#victoria roberts animation

[acaseforpencils]

Victoria Roberts Talks about Animation.

Today's interview on Case is a little bit different—I had been seeing Victoria's lovely animations on Instagram, and asked her if she might be interested in talking about them on here. She kindly obliged, so I sent her a loose list of questions to consider, and she sent me back such an incredible rumination on her experiences that I replied back to her "This is so cool! You are so cool!" because though I was expecting something incredible (Victoria being Victoria after all!), it wouldn't be dramatic for me say that I was thunderstruck! Anyways, I hope you all enjoy reading what she has to say as much as I did! —Jane

Find this print here!

On Animation

I’m so fortunate to be working on what I love.

It’s been a long haul in a way. I came to New York City from Sydney, Australia, because I wanted to run away with the Wooster Group-that is, do theatre. Or film. I was already a cartoonist, and I became one under contract to The New Yorker, an enormous privilege, thirty odd years ago.

But since last month, thanks to a software named Callipeg, I make an animated short every week, for which I do the voices, called “Axolotl Mondays.” Finally, I’m in the movies!

To be a performer and tell stories, or at least vignettes, is my passion. At nineteen, with $5000 from the Creative Development Fund of The Australia Council, we made “Goodbye Sally Goldstein”, a five minute animated film. I had three collaborators:

Rob Rogers, composer and musician, Kathryn Pentecost, and Jacqueline Field who drew and painted. From the sound recording, inking and painting, to the shoot, it took six months to complete. My favourite task in all of this was doing the sound breakdown, which consisted of manually running the soundtrack tape through a reader (not sure what the device was called) and jotting down the length of each sound so that you could animate to the soundtrack.

David Deneen founder of Film Graphics was my inspiration and coach. What I knew about animation came from time spent over the school holidays in his studio thanks to my mum, who worked in advertising and got me the gig. They were making an animated ad for Witchy Brew, an ice cream, and I remember they said it wasn’t until they boiled spaghetti that they got the right sound for the witch’s cauldron. 

Every animator had a different style, and each animator’s desk, covered in drawings, felt like a different universe. Val Udowenko and Don Mackinnon were stars in this creative shop that went on to win the Academy Award for Bruce Petty’s “Leisure” in 1976, Best Short Film. To watch David Deneen solve a problem from idea, to script, to film, was my university. 

I left school at sixteen and got a job painting cels for Hannah Barbera. The studio was run by Zoran Janjic, and his mum Zora, ran the painting department. Her “quiet girls please!” in a rich Yugoslavian accent resounded often. It was a big studio.

Sometimes we were on a network deadline so tight that Bill Hannah came to Sydney. We were paid per painted cel, working overtime, and we would try to get scenes with many mouths, as lips were very quick to paint. We stayed in over lunchtime and Mr. Hannah ordered in for us, fried chicken and coleslaw. “Would anybody like more slaw?” he offered, and the painting department cracked up at his American pronounciation of “slaaaaaaaaaaw.”

Again I had the good fortune to hear the soundtrack for a series called “Wait ‘til Your Father Comes Home,” an animated sitcom. I loved the soundtracks, and again remember the sound more than the drawings, and longed to be a creator of some sort.

Some characters come to the world with more dialogue than others. A cartoon strip though roomier than a gag cartoon with a drawing and one line of dialogue, isn’t enough space still for some characters like Nona Appleby, an Australian octogenarian character I have drawn since I was 16. Finally I started to play her on stage, and that gave Nona the opportunity to say everything that is in her heart (it’s a lot!). I maintain that I am a vessel, and the characters do all of the work. 

“Axolotl Mondays” is mid-step between the page and theatre. There is the element of time in a video, which is delicate and wonderful. A friend gave me gift of a six week editing course at MEWSHOP in New York City, which gave me a very good base for cutting and thinking about time. We learned at one of their lectures that “Annie Hall” started out as a film with a stream of consciousness dialogue, but that Diane Keaton’s performances were so extraordinary that it became another film in the editing room. I mention this to underline the malleability, possibility and difficulty of film.

These videos start out with a soundtrack usually, but I learn something new each week about how movement and time on screen works. My animation style is very basic, which fortunately suits my drawing style. It’s detail and timing, and other possibilities which I am learning about that make a piece “sing.” As with most of my work, I rarely know what I am doing. It’s the mystery, the discovery, that keep me on board. 

Callipeg is like having an old-style animation studio at your fingertips. Everything is done on the iPad. It’s so much faster than paper and cels, and cameras-and so accessible. Really a beautiful software, plus the creator’s tutorials are delivered in a native French accent!

Instagram Links:

Kathryn Pentecost is at BohemianPalaceof Art

Rob Rogers is rogers_bob

Jacqueline Field

Don Mackinnon

———-

If you enjoy this blog, and would like to contribute to labor and maintenance costs, there is a Patreon, and if you’d like to buy me a cup of coffee, there is a Ko-Fi  account as well! I do this blog for free because accessible arts education is important to me, and your support helps a lot! You can also find more posts about art supplies on Case’s Instagram and Twitter! Thank you!

[ed-recoverry]

List of free audiobooks on YouTube for anyone interested

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Alice in Wonderland

Animal Farm by George Orwell

The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H P Lovecraft

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

The Village by Caroline Mitchell

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (fuck JKR)

Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

Upside Down by Danielle Steel

The Fiancée by Kate White

The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Theif

Accidentally Married by Victoria E. Lieske

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

The Collector (book one) by Nora Roberts

The Lies I Told by Mary Burton

Dead Man’s Mirror by Agatha Christie

The Hobbit

The Taken Ones by Jess Lourey

The Good Neighbour by R J Parker

The Island House by Elana Johnson

Desperation by Stephan King

The Healing Summer by Heather B. Moore

The Last Affair by Margot Hunt

To Be Claimed by Willow Winter

Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

The Inn by James Patterson

Wonder by R J Palacio

Faking It With The Billionaire by Willow Fox

The Lost Years by Mary Higgins Clark

Forrest Gump by Winston Groom

The Janson Directive by Robert Ludlum

The Catcher in the Rye

The Lottery Winner by Mary Higgins Clark

Where Eagles Dare by Alistair MacLean

Death of a Nurse by M C Beaton

Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Sonnets by William Shakespeare

Frozen Betrayal by Clive Cussler

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Line of Fire by R J Patterson

Don’t Believe Everything You Think by Joseph Nguyen

The Remnant by Tim LaHaye

The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkins

The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie

Payment in Kind by J A Jance

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida

The Game of Life and How to Play It by Florence Scovel Shinn

The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

A Marriage of Anything but Convenience by Victorine E. Lieske

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

The Inheritance Game by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life

Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

The Kama Sutra by Mallanaga Vatsyayana

The Wisdom of Father Brown by G K Chesterton

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Robin Hood by J Walker McSpadden

The Poor Traveller by Charles Dickens

Days on the Road: Crossing the Plains in 1865 by Sarah Raymond Herndon

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Atomic Habits by James Clear

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

Trading in the Zone by Mark Douglas

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Man After Man

Five on a Treasure Island by Enid Blyton

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

Charlotte’s Web

Midsummer Mysteries by Agatha Christie

Out of Silent Planet by C S Lewis

The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle

Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton

The Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harai

Hamlet by Shakespeare

[tremendouskoalachild]

what we know: The Acolyte was pitched sometime in early 2020. The Rise of Skywalker had just ended the movie saga. The Mandalorian, which kicked off disney+, had just finished its first season with great audience response. Lucasfilm was reorienting itself to streaming. Rayne Roberts loved the pitch, got Kathleen Kennedy who also loved it, and the show was greenlit.

the show premiered in summer 2024, after a generous marketing campaign (including a clip shown with The Phantom Menace rerelease, an original Victoria Monét song, and plenty of trailers and tv spots). multiple pieces of tie-in media were announced both before and during the show's airing (an Acolyte comic issue, a Kelnacca comic issue, a visual guide, an art reference book, two novels featurig show characters).

the high republic multimedia project (THR), in advanced development when the show was pitched and published continuously from early 2021, greatly influenced the show's development. the costuming is largely based on the look of THR, the show makes plenty of lore references, and includes a main character from the books in its main cast. THR material coming out in summer 2024 has "a century before The Acolyte" prominently on the cover, the upcoming show tie-ins are largely written by THR authors, and often feature other THR characters.

the show was expensive, with a long production period and a great focus on the technical aspects - building large elaborate sets, filming on location in Madeira, detailed stunt sequences with a lot of actor involvement, plenty of attention given to costumes, make-up and creature design. the cast included many high-profile actors. everything suggests the show had full confidence of lucasfilm.

what i'm gonna speculate: lucasfilm was playing the long game with this show, or hoping to. cancelling the show this early was unexpected.

in 2019 star wars was quite literally centered on the original trilogy. the seven decades or so around the OT contained all currently canon star wars media, even as the franchise was spoken of as one with 25,000 years of history. the following years would plug up even more empty spots on the timeline, with the projects often overlapping. this gave the writers much less creative freedom, which was the whole point of decanonizing all pre-2014 media aside from films and shows. over time, fans started clamoring for onscreen content set outside of the known eras, and there were more and more voices in and outside of the fandom exhausted with fanservice (the glup shitto phenomenon).

The Acolyte was set in a whole new era, as far as onscreen content goes, and its only legacy character was from children's and YA books most viewers wouldn't be familiar with. it was specifically introduced as a show you wouldn't need any homework for. it had actors prominent in entirely different contexts (Matrix. sitcom. Squid Game. YA. superhero movies. independent films. relationship dramas.) and the cast was pretty international.

the show had a lot specifically for established fans - you could say it was the most wide-reaching in its star wars references, incorporating elements from every trilogy, the animated shows, canon books, oldschool legends lore, video games. but i believe it was mostly meant to attract people who were not previously fans, and especially target demographics that were underrepresented in the fandom. draw in international audiences, young people who were around for other star wars properties but they never caught their interest, women who either weren't in the fandom or felt pushed away by the reaction to The Last Jedi.

lucasfilm execs definitely weren't planning for viewing numbers comparable to Obi-Wan Kenobi, or even Ahsoka, since those are characters people are already invested in. i think lucasfilm expected the show's audience to grow over a longer period, since plenty of people might check it out because it seems cool and they like an actor in it, and hopefully stick around to watch other star wars and become new fans of the franchise. the audience would get a chance to establish itself through new viewers watching it outside the couple weeks when it aired originally - it's a streaming platform, after all - and the show would have a solid fandom for its second season (which they were clearly planning to make).

these new fans would keep disney+ in order to check out other star wars shows and film, and keep buying star wars stuff over the hiatus. even if they were only into The Acolyte and their interest never expanded beyond that, there were many merchandising products and tie-in materials coming out. the comics and books would have connections to THR, hopefully getting an influx of readers before the initiative finishes next year and boosting sales of already published works. the THR readers who weren't interested in the show originally would see all their favorite authors writing stuff for it and check it out, too.

but then someone higher up decided to cancel it a month after airing so no i guess

[thelovetheystole]

Another long post ahead, because I was thinking about what the audience wants to see vs what Emmerdale wants to show.

Fans: We don't want to see animal abuse on the show.

The show: Piper will be a continued focus in the story, this wouldn't be as much of an issue if we had picked an "uglier dog".

Fans: Please don't drag this Belle story out much longer.

The show: The story will go on for like another 6 months, i.e. it's only halftime really.

Fans: We don't like Vanessa and Suzy together.

The show: Vanessa and Suzy are moving in together.

Fans: But we want Charity and Vanessa back together.

The show: Charity is with her soulmate, Mackenzie.

Fans: Mary and Suzy have chemistry!

The show: Mary might get another love interest soon.

Fans: Please, no more (especially unplanned ones, it's 2024!) pregnancy storylines for a while!

The show: Ella will come back pregnant with Liam's baby.

Fans: But we liked Liam with Chas!

The show: See above answer.

Fans: We are interested to see what's next for Aaron, since you brought him back and built him a new set.

The show: Aaron will only appear in like 7 episodes between April and July. But then we might put him with Robert's brother.

Fans: It would be great if Seb was brought back to the village for Aaron to raise.

The show: Seb? We only mentioned him that one time to make Aaron understand that biological parents hurt more when children are taken away.

Fans: Good on Jai for getting revenge on evil Amit over Rishi's death, we loved Rishi.

The show: Jai will be punished, he's a bad person, he'll lose his wife and family over this.

Fans: Is Angel coming back with a new face after going to prison?

The show: No. Same face.

Fans: We need a bit more lighthearted stories.

The show: Lots of more hard hitting stories coming up still. We can certainly throw in some comical scenes featuring the show's best partnership Marlon and Paddy, or our best comedic performance winner, Mandy!

Fans: The show needs more Sugdens to counter all the Dingles.

The show: Ok, here is a new brother for Victoria (and Robert), but we'll make him gay, and the only other gay character in the village at this time is Aaron. But who will catch John's eye??

Fans: Would be cool if the show brought back some old characters for the 10 000th episode.

The show: We are honoring some past characters by dressing up scarecrows to look like them. You're welcome.

[justforbooks]

Donald Sutherland

Commanding and versatile actor known for his roles in MAS*H, Don’t Look Now and The Hunger Games

Donald Sutherland, who has died aged 88, brought his disturbing and unconventional presence to bear in scores of films after his breakthrough role of Hawkeye Pierce, the army surgeon in Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H (1970), one of the key American films of its period. It marked Sutherland out as an iconoclastic figure of the 60s generation, but he matured into an actor who made a speciality of portraying taciturn, self-doubting characters. This was best illustrated in his portrayal of the tormented parent of a drowned girl, seeking solace in a wintry Venice, in Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (1973), and of the weak, nervous, concerned father of a guilt-ridden teenage boy (Timothy Hutton) in Robert Redford’s Ordinary People (1980).

Although Sutherland appeared in the statutory number of stinkers that are many a film actor’s lot, he was always watchable. His career resembled a man walking a tightrope between undemanding parts in potboilers and those in which he was able to take risks, such as the title role in Federico Fellini’s Casanova (1976).

Curiously, it was Sutherland’s ears that first got him noticed, in Robert Aldrich’s The Dirty Dozen (1967). During the shoot, according to Sutherland, “Clint Walker sticks up his hand and says, ‘Mr Aldrich, as a representative of the Native American people, I don’t think it’s appropriate to do this stupid scene where I have to pretend to be a general.’ Aldrich turns and points to me and says, ‘You with the big ears. You do it’ … It changed my life.” In other words, it led to M*A*S*H and stardom.

Sutherland and his M*A*S*H co-star Elliott Gould tried to get Altman fired from the film because they did not think the director knew what he was doing due to his unorthodox methods. In the early days, Sutherland was known to have confrontations with his directors. “What I was trying to do all the time was to impose my thinking,” he remarked some years later. “Now I contribute. I offer. I don’t put my foot down.”

Sutherland, who was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, was a sickly child who battled rheumatic fever, hepatitis and polio. He spent most of his teenage years in Nova Scotia where his father, Frederick, ran a local gas, electricity and bus company; his mother, Dorothy (nee McNichol), was a maths teacher. He attended Bridgewater high school, then graduated from Victoria College, part of the University of Toronto, with a double major in engineering and drama. As a result of a highly praised performance in a college production of James Thurber’s and Elliott Nugent’s The Male Animal, he dropped the idea of becoming an engineer and decided to pursue acting.

With this in mind, he left Canada for the UK in 1957 to study at Lamda (the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art), where he was considered too tall and ungainly to get anywhere. However, he gained a year’s work as a stage actor with the Perth repertory company, and appeared in TV series such as The Saint and The Avengers. He was Fortinbras in a 1964 BBC production of Hamlet, shot at Elsinore castle and starring Christopher Plummer. He also appeared at the Criterion theatre in the West End in The Gimmick in 1962.

In 1959 he married Lois Hardwick; they divorced in 1966. Then he married the film producer Shirley Douglas, with whom he had twins, Kiefer and Rachel; they divorced in 1971. Kiefer, who grew up to become a celebrated actor, was named after the producer-writer Warren Kiefer, who put Sutherland in an Italian-made Gothic horror film, The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Christopher Lee played a necrophile count, while Sutherland doubled as a dim-witted police sergeant and, in drag and heavy makeup, as a witch.

In an earlier era, the gawky Sutherland might not have achieved the stardom that followed the anarchic M*A*S*H, but Hollywood at the time was open for stars with unconventional looks, and Sutherland was much in demand for eccentric roles throughout the 70s.

He was impressive as a moviemaker with “director’s block” in Paul Mazursky’s messy but interesting Alex in Wonderland (1970), which contains a prescient dream sequence in which his titular character meets Fellini. In the same year, Sutherland played a Catholic priest and the object of Geneviève Bujold’s erotic gaze in Act of the Heart; he was the appropriately named Sergeant Oddball, an anachronistic hippy tank commander, in the second world war action-comedy Kelly’s Heroes; and he and Gene Wilder were two pairs of twins in 18th-century France in the broad comedy Start the Revolution Without Me.

Sutherland was at his most laconic, sometimes verging on the soporific, in the title role of Alan J Pakula’s Klute (1971), as a voyeuristic ex-policeman investigating the disappearance of a friend and getting deeply involved with a prostitute, played by Jane Fonda.

Sutherland and Fonda were teamed up again as a couple of misfits in the caper comedy Steelyard Blues (1973). It initially had a limited distribution due mainly to their participation together in the anti-Vietnam war troop show FTA (Fuck the Army), which Sutherland co-directed, co-scripted and co-produced.

Sutherland always made his political views known, although they surfaced only occasionally in his films. In among the many mainstream comedies and thrillers was Roeg’s supernatural drama Don’t Look Now, in which Sutherland and Julie Christie are superb as a couple grieving their dead daughter. Despite the dark subject matter, the film was notable for containing “one of the sexiest love scenes in film history”, according to Scott Tobias in the Guardian, the frank depiction of their love-making coming “like a desert flower poking through concrete”. The actor so admired Roeg that he named another son after him, one of his three sons with the French-Canadian actor Francine Racette, whom he married in 1972.

John Schlesinger’s rambling version of The Day of the Locust (1975) saw Sutherland as a sexually repressed character – called Homer Simpson – who tramples a woman to death in an act of uncontrolled rage. Perhaps Bernardo Bertolucci had that in mind when he cast Sutherland in 1900 (Novecento, 1976), in which he is a broadly caricatured fascist thug who shows his sadism by smashing a cat’s head against a post and bashing a young boy’s brains out. “And I turned down Deliverance and Straw Dogs because of the violence!” Sutherland recalled.

In Fellini’s Casanova, the second of his two bizarre Italian excursions in 1976, Sutherland coldly calculates seduction under his heavily made-up features. The performance, as remarkably stylised as it is, still reveals the suffering soul within the sex machine.

In 1978 he appeared in Claude Chabrol’s Blood Relatives, a made-in-Canada murder mystery with Sutherland playing a Montreal cop investigating the murder of a young woman. More commercial was The Eagle Has Landed (1976), with Sutherland, attempting an Irish accent, as an IRA member supporting the Germans during the second world war, and as a chilling Nazi in Eye of the Needle (1981). Meanwhile, he was the hero of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), who resists the insidious alien menace until the film’s devastating final shot.

In 1981 Sutherland returned to the stage, as Humbert Humbert in a highly anticipated version of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, adapted by Edward Albee. It turned out to be a huge flop, running only 12 performances on Broadway. Both Sutherland and Albee played the blame game. “The second act is flawed,” Sutherland said. “Albee was supposed to have rethought it, but he never did.” Albee told reporters that he had scuttled some of his best scenes because they were “too difficult” for Sutherland because “he hasn’t been on stage for 17 years”.

Continuing his film career, Sutherland played a complex and sadistic British officer in Hugh Hudson’s Revolution (1985), and in A Dry White Season (1989) he took the role of an Afrikaner schoolteacher beginning to understand the brutal realities of apartheid. In Oliver Stone’s JFK (1991), he held the screen with an extended monologue as he spilled the conspiracy beans to Kevin Costner’s district attorney hero Jim Garrison.

After having made contact with young audiences in the 70s with offbeat appearances in gross-out pictures The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) and National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978), the latter as a pot-smoking professor, he was cast as an unconvincing bearded stranger in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992).

On a more adult level were Six Degrees of Separation (1993), in which he played an unfulfilled art dealer; A Time to Kill (1996), as an alcoholic, disbarred lawyer (alongside Kiefer); Without Limits (1998), as an enthusiastic athletics coach; and Space Cowboys (2000), as an elderly pilot. By this time, he was gradually moving into grey-haired character roles, one of the best being his amiable Mr Bennet in Pride and Prejudice (2005).

The Jane Austen novel was also featured in the television series Great Books (1993-2000), to which Sutherland lent his soothing voice as narrator. Other series in which he shone as quasi baddies were Commander in Chief (2005) – as the sexist Republican speaker of the house opposed to the new president (Geena Davis) – and Dirty Sexy Money (2007-09), in which he played a powerful patriarch of a wealthy family.

Sutherland continued to be active well into his 80s, his long grey hair and beard signifying sagacity, whether as a contract killer in The Mechanic, a Roman hero in The Eagle, a nutty retired poetry professor in Man on the Train (all 2011), or a quirky bounty hunter in the western Dawn Rider (2012), bringing more depth to the characters than they deserved. As President Coriolanus Snow, the autocratic ruler of the dystopian country of Panem in The Hunger Games (2012), Sutherland was discovered by a new generation; he went on to reprise the role in three further films in that franchise, beginning with The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013).

He played artists in two art-world thrillers by Italian directors: in Giuseppe Tornatore’s Deception, AKA The Best Offer (2013), he was a would-be painter helping to execute multimillion-dollar scams, while in Giuseppe Capotondi’s The Burnt Orange Heresy (2019) he was on the other side of the heist as a reclusive genius targeted by a wealthy and unscrupulous dealer (Mick Jagger).

Aside from James Gray’s science-fiction drama Ad Astra (also 2019), in which he co-starred with Brad Pitt, Sutherland’s best late work was all for television. In Danny Boyle’s mini-series Trust (2018), which covered the same real-life events as Ridley Scott’s All the Money in the World, he played J Paul Getty, the oil tycoon whose grandson is kidnapped; while in The Undoing (2020), he was the father of a psychologist (Nicole Kidman), reluctantly putting up bail when her husband (Hugh Grant) is arrested for murder.

For the latter role Sutherland was in the running for a Golden Globe, having already received an honorary Oscar in 2017.

He is survived by Francine and his children, Kiefer, Rachel, Rossif, Angus and Roeg, and by four grandchildren.

🔔 Donald McNichol Sutherland, actor; born 17 July 1935; died 20 June 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[historic-haze]

ABOUT ME

•Name: Victoria

•Pronouns: she/her

•Age: 23

•National identity: Argentine/Canadian

•Education: Bachelor in Music, would like to do a Master's in Musicology

•Interests: music, literature, books, poetry, storywriting, history, ancient Greece & mythology, culture, animals, languages, films, drama, internet aesthetics, going on walks, nature

•Languages: Fluent English & Spanish, very minimal French, German, & Italian

•Instruments: piano, violin, viola, composing

•Favourite composers: Chopin, Rachmaninov, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Debussy, Gershwin, Carlos Gardel, Astor Piazzolla, Ennio Morricone, John Williams, Alma Deutscher, Joshua Kyan Aalampour

•Favourite books: The Secret History, If We Were Villains, Frankenstein, Dracula, 1984, Vicious, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, The Binding, The Outsiders, The Sun and the Star, The Thief Lord

•Favourite authors/poets/playwrights: Donna Tartt, Rick Riordan, V. E. Schwab, Mary Shelley, William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Frost, Alexander Pushkin

•Favourite subjects: music, history, literature, English, foreign language, geography, philosophy, drama

•Favourite foods & beverages: chocolate, alfajores, tiramisu, pizza, pasta, empanadas, tomatoes, bananas, brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, fruit smoothies

[inspofromancientworld]

Legendary Creatures: Bunyip

By Henry Dowling, John Murray - Reproduced from The Tasmanian Journal of Natural Science [1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3275930

Wet places, especially places that remain wet most, if not all, of the year give rise to many legendary creatures. To the Wemba-Wemba Aboriginal people of southeast Australia, near modern-day Victoria, the bunyip was one of them.

By Gerald Markham Lewis - http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an21971935, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1805519

The word bunyip is usually translated as 'devil' or 'evil spirit' but the creature itself and its role for the Aboriginal people was more complex than those translations allow. There's also an apparent linguistic connection to Bunjil, who was 'a mythic 'Great Man' who made the mountains, rivers, man, and all the animals'. While the name comes from the Wemba-Wemba people, there are variations of the bunyip throughout Australia with Robert Holden identifying at least nine variations in his 2001 book Bunyips: Australia's Folklore of Fear.

By Macfarlane, J. - https://viewer.slv.vic.gov.au/?entity=IE7218367&mode=browse, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1816013

The bunyip is usually aquatic or amphibious, living in the lakes, swamps, rivers, lagoons, billabongs, and other bodies of water. The Moorundi people of Murray River describe it as as written in a description by George French Angus,'It inhabits the Murray; but … they have some difficulty describing it. Its most usual form … is said to be that of an enormous starfish'. There used to be an outline of a bunyip that until the mid-1850s was visited annually to be retraced by Aboriginal People in the banks of Fiery Creek near modern-day Ararat, Victoria, that was only described as '11 paces long and 4 paces in extreme breadth' by The Australasian newspaper in 1851. In 1878, Robert Brough Smyth wrote in his Aborigines of Victoria that 'in truth little is known among the blacks respecting its form, covering or habits; they appear to have been in such dread of it as to have been unable to take note of its characteristics'. It is also described as having an morepoke owl's snout and probably nocturnal.

The origin of the bunyip is also debated and murky. Some think the origin is seals making their way up-river where they're not usually seen. Others think that it is a cultural memory of some extinct marsupial or possibly fossils. Still others say that it might be the southern cassowary as it seems to match the description of the Aboriginal people in Far North Queensland. Others say it might be the Australasian bittern as the male's mating call sounds like a 'low pitched boom'.

[sugdenlovesdingle]

I know I am biased, but everything they have been doing seems like getting ready for Robert to return and make Aaron have an affair with Robert so that 1) first time Aaron stepping out in a relationship and 2) A repeat of what happened with Andy Sugden. And I hate every bit of that SL but my (il) logical brain says there is no reason for this guy to be a Sugden or for him to have an affair with Aaron, or for him to be gay for that matter. He could have been bi or pan or asexual! Imagine John Sugden being a confused aro-ace and Aaron chasing him like an animal in heat!! Being rejected by two Sugdens would have sent Aaron over the edge!

Like there is no conventional soap drama in the John Aaron affair unless Robert returns. No one will care when Victoria finds out that they are carrying on. Aaron is divorced. Unless they bring in another new character to drive a "wedge" ...by which time, Aaron making a quip about always loving Robert on reel, during real life award season is just weird.

I guess the drama would be Vic finding out her BEST FRIEND LIED TO HER. You know they always bring back their friendship to make aaron feel guilty. He promised her there was nothing going on with him and fauxbert, she'll be hurt when she finds out he is still seeing him and lied to her.

i mean it'll last maybe one ep... but there's the drama.

And they obviously wanted a new guy for aaron and think the "sugden charm" is all it took with robron. John could be anyone, they don't use the sugden connection - the only connection he's interested in is the one with Aaron's dick.

I really have no idea where they're going with this if it doesn't lead to Ryan coming back as Robert.

[mybeingthere]

Clifton Pugh (1924 – 1990) was an Australian artist and three-time winner of Australia's Archibald Prize. One of Australia's most renowned and successful painters, Pugh was strongly influenced by German Expressionism, and was known for his landscapes and portraiture. Important early group exhibitions include The Antipodeans, the exhibition for which Bernard Smith drafted a manifesto in support of Australian figurative painting, an exhibition in which Arthur Boyd, David Boyd, John Brack, Robert Dickerson, John Perceval and Charles Blackman showed; a joint exhibition with Barry Humphries, in which the two responded to Dadaism; and Group of Four at the Victorian Artists Society Gallery with Pugh, John Howley, Don Laycock and Lawrence Daws.

Frank Neilson, photographer, tells about his visit to Clifton Pugh:

Clifton Pugh, one of Australia’s most celebrated artists and three-time winner of the Archibald Prize for portraiture, lived on his 15 acre property “Dunmoochin” at Cottle’s Bridge in country Victoria. Clifton, born in Melbourne on 17 December 1924, was a prolific painter and print-maker of landscape and portrait subjects. He received the honour of Officer of the Order of Australia for his services to art. A staunch supporter of the Australian Labor Party, one of his memorable Archibald wins was for his 1972 painting of Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.

"I first saw one of Clifton’s paintings during the early sixties, and was impressed by the very “Australian” style he used. That painting was of the carcase of a dead animal in the desert, painted in strong yellows and reds, with expressionistic black outlining. I got to know Clifton in about 1988, whilst photographing a series of works he had produced on the theme of Leda and the Swan; for which I used a studio lighting technique I had developed which correctly threw the brush-strokes into relief. They were made into high-quality posters, which Clifton loved, saying that they looked as good as the originals." Continue https://frankneilsen.com.au/gallery/clifton-pugh

[twistedtummies2]

The Price May Be Right - Number 13

Welcome to “The Price May Be Right!” I’m counting down My Top 31 Favorite Vincent Price Performances & Appearances! The countdown will cover movies, TV productions, and many more forms of media. Today we focus on Number 13: Dr. Phibes.

So, here’s a random fun fact for you Batman fans out there: apparently, this character was the inspiration for the version of Mr. Freeze that appeared in the seminal animated story, “Heart of Ice.” And, of course, that version of Mr. Freeze would become the inspiration for the character in nearly every other interpretation – both in and out of comics – to date. So, yeah, if you’re a Mr. Freeze fan, you can thank Egghead for it. :P ANYWAY…while Vincent did many, MANY horror movies – both serious and comedic alike – the one thing he never got was the chance to play a horror icon, so to speak. Which is to say, when you look at other great classic horror actors over the years, whatever else they do there’s always one specific character for whom they’ll always be remembered. For Christopher Lee and Bela Lugosi, it was Count Dracula; for Boris Karloff, it was Frankenstein’s Monster; even with more modern actors, like Roger L. Jackson and Robert Englund, they have specific horror roles (The Voice of Ghostface and Freddy Krueger, respectively) for which they will always be most chiefly recognized. Vincent never had that; he never got that recognition of having a specific, classic monster he could be identified with. The closest we ever got was that he was so well-known for his work with the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, but that’s a bit of a different issue. However, in the 1970s, Price DID get a chance to ATTEMPT such a feat, in two films that were part gruesome, gory nightmare fuel and part witty, satirical humor-fests: these were the Dr. Phibes films. The titular character was a deranged musical genius, who wore a mask to hide his hideous skull-like deformities – all elements taken from the timeless tale of “The Phantom of the Opera.” However, the story of the good doctor is rather different: Phibes’ descent into evil began when his beloved wife, Victoria, was stricken with some unholy medical condition. In order to save her life, a risky surgical operation was needed, which was so tricky it required the aid of no less than nine people to even hope for a success. Unfortunately, something went wrong with the operation; as soon as he got the news, Phibes hurried in the direction of the hospital…but was ironically caught in a terrible car crash, and apparently burned to death in the wreck. Husband and wife were then interred together. The rumors of Dr. Phibes’ death, however, were greatly exaggerated. Phibes miraculously survived the crash, and later rose from the grave hideously disfigured by the accident. He brought his wife with him, and kept her body imprisoned in a sarcophagus filled with honey and special fluids, so that her beauty would forever remain intact. In the first film, “The Abominable Dr. Phibes,” the mad maestro goes on a killing spree, attempting to get revenge on the nine people he blames for the death of his wife and the ruination of his existence. In the second film, “Dr. Phibes Rises Again,” the musical maniac returns, now seeking to resurrect his beloved bride. The Phibes films were a bizarre sort of pair. In a way, I sort of see these as the precursor to both the Scream films and the SAW movies. Like the former films, the movies combine elements of parodical dark comedy with real chills and gory, brutal death scenes. Phibes, himself, is treated as a serious and tragic character, and the fear factor is upped by his appearance. The mask he wears to hide his deformities is basically just Vincent’s face with some uncanny valley makeup added to enhance the effect, giving Price a particularly ghoulish appearance. This combined with the special voice box Phibes uses to speak after his accident – which causes Price to speak in a robotic, mechanical, droning sort of way that is both odd and genuinely unsettling – makes the character truly chilling. At the same time, however, he’s a sympathetic villain, as everything he does is in the name of his precious Victoria, and while one recognizes he is the bad guy of the story, it’s hard not to feel sorry for him and understand his motivations. The methods through which he offs his victims are pretty messed up even by today’s standards, too. In all, I would say most of the scares from the film come from Phibes himself. The humor generally is the result of the other characters around him, as well as some the intentionally contrived elements of the plot that are meant to satirize various horror movie tropes. I’m a little surprised there weren’t more films in the Phibes franchise; if there had been, maybe Vincent could have had that one iconic horror character to be recognized by…but, on the other hand, one of the things that made Vincent so fascinating was that he wasn’t someone who could fit into a singular mold, so to speak, and instead had MANY roles for which any given person could recognize him for most keenly. Dr. Phibes was ultimately just one of those parts, but it’s a part well worth remembering. Tomorrow, the countdown continues with Number 12!

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 6.16 (before 1910)

632 – Yazdegerd III ascends the throne as king (shah) of the Persian Empire. He becomes the last ruler of the Sasanian dynasty (modern Iran). 1407 – Ming–Hồ War: Retired King Hồ Quý Ly and his son King Hồ Hán Thương of Hồ dynasty are captured by the Ming armies. 1487 – Battle of Stoke Field: King Henry VII of England defeats the leaders of a Yorkist rebellion in the final engagement of the Wars of the Roses. 1632 – The Plymouth Company granted a land patent to Thomas Purchase, the first settler of Pejepscot, Maine, settling at the site of Fort Andross. 1745 – War of the Austrian Succession: New England colonial troops under the command of William Pepperrell capture the Fortress of Louisbourg in Louisbourg, New France (Old Style date). 1746 – War of the Austrian Succession: Austria and Sardinia defeat a Franco-Spanish army at the Battle of Piacenza. 1755 – French and Indian War: The French surrender Fort Beauséjour to the British, leading to the expulsion of the Acadians. 1760 – French and Indian War: Robert Rogers and his Rangers surprise French held Fort Sainte Thérèse on the Richelieu River near Lake Champlain. The fort is raided and burned. 1779 – American Revolutionary War: Spain declares war on the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Great Siege of Gibraltar begins. 1795 – French Revolutionary Wars: In what became known as Cornwallis's Retreat, a British Royal Navy squadron led by Vice Admiral William Cornwallis strongly resists a much larger French Navy force and withdraws largely intact, setting up the French Navy defeat at the Battle of Groix six days later. 1811 – Survivors of an attack the previous day by Tla-o-qui-aht on board the Pacific Fur Company's ship Tonquin, intentionally detonate a powder magazine on the ship, destroying it and killing about 100 attackers. 1815 – Battle of Ligny and Battle of Quatre Bras, two days before the Battle of Waterloo. 1819 – A major earthquake strikes the Kutch district of western India, killing over 1,543 people and raising a 6-metre-high (20 ft), 6-kilometre-wide (3.7 mi), ridge, extending for at least 80 kilometres (50 mi), that was known as the Allah Bund ("Dam of God"). 1824 – A meeting at Old Slaughter's coffee house in London leads to the formation of what is now the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA). 1836 – The formation of the London Working Men's Association gives rise to the Chartist Movement. 1846 – The Papal conclave of 1846 elects Pope Pius IX, beginning the longest reign in the history of the papacy. 1858 – Abraham Lincoln delivers his House Divided speech in Springfield, Illinois. 1871 – The Universities Tests Act 1871 allows students to enter the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Durham without religious tests (except for those intending to study theology). 1883 – The Victoria Hall theatre panic in Sunderland, England, kills 183 children. 1884 – The first purpose-built roller coaster, LaMarcus Adna Thompson's "Switchback Railway", opens in New York's Coney Island amusement park. 1897 – A treaty annexing the Republic of Hawaii to the United States is signed; the Republic would not be dissolved until a year later. 1903 – The Ford Motor Company is incorporated. 1903 – Roald Amundsen leaves Oslo, Norway, to commence the first east–west navigation of the Northwest Passage. 1904 – Eugen Schauman assassinates Nikolay Bobrikov, Governor-General of Finland. 1904 – Irish author James Joyce begins a relationship with Nora Barnacle and subsequently uses the date to set the actions for his novel Ulysses; this date is now traditionally called "Bloomsday".

[uovoc]

2022 media consumption year in review

God tier

Matthew Swift series and Magicals Anonymous duology by Kate Griffin (reread). London sorcerer is raised from the dead and accidentally gets fused to the blue electric angels of the telephone lines along the way. Luscious prose, best urban magic I've ever read, and wickedly funny sense of humor.

Kane and Feels - podcast. Paranormal investigators go around London poking the mystic forces with a sharp stick. Surreal. Funny. Moderately comprehensible. There's nothing else quite like it. Someone described it as "the anti-TMA: you cannot form any theories about it no matter how hard you try."

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North (reread) - two time travelers, defined as people stuck in time loops of their own lives, attempt to unravel the mystery of their existence. Suspenseful and beautifully constructed piece of nonlinear storytelling.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender (reread) - Rose tastes people's emotions in food. Her brother disappears into thin air. Their parents are fine. Surreal and haunting pearl of a story.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson - after a family tragedy, the surviving Blackwoods live in isolation from the village. A little Piranesi-ish subverted horror: the sense there's a secret at the heart of the world, and the secret is both joyful and terrible.

Our Flag Means Death - the crangst-filled pirate show that it seemed like the internet lost its mind over, for good reason.

Bee and Puppycat: Lazy in Space - Bee travels between the island and fishbowl space working temp jobs with Puppycat, until their pasts catch up with them. Dreamy, bittersweet, and gorgeous. Season finale was a banger.

Vesper Flights by Helen MacDonald (reread). Nature essays on humans and birds. Quiet, luminous, and filled with love of place. Faves were "The Human Flock", "High Rise", "Eulogy", and "What Animals Taught Me"

Natsume's Book of Friends (anime) - Technically about boy who can see youkai, learning how to navigate the world of human relationships. But really about masking, healing from trauma, and learning to trust.

Decent entertainment

The Deep by Rivers Solomon with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes

Encanto (2021) - movie

The Witcher, season 2 - show

What We Do in the Shadows - seasons 1-3, got bored afterwards

The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell (reread)

The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

Touch by Claire North (reread)

Sing - movie

Notes from the Burning Age by Claire North

The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare (reread)

The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren

Moon Knight - show, season 1

Moon Knight comics - 2011, 2014, 2016, 2021

The Batman (2022)

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

The Girl with the Silver Eyes by Willo Davis Roberts (reread)

The Bad Guys (2022)

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker (reread)

The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker

The Pursuit of William Abbey by Claire North

Johannes Cabal series by Jonathan L. Howard (reread): Johannes Cabal the Necromancer, Johannes Cabal the Detective, Johannes Cabal: The Fear Institute, The Brothers Cabal, and The Fall of the House of Cabal

The Owl House season 2

Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary (reread)

Strider by Beverly Cleary (reread)

Loki - show, season 1

Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman

Paprika (2006) dir. Satoshi Kon (rewatch)

Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar (reread)

The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter

Supernatural - seasons 1 – 6, selected episodes

The Sandman by Neil Gaiman - comics (reread)

The Sandman - show, season 1

Microcosmic God: The complete short stories of Theodore Sturgeon, volume II by Theodore Sturgeon

Various Dick King-Smith books (reread): The Merman, Harry's Mad, and Harriet's Hare

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Girl From the Other Side - anime

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

The Farewell (2019) dir. Lulu Wang

Horatio Lyle series by Catherine Webb: The Extraordinary and Unusual Adventures of Horatio Lyle, The Obsidian Dagger, The Doomsday Machine, and The Dream Thief

Mononoke (2007) dir. Kenji Nakamura - anime

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Dark Tales by Shirley Jackson. Fave: "The Beautiful Stranger"

The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson. Faves: "Like Mother Used to Make" and "Flower Garden"

Legend of Nezha (哪吒传奇) - the 2003 cartoon

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer

Jane Doe by Victoria Helen Stone

Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Lucie Babbidge's House by Sylvia Cassedy

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

Pinocchio (2022) - dir. Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson

Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore

You Suck by Christopher Moore

Bite Me by Christopher Moore

Disliked and usually DNF

Guardian (cdrama)

The Gameshouse by Claire North

Kim's Convenience - show

Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire

Victoriocity - podcast

Sporadic Phantoms - podcast

Guardians of Childhood series by William Joyce - okay I finished it out of loyalty but it was no rotg that's for sure

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

Keep Your Hands off Eizouken - anime

Arcane - show

The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender

Willful Creatures by Aimee Bender

The Color Master by Aimee Bender

Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire

Megan's Island by Willo Davis Roberts (reread)

First Light by Rebecca Stead

Goodbye Stranger by Rebecca Stead

The Apothecary by Maile Meloy

To Your Eternity - anime

Bloomability by Sharon Creech

Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) dir. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert

Malevolent - podcast

Midnight Burger - podcast

Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune

Sunshine by Robin McKinley

The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley

Carter & Lovecraft by Jonathan L. Howard

Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho

M.E. and Morton by Sylvia Cassedy

Forty Stories by Donald Barthelme

Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson

The Bird's Nest by Shirley Jackson

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix Harrow

The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison

The Stench of Adventure (podcast)

We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

Assorted nonfiction

Songs of the Gorilla Nation by Dawn Prince-Hughes

The Organized Mind by Daniel J Levitin - nothing new except for the part about using your spatial memory to hack organization.

The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker - how to organize social gatherings for meaningful and memorable experiences

Rust: the Longest War by Jonathan Waldman - investigative journalism book about corrosion, the hazard it presents to physical infrastructure, and how we mitigate it

Fall Down 7 Times, Get Up 8 by Naoki Higashida

Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life by Yiyun Li - DNF

The One-Minute Manager: The World's Most Popular Management Method by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson - techniques for one-minute goal setting, one-minute praisings, and one-minute reprimands

The Chinese Language: Its History and Current Usage by Daniel Kane. Good concise history of the development of written Mandarin Chinese and the underlying structure of the characters.

A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold - essays on the American landscape and conservation ethics ca. 1950. Neat from a historical standpoint, but nothing to write home about these days. Which kinda is the point I guess.

Oregon Salmon: Essays on the State of the Fish At the Turn of the Millennium, ed. Oregon Trout

Caring for your Parents by Hugh Delehanty and Eleanor Ginzler

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat by Oliver Sacks - DNF

The Grid by Gretchen Bakke - history of how the physical and regulatory infrastructure of the American power grid was developed, and how it needs to be reimagined for the future.

Wildlife Wars : The life and times of a fish and game warden by Terry Grosz. Tales from his career as a California game warden catching poachers.

The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio. DNF. author's writing voice was supremely annoying

Wilderness and the American Mind by Roderick Nash, 3rd ed (1982) (reread) - history of Americans' changing attitudes towards nature and definitions of wilderness. A classic banger.

Black, Brown, Bruised: How racialized STEM education stifles innovation by Ebony Omotola McGee - good summary of what the successful programs for STEM students of color are doing right, everything else is the same old same old

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb. Account of the experience of going through therapy while working as a therapist. Excellent look at how we construct our personal narratives, and how to change them.

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes are High by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Gremmy, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler. Strategies for having effective high-stakes conversations and managing your emotions. Good stuff.

Engineering and Social Justice by Donna Riley. Pretty entry-level, but it's a good bibliography for further reading.

Send in the Idiots by Kamran Nazeer

Why Are We Yelling? The art of productive disagreement by Buster Benson - DNF. disliked his writing style.

[marywoodartdept]

Lost Boy

This week, our Art Therapy blogger, Victoria, shares some of the fan art that she created based off of Batman! She chose a specific character, Jason Todd, and created an illustration inspired by this character. Check it out! #MarywoodArt

The entirety of my winter break consisted of me playing the Arkham Batman series on XBox during my free time. I’ve always enjoyed watching superhero movies, Batman being no exception with the Christopher Nolan trilogy, the recent The Batman film featuring Robert Pattinson, and the DC animated universe movies. I’ve seen gameplay, commentary, and reviews for the Arkham series which convinced me to…

[lleah]

Cinéma français

Truffaut

L’enfant sauvage

Jacques Becker

Falbala (1945)

Jean-Luc Godard

    Masculin/Feminin     Le mépris

Varda

    Cléo de 5 à 7

Robert Bresson

    Pickpocket     L’argent

Francois Ozon

    Huit Femmes     Sitcom (court)

Quentin Dupieux

Wrong Cops Le Daim Incroyable mais vrai *** Au poste

Christophe Honoré

Les bien-aimées Chambre 212 Plaire, aimer et courir vite

Rohmer

    Ma nuit chez Maud (69)     Le genou de Claire

Tati

Mon oncle L'illusioniste (inspiré de )

Resnais

Nuit et Brouillard (55)

Bertrand Blier

Les valseuses Buffet Froid Tenue de soirée ***

Leos Carax

Boy Meet Girl (CHOC) ** Pola X     Les amants du pont-neuf (91) Holly Motors Mauvais Sang

Renoir

Les règles du jeu

Joan Sfar

Le chat du Rabbin Gainsbourg Vie héroïque

Riad Sattouf

Jackie au royaume des filles Les beaux Gosses

Valérie Donzelli ****

 La reine des pommes  La guerre est déclarée Main dans la main Marguerite et Julien

Jacques Demy

    Les parapluies de Cherbourg     Les demoiselles de Rochefort     Peau d’Ane

Haneke

    Amour     Le 7eme continent     Funny games (97) (choc)

Helena Klotz 

L’Age atomique****

Louis Male

    Le feu follet****

George Perec et Bernard Queysanne

    Un homme qui dort ***

Matthieu Kassovitz

    La Haine (95)     L’ordre et la Morale

Justine Trier

Sybil Victoria La bataille de Solferino Anatomie d'une chute *** (palme d'or 2023)

Antonin Peretjako

La fille du 14 Juillet La loi de la jungle La pièce rapportée

Kervern et Delépine

En même temps Effacer l'historique I feel good Saint amour

Céline Devaux

Tout le monde aime Jeanne *** Le repas dominicale ( animation)

Eric judor

Platane Problemos Steak

Jean Pascal Zadi

Tout simplement noir

Agnès Jaoui et Jean-Pierre Bacri

Le gout des autres Place publique Un air de famille Cuisine et depandance

Alain Chabat

Astérix et Obélix, mission Clépatre Didier La cité de la peur RRRR

Nakache et Tolédano

Nos jours heureux Intouchable En thérapie ( série) Le sens de la fête

Maiwen

Polisse Mon roi Jeanne du Barry

[snakesgetfat]

Rosa Bonheur (French painter and sculptor) 1822 - 1899 The Forlorn Donkey, ca. 1881 oil on paper laid down on canvas 35.7 x 25.5 cm. (14.25 x 10 in.) signed 'Rosa Bonheur' (lower right) private collection © photo Christie's

Rosa Bonheur made another version of this donkey, Head of a Donkey, 1881, oil on panel, 29.5 x 25 cm.

* * *

Rosa Bonheur was a French animalière, realist artist, and sculptor. As a painter she became famous primarily for two chief works: Ploughing in Nevers and The Horse Fair (in French: Le marché aux chevaux) (which was exhibited at the Salon of 1853 (finished in 1855) and is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City. Bonheur is widely considered to have been the most famous female painter of the nineteenth century.

Bonheur was born in Bordeaux (where her father had been friends with Francisco Goya who was living there in exile) but moved to Paris in 1828 at the age of six with her mother and brothers, her father having gone ahead of them to establish a residence and income. By family accounts, she had been an unruly child and had a difficult time learning to read. To remedy this her mother taught her to read and write by having her select and draw an animal for each letter of the alphabet. To this practice in the company of her doting mother she attributed her love of drawing animals.

Although she was sent to school like her brothers, she was a disruptive force in the classroom and was consequently expelled from numerous schools. Finally, after trying to apprentice her to a seamstress Raimond agreed to take her education as a painter upon himself. She was twelve at that point and would have been too young to attend the École des Beaux-Arts even if they had accepted women. As was traditional in the art schools of the period, Bonheur began her artistic training by copying images from drawing books and by sketching from plaster models. As her training progressed she began to make studies of domesticated animals from life, to include horses, sheep, cows, goats, rabbits and other animals in the pastures on the perimeter of Paris, the open fields of Villiers[disambiguation needed] and the (then) still-wild Bois de Boulogne. At age fourteen she began to copy from paintings at the Louvre. Among her favorite painters were Nicholas Poussin and Peter Paul Rubens, but she also copied the paintings of Paulus Potter, Porbus, Louis Léopold Robert, Salvatore Rosa and Karel Dujardin. She also studied animal anatomy and osteology by visiting the abattoirs of Paris and by performing dissections of animals at the École nationale vétérinaire d'Alfort, the National Veterinary Institute in Paris. There she prepared detailed studies which she would later use as references for her paintings and sculptures. During this period, too, she also met and became friends with the father and son comparative anatomists and zoologists Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire by whom her father was employed to create natural history illustrations.

Rosa Bonheur received a French government commission which led to her first great success, Ploughing in the Nivernais, exhibited in 1849. Her most famous work was the monumental Horse Fair, completed in 1855, which measured eight feet high by sixteen feet wide. Its subject is the horse market held in Paris on the tree-lined boulevard de l’Hôpital, near the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, visible in the background on the left. It led to international fame and recognition and that same year she travelled to Scotland, "en route" meeting Queen Victoria, who admired her work, and where she completed sketches for later works including A Scottish Raid, completed in 1860, and Highland Shepherd. These were anachronistic pieces as they depicted a way of life in the Scottish highlands that had disappeared a century earlier. Nonetheless, they had enormous appeal to Victorian sensibilities. She was especially popular in England, though less so in her native France. In France she was decorated with the Legion of Honour by the Empress Eugenie and was promoted to officer of the order.

She was represented by private art galleries, and in particular that of Ernest Gambart (1814–1902), who would purchase the reproduction rights to her work and sell engraved copies of her paintings. It was Gambart who brought Bonheur to the United Kingdom in 1855. Many engravings were created by the skillful Charles George Lewis (1808–1880), one of the finest engravers of his day. Gambart sold through his gallery in London's Pall Mall.

Due to a tendency in 1980s-1990s academic criticism to locate Bonheur as a proto-Feminist and as a pivotal figure for Queer theory, she is perhaps most famous today because she was known for wearing men's clothing and living together with Anna Klumpke. Her work and artistic talent has now become somewhat secondary in importance to her manner of dress, her choice of companions and her penchant for smoking cigarettes. On her wearing of trousers, she said at the time that her choice of attire was simply practical as it facilitated her work with animals: "I was forced to recognize that the clothing of my sex was a constant bother. That is why I decided to solicit the authorization to wear men's clothing from the prefect of police. But the suit I wear is my work attire, and nothing else. The epithets of imbeciles have never bothered me...." She lived for over forty years with her childhood friend Nathalie Micas. In the final year of her life she became close with Anna Klumpke, the author of her "autobiography". She died at the age of 77, at Thomery (By), France. Many of her paintings, which had not previously been shown publicly, were sold at auction in Paris in 1900.

Source: Wikipedia 

[otome0heart]

Thank you for tagging me, @mugoki! ♡⃛ヾ(๑❛ ▿ ◠๑ ) I love these types of games.

Nickname: Megumi  🥰 

Sign: Gemini ♊ 

Height: 1,59m

Last thing googled: IKEA 🤭  I'm buying the last pieces of furniture I need for my flat tomorrow and I've been compulsively checking all types of bookshelves, chests of drawers and organising items they have.

Song stuck in my head: "I guess I just lost my husband, I don't know where he went..." 🤣🤣🤣 I guess they're playing Pink too much on music TV channels.

Number of followers: 240 (and grateful for/to every single one of them ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ )

Amount of sleep: Less that I should have 💤 

Dream job: Being a writer. I love stories since I was a little child and I started writing fanfiction at 13/14 yo, though I didn't even know it was called that. In the last years I started writing originals and though I'm a really slow writer (work and things in my personal life prevent me from writing as much as I'd love to), nothing makes me happier than a computer/a pen and a notebook (well, except books).

Lucky number: 5

Movies/books that summarize you: OMG, so difficult, I had never thought about this... I think Gone with the Wind + The Young Victoria with a BIG pinch of warm moving Christmas books/films and an ever BIGGER one of Jane Austen's novels

Favorite song: It's impossible to choose just one! I love too many, of all genres and times...

Aesthetic: Definitely Victorian and romantic (bustles, crinolines, lace, flowers...).

Favorite instrument: The violin and the piano. I started learning the first as an adult and it made me realise that music is really for everyone. It changed my ideas and my world. And I'd love to resume learning. And once I have more free time, I'll start with the piano.

Favorite authors: Jane Austen, she's my all-time favourite writer. Besides, I love a bunch of romance authors, such as Sarah M. Eden, Ali Hazelwood or Carla Kelly. In the non-romance department, Preston&Child, Robert L. Stevenson, Edgar Allan Poe and Becquer among others. Favourites manga authors include Arakawa Hiromu, Toboso Yana, Enjouji Maki and Adachi Mitsuru ✨

Favorite animal noises: Another one I had never thought about but, maybe the steps of a dog as they are coming to see/greet you (I love dogs 🐶💕)

Random: Today is rainy, winter is coming and I want to hybernate till spring. Can it be summer all year round? ☀️ ☀️ ☀️ 

Tagging these people (no pressure): @darling-dummy-blogs, @otonymous, @victors-only-dummy, @lizzy011389, @winster6