#pantomime magazine

[disease]

PANTOMIME: V2 #6 [FEB 1922]

[historical-hollywood]

Jacqueline Logan for the Feb. 11 1922 edition of Pantomime Magazine.

Jacqueline Logan c. 1925

[monkeyssalad-blog]

1950 illustration by Pauline Baynes by totallymystified Via Flickr: ‘The land of Christmas plays' from Holly Leaves magazine. Fifteen pantomimes are depicted in this illustration; can you name them?

[system-to-the-madness]

お米 Okome - Inumaki Toge x Reader

Pairing: Inumaki Toge x Reader (can be read as any gender, no pronouns used) Genre: hurt/comfort, fluff Word Count: 4 532 Warnings: mentions of blood and injury Summary: Inumaki hates that he can’t use his voice to express his feelings towards you

Masterlist

Inumaki Toge doesn’t usually struggle with his fate. If there’s a situation he doesn’t like, he prefers action over lament and puts his mind to work to find a way to change it. Sure, there are situations he can’t change, his cursed speech for example, then he works around those things, finds a way to deal with it somehow. He talks in onigiri ingredients, occasionally uses a notebook or his phone’s note app to communicate more difficult matters. Inumaki Toge doesn’t usually struggle with his fate.

Except now he does. His eyes fall on Yuuta and you, sitting on a bench underneath the Momiji, red leaves sparkling in the autumn sun. Even from the distance where Toge just stepped out of the building across the yard, he can tell how hard you’re laughing, can tell that Yuuta has the biggest grin on his face. He stops, several different thoughts shooting through his head all at once. He loves your laugh. He wants to make you laugh too. He can’t, because of his cursed speech. He envies Yuuta for being able to tell you joke and making you laugh like that. And suddenly he remembers this thing he read in a magazine, that said that girls like boys who can make them laugh, and his stomach sinks.

 Toge already knows you like Yuuta. Its’s obvious. Do you like him because he can make you laugh? Toge stops in his steps where he was about to walk over to join the two of you, his heart suddenly thrumming almost painfully in his chest. Do you like Yuuta? He watches his black-haired friend, watches as he lifts his hand and leans a little closer to you. You stop laughing and lean in too. For a terrifying moment Toge thinks he’s about to witness you, the classmate he may or may not have had the biggest crush on since your first one-on-one training session, kiss his friend. But you don’t. Instead, you listen to something Yuuta says that Toge can’t make out over the distance and burst into another fit of laughter.

Suddenly Toge feels like crying. He could never make you laugh like that. Not by whispering a few words into the narrow space between you, not by letting words roll over his tongue. He can write them down, or pantomime them, or fool around to make you laugh, but he can never whisper them.

He wants to talk to you about normal things too, about the stupid weather, or how pretty you look with that new hoodie, or how clever your answers in class were, or how annoying Gojo and this new homework is. He doesn’t want to have to use his notebook for every slightly more complicated conversation, but he can’t be sure you would understand him if he didn’t. It doesn’t stop him from wishing he could use his voice to talk to you. Ever since he really, truly understood his cursed technique, he’s realized just how powerful and yet intimate voice is.

It’s something he’ll never be able to use to communicate his feelings.

Once, not long after Yuuta had joined the school, they, together with Panda, had talked about it. Or rather Yuuta and Panda had talked about his cursed technique, and he had listened. Panda had joked that if he ever wanted someone to kiss him, he could just use his cursed technique, which Yuuta had disagreed on, saying he’d need the other person’s permission to use his technique on them, otherwise it’d be harassment. Panda, who hadn’t thought about that, had quickly agreed, and the two had joked around a bit longer about the possibilities this offered. Toge thought about their words a lot. But there was something inside him, that wholly refused to use his technique for these purposes. It just wouldn’t feel right. Even if the other person agreed, or even asked him to do it, it would be like he’d take their will from them. He’d never do that for his own pleasure.

Toge gets pulled back into the moment by your voice calling for him. He blinks and looks up, finding you and Yuuta had turned to face him, waving him over. As much as he appreciates Yuuta, and as much as he likes you, he doesn’t feel like going over. He doesn’t want to hear the way your voice probably rises in pitch when talking to the special grade sorcerer, doesn’t want to watch Yuuta subtly touch you, doesn’t want to feel like he’s intruding on this moment between you, doesn’t want to burden himself with more heartbreak than he already signed up for.

He swallows thickly before he crosses his arm like an X in front of his chest.

“Okaka,” he denies, continuing his way as if he had planned on moving towards the dojo, instead of towards his friends.

He doesn’t dare to glance over to see your reaction. Are you disappointed? If you were, he’d feel guilty. If you weren’t, he’d be disappointed. If he’s being honest, he can understand that you like Yuuta. The guy is sensitive, and quiet, a good listener, great at giving advice. He’s funny and overall great company. And he’s crazy powerful. Otherwise he wouldn’t be a special grade sorcerer. And he saved your life when Toge himself was of absolutely no help whatsoever, instead almost throwing up from the taste of his own blood.

Toge is nothing in comparison to Yuuta. Sure, he has a strong technique. A strong technique he can use two to three times before his throat is bleeding. And he can be funny, or at least he’s good at making a fool of himself. And he can listen, but he never knows what to answer, worried that whichever advice he gives, it might not actually be helpful, or only make everything worse. So, if you like Yuuta, he gets it. If he were in your place, he’d also prefer Yuuta over himself. Not that you have to choose between the two of them, you could also be interested in neither of them. But the point stands: Yuuta is the better fit for you, and as much as Toge wants you to be happy, it breaks his heart.

-

“What was that,” asks Yuuta, tearing his eyes away from his retreating friend and looking at you instead.

You’re still watching Inumaki leave, his posture somewhat sunken in, hands buried in his pockets. He looks defeated and somehow you want to run after him, ask him what’s wrong. But that would be too pushy, too clingy, wouldn’t it? So instead, you swallow and turn back to Yuuta.

“I don’t know,” you sigh. “He’s been… weird lately.”

Yuuta nodded. “I know, right? And ever since that last mission…”

That last mission, on which Gojo sent the three of you. That last mission where Inumaki’s voice gave out before he could finish the command, which lead to the curse injuring you. That last mission where Yuuta had been the one who had finished the short fight in just a single blow. You knew better than to assume that Inumaki was jealous of Yuuta’s power. You knew he wasn’t. But still something seemed to have dimmed his formerly good relationship with Yuuta. And with you too. He avoided you, texted you less throughout the day, reduced his already limited vocabulary to the equivalents of agreement and disagreement. You feel like you’ve made a mistake somehow, said or done something that hurt him.

“Do you think he’d talk to me about it,” you wonder, your voice small, nothing left of the breathless laughter from a moment ago.

Yuuta chews on his lip as he considers your question, and you know he’s considering a few things he officially doesn’t even know about. For example that you like Inumaki, that you make an active effort to spend time with him, have conversations with him. You’re the one who understands him the best, understands his language the best, even without the notebook.

What you don’t know, is that Yuuta also knows the other side of the story. He knows that Inumaki uses his notebook with you the most, because he wants you to understand his mind. He knows that Inumaki spends a lot of time considering each and every conversation he’s had with you. Sometimes, it’s late at night, and Yuuta gets a text from Inumaki, telling him about a conversation he’s had with you and if he should have replied something else. It’s not hard to tell that Inumaki is absolutely enamoured with you, and you with him. At least it’s not hard to tell from Yuuta’s perspective. But the way Inumaki and you never seem to understand the affection the other is harbouring, Yuuta begins to think that it’s actually very hard to tell from either of your perspectives. Or you’re both just idiots. Which, honestly, as much as he likes the two of you, is more likely.

“I’m not sure,” Yuuta eventually answers your question. There’s a lot Inumaki is bottling up, a lot he doesn’t even tell Yuuta about, stuff Yuuta can only assume. “But I think he’d probably appreciate it if you asked. Maybe he won’t tell you what’s going on, but I think he’d be glad to know you care.” This is as much as he can do to be honest without giving his friend’s secret away to you. A secret, Yuuta doesn’t even know officially.

“Don’t you think he’d get annoyed? He looked pretty upset just now,” you ask. You’re torn between wanting to show Inumaki that you cared, and scared of getting sent away or even worse, him getting angry at you.

“I mean, if you’re worried about it, you can always give him an hour or two. But I don’t think he’d mind if it were you, checking up on him.”

You don’t question Yuuta’s phrasing. Everyone knows you and Inumaki understand each other on a different level, the speed at which you sometimes communicate in single words thrown back and forth leaving the others out of their wits and completely clueless what the conversation was about.

“I’ll give him five,” you decide, leaning your back against the wooden table and glancing up at the red leaves overhead. “If he gets mad at me, it’s on you.”

Yuuta laughs, knowing you’re not serious. You’re not the kind of person who blames others for the outcome of your actions.

“He’d never get mad at you.”

“He looked pretty mad at me for getting injured on that last mission,” you disagree with Yuuta.

“He wasn’t mad at you. He was mad at himself. He blamed your injury on himself, when he couldn’t stop that curse because his voice gave out.”

You winced at the memory of blood trickling down from the corner of Inumaki’s mouth. He had once told you that he sometimes got sick from the taste, and after the curse was taken care of by Yuuta, it had been easier to focus on Inumaki than your own state. You remembered how awful the bright red blood had looked against his unusually pale skin.

“It wasn’t his fault, and he knows that.”

“Rationally yes,” Yuuta agreed. “But he still blames himself.”

“I’m surprised he talked to you about that,” you admit, closing your eyes in the sun. Behind your eyelids the picture of Inumaki’s bloody and scared face haunts your memory. You open your eyes again. “He never mentioned anything like that to me.”

“He didn’t, but it’s obvious,” Yuuta said.

“Is it?”

He just hummed in agreement.

“What else is obvious?”

“A lot. But that’s not mine to talk about.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you and Inumaki really should talk about some stuff,” Yuuta answers, “Like for example that you like him.” He almost feels bad at the way you freeze up beside him.

“I don’t,” you deny, but there is no force in your voice.

“Just saying,” Yuuta shrugs. “A lot of stuff is obvious. Just not to you and him.”

There’s a moment of silence and you have a feeling Yuuta knows what you’re about to ask, your cheeks burning with shame, but you ask anyway.

“Does he like me too?”

Yuuta turns to you then, his big eyes studying you for a moment intensely. “You don’t have to ask me that. You have to ask him.”

You exhale with a sigh a glance at your wristwatch: “Fine… maybe not today, tho.”

Yuuta chuckles, knowing that that’s going to be your response for every day to come, but he doesn’t call you out for it. He doesn’t know if he’d have the courage to confess his feelings if he were in your position either.

“Welp, his five minutes are up. I’m gonna see if he’s okay,” you declare, and stand up from the bench you had been lounging on. “Just-” you glance down at your classmate. “Just don’t tell him about this conversation, will you?”

Yuuta nods. “I can keep a secret,” he smiles, and you’re satisfied, before you head into the same direction Inumaki ran off to a few minutes prior.

He wasn’t in the dojo where you expected him to be after he had wandered off there, so left a little helpless, you began searching for him. After checking all the usual places, you finally spied him sitting hunched over on a bench next to the koi pond in one of the small, traditional gardens squeezed between the buildings. He looked lost in thought, so you made an effort to not walk too quietly as not to startle him. But when you reached the bench and he still hadn’t turned to look up you, you furrowed your brows in confusion. Was he mad at you?

“Inumaki-san,” you asked quietly, sitting down next to him with a safe distance. He wasn’t wearing his full uniform, instead of the black jacket he had pulled a warm, green vest over the white shirt sleeved shirt with the high collar that hid his curse marks. “Toge?”

At the use of his given name, he finally looked up at you.

Your breath stopped when you saw the sadness in his purple eyes. He quickly blinked it away, but you knew what you had seen, your heart hurting at the way he had seemed so lost. Maybe even worse was that he didn’t want to show his feelings to you, instead masking them up.

“What’s wrong.”

“Okaka.” Nothing. Why?

“Don’t,” you warned him, “Don’t lie to me. Please don’t.”

“Okaka, okaka!” I’m not lying!  He said it with amusement in his voice, but when you failed to smile, his eyes grew serious again. “Okaka.” Nothing’s wrong.

“You know you can talk to me, right?”

“Shake, shake.” Yeah, yeah, I know.

“Do you want to talk to me?”

This time his answer took longer, and it was only quietly spoke when he answered with another “Shake.”

Instead of saying anything else, he began reaching for the notebook he always carried with him, but before his fingertips had even grazed the cover, you caught his hand.

“You can talk to me. I’ll understand you. No notebook needed.”

Toge looked up at you then, his eyes widened. What did you mean, you didn’t need the notebook? Would you really understand him?

“Tuna,” he mumbled, averting his gaze from yours, but from the corner of his eyes he saw you tilt your head. How the hell was he supposed to communicate his feelings with onigiri ingredients? He had words to agree and disagree, words to catch attention and swear, but how was he supposed to tell you his greatest wish was to talk to you without having to use this damn notebook, that he wanted to just use normal language, like everyone else? How was he supposed to tell you how much it hurt to see you liking Yuuta? “Okaka.” It won’t work.

“You can try. And if it doesn’t work, you can still write it down, okay?”

“Shake.” Okay. He reached his hand up, absentmindedly running his fingers over his curse marks peeking out from under his high collar. “Ikura.” I hate them.

He had more mumbled that to himself, but you nodded. “They don’t make life very easy, do they?”

“Shake.” No, they don’t. Toge focused on what he wanted you to know, that he wished he could talk to you without risking cursing you. “Furikake… saamon.”

Okay, this was new. Not just one, but two new ingredients. Rice spice and the other word for salmon. You furrowed your brows. “Can you say that again?”

“Furikake saamon,” Toge repeated, slowly, trying to convey his feelings through just these two words. This was never gonna work.

“You want to talk about your thoughts?”

His eyes widened at your correct interpretation of his words.

“Shake, shake!” Enthusiastically he nodded his head. “Furikake saamon! Nori nai!”

“Nori nai, nori na- you don’t want to use…”

“Nori!” He motioned to his mouth, then to the notebook in his pocket.

“Onigiri ingredients and the notebook? You don’t want to use them?”

“Shake, shake!”

He nodded again, and you could see how excited he was, his eyes shining with disbelief that he had managed to communicate something so out of context to you. Quickly he reached up and pulled the zipper of his collar down, so he could additionally use his mimic to tell you what he was thinking.

“Tarago Furikake.” His lilac eyes were widened expectantly, as he waited for you to decipher his words.

“You want to talk?”

He nodded, then pointed at you. “Tarago furikake,” he repeated, underlining his words with stabbing his finger into your direction.

“You want to talk to me?”

“Shake. Nori nai furikake tamago. Okaka.”

“I know. I know it’s difficult without the notebook,” you sighed. “But we’re managing. Right? It might take me a while to get used to it, but I we’re having a normal conversation right now, right? A bit like talking with someone in a foreign language, but not much different than that.”

Toge smiled, the sight making your breath hitch. You were used to seeing his eyes squeeze together when he smiled, but his mouth usually was covered by his collar. You couldn’t help but think that he was one of the most beautiful people you knew.

“Furikake nai, tamago, maguro, nori” he continued.

“Maguro,” you repeated the second last word, thinking what he might have meant. Quietly you mumbled the phrase he had just uttered, your eyes skipping away from his face and over the koi pond instead, as if the translation were written in the ripples on the water surface. Without talking, having to write everything down, he felt bad… like an outsider. Your eyes widened. Was this really what he had wanted to say? That he felt like an outsider? You looked back at him, seeing the shock on his face as he took in your expression.

“We’re making you feel like an outsider because you can’t talk to us? Toge-“

“Okaka, Okaka!” He quickly waved his hands around, signalling you had misunderstood. “Tamago. Maguro.” He pointed to himself.

“You feel like an outsider?”

“Shake!”

“Because you can’t talk to us?”

“Shake.” This time his voice was quieter, and he averted his gaze.

You exhaled quietly. You knew there was not much you could do to change the way he felt, nothing you weren’t doing already anyway. But to deny his feelings wouldn’t be right, even if you wanted to convince him that he wasn’t an outsider.

“I’m sorry,” you started. “I promise you, to us, you’re an integral part of the group, even if you don’t feel like you always are. Do you… do you have any ideas how we could help you feel more included?”

Toge shook his head. “Okaka,” he denied, and then pointing at himself: “Tamago.” It’s my negative feeling. “Tanaka-zuku mentaiko.” You’re doing everything right. There’s nothing you can do to change that. He hesitated for a moment before he added: “Furikake.”HHe hesitated for a moment before he added.

“Of course, we’ll keep talking to you. And you see that you can talk to us too. If I can learn to understand you, so can the others.”

Toge seriously doubted that, but he didn’t voice his thought, instead focusing back on what you had been talking about. “Tarago furikake mayo. Tuna-mayo furikake, saamon tamago, shiisamu. Takana-zuke tarago tuna-mayo shiisamu.”

You stared at him intensely, making his heart race. There was no way you had understood what he had just said. Was there? He was using words he had never used with you, or anyone at jujutsu high, before. He had sometimes used them when he had been younger, when he had talked to his toys as a little kid, finding ingredients for almost anything he could think of. That he still remembered them was a surprise. But there was no way you’d understand him like this, not even when he tried to embed the sentimental meaning of each word into his voice. Your eyes skipped over his face, as you were thinking hard, and Toge waited for the “Sorry, I don’t know what you mean, please write it down.” But it didn’t come. Instead, you answered him.

“I want you to be able to talk openly too. And I’d love to hear about the bad things you think and feel as much as about the good things. Because they’re part of you. Even when they’re hard, even when they’re painful and difficult to admit. But that’s why we have each other, right? So we’re not alone, so the difficult times aren’t quite as difficult. And you already make me laugh, you already make me feel happy. I’m always the happiest when I’m with you.”

You hadn’t used the word friend. The thought rang in Toge’s mind, and together with your last sentence it accumulated to the next words that spilled over his lips, words he had been certain he’d never actually say out loud. Words, which’s meaning he had thought he’d never communicate to you in any form or way.

“Tarago tuna-mayo furikake okome. Tarago tanaka-zuke okome.”I want to use my voice to tell you that I’m in love with you. I want you to be in love with me too.

The moment the words had left his lips, he wanted to make it all undone. What if you had understood him and didn’t feel the same way? All this time he wished you’d understand him, and now he hoped you hadn’t understood a word of what he had just uttered. The way you stared at him wide eyed was a good sign that you really hadn’t.

“Okome,” you asked, your heart beating in your throat. If you had thought rationally about the way he was listing food, you wouldn’t have had the faintest idea of what he had wanted to express, but somehow his emotions were swinging in his words, like the sounds accumulated to a meaning that wasn’t transported by words.

“Mentaiko,” he began, wanting to lift his hands to wave it off, to tell you that it wasn’t important.

But before he had completed the gesture, you caught his wrist with your dominant hand, raising the other between you, pointing at him.

“Okome,” you asked before pointing to yourself. Your voice was shaky, and you could see the moment Toge realized you had understood him.

His eyes widened and he paled a little, swallowing hard. You could see the fear in his eyes. He was afraid you’d turn him down, you realized, and your heart broke a little.

So, what did you do, when your best friend, who you had liked for far too long without acting on it, accidentally confessed his love to you? Using the word for “rice” nonetheless, the base ingredient for onigiri. Because just like one couldn’t make rice balls without rice, humans couldn’t live without love.

You repeated the gesture towards yourself, pointing at you again. “Okome,” you said, voice just as shaky as before, before pointing at Toge.

His eyes followed your finger, the way it was pointing right at his chest, where his heart was stuttering in excitement, and then doing cartwheels, as the realization began settling in.

“Okome,” he asked in disbelieve.

But you just nodded. “Okome.”

He acted quicker than you could really perceive. Your one hand was still holding onto his wrist, to stop him from gesticulating, his skin warm underneath yours, but with the other he grabbed the hand with which you had pointed between you and him. His fingers wrapped around yours tightly, pulling you towards him, pressing your hand right over his heart, while he leant in at the same time, connecting his lips to yours.

A shiver went through you, at the feeling of his warm body underneath his clothes, at his soft lips pressed to yours, at the strange tingling of cursed energy that radiated from his cursed mark. And then you abandoned all thoughts, and just acted on instinct, moving closer to him, wrapping your hand into the fabric of his vest, and kissing him like you had wanted to kiss him for such a long time already.

A sound of appreciative surprise erupted from Toge’s throat and you could feel him smile as he met your kiss with equal fervour, running the tip of his tongue over the seam of your lips. When you parted them just the smallest fraction, he didn’t hesitate to slip his tongue past them, exploring your mouth until both of you had to pull away for breath. You were breathing heavily, your mind foggy, fingers wrapped into his vest, holding on to something, otherwise it felt like the world would just slip away.

When you opened your eyes, you found he was already looking at you. His beautiful eyes were scanning over your face as if searching for any sign of discomfort, as if he expected you to scold him for kissing you. Honestly, at this point the only scolding he’d get was that he had stopped kissing you.

Unwrapping one of your hands from where you had clung to him, you brushed a strand of his bright hair out of his forehead, the curl soft against your fingertips. With a smile you leant forward, and pressed your lips to his left cheek, then the curse mark there, feeling the cursed energy sizzle through them. You moved on to his right cheek, then his forehead, the tip of his nose, his chin, peppering small kisses all over his face until he was full on laughing and took hold of your face with both of his hands, pulling you only far enough away from him to be able to look into your eyes. His were still crinkled in joy, but his voice was serious and heavy with how much he meant this single word phrase that left his lips without hesitation.

“Okome.” And then he kissed you again, slower this time, just to make sure you understood each little detail of what he felt for you. Inumaki Toge sometimes struggled with his fate, but as long as he had you to understand him, what else could he really ask for?

Tags: @nnasv @ashy-akuma @delzinrowe

[buster-keaton]

from pantomime magazine, october 12, 1921

transcript under cut

transcript:

Buster and his Mash Notes

You know, of course, that Buster Keaton--he of the dour visage who makes you laugh because he's so gosh-hanged solemn looking (they call him the man who never smiles)--is married to one of the Talmadge girls, and consequently hasn't any legitimate excuse for wanting to get mash notes. But he does.

And the tough part of it is, that while the girls in the audience all admit Buster is "perfectly splendid" they don't sit down and pour out their souls to him on paper. As a matter of fact, all last week, Buster's mail consisted of one solitary letter-- and that was from a man asking him if he had indigestion. The picture to the left shows Buster reading that letter.

Now it so happens that news of the letter got out, in the studio, and they began to kid the sad-faced comedian.

So Buster decided to see to it that he got as much mail as the next one.

The picture to the right shows how he did it.

The answer is simple.

He hired a stenographer and dictated a bag full of letter[sic] to himself.

[junk-story]

Interview Archive 2, 5.1994 - Ongaku to Hito Special Edition

This interview is on pages 62-67 of the magazine. Footnotes can be found at the bottom of the text.

ISSAY – the aesthetic man who “continues to spin round and round in a dead end with nothing to do”, from DER ZIBET, who debuted in ‘85 as “the founders of Japan’s aesthetic-style rock revival”. Sakurai Atsushi – the aesthetic man of “complete self-deprecation, going mad in any case”, from BUCK-TICK, who debuted in ‘87 as “the first aesthetic-style rock band dominating Japan nationwide”. This will be the first interview between these two. Whether you call it visual kei, makeup kei, aesthetic kei, or Japanese-style decadence kei, this movement became dominant in Japan’s current rock scene before we knew it. Although it’s been analyzed from various perspectives, in a nutshell, I wonder if at the center of this movement is “an exceptionally large desire to escape a difficult reality”. Not liking to look at reality, they seek out a place of repose that’s “somewhere that isn’t here”, and they hide thoroughly within themselves. And while Japan is a peaceful country and they were born during this moratorium [on violence], they are “hippies”. Those who have become the beacons of this are, without a doubt, Der Zibet and BUCK-TICK. With that, a meeting of two giants who rely on each other – but it really suits these two.

Ichikawa: I’ve had pending questions for when this interview happened for a long time, since I was working at a certain other music magazine, but now that we can finally do it, somehow I’m still feeling shy.

ISSAY: Hahahahaha.

Ichikawa: First, I’ll start with the perfunctory questions.

ISSAY: The story of BUCK-TICK and DER ZIBET’s formation?

Sakurai: Hahahahaha.

Ichikawa: Hahahaha. I’m tired of hearing that sort of talk already.

ISSAY: Alright then, how we first found music? (laughs)

Ichikawa: (Ignoring him1) Sakurai, around what point did you learn of DER ZIBET?

Sakurai: Around when I was 19 or 20, wasn’t it? I’d come to Tokyo from Gunma, and during the time I was living together with a friend, I borrowed a tape from someone and listened to it.

Ichikawa: Was your first “Violetter Ball (Murasaki no Butoukai)”?

Sakurai: Yeah. I thought it seemed good and listened to it. And then, by chance, I was passing by Eggman in Shibuya...and it was written there, “DER ZIBET LIVE!”. I thought, “I wonder what sort of feel it’ll have, this is my chance” and bought my ticket for that day. That was the first place I watched them…

Ichikawa: Der Zibet are decadence at its finest, aren’t they.

ISSAY: Yeah. We’ve been told by those around us to tone it down. (laughs)

Sakurai: By the way, ISSAY-san, you were singing with a mask on.

ISSAY: Really? ...That’s not great! (laughs)

Ichikawa: (laughs) The first time you saw them it was that sort of live?

ISSAY: ...I think it wasn’t that sort of pantomime pantomiming, at the time at least.

Ichikawa: What hairstyle did he have?

Sakurai: The same as now, I think. Yeah, like that.

ISSAY: Was it black? I think maybe it was red. Red or green, one or the other.

Ichikawa: (laughs) This guy, he was giddy2, wasn’t he?

Sakurai: No...well, I thought he was cool…

ISSAY: I’m glad! (laughs)

Ichikawa: Hahaha. Did you listen to Der Zibet after that too?

Sakurai: I think after that was around the time when I had first started with BUCK-TICK, not yet as the vocalist, but as the drummer.

ISSAY: Oh?! Atsushi, you were the drummer at first?

Sakurai: Yeah.

ISSAY: I had no idea. (laughs)

Sakurai: After that, while we were touring around during our indies era, at Nagoya’s ELL, DER ZIBET’s video was playing. I thought again that they were cool. Then, when we came back from touring, among our few (laughs) fans, there was a kid who loved DER ZIBET, and they gave me that video. I watched it again and again in my room like I was devouring it.

ISSAY: You watched it again and again! (laughs)

Ichikawa: What parts of Der Zibet did you like? Don’t worry; just be honest.

Sakurai: Hmmm, well I’ve performed vocals as well, so that’s where my eyes go, don’t they. ISSAY-san was cool.

ISSAY: (laughs) See~?

Sakurai: It wasn’t just singing...the added value of his performance on the stage was really impressive.

ISSAY: We were trying various things at that time. Like where I’d sit on top of a stepladder and sing, or I’d have an enormous clock.

Ichikawa: Wahahaha. You’d go onto the stage holding candles.

ISSAY: Not candles! A lantern. All four of us wore black coats and appeared on stage holding lanterns.

Ichikawa: You did as much as you could underground, didn’t you.

ISSAY: When I think of it now, I wonder if was Japanese gothic. (laughs)

Sakurai: Hahahahaha.

Ichikawa: Is this guy embarrassed, I wonder?

ISSAY: No no. (laughs) Well, performing something itself isn’t really embarrassing. Just, when it’s said right to your face...that is embarrassing, a bit. (laughs) There’s a kind of embarrassment when someone says, “A long time ago, we all went to this picnic, right?” and they bring out a picture of you from your high school days, right? It’s embarrassing.

Ichikawa: So Sakurai, you felt there were some commonalities with Der Zibet, right?

Sakurai: …...Hmmm…...how can I say this – I felt like they were a young boy’s words. There’s a boy who has his own world and there is a girl who yearns for him in it, like that? Yeah, it may have a girlish perspective to it. Or it could be like a so-called father complex.

Ichikawa: Sakurai, you’ve had a complex about your lack of personal worldview as an artist, on that note.

Sakurai: Because I still can’t express myself in words, I haven’t gotten to that point yet. The person named ISSAY-san who has already achieved it is right before my eyes…

Ichikawa: Then, the heart of a young girl longs for him, and he also ends up a father figure – a person having difficulties, and you are too. (laughs)

Sakurai: (laughs) I envy him, that’s the kind of feeling I have.

Ichikawa: The first time ISSAY saw BUCK-TICK was in London in ‘88, wasn’t it. This was while Der Zibet was recording “GARDEN” and BUCK-TICK “TABOO” respectively, and you performed in a foreign country.

ISSAY: That was my first time seeing them live. However, the first time I met them was at the public TV recording of Meguro’s Rokumeikan.3

Ichikawa: That was the time that SION, Der Zibet and BUCK-TICK all were recording on the same day. When you went to the dressing room, they were there and you became acquainted?

Sakurai: (embarrassed laugh) Yes.

Ichikawa: Was that around the time BUCK-TICK debuted?

Sakurai: Yes, right around the time we debuted.

Ichikawa: When you went to the dressing room, there were these boys with their hair straight up.

ISSAY: That’s right. But they were such good kids. (laughs) Atsushi and Imai were adult-like, but the two on rhythm (Anii and Yuuta) really talked to me a lot. It was just a “We’re BUCK-TICK!”, “Oh, hello” sort of exchange, but. (laughs)

Ichikawa: Sakurai didn’t speak?

ISSAY: He said, “I’ve been to see one of your concerts once.”

Sakurai: (embarrassed laugh) Is that so?

Ichikawa: The Sakurai of that time was a guy that consistently didn’t talk. Right before their debut, when I was doing my first interview with BUCK-TICK, Sakurai and Hoshino, they were a fleet of silence, the two of them, you know? Despite their gaudy hair standing straight up. (laughs)

Sakurai: (laughs) Waah, we were useless guys.

Ichikawa: Well, you were eyewitness to BUCK-TICK’s live in London.

ISSAY: There was a message from Atsushi in my voicemail. “I heard you’re going to London to record around the same time as us, so if you can meet up, let’s meet”, something like that.

Ichikawa: Sakurai, what are you embarrassed about?

Sakurai: Nothing, nothing. (laughs)

Ichikawa: You’re blushing like a schoolgirl, you know. (laughs)

Sakurai: ……...(laughs)

ISSAY: Hahahahahahaha. So, I heard that BUCK-TICK was going to perform live there, so I went to watch them with the other members [of DZ].

Ichikawa: I think I can ask this now, but, performing live in London was tough, wasn’t it?

Sakurai: Yes, it was tough. But, well, it was just a rush of performing and coming back home. I didn’t think I could perform sober, so I don’t remember it, but. (laughs)

Ichikawa: Just drinking up like crazy before the show. (laughs)

Sakurai: Yeah.

Ichikawa: Sounds desperate. (laughs) Were Der Zibet your only Japanese audience members?

Sakurai: It looked like there were a number of exchange students as well.

Ichikawa: Wasn’t it embarrassing with Japanese people being there?

Sakurai: And they were in the front row. (laughs)

ISSAY: Right. I was thinking that they may have come all the way from Japan to see them. I thought, “Wow, BUCK-TICK is awesome.” (laughs)

Ichikawa: Bottom line, what were your impressions from the live?

ISSAY: I thought they were doing their best. (laughs) They had a lot of spirit. I think it was the ending, that was amazing. Like BOOM, BOOM.4 It was like, “ooh, they’re really doing it.” (laughs)

Sakurai: Hey, that’s something you’d say about a sports player. (laughs)

ISSAY: It felt like you guys were like, “Listen to this, you bastards!”

Sakurai: We might have seemed like nasty guys. (laughs)

ISSAY: No, not at all, there wasn’t a feeling of nastiness to it; you were greeting them with smiles and properly did the MC in English.

Ichikawa: MC!!!

ISSAY: In the middle, speaking English got troublesome so he ended up speaking Japanese, but. (laughs)

Ichikawa: Woooooow. (laughs) This guy who can’t even speak for the MC in Japan, there’s no way he could do it over there, right?

ISSAY: Hahahahahahaha.

Sakurai: Right. It was impossible.

Ichikawa: But this is a nostalgic story.

ISSAY: Yeah, nostalgic. But I remember stuff from that time.

Sakurai: Me too. And I was glad you came to our dressing room.

Ichikawa: Thinking about it, both BUCK-TICK and Der Zibet recorded internationally as a one-time thing.

ISSAY: For us, it’s because when we go there, we end up making dark stuff. Like, the dark and extremely heavy “GARDEN” that was so heavily criticized by the people invested in it, when we listened to it in London it seemed normal. You don’t think it’s dark at all.

Sakurai: That’s right. Ichikawa-san also completely disliked our “TABOO”, so. (laughs)

Ichikawa: Well, when you go to London, it suddenly ends up feeling quite frightening, doesn’t it? And artists need to have a strong sense of themselves.

ISSAY: I ended up having the constitution for it, undoubtedly. I had fun, being in London. Wasn’t that the case for you?

Sakurai: Certainly mentally speaking, it was very comfortable.

Ichikawa: But Sakurai, you’ve been on vacation to Hawaii before.5 (laughs)

Sakurai: That place is totally harder. (laughs) There’s this obsession of like, if you don’t go outside you’re missing out...(laughs)

ISSAY: Aah, I get that! (laughs) Well, did you end up going outside?

Sakurai: I did end up going out.

ISSAY: Did you swim in the ocean?

Sakurai: I did. (laughs)

ISSAY: Isn’t that nice~, that you swam in the ocean~? (laughs)

Sakurai: Hahahaha.

ISSAY: Let’s go next time, it’ll be fun. Let’s go, let’s go. (laughs) Last summer, for the first time in 15 years, I also went to the ocean, sooo (laughs)

Sakurai: What sort of fun? (laughs)

Ichikawa: Decadent people going for a swim in the ocean. (laughs)

ISSAY: After that, we’ve met in passing a number of times. Definitely, I think it was when we were coming back from touring in Nagoya or somewhere, but we were refueling our gas in the parking area off the highway and (laughs) these guys with long hair came in. I was thinking, “Huh? I’ve seen these guys before”, and there was the bassist. He went, “It’s BUCK-TICK!” (laughs) And from the back, making an extremely embarrassed looking face about it, came Atsushi. (laughs)

Ichikawa: Wahahahaha.

ISSAY: I was like, “Oh, it’s Atsushi!” (laughs) Besides that, we also met up in front of Nakano Sun Plaza when Peter Murphy had a concert there.

Sakurai: I remember that well.

Ichikawa: Because events like that are few and far between, right. You guys live withered lifestyles like retired old men. (laughs)

ISSAY: Definitely. (laughs) Events that move me are few and far between. But look, I was moved at first when I met up with Atsushi, I was like, “It’s Atsushi~!”

Sakurai: Hahahahahahahaha.

ISSAY: Atsushi, you’re a homebody too, right?

Sakurai: Going by car from a metropolitan area to a suburb is okay, but getting to the point of leaving my room is difficult.

Ichikawa: This guy would probably be happy if you came over to his room to hang out. (laughs) You would just be idling away the time, though.

Sakurai: Well, there are no enemies from the outside there. (laughs)

ISSAY: You get tired of it right, the stuff that comes with going out.

Sakurai: Yeah, it’s tiring. I wonder why that is.

ISSAY: Because people other than you are there. (laughs)

Ichikawa: Wahahahahahaha.

Sakurai: Hahahaha. 100%. (laughs)

ISSAY: Thank you very much.6 (laughs)

Sakurai: For me, even though I’m at this age, I still happen to get embarrassed and scared about it. I want to go to Toukyuu Hands7, but I can’t, things like that. (laughs)

ISSAY: I can’t go either, you know. (laughs)

Ichikawa: Sakurai, what do you want to go to Hands for?

Sakurai: My light bulbs burnt out, so to go buy more. Places like supermarkets don’t sell them, they’re a special kind. In the end, I had someone else buy them and bring them to me. (laughs)

ISSAY: Right? I do that too.

Ichikawa: That’s no good, you guys. (laughs)

ISSAY: For me, there was a time where I wanted a takoyaki set, so I sent the manager to buy it for me.

Sakurai: Ah, I bought that too. The one from Toukyuu Hands, right? (laughs)

ISSAY: Ah, really? Next time, let’s have a takoyaki party, just the two of us. (laughs)

Sakurai: We’ll do it, we’ll do it. (laughs)

ISSAY: A dark, decadent takoyaki party. (laughs)

Ichikawa: While listening to the Sisters of Mercy.

Sakurai: Hahahahahahaha.

Ichikawa: I’m coming too.

ISSAY: Please do. (laughs)

Ichikawa: So, in “Masquerade”, the song you costar on in Der Zibet’s “Shishunki II”, it became a “decadent duet between teacher and student”.

ISSAY: Weren’t you the one who planned that? (laughs) But, that really was extremely fun. (laughs) And the finished product is quite interesting.

Ichikawa: Like the way the qualities of your voices are so similar.

ISSAY: Right? (laughs) Like, there are many parts where you can’t tell if I’m singing or if Atsushi is singing, even for me.

Sakurai: That’s been said a lot.

ISSAY: I was surprised by that. So, if you listen to how Atsushi normally sings, it’s completely different from me, right? But, when we happen to be doing a part in the same artistic style...you know?

Ichikawa: By the way, ISSAY, what do you actually think about the music BUCK-TICK is performing?

ISSAY: I haven’t listened to all of it completely, so I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s interesting. It’s weird, isn’t it? There aren’t guys performing that kind of music on major labels, are there? So I’m really happy about that, and that it’s so well received. I think that’s a really good thing. From the time they came out, I’ve thought, “This went major. That’s great!” (laughs) Even though the things they perform are quite often actually grotesque.8

Ichikawa: I think the people at Victor who gave them the OK are great too. Here are these “amateurs” with incomprehensible lyrics who didn’t know the fundamentals of their instruments, so you get a lot of weird sounds. At an average record label, they would have ended up getting the boot.

ISSAY: Normally, most likely.

Sakurai: I think so too. (laughs)

Ichikawa: If I’m speaking frankly, and I’m still thinking this, but I can’t help wondering why they were sold on BUCK-TICK.

Sakurai: Fufufufu.

ISSAY: Me, I somehow understand. I suppose the melody was easy to follow and that had a lot to do with it. I don’t think it’s necessary at all to persist in that, but as an element of their work that’s easy to accept, I wonder if it wasn’t a big part of it. Although their lyrics seemed muddied, and although their hair was done like it was. I think their melodies were amazingly alive. I wonder if they really felt that.

Ichikawa: Well, if Der Zibet had also debuted four years or so later, maybe they would have sold big.

ISSAY: Hahahaha. I wonder. (laughs)

Ichikawa: But you know, on the point of how what we call aesthetic kei or visual kei’s “weird sounds” movement gained a following in Japan, I think BUCK-TICK’s contribution is huge. Especially when you think about how aesthetic kei is currently flourishing.

ISSAY: I think so. You’re great, Atsushi!

Sakurai: (laughs) Not at all, the me of today wouldn’t be here without ISSAY-san.

Ichikawa: You guys are so creepy. But lately, the number of lovable “aesthetic fools” are getting increasingly scarce, aren’t they?

Sakurai: Because fashion comes first.

Ichikawa: Stylers9 are born on after another, but it’s just the shape of one. In the amateurs, in indies, and on major labels too.

ISSAY: Hahahahahaha. Styler (laughs)

Sakurai: (laughs) What is that exactly, a styler?

Ichikawa: Hm? Someone who personifies STYLE10.

Sakurai: Hahahaha. What a great way to say it.

Ichikawa: In the middle of the ‘80s, there was an underground aesthetic music scene centered in Shinjuku, and it was nothing but fine fools, wasn’t it?

ISSAY: It was, it was. Jean Genet11 was doing well.

Ichikawa: (laughs) There were no bands that I think a major label would be willing to spend production and advertising costs on thinking like, “This will sell!”

ISSAY: That’s right. But it’s because they had power.

Ichikawa: That underground power, it comes from a scene that has a sad history where, regardless of how good they were, their values were different from the above ground, and for this reason alone they were not recognized, right?

ISSAY: But isn’t that how it ends up in the world?

Ichikawa: Der Zibet is also still the odd one out among that group – because even while ISSAY’s “aesthetic of spinning circles in a dead end” stands out, the sounds have also been properly done.

ISSAY: It was still weird though. (laughs) However, we really were criticized for it. At the time we first put music out, it was written about as “kayou rock”.12 If you had slightly melodious lyrics, you’d quickly be branded with that.

Sakurai: We were as well. (laughs)

Ichikawa: But now there are no fools. And that’s regrettable. Because as I see it, rock is pulled along by fools. It improves the expression and the like.

ISSAY: Well, but…

Ichikawa: Guys like us need to keep going, is what I’m saying.

ISSAY: That’s what you meant. (laughs)

Sakurai: Hahahahahaha.

Ichikawa: I’m asking this right at the end, but ISSAY’s solo album production project is actually now going on in secret, but of course, Sakurai Atsushi, I think you must be obligated to participate in it in any case, right?

ISSAY: Hahahahaha. Will you do it?

Sakurai: I’ll do it!

1 This is literally noted in the text, lol. 2 This could also be “restless” or “flippant”, but those fit less well to me. 3 A live house in Tokyo. The internet tells me this show was on January 17th, 1988. 4 Onomatopoeia translation hard. 5 I felt this transition was weird in English, but it’s clear in Japanese at least that he’s implying London shouldn’t have been comfortable compared to Hawaii. 6 This is basically the first time in the whole interview that ISSAY speaks formally, and it’s for exaggerated effect. Very opposite of Sakurai, who has been 100% formal. 7 Now just “Hands” – a home center store for housing and lifestyle products. 8 “Egui” means a lot of things, but it’s apt for B-T’s music: dark topics on emotional things, taboo social subjects. 9 I spent like 5 minutes trying to figure this out before reading on. He made this word up. Sakurai and Issay didn't know what he meant either. Thanks for keeping me on my toes, Ichikawa. 10 “Style” was written in English here. 11 This appears to be a reference to this playwright’s style of work more than he himself. 12 Better Japanese music historians may know more than me, but this seems like the pre-Band Boom name for this kind of music. THE ALFEE, for example, is listed as one of the founding groups of this sound on JP Wikipedia.

[may--hawk]

ain't no cure for love - chapter 1

It's spooky season, y'all!

Or, the haunted bookshop story:

Everything’s gone to shit. Aziraphale’s fucked off back to Heaven, and Crowley’s stuck down on Earth with a new angel who asks the most annoying questions, like they’re some kind of divine punishment. Then there’s all the weird dream he’s been having, the same one, over and over. Oh, yeah, and the bookshop’s haunted. Or, The shop’s always been able to do what it wants, within reason. There’d been that time in 1973 when it had manifested an extra room to hold Aziraphale’s unexpected stock of National Geographic magazines. Or the time Aziraphale brought in a new copy of Alice in Wonderland and they’d each had to answer a riddle to go down into the wine cellar. But Crowley’s never come across a single locked door in this bookshop in two hundred twenty-four years. It’s just - it’s not done. Something’s up with the shop. There’d been the thing with the jazz music from Crowley’s dream. Crowley’d figured it was just another one of the bookshop’s quirks, although the bookshop’s musical taste tends largely towards classical, naturally enough, with, of course, the exception that any Shostakovich left in the shop too long turns into a copy of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours.

Crowley goes back to the bookshop. There’s nowhere else to go. Not really. The bookshop is it for them, it’s everything and everywhere, the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. It’s the one place they’ve ever really felt free, the one place they’d been able to be - them. It was what he meant when he’d told Aziraphale he couldn’t leave the bookshop. He’d known it ever since the first day, opening day, when he’d come in with his flowers and his chocolates and Aziraphale had made an elaborate show of inviting him in. Crowley’d only realized what the whole pantomime was for when he’d stepped across the threshold and felt the wards shiver across his skin and through it, sinking through his scales to the bone, all the way down to the other plane, where he felt it sinking into his very atoms, and disseminating, becoming a part of him, forever, or, at least, until Aziraphale took it back.

Crowley imagines that’s what humans mean when they call something home.

He expects to be turned away at the door when he goes back three weeks after Aziraphale’s gone back to Heaven. New management, and all. And, sure, he can probably trick the Inspector Constable into letting him in, but - why bother. It doesn’t seem sporting. Maybe, if he’s honest, he half-hopes the bookshop won’t let him in. Then he can say that’s that and fuck off to, say, the Marquesas Islands or something. Nice. California. Siberia. It would be a clean break. But. No such luck.

He steps up on the stoop and puts his hand out, about to touch the door in the same spot he’s touched it for centuries, where his hand would have worn the paint, if Aziraphale had let it, and the door swings open before he’s even touched it. He swears the lamps brighten, just a little, as if inviting him in. He turns around to look back at the Bentley, but it’s already sidling around the corner to its usual spot.

Well. Nothing for it, then. He goes in. There’s a nice bottle of Talisker waiting on the coffee table for him, right in his usual spot. His favorite. A welcome home of sorts, he guesses, from the bookshop itself. It was - it was nice, okay, if demons did nice. It was like an old friend, one that had been around for a long time.1 The bookshop was like the Bentley; after spending enough time around ethereal - er - occult beings, it had developed a personality, of sorts. Like the way it’d trip you up at the step out the door if you’d upset Aziraphale.2 Or the time he’d rearranged the books to spell something crude, and then he and Aziraphale had gone out for dinner, and when they’d come back, the books had spelled up yours, Crowley instead. Crowley had accused Aziraphale of doing it. Aziraphale had denied it, of course, the little bastard, all disapproving eyebrows and a twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Must be the shop,” he’d said, and patted the wainscoting when he thought Crowley wasn’t looking.

Or the way the shop always seemed to make sure it was the right temperature for Crowley. Or the way the blinds always seemed to be perfectly adjusted so they covered the sun - which, during the hours of three and four in the summer, and one and two in the winter, was always right in his eyes, if he napped in his preferred position on the sofa.3 Or the way the latest Fleming novel would always be in whatever bookshelf he was facing, even if the section was something completely unsuitable, like, say, French Cookery, or Experimental Oceanography.

So. Crowley stays. It makes him feel a little less lonely. The bookshop doesn’t seem to mind. Neither does Muriel. Besides, he wants to see the look on Aziraphale’s face when he comes crawling back - and he will, nothing lasts forever Crowley’s snakey arse - and sees that Crowley took such good care of the bookshop. That Crowley could take care of something, given the chance. Just look at his plants. They’re great, thriving specimens. The most beautiful, lushest plants in all of London.4

There’s room for the two of them, him and Muriel, because the bookshop always has been big enough for two, and they stay out of each other’s way, mostly. Muriel’s taken over Jim’s old room, got it piled up with rocks, and books pilfered from downstairs, and an incredible assortment of stationery and office supplies. Also, embroidered vests. They’ve discovered thrift shops.5 It’s like him and Aziraphale, discovering Earth all over again, except with a great deal less guilt and hand-wringing and a great deal less consumption, too.

Crowley tells himself it’s fine.

Crowley haunts the downstairs like a ghost....

Continue reading on AO3.

@goodomensafterdark

[hooked-on-elvis]

"HOT DOG"

"THE DAY ELVIS BLEW HIS TOP!"

Elvis' photo shoot for "Loving You" (Paramount 1957)

Elvis Presley: Loving You album, released in June 1957

Written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller for Elvis' second movie score, "Hot Dog" was recorded at the Paramount Scoring Stage on mid-January 1957. According to Ernst Jorgensen in "Elvis Presley: A Life In Music", the song "lasted all of a minute and twelve seconds but took seventeen takes to record".

Recording it must have been tiring, but the hard work with this track wasn't over at the end of the recording session. It would follow to the filming of the movie (from January 21 to March 8, 1957).

(1) Elvis' during filming of "Loving You" (Early 1957). (2) Page from article for the Silver Screen magazine (1957)

HERE'S A LITTLE BIT OF HOW IT WAS FILMING THE COUNTRY FAIR SEQUENCE FOR "LOVING YOU" — THE "HOT DOG" PERFORMANCE — ACCORDING TO A 1957 MAGAZINE ARTICLE:

THE DAY ELVIS BLEW HIS TOP! When he's restrained by strict demand of movie-making, Elvis has got to explode somewhere, somehow - and explode he did! By Viola Swisher "Hot Dog!" That's how the lyrics go. Singing them, Elvis Presley spun into a forward lunge, one arm out-thrust, eyes afire. Hypnotized... hypnotizing. Hot dog? What did the words matter? Elvis exploded them as if some overwhelming earth force had hit him right in the heart. He hunched over to hug the sensation to himself. He swayed with the eternal rhythm of nature. Elvis was blazing through the action of his pre-recorded song "Hot Dog," featured in a country fair sequence of "Loving You," his new Hal Wallis picture for Paramount. Director [and co-writer] Hal Kanter called for a full rehearsal using about fifty extras bouncing and juggling to Presley's music at the fair. "All right" shouted an assistant. "Places, everybody." "Let's try it," Kanter nodded to the star. "Well, here's where I get censored," quietly commented Elvis in his understated, off-screen manner. But only a few alert ears caught the remark. He gave an experimental leg-quiver and looked at the director for an okay. Kanter shook his head in a pantomimed "no". What followed was a running series of dilutions, deletions and compromises for Elvis. Charles O'Curran, a top-rated dance director staging the routine, tried to make up some "typical Elvis Presley" action for the number. Only he kept getting nowhere. The more he struggled to gear the Presley-style to Hollywood's cameras, the more static and inhibited Elvis became. Things grew just a litle bit tense. Head lowered, the singer rolled his velvety eyes upward to level off at Charlie. Not a word exchanges. None was needed. Elvis remained quiet and courteous. No throwing his weight around. No acting big-big. Only his eyes making the polite plea: "Don't tell me how to do my stuff." Presley and O'Curran tried over and over again to get together on the routine. Elvis was aware of what he wanted, yet because it wasn't natural for him he couldn't get with it.

Excerpt from article on the Silver Screen magazine (1957 issue) , pg. 45.

More was written in this article about the filming of "Loving You", possibly something more about how the filming of the scene went on until the final result but I, unfortunately, haven't found the following pages online. I guess the most important story was told by this excerpt anyways. They got the scene. We know they did. I wonder tho how Charles O'Curran had imagined the number. What we see Elvis doing onscreen while singing "Hot Dog" is more Elvis acting like himself or something like Charles wanted him to look like?

Pictures of the outfit Elvis wore to perform "Hot Dog" and, below, the King performing the song in scene featured in his second movie, "Loving You" (1957).

Scene from movie "Loving You" (Paramount Pictures 1957), starring Elvis Presley, Lizabeth Scott and Wendell Corey. Directed by Hal Kanter. Screenplay by Herbert Baker and Hal Kanter. Story by Mary Agnes Thompson. Produced by Hal B. Wallis.

"HOT DOG" — LYRICS

Hot dog, you say you're really coming back Hot dog, I'm waiting at the railway track Hot dog, you say you're coming home for good Hot dog, I'm going to keep knocking on wood And baby, I can hardly wait I'm gonna meet you at the gate, hot dog I fell in love with you and then you went away But now you're coming home to stay Hot dog, soon everything will be all right Hot dog, we're gonna have a ball tonight I've got a pocketful of dimes It's gonna be just like old times, hot dog You went away and every day was misery But now you're coming back to me Hot dog, my heart is gonna go insane Hot dog, when you come walking off the train Oh how lonely I have been But when that Santa Fe pulls in Hot dog, baby, baby, hot dog

Lyrics by Jerry Leiber/Mike Stoller

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FURTHER INFO - WHAT DOES 'HOT DOG' MEAN?

I'm not American, and that's why I don't get slangs in English right away (and that's also why you'll find typos in my writing, sorry 'bout that). So, until this very moment, I never understood why the song was entitled "Hot Dog". I found it so silly... I thought about the food, not gonna lie, but I just googled the word and, in slang, it seems 'hot dog' can mean someone who's dangerous, a daredevil or something. So, the poetic persona in the song is calling out the lady for leaving him for a while. I guess that's it. Probably many already got it from the start (and if I got it wrong, please, correct me) but this note is here just in case someone needs an explanation. Oh, I also found an article about the meanings of "hot dog" as a slang, over the years. It's really interesting. Like I say, Elvis is always directly or indirectly teaching me something. Read more about the meanings for 'hot dog' here: today.com/food/hot-dog-meanings.

--

UPDATE - May 22, 2024: @thetaoofzoe and @lookingforrainbows helped us with this one. THANK YOU SO MUCH, BABIES. ♥ According to dear @thetaoofzoe, "I'm under the impression that 'hot dog' here means he's expressing delight or excitement about the girl coming back. Like a 'yay! I'm so excited'" and then I read @lookingforrainbows with: "hot dog in this case might mean ‘I’m so excited’. It was a saying in the 50s to mean something like ‘wow! that’s awesome’" -- There you go, friends! Solved!

[dirtyendorphins]

[AU where Eddie has been teaching his girlfriend Chrissy how to play the guitar for a few months, and he catches her playing a song she wrote herself]

Eddie crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe, keeping as still as he could. His tongue swirled in his cheek and he smiled faintly. Chrissy sat at the edge of their bed, her back to Eddie, staring down at her acoustic guitar and strumming a series of four chords. It was the “‘50s progression” he’d showed her the week before, but Eddie was astonished to hear that Chrissy was playing a variation on the chord progression, and in a different key. Her strumming was precise, and the strings rung out with startling clarity. Then her voice broke through in a near-whisper, half mumbling to herself and half sounding out words of affection and longing. Just little snippets of lyrics.

…the dream boy don’t exist…

…love will come through for you…

Chrissy’s voice was gentle, fragile, drifting through the air like a bubble. Eddie could sound out in his mind a raw demo of her recording, capturing all the squeaks of her palm against the guitar neck, the sibilance on the strings and her timid voice. Nothing short of perfection. She repeated the sequence over and over, and Eddie could see the bunching of her cheeks into a smile from behind, and she bounced slightly on the mattress out of giddiness. Even from behind, Eddie could sense her intense focus on her craft. He pursed his lips and dropped his arms to his side, inching across the carpet before laying his hands on her shoulders and kissing the crown of her head.

“Eddie!” Chrissy screamed, bunching her shoulders up and leaping to her feet, setting the guitar aside. Her cheeks were a deep red, and she laughed nervously. “Oh, my God. Please-“ she stuttered, hands at her lap. “I was just practicing-“ she said, brushing her strawberry blonde locks from her face.

“Practicing?” Eddie scoffed with a wide smile, cupping her cheeks and kissing her lips. She whined softly. “Baby, you were creating, and it sounded damn good. Play it again for me.”

“No, it sucks,” Chrissy said.

“Where’d you learn to order the chords like that?” he asked.

“Just was experimenting,” she said.

“Fucking brilliant,” he chuckled softly, picking up her guitar from the side of the bed and sticking it into her hands. “Play it for me again or you’ll hear me whistling it every time we’re in the car. Got it?”

Chrissy looked up at him, pouting, trying to suppress a smile. But it was impossible. Not with him there, grinning his stupid, boyish grin. “Okay,” she said. “Just don’t stare at me while I play it, OK?”

Eddie nodded and covered his eyes with his hand. He pantomimed a man stumbling through the dark, his fingers outstretched, and Chrissy laughed. “Okay, go,” he said, turning his head to the side, eyes seeing nothing but darkness. “I wanna tell future magazines that I was here when pop sensation Chrissy Cunningham wrote her first song,” he smirked.

[obscuresanrio]

Name: Mimic Mike

Debut: 1987

Mimic Mike is a curious and hardworking bull terrier. He loves watching TV and reading magazines. He lives on his own in Beverly Hills. His birthday is July 21st (same as Hemingway)

I feel so much melancholia when I look at Mimic Mike's sweet face. This poor, lonely dog. Just imagining this clothed animal trying to look after himself in a cold Beverly Hills mansion makes my heart sink.

Why are all the descriptions of him so adamant about specifying the fact that he lives alone? Why is that part of the very limited information that we have about this guy?

I remember reading something that said that Mimic Mike doesn't know that he's a dog. Which is even more troubling. He must feel so isolated. I can't find exactly where I found this info, though. So. Grain of salt for sure.

And Hemingway. Why the correlation? The official Sanrio wiki points out the shared birthday, why? Why draw a correlation between a suicidal poet who's life was coloured by war, paranoia and cruelty, to this dog?? This lonely dog?

AND who is he mimicking? humanity? Does his lack of understanding of his canine nature force him into some sort of strange pantomime of copied human behaviour?

What's worse is that he is one of the forgotten Sanrio characters. He was alone at his inception and he had been abandoned by his creators.

It fills me with absurdist rage.

Do not ask for whom the bell tolls... it tolls for Mimic Mike.

[iohourtime]

Yamada Ryosuke: Side A - Expression

anan 2347

(Please let me know if there are any errors. Probably not my best work but I can't write properly lately.)

You can read the second part of the interview, "Side B - Change" here.

On May 9th, Yamada Ryosuke-san would celebrate his 30th birthday. To [make sure] the timing worked, the editorial department proposed to him: “Do you want to do a self-produced gravure [for us]?” while it was still [winter]. He replied with his acceptance really quickly and he first mentioned the phrases “expression” and “change” and some loose ideas of what he would like to do. We came up with the plan we have now starting with that conversation.

“I was fortunate to receive such a proposal for my 30th milestone birthday and I am very thankful for this. When I am thinking about what I want to show others about myself, “the form of an expressionist” comes to mind. In these times, only responding to what is demanded of us is no longer the correct attitude. Or should I say, aren’t we more free [to choose what we want to do]? When it is time to think about how to maximize [the expression] of “myself at this moment”, if I can work with a trusted team to do what I hoped to do, then I can become who I wanted to be.”

For the next part, the proposal for “Change” is to show the switch from “off” to “on”. Yamada-san is earnest towards work and is someone who is known for being professional. Therefore, we wanted to show him before he puts on his “work armour” and asked to shoot his bare face before applying makeup and costume.

“From my perspective, I’m wondering if people really want to see that? (laughs) Although it’s not unusual for people to see the natural [unprocessed] Yamada Ryosuke during the [process of] change, or rather, that is probably closer to who I am now.”

Singing, dancing , acting… of all the methods of expression, but a photoshoot is “what can express my current state.”

“Although I approach my work in the same way, whether it is video or print, I feel that my condition and state of mind on that day or time, whether good or bad, gets reflected in the work. Especially with photos, it is a snapshot of everything, right? It’s not enough to just have a great photographer, or just great outfits, or great make up, if these components do not work together, it is impossible to form a cohesive artwork. When all these components work, it feels good to participate in the shoot, yet more often than not, the components do not all come together. Sometimes it’s due to my or the staff’s mental or physical condition [on the day], and I am rather sensitive to such things. If it’s staff I’m familiar with, we can figure it out together, but it’s not a one-sided issue. However, with today’s photoshoot, everything fits very well, so it feels like no matter who and whatever we do, it’ll go well.”

For this part, Yamada-san suggested one keyword, “Pierrot”. [TN: It’s basically the clown archetype in pantomime.] The cover art expands on this image. Although he had worn pop-coloured outfits before, the style [this time], including the hair and makeup, was quite aggressive. It seemed like Yamada-san himself was also inspired by this and showed a lot of naughty expressions he rarely showed.

“Since I am going to do this anyway, isn’t it more fun to show [a side of me] that hasn't been shown before? As for the word “Pierrot”, I simply thought it’s an easy way to explain [the theme of expression], but… clowns can be laughed at, they can be cute at amusement parks, and if they are in a horror movie, they can be scary; there is a wide berth in [how they can appear], and I always find them as beings that are hard to understand. I also want to become a person who gives people different impressions depending on who sees me, as someone who can show a different face depending on where I am. That is my ideal. It would be nice if there were people who read the magazine and saw new possibilities in me, and I would also be happy if they simply thought I was cool. As an expressionist, it is necessary to continually show new faces. I want to keep exploring that.”

He is currently appearing as Nitta Togo in the drama, “Ousama ni Sasagu Kusuriyubi”. [Togo] is a scion who married a woman he doesn’t love in order to rebuild his struggling wedding hall business. This is his first shoujo manga adaptation.

“Hashimoto Kanna, who plays the lead role, and I can go back and forth at different tempos and it’s great working with her. I want you to see Kanna-chan’s brave visage properly. I thought I was past the age to appear in this type of romance drama, so please enjoy it. (Laughs)”

[To be continued in Side B: Change, which is probably the meat of the interview.]

[starboystudios]

I made this illustration a couple summers ago for a velvet goldmine zine that unfortunately didn't end up panning out, and have... kind of been sitting on it forever despite still being really proud of it. I put SO much detail into this thing, I made up the curt wild poster based on a real film still, and the other two posters are based on real posters for lindsay kemp's pantomime of jean genet's Our Lady of the Flowers and a midnight screening of jack smith's film Flaming Creatures respectively (seasoned VG fans will get all the references in each of those). One of my personal favourite little details is the pattern on billy's pants - they were my attempt of adapting the pattern on ola salo's pants in this magazine photoshoot.

reblog >>>> likes!!

do not repost!!

[hbcsource]

HELENA BONHAM CARTER IN CONVERSATION WITH SIMON CALLOW | THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE | APRIL 2023 Helena Bonham Carter was joined by the writer and fellow actor Simon Callow at home this spring to discuss her new role: Library President. The two are longtime members and met filming the 1985 EM Forster adaptation A Room With a View. Bonham Carter was 19. It was the first of many Merchant Ivory productions for her, including Maurice and Howards End, before Hollywood called, with a role as the suicidal love interest in David Fincher's Fight Club. Work with her former husband, Tim Burton, came next, as well as a contribution to the Harry Potter franchise and more. Callow's acting career includes stage roles in Shakespeare, Beckett, pantomime and contemporary theatre and beloved British films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral. He is a biographer of Oscar Wilde and Orson Welles and a renowned Dickens expert. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. HELENA BONHAM CARTER: Simon, it's very nice to see you here. Welcome to my Presidential home! I'm not having a clever day - do you find that, or are you always clever? SIMON CALLOW: Always. But I think I might be daunted by being the President of The London Library. Such a wonderful title, such a wonderful entity. HELENA: I love the title. The older I get, the more I like having conversations with dead people - for instance my dad, who made me a member when I was 21. For the Library to then ask me to be President... SIMON: Fantastic. HELENA : I used the Library a lot then, which was also when I first met you. I was sort of roaming and feeling lost, having a great time filming but feeling out of my depth everywhere. My peer group had gone to uni, and I was suddenly just on my own path and really unequipped to deal with it. I had a massive chip on my shoulder. So The London Library was my college. I felt legitimate, and I thought I could wander in and dress up like Virginia Woolf. SIMON: It's like going right back to the source, isn't it? There it all is, and there they were. HELENA: There they were! It's not only a conversation with my dead dad, but a conversation with EM Forster. If it was not for him, we wouldn't be here. SIMON: A Room With A View is my favourite film of all the films I've been in, and I'm still astonished by its freshness. HELENA: It still works. SIMON: It really does. It was my second film and I was incredibly relieved - I'd been in Amadeus and detested every second. When I got the script [for A Room With A View] Ismail [Merchant, the producer] said to me: "We want you to play the leading part!" So I thought, "This is great, he sees me as George. I'll go on a diet immediately." Then my agent discovered I was in fact playing the Reverend Beebe. And I thought, "No, outright no." I was terribly hurt. HELENA: And totally miscast. SIMON: Beebe's the fat old parson; I can't possibly play him. Finally I gave in to discover that suddenly I was with the aristocracy of British film and theatre: Maggie [Smith], Judi [Dench] and Fabia Drake, no less. And you. Who was completely new. HELENA: I was a foetus. SIMON: What I remember about you then was the incredible speed with which you spoke. HELENA: Oh, seriously? That's like my daughter. SIMON: You would change tack in the middle of a sentence and contradict yourself. HELENA: I don't think that's changed. I'm interested that I spoke at all. I remember myself as a mute, a total mouse, and so in awe of everyone. I was aware that you were a writer and talking about Mozart a lot, so I thought, "He's the Renaissance man that I have to become." Also, without being too indiscreet, you were one of the kinder adults. SIMON: Fabia was an absolute holy terror. What was great was to be working on a script drawn from such a wonderful novel. Ruth [Prawer Jhabvala, who adapted the original novel for the film] incomparably excelled at weaving the words from the novel into a real script, so that these were really people talking to each other. My favourite scene in any movie I've acted in is our scene at the piano. HELENA: It was the most important scene. You, as Mr Beebe, caught Lucy [Honeychurch, my character] playing in private. He's so tender and I love that. "If only you knew how to live as you play." SIMON: Beebe, certainly as written by Ruth - less so by Forster actually - is essentially benevolent. I remember the first read through, in London somewhere? HELENA: I was terrified. Maybe it was the first time I read with Maggie and Judi. SIMON: Maggie terrified me by saying, "Why are you calling him 'Beebe'? It has to be 'Bee-be'. Beebe sounds as if we're at the Beeb!" Were you always a great reader of novels? HELENA: Quite a good reader, though I was slow. I was taught at English A Level by Penelope Fitzgerald. SIMON: I knew and loved her. Was she a good teacher? HELENA: Extraordinary. Did you ever read Offshore? I love that. But I thought it would be good to look as if I read, because then every heroine in every book or film was a reader or writer. I wanted to be Judy Davis in My Brilliant Career. It was probably quite healthy, instead of fixating on a physique, which is what most people do these days because of Instagram. I wasn't very sexual for a long time. SIMON: You were wearing lots of clothes. HELENA: So many clothes. SIMON: One couldn't even begin to guess what the woman beneath would be. HELENA: No, there wasn't a body. SIMON: It was extraordinary, you were a sort of Oxfam shop on two legs. HELENA: I don't know where that came from. I think I had a real complex. Maybe because I was in such a male world. I went to Westminster [School], which was all boys, so before I even walked into period movies, I was dressed as a Victorian. It was always about pretending to be in the past. I over romanticised or felt I belonged in the past, actually. SIMON: The biggest relationships in my young life were with my grandmothers. I asked one to make me an 18th-century costume for a Christmas present. HELENA: Oh, I love that. So you dressed up as Mozart? SIMON: In effect. I loved the fabrics, the shimmer of it all. HELENA: On Maurice [1987] I did hair and makeup for all the men, which was rather a good way of dating people. It was Tinder then. In terms of influence, how important were your parents? SIMON: The only one of my family that read novels was my grandmother, though she never talked about them. A book can be just for you. You have a relationship with the characters and have somehow subsumed them into your psyche. HELENA: I always feel like you want to share the wonder. SIMON: Your family are very literary, aren't they? HELENA: Well, my grandmother Violet definitely was, on my dad's side. She was [Prime Minister H H] Asquith's daughter [and president of the Liberal Party from 1945-47]. My maternal grandmother was a special character, but found it difficult to read. I think she would have been diagnosed as dyslexic now, but she wrote beautifully. My mum, her whole life has never been without several books. My dad developed cortical blindness, which meant he couldn't see faces, but could read, so he read his way through the last 24 years of his life. We had half of The London Library in our home because they'd send him books. SIMON: Oh, fantastic. HELENA: Violet was formidable and wrote a lot of letters. I came back from filming with Woody Allen in a monastery in Taormina, and Dad was editing them. There was a postcard to her husband in 1940 saying: "Have just finished Morgan's latest Howards End." She knew Edward Morgan Forster. When I came to film Howards End with you, I read Violet's [unfinished] autobiography and thought, "Oh god, she was basically like the Helen Schlegel character, a sort of radical bohemian, a bluestocking..." And would have been the same age. So maybe she was a bit of a model for Helen. SIMON: Forster wasn't a recluse until later at King's College Cambridge, I think. HELENA: Did you ever get a sense of what he was like? SIMON: Everything in his life was the opposite of what he espoused: the passion, the connecting. This gives his work its force, because it didn't come easily to him. He had to struggle to make it happen. HELENA: He did have relationships though, didn't he? SIMON: Famously with a married policeman, Bob Buckingham. But also earlier, in Alexandria, and later, with a Bulgarian art collector, 45 years his junior. All very discreet. As a young gay man, I was impatient with him. Instead of thinking how extraordinary it was for its time, I just thought, "Come on, we've gone beyond all of this". It felt a bit spinsterly. Now I think it's passionate and unbelievably brave and exquisitely written. Then, I was more taken by DH Lawrence, which was all oceanic... My entire ambition was to be a writer. Do you write? HELENA: I've been asked to, and I've written the odd article. My attention span is troubling, but I do enjoy it when I apply myself. SIMON: I have to work very hard at it, and do terrifically long days. I can be at the laptop by seven. HELENA: In the morning? Jeez. OK, so you've got Morning Brain. SIMON: I've got a night brain, too. But no afternoon brain. HELENA: The afternoon is not really good for much. SIMON: Yes. I have difficulty in the theatre, rehearsing in the afternoon. HELENA: I have to have a snooze, no matter what. The snooze has been a pillar of my living. Do you ever write in books when you're reading them, or is that sacrilegious? SIMON: I do when I'm reviewing, but that's with proofs, so I can scrawl all over them. HELENA: I've got a thing about having a relationship with a book, so I will, unfortunately, write sentences in them. Also in the hope that somehow it's going to stick in the brain. SIMON: Let's talk about the Library - its location, for instance. St James's Square is enchanting. HELENA: Yes, and I do think that places work magic on us and influence what we think. It is very creative. Also, just silence. To go and sit with others with no danger of conversation, but you've got the company of other people concentrating. If you're going to seriously write, it could be very lonely. You have to go to battle with yourself, but it's alleviated at the Library because you're with other people who are going into battle with themselves. SIMON: Libraries generally have a very curious combination of this quietness and focus, coupled with a very sexy feeling. It's the silence. HELENA: I was going to raise that, but you start. SIMON: I wonder why that is exactly. It's just because everybody's in their own space and in their own world somehow, and you know that as you drift into that sort of semi hypnotic state, sex is going to be in there somewhere. HELENA: Yeah, it's always there. SIMON: So it's the subconscious. It's sort of milling around the Library. I think I said this before, it's like a book bordello. You just go up and take whatever you want to. HELENA: Have your pleasure. I like that. SIMON: The Library's postal service is also miraculous. And everyone's so sympathetic. Years ago, my dog acquired a passion for 17th-century literature; it turns out it was the fish glue used to bind the spines. One day I came home and there was a priceless volume in pieces all over the place. I offered to replace it somehow but the Librarian said: "I have dogs; I understand." HELENA: How do you use the Library? SIMON: Not for writing or reading. Just to borrow books. The collection of arcana is vast. Writing about Orson Welles, I needed to know what it was like to be a tourist in Morocco in 1930. The Library had six - six! - guides from the period. I don't know anywhere else I could have found that. I love clambering up the metal stairs and finding things that nobody's taken out for 100 years. HELENA: You think George Eliot is going to actually appear. SIMON: It still is enchanting to me to do that. HELENA: As a writer, do you have a ritual? SIMON: Procrastinate as long as possible. I was so relieved to discover that Ibsen could spend four hours rearranging his desk before starting to write. Unlike Dickens. HELENA: He just sat down? SIMON: He was always writing at least two things at once, sometimes more - he wrote the last of The Pickwick Papers and the first chapters of Nicholas Nickleby simultaneously. He worked it all out, I'm sure, on his long walks. HELENA: Have you seen his original manuscripts? SIMON: Almost illegible; you feel the heat of his creative energy. He talks about the characters dancing down the pen. HELENA: I love that - when somebody takes possession. SIMON: As with acting: when it's good, it's not you playing the character, it's the character playing you.

[wcshedup]

@fizzarollitm asked: " By the way I'm getting my tits pierced. By an actual guy in Lust, not your shaky ass hands with a needle. " [he hits her with a magazine but lovingly]

good thing it's only the two of them by the poolside, the SNORT that comes out of barbie is one for the books.

" MY shaky ass hands ? what about your jiggling TITTY ? " barbie plucks the sunglasses from her face and rounds her shoulders, eyes widening in a well-practiced pantomime of her brother fizarolli. ( YEARS of practice ! ) " WAIT barb, are you sure you can do this ? WAIT BARB, the mark looks crooked -- it wouldn't have been nearly as bad if you weren't such a weenie. "

even still, she's grinning hugely as she reaches out to try and tweak said titty once again. old's time's sake and all. " and i just recently got MINE fixed from your handiwork, highness. "

[stephensmithuk]

A Scandal in Bohemia

This is the first of the short stories to be published in The Strand. The character was of course clearly established by this point in A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four, which were both serialised in other magazines.

Holmes as aroace - we've got some pretty clear textual implications here. Baring-Gould's belief Holmes and Adler became lovers is rather unfounded, IMHO.

Trincomalee is a port city in what is now Sri Lanka. That would have been a rather long trip for Holmes!

A "slavey" is a maidservant. Watson's wife has let her go for incompetence.

Egria seems to be a mis-rendition of Eger, now the Czech border town of Cheb. Albrecht von Wallenstein was a mercenary commander on the Catholic side in the Thirty Years' War, considered one of the most successful mercs of all time - until he got caught plotting against the Holy Roman Emperor (seemingly trying to negotiate a peace deal behind his back) and was assassinated by his own commanders.

Carlsbad is now Karlovy Vary in Czechia. The German name is used by no less than three American cities.

There was a King of Bohemia, but it was one of the titles held by the Austro-Hungarian Emperor by this point. Franz Joseph I did have a long-standing platonic relationship with an Austrian actress, but was otherwise pretty restrained by the standards of European monarchs.

One popularly cited inspiration for Adler is Lillie Langtry, an American actress who was one of the then Prince of Wales' many mistresses and had a very interesting life, including being the first celebrity "endorser".

A brougham is a four-wheeled carriage with an enclosed compartment for four passengers and an open seat at the front for a driver plus footman. Named after a politician called Lord Brougham.

"Adventress" is a euphemism for courtesan. The king is implying Irene Adler is a high-class prostitute.

The Victorians themselves frequently viewed ladies acting is not that far removed from prostitution and certainly quite a lot of actresses at least dabbled in that.

A prima donna is the leading female performer in an opera company. They had a reputation of being well, prima donnas, hence the term becoming common.

A "cabinet" is roughly equivalent to a 4"x6" photo in size. Not hugely easy to conceal.

A grand in upfront expenses? No wonder Holmes could afford to stage an entire street fight!

A landau is a convertible carriage - the roof can be lowered. They're commonly used for ceremonial occasions, such as royal weddings.

The Inner Temple is one of the four Inns of Court - a professional body for barristers and judges: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_Temple

An ostler was someone who looked after the horses of someone staying at an inn.

"Nonconformist" is a term, falling into disuse now, for Protestants who do not belong to the Church of England, such as the United Reform Church. They were discriminated against, although to a lesser degree than Catholics and nearly all the legal restrictions had gone by 1888. They became a major voting bloc for the Liberal Party and later Labour, with the Church of England historically being "the Tory Party at prayer", although the latter has moved a good deal to the left economically under recent Archbishops.

Women playing male parts - especially young male parts - became a thing in the Restoration period i.e. the reign of Charles II when women were finally allowed on the stage and became rather popular due to the fact these ladies were wearing tights or trousers... so, yeah.

By the late Victorian period, it was still pretty common in burlesque (not that sort!) and pantomime; the tradition of the 'principal boy', a male panto lead character, like Aladdin or Dick Whittington, played by a young woman has gotten rare, but is still a thing. Oh, yes it is, just ask Bonnie Langford.

1880s evening dress was modest by modern standards, it seems.

[hauntswitch]

I'm so devastated- in the recent doctor who magazine (585) there are a few pages on imagined potential classic who christmas specials, and one of them is a fifth doctor adventure that would be a pantomime- a musical episode if you will! It would hypothetically have the doctor played by Jan Francis, and would feature Adam Ant as episode antagonist Prince Charming (like his song of the same name), and he would "perform two of the episode's 3 musical numbers" (p50). The problem and devastation lies in that I didn't read the header at first and thought it was real. I feel so, so robbed

And thats the picture they chose . We could have had it all .. .