#Curtis Harris Biography

[addictivecontradiction]

Control, 2007

[kaasknot]

Hey! I have a paper on Buster Keaton coming up in my History of Film class? Would you be willing to info dump everything you know about him? I've only heard of this man through your blog and don't know where to start haha

bruh you're lucky you weren't standing next to me when i read this, my screech would have blown out your ears.

okay, buster keaton 101. he was one of the giants of the silent comedy era, alongside charlie chaplin and harold lloyd, and from the period of 1920 to 1929 he put out 19 short films and 10 feature length films under his own studio, plus two more silent films under MGM that can creditably be called his creations (i use his filmography page on wikipedia to keep it all straight). he also had the unique distinction of doing all his stunts himself, as well as doubling for many of his co-stars. most of these stunts have never been replicated, because honestly they'd probably kill people; his crew called him the "little iron man" because he was fearless and nigh indestructible. he was also a genius behind the camera, in ways that unfortunately i probably can't fully appreciate.

he was born october 4, 1895 in piqua, kansas, during a one-night stopover. his parents were working with a traveling medicine show at the time, to little acclaim, along with harry houdini before he got big. buster's first known stage appearance was as a toddler, interrupting his father's act. at first they tried to shoo him offstage, but his antics drew bigger laughs from the audience, so they decided to incorporate him into the act—leading to what would eventually be called, once they reached vaudeville, "the three keatons." buster said in interviews that his first salaried year was at 5 years of age, in 1899. that was when his family finally hit the big time—and he was almost single-handedly responsible for it.

their act is incredibly difficult to describe. the central conceit was: joe keaton threw little buster across the stage in a parody of strict parenting, while myra keaton played accompaniment on the saxophone. the best description i've found is biographer rudi blesh's, in his 1966 book, Keaton, on pp. 30–33 and 47–48. you can borrow a copy here. (be careful with this book; the author has a way with words, but he sets aside facts in favor of mythology more than once. for a rigorously researched and trustworthy biography, one with all the dates and weights, go for A Filmmaker's Life (2022) by james curtis.)

vaudeville was buster's early training ground, where he learned tumbling, comedic timing, improvisation, and how to construct a gag. most film comedians of the era got their start in vaudeville or comparable music halls, and many of the gags buster performed in his movies were adapted from vaudeville stage magic or repurposed from the family act. if there's one single book on buster keaton i'd recommend, it's Camera Man (2022) by dana stevens. it's not as dense or as thorough as the james curtis book, but it's an extremely good overview of the main events of his life AND the surrounding historical context—including vaudeville. it's also just a really fun read.

buster's vaudeville era ended in 1917, when he was forced to break up the family act over his father's worsening alcoholism. the official party line is that joe couldn't handle the fact that he was getting older, which i think is partly true, but i think a more true explanation is that he couldn't handle the fact that he was outshone by his own son (pretty much all sources agree that buster was the better comedian). he took his anger out on buster onstage during performances, and out on his wife offstage between performances, until myra finally had enough. she and buster ditched joe in los angeles when buster was 21 years old. here's an interesting paper that digs into buster's rough childhood and the impact it likely had on his films.

buster almost immediately found work as a solo act, but a chance encounter with an acquaintance introduced him to roscoe "fatty" arbuckle, then one of the highest-paid, most well-known comedians in film. it took one day on set—and one night disassembling a camera—to convince buster to abandon the stage for a film career. as a bonus, he and arbuckle became life-long friends. they spent the next three years working non-stop, making 14 short films together (plus a couple more buster wasn't involved in, during the 10-month period he was overseas for ww1). the grueling schedule wasn't without its downsides, and arbuckle, tired of making short films, decided to move to feature-length films, which had a slower, more relaxed pace. he left buster his entire studio and crew.

and that's when the real magic began. buster started (continued) with short films: 20 minute "2-reelers" that were played before a feature film, basically doing what looney tunes cartoons would do later. the best way to understand how different buster was from the dominant comedic idiom of the time is to watch a couple of arbuckle shorts ("coney island" and "the garage" are good choices), then watch a couple of buster's own ("one week" and "cops" are probably the best known). buster catered his humor to an older audience, and his gags were sophisticated, subtle, often cynical or ironic, and intricate to construct and film. "keaton made you laugh, then think" (blesh, xi).

in 1923, buster dropped short films in favor of feature-length films, starting with "three ages." he was a little behind the curve on this, but not through lack of trying; if he'd gotten his way, he'd have been the first major comedian to switch to feature-length films. unfortunately, studio contracts and his producer's cold feet held him back for a few more years, so chaplin and lloyd got there first. not that that slowed buster down; his output in the eight years he had creative control is virtually unmatched. despite getting married (in 1921, to natalie talmadge) and having two children (james, 1922, and robert, 1924), he continued filming at breakneck pace. to see what he could do with a camera, i'd recommend "sherlock jr." to see him at his cinematic best, i'd recommend "the general" "the cameraman" (i just committed cinematic heresy with that recommendation, but IN MY DEFENSE it was thee romcom training film for 20 years at MGM, well into the talkie era, so it's hardly a dud :p).

in 1928, buster's producer, joseph schenck, sold his contract to MGM. buster wasn't the owner of keaton studios, just an employee, so he didn't have much say in the matter. both chaplin and lloyd tried to talk him out of it, but in the end he signed the new contract anyway. later, he said it was the worst mistake of his career. denied the creative control he was accustomed to, he gradually descended into full-blown alcoholism, running away from his studio responsibilities and his disintegrating marriage alike. his final film for MGM, "what! no beer?", was an attempted buddy comedy with jimmy durante, and buster was visibly drunk or hungover in almost every scene. MGM fired him in 1932; his divorce, started in 1932, was finalized in 1933.

from there, buster had some dark years. he got married a second time, in 1934, to mae scriven (who mostly seems to have been a con artist), before they divorced in 1936. he was in and out of various rehabs, and nearly died at least once, before he managed to buck the odds and dry out. he spent the last years of the '30s working as a gag man and consultant for other comedians at MGM.

after that, things started to get better. he met his third wife, eleanor norris, in 1938 and they married in 1940. he had a couple high profile cameos in big movies, my favorite being the one in "sunset boulevard," where he played one of norma desmond's waxworks. then, a massively popular article by james agee, titled "comedy's greatest era," was published in LIFE magazine in 1949, kicking off a resurgence of interest in silent film as an art form and as a feature of cinematic history. agee paid special attention to buster, and that, combined with buster's own fascination with the up-and-coming technology of television, led to his comeback. he worked steadily and enthusiastically in television (and occasionally in movies) up until he died of lung cancer on february 1, 1966, living long enough to see his films receive the recognition they deserved. (also here, have this nice article i found while trying to find the one by james agee.)

i've never taken a film history class myself, so i can't begin to explain all the ways buster keaton advanced filmmaking. here's an article that analyzes the gag as a staple of film comedy; a book that analyzes buster's comic and directorial style chiefly through "the general"; and another article that explores gags, this time specifically mechanical gags, and has lots of nice things to say about buster. if this isn't enough and you decide to go whole chicken fried hog on buster like i have, hit up me, @spokir, or @busterkeatonsociety and we can connect you with all the material you could possibly want.

enjoy!!!

(colossal, chrysler building-sized thanks to spokir, who sourced most of these articles. seriously, talk to your local librarian, they WANT to find things for you.)

[alexlacquemanne]

Avril MMXXIV

Films

La Course à l'échalote (1975) de Claude Zidi avec Pierre Richard, Jane Birkin, Michel Aumont, Marc Doelsnitz, Amadeus August, Henri Déus, Luis Rego et Catherine Allégret

La Septième Cible (1984) de Claude Pinoteau avec Lino Ventura, Lea Massari, Jean Poiret, Elizabeth Bourgine, Béatrice Agenin, Robert Hoffmann, Jean-Pierre Bacri, Roger Planchon et Francis Lemaire

Pierrot le Fou (1965) de Jean-Luc Godard avec Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anna Karina, Graziella Galvani, Dirk Sanders, Jimmy Karoubi, Roger Dutoit, Hans Meyer, Samuel Fuller et Raymond Devos

Downton Abbey II : Une nouvelle ère (Downton Abbey: A New Era) (2022) de Simon Curtis avec Hugh Bonneville, Maggie Smith, Elizabeth McGovern, Michelle Dockery, Nathalie Baye, Allen Leech et Tuppence Middleton

Orgueil et Préjugés (Pride & Prejudice) (2005) de Joe Wright avec Keira Knightley, Matthew Macfadyen, Simon Woods, Kelly Reilly, Rosamund Pike, Carey Mulligan, Talulah Riley, Donald Sutherland et Brenda Blethyn

Les Pleins Pouvoirs (Absolute Power) (1997) de et avec Clint Eastwood et Gene Hackman, Ed Harris, Laura Linney, Scott Glenn, Dennis Haysbert, Judy Davis et Penny Johnson Jerald

Prêt-à-porter (1994) de Robert Altman avec Marcello Mastroianni, Sophia Loren, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Kim Basinger, Chiara Mastroianni, Stephen Rea, Anouk Aimée, Forest Whitaker, Julia Roberts et Tim Robbins

Un jour (One Day) (2011) de Lone Scherfig avec Anne Hathaway, Jim Sturgess, Tom Mison, Rafe Spall, Jodie Whittaker, Romola Garai, Joséphine de La Baume et Patricia Clarkson

Adaline (The Age of Adaline) (2015) de Lee Toland Krieger avec Blake Lively, Michiel Huisman, Kathy Baker, Harrison Ford, Anthony Ingruber, Ellen Burstyn, Amanda Crew et Richard Harmon

Séries

Coffre à Catch

#161 : La DX à la ECW ?? - #162 : Summerslam 2009 en approche! - #163 : William Regal nous régale ! - #164 : Les chevaliers des 1000 likes ! - #165 : Qui se cache derrière le masque du Hurricane ??

Castle Saison 5

Pour le meilleur et pour le pire - Une soirée qui tue - Le Vice et la Vertu - Un choix cornélien - Faux-Semblants - La Cible - La Chasse - Morts de peur - Un passé insoupçonné - La Vie des autres - À la recherche de l'homme-singe - Protection rapprochée - Toute une histoire

Maguy Saison 3

Mal de maire - Chambre accouchée - Jument comme tu respires - Téléphone qui croyait prendre - Impair et deux belle-mères - L'éminence grippe - Sauve qui pneu ! - Voir un petit coup - Message californien - Le coffre effort - Kilt ou double - Rumeur au cerveau - Décibel et tais-toi - Le magicien d'hypnose - Cosmétiques en toc - Des plaies et des noces - Pub, pub, pub… hourrah ! - Un chiffon, fon, fon… - La layette, nous voilà - Gare au gourou ! - Noces à ronger - Talisman comme un arracheur de dents - La rosière arrosée - La strip-teaseuse de bonne aventure - La clé des mensonges - Surprise patrie - Le sponsor en est jeté - Ovni soit qui mal y pense - Adam et chèvre - Jerôme sweet Jerôme - Isabelle et la bête - Tel Pierre, tel fils - Apocalypse mômes - Les dons de la mère - La ruée vers l'art - La SICAV se rebiffe - Mort aux rafles - Bretteville au trésor - De briques et de brocs - Olé concentré - Dégâts des os - L'émoi d’août

La croisière s'amuse Saison 4, 5

Chapeau bas - La Voisine - Le Professeur - Jalousie - Bon Voyage - Une belle amitié - Qui perd gagne - Les Sirènes - Personnalité, vous avez dit personnalité ? - Les Jardins - L'habit ne fait pas la fille - Ne jouez pas avec les inconnus - Quelle classe - Nous étions deux - Incroyable Isaac - La Fille à papa - La Toque - Vicky s'amuse - Les trois font la paire : première partie - Isaac radioactif - Zeke et Zelda

Meurtres au paradis Saison 13

Carton plein - Un plat qui se mange froid - Court-circuit - Question d'avenir - La liste de souhaits

L'autre côté du ring Saison 3

Le procès des stéroïdes - Brutal : le FMW d'Onita - Extrême et obscène : l'XPW de Rob Black

Inspecteur Barnaby Saison 23

Qui sème le vent - Effet domino

Biographies WWE Saison 2

Wrestlemania I

Alfred Hitchcock présente Saison 6,7

Le voleur plein de bonnes intentions - Instinct de survie

Kaamelott Livre V

Le Dernier Jour - Le Royaume Sans Tête - Jizô

Commissaire Moulin Saison 1

Ricochets - La surprise du chef - La Peur des autres

Top Gear France Saison 9

Ceux qui font du rallye - Ceux qui sauvent la planète - Ceux qui deviennent gangsters - Ceux qui ont fait n'importe quoi

Les Brigades du Tigre Saison 3

Bonnot et Compagnie - L'Homme à la casquette - Don de Scotland Yard - Le Cas Valentin - Le Crime du Sultan - L'Ère de la calomnie

Messieurs les jurés

L'Affaire Varney

Spectacles

Mademoiselle (1982) de Jacques Deval avec Jean Meyer, Rosy Varte, Jacqueline Jehanneuf, Anne Rondeleux, Bruno Constantin, Maurice Risch, Nicole Chollet, Dominique Blanche, Florence Fors, Jacques Maury et Bertrand Gohaud

The Morricone Duel (2020) du Danish National Symphony Orchestra

Live by Request: Earth Wind & Fire (1999)

Une femme trop honnête (1978) de Georges Vitaly avec Judith Magre, Bernard Lavalette, Francis Lax, Danièle Deray, Madeleine Barbulée, Jacques Verlier, Maurice Teynac et Christiane Muller

Daho Pleyel Paris (2008)

Livres

La commode aux tiroirs de couleurs d'Olivia Ruiz

Détective Conan, tome 21 de Gôshô Aoyama

Le privé d'Hollywood de François Rivière, José-Louis Bocquet et Philippe Berthet

Kaamelott, tome 4 : Perceval Et le Dragon d'Airain d'Alexandre Astier, Steven Dupré et Benoît Bekaert

[reasoningdaily]

 Portrait of Charles Curtis Strauss Peyton, Kansas City, Missouri, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 

In 2021, Senator Kamala Harris made history as the first woman, first African American, and first person of South Asian heritage to become vice president of the United States. But she wasn’t the first person of color to take the office. That honor belongs to Charles Curtis, an enrolled member of the Kaw Nation who served as President Herbert Hoover’s veep for his entire first term from 1929 to 1933. Prejudice against Native Americans was widespread and intense at the time, but Curtis’s ascent to the office speaks to his skillful navigation of the political system. His rise also tells a broader story of how prominent Native Americans viewed how their communities should assimilate within a predominately white society and government. The policies Curtis pursued in Congress and then as vice president, specifically those on Native issues, cloud his legacy today despite his groundbreaking achievements.

Curtis was born in 1860 to a white father from a wealthy Topeka family and a mother who was one quarter Kaw (a tribe also known as Kanza or Kansa). When he was young, Curtis’ mother died, and his father fought in the Civil War for the United States. Growing up, he spent time living with both his sets of grandparents and for eight years, he lived on the Kaw reservation. Curtis grew up speaking Kanza and French before he learned English.

Mark Brooks, site administrator for the Kansas Historical Society’s Kaw Mission site, says Curtis was known for his personal charisma.

“He had a knack for conversation,” Brooks says. “He was just a very likeable person even early on when he was just a young boy in Topeka.”

In 1873, the federal government forced the Kaw south to Indian Territory, which would later become Oklahoma. The adolescent Curtis wanted to move with his community, but, according to his Senate biography, his Kaw grandmother talked him into staying with his paternal grandparents and continuing his education.

“I took her splendid advice and the next morning as the wagons pulled out for the south, bound for Indian Territory, I mounted my pony and with my belongings in a flour sack, returned to Topeka and school,” Curtis later recalled, in a flourish of self-mythologizing. “No man or boy ever received better advice, it was the turning point in my life.”

Curtis gained some fame as a talented horse rider, known on the circuit as “Indian Charlie.” But his grandparents on both sides encouraged him to pursue a professional career, and he became a lawyer and then a politician. Contemporary accounts cite his personal charm and willingness to work hard served him well in politics. Kansas politician and newspaper editor William Allen White described him carrying books with the names of Republicans in each Kansas township, mumbling the names “like a pious worshiper out of a prayer book” so that he could greet each of them by name and ask about their family.

Despite the racist treatment of the Kaw by white Kansans—which included land theft and murder—many whites were obviously willing to vote for Curtis.

“The one thing that might have lightened the persecution of Curtis was that he was half white,” Brooks says. “He’s light-complected, he’s not dark-skinned like a lot of Kanza. His personality wins people over—unfortunately, racists can like a person of color and still be a racist, and I think that’s kind of what happened with Charlie. He was just a popular kid.”

Curtis rose within the Republican Party that dominated Kansas and became a congressman, then senator, and eventually Senate majority leader. In office, he was a loyal Republican and an advocate for women’s suffrage and child labor laws.

Throughout his time in Congress, Curtis also consistently pushed for policies that many Native Americans today say were a disaster for their nations. He favored the Dawes Act of 1887, passed a few years before he entered Congress, which allowed the federal government to divide tribal lands into individual plots, which eventually led to the selling of their land to the public. And in 1898, as a member of the Committee on Indian Affairs, he drafted what became known as the Curtis Act, extending the Dawes Act’s provisions to the so-called “Five Civilized Tribes” of Oklahoma.

“[The Curtis Act] enabled the dissolution of many tribal governments in Oklahoma on the path to Oklahoma becoming a state,” says Donald Grinde, a historian at the University at Buffalo who has Yamasse heritage. “And of course, that [opened up] tribal land in Oklahoma to white settlers, sooners.”

Curtis also supported Native American boarding schools, in which children were taken from their families and denied access to their own languages and cultures. Abuse was rampant. Grinde cites the schools as a factor in the population decline of Native Americans between 1870 and the 1930s.

“You tell mothers, ‘OK, you’re going to give birth to a child, but at 5 they’re going to be taken from you,’” Grinede says. “Lots of Indian women chose not to have children.”

Historian Jeanne Eder Rhodes, a retired professor at the University of Alaska and enrolled member of the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes, says land division under the Dawes and Curtis Acts ultimately “destroyed everything” for many Native American tribes. At the time, however, Curtis’ positions were far from unique among Native Americans. While many were dead set against land division and other policies pushed by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, others believed that tribes must assimilate into white American society and adopt norms like individual land ownership.

“At the turn of the century when he’s working there are very prominent Indian scholars and writers and professional Indian people who are all talking about these issues,�� Rhodes says. “Some of them are opposed to the idea, some of them are opposed to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, some of them are working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs.”

She said Curtis, like other Native American assimilationists, was concerned with issues like the education and health of Native American people, who were already suffering immensely in a pre-Dawes Act United States. And, she said, if Curtis hadn’t supported assimilation, he would never have gotten far in the era’s white-dominated politics.

“What do you do when you’re in a situation like Curtis?” Rhodes says. “He’s proud of his heritage and yet he wants to be in a position where he can do something to support Native issues. I think he tried his best and I think he regretted, in the end, being assimilationist.”

As Curtis approached his late 60s, already having achieved so much, he had one more rung to climb on the political ladder. In 1927, when Republican President Calvin Coolidge announced that he would not run for another term, he saw his chance to run for President the following year.

His plan was to run a behind-the-scenes campaign, seeking support from delegates who he hoped would see him as a compromise candidate if they couldn’t come together behind one of the frontrunners. Unfortunately for him, that scenario didn’t pan out; Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover won on the first ballot.

By this time, there was already bad blood between Curtis and Hoover. The senator had bristled at Hoover’s choice in 1918 to campaign for Democratic candidates and tried to stop then-President Warren G. Harding from appointing him to his cabinet, which he did anyway in 1921. Seven years later, the Republican Party saw putting the two together on their ticket as the solution to a serious problem: Hoover was tremendously unpopular with farmers. Curtis, Kansas’ beloved veteran senator, offered the perfect choice to balance out the Commerce Secretary.

But what about his race? Grinde says Republican Party leaders and voters would have been aware of Curtis’ Kaw identity.

“They recognized that he was one-eighth Indian, but he had served the interests of white people for a long, long time,” Grinde says.

He also notes that the relationship of white Americans of the time with Native American identity was complicated. For some white people with no cultural links to Native nations, it might be a point of pride to claim that their high cheekbones marked them as descendants of an “American Indian princess.”

Despite his assimilationist politics, throughout his career Curtis honored his Kaw heritage. He had an Indian jazz band play at the 1928 inauguration and decorated the vice presidential office with Native American artifacts. And, even if many Native American people were unhappy with the land allotment plans he had championed, many Kaw were proud of him. When he was chosen for the vice presidential slot on the Republican ticket, Kaw communities in Oklahoma declared “Curtis Day,” and some of his Kaw relations attended the inauguration.

After all he had achieved to reach the vice presidency, Curtis’ time in office was anticlimactic. Hoover remained suspicious of his former rival and, despite Curtis’ enormous expertise in the workings of Congress, kept him away from policy. Washington insiders joked that the vice president could only get into the White House if he bought a ticket for the tour. The best-known event of his term involved a dispute over social protocol between Curtis’ sister, Dolly, and Theodore Roosevelt’s daughter, Alice. Dolly acted as Curtis’s hostess since his wife had died before he became vice president, and asserted that this gave her the right to be seated before the wives of congressmen and diplomats at formal dinners. Alice bristled over what she characterized as the questionable “propriety of designating any one not a wife to hold the rank of one.” And, aside from personal squabbles, the onset of the Great Depression made the White House a difficult place to be. In 1932 the Hoover-Curtis ticket lost in a landslide defeat to New York Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Speaker of the House John Nance Garner.

And yet, Brooks says, Curtis did not lose his taste for politics. After his defeat he chose to stay in Washington as a lawyer rather than go home to Topeka. When he died of a heart attack in 1936, he was still living in the capital.

“That had become who he was,” Brooks says.

[papermoonloveslucy]

KIDZ!

The Young People of the Lucyverse ~ Part 3

W.C. Fields famously warned performers never to work with children or animals. Luckily for us, Lucille Ball consistently disregarded his advice. Here’s a look at some of the young performers and characters of the Lucyverse.

“Lucy and the Drive-In Movie” (1969) ~ Jackie Berry is a married friend of Kim’s who has a newborn named Wendy. Her husband is said to be in the service. Jackie Berry uses her married name for the character. She ws the real-life wife of Ken Berry from 1960 to 1972, an actor championed by Lucille Ball. 

“Lucy and Jack Benny’s Biography” (1970) ~ Lucy plays Jack’s mother and  Michael Barbera plays Benny as a boy. Barbera was a child actor who was 12 years old at the time of filming. He accrued 18 screen credits before leaving the industry.

“Lucy Cuts Vincent’s Price” (1970) ~ Lucy says she previously talked on the phone to Mrs. Vincent Price when arranging entertainment for a big party the Price’s threw. In 1970, Vincent Price was married to costume designer Mary Grant (inset photo), although her name is never mentioned here. Making small talk on the telephone, Lucy asks about Little Vicki. This is a reference to the Price’s 8 year-old daughter, Victoria. Although Lucy visits their home, both characters remain off-screen.

“Lucy the Laundress” (1970) ~ Lucy smashes into a laundry truck. In order to pay for the repairs, she has to go to work at the laundry and encounters the owner’s two daughters Sue Chin Wong (left) and Linda Change Wong (right). Linda is played by Rosalind Chao who makes her screen debut with this episode. She created the role of Soon-Ye Klinger on “M*A*S*H” and “After M*A*S*H” but is perhaps best known for playing Keiko O'Brien on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “Deep Space Nine.” During that series she also filmed The Joy Luck Club. More recent credits include “Blackish,” “This is Us,” and “The Catch.”  Heather Lee (Sue Chin Wong) makes her screen appearance in this episode. When Lucy meets the sisters, she greets them in an exaggerated and condescending Chinese accent. The girls look horrified and answer back in voices totally devoid of any Asian influence. To further the humor of Lucy’s backward thinking, the girls are eating hamburgers with ketchup, a typical American-style meal.

“Lucy and Ma Parker” (1970) ~ A criminal mastermind (Carole Cook) enlists two little people (Jerry Marin and Billy Curtis) to play her ‘children’. Milton (Marin) is dressed as ‘Little Mildred’ in the style of child star Shirley Temple. Curtis plays Herman Golab, who is dressed as Buster Brown.  

“Lucy and the Italian Bombshell” (1971) ~ Harry’s former flame Donna Colucci (Kaye Ballard) is married and has a large brood of children: Ricardo, Anna Maria, Louisa, Luigi, Vincenzo, Dino, Lucrezia, Alfredo Jr., Margarito, Bruno, Rosa, and Frederico - all of whom appear uncredited.

“Lucy and Donny Osmond” (1972) ~ Lucy takes her pre-teen niece Patricia (Eve Plumb) to see her favorite singer, Donny Osmond. Plumb is probably best known as the middle daughter, Jan, on TV’s “The Brady Bunch” (1969-74). She filmed this episode simultaneously with “The Brady Bunch” which aired Friday nights on ABC. This is her only time acting with Lucille Ball.  Coincidentally, Desi Arnaz Jr. made a guest-appearance on “The Brady Bunch” in 1970 where he was the ‘dream date’ of Jan’s sister Marcia (Maureen McCormick). 

“Lucy and Her Prince Charming” (1972) ~ Harry hastily arranges a home wedding ceremony for Lucy and a Prince (Ricardo Montalban) - including a flower girl and a ring bearer - played by two uncredited young actors. 

Mame (1974) ~ Lucille Ball plays Auntie Mame to orphaned Patrick Dennis, played by Bruce Dern as a child. 

“Life With Lucy” (1986) ~ Lucy Barker and Curtis McGibbon (Gale Gordon) are grandparents to Becky and Kevin McGibbon. Becky is played by Jenny Lewis. Ten year-old Lewis appeared in all 13 episodes, only 8 of which were aired.

“Yes, Lucy was a bit rough around the edges, and yes, she constantly smoked cigarettes on the set. She would pull her face back with tape, sort of like a cheap face-lift.“ ~ JENNY LEWIS

Philip Amelio (Kevin McGibbon) made his screen debut on “Life With Lucy” at the age of 10. He played Stephen Baldwin’s younger self in the film Born on the Fourth of July (1989). He gave up acting by his early teensPhilip died in  2005 at the age of 27 due to a mis-diagnosed bacterial infection. 

Kelli Martin (right) played Becky’s friend Patty in two episodes of the series. Born in 1975, she made her acting debut at age 7 and went on to be seen as an Emmy-nominated regular on “Life Goes On” (1989-93) and “Christy” (1994-95) in which she played the title character. 

BONUS KIDZ! 

“Lucy the Diamond Cutter” (1970) ~ German diamond cutter Gustav (Wally Cox) calls Kim and Craig “the Katzenjammer Kids.” The Katzenjammer Kids was a comic strip created by German immigrant Rudolph Dirks which appeared from 1897 to 2006. The strip featured twins Hans and Fritz, who rebelled against authority. 

“Lucy and the Generation Gap” (1969) ~ In the final sequence of the musical episode set in outer space, the Carters sing “Kids” a song written by Lee Adams and Charles Strouse for the 1960 Broadway musical Bye Bye Birdie. The musical was filmed in 1963. This song is originally about the generation gap, so it requires the least lyrical changes. It was sung on stage and screen by Paul Lynde, playing the father of free-thinking kids obsessed with an Elvis-like rock and roll singer.  

[swiftpascal]

You know, if you’re looking for fictional characters named Victoria, have you read Worm by Wildbow?

I think that, I've heard about this book, when I was reading more about my name in various versions. I wasn't really looking for fictional characters with the same name as mine, but thank you very much for the tip. And the story about what exactly? Of course, if it's not too much to ask for the summary. I'm lazy when it comes to reading books, it takes me a decade or a century to finish my Harry Potter books and other random books (that I bought without thinking much about, like Ian Curtis's biography, when I was addicted to Joy Division, not that I'm complaining, I don't know why I'm babbling about it), but I can try to read it online or buy it physically, too, like I want to buy Steve Murphy and Javier Peña's book. Why am I talking too much? Don't think I'm strange. But can you tell me more about the book you just recommended.

[madstreetz]

[People Profile] All We Know About Curtis Harris Biography, Age, Girlfriend, Family, Career, Networth

[People Profile] All We Know About Curtis Harris Biography, Age, Girlfriend, Family, Career, Networth

Curtis Harris Biography, Age, Girlfriend, Family, Career, Networth. Curtis Harris is a well-known American actor who was the character Miles Preston on Nickelodeon’s ‘The Haunted Hathaways‘. He became successful with those movie roles and has since built on the momemtum. How Old is Curtis Harris? The birth date for the star of this television show was the 27th of June, 2001 Curtis Harris’ Birth…

[grippingflesh]

Control (2007, Anton Corbijn)

[jaynedolluk]

BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2020 PART 2

Wanted to post this just to complete my end of year posts.

I don’t tend to read that many novels but I did read some really good ones this year - Queenie (debut novel by Candice Carty-Williams about a young black girl living in London), Black Wave (by Michelle Tea - a queer woman leaves behind her drug addicted past in San Francisco to escape to Los Angeles only for the announcement that the world is due to end), Mirror, Mirror (by Paula Byrne - a story based on the life on Marlene Dietrich partly narrated by her mirror), Oligarchy (by Scarlett Thomas - a Russian girl ends up at an English boarding school that’s dominated by a sinister devotion to extreme dieting), and Wonderland (by Juno Dawson - about a young trans girl at a posh boarding school who’s trying to track down her friend who’s gone missing + ends up at a secret houseparty - loved this esp all the nods to Alice In Wonderland). 

Probably my favourite of all was Boy Parts by Eliza Clark which is about a young female artist who’s moved back to Newcastle + spends her time taking explicit photos of young men she scouts on the streets. One reviewer described it as like American Psycho meets Fleabag which is a good way of summing up its deranged genius. 

Read a couple of books by Hallie Rubenhold - The Five (about the women murdered by Jack The Ripper) and The Covent Garden Ladies (about Harris’ List of the late 1700s + the female sex workers who appeared on it + the times they lived in). Also read Mad + Bad. Real Heroines of the Regency by Bea Koch which seeks to redress the balance the bit for the women of the Regency period by showing that there were women involved in the sciences + that not all women of the period were only concerned with their ballgowns + who to marry.

Also read a few good books on drag - Serving Face by Felix Le Freak (which is a collection of profiles/interviews w/various drag performers), Drag. The Complete Story by Simon Doonan (which is an overview of different types of drag such as comedy or fashion and how they’ve evolved over the years), and Legendary Children by tom Fitzgerald + Lorenzo Marquez (which takes RPDR as a starting point to examine different facets of LGBT culture including profiles of various people over the years).

Read Fangirls by Hannah Ewens which discussed different aspects of fandom by highlighting the experience of different groups of female fans around the world and She Found It at the Movies edited by Christina Newland which was a collection of essays by various female authors discussing how films had influenced + inspired their desires. Style Tribes by Caroline Young was a great look at various subcultures + I especially appreciated it looking outside Europe/North America which some books like this have a tendency not to do. 

I read a couple of good mental health related books. Charlotte Amelia Poe’s memoir, How to Be Autistic (I particularly liked the fandom references in it). The More or Less Definitive Guide to Self Care by Anna Borges (which is an A to Z of all different suggestions for self care + includes different people talking about what works for them). It’s Not OK to Feel Blue and Other Lies edited by Scarlett Curtis (which is an anthology of writing by various celebrities covering all aspects of mental health). 

One of my favourite books of the year was Girl, Stop Passing Out in Your Makeup by Zara Barrie which is a cross between her memoir + a self help guide and is v. funny + so cool + includes chapter heading such as An Ode to the Girls Who Grew Up Too Fast, Praying to Lana Del Rey, and PSA: Bottomless Mimosas Are Taking You Down.

I was also delighted to see Anita Pallenberg finally get a biography of her own (She’s a Rainbow by Simon Wells) which sought to explore the life of a complex and creative woman who too often has been reduced to just ‘girlfriend of the Rolling Stones.’

[ephemeral-winter]

the year in books

okay so nobody asked but i am Going To Do A Blog about the books I read this year (minus most of the scholarly ones) please reserve all judgments but also remember that i am always correct

Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson

i was seriously underwhelmed by this. only read it because everyone on this hellsite loves posting anne carson quotes. well there was nothing good in here to post. wtf is up with that.

Once, Twice, Three times an Aisling by Emer McLysaught and Sarah Breen

The Importance of Being Aisling by Emer McLysaught and Sarah Breen

Oh My God What a Complete Aisling by Emer McLysaught and Sarah Breen

the above three are a romance series about a hapless irish girl in her twenties and i read them out of order and was mildly bored but also i loved them??? 

Hey Ladies! by Michelle Markowitz and Caroline Moss

based on the series of the same name that used to run on the-toast.net (RIP). meh.

American Royals by Katharine McGee

first in a YA series about what if america had royals (as the name implies). dumb af but i’m a sucker for stories about rich people doing stupid shit.

Making Medieval Manuscripts by Christopher de Hamel

i read this in preparation for the paleography class i took this past spring. somehow taught me nothing new?

The Virgin of Chartres by Margot Fassler

500 pages of excellent excellent history, and instrumental in writing my thesis now. obsessed with this book. 

Christopher and His Kind by Christopher Isherwood

i’d been trying to finish this for about a year and a half. i love isherwood’s fiction but his (auto)biography is harder to read? 

Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan

could not for the life of me tell you what happens in this one but i did have fun!

The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark

i love muriel spark but again have no idea what it’s about. we got sent home from campus the week i was reading this; that’s probably why

The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson

you know what is a great idea? reading a terrifying book about a historical outbreak of cholera at 2am the night before you get sent home from campus on account of a brand new worldwide pandemic! highly recommend! 

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling (reread)

i’ve always hated this one, and hadn’t reread it in about 10 years. still hate it!

The Relic Master by Christopher Buckley

i think i would have found this funnier if i wasn’t actually a scholar of the late medieval period.

The Abbess of Crewe by Muriel Spark (reread)

love.

Death in a Tenured Position by Amanda Cross

my mom told me to read this one, so i did. a murder mystery set in the 1970s harvard english dept... i simply have to lol

Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Racculia

this was really well done and also i have already forgotten what it’s about

Supreme Courtship by Christopher Buckley (reread)

reconfirmed my belief that buckley is at his best when he’s satirizing the american political system of the early aughts. 

The Violins of Saint-Jacques by Patrick Leigh Fermor

fermor’s only published fiction with a fascinating frame narrative. would recommend

Normal People by Sally Rooney (reread)

i can’t talk about this book. fukc.

The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale

essential reading.

Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (reread)

can talk a little bit more about this one, but again i say: fukc. i am not a college student in dublin and i’ve never had an affair with an older man but goddamn if rooney didn’t see inside my soul.

Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld

i love sittenfeld usually but this was not it.

The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton

her second book (the luminaries) is better.

Midnight Blue by Simone Van Der Vlugt

good for a beach read.

The Collected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen (reread)

i was obsessed with this book when i was 11 or so. less obsessed now; newly amazed by this way of writing a novel.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (reread)

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams (reread)

it’s douglas adams! what’s not to love?

The True History of the First Mrs. Meredith and Other Lesser Lives by Diane Johnson

read this for the book club of two i have with my grandmother. i enjoyed it; she did not.

The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy

okay so today i’m really sad about how last year on NYE i was in paris and drank a lot of wine and ate a lot of cheese and this year i am home with my parents (drinking wine and eating cheese). this book is about being a stupid young american woman in paris in the 60s and it made me about as sad as i am today, except then in august. 

Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson

i know nothing about south asian nationalist movements, but hoo boy did the theory in this book expand my mind in some new and important ways.

Playing the Whore by Melissa Gira Grant

essential reading.

Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford (reread)

ugh mitford’s work is such a comfort reread. i’m working on the sisters’ collected letters right now and i can’t believe how fucking brilliant they all were. 

Enter the Aardvark by Jessica Anthony

probably the best book i read this year. a stunning little novel in about 120 pages. if you like taxidermy and congress and gay people and history and love, this is a book for you.

Don’t Tell Alfred by Nancy Mitford (reread)

more mitford. self-explanatory, really.

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey (reread)

this is one of the books i credit with my interest in medieval history. gives me something new each time i come back to it.

Majesty by Katherine McGee

a sequel to american royals, described above. still stupid af; still a delight.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon (reread)

i reread this for my minyan’s book club, even though i only attended one of the meetings. my mom first read this to me when i was literally nine years old-- what a parenting choice! this book taught me how to curse. still a masterpiece of a novel. 

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by JK Rowling (reread)

needed a comfort read yesterday. fuck jkr for all the usual reasons, but damn, this hits. 

[blackkudos]

Loleatta Holloway

Loleatta Holloway (, lo-LEE-tə; November 5, 1946 – March 21, 2011) was an American singer, mainly known for disco songs such as "Hit and Run" and "Love Sensation", both of which have been sampled extensively. In December 2016, Billboard magazine ranked her as the 95th most successful dance artist of all-time.

Biography

Holloway began singing gospel with her mother in the Holloway Community Singers in Chicago and recorded with Albertina Walker in the Caravans gospel group between 1967 and 1971. Holloway was also a cast member of the Chicago troupe of Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope. Around this time, she met her future producer, manager, and husband Floyd Smith, and recorded "Rainbow ’71" in 1971, a Curtis Mayfield song that Gene Chandler had recorded in 1963. It was initially released on the Apache label, but was picked up for national distribution by Galaxy Records.

In the early 1970s, Holloway signed a recording contract with the Atlanta-based soul music label Aware, part of the General Recording Corporation (GRC), owned by Michael Thevis. Holloway recorded two albums for the label, both of them produced by Floyd Smith — Loleatta (1973) and Cry to Me (1975). Her first single from the second album, the ballad, "Cry to Me" rose to #10 Billboard R&B and #68 on the Hot 100, but before the label could really establish Holloway, it went out of business.

Top Philadelphia arranger and producer Norman Harris signed Holloway in 1976 for his new label, Gold Mind, a subsidiary of New York's Salsoul Records. The first release from the album Loleatta was another Sam Dees ballad, "Worn Out Broken Heart," which reached #25 R&B, but the B-side, "Dreaming," climbed to #72 on the pop chart and launched her as a disco act.

She contributed vocals to "Re-Light My Fire" for Dan Hartman, who then wrote and produced the title track of her fourth and final album for Gold Mind, Love Sensation (1980). 18 of her songs charted on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart, including four #1s. However, it was a ballad that proved to be another big R&B hit for her. "Only You" was written and produced by Bunny Sigler, who also sang with Holloway on the track, and it reached #11 in 1978.

In the early 1980s, she had another dance hit with "Crash Goes Love" (#5 on the U.S. Dance chart, #86 on the US R&B Chart). She also recorded one single, "So Sweet," for the fledgling house-music label DJ International Records. In the late 1980s, her vocals from "Love Sensation" were used in the UK #1 hit "Ride on Time" by Black Box. Holloway, however, was uncredited for her vocals and Holloway successfully sued the group, which led to an undisclosed court settlement in Holloway's favor.

In 1992, she also had a hit with dance band Cappella. There, she appeared billed as Cappella featuring Loleatta Holloway on the single "Take Me Away" (UK #25). Holloway's fortunes dramatically improved, however, when she had her first US #1 hit when Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch featured her vocals in the chart-topping "Good Vibrations" (1991). According to Andrew Barker in Variety (March 22, 2011), Holloway also performed with Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch to promote the single and she received full vocal credit as well as a share of the royalties. This was shortly after the backlash against various acts such as Milli Vanilli and the groups that used the vocals of Martha Wash, but refused to give her credit until she sued.

More recent dance chart entries included "Share My Joy" (Credited to "GTS Featuring Loleatta Holloway"), "What Goes Around Comes Around" (credited to "GTS Featuring Loleatta Holloway") in 2000, and "Relight My Fire" (credited to "Martin featuring Holloway"), which hit #5 in 2003. Whilst not a single, "Like a Prayer", a Madonna cover, was a track on the Madonna tribute album Virgin Voices. The song "Love Sensation '06" and reached #37 on the UK Singles Chart.

Death

Holloway died aged 64 on March 21, 2011 from heart failure and is survived by her four children.

[tricksterdreamsreads]

Do I Have That Book Challenge

Tagged by @flamingmirrorbookish. Because it looked like fun and I really wanted to do it!

Do you have a book with deckled edges? The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh

Do you have a book with 3 or more people on the cover? The Love Interest by Cale Dietrich, Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

Do you have a book based on another fictional story? Lost Boy by Christina Henry (Peter Pan), A Curse so Dark and Lonely by Brigit Kemmerer (Beauty and the Beast), The Runemarks series by Joanne M. Harris (it’s norse mythology, does it count?) 

Do you have a book with a title 10 letters long? Someone New by Laura Kneidl, The Mermaid by Christina Henry, The Chemist by Stephenie Meyer

Do you have a book with a title that starts and ends with the same letter? Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, Soul Mates - Flüstern des Lichts by Bianca Iosivoni

Do you have a Mass Market Paperback book? Plenty! Pretty much anything written by Jeaniene Frost (The Night Huntress series and all the spin-offs) And the Supernatural tie-ins.

Do you have a book written by an author using a pen name? I... actually have no idea... It’s likely that I do but I don’t keep up with that stuff so if I do I’m not aware.

Do you have a book with a character’s name in the title? Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie, The Gospel of Loki by Joanne M. Harris, Rheanne - An Bord der Adlerschwinge by Anne Troja 

Do you have a book with 2 maps in it? A Game of Thrones by G.R.R. Martin (well more than just two but whatever)

Do you have a book that was turned into a TV show? 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Do you have a book written by someone who is originally famous for something else? ?(celebrity/athlete/politician/tv personality…) You’re never weird on the internet (almost) by Felicia Day and Revenge of the Nerd by Curtis Armstrong. (They are biographies/memoires. Am I cheating?)

Do you have a book with a clock on the cover? Almost Midnight by Rainbow Rowell

Do you have a poetry book? William Shakespeare’s Complete Works do count, don’t they? His Sonnets are included. 

Do you have a book with an award stamp on it? Yes, and I hate those. I hate non-removable stickers/stamps on books. It ruins the cover. Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Abertalli, A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness 

Do you have a book written by an author with the same initials as you? Caraval by Stephanie Garber, The Smoke Thieves by Sally Green

Do you have a book of short stories? Because you love to hate me edited by Amerii, All Out - The no-longer secret stories of queer teens throughout the ages edited by Saundra Mitchell

Do you have a book that is between 500-510 pages long? The Last Magician by Lisa Maxwell (500p.) and Our Dark Duet by Victoria Schwab (510p.) 

Do you have a book that was turned into a movie? So many! The Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer, The Host by Stephenie Meyer, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Abertalli, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, LotR,The Hobbit... I’m sure there’s more.

Do you have a graphic novel? Uuh, I still haven’t fully gotten the difference between ‘Graphic Novels’ and ‘Comic books’. I own a shit-ton of the latter (Mostly but not exclusively Manga). I guess Twilight part 1+2 and New Moon part 1 adapted by Young Kim is a safe bet? As for a comic book example, The Complete Elfquest Vol. 1-5 by Richard and Wendy Pini.

Do you have a book written by 2 or more authors? What if it’s us by Becky Abertalli and Adam Silvera

[yasbxxgie]

The forgotten story of Pure Hell, America’s first black punk band The four-piece lived with the New York Dolls and played with Sid Vicious, but they’ve been largely written out of cultural history

An essential part of learning history is questioning it, asking what has become part of our cultural memory and what might have been left out. When it comes to the history of punk music, there are few bands who have been as overlooked as Pure Hell.

The band’s story began in West Philadelphia in 1974, when four teenagers – lead vocalist Kenny ‘Stinker’ Gordon, bassist Lenny ‘Steel’ Boles, guitarist Preston ‘Chip Wreck’ Morris and drummer Michael ‘Spider’ Sanders, set out to follow in the footsteps of their musical idols. A shared obsession with the sounds of Iggy, Bowie, Cooper, and Hendrix inspired them to create music that was louder, faster and more provocative than even those artists’ most experimental records. Pure Hell’s unique sound led them to New York, where they became characters in a seminal subculture recognised today as punk. As musicians of colour, their contribution to a predominately white underground scene is all the more significant. “We were the first black punk band in the world,” says Boles. “We were the ones who paid the dues for it, we broke the doors down. We were genuinely the first. And we still get no credit for it.”

The title of the ‘first black punk band’ has, in recent years, been informally given to Detroit-based Death, whose music was mostly unheralded at the time but has since been rediscovered and praised for its progressive ideas. But while Death were creating proto-punk music in isolation in the early 1970s, Pure Hell was completely entrenched in the New York City underground scene, living and performing alongside the legends of American punk. Arriving the same month that Patti Smith and Television began their two-month residencies at CBGB and leaving just after Nancy Spungen’s murder, Pure Hell’s active years in the city aligned perfectly with the birth and death of a dynamic chapter of music history. “I don’t want to be remembered just because we were black,” says Kenny Gordon. “I want to be remembered for being a part of the first tier of punk in the 70s.”

Being just 155km from Greenwich Village, Philadelphia was somewhat of a pipeline of New York subculture – Gordon remembers his teenage years at the movie theatre watching John Waters films like Polyester and Pink Flamingos, and hanging out at Artemis, a spot frequented by Philly scenesters like Nancy Spungen and Neon Leon. “I heard (The Rolling Stones’) ‘Satisfaction’ and knew it was the kind of music I wanted to play,” recalls bassist Lenny Boles. “I was too poor to afford instruments, so if someone had one, I would befriend them.”

The quad quickly gained notoriety on their home turf. “Growing up in West Philadelphia, which was all black, we were some of the craziest guys you could have possibly seen walking the streets back then,” says Gordon. “We dressed in drag and wore wigs, basically daring people to bother us. People in the neighbourhood would say, ‘Don’t go into houses with those guys, you may not come out!’”

Pure Hell swan dove into the New York underground scene in 1975, in pursuit of the people, places, and sounds they’d read about for years in the pages of Rock Scene and Cream magazine. The band moved into the Chelsea Hotel, the temporary home of a long list of influential characters, including Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Edie Sedgwick, Patti Smith, and Robert Mapplethorpe. Their first gig in the city was hosted at Frenzy’s thrift, a storefront on St. Marks place, where guitarist Preston Morris “rather memorably caught the amplifier on fire due to a combination of maximum volume and faulty wires”, says Gordon. Drummer Michael Sanders’ friendship with Neon Leon led the band to the New York Dolls, who were acting as mentors for younger artists like Debbie Harry and Richard Hell at the time. Pure Hell was soon invited to perform for the Dolls in their loft.

“Honestly, we were scared to death of them,” Boles says. “When we walked in, they were all dressed up, smoking joints and watching The Untouchables on TV. Fortunately, we played and blew them away.” Gordon adds: “Underneath their outer appearance, they were just a bunch of guys from Queens. We had the same lingo. We were both really street and really genuine. It’s like, they were white but playing black, and we were just the opposite. We were innovative and they definitely appreciated us for it.”

After being kicked out of the Chelsea for not paying rent, Pure Hell moved into the Dolls’ loft. “Everybody hated us at first. We had a bad reputation because of our association with the New York Dolls, who were doing a lot of dope at the time,” says Boles. “The way we looked, everybody thought we were in a gang. Actually, we used to live in gang territory in West Philly, and people were always trying to get us to join. We never did. And with a name like Pure Hell, people thought we were devil worshippers.”

Gordon adds: “This was New York City, this was punk. People don’t realise it was ruthlessly competitive. It was dog eat dog.” Although they felt that few people were on their side, their kinship with Johnny Thunders led to numerous gigs at Andy Warhol’s haunt, Max’s Kansas City, and Mother’s, a Chelsea gay bar turned punk club, where Blondie first performed. The band was featured in a number of publications, namely Warhol’s own Interview magazine, marking their ‘place’ in a scene cultural influencers.

Despite their growing presence in the underground, Pure Hell still didn’t have a manager. After reading a biography of Jimi Hendrix by Curtis Knight, the singer and frontman of Hendrix’s first band The Squires, Lenny Boles chased down the author’s address and arrived on his doorstep. Boles’ bold act of promotion earned them management from the man credited with Hendrix’s discovery. Kathy Knight, Curtis’s then-partner in life and business, recalls her ex-husband’s first impressions of Pure Hell. “He loved them immediately,” she says. “After Lenny knocked on the door, Curtis brought me to one of the clubs where they were performing on Bleecker Street. Stinker (Kenny Gordon) almost landed in my lap when he did a backflip off the stage. We were so blown away that we put everything we had into them at the time.”

Those who saw Pure Hell in action describe their shows similarly. Gordon’s background in gymnastics gave them an unparalleled stage presence, with choreography that he says he performed “crash dummy style”. Pure Hell’s sound was harsher than their peers and predecessors and is today recognised as proto-hardcore. “We were like four Jimi Hendrixes, and Curtis knew it,” Gordon says. “We aimed for impact, just because we could. A lot of people at the time couldn’t play like Chip, doing Hennessy licks and everything. Not everyone could copy that.”

Curtis and Kathy Knight were so enthusiastic about Pure Hell that they sacrificed three months of rent money for studio sessions. Knight organised Pure Hell’s first European tour in 1978, which resulted in their single “These Boots are Made for Walking” reaching number four in the UK alternative charts. Later, they opened for Sid Vicious at Max’s during his New York residency. It would end up being his last public appearance, and Pure Hell found themselves looped into the media circus surrounding Nancy Spungen’s death. “We were on the second page of the majority of the tabloids, like New Musical Express, Sounds,and Melody Maker,” says Gordon.

But beyond their association with Vicious, Pure Hell’s European tour was a major success in part due to Curtis Knight’s strategic marketing campaign, which sensationalised their race. After arriving, Knight created a big poster with an image of the band taken by legendary rock photographer Bob Gruen in front of Buckingham Palace with the slogan: “From the United States of America, the world’s only black punk band”. Boles was angry at the time. “I said to Curtis, ‘Why do you have to call us a black band?’ Of course, that’s what we were, but we really didn’t think in those terms at the time. People in Europe were curious about the band before we even arrived. They were looking at it like a novelty. They didn’t believe we really existed.”

Boles says the band was “plastered by this campaign”, but were able to reap its fruits while touring Holland and the UK. Landing smack dab in the middle of the London punk scene, Pure Hell were welcomed by a parallel movement that had clearer political convictions and more dynamic cross-cultural discourse. “All the punks listened to reggae,” says Boles. “It was about all rebel music.” Gordon adds that “people, incorrectly, view punk as this angry, white, urban, male genre. Black culture is really the source of punk, and a lot of people don’t recognise it – or don’t want to recognise it.”

Although they eventually felt accepted in New York, and even celebrated in Europe, the legacy of Jim Crow still haunted the industry, where genres remained segregated. “We experienced racism, but didn’t know it at the time,” says Lenny Boles. “We were watching all of these bands around us, with far less talent, get signed. It had us second guessing ourselves, thinking we weren’t good enough. Obviously we were. It was a while before we realised we were getting snubbed.” While their white peers were being cut cheques, Pure Hell found themselves courted by a number of record labels, all of whom insisted they change their music in order to align with racial stereotypes. “Everybody was trying to make us do this Motown thing, saying like, ‘You guys are black so you’ve gotta do something that’s danceable,’” Boles adds. “They kept trying to make us more ‘funky’. Everything we liked had nothing to do with dance music. We were not having it. So we opted not to get signed.”

Integrity and profitability don’t often go hand-in-hand, and Pure Hell’s refusal to comply with the industry’s limitations meant they sacrificed career opportunities. After a second European tour in 1979, the band suffered a fall-out with Knight. A messy legal conflict resulted in Knight flying back to the US alone, with the band’s master tapes in tow. Pure Hell remained in Europe without any of the rights, or access, to their recordings, which Kathy Knight salvaged after her husband attempted to destroy them.

Pure Hell eventually finagled their way back to the US, where they settled in Los Angeles. Although they played historic bills at the Masque (LA’s equivalent to CBGB) with iconic groups like the Germs, the Cramps, and the Dead Boys, Pure Hell lost their momentum. With no management, no record deal, and no access to their recorded output, the band felt the flames of Pure Hell die out. “It was all totally over by 1980,” says Kenny Gordon. “Really, punk died with Nancy’s murder. Everyone was burning the candle from both ends. You had to be extreme to be in those kinds of circles.” Bad Brains’ explosion onto the music scene in the early 80s also left Pure Hell feeling robbed of their title of ‘the first black punk band’. “You know, we took the blow for being black, so why didn’t they give it to us in the end?” Boles asks.

As decades passed and history books were written, Pure Hell’s memory faded to legend. But in the early 2000s, Kathy Knight fatefully decided to auction off Pure Hell’s master tapes on eBay. Their unreleased album Noise Addiction was purchased by an enthusiastic Mike Schneider of Welfare Records. “Mike wanted them so badly he came himself to pick them up,” Knight recalls. Pure Hell’s legacy has also been promoted and protected by hardcore legend Henry Rollins of Black Flag, who tracked down the original acetate of the band’s first single and reissued it on his label 2.13.61, in collaboration with In the Red Records, last year. Rollins first learned of the band’s existence in 1979, after seeing their single at Yesterday & Today Records in Rockville, Maryland, with his friend Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi. He remained on the lookout for traces of the band for over 30 years.

“At auction time, I was able to secure the record,” Rollins says. “I listened to it and was amazed at how good it sounded. I checked in with Kenny (Gordon) and he confirmed it was the only source for the two songs.” Beyond simply highlighting and celebrating the rare black punk bands of the time, Pure Hell held particular significance to Rollins because their urban myth was real. “The rumour was that they had made an album and that it was sitting in a closet,” he says. “Noise Addiction, released in 2006, decades after it had been recorded, is really great. If the album had come out when they made it, that would have been a game changer. I believe (it) would have had a tremendous impact. It’s one of those missed opportunity stories.”

In addition to Rollins, indie talent rep Gina Parker-Lawton ranks as one of Pure Hell’s greatest advocates. Parker-Lawton met drummer Michael Sanders on Sunset Boulevard in the 80s, and counted him as a friend during their overlapping years in LA. It was after she learned of Sanders’ death in 2003 that Parker-Lawton made contact with the other band members and became their publicist. “They were just kind of overlooked in all of the punk history books,” she says. “After learning their story and what they had actually accomplished, by being the first truly all-black punk band, I wanted to ensure they were remembered.” Parker-Lawton has since been advocating for their deserved place in music history, and recently helped secure their induction into the Smithsonian African American Museum of History and Culture. Their induction will be marked by the donation of Sanders’ leather jacket, which he wore on tour in Europe and around LA.

Pure Hell’s story beckons essential questions about the integrity of our cultural memory, reminding us that “history” is written within the constructs of unjust society. “It’s just so important to me that history be correct,” says Parker-Lawton. “Taking the risks that they took, daring to be so different, they were outlaws and true pioneers. When people are that true to their art and that brave, it has to be recognised.” Although their musical careers didn’t necessarily bring wealth or fame, Boles and Gordon describe their years in Pure Hell as paramount. “I had so much fun, it doesn’t matter that I never saw a penny for it,” he says. “For us, it wasn’t about making money. It was about following our hearts and doing exactly what we wanted to do.”

Images:

Pure Hell courtesy of Pure Hell

Pure Hell courtesy of Pure Hell

Pure Hell with Sid Vicious in Melody Maker magazine. Early punk artists often flirted with Nazi symbolism for shock value.

Pure Hell live at Max’s Kansas City

Pure Hell courtesy of Pure Hell

[papermoonloveslucy]

CHARITY REVUE

March 11, 1949

“Charity Revue” (aka “Red Cross Benefit Revue”) is episode #34 of the radio series MY FAVORITE HUSBAND broadcast on March 11, 1949 on the CBS radio network.

Synopsis ~ Mr. Atterbury asks George to work up a song and dance routine for the local Red Cross Charity Review. At the same time Liz’s women’s club recruits her to perform. 

Note: This program was used as a basis for the “I Love Lucy” episode “The Benefit” (ILL S1;E13) filmed on November 30, 1951 and first aired on January 7, 1952.

“My Favorite Husband” was based on the novels Mr. and Mrs. Cugat, the Record of a Happy Marriage (1940) and Outside Eden (1945) by Isabel Scott Rorick, which had previously been adapted into the film Are Husbands Necessary? (1942). “My Favorite Husband” was first broadcast as a one-time special on July 5, 1948. Lucille Ball and Lee Bowman played the characters of Liz and George Cugat, and a positive response to this broadcast convinced CBS to launch “My Favorite Husband” as a series. Bowman was not available Richard Denning was cast as George. On January 7, 1949, confusion with bandleader Xavier Cugat prompted a name change to Cooper. On this same episode Jell-O became its sponsor. A total of 124 episodes of the program aired from July 23, 1948 through March 31, 1951. After about ten episodes had been written, writers Fox and Davenport departed and three new writers took over – Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Pugh, and head writer/producer Jess Oppenheimer. In March 1949 Gale Gordon took over the existing role of George’s boss, Rudolph Atterbury, and Bea Benaderet was added as his wife, Iris. CBS brought “My Favorite Husband” to television in 1953, starring Joan Caulfield and Barry Nelson as Liz and George Cooper. The television version ran two-and-a-half seasons, from September 1953 through December 1955, running concurrently with “I Love Lucy.” It was produced live at CBS Television City for most of its run, until switching to film for a truncated third season filmed (ironically) at Desilu and recasting Liz Cooper with Vanessa Brown.

MAIN CAST

Lucille Ball (Liz Cooper) was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. She began her screen career in 1933 and was known in Hollywood as ‘Queen of the B’s’ due to her many appearances in ‘B’ movies. With Richard Denning, she starred in a radio program titled “My Favorite Husband” which eventually led to the creation of “I Love Lucy,” a television situation comedy in which she co-starred with her real-life husband, Latin bandleader Desi Arnaz. The program was phenomenally successful, allowing the couple to purchase what was once RKO Studios, re-naming it Desilu. When the show ended in 1960 (in an hour-long format known as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”) so did Lucy and Desi’s marriage. In 1962, hoping to keep Desilu financially solvent, Lucy returned to the sitcom format with “The Lucy Show,” which lasted six seasons. She followed that with a similar sitcom “Here’s Lucy” co-starring with her real-life children, Lucie and Desi Jr., as well as Gale Gordon, who had joined the cast of “The Lucy Show” during season two. Before her death in 1989, Lucy made one more attempt at a sitcom with “Life With Lucy,” also with Gordon.

Richard Denning (George Cooper) was born Louis Albert Heindrich Denninger Jr., in Poughkeepsie, New York. When he was 18 months old, his family moved to Los Angeles. Plans called for him to take over his father’s garment manufacturing business, but he developed an interest in acting. Denning enlisted in the US Navy during World War II. He is best known for his  roles in various science fiction and horror films of the 1950s. Although he teamed with Lucille Ball on radio in “My Favorite Husband,” the two never acted together on screen. While “I Love Lucy” was on the air, he was seen on another CBS TV series, “Mr. & Mrs. North.” From 1968 to 1980 he played the Governor on “Hawaii 5-0″, his final role. He died in 1998 at age 84.

Gale Gordon (Rudolph Atterbury, George’s Boss) had worked with Lucille Ball on “The Wonder Show” on radio in 1938. One of the front-runners to play Fred Mertz on “I Love Lucy,” he eventually played Alvin Littlefield, owner of the Tropicana, during two episodes in 1952. After playing a Judge in an episode of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” in 1958, he would re-team with Lucy for all of her subsequent series’: as Theodore J. Mooney in ”The Lucy Show”; as Harrison Otis Carter in “Here’s Lucy”; and as Curtis McGibbon on “Life with Lucy.” Gordon died in 1995 at the age of 89.

This is Gordon’s first appearance as Rudolph Atterbury, a role previous played by Hans Conried. 

Bea Benadaret does not appear in this episode. 

Ruth Perrott (Katie, the Maid) was also later seen on “I Love Lucy.” She first played Mrs. Pomerantz (above right), a member of the surprise investigating committee for the Society Matrons League in “Pioneer Women” (ILL S1;E25), as one of the member of the Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League in “Lucy and Ethel Buy the Same Dress” (ILL S3;E3), and also played a nurse when “Lucy Goes to the Hospital” (ILL S2;E16). She died in 1996 at the age of 96.

Bob LeMond (Announcer) also served as the announcer for the pilot episode of “I Love Lucy”. When the long-lost pilot was finally discovered in 1990, a few moments of the opening narration were damaged and lost, so LeMond – fifty years later – recreated the narration for the CBS special and subsequent DVD release.

GUEST CAST 

Gloria Blondell (Miss Marilyn Williams) was born to theatrical parents in New York City in 1910. She is the younger sister of Joan Blondell, also an actress. On radio, she did 26 episodes of seven different series. Blondell saw most of her work in the 1940s as the voice of Disney’s ‘Daisy Duck’ for Disney, doing six short films as Donald’s girlfriend. Blondell’s only screen collaboration with Lucille Ball was in “The Anniversary Present” (ILL S2;E3) in 1952, playing the Ricardo’s upstairs neighbor Grace Foster. 

Giving the character the first name of Marilyn is no doubt meant to remind listeners of up-and-coming sex symbol Marilyn Monroe. 

Gerald Mohr (Gerald Mohr) played psychiatrist Henry Molin, who masquerades as Ricky’s old friend Chuck Stewart in “The Inferiority Complex” (ILL S2;E18 ~ February 2, 1953), his only appearance on "I Love Lucy”. In return, Lucy and Desi appeared on his show “Sunday Showcase” that same year. He also made an appearance on “The Lucy Show” in “Lucy and Phil Harris” (TLS S6;E20 ~ February 5, 1968).

Mohr uses his own name for this appearance. 

EPISODE

ANNOUNCER: “As we look in on the Coopers this morning, George is still upstairs getting dressed. Liz is in the kitchen, talking to Katie the Maid.”

Liz tells Katie that she’s excited for the upcoming Red Cross benefit. She is planning to do an act with George representing her club. The only detail is that she hasn’t told him about it yet!  

The Red Cross is a humanitarian organization founded in 1863 to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and to prevent and alleviate human suffering. American Red Cross posters were a favorite of the Desilu set decorators on “I Love Lucy”. They can be glimpsed in the subway during “Lucy and the Loving Cup” (ILL S6;E12), on the walls of the rented hall in “Ricky Has Labor Pains” (S2;E14), in the butcher shop in “The Freezer” (S1;E29), and on the Westport train station in “Lucy Misses the Mertzes” (S6;E17).  

Liz goes into the dining room and sweet-talks George, covering him with kisses. He is immediately suspicious. Liz tells him that a woman in her club is doing an act with her husband for the Red Cross revue. George laughs and says the man will make a fool of himself - until Liz tells him that the man is him!

GEORGE: “You know if there’s one thing I hate more than that club of yours is amateur theatrics!” 

Liz reminds him that he had the lead in his college musical and he was a big hit. She sings a few notes of “Boola Boola” to remind him. 

"Boola Boola" is a football song of Yale University. The song was composed in 1900 and is generally attributed to Allan M. Hirsh, Yale Class of 1901. The song immediately caught on, soon being played by John Philip Sousa. It sold more sheet music in the first half of 1901 than any other song in the country, and became indelibly associated with Yale athletics. Is George a Yale man?

George is still reluctant, but Liz tries to convince him.

LIZ: “Jolson made a comeback. How about you?” 

Al Jolson (1886-1950) was a Lithuanian-born singer, actor, and comedian. Unabashedly billed as the World’s Greatest Entertainer, Jolson was the most successful musical comedy star on Broadway in the 1910s and 1920s. He was also a major radio star and the most popular solo recording artist of the 1920s, his biggest hits being “Sonny Boy”, “April Showers,” and “Swanee.” He inaugurated sound motion pictures with The Jazz Singer (1927) and made a series of musical films. He enjoyed a spectacular career comeback in the years before his death, largely due to the film biographies The Jolson Story (1946) and Jolson Sings Again (1949). Jolson’s use of blackface, dating from his early years in minstrel shows, made him a controversial figure.

George refuses to give in. 

At the bank, Mr. Atterbury calls George into his office. He tells George he should work up a song and dance routine with his wife to represent the bank in the Red Cross Revue. George says he can’t do it, but Mr. Atterbury threatens to demote him if he refuses. George admits defeat and reluctantly agrees. 

Back at home, Liz hangs up the phone after telling her club the she won’t be doing the act after all. George comes home cheerfully singing “There’s No Business Like Show Business”. 

“There’s No Business Like Show Business” is a song from Irving Berlin’s 1949 Broadway hit Annie Get Your Gun. It was introduced by Ethel Merman as Annie Oakley. In “Lucy Has Her Eyes Examined” (ILL S3;E11), Lucy Ricardo and the Mertzes burst into an rendition of the song as an impromptu audition for a Broadway producer. The song would also be quoted (not sung) by Lucy Ricardo in “Baby Pictures” (ILL S3;E5) and “Lucy Teaches Ethel Merman To Sing” (TLS S2;E18).  Merman and the cast of “The Lucy Show” perform it in “Ethel Merman and the Boy Scout Show” (TLS S2;E19 ~ February 10, 1964).

GEORGE: “Hiya, Liz!” LIZ: “Hiya, Bing.” GEORGE: “How do the old pipes sound?” LIZ: “Like they could use a little Drano.”

Liz is referring to singer, actor and comedian Bing Crosby, one of the biggest media stars of the 1940s. On “I Love Lucy” a Hollywood-bound Ricky called Crosby a bum - but dressed like him all the same. In “Lucy Takes a Cruise to Havana” (1957) Susie MacNamara tries to convince Lucy to become a Bing Crosby fan instead Rudy Vallee. Crosby’s name was mentioned on “The Lucy Show” and “Here’s Lucy.” The Drackett Company first launched the Drano product in 1923. Its purpose was to clear clogged pipes (not the human sort). Drano was originally produced in crystallized form.

Liz is surprised that George has suddenly changed his ‘tune’ and now wants to do the Revue with Liz as the star. He even has a song picked out for them. He sits at the piano and begins to play and sing “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart”. 

"Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart" is a 1934 song with words and music by James F. Hanley. It was introduced in the Broadway revue Thumbs Up! The most notable recordings were made by Judy Garland, who recorded it numerous times, including in the 1938 film Listen, Darling in 1939. It later became a standard number in her concerts and TV shows.

Liz only has to sing one word “Zing!” After a few choruses, she stops the rehearsal, unhappy with her small part. 

On television, the song was “Auf Wiedersehen, My Dear” with Lucy only allowed to sing the word “Auf”! 

George agrees to find another opening song. They start to work on their comedy patter. While rehearsing the jokes, Liz realizes that George is telling all the jokes while she is the straight man not saying anything funny. 

LIZ: “I’m Liz Cooper, not Harpo Marx!” 

Harpo Marx (born Adolph Marx) was the second of five performing brothers. Harpo was so named because of his musical talent on the Harp, but he also never spoke in his comedy. In 1922, he and his brothers left vaudeville to perform on Broadway, and soon landed in Hollywood making movies together throughout the 1930s and 40s. Lucille Ball starred with the Marx Brothers in Room Service (1938) and Harpo famously guest-starred on “I Love Lucy” in 1955. 

GEORGE: “What would Amos be without Andy? What would Lum be without Abner?” 

Amos 'n' Andy is a radio and television sitcom set in Harlem. The original radio show, which ran from 1928 to 1960, was created, written and voiced by two white actors, Freeman Gosden (Amos) and Charles Correll (Andy). When the show moved to television, black actors took over the roles of Amos (Alvin Childress) and Andy (Spencer Williams). Lum and Abner was a radio comedy created by and starring Chester Lauck (as Abner Peabody) and Norris Goff (as Lum Edwards) that aired from 1931 to 1954. Modeled on life in a small town in Arkansas, the show proved immensely popular. 

Liz says that since they are representing her club, she needs to have the larger role. George confesses that Mr. Atterbury wants him to represent the bank. Liz says the act is off. George says he find one of the girls at the bank to be his partner. Liz assumes the ‘girls’ at the bank are old fuddy duddies! Next day, Miss Marilyn Williams (Gloria Blondell) arrives to rehearse. Her fuddy isn’t duddy at all! Liz tells Miss Williams that George left on a trip to South America. Just then, George bounds in and says he only went to put the car in the garage. 

LIZ: “I always get confused. Our car is a Reo.” 

Liz is punning on the homophones Rio (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and Reo (the make of automobile). Reo (sometimes seen REO) was founded by Ransom E. Olds in August 1904. Reo manufactured automobiles from 1905 to 1936, including the famous Reo Speed-Wagon, an ancestor of the pickup truck, which gave its name to the 1970s rock and roll group REO Speedwagon. Although World War II truck orders enabled it to make something of a comeback, the company remained unstable in the postwar era. In 1975, they filed for bankruptcy.

Miss Williams and George go into the den and close the door to rehearse while Liz and Katie listen on the landing just outside, peeking through the transom. They hear carefree laughter from the room. George and Miss Williams are rehearsing a love scene when Liz bursts in offering them a snack. Miss Williams says that Liz is acting jealous. Liz calls her an ‘older woman’. 

MISS WILLIAMS: “You don’t have to get nasty with me, Liz Cooper. I’m not going to steal your son away.” LIZ: “My son! Listen here, you poor man’s Marjorie Main!” MISS WILLIAMS: “You start anything and I’ll black your eyes to match your hair!” LIZ: “My hair is red.” MISS WILLIAMS: “I’m talking about the roots!” 

Marjorie Main (1890-1975) was then a 49 year-old character actress who earned a 1948 Oscar nomination for The Egg and I. In 1954 she was a supporting player in Lucy and Desi’s The Long, Long Trailer (1953). 

Next day, Liz has invited over a handsome man (Gerald Mohr) to rehearse a ‘passionate love scene with her’. It turns out that George and Gerald were fraternity brothers! George decides to sit by and watch Liz and Gerald rehearse. 

The scene is similar to Mohr’s appearance as a psychiatrist on “I Love Lucy,” where he flatters Lucy and inadvertently makes Ricky jealous as part of his ‘treatment’.  

George tries to distract Gerald by asking about former fraternity brothers. George and Gerald think the love scene will get a million laughs, which makes Liz dissolve into tears. 

The night of the Red Cross show, Liz tells Katie she’s going to be George’s partner no matter what!  George is on right after Evelyn and Her Magic Kazoo. Liz tells Miss Williams that George wants to see her in his dressing room - then locks her in!  

On an early episode of “I Love Lucy,” a jealous Lucy also locked her husband’s performance partner away - in a storage closet - so that she could take her place. Much later, an envious Lucy locked Tallulah Bankhead in a backstage bathroom so she could steal the spotlight during the Westport PTA show. 

Liz tells George Miss Williams couldn’t make it and she will talk her place. They go onstage. The music connecting the jokes is "When You Wore a Tulip and I Wore a Big Red Rose".

"When You Wore a Tulip and I Wore a Big Red Rose" was written in 1914 by Jack Mahoney and Percy Wenrich. At the time of broadcast (1949) it had been heard in sixteen films, including the 1942 film For Me And My Gal starring Judy Garland and 1949′s Chicken Every Sunday starring William Frawley (Fred Mertz). On “My Favorite Husband” it will also be heard in “Liz Writes A Song” (January 27, 1950). 

This time, however, Liz has stolen all of George’s punch lines!  

GEORGE: “A tramp came up to me and said he hadn’t had a bite in days.” LIZ: “What’d you do? Bite him?”

GEORGE: “Did you hear about the big fire at the shoe factory?” LIZ: “I’ll bet some heal started it!” GEORGE (hushed to Liz): “You’re supposed to say ‘Who stated it’.” LIZ (loudly): “Two hundred souls were lost!” 

George tries to outsmart Liz with a joke she’s never heard.

GEORGE: “I know a girl so dumb she thinks a football coach has four wheels!”  LIZ: “How many wheels does it have?” 

These are the same jokes that will be used in the television version “The Benefit” (ILL S1;E13) although the interlocutory music was changed to “We’ll Build A Bungalow”. The Arnazes loved the material so much that they started doing the "Songs and Witty Sayings" routine at various industry functions and charity events including the televised "Dinner with the President" event on November 25, 1953. The material was even part of the unreleased “I Love Lucy” movie. 

End of Episode

[isnappedmypencil]

Reading Tag

I was tagged to do this by @neoncathedrals and I’m so happy about it! Thank you!

1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest?

Hmm. Well, that would be the first book I got after I lost a bunch of my books got lost, so that would have to be Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next?

Current: “Stiger: Tales of the Seventh, Part One” by Marc Alan Edelheit. The interesting thing about this is that I got this book for free by the author himself at SuperCon in Raleigh this month. He was handing them out. He signed it and even wrote my name in it. Isn’t that awesome? Last: “Boy Robot” by Simon Curtis. Before coming across this gem at my library, I was unaware that Simon Curtis had written a book. I’ve always been a big fan of his music and I checked this out from my library with no hesitation. Next: The next book I want to read is “Six of Crows” because so many people have been talking about how good it was and how interesting the characters are. I need to get my hands on it.

3. Which book does everyone like and you hated?

Sorry to be cliché here, but Twilight. I just couldn’t stand it. I read up until the end of Eclipse and couldn’t read the next book. The writing bothered me, the characters were boring and stupid, and side characters had way more interesting back stories than the one I was reading. I mean Jasper was turned into a vampire to lead an army of the undead in a series of territory wars in Mexico. I would have read the shit out of that! But, noo! I had to read about Bella who doesn’t know how to identity an abusive relationship and Edward, the textbook example of a stalker, who decided that going to high school was a smart way to spend eternity. Ugh.

4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but you probably won’t?

The Mortal Instruments series. I keep looking at it on the shelves and almost getting it, but I just keep finding a way to convince myself that I’ll do it later.

5. Which book are you saving for “retirement?”

I’m not really saving any book for retirement.

6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end?

Wait until the end. I like to earn my endings. I learned my lesson in my early days.

7. Acknowledgements: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside?

They are definitely interesting and very important. I like reading about the people who helped make the books I like possible. They are all wonderful for it.

8. Which book character would you switch places with?

After a long time, I decided to pick Kody from “Infinity” of the Chronicles of Nick by Sherilyn Kenyon. I do like Kody and she was important to the series, but if i could switch with her just for a bit so I could hang around Nick and Caleb (Sarcastic Sass and Sassy Sarcasm respectively), I would.

9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)?

Yes! The Junie B. Jones books! Not only are they a staple of my earliest elementary school years, they are the first books that made me want to read the whole series. It was the first full series I ever read.

10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way.

At first I thought that my answer to Question 2 was the only fit for this, but then I remembered one other way. I don’t know if this counts as interesting, but it definitely caught me off guard and I thought it was strange. So, in eleventh grade I had this English teacher who knew I was gonna be a bit of trouble from day one. I had tuned out her “First Day Speech” by accident and was staring off into space. When I came back, everyone was starting at me and the teacher said that she had never seen anyone make a face like that in her class ever. To this day, I still have no clue what face I was making. Anyway, I was averaging a C in her class and she wasn’t too happy about it. I love English classes. I love reading and writing and doing essays. But I am bad at paying attention and I forget things easily. And I procrastinate. Like Hell. So, I wasn’t her favorite student and she was often very short with me. At the end of the year I had run to her classroom to see what my finals grade had been. When I got there she was packing up. She saw me in the doorway, looked me over (the panting, messy, wide-eyed, twitching spectacle that I was), raised an eyebrow, pulled something out of her bag, and held it toward me. It was a book. “Across the Nightingale Floor: Tales of the Otori, Book One” by Lian Hearn. Apparently, she saw this book somewhere, thought that I would like it, and BOUGHT it for me. Pristine condition and all. Then she turned, called my finals score over her shoulder flippantly, and dismissed me. I really love this book. (TL;DR: I got an awesome book about a young Japanese assassin from a teacher that didn’t really like me, but apparently watched me enough to know my tastes.)

11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person?

Well, I did once lend my friend my copy of “Magic Street” by Orson Scott Card because she is an overachieving, overworked AP student and the only child of a single mother who pushed her too hard and I thought she would like it and be able to sit and read it and maybe chill for a bit. I never got it back, though.

12. Which book has been with you to the most places?

I carried my copy of the biography of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow everywhere I went for a long time, especially when I went to UNCG, because I was rancid piece of Hamiltrash and wanted to take any chance I got to bring up Hamilton to strangers and talk about interesting things that I found in the biography.

13. Any “required reading” you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad ten years later?

Not really. Actually, it was middle school where I started reading Shakespeare and didn’t like it and then in high school I had an English teacher (not the one from Question 10) who actually went in and explained things and made me realise how funny and interesting Shakespeare actually was. Now I love reading his plays.

14. What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a book?

Aside from bookmarks or unexpected porn, I’ve never found anything strange in a book.

15. Used or brand new?

I don’t mind used books. They’re cheaper, sometimes free. I also love new books. I don’t really have a preference.

16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses?

Confession time: I have never actually read a Stephen King book. So, yeah, I don’t have an opinion.

17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book?

I honestly can’t say I have. See, I don’t trust movie adaptations anymore, so I tend to stay away from them. Sometimes I’ll see a movie that I didn’t know was based off of a book, read the book, and still like the book better. So, no.

18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid?

The Percy Jackson books! Jack-in-the-Box Jesus Christ! Okay, I love the Percy Jackson series. Love it with all my heart. And the Heroes of Olympus books, too. So, those movies make me so angry. If that was how they were going to treat the story, they should have never made those movies in the fucking first place.

19. Have you ever read a book that’s made you hungry, cookbooks being excluded from this question?

Damn. I was totally going to say “Fifty Shades of Chicken”. Unless you count some manga, I can’t think of any books that made me hungry.

20. Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take?

Gotta say my friends. They know what I like or what I might like and I’ve found many great books through them. Also, some of my old teachers that I still talk to.

Okay, time to tag this thing. @alextriestowritestuff @byjillianmaria @quilowrites @acfawkes @december-soulstice @christinawritesfiction @boothewriter @malloryblaise

And anyone else who wants to do this, I’d love to see them!

(Since I don’t have a laptop, things aren’t bold and I can’t seem to find out how to make them bold. So, sorry about that.)

[grippingflesh]

Control (2007, Anton Corbijn)