#(Yes I know the original painting is from 1964 but I do what I want)

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

The Sculptor

Chapter 7 - Strictly Professional

[Masterpost] [AO3]

-/-

“I want to lick him,” Wei Wuxian whines into the protective shield of his hands cupped over his face. He’s met with shockingly little sympathy from his companions, but then again they’ve had to hear about every passing crush he’s gotten for the last ten plus years so he supposes that’s only fair. They don’t know yet that Lan Wangji is different, they don’t understand that he’s a fucking god!

“A-Ying,” Xiao Xingchen tuts softly, amused at his expense though he’d never say so, and Wei Wuxian parts his fingers enough to glare at the man who’s basically become his Uncle over the years. Everyone in their social circle’s Uncle, really.

“Haven’t you or Uncle Zichen seen him coming into the studio?? You should know what I mean!”

“He’s very handsome, yes,” Xiao Xingchen comforts and pats him on the head. “He is also, as you’ve told us, married and seemingly happy enough about that fact. You’re not a homewrecker, A-Ying.”

“I know,” he wails, “But that doesn’t mean I can’t still want to see what he’s capable of!”

“Hey, you never know - they might be swingers,” Nie Huaisang pipes up from the kitchen where he’s making some sort of alcoholic concoction that’ll probably knock even Wei Wuxian flat on his ass. “Apparently plenty of people are trying it now, not just the usual crew.” The ‘usual crew’ being roughly a quarter of the queer community between their town and the neighboring one, from what Wei Wuxian has heard. He’s never gotten a straight answer on whether or not Nie Huaisang is included in that group, but he certainly knows a lot about them either way.

“I think for swinging to work two sets of partners must be willing to trade for the evening, A-Sang,” Xiao Xingchen reminds him kindly. “And poor A-Ying is all alone-”

“Okay enough, give me a drink,” Wei Wuxian says around an aggrieved laugh, launching himself off the sofa between his ‘uncles’ to join Nie Huaisang in the kitchen and slam back whatever’s in the glass his friend holds out to him. He doesn’t want to think about Lan Wangji swinging, he doesn’t want to think of him being married, he doesn’t want to think about his own tragically small dating pool or trying to fly under the radar in a town that’s still mostly ‘normal’ couples who, for all their claimed open-mindedness, still apparently struggle with having a queer network fucking around somewhat visibly right under their noses.

He’s spent the week watching Lan Wangji gradually become more and more comfortable with getting half-naked for him as he works on a mixture of compositions for the commission and portraits of Lan Wangji in various useful poses when he just can’t bear not to draw him, and it’s been driving him up the wall.

He’s seen plenty of nude models - men, women, it doesn’t matter. It’s always business, it’s always professional. It’s hard to get turned on by a naked body when in a room full of other students all drawing the same figure, or when the model is someone who’s barely dragged themself out of an alcohol- or drug-induced coma to come pose for him for whatever bit of cash he can spare.

But Lan Wangji is different. Wei Wuxian likes him, genuinely, truly, as a person first and a business partner (of sorts) second. It’s charming to watch him face his own deeply-held modesty and reticence and slowly, carefully shed it for Wei Wuxian’s sake. Of course it’s for his own sake as well - he’d said on day one that he needs the money - but if it wasn’t something he wanted to do then Wei Wuxian knows that he’s more than qualified to go into town and find something else to do for some spare cash. Lan Wangji doesn’t have to pose for him, and yet he does. He does, and Wei Wuxian is going to die before the end of this commission. 

“Hmm I don’t know about that, love,” Xiao Xingchen hums and Wei Wuxian glances over his shoulder to watch Song Zichen signing to his partner. 

“Absolutely not!” Wei Wuxian yelps when he sees the direction this is going. “No way, I’m not inviting him over! He’s a really nice man and all but I don’t know if he’s okay with..”

“Us,” Nie Huaisang mutters in a way that encompasses far more people than just the four of them in Xiao Xingchen and Song Zichen’s tiny apartment.

“Yeah. That,” Wei Wuxian sighs, deflating a little.

“Do what you feel is best, A-Ying,” Song Zichen tells him, his expression as grave as it typically is, hands moving steadily - he’s always good like that, calm and matter-of-fact. The perfect balance to Xiao Xingchen’s teasing nature. “I think we’re all curious to meet him and help you figure this out, but keep yourself safe above anything else.”

“Thanks Uncle Zichen,” Wei Ying sighs. They move on to lighter topics then, but Wei Wuxian’s heart isn’t really in it tonight. He’s too distracted with thoughts of his extremely unavailable, completely wonderful Lan Zhan, and he heads home early instead of staying the night like he usually would.

Wei Wuxian isn’t a man of many vices. He likes sweets more than is strictly healthy, and alcohol is always a ‘yes’. He smokes weed with Xiao Xingchen and Song Zichen in their side of the studio every so often when he really needs to relax. He likes attractive men and he’s picked up a decent few of them from the gay bar on the edge of town over the years with ah..mixed results.

The next morning, he picks up smoking again - his most accessible vice by far. It’s something he’s done off and on since he was still a young teenager bumming off the Jiangs, though the habits became a much more casual flirtation after his disowning. The casual flirtations when he has the money for it - and annoying withdrawals for a while when the money runs out, though he’s always fine again eventually. He doesn’t really bother worrying about the whys and wherefores of it, most of the time. If he finds his fingers itching for a cigarette and he’s got the cash he’ll buy as many packs as he feels like and work his way through them at whatever pace is comfortable, no emotional reflection necessary.

The point being - something about all this Lan Wangji business makes him want something more to do with his hands than fiddle around in the studio, so he picks up a few packs on Saturday morning and he’s got one of them sticking out of the chest pocket of his overalls when Lan Wangji gets to the studio on Monday morning. Wei Wuxian is half wondering if he’ll say something about it when he spots it, but if he notices he doesn’t say anything at all. Instead he just greets Wei Wuxian the same as ever and, as has now become routine over the past week, starts stripping.

Wei Wuxian can’t help but watch. It’s torture - it’s unprofessional, probably slightly creepy torture - but Lan Wangji practically turns it into a striptease without even seeming to realize it. He follows the same procedure he had that first day: Shoes off. Socks, neatly folded. Belt open. Trousers open. Shirt. Undershirt. Friday had been the first day Lan Wangji had left his trousers open even after hanging everything up, and apparently that’s the next step of this process because he does it again now, the button and the placket for it on the other side hanging open just a bit as Lan Wangji turns back to face him. He doesn’t unzip, but he doesn’t have to. Wei Wuxian is still fantasizing about doing it for him with his teeth.

“Progress,” Wei Wuxian grins when he can say something that isn’t some form of ‘dear god please bite me on the ass’. Lan Wangji seems shyly pleased by that, ducking his head a bit in a nod with his trusty, “Mn.” Wei Wuxian wonders if he’s going to survive the day Lan Wangji works up to getting naked, but that’s a worry for future Wei Wuxian. For now, he has work to do.

He’s settled on a composition over the weekend, finally, and he heads over to sit next to Lan Wangji on the couch to show it to him and explain what he thinks they’ll need for the pose. He’s sketched it out a few times from a couple of different angles with notes scribbled around the margins of the pages, and he can’t help but laugh when Lan Wangji does his best not to frown at it as he attempts to decode it.

“It’s a jumbled disaster, I know,” he soothes. “You don’t have to say it, I can see it on your face. Don’t worry, I’ll help you get into position and I’ll tell you if I need you to do something different. Are your trousers going to have enough give for this?”

“Likely not,” Lan Wangji says with genuine regret in his voice and a definite frown on his face now - frustration at himself? That won’t do.

“Ah that’s fine! We’ll just see how far we can get like this for now. You’ll have to work up to holding this anyway, I don’t expect perfection now. Or ever, really, no one can be perfect.”

“Mn.” Wei Wuxian glances at his friend again to find him looking mollified, and that’s better than nothing. Of course now comes Wei Wuxian’s second major test of self-control of the day - and it’s not even 10am yet, for god’s sake! He stands up off the couch again to return the sketches to the easel. He snags the bucket he’d sat on that first day and turns it over again, the bottom of it a few inches lower than the cushions on the divan, and he sets it down in front of one side of the sofa. A pillow from his stash is tossed on top, and then Wei Wuxian makes a little ‘ta-da’ gesture at it that Lan Wangji looks thoroughly unimpressed by.

“For your shoulders,” Wei Wuxian explains. “Did you think I was going to make you hang your whole torso off the couch and hold yourself up by your abs alone?”

“It crossed my mind,” Lan Wangji says, because Wei Wuxian knows that he doesn’t ever lie. He snorts at that and very pointedly doesn’t think about how nicely that would make Lan Wangji’s already well-defined abs stand out even further.

“Nah, that’s never going to be sustainable, and I’d prefer to do this with as little damage to you as possible. Wen Qing probably won’t thank me if you go home with a sore back every day for the rest of the summer.”

“Mn.” As always, Wei Wuxian can’t get a solid read on Lan Wangji’s thoughts when he mentions his wife, but on the bright side they’ve both mentioned her in passing so much that casual conversation about her doesn’t make him despair for his sanity. Just his heart, which, honestly, has been broken so many times in his life that he hardly feels it anymore no matter how much he whines to his very understanding little found family.

“Mhm. Ready to use a sofa in a way that would give your uncle a heart attack?” Wei Wuxian snickers and pointedly ignores the intensity of Lan Wangji’s glare at the side of his head in favor of crossing behind the sofa to tap the top of with both palms. “Come on, give me your feet. Time to get started!”

Lan Wangji sighs but does as he asks, turning around as primly as he can while bare-chested with his trousers unbuttoned, and then he’s slinging his legs up over the back of the couch into Wei Wuxian’s waiting hands.

It’s the first time he’s touched Lan Wangji directly, he realizes the moment his hands wrap firmly around the knobby bones of his ankles. It almost makes him jump, the warmth of skin on skin and the soft rasp of Lan Wangji’s sparse leg hair against his fingertips, but if Lan Wangji is similarly startled it’s hidden by the way he’s shifting to try to redistribute his weight evenly while unable to fully relax his legs. Wei Wuxian holds him steady and waits for him to find the makeshift prop with his shoulders, and then it’s just waiting through the slow process of him readjusting in small increments until he’s settled.

Wei Wuxian waits again for his hum before he lets go, and then he crosses back around to the front of the sofa to lean down at the waist and tip his head a bit to the side, mischievous smile already pulling at the corners of his lips.

“Comfy?” he teases a semi-upside-down Lan Wangji, who still somehow manages to give him a decent glare with no real heat behind it.

“Not particularly. I will manage.”

“You’ll get there, don’t worry. We’ll work on the legs some other day, but for now can I reposition your arms where I need them?”

“Mn.”

Wei Wuxian is suddenly distinctly glad that he’d touched Lan Wangji’s ankles first and got that initial shock out of the way, since he’s pretty sure if he’d gotten to touch his hands first he might have actually died. As it is, he settles on his knees behind Lan Wangji’s head - careful not to kneel on his hair - and reaches down the length of him to take his wrists in his hands, coaxing them carefully away from where he’s holding them loosely crossed over his stomach.

“Relax your shoulders,” he encourages, his voice quieter than usual as he gently, reverently manipulates Lan Wangji’s arms where he wants. Lan Wangji takes a deep breath in and lets it out slowly, his entire body shifting with it the way he’s spread out like this, stomach and chest rising smoothly and then back down again when he exhales. “Good,” Wei Wuxian praises without thinking, and he feels it under his fingertips on the inside of his wrist when Lan Wangji’s heartbeat skitters, sees his fingers twitch before he relaxes again. 

Lan Wangji stays relaxed for him though, and so Wei Wuxian makes relatively short work of getting him where he needs him, his right arm straight up and then bent at the elbow to frame the top of his head, left arm flung out to the side helplessly. By the time he’s finished Lan Wangji looks utterly debauched, his hair splayed out on the floor beneath him and arms akimbo, as if he’d fallen over the sofa and simply stayed where he landed, boneless and exhausted. Wei Wuxian can’t quite resist pressing his palm against Lan Wangji’s stomach when he’s finished, his fingers splayed over the soft give of his diaphragm just beneath his sternum. Lan Wangji doesn’t even twitch.

“How do you feel?”

Lan Wangji is quiet for long enough that Wei Wuxian takes his hand off him and leans back, putting more weight on where he’s sitting on his heels to better meet Lan Wangji’s eyes despite the fact that he’s upside down.

“Lan Zhan?”

“I feel fine,” he says, quite a few beats too late for Wei Wuxian’s peace of mind. “You are correct that I will not be able to hold it for too long, but it is not offensively uncomfortable.”

“That’s alright, just so long as you can hold it for long enough today for me to block out where you are,” Wei Wuxian soothes, and then he forces himself to stand up and take a few steps back to double check his positioning. He walks a slow circle around the set-up to make sure he likes it from every angle (unfortunately it’s much harder to be unbiased when he’s looking at Lan Wangji from every angle, but he perseveres, he’s very brave), and when he’s satisfied he crosses over to his cabinet of supplies to rummage around for a large stick of white chalk.

When he finds it and returns to Lan Wangji it’s to find the man’s eyes shut and his breathing deep as if in meditation, or maybe just sleeping. Wei Wuxian moves carefully around him, quietly tracing out the artificially clumsy fall of his arms and drawing a circle around the rim of the bucket beneath him so he’ll know precisely where to place it again should he need to move it. He carefully gathers up Lan Wangji’s hair in his free hand and holds it up out of the way so he can finish lining his shoulders, and when he glances at his face his eyes are open again, silently watching.

Wei Wuxian blushes a little and goes back to what he’s doing, but now that he knows Lan Wangji is watching, his gaze is like a physical weight on his shoulders, the warm heavy press of hands, thumbs massaging circles into the perpetually-tight muscles at the back of his neck. He wonders if Lan Wangji does that for Wen Qing after hours spent at her desk - she’s a professor too, after all, he has to imagine they both get all knotted up from sitting all day long. He knows he does if he spends too long at the easel, and he’s frequently wished over the years that he had someone around just to rub his shoulders if absolutely nothing else.

Lan Wangji seems like the kind of husband who would do that.

“All done,” Wei Wuxian announces when he’s released Lan Wangji’s hair and finished carefully outlining the knuckles of his outstretched hand, his fingers curled loosely towards his palm. “Do you need to get up and stretch for a moment before I get to work?”

“No, I am fine.”

“Alright. Just speak up the moment you want to take a break, okay?”

“Mn.”

Wei Wuxian stands and takes a deep breath in. He gives himself one more moment to ‘check’ Lan Wangji’s positioning (read: blatantly ogle) and then he retreats safely behind his easel to get to work.

[derangedhyena-delphinidae]

numerous issues with “The Aftermath of Seaworld”

When I get time to do so (aka when I’m done with the documentary), I’m likely going to make a video version of this going into the details. 

But for right now, I’ve made this. Both as a guideline for me and so everyone can begin to get an idea of the severity of issues involved.

Researching things is time-consuming and can be very difficult - believe me, I know. But I’m of the mind that if you’re making content with the intent of educating people, you have a responsibility to perform a certain level of due diligence. It IS okay to express uncertainty or doubt if you have it. It is NOT okay to confidently assert things that you do not know with certainty.

The video has an anticap slant, and I’m obviously not disagreeing on that front. But again: if you’re gonna go through the trouble of teaching people something. Bare minimum... please make sure it’s actually correct. *** 1) x ‘founded in 1964 and based out of Florida’ -  ???? Seaworld definitively began on the west coast, in San Diego, CA. And given that the first park opened in early 1964… things came together before that. Uh? 2) x ‘four people founded Seaworld [...]’ For one… it wasn’t originally conceived as a restaurant, it was originally conceived as an underwater bar/lounge. Two… calling the four guys involved in founding the place “frat brothers” is fucking ridiculous and completely overlooks a) how each was actually involved and b) the overall significance of their contributions to the field as individuals. Hint: like it or not, they were important and did a lot! 

3) x If one is going to bring up SWBGCF/rescues while talking about the literal founding of SW, it gives the impression that it’s been around for that duration. It hasn’t.  It’s actually a bit unclear when SW started an organized rescue program, but the Fund itself and all that it did came about much later. The rescue information and how it’s presented is actually INCREDIBLY complex, nuanced, and has a fascinating history (from a “bad company behaving badly” perspective). Oversimplifying this, to this degree and in this misinformative way, does the facts of the situation an INCREDIBLE disservice.  

4) x [assertive statement about what the name Shamu means]  ….Uh actually there’s several explanations for the name Shamu, and the most likely one IMO seems to be the “she-namu” one, not the “friend of Namu” one(? What is this even based on.) 4b) It’s not quite clear if she’s saying “Namu was the first ever orca to be displayed and perform shows” or or Namu was the first to be displayed and, like Shamu, performed shows. Either way, Moby Doll was the first to truly be displayed to the public, not Namu.

5) x ‘Namu died after one year in captivity and you’d think that this might deter Seaworld from doing the same thing again…’ Seaworld truly had nothing to do with Namu. And they leased/took possession of Shamu before Namu died. ‘Again’? What?

6) x “Now, PETA paints a pretty disturbing picture…” [while showing Okura’s artwork] This video segment is, and this is putting it nicely, a pile of poorly-researched BULLSHIT.  -Yes, PETA talks about Shamu’s capture, re: the harpooning of her mother. This Youtuber cannot apparently be arsed to look more than 1 Google search into this, as she proceeds to dismiss the information as potentially fabricated. There are two detailed accounts of Shamu’s capture that I’m aware of - in books - and though they have some slight conflicts, it’s absolutely NOT in doubt that the female who was very likely Shamu’s mother was 1) harpooned, 2) died from her injuries and 3) this had been done to make her easier to catch/locate because there was a fucking buoy attached to the harpoon. Which she dragged around for at least 24 hours prior dying.  So maybe don’t dismiss that as PETA hysteria, maybe TRY to determine the truth of the matter, which would inform one that it is both true and completely horrifying.  -In addition, Okura is an awesome individual who has worked very hard to create a variety of informative artwork for our cause. Okura is NOT associated with PETA and it’s borderline libel in my eyes to use their artwork in this dismissive manner when the primary sources of it can be easily identified online, with full explanations and everything. Do I take special offense to this because of the misuse of artwork? Absolutely. Artists get disrespected enough online. I’m tired of it. This kind of laziness IS NOT acceptable.

7) x ‘timeline is fuzzy about when Shamu died’ …………… it’s…. It’s really not … newspapers are pretty clear about it…..

8) x [complete and utter oversimplification of the lifespan issue, which is not acceptable for anything published in 2020. It just isn’t. If you’re going to bring it up like this, either do the legwork and get into the weeds or stay out.] 8b) [same for reproductive ages. sigh]

9) x if we’re going to talk about when Cornell was involved with Seaworld it’s very important to specify when Cornell was involved with Seaworld and not make it seem like it’s present tense.

10) x “both were rescued by Seaworld” - uh? no. Zero orcas have been rescued by Seaworld. Literally none. The infected-jaw orca was Sandy, whose story is complex and certainly does not involve Seaworld until much later. And many of the orcas in that time period had bullet wounds, often only identified post-mortem because they didn’t seem to hurt the animals much. Also, unflinchingly blending 70s captivity ethics with modern ones is also complete nonsense? 

11) x [tilikum coming from sealand] inhales I am going to make an entire video centered on this fucking subject because it’s one of the single most profound arguments for Seaworld being garbage as assessed by US government agencies in the 90s yet everyone utterly fails to mention this. Why?!

12) x what on earth is this nonsense re: quoting a quote from Zimmerman’s article - which has already been removed from its original context, so the original context is not available - and then penalizing the quote for existing as if Zimmerman’s article were the context? That is offensively disingenuous. I honestly don’t know what the original context is, either - but it’s wildly inappropriate to act as if the Zimmerman article is.

13) x this is relatively minor but ‘Paul Sprong’? You literally have his name on the screen. And then mis-reading his age too? While asserting it from a static article published years ago? Effort? Where is it?

14) x ‘another trainer, Peter’ ….. Ken Peters…. 

15) [weirdly glossing over the widely-available list of orca-trainer injuries/aggressions, despite it being central to the point.] 16) x This pilot whale outrage certainly happened but it was pretty clearly Blackfish that started the cascade of woes for Seaworld. Who has ever asserted this?

17) if you’re gonna just rehash blackfish, tell people to go watch blackfish.

18) x I’ve already gone over the context issue with Seaworld calling out Howard’s statement in Blackfish here (point 23). Which is to say, IN CONTEXT in Blackfish it’s clear what Mr. Garrett is talking about but, divorced from that, it sounds incorrect. But this Youtuber AMPLIFIES the issue by doubling down on the assertion with “no record of a killer whale doing any harm to anyone in the wild.” The surfer event should always be mentioned. Yes, there’s absolutely room for doubt. But there’s also a clear demarcation between an accidental attack (eg mistaken identity, as was likely for the surfer) and intentional one (eg the incidents at marine parks.) Why do people kneecap themselves on this point 18b) please stop acting like Luna represents orcas in general.

19) x “Howard, for all of his research…” … while referring to David Duffus’ b-roll and statements. Uh. 20) x Apparently this Youtuber has single-handedly resolved the dorsal fin issue. You know, the thing that hasn’t been properly researched ever, that has been subject to a ton of debate, that isn’t 100% settled for a variety of reasons, and almost everyone talks about in terms of theories and likely possibilities.  21) x Alexis Martinez wasn’t “torn to shreds.” In a space where even moderate exaggerations are often penalized harshly by the opposition, this kind of blatant nonsense is not welcome. Plus, the reality’s bad enough… you don’t have to make anything up!

22) x *sighs. points at own webpage*

23) Talking about the shows stopping without acknowledging how that’s a bit of a farce is something else. In addition to apparently just flipping to buying what Seaworld’s selling re: its ‘improved image.’ 

*** Tl;dr video is so unrelentingly full of errors ranging from small to egregious it makes me seriously concerned for the veracity of the rest of this person’s content. The maker of the video provided a list of their sources in their video description, which I will have time to look through in detail later. The above is solely a response to the information they present IN THE VIDEO - which, is very important because let’s be real: a lot of people are not going to look at the list of sources. People don’t even do it when citing papers (no really, you’d be surprised, fml.) For anyone who wants to whinge that I haven’t linked or asserted any sources of my own for my claims… well, remember what I said about time-consuming and ‘I’m busy’? Yhea. Getting all of that together will be part of making a video. So if you want to shrug loudly at my list here… you can, that’s your prerogative, I’m happy to say I DGAF if that’s your takeaway. 

What I hope, is that if there’s anything I’ve made clear over the While of running this blog, it’s that I don’t fuck around when it comes to sources and information and do my best to provide what information exists, all of it, not just cherrypicked bits and bobs. Anyways. Here’s step 0 at least. Please don’t share that video. Pretty please.

[franciegummstarstruck]

My new JG holiday fanfic, “Fun in Acapulco” 🌞🎅🌲🌶

It was mid-December in 1964- Judy Garland was taking her final bows at the prestigious London Palladium. 

 Judy and her eldest daughter, Liza were performing there in concert for a solid week. Miss Garland's English audience showered the mother and daughter team with love, admiration, and rousing applause. Let's face it, London adored Judy. And it was a mutual love affair. Miss Show Business beloved her British fans. And she developed many good, close friendships with a few devotees who were founders of Judy's biggest fan club based in England.

 Christmas was just around the corner and Judy and Liza flew back to New York to relax for a few days. After the twosome settled into their suite at the Regency Hotel on 61st Street in Manhattan, Judy telephoned her younger children Lorna and Joey. They were staying with their dad, Sid Luft in California since her London concert tour.  To Judy's shock, Sid's attorney answered the phone at her soon-to-be her ex-husband's Los Angeles residence. He callously told her that there was a court ruling stating that Sid had full custody rights of the children. And that he had taken Lorna and Joe to Palm Springs for the holidays. He added that the children wanted to be with their dad for Christmas. Judy briskly hung up the phone and informed Liza of the current situation.

 "That louse has kidnapped the children."

 "What's goin on Mama?"  Liza sympathetically asked. She couldn't help but see Judy's peeved expression on her face.

 "Sid. He got the damned Santa Monica court to rule in his favor about keeping Lorna and Joe away from me, that's what!" Judy exclaimed.

 "Oh, no. How could he do this to you Mama...and right before Christmas!" Liza uttered.

 "Because darling,  Sid Luft is a devious, heartless human being. This is his way of getting back at me for divorcing him." Judy quipped, lighting a cigarette.

 Liza shook her head. 

"But, he's not going to get away with it. I'm calling my attorney."

 Just then, as Judy reached for the phone..it started to ring. She abruptly answered the call, thinking it may be Sid on the other line.

 "Hello, who's is this?" 

"Hello Judy, it's Lana." a soft voice perkily replied.

 "Lana...Oh my goodness.. it's lovely to hear from you. Darling, how are you?" Judy warmly spoke up. 

"I'm doing well, thank you. My agent told me sweetie that you and Liza were in New York. And it just so happens that I'm in Manhattan too for a few days, so I thought I'd give you a ring to say hello and ask if you both would like to spend Christmas with me and Cheryl in Acapulco.. that is if you don't already have other plans?"

 Judy’s luscious brown eyes widened. 

“Acapulco? That sounds marvelous darling. I really didn’t have big plans for Christmas this year, Liza and I are so beat from our London concerts engagements.  And my younger children are spending the holidays with their father...’’

 “So, is that a yes? Oh, Judy you’ll love Mexico this time of year. You and I can relax on the beach and Cheryl and Liza can shop and boy-watch.” Lana giggled. 

“That does sound like the kind of vacation Liza would enjoy."  Judy replied with a chuckle.

 “Wonderful!” Lana said. 

“But, I’m not sure if I should go. My press agent may have some interviews lined up for me here in New York..’’ Judy expressed. 

“Oh, Judy all work and no play isn’t healthy..” Lana quickly remarked.

 Liza, over hearing the conversation in the room.. sprinted over to her mother and rambled in a whisper, “Say yes Mama! It’ll be fun! I've never been to Acapulco!" 

Judy flashed a motherly eye roll. 

"Letting Liza out in Mexico could be disastrous." Judy mused. 

However, she never could say ‘No’ to her children, so Judy accepted Lana’s invitation. 

“Alright, you’ve convinced me girlfriend. And my teenage daughter." 

"Great! I'll pick you both up on my way to the airport a week from today!" Lana cheerfully replied. 

"Ok, darling. Marvelous."

 "Till then love. Bye."

 "Bye-bye" Judy uttered before hanging up the phone.

 By now, Liza was dancing around the room with a broad smile on her pretty face.

 "Ok, darling we have lots to do before we take off for Mexico. I have to call my business manager, agents, and have my hair done." Judy declared.

 Liza nodded, then in a burst of enthusiasm exclaimed, "And I have to pack my French bikini!" 

The airline flight to Mexico was a glorious one for all three ladies. No turbulence and the stewardesses kept plying them with tasty desserts and asking for autographs. It helped Judy take her mind off the fact that Lorna and Joey wouldn’t be spending Christmas with her and Liza. And the minute the girls stepped off the jet, there was a sleek, black limousine waiting there for them on the tarmac. 

“Thank Goodness, I brought my sunnies with me. It’s so bright and warm here!’’ Judy vocalized, slipping on a dark pair of cat eye shades. 

Lana grinned. “Sunnies?’’ 

“You know, sunglasses.” Judy matter-of- factly replied.  

“Oh, I see. Now, I recall that’s what the British call em don’t they? Well, you can’t live without them down here darling. It’s year around sunshine south of the border.” Lana said with a giggle, putting on her large tortoise print shades.

 “I’m not used to it. I’ve been living in England for too long I guess. Mr. Sun doesn’t make an appearance there..”

 Lana and Liza chuckled, following Judy into the town car. 

  Lana was the perfect hostess. The moment Judy and Liza entered the gorgeous beach villa in Acapulco they were showered with attention and shown a good time. The striking blonde actress gifted them with colorful sombreros, embroidered Mexican dresses, and beautiful Mexican opal necklaces. The coral and white stucco home was decked out with hanging Christmas lights and boasted an enormous, sparkling swimming pool with cabanas. And it was only a short walk to the pristine ocean.

 Lana enjoyed showing the girls around town and took them to a quaint outside marketplace where they splurged on ice cream and taquitos And they browsed at a few street art vendors. Judy bought a colorful canvas for 1,000 pesos from a local artist because the children in the painting reminded her of Lorna and Joey.

 Lana’s 21-year-old daughter Cheryl drove Liza around Acapulco and the two enjoyed taco bar lunches in town while Judy and Lana lounged on the quiet white sandy beach soaking up the plentiful sunshine. 

The villa’s living room was filled with an array of bright festive flowers and  there was a beautiful garland draped on top of the colorful Spanish tile fireplace. She ordered a gigantic white Christmas tree which almost touched the ceiling! Cheryl and Liza decorated the tree while listening to Elvis records on the stereo. 

On Christmas Eve, Lana threw a small dinner party for a few close friends who were visiting the region. Noel Coward, Ava Gardner, and Ricardo Montalban were among the tight guest list, as was 28-year-old actor Robert Redford. Judy had met him and Elizabeth Ashley backstage after their performance in the Broadway hit play, Barefoot in the Park the year before in New York.  The strawberry-blond actor wasn't very talkative nor overtly receptive to Judy but his eyes were  fixed on her all evening. He didn’t seem to  take notice of the other beautiful ladies, including the villa’s charming hostess. Which was especially odd, because Lana Turner made a spectacular entrance. Glamorously dressed in a tight-fitting, very chic Edith Head original frock along with several diamond bracelets adorning her wrists. 

 Lady charmer Noel complimented her fine taste in clothes and the spicy rum cocktails that were on hand. Ricardo asked Judy to dance while a little mariachi band played outside on the patio. And Liza sang a favorite Broadway show tune at the piano. Before long, everybody was singing Christmas carols and sipping eggnog. And Judy was asked to sing, 🎶Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas🎶 Then, Ms. Turner’s guests were served an elegant authentic Mexican dinner in the villa’s dining room by the best black-tie caterers in town. After dinner, everyone went back into the living room to talk and play records. 

At one point, Judy excused herself and took off for the guest room to repair a nylon tear. Entering the room, she was utterly surprised to see Robert Redford reclining on top of the bed in the room with a wine glass in his hand.  

“Hi. I’ve just been sitting here thinking of you.” he composedly voiced. 

"Oh My Goodness..you startled me dear!" Judy replied with an uneasy giggle. 

Robert slid off the bed like a stealth cougar and placed his glass on a nearby table.

 "I want to make love to you." the handsome young man directly uttered.

 “What?" Judy gasped.

Robert let out a haughty little laugh. 

"You act like I’m the first guy that’s ever said that to you at a Hollywood party.” 

‘‘Well, it’s been a-while.’‘ Judy quipped. 

 Robert burst out in laughter. 

“First of all, we’re not in Hollywood and secondly, I don’t make it a habit to make love to strange men at dinner parties.” Judy saucily retorted. 

Robert smirked and quickly maneuvered over to Judy, while unfastening his cuff links. 

"But, we're not strangers. Don't you remember, we met in New York last year.. backstage after my performance in "Barefoot in the Park?" 

"Yes, I  remember. But, I still don't know you well enough to accept your hasty invitation. Not to say that I'm not flattered..."Judy said in a teasing manner. 

"So, you're turning me down?" 

"I'm sorry darling, but I do find you resistible." Judy said playfully fastening his necktie. 

"Me? You've got to be kidding. Why I'm the hottest young star in show business." he exclaimed in a joking way. 

Judy just grinned, seeing through Robert's star complex facade. 

 "Well, I guess I better go now. It's getting late and did you know there's still a party going on out there?" Robert bantered. 

 Judy chuckled  watching the young man make his way out of her bedroom.  

"Merry Christmas darling." she added. 

"You know, you're a woman of high values." he stated looking back and then quietly walked out of the room.

 Judy didn't say a word to anyone about the little episode between Robert and herself. She spent the rest of the evening yakking with Lana and Ava about clothes and ex-husbands. Young Mr. Redford left the swaray early and sped off in his little red sports car. 

The next day, Christmas day ..Judy slept in till 1 p.m. Liza and Cheryl spent the day relaxing on the beach with Lana and later Judy joined them. That evening, the ladies feasted on a tamale pie that Judy baked out of leftovers in the fridge and watched an old Christmas movie on television. 

 The following day, Lana drove Judy and Liza back to the airport. The gals exchanged hugs and said their 'goodbyes' before Ms. Garland and Liza scooted off into the terminal to catch their flight. While they were hurrying over to the correct gate, Judy's suitcase buckle snapped open and everything inside spilled out on the floor. A good-looking kindhearted passerby went over to assist Judy in need. 

“Here let me help you senora.” he politely said in a thick South American accent. 

“Thank you so much. It’s the first time this has ever happened to me.” Judy anxiously replied. 

The brown eyed man knelt down and helped Judy put her belongings back into her luggage. And then, the gentleman took off a luggage strap he had on his suitcase and wrapped it around her baggage. 

‘’I’m sure that will hold everything together now.” he uttered. 

 Judy graciously thanked him and took some money out of her purse to repay him for his kindness. 

“Please, there’s no need to repay me. It was my pleasure to help a pretty lady in distress.’’ 

“You’re very sweet. Thank you again.’’ 

The handsome stranger flashed a big, buoyant smile.

Judy and Liza brightly smiled back at him and then continued on their way to their flight’s boarding gate. 

“What a lovely man..” Judy said looking back.

‘’Yes, and don’t you think he looks a little like Gene Kelly?’’ Liza bubbly interjected.

Judy chuckled. 

“Yes, darling.. he does!" 

Liza nodded, clutching her satchel. "Well, they say everyone has a double."

                                                The End

©KristenRaeJohnson

[holdenhrry955]

Goth Subculture Truths For Youngsters

Content

What Are Goths Personalities Like?

How To Be Goth.

What Does It Suggest To Be Goth?

Goth: Everything You Require To Recognize

There is much more to it than simply style and there is even more to it currently than simply the songs. Personally I position the songs ahead of fashion as well as style in importance. I think obtaining extremely academic regarding goth sort of defeats the purpose of the sub-culture. It's interesting to trace the musical and visual DNA back to its roots, but in fact taking part in the sub-culture is a much more natural process. It is a lot more comprehensive and extra inclusive than it utilized to be.

No goth only bague vancaro tete de mort listens to goth music, unless they are trying as well hard, or are a purist. If you enjoyed any type of songs before discovering goth, keep listening to it. Individuals can obtain a little outrageous regarding what makes somebody a "real" goth. Attempt to disregard this; you do not need to validate on your own. Respond to "yes," or, if you want to prevent more inquiries, state "Well, I like goth fashion" or "I such as goth songs."

This Gothic effect is accentuated even more by the fact that eyes are painted black.

Of course, the more extreme the makeup, the more eyeshadow will be used to make the eyes look more like those of a dead person.

Not only does the makeup make the face look more like a cross, but it also accentuates features that are less visible in the eyes.

For one, make sure that you are dressed in all black (no more dotting the t-shirt with black dye).

Most people who choose to get in on the goth subculture do so because they have something in common with other members.

Tristania has actually remained to succeed with subsequent releases and also has since been regarded as among the globe's best goth steel bands. The goth subculture has endured a lot longer than others of the exact same period, and also has actually continued to diversify. The band shares influences with other bands in the first wave of what is called goth music. During this duration their style was mostly referred to as scary punk or goth-punk. Outrageousness which gleam like comets through the darkness of gothic and superstitious ages.

The goth kids on the show are depicted as locating it bothersome to be confused with the Hot Subject "vampire" kids from the episode "The Ungroundable" in period 12, as well as a lot more frustrating to be compared to emo children. The goth children are typically illustrated paying attention to goth music, creating or checking out Gothic verse, drinking coffee, flipping their hair, as well as cigarette smoking. Morticia Addams from The Addams Family members developed by Charles Addams is a fictional personality as well as the mother in the Addams family members. Morticia was played by Carolyn Jones in the 1964 television program The Addams Family, and after that played by Anjelica Huston in the 1991 variation. Some of the very early gothic rock and also deathrock artists taken on traditional horror movie images and made use of horror movie soundtracks for inspiration. Their audiences reacted by adopting proper gown and also props.

What Are Goths Individualities Like?

Darkwave, a spin-off of goth rock that developed in the 80s. It incorporates aspects of synthpop and new age, integrating dark, reflective lyrics and a touch of grief. Nevertheless the term, initially starting as a post punk design, at some point became its own point as bands began to make greater use of synthesizers and drum equipments. Significant bands consist of Clan of Xymox, Dead Can Dance as well as Black Tape For a Blue Girl. Recognize the personalities and also different descendants of goth music.

Goth is not only limited to goth rock, yet consists of some post-punk, deathrock, darkwave, angelic wave, grey rock as well as afterpunk. Grey rock is the Portuguese term for post-punk/ goth rock and also afterpunk is the Spanish term.Deathrock, which is the American counterpart that developed around the very same time as goth performed in the UK. Created in Southern California, deathrock is a spooky as well as atmospheric descendant of hard rock which contains glam rock imagery, punk-inflected sound as well as perspective, shock rock theatrics as well as b-movie ideas.

Just How To Be Goth.

This often makes them open to objection as well as taunting from others. As a result, the ones that don't "suit" with other teams collaborated so they a minimum of belong somewhere. As the influence of the music press faded and similar people had the ability to collect online in online forums and on social networks, goth made a rebirth, with occasions like the Whitby Goth Weekend break increasing in appeal. By the late 80s and also 90s, goth had actually discolored as a young people society, and was the source of some ridicule by the music press. Throughout the years, goth fashion has actually taken elements from Edwardian as well as Victorian clothing, heavy steam punk, cyperpunk, go crazy, fetish wear, cosplay as well as even more. The Visigoths or goths, were an old individuals from what is now Germany as well as Scandanavia, also called barbarians, well-known for the sacking of Rome in 410 ADVERTISEMENT.

Use of standard scary movie props such as swirling smoke, rubber bats, and webs featured as gothic club decoration from the beginning in The Batcave. Such recommendations in bands' songs as well as pictures were initially tongue-in-cheek, yet as time took place, bands and also members of the subculture took the connection a lot more seriously. As a result, morbid, superordinary as well as occult themes became much more noticeably significant in the subculture. The affiliation in between scary and goth was highlighted in its early days by The Hunger, a 1983 vampire film starring David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve and also Susan Sarandon. The film included gothic rock team Bauhaus carrying out Bela Lugosi's Dead in a bar.

The Nickelodeon cartoon Invader Zim is also based on the goth subculture. As there are so many kinds of goth in the contemporary age, there is additionally several kinds of gothic style to select them! Although goths can be identified for being fans of black, it does not quit there. The birth of the light goth scene has actually produced an enormous surge in the blending of all points dark and gothic with light pastel shades. This differs substantially with the conventional charming or fetish style - both noted by attractive figure-hugging gothic corsets as well as littlelatex numbers. This reveals that there is large variation in gothic fashion when it pertains to various sorts of goth in the subcultures. Emo comes from post-hardcore, pop punk as well as indie rock design while gothic rock is a form of hard rock, glam punk and also post punk.

. Enter the regional goth scene as well as take part in goth events, nightclubs, and also performances. Meet new individuals in your scene and listen to tales from when the elders were about. Deathrock, originating on the West Shore of the U.S, deathrock is a much more scary as well as climatic variation of punk. When deathrock bands began to become prominent, as well as trip, they were after that able ahead over and directly affect the UK goth scene. Some deathrock bands include 45 Tomb, Christian Fatality, Bloody Dead and also Sexy, Alien Sex Ogre, Kommunity FK, and so on

What Does It Indicate To Be Goth?

However I such as the ordinary all black, system boots kind point. I have actually constantly wished to do this yet I would certainly be looked down upon by my household. Nonetheless, I seem like I recognize absolutely nothing of the culture itself. If I truly do wish to pursue it, I do not intend to just enjoy the design and also appearance. I need to know what it implies to all of you to be goth. I feel that if I pursue this I will be totally positive. I feel I 'd finally be comfortable with the means I look.

What is a goth club?

They are NOT mainstream.

Goth clubs are much different from regular night clubs. But most goth clubs play a variety of music like EBM, Industrial, Dark Wave, and Witch House to name a few. Most songs you will hear at Goth clubs will never be played on the radio – and that's how we like it!

Gift Suggestions For Goth Types.

You can discover these sorts of garments in a range of gothic-friendly shades. While black is one of the most typical, dark purple and also blood red are likewise typical shades for gothic fashion clothing and accessories. Due to the appeal of gothic styles and also styles, you can find gothic accessories virtually anywhere. A number of websites are dedicated to supplying a full-line of accessories as well as you can also discover this sort of garments at a number of chain store. Several gothic teenagers, though, choose to shop at neighborhood pre-owned stores as a result of the used look and also vintage appeal of the dark clothes that they can discover there. In either case, gothic accessories as well as outfits are generally inexpensive.

[tisthenightofthewitch]

Ghost’s Tobias Forge talks about being sued by Nameless Ghouls, spurned by the Vatican and immortalized in plastic effigy

When it comes to Swedish bands, Americans tend to think of pop icons like ABBA, black metal acts like Bathory, or the odd alt-rock band like The Cardigans, after which we stop thinking about them at all.But that was before the band Ghost began its slow yet inevitable ascent. Hailing from Linköping, a city in Sweden known for its ornate cathedrals, the bandmembers concealed their secret identities beneath elaborate costumery, a time-tested tradition fostered by bands like Kiss and The Residents. 

Occupying centerstage was Papa Emeritus, a skull-faced character fond of ghoulish corpse paint, a high-pointed hat and ornate papal vestments decorated with upside-down crosses. Standing stock-still at the microphone, his face frozen in a miserable scowl, the singer appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be hovering at death’s door or just beyond it. His bandmates, unceremoniously referred to as “Nameless Ghouls,” wore hooded robes and black masks, a look that soon began showing up at European cosplay conventions.

While this combination of corpse-paint, national origin and grinding guitar riffs led some critics to liken their sound to Swedish death metal, the keyboard-heavy liturgical vibe of Ghost’s early music arguably owed more to classic Pink Floyd.

That’s especially true of “Secular Haze,” the breakthrough single from their 2013 sophomore album Infestissumam. Following its release, the band put out the Dave Grohl-produced If You Have Ghost, a five-song covers EP that includes the Roky Erickson song of the same name, as well as renditions of Depeche Mode’s “Waiting for the Night” and, appropriately enough, ABBA’s “Like a Marionette.”

But 2013 also had its share of disappointments, including the ascension of Pope Francis, who was elected on the fifth ballot, thwarting Papa’s hard-fought and highly publicized campaign for the position.

The rest is history, of a sort. Following a series of European dates with Metallica, Ghost are now embarking on an arena tour of their own that will include an Oct. 1 concert headlining the Broadmoor World Arena. Their single “Cirice” won the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance, while their most recent album Prequelle and its single “Rats” were respectively nominated in this year’s Best Rock Album and Best Rock Song categories.

Along the way, the band has gone through a succession of Pope characters —  Papa Emeritus I, Papa Emeritus II, and Papa Emeritus III — who have since been replaced by the far more kinetic Cardinal Copia, who has more of a mafioso image and hyperactive stage presence. All four frontman roles have been played by Tobias Forge, whose identity was outed two years ago when four former Nameless Ghouls filed a since-dismissed lawsuit alleging unpaid wages.

Ghost have also undertaken a series of musical transitions that became especially obvious with last year’s Prequelle, a concept album that employs the 14th-century black plague as an allegory for our current troubles. While Forge hasn’t fully abandoned his band’s past sound, tracks like “Rats” veer toward the ’70s arena-rock sound of Def Leppard, Foreigner, and even Journey, with whom the band toured last year.

In the following interview, Forge holds forth on a wide array of subjects, including litigious ex-Ghouls, the Swedish anti-vaccine movement and his alter-ego’s forthcoming immortalization — alongside legendary artists like Prince and Jean-Michel Basquiat — as a Funko Pop! figurine.

Indy: Let’s begin by talking about the concept behind your most recent album. It opens with that really creepy version of “Ring Around the Rosie, ” which is always a good way to start an album about the bubonic plague. Was there any specific reason why you chose that theme at this particular point in history?

Tobias Forge: Well, I think there are important lessons to be learned from all chapters of history. The plague was an epidemic that wiped out half of Europe, and, we can assume, traumatized the Asian population as well. And back then, people in general were uneducated, they were superstitious, they were religious, they believed in hocus-pocus. So it must have literally felt like the end of the world was just going to happen tomorrow. And that is always an interesting concept. Because we know now that it was not the end of the world. You know, mankind persevered. So while I believe in environmental issues, and that there are a lot of things that can be done in order to make the world a better place, I also think there’s not as much doom and gloom as it may appear.

So what would you say are the lessons we can learn from that period?

I guess the most simple and most obvious one is that we can debate forever — all day and night — about what happens after we’re dead. But I can promise you that we do not know. We can hope for there to be an afterlife, or 72 virgins, or whatever else is on your wishlist. But there’s no way of knowing. And anyone who tells you that they know, they are lying because they want something from you, or they want you to believe in something. And so I think your time and your energy will be better spent trying to embrace life instead of being wary of death. Because life is fragile, and you don’t know if you’ll have another one.

And then there’s this myriad of human instincts that comes into play when apocalypse is near, and one of them is who’s to blame for this, that, and the other. Back in the plague days, as I said, there was this predominance of religious people who believed in hocus-pocus and were pretty uneducated and pretty fucking dumb. They believed that female sexuality was to blame for essentially God abandoning mankind. So while you had people dying off in droves, you also had these people killing women because they were good-looking or, in one way or another, enticed some sort of sexual arousal. And that was obviously the work of the devil, and while they were alive, they would interfere with the survival of mankind. But unfortunately, those kind of very uneducated and outright stupid people are still well-represented in the world, and it’s very important that we address that.

Since you’ve researched and written about all this, I’m curious what you think about your country’s decision, back in March, to ban mandatory vaccinations.

Oh, that’s a good question, but I don’t really have a good answer. But I do think that there is a dichotomy between what the population might need, and what a pharmaceutical company needs for its own benefit. I’m trying not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but about 10 years ago, there was an outbreak of a flu, and companies would have entire offices vaccinated. And, on first glance, it’s like, “That’s great how society and all these bosses and corporations came together.” And I’m aware that the number of people that actually came down with it was not that many. So was that because of this shot, or was it because maybe the threat wasn’t as great as they were saying it was? Because, more often than not, there’s an economic incentive somewhere for someone. But not being a biologist nor a chemist, I don’t know anything about stuff like that. So, as I said, I don’t have a straight answer.

On a happier note, Funko’s Papa Emeritus II doll came out last month…

Yes, speaking of monetaries. [Laughs.]

That’s right. And I have to say, I’m really impressed by how realistic it is, especially in the way it just stands there and doesn’t do anything. How does it feel to be immortalized in that way?

I don’t really see it as that. I mean, when I sort of regard anything that we have done, even a photo, I don’t necessarily think of it as me being in that photo. I’m just sort of detached from the character on the visual side, which is to my benefit, actually. I’m way too vain, so I would have had a problem if it was my face that we were working with. So having the sort of official visuals of Ghost is actually quite liberating.

I understand that you started out playing in punk and death metal bands. Was Ghost the first time that you got to indulge your pre-The Wall Pink Floyd side?

No, I have played non-death metal in other bands before. But when Ghost started taking shape, I think I just found a way to write songs that sort of tick both boxes — one box being melodic pop-rock, or whatever it is, and the other being sort of metal. It felt playful, and it felt intuitive and progressive, for lack of a more fitting word. Whereas in the past, it’s like the metal bands were metal, and the rock bands were rock, and they didn’t combine the two. So I definitely found it more effective, and way more fun, to do something in between. Your stage presence is way more kinetic these days, although pretty much anything is more kinetic than standing in front of a microphone and scaring people. But you’re reaching the point now where the choreography in a video like “Rats” is borderline Michael Jackson. Is that the result of having more personal confidence these days?

Yeah, I would definitely say that. There are critics of the band who feel that the less animated version in the beginning was better and more ominous, and that we should still be embracing that. But a lot of the cryptic nature of Papa I was due to being constrained by the costume and the size of the stage.

And now we’re playing bigger places, where there’s way more ground to cover and there isn’t a single cord onstage that you can trip on, so of course you have to move around, right? I mean, if we were onstage now for two hours with that sort of unanimated version we were doing back in 2011, people would be demanding their money back. It’s just part of growing. You can see the same thing if you look at a clip of the Rolling Stones from 1964. Mick Jagger is Mick Jagger, but he’s definitely not the Mick Jagger that you see in 1969 or 1972. It takes time to build that confidence and find your own way of moving around.

I know you campaigned really hard for the pope’s job back in 2013. And I think a lot of your fans were really disappointed when the smoke came up the chimney and it turned out you didn’t get it. Do you think that your losing out to Pope Francis was the result of Vatican corruption?

Sure, most things going on there are because of corruption anyway. So I’m sure that was one of them. Or it might also have been my lack of faith — or my lack monetary means at the time — that prohibited my exaltation within the ranks of the Vatican.

And finally, I have a question about that lawsuit. Do you think that if you’d given names to your Nameless Ghouls, they would have been less vindictive?

You mean, if I’d given them names instead of making them completely anonymous? Probably, I guess. It’s hard to say. Because with most people that are drawn to the performance stage, you do so with a certain inclination to be seen and appreciated. So maybe if our positions were reversed, I would have felt the same way. Until seven or eight years ago, I really wanted to be famous, so my idea of being in a band was definitely different from what it turned out to be.

I’ve been in charge and working on this full-time, nonstop, for 10 years. Other people in Ghost would work a few hours every day, and then, during the four months between tours when I was making a record, they weren’t really doing anything that had to do with Ghost. And since I was representing the band at all of the meetings, I was getting pats on the back and feeling like what I was doing was good. Whereas, if you had nothing to do with the day-to-day stuff, you maybe didn’t get the pat on the back that you needed in order to feel fulfilled in life. So, you know, maybe if they had gotten their name on there, and could at least be recognized in the street, maybe that would have changed things. But on the other hand, I’ve played with others who didn’t give a shit about that happening.

COLORADO SPRINGS INDEPENDENT

[mysticalreadingnerd]

Let Me Warm Your Heart Part 8

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 |

Words: 1964

Summary: Some meetings are strange, they give you odd feelings of nostalgia and are tinged with dreams of a safe future. Can Credence truly start hoping again?

Warnings: mentions of abuse

Disclaimer: I ain’t earning a single dime from this nor do I own anything except my OCs. GIF credits to the owner/creator.

The snow drifted from the heavens in a lazy manner, settling into small piles on the ground and painting the pavement white. On their downward journey, a few of the flakes got caught on his eyelashes and Credence wondered if he looked like an idiot, standing in the cold with bare minimum protection against the December wind and a handful of sheaves nobody bothered looking at. Probably. A peal of laughter rang out in the silence and he raised his eyes to stare at an ongoing snowball fight across the street. The kids were slugging each other wherever they could aim at, slipping and sliding in their haste but still intent on waddling in their thick woollens, bright smiles alit on their rosy cheeks.   

A frisson of jealousy coursed through Credence at all the could have been’s had he grown up with a normal childhood. The ringing laughter felt like a stab in his heart and the cold made the ache in his hands even more apparent. What was the point in mulling over things that would never change though? His eyes, which had been trained on the gamboling children until now, caught a glimpse of Y/H/C locks crossing the road and moving further away from where he stood. For a moment his breath hitched in his throat. Was it perhaps possible…? Following his gut, Credence rushed after the woman who so closely resembled Y/N. After so many sleepless nights spent dreading his nightmares, could fate finally be favouring him?

He nearly lost sight of her twice but his long strides and the fear of losing the woman he loved for a second time made him lurch forward and grab a hold of her sleeve. Tugging at it, he called out, “Y/N? Y/N!” She turned and his heart sank. He had mistaken someone with a similar hair colour and gait to be her. Was he getting so bad in his despair that he had started hallucinating? He was afraid he would soon go insane if this carried on. “I’m.. I’m sorry. I mistook you…for someone else…” he whispered an apology. The woman pulled her hand away, a look of disdain on her face and left while muttering about weirdos filling the streets.

He stood stock still in the bustling street, the groans and curses of passerbys for blocking the road not falling on his ears. Credence wondered how long it would be before he went raving mad because Y/N was no longer in his life. The nightmares of the past week, which had been so vivid they almost seemed like ominous foretellings of the future, came rushing to his mind again. Had something really happened to her, something that kept her away from him for so long? Something life threatening? These thoughts coupled with the frustrations of the past few weeks brought him so close to tears that anyone who bothered to spare him a glance would wonder if something were wrong. 

Someone bumped into him, pulling him out of his depressing thoughts. “Sorry, I didn’t see… Oh Credence!” the glazed look from his eyes cleared on hearing his name and for the first time he seemed to notice his surroundings. The Japanese grandma had somehow materialized in front of him. In a daze he heard her explain about being out on errands and how she had accidentally bumped into him. “But enough about me, what are you doing here?” He stared at her, not comprehending how to respond. He was standing in the middle of the road dumbstruck because he followed a mirage? Because he was a lovestruck idiot who couldn’t distinguish between reality and wishful thinking? He didn’t know anything at this point. Saving him the efforts, the woman glanced at his hands clutching the NSPS pamphlets. “Ah that explains it.” She pointed at them in understanding, a smile gracing her wizened features. “But dear boy, you really should put on some gloves. It’s deathly cold these days.” With these words she took his hands in her’s and immediately frowned when he shrank away from the touch, hissing at the friction caused by her mittens against his lacerated fingers. 

The damage was done. She took in the state of his hands and looked up at him, the frown deepening. He saw the thoughts whirl behind her eyes and the questions arising on the tip of her tongue. He shook his head when she asked what had happened, unable to admit the horrors he faced on a daily basis. “Did someone hurt you, Credence?” His eyes widened at the question and realization dawned upon her when he hesitated to reply. “It’s okay. You don’t have to say it, I understand.” She gave him a sympathetic nod, the frown never leaving her face. 

Gently, she told him to follow her and took him into a secluded alleyway, away from prying eyes. Turning to look at him with a tender look she motioned for his hands, “May I?” He hesitated for a moment before nodding and setting the pamphlets aside, placed his hands in her’s. She waved her palm over his wounded fingers and the pain, along with the lacerations disappeared. He stared unblinkingly at the seeming miracle happening before him, a thousand thoughts flashing across his mind. Was what he had seen just now really happening? Or was he still following a hallucination resulting from his recent dream? “Are you a…witch?” He spoke in a whisper, awed by the spectacle before him.

The woman smiled, “There are things that not everyone is aware of and names which can be too dangerous to invoke”, she gave a furtive glance to their surroundings, “So let’s keep it that way, shall we?” There was a twinkle in her eye as she said it and Credence nodded in response. “Although, we could try something…” she waved both hands in a sweeping motion around them and the air rippled for a moment before settling to its previous state. “What…?” A shiver of fear swept him and he wondered what he had gotten himself in. It was an instinctive reaction, something on a primal level that had come so abruptly that he was left breathless. But the serene expression on the old woman’s face helped ease a bit of his anxiety and the fear dissipated just as suddenly as it had come.

“In these times, it’s necessary to cast some… precautions. So that unwanted eyes don’t see something that is for the privileged few.” Her eyes glinted with those words and Credence couldn’t help but feel wonder at being addressed as such. “You must be cold in those tattered clothes”, she said, picking up on the original conversation and snapped her fingers. A tiny blue flame erupted from them and he stumbled back in surprise. “Don’t be afraid, magic is not something to be fearful of. Here, it’s warm enough to hold but not so much that it will burn.” Sure enough, when he hesitantly approached the now merrily burning ball of light, heat radiated from it. The woman handed it to him and Credence couldn’t help the awe that washed over him as he felt the pulsing blue flame spread it’s magic through his veins. A warmth bloomed in his fingers and traced it’s way up his arm, almost tickling as it touched him. “And it changes form as desired…” the flame transformed in his hand and a dragon comprised entirely of blue flames flew across his palm, circling his head once before nustling his cheek and dissipating into thin air. 

“That’s just a tiny glimpse of its true scope and believe me Credence, I think you have the ability to harness it too.” Before he could deny anything, she continued, “There are people out there who will be more than willing to help you with your… situation” she spared a glance at his fingers and looked back up at him quickly, “And your sisters will not face any harm in the aftermath, I assure you. We will be willing to go to that extra mile, after all, you are one of us.” Credence looked in awe at the elderly woman, brushing his cheek with stunned fingers. The spectacle that he had just witnessed was otherworldly and so were the words she had whispered in a low whisper, as if sharing a centuries old secret. Magic was so ethereal and fascinating and everything beyond what he could ever even dream of. And he had just been told that he could become a part of this world! The possibilities of the grandma’s words were dizzying him with their magnanimity.

“Just think about. If you give me the word I’ll speak with some higher ups…” “Yes!” The word tumbled out of his lips before he could stop himself and his readiness earned a Cheshire grin from the grandma. “Wonderful! I’ll get in touch…” but the thoughts that had been plaguing his mind made their way out. “Will you really be able to protect my sisters if I’m no longer there?” “Credence, you don’t have to worry about them. Are they subjected to the same conditions that you are?” Her sharp gaze turned to his hands and he tucked them under his jacket to avoid the gaze. He shook his head, “None of the kids are hurt. It’s only me…when I’m out of line…” Her gaze turned steely. “Kids? There are more?” “Yes, Ma feeds many children under the Church. In return they just have to hand out some of the flyers like me.” He shrugged. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do. You just have to trust me, yes child?” He nodded in response. Another thought crossed his mind and he opened his mouth to ask the question that trembled on his tongue, unsure whether it would be appropriate or not. 

“You can say anything you want dear, I won’t harm you”, the elderly woman had noticed his hesitation. “Do you know someone by the name Y/N L/N?” An inscrutable expression crossed the woman’s face and she asked him, almost as if she were operating on a different plane altogether. “Why do you ask?” “I don’t know… I just… wondered whether you knew someone like that…” The woman shook her head and quickly dismissed the topic, asking him if he needed to go home soon. Credence got the feeling that he had been subtly lied to, for what purposes he didn’t know. Or at the very least there was more to it that a mere wordless denial. Either way, this woman knew Y/N, that much he was sure of. 

He bid adieu to the grandma once he had taken ahold of half the flyers (she had insisted on taking the others to ‘distribute them among her friends’) and with promises to meet him at the end of the week at the same place. When he turned to look back at her, she had long disappeared into the crowd; as if walking on two alternate planes, here one moment, gone the next. He touched his cheek once again, the ghost of the warm dragon’s breath still lingering on it. He remembered the vivid dream that had him bawling his eyes out just a few days prior and wondered for the umpteenth time whether the old woman was someone Y/N sent because she couldn’t meet him herself. Perhaps, she was helping him from the shadows because it had become too dangerous for them to interact in person. He hoped that were true. Because if that wasn’t the case and something unimaginable had happened, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself even if he found the freedom he was being graciously offered. For no taste of tantalizing joy could be truly appreciated without Y/N by his side, that much Credence was sure of.

A/N: Aye I’m alive and well. Also this has been written. Unedited and shitty imo. A thousand apologies (read that in Ranjeet’s voice) for those who asked whether I had plans to continue this or not. I fully intend to finish what I started. Feedback would save my life and help me attain nirvana. Reblogging ALWAYS helps. Excuse any typos and let me know if you want to be added to the tag list. Some of you couldn’t be tagged, please tweak your settings

Tags: @mysticracoon @multifandom-slytherin @retardedhumanhere @thequeerishere555 @daeshaunex2 @itssophmcintosh @strangebyers @jnecrobutcher @aubri1313 @watson-38 @catchmeupimgettingoutofhere @thesiriustoherremus @bookowlextraordinaire @buzzfeedunwheeze @smashleytaylor @thegoodstrangemindhunter @wine-anon-2 @angstyang @thatcraxygirl15 @bookgenie

~mystical reading nerd

[top40gordy]

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/my-family-s-slave?utm_source=pocket-newtab

 This article was originally published on May 16, 2017, by The Atlantic, and is republished at https://getpocket.com/explore/item/my-family-s-slave?utm_source=pocket-newtab with permission. That is where this blogger viewed it on September 14, 2019 and shared it on Tumblr.com.

Pocket Worthy·

Stories to fuel your mind.

My Family’s Slave

She lived with us for 56 years.  She raised me and my siblings without pay.  I was 11, a typical American kid, before I realized who she was.

The Atlantic |  Alex Tizon

 All photos courtesy of Alex Tizon and his family.

The ashes filled a black plastic box about the size of a toaster. It weighed three and a half pounds. I put it in a canvas tote bag and packed it in my suitcase this past July for the transpacific flight to Manila. From there I would travel by car to a rural village. When I arrived, I would hand over all that was left of the woman who had spent 56 years as a slave in my family’s household.

Her name was Eudocia Tomas Pulido. We called her Lola. She was 4 foot 11, with mocha-brown skin and almond eyes that I can still see looking into mine—my first memory. She was 18 years old when my grandfather gave her to my mother as a gift, and when my family moved to the United States, we brought her with us. No other word but slave encompassed the life she lived. Her days began before everyone else woke and ended after we went to bed. She prepared three meals a day, cleaned the house, waited on my parents, and took care of my four siblings and me. My parents never paid her, and they scolded her constantly. She wasn’t kept in leg irons, but she might as well have been. So many nights, on my way to the bathroom, I’d spot her sleeping in a corner, slumped against a mound of laundry, her fingers clutching a garment she was in the middle of folding.

To our American neighbors, we were model immigrants, a poster family. They told us so. My father had a law degree, my mother was on her way to becoming a doctor, and my siblings and I got good grades and always said “please” and “thank you.” We never talked about Lola. Our secret went to the core of who we were and, at least for us kids, who we wanted to be.

After my mother died of leukemia, in 1999, Lola came to live with me in a small town north of Seattle. I had a family, a career, a house in the suburbs—the American dream. And then I had a slave.

***

At baggage claim in Manila, I unzipped my suitcase to make sure Lola’s ashes were still there. Outside, I inhaled the familiar smell: a thick blend of exhaust and waste, of ocean and sweet fruit and sweat.

Early the next morning I found a driver, an affable middle-aged man who went by the nickname “Doods,” and we hit the road in his truck, weaving through traffic. The scene always stunned me. The sheer number of cars and motorcycles and jeepneys. The people weaving between them and moving on the sidewalks in great brown rivers. The street vendors in bare feet trotting alongside cars, hawking cigarettes and cough drops and sacks of boiled peanuts. The child beggars pressing their faces against the windows.

Doods and I were headed to the place where Lola’s story began, up north in the central plains: Tarlac province. Rice country. The home of a cigar-chomping army lieutenant named Tomas Asuncion, my grandfather. The family stories paint Lieutenant Tom as a formidable man given to eccentricity and dark moods, who had lots of land but little money and kept mistresses in separate houses on his property. His wife died giving birth to their only child, my mother. She was raised by a series of utusans, or “people who take commands.”

Slavery has a long history on the islands. Before the Spanish came, islanders enslaved other islanders, usually war captives, criminals, or debtors. Slaves came in different varieties, from warriors who could earn their freedom through valor to household servants who were regarded as property and could be bought and sold or traded. High-status slaves could own low-status slaves, and the low could own the lowliest. Some chose to enter servitude simply to survive: In exchange for their labor, they might be given food, shelter, and protection.

When the Spanish arrived, in the 1500s, they enslaved islanders and later brought African and Indian slaves. The Spanish Crown eventually began phasing out slavery at home and in its colonies, but parts of the Philippines were so far-flung that authorities couldn’t keep a close eye. Traditions persisted under different guises, even after the U.S. took control of the islands in 1898. Today even the poor can have utusans or katulongs (“helpers”) or kasambahays (“domestics”), as long as there are people even poorer. The pool is deep.

Lieutenant Tom had as many as three families of utusans living on his property. In the spring of 1943, with the islands under Japanese occupation, he brought home a girl from a village down the road. She was a cousin from a marginal side of the family, rice farmers. The lieutenant was shrewd—he saw that this girl was penniless, unschooled, and likely to be malleable. Her parents wanted her to marry a pig farmer twice her age, and she was desperately unhappy but had nowhere to go. Tom approached her with an offer: She could have food and shelter if she would commit to taking care of his daughter, who had just turned 12.

Lola agreed, not grasping that the deal was for life.

“She is my gift to you,” Lieutenant Tom told my mother.

“I don’t want her,” my mother said, knowing she had no choice.

Lieutenant Tom went off to fight the Japanese, leaving Mom behind with Lola in his creaky house in the provinces. Lola fed, groomed, and dressed my mother. When they walked to the market, Lola held an umbrella to shield her from the sun. At night, when Lola’s other tasks were done—feeding the dogs, sweeping the floors, folding the laundry that she had washed by hand in the Camiling River—she sat at the edge of my mother’s bed and fanned her to sleep.

Lola Pulido (shown on the left at age 18) came from a poor family in a rural part of the Philippines. The author’s grandfather “gave” her to his daughter as a gift.

One day during the war Lieutenant Tom came home and caught my mother in a lie—something to do with a boy she wasn’t supposed to talk to. Tom, furious, ordered her to “stand at the table.” Mom cowered with Lola in a corner. Then, in a quivering voice, she told her father that Lola would take her punishment. Lola looked at Mom pleadingly, then without a word walked to the dining table and held on to the edge. Tom raised the belt and delivered 12 lashes, punctuating each one with a word. You. Do. Not. Lie. To. Me. You. Do. Not. Lie. To. Me. Lola made no sound.

My mother, in recounting this story late in her life, delighted in the outrageousness of it, her tone seeming to say, Can you believe I did that? When I brought it up with Lola, she asked to hear Mom’s version. She listened intently, eyes lowered, and afterward, she looked at me with sadness and said simply, “Yes. It was like that.”

Seven years later, in 1950, Mom married my father and moved to Manila, bringing Lola along. Lieutenant Tom had long been haunted by demons, and in 1951 he silenced them with a .32‑caliber slug to his temple. Mom almost never talked about it. She had his temperament—moody, imperial, secretly fragile—and she took his lessons to heart, among them the proper way to be a provincial matrona: You must embrace your role as the giver of commands. You must keep those beneath you in their place at all times, for their own good and the good of the household. They might cry and complain, but their souls will thank you. They will love you for helping them be what God intended.

Lola at age 27 with Arthur, the author’s older brother, before coming to the U.S.

My brother Arthur was born in 1951. I came next, followed by three more siblings in rapid succession. My parents expected Lola to be as devoted to us kids as she was to them. While she looked after us, my parents went to school and earned advanced degrees, joining the ranks of so many others with fancy diplomas but no jobs. Then the big break: Dad was offered a job in Foreign Affairs as a commercial analyst. The salary would be meager, but the position was in America—a place he and Mom had grown up dreaming of, where everything they hoped for could come true.

Dad was allowed to bring his family and one domestic. Figuring they would both have to work, my parents needed Lola to care for the kids and the house. My mother informed Lola, and to her great irritation, Lola didn’t immediately acquiesce. Years later Lola told me she was terrified. “It was too far,” she said. “Maybe your Mom and Dad won’t let me go home.”

In the end what convinced Lola was my father’s promise that things would be different in America. He told her that as soon as he and Mom got on their feet, they’d give her an “allowance.” Lola could send money to her parents, to all her relations in the village. Her parents lived in a hut with a dirt floor. Lola could build them a concrete house, could change their lives forever. Imagine.

We landed in Los Angeles on May 12, 1964, all our belongings in cardboard boxes tied with rope. Lola had been with my mother for 21 years by then. In many ways she was more of a parent to me than either my mother or my father. Hers was the first face I saw in the morning and the last one I saw at night. As a baby, I uttered Lola’s name (which I first pronounced “Oh-ah”) long before I learned to say “Mom” or “Dad.” As a toddler, I refused to go to sleep unless Lola was holding me, or at least nearby.

I was 4 years old when we arrived in the U.S.—too young to question Lola’s place in our family. But as my siblings and I grew up on this other shore, we came to see the world differently. The leap across the ocean brought about a leap in consciousness that Mom and Dad couldn’t, or wouldn’t, make.

***

Lola never got that allowance. She asked my parents about it in a roundabout way a couple of years into our life in America. Her mother had fallen ill (with what I would later learn was dysentery), and her family couldn’t afford the medicine she needed. “Pwede ba?” she said to my parents. Is it possible? Mom let out a sigh. “How could you even ask?,” Dad responded in Tagalog. “You see how hard up we are. Don’t you have any shame?”

My parents had borrowed money for the move to the U.S. and then borrowed more in order to stay. My father was transferred from the consulate general in L.A. to the Philippine consulate in Seattle. He was paid $5,600 a year. He took a second job cleaning trailers, and a third as a debt collector. Mom got work as a technician in a couple of medical labs. We barely saw them, and when we did they were often exhausted and snappish.

Mom would come home and upbraid Lola for not cleaning the house well enough or for forgetting to bring in the mail. “Didn’t I tell you I want the letters here when I come home?” she would say in Tagalog, her voice venomous. “It’s not hard naman! An idiot could remember.” Then my father would arrive and take his turn. When Dad raised his voice, everyone in the house shrank. Sometimes my parents would team up until Lola broke down crying, almost as though that was their goal.

It confused me: My parents were good to my siblings and me, and we loved them. But they’d be affectionate to us kids one moment and vile to Lola the next. I was 11 or 12 when I began to see Lola’s situation clearly. By then Arthur, eight years my senior, had been seething for a long time. He was the one who introduced the word slave into my understanding of what Lola was. Before he said it I’d thought of her as just an unfortunate member of the household. I hated when my parents yelled at her, but it hadn’t occurred to me that they—and the whole arrangement—could be immoral.

L: Lola raised the author (left) and his siblings and was sometimes the only adult at home for days at a time. R: The author (second from the left) with his parents, siblings, and Lola five years after they arrived in the U.S.

“Do you know anybody treated the way she’s treated?” Arthur said. “Who lives the way she lives?” He summed up Lola’s reality: Wasn’t paid. Toiled every day. Was tongue-lashed for sitting too long or falling asleep too early. Was struck for talking back. Wore hand-me-downs. Ate scraps and leftovers by herself in the kitchen. Rarely left the house. Had no friends or hobbies outside the family. Had no private quarters. (Her designated place to sleep in each house we lived in was always whatever was left—a couch or storage area or corner in my sisters’ bedroom. She often slept among piles of laundry.)

We couldn’t identify a parallel anywhere except in slave characters on TV and in the movies. I remember watching a Western called The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. John Wayne plays Tom Doniphon, a gunslinging rancher who barks orders at his servant, Pompey, whom he calls his “boy.” Pick him up, Pompey. Pompey, go find the doctor. Get on back to work, Pompey! Docile and obedient, Pompey calls his master “Mistah Tom.” They have a complex relationship. Tom forbids Pompey from attending school but opens the way for Pompey to drink in a whites-only saloon. Near the end, Pompey saves his master from a fire. It’s clear Pompey both fears and loves Tom, and he mourns when Tom dies. All of this is peripheral to the main story of Tom’s showdown with bad guy Liberty Valance, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Pompey. I remember thinking: Lola is Pompey, Pompey is Lola.

One night when Dad found out that my sister Ling, who was then 9, had missed dinner, he barked at Lola for being lazy. “I tried to feed her,” Lola said, as Dad stood over her and glared. Her feeble defense only made him angrier, and he punched her just below the shoulder. Lola ran out of the room and I could hear her wailing, an animal cry.

“Ling said she wasn’t hungry,” I said.

My parents turned to look at me. They seemed startled. I felt the twitching in my face that usually preceded tears, but I wouldn’t cry this time. In Mom’s eyes was a shadow of something I hadn’t seen before. Jealousy?

“Are you defending your Lola?,” Dad said. “Is that what you’re doing?”

“Ling said she wasn’t hungry,” I said again, almost in a whisper.

I was 13. It was my first attempt to stick up for the woman who spent her days watching over me. The woman who used to hum Tagalog melodies as she rocked me to sleep, and when I got older would dress and feed me and walk me to school in the mornings and pick me up in the afternoons. Once, when I was sick for a long time and too weak to eat, she chewed my food for me and put the small pieces in my mouth to swallow. One summer when I had plaster casts on both legs (I had problem joints), she bathed me with a washcloth, brought medicine in the middle of the night, and helped me through months of rehabilitation. I was cranky through it all. She didn’t complain or lose patience, ever.

To now hear her wailing made me crazy.

 ***

In the old country, my parents felt no need to hide their treatment of Lola. In America, they treated her worse but took pains to conceal it. When guests came over, my parents would either ignore her or, if questioned, lie and quickly change the subject. For five years in North Seattle, we lived across the street from the Missler's, a rambunctious family of eight who introduced us to things like mustard, salmon fishing, and mowing the lawn. Football on TV. Yelling during football. Lola would come out to serve food and drinks during games, and my parents would smile and thank her before she quickly disappeared. “Who’s that little lady you keep in the kitchen?,” Big Jim, the Missler patriarch, once asked. A relative from back home, Dad said. Very shy.

Billy Missler, my best friend, didn’t buy it. He spent enough time at our house, whole weekends sometimes, to catch glimpses of my family’s secret. He once overheard my mother yelling in the kitchen, and when he barged in to investigate found Mom red-faced and glaring at Lola, who was quaking in a corner. I came in a few seconds later. The look on Billy’s face was a mix of embarrassment and perplexity. What was that? I waved it off and told him to forget it.

I think Billy felt sorry for Lola. He’d rave about her cooking, and make her laugh like I’d never seen. During sleepovers, she’d make his favorite Filipino dish, beef tapa over white rice. Cooking was Lola’s only eloquence. I could tell by what she served whether she was merely feeding us or saying she loved us.

When I once referred to Lola as a distant aunt, Billy reminded me that when we’d first met I’d said she was my grandmother.

“Well, she’s kind of both,” I said mysteriously.

“Why is she always working?”

“She likes to work,” I said.

“Your dad and mom—why do they yell at her?”

“Her hearing isn’t so good …”

Admitting the truth would have meant exposing us all. We spent our first decade in the country learning the ways of the new land and trying to fit in. Having a slave did not fit. Having a slave gave me grave doubts about what kind of people we were, what kind of place we came from. Whether we deserved to be accepted. I was ashamed of it all, including my complicity. Didn’t I eat the food she cooked, and wear the clothes she washed and ironed and hung in the closet? But losing her would have been devastating.

There was another reason for secrecy: Lola’s travel papers had expired in 1969, five years after we arrived in the U.S. She’d come on a special passport linked to my father’s job. After a series of fallings-out with his superiors, Dad quit the consulate and declared his intent to stay in the United States. He arranged for permanent-resident status for his family, but Lola wasn’t eligible. He was supposed to send her back.

Lola at age 51, in 1976. Her mother died a few years before this picture was taken; her father a few years after. Both times, she wanted desperately to go home.

Lola’s mother, Fermina, died in 1973; her father, Hilario, in 1979. Both times she wanted desperately to go home. Both times my parents said “Sorry.” No money, no time. The kids needed her. My parents also feared for themselves, they admitted to me later. If the authorities had found out about Lola, as they surely would have if she’d tried to leave, my parents could have gotten into trouble, possibly even been deported. They couldn’t risk it. Lola’s legal status became what Filipinos call tago nang tago, or TNT—“on the run.” She stayed TNT for almost 20 years.

After each of her parents died, Lola was sullen and silent for months. She barely responded when my parents badgered her. But the badgering never let up. Lola kept her head down and did her work.

***

My father’s resignation started a turbulent period. Money got tighter, and my parents turned on each other. They uprooted the family again and again—Seattle to Honolulu back to Seattle to the southeast Bronx and finally to the truck-stop town of Umatilla, Oregon, population 750. During all this moving around, Mom often worked 24-hour shifts, first as a medical intern and then as a resident, and Dad would disappear for days, working odd jobs but also (we’d later learn) womanizing and who knows what else. Once, he came home and told us that he’d lost our new station wagon playing blackjack.

For days in a row, Lola would be the only adult in the house. She got to know the details of our lives in a way that my parents never had the mental space for. We brought friends home, and she’d listen to us talk about school and girls and boys and whatever else was on our minds. Just from conversations she overheard, she could list the first name of every girl I had a crush on from sixth grade through high school.

When I was 15, Dad left the family for good. I didn’t want to believe it at the time, but the fact was that he deserted us kids and abandoned Mom after 25 years of marriage. She wouldn’t become a licensed physician for another year, and her specialty—internal medicine—wasn’t especially lucrative. Dad didn’t pay child support, so money was always a struggle.

My mom kept herself together enough to go to work, but at night she’d crumble in self-pity and despair. Her main source of comfort during this time: Lola. As Mom snapped at her over small things, Lola attended to her even more—cooking Mom’s favorite meals, cleaning her bedroom with extra care. I’d find the two of them late at night at the kitchen counter, griping and telling stories about Dad, sometimes laughing wickedly, other times working themselves into a fury over his transgressions. They barely noticed us kids flitting in and out.

One night I heard Mom weeping and ran into the living room to find her slumped in Lola’s arms. Lola was talking softly to her, the way she used to with my siblings and me when we were young. I lingered, then went back to my room, scared for my mom and awed by Lola.

***

Doods was humming. I’d dozed for what felt like a minute and awoke to his happy melody. “Two hours more,” he said. I checked the plastic box in the tote bag by my side—still there—and looked up to see open road. The MacArthur Highway. I glanced at the time. “Hey, you said ‘two hours’ two hours ago,” I said. Doods just hummed.

His not knowing anything about the purpose of my journey was a relief. I had enough interior dialogue going on. I was no better than my parents. I could have done more to free Lola. To make her life better. Why didn’t I? I could have turned in my parents, I suppose. It would have blown up my family in an instant. Instead, my siblings and I kept everything to ourselves, and rather than blowing up in an instant, my family broke apart slowly.

Doods and I passed through beautiful country. Not travel-brochure beautiful but real and alive and, compared with the city, elegantly spare. Mountains ran parallel to the highway on each side, the Zambales Mountains to the west, the Sierra Madre Range to the east. From ridge to ridge, west to east, I could see every shade of green all the way to almost black.

Doods pointed to a shadowy outline in the distance. Mount Pinatubo. I’d come here in 1991 to report on the aftermath of its eruption, the second-largest of the 20th century. Volcanic mudflows called lahars continued for more than a decade, burying ancient villages, filling in rivers and valleys, and wiping out entire ecosystems. The lahars reached deep into the foothills of Tarlac province, where Lola’s parents had spent their entire lives, and where she and my mother had once lived together. So much of our family record had been lost in wars and floods, and now parts were buried under 20 feet of mud.

Life here is routinely visited by cataclysm. Killer typhoons that strike several times a year. Bandit insurgencies that never end. Somnolent mountains that one day decide to wake up. The Philippines isn’t like China or Brazil, whose mass might absorb the trauma. This is a nation of scattered rocks in the sea. When disaster hits, the place goes under for a while. Then it resurfaces and life proceeds, and you can behold a scene like the one Doods and I were driving through, and the simple fact that it’s still there makes it beautiful.

Rice fields in Mayantoc, near where Lola was born.

***

A couple of years after my parents split, my mother remarried and demanded Lola’s fealty to her new husband, a Croatian immigrant named Ivan, whom she had met through a friend. Ivan had never finished high school. He’d been married four times and was an inveterate gambler who enjoyed being supported by my mother and attended to by Lola.

Ivan brought out a side of Lola I’d never seen. His marriage to my mother was volatile from the start, and money—especially his use of her money—was the main issue. Once, during an argument in which Mom was crying and Ivan was yelling, Lola walked over and stood between them. She turned to Ivan and firmly said his name. He looked at Lola, blinked, and sat down.

My sister Inday and I were floored. Ivan was about 250 pounds, and his baritone could shake the walls. Lola put him in his place with a single word. I saw this happen a few other times, but for the most part, Lola served Ivan unquestioningly, just as Mom wanted her to. I had a hard time watching Lola vassalize herself to another person, especially someone like Ivan. But what set the stage for my blowup with Mom was something more mundane.

She used to get angry whenever Lola felt ill. She didn’t want to deal with the disruption and the expense and would accuse Lola of faking or failing to take care of herself. Mom chose the second tack when, in the late 1970s, Lola’s teeth started falling out. She’d been saying for months that her mouth hurt.

“That’s what happens when you don’t brush properly,” Mom told her.

I said that Lola needed to see a dentist. She was in her 50s and had never been to one. I was attending college an hour away, and I brought it up again and again on my frequent trips home. A year went by, then two. Lola took aspirin every day for the pain, and her teeth looked like a crumbling Stonehenge. One night, after watching her chew bread on the side of her mouth that still had a few good molars, I lost it.

Mom and I argued into the night, each of us sobbing at different points. She said she was tired of working her fingers to the bone supporting everybody, and sick of her children always taking Lola’s side, and why didn’t we just take our goddamn Lola, she’d never wanted her in the first place, and she wished to God she hadn’t given birth to an arrogant, sanctimonious phony like me.

I let her words sink in. Then I came back at her, saying she would know all about being a phony, her whole life was a masquerade, and if she stopped feeling sorry for herself for one minute she’d see that Lola could barely eat because her goddamn teeth were rotting out of her goddamn head, and couldn’t she think of her just this once as a real person instead of a slave kept alive to serve her?

“A slave,” Mom said, weighing the word. “A slave?”

The night ended when she declared that I would never understand her relationship with Lola. Never. Her voice was so guttural and pained that thinking of it even now, so many years later, feels like a punch to the stomach. It’s a terrible thing to hate your own mother, and that night I did. The look in her eyes made clear that she felt the same way about me.

The fight only fed Mom’s fear that Lola had stolen the kids from her, and she made Lola pay for it. Mom drove her harder. Tormented her by saying, “I hope you’re happy now that your kids hate me.” When we helped Lola with housework, Mom would fume. “You’d better go to sleep now, Lola,” she’d say sarcastically. “You’ve been working too hard. Your kids are worried about you.” Later she’d take Lola into a bedroom for a talk, and Lola would walk out with puffy eyes.

Lola finally begged us to stop trying to help her.

Why do you stay? we asked.

“Who will cook?” she said, which I took to mean, Who would do everything? Who would take care of us? Of Mom? Another time she said, “Where will I go?” This struck me as closer to a real answer. Coming to America had been a mad dash, and before we caught a breath a decade had gone by. We turned around, and a second decade was closing out. Lola’s hair had turned gray. She’d heard that relatives back home who hadn’t received the promised support were wondering what had happened to her. She was ashamed to return.

She had no contacts in America and no facility for getting around. Phones puzzled her. Mechanical things—ATMs, intercoms, vending machines, anything with a keyboard—made her panic. Fast-talking people left her speechless, and her own broken English did the same to them. She couldn’t make an appointment, arrange a trip, fill out a form, or order a meal without help.

I got Lola an ATM card linked to my bank account and taught her how to use it. She succeeded once, but the second time she got flustered, and she never tried again. She kept the card because she considered it a gift from me.

I also tried to teach her to drive. She dismissed the idea with a wave of her hand, but I picked her up and carried her to the car and planted her in the driver’s seat, both of us laughing. I spent 20 minutes going over the controls and gauges. Her eyes went from mirthful to terrified. When I turned on the ignition and the dashboard lit up, she was out of the car and in the house before I could say another word. I tried a couple more times.

I thought driving could change her life. She could go places. And if things ever got unbearable with Mom, she could drive away forever.

***

Four lanes became two, pavement turned to gravel. Tricycle drivers wove between cars and water buffalo pulling loads of bamboo. An occasional dog or goat sprinted across the road in front of our truck, almost grazing the bumper. Doods never eased up. Whatever didn’t make it across would be stew today instead of tomorrow—the rule of the road in the provinces.

I took out a map and traced the route to the village of Mayantoc, our destination. Out the window, in the distance, tiny figures folded at the waist like so many bent nails. People harvesting rice, the same way they had for thousands of years. We were getting close.

I tapped the cheap plastic box and regretted not buying a real urn, made of porcelain or rosewood. What would Lola’s people think? Not that many were left. Only one sibling remained in the area, Gregoria, 98 years old, and I was told her memory was failing. Relatives said that whenever she heard Lola’s name, she’d burst out crying and then quickly forget why.

L: Lola and the author in 2008. R: The author with Lola’s sister Gregoria.

I’d been in touch with one of Lola’s nieces. She had the day planned: When I arrived, a low-key memorial, then a prayer, followed by the lowering of the ashes into a plot at the Mayantoc Eternal Bliss Memorial Park. It had been five years since Lola died, but I hadn’t yet said the final goodbye that I knew was about to happen. All day I had been feeling intense grief and resisting the urge to let it out, not wanting to wail in front of Doods. More than the shame I felt for the way my family had treated Lola, more than my anxiety about how her relatives in Mayantoc would treat me, I felt the terrible heaviness of losing her, as if she had died only the day before.

Doods veered northwest on the Romulo Highway, then took a sharp left at Camiling, the town Mom and Lieutenant Tom came from. Two lanes became one, then gravel turned to dirt. The path ran along the Camiling River, clusters of bamboo houses off to the side, green hills ahead. The homestretch.

 ***

I gave the eulogy at Mom’s funeral, and everything I said was true. That she was brave and spirited. That she’d drawn some short straws but had done the best she could. That she was radiant when she was happy. That she adored her children and gave us a real home—in Salem, Oregon—that through the ’80s and ’90s became the permanent base we’d never had before. That I wished we could thank her one more time. That we all loved her.

I didn’t talk about Lola. Just as I had selectively blocked Lola out of my mind when I was with Mom during her last years. Loving my mother required that kind of mental surgery. It was the only way we could be mother and son—which I wanted, especially after her health started to decline, in the mid‑’90s. Diabetes. Breast cancer. Acute myelogenous leukemia, a fast-growing cancer of the blood and bone marrow. She went from robust to frail seemingly overnight.

After the big fight, I mostly avoided going home, and at age 23 I moved to Seattle. When I did visit I saw a change. Mom was still Mom, but not as relentlessly. She got Lola a fine set of dentures and let her have her own bedroom. She cooperated when my siblings and I set out to change Lola’s TNT status. Ronald Reagan’s landmark immigration bill of 1986 made millions of illegal immigrants eligible for amnesty. It was a long process, but Lola became a citizen in October 1998, four months after my mother was diagnosed with leukemia. Mom lived another year.

During that time, she and Ivan took trips to Lincoln City, on the Oregon coast, and sometimes brought Lola along. Lola loved the ocean. On the other side were the islands she dreamed of returning to. And Lola was never happier than when Mom relaxed around her. An afternoon at the coast or just 15 minutes in the kitchen reminiscing about the old days in the province, and Lola would seem to forget years of torment.

I couldn’t forget so easily. But I did come to see Mom in a different light. Before she died, she gave me her journals, two steamer trunks’ full. Leafing through them as she slept a few feet away, I glimpsed slices of her life that I’d refused to see for years. She’d gone to medical school when not many women did. She’d come to America and fought for respect as both a woman and an immigrant physician. She’d worked for two decades at Fairview Training Center, in Salem, a state institution for the developmentally disabled. The irony: She tended to underdogs most of her professional life. They worshipped her. Female colleagues became close friends. They did silly, girly things together—shoe shopping, throwing dress-up parties at one another’s homes, exchanging gag gifts like penis-shaped soaps and calendars of half-naked men, all while laughing hysterically. Looking through their party pictures reminded me that Mom had a life and an identity apart from the family and Lola. Of course.

Mom wrote in great detail about each of her kids, and how she felt about us on a given day—proud or loving or resentful. And she devoted volumes to her husbands, trying to grasp them as complex characters in her story. We were all persons of consequence. Lola was incidental. When she was mentioned at all, she was a bit character in someone else’s story. “Lola walked my beloved Alex to his new school this morning. I hope he makes new friends quickly so he doesn’t feel so sad about moving again …” There might be two more pages about me, and no other mention of Lola.

The day before Mom died, a Catholic priest came to the house to perform last rites. Lola sat next to my mother’s bed, holding a cup with a straw, poised to raise it to Mom’s mouth. She had become extra attentive to my mother, and extra kind. She could have taken advantage of Mom in her feebleness, even exacted revenge, but she did the opposite.

The priest asked Mom whether there was anything she wanted to forgive or be forgiven for. She scanned the room with heavy-lidded eyes, said nothing. Then, without looking at Lola, she reached over and placed an open hand on her head. She didn’t say a word.

 ***

Lola was 75 when she came to stay with me. I was married with two young daughters, living in a cozy house on a wooded lot. From the second story, we could see Puget Sound. We gave Lola a bedroom and license to do whatever she wanted: sleep in, watch soaps, do nothing all day. She could relax—and be free—for the first time in her life. I should have known it wouldn’t be that simple.

I’d forgotten about all the things Lola did that drove me a little crazy. She was always telling me to put on a sweater so I wouldn’t catch a cold (I was in my 40s). She groused incessantly about Dad and Ivan: My father was lazy, Ivan was a leech. I learned to tune her out. Harder to ignore was her fanatical thriftiness. She threw nothing out. And she used to go through the trash to make sure that the rest of us hadn’t thrown out anything useful. She washed and reused paper towels again and again until they disintegrated in her hands. (No one else would go near them.) The kitchen became glutted with grocery bags, yogurt containers, and pickle jars, and parts of our house turned into storage for—there’s no other word for it—garbage.

She cooked breakfast even though none of us ate more than a banana or a granola bar in the morning, usually while we were running out the door. She made our beds and did our laundry. She cleaned the house. I found myself saying to her, nicely at first, “Lola, you don’t have to do that.” “Lola, we’ll do it ourselves.” “Lola, that’s the girls’ job.” Okay, she’d say, but keep right on doing it.

It irritated me to catch her eating meals standing in the kitchen, or see her tense up and start cleaning when I walked into the room. One day, after several months, I sat her down.

“I’m not Dad. You’re not a slave here,” I said, and went through a long list of slave-like things she’d been doing. When I realized she was startled, I took a deep breath and cupped her face, that elfin face now looking at me searchingly. I kissed her forehead. “This is your house now,” I said. “You’re not here to serve us. You can relax, okay?”

“Okay,” she said. And went back to cleaning.

She didn’t know any other way to be. I realized I had to take my own advice and relax. If she wanted to make dinner, let her. Thank her and do the dishes. I had to remind myself constantly: Let her be.

One night I came home to find her sitting on the couch doing a word puzzle, her feet up, the TV on. Next to her, a cup of tea. She glanced at me, smiled sheepishly with those perfect white dentures, and went back to the puzzle. Progress, I thought.

She planted a garden in the backyard—roses and tulips and every kind of orchid—and spent whole afternoons tending it. She took walks around the neighborhood. At about 80, her arthritis got bad and she began walking with a cane. In the kitchen, she went from being a fry cook to a kind of artisanal chef who created only when the spirit moved her. She made lavish meals and grinned with pleasure as we devoured them.

Passing the door of Lola’s bedroom, I’d often hear her listening to a cassette of Filipino folk songs. The same tape over and over. I knew she’d been sending almost all her money—my wife and I gave her $200 a week—to relatives back home. One afternoon, I found her sitting on the back deck gazing at a snapshot someone had sent of her village.

“You want to go home, Lola?”

She turned the photograph over and traced her finger across the inscription, then flipped it back and seemed to study a single detail.

“Yes,” she said.

Just after her 83rd birthday, I paid her airfare to go home. I’d follow a month later to bring her back to the U.S.—if she wanted to return. The unspoken purpose of her trip was to see whether the place she had spent so many years longing for could still feel like home.

She found her answer.

“Everything was not the same,” she told me as we walked around Mayantoc. The old farms were gone. Her house was gone. Her parents and most of her siblings were gone. Childhood friends, the ones still alive, were like strangers. It was nice to see them, but … everything was not the same. She’d still like to spend her last years here, she said, but she wasn’t ready yet.

“You’re ready to go back to your garden,” I said.

“Yes. Let’s go home.”

L: Lola returned to the Philippines for an extended visit after her 83rd birthday. R: Lola with her sister Juliana, reunited after 65 years.

***

Lola was as devoted to my daughters as she’d been to my siblings and me when we were young. After school, she’d listen to their stories and make them something to eat. And unlike my wife and me (especially me), Lola enjoyed every minute of every school event and performance. She couldn’t get enough of them. She sat up front, kept the programs as mementos.

It was so easy to make Lola happy. We took her on family vacations, but she was as excited to go to the farmer’s market down the hill. She became a wide-eyed kid on a field trip: “Look at those zucchinis!” The first thing she did every morning was open all the blinds in the house, and at each window, she’d pause to look outside.

And she taught herself to read. It was remarkable. Over the years, she’d somehow learned to sound out letters. She did those puzzles where you find and circle words within a block of letters. Her room had stacks of word-puzzle booklets, thousands of words circled in pencil. Every day she watched the news and listened for words she recognized. She triangulated them with words in the newspaper and figured out the meanings. She came to read the paper every day, front to back. Dad used to say she was simple. I wondered what she could have been if, instead of working the rice fields at age 8, she had learned to read and write.

Lola at age 82.

During the 12 years she lived in our house, I asked her questions about herself, trying to piece together her life story, a habit she found curious. To my inquiries, she would often respond first with “Why?” Why did I want to know about her childhood? About how she met Lieutenant Tom?

I tried to get my sister Ling to ask Lola about her love life, thinking Lola would be more comfortable with her. Ling cackled, which was her way of saying I was on my own. One day, while Lola and I were putting away groceries, I just blurted it out: “Lola, have you ever been romantic with anyone?” She smiled, and then she told me the story of the only time she’d come close. She was about 15, and there was a handsome boy named Pedro from a nearby farm. For several months they harvested rice together side by side. One time, she dropped her bolo—a cutting implement—and he quickly picked it up and handed it back to her. “I liked him,” she said.

Silence.

“And?”

“Then he moved away,” she said.

“And?”

“That’s all.”

“Lola, have you ever had sex?,” I heard myself saying.

“No,” she said.

She wasn’t accustomed to being asked personal questions. “Katulong lang ako,” she’d say. I’m only a servant. She often gave one- or two-word answers, and teasing out even the simplest story was a game of 20 questions that could last days or weeks.

Some of what I learned: She was mad at Mom for being so cruel all those years, but she nevertheless missed her. Sometimes, when Lola was young, she’d felt so lonely that all she could do was cry. I knew there were years when she’d dreamed of being with a man. I saw it in the way she wrapped herself around one large pillow at night. But what she told me in her old age was that living with Mom’s husbands made her think being alone wasn’t so bad. She didn’t miss those two at all. Maybe her life would have been better if she’d stayed in Mayantoc, gotten married, and had a family like her siblings. But maybe it would have been worse. Two younger sisters, Francisca and Zepriana, got sick and died. A brother, Claudio, was killed. What’s the point of wondering about it now? she asked. Bahala na was her guiding principle. Come what may. What came her way was another kind of family. In that family, she had eight children: Mom, my four siblings and me, and now my two daughters. The eight of us, she said, made her life worth living.

None of us was prepared for her to die so suddenly.

Her heart attack started in the kitchen while she was making dinner and I was running an errand. When I returned she was in the middle of it. A couple of hours later at the hospital, before I could grasp what was happening, she was gone—10:56 p.m. All the kids and grandkids noted but were unsure how to take, that she died on November 7, the same day as Mom. Twelve years apart.

Lola made it to 86. I can still see her on the gurney. I remember looking at the medics standing above this brown woman no bigger than a child and thinking that they had no idea of the life she had lived. She’d had none of the self-serving ambition that drives most of us, and her willingness to give up everything for the people around her won her our love and utter loyalty. She’s become a hallowed figure in my extended family.

Going through her boxes in the attic took me months. I found recipes she had cut out of magazines in the 1970s for when she would someday learn to read. Photo albums with pictures of my mom. Awards my siblings and I had won from grade school on, most of which we had thrown away and she had “saved.” I almost lost it one night when at the bottom of a box I found a stack of yellowed newspaper articles I’d written and long ago forgotten about. She couldn’t read back then, but she’d kept them anyway.

The site of Lola’s childhood home.

 ***

Doods’s truck pulled up to a small concrete house in the middle of a cluster of homes mostly made of bamboo and plank wood. Surrounding the pod of houses: rice fields, green and seemingly endless. Before I even got out of the truck, people started coming outside.

Doods reclined his seat to take a nap. I hung my tote bag on my shoulder, took a breath, and opened the door.

“This way,” a soft voice said, and I was led up a short walkway to the concrete house. Following close behind was a line of about 20 people, young and old, but mostly old. Once we were all inside, they sat down on chairs and benches arranged along the walls, leaving the middle of the room empty except for me. I remained standing, waiting to meet my host. It was a small room, and dark. People glanced at me expectantly.

“Where is Lola?” A voice from another room. The next moment, a middle-aged woman in a housedress sauntered in with a smile. Ebia, Lola’s niece. This was her house. She gave me a hug and said again, “Where is Lola?”

Lola’s gravesite.

I slid the tote bag from my shoulder and handed it to her. She looked into my face, still smiling, gently grasped the bag, and walked over to a wooden bench and sat down. She reached inside and pulled out the box and looked at every side. “Where is Lola?” she said softly. People in these parts don’t often get their loved ones cremated. I don’t think she knew what to expect. She set the box on her lap and bent over so her forehead rested on top of it, and at first I thought she was laughing (out of joy) but I quickly realized she was crying. Her shoulders began to heave, and then she was wailing—a deep, mournful, animal howl, like I once heard coming from Lola.

I hadn’t come sooner to deliver Lola’s ashes in part because I wasn’t sure anyone here cared that much about her. I hadn’t expected this kind of grief. Before I could comfort Ebia, a woman walked in from the kitchen and wrapped her arms around her, and then she began wailing. The next thing I knew, the room erupted with sound. The old people—one of them blind, several with no teeth—were all crying and not holding anything back. It lasted about 10 minutes. I was so fascinated that I barely noticed the tears running down my own face. The sobs died down, and then it was quiet again.

Ebia sniffled and said it was time to eat. Everybody started filing into the kitchen, puffy-eyed but suddenly lighter and ready to tell stories. I glanced at the empty tote bag on the bench and knew it was right to bring Lola back to the place where she’d been born.

Alex Tizon passed away in March. He was a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and the author of Big Little Man: In Search of My Asian Self. For more about Alex, please see this editor’s note from The Atlantic. (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/a-reporters-story/524538/)

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/my-family-s-slave?utm_source=pocket-newtab

[imherenowarenti]

Coffee with God

Of the long list of questionable things I’ve done in my short life, including the time I tried washing a part of my face with a Mr.Clean sponge (which, fortunately, only caused some dry patches of skin. And was cured with a good cream. My friends had a good laugh at me.).  What I’ve done on the 8th of August in the year of 2017, might just top that list.

About a week and a half prior to that date I was approached by two Korean women. I didn’t think much of it at first, I thought they must be tourists asking for directions, which happens often. But these women have come to talk to me about God (wanting to give me directions apparently) Now, my family is Catholic, I am well aware of God, but I spared them the few minutes I could kill. Seeing I had nothing to do until I had to go meet my friend. So while sitting on the top of a terrace of a mall in Ottawa, I watched this introduction video to the World Mission Society Church of God.

The World Mission Society Church of God was first founded, although not under that name, in 1964, in South Korea, by a man who goes by the name of Ahn Sahng-Hong. He, by the way, grew up in a Buddhist family and later joined the seven-day Adventist (a church that has faced a lot of criticism for unorthodox practice) and then founded his own church, Witness of Jesus church of God. He preached that he was showing the true teachings of the Bible, that mainstream churches have strayed from the path of truth. He went further and said that the second coming of Christ (or of God) has happened and he has come in the form of himself. Yes, ladies and gentleman, he is back and he is so conveniently in the man who formed the church, quite the miracle. And after his death in 1985, God has transferred himself inside of Jang Gil-Ja. The Co-Founder, along side Kim Joo-Cheol, of what is now known today as the World Mission Society Church of God. Neat right?

The church has been said to have a very effective tactic to make you join their church: fear and a big serving of guilt, not entirely uncommon for Christianity. By chance, their guilt tactic has worked on me. Because for the light of me I don't know why I agreed to meet them again. It must have been the promise of a free cup of coffee, that or the inability to say no. Whatever the reason, during this second meeting the women brought with them their English speaking friend. He then spent two hours teaching me about the bible. Specifically, he talked about the passage concerning the wheat and the weeds. This passage, as I was informed was to let the people know that lies have been placed in religion.

The first lie he talked about was that modern Christianity has added pagan traditions, like Christmas (a holiday to worship the sun) and Easter (a holiday to worship the goddess of fertility and of the sun- ancient civilization had a thing for the sun. But who can blame them, it is the source of all life.). They no longer stay to the one celebration that should be done, which is the pass over*.

And the second lie, according to their teachings, is that the true holy day, the day on which you celebrate and worship God was not on the Sunday of every week but actually on Saturday. They called this the sabbath day, and again, the fact that it was moved to Sunday has its sources in Paganism. It was placed as a day to worship the sun, and of course, heretic.

And that was that, I left with a promise I’d meet them again for coffee and more bible talk. At this point, I decided to keep going because the information did interest me, from a historical point of view. Not to mention I’ve never had encounters with people of such groups, and I guess you can say I was curious about what they were all about.

On our third meeting, (this being the 8th of August) the same group came to meet me on a campus of a university. This time we sat down and he started talking about Daniel. Daniel was a priest during the Babylonian time that, with the help of God, interpreted the king Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. The king’s dream was said to be a prophecy, telling him of the rise and fall of several kingdoms.**It further said that an evil will come to lead astray God’s people. The evil that is going to lead the world astray is, according to WMSCG, is the papacy. They believe that the devil has come back in the form of the pope and the Roman Catholic church. This, admittedly, floored me. All the things about celebrations that are not originally part of Christianity didn't really come as a surprise. But saying the pope is the devil is quite the accusation. But they have proof, in Daniel’s dream he brings up four ways to recognize this evil. These being: One, he will speak against the Most High, second he will oppress his holy people, thirdly he will try to change the set times and the laws.  Lastly, the holy people will be delivered into his hands for a time, times and half a time. At the time the prophecy was explained to me, It all made great sense, although now I can’t make heads or tail of it.

And after this, it takes a strange turn, because after the big revelation that the pope is the devil. I was dropped quite a bomb of a question. “Do you want to get baptized today? because you never know what might happen.” I’m sure at that point I must have looked like a deer caught in the head lights, and they thought that to be very funny. I spent a good minute to try and figure out if they were being serious, and they were completely serious. And then I spent another minute to weight out my options. The conclusion I came to is: “well I don't have any other plans today.”. So I found myself in a car with three other people listening to dull music and seriously wondering if I should be placed in a mental institution. After a short ten minute drive, in which I started to silently laugh like a maniac, we arrived in a residential area. They haven’t found a place of worship yet, so their place of operation was an in a nice one-floor house with an open concept and finished basement.

The baptism itself wasn’t bad. I was asked to step in a bathroom, where I had to change into a robe specifically for the baptism. I then kneeled inside a bathtub where one of the men there started reciting a prayer, I only had to say Amen at the indicated time. At that point I was shaking a bit but for two reasons. The first was because the coffee I had earlier was starting to have an effect, the second because I was having a hard time from stopping myself from laughing. Right at the moment, as the water was poured on me, I realized how absurd this situation was. Here, next to me was a man praying in a dull voice, all the while the people outside the washroom were signing. I was participating in something I did not believe in along side people I barely knew. But, alas I was able to go through it and the baptism was finished with no fuss or notice of my laughing state. I was then asked to fill in this sheet, because even religion needs a signup sheet, and then went to have the pass over. With no wine, unfortunately.

And so here I was a full fledged cult member. Well maybe the word cult is too strong, the politically correct thing to say would be a religious movement. And just by looking there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with this religious movement, the members all seemed nice and genuine. Although, after some research, I found out that there are reports from ex-members that the church does suspicious things. For one they constantly try to isolate their members from people on the outside. Yes they do have jobs and they can walk around town, but they are often pressured them into spending all their free time at church and studying the bible. Often families with a relative in the Church say that they don’t see that person anymore and when they do, those people tend to criticize their beliefs. Secondly, the members are encouraged to give 10-15% of their paycheque to the church. That is a lot of money if your church has over 150 000 members. Lastly, they exercise a lot of control over their members, choosing who their members marry or date. Going as far as telling a person to get an abortion if they wanted it. And of course they have to, or else you can find yourself being kicked out. It’s complete obedience and devotion or nothing. It seems just a weekend option for the casual cult goer is not available. Not to mention, they often treat the women of their church like children, myself have been more than once addressed in a condescending tone by the men I’ve had contact with.

My story with the WMSCOG ended shortly for my part, since that day I’ve never gone back to that house nor have I met with them outside. I was invited to come to worship but I ignored them, I decided it would not be worth it not even on a learning level all the while knowing I'd make my family worry. I’ve also blocked them through all ways of communications they’ve had with me. I was never worried about ever being ‘stuck’ in the Church. My motives were that of pure curiosity and not in a search for a path. But I can’t stop myself from thinking about the amount of people who have fallen in the fear of the end and have traded their life for a promise of an eternal life. About how many families have lost a son, aunt, cousin, to a cause that often tries to prey on the victims and the confused. I was lucky, but there are some that aren’t and there are some, when they leave the church find themselves feeling scared or guilty. I feel bad for those two women who first approached me, because they are so nice but so naive and how, no matter what I could tell them they wouldn't be convinced to rethink their participation in this church.

Information regarding the teachings of the WMSCG or Biblical matter  Disclaimer: I am no scholar on this subject I only know what has been conveyed to me by the members I’ve met and some extra research I’ve done.

*The pass over day, in the old testament, is the day once a year where believers would paint blood on top of their front door at twilight so God would know who are his real followers. And for every house that didn’t have blood, he would punish them by killing their child (they’re first born I believe). But in the new testament, the one with Jesus, the pass over is celebrated through the last supper, and so now once a year, the people of the WMSCG have the pass over. In order to fill your soul with life. And the practice of having communion every Sunday is false.

**In the king's dream he was presented with a statue. “The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly, and thighs of bronze, 33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay.” Daniel, Chapter 2. In the dream, each part of the body, or metal, all represented a kingdom that has come to power. In order form head to toes: the Babylonian, the Persians, the Greek, the Roman, and lastly the division of Rome into ten kingdoms.

[upontheshelfreviews]

“Please observe me if you will, I’m Professor Harold Hill, And I’m here to organize the River City’s Boy’s Band!”

Let’s close out the summer with what I consider a must-watch summer musical. Doesn’t hurt that the main action kicks off on the Fourth of July.

“Missing another appropriate holiday-themed movie by several months. Ah, it’s good to be back.”

Based on the stories and childhood of Meredith Wilson, The Music Man weaves a tale of small town turn-of-the-century America, marching bands, charming charlatans, and the power of music that brings them all together. The original stage production notoriously beat West Side Story for Best Musical at the Tony Awards, though Tony and Maria got the last laugh when it came to the Oscars. I contend however that 1962’s The Music Man is a prime example of how to do a stage-to-screen adaptation. Through a combination of top-notch talent, music, staging, and witty witticisms it’s one of the crowning jewels of the Golden Age of Hollywood Musicals that lasted through the 60’s. Fifty years later its impact is still felt, at least musically. Chances are if you ambled down Main Street USA in any of the Disney parks you’ve heard the melodies of “Iowa Stubborn”, “Lida Rose”, “The Wells Fargo Wagon”, and “76 Trombones” playing in the background. It’s a staple for community theaters across the country. And like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Sound of Music, it’s one of Seth MacFarlane’s most beloved and referenced musicals.

After a neat opening credits sequence comprised of stop-motion marching band dolls forming the shapes of musical instruments, we see a hapless traveling anvil salesman being chased out Brighton, Illinois by an angry mob. He escapes on a train headed to River City, Iowa and joins a car filled with other salesman. As the train chugs its way down the track, the salesmen grumble about modern inconveniences and the difficulties of their chosen work all in syncopated beat to the sounds of the engine.

Some years back I was fortunate enough to sit in on a Q&A of Stephen Sondheim centered around his latest autobiography, and when the interviewer congratulated him on being the first composer to incorporate rap into a musical (the rap in question being the Witch’s Rap from the prologue of Into The Woods), he corrected him. According to Sondheim, THIS sequence, “Rock Island”, was the first musical rap, and I can’t agree more. The cadence, the word sounds meticulously matching with the train’s noises, and the contempt and admiration the salesmen regard a certain figure throughout wouldn’t be out of place in a traditional rap. It says something when Hugh Jackman performed it as an actual rap at the Tonys with LL Cool J and T.I. and made it sound like the genuine article.

Conversation turns to one famous – or rather infamous – salesman who goes by the name of Professor Harold Hill. He’s referred to as a “music man” –

– because he sells instruments and uniforms for boys bands. But the salesman from earlier, Charlie Cowell (Harry Hickox), has got quite a few things to say about him. He reveals Harold is a con artist who convinces whatever unfortunate town he stops in to give him money for all the accoutrements of a marching band and promises to organize them with him as their leader, but skips out without teaching a note of music. The wave of anti-salesman mistrust he leaves in his wake is the reason why Charlie was given the bum rush. Charlie’s determined to catch up with him one of these days and give him his just desserts on behalf of all the honest salesmen whose careers he’s screwed over. But he knows there’s no way Harold would ever make his next mark in Iowa as the folk there are infamously stubborn and set in their ways.

Without warning a stranger in the corner who’s been silent throughout the proceedings gets up, announces that this talk of Iowa is intriguing and this is where he’ll get off. Before he disembarks Charlie mentions he never caught his name. The stranger replies, “I don’t believe I dropped it”, revealing it emblazoned on his suitcase.

Best. Introduction. Ever.

Robert Preston was a B-movie regular who occasionally did some stage work before landing the part of Harold Hill on Broadway, and not a day goes by that I don’t thank the theater gods for that because he is pitch perfect as the character. I have yet to see anyone who equals him in suave charm and quick wit (sorry Matthew Broderick, you tried). You’d think Hollywood would be clamoring to have Preston recreate his Tony-winning role on film, but Jack Warner, who was the head of Warner Brothers at the time, was dead-set on having an A-list Hollywood actor play the part. Jack really had a thing for celebrity casting in musicals regardless of their singing prowess (which would infamously bite him in the ass come the 1964 Oscars). He offered the part to Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Cary Grant, whom out of all the prospective choices gave Jack the best response: “I won’t even see the film if Robert Preston isn’t in it.” Reluctantly, Jack made an exception to his rule for Preston, and the rest is history.

Harold hops off before the train heads out, leaving behind a gaggle of awed salesman and a fuming Charlie. He makes his way into town and tries to introduce himself to the townsfolk but quickly learns that Charlie wasn’t kidding when he said Iowans are the most recalcitrant sonsabitches out there. The citizens sing of how proud they are of their inherent rudeness towards outsiders while following Harold in “Iowa Stubborn”, which I’m certain provided some inspiration for the musical number “Belle” from Beauty and the Beast.

“Look there he goes, he’s odd, no question, another salesman piece of swill. With his smile blinding white and his morals out of sight, what a puzzle to us all, that Harold Hill!”

After the “welcome” wagon disperses, Harold bumps into Marcellus Washburn (Buddy Hackett) an old friend and former partner-in-crime gone straight. He brings him in on his scheme for old times’ sake. Harold must create a need in River City for a boys band, preferably by following his time-honored tradition of painting something ordinary as unholy, corrupting and morally outrageous, getting the mindless masses riled up by playing on their own irrational fears of this foreign influence, and then selling his ridiculous solution as the only reasonable option to OH DEAR GOD NO.

“Go on, Shelf. Make the comparison. You KNOW you want to.”

ANYWAY, the only other thing standing in Harold’s way is the local librarian who gives piano lessons on the side and is musically intuitive enough to suss him out. But Harold’s got his own tried and true method of dealing with her. The solution to the first issue comes in the form of a new pool table delivered to the billiards hall and the sight of some scrappy young boys eagerly crowding outside the window for a look. Even though much of this musical is timeless – a little TOO timeless as of recent years, see above – it still makes me laugh seeing how the game of billiards and pool halls were seen as seen as outlandishly sinful back in the 1900’s. Over a hundred years later nobody bats an eye over it. Hell, when my family moved into our new house when I was six years old, the former owner left us her pool table and I’ve been handy with a pool cue ever since.

So the pool table is picked as the target of discrimination and the next thing you know Harold’s working his wiles on anyone who’ll listen. He quickly amasses a majority of the townsfolk who take to heart the warnings he espouses – today the children will be peeking into the pool hall, tomorrow they’ll be smoking, the day after they’ll be engaging with women of questionable repute in saloons and dancing the hootchie-cootch to ragtime music! Such horrors!

This number, “Ya Got Trouble”, is one of this musical’s cornerstones; the amount of parodies it continues to spawn decades later is a testament to that. Whether it’s a pair of huckster unicorns pawning off a magical cider-making machine, Conan O’Brien lamenting the state of 2000’s-era NBC, or most notably, the town of Springfield getting hyped over a monorail (which coincidentally was also penned by O’Brien), there’s at least one version out there that someone is familiar with regardless if they know its origins. It also showcases Robert Preston’s greatest strengths as Harold Hill. He’s not the strongest singer but the number calls for a rapid fire sense of timing and overwhelming force of presence, both of which he has in spades. Robert’s Harold sways the unwary townies through his sheer magnetism, plays on their foibles and fears like a fiddle, and leaves them – and us – wanting more, even after we see how unfounded the leaps of logic he presents are when we step back to dissect them.

“Hill 2020: Make River City Great Again…Again!”

The seeds of mob mentality been planted, Harold pursues his next target, the librarian Marian Paroo (Shirley Jones) as she’s walking home. His attempts at an introduction fall flat, however, as she makes it clear she wants nothing to do with him. I know I made a reference to “Belle” with Harold’s arrival, but if there’s anyone worthy of a comparison to the titular heroine, it’s Marian. She’s witty and well-read, but trapped in a small and small-minded town who look down on her choices of literature as “dirty” and regard her as an outcast, naturally making her the source of plenty of unwanted gossip. Marian responds to this with a stiff upper lip and refusal to assimilate, but is secretly rather lonely. The only source of companionship is her sweet but meddling mother (Pert Kelton) who’s so Irish you’d think she came right off the set of Darby O’Gill, and her much younger brother Winthrop played by a very young Ron Howard.

Yes. THAT Ron Howard.

Marian gives a piano lesson to a young girl named Amaryllis while Mrs. Paroo unabashedly shares her opinions about why none of the women of River City take her seriously – namely she needs to find a good man to settle down with, stat. The two bicker the way only a mother and daughter can through the lesson, their arguments escalating with the music. Winthrop comes home and Amaryllis invites him to her birthday party. He initially refuses to answer since he has a very prominent lisp he’s embarrassed by. Amaryllis’ predictable guffaws over Winthrop’s response cause him to run up to his room in tears where he no doubt plans to expurgate Han Solo prequels as revenge. Amaryllis does feel remorse though since she’s hiding quite the precocious crush on Winthrop and takes his constant silence as a sign he doesn’t like her. Marian comforts her saying she can wish good night to “my someone” on the evening star until the right boy for her comes along. As Amaryllis plays her last practice piece for the evening, Marian sings the beautifully longing “Goodnight My Someone”. We also get the first instance of what I believe may have been a holdover from the original stage production. Following the end of a personal scene, instead of an iris out, everything goes completely black around the character in question leaving them standing out before it fades to the next scene. It doesn’t look exactly like a spotlight is shining on them, more like a tableau of sorts, and it’s utilized to great effect both comically or romantically depending on the scenario.

The next day, pompous spoonerism-prone Mayor Shinn (Paul Ford) and his wife (Hermione Gingold) lead the citizens in some patriotic Fourth of July activities, including a sing-along, some constantly interrupted attempts at reciting the Gettysburg Address, and a proud re-enactment of the Native Americans’ subjugation and denigration.

Mercifully this racist sham is halted by one Tommy Djilas, a brave and noble teenage soul and leader of the local gang of delinquents, who places a well-timed firecracker under Mrs. Shinn’s seat. Rather than be extolled for his act of human decency however, the crowd turns on Tommy and he’s apprehended by the sheriff. The argumentative school board can’t make up their minds on what act to present next and Harold takes the opportunity to raise some hell by bringing up the pool table again. As the assembly falls into chaos, Harold changes into his bandleader costume and takes the stage to announce his intentions of saving River City’s youth by starting up its first boy’s band. He captivates the throng with his accounts of the greatest marching bands he’s witnessed across America with “Seventy-Six Trombones”, another one of this musical’s high points. It’s catchy as all hell and Preston sells it yet again with his enthusiasm. While the lengthy choreographed crowd dance proceeding it doesn’t add much to the story, it’s still energetic and impressive to watch. It wasn’t until I watched the film again for this review that I noticed everyone involved is wearing red, white or blue or a combination thereof which amplifies the patriotic spirit pervading the scene.

Everyone marches out in their own fantasy version of a parade while Mayor Shinn and the school board look on proudly imagining their band as the pride of Iowa. Marian is the only one immune. After she bursts Shinn and the board members’ bubble with the simple question of “What band?”, Shinn is quick to recognize Harold’s got the town in his thrall and urges the board to get his references to see if he’s the real deal. Meanwhile, in an effort to get Mayor Shinn off both their backs, Harold rescues Tommy from the sheriff, recruits him as an assistant and to escort a pretty girl named Zaneeta home by way of the ice cream parlor, a surefire method to take the boy’s mind off any acts of vandalism. The sheriff congratulates Harold on his ingenuity but tells him he’s made two big mistakes:

Mayor Shinn owns the pool hall and table that Harold’s been leading a tirade against.

Zaneeta happens to be Shinn’s oldest daughter.

Harold causes an even bigger stir at the fireworks picnic that evening when the school board demands his credentials. Quick witted as always, he makes use of the members’ vastly differing vocal pitches as they argue among themselves and tricks them into forming a barbershop quartet. For the first time in years, the school board is in complete harmony (literally). Now anytime Harold has to keep them distracted, all he has to do is sing a snippet of a song and they’ll forget about everything to finish the rest.

“A running gag that serves an actual plot purpose. Even I can’t believe I pulled it off!”

This union further endears Harold in the citizens’ eyes, but Marian still refuses to see him as anything more than an obvious charlatan.

While posting flyers, Harold meets the clique of busybody housewives that make up the majority of Marian’s naysayers. Mrs. Shinn is their leader due to the fact that she has the biggest featheriest hat, and she alone shares her husband’s unsure thoughts on Harold’s intentions. But Harold turns her to his side by playing up her shifting her foot as a naturally graceful move worthy of Baryshnikov and offers her the position of head of the ladies’ dance committee he’s starting up concurrent with the band. Mrs. Shinn is instantly charmed over and agrees. Harold asks about inviting Marian to join but this sends the women into a loud gossiping frenzy. The movie doesn’t even try to make the comparison to a flock of cackling hens subtle.

Mrs. Shinn clarifies for Harold: not only does Marian snobbishly advocate books they consider too disgusting to be recycled into pulp (“Chaucer! “Rabelais!” “BAAAAL-ZAC!!”) but she made “brazen overtures” to wealthy and reclusive old miser Mr. Madison and was seen at his place quite frequently. When he died, he left River City the library, but left all the books to her, which I will never tire of using as a euphemism for being a sugar daddy.

The school board appears to hound Harold for his credentials again but he puts them off by tricking them into singing “Goodnight Ladies” against the ladies’ chorus. Fun fact: in preschool we sang this song at the end of the day whenever someone’s parents came to pick them up, which makes this of all things my introduction to The Music Man. Funny how life works like that sometimes.

As Harold and Marcellus hide out, they get to discussing their tastes in women. Marcellus has a nice thing going with one of the ladies in Mrs. Shinn’s circle but Harold’s got his eyes on “The Sadder But Wiser Girl” he believes Marian to be, the kind of girl who’s been there, done that, and got the hickeys to show for it. A decent number to be sure, and I really dig Seth MacFarlane’s cover, but it was Christi Esterle of Musical Hell who got me to view the song in a new light: in her video essay on “I Am/I Want” songs she stated that not all songs of that category have to be like “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” or “Somewhere That’s Green” or a fair bit of first-act Renaissance-era Disney songs. Case in point, this number. Harold submits to the audience that the kind of woman for him is not “an innocent Sunday school female”, yet that’s exactly the woman he’ll end up falling for by the story’s end. In this instance, the “I Want” song becomes an “I Think I Want” song, showing another step in the character’s eventual growth and turnaround from their initial ideals and wishes. Mind you, I’m not sure if they should be singing this in front of impressionable young Amaryllis, but the subtext flew over my head when I was her age and I’m hoping it does for her too.

Harold begins his courtship of Marian by harassing her at her workplacasking her for a date at the library, tempting her with images of sweet whispered nothings in the moonlight and rather descriptive longings for her in “Marian the Librarian”. I remember this being my favorite song from the movie when I was a kid and would watch on repeat for its playfulness and underlying romantic tug of war. Easily the best musical number to take place in a library outside of an episode of Arthur or Phineas And Ferb. The repeated shushings and “quiet please” signs quickly go ignored as Harold leads the teenagers there in rebellious percussive cavorting as he further attempts to grab Marian’s attention. Eventually Marian herself can’t help but get caught in the chaos, whipping off her glasses and literally letting her hair down as she’s swept into the dance. By the time Harold finally departs, she’s frustrated yet somewhat amused.

Harold continues to work his charms on the townsfolk, one of them being Mrs. Paroo, who signs up Winthrop to play the cornet without a second thought. Winthrop himself begins slowly opening up due to Harold’s influence as well. Harold further wins the Paroos over with an ode to his hometown Gary, Indiana. In the show it was an Act 2 solo for Winthrop but that was turned into a reprise and moved to here with a little soft-shoe routine in order to give Robert Preston more to do. Not that I’m complaining. It’s a catchy tune and he makes Gary sound like such a pleasant place to live. Surely if Harold must be honest about one thing, it’s that. Come on, gang, let’s all go to Gary, Indiana!

…never mind.

Marian isn’t thrilled seeing Harold getting along with her mother or Winthrop getting involved in the band. When Harold suggests Winthrop’s father veto, Marian coldly responds he’s been dead for some time and his untimely passing is one of the reasons why Winthrop is as withdrawn as he is. This naturally doesn’t do Harold any favors in regards to winning her over, but Mrs. Paroo, who’s been shipping Marian and Harold since the night he followed her home, assures him that she’ll come around.

Marian and Mrs. Paroo get to talking about what Marian’s looking for in a man and she waxes about it in “Being in Love”, which was written for the movie and replaced “My White Knight”. Honestly, it’s the one song I don’t like. It stops the film so Marian can list all the different men she’s had crushes on and the desired qualities of her dream boy. Musically it wanders all over the place, jazzy one moment and operatic and slow the next. I like the tune of what I think is supposed the main melody and it is used effectively as Marian’s leitmotif throughout the movie, but the lyrics do nothing for me. Skip it and you miss nothing.

At the library Marian finds a book about Indiana’s educational institutions which has the evidence she needs to discredit Harold. But as she takes it to Mayor Shinn, he and the rest of River City are overcome by the arrival of the Wells Fargo Wagon carrying the band instruments into town.

“We’re also giving out plenty of interest-riddled bank accounts under all your names, whether you need them or not!”

“The Wells Fargo Wagon” is one of The Music Man’s signature tunes. I want to like this whole number, I really do, but the film’s rendition is pretty sloppy in its first half. It starts with two little girls being the first witnesses to the wagon’s arrival, but when they open their mouths to sing the voices that come out belong to someone obviously twice their age. The soloists that vocalize their praises of the wagon’s past deliveries before the chorus kicks in along with those inane merry-go-round whistles are also grating. Still, it’s not without plot significance. Winthrop gets so excited that he breaks into his own solo and regales Marian with how beautiful his own cornet is, the most he’s spoken at once in an age. Seeing the townsfolk united by the thrill of the band coming together, her brother happy for the first time in years and that Harold came through on some of his promise, Marian tears out the incriminating page from her book before handing it over to Mayor Shinn.

A date is set for the town social where the band is set to premiere and practice is quickly underway for both them and Mrs. Shinn’s dance committee. Harold naturally BS-es his way through teaching the children with his “revolutionary” method which he calls the think system – just play the notes in your head and it’ll come out naturally regardless of practice, proper instrument handling, or talent.

“One could argue it’s still being used today by half the people on the radio.”

Progress is also made with Harold and Marian’s and Tommy and Zaneeta’s relationships. When Mayor Shinn loudly confronts Tommy at the ice cream parlor for seducing his girl, both they and Mrs. Shinn stand up to him; a far cry from the submissive ladies they were before Harold came along. Blustered and humiliated, Mayor Shinn warns Tommy and Harold he’s keeping an eye on them both and sarcastically thanks Marian for wasting his time with her book. Marian commends Harold for giving Tommy the benefit of the doubt and begins to accept Harold’s compliments to her. After some talk about the unusual progressive method Harold is teaching, she gives him permission to court her the night of the social.

As the big event rolls around, Harold comes within inches of being accosted by the school board but he puts them off with, what else, a sing-along. This time it’s a fine rendition of “Lida Rose” which becomes another counterpoint duet with Marian as she ponders her feelings for Harold in “Will I Ever Tell You”. It’s also the one time in the movie that’s framed the most like a theatrical production. I can imagine stagehands moving around sets and props in the black area between the two spotlights.

Winthrop returns from practice in a pleasant talkative mood thanks to some off-screen surrogate-father-son bonding with Harold and shares his take on the aforementioned “Gary, Indiana” reprise. If you’re drinking while watching this movie, don’t take a shot every time Mrs. Paroo winces as Winthrop spits in her face. You might not make it through to the end.

Mrs. Paroo takes Winthrop go get ready for the social leaving Marian to wait for Harold. And who should come thumping down the street but the salesman from before, Charlie Cowell, with a fistful of damning evidence against Harold. His train’s making a brief stop in River City and he’s taking advantage of it by personally delivering the papers to Mayor Shinn. At first Charlie hopes to get Marian on his side seeing how she’s musically inclined enough to see through Harold from the beginning, but when she inadvertently reveals Harold’s already won her over he won’t trust Marian to leave her with the evidence, even though he rather awkwardly keeps hitting on her.

See, Charlie and his crusade against Harold is a prime example of something I like to call the William Atherton Principle: no matter how right someone is, their words of caution will be ignored in proportion to how much of an asshole that someone is. William Atherton as Walter Peck in Ghostbusters is one of the biggest dicks in cinema, though he has a point. The Ghostbusters ARE wielding dangerous untested technology that poses a hazard to anyone living or dead. But because he’s such a prick to anyone he meets and endangers the Ghostbusters, New York City, and the world as we know it to prove his point, we’re loathe to side with him. And the same goes for Charlie. Morally he’s is 100% in the right for trying to bring Harold to justice; Harold’s conned who knows how many innocent people out of money, seduced just as many women to keep them quiet, and ruined the prospects of other traveling salesmen trying to make an honest living. But doing so would undo all the good Harold’s brought to River City. Plus Charlie is acting like a total creep towards Marian with his “nice guy” act, so who’s to say he’s not above what Harold’s done to other women?

Marian encourages Charlie’s flirting long enough to make him choose between meeting Mayor Shinn or chasing after his train. Charlie storms off but not before declaring to Marian that Harold’s got a girl fooled in every state and she’s slated to be just another conquest. Also she’s, like, a total slut who’s like a three out of ten, and it has nothing to do with the fact that she turned him down, for real. This give Marian something to pause over – not the slut thing, she already gets that everyday from the gossiping biddies. Now that she’s finally feeling something for Harold, the thought that she might be nothing to him after all is enough to almost break her heart.

Harold arrives but Marian has too much on her mind to think of canoodling on the front porch. Under the guise of learning more about the think system she tries to gage whether he’s gotten around as much as Charlie said. It’s a great conversation they have; they’re talking about the same thing yet they’re both on completely different levels. It’s only when Marian mentions how one hears rumors about traveling salesmen that Harold begins to catch on. In turn he brings up the rumor he may or may not have heard about her which leads Marian to open up about “Uncle Maddy” – see, the miser Madison that half the town believed Marian to be involved with was in actuality a close friend of the Paroos, and when he died he left Marian the library position so she could support her family. Harold gets her to realize that the same narrow-minded jealousy that started those rumors about her could easily apply to salesmen, leaving Marian to reason to herself out loud that Charlie’s claims must have been born from that jealousy. Harold is clearly still confused but rolls with it as he always does. With both misunderstandings cleared up, he asks Marian to rendezvous with him at the footbridge in the park, which has a certain reputation surrounding it.

“Ah, the footbridge. Good times, good times.”

The social kicks off as Marcellus leads the teenagers in a wild new song and dance called the Shipoopi. And before you ask, yes, this is where Family Guy got it from.

Once it wraps up and the ladies dance committee get their graciously not-racist artistic depictions of Grecian urns underway, Harold strolls past teams of unrepressed and unrepentant teenagers doing their teenage thing down to the footbridge. It’s there we get a beautiful understated – and in the case of this movie, underrated – scene of Harold alone with his thoughts. While waiting for Marian, he gazes into the water. The image of a well-dressed marching band appears, their instruments at the ready. All they’re waiting for is their leader.

Harold takes a stick, raps on the railing for attention, and begins to conduct. He guides passionately like Leopold Stokowski, his eyes shut in ecstasy as a soulful rendition of “Goodnight My Someone” wells up from the vision.

But partway through, he stops.

Earlier, Marcellus compared Harold’s show at the gymnasium to a famous bandleader he liked to imitate. Harold showed off a bit of that flair for him before stopping himself, waving it off as “kid’s stuff”. Alone, however, he cannot deny his one wish – for his role of a great bandleader to be genuine. Yet as much as he secretly dreams it, he knows it’s nothing but a fantasy. That band he sees before him is as real as his own musical skills. Why try to change what can never be? Harold snaps the twig in two and tosses it in the river. The ripples shatter the illusion, and the music dies with it.

Marian finally arrives. She confesses that she almost didn’t come at all but she needed to tell Harold just how much she has done for her since the day he came, which she does in the eleven o’clock number “Til There Was You”. You might be more familiar with the Beatles’ cover or even the version sung by the little old lady in The Wedding Singer, but this is where it originated from and I still vouch that this is the best version. Shirley Jones’ voice is sweeping and operatic, much more suited for this ballad than “Being in Love”, but she never goes over the top and the song doesn’t stray into cloying territory, not once. It’s genuinely romantic and even brings a tear to my eye.

Marcellus briefly draws away Harold to inform him the money’s collected, the train out of town is waiting and the sooner he amscrays the better, but Harold’s not going anywhere until he finishes his business with Marian. On returning Marian admits she knew his game right from the start and confirmed it in her research – Harold claimed he graduated from The Gary Conservatory Class of ’05, but there was no Gary Conservatory in ’05 because the town wasn’t even built until ’06! She gifts him the page with that information, and that’s when Harold starts to realize that his act of being head over heels for Marian may not have been an act after all…

But things take a turn for the worse when Charlie and Mayor Shinn interrupt the ladies’ concert and expose Harold, and faster than you can say “kill the beast” the town forms a torch-wielding angry mob to track him down. Marcellus does his best to distract anyone he meets while Mrs. Paroo searches for a heartbroken runaway Winthrop. Harold, meanwhile, has been walking Marian home so she can powder her nose. As he waits outside he sings a little bit of “76 Trombones” to himself while she replies from her room with verses of “Goodnight My Someone” until halfway through they switch songs. I wasn’t musically inclined enough to notice myself but on doing my research I found ingenious subtle proof that this scene reveals how Marian and Harold were destined to be together from the beginning – “Goodnight My Someone” and “76 Trombones” are the same exact song, only played at different tempos. Their reversal to the other’s tune shows how much of an effect they’ve had on each other.

Marcellus and Mrs. Paroo let Harold know the jig is up and Marian assures him she’ll be all right as long as he escapes before the mob catches up. Yet for the first time in his career, Harold is torn between leaving and staying. Winthrop bumps into Harold and tearfully takes his anger out on him. I love Robert Preston’s acting in this moment. For the first time he comprehends that he hasn’t only screwed over the adults in the past but the children whose hopes for a band he’s gotten up. How many Winthrops has he won over only to dash their dreams? In this scene he’s forced to look directly at the result of his lies, and for that split-second you see that horrific realization flash across his face.

“What have I done, sweet Jesus what have I done, become a thief in the night, become a dog on the run!”

There’s another line here that I think is equally important and ties back to the scene of Harold at the bridge. Harold admits he think Winthrop is a genuinely good kid and wanted him to be a part of the band so he wouldn’t be moping about by his lonesome all the time. Winthrop asks “What band?” in the same way Marian did before and after a moment’s pause, Harold replies “I always think there’s a band, kid.” To Harold, somewhere out there, there’s another town always waiting for him, another band waiting to be form, another show to put on and dream to pretend to make come true. He may be doing it for the money, but I like to believe there’s a part of him that’s bought what he’s been selling all these years, and it’s what drives him to keep his schemes going as well as the allure of cash.

Marian tells Winthrop she’s glad that Harold came to River City after all is said and done. All the fanfare and fireworks he promised came to be through the impact he made on the town, and how everyone changed for the better because of him, which is why she never ratted him out. This is what cements Harold’s decision to stay. He openly admits he loves Marian with a tearjerking short reprise of “Til There Was You” moments before the mob carts him away to face the music.

A makeshift trial is held at the school with Mayor Shinn serving as judge, jury and executioner. He’s already prepared to give Harold the tarring and feathering of a lifetime, as are a good many of the River City citizens. Marian makes a heartfelt appeal to them by reminding them of how miserable life was before Harold came. Everyone, Mrs. Paroo, Mrs. Shinn, the ladies’ dance committee, the school board, Tommy and Zaneeta, all the mothers and fathers and townsfolk that once took smug delight in their hostility towards others, stands up in defense of Harold –

“I’m Harold Hill!” “I’m Harold Hill!” “I’m Harold Hill, and so is my wife!”

– that is until Shin reminds everyone that Harold still took their money with nothing to show for it. It looks like its curtains for him but the band shows up in their shabby uniforms ready to play for a captive audience. Encouraged by Marian, Harold takes the stand with a broken yardstick in place of a baton, tells his boys to think like their lives depend on it, and…

Actually, it goes over SLIGHTLY better than that. It’s still bad, but the parents in the audience are so overcome with pride in seeing their children playing that to them it’s the sweetest music in the world. And that’s what saves Harold. No joke, I think this ending is perfect. It’s a great punchline and feels like a natural outcome to everything that happened before. The only way this would have felt like a copout would be if the band did inexplicably sound perfect at the moment of truth.

Everyone exits the school as the sun rises on a new day, and something incredible happens. As the band marches out, their uniforms become shiny and new in the eyes of the onlookers. The marchers, baton twirlers and players, now multiplied ten times over complete with – you guessed it – seventy-six trombones, file out down Main Street past cheering crowds and a very bewildered Charlie, filling the air with music. In reality it may be a simple, inexperienced boy’s band, but seen through the eyes of the citizens of River City, it’s something grand to be proud of. And conducting them in their march enthusiastically waving in time to the music is their leader, Professor Harold Hill.

The dream is real at last.

This adaptation captures all the charm and originality of the Broadway show. It’s on my top 10 list of favorite musicals for a very good reason. The songs are unforgettable, the characters are lovable with their own quirks and hidden depths, and the performances are excellent. The employment of noted character actors from the day in place of stars allows the film to not be overshadowed by the presence of standout faces and lets the actors make the parts their own. Paul Ford’s Mayor Shinn is a standout; he truly has a grasp of the English language unto his own (“You watch your phraseology!”) The way River City looks encapsulates the innocence and optimism of the era with its white picket fences and Independence Day regalia. And yes, I make it a point to watch it every Fourth of July weekend if just for that. This was one of the movies I got hooked on thanks to my grandmother, and when I went to her house after school every day I had to put it on at least once. To this day I can recall most of the lyrics from any given song from memory. By all means, seek it out and let the music carry you away.

Thank you for reading. If you like what you see and want more reviews, vote for what movie you want me to look at next by leaving it in the comments or emailing me at upontheshelfshow@gmail.com. Remember, you can only vote once a month. The list of movies available to vote for are under “What’s On the Shelf”.

If you want to support me and donate to WordPress’ one and only totally not fake boy’s band, please consider supporting my Patreon. It’s completely optional, you can back out any time you choose, and it comes with perks like extra votes and adding movies of your choice for future reviews. Special thanks to Amelia Jones and Gordhan Ranaj for their contributions, AND for donating to this month’s Charity Vote Bonuses. I’d also like to thank Abigail Kane for her $20 charity donation as well. In keeping with the bonuses promised, John Carpenter’s brilliant and bonechilling 1982 remake of The Thing has been added to The Shelf, and you can expect your requested review of Disney’s Pinocchio in a few months!

  Caricature by Brian Slatky, 2017

September Review: The Music Man (1962) "Please observe me if you will, I'm Professor Harold Hill, And I'm here to organize the River City's Boy's Band!"

[sartle-blog]

Romantic Artworks to Impress your Lover this Valentine's Day

  Whether it’s your favorite excuse to be romantic or it’s just another Hallmark holiday, Valentine’s Day is here! To celebrate, here are some of my favorite lovey-dovey artworks that you can use to woo your future significant other.

The Kiss, Gustav Klimt, 1907

  We obviously can’t leave this painting out, so we might as well start with it. One of the most recognizable pieces of art ever, The Kiss was initially considered pornographic before becoming a stereotypical favorite of college students. The painting is slightly less romantic if you interpret it as the final kiss between Apollo and Daphne, who literally turned into a tree to reject Apollo.

  The Embrace, Egon Schiele, 1917

  Klimt’s student Egon was known for his expressionist depictions of erotic bodies. This painting is really the only nude he did that you wouldn’t be ashamed to bring home to your mother.

Noon: Rest From Work, Vincent Van Gogh, 1890

While Van Gogh wasn’t so lucky when it came to love, he was certainly no stranger to the feeling. He once said, “I feel there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.”

In Bed, The Kiss, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1892

The original #goals. Am I talking about the bed or the kiss? You decide.

We Rose Up Slowly, Roy Lichtenstein, 1964

While Lichtenstein reproduction of DC’s romance comic panels tend to be women crying over men, here’s a rare one of a couple actually having a good time together.

  Green Kiss/Red Embrace (Disjunctive), John Baldessari, 1988

Maybe it’s about long distance lovers. Maybe it’s about two people who feel distant despite being close to each other. Maybe Baldessari just likes cutting images up. Who knows???

  Love 310, 311, and 312, Andy Warhol, 1983

Keep your eyes covered, kids! Buuuut it’s really not that graphic when you keep in mind that Warhol directed Blue Movie, the first adult film to actual depict sexual intercourse on screen, and Blow Job, which… well, you can probably figure that one out.

Love Is a Pie, Andy Warhol, 1953

A special edition cover designed for Maude Hutchins’ 1952 collection of stories and plays titled Love is a Pie.

Slow Dance, Kerry James Marshall, 1992

Cue Etta James: “At laaaast, my love has come along… my lonely days are over and life is like a song!”

  Dark Heart Cake, Wayne Thiebaud, 2014

Love doesn’t have to be a pie, it can be a chocolate cake too!

  LOVE Installation, Damien Hirst, 2015

Those love pills look way more appealing than candy conversation hearts.

  Untitled (Heart),  David Hammons, 1994

You can celebrate both Valentine’s Day and Christmas with this one!

I Love You, Louise Bourgeois, 2007

Because sometimes the best display of affection is the simplest one.  

  Illustration for Fourteen Poems by CP Cavafy, David Hockney, 1937

Hockney often used inspiration from writers like Walt Whitman and CP Cavafy for his artwork openly depicting gay love.

After Love, Marcel Duchamp, 1968

Believe it or not, Duchamp created more than just upside down urinals and obscene portraits of the Mona Lisa. After Love was drawn not too long before Duchamp’s death.

Love is in the Air, Banksy, 2003

Who knew it was possible to be both edgy and romantic at the same time?

Love, Robert Indiana, 1964

If you’ve ever left your house, you’ve probably seen this. There are over fifty of these sculptures worldwide!

    Dancing Heart, Keith Haring, 1982

Street artist Keith Haring passed away two days after Valentine’s Day in 1990.

  Love is something you fall into, Barbara Kruger, 1990

Fingers crossed Supreme doesn’t steal this for Valentine’s Day-edition streetwear.

  Rest Energy, Marina Abramovic, 1980

Abramovic called this four-minute performance piece one of the hardest pieces she has ever done, saying it was about “complete and total trust.”

  Love Is What You Want, Tracey Emin, 2011

You’ve most likely stumbled across Tracey Emin’s neon phrases while scrolling through Tumblr or Instagram. Emin recently married a rock so you know she’s a pro when it comes to love.

  Sienna Projection, Jenny Holzer, 2009

Holzer also had this phrase printed onto condom packages that are part of the Kemper Art Museum collection in St. Louis.

  Shadow Kiss, Diane Arbus

“Love involves a peculiar unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding.”-Diane Arbus.

  Summer Evening, Edward Hopper, 1947

Ah yes, the awkwardness of young love.

In the Luxembourg Gardens, John Singer Sargent, 1879

For someone who never married, or even maintained an actual relationship, Sargent sure knew who to paint a romantic portrait.

Love and Pain, Edvard Munch, 1893

Also known as Vampire, this painting might have unintentionally inspired the Twilight series and every other young adult series with a supernatural love interest.

  The Lovers IV, Rene Magritte, 1928

Nothing quite like kissing a floating, disembodied head.

  The Lovers, Rene Magritte, 1928

I guess French kissing is out of the question here, huh?

The Lovers, Jacob Lawrence, 1946

How can there be so much peace and comfort and love in one painting?

  Garden of Love, Wassily Kandinsky, 1912

As abstract and confusing as love itself.

Bridal Couple With Eiffel Tower, Marc Chagall, 1939

Chagall was so in love with his wife Bella that he did a whole bunch of wedding-themed paintings featuring the two of them. We can only hope the oversized rooster wasn’t based on anything real.

  The Battle of Love, Paul Cezanne, 1880

Because what’s more romantic than a drunken orgy fest?

Chez le père Lathuille, Edouard Manet, 1879

True love is when your partner listens to you instead of mansplaining.

The Lovers, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1875

Get someone who looks at you like this.

The Happy Lovers, Gustave Courbet, 1844

Forecast calls for gloomy weather and cuddles.

The Love Letter, Johannes Vermeer, 1670

Do you think she left him on “read?”

  Amor Vincit Omnia (Love Conquers All), Caravaggio, 1601

Love can be pretty destructive… or maybe that’s just Cupid being a jerk.  

Cupid’s Span, Claes Oldenburg, 2002

Cupid’s a lot bigger than we thought.

  Feel bombarded by love yet? No? Good! Go look at some of the most romantic artist couples of all time!

By Alannah Clark

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Yoko Ono’s Music of the ’70s is Back

Yoko Ono and John Lennon in a film still from “Imagine,” 1972 (photo by Peter Fordham, ©Yoko Ono)

If the decade of the1960s was a period in which many bands helped expand rock’s expressive language, the following decade, at least in the United States, was dominated by singer-songwriters voicing personal takes on life and love, and on a range of social and political issues, too.

Reaching beyond familiar be-my-baby, my-baby-left-me clichés to plumb more complex emotional depths, singer-songwriters of the 1970s were legion: Laura Nyro, Janis Ian, Carole King, Carly Simon, Roberta Flack, James Taylor, Cat Stevens, Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell, Marvin Gaye, John Denver, Jim Croce, Todd Rundgren, Van Morrison, Leonard Cohen, Randy Newman, Neil Young, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen…

…and Yoko Ono.

Yoko Ono record-album covers: “Fly,” 1971; “Approximately Infinite Universe,” 1973; and “Feeling The Space,” 1973 (cover photos, left to right: John Lennon, © Yoko Ono; © Bob Gruen; collage photos © Bob Gruen)

Yes, Yoko, who in the early 1970s composed and recorded a series of albums whose technical innovations, narrative themes, and emotional temperatures were as wide-ranging as those of many of her chart-topping peers. Now, these stylistically diverse Ono albums, including Fly (1971), Approximately Infinite Universe (1973), and Feeling the Space (1973), have been jointly re-released by Secretly Canadian and Chimera Music. They constitute the second batch of newly re-mastered Ono albums from past decades that have been jointly issued by these two U.S.-based labels since late last year. Over the next few years, they will continue re-releasing all of the albums Ono made through the mid-1980s as vinyl LPs, compact discs, and digital downloads.

For their joint re-releases of Yoko Ono’s albums, the record companies Secretly Canadian and Chimera Music have created new vinyl-LP and CD labels inspired by Ono’s book, “Grapefruit,” 1964; they recall the fruit-decorated labels of Apple Records, the company that originally issued these recordings (photos courtesy of Secretly Canadian and Chimera Music)

Ono, who was already well known on New York’s avant-garde art and music scene, married John Lennon in Gibraltar in March 1969. In December of the following year, they issued their first solo albums, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band. Then, in early 1971, they began producing Fly at a studio they had set up at their home near London around the same time Lennon started recording the tracks that would become Imagine, his second solo album after the Beatles’ break-up in early 1970.

Lennon and Ono regarded JL/POB and YO/POB as companion musical statements reflecting the fruitful exchange of aesthetic, musical, and other ideas they had enjoyed since the beginning of their romantic relationship and creative collaboration, although it would take years for critics (of rock music and, later, visual art) to appreciate the varied and profound ways in which these two artists from dramatically different social, intellectual, and cultural backgrounds had influenced each other’s thinking.

Lennon’s pun-loving humor and penchant for soul-baring introspection (in such songs as “Help!,” “Nowhere Man,” “Mother,” and “God”) blended remarkably well with the distinctive strain of idealism and self-containment expressed in Ono conceptual, often instruction-based art. Meanwhile, the Japanese-born artist, who had studied music composition at Sarah Lawrence College in the 1950s before moving to Manhattan to pursue her career as an artist, was a quick study once Lennon introduced her to rock’n’roll and the workings of the modern recording studio.

Reflecting his state of mind following the Beatles’ break-up (during which period the Lennons took part in the Los Angeles-based psychologist Arthur Janov’s primal-scream therapy), Lennon’s first solo album featured spare arrangements, stripped-down lyrics, and raw emotion.

But already in the late 1960s, Ono had begun using screams, yelps, wails, grunts, and bursts of guttural sounds in performances set against the improvisational accompaniment of an ensemble such as Ornette Coleman’s free-jazz quartet. She brought those orgasmic screams, squeals, gasps, and whispers to the making of YO/POB, which opened with a searing barn burner, “Why,” and included the multilayered sound collages “Greenfield Morning I Pushed an Empty Baby Carriage All Over the City” and “Paper Shoes.”

On Fly, a double-record set, Ono brought experimental sounds and textures to both familiar song forms and more unconventional compositions. The album erupts with “Midsummer New York,” a straight-ahead rocker, then bumps up against “Mindtrain,” a long, funk-rock romp in which Ono’s sputtering, multi-tracked vocals ride the wave of a throbbing, driving beat.

Apple Records advertisement for Yoko Ono’s single, “Mindtrain,” from the album “Fly,” 1971 (photo in poster by Iain Macmillian; photo of poster courtesy of Yoko Ono)

The album features guitarists Lennon and Eric Clapton, bassist Klaus Voorman, and drummer Ringo Starr on “Don’t Worry Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking for a Hand in the Snow),” in which Ono warbles and shrieks a portion of the song’s title against a slashing rhythm section. One of the singles from the album was the ethereal ballad “Mrs. Lennon,” with its unfolding of yearning minor chords rising gently from Lennon’s piano. Fly’s arrangements often feature mood-setting, layered percussion, including such instruments as claves and the tabla in songs like “O’Wind (Body is the Scar of Your Mind).”

Elsewhere, Ono uses tape delay and vocal overdubs to create fluttering, polyrhythmic passages in such sound-collage compositions as “Airmale” and “You.” Fly’s title piece served as the soundtrack of Ono’s 1970 film of the same name, in which the camera follows a fly crawling over the surface of a reposing, naked woman’s body; the artist vocalizes in imitation of the insect’s erratic buzz. The album’s sound is also distinguished by original musical instruments created by Joe Jones (1934-1993), Ono’s friend and colleague in the avant-garde Fluxus artists’ group of the 1960s and early 1970s.

Poster that came with the album “Fly,” 1971 (photos in poster © Raeanne Rubinstein; photo of poster courtesy of Yoko Ono)

If, on YO/POB and Fly, Ono most demonstrably fused rock and avant-garde music, on Approximately Infinite Universe (1973), another double-record set, she explored rock and Western pop-song genres — blues, ballads, Latin beat, folk, and more. As with the varied song stylings of such 1960s bands as the Kinks and, yes, the Beatles (notably on the 1968 White Album), or of a 1970s soloist like Todd Rundgren, the tracks featured on Ono’s AIU range from the sultry-brooding “Death of Samantha” to the funky “What Did I Do?,” the bluesy “Is Winter Here to Stay?,” and “I Have a Woman Inside My Soul,” a molasses drop of melancholic reverie wrapped in a coating of smoky soul.

Several of Ono’s songs on AIU tell stories — women’s stories, either from an introspective, first-person point of view, or from that of an attentive observer — including its explosive title number, in which she sings:

In this approximately infinite universe, I know a girl who’s in constant hell. No love or pill could keep her cool, ’Cause there’s a thousand holes in her heart.

“Sometimes a song will begin with the words,” Ono told me in an interview at her home in Manhattan late last year. More recently, during a chat on the occasion of the artist’s 84th birthday a few months ago, I asked her about the characters whose slice-of-life images she paints in her songs. She said, “Their emotions are very real. They’re all of us, really, like the girl who walks across the lake in ‘Walking on Thin Ice’ [1981]. She senses that it’s dangerous but she takes a chance. When I made those records, I paid close attention to how I sung certain words, because they’re key to how a story is told and to how a listener understands.” Ono then softly sang, “I know a girl who’s in constant hell,” tapping her knee on “girl” and “hell.”

Original logo by Yoko Ono for the “Approximately Infinite Universe” album, 1973 (photo courtesy of Yoko Ono)

Sean Ono Lennon, Ono’s son with John Lennon, has served in recent years as the music director of the Plastic Ono Band. In a telephone interview, he observed, “Yoko can pack a lot into a lyric. The phrase ‘approximately infinite universe,’ for example. What does that mean? The universe is infinitely large, so how can it be ‘approximately’ infinite? Here it helps set up a contrast between the vastness of someone’s potential experience in life and the more limited, painful situation of the woman who’s the subject of the song.”

Ono continued her exploration of women’s experiences on Feeling the Space. Unabashedly feminist in outlook, it mixed humor, humanism, history and politics in another trove of stylistically varied songs.

On FTS, Ono examines a young woman contemplating her awareness of life and the flow of time in the wistful “Growing Pain.” “Run, Run, Run” offers a soulful recollection by a nerdy young woman who was so drowsily absorbed in “feeling the air” and “feeling the space” around her that she “tumbled on roots, stumbled on stones, lost my marbles,” and stepped on her glasses.

FTS also features “Woman Power,” Ono’s stirring feminist anthem, and “Men, Men, Men,” a jazzy-bluesy number that teases, “I want you clever but not too clever” and “I like you to shut up but know when to say yes.” One of the album’s most unusual numbers surely must be “Woman of Salem,” in which Ono recalls the fate of a woman sentenced to death in the colonial-Massachusetts witch trials of the late 1600s.

Billboard for the “Approximately Infinite Universe” album at the Whisky a Go Go night club, Los Angeles, 1973 (photo courtesy of Yoko Ono)

“These albums of the 1970s were very well recorded,” Sean Ono Lennon told me. He and several collaborators worked together to produce and engineer the re-releases. “In making new digital masters from the original analog tapes,” he explained, “we heard how good their sound quality was. Everybody was working at their peak in those days — my mom as she explored new song styles, the best session musicians of the time, and the engineers who were working with what was then pre-digital, state-of-the-art recording equipment.”

Today, reminders of the 1970s’ musical legacy abound. Carole King’s life story has become a hit Broadway musical. Singers keep revisiting the great singer-songwriters’ tunes, as the veteran Broadway performer Jessica Molaskey does in her soon-to-be-released album, Portraits of Joni (Ghostlight Records), which dives deeply into Joni Mitchell’s oeuvre.

Since the 1980s, various musicians have dipped into Ono’s big songbook, too. Among them: the B-52s, whose new wave sound owed a lot to the spirit of Ono’s 1970s avant-rock; Boy George, who covered “Death of Samantha” on his 2013 album, This Is What I Do; and numerous alternative-rock bands. Of special interest: Galaxie 500’s version of “Listen, the Snow Is Falling” (1990) and Of Montreal’s take on “I Felt Like Smashing My Face Through A Clear Glass Window” (1999).

Yoko Ono in a film still from “Imagine,” 1972 (photo by Peter Fordham, © Yoko Ono)

In a recent interview, Justin Vivian Bond, the gender-fluid singer known for one of the cabaret stage’s most unusual and compelling repertoires, recalled being introduced to Ono’s music through her 1981 album Season of Glass. Bond said, “As a student of performance, studying theater and voice, I was interested in discovering artists who combined raw emotion with their vocal technique and I have always felt that Yoko’s music offers a perfect combination of emotion, intellect, and artistry.”

Bond has performed such Ono songs as “What a Bastard the World Is,” “Walking on Thin Ice,” and “Every Man, Every Woman” (a reworking of “Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him,” from John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1980 Double Fantasy album). Of “What a Bastard…,” from Approximately Infinite Universe, with its conflicted emotions and sexual politics, Bond said, “As a transgender feminist, I have always felt that song to be tremendously compelling.”

I asked Bond what else might help explain the durability of Ono’s sound. The singer stated, “Of course, there is no one, in my opinion, whose music is better to dance to.”

Fly (1971), Approximately Infinite Universe (1973), and Feeling the Space (1973) are available from Amazon and other online retailers.

The post Yoko Ono’s Music of the ’70s is Back appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Weaving Together the Story of a Forgotten Pop Artist and Her Rugs

Dorothy Grebenak, “NRA Tapestry (National Recovery Administration)” (1963), wool, 54 x 41 in. (all images courtesy Allan Stone Gallery and the artist’s estate)

Here are a few things we know about Dorothy Grebenak. She is now remembered — to the extent she is remembered at all — as one of a handful of female Pop artists. Yet she once said, “I don’t think what I do is Pop Art.” Her work was acquired by an impressive list of New York collectors, including the Rockefellers, and she was represented by leading dealer Allan Stone. Yet even her supporters put her works on the floor and walked all over them. Stone discovered her works in the Brooklyn Museum of Art — but not in the galleries. They were on sale in the gift shop.

A few other points of information: she was married to painter Louis Grebenak, who started out as a WPA muralist and became a hard-edge abstractionist. She began working in the 1950s, living on Montgomery Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and stopped in 1970, when she moved to Europe. She was born in 1913, and died in 1990.

And that’s about all we know. Except for one last thing: she worked almost exclusively in the medium of hooked rugs.

In the annals of overlooked artists, Grebenak is an extreme case. Working in an era when art world acceptance was hard to come by for women even in the best of circumstances, she doubled her marginality by choosing a medium that was relegated firmly to the “minor” arts. In the end, her work would be almost entirely erased from art history, even though she was already making works based on everyday graphics in 1963, only one year after Andy Warhol’s Soup Cans. A selection of her work from the 1960s is now on view at Allan Stone Projects, which continually reaches into its archive to unearth such unfamiliar discoveries. A reconsideration seems timely, even if the paucity of information is frustrating. What can we say about Grebenak on the evidence of the work itself?

Dorothy Grebenak, circa 1964

One of her earliest appropriations depicts a poster for the NRA (the National Recovery Administration, not the gun lobby) reading “Consumer U.S. – We Do Our Part.” This work, and several others, riff cleverly on Warhol’s own sardonic engagement with commodity status. As if in rejoinder to his screenprinted depictions of currency, she made “Two-Dollar Bill” (1964). He made Brillo Boxes; she depicted a Tide detergent bottle. He portrayed Elvis in the western flick Flaming Star; she riffed on Audrey Hepburn’s My Fair Lady. She did a baseball card (Babe Ruth), and he did one too (Pete Rose) — though in that case, his was quite a few years later.

Dorothy Grebenak, “Eye Chart” (1964), wool, 32 ½ x 68 in.

The art historian Michael Lobel also discovered an instance in which Grebenak crafted a rejoinder to Roy Lichtenstein, specifically a work depicting a man peering through a round porthole into a dark space: “I can see the whole room — and there’s nobody in it.” As was often his practice, Lichtenstein stripped down the source image, from the comic strip Steve Roper, rewriting the text slightly and removing the original artists’ signatures. In 1963, both the work and the source were reproduced in an article in Art News entitled “Pop Artists Or Copy Cats?,” written by an aggrieved illustrator whose work had also been appropriated by Lichtenstein. Grebenak was evidently attracted by this incident, for in 1964 she showed a rug work which reproduced the image again — not in Lichtenstein’s version, but just as it had appeared in Steve Roper, complete with the original signatures. It is difficult to read her intentions, but certainly it is possible that she wanted to indicate sympathy with the commercial artists whose work had been quoted; her show at Allan Stone (which she shared with the artist John Fischer) was pointedly entitled Odd Man In. It is also intriguing that the image — in all three versions — takes the act of looking as its central theme. This was a persistent concern of Lichtenstein’s, and evidently also of Grebenak’s, as we can conclude from another 1964 work, “Eye Chart.” Though Allan Stone kept the rug work on the floor — it has numerous repairs today — it is best seen on a wall, hung at optician-office height, an object that explicitly acknowledges your own gaze.

Odd Man In, installation at Allan Stone Gallery, 1964

So Grebenak was in dialogue with her peers in Pop, but the conversation went only one way. That’s because, along with the fact that she happened to be a woman, her medium invalidated her from the outset — it was why she landed in the Brooklyn Museum’s gift shop. On the other hand, it offered a route into collectors’ homes. When Albert and Vera List bought Grebenak’s work “Tide,” they placed it on their kitchen floor. In 2010, when the organizers of an exhibition about women in Pop Art went looking for it, they discovered that it had been destroyed by years of wear (they had it remade, a curatorial maneuver which likely would not have been done for a painting). This is a sad tale, and a reminder of the fact that Grebenak’s limited art world success came only because she made objects that could pass as décor. In the midcentury, marginal art forms, like ceramics, weaving, and photography, were the only genres in which women could establish themselves professionally. Grebenak’s rugs slipped right under the art world’s attention, but at least she got through the front door.

Dorothy Grebenak making a rubbing of a manhole cover, circa 1964

Dorothy Grebenak, “Con Edison Co.” (1963), wool, 31 1/2 x 31 1/2 in.

Grebenak’s iconography was similarly unassuming — classic deadpan Pop — but was unusual in that it was drawn from public spaces. She reworked New York’s streets with her needle punch, both literally and figuratively. Her most common motifs were manhole covers, based on charcoal rubbings, a series she had begun by 1963. Grebenak also had a keen eye for signage. “Four Roses,” circa 1964, has nothing to do with the whisky brand of that name; it seems to have been grabbed from a florist’s sidewalk display. The serial, flip-flopping lettering comes across as concrete poetry, and juxtaposed with the floral motif, prompts thoughts of Gertrude Stein.

Dorothy Grebenak, “Four Roses” (1964), wool, 26 x 90 in.

Another work, perhaps thought up in the back of a cab, depicts a taxi driver’s badge. It reads “Licensed Public Hack” — not a bad self-description for an aspiring Pop Artist. In another, a monumental payphone dial communicates a sense of panic, the numbers 440-1234 at its center being the city emergency line — the 1960s version of 911. And then there is a startling work that simply reads OBSCENE, in huge block letters. The word collides head-on with the stereotype of hooked rugs as a decorous medium — a contradiction that speaks with powerful concision to the changing cultural norms of the 1960s.

Dorothy Grebenak, “Licensed Public Hack” (circa 1960s), wool, 30 x 28 1/2 in.

Dorothy Grebenak, “440-1234” (1960s), wool, 41 x 41 in. (Private collection, Europe)

Grebenak also made rugs with abstract meander designs, simple mazes of block colors. These initially puzzled me — and perhaps the folks at Allan Stone Projects too, as they were not included in the current exhibition — because they seem so disconnected from the found iconography seen elsewhere in her work. Were the mazes meant to acknowledge quilts and other historical textiles? Do they betray an affinity for hard-edge abstraction by the likes of Frank Stella (or her own husband, for that matter)? Or should we simply interpret them as emblematizing her identity as a watchful wanderer, a latter-day flâneur of the city streets?

Dorothy Grebenak, “Obscene” (1960s), wool, 26 x 71 in. (Collection of Jessie Stone)

Of course, Grebenak may well have had other ideas entirely. A single, solitary quotation about her art comes down to us, from a brief 1965 article in the New York Times which surveyed the work of several Pop artists. As it happens, it is not particularly helpful in making a strong case for the seriousness of her art. “I don’t think what I do is Pop Art,” she said. “People who name things probably would, but I don’t like labels. I think transposing something from one medium to another is droll. The idea of a big $5 bill makes me laugh.” Maybe that’s all there was to her work: just a little joke, nothing for mainstream art history to concern itself with. Imagine, however, that we only had one offhand comment, plucked at random by a journalist, to document everything there was to know about Warhol, or Lichtenstein. Then look again at Grebenak’s works, and just think what we might be missing.

Perhaps it’s best to not take Grebenak at her word. Yes, she was definitely a Pop artist, and an early and acute contributor to the movement at that. Transposing something from one medium to another is a lot more than “droll” — it is one of the key strategies of the avant-garde. And if her art makes us laugh — as indeed it might, given the gimlet eye she turned to the world — well, that’s fine. Just one more reason to value her work. Better late than never.

Dorothy Grebenak, “Yellow, Red, Blue” (1964), wool, 36 x 32 in.

Two Views Of Pop: Don Nice And Dorothy Grebenak continues at Allan Stone Projects (535 W 22nd Street, 3rd Floor, Chelsea, Manhattan) through April 22. 

The post Weaving Together the Story of a Forgotten Pop Artist and Her Rugs appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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