#i’m obsessed with drawing the lynch family :

[deklo]

more greywaren stuff!! :)

pls don’t repost

#green theme baby pls don’t come at me about the moth tbh i didn’t reread the passage before drawing this lol #i’m obsessed with drawing the lynch family :/ #are people still into greywaren stuff :/ #cause i got more comin :/ #my art #my trc art #greywaren #greywaren spoilers #the raven cycle #the dreamer trilogy #the lynch brothers #ronan lynch #declan lynch #niall lynch #hennessy #jordan hennessy #ronan is the one hiding behind niall declan is crouching and being held by niall sry they look exactly the same!

[timeagainreviews]

Twin Peaks s01e01 “Traces to Nowhere”

Happy New Year, and welcome back to Twin Peaks, friends. Before we dive further into the mystery of Laura Palmer, I would like to tell you about my friend Jason. Jason was a pal of mine in high school. We used to hang out, listen to music, watch TV, and smoke. He lived with his girlfriend at the time who was also my friend. This may sound sappy, but around these two, I genuinely felt like the best version of myself. I miss those days incredibly. Jason also happened to be the first person to ever introduce me to Twin Peaks. One night, he and a friend were watching the movie as I came over to buy a bag. On that day, I discovered what was to become my newest obsession, one of which would stick with me for the next eighteen years of my life. Sadly, Jason and I fell out of contact and we lost track of one another.

I mention this because I recently heard through a mutual friend that Jason died two years ago. I'll not go into the details, suffice it to say, it was too soon. I always wanted to track him down to say hello, and now I'll never get the chance. While my friendship with Jason was immensely rewarding, one of the most persistent things he left me with was a love for Twin Peaks. Much of my personal philosophy comes from Twin Peaks, and it continues to inform the person I am today. If it weren't for Jason, I wouldn't be me. Therefore, I would like to dedicate this article in his memory. To Jason Walton- My friend in the stars.

Thank you for allowing me that moment, friend. Now if you remember, we left off on kind of a spooky note. Through some sort of line of sight, Sarah Palmer was given a vision of a gloved hand retrieving James' half of the heart necklace from where he and Donna had buried it. Dale Cooper, after a long day of detection, has turned in for a night of sleep at the Great Northern hotel, which is exactly where today's episode begins.

I've read in the past that you can tell right away when David Lynch is directing, or in this case, when he isn't directing. This is not a complaint about director Duwayne Dunham's work, but there is a clear departure from the slow wave of emotions that permeates the pilot episode. However, the more straightforward procedural pacing works much to the episode's credit. Being written by David Lynch and Mark Frost, this episode is drenched in Twin Peaks tones and textures. I'd go as far as to say Dunham does a damn fine job following the hard act that is David Lynch.

We start with a pan across Cooper's hotel room. As I've done with my Doctor Who reviews, I found myself trying to see this scene as though it were my first time. You watch Twin Peaks for eighteen years, and you tend to forget just how strange the decor at the Great Northern truly is. Off-camera we can hear Agent Cooper talking to Diane through his recorder. As the camera searches across taxidermied deer hooves holding hunting riffles, and ornate nature paintings, we fall upon Cooper, hanging upside down by a pair of metal hooks around his ankles. It's never explained why he's doing this, but for some reason the late '80s and early '90s had a weird thing about hanging guys upside down as so form of exercise. Michael Keaton did it in Batman, Patrick Bateman had one, and even Dale Cooper. Perhaps it was quick way to indicate both athleticism and eccentricity.

Cooper, hanging about in his hot dad garters and boxers dismounts from his perch with an ease that is both impressive and sexy. Before ending his recording session with Diane, Cooper waxes philosophical about Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys. In a way, this is Lynch and Frost drawing parallels between the deaths of both Monroe and Laura- two blonde women surrounded by powerful men and mystery. It's fitting when you consider that Lynch and Frost's first collaboration was in the form of a Marilyn Monroe biopic which never came into fruition. In many ways, the project laid some of the groundwork for what would become Twin Peaks.

Starting his day right with a balanced hotel breakfast, we're treated to yet another fascinating glimpse into Cooper's diet. As Sheriff Truman says later in the episode, he must have the metabolism of a bumblebee. Cooper orders a breakfast he refers to as "hard on the arteries," which is as hard as he wants his eggs. He wants his bacon super crispy- cremated. It may sound as though I'm exaggerating, but I've always loved watching Cooper order breakfast. He seems to revere food in a way not regularly seen on dramatic television. The morning coffee is more than one of the best, it's "damn fine." People have complained that the way people talk about food in Twin Peaks is weird. Sure, maybe in life creamed corn isn't an allegory to pain and suffering, but we've all been there when someone is having a similar reaction to the stuff. Food is personal, and it's a part of everyone's lives, why wouldn't characters talk about it?

Arriving at the tail end of Cooper's order is Audrey Horne, who has seemingly grown a good six or seven inches of hair overnight. Out of all of the mysteries in Twin Peaks, this was the least perplexing. Somewhere between filming the pilot and the first episode, Sherilyn Fenn grew her hair out, and it looks stunning. Everything about Audrey is stunning. Her eyebrows are stunning. That sweater is stunning. But at the moment, it is she who is stunned by Agent Cooper. Just as charmed by his eccentricities and his slicked black hair, she approaches Agent Cooper and asks to join him. Immediately Cooper sizes up that she finds him attractive, she's not exactly hiding it, and neither is he for that matter. For many fans, this is the moment the ship of Cooper and Audrey set sail. I personally always prefer the version where Cooper does the adult thing and doesn't date a high schooler.

After questioning Audrey, Cooper heads off to the Sheriff Station where they seem to still be having their breakfast as everyone he encounters has a mouthful of donuts. I'd also like to note the weird guy with a welding torch and ladder near the entrance. Twin Peaks is a lived in world filled with these people toiling away. Sheriff Harry Truman, mouth full of donuts, can't get a word in as Cooper flies into the room. After spelling out the itinerary, Cooper disappears to "urinate." This marks the first of many references to Dale Cooper's pee. Much like Tom Hanks, our favourite FBI agent is passionate about pissing. It's one of those life things, like food, that Twin Peaks likes to celebrate. Sometimes it's really nice to have a good piss, therefore sometimes Twin Peaks is about having a really good piss. I'm being completely earnest here.

Dr Hayward arrives to the sheriff station to report the findings of the post mortem. Unable to carry out the procedure himself, he outsourced the job to a nearby colleague. I've always admired the way Warren Frost plays this scene. His sadness seems to come and go in waves of realisation. There are the same echos from the pilot episode present here. From the report we learn that Laura died from a loss of blood from numerous shallow wounds. She had bite marks on her shoulders and marks on her arms from having been bound. She had also had sex with at least three men the night of her murder. The doctor also concludes that there is no doubt that Ronette was also present. As Dr Hayward relays this grizzly tale, his eyes wander to the photo of Laura. Pangs of sadness wash over his face as he questions who could do such a thing. He was the doctor present at her birth. She was his daughter's best friend. Laura was family to him.

On the other spectrum of family, we join the Johnsons at their incomplete home. Unable to just ask Shelly if she would do his laundry, Leo has to play mind games. He asks her if she did his laundry and chastises her as if catching her in a lie because his bag of nasty truck cabin clothes are still dirty. Eric Da Re is not a great actor, but there's something perfect about that. Leo is a big asshole that gaslights his wife, I don't expect much depth there. The only good thing I say about him is they got rid of his awful perm from the pilot. Even the way he pinches her cheek is controlling and unnatural. There's clearly no love between them, which is why when she discovers a blood-stained shirt in Leo's laundry she hides it. With Laura recently dead, and his behaviour as of late, this could be evidence. When he comes back later in a frenzy to find said shirt, he flies into a rage at its absence.

We're back at the Sheriff Station where we learn James Hurley owned the other half of Laura's necklace. As compared to Bobby's interrogation, James is Mr Manners. He answers all of Agent Cooper's questions with a quiet intensity. He admits to shooting the picnic video, and to owning the other half of the necklace, but not knowing who dug it up. He was also aware Laura was taking drugs but tried to get her to stop. On the night she died, James picked Laura up on his motorcycle. Acting strangely Laura disembarked from his bike, a disagreement ensued, Laura told James she loved him and disappeared into the woods. Cooper seems pleased with this information. We're then shown slow-motion picnic footage of Laura smiling at the camera. A somewhat cheesy "Help me," is played over the sound of wind and haunting music. It's a sort of fourth-wall-breaking that makes Twin Peaks feel as though not only the town, but the show itself is haunted by the late Laura Palmer.

Bobby and Mike, freshly arrested from their fistfight with Ed argue in their holding cells about the money they owe Leo Johnson. After being briefly questioned by Agent Cooper, they're both sent away with a warning not to harm James. James is also released into the custody of Big Ed, who confides that he believes the bartender, Jacques Renault,  slipped a Mickey in his drink. Ed wasn't just meeting Norma that night, he was also staking out Jacques' activities as a suspected drug dealer.

Speaking of Norma, we're given a brief but intense encounter at the general store between her and Nadine. At this point in the show, Nadine is completely bonkers. While I don't feel like she becomes any less touched in the head, we do begin to see more depth to her than just Ed's crazy wife. Wendie Robie is so good as Nadine, that Peggy Lipton only really need to react in kind as Nadine goes on about her drape runners. You can tell there's a quiet rivalry between the two women, both of whom resent one another for what they represent to one another. Norma is the woman Ed loves, and Nadine is the woman that stole him from Norma. When Nadine emphatically mentions the cotton balls that will make her drape runners completely silent, Norma can only stand as if in disbelief. It's the epitome of "weird flex, but ok." It doesn't help that all of this cotton ball talk is nestled into a conversation about Ed being in intensive care. Nadine exits as soon as she entered, leaving poor Norma looking confused and slightly violated.

Speaking of forbidden love, we're given a great scene between Donna Hayward and her mother, Eileen. We learn that despite her grief for Laura, and the guilt it makes her feel, Donna is finding herself loving James. Despite the nightmare that surrounds her, this love for James is like a beautiful dream. Eileen encourages her to invite James over for dinner, which she does. When watching James meet the Haywards I couldn't help but think of Eraserhead. In both, we get two entirely different, albeit very Lynchian "meet the parents," scenes. While James isn't asked to carve any manmade chickens, the awkward politeness permeates both scenes. There’s a sort of wholesomeness that borders on absurdity. Watching James make small talk in his big boy sweater is about the cutest damn thing that you almost forget how violent and terrifying Twin Peaks can be at times. This is something lifted straight out of the Waltons with it's cheesy Americana and good-natured sincerity. Of course, not everyone is as pleased about this new pairing as Mike and Bobby spot James' bike outside Donna's house.

Meanwhile, Dale and Harry find their way at the Martel residence to speak with Josie about her language classes with Laura. Through body language alone, Cooper deduces that the Sheriff and Josie are an item of sorts, as indicated at the end of the pilot episode. Pete is his usual charming self, offering up a cup of Joe to our boys. We're given another Cooperism as he asks for his coffee "black as midnight on a moonless night." That's pure poetry. We don't learn much from Josie here, other than the fact that Laura used to tutor her English and that she seemed distracted the last time they met. The biggest takeaway from the scene is that somehow Pete accidentally brewed a pot of coffee with a fish in the percolator. This is easily one of the most iconic scenes from the original series. Jack Nance was a treasure, and I will never not feel absolute delight when he comes rushing in just a touch too late- they've already tried the coffee.

Josie is called away for a phone call from the ice queen Catherine who informs her that shutting down the mill for the day cost the company more money than it was worth. After hanging up with Josie, we can see Catherine is in a strange motel, sipping champagne with Ben Horne. They're clearly working against Josie, but it's no secret that neither of them trust one another. Everyone is playing the double secret con, and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. However, we do learn that the two are on again off again lovers. On the other side of town, Deputy Hawk follows up with Ronette's parents at the hospital. The Pulaskis don't have much information other than the fact that Ronette used to work the perfume counter at Horne's Department Store. As he is leaving, Hawk sees a suspicious one armed man skulking around the morgue. Following his gut instinct he starts tailing this mysterious figure through the dark halls of the hospital. Upon entering a room alight in a trippy dayglo black light, Hawk finds himself alone. Whoever this mystery man was, he disappeared into thin air.

A lot of this episode's theme seems to centre around the relationship between the parents and the high schoolers. Along with her conversation with her own mother, we get a scene between Donna and Sarah Palmer. Sarah, still sick with grief, seems genuinely pleased to see Donna until she sees Laura's face superimposed over Donna's. As she's pulling her closer she gets another vision, this time of a creepy grey-haired man sitting at the edge of Laura's bed. Sarah goes into full-on panic mode in a way only Grace Zabriskie is capable of delivering. Leland rushes in to whisk Donna away from the traumatic experience. In his own home, Bobby is getting a stern lecture from his father, Major Garland Briggs. The Major awkwardly tries to treat Bobby with some tough love, but ultimately misses the mark. Bobby's problems are bigger than anything his poor parents could fathom. The Hornes also experience a bit of domestic turmoil with Ben confronts Audrey about how her conversation with the Norwegians cost their family greatly. But unlike the Briggses, if Ben wanted to understand Audrey's rebellious nature, he only need look in the mirror.

Let's take a moment now to consider Laura Palmer. She was a troubled teenage girl with a drug habit, yes. Add to that being homecoming queen, in Spanish club, tutoring immigrants, caring for Audrey's special needs brother, and even heading Meals on Wheels for the elderly and shut-ins. It's the Meals on Wheels program that brings Cooper and Truman to the Double R Diner, where Laura used to work. We learn that Laura didn't just head the program, she created it. If any fictional characters were gunning for sainthood, Laura would be high on the list. It's easy to see why losing her has wounded the town so completely. The Log Lady approaches Cooper about Laura Palmer informing him that her log saw something the night Laura died. However, Cooper's reluctance to ask the log directly leads to her leaving before relaying the log's message.

Fresh off her shift from the Double R, Shelly returns home to Leo who has just put a bar of soap into a sock. He questions her about the bloody shirt, but she feigns ignorance. He tells her he's going to "teach," her about respecting people's property as he advances toward her with the sock swinging over his head. We can only look on hopelessly as the brutish Leo approaches a cowering Shelly. The scene graciously cuts away, as we know what comes next. The episode concludes in Dr Jacoby's bizarre Hawaii themed office (or maybe apartment, maybe both). Inside a fishtank sits three dried out puffer fish filled with blinking lights like paper lamps. After putting a tape into his stereo he dons a pair of giant headphones revealing a taped conversation from his former secret patient- Laura Palmer. He pulls coconut from a palm tree and settles in to listen to his tape. He opens up the coconut to reveal the other half of Laura's necklace. It appears that Dr Jacoby was the one following James and Donna into the woods.

The contents of the recording are revealing, not just about Laura, but also about Dr Jacoby. Laura's flirtatious nature indicates that we can add one more sexual partner to Laura's list. She mentions how James is sweet but too dumb to talk to her about her problems like Jacoby is capable of doing. But part of the brilliance in the scene is that you can also sense that Laura is acting for Dr Jacoby. Fulfilling the role of a young helpless girl who loves him, so that he may fulfil some role she needs. Whether it be a form of protection or just a soundboard for her problems, she had him wrapped around her finger. So what is this ritual of Jacoby's? Are these the actions of a killer reminiscing over the trophies of his hunt, or a man grieving the real, if not inappropriate relationship he had with a young girl? As the tape continues, we hear Laura talking about a man in a red car who can really light her "F-I-R-E." She continues to make a confession about a mystery man, but the audio drops out, leaving us only the doctor's perplexed face to clue us into what she said. The credits roll as we're left wondering.

Truth be told, I could have written this review without having to rewatch the episode. I try and rewatch Twin Peaks in its entirety at least once every one or two years. However, I am glad I did revisit this one as there are lots of little pieces of minutiae I may have overlooked. More than anything, I was curious to weigh Dunham's directing against David Lynch's, and I have to say, it's not bad. The tone is correct for the series and the emotions are played for real. It's always going to be different because the two directors are different people. But as certain episodes in season two prove, some directors begin to parody Lynch's style, adding weird for the sake of weird. But this early on, it is as though Twin Peaks is a juggernaut of unstoppable creativity. Even the duller storylines take on the energy of the greater mystery. Lynch only directed a handful of the original series episodes, which is why the next episode I'm reviewing is an especially exciting one. Not only is episode two (aka the third episode) directed by David Lynch, but it also begins to introduce some of the more metaphysical elements of the series. You could almost say that Lynch directs the most important episodes, and my god is this next one a doozy.

Well, friends, that's all from the world of Twin Peaks for now. I'll have the next review up soonish, but not before the new Doctor Who review. Speaking of which, it is now less than an hour until it airs! Who else is excited? What a great way to ring in the new year! See you all soon!

#twin peaks #season one #david lynch #mark frost #dale cooper #kyle maclachlan #Laura Palmer #Sheryl Lee #dr jaboby #donna hayward #audrey horne #duwayne dunham #traces to nowhere #james hurley #bobby briggs #ronette pulaski

[hellsbovnd-archive]

plot wishlist.

updated 6/24/2019

a short collection of plots/rp hooks for my characters that i’m particularly excited for or fond of, and would love the chance to play out. under read more due to the inevitable length of this list!

please read my dossier, also!

Leonnaux Altoix

mentorship

While he is going to officially change weapons/classes during his character arc, I think having him actually be someone’s apprentice would be cool and force him to answer a lot of questions about why he is pursuing magic in the first place. It’s obviously something he’s passionate about in theory, but he’s somewhat obsessed with the idea of following in his father’s footsteps.

The closest equivalent to the style of magic he’ll be moving towards is Red Mage, but in Leonnaux’s case it’ll be more appropriate to call it a spellblade or runeblade of some kind, since rather than drawing from the ideas of White and Black Mages who survived the flood and worked together to create proper Red Magic, it draws ideas from arcanima as well as Duskwight runecraft.

Leonnaux isn’t practiced in combat magic, though, and physically he’s very weak. So he doesn’t actually have any training or experience in the ‘blade’ part.

Properly learning a trade would also be cool. He is an alchemist, but I think it would be cool if he learned to make clothes or something, since he’s always been extremely fashionable. It would also maybe be cool if he got into charity work somehow related to tradecraft since he’s yet to do his good deed for the year.

miscellany

— An arc where he gets dragged back into journalism somehow would be cool, especially investigative journalism... — Leon needs to get shot at some point and idk man that’s just how it is — He also needs to cast gun at someone at some point. But first, he must Acquire Gun. (Hans and Mima have the means but they would be too baby-proof!!)

Percival Rigel

A plot dealing with her work as a rogue would be cool, as would one related to reconnecting with her roots (her parents being Ala Mhigan, but herself never visiting Gyr Abania for obvious reasons). 

There’s not a lot of fodder for Percival as a character yet since she’s on the older side; while my other characters are in their 20′s and are still kind of figuring their lives (and themselves) out, Percival is relatively self-assured. She really is built more in a way that lets her contribute to others’ plots rather than having any built in herself.

Wren Leyland

Traveling companions who really do have time to unpack All Of That would be cool for a long-term gig, especially if she met them via her various romps through dive bars and other performance venues. She doesn’t really try to hide that she’s lying about her background, but what she seems to value most is the freedom of never being known by anyone—which is a pretty lonely way to live. She also can’t run forever.

Rosemund Blackthorne

He’s a Dark Knight so any plot properly like digging into Ishgardian politics would be cool. But he like Percival is older and has more of his shit together so he doesn’t have a proper character arc tied to him yet.

He is, though, in a pretty sticky financial situation! The House he inherited from his father after his untimely death is pretty much on the verge of collapsing because of Rosemund’s poor spending habits over the years, and many of their assets are probably going to be auctioned off at some point. Unfortunately this includes precious family heirlooms...

Janos jen Renata

Hello Fellow Eorzeans

You know what would be some good shit? Janos meeting and hitting it off with some people, pref. Eorzeans who don’t figure out he’s a Garlean. It’s fun and hilarious to see people figure it out but for Dramatic Plot Purposes it would really be neat for Jan to make some friends (or business contacts) who don’t know.

While mostly this is good for other plot things that I wanna do with him, it would also over a long period of time force him to re-evaluate his priorities. In general, Jan is a pretty honest person, and he doesn’t like to lie about something as fundamental as who he is. But he can’t really be who he is, because who he is is extremely informed by his upbringing in Garlemald, and while he has enough brain cells to rub together to start unlearning some of the Empire’s propaganda on his own, he’s still very much proud to be a Pureblood. 

But that pride, and the fact that he’s Garlean in the first place, is a secret he absolutely can’t afford getting out to the wrong people, because it puts not only himself in (probably mortal) danger in the middle of hostile territory, but it also puts his friends in Nine Eyes at risk. 

Even beyond valuing honesty, though, one of Jan’s most fundemental longings is to be known—he’s always been a cog in the machine before, and he finds it absolutely soul-crushing. But it’s kind of hard to be known when being known means you’re probably going to be arrested, lynched, or some combination of the two.

Will Tinker 4 Food

Having him work on some sort of long-term engineering project on commission would probably be cool because while he’s not particularly skilled outside of maintenance work, he needs more money to support his tinkering hobby than being a starving artist can provide—not that he really minds the starving part. (A long-term project besides “helping” Mima with Alizarine’s airships that is. In that regard, Jan is kind of just moral support?? He can follow directions and blueprints well enough to not be a nuisance, but his usefulness on something so complicated is admittedly limited.)

Eorzeans Are People Too

Watching him get educated about the cultures of Eorzea leading up to his nearly inevitable defection would be cool, since while he understands just from rubbing two brain cells together that Eorzeans are people, he doesn’t really understand the culture beyond what’s necessary to ‘fit in.’ That said, he’s naturally a pretty curious guy, and he’d love to know more about the way Eorzeans live, their beliefs, and their customs, even if they aren’t things he would ever subscribe to himself.

This includes religion, oddly; he does believe that such practices result in Eikons, but he can also see that Eorzeans aren’t particularly keen on summoning their Gods to grant their wishes or fight their battles for them. He can also tell that most Eorzeans have a pretty good idea about Eikons and Primals being a bad thing.

Hand of the Empire

Pre-established connections with other Garleans or even some conscripts would be interesting since he doesn’t remember a good chunk of time from before he wound up in Eorzea. He knows kind of intuitively that Something must have happened, but as of yet he hasn’t really tried to figure out what that something is. And he isn’t sure he wants to know. But being confronted by people he worked with (or who at least knew of him) back when he was an Architectus would be a nasty surprise, albeit not an unwelcome one since he isn’t aware that he’s not exactly in the Empire’s good graces.

He wants to go home and continue serving his country, but feels obligated to stick around with Nine Eyes after they’ve done so much for him (having basically scooped him up out of the gutter).

#ooc ( player speaking ) #about ( leonnaux altoix ) #about ( percival rigel ) #about ( wren leyland ) #about ( rosemund blackthorne ) #about ( janos jen renata ) #long post /

[b00bconnoisseur]

60 questions for @not-my-brain

1. selfie.......Ugghhhh ok. Imma take one rn

Ok here u go (yes thats a bmth shirt)

2. what would you name your future kids?.....Ooo hmmm well when i was a kid i really liked the names disney, and mesiah. I didn't know at the time that mesiah was another name for god i think lol. I liked it cause of handlers mesiah. I still do. Ooo and maybe Tj too

3. do you miss anyone?......Yeah. My friends on Pinterest from a year ago. My friend lucas. Stan lee. Bob ross. My cousin who died from cancer some years ago. Snape. Sirius. Lupin. Tonks. Dobby. *continues to name every unfortunate death in hp*

4. what are you looking forward to?.......SE-YA next month!! Its the south eastern young adult festival at this college. You can have meet n greets with authors and alot of stuff its the besstttt

5. is there anyone who can always make you smile?......DEFINATELY. @dirtysocke @mysisterlooksforthisaccountsobye @cristal-kyd1280 @sammchenry my friend lucas and @septembersbloom. ^^

6. is it hard for you to get over someone?..... What like...romantically? Or like a death? If romantically uhhh idk it took over a couple weeks but im ok now. Ive never had another relationship so idk. If death oof yeah idk maybe. Ig it depends on how much i knew them idk. Like when my nanny (great grandma) died i was sad for days (is that alot?)

7. what was your life like last year?.....Sucky af. Still is. But the highlights of my life last year was getting and making friends on tumblr, going to the tøp concert and going to warped tour, volunteering at the library, going to seya and meeting some of my favorite authors, reading, changing and improving my art, listening to all the bands i listen to now, getting into more fandoms, going to a friends house for the first time

8. have you ever cried because you were so annoyed?.......Yes lol. Some years ago when i couldn't find smtn id be so annoyed and pissed id start crying. I dont now but still lol

9. who did you last see in person?.......Hm ig family doesn't count....? Wait do u mean a friend? If so uhh my friends rebekah, anika, and Judah at a TAB meeting at the library sometime last month.

10. are you good at hiding your feelings?......I think so? Like i mean I can hide whenever i get my....time of the month from my mom (talking abt stuff like that with her makes me uncomfortable) and i hid a breakup. And other p big stuff too. So imma say yeah

11. are you listening to music right now?........*pops on earbuds after reading this* yee im listening to bitch lasagna by pewdiepie xD (do i have the best spotify playlist or what?)

12. what is something you want right now?.......To hug @mysisterlooksforthisaccountsobye but SOMEONE has to live so far away

13. how do you feel right now?........Happy that my earbud still works cause they got washed in the wash yesterday....oops. Its not my fault. I told my dad to remind me to take it out of my jacket pocket before they threw it in but noooooo he forgot

14. when was the last time someone of the opposite sex hugged you?.......Uhhhhh fuck idk it was probably from my lil 4 yr old bro sometime last week. Other than him (hes my favorite sibling) i dont let them hug me too much

15. personality description.......Nerdy. Fangirl. "Emo". Tomboy. Hotsause obsessed. Book lover. Music lover. Black. Blue. Harry potter. Introvert. Fall. Sports. Values friendship. Loyal. Uhhhh i cant think of much lol

16. have you ever wanted to tell someone something but you didn’t?.......*sigh* yes. Yes yes yes. Theres some things abt me, or my life really, that i havent told anyone on here or my irl friends that i sooooo want to so bad but i haven't cause i feel like they'd feel bad and pity me and i don't want that

17. opinion on insecurities........I dont really understand this one. Everyones insecure abt something. Is this askin like if i think its ok or not? I say its ok. Im insecure about literally everything about me. My face. My personality. My socialness. My art. What i do. What i say. Basically my whole body. The things i feel good abt are my books, music taste, and my friends (ily fuckers)

18. do you miss how things were a year ago?.........Hmm this time around a year ago....idk its sorta the same but all the stuff i mentioned abt my year from last year didn't happen yet so nah tho my life sucks rn its better than this time last year

19. have you ever been to New York?........Nooo but i want too soo baddd i wanna visit @septembersbloom !! Im coming for ya soon gramps *does the eye watching thing* my dads been to nyc before tho cause he does construction and he had a concrete job to do there. It was a 23 hr drive for him

20. what is your favourite song at the moment?........Uhhh idk!!! So hard! Maybe.....the whole thats the spirit album by bmth ;)

21. age and birthday?.....15 yrs of age and September 27th 2003 (whats yours brainy? I'll put it on my calendar)

22. description of crush......Its weird idk im not sure if its a genuine crush or not but uh....They like hp :).Thats all u get

23. fear(s).......Losing my best friend @dirtysocke and my other friends. Death. Failure. Momo chasing after me then killing me slowly keeping my eyes open to look her dead in the eyes while i die

24. height......5'6 call me short and I'll fuck u up with THIS *pulls out trusty potato peeler named now steve* dont test me boi

25. role model......Hhhhhhhh so many! But uh gosh one of them is @superraedizzle (youtuberrrr) and vexx and bob ross and da vinci and aaaaaaa so many

26. idol(s)......First person that immediately comes to mind is @sammchenry cause he's super cool and he's really nice and his art's reallyyy good (if u havent seen it w-w-what are u even doin with your life?) And he has a great sense of humor and *continues to ramble about why samms the best*

27. things i hate.......Dabs. Transphobes. Homophobic ppl. Basically any hate on the lgbtq+ community. Bullies. The ship starker. Umbridge. Snape haters

28. i’ll love you if….....U you'll eat pizza, draw, and rp harry potter with mee

29. favourite film(s)......Fantastic beasts. Every hp film. Twilight. The maze runner 1-2. The hunger games. Spiderman homecoming. Kingsman: secret service. Into the spideyverse tho i havent seen it yet

30. favourite tv show(s)......Inkmasterrrrr. B99. The mick. The middle. Uhhh idk mostly ink master xD

31. 3 random facts........Ive never had shrimp. I had a beta fish for over a year once. Im eating pizza crust rn

32. are your friends mainly girls or guys?.......G i r l s. I have all girl friends irl and one boy. And on tumblr it seems like i just meet girls? Likei agree with @cristal-kyd1280 its like alot more gals then dudes here. But i do have some guy friends on here too. But mostly girls

33. something you want to learn.......TO DRAW ANATOMY DAMMIT

34. most embarrassing moment........Every moment of my lifes an embarrassing moment. Idk of i can pick a "most" embarrassing one. But one time i i sent my crush (now ex bf) a hey fuckface and like some hearts or whatever for an ask game that meant like "i have a crush on u" "youre adorable" etc and said Hewo but i did it all anonymously. But he confronted me askin if i sent it cause im the only person he knows that actually says hewo lol. Then later on i finally admitted i really liked him and well y'all know the story after i think. Unless you're new

35. favourite subject.......A R TTTT OFC

36. 3 dreams you want to fulfill?........meet my friends on tumblr. Get into mtsu (college i wanna go to) and study art. And go skydiving

37. favourite actor/actress........favorite actor uhhhhhh probably thomas brodie sangster or tom felton and my favorite actress? Hmmm idk maybe evanna lynch (luna lovegood)

38. favourite comedian(s).......probably kevin hart lol he's p funny

39. favourite sport(s)........basketballllllll and football

40. favourite memory........uhhhhh idk?? One oh my favorite memories was when we went to see tøp in concert

41. relationship status.....single as a pringle

42. favourite book(s)......harry potter and the order of the pheonix. Harry potter and the half blood prince. Simon vs the homo sapiens agenda. Divergent. Maze runner. Twilight. Fangirl. Fallen. Red queen

43. favourite song ever.......TOO HARD DONT MAKE ME CHOOSEEEEEE

44. age you get mistaken for.........16 and 17 sometimes lol

45. how you found out about your idol........i was watching someone on yt and superraedizzle always poped up in my feed and my mom turned on one of her vids cause she always saw her vids too now ive seen most of em i love her. Id heard of vexx but never watched him and i was watching a collab from anthony miller art and shrimpy and i checked out shrimpys channel and was lookin at comments and alot of ppl said his art is like vexxs so i checked out vexx. At first i was like eh ok. Now i cant click fast enough when he posts a vid. And i actually fpund out about bob ross from my grandpa on jan 20 2017 when trump was getting sworn in or whatever. We turned on pbs and my grampa told me to look and bob ross was on and i was IN. I loved it. I even started watching full episodes on YouTube of the joy of painting after that. Wonderful man. My first painting i ever did i think was when i followed one of his tutorials xD (i didnt know it was popular at the time)

46. what my last text message says......."ok your turn"

47. turn ons.....uhh nerds ig idk um book lovers, music lovers, art lovers, potterheads, idk and nice ppl

48. turn offs......jerks. Homophobia. Idk ig whatever i said in things i hate

49. where i want to be right now......uhhhh idk wait didn't i already answer this? Ok this ones different ig so uhh with my friend lucas

50. favourite picture of your idol.....oh shit...favorite? Idk xD i have a fave of vexx but not of rae or bob. But heres pics of them any way

51. starsign......a libraaaaa boiii

52. something i’m talented at......drawing and speed reading. Thats about it lol. Oh and procrastina

53. 5 things that make me happy.......ooooo art, my friends here on tumblr, books, harry potter, and music ^^

54. something thats worrying me at the moment.....if my friend thinks im being annoying

55. tumblr friends......hhhhh so manyyyyyy. @dirtysocke @mysisterlooksforthisaccountsobye @cristal-kyd1280 @chinesewaffles2 @kingantlion @queen-baelin @sammchenry @septembersbloom and more

56. favourite food(s)......green beans, pepperoni pizza, and vanilla madelines

57. favourite animal(s).......basically any reptile. Puppies. Cats. Any animal really but my #1 are snakes

58. description of my best friend.....well she's a tiny bean (5 feet) and she has dark hair, she wears glasses, she doesnt take shit, she's in love with Josh dun, she's awesome, funny, nice (YES youre nice jackie) and shes the best friend ive ever had. Oh. And she has a weird obsession with spaghetti

59. why i joined tumblr.......well i heard abt it on Pinterest over a year ago but didnt want it. Then @mrfastbass-deactivated20181231 on DeviantArt said he got tumblr so i made one then followed him and figured id just post art and that's it cause i thought tumblr was boring as hell when i first got it. Now im p much obsessed with it

60. ask me anything you want.......go ahead brainy shoot. Give me smtn good

#my face #mutual peeps #not-my-brain #asks #60 questions

[spacerhapsody]

TOP 10 characters :D

(You are the best! :D)

I’ve decided to go with the ones that are some kind of all-time favourites because otherwise I wouldn’t even know where to start. So, here we go, in no particular order, because that would just be cruel:

James Flint (Black Sails) Listen, I’d follow this man into battle, into ruin, and probably even into hell, he’s such a great character, there is so much, so much pain, anger, emotions, and yet still all that softness underneath. He killed a man with his bare hands in the very first episode and yet I just knew. That’s him, that’s the one. Also, starting a war on England because England was a homophobic asshole? Your fav could never.

Julio Richter/Rictor (Marvel)X-Factor Investigations was the series that got me into comics (in hindsight a questioable decision on its own, but w/e), so maybe that’s part of the reason why he’ll always have a special place in my heart, but I just love everything about him, from his ridiculous fashion sense to the years he spent so deep in the closet he was basically in Narnia. Also, the way his depression gets handled still breaks me every time. Also², Rictor/Shatterstar is possibly one of the best things Marvel ever created (OTP: It can only be you.

Ronan Lynch (The Raven Cycle)Oh my god, Ronan. Who appears to be so sharp, acts like the badass troublemaker, and is just so angry so often, but actually took a baby raven out of his dreams, dreamt up a baby brother who’s all sunshine and happiness, whose softness somehow can’t even be taken away by the darkest things and places, and who just loves the few people he cares about so goddamn much, how could I not love him?Also, because I still remember the discussion about this, he was clearly written as gay from the very beginning, but in the most hilarious way. (Comparing Blue’s dress to a lampshape, and then “Whatever sort of lamp it belonged on, Gansey clearly wished he had one. Ronan wasn’t a fan of lamps.“? ICONIC. Also “I’m always straight.” - “Oh man, that’s the biggest lie you’ve ever told.”)

Percy Weasley (Harry Potter)Probably the most controversial of them all on Tumblr, but you can pry my love for Percy from my cold, dead hands. I’ve ranted about this a lot, but let me rant just about this one thing again: When it comes down to it, he doesn’t really fit into his family who are all loud and chaotic, when he’s just… not. And it’s not even like they have nothing in common, it’s just that nobody makes an effort to really understand him or to really get to know him, this frustrates me to no end, okay, because there are so many layers there and I love all of them so much!

Donna Noble (Doctor Who)DONNAAAAAA! Of all the characters who deserved so much better, she’s really reduced me to screaming her name into the void every time I see something about her/think about her, because SHE DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER, she deserved the universe, and she deserved to remember it. Also, she’s probably my favourite companion of all time because her dynamic with Ten is hands down the best (”You’re not mating with me, sunshine.”). She takes no shit from him, but it’s not like she’s harsh or anything, she’s got so much compassion, and she managed to be awesome without having a special connection to the Doctor or some ~mystery~ about her to solve.

Daisuke Motomiya (Digimon)Light of my life, miracle child of mine! He gets so much shit in and out of universe, with everyone thinking he’s just an idiot, but he is so brave, so optimistic despite the way almost everyone treats him and everything happening to him and his friends, so full of love. I’ve said it again and again, but the world truly would be a better place with more people like him, and everyone’s life would be so much better with a friend like him.

Alex Drake (Ashes to Ashes)I’ve mentioned her actress in the reply to that last ask, and obviously all of her outfits and hairstyles are such a “do I want to be you or do I want to be with you” mood, it’s the best/worst (I am weak for the 80s, I never stood a chance).But also, she’s such a good lead and character! I was super sceptical after Life on Mars because I thought nobody could be as interesting as Sam Tyler in a setting like this, but I think she totally beat him in personality and chemistry with Gene hunt, and that’s gotta say something.

Sirius Black (Harry Potter)Okay, I tried to include only one character per fandom, but Sirius Black has been one of the first characters I’ve ever been kind of obsessed with (I remember drawing sketches in my homework planner of me going after Bellatrix Lestrange for killing him, this feels like a lifetime ago), and I feel like the older I get, the more – and deeper – reasons to love him I find.I mean, he’s already got bonus points for the cool hair, leather jacket and motorcycle stuff (plus, he’s like 100% gay, fight me JKR), but he’s also a fucking mess. Even before Azkaban, but both that and the way he grew up and then walked away from his family probably bring out his flaws even more, and it’s great, because all of this makes him such an interesting character.

Zuko (Avatar: The Last Airbender)How often can you cry over the same character arc? Because is2g, I do every single time, it’s just so well done. In terms of redemption arcs, it set the bar so fucking high that I don’t think I’ve seen anything ever since that came close.And, I mean. He’s got all that angst from his history with his father and Azula and the path that sent him on, there’s so much growth that I could talk about that alone for ages, but he’s also just so awkward and such a goddamn idiot, it’s so perfect.

Tonda (Krabat)This one might seem a bit out of place (does anyone even know this book?) but 11-year-old me fell in love with him when we were reading this book at school, and the rest is history. I’ve been rereading it a few times over the last 20 years because I still love it and somehow always find new things to fall in love with, but what always stays the same is my love for Tonda. His story still kind of breaks my heart, and his friendship with Krabat probably even more. Characters who’ve been through so much but still are caring and want to protect their friends? GOD, YES.

#re: #yasisworld #oh my god this got long but they're my favourites after all! #honorable mentions: #richard 'i am bi and i don't have friends' beckmann (my problematic fav tm) #quentin coldwater who's only not on this list because i'm STILL BITTER #kate bishop because everything about her from young avengers vol. 2 on was SO RELATABLE #james tiberius kirk (captain of my heart) from the original series (where he actually had a personality) #minerva mcgonagall aka the best professor hogwarts ever had #and many more but i really should stop now #meme answers

[kimmorganart]

RECLAIMING THE ARTIST WITHIN YOU

The first time I stood before a canvas after years of not painting, I panicked. Where do I start? How do I do it? What if I’ve lost my artistic abilities? What if I’ve forgotten how to paint?

Riding a bike, I told myself. You never forget, but it might feel wobbly at first until you’ve gone a few rounds around the block. Wobbly but not forgotten. And so what if it doesn’t turn out.

When I was a child, my artistic father would say he was rusty whenever I’d ask him to show me how to draw something, like a horse – and then he’d whip out an amazing creature pounding the ground with perfect hoofs, perfect muscular legs, and a perfect head.

I never did master drawing a horse. I also never understood what he meant.

Back in those days my mother could barely keep my brother and me in enough drawing paper, and when we’d run out we’d sketch on anything we could find – the white cardboard stuffed inside stocking packages, brown paper bags, notepaper, the inside of cereal boxes we had cut open and laid flat. It didn’t matter; we just needed to draw. And if it didn’t turn out, we didn’t care. The artistic child doesn’t get hung up on perfection or technique; he or she simply starts over again.

My brother and I also competed for artistic dominance. In a family of six kids, we were the most obsessed with drawing. It was how we got attention and stood out from the crowd. Or maybe we were just the only ones out of all the siblings who were truly interested in creating art.

Our tools at that time were drawing pencils, colored pencils and Rapidograph pens. Our favorite pastime was going to the nearby art store, where we’d spend our allowances on supplies. We couldn’t understand how our father let his artistic side slide, and we vowed that would never be us.

After high school graduation, I got a small art scholarship at Columbia College in Missouri. There, I was an English major with the goal of being a writer, but since there were no required basic ed classes at the college, I had room in my schedule to minor in art. My art teachers were renowned in their own right: Sidney Larson, William J. Williams, Tom Watson, John Lynch and Ben Cameron. I wasn’t considered a shining star among the art students, but I was happy to sit at the elbow of those who were and soak in their styles, techniques and skills. CC was a small college then with less than 1,000 in attendance, making the interaction among professors and students, and students with each other, personal, encouraging and competitive. The lessons learned from them have been lifelong.

After college, I moved to Chicago, where I worked first as a copywriter in advertising and then as a writer and editor in publishing. I had a boyfriend who told me I was only a pretend artist and that I needed to stick to writing. Five years later, I moved back to Florida and reunited with my high school sweetheart (now my husband). He believed in my artistic abilities and I spent a few years whipping out paintings.

And then life got more crowded. I was laid off my job, but a freelance writing opportunity evolved into a way to make a living. I got married, had a child, enjoyed a steady stream of writing gigs, and my art fell by the wayside. My daughter wound up being artistic – in fact she’s much more talented than me – and I spent most of my time working as a writer, being a wife and mother, and homeschooling her. Before I knew it, twenty years went by.

I’d tell my daughter I once did a lot of art, but with no recent work to show, she doubted my story. I would buy art supplies I’d never use, and I finally understood what my father meant when he said he didn’t have time for art. Then I witnessed my brother, who had also neglected his artistic side, sign up for painting classes and produce one painting after another. This led me to lie in bed at night and wonder what happened to that girl who had to paint, had to draw, had to create?

There were times over the years when my daughter and I would sit together and draw, but it felt awkward and stiff in the process. This is what my father meant when he said he was rusty. It was as if I had lost my abilities, like a muscle that hasn’t been worked out in years and eventually wastes away. I was an empty artistic vessel, a shadow of my former artistic self.

Getting older can be a great motivator. When you’re on the downside of the curve, you have nothing to lose. I knew I needed to create art and I needed a plan, one that removed the guilt of viewing time spent on artistic projects as a luxury I couldn’t afford.

I needed to get back on the bike.

So I typed up a schedule and pinned it to my bulletin board: Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays would be my art days, with the remaining days of the week assigned to writing and freelance jobs, housework, yard work and other tasks. As corny as it sounds, having these designated art days removed my intrusive thoughts that I should be doing something else. This is my time for art, carved out neat and tidy, and that little trick gives me permission to create.

It wasn’t easy in the beginning. I felt paralyzed about where to begin. How do I mix paint? What if I just can’t do it? What if I can’t remember the process? Watching YouTube videos helped immensely. They awakened lessons I had locked away in my mind. And looking at other people’s paintings on Pinterest.com and other sites was inspiring and thought provoking. Before I knew it, I had done my first painting, and then another and another after that.

I have also discovered several different art sites, like fineartamerica.com, where I can showcase my paintings and sell them as prints, t-shirts, mugs, canvas prints, or the original paintings. Nothing is more motivating than having someone like something you did enough to buy it.

Now when people ask me what I do, I say I’m a writer and an artist. I no longer feel that I’m a pretender or grieve for that lost part of myself – and one day, my daughter actually included me in a conversation about what it means to be an artist. Do I regret the years of not doing art? Yes, but I’m back on the bike.

I remember how my Air Force father would wistfully wonder how artists in the military got their jobs while he was stuck in the Motor Pool. After he retired, he went to work for Pratt & Whitney as a commercial artist, but he often said he hoped to one day do paintings of historical figures. When he got cancer, he told me, “Maybe I’ll do a painting if I can get better.” That day never came. Even so, I let years pass after his death before picking up the brush again.

Thankfully, I did pick it up and have learned that you really can reclaim your art. It begins with making a commitment – like a schedule -- and giving yourself permission to set aside the time. An artist who doesn’t create will never truly be happy because talent wasted is a life not fully lived.

[artstartart]

Artist Spotlight: Taylor Bielecki

Get to know one of our Pratt artists from the February 2020 Collection on ArtStartArt.

To get us started, share more about yourself and your artwork.

I am a Pratt MFA who focuses on drawing and painting, specifically influenced by cinema; Alfred Hitchcock, David Lynch, and Werner Herzog. I am also jumping into printmaking a bit more again and use dramatic angles, night scenes, to put the audience at street level and take them to the places that may often avoid especially at night, but those carnivals, roads, alleyways sometimes offer some of the best imagery.

Tell us about your first experience creating.

It was around when I was 6 years old, I'd be watching X-Men, Pokémon, or yu-gi-oh cartoons and always wanted to create my own characters, trading cards, or heroes, so I would sit there and pause the show to try to copy the characters and make my own book. It would drive my mom crazy because I would still have the same show on the TV for hours. Ever since then I've always drew my heroes and role models, and I'm working on a comic project. Also, once I found my love for Painting at Penn State, everything just really opened up for me art wise.

What has been your favorite part of art school so far?

Having the opportunity to have a studio with all the other MFAs o the same floor and really build awesome friendships. The community is absolutely awesome, the great conversations, critiques and gallery trips really help push our work to the next level. Thanks to this great community of peers and faculty, I come to my studio always inspired ad ready to try out a new idea.

What are you currently exploring in your work?

I am really trying to push my compositions and distance in the pieces. I want viewers to feel as if they can really enter the piece. Acting like my own director I am exploring many night scenes, rain reflections, and inspiration from my travels around NYC, trying to push my color palette and kind of continue my version on the nocturn painting tradition.

What excites you about ArtStartArt?

I really appreciate the opportunity to join this amazing community of artists and get to show my work to a whole new audience. I am also really excited to get to learn more of the business side and get some great experience in getting a good handle on the selling and shipping processes that ArtStartArt is helping us all with.

If you had to choose another major besides art, what would it be, and why?

English, I actually have a BA in English too. I love literature and to write. I have my first artbook out ad hope to self-publish more with short stories with each of my pieces.

What plans do you have for the future of your art?

I hope to become an art professor and teach art someday and continue to show my work in exhibitions. Now that I am experiencing the NYC art scene it is one of my dreams to have a show in a gallery here too. I have a lot of options, freelance, teaching, and everything and I am really grateful and excited for all these opportunities.

Describe your idea of artistic success.

Seeing the reaction of someone who is really excited to see or own a piece of my work. Making someone smile and inspiring someone to chase their dreams like my teachers, professors, family, and other role models have done for me, means the world to me. Helping someone to see that anything is possible and to never give up is my idea of artistic success.

Rapid fire questions for Taylor:

Favorite quote: Nil Desperandum (Never Despair)

Guilty pleasure: Magic the gathering, Yu-gi-oh, or Vanguard trading card collecting.

Last album you listened to: Ozzy Osbourne's Ultimate Sin album

Last TV show you watched: Chicago PD, currently obsessed with the show.

Best piece of advice you’ve ever received: "Above all else, Always be kind, A great Kindness is better than winning,

Behind the Scenes with Taylor:

We asked Taylor to share some images that encapsulated the creative process

VIEW ALL OF TAYLOR’S WORK FOR SALE

#artistspotlight

[vamytas]

18th May ‘94

     Molly,

Thanks for your exhibition prints. I’ve sold a few off the counter, the deer ones are popular. Still find it funny that people opt for the cuter kind, even if the forest frolickers are dead, although when one woman came in to buy a wallet for her husband and I told her the deer was a taxidermy she didn’t seem as eager to look around much more! Shame, that. Tried to tell her half the cost went to the RSPCA but she didn’t buy it. I’ll see if Alex wants one. Have you sent some to Tommy? He’d like the mouse driving the car (that’s him, right...?)

I would say ‘same old’ here if it was true but it’s not. The bloke I work with, Rob, the one who thought it would be a grand idea to throw Alex’s surprise birthday bash, he hasn’t shown up for work in a couple days and he won’t pick up his phone. I could joke that it was Alex’s doing but at this point with the way he’s become such a recluse I wouldn’t put it past him. Maybe they eloped? Not that they have any reason to, didn’t catch on to anything like that. Not that you’d care, obviously (ha ha). I shouldn’t joke about it, though. Rob’s somewhere we don’t know...or at least I don’t know. Thank god Alex is responding even if it’s minimal. I asked him if he knew anything and  he said he didn’t. At the moment it’s a mystery to us but I’m not sure if Rob’s family have managed to get in contact, or if he has any family to worry over him, there’s a lot of characters like that around here.

Don’t be a stranger, even if you have all the critics climbing all over eachother just to glance at your face. Are you really going to try and pull the Banksy thing?

    Much love,

    Seb

P.S. Have you installed your dial-up yet? Data’s quicker to send than paper.

21 May 1994

To: MissMolly

From: S.M.

Subj: Beep, beep ... nnNNRRHH

Happy to see you’ve joined the legion of the world wide web! I know a lot of people complain about the noise but it doesn’t sound much different to what we used to listen to. You haven’t sold your original 20 Jazz Funk Greats, have you? Not sure it would even rake in much with what we drew all over the back, unless you or Alex get put in the Tate. With the way you’re going I wouldn’t say it’s a far way off! Also need more of those prints! Running low. You’re a popular girl here :) -- that’s called a smiley.

As for the Earnshaw Update: he’s as much a hermit as your sister used to be when she started getting into The Cure. I don’t know what instigated it but he’s only been reachable by phone since his birthday, and only at night. I’ve tried dropping in but his door’s been shut tight and I don’t know where he keeps the emergency key. You should try talking to him (I can resend his address if you’ve lost it, he hasn’t got internet yet). That’s if I can’t tide him over by telling him you’ve got a gift, next time he picks up... if he does. Sorry, that sounds very doom and gloom. I really am worried about him, if only because he hasn’t been in this kind of stasis since... well.

Please get back to me as soon as you can.

Much love,

Seb

23 May 1994

To: MissMolly

From: S.M.

Subj: He’s alive!

Did you send that print to him? I came by his place tonight and he answered after the first knock! Smiling as ever. He felt colder than a Yorkshire winter, though, and pale. I told him I could help with the gas bill if he needed it but he waved me off. We went out to one of those clubs where everyone is in fishnets and knock-off McQueen, which is nothing new, but they were playing that new MTV gothic stuff, the kind he said he hated -- could be broadening his horizons. I lost him for a bit but he found his way back, he’s somehow easy to distinguish from the crowd now (for me that is, imagine it’s always been the case with you, ha ha!)

He also told me that Rob went on a spontaneous break to Rome. Rob in Rome! And that I’d be getting a “confirmation of assumin’ such responsibilties required of a leather shoppe owner, as well as the salary”. Alex and him were closer than I thought.

It’s all looking up here. What’s happening with you? Apart from the Guardian editorial, you don’t tell me much apart from work!

Much love,

Seb

27 May 1994

To: MissMolly

From: S.M.

Subj: Concerned again.

I don’t mean to ignore the other topics covered in our ditties but Al has gone Weird. I know he always has been, in that ‘cool cousin’ kind of way but now he’s just... I don’t know. He’s practically nocturnal. There’s more and more stuff popping up in his wardrobe that he used to say was a ‘fuckin’ disgrace of shite taste’ -- the chokers! There must be about ten discarded around his whole place. I’ve seen some of his paintings too and they’re dark, as in David Lynch meets Goya’s black paintings, I mean they’re good -- really good -- but it just seems excessive.

Worst of all, he keeps mentioning Ricky. Since the accident he’s been fairly healthy with talking about it but now it seems like he’s got this growing obsession with ‘what it all meant, his death’, I don’t even know what Alex meant by that.Then he’ll ask me where I think Ricky is now and honestly I don’t know, I don’t like to think about it. I just keep saying ‘somewhere warm’  because it seems like Alex needs the comfort. I don’t know if what happened to Ricky got to him more than he let on before, or if he was too preoccupied at the time with making sure I didn’t do anything drastic. Was I that needy?

I don’t know anymore. I don’t know what to suggest either. Sorry to end on such a downer of a note.

Love,

Seb 

1 June 1994 

To: MissMolly

From: S.M.

Subj: Dire.

I don’t know him anymore, Molly. When we don’t go out he just wants to talk about Ricky with me, like I’m a proxy for some kind of loss he’s going through. But I don’t know what loss that is -- you? It’s the only comparison I can think of. I feel like the kid stuck between two divorced parents with you two sometimes. Except he avoids talking about you all together and if I do bring you up, like how you were moving back to London, he just looks down, rubs his beard... a new habit. 

(Beard, yeah. I forgot to tell you because it was a really gradual transition at the time that I didn’t notice, but he has this Jesus thing going for him. Before, I didn’t think much of it but now it’s like an inherent look he should have been born with, innate? I could never imagine him looking like it but now it’s hard to imagine him looking any different.)

Anyway, beards aside. He’s getting... creepy. When we’re not drinking he just wants to postulate on death and ‘what comes after’, he’s a right fucking misery to be around. Although I haven’t seen him drink much at all, do you think he’s on drugs or something? It’s the only conclusion I can come up with, and I don’t have anyone else to ask about this because they’re all in the same scene he is.

Please reply soon.

Seb

2 June 1994

To: MissMolly

From: S.M.

Subj: -

Okay there are some things I’ve witheld for a long time because I didn’t want to cause you any unnecessary pain. As much as I know you say you’re fine it’s never a gift to hear these things but I feel it has a lot to do with how Alex is now.

After we moved to SF he started seeing this woman who I didn’t see much of myself,,  she set me on edge but I can understand how he was drawn to her because I think it was mainly a sex thing to get over you. I told yu before that he was a catastrophic mess after you left and things got better but when I say catastrophic mess I really mean it, I won’t state examples because I dont mean to make you feel guilty Molly but it’s the truth and I don’t know what to do anymore.

I didnt want to make uyo worry  because i know you;re already dealing with enough already, and i didnt want this matter in particular to be especially distressing for you. But I think alex and this woman were into heavy stuff  - not drugs but maybe that too. We went out while he was with this girl, in January, I think? it was to one of those fetish clubs, wasn’t my thing. But he left me there alone without telling me he was leaving, hhe left with the girl and didn’t even leave me  a voicemail. I got home fine, couldn’t sleep though. But then  I went over to check on him in the morning and his back was covered in gashes and blood. he didnt wake up but he was breathing. i didn’t know what to do,  i pretended i never walked in and he called me soon after to apologise for the night but i  wouldnt say anything about his back because i thought it was a bdsm thing but with the way hes acting now i dont know if he was being abused? I dont know the telltale signs, just that he’d follow this woman around like she had him on a leash.

There are still parts of him I recognise but there’s something about him which feels out of touch, like he’s not the same person but trying to be.  I dont know how to put it, maybe I’ve been away from someone who can actually talk about these problems for too long

The thing is I havent seen him with this woman in a while, since his birthday I’d say. Despite it he seems a lot happier now than when he was with her (apart from the Ricky fixation) but he’s gone full blown Byronic Bohemian.  He’s invited me out almost every day in the past week and since this was an improvement from locking himself inside, I tried to go as much as I could. Each time I’d lose him for a while because he’d gone off with a girl . He thinks he’s being discreet but I’m not much of a dancer for these places so all there’s left to do is watch. Sometimes he goes home with them and offers to pay me for a taxi, which is a step up from leaving me stranded, I’ll give him that.

I know I shouldn’t have but I looked through his art yesterday (his emergency key is in a broken light on a wall outside his door), not his stuff under the bed but in his wardrobe. There’s five entire sketchbooks of you, some of the drawings are so beautiful, he still remembers how you look exactly but in others they just seem... off? Not that they don’t look like you because they do, even if it’s a few strokes, but for someone who knows you they just look like he;s trying to put through what he is now onto you?  I don’t know. that doesnt make sense.Then there are some Ricky drawings in there too but  I don’t want to talk about them.  he writes stuff around you and Ricky, dates and places and random lines like ‘snake chokes on its own tail’ and ‘saw him around Seb’s’.  I  think he’s scared of losing parts of himself and not being able to get them back.

Please talk to him  Molly , you know his number and email . I know you think you’ll do him more harm than good but I don’t know what to say, if I point out how he’s acting weird he just resorts to deflective humour ‘it’s all part of being a la Americana now’. But I’m worried if I push it he’ll get angry. Sometimes I don’t feel safe with him and I don’t know why. Please reach him, I miss him, nothing’s right with Alex like this. I’m getting homesick because there’s nothing here that seems real anymore, everything feels like I’m watching it through a TV screen and it’s muted, or the music’s too loud to hear what people are really saying. I don’t want to leave Alex alone but I feel like I’m in a coma here.

Do you think I could stay with you for a while?

Love always,

Seb

#▏🌹 ▪ VANITAS. #▏▪ HEADCANON. #[IDK WHAT TO tag this as rn . . #its long .. . longest thing ive written on this blog and its not from alexs perspectiv.e.. #I DONT HAVE much to comment abt it im tired. .. #just a biffle's view of alexs days after his Death . .]

[awaragainstboredom]

Writer’s Block: The RPG Method Part 1

I role play a lot. Like I’m currently a player character in 4 games, and I run my own campaign, and working on the world for my own homebrew campaign. This is also done in regularity on a weekly basis, which is completely different from back in the day we were lucky to get a few weekly sessions, and reconvene months later in the same campaign, only to never get back to the game again. 

Things like family, work, depression, etc. would end up putting those games on the back-burner, which was really a death flag for a campaign. I’ve made so many characters for so many role playing systems, just to never play as them ever again.

I honestly never thought I would become one of those guys who plays tabletop rpgs as much as I do. I mean, in the past when someone would share with me that they were in two D&D campaigns, and was part of a LARP over the weekend I would think it was ridiculous and laugh at their fervor for wanting to be in that many games. Well, the joke’s on me now.

However to my defense, this isn’t mostly about escapism. Okay, not to say that it isn’t, but I took on this many games to help out with my writer’s block. I see role playing games as a different way to explore narrative. 

You not only act out your characters, but you have to overcome challenges with a game of chance. And even though the person who is running the game and helping direct you through the story, that dice roll, whether it passes or fails the challenge (or check, if your nasty), effects the tale that is being woven, and you played an active part in it. That’s really amazing!

I’ve also read that a good number of fantasy novels that have originated from role playing campaigns. George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series, and Scott Lynch’s Gentleman Bastard books are couple of examples. Game of Thrones was born from a Roman rpg, and Gentleman Bastard’s main character Locke Lamora was based upon a character Lynch made for D&D (which to my delight, I learned was also based on the “treasure hunter”, Locke Cole from Final Fantasy VI).

This was enough to influence me to try and do the same. Universe building is hard for those who prefer to write in such a manner, because it’s hard to balance out how much detail do I want to write about said world and not get obsessed with it and never actually finish it, or at least that has been my experience. 

My goal here is to document as much as I can about things that I have made for my games in the way of world creation, and characters for other peoples games. I know some Dungeon Masters don’t want a novel for character backgrounds, so give them a short and concise one, and you can go and expand on it more on your own.

Or maybe you can just make it as you go along in the game that you are playing in currently. As an example for character background here is mine for my D&D character Rota.

                                                  ***

                                     Rota Grendelstadt

Rota, the magic academy drop-out turned sellsword, ventures forth to find knowledge in all things, and the true path of a warrior. Hailing from the cold north in the fishing town of Grendelstadt (located close to Neverwinter), she stands at 6 foot 5, with a lean muscular build, moonlight-pale skin, with silver hair in a fringe style cut and silver eyes to match. And if that doesn’t make her stand out, then perhaps the fact that she is a tiefling without a tail (Her mother and her father were the same, as well as most tieflings of Grendelstadt). Though tall, and muscular she is surprisingly bookish and introverted. She is brash, quick-tempered, prone to violence, fiery, socially challenged, but has a good heart, quick on her feet, tenacious, dependable, and has an weird natural charisma that draws people to her.

She is highly knowledgeable in magic theory and formulae, however she cannot connect to mana in order to cast spells. She has spent a lot her time honing her physical skills and researching why she in not able to use magic. She is working with a theory that she heard about when one exceeds their mental and physical limits, perhaps they can open a channel that can connect to the magical tapestry.

Growing up in a family of adventurers definitely was not the most normal of upbringings. Even with the simple life on a farm, Rota’s mother Herja wanted her to be as strong as she is and would put her through rigorous training that even the militia of Grendelstadt wouldn’t go through. And her father Beolf, a skald, would be off travelling to do research for his book of races and culture of the world. Because of this she hardly saw her father, but Beolf would make sure that when he was home he would bring her back books.

Beolf was rather awkward when he would see his daughter, and the only things that would break the silence between the two were to talk about books, and her mother’s crazy training routine. Though Beolf loved her, and tried his best (that he could muster) to be a parent to Rota, his trips back were too short and very infrequent, which caused their relationship to be a distant one.  

The dramatic change that shaped Rota into who she is now begins with the death of her father, Beolf. She spent the rest of her life being raised by her mother, uncle and various friends of the family. It wasn’t a normal childhood, being that she had to flee for her safety and train to become a warrior to be strong enough to defend herself and help others. It was a kind of splintered family unit with a bunch of troubled, dysfunctional adventurers. And though they all mean well in their way of bringing Rota up, they struggle with their own egos and misconceptions of what makes one a hero, and is there really such a thing?

Rota’s  father was killed in a fight with his cousin, over the spoils from an adventure that her father had owed to the cousin. And it was within the laws of their country for those who have been wronged by their neighbor or kinsmen, by settling things out in a physical challenge. Her father, Beolf and their cousin, Thorfinn chose to have a wrestling match as their way of settling their differences, while the Jarl, Falken was to oversee the fight and uphold the law.

Of course it was all an act to misdirect the Falken, to make him think that he and Thorfinn were on the outs. And by with Beolf creating a schism in the Grendelstadt family, the gamble was to perhaps draw the attention of the jarl to try pull Thorfinn on his side, allowing him to gain Falken’s trust and be the inside man. The jarl was pursuing Beolf and his comrades who had found the underground site for the earl’s humanoid smuggling ring that was being overseen by The Order of the Unspoken Rhyme (which Falken is a member of).

The Order of the Unspoken Rhyme is connected to the Cult of the Dragon, and handles underworld business for them making them an enemy of Beolf and his friends, who have vowed to take down the Order and their allies at any turn. Upon dismantling the slave trade, they also came upon treasure that Falken thought would be well hidden from anyone but himself. However the quick eyes of the bard Beolf found it. And within the cache of treasure was an ancient tome most dangerous, and Beolf knew he had to find a safe place for it.

He took all of the treasure and sent it to three different locations and had cut a map into 6 pieces to be found in order to find the treasure, and secretly sent the tome to his wizard friend and adventuring partner, Touchstone, who keeps it locked away hidden in the wizards’ academy, Hippocampus Scale, that the earl would focus on searching for the other treasures. Foolishly, death was the last thing that Beolf was prepared for in his plan. Thorfinn broke Beolf’s ribs which went directly into his lungs. He could have been healed, but Falken didn’t allow any outside potions, and only his healers at the fight. It was said he also might have had some responsibility in the “accident”.

At the age of 9, Rota saw her father die before her eyes, but did not shed a tear for him. Not because she was trying to make herself seem strong in front of the jarl and his men - she just didn’t know how.

Rota’s mother Herja, uncle Sigurd, and cousin Thorfinn were  devastated by these events and knew that things would become tough for them in Grendelstadt. Though being the tough battle-hardened adventurers they were, they knew that they would be alright.  However, as the years went by the concern was growing that Rota would be used as some sort of bargaining chip to find the treasure. the Grendelstadt family knew they had to send Rota off before things would get really dire.

At the age 12  it was decided that she were to be sent away from her town of Grendelstadt to attend a wizard’s academy, Hippocampus Scale and learn to become a wizard like she always wanted to be (Thorfinn pays for her tuition to account for the death of a kinsmen, as per the law of their country), while being under the watchful eye of her godfather, the human wizard Touchstone (who’s equally sassy as he is powerful).

She learns that she does have amazing aptitude for understanding magic formulas and theory. However when it comes to practice, she is terrible at actually manifesting the spell. Not because she doesn’t understand it, but because her connection to the source of mana is weak. All the spells would just fizzle right in front of her.

And although her grades were high in every other course of study except for spell casting, she became the object of ridicule among her peers (which would end in episodes of violence, mostly by her). Whenever there were spell casting exercises she would spend most of her time reading, and doing physical training that she learned from her warrior mother, who pushed her not only in farm work, but also learning how to fight with weapons.

Later on the headmaster of the Hippocampus Scale, upon Touchstone’s suggestion, wanted her help out with what they called “Battle Training”, or “Real Life Combat”, in which she would be the physical combat participant for her peers, so they would learn how to use spells effectively in combat. Normally they have hired swords stand in for this, but they thought it would be interesting to have someone who could understand spellcraft, formulas, and theory, and apply them to fighting against a mage, and see how they would react to it. Her popularity rose in both positive and negative ways after this, but she was known not to be a simple challenge to her rivals anymore.

She was going take the job of becoming a researcher in Hippocampus Scale, and then maybe some way she could find out how to connect with the source of mana. Touchstone, though proud of her accomplishments, saw that she was only making things harder on herself in her pursuit learning how to cast spells and felt that she need to find another path to become what she wanted.

And sent her off to become an apprentice to one of he and her father’s other adventuring comrades, the master swordsman, Dragnar Fafnirson. He thought perhaps that her connection to mana will come from a battle-borne soul. However before he sent her off from Hippocampus Scale, he gave her the ancient tome that her father had found to protect it (He was beginning to see the Order’s shadow reach out to his academy).

After her training with Dragnar, she was pitted against Herja, to test her strength. Her mother quickly dispatched Rota, and sent her back to continue her training, but not after scolding Dragnar first. And though she won’t tell Rota this, she did get some good hits on her mother, which excited her blood to see what potential her daughter has in the way of battle. With a few more years of learning under Dragnar, her master sent her out to get some experience, by sending her out in the world to test her mettle.

Other notes:

She would get in trouble with her mother, Herja when she was reading instead of doing farm work, or physical training. She learned how to workout and read at the same time because of this. And when she is not fighting, she is never without a book. She also likes to visit libraries of each city she comes across. Rota also cannot stand wizards who have semi-useful spells, and thinks it is a waste. She is also very arrogant when it comes to talking with spell casters.

She was estranged with her father Beolf, and spent most of her early years being raised by her mother and uncle. Beolf was thought to be a gallivanting bard, getting caught in women and wine, and was just a deadbeat father (or at least how those in Grendelstadt saw him), he really did care about his daughter and would bring her books whenever he came back to town.

She really didn’t know how to react after his death, because she felt she didn’t know him really well, except for the fact that he was the nice guy that gave her books and would share his love of them with her. It was after his death that she learned he was actually trying to save the world from evil. And it was only years later did her tears come after reading a poem that he dedicated to her in the signed copy of the book that he wrote.

#Dungeons and Dragons #Role Playing #Writer's block #d&d character #writing exercise #d&d 5e

[horizonreviews]

“The Elephant Man” Film Review

The Elephant Man: A Film of Acceptance

 In memory of John Hurt, whose performance changed my life

             While the medium of film has attempted to capture the spirit of the outcast and ostracized, few exemplify the struggle greater than David Lynch’s The Elephant Man. Based on the real life of Joseph Merrick (renamed John Merrick for the script), the film follows the life of a Victorian circus freak dubbed “the Elephant Man.” When a traveling circus is seen by a local  physician (Dr. Frederick Treves), the Elephant Man is removed from the street and thoroughly examined for the advancement of medicine. However, as Dr. Treves begins to analyze John’s situation and both of them become involved in a national sensation that goes beyond either of them.

Act I Summary

           The film opens on London’s East Side, where a freak circus is exhibiting its wondrous and unusual attractions. All the while, the greedy and malicious ringmaster, Mr. Bytes, overlooks every freak in his circus, refusing to let anyone see them after the show. The headliner of his empire of oddities is the hideous Elephant Man, a creature whose deformities draw crowds from far and wide. However, one member of the crowd isn’t here to marvel at this man’s deformities, but instead, wishes to analyze them for science. This man is Dr. Frederick Treves.

           He insists on seeing the Elephant Man privately, and after a hefty bribe, Bytes agrees. The ringmaster leads the good doctor to the back of the circus, where the Elephant Man is being held. A grandiose introduction is offered, claiming that the Elephant Man’s mother was beaten in the fourth month of her maternal tradition by an elephant. The result was the massive array of deformities that this man possesses behind the curtain. Afterwards, the curtain is drawn and it reveals a shrouded figure huddled next to a meager fire. Bytes soon barks orders at his main attraction, and the man withdraws his shroud and begins displaying his grotesque body. All the while, Dr. Treves can’t believe what he’s witnessing. He’s so astonished that he is moved to tears.

           Refusing to go back now, Dr. Treves insists that the Elephant Man be brought in to the hospital for examinations. The doctor and his patient soon arrive, and they immediately go to the main office. Dr. Treves attempts to establish comfort and trust with the Elephant Man, but it seems as though he’s unable to speak. But nevertheless, Treves intends to understand this man further. After conducting several exams, the Elephant Man is scheduled to be displayed before the most exemplary doctors of London General Hospital.

           Dr. Treves explains the extent of the Elephant Man’s deformities in detail, and also reveals some startling facts. The subject has a head five times larger than that of an ordinary human skull. This forces him to sleep with his head on his knees, as lying down would cause him to asphyxiate. Furthermore, he has tumors covering 70% of his body, and his right arm more resembles a claw than a human hand. However, despite all of his deformities, he is somehow able to continue living. Once the board is satisfied, Dr. Treves returns the Elephant Man to his ringmaster. Not long after this however, Treves if called back to the circus. It appears that the Elephant Man had sustained a series of injuries that were not present before. Treves is sure that this ringmaster is inflicting terrible wounds on the man, but he remains silent in the hopes that the next relocation to the hospital will be permanent.

           For a time, the arrangement to keep the Elephant Man in the hospital works, despite its difficulties. Almost all of the nurses are afraid to approach the man. The only exception is Mrs. Mothershead, the matron. Furthermore, Mr. Carr-Gomm, the hospital’s governor, refuses to house him on the grounds that the Elephant Man is incurable. Determined as ever, Dr. Treves attempts to speak with the Elephant man. They manage to make progress by having the man speak his name: “John Merrick.” And to solidify his ability to form comprehensive speech, Dr. Treves teaches Mr. Merrick part of the 23rd Psalm.

           When the time comes, Treves encourages John to speak to Mr. Carr-Gomm and recite what he has learned. But anxiety and fear prevent John from following through, making Carr-Gomm leave in a rage. However, John begins to recite the 23rd Psalm in its entirety (a feat that Dr. Treves was not aware he could do). The doctors ask how John could have recited it, and he says that he is capable of speech and reading, and goes on to say that the 23rd Psalm is his favorite. In light of these new developments, Carr-Gomm agrees to house John Merrick. Dr. Treves takes up responsibility for John, and continues speech therapy. John also begins construction of a model of a cathedral he sees partly through a window.          

Act II Summary

           After several weeks of practicing speech with John, Dr. Treves insists that he attend tea at his home, not far from the hospital. John agrees, and on arriving, his overwhelmed by the beauty of the doctor’s home. The conversation is slow at first, but attention is soon drawn to the “noble faces” of the doctor’s family on the mantelpiece. John wishes to see them more closely, and reveals tha the has a picture eof his own mother (much to the surprise of Dr. Treves). He shows the doctor and his wife the picture, saying “she had the face of an angel.” He also confesses the secret wish in his heart that his mother could still love him as he was, as he’s “tried so hard to be good.”

           This dignified and sensitive behavior catches the attention of the hospital staff, and John begins to allow guests into his room. One surprising guest in particular, actress Madge Kendal, introduces him to Shakespeare. Their encounter is  marked by civilized conversation, a fascination with high culture, and a profound sensitivity of both figures. In the end, Madge Kendal kisses John on the cheek saying “Oh, Mr. Merrick you’re not an Elephant Man at all. You’re Romeo.”

           After this encounter, John Merrick becomes an object of obsession to high society, and Mrs. Mothershead wonders if John is still being treated as a freak, just with a different setting. Treves meditates on what he’s done, and wonders if he is a good man or not for taking John away from one freak show and putting him in another one. The staff’s worst fears are realized when a hospital employee named Jim begins to sell tickets to locals, who come at night to torment and gawk at John. 

           With the public fixing its eye on John, the hospital board calls a meeting and it seems that they’ll have no choice but to put John back on the street. However, Queen Victoria sends her daughter-in-law Alexandra to show that her intentions toward John are serious. With the crown endorsing John’s stay at London General Hospital, even the most hesitant of board members start allowing John to stay. The vote to keep John in the hospital soon becomes unanimous.

Act III Summary

           Just when things start to take a turn for the better, Jim holds a massive showing of the Elephant Man. One of the men in the crowd is Bytes, and he uses the chaos to drag John back the circus. After this, the circus leaves England and John becomes a circus freak again. Treves hears what has happened, and he confronts Jim violently. After the atrocities that have been committed on hospital grounds, Treves and Mrs. Mothershead fire Jim.

           In the first few days of John becoming a circus attraction again, he exhibits strange behavior. Suddenly, standing up and turning around become too difficult, and he slumps over in a heap, unable to do anything that would attract patrons to the circus. The other freakshow attractions recognize the severity of John’s situation, and they all agree to help him escape Byte’s cruelty. They help John book passage on a ship, providing him with a disguise that will help cover him from plain view (a massive cloak and mask to prevent anyone from seeing his afflictions).

           All goes according to plan until John returns to London. He is harassed by several boys, and in his panic, accidently knocks over a young girl. This soon garners the attention of the entire station, and an angry mob tries to confront John. But when they corner him and remove his mask, they are all the more motivated to bring him in. John desperately tries to escape the crowd, but is caught in a dead end. Just before he’s apprehended, he cries out with all the fury he can muster: “I am not an elephant! I AM NOT AN ANIMAL!!! I…am…a human being!” He then begins to lose his strength and falls to the ground gasping: “I…am…a man…A MAN!!!”

           The police take John in, and immediately refer him to London General Hospital, and Dr. Treves. Exams are conducted, and the news is tragic. John is dying of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The hospital is determined to make the most of what little time John has left, and they agree to take him to see on of Kendal’s performances. But before they go, John and Treves speak for the first time in a long while. John is still amazed at how much the doctor has done for him, and says “Dr. Treves. Why do you help me, my friend? I am happy every hour of the day. My life is full, because I know I’m loved. I’ve regained myself. I could not…say that. Were it not for you.”

           John and Treves attend Kendal’s performance, and John is overwhelmed by the sheer beauty and romance the theater offers. At the conclusion, Kendal dedicates the performance to John, and he stands to receive a standing ovation from the audience. John soon returns to the hospital, and he thanks Treves for all he’s done for him. They look to each other and insist that they must go to the theatre again sometime soon. Treves closes the door and leaves John on his own, in his old rooms.

           John completes his church model and looks up at the art on his walls. He is transfixed by a picture of a young boy lying peacefully in bed with a single pillow. John then looks to the mound of pillows on his own bed, which he needs so he doesn’t asphyxiate. He slowly begins taking the pillows off so that there’s only one left, and he lies down on it. He dies peacefully, and Merrick is consoled by a vision of his mother.

Film Reaction

           It has been a long time since I’ve seen “The Elephant Man” in its entirety. I first saw it as a child, and it had a profound emotional effect on me. Mr. Merrick’s ascension from miserable circus performer to beloved Victorian figure always brings a tear to my eye. Whether it’s watching his struggle, his rapturous joy at achieving happiness, or the assurance he receives from Treves, it’s a story that pulls at the heartstrings like very few films are capable of.

           Despite it’s controversial decisions on multiple fronts, “The Elephant Man” remains one of the most stylized and well-executed films in the last fifty years. For example, the film is shot in black and white; an enormous amount of makeup was used to perfect the guise of Joseph Merrick, and many modifications were made to the original memoir to make it approachable in film.

           Yet for all the sharp decisions made in visual and writing, it is more than made up for in the power behind each performance. John Hurt makes a perfect Mr. Merrick, capturing the insecurities of the iconic figure as well as playing the role of the gentleman. Anthony Hopkins delivers a gripping Dr. Treves, taking command of every scene he’s in. The supporting cast is also superb, adding an incredibly realistic and specific set of responses to John and his overall situation.

           While the film does have moments where the cruel treatment of John Merrick becomes extreme, it also finds the ability to display an incredible sensitivity to the character. For every strike that Bytes inflicts on John, there’s a moment where Treves is willing to fight for his friend. It’s a film that can be characterized as dark, yet uplifting. It knows how to control its tone so effectively; you can feel as though you were part of John’s transformation.

           I decided to watch it again after so many years because of the profound effect John Hurt’s performance had on my life. When I heard that he had passed, I was devastated. In 124 minutes, one man’s performance changed my life and showed me that even John Merrick could be “happy every hour of the day” because he knew he was loved. I had aspired to meet Mr. Hurt at least once in my life, to shake his hand and thank him for providing me with so much hope in his compelling portrayal of Mr. John Merrick. But now that I’m left with only the words of my pen, I will have to make do. 

           Mr. John Hurt, thank you for blessing my life with one of the bravest and most captivating performances I’ve ever seen. Mr. Merrick has been a constant source of hope, inspiration, and beauty that I will never forget. Thank you for teaching me that it’s never too late to change your circumstances, that beauty is not limited to your appearance, and that even the worst of times will pass. I speak for millions when I say we will miss you terribly, and that we will never forget your contributions to the arts. Thank you for your bravery, thank you for your commitment to the craft, and thank you for sharing your gift in such a way that it helps us remember what is truly important in life. 

Thank you.

#film review #the elephant man #john hurt #horizon reviews

[tebbyclinic11]

Haley.Henry Is Pouring the Most Interesting Wine i...

New Post has been published on https://kitchengadgetsreviews.com/haley-henry-is-pouring-the-most-interesting-wine-i/

Haley.Henry Is Pouring the Most Interesting Wine i...

amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "a841501-20"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "search"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_title = "Shop Related Products"; amzn_assoc_default_search_phrase = "cooking"; amzn_assoc_default_category = "Kitchen"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "51fe4d035c7af8dc5928e6f5e5b79c4e"; amzn_assoc_default_browse_node = "284507"; amzn_assoc_rows = "4"; amzn_assoc_design = "text_links";

In Boston, a city known for its oyster bars and Red Sox and, let’s face it, a lot of big-box bars with big-screen TVs, there lies one of the most charming natural wine bars—that also happens to be championing female winemakers. Haley Fortier, 40, opened up Haley.Henry two years ago, and she still works the door of her bar this cool summer evening. Tonight, she’s got a Bowie-esque coif and a purple blazer fit for Prince. From inside, the mumble rap melodies of Famous Dex and Tyler the Creator welcome me, along with the promise of funky, weird wines I can’t find anywhere else in the city.

The 680-square-foot space feels intimate and chill, like hanging out at your artist friend’s Bushwick apartment. There’s a small counter and a couple induction burners for cooking and an upstairs loft for wine storage. Fortier only features small-batch wines, a.k.a. made in fewer than 5,000 cases at a time. (To better understand this figure, an estimated 415,000 cases of David Beckham favorite, Whispering Angel Rosé, were produced in 2016.)

Photo by Jon Pack

The woman behind the bar, Haley Fortier

Before getting into wine, Fortier was many other things. She was a records-shattering high school soccer player, a winter sports photographer, and a corrections officer at the Boston city jail. But after breaking up fights and keeping an eye on high-profile inmates for six years, she decided to go into restaurants. “I’m a people person,” Fortier tells me with a shrug and a smile.

She was a server at Chart House on Boston’s Long Wharf, a national steakhouse chain, then worked her way up over four years to help manage the restaurant’s wine tastings. In 2008, she joined the opening team at Sportello, chef Barbara Lynch’s pasta-powered restaurant. Under the guidance of Cat Silirie, Sportello’s executive wine director, Fortier immersed herself in the world of Italian wine and was first introduced to natural wine via a memorable bottle made by Arianna Occhipinti, a groundbreaking winemaker in Vittoria, Sicily. She became obsessed.

“I like big, bold, dirty wines,” Fortier says, with a laugh. She read everything Alice Feiring, a respected, yet controversial wine writer and advocate of natural wine, wrote (The Dirty Guide to Wine, Naked Wine). Almost four years ago, she first hatched the idea for Haley.Henry, named after herself and the son her dad never had (a family inside joke, since he has five daughters). It would be a haven for natural wines, made mostly by women, and tinned fish, somewhat of an obsession of hers after a trip to Portugal. So Fortier cashed in her savings, and with longtime Sportello customers who’d chipped in as investors, she turned an old cupcake shop in retail-crammed Downtown Crossing into Haley.Henry. She blindly emailed a favorite tinned fish producer, Da Morgada, and ended up becoming a distributor in the U.S.

Photo by Jon Pack

Precious tins of fish

When I visited recently, I tried a wine that stopped me in my tracks: the 2017 Old Westminster Winery pét-nat from Maryland. “Yes, Maryland!” my mind-reading server said as I pointed to the menu. It was tiny-bubbled and almost creamy, the perfect thing to sip while snacking on a few salty sardines and griddled tuna belly sandwich.

This past summer, Fortier did the the whole building-your-own-bar process over again for her newest wine bar, Nathálie, which just opened in Fenway. It’s double the size of Haley.Henry and features even more female winemakers, closer to 50 percent of the wine list. That’s intentional for Fortier, who has been mulling over ways to make her industry more inclusive of people like her: female, gay, experienced, ambitious.

“We’ve been having this conversation about equality for a long time now, and a part of me feels as though the more we talk about it without action, the more we keep ourselves pinned down,” she says. “Why wouldn’t we make it normal to focus on female winemakers? The more we do, the more realistic it becomes. Five years from now, my hope is that we aren’t still talking about the inequality of the sexes. It’s nonsense.”

Photo by Jon Pack

Busy as usual at Haley.Henry

The sometimes unusual, or unexpected wines can be an uphill battle for some customers, but Fortier and her team draw them out of their comfort zone by being engaging and as helpful as they can.

“We’ve had a lot of customers come in who aren’t familiar with natural wines, or they think wine is precious or pretentious,” she says. “So we just talk to them. What a novel concept! But by the end of it, we’ve gotten them to at least appreciate what we’re doing, found something they like, or,”—she kids—“opened their eyes to a variety of wines that they absolutely hate.”

But so far, it seems like people are starting to geek out on these natural wines, much like Fortier did years ago.

“We didn’t have any natural wine bars before in Boston, and we need it because you can get classic wines anywhere,” Fortier continues. “So when our customers come in, don’t look at the wine list, and ask for something interesting, we know we’re doing something right.”

Pairs well with natural wine:

amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amzn_assoc_search_bar_position = "bottom"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "a841501-20"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "search"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_title = "Shop Related Products"; amzn_assoc_default_search_phrase = "cookware"; amzn_assoc_default_category = "All"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "b45319dac495d29e17b5eff312392025"; Source link

[mrmichaelchadler]

Figuring It Out: The Films of Laura Dern

Jennifer Fox (Laura Dern) speaks in voiceover in a half-dazed, half-searching tone, as if slowly bringing herself out of a dream. “The story you are about to see is true … as far as I know.” A documentary filmmaker, she’s used to finding ways to look beyond the surface of what people present about themselves; she’ll have to turn that ability on herself. She remembers herself being and looking older than she was, speaking about a man she calls a lover—despite the fact that he was an adult and she was only 13—with a defensive, forced attempt at nonchalance (raised arms, dismissive pitch) that turns pleading, then incensed when she’s called a “victim,” her voice breaking into a raised whisper, her expression into a furious grimace. “This was important to me, and I’m trying to figure out why … Let me just figure this out for myself.”

“The Tale,” debuting on HBO on May 26, is documentary filmmaker Jennifer Fox’s narrative retelling of her experience, and an emotionally searing look at how people process their abuse. The casting of Dern, one of the most adventurous actresses working today, feels apropos, given the performer’s willingness to walk a constant emotional high-wire act and her recent hot streak that includes, but is not limited to, “Enlightened,” “Wild,” “Big Little Lies,” the “Twin Peaks” revival, and “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” It’s also an instructive text when looking at Dern’s body of work, a career filled with stories of women who have either experienced or witnessed unbearable trauma and who are trying to find the meaning behind it all.

The daughter of two of New Hollywood’s greatest character actors (Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd), Laura Dern began her career in uncredited roles alongside her mother (“White Lightning,” “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”) before emancipating herself at 13 when her mother objected to one of her early credited roles in the teenage punk girl drama “Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains.” Dern’s role as one of the members of the Stains is relatively small (it’s largely Diane Lane’s show), but she makes an impression as being kind and empathetic, expressing genuine sympathy when a band member of another touring group overdoses. Dern’s teenage roles draw on her natural warmth and luminous presence; her performance as the blind Diana in “Mask” in particular sees her displaying an unusual level of openness with Eric Stoltz’s Rocky (born with a rare skull deformity), a willingness to accept him for who he is and stray outside her comfort zone for someone who accepts her.

Straying outside one’s comfort zone is central to Joyce Chopra’s “Smooth Talk” (pictured above), which gave Dern her breakout role as Connie Wyatt, a teenage girl hitting her rebellious years and having a hard time of it with her demanding mother. The first half of the film is a remarkable study of a teenager’s tentative first steps toward sexual exploration, with Dern veering back and forth between being marvelously unaffected (tossed-off delivery and leaning posture around her parents) and exaggerated flirtation, like that of someone who’s both fascinated bt sex and stuck in a childish, mocking view of it. She adopts confidence only to shrink away, puts her full body into a kiss before breaking off, admitting that she’s not used to “feeling … this excited.” 

It’s in the second half, when a greaser (Treat Williams) appears outside when she’s home alone that “Smooth Talk” dives headfirst into that discomfort. Dern’s bashful body language gives way to a menacing, dancelike semi-seduction with Williams, shifting from apparent fun and games to something that’s outright predatory, with her demeanor collapsing collapse into hyperventilative terror. She’s in that uncertain place in between childhood and adulthood, when everyone is trying to define themselves, but there are plenty of men who have their own ideas of who she is and what they want from her. “Smooth Talk” would be an ideal (if grueling) double feature with “The Tale,” a young person’s immediate experience with sexual desire, confusion and abuse paired with an adult’s retrospective understanding of that trauma.

Dern received raves for her work, getting her first of two straight Independent Spirit Award nominations (back when they tried to be more than Oscar predictors); her next would come with a part that would bring her to greatest and most important collaborator. Few directors have brought as much out of Dern as David Lynch, but then, few performers have brought as much out of his characters as Dern, beginning with her role as Sandy in “Blue Velvet.” The archetypical girl next door, Sandy has a kind of unearthly wholesomeness that’s best showcased in her monologue about her dream about “robins of love.” The key to Lynch’s work is his belief that the truly good can coexist with the truly wicked. Dern represents the former, delivering the monologue with a whispered awe and reaching hand gestures that border on evangelical before bringing herself down and finding a way to clarify it to her rapt listener/love interest. Sandy and Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan) see some terrible things (including a painful moment of trauma that prompts a distorted look of sorrow that’s distinctly Dern), but she remains unwavering in her belief that her dream of light can conquer darkness and make sense of this strange world (would that Isabella Rossellini’s Dorothy were so lucky). 

Dern teamed with Lynch again for 1990’s “Wild at Heart” (pictured above), playing the far more confidently sensual Lula while retaining the same good-heartedness she brought to “Blue Velvet.” It’s a heightened, deliberately iconic role, with Dern leaping into exaggerated dancing, purring with sexual abandon and leaning just so to express her arousal or satisfaction when talking to or about Nicolas Cage’s Elvis-obsessed Sailor. But Lula is also someone who has experienced great pain—the death of her father, her molestation at the hands of his friend, the murderous rage of her mother (played, in a stroke of casting genius, by her real-life mother, Ladd)—and has come out the other end demonstrating a full-bodied, defiant belief in the all-conquering power of love. The film’s “Wizard of Oz” framing device sometimes comes across as a bit forced, but it’s also another example of how Dern’s characters often tell themselves stories to make sense of their lives and guide them from darkness to light. 

Dern’s early adult roles often deal with characters exploring their sexuality at a time or place where that might put them in jeopardy; that’s certainly the case with Martha Coolidge’s “Rambling Rose,” in which her “borderline nymphomaniac” Rose comes to live with the Hillyer family (father Robert Duvall, mother Ladd and teenage son Lukas Haas) after unspecified trouble with men. Dern brings a blithe, bouncy exuberance and confidence to the role, waltzing down the street knowing that her walk can turn heads and her smile win hearts. But Dern also embodies Rose’s goodness, her sexual escapades being the actions of someone who has an intense and open need to be loved, and to be treated with the kindness that she shows the world but that the world hasn’t been good enough to show her. A scene between her and Duvall after she’s caught in bed with a man sees her not going so far as begging, but rather earnestly presenting herself with all cards on the table, an eyes-wide-open, forward-leaning acknowledgement that “I’m only a human girl person, and I ain’t always perfect.” 

“Rambling Rose” earned Dern her first Oscar nomination and preceded two high-profile supporting roles in 1993. As criminologist Sally Gerber in Clint Eastwood’s beautiful “A Perfect World,” she illustrates the impossible situation that Butch (Kevin Costner) was put in as a troubled child with an abusive father, giving a full picture of his trauma and bringing us to empathize with how he became a criminal. As Ellie Sattler in Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park,” Dern plays the warmer counterpart and partner to Sam Neill’s testier Alan Grant, exuding, intelligence, physical capability and a deeper concern for how easily the park can spiral out of control and the consequences that come with it (she also has the ability as an actress to practically unhinge her jaw in terror when things do go wrong). In a key character moment, she pleads empathetically for John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) to recognize how the people they love may get hurt. Both roles cast her as figures of empathy, finding ways to make sense of the reasons why people cause each other pain while trying to prevent it from happening again.

If “A Perfect World” sees Dern asking us to sympathize with a troubled person, Alexander Payne’s “Citizen Ruth” (pictured above) shows how far that should be extended. Make no mistake: Dern’s pregnant, inhalant-addicted Ruth Stoops is a first-class fuck-up. Dern dives headfirst into making her as gross and unlikable as possible, smearing her mouth with inhalant residue, manipulating the same people who are manipulating her (both sides of the abortion debate attempt to co-opt her case for their agenda), and shouting some truly filthy insults (“suck the shit outta my ass, you fucker!”) with gritted teeth and gusto. Yet the actress still finds something sympathetic in her, her downcast eyes and fidgeting fingers communicating her knowledge that she’s fucked up yet again and is about to be on the receiving end of some real hardship. Ruth may sputter with uncertainty when trying to voice the whys behind her right to choose, but Payne and Dern take her choice, and the pain behind what led her to it, seriously (besides, she said it loud and clear the first time).

Dern’s career slowed down in the late 1990s and early 2000s, something she attributed (more than plausibly) to her guest appearance on “Ellen” as a radiant, openly gay woman that causes Ellen DeGeneres’ character to come out herself. She got her first serious critical attention in years in John Curran’s “We Don’t Live Here Anymore” in 2004. The film, about a two couples (Dern and Mark Ruffalo, Naomi Watts and Peter Krause) whose lives are upended when Ruffalo and Watts begin an affair, is too drifting and one-note to draw much blood, but it comes to life whenever Dern’s enraged, emotionally rangy Terry takes focus. Dern adopts a hunched-over posture for her arguments with Ruffalo, her clenched chin jutting out slightly, to show a woman who’s well aware of how she’s being deceived and whose total dismissal to the role of child caretaker (something she does not take to naturally) looks like it’s almost literally weighing her down. Terry’s agonies in “We Don’t Live Here Anymore” are resolutely ordinary, compared with some of the other characters Dern has played, but they’re no less important to her.

Dern reteamed with David Lynch for the truly deranged “Inland Empire,” in which she plays the actress Nikki Grace, getting the comeback of a lifetime with the role of Susan Blue before her role starts bleeding over into her identity (or something … even more than usual with Lynch, describing what actually happens seems futile and beside-the-point). It’s a tour-de-force performance, alternatively put-upon, ferocious, frightened, and whatever one can call this terrifying face. She’s simultaneously the film’s emotional anchor and its constantly metamorphosing nucleus. “Inland Empire” is, at least partially, about the emotional wringer that performers can put themselves through for a role, and how easy it is to mix up one’s own emotions with their character’s. A monologue in which Nikki’s character (?) describes her trauma and her self-defense in a jaded tone that occasionally sparks into violence is later seen in a theater, the actress observing herself. She’s played a character who has lived through real terror, but we see that the actress herself is living in terror, both at home (her husband is deeply controlling and ambiguously threatening) and at work. Does the actress simply play the part, or is she drawn to roles that bring her to relive (and potentially make peace with) her nightmares?

“Inland Empire,” like most of Lynch’s works, does not put its or its characters’ purpose into words so bluntly; Dern’s next major role is a little more easily (and narrowly) defined, but not uninteresting. The 2008 TV movie “Recount” (pictured above) relives the national trauma of Bush v. Gore, the second-most nightmarish presidential election in recent memory. Largely focused on the tactics employed the official campaign teams of Vice President Al Gore (Kevin Spacey, Denis Leary, Ed Begley Jr.) and Governor George W. Bush (Tom Wilkinson, Bob Balaban), the film also takes time with Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris (Dern) and her poorly disguised efforts to throw the election to Bush. Dern walks a fine line between humanity and cartoon with Harris, whom she portrays as a zealous, wide-eyed ideologue with exaggerated hair and makeup. But she finds the heart of Harris in her true-believer story about Queen Esther sacrificing herself for “the lovely Jewish people,” evangelizing as if her staking her career on Bush winning the election is for the good of the people. Her self-martyring tone is farcical, but it’s also indicative of how political partisans view their work as de facto for the good of the people and a tool to bring a country together after a moment of bitter division, rather than the actions of further division. 

Many of Dern’s more recent film roles have been smaller, supporting parts, but a few have still been notable. In Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master,” she has that same true-believer tone as a rich woman who has taken to the new religion of Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Her student’s passion for something that’s given her life meaning is palpable; so is her shocked pain at being rebuked for questioning how, exactly, it can switch teachings so cavalierly, her body practically crumpling at Dodd’s shout. She’s more unflagging in her optimism as Reese Witherspoon’s mother in “Wild” (her second Oscar-nominated performance). Dern comes across in only a handful of small scenes as a vivacious presence who nonetheless knows perfectly well that she’s lived through hell, smiling through memories of pain because it brought her the most important person in her life. She’s the witness to someone else’s pain in Kelly Reichardt’s masterful “Certain Women,” a lawyer to a man (Jared Harris) who got screwed over when accepting a piddling settlement after a workplace injury but who can no longer be helped because of it. One senses her lived-in frustration as he refuses to listen her (then listens to a male colleague who tells him the same thing), but her genuine empathy for a man who she’s effectively powerless to help is also clear. And as Admiral Holdo in “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” she commands the screen with a steadfast, unwavering certainty that she’s doing the right thing—any assumption of her incompetence be damned—finally proving herself to be among the bravest and most self-sacrificing heroes in the series.

Still, most of Dern’s best recent work has been on television. The brilliant, unjustly canceled “Enlightened” sees Dern’s personality as embedded into the work as Mike White’s (indeed, the two are credited as co-creators). Amy Jellicoe is another of Dern’s troubled heroines trying to find meaning in their lives, following her nervous breakdown first with a genuine attempt to regain the respect of her colleagues, then by becoming a corporate whistleblower in a move that’s half genuine, half out of bitterness. Amy’s a mess, lashing out at people she (rightly or wrongly) believes have wronged her at one moment, then preaching with a sincere but totally oblivious sense of illumination in the next. What holds Dern’s performance together as Amy whips back and forth between manic highs and deadening lows is an ardent, indefatigable expression that it’s possible for her to do something important with her life and potentially make the world a better place, no matter how crazy that world thinks she is. 

Dern returned to HBO in “Big Little Lies,” with her Renata Klein initially set up as an ostensible villain; Dern tears into the overbearing, bullying aspect of Renata, whether she’s stabbing the air with her hands like a maniac or giving a silent but icy glare, shouting her threats at the top of her lungs or whispering them with quiet menace. But there’s still a beating heart in her, a genuine desire to protect her daughter from pain (whether it’s violence at school or the more everyday hurt of someone skipping her birthday party), and the heartbreak in Dern’s voice when she voices her feeling of utter powerlessness (a control freak’s worst nightmare for minor issues, let alone real pain) is unmistakable. Much of the strength in “Big Little Lies” is its belief that flawed women can ultimately come together, forgive each other and help each other along; Dern’s performance is key to that.

And still, “Big Little Lies” had only the second-best Dern performance on television last year. There’s a nostalgic, near-breathless thrill in Dern’s first appearance as Special Agent Dale Cooper’s long-unseen secretary Diane on “Twin Peaks” (or “Twin Peaks: The Return”), an unmistakable callback to their close connection in “Blue Velvet.” Still, one couldn’t have predicted Dern’s delightfully cynical performance, all long drags on cigarettes and venom-spitting “fuck yous,” a far cry from the mostly upbeat Sandy. But even putting aside the eventual revelation about Diane’s nature, it makes sense after decades of disillusionment following a rape by the man she most trusted. That pain comes through in her reunion with Bad Cooper, her voice breaking, her breath quickening; it’s even clearer in her late-series breakdown, her shield of cynicism giving way to trauma flooding back. Even Diane’s return to normalcy is a pyrrhic and only temporary victory, with a sex scene with MacLachlan’s Good Cooper playing less like a triumph and more like a final, deeply sad shared moment between the two (which Dern somehow conveys largely with her back), one of the show’s many acknowledgements that trauma cannot be erased. 

“The Tale,” then, is instead a look at how one lives with that trauma. Fox’s gradual shift to acknowledging something terrible happened is not an easy journey, nor is it a simple one. The film deals heavily with the tortured self-rationalizations and denials employed by both survivors and abusers, ones both sincerely believed and desperately clung to. The final scene is confrontational without being fully cathartic, Dern’s belated but volcanic outrage a moment of her taking her past back (a real triumph) without any illusion that she has expelled that very pain. If there’s something Dern’s best work shows, it’s there forever; one can only try to make sense of it.

from All Content https://ift.tt/2x1Au7m

[tanmath3-blog]

Richard Alan Long is a very kind man. He has a great sense of humor and always seems happy. He is a family man with twin girls. I can’t imagine how he gets any writing done. I can tell you he adores his family and loves to talk about them. He is passionate about his writing and wants to make sure his books are as perfect as they can be before he releases them. If you haven’t read his stories please pick one up and don’t forget to leave a review. Make sure to say hello to him and send him a friend request. Please help me welcome Richard Alan Long to Roadie Notes…….

  1. How old were you when you first wrote your first story?

I was always writing stories as far back as I can remember. When I was a kid it was these crappy comic strips based on the ‘Garbage Pail Kids’ which I was obsessed with. I’d draw them with marker pens and crayons. I wrote a whole series based on the characters. As a kid I obviously didn’t know the movie was considered the worst movie ever made, me and my friends thought it was awesome. We’d trade the cards at school which probably lead to me being a completest later in life. As I got older I’d write stories. Always had a good imagination. Although my teachers at school said I was a daydreamer. One day I wrote a poem. Teachers didn’t believe it was me. Kids came up and said ‘no way did you write that poem’ It got put in the school newspaper and I’d still get kids coming up stamping a finger into my chest saying ‘You didn’t write that!’ But I was always creative. I am an only child and like most only children I spent a lot of time alone, creating worlds with toys and drawings.

2. How many books have you written? Two novels, three novellas, fourteen plays, about sixteen short stories and hundreds of poems…getting them where they need to be is another story. Some are published and some I doubt will ever see the light of day but I like to look back over the old ones to see how much I’ve developed as a writer.

3. Anything you won’t write about? Not interested in torture porn and gore just for the sake of it. It has to fit in with the story. Story is number one for me. I like to go on a journey with characters. I don’t like books where characters are merely created just to be killed off in outlandish ways. That gets boring for me very quickly.

4. Tell me about you. Age (if you don’t mind answering), married, kids, do you have another job etc… I am married with two kids. Besides writing I’ve worked a spectrum of jobs. Mostly retail and hospitality. It gave me some great characters. At the moment though, being a stay at home dad and writer is the best job I could ask for.

5. What’s your favorite book you have written? I quite like ‘Words Apart’ I wrote it when I was young and it has a young person’s conviction and determination. I did a play over ten years ago. I wrote it, a mate directed it and some friends acted in it. It was a great time. Rehearsing and performing. We did it purely for the love of it. I remember all the plays in my region at the time were either comedies or Shakespeare and I wrote this play that was like a Stephen King book if David Lynch had directed it with the budget of a Troma movie. It was great working with such dedicated people, many I’m still friends with.

6. Who or what inspired you to write?

I think I was inspired by being told I couldn’t do it. School had told me I was better off leaving, my grades were awful and I felt completely useless and the education system reinforced that. If you segregate kids and tell them they are the bottom class, that the most they can ever achieve is a E grade then unfortunately at a young age you start to believe you are worthless. I remember one teacher used to shout at me as I walked into to school ‘Not be long before you can sign on the dole.’ So it made me think, especially at a young age that I was a failure and I was stupid. But the best advice I got was the school telling me to leave and go to college. I went to college and it was a joy. The lecturers knew how to nurture talent and get the best out of students. They made you feel like you mattered. In terms of writing and inspiration it came from a few different writers. The first book to truly inspire me to want to write was ‘Salem’s Lot’ by Stephen King. It is beautifully written. It is scary. I remember reading it late at night and I felt right there with Ben Mears when he’s exploring the Marsten house. It’s still to this day my favorite book. At college I started writing and studying plays and I was very inspired by Harold Pinter. I still am. He inspired me to write better dialogue. I love his plays. Everything appears normal and English but there is an oddness to it all. Off the top of my head some writers or books that made a massive difference and inspired me where ‘The Woman in White’ by Wilkie Collins. Collins had such a way of capturing human emotion. ‘Catcher in the Rye’ by J.D. Salinger is another book I found inspirational. I read it and I was blown away. It is sublime. I think I read it in two sittings. Also I must mention William S Burroughs. I have read most of his books and I think he was a genius. So yeah I was a kid that got told I was thick and useless but I was reading William S. Burroughs and Wilkie Collins for fun without realizing I was actually self-educating myself.

7. What do you like to do for fun? When not writing and not looking after my family I enjoy playing Nintendo. I am a massive fan of the Legend of Zelda. Have been since day one when I used to play it with my late father. I’m a bit of a geek for Italian horror cinema but don’t get much chance to have Dario Argento marathons anymore with my kids in the house. Obviously I read. Loving Richard Chizmar’s work at the minute. I also and this is very rock n roll, but I have a favorite chair in my garden and I love a cup of tea on an evening and get the chance to just to sit and stop everything. To take a moment to think about my late parents, to remember the good times and too think about my friends. My dad passed away just over a year ago and the end was tough. It’s nice to just take a moment and remember the good moments we shared. On a lighter note I love a Monday night when the family goes to bed and I relax and watch the new Twin Peaks. David Lynch is my favorite director. The guy is a legend. I like music too, don’t go to gigs as much anymore. I’m still old school. Still buy my music on CD’s.

8. Any traditions you do when you finish a book? None. I just think…fuck me this is going to take some editing.

9. Where do you write? Quite or music? I generally write to music. Rock music or soundtracks. But when I’m second drafting or working over a scene I prefer silence.

10. Anything you would change about your writing? Not getting kicked out of school and being told I was a failure from every educational body at a young age might have helped. It took years for to meet people who had confidence in me and my writing. Advice for any writer. Find someone who believes in you. My wife has been a rock of support for me.

11. What is your dream? Famous writer? Don’t really think much in those terms. All I want is to make a living at it and hope I can entertain people. Everything else is a welcome bonus.

13. Pets? It’s a tough one. One of my daughters is terrified of dogs, cats, Kermit the Frog and anything that moves. Yet my other child is like Steve Irwin, grabbing any bug or slug and holding them close and saying ‘Hello cutie pie’ My wife wants a dog but I’m still undecided.

14. What’s your favorite thing about writing? Freedom. Freedom to just get lost in a story. That all its about at the end of the day. I suppose it’s not even about getting published. It’s a therapy. Some people take drugs, others drink. I write.

15. What is coming next for you? Preparing to release a novella ‘About A Witch’. I’ve got a few short stories due out too with different publishers. and then hopefully once they’ve done the rounds I’ll have a deal for a novel on the table. Also I’ve never collaborated with another writer before so hoping to work with someone soon.  ‘About a Witch’ is out soon as well as my work with Hellbound Books Publishing LLC 

  You can connect with Richard Alan Long here:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/kindle-dbs/author/ref=dbs_P_W_auth?_encoding=UTF8&author=Richard%20Alan%20Long&searchAlias=digital-text&asin=B00AKU2RS8

      Some of Richard Alan Long’s books:

  Getting personal with Richard Alan Long Richard Alan Long is a very kind man. He has a great sense of humor and always seems happy.