Girl Trying To Explain it All

Subject:	Orphans of the Storm--Ooh! Racy~
Time:	6:34 pm.
Mood:	dorky.

Welp, I *Finally* finished Orphans of the Storm (a silent movie featuring the two famous Gish Sisters)! Been watching it through the 'tube and I gotta say I was flailing with glee at the whole thing.
Allo, what's this? Me liking those black-and-white silent films? Why yes, that is pretty much true. Silent movies, I find, are one of those awesomest time capsules that can't just be tossed away juest because they're grainy and didn't have the technology for cgi effects and 'hawt' noughties women. (Emphasis on *wiggles fingers* "HAWT")
Most of the time, I like the drama llamas as they're often different from the consistent crap *we* get nowadays. Even the chick flick the 'It Girl' featuring Clara Bow puts a new twist on the usual 'girl gets (RICH) guy' plot. I mean, it's also pretty honest about itself, but I best not digress.

The one thing I totally cherish about silent pictures are that, a) you get to see a bit of 20s culture there. b) there is a total difference between the way we express ourselves to each other and our forefathers. c) Oh yeah, fashions. d) JOHN BARRYMORE--talented actor extraordinaire. e) There is a beauty from the women not often found here (like Mary Pickford's hair. Somebody bring the perm back!) f) You'd realize that not only YOUR time period sucks in level of socialisation and fun, but people were much more sleuthy by being able to lip-read. (As not every scene of them babbling has subtitles included. In fact, whole scenes would mouth along important plotlines and YOU, modern people, would be the only ones who won't understand the message.

There's more I can say, but I do say; watching silent films certainly brings more of an enjoyment than most would expect.

Orphans of the Storm, in this case, is a take on a drama based off of the world in the brink of the French Revolution. It's a story of two girls (played by the talented and beautiful gish sisters), Dorothy plays Louise, a love-child of a scandalous affair between a noblewoman and a commoner; taken in by a starving peasant family when found in the door step of a church (an interesting scene showing the church as a solid and exclusive--rather than as a vigilant protector). Thus, the two daughters grew up together, eventually being orphaned when a sickness took both their caregiving parents and Louise's eyesight.

Both women did a fantastic job. I mean, sure, Lillian is pretty much the star as she can carry off the drama as the small but fairy-like innocent in a corrupt society; but I'm glad Dorothy could share some of that spotlight off her older sister.

In fact, I find it refreshing how it's Dorothy's character Louise that has the aristocratic background. Hollywood normally uses the most prettiest looking to fit the role; When Dorothy absolutely plays it even to the face and gestures that she is humble because hey, she was raised all her life with the People.

Back about the story though, it is Louise's eyesight that causes the girls to come back to the capital, to see a trusted doctor about curing Louise's blindness. Hoewever, they bump into an evil duke who immediately thinks of taking advantage of Henriette; and comes with an Elle-LabOrate PLAN(!) to cut them off from the doctor and kidnap Henriette. Hence, both sisters were torn away from each other into two kinds of serious trouble. Henriette gets drugged and boxed up to be sodomised in a ritzy orgiastic party, and blind Louise becomes dragged by a vicious peasantwoman to be used to hawk more easy money by her plight. Luckily, of course, a young nobleman (The Chevalier) discovers this in the party and manages to get her out of that, gives her shelter in a cozy apartment, and promises to help her find her sister. Oh, and OF COURSE there's chemistry that evolves between Henriette and Chevalier (yup, and the 20s WERE NOT AFRAID to put the lead guy in a powdered wig. Because it's historical accuracy, and a way to say 'This is the 18th century yo!')

TAnyway, my favourite part was a moment where a "I love you but I'll break your heart anyway by saying no so nothing bad could happen" would be expected. Luckily, both Henriette and Chevalier were smarter and more honest with each other when both of them realise that holding back is just not worth it for these young lovers. It's a nice symbol that such love felt by the characters Henriette and the Chevalier are too big to conceal between them, as Chevalier notices her feeling of grief right before he leaves the room (and then proceeds to tell her so and give her the biggest glomp ever). No cookie-cutter drama bullshit there!

It's also interesting to see footages of orgies on film during such an early period. We first see a decadent aristocratic party that even the Marquis de Sade would love to crash in; and then similar footages of the unbridled wantonness of the peasants now that they had TOO MUCH of freedom. Which the Marquis would *also* like to dive in. I actually like the quality of the dresses, though the big pompadour wigs are huger than accurate and not made of the same fine quality of lard and horsehair (as you'd clearly see how the female extras just struggled with the falling, and obviously heavy wigs).

Nonetheless; the movie's morals of the story was pretty straight-forward and naively wrapped up. They labelled Robespierre's government structure as simply another tyrannical system (though they called this "Bolshevism"); and though it teaches about self control and how we should nonetheless be law-abiding citizens (I mean, what do YOU know about ruling countries), they also emphasize on the peace between the social classes. Emphasized by the happiness of Henriette and Louise being reunited with a happy family and their lovers. (And Louise still expresses herself like a true honest woman of a non-aristocratic class XD).

Also, there's the UBER cool character called Danton (who, by Henriette's kindness, fell in love with her) who was being a figurehead of the Mob; though he was too honest to survive his so called allies/rivals. He had used his popularity to save Henriette and her lover from the Guillotine, allowing Henriette and Louise to go find Louise's true mother--and so both (and their true loves) were welcomed and adopted into the safe arms of family and stability. Sad for his part, but that's one example of chivalry.

It's a very sweet story of love and family loyalty and their survival through the worst of storms and its dangers. We also see the need for the bringing together of the classes and the breakdown of the rigid separation being expressed--where intermarriage on both classes should be tolerated because true love should never be restrained and be a crime.

But yeah, this whole movie is supremely cute with very unforgettable characters. I really liked this and sure hope to come across more of the Gish sisters. (especially Dorothy, who ROCKED in a gypsy head scarf!)

Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	In the Mind of a Steampunk Fan...Sorta
Time:	11:12 pm.
Mood:	chipper.

As a teenager from the boonies, I was pretty ignorant on fads and activities the rest of the world engages in. Obviously, because...the people I often talk to are volley-ball playing army kids, an occasional goth, but the rest are gym-suitted chavs and private school kids that stay in the same school since they were 2.

So I was pretty new to this whole Steampunk thing. My ex used to harp about it when I was trying to become the salt-of-the-earth sort of gal with a fashion sense of a jean-straggling hippie. I didn't really understand him buying top hats and waistcoats, even though I found it neat to dress formally. But since my excessive studies on the victorian era, a lot of the mention of the time period leaves a bad taste to my mouth.

Plus, steam punk is a lot of taking a bit of the century and leaving out the other less savory bits. Seriously, I believe that if you take a part of the time period, do it with a cynical smirk. That's why I don't want to dress like a saloon girl and pretend that I'm an upper-class Londoner with radioactive blunderbuss (modified with a grenade launcher). If I were to go that far, I'd be somebody else. Make up a personality that is different than everybody else. 'Cause that's what people do even in Halloween, right? They take on the guise of somebody they like, and make DAMN sure they look different than anyone else!
Otherwise, the party wouldn't be so fun if everyone dressed the same. For reals.

So when the House of the Golden Lotus showed itself once more to newcastle announcing a Steampunk themed night for its burlesque performances, not only did I feel a twinge of my past guilt for not going to one of their shows last year, but my (steampunk maniac) friend Jamie told me that he'd drag me there if he had to.

So! Me and Beb got some advance tickets and saved up to create an image for ourselves. I figured out that I'd have to be a gypsy. Since my way of life was pretty nomadic, and steam punk boot-clad gypsy seems more genial than what a lot of people put on. But--I didn't really know how it would turn out. My hair was frickin' long and almost unmanageable--and I hadn't had make up on for 3 weeks.
So I ran to the hair salon and had my hair cut. Which turned out to be INCREDIBLE in results! Reminding me once more that making a visit to a pro now and then doesn't hurt.
So after that and a few later classes, I ran back home and started getting ready with my friend. The liquid eyeliner helped enormously and the lipstick was great. It was red, but when it fades or is rubbed off it melds with your natural lip color.

I also shoulda used blusher more since it had helped so much for me.

But anyways! The hair made the costume so fit. It fitted with my scarf around my hair and my arabic filigree earrings. It all turned out really neat!

(pics courtesy of Beb XD)

Okay, so it doesn't look steampunky. But hey, I tried my best!

Christ! Why the hell am I talking about my meager costuming when I should be talking about the show?
Well, the music was loud as hell so gabbing with the amigos was difficult--but later as the excitement kicked in the loudness felt great! The people were all nice and dressed awesomely, (there was even a predator on a leash--led by a corsetted madame). The burlesque actresses were incredible with their dancing, they went from sparkly-heeled pretty retro girls to gothic lolitas doing a dance that speaks of a Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde theme (under heavy metal music!); a nazi dominatrix with boa constrictors curling over her curves, not to mention a blood-spattered blondie doing a danse macabre over a body bag. And did I mention we even had a crooner to enchant us with her sweet music? AWESOME.

We also had a magician to make us squirm and cross our legs simultaneously. I won't give away his tactics, but it's certainly more of showing off a high pain threshold (and a Prince Albert) than coin and handcuff tricks. After the show Jamie got us to see their freak tents and had fun taking pictures with them. I even got to speak with Johnny Dee Hellfire the ringleader himself. Great guy!

House of the Golden Lotus is Definitely a must-see. They're good people and great at revving up the crowd and addressing them. And alot of them had great talent and an eye for detail. Even though it's not a big show like Cirque de Soleil (sp?), it's definitely a must to go with a crowd of friends and enjoy.

So yeah, I had a fantastic friday. I felt good, the night felt good, and Beb felt great after that (which is great as she was feeling a little poorly all week). We both needed to get out and get some fresh air; so it was a great blossoming time for us. X)

Well, I gotta go and write. I'm gonna have to enjoy my moments of freedom as my mother may find the pictures on facebook and start scolding me for going to a place of ill repute and let people take pictures of me there at all. Ignoring all facts that her career was in the disco when she was my age.

Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	On the Freudian Couch: But without Sigmund Freud
Time:	10:45 pm.
Mood:	cold.

Man, would Freud be having a field day examining me.
I'm a kind of person who gets bored easily, so I guess when I'm on REM, my brain gets bored and starts inventing total weirdness to spend its time. Luckily, this allows me to have interesting stories recalling such dreams quite often.

So, here I am, about to tell my last night's dream. I suppose I got it from talking to my friends about murdering geishas, and how no one can lift a body and hang it by the neck with just guitar strings. It's much easier doing it like in Zatoichi--honestly.

So I dreamt of geishas. I dreamt that I was in geisha school training (except that we kept our hair down on our backs, wear simple white yukatas under large white coats, and everyone else has eyes that look like black slits). It was a strange world where if you tried to leave a class without permission, you've got a similarly dressed ninja reeling in swinging across the ceiling beams with threads ready to force you into making a 180 degrees and walking the other direction.
Yeah, that was what I did (I'm so~ "bad-ass").

So as so happens, we were practicing in which looks like a japanified version of my old school's lunch hall. I think we were folding cloth napkins or something, with a matron barking out instructions over our bowed heads. And that was where my dream went COMPLETELY hormonal.
There he was, a western man gone native (my brain has decided that I was in rural archaic Japan). Dark, handsome, brooding. He wasn't handsome like media airbrushed handsome, he was handsome like 'boy next door gone serious'. The kind of guy that may have had an irish (yuss, definitely IRISH) and italian roots, some sort of mix that made him different. He was the kind of guy that may have been covered with pimples but was cleaned up after puberty, his hair wavy and wild even after much persistent brushing. I remember he was wearing a grey-blue yukata, carrying a closed fan.
He was sitting amongst colleagues eating lunch and observing with a serious facination of a general but cynical onlooker. Of course I was all "Wow, who is that?"
Class mates whispered that he was Doctor something. He had a name but all I can remember is just vowels now. He was an english foreigner that came for business. As lunch was over and we began to clear up after class, I felt that no way in HELL am I gonna let this one escape (I was feeling pervy). So I rushed up to meet up with him before he could leave for the door. We got into an interesting conversation and an inquiring teacher allowed me to leave (after reminding me that we have a seminar later---Wait, a SEMINaR?!). So I went off to search for him as he wandered away to his own business.

The next thing that happened can only be created in wet dreams. I ran like a peppy geisha and cornered him against the wall with my complete disregard in personal space when having reached him. I then grabbed him by the hair , whispered some cliched tender words, and kissed his clamped mouth. Of course he opened up, but he seemed to feel ashamed and disappeared all of a sudden. SO I had to find him in the tropical garden (outside the lunch hall that is) to fix it with a second try. This time he complied with much gusto and finally giving me a smile.

And then POOF, I woke up, my alarm was going off, and it took me 15 seconds to realize that I had no love life whatsoever and no handsome doctor that turned japanese anywhere in the vicinity.

My thoughts immediately went to wailing WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY.

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Time:

9:22 pm.

Since I've just recently acquired a new stash of 70's comics (many of them romance :P) I've been scanning and filing them under several labels, like unusual art, awesome fashion details and the crackiest of story lines!
So now I'd like to introduce a collection of the most dickiest of characters (heroes and heroines!).

Starting with a 'Our Love Story' story arc issued by Marvel!

Thus, this is our heroine Annie. She says she's poor, she doesn't stop mentioning it. Even though she's got what looks like the heaviest fake eyelashes in the world, and massive amounts of hair spray (unless her head is shaped that way)!

Okay, Cynthia? Pink is not your color. Pink is NOT your color.
BUT GOD, your PJs are rockin' in this page.

Oh yeah, I also found a new theme in quite a few 70's romances: Lotsa disembodied floating heads.

MOAR DISEMBODIED FLOATING HEADS!

DO do do do DO do do do!

Because waitressing is a horrible, horribly embarrassing job you have to take it crying in your sleep.
Wait--she wears make up to bed??

Okay, he dated someone because...He thought it was FUNNY?! What the HELL, man? And seriously, what was he gonna tell Annie before they were so rudely interrupted??

"Hey doll-face, party at my frat house?"

I don't know dudes, but this guy seems to me a right pillock. X)
For someone that lets a girl parade him around (and a hot one at that) like some new chihuahua just for kicks before making his move with her mouth-breathing lower-class roommate (WE GET IT, YOU'RE POOR!|), he's *definitely* got something else on his mind which has everything to do but honesty.
Just a thought, but yeah, hoped you enjoyed it!

Comments: Add Your Own.

Subject:	CRUMBS
Time:	2:53 pm.
Mood:	impressed.
Music:	The Police--The Truth Hits Everybody.

Am totally in the mood for some Conan the Barbarian. Thanks to some kindred spirits who've scanned and posted their pictoral purchases over to the internet, I was able to finally see what the whole hype's about with this Cimmerian and why is it so wide-spread and well known.
As it turns out, Conan ROCKS. Conan's a serious bastard but he still rocks hard like you wouldn't believe. The story line is *SO* lush and complex, I just ate up each scanned issue with mine eyes in seconds.

So yeah. Conan the movie still makes me laugh in a good way, but nothing would leave so much an impression as the comic would. It kinda makes me glad that I grew up with comics enough to never want to read anything else.

Speaking of which, there was a funny story when I was going through a yet another ordeal of listening to my female relatives prattle to each other in spanish. They were going on about boys and I just had to say about Arnold Schwarzenegger's 80's bod which was so strangely popular with the women (I mean, *I* just could not face it). I mentioned how his skin in Conan looked like a cooked Bockwurst and this somehow got my own mother (?!) to begin her tale in how much she hated the movie. Largely, surprisingly, SHOCKINGLY--because it misinterprated Conan so much.
As it turns out my mother actually picked up comic books and read them, (years before she'd begin to shriek at us for wasting our time with them), and one of her favorites were the disney series, the generic Marvel stuff and ultimately, CONAN.
Then my auntie (her sister) began, "Oh yeah! I remember, but he was such an asshole!"
Mom: "Yeah, and I remember how much you were into (marvel!) Thor."

I can't remember how obsessed I was with any of such comic heroes...since much of my adolescence was on anime bishounen...but I did had a temporary crush on Gambit (because they drew him so pretty)--before I've finally moved on to prefering realistic and facially interesting *men*. But then again, listening to my bi-polar family femmes gushing about comic books was oddly strange, like you just saw something that wasn't suppose to in this universe. But oh well, at least I know that my uncle may still have a box of Conan comics I can pillage for.

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