#weimar girl

[bishopsbox]

source: bishopsbox

Weimar girl.

[diana-andraste]

Tiller Girl Parody

Grit and Ina van Elben's dancing-machine at the Tingel-Tangel Theatre, 1931

[evildeadtraps]

Mädchen in Uniform // Girls in Uniform (Leontine Sagan, 1931)

[lovelybeautifulsleep]

Cabaret girl, Berlin, 1920s. Model and photographer unknown. Photo property of Susan M, source Etsy.

[the-cricket-chirps]

Jeanne Mammen

Chorus Girls

1928-29

[weimarhaus]

[artdecoandmodernist]

1926 Jeanne Mammen, In the Bar

[kraftklubsideblog]

Bei einer Unis sich zu bewerben ist so:

entziffer die Hieroglyphen (Webseite)

sende 3 Gold Säcke, 2 Kobras und 4 Kronen (jegliche Dokumente)

Und

beweise dich in einem Duell gegen den vierköpfigen Minotaurus (Aufnahmeprüfung)

Das alles bis Ende Februar bitte :)

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“Girls of the National Socialist party as they assembled at Potsdam, Germany, recently with thousands of other youthful followers to hear the address of the Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler. Hitler told the youth of Germany that it was their cardinal duty to “feel German and act like brothers and sisters.”

- from the Kingston Whig-Standard. October 18, 1932. Page 11.

[contortedoptimist]

why is incelcore music good. is it the self awareness

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Rita Moreno (Singin' in the Rain, West Side Story)—She’s an EGOT, an absolute legend for how she navigated her career as a woman of color in the fifties and sixties. Her performance as Anita in West Side Story is why I go back to that movie so many times. She is an icon and she is the moment.

Marlene Dietrich (Shanghai Express, Witness for the Prosecution, Morocco)—Bisexual icon, super hot when dressed both masculine and feminine, lived up her life in the queer Berlin scene of the 1920s, central to the 'sewing circle' of the secret sapphic actresses of Old Hollywood, refused lucrative offers by the Nazis and helped Jews and others under persecution to escape Nazi Germany, the love of my life

We are in the quarterfinals of the Hot & Vintage Movie Women Tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Propaganda is not my own and is on a submission basis. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Rita Moreno propaganda:

"Amazing showstopping actress in her one big memorable role as Anita in West Side Story. She sings and dances with unmatched joy and energy, and then breaks your heart with her acting. Rita took a role that felt as a stereotype to latina women and made it compelling and multifaceted. Her subsequent career was filled with mostly side roles, but she still managed to excel in whatever Hollywood threw at her."

"It’s Rita!! The EGOT herself! She can act, she can sing, she can dance, a triple threat. Obviously absolutely iconic as Anita in West Side Story (her part of the Tonight Quintet is the sexiest part of the film, fight me). But before that she was the amazing Zelda in Singin’ In the Rain!?! Thanks Zelda, you’re a real pal."

"She continues to be amazing but also she's got legs for days."

"THEE iconic rita moreno, EGOT winner, civil rights activist, theatre legend. watch her documentary "Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It". also her rendition of "fever" on the muppet show"

Marlene Dietrich:

ms dietrich....ms dietrich pls.....sit on my face

its marlene dietrich!!!! queer legend, easily the hottest person to ever wear a tuxedo, that hot hot voice, those glamorous glamorous movies…. most famously she starred in a string of movies directed by josef von sternberg throughout the 1930s, beginning with the blue angel which catapulted her to stardom in the role of the cabaret singer lola lola. known for his exquisite eye for lighting, texture, imagery, von sternberg devoted himself over the course of their collaborations to acquiring exceptional skill at photographing dietrich herself in particular, a worthy direction in which to expend effort im sure we can all agree. she collaborated with many other great directors of the era as well, including rouben mamoulian (song of songs), frank borzage (desire), ernst lubitsch (angel), fritz lang (rancho notorious), and billy wilder (witness for the prosecution). the encyclopedia britannica entry im looking at while compiling this propaganda describes her as having an “aura of sophistication and languid sexuality” which✔️💯. born marie magdalene dietrich, she combined her first and middle names to coin the moniker “marlene”. she was a trendsetter in her incorporation of trousers, suits, and menswear into her wardrobe and her androgynous allure was often remarked upon. critic kenneth tynan wrote, “She has sex, but no particular gender. She has the bearing of a man; the characters she plays love power and wear trousers. Her masculinity appeals to women and her sexuality to men.” in the 1920s she enjoyed the vibrant queer nightlife of weimar berlin, visiting gay bars and drag balls, and in hollywood her love affairs with men and women were an open secret. she was an ardent opponent of nazi germany, refusing lucrative contacts offered her to make films there, raising money with billy wilder to help jews and dissidents escape, and undertaking extensive USO tours to entertain soldiers with an act that included her a playing musical saw and doing a mindreading routine she learned from orson welles. starting in the 50s and continuing into the mid-70s she worked largely as a cabaret artist touring the world to large audiences, employing burt bacharach as her musical arranger.

First of all, there are those publicity photos of her in a tux. Second of all, I have never been the same since knowing that she sent copies of those photos to her Berlin lovers signed "Daddy Marlene." Not only is she hot in all circumstances, but she can do everything from earthy to ice queen. Also, she kept getting sexy romantic lead parts in Hollywood after the age of 40, which would be rare even now. She hated Nazis, loved her friends, and had a sapphic social circle in Hollywood. She also had cheekbones that could cut glass and a voice that could melt you.

Her GENDER her looks her voice her everything

“In her films and record-breaking cabaret performances, Miss Dietrich artfully projected cool sophistication, self-mockery and infinite experience. Her sexuality was audacious, her wit was insolent and her manner was ageless. With a world-weary charm and a diaphanous gown showing off her celebrated legs, she was the quintessential cabaret entertainer of Weimar-era Germany.”

The bar scene in Morocco awoke something in me and ultimately changed my gender

"Her manner, the critic Kenneth Tynan wrote, was that of ‘a serpentine lasso whereby her voice casually winds itself around our most vulnerable fantasies.’ Her friend Maurice Chevalier said: ‘Dietrich is something that never existed before and may never exist again.’”

"Songstress, photographer, fashion icon, out bisexual phenom (notoriously stole Lupe Velez and Joan Crawford's men, and Errol Flynn's wife, had a torrid affair with Greta Garbo that ended in a 60-year feud, other notable conquests including Erich Maria Remarque -yes, the guy who wrote All Quiet on the Western Front- Douglas Fairbanks Junior, Claudette Colbert, Mercedes de Acosta, Edith Piaf), anti-Nazi activist. Marlene was a bitch - she had an open marriage for decades and one of her favorite things was making catty commentary about her current lover with her husband, and her relationship with her daughter was painful- but she was also immensely talented, a hard worker, an opponent of fascism and the hottest ice queen in Hollywood for a long time."

"She can sing! She can act! She told the Nazis to fuck off and became a US citizen out of spite! She worked with other German exiles to create a fund to help Jews and German dissidents escape (she donated an entire movie salary, about $450k, to the cause). She looks REALLY GOOD in a suit. If you're not convinced, please listen to her sing "Lili Marlene". Absolutely gorgeous woman with a gorgeous voice."

Gifset link

"Bisexual icon and Nazi-hater. Looks absolutely stunning in the suits she liked to wear. 'I dress for the image. Not for myself, not for the public, not for fashion, not for men'."

"would you not let her walk on you?"

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Emil Ferris’s long-awaited “My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two”

NEXT WEEKEND (June 7–9), I'm in AMHERST, NEW YORK to keynote the 25th Annual Media Ecology Association Convention and accept the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity.

Seven years ago, I was absolutely floored by My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, a wildly original, stunningly gorgeous, haunting and brilliant debut graphic novel from Emil Ferris. Every single thing about this book was amazing:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/06/20/my-favorite-thing-is-monsters-a-haunting-diary-of-a-young-girl-as-a-dazzling-graphic-novel/

The more I found out about the book, the more amazed I became. I met Ferris at that summer's San Diego Comic Con, where I learned that she had drawn it over a while recovering from paralysis of her right – dominant – hand after a West Nile Virus infection. Each meticulously drawn and cross-hatched page had taken days of work with a pen duct-taped to her hand, a project of seven years.

The wild backstory of the book's creation was matched with a wild production story: first, Ferris's initial publisher bailed on her because the book was too long; then her new publisher's first shipment of the book was seized by the South Korean state bank, from the Panama Canal, when the shipper went bankrupt and its creditors held all its cargo to ransom.

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters told the story of Karen Reyes, a 10 year old, monster-obsessed queer girl in 1968 Chicago who lives with her working-class single mother and her older brother, Deeze, in an apartment house full of mysterious, haunted adults. There's the landlord – a gangster and his girlfriend – the one-eyed ventriloquist, and the beautiful Holocaust survivor and her jazz-drummer husband.

Karen narrates and draws the story, depicting herself as a werewolf in a detective's trenchcoat and fedora, as she tries to unravel the secrets kept by the grownups around her. Karen's life is filled with mysteries, from the identity of her father (her brother, a talented illustrator, has removed him from all the family photos and redrawn him as the Invisible Man) to the purpose of a mysterious locked door in the building's cellar.

But the most pressing mystery of all is the death of her upstairs neighbor, the beautiful Annika Silverberg, a troubled Holocaust survivor whose alleged suicide just doesn't add up, and Karen – who loved and worshiped Annika – is determined to get to the bottom of it.

Karen is tormented by the adults in her life keeping too much from her – and by their failure to shield her from life's hardest truths. The flip side of Karen's frustration with adult secrecy is her exposure to adult activity she's too young to understand. From Annika's cassette-taped oral history of her girlhood in an Weimar brothel and her escape from a Nazi concentration camp, to the sex workers she sees turning tricks in cars and alleys in her neighborhood, to the horrors of the Vietnam war, Karen's struggle to understand is characterized by too much information, and too little.

Ferris's storytelling style is dazzling, and it's matched and exceeded by her illustration style, which is grounded in the classic horror comics of the 1950s and 1960s. Characters in Karen's life – including Karen herself – are sometimes depicted in the EC horror style, and that same sinister darkness crowds around the edges of her depictions of real-world Chicago.

These monster-comic throwbacks are absolute catnip for me. I, too, was a monster-obsessed kid, and spent endless hours watching, drawing, and dreaming about this kind of monster.

But Ferris isn't just a monster-obsessive; she's also a formally trained fine artist, and she infuses her love of great painters into Deeze, Karen's womanizing petty criminal of an older brother. Deeze and Karen's visits to the Art Institute of Chicago are commemorated with loving recreations of famous paintings, which are skillfully connected to pulp monster art with a combination of Deeze's commentary and Ferris's meticulous pen-strokes.

Seven years ago, Book One of My Favorite Thing Is Monsters absolutely floored me, and I early anticipated Book Two, which was meant to conclude the story, picking up from Book One's cliff-hanger ending. Originally, that second volume was scheduled for just a few months after Book One's publication (the original manuscript for Book One ran to 700 pages, and the book had been chopped down for publication, with the intention of concluding the story in another volume).

But the book was mysteriously delayed, and then delayed again. Months stretched into years. Stranger rumors swirled about the second volume's status, compounded by the bizarre misfortunes that had befallen book one. Last winter, Bleeding Cool's Rich Johnston published an article detailing a messy lawsuit between Ferris and her publishers, Fantagraphics:

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/fantagraphics-sued-emil-ferris-over-my-favorite-thing-is-monsters/

The filings in that case go some ways toward resolve the mystery of Book Two's delay, though the contradictory claims from Ferris and her publisher are harder to sort through than the mysteries at the heart of Monsters. The one sure thing is that writer and publisher eventually settled, paving the way for the publication of the very long-awaited Book Two:

https://www.fantagraphics.com/products/my-favorite-thing-is-monsters-book-two

Book Two picks up from Book One's cliffhanger and then rockets forward. Everything brilliant about One is even better in Two – the illustrations more lush, the fine art analysis more pointed and brilliant, the storytelling more assured and propulsive, the shocks and violence more outrageous, the characters more lovable, complex and grotesque.

Everything about Two is more. The background radiation of the Vietnam War in One takes center stage with Deeze's machinations to beat the draft, and Deeze and Karen being ensnared in the Chicago Police Riots of '68. The allegories, analysis and reproductions of classical art get more pointed, grotesque and lavish. Annika's Nazi concentration camp horrors are more explicit and more explicitly connected to Karen's life. The queerness of the story takes center stage, both through Karen's first love and the introduction of a queer nightclub. The characters are more vivid, as is the racial injustice and the corruption of the adult world.

I've been staring at the spine of My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book One on my bookshelf for seven years. Partly, that's because the book is such a gorgeous thing, truly one of the great publishing packages of the century. But mostly, it's because I couldn't let go of Ferris's story, her characters, and her stupendous art.

After seven years, it would have been hard for Book Two to live up to all that anticipation, but goddammit if Ferris didn't manage to meet and exceed everything I could have hoped for in a conclusion.

There's a lot of people on my Christmas list who'll be getting both volumes of Monsters this year – and that number will only go up if Fantagraphics does some kind of slipcased two-volume set.

In the meantime, we've got more Ferris to look forward to. Last April, she announced that she had sold a prequel to Monsters and a new standalone two-volume noir murder series to Pantheon Books:

https://twitter.com/likaluca/status/1648364225855733769

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/01/the-druid/#oh-my-papa

[3archangelsaints]

you said you were bored so i hope this idea gets rid of that

there are not enough childhood best friend!simon fic’s out there and i’ve been desperate lately. i don’t have much of an idea so write whatever comes to mind if you choose this req.

:)

Childhood bestfriends who met just before you went to secondary school, you went to an all girls school and he went to an all boys and yet you were always together, everyday after school, you'd be out late, avoiding your horrible home lives. He'd stay out late with you, when you'd had an argument that left you shaking and crying from anxiety and adrenaline. You never skipped school, your mum was strict about that and you'd preferred to not cause problems, Simon always said that to you, "Don't cause problems for yourself, yeah?" He holds you to him, kissing your temple. "You too, Si." You hug him, giggling as he lifts you up.

---

"Sit down." He huffs, pulling you onto the grass as the two of you study outside for GSCE mocks. Books and folders sprawled on the grass, and you stand up and start explaining the Weimar government to him for your GSCE history. He listens intently, he took the same GSCE's as you, except art, he wasn't good at that, he told you. He would stay up with you when you'd finish last minute art projects and when it came to portraits, you'd photograph Simon. He only allowed you to do it his eyes, the rest of his face covered by his hand. You loved studying, mainly because you were allowed to visit Simon's house, his dad begrudgingly allowing it. He didn't hit Simon when you were there. Simon didn't care though, his hands were always scabbed with broken skin from fighting with his dad, as he was about the same height as him, despite only being 16. You'd often fall asleep against Simon, his natural musk lulling you to sleep. You waited to open your results together. You ran to him when you saw him, jumping onto him, squealing with joy. He lifted you in air with ease. "Simon!" You squeal again. He puts you down, pressing his lips to your forehead. "Have you opened your results?" You shake your head, he can tell you're nervous, he takes it from you. "May I?" You nod. He opens it. Eyes scanning it. "So?" "So you're fuckin amazing and are so smart." He shows your results. You jump up with glee. He throws you in the air, before pretending to drop you just to hear you scream. "So fuckin' proud of you." "What'd you get?" You take it from him, he passed his core, everything he passed with average grades. Neither here nor there. "What're you gonna do?" "Butcher's apprentice." He says gruffly. You smile, nodding and hugging him. "You mean my butcher's apprentice." You tease. He nods, kissing your temple again. ---

He comes with you to see what 6th form you're going to, he drops you off the first day and does his best to be there for you whenever. He holds your hand and pressing kisses to your face as your freak out, chucking clothes from your wardrobe. "Simon!" You all but cry, trembling. "I don't know what to wear." You huff, he knows how you get social anxiety and he huffs before grabbing a black shirt you stole from him, and a pair of ripped loose jeans. "Here." He hands it to you, he grabs your brush whilst you get changed and brushes your hair gently, expertly starting from the ends. He grabs a scrunchie and ties your hair into a loose bun. ---

When you get your A-level results and find out that you got into your uni, you're ecstatic except you have to move cities and its so far from Simon. He cups your cheek and kisses you, "I'm joining the military." Your heart breaks, you didn't expect him to move with you, but not join the military. "You could die." Your voice trembles. ---

The goodbye is hard, you're babbling and crying as you see him leave for bootcamp, but when he visits you after, clearly bulkier, your heart aches for him. Once again you're in his embrace. His heartbeat against your ear. But just like that, he's gone again. And you move on, focus on yourself, you get your degree, then go for a master's in the states, before returning for your PhD in the UK. When you're leaving after a long day at university, walking to your car, you freak out when you see a bulky massive figure leaning against the hood. He calls out your name, in a deep voice. "Simon?" You ask, dropping to your knees. "I'm here Lovie." You sob. He gingerly picks you up, and just like that your Simon is in your arms again. Breathing. Alive. Living. "Don't leave me again." He nods. Kissing your cheek.

[quillandqueer]

Happy Pride Month! | Favourite Queer Books

The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin: A novel in verse set during the Weimar Republic, this is a story set during a time that could have changed the course of Queer history, had it not been lost.

Stars, Hide Your Fires: This is a sapphic heist mystery set in space, very fun and very campy.

Bianca Torre Is Afraid of Everything: A non binary teen bird watcher with anxiety attempts to solve a murder mystery while falling in love with a girl in their birding group, while trying not to get murdered.

Burn: a speculative fiction story, set in an alternate America in the 50s, except there's dragons, a prophecy, and two FBI agents.

Loveless: The first book about aromantic, asexual identity I ever read, showing the confusion of finding yourself in the chaos of college perfectly.

The Black Flamingo: A novel in verse about a mixed-race gay teen, finding joy as a Drag artist.

This Poison Heart: A sapphic romance with plant magic, this has such a strong family bond that I loved.

Teach The Torches To Burn: A Romeo retelling where Romeo instead falls in love with Valentine. This is not a gender swapped Juliet - she makes an appearance in this story too, and there's a bit of a Found Family Vibe.

Milo and Marcos at the End of the World: the closer Milo and Marcos get, the more disasters seem to befall them. Is there a larger, unseen force at play, trying to keep them apart? And if so, is their love worth risking the end of the world?

[spot-the-antisemitism]

Not sure if you’re the person to ask this but, what are your thoughts on nosferatu? His look has become pretty iconic in vampire media (and SpongeBob) and I’ve been excited for the upcoming remake

But I can’t help but think about what definitely seem like antisemitic undertones, the large hooked nose and rattle design, the plot point of him apparently spreading a plague, and the fact it was made in Germany in 1922, yeah it’s kinda unfortunate how genuinely unique and creepy the original still looks, at least the remake will hopefully be further away from its origins.

Dear anon,

if you follow @spottheantisemitism you see my thoughts that Mother Gothel isn't a deliberate stereotype but going off ancient antisemitic coding that is so prevalent.

Dracula was written by self hating gay and eugenicist Abraham "Bram" Stoker whose Catholic christofascism, homophobia and xenophobia oozes off every page. The count is other, lizard like, he seduces good British christian women to debauchery and drives men to madness with his hypnosis (and his wealth). Dracula is the same fear of the hypnotic foreigner as the Beetle and Svengali but he's not codedly Arab or Jewish, respectively, he's just racially other. Is he Turkic? Is he Romanian? Not even Bram Stoker seems to know.

Stoker's main racism is the Lambrosian Eugenics that he's into and his idea that Romani would serve a vampire. Especially when Romanians actually tokenize local Romani seeing them as espeically attuned to Strigoi hunting (the Romanian folk spirits that inspired the Western ideas of Vampires). Dracula is described as the the quintessential criminal according to Lombroso but not neccesarily racialized in the way we currently understand Eugenics. The point isn;t that Dracula is codedly Jewish or Romani or whatever (he's not), the point is he's not Anglo-Saxon enough and that's bad.

But it was the Germans that took Dracula and gave him pointy ears and a hooked nose, because even in the philosemitic Weimar era, antisemitic caricatures were rampant. The eponymous character of "the golem" is made not throught kabbalalistic knowledge but by the rabbi making a deal with the devil and the both the golem and the rabbi's assistant lusting after a gentile girl is shown as monstrous.

I do wonder how the "it's all antisemitic coding" nuance averse tumbrines will deal with the "sunlight burns vampires" thing the movie added and try to tie to the "ashkenazi burn more than europeans" lie. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar guys.

I do hope the remake is good but it'll have the same othered man trying to seduce attractive white women thing and unless Del Toro is directing (he isn't) that's not going away no matter how you spin it. For better or for worse.

The guy who plays horror monsters as the count and all famous actors for the cast including Dafoe as the Van Helsing?

They filmed in Romania and the Czech Republic to get the Gothic real?

I'm cautiously optimistic

yours,

Cecil

[victusinveritas]

Otto Dix

1891-1969

Pimp and Girl

1923

Brush and India ink and watercolor on tracing paper.

20 1/4 x 15 inches (51.5 x 38.2 cm)

Bequest of Fred Ebb.

© Otto Dix / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

2005.126

Notes:

Dix's experience as a machine-gun commander during World War I profoundly affected his artistic production throughout the 1920s. The horrors of war and the depravity and corruption of Weimar Germany became his major subjects. In the early twenties, he devoted more drawings to prostitution and the sexual underworld than to any other subject. In this drawing, he adapted the theme to political satire by giving the pimp Hitler's features. In 1923, the date of this drawing, Hitler made an abortive attempt at overthrowing the German government. Although he failed, his trial made him a widely known figure. Dix emphasized the dark side of this shady character by exaggerating his heavy lids, dark eye sockets, split chin, and yellow complexion. He produced this image as a lithograph in order to disseminate it widely.

From the Morgan Museum.