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lunar-jimin · 3 years

Text

W H A T A H E A V E N L Y W A Y T O D I E : C H A P T E R I

p a i r i n g : yoongi x fem!reader

r a t i n g : PG-13

g e n r e : college!au, alternate reality, fluff, future smut, future angst, e2l

w o r d c o u n t : 1127

w a r n i n g s : swearing

s e r i e s s u m m a r y : you never thought the quiet boy in the back of the class would be your greatest competition for a prestigious music internship. and who knew he could be so loud?

a/n: hello loves! here’s the first full chapter of what a heavenly way to die. please let me know what you think about it!

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You were sure you were garnering strange looks from the students around you as you sped down the narrow hall but you couldn’t find it in yourself to care. You missed the bus and you weren’t ready to be late to class for the first time in four years. A binder of sheet music clutched in one hand and violin case in the other, you wove in and out of clumps of people.

Crashing through the door with seconds to spare, you immediately found your seat and slumped down on the hard wooden chair. Beside you, Winter, a fellow violinist and Duchess of Alyran, raised her eyebrow.

“Missed the bus.”

She nodded before turning back to Namjoon, her ever faithful bodyguard.

You turned back to the front of class, where Professor Oh was scribbling on the chalkboard. Using the sleeve of your shirt, you dabbed the droplets of sweat perched on your brow. There was nothing in the world you hated more than running, and thanks to your missed alarm, you had done more than your fair share of it today.

“Ok, class, before we start back in with Tchaikovsky, I wanted to bring to your attention that applications for the Queen’s Internship for Aspiring Artists are due at the end of October.”

Murmurs broke out across the room. The Queen’s Internship for Aspiring Artists, more commonly known as the Queen’s Musician, was an opportunity for four classical music majors from the Anntonette Royal Academy of the Arts to work with His Majesty’s Orchestra, an internship that generally became a job. It was every musician’s dream, and you were no exception.

“I’m sure I don’t need to tell you the prestige that comes with this internship,” Professor Oh continued, “not to mention the paycheck. Thus I encourage all of you to apply. You can do it online on the royal website, or you can pick up a paper form from me during office hours.”

You glanced at Winter and saw that her eyes were just as afire as yours. Ever since you had picked up your first bow at age five, you had dreamed of sitting as first chair while the richest people in the world danced to your music. It was competitive, no doubt, and only those that were completely and utterly dedicated to the craft succeeded.

Class passed quickly, your mind no longer focused on the strings beneath your fingers, instead you were dreaming of royal ballrooms. As you were leaving, Professor Oh called out after you.

“Are you planning on applying for the Queen’s Internship for Aspiring Artists?”

“Of course.”

“Oh good. I know that I’m not supposed to have opinions on such matters, but I think you stand a good chance of playing with our kingdom’s best musicians by the end of the school year.”

She gave you a fond smile and you were reminded once again of why Oh was your favorite professor. She taught your first theory class Freshman year and you had been working with her ever since.

“I sure hope you’re right. I think I speak for everyone in the music department when I say being in that orchestra is the dream. Your confidence in me means a lot.”

“Of course,” she grins.

“Oh, and I wanted to give you the piece we’re working on next week in my freshman class,” she handed you a piece of sheet music, “I know you’re busy with your senior year and everything, but it would mean the world to me if you drop by. I’ve talked you up quite a bit and the students would be very pleased if you could perform for them.”

“It would be my honor.”

“Very well then, have a good rest of your day.”

“You too Professor Oh.”

You gave her a polite nod, before leaving into the crowded hallway. Trying to fit the sheet music into your binder without dropping your case proved to be quite difficult. It was because of this that you didn’t notice Yoongi until it was too late.

For the second time in as many weeks, you found yourself on your ass, this time with papers flying everywhere.

“Ow, fuck.”

You were happy your ankle was spared, but your ass wasn’t so lucky. You were fully prepared to wake up tomorrow morning with a bruised behind.

“Shit, I’m so sorry.”

It felt like deja vu, Yoongi once again by your side, concern plastered across his face.

“I’m fine Yoongi, although if I don’t act soon, my music may not be.”

Yoongi just then seemed to notice the paper everywhere around you and immediately moved to begin collecting it up. The two of you scurried to gather it all before some stoned freshie fucked it all up.

“So, how you been?”

“Yoongi, you were literally texting me last night.”

Ever since you gave him your number, the two of you found yourselves texting every night for hours on end. In fact, your oversleeping this morning had been the direct result of you and Yoongi’s debate on the greatest composer of the twentieth century which ended somewhere around three in the morning.

“I know, I know. I’m just shitty at small talk.”

He gave you a lopsided grin.

“You seem to do just fine if you can use emojis?”

“Oh, shut up.”

You laughed. Even though it was fairly new, you really enjoyed your friendship with Yoongi. His intellectual humor and passion that rivaled your own made you compatible.

“So Yoongs, are you applying for the Queen’s Musician?”

The two of you had successfully collected your papers and were now loitering on the side of the hallway, waiting for it to clear up.

“You’re kidding right?” he snorted, “Of course I am. I would be a fool not to.”

“That’s true.”

“Are you?”

You looked at him and raised your eyebrow.

“Right Of course you are.”

“I would be a fool not to,” you mock.

“Wouldn’t it be so cool if we both got it?”

“That would be amazing. A miracle.”

“Yeah, it would be.”

“God, I’ve been dreaming about this since I was ten. It’s so crazy that I’m about to apply.”

“Tell me about it. I’ve been dreaming about it since I was five. Lord knows if I’ll even survive the heart attack I’ll have if I get it.”

“You’ll survive, you’ll have to.”

“Thanks for the support.”

“Always.”

The crowd in the hall had died down to a few lingers like yourselves.

“Well, I’ve got to go. I told Daisy and Jungkook I would meet up with them for lunch.”

“Oh well, have fun.”

“Yeah, I will. See you around Yoongs.”

“See ya.”

He smiled, and you were very hopeful that the feeling in your stomach was hunger and not butterflies.

#bts #bts smut #bts fluff #bts angst #yoongi fluff #yoongi angst #yoongi smut #yoongi #college #yoongi college #bts fanfic #yoongi fanfic #what a heavenly way to die

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class1akids · 4 years

Note

would you care to shed some light on your take for the provisional license exams???

Sure. I think it was a hot mess with some good moments that in the end failed to deliver a consistent message.

It seems that the arc narratively had to achieve the following things:

make Bakugou fail, so his fall from top applicant to rock bottom of the class can be complete, making him ripe to explode in Deku vs. Kacchan 2 and give a huge turning point to his character;

show how Todoroki was not over the whole Endeavor-thing to set up the Pro Hero / Endeavor redemption arc;

take both Bakugou and Todoroki fully out of the picture for the Overhaul arc, so it can concentrate on the Mirio vs. Deku comparison with regard to the “who was the best OFA-candidate?” question;

put Bakugou and Todoroki in a situation where they grow closer from the antagonistic relationship the Sports Festival left them in; if Horikoshi was already planning ahead to the Endeavor agency arc and beyond.

So the exam had to be designed in a way where the weaknesses of these two would be their downfall, while nobody else gets caught up in the net.

So in-story, the exam had two stated, main objectives:

Part 1 - Select the 100 candidates with the best potential (because the streets are saturated with mediocre heroes) - quality over quantity.

Part 2 - See how these candidates do in rescue-under-pressure situation and fail them if they make too many mistakes.

So let’s look at Part 1:

The exam is designed with the three balls in a way that you have to be the last one to tag someone to pass. While this honestly feels like an everyone-for-themselves kind of situation, the narrative tries to push how teaming up is the way to go, to the point that many schools seem to come with pre-cooked strategies to target specifically Yueei students.

Except it doesn’t make sense - there is a time pressure; you have to be in the first 100, which is pretty crap for team cohesion when it’s situations like this one:

A team of ten going after one single student known to be one of the strongest hero-candidates in the country? Why waste their time instead of pick on someone weaker? If they managed to corner Todoroki, which of that team would have gotten the pass? The leader? Why would the other nine follow him? Are they all that dumb?

Same with Momo and the Seiai students. Why waste time playing tea-house when Momo’s team was only 4 people? It didn’t seem very intelligent for a girl whose quirk was literally super-intelligence to come up with this plan??

Then we have Inasa who single-handedly eliminates 120 people, because - plot??? Also, those people are either total morons for not hitting the ground protecting their targets or it was impossible to evade, in which case, wasn’t there a single good candidate among the 120, who just got really unlucky?

Then, the exam is designed to favour students with a stealth quirk - how the hell is Tooru not one of the first ones to pass?

Finally, a lot of the Class1a seem to pass because Iida refused to pass until all his classmates got through. It shows how selfless Iida is, how insanely seriously he takes his class-rep responsibilities - but it doesn’t in any way imply that people like Aoyama have proven that they have what it takes to make it on their own out there, let alone to be in the top 100.

These are just a couple of examples - but it shows that Part 1 of the exam in no way selected the best 100 candidates - though some of the best candidates did make it to the second phase, pulling with them the people they cared about regardless of their individual potential.

That takes us to Part 2:

So here, the students are graded on their mistakes solely, but not at all on their positive contributions.

The rescue part supposedly looks at things like:

How well they can triage

How effectively they can get people out from under rubble

How well they can connect with the victims to make them cooperate.

OK, so let’s not get into how Deku gets told by the first victim how the test is graded and what he should look out for, because that feels just like massive cheating to start with.

Let’s look at other things:

Uraraka almost collapsing a building because she goes in all gung-ho gets no consequences, because Momo is there to warn her. So Uraraka has great potential as a hero, as long as she’ll always tag along next to Momo or someone else sensible and listens to her?

Bakugou gets down-graded into oblivion for being a rude asshole (rightly so), but Kirishima and Kaminari who visibly get by on Bakugou’s impeccable triage skills get no negative consequence for not being able to make the right decisions by themselves. They’ll be fine out on the field, because surely Bakugou will always tell them what to do (oh, except he won’t be there, because he failed…) as long as they are nice…

Then comes the part where the exam raises the stakes by putting the “villains” in the mix, seemingly trying to measure if students will make the right call about fight vs save.

Except the students fighting Orca are basically Todoroki and Inasa (with a bit of help from Midoriya here and there)… They hold Orca and his gang back until the very end of the exam, even after their own chances of passing the exam are gone. Again, the rest of the students are not tested on their own skills to see what they would do under villain attack, they pass on the backs of the people who took the biggest risks and who will not be there out on the field, because they failed.

To me, it really felt like the exam was designed to reward mediocrity over excellence. Although, although it fits in with the hero-spirit demonstrated during the sludge villain incident, where the pros stood around waiting for someone with the right quirk.

It somehow managed to target very specifically the weaknesses of some of the students with the greatest potential, but never managed to target other student’s well-known weaknesses, like Aoyama’s cowardice, Grape-boy panicking under pressure, Kirishima running into the fray without thinking things through, etc and it’s not because we have seen those students outgrew those weaknesses (they haven’t) - but because….plot.

On Bakugou specifically:

In the first part of the exam, we see his character development - how he looked out for Kirishima and Kaminari, telling us he’s overcome at least part of his own selfishness (although illogically in the part of the exam, that was designed to play into his natural strength - to look out for himself only and pass as fast as he can).

Then in the second part, we see very little of him, other than yelling at the first people he encountered - but for example, we don’t know if he lost points for not going after Orca.

But fine, despite development, he’s still an asshole and only respects his peers and not the victims, so he deserves to fail.

As for Todoroki:

Narratively, he doesn’t need to be put in his place. He’s a good students, great skill, power, judgement, true hero heart which we saw in action in the Stain or the Kamino arcs. So it feels really a stretch for him to run into the one single thing in the exam that would make him lose his cool.

And Inasa doesn’t feel like a real character, but really a plot-device designed to push Todoroki’s buttons specifically.

He’s a cheerful, friendly character, who somehow has been so scarred for life by a one-minute interaction with Endeavor a decade ago that upon running into his son at the UA entrance exam (where Todoroki wasn’t even that bad???), he simply forgoes going to the best school because he can’t stomach the possibility of being together with Shouto??? OK, whatever.

Then he goes out of his way during a high-stakes exam to push Todoroki?

While other people are saved by the power of friendship / team around them, somehow it’s the one time none of Shouto’s friends intervene until it’s too late??

Nothing about this plot makes sense, other than Horikoshi really wanted Shouto to fail.

So at the end of the exam, we have the entire Class 1A and 1B pass. So, apparently by the parameters of the exam, everyone is ready to be unleashed on the streets as heroes other than Bakugou and Todoroki. Nobody other than them have any shortcomings to correct. Right. Sorry if I’m not buying it.

Sure, there were a couple of students who really excelled like Midoriya, Momo and Iida, but it’s really hard to believe that all the others passed on their merits alone, proving that they are ready to be heroes and have no weaknesses, while what we saw was them getting lucky (like Uraraka) or being pulled along by others (basically half the class in part 1 of the exam) often.

In the end, it doesn’t matter of course, because the only ones who will get to do anything with their licenses are Deku, Kirishima, Uraraka and Tsuyu (and Tokoyami is out there, but not involved in the Overhaul- plot). While other students who showed much better potential at the exams, like Momo or Iida don’t get anything out of passing it so well - there is no correlation between their performance at the exam and their hero debut. (I mean Momo helped both Tsuyu and Uraraka pass, and yet she doesn’t get a work-study and a hero debut, but the other two do???)

So, it wouldn’t have made a narrative difference to have others fail too - but Horikoshi didn’t just want Bakugou and Todoroki to fail, but he wanted them to fail as badly as possible, to be as humiliated as they can be - to get that desperate explosion out of Bakugou (and unfortunately, it feels that Todoroki is more collateral damage in this, because there is absolutely no narrative reason to push him down so badly).

Like, was this supposed to be funny??? Because I could cry rage-tears any time I see this. Also, great demonstration of your newly-minted hero license, asshole! I’m so convinced you deserved it.

All these things make it that it doesn’t feel real - the exam just feels like a giant plot device serving the goal of making Deku’s biggest rivals fail.

In the end, the only thing I really agree with the Hero Commission on is this:

Yep, from what we saw, some of the best potential is among the failed students (Todoroki, Bakugou, Inasa even) - which just tells me how spectacularly the Hero Commission failed in designing this exam to really select the best candidates.

TL; DR: The exam was badly designed that was completely illogical in order to achieve its stated goals. It was instead plot device after plot device to achieve the narrative goal of having Bakugou and Todoroki fail in the worst way possible to set up future arcs targeting their very specific weaknesses, while failing to identify anyone else’s shortcomings. It rewarded mediocrity over excellence. The internal logic of the exam didn’t justify this outcome.

Though, there is good coming out of this. The Remedial arc is really good and the TodoBaku friendship that grows out of this makes up somewhat for this mess.

Meta masterlist

#bnha #bnha meta #bakugou katsuki #todoroki shouto #yoarashi inasa #provisional licence exam arc #class 1a #i don't like this arc #it felt very messy #without a clear point to make

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ashtray-girl · 5 years

Text

Morrissey and A. E. Housman

From Morrissey’s Autobiography:

“New air is discovered in the words of A. E. Housman, scholar-poet, vulnerable and complex […] who was said to be a complete mystery even to those who knew him.[…] He shunned the world and he lived a solitary existence of monastic pain, unconnected to others. The unresolved heart worked against him in life, but it connected him to the world of poetry, where he allowed (in)complete strangers under his skin. In younger years he had suffered from the unrequited love of Moses Jackson, the pain of which was so severe that it doomed Housman for the rest of time. All of his work would be governed by this loss, as if life could only ever offer once chance of happiness (and perhaps, for every shade and persuasion, it does?) […] The pain done to Housman allowed him to rise above the mediocre and to find the words that most of us need help in order to say. The price paid by Housman was a life alone; the righteous rhymer enduring each year unloved and unable to love. […] Now snugly in eternity, Housman still occupied my mind. His best moments were in Art, and not in the cut and thrust of human relationships. Yet he said more about human relationships than those who managed to feast on them. You see, you can’t have it both ways.”

Housman’s name comes up again when Morrissey talks about the press vilifying him in the 90s after the Joyce trial and he uses one of his poems to reflect on the tribulations he was experiencing at the time:

“The thoughts of others Were light and fleeting, Of lovers’ meeting Or luck or fame. Mine were of trouble, And mine were steady; So I was ready When trouble came.”

When I wrote about the role of Elizabeth Smart’s writing on Morrissey’s lyricism, I said that I thought Morrissey used her novella By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept not just as creative inspiration, but also as a way to relate to and to sublimate his feelings towards his sexuality in general and Johnny in particular. To put it shortly, I think he did the same with Housman but, as much as he praised his poetic output, he probably related to him on a more personal level than he did with Smart, and for two simple reasons: 1) Housman was a queer man 2) He harboured an unrequited love for his best friend Even though he apparently found out about his work before meeting Johnny, I feel like this must have hit even closer to home a few years later. (Also, the thing that slightly freaks me out is the fact that Housman and Jackson first met in 1877 and parted company in 1886, while Morrissey and Johnny first met in 1978 and The Smiths broke up in 1987 – almost exactly 100 years later.)

But who exactly was A. E. Housman?

According to Wikipedia, he was “an English classical scholar and poet, best known to the general public for his cycle of poems A Shropshire Lad.

After winning an open scholarship to Oxford, he went there to study classics and this is where he first met Moses John Jackson, with whom he formed a strong friendship.

He failed his Finals and had to resit the exam but, though some attribute Housman's unexpected performance in his exams directly to his unrequited feelings for Jackson, most biographers adduce more obvious causes. Namely, Housman was indifferent to philosophy and overconfident in his exceptional gifts, and he spent too much time with his friends.

After Oxford, Jackson went to work as a clerk in the Patent Office in London and arranged a job there for Housman too. The two shared a flat with Jackson's brother Adalbert until Housman moved to lodgings of his own, probably after Jackson responded to a declaration of love by telling Housman that he could not reciprocate his feelings.

Two years later, Jackson moved to India, placing more distance between himself and Housman.

When he returned briefly to England to marry, Housman was not invited to the wedding and knew nothing about it until the couple had left the country.”

De Amicitia (of Friendship)

“In 1942, Housman's brother Laurence deposited an essay entitled “A. E. Housman's ‘De Amicitia’” in the British Library, with the proviso that it was not to be published for 25 years.

The essay discussed A. E. Housman's homosexuality and his love for Moses Jackson.

Despite the conservative nature of the times and his own caution in public life, Housman was quite open in his poetry, and especially in A Shropshire Lad, about his deeper sympathies.

Poem XXX of that sequence, for instance, speaks of how ‘Fear contended with desire’: ‘Others, I am not the first, / Have willed more mischief than they durst’.

In More Poems, he buries his love for Moses Jackson in the very act of commemorating it, as his feelings of love are not reciprocated and must be carried unfulfilled to the grave.

His poem ‘Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?’, written after the trial of Oscar Wilde, addressed more general attitudes towards homosexuals.

In the poem the prisoner is suffering ‘for the colour of his hair’, a natural quality that, in a coded reference to homosexuality, is reviled as ‘nameless and abominable’.”

I read the essay and here are the parts I found to be the most interesting:

“… his deepest friendships were with men, [that] those friendships caused him trouble and grief and [that] – in one instance at least – he gave a far greater devotion than he ever received in return. In that greatest of all his friendships (and probably in most of the others), there was no response in kind. Almost every friendship that he formed was destined to be a lonely one – the emotional element which went to the making of them his alone.”

He then goes on to talk in more detail about the relationship between Housman and Jackson:

“My brother and Moses Jackson first met when in 1877 they both went up to St. John’s college Oxford with scholarships. Their association remained unbroken for a period of four years, for the last two of which (together with A. W. Pollard) they shared lodgings in St. Giles. Their association was resumed when […] my brother became a Civil servant at H. M.’s Patent Office, where Jackson was already in a position of somewhat higher standing. From 1882 till somewhere about 1885 they shared lodgings, together with Jackson’s younger brother Adalbert, in Talbot Road Bayswater. In 1885 or 1886 they parted company and my brother went to live by himself at Byron Cottage Highgate. After that they met daily at the Patent Office, and as a rule lunched together, until Jackson in December 1887 sailed for India, where he remained […] for the greater part of his life. On leaving India he took up another post of a similar kind in British Columbia, where he died in 1923.”

“The shared lodging in Bayswater ended in an incident of which I do not know the full explanation. Quite suddenly, and without a word of warning, my brother, after something which must have been of the nature of a quarrel, disappeared for a week; and an anxious letter from Jackson came to his father to say that he did not know what had become of him. […] After a week’s absence he returned, but only for a short time; probably the strain of such close association with a friend who could not respond with the same warmth of feeling had proven too much for him; and he found it better to part. […] But though there was disagreement, there was no final parting […]; they remained firm friends through life, but always with a difference.”

He then goes on to talk about the diaries he kept:

“In those diaries nothing whatever was entered of a personal character except what had to do with his association with his friend Jackson. […] But hardly once is his name given - ‘Jackson’ never; once or twice the abbreviation ‘Mo’ for Moses. It is nearly always ‘he’ and nothing else.”

“In the diary of 1889, nothing is recorded for six months; the friends do not correspond. In October of that year Jackson returned to England, for a reason which [my brother], it would seem, did not know until a month after the event. […] He and Jackson only met twice during the latter’s stay in England from October to December; once in the company of others and only once alone. At the time of their meeting – only three weeks before Jackson’s marriage – it is evident he’d not been told of it.”

“When Jackson had resigned his Indian appointment, and was on his way to take up another at Vancouver in British Columbia, he stayed in England for the last time; and it was at the house of their mutual friend A. W. Pollard, that the two had their final meeting. There was no estrangement; all three were, in Pollard’s account of that meeting, ‘very youthful and light-hearted’. For my brother the remedy of age had come to ease the old trouble which had left on his life so deep a mark.”

“Nobody reading these diaries can have any doubt about the emotional nature of my brother’s love for Jackson; it was deep and lasting, and it caused him great unhappiness. Even in memory the emotion of it remained. Only two years before his death, I had proof of it. In his rooms at Trinity College Cambridge, two portraits hung near together over the fireplace – the one a portrait taken in youth, the other in late middle-age. The youthful one, I learned later, was of Adalbert [Jackson’s younger brother]. I asked him, when I was staying with him two years before his death, whose was the other. In a strangely moved voice he answered: ‘That was my friend Jackson, the man who had more influence on my life than anyone else.”

Does any of this sound at all familiar? No? Well…

“When I sleep with that picture of you Framed beside my bed Oh, it’s childish and it’s silly But I think it’s you in my room By the bed Yes, I told you it was silly.” (Late Night, Maudlin Street)

I’m gonna end this with some of my fave Housman’s poems, which I also think may apply to the Morrissey-Marr relationship:

More Poems

XII I promise nothing: friends will part; All things may end, for all began; And truth and singleness of heart Are mortal even as is man.

But this unlucky love should last When answered passions thin to air; Eternal fate so deep has cast Its sure foundation of despair.

XXIV Stone, steel, dominions pass, Faith too, no wonder; So leave alone the grass That I am under.

All knots that lovers tie Are tied to sever; Here shall your sweetheart lie Untrue for ever.

XXVIII

He, standing hushed, a pace or two apart, Among the bluebells of the listless plain, Thinks, and remembers how he cleansed his heart And washed his hands in innocence in vain.

XXX Shake hands, we shall never be friends, all’s over; I only vex you the more I try. All’s wrong that ever I’ve done or said, And nought to help it in this dull head: Shake hands, here’s luck, good-bye.

But if you come to a road where danger Or guilt or anguish or shame’s to share, Be good to the lad that loves you true And the soul that was born to die for you, And whistle and I’ll be there.

XXXI Because I liked you better Than suits a man to say, It irked you, and I promised To throw the thought away.

To put the world between us We parted, stiff and dry; ‘Good-bye’, said you, ‘forget me’. ‘I will, no fear’, said I.

If here, where clover whitens The dead man’s knoll, you pass, And no tall flower to meet you Starts in the trefoiled grass,

Halt by the headstone naming The heart no longer stirred, And say the lad that loved you Was one that kept his word.

XXXVII I did not lose my heart in summer’s even, When roses to the moonrise burst apart; When plumes were under heel and lead was flying, In blood and smoke and flame I lost my heart.

I lost it to a soldier and a foeman, A chap that did not kill me, but he tried; That took the sabre straight and took it striking And laughed and kissed my hand to me and died.

XL Farewell to a name and a number Recalled again To darkness and silence and slumber In blood and pain.

So ceases and turns to the thing He was born to be A soldier cheap to the King And dear to me;

So smothers in blood the burning And flaming flight Of valour and truth returning To dust and night.

Additional Poems

II Oh were and I together, Shipmates on the fleeted main, Sailing through the summer weather To the spoil of France or Spain.

Oh were he and I together, Locking hands and taking leave, Low upon the trampled heather In the battle lost at eve.

Now are he and I asunder And asunder to remain; Kingdoms are for others’ plunder, And content for other slain.

VI Ask me no more, for fear I should reply; Others have held their tongues, and so can I; Hundreds have died, and told no tale before: Ask me no more, for fear I should reply -

How one was true and one was clean of stain And one was braver than the heavens are high, And one was fond of me: and all are slain. Ask me no more, for fear I should reply.

VII He would not stay for me; and who can wonder? He would not stay for me to stand and gaze. I shook his hand and tore my heart in sunder And went with half my life about my ways.

#housman #morrissey #marrissey

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zed-air · 5 years

Text

CKUA - The Midway: 2018

______

The Midway was a special program which typically aired from 9:00am-12:00pm (or sometimes 10:00am-2:00) on CKUA from 2016-2019 during statutory holidays.

Click “keep reading” below for my 2018 Midway playlists.

Explore my playlist history for other dates and programs.

- - - - -

AIRTIME // TITLE // PERFORMING ARTIST // ALBUM

2018-02-19

^^ listener recommendation ++ selected from CKUA’s “house blend” playlist

09:00 // Monday Morning // Pulp // Different Class

09:06 // Cowboy Song // Thin Lizzy // Uncut Nov 2001

09:11 // Glory Hallelujah // The Give ‘Em Hell Boys // Barn Burner

09:19 // Navajo Rug // Ian Tyson // All the Good ‘Uns

09:21 // S Lazy H // Corb Lund // Things That Can’t Be Undone

09:29 // Winter // Celeigh Cardinal // Everything and Nothing At All

09:35 // Viva La Vida // Coldplay // Viva La Vida…

09:39 // Shop Around // Smoky Robinson & the Miracles // Motown Forever

09:43 // You Really Got a Hold on Me // The Beatles // With the Beatles

09:48 // Another Day // Paul McCartney // Wingspan

09:54 // I Was Born Under a Wandering Star // Lee Marvin // Paint Your Wagon

10:02 // Be There // Kimberley MacGregor // I Am My Own

10:06 // Mary Jane’s Last Dance // Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers // Greatest Hits

10:11 // Back in Black // AC/DC // Back in Black

10:18 // Rose of the Valley // Duane Eddy // Road Trip

10:21 // Like Water // Graftician // Wander/Weave ++

10:26 // No Wrong // Bahamas // No Wrong 45 ++

10:32 // Devil in Disguise // Elvis Presley // Hits

10:35 // Christine’s Tune // The Flying Burrito Bros // 20th C. Masters

10:38 // I’m No Elvis Presley // Lindi Ortega // Little Red Boots

10:42 // Pretty Thing // Michael Rault // Crash! Boom! Bang!

10:44 // Not Fade Away // The Rolling Stones // Grrr!

10:46 // Maggie’s Farm (live at Newport) // Bob Dylan // No Direction Home

10:52 // You Keep Me Hanging On // Vanilla Fudge // Classic Rock 1968

10:56 // Why Do You Love Me? // Jom Comyn // I Need Love

11:01 // Leaving the Table // Leonard Cohen // You Want It Darker

11:07 // Rabbit in Your Headlights // UNKLE & Thom Yorke // Psyence Fiction ^^

11:12 // My Soul’s in Louisiana // Otis Taylor // ________ ^^

11:16 // Give Me a Sign // Edward Sharp & the Magnetic Zeroes // Give Me a Sign 45

11:20 // Distant Sky // Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds // Skeleton Tree

11:27 // He’ll Have To Go // Jim Reeves // Essential Jim Reeves ^^

11:30 // Once in a Lifetime // Talking Heads // Remain in Light

11:34 // Murder in the City (live) // The Avett Bros // _________ ^^

11:39 // Love is the Drug // Roxy Music // The Collection ^^

11:43 // I’ll Take You There // The Staples Singers // Greatest Hits

11:48 // Fun Fun Fun // The Beach Boys // Good Vibrations

11:50 // Do You Remember Rock & Roll Radio? // The Ramones // Greatest Hits

11:55 // Memories // Leonard Cohen // Death of a Ladies’ Man

- - - - -

2018-03-30

^^ listener recommendation ++ selected from CKUA’s “house blend” playlist

09:00 // Friday on My Mind // The Easybeats // Greatest Hits

09:05 // Walk of Life // Dire Straits // Greatest Hits

09:09 // Walk on the Wild Side // Lou Reed // Transformer

09:14 // Love Minus Zero // The Walker Bros // Take It Easy With the WB

09:17 // All Along the Watchtower // Jimi Hendrix // Electric Ladyland

09:21 // When the Ship Comes In // The Hollies // Hollies Sing Dylan

09:24 // Here’s That Rainy Day // Bob Dylan // Triplicate

09:31 // Laugh Laugh // The Beau Brummels // Greatest Hits

09:36 // No Surprises // Radiohead // OK Computer

09:39 // You Don’t Scare Me // Whitney Rose // Rule 62

09:44 // Come To Me // Sue Foley // The Ice Queen

09:48 // I Ain’t Cool // The Sheepdogs // Changing Colours ^^

09:52 // Bad Bad News // Leon Bridges // Good Thing

09:56 // Ain’t That Good News // Sam Cooke // Ain’t That Good News

10:03 // The Priests of Golden Bull // Buffy Sainte-Marie // Medicine Songs

10:09 // Whiskey // Joey Landreth // Whiskey EP

10:12 // Bad Bad Man // The Give ‘Em Hell Boys // Barn Burner

10:16 // After Midnight // Eric Clapton // Complete Clapton

10:19 // Give Me One Reason // Tracy Chapman // _____

10:24 // Still Crazy After All These Years // Paul Simon // The Essential

10:28 // The Addams Family Theme // Vic Mizzy // Greatest Hits of TV

10:31 // Winter // Celeigh Cardinal // Everything and Nothing At All

10:37 // Go // Kimberley MacGregor // I Am My Own

10:42 // Everybody’s Coming To My House // David Byrne // American Utopia

10:47 // I Wanna Prove To You // The Lemon Twigs // Do Hollywood

10:51 // This Winter Revisited // F&M // ______ ^^

10:54 // North To Alaska // Johnny Horton // The Essential

10:58 // I Can See For Miles // The Who // The Who Sell Out ^^

11:02 // Shining in the Distance // The Stray Birds // Magic Fire

11:08 // When You Ain’t Home // Lindi Orgega // Faded Gloryville

11:12 // I Don’t Know Why I Love You But I Do // Clarence “Frogman” Henry // Collected Works

11:14 // Heroes (live) // King Crimson // DGM Live

11:20 // Goldfinger // Bill Frisell & Thomas Morgan // Small Town

11:26 // Secret Love // Nels Cline // Lovers

11:30 // Zoot Allures // Frank Zappa // Zoot Allures

11:34 // 13 Engines // What If We Don’t Get What We Want? // _____ ^^

11:38 // Nedayeh Bahar // Habibi // Cardamom Garden

11:41 // Disarray // Preoccupations // New Material

11:45 // Say it Louder // Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats // Tearing at the Seams

11:49 // Don’t Stop Me Now // Queen // Greatest Hits

11:52 // Heart of Oak // Richard Hawley // Hollow Meadows

11:56 // Goodbye Stranger // Supertramp // Retrospectacle

- - - - -

2018-05-21

Today’s theme: because Victoria Day falls between Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day, the theme of this program is going to be parents & music. I want to hear from you. Get in touch with names of formative songs your parents introduced to you, and/or songs you introduced to your parents that turned their cranks.

^^ listener recommendation ++ selected from CKUA’s “house blend” playlist

09:00 // Monday Morning // Pulp // Different Class

09:06 // Victoria // The Kinks // Arthur

09:09 // These Days Is Coming Soon // The Lemon Twigs // Do Hollywood

09:12 // Today // Jefferson Airplane // Surrealistic Pillow

09:17 // Somebody That I Used To Know // Gotye // Making Mirrors

09:21 // Masseduction // St. Vincent // Masseduction

09:25 // Physical // Juliana Hatfield // Sings Songs of Olivia Newton John

09:30 // We’ve Come This Far // Sloan // Commonwealth

09:34 // Just Like Romeo & Juliet // Sha-Na-Na // __________

09:37 // Romeo & Juliet // Dire Straits // Priviate Investigations

09:45 // Four Out of Five // Arctic Monkeys // Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino

09:51 // Treat Her Right // Mr. T. // Greatest Hits

09:55 // Axel F. // Angela Dubeau & La Pieta // __________

10:01 // Nunca Es Suficiente; Natalia Lafourcade; Hasta la Raiz

10:06 // Layla (Strange Brew) // Le Onde Blu // Italy 1960s Beat

10:10 // Nessuno Mi Puo Guidicare // Gene Pitney // Definitive Collection

10:13 // Save the Last Dance for Me // The Shanes // Anthology

10:16 // California Sun // Ola & the Janglers // Swedish Rock & Roll Hits

10:19 // She Taught Me to Yodel // The Scarlets // Collection

10:22 // Boys Night Out // Johnny Reimar // Greatest Hits

10:24 // A Swinging Safari // Bert Kaempfert // Classics

10:29 // My Bonnie // Tony Sheridan & the Beat Bros // Tony Sheridan & the Silver Beatles

10:34 // Why Do You Have To Break My Heart Again? // The School // Reading Too Much Into Things

10:38 // Neon Lights // Kraftwerk // The Man-Machine

10:42 // Das Model // The Cardigans // B-Sides

10:47 // Wipeout // The Eliminators // Planetary Pebbles - Behind the Iron Curtain, vol 1

10:50 // Crazy Guitars // Boomerangs // Planetary Pebbles - Behind the Iron Curtain, vol 1

10:52 // Can Can // Can // Singles

10:57 // Lakes of Mars // Doug Hoyer // Walks With the Tender & Growing Night

11:01 // Hello in There // John Prine // Souveniers ^^

11:09 // Carry Me // The Stampeders // Best of ^^

11:12 // Ghost Riders in the Sky // Gene Autry // Essential ^^

11:16 // I’ve Been Everywhere // Hank Snow // Essential ^^

11:20 // Happy Brasilia // James Last // __________ ^^

11:24 // Crazy Train // Ozzy Osbourne // Anthology ^^

11:27 // Oxygene II // Jean-Michel Jarre // Oxygene ^^

11:30 // Froggy Went a-Courtin’ // Red Allen // Essential ^^

11:35 // Welcome to Earth (Pollywog) // Sturgill Simpson // A Sailor’s Guide to Earth ^^

11:40 // Late Night Radio // Gary Brown // __________ ^^

11:45 // A Sweet Beginning Like This // Fats Waller // Anthology ^^

11:49 // You Make Me Feel Like Dancing // Leo Sayer // You Make Me Feel Like Dancing

11:52 // Twist & Shout // The Isley Bros // Essential

11:55 // End of the Line // Traveling Wilburys // Vol 1

- - - - -

2018-07-02

Due to some scheduling kerfuffles at the station, the July 2, 2018 instalment of The Midway will last longer and start a whole lot earlier! Coming to your receivers from 6AM-10AM MST, tune in for our post-Canada Day extravaganza.

The theme of this episode is a simple one: what is the best Canadian artist/song you’ve discovered in 2018? It can be a new release, or any Canadian that you weren’t previously aware of - regardless of era.

^^ listener recommendation ++ selected from CKUA’s “house blend” playlist

06:00 // Monday Morning // Pulp // Different Class

06:06 // Changing Times // Iwan Rheon // Changing Times single

06:10 // Hippy Hippy Shake // Chan Romero // USA Roots of the UK Invasion

06:12 // The Devil in His Heart // The Donays // USA Roots of the UK Invasion

06:15 // Twist & Shout // The Isley Bros // Essential

06:19 // Robotic // Hannah Georgas // Hannah Georgas

06:23 // Crash Years // The New Pornographers // Together

06:31 // Psychopath // St. Vincent // STV

06:36 // Summer Sounds // Robert Goulet // Summer Sounds

06:38 // Under the Boardwalk // The Drifters // Greatest Hits

06:40 // Summer Holiday // Cliff Richard & the Shadows // Summer Holiday

06:45 // Suck It and See // The Arctic Monkeys // Suck It and See

06:48 // Street Life // Roxy Music // Collection

06:51 // Everybody’s Coming To My House // David Byrne

06:56 // Houses of the Holy // Led Zeppelin // Houses of the Holy

07:03 // Troubled Mind // Dan Mangan // Troubled Mind single

07:08 // Wendy // The Beach Boys // Good Vibrations

07:11 // Gorilla Song // Sha-Na-Na // Greatest Hits

07:13 // Bananaphone // Raffi // Bananaphone

07:16 // Carry On // Coeur de Pirate // Roses

07:19 // Breaking Down // Florence & the Machine // Ceremonials

07:23 // Stepping Out // Joe Jackson // Night and Day

07:32 // Everything // Celeigh Cardinal // Everything and Nothing At All

07:35 // Tommaso // nehiyawak // Tommaso single

07:39 // My Back Pages // Marshall Crenshaw // Bleecker Street

07:44 // Only a Pawn in the Game // Bob Dylan // The Times They Are A-Changin’

07:48 // The Godfather Waltz // Nino Rota // The Godfather Soundtrack

07:53 // Wish You Were Here // Pink Floyd // Wish You Were Here

08:01 // Radio // Client // City

08:05 // Radio, Radio // Elvis Costello // This Year’s Model

08:08 // Shape Shifter // Lera Lynn // Resistor

08:12 // In the Aeroplane Over the Sea // Neutral Milk Hotel // In the Aeroplane Under the Sea

08:17 // Maybe Tonight // Nicole Atkins // Neptune City

08:21 // Girl Don’t Come // Sandie Shaw // Hits of the 1960s

08:24 // I Only Want To Be With You // Dusty Springfield // Hits of the 1960s

08:26 // Moonshiner’s Daughter // Rhiannon Giddens // Factory Girl

08:31 // Decomposing Composers // Monty Python // Monty Python Sings

08:35 // Girl From Ipanema // Stan Getz & Astrud Gilberto // Super Samba

08:39 // Xanadu // Juliana Hatfield // J.H. Sings Olivia Newton John

08:43 // I Wanna Prove To You // The Lemon Twigs // Do Hollywood

08:48 // Depth of My Soul // Thievery Corporation // Saudade

08:51 // No More Disguises // Thievery Corporation // Saudade

08:56 // You’re Nobody ‘Til Somebody Loves You // Dinah Washington // Blue Box 2

09:01 // O Canada // Osyron // O Canada (music video)

09:04 // Who Do You Love? // Ronnie Hawkins & the Hawks // Rock & Roll Originals ++

09:07 // One Foot // Doug Hoyer // To Be a River ^^

09:10 // Glory // Layten Kramer // Glory ++

09:15 // Always For You // J.J. Shiplett // Something To Believe In ^^

09:19 // You Don’t Scare Me // Whitney Rose // Rule 62 ^^

09:25 // Norwegian Wood // Greenwich, Breau, Bickert // Toronto Sessions ^^

09:31 // Changes // Gordon Lightfoot // Original Lightfoot

09:33 // Been Waiting // The Flashing Lights // Sweet Release ^^

09:40 // The Silent // The Bolt Actions // TBA EP

09:42 // Don’t Wanna Hear It // Lindi Ortega // Cigarettes & Truckstops ^^

09:45 // Bye Bye Blackbird // Ringo Starr // Sentimental Journey

09:48 // Blackbird // The Beatles // The Beatles

09:51 // End of the Line // The Traveling Wilburys // Volume 1

09:54 // I’ll Be Seeing You // Francoise Hardy & Iggy Pop // Triple Best

- - - - -

TITLE // PERFORMING ARTIST // ALBUM // AIRTIME

2018-08-06 - 09:00-12:00

The theme of this episode: what recent folk-festival performance/performer has astonished you? It can be during the current festival season. It can be an artist you’ve loved for years, or someone you’ve only just discovered.

^^ listener recommendation ++ selected from CKUA’s “house blend” playlist

Monday Morning // Pulp // Different Class // Mon 09:01

Maggie’s Farm (live Newport ‘65) // Bob Dylan // The Bootleg Series Vol. 7 // Mon 09:06

Polka Dot Undies // Bowser & Blue // Polka Dot Undies (Single) // Mon 09:12AM

Let The Good Times Roll // JD McPherson // Let The Good Times Roll // Mon 09:17AM

Country House // Blur // ______ // Mon 09:20

Rockaway Beach // Ramones // Loud, Fast Ramones // Mon 09:25AM

Do You Need My Love // Weyes Blood // Front Row Seat To Earth // Mon 09:30AM

Surrender // kd lang // Tomorrow Never Dies Soundtrack // Mon 09:36AM

Underneath the Mango Tree // Diana Coupland & Monty Norman // Dr. No Soundtrack // Mon 09:40AM

Nobody Does It Better // Carly Simon // Clouds In My Coffee: 1965-1995 // Mon 09:43AM

You And Whose Army? // Radiohead // Amnesiac // Mon 09:48AM

Four Out Of Five // Arctic Monkeys // Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino // Mon 09:54AM

She’s Electric // Oasis // (What’s The Story) Morning Glory // Mon 10:02AM

Lille (live at EFMF 2013) // Lisa Hannigan // Live at the CKUA Tent // Mon 10:09AM

Driver’s Seat // Sniff ‘n’ the Tears // Driver’s Seat single // Mon 10:12AM

Breakfast at the Ace // The Rapiers // The Rapiers // Mon 10:16AM

Ford Fairlane // Confusionaires // Make a Little Mess With the Confusionaires // Mon 10:22AM

Big Sunglasses // Dylan Farrell // Blues Before // Mon 10:24AM

Would You Be My Dog? // Celeigh Cardinal // Everything And Nothing At All // Mon 10:30AM

Bizarre Love Triangle // Give 'Em Hell Boys // Barn Burner // Mon 10:34AM

City Lights // King Of Foxes // Golden Armour // Mon 10:38AM

Rock Pool // Cate Le Bon // Rock Pool EP // Mon 10:42AM

Twisting By The Pool // Dire Straits // Twisting By The Pool // Mon 10:47AM

Enola Gay // OMD // Organization // Mon 10:51AM

Bad Luck // Neko Case // Bad Luck (Single) // Mon 10:59AM

Total Eclipse // Klaus Nomi // Klaus Nomi // Mon 11:06AM

From a Logical Point of View // Robert Mitchum // Calypso is Like So // Mon 11:07AM

Phenomenal Woman // Ruthie Foster // The Phenomenal Ruthie Foster // Mon 11:12AM ^^

Gotta Serve Somebody // Mavis Staples // Tangled Up In Blues: Songs Of Bob Dylan // Mon 11:16AM ^^

Mr. Monday // Kobo Town // Jumbie In The Jukebox // Mon 11:22AM ^^

The Letter // Joe Cocker // Sounds Of The Seventies: 1970 // Mon 11:26AM ^^

Steppin’ Out // Joe Jackson // Night and Day // Mon 11:32AM ^^

Preachin’ To The Choir // Rodney Crowell // Fate’s Right Hand // Mon 11:37AM ^^

You Can’t Judge a Book by the Cover // William Prince // You Can’t Judge a Book by the Cover // Mon 11:43AM ^^

And I Love Her // Passenger // The Boy Who Cried Wolf // Mon 11:46AM ^^

And I Love Her // The Beatles // A Hard Day’s Night // Mon 11:51AM

End Of The Line // The Traveling Wilburys // Traveling Wilburys Collection // Mon 11:53AM

I’ll Be Seeing You // Francoise Hardy & Iggy Pop // Triple Best // Mon 11:56AM

- - - - -

2018-09-03 - 09:00-12:00

The theme of this episode: what is one of your essential live albums? It can be new, old, filled with cheating overdubs, lo-fi, hi-fi, whatever!

^^ listener recommendation ++ selected from CKUA’s “house blend” playlist ~~ today’s featured album: Richard Hawley’s Live at the Devi’s Arse

Monday Morning // Pulp // Different Class // Mon 09:01AM

Maggie’s Farm (live at Newport Folk 1965) // Bob Dylan // No Direction Home // Mon 09:07AM

Goldfinger // Bill Frisell & Thomas Morgan // Small Town // Mon 09:14AM

Four Out Of Five // Arctic Monkeys // Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino // Mon 09:19AM

Oliver Cromwell // Monty Python // Sings // Mon 09:28AM

Reelin’ In The Years // Steely Dan // Can’t Buy A Thrill // Mon 09:30AM

Help Me Rhonda // The Beach Boys // Good Vibrations: 30 Years Of The // Mon 09:36AM

Hideaway // John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers // Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton // Mon 09:39AM

Going Down // Freddie King // Ultimate Collection // Mon 09:43AM

Steppin’ Out // Memphis Slim // Rockin’ the Blues // Mon 09:46AM

Shake Your Money Maker // Paul Butterfield Blues Band // Paul Butterfield Blues Band // Mon 09:51AM

Darlin’ // Richard Hawley // Live at the Devil’s Arse // Mon 09:54AM ~~

The Devil in Disguise // Richard Hawley // Live at the Devil’s Arse // Mon 09:57AM ~~

Ain’t That a Shame // Cheap Trick // Live at Budokan // Mon 10:06AM

Hot Rod Lincoln // Commander Cody // 70s Classics // Mon 10:15AM

Rambler // The Madmen // Swedish Rock & Roll Hits // Mon 10:16AM

Pistoleros // The Shanes // The Shanes Anthology // Mon 10:17AM

Satumaa // Reijo Taipale // Satumaa 45 // Mon 10:22AM

Satumaa // Frank Zappa & the Mothers // You Can’t Do That on Stage Anymore 2 // Mon 10:25AM

Impossible Germany (live, 2012) // Wilco // Ashes of the American Flag // Mon 10:31AM

I Wonder If Care As Much // Richard Hawley with Lynn & Jean // Live at the Devil’s Arse // Mon 10:40AM ~~

Lille (live at CKUA Tent, EFMF 2013) // Lisa Hannigan // Live at EFMF 2013 // Mon 10:45AM

Distant Sky // Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds // Distant Sky Live in Copenhagen // Mon 11:51AM

Smoke on the Water // Deep Purple // Made in Japan // Mon 11:00AM

Comfortably Numb // Roger Waters & Van Morrison // The Wall Live // Mon 11:10AM ^^

That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine // Simon & Garfunkel // Live 1969 // Mon 11:14AM ^^

Folsom Prison Blues // Merle Haggard // Live // Mon 11:19AM ^^

New Favourite // Alison Krauss & Union Station // Live // Mon 11:25AM ^^

Murder By Numbers // Sting & Friends // Broadway the Hard Way // Mon 11:29AM ^^

Do You Feel Like I Do? // Peter Frampton // Frampton Comes Alive // Mon 11:31 ^^

Lakes of Mars // Doug Hoyer // REC-YEG Concert Sessions 2012 // Mon 11:39AM

1952 Vincent Black Lightnight // Reckless Kelly // R.K. Was Here // Mon 11:47AM ^^

Just Like the Rain // Richard Hawley // Live at the Devil’s Arse // Mon 11:48AM ~~

That’ll Be the Day // Cliff Richard & the Shadows // The Rock & Roll Years // Mon 11:52AM

Don’t Ever Change // The Beatles // Live at the BBC // Mon 11:54AM

I’ll Be Seeing You // Francoise Hardy & Iggy Pop // Triple Best // Mon 11:58AM

- - - - -

2018-10-08 - 09:00-12:00

The theme of this episode: a smorgasbord of tunes - food, mood, and gratitude. We’ll also feature some leftovers - songs which listeners recommended for earlier editions of The Midway, but which were not broadcast when received due to time constraints or other impediments. Sharing a feast for the ears.

^^ listener recommendation ++ selected from CKUA’s “house blend” playlist

Monday Morning // Pulp // Different Class // Mon 09:01AM

Hi Hello // Johnny Marr // Hi Hello // Mon 09:07AM

The Right Stuff // Noel Gallagher // Chasing Yesterday // Mon 09:12AM

Snow Bank // Doug Hoyer // Walks With the Tender & Growing Night // Mon 09:19AM

Strawberry Fields Forever // The Beatles // Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club // Mon 09:27AM

Strawberry Cake // Johnny Cash // Strawberry Cake // Mon 09:35AM

You Don’t Scare Me // Whitney Rose // Rule 62 // Mon 09:38AM

The White Witch // Ivoux // Frozen // Mon 09:43AM

Winter // Celeigh Cardinal // Everything And Nothing At All // Mon 09:48AM

Dunes // Alabama Shakes // Sound And Color // Mon 09:55AM

Satin Devil // Dirty Dirty Devils // Dirty Dirty Devils // Mon 10:04AM

Help Me // Joni Mitchell // Hits // Mon 10:08AM

My Favorite Things // John Coltrane // _____ // Mon 10:11AM

Big Rock Candy Mountain // Harry McClintock // O Brother, Where Art Thou? // Mon 10:14AM

Morning Has Broken // Yusuf / Cat Stevens // The Very Best Of Cat Stevens // Mon 10:17AM ^^

Blame It On the Bossa Nova // Eydie Gorme // Greatest Hits // Mon 10:21AM

Telstar // The Tornados // The Tornados // Mon 10:23AM

Telstar (Original Demo) // Joe Meek // Joe Meek Anthology // Mon 10:28AM

Take a Bow // Muse // Black Holes & Revelations // Mon 10:31AM

Money // The Backbeat Band // Backbeat Soundtrack // Mon 10:40AM

Rockaway Beach // Ramones // Loud, Fast Ramones // Mon 10:42AM

Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer // Nat King Cole // Greatest Hits // Mon 10:45AM

Crocodile Rock // Elton John // Greatest Hits // Mon 10:47AM

Money // Pink Floyd // The Dark Side Of The Moon // Mon 10:53AM

Statesboro Blues (Live) // The Allman Bros Band // At Fillmore East // Mon 11:01AM ^^

The Tourist Song // Brad Bucknell & the oHNo Band // self-titled // Mon 11:06AM

Wiggle Wiggle // Bob Dylan // Under a Red Sky // Mon 11:11AM

Bad Guy // Jesse & The Dandelions // True Blue // Mon 11:14AM ^^

Danceland (Come With Me) // The Garrys // Surf Manitou // Mon 11:17AM

Loneliness // Rebekah Higgs // Sha La La // Mon 11:21AM

Trigger // The New Haunts // The New Haunts // Mon 11:25AM ^^

I Wanna Thank You // Sloan // Navy Blues // Mon 11:29AM ^^

Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut // Almond Joy // Vintage Commercials // Mon 11:35AM

Fireworks // First Aid Kit // Ruins // Mon 11:37AM

The Way It Is // Nicole Atkins // Neptune City // Mon 11:44AM

Ice Dance // Danny Elfman // Edward Scissorhands Soundtrack // Mon 11:47AM

Apple Tree // The Hearts // ______ // Mon 11:49AM

Blistered // That Pedal Show Band // Blistered // Mon 11:56AM

I’ll Be Seeing You // Francoise Hardy & Iggy Pop // Triple Best // Mon 11:58AM

- - - - -

2018-11-12 - 09:00-12:00

^^ listener recommendation ++ selected from CKUA’s “house blend” playlist

Monday Morning // Pulp // Different Class // Mon 09:00AM

Lollipop (Ode To Jim) // Alvvays // Antisocialites // Mon 09:05AM

Danceland (Come With Me) // The Garrys // Surf Manitou // Mon 09:09AM

Christmas All Over Again // Tom Petty // A Very Special Christmas 2 // Mon 09:13AM

I Will // The Beatles // The Beatles (Stereo Remaster) // Mon 09:20AM

Is He Really Coming Home? // The School // Loveless Unbeliever // Mon 09:22AM

The Spell of City Lights // J.D. McPherson // ______ // 09:25AM

The Future Age // The Hearts // Equal Love // Mon 09:30AM

Arnold Layne // The Pink Floyd // Arnold Layne 45 // Mon 09:34AM

Anne of 1000 Days // John Moore // Knickerbocker Glory // Mon 09:42AM

Journey // Sarah Nixey // Night Walks // Mon 09:44AM

Start As You Mean To Go On // Black Box Recorder // The Facts of Life // Mon 09:47AM

Xanadu // Juliana Hatfield // Sings the Songs of Olivia Newton John // Mon 09:53AM

Africa // Weezer // Africa // Mon 10:00AM

Hold the Line // Osyron // Hold the Line // Mon 10:05AM

Do You Remember Rock ‘N’ Roll Radio // Ramones // Greatest Hits // Mon 10:09AM

Breaking Down // Florence & The Machine // Ceremonials // Mon 10:13AM

Time Of The Season // The Zombies // Pop Music: The Golden Era 1951-1 // Mon 10:19AM

True Love Ways // Peter & Gordon // Greatest Hits // Mon 10:23AM

Wonderful Land // The Shadows // Shadows Are Go! // Mon 10:25AM

Midnight // The Shadows // Shadows Are Go! // Mon 10:27AM

While My Guitar Gently Weeps // The Beatles // White Album // Mon 10:31AM

(Nice Dream) // Radiohead // The Bends // Mon 10:37AM

A Boat Lies Waiting // David Gilmour // Rattle That Lock // Mon 10:41AM

Get Ready // The Temptations // The Motown Box // Mon 10:48AM

Did You Feed My Cow? // Sharon, Lois, and Bram // Smorgasboard // Mon 10:50AM

Damn Tattoo // John Wort Hannam // Brambles And Thorns // Mon 10:54AM

Little White Lines // Sweet Vintage Rides // Road Trip // Mon 10:58AM

Time Is Tight // Booker T. & The MG’s // Beg Scream & Shout!: The Big Ol’ // Mon 11:02AM

Take Me Home, Country Roads // John Denver // Behind The Music: The John Denver // Mon 11:07AM

Imagine // Neil Young // ______ // 11:10AM

This Magic Moment // Lou Reed // Lost Highway Soundtrack // Mon 11:13AM

You Belong To Me // Jo Stafford // Pop Music: The Golden Era 1951-1 // Mon 11:18AM

Lodestar // Sarah Harmer // You Were Here // Mon 11:21AM

Crosstown Traffic // Jimi Hendrix // Electric Ladyland // Mon 11:28AM

Quickstep Medley: I’m a Believer, Simon Smith & his Dancing Bear, The Happening, Georgie Girl // Joe Loss & His Orchestra // Top Pop Dance Time

Tous les garcons et les filles // Francoise Hardy // Tous les garcons et les filles // Mon 11:38AM

My Autumn’s Done Come // Hooverphonic // Sit Down and Listen // Mon 11:41AM

Darlin’ (live 2008) // Richard Hawley // Live at the Devil’s Arse // Mon 11:47AM

Memories // Leonard Cohen // Death of a Ladies’ Man // Mon 11:50AM

I’ll Be Seeing You // Francoise Hardy & Iggy Pop // Triple Best // Mon 11:57AM

#midway #playlist #ckua #radio #2018

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adrian-paul-botta · 6 years

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Lillian Gish - Romola (1924)

Director: Henry King Writers: George Eliot (novel) Will M. Ritchey "Adaptations of novels made up a large proportion of motion pictures in the 20s, as the medium of cinema began to see itself as continually more prestigious and legitimate. The trouble is they were still figuring things out when it came to translating from one narrative form to another. Romola is taken from a novel by the brilliant 19th century author George Elliot, and her work is typically rich in character detail and interwoven subplot. However this movie version pares the story down to a basic melodrama, with a handful of simple characters flitting from one plot point to the next. As if to compensate, the action is peppered with lengthy title cards, which while they preserve little snatches of the original text, break up the flow of visual storytelling. But all is not lost. The language of images was well developed in Hollywood. Romola's director is Henry King – not a well-remembered figure, although he ought to be. King's shots are consistently stylish, and he has a good handling of space and framing. Take for example when Dorothy Gish is abandoned amid the festivities after her sham wedding. We see a close-up of her, distraught, while the dancing revellers around her make a wild, blurry backdrop – far more effective than some expressionistic process shot, because it is realistic as well as evocative of mood. But what was really King's greatest strength at this point was the slow, methodical performing he encouraged from his cast. It is this that really brings out all those layers of character that are missing from the screenplay. Look at the scene in which Lillian Gish gives the ring to her father to examine. The camera is simply held in mid-shot as the old man turns it over in his hands, and so much more comes out of that moment as a result. And the strength of the mise-en-scene is proved as for some key scenes those pesky intertitles disappear altogether – such as when Powell proposes to Lillian. It's a pity so few directors these days are bold enough to simply performances play out like that. And this approach really suits star Lillian Gish. After parting ways with her old mentor D.W. Griffith she briefly formed a production company with King and, while it's rarely acknowledged, she did some of her best work with in their handful of pictures together. In an age when overt mugging and gesture were the norm, Gish is beautifully subtle, the emotions drifting across her face like clouds across the sun. The villainous turn from William Powell is also nicely understated. Powell is probably better remembered for the series of jolly father-figures he played in the sound era, but as a young man his thin lips and piercing eyes marked him down a bad guy. But here he refuses to live up to the stereotype, portraying Tito as a villain by his deeds and not by his mannerisms. There are some nice touches from even the smallest parts in Romola, and it is generally very well cast." - Source: IMDB - Lillian Gish ... Romola Dorothy Gish ... Tessa William Powell ... Tito Melema (as William H. Powell) Ronald Colman ... Carlo Bucellini Charles Lane ... Baldassar Calvo Herbert Grimwood ... Savonarola Bonaventura Ibáñez ... Bardo Bardi Frank Puglia ... Adolfo Spini Amelia Summerville ... Brigida Tina Ceccaci Renaldi ... Monna Ghita Eduilio Mucci ... Nello Angela Scatigna ... Bratti Ugo Uccellini ... Bishop of Nemours Alfredo Martinelli ... Captain of the Barque Attilo Deodati ... Tomaso

#lillian gish #romola #1924

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cloverscircle-blog · 6 years

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PIPER MESSINGER is TWENTY-SIX years old and lives in BARDSEY GROVE. She is a FEMALE and works as a MAID at LITTLE SPOON MOTEL. She has been in Clovers Circle for 26 YEARS, is portrayed by KAYA SCODELARIO, and is played by ADMIN B.

Trigger Warnings: car crash, death

Most parents only want the best for their children and the Messinger’s were, more or less, like most parents. More than the best for their child, they wanted the best for themselves. The child, growing fast in her mother’s womb, would make a name for herself in the world; she would become a household moniker. It was necessary to bring the family fame and fortune, luxe and lucre. Or, at the least, be successful enough to move them out of the shit hole they thought Clovers Circle was. The expectation was there. However, Piper would never quite live up to it. A childhood drowning beneath the pressure of her parents’ projections budded a resentment for her family, steering her to find refuge under the roofs and in the arms of others. All the while, Piper managed to conceal her growing bitterness at home. Smarter than was anticipated of her, Piper dared to pretend she was the prized jewel of their hopes and dreams for the first seventeen years of her life.

At times when Piper felt like lashing out, she would frequently ride her bike out a mile in the direction of nowhere just to kick at the dirt and repeatedly scream and grunt at the greatest decibel she could manage. Again, the girl was smart. She despised that anyone could think she was stupid enough to succumb to inhabiting a life as their pawn for a better tomorrow. At seventeen, when her patience had finally worn to smithereens, she masterfully plotted her escape from her idea of hell in being leashed to her parents’ reigns. However, before she could breathe life in her seamless plan of action, circumstances took a turn in her favor. To be clear, none of what would come after was part of prior arrangements made by Piper; certainly, it was rather convenient to say it was Piper’s doing. Anyone who knew her true begrudging against her family might have connected the dots at least once, but then that’s where she never screwed up; she never told other people of the spite she felt toward her parents, not even her closest friends. No, these were the kind of secrets she kept to herself and would take to her grave.

Accidents were called just that for good reason. It was mid-January when it happened. Roads varnished with a thin sheen of ice, the only lights then came from the headlamps of cars passing through. It happened in slow motion, or at least Piper liked to think it did, as she wasn’t actually there. She imagined glass particles shattering and slicing through the air, their eyes slamming shut from the force of collision. Like the scripted shit in a goddamn movie. The victims of the crash: her mother, father, and an unnamed drunken driver with broken headlights. Especially when she didn’t get to witness and endure the scene herself, she felt all the more reason to let her imagination run its course. Piper’s father died upon impact from the oncoming vehicle and her mother was left in an indefinite state of comatose. It was unsure when she would resume her conscious mind, or if she would ever, but Piper made sure she never did.

With no next of kin other than a juvenile daughter who would be adult enough in some months to make a decision for her life or death, Piper waited patiently once more. Clever little thing, she was. It couldn’t be too obvious; she wouldn’t say the words until she was at least eighteen and three months. She couldn’t be too exact, either––maybe eighteen and eighty-one days. It would have been too soon otherwise. “Do it– i-it’s what sh-she would have wanted,” she lied in feigned tremors, “I ca–an’t watch h…I can’t watch her like this anymore. She wouldn’t want to be like this.” Crocodile tears rolled down the sides of her face, a stream of salty secretion matting loose pieces of her mangled locks. God it was perfect. It was so well-rehearsed that Piper may have even surprised herself with the performance of her life. It was a play of tragedy worthy of theatrical accolade. Not a single person could see the expertly hidden curl of her lips beneath the facade of grief. Leaving the hospital that evening was a walk of liberation; the weight dampening her shoulders all those years had lifted and it felt like for the first time, she was allowed air to fill her lungs. End scene.

❛❛ she tells lies, and i pretend to believe them… ❜❜

An entire life spent in Clovers would probably compel most to leave, but Piper remained. While she had initially intended to move far, far away and adopt a new identity as part of her ploy to ditch her shit show of a life, her parents’ accident brought about reconsideration. She didn’t have to leave anymore. The decision came easy when the two biggest problems in her life were no longer looming over her shoulder and breathing instructions at her, or breathing at all. As weeks elapsed, then months, then years, it seemed Piper’s stay in Clovers was indefinite. It seemed she might spend the entire rest of her life within the confines of the quaint town––a real native. Perhaps to appease the occasional achy wanderlust, she would buy a plane ticket for here and a plane ticket for there but she knew in her heart of hearts, she wasn’t really going anywhere else.

Now in the ninth year following the accident, Piper has since held up just about every job you can imagine, save for one that involves swinging around a pole for pleasure-hungry audiences. Her latest record of employment involves working as a maid at the seedy Little Spoon Motel after being fired from the record store in Holywell. Losing her job had been a long time coming, with her time and attendance to blame; the only reason she was kept was because there was never anyone that worked quite as fast or as well as her––you know, when she did show up for work. Come this past summer, they finally called her out and she was let go. Piper has made it her life mission to be the antithesis of what her parents wanted her to be; the more they wanted her to pave a career path that paid off, the more she hated and avoided the idea. These days, she’s just trying to get on day by day and have a little fun along the way.

✽ — Piper has a lot of bad habits, most of which are there for everyone to see and know. A bit too much alcohol, a bit too many one-night-stands, a bit too much porn, too much junk food. Not to mention the screaming and the punching random objects when she is too angry.

✽ — However, there are also a few things, habits and secrets and memories, that she would never confess, not even under torture. One of these habits she would never admit of having is that, every time she has to have an important conversation or to give someone a speech, she gets to know it enough in advance and spends an awfully long amount of time practicing what she wants to say in front of a mirror. Piper knows that words aren’t her forte and so, when she can, she tries to prepare, not to make an ass of herself…or to make things worse instead of fixing them.

✽ — Despite the good purpose from which the habit is born, she still considers it an “embarrassing, girly habit” and, for this reason, she always makes sure that she is alone or that the door of the room is locked when she needs to practice. If anyone happens to be around, especially while she’s at the motel, she turns on music or the TV to make sure that her voice can’t be heard. And, if someone, anyone, happens to walk in on her, she would try and fail to play it off by starting to recite random movie quotes or to pretend to have been singing and totally not looking into the mirror.

( + ) Adaptable, Focused, Uncomplaining

( - ) Brutal, Dishonest, Meddlesome

#lsrpbio #rp #roleplay #oc rp #town rp #female #allcharacter #bardsey grove #kaya scodelario #admin character #taken

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mrsslrss · 6 years

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2017

I rang in 2017 drunk and crying. I left a New Year’s Eve Party where all my friends and I drank down the clock and M and I went home, and I had been obsessed with “Love More” for a few weeks so as soon as we got back to the house I put it on over the stereo. Anyway about ten seconds in I started sobbing and I couldn’t, for the life of me, explain why. (I wasn’t even sad! It’s just such a beautiful song!) M just put his arm around me and kind of half-laughed and told me it was going to be okay in a quizzical but very convincing way and eventually I stopped crying and the song played itself out. I think that about sums it up.

Anyway I think we can all agree that 2017 was a weird year in a grand sense, which I don’t feel compelled or equipped to speak to. But it was weird in a personal sense, too. The year started in that mass of feelings for me; I dyed my hair pink; I lost someone I cared about deeply, which hurt in a place I didn’t expect or understand. The other side of that month was the Women’s March: housing twenty friends from Boston and Brooklyn and elsewhere in a spirit of earnest and viable and real solidarity that nearly broke my heart.

In the spring I worked a lot, and eventually got to travel across the country and fall in love with a couple different cities: New York (Life After Youth, celebrating my 25th); Seattle (Bois Naufrage, fancy coffee, riding the bus); Austin (freeways, rental car, KUTX, wildflowers). In the summer, Keeper put out a tape – bittersweet timing, just before Sam moved back to Texas – and I got a few days on the Cape with the crew. I worked weekends and drank green juice and read novels. In the fall I got really into that Fever Ray song and memorized the opening passage of The Argonauts and finally made it to DIA: Beacon.

Overall, I think, it’s been a head-above-water kind of year for me, where I mainly got caught in a cycle of exist-process-react-exist without creating much. I spent a lot of time thinking about my feelings but still can’t exactly mark the growth. Sometimes stillness is a sign of change, though; maybe I’ll count that one as a win. So here’s a list of 10 things (big and small!) that I saw, heard, watched, made, felt and loved in 2017, that helped me get through the year.

The Heart Season: “No”

Before this year became the kind of dumpster fire in which you hear everyday about new ways that powerful, prominent men treat the women around them terribly, The Heart was talking about consent in a genuinely nuanced, genuinely feminist way. The “No” season was four episodes long, during which host Kaitlin Prest stared down specific instances in her own life where consent’s gray area reared its fucked-up face, and explored where the experiences left her – how they influenced her sense of self, how they shaped and informed her future sexual (and non-sexual!) encounters. And then she broadened the scope, ignoring the easier narratives – “yes means yes,” “no means no,” “consent is sexy!!!!”, rhetorical devices so exhausted and exhausting – and instead asked harder, realer questions about the intersections of desire, fear, gender, pleasure, and autonomy. It gave me language I didn’t know I needed and set a model for a kind of audio storytelling I didn’t know was possible. I wish they played this at every college orientation across the country.

Turning The Tables

What if we appreciated women’s art apart from maleness entirely? What would it look like to tell the story of popular music through only women’s greatness? That was, crudely put, the mission of the list of the 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women that NPR Music published this year. Being part of this project was huge: it meant absorbing massive amounts of history, rethinking canon, getting to be an editor(!), working with some of my biggest professional idols. Mostly, though, it meant devoting much of my working life to the intersection of radical feminism and rock and roll. What a dream.

Drag

I was drawn to art that felt genuinely subversive this year, but it mainly played out in moments of surprise: disappointment from expectations I didn’t realize I held being left unmet; utter radiant joy when this need I didn’t know I had was fulfilled. Maybe the most memorable time it happened was in June, at GAY/BASH, a monthly experimental drag show in D.C. It was the first time I saw drag IRL, which would maybe have felt subversive no matter what – but probably few things would have matched watching a drag queen in a red white & blue housewife dress penetrate the eyeholes of a Trump mask with a strap-on. Incredible! Tell me you can watch that and feel unmoved. My friends and I went back to GAY/BASH every month after that. The music was always perfect: The Knife and Paramore and No Doubt and Cher, etc. But mostly what felt so powerful was the company: being in explicitly gay spaces full of gay and queer people, where abject expressions of sexuality and of gender trouble felt neither like threats nor invitations to violence.

There was also, of course, Sasha Velour, the cerebral art-queen who was crowned this year’s winner of Rupaul’s Drag Race. I saw her on tour with other season 9 queens this summer; her lip-sync of “Praying” by Kesha was perhaps, no lie, the most moving musical performance I saw in 2017. She embodied and embraced the reality so many of us face as women and queer people: victims and victors, agents and acted-on, mired in both hope and fear on a near-constant basis. It was transcendent.

Ramen

On a less serious note, D.C. is, like many cities, in the midst of a ramen craze right now, and if I’m honest I spent an inordinate amount of the year benefiting from it! And from the fact that a few places will even deliver ramen right to your house if you have the right app! (Also, there’s a lot to be said about cultural appropriation, the devaluing of non-Western food traditions, etc. in these contexts; I am trying to keep learning and will leave the explanations to folks smarter than I.)

Tank And The Bangas

I called this band the “best band in America” all year and I meant it. Their Tiny Desk concert was both an exhale (after the stress of running the Contest itself) and an inhale (before an unrelenting and enthralling month of tour with them). I saw Tank and the Bangas perform eight times in 2017; their positivity never got stale, their exuberance never felt forced, their passion never wavered. They sound like no one else I know. Goddamn, I love this band. The best band in America!

Therapy

I went back to therapy this year after not really going since childhood but thinking about finding someone to talk to and being jealous of friends’ casual off-hand remarks about their therapists for years. I went mostly because of this thing that happened last December involving some brutal unkindness from a loved one that was so vicious yet unexpected it left me feeling startled and knocked off course, like having been shoved from a great height and, after shaking off the dust, finding myself very alone. I thought it was a minor disturbance but it actually burrowed pretty deep into me and I wound up freaked out about a bunch of stuff, so long story short: I finally found someone to talk to.

I will save my breath about how mental health care should be accessible and de-stigmatized. I will say that therapy made my year better in a lot of ways; mostly, in that I had a dedicated time and place to work, patiently, on some things that felt really paralyzing. (It also taught me some useful concepts, like the idea of psychological safety and the Buddhist teaching of the “second arrow,” which I then snuck into some of my favorite writing I did this year. Win-win.) Nothing is fixed, obviously; therapy has felt mostly like a drawn-out emotional root canal all year, which is to say, I still nurse the same ache that sent me. But I’m grateful and I am learning and it’s starting to feel less self-indulgent to want to address my bullshit. I recommend therapy to everyone! If you’re interested in talking to someone, here are some affordable resources.

Iced Americanos

There are precious few things that get M out of bed early: the promise of imminent skiing; a genuine emergency; and coffee. I’ve relied heavily on the third one this year to squeeze in a half-hour of quality time with him before I go to the office. Listen I know this is cheesy as h*ck but it truly improves the overall quality of my day! Anyway the iced coffee at our corner coffee shop is not for me but the baristas take great care with their espresso shots so I started getting iced americanos instead and now I have been converted to an iced americano grrrl, even in winter (true to my New England roots). And a morning-coffee-with-your-boyfriend grrrl. Gross! I can’t help it.

Creative collaboration

Madeline Zappala is both a dear friend of mine and a total badass artistic inspiration to me. I was so glad she asked me to help edit her magazine, Reflections on the Burden of Men – and that she (and her co-creator, Laura) accepted a short piece I wrote about being disgusted by sexuality, or maybe more so by the insistence that women perform it for patriarchy, feeling isolated from my body, wanting to not want what I want. Editing the writing in the magazine was a dream! And watching it come together was so instructive. Go get a copy! (Or just pick up some unsolicited dick pic stickers, a real thing they made.)

2017 was a pretty exciting year for Keeper, too. Between January and August – when Sam moved back to Texas and Keeper became a project with a less coherent identity – we played amazing shows and put out a tape and met a lot of really lovely people. I learned a lot.

Female solidarity

I never got the appeal of using the phrase “work wife” to describe a lady BFF in your office before this year (too close to “girl crush,” which, I maintain, is basically homophobic; plus, who wants to replicate the capitalist heteropatriarchy of the marriage-industrial complex in your office friendships, of all places?!) but now I have two and I totally get it. There’s really something special about working alongside women like me, and having them be people who are willing to take a lunch break or walk to Starbucks (lol) so we can encourage each other through weird career stuff, or vent about male incompetence, or gush about new music, or interrogate what it means to care about feminism or justice or epistemology or whatever in 2017, which is mostly what we did. Some of the most enriching and important conversations I had this year were these; we often joked about the positions of authority we’d have, the raises we’d get, the articles we’d be assigned if only the People In Charge heard the conversations we had around cafeteria lunch tables!

Of course, there was also the mere fact of having lived with three other women throughout this year, creating a home that was a constant space for frank discussions about shared oppression; there were days of 8+ hours of GChat sessions that formed a virtual safe space; there were the year’s albums that spoke to the bizarre, incredible realities of womanhood. And all of this happening in the context of women coming forward about sexual assault, women journalists reporting on it, all of us whispering #MeToo on the internet. It was a year that, for me, fostered a consistent and palpable sense of solidarity among us. I needed it.

The “Thief” music video:

Lastly: this is, maybe, the most wonderfully terrible music video I have ever seen. I first heard about this on the now-defunct podcast This Week Had Me Like, which I sorely miss, and now it’s rare that my housemates and I go more than a month without watching it communally. It’s histrionic in the best way, nonsensical, totally delightful. Thank you, Ansel Elgort.

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starsforastro · 7 years

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part 1 → best friend! sanha

↳ hahahaaaaaahksaldjflajsdfklasdf I thought it would be the greatest idea if i made pt2 to that bff sanha bUT THIS TIME yA’LL ARE DEVELOPING A CRUSH ON EACH OTHER MAN i”M A GENIUSSS

guys this is too cute i’m cringing omg eSP THE LAST PART AHHH

don’t sue me, this is the Classic™ The-Both-Of-You-Had-No-Idea-You-Like-Each-Other type of story

bECAUSE iT FITS

SANHA CAN BE A LITTLE SLOW ABOUT THIS

AND YOU CAN TOO BECAUSE LIKE

no experience,,,,,

pLuS LoVE IS gRoSS

hah

haahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

the first time you sort of changed in Sanha’s eyes was when he caught you in the middle of a volunteer event he couldn’t make to

he couldn’t go because his band had a gig the same night and he had to practice

but the other boys decided to walk to the nearest froyo place

which just so happened to pass the park where you were volunteering at

so as he scanned the people milling around the small fun fair, he caught sight of you plopped right in the middle of all these toddlers and five-year olds laughing and covered in glitter, glue, googly eyes and silly string

where the silly string came from, he doesn’t know

(from your other friend working at some other booth)

aND BOY DID HE TURN SOFT

kids were hanging off of you, walking up to you to ask how to make a certain craft, and you had the biggest smile on your face

laksjdflkasdflad

it definitely didn’t go unnoticed by the other boys

jinjin and rocky decided to spare him and just looked at each other, made a face and continued walking

bin barked a high pitched laugh and ran after rockjin in giggles

BUT MJ AND EUNWOO AIN’T HAVING ANY OF IT

poor sanha didn’t even notice the other’s shenanigans

as he’s unconsciously watching you, a soft smile spread across his features

this lovestruck boy

mJ SAW THAT AND SCREAMED

THAT’S WHEN SANHA FINALLY BROKE HIS GAZE

(eunwoo got a picture of that Soft Smile™ tho)

plus a couple of bystanders looked at the commotion that was mj’s squealing and sanha’s protests that nothing happened

“DON’T LIE TO ME, I SAW EVERYTHING!” mj screamed

“nO nONONONO HYUNG YOU’RE WRONG”

eunwoo’s just cackling in the corner

“YOU LIKE Y/MMMGJHHMMM”

sanha clamped his hand on the eldest’s mouth and dragged him away

you sort of just watched all of that in amusement when you noticed the kids turning their attention to the noise, not understanding any of it

“HI SANHA! HI MJ!” you called out, waving your hand in the air

sanha’s grip on mj slackened as he was caught off guard, eyes widening

mj laughed and grabbed eunwoo’s hand before sanha ran after them

sanha sulked the entire time to and from the froyo place

and completely forgot about the incident during the gig that night

as for you and your view of sanha,,,,

unfortunately began developing when one of your friends said she likes sanha

you were 100% supportive!!

well, 99.90%

that .10% was because it’s s an h a

gross :P

so ya kno

life goes on

ya’ll still bffffsssss

and one day when you and your friends were just hanging out at your house

he comes over

with plums from his mom’s plum tree

because she told him to bring it over

so when you opened the door,

he shoved the box into your face, making you flinch and him laughing obnoxiously

“SANHA”

“here you go, plums from our tree~”

your face brightens because their plums are super sweet and delicious and you just take the box and “omg yes thanks sanha <3”

BOI HE TURNED SOFT SAVE HIM PLEASE

so he’s just smiling dorkily like “you’re welcome”

you don’t notice ofc bc sanha’s always weird

you smiled back and a happy feeling bloomed across your chest

little did you know all your friends were giggling into their hands at your interactions

so when he unknowingly danced off the porch when you closed the door

all your friends waited until he disappeared and pandemonium erupted

“YO”

“YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO”

“HE LIKES YOU”

“YOU LIKE HIM”

“YOU TWO ARE SO CUTE”

you’ve heard this before and was not amused

“why can’t we just be bes-”

“YOU KNOW THAT’S THE MOST RIDICULOUS EXCUSE EVER”

“WHY IS IT THAT IN THE STORIES, BEST FRIENDS ALWAYS FALL IN LOVE?”

“BECAUSE THEY’RE STORIES”

you noticed your friend who had a crush on sanha sitting their quietly and your face fell

“um,”

she looked up and smiled weakly, knowing exactly what you were gonna ask

“yeah I liked him, but it’s so obvious he doesn’t have any interest in me and… idk, it’s cliche, but he likes you (y/n).”

“even if he doesn’t know it yet”

and for that coming from her?

you couldn’t sleep for three days

so as life stilllll passseddd

and nothing changed too much

except for the nagging feeling in the back of both of your minds every time you hung out

which is all the time

you kept being best friends

roaming seoul

swinging your hands violently

pigging out on french fries

reenacting Singing in the Rain with streetlights when you walk down a more quiet street

falling asleep on each other when he and astro had late night practices and stayed back in the studio

fretting about homework

“hey sanha did you do the english home—”

“OH SHOOT WE HAD ENGLISH HOMEWORK?”

it’s just

you don’t remember him being that endearing

he’s usually a little sht

and did you always yearn for him?

like ofc you’d find any opening to just talk to him

but now you actually can’t stop thinking?/?kldjsalfja//ALAkdsFS???

aHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

GROSS

even when senior year homecoming came around,

and sanha asked you out by jokingly singing to you in tHE HALLWAYS

WITH HIS GUITAR

TO ASK YOU TO THE DANCE

he was a dork about it don’t worry, nothign serious

the both of you thought n o t h i n g o f i t

just bursting into giggles when sanha finished his song with a bag of french fries from the diner

and while everyone was swooning

you two were lost in your own world, making jokes about ways he could’ve asked better

it didn’t even cross your mind once that a month or so ago,, sanha was gushing about his crush

so why didn’t he ask them?

fast forward to the dance, the two of you spent half the time on the dancefloor, the other half walking around the school, just talking

cue the cliche where the both of you heard a loud crash somewhere nearby and grabbed the other for dear life

heartbeats pressed against each other,

his head buried in your neck

and when nothing appeared

you slowly pried yourself out of each other’s arms

and your eyes caught

then your breathing hitched because--

was he always this handsome?

guys this is too cliche omg, ya pretty much knows what’s gonna happen

your friends run down the hallways screaming to you that the homecoming royals are gonna be announced

and since sanha’s on the court

they yanked him down to the gym

sorta leaving you in the dust to take in what just happened

the friend who used to like sanha?

she smiled and gave you a wink before rushing after the stampede

leaving you a blushing mess in the middle of the dimming night

things really changed one day when sanha walked into a cafe with his other friends from the school’s Overwatch Club and thERE YOU WERE, PERFORMING?

like what????#!@!? he knew you asked for him to teach you guitar from time to time

but you aCTUALLY KNOW HOW TO PLAY NOW? WHAT?

he froze in the cafe’s doorway and his friends had to shove him to move

he couldn’t keep his eyes off you

but in the way that was because he’s shocked

cuz you two always broke out singing

and it wasn’t that your voice was bad or anything

it’s just your range isn’t too great

y e t y o u s o u n d a m a z i n g

and he’s sorta freaking out

like his heart started to race and all that sappy stuff

and he was like alksfja wtf

so he actually decided it would be better to choose a seat facing away from you

yet his friends took all those seats first and now he’s stuck with a seat giving him a completely full view of you

let’s just say he just spaced out

never removing his gaze from you

that is, , until his friend elbowed him in the ribs with a ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

“ohhohohohhhh san haaaaaaaaaaaaaa, don’t tell me you’re falling for you bff now, are you?”

heat immediately rushed to sanha’s face and his friends burst out cackling

oh no

sanha tried to be subtle about it, but this boy can never really keep his emotions in check

and you’d notice the second too long gazes and brushes against your arm

and your friends are pointing it out

and you’re like

ya’ll being extra and that’s wrong

poor sanha’s heart was always ready to burst whenever he’s with you now

but to make sure nothing changes this friendship the both of you treasure so much

you don’t do anything about it

never bringing it up

nor acting on feelings

especially shoving embarrassing moments to the back of your mind

it wasn’t too hard

because you two were still screaming about everything

but……..

prom rolls around

and you were asked by someone

he was asked by someone else

:))))

the Classic

you wanted to just hang out with your best friend,,,

but you had your date

and he has his

but every time you caught his eye from across the room?

you’ll make a face and he’ll laugh

throwing one back

so it wasn’t too bad

it was just you two goofing off again

so when prom ended

and your date’s parents picked them up

you stood in front of the venue, waiting for your parents

happy, exhausted, and maybe slightly disappointed you couldn’t spend prom with your best friend, but had fun nonetheless

as you studied the lights of the city

sanha snuck up to you and

“BOO”

you swung around the punched him in the gut

“(Y/N)!”

“YOU’RE THE ONE WHO SCARED ME”

he just laughed and settled to standing next to you as you waited for your parents

………..

“you had fun?”

“yeah….. you?”

“yeah. my date is pretty cool.”

“really?”

“they know how to dance—unlike someone”

asdfjlkasdf “excuse you”

his pretty laugh rang out again

you stole a couple of glances at him here and there and,,, when he finally caught you, a completely innocent face on him, wordlessly asking “is there something on my face?”

cocking his head cutely

which made the streetlights frame him like a halo

and his eyes sparkled

and that’s when you knew

you’ve fallen in love with your best friend

#sanha #yoon sanha #astro #astro scenarios #astro imagine #sanha scenario #sanha imagine #sanha fluff #astro fluff #bff sanha #best friend sanha #astro scenario #astro fanfic #sanha x reader #crush sanha #*writing #writing #fellow 00er #mine

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citizenscreen · 7 years

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Darren McGavin‘s agents called him to say that ABC had purchased the rights to a yet-to-be-published book called The Kolchak Papers. The script by Richard Matheson was in its early stages and McGavin was the intended star of the would-be movie. “ListenABC,” McGavin’s representative said, “it’s this crazy story about a reporter and some kind of monster in Vegas. You don’t want to do this.” (McGavin) Darren McGavin read the script then gave it to his wife to see if she agreed with him. The consensus was, “it’s terrific.”

The NIght Stalker aired on ABC on January 11, 1972. Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey and produced by Dan Curtis, best known at the time for Dark Shadows, The Night Stalker became ABC’s highest rated original TV movie and the most widely viewed TV movie to date. The movie did so well, in fact, that it was released as a theatrical vehicle abroad. One thing we can say about audiences in 1972 is that they had fabulous taste because The Night Stalker is indeed terrific.

If you’re a fan of horror or a fan of film noir The Night Stalker will grab you from the opening scene. “This is a story about the greatest manhunt in history,” we hear Carl Kolchak’s voice say over a tape recorder, “Judge for yourself the story’s believability.” Kolchak is an investigative reporter and the crimes he mentions in the opening are the work of a vampire. We learn this in flashback with definitive film noir style as he retells the incredible story. If you think this can’t happen where you live Kolchak will prove you wrong despite what the authorities might say or how hard the powers that be try to deny the story, which inevitably happens.

As this story goes – there are a series of murders plaguing the Las Vegas strip. All of the victims have had their bodies drained of blood. The suspect’s true identity is discovered by the authorities as one Janos Skorzeny who’s been suspected of blood-draining murders in the past. They even corner Skorzeny when he attempts to rob a hospital of its blood shooting him several times without effect. But there’s no mention of vampirism until Carl Kolchak researches vampire lore and puts the pieces together. Skorzeny has super human strength, he is able to outrun cars and motorcycles, he has the taste for blood thing and so on. Despite these facts, however, Kolchak’s editor, Anthony Vincenzo (Simon Oakland) thinks that the existence of a vampire is ridiculous. Vincenzo is often exasperated by Kolchak who never plays by the rules. The two have great chemistry and forge a dependable friendship in between bouts of shouting, which make for enjoyable exchanges at every turn.

Lo and behold after many arguments and suspension of duties, Kolchak is able to convince the police that the perpetrator is a vampire and along with FBI agent, Bernie Jenks (played by Ralph Meeker) he goes to Skorzeny’s lair to destroy him. Kolchak is able to put a stake through Skorzeny’s heart as he’d read it’s the sure-fire way to kill that particular type of monster. This happens after a fierce battle during which several other vampire rules are proven true. For instance, Skorzeny is repelled by a cross and is afraid of sunlight, just as we thought he’d be. By the way, the music by Bob Cobert in The Night Stalker is great as was the case with so many made-for-TV movies of the 1970s, but particularly noteworthy during the final fight scene is that some of the music from House of Dark Shadows (1970) was used.

Luckily for Kolchak he had a credible witness at hand during his destruction of the vampire and yet – adding insult to injury – he is arrested for murder. There is nothing the authorities will do to quell the story of a vampire loose in Vegas. And when Kolchak’s full story appears in the papers it is a different, falsified account of the happenings, which is why our hero is an embittered man telling a tale of deceit as well as murder. Kolchak tells a cautionary tale where the people’s right to know is way down the list of priorities for those who hold all the power.

Darren McGavin delivers such an unforgettable portrayal of Carl Kolchak that he alone is enough of a reason to watch this movie and its descendents. Kolchak is unrelenting in his pursuit of a breaking story. He gets “in” with the beat cops, bribes any and all players who can give him information and is funny as all heck. His voiceovers as the story progresses are a definite plus if you like that sort of thing – and I do. Not only is it reminiscent of noir, it’s a terrific storytelling technique that helps move the pace along and tells us a lot about the character.

Fans of horror might find a bit of camp where the monster element is concerned in The Night Stalker, but if you’re a fan of classics the camp just adds to the enjoyment. Kolchak even mentions Lugosi at one point putting to rest any doubt you may have about who was/is the definitive vampire in popular culture. Barry Atwater plays Skorzeny with flair adding the requisite growls and hisses to the proceedings following is some famous footsteps.

Also in the cast is Carol Lynley who plays Kolchak’s girlfriend, Gail Foster. Charles McGraw plays to type as the Police Chief, Larry Linville of M*A*S*H fame plays a doctor and the great Elisha Cook, Jr. shows up in a small role. Another special treat for classic fans is the appearance of Ralph Meeker. Interestingly – to further the film noir ties in The Night Stalker, which really is more noir than it is horror – both McGavin and Meeker have played Mickey Spillane’s fictional detective Mike Hammer. Meeker played Hammer in Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly (1955), and McGavin in Mike Hammer the TV series (1958-19959).

Given the success of The Night Stalker it’s no surprise that Carl Kolchak would be back for another dangerous investigation. Our tenacious, imperfect hero turns in another memorable round with a supernatural villain in The Night Strangler, which originally aired on ABC on January 16, 1973. Dan Curtis takes the helm for this vehicle and delivers another quick-paced, humor-laced movie with a terrific lot of players including Wally Cox, Jo Ann Pflug, Scott Brady, John Carradine, Al Lewis of The Munsters fame with the ultimate treat being Margaret Hamilton who plays a professor who’s an expert on elixirs. Back for another turn from the first movie are film noir elements and Simon Oakland as Tony Vincenzo.

Although he vowed never to mention the vampire story to anyone ever again after the last outing we see Kolchak trying to convince people of the story when The Night Strangler opens. Having been fired from the Vegas paper after the vampire fiasco, our investigative journalist finds himself in Seattle, Washington. Luckily, Vincenzo is in Seattle as well and hires Kolchak to cover a series of murders. This time the victims are exotic dancers who have been strangled with such incredible force that their necks are crushed. Also, each victim has had some of her blood removed with a syringe and each has traces of rotted flesh on her neck.

With the help of a historian/researcher (Wally Cox), Kolchak discovers that similar rash of killings have occurred every 21 years since 1889 with the series lasting 18 days each time. Recognizing that time is of the essence Kolchak presses the authorities to act, but as was the case in The Night Stalker, no one but Kolchak is eager to make the details of the murders public and they drag their feet. That’s especially true when Kolchak tells the police that the murderer is 144-year-old Civil War surgeon, Dr. Richard Malcolm (played by TV favorite Richard Anderson) who is killing to get his hands on the blood needed for his elixir of life, a youth potion that lasts 21 years at a time. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but it’s true!

Needless to say Carl Kolchak gets his man and the scoop. But once again he is fired along with Vincenzo because no one wants Seattle to know the murders were being committed by a corpse so the real story is once again suppressed. Those frustrations are expected, but we get another enjoyable final battle in this entry. This time Kolchak fights the should-be-long-dead Dr. Malcolm in a lost, Civil War-era city that lies hidden underneath Seattle. Malcolm lives, hides and performs his experiments in the hidden city, which is reminiscent of The Phantom of the Opera story and is just as sinister.

The Night Strangler proved almost as popular as its predecessor garnering strong ratings and eventually prompting ABC to order a TV series in lieu of a third movie, which was in the works. The third movie was to be set in New York as we see Kolchak and Vincenzo discussing at the end of The Night Strangler after they’re both fired in Seattle. Instead, the TV series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, features both McGavin and Oakland reprising their roles working for the Chicago Independent News Service. The premise for the series stayed close to the movies in that Kolchak seemed to have a talent for attracting crimes involving the supernatural to include werewolves, zombies and many other creatures of the night.

In the series Kolchak always has a hard time convincing Vincenzo that the criminals are not products of his imagination, but rather living (more or less), breathing creatures. Those exchanges between the two where Vincenzo loses his temper and Kolchak does what he wants anyway are favorite scenes of mine. Also enjoyable are the villains in the episode, which naturally come from classic stories. The first episode of the series features Jack the Ripper who is alive and well and back to his old tricks.

Although Kolchak: The Night Stalker aired for only one season, from 1974 to 1975 on ABC, it is highly recommended viewing. Many of the enjoyable elements of the movies make the transition to TV and far outshine what you may find on network TV today with few exceptions. Another short-lived series, Night Stalker was given a shot in 2005 with Stuart Townsend taking over the Kolchak role.

♦

I intended this post to be my submission to the Movie of the Week Blogathon hosted by Classic Film and TV Cafe, but alas I am quite late to the party. I didn’t want to ignore Kolchak completely, however, so I offer this as encouragement to the event, its host and Carl Kolchak all of which should not be ignored!

Movie of the Week: THE NIGHT STALKER and THE NIGHT STRANGLER Darren McGavin's agents called him to say that ABC had purchased the rights to a yet-to-be-published book called

#ABC Movie of the Week #Barry Atwater #Carol Lynley #Dan Curtis #Darren McGavin #Jo Ann Pflug #John Llewwellyn Moxey #Kolchak #Movie of the Week #Ralph Meeker #Richard Anderson #Simon Oakland #The Night Stalker #The Night Strangler #Wally Cox

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adrian-paul-botta · 6 years

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Romola (1924)

#lillian gish #romola #1924 #henry king #george eliot

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talhaghafoor2019-blog · 5 years

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GOOD MUSIC IS GOOD MUSIC

ROCKER GONE SOFT?

I mean, LA Opera’s “Hansel & Gretel” for pete’s sake, the children’s tale, now a holiday staple? And all that other classical stuff?

Well, “H&G“ rocks, baby. The first opera based entirely on a fairy tale, German composer Engelbert Humperdinck picked a Grimm one, and the brothers were indeed grim, I learned at the pre-concert lecture from LA Opera conductor James Conlon. Two of nine Grimm children (three died in childhood), they knew quite well the pain of hunger, and that is an important opening and backdrop to this story. And at the LA Opera community outreach lecture that afternoon at our main library here, I learned and saw how different the H&G interpretations can be.

You can have a really ugly witch (like in the film we saw), or one like this production’s Susan Graham who brought great comedic skills with her superb voice. (All the singers were outstanding, especially H & G and their father, there are only five, plus two minor parts).

The sets and the forest characters were magical, and I was completely entertained, in an adult way. You shouldn’t miss this one. See below.

Also at our main library last week, I caught another performance of their outstanding, always provocative and high quality Soundwaves concert series, which, as usual, was a shorter preview of a later performance at Disney Hall’s Zipper Hall, next Tuesday (not free). Outstanding pianist Gloria Cheng presented “Garlands for Steven Stucky,” the LA Phil’s composer in residence for decades who was greatly skilled and loved as a mentor.

And Sunday morning I was treated to a marvelous Ted talk-like program upstairs at the Laemmle Theatre downtown, mixing data mining with music interpretation by a marvelous string quartet, in a most intriguing way. What a great town.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:

LA OPERA: Hansel & Gretel (Engelbert Humperdinck ain’t no Puccini, Verdi or Strauss but H&G is considered his greatest work and Strauss dug him so much he conducted the premier, a smashing success, and he also ain’t the schmaltzy crooner who stole his name in the ‘60s, but don’t get too distracted from the superb Wagnerian score by the 12-foot magical characters on stage, the fantastical sets and special effects of this production and it’s also got laughs, see above), Sun 2 p.m., Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, downtown LA, $16-$294.

RECOMMENDED:

TONIGHT! – LA PHILHARMONIC: Stanley Kubrick’s Sound Odyssey (Kubrick loved him some classical music scores for his films, Beethoven to Bartok, Ligeti to Penderecki, can’t imagine “2001” or “A Clockwork Orange” without those signatures, you will see a string of clips from his great ones, hosted by none other than “Clockwork’s” Alex, Malcolm McDowell, and hear the music live and fabulous from the LA Phil, seems like a good night’s entertainment), Thurs, Fri 8 p.m., Sun 2 p.m., Walt Disney Concert Hall, downtown LA, $20-$204.

TONIGHT! – PATTI LABELLE (would I send you all the way out to Temecula, yes I would to see the great Patti Labelle, sometimes not included in the pantheon of the greatest soul voices ever but she most definitely is, put her on your bucket list, you may not have seen her blow minds in the ‘70s on tour with her outrageous trio LaBelle, I did, straight from the New York Continental baths scene, glammed up in what I dubbed the Crustaceans from Outer Space silver outfits, it’s when I learned there were gay people in Albuquerque, what a party that was, you may not have seen her take the stage in LA as the Tina Turner “replacement” Acid Queen in the one-off all-star “Tommy,” I did, no one missed Tina I’ll tell ya, but you can always see my other sweetest performance by her, you know how people say so-and-so could sing the phone book, or the alphabet and it would be fabulous, well she did sing the ABCs song gospel-style on Sesame Street 2/19/99, 11+M views, and you should watch, I did, I do, pretty often, good for the soul, but call Pechanga if you really want to go because it may be sold out but it is her only show in the area, so, bucket list), 7 p.m., Pechanga Resort & Casino, Temecula, $69 up.

JACK SHELDON (great trumpeter-singer-actor who was part of the ‘50s West Coast jazz scene and has been performing ever since in so many fields, this is his birthday party for himself, turning 87, famous voices singing in “Schoolhouse Rock” including “I’m Just a Bill” and the guy who explained the electoral college — I think he needs a re-do now explaining how we can get rid of it — and if you see him live you will not only catch a legend with the best sidemen but you will wonder if he missed his calling at stand-up, he is sooo bawdy funny), Fri, Sat 8:30 p.m., Catalina Bar & Grill, Hollywood, $25-$30.

I SEE HAWKS IN LA, MEAT PUPPETS (two great bands with very different styles and right, another long journey for great music I’m sending you on, the Hawks do play locally somewhat regularly but not Phoenix’s legendary Meat Puppets so maybe you’re coming back from Thanksgiving anyway past Joshua Tree, do yourself a favor and dew drop inn), Sat 9 p.m., Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace, Joshua Tree, $25.

GLORIA CHENG, “Garlands for Steven Stucky” (see above), Tues 8 p.m., the Colburn School of Music, Zipper Concert Hall.

THE SKATALITES (they’re still around? didn’t they invent ska in the mid-’60s? maybe, named it anyway, were really active only 1964-’65 but so influential, worked with all the best Jamaican producers and players, the 10 founders were a who’s who of JA music, Jackie Mitoo, Don Drummond, Tommy McCook, Rolando Alphonso et al, started playing together in ‘55, all gone now save Lester Sterling and Doreen Shaffer, reformed and touring the last 35 years so I believe you will get the real deal), Wed 9 p.m., the Echoplex, Echo Park, $20.

HOUSE OF VIBE ALL STARS (ordinarily I never recommend something I haven’t seen but the boys at Harvelle’s, with the perfect resume for taking over this nearly 90-year-old blues club in downtown Santa Monica from longtime mogul Seven, keep telling me this is a great show I must see so I am recommending it based on great sources and promise to go so I can give a personal assessment, meanwhile if you go and you hate it I will personally give you your 5 bucks back), Wed 9 p.m., Harvelle’s, Santa Monica, $5.

ELVIS COSTELLO (Elvis Costello!), next Thurs, 7 p.m., the Wiltern, Mid-Wilshire, $125-$240 (too much! but it’s your money).

A LYRIC SO GOOD I WISH I HAD THOUGHT OF IT: “I’d rather go blind, boy, than to see you walk away from me.”

— (Etta James, Ellington Jordan, Billy Foster 1967)

Sung with such palpable, heart-wrenching emotion by the late great Etta James, it became an instant blues classic, covered by Beyonce (playing her in “Cadillac Ranch”), Clarence Carter (blind from birth), Koko Taylor, Little Milton, B.B. King and currently on the airwaves — remember airwaves? — a very credible version by Grace Potter.

But what an image. For a sighted person, is there a much bleaker future than to suddenly go blind? Think of it. I think about it, probably you have too, at least once. Your whole world would change. A pitch black world filled achingly with color memories, fading each day a little more. What worse could happen? And yet, the love-struck singer tells us, I’d choose it, rather than have eyes to witness the unbearable sight of you walking away from me. Has that ever been portrayed more powerfully, 13 words, in written word anywhere?

Charles Andrews has listened to a lot of music of all kinds, including more than 2,000 live shows. He has lived in Santa Monica for 32 years and wouldn’t live anywhere else in the world. Really. Send love and/or rebuke to him at [email protected]

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demitgibbs · 6 years

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Gus Kenworthy Talks Being a ‘Bad Gay,’ Hollywood Aspirations

Nobody reminds silver Olympic medalist Gus Kenworthy that he was in Sharknado 5, and it’s hard to tell how that makes him feel after I casually drop that nugget of info as you do if you’ve studied his IMDB page. “Global Swarming,” I say, naming the film’s subtitle. He laughs big. “Never before has anyone said that to me.”

It’s 9 a.m. when Kenworthy calls, and he’s either in serious-guy interview mode, a low-key (or sleepy?) version of his perky Instagram self – or he just rolled out of the air mattress he’s been snoozing on since recently moving to Los Angeles. If you’re an aspiring actor like Kenworthy, this is where you aspire. This is where Kenworthy will spend time writing his latest and greatest chapter, maybe host a game show or a talk show. (Whatever he does, let there be dogs, because Kenworthy loves dogs.) And he’s in the right place with the right man, his actor-boyfriend of three years, Matthew Wilkas. So, why not?

Before pursuing acting, Kenworthy gained global notoriety after taking silver in men’s slopestyle at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. But after the 26-year-old British-born freestyle skier came out as gay the following year in an interview with ESPN, he was recognized as an LGBTQ trailblazer for being one of only a few athletes to do so. This year, Wilkas and Kenworthy expressed their unabashed affection for each other during the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, when their televised kiss before his qualifying run in the men’s slopestyle became, like his triumphant sports career itself, a notable moment of visibility for LGBTQ athletes.

I spotted you in Detroit recently during a Stars on Ice performance, when you shot your interview with fellow Olympian and your good friend Adam Rippon, for Nightline. At the end of the show, fans swarmed you. Are you used to being recognized in public?

Yes and no. It stills seems strange, but I’ve gotten used to it. I got a little bit of recognition prior to the Olympics four years ago from skiing. And then when I came out, I feel like my platform definitely changed and grew, and it took a different shape in terms of the people who would approach me. It’s sort of been a slow grow, not completely overnight. It must be much more insane for Adam, because heading into this Games, he hadn’t been to another Games and his platform wasn’t super huge and now it’s insane. He had more growth than any other Olympian at the Games. That’s very much night and day.

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How do the conversations you have with fans change depending on if you’re at, say, a ski shop versus a gay bar?

At a ski shop it’s often like, “Oh, what’s up man? Where do you ski?” It’s pretty surface. Who comes up to me most are other gay guys and usually they’re really, really sweet and they say something really nice. And they’ll want a photo; it’s kind of a short exchange. Sometimes it’s more earnest, but often it’s not. And it definitely does happen a lot at gay bars.

What’s a not-earnest exchange like?

I think one type of interaction is like (models a fangirling vocal affect), “Oh my god! I love your Instagram! Can I take a photo?” And then like, “I saw you in the Olympics; can I have a photo?” Or another one: “Hey, just wanted to say thank you so much for coming out and for using your platform.” It’s just really, really, really sweet. It means a lot to me.

Adam told me he most identifies with Dorothy and Blanche. Which Golden Girl are you?

I mean, I’m Betty White.

You’re a Rose?

I don’t know. To be completely honest, I don’t watch Golden Girls, so I’m a bad gay. Honestly, it’s not a choice, it’s just, I never did. But I have an ongoing list of things that my boyfriend is like, “You’re a bad gay, you haven’t seen this.”

Where are you at now with your sexuality compared to when you first came out?

I’m in a way better place in my life. Right after, I won the silver medal I was not out. I was in a low point in my life too because it was sort of a time where I wanted to be out; I didn’t think it was a reality. Suddenly, I did have this elevated platform from the Olympics and the dogs (Kenworthy rescued a mother dog and her four puppies at the Winter Olympics in Sochi), and it sort of made me feel uncomfortable because I wasn’t being my true self. I just felt fake and had a boyfriend in the closet at the time. I wasn’t sharing him with my world, and vice versa, and I think that took a toll. So, I wasn’t in the best place.

Now, at this moment in my life, another Olympics just ended, I didn’t get a medal at this Games, but I still feel like I had a good season at the qualifying events in order to get to the Olympics. I still got to be at the Olympics and compete out loud and proud, and cheer on Adam and my other friends, and got to be who I am and represent myself and my country and my community and the things I believe in. It was an awesome experience. I don’t know what the next chapter of my life is, but I’m in LA right now and I’m planning on spending more time here and auditioning and trying to get into some acting and do TV hosting.

What are your acting aspirations?

I would love to be on Broadway. I would like to work on my voice, and maybe get it to a place where I feel confident with my singing so that I can do more theatrical-type stuff. It would be a dream to be on TV and in movies. Growing up, I did theater. My dream was to be an actor, not a skier.

Acting doesn’t always promise overnight success. Does that scare you?

No. I feel like I’ve had success in my sport and this is something I’m really into and passionate about and would love to pursue. I wanted it as a kid and then something else presented itself and I spent my life skiing, and I’m not done with it either completely, but this is a new thing. It’d be great and fun, and if it doesn’t (work out), it’s not the end of the world.

Will you compete in the next Olympics?

Maybe. I haven’t decided.

You’ve been a brand ambassador for H&M, for their recent Pride collection, and Head & Shoulders, for their “Shoulders of Greatness” campaign.

Actually, (the Header & Shoulders campaign) was a really cool experience because it was the very first time that there was ever a Pride flag in a TV commercial in a national commercial. So, it was cool and I was like, “Oh my god, that’s never happened.”

As an out gay man, what it’s like to partner with these LGBTQ-inclusive brands?

It’s amazing. It’s important brands align themselves with the LGBTQ community. LGBTQ people should be represented in every part of life, and so that’s also in the arts and in commercials and on billboards. Things shouldn’t just be catered to straight people and white people and men. So, it’s cool to do a campaign that highlights that and highlights me as a gay man.

Gus Kenworthy serves as Grand Marshal of Miami Beach Gay Pride 2018

You were recently the Pride grand marshal in Montreal and Miami Beach. What was your Pride message to the LGBTQ community?

I think that Pride is so important. It’s a moment for us as a community to celebrate who we are but also to look back on where we’ve come from. It’s important to remember the people who put their lives and their careers and their necks on the line to try and really, really fight for equality. And then also just to reflect on each of our own journeys, because every single LGBTQ person has struggled at some point in their life coming to terms with themselves and identifying themselves and embracing it and living their truth. It’s a hard thing to do. It’s a scary thing to do. But once you start doing it, there’s no other way to live.

What was your first Pride like?

A whole new world. I was with my very first boyfriend years and years and years ago and we happened to be in San Francisco because we were driving up to Vancouver from where he’s from, Colorado, and we woke up in San Francisco and it was Pride. We walked outside and there were naked people and painted people and Pride flags and people all getting ready for San Francisco Pride, and I was like, “What the f*ck?” I didn’t even know what it was. I was totally in the closet with him, and I remember being nervous to watch it but so excited. That was kind of my first Pride. But I definitely wasn’t embracing myself and proud of myself and enjoying Pride in the sense that it should be. New York Pride was the first time I was out and excited and wearing rainbow shit and cheering and screaming and dancing.

You recently attended Life Ball, the biggest charity event in Europe supporting people with HIV or AIDS. I heard people lose their shirts in flight en route to Vienna. This is a thing?

Yeah. Basically, there are no rules at all. Like, Kelly Osbourne did our in-flight announcement and as soon as the flight took off everyone was out of their seats, everyone was switching seats, walking around, people were drinking in the aisles of the flight straight out of the bottle.

Who wasn’t wearing a shirt? Or who was?

I think most people. I definitely didn’t know everyone on the flight. It was packed with people. But there was a whole congregation of people at the back of the plane, in the back galley. And they were flipping the lights on and off and playing music and people were drinking. And some shirts came off. And people were making out. And I think some people might have maybe gone into the bathroom together. It was really wild.

And what were you doing the whole time?

I was part of the process! I was in the back with people! And I don’t know, just chatting with people, meeting people, drinking, hanging out. Witnessing all that was going on around me.

Is it weird that this is your life now?

I mean, yeah, I guess. This was definitely different than anything I’ve ever been to. I was like, this is crazy. Definitely pretty surreal.

Which famous person that you’ve met has left the biggest impression on you?

In just short meetings like that I’m often starstruck and just excited to say “hey.” But I met Miley Cyrus after the last Olympics and we’ve become friends, sort of. We don’t hang out all the time, but she’s definitely had a big impact on me. I just think she’s amazing. I think she does a lot for the LGBTQ community, a lot for animals and she’s just a really nice, good, kind person.

You work with her charity, the Happy Hippie Foundation, which serves homeless youth and the LGBTQ community.

Yeah, I do. And I think that’s another way that she’s inspired me. I feel like I’ve tried to do a lot for charity because I just believe in it.

Tell me about your part in the new documentary Alone in the Game, about the lack of out LGBTQ athletes. And what do you think the future holds for LGBTQ athletes?

I talk about the importance of representation in sports. I think sports are kind of a scary place for LGBTQ people, but sports are meant to be about inclusion in their own right and putting aside differences to come together and play on a team.

I think it’s important to have representation, and the reason we haven’t had more gay people in sports isn’t because we haven’t had more gay people in sports, it’s because we haven’t had more gay people in sports that have been willing to put their life on the line and be open and honest about who they are. But there are gonna be more of us in the future. Whether it’s just because more and more people are gonna come out who are currently competing, or it’s the next generation.

I feel like there are so many kids who are out in high school, and it’s crazy because I’m not that much older than that and I don’t feel like that was an option for me. So, that’s great to see, and I think that will change things. But the only way to change mis-perception is just through visibility. The more that we can show that we’re here and we’re queer and we’re just as capable as anyone else, it will be better for everyone and more people will feel safe to come out.

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/08/09/gus-kenworthy-talks-being-a-bad-gay-hollywood-aspirations/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.tumblr.com/post/176808979975

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hotspotsmagazine · 6 years

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Gus Kenworthy Talks Being a ‘Bad Gay,’ Hollywood Aspirations

WATCH:

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How do the conversations you have with fans change depending on if you’re at, say, a ski shop versus a gay bar?

What’s a not-earnest exchange like?

Adam told me he most identifies with Dorothy and Blanche. Which Golden Girl are you?

I mean, I’m Betty White.

You’re a Rose?

Where are you at now with your sexuality compared to when you first came out?

What are your acting aspirations?

Acting doesn’t always promise overnight success. Does that scare you?

Will you compete in the next Olympics?

Maybe. I haven’t decided.

You’ve been a brand ambassador for H&M, for their recent Pride collection, and Head & Shoulders, for their “Shoulders of Greatness” campaign.

As an out gay man, what it’s like to partner with these LGBTQ-inclusive brands?

Gus Kenworthy serves as Grand Marshal of Miami Beach Gay Pride 2018

You were recently the Pride grand marshal in Montreal and Miami Beach. What was your Pride message to the LGBTQ community?

What was your first Pride like?

You recently attended Life Ball, the biggest charity event in Europe supporting people with HIV or AIDS. I heard people lose their shirts in flight en route to Vienna. This is a thing?

Who wasn’t wearing a shirt? Or who was?

And what were you doing the whole time?

I was part of the process! I was in the back with people! And I don’t know, just chatting with people, meeting people, drinking, hanging out. Witnessing all that was going on around me.

Is it weird that this is your life now?

I mean, yeah, I guess. This was definitely different than anything I’ve ever been to. I was like, this is crazy. Definitely pretty surreal.

Which famous person that you’ve met has left the biggest impression on you?

You work with her charity, the Happy Hippie Foundation, which serves homeless youth and the LGBTQ community.

Yeah, I do. And I think that’s another way that she’s inspired me. I feel like I’ve tried to do a lot for charity because I just believe in it.

Tell me about your part in the new documentary Alone in the Game, about the lack of out LGBTQ athletes. And what do you think the future holds for LGBTQ athletes?

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/08/09/gus-kenworthy-talks-being-a-bad-gay-hollywood-aspirations/

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placetobenation · 6 years

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So far I have been talking about more recent discoveries of mine, but today I am going back to one of my very first and most long standing wrestling loves.

I have been enamoured with Michelle McCool since I first saw her all the way back on the 2004 Diva Search. Was it the Southern accent? The dominant Diva Dodgeball performance? Who knows. But I fell instantly, so it’s clear that there was never really any hope for me.

Lucky for me she turned into a bomb ass wrestler.

The strangest thing about this is that more people don’t seem to think that is the case. The Internet Wrestling Community, to invoke such a thing, was decidedly not enamoured with her at the time, which is weird because she was basically one of us. She was pretty much a lowkey indy workrate geek in WWE, years before being an indy workrate geek in WWE was cool.

I mean, if you like workrate for workrate’s sake (and people do claim to when they praise Cesaro or whoever to high heaven), then Michelle is your dude. She wasn’t much of a promo, she kind of came off like a beautiful blonde robot a lot of the time, but damn, that was a beautiful blonde robot that could wrestle. From when she started wrestling regularly in 2008 until she retired in 2011 I’d say she accumulated more good matches than any of the other women at the time. She was a machine.

In more ways than one. My absolute favourite thing about Michelle McCool is that she wrestles like The Terminator.

Michelle, on offense, is relentless. REE. LENT. LESS. As soon as the bell rang she would just swarm. She was always attacking, always moving forward, always smothering you with her offense. It was overwhelming. It’s a random connection to make, but it’s something that drew me to Stan Hansen when I first started watching his matches (and I think Stan Hansen is the second greatest wrestler I’ve ever seen) and it’s something I’m just realizing now that I see in Michelle as well. They both come at you like the God Dang Terminator.

A lot of the time Divas matches get tagged with being too choreographed. You can see the strings, see a certain level of co operation between them. Let me tell you, once she turned heel, Michelle McCool never looked like she was cooperating with anyone in the ring. Almost to the point where she looks UN-cooperative. There are times where the babyface she’s wrestling will try to get some space or hit a move and Michelle will just swat them away and keep beating them down, as if to say “No no, you gotta do better than that.” And it forces them to really wrestle control back from her, in the purest sense of the word. She makes a babyface EARN every single piece of offense they get. Again, just like Hansen did.

They are also tied for the best, most vicious knee drops of any wrestlers I’ve ever seen, so yes Michelle McCool is the female Stan Hansen. I WILL die on this hill, do not at me. (Actually please do at me, hit me up, I love feedback.)

A lot of Michelle’s offense was pretty tight actually. She’d take people’s heads off with that Big Boot of hers. Or knee people’s heads into oblivion up against the barricade wall. She bent Melina into all sorts of shapes. She straight up murdered Eve Torres on some random Smackdown. And she once gave Mickie James a Knee Trembler that was so sick it made Mickie’s head spin around like she was in the fucking Exorcist.

The thing that cracks me up about Michelle’s Hansenesqe style is that (just like Stan!) she’d use it no matter who she was wrestling. She’d boss around girls like Kelly Kelly or Eve Torres, sure. Maria Kanellis is whom Michelle had turned heel on in the first place in a never ending Triple H-style beatdown (somewhere, right now, today, Triple H is still beating up Ric Flair on Raw and Michelle is still beating up Maria on Smackdown), and for the next six months or so Maria was Michelle’s personal bitch, just getting pummeled by her every time. But Michelle would also work the same way with bigger and more experienced opponents too like Natalya or Beth Phoenix. She was the Terminator and anyone was fair game. Just try to stop her.

(With one exception, which is so absurd that I have to mention the fact that Tiffany, of all the people on earth, always had the jump on Michelle and would dominate her in a way that nobody else was able to. This is so absurd I brought it up to Taryn Terrell when I met her in New Orleans and she couldn’t even disagree. I have no explanation as to why this should be, but believe me, it be.)

Anyway, this relentless style of offense lead her so beautifully in the direction of a little lady known as Melina. As I went into last week, Melina was the scariest person in the universe, and this held true even as a babyface in 2009 when she got traded to Smackdown. The first time they face off Michelle goes into her usual Beast Mode and starts beating the shit out of her – but Melina turns around and BEATS THE SHIT OUT OF HER RIGHT BACK. And Michelle freaks out and retreats, and that simple moment was SO HUGE to me because of how dominant she had been up until that point. If Michelle the God Dang Terminator is taking bumps in fear when Melina LOOKS at her funny, this shit is well and truly the fuck on.

When you talk about Michelle and Melina, you have to talk about the match they had at Night of Champions 2009. This match was too good. Literally, “too good”. That’s what Michelle and Melina were told by agents when they got to the back afterwards, that they can’t be wrestling like that because it looked too good, they were hitting each other too hard and they were showing up the boys. (THE DIVAS GOT IN ACTUAL TROUBLE IF THEY DARED TO HAVE GOOD MATCHES OR PUNCH EACH OTHER REALLY HARD. FUCK THIS COMPANY.)

The thing about that particular PPV match is that it’s basically a bomb-throwing indy spotfest style match squeezed into a six minute Divas match. I don’t know how more obvious it could be that Michelle McCool was a student of wrestling, but the evidence is abundant. Dudes, she used AJ Styles’ Styles Clash as a finisher when he was World Champion of TNA, their “competition”. Before that, it was Christopher Daniels’ Angels Wings, which she called the Wings of Love. She even used the heel hook as a finisher as well, and using a move as realistic and visually… small as that shows that she must have been a bit of an MMA geek as well. Michelle even regularly used Daniel Bryan’s signature heel refrain from the indies, telling referees, “I’ve got ’til five!” and popping me every time.

Michelle was never scared to bring in these outside elements and try new things (and remember that TNA and indy wrestling were treated VERY differently by WWE back then). And yet it’s not like you’d ever peg Michelle McCool as an indy wrestling aficionado, because she never worked indies and came in through the Diva Search. She was a Barbie doll, not a “real wrestler” and all that bullshit trash.

Perceptions are funny things, and I think in Michelle’s case perceptions of who she is have hurt her in a way that I don’t think is justified when you actually examine her work. She was a fucking wrestler. (And like, truly, if she really did supposedly have so much booking power because she was dating the Undertaker, you’d think she’d be able to book herself in a match that went longer than 90 seconds every once in a while. But I digress.)

I’ve been speaking mainly of her singles run as a heel, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that on one beautiful day in the lives of Michelle, Layla and myself, they put Michelle and Layla together as a tag team. And then kept them there. Be still my beating heart.

I really think Michelle McCool needed Layla. Here she was, the wrestling robot, having good matches but not doing a lot outside of the ring. Enter Layla, the wrestling goofball, and suddenly the magic starts happening. Layla brought all her stooging and bumping and goofiness to the act, and not only that but she brought those things out of Michelle as well. As the God Dang Terminator she rarely looked vulnerable or showed too much ass, but as part of Laycool she was bumping and stooging around with the best of them. She also developed this great expression of pure fear, where she would look up under the ropes into the ring at Beth Phoenix or whoever in abject terror, knowing her goose was cooked, which was a level of vulnerability she was never able to show before.

Laycool Michelle was a more well rounded Michelle, I feel. But at the same time, when they needed to get their heat back there was Michelle to turn around and Big Boot someone’s effing head off, and suddenly they were on top again. She was such a beast that she gave them instant credibility, no matter how preposterous they were or how much they sold.

Even her promos and skits got way better once she started doing all the ridiculous, over the top Laycool bullshit. Her and Layla almost immediately fell into their annoying Mean Girl patter, finishing each other’s sentences and overlapping and generally being awful, awful people. You can see it being emulated today when the IIconics cut promos, and it works because it’s such a wholly unlikeable, unpleasant way to act. Laycool are the furthest thing from nWo-style cool heels, and I love them for that.

So my point is, in every aspect Michelle was improved and enhanced as a result of hooking up with Layla (and vice versa), and Laycool was a great, great tag team act. For anyone participating in the Place To Be Nation Greatest WWE Tag Teams Ever project (which should be all of you, get involved!) I hope you take a good, hard look at Laycool.

I will certainly be taking a good, hard look at Laycool in a future piece because I have a LOT more to say about their run as a tag team and their eventual break up. Believe me. But I’m going to leave Michelle here for the minute. I feel like there’s so much more I could say about this woman, I have loved her for so long, she was such a beast of a wrestler and she just had a ridiculous amount of good matches. A true workrate candidate. My girl.

Now I held the next episode back a week, for reasons, but it means I’ll be going from someone I fell in love with in 2004, to someone I fell in love with a couple of months ago. And how!

Check it out: Michelle & Alicia Fox vs Melina & Gail Kim (Smackdown, June 26th 2009) Melina vs Michelle McCool – Women’s Title (The Bash 2009) Michelle & Layla vs Melina & Eve (Smackdown, July 10th 2009) Michelle McCool vs Melina – Women’s Title (Night of Champions 2009) Michelle McCool vs Eve Torres (Smackdown, October 9th 2009) Michelle McCool vs Tiffany (Smackdown, March 12th 2010) Michelle McCool vs Mickie James (Smackdown, April 16th 2010) Michelle McCool vs Beth Phoenix – Women’s Title Extreme Makeover (Extreme Rules 2010) Laycool vs Kelly Kelly & Tiffany (Superstars, July 8th 2010) Laycool vs Beth Phoenix & Kelly Kelly (Superstars, December 23rd 2010)

#IFTTT #Place to Be Nation

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fashiontrendin-blog · 6 years

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Cher's Fabulous Journey From Camp Diva To Serious Actress And Back Again

http://fashion-trendin.com/chers-fabulous-journey-from-camp-diva-to-serious-actress-and-back-again/

Cher's Fabulous Journey From Camp Diva To Serious Actress And Back Again

Of all the pop stars who have attempted to act, Cher’s track record is arguably the best. “Silkwood.” “Mask.” “The Witches of Eastwick.” “Moonstruck.” “Mermaids.” “If These Walls Could Talk.”

As her post-Sonny & Cher solo career waxed and waned in the ’80s and early ’90s, Cher’s movie career flourished ― a true achievement, given the ostentatious displays that had made her a walking glitter bomb since the mid-’60s. Shedding her eccentricities in a way that many pop stars cannot, Cher was able to transform onscreen time and again, so much so that she won an Oscar after uttering one of the most quotable lines in cinema history.

But when Cher out-glittered herself in 1998 with her mammoth “Believe” comeback, her acting career atrophied. At 52, her diva status had become mythological, even a bit comical. She was too decadent to disappear into the same down-home movie roles, and Hollywood no longer saw her as a profitable actress. Cher played along with the joke, though, portraying exaggerated versions of herself (see: “The Player,” “Will & Grace,” “Stuck on You”) even when she wasn’t actually playing herself (see: “Burlesque”).

That tradition continues today. Cher is the grande dame of the new “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again,” making a flamboyant eleventh-hour entrance that only someone of her renown could pull off. (She plays Ruby, a famous singer who has a thorny relationship with her daughter Donna, portrayed by Meryl Streep.)

But as we relish Cher’s septuagenarian divadom, it’s easy to forget how we got here. We got here because Cher commanded maximum respect at a critical time in her career, challenging anyone who assumed her pop panache would prevent her from becoming a great actress capable of playing everyday women experiencing everyday struggles.

So let’s revisit just how Cher became the greatest pop-actor of them all, and why she maintains that superlative even if she’s graduated from Hollywood’s leading-lady graces.

Getty/Alamy

The Beginning

“Chastity” (1969)

To trace Cher’s acting ambitions, we have to go back to 1967, when Sonny & Cher’s musical comedy “Good Times” flopped. Wanting to prove the “I Got You Babe” duo could cut it in the film world, Sonny Bono wrote her first solo lead: the title role in “Chastity,” an 83-minute oddity about a free-spirited drifter who talks to herself in public and manipulates men’s weaknesses to get ahead.

This was Sonny & Cher’s bid to appeal to young counterculture audiences who had deemed the duo square after Bono bemoaned the era’s sex and drugs. “Chastity,” released in June 1969, tried to be a gritty derivative of the French New Wave, packing big ideas ― Bono apparently said it was about society’s sudden “lack of manhood” and “the independence women have acquired but don’t necessarily want” ― into a whiplash-inducing downer involving a lesbian romance and childhood molestation.

It was another flop — an especially embarrassing one for Cher, because she alone was the face of the project. But bad movies can be testaments to good actors’ skills. Cher is at ease in front of the camera, never letting her fame announce itself before she opens her mouth. The same qualities accenting all her best film work — a scrappy confidence that reads as a proverbial middle finger to anyone who crosses her — become the highlight of “Chastity.”

Too bad the experience drew her away from movies for 13 years, during which Cher released 11 solo albums and divorced the controlling Bono, finally escaping the Sonny & Cher brand.

“Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean” (1982)

In 1981, with her music career sputtering and her split from Bono six years in the rearview mirror, Cher trekked to New York to study acting with renowned teacher Lee Strasberg. Robert Altman, the celebrated director best known for “M*A*S*H” and “Nashville,” was casting the Broadway debut of Ed Graczyk’s play “Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean.” Altman gave Cher the part of Sissy, a wisecracking libertine employed at a diner in small-town Texas.

When Altman rehired the Broadway cast for his big-screen adaptation of “Jimmy Dean,” Cher’s movie career was reborn. The scope of the film, released in November 1982, mirrors that of the play, with a single set and overly theatrical dialogue. But Cher has one of the meatier roles, nailing a teary monologue about Sissy’s failed marriage that Altman shoots in revealing close-ups. Sissy is a vixen who uses her sultry appeal to mask self-doubt ― something Cher related to after her split from Bono. She crimps Sissy’s smile, revealing an impressive vulnerability as the character laughs through her pain.

“Jimmy Dean” wasn’t a smash, but it provided a vote of confidence at a murky time for Cher, yielding her first Golden Globe nomination.

“Silkwood” (1983)

Cher’s next role was make or break: Can the queen of glamour become the fledgling of frump? For “Silkwood,” she was again working with one of Hollywood’s most gifted directors, Mike Nichols (“The Graduate,” “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”), playing a dowdy lesbian working at a nuclear power plant where employees are exposed to life-threatening levels of radiation.

It remains one of Cher’s best performances, even though she almost didn’t take the job because she was intimidated to act opposite Meryl Streep. (“When we did ‘Silkwood,’ I didn’t even know what a close-up was,” she told The New York Times.) Here, Cher achieved a stripped-down everydayness that defied the anthemic pop-rock for which she was known. Near the movie’s bittersweet end, Cher sits slumped in Streep’s arms, her outstretched legs growing more lax as her tears multiply.

“Silkwood” opened in December 1983, earning Cher’s first Oscar nomination and winning her a Golden Globe. In her acceptance speech at the Globes, she jabbed the “Hollywood moguls” who wouldn’t give her a chance before Altman came calling ― evidence that, no matter the doubts Cher had in accepting “Silkwood,” she knew how to trumpet her own worth.

“Mask” (1985)

If “Silkwood” proved Cher could transcend her “Half Breed” fantasia, “Mask” proved her acting was bankable. Taking a hiatus from music after the 1982 album “I Paralyze” failed to deliver a hit single, she paired up with another great director, Peter Bogdanovich (“The Last Picture Show,” “Paper Moon”), to portray Rusty Dennis, the real-life mother of a charming teenager (Eric Stoltz) with a cranial deformity.

Her third consecutive film to include a tear-stained breakdown, “Mask” was perfect for Cher. Rusty is a biker groupie with a penchant for drugs but an unwavering dedication to her son, letting Cher convey a contentment that softens the reality of Rusty’s strained life. As she would again in 1990′s “Mermaids,” Cher was playing a single mom who lives by her own rules (e.g., trying to get her son laid by picking up a girl at a bar). The role earned her a third Golden Globe nomination and the Cannes Film Festival’s prestigious best-actress prize, but she was snubbed by the Oscars.

No matter: “Mask” stormed the box office, and Cher joined the ranks of Streep and Jane Fonda as one of Hollywood’s most sought-after actresses. At the Academy Awards, she donned her infamous midriff-bearing Bob Mackie getup, complete with a cape and a spiky headdress. The look was more punk rock than Tinseltown elegance ― an oversized fuck-you to the fusty Academy and an ebullient reminder that she wouldn’t tidy up her image to appeal to Reagan-era conservatism.

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The Gold

“The Witches of Eastwick” (1987)

Coming off of “Mask,” some studio executives were still questioning Cher’s ability to attract audiences who knew her as an outrageous pop doyenne who hadn’t had a hit single in several years. Her credibility was put to the test each time ― and each time, she passed.

In 1987, at the critical age of 41, Cher landed a troika of commercial hits in which she was the centerpiece, starting with the delicious lark “The Witches of Eastwick,” her first comedy since her variety show a decade earlier. Then came the overwrought legal thriller “Suspect,” which required her to pull off boxy suits as a strapped D.C. attorney spouting verbose monologues. And following that was the snappy romance “Moonstruck,” which demanded a thick accent that was Italian by way of Brooklyn. In each, Cher captured a quotidian version of American life ― and what’s more transformative than Cher pretending to be quotidian?

Playing another single mom in “Eastwick” (directed by “Mad Max” maestro George Miller), she held her own against Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer and Jack Nicholson. Cher clearly relished the role. During a tart takedown of Nicholson’s lothario, she trades the maximalist energy that many actresses would bring to the scene for a soft smirk, savoring every word as she calls him “physically repulsive, intellectually retarded, morally reprehensible, vulgar, insensitive, selfish [and] stupid.”

“Suspect” (1987)

For “Suspect” and “Moonstruck,” Cher was the directors’ first choice, netting a salary of more than $1 million apiece ― an impressive figure in the mid-’80s, though notably less than what men like Bruce Willis and Robert Redford commanded.

“Suspect” let Cher check off a requisite movie-star box, as it was all but decreed in the ’80s and ’90s that every serious actor make at least one blandly entertaining legal thriller. Like the best of them, Cher’s was a courtroom drama with an ethically dubious love story nestled into the center. (Young Dennis Quaid was irresistible.) It might be the least Cher-y of any Cher performance ― can you imagine her sporting a no-frills power suit today? ― and yet she is comfortably forceful in the role. Amazingly, the woman whose assless one-piece would soon get her banned by MTV looks cozy amid mounds of paperwork.

“Moonstruck” (1987)

“Suspect” was a modest box-office hit in October, but it was largely forgotten by December, when Cher turned in her career-defining performance in “Moonstruck.” Playing a widowed bookkeeper who falls for her fiancé’s unruly younger brother (Nicolas Cage), Cher cycled through a wider range of emotions than any movie to date had asked of her, lending realism to what is ultimately a Cinderella fairy tale. That she does so with the same physical charisma is a wonder, especially considering she didn’t think Cage was a generous scene partner. (She must have savored that slap.)

“Moonstruck” became the fifth highest-grossing release of 1987 and attracted Cher’s warmest reviews. The following April, she won the Oscar for Best Actress. Wearing another audacious Bob Mackie gown, Cher delivered an earnest speech that was more movie-star sleek than pop-star chic.

“I don’t think this means I am someone, but I guess I’m on my way,” she said in a rare moment of modesty. Every now and then, even Cher plays along.

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The Wobble

“Mermaids” (1990)

As if emboldened by the respect her film career had garnered, Cher signed a new record contract with her friend David Geffen’s label. “Cher,” released in 1987 after five years away from music, produced a couple of mild hits (“I Found Someone,” “We All Sleep Alone”) and paved the way for 1990′s “Heart of Stone,” a rock record with enough big-haired power pop (namely “If I Could Turn Back Time”) to place her in the same league as Madonna, Paula Abdul and Whitney Houston.

She’d set up a production company with Tri-Star Pictures and bagged her next film role, “Mermaids,” a 1960s-set dramedy about an image-conscious firebrand raising two very different daughters (Winona Ryder and Christina Ricci). The role perfectly married Cher’s pop image and film image. Her character was progressive about sex in a way that most mildewy mom roles weren’t, but with enough working-class gumption to make her more than a head-in-the-clouds prima donna. Cher, a child of divorce who grew up without much money, nails that paradox.

But “Mermaids” was also a turning point. Having launched a lengthy world tour in summer 1989, Cher was exhausted to the point of illness, and she found herself sparring with director Lasse Hallström (“My Life as a Dog”). Production shut down so Cher could rest, during which time Frank Oz (“Little Shop of Horrors”) replaced Hallström. Cher didn’t get along with Oz any better ― “she emotionally beat the shit out of him,” a source reportedly told Vanity Fair ― and he left the project. (“Look, I’m only difficult if you’re an idiot,” Cher said.) Richard Benjamin (“The Money Pit”) came aboard and steered the movie to completion.

This backstage drama was splashed across the press, cementing the cantankerous reputation that most divas achieve at some point or another. “Mermaids” made OK money ― far less than it should have, since it’s such a delight ― and Cher mused that her acting days were probably numbered, partly because she was well past the age of 40, at which point Hollywood women become biddies.

“The Player” (1992) and “Ready to Wear” (1994)

After the “Mermaids” theatrics, Cher’s agent tried to push her to take more film roles, namely one of the leads in “Thelma & Louise.” But she needed a break. (Cher had also turned down Danny DeVito’s “The War of the Roses.”) Instead, she released the album “Love Hurts” in 1991 ― but it’s biggest single, “Love and Understanding,” stalled at No. 17. She then embarked on another tour and did hair and skin care infomercials that turned her into something of a punch line.

But instead of fading away, she did the Cher-iest thing of all: She played herself, in ultimate diva form, twice. The first time was in old friend Robert Altman’s 1992 Hollywood satire “The Player.” The second was in old friend Robert Altman’s 1994 fashion satire “Ready to Wear.” Both movies saw her walking red carpets as a VIP at industry events.

Waltzing into “The Player,” Cher glides down a gala red carpet as a TV announcer says, “Well, leave it to Cher to wear fire-engine red when the impossible-to-come-by invitations call for black and white only, please.” In playing along with Altman’s joke, she shattered a wall between person and persona. She’d accrued the sort of diva caliber that can feel mythological, the kind that doesn’t have to abide by the industry’s rules — and she wanted us to know it.

During an interview with a TV journalist in “Ready to Wear” who balks at how good she looks, Cher replies, “Well, yeah.” The cameos were brassy ways of asserting the stature she’s accrued after three decades in the business. Also essential: They let Cher poke fun at her own attention-seeking iconoclasm.

For as much as “The Player” verified Cher’s stardom, it did little to vault her back into Hollywood’s top tier. An Entertainment Weekly article from 1993 — written by a young Ryan Murphy — quoted an anonymous Hollywood producer who said casting Cher was now a “risk.” Her bankability had waned. “I’m not sure if I want to continue to be Cher,” she admitted in 1994.

“Faithful” (1996)

But Cher pressed on, attempting to mount “Tabloid,” about an actress and a tabloid editor, with her “Witches of Eastwick” pal Michelle Pfeiffer. She also wanted to remake the 1945 fantasy “The Enchanted Cottage” as a musical (with the encouragement of Francis Ford Coppola), but she lost the rights and the project never came to fruition. (She would continue to discuss it well into the 2010s.)

1995 and early ’96 were especially rough for Cher commercially. Her Southern rock-inflected album “It’s a Man’s World” flopped, as did her first lead role in six years, “Faithful,” which opened April 19, 1996. Cher is, unsurprisingly, the most compelling thing about “Faithful,” portraying a vulnerable housewife whose philandering husband (Ryan O’Neal) hires a hitman (Chazz Palminteri) to murder her. But the script, written by Palminteri, isn’t funny or tense enough. It was the first time her reputation preceded a character: We never believe Cher’s life is in danger, possibly because she’s too famous to be killed off.

“Faithful” earned a piddly $2.1 million, but Cher shrugged off its reception: “It was no loss. At least the reviews said it was nice to see me acting again.”

Cher’s movie career could have perished altogether, as most established pop stars can’t afford to flounder that hard. A bad single comes and goes, but a bad movie has millions of dollars riding on it.

“If These Walls Could Talk” (1996)

Cher has never been a quitter, though. Toward the close of 1996, she returned with a project so intrepid no Hollywood studio would touch it. Demi Moore had spent five years producing “If These Walls Could Talk,” seeking a home for it on a television network willing to back an unapologetically pro-choice triptych about women ― one in 1952 (Moore), one in 1974 (Sissy Spacek) and one in 1996 (Anne Heche) ― seeking abortions. That home turned out to be HBO.

Nearing 50 and recognizing that meaty roles were growing rare, Cher saw “If These Walls Could Talk” as a chance to advocate for reproductive rights (she’d had two legal abortions, and her mother and grandmother both nearly died from illegal abortions when they were younger). She also seized the opportunity to direct, something she’d talked about doing for years. So she took a small role and helmed the movie’s third segment, playing a self-possessed doctor co-existing with a protest mob outside her Chicago abortion clinic. It was a different role for her — more austere — and Cher pulls off an appropriate blend of fatigue and perseverance.

When “Walls” premiered on Oct. 13, 1996, it became the highest-rated movie in HBO’s 24-year history. Cher earned a supporting-actress nomination at the Golden Globes ― an inadvertent fuck-you pitched at anyone who said her movie pilgrimage had ended.

Getty/Alamy/Universal Pictures

The Redemption

“Tea with Mussolini” (1999)

Cher took a breather in 1997, paving the way for what would become one of the glitziest comebacks in pop history. She was 52 when “Believe” became her first No. 1 single since 1974. Producers had urged her to embrace her gay fanbase via a dance jubilee, and suddenly she was competing with younger artists like Britney Spears, TLC and Mariah Carey. By the end of 1999, it was the year’s most popular song. Her divadom flew off the charts, far more than it had with the caricature of “The Player.”

“Believe” is also the song that made autotune a phenomenon. That someone who wasn’t known as a remarkable singer would distort her voice in such an unconventional way read as an act of rebellion, a boldfaced “look at what I can do.” Cher’s record company insisted the effects be removed, to which she said, “Over my dead body!”

Around that time, Cher co-headlined VH1′s all-star concert “Divas Live ’99” and launched a massive world tour so grandiose it was almost comical. Furthermore, she had divas who were once considered her peers (Cyndi Lauper, Belinda Carlisle) opening for her.

Cher was bigger and bolder than ever when “Tea with Mussolini” opened in theaters on May 14, 1999. On the Italian set the previous summer, she was the only actor to arrive with her own makeup artist, hairdresser and personal secretary ― which didn’t stop her from feeling intimidated by Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright and Lily Tomlin. Director Franco Zeffirelli (“Romeo and Juliet”) based the World War II-set ensemble dramedy on a chapter of his autobiography, centering the story on a colony of English women living in Florence in the 1930s.

Smith is the movie’s MVP, but Cher saunters in as a rich American widow possessing a caustic but wacky regality. It makes sense that the height of Cher’s bedazzled pop career coincided with a movie in which she flits around in gaudy costumes. Her persona no longer fit the rural threads of “Silkwood” or the juridical garb of “Suspect” ― and it never would again.

“Tea with Mussolini” made a stolid $14.4 million domestically. Moreover, it was tossed aside during Oscar season despite being prototypical awards bait. That’s not necessarily her fault, but it does lead to an interesting takeaway: What people wanted, post-“Believe,” was to see Cher simply be Cher.

In late 2000, she was working to get that “Enchanted Cottage” musical off the ground, imagining the lead character to be a composite of “me and Tina Turner and Madonna.” But nothing ever came of it, and Cher didn’t take another lead role until 2010′s “Burlesque.” She mounted a so-called farewell tour and leaned hard into the Cher Plays Herself trademark. It worked to her benefit.

“Will & Grace” (2000, 2002) and “Stuck on You” (2003)

In 2000 and 2002, she appeared as a sassy Cher on “Will & Grace.” In a beloved 2000 episode titled “Gypsies, Tramps and Weed,” a twist on Cher’s thundering 1971 song “Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves,” Jack (Sean Hayes) is obsessed with a Barbie-sized Cher doll. Who else would walk in on his infatuation but Cher herself? Except Jack believes she’s a drag queen ― a tongue-in-cheek crack about Cher’s campy image. They have a sing-off in which Jack, convinced his impression is superior, greatly exaggerates her husky warble and dramatic hair toss in a way that essentially mocks Cher to her face. Amused, she gets the last laugh, slapping him and administering that quotable classic: “Snap out of it.”

There’s no movie-star move more powerful than playing yourself with an ironic wink, and “Will & Grace,” like “The Player” before it, let Cher poke fun at herself in a refreshing way. She is treated as an empire, at once pointedly self-aware and deliciously aloof ― a perfect way to master her own narrative without being beholden to it.

In 2003, she appeared as a sassier Cher in the one-joke farce “Stuck on You,” starring Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear as conjoined twins who move to Hollywood when one decides to launch a movie career. Stomping around in a fitted leather jacket and a spiky thatch of jet-black hair that resembles David Bowie’s in “Labyrinth,” Cher yelled at her agent (Jackie Flynn) about the state of her acting career: “Why am I doing this lame-ass TV show when I should be doing movies?” she says before reminding him that she has an Oscar.

Cher’s “Will & Grace” appearances were hardly lame, yet one can’t help but wonder whether Cher was bitter about her acting career’s ebbs. Further complicating matters, Hollywood was drifting away from idiosyncratic character dramas and toward inflated action spectacles. Between 2004 and 2009, she didn’t appear onscreen at all. And so began the Vegas residency phase, which continues today.

“Burlesque” (2010)

When Cher returned with “Burlesque” in 2010, the punch lines wrote themselves. A hammy musical about an aspiring actress (Christina Aguilera) who coaxes her way into the tutelage of a nightclub matron (Cher), the movie went through major script rewrites (by “Juno” scribe Diablo Cody, “Erin Brockovich” scribe Susannah Grant and “Moonstruck” scribe John Patrick Shanley, no less) but still felt like a collection of rhinestone-studded music videos. Cher seems bored by the whole affair, which makes sense: David Geffen, who once dated “Burlesque” director Steve Antin, had to talk her into doing it. Cher is miscast ― would someone with her magnetism really be running a beggared cabaret? ― but she still manages to bring a sense of pride to the character.

“Look, I have a very narrow range,” she said in 2010. “I’ve never tried anything more than playing who I am. If you look at my characters, they’re all me.”

The thing is, she’s wrong. Cher is no Cate Blanchett, but she’s far more transformative ― or at least more instinctive ― than she gives herself credit for. Regardless, her big statement in “Burlesque” reverberated loud and clear during a ballad written specifically for her: “I’ll be back / Back on my feet / This is far from over / You haven’t seen the last of me.”

It also makes sense that Cher ended up viewing the movie as a reflection of her legacy: “I’m in a strange place right now,” she said in 2013. “I’m too old to be young and I’m too young to be old, so I have to be used creatively. In ‘Burlesque,’ which was horrible, I had no love interest, I was running this [troupe], that’s who I was. It could have been a much better film. […] Terrible director! Really terrible director. And really terrible script. I remember him saying to me, I don’t care about what you say, I just want to shoot the dance numbers. Had it been shorter, it would have squeaked by and been a really good popcorn movie.”

“Zookeeper” (2011) “Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh” (2017) and “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” (2018)

In the same breath, Cher vowed to keep acting. But other than voicing a lion in the Kevin James comedy “Zookeeper” and voicing a self-referential alien who “knows how to make an entrance” in Netflix’s “Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh,” no other projects had materialized until now.

“Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again,” like “Burlesque” before it, finds Cher playing Cher, insofar as her snazzy attire and snappy dialogue herald her diva bona fides. Oh, and because she is the sequel’s show-stopping main event, of course.

She shows up in the final 15 minutes, helicoptering into the Greek hotel now run by Sophie (Amanda Seyfried). You know it’s Cher the second the chopper appears. In dramatic fashion, we see Cher’s pant leg touch down before we ever glimpse her wrinkle-free face. It’s a moment that practically begs audiences to cheer.

“Mes enfants, je suis arrivé; let the party commence,” she announces after emerging from the plane. When she sings ABBA’s “Fernando” with Andy Garcia, fireworks explode across the sky.

In almost no time, Cher steals the movie, snapping and shimmying as if onstage at one of her concerts ― the ultimate marriage of her 55-year-old career’s many tentacles. If it’s possible for Cher to outdo Cher, “Mamma Mia!” is it. But “Mamma Mia!” also crystallizes what we’ve long assumed about Cher: Even at 72, she is still in on the joke that was christened in “The Player” and confirmed on “Will & Grace.”

She’ll probably never spawn another Top 40 hit ― see: her 2013 album “Closer to the Truth” and her recently announced collection of ABBA covers ― but she can still capitalize on the Cher brand to electrify audiences familiar with her diva cachet. Today, her biggest transformation is wearing a bleach-blond wig. Maybe that’s all the transformation we really want from Cher anyway, even though “Mamma Mia!” doesn’t quite know what to do with her, plot-wise.

If pop stars are meant to be mythological and actors are meant to be aspirational, Cher has mastered both domains. She did so by never shying away from how the world metabolized her iconography, and by forever laughing at the absurdity of fame. That sense of humor is now her lifeblood. No matter what happens in the years to come, we haven’t seen the last of her.

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