#tales of me in the city

[thevisualvamp]

Picture this: New Orleans in the 1910s. Sex workers are legal. They inhabit a small neighborhood adjacent to the French quarter called Storyville. Tango and ragtime are the tunes of the era. Tango brought to the port of New Orleans from Havana via Spain. The women draped themselves in doorways enticing men to enter these houses of the rising sun. The ladies were called tango fiends, such was the powerful spell they cast. Creole French murmured, “Voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir.” This tango fiend sports a mask in the spirit of carnival. One eye peers out of the dim light. She’s languid, a vertical odalisque. She opens and closes her kimono depending on who passes her door. She’s neither happy or unhappy. It’s just another evening, and she is indeed that certain lady. A photographer captures her pose. She doesn’t smile... When I model I always have a back story in my mind. This was mine when I posed for photographer Roy Guste when he was creating The Bellocq Project, his 21st century homage to E.J. Bellocq and the mysterious few images Bellocq captured at the beginning of the 20th century in New Orleans. The first image is what French artist Jean Francois Caudry created with Roy’s photo. In the JFC image the model’s gaze and story shifts to an earlier time, transported to renaissance Europe, perhaps Venice or Paris. Why do I model? Why do I make auto portraits? It’s my way of creating and telling visual stories. It’s a guise of romanticism. It’s personal and shared. It’s make believe where no one is hurt.

[thevisualvamp]

I worked in the Film Department of MoMA then and she often came there to meet Margareta Akermark the director of the department. Two Swedish gals going for lunch. We staff were instructed not to intrude, but of course we stole thrilling glances. I also once shopped next to her at the 26th Street Flea Market, careful to pretend I didn’t notice her. It was kind of a fun thing New Yorkers did, random Garbo sightings.

Greta Garbo walking in Manhattan, 1974

“Every day she went on two walks: long meandering strolls that might take her up to the Museum of Modern Art or the Waldorf; walks for which she shod herself in tan or chocolate or cream suede Hush Puppies. … Often she went all the way to Washington Square and back, a loop of six miles, stopping to gaze in the windows of bookstores and delis, walking aimlessly, walking not as a means but as an end, an ideal occupation in and of itself. ‘When I stopped working, I preferred other activities, many other activities,’ she once said. ‘I would rather be outside walking than to sit inside a theater and watch a picture moving. Walking is my greatest pleasure.’ And again: ‘Often I just go where the man in front of me is going. I couldn’t survive here if I didn’t walk. I couldn’t be 24 hours in this apartment. I get out and look at the human beings.’”

- Olivia Laing, The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone, 2016

[gingermintpepper]

In my Zeus bag today so I'm just gonna put it out there that exactly none of the great Ancient Greek warrior-heroes stayed loyal and faithful and completely monogamous and yet none of them have their greatness questioned nor do we question why they had the cultural prominence that they did and still do.

Jason, the brilliant leader of the Argo, got cold feet when it came to Medea - already put off by some of her magic and then exiled from his birthland because of her political ploys, he took Creusa to bed and fully intended on marrying her despite not properly dissolving things with Medea.

Theseus was a fierce warrior and an incredibly talented king but he had a horrible temper and was almost fatally weak to women. This is the man who got imprisoned in the Underworld for trying to get a friend laid, the man who started the whole Attic War because he couldn't keep his legs closed.

And we cannot at all forget Heracles for whom a not inconsiderable amount of his joy in life was loving people then losing the people around him that he loved. Wives, children, serving boys, mentors, Heracles had a list of lovers - male and female - long enough to rival some gods and even after completing his labours and coming down to the end of his life, he did not have one wife but three.

And y'know what, just because he's a cultural darling, I'll put Achilles up here too because that man was a Theseus type where he was fantastic at the thing he was born to do (that is, fight whereas Theseus' was to rule) but that was not enough to eclipse his horrid temper and his weakness to young pretty things. This is the man that killed two of Apollo's sons because they wouldn't let him hit - Tenes because he refused to let Achilles have his sister and Troilus who refused Achilles so vehemently that he ran into Apollo's temple to avoid him and still couldn't escape.

All four of these men are still celebrated as great heroes and men. All four of these men are given the dignity of nuance, of having their flaws treated as just that, flaws which enrich their character and can be used to discuss the wider cultural point of what truly makes a hero heroic. All four of these men still have their legacies respected.

Why can that same mindset not be applied to Zeus? Zeus, who was a warrior-king raised in seclusion apart from his family. Zeus who must have learned to embrace the violence of thunder for every time he cried as a babe, the Corybantes would bang their shields to hide the sound. Zeus learned to be great because being good would not see the universe's affairs in its order.

The wonderful thing about sympathy is that we never run out of it. There's no rule stopping us from being sympathetic to multiple plights at once, there's no law that necessitate things always exist on the good-evil binary. Yes, Zeus sentenced Prometheus to sufferation in Tartarus for what (to us) seems like a cruel reason. Prometheus only wanted to help humans! But when you think about Prometheus' actions from a king's perspective, the narrative is completely different: Prometheus stole divine knowledge and gifted it to humans after Zeus explicitly told him not to. And this was after Prometheus cheated all the gods out of a huge portion of wealth by having humans keep the best part of a sacrifice's meat while the gods must delight themselves with bones, fat and skin. Yes, Zeus gave Persephone away to Hades without consulting Demeter but what king consults a woman who is not his wife about the arrangement of his daughter's marriage to another king? Yes, Zeus breaks the marriage vows he set with Hera despite his love of her but what is the Master of Fate if not its staunchest slave?

The nuance is there. Even in his most bizarre actions, the nuance and logic and reason is there. The Ancient Greeks weren't a daft people, they worshipped Zeus as their primary god for a reason and they did not associate him with half the vices modern audiences take issue with. Zeus was a father, a visitor, a protector, a fair judge of character, a guide for the lost, the arbiter of revenge for those that had been wronged, a pillar of strength for those who needed it and a shield to protect those who made their home among the biting snakes. His children were reflections of him, extensions of his will who acted both as his mercy and as his retribution, his brothers and sisters deferred to him because he was wise as well as powerful. Zeus didn't become king by accident and it is a damn shame he does not get more respect.

[asoftepiloguemylove]

ON DREAMS

Clarice Lispector / pinterest / Augusto Cury / Li Qingzhao (tr. Jiaosheng Wang) Tune: The Pertridge Sky; Complete Poems / unknown / Blade Runner 2049 (2017) dir. Denis Villeneuve / Victor Hugo from a letter to Adèle Foucher written March 1822 / unknown / Charles Dickens The Fellow of No Delicacy; The Tale of Two Cities / Anaïs Nin The Diary of Anaïs Nin / Sappho XII / Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai dir. Jim Jarmusch

[starry-bi-sky]

ty for contributing to the wasteland that is appreciating bruce as a parent and first child danny🙏🙏🙏

It’s a battle out here soldier but I am strong, like winter bear. Also I relate so hard to Bruce in a lot of ways and I think his initial concept is really neat. He tries his damn hardest, and he has so much hope for his city that it’s really admirable.

And as much fun as it is to poke fun at him for his questionable parenting and hypocrisy, there’s always the line of too much that the fandom tends to cross quite often, just as much as they do with the clone and ghost king stuff. Bruce is just as much of a good parent (or at least a trying one) as he is a bad one, and people tend to ignore his good qualities for the sake of a joke. His character is centered around the fact that he cares, he’s just truly shit at communicating it — which, cheers bro, I’ll drink to that.

And there’s already a ton of batfam prompts and aus out there where Danny shows up when the whole colony is already adopted, which means most of the attention goes to Danny bonding with the other siblings and having very little to do with Bruce. He’s kinda just. There. Whether that be as a prop or an antagonist or someone to point and laugh at. Which, I can’t blame people too much for — the cast is so big it’s hard to keep track of relationships and stuff.

However, I think it’s important for Danny to have some form of relationship with Bruce too and not them just be strangers, especially in a familial/platonic setting where Danny is joining the family.

They share a handful of qualities that I think would mesh well together — Danny’s canonically a pessimist while Bruce is a diehard optimist (you kinda have to be to be a hero in a place like Gotham, and he wouldn’t be Batman if he wasn’t) and they both believe in giving people second chances and have wells of compassion to tap into. Danny’s clever and resourceful, and one of his main character traits is that he’s got an iron will.

All in all, good dad bruce go brrrrr and oldest son danny is the perfect, underutilized concept to explore exactly that without distractions. I think they could get along like a house on fire, if given the opportunity.

[paraheronstairs]

can we please talk about the scene where clary asks jace (controlled by sebastian) to read to her and he picks A TALE OF TWO CITIES BY CHARLES DICKENS

and she describes the golden written title and the dedication that can’t be read BECAUSE IT FADED WITH TIME

you could only see “with hope at last, william herondale”

because i cried in that moment as if the ceilling fell on my bookshelf

[witchlingcirce]

Shout out too @heronsthornx on TikTok because this is the most accurate representation I’ve seen of there friendship.

Proof:

[gayboss-too-close-to-the-sun]

There's something about the novels I've read that are obsessed with Napoleon - Les Miserables, War and Peace, The Count of Monte Cristo - and something about the novel's I've read that are obsessed with the French Revolution - A Tale of Two Cities, The Scarlet Pimpernel (Les Miserables is about a French Revolution but not the French Revolution). Those are the threads between those books, but somehow it feels stronger than just similar themes. I want to sit and spend a year reading nothing but those five books back to back and see what I learn.

[voidheartkisses]

Why is the Anchordeep theme so groovy like 🔥💃💃

[skyfullofpods]

Happy audio fiction Sunday! It's October! The busiest time of year for my blog, as Halloween approaches and fiction podcasters everywhere celebrate scary season!

[thevisualvamp]

I posed for Jan Yoors in 1974 at his Waverly Place home and studio. His wife Marianne came into the Bowl and Board store on Christopher Street where I worked. There was a huge life size drawing of me tacked up behind the checkout counter in the window. I sat on a tall stool there. The life size drawing was done by my artist friend Felix Plaza. I thought I might get him commissions if people saw it. Marianne liked the drawing, and asked if I would pose for her artist husband Jan. I said yes. I went to the Waverly Place studio many times. It was a magical place. They were such welcoming interesting people, and I loved their family dynamic. I treasured a copy of Jan’s book “The Gypsies”. The whole experience of meeting them and being in their home and studio, posing for Jan, left a profound and positive impression on me that I still admire.

[thefrogdalorian]

I think on this fine Saturday afternoon it's a good opportunity to take a breather and remember that there are really no ethical paparazzi pictures. Every single one is inherently exploitative.

Just because photos were taken on a movie set, when someone is 'working,' does not make the practice any less invasive and creepy. Imagine just going about your day, doing your job and having some weirdo snapping pictures of you to sell without your consent for others to endlessly repost online.

There are thousands of pictures of your favourite actor online already. Plenty taken with his knowledge and consent. I'd really like to see more of them on my dash, rather than the creeper shots.

And don't get me started how disseminating these pictures directly leads to people going to said sets. What starts off as admiring how good someone looks has real world implications.

No, hanging around a movie set and disrupting people doing their jobs is not harmless fun or a way to show your appreciation.

If you hang around a movie set, you are a stalker.

Don't tell me that it's okay to take your online admiration for someone offline. You may admire him but he does not, and will never, personally know you. He will never be your friend/boyfriend/daddy. He is a stranger.

The only way meeting your favourite actor is going to happen is at a convention or maaaaaybe a movie premiere if you're incredibly fortunate. You know, places they appear specifically to meet fans (or not in the case of premieres, where the purpose is to promote a movie. Which is also completely understandable if actors don't stop. You are not owed an interaction).

Of course, you cannot help it if you randomly run into someone you admire in the wild. Even then, consider that they probably won't be all too thrilled to be approached in public by a complete stranger. It's up to you to gauge the situation, but remember there is a person at the heart of all of this.

Boundaries and respect are a kindness which deserves to be extended to each and every human being regardless of their looks/talent/fame/wealth.

Fandoms blur those lines a little too often for my liking and I think just scrutinising what you're interacting with, or what behaviour you could be possibly falling down that slippery slope towards is nice to do every once in a while.

I mean no malice with this post and it is not directed at anyone in particular. It's something I cannot help but feel strongly about because I've seen this destructive cycle time and again in fandoms over the years. It's not healthy and it makes us all a little bit more disconnected from our humanity for it...

[heremob]

They are lost in their mission on fiding the absolute truth of history

Hey hey Fella the armadillo folk belongs to @herebecritters (they make cooooll stuff)

[laurapetrie]

A TALE OF TWO CITIES (1935)

[disneytva]

ANIMATION ON DISNEY+ SEPTEMBER 2024

MOVIES

-Big City Greens The Movie: Spacecation (Sing-Along Version) 8/9

SERIES

-LEGO Pixar: BrickToons 4/9

-Kindergarten: The Musical 4/9

-Primos S10-E18 11/9

-LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy 13/9

-Hamster & Gretel S2 E1-E8 18/9

-Ariel S1 E9 - E13 25/9

SHORTS

-Chibi Tiny Tales Season 5 E1-E6 7/9

-Me & Mickey S3 13/9

-How Not to Draw S5 E1-E5 18/9