http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html
Showing posts with label 1920s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1920s. Show all posts
Friday, May 3, 2013
Thursday, April 4, 2013
The Glass Character: synopsis
THE GLASS CHARACTER
A novel by Margaret Gunning
Published in April 2014 by Thistledown Press
I would like to introduce you to my third novel, The Glass Character, a story of obsessive love and ruthless ambition set in the heady days of the Jazz Age in the 1920s. This was a time when people went to the movies almost every day, living vicariously through their heroes: Valentino, Garbo, Fairbanks and Pickford. But comedians were the biggest draw, and broad slapstick the order of the day - with one very significant exception.
Standing beside Keaton and Chaplin in popularity and prowess was a slight, diffident man named Harold Lloyd. He hid his leading man good looks under white makeup and his trademark black-framed spectacles. Nearly 100 years later, an iconic image of Lloyd remains in the popular imagination: a tiny figure holding on for dear life to the hands of a huge clock while the Model Ts chuff away 20 stories below.
With his unique combination of brilliant comedy and shy good looks, Lloyd had as many female followers as Gilbert or Barrymore. Sixteen-year-old Muriel Ashford, desperate to escape a suffocating life under her cruel father's thumb, one day hops a bus into the unknown, the Hollywood
When her idol Harold Lloyd walks on the set, her life falls into a dizzy whirl of confusion, attraction, and furious pursuit. Muriel tries on and sheds one identity after another: bit actress, waitress in a speakeasy, "girl reporter", script writer - while Lloyd almost literally dances in and out of her desperately lonely world, alternately seducing her and pushing her away.
While researching this book, I repeatedly watched every Lloyd movie I could get my hands on. I was astonished at his subtlety, acting prowess and adeptness at the art of the graceful pratfall. His movies are gaining new popularity on DVD (surprisingly, with women sighing over him on message boards everywhere!). The stories wear well and retain their freshness because of the Glass Character's earnest good nature and valiant, sometimes desperate attempts to surmount impossible challenges.
Introduction: Why Harold Lloyd?
The
Glass Character is
a fictional account of a young girl’s experiences in Hollywood 1962, in which she develops a relationship
with silent film comedian Harold Lloyd. Though I did extensive research in
exploring the era in general and his life in particular, this story is not
intended to be a biography of Lloyd. My main purpose was to
communicate atmosphere: the excitement, exuberance and joy of these “high and
dizzy” times.
With his boyish good looks and appealing everyman persona, Lloyd was no less than the inventor of an entire film genre: the romantic comedy. These sample remarks from YouTube (all by women) indicate a charm and magnetism that reaches across generations:
I think he
was and still is one of the most attractive men ever to walk the earth. I
absolutely love him!
Each time I
watch his movies I fall in love a little more.
He is sooooooo funny and the most handsome man ever!
Talented,
funny, smart, creative and damn gorgeous!
I find him
really attractive with his glasses on, and you can’t beat that half-shy,
half-sly smile of his.
I don’t
want to say it but he is in my fantasies. . . sigh.
I doubt if
George Clooney could inspire such rhapsodic praise.
When I sat
down to write, words often tumbled out at a fever pitch. Many of the scenes
came to me out of sequence, as if I were shooting a movie. Inspiration had a
timetable of its own and sometimes happened on holiday (can you believe I
almost missed the Grand Canyon ?). This had never happened to me before, and I had to take a few leaps
of faith to believe I could ever piece it all together.
Plunging
into his pictures to such depth, I experienced an immediacy, even an intimacy I
had never known before. I was breathing in the gunpowder and the dust and the
sweating horses and the she-loves-me/she-loves-me-not flowers and the white
greasepaint. I could hear “roll ‘em” and “cut!” and “damn, we’ll have to do
that again.” I was seeing that wonderful “half-shy, half-sly” smile of his in
person.
Though
Lloyd’s work has been gloriously reborn through the medium of DVD, he is still
too frequently seen as a bronze medallist after those two other legendary
figures from the silent age: Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. It’s time to
throw away useless comparisons and hierarchies (is Picasso “better” than Van
Gogh? And how about Rembrandt – why does the poor fellow always come in
third?), and appreciate Lloyd’s movies for what they are. He is so much more
than the “everyman” of popular description. His Glass Character is a subtle,
slightly surreal, heart-touchingly brave and boyish silent clown, and if you
don’t watch out, he will take up residence in your heart, perhaps for good.
This is
Harold Lloyd the way I see him. I hope you enjoy this story.
Monday, October 15, 2012
REVEALED: Bob Dylan wrote all of Gershwin's songs!
The Truth Revealed: Bob Dylan wrote all of George Gershwin’s songs!
Sooooooo! You think George Gershwin was an original, do you? You think he was the genius of that place, y’know, that alley with all those tin pans lying around? You think he wrote hundreds-a great songs like Mammy’s Little Baby Loves Shortnin’, Shortnin, and Mairsy-Dotes? WRONG. He stole from everybody, just like every legendary composer who ever lived.
This exposé will intersperse my unique revelations about Gershwin and his times with comments from that unassailable fountainhead of true lies, Wikipedia. The author uses it all the time to lend an aura of veracity to her completely fictitious essays and to casually bend facts to her own inclinations. Pay attention!
Gershwin was influenced by French composers of the early twentieth century. In turn Maurice Ravel was impressed with Gershwin's abilities, commenting, "Personally I find jazz most interesting: the rhythms, the way the melodies are handled, the melodies themselves. I have heard of George Gershwin's works and I find them intriguing.” The orchestrations in Gershwin's symphonic works often seem similar to those of Ravel; likewise, Ravel's two piano concertos evince an influence of Gershwin.
Gershwin asked to study with Ravel. When Ravel heard how much Gershwin earned, Ravel replied with words to the effect of, "You should give me lessons”. It was never made clear what kind of lessons he meant. In fact, there is little evidence that Gershwin even understood French and had no idea what Ravel had just proposed. “To me,” he was quoted in the press, “it all sounds like Hinky Dinky Parley Voo.”
In spite of the fact that their attempt to meld their talents failed, the composers had something in common: they both died of brain tumors. This is proof that extended periods of composing causes the brain stem to harden into a hockey puck. Either that, or medical science is wrong and tumors are catching.
Some versions of this suspicious "you should give me lessons" story feature Igor Stravinsky rather than Ravel as the composer; however Stravinsky confirmed that he originally heard the story from Ravel, at one of those salons where they waved at each other and went, “Wooooo-hooooo!” Other accounts differ. In fact they differ so wildly that, as with most musical anecdotes, it probably never happened at all.
Some claim that Gershwin was a time-traveller who showed up in Bob Dylan’s closet in 1962. Dylan's early faux-rockabilly style was a complete failure in Dinkytown,a very small pioneer settlement in Minnesota where none of the residents were more than 2 inches tall. At the time, Dylan was playing a pink plastic electric guitar with gold sparkles in it that he ordered out of the Sears catalogue.
“I want to study with you,” stated Gershwin, citing his complete lack of expertise in writing popular song.
“Hey man,” Dylan replied (though it is doubtful these are his exact words: citation required). "We can't study together. I already dropped outa high school."
“I don’t have any hits,” Gershwin claimed.
“I don’t either, man. I'm still singin' Buddy Holly songs."
"Sing one for me, o legend of your times."
"Goes kinda like this.
I believe it to my soul you're the devil in nylon hose
I believe it to my soul you're the devil in nylon hose
For the harder I work the faster my money goes
Well I said shake, rattle and roll
I said shake rattle and roll
I said shake, rattle and roll
I said shake rattle and roll
Well you won't do right
To save your doggone soul
"I note that the tune is somewhat monochromatic."
"Say what?"
"It's all one note."
"Yeah, easier to remember, man. I have to write my changes on my sleeve."
"And the lyric has a certain primitive energy. After all, Cole Porter did allude to a glimpse of stocking."
"Well I ain't makin' a livin' at it yet. Too busy obliteratin' my middle-class upbringing and fabricatin' my image as bum ridin' the rails with Woody. But things are lookin' up. I’m screwin’ this girl named Baez and she's goin' places."
“Maybe I should’ve approached Schoenberg.”
“Yeah. He’s a good plumber, man.”
“Do you mean he plumbs the depth of the human soul?”
“Dig it.”
(This is a good example of how a completely inane remark can be twisted around to reflect future genius.)
But his collaboration with Dylan was not to be (sorry about the title, I changed my mind as I wrote this), nor did he ever work with that other guy whose name is so hard to spell. So he began to steal from other rock legends, notably Bruce Springsteen, whose remarks are not on record.
But the vandalism didn’t stop there. Gershwin's own Concerto in F was criticized for being related to the work of Claude Debussy, more so than to the expected jazz style. The comparison did not deter Gershwin from continuing to explore French styles. The title of An American in Paris reflects the very journey that he had consciously taken as a composer: "The opening part will be developed in typical French style, in the manner of Debussy and Les Six, though the tunes are original." Others claimed he used the term American to give the piece a veneer of cultural relevance while he sucked all the juices out of the French impressionists. Later Leslie Caron (French!) dumped a bucket of sexuality over the whole thing like whitewash, which is all people remember anyway.
Aside from the French influence, Gershwin was intrigued by the works of Alban Berg, Dmitri Shostakovich, Igor Stravinsky, Darius Milhaud, and Arnold Schoenberg. He also ripped off Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and Irving Berlin (his chief rival, who never learned to play the piano and was in fact tone-deaf). He also asked Schoenberg for composition lessons. Schoenberg refused, saying "I would only make you a bad Schoenberg, and you're such a good Gershwin already." Gershwin’s reply was, “Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww.” (This quote is similar to one credited to Maurice Ravel during Gershwin's 1928 visit to France – "Why be a second-rate Ravel, when you are a first-rate Gershwin?" He then hit him up for a loan.)
The “first-rate Gershwin” remark which every composer in human history claimed to have uttered first has in fact been attributed to Gershwin himself, or perhaps his longtime walking companion Giorgg Greshvinn.
Meanwhile, Gershwin’s ghostwriter Mannie Maneschevitz turned out a semi-hit called Second-rate Gershwin, later made popular by Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl.
Gershwin’s dog was also named Gershwin. An Irish setter, the dog caused confusion on Tin Pan Alley, where he often drank from a tin pan, and in the salons of Paris where he had his fur foiled (he was actually a black lab). Gershwin was sometimes heard to exclaim, “Good boy, Gershwin!”, which was mistaken for arrogance on his part. Later one of his rivals George Greshwin wrote in the Henbane Times, “That new song Gershwin wrote is really a dog.”
Then again, there is Oscar Levant’s most brilliant, mind-blowing, searing quip ever, better than anything he ever blurted out on To Tell the Truth or Hollywood Squares: “An evening with George Gershwin sure is boring.”
Russian Joseph Schillinger's influence as Gershwin's teacher of composition (1932–1936) was substantial in providing him with a method of composition. (Author's note: Wikipedia wrote this atrocious sentence, not me.) There has been some disagreement about the nature of Schillinger's influence on Gershwin. After the posthumous success of Porgy and Bess, Schillinger claimed he had a large and direct influence in overseeing the creation of the opera; Ira completely denied that his brother had any such assistance for this work. A third account of Gershwin's musical relationship with his teacher was written by Gershwin's close friend Vernon Duke, also a Schillinger student, in an article for the Musical Quarterly. (And so on, and so on, and so on. Time for a new paragraph.)
Porgy and Bess caused controversy in 1936 when it was retitled The Watermelon Review. Featuring only white actors in blackface, it was raided and permanently closed by the police when the burnt cork melted off the actors’ faces, revealing the shocking fact that white people had appeared in a black opera. Gershwin’s suggestion that the opera be restaged with black actors was met with stunned silence. A modest revival featuring Al Jolson playing all the characters (singing such tunes as Mammy, You is my Woman Now and Sum-sum-summertime) resulted in a record number of rotten tomatoes being thrown at the stage, to a possible depth of
During another time-travel episode in 1967, Rolling Stone magazine attempted to analyze Gershwin’s plagiarism but quit after page 3 because they couldn’t get a good cover photo. Oscar Levant kept standing in front of him.
What set Gershwin apart, aside from his overbite, his strange-looking skin rash and a propensity for screaming in the street, was his ability to manipulate forms of music into his own unique voice. He took the jazz he discovered on Tin Pan Alley into the mainstream by splicing its rhythms and tonality with that of the popular songs of his era. In musical circles, this is known as “stealing”.
Although George Gershwin would continually make grand statements about his music, he believed that "true music must reflect the thought and aspirations of the people and time. My people are Americans. My time is today.” Today didn’t last very long because his brain exploded 15 minutes later. He also dissed Toscanini for pretending not to have heard Rhapsody in Blue. “I can’t believe it,” Gershwin remarked. “He must have stuck bubblegum in his ears.” This statement appears in Bartlett’s Quotations on page 96 (citation needed: this whole article is complete bullshit!).
Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Scratch me a lover, pass me a drink
Be My Robert Benchley
If there’s someone you can drink without,
Then do so.
And if there’s someone you can waste your time with,
Do so.
You can be my Robert Benchley
You can follow me wherever I go
Be my, be my,
Be my Robert Benchley
Well there was this little lady in old New
York
Her quips couldn’t get much darker
She soon became the toast of the Algonquin
Miss Dorothy Parker
If you were smart, or thought you were
If you dared to do it and were able
You got yourself to that hotel, and sat down at
That big Round Table
(Be my, be my, be my Robert Benchley
Be my, be my, be my Robert Benchley)
There was this fat guy sitting there
By the name of Woollcott
He and ate and drank and partied and insulted folks
Yes, quite a lot
And look, there’s George S. Kaufman
High hair and skinny as a rail
Though he wins no beauty contests,
His plays just never fail
(you can be my Robert Benchley)
Back in 1921
bootleg liquor there was plenty
You either had a bag of bills
Or you just didn’t have any
Though movies had no soundtrack
With Lloyd, Gilbert and Garbo
Round Tablers were all talkies:
Like George, Heywood and Harpo
(be my, be my, be my Robert Benchley)
While Dottie loved her Benchley,
They all said it was platonic
To think they’d ever hit the sheets
Was really quite moronic
When Benchley married Gertrude
Dottie nearly had conniptions
She was a girl without a brain
It just defied description
One day Dot and Benchley
Decided to incorporate
They had to call the company
A name that sounded great
They tried on this and tried on that
In English, Dutch and quasi-French
Till Alexander Woollocott said
“Why not call it Parkbench”
(You can be my Robert Benchley
You can follow me wherever I go)
Though Dottie loved her Benchley
His wit and clever thinkin’
There’s no doubt she corrupted him
And started him on drinkin’
He started chasing chorus girls
It saddens me to say it
But that’s the game that Benchley chose
And so he had to play it
Oh no, here we go – life is just one big pun,
Oh no, here we go – It’s Benchley on the run!
It’s sad to say this fairy tale
Doesn’t end in blazing glory
Benchley made short subjects
And Miss Parker wrote short stories
His liver conked at fifty,
And that’s not very groovy,
And his shorts are only fillers now
On Turner Classic Movies
Dorothy went on living
Smoking, drinking, taking lovers
But her heart belonged to Benchley
In her mind she had no other
Though her talent was unquestioned,
Her stories now are history
A product of her times, I guess
To me it’s just a mystery
You can be my Robert Benchley
You can follow me wherever I go
Be my, be my,
Be my Robert Benchley
Yes, thinking she is obsolete
Strikes me as quite absurd.
So let’s let Dorothy Parker
Have the final word:
Ballade Of A Great Weariness
There's little to have but the things I had,
There's little to bear but the things I bore.
There's nothing to carry and naught to add,
And glory to Heaven, I paid the score.
There's little to do but I did before,
There's little to learn but the things I know;
And this is the sum of a lasting lore:
Scratch a lover, and find a foe.
And couldn't it be I was young and mad
If ever my heart on my sleeve I wore?
There's many to claw at a heart unclad,
And little the wonder it ripped and tore.
There's one that'll join in their push and roar,
With stories to jabber, and stones to throw;
He'll fetch you a lesson that costs you sore:
Scratch a lover, and find a foe.
So little I'll offer to you, my lad;
It's little in loving I set my store.
There's many a maid would be flushed and glad,
And better you'll knock at a kindlier door.
I'll dig at my lettuce, and sweep my floor,
Forever, forever I'm done with woe.
And happen I'll whistle about my chore,
"Scratch a lover, and find a foe."
There's little to bear but the things I bore.
There's nothing to carry and naught to add,
And glory to Heaven, I paid the score.
There's little to do but I did before,
There's little to learn but the things I know;
And this is the sum of a lasting lore:
Scratch a lover, and find a foe.
And couldn't it be I was young and mad
If ever my heart on my sleeve I wore?
There's many to claw at a heart unclad,
And little the wonder it ripped and tore.
There's one that'll join in their push and roar,
With stories to jabber, and stones to throw;
He'll fetch you a lesson that costs you sore:
Scratch a lover, and find a foe.
So little I'll offer to you, my lad;
It's little in loving I set my store.
There's many a maid would be flushed and glad,
And better you'll knock at a kindlier door.
I'll dig at my lettuce, and sweep my floor,
Forever, forever I'm done with woe.
And happen I'll whistle about my chore,
"Scratch a lover, and find a foe."
Monday, January 2, 2012
My romance with Harold Lloyd
SYNOPSIS: THE GLASS CHARACTER by Margaret Gunning
Author's note. I have written a novel about Harold Lloyd. I know you're not supposed to say this, but I think it's the best thing I've ever done and am likely to do, and I feel it deserves serious notice from an agent and/or a publisher. I believe this story has potential, not just as a novel but a major motion picture. Does the name Jake Gyllenhaal mean anything to you?
I would like to introduce you to my third novel, The Glass Character, a story of obsessive love and ruthless ambition set in the heady days of the Jazz Age in the 1920s. This was a time when people went to the movies almost every day, living vicariously through their heroes: Valentino, Garbo, Fairbanks and Pickford. But comedians were the biggest draw, and broad slapstick the order of the day - with one very significant exception.
Standing beside Keaton and Chaplin in popularity and prowess was a slight, diffident man named Harold Lloyd. He hid his leading man good looks under white makeup and his trademark black-framed spectacles. Nearly 100 years later, an iconic image of Lloyd remains in the popular imagination: a tiny figure holding on for dear life to the hands of a huge clock while the Model Ts chuff away 20 stories below.
With his unique combination of brilliant comedy and shy good looks, Lloyd had as many female followers as Gilbert or Barrymore. Sixteen-year-old Muriel Ashford, desperate to escape a suffocating life under her cruel father's thumb, one day hops a bus into the unknown, the
When her idol Harold Lloyd walks on the set, her life falls into a dizzy whirl of confusion, attraction, and furious pursuit.Muriel tries on and sheds one identity after another: bit actress, waitress in a speakeasy, "girl reporter", script writer - while Lloyd almost literally dances in and out of her desperately lonely world, alternately seducing her and pushing her away.
While researching this book, I repeatedly watched every Lloyd movie I could get my hands on. I was astonished at his subtlety, acting prowess and adeptness at the art of the graceful pratfall. His movies are gaining new popularity on DVD (surprisingly, with women sighing over him on message boards everywhere!). The stories wear well and retain their freshness because of the Glass Character's earnest good nature and valiant, sometimes desperate attempts to surmount impossible challenges.
Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book
It took me years to write, will you take a look
Order The Glass Character from:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA
Barnes & Noble
Thistledown Press
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