Who cares how rich you are, love, when you look like Boris Karloff?

[sovay]

We have not yet been hit by a hurricane, although earlier this evening I watched a beautiful fast-sliding sunset of graphite-brushed and salmon-rose clouds like layers of moving glass. Have some links.

1. The folksinger Michael Smith has died. He wrote any number of beautiful, wry, thoughtful songs that became part of the folk tradition, such that I first heard several of them in the voices of other singers, but I knew him first and best for "Dead Egyptian Blues," which means I hope he was buried with at least a few grave goods.

2. I am delighted to see Scout Tafoya raising awareness for The Eternal (1998), otherwise known as my favorite bog body movie, but what do you mean Michael Almereyda made a movie about Nikola Tesla and I'm just hearing about it now? I can only hope it's as weird as Experimenter (2015).

3. Courtesy of kaffy_r: I had not previously heard of Stuart Stevens, but the interviews with him at Mother Jones and The New Yorker are both worth reading. tl;dr veteran Republican strategist turned out to be too honest not to recognize that the man in the White House was not a deviation from the values of his party but a culmination of them and then he had to figure out what to do about it.

4. As a result of recommending David Jones' In Parenthesis (1937), I discovered two books of his that I hadn't known about: The Sleeping Lord (1974) and Dai Greatcoat: a self-portrait of David Jones in his letters (1980). So now I have to figure out how to get hold of those.

5. Courtesy of moon_custafer: I am hoping I have not scared off a total stranger on AO3, but a person who writes fic for Night Nurse (1931), The Petrified Forest (1936), Act of Violence (1948), Johnny Eager (1942), and Three Strangers (1946) is a person I am incredibly glad to discover exists. I shouted somewhat to that effect in their comments and am now d'escaliering about appropriate levels of enthusiasm. I was just so happily surprised. [edit] HOORAY I HAVE NOT HORRIFIED THEM.

I rewatched A Night to Remember (1958) for the first time in ten or twelve years and this time around, in addition to noting with pleasure the presence of Michael Bryant in a small role (because once you notice a character actor, they can and probably will turn up anywhere), what struck me most was the lines invented for Kenneth More's Lightoller as he sits with James Dyrenforth's Gracie and thirty other freezing men on the overturned hull of Collapsible B, frost on their hair and the black sea broken only by the other lifeboats and terrible debris and the lights of the Carpathia steaming for them against all odds: "I've been at sea since I was a boy. I've been in sail. I've even been shipwrecked before. I know what the sea can do. But this is different . . . Because we were so sure. Because even though it's happened, it's still unbelievable. I don't think I'll ever feel sure again—about anything." It's the one scene of the film that feels contemporary rather than intensely of the moment, since for all its composites, elisions, and occasional errors the script is otherwise scrupulous about knowing only what history knew—more like post-WWII 1953 than pre-WWI 1912—and it also feels to me like weird fiction, like cosmic horror. The world can be smashed so badly out from underneath you, nothing can be trusted anymore. Which may explain why it occurred to me to rewatch the movie now, aside from the fact that I remembered liking it.

Comments

[gwynnega]

It is great that somebody wrote fic for those movies!

[sovay]

It is great that somebody wrote fic for those movies!

I didn't think anybody had or would!

[moon_custafer]

(goes over to look at their other works, as I’d only linked to the Night Nurse fic without checking what other fandoms they wrote for) WAIT THEY WROTE FICS FOR Winter Kept Us Warm?

OK, so they must be Canadian, most likely from Ontario, and possibly living in Toronto (this would also explain the NHL manager RPF)

[sovay]

OK, so they must be Canadian, most likely from Ontario, and possibly living in Toronto

See, I had never heard of Winter Kept Us Warm! I gather it is a very local phenomenon?

[moon_custafer]

Full disclosure-- I've never seen it, but I began hearing about it in the '90s as this legendary classic of Canadian gay subtext.

[sovay]

Full disclosure-- I've never seen it, but I began hearing about it in the '90s as this legendary classic of Canadian gay subtext.

Great, now I feel like I have a moral obligation to see it, too.

[legionseagle]

I have to say, given the career of Charles Herbert Lightoller, it sounds like pretty OOC dialogue: that was a man for whom surviving the Titanic was only about the fifth or sixth most interesting thing in his long life. (A typical extract from his Wikipedia entry reads: At age 13, not wanting to end up with a factory job like most of Britain's youth at the time, young Charles began a four-year seafaring apprenticeship on board the barque Primrose Hill. On his second voyage, he set sail with the crew of the Holt Hill, and during a storm in the South Atlantic, the ship was forced to put in at Rio de Janeiro. Repairs were made in the midst of a smallpox epidemic and a revolution.

Another storm, on 13 November 1889 in the Indian Ocean, caused the ship to run aground on an uninhabited four-and-a-half-square-mile island now called Île Saint-Paul. They were rescued by the Coorong and taken to Adelaide, Australia. Lightoller joined the crew of the clipper ship Duke of Abercorn for his return to England.

Lightoller returned to the Primrose Hill for his third voyage. They arrived in Calcutta, India, where he passed his second mate's certificate. The cargo of coal caught fire while he was serving as third mate on board the windjammer Knight of St. Michael, and for his successful efforts in fighting the fire and saving the ship, Lightoller was promoted to second mate. )

From his own account of Dunkirk: "Suddenly the gunner called out, 'There she is, sir,'and sure enough there was the big Pile Buoy but red instead of black. Number one was the first to spot the colour and growled, 'By God, it's not Gravelines, it's Haut Frond,' it was indeed , and we were just exactly in the middle of the minefield that had so successfully blown up five of our ships already....We kept on at the 20 knots (it was the only thing to do) but brought her slowly round so as to disturb the mines as little as possible..."

[sovay]

I have to say, given the career of Charles Herbert Lightoller, it sounds like pretty OOC dialogue: that was a man for whom surviving the Titanic was only about the fifth or sixth most interesting thing in his long life.

Dramatically, I think it has to be spoken by Lightoller (if it's going to be spoken by anybody) because he's been such a rock throughout the disaster that it affects the audience to see him shaken, but I agree; it stands out. His widow does not seem to have objected to the portrayal, for whatever that's worth.

Repairs were made in the midst of a smallpox epidemic and a revolution.

I knew about Dunkirk; I hadn't heard about that. It does sound memorable.

Repairs were made in the midst of a smallpox epidemic and a revolution.

I knew about Dunkirk; I hadn't heard about that. It does sound memorable.

[legionseagle]

He got into trouble in about 1901 for pulling a prank which convinced the residents of Sydney they were being invaded by the Boers; he also participated in the Klondyke Gold Rush. He was the quintessential chap who, when someone said, "What's the worst that could possibly happen?" said "Hold my beer."

I can certainly see why they had to give him that line (it's a much better film, too, than the Cameron Abomination.)

[sovay]

he also participated in the Klondyke Gold Rush. He was the quintessential chap who, when someone said, "What's the worst that could possibly happen?" said "Hold my beer."

Okay, the gold rush just makes it ridiculous.

I can certainly see why they had to give him that line (it's a much better film, too, than the Cameron Abomination.)

It is absolutely a better film. I saw the 1997 Titanic with my boyfriend of the time who thought it was desperately romantic. I enjoyed Victor Garber, Gloria Stuart, and the details of the actual sinking. Otherwise I survived the experience by eating my way through the dozen or so clementines I had stashed in the pockets of my winter coat. I have never tried to rewatch it. Why would I do that to myself?

(Apologies for the duplication in the previous comment. It is late where I am. I just feel stupid because I missed it even in edit.)

[legionseagle]

Ok the Gold Rush just makes it ridiculous

Did I mention the Zeppelin?

[sovay]

Did I mention the Zeppelin?

Any second now I fully expect you to mention the alien first contact.

[legionseagle]

Now, there I believe he may have missed a trick.

[asakiyume]

How marvelous about the AO3 fic writer who seems to have been tailor-made for you! That's great. And I'm pleased they've accepted your overtures in the right spirit, too.

I've been thinking about the quote you mention from A Night to Remember ... I wonder if (but please don't test me on this, universe!) I'm immune from the effects described due to never being sure of anything in that manner. I'll have to think about it more... I feel like probably I *could* be unmoored in the way the character described and that probably my sense that that's my starting point is actually an illusion. After all, my life has been pretty stable, really.

But yeah: I can see how it is like cosmic horror.

[sovay]

That's great. And I'm pleased they've accepted your overtures in the right spirit, too.

Thank you! Maybe someone will write for A Canterbury Tale or Only Angels Have Wings after all.

But yeah: I can see how it is like cosmic horror.

I think you need a certain amount of confidence in the world as it is to be shaken when it behaves as it feels it should not and everyone's expectations for the world differ. Mine were reset permanently in 2006. In the aftermath of the 2016 election, it became clear that my father had on some level really believed it could never happen here while my mother and I had always believed it could and just hoped it wouldn't. Right now, I don't have trouble believing that what's happening around me is happening, it's just worse because I know that it didn't and still does not need to. But if I could never have envisioned the U.S. convulsed by an artificially encouraged pandemic, I'd probably be in worse shape from a different direction.

[asakiyume]

I'm nodding--I think you, me, and your mother have similar imaginative faculties.

I also have always recognized that anything that can happen to anyone anywhere can happen to to anyone else, somewhere else, and that the things that prevent it from happening to that someone else are absolutely subject to change, and when they change, well.

I have a vivid memory of learning, when I was about five, what starvation was. There was absolutely no reassurance my parents could make: the fact that *some* people died this way was all I needed to know.

The only reset I've had like your 2006 one was of an interpersonal nature (I think yours related maybe to your sense of your place in the world? And part of that was probably interpersonal, but I know there was much, much more). It came in 2014 and was indeed highly destabilizing and world shifting. And yet even then a voice in my head said to me, "You knew these things were possible--why didn't you think they could happen to you?"

Huh. Well I guess I've ratiocinated my way to empathy with the quote.

[sovay]

I'm nodding--I think you, me, and your mother have similar imaginative faculties.

It's not even that my father doesn't have imaginative faculties—he's intelligent, empathetic, and he has lived through several of the kinds of thing that so many people assume will happen to someone else. I think he believed differently in the country than we did. It may be as simple as his being male and not Jewish.

(I think yours related maybe to your sense of your place in the world? And part of that was probably interpersonal, but I know there was much, much more)

The thing that really wrenched was my sense of my health. I was asked once by a previous therapist if I had grown up thinking of myself as sickly or fragile. I hadn't. I had environmental allergies, I was prone to respiratory infections and the sinus infections they inevitably developed into, I caught the usual bugs as they went through my school cohort or friend group (chicken pox and mono in sixth grade, whooping cough in eleventh), but I was quick-healing, I was used to pushing my body beyond its recommended limits, I could fail to sleep for three days and still write an effective paper or poem or short story at the end of it; I thought of myself as resilient. Even in 2004, when I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, it seemed like a manageable complication, well-understood, more of an inconvenience than a threat. And in 2006 I discovered that things could happen to my body from which it might never recover—from which, in fact, it never has. It knocked my entire life off track because all of a sudden it was no longer possible for me to live as I was physically, mentally, emotionally used to. I have only accumulated other irrecoverable damage since. And now I have to think of myself as chronically ill and fourteen years later it's still not instinctive. I am still not used to the limits on my life.

Huh. Well I guess I've ratiocinated my way to empathy with the quote.

Hey, so long as empathy is where you wind up, I think it works out.

[asakiyume]

Wow--I don't think I've ever heard you explain this so directly.

fourteen years later it's still not instinctive. I am still not used to the limits on my life. --I understand this. By which I mean not only "I understand that you feel this way," but also, yes: I think I'd feel a me-version of this same thing if I had suffered this.

I'm profoundly grateful that you have persevered *anyway*. Persevered and continue to work wonders.

[sovay]

Wow--I don't think I've ever heard you explain this so directly.

I'm sorry. I feel so much of the time like a channel broadcasting nothing but the state of my health, I assumed I had made the information not just available but unavoidable.

I am still struggling with the emotional effects; it feels stupid for me to refer to my grad school PTSD as though it's a real injury and not merely an excuse, but of course that itself is part of the problem. I was hurt very badly by a system that at least on paper was supposed to support me and by people who should have known better and I keep finding unexploded ordnance from it turning up in my head at the most inconvenient moments. I know the two intertwine. It is easy for me to think of myself as too much trouble for other people to keep alive, since I am demonstrably not capable of surviving in a medical vacuum (cf. everything since March). But I had known since I was small that I could be hurt by other people, even people who professed friendship or admiration. The shock there was the degree and the context that made it life-shattering rather than unpleasant, not the fact of the behavior itself.

By which I mean not only "I understand that you feel this way," but also, yes: I think I'd feel a me-version of this same thing if I had suffered this.

I can in fact remember what it felt like for my body not to be this way. It's difficult.

I'm profoundly grateful that you have persevered *anyway*. Persevered and continue to work wonders.

Thank you. I am trying.