#Pauline biography

[empirearchives]

“I cannot accustom myself to the idea that I will never see him again. I am in despair. Adieu. For me life has no more charm, all is finished. I embrace you.”

— Pauline Bonaparte on the death of her brother, Napoleon. In a letter to Hortense de Beauharnais.

Source: Venus of Empire: The Life of Pauline Bonaparte, by Flora Fraser

#Flora Fraser #Fraser #pauline bonaparte #Pauline #Napoleon’s sisters #Venus of Empire: The Life of Pauline Bo #Venus of empire #Pauline biography #Pauline Bonaparte biography #napoleon #napoleonic era #napoleonic #first french empire #french empire #napoleon bonaparte #france #french history #letter #letters #quotes #the death of Napoleon

[troublewithangels]

i don’t understand people who pick up a biography of someone they have no interest in to read. and then proceed to finish it somehow and give it two stars and a bad review on goodreads. quite literally psychotic behavior

#it's a pauline kael biography #i mean woman if you have not read ANY of her review why would you even bother

[friendly-neighbourhood-librarian]

Run, Hide, Repeat - Pauline Dakin

A strange memoir about a strange childhood and even stranger revelations in adulthood.

Pauline Dakin's childhood was filled with unusual imperatives like "Don't tell your friends that we're moving to the other side of the country tomorrow" and "Don't step on the carpet! We have to wash your feet with this special cleaner!"

It wasn't until her early adulthood that her mother finally revealed the reason for all the secrecy and moving around, and the truth was stranger than fiction: a twisted story of mafia men, secret agents, and a deep-cover witness protection program all stemming from her father's ties to organized crime. Pauline spends the next years of her life living in fear and paranoia, struggling to believe it's true but unwilling to risk the dangerous consequences of assuming it's not.

Eventually, though, the inconsistencies of the story start to add up. It turns out that that truth stranger than fiction? It's just straight-up fiction. As Pauline starts to dig deeper, she discovers that her entire life was based on someone else's delusion, and she wasn't the only one to fall for it.

It's a weird, fascinating story, all the more so because it's true. Dakin sheds light on a rare mental disorder that might not be as rare as the current numbers suggest due to a lack of research and difficulties with diagnosis (delusional disorder). It's a gripping memoir that's hard to put down!

#run hide repeat #pauline dakin #nonfiction #biography #memoir #bookrecs

[ademella]

currently reading

#books #code name pauline #world war II #Pearl Witherington #agent #reading #biography #france #french resistance #history

[woundedtolove]

Hi, i'm sorry this is so out of the blue but would you mind sharing sadomasochistic literature recs pls? I love your other rec lists<33

yo not out of the blue at all. i realise i post a lot of content related to sm.

for fiction: besides the obvious bataille, you should look into colette peignot's collected writings under the name laure.

for some rewritten material on her there's kathy acker's my mother demonology. but everything by kathy acker relates to the subject: blood and guts in highschool, empire of the senseless.

(sidenote from an interview w kris kraus on her biography: According to Eleanor Antin, Kathy worked at a massage parlor in Solana Beach for a while, and she did not give massages. [...] She was also, at the same time, tutoring Latin. / If she didn’t give massages, what did she do? / Well, hand jobs, probably.)

another classic but story of o written by pauline réage plus its beautiful illustrations by leonor fini. it's actually said her fantastical owl masks inspired the character of o + she was really close to andré pieyre de mandiargues, whose one story la marge was adapted by walerian borowczky in immoral tales. then there's sacher masoch's venus in furs. you've probably already heard of anais nin's delta of venus.

i specifically highly rec mary gaitskill. bad behaviour is a great short story collection - one of the stories specifically inspired the film secretary (2002). her essay, the trouble with following the rules, on rape culture and agency published in harper's bazaar (later repub in somebody with a little hammer) is one rare occurrence of nuance and grace accorded to women who've had sexual experiences that are difficult to categorise. it gives a rundown of the ways she personally relates to feminist scholars on the subject too.

there's problems by jade sharma. for a more modern story of the eye, try ryu murakami's ecstasy.

for non-fiction (disclaimer that i mostly haven't read these but they are on my list):

gilles deleuze, masochism: coldness and cruelty ; avgi saketopoulou, sexuality beyond consent ; virginie despentes, king kong theory

if you're similarly interested in boundary-pushing experiences, the limits of the body, attraction to the horrific (i getchu) this is moreso sociology, aesthetics, psychoanalysis focused:

elaine scarry, the body in pain ; anne dufourmantelle, in praise of risk ; sylvère lotringer, overexposed: perverting perversions ; umberto eco, on ugliness

other media: the podcast drunk church, the director catherine breillat.

hope this is of help & if you read anything tell me how it went. i'm always looking for more stuff on the subject too.

[girlactionfigure]

One of three women convicted of a terror offence for displaying images of paragliders at a pro-Palestine march is a Palestinian author and drill rap fan who was granted asylum in the UK because her family were critical of Hamas. 

Heba Alhayek, 29, and her fellow protestor Pauline Ankunda, 26, attached stock images of paragliders to their backs on October 14 - just seven days after Hamas terrorists used paragliders to enter Israel before randomly slaughtering 1,200 people. Noimutu Olayinka Taiwo, 27, stuck one to the handle of a placard.

Alhayek, who grew up in Gaza before being granted asylum in the UK, is described in an online profile as an ‘author, creative and facilitator’ who studied an MA in Social Anthropology at SOAS and has a creative writing qualification.

The biography says her thinking is ‘rooted in anti-nation-state, decolonial, queer, Afrikan feminist thought’ and ‘navigates topics such as disposability, Global South solidarity movements, land justice, Palestinian drill music, and more.’ 

She, Ankunda and Taiwo were charged under the Terrorism Act with carrying or displaying an article to arouse reasonable suspicion that they are supporters of banned organisation Hamas,

After they were found guilty today following a two-day trial, the Crown Prosecution Service said displaying the images amounted to the ‘glorification of the actions’ of Hamas - despite a veteran Guardian journalist appearing to give evidence in their defence. 

@antisemitismtoday2

#UK #Pro Palestinian #Terror Offense

[josefavomjaaga]

Hi Josefa I hope u're doing well and I hope u had a great holiday season!!! c:

I was wondering if you could tell me anything about Eugène in relation to Jerôme Bonaparte? Since they are quite close in age with Jerôme being younger, I was wondering if they had any relationship to one another, and what they thought of each other. I remember hearing about Jerôme being jealous of Eugène for what he perceived as "receiving special treatment" and being prioritized over him by Napoleon, but there weren't any specific sources linked to this statement and I don't know if there is any credence to it 🤔, Yaggy recommended that I should ask u about it because u know a lot about Eugène ^-^

Thank you, @flowwochair, and all best wishes to you, too. May 2024 have nothing but flowers for you!

Your question reminds me of the looong list of unanswered Asks! in my inbox, and that one of my new year's resolutions was to finally get to them. What can I say? I've never been good with that resolution thingie.

Might as well start with yours.

From what I have read, Jérôme Bonaparte and Eugène Beauharnais originally got along rather fine. They actually went to the same school for some time, the "Collège des Irlandais", and it's quite likely that Bonaparte sent his younger brother to this institution because Josephine's son was also there.

If you remember the timeline for Jérôme's naval career that I once put together for you (please scroll way, way down, it's in one of the reblogs 😊), the author also said a bit about Jérôme's school education. Apparently the two boys, Eugène 15 and Jérôme 12 years old, both lived in that boarding school from January 1796 to April 1797. That means, during the time when both Jérôme's older brother Napoleon and Eugène's mother Josephine were away in Italy.

With regards to Jérôme, I feel like it's also interesting to note that when Joseph and Napoleon left for France in 1779, the three youngest Bonaparte siblings Pauline, Caroline and Jérôme had not even been born yet. And Carlo died a short time after Jérôme's birth. I'm pretty sure the two older brothers felt more like father figures with regards to these siblings.

So, Eugène and Jérôme both had Napoleon as the not-quite-father in their life.

Françoise de Bernardy in her biography of Eugène cites a long letter from Jérôme to Eugène from 26 December 1796, that shows him in best spirits, mentions Eugène's sister Hortense and seems to indicate that the teenagers all got along quite well. Among other things, Jérôme mentions yet another quarrel between the Talliens, informs Eugène that Barras and Carnot expect both Jérôme and Eugène to dine with them despite Madame Campan giving a ball that day, and then goes on bragging about how he had been given a laurel crown by generals and politicians, was put on a table and embraced and applauded by everyone. (And if this happened at Barras', I'm not quite sure how I feel about it.)

According to Bernardy, Jérôme is already "the genuine rascal" that he would later be. Though I would like to put this in perspective, because Eugène at the time also seems to have had everything in mind but school lessons and homework, and according to the memoirs of Arnault, he even was a particularly bad and "stupid" student who drove his teachers to despair. It seems that, at this time, they both were two very charming and very spoilt brats, mostly concerned with girls, hunting trips and being flattered by people who wanted to get in the good graces of general Bonaparte. Jérôme, despite being so much younger, also already comes across as more confident and assertive than docile, polite and often insecure Eugène.

This may already be the main difference between them: Eugène, due to his innate desire to please and to gain the recognition of his new stepfather, will change his ways as soon as he becomes Napoleon's aide de camp and joins him in Italy (July 1797). Jérôme will always only do what Jérôme wants. (And to be honest, I kinda love him for that. Jérôme will always find a way to be a pain in Napoleon's imperial ass.)

I remember hearing about Jerôme being jealous of Eugène for what he perceived as "receiving special treatment" and being prioritized over him by Napoleon

I do not really remember anything about that (but then again, I've only read up on Eugène; this may be the same story from Jérôme's perspective). The closest thing I could find is a remark in the memoirs of Laure Junot about how the Bonaparte brothers would always hold Eugène - despite the fact they could not stand him - up as a shining example to Jérôme, causing the latter to despise his former friend. There also is an anecdote (the source of which I cannot remember atm) about Jérôme being furious because unlike Eugène he was not allowed to join the second Italian campaign (battle of Marengo, 1800), and later demanding Napoleon's sabre from that campaign as a gift in compensation.

Could I imagine that Jérôme was jealous of Eugène? Absolutely. This probably needs to be seen in the context of the Bonaparte-Beauharnais rivalry. The Bonaparte always regarded the Beauharnais as intruders and feared Napoleon might grant them too much money or influence. - Did Jérôme have any reason to? I'm not sure. Jérôme simply was a lot younger than Eugène, so of course Eugène was a step ahead of him in his career. It is also true that Eugène rose in rank very quickly and owed this solely to his stepfather. But in all fairness: so did Jérôme. And while Eugène at some point seems to have started to put in a lot of work and effort, even giving up his comfortable post as Napoleon's aide in order to remain in the military, and while he later as viceroy of Italy often worked from morning until midnight (much to his wife's chagrin), Jérôme seems to have seen his naval career as something of a pleasure cruise trip. Desertion from his post and month-long vacation in the United States included. As to his rule as king of Westphalia, I do not want to judge him because I have not read much about it, and in any case he was given very little leeway from his brother. But fact is: Jérôme was made a king. Eugène was not. So who had reason to be jealous?

I am not aware of much contact between the two of them later during the Empire. Eugène was in Italy since 1805. They may have met when Jérôme came to Italy for an interview with Napoleon, at the time when he gave up on his wife Betsy Patterson. But I am unaware of any reaction from Eugène to that. And later, when Eugène goes to Paris for the first time in almost five years, for his mother's "divorce" proceedings, he finds his house already occupied by - Jérôme. 😁

But the funniest (or saddest?) thing is that, while Jérôme was forced to join the navy very much against his will (as a disciplinary measure after the ill-fated duel with Davout's younger brother), Eugène for his part during his finale exile in Bavaria admitted: "I would have loved to be a sailor."

Thank you for the Ask! and sorry for the long rambling. Asking me about Eugène is a dangerous thing to do because I won't stop blabbering...

#napoleon's family #eugene de beauharnais #jerome bonaparte #ask #@flowwochair

[homomenhommes]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … February 18

二月食吧 

1907 – Billy De Wolfe, American actor, born William Jones (d.1974); A character actor, he was active in films from the mid-1940s until his death and was a good friend of Doris Day. He was never married, and is generally believed to have been a homosexual.

He signed with Paramount Pictures in 1943 and became a reliable comedian. His pencil-mustached and often pompous character contrasted humorously with the films' romantic leads. His best-known role of his Paramount tenure is probably the ham actor turned silent-movie villain in the 1947 fictionalized Pearl White biography The Perils of Pauline.

De Wolfe became known for his portrayal of fussy, petty men ("Never touch!," he would say imperiously whenever someone accosted him physically). A New York Times review of his 1948 film Isn't It Romantic? strongly criticized the way the other actors' material limited their performances, contrasting their performances with his: "But Mr. De Wolfe is nothing daunted. He rips up the place with great delight. The material is at his mercy. Likewise the scenery. And he chews it to bits."

He appeared regularly in guest roles on television, including the first two episodes of NBC's The Imogene Coca Show. He reappeared as Mr. Jarvis on CBS's The Doris Day Show, and co-starred with Larry Storch in a short-lived TV sitcom, The Queen and I. He often appeared on talk shows and in TV commercials, doing his "Mrs. Murgatroyd" drag routine. Wearing a hat and a shawl (but still sporting his mustache!), DeWolfe (as old maid "Phoebe Murgatroyd") would claim to be an expert on romance, and answered questions from the lovelorn.

Generations of TV viewers know Billy DeWolfe only by his voice: his is the voice of the frustrated magician in the Christmas perennial Frosty the Snowman. DeWolfe gave the role his usual fussy diction: "Mess-y, mess-y, mess-y! Bus-y, bus-y, bus-y!"

1931 – Charles Higham (d.2012) was an English author, editor and poet. Higham was a recipient of the Prix des Créateurs in 1978 and of the Académie Française and the Poetry Society of London Prize.He is best remembered as the writer of sensationalist biographies, especially Errol Flynn: The Untold Story.

Born in London, Higham was the son of MP and advertising mogul Sir Charles Higham. The younger Higham published two early books of verse in England, before moving to Sydney, Australia in 1954, where at 23 he became a prominent book and film critic. He became literary editor of The Bulletin, the country's leading weekly, in 1964, and published three more collections of verse.

Higham was named Regents Professor by the University of California, an honor accorded to leading literary figures in foreign countries, and while at UC Santa Cruz he discovered the lost footage of It's All True, Orson Welles's uncompleted Latin American triptych. In The Films of Orson Welles (1970) and in Orson Welles: The Rise and Fall of an American Genius (1985), he argued that Welles suffered from a "fear of completion" that led him to abandon projects when they were nearly finished because he could not bear to complete them. Friends of Welles, in particular Peter Bogdanovich, criticised this thesis. Newsweek devoted a full-page spread to Higham as a film detective and The New York Times engaged him as its Hollywood feature writer for the Sunday theatre Section.

Higham's first best seller was Kate (1975), the first authorised biography of Katharine Hepburn. This success was followed by Bette, the Life of Bette Davis, a biography of Lucille Ball, and The Duchess of Windsor (1988, 2005). His book Howard Hughes became the basis of Martin Scorsese's film The Aviator (2004). In this work "his assertions that Hughes had a romance with Cary Grant, was centrally involved in Watergate, offering material assistance to some of the conspirators, and quite possibly died of AIDS all raised eyebrows in the news media."

In 1980, Higham's "most sensational work", Errol Flynn: The Untold Story appeared. In this work he alleged that Errol Flynn was a bisexual fascist sympathiser who spied for the Nazis before and during World War II and had affairs with Tyrone Power, Howard Hughes, and Truman Capote. Tony Thomas, in Errol Flynn: The Spy Who Never Was (1990) and Buster Wiles in My Days With Errol Flynn: The Autobiography of a Stuntman (1988) attacked Higham's claims as fabrications, a claim substantiated by viewing the F.B.I. documents, which were altered - rather than quoted verbatim - by Higham.

In his autobiography Higham wrote of his molestation by his stepmother and reveals his 1952 marriage despite his growing awareness of his homosexuality. He and his wife Norine Lillian Cecil stayed great friends although she later adopted a lesbian lifestyle. Higham lived with his partner Richard V. Palafox, a nurse, until Palafox's death in 2010, in Los Angeles. Higham died on 21 April 2012 in Los Angeles.

1932 – Duane Michals is an American photographer. Largely self-taught, his work is noted for its innovation and artistry. Michals' style often features photo-sequences and the incorporation of text to examine emotion and philosophy, resulting in a unique body of work.

In 1958 while on a holiday in the USSR he discovered an interest in photography. The photographs he made during this trip became his first exhibition held in 1963 at the Underground Gallery in New York City. Duane Michals settled in New York in the late 1950s and became known as a commercial and fashion photographer.

For a number of years, Michals worked in commercial photography, working for Esquire and Mademoiselle, and he covered the filming of The Great Gatsby for Vogue (1974). He did not have a studio. Instead, he took portraits of people in their environment, which was a contrast to the method of other photographers at the time, such as Avedon and Irving Penn. In 1968 Michals was hired by the government of Mexico to photograph the 1968 Olympic Games. In 1970 his works were shown at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

His early work became well known for its insistent, and often humorous, use of the narrative series. Many such works actually incorporated handwritten text onto the images. Thematically, Michals has a recurrent fascination with making tangible the intangible realm of love, death, dreams, and wishes. His works deal with human sexuality, both straight and gay, but always in a charmingly moving and innocent manner.

Though he has not been involved in gay civil rights, his photography has addressed gay themes. As early as 1970, Michals plotted the psychic terrain of urban gay life with his series Chance Meeting, in which two men are seen to cruise each other within the sharply receding space of an alley that communicates both the encounter's intensity and also its potential for alienation.

"Chance Meeting"

The Unfortunate Man (1978) allegorizes the crippling personal effects of gay criminalization, combining photographic image and coarsely handwritten text in what would become Michals's distinctive style.

His frequent incorporation of textual elements is not only Michals's accounting for reality beyond the visible world, but also his unassuming participation in the gay literary tradition that occasioned two books of photographic homages: Homage to Cavafy (1978) and Salute, Walt Whitman (1996). (Among Michals's two dozen books and catalogues, there is also a tribute to René Magritte, with whom Michals shared a fondness for sophisticated visual humor.)

With the publication of his illustrations of ten homoerotic poems by Constantine Cavafy, Michals identified himself publicly as gay, and thereafter one finds in his works images of tremendous tenderness between men, for example, Just to Light His Cigarette Was a Pleasure (1978) and How Nice to Watch You Take a Bath (1986).

In 1976 Michals received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Michals also produced the art for The Police album Synchronicity in 1983, and Richard Barone's Clouds Over Eden album in 1993.

Michals has been in a relationship with his partner for 50 years. Though he has not been involved in gay civil rights, his photography has regularly addressed gay themes and quietly added to the storehouse of twentieth-century gay imagery.

1952 – Daniel David Moses is a First Nations poet and playwright from Canada.

Moses, of Delaware descent on his father's side and Tuscarora descent on his mother's, was born in Ohsweken, Ontario, and raised on a farm on the Six Nations of the Grand River near Brantford, Ontario, Canada. In 2003, Moses joined the department of drama at Queen's University as an assistant professor. In 2019, he was appointed Professor Emeritus by Queen's University, Kingston, Canada.

He has worked as an independent artist since 1979 as a poet, playwright, dramaturge, editor, essayist, teacher, and writer-in-residence with institutions as varied as Theatre Passe Muraille, the Banff Centre for the Arts, Theatre Kingston, the University of British Columbia, the University of Western Ontario, the University of Windsor, the University of Toronto, the Sage Hill Writing Experience, McMaster University and Concordia University.

He is openly gay, and also claims "brothers and sisters among Two-Spirit people." Some of his works, therefore, reflect upon and explore the complexities of Native Two-Spirit or Queer identities

1954 – John Travolta is an American actor, dancer, and singer. There have been continuous claims that he is gay, some of these claims even leading to lawsuits.

Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter and starring in the box office successes Saturday Night Fever and Grease. Travolta's acting career declined through the 1980s.His career enjoyed a resurgence in the 1990s with his role in Pulp Fiction, and he has since continued starring in more recent films such as Face/Off, Swordfish, and Wild Hogs. Travolta was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Saturday Night Fever and Pulp Fiction. He won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his performance in Get Shorty. In 2014, he has received the IIFA Award for Outstanding Achievement in International Cinema at the 15th IIFA Awards held at the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, in the United States.

Travolta married actress Kelly Preston in 1991. The couple had a son, Jett. In 2009, Jett died while on a Christmas vacation in The Bahamas. Their daughter, Ella Bleu, was born in 2000 and a third child, a son named Benjamin, was born in 2010 in Florida. Travolta and Preston have regularly attended marriage counseling; Travolta has stated that therapy has helped the marriage.

Travolta has been a practitioner of Scientology since 1975 when he was given the book Dianetics while filming the movie The Devil's Rain in Durango, Mexico. After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, he joining other celebrities in helping with the relief efforts, Travolta flew his 707 full of supplies, doctors, and Scientologist Volunteer Ministers into the disaster area.

In 2012, Fabian Zanzi, a former employee of Royal Caribbean Cruises, accused the "Grease" star of coming onto him aboard a ship in 2009. "Travolta forced his naked person and his erect penis against plaintiff's person causing plaintiff to experience pain, shock, embarrassment, distress and fear," the complaint filed in federal court in Los Angeles said. Later, lawyers for Zanzi and Travolta signed documents dismissing the action, which prevented Zanzi from refiling.

In May 2012, an anonymous masseur filed a lawsuit against Travolta citing claims of sexual assault and battery. A lawyer for Travolta said that the allegations were "complete fiction and fabrication" and someone wanting their 15 minutes of fame. Travolta's counsel also stated that his client would be able to prove that he was not in California on the day in question and asserted that Travolta would "sue the attorney and Plaintiff for malicious prosecution" after getting the case thrown out. A second masseur later joined the lawsuit making similar claims. Both lawsuits were subsequently dropped by the complainants and dismissed without prejudice.

In September 2014, Travolta denied claims made in January 2014 by his former pilot, Douglas Gotterba, that they had shared a sexual relationship while working for Travolta's aircraft company, Alto, for six years before leaving voluntarily in 1987. Gotterba argued that he was not bound by any confidentiality agreement during his term in the position.

1956 – John R. Stowe, a spiritual teacher, cofounder of Gay Spirit Visions, and founder of EarthFriends, was born. He lived a closeted gay existence until 1979, when he began a quest to discover what it meant to live as a gay man. As with many gay men, much of that struggle meant dealing with negative self images acquired from growing up in a world that does not accept homosexuality.

John began his studies of the living world rather traditionally, majoring in biological sciences and earning an M.S. degree in Biology/Ecology that led to a teaching position in a small university near Atlanta.

After several years of teaching - and a couple more spent traveling through Mexico, Central America, and Europe - he embarked on a study of natural healing. In 1981, John received certification from the Atlanta School of Massage as a Licensed Massage Therapist - having taught there concurrently.

After coming out, he found employment as a bodyworker/ masseur and pursued his spiritual and self-understanding quest through a spectrum of alternative spiritual options from the gay-informed Christianity of Episcopal priest Malcolm Boyd to channeller Andrew Ramer. He found bodywork as one tool that assisted the exploration of the inner self. He soon emerged as a spiritual teacher serving the gay community primarily in the Atlanta, Georgia, area.

In 1990, Stowe joined with a small group of friends who had pursued similar spiritual journeys, including Ramer, to found Gay Spirit Visions. The primary program of Gay Spirit Visions is an annual conference where gay men gather to explore alternative spiritual options. The work of the group provided the atmosphere for him to develop his book, Gay Spirit Warrior (1999). Gay Spirit Warrior was written to assist men begin an inner journey and start to experience the reality of the self, both positive and negative.

In 1984, Stowe had discovered flower essences, substances distilled from flowers and other plants by a particular method first discovered by Edward Bach, a British physician. Stowe began to make his own flower essences from flowers found in the Southeastern United States and use them in his bodywork sessions. In the mid-1980s he founded EarthFriends to manufacture and sell the essences he had developed. One line of products, Exploring Gayspirit Oils, is marketed primarily to gay men.

1969 – Christopher Sieber is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Kevin Burke in Two of a Kind starring Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen, and Lord Farquaad in Shrek the Musical. Christopher studied acting and musical comedy at The American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City. Sieber has appeared in Broadway musicals, including Into the Woods, Monty Python's Spamalot and Shrek The Musical. He is a two-time Tony Award nominee for his work in Spamalot and Shrek The Musical.

Sieber has starred in two television series: Two of a Kind with the Olsen twins and It's All Relative with John Benjamin Hickey and Harriet Sansom Harris.

While It's All Relative was being produced, Sieber came out as gay and said that he was happily partnered to actor and chef Kevin Burrows. They married on November 24, 2011, in New York City.

Sieber is involved with Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS (BC/EFA) and has appeared in several of its Broadway Cares revues, among other events the charity produces.

Today's Gay Wisdom:

Audre Lorde

[{(o)}]|[{(o)}]|[{(o)}]|[{(o)}]| [{(o)}]|[{(o)}]

When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.~ Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals

Each time you love, love as deeply as if it were forever / Only, nothing is eternal. ~ Audre Lorde, Undersong

I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood. That the speaking profits me, beyond any other effect. ~ Audre Lorde, from the essay "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action", in Sister Outsider

Your silence will not protect you. ~ Audre Lorde from the essay "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action", in Sister Outsider

I am who I am, doing what I came to do, acting upon you like a drug or chisel or remind you of your me-ness as I discover you in myself. ~ Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider

Poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives. ~ Audre Lorde

I have always wanted to be both man and woman, to incorporate the strongest and richest parts of my mother and father within/into me -- to share valleys and mountains upon my body the way the earth does in hills and peaks. ~ Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

[muzaktomyears]

I know there's a lot of answers out there for this question, but personally like what do you think are the best beatle books to read? Like what's the best for you?

hello anon! I'm hyperfixated so I'll read pretty much anything on them tbh. I do like to read the more anecdotal stuff because I love gossip lol - and some of them can be so revealing (both of the Beatles themselves and the authors). But I'll read and have enjoyed lots of stuff: the big biogs, memoirs, fan accounts, academic studies, that novel by Paul's ex publicist.

anyway, here's the list of Beatles books I've read all the way through and what rating out of 5 I'd give them. The books I've rated highest have generally been the big biographies just because I think they tend to say more and tell a fuller story, since obvs that's their purpose, so they're a more satisfying read. My ratings are based on a random combo of what they can tell us about the Beatles, how interesting I find them historiographically/as Beatles reception, and how much I enjoyed reading them.

★★★★★

One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time (Craig Brown)

The Beatles: The Authorised Biography (Hunter Davies)

Shout!: The True Story of the Beatles (Philip Norman)

Love Me Do!: The Beatles' Progress (Michael Braun)

Can't Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain, and America (Jonathan Gould)

The Man Who Gave the Beatles Away: The Amazing True Story of the Beatles' Early Years (Allan Williams & William Marshall)

★★★★☆

The Love you Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles (Peter Brown & Steven Gaines)

Backbeat: Stuart Sutcliffe - The Lost Beatle (Alan Clayson & Pauline Sutcliffe)

The Gospel According to the Beatles (Steve Turner)

Lennon vs. McCartney: The Beatles, Inter-band Relationships and the Hidden Messages to Each Other in Their Song Lyrics (Adam Thomas)

Beatle! The Pete Best Story (Pete Best & Patrick Doncaster)

Dreaming the Beatles: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World (Rob Sheffield)

A Cellarful of Noise (Brian Epstein)

Waiting for the Beatles: An Apple Scruff's Story (Carol Bedford)

John (Cynthia Lennon)

John Lennon: In My Life (Pete Shotton & Nicholas Schaffner)

Summer of Love: The Making of Sgt. Pepper (George Martin with William Pearson)

★★★☆☆

John, Paul & Me Before the Beatles: The True Story of the Very Early Days (Len Garry)

The Beatles and Me on Tour (Ivor Davis)

A Twist of Lennon (Cynthia Lennon)

At the Apple's Core: The Beatles from the Inside (Denis O'Dell with Bob Neaverson)

The Guitar's All Right as a Hobby, John (Kathy Burns)

With the Beatles (Alistair Taylor)

The Day John Met Paul: An Hour-By-Hour Account of How the Beatles Began (Jim O'Donnell)

The Beatles: I Was There (Richard Houghton)

All Our Loving: A Beatle Fan's Memoir (Carolyn Lee Mitchell & Michael Munn)

Rock Bottom (Geoff Baker)

Once There Was a Way: What if the Beatles Stayed Together? (Bryce Zabel)

Like Some Forgotten Dream: What if the Beatles Hadn't Split Up? (Daniel Rachel)

Dylan, Lennon, Marx and God (Jon Stewart)

Paul is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion (Alan Goldsher)

★★☆☆☆

Paperback Writer (Mark Shipper)

#asks #books

[bunniesandbeheadings]

Reading Flora Fraser’s biography on Pauline Bonaparte and uh. I don’t know how to say this, but I in no way think being sexually promiscuous on one hand, and being emotionally close with a sibling on the other “inevitably” adds up to…incest.

Like Fraser, maybe…pause and reflect.

#Pauline bonaparte #incest cw #this is the least convincing argument I’ve ever seen #napoleon

[post-futurism]

Thank you for tagging me in the Get To Know Me tag game @monstrousteaparty - i am starting a new post because the long post is... very long. 

Last song: Two Weeks by FKA Twigs 

Currently watching: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. I also just finished the Sex Life Of College Girls s2 which i really dug, although i thought it was really weird that it wasn’t mentioned at all that Pauline Chalamet’s character lost a bunch of weight? like i thought it was really cool that she wasn’t as stick thin as her brother in s1 but in s2 she seems to have lost so much weight to the point where her character is almost unrecognisable and nobody says anything?? america explain. 

Currently reading: I’m reading Cynthia Nolan’s biography by M. E. McGuire which has actually been kinda boring in the way McGuire has put the historical information together but i’m reading it for the drama. frankly obsessed with the heide circle and everyone involved so i’m reading about Cynthia’s life with a v queer lens and taking from it what i want. thinking about writing a fictional historical take of the polyamorous drama that happened within the heide circle but not sure i want to be crucified by the historical puritans so not sure if this will just stay in my dreams or become a reality lol. anyway that’s kind of my purpose for reading this book. 

Current obsession: for like two (2) days it was the Millau Viaduct (read about it on wikipedia it’s WILD) but i think genuinely my long time obsession since may last year has been soulwax. every time i think i’m normal about them, one of their songs will weed it’s way into the youtube algorithm playlist and im like o ya they rule. they just *clenches fist* they make such cool sounds. 

Tagging @peter-weir (i already love you but want to know what you’re up to lately), @submalevolentgrace @bodyholly @tvmilfs @borderlinemediocre @chikyful @wateryblasts @captainreverie @insanewizards @broccoliwave @harrringtons @mrrrl

#about me #i'm going to a 2000s club festival in august and if not a single dj there plays soulwax i'll kick someone i s2g #sorry i feel like half the tags didn't work on this

[empirearchives]

Pauline Bonaparte revisiting the place where she and her family lived in Nice during the 1790s ❤️

Text:

‘That was my mother's room. I slept in this little cabinet next to her. My sisters were on the other side. That was the room my brother Napoleon occupied when he came to surprise us and spent two days with us.’” Although Pauline did not mention it, the months at the Château-Sallé had not been without tension. It was at Nice, during the time of the Terror, that Napoleon had fallen under suspicion and had been kept under house arrest, before exculpating himself and being released.

Source: Venus of Empire: The Life of Pauline Bonaparte by Flora Fraser

#pauline bonaparte #Pauline #borghese #napoleonic era #Venus of Empire #Pauline biography #first french empire #Pauline borghese #quote #napoleonic #Napoleon’s family #18th century #frev #1700s #french revolution #book #book pic #reading #book tumblr #text #tumblr text post #text post #napoleon #napoleon bonaparte #nice #France #the terror #the reign of terror #French Riviera #Côte d'Azur

[anotherkindofmindpod]

Thanks ladies for another fascinating podcast.

I was especially surprised to hear Pauline Sutcliffe, in relation to the fight between John and Stu, mention that Paul and George had been complaining about Stu's base playing. With the "using his fists" and this, it does appear Paul was not the only one that had issues with Stu being in the band.

It does make me wonder, two Beatles fighting but only Stu's point of view is described. To me, you would think that both view points should be told so that the reader can understand both boys. This is a BEATLES biography is it not? How can you not try to explain the motivations of one of the Beatles. Surely Paul fans are going to make up 25% of your readership??!

At least now I understand why Lewisohn chose to do a Beatles biography rather than a Lennon biography, it's so he can pick Paul to pieces.

Nothing to add to this excellent ask!

thanks for writing and listening, Anon.

#akom #fine tuning #another kind of mind #beatles #A Prolonged Jealousy

[stevenspector]

Steven's books

okay. I did a very reasonable thing and looked at screenshots of Steven sitting at his desk in episode one when he was trying to stay awake. And i tried to figure out as many of his books as i could

I'll show you the screenshots and then under the cut my deep dive into figuring out the different books (also: tumblrs picture cropping sucks)

Okay, PREPARE. This is a LONG post. I put screenshots of all the books i could kinda see on here. If you can figure out any more, let me know or add onto this! now, enjoy:

a book about Ancient Egypt:

a book about Greek History

"Area 51 Fact or Fiction"

“World Mythology”, possibly “Larousse World Mythology” by Pierre Grimal

"What’s old is new again: Asgard", probably a book about New Asgard

"History of Wakanda"

“The Paradice Papers” by Merlin Stone, original on right

a book about Peru

a book about the silk road

"Rome and her Empire" by David Shotter, original on right

“Valley of the Kings” which is the royal necropolis of the New Kingdom of Egypt

some more books about Ancient Egypt

"The Lost Explorer: Finding Mallory on Mount Everest" by Conrad Anker, original on right

"Pompeii: The Living City" by Alex Butterworth and Ray Lawrence, original on right

“Free-Born John: A Biography of John Lilburne” by Pauline Gregg (and above it anything about anything classical), original on right

“Luther: Man Between God and the Devil” by  Heiko A. Oberman (and above it one with no title or indication), original on right - above and under 2 books i haven't figured out

“Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King” by Antonia Fraser, original on right

“The Revolution of the Dons; Cambridge and Society in Victorian England” by Sheldon Rothblatt, original on right - under it one with only a snippet i haven't figured out

Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred & Other Contemporary Sources, published by Penguin Classics (thank you @sta33ington for helping with this one)

#it's currently 2am btw #i spent too long on this #my google search is full of: history book with green spine #reverse image search let me down #i am a nerd #moon knight #marvel moon knight #moon knight 2022 #moon knight series #moon knight disney+ #steven grant

[james-vi-stan-blog]

Do you have any good biography recs on James vi&i?

With an ask like this I feel the pressure… I'm not a historian, not a history major, purely a dude who just really likes James, so I feel nervous about steering you wrong! But…

AFAIK King James by Pauline Croft is still probably "the best one", as in the most thorough, carefully weighed, and even-handed. However, it's more academically than pop oriented, could be more expensive to get, and maybe you don't wanna get that deep into the weeds?

I actually haven't gotten my hands on The Wisest Fool: The Lavish Life of James VI and I by Steven Veerapen yet, but it's from 2023 and it's been praised by people I trust. So even though I haven't read it I think this might be the one to go for.

If you have little time, none money, and your library sucks, I thought this overview on the Tudor Times website was pretty good.

They're not exactly biographies (they focus in on more specific concerns), but I also really liked King James and the History of Homosexuality by Michael B. Young and After Elizabeth by Leanda de Lisle.

#james's weird stan rambles again #james vi and i #others I've forgotten because my brain is goo

[pagansphinx]

William Orpen (British/Irish, 1878-1931)

William Orpen (British/Irish, 1878-1931) • Self-portrait painting Sowing New Seed • 1913 • Saint Louis Art Museum)

Sowing New Seed (for the Board of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland) • c. 1913 • Mildura Arts Centre, Mildura, Australia

There's an interesting back-story to this painting. In the 1910s, the Irish government's agricultural division was also responsible for arts grants. When it cut funding for the arts in favor of agricultural grants, Orpen painted the work, using allegorical metaphor, in protest of the decision. The nude represents the sowing of new ideas through the arts, while the children are the future generation's exposure to those ideas. The farm couple on the right and the crumbling farmhouse on the left, symbolize the board of agriculture's regressive attitude toward the arts.

The painting sparked further controversy when it was purchased by an Australian art collector who felt it important to recognize new ideas in contemporary British art and subsequently exhibited at an Adelaide Gallery. The outcry against its nude content was reflected in the dozens of letters to the local newspaper demanding it be taken down.

Alas, two quite different examples of anti-progressive attitudes toward art in the early 20th century.

References:

• St. Louis Art Museum

• Dictionary of Irish Biography: William Orpen

• Sowing New Seed: Orpen, Ireland, and Unsophisticated Colonials in Adelaide, South Australia

• Pauline Connely – Orpen's ‘Sowing New Seed’ ….OF PROTEST!

#art #painting #fine art #art history #william orpen #british/Irish artist #realism #20th century british art #allegorical art #1910s artwork #oil painting