#unticketed

[misseviehyde]

CLOAKED

It was summer recess and Maisy and her best-friend Erin wanted to earn some extra money for the holidays. The two girls had long been friends and shared many interests, so they were planning to travel together and see the world.

In order to save up - they were willing to work any job they could find. Babysitting, bar work, office temping... anything that paid.

As full-time students they couldn't take on a full time position, but as sensible trustworthy girls, they didn't find it hard to find work. Still - the savings were only growing slowly and they had a long way to go until they had finally saved enough.

Then Erin hit a jackpot. An old friend of her Mom's who had married into a rich family needed someone to be a cloakroom attendant at a massive party she was throwing at her mansion. Erin got the invite and was staggered at how much was being offered for just a few hours work.

That evening Erin found herself in a plain black dress standing in the luxurious hallway of the mansion. As guests arrived she would take their coats and hang them in the large purpose built cloakroom near the entrance.

As more and more guests arrived, Erin found herself growing jealous of the rich successful people she was seeing. Her own family were poor. She was a scholarship student and had had to work hard for every opportunity. Skinny, plain and shy - she was a million miles away from the beautiful confident bitches who thrust their clothing into her arms without a second thought.

In the cloakroom Erin carefully hung the coats and gave each person a ticket. Eventually a lull developed. Most of the guests were now here and she idly browsed on her phone and sent Millie a selfie.

Bored she purveyed her small kingdom and suddenly realised there were a number of unticketed coats that had been there before she arrived.

They looked like expensive fur coats. They were rich and bitchy looking. Like something a spoiled instagram model or sorority Queen would wear.

Intrigued Erin slid one off a hook. It was a dark grey, super stylish coat and it looked made to fit her. Her fingers bit into the soft fur and evil whispers began to echo in her mind.

Erin groaned and shivering in delight she slid the coat on. It was like it had been waiting for her and it felt like she was putting on a new skin. A better skin.

Erin moaned as her short bitten nails lengthened into an expensive manicure and her plain features shimmered with new makeup. A bitchy blonde streak shot through her hair as her bones cracked and she shot up in height to become tall and thin.

Her plain black dress plunged down to show off her expanding cleavage as it morphed into a designer dress and she was pushed up in expensive black heels.

"Mmmmmh ohhh fuck yessssss," she hissed in a bratty new voice, tossing back her silky hair and standing more confidently with her hands on her Dior belt.

A spoiled sneer appeared on Erin's pefect pink lips as gold bangles encircled her wrist, gold hoops dropped from her ears and an expensive handbag trailed down from her shoulder.

Pushing a pair of Chanel sunglasses onto her now blonde head, Erin giggled like a bitch and clopped out of the cloakroom. This job was beneath her now.

A woman walking down the corridor raised a quizzical eyebrow. "Where's the cloakroom girl gone?"

"Like how the fuck should I know?" sneered Erin. "That fucking little loser seems to have vanished. Too bad huh? Guess you'll have to find your own coat."

Grabbing a glass of champagne from the welcome table, she gave the woman a fake smile and strolled into the party. Ohhhh it felt so good to be a bitch.

Somehow the coat had transformed her. Shy unconfident Erin was gone. She was a bitch now and she loved how it felt.

She felt a hunger for attention as all eyes were drawn to her. Tonight was going to be A LOT of fun.

She entered the party and felt the hungry gaze of every man, married or unmarried fixate on her.

If there was a feeling even better than an orgasm... she had just found it...

******

Erin admired herself in the window of a passing car as she made her way home from the party, her head spinning. She looked amazing. As the night had progressed - her transformation into an evil rich bitch had accelerated and she could still feel herself transforming, even now. It seemed she could only get even more evil and she loved it.

The longer she wore the fur coat, the more it changed her. Erin's hair had become even blonder, her face even prettier. Wealth and privilege now dripped from every pore of her spoiled bitchy body. Long acrylic nails decorated every finger, flawless blue eyes gazed boredly out of a pretty face with long lashes. The fur coat was now white... having transformed to match her white wedge heels.

"I'm a fucking Goddess," she hissed as she tossed back her hair. She had always wanted to look like this, feel like this.

Tonight at the party she had been the centre of attention and it had felt good. She looked down at her phone and the contact numbers of the rich men who had begged to be her sugar daddy. With this new body and attitude she would be able to get whatever she wanted.

Her lips twitched into a cruel smile. She could travel the world, enjoy private jets and expensive cruise ships. She certainly wouldn't be wasting time with that loser Maisy.

A wicked shiver ran through her and she felt herself get wet at the thought of bullying and dominating her former friend. She wanted to lord it over that pathetic little bitch... to show Maisy what a loser she was. Her breasts tingled and her pussy got wet.

Being bad made her feel good.

The coat seemed to reward her evil thoughts. Her face became even prettier her boobs grew another cup size. Being evil would be rewarded. She was an addict to the power now.

"I want more," she hissed. "I want to destroy the old me and become completely corrupted. I need it."

The coat felt warm, comforting. It numbed her guilt, her remorse. It made her feel nothing but pleasure at her new depraved body and malicious mind. She was eager to go even deeper. Her pace increased.

It didn't take long to get home. Reaching the small dorm she shared with Maisy she flung open the door and stormed in.

Her friend was lying on the sofa, her face was a mask of shock. "E...Erin? Wh... how? Is that really you?"

Erin laughed and grabbing Maisy's hair pulled her viciously off the sofa and hurled her onto the floor. Maisy screamed, her hair burning as the other woman stood over her dominantly.

"Ahhhhhh what are you doing?" screamed the terrified Maisy as her former friend brought a foot down and pinned her to the floor like a bug.

"Stop squirming you pathetic little loser. From now on I'm in charge here. You'll do as I say or... do you remember that essay you cheated on by copying my work? I'll tell the university about it and you'll be finished."

"Noooo, you promised you'd never tell..."

"I promised a lot of things," hissed Erin. "It feels good to break those promises and just do what I want. I'm all that matters you see."

Erin laughed as she summoned up saliva and spat a long slow stream out onto Maisy's face. The other girl cried. How humiliating... how funny.

"Stop snivelling loser. Move your worthless stuff out of our room. From now on you sleep on the sofa out here and I get the room to myself. And you better get used to calling me Mistress Erin."

"Y...Yes Mistress," sobbed Maisy.

*****

The next six weeks were hellish for Maisy. Erin had completely changed. The kind and friendly girl was now a mean, vicious, psychotic rich-bitch.

She had their dorm ripped apart and rebuilt to suit her tastes and she bullied and humiliated Maisy every chance she got.

Worse, she was now raking money in from her rich doners and she took every possible moment to taunt and tease Maisy about her upcoming travels.

"Remember how we wanted to see the world. Well I will still get to, but you can stay here you pathetic little bitch. You don't deserve to travel and see the world. You don't deserve anything but to be my footstool."

Maisy was desperately trying to figure out what had happened to make her friend so evil. It had all changed the night Erin had worked the cloak rooms and she had come back wearing a fur coat. She always seemed to be wearing the coat. When she took it off for the briefest times - she seemed less bitchy, more like her old self.

Maybe the coat had something to do with it? Maisy decided if she could destroy the coat, maybe she could get her friend back. First she just had to get it off her.

It would be dangerous. Erin was now much stronger, faster and more violent then she used to be. If Maisy failed, her friend would be sure to punish her.

She just needed the right opportunity.

Erin currently had her scrubbing the floors of the bathroom and doing all the cleaning. Maisy was busy scrubbing the floors with a soapy bucket of water as the Queen Bitch entered.

"Having fun loser?" scoffed Erin. "It's so much fun watching you slave away for me."

With a sudden scream, Maisy unexpectedly flew at her, a thick heavy soapy sponge smashing into Erin's face. The bitch staggered back blinded as Maisy dashed behind her and tugged the fur coat down enough to pin Erin's arms in place.

She roughly pushed Erin forward and down, trying to grab the coat and pull it off.

It all seemed too easy and it nearly worked. But Erin wasn't about to give in that easy. With a snarl she kicked back, knocking one of Maisy's legs loose and then pushing back she crashed Maisy into a wall knocking the air out of her.

Struggling to pull the fur coat back up and free her arms, Erin lashed her head back and reverse head-butted Maisy making her head spin. She resolutely held onto the coat though, knowing this was her only chance.

Erin struggled and fought like a wild thing but she couldn't shake Maisy off. Then changing tactic she shrugged off the coat causing Maisy to fly back and crash into a wall still holding the coat.

Coatless, Erin growled. Now free she could deal with this loser and then put her fur coat back on.

"You think you can stop me Maisy? I'm gonna have to break you in even harder now. By the time I'm done, you'll never oppose me again."

Maisy was trapped. She had no way to destroy the coat and no way past Erin. In moments her friend would have the coat back in her possession and she would probably never get another chance ever again.

She did the only thing she could think of. She put on the fur coat herself.

Erin's sulky mouth opened wide in a shocked expression. "What... no... NOOOOO!"

*BOOM*

The air vibrated and shook. Erin doubled up like she had been punched in the stomach and with a WHOOSH all of the evil power was sucked out of her body. She went limp like a rag doll and collapsed to the floor. She was no longer beautiful, her hair was now brunette again, her fingernails short and stubby and her face plain and anxious.

Maisy struggled to rip off the fur coat before it was too late, but her arms felt heavy and a delicious feeling thrilled through her as the evil power exiting Erin flowed back into the coat.

Her skin tingled and she felt herself begin to transform. She fought it for a moment... then surrendered.

Yessssss. Why not just give into it? It was her turn to be the bitch, her turn to have the power. Erin was going to suffer for all the humiliation she had put Maisy through.

"Yessssss, transform me," she groaned as the coat fit snugly on her body and her mind was warped and transformed into the most evil possible version of herself.

All that was good, kind and innocent about Maisy was reversed and subverted. She was becoming just as corrupt as Erin had once been.

Her hair turned blonde and pink bitchy lips twisted into a pouting sneer. Long nails shot from her fingers and her stance changed as her clothing altered and she was pushed up on six inch stiletto boots.

Walking over to the shivering Erin, who was going through the worst withdrawal imaginable, Maisy looked down with cold cruel eyes and reaching down cruelly grabbed the other girls hair and yanked her head up.

"I'm the Mistress now loser," she hissed in delight. "Now I'm going to break you just as you wanted to break me. I'm going to turn you into my whimpering pussy slave - so broken that you can't even imagine betraying me and wearing the coat ever again. You're nothing now Erin and soon you'll be even less."

Erin sobbed as she looked into Maisy's cold eyes and knew every word was the truth.

She was doomed

***

Landing down in New York, Maisy watched her servants packing her luggage into her expensive car.

She had enjoyed travelling the world and living her dreams... visiting the fashion capitals of the world had been fun.

Now back in the USA she would spend a bit of time here in New York before heading back home.

She smiled at the thought of Erin, plugged and obedient waiting for her back home. Tonight she would take a couple of male lovers to pleasure her, but tomorrow when she got back she had put time aside to play with her favourite toy.

She wondered if Erin was looking forward to it as much as she was...?

THE END

[bleachbleachbleach]

[Bleach 147]

Of the many reasons I think Soi Fon is great, her commenting on the attendance at Rukia's execution is one of the ones that lives rent-free in my brain at all times. (I'll also note that I think the Viz ran out of room to write stuff in that last bubble, because in the JP Soi Fon is not singling out the 5th, 11th, and 12th as divisions that *should be there*--she's giving them a pass, because those are the captains that have been publicly KO'd by this whole rigmarole. Though LOL also that this is how Soi Fon acknowledges the fact that Aizen is, at this moment, entirely dead, secretly murdered, body gruesomely displayed. Even if she doesn't care about Aizen on a personal level, she's the queen of the Secret Murder Squad! And this happened in HER town?! This woman fascinates me. This entire city fascinates me.)

I will save my comments on this for when I actually get here in my reread, but I was thinking about this scene as part of an aggressive Bleach brain LARP because I received a "VIP ticket" to today's graduation ceremony and I was like lmao, VIP, I literally have to be there, it is my job, but okay. I actually like graduations, because I like celebrating graduates, but usually it's an unticketed event and anyone can just roll up and walk right in. It's ticketed this year because the institution is exercising a "prevention through deterrence" strategy against student protests or other actions, and the ticket came with an additional laundry list of things that are Explicitly Disallowed this year. 🙄 (As I was writing this very paragraph, I got a text message reminding us to bring the ticket, and to prepare for additional security screening. Woo!) To this point, this institution has been Not Disappointing relative to the low bar of other institutions, in terms of how they treat students; but I guess we'll see.

Anyway, the aggressive Bleach brain LARP of this as I try to will my way through the next five hours of this is me wondering if all the Captains also got ostentatious, grim "VIP" tickets to Rukia's execution. Like, sure, it could just be an informal hang at the Soukyoku, but the Gotei:

loves paperwork

already employs a Soul Ticket system, so they are familiar with ticketed entry

is already being stupid extra about this execution in every other possible way

It's not a public event--which, I'm not sure if that makes it a less classy or more classy execution? Like, I guess they're not making a public demonstration of Rukia's Behaviors and treating her death as morbid entertainment for the masses, but at the same time they're trying to execute someone under the cover of secrecy (albeit with a giant weapon at the top of a giant hill, involving a giant bird). And that's setting aside the constantly changing timeline of said execution.

All the captains and VCs have been getting these updates via psychic transmission, which, as we've discussed, is only one of the means of communication the Gotei uses. Probably the most secure? Certainly the fastest and most targeted. So how many people actually know Rukia is being executed? The Gotei at large seem to know about/have been.... vaguely mobilized in terms of the invading ryoka, but is that connected to any execution? What about civilians?

I feel like the nobles (outside of Byakuya) can't know, because a bunch of them would certainly be upset about Central 46 having final authority about the execution of a noble, even if they don't care about Rukia. The less anyone knows, the faster this can get pushed through and people can forget about it as a weird blip.

But I still think they made stupid tickets, because it feels like the perfect amalgamation of bureaucratic excess and macabre grandstanding for the Gotei.

Though I'd love to know how much anyone knows about the entire Soul Society arc, in its aftermath. About any of the elements, really, especially given I feel like it'd be pretty hard to ignore all of it (but lol I also have full confidence that many absolutely did, and very successfully). Like, do you need to file a local permit with the city to use the Soukyoku. Is any advance notice required before large cosmic fireballs appear in the sky. Or does the Seireitei just live in zest.

I mean, yes, they live in zest, but what if it's zest but with paperwork.

[bluedalahorse]

Surprise! Plush Sara and Plush August are off to visit their neighbors the Finns today at our local Finnish Christmas market. We have to go pick up some pulla for @coruscantrhapsody and maybe some other delights. We used to work at the bread table there in our early 20s, so the Finnish words we know best all have to do with leipä and how much things cost.

(There is a Swedish Christmas market in two weeks as well, and I was hoping to check that one out too and bring the plushes along. As of now however the tickets are sold out and whether they will offer more is unknown. Plush August insists that he’s a Foreign Dignitary and can therefore get in unticketed, but I think he may just be trying to prove he’s important or something.)

[seximal]

expired registration

expired parking permit

and yet i remain

unticketed

[uswnt5]

Apparently a lot of fans with tickets were not let in the game tonight because so many unticketed fans got in and it’s wayyy over capacity!! I hope there’s not some violence at the game because a lot of people will get hurt. I guess it’s good to see this now before the world cup so they can be ready for then. Although I think the ussf and fifa will run a much tighter ship!!

yeah been watching/following along on twitter. madness

[poipoipoi-2016]

Hillsborough incoming at Copa America after organized attempt at getting unticketed fans into the arena succeeds beyond their wildest dreams.

If they play this game, they're nuts.

[lambragu]

https://www.tumblr.com/lambragu/756024138579197952/us-football-organization-fucking-up-copa-am%C3%A9ricas

the usa federation actually doesn’t have much control over organization, that’s on conmebol, they do the stadium security & organization so it’s really not the usa’s fault. this same kind of thing also happened in london and paris in the last 5 years, in ucl finals, so it’s not really a usa problem. the usa does have other issues as hosts though

honestly i was complaning based on my experience watching south american soccer and attending stadium matches. pretty weird seeing the lack of control of unticketed fans, but yeah if this is only on conmebol, shame on them. still, usa is a deranged choice of a soccer tournament country host.

[slutforpringles]

Big Fs in the chat for whoever designed these to block out unticketed track viewing lol

[emailsfromanactor]

A harsh review/account of opening night from The New York Review of Books, mentioned by neither Redfield nor Sterne. I happened across it while looking up celebrities in the opening night audience.

*

The Gielgud-Burton Hamlet: Notes on a First Night Dwight Macdonald May 14, 1964 issue

“fiasco… 2. a complete or ridiculous failure, esp. of a dramatic performance, or of any pretentious undertaking.” —Webster’s Unabridged (2nd. ed.)—

The first disappointment was the audience. I arrived early to find the place swarming with cops like a Hitchcock (or Mack Sennett) film, a hundred and fifty of them the papers said. They were masterfully tough with ordinary citizens who tried to infiltrate their defenses—“You wanna go to the station?” one asked a nice-looking young woman after some previous dialogue I missed; “Yes,” she said bravely, but I was able to create a diversion by pushing past without showing my ticket—and they were apologetically ineffective with more substantial-appearing citizens who had tickets (they never did get them herded into the lobby). All very American, like the TV trucks, the photograph garlanded with cameras, the brilliant lights that flooded on whenever a celebrity was thought to be disembarking from a Carey limousine. The trouble was that, while the mob in front of the theater looked like Celebrities—the handsomely gowned and coiffed women, mostly “of a certain age,” and their flushed, hard-faced escorts bursting impressively out of tuxedoes—they were not and knew they were not and, like the uncoiffed, untuxedoed, unticketed mob on the wrong side of the police lines, were hanging around in the simple, touching hopes of seeing somebody that was. But Celebrities were in short supply: the only ones I can attest to personally were Lillian Hellman (who left in the entr’acte) and Otto Preminger. (“Are we still on speaking terms Otto?” I asked, thinking of the latest bad review I’d given him: “Of course,” he grinned as we shook hands, “But I wish we were on writing terms”; a real pro.) And even if one adds, from the papers—you don’t know what you’ve experienced at these non-events until you read the papers—Dolores Del Rio, Gwen Verdon, Margaret Leighton, Hermione Gingold, Montgomery Clift, and Lee Radziwill, well I mean to say what do you have really? The one big Celebrity we were all waiting for arrived, with a clatter of mounted police and a few screams, at a remote side entrance into which she instantly vanished. She also disappeared, in the entr’acte, to visit her husband in his dressing room, or so I read in the papers. The only interesting dialogue I overheard was between a hairdo and a tuxedo: “Hey, you look great, Sam, all sunburned!” “Yeah, just back from Puerto Rico.”

When I finally gave up and took my seat, I was not encouraged to see the curtain was up on a bare stage. Bad omen; last time was Kazan’s J.B., and here even less promising: a rehearsal stage with position marks on the floor and the lathes aggressively exposed in the underpinnings of the sole concession to stage design: a higher level. The one moment of excitement that has survived for me in our theater all the way back to The Bat and The Unknown Purple is when the house lights go down, the footlights come up, and the curtain begins to rise: a moment of hope, despite all past experience, before the infinite magic of the possible has begun to be ground down by the extremely finite machinery of the actual. We were to be deprived even of this. I thought, but, as with other aspects of this confused, style-less production, it turned out we weren’t exactly. When the house lights went down, the curtain was lowered—surely some kind of theatrical landmark?—to rise at once on the same bleak prospect, this time with Francisco at his post; enter Bernardo. “Who’s there?” “Nay, answer me, stand and unfold yourself.” “Long live the king!” And we were off. In a manner of speaking.

“This is a Hamlet acted in rehearsal clothes, stripped of all extraneous trappings, unencumbered by a reconstruction of any particular historical period.” So, in the program notes, Sir John Gielgud, who directed and who was, I think, chiefly responsible for the fiasco. Charging the customers eight bucks to see a rehearsal may have been attractive as a fashionable gimmick—the medium’s the thing now—or as a way of saving money, but Sir John’s justification is nonsense. There is no escaping history even disguised in rehearsal clothes, since these were different in 1864 from today, while in 1764 they would have been what we now call “costumes.” The only historically “unencumbered” Hamlet would be a nudist one—and in fact I once saw in Paris a scene in which Ophelia, at least, was stripped and unencumbered except for a cache-sexe. And what is extraneous about actors, like the rest of us, wearing appropriate dress (“trappings”)? There is much to be said for a modern-dress Hamlet like the excellent one Basil Sidney did around 1926, as a way of freeing the play from that massively fake Irving-Belasco scenery and those boguslooking halberds and doublets right out of the costume warehouse. There is also much to be said for a freshly interpreted period production like Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, where the clothes (especially the men’s hats) were fantastic and beautiful while the sets had the clear, simple colors of the backgrounds in good Renaissance paintings. But there are no advantages, beside cheapness, in a rehearsal-clothes Hamlet; one would think even an actor might see that. Hamlet is, among other things, a drama of court intrigues, of power politics; it begins and ends with soldiers; when Fortinbras comes on at the end, it is not merely to clean up the corpses, it is also because power too, just can’t be left lying about on the stage. Modern dress marks the social dimension: Fortinbras wears a uniform, the servants livery, the courtiers dinner jackets or lounge suits, the soldiers trench coats, the king and queen formal dress with decorations. Rehearsal clothes, while not a-historical, are a-social. Fortinbras marches in wearing slacks and a sweater; Horatio wears a windbreaker; courtiers, servants, soldiers are indistinguishably casual and tweedy. “Boy, did they need those costumes!” I overheard a girl say in the entr’acte.

In Basil Sidney’s Hamlet—or in Orson Welles’s Julius Caesar ten years later—I forgot the modern dress in a few minutes, but here those rehearsal clothes were always offputting. Especially since Sir John tried to have it both ways: Hamlet conveniently wore an elegantly fitted jersey and pants of deepest black, with gleamingly polished black pumps; Polonius and Claudius wore well-pressed, neatly buttoned suits with neckties; Gertrude and Ophelia semi-formal bodices with long flowing skirts—all of which made the sweatered, tieless servants and nobles constantly puzzling. And the players in the play-within-a-play were elaborately costumed, even to stylized masks. A very peculiar rehearsal.

Sir John also skimped on the cast, an ill-assorted crew who never seemed to be getting through to each other. There were at least four unharmonized acting styles. Traditional Shakespearean: Burton, George Rose’s gravedigger, Eileen Herlie’s Gertrude, Dillon Evans’s Osric. Broadway: Hume Cronyn’s Polonius, William Redfield’s Guildenstern. Indeterminate: John Cullum’s Laertes, Alfred Drake’s Claudius. Amateur Night: Robert Milli’s Horatio, Linda Marsh’s Ophelia. There were some good performances. Rose is still a superb Shakespearean clown (and one of the few times when Burton seemed to be relating to others—and enjoying himself—was when he was matching wits with him) and Cronyn gave a briskly professional, and original, interpretation of Polonius, rapping his lines out like a spry old top executive, full of smug know-how. But he was out of key with the Shakespeareans. The great triumph was Gielgud’s recorded voice as the ghost—what splendid lines Hamlet, Senior, has, by the way, one can see where his son got his flair for self-expression—which was beautifully articulated and cadenced, and at the same time coarse as if the vocal cords were deliquescing like those of Poe’s M. Valdemar: “the sound was harsh and broken and hollow…the voice seemed to reach our ears from a vast distance, or from some deep cavern within the earth…it impressed me as gelatinous or glutinous matters impress the sense of touch.” The great disaster, even worse than the breathy ranting of Horatio, was poor Miss Marsh’s Ophelia—her mad scene was as embarrassing as if one were watching a pretty young thing really going nuts before one’s eyes. The Times’s egregious Mr. Taubman, while enthusing—I think this ghastly word is justified here—about everything else, did feel obliged to note that Miss Marsh was “in a little over her head as Ophelia,” though adding at once, as if frightened by his daring, “she manages the Mad Scene with a touch of rue.” The rue was all in the audience, however.

I expected Richard Burton’s Hamlet to be tough, virile, even brutal, but, perhaps because Sir John toned him down too much, he proved to be full of boyish charm, if anything a little epicene. He was Mercutio rather than Hamlet, best in the satiric speeches like the “Get thee to a nunnery” one, where his delivery rose to real power at the end: “You jig, you amble, and you lisp…and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I’ll no more on’t; it hath made me mad. I say we will have no more marriages…” (Did I detect an un-easy rustling in the audience?) His voice is an extraordinary musical instrument, but he used it with the coldness of a virtuoso; for all the Welsh charm, there was surprisingly little feeling in his performance. Also he seemed to have no middle range, nothing between soft complaint or ingratiation and a full-throated bellow. One cannot perhaps expect any actor to render all the facets of Hamlet, but two are essential: he was a prince and he was an intellectual. Burton missed both. He was without dignity; there was no space between him and the others; he was always edging up to them, shrinking away from them, handling them, bullying them, more like a teddy boy than a prince, shamelessly “indicating” and leaping about the stage. (This must have been Sir John’s directorial fault.) He ruins the play scene, for instance, by swarming all over Gertrude and Claudius, as when Ophelia says of the Prologue, “This brief, my lord”, and he replies “As woman’s love,” actually pointing to Gertrude; and later, after the Player Queen has vowed eternal constancy, addressing his “If she should break it now!” directly to Gertrude. Nor is he convincing as an intellectual. Hamlet is constantly bringing himself up short with self-criticism after he has torn a passion to tatters and split the ear of the groundlings; with Burton, one believes in the latter mood but not in the former. He roars out satisfactorily “Bloody, bawdy villain! Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain! O vengeance!” but when he goes on, “Why, what an ass am I!” and accuses himself of unpacking his heart with words like a whore and cursing “like a very drab,” in Burton’s delivery these lines are just another kind or rodomontade. I suppose “To be or not to be” is by now a hopeless proposition—the actor must see it approaching as a skier sees himself gliding toward a suicidally steep slope. Burton adopts the modern, sophisticated strategy of trying to throw it away. But it won’t be thrown away.

Apparently Burton felt something was wrong about the first night. He blamed the audience in one interview: “They did not pay attention. They were awed with themselves. There were so many celebrities out on the other side of the footlights they hardly had time to notice us.” But there were not many celebrities, and even if there had been what does he expect if he insists on marrying Elizabeth Taylor? On the radio, I’m told, he was more realistic, blaming himself, which is to his credit, since, with the expected exception of Walter Kerr (and the less expectable one of John Chapman of the News) the critics were as usual—uncritical.

Maybe they hadn’t made the mistake I did of re-reading the text. What a work! There seems to be a tag in every other line, tags that have become mortised so deeply into us we often don’t know when we are echoing them, formulations that have become part of the racial unconscious, of our very language. Only the King James Bible, from the same miraculous half-century, contains a larger stock of wonderful chestnuts. And a central character, direct and ambiguous, crafty and noble, tender and cruel, elevated and ribald, intellectualizing everything and yet also acting out his contradictions—can this hero, who is the play more than any other of Shakespeare’s heroes, and whose motivations and character have been matters of dispute among scholars and critics for centuries, can one reasonably expect any actor to render him fully on the stage, or any company to rise to the greatness of the language—the “big” lines are by no means limited to Hamlet’s part—or any director to make dramatic a work that is essentially literary and intellectual without losing those qualities? Lear’s moral impressionism can be more moving, and coherent, on the stage (the cinema might be an even better medium) than when read in cold print. Or, the opposite case, that tightly constructed melodrama, Macbeth, so perfectly designed for the theater, with a clearly defined villain and villainess, the most “advanced” and realistic psychology (the dialogues between Macbeth and his Lady before and after Duncan’s and Banquo’s murders often sound like Ibsen, or Freud) combined with great set pieces of rhetoric that “work” theatrically and, unlike Hamlet’s soliloquies, don’t require the actor to create a whole personality as a launching-pad. So perhaps no actor can ever give us the complete Hamlet of the text—as no singer can fulfill the impossible demands Wagner made—and perhaps Hamlet will always read better than it plays. Still, Sir John and Mr. Burton might have done better.

[omarera]

Maybe a quick word about the concert livestream: livestreaming concerts has become sort of a big thing with TikTok and the likes. It’s however not entirely legal. For one it’s related to the licensing of music (obviously you don’t have the rights to the licenses) but also (depending on the country) to filming and broadcasting in public spaces. I don’t know the exact regulations in Sweden. And of course there’s rarely any legal ramifications for livestreaming- the worst that usually happens is that the livestream is shut down and people try to find a new one (and I honestly doubt this will happen here because it’s unlikely to even be discovered by someone in his team). Since this would be an unticketed livestream it’s highly unlikely that Omar or his team would approve of it. I’m sure they’d like the concert to be as accessible as possible but you know that’s just not how it works. They would offer their own livestream if anything. I’m not saying that what these girls are doing is terrible (I think it’s very kind to think of others who are unable to go). Just what I know about the legality of the situation (with the disclaimer that things might be different in Sweden and I just don’t know about it).

There are for sure issues with it. And thanks for this info! I also think it’s sweet but not something I think is a good idea. I would think Omar and his team would like to have control of the quality of what is aired and even if they ones airing won’t profit from it there will be a full concert out on the internet and will end up on YouTube channels etc. like other lives do.

It’s his first own concert and yeah I’m not comfortable with it being live streamed by unauthorized people. It’s his performance. Let him have control of how it is spread and the quality.

[audrasmythe]

WHERE: Some art exhibit. With wine. And unticketed entry. WHO: Open!

She is expected to be here. It would - in fact - be an insult if she wasn't. Three people in this room make up 85% of the funding for the most recent exhibition. It is her job to schmooze and laugh at their inane jokes. To compliment a tie she privately thinks is hideous, but is clearly being worn in order to stand out. They aren't here to talk to her but somehow, if she avoided it, they'd notice.

But Audra's good at these things, and within an hour she's sipping a rose more expensive than it tastes, and watching to see if there's anyone at all she can make final remarks to before leaving. It is this distraction, surveillance of the crowd, that causes her to spin into a passing guest, only just managing to catch the sloshed wine in the glass once more. "Jesus!" One pointed eyebrow. "I think that's quite enough of the wine for you." The words are terse, especially considering it was largely her own fault. "Don't enjoy art when sober?"

[zahri-melitor]

Thinking more about it, that ‘concert’ poll is fundamentally flawed in that it doesn’t define what it means by concert.

Is it asking for stadium/arena performances of big acts?

Is it including festivals, with multiple acts? Do you count those as one or multiple? Does it vary if they do a full set v do one-two songs?

Is it just ticketed performances by a band/musician, so small gigs count?

Does an unticketed pub gig count? Or a free concert put on by state or local government?

Does it include choir & orchestra performances in chorus halls?

How about end of year student performances, those are usually called an ‘end of year concert’. Does it have to be singing/playing, does dance count?

What about eisteddfods?

What about sung-through musicals with no performance? What about recordings/films of those concerts? (Can I say I saw the 25th Anniversary Les Miserables Concert because I saw it in the cinema?)

What about live-broadcast concerts? Because if I can count simply Melbourne Carols by Candlelight I could hit 20 no issue. If it has to be in person I’m probably still close to 20 in terms of various Carols concerts.

[daemonhxckergrrl]

reminder that the financial difference between spotify/streaming and pirating is bigger for consumers than artists.

if you want to support an artist you buy their music direct or from a store, you buy merch and go to gigs (ticketed and unticketed - a lot of venues give % to bands from the bar so remember to buy lots of drinks to help support, especially small venues !!!)

in the meantime, I hope you remembered your VPN

[longwindedbore]

• The complaint says he was seen on security camera video using his phone to take pictures of other people's boarding passes without their knowledge and it appears he used one of those pictures to board the Delta plane, where he tried to stow away in first the front and then the rear lavatory. But when he left that lavatory, there were no seats left and, as the plane was taxiing, flight attendants realized there was an issue and the plane returned to the gate. •

[melliotwrites]

Adamandi, a new dark academia horror musical, comes to the Berlind Theatre at the McCarter Theatre Center in NJ for two weekends — FREE and UNTICKETED! Go here for details.

SHOWTIMES

Nov. 11, 12 at 8PM, Nov. 17-19 at 8PM

Meet the creative team after the show on Nov. 11 & 18 to discuss the show and its themes.

Directed by Georgina Escobar, written by Melliot (Mel Hornyak and Elliot Valentine Lee!)

[wild-at-mind]

Why are small Pride event organising committees such trainwrecks?? My hometown has had two separate ones duking it out for who gets to do a Pride event here for as long as I've lived here, so at least since 2016. I never attend as what the 'winner' comes up with is always small and embarrassing. I think they have both given it up now (the 'winning' side of the past few years having blown all their money in a depressing failed bar project that they didn't have proper permissions for and was open like 3 months), so we get nothing. The next city over has 3 Prides- Trans Pride which is a separate and small event; a long running and well established Pride event that happens in late summer; and a newer Pride that is unconnected to the established one and is held in June. This newer event is the trainwreck. A couple of years, ago, almost immediately after it had first been held, whoever was in charge of their social media posted a quite manipulatively worded urgent plea for donations from attendees, because they had gone over budget and not made enough in the donation buckets on the gate. I asked them what on earth had happened in a comment and they said something about being let down by a company, blah blah...I don't know, it just struck me as incredibly manipulative. 'You attended this event already but your donations were over the weekend were disappointing :( so give us money now or we will NEVER hold this event again!!' Fuck off with that. Yesterday I was on facebook on a depression scroll and saw an odd post on their page. It was long and basically was heaping criticism on the way the event was held in previous years- they called it a 'glorified family fun day' (???) and said it had too many stalls selling tat and was not accessible enough- this was not elaborated on but I do know it had no steps, a mobiloo and a quiet zone so they probably could have added more detail on the specific problem there. Then it said that everyone needed to apply for free tickets in order to attend, on an app, but that people's personal data would not be used for anything and implied that this had caused concerns in previous years. It had not- in previous years the event was fully unticketed. All Prides in this city are free and you can just walk in and out. I thought this was a very weird post- as far as I know there had been no consensus that the previous events had been rubbish and too much like a family fun day. It is a family friendly Pride but was not child orientated and there were attendees of all ages. (There was an inflatable bouncey castle type thing present but hardly the main focus and I don't think it's enough to rant about family fun days, personally.) I think there was feedback from the first event about too many MLM stalls, but this was fixed at last year's event and the stalls were totally fine in number and quality. So what was up with this post? I ended up commenting expressing my confusion about the supposed feedback they had apparently received about what was wrong with the event previously, and especially about the ticketing system that it was introducing but talked about as if it was not new. Just went back and now the post has been deleted. Who is running this social media???