BREAKING NEWS

I just made the connection that Sylvia Sidney, adorable babyface from City Streets (1931):


= Juno in Beetlejuice.


The 20s and 30s are exploding with cute-baby bee-stung-lipped actresses in finger waves, but Sylvia Sidney was the preciousest of them all.

Feeling bloodthirsty this morning, grandmother?

-- Not any more than usual, dear!

Thieves Fall Out - 1941

I love this movie! It's not available for purchase anywhere - I might never see it again!

Jane Darwell is an incredible comedic actress. She's hilarious. I'm not sure why this is such an unknown movie because the writing is perfect and the acting is such high quality. WTF mate?

Jane Darwell is most famous (to me) for playing bitch neighbor Mrs. Merriwether in Gone with the Wind. I guess she was in The Grapes of Wrath also. She serves the purpose in a dramatic role, but she belongs there about as much as Alec Baldwin does.


FAK!

Activities

I learned to play hoop & stick today. "Research" re: partying like it's 1899 (and you're underage). I quickly gave up in favor of not chasing the hoop into traffic. This game is like, totally hard.

Actually,

Kate Beaton on Historical Accuracy:

"You do sacrifice some facts for the sake of a joke. I find myself trying to circumvent any objections. One comic I did recently was about Danton and Robespierre. I drew Robespierre at Danton's trial -- which he was not. He was sick, so he wasn't there. But the comic was about their relationship, and he was responsible, so I drew him in there. I had to put at the top, "He wasn't there, I know, but anyway ..." Otherwise, inevitably, an email titled "Actually" will appear in my inbox."

from this Salon interview. I love how much play she's getting! Maybe everyone isn't retarded? Not sure.

I have to come to terms with a finer accuracy, or find an official position. I waffle based on what I want to get out of something. I find it amusing to slightly manipulate things once in a while to suit a joke or my own impression of things, but I can't knowingly perpetuate falsehoods. Because next thing you know, you're just writing historical fiction about what would happen if Mary Shelley married Lestat de Lioncourt (yoooou know!), and I can't be havin with that shit.

Historical fiction is for when you're 15 in detention (Andrei Codrescu - The Blood Countess) but then it's time to move on. If you're me. No judgement!

Hey.

Get off that.

Oscar Wilde as paraphrased by Stephen Fry

Oscar Wilde composed this parable at a dinner party in response to a catty and back-biting conversation that had arisen.

"The devil was walking one day in the Libyan desert when he saw a couple of young demons who were tormenting a monk. He went up and asked, 'What goes on here?' They turned and bowed to their master, and they said, 'Well, thirty nine days and thirty nine nights we have tried to bring this man away from his God and his Church.'
'We've tried to make him turn towards you, Lord.'
'We've offered him powers and principalities.'
'We've given him delights of the flesh.'
'We have offered him wisdom and knowledge.'
'In all these he has steadfastly refused, staying firm to his God and his Christ.'
And Satan said, 'Out of the way.' He lent forward and whispered in the ear of the monk, who immediately filled the air with the most terrible curses, snapped his wooden cross in twain, and shrieked implications against his God and his Church and Christ and his Heavenly Father.
And the demons bowed down before Satan and said, 'Truly, you are the Lord. How can you have done this so quickly when we took thirty nine days and thirty nine nights and made no impression? What did you say to him?'

The Devil said, 'But it was very simple; I told him his brother had been made Bishop of Alexandria.'"
--

*** if i wrote this, this is the part where i'd add "ZING!" all caps, small font.

Pet Peeve

When cover artists change the gender of the subject of a song to suit their own sexuality.

Example: the Bat for Lashes cover of "I'm on Fire" in which "hey little girl" becomes "hey little boy".

Don't worry young fool, it's not exactly going to start a big LESBIAN RUMOR if you leave the song as it is! For chrissake. It's annoying that people need to frantically organize everything so it all looks on the up & up re: social norms, and it's also frankly a little off-putting to hear a grown woman coo to a "little boy" in a song. Women don't tend to fetishize their male quarries as little boys, or didn't anyone notice? To me, it becomes a completely different animal when you swap the gender.

In fact! why don't we leave the covers to Tori. Yes, let's. Anyone who can make you shed a tear while covering a Kylie Minogue dance classic pretty much has it handled.

god, AND

Major sidebar. I need to write more about how really personally involved people (women) get in the lives of certain historical personages. I have noticed this most with:

Catherine of Aragon
Anne Boleyn
Abigail Adams***

People are talking about these women like they were their next door neighbors.

I once stumbled upon a website that was serving as a weird memorial/shrine to Abigail Adams. There was an animated gif "eternal flame" followed by THOUSANDS OF comments and notes which were all personally addressed to her in a very familiar way. Like a patron saint. It's weird, completely unexpected, but at least they're idolizing someone who warranted it instead of an actual saint of made-up virtue.

This is just a personal memo for later. Major thesis forthcoming about the people out there who refer to Catherine of Aragon as "my girl Cat."

In case you were wondering

...Where I stand on the Elizabeth I locket ring. I think it might NOT be Anne. The girl in the portrait looks fair, and Anne was unequivocally famous for her dark hair and darker eyes. Her olive skin was much noted in a day when the standard of beauty was firmly in favor of ultra white skin and other Aryan features. There's no reason to believe she would ever have been portrayed otherwise, even after death.

Is it too strange to think that Elizabeth could have been honoring someone else? Even her bitch sister Mary seems to resemble the portrait (as a girl) more than AB. Not that I would expect Elizabeth to feel emotionally beholden to Mary, but she had far more of a relationship with her.

Anyway, just muddying the waters, it could very well be Anne. I'm sure Elizabeth had issues.


Close-up of the portrait thought to be Anne.

The ring was removed from Elizabeth's finger when she died. She apparently wore it faithfully for about 25 or 30 years after its commission in the 1570s. I believe the locket aspect of the ring was generally unknown until she died, but I'm not digging sources up PERSONAL BLOG = secondhand information is a go. This isn't the news!

One thing I love about situations in which crucial details are lost forever is that you are absolutely unable to not wager your own hilarious opinions about what happened.

Usually the hypotheses of other people just piss me off, but I love to see people interested in convoluted historical interpersonal drama. And translating it in their own retarded vernacular. Kind of like I do. While casually reading as you do about Catherine of Aragon and her claim that she was the rightful queen to Henry VIII because she had never consummated her prior marriage with his brother Arthur, who died, I read this comment:

"i dont understand this queen. her and arthur, didnt a queen and king consumate there marriage the night after there married. unless something was up."

Excellent sleuthing! Surely something indeed WAS UP! Can't fault the girl, she quickly arrived at a 500 year old debate that still roils among Tudor biographers. But wait, how does she know what "consummate" means when she still doesn't have their/there in order?

****
ETA: I take it back. Looking at the ring again, it does totally look like Anne Boleyn. It's still an awesome ring/story.