Tag: Michael York

I Wanna Be Free

Saturday morning and here we are, looking forward to another good day at the Lost Apartment, huzzah! Sparky got me up for food at six thirty, but joined me when I returned to bed (after licking his bowls clean) and cuddled with me another hour or so. He really is a dear, even if he turns into a vicious apex predator terror every once in a while. I’ve not seen any bugs or vermin in the house since we acquired him and brought him home either, so I can deal with the vicious apex predator terror for the short while that mood lasts.

I was thinking yesterday as I cleaned up around the kitchen and waited for Paul to get up (I never wake him up unless I know he has to be somewhere), and as a marvelous thunderstorm moved in, that my Substack hasn’t grown much but I also am not actively trying to grow it, to be honest. It’s free, just like the blog, but what I really want to do with the Substack is make it more essays about stuff that no one will ever ask me to write (or not for pay, at any rate), and leave the more personal stuff here and here only. That way, if you just want essays about queer life, history, culture, books, movies and television shows etc. you can subscribe to the Substack and skip the every day here. If you can’t get enough of me, you can do both or you can just stay here. I may eventually get to the point where those essays no longer get posted here…but that will have to wait until the subscribers make complete separation of self worthwhile. I was also thinking yesterday as the sky darkened and the winds picked up, that all of this new free time I am enjoying so much can also be used for productivity–if I can get back to the point where I’m writing 500-5000 words per day again, then this extra time can be utilized for marketing and teaching myself how to work my website and get it all finished and updated. I also am going to start learning how to do more promotion and format ebooks, too, so I can eventually get to the point where I can do my own ebooks. It would be cool to put up a short story or a novella here and there whenever I feel like it, for free–yes, I know my work has value and worth, but every so often it would be fun to gift readers who like my writing with something free every once and a while, you know, as a thank you for sticking with me all these lengthy years.

I also wrote for a whole yesterday, which felt great. I got about a thousand or so words done, which felt great, and I was most pleased with myself for doing so. I also came up with an idea for yet another book that sounds rather interesting and might be fun to explore thematically; I certainly wrote down a shit ton of notes and ideas and riffs in my journal last night, and I have to say I am really enjoying my journal these days. I also managed to get my review essay of Liebestraße finished yesterday, which felt great, and I hope to get some more of those done over the course of the weekend. Yesterday was, overall, a very good day that I got through without much irritation or aggravation, so I will take that. I do have more errands to run today–we ended up skipping Costco, so we have to do that today–and I hope to have some time to read and write later on after I finish everything.

Today is also our anniversary; twenty-nine years today we’ve been together. Almost thirty years, and almost half of my life. We’re going to watch some movies tonight, and we’re going to have a nice little dinner here at home to celebrate. Next year will be thirty years, and in ten days we’ll have lived here in New Orleans twenty-eight years, too. New Orleans was the key to all of my dreams coming true. I wish I would have been less anxious and more confident when I was a teenager, and if I knew then what I know now, I would have gone to college at LSU and moved to New Orleans after graduation, and maybe gotten a master’s in creative writing at the University of New Orleans. My life would be completely different now–I probably would have left New Orleans at some point rather than staying here my entire life, but there’s no use in speculating over that sort of thing–especially since I am settled and extremely happy.

We finished the seasons of The Acolyte and The Boys (which is coming hard for MAGA and I am so here for it; the season finale especially was rather pointed) last night and also watched this week’s The Serpent Queen, which is very well done, but most of the drama for the rest of her life now was political; and I don’t know how the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre is going to play out in the show. There are already inaccuracies in the speeded up timeline; Princess Elisabeth was long married to the King of Spain by the time Charles IX was old enough to be depicted as an adult. I try not to get heavily involved in complaining about inaccuracies in historical shows–they are always rotten with them, but I love watching historicals far too much to stop watching them now because they twist history to fit their storytelling purposes…and this is a period of history I am very interested in. Thank you, cable channels, for committing to doing shows set in historical times I love (like Mary and George). I know there’s a television series based on The Three Musketeers, but it’s very hard for me to watch any adaptation of that after loving the 1970s film versions with (sigh) Michael York (who is an incredibly nice man).

There was a lot of open homosexuality at the royal courts of England and France during this time period, even more so in France rather than England. I’ve always wanted to write about Louis XIV’s brother, Monsieur le duc d’Orléans, who often donned women’s clothing to attend court functions and had a long time lover the Chevalier de Lorraine1 (both were depicted beautifully in the series Versailles, which I also loved). Maybe when I’ve retired I can delve into writing more historicals. I also have an idea for a short story that is a historical; another Sherlock story from 1916, which I am hoping to get started this weekend as well. This morning I am going to do some clean-up around the kitchen before doing some writing and cleaning myself up to go run my errands. I also really still want to write my book about the women in power of the 16th century, too. I suppose it could be called The Monstrous Regiment of Women, but I suppose it could also be called When Women Ruled the World.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for now. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later.

  1. The Chevalier started a society of homosexuals at the court of Louis XIV, which I would also like to research some more. ↩︎

Tomorrow Belongs to Me

Ah, Cabaret.

I first became aware of this movie from commercials on television, and it looked very weird to young Greg. I had no idea what the movie was about, other than it was a musical; starred Liza Minnelli; also had the gorgeous Michael York in the cast; and seemed to be set in old pre-Nazi Germany. It also came out in the same year as The Godfather, which sucked all the air out of the year when it comes to film. I had also read that book that year because of the movie…which also got me interested in Marlon Brando, which is a whole other entry. (Not to mention the sex scenes, which were really confusing in a lot of ways…especially Lucy Mancini’s over-large vagina.) But Liza was everywhere that year, too–every talk show, had her own special “Liza with a Z”, magazine covers and newspapers and periodicals like you wouldn’t believe.

I had no clue what the plot was, other than decadence and debauchery?

I remember asking a friend that year if she knew what Cabaret was about–her parents were European immigrants from after the war; her father was Czech and mother German–and she told me her parents had seen it and her mother said, “It’s all about homosexuals”, which naturally got me incredibly interested in the movie. I finally saw it several years later when it aired on television, but everything queer was sliced out of the movie and it was disjointed and didn’t make a lot of sense, so I thought well, that was shit, how did it win all those Oscars?

Because of course, all the queer stuff has been excised from the movie; the movie was basically castrated and to me, seemed like nothing more than a vehicle to move the movie along to the next musical number–many musicals are like this, so I really didn’t understand what the big deal was about this one.

A few years later, I caught the original uncut version on HBO…and have been a fan ever since.

Cabaret never should have been sold to television for airing because it had to be gutted to make it ready for prime time. I only hope no one involved with the film saw that version of it, but it really was a desecration.

By the time I saw the movie as Bob Fosse originally intended it to be seen, I had become aware of the source material: Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood, an autobiographical novel about his experiences in Weimar Berlin and witnessing the rise of the Nazis–and how their malevolence was poisoning German society and culture. It had been adapted for the stage by John Van Druten as I Am a Camera (which is the opening sentence of the second paragraph of the book), and the play was also filmed, starring Julie Harris, who may have played Sally on stage, too. I Am a Camera was adapted into the musical Cabaret, but significant changes were made from the stage version of the musical in adapting it for the screen–and the screen adaptation also wound up causing the stage version to revised, remodeled, and reinvented as well. (And to make things even more confusing, Isherwood later wrote a memoir about that time period in Berlin called Christopher and His Kind, which was also filmed.)

I had not seen the earlier film, nor had I read the book when I saw the uncut version of Cabaret.

And you really couldn’t go wrong casting Michael York in the 1970s. Stunningly handsome, and that velvety voice that just dripped syrup.

I mean, really. I think this is from Something for Everyone, which is a great, little-known queer movie also starring Angela Lansbury! (There’s a watchable version uploaded to Youtube, but the sound and picture quality isn’t great.)

I rewatch the film every now and then. I went through an Isherwood phase in the late 90’s/early aughts, when I read everything he wrote, and I enjoyed them all. And when I see some political movements today (hello, MAGAts!), Cabaret is never far from my mind.

It’s astonishing that the film was even made, given that homosexuality was still considered a mental illness in 1972, and the film didn’t judge. It simply presented these alternative sexualities as normal, and while the times themselves weren’t normal, there was also a very strong sense that the Weimar period–which is endlessly fascinating, which is one of many reasons I love Babylon Berlin so much–that filled the German political vacuum between the wars wasn’t very different from the twenties everywhere else, either; a time when the society and culture rejected the old, more conservative times that led to the first war, and everyone just wanted to have a good time because so much was misery. (I often wonder how much the American Stock Market crash of 1929 had to do with the rise of fascism in Germany; it was the economy, after all, that really caused the problems, and wasn’t the global economy heavily impacted by the collapse of Wall Street? We never realize how what happens in our country affects the rest of the world, because the United States is just as narcissistic as the convicted felon the Republicans are running.)

But the underlying message of Cabaret is one that is hard to miss: that living in your own bubble and ignoring the world outside is precisely how garbage like the Nazis rise to power…the assumption that someone else will do something to take care of it, and we’ll just keep having fun. In the late 1980s and early 1990s I thought we as a country we’re headed down that path; the unholy marriage between the right wing and evangelical christianity (I will never capitalize that C because cults don’t deserve that respect) certainly made it very clear to me that there was a very large segment of the American population that would be more than happy to put all racialized people and queer people into death camps. (I even started toying with the idea for a novel about that very thing; I still think about that idea A LOT, and even more so since 2016–which is also when I started rewatching Cabaret again on a more regular basis. Cabaret, and Bob Fosse’s vision of what it should be, was very powerful; and it changed the face of what movie musicals looked like and could be, and has influenced stage and screen musicals ever since. It’s a stunningly shot film, and now I can say that I understand why Fosse won the Oscar instead of Francis Ford Coppola for The Godfather; both films are masterpieces, but Cabaret was more “showy,” and that always wins over diligent and detailed craft.

And no, the movie isn’t “all about homosexuals”–even though there’s a minor character who is a trans woman; the main character is gay and bi-curious, and Max, Sally’s other love interest, is also bi and sleeps with them both cheerily. That was VERY avant-garde attitude to have in a 1972 Hollywood movie made for American audiences.

I wonder how seeing it on the screen in 1972 might have impacted me? But I also can’t imagine my mother and sister sitting through it, either.

Cabaret is a must-see if you’re interested in queer film–or great American cinema, for that matter. And I will judge you for not seeing it. In fact, I’m doing that right now.

Home Cooking

I don’t remember how I initially stumbled across a movie from 1970 (or 1971, could have been 1969 for that matter) called Something for Everyone; all I know was it was during the pandemic. It’s a very dark comedy, and it’s so queer you’ll be amazed that it was from that time period. It was directed by Harold Prince (yes, that Harold Prince), and starred beautiful young Michael York and a glamorous post-Mame-on-Broadway Angela Lansbury. I loved the film, and really, if anything, it has a lot more in common with Saltburn than The Talented Mr. Ripley does. So when I watched it, I was delighted to see that it, like so many films, was based on a book, and I decided I wanted to read said book, The Cook by Harry Kressing.

“Based on” as it turned out, was a bit of a stretch.

One hill stood out. It was steeper than the others, and higher. Also, it had no peak. While the rounded, wooded tops of the surrounding hills undulated, one into the other, this one broke the rhythm with an abrupt, flat surface.

For a few minutes Conrad just stared, shielding his eyes from the sun. Then he dismounted and dragged his bicycle off the road. When he was out of sight he chained it to a tree and concealed his rucksack under some brush. Then he started up the hill.

It was an easy climb until near the top. There he discovered a sheer cliff. It was at least twenty feet high. But if it ran all the way around no one would be able to reach the plateau.

Nevertheless, he circumambulated rather more than half the hill without finding a break in the cliff face. He began to have doubts. Possibly ladders were required. They could be brought, or lowered down.

Disappointed, he increased his pace.

In his haste he nearly missed the stairway cut in the cliff face. The steps were very narrow and high, and at a nasty angle.

When he gained the plateau he encountered another barrier: a deep moat, with water in the bottom and smooth, sheer sides, encircled the fantastic castle-like structure. There was a single drawbridge, up and locked. There was absolutely no way across.

For the record, if you are ever asked for an example of a movie that’s better than the book, feel free to use The Cook filmed as Something for Everyone, because the movie is much better.

I’m not sure what I was expecting from the cook, but the underlying story, the theme, has to do with Conrad’s obsession with a castle that has been abandoned because the family that owns it no longer can afford to maintain it and have moved out to a smaller mansion. Both the book and the movie follow this central premise, the difference being the queerness. The Cook’s queerness comes from it’s upset of the status quo; someone coming along who takes charge of all the folks in this small area of Germany who are all just drifting along in their lives lazily. In the book, this is because he is such a master of cooking that no one can resist giving him what he wants once he feeds them. His mastery of cooking is so complete that he can make a delicious diet for someone and they can eat everything they want and lose weight; if they need to gain weight he can feed them to that end. Feeling ill? His meal will cure you, and on and on.

The book is more of a fairy tale with a primary moral to it–don’t be seduced by pleasure. In the book, the pleasure all comes from food and Conrad’s mastery is gained by his skills, and his strength of will. His dream is to have banquets of incredible food and great conversation in the castle, so he starts training his employers to be good hosts, spending money on serving wear of which they could be proud, and so on. The villagers and the family, which he marries into, eventually become such gluttons that no one ever leaves the palace and everything goes to waste. It’s a dark little story, very moralistic and very Kafka-esque in writing style.

I enjoyed the book, but I enjoyed the film much more. I watched it on Youtube, and I wish it could be restored digitally and released to streaming. I liked that the film had the same moral–only in the movie it was Michael York’s beauty and sexuality that provided the convincing pleasure to everyone involved. This would be an excellent film to remake with one of our amazingly sexy, beautiful and talented crop of young actors.

A Teenager in Love

Monday morning and back to the office blog. I did write some yesterday–not nearly enough–and I did get some things done this weekend. I bought blinds for the breakfast nook, but I think they are too small; I may have to exchange them for another, larger set. Which is okay; I can do it after work one night as the Lowe’s is just up Elysian Fields. Tonight after work I have to go to the gym to do PT, and then I’m coming home to do some more writing and cleaning. Paul’s moving into the Monteleone on Wednesday, which means I’ll be here alone with the Sparkster, and also means Sparky will be very needy. He loves the cat treats I got him this weekend, no surprise there, and so I will continue to dole them out for good behavior. I feel rested this morning, which is different from most usual Monday mornings, but I think that has to do with making myself get up early Sunday morning and not sleeping late again the way I did Saturday morning.

Still, that felt amazing.

I feel pretty good this morning, too. The temperature dropped again over night, so there is a bit of a chill in the air this morning. I need to actually look at the program for S&S this weekend so I can put the stuff I am doing on my calendar and can start planning for the weekend. It’ll be weird being home alone for the long weekend (Wednesday thru Monday), but I’ve been a Festival widow since January anyway, so it probably won’t even be noticeable. I’ve also taken Monday off, as it’s always brutal getting up at six in the morning after the Festivals have concluded. It was a little odd this morning, though; Sparky usually comes and starts smacking me in the face with his paw just before the alarm goes off, and continues to do so while purring and cuddling until I get up. He didn’t come out from under the bed until I actually got out of bed, and just followed me downstairs instead of insisting on food immediately. His bowl was completely empty this morning, too.

I did write about a thousand new words on the short story yesterday, but my mind kept wandering and I got up to do something and just never went back. I also edited the 2000 words or so I had already done, so I think it was probably more new words than merely a thousand. It still feels a little rusty for me when I’m writing, but the best way to get past that is to keep writing until it starts to feel natural again and my mind stops wandering when I am writing. That’s the weirdest part. Usually when I write I shut out everything and am laser-focused, that’s not the case anymore and that’s fine.

My mind is still bouncing all over the place, too. It’s trying to spike my anxiety, too, but I just take some deep breaths and calm down, which is a lot easier to do with the new medications.

I did finish reading The Cook by Harry Kressing, which was an interesting and short read. It was a black comedy of sorts, more of a Kafka-esque fable than anything else, but in all honesty I enjoyed the movie version (Something for Everyone) a lot more than I did the book; in the book Conrad seduces everyone with his incredible food and force of will; in the movie, he’s played by a stunningly beautiful young Michael York who actually sexually seduces his prey until he gets what he wants. I will do a more in-depth review of the book at some point, but it does play into my thoughts that Saltburn owes more to that movie than it does The Talented Mr. Ripley or Brideshead Revisited.

We also finished watching season two of The Tourist, which was twisty and clever and fun and we really enjoyed it and are really looking forward to the third season–the second ended with a terrific cliffhanger twist that definitely will make for a fascinating and exciting third season. Plus, Jamie Dornan and Danielle Macdonald have some amazing chemistry together.

I also watched some documentaries last night about Jayne Mansfield, who I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I’m not entirely sure what triggered me to thinking about her again. I first read about her in Earl Wilson’s The Show Business Nobody Knows when I was a teenager, and from there went on to read May Mann’s biography of her, Jayne Mansfield. She was very interesting to me, and was thrilled when her daughter began her career as an actress. I remember thinking Mariska Hargitay? She must be Jayne Mansfield’s daughter because what are the odds of there being two Mariska Hargitays? and watched her for years on Law and Order: SVU. Oh, now I do remember. I bought a copy of the Wilson off ebay because I thought it might be helpful with Chlorine, to give me an idea of what it was like to be in show business in the 1950’s, and of course, he devoted a chapter to her. I bought another bio of her off eBay recently, and she is very interesting, as she always has been to me. I’ve only seen one film of hers, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter, which I thought was hilarious and she was fantastic in it. Benjamin Dreyer brought her up on one of the social media channels this weekend, and so I thought I’d find what I could of her on Youtube. Her story was actually perfect for someone like Jackie Collins or Jacqueline Susann to have written a huge trashy novel about, I’ve always thought. I also loved that she was actually–despite her image as a sexy dumb blonde–incredibly smart, almost genius level. And she only worked in show business for about ten years–while having four children, too, and keeping that incredible figure.

It’s funny; I’m not sure if you’ve ever noticed, Constant Reader, but I generally use song titles for my blog posts. About twelve years ago it was getting harder and harder to think up song titles organically, so I started using themes–Stevie Nicks songs, Pet Shop Boys songs, top 100 hits of 1977, that sort of thing. I can’t remember now which years I’ve used so I recently went back to the top 100 of 1959, I think; it’s interesting how many titles and songs have to do with teenagers; clearly, modern songwriters don’t have to write about teenage heartbreak anymore to appeal to young listeners. I also started watching Eras: The Taylor Swift Concert Movie, and I have to say I am very impressed. I can’t dedicate three and a half hours to watching it, but putting it on and listening while doing chores is terrific. Her show is amazing–I still have over an hour to watch (and am bummed she didn’t do “Red”) and I am actually looking forward to it. I also love how much right-wingers hate her.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day Constant Reader, and I may be back later, you never can be sure. I’m tricky that way!

Shake it Up

Well, I wrote the timeline for Bury Me in Shadows last night–lame as it was; I am waiting for my editor to write me back and say, um, you could have made more of an effort on this. But it’s done, and I am well relieved to be out of those woods–for now, at any rate. I am kind of mentally fatigued; two books back to back like this will tend to do that to one–although I used to do it all the time; book after book after book. But I also didn’t used to have to get up at six three days a week, either, nor did I ever have the insomnia issues like I do these days. Last night was another of those nights where Morpheus chose to not visit my bed, but I feel relatively okay at the moment, as I swill my first cappuccino. I am sure I will hit a wall later today. Tonight is also supposed to be a gym night, but…we’ll see how that goes.

I’ve decided to put aside the Thomas Perry novel for now. It’s very well done, but I am not connecting with it, which is more my problem than Perry’s; I am just not in the mind space right now for a hired killer thriller. I’ll come back to it at some point, I am sure; so it goes back into the TBR pile rather than into the donation box. I’ve actually gone on a tear with buying ebooks on sale (or for free) lately, and I’ve also gotten some wonderful e-galleys stored in my iPad–including this year’s titles from Laura Lippman and Alison Gaylin, not to mention some sparkling debuts and some wonderful classics. Yesterday I finally figured out how to sort my ebooks (I am such a Luddite) in the iPad by title, so I could see how many duplicates there were–and there were quite a few, so I deleted all the duplicates to free up space as well as make it easier to find things in there. I think when I go visit my parents, I may just take my iPad instead of books with me to read–although I am taking the hard copy of From Here to Eternity with me–that way I can read through take-off and landing…although I suppose one could just put the device on airplane mode but I still think they make you power it down. It’s been so long since I’ve flown anywhere, it’s hard to remember. I just ordered some more books with points from credit cards that should be arriving this week–yes, yes, I know; I shouldn’t continue buying more books when I still have massive TBR piles–but I’ve cleaned out so many books over the past few months that I thought why not use the points and get some new titles, as well as the Laurie R. King backlist. I am still planning on reading something else before treating myself to A Letter of Mary–I just haven’t decided what just yet. I am torn between She Who Was No More by Pierre Boileau (which Les Diaboliques was based on) and The Cook by Harry Kressing, which was filmed as Something for Everyone with Michael York and Angela Lansbury–a classic and bizarre queer film from the early 1970’s–it’s on Youtube.

Or…maybe something else.

We watched another episode of The Innocent last night; this show is so damned good and full of didn’t-see-that-coming plot twists! Of all the Harlan Coben shows on Netflix, this is my favorite so far–not really surprising, since Paul and I have fallen in love with Spanish-language crime shows (cannot WAIT for season 4 of Elite to drop)–we talked about this last night, and Paul said–and I agree–this particular show wouldn’t be as good in English, or if it was set in the US or England or France.

Of course, hot Spanish and/or Mexican actors might play a part in our thought process. Just sayin’.

I also have a story in yet another anthology that is dropping in June and can be preordered now: Unburied, edited by Rebecca Rowland, from Dark Ink Press. My story is “Night Follows Night”; which I wrote an original draft of years ago for an MWA anthology–I think–that didn’t get accepted. I revised and rewrote it a number of times, and when this call for submissions was forwarded to me by Felice Picano (thanks, Felice!) I thought, well, “Night Follows Night” loosely fits this call, and sent it off–and was very delighted to hear back from Rebecca that she loved it and wanted it. Yay! This was the same period last year where I sent off five stories in one day and sold three of them within 24 hours–which was exactly what I needed to have happen at the time, as I was going through one of my malaise periods…nothing like selling three stories in less than twenty-four hours to get you past that hump (the other two were rejected, but that was expected; they were long-shots to begin with).

And on that note, tis off to the spice mines with me. I hope I have enough energy to make it through this day–I was planning on going to the gym tonight, but the lack of sleep for two days running means that probably won’t happen….

New Year’s Day

2021 dawns, and theoretically, at any rate, it’s a new year and a fresh start–at least that’s the mentality everyone else seems to embrace. I don’t get it, myself, never really have. But far be it from me to rain on anybody’s parade–or their New Year’s hangovers.

It’s a lovely morning again in New Orleans; blue skies and sunshine. I’m going to swill down some coffee this morning and then head to the gym–they are only open until 2 this afternoon–before coming home to put one last coat of polish on Bury Me in Shadows before I turn it in, on time, later today. I finished it last evening–there are still some holes in the plot that need filling, as well as some contradictory elements I need to catch–but it’s essentially finished. I have not, in fact, finished a book since early 2019, when I turned in Royal Street Reveillon; so it’s very nice to have another one done. I go back and forth between thinking it’s really good or the worst thing I’ve ever written, so there’s that part–par for the course, really.

I also got my first inoculation for the COVID-19 vaccination yesterday. It wasn’t so bad, really–my shoulder is kind of sore still this morning, glad I had them do my left arm–but I felt off for most of the rest of the day; which could have been the inoculation, could have just been the fact that I was tired. I’ve not really slept that great this week, and the fluctuations in the weather have not helped in the least–sinuses, you know–and I’ve not really had much of an appetite lately, either, so I’m probably experiencing low blood sugar and all of that. But the next inoculation will be in 28 days, and then my life sort of can go back to normal? Not really–I’ll still be wearing masks everywhere I go, and washing my hands religiously as often as I can, but at least I no longer have to worry (too much) that I am going to get infected and sick.

2020 was one of those years, like 2005, that we will look back on and wonder about. A lot of my memories of the year just past are foggy and gray; I don’t remember much of the year rather like I don’t really remember much of the year and a half after Katrina. It’s always weird when there’s a major world paradigm shift; Katrina really only affected those of us in Louisiana and Mississippi and coastal Alabama–while the rest of the country and world looked on in horror, they also were able to move on within a few weeks whereas we were not. The COVID-19 paradigm shift affected everyone in the world, and as we (hopefully) are beginning to move past it–which will not finally happen until we achieve herd immunity, and who knows how long that’s going to take–things aren’t going to go back the way they were before the world came to a screeching halt. Things have changed, whether for the better or not remains to be seen; but one lesson that everyone has learned is that almost everyone actually can work from home and be productive, something employers resisted like the plague before, you know, an actual plague forced them to adapt. Now businesses and companies have to ask themselves–do we really need all that overhead of having an actual office, when our staff can do their jobs efficiently and effectively from home? Same with book signings–publishers probably aren’t going to be paying to send their authors on tours anymore since virtual ones actually get a higher attendance. What about conferences? They also became virtual–but in all honesty, I will want to continue to go to in-person conferences once they are feasible; drinking at home on Zoom isn’t the same thing as hanging out in the bar with friends and laughing our asses off.

I do miss seeing my friends.

I usually set goals on New Year’s Day for the new year; I’ve not really put much thought into goals for 2021, to be honest. I did achieve one of my 2020 goals, despite the pandemic: getting back into a regular gym routine and going regularly. I’ve noticed a change in my body, even though I’m not really pushing myself as hard as I could–I don’t want to overdo it, nor do I want to injure myself again, which started the whole spiral ten years ago in the first place–but it’s nice to see my muscles hardening and getting more defined. My weight hasn’t changed at all, but I can see a difference in my face and my pants/shorts/sweatpants, which were already a bit too big, have gotten even bigger (I really need to wear a belt). I do want to continue focusing on taking care of myself a bit more in 2021; dental work and vision exams and new glasses and possibly the occasional massage. I have a number of secret projects lining up as well, which is kind of exciting, and of course, I need to finish the Kansas book now and I want to get to work on Chlorine. I think there’s probably another Scotty or two in my head, and I also want to experiment with novellas–I have at least three or four or five in progress, and I really need to finish them. I also want to get some more short stories finished and out for submission.

I watched a movie for the Cynical 70’s Film Festival yesterday afternoon as I made condom packs: Something for Everyone, starring Michael York and Angela Lansbury, based (or rather, according to the credits, “suggested by”) on the novel The Cook by Henry Kessing (recently brought back into print by Valancourt Books), which I recently read about as “the queerest movie of the 70’s”–and yes, it is indeed very queer. (It’s not streaming anywhere, but there’s a bootleg of it on Youtube, which is what I watched) It reminded me somewhat of The Talented Mr. Ripley in several ways, and it also made me think about how amazing Michael York would have been playing Tom Ripley. York plays Conrad, a drifter from no one knows where and, like Tom Ripley, we really never learn about his past or who he is. He shows up on screen in Bavaria, riding a bicycle and wearing cut off khaki trousers that are cut very high; Daisy Duke-ish in fact, and he looks splendidly beautiful and alluring in the German sun. He decides he wants to get a job working for the local impoverished Countess and her children, who no longer have the money to maintain their castle or live in it, but it’s entailed so they can’t sell it. (Neuschwanstein, the fairy castle of Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria–who was also queer) stands in for their castle.) Angela Lansbury plays the Countess, and she is truly splendid. Conrad begins killing people who get in his way, but is also doing it to help the family he now work for, while slowly seducing and sleeping with everyone in sight in order to get what he wants–he seduces the Countess’ son and eventually the Countess, and York is simply breathtakingly gorgeous to look at in all his youthful, lean beauty. (I had an enormous crush on him in the 1970’s.) But Angela Lansbury is truly fantastic. She’s beautiful and slender and elegant, and those expressive eyes are perfect for expressing the Countess’ malaise and ennui with her situation and with the world. Watching her slink around in gorgeous clothing, I could but marvel an wonder why she was never a bigger film star, and in all honesty, I’ve never really seen her as Mame Dennis before. Yes, I know she played the part on Broadway and it was a huge smash hit, but for me Rosalind Russell was definitive….but having watched this movie now, I am now convinced the casting of Lucille Ball as Mame in the film instead of Lansbury was an even bigger crime than I considered it before–I watched the Lucy version and it was awful; but the crime that was casting Ball is now even more egregious. I could literally imagine Lansbury as Mame as I watched this movie. It’s cynical and a bit cold, but it definitely fits into the Cynical 70’s Film Festival in that Conrad never is punished for any of his own crimes–he’s outwitted in the end, but not really punished…and knowing Conrad, I am also confident that at some point after the film ended he got the upper hand back.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. One more cup of coffee and I am off to the gym; and then its back to home and the grindstone. Happy New Year, everyone!

Seven

Saturday morning and it’s rather chilly in the Lost Apartment . The sun is shining and there aren’t many clouds in the sky–I see plenty of blue up there at the moment–and I haven’t checked the weather yet. All right, I just looked and it’s currently forty-nine, with a high of fifty-three predicted for the day. Sounds like the kind of day when one just wants to stay indoors all day and under a blanket, does it not? I have a lot to get done this morning–the sink is full of dirty dishes; more than will fit in the dishwasher, so I am going to have to do two loads–and of course, there’s filing to do and organizing to be done; notes to be read on the work-in-progress as well as chapters to be revised; and I’d like to be able to read some more of The Bad Seed, if not finish reading it today. LSU is playing Alabama tonight, and it’s not going to be pretty, but at least it won’t be disappointing. It’s very weird, there’s always a minor hope, even in bad years, that we might beat them, but not this one. I love my Tigers and I’ll tune in–but I am under no illusions that they’ll pull off a major upset here. Our only hope is a sustained three and a half hour miracle, really; but this entire football season has been such a wash anyway–I really think it should have been skipped, which is what I’ve thought all along–yet here we are.

I do occasionally think that LSU having one of the greatest football teams and seasons of all time last year somehow broke the world, and if LSU having a shitty season is what it takes to reset everything, I can live with that sacrifice.

Yesterday was a good day. I had to swing by the office because I had run out of lube for the condom packs–I brought home flavored–so I had to swing by there to pick up regular lube tubes–and then after returning home, I made condom packs while watching Logan’s Run, yesterday’s entry into the Cynical 70’s Film Festival. I had never before seen it; I, of course, remember what it’s plot was–a world where everyone dies at thirty; the title character is about to turn thirty and he runs. Well, turns out that was a vast over-simplification; Logan, played by a stunningly beautiful young Michael York (I’ve waxed euphoric over his beauty before; I had a major crush on him throughout the 1970’s; have continued to appreciate his work as I got older; and he came to the Williams Festival one year, so I not only got to meet him but was delighted to find he was very charming), is a “sandman”–in the future, after over–population and depletion of resources and so forth, society collapsed and a utopian human city was built under a dome, and all humans devote themselves merely to pleasure, and when they turn thirty, they are renewed; in a ritual, everyone gathers to watch them sacrifice themselves, to be reborn–someone has to die in order for someone to be reborn. The “sandmen” are those who hunt down the ones who decide they want to live and run for their lives. When caught, they are killed and are dead forever–no chance of being reborn. Logan actually has about four years left before he turns thirty, but he is given the job to search for Sanctuary–a place all the runners try to get to safely–and the controlling computer also speeds up his life, turning the life clock in his hand all the way up to almost time for him to die. Jenny Agutter plays the love interest who can help him get to Sanctuary; they run, and it becomes very weird once they escape. The special effects are pretty bad–the movie was pre-Star Wars–and so are the sets and costume designs. It does, I decided, fit into the film festival because the film itself is kind of cynical; it basically took American youth obsession and created a world based entirely in youth; and it’s interesting they chose thirty as the end point of life–after all, the youth movement of the 1960’s always said “never trust anyone over thirty.” As I watched, I couldn’t help but think of all the possibilities they couldn’t explore in a two hour film–and thought, you know, this show could easily rebooted as a mini-series that could go into all of those explorations–the collapse of society, who built and created this new world, who actually is in power in this utopian paradise, how did they get the initial buy-in necessary–and so on and so forth. And with our country growing evermore obsessed with youth and beauty–yeah, this could be really good. Logan would be a good role for someone like Nick Jonas or Alexander Dreymon or any number of beautiful young actors in the business today.

The lovely thing about HBO MAX is they are continually adding more and more films to their TCM app–you can only imagine my delight to see the delightful Peter O’Toole film The Stunt Man was recently added; The Ruling Class is already there. I am a huge Peter O’Toole fan–the fact the man never won a competitive Oscar despite giving career-defining performance in those two films, along with My Favorite Year, The Lion in Winter, Becket, and Lawrence of Arabia never ceases to amaze me. Both The Stunt Man and The Ruling Class certainly fit into my Cynical 70’s Film Festival–they have also added the original The Omega Man and Soylent Green, both of which I intend to watch despite the fact both star Charlton Heston, the king of over-acting. But…both definitely belong in the Festival, and I really wish they would add Serpico.

I also would like to watch Cruising again–to see it from a present day perspective.

The Mandalorian continues to delight as well, and our favorite raunchy junior high puberty comedy, Big Mouth, also came back yesterday.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader.

Love is a Catastrophe

Friday morning and I am home from work.

I got sent home yesterday; I started feeling bad on Tuesday afternoon, took a vacation day on Wednesday and got up yesterday morning to go to work. I felt terrible; dehydrated, exhausted, and some stomach issues I’d really rather not explain. I didn’t see how I was going to make it through the entire day, but of course, once I got to work they recognized that some of what I was experiencing could be COVID-19; so I was sent to get tested and then sent home to wait for the results to come back. This morning I am not as exhausted; I slept really well last night, but going up and down the stairs makes my leg muscles ache, and my joints are all achy, so today I am going to continue to try to take in as many fluids as I can–still dehydrated this morning–and rest.

Since I was so tired I decided to just sit in my easy chair yesterday and watch movies–the streaming services to the rescue! I watched the film version of Mary Stewart’s The Moon-spinners on Disney; they adapted it as a starring vehicle for a teenaged Hayley Mills, and thus had to make changes to the plot and story that didn’t really work as well as the original plot, plus having her be a teenager took away one of the main strengths of every Stewart story; the agency of the heroine. She was still pretty capable, but it came across as a watered down version of the kick-ass heroine I remembered from the book. But Crete looked absolutely beautiful.

I then moved on to a rewatch of Cabaret, which holds up really well. It’s a really chilling film, and visually it’s stunning; but the more times I watch the film the more I appreciate Michael York and Joel Grey, and the less impressed I am with Liza. Don’t get me wrong–she’s fantastic, and the musical numbers showcase what a powerful performer she is, but I don’t think she really brings as much depth and sadness to the character as is warranted; but she certainly has star power. I think that Sally is actually a rather sad character, and while Minnelli beautifully captures the vulnerability, the sadness isn’t really there…and I found myself not wondering, at the movie’s end, what happened to her from there on; which isn’t usually a good sign. But she probably didn’t wind up happily married with a brood of children, did she, and who wants to think about that?

From there I moved on to a rewatch of How the West Was Won, one of those sprawling epic pictures from the time when that was what the Hollywood studios churned out to compete with television. Even small parts have stars in it, and I remember watching this movie when I was a kid and being impressed by its sprawl and sweep. I decided to watch it again, partly because of the recent discussion about Gone with the Wind and its problematic depictions of the slave owning South, the Civil War, and its aftermath; so I wanted to rewatch this picture through a modern lens and as an adult. I remembered in the second half of the film there was a scene where a US Army officer, who negotiated with the natives (Indians, of course, in the film) being angry because the railroads kept breaking their promises–which was pretty progressive for the early 1960’s, and to see how that could be viewed through the modern lens. The movie doesn’t really hold up, plot-wise; it’s very cheesy and corny, but there are some good performances–particularly Debbie Reynolds–and Spencer Tracy’s narration is quite excellent. The scene I remembered was there, and plays very well through a modern lens; George Peppard in all his youthful beauty plays the officer. Just the title itself is problematic though; but this, you must remember, was how the white settlement of the western part of the continent was viewed: the west was won by white people. I suppose How the West Was Conquered doesn’t have the same ring, but “won” is essentially the same thing. Anyway, the story hinges on the Prescott family–Karl Malden, Agnes Moorhead, Carroll Baker, and Debbie Reynolds–setting out for the west and encountering the problems of the frontier as they go; mostly white people who prey on those moving west. The parents are drowned when their boat encounters rapids; Carroll Baker has fallen for James Stewart, playing a mountain trapper, and they decide to settle on the land where the parents are buried while Debbie Reynolds keeps going west, winding up in St. Louis, where she becomes an entertainer and eventually winds up in San Francisco. As an older, bankrupt widow she moves to a ranch she owns in Arizona, and invites her nephew (the George Peppard character) and his family to join her there…and so on. I think it was nominated for a lot of Oscars, primarily for its high production values and it was a big hit at the time…but yes, definitely doesn’t hold up.

Paul came home shortly thereafter, and we watched the finale of 13 Reasons Why, and the less said about that the better. The cast is appealing and talented, but the finale was so manipulative emotionally–it does work, by the way, because of the cast; I was teary–as was the entire season that it’s hard not to be angry. Plus there was some serious misinformation included…maybe I will post about it, but it needs its own entry.

And now I am going to go lie back down again because I am not feeling so hot again.

Happy Friday, everyone!

Save the Best for Last

Thursday!

My Bouchercon homework continues, with me now reading James Ziskin’s Cast the First Stone. I am very excited to read this; I’ve heard nothing but great things about his books, plus he’s a pretty good guy. I had bought the first in his series–still in the TBR pile, alas–so am kind of glad that this book became a homework assignment. I am really enjoying it thus far, and if it’s going where I think it may be going–well, that would be awesome, but I am sure I am going to love it even if it doesn’t.

I started watching the BBC series The Musketeers on Hulu this evening. I did a half-day today; one of my co-workers and I tested at a conference at the Riverside Hilton for four hours, after which I walked home on an afternoon in August. Heavy sigh. Any way, ’tis a good thing I did work only half-a-day, because alas we are having to clean everything in the house because Scooter had a couple of fleas. His medication is working–the fleas we’ve found were dying or dead–but it’s August and we live in a swamp, and so while there have been no signs of infestation thus far, we aren’t going to take the risk. So I’ve been cleaning all day ever since I got home; taking breaks now and then to watch something on the television, and having it on as I launder things and vacuum things and well, it needed to be done, didn’t it?

That’s a rather tired and round about way of getting to the point, isn’t it? Long story short: I’ve always been a big fan of The Three Musketeers, ever since I was a kid, and I’ve been meaning to watch this BBC series for years…but kept forgetting about it. Someone posted somewhere on Facebook last night asking people to name their favorite d’Artagnan, and as I always do, whenever I get the chance, I replied Always Michael York. Always. But someone else posted a picture of the young actor who plays him in the television series and I thought, yes, I’d been meaning to watch that, hadn’t I? So I watched a couple of episodes as I cleaned–and am intrigued. More watching is most definitely called for.

Next up in Florida Happens is “A Postcard for the Dead”, by Susanna Calkins.

Born and raised in Philadelphia, Susanna Calkins lives outside Chicago with her husband and two sons. Holding a PhD in history, Susanna writes the award-winning Lucy Campion historical mysteries as well as the forthcoming Speakeasy Murders, both from St. Martin’s Minotaur. Murder Knocks Twice, set in Prohibition-Era Chicago, will be out Spring 2019. Her first short story, “The Trial of Madame Pelletier,” featuring a 19th century poisoning case, is up for an Anthony Award (and can be read on her website at www.susannacalkins.com).

Susanna says: “A POSTCARD FOR THE DEAD” is my second published short story. When I saw the call for the Bouchercon anthology, on a whim I began to read through 1920s Florida newspapers, since I was already researching the Roaring Twenties for my Prohibition-Era novels. There, I stumbled across the rather odd story of Lena Clarke, a postmistress who had embezzled huge amounts of money from the Post Office and then framed a local playboy for the crime. What struck me most about this story was how Lena gave her testimony in court using a crystal ball, having been part of a wild West Palm Beach Bohemian set, before being declared insane. Although I altered the case substantially in my version, I retained the embezzlement aspect and of course the crystal ball. After a little more digging, l discovered that Lena’s brother had died of a snakebite, which just seemed too Florida of a detail not too include. I thought about setting the story in a courtroom, but given that my FIRST short story, “The Trial of Madame Pelletier” featured, well, a trial, I thought I’d better frame it a little differently.

Calkins author photo outside

West Palm Beach, Florida

July 1921

Lily Baker peered inside her mailbox before reaching in to retrieve her mail. Back when her half-brother had been West Palm Beach’s postmaster, he had delighted in leaving snakes in mailboxes as pranks. Of course, the last laugh had been on him, when he had died of a snake bite last Christmas.

There was only one piece of mail today, though—a postcard featuring a swanky hotel in Orlando, a city she’d never been. She turned it over to read the message but was surprised to find it blank. Only her name and address had been printed on the postcard, in careful block letters.

Curiously, she studied the card. The stamp had been cancelled in Orlando two days before. July 27, 1921. Flipping the card back over, she looked at the picture more closely. The hotel was the San Juan, which the postcard informed her had been built in 1885 by C.E. Pierce. Built for the filthy rich, from the looks of it.

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Lily was still by her mailbox when she saw Officer Danny Jamison coming down the street on his bicycle.  She had known Officer Jamison since they were kids—he’d been just one year ahead of her in school. After high school they’d gone in different directions, although on occasion their paths crossed. She was about to wave as he passed by, when instead he stopped in front of her and dismounted his bike in one easy move.

“Hey Lily,” he said, leaning his bike against her palm tree. “Your sister around?”

Lily shifted from one foot to the other. Why was Danny asking after Junie? Though she and her older half-sister had lived together since their parents had passed away a few years before, Junie tended to be tight-lipped about her goings-on. But Lily would catch whispers about illicit gin, late night séances, Ouija parties, and other secret doings connected with West Palm Beach’s furtive Bohemian scene. A far cry from her day job heading the town’s Post Office, which Junie had taken over from their brother some eight months before.  “She must have left for work early,” Lily said.  “I didn’t see her this morning.”

“I see. But you saw her last night?”

Great beginning, right? It’s a terrific story, but what I think I enjoyed the most about it was the narrator’s voice; I really liked the character of Lily, how Calkins gradually let us into Lily’s life, and through character, built a very clever crime story.