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ralph-n-fiennes · 6 years ago

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RALPH FIENNES LOOSENS UP - GQ MAGAZINE

Well, loose for Ralph Fiennes, anyway. The actor and director lives a life of high culture like practically no one else alive. Lately, he's been making us laugh, too.

Ralph Fiennes seems both parodically English and consummately European, the way classical music isn't bound by borders, either. In addition to all measure of British, he has played, to my count: Austrian, Irish, French, German, Hungarian, Russian, and unspecified Balkan—as well as American (both WASP and serial-killer varieties), and Snake. He appears to carry with him, among many other charms, a cache of words, phrases, and proper pronunciations of non-English languages, like a deep pocketful of pre-Eurozone coins. It is very fun to listen to him talk in movies—and in person in London, as I did, for a few hours in late January.

I say all this to help explain why Fiennes registers to many interested in his life and career as one of our ultimate cosmopolitans. He is, just to list some of his culture bona fides, one of the living actors most associated with Shakespeare. He has said that he and his six siblings grew up listening to vinyl recordings of poetry recitations. He has often acted in films based on the acclaimed novels of major-prize-winning authors. He has said the talent he would most like to have is playing the violin. He has said that when he travels for a film, he always does so with the complete Beethoven piano sonatas, a “talisman” and “safety net for when one is feeling a bit bruised or battered.” He has described the greatest love of his life as “having a transforming encounter with a Work of Art, either as a listener, viewer, reader, spectator, or participant.” He is fluent in painting styles and the names of museum directors and the great theaters of both the East and the West. He is fluent in ballet now, too, since he's just directed a movie about the Soviet dancer Rudolf Nureyev. He enjoys hopping on the Eurostar to Paris from his home in London. He enjoys short flights to European capitals. He enjoys picking up his rental car in Umbria so that he may drive—the only time he drives—to his “tiny farmhouse” in the Italian countryside, where he goes “to read.” He has said his idea of perfect happiness is “swimming naked in the sea.” He has said that when and where he was happiest in his life was “swimming in Voidokilia Bay in the southern Peloponnese.” While we were together, he sounded most like Ralph Fiennes when he said European-sounding nouns, like “Peugeot” and “Tchaikovsky” and “salade niçoise.” He pronounced the little tail thing on the c, and, as a Fiennes character might direct him to, he pronounced it trippingly.

This cosmopolitanism seems to have sort of become the point about Ralph Fiennes in recent years. Wes Anderson may have been the first to recognize a new use for this caricature: that in the post-heartthrob Fiennes, a filmmaker could mine middle-life pathos, as well as levity and humor; that if a character were to possess an arch knowingness about the fact that he was being played by Ralph Fiennes, it might be really, really fun to watch.

Actually, maybe credit belongs to Martin McDonagh and In Bruges. The joke there was that Fiennes—the very high culture of his cells—could play the antithesis of so many counts and kings: an irritable East End gangster with a Shakespearean facility with fucking fuck fucks. Maybe that was the pivot?

Or, scratch that, too—perhaps it started earlier, with his first nose-less “Avada Kedavra!” in a Harry Potter movie. Maybe that was when we felt the options expand.

Regardless, there's been a slow shift, iterative at first, and then all at once wholly present, in a new series of roles for Fiennes over the past decade or so. There would always be the bedrock of English/European-set drama (Schindler's List, The English Patient, The Constant Gardener, The End of the Affair, Sunshine, just to name some acclaimed heavies), but there was space now for a fresh kind of on-screen presence. You get the Oscar-nominated talent and the self-awareness, too.

Take Luca Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash, for example, where Fiennes plays a motor-mouthing cocktail of taste and devil-may-care that could be reduced to something like: Ralph Fiennes type—but with all of the shirt buttons unbuttoned. Ralph Fiennes type—but with a Jagger falsetto and breezy linen. There's a scene in which Fiennes's Harry Hawkes leads his compatriots to a no-tourists dinner spot on a secluded hillside on an Italian island, doling out por favores and grazies as he gracefully inserts himself into the hospitable hands of the locals. I remember thinking in the theater, or on the plane, or wherever: This. This is what you get when you strip off the uniform of haughty propriety, but still have all the knowingness—all the language and command and wisdom amassed from a lifetime of moving fluidly across European borders. The result is very funny and very cool.

When we met in January, Fiennes had just finished a 76-show run of Antony and Cleopatra at the National Theatre in London. He'd spent the previous day—his one and only day off between the play and a new film shoot—reading books and responding to e-mails. (He'd been journaling when I first approached our table.) Fiennes still had his beard from the play, but it would be gone by that evening. He made reference to “what little hair I have left” on top, a style that changes often. The fixtures of his face were plenty there, though. The prominent nose and brow. The sticky-outy canines. The sensitive pale eyes, ticklish to the light—ever-present in the heroes and the villains alike, the same pair on Count Almásy as on Voldemort. The eyes were so familiar. As was the voice. His voice sounded exactly like Ralph Fiennes.

Sometimes actors make choices to pivot their careers. Other times those choices—those theories about their work, the sort of I've just laid out above—are more arbitrary, connecting unrelated opportunities in an effort to make sense of them, the way we trace weird animals out of the stars. Fiennes has said that, at times in his career, he felt people presuming that he only did a certain kind of dramatic role. I asked him if the run of films including In Bruges and The Grand Budapest Hotel and A Bigger Splash felt like a pivot.

“It did feel like that,” he said. “I cannot tell you how thrilled I was when Wes asked me to be in the film. And when Martin McDonagh approached me to be a kind of London gang boss. Which is not my obvious casting bracket.… And then Luca came to me with that great part, and it felt exciting to me, that ‘Oh, great, I'm not being seen as, I don't know, English intellectual or sort of cool, crisp bad guy.…’ The thing that people were responding to was the comedic, or the humorous, that was clearly in Wes's script, and Martin's, and in A Bigger Splash, and also the wonderful scene I was asked to do in the Coen brothers' film [Hail, Caesar!].” (Would that i' t'were so simple...)

I told him I'd been wondering how active he was in the pursuit of that pivot, since it's difficult to know how much an actor's hands are on the wheel.

“I think it's a very valid question. And I think sometimes actors are absolutely going: I want to do this and this.And other times it comes to you. All the stuff I've loved doing most has come to me. Sent to me.”

In the case of A Bigger Splash, Luca Guadagnino, who'd made it “an aim” of his to work with Fiennes ever since seeing Schindler's List and Quiz Show, told me he knew the actor for Harry “had to be somebody who could carry a complete buffoonish, clownish character combined with melancholy—and there was no doubt Ralph was the right person for that.” At the time, Fiennes had done The Grand Budapest Hotel, Guadagnino continued, and a trailer had just come out: “And I saw him briefly in a pink tie, being suave and swarthy in that little clip, and it was, ‘See, he's perfect.’ He's not only a master of shades of brooding-ness and melancholy, but he can also bring a levity and a capacity of likability that is really unique.” That well-worn heavy, and the new light. Perfect.

Fiennes is a voracious reader, and many of the films he's best known for have been adapted from the works of renowned authors. Michael Ondaatje. Graham Greene. Peter Carey. Shakespeare and Dickens. Even with the more genre-y, it's the best of the genre: Ian Fleming, John le Carré. I asked him if there was any intentionality to those clusters, to working with material from notable novelists.

“I know, I've been asked that before,” he said, seeming to consider it fresh. “But I think I'm responding to the film. And I've been happy to do things that are not based on a book, like In Bruges or The Grand Budapest Hotel.”

I asked if “his people” know what he's going to go for at this stage.

“I believe they know what I respond to,” he said. “But I'm actually not a good reader of film scripts. I'd rather read… I mean, I think I try the patience of the people who represent me.” He laughed knowingly. “If there's a book to read, and they're both sitting there…I'll go to the book, I'll read the script later.… If a certain amount of pressure is put on me, I'll go, Sorry, sorry, I'm doing it.”

I asked Tony Revolori, who played Fiennes's teenage co-lead in The Grand Budapest Hotel, if he remembered what Fiennes was reading on set. “A book of Shakespeare's sonnets,” naturally. Revolori said that Fiennes taught him “the proper way” to read those sonnets and then presented him with a “beautifully designed book” of those poems at the end of the shoot. On set, there were discussions of diction with director Wes Anderson. Tongue twisters were introduced. She stood upon the balustraded balcony inimicably mimicking him hiccuping while amicably welcoming him in. “Tongue-twister battles” ensued. (I would be disingenuous if I described any of this as being shocking.)

From a distance, it is hard to see Fiennes's life as anything but full and packed wall-to-wall with high culture. I asked if he, as a Known Culture Person with a love of things like theater and opera and classical music and art, worried there was something “slipping” in culture?

“I think, 'cause the National is fresh, I can talk about that with a bit more—I can know my thoughts more about the National more than…”

“Than all of culture, like I'm asking you?” I said.

He laughed. “It may be nostalgia, it may be how I'm choosing to remember, but you felt that within the National Theatre—and certainly at Stratford it is the case—they have to function as the company. I think it's probably impossible to do that now because of the way the entertainment business works, and the way actors need to be a part of—the pay is not high—so you have to make money on television or doing voice-overs. But maybe I have a romantic sense of the company.”

Fiennes's first big break came in 1988, in Stratford, with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the company of companies. “I wanted to be an actor because I was excited by Shakespeare. It was thrilling and moving. I don't know, I had a quite naive infatuation with Shakespeare. I thought, What a wonderful thing to be in the Royal Shakespeare Company, or the National—and I didn't really think about films, because that seemed like another world.”

Shakespeare led to his first films, which led to a meeting with Spielberg and a role as an Austrian Nazi. In 1993, he was nominated for his first Oscar and embarked on the 25-year movie career that's followed. “If he picks the right roles and doesn't forget the theater,” Spielberg said of Fiennes at the time, unwittingly providing a useful blueprint, “I think he can eventually be Alec Guinness or Laurence Olivier.”

Fiennes didn't forget the theater, and he returns to Shakespeare frequently. The plays were his first love. And despite all forces pushing younger actors toward other kinds of work, he finds that that same infatuation endures with a new generation. “Even just walking back from our last-night Saturday, across the bridge to a party we were having [to celebrate the end of the production], one of the younger female members of the cast, a tiny part, but a lovely presence…she was saying, ‘I just wanted to do Shakespeare. I just love it. I just…’ And she expressed what I had felt. I was so touched, actually, because she said it with such ‘I just love Shakespeare.’ ”

“I know the film asks questions; I don't know that it answers them. I don't know that a film should answer. I like films that provoke me to think.”

Walking back across the bridge. I love that. Every actor, unknown and galactically famous, leveled out, in it together, the intimacy with one another, and with the city where they performed each night. It was fun to get a glimpse of Fiennes in London. It'd almost be a shame to encounter him anywhere else. We walked around Covent Garden for a bit, and he pointed out the grand theaters of the West End. That's where Eliza Doolittle sells flowers in the beginning of Pygmalion. That was Dickens's office. Fantastic. He delineated the precise border of the City of London, pointing at “that church-y thing over there,” a critical marker. We ended up facing the National Theatre—across the very bridge he'd mentioned—and it was sort of like being Ouija-ed by a drunk back to his favorite bar. The theater felt like home position, like all wanderings might wind up back there. Fiennes has lived and worked mostly in London all his career. I asked him if he ever thinks about elsewhere.

“I love London. I think London is a great city. I think it's got fantastic things. I don't know, I guess I've thought about elsewhere but haven't done it, because if it's working, why fix it?” he said. “I'm at a funny time, and I keep wanting to make a shift in the way I, where I live or how I live. I live in London, I've lived in London all my adult life, I live in the East End Shoreditch area, before it became über-hip, I bought a place in 2000. I've got a very lovely place in New York, which I love going to. But most of the work I get tends to be based out of here. And the theater work… I keep going back, because I miss it, I miss that thing.”

Fiennes has the rest of the year “chalked up” already. Five new films: a Kingsman prequel, a new Bond (“I'm waiting to get a Bond script; I'm hoping for a sexy location”), and three-ish other interesting-sounding dramas. Plus the release of The White Crow—Fiennes's third film as director—about a young Rudolf Nureyev, the famed Soviet dancer, and his defection from the USSR to France in 1961.

The White Crow features several scenes that capture those “transforming encounters with a Work of Art” Fiennes has described as the loves of his life. In one flashback, a young Nureyev—born on a trans-Siberian train to poor parents—is taken by his mother to the theater. We don't see what's transpiring onstage, only what's transpiring across his face. We see it happen again when Nureyev, older now and in training in Leningrad, stands before the Rembrandts at the Hermitage Museum. And then, once again, when he wakes up early one morning, to make sure he's the first person at the Louvre, so he can have Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa all to himself.

Again and again and again—“transforming encounters with a Work of Art.”

I read Fiennes's words back to him.

He laughed in recognition. “Yeah, okay. I'd forgotten that.”

I asked him about those scenes in the film.

“Those scenes,” he said, “the one in the Louvre and the one in the Hermitage, with the Rembrandt, those were the scenes that really moved me. Because the engagement with the Rembrandt… I thought The Prodigal Son, looking at it, when we shot that, I was so emotional, I wasn't crying, but on the inside… Those were holy days for me.”

I told Fiennes I knew he'd answered this question after directing his first two films, but I wondered if the answer had evolved during his third: Among the directors he'd worked with, had he cobbled together bits from one or another to help inform him, or was he standing on his own now?

“I don't know that I'm consciously taking from the films I've been in, in terms of visuals, in terms of cinematography,” he said. “But I certainly, in terms of ways of working…I'm often interested in Spielberg, whose energy, vocal… He's not a quiet sort of monosyllabic, quiet-voiced director. He's just direct. ‘Just go here.’ ‘Just put this lens on.’ ‘Come sit down.’ ‘Do it quickly.’ Very clever. Totally positive. And you can feel it. I remember the set, people loved it, because there was a sense of momentum. I think generally actors and crew love it when they feel this forward momentum and, along with it, good work.”

“Deliberate intention,” I said.

“Deliberate intention,” he said. “Wavering, wavering on the set is…” He chuckled darkly. “Too much wavering is worrying. And, like, Anthony Minghella [during The English Patient] was brilliant with actors. A gentle provocation towards looking for something other… It was in my lack of experience that I thought he was wanting me to ‘hit it,’ to ‘nail it.’ But I think actually, quite rightly, he's looking for ‘What else is there that I can get that this actor can own so that they're not contriving something to satisfy me?’ ”

“The pleasure is that I see a French film and meditate on what it, being an Englishman, what it says to me...it offers up new provocations, and also confirms common identity of being a human being.”

After lunch, we walked a short distance to the Royal Opera House, where Nureyev had danced and where a large black-and-white portrait of him hangs in the wings, hovering above the dancers as they step onto the stage. The Royal Opera House is also where Fiennes took ballet lessons of his own—eight or nine, he says—with a dancer in the Royal Ballet named Bennet Gartside, in preparation to play the legendary Soviet ballet teacher Alexander Pushkin. Once, and only once, in my presence, Fiennes did that incredibly weird thing where an actor transforms his head and face and body into another human being in a flash, a total magic trick, while showing me the way Pushkin did something or other.

The White Crow centers on the 1961 trip to Paris by the Kirov—the famed Leningrad ballet company. Nureyev is played by the Russian dancer Oleg Ivenko, who leaps and spins throughout as tightly as the threads of a screw. The film builds to a masterfully suspenseful climax at Le Bourget Airport in Paris, where Nureyev has to choose between defecting to the West or being sent back to the Soviet Union to face some unknown—but likely terrible—fate.

“It's not an easy decision as he sits there in the room. We've seen the love of the mother, we've seen the support of Pushkin, and we've seen those friends—it's not just the oppressive evil empire, it wasn't stifling,” Fiennes said. “When we shot Leningrad, the Soviet scenes, I wanted it quite classically framed, and ever so slightly, we bring the color up. We don't want to confirm the cliché of the gray Soviet world. And when I tried to look at color stills of the Soviet era, they're quite hard to find, but when you find them—bang!—I mean everyone, the women, the red, red being the political color, but red is everywhere. But it pops! And we see so many black-and-whites, it's so weird what this very basic visual thing does. Yeah, I just…it's complicated.… I know the film asks questions; I don't know that it answers them. I don't know that a film should answer. I like films that provoke me to think.”

When I met Fiennes in London in late January, politics was on the surface. Theresa May's Brexit plan had just been rejected by Parliament. And Fiennes had recently given a little-seen speech at the European Film Awards, in which he had spoken about film's role in Europe, and Europe's present relationship to Britain. The speech was economically rendered, but urgent and unequivocal in its diagnosis of political crisis in Europe and the U.K., and of film's role as a remedy:

In anticipation of this occasion…I couldn't help but reflect on what it is to consider oneself European. Is it an instinct? A feeling of belonging? Can I be English and European? Emphatically: Yes. That is my feeling in my gut.

There is arguably a crisis in Europe, and our feeling of family, of connection, of shared history, shared wounds, this feeling is being threatened by a discourse of division. A tribal and reactionary vocabulary is among us. It is depressing and distressing to witness the debate in my own country about who we are in relation to Europe. In England now, there is only the noise of division.

But film, filmmaking, the expression within a film, can be a window for us to see another human being, another human experience, and we can celebrate our differences of language, culture, custom, and our common humanity at the same time. But the act of seeing, seeing another, seeing through the lens, carries in it, I believe, the vital act of bearing witness. Perhaps if we truly bear witness, there can be a true connection, and a better understanding.… Our films can be songs, crossing borders and languages with melodies and harmonies in the form of light and sound and narrative patterns.

We discussed the speech, and his intentions with it. I asked him how much some of the ideas in The White Crow—the way ballet could move across borders, like the films he describes—were on his mind when he delivered the speech.

“I just had an instinct, that I wanted to say how much, how important I felt the community of filmmakers are, and given what this was, I would really be meaning European filmmakers, at the time when my own country is divided about what it means to be linked to Europe,” he said. “Not that countries have to make films that express [exclusively] their culture.… The pleasure is that I see a French film and meditate on what it, being an Englishman, what it says to me…it offers up new provocations, and also confirms common identity of being a human being. And I do feel, I suppose it links what I hope is identifiable in the film: [that he is] being moved and therefore changed by exposure to a work of art. It's a dialogue.”

There are the works of art in The White Crow, I said, and also the cities themselves. Before Nureyev sees the performances or the paintings, he's walking about first Leningrad and then Paris, experiencing that new feeling of somewhere else, letting it in. Fiennes doesn't shy away from his comparable feelings for Russia. The feelings you discover when a place becomes for you the people who live there and not just the political systems that dominate headlines.

“I've formed over the years a handful of friendships in Russia, a handful who are very important to me, and I love going there. And I'm aware of the… I mean the authoritarian nature of their regime that's in control of mostly all the press, and the creep of censorship and control, is very disturbing. But when I'm there, I sort of: There's life going on. I see amazing theater plays, and I have friendships with people.… What interested me was the common humanity underneath the ideological, political fisticuffs.”

I said that hearing about his friends in Russia reminded me of the same dynamic in the United States, the dissonance between the noise of American politics and the lives of most Americans, how most people have nothing to do with the political headlines, how most people are trying to do their best, to generally be kind to their neighbors.

“That's it. Exactly. Exactly. I'm sure that, you know… I mean, nothing that I read about Republican politics makes me think I would ever be sympathetic…but I'm sure that I could go to a Republican community in America and be welcomed, and looked after, and treated with extraordinary generosity and decency and kindness, and those people might go support a Republican candidate the next day.”

That continued exchange between human beings, whether ultimately fruitless or not, seems critical to Fiennes. And art continues to be one of the pre-eminent currencies of at least the exchange of culture.

“Ballet, not being connected to any spoken language, is an extraordinary communicator.… And as an audience member, whether it's a film, or a ballet, or a play, it feels so important to me that we have the privilege of being exposed to these things.... This is the one area, cultural interaction…where we can talk to each other. So when that's impacted, it seems serious.”

We discussed performers and companies struggling to get visas.

“I'm not saying that they're not coming anymore, but it is a challenge that you have to get a visa to go to Russia. And it's funny, isn't it, that I think the cultural interchange, interaction, exhibitions, theater, ballet, coming, that is where we can be like—”

Fiennes threaded his fingers together, hopefully, like hands in prayer.

Daniel Riley is GQ's features editor.

A version of this story originally appeared in the April 2019 issue with the title "Ralph Fiennes Loosens Up."

PRODUCTION CREDITS: Photographs by Scandebergs Styled by Jon Tietz Grooming by Ciona Johnson-King Set design by Zach Apo-Tsang at Magnet Agency Produced by Samira Anderson/Mai Productions

Huge thanks to the amazing @tessa-quayle for helping me out with this impossible-to-open article

#ralph fiennes #interview

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butchblooms-blog · 5 years ago

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When it gets weird

When it gets weird, it gets really weird. Unsurprisingly, she says she's been asked to do to a ton of weird things including: "I spanked my ass with a spatula" and "I've recited Shakespeare while fingering myself. Fortunately, she views those moments as "funny awkward. Plus, she says she refuses to do things all the time and only does what she feels comfortable with. If anything, she says the job made her realize "the importance of boundaries, expressing what you like, and really allowing yourself to feel comfortable and free to enjoy sex.Working an eight-hour day, she earns close to 4,000 euros (£3,600) per month - nearly 10 times the Romanian average wage. As Lana's employer, Studio 20 also makes 4,000 euros per month from her online sessions. And at the top of the video chat money-making pyramid, LiveJasmin - the online cam site that streams Studio 20's content and is responsible for collecting payment from the credit cards of clients - takes double that: 8,000 euros. "What can a member do to me? If he crosses a line or even if he is rude to me, I just click the mouse and stop it. And I can talk to the administrator on the website and they ban the IP address, so the guy can never enter again even if he changes his nickname. I mean, those people are thousands of miles away from me. They don't touch you - nobody touches you. You go online alone and you work online alone. This has nothing to do with prostitution.Each network will ask you to fill out a brief bit of biographical information — list your interests, and try to sound fun — and then check a box or pull down a menu saying that you're 18 or above. You'll need to submit some sort of identification proving your age, but with standards low, laws international, and documents scanned, forging such a thing is a cinch, making underage cam girls a real problem.

Her conditions at the next studio were bare at best, and at times the most personal privacy she had, while performing for strangers on live camera, were a few hanging sheets separating her from the others walking in and out of some rundown flat. Although she was the frequent victim of what would certainly qualify as flagrant, physical sexual harassment in any other business, Anna stuck through it, priding herself on her ability to talk a path out of a "bad situation" with male employers.That wasn't always the case. Before she started stripping — both online and off — Domino was a suit: working at a Fortune 500 company as a graphic designer. She quit the firm out of boredom in 2010, and now mainly flexes her aesthetic skills to push her online sex shows. Unlike most cam girls, Domino isn't affiliated with a network like LiveJasmin. She's completely independent, streaming strip and fetish sex shows from her home studio, straight from a website she built herself. Stripping at a local joint came first, but after breaking her wrist, Domino segued away from brick and mortar clubs. She'd heard there was good money to be made doing pretty much the same stuff online — and she could be her own boss.But the English teacher, Andrea, has a remit that goes far beyond language skills.There are still big ticket European customers these days, men who Anna is reluctant to call "addicted", but "spend more time... you need to entertain those people who are going to stay for hours and hours in your room, even if they finished what they came for — they want to get to know you. Either way, camming keeps Anna in comfy sweatpants and Fanta.

The first time I went private with a guy I freaked the fuck out. All he wrote was get naked. And so far all Id done in a chat room was flash my boobs for an influx of tokens. I froze up in stage fright and closed the room. In my group chat I wrote: Sorry, cam froze. And I logged off for the night.No, this isn't what they want to do forever. Granted, there might be some cam models who want to do this for life, but she says that's not the case for her. She finished her degree while being a cam girl and was also accepted into grad school. Camming helped her pay her bills so she didn't need to take out a loan, but she says "I realise [sic] I wont be in my twenties forever. I'll need to work a 'real' job. And I will :) Wearing clothes.Inside, Studio 20 feels like the Paramount Pictures of camming. You walk in and theres hallways and hallways of rooms. One of them is decorated for a surfer girl, one of them is a girly teen-looking bedroom, one has teddy bears, one has a stripper pool, one is a fake bathroom with a tub. And theyre all just these fake sets where one side is a bedroom and the other side has a huge monitor, camera, computer, and professional lighting.That week I became somewhat obsessed. I scribbled notes on receipts every time I thought about something, I analyzed the way that my colleagues spoke and acted, the way that the clients at the club behaved, in greater depth than I ever before had. I wanted to know what it was that we were doing - of course, we were taking off our clothes and dancing, but were we really doing? CONTINUED BELOW...

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thetimetravellinggaybar · 7 years ago

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Chapter Ten: The Round Up

As the officer and his entourage were travelling towards the bar, some of its inhabitants were getting acquainted. They had chosen an extremely lucky time as the group of fairly modern female writers and the ancient Greek women were all present, and had just become aware of the others’ presence.

Sappho and Arete were chatting with beer and observing the coming and goings in the bar. Simone de Beauvoir overheard this and, as would be expected, was rather surprise at hearing this tongue being used conversationally.

“Virginia,” she whispered, leaning close. “Are those two speaking ancient Greek, do you think?”

“Oh, I couldn’t say. I know only a few words.”

“Of course, I remember. You were never offered the institutional schooling, your education was your father’s library... very inspiring.”

“I must say it is a little unnerving that you know such things without me telling you,” giggled Virginia. “I am like an artifact to you.”

“You are Providence, my lady,” smiled Simone, with an exaggerated tip of her head. “You are a miracle. Now, I am certain that those two are speaking Greek - we must go find out who they are. After you, I absolutely refuse to take anything for granted.”

Grabbing Virginia by the hand, Simone led her over to the bar.

“Excuse me. My name is Simone de Beauvoir. Who might you be?” asked Simone, in rusty classicist’s Greek.

Sappho and Arete were extremely surprised at hearing someone speaking their language. The only people they had heard speaking their tongue were Oscar and the three greek men: Achilles, Patroculus and Diogenes.

“Delighted to meet you,” replied Sappho. “My name is Sappho, of Lesbos, and this is the lovely Arete of Cyrene. Your knowledge of our language seems a rare thing in these parts. But you are not Greek. Are you a local?”

Simone was speechless, agape. She shook her head.

“What is it, Simone?” Virginia whispered, noticing her disarray. “Who is she?”

“Sappho,” breathed Simone. And suddenly a wide smile spread like sunlight across her face; she laughed in disbelief. “Sappho of Lesbos.”

Virginia’s eyes widened, and she turned to Sappho in amazement.

“And who are you?” the Greek poetess asked, a smile tugging at her lips.

Virginia looked at her blankly.

“Her name is Virginia,” filled in Simone. “She speaks no Greek.”

Sappho nodded. “And where are you two from?”

Simone, at a loss for a way to describe the concept of France in ancient Greek, paused for a moment. “Gaul,” she said at last. “And…” she glanced at Virginia. “And a nearby island.”

“Oh! You are from an island as well!” Sappho laughed. “We must stay together. To be born on an island is always to risk solitude, don’t you think? Oh - my apologies - I had forgotten you didn’t speak Greek - ” she turned to Simone - “you could translate?”

Simone nodded, and translated what she had understood. Virginia smiled warmly. “Tell her I love her poetry, will you?”

Simone translated, and Sappho smiled. “What year are you from? How far through the years has my work survived?”

Simone did some quick mental arithmetic. “About 2400 years of 365 days, and probably longer.”

Virginia looked at Simone questioningly. Simone quickly translated. “I'm sure her- your- reputation has gone even further than us. I believe some of the women here are from an era after my own, we could investigate.” she suggested.

Virginia looked over the crowd and caught Marsha P. Johnson’s gaze, beckoning her over. Marsha approached curiously.

“Hello Virginia. It still feels really weird talking to you, you died four years before I was born.” she said.

“Well this will seem even more peculiar,” started Virginia excitedly, “Meet Sappho of Lesbos.”

The three women smiled as Marsha’s jaw dropped in amazement. “Really? You mean? Seriously?” Marsha saw Simone translating and understood how they were communicating. “Well a classical education does help… Can you say hi, and that I… love her work.”

Simone took a little bit more time to explain the situation, “This is Marsha P Johnson. She is far more of a commoner than I am, and younger, but still knows all about you. She fought for,” Simone stalled. Never in her extremely formal education had she learnt how to say gay, homosexual or lesbian. “for the rights of men who love men and women who love women and…” she also didn't have a word for transgender. “Women with men's bodies and men with women's bodies.”

Sappho looked at them in confusion. “How so? How has she fought?”

Simone translated this into English; she and Marsha exchanged a glance.

“Should we tell her about it?” Marsha asked in a whisper. “Stonewall?”

Simone nodded. “I’ll do my best.” She then started with the most accurate retelling that her vocabulary would allow. “An enforcer of law came into a… wine house and arrested her because she would not reveal her genitalia, which I don’t believe correspond to her manner of dressing. She fought back.”

Sappho stared at Simone, then at Marsha, in shock and horror. “An official asked to see... that? And she got arrested when she refused? How terrible has the world become… Please tell me it is not that bad in other lands.”

Simone shook her head, “Other countries would have put her to death.”

Sappho looked like she was going to add something, but at that point the officer burst into the room and it silenced.

“Right, is everyone looking at me? Can you all hear me? I’m looking for anyone hear who thinks they’re in the wrong decade or century. Anyone who feels out of place in this time?”

At this point, Alan Turing, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Frida Kahlo, Rosa Luxemburg, Virginia Woolf, Simone De Beauvoir, Sappho, Arete and Kristina, as well as Erin and Tina, stepped forward, accompanied by a loose assembly of gangly nineteen-year-olds in classic rock tees too much black eyeliner. Erin and Tina looked at the group and laughed.

“He means people who were born in the wrong decade, you sure that applies to you?” asked Erin.

The teens nodded blandly; Erin shrugged and turned back to Kristina.

“Is this everyone? The ones who don’t speak English - Greeks? Some of you? I think? Is that all under control?” He caught a nod from Simone. “Great. Now, listen, I don’t know how much you’ve already figured out, but there’s some stuff I need to tell you all. I’m gonna need you to cooperate. I’ve arrested four of you already, and that’s enough for me, thank you very much. Is there - are you - is someone translating for whoever needs it?” A second nod from Simone. “Perfect. So. You’ve all just sort of… well, turned up, and it’s all very unexpected, and nobody’s really sure what to do with you. That’s pretty much clear to you all?”

A nod from the assortment of punk-rock teens had Erin laughing as the officer went on.

“You’re probably all pretty disorientated, why don’t we step outside so I can talk about integration. I’ve contacted a job club, and they’ve been very helpful and gotten a large number of offers. I’ll show you everything, and get you registered in the government once we’ve gotten to my office.”

The pile of young adults looked at each other unsure, but tagged along anyway. Most could do with a hand finding a job anyway. Erin glanced back at them, but they still seemed to think they were in the right place, so she shrugged and left them to it.

When the last members of the group had trailed into the police station, the officer sighed, sat down at his desk, and dug out a pile of paperwork.

“Now, I checked this with the mayor and she says the system uses your birthday to identify you and to give you an age so I suggest that you fill it in with the real day and month of your birth, then take your age away from this year - 2017 - and write that down. Other than that, stick to the truth. We’re not sure how this is going to work, but it’s worth a try, right?”

A murmur - “Two thousand-... did you hear that?” - went through the room, but most of the group set to work without much question, too overwhelmed by their new surroundings to question the decision. The modern teens stood around awkwardly, wondering what was going on, but too intrigued to leave just yet.

The officer turned to them after handing out papers to everyone in the room.

“Are you - you all speak English, right? - did you change your clothes since you got here? Where’s all that makeup from? I thought you were all, like, eighteenth-century intellectuals or whatever.”

“What?” asked one of them. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Can you tell me when you were born?”

“I didn’t do anything! You’ve got the wrong guy, officer!”

“Don’t worry,” the officer laughed. “I’m not trying to arrest you. The thing is, for the last couple days, we’ve had a bit of an issue at that bar back there. Some freaky sci-fi time-travel thing -” he stopped, and sighed - “I know I sound like I’m batshit insane, but I swear to God, yesterday I had to arrest William bloody Shakespeare, so I figured I had to do something before it all got way, way out of hand. I guess that’s new information to you?”

The teens nodded.

“We could, like, help, though,” one of them added.

“Can we meet Shakespeare?”

“Are those people in, like, togas - are they, like, actual Greeks?”

“Greece is a country, Harold,” came the sarcastic reply.

“You know what I mean.”

The officer interrupted them. “Hey, I just thought of something. Do any of you have extra beds at home? None of these people have any real money on them, and they’ll need papers before we can find them serious jobs. We can’t afford to keep them all at the motel forever.”

There were a few volunteers. Some knew people who might be able to help. The officer went on: “I’m going to need to check in with you in a couple of days to see how it’s going. How about Saturday? Show up here whenever?”

Erin broke in. “I don’t think we’ll be able to make it for Saturday. Pride is all day long, and I’ve got a space saved for the float I’ve been working on.”

“Oh my god,” cut in Tina. “Oh… my god. Pride. Erin, these people have never been to pride.”

Erin’s eyes lit up. “This is going to be incredible.”

“How’s the float going? Is there still time for some changes? I just had the coolest idea,” Tina gushed. “It’s gonna be the best parade you’ve ever seen.”

“Oh,” Erin laughed, eyes wide with excitement. “Oh, absolutely. I might need some help, but...” she turned to look at Kristina. “I don’t think we’re really lacking volunteers, if you know what I mean. My house at eight tomorrow? We’ll need all the time we have.”

The idea of the project was explained to the roomful of historical figures, along with a quick overview of the concept of pride and a gesture-filled description of a parade float. It didn’t take much to convince them to participate.

#timetravellinggaybar #virginia woolf #Simone de Beauvoir #Sappho #Arete of Cyrene #pride #gay writers #lgbt history #Collaborative Novel #writing #sci fi & fantasy #time travel #king kristina of sweden

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lovemesomesurveys · 5 years ago

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How artistic are you? Ha, I can color. That’s all I got.

Do you want to go to Africa? I’d loveeeee to visit giraffe manor.

AC/DC or Aerosmith? Aerosmith.

Do you know what Armenia is? Yes, it’s a country.

What’s your beer of choice (if any)? Ew, none.

Do you know the title of Buffalo Springfield’s one-hit wonder? Well, I had to Google it because the artist didn’t ring a bell, but I am actually familiar with their song.

Do you have a brother? (Do you like it that way?) I have two brothers.

Which bank do you use? Noneya Bank.

Which comedian do you most enjoy? I don’t have a favorite comedian.

Would you ever live in California? I’ve lived here all my life.

Is it possible/likely that you’ll become a cat lady? *Dog lady, yes.

How many different countries have visited? Just one.

Do you believe there’s a devil? Yes.

Does eating dessert often make you feel guilty? No.

Can you legally drive? Nope. I haven’t gotten my license. Nor have I ever taken any lessons.

What have you been diagnosed with (if you don’t mind sharing)? I don’t want to get into all that.

How often do you drink energy drinks? I drink Starbucks Doubleshots pretty often. That’s the only energy drink I like. Where did you live when you were 11 years old? Different house, but same city.

Do you like the actor who played Edward Scissorhands in that movie? Why not say Johnny Depp?

Have you ever felt an earthquake? I’ve only felt effects from the aftershocks. This past summer was the first time I’ve ever felt it and it was such a weird feeling. I felt myself swaying and I had to lie down.

When was the last time you saw your father one-on-one? Last night.

Do you think French is the most beautiful language? Uhhh, sure.

Is Friday your favorite day of the week? I don’t have a favorite day of the week. They’re pretty much all the same to me.

Have you listened to Jimi’s song ‘Fire?’ Doesn’t sound familiar.

Do you have real gold jewelry? No.

How often do you watch ‘Gossip Girl’? I never watched it.

Is Google your homepage? Yes.

Do you like Geico’s commercials? I thought a couple were cute.

When did you last feel happy? Hm.

Do you prefer Hollister, Hot Topic, or H&M? Hot Topic.

Did you dress up last Halloween? Nope. It’s been a few years now since I’ve dressed up. I’m over it.

Would you voluntarily watch the History Channel? Yeah, and I do.

Have you ever been on an island? No.

Would you be able to locate Indonesia on a globe? Maybe.

Do you know if Iceland or Greenland has more ice? Greenland, right? I thought they were actually opposite of what their name is or something.

Did you watch the last presidential inauguration? No.

Do you enjoy jogging? No.

On which instrument could you most easily play ‘Jingle Bells’? Piano.

How much do you know about John Lennon? I know he was in The Beatles, I know a couple of his own songs, I know he was married to Yoko Ono, and I know he was shot.

Do you know how Jell-O is made? I know how it’s made when you buy the powder stuff from the store, ha.

Have you tried Krispy Kreme doughnuts? (Was it love at first bite?) I have. I’m not a big fan, honestly. I like cake donuts better.

How many pairs of khaki pants do you own? Zero. Lol, that reminds me of Jake from Statefarm.

Have you ever been a fan of the Killers? Yeah.

Does it bother you when couples are lovey-dovey in public? No.

Do you have your own lighter (why or why not)? No. I have no reason for one.

In how many languages (besides English) can you count to 100? Besides English, I can also count to 100 in Spanish.

What’s your favorite lollipop flavor? I don’t care for lollipops.

Do you believe in miracles (why or why not)? Yes.

What do you think of shows like Maury and Jerry Springer? Dumb.

Do you care that Mars (the candy co.) uses deadly animal testing? I didn’t know they did. I’ll have to check that.

How did you form your opinion of marijuana? The research.

How often do you sleep naked? Never. I would find that incredibly uncomfortable. I don’t like being naked. Like literally after a shower I quickly put my clothes back on.

Do you actually check the Nutrition Facts before eating something? Sometimes, just out of curiosity.

Who is your favorite musical artist/band beginning with ‘N’? Nirvana.

How nerdy are you (in what ways)? I like to read and I love superhero movies and Star Wars. Some see those things as nerdy *shrug*

What do you think about olives? I like black olives.

Are you much of an outdoorsy person? Nope. How big of an Oprah fan are you? I wouldn’t say I’m a fan. That doesn’t mean I don’t like or anything, but I just don’t keep with her.

How often do you shop online? All the time.

Are you looking forward to your prom? If you already went, how was it? It was cool. I got to dance a bit with my crush at the time, so that was nice. ;)

How are your local policemen? They’re swamped because there’s a lot of stuff going on that keeps them busy.

What is your ideal PB&J sandwich like? Just good ol’ creamy peanut butter and grape jelly.

What do you think of the movie ‘Pineapple Express’? I thought it was so stupid.

How true is the saying, ‘quitters never win and winners never quit’? Not always, but yeah pretty accurate.

Do you prefer Quiznos or Subway and why? I don’t think I’ve been to a Quiznos, so Subway I guess. Not a big fan of that either anymore, though.

Have you learned the quadratic formula yet? (Do you remember it?) Yeah, back in middle or high school. Is that the ax^2 + bx + c = 0?

What is the one question you most want to ask someone and who? Hmm.

How many rooms are in your home? 2 bedrooms.

Do you like raspberries? I like some raspberry flavored things.

What’s one of your best memories from during a rain storm? Getting caught out right in the middle of a rain storm while at an outdoor festival. I got soakedddd.

Have you actually read Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo & Juliet’? Yes, my freshmen year in high school.

Do you know any Sign Language? Only a few things.

What is your sleeping schedule generally like? Shitty. I’m typically up until 4AM and wake up around noon, waking up a few times in between. How well do you sing? I can’t sing well, but I still do it.

How often do you listen to 60-70’s music? I have a mix of genres from different decades on my Spotify, so it varies.

What do you think of Twitter? I like it.

How much do you value the Ten Commandments? I value them greatly.

Are there many trees where you live? Yeah.

How much taller/shorter do you wish to be? “I wish I was a little bit taller.”

Where do you usually buy your underwear? Kohl’s.

How do you define ‘ugly’? Something unpleasant.

Do you like to shop at Urban Outfitters? I’ve only been to an actual store a couple of times, but I’ve been on their website several times and while they have some cute stuff, they’re way too damn expensive.

Would you like being described as ‘voluptuous’? I wouldn’t be described that way.

For listening to music, do you like to crank up the volume or keep it calm? At a reasonable level.

Do you ever watch the annual Victoria’s Secret fashion show? Nope. It’s cancelled now anyway.

Would you agree that ‘variety is the spice of life’? Yeah.

Are you currently on wireless Internet? Yeah.

Can you recall memories of learning how to whistle? Nope.

Do you go to White Castle or just vicariously through ��Harold & Kumar’? We don’t have a White Castle here, but the stores do sell their burgers in the frozen food section. I’ve only had those, not the real, fresh thing.

Have you gone to Washington, D.C.? Did you like it? (OR-do you want to go?) I’ve never been.

Why did you need your most recent x-ray and what were the results? I needed a CT Scan for something.

When it comes to ‘xoxo’, do you interpret ‘x’ as the hug or the kiss? I read it as “hugs and kisses.”

What does X stand for in Roman numerals? Can you write the previous number? 10. 9 is IX. Why do you think xylophones are only popular with young children? I remember playing those in music class sometimes in elementary school.

Can you explain the meaning of the yin-yang symbol? They’re opposites. Yin is the negative, dark one and yang is the positive, bright one.

Did you know that yawning is contagious? It’s not always.

Would you like a bottle of Yoo-Hoo or it’s not really your thing? I liked the little box container thingy where you poked a straw in the top, ya know? The strawberry flavor is best.

How many places’ zip codes do you know by heart? I don’t know.

What comes to mind when I say ‘Zero to Hero’? Hercules.

#personal #text #survey #surveys

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limejuicer1862 · 5 years ago

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Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.

The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Rachel Mann

(According to her website)

Born in 1970, Rachel Mann grew up in Worcestershire before studying Philosophy at university. In the mid-nineties, whilst working on a PhD, she was Teaching Fellow in the Philosophy Department at Lancaster before a sense of vocation led to a move to inner-city Manchester in church-related community work. She’s been based in and around Manchester pretty much ever since. In addition to her philosophy training, she holds qualifications in Theology, Creative Writing, and English Literature, including a PhD on Nineteenth-Century Women’s Poetry and the Bible.

She began writing poetry, liturgy and short stories in the late nineties as a result of major ill-health. She has also written feminist liturgical theology, cultural history and has been a regular contributor to The Church Times. She has published five full-length books, including Dazzling Darkness (Wild Goose) and Fierce Imaginings (D.L.T.), as well as contributing to many others.

In addition she writes on music, particularly prog, folk and metal. She was Metal/Rock reviewer for manchestermusic.co.uk. She works freelance for magazines like Prog Magazine and The Quietus.

Ordained into the Church of England in 2005, Rachel is Rector of St Nicholas Burnage. Between October 2009 and September 2017 she was Poet-in-Residence and Minor Canon at Manchester Cathedral. During this period she acted as lead person for the Cathedral’s International Religious Poetry Competition and also helped establish the annual ‘Manchester Sermon’, a collaboration between Manchester Literature Festival and the Cathedral. Appointed an Honorary Canon of Manchester Cathedral in 2017, her poetry has been widely published. Some of her poems have been published by Carcanet Press in April 2018 as part of the New Poetries VII anthology.

https://www.rachelmann.co.uk/

The Interview

1. What and why did you start writing poetry?

I began writing poetry seriously in the shadow of trauma, specifically my experience of serious illness in my twenties. I have to say that most of my poems from that time were rather earnest and pretty dreadful.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

My first memory of poetry is drawn from primary school, when we recited bits of poems at school concerts and Nativity services. I think it was the rhythmic possibilities which struck me. A crucial moment came, as a teenager, when a teacher introduced me to Auden and Larkin. Through their poetry, I began to appreciate how poetry might addressany subject. My first poetry love, however, was Shakespeare. I adored acting as a kid and was fortunate to be introduced to Shakespeare very early.

3. What is your daily writing routine?

I’m very much an early-in-the-morning writer, especially when I have a major project in hand. I find my life is too often in perpetual motion, so there is something clarifying and astringent about early morning. It is the time when I feel fresh and there is a modicum of silence.

4. What motivates you to write?

I think I’m one of those people who need to write in order to discover what I think. Writing is a mode of surprise – it disrupts and expands the cosy paths which I’m inclined to follow. In the very least, it disrupts me when the writing is going well.

5. What is your work ethic?

I am someone who attempts to scribble something every day. Most of the time it’s rubbish, but I’ve become convinced that the only way to get beyond the rubbish is through it. The discipline matters.

6. How do the writers you read when you were young influence your work today?

Oh my, I sometimes feel completely beholden to them. Indeed the older I become the more I’m dependent on them. So, for example, when I was a young undergrad and postgrad student I read enormous amounts of Wittgenstein and continental philosophy. I find their words and modes of speech appearing in my poems at the most unexpected moments.

7. Whom of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

Poetry: Far too many to mention, but I adore Mimi Khalvati, whose grip on form is extraordinary, as well as Michael Symmons Roberts, who dares to speak the ’Transcendent’.Fiction: Recently, I’ve very much enjoyed Ben Myers’ studies in creepy northern oddness. For sheer Dickensian sprawl I look out for Donna Tartt’s new books. Non-Fiction: I’ve found Thomas Waters’ Cursed Britain a salutary read. Its study of witchcraft in Britain between 1800 and the present day is by turns erudite, weird and challenging/.

8. Why do you write, as opposed to doing anything else?

Well, I do do other things. I feel my first identity is as an Anglican priest. However, like a lot of Anglican priests before me, my ‘vocation’ to write flows from my priestly vocation. Both ‘vocations’ require attentiveness, stillness and listening, and an alertness to the tricksiness and joy of language. If I were offering a less high faluting account of why I write I guess it would be that I enjoy making things. Poems, literature and so on, are part of a material and creative culture too. I’m addicted to craft.

9. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

Read, read, and read some more; write, write and write some more. The dynamic between reading widely and intensively and writing well is not incidental, it is essential. When it comes to writing specifically, keep writing through the chaff that inevitably appears and take seriously the critical comments of colleagues, editors and friends (even if one needs to push-back occasionally).

10. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I’m currently working – very slowly – on a new book of poems, as well as writing sketches for a novel. I have a new theology book coming together, which I hope to finish in the next six months. I’ve also just completed the manuscript for a second edition of my theological memoir, ‘Dazzling Darkness’.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Rachel Mann Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.

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