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dokidokivisual · 3 years

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Gochiusa BLOOM episode 3 impressions

Previously: episode 2, episode 1 (seriously, the number of notes on ep 2 review is too low...)

Welcome to another review of Gochuumon wa usagi desu ka? BLOOM. In this episode, the series explores a topic it rarely touched previously, which is school life. Unlike many similar slice-of-life series, Gochiusa rarely concerned itself with such a mundane setting, preferring the ambience of cafés and cobblestone streets. There were a few exceptions, such as the first half of season 2 episode 10, but this is the first episode fully dedicated to a school setting.

Another distinguishing trait of Gochiusa is that the group of main characters attends not one, but several different schools. In particular, there are two high schools: a “normal” one attended by Cocoa and Chiya, and an “elite” one attended by Sharo and Rize. Moreover, there’s a group of middle school characters on the verge of graduating. As such, the question of which high school will Chino, Maya and Megu eventually choose was bound to come to the forefront at some point. And that’s exactly what happens in this episode.

There’s a lot of interesting stuff to discuss, so let’s get down to business...

The episode opens with a shot of Aoyama Blue Mountain on a boat, which also appears in the beginning of season 1 episode 1. By the way before COVID you could totally ride a boat like this in Colmar. Just watch your head...

Yeah, this is under the bridge from season 2 ED. Filmed by me.

Anyway, I’m being sidetracked. What’s important is that this is the only shot where you could tell it’s morning, because of the angle of the shadow from the bridge. It is indeed morning, and we see Cocoa and Chino walking down to school. Seems the summer vacation is over and it’s already September? Cocoa, the self-described pikka-pika no onee-chan, tries to coerce Chino into committing to enter the same high school as her, while Chino is not sure about that. We’ve seen Chino being unsure about her future as recently as this season’s episode 1, and in regards to the high school choice the time for a decision is quickly approaching.

Soon we see Maya and Megu who are facing the same decision. Megu seems to have already decided on what Maya derisively calls the gokigenyo school. The greeting gokigenyo (ご機嫌よう) comes from the word “kigen” (機嫌) which means “mood”, and can be literally translated as “how do you do”. However the same word is also used as farewell, which often causes troubles for translators.

The concept of “gokigenyo school“ has been popularised by the light novel and anime series Maria watches over us (Marimite), which is also one of the most influential works of the yuri genre. This concept has also been parodied a number of times, for example in the excellent episode 5 of Flip Flappers.

Megu manages to convince Maya and Chino to come with her to a tour of this school, and we get a close-up of Maya hinting that she’s definitely hiding something.

Meanwhile at Cocoa’s school, the class president declares the theme of the cultural festival being “cafe”, and puts Chiya and Cocoa in charge of it, because they work at a cafe. It seems that Chiya is considered to be more dependable than Cocoa by her classmates, since she got a higher rank. Nevertheless, it is Cocoa who mostly delivers the speech to fire up the other students.

Note the usage of Chinese tally marks to tally the votes. The five strokes comprising the character 正 (”truth”) equate 5 votes. This method is popular across East Asia, even in Korea where Chinese characters are no longer used.

Also I’ve seen a lot of people were confused by the inclusion of “sex museum” as one of the proposals, which is how 秘宝館 (hihokan) has been translated by the official subtitles. This word, which literally means “the hall of hidden treasures” has been used by various establishments of this type in post-war Japan, however only few of them remain open now. I think “sex museum” is a bad translation because, while technically correct, it breaks mimesis, or in simpler terms, immersion. The English translation is so blatantly inappropriate that it would never make it onto this blackboard, whereas the Japanese word is obscure and innocent-looking enough that it just might. A better translation would be “adult museum”, in fact that’s what the most well-known hihokan, Atami Hihokan uses for its English title.

As proof of each other’s ability, Cocoa mentions Chiya’s triple tray wielding skill (お盆三刀流 obon santoryu) which has been demonstrated in season 2 episode 1. Chiya brings up Cocoa’s “basking in the sun” (日向ぼっこ hinatabokko) attitude which supposedly makes her popular among customers. This is a reference to season 2 episode 5 where Rize says Cocoa always either practices latte art or basks in the sun.

On the way back from school, we learn that Chiya is actually scared of the responsibilities placed on her, and her dream of becoming the president of Ama Usa An franchise (which has been mentioned in s2e1, s2e9 and maybe other episodes I forgot) might be ruined because of this. Cocoa consoles her, again showing her motherly side.

Back at Rabbit House, Cocoa explains how the upcoming festival will be exciting (wakuwaku) and fluffy/cuddly (mofumofu). This is one of several times Cocoa uses silly onomatopoeia to describe something in this episode (aforementioned pikkapika onee-chan and describing her school also as mofumofu in a latter scene). Interestingly, all of these lines are anime-original, and at this point seems like an intentional effort to make Cocoa speak in a more eccentric manner.

In the next scene Sharo becomes angry at Chiya for keeping secrets from her, and blows her cheeks, which makes her turn into a Fugu fish, according to Chiya. Fugu is famous in Japanese cuisine for being a highly poisonous but sought after delicacy, however in this case the comparison has to do with the tendency of a live fugu (as well as other pufferfish) to inflate its stomach, giving it an almost spherical appearance to deter predators.

Next there’s another anime-original CocoChino scene where Chino asks Cocoa about what her school is like. This is my favorite part of the episode because it’s just so adorable. Like, even the fact that Cocoa is drying Chino’s hair with a towel after bath shows how close they became. The direction and the delivery of the dialogue is masterfully executed. Cocoa would be really hurt if Chino chooses any other school, and Chino knows that. But Chino can’t admit she’ll choose her next school because of Cocoa, at least not yet.

Now we move on to the main plot of the episode, which is Chimame visiting Rize and Sharo’s school. Like I said in the preview, this episode covers chapters 10 and 11 of the volume 5 of the manga, which in-universe occur at the same time. However while it fully covers (and has the same title as) chapter 10, only the first half of chapter 11 is included. So about 2/3 of the episode are dedicated to the story of chapter 10.

Chimame attend a speech by “OG” Mate Rin. OG in this case doesn’t mean “original gangsta”, but “old girl”, which is a Japanese term for female alumni of some school (there’s also OB for men). Chino recognizes Rin as the editor of Aoyama Blue Mountain, and I’m not sure if Maya and Megu ever met her, so they don’t. When Rin recalls a senior who turned her life around, Chino recalls her chance meeting with Cocoa. In particular the phrase deai ga taisetsu (”chance meetings are to be cherished”) sticks with her. On the other hand, Maya seems to be interested in the fact that Rin was recommended for scholarship. Interestingly in the manga, Maya slept through most of the speech.

The senior Rin was talking about was obviously Aoyama and we see that there’s actually a huge bounty placed on her. The currency sign consisting of combined letters G and U wasn’t seen before, with prices usually displayed in yen, but there was a Euro-like sign at an open market at the beginning of season 2 episode 1, which might be a shorthand way to write GU. Either way this currency must have a serious hyperinflation problem as the reward for finding Aoyama exceeds 10 billion GU. In countries affected by hyperinflation, a stable foreign currency is often used to perform economic transactions, which might explain why most of the prices are in yen.

But is there some significance to this exact number? Why, yes, 10/27 is Aoyama’s birthday! It is also the start of “reading week”, which actually lasts 2 weeks, until November 9.

After the speech Megu gets separated from the rest of the group, and the other two also get lost in the vast campus of the school. As seen from the above interior shot of the school, it is also inexplicably rabbit-themed (or maybe just this particular hall is), with golden rabbit statues and also a picture on the left wall with the kanji for rabbit (兎).

Through a series of misunderstandings Chimame end up infiltrating the school with Sharo and Rize providing uniforms for them to blend in. Despite having trouble to behave “ladylike” before, Maya naturally blends in once she treats it as a game, and even gets invited to a tea party. She makes a mistake though by mentioning moyashi (bean sprouts) which is considered a cheap and low-class food, but she’s saved by the fact that the rich girls don’t even know what that is, and Sharo explaining how to prepare it in a fancy way.

Eventually the groups meet each other and Maya reveals she has been recommended for scholarship due to her good grades. Perhaps she also treated her school grades as experience points to gain, as the title of the episode (and the manga chapter) ”The whole world is my experience points” seems to suggest. This is the idea behind a real concept of gamification, by the way.

There’s also a callback to the season 2 episode 8, where Maya asks Rize for advice while Chino and Megu are spying on her. It is worth to rewatch that scene, because it’s full of foreshadowing for this episode. Back then Maya thinks she’s the only one of the three to go to this school, but now she thinks there’s a good chance all three will still go to the same school. Chino doesn’t seem to feel this way though.

In the end we see Cocoa and Chiya joining the group, also wearing the elite school uniforms, which is briefly explained by them gathering supplies for the cultural festival. I guess the next episode will explain how they ended up there. In the manga even the fact that they have a cultural festival wasn’t revealed until this point. Also in the manga fukiya club president, Karede Yura, inexplicably appears for just one panel so that Cocoa and Chiya could thank her, without any lines. In the anime she appears just as (if not more) suddenly, however there’s some foreshadowing with her inviting Rize to a tournament earlier, and she gets quite a few speaking lines.

If you listen closely there’s a funny sound effect as she looks at Rize, and then at Sharo. I really liked her design since her first appearance in the manga, and Koi probably does too, as her role has greatly increased in the recent chapters. Consequently her single-panel background appearance has been expanded as well in this episode, she got her full name mentioned in the credits, and there’s even a Karede Yura character song included on the second BD volume (which includes this season’s episodes 3 and 4). All things considered, I fully expect Yura to appear in the episode 4 as well.

The episode ends with Chino looking at the sky with a worried expression. It just hit her that both Megu and Maya are going to a different school than she is expected to go to. As Megu and Maya have a clear path forward, Chino’s future has become even more uncertain, and she feels like the odd one out in the group. Now the part of the ending where Chino is suddenly alone makes sense:

this is basically her imagining the future where Maya and Megu leave her. The coffee cup transition symbolises Chino waking up and seeing that MaMe are still her friends and aren’t going anywhere. We’ll see though...

This time it’s Megu doing latte art in the ending, and the picture is of Chino and Maya dancing. The weird thing is, Megu wasn’t even present at this scene, so how did she draw it in such detail?

Also another random fact I noticed: Chino’s Alice costume actually appeared in the opening of both season 1 and season 2. Here’s a comparison for reference:

Anyway, that was the third episode of Gochuumon wa usagi desu ka? BLOOM and I hope you enjoyed reading my review. See you next week... or so.

#gochiusa #gochuumon wa usagi desu ka?#is the order a rabbit?#review

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heatherrosebabcock · 4 years

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My Debut Novel Filthy Sugar is Available Now!

Set in the mid-1930s, Filthy Sugar tells the story of Wanda Whittle, a nineteen year old dreamer who models fur coats in an uptown department store but who lives in a crowded rooming house with her family in the “slums” behind the city’s marketplace. Bored with the daily grind, Wanda finds inspiration in the celluloid fantasies of the Busby Berkeley musicals, Greta Garbo dramas and Jean Harlow comedies. After a chance encounter with the mysterious Mr. Manchester, proprietor of the Apple Bottom burlesque theatre, Wanda is thrust into a world of glitter and grit, where the guys talk tough and the dames are tough. On her journey from rags to riches and back again, Wanda experiences a sexual awakening and achieves personal independence as she discovers that a girl doesn’t need a lot of sugar to be sensational!

Advance Praise for Filthy Sugar:

“Erotic, compelling and full of richly textured characters, Heather Babcock’s storytelling is equal parts moxie and poetry—tinted with the heartbroken nostalgia of memory and lost dreams; and sparkling with striking, evocative imagery”.

– Cate McKim, Life with More Cowbell (lifewithmorecowbell.com)

“I truly hope this exquisitely written debut novel will enjoy the love and attention it deserves. Superb, poetic and cinematic, Filthy Sugar will transport you into another world and you won’t want to leave!”

—Lisa de Nikolits, author of No Fury Like That and Rotten Peaches

“Heather Babcock’s novel, Filthy Sugar, artfully takes the reader into the Jazz Age of flirty flappers and boozy philosophers.”

– Pat Connors, Toronto Poet

“Heather Babcock’s Filthy Sugar is both a sweet and saucy journey behind the curtain. A time traveled, tantalizing, and tumultuous tale, to be sure.”

—Valentino Assenza, Co-Host/Co-Producer HOWL, CIUT 89.5FM

“Heather Babcock has captured the pure essence of the 1930s with eloquent, colourful words that flourish across the pages. You literally feel as if you are part of the audience in the burlesque house, hooting and hollering as Wanda wiggles across the stage”.

—Lizzie Violet, writer, poet & spoken word artist.

“Filthy Sugar is a real time-travelling excursion. Heather Babcock brings alive the era of Trilbys, hoofers and two-bit scriveners with vividness, imagination and striking description. A good read – and how!”

—Jeff Cottrill, writer, actor, journalist and spoken-word artist

“Underneath this camp and well-researched historical novel is a strong feminist story of the multiplicities of female sexuality, of an unstripped agency and, in the final scene, an empowerment that will leave you clapping and laughing. Masterfully written with the sensibility of a poet, Heather Babcock is a writer to watch.”

—Brenda Clews, author of Tidal Fury and Fugue in Green

Order your copy of Filthy Sugar today from Inanna Publications:

https://www.inanna.ca/product/filthy-sugar/

Or ask for it at your local bookstore!

#debut author #spring 2020 author #CanLit #1930s #historical fiction #new historical fiction #jean harlow #greta garbo #1920s #femlitcan #goodreads #burlesque

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powerprivilegemoney · 5 years

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Marjorie Winifred Kendall Bird

(September 3, 1898 - July 22, 1961)

Socialite. Marjorie known as Winnie, was born in a shack along the railroad tracks in Missouri. Her father worked for the railroad. Not wanting any part of that life, she packed a suitcase and headed for New York in 1917. Florenz Ziegfeld spotted her on the street and put her in his show. Wallis sent her a dozen red roses after seeing her on stage, but she was not taken by him, as he was five inches shorter than she. Winnie had hopes of making it on the silver screen one day. Winnie met Wallis Bird, They eventually married and moved to Farnsworth where the parties they hosted became legendary. Wallis made good on his promise and began making professional-scale movies of the lavish entertainments they held at their 60-foot pool. At another event, a troupe of circus horses performed on the front lawn. It may not have been Hollywood, but Winnie was the star of all their homemade films. Bird kept a stable of 40 horses, but his real passion was his 20-car garage filled with the most expensive cars money could buy. Gleaming behind each bay was a Hispano-Suiza, several custom-painted Rolls-Royces, a Bugatti, Stutz Bearcats, Bentleys and an Alfa Romeo, all tended to by a staff of mechanics. Winnie busied herself with collecting fabulous gowns from Paris and buying jewels. She wore diamonds to the beach and in the pool. At some point she landed on the best-dressed lists and was often featured in Vogue magazine. She once showed up at a neighbor’s fancy tea party dressed from head to toe in a bubble gum pink dress with matching hat, shoes, gloves and hair dyed to match. The Birds’ every move and activity was recorded on film of which Wallis would have weekly screenings in the ballroom for his friends. Years later, the two giant Movieola film projectors stood rusting away in the glassed-in solarium next to the ballroom. Miles of black and white 35 millimeter movie film had been torn from their metal canisters by vandals where it now snaked all over the house and zigzagged from room to room like a jumble of streamers on New Year’s Eve. You could hold strips of film up to the light and make out the images that captured life on the Gold Coast during its heyday. There was Winifred smiling in a flapper dress as she danced around the marble fountain or posed elegantly on the satin divan holding a glass of champagne. There were shots of the happy couple prancing about in an open field on horseback. Another reel showed Wallis Bird driving around the courtyard in one of his shiny new cars, seeming very proud to show it off in front of the servants. Several frames down showed Bird at an airport, most likely Roosevelt Field, where he was climbing into a small plane that would end their fairy tale life. On June 5, 1940, Bird was flying his private plane up to the Catskills for some peace and quiet. As he was cruising over the Hudson River, a violent storm erupted and the plane was hit by lightning and crashed not far from the water’s edge. His mangled body was found the next day. Devastated, his widow ordered the broken pieces of the plane collected, placed in crates and stored in the basement of Farnsworth. Winnie was never the same. Unable to deal with her husband’s sudden death, she spent the next several years at Doctors Hospital in New York and all but abandoned the house in Oyster Bay with everything in it. Despite the fragile state of her mind, she retained control over the vast fortune she inherited and though living in a hospital, she was free to come and go as she pleased. As the years passed, Winnie began to take on a kind of a Norma Desmond (Sunset Boulevard) persona and wore fur and ostrich-trimmed negligees during the day, then slipped out at night with her diamonds and gowns and headed for the Stork Club and El Morocco. As a rich widow, Winnie was never without her circle of handsome escorts. On one of Winifred’s many trips to Paris to have more gowns made for her, she met a man who claimed to be a prince. Prince Nicolas Sturdza, who designed dresses and hats, spoke seven languages and was a taller version of her late husband. The prince was fascinated by the $1 million necklace she was wearing, with the 10 huge emeralds that had originally belonged to King Ludwig of Bavaria. Over cocktails one night, Sturdza began to weave tall tales. He intrigued Winnie with a dramatic account about how he had just escaped from Communist Romania after spending three years hiding in a mountain cave, where government police had put a price on his head. He claimed his mother was starving in prison and his father had been shot trying to escape. Winnie was so taken by his story that without checking to see if it was true, she gave him $50,000 so he could try and save his family. A short time later, she cooed to the press, “I’m in love with a prince. He makes me feel 20 again.” He was 16 years younger than she was and when friends tried to warn her that he was not what he seemed, Winnie snapped, “He is not a gigolo like so many phony princes who target vulnerable rich women, like that poor fool Barbara Hutton.” Despite the warning signs, they became engaged and Winnie made plans to restore the long abandoned villa in Oyster Bay. They began to travel all over Europe buying expensive things for the house, staying in the best hotels – with her footing all the bills. Sturdza had promised to introduce her to the European royalty but never got around to it, nor did she leave him when it got back to her that he kept a string of young boys on hand wherever they traveled. But as time passed she was beginning to tire of him. Things took a dark turn when Sturdza realized he was about to lose his meal ticket and brought in an old psychiatrist friend, Dr. Gerard Savoy. Savoy had been in trouble with the law and his license had been suspended. Within a short time, Winnie was under the complete control of Sturdza and Savoy and was being forced to take as many as 100 pills a day. While she was in a fugue state, Sturdza would take Winnie shopping to the most expensive shops in Europe where he would manipulate her into spending $20,000 to $60,000 on jewelry. The gems were brought back to the hotel and stored in a vault. Records show that even in a drugged state, Winnie knew she was in trouble and cabled her attorney in New York claiming that she feared her life was in danger. Her pleas for help were ignored. In July 1961, Winifred’s lawyer received a cable stating that she had died during the night at the Beau Rivage Hotel in Lausanne. Dr. Savoy listed the cause of death as cerebral hemorrhage. Her millions in jewels vanished without a trace. The lawyer, suspicious, flew to Lausanne and informed the police about Winnie’s calls for help. Her funeral had already taken place and after much wrangling and paperwork, her body was exhumed and an autopsy showed she had been poisoned with a massive dose of morphine. The murder trial created a sensation on both continents. Sturdza, who as it turned out was not a prince, and Dr. Savoy, who was no longer a doctor, were both convicted of murder and sent to prison for life. Most of Winifred Bird’s jewels were never found.

Marjorie Winifred Kendall Bird is entombed with her husband and his family in the Bird Mausoleum at Hillside Cemetery, Cortlandt Manor, Westchester County, New York.

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sammyhagarcrimeboy · 5 years

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Home and Hearth and Sammy And Also Thom

Sammy reached inside the inside jacket pocket on the left inside of his jacket. He hoped that maybe whoever had left this fine ass garment had also left him some minty smokie snacks. Sammy loved minty smokie snacks because they made his inside breather sacs feel nice and clean unlike Sammy’s past. Sammy was in luck as his probing fingers clutched upon a rectangular sweetness that his tooths and breathers craved. Sammy swore that it hadn’t been inside his pocket when he left Ronnie’s house but that’s where he had found them. He peeled the cellophane wrapper like the peel of a big delicious, green banana with all the skill of a very skilled monkey and licked his lips. He counted a precise number of cigarettes in the pack and flipped the last one upside down. As a spiritually aware person Sammy knew that if you didn’t flip the unlucky your fate would be sealed real bad. The unlucky cigarette watched all the others go up in smoke and bore witness to the horror before meeting the same fate. To not flip that silent peeper would open you up to having God smoke all your friends while you watched. He wasn’t dumb. You flip the unlucky cigarette and wipe the blood of a lamb over your door on Passover too stop the naughty kill man from taking your first baby that came out of your wife.

Popping a minty smokie treat in his mouth Sammy thought about how nice it would be to light this with the special metal lighter with the cross, that had equal measurements from it’s center, that he had sold to Ronnie last month for a teenth of rock candy. Reflexively, the kind of thing you do without thinking about it, Sammy reached inside the inside jacket pocket. There, again, his finger’s found more rectangle. Sammy pulled his hand from the inside of the pocket with all the speed of somebody pulling their hand back from something gross. Inside his palm there it was. He blinked his eyes a few time to make sure they weren’t being mean tricksters. It was his special lighter that his dad had given to him on the fourth of July to light the bottle rockets dad put in all his empty dad juice bottles. Sammy must have lit of two or three packs of the big, loud boomers that his dad got from Uncle Bobbie at the Chinese restaurant.

A particularly stiff wind blew down his back over the collar of his sweet, sweet cool looking jacket. He flipped the collar up to stop that because he didn’t like it. Without thinking anymore about how his special lighter had gotten here Sammy lit his minty and hit the pavement while thinking about that fourth of July. When dad had been awake all his attention had been on him. Well, it had been on Sammy and the Gutierrez family next door. Dad had been a good man, always looking out for his family. After ten or twelve bottle rockets he had told Sammy that he never take his eye off, “Those People.” Dad never had cottoned to people from Hockey Land up North. It had been the only thing that his dad had ever wanted to teach him.By the time Sammy was on the second pack of bottle stick boomers dad had been on his second pack of minties. He remembered it in his brain screen like it was yesterday. Dad came up and put his hand on Sammy’s shoulder. He spit out the horseshoe in his lower lip and smiled at Sammy. His teeth were yellow-orange, the same color as his sissies when all he had to drink all day were 40 oz glugs of vodka and lemonade, and there were grains of the loose brown leaves in his teeth but it was the first time he had seen it. Dad kneeled down on one knee beside me and finished his bottle then handed it to me. “There you go boy. Aim it at those goddurm maple leaf’d northern invaders house. Show ‘um how we do.”

Dad’s breath smelled of sickly copper pennies like normal but for the first time he wanted to be a dad real good to him. Sammy knew he needed to do him real proud so he placed the biggest boomer they had in the bottle. Sammy would have to hold onto it to aim it sideways. Dad stepped back as the spark string leading to the body of the boomer threw fire chips. When it reached the body nothing happened. Sammy squeezed his eyes shut, expecting a shower of spark chips to bloom from the bottom of the boomer. When his hand wasn’t warmed with heat he opened his eyes. For a second the boomer smoked and then, before he could think fast enough to figure out what was happening, the boomer exploded in his hand. There was smoke and the smell of mean bad eggs and Sammy was on the ground and Sammy looked at his hand and it was red and gushy and there was a lot of smoke and Sammy felt pieces of the bottle in his shirt and his shirt was red and wet and his dad was looking down at him and shaking his head and his ears were ringing. When Sammy could hear a little bit he asked, through his soot blackened lip flappers, “Did I do it? Did I teach those dirty Nova Scotians, diddy?”

Sammy’s dad shook his head and flicked his cigarette butt into Sammy’s dry left eye. “No, you didn’t. You screwed it up real bad like you always do. I knew you were your mother’s son.” Without another word Sammy’s dad walked into their doublewide setting all of his mother’s hundreds of wind chimes chiming like a thousand disparate piano keys; all playing in time to a nameless, wordless tinkling soundtrack to his sorrowful life. The tin tube piano key’s danced a upbeat fugue. Sammy didn’t care though. Sure his skin hurt but that was the cost of having good times with dad and dad had left him something. Clutched on the inside of Sammy’s really badly burned hand was his dad’s special lighter with the cross engraving where the measurements were all the same from the center. Later that night dad would ask him where the lighter was and Sammy fibbed a big one. he told dad that it had fallen in the open sewer hole in the street when he had exploded hiself. To show his disappointment in his favorite boy, who he had just spent a good time with, he gave Sammy a light beating with the oversized Manster Energy Brew belt buckle on his belt. It was worth it though because when dad fell asleep halfway through the beating Sammy went to his room. Under the bed in a small cigarette tin Sammy hid the lighter among his most special thing. There was, of course, the lighter, five shotgun shells, six of his Uncle Michael’s teeth from the fight at Christmas two years ago about who got grandma’s house, a small, wooden Jesus cross that he did secret night prayers at, and the bones of a Rat that he pretended had flesh so it could be his pet. Sammy loved that lighter and he had sold it all for a hit of that dirty, cheap rock candy.

Off in the distance Sammy could hear a tiny, girlish scream down a real dark alley. Sammy moved the minty from one pocket of his mouth to the other in a deep think. Somebody was doing crime in this town and it wasn’t him. Sammy pulled out his pistol, the one with infinite bullets, and headed inside the smelly, dark alley that was full of danger! The danger in the alley, now, though, was Sammy! And his bullet shooter!

#sammyhagar #cabowabo #Badcrimesammyhagar #cool #rad #OC #writing #mansplaining

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trishbsblog · 7 years

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The Old Swan in Harrogate was not, as the name suggested, modern. It had the exciting association of being the place Agatha Christie disappeared to during her ‘missing days’ in the 1920s, even though there was probably nothing exciting about being in a confused fugue state. Edie loved it here. She wouldn’t mind absconding from her life into one of its rooms with four-poster canopied beds. Everything about The Swan was comforting. The ivy-clad frontage, the solid square portico entrance, the way it smelled like cooked breakfasts and plushy comfort. It had been a blistering high summer day – Haven’t they been lucky with the weather becoming the go-to banal conver- sation opener – and the French doors in the bar opened on to the honey-lit rolling gardens. Children in shiny waistcoats were zooming around playing aeroplanes, high on Coca Cola and the novelty of being up this late. Nevertheless, this was, for none of the reasons Louis described, the worst wedding Edie had ever been to. Giving her order at the bar, she found herself next to a group of women in their seventies and possibly eighties, dressed as flappers. Edie guessed they were here for a Murder Mystery weekend; she’d seen a coach from Scarborough pull up earlier. There was a ‘suspect’ with no legs, sitting in a wheelchair. She was wearing a feather headband, long knotted beads and draped in a white feather boa. She was sipping a mini bottle of Prosecco through a straw. Edie wanted to give her a cuddle, and/or cheer. ‘Don’t you look lovely,’ one of the group said to Edie, and Edie smiled and said, ‘Thank you! You do too.’ ‘You remind me of someone. Norma! Who does this lovely young lady look like?’ Edie did the fixed embarrassed smile of someone who was being closely inspected by a gaggle of tipsy senior citizens. ‘Clara Bow!’ one exclaimed. ‘That’s it!’ they chorused. ‘Ahh. Clara Bow.’ It wasn’t the first time Edie had been given a compliment like this. Her dad said she had ‘an old-fashioned face.’ ‘You look like you should be in a cloche hat and gloves at a train station, in a talkie film,’ he always said. ‘Which is appropriate.’ (Edie didn’t think she talked that much, it was more that her father and sister were quieter.) She had shoulder-length, inky hair and thick dark brows. Their geometry had to be aggressively maintained with threading, so they stayed something more starlet than beetling. They sat above large soulful eyes, in a heart-shaped face with small mouth. A cruel yet articulate boy at a house party told her she looked like ‘A Victorian doll reanimated by the occult.’ She told herself it was because she was going through her teenage Goth phase but she knew it was still applicable now, if she hadn’t had enough sleep and caught herself glowering. Louis once said, as if he wasn’t talking about her when they both knew he was: ‘Baby faces don’t age well, which is why it’s a tragedy it was Lennon shot instead of McCartney.’ ‘Are you here with your husband?’ another woman asked, as Edie picked up her white wine and V&T. ‘No, no husband. Single,’ Edie said, to lots more staring and curious delighted ooohs. ‘Plenty of time for that. Having your fun first, eh?’ said another of the flappers, and Edie smiled and nearly said, ‘I’m thirty-five and having very little fun,’ and thought better of it and said ‘Yes, haha!’ instead. ‘Are you from Yorkshire?’ another asked. ‘No. I live in London. The bride’s family are from—’ Louis emerged from the restaurant, gesturing for her to join him with an urgent circling motion of the hand, hissing: ‘Edie!’ ‘Edie! What a beautiful name!’ the women chorused, looking upon her with renewed adoration. Edie was touched and slightly baffled by her sudden celebrity status. That was Prosecco drunk through a straw for you. ‘Are you this young lady’s gentleman?’ they asked Louis, as he joined them. ‘No, darlings, I like cock,’ he said, taking his drink from Edie while she cringed. ‘He likes who?’ said one of the women. ‘Who’s “Cock”?’ ‘No. Cock.’ Louis made a flexing bicep gesture that Edie didn’t think made it much clearer. ‘Oh, he likes men, Norma. He’s a Jolly Roger,’ said one, casually. Attention shifted to Louis, the not-that-jolly Roger. ‘I prefer a game of Bananagrams and a hot bath, these days,’ another offered. ‘Barbara still likes a bit of cock, well enough.’ ‘Which one of you did it, then?’ Louis said, eyeing their costumes. ‘Who’s the prime suspect?’ ‘There’s not been a crime yet,’ one said. ‘Rumour has it there’s going to be a body found on the third floor.’ ‘Well you can probably rule her out then,’ Louis said, tapping his nose, gesturing at the woman in the wheelchair. ‘Louis!’ Edie gasped. Fortunately, it caused a cackle eruption. ‘Sheila used to dig her corns out with safety pins. You don’t mess with Sheila.’ ‘Looks like she overdid it.’ Edie gasped again and the old ladies fell about, howling. She couldn’t believe it: Louis had found his audience. ‘Great meeting you, girls,’ Louis said, and they almost applauded him. Edie was forgotten; chopped liver. ‘Come back to the table. It’s all kicking off big style in the main tent,’ Louis said to her. ‘The speeches are starting.’ With a heavy heart, Edie excused herself. The moment she dreaded. An Audience With The Hashtag Perfect Couple, Living Their Hashtag Best Life.

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