made drastic changes to the key principles and ‘aesthetics’ of creativity in advertising. Creativity is now sought out to appease the viewer in different ways, creativity is mainly in the hands of the public due to the massive expansion of delivery channels and because of this, a more organic conversation is created. BETC working with Addict Aide created a fake Instagram account where only the most perceptive of ‘louise.delage’s’ 110,000 followers would have noticed the fact that she was addicted to alcohol, despite how in every post it is shown to be the main part of her seemingly fabulous lifestyle. Once the truth was revealed to the entire public the story shortly became viral and a success for Addict Aide. A lively discussion was activated through the personal connection and interactive experience the public had. Despite posing newfound ethical challenges, potentially breaching data mining and privacy issues, blurring the boundaries of professional and non-commercial amateur (principles of remixing as the content is re-tweeted, edited and then shared again) gives the prospect to a new power relation and dynamic that makes an exciting development in the industry. It’s an interesting time to be a creative, as McStay proposes “this sees creativity as being more about the process, unfolding, emergence and interaction”.

References:

McStay, A. (2013). Creativity and Advertising : Affect, Events and Process. Taylor & Francis Ltd.

En.wikipedia.org. (n.d.). Jules Chéret. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Chéret [Accessed 15 Nov. 2018].

Leg Paris. (2007, August, 8). It’s summertime in London. [online] Available at: https://www.bestadsontv.com/ad/7940/Eurostar-The-Barber [Accessed 15 Nov. 2018].

TBWA. (2008, December, 3). Elton. [online] Available at: https://www.adsoftheworld.com/media/print/eurostar_elton [Accessed 15 Nov. 2018].

Natividad, A. (2017). What's Next for Louise Delage, Instagram's Most Fascinating Fraud. [online] Adweek.com. Available at: https://www.adweek.com/creativity/whats-next-for-louise-delage-instagrams-most-fascinating-fraud/ [Accessed 15 Nov. 2018].

[contconcord]

Five Facts about the Art of Vincent Van Gogh

Born in 1853 in The Netherlands, Vincent van Gogh lead a life plagued with mental illness and alcoholism. His paintings are among the most revered in history, yet he lived in poverty and only became famous after his death. Here are some interesting facts about his work.

1.  Van Gogh sold only one painting.

During ten years of intense creativity (1880–1890) Van Gogh produced nearly 900 oil paintings. Only "The Red Vineyard" was sold during his lifetime. In 1888, the year before Van Gogh’s death, the impressionist Anna Boch paid 400 francs (about $1000 today) for the painting.

2. Van Gogh painted the famous Sunflowers series in honor of the artist Paul Gaugin.

In 1888 he moved to the town of Arles in the south of France with the intention of setting up an artist’s colony. He persuaded Gaugin to join him. Van Gogh wrote in a letter, “Now that I hope to live with Gaugin in a studio of our own, I want to make decorations for the studio. Nothing but big flowers.”

It was in Arles that a disagreement led to Van Gogh’s infamous ear-cutting incident. In a fit of rage, he threatened Gaugin with an open razor. Van Gogh’s anguish caused him to cut off his own ear-lobe, which he then offered to a prostitute as a keepsake. 

3. Van Gogh’s most famous work of art was created in a psychiatric hospital.

His masterpiece "Starry Night" (1889) was painted at the Saint-Rémy asylum where he was confined for a year. From his cell window, Van Gogh looked out at the eastern night sky which features in the painting. It seems the landscape parts of the picture were painted from memory as they do not coincide with the exact view from Van Gogh’s window.

David Peinsipp, an accomplished law firm partner, expresses, "I happen to like his paintings, especially 'Starry Night'. I like how painters can portray a three-dimensional vision, in two dimensions."

4. "Wheatfield with Crows" was painted the same month Van Gogh committed suicide.

During the last summer of his life, Van Gogh painted a series of wheat fields. On July 27, 1890, he went out into a field and shot himself in the chest. He then proceeded to walk back to the inn where he was staying and did not die until two days later. Although it is not certain exactly which painting was his last, many like to believe "Wheatfield with Crows" represents Van Gogh’s final state of mind. The painting is certainly full of portent with its darkened skies and circling crows.

5.  In 1990 the "Portrait of Doctor Gachet" sold for a record $82.5 million.

Dr. Paul Gachet was the physician attending Van Gogh for the last few months of his life. The painting was bought by Japanese businessman Ryoei Saito, who then locked the canvas in a vault where it lay unseen for seven years. Before his death in 1996, Saito joked that he would have the masterpiece cremated with him. After his death, the most expensive portrait in the world disappeared and has still never been found.

[isaiahjohnorganisingsounds]

Lecture 3 - Merging Styles

Merging styles - 

a musical composition arranged for performance with instruments or voices differing from those originally specified: Mozart's symphonies in arrangements for cello and piano.

This is an established practice, and can work across genres.

“Variation' is the formal term for a musical composition based on a previous musical work, and many of those traditional methods (changing the key, meter, rhythm, harmonies or tempi of a piece) are used in much the same manner today by sampling musicians.”

Jon Leidecker (2009)

This lecture was about merging styles together to create a ‘Remix’ or ‘Mashup’. Often people use two songs to mix together or remix and create a mashup of them both. This has now become a huge trend in the music industry. It’s amazing to see the power of changing a song completely to make it different from the original however there is also another kind of merging which we as musicians can do. We can take two genres and make them into one by taking key elements from both genres and combining them to make one song. This is the process of merging styles and has been used a lot nowadays. We hear Dancehall meet Pop or R&B meet EDM and it works. Just like those genres there are so many more out there which are being combined to make new types of music every single day. 

I have chosen to combine Classical music with Hip Hop as my final project for this year. As much as I may listen to Hip Hop, its not something I would make and definitely isn't a genre I’m comfortable with in terms of creating it similarly with Classical music. It isn't at the top of my list in terms of favourite genres however I feel like I can make something quite unique combining the two styles together. 

Classical - 

Although it may not be my favourite genre and we may not think it is still listened to, It’s confirmed that Classical is the worlds leading genre of music and is still the most listened type of music. 

he ancient music period, before 500 AD

the early music period, which includes

the common-practice period, which includes

the 20th century (1901–2000) which includes

the Medieval (500–1400) including

the Renaissance (1400–1600) eras.

Baroque (1600–1750)

the galant music period (1720s–1770s)

the ars antiqua (1170–1310)

the ars nova (1310–1377)

the ars subtilior (1360–1420)

Baroque (1600–1750)

the galant music period (1720s–1770s)

Classical (1750–1820)

Romantic eras (c.1780–1910)

the modern (1890–1930) that overlaps from the late-19th century,

the high modern (1930–present)

impressionism (1875–1925) that also overlaps from the late-19th century

neoclassicism (1920–1950), predominantly in the inter-war period

the postmodern (1930–present) eras

the experimental (1950–present)

contemporary (1945 or 1975–present)

Above are all the types of Classical music that have existed over the years. Usually its performed in an orchestra setting in front of an audience or in theatres. Burgh (2006), suggests that the roots of Western classical music ultimately lie in ancient Egyptian art music via cheironomy and the ancient Egyptian orchestra, which dates to 2695 BC.

Hip Hop - 

Hip Hop is one of the most popular genres even till today. It dates back to the 1970′s and was developed by African/Americans that consists of Rapping and was originally founded by DJ’s and MC’s. The Hip Hop genre was a huge cultural movement in the 70s and 80s as it helped revolutionise the African/American movement and they were able to use it to get their message across. Rappers such as Tupac and Biggie Smalls were known for portraying their feelings in heavy hitting hit Rap songs that took not only America but the world by storm. Groups such as NWA and Wu Tang Clan then spiralled off of this hype created by Biggie And Tupac and so the Hip Hop genre was born. 

Further research -

Hip hop as both a musical genre and a culture was formed during the 1970s when block parties became increasingly popular in New York City, particularly among African-American youth residing in the Bronx. However hip-hop music did not get officially recorded for the radio or television to play until 1979, largely due to poverty during hip-hop's birth and lack of acceptance outside ghetto neighborhoods.

In the West Coast hip hop style, G-funk dominated mainstream hip hop for several years during the 1990s with artists such as Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. East Coast hip hop in the early to mid 1990s was dominated by the Afrocentric jazz rap and alternative hip hop of the Native Tongues posse as well as the hardcore rap of artists such as Mobb Deep, Wu-Tang Clan, and Onyx. East Coast hip hop also had gangsta rap musicians such as the Notorious B.I.G. and Lil' Kim.

[classicmollywood]

New to Me - June 2018

June 2018 was full of Musicals, due to the TCMusicals course! I am so excited to talk about all of the films I watched, but all these new Musicals were absolutely great for my soul!

1890s - 0

1900s - 0

1910s - 0

1920s - 3

The Broadway Melody (1929)

It was really cool to see the first filmed musical! Of course, since sound was relatively new, there were some glitches in the audio. However, the story line made me so mad! Everything Hank did was for her sister, Queenie, and Queenie was a bit of a brat. I also don’t like how Eddie sees Queenie for the first time and then automatically falls in love with her, leaving Hank alone. Bessie Love’s Hank was the best character in the whole film and the only three-dimensional one. 

The Love Parade (1929)

As a feminist, I should be absolutely appalled by this movie. The storyline is about a queen whose husband becomes a sort of house husband and the ending is her showing him that she can be the submissive one, because men should be dominate. And that did bother me. BUT Maurice Chevalier is so charming as the husband, it is easy to overlook how obnoxious the storyline is!

There are some fun songs in this musical, but “Let’s Be Common” is my favorite song and performance.

Hallelujah (1929)

I understand what King Vidor was trying to do when he made this film; he was trying to make a film showing black people’s experiences. However, because of the time period, this film has a lot of negative cultural stereotypes. Vidor was a white man who was trying his best to portray the black experience, and during the late ‘20s, it was very important for black people to see themselves on screen. In 2018, this film didn’t really age well but had some enjoyable songs anyways.

My favorite song and dance sequence was the “Swanee Shuffle” one performed by Nina Mae McKinney. 

1930s - 0

1940s - 3

Moon Over Miami (1941)

I had no clue this movie existed but when a lot of other TCMusical classmates were raving about it, I knew I had to watch it. Boy, was I glad I did! This was such a fun Musical and I was in love with colors and the costumes. The storyline was also one I highly enjoyed!

My favorite song is “You Started Something” because it is so fun and cute.

Cabin in the Sky (1943)

Vincente Minnelli did a pretty good job with this film. It was fun to watch, but still had some racial stereotypes. It wasn’t as bad as Hallelujah, but they were still there. The stereotype of the harlot trying to steal the saintly wife’s husband was seen in this film, just as it was seen in Hallelujah. I really enjoyed the musical numbers and the dancing was so much fun!

My favorite song is “Taking a Chance on Love” by Ethel Waters. It’s such a sweet song!

Dear Ruth (1947)

I was so in love with this film. The whole time I was like, GIRL, how do you not want William Holden? Especially since her boyfriend wasn’t anything special. The jokes in this movie were very clever and I also liked how when William Holden’s soldier figures out he has been swindled, he doesn’t feel anger and try to get back at his love interest. There was no masculinity complex, which was rare for this time period, especially for soldier characters! 

1950s - 2

Brigadoon (1954)

Honestly, this movie wasn’t my favorite. The colors were absolutely stunning, but I couldn’t really fall in love with anything else about this film. I really wanted to enjoy it, but unfortunately, I just couldn’t. Cyd Charisse and Gene Kelly are always entertaining, but this musical was just lackluster to me. 

I did enjoy the song, “Waitin’ For My Dearie” though. It was a very fun number to watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNKtQjOtous

It’s Always Fair Weather (1955)

I thought this storyline was weak, but it didn’t matter. I loved the musical numbers, the dancing, and the clever characters. I also liked the cynicism that the movie had towards TV and advertising. In the 50s, a lot of the films liked to be light and fluffy and this movie didn’t hold back on be biting. 

My favorite dance sequence is Gene Kelly tap dancing on roller skates! It’s absolutely incredible!

1990s - 0

2000s - 1

Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)

I have no clue how I am just now watching this movie. I fell in love with it, because I understand Bridget way too well. The movie was, in her words, cheeky and having a love triangle with Hugh Grant and Colin Firth isn’t the worst thing to happen. This has now become one of my favorite chick flicks and probably one I will be revisiting quite a lot in the future. 

[wooterapparel-blog]

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In accordance with the kinds of the occasions, basketball uniforms remained pretty tight all via the Eighties. The jerseys have been formfitting and the shorts got here basketball uniforms cheap to someplace between the mid- and upper-thigh, depending on the decade. Nevertheless, within the 1990s, basketball uniforms underwent a dramatic transformation.

All of a sudden, basketball players had been running round in shorts hung all the way all the way down to their knees. The jerseys became looser and longer too, adding to the overall effect of bagginess. At the same time, "sagging" turned extraordinarily fashionable amongst some younger men. linked here This trend involved sporting pants and brief below the waistline, making them seem longer. Although "sagging" was not practical on the basketball court docket (as a result of one's shorts would possibly come off), the basketball uniforms of the era adapted to reflect the style of the times.

Since the inception of sagging and customarily larger males's clothes, basketball uniforms have remained relatively unfastened. The uniforms of the 21st century form a stark contrast to these worn in the early 19th. Nevertheless, considering the nature of the fashion trade, there'll once more come a time when men are anticipated to put on more formfitting attire in on a regular basis life; when that time comes, I'd predict that basketball uniforms will comply with go well with.

The popularity of basketball uniforms goes beyond the court and is included in informal and street wear. Sportswear, however is extra than simply Wooter Apparel custom soccer jerseys fashion. It's the right blend of fashion and luxury, that's what makes the difference. Planning to get your workforce new uniforms?

Basketball is more than a sport. It is a passion. Whether or not it is children tossing the basketball all day, or cool rappers donning unfastened basketball jerseys so as to add to their fashion quotient, NBA rules the US. The popularity of basketball goes beyond NBA. Basketball is an integral a part of sports activities at every stage, whether school, school or native stage. From the recognition of the game arises the recognition of the uniforms.

Since the US is in love with the sport, there's a great demand for basketball uniforms for players at all ranges, from the budding gamers to the professional ones. A high demand means there are numerous suppliers as well, catering to the demand, thus creating an unlimited market for basketball uniforms. Nevertheless, basketball uniforms render totally different purposes for different https://wooterapparel.com/ individuals. For many youth, basketball jerseys imprinted with star names like Jordan are a approach to make a style statement. For others, carrying jerseys of their favourite gamers or groups is a approach of showing their admiration and help. And, of course for sports lovers enjoying with a workforce, their uniforms imply being a part of the crew and portraying serious sport.

It is apart from the model factor and serious sports activities that we are speaking about. Though basketball uniforms are equally well-liked for their model quotient as a lot as for the sport, there is a huge difference. The place it's just a casual put on, any jersey will do properly. However, on the subject of enjoying, a designer uniform will not go far. Enjoying wants the suitable attire and right here is where the distinction lies between sports wear and a designer look alike.

Sports wear affords the right level of consolation that permits you to hold on to the courtroom, at the same time as you battle with heat and sweat as a result of excessive energy ranges. Sports clothing are made up materials that is mild, absorbent and may take on the push and pull that you put it by way of. The precise minimize, stitch and cloth, all play a pivotal function in making the uniform snug and sturdy to play for an prolonged time frame. Flexibility, breath ability, absorbency and mushy snug cloth are the requisites in any sportswear and basketball is certainly a game requiring fast strikes and high power levels.

The uniform has one other important function aside from being comfortable apparel for the players to play in. It's to make it easy for the audience to obviously distinguish between the two teams. The uniform is the id of a crew and that makes it reasonable to spend time deciding on your uniform as Wooter Apparel it represents the group. Basketball is a glamorous sport, no surprise why the basketball uniforms have become a method quotient. The game has probably the most trendy uniforms in an assortment of brilliant, rich colours. The way you select to stylize your uniform to look your best is up to you.

Basketball uniforms are more than just colorful apparels that replicate a workforce's motto. They are incessantly worn by followers as fashionable clothes. Additionally they help in enhancing and bringing out a gamers' greatest efficiency.

Clothes in sports has come a great distance, from hand-crafted to commercially manufactured uniforms. The role played by sports uniforms and associated gears are simple immediately. They can carry out an enormous difference in the performance of the players and can influence the group's morale. Therefore, every sport or recreation has a particular set of apparels and related gears that the players collaborating dons themselves with.

These apparel and related gear may vary from a easy wrist band to soak up sweat in games like tennis, to protecting helmets and pads donned by ice hockey gamers and so forth. Attire and kit cannot be neglected anymore; the players know that by not wearing one they not only put their efficiency in danger however even their security too. Nowadays nearly every game and sport has a standard requirement for uniforms and their associated gears.

Have a look at the game of basketball; from the ball to the shorts, jerseys to sneakers, etc, each of them comes collectively like the important parts of any equipment, without which the correct functioning of the machinery suffers. Basketball is a game that calls for a number of vitality and alertness with fixed motion on the court. There may be hardly anytime or place where a player can stand idle for just a few seconds. The moment the ball starts bouncing so do the players, with or behind the ball.

The standard size of a basketball within the NBA is 29.5 inches in circumference. Organized basketball leagues typically have proper specs for the balls to youth basketball uniforms canada be used in any official competition. The burden, inflation pressure, bounce, circumference, materials used, and so forth., are stored in consideration.

Basketball jerseys are a part of the uniform for the basketball players. Followers also put on them for style or as a press release about their favorite group. The design of the jerseys should give the player most comfort while he/she plays the game. There are constant sprinting, pushing, leaping, and many others., concerned in the recreation, so the jersey must be flexible and lightweight to permit most motion and least constraint.

The basketball shorts are somewhat totally different from those worn in other sports like soccer and different observe and subject sports. Their length usually reaches or exceeds the knees of the wearer and is loosely fitted. Artificial materials and nylon are normally Wooter Apparel custom wrestling singlets used as the material for making basketball shorts. The explanation for it's because such materials are good sweat absorbers. They're additionally mild in weight and are designed to provide the wearer comfort and flexibility in the course of the recreation.

A basketball recreation is played by holding the ball with the arms and passing it around to lastly shoot it into the ring. Apparently it looks like the game is performed entirely with the fingers, but like in some other sport performed on stable ground, the feet of the player determines a variety of the participant's efficiency. The toes give the remainder of the body the velocity and firmness. Subsequently plenty of expertise goes into designing basketballs shoes.

Lightweight and comfort, as in other uniform items (like jerseys and shorts), are fundamental necessities. Basketball sneakers are also designed to absorb the shocks produced every check this site out time the participant lands on the ground after a soar. It additionally should help the player run faster and stay comfy with good grip on the ground yet delicate on the toes.

[burlesquefinal]

“Shades of Burlesque has huge crowds because the audience, predominantly people of color, wants to see themselves reflected,” Sweet Lorraine says, “They want to see themselves on stage.” Lorraine is the founder of Shades of Burlesque, which she touts as New York City’s only all-black burlesque show. As Lorraine says, the city is oversaturated with burlesque shows right now—you can find them in various venues stretching across New York almost any night of the week. But what makes Shades of Burlesque stand out is its emphasis on race and sexuality. “My new disclaimer is, if you aren’t into seeing bodies that are voluptuous or not the norm, if you are not into seeing non gender-conforming people or black women, then just don’t come to the show,” she says.

Burlesque is a dance form that is typically described as a variety show, often including some striptease. While it picked up popularity in the 19th century, burlesque shows in the city today happen almost every night of the week in various neighborhoods. But according to Chicava Honeychild of Brown Girls Burlesque, while burlesque shows may be everywhere, many of them are free. “We have a following, but there’s a problem with the economic model,” she says, “It isn’t a problem of frequency but the fact that many of the shows are free means it negatively impacts out ability to become a formidable part of the entertainment industry.” And as Lorraine adds, just because there are more burlesque shows does not mean more gigs for black dancers, who may often be the only black dancer in a show. “I wanted the experience of not being the only black burlesque dancer,” she says, “Being a part of this group is a completely different experience. I wanted to feel the camaraderie and I wanted to give more visibility to us.”

African American women have been performing in burlesque since the late 19thcentury. From Josephine Baker donning a banana skirt and performing in Paris to Ada Overton Walker and Dora Dean in Oriental America, a burlesque spectacle that subverted the exotification of women of color. These are all iconic moments in burlesque history. Burlesque, as Richard Allen chronicles in his book, Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture, flowered in the mid-19th century as a form of theater made almost exclusively for male audiences. During this time, The Creole Show (1890) blossomed into the first variety show to cast a large number of black women. As Allen discusses, “the show was revolutionary…an innovation on the burlesque circuit, a landmark event.” Previously, most burlesque shows took a minstrel format—in which white dancers would use ‘blackface’ to portray black characters.

It was the Europeans who brought burlesque to America. Produced in 1866, The Black Crook, with its troupe of around fifty ballet dancers, is often regarded as the precursor to later American burlesque productions. It was a time of puritanical sensibilities in America and “burlesque women were as large as the repressed pleasures of the Victorian age,” according to Jayne Brown, author of Babylon Girls: Black Women Performers and the Shaping of the Modern. In fact, even the early burlesque performances, featuring curvaceous women smoking, cross-dressing, and swearing, were radical in presenting “a physical and ideological inversion of the Victorian ideal of femininity,” as Allen argues. Burlesque productions and performers were explicitly involved in challenging boundaries of gender, sexuality, and humor.

Fast-forward to burlesque performances today, and they continue to be a running theme. In its own way, Shades of Burlesque, too, challenges predominant ideologies of gender, sexuality, and race. As Lorraine explains, “as black women, there are so many negative stereotypes and stigma around our sexuality. Sometimes to boldly express our sexuality is to be shunned.” With Shades of Burlesque, the dancers are encouraged to feel empowered by their sexuality—to assert that they’re not some “video hoes” in a rap video, they’re professional dancers who tell a story, with or without clothes on.

Central to the dance group is the representation of diverse body types. With abundant curves that are reflected in both her movement and her body, Lorraine describes her own body as “far from a size 2.” She talks about her burlesque persona as if it were somebody else:  “Sweet Lorraine is one of the most confident people I know,” she says. “She is not ashamed of her body, she is not ashamed of her curves. Burlesque helped me with that. I don’t worry about stretch marks. I don’t worry about gaining a few extra pounds.” As Karma Mayet, an audience member and loyal fan of the group who’s been following their work since they began, says, “It’s very healthy for the soul—jiggles bring joy, it’s very important to enjoy the joy of the jiggle.”

According to Ebony magazine, when JET launched in 1952, readers got a glimpse of black burlesque stars of the time—Rose Hardaway, China Doll, Betty Brisbane, and Lee Ta Harris. At this time, black burlesque was in its prime. In fact, Honeychild writes in Ebony, black burlesque dancers got more press coverage than their white colleagues. But as 1970s rolled around, the burlesque scene had dissipated into the modern strip club joint, where maybe a few performers mimicked or echoed some burlesque style and tradition. After a momentary pause, the neo-burlesque movement—a modernization and overhaul of the traditional burlesque form— took force in the 1990s, and according to Honeychild, “it continues to grow each year.”

Honeychild is part of New York-based Brown Girls Burlesque, a group that prides itself as being “the number one movement for burlesque dancers of color,” according to its website. But as Honeychild writes in Ebony, “today’s dancers continue the legacy of dancers like Lottie the Body, Tine Pratt, and Toni Ellington by producing shows that embrace the genre’s theatrical roots while emphasizing body-positive/woman-affirming sensuality.” Honeychild says that when it comes to the representation of women of color, Shades of Burlesque and Brown Girls Burlesque are “collaborators.” She says that there are distinctions between them, though: “It all comes down to the vision and the way the shows are constructed. But I will say that both work together and are very inclusive.”

For Genie Adagio, who’s been performing with Shades of Burlesque for a while now, the show is particularly enjoyable because of the increased control she has. “I enjoy that aspect of having more control over my time on stage and off—I do my costumes and choreography, I choose the music and my time on stage,” she says. Prior to burlesque dancing, Adagio was a ballet dancer— “Whereas what I was doing before, you know, 400-year-old choreography, somebody is picking what you’re wearing and you’re dressed like twenty other girls. So I enjoy this part of it.” Adagio found the ballet industry to be extremely whitewashed: “It was very blatantly not interested in letting go of that white supremacist traditionalism—I felt like there was no room for me.”

Munroe Lilly, another dancer in the troupe, also enjoys the creativity afforded by Shades of Burlesque, saying, “Whatever I dream up or think up, I can turn into a routine here. There are no rules.”

As the show lights dim and the dancers take the stage to bow, the crowd cheers. John Thomas, in the audience, claps enthusiastically, even throwing in a wolf whistle as the dancers exit. “It’s such a delight to see women of color being represented in burlesque,” he says, “I was in Paris recently and saw the Moulin Rouge showcase and there were no women of color. But it’s refreshing to come home to Brooklyn and get to see these young ladies throw on a fantastic show.”