#Samuel Merwin

[asfaltics]

putterings, 421

                                                                                  all ready now                                                                   about the fire with a show of keeping himself occupied                                                         about the table, he came over to                                                 little lamps with steel instruments like knitting-needles. She saw                                         parts of the gliders Humphrey had been puttering with for a long time.                                 Three years, he had once said                         over her make-up box.                 She seemed really confused.         Finally she turned, said, with averted glance “Stop puttering. Come over here.”  

puutterings     |     their index     |     these derivations     |     20240419  

[puutterings]

all ready now

                                                                  about the fire with a show of keeping himself occupied   ₁                                                         about the table, he came over to   ₂                                                 little lamps with steel instruments like knitting-needles. She saw   ₃                                         parts of the gliders Humphrey had been puttering with for a long time.                                 Three years, he had once said   ₄                         over her make-up box.                 She seemed really confused.         Finally she turned, said, with averted glance   ₅ “Stop puttering. Come over here.”   ₆

—

sources, all Samuel Merwin

1 The Road to Frontenac (1901) : 91 NYPL copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link 2 His Little World : The Story of Hunch Badeau (1903) : 23 NYPL copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link 3 The Charmed Life of Miss Austin (1914) : 17 NYPL copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link 4 Henry is Twenty : A Further Episodic History of Henry (1918) : 215 NYPL copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link 5 The Moment of Beauty (1925) : 294 U Michigan copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link 6 The Citadel : A Romance of Unrest (1912) : 407 LoC copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link

—

more at 421  

[metamorphesque]

🌼 poems (and a love letter) that helped me live through july 🌼

One Or Two Things, Mary Oliver

Kitchen Song, Laura Kasischke

The Breathing, Denise Levertov

Trapped, Charles Bukowski

Precognition, Margaret Atwood

Rain, John Burnside

Looking, Walking, Being, Denise Levertov

At Joan's, Frank O'Hara

You, Carol Ann Duffy

Time, Louise Gluck

Effort at Speech Between Two People, Muriel Rukeyser

Still, A. R. Ammons

Sonnet XL, Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sonnet XLIII, Edna St. Vincent Millay

Listen, W. S. Merwin

A Thin Line, Ryuichi Tamura (translated by Samuel Grolmes and Yumiko Tsumura)

Driveway, Richard Siken

The Sentence, Anna Akhmatova

Wanting to Die, Anne Sexton

Eating Together, Kim Addonizio

The Look, Sara Teasdale

The Starry Night, Anne Sexton

Hammond B3 Organ Cistern, Gabrielle Calvocoressi

Richard Feynman's love letter to his deceased wife, 1946

[fallout--alley--youth--zone]

Name Symbolism in Gone

Sam Temple

Samuel's story in the Bible is actually kind of interesting.* He was the first of the prophets and the last of the judges (not a king, no idea where MG got that from), promised to God before he was even born and obedient to Him until the moment he died. He appointed two kings of Israel: King Saul, who was eventually diagraced, and the humble King David**, though he died before David was actually made king.

Does this mean anything in relation to the Sam Temple we know and love? I don't know. It could be alluding to Sam's more hands-off approach in the later books, but more likely MG just picked a random name from the Hebrew Bible because Jewish(TM).

*Disclaimer: I am an atheist who was raised by an atheist who was also raised by an atheist. I know nothing about the Bible, or really any religion for that matter. My information regarding this may not be entirely accurate. Also, I may explain Bible stuff that's common knowledge to you because it's all new to me. This is not me being stupid or talking down to you. Thank you.

**Random bolding helps me focus. Ditto for all the bright colors. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.***

***footnoting my own writing is really really fun.

Caine Soren / "David Temple"

Caine's name symbolism is more obvious. Cain, humanity's first murderer, who killed his own brother with a rock. Most likely this name was chosen because it sounded cool and edgy while also alluding to his connection with Sam. I do wonder what was going through Caine's adoptive parents' heads when they named him. Eh, white people gonna white people.

Caine's last name is kind of interesting. It's of Scandinavian descent (sources differ on what specifically, most likely Norwegian or Danish) and means "stern, strict, severe". It's particularly interesting to me that this is the family name. Perhaps alluding to the Soren family's attitude toward their adopted son? I guess we'll never know.

King David (the same David who slew Goliath) was a harpist brought to King Saul by Samuel. He grew up to be a great general, and Saul grew paranoid that David was plotting to kill them. To simplify things: David defeated Saul and became King, had an affair with a married woman, killed her husband, and had a son with her (Solomon).

What significance does this have to Caine's story? None that I can see. I think that Connie gave him a good, strong name in hopes that he would grow up to be good and strong. Maybe Caine was a particularly small or weak child and so she named him after David, the boy who defeated a giant and became King. But that’s all conjecture. Again, the most likely explanation is that MG just plucked a random name from the Hebrew Bible because Jewish(TM).

Drake Merwin

Drake's name is actually really funny. Drake means "dragon" or "snake" and Merwin means either "mariner" or "friend of the sea". I choose to believe that this is a reference to his Whip Arm (because it. it looks like a snake,, perhaps even a sea serpent?). If it is, then it's hilarious and MG is a comedic genius. If it isn't, then it's a hell of a coincidence.

Diana Ladris

As far as I can tell, the name "Ladris" doesnt exist. MG made it up. It may have faintly Greek or Italian origins, which makes sense as Diana was the Roman goddess of the moon and fertility (possibly the Roman interpretation of Artemis? Idk im not a historian I just had a Percy Jackson phase). I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be a reference to Diana's precociousness. At least she wasn’t named Mary! Speaking of which...

Mary Terrafino

Yeah, Mary's is pretty obvious. Mother Mary, Martyr Mary, etc. As far as I can tell Terrafino is of Italian origin, but I can't find a meaning.

Astrid Ellison

So the name Astrid itself comes from Old Norse and means "divinely beautiful". I don't know if this was on purpose but I believe Astrid's name works on three levels: first, referencing her religiosity; second, sounding similar to "asteroid" and thus alluding to her power (that MG completely forgot about after the first book :')); and third, referencing Astrid Hofferson, who just so happens to both look very similar to our Astrid Ellison (white teen girl with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a ferocious personality) and share a name with her.

I don't believe Ellison has any special secret meaning, but it comes from an Old Welsh name meaning "kind, benevolent" which I think is nice :)

Peter "Little Pete" Ellison

Similarly to Astrid, I'm not quite sure if the name Peter has any special meaning. The name itself means "stone", and if we follow MG's trend of using Biblical names, then it might be a reference to Saint Peter. It's a bit of a stretch, but this could be a reference to Little Pete going metaphysically toe-to-toe with the Gaiaphage from page one, possibly even before the FAYZ (Peter was the first disciple that Jesus revealed himself to). It could even be a reference to his death: martyred at the hands of a mad tyrant (Peter was crucified by Nero).

Edilio Escobar

Idk if it means anything particularly but Edilio's name is so poetic. It's Greek and means "he who is like a statue". I'm 95% sure MG just picked a random Latino-sounding name but damn he was so right with this one. Edilio: so perfect, so tragic. Like a statue.

Lana Arwen Lazar

I also really like that he has name alliteration, it makes him sound like a superhero (as he deserves!). I'm pretty sure the only other character that has that is Brianna*.

*EDIT: And Lana!

We know that Lana's first & middle names are a reference to comic book characters, but not enough people talk about her last name. In the Bible, Lazarus was brought back to life by Jesus--but considering that Lana's parents are apparently giant nerds, this is probably not a reference to the Bible but to the "Lazarus pit". In DC comics, Lazarus pit is basically a giant pit of mysterious green ooz that brings people back to life. Its side effects? White hair and green eyes.* So Lana's last name may be alluding to the Gaiaphage and the hold it has over her: it killed her and brought her back to life, but it changed her. Considering the Gaiaphage has brought people back to life before, it's not too far-fetched.

*Disclaimer: I know this because of fanfiction. It may not be entirely accurate.

Charles "Orc" Merriman

Orc's name obviously has a lot of symbolism behind it. First he's figuratively seen as a monster, then he's literally seen as a monster. Throughout the series we continuously see this dichotomy between "Orc"--the bully, brute, drunkard, rock monster--and "Charles"--the child in desperate need of help.

Pretty sure his last name was just MG having a laugh since this kid is anything but "merry".

Dekka Talent

Dekka the. The. Don't make me say it.

Brianna Berenson

Howard Bassem

Brianna means something like "good, strong, noble" which tracks. Berenson just means "son of Ber" and I can't find a meaning for that so idk.

EDIT: Brianna's name having alliteration is probably on purpose, since it makes her sound more superhero-y.

It rhymes with coward lmao

Bassem is an Arabic name meaning "smile". I'd have to check and see exactly what book his surname is mentioned in, but honestly the first thing I thought of when I saw it was The Paragraph(TM).*

*idk what it is word-for-word but it's smth like "Howard just looked up at me with that crooked smile of his and said 'I'm always behind you, big guy'".

Duck Zhang

He just wanted a pool :(

Hunter Lefkowitz

His name is Hunter and he. he hunts.

Lefkowitz may or may not mean "lion" and if it does then :(

All the other characters' names either don't have a meaning that I can see (i.e, Albert, Brittney, Quinn, etc.) or have a very obviously stated meaning (i.e, Gaia, Sanjit, etc.).

[audiobooks535]

audiobook : The Road Builders by Samuel Merwin

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

Hypothetical installment in the Dark Pictures Anthology (3): “True Monster”

General plot:

In rural Alabama, a prison transport bus is forced to pull over when the engine blows out. As if on cue, a group of people living in a nearby plantation come to the prison staff’s aid by offering to repair the vehicle. They take the prison bus back to the plantation, a place which seems to be stuck in the Antebellum Era. What starts out as an innocent diversion quickly turns south when the prison bus group realizes that the plantation is being stalked by something supernatural.

The plot twists:

1) The supernatural being stalking the plantation is revealed to be a slave from the 1800s who somehow gained immortality.

2) The immortal slave is not the main villain. Instead, it’s the people from the plantation. Turns out, the reason why the plantation seems to be stuck in the Antebellum Era is that they actually are from that time period. They were gifted immortality as well and have been using their immortality to maintain a semblance of the slavery era.

So pretty much, the core of the game is about the war between the freed slave and the plantation. The prison bus group just happened to get involved by chance. 

(NOTE: The players are given a choice to side with either the slave or the plantation. If you side with the plantation, you can only get a bad ending that results in everyone’s deaths)

Horror influences:

Candyman (honestly, this was the main influence for this), Beloved, Get Out, Midsommar, The Village, The Wicker Man

Meaning of the title:

If it’s not obvious, the title has multiple meanings.

1) 4 of the 5 main characters are prisoners who have all been convicted of committing serious offenses. However, even though they’re technically bad people, they’re not the “monsters” here.

2) The immortal slave is the initial main villain until it’s revealed that the plantation is the real threat. So basically, the plantation is the “true monster”. 

The prologue:

During the Civil War, Confederate soldier Tobin Whitehall is sent to the plantation in order to deal with a slave rebellion. What starts out as a normal uprising turns south quickly when the Confederates find themselves being slaughtered by a mysterious, supernatural force. Despite his best effort, Tobin is eventually overwhelmed by the supernatural force.

(Note: In case if it’s not obvious, Tobin was killed by the immortal slave)

The main characters:

1) Marquan McQueen: Prisoner convicted of first degree murder. Commanding, persuasive, impulsive. He is played by Michael B. Jordan (Marquan is the character who is played by a well-known actor, along the same lines of Shawn Ashmore, Will Poulter, and Ashley Tisdale).

2) Oscar Choi: Prisoner convicted of embezzlement. Intelligent, defensive, cynical. Oscar uses the same face model as Merwin from “House of Ashes”.

3) Samuel Ward: Prisoner convicted of rape and kidnapping. Confident, judgmental, temperamental. Samuel uses the same face model as John/James from “Little Hope”. 

4) Richie Fitz: Prisoner convicted of arson. Witty, compassionate, insecure. Richie uses the same face model as Jason from “House of Ashes”. 

5) Kelly Murdock: Alabama detective who decided to ride along on the bus. Honest, loyal, intolerant. Kelly uses the same face model as Taylor/Tanya from “Little Hope”. 

(side note: Kelly is the “odd one out” main character in that she doesn’t fit in with the other four main characters, similar to Fliss in “Man of Medan”, John in “Little Hope”, and Salim in “House of Ashes”)

[bookmaven]

THE ARKHAM SAMPLER vols. 1-8

Winter, 1948 — Stephen Grendon, H. Russel Wakefield, H.P. Lovecraft.

Spring, 1948 — H.P. Lovecraft, Rheinehart Kleiner, Malcolm Ferguson.

Summer, 1948 — H. Russell Wakefield, H. Reynolds Morse, Samuel Loveman.

Fall, 1948 — Lord Dunsany, Robert Bloch, Mrs. J.H. Riddell.

Winter, 1949 — Ray Bradbury, A.E. Van Vogt, Theodore Sturgeon, Jules Verne, Clark Ashton Smith, Fritz Leiber, F.J. Ackerman, Everett Bleiler, Sam Moskowitz, Lewis Paadgett, Sam Merwin, Robert Bloch, Carl jacobi, H.H. Keller, Stephen Grendon, Vincent Starrett, et al.

Spring, 1949 — Clark Ashton Smith, E Hoffman Price, John Benyon Harris (aka John Wyndham)

Summer, 1949 — Ray Bradbury, Jules Verne, David H. Keller.

Fall, 1949 — Ray Bradbury, H. Russell Wakefield, Martin Gardner.

— 08 May 2022

[fuad-ramses-73]

“She found herself on the floor, clinging with both hands to the door knob” Samuel Merwin Art by Frank Godwin Photoplay Magazine Publishing Co.

[oohlordhealthisbike]

Open for bootleg trading~

Hello all! I am posting my bootleg list here for now as a temporary list until I get my website up and running- I am open to trading! I’m mainly looking for any Cats production- preferably English or Dutch but any musical would be nice to have and expand my collection. 

Addams Family - Broadway - March 12, 2010

FORMAT: .VOB w/o smalls

CAST:Nathan Lane (Gomez Addams), Bebe Neuwirth (Morticia Addams), Terrence Mann (Mal Beineke), Carolee Carmello (Alice Beineke), Kevin Chamberlin (Uncle Fester), Jackie Hoffman (Grandma), Zachary James (Lurch), Wesley Taylor (Lucas Beineke), Krysta Rodriguez (Wednesday Addams), Adam Riegler (Pugsley Addams)

NOTES: Video quality isn't the best, and audio is sometimes on the softer side. Still a very entertaining show.

Anastasia - Broadway - September 6, 2017

FORMAT: (VOBs w/ smalls)

CAST: Christy Altomare (Anastasia), Derek Klena (Dmitry), John Bolton (Vlad), Ramin Karimloo (Gleb), Caroline O'Connor (Lily), Mary Beth Peil (Maria Feodorovna), Zach Adkins, Sissy Bell, Lauren Blackman, Kyle Brown, Janet Dickinson, Constantine Germanacos, Wes Hart, Ken Krugman, Shina Ann Morris, James A. Pierce III, Molly Rushing, Nicole Scimerca, Johnny Stellard, Allison Walsh (Ensemble)

Aladdin - Broadway, 2014-Nov-05 (SunsetBlvd79‘s master)

Format: VOB + smalls (7.58 GB)

CAST: Adam Jacobs (Aladdin), Courtney Reed (Jasmine), Merwin Foard (s/b Jafar), Michael James Scott (s/b Genie)

NOTES: Beautiful HD capture of latest Disney Broadway offering. Great to see the changes from the Toronto tryout. Michael and Merwin do terrific jobs as Genie and Jafar.

Beauty and the Beast New Zealand April 2006 - Proshot

Format: .VOB w/ smalls

Cast: Jade Steele, Russell Dixon, Glen Drake, Rob Ormsby, Gladys Hope

NOTES: Only the first act & first part of act two! 

Beauty and the Beast (Disney) - Broadway - July 27, 2007 (Unknown's video master)

CAST: Anneliese van der Pol (Belle), Steve Blanchard (Beast/Prince), Jamie Ross (Maurice), Chris Hoch (Gaston), David DeVries (Lumière), Jeanne Lehman (Mrs. Potts), Glenn Rainey (Cogsworth), Ann Mandrella (Babette), Trevor Braun (Chip), Aldrin Gonzalez (Le Fou)

NOTES: Two days before the show closed on Broadway. Good amount of closeups and good quality filmed from the mid-mezzanine; there is a railing issue for a while in Act 1 but the taper improves. 'Me', 'Gaston' and 'Be Our Guest' are all predominantly missing and recording stopped for some time after 'Gaston', which created a little jump in the timeline to where Maurice gets thrown out of the tavern. Still a nice video with great closeups of the last Broadway cast.

Beauty and the Beast - Music Theatre of Wichita (2016)

FORMAT: .VOB w/ Smalls

CAST: Catherine Charlebois, Thaddeus Pearson, Johnny Stellard, Steve Hitchcock, James Beaman, Katie Banks-Todd, Karen L. Robu, Lexis Danca, James Heinrichs, Timothy W. Robu, Tanner Pflueger, John Boldenow

Notes: Pro-Shot. Filmed using one camera on a tripod with excellent clear picture and sound.

Cats - Hamburg - August 21, 1999 (Unknown's video master)

FORMAT: MP4 (2.9 GB) CAST: Julia Howson (Grizabella), Stefano Bontempi (Alonzo), Sean McGrath (Admetus/Macavity), Daymon Montaigne Jones (Bill Bailey/Tumblebrutus), Donna Hagan (Bombalurina), Lachlan Youngberg (Bustopher Jones/Gus/Growltiger), Marie Dumas (Cassandra), Valentino McKinney (Coricopat), Juliann Kuchocki (Demeter), Marni Raab (Jellylorum), Nadja Solovieva (Jennyanydots), Clinten Pearce (Mr. Mistoffelees), Deon Ridley (Mungojerrie), Matthew Pike (Munkustrap), Werner Kraus (Old Deuteronomy), Adrianne Richards (Rumpleteazer), Siegmar Tonk (Rum Tum Tugger), Japheth Myers (Skimbleshanks), Angela Roczkov (Tantomile), Rebecca Sutherland (Victoria), Damian Kacperski (Pouncival), Tracey Packham (Sillabub) NOTES: very good quality for the time! Great audio as well. 

Cats - Broadway Revival - August 13, 2016 (Unknown's video master)

FORMAT: .VOB w/o Smalls

STAGE: Broadway

CAST: Leona Lewis (Grizabella), Giuseppe Bausilio (Carbucketty), Kim Faure (Demeter), Lili Froehlich (Electra), Sara Jean Ford (Jellylorum), Eloise Kropp (Jennyanydots), Ricky Ubeda (Mr. Mistoffelees), Andy Huntington Jones (Munkustrap), Quentin Earl Darrington (Old Deuteronomy), Shonica Gooden (Rumpleteazer), Tyler Hanes (Rum Tum Tugger), Jeremy Davis (Skimbleshanks)

NOTES: Some people walking across the image for a few seconds during Jennyanydots and Rum Tum Tugger's number. Sometimes a head is visible but not obstructing the action. Almost no white-outs with very good video quality. Audio is very crisp as well. Filmed from a higher seat, but zooms are excellently done and fluent. Overal an amazing bootleg!

Cats - Sixth National Tour - March 15, 2019 (thehouseonsunset's video master)

CAST: Keri René Fuller (Grizabella), Phillip Deceus (Alonzo), Tyler John Logan (Admetus/Macavity), Devin Neilson (Bill Bailey/Tumblebrutus), Lexie Plath (Bombalurina), Timothy Gulan (Bustopher Jones/Gus/Growltiger), Mariah Reives (Cassandra), PJ DiGaetano (Coricopat), Liz Schmitz (Demeter), Maria Failla (u/s Jellylorum), Emily Jeanne Phillips (Jennyanydots), Tion Gaston (Mr. Mistoffelees), Tony D'Alelio (Mungojerrie), Dan Hoy (Munkustrap), Brandon Micheal Nase (Old Deuteronomy), Rose Iannaccone (Rumpleteazer), McGee Maddox (Rum Tum Tugger), Ethan Saviet (Skimbleshanks), Halli Tolland (Tantomile), Laura K Kaufman (u/s Victoria), Anthony Zas (Pouncival), Ahren Victory (Sillabub)

NOTES: Audio is soft in some parts and has a shaky camera. Good video though, nice zooms and high quality. 

Cats 1998 Film - (Pro-shot).

FORMAT: MP4 CAST: Elaine Paige (Grizabella), John Mills (Gus the Theatre Cat), Ken Page (Old Deuteronomy), Rosemarie Ford (Bombalurina), Michael Gruber (Munkustrap), John Partridge (Rum Tum Tugger), Aeva May (Demeter), Geoffrey Garratt (Skimbleshanks), James Barron (Bustopher Jones), Jo Gibb (Rumpleteazer), Drew Varley (Mungojerrie), Susie McKenna (Jennyanydots), Jacob Brent (Mistoffelees), Susan Jane Tanner (Jellylorum), Phyllida Crowley Smith (Victoria). NOTES: pro-shot version of the musical. Multiple cameras and HD video and audio. 

Cinderella - Broadway - March 2, 2013

FORMAT: VOB + smalls

CAST: Laura Osnes (Ella), Santino Fontana (Prince Topher), Victoria Clark (Fairy Godmother), Harriet Harris (Evil Stepmother), Ann Harada (Charlotte)

NOTES: Very good view of the stage, sometimes zooms are a bit slow but it's not bothersome. Very enjoyable experience.

Evita - Costa Mesa - December 14, 2013

FORMAT: (VOBs w/ Smalls)

CAST: Caroline Bowman (Eva), John Riddle (u/s Che), Sean MacLaughlin (Peron), Krystina Alabado (Mistress), Christopher Johnstone (Magaldi)

Kinky Boots - Broadway - May 26, 2017 (Opening Night) (Audio)

CAST: Brendon Urie (Charlie Price)

FORMAT: M4A

NOTES: Brendon is amazing in the role, the audio is not really HD, but it’s still really fun to listen to, especially for P!ATD fans like me haha. 

Legally Blonde - Broadway - 2007-Oct-25

Format: VOB no smalls (4.11 GB)

CAST: Becky Gulsvig (u/s Elle Woods), Andy Karl (u/s Emmett Forrest), Richard H Blake (Warner Huntington III), Orfeh (Paulette), Kate Shindle (Vivienne Kensington), Nikki Snelson (Brooke Wyndham/Shandi), Michael Rupert (Professor Callahan), Haven Burton (Margot), Tracy Jai Edwards (Serena), Asmeret Ghebremichael (Pilar), Matthew Risch (u/s Kyle/Grandmaster Chad/Dewey), Natalie Joy Johnson (Veronica/Enid), Kate Wetherhead (Kate/Chutney), Rod Harrelson (u/s Carlos)

NOTES: Great capture of the two understudies in the role. Shot from the orchestra with amazing shots. Starts in the middle of 'Omigod You Guys'.

Les Misérables - West End - November, 2018 (NYCG8R's master)

FORMAT: VOB (with smalls) (SD)

CAST: Dean Chisnall (Jean Valjean), Bradley Jaden (Javert), Carley Stenson (Fantine), Amara Okereke (Cosette), Toby Miles (Marius), Elena Skye (Éponine), Samuel Edwards (Enjolras), James Hume (u/s Thénardier), Vivien Parry (Madame Thénardier), Logan Clark (Gavroche), Andrew York (u/s The Bishop), Adam Filipe (u/s Grantaire), Barnaby Hughes (Combeferre), Joe Vetch (Feuilly), Oliver Brenin (s/w Courfeyrac), Ben Tyler (Jean Prouvaire), James Nicholson (Joly), Andrew York (Lesgles), Adam Bayjou (Brujon), Ciaran Bowling (s/w Babet), Sam Harrison (Claquesous), Ciaran Joyce (Montparnasse), Adam Bayjou (Factory Foreman), Anna McGarahan (Factory Girl), Anna McGarahan (Crone), Sam Harrison (Bamatabois), Ben Tyler (Pimp), Barnaby Hughes (Fauchelevent), Adam Bayjou (Champmathieu), Ciaran Bowling (s/w Major Domo)

Les Misérables - The All-Star Staged Concert - December 2, 2019 (Closing Night) (Pro-Shot's master)

FORMAT: MKV (HD)*

CAST: Alfie Boe (Jean Valjean), Michael Ball (Javert), Carrie Hope Fletcher (Fantine), Lily Kerhoas (Cosette), Rob Houchen (Marius), Shan Ako (Éponine), Bradley Jaden (Enjolras), Matt Lucas (Thénardier), Katy Secombe (Madame Thénardier), Earl Carpenter (The Bishop), Raymond Walsh (Grantaire), Craig Mather (Combeferre), Vinny Coyle (Feuilly), Niall Sheehy (Courfeyrac), James Nicholson (Jean Prouvaire), Ciaran Joyce (Joly), Andrew York (Lesgles), Leo Roberts (Brujon), Stephen Matthews (Babet), Oliver Jackson (Claquesous), Adam Bayjou (Montparnasse), Gavin James (Factory Foreman), Celia Graham (Factory Girl), Tamsin Dowsett (Crone), Earl Carpenter (Bamatabois), Oliver Jackson (Pimp)

NOTES: The digitally released proshot, edited differently to the live cinema stream.

Les Miserables - Broadway - Feb. 17, 2007

FORMAT: VOB + smalls

CAST: Alexander Gemignani (Jean Valjean), Norm Lewis (Javert), Daphne Rubin-Vega (Fantine), Gary Beach (Thenardier), Jenny Galloway (Mme Thenardier), Celia Kennan-Bolger (Eponine), Ali Ewoldt (Cosette), Adam Jacobs (Marius), Drew Sarich (u/s Enjolras)

Little Shop of Horrors - Encores! Off-Center-New York City Center, 2015-July-1 (Opening Night) (NYCG8R's video master)

Format: VOB + smalls (4.21 GB)

CAST: Jake Gyllenhaal (Seymour), Ellen Greene (Audrey), Joe Grifasi (Mushnik), Taran Killam (Orin), Eddie Cooper (Audrey II), Marva Hicks (Crystal), Ramona Keller (Ronnette), Tracy Nicole Chapman (Chiffon)

NOTES: Opening Night filmed from the very back of City Center, so there is some spotlight washout that's never too bad and a head that's shot well around.

Phantom Of the Opera - US Tour - August 12, 2015 (Unknown master)

FORMAT: VOBs w/ Smalls)

Chris Mann, Katie Travis, Storm Lineberger, Jacquelynne Fontaine, Edward Staudenmayer, David Benoit, Anne Kanengeiser, Frank Viveros, Morgan Cowling, Mark Emerson, Eric Ruiz, Edward Juvier, Dan Debenport, David Foley Jr., Allan Snyder, Christy Morton

Spider-Man - Turn off the Dark - Broadway - October 14, 2012

FORMAT: (VOBs)

CAST: Matthew James Thomas (alt. Peter Parker/Spiderman), Kristen Martin (u/s Mary Jane), Robert Cuccioli (Green Goblin), Katrina Lenk (Arachne).

NOTES: Post-Changes

The Book of Mormon - UK & Ireland Tour - 2019 (Rumpel's master-RARE)

FORMAT: .VOB (no smalls) (HD)

CAST: Kevin Douglas Clay (Elder Price), Connor Peirson (Elder Cunningham), Nicole-Lily Baisden (Nabulungi), Will Hawksworth (Elder McKinley), Ewen Cummins (Mafala Hatimbi), Thomas Vernal (General), David Brewis (Cunningham’s Dad), Tre Copeland-Williams (Doctor), Johnathan Tweedie (Prices Dad/Joseph Smith/Mission President), Cleopatra Isaac (Mrs Brown), Jemal Felix (Guard), Lukin Simmonds (Guard), Alex James-Hatton, David Brewis, Evan James, Fergal McGoff, George Crawford, Isaac Hesketh, Jed Berry

NOTES: One of the best videos of this show out there. Recorded from the right wing, doesn't miss any action. High quality video and excellent sound. Kevin is a very good Elder Price.

The Book of Mormon - Chicago - December 23, 2012 (SunsetBlvd79's master)

FORMAT:  VOB (with smalls) (HD)CAST: Nic Rouleau (Elder Price), Ben Platt (Elder Cunningham), Syesha Mercado (Nabulungi), Pierce Cassedy (Elder McKinley), James Vincent Meredith (Mafala Hatimbi), Christopher Shyer (Mission President), David Aron Damane (General)

The Book of Mormon - Broadway - March 1, 2011 (Preview) (NYCG8R's master)

FORMAT:  VOB (no smalls) (SD)

CAST: Andrew Rannells (Elder Price), Josh Gad (Elder Cunningham), Nikki M James (Nabulungi), Rory O’Malley (Elder McKinley), Michael Potts (Mafala Hatimbi), Lewis Cleale (Mission President)

Wicked - Broadway, 2013-May-12 (Lanelle's master)

Format:  M2TS (HD) - (24.02 GB)

CAST: Willemijn Verkaik (Elphaba), Katie Rose Clarke (Glinda), Kyle Dean Massey (Fiyero), Adam Grupper (The Wizard), Randy Danson (Madame Morrible), Catherine Charlebois (Nessarose), F Michael Haynie (Boq), John Schiappa (Doctor Dillamond)

NOTES: Filmed from the right orchestra, at a slight angle, but excellent quality. The taper originally released this as a blu-ray, 2-disc DVDs and 1-disc DVD, so make sure to get the version that best suits your needs.

Wicked - May 12, 2013 (Lanelle's master RIP WITH SUBS)

FORMAT: .MKV w/o Smalls, With English & Chinese Subtitles

CAST: Willemijn Verkaik (Elphaba), Katie Rose Clarke (Glinda), Kyle Dean Massey (Fiyero), Adam Grupper (The Wizard), Randy Danson (Madame Morrible), Catherine Charlebois (Nessarose), F Michael Haynie (Boq), John Schiappa (Doctor Dillamond)

NOTES: Warning- Moderate quality. Some quality of the original master has been lost through conversion from blue-ray to MKV. Has English and Chinese subtitles. Audio is great and video sometimes has some white-outs. 

Wicked - Broadway - January 2nd, 2015 (unknown master)

FORMAT: VOB w/o Smalls

CAST: Caroline Bowman (Elphaba), Kara Lindsay (Glinda), Matt Shingledecker (Fiyero), Tom McGowan (The Wizard), Kathy Fitzgerald (Madame Morrible), Robin de Jesus (Boq), Arielle Jacobs (Nessarose), Timothy Britten Parker (Dr. Dillamond)

NOTES: The camera moves a bit but follows the actors well. Some parts are a bit washed out but the audio is good. 

Wicked - Broadway, May 28, 2006 (Unkown master)

FORMAT: VOB w/o SmallsCAST: Eden Espinosa (Elphaba), Megan Hilty (Glinda) Derrick Williams (Fiyero), David Garrison (The Wizard), Carol Kane (Madame Morrible), Jenna Leigh Green (Nessarose)

---

If you’re interested, please don’t hesitate to contact me! Like I said I would love any cats bootleg- especially the older ones in English and Dutch from like the 80′s till the 00′s. I am also looking for more diversity in my list- and I’m also looking for the classics- Dear Evan Hansen, Falsetto’s, some more Phantom Of the Opera, Mean Girls, Legally Blond, etc... 

[soracities]

Top translated works that spark something within you?

How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone, Saša Stanišić (tr. Anthea Bell)

Without an Alphabet, Without a Face / Nostalgia, My Enemy, Saadi Youssef (tr. Khaled Mattawa / tr. Sinan Antoon & Peter Money)

Memory for Forgetfulness, Mahmoud Darwish (tr. Ibrahim Muhawi)

Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (tr. Mattias Ripa)

Barefoot Souls, Maram al-Masri (tr. Theo Dorgan)

The Plague / Exile and the Kingdom, Albert Camus (tr. Justin O’Brien)

The Pages of Day and Night / Selected Poems, Adonis (tr. Samuel Hazo / tr. Khaled Mattawa)

Collected Poems 1943-1976, Vasko Popa (tr. Anne Pennington)

Voices, Antonio Porchia (tr. W.S. Merwin)

Collected Stories, Clarice Lispector (tr. Katarina Dodson)

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez (tr. Gregory Rabassa)

A Tree Within / A Tale of Two Gardens, Octavio Paz (tr. Eliot Weinberger)

We Love Glenda So Much and Other Tales, Julio Cortázar (tr. Gregory Rabassa)

The Empty Book, Josefina Vicens (tr. David Lauer)

The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse, Hermann Hesse (tr. Jack Zipes)

Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke (tr. Stephen Mitchell)

Seiobo There Below, Laszlo Krasznahorkai (tr. Ottilie Mulzet)

Not to Read, Alejandro Zambra (tr. Megan MacDowell)

The War Works Hard, Dunya Mikhail (tr. Elizabeth Winslow)

[puutterings]

speaking at random… sneaked off to the library

  ...Obviously, it was not a secret that made for domestic harmony.       Pound hardly knew what did happen the next few minutes. He found himself puttering idiotically around the centertable, speaking at random. Then he sneaked off to the library...

ex Will Payne, The Losing Game (1909, 1910) : 216 : link same (UC copy, via hathitrust)

—

Will Payne (1865-1954) was an American financial journalist and novelist with unique and interesting views on capitalism and society. Most turn-of-the-century American novelists who wrote about economics inhabited opposite poles of the political spectrum : they tended to write either overt socialist tracts (e.g., Upton Sinclair, Jack London, Theodore Dreiser) or hagiographies of captains of industry (e.g., Samuel Merwin, Henry Kitchell Webster, Mary Hallock Foote). Payne’s work, however, defies such simple categorization. In novels such as The Money Captain (1898), Mr. Salt (1903), and When Love Speaks (1906), Payne challenged readers to consider a longer term view of the effects of capitalism. — abstract, to Scott Dalrymple. “A Glass Half Full : Capitalist ethics in the novels of Will Payne” in Essays in Economic & Business History 23:1 (2005) link

Illustrations by F(rederic). R(odrigo). Gruger (1871-1953) something something more  

[mewhiphand]

But imagine this

Sam Temple burns his stepfather's hand shortly before the FAYZ and Connie Temple makes the hard, but ultimately fair decision to send him to Coates Academy in the next school year with the money she's acquired from the divorce settlement.

She says it's not his fault, that she just wants to keep Sam close to her and she can't help being an overprotective mother, but Sam knows the real reason - Connie has decided that he is dangerous.

They drive in silence to the iron gates. Sam's things are packed but his mother says, with a forced smile, that he "can come home to get anything else soon".

Sam knows that this is not the case.

He has a roommate. Coates is, of course, a boarding school, and he should have expected this. But somehow the fact that he does still shocks him.

After all, Sam is an only child.

His roomate, and his new guide for the school year (it's September, after all) is a weedy, sniffly little kid called Bug, only a few years younger than him but seeming so childish.

Sam's first day approaches far too fast.

On the morning of his first lesson - Maths - Mr. Dunman announces to the class, comprising of fifteen others, that "Mr. Samuel Temple, our new student, will be joining us today."

A dark-haired, good-looking boy twitches his eye in the back of the class.

The tough-looking blond beside him nudges him with an arm, glaring at the dark beauty on the boy's left.

There are whispers. Half a dozen students openly stare.

The others, at least, do it discreetly.

Sam is sat beside a serious-looking girl who introduces herself as "Dekka Talent" when he works up the nerve to ask. He learns through Maths (not paying attention) that despite her tough exterior, she's an honest, reliable person.

Drake Merwin is not.

Sam learns this in Biology, when he ignores the paper balls being thrown at the back of his neck and the "Psst, Sam"s and the next thing thrown is a pocket knife.

The narrow miss leaves him shocked.

"What the hell, dude?"

"Chill, it didn't even hit you. Hey, Sam. Do you get in free because your mom fixes up everyone's little boo-boos?"

Sam also learns that Drake causes most of these injuries.

Ignoring the bully is fruitless, but acknowledging him is even worse.

The on-edge dark-haired boy catches him off-guard in History.

"Sam, right? I'm Caine, Caine Soren. We're in Maths and Tech together. You're new here, right?"

"Yeah. Nice to meet you."

"Well, if you need me, or Diana here-" the dark beauty shakes his hand "Feel free to come to Room Two-Oh-Four. I have some rather interesting things I could show you."

He nods, with no intention of ever going.

"And I think you might have a rather interesting thing to show me."

Sam knows his face is drained of all colour.

He rushes off to Chemistry as soon as the scheduled fifteen-minute break is over.

And slowly, ever so slowly, Sam learns how to work with these people.

It's not easy. It's not easy at all. But Connie urges him to "try, try again, darling" and he finds himself loathing her more - and yet trying in spite of her.

Connie doesn't expect him to make friends. She's practically counting on it.

Sam meets 'Computer Jack' when he happens to walk past the ICT suite at lunch. To his surprise, a small, blond boy with glasses that look too big for his face is furiously typing away at a computer. He walks closer to the door and sees the screen flashing.

"ACCESS GRANTED."

Then, Sam notices what the boy has just gained access to. It's the school website. His school website. Coates Academy.

Sam stands outside the door and watches as the boy lifts a bony hand to push his glasses up, then immediately gets back to work. He clicks on a google document and starts making changes. Sam watches in wonder as the boy clicks on "Penny R." and changes her C in Maths to an A.

He hears the distinct clack of high heels down the corridor and knows how much trouble this boy would be in if he was discovered.

Sam opens the door and motions for the boy to finish, hurriedly gesturing at the computer.

He takes the hint, and they're both outside by the time Mrs. Ewen click-clacks her way to the suite. Sam starts conversing with the boy as he subtly pulls him down the hallway, letting go once the kid starts to follow.

[stronglyobsessed]

Hello! I'm new to the Kingsman fandom. I watched both earlier this year for the first time after seeing Taron in Rocketman. I adore the first and like some parts of the second very much though I do have my issues with the movie overall. What's your story behind getting into the Kingsman fandom? Did you see the movies when they were released? What about them that appealed to? Also if you ever want to talk about the movies my inbox is always open!

Hello!!! Welcome welcome!!! Hope you like long responses, because this is likely to be one. So I am going to insert a keep reading tab so that I don’t clog up feeds with it’s length

First I’d like to say WOO for coming into the Kingsman fandom. We can always use more faces, as well as some of the veterans popping up. The fandom is kinda slow right now, but with the movies so far apart, and the fandom was small to begin with, it’s tapered off. So it’s always nice to see new faces surface.

The movies are great. I love the first, of course, and personally adore the second, outside of them killing Rox and Merlin - I have serious issues with both of those. Merlin especially because he was SUPPOSED to live, like that was original to the script, but because it had a better reaction from the test audience, they killed him - Mark Strong was cross with that, saw in an interview.

Okay. I came into the fandom around December 2017, so just about 2 years ago. I was mainly a reader then, and fell hard and fast into the fanfiction - I had never heard of, nor read, fanfiction before this. I’m sort of mad about that, because I would have started writing a long time ago - I mean I sort of did. I wrote an original story in high school, so I kind of always liked to write. Whether it be stories, poems and the like.

My story started off in September of 2017. My husband’s friend was living with us until he moved to Arizona the following year. One day he was like “You guys ever seen Kingsman?” I’m like...? What is that? I had never heard of it. He described the movie and so we all watched it. I loved it from then. Now I wasn’t looking for any fanfiction or anything yet - didn’t know it existed and all that jazz.

I heard the second movie had just been released in theaters that month, but I wasn’t really SO invested I was gonna see it in the theater. We waited until December to watch it on DVD. We rented it and I was like...OH! So, long story short about myself, with any TV show or movie I watch, that I really really like, I spin stories in my head. Not knowing what I was doing was essentially creating fanfiction in my head.

So naturally I was doing that with Kingsman. I began to google it. I loved Eggsy so much, googling pictures of him, and searching for ANY evidence a third movie would take place. To me, Eggsy being married and becoming a Prince just didn’t suit him. Yes, I love the idea of him having a HEA, married with babies, but he’s a spy and was just finding his footing as Galahad. I felt he was robbed of that, being a Prince would make it hard to keep that job - he even says it.

While searching for these things I found fanficiton. I found it through fanfic.net, and wattapad, and an assorted other places. A lot of it was reader insert and Eggsy. Where I liked it, it wasn’t my favorite, so I started finding some with Eggsy and a female OC, and some with Eggsy and Roxy. Of course, the more you search the more you find. I started to find Harry/Eggsy fics - Hartwin - and I won’t lie, wasn’t my jam at first. I had never read anything with same sex relationships, and I have NO issues with it, friends with plenty of gay people, but not the sort of READING I was exposed to.

I consumed everything I could find - of fanfic - and than I found AO3, and holy fucking shit. It was like a gold miners dream, or a starved fanfic readers dream. I loved it. I started writing my own fic in my phone, while I waited for the ability to sign up on AO3 - you needed a code at the time, not sure if they still do that - and so that’s what I did. I created an alternate life for Eggsy, wife, kids, long life and my favorite headcanon that he becomes Arthur when he’s older. So I read the same sex fanfic, while not being 100% comfortable with writing it myself yet, but they say you learn by writing and reading it, right?

Eventually I found Merlin/Eggsy - Merwin - fanfic, after about a month of posting my own writing, and good god. I was so fucking sunk. I needed to write THAT! I’ve been a shameless Merwin shipper since then, so almost 2 years, and been writing consistently. Of course with writing I created Tumblr and found SO many people who loved this too. Wrote fic, made art, did challenges, exchanges and just a fandom so fucking loving and caring and supportive of one another.

Manners Maketh Man, and all that. Kingsman fandom surely lives up to that motto.

But in short, I came into the fandom from my husband’s friend introducing me to the movies. Thanks, Mikey!

So no, I did not see the movies when they came out, and I actually came into the fandom late, but I’m PRAYING it picks up again with the new movies.

The movies were appealing because they had the perfect mix of action, comedy, and heart. I loved it. Eggsy was so well developed and his character was just so relatable and you were really rooting for him the whole time through the first movie. I knew some of the actors in the first: Colin Firth and Samuel Jackson, I mean...Colin in that church scene? That’s the best shit I’ve seen.

I of course wanted to watch the second, because I loved the first, and I will be watching the prequel and the last Eggsy/Harry movie.

I’m not sorry I found this fandom. I love it and I’ve made some awesome fucking friends, even met one in real life this past October! I am forever grateful for this hobby, and the fandom, it’s so great!!!

Thank you for the ask! And welcome again! My ask box, as well as private message, is always open for fandom discussions, the movies, headcanons and anything else you’d like to chat about!!!

[audiobooks535]

audiobook : The Road to Frontenac by Samuel Merwin

[davewillerquijano-blog]

SuCcEsS

Success is a business magazine in the United States published by Success Partners L.P. (formerly VideoPlus). According to the company,[1] the magazine "focuses on people who take full responsibility for their own development and income," and provides personal and professional development. As a manifesto for his "New Thought Philosophy," which taught positive thinking, life skills and discipline. During its early years, Success contained literary contributions of several notable New Thought writers such as Napoleon Hill, Samuel Merwinand W. Clement Stone. produces educational and marketing materials for the direct selling industry, as well as sponsored and custom publications.The April/May 2008 issue marked the relaunch of Success, as a bi-monthly magazine. Success moved to a monthly print schedule in September 2008.Darren Hardy is the magazine's former publisher.

[bluewatsons]

Paladin of Literary Agon: A Conversation with Harold Bloom, Los Angeles Review of Books (May 12, 2019)

William Giraldi: One of the abiding pleasures of Possessed by Memory is the dual meaning of the title: not only to possess literature by memory, but to be possessed, demon-like, by one’s own history, by a memory that will not stop. You’ll be 89 this year; you’ve had a most fertile and fulfilling life, one enriched enormously by friendships with the poets and critics you most admired. I think of Angus Fletcher, M. H. Abrams, Kenneth Burke, A. R. Ammons, John Hollander, John Ashbery: hauntings by them help mold this book into a glimmering threnody. Did you start out to memorialize your friends in such a way?

Harold Bloom: I did not intend Possessed by Memory to be so elegiac. But most of it was dictated to generous assistants during several years in which I spent much of my time in hospitals and in rehabilitation. It started to become a meditation upon mortality. Worst of all, almost my entire generation of critics and poets, so many of them my closest friends, died during those years. My prime mentors — Frederick A. Pottle, Hans Jonas, Gershom Scholem, Kenneth Burke — had departed earlier, all save for Mike Abrams, who lasted more than a hundred years. With the recent deaths of William Merwin and Richard Wilbur, and of John Ashbery before them, my loneliness increased. These days, whenever I read, teach, or write, I am haunted by friends who educated me--Richard Rorty, Angus Fletcher, Geoffrey Hartman, Paul de Man, John Hollander. I was very close to the poets A. R. Ammons, John Ashbery, William Merwin, and in quite a different way to James Merrill. They seem to be in the room with me. They also appear in my dreams. I have never written a poem. My only gift, as I understand it, is to have learned to listen: to students and to ghosts. I could wish the book were less somber than it is.

William Giraldi: Something occurred to me on my second reading of Possessed by Memory. Your essential friendships — those that were deeply reciprocal, that helped fertilize your work as you helped fertilize theirs — have been with poets and critics and not novelists or dramatists. You told me once about the ecstasy of being found by Hart Crane’s poems at the Bronx Library when you were a small child. The Pentateuch had always been a shimmering presence in your household, but it was Crane who opened the book your life would become, who put you in touch with the font of daemonic splendor, “the burning fountain,” as Shelley has it. I know what certain fiction writers mean to you — Cervantes, Kafka, Proust (and Possessed by Memory ends with a penetrating assessment of Proust) — but the poets (Shakespeare, Shelley, Blake, Keats, Whitman, Dickinson, Yeats, Crane, Stevens) have clearly meant the most to you.

Harold Bloom: That is most of the story, yes. During the 1980s and 1990s, I spent a great deal of time with Philip Roth. There were also interchanges with Tony Kushner and the novelist Walter Abish. Hart Crane broke the vessels for me. I then read Shakespeare, Milton, Whitman, the Romantics and Victorians and 20th-century poetry in English with a kind of fury that Crane had put into me. Probably my essential reading experience comes down to the Hebrew Bible, Dante, Shakespeare. I continue to read Yeats, D. H. Lawrence, Hart Crane, and Stevens almost daily.

William Giraldi: Possessed by Memory begins with an epigraph by the divine Oscar Wilde from his essay “The Critic as Artist,” in which he speaks of “the highest criticism” being “a record of one’s soul” and “the spiritual moods and imaginative passions of the mind.” I think of how Wilde and Pater swerved from the prevailing critical ethos to make it new. In their departure from their predecessors, they honed their own aesthetic. You see these swervings and disruptions in English-language criticism--Coleridge moving away from Dryden and Johnson, Arnold from Coleridge, Eliot and Empson attempting to disrupt and correct Arnold while simultaneously taking from him. Your own critical program began with a focus on the Romantic poets, on making new paths from the likes of M. H. Abrams and Northrop Frye. Then you veered into the work that became your life’s mission, the elucidation of influence. To what extent were you conscious of needing to swerve from or to disrupt your own potent predecessors?

Harold Bloom: I had a bad nightmare on July 11, 1967, following my 37th birthday. I have written about this elsewhere. The next morning I came down to breakfast and began to scribble a long dithyramb that I called “The Covering Cherub or Poetic Influence.” I kept at it for another day or two, and it became, in time, much revised, the opening chapter in The Anxiety of Influence, published January 5, 1973. The original text was printed by John Hollander in his selection of my work called Poetics of Influence. I was sadly amused when Northrop Frye told mutual friends that he could not read the book because it was all about him. It is not. Nor is it about my humane mentors M. H. Abrams and Frederick A. Pottle. After years of meditation I have come to believe that the Covering Cherub, a figure out of Ezekiel and Blake, was smothering me with the massive heft of all the poems I had read, loved, remembered. If I have a potent precursor, it would have to be Dr. Samuel Johnson. I am a good schoolteacher--he is beyond me and beyond disruption. Had I followed family tradition, I would have become a rabbi. Instead, I am a secular rabbi like those celebrated by Wallace Stevens. I teach Shakespeare as scripture. When I teach Poetic Influence, in some ways I vanish, and in some modes I am exalted.

William Giraldi: I often try to impart to readers the Eucharistic component to the strongest literature, the necessity of its sacral communing. As a nonbelieving Catholic, I have no problem calling it a secular holiness, though I don’t, as you know, subscribe to the Arnoldian notion of poetry’s power to supplant religion, never mind to correct society. You’ve spent your life defending and explaining the pleasurable hardships in the strongest literature. I see this as the difference between the rare joy of aesthetic mastery in Dante and the mere enjoyment of a contemporary best seller, the difference between gravitas and gratification. In An Experiment in Criticism, C. S. Lewis differentiates between strong readers and weak readers. Strong readers experience an important book as a sacral event, their worldviews revamped. Weak readers read an important book and nothing at all happens to them. Near the start of the The Western Canon, you acknowledge that reading for aesthetic pleasure and necessary wisdom has gone the way of the plesiosaur. Twenty-five years later, as the internet perseveres in the strafing of our souls, I wonder how grim is your outlook.

Harold Bloom: I regret not sharing your admiration for C. S. Lewis. After a few amiable encounters in the autumn of 1954 at Cambridge University, the distinguished defender of the faith and I fell out while sharing drinks at the Anchor Bar. Gnosticism upset him gravely. We did not speak again after that. He attacked my book The Visionary Company and I responded gently enough by writing that his A Preface to Paradise Lost was pure theology. Sometime back I published a brief book, Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? I concluded by relying upon Saint Augustine, who taught us all how to read strongly and how memory, time, and consciousness relate to imaginative literature, though of course the Bible was for him the truth. Oddly I begin to be less pessimistic than I was in The Western Canon. Partly that is inspired by my students, but also I receive endless emails, straight mails, phone calls, and visits from good readers throughout the world who have been kind enough to want to tell me that I have been their teacher. There is a saving remnant. Young women and men the world over read and hear the call of wisdom and the urgency of intelligence. I am pretty much a relic, yet I believe the future — if there is one — will depend upon deep readers all over the globe. Without reading Dante, Shakespeare, Montaigne, Cervantes, and their few peers, we cannot learn how to think. And if we cannot think, then the future belongs to the Trumps of the world — that is to say, to the apocalyptic beasts from the sea.

William Giraldi: Since we must endure now the daily mauling of morality from our capital, the smiting of tact and taste and truth by such tanninim, I sometimes ponder what the state of our culture and politics would be if we had a populace educated in beauty and wisdom by Dante and Dickinson. But such considerations get quaveringly close to the erroneous Arnoldian line that comprehends literature as social corrective. From the beginning, and again in Possessed by Memory, you’ve been adamant in insisting that literature enhances and enlarges individuals only through aesthetic pleasure it grants individuals the vital discourse they must have with themselves if they are to be whole, if they are to enjoy more life and prepare for life’s end. But of course a society made up of such individuals is something to smile on. I think of your old friend Northrop Frye, “We can’t speak or think or comprehend even our own experience except within the limits of our own power over words, and those limits have been established for us by our great writers.” Literature says with John Clare, “O take me from the busy crowd, / I cannot bear the noise!” and “Lord keep my love for quiet joys.” I’m a touch surprised you aren’t more morose about our noisome cyber lives.

Harold Bloom: It is true and perhaps sad that the highest literature teaches us how to speak to ourselves rather than to others. Reading Dante and Shakespeare may improve an individual but will not make him a better citizen. I do not have much of what you call a cyber life myself because I don’t watch television, do not have a cell phone, and have to dictate to someone at a computer in order to write. More than ever I am a dinosaur. But I have to reason outward from my students. Doubtless they are all involved in these technologies. But last week I taught Macbeth and “Notes Towards a Supreme Fiction.” Most of my students were delightfully agile in discussing both. I grant that I choose them from a possible group that is already elite. And yet they are as good as any students I have taught in my 63 years at Yale. As I discovered again this morning, I no longer can read The New York Times, once I have glanced at all the dreadful events. Cultural coverage is so remote from my aesthetic experience that clearly I will go on provoking tired readers. Still, if I have a public function, and I doubt it, it would have to be as a living relic of an age that could give us Wallace Stevens and John Ashbery.

William Giraldi: Your age has given us also a clutch of thrilling critical voices who helped establish American literary comment as a worthy art, just as your own work has demonstrated that art and has helped complete the imaginative literature it sets out to evaluate and appreciate. Each week I go back to Wilde to be sustained, and I’m remembering now his contention, with a nod to Pater and Arnold, that “[w]ithout the critical faculty, there is no artistic creation at all worthy of the name.” Wilde underscores the essential and thrumming reciprocity of literature and criticism. If critics are analysts of pleasure, in Chesterton’s phrase, then their work is responsible for instigating its own pleasure, for creating its own wisdom and beauty. Mary McCarthy once defined weak criticism as “a quivering jelly of uncritical emotion” — which I suspect is an allusion to T. S. Eliot-- “The general mess of imprecision of feeling / Undisciplined squads of emotion” — and I wonder if you ever fear that our new autocracy of emotion is going to butcher the essential reciprocity of literature and criticism. What becomes of a culture that does a lot of feeling about itself but no longer knows how to think about literature?

Harold Bloom: High literature has three prime attributes-- cognitive power, originality, aesthetic splendor. Only by a disciplined harnessing of emotion can any of these three come forth. What you call our “new autocracy of emotion” is just stylized noise. It cannot touch the interdependence of criticism and literature because it is mindless. Culture is now cut off from fashion. Popular culture has become an oxymoron. Bad taste is not culture. There are still many valuable writers of imaginative works in our society. It seems to me that they prosper best when they take a stance apart from the immediate moment. Distraction is the enemy. I see no crisis in the reciprocity of literature and criticism because the culture industries are irrelevant to it.

William Giraldi: I’m reminded of your chapter in Possessed by Memory on Angus Fletcher and Whitman, in which you reference Fletcher’s Allegory and what he called “the crisis of scale.” You say that Fletcher “warned prophetically that any sense of sublime transcendence is going to vanish in our technological world. What is coming is the emptiness of allegory without ideas.” Fletcher died in 2016 and he seems to me to be a loving, guiding shade throughout this book. All along you have been not only continually in communion with poetic splendor, but continually in conversation, explicit or not, with those critics who helped cast you. Has your relationships with certain critics — Longinus, Lucretius, Pater, Hazlitt, et cetera — changed over your lifetime?

Harold Bloom: Samuel Johnson is always the rhinoceros in the room. Walter Pater taught me appreciation in all its senses. Kenneth Burke and I wandered around lower Manhattan while he taught me rhetoric and we both recited Whitman. But Angus Fletcher is the abiding presence. He is in the room as I teach, read, write. Our friendship was continuous from 1951 to 2016, and indeed he is my guiding shade. I think my relationships with mentors and friends changed only after they died. I am not an occultist nor a medium, but somehow they speak to me from the beyond. They are no different except perhaps a touch more urgent.

William Giraldi: My memory is all loops and lacunae. The poetry I have locked in me took lots of work to get there and takes lots of work to stay there. I once described your memory as a great bear trap, but let’s revise that, because I recently heard a cosmologist say that at the other end of every black hole is a white hole... nothing truly disappears but is born anew in another cosmos, at the other end. There’s poetic splendor in that, a Nietzschean eternal recurrence that pleases me. Your memory for poetry is a vortex birthing fresh light. I think of Robert Graves’s poem “On Portents,” in which he writes of “tourbillions in Time made / By the strong pulling of her bladed mind.” But I wonder if a pulling memory such as yours is ever a woe... it gives in verse but takes in tears. There must be morose moments before the bruising dawn when you wish you couldn’t remember with such vividness.

Harold Bloom: Memory can be a consuming fire or it can please like the taste of fresh fruit. From about 4 a.m. on, I am not happy about my memory though it keeps me going anyway. I surprised myself the other day by quoting swaths of Edmund Spenser to myself. At first I could not remember who it was, but that came soon. It is much easier to remember poems than to remember people. If I allowed myself to brood on all the people I loved who have departed, then I would never be able to go on reading, writing, teaching. In me memory has become cognition.

William Giraldi: Your combined work on Romanticism, influence, memory, Shakespeare, and religion amounts to a constant, branching dialogue--your books sing to each other­­ under the light of literature. You long ago came into possession of your own influence, and I wonder what you ponder now when glancing back at your tremendous output, if you’d like to be remembered as the explicator of literary agon, as fervent Bardolator, as defender of the Canon, or if you see your different stages as I do, as a single stage that progresses as your thinking progressed, from your first book on Shelley to this latest on memory.

Harold Bloom: I have been publishing books and essays from 1957 until now in 2019. I continue to write and to teach. I can hardly remember what it was like to be 25 or 27. I would like to be remembered as a teacher. Essentially I am a schoolteacher. I do not know whether I have developed or just unfolded. It seems to me dubious that any of my writings will survive. They were extensions of my teaching. Insofar as they have taught strangers, they have done their work. The work of teaching is never over. It has taught me how to listen. When I was young and middle-aged, I was a bad listener. Now I listen very closely as my students discuss Shakespeare or Wallace Stevens with one another. I think when I depart that I will think of myself as a secular rabbi. One reads to the congregation yet also to oneself. Yahweh bewilders me. I cannot accept him. I cannot reject him. The God of my mother and my father cannot be just an old story. I do not trust in the Covenant, but I cannot deny the transcendental and extraordinary.