#next scene he shows up in Groucho glasses

[see-arcane]

I can’t decide which reason I like better for Dracula showing up with a white moustache this entry.

1) He genuinely has lost his dark hair/youth temporarily because, for some reason, he prefers to hold off for long stints and then enjoy the blood buffet. The same way a snake will have one good meal and hold off for a long while. 

2) He’s pulling a ‘No I’m Definitely a Humble Coachman and Not Count Dracula in a Fake Beard’ routine again, only this time he’s wearing an old man moustache and beard while he runs around making dirt deliveries like the world’s fastest and strongest grandpa

Dramatically, it should be 1.

But in my heart, I know this man is as fond of shitty dress-up ploys as he is of terrible puns. Isn’t that right, Count de Ville? 

[captain-aralias]

Creators: give a “behind the scenes” look at one of your works. This could be things that got removed or changed, the origins of ideas/details, whatever you like!

oh hey - it’s trivia tuesday already (i guess it’s been a long two days back at work this week). i know everyone is still working their way through the remixes that are finished and posted - and i say, do this! some cracking stuff. i’m over half way through now, and i want to write up some thoughts about how these 26 stories approached remix - because it’s super inventive. i think people benefited from not being familiar with the format.

but i also wanted to share my thinking around why i picked the fic to remix that i did - and what else i was considering from @bazzybelle‘s ficlist, because i think the thought process around remix is interesting. AND i wanted to show you the 500 words i wrote almost immediately of a completely different remix that i definitely won’t finish. it would have been... a publishing AU, fake relationship with too-early-in-the-relationship sex. all good things in a fic, right?

so - read on for deleted scenes, and discussion of thought process. and don’t read on, if that’s not your jam. 

(in general remember - i’m keen to leave stuff in the original that’s good, rather than just thieve everything. so that’s my thought process here.) 

first idea: 

I Just Want Your Extra Time And Your .....

(texting, sex chat). i already really liked this fic, and i have IRL experience of working in publishing (which you’ll see to some extent in the fic - i worked very near people who worked on celebrity cookbooks, which is what baz works on in the fic) (the launch party is not revealed to be at the groucho club in the bit i wrote, but would have been - and i’ve been there/i know soho, so ... that was all appealing)

my idea was: the original is a text fic, mine isn’t, although they still only know each other through the sex chat set-up. so instead of simon and baz having text-sex (as in the fic), baz asks simon [who he's never met] to come and be his fake date at a publishing launch party where he sees lamb, his former boyfriend. 

the trigger for simon and baz progressing with their relationship/having sex (Because they were going to have sex but IRL) would be the same - baz seeing lamb and freaking out. and some of the texts would be literally copied and pasted in my fic as backstory. 

here were my original notes:

in the original fic there's a bit where baz sees lamb, his ex boyfriend, and then is like - hey, simon distract me and they have phone sex

my fic will essentially start there - baz is at a launch party for one of his books, lamb is there - dating the author. it is awful. baz wants to leave, but can't. also, it's time for the text slot with simon - he goes and hides in a cloakroom

and is texting simon, it's terrible - i am so drunk and it's still terrible. and i think simon offers (rather than baz asks) to come and pretend to be his boyfriend

for some sort of plausible denial reason like baz will text him a lot over hte next few days so he'll get a lot of extra money or some shit, but also because simon thinks lamb is a dick even through teh messages

simon shows up - they both drink a lot. they like each other, simon punches lamb (probably). baz asks if he can take simon to a restaurant, they talk more - they kiss. they go back to a hotel together. they discuss whether or not this means that simon is a prostitute (no). they have sex IRL

baz wakes up - and leaves immediately, obviously.

they text again the next day - it's awkward. simon thinks about how he could track baz down if he wanted to - but he feels like baz doesn't want him to, so he doesn't

simon gets out of his horrible job - baz probably tries to get in touch with him, but can't because he's gone. simon gets a message from baz ....... this is still to be determined

anyway - i will probably steal the meet cute in the elevator, it's nice.

why i stopped writing it: 

i knew it was going to take ages to write - i didn’t have the time or brainspace to write 20k of fic. i’d assumed going in that i could lean on the original fic to provide the meetcute, but realised that since it was an AU, i still needed to sell the relationship - particularly given that they were meeting in real life for the first time in my fic. 

also, it would have been my first mundane AU for the fandom, and my first thing where they weren’t enemies first. (so i was trying to think about how i could get them not to like each other a bit WHILE STILL doing fake dating - and it was throwing me off). it was all just too much.

everything i’ve written is pasted for you at the bottom.

other ideas: 

a month passed. i didn’t write any more on my original remix, but went back to greener grass instead. i sent out the month warning email to remixees and thought - i am not going to finish this fic. 

so, i went back to the list of bazzybelle’s fic and thought what can i write that i can definitely write in a month? 

1. You're F***in' Perfect to Me - daphne POV

i thought, i could write this from malcolm's POV.  in the fic daphne talks a lot about how she and malcolm are just friends, rather than true love, and it's baz she has real (motherly) feelings for, not malcolm. so i thought i could write 'the courtship of mrs grimm' where malcolm gets a wake-up call from this argument, and thinks, i actually do love daphne but she likes my son more than me. he's been hiding behind not wanting to sully natasha's memory, etc, etc. fiona would probably be in it. 

2. bat baz

i also had a bit of a naff idea where instead of baz turning into a bat, in bat baz, he would turn into bat man... 

(interestingly one of the remixes was about baz turning into a cat) 

3. If I Fell In Love With You - which i eventually chose

i took the dancing and the music, the set up, and the theme of communication - also some dialogue. pushed some of the focus onto baz’s relationship with niall, pushed the action back in time towards wayward son, added a truth spell (based on a spell in the original) to force communication.

i think this is one of the most interesting remixes i’ve ever done, btw. i’m really pleased with my take on it. 

i chose this to remix because i thought - it’s only a few scenes, rather than a whole get-together arc, and it felt achievable in the timespan. i also had a strong idea about what i could do that was different - the relationship with niall and the spell, and what i would leave for people to discover in the original (simon’s POV - including the warmth he feels when baz cooks for him, the two of the resolving the initial fight when simon comes home in a bad mood). 

the title is a combination of - another line from ‘if i fell’ but one that is about not talking to each other/not putting yourself out there... and ‘where words fail’ - which is the spell i used, and also picks up on what baz says to niall - that telling simon wasn’t enough. even if he’d had the right words, they wouldn’t have been believable. but - through the music/magic, they were able to communicate. 

i also considered using a line from ‘into my arms’ instead (I believe in some kind of path), since that was the song that the magic is cast on - but it didn’t work as well thematically. 

here’s the fic i wrote: Don’t Run and Hide (The ‘Where Words Fail’ Remix’)

and here’s the remix i didn’t write. i think i almost wanted to finish it just for the elvis gag. alas, alas.

I Just Want your Extra Time: remix, not written

BAZ

I don’t smoke as much as my father thinks I do. And I don’t drink – not usually. This evening, though, I’ve already had several glasses of champagne and I’m on my fourth cigarette, the second this smoke break. Because it’s that or go back inside. And I definitely don’t want to go back inside.

I should have known he’d be here.

Not that he was invited. Not that he’s on the guest list. Not that there’s any reason at all, in fact, for him to be here, except that my life is an absolute disaster. Today definitely not an exception.

If anything, it’s worse than usual. I thought I’d already hit bottom when Dev told me I had to ring our printers – in China – and get them to promise to ship one of our new titles three weeks early, as some idiot had sent the press release out with the wrong date. That was excruciating, but things seemed to be improving.

It’s a launch party night. I’m not sure why, but I always look forward to them, even though I hate crowds. (Niall would probably say, other people in general. And he wouldn’t be far wrong.)

But I get to wear a suit. (Tonight’s is Spencer Hart. Dark grey. Green tie.) And I know Snow is going to text after the first hour. And even though no one ever remembers to thank the editor – not unprompted, anyway – I do enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that I’m responsible for turning whatever dross we’ve been told to sell into something that could loosely be called a book.

This one is a cookbook by an actor (not a chef, in other words. I had to hire someone else to write the recipes and then we just photographed him next to the result.) It should be a triumph. It is – we’ve already sold several thousand copies. I should be enjoying myself. But then I heard a voice next to my ear.

“Baz.” And someone put a hand on my waist. “Don’t you look rosy?”

Not someone. Lambert. (I never called him Francois, even when we were intimate.) As irritatingly handsome as ever. And just as confident I’ll do whatever he wants.

I haven’t seen him for months. Not since he left me Las Vegas to go off with one of the better-looking Elvis impersonators. (And if that isn’t the most humiliating break-up story you’ve ever heard, then I really don’t want to know what is. Dumped. And for Elvis.) (Not even the real Elvis - not that it makes a difference.)

“I hoped I’d see you here,” he – Lambert – told me. “It’s been far too long.”

“Since you left me.”

He gave me a hurt look. “Baz. We said Auf Wiedersehen, not goodbye.”

“Who are you really here with?”

The author, of course. I watched their eyes meet across the room and Lambert smiling, before he told me it wasn’t serious. And that he’d be interested in taking me to dinner.

“Unless you’re seeing someone?”

I raised an eyebrow – even though I know Lambert knows I only do that when I can’t think of anything to say. Which means he probably knows the truth, which is that there isn’t anyone else. Not anyone else real, anyway.  

Which reminds me …

I check my watch – it’s later than I thought.

[ducktracy]

148. the coo-coo nut grove (1936)

release date: november 28th, 1936

series: merrie melodies

director: friz freleng

starring: peter lind hayes (ben birdie), bernice hansell (dionne quintuplets), tedd pierce (w.c. squeals), danny webb (walter windpipe), the rhythmettes, verna dean (additional voices)

the cartoon that caused katherine hepburn to watch it 4 times and clark gable twice. an amalgamation of celebrity caricatures, designs courtesy of the great t. hee. see laurel and hardy share a drink, clark gable flap his ears to the beat of edna may oliver’s dancing, w.c. fields (squeals) flirt with katherine heartburn hepburn, and so on.

a parody of the famed hollywood nightclub the cocoanut grove, we open to a beautiful overlayed pan of the coo-coo nut grove, a nightclub literally nestled in a cluster of coconut trees. the backgrounds are wonderfully stylistic and sharp—not quite art deco, but the same “newness” that page miss glory exuded so well. a zoom in reveals that the red blinking neon light advertising the nightclub is lit up by fireflies, an oldie but goodie.

arriving to the nightclub itself, we iris in on ben birdie, a caricature of radio personality ben bernie. while he’s giving his trademark catchphrases such as “yowza!”, a mouse caricature of journalist walter winchell pops out of a tuba, holding out a scallion for birdie. “flash! an orchid for you, old mousetrap, from your old pal walter windpipe!” birdie takes care of the pest by blowing into the mouthpiece of the tuba, propelling windpipe across the nightclub. bernie and winchell had a good relationship off the set, but assumed the rules of enemies on bernie’s show. side note, danny webb voices the winchell mouse—he’d go on to provide some background voices for a few 30s shorts, as well as voicing egghead (actually egghead, not elmer!) in daffy duck and egghead.

while birdie comments that it’s an ill wind, an ill wind, yowza, we get a good look of the patrons in the crowd. comedian hugh hubert is the first celebrity, who giggles and claps, bashfully averting his gaze. as a daffy duck aficionado, i owe a lot to hubert—he’s the one they voiced daffy’s trademark laugh after. thanks, hugh! the table next to him features w.c. squeals and katherine “heartburn” (an obvious play on hepburn.) squeals admires what a beautiful hand she has, promoting her to repeat the boulevardier from the bronx cackle bashfully before glaring at him in disgust. the laugh is more fitting as a horse, for sure! hepburn would be subject to MANY, MANY references in looney tunes shorts, primarily by tex avery. every time you hear a woman say something like “really it is,” that’s a hepburn impression.

next table over features a crotchety ned sparks, groveling “i go everywhere, i do everything, and i never have any fun.” sparks’ shtick was always playing a miserable, deadpan character. pan up to the coconut treetops (these backgrounds are absolutely gorgeous), where johnny weissmuller is pouring his wife and vedette lupe vélez a glass of wine. i love the bow tie tacked on to his tarzan garb, wonderfully tacky. instead of offering the glass, weissmuller downs it all in one go, beating his chest and doing the tarzan yell that buddy did in buddy of the apes. how i don’t miss you! i’m sure it’s implied, but weissmuller was the original tarzan. even more interesting, he was a gold medal olympic swimmer back in the 20s.

ben birdie introduces “the profile of profiling”, and thus sparks this lovely gag of john barrymore walking through the nightclub, his head at profile. no matter which way his body turns, his head is always at profile. eventually, his head is turned 180 degrees backwards as he sits down at a table. if you look him up, you’ll find that many of his headshots are profiles.

elsewhere, we spot a panicked woman running from some unknown threat. her face is concealed, so we’re unaware as to what caricature she is, but we DO know her pursuer: a bird caricature of harpo marx, galloping behind her and honking a horn. his hat opens to reveal an extending stop sign, and harpo pretends to pull the brakes. the sign switches to go, and harpo shifts back into gear, resuming his galloping routine. the animation is flighty, loose, hilarious, and ridiculous.

back to ben birdie, who moves things along. “and now, let us indulge to a bit of the light fantastic, etcetera, etcetera.” almost immediately, a crowd of couples get up to dance. it seems to me that the animation was reused from another freleng cartoon, i’m a big shot now. cut to another couple in particular, a turtle george arliss and bird mae west. a great pair, seeing as mae west was essentially a sex symbol, and george arliss was much older, being 68 as of 1936. very smooth and fun animation, topped off with west affirming “keep up the good work.”

another warner bros favorite to caricature—laurel and hardy. if my memory serves me correctly, this is the first time we see hardy caricatured as a pig. in many a cartoon, he’d be portrayed as such, often mimicked by porky. these include (but are not limited to) the case of the stuttering pig, you ought to be in pictures (a freleng classic), and the timid toreador. hardy grabs a coconut and signals for laurel to share. they both put their straws in the coconut and drink, and essentially swap themselves. hardy substantially loses weight and turns into laurel, whereas laurel gains substantial weight and turns into hardy. very clever.

the next act features edna may oliver, who does an elaborate dance routine to “the lady in red”. clark gable in the audience is particularly entranced, flapping his ears to the music (another gable caricature staple.) leon schlesinger himself said after the cartoon’s release, “gable [came to see the film] at least twice, mesmerized by the rhythmic waving of his own ears. that ought to answer any questions about can hollywood stars take it.” schlesinger kept close tabs on who came to see his films, which only makes sense: he worked at chicago’s colonial theater in 1908, keeping an autograph book of all the stars who would happen to visit. during oliver’s dance number, a lanky, rubber hose limbed gary cooper struts through the nightclub, doing his walk that he would feature in many of his cartoons. a trio of monkeys observe from the treetops, one of them declaring “he’s pixilated!”

next dance number is none other than the dionne quintuplets, voiced by (who else?) berneice hansell, singing a medley of “our old man” and “what’s the matter with father”. hansell’s voice talents are lovely and hilarious as always, and there’s a great little dance interlude as the quints turn around and tap their feet with their butts in the air. just in case you forgot they were babies! by this time, the quintuplets, only 2 years old, already had a movie made about them in early 1936 called “the country doctor”.

back to johnny weissmuller and lupe vélez, who are applauding the act from the treetops. a great scene as weissmuller spots a mouse skittering right by their table and shrieks. the great, mighty tarzan faints at the sight, and vélez instead does her own tarzan cry, grabbing her cowardly husband and swinging across a vine as the mouse skitters under the table.

back to the mysterious running woman pursued by harpo marx. harpo tackles her, and the woman finally reveals herself to be none other than groucho marx! this gag would be much more notably reused in tex avery’s *hollywood steps out, with clark gable pursuing groucho instead of harpo. i like the inclusion of harpo, it makes the reveal all the more disturbing. harpo, appalled, dashes out of the nightclub while groucho grins.

the next scene is a more somber mood. teardrops rain on the grass, and a slow pan reveals a tearful helen morgan singing “the little things you used to do”, perched on a piano and wringing a handkerchief. the animation is quite good, with lots subtle head tilts. wallace beery is particularly moved by the music. so moved, in fact, that he grabs a nearby banana hanging from a bunch, squirts out a line on a butter knife like a line of toothpaste, and shoves the knife in his mouth to cope with his heart strings being pulled. harpo marx is also moved, using a windshield wiper from his multipurpose hat to wipe away his tears. edward g. robinson and george raft aren’t particularly moved, chuffing on a cigar and flipping a coin respectively. that is, until, they both break down in sobs and embrace each other—a great mood change and great way to totally shatter the “tough guy” act. i believe raft was also caricatured in ali-baba bound as flipping a coin with his foot (eugh).

now, the nightclub is totally afloat, caricatures sitting on their tables as the ground is submerged in tears. slowly, the tables begin to drift away in the current, with the george arliss turtle rowing along, using his shell as a boat. and with that, ben birdie signs off.

while this cartoon is dated, sure, i think it’s a cartoon you can enjoy, regardless if you understand the references or not. i certainly didn’t know a good 35% of the caricatures, and had to look them up. but i truly believe that’s part of the fun of it though, and that’s why i love these caricature-centric shorts. you get to explore and really get hands on, you get to research, you get to learn something new. i sure didn’t know that george arliss was born in 1868, and i find that fascinating! i didn’t know that ben bernie and walter winchell played enemies on bernie’s show, but now i do. it’s fascinating! and that’s in part why i love doing these reviews. no matter what, there is always something new to learn. and besides, if anything, you can laugh and admire how the caricatures are drawn, and the backgrounds are just superb. this is definitely a visual centric cartoon, and it constitutes a watch for that alone. i prefer hollywood steps out myself, but this is a good entry, especially for 1936. i say go for it!

link!

[magistralucis]

-face barely concealed with groucho glasses- uh yeah can i get 1 with votez? ty 💟

01: “Is that what you’re doing? Trying to make me hate you?”

—————

This is an account of an average morning at the set of Votez.

Scene 1: The President awakes on his bed. Blinding white greets his vision, and he winces away for a brief moment, burying his face on the pillow for approximately ten seconds before he musters the courage to face the light. After all, those bulbs have been on all night; nothing about his situation ever changes, only his moods from day to day and hour to hour. This will be the only sign of weakness, and therefore of humanity, that he will demonstrate for the next twenty hours.

He gets up. Looks around for a moment, then immediately pads his way to the screens on the other side of the room, showing off the view from a dozen surveillance cameras around the palace. He checks if any switches have been tripped, doors picked, or alarms raised during the night: none. Rewind and fast-forward the footage from one camera: nothing for the last eight hours.

He is satisfied. Pulls on the nearby headset, mussing his boyishly dark hair, and tugs the mic close. He speaks quietly, but the mic is set to amplify as much of his voice as possible, and the result echoes through every room in the palace with exceptional vigor: “GOOD MORNING, DISGUSTING RIVOIRE. AS YOU HAVE FAILED TO ESCAPE DURING THE NIGHT, YOU MUST SUFFER ANOTHER BRUNT OF MY EXCELLENT NARRATIVE PROWESS. AND DON’T FORGET, MY DEAR: WE’VE A SPECIAL EPISODE COMING UP IN THREE DAYS‘ TIME, JUST FOR YOU, TO CELEBRATE YOUR MONTH-LONG ESCAPADE! - DON’T DIE BEFORE THEN. GODSPEED.”

Then he shuts the mic off and heads for the bathroom. On his way he passes the towel rack, upon which two fresh towels are prepared: both are embroidered with a letter of the alphabet, each a different letter, his and his. He snatches up the former, S for Sebastian, and also a bathrobe with his bag of makeup spilling from the pocket. The owner of the other towel will come along to help him out soon, but for now: honey oats and vanilla, with bubbles to boot.

Thus begins his day.

—

Scene 2: Breakfast, as well as the makeup session. Sebastian has long since blurred the boundaries between the two.

Bacon and eggs today, cooked and served with much love by a murderous friend of his. They’re all right. Sebastian eats his eggs and monologues to the opposite wall as Vincent, his silent co-host, dusts white powder beneath his hairline:

“We have to figure out how to get a camera down there. That if, if either Rivoire or the artist don’t bolt from us first. They’re so sensitive to those things, aren’t they? They’re good. Really good. I confess maybe I underestimated how good they’d be, it’s not like we’ve had escapees on the set other than those two. Not a bunch of good hunters, we are. Did Xavier pepper these eggs? What do you think, Vinco, aren’t you curious about what those two get up to down there? Isn’t it the loveliest thing? The most heart-rending twist? - God knows how that Mike survived down there for so long, but it’s fine; it was God’s will, it was fate, it was my will that had them find each other. Love in the labyrinth. Special episode title! Jot that down for me.”

Vincent jots it down for him in eye pencil. Sebastian finishes off his eggs and dabs his mouth with a napkin. He knows what’s coming now. Only a minor inconvenience, but he’s still talking a million miles per second to get around it, eager to cram in as much content as he can think of in this precious time alone with his lover. “But let them do their best for now, was that the plan? I need them to be okay for the next three days, don’t I, maybe throw some Evian and a bag of animal crackers down there every now and then so they don’t starve, guess we need filler in the meanwhile how about-”

“If I may briefly interrupt the Monsieur.” Vincent cuts him off expressionlessly. Sebastian stares at him, one eyebrow twitching. In Vincent’s right hand is a mirror, and in his left, a glint of silvery steel under the light.

He gulps. Vincent brings the steel close to his face, then twists one end of it, popping out a fresh wand of cherry lipstick.

“It is time for the final touch.”

“Ah. Yes.”

For a second, Sebastian might possibly have wanted a touch elsewhere.But he forgets about it soon enough. There’s a time and place for everything, and such desires can not be permitted to impede on his art, no sir.

So he lets Vincent lather on the lipstick and is forced to keep quiet. While they’re at it their two friends enter, one wheeled in by the other; they’re active participants in Votez, and the hosts of the side segments, the contents of which vary day by day.

Scene 3. Sometimes they’re barefaced, and sometimes they’re dolled up. It’s the latter today. Sebastian has not seen this makeup before, so they appear to have come up with a new segment: nothing wrong with that, except today they appear to be flirting with copyright infringement. Gaspard’s is fine, it’s the one in the chair who’s in trouble; Xavier is made up like a ventriloquist’s dummy, the high-end sort with rosy cheeks and a suit and a monocle. He flashes Sebastian a brilliant smile and Sebastian is so enamoured that he wants to gouge his eyes out. Xavier’s, that is, not his own. Why would he do that. Seriously.

Oh, that magnificent fucking bastard. He wants nothing more to love his head under seltzer water until the bubbles stop, and given that it’s seltzer water, they’re going to be in there for a while.Xavier already gets to dress up however he wants. It’s not really fair that he also gets to copy off Sebastian’s makeup, and wear it more handsomely, at the same time. “How was the breakfast, Sebos?” He asks in an entirely normal way, not even in character.

“About what I expected.” Sebastian frees himself from Vincent’s motions long enough to answer. “The food was terrible, the service was shit, and I’m killing your boyfriend later.”

“I am sorry, Monsieur le Président. I will strive to do better next time.”

“I will send you the footage later. Of me. You know. Killing the boyfriend. It will replay on your bedroom TV every three hours.”

“I am sorry, Monsieur le Président. I will strive to do better next time.”

“Is that what you’re doing? Trying to make me hate you?”

“I am sorry, Monsieur le Prépffffffffffff-”

It is only then Sebastian realizes that Xavier hasn’t answered past the first question. He and Gaspard have been alternating voices, the latter speaking through the former like a dummy, completely indifferent to Sebastian’s building agitation. When they see the jig is up, they look at one another - and turn away, laughing hysterically, as they wheel down the corridor.Sebastian sighs and sinks into his chair. Vincent offers him a lollipop and he takes it, smearing cherry lipstick all over it. While it doesn’t help with his friends’ shenanigans, it sure leaves a taste in his mouth that isn’t, well, egg.

Such is life. It has only been this way for three thousand mornings.Well, barring the Rivoire. Closer to thirty, in that case. Over thirty, very soon.

Something to look forward to, Sebastian supposes.

There always has to be something.

[redditnosleep]

M is for Mirror

by porschephiliac

I bought the mirror from my step-father, who had inherited it from his step-father. He claimed he didn’t like it, but after the experiences I’ve had with it, I believe now he did what he could to get rid of it. It was ornamental, seemingly Asian design, and gorgeously stained a deep red mahogany. It had spirals ascending on either side beginning from the bottom, intertwining similar to a caduceus. At the apex of each spiral was some sort of shellfish, either an ornate clam or smooth mollusk. On the rear, it has a small etched logo, simply displaying “MI". Otherwise, there are no marks, chips, or cracks in the wood or glass. It appears to be very old, but looked like it was made only recently, carefully, with an expert hand. It barely fit into my wife’s Town Car, but we managed to load it and keep it mar free in the massive trunk.

When I mounted it on the wall in our living room, I cascaded it across another, more modern, mirror, creating an infinity effect. Unfortunately I failed to attach the hanger to a stud in the wall, using only a nail, and after only a few minutes, it ripped out of the wall and crashed on the ground. My wife and daughter heard it fall, and claim it made the tell-tale tingling of glass fracturing after a thudded impact. When I came in the room and found it lying face down, I turned it over, preparing for the worse. I feared the $6,000 I “invested” in it would be trash, but as I lifted it, I found it was perfectly intact. At the time, it was a rather large investment for a young English teacher like myself, having followed in my father’s footsteps.

My wife, thirty-seven, and my daughter, now eleven, have always been credible, other than flirtatious white lies from the wife, and giggle-fibs from my little girl. I didn’t doubt their claims about the noise it made, yet showing them the evidence, they both appeared dumbfounded at it, and glanced awkwardly at each other.

I purchased the correct anchors and brackets to really secure the mirror and installed it the next morning. I added an even more secure joint, not wanting it to ever fail. When I hung it on the wall and peered into it, I found the reflection of the first infinite wave from the opposite mirror, but it had changed. What before was an infinity effect, was now the old mirror in the reflection of my modern mirror, showing a glorious mosaic of fractured cracks. I spun my head and inspected the mirror I just hung, and it was again and still blemish free.

I called out to my wife and as she arrived I told her to look at the mirror. She looked, looked at the modern one, and quickly glanced back, just as I did, confirming my experience. She stared at me slack-jawed, and my daughter entered the room. She asked what we were looking at, and when we tried to show her, she couldn’t see the reflected cracks. Scratching our heads, we simply dismissed it and headed out to the ice cream shoppe.

I would find out later that the red flag of refracted cracks should have prompted me to remove it. No one but my wife and I saw the cracked mirror. We would entertain occasional guests and friends, family would visit, and no one noticed anything odd. No one announced any odd feelings felt from it, even in my immediate group, and often we received compliments on its beauty and condition. Weeks turned into months, and once a year and seven months passed, a day before two weeks in, I first noticed a slightly askew view in the perception of the modern mirror.

I happened to walk past the old mirror and casually glanced into it. I saw myself in the reflection, but my head was turned a different direction, only slightly. I stopped my trot, spun around and stood directly in front of the old mirror, and stared at my own face, cautiously, momentarily. I watched as my face, no, my head turned slowly to the left, not breaking contact with my own eyes. My daughter walked in the room from the left just a second after my head in the mirror turned, and I realized that I too turned my head just as the mirror did.

Neither my refracted doppelganger or myself broke eye contact. I thought to myself about those comedic moments in cartoons and some movies where a person meets his twin, convinced it’s a mirror, and starts doing silly things to test it. Sometimes it’s a mirror, sometimes it’s a twin. Just as I considered the Marx Brothers famous Duck Soup mirror scene in which Harpo pretends to be Grouchos’ reflection, the twin raised his hand and waved at me. I gasped and, in all honesty, let out a shart.

I startled back a step and stared intently at the waving hand. It seemed like me, it moved like mine, even sharing the same scar as mine from when I had cut it with a carving knife one unfortunate Thanksgiving ago. I realized that as I was looking at its wave, I was waving too, my hand feeling alien instead of normal. It seemed to be that whatever it did in the mirror, only seconds later I would copy it, but it felt like an echoed delay. I was instantly uncomfortable and I quickly left the room and found my wife.

We conversed about it and she agreed that she had noticed peculiarities from it, such as noticing a piece of furniture moved in the mirror, but not in the room. She’d return later to see the room rearranged to mimic the mirror, but originally assumed our daughter had done it. Later she noticed in the reflection a book on a table, but again not in the room. She found that same book on her nightstand that evening. The book was the first Harry Potter book, one of her favorites. She found that the chapter which featured Harry sitting with the Magic Mirror and his dead parents was earmarked. An obvious omen, but overlooked as coincidence. Her repeated mantra was “it feels like a bad dweam” every time she commented on this odd situation.

We decided then and there that it was time to take it down. I’d sell it, probably for a fraction of my investment, or cover and store it. We headed downstairs and found our daughter talking to the mirror, to herself. Our interruption disturbed her, and we asked who she was talking to. She simply said “myself, duh” and hopped away. My wife and heaved the thing up off the clevis joint I made and set it down.

As I turned to grab a hold of it from behind, I looked straight on into the modern mirror, and saw an oddness. The reflection showed the mirror still in place, still cracked, still hanging on the wall. At the base of it was my daughter – lying still in a pool of her own blood. I remained fixated on the scene, unable to turn away. I was standing in the spot that the mirror showed my dead or dying daughter. For a brief moment, the scene changed to my wife and I having kinky relations in the blood puddle, including an awkward mustache ride. The love-making session evolved until the two us, covered in blood, merged into one, hideously large, woman. She grabbed at her thigh, ripping flesh off, and daintily placed it into her mouth.

As she consumed herself, she morphed back to my daughter. I looked closer, getting tunnel vision, and I strained to see the faintest of movement from her body. That’s when I noticed an angled reflection in the blood – a face, my face. My face stared back at me from the puddle. Once I made eye contact with it, it started to rise up out of the puddle, taking a crimson form as the volume and mass increased. The body of my daughter seemed to wisp away, as if a vacuum was sucking her inside itself. As my copied, bloodied form emerged, she steadily grew smaller.

My wife grabbed my arm and shook me, pulling me out of the hypnotic trance I was in. I stole a look at her, then right back to the mirror on the other wall – all was as it should have been. I saw myself, bracing the mirror against my bosom, my wife adjacent staring deeply at me, and my daughter standing to the other side of me. I looked away from my wife and glanced at my girl, but she wasn’t there. Back in the mirror, she wasn’t either, seemingly disappearing from both realities. I wasn’t quite sure what I had seen, and I buried the ideation away into lost cabinet rearward of my mind.

Later that evening, I wrapped the mirror up in some old blankets, tied the bundle, and moved the package to the shed. My wife had already had some photos of the thing saved from earlier, and she listed it in all the sales and markets she could.

Later that evening, we watched a newer romance on VHS, cuddling on the couch. During the scene in which Tom Hanks reaches the top of the Empire State Building and runs into Meg Ryan, curing his sleeplessness, the screen faded darkly for just a second, and in that second, a bloodied me was standing over my shoulder, pointing at me directly through the screen. I convulsed slightly, startling my wife. She accused me of falling asleep during her favorite part, but I know what I saw.

As we cleaned up the popcorn and our empty chipped mugs, the news blaring about some interesting incident with a woman and a bus, I found myself walking past the spot where the mirror was hung, I took care not to look at its empty space where the clevis joint and other hardware still hung. Instead, I tilted my head to my left as I passed, and in my peripheral vision, I saw myself walk past the modern mirror. As soon as I crossed my own path, my reflection abruptly changed course and charged me. I darted my head to fully grasp the vision, and I comprehended that the running me was coming from the reflection of the old mirror still hanging. As I turned to look at the blank wall, I was struck hard from behind, plowed down like a tackle sacking a lazy quarterback.

The shock of the hit knocked the wind out me, and the two of us toppled to the ground. I rolled onto my back and started to wrestle my attacker. As I reached with searching fingers for a hold, I realized I was fighting my bloodied self. He straddled me, smacking my hands away, and at once grabbed my throat with both hands and squeezed. We locked eyes, and I felt a withering sensation overcome my entirety.

I choked the life out him. It was so easy, he was so scared. He had no idea what was happening, only that I was there, killing him, and he was defenseless. He tried to grab at me, pull my hands away, but he kept slipping off, unable to grasp the slick blood that coated my body. He tried hard, and after three minutes of desperation, he finally went limp. Not dead, but deeply unconscious. I picked him up over my shoulder and carried him into the mirror. I washed the blood off, put on some of his clothes, and stepped out of the mirror into the completely ignorant bliss of his wife and daughter. Later he awoke, as I had once done, and he slammed against the mirror, glaring at me, screaming at me. I simply mouthed to him “Don’t wait for me".

Occasionally, I will see him at the mirror and try to break the mimic he’s forced to repeat. I will bring his wife to the mirror, the modern one as he called it, and show her off to him. Of course, she can’t see that it’s him. She can’t see the ancient mirror still hanging on the other wall. Sometimes, when that girl of his is out of the house, I will make love to his wife in front of him. I do it where he can see it, but doesn’t have to mimic it, since it’s just out measured perception. I can hear his desperate banging on the mirror as he gets furious at me, but she can’t hear it.

He always stays in the room. If only he would stop obsessing over me and what I am doing to his family, he could explore the world out there, on his side of that mirror. His new can’t wife see his craziness as he yells at the mirror, and she can’t talk to him, talk him away. His face has grown shaggy with unkempt hair, his body thinning from starvation. He can’t die in there though, not until he learns how to stalk and mimic another perfectly.

Hopefully, his wife that I have impregnated will birth me a son, one in which I can sell the mirror too. Or maybe I’ll help the daughter find a suitor worthy of imprisonment in the mirror, so her real father can escape and occupy another. Either way, he is throwing his life away on the other side of the mirror, instead of living it the way he could. Unfortunately, he is stuck in the infinity he created, and when his wife, er, my wife, sold the mirror to an avid mirror collector from the Pine Grove Mall, it meant his only easy escape from my trap departed this family. He can only escape to a son-in-law or step-son.

I wonder what evil entity will trap that mirror collector. There are so many that can be trapped inside. I wonder how many will be trapped in that hall of mirrors the collector owns. I wonder how many mirrors he has sold with trapped innocents contained within, desperately trying to steal your soul and escape their imprisonment. After all, when I escaped, it was 1993. I had been trapped eighty years.

A lot of mirrors have been made, bought, sold, and resold in the last two and a half decades. I wonder where he is now. Don’t look too close at your mirrors…

[leanstooneside]

WHAT'S UP, CLOCK

CHICO SAY THAT'S A NICE COLLECTION

ITS MAIN FEATURE FOR OUR PURPOSES IS A WINDING STAIRWAY

OFFICE IS CLUTTERED

HARPO LIFTS UP HIS SHIRT AND TATTOOED UPON HIM IS THE REPRODUCTION

VALET SINGING TO HERO YOUR LOVE IS WAITING FOR YOU

VERA PRETENDS THAT SHE IS OVERCOME BY THE SCENE

FADE IN TO LIVING ROOM OF MRS. TEASDALE'S HOME... IT IS A SMARTLY APPOINTED ROOM

GROUCHO TURNING AND LOOKING AT CHICO THAT'S NOT BAD FOR ANY DAY

BOYS TRY TO RAISE THE WINDOW WHICH IS LOCATED NEXT TO THE MAIN ENTRANCE

GROUCHO IS DELIGHTED

THEM FROM BEING PULLED OFF HER... TRUCK BACK DISCLOSING HARPO ON THE OTHER END OF THE BEDCOVERS TRYING TO PULL THEM OFF HER... FOR A MOMENT FOLLOWING A TUG OF WAR GOES ON HARPO PULLING THE COVERS ABOUT A FOOT HIS WAY AND VERA PULLING THEM BACK... THE SOUND OF CHICO'S SECOND WHISTLE COMING OVER SCENE

THERE IS A LOUD REPORT

CHICO INTO PHONE YOU'LL NEVER FIND US YOU GOTTA THE WRONG ADDRESS... WE'RE AT 235 POLOMA DRIVE... NOT 232... LOOK IT'S A WHITE HOUSE

HIS FLANNEL NIGHTGOWN EATING CRACKERS... THE BED IS STREWN WITH CRACKER BOXES

CHICO IS STILL LOOKING THROUGH THE BINOCULARS

HARPO IS SITTING INNOCENTLY ON THE BENCH

HE IS RUNNING OUT OF BOX

PAN TO LOWER BOX MRS. TEASDALE'S GUESTS ARE GONE BUT CHICO AND HARPO ARE THERE CHICO IS EXAMINING PLANS OF WAR

IT IS A CLOSE SHOT SHOWING VERA

MAN IS IMPOSSIBLE... MY

VERA APOLOGETICALLY I'M SORRY BOYS I DID MY BEST IT'S ALL MY

GROUCHO STOPPING DEAD IN HIS TRACKS THIS IS TREASON

THERE IS A LITTLE WHITE MOUSE

HIS ATTITUDE IT IS EVIDENT THAT HE

MONTH'S DRAWING ACCOUNT; HOW COME YOUR

TRENTINO THIS IS ALL FIREFLY'S

COURSE IS CLEAR... THIS MEANS

CHATTER CEASES AS THE FOLLOWING ANNOUNCEMENT IS HEARD COMING OVER SCENE

HE IS AT THE OTHER END

HARPO TAKES A LOOK AT APPLE ON THE BOY'S HEAD REACHES DOWN IN BOX

HE LEAVES HIS OWN GLOVES ON THE DESK AND EXITS WITH THE GAUNTLETS IN IS HAND

CHICO THIS ISA FINE YOU

WILLIAM TELL REACHING HIS PLACE TURNS TO TAKE AIM AND IS BEWILDERED

CAMERA PASSES THREE OR FOUR OF THE GIRLS AND COMES TO A STOP ON VERA AND GROUCHO THE LATTER IS STRETCHING HER

VERA'S MALE DANCING

TRENTINO AS A FAINT SMILE OF UNDERSTANDING VANISHES FROM HIS FACE VERY WELL THEN IF THAT'S HOW YOU

I HAVEN'T BEEN TO A CHIROPODIST IN TWO YEARS... TO CAMERA IF THAT'S NOT AN INSULT

GROUCHO IS TRYING TO REACH FOR THE PLANS

CHICO WHAT'S THE MATTER

CHICO IT'S NOTA YOUR

MRS. TEASDALE THIS IS DREADFUL I

HE IS TERRIBLY ANGRY AT BEING INTERRUPTED

HERE'S A SPY GLASS

MRS. TEASDALE LAUGHS GOODNATUREDLY AND PUTS THE PURSE BEHIND HER BETWEEN HER BACK AND THE BACK OF THE CHAIR... AS WE GO TO STAGE WHERE THE SHOOTING OF THE APPLE IN WILLIAM TELL IS BEING ENACTED

CHICO IS AT THE DOOR

HIS SON'S HEAD HE

FOLLOWING IS A CLOSE SHOT OF GROUCHO

SHE IS UNDER THE BEDCOVERS