#tea with mussolini

[bearwildered]

Was saddened to hear of the passing of Maggie Smith today. She was an amazing actor who left us with a broad body of work.

[fashionartfilmalien]

Rest in Peace to the incomparable Dame Maggie Smith B. 28 December 1934 D. 27 September 2024 #damemaggiesmith #ripmaggiesmith #filmicon #theatreicon #tvicon #downtonabbey #harrypotter #professormcgonagall #theprimeofmissjeanbrodie #travelswithmyaunt #othello #gosfordpark #theladyinthevan #divinesecretsoftheyayasisterhood #myhouseinumbria #ladiesinlavender #thebestexoticmarigoldhotel #aroomwithaview #thesecretgarden #washingtonsquare #quartet #aprivatefunction #loveandpainandthewholedamnthing #deathonthenile #evilunderthesun #sisteract #thefirstwivesclub #teawithmussolini #thevips #youngcassidy

[chers-cheekbones]

Cher as Elsa Morganthal in Tea with Mussolini trying to make Luca (Baird Wallace) stop being mad at her with a butt-in from Lily Tomlin as Georgie Rockwell and Paul Chequer as Wilfred 'Lucy' Random

The last gif: me too, dude

[judi-daily]

Tea with Mussolini, 1999 New York Premiere with Dame Joan Plowright Photographer: Dan D'Errico

[travsd]

The Zeffirelli Centennial

Born 100 years ago today, Italian designer, director and politician Franco Zeffirelli (1923-2019). When Zeffirelli passed, only four years ago, it dawned on me that his hit 1968 screen adaptation of Romeo and Juliet was my first introduction to Shakespeare. I think this is true of a lot of people. We even had the soundtrack album to that movie in our house — the theme song became a #1 in the…

[gone2soon-rip]

DAME MAGGIE SMITH (1934-Died September 27th 2024,at 89).British actress. Regardewd as a legend of theatre,film and tv,she was known for her wit in comedic roles, she had an extensive career on stage and screen over seven decades and was one of Britain's most recognisable and prolific actresses. She received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, five BAFTA Awards, four Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Tony Award as well as nominations for six Laurence Olivier Awards. Smith was one of the few performers to earn the Triple Crown of Acting. She won the Academy Awards for Best Actress for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969),and Best Supporting Actress for California Suite (1978). She will be best known to fans around the world for her role as Dowager Countess Violet Crawley,in ther hit British period tv series,Downton Abbey,andd especially to harry Potter fans,for playing Professor Minerva McGonagall,in the all of the Harry Potter franchise films. her numerous other films include Gosford Park,Tea With Mussolini,Sister Act and it's sequal,and The Lady in the Van.One of her children,son Toby Stephens,is also an actor,known for his role in the tv pirate series Black Sails.Maggie Smith - Wikipedia

[maximumwobblerbanditdonut]

Maggie Smith, Oscar-winning star of stage and screen, dies aged 89 💔

Dame Maggie Smith, the masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for the 1969 film “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” and gained new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in “ Downton Abbey” and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, died early Friday in a London hospital.

Margaret Natalie Smith was born in Ilford, on the eastern edge of London, on 28th December 1934. Her father was assigned in 1939 to wartime duty in Oxford, where her theatre studies at the Oxford Playhouse School led to a busy apprenticeship.

One of Smith’s most iconic early roles was as Desdemona in Shakespeare's Othello. Laurence Olivier spotted her talent, invited her to be part of his original National Theatre company and cast her as his co-star in a 1965 film adaptation of “Othello.”

Laurence Olivier offered Smith the part opposite his Othello

Smith was frequently rated the preeminent British female performer of a generation with two Oscars, a clutch of Academy Award nominations and a shelf full of acting trophies.

The role that brought Smith international fame came in 1969 when she played the determined non-conformist teacher in the title role of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

The role of Jean Brodie, alongside future husband Robert Stephens, won her an Oscar

The film was adapted from the 1961 novel by Muriel Spark, set in 1930s Edinburgh, and the character was based on the author's inspirational teacher.

"Jean Brodie," in which she played a dangerously charismatic Edinburgh schoolteacher, brought her the Academy Award for best actress, and the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) as well.

Maggie Smith won critical acclaim for her role as Betsey Trotwood in a BBC adaptation of David Copperfield at the turn of the century. The part also brought her Bafta and Emmy nominations.

She appeared with a young Daniel Radcliffe in David Copperfield.

She starred alongside a young Daniel Radcliffe, who she would later act with again in the Harry Potter films.

In 2001, she took on the role of Professor Minerva McGonagall in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

Dame Magie Smith is known to millions as Professor Minerva McGonagall from Harry Potter. Dame Maggie was reportedly the only actor JK Rowling specifically asked to star in the films.

In 2007, while working on Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince, Dame Maggie was diagnosed with breast cancer but continued filming. She was given the all-clear after two years of treatment.

From 2010, she was the acid-tongued Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, in the hit TV period drama “ Downton Abbey,” a role that won her legions of fans, three Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe and a host of other awards nominations.

Downton Abbey - Violet Crawley - The period ITV drama ran from 2001 to 2015, followed by two films

One of Smith's most famous later roles was as a homeless woman in The Lady In The Van, as Miss Shepherd, a redoubtable woman who lived for years in her vehicle on Bennett’s London driveway.

Smith first played Miss Shepherd on stage in 1999 and earned an Olivier nomination for Best Actress

Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for “California Suite” in 1978, Golden Globes for “California Suite” and “A Room with a View,” and BAFTAs for lead actress in “A Private Function” in 1984, “A Room with a View” in 1986, and “The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne” in 1988.

She also received Academy Award nominations as a supporting actress in “Othello,” “Travels with My Aunt,” “Room with a View” and “Gosford Park,” and a BAFTA award for supporting actress in “Tea with Mussolini.” On stage, she won a Tony in 1990 for “Lettice and Lovage.”

She was one of a select group of actors to win the treble of big US awards, with two Oscars, four Emmys and a Tony - as well as seven Baftas and an honorary Olivier Award in the UK 🇬🇧

Maggie Smith was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire 🏅 the equivalent of a knight, in 1990.

She will never be forgotten & her characters will continue on, for future generations to love 💫 🎭

RIP Maggie Smith 1934-2024 🥀 🖤

#DameMaggieSmith #Oscar-winning #star #film #ThePrimeofMissJeanBrodie #DowntonAbbey #CountessofGrantham #VioletCrawley #BAFTA #HarryPotter #ProfessorMinervaMcGonagall TheLadyInTheVan #MissShepherd #GoldenGlobe #Gettyimages

Posted 27th September 2024

[roxyandtheroxies]

It would be so funny if i were to create a group for far-right LGBT youth, and our beliefs are:

-Classical Fascism: did you know that Giovanni (father of fascism alongside Mussolini) was disgusted by racism? So are we :3

-Eco-Fascism: the environment is suffering y'all.

-Strasserism: the left-wing of nazism which believed Germany should have started a war against the USA, allied with Russia, socialized the means of production and focused entirely on the wellbeing of the proletariat, my cup of nazi tea :3

-National Anarchism: anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism! Turns out neoliberal globalization pissed off some puritanical people who don't like the state, so they ended up with pseudo-anarchist communes with a whole lot of racism :v

-Julius Evola: this goofy ahh fascist bro believed in the supremacy of the individual over the dogma of christianity and such, yet that while alone is weak, many together are strong!

-Friedrich Nietzsche: whilst inspiring so much nazi shit, this guy was very inspiring to differently-abled people such as myself :3 his concept of a self-determining individual who is bettered by rising above their unique challenges, although he didn't love women 3:

-Homofascism: :3 love it

Our whole purpose is honestly, not fascist at all, it's just religious socialism with extra steps! But hey, it will probably attract some sexy nazis that will feel horrified when they see our degeneracy on full display whilst we study Mein Kampf :3 love y'all, be safe followers :3

[supremechancellorrex]

I've been hearing a lot of people say that Ozai in the Avatar: the Last Airbender cartoon isn't supposed to be "developed" because he's a "symbol". My problem with this is that a character can both be well-developed and a symbol at the same time, so why choose otherwise? "It makes sense because he's supposed to represent" doesn't justify leaving the writing a little loose.

In the cartoon, Ozai is hardly a character to sink your teeth into. You can surmise and speculate things about him, but ultimately every discussion was more about Zuko or another character overcoming him and how satisfying that was than any character depth of Ozai himself. On the Day of Black Sun, Zuko and Ozai's confrontation is less an argument and ideological battle with layers between two human beings and more an extremely developed character yelling at an evil cardboard cutout.

The Problem With Ozai

Zuko: "It was cruel and it was wrong."

Ozai: "Lol."

Zuko: "We need to replace this era with an era of peace and kindness."

Ozai: "Lame." (*scowls in annoyance, tries to leave*)

Zuko: "Stay or I'll cut you." (*waves swords*)

Ozai: "Fine. Whatever. Go on" (*proceeds to sit back down and wonder if he's having spiced fire rice cakes for dinner*)

The way the cartoon presents it, Ozai just was a bit too a moustache-twirling villain and that's even considering his actions. It's not even him being morally bankrupt or sadistic, but that his entire character only exists on the surface level. Him being "superficial" and "ruthless" isn't even a character trait because he has no real character beyond "I'm arrogant, selfish and evil". Even some of the worst dictators in human history from Hitler and Stalin to Mussolini and Mao have more complex 'psychological depth' than Ozai, despite committing the most evil and awful acts against other human beings.

I got they want to reflect the toxicity of the Fire Nation with him as a symbol, "fear" and "ruthlessness", but these are symptoms and the result of an ideology, and Ozai and this ideology need a bit more than "The Fire Nation's ideology is that they're superior, share the greatness and just kill people". We never see Ozai really talk about this ideology, how he is *civilising* the other nations (well, besides, setting them on fire). Why does he think Fire is superior? Why does the Fire Nation? We can speculate it's the unity of the Fire Nation and its industrialisation, that maybe the Fire Nation thinks they have better tea ceremonies and cleaner cities, but none of the Fire Nation characters really talk about this. Sharing their 'greatness', how?

And, of course, we know and the show know their 'greatness' is a lie and farce really, but for their citizens to buy into this farce realistically for 100 years, sending sons and even daughters to die for it, presumably working in factories endless hours to keep up war production like that giant drill, one would think the smokescreen would be a little more convincing than a couple lines. Yes, in the Headband, they show the kids are taught a warped version history with the Air Nomad army, but what is the unifying ideology of the Fire Nation exactly? And how does this reflect Ozai? Beyond ruthlessness and being a smarmy jerk?

And this brings me to a scene I have quite a problem with. The War Meeting flashback in Sozin's Comet Part 1, essentially Ozai just goes from 'How do we quell rebellion?' to 'We will destroy their hope by killing them all with fire'. Hehe, well, I mean, why even talk about "destroying hope" when they'll be too dead to despair? Of course, Sokka says after hearing that literally "I always knew the Fire Lord was a bad guy, but his plan is just pure evil". Then they throw in an Ozai baby picture to pretend they have some nuance, and then blah, blah, Energybending turtle appears out of near nowhere.

A Better Ozai

(I want it noted how hard it was to get a decent gif of cartoon Ozai, especially in his Pheonix King regalia. That is how little people care about or are interested in him. There is more Daniel Dae Kim gifs from the live-action than the cartoon version)

The funny thing is Ozai burning the Earth Kingdom could have worked if they actually gave him character arc in the cartoon. Have Ozai start out believing he can civilise the Earth Kingdom, who he views as inferior and needing to be kept in check. We see in the show Earthbending is banned in Fire Nation colonies and annexed territory, but they should also show him introducing policies to ban certain styles of Earth Kingdom dress, specifically their green national colour dress, and customs, forcibly *civilising* these territory with authoritarian laws. Earth Kingdom children have to go to Fire Nation school to be indoctrinated in how their cultures and homes are inferior, and told to report on their parents.

However, as time goes on, Ozai becomes increasingly disenfranchised with the war, as colonised Earth Kingdom citizens continue to resist, Earthbend and continue banned cultural practices in secret. He feels rising disgust at these people's Earthbender stubbornness and 'backwards' practices, resisting engaging in and conforming to Fire Nation's 'superior' cultural practices, science, and education. How dirty they are, so unFire-Nation, he thinks more and more. He begins to unravel in his hate and think to himself things like how "You just can't take the root edge out of people, so I should burn the root to the ground. Make the world clean, pure and Fire Nation".

If they showed Ozai in the cartoon shifting from the standard position of his father Azulon to an even more extreme and horrifying position over time, reacting in all the worst ways to whatever the world throws at him increasingly and increasingly, his turn as the Pheonix King could have been far more chilling. Azula isn't the only one who has to go "crazy" due to the Fire Nation's twisted teachings. It would have further emphasised the cycle of toxicity in the Fire Nation that Sozin set in motion.

Imperialism and fascism is often driven by a number of things in conjunction, commonly economics, but also vain pride, fear and discomfort; pride of your own nation at the expense of others, as well as fear and discomfort of others, how 'different' they are, their 'weird illogical customs' diluting the 'pure culture of yours' that you understand, their 'strange appearances' changing the face of the culture you know, that you like and think is the greatest and should be eternal. They could be spies, enemy agents of chaos and degeneration. They need to be 'civilised' or 'exterminated' to silence conflict and bring order, this 'dark horde' of backwards people who just can't ever be allowed to be 'in charge'. I think a weakness here is that Ozai is never shown to show any discomfort, he's just so confident and evil about everything, but if he were to reflect the dark face of the Fire Nation, a people they say aren't wholly evil demons, he does a bad job showing the twisted human face of evil and it makes him irrelevant in a way as a character with the themes other than "Defeat evil guy".

Lessons Taught Improperly

Now some would try to defend Ozai in that Avatar: The Last Airbender is a kid's cartoon, but I would say that makes it more important when discussing real-life issues. What is the point of lesson if it is taught improperly? Sometimes that can do more harm than good.

Avatar includes a number of mature themes, including the genocide of Aang's entire people and Gyatso's skeleton. Judging by the Tibetan influences in Air Nomad culture, a real-life people who have also been genocided, I think it is necessary and good practice for even kid's shows to make sure the lessons on real-life evils like the concepts and systems of imperialism, colonialism and nationalism are taught well. Because otherwise you get an inaccurate picture of what it is and how it actually works, and what is the point of that?

Stories want to impart lessons on things being "bad" as a message, but often I think they fall short in getting to the point of why they happen. I wonder if that makes them a little pointless in a way, because the reasons why characters/people and nations do things is both important to good writing and real life. If you aren't taught it properly, how well can you recognise it in your own country? And if you can't, then hasn't the lesson failed to be imparted?

[kevrocksicehouse]

Maggie Smith

1934-2024

When Maggie Smith won her Oscar for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie playing a middle-aged eccentric teacher (with fascist sympathies) at a girls boarding school, nobody could have guessed she was just getting started.  A renowned stage actress who had only dabbled in film, for the next fifty years she would have an unparalleled screen career playing roles both elevated (the Dutchess of York in 1995’s Richard III) and bawdy (a sex-starved aristocrat in 1982’s The Missionary) always with a tinge of irony. She won another Oscar playing an Oscar-losing actress in the Neil Simon written California Suite. She was also nominated for her Desdemona to Laurence Olivier’s Othello (1965); as an adventuress teaching/corrupting her nephew in George Cukor’s Travels with My Aunt (1972); playing a “poor relation” in James Ivory’s A Room with a View (1986) and as a Dowager Countess in Robert Altman’s Gosford Park.

Over her career you could sometimes see her roles talking to each other. The delusional dictator-loving Lady Hester Random in Franco Zeffirelli’s Tea with Mussolini (1999) could have been Jean Brodie’s Aunt. She followed up her comic turn as a spinster aunt in Room with a View with The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987), playing roughly the same role, but with a desperation turning into despair that revealed an adeptness with tragedy. And her role in Gosford Park (written by Julien Fellowes) was clearly a dry run at the Dowager Countess Violet Crawley in Fellowes’s Downton Abbey which, along with her portrayal of Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film series (Her creation of an army of stone knights to protect Hogwarts had an almost dreadful majesty) gave her an audience bigger than any she’d had before. After Ten Potters and Downton’s six-seasons-and-two-movies, while pushing seventy and then eighty she achieved something like superstardom. And in the first movie Fellowes gave her a short goodbye speech that I have never forgotten and is worth all the eulogies she will receive (present company much included). “No, no…save your tears for something sad. There’s nothing sad here. I have lived a privileged and interesting life and now it’s time to go.” RIP.

[70s80sandbeyond]

Tea with Mussolini (1999)

An orphaned Italian boy is raised amongst a circle of British and American women living in Mussolini's Italy before and during World War II.

[fashionbyf]

What fashion makes the heritage cut? What Shoemaker of Dreams and even the Walter Albini relaunch indicates…

The Salvatore Ferragamo documentary Shoemaker of Dreams directed by Luca Guadagnino is finally available on AppleTV and, if you missed it in theaters or at other screenings in Italy since its first premieres in 2021, this is the time to watch it. Mix yourself an Aperol Spritz, imagine you’re at Procacci or Obika on Via Tornabuoni (unfortunately the former Anglo-American haunt featured in Tea with Mussolini, Doney’s, closed years ago…) and immerse yourself in the story of this Southern Italian immigrant to the United States who revolutionized shoes and shoe-making for Florentines and the wider world. Full of personal insights, the documentary also features Salvatore Ferragamo’s own voice taken from 1955 recordings of his Memoirs and interviews with Australian TV outlets in 1958. This is an especially moving part of the documentary because Salvatore Ferragamo’s voice, in some ways, perfectly encapsulates the context of the cultural moments in which he participated beyond fashion. Heritage, we might say, before heritage. These moments include Italians coming to the United States in the early 20th century with the requisite $20 entrance fee to create new lives and new identities for themselves, the beginnings of the movie industry in Santa Barbara in all its creativity and its decampment to Hollywood, and the determination of entrepreneurs to succeed against all odds and Florentine expectations, even in a complex early 20th century Italy facing economic sanctions.

But, even more than that, the documentary is a testament to one man’s vision of shoes, from how they should be made, to the creativity they can embody and the messages they can impart. And this vision, on display more than 100 years later, is perhaps the most striking thing about the documentary because the vision highlights how we can project the present into the future and extend a role to the past in our visions of the present. Speaking after the bankruptcy of his business in 1933, Ferragamo is quoted in the documentary

For the first time in my life, I started to look back over the shoulder of my past. As a flash, it all seemed to see many things which I had, until then, never seen before. I looked forward to my future.

Looking to our past, even as we craft our personal narratives, and spotting what matters and what doesn’t, and how to use that for the benefit of our present and our future, is a central question at the heart of heritage.

In fashion, a field defined by its timeliness (as Saviolo and Corbellini in particular describe it), spotting what will matter over time is an endeavor. But, as time passes, time acts almost as a sieve, filtering out what matters and what doesn’t, what is timeless and what is timely for present generations. The results of the application of time can be unexpected (would you have thought that thinly rectangular sunglasses, low rise pants and other silhouettes from the late nineties and early noughties would be back in fashion?). The results can also be unexpected but somewhat pre-identifiable, driven by marketing, important brand anniversaries, and brand mythmaking as much as by nostalgia and/or individual and collective tastes (Exhibit A: the resurgence of the Fendi Baguette bag). Designers often play an important role in the curation of the past, as Maximilian Davis is doing at Ferragamo now- citing to Ferragamo’s gold sandal and building on the F heel, among other design details.

The pull between the past and the present, what we might term a battle for the future of fashion- heritage- also depends on the law. And this is also on display in Shoemaker of Dreams. One of the primary pieces of evidence shown during the documentary as a testament to Ferragamo’s vision are the multitude of patents he had on the procedures for his shoe designs, the processes to make them, and their look (the Ferragamo Museum also staged an insightful exhibit on these patents in 2004).  What we can take from the past and what we can re-use often depends on whether someone has a right to control a production, the use of a design, its reproduction and even the associations we make and have with that design. Some of the most insightful of Ferragamo’s creations (many reproduced ingeniously as part of the Ferragamo’s Creations line) are the fruit of others’ control of raw materials (or lack thereof), his own patents which reserved control over specific parts to Ferragamo himself for a time, the matching of tradition and innovation, and the inspiration that came from themes, recalling, and remembering.  While the documentary uses the Invisible Sandal (one of the most evocative examples I’ve explored extensively in other work) and the caged heel, the facts surrounding Ferragamo’s wedge made with cork are particularly evocative of the numerous threads that make up the design of one of his shoes. In his Memoirs, Ferragamo details how, after designing them years before, he discovered that a version of wedge soles had been worn centuries before thanks to an archeological excavation at Villa di Boccaccio outside Florence in 1950. As Ferragamo shares in another part of the documentary

I have not followed any master. I have not followed any school. Where have I learned all that I know? I had a clear vision that my work had never been done before. I have done it. Where? I do not know. But everything that I have done since my boyhood time, it has been work which came back to me. All I have to do while I work is to sit down and recall what I know about this work and do it again.

Knowing what fashion heritage is years later, what heritage makes the cut, is often a product of vision and, as Ferragamo’s work shows, of the tools and instruments that support that vision, from patents to trademarks, and even a robust public domain and other doctrines that allow for re-mixing, re-use, and commentary. As time goes on, curation and preservation, saving the vision and the tools and instruments that support that vision, are also central to identifying what is fashion heritage and how it can impact our fashion today. This is why archives themselves are also important for making the heritage cut.

And the acquiring of rights and archives to support a contemporary vision is what we see happening today with the revival of heritage brands, like that of the incredibly prescient Walter Albini, who, as a designer, preceded Giorgio Armani in his impact on Italian ready-to-wear and the concept of Milanese fashion. The announcement of the revival of the Walter Albini brand noted that the investment company that is relaunching it acquired the designer’s “intellectual property and archives”, including the acquisition of a large tangible archive of “garments, costume jewellery, drawings, photographs, and other memorabilia” from Dr. Barbara Curti, who is listed as Chief Memory Officer of the Walter Albini Archive. While we will have to see what the vision for a 21st century Walter Albini line is, the acquisition of the previous brand’s intellectual property and archives are fundamental first steps to identifying what fashion heritage has made the cut for our present times.

References and Further Readings

https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/gen-z-y2k-millennial-90s-fashion-nostalgia

https://tv.apple.com/ca/movie/salvatore-ferragamo-the-shoemaker-of-dreams/umc.cmc.13bohnm0ogsk0g6wdwlftjqud

https://www.wsj.com/articles/its-happening-again-the-return-of-low-rise-jeans-d8efc3f0

The Shoemaker of Dreams by Salvatore Ferragamo (in the Italian version, pages 131-35 for the story of the cork wedge)

https://academic.oup.com/jiplp/article/17/11/891/6852707

https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2023-ready-to-wear/salvatore-ferragamo

https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2023-ready-to-wear/salvatore-ferragamo

https://artsandculture.google.com/story/UQWRSqxpWZsfIg?hl=it

https://cardozoaelj.com/fashions-brand-heritage-cultural-heritage-and-the-piracy-paradox/

https://repository.law.umich.edu/articles/222/

https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/luxury/walter-albini-relaunch-confirmed/

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/09/24/the-piracy-paradox

https://www.nyulawreview.org/issues/volume-97-number-2/memes-on-memes-and-the-new-creativity/

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/history-of-intellectual-property-in-50-objects/0737F2B342A61E0E90B0A98288E412C3

https://www.skira.net/books/le-leggi-della-moda/

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/paris-capital-of-fashion-9781350102965/

https://www.unesco.org/en/legal-affairs/convention-safeguarding-intangible-cultural-heritage

https://www.instagram.com/walteralbini_officialarchive/

https://scholarworks.uark.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1027&context=alr

https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/480/

Images from 

https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2023-ready-to-wear/salvatore-ferragamo/slideshow/details#77

https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2023-ready-to-wear/salvatore-ferragamo/slideshow/details#57

https://mostra1972.unipr.it/s/1972_mostra_en/page/designer_albini

https://www.ferragamo.com/creations/en/eur

[chers-cheekbones]

Cher as Elsa Morganthal and Dame Maggie Smith as Lady Hester Random in Tea with Mussolini

[judi-daily]

Tea with Mussolini, 1999 New York Premiere Photographer: Dan D'Errico

[colin-ross]

I arrived in India earlier today, but really thought I should write something about Sri Lanka it’s history and also the Civil War.

Sri Lanka is beautiful and has amazing beaches, fantastic temples and the people are (generally) wonderful. It does however have a bit of a bloody history and the worst bits are really quite recent.

Sri Lanka is home to over 20 million people and has a long history. The two largest ethnic groups are Sinhalese (mainly Buddhist) and the Tamils (mainly Hindu). The Sinhalese make up 75% of the population and the Tamils around 15%, Wikipedia says there are also 9% Sri Lankan Moors.

Sri Lanka can trace back their history around 3,000 years, of course there will be a longer undocumented history and there is evidence of human settlements from 125,000 years ago.

The Sinhalese Kingdoms existed from at least 543 BCE until the British took over in 1815. There were other Kingdoms that coexisted at times including the Jaffna Kingdom 1215-1624 and the Vanni Chiefdoms from the 12th century to 1803 and, of course the Portuguese 1597-1658 and Dutch 1640-1796.

The location of Sri Lanka meant it was a huge prize to the Europeans who wanted to take advantage of the historic trading routes and ‘Maritime Silk Road’ for spices and of course tea!

I have previously touched on the Portuguese, Dutch and British rivalries in previous posts (mainly about forts). The Brits arrived in 1815 taking over the Dutch Forts and Ports.

The Sinhalese Kingdom shrunk during the time and the capital moved a number of times, I managed to visit most of the previous capitals including Anuradhapura and Kandy as well as Jaffna (capital of the Jaffna Kingdom) and Colombo (capital for the British and modern Sri Lanka until 1982).

In 1948 Sri Lanka, then Ceylon gained it’s Independence as a dominion and a Republic in 1972 (when the name change took place).

In 1982 a bloody Civil War between the (Sinhalese) Government and the Tamil Tigers (The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) started and lasted for 26 years ending in 2009.

There are always multiple versions of history and whilst in Sri Lankan I mainly heard that the Tamils were terrorists and all sorts of atrocities were laid at their door (some of which were quite clearly untrue) - and, of course, one person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. Even the UN has been unable to ascertain the full facts (not that I have much time for the UN - but that’s a whole other Mussolini quote!)

What is not in doubt is some of the key facts that started the Civil War. The Government and Sinhalese persecuted the Tamil minority in a number of ways dating back a far as Independence where Sinhalese was recognised as the sole Official Language and the Ceylon Citizenship Act made around 700,000 stateless. There were attacks in 1956, 1958, 1977, the burning down of Jaffna Library in 1981. It was Black July Pogrom in 1983 and the Tamils responding by killing 13 Sri Lankan soldiers that started the actual Civil War.

None of this excuses the killing of innocent civilians (or indeed the armed forces) by the Tamil Tigers, who it is said invented suicide bombings with a number of attacks on religious worshippers over the years. It is believed over 100,000 people (on both sides) died during the Civil War and it is thought to include more than 40,000 civilians.

The Civil War raged for decades and there seems to be have been a number phases (Wikipedia has a good history) and was brought to an end in 2009 with the Government crushed the remaining Tamil Tigers.

One result of the Civil war ending is the north of the island is opening up again. Hopefully the increase in tourism will help provide funds to rebuild from both the Civil War and tsunami.

[ritchiepage2001newaccount]

Fascist movements are always built on nostalgia. Mussolini rode to power on a nostalgia for the 'greatness' of Rome.

Franco had his own 'Tea Party', who dressed as conquistadors at his rallies. Hitler's movement was called the Third Reich.

The war over slavery began in Kansas in 1855, and was fought for six years, between independent civilian militias before government forces got involved in 1861, and began with armed poll watchers from Missouri and Texas.

Right now, the same folks who are sending Trumplicans to the Texas-Mexico border are organizing armed poll watchers in swing states.

Given all of the armed confrontations between right-wing groups and federal agents, over the last couple of decades, some would say the process has already begun.

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They've already had their trial run:

For those that don't know, Britain's fascist party was extremely popular in the nineteen-thirties, and enjoyed a resurgence during the swinging sixties, which inspired this in the late seventies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NCqlAEtjas

For the record, Roger Waters meant this as a critique, whatever the celebrity-gossip mongers might say...

:/