#nellie getting to be a child after years of responsibilities and struggles having to work as a child and care for her sisters

[devon-sinclair]

"The weight of the world is love. Under the burden of solitude, under the burden of dissatisfaction. The weight, the weight we carry is love." - Allen Ginsberg

Background: death mention tw

Devon Sinclair was never part of the plan. In fact one of the things that had cemented his parents relationship was their mutual understanding that they only ever wanted one child. But 12 years after the birth of Edward, Devon arrived under the shadow of slight resentment. His parents felt too busy to raise a newborn but did so anyway and a lot of the responsibility ended up on his brother Eddie who did his very best given the circumstances. What should have been Eddie’s adolescence turned into Devon’s childhood. It wasn’t all bad and the Sinclair’s had trusted neighbors and family who pitched in to help but there was no denying that Devon was not part of the plan. 

And that was the chip on his shoulder that he grew up with. Always feeling like a burden, especially as he entered his teenage years and Eddie was already on his way to being married and having kids. Before he could drive he was an Uncle and to this day that is probably the only title he’s ever been proud or happy to have. But Devon had a hard time finding himself. His brother already had a family of his own in his own children and in the Sons of Silence. As a young child he was always by Eddie’s side, always curious as the men with motorcycles met and started to come together. But Devon struggled to dream of the same future. He had no interest in getting his hands dirty or being in charge of anything. He was more interested in playing his games and helping his family get a computer even though back then they were so big it felt like he needed to move his entire bed out of the room to fit it in. But tech was his interest. Books and writing, history that he could study. Eddie would tease him but ultimately encouraged him and Devon grew to be someone who sought his brother’s approval much more than his parents. 

But his parents were his parents and they still projected hopes and dreams onto him. Hoped for him to be tougher like his brother, doing a job with meaning and practicality like their father. His father saw him as weak and his mother saw him more as a younger friend than anything else. He loved them both but didn’t feel as loved by them. So he sought that love elsewhere. In books, in school clubs, in the public library, anywhere he could where people would support his passions. So he was always out of the house, usually going wherever his best friend Nellie Decker was going and when he wasn’t with her he was pursuing something that would allow him to put his brain to work. And often he used this time to dream of a life outside of Tonopah Valley, somewhere beyond where he could be anyone. Where men on motorcycles wouldn’t see him and say “hey aren’t you Eddie’s brother?’ or the occasional mistake, “hey aren’t you eddie’s kid?” 

So Devon made a promise to himself to get out as soon as he could. He tried not to resent Nellie for getting out before him but her leave made his own that much more pressing. So a month after high school graduation, Devon packed his bags and left Tonopah for good. He hadn’t expected to be sad but mostly felt the sadness when it came to leaving behind his nieces and nephew. His brother who despite their differences and despite how much Devon resented the Sons, he admired and loved.Eddie would always be his hero, even if they didn’t agree. 

Life beyond Tonopah Valley wasn’t as immediately rewarding as he imagined but was extremely freeing. He went west first as an undergrad at Stanford University. He had a scholarship for tuition but worked multiple jobs to afford everything else. He learned what it was like to hustle for survival, to get his hands dirty in a different way. He would fix people’s computers, cleaned people’s toilets, washed dishes, whatever people would pay him for, he would do. And through this he learned the importance of being observant, something Eddie had tried to instill in him at an early age. And Eddie was the only person who he would really check in with until the kids started getting older and Eddie’s leadership took over. Devon still sent birthday cards and Christmas gifts and only made the mistake of going back to Tonopah for the first holiday break before he really never returned again until now. 

Devon made it his purpose to always be busy. He found jobs to take up, people to apprentice for, friends who had family’s he could visit while pretending he didn’t have his own. He signed on to every free trip or offering he could, always eager, always open to exploration. In his junior year of college he got the privilege of studying abroad in Tokyo, Japan and that alone opened up his entire world. He not only wanted to just get away anymore, he wanted to see as much as possible. He built a life where he could simply experience and learn as much as possible. This led him down many paths but Devon primarily made his career by being a programmer and a generous thinker. He went from launching a startup with some Stanford friends to pursuing a PhD at Oxford to becoming a guest lecturer before he became a full blown professor. That journey eventually brought him to a comfy gig at MIT which became so comfy he started to look for excitement elsewhere. 

And this was the moment of a second rebirth. Despite his consistent critique of the Sons, Devon saw the benefit of using his skills to help people in search of guarded information. It started as a little thing, helping people seeking information about their spouses affairs or their children's worrisome online behavior. But that eventually grew into more, helping people of great importance delete information or use information against other people. He wasn't a private investigator, just a gatherer of information. What happened beyond that was beyond him. If they were willing to pay, he was willing to do it. Until it got him in trouble and he found a particularly pissed off party after him, hoping to claim his life. So this second rebirth also came with increased physical preparation. Someone who had once been seen as frail and weak became someone who strived for the opposite. Gym days, personal trainers, rugby rec club, study of martial arts, joining a boxing club.  He became as strong physically as he was mentally and his services expanded, to say the least. 

Which is how he ended up in this moment. When he received an inquiry for a job in Tonopah Valley of all places, he thought it was a joke. But then the request came back around and he realized it was serious. Someone wanted help in gathering information about the townspeople in Tonopah Valley and Devon found it physically impossible for him to continue to say no. He had done work for The Enterprise before in the early years so he was familiar with Dante’s existence but Dev prided himself on having no loyalty. Which was the opposite of what his brother had taught him. 

So he decided to say yes. And for the first time in over 20 years, he’s finally returning home. Weary of the work ahead of him, excited to see his nieces and nephews and having no idea that his brother is no longer alive. 

Headcanons:

A very organized man despite the chaos of his mind. His apartment is super well organized (though right now really bare since he just moved) and he’s big on weekly cleaning. 

Has made a good amount of money for himself, lives super comfortably, and though he isn’t flashy, he invests in the finer things for himself when he can. 

Not on social media but has tons of burner accounts to help aid him in gathering information. Still a big fan of film and has tons of developed photos in boxes and albums in his home. 

The main person he stayed in contact with over the years was Nellie, they wrote letters to each other and to this day she probably knows the most truth about him. 

Can mostly be seen out in the early early hours of the morning. He loves a morning run, he’s big on physical upkeep as a means for protecting himself. He’s a meal planner kind of guy, big on his smoothies and tea before he has a coffee. But definitely prefers tea to coffee. 

Will start to develop a lot of regret as he gets used to being home. He intended to not stay long but as he starts to learn more about what’s been going on and his brother's death, he’ll start to spend more time trying to discover the truth. 

This includes being on the path of trying to redeem himself as Number One Uncle

Has never been married but was briefly engaged to a man he met in London (another bisexual king) and was with for almost five years before their relationship deteriorated.

#tv.intro #about devon #intro

[akinas-shave-ice]

why is this the cutest thing i’ve ever read

#nellie getting to be a child after years of responsibilities and struggles having to work as a child and care for her sisters #she finally gets to be cared for and have fun and be with her best friend #and they care about each other so much #it really makes me go 🥺 #💖 #💞 #also uncle gard..... an icon #nellie o'malley #samantha parkington #ag #american girl #ag dolls #american girl dolls

[regina-mortis]

Inktober Writing Challenge

(I have been really struggling with the challenge lately. This piece was especially hard given I accidently lost the whole work, thus had to re-write the entire story. I have little time to catch up, but I'm trying. Hope it fucking scares you)

Day 22: A Creepypasta

The Story

I debated bringing this story to light for weeks. It haunts me as clear and vividly gruesome as if the nightmare had unfolded a mere hour ago. I spent day after day wallowing in vodka, however no amount of alcohol rescued me from the bottomless gulf of heartbreak and guilt, or dimmed the abysmal horror lingering like poisonous thorns goring my ailed heart. It seems I have no choice… I shall succumb to insanity looming over me and pull the trigger if it  remains silently locked under my ribs, and my dear friend will have perished in vain. And her kid… He sincerely wanted to help. All this madness, death and agony he roused for me. I must unveil what happened, perhaps then I can breathe once again. I am to keep personal details as vague as possible, for if authorities find out my relation to the tragedy, I may land in more trouble than I can handle.

It began a few months ago. I was a horror author in the spring of career. My first novel, Miasma, had been published the previous year, I found myself in a storm of praises from readers and critics alike. Everyone was starving for my second book rumored to come out the following Halloween. Nobody could possibly know the truth… How hollow I had become, a mummified shell of the creator I once was. I drowned myself in spirits and melted my brain with cocaine to make existence bearable, distancing from friends and loyal admirers. Except one. For the story’s sake, I am going to name her Nellie. We… were morning against midnight, summer against dead of winter. Nellie was a single and eight months pregnant bachelor in family studies with a dream to one day run her own daycare. She had not as much as glanced at my book, far too squeamish for things I depicted, but cherished every part of me. I scorned Nellie for it. Who could adore the cynical addict I was behind a charming mask of blossoming talent… In my mind, no one. Nobody sane at least. I will divulge my soul and sincerely admit Nellie would have been the first person I shunned if not the stubbornness so aberrant to her naive and gentle self. She would not let me decay in peace, ringing the doorbell every fucking day with a flowery paper bag of home-cooked food and a rented DVD. Sometimes, she would even have me tag along to a tiny local coffee shop around the corner, where somehow, I smiled to the green-haired barista and signed a couple of autographs people asked me for. Nellie was the sole reason why I chose not to end it all. And I’m certain she knew. She was mellow, yet not a fool neither blind.  I loathed her, but found it impossible not to love her. She knew I could not bring myself to let her find my lifeless cadaver with skull blown off and brains all over the wall.

Upon stirring awake and noticing it was six in the evening, I caught myself both dismissively relieved and slightly concerned. Nellie always showed up around three in the afternoon to drag me out of bed and scold me for downing five cans of Red Bull to stay restless till ungodly hours of dawn again. Swallowing the worry and assuming she got caught up in university work, I stalked to the kitchen, only to freeze in sheer astonishment oozing with faint and abstract sense of primeval terror. Among the clutter on the table, sat an object which definitely had not been here before - a neatly folded piece of paper. Frowning, I snatched the mysterious item and frantically stared at the elegant note within. Gravely wind gushed through the balcony door I had not realized was open, and my skin grew pale as bone.

“End of the road behind the city park. I shall be waiting upon your wake”

Before spiralling into perpetual gloom, I used to be an avid urbex explorer. I’d gladly risk getting injured or arrested to sate my fascination for the cryptic and the macabre. Even Miasma, my novel, was inspired by an abandoned hospital a few streets away. Thus I certainly was aware about a deserted road behind the city park despite never having stepped a foot on it due to work and later misery devouring all my time. It was enlaced with legends and eerie stories told in slumber parties, university students organized ghost tours there for Halloween, high schoolers filmed themselves sniffing around to impress their crushes. Older folks feared the road like ants fear fire, claiming a curse plagued it, and monstrous specters roamed it on moonless nights. Nobody had dared to complete the route in last two decades, or lived to tell the tale, but an abandoned church was said to still stand at the end quite firm, held together by forces of ancient evil which infested it.

Though I doubt there is any need to mention urbex was no passion of Nellie’s.

I tossed the crumpled note away, grabbing my coat and bursting through the door, not bothering to brush my hair or change the jeans and shirt I had been wearing for last five days. All I hoped was that the hood will obscure my face enough for me not to be recognized.

The city park laid an hour away from my home on foot, and took an hour more to cross it. Without a physical possibility for the police to monitor the entirety of such a large area, the place could get extremely dangerous at night, lunatics, rogue criminals and homeless heroin junkies lurking in the bushes. Yet I could not care less about peril. Dread of something unnamed and far, far more cruel than a knife or a gun awaiting at the end of my destination pulsing like sick, festering aura around me likely  pushed any attacker to turn around anyway. My muscles were burning, sharp twigs whipping my face as I took every possible shortcut. The air was thick and heavy like butter, it felt as if my lungs had been flooded with slowly stagnating slime, robbing me of oxygen and making my head foggy, sight growing dark. I bit my lip harshly, rough, warm taste of iron dripping on my tongue, and pushed forward, struggling not to collapse.

I wish a gasp of ardor had erupted from my throat when indeed, outline of a small, crumbling church of gray stone emerged from the dark. I wish I had gingerly leaped forward, clutching my camera and already spinning a chilling tale in my head. Not limped towards impending doom growing clearer and clearer in front of me, ankle sprained in the rush refusing to obey my sizzling nerves.

What I found inside the forsaken sanctum surged me with such sepulchral, abysmal sensation I fail to flesh out earthly words to recount it. The horror… Oh, the spine-crushing horror. Nellie was here. She gazed straight at me, starry blue of her gaze now glassy, final visage of sheer fright and despair chained in the milky prison until maggots gnaw it away, mouth agape in a wordless greeting muffled by raw red muscle stuffed withing. She laid so heinously beautiful on the split, mouldy altar, broken arms motionless by her side, bare intestines slumped over the edge, blood and yellowish, reeking stomach fluids still trickling and spreading around as if a morbid halo. Her chest… Torn open, flesh and fragments of fractured bone scattered around, a dusty golden Chalice set in the middle. I stumbled backwards, screeching soundlessly. On top of it… placed a severed head of an in infant, so tiny, but almost fully developed, ruthlessly gouged out of a lifeless womb.

What… What in the name of all Saints and Sinners… Was this all a nightmare?.. A hallucination?.. Let it be, please, let it be!..

“Do you like it?” a voice rumbled from my left, guttural, yet serpentine,  shaking every fiber in my body with shock so intense I broke out of paralysis, jumping and turning around to face four blazing amber orbs in the shadows.

The figure rose seven feet above ground, without counting the enormous crooked horns sat upon his head that is. Black as obsidian, his skin merged flawlessly with the murk, or was he cloaked I could not tell.

“I beg you, fear not… I did this all for you” he continued without waiting for a response of mine “For your story. A child once lost a scripture of yours on the road that I wandered. I gave into curiosity, and the way you weave words of terror has bewitched me. I have watched over you ever since… I saw how uneasy your slumber was, I witnessed the pain drained ambrosia has brought you. Please…” he gestured towards the desecration “drink inspiration for your new story”.

#inktober 2018 #october writing challenge #creepypasta #original creepypasta #horror #horror story #my story #my creepypasta #my writing #my words #writers on tumblr #original horror #the story #demon super fan

[anothergracekellyblog]

I'd intended to post this yesterday to coincide with the 64th anniversary of its publication. However, true to my nature, I got hung up on minor details and it went unposted. Now that I’ve edited the crap out of the cover, it’s finally ready for primetime... sort of.

NEWSWEEK magazine - May 17, 1954

THE COVER: A calm, clear-eyed beauty, Philadelphia's Grace Kelly is the latest star to reach Hollywood's top rung. Now one of the busiest actresses in Hollywood, she undoubtedly inherits much of her drive from her father, the fabulous John B. Kelly, who built a multimillion-dollar construction business from a $7,000 loan. Kelly, a famous oarsman and Olympic winner, saw his fondest dream come true when Grace's brother, John B. Jr., won the Henley Regatta in England. But Kelly dreams have a way of coming true with surprising regularity. For a story about Grace and her family of champions, see page 96.

THE KELLYS’ COOL FILM BEAUTY

In a quieter moment of history, as the words of George M. Cohan's song go, everyone was crazy about a legendary New York girl named Nellie, the daughter of Officer Kelly, and as beautiful and lively a girl as ever danced an Irish reel:

The Boys are all mad about Nellie, the daughter of Officer Kelly; And it's all day long they bring flowers all dripping with dew, And they join the chorus of Nellie Kelly, I Love You © 1922 M. Witmark & Sons, © renewed 1949 Agnes Cohan. © assigned 1952 to George N. Cohan Music Publishing Co.

In 1954 Hollywood, a world away from Nellie in time and space, everyone is still a little awed and breathless by the shooting star of quite a different Kelly girl, from Philadelphia, a coolly beautiful actress named Grace.

At 24, Grace Kelly (see cover) is a relative Hollywood rarity - a star who came out from the East already bright and shining, dispensing with the usual apprenticeship through the ranks of the studio publicity posers, the leg-conscious starlets, and the struggling featured players. After only two years in pictures, she has the kind of contract with M-G-M that Beverly Hills regulars envy - only three films a year and extra payment for any others she chooses. She is currently regarded as one of the hottest properties in films. Since she came to public notice, as Gary Cooper's peace-loving wife in High Noon, and, later, as Clark Gable's major distraction in Mogambo, Grace has made four major films, and her list of leading men (Ray Milland, James Stewart, William Holden, Bing Crosby, and Stewart Granger) sounds like an autograph hunter's New Year's resolutions. Her current hit, Dial 'M' for Murder (NEWSWEEK, May 10, 1954), has just been released.

All of this puts blond Grace quite a bit ahead of little Nellie; but only, in point of fact, by a generation or so. Behind Grace, and probably in great part responsible for her success, is the story of the rise of a great Irish-American family, of men and women blessed by strong arms and good looks, a dogged instinct for hard work, and a sure feel for success.

Grace's father, John Brendan Kelly, 64, is a handsome, vigorous, and wealthy Philadelphia contractor, who won himself a corner of sporting history by his great rowing victories in the '20s. One uncle, George Kelly, is a ranking American playwright (The Show-Off, Craig's Wife). Her late uncle, Walter, was the beloved “Virginia Judge” of the vaudeville stage. Her brother, John B. Jr., followed in his father's footsteps by becoming the greatest oarsman of his time (Diamond Sculls champion in 1947 and 1948). To be a standout in the Kelly family, as Philadelphians justly observe, takes some doing.

Pat Went to School: The story of Grace Kelly begins, perhaps, on her great-grandfather's farm in Ireland.

“There were five boys in the family," as her father John relates, “and not much money to spare. It was plain to my grandfather that he could not educate them all so he called them together one day and said: 'Boys, we are going to put the oldest one of you through school, but the rest will have to stay and work the farm and contribute a share to Pat's schooling. At least one Kelly will be educated.' So Pat went to school and ended up the dean of Dublin University. My own father never had a day in school himself, but he had a wonderful memory, all right, and maybe that's where Grace gets her talent for learning a part.”

At 20, the County Mayo farm boy who was to be Grace's grandfather came to the United States and met and married Mary Costello, who had preceded him out of the same county. They settled at the Falls of the Schuylkill, 5 miles from Philadelphia, and began raising their family. The first seven children all went to work in the mills before they were in their teens. The last three, among them Grace's father, got a break: They were able to go through grammar school before settling down to work.

Tunney and the King: John Kelly served three years' apprenticeship as a bricklayer. He was getting nicely started on his trade - and growing adept at his hobby of rowing on the Schuylkill when the first world war took him off to France. There, in his off-hours, he boxed at 175 pounds, and he was well on his way to taking the light-heavyweight championship of the AEF when he broke his ankle in a truck accident. The man who did win the title was a Marine named Gene Tunney.

Last week in his pleasant Philadelphia office (the building is a replica of William Penn's Letitia Street house) John Kelly read aloud a letter from the former heavyweight champion which concluded: “Polly [Tunney's wife] doesn't know that but for an accident the world would never have heard of her husband as a pugilist.” This may have been so. The man Tunney beat for the AEF title stayed three rounds with him; Kelly had stiffened the same fighter in the first round in an earlier bout.

Bricks and Oars: Kelly came back from France to resume his bricklaying and his oarsmanship. In 1920, having already won the national singles, he went to England to try for the Diamond Sculls at Henley, rowing's highest prize. At the last moment, his entry was rejected because he was not a gentleman - the Henley definition of that being one who has never worked with his hands.

He got his revenge two months later by winning the Olympic singles at Antwerp, beating England's champion, among others. In exultation, he sent his sweaty green rowing cap to the King of England, with the compliments of John Kelly. Twenty-seven years later he stood on the banks of the Thames and saw his son John, University of Pennsylvania student and by Henley standards a “gentleman,” take the Diamond Sculls by eight good lengths.

In 1924, John Kelly married a beautiful Philadelphia girl of German ancestry named Margaret Majer, an athlete and magazine-cover model herself. By the time Grace, the third of their four children were born, the Kellys were growing prosperous. John Kelly had started a bricklaying business with $7,000 he borrowed from his brothers, George and Walter, and he was rapidly turning it into what is now an $18 million contracting concern.

In 1935, John Kelly ran for mayor of Philadelphia on the Democratic ticket and was narrowly beaten. Two years later, when Grace was 7, a much more important thing happened to her. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. came to the Kelly house to visit. (“He kissed me goodnight. I was never going to wash again.")

A Trouper at 11: Grace was a quiet child, who could, however, forget her shyness on the stage. When she was 11, she played a part at a presentation of Philadelphia's old Academy Players. In the middle of the show, her stage mother muffed her lines. With characteristic coolness, Grace dropped her handbag, turned her back on the audience, and gave the older actress her lines, while she was picking up her bag. John Kelly turned to his wife: “We've got a trouper on our hands."

In 1947, fresh from Stevens school in Philadelphia and a trip to Europe, Grace started trouping in earnest. She sped to New York and enrolled in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts to learn how. To support herself, she found work as a model and worked her way up to the sixth heaven of those models who command $25 an hour. Six times, during her New York days, she looked out at her friends from the covers of Cosmopolitan and Redbook. “The money was very nice," she says as she recalls this, “and that's what makes it all worth-while."

After modeling and the academy, young Grace worked her way into television and did very well on TV's dramatic circuit. Her thinly drawn blond beauty and a certain discipline of manner were heavily in demand, although often for specialized roles. (“I was afraid for a while that I'd be typed as an English wife.”) But few directors who saw her forgot the Kelly features - a face, as one Hollywood surveyor put it, which reminds him of a cool, fast stream in a mountain hideaway.

In 1951, after starting a movie part on location in New York, she went out to the Coast. Preferring New York to Hollywood, she had no desire to move away, and M-G-M had to hustle before she considered a contract. She got her second big part, in Mogambo, on the strength of a screen test which John Ford, its director, remembered. It was a test, fittingly enough, in which she played an Irish girl with a brogue. Ford, an Irishman, found it hard to believe when he heard that she was American born.

A Classic English Type: In California, Grace Kelly lives as quietly as can be in a small apartment on Sweetzer Avenue in West Hollywood. She still retains her apartment on 66th Street in Manhattan. She is not given to making friends easily, and her manners give many people the impression that she is aloof. Hollywood columnists who try to interview her, after their first fruitless attempts at eliciting expansive or humorous responses, finally emerge as if they had been presented at court.

When she finishes her present picture, Green Fire, a drama about emerald hunting in Colombia (with Stewart Granger as the emerald hunter), she has two more pictures waiting for her (The Cobweb and [To] Catch a Thief). Perhaps atomic-age audiences feel some vicarious reassurance and stability in watching her restrained behavior and gazing into the cool stream of the Kelly face - what many call a classic English type. It makes a nice Hollywood switch-ending to recall that this classic English type is really the daughter of the Philadelphia Irishman who once angrily mailed his sweaty green cap to Buckingham Palace.

#grace kelly #on this day #1954 #newsweek #vintage color #dial m for murder #moss mabry dress

[geekade]

Little House: Revisiting a Childhood Classic

To a girl who grew up in the 90s in New Jersey, the Laura Ingalls Wilder’s America, with her family constantly and directly affected and impeded by their environment and at times struggling just to survive, is an alien one. But in another sense, it is a very appealing picture. The Ingalls family were one another’s only entertainment, often only company, and though we often picture old-fashioned families as very stern, the Ingalls’ story is one filled with song, laughter, and love. Irecently reread this series after about a decade and a half, and it was a totally new experience. I engaged with the characters in a way I didn’t think would be possible, considering differences in time and lifestyle, and while I was reading, I felt like I was a member of the Ingalls family.

The series begins with Little House in the Big Woods, which takes place in the Big Woods in Wisconsin. This book centers around the Ingalls homesteading, and is probably the ‘coziest’ of the books, as it doesn’t touch as much on the dangers and difficulties of survival as much as the other books do. Laura, her older sister Mary, (and their baby sister Carrie, included in the story though chronologically not born yet), alternate playing and helping around the house, sometimes combining the two, and spend their evenings being entertained by their Pa’s fiddle and vivid storytelling. While living in Wisconsin, the Ingalls were near their cousins and grandparents, so we also get a glimpse into what it was like visiting family and hosting social visitors in this time period.

Growing up, this was my favorite book in the series and has had a massive influence on who I am as a person. I love gardening and homesteading-related hobbies. I love to sew. I hope one day to own enough land to grow the majority of my own produce, and to preserve and store it as the Ingalls did. But more than the influence it had on me, I treasure the impressions it left me with as a child. The lively family in this story is nothing like how they appear in photographs - stern, and grayscale, their clothes restrictive and mouths tight. The young Ingalls family read just like any other family - loving, interdependent upon one another, and truly pleased with their lot in life.

Little House on the Prairie, technically the third book and the namesake of the TV series based loosely on the books, was the second book that I read during my re-read. I chose to omit the books centering around the childhood of Almanzo Wilder because when I initially read the series as a child, I had no idea they even existed. (I plan to follow up with them in future.) Little House on the Prairie chronicles the events of 1869-1870, in Kansas, where the Ingalls moved, following rumors that the nearby Indian Territory would soon be settled. Moving in a covered wagon from the Big Woods, the Ingalls suffer a number of hardships that come in as a stark contrast to those in the first book. One such is the “fever n’ ague” that the family comes down with (later identified as malaria) which puts them out of commission while a neighbor, Mrs. Scott, cares for them along with her own family. Mrs. Scott is one of a few companions of the Ingalls family in this book, another being Mr. Edwards, a bachelor from Tennessee, who later on plays “Santa Claus” for the children. At great risk to themselves, the Ingalls’ neighbors weave into the story by helping them through times that the Ingalls mightn’t have gotten through on their own. In 1870, the government announced that the land would not be open to settlers, and so the house that Pa Ingalls built on the land, and all of the work he’d done tilling the field came to nothing, and the family packed up to move East, closer to ‘civilization,’ where the girls could get educated.

I have to say, this particular re-read was the most incongruous to my memory. I may have conflated it with the following book in my mind, but the easy laughter and confidence of the Big Woods book is gone in this one. Pa Ingalls comes across as a more imposing, decisive character; moving his family from place to place on nearly no notice. Though the trek certainly was fascinating, and brings back old memories of playing Oregon Trail, I didn’t enjoy this book nearly as much as I expected to--ruined by my own memories and ideas about it, I guess. One thing I will say is that I grew an unexpected and truly fierce love for Jack the dog, though. Jack is the Ingalls family companion, and though he squares off against mountain lions and bears in the Big Woods, his protectiveness and stalwartness along the trail to Kansas is incredibly endearing, and his near loss is heartbreaking. (In real life, it wasn’t a heartbreaking near-loss, but an actual loss, and Jack didn’t journey from Kansas to Minnesota with the Ingalls.)

On the Banks of Plum Creek is what I had been expecting from Little House on the Prairie: community, family, adventure, and history, all within the setting of an untouched landscape in Minnesota. Living in a pre-“built” dugout home near the banks of Plum Creek, the Ingalls begin working on their wooden, above-ground home, while also gathering wild grass as hay for their horses and beginning again to till the land. Mary and Laura also go to school for the first time in this book, and the infamous Nellie Oleson is introduced. Nellie, I think, is a more infamous TV character than in the book, where she comes across as your average schoolyard bully, but Laura makes you hate her either way. Nellie is a shopkeeper’s daughter from New York State, and she makes sure everyone knows it and how many advantages it's given her. Rubbing her considerable wealth in everyone’s face, Nellie hosts a “town party” and invites the “farm girls” to join, almost for the purpose of flaunting her resources. Laura’s resulting jealousy inspires her to host her own, more fun party later in the year.

Unfortunately things take a turn, and a swarm of Rocky Mountain locusts literally wipe the traces of the Ingalls’ entire year's work from the earth, leaving them in debt, without food, and a little later, trapped by a snowstorm. Pa goes missing just before the blizzard, and is gone for two days before the blizzard lets up and he can make his way home--apparently having been trapped behind a hill only a few hundred yards from home.

Gosh this book was exciting, and immersive enough to get me saying “gosh.” As Laura ages and the Ingalls’ lives become more and more complicated, the story reveals more about America’s past and the private lives of citizens in the late 1800s than I could have imagined. The humanity and relatability of these characters is something I never would have applied to the early settlers of America’s farmland if I hadn’t read them.

The following book, By the Shores of Silver Lake, follows the Ingalls’ life in De Smet, South Dakota and introduces the fourth Ingalls child, Grace, as the baby. With ‘baby’ Carrie now getting a little older, she is responsible for helping around the house like Laura and Mary were, and is a more apt playmate for Laura as time goes on. However, this book opens with the surprise that Mary has gone blind from her illnesses previously mentioned in the other books, along with a bout of scarlet fever. (Mary’s blindness was later theorized to be due to a thyroid disease, and diabetes that plagued the entire Ingalls family.) Along with Mary’s sight, in this book, we lose Jack, a device Laura moved to this story to help signify the change from childhood to young adulthood. Jack’s peaceful death the day before the family’s long journey to South Dakota is sad, but they give him a wonderful last day filled with his favorite foods and games.

We gain some insight into Laura’s story-telling ability when Pa tells Laura to “be Mary’s eyes” and Laura becomes responsible for describing to Mary the many sights of their new home, and the move, and even the train that the family takes and its passengers. The train is also an exciting part of this story, and begins the relationship throughout the series between the train’s advancement, and America’s encroachments over unsettled land. Pa Ingalls even gets a job working for the railroad company as a paymaster, and the family is able to winter in the surveyor's house, making friends with the local Boast family and hosting workers and pioneers. The Ingalls home became almost an inn during that time, making the family a great deal of money by charging 25 cents for meals and board overnight, and thus begin saving to send Mary to a college for the blind that their former Reverend told them about on a visit. This story is the first to truly engage in the technological advancements and travel capabilities of America’s settlers. The Ingalls not only get visits from family, but make friends and see old ones as they travel across the country, settling in different states.

In The Long Winter, we not only get a true scope of the hardships faced by a family genuinely on their own as far as resources go, we also begin to get a sense of the small-town communities we know to be a big part of American culture today. Shops, inns, and homes begin to crop up in the area, and the Ingalls family winters in the center of town, to be closer to the train as well as the shops and fellow homesteaders. We also first meet Almanzo Wilder in this story, who in the fictionalized account was pretending to be 21 (actually 19) in order to lay a claim to unsettled land, but in reality was closer to 23 (Laura was 13.) Laura and Carrie attend school as often as possible, but are hindered and ultimately stopped entirely by successive blizzards which bury the town and make the roadsimpassable. Food dwindles and even the innovative methods of stretching their stores fail the Ingalls eventually. The blizzards continue for 7 months, and many throughout the town go without food until Almanzo Wilder shares his seed-grain with the locals, and the trains finally thaw, delivering a Christmas barrel of supplies and donated clothing to the weakened Ingalls’ home.

Despite being one of the shorter books, The Long Winter was certainly drama-packed, and at times I truly was scared while reading it, but ultimately I felt it could have been rolled into Little Town on the Prairie. Undoubtedly one of the most formative times in Laura’s life, this book was one where Laura began to really seize on adulthood and responsibility, often talking about protecting her younger sister Carrie, who’s discussed as being a sickly child (despite going on to be quite athletic in her adulthood). Little Town on the Prairie, however, is less focused on hardship and more focused on economy. Laura gets a job sewing for a shop in town in order to pay for Mary’s college education. When she’s let go, the family tries to sell crops, only to have their harvest destroyed by blackbirds. Finally, selling a cow for the money, Mary gets ready to go off to school with Pa and Ma escorting her, leaving Laura, Carrie, and Grace at home.

Again demonstrating her responsibility, Laura leads her sisters in the fall chores, leaving the house sparkling for Ma and Pa’s return. Nellie Oleson befriends the new schoolteacher, Almanzo Wilder’s sister, whose father is on the school board and who had consistently clashed with Nellie in the past, and turns her against the Ingalls girls. The younger students rally behind Laura and torment the new teacher, halting lessons essentially until Nellie joins in the bullying of Ms. Wilder and she eventually leaves. The new teacher helps Laura to achieve her teaching certificate, which Laura wants only to earn more money for Mary, and not because she wants to be a teacher (which she makes clear she does not). Around the same time, Almanzo Wilder begins walking Laura home from church, which Laura seems not to fully understand, but comes to appreciate. At the end of this book, Laura is offered a teaching position in a nearby town, and she prepares to move away from home for the first time.

I have to say, the minute Almanzo enters the story as Laura’s suitor, I began to get giddy. Laura’s narration seems almost willfully naive about his romance attempts, and I found myself rooting for their relationship hopefully, despite knowing that in reality, the couple were married until Almanzo’s death at 91. This feeling intensified in the following book, as Almanzo became Laura’s only rescue from her teaching position and boarding situation.

  The book These Happy Golden Years starts out miserable, with 15-year-old Laura being driven by her Pa out to the teaching position from the previous book. Laura boards with the Brewster family, who, unlike her own family, allow animosities and arguments not only to surface, but to come to light in front of her. Mrs. Brewster begins with the silent treatment, but rapidly progresses to shouting at Laura, her husband, and anyone who will listen to her. Eventually, Laura wakes up to the sound of the Brewsters arguing because Mrs. Brewster was standing over her sleeping husband with a knife and he woke up. Almanzo Wilder, fond of Laura and having gotten permission from her Pa, appears each weekend to take Laura home. Throughout the season, Laura proves to be a good teacher; eventually gaining the respect of her students (some of whom were older than she was) and completing her school term, earning $40 for Mary’s college fund. When Laura returns to town, however, Nellie makes a move on Almanzo.

I have never hated anyone as much as I hated Nellie Oleson while reading this book. Nellie, in previous books, boasted about getting whatever she wanted from boys, often flirtily stealing their candy and gifts for other girls, and frequently mentioning that she wanted to go for a ride with Almanzo Wilder and his beautiful horses. Nellie gets her wish, and Almanzo takes her along on a few of his rides with Laura. Laura is eventually able to trick Nellie out of these rides by urging the horses to go faster and scaring Nellie out of repeat trips. Shortly afterwards, Nellie moves back to New York State due to financial hardships, and around the same time, the Ingalls are visited by a relative. Laura’s Uncle Tom, Ma’s brother, comes bearing tales of a terrifying trip to try to mine gold in the Black Hills. Laura later takes a short job helping a family with housework on their homestead, returning for a summer visit from Mary, and to attend singing classes with Almanzo. On their last day of class, Almanzo proposes to Laura, almost casually, and she accepts. On his next visit, he gives her a garnet ring with pearls, and her first kiss. A few months later, Almanzo finishes building their house, and asks if Laura would mind a quick wedding, so that his mother and sister don’t take over and host an enormous one. Laura agrees, and the two are quickly married by Reverend Brown, have a wedding dinner with Laura’s family, and settle into their marital home.

Maybe it’s the effect of having my own schoolhouse love in my life, but Almanzo and Laura’s three-year courtship took my breath away. In a time where most girls are more restrained, Almanzo admires Laura’s bravery and sense of adventure, and while she doesn’t admit much of her own admiration, Laura behaves possessively of Almanzo almost from the start. When Almanzo and Laura kiss for the first time, and Laura tells her parents about her engagement, I was just about jumping with joy, which was really embarrassing, because I was on the subway. It’s impossible not to feel caught up in their love, which is another thing that confronts expectations about old-fashioned families and courtships. Sure, there were fewer fish in Laura’s sea, but it’s obvious from the first time they walk home from church together that Laura and Almanzo were right for one another--just enough thirst for adventure and freedom, just enough seriousness and responsibility. Laura doesn’t want to be a “farm wife,” but promises Almanzo a few years of ‘trying it out,’ hence the title of the next book, The First Four Years.

The first four years of the Wilders’ marriage do not go very smoothly. Almanzo becomes briefly paralyzed, a condition which would continue to hinder him throughout his lifetime, and the environment and loans take their toll on the family’s resources. Much of the material in this book is more adult-oriented than the other books, but not by much. It was never finished by Laura, or edited by her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane (one of the founders of Libertarianism), but was found by Lane’s adopted grandson and subsequently published, and thus is less poetic and polished than the other books.

Unfortunately, the first crop of wheat the Wilders raise is destroyed by hail, and Almanzo mortgages his homestead claim. What they grow on the claim helps to pay for some of their debts and supplies, and Rose Wilder is born in December following Laura’s confusion at her own illness, which turned out to be her first pregnancy. Almanzo and Laura both get diptheria, and Almanzo subsequently struggles with physical disability. As he can no longer work all of his land, they sell their claim and move to their first home. Heat destroys their next crop, but they stay afloat with a flock of sheep Laura invests in. Hot winds destroy the harvest the following year as well, and their son is born in August, but dies a few weeks later, unnamed. At the end of the story, their house burns to the ground, but the story ends on an optimistic note, and the Wilders move to Mansfield, Missouri, where they lived out the rest of their days on a successful dairy farm.

While I was disappointed by The First Four Years because I’d hoped Laura and Almanzo lived joyfully together ever-after, it was incredible to see how the young family faced their struggles. While Laura’s family was never far off, while they lived in South Dakota, the Wilders were ultimately independent during this time, occasionally trading help with neighbors and family. I was also a little bummed to find out that the (to me) infamous Rose Wilder Lane was actually Laura Ingalls Wilder’s daughter, but even this brought some revelations. Most of the struggles that the Wilder family, and to a certain extent the Ingalls, faced were made worse by government intervention, or lack of government protection, and it’s easy to see how Lane could have gotten the impressions on which she based her ideology. As a story arc, including The First Four Years in the Little House series makes it somewhat anti-climactic, with no real solution for the problems set up by this book, and no sequel, (after Almanzo’s death, Laura stopped writing) this story, for me, is a bit of a downer. However, knowing the historical fact of the Wilders’ happy lives together and the joy which Laura expressed and received from sharing her stories with the nation brings the tail end up again.  Rereading these books felt like going on Laura’s adventures with her, and particularly from the perspective of a young adult, framed the incredible courage and strength of will put forth by my peers of over a century ago. It was a unique experience capable of being shared by anyone, which in my mind, is exactly what Laura meant to do--bring the entire world into her little house--and she succeeded.

#books #articles

[brisbanelife]

Docos about two creative Australian artists who denied convention premiere at MIFF

"In recent years the documentary form has changed and evolved. You can mix up the form a lot more now to get closer to the truth," notes Hosking, speaking from her home in the Sydney suburb of Enmore. Wright is an acclaimed playwright, theatre director, and stage and screen actor making his debut as a feature film director, while Hosking is a former print and television reporter who has been making documentaries since 2001. Both, however, distinctively point the way forward. Their narratives, and the methods they deploy to arrange them, don't filter a complex identity down into something simpler. Instead they add new layers and commentary, and they're willing to make that process part of the viewer's experience. When Wright first read an excerpt from Acute Misfortune: The Life and Death of Adam Cullen, journalist and editor Erik Jensen's 2014 biography of the artist, who died in 2012 from complications due to liver failure at the age of 46, he couldn't understand why someone would write about Cullen. Jensen, who spent four year in Cullen's erratic orbit as his biographer, defined with serrated precision his subject's work, lies, addictions, and self-serving philosophy. Wright, who had co-founded the innovative theatre company Black Lung at the age of 23 in 2006, had been intent on making feature films for several years. Jane Campion and Garth Davis, his directors on the former's 2013 television series Top of the Lake, where Wright starred opposite Elisabeth Moss, told him he would have to write something. When he fastened onto adapting Acute Misfortune, with Jensen as his co-writer, he placed the book under sharp scrutiny. Geoffrey Tozer and Paul Keating at the Australian Institute of Music. Photo: Peter Morris PMZ "I said to Erik in the first few days of adapting it that if we just repeat the conclusions then it has absolutely no reason to exist. We've got to interrogate it, we've got to pick it apart. You've got to be willing to be the bad guy," remembers Wright. "To Erik's credit he knew exactly what I meant and took it on, but there were times during the writing of the film that that was a more difficult proposition that it was as merely an idea." Jensen was just 19 years old "almost a child with a notebook," Wright says and working for the Sydney Morning Herald when he first wrote about Cullen. His book coolly recounts the tests flavoured with both affection and aggravation that Cullen subjected him to, including being shot in the leg with shotgun pellets. But Wright believed that if the book was Jensen's verdict on Cullen, then the film needed in turn to consider both men and the dynamic they shared. Acute Misfortune: Adam Cullen (Daniel Henshall) and Erik Jensen (Toby Wallace). Photo: Supplied "I say this is a provocation, but that book can be viewed as an act of revenge. I was fascinated by that, but I don't think that's what it is. It could also be seen as an act of dedication," Wright notes. "On the sleeve of Acute Misfortune it says it's a tale 'told at close quarters and without judgment', and I just thought that needed to be discussed. What culpability does Erik bring to it? Is he the equivalent of a conflict photographer?" "You meet Tom and you get a feeling for how passionate he is. He's very prepared, very driven, incredibly ambitious, and has a single-minded energy," says Daniel Henshall, the Australian actor whose chilling performance as a charismatic killer in 2011's Snowtown made him Wright's first choice to play Adam Cullen. Henshall would have three years to immerse himself in Cullen's life before he was joined by Toby Wallace (the Romper Stomper television reboot) in the role of Erik Jensen. "We talked about whose film it was. It's very much Erik's film it's through his eyes," adds Henshall, who lost 22 kilograms in the middle of the shoot to portray the ravaged, dying Cullen in his final days. "We meet Adam because Erik chose to meet and interview him. You see Adam through Erik's eyes and the edit makes that clear, which is a bold choice." One of Black Lung's guiding philosophies was to destabilise the narrative, and Wright brought that to Acute Misfortune. The film aggressively dispenses with the framing scenes that set up a conventional biopic, instead invoking the off-kilter world Cullen draws the ambitious, accepting Jensen into. Cullen's artworks, brushes and even clothes are used, yet information about the commercial art world is communicated through telling tableaus. The extensive and sometimes harrowing research isn't referenced in a linear timeline, it's distilled into the performances. It's all shot in the narrower than normal screen ratio of 1.37:1, the "Academy" standard used between the 1930s and the 1950s, which creates a sense of portraiture that references both the artist and the writer as they share what the director calls "the film's implication of inevitability". "Erik's experience with Adam reflects nearly everyone's experience with Adam," Wright says. "That is a profound closeness, great intellectual reciprocity turning into a painful exchange, and eventually becoming either violent or threatening to such an extent that the person had to leave. You're absorbing what it was to be in this position." Janine Hosking first brushed up against Geoffrey Tozer's life in 2011, two years after the former child prodigy's passing when a friend who worked in book publishing passed her a transcript of Keating's eulogy. "Geoffrey Tozer's death is a national tragedy," was the first line, and over 45 minutes it celebrated the pianist's rare gifts while delivering a broadside at the Australian arts establishment. It was a reminder of Keating as the parliamentarian who slayed his opponents in question time, but it was leavened with grief and affection. Hosking had wanted to make a documentary that involved music, and once she discovered the Tozer archive maintained (in a suburban shed) by his estate, the filmmaker knew that she had both the necessary material and, with Keating's help, the spine of the story. After a period of consideration he agreed. "He knew the power of what he was about to do, but he did it not knowing what other people were going to say about Geoffrey," Hosking says. "He was very insistent that the eulogy would be his final word on Geoffrey Tozer. I would have loved an interview, but he just wanted to do the eulogy and that was his only condition." Keating's voice is a compass in The Eulogy. He compares the pianist and composer to Nellie Melba, Percy Grainger and Joan Sutherland, but for all the herculean talents, which were obvious from an early age and gave him an international profile, Tozer and his first true believer, his mother Veronica, often struggled to survive financially and his legacy is near unknown in his homeland. But instead of simply justifying Tozer's greatness, the documentary with empathy asks whether Keating was right. One way of looking at The Eulogy is to consider it a trial, with Keating as the prosecutor. The role of the judge, impartial and probing, is played by Richard Gill, one of Australia's leading conductors and a pre-eminent music educator. Gill had met Geoffrey Tozer just once, and wasn't familiar with his music. There was a chance he would refute Tozer's supporters. "He could have. And Richard wouldn't have taken it on if he felt he was being used as a puppet. And that made it exciting there's this whatever's going to happen next quality," says Hosking, who shot Gill's initial reaction to a key recording Tozer made with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. "He was very sceptical up to that point. We'd said to him, 'Don't listen to any music until we're ready to play it to you', and now he's a Tozer fan. It needed someone to drill down and really look at Geoffrey Tozer's legacy." In one scene Gill holds a session with a group of teenage classical musicians, none of whom have heard of Tozer. They are, in a way, a jury ("his note clarity was so on point," one boy enthusiastically observes). There are also responses to Keating from those who held positions of power, and there are interviews, particularly with Tozer's one great love, that have a visceral emotional reach. But the film excludes recreations and an omnipotent narrator. "I don't like the voice of god disembodied narrator documentary. Once you take that out of the mix you have to look at different ways of emphasising the storyline you want people to follow through the characters," explains Hosking. "What I wanted to make sure happened was that this wasn't a hagiography. You don't have to believe the eulogy, you can check this out yourself by talking to Geoffrey's friends and listening to his music." Loading Both Hosking and Thomas M. Wright have taken real life events and made films that don't seek to merely represent or conveniently reduce their turbulent subjects, but see them through a clarifying perspective that goes beyond biography. Wright speaks of his attempt to, "pare the film back of all its noise and affectation", while via a sense of discovery Hosking brought her story "full circle". People often refer to what a life is owed, but perhaps this is what the lives of Adam Cullen and Geoffrey Tozer needed. The Melbourne International Film Festival runs from Thursday 2 to Sunday 19 August. For full details and tickets see miff.com.au. https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/entertainment/movies/m28cover-20180723-h130nw.html?ref=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_feed