Every heart to love will come, but like a refugee
Happy Labor Day! The sunprints were a hit with my niece and the twins. Ferns, maple leaves, red clover, yew twigs, asters, cookie cutters, iris leaves, scissors, and unidentified wildflowers were all involved. I did an elm leaf.
1. Thanks to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
konstantya's indispensable studies of vintage crime and romance pulp, I have been made aware of one of the more impressive radiations of the Scarlet Pimpernel through pulp literature, by which I do not mean the periodic recollection of pop culture that the public persona of Bruce Wayne is canonically a himbo, but everything about the character of Lace Flowers, the daintily monikered hero of Beth Farrell's "Lady Snob" (1936). Not only is he fair-haired and willowy and so effetely English that he goes around with one brow quizzically arched as though he's wearing a monocle, he has violet eyes and a face to match his exquisite taste in clothes and doesn't contradict the heroine when she calls him a sissy. She detests his whimsical smile, his lazy conceit, his sheer prettiness, and yet she can't help observing that even as he flutters inconsequentially around her father's nightclub, charming the debutantes and knowing far too much about roses, he moves like a panther and his slender hands are strong as surprising steel. In the dangerous situation which provides the scaffolding of the plot, he's unruffled and resourceful, which does not stop him from talking nonsense all the while he's doing something useful. Inevitably she begins to wonder, "Did every man have another man behind his mask?" and then if she'll ever be allowed to catch more than a glimpse of the Lace who exists beyond his guise of "a silver-tongued trifler without a thought above nonsense." I constellated him in a zeptosecond with Wimsey and Campion, I haven't a clue if Farrell did. Tragically, the story appears to be a one-off. I demand at least fic.
2. Gayle Hunnicutt has died. I don't think I ever saw her in more than two roles, but since one of them was a susceptible, tenacious witness to the paranormal in The Legend of Hell House (1973) and the other was the definitive Irene Adler in the Granada Sherlock Holmes' "A Scandal in Bohemia" (1984), I will miss her.
3. I had not previously known there was an Oxford School of Rare Jewish Languages, but their offerings include Haketia and Judeo-Greek.
John Farrow and Richard Fleischer's His Kind of Woman (1951) was famously messed about with by Howard Hughes to the point where after a year of shooting and re-shooting and re-reshooting Vincent Price threw an anniversary party on set, whichspatch and I knew when we decided to watch it last night, but we did not realize that its amiably wacky brand of south-of-the-border noir would escalate to such a pitch of WTF Guignol that by the middle of the third act we were calling it Alan Swann vs. the Melbourne Method and found ourselves quoting Mel Brooks in The Muppet Movie (1979) at one late-breaking development of totally unforeshadowed mad science. We were already saying the title in Animal's voice. Mitchum and Jane Russell are magnificent as usual; the movie itself is gorgeously shot, inventively staged, and n-v-t-s bananas. In the long run it may have been a good thing that Hughes kept building extra sets because Price probably ate most of them.
1. Thanks to
konstantya's indispensable studies of vintage crime and romance pulp, I have been made aware of one of the more impressive radiations of the Scarlet Pimpernel through pulp literature, by which I do not mean the periodic recollection of pop culture that the public persona of Bruce Wayne is canonically a himbo, but everything about the character of Lace Flowers, the daintily monikered hero of Beth Farrell's "Lady Snob" (1936). Not only is he fair-haired and willowy and so effetely English that he goes around with one brow quizzically arched as though he's wearing a monocle, he has violet eyes and a face to match his exquisite taste in clothes and doesn't contradict the heroine when she calls him a sissy. She detests his whimsical smile, his lazy conceit, his sheer prettiness, and yet she can't help observing that even as he flutters inconsequentially around her father's nightclub, charming the debutantes and knowing far too much about roses, he moves like a panther and his slender hands are strong as surprising steel. In the dangerous situation which provides the scaffolding of the plot, he's unruffled and resourceful, which does not stop him from talking nonsense all the while he's doing something useful. Inevitably she begins to wonder, "Did every man have another man behind his mask?" and then if she'll ever be allowed to catch more than a glimpse of the Lace who exists beyond his guise of "a silver-tongued trifler without a thought above nonsense." I constellated him in a zeptosecond with Wimsey and Campion, I haven't a clue if Farrell did. Tragically, the story appears to be a one-off. I demand at least fic.2. Gayle Hunnicutt has died. I don't think I ever saw her in more than two roles, but since one of them was a susceptible, tenacious witness to the paranormal in The Legend of Hell House (1973) and the other was the definitive Irene Adler in the Granada Sherlock Holmes' "A Scandal in Bohemia" (1984), I will miss her.
3. I had not previously known there was an Oxford School of Rare Jewish Languages, but their offerings include Haketia and Judeo-Greek.
John Farrow and Richard Fleischer's His Kind of Woman (1951) was famously messed about with by Howard Hughes to the point where after a year of shooting and re-shooting and re-reshooting Vincent Price threw an anniversary party on set, which
spatch and I knew when we decided to watch it last night, but we did not realize that its amiably wacky brand of south-of-the-border noir would escalate to such a pitch of WTF Guignol that by the middle of the third act we were calling it Alan Swann vs. the Melbourne Method and found ourselves quoting Mel Brooks in The Muppet Movie (1979) at one late-breaking development of totally unforeshadowed mad science. We were already saying the title in Animal's voice. Mitchum and Jane Russell are magnificent as usual; the movie itself is gorgeously shot, inventively staged, and n-v-t-s bananas. In the long run it may have been a good thing that Hughes kept building extra sets because Price probably ate most of them.
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Brivele are folk-punk Yiddishists:
And those sunprints look so cool!
I hadn't done one in decades and my niece and the twins (who are her best friends) never had. They loved them. It made me so happy.
OMG, Lace Flowers, what a name! XD I'm definitely going to check out that story, thank you for the recommendation!
You're welcome! I am happy to amplify
I distinctively remember writing in my (paper) journal, some time in the 90s, about "The Legend of Hell house". I'm not really good with horror stuff, but this one really impressed me--Gayle Hunnicutt was definitely memorable, and I also liked Pamela Franklin and Roddy McDowall.
It's one of my favorite movies. It imprinted me on Roddy McDowall and indirectly (via a dream) influenced a story of mine, "The Boatman's Cure." I love that you kept a paper journal; I only ever did on trips.
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That sounds excellent--I approve of macaronic everything! <3
It's one of my favorite movies. It imprinted me on Roddy McDowall and indirectly (via a dream) influenced a story of mine, "The Boatman's Cure."
That's an amazing story--I love it when dreams get into fiction!
He must have had a faun’s face once, long before he died, when that cross-cut mouth could still smile without turning in on itself, before he hid those wide-set eyes behind glasses so heavy passing views of sky and saltgrass and green-darkening trees flowed off them like the bend of a windshield, and his cheekbones tightened like kite-struts under the skin.
That's a perfect description--I can't get over "sky and saltgrass and green-darkening trees"!
I also especially liked: "Stick close to me, she had said incautiously; and now he sat beside her like the hanged man of a sailor’s pack, swinging forever between the world and its waters, the boatman with no crossing. Her with too many, all the rivers and roads the dead could be lost on, the living learn to chart."
Thank you for showing me this, I like how you write about ghosts and dreams and holding on and letting go, and going on somehow. I like how the sea is always there too.
Oh, and this movie imprinted me on Roddy McDowall too, because "The planet of the apes" probably doesn't count? XD
I think I kept paper journals until I discovered LJ in the early 2000s? I'm not great at consistent journalling in either format, but I try!
ETA: If someone wants to write about Lace Flowers,
And then also ETA: may I link to your story in a post? I had to laugh when I read it, because this has been a very ghost-ish week so far.
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That's an amazing story--I love it when dreams get into fiction!
Thank you so much! It is the only story of mine to date that has been successfully incorporated a dream, although I have a couple of poems where it worked out.
Thank you for showing me this, I like how you write about ghosts and dreams and holding on and letting go, and going on somehow. I like how the sea is always there too.
They are all important things to me. I am so glad they resonate with you. Thank you for telling me.
Oh, and this movie imprinted me on Roddy McDowall too, because "The planet of the apes" probably doesn't count?
I'm almost confident it's one of the places I had seen him before Hell House and it did not have the same effect on me, no. Mileage varies, as always: I have a friend who wrote poems for his characters in that series and they weren't bad, either.
ETA: If someone wants to write about Lace Flowers, bethefirst is running right now...
Oh, cool. That does sound like a good opportunity. (Can I look hopefully at you about The Wild North?)
And then also ETA: may I link to your story in a post? I had to laugh when I read it, because this has been a very ghost-ish week so far.
Of course! Thank you for asking. How have your other ghosts been?
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It didn't, don't worry!
I'm almost confident it's one of the places I had seen him before Hell House and it did not have the same effect on me, no. Mileage varies, as always: I have a friend who wrote poems for his characters in that series and they weren't bad, either.
I suppose that someone whose "real" face you can't see is intriguing and/or inspiring in different ways. I remember seeing photos of how the ape make-up was done, and there's a story there too, for sure. Mileage varies, as you say, and anything can be a poem. And I love that!
(Can I look hopefully at you about The Wild North?)
I think I'm doing a very short something for Threshold of fire this round (well, unless that story refuses to be written?), but I *definitely* want to finish my The Wild North WIP eventually--even if, when I do, it's not eligible for
How have your other ghosts been?
Very intense, but somehow better than people, and I think that says a lot...
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Hey, based on your description of the novel, I look forward to that. I hope the story is compliant.
but I *definitely* want to finish my The Wild North WIP eventually--even if, when I do, it's not eligible for bethefirst anymore! (I'm such a slow writer that this has happened several times already, haha!)
Whenever, I am supportive!
Very intense, but somehow better than people, and I think that says a lot...
If useful, *hugs*
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