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One of my favourite bits of media history trivia is that back in the Elizabethan period, people used to publish unauthorised copies of plays by sending someone who was good with shorthand to discretely write down all of the play's dialogue while they watched it, then reconstructing the play by combining those notes with audience interviews to recover the stage directions; in some cases, these unauthorised copies are the only record of a given play that survives to the present day. It's one of my favourites for two reasons:

It demonstrates that piracy has always lay at the heart of media preservation; and

Imagine being the 1603 equivalent of the guy with the cell phone camera in the movie theatre, furtively scribbling down notes in a little book and hoping Shakespeare himself doesn't catch you.

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Queer WWI Literature

This is a very niche and limited category, so I’ve been trying to throw together a list of what I can find out there for anyone else who might also be interested. What follows are all books that contain LGBTQ+ rep of any kind, that also involve the First World War as a central theme.

Titles with an asterisk* are the ones I have personally read, and would be more than happy to talk about/answer any questions about their content/rep!

Written in the 20th Century

Alf, by Bruno Vogel (1929)

Despised and Rejected, by Rose Allatini (pseud. A.T. Fitzroy) (1918)*

Lads: Love Poetry of the Trenches, edited by Martin Taylor (1989)

The Memorial, by Christopher Isherwood (1932)

My Father and Myself, by J.R. Ackerley (1968)

The Prisoners of War: A Play in Three Acts, by J.R. Ackerley (1925)*

The Regeneration Trilogy (Regeneration, The Eye in the Door, The Ghost Road), by Pat Barker (1991, 1993, 1995)*

A Scarlet Pansy, by Robert Scully (1932)*

Strange Meeting, by Susan Hill (1976)

Written in the 21st Century

The Absolutist, by John Boyne (2011)

Across Your Dreams, by Jay Lewis Taylor (2016)

Alec, by William di Canzio (2021)

Ashthorne, by April Yates (2022)

Awfully Glad, by Charlie Cochrane (2014)

Bonds of Earth, by G.N. Chevalier (2012)*

The Boy I Love, by Marion Husband (2005)*

The Daughters of Mars, Thomas Keneally (2012)

Eleventh Hour, by Elin Gregory (2016)

The Fallen Snow, by John J. Kelley (2012)

Fighting Proud: The Untold Story of the Gay Men Who Served in Two World Wars, by Stephen Bourne (2017) – (I know I said fiction, but I’m going to leave this one here anyhow)

Flower of Iowa, by Lance Ringel (2014)*

The Great Swindle, by Pierre Lemaitre (2013)*

The Indian Clerk, by David Leavitt (2007)

The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing, by Mary Paulson-Ellis (2019) *

In Memoriam, by Alice Winn (2023)

The Lie, by Helen Dunmore (2014)

The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters (2014)

A Pride of Poppies, short story collection published by Manifold Press (2015)

Promises Made Under Fire, by Charlie Cochrane (2013)

The Shell House, by Linda Newbery (2002)*

Spectred Isle, by K.J. Charles (2017)

The Stranger’s Child, by Alan Hollinghurst (2011)

The Warm Hands of Ghosts, by Katherine Arden (2024)

Whistling in the Dark, by Tamara Allen (2008)*

Wild with All Regrets, by Emma Deards (2023)

The World and All that it Holds, by Aleksandar Hemon (2023)

This is a dynamic list, which I will continue to update whenever I find something new. If you know of anything that isn’t on this list and needs to be, please let me know!

#!!!! #incredible thank you! #so many! #wwi fiction #wwi

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I believe it is officially confirmed that Katherine Arden’s new book coming out in Feb, The Warm Hands of Ghosts does have a m/m relationship/queer characters. I’m super excited to get a Great War novel from this author!

!!!

Always love to hear stuff like this.

#katherine arden #the warm hands of ghosts

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Vital information in the 18th Division intelligence summary for December 1915.

Dec. 22nd. A white ferret was seen running about in front of parapet F.3.a.5.3.

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hey anyone want to hang out with me and we can sit in the Hole together

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There is a downside to the popularisation of Remembrance Day, and it is the way it completely neglects the reason why we must remember the dead in the first place.

Armistice Day is not a contest of who shall wear the most poppies, or who shall comment “lest we forget” the most on social media, or even how many WWI photos you can view in a hour. It’s not simply about reminding yourself once a year that millions of men died more than a hundred years ago.

It’s about remembering that peace is NEVER granted.

The lessons learned in the last century matter because at every moment, every minute, every second, right as I write, conflicts over the world still kill thousands of innocents and political leaders will start new ones every time they get the chance.

While we should remember their faces, the dead of WWI are what they are: dead. And we must remember why; because if you promote violence, if you promote rejection, if you promote xenophobia, if you promote hatred, you are yourself stepping a little closer to seeing War ring the bell of your doorstep in much the same way it did in 1914.

The dead of WWI are no longer here. They will not rise or talk to us ever again. But what killed them in the first place still exists and will always exist.

You must strive to promote peace not just on the 11th of November, but every day of your life. Because, since hatred is always an easier instinct than compassion, anyone who does not oppose escalation in violence is condemning, a little bit more everyday, young people to forced conscription, civilians to mindless bombings, humans to human cruelty.

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This year has been very all over the place. Some good things, some very bad things. Haven’t had the head space to read much which makes me sad. Only got to 7 of the books on this list. Have read some other things too but no where near what my reading goals are. Ah well. There’s no deadline really.

23 books for 2023

As follows are 23 books I think I'd like to get to this year. This list pretty much just the unread books I already have sitting on my shelves, although there's a few on there that I don't own yet but would like to... This list also does not include the two books I'm currently reading. In no particular order except for alphabetical.

The Absolutist, John Boyne

Address Unknown, Kathrine Kressmann Taylor

Alf, Bruno Vogel

At Night All Blood is Black, David Diop

Bertram Cope’s Year, Henry Blake Fuller

Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh

Catch-22, Joseph Heller

Convenience Store Woman, Sayaka Murata

Germinal, Émile Zola

The Great War and Modern Memory, Paul Fussell

Hell’s Foundations, Geoffrey Moorhouse

The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing, Mary Paulson-Ellis

In Parenthesis, David Jones

Love, Tommy, Andrew Roberts

The Memorial, Christopher Isherwood

The Military Orchid, Jocelyn Brooke

Nevada, Imogen Binnie

Our Lady of the Flowers, Jean Genet

A Paradise Built in Hell, Rebecca Solnit

The Road Back, Erich Maria Remarque

Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut

True Sex: The Lives of Trans Men at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, Emily Skidmore

The Watch that Ends the Night, Allan Wolf

Let me know if there's anything on here you think I should get to first! Hopefully I can return to this in a year's time and say I've read all of these.

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You

Me

Discussing our favourite books for hours

It’s a date

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Happy to report I had a great time. It was brilliant. Some incoherent thoughts below…

This UK tour has a doubled up version of the cast, but it does NOT seem to be the ensemble version that is currently licensable (original version is 37 lead/supporting + additional ensemble — the ensemble cast version incorporates doubling to being the cast down to 20 people—looking at the cast breakdown on concord theatricals’ site, it doesn’t match up, which is interesting).

So I do wonder with this what changes are specific to this particular production vs what was made for that ensemble version and also other changes to the show itself over time.

But like having Ismay instead of Andrews sing “In Every Age” and changes like that. And cutting the little poker scene before Autumn, and they cut the entire second half of “Wake up, wake up.” Idk if these changes are something that is reflected in the currently liscence-able versions of the show if they are specific to the UK tour.

I won’t go into everything that I liked/disliked about those changes/cuts/additions as I’d be here forever

But I will say….!

I loved what they did with Alice and Edgar! In past productions I’ve seen Alice has always been rather… grating. The two of them have so much charm in this version and ahhh having them dance during Autumn 🥺

And they acknowledged Phillips! (For those not familiar with the musical, they essentially just combined the the two into the Bride’s character for the show) but they had him there, perhaps little more than a shadow, but I appreciated it, and he got his little nod at the end.

One big complaint though is how they handled Murdoch. This version went along with… a prominent myth regarding him, and they portrayed it very heavy handedly. I don’t think they should’ve included it at all.

This version also leaned more strongly into mythologized characterizations, particularly of Captain Smith, Ismay, and again, Murdoch. Things that the original escaped due to a certain movie not yet taking over the popular perception of the tragedy… this recent filmed tour leaning into, correctly or not, preconceived expectations as to how these figures will be portrayed.

Lesser complaint, with the doubling (and the nature of it being a tour too makes this an easier choice) they didn’t have any children in the cast. In the full cast version, there’s usually either one or two, as the bell boy and Jack Thayer. Here they had the bell boy doubled with Hartley, and Jack was a prop baby. Which made “To the Lifeboats” very weird as the lyrics did not fit for the Thayers to be singing to an infant (not to mention Jack was 17 in reality anyways…).

Also really appreciated how they wove the dinner scenes into “A Remarkable Age.” I recall when I saw it a few years back the song was sang through, and then they went through each dinner and wow it dragged, so this was an excellent improvement.

I’ve got the script somewhere I really need to compare properly

I was also so curious how they would do the tilting of the deck that was so iconic to the Broadway version! Considering it was a touring version so the set had to reflect that… and I was not disappointed!

And I mentioned it briefly with Phillips but I also very much liked how they moved the dialogue that usually goes over “the foundering” and instead gave more time to those aboard, and got to that dialogue later.

Heck yeah Titanic musical day

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Heck yeah Titanic musical day

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Just learned about history. Appalled

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Anyone know if any version of But it Still Goes On by Robert Graves exists anywhere that won’t cost me an arm or a leg? Trying to track the script down and having trouble.

#Robert graves #WWI #question #first world war #theatre #But it Still Goes On

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all quiet in a western font

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dead metaphors are really interesting honestly and specifically i’m interested in when they become malapropisms

like, the concept being, people are familiar with the phrase and what people use it to mean metaphorically, but it’s not common knowledge anymore what the metaphor was in literal reference to. people still say “toe the line” but don’t necessarily conjure up the image of people standing at the starting line of a race, forbidden from crossing over it. people still say “the cat is out of the bag” without necessarily knowing it’s a sailors’ expression referring to a whip being brought out for punishment. some metaphors are so dead we don’t even know where they come from; like, there are ideas about what “by hook or by crook” references, but no one is entirely sure. nobody knows what the whole nine yards are.

and then you throw in a malaprop or a mondegreen or two, where because people don’t know what the actual words of the expression refer to, they’re liable to replace them with similar sounding words (see “lack toast and tolerant”). so we can literally go from a phrase referencing a common, everyday part of life to a set of unfixed, contextless sounds with a completely different meaning. that’s fascinating. what an interesting piece of the way language and culture are living, changing, coevolving things.

maybe part of the reason we can’t figure out where some phrases come from is that over time the words themselves have changed! one of the theories about “the whole nine yards” is that it’s a variant of “the whole ball of wax,” which some people further theorize was originally “the whole bailiwick,” meaning just “the whole area”! the addition of “nine yards” might be related to “dressed to the nines,” which might reference the fucking Greek muses! language is so weird and cool! (and I only know any idioms in two languages!)

the point is. I just came across the words “nip it in the butt” in a piece of published, professional fiction, and now I can’t stop giggling.

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Arthur Lismer

Olympic with Returned Soldiers

1919

#rms olympic #arthur lismer #my gggrandfather sailed on the Olympic from Canada to France in wwi #I got very excited when I saw that document #wwi #first world war

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sometimes I wonder how we all survive and then I look at my best friends and I go “oh, I survive because I don’t want to leave you yet” and it makes sense. life is so hard a lot of the time, but I want one more bowl of pasta with you.