#john stoddard

[voguefashion]

Jeremy Irons photographed by John Stoddard in a taxi, Chelsea, London, 1990.

[collectedinspirations]

Pj Harvey, Björk and Tori Amos photographed by John Stoddart.

[whatithinkaboutdarkshadows]

Episode 502: Some experience with the criminal mind

Yesterday, matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard and her daughter Carolyn were in their drawing room quarreling about some family matters when a strange man stumbled into the house. The man was 6’6″ tall, his face was scarred, he trailed a length of chain from a shackle he wore on one ankle, and could speak only a few words. When Carolyn tuned the radio to an Easy Listening station, the man found…

[kwebtv]

The Campbells  -  ITV  /  CTV  -  April 4, 1986  - September 12, 1990

Period Drama (100 episodes)

Running Time: 30 minutes

Stars:

Malcolm Stoddard as Dr. James Campbell

John Wildman as Neil Campbell

Amber-Lea Weston as Emma Campbell

Eric Richards as John Campbell

Cedric Smith as Captain Thomas Sims

Brigit Wilson as Harriet Sims

Wendy Lyon as Rebecca Sims

Barbara Kyle as Charlotte Logan

[vintage1981]

House Of Dark Shadows (1970) Review & History ⚰️ 🧛‍♂️ 🩸 |  Radical Retro Rewind

Growing up with the original gothic Soap Dark Shadows on reruns in the 90's, I do a small history of the show and dive into a summary and review of the 1970 film version called House of Dark Shadows.

House of Dark Shadows is a 1970 American feature-length horror film directed by Dan Curtis, based on his Dark Shadows television series (ABC, 1966–1971). In this film expansion, vampire Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) searches for a cure for vampirism so he can marry a woman who resembles his long-lost fiancée Josette (Kathryn Leigh Scott).

[collinsportmaine]

If you are a fan of Joan Bennett (aka Elizabeth Collins Stoddard) you may want to check out a podcast developed by Vanity Fair magazine and Vanessa Hope, Bennett’s granddaughter.

Joan Bennett had been involved in a scandals in 1951, when her husband shot her agent in the parent lot of the agents offices. But it was Bennett’s whose career suffered.

[clamarcap]

Leggenda - II

Pëtr Il’ič Čajkovskij (1840 - 1893): Leggenda per voce e pianoforte op. 54 n. 5 (1883). Nicolai Gedda, tenore; Geoffrey Parsons, pianoforte. Il testo è costituito da una traduzione russa, eseguita da Aleksej Nikolaevič Pleščeev (1825-1893), di una poesia, un tantino antisemita, di Richard Henry Stoddard (1825-1903) intitolata Roses and Thorns (vedi oltre). Lo stesso brano nell’orchestrazione di…

[asfaltics]

putterings, 247-243

  and dry bones failing desire (his eyes were weak) inaccurate tinware fingers   sharp, staccato ideas; by action at last around me and in my mind times when some semblance of order

—

puutterings     |     their index     |     these derivations     |     20230124  

[celaenaeiln]

I want to talk about Dick Grayson's beauty, sex symbol status, and how it all connects for a moment.

This is a prelude to an upcoming post but I needed to include this separately because the other was getting too big.

First of all Dick Grayson is a beautiful man.

And you're probably thinking "well, no duh. Everyone knows that." but what I mean is Dick Grayson was intentionally made to be beautiful.

For a little historical context, around the late 1950s the culture in the US was changing. It was around this time, that people began exploring and accepting what they called a "feminine man".

This was really taking place in cinema and stuff where they began to show softer versions of men doing "typically female roles" as heroes.

One example is the movie "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", a 1962 Hollywood film. In summary, it takes place in the midwest and is centered about Cowboys, gunslingers, the shebang. But the point is, there are two male leads in the movie - Ranse Stoddard (played by Jimmy Stewart) and Tom Donophon (played by John Wayne). Ranse and Tom are both the heroes in the film but with a key difference. Tom is like the sheriff of the town, loved by all and focusing his time on practicing his gun skills. The savior of women and normal people, he's the typical masculine hero. His face is rough and handsome. Ranse however was the new wave. He doesn't care about carrying the gun, he thinks it's uncouth and focuses much of his attention on sending the evil guy (Liberty Valance) to jail through laws. He doesn't want to kill and he takes a more advocative approach. He is also loved by everyone despite not being super masculine. Ranse's face is clean and almost dainty in comparison to Tom and Liberty Valance's.

Despite the complete opposites they are, both men are considered heroes. On one hand, you have the very male typical hero but on the other hand, you have the feminine male hero. At one point the evil guy laughs when Ranse walks in wearing an apron because serving tables is a "woman's job", but Ranse doesn't let it bother him.

How does this connect to Dick Grayson?

Dick Grayson is the feminine hero of DC. DC jumped on the pretty boy hero train.

That's also why in the Teen Titans (1966) comics, Dick keeps being referred to by endearingly feminine pet names by the titans which they seem to only use on him.

Standard gender roles: Men were expected to be strong, aggressive, and bold while women were expected to be polite, accommodating, and nurturing. Sound familiar about a certain duo?

But Dick? He plays both male and female gender roles in a time period where it wasn't socially acceptable to do so.

So my point is, Dick was created to blur the lines between gender and the way his character has progressed - he's meant to be the definition of a man opposite to male toxicity.

He can cook and do laundry whereas Bruce, the image of male dominance cannot.

This also falls into another role of Bruce and Dick's but it applies here as well in hindsight.

One thing people need to understand is that Dick was created to be the antithesis of Bruce Wayne. For all the gloominess that Bruce is Dick was meant to be the joy. He is the light to Bruce's darkness.

Which is why Dick often acts as the loving mother to the batfamily while Bruce acts as the stern father. Because Dick was created for the female role.

Part of the reason why I love Dick and Kory is because they do this at a time where girlbossing and malewifing wasn't a thing. Kori is consistently the dominant one when it comes to love in their relationship while Dick plays a softer, more "wife like" role. The way Kori is taller than Dick and buffer than him ✨

He is quite literally a queen consort - that is the role that Kori begs him to take after she is forced to marry someone her father picks out for her. But Dick refuses in tears because his morality cannot bear becoming a mistress and ruining someone else's marriage.

I know this is a long tangent but here's where the sex symbol comes in. Dick was created to be the most beautiful figure in DC but him being beautiful is not supposed to be confused with him being objectified.

Being beautiful is just something he was born as. What people do as a result has nothing to with DC

Take this for instance

He's literally just showering and comes out of the shower to find a random little girl singing about his and batman's identities. Creepy? Yes. Very much so. So he chases after her and finds her gone. Well there's nothing he can do now, he needs to go back and analyze what's going on and contact the other titans-

Crap.

Look at all the women that are ogling him, and even the ginger looks as if he doesn't know if he's jealous or wants to join - but there's nothing Dick did to make them do that. He's literally minding his own business and got caught outside. Did he hit on the women? Did he seduce them? Did he purposefully show off and make a loud commotion because he wanted the attention? No!

Arguing that Dick Grayson shouldn't be a sex symbol just seems wrong to me considering that it's not a fault of his.

It's like telling Kori not to have large breasts and telling Dinah not to wear fishnets.

People still ogle them regardless of how they dress because they're just that attractive. You can't tell someone to look a different way because you don't like the attention they're receiving...that's literally the opposite of everything people should be fighting for

Arguing that Dick Grayson being a sex symbol is a problem because he's too beautiful and blaming the actions of other characters for thinking so is just...

it's wrong.

He was created to be beautiful to fight male toxic masculinity. He's woman coded for a reason.

We should be embracing him. He represents everything male freedom should be about. He constantly placed in a female role, in female positions-

In queer positions-

He's acrobatic, slender, and sensual. He's gentle, loving, and beautiful.

When has the beauty of a person ever been a reflection of their character? The way fandom is going, it's implying that because female characters make sexualized comments about Dick's body, it's somehow Dick's fault for looking that way. We're blaming him for his "womanizing" ways as if he hasn't put his heart and soul into every relationship he's had. And while we're busy calling him a womanizer, we conveniently forget that the women he's in relationships with have significant personalities of their own. We inadvertently reduce their beings to plastic bags, ignoring that they have broken up with each other because of being unable to resolve conflicting beliefs, different career paths, different lifestyles, and more. It's not a one way road with our treatment of Dick. It's a two way street because we're harming both Dick and strong women like Kori, Barbara, Bea, Shawn, and Helena by pretending what they believe in and live for is unimportant in love.

Instead we should be exploring how the objectification might have an impact on Dick's mental health rather than blaming DC for using characters to describe how hot Dick is.

All the beautiful traits of Dick Grayson - his ambiguous sexuality, his overwhelming love for people, his affection for his friends, the way he cries and feels for others - all of it is beautiful, is it not?

From his very creation Dick was meant to be someone who breaks gender roles. The constant attraction he receives from both men and women in all of DC's media is evidence of that. The Grayson comics push the boundaries of his sexuality as much as DC will allow. To be queer without coming out with it. He is the feminine hero.

Everyone seems to hate that he's being called a sex symbol but why does that bother you? Dick Grayson IS the pretty girl of the comic universe. He IS the babygirl of DC.

DC has created the perfect view of what it's like to be a woman through Dick Grayson and we're spitting on the most accurate representation of a female that comics have ever created by blaming them for expressing what it's like to live as a woman.

[desertangels70s]

 🕊Kate Bush was photographed in 1993 by John Stoddard.🕊

[whatithinkaboutdarkshadows]

Episode 348: A matter of fact

[vigilantkatholixx]

christianity

orthodoxy (chesterton) HC

everlasting man (chesterton) PB

europe and the faith (belloc) HC (this one’s nice)

the restitution of man (aeschliman/lewis) PB

the germanization of early medieval christianity (russell) PB

middle ages & art

life on the english manor 1150-1400 (bennett) HC

life on the english manor 1150-1400 (bennett) (cooler copy) HC

the autumn of the middle ages (huizinga) (best translation) HC

social theories of the middle ages (some catholic clergyman) HC

medieval art (stokstad) PB

a book of hours HC (tiny, lots of full colour reprints)

image on the edge (some pomo bitch) HC

guilds in the middle ages (renard) HC

the book of beasts (some little cheesy glossary of medieval beasts according to the latin bestiaries) PB

race & politic’s

the works of joseph de maistre this ones a keeper

couple antebellum pro-slavery books HC

the rising tide of color (stoddard) HC, ‘20s edition i think, with original dustcover

race or mongrel (schultz) HC, another early 20th cent book about white people being better than brown people

the dispossessed majority (allen) HC, this one’s boring as fuck

nation and race PB (i don’t even know what this one is, bunch of essays about the scary rise of the scary new right wing in europe or something, who cares

black hundred (some russian commie) HC, book about history of russian right wing and anti-communism

nations and nationalism since 1780 (hobsbawm, dead jewish commie) PB

the meaning of conservatism (scruton) HC

what the social classes owe each other (sumner) PB this one sucks

readings on fascism and national socialsm PB

varieties of fascism (krieger) PB

ride the tiger (evola) HC

the k's

j5ws and modern capitalism (sombert) PB

j5w'sh eugenics (john glad) HC

culture of critique (macdonald) PB

other

basic writings of nietzsche HC

zarathustra’s discourses (some tiny penguin PB with excerpts from TSZ)

solitude (storr) PB here’s one for the introverts

the book of five rings (miyamoto musashi) tiny PB

letters to a young contrarian (hitchens) (yes, christopher) (don’t ask) HC

[dancurtisowesmemoney]

Dark Shadows’ Hottest Character?

[bobparkhurst]

So it begins. There had to be a Masters of the Air OC in me somewhere, and here she is. The Honourable Maureen Byrd-Caldwell, Reenie to her friends. Reenie to her acquaintances. Reenie to everyone except her parents, at the end of the day. I suppose this is an introduction, in its way. DRAFT.

When it came down to it, it was simply a case of the purest rotten luck. 

She’d held out hope, as close as yesterday, that there would be some last minute reprieve, that the rumoured placement would somehow transform itself once put to ink on the page into a posting in Sussex or even Devon. Molly, her bunkmate of the last month, was already on her way to work the forests other side of Scotland. Reenie had seen her off onto the first train herself, spilling promises to write as soon as she knew the address she was going to. Scotland she could have liked too. She’d only ever been as far as Edinburgh. But the last remnants of her optimism had been dashed at dawn, with a quiet and entirely unassailable pronouncement from Mrs Iver. There would be no arguing now.

The Honourable Maureen Byrd-Caldwell had packed her things, picked up her bicycle, and headed over the county border towards Norfolk within the hour. 

The training camp at Culford, a scant twenty miles behind her, is already beginning to feel like a distant dream. Here, the edges of the roads tilt in ways that are intimately familiar; years of absence have done little to reduce her body’s memory of these sharp turns and deceptively deep furrows that lie half-hidden behind them, bordering the fields from the roads. The last time she had cycled these paths, she’d been freshly nineteen and already itching to make her way across the country, to take up her place at college. Her brother had been with her then, all of fourteen and growing into limbs that were far too long for his skinny body. The two of them had careened wildly, screaming with laughter, down these roads in a manner that would surely have horrified their parents if either one had been there to witness it. 

Reenie’s jaw clenches at the recollection. John would not be home this summer anyway, nor her father. There will be only Mother now, rattling around in the house they had grown up in, undoubtedly playing the gracious host to the officers billeted in the guest rooms. It had always been the role that suited her best. 

A wobble in her wheel snaps her back to focus and she frowns, craning her neck to peer over the handlebars, though the ride has immediately smoothed back as much as these roads allow. A stone then, or maybe a rut she hadn’t noticed. She sighs. Stoddard Manor is another twenty miles away and not her destination today. There’s no need to be thinking about it yet, nor let the metallic taste in her mouth coat her tongue to choking. There will be more than time enough to deal with all of that. 

She does not need to check her watch to know that it is coming into mid-morning. The summer sun beats on the back of her neck, prickling the skin beneath her vest with sweat. Reenie can feel it beading uncomfortably between her shoulder blades, while her hair sticks in clumps to her forehead. Something will have to be done about that before she reaches her first appointment at the farm. It had been hard enough to arrange these billets for the girls that would be arriving tomorrow, it would not do to have them lost again because she has not represented them well. 

For a moment, she allows herself a fantasy, conjures up an image of the bath that would be waiting for her, and something scented to scrub the perspiration from her skin, but even the memory of it is hard to grasp, a wish long since left behind and far too distant from reality even to make believe. She will settle well enough for finding a place to change her uniform and take a brush through what is surely a bird nesting in the curls beneath her hat. 

In the shade of a nearby copse, Reenie slides to a halt, pulling up her bike away from the lane. Dismounting, she sighs in relief and pulls a half-empty canteen from a saddlebag. The water is too warm to be pleasant, but after so many miles she’s thirsty enough to not care, and unobserved enough to gulp it down without any guilt for decorum. Wiping the back of her hand over her mouth, she stretches out her back, her legs. It has been a little while since she has cycled so far without pause. A proper rest will be a welcome thing. 

The patch of trees is not thick, but it will do for what she needs. Reenie inspects it with a critical eye, peeking through leafy branches to the fields beyond, and then again towards the road. There is not an awful lot of space, but beggars cannot, she supposes, and so she takes one more furtive glance down the road before fetching her change of clothing and begins to strip in her makeshift privacy, peeling sweat-soaked layers from her body, until she is stood in nothing but her underwear. The half-breeze is welcome against her skin and for a moment before she dresses again, she raises her chin and lets herself enjoy it.

She is doing up the button on her trousers when she hears the shout.

Instinctively, she throws one arm over her chest, the other already scrabbling for the blouse she hasn’t yet put back on, but she barely has time to jump out of the way before she finds herself forced to move. The bike comes careening through the thinner part of the trees, its rider desperately clinging for some kind of control that isn’t coming as it skids towards her. 

The breath is full knocked from her body as she thumps heavily to the ground, one arm caught painfully beneath her ribcage. Somewhere behind, the crash of metal against metal sounds like thunder; she can do nothing but gulp air and push herself back up to her knees. 

The owner of the bicycle, she sees from the corner of her eye, has been flung from his seat, lying prone against the ground, half caught in branches and already trying to tug himself free. She slides herself over. He is going to do himself an injury, if he hasn’t already. There’s a nasty tear in the sleeve of his uniform - American, she can tell that much - and she wraps one hand around his arm gently, lifting it to inspect, leaving the other to rest against his shoulder, stilling him from movement. He blinks at her, unfocused at first, lips parted, before he breathes deep and something more settled, more schooled comes to rest over his - handsome - features. He stops his struggle, watching her face as she carefully unhooks torn fabric from sharp branches. It is something of a relief when nothing more sinister than the snapped ends of threads shows itself.

“Steady now,” she says, slow and soothing, like she has learned the last few years to do with the farm children, “are you all right? Make sure of it before you move anything. That was a nasty tumble you took.”

“Yeah,” he says, frowning. “Yes. I’m all right.” 

She rocks back on her heels as he sits up, running a hand through his blond hair. He glances over her, eyes flicking down her body, and immediately looks away, lips pressed tight before he speaks again. 

“Are… you?”

Hell’s bells.

She closes her eyes briefly.

“Please just keep looking that way.”

The blouse she finds half hidden under a nearby outcropping of shrubbery and she pulls it on, buttoning it as quickly as she can. It’s difficult, with the pain in her arm and she finds herself biting back another curse and flushing through her cheeks all the way to her chest. She knew it. She knew Norfolk was a bad idea.

“Are you injured?” she asks over her shoulder, and tries not to notice the creak of mortification in her voice. 

“I’m not,” the young man says. There’s something underscoring his tone too, a blush in the rounded curves of his accent that makes her feel a little better, “I think your bike might be though.” A pause and the sound of metal scraping against metal. “Mine too.”

He still has his back towards her when she turns around again, though he’s standing now, peering down at the wreckage. She can hear him hum as he inspects the damage.

“I can get this fixed for you,” he says. His foot prods at a wheel. They both wince at the ping as something breaks off. “It would be the least I could do for running into you. I'm very sorry about that, miss.”

Embarrassment lost in an instant, Reenie feels herself bristle at the implication. She’s been elbow deep in oil and muck, fixing her own transportation more than enough times by now to be patronised by some golden film star of an airman. She moves to stand beside him to make her own assessment. A sharp breath catches, dissipates, between her teeth as she readies her argument and realises how futile it is. The fight in her disappears with it.

“You may even owe me a new bicycle,” she says instead. 

He looks up at her. After a moment, his lip quirk into half a smile.

“I might at that.”

Naturally, it’s hers that’s in the sorriest state, they discover together. A series of sad little clanks sound as Reenie tries to right it and resigns herself instead to tying it for balance against the other bicycle with a length of twine. He runs his hands over his own as she does so, rotating the wheel back and forth against the earth. It moves smoothly enough, seemingly little worse for wear. She holds up a hand to stop the apology she can already see forming for the differences in their fortune.

“What’s done is done, I’ll save my tears for something bigger than a bicycle if it’s all the same to you, ah…” she pauses, “I’m sure I ought to be addressing you by rank but I’m equally sure I don’t have the faintest what it is.”

There’s a small breath that sounds a little like a laugh, soft enough that she can think to have heard it, but for the slight incline of his head letting her know the sound had not been in her imagination alone.

“You could call me Gale instead and sidestep the whole thing. Gale Cleven.” His teeth flash white at her raised eyebrow. “Major, if you would like, but just Gale is fine.”

“How dashingly American.”

One hand on the handlebars of his bicycle, he holds the other out to her; there is no hesitation before she takes it and shakes firmly.

“Miss…?”

“Byrd,” she says. “Reenie Byrd.”

“Miss Reenie Byrd,” he repeats. The syllables roll together pleasantly in his mouth, reeniebird. She rather likes the way it sounds. “Please, just… let me walk you back into the village and we can figure out what to do about the bike.”

“Back nowhere,” she tells him, stooping to pick up her bags. “I haven’t made it that far yet, I was still on my way.” 

Before she can protest, he snags the strap of one of the bags and loops it over his arm. “That so?”

Her ruined bike, tethered to his, creaks as they push them both back towards the road. 

“Quite,” she tells him. “You see, I was quite innocently having a rest, and there was this dreadful incident with an awfully clumsy young major.”

“He sounds terrible.”

“We’ll see,” she replies, as the two of them begin to walk, side by side and accompanied by the rattling of twisted metal. “It’s at least two miles.”

[blackswaneuroparedux]

All you have to do is go fast enough and long enough.

- James Garner, Grand Prix (1966)

The cult classic Grand Prix (1966) was an ambitious journey into the soul of elite motor racing, Grand Prix even on today’s viewing manages to find the heartbeat of Formula 1 deep within the majesty of roaring machinery.

Several top drivers are in competition for the 1966 Formula 1 title. Among them is American Pete Aron (James Garner) of the BRM team (and formerly with Ferrari), who is fast but prone to mistakes. At the Monaco race, Aron's refusal to give way causes a serious collision with his teammate Englishman Scott Stoddard (Brian Bedford). Stoddard, who races in the shadow of his deceased brother, is injured and misses several races, His headstrong wife Pat (Jessica Walter) is fed-up with loving a man living on the edge and leaves him while he is still in hospital. Meanwhile, Aron is fired from the BRM team for reckless driving.

The Ferrari team are BRM's closest challengers. Veteran driver and two-time champion Frenchman Jean-Pierre Sarti (Yves Montand) is still the fastest man on most days, but he is starting to lose his motivation. Sarti is stuck in a loveless, distant marriage with businesswoman Monique (Genvieve Page), and starts a relationship with American journalist Louise (Eva Marie Saint). Sarti's team mate is young Italian Nino Barlini (Antonio Sabato), who lives the fast life on and off the track.

Aron hooks up with Pat, is hired by the fledgling Yamura team financed by tycoon Izo Yamura (Toshiro Mifune), and finally finds his winning form. Stoddard returns to racing despite the pain of his injuries, and more determined than ever, goes on a winning streak. With Sarti and Barlini also picking up victories, all four men enter the final race of the season in the hunt for the coveted championship with plenty to lose on the line.

Director John Frankenheimer creates a three hour masterpiece celebrating both the men and the machines involved in the international pinnacle of motor racing. Large segments of Grand Prix consist of action from races at the legendary Monaco street circuit, the dangerously fast and incredibly scenic Spa in Belgium, Zandvoort in Holland, Clermont Ferrand in France, Silverstone in England and the final showdown at the imposing Monza in Italy, with its intimidating steeply banked corners.

Other than playing with split-screen imagery, Frankenheimer uses no tricks, and just mounts his cameras at every possible angle on the cars, capturing the pure raw speed, incredible danger, and classic beauty of racing in the mid 1960s. This was the era of rudimentary safety protocols, with drivers facing the risk of serious crashes, injury and death at every corner. The visuals are stunning, with the cars blasting at top speed past unprotected poles, trees, spectators, and structures.

Whenever the cars are running, Grand Prix is one of the best studio efforts of the '60s. The film only stalls when it's off the track, which is where more than half of this three-hour epic takes place. Grand Prix is an exhilarating celebration of men addicted to the thrill of racing with an unknown destiny, speeding into magnificent madness.

[judi-daily]

Portrait Session, 1996 Photographer: John Stoddard