For I'll marry you yit on a fourp'ny bit as a time-expired man

[sovay]

I had a very good time at Arisia. Intellectually I think I was happiest with "The Alien in the Alien" and "In Praise of Unlikeable Characters," performance-wise with "Songs of Rudyard Kipling" and the Speculative Poetry Slam, and comedy-wise with "The 100-Year-Old Barbed Wire: The Great War & SF," to which I showed up nearly a half-hour late due to getting trapped by public transit on Sunday morning and therefore allegorically personified the United States for the rest of the panel. I attended this year's genderswapped Star Trek by the Post-Meridian Radio Players—The Naked Time, with a Sulu they had better keep—and even managed to hear a couple of panels that weren't mine. And then because I hadn't really slept for the duration of the convention, I came home yesterday and faceplanted for most of the evening surrounded by purring cats, woke up long enough to eat dinner and watch Basil Dearden's All Night Long (1962) with derspatchel, and then went back to bed for ten hours. As a result I have gotten almost nothing done today, but I haven't had to catch two buses and two trains to the Boston waterfront, so that's nice. Also the cats.

I found this post while looking for information about Kenneth Macpherson's Borderline (1930): "Algernon Islay de Courcy Lyons & Kenneth Macpherson, Bryher & H.D." The text looks like several different sources combined together, but the photographs are invaluable. This one of Bryher and H.D. from the set of Borderline does nothing to dissuade my interest in the film.

Comments

[moon_custafer]

These things always make me wish I'd been born an upper-class avant-garde artist in the 1920s. I suppose the closest I shall ever come to that was the year after I graduated university, when I and a friend paid a nominal rent to live in her late grandparents' sprawling, slightly ramshackle house (her family needed the place occupied while they decided what to do with it), which had been built in the 1920s by a British architect who never really resigned to the Canadian climate. In winter we used the sun porch as a walk-in refrigerator. There was a WC separate from the bathroom. Computers could only be plugged in the east wing of the place, where the wiring was modern enough to accommodate three-pronged plugs. There were a lot of books, including a textbooks by Havelock Ellis; a book "about" Joyce's Ulysses which contained lengthy extracts and had evidently been published so people living in countries where the original was banned could at least read parts of it; and an account by some people who called themselves the Three Hours for Lunch Club of their experiences renovating a 19th-century theatre in Hoboken and staging Victorian shows for the ironic enjoyment of Jazz-age audiences.

[sovay]

These things always make me wish I'd been born an upper-class avant-garde artist in the 1920s.

Join the club!

There were a lot of books, including a textbooks by Havelock Ellis; a book "about" Joyce's Ulysses which contained lengthy extracts and had evidently been published so people living in countries where the original was banned could at least read parts of it; and an account by some people who called themselves the Three Hours for Lunch Club of their experiences renovating a 19th-century theatre in Hoboken and staging Victorian shows for the ironic enjoyment of Jazz-age audiences.

(a) That sounds like an excellent library for a sprawling, ramshackle, 1920's house.

(b) The Three Hours for Lunch Club is famous! I recognize several of those names.

[moon_custafer]

This was before Google, so it was hard to find much about the club at the time. I did note there was an article in the book by Ogden Nash, describing for New Yorker Magazine readers the experience of hanging about backstage during a performance of "The Black Crook," a name I also recognized from histories of the American musical -- concocted in the 1860s, it sounds like a panto version of Der Freischütz, with more chorus girls, and it got shut down by the authorities at the time*. The Club note that by the 1920s, by contrast, the main audience seemed to be children being taken to see it as a birthday treat.

*or maybe not, going by the Wikipedia entry. It was at least considered somewhat racy.

[sovay]

This was before Google, so it was hard to find much about the club at the time.

I'm not blaming you for being unable to find much information about them twenty-odd years ago; I was just delighted to see that Don Marquis and Christopher Morley and Sinclair Lewis all hung out together, because I'd had no idea.

"The Black Crook," a name I also recognized from histories of the American musical -- concocted in the 1860s, it sounds like a panto version of Der Freischütz, with more chorus girls, and it got shut down by the authorities at the time

That looks in several respects amazing. (The angel Zamiel sounds like a direct import from Der Freischütz to me.)

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

I was about to ping to see how you were recovering, when I saw you had posted this.

It was lovely to see you, as always. Next time with better health and more sleep.

[sovay]

I was about to ping to see how you were recovering, when I saw you had posted this.

That's about how!

Also I watched the season finale of The Crown with my mother and was upset about their sudden decision to depart from the historical record after nine previous episodes of more or less sticking to the known facts, but that was after I'd put up this post.

It was lovely to see you, as always. Next time with better health and more sleep.

Thank you. Likewise. Though I hope you got plenty of sleep!

[gwynnega]

Glad you had a good Arisia!

That photo of Bryher and H.D. is blowing my mind, it looks so contemporary.

I watched Borderline when it turned up online a couple of years back.

[sovay]

Glad you had a good Arisia!

Thank you! It was a lot of fun. I'm just pretty wiped out afterward.

That photo of Bryher and H.D. is blowing my mind, it looks so contemporary.

Based on haircut and expression alone I have already cast Bryher in Gina Gershon's role in the vintage alt-universe version of the Wachowskis' Bound (1996).

I watched Borderline when it turned up online a couple of years back.

. . . I didn't even realize it was online. I must take advantage of this fact in the near future.

[gwynnega]

Based on haircut and expression alone I have already cast Bryher in Gina Gershon's role in the vintage alt-universe version of the Wachowskis' Bound (1996).

Exactly!

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

allegorically personified the United States for the rest of the panel

:D Were you hailed with celebration on entering? :)

[sovay]

Were you hailed with celebration on entering?

No—late to the party as usual.

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

The suggestion that you were to represent the US was made when nineweaving received your bus trouble text, so we all inwardly participated in the joke whenyou arrived

[sovay]

The suggestion that you were to represent the US was made when nineweaving received your bus trouble text, so we all inwardly participated in the joke whenyou arrived

Yeah, nobody warned me!

[drwex]

It was nice to see you in person finally. Thanks for the autograph.

[sovay]

It was nice to see you in person finally. Thanks for the autograph.

You're welcome! It was nice to meet you, too. Did you have a good Arisia overall?

[drwex]

I'm still a little shell-shocked from it. I've not worked this many hours at Arisia in many years. I did enjoy what I did and the events I managed to get to. I was sad I got called out of your WWI panel, for example, but I did get to see the bellydance show which I've not been able to do fully for a couple years.

So overall a mixed bag and much more intense than I'd expected.