#the secondary conversation and music are involuntary

[website-com]

this is what it’s like inside my brain all the time. it’s like having a conversation with someone in a restaurant and when you stop talking you suddenly pick up on the other tables conversation, which you weren’t paying attention to, but knew was happening. and there’s music too

[sarahboseman]

WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT (PART 2)

CHADWICK BOSEMAN X READER

PART 1

Word count: 1800

Warning : None

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FEBRUARY 8th 2018

5 months ago …

The strobe lights color the room, the music is loud, the songs you adore are blasting in one of your favorite club. The DJ is fantastic and you couldn’t wish for a better place to celebrate your promotion.

Aisha and Jason have organized this surprise party by inviting some friend and colleague and you are really enjoying it. It was a long time since you went dancing with friends. You don’t know how many drinks you drank, but you don’t mind the feeling. You like this feeling of disinhibition you have when you slightly exaggerate with alcohol.

You move as you can really do, moving your body following the rhythm in the middle of the dance floor with your friends when suddenly you feel your head starts spinning to not being able to stand up straight.

“I take a break, I need some air … and the bathroom” you cry in Aisha’s ear who nods and asks if you want company.

“No worries, nothing serious"

You wink at her and, after taking your jacket, you go outside to get some fresh air trying to make the nausea disappear.

It’s very late night and very cold outside. As you breathe clouds of smoke come out of your mouth. You’d like to smoke a cigarette, but you made many sacrifices to stop, so you just lean your back against the wall and look around waiting to feel slightly better, usually the fresh air helps.

The access of the private club faces a secondary road, in the alley there aren’t many people, some people who smoke because inside is forbidden, someone who chat a little bit, some laughings around. The two huge doormen are at the entrance checking who enters and who leaves, checking the pass and the list.

After noticing the few people around you, your gaze rests on two women and a man on your right, all very attractive, beautiful features, very well dressed speaking and laughing and you may swear to have seen them already somewhere. But at that moment you can’t concentrate to remember where or when and look away the moment they notice you were watching them. One of the two girls looks at you smiling and greeting you.

“It’s very chilly tonight, better don’t stay out here for so long or you’ll catch a death of cold!”

Her accent is American, very different from the one you’re used to hearing here every day, it reminds you home.

You nod and return the gentle smile

"I just need some air and than I’ll come back, thanks for the advice”

“Oh you’re not british, are you American too?”

“Yes, I’ve been here for a while. I don’t think I’ll ever integrate with the accent”

“birthday party?“

"promotion”

“Congratulations then! nice to meet you, see you inside, have fun”

You greet with education while all three return inside.

You stay outside again for a while to enjoy the frozen air touching your skin trying to figure out where you’ve already seen those three people, but nothing … your mind is too intoxicated by alcohol and the loud music that echoes from inside doesn’t help .

You tighten in your jacket while you approach the entrance for coming back.

You head towards the back of the club where your have your reserved table and sip some more of your drink.

Your body moves involuntarily following the sound, for a moment you look for your friends who are still dancing far away from you and close your eyes enjoying the music. And that’s when you feel someone approaching you.

You sigh bored thinking of the umpteenth guy who wants to try an approach noticing you’re alone. It’s the tenth time this evening that you say “No thanks” and repeat it now again:

“No thanks, not interested” You’re annoyed even before he utters a word, you don’t even open your eyes to look in his direction.

“You’ve changed a lot, but I’d have recognized you everywhere in the crowd"

Your heart stops for a moment when you recognize his voice, you’d have recognized it even if it was a sigh in the midst of that mess.

“Chadwick …”

“Y/N …”

He’s standing next to you, looking at you, perhaps waiting for your sign to sit down. You look at him, he’s beautiful, he’s definitely changed too, he’s more man, more mature, more experienced, but he’s always a beautiful guy and always very sexy as you remember him.

Wearing a tight black T-shirt that enhances his perfect and toned body, casual pants and he’s a bit sweaty, he breathes in breathlessness, most likely he was dancing. You know he loves dancing and you also know he’s very good. You remember him at those summer night parties … oh hell yes you remember him. But it’s not really the right moment to get into certain memories and thoughts.

You don’t know how many minutes have passed in that awkward silence, but when you try to talk, he tries too. You try again and he tries again and your voices overlap.

“You first”, he tells you, smiling

“Ok … Hi …” you say to him, looking him in the eyes and then looking away. It’s the only thing you can say.

“Hi … can I sit down with you for a moment?”

With a nod of the head you say yes, moving your jacket from the other side, allowing him to sit next to you.

He seems more embarrassed than you, he doesn’t look you in your direction, he puts his forearms on his open legs looking straight ahead, he smiles perhaps looking for the right words to start a conversation.

You’re embarrassed and terrified and uncomfortable, and you know the reason very well.

You’ve lived the last years of your life with the thought he was angry with you, that he hated you and that if he had met you by chance, he’d have turned around without even saying hi giving you a look.

And instead here he is, next to you and he doesn’t look angry, but it seems that he can read your inner thoughts perceiving your sensations on his skin.

“I’m no longer angry with you Y/N, actually I don’t think I’ve ever been. If this can help you” he says, turning his head to look at you in the eye.

The music is always very high, but you can hear his words loud and clear.

When he smiles in that kind way you relax … that smile and that gaze he used to look at you making you feel good. He rubs his hands and looks at you again, waiting for your reaction, your word.

"It’s nice to see you again, Chadwick, you look good …”

“It’s very nice to see you too Y/N, you’re always very beautiful, much more beautiful, if I may say so”

You feel your cheeks bursting with embarrassment, never such a simple compliment has made you this effect.

His gaze is fixed on your eyes, looking for something, then it goes down to look at your body covered by a mini dress, despite the cold. His gaze is fixed on your legs and you see him tilt his head as to compliment.

He’s also become more uninhibited, you smile slightly shaking your head.

“What brings you in London?”

“European Premiere of my movie tonight … and then we came here to celebrate all together"

“So, a touch and go..”

“Yes, we leave early for the press tour”

“Congratulations on your movie by the way, they said it’s really cool”

“Will you go to see it?”

“Of course I will”

“Good … free evening out with friends?“

"I had a promotion yesterday and we came to celebrate”

“Congratulations”

“Thank you…”

You rub your hands on your legs, and then try to relax your shoulders, you still feel a little awkward, take a deep breath and see Aisha looking at you from the dance floor, trying to figure out if you need help. You two are a bit telepathic and with a nod of your head you say no. She returns to dance, but without losing sight on you.

You’d like to tell Chadwick so many things but you know it’s not the moment and the place, he too would like to tell you so many things, but he doesn’t dare. You see him with the corner of your eye, he opens his lips to say something but holds back several times. Sinking that conversation down his throat. Those moments of silence seem eternal and you try to break the ice in some way.

“You don’t got to sit here, don’t you want to enjoy the party? Your colleagues will be looking for you”

“No, it doesn’t bother me sitting here hidden for a while … believe me. Listen Y/N I need to talk to you, the music is too damn loud, let’s go out for a moment?”

"Chad, my love, where were you???” A female voice says approaching you.

You see him stiffen instantly, swallow and then show off a big smile to the girl who reaches him making him stand beside her, taking his hand. She squeezes his waist, then placing her other hand on his chest, as if to mark her territory. You get up too as if it were an involuntary movement.

"I’m here baby, I’m just having a chat” he answers.

She looks at him smiling and then looks at you without greeting and scanning you from head to toe

"It was a pleasure to see you again, congratulations again for the promotion” he tells you in a very detached and formal tone.

“It was a pleasure for me too” you answer him as he walks away with his girlfriend … you suppose, she called him “my love”.

“Who was that Chaddy?”

“No one, just an old friend”

You don’t want to stay there anymore, you just want to go home and start crying. It was nice to see him again, but seeing him with another person hurt you.

“Why the heck should it hurt me?” (you think)

It’s been years, many years, and it’s normal for him to have a girlfriend, as you’ve had many boyfriends. What’s wrong then?

Yet you feel bad and the fact you couldn’t talk to him, makes you even more nervous and intractable.

After all that meeting was totally not planned!!! “So why the fuck???!!!!” You tell talking to yourself while Aisha reaches you.

"Y/N sweetheart, where are you going?”

“Home, I’m tired and I don’t feel good, thank you very much for the nice evening love”

“Just wait, I come with you"

“Keep on having fun, I don’t want to ruin the evening, really, we’ll talk later"

"Y/N … what did he tell you? I didn’t get close to not interrupt anything ”

“Nothing, we didn’t talk about anything, but tomorrow morning I’ll tell you everything, ok?”

Aisha nods and caresses your shoulder as you take your belongings to reach the exit. At that moment you accidentally turn you head towards Chadwick’s group and see him dancing very close to with his girlfriend, but he’s looking at you …

TO BE CONTINUED …

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[mariocki]

The Terror (Edgar Wallace’s The Terror, 1938)

“You are extremely heartless, Sir!” “No heart about me, old boy. All brain.”

The history of The Terror is, like most Edgar Wallace properties, convoluted and confusing. Wallace was a machine, churning out scripts, plays and novels at a rate that Stephen King would find daunting, and by the mid 1920s he was firmly established as the king of the potboiler. The Terror was written first as a stage play, completed in just five days (a typically Wallacean feat) and staged in 1927. There followed a film adaptation in 1928 - only the second “all talking” picture released by Warner Brothers - but that version is now considered a lost film. The following year Wallace novelised his script, again as The Terror (it at least seems to have avoided the multiple name changes some other Wallace works were subject to) and it was chosen to launch Collins’ Detective Story Club. For a few years the world was Terror free, until ABPC decided the time was evidently ripe for a remake: so we have 1938’s offering.

Wallace had died by this point, but the film feels very much like his product. I can’t say how faithful the adaptation is, not having seen the play nor read the book, but its a fair guess to say it plays out in pretty much the same way. All the Wallace tropes are in place; the mysterious, unknown villain whose face nobody knows; a character who may be a villain or may be a policeman; hidden passageways and secret chambers. Throw in a ghost, some spooky organ music and a historical crime and you have Prime Eddy W. The villain nobody can recognise is, in particular, a Wallace favourite - it forms the centrepiece of probably his most successful work, The Gaunt Stranger/The Ringer (novel 1925, play 1927, film 1928, 1931, 1938, 1952…).

The historical crime, in this instance, is a bullion robbery. Using a gas attack, three men rob an armoured car - they are Joe Connor, ‘Soapy’ Marx and a giggling maniac called O'Shea. Director Richard Bird does a good job of keeping O'Shea’s face concealed, first during the robbery and then as he watches (and informs on) his compatriots, preserving his identity for the final twist. Connor and Marx are arrested and spend ten years in prison, vowing to find O'Shea and the loot upon release.

Briefly we see the police reaction, but key figure Inspector Bradley is again shot in such a way that his face is never clearly seen - setting up the secondary twist. This is all fine and good, but the problem with this type of plot is that its often painfully obvious who the surprise villain (and in the case the surprise policeman) are going to be. Maybe I’m just cynical and the world of 2017 doesn’t allow the same suspension of disbelief. But it is pretty obvious. Things aren’t helped by the fact that the filmmakers seem to have forgotten Bradley’s identity is a secret, as he’s quietly revealed to be an officer of the law about half way through (making the final reveal at the end of the film painfully redundant).

All is not lost though! If I wanted groundbreaking originality I wouldn’t be watching a Wallace film. The enjoyment is not in the twists but in how they’re put together, and in all the little moments along the way. Its a rule of thumb for most EW adaptations that they are generally less than the sum of their parts. The parts is where all the fun happens.

A lot of the fun here comes from the cast. The two vengeful armed robbers are played by Henry Oscar and Alastair Sim, which sounds downright implausible on paper, but which actually works incredibly well. This is from an era in which seemingly every film made in Britain had to have a thick vein of humour running through it, and Oscar and Sim’s unlikely double act works wonderfully to underscore some of the melodrama. Sim in particular is delightful - he plays ‘Soapy’ Marx in a way that might have been considered ‘eccentric’ or ‘dandyish’ in 1938, but which today seems outrageously camp. At one point in the film he adopts the disguise of a vicar and these scenes are probably the highlight of the film. Floating around the boarding house in which most of the film is set, sporting a dog collar and a wig, he ingratiates himself with the other (female) lodgers over tea. They read from a scrapbook of famous crimes and Sim arches his eyebrows, purses his lips, nods his head at all the right points. When the ladies reach the very bullion heist he was a part of, Sim manages to convey an explosion of floundering panic and indecision, all while staying very still. Its a beautiful performance.

Elsewhere we have a young Bernard Lee, long before Bond, as a consistently drunk young gentleman trying to acquire a room at the boarding house. He’s quickly smitten with the owner’s daughter, played by Linden Travers, and spends much of the film pursuing her. Pursuit is an apt word - whilst his romantic declarations and constant attendance are presumably supposed to play as charming, they unfortunately come across more as drunken lairiness. Times and attitudes change perhaps, but I found myself feeling very sorry for Travers. Her performance, incidentally, is impeccable - but like so many films of this era, she is badly served by the script and given little to do besides looking lovely and reacting with horror, in more or less equal amounts.

There are three more lodgers - a mother and daughter, played by Iris Hoey and Lesley Wareing, and the genteel Mr. Goodman, played by Wilfrid Lawson. Hoey and Wareing get more to play with than Travers, their characters having a ghoulish fascination with both ‘true crime’ stories and the ghostly legends surrounding the boarding house. Their interaction, with its mix of demand for table manners and grotesque conversation pieces, provides a lot of the light relief. Lawson comes off best, however. Its difficult to say whether thats because of the script or his performance. Where every one else is fashionably clipped and proper, straight-backed and (dare I say it) a little stiff, Lawson lounges over the entire film, delivering his lines with a dry loucheness and a barely hidden smile. He doesn’t exactly chew the scenery - its more in the order of a wine tasting, swirling it around his mouth before discretely spitting it out.

Mr. Goodman has been a lodger for the last ten years, ever since Colonel Redmayne bought the boarding house. Their relationship stands out as peculiar - later in the film it is revealed that [SPOILERS] Goodman is actually O'Shea and has been blackmailing the Colonel into sheltering him. This is how the Colonel tells it, anyway, to the police - describing his fear of the mentally unstable Goodman/O'Shea. The thing is, their relationship never really comes across that way until that point. They seem to be remarkably close, with Goodman talking happily of their ten years ‘together’ and even describing the 'life [they] have made for [themselves]’. True, Goodman is shown to be insane at the conclusion. True, he also declares his love to Redmayne’s daughter at one point - but this comes so out of left field, so utterly unsignposted that its weirdly the most unbelievable thing in the film. Perhaps this is supposed to be an aspect of Goodman’s damaged psyche, the transference of affection quickly and strongly to someone he barely knows (Redmayne’s daughter has only just arrived in the country when the action begins). Its tempting to look for queer coding in the character of Goodman (Lawson also plays him as quite effete), but I’m always wary of doing so in these situations. Its a difficult part of watching films, as a queer person - you can never be sure if you’re reaching too far, to find something that isn’t really there or, conversely, rejecting something that is there because you’ve been programmed to believe it couldn’t possibly be. So it goes.

Everything comes to a suitably gothic head at the conclusion, with characters entombed alive, mad men in monk’s habits, sealed crypts and hidden gold - and all taking place on a Dark And Stormy Night. Its absurdly histrionic but its pure Wallace. The Bad guy gets his dues, the good guy gets the girl and everyone goes home happy and safe.

Except for one weird aside. This film was made in 1938. The decade Marx and Connor spend in prison is shown in an inventive montage of world affairs, imposed over their angry faces. One of the last images, of the outside world they are missing whilst serving their sentances, is of Adolf Hitler addressing crowds at Nuremberg. World War 2 was still a year away, but the involuntary image of Hitler’s face faded over the villains is an unsettling one. It would be several years before films could be as carefree and fun as this particular piece of Wallace gumbo, so for that at least it should be celebrated.

[mariacorley]

How to be Black

My original reason for self-publishing a novel was to allow my protagonists, Langston and Cecile, the light of day. I started with the notion that if only a handful of people read my book, my beloved creations would still have lived and breathed somewhere other than on my computer. Publishers who cater to people like me used to be called vanity presses; there's some truth to that. It didn't take long before I began to dream of a larger audience, watching YouTube videos and absorbing blog posts that purported to show indie authors how to achieve unimaginable success. One of the most important parts of the plan seemed to be reviews, and so, emboldened by three 5 star reviews from total strangers, I asked everyone I could who had read my book if they would mind posting their opinions about it on Amazon. Some did, but many didn't, so I took it to the next level, paying to join a database that allowed me to contact random people who had demonstrated an interest in writing and sharing reviews.

I sent out numerous requests, but so far only a couple of those people have followed through. One of them is the inspiration for this post. Dr. Jacques Coulardeau sent me his review—two pages so full of inaccuracies and negative extrapolation that I was shocked that he gave me 4 stars—on Martin Luther King Day, a coincidence that I find ironic. Examples of his misleading statements include his portrayal of Cecile as “one who makes love with any boy available that is rather good looking,” for whom “pre-marital intercourse is a basic principle,” even though she has sex with exactly two men in the book, the first a one night stand during which she loses her virginity, the second her eventual husband. Coulardeau then glosses over the character's considerable internal conflict between her religious background and her sexual relationship with the “love of her life” by saying, “She does not realize her contradiction.” Um...not true. When Langston and Cecile meet, the reviewer says that Cecile “of course gives herself as if it were a question of life or death,” even though their relationship unfolds long distance. He even rebuts his own statement by adding “Cecile in a way makes the relation kind of satirical, humorous, un-serious.” Dr. Coulardeau states that Langston's decision to open a West Indian restaurant is simply because the cuisine is trendy. Um...nope. He also mentions that Langston's friends-with-benefits relationship, while in college, with the daughter of his Italian boss is doomed because of her father's disapproval, implying that Langston and Marietta aren't both aware, from day one, that their contact is a dalliance, and failing to mention an even more intense disapproval from Langston's Jamaican grandmother. And so on.

I won't dispute every incorrect statement, but—call me Donald Trump—I can't leave his final conclusion about my protagonists alone: “They definitely tricked their life-treks and they ended lost in some kind of tasteless, heartless, mindless deculturated wasteland.” His evidence? The characters are neither black nor West Indian enough for him. They eat West Indian food, but they don't speak the way he thinks they should (he is apparently a linguist; I'm merely someone who grew up as a Canadian West Indian). Further evidence of lost cultural identity includes Langston's decision to cook a  jerked turkey with mango salsa at Thanksgiving. I forgot to mention that the expert on what West Indians are supposed to be is an elderly Jewish man, who also took time out to pass judgments on Cecile's Christian journey in ways that my devoutly Christian readers did not. Huh?

These days, it's rare that a white person is overtly paternalistic enough to publicly claim knowledge of who black people should be, which is pretty much the same thing as informing us of our proper “place.” For obvious reasons, these kinds of statements are not nearly so uncommon in the black community. For example, the inability to “code-switch” is seen by some melanated people as proof of being an oreo: black on the outside, white on the inside. What does that mean, though?

Being an immigrant changes things, whether your relocation is voluntary or involuntary. Isn't it both natural and human to exert and receive influence as a result? When Dr. Coulardeau rails against the evils of multiculturalism, I think he may mean that distinct ethnic groups shouldn't lose touch with their cultural heritage. I support this idea, however, what does that include and exclude? Am I allowed to like only a particular kind of music, or cook a particular kind of food? If I am allowed to like things that aren't native to my ethnic group, a concept that has become hopelessly tangled, in most cases, by intermarriage (and here I mean even Jamaicans marrying Nigerians), how much should we like those things? How often can we indulge in them? What if we understand some of our ancestral language or dialect, but aren't fluent? Do we all need to repatriate to a country of cultural origin? Can we live in the suburbs? Or should our entire lives become a kind of performance art?

Coulardeau noted that “Canada is the best representative of multiculturalism and New York (where Cecile attends Juilliard) is one of the most diverse melting pot or salad bowl in the world,” calling the references to the various cultures there “anecdotal.” First, Canada is a vast nation, and I can assure you that most of it isn't particularly multicultural, although Toronto, where Langston lives (in Little Jamaica!), certainly consists of distinct ethnic enclaves. My main focus in writing the book, however, had to do with issues of personal growth that people can confront regardless of their race. Nevertheless, one reviewer said, “The issue of race is an important sub-stratum of the story and adds to its depth.” Another take: “How refreshing to encounter complex people who deal with racism and nonetheless dream beyond the limits of what's realistic. Unlike a lot of prime time television, Letting Go's characters defy stereotypes and earn your trust as a reader.” This reviewer, who is an African American female activist, also said of Cecile, “She's confident in her blackness and even when she's down, she's not out.”

Enough self-defense. I am more drawn to people's internal lives, so people who are looking for detailed discussions of place may be disappointed; my references to setting have a tendency to be secondary. That said, my book is semi-autobiographical (SEMI!), and I certainly could have included more of my own experiences with race and culture, including the very self-conscious efforts made by me and my black friends to reject as much as possible that wasn't considered “black,” whether it was by claiming to hate most of the music on the radio in our overwhelmingly white town, or never wanting to say a white person was attractive, because black beauty was so undervalued that it seemed wrong to add to the problem by endorsing the prevailing notions, even slightly. Some of my other formative experiences with my culture included learning about slavery and segregation, both in America and the West Indies, being sent to classes in West Indian dance, joining the Junior Afro-Canadian society consisting of my siblings and friends (to mirror the Afro-Canadian society my parents had joined), annual visits to Bermuda with my mom, and learning Jamaican folk songs from my dad. I also felt especially proud of hall of fame quarterback Warren Moon and the similarly storied hockey goalie, Grant Fuhr. Then again, was it “black” to even be aware of hockey? Or was that, too, the result of losing touch with my roots? Was it breaking down a barrier or assimilation when Arthur Mitchell founded the Dance Theater of Harlem? And if ballet is okay for black people, should Misty Copeland have ended up in a predominantly white company?

To be fair, I suspect Dr. Coulardeau might have been okay with Cecile's focus on classical music if the book had followed up a conversation about the need to incorporate music by black composers into her repertoire— something I endorse and have put into practice—with concrete examples. I admit to dropping the ball on that one; I was more interested in her character's awakening as a self-confident woman, just as I was interested in Langston's need to confront the fears that kept him bound, but although the book is already 500 pages long, a few sentences here or there would have made my novel richer. Them again, why should any black person, real or imaginary, have to define him or herself by someone else's cultural standards, which are higher, in this regard, than the bar most white people need to reach? One answer is that everything about black people has been denigrated so much that we need to affirm our identity. The thing is, we're still human, which means we're not monolithic. Will black people ever earn the right to just be, in all of our complex variations and manifestations? Or should all books feature black protagonists who speak mainly the vernacular, ideally in the inner city, during slavery or the Civil Rights era? Will melanated people always have to earn their “black card,” even if they're fictional?

Coulardeau sarcastically refers to Langston “so black...that his first girl friend is a white woman.” I put that relationship in my book is because seeing a black man with a white woman still produces a twinge in my gut, even though I realize that the importance of race has been inflated by a history of hate. If I'm honest, I must confess that I have some litmus tests of black authenticity: Clarence Thomas doesn't pass, for example, because his Supreme Court rulings and other statements have shown what looks to me like evidence of self-hatred. Still, I don't think it's reasonable to assume that every black man who gets involved with a white woman has fallen for the false notion that their pale skin makes them the biggest trophy of all. I want black men and black women to heal the deep wounds inflicted by injustice, set down the resulting baggage, and truly embrace each other. Still, it is my firm belief that we can love ourselves without climbing into a box. At least, I hope so, because the opposite of multicultural is homogeneous. Even if it were possible to retreat behind impenetrable racial and cultural fences, is that advisable? Can't I be black and still cook a damned turkey? Especially in Canada, where Thanksgiving isn't connected to its ancestral sins against aboriginal people (which certainly exist), but rather the thought that having a day off to sit down with your family and express some gratitude sounded like a good idea?

People have mentioned finishing my book and wondering what the characters did after it ended. Despite everything I just said, if I do write a sequel, I may just go into more detail regarding culture, which is something I don't always analyze deeply unless affronted. So even though I find Coulardeau's  comments presumptuous, misleading, and at times completely inaccurate, they did make me think.