Tuesday Top Five: A Whole Song and Dance
May. 20th, 2025 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nevannaInspired by one of my favorite podcasts (This Ends At Prom) celebrating “May-usical Month,” I decided to list my top five songs from live-action musicals. Perhaps sacrilegiously, I haven’t necessarily seen all of the shows in question – although I have a lot of respect for musical theater as a medium, much of my understanding comes from cultural or social osmosis – but I like the songs on their own.
1. “Nobody’s Side” (Chess)
My summer camp staged Chess during my last year, and while I thought that the story was pretty interesting, it was the music that especially stuck in my memory, especially this number. Not only is it lyrically and musically compelling, but it has some strong fandom associations for me, including the use of one line to title a crossover fic (“No Contract Truly Signed”) in a series that preoccupied me for the better part of a year.
2. “Confrontation” (Jekyll & Hyde)
I’ve seen this musical on stage, as well as a recording of the David Hasselhoff production, but I primarily associate this particular song with my friend Brad at karaoke gatherings.
3. “For Good” (Wicked)
My initial connection with this song – which has made me teary-eyed more than one time – was likewise through fandom: a friend of mine connected it strongly to the Ninth Doctor/Jack/Rose OT3 in Doctor Who, and when we listened to it together, I agreed. It also inspired Nancy Werlin’s Extraordinary, a YA novel about faeries, Jewish history, and teen girl friendships, that I quite like (it’s technically the middle part of a trilogy but can stand on its own).
4. “Wait For It” (Hamilton)
By the time I got around to watching Hamilton on Disney+, both the fannish hype and the fannish discourse had been raging for years. I don’t have a position on whether this musical is an artistic triumph or problematic trash, but I like a lot of the songs, and “Wait For It” is probably the one I enjoy listening to the most.
5. “This Is Me” (The Greatest Showman)
I have only the vaguest idea of what this musical is about, but “This Is Me” (or, rather, the cover by MALINDA) is in my rotation of songs to play when I need a self-esteem boost.
1. “Nobody’s Side” (Chess)
My summer camp staged Chess during my last year, and while I thought that the story was pretty interesting, it was the music that especially stuck in my memory, especially this number. Not only is it lyrically and musically compelling, but it has some strong fandom associations for me, including the use of one line to title a crossover fic (“No Contract Truly Signed”) in a series that preoccupied me for the better part of a year.
2. “Confrontation” (Jekyll & Hyde)
I’ve seen this musical on stage, as well as a recording of the David Hasselhoff production, but I primarily associate this particular song with my friend Brad at karaoke gatherings.
3. “For Good” (Wicked)
My initial connection with this song – which has made me teary-eyed more than one time – was likewise through fandom: a friend of mine connected it strongly to the Ninth Doctor/Jack/Rose OT3 in Doctor Who, and when we listened to it together, I agreed. It also inspired Nancy Werlin’s Extraordinary, a YA novel about faeries, Jewish history, and teen girl friendships, that I quite like (it’s technically the middle part of a trilogy but can stand on its own).
4. “Wait For It” (Hamilton)
By the time I got around to watching Hamilton on Disney+, both the fannish hype and the fannish discourse had been raging for years. I don’t have a position on whether this musical is an artistic triumph or problematic trash, but I like a lot of the songs, and “Wait For It” is probably the one I enjoy listening to the most.
5. “This Is Me” (The Greatest Showman)
I have only the vaguest idea of what this musical is about, but “This Is Me” (or, rather, the cover by MALINDA) is in my rotation of songs to play when I need a self-esteem boost.
So you surf the earth's magnetic core to keep you aligned
May. 20th, 2025 11:31 amsovayWhile it seemed the most natural thing while dreaming to collect moon_custafer and thisbluespirit for the second such road trip we had taken together, when awake my brain's notions of geography seem positively Paleozoic.
moon_custafer and thisbluespirit for the second such road trip we had taken together, when awake my brain's notions of geography seem positively Paleozoic.I can't read your mind and I can't write your name
May. 20th, 2025 03:11 amsovayHow I am doing at the moment is extremely not great. spatch took a picture of me craning into frame like a cat. I took a picture of a blinkie my father made for me.
( I've opened my doors and I've closed all my windows. )
I was unironically charmed to discover The Wonderful World of Tupperware (1965). The hard sell can get a little hard to take, but the technical details are as good as all those short films from the Children's Television Workshop about the manufacture of peanut butter or saxophones.
The rediscovered 1983 Thomas the Tank Engine pilot which I had seen linked around my friendlist turns out to have been more like a screen test for the model work, which honestly makes it even neater to watch. I wrote a letter once to the Island of Sodor. It did occur to me years after the fact that my parents answered it.
If Richard Brody would just edit the collected film criticism of Virginia Tracy and Andre Sennwald, I would buy the books like two shots and consider it a service to art.
spatch took a picture of me craning into frame like a cat. I took a picture of a blinkie my father made for me.( I've opened my doors and I've closed all my windows. )
I was unironically charmed to discover The Wonderful World of Tupperware (1965). The hard sell can get a little hard to take, but the technical details are as good as all those short films from the Children's Television Workshop about the manufacture of peanut butter or saxophones.
The rediscovered 1983 Thomas the Tank Engine pilot which I had seen linked around my friendlist turns out to have been more like a screen test for the model work, which honestly makes it even neater to watch. I wrote a letter once to the Island of Sodor. It did occur to me years after the fact that my parents answered it.
If Richard Brody would just edit the collected film criticism of Virginia Tracy and Andre Sennwald, I would buy the books like two shots and consider it a service to art.
Weekly proof of life: again, mainly media intake
May. 18th, 2025 04:14 pmumadoshiReading: I finished M.L. Wang's Blood Over Bright Haven--very good, also rather grim on account of centering on a magic system that colonialist right to the marrow.
Now I'm reading both Emily Tesh's The Incandescent and Jennifer 8 Lee's The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food. (In practice, that means I started the latter when I hadn't yet picked up The Incandescent and knew I wanted to read it promptly, so I needed to pick up a non-fiction book to tide me over until I bought it. So The Fortune Cookie Chronicles is most likely just on hold while I get through the novel.)
Watching: Last week's episode of The Last of Us, a few more episodes of The Pitt, and one [1] episode of Murderbot. (I'm hoping to see the second tonight, but we'll see how it goes.)
Weathering: A couple of days ago we had unseasonably summer-like temperatures, but now it's back down to consistently below 10°C (and mostly gray/rainy). *shivers*
Now I'm reading both Emily Tesh's The Incandescent and Jennifer 8 Lee's The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food. (In practice, that means I started the latter when I hadn't yet picked up The Incandescent and knew I wanted to read it promptly, so I needed to pick up a non-fiction book to tide me over until I bought it. So The Fortune Cookie Chronicles is most likely just on hold while I get through the novel.)
Watching: Last week's episode of The Last of Us, a few more episodes of The Pitt, and one [1] episode of Murderbot. (I'm hoping to see the second tonight, but we'll see how it goes.)
Weathering: A couple of days ago we had unseasonably summer-like temperatures, but now it's back down to consistently below 10°C (and mostly gray/rainy). *shivers*
But the metal weighs down the bearings and the city has to cut the bolts
May. 17th, 2025 11:50 pmsovayI am spending much of my time very flat, mostly reading, sleeping enough to dream, not necessarily enough to think, but in the usual fashion managed to take a walk around my neighborhood late in the afternoon.
( When one world ends, the other worlds keep spinning. )
I was so entertained by the avowedly partisan entry on Kay in Phyllis Ann Karr's The Arthurian Companion (1983/97) that it finally occurred to me to try to track down some of her Arthurian short stories and thus encountered a canonical description of her favorite churlish knight in "The Coming of the Light" (1992): "a sharpfaced dark man, also with hair more silver than black, who sat far to one side but spoke with more authority than his distance from the king would have suggested." Yes, look, I've loved his terrible personality for ages, I didn't need confirmation he has an interesting face, too.
After several years of not getting around to it, I really enjoyed C. M. Waggoner's The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry (2021) just in time to hear Lucy Dacus' "Best Guess" (2025) on WERS and get the song fixed in my head to its plot: If I were a gambling man, and I am, you'd be my best bet.
selkie sent me waves in the Drake Passage.
( When one world ends, the other worlds keep spinning. )
I was so entertained by the avowedly partisan entry on Kay in Phyllis Ann Karr's The Arthurian Companion (1983/97) that it finally occurred to me to try to track down some of her Arthurian short stories and thus encountered a canonical description of her favorite churlish knight in "The Coming of the Light" (1992): "a sharpfaced dark man, also with hair more silver than black, who sat far to one side but spoke with more authority than his distance from the king would have suggested." Yes, look, I've loved his terrible personality for ages, I didn't need confirmation he has an interesting face, too.
After several years of not getting around to it, I really enjoyed C. M. Waggoner's The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry (2021) just in time to hear Lucy Dacus' "Best Guess" (2025) on WERS and get the song fixed in my head to its plot: If I were a gambling man, and I am, you'd be my best bet.
selkie sent me waves in the Drake Passage.She's changing her name from Kitty to Karen
May. 16th, 2025 11:25 pmsovayI record-scratched out of this article on the signaling of political vibes early on with the assertion:
And in the 2010s, in online forums, fans of the TV show "Steven Universe" gave the word "coded" its modern meaning, talking about how cartoon characters could be "coded" as gay.
What modern meaning? "Queer-coded" as a phrase as well as a concept goes back to the '90's off the top of my head, meaning it's almost certainly older and predates by decades no matter what the internet fandom of Steven Universe (2013–20), which may have popularized the academic usage but cannot have invented it. I'd have to check if it was part of Vito Russo's vocabulary, but Richard Barrios and Alexander Doty certainly used it. So did people I know. I am aware that shallow etymologies are least of the problems of the New York Times, but it is the sort of thing that I complain about on the internet because it is the sort of thing that will cause me to distrust the rest of the sourcing. More pleasant features of my evening included the first two episodes of Murderbot (2025–) whichspatch and I watched in a rare moment of synchronization with pop culture. I am also enjoying Elleston Trevor's The Big Pick-Up (1955) even though every time one of its soldier characters swears, I keep thinking the printable profanity of the '50's can't hold a candle to Her Privates We (1929).
And in the 2010s, in online forums, fans of the TV show "Steven Universe" gave the word "coded" its modern meaning, talking about how cartoon characters could be "coded" as gay.
What modern meaning? "Queer-coded" as a phrase as well as a concept goes back to the '90's off the top of my head, meaning it's almost certainly older and predates by decades no matter what the internet fandom of Steven Universe (2013–20), which may have popularized the academic usage but cannot have invented it. I'd have to check if it was part of Vito Russo's vocabulary, but Richard Barrios and Alexander Doty certainly used it. So did people I know. I am aware that shallow etymologies are least of the problems of the New York Times, but it is the sort of thing that I complain about on the internet because it is the sort of thing that will cause me to distrust the rest of the sourcing. More pleasant features of my evening included the first two episodes of Murderbot (2025–) which
spatch and I watched in a rare moment of synchronization with pop culture. I am also enjoying Elleston Trevor's The Big Pick-Up (1955) even though every time one of its soldier characters swears, I keep thinking the printable profanity of the '50's can't hold a candle to Her Privates We (1929).Thank Blog It's Friday
May. 16th, 2025 08:04 pmnevannaWearing: Black jeans, lavender tank top, pink shirt printed with big spotted cats. Today's storytime theme was "Zoo Animals."
Reading: My fascination with cults led me to pick up Blazing Eye Sees All: Love Has Won, False Prophets, and the Fever Dream of the American New Age.
Writing: I hope to start or continue some Hypnotists fic soon!
Planning: I'll be working all day tomorrow, and on Sunday, I hope to stop by the farmer's market in the morning and make some good trouble in Kendall Square in the late afternoon/evening.
What about you?
Reading: My fascination with cults led me to pick up Blazing Eye Sees All: Love Has Won, False Prophets, and the Fever Dream of the American New Age.
Writing: I hope to start or continue some Hypnotists fic soon!
Planning: I'll be working all day tomorrow, and on Sunday, I hope to stop by the farmer's market in the morning and make some good trouble in Kendall Square in the late afternoon/evening.
What about you?
*pokes*
May. 15th, 2025 10:49 ampaperghost posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
toonupWas going through communities I joined and noticed this one wasn't updated in years... *taps mic*
I watched Smiling Friends for the first time weeks ago, it's been a long time since I watched recent adult animation but I got a laugh out of it. I'm glad a season 3 is coming soon. Alternatively, what have yall been watching (new or old)?
I watched Smiling Friends for the first time weeks ago, it's been a long time since I watched recent adult animation but I got a laugh out of it. I'm glad a season 3 is coming soon. Alternatively, what have yall been watching (new or old)?
Tuesday Top Five: "I shall have you in my power."
May. 13th, 2025 09:48 pmnevannaThese are five of the books or series that were foundational to my mind control obsession.
1. The Witch Herself (1978) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
The subject line of this post is from a song that recurs throughout Naylor’s “Witch” books.
I discussed this series last year, during Spooky Season, but I chose to single out this particular book (the third out of six) because it’s the one in which protagonist Lynn’s best friend, Mouse, declares her intention to be a hypnotist. After minimal study, she can put people in trances, control their actions, and access repressed memories. She also communicates with Lynn’s internal shadow self; it’s suggested that everybody has one, and that some witches - as well as an amateur hypnotist, apparently - can control these aspects of their victims by learning their secret names. (That part was, for better or for worse, also tremendously fascinating to me as a young reader.)
Mouse’s hypnotism is not part of the latter three books, in a series that is generally very smart about continuity and callbacks. The possible Watsonian reason is that she’s understandably frightened of her own power, but to the best of my recollection, it’s never even mentioned again.
2. The Ghastly Glasses (1985) by Beatrice Gormley
A psychic researcher posing as an optometrist gives young Andrea a pair of glasses that allows her to change people’s personalities when she looks through them.
This book is the sequel to Mail-Order Wings, which I haven’t read, but works pretty well as a stand-alone. It has a solid “be careful what you wish for” message and a very funny ending that would probably please cat lovers. I remember stealing one of its plot threads (minus the glasses) for my own long-ago attempt at a Psychic Kid story, about which I can unfortunately remember very little now.
3. Animorphs (1996-2001) by K.A. Applegate
Most of my peers probably at least know the hook for this series (written by spouses Katherine Applegate and Michael Grant, along with a team of ghostwriters): five kids are given the power to transform into animals in order to fight an invasion by parasitic mind-controlling aliens. Although I never actually finished reading all the books, they were overwhelmingly formative for me while I was following them, and the horror of Yeerk infestation – both from the inside, when it happens to the team leader at one point, and from the outside – was a huge part of the reason why.
4. Extreme Zone (1997-1998) by M.C. Sumner
When her father’s secret scientific research leads to his disappearance from the military base where they live, Harley teams up with Noah, a classmate suffering from nightmares of what might be an alien abduction, to investigate.
There are satisfying amounts of mind control in this series, but it also contains: conspiracies, astral projection, interdimensional travel, clairvoyant visions, cults, shapeshifting, genetic engineering and other forms of Weird Science, and lots of questions that – even though the story seems to come to some sort of conclusion in its eight-book run – are never really resolved. Given the time frame of its publication, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was partly inspired by The X-Files. And unlike Animorphs, which is a generation-defining phenomenon, I have never met another person who’s read Extreme Zone. It doesn’t fall into the category of “do I remember reading this or did I hallucinate it?” that happens sometimes with childhood favorites – you can find and buy copies online, and I held onto my own collection – but some elements of the story, which are both surreal and specific, as well as its relative obscurity and the fact that I was only ever able to find most of the books exclusively at one independent bookstore in upstate New York, make me feel like a lot of adults probably do when processing those half-formed memories of nostalgic media.
5. Daughters of the Moon (2000-2007) by Lynne Ewing
Four (later, five) teenage girls use their supernatural powers to fight a demon and its human (and not-quite-human) thralls.
As a teenager, I already recognized that these books were kind of awkwardly written, not to mention morally uneven when it came to excusable applications of mind control (it was okay when the good guys did it!), and I didn’t care. As I wrote on Tumblr some years ago, the series scratched my itch for sensual descriptions of psychic contact as well as an enemies-to-lovers romance with a tormented immortal bad boy. Even then, I knew what I liked.
1. The Witch Herself (1978) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
The subject line of this post is from a song that recurs throughout Naylor’s “Witch” books.
I discussed this series last year, during Spooky Season, but I chose to single out this particular book (the third out of six) because it’s the one in which protagonist Lynn’s best friend, Mouse, declares her intention to be a hypnotist. After minimal study, she can put people in trances, control their actions, and access repressed memories. She also communicates with Lynn’s internal shadow self; it’s suggested that everybody has one, and that some witches - as well as an amateur hypnotist, apparently - can control these aspects of their victims by learning their secret names. (That part was, for better or for worse, also tremendously fascinating to me as a young reader.)
Mouse’s hypnotism is not part of the latter three books, in a series that is generally very smart about continuity and callbacks. The possible Watsonian reason is that she’s understandably frightened of her own power, but to the best of my recollection, it’s never even mentioned again.
2. The Ghastly Glasses (1985) by Beatrice Gormley
A psychic researcher posing as an optometrist gives young Andrea a pair of glasses that allows her to change people’s personalities when she looks through them.
This book is the sequel to Mail-Order Wings, which I haven’t read, but works pretty well as a stand-alone. It has a solid “be careful what you wish for” message and a very funny ending that would probably please cat lovers. I remember stealing one of its plot threads (minus the glasses) for my own long-ago attempt at a Psychic Kid story, about which I can unfortunately remember very little now.
3. Animorphs (1996-2001) by K.A. Applegate
Most of my peers probably at least know the hook for this series (written by spouses Katherine Applegate and Michael Grant, along with a team of ghostwriters): five kids are given the power to transform into animals in order to fight an invasion by parasitic mind-controlling aliens. Although I never actually finished reading all the books, they were overwhelmingly formative for me while I was following them, and the horror of Yeerk infestation – both from the inside, when it happens to the team leader at one point, and from the outside – was a huge part of the reason why.
4. Extreme Zone (1997-1998) by M.C. Sumner
When her father’s secret scientific research leads to his disappearance from the military base where they live, Harley teams up with Noah, a classmate suffering from nightmares of what might be an alien abduction, to investigate.
There are satisfying amounts of mind control in this series, but it also contains: conspiracies, astral projection, interdimensional travel, clairvoyant visions, cults, shapeshifting, genetic engineering and other forms of Weird Science, and lots of questions that – even though the story seems to come to some sort of conclusion in its eight-book run – are never really resolved. Given the time frame of its publication, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was partly inspired by The X-Files. And unlike Animorphs, which is a generation-defining phenomenon, I have never met another person who’s read Extreme Zone. It doesn’t fall into the category of “do I remember reading this or did I hallucinate it?” that happens sometimes with childhood favorites – you can find and buy copies online, and I held onto my own collection – but some elements of the story, which are both surreal and specific, as well as its relative obscurity and the fact that I was only ever able to find most of the books exclusively at one independent bookstore in upstate New York, make me feel like a lot of adults probably do when processing those half-formed memories of nostalgic media.
5. Daughters of the Moon (2000-2007) by Lynne Ewing
Four (later, five) teenage girls use their supernatural powers to fight a demon and its human (and not-quite-human) thralls.
As a teenager, I already recognized that these books were kind of awkwardly written, not to mention morally uneven when it came to excusable applications of mind control (it was okay when the good guys did it!), and I didn’t care. As I wrote on Tumblr some years ago, the series scratched my itch for sensual descriptions of psychic contact as well as an enemies-to-lovers romance with a tormented immortal bad boy. Even then, I knew what I liked.
One of three ancient fates playing with your scissors again
May. 13th, 2025 04:25 pmsovayI have been so spoiled in recent months by the accessible obscurities of my local library systems that I took it personally when both internet archives and interlibrary loan wiped out on the 1954 source novel for "Dishonoured Bones" (1964), which I watched last night while falling down a rabbit hole of surviving episodes of the BBC's Detective (1964–69) thanks to thisbluespirit. At least in fifty-minute anthology format, the mystery itself is a shoal of red herrings, but I was instantly taken with Alan Dobie as Martin Cotterell, an archaeologist-hero as pipe-smoking and untidy as any weirdo by Leslie Howard, especially with his awful walking hat knocked down over his eyes, characteristically rolling off one of his socks in the middle of a discussion of suspects with his old friend who has turned up as the sergeant on the case. (He's right to have suddenly noticed it was inside out and his friend is right that no one else would have noticed because his socks aren't matched to begin with.) He has an artificial hand. It's treated so matter-of-factly, it's never even addressed as such until the rock-fall of the climax, which would have smashed a hand of flesh and bone and just leaves Martin wryly straightening his flattened tin fingers; otherwise the viewer notices eventually that he does most tasks one-handed, the other always gloved, impossible to tell which was originally his dominant hand. Its relevance to the plot is realistically zero. Trying to find any information on this elusive series, I am delighted to learn from its author's obituary that not only was John Trench more than literarily into archaeology, he was employed long-term, about a generation later, by the same advertising firm as Dorothy L. Sayers. They both worked on the Guinness account. I have a line on the novel and in the meantime am stuck with an interest in Alan Dobie, with his thin dented-in face that looks so much younger with his hat off, except when he's got a bandage around his head. Even if she doesn't have that much to do, you get early Judi Dench with this episode, too.
thisbluespirit. At least in fifty-minute anthology format, the mystery itself is a shoal of red herrings, but I was instantly taken with Alan Dobie as Martin Cotterell, an archaeologist-hero as pipe-smoking and untidy as any weirdo by Leslie Howard, especially with his awful walking hat knocked down over his eyes, characteristically rolling off one of his socks in the middle of a discussion of suspects with his old friend who has turned up as the sergeant on the case. (He's right to have suddenly noticed it was inside out and his friend is right that no one else would have noticed because his socks aren't matched to begin with.) He has an artificial hand. It's treated so matter-of-factly, it's never even addressed as such until the rock-fall of the climax, which would have smashed a hand of flesh and bone and just leaves Martin wryly straightening his flattened tin fingers; otherwise the viewer notices eventually that he does most tasks one-handed, the other always gloved, impossible to tell which was originally his dominant hand. Its relevance to the plot is realistically zero. Trying to find any information on this elusive series, I am delighted to learn from its author's obituary that not only was John Trench more than literarily into archaeology, he was employed long-term, about a generation later, by the same advertising firm as Dorothy L. Sayers. They both worked on the Guinness account. I have a line on the novel and in the meantime am stuck with an interest in Alan Dobie, with his thin dented-in face that looks so much younger with his hat off, except when he's got a bandage around his head. Even if she doesn't have that much to do, you get early Judi Dench with this episode, too.Will you step in line or release the glitch?
May. 12th, 2025 06:46 pmsovayAs a reminder to myself of the value of random film trivia, I seem to have convinced a kid to seek out Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) after he complimented me on my name and deprecated his own which I told him was a lovely name, the name of a river, the name of a psychopomp, and he perked up and asked if the movie was available in this region and I could tell him there was even a Criterion disc, since off the top of my head I had no idea where it was streaming, although the answer turns out to be all over the place. I hope he enjoys it. Comes with a free Edward Everett Horton. I have spent way too much of the day on the phone.
Hey, kid, just sing the songs that wake the dead
May. 12th, 2025 05:18 amsovayIt upsets me for many reasons that science in this country is about to crash for a generation if we're lucky, but one more is the news which spatch just sent me that it is now possible to synchrotronically transmute lead into gold so long as you don't mind the gold being a transient and unstable radioisotope. Is there a productive application for this discovery? Do I care? I'd rather it take my tax money than anything advanced by RFK Jr. I like libraries and habeas corpus, too.
To every nimrod who still wants to claim that the women of noir are misogynistically divided between the milksop and the fatale, I commend the enchantingly left-field battle royale climax of Riffraff (1947) in which Anne Jeffreys launches herself like a pro wrestler onto Walter Slezak while Pat O'Brien is still fighting off his goons and then squashes him under a bookcase from which he has to disencumber himself like the victim of a Murphy bed. It's even goofier and braver because Slezak in this film has real menace, a summer-suited stone cold sketch artist who finishes up his latest street scene while his hired muscle is slugging the bejeezus out of O'Brien, whose amiable chiseler of a private eye has a nicely careless chemistry with Jeffreys' canary, herself the kind of platinum-tressed pulp ideal who can pick herself up from getting cold-cocked in someone else's tossed office with breezily tart sang-froid. The opening murder at 30,000 feet is breathtaking in its sharp-shot night rain and silence, but I may still consider the film stolen by Percy Kilbride as the sarcastically milk-tippling cabbie whose jalopy fires up like the 1812 Overture and whose gag of mending O'Brien's shirts runs all the way through a proposal into breach of promise. He's the cherry on this modest but satisfying sundae of RKO B-noir which balances its shortfalls in budget with buckets of style, incidentally the first non-short film I have managed to watch this month. "You got the piano player?"
Speaking of women in noir, the Brattle has announced this year's Noir City Boston and despite the presence of Foster Hirsch, I am not missing Caged (1950) on 35 mm, not to mention I have never seen the directorial debut of Mickey Rooney, My True Story (1951). I reserve the right to throw popcorn if he mischaracterizes any of the dark city dames I know anything about.
spatch just sent me that it is now possible to synchrotronically transmute lead into gold so long as you don't mind the gold being a transient and unstable radioisotope. Is there a productive application for this discovery? Do I care? I'd rather it take my tax money than anything advanced by RFK Jr. I like libraries and habeas corpus, too.To every nimrod who still wants to claim that the women of noir are misogynistically divided between the milksop and the fatale, I commend the enchantingly left-field battle royale climax of Riffraff (1947) in which Anne Jeffreys launches herself like a pro wrestler onto Walter Slezak while Pat O'Brien is still fighting off his goons and then squashes him under a bookcase from which he has to disencumber himself like the victim of a Murphy bed. It's even goofier and braver because Slezak in this film has real menace, a summer-suited stone cold sketch artist who finishes up his latest street scene while his hired muscle is slugging the bejeezus out of O'Brien, whose amiable chiseler of a private eye has a nicely careless chemistry with Jeffreys' canary, herself the kind of platinum-tressed pulp ideal who can pick herself up from getting cold-cocked in someone else's tossed office with breezily tart sang-froid. The opening murder at 30,000 feet is breathtaking in its sharp-shot night rain and silence, but I may still consider the film stolen by Percy Kilbride as the sarcastically milk-tippling cabbie whose jalopy fires up like the 1812 Overture and whose gag of mending O'Brien's shirts runs all the way through a proposal into breach of promise. He's the cherry on this modest but satisfying sundae of RKO B-noir which balances its shortfalls in budget with buckets of style, incidentally the first non-short film I have managed to watch this month. "You got the piano player?"
Speaking of women in noir, the Brattle has announced this year's Noir City Boston and despite the presence of Foster Hirsch, I am not missing Caged (1950) on 35 mm, not to mention I have never seen the directorial debut of Mickey Rooney, My True Story (1951). I reserve the right to throw popcorn if he mischaracterizes any of the dark city dames I know anything about.
Weekly proof of life: media intake, mainly
May. 11th, 2025 03:30 pmumadoshiReading: I finished and really enjoyed A Drop of Corruption Robert Jackson Bennett. (Just in time to see the author's, um...deeply unfortunate contribution to the AI conversation [presumably in response to the current Worldcon fiasco {why is there pretty much always a Worldcon fiasco? It's amazing}]. >.<)
I followed that up with Mira Grant's latest, Overgrowth, which I also really enjoyed, and now I'm reading M.L. Wang's Blood Over Bright Haven.
Watching: Extremely minimal. We saw the most recent ep. of TLoU, but I don't think we managed any of The Pitt, so I guess we'll be juggling three shows once Murderbot starts up. (We used to more routinely have multiple shows on the go, but we seem to have somehow lost the knack.) And I haven't started anything new on my own since finishing my Guardian watch-through.
Working: I have manga deadlines both tomorrow and Tuesday, and was thankfully able to give both scripts their final polish and read-through this afternoon, so they're both turned in now.
Linking:
--"‘Good God, It Was Fun!’ Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, Dick Van Dyke, and more legends of Broadway reprise their most memorable characters".
--"Why Harassment Comes with the Territory of Translating Popular Manga". [io9 interviews]
I followed that up with Mira Grant's latest, Overgrowth, which I also really enjoyed, and now I'm reading M.L. Wang's Blood Over Bright Haven.
Watching: Extremely minimal. We saw the most recent ep. of TLoU, but I don't think we managed any of The Pitt, so I guess we'll be juggling three shows once Murderbot starts up. (We used to more routinely have multiple shows on the go, but we seem to have somehow lost the knack.) And I haven't started anything new on my own since finishing my Guardian watch-through.
Working: I have manga deadlines both tomorrow and Tuesday, and was thankfully able to give both scripts their final polish and read-through this afternoon, so they're both turned in now.
Linking:
--"‘Good God, It Was Fun!’ Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, Dick Van Dyke, and more legends of Broadway reprise their most memorable characters".
--"Why Harassment Comes with the Territory of Translating Popular Manga". [io9 interviews]
Thank Blog It's Friday
May. 9th, 2025 09:41 pmnevannaWearing: Rainbow constellation pajamas. (Today's storytime theme was Bunnies, so I wore a bunny-print shirt.)
Reading: Still An Academy For Liars! It's reminding me a bit of The Magicians, except that the protagonist is not an insufferable white boy.
Writing: I recently posted some drabbles/short ficlets for The Hypnotists, The Owl House, and the X-Men movies. Hopefully, I'll share a roundup soon.
Planning: Tomorrow, I hope to visit one of the first outdoor farmer's markets of the season, if the rain isn't too intense, and then I'll cook for some friends who are coming over in the evening. And Younger Sister is visiting Boston on Sunday!
What about you?
Reading: Still An Academy For Liars! It's reminding me a bit of The Magicians, except that the protagonist is not an insufferable white boy.
Writing: I recently posted some drabbles/short ficlets for The Hypnotists, The Owl House, and the X-Men movies. Hopefully, I'll share a roundup soon.
Planning: Tomorrow, I hope to visit one of the first outdoor farmer's markets of the season, if the rain isn't too intense, and then I'll cook for some friends who are coming over in the evening. And Younger Sister is visiting Boston on Sunday!
What about you?