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fatehbaz · 8 days

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Just in case, some might enjoy. Had to organize some notes.

These are just some of the newer texts that had been promoted in the past few years at the online home of the American Association of Geographers. At: [https://www.aag.org/new-books-for-geographers/]

Tried to narrow down selections to focus on critical/radical geography; Indigenous, Black, anticolonial, oceanic/archipelagic, carceral, abolition, Latin American geographies; futures and place-making; colonial and imperial imaginaries; emotional ecologies and environmental perception; confinement, escape, mobility; housing/homelessness; literary and musical ecologies.

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New stuff, early 2024:

A Caribbean Poetics of Spirit (Hannah Regis, University of the West Indies Press, 2024)

Constructing Worlds Otherwise: Societies in Movement and Anticolonial Paths in Latin America (Raúl Zibechi and translator George Ygarza Quispe, AK Press, 2024)

Fluid Geographies: Water, Science, and Settler Colonialism in New Mexico (K. Maria D. Lane, University of Chicago Press, 2024)

Hydrofeminist Thinking With Oceans: Political and Scholarly Possibilities (Tarara Shefer, Vivienne Bozalek, and Nike Romano, Routledge, 2024)

Making the Literary-Geographical World of Sherlock Holmes: The Game Is Afoot (David McLaughlin, University of Chicago Press, 2025)

Mapping Middle-earth: Environmental and Political Narratives in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Cartographies (Anahit Behrooz, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024)

Midlife Geographies: Changing Lifecourses across Generations, Spaces and Time (Aija Lulle, Bristol University Press, 2024)

Society Despite the State: Reimagining Geographies of Order (Anthony Ince and Geronimo Barrera de la Torre, Pluto Press, 2024)

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New stuff, 2023:

The Black Geographic: Praxis, Resistance, Futurity (Camilla Hawthorne and Jovan Scott Lewis, Duke University Press, 2023)

Activist Feminist Geographies (Edited by Kate Boyer, Latoya Eaves and Jennifer Fluri, Bristol University Press, 2023)

The Silences of Dispossession: Agrarian Change and Indigenous Politics in Argentina (Mercedes Biocca, Pluto Press, 2023)

The Sovereign Trickster: Death and Laughter in the Age of Dueterte (Vicente L. Rafael, Duke University Press, 2022)

Ottoman Passports: Security and Geographic Mobility, 1876-1908 (İlkay Yılmaz, Syracuse University Press, 2023)

The Practice of Collective Escape (Helen Traill, Bristol University Press, 2023)

Maps of Sorrow: Migration and Music in the Construction of Precolonial AfroAsia (Sumangala Damodaran and Ari Sitas, Columbia University Press, 2023)

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New stuff, late 2022:

B.H. Roberts, Moral Geography, and the Making of a Modern Racist (Clyde R. Forsberg, Jr.and Phillip Gordon Mackintosh, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2022)

Environing Empire: Nature, Infrastructure and the Making of German Southwest Africa (Martin Kalb, Berghahn Books, 2022)

Sentient Ecologies: Xenophobic Imaginaries of Landscape (Edited by Alexandra Coțofană and Hikmet Kuran, Berghahn Books 2022)

Colonial Geography: Race and Space in German East Africa, 1884–1905 (Matthew Unangst, University of Toronto Press, 2022)

The Geographies of African American Short Fiction (Kenton Rambsy, University of Mississippi Press, 2022)

Knowing Manchuria: Environments, the Senses, and Natural Knowledge on an Asian Borderland (Ruth Rogaski, University of Chicago Press, 2022)

Punishing Places: The Geography of Mass Imprisonment (Jessica T. Simes, University of California Press, 2021)

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New stuff, early 2022:

Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-fatness as Anti-Blackness (Da’Shaun Harrison, 2021)

Coercive Geographies: Historicizing Mobility, Labor and Confinement (Edited by Johan Heinsen, Martin Bak Jørgensen, and Martin Ottovay Jørgensen, Haymarket Books, 2021)

Confederate Exodus: Social and Environmental Forces in the Migration of U.S. Southerners to Brazil (Alan Marcus, University of Nebraska Press, 2021)

Decolonial Feminisms, Power and Place (Palgrave, 2021)

Krakow: An Ecobiography (Edited by Adam Izdebski & Rafał Szmytka, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021)

Open Hand, Closed Fist: Practices of Undocumented Organizing in a Hostile State (Kathryn Abrams, University of California Press, 2022)

Unsettling Utopia: The Making and Unmaking of French India (Jessica Namakkal, 2021)

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New stuff, 2020 and 2021:

Mapping the Amazon: Literary Geography after the Rubber Boom (Amanda Smith, Liverpool University Press, 2021)

Geopolitics, Culture, and the Scientific Imaginary in Latin America (Edited by María del Pilar Blanco and Joanna Page, 2020)

Reconstructing public housing: Liverpool’s hidden history of collective alternatives (Matt Thompson, University of Liverpool Press, 2020)

The (Un)governable City: Productive Failure in the Making of Colonial Delhi, 1858–1911 (Raghav Kishore, 2020)

Multispecies Households in the Saian Mountains: Ecology at the Russia-Mongolia Border (Edited by Alex Oehler and Anna Varfolomeeva, 2020)

Urban Mountain Beings: History, Indigeneity, and Geographies of Time in Quito, Ecuador (Kathleen S. Fine-Dare, 2019)

City of Refuge: Slavery and Petit Marronage in the Great Dismal Swamp, 1763-1856 (Marcus P. Nevius, University of Georgia Press, 2020)

#abolition #ecology

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solarisgod · 18 days

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I’m sorry if this is disrespectful at all, but how did the cluster realize they were OSDDID?

Hello, Anonstar! This is a fantastic question, not disrespectful at all, no worries! Thank you so much for giving us an opportunity to talk about the Starwake System with xyr DID more! We have a post that entails general information of xyr condition here for an additional reference. While we will answer this question and cover few related topics around the Starwake System's DID, we will also be providing information with our own personal understanding and experiences with OSDDID to support certain details in the answer, as listed below:

⁰ Based on our own personal experiences and / or understanding with OSDDID. ¹ Dissociative Identity Disorder Research (n.d.). DID Basics: Presentation. ² Boyer, S. M., Caplan, J. E., & Edwards, L. K. (2022). Trauma-Related Dissociation and the Dissociative Disorders: Neglected Symptoms with Severe Public Health Consequences. ³ Dissociative Identity Disorder Research (n.d.). DID Origin: Synthesis. ⁴ Dissociative Identity Disorder Research (n.d.). DID Identity Alteration: Time Loss, Black Outs, and Co-consciousness. ⁵ Encyclopedia of Psychology (n.d.), Dissociative Barriers.

* Content warning note : This answer mentions ableism, general child abuse and distress, car accidents; deaths, mental health related denial, misdiagnoses, and general traumas; so please read with caution.

Before we answer the questions of how the main Starwakers realized they have DID and were aware of each other's existences, it's important to first know the details of how the Starwake System's Dissociative Identity Disorder was formed, as provided from the study post that was shared above, along with the " basis " of OSDDID :

The first known alter is Micah Xenowake who developed Dissociative Identity Disorder when xe was five years old. Xyr mind fragmented from two to five due to the extreme stress Micah experienced in constantly moving between multiple foster homes, with the frequent changes happening in a short amount time of xyr life while feeling like a stranger in many homes, as well as xe faced every forms of abuse and neglect in several past families. From these events for three years, xe experienced episodes of dissociation and depersonalization before xe split off Phoebus, formerly known as Lyght, during a case when xe was trapped in a dark locked basement as forced to sleep there for the first time.

OSDDID is a mental condition that exists essentially to protect the individual from continuous distress and traumas while it can give them the necessities that people in the world have failed to provide. The quote, likely from this Tumblr post : ❝ I think ultimately you become whoever would have saved you that time that no one did ❞ is one of the best ways to explain OSDDID on its essential core.

Generally, in most cases, OSDDID have a covert nature and it is difficult to recognize in a person ( DIDR, n.d. )¹. This is to avoid danger and maintain protection within the system and the main fronting individual themself from traumatic events or external factors that is a threat to the system's and / or fronter's wellbeing ( i.e. abusers )⁰. Although there are severe health consequences that impact various life aspects in the long run from self identity and wellbeing, to personal relationship and academic studies, etcetera, OSDDID is meant to save the child, having symptoms like amnesia that acts as a defence mechanism to help them lose memories of traumas and dissociation as a form of psychiatric escape from traumas they can't physically retreat from ( Boyer et al, 2022 )².

Multiple alters exist in most systems, although depending on the alter's source ( that brought them into existence via splitting ), history, and role functions, as well as the system's level of amnesiac barriers and their current living conditions, they may not be partially to fully aware of some other alters or everyone else in the system ( DIDR, n.d. )⁴. This is generally because of the dissociative barriers that exist between the alters, which are psychological barriers that obstruct an individual’s ability to access memories or emotions related to an event, usually of traumatic nature ( EOP, n.d. )⁶. The barriers may prevent one alter to be aware of another, but some alters can develop certain degree of co-consciousness, ❝ the ability for two or more alters to remain present in the body or aware of the outside world at once ❞ ( DIDR, n.d. )⁴.

| Explanation of " Co-consciousness Levels " from the Dissociative Identity Disorder Research ( n.d. ) :

❝ [ . . . ] Co-consciousness is not necessarily extended to all alters. It may be that Alters A and B are always co-conscious with each other, but only Alter A can be co-conscious with Alter C. Meanwhile, Alter D may be able to watch the other alters although the others are not aware of Alter D and their activities in return, and Alter E might not be aware of any of the other alters nor any of the other alters aware of Alter E! Finally, Alters F and G might be co-conscious with each other but have to leave post-it notes for the rest of the system in order to communicate, and Alter H might be co-conscious with Alter A only some of the time or under certain conditions while Alter I has the ability to allow or not allow others to be co-conscious with them as they choose ( para. 5 ). ❞

Even though an alter is aware of the fronting alter who doesn't know they exist, depending on the system's current living environment and circumstances, the alter may not reveal themself to the fronter for many reasons from protecting the fronter and / or system while avoiding jeopardizing them, not feeling safe and comfortable enough for their existence to be known, to not finding it necessary for them to be a direct part of the system's life while they only prioritize internally stabilizing the system.⁰ However, the fronting alter may experience " partial intrusions " without knowledge or understanding of the sources if that alter is also present ( DIDR, n.d. )⁴. OSDDID having the covert nature in general explains why most systems don't realize they have OSDDID until later in life, especially at the age of twenties to even thirties.⁰

Re : The Starwake System's DID discovery and awareness, Micah was the one who got the official diagnosis from xyr OSDDID specialist and therapist when the system in April 2023, the time when Micah and Adoniram had a car accident from an unknown cause. Micah tried to save Adoniram who was trapped in the seatbelts as their car was upside down with the oil spilled out, but before xe could get him out, Phoebus fronted, seizing full control of their body, and abandoned him to protect the system and especially xem, forcing Micah to experience a blackout before xe " woke up " on xyr hospital bed, learning that Adoniram disappeared ( but was declared dead by the officials when his body couldn't be find a few weeks of search and rescue after ).

It's important to note Astereus / the Starwake System was misdiagnosed three times : ( 1. ) Borderline Personality Disorder at age fifteen, ( 2. ) Bipolar Disorder at sixteen, ( 3. ) and eighteen with Schizophrenia while being told Dissociative Identity Disorder wasn't real. In addition, when Micah was eight, xyr amnesia and time losses from the blackouts was believed to be linked to extreme fatigue due to sleeping poorly, having insomnia. There was little information on DID nor general dissociative disorders at the time when Astereus grew up, hence, not many non-professional and professional people could understand xyr experiences nor have the knowledge to see the symptoms are based on dissociation and dissociative identity.

Micah's close friend and occasional detective partner, Daniel Darling, have OSDD-1, a partial form of DID, and after Micah shared xyr experinces of time and memory loses to him, from sharing similar experiences, he said xe could have OSDDID. For seventeen years since xyr third attempt of diagnose, Micah believed xe have Schizophrenia and xe was hesitate to seek diagnosis for the fourth time, but from Adoniram's first death that Micah have painfully failed to prevent it from happening because of the blackout, this gave Micah the push to reach out to xyr art and music therapist, Alyx, who referred xem to the OSDDID specialist and then finally, at the age of mid thirties, xyr DID therapist confirmed xe does have DID after all.

With the other main earliest known Starwakers' DID realization and awareness :

Phoebus : They have always known Micah since they were created, being co-conscious with them as Micah was in distress from being trapped in the basement that was completely dark. Because Phoebus have the main responsibilities of ensuring safety and stability within the Starwake System, they were able to keep close track of the system changes and alter creations while their co-consciousness developed further over time. From this, they were able to learn Philos' and Phobos' existences. Before, Phoebus couldn't understand how they and Micah shared the same body, but they had a strange tugging feeling akin to protectiveness with Micah that made them focus more on being with Micah rather than dwelling on the wondering of " what they are ".

Philos : In the beginning, she didn't know other alters existed until some weeks later since she came into existence, she met Phoebus in their internal world, although Philos only viewed Phoebus as an " imaginary friend ". It was when Phobos came around, Philos then came to a thought that there was " something wrong " with them, but wasn't sure how to describe this position. Philos met Phobos some time later out of curiosity, being drawn to its sharp and aggressive personality. Philos learnt Micah's existence at the same time as Phobos.

Phobos : Phobos also had no awareness of the other alters in the beginning, but at a certain point met Philos who sometimes visited it via sharing co-consciousness. Phobos thought Philos was a ghost possessing their body, but didn't make a huge deal about it when Phobos thought it was cool to have a ghost, even though it thought Philos himself was annoying to be with. Phobos learnt about Phoebus and Micah when they were a preteen, Phoebus co-fronting to stop it from retaliating one of Micah's and Adoniram's bullies who hurt them. Phobos didn't care about what they are or have to make them share a single body as long as it can have some freedom interacting with the outside world.

Ultimately, Micah was the only main Starwaker in the system who didn't have complete awareness of having other alters until xe was in mid thirties. The reasons Phoebus, Philos, and Phobos kept their existences hidden from Micah, even after a point when Micah was fully independent and free of continuous stress and danger, are that Phoebus felt as it'd be best to give Micah the most " normal and peaceful " life as possible that xe couldn't have when xe was younger, originally seeing this life they share was Micah's rather the whole system's. Phoebus was also afraid if Micah knew about their existences, xe'd shun them and learning the fact xe have DID would distress xem, which was a case as xe was in denial for a few months, having strained relationships with the others and especially Phoebus, before xe came to terms with xyr DID and everyone improved on communicating and connecting with each other since.

Although it took a very long time for the Starwake System to finally have the answer to what they'd go through from xyr DID, and the answer was overwhelming for especially Micah, they're all still most grateful they would find the time when they could understand their DID and each other more to hold a healthier and stronger system.

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sethnorth · 2 months

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Boyer Coe (L) & Jim Haislop

#bodybuilder #pecs #biceps #flex #Jim Haislop #Boyer Coe

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the-rewatch-rewind · 9 months

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An old movie with a very relevant name.

Script below the break.

Hello and welcome back to The Rewatch Rewind! My name is Jane, and this is the podcast where I count down my top 40 most frequently rewatched movies over the last 20 years. Today I will be discussing number 14 on my list: MGM’s 1944 psychological thriller Gaslight, directed by George Cukor, written by John Van Druten, Walter Reisch, and John L Balderston, based on the play by Patrick Hamilton, and starring Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, and Joseph Cotten.

So first of all, if you’re thinking, “Gaslight? As in, to deny someone’s reality to the point that they can no longer trust their own perceptions?” then, yes, you’re absolutely correct: this movie (and the play it’s based on and the 1940 British film it’s a remake of) is where that term comes from. So I’m just going to give a blanket content warning for this whole episode: I will be talking a lot about psychological and emotional abuse. This is an incredibly well-made movie, which is why I keep revisiting it, but I recognize that not everybody is in the right place to hear stories about gaslighting, so please, take care of yourself, and skip this episode if you think it’s going to cause you distress.

That being said, I truly have no idea why “gaslighting” suddenly became a popular buzzword in the last 10 years or so, or how it has evolved to be misapplied to any form of lying. I’ve even heard people talk about how someone is “gaslighting” them when they merely disagree about something. So despite how incredibly dark and disturbing this movie is, I really think everyone should watch it, if for no other reason than to learn how to use the term correctly. But there’s obviously a lot more to it than that, which I will get into. But first, my traditional plot summary:

When her aunt and guardian, a famous opera star, is murdered in their London home, young Paula Alquist (Ingrid Bergman) is sent to Italy to train as a singer. Ten years later, she is swept off her feet by her new accompanist, Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer), and after knowing each other only two weeks, they get married. Though she is still haunted by her aunt’s unsolved murder, upon hearing that Gregory has always wanted to live in London, Paula suggests that they move into her old house. As they settle in, Gregory’s behavior gradually changes, and Paula begins to feel like she is losing her mind.

The main thing I remember about the first time I watched this movie was thinking it wasn’t a very good mystery, since it’s pretty obvious fairly early on who the bad guy is. But by the end it became clear that it was never meant to be a mystery, but rather a map of red flags to watch out for, as well as a surprisingly sympathetic portrayal of how easy it can be to ignore them until it’s too late. Or, I guess I should say, almost too late, since, spoiler alert: the movie does have a mostly happy ending. Anyway, I had never seen a movie like this before and it fascinated me. I watched it twice in 2003, once in 2004, once in 2006, once in 2007, twice in 2008, three times in 2012, once in 2013, once in 2014, twice in 2015, twice in 2016, once in 2017, once in 2018, once in 2020, twice in 2021, and once in 2022. I also saw the 1940 version once in 2006. I don’t remember much about it other than I thought it was pretty good, but the remake was better. And a big part of that is because of the cast of the remake. One of my 2015 views of the remake was part of my watching through Best Actress winners project because Ingrid Bergman won the first of her three Oscars for this film. Apparently at the time I ranked this performance as the 7th best to win that award, and now if anything I feel like that was too low. The more I rewatch this movie, the more impressed I am by what a difficult job she had and how thoroughly she crushed it.

Paula is an incredibly complex character who undergoes a significant emotional journey. At the beginning, though she’s definitely still haunted by the trauma of her youth, she’s mostly happy and hopeful and vivacious. And then all of that slowly dims as Gregory’s manipulations escalate, almost as if she is a gas light that he’s turning down. That’s not why the movie is called Gaslight, though; it’s called that because one of the early signs that something sketchy is going on is when Paula starts to notice lights dimming as if someone turned a new light on somewhere else in the house, but nobody else seems to notice this and she can’t find a good explanation for it. But watching Paula go from a lively, lovestruck newlywed to basically a zombie struggling to find a shred of reality she can trust also feels like watching a gas light flame go down. And it would have been so easy to either overdo or undersell this descent into confusion, but Ingrid Bergman perfectly balances every moment. You can see Paula starting to doubt herself more and more as her actions and words become more hesitant and her looks become more vague, until she begins to resign herself to the fact that Gregory must be right, she must be insane, there’s nothing more she can do. It’s so painful and heartbreaking that I desperately want to reach through the screen and comfort her and tell her what’s really going on. And then, just when I almost can’t stand it anymore, Joseph Cotten shows up to do that for me. He plays Inspector Brian Cameron of Scotland Yard, a childhood fan of Paula’s aunt who happens to see Paula one of the few times she’s out with Gregory in London, which leads him to reopen the cold case of her aunt’s murder and figure out what’s going on just in time to help Paula. The implication that Paula needs a man to rescue her is one thing I don’t love about this movie, but at the same time I think it’s important to acknowledge that Gregory was so effective at – for lack of a better term – gaslighting her that she could not have escaped that situation without help.

Not to take any of the credit away from Bergman for her stellar performance, but I do think it helped that George Cukor was the director. Longtime listeners may recognize his name from Holiday, which was number 33 on this list, and Adam’s Rib, which was number 27, both of which have significantly lighter tones. Gaslight feels much more like an Alfred Hitchcock picture than a George Cukor one. Cukor apparently didn’t like being referred to as a “woman’s director,” but he had a reputation for his ability to coax great performances out of actresses, and this is certainly no exception. In order to help Bergman keep track of Paula’s gradual descent toward madness while shooting out of order, Cukor would tell her the whole plot up to the scenes they were filming each day, which Bergman initially resented, but then he stopped doing it for a few days and she realized how helpful it had been, and they went back to doing it that way. I do think Ingrid Bergman would have been great in this role regardless of who the director was, but George Cukor helped elevate her to the best she could possibly be.

While Bergman’s performance is far and away my favorite aspect of this movie, the rest of the cast is also phenomenal, albeit rather small. It definitely has that based-on-a-play feel of limited locations and few characters, although that also works very well with the story. Part of Gregory’s strategy is to cut Paula off from the rest of the world so she won’t have a safety net. Consequently, for most of the film she only interacts with him and their two servants: the kind but mostly-deaf cook, Elizabeth, played by Barbara Everest, and the saucy, flirtatious maid, Nancy, played by none other than 18-year-old Angela Lansbury in her film debut, both of whom are absolutely perfect in their roles. I love Everest’s delivery of “I see just how it is” when Gregory is trying to keep Elizabeth on his side without realizing that she’s always been firmly on Paula’s. And Lansbury embodies the exact attitude required for Nancy: flirtatious toward Gregory, disdainful toward Paula, totally oblivious to how she’s being manipulated until the end – all conveyed with every look she gives and line she speaks as if she’s a veteran actor. It comes as absolutely no surprise that she went on to have such a long and successful career, with this as her first screen performance. She was even nominated for an Oscar! And then there’s the neighbor Miss Thwaites, played by Dame May Whitty, who adds some much-needed levity with her “diggy biscuits” and morbid curiosity about the house in her square where there was a “real murder!” Joseph Cotten’s role is honestly pretty bland – kind of the film noir version of a classic Disney prince, in a way – but he makes the most of it. And then there’s Charles Boyer, giving one of the best creepy villain performances I’ve ever seen, which was also Oscar-nominated. He starts out just sort of vaguely unsettling, raising one or two red flags right off the bat, but like, he could still be okay, and then by the end he is full-on terrifying. He has this amazing stone-faced look that makes your blood run cold. There’s this one moment in particular, kind of toward the middle, when Miss Thwaites and Inspector Cameron (posing as her nephew) have tried to visit them, and Gregory tells Nancy to send them away. Paula wanted to let them in but he freaked out so she backed down, and then after Nancy leaves she again says she wanted to see them, and he’s like, “Oh, why didn’t you say so?” and it makes me want to scream. Then he tells her she didn’t have time to see them because they’re going out to the theater, and Paula’s like, “I didn’t know that…or did I forget?” and Gregory, facing the camera with his back to her, opens his mouth to respond, and then stops and waits for her to dwell on that for a few more seconds before he tells her that no, this is a surprise, and both his face and her face are so perfect there, I love it and hate it so much. Like, I love it from a “this movie is so well acted” perspective, and I hate it from a “this character is a horrible human being” perspective. And then Paula gets overly happy, since she’s been trapped in the house for so long that him letting her go out seems like a wonderful gift. But then he “notices” that a picture is missing from the wall, and makes her think she hid it, and they end up not going out because she’s “too unwell.”

That’s the main way he manipulates her: by moving things and making it look like she took them. What’s particularly interesting about the way the movie shows this is we never actually see Gregory taking any of the things, but it is nevertheless clear that he has been. But he is so insistent that she’s doing it that we can easily believe that Paula wouldn’t suspect him, or that if she did, she would have significant doubts. And even if she did figure it out, it’s not like there’s anything she can do about it. She’s in London for the first time in a decade, she doesn’t know anyone, she doesn’t have anywhere to go, and she’s not sure she can trust her own mind. And I think it’s so important that the movie at no point faults her for ending up in that situation or for not being able to leave. The movie also gives no indication that Gregory is physically harming Paula, but leaves the audience in no doubt that he is an abusive husband. And I feel like the messages that abuse doesn’t have to be physical and that it’s never the victim’s fault are still too rare in media today, let alone nearly 80 years ago. I feel like back then most unhealthy relationships in movies were in the His Girl Friday vein of “they’re kind of both abusing each other so it’s fine” or would find other ways for excusing or explaining the abusive behavior, like “the abuser was drunk” or “the victim was asking for it” or what have you. And if they weren’t like that, the victim usually ended up dead. In Gaslight, Gregory has no excuse. I mean, he does have a reason, but it’s a terrible reason that in no way justifies his actions. And Paula not only survives, but also gets an incredibly satisfying confrontation with Gregory after Brian and another policeman have tied him up. When the police leave them alone together, Gregory pleads with her to get a knife and cut him free, and for a moment you think she’s actually going to help him, but she gets her revenge by pretending she can’t find the knife and saying she’s too insane to help him, forcing him to admit that he has lied to her and she isn’t actually mad. And she wraps up her great payback with: “If I were not mad, I could have helped you. Whatever you had done, I could have pitied and protected you. But because I am mad, I hate you. Because I am mad, I have betrayed you. And because I'm mad, I'm rejoicing in my heart, without a shred of pity, without a shred of regret, watching you go with glory in my heart!” So she turns his gaslighting around on him, and it’s amazing. Although I must admit that right after that when she cries, “Mr. Cameron! Take this man away!” is the one part when I feel like Ingrid Bergman overdoes it just a little bit and gets too melodramatic, but after everything Paula has been through, she deserves as many melodramatic moments as she wants.

I would prefer it if the movie didn’t conclude with the implication that Paula is going to end up romantically involved with Brian, but again, she deserves all the happiness she can get, and if that’s what’s going to make her happy, I’m all for it. And I guess we can claim Miss Thwaites as aroace representation, since she seems to be an old maid with no interest in romance. This movie also speaks to my aromanticism and asexuality in a different, unique way. Because to a certain extent, being aroace in an allonormative, amatonormative society kind of feels like the entire world is gaslighting you. Of course, I don’t mean to imply that my experiences have been anywhere near as horrendous as someone like Paula’s – having your reality cruelly and intentionally twisted by a partner is on an entirely different level from not quite fitting in with the dominant culture’s concept of reality. Still, being constantly bombarded with the message that all mature humans frequently experience sexual and romantic attraction, and that a universal top life goal is to find a partner you’re attracted to that way, when you don’t feel those attractions and don’t desire that kind of partner, is incredibly confusing and disorienting. Once you become an adult, or even a teenager, people start giving you knowing looks when they hear you’ve been hanging out with a friend one-on-one, especially if that friend happens to be of the opposite sex. And you don’t think you like any of your friends “that way” but you also don’t really know what liking someone “that way” feels like so you start to think maybe you don’t know your own feelings. And if you’re lucky, your brain subconsciously decides that you do have crushes like a normal person, they’re just always on movie stars, most of whom are dead, which you realize is weird, but it’s an understandable kind of weird. Nobody believes you when you say you don’t have a crush on anybody, but if you show them a picture of Cary Grant and say, “I have a crush on him,” that makes sense to them. And so you end up becoming convinced that you’re experiencing types of attraction that you’re not, to the point that when you first hear about asexuality you don’t even consider the possibility that it could describe you. And of course, when I say “you” I mean “me”; I can’t speak for all aroaces, although I do think most of us experience some form of that confusion before we figure out that our identity exists. I feel like there’s a relatively widespread perception that aromantic and/or asexual people are just single allos who want to feel special by giving themselves a label, but for me, the opposite is true. Using the aroace label makes me feel less special, because now I know there are other people out there like me, after spending so much time trying to play along with the attraction I thought I was supposed to be feeling. It’s honestly been kind of difficult to unlearn this, to teach myself how to even recognize, let alone trust, what I’m actually feeling versus the socially acceptable way to be feeling about other people.

It’s weird because, looking back, it’s so obvious to me that I was faking crushes, that I was just parroting things I’d heard when I talked about them, that I was just smiling and nodding when people would say things like, “Isn’t that person hot?” But at the time, I absolutely could not admit that, even to myself, because I felt like, in order to be human, I must be experiencing what I’d been led to believe were universal human emotions that went along with sexual and romantic attraction. Back in 2013 I blogged about all the movies I’d seen at least 10 times in 10 years, and I just re-read my post about Gaslight, in which I apparently wrote that I found Joseph Cotten attractive in this movie. I don’t remember thinking or writing that, but I’m sure if I’d been asked to elaborate, I would have said I thought he was hot or whatever, even though I absolutely did not, I just thought I was supposed to. I wasn’t consciously lying; I had become convinced that I felt things I didn’t. Although, now that I think about it, maybe I really was attracted to him, not sexually or romantically, but in terms of the way his character functions in the story. I desperately needed someone to show up and tell me that the problem wasn’t with my mind and provide me with some key information I was missing that would explain what was going on, just like Brian does for Paula. Again, her experience was much more horrifying than mine, but learning that some people are aromantic and asexual, that not feeling those kinds of attraction is perfectly normal for those people, was almost as revelatory to me as learning that her husband killed her aunt and was trying to drive her mad was to Paula. Maybe it sounds like I’m the one being melodramatic now, but I don’t know how else to explain how messed up it is to spend decades convincing yourself and everyone else that you’re feeling things you’re not, and what a relief it is to learn that you were right all along and can finally take the mask off. And that’s why I’ve been focusing so much on looking at movies from an aromantic and asexual perspective on this podcast. Because I don’t want anyone else to go through all that. I want everyone to know that amatonormativity and allonormativity are lies, both because I want people on the aromantic and/or asexual spectrums to understand themselves sooner than I understood myself, and because I want alloromantic, allosexual people to know that not everyone is like them. I don’t blame the allo people I was surrounded with for perpetuating these norms because they didn’t know better. I know they weren’t really trying to gaslight me. But I would like to live in a society where most people do know better.

Anyway, I appreciate this movie for understanding me in ways that I couldn’t articulate until recently. But that’s far from the only reason it’s this high on my list. Again, I truly cannot overemphasize how phenomenal the acting is. Ingrid Bergman was always wonderful, but she took it to a whole other level here, and the rest of the cast were similarly at the top of their game. I never get tired of watching them act together, particularly when I’m in the mood for something a little darker. Like the other Ingrid Bergman movie I talked about, Notorious, I’m not sure whether Gaslight “counts” as film noir, because it has some of the typical noir tropes but lacks other important ones. But from a lighting and cinematography perspective, it definitely feels like a noir, so if you enjoy that style, you’ll probably appreciate this movie. It was nominated for a total of seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Screenplay, and Black-and-White Cinematography, in addition to the three acting nominations I mentioned earlier for Bergman, Boyer, and Lansbury. The only Oscar it won besides Best Actress was for Art Direction, which is something I don’t generally pay a ton of attention to, but the set is particularly important in Gaslight. The house almost functions as a character: it’s Gregory’s accomplice in torturing Paula, and the increasingly cluttered look of the rooms helps emphasize the way it’s trapping her. And, of course, there are the real, vintage gasoliers that give the movie its title and add greatly to its mood. So both of this movie’s Oscars were thoroughly deserved.

Thank you for listening to me discuss another of my most frequently rewatched films. This wraps up the 4-way tie of movies I saw 22 times from 2003 through 2022. I wonder how many other people out there have watched Beauty and the Beast, A Mighty Wind, His Girl Friday, and Gaslight the same number of times in the last 20 years. Anyway, I didn’t watch any movies exactly 23 times, so next up is the only one I watched 24 times, which is also one that I have a LOT of feelings and personal stories about, so stay tuned for what I’m sure will be a particularly long and rambling episode that I hope will be fun to listen to. As always, I will leave you with a quote from that next movie: “I don’t need to act things out in order to write them. I have what we like to call an ‘imagination.’ Have you ever heard of that? Oh, no no no no no, please tell us more about the old man… and the boat.”

#gaslight #ingrid bergman #charles boyer #george cukor #angela lansbury #the rewatch rewind

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gogmstuff · 2 months

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1908 (April issue) Les Modes - Mlle Cassiny du Théatre se l"Odéon Corsage en dentelle et broderie, créé par la Grande Maison de Dentelles - photo by Paul Boyer & Bert. From gallica.bnf.fr; fixed spots & flaws w Pshop 1181X1235.

#1908 fashion #1900s fashion #Belle Époque fashion #Edwardian fashion #Mlle Cassiny #Grande Maison de Dentelles #Paul Boyer & Bert #curly hair #head band #lace blouse #elbow-length sleeves #clerical neckline

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cultiverunjardin · 5 months

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my resignation - by Anne Boyer - M I R A B I L A R Y (substack.com)

I can’t write about poetry amidst the "reasonable" tones of those who aim to acclimatize us to this unreasonable suffering. No more ghoulish euphemisms. No more verbally sanitized hellscapes. No more warmongering lies. If this resignation leaves a hole in the news the size of poetry, then that is the true shape of the present. — Anne Boyer

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fearsmagazine · 7 months

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DRACULA, A COMEDY OF TERRORS - Review

DATES: Sept. 4th, 2023 – Jan. 7th, 2024 COMPANY: Drew & Dane Productions THEATER: New World Stages, 340 West 50th Street, New York City ACTORS: Jordan Boatman, Arnie Burton, James Daly, Ellen Harvey, Andrew Keenan-Bolger, Kaitlyn Boyer and Sean-Michael Wilkinson. CREW: Director/Writer - Gordon Greenberg; Writer - Steve Rosen; Producers - Drew Desky and Dane Levens; Scenic and Puppet Designer - Tijana Bjelajac; Costume Designer - Tristan Raines; Lighting Designer - Rob Denton; Original Music and Sound Designer - Victoria Deiorio; Wig and Hair Designer - Ashley Rae Callahan.

(L-R) Andrew Keenan-Bolger, Jordan Boatman, James Daly, Ellen harvey and Arnie Burton in DRACULA, A COMEDY OF TERRORS. Photo by Matthew Murphy

SYNOPSIS: A pansexual GenZ Count Dracula is in the midst of an existential crisis. When he sets his sights on the brilliant young earth scientist Lucy Westfeldt, he meets his match for the first time – as well as a slew of other colorful characters including vampire hunter Jean Van Helsing, insect connoisseur Percy Renfield and behavioral psychiatrist Wallace Westfeldt, whose British country estate doubles as a free-range mental asylum.

(L-R) Ellen Harvey, James Daly and Arnie Burton TERRORS. Photo by Matthew Murphy

REVIEW: Horror comedies come in only two flavors - good and bad. DRACULA, A COMEDY OF TERRORS is a sensational, decadent satire that is the perfect treat for the Halloween season.

Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen's satirical and irreverent treatment of the Stoker novel resides somewhere in between “The Rocky Horror Musical” and a Monty Python film, with flares of the immortal Charles Ludlam. The tone is set right from the start as the cast tosses the novel and the hilarity begins. The previous productions of the play, including an adaptation of the piece as a radio play for The Broadway Podcast Network, clearly have sharpened the dialogue and wordplay to a razor sharp wordplay duel that had the audience laughing out loud within the first few moments. The writers have trimmed the novel down to a 90 minute tale that tries to incorporate key elements of the story, taking liberties with the novel’s climax to nicely dovetail with the themes of their play. The satire runs the spectrum from that of the novel, political, contemporary pop culture, and gender. Except for Dracula, the other actors have dual or multiple roles where the juggling of the characters adds to the merriment.

James Daly and Jordan Boatman in DRACULA, A COMEDY OF TERRORS. Photo by Matthew Murphy

Gordon Greenberg’s direction is superb. It is a finely tuned choreography of dialogue and movement that harkens back to the golden era of silent films to the Marx Brothers. There are some delightful props, including puppets, that add yet another level of humor to the production. Greenberg turns up the energy right at the start and maintains it for 90 minutes, giving the audience little time to recover from the side splitting laughter.

James Daly and Andrew Keenan-Bolger in DRACULA, A COMEDY OF TERRORS. Photo by Matthew Murphy

Tijana Bjelajac’s Scenic Design is a wonderful minimalist and still adds atmosphere to the production. Integrated into the set are nice visual and functional elements that are scaled down for an off-broadway production but are lavish enough, and easily would work for a Broadway staging. Tristan Raines’ costume designs are fabulous. The designs capture the period but also combine contemporary elements that highlight the performances.

Arnie Burton and James Daly in DRACULA, A COMEDY OF TERRORS. Photo by Matthew Murphy

DRACULA, A COMEDY OF TERRORS features an award worthy ensemble cast. The delivery of lines, the body language and facial expressions, their interactions are flawless, and if there were any misfires I didn’t notice. There was a fluidity to their performances that at times it felt like choreography. James Daly is outstanding as Dracula. He is as dynamic and enchanting as Tim Curry’s Dr. Frank-n-Furter, combined with the physique of Rocky. He delivers this multifaceted performance rich with comedic timing. Actor Arnie Burton steals the show as both Mina and Jean Van Helsing. He creates two unique performances that embodies the comedic prowess that is reminiscent of Milton Berle to Harvey Fierstein, with a dash of Bugs Bunny. In contrast, actress Ellen Harvey brings to life Wallace Westfeldt and Percy Renfield. She brilliantly effects switching between the two extremes that eventually becomes an uproarious gag in play. The cast does an astounding job of maintaining the energy level of the play for 90 minutes.

Andrew Keenan-Bolger and Jordan Boatman in DRACULA, A COMEDY OF TERRORS. Photo by Matthew Murphy

DRACULA, A COMEDY OF TERRORS is a side-splitting tour de force that would leave Bram Stoker and Mel Brooks rolling in the aisles, and maybe a bit envious. I’ve always advocated that there is a distinct bond between comedy and horror, and this is at its finest. Outstanding performances, fabulous production designs, brilliant directing, all deliver an energetic feel good and memorable theater experience. You must bring your friends for a night you’ll long remember as the perfect treat of this Halloween season.

James Daly in DRACULA, A COMEDY OF TERRORS. Photo by Matthew Murphy

Opening night is September 18. Performances are Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday at 7PM, Friday and Saturday at 8PM, with matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2PM. Tickets are $99 - $119. Premium seating is available. Tickets are now on sale at Telecharge.com, (212) 239-6200. For more information, visit www.DraculaComedy.com.

Review By: Joseph B Mauceri

Listen to our interview with director & co-writer Gordon Greenberg & co-write Steve Rosen on creating DRACULA, A COMEDY OF TERRORS – HERE

#Theater review #off-broadway #DRACULA #A COMEDY OF TERRORS #Gordon Greenberg #Steve Rosen #James Daly #Jordan Boatman #Arnie Burton #Andrew Keenan-Bolger #Ellen Harvey #dracula #bram stoker #comedy #joseph b mauceri #joseph mauceri

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