Today, all I want to do is watch 7 hours of drive-in intermission shorts!

Oh yes! Escapism at its finest. Given my medical status (THREE appointments with specialists in the next few months, not to mention multiple lab visits - can't I just leave them a pint of my blood and be done with it??), I need a distraction, and these jerky old things work perfectly. Surrealism at its finest! I never went to too many drive-in movies, and now they're pretty much obsolete (though there was talk of reviving them during the pandemic). You could eat, talk, and (best of all) smoke in the comfort of your own car, with the dog slobbering all over you, the baby crying, the kids whining for snacks, etc. etc. The movie was the least of it.

I see a lot of nostalgia in the YouTube comments sections, as if the '80s and '90s were a kind of paradise (though everyone griped about it back then, and were nostalgic for the '50s and '60s). It's a kind of yearning for a simpler time, which of course it wasn't. Just different. But I never go to ANY movies now, as all I see is the 55th iteration of Superman (GOD not again!) and other stupid, soulless, mass-produced superhero and gaming movies. I used to go to a movie a week back in the '90s, and I'd say 80% of them were watchable, and even if they weren't, I'd get an extra-large popcorn with extra "golden topping", and just stuff my face. Such bliss! 

BETRAYED: A Story of Religious Abuse

This little clip from YouTube claims to be a story of fraud, betrayal and abuse of power. And ironically, it turned out that way after all. 

This trailer for a movie called BELONG is all that exists of that particular feature film. The pastor seen in this clip is one Modise Molefe, the minister of my former church in 2002. Though a new ministry was seen as a marvelous fresh start (and look, we hired a black minister!), it was only many months later we discovered he had been "dismissed" from his former ministry by the larger body of the church. No details were released in order to protect the privacy of the ex-clergy, and it worked. 

Within a couple of months of starting his ministry, things went alarmingly south. It wasn't just his questionable financial dealings, it was the way he shouted at committee members, somehow set them against each other so nothing could happen, and railed at us about our spiritual deficiencies on Sunday morning. Then there was that little matter of the young woman he took advantage of, claiming he was going to leave his wife and kids and start a great new ministry with her. (None of it happened, thank the Lord.)

The result of not knowing anything about his past is that we felt alone with the chaos, and (as he kept telling us) somehow responsible for it. We had to try to chop our way through the incredible wilderness of fraud, damage and shattered trust he had created in a stable, longstanding congregation in just a few months.
When the whole thing finally blew up and the larger body of the church investigated and then "dismissed" him (sound familiar?), the congregation floundered badly after that, and never did recover. 

His "movie" came years later, and I remember he hyped it very hard, making an announcement stating that it was to be shown at the Sundance Film Festival (except for one little detail: it didn't exist!) .
He made several trailers for it, with different titles according to what he saw as trendy at the time. As you can see from the clip, he had a ready explanation for the disaster of his ministry: his African culture had been cruelly rejected by a bunch of comfortable, well-off white people! We did, for the most part, fit that last description, but what dismays me even more is the fact that what happened to us is hardly rare. It's just that no one talks about it, seemingly embarrassed about the fact that they had been "taken". Or, are they protecting certain people, and not others?

But this sort of spiritual abuse is so common now that I seem to see it every day: religious corruption in one form or another. And it is particularly bruising when it happens, not on the stage of a massive megachurch, but within the walls of a very small church which was looking forward to a fresh start in their ministry, and instead were permanently disabled and never found their way back.

Bless him! Damn him! It's Elmer Gantry

Though this started off paranthetical, I want to devote a whole post to yet another movie I re-watched for the first time in at least 30 years - Burt Lancaster's brilliant tour-de-force as a creepy, fake evangelist in Elmer Gantry. Not only did this movie exceed all my extremely high expectations, but I think I had goosebumps for a solid two hours, not just because of the electrifyingly charismatic (and sexy) main character but because every single performance in this thing was so note-perfect, with NOT ONE miscast actor even in the smallest role. Even the characters with no speaking parts were anything but furniture - they all knew what they were supposed to be doing as part of the scene. The directing was tight and dynamic, the music as fierce and compelling as Lancaster himself, and the script - let's just say it all worked.

It worked for me personally because since the last time I saw it in the '90s, I lived through a horrible church scandal in which the congregation completely fell for a charismatic fake who basically destroyed the foundations of the church in a single year. And he wasn't even sexy like Burt! But it was more than that. Gantry was not just a shallow creep. Lancaster knew how to act using his eyes, his hands and face and voice, and at times he expressed a real tenderness towards Sister Sharon and even the prostitute who tried to frame him. Gantry had levels. He had wanted to be a minister of the Gospel himself, and failed due to his inability to live within the rules. So was it really coincidence that drew him back to the revival tent? Why did he fall so hard for Sister Sharon, literally at first sight? In some part of himself, did he think he could start all over again, and this time get it right? There was more than a trace of conscience in Gantry, and even though he was practiced in ignoring it, we could see it peeping through. How the hell did he manage that?

His internal conflicts, no matter how submerged, were somehow communicated. If this seething moral unease hasn't been settled in Gantry's mind, how can we make up our own minds about him? We can't, and that is what makes his character so compelling. We can't hate him. Sometimes we're rooting for him, as when he slides down the church aisle as if stealing third base. In the first 15 minutes, he makes Jean Simmons laugh in a slightly shocking way - raucous, unihibited, followed by the incredible line, "You smell like a real man." So there is a subtext of sexual attraction between them from the get-go. Wasn't this just a little bit provocative for those times?

Adding an even darker subtext is Sister's later confession to Gantry that her Sharon Falconer persona is a complete invention, and that her real name is "Katy Jones from Shantytown". But was this a real confession, or a strange kind of identification, one fraud acknowledging another? She does clarify that she is different from Gantry in that "I believe. I really believe!" But there are moments in Lancaster's flat-out-brilliant portrayal when we see the shreds and tatters of his former faith, somehow communicated in the way only a genius actor can. The theme of religious spectacle is being held up for scrutiny here, and the audience is left to decide for  themselves how sincere any of it is.

There's stuff going on here, so layered, so levelled and striated, that we can't possibly take it all in. I could watch it ten more times and still have goose bumps. Gantry was made in 1960, and received all the accolades it could possibly receive, including an Oscar for Lancaster, who claimed that Gantry was really just a version of himself. That does NOT mean it was an easy role to play - playing yourself can be excruciating, as Marlon Brando was to discover when he publicly gutted himself in Last Tango in Paris. He needed to go into therapy to recover.



True, they don't make them like that any more, and I am not the only one who feels this way. Can I name even one actor who comes close to Simmons or Lancaster, not to mention poor old Monty Clift? Even 30 years ago, real acting genius was disappearing, replaced by the cult of personality. The problem is, you can't smell an actor any more, because no one has the chops. Which is why I have pretty much stopped going to the movies, and why I keep on tuning in to Turner Classics to see pictures which SURELY won't be as superb as I remember. Or not? In this case, Elmer Gantry was like the scene at the very beginning, in which Sister Sharon sees a shooting star - blazing and all too fleeting, but burned into your eyelids through sheer incandescence.

When a good movie turns bad: how many times is this going to happen?

Having come out the other side of The Roosevelts and Taxi  Driver, I'm finding most of my movie nostalgia trips are disappointing. I finally got around to watching Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence (triggered by my re-post of the poetic tribute to my good pal Marty). I remember seeing it in the mid-90s, back when I used to go to a movie a week, often commuting into Vancouver if I thought it was worthwhile. And I do rememver loving it, or at least finding it intriguing. It's based on an Edith Wharton novel which is, in essence, about social snobbery and intrigue in 1870s New York. Daniel Day Lewis was in his heyday then, and apparently could do no wrong, for he played a frustrated lover who could not connect sexually with the free-spirited Michelle Pfeiffer because he was already married to an appropriately dull blueblood (Winona Ryder).

It's a period piece, of course, but it's all very  '90s, and even though it was meant to represent deepest antiquity, it just felt dated. For one thing, Day Lewis was probably way more boring than Winona, who actually came across as the most subtle, best-realized character. Michelle Pfeiffer was so unappealing, not just physically unattractive but abrasive and particularly un-charming and un-seductive, that the whole thing just didn't come off, any more than her tight Victorian corset and elbow-length gloves were going to come off.

I hate to have to say it, but I'll say it - Day Lewis came across as so passive and repressed that he bored me to tears. You can overdo the repressed thing to the point of coma. He even seemed effeminate to  me, a word we aren't supposed to use any more - but what I mean is, there was absolutely zero sexual spark between the  two of them. Nothing. Pfeiffer seemed cold and superficial, her flirting seemed like an actual effort (I got so sick of her thrusting her hand out at men so they were forced to kiss it), and if Day Lewis would JUST get that moony-calf look off his face. . . Was there any sexual tension there at all? Did there need to be? 

Well, yes. It's called acting. In some cases, the spark is already there and only needs to be revealed: Bogart and Bacall are a notable example, as are Bette Davis and Gary Merrill in All About Eve. You got the feeling they couldn't wait to hear "CUT!" so they could jump into bed together. But these are actors, folks. Their stock in trade is pretending. So how could this all fall so flat?

Part of it was just the wild popularity of these actors at the time, which must have had a huge effect on casting. Well, we COULD get this-or-that actor or actress, but  Michelle Pfeiffer just had a huge hit with (insert title of hit), and wouldn't she be a bigger draw? And as I study the  so-called Golden Age of movies more closely, I realize how dicey casting can be,with a dozen actors turning down a role, maybe because their agents warned them against it (or they wouldn't be paid enough), or a thousand other actors auditioned for the role and were rejected. So exactly who gets the  gig?

You  weren't supposed to criticize Day Lewis back then, because he wasn't just an actor. He was an ECK-TORRRR. He was kind of like Montgomery Clift, in that even with Liz Taylor he had to fake sexual arousal. He was best buds with Liz, and it showed in the lack of passion in their scenes in A Place in the Sun and Raintree County. It just wasn't there. 

Do we hear of Day Lewis now? Was his middle name really "Day", or was that just an affectation to save him the embarrassment of  being plain old Daniel Lewis? Who'd remember THAT? And how dull would it look on the marquee?

It would be interesting to actually sit down with my favorite movie Mafioso and get Marty's honest take on what Lewis (LEWIS) was actually like to work with. He'd likely praise him to the skies, because that's what you were supposed to do back then.There were certain movie icons that weren't to be criticized. Meryl Streep was an untouchable goddess back then, no matter how pretentious, mannered and even ludicrous her portrayals were. This was brought home to me recently by her narration of Eleanor Roosevelt's voice in the PBS series I just re-watched. It was just  a caricature, a cartoonish take on the somewhat William Shatner-esque halting quality of her speech. Unfortunately, there were a lot of voice clips of the real Eleanor in the last episode, and it became obvious that the halting quality only showed up  very late in her life, as it often does in older people (excuse. . . me. . . yes. . . ). But she sounded like a querulous old lady when she was supposed to be 20 years old.

Why does bad acting get so richly rewarded, leading to such astonishing blunders in casting? I don't go to  movies any more because I am not interested in YET ANOTHER SUPERMAN MOVIE (or movies based on stupid video games or whatever other junk).  Sometimes I miss those long  commutes into Vancouver, mostly the anticipation of seeing something worth the trudge - but I have to tell you, quite  often the popcorn was the best part.

So why did I have such a different opinion of this movie 30-some years ago? It's the usual thing - I'm way different than when I was a mere child of 40. I've seen a lot, lived, loved, lost (etc. etc. - all the rest of it). But a lot of it comes down to the radical change in pop culture. It's almost unrecognizable now. Either Daniel Day Lewis (or Danny Lewis) has died and I don't realize it yet, or he has retired because he's too ugly like Jack Nicholson, or suffereng from dementia (and how  many actors seem to have dementia, these days?), or just got fed up with trying to pretend he was sexually attracted to cold, charisma-less actresses in parts for which they were woefully miscast.

So why did I watch Taxi Driver - again??

A little Italian let’s praise today:
The Topo Gigio of pictures, let’s say.

When Taxi Driver comes on TV,
I always drop what I’m doing, you see,
For Travis Bickle is my main man,
Because of DeNiro I’m such a great fan.

When first I saw this story bleak,
I had to through my fingers peek,
For though the end was a gory mess,
I couldn’t stop watching, I must confess.

Then I saw a picture of Marty,
Who supports the Italian Munchkin party.
Like my Uncle Aubrey his eyebrows were dense,
And his movies didn’t always make much sense.



But to the soul they spoke without fail,
For Raging Bull's a morality tale.
And fluids red from DeNiro’s face
Went gushing and flying all over the place.

When we saw Jake LaMotta bash his head,
It filled us all with horror and dread.
But for our director, comedy was king,
For sociopaths were Marty’s favorite thing.

I can’t tell you all the movies he did,
For I’d be here all day, I do not kid.
But some of them were a big surprise,
Like Age of Innocence, pure sex in disguise.

And "Alice" by Bursteyn, my what a trick,
For feminist views he laid on quite thick.
And when he did that movie of Jesus,
He went far out of his way to please us.

Then there was Goodfellas, my what a pic,
And I can’t say it was my favorite flick.
Every time I try to watch this thing,
It doesn’t exactly make me sing.

No, there’s pictures where human flesh does rip,
And he and DeNiro seem joined at the hip.
It’s an odd sort of duo, a big guy and small,
With both of them Cosa Nostra and all.

Real genius is rare, so let's praise this guy,
And hope that his pic on Sinatra will fly.
His turkeys are few, though with Liza Minnelli
He went on a coke binge and turned into jelly.



Martin Scorsese, Martin Scorsese,
Your pictures are great and drive film students crazy.
So some day I hope, in my brief mortal span
I can call you just Marty: cuz you is de man!

Blogger's post-mortem. YES, WHY? Why did I watch Taxi Driver again, when I was already sort of depressed and getting over surgery, etc. - ? Was it for the incredible Bernard Herrman score, so intense he literally died right after finishing it? Is it DeNiro's ability to make us feel at least a little bit sorry for Travis Bickle, the sociopath's sociopath?

No, this time it was different. As I was dragged into this dark underworld once again, I thought of a former friend, someone who seemed to have a sort of undercurrent in his personality. A quirk? Worse than that. He was obsessive. He had never been in the military, but constantly talked about guns and tales of military sacrifice and something he called "special forces". He spoke about  martial arts as if he was a master, but had never taken part. He loved Chuck Norris movies and wanted ME to love them, too. And he seemed to have been behind the barn door when the social awareness brain cells were passed out.

It came to a bad end, because he kept on trying to intrude in my life, even when I had decided he was just too creepy to stay friends with . (My other friends actually warned me about him, something like "he's not playing with a full deck" - cruel, but in a way, accurate). I don't know if he ever acted out, but neither did Travis until the bloody end, when he was hailed as a hero for blowing several people away in the most gory movie scene I've ever witnessed.

And yet, I keep watching it, knowing what is going to happen. Why?

I wasn't going to watch it, I REALLY wasn't, and then I watched it and felt heavy and bogged down, and I remembered my former friend, the one who eventually scared me with that sociopathic feeling, the sense something in him was just missing. He seemed to be ticking, almost audibly. The last contact I had with him, he became my Facebook friend (how did he find me?), and it started up again. He posted things "at" me, going on and on about how cruel I had been to him, how ungenerous, how mean I was. The posts were full of self-pity, and did not in my mind match up with what I knew of him back then. Finally, realizing he hadn't changed or had actually gotten worse, I blocked him, and he somehow found my email and ripped into me for my cruelty. Again.

As always when I watch this dark morality tale, what really triggered me and let loose these dark memories was the score. This is music like I have never heard music before. It seethes. It snarls. Snare drums escalate and escalate into the rat-tat-tat-tat-tat of a machine gun. Some of it is dark, murky. There are eerie harp glissandos, up and down, up and down, and it's like having sand thrown in your face. 

At the very end of Taxi Driver, having created one of the worst bloodbaths in film history, Travis is not only praised as a hero - he actually gets the girl. And yes, this did actually happen to my former friend - he got married, and last I heard he was still married, though still aimless and unemployed, and vaguely resentful about everyone and everything. His wife is more of a caregiver than a life partner. But how can we question people's needs? They are what they are.

You might ask, as I am asking myself right now, why was I ever friends with this guy in the first place. It's hard to believe, but he really did help me at a time when my life was in such a mess that I quite easily could have died. The echoes of Travis genuinely caring about Iris and wanting to rescue her registered this time as never before. And it's damn hard to see real altriusm in someone who scares you half to death, someone you just can't deal with any more. But the fact is, he needed me to stay needy. When I didn't need his support any more, he couldn't take it and tried to take me down with him.

So this silly little poem just popped into my memory again. It's sort of a detox from last night. And yes, it WAS the musical score that grabbed me the most. It is beyond disturbing, and the fact it is the last gasp of a brilliant composer makes it all the more unsettling.

Then my mind leaped and hopped into present day, when DeNiro gave a speech at the Cannes Film Festival criticizing a certain politician whom I am doing my best to ignore. Not always successfully. But someone had to  eome out and say it. He is destroying the arts, destroying the nation, and no one seems to even notice it, glued to their phones, assuming it's not their problem.

So can a sociopath really gain that much worldly power? Well, what do you think? And why was he actually welcomed back, after four harrowing years of running the nation into a ditch?

THE ROOSEVELTS: Twelve years on, did the series change, or did I?

 

After hugely enjoying the first few episodes, I did finally watch the end of the 2013 PBS series, The Roosevelts, and oh it was hard going. Very well done, but tedious in places, and sort of depressing due to the heavy subject matter and what happened to all of them. Both TR and FDR died at around age 60, completely used up physically and mentally, and it was hard to watch. 

I never liked FDR and saw him as pretentious and superficial, and Eleanor, though you’re supposed to admire her, has an “ADMIRE ME” sign on her, and her querulous voice and matronly print dresses and constant, Roosevelt-esque smiling just irritated me. (They all had a smile that never seemed to leave their faces, replicated a generation or so later by the Kennedys, with their piano keys always on show). Meryl Streep did a parody of her, a Rich Little impression rather than an interpretation.

The first six hours (SIX HOURS!) were the best, and should have been a separate docuseries on TR. It would have been superb as a freestanding series, but it ranged too far and got bogged down. It was as if something changed halfway through, as if other people dominated the research, or the clips, or whatever. Changing horses mid-stream, as TR would no doubt put it.

So it was a bit of a trudge, but it was still better-made than almost any other doc series I've ever seen. I’m still interested in TR, and now have two other books that I hope don’t rip him apart or make him – incredibly! – DULL. The biographer I didn’t like (Brands) was used a lot in the doc, which surprised me and made me wonder if he also wrote other books about them. Maybe he liked FDR, and admired Eleanor as you are required to.

I suppose they helped save the world, etc., but there was every bit as much corruption and deception then, only done as a matter of course. TR  hated it and was the only one who attempted to flush it out of the bushes. The rest of them went along with it because there was something in it for them - maybe, in fact, everything. 

But it remains to be seen if I can get through 2 more long(ish) books about TR, if he even remotely resembles the figure I like so much. Like, for being a badass, a paradox, a historical anomaly, etc. And fierce! I loved the grin with bared teeth, the "Bully!" and "Dee-lighted" (which were not even metioned in the Brands!), and I also liked his tenderness with his wives, children, etc. though one son killed himself and one died in wartime. 

So. Now I have a long-awaited biography of Toulouse-Lautrec, but it’s challenging in a whole different way, SO detailed I wonder why on earth it all needs to be there. Surely the author can say “his mother took him to one health spa after another, with no results”, rather than recounting EVERY single health spa, EVERY useless treatment, etc. But it is interesting to see how positive he was, how almost sprightly, a satirist who wrote funny, pointed letters with tiny ink drawings in the margins, and arrogant in a way that was still kind of endearing.  And I see virtually no self-pity in a man who had every reason to  live in a state of despair. 

This contrasts wildly with Jose Ferrer's portrayal of  a lonely, cynical, embittered genius in Moulin Rouge (which, by the way, I love, and not just for Jose Ferrer's voice which is the sexiest thing I have ever heard!) He was criticized for walking with shoes on his knees, but facially he was pretty close. But who knew about the rest of him?

It was never a mystery what he looked like. There are actually a lot of photos of Lautrec, mostly in weird costumes - clowns, Arab sheiks, women (he loved drag). The pictures are charmingly droll, sort of like walking cartoons or caricatures, and he knew this and even traded on it. He ultimately destroyed himself, of course, but sheer physical and mental pain may have been behind it, burdened with a body that never did work due to what amounted to generations of incest. 

I believe the Roosevelts, with their habit of marrying cousins, suffered the same thing – bluebloods who “married in” with unknown consequences, including mental illness, alcoholism, and early death. Eleanor was not under remotely that kind of strain, and lived into her 70s, but as a figure loved by the whole world, she did not need to actually do anything, just make appearances and shake hands with the right people, and stand there and receive ovations and cheers. She was a nice old lady, homely, dowdy, hesitant in speech, which made her somehow approachable, but she was no more a figure of the people than the other Roosevelts, who were all wealthy, snobbish aristocrats who stooped to save the world. 

Why you should NOT overshare on the internet. . .

Friends:
On the eve of my 62nd birthday, something of a re-birth announcement...
The mania I've been experiencing for the past few weeks continues. I am making every effort to recognize and do what I can to manage it, and with some success provided I stick to certain things. Among these: my online presence. It's become baldly obvious to me that I must reduce my internet activity considerably, and that's why I write to you all: if you're wondering how I'm doing, where I am, if I am, etc., it may take a day or two before you hear from me.
I'll spare you the thinking behind this -- god only knows, but makes sense to me -- but I also wanted to let everyone know that this is a struggle that I absolutely refuse to go through alone. And by that I mean going public. Once I am finally able to trust my thoughts again -- or even to corral them better -- I've got a plan.
I want to put this before everything. I want to re-emerge from this as a public activist. I've already got a semi-public profile, and it seems obvious and necessary that I try to harness this to my own recovery and public function. I know there's a book in this, but also a specialized website (under construction already), but possibly a documentary, podcast and as many public speaking opportunities as I can book.
I mean, who wouldn't want this: the world's first Bipolar standup addict terminally unfiltered movie critic?
See? This mania is K-razee.
Much love to y'all and more to come.

This quote from a Facebook page (going back a few years) haunts me and won't leave my head. It was written by a Canadian movie critic whose heyday was about ten or fifteen years ago, and who specialized in movies about mental illness. No, that's not an exaggeration, as there was an event called Rendevous with Madness (and how I HATE the term, worse than "demons") every year in Toronto, and he seemed to be everywhere, doing this and doing that and, I would imagine, analyzing every movie down to the last detail.

It's, I guess, ironic that this happened to him, and there was a lot more to the story (he mentioned in passing that he had been "kicked out of rehab" twice, though not specifying why). I don't even know how I got onto his posts, as he isn't a Facebook friend - though we do have contacts in the publishing industry in common. But I became fascinated, and for several months his posts got more and more bizarre. I remember something called the Bipolar Cartoon Character Hall of Fame, with pictures of Olive Oyl, Pepe le Pew, and various others I don't remember. 

He also mentioned being "taken in" by the police, escorted to a psychiatric ward which released him the next day. (Yes. The next day, with no support system, not even a reliable source of medication.) His recounting of the story had all the manic delight of Randall P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, as if it was just one big jolly romp.  

It came out at one point that he was living with his elderly parents, not so he could take care of them but so that they could take care of him (or try to - but think of the burden on frail, elderly parents trying to deal with a 60-year-old man acting like a wild teenager). He did harrowing things like ask his Facebook buddies what meds he should take, and of course got a lot of terrible advice on milk thistle, turmeric, mountain goat horn extract, and other reliable treatments for major mental illness.

Then - it stopped. I think it stopped just as the pandemic hit, but for a long time there was nothing, and I did wonder what had happened to him. Then I noticed he was posting movie stills, several a day (though not the same ones over and over again, as he had done before). But these were strange, not the polished poses you'd see in a publicity still. These were screenshots taken nearly at random in the black-and-white films he seemed to focus on. Then, eventually, those stopped too.

With my Sherlock mind, I couldn't leave it  alone, and I did find a tweet (back when you could still read them without donating a few pints of your blood) which talked about how he was going to "recklessly" share his story of "multiple arrests", breaking sobriety, disturbing the peace, etc. etc. in an event called But That's Another Story. I didn't see this as an advocacy thing, but more of the "drunkalogue" syndrome you hear in AA - telling the same story endlessly, embellishing each time, and getting lots of laughs from the most painful experiences a human being can suffer. 

One of the things in the description was "undiagnosed sex addict", which made me feel he wasn't QUITE over the manic episode yet - not the so-called diagnosis, but the hypersexuality which is one of the most alarming (not to mention humiliationg) symptoms of bipolar mania. He did delete quite a number of his Facebook posts, including some which were actually pretty gross. Did someone take him aside and advise him on what was appropriate (or not) to share?

So why am I still so obsessed with this? His new save-the-world persona made me wonder, as perhaps he was unable to wonder, just what he actually planned to say. How could you get up there and talk for an hour about reckless oversharing, multiple arrests, and bizarre behaviour that baffled everyone who thought they knew him? It would probably be stream-of-consciousness rambling, but I also know it would be a kind of  standup stuff meant to elicit howls of laughter. Does this take away the horror of it? Is this stuff truly funny? You tell me.

Of course not, but in the moment it might have seemed like a good idea. Advocacy is a way for people to feel important, experts on the subject, which gives you a sense of power, as if you can and should advise people on what they are supposed to think about a subject. It can also involve trying to rescue people who are too helpless to help themselves. That doesn't happen either. And it cannot happen when the "help" is just as sick as they are. 

So now he has disappeared entirely. I do wonder what happened. The last Facebook comments consist of "friends" (in the Facebook sense, not real ones) wishing him a happy birthday, some time last year. I remember with dismay the way my dear friend David West was getting birthday greetings on Facebook two years after he died. Though I know he would have gotten a kick out of it, it points up everything that is wrong with social media, and the internet in general. I get "notices" every day about "friends" having a birthday, and I don't even need to go on the person's page to send them a generic message! How wonderful! No work at all, nor do you need to care - just pretend that you do, because it makes YOU look good.  Which is why so many people send automatic or automated birthday messages to a person, not even knowing or caring very much if they are alive or dead.

Well, I hope this manic guy isn't dead, but he seems to have retreated a long way. It would be nice, once the dust settled, to see some commentary on what he actually lived through, but just as you can't be a heart disease advocate while you are up on the stage collapsing from a heart attack, it is really not such a good idea to display the  extremes of mental illness to an audience too embarrassed or frightened to do anything but howl with laughter.

ADDENDA (sample Facebook posts): 

If anyone knows anybody in the Burlington police or psychiatric biz, please share.
The care and patience I received during my long night of gonzo batshit free fall was AMAZING. I regaled the cops who delivered me to psychiatric emergency — named, God love them, Scott and Geoff — with the dirtiest movie true life trivia I could — and boy did I. I was like the Groucho Marx of psychiatric emerg.
As I was escorting them out — until the psychiatric staff pulled me back inside — I tried to hug them, which they warmly refused. I offered a handshake, and Scott said “How about a fist bump, Geoff?”
And as for Jenn, the gorgeous and deeply empathetic psych muse, whom I fell deeply and obviously in love with inside of three seconds: thanks for the only memory of this whole shitshow that I cherish. That and Scott and Geoff’s fistbump.

. . . Sadly, I have been forced to accept that a raging libido is an indication I’m about to go off the reserve. On both recent flipout sessions, I was hornier than a cartoon goat. Not to put to fine a point, but I’d have happily even filled a doughnut.
So this is it, huh? Antidepressants smother my libido into perpetual remission, and if I get horny it means I’m about to smash my stall. How fucking fair is that?
Doughnuts. Now why didn’t I think of that when it might have helped?
Love and thanks.

(And this, the most disturbing of all):

Talk about a discussion starter. Veronica Liskova's affecting, disturbing and resolutely balanced portrait of a 'virtuous pedophile' cuts to the very heart of the idea of mental illness and social stigma. A documentary profile of a young man who maintains a clinically-assisted regimen of absolute sexual abstinence so as not to act on his desires, the movie not only ask us consider pedophilia as a form of treatable mental illness, but to consider what the real consequences of intolerance, ignorance and moral outrage are: that somebody like Daniel remains ashamed, in the shadows, and possibly poised to act out. 

I never thought I'd see this again!!

 

The Roosevelts: An Intimate History

(Click on the link to watch!) I was astonished and deeee-lighted to find this entire series on Internet Archive! There are only fragments of it on YouTube, and a confusing array of chopped-up pieces on Dailymotion, so this was buried treasure, unearthed at last.  I LOVED this series when I first saw it on PBS in 2014 (it's yet another Ken Burns masterpiece), but it was never shown again. It is fourteen hours long, the most ambitious thing Burns has ever done, and by far the best. And it never seems too long or tedious - in fact, I didn't want it to end.

So what do I love about it? Everything. From the superb gallery of  photos and archival film clips, to the meticulous research, to just the right amount of commentary from the inevitable historians, and - most of all - to the superb narration, there is not a false note in it anywhere.

Bad narration, which is nearly universal on YouTube now (most of it AI-generated) is the bane of my existence, but in this case, the main narrator, not to mention the dead-ringer, right-on voices of Teddy, FDR and Eleanor (the last voiced by no less than Meryl Streep!) are so note-perfect that it's no surprise the music is sensitively chosen and utterly appropriate as well. I begin weeping when they feature Aaron Copland at his most tender and majestic, the heroic Richard Strauss (Death and Transfiguration, which is now my theme song), and sublime quotes from Stephen Foster.

It all works. But what was most gratifying to me was watching the first part again, and far from having my usual reaction to something I used to love and now can't fathom, I think I loved it all the more.  I've started reading more about the Roosevelt dynasty, but none of it is more poetic and hard-hitting than this series, which I honestly thought I would never see again.

Comes at a time when I am still feeling pretty rotten at times. Having supposedly dodged the bullet with my surgery, now I am not so sure. "Things" are showing up in my x-rays and blood tests, and I am more than concerned. I will be seeing a hemotologist, which made no sense until I finally clicked with the fact that I had to have a blood  transfusion in the hospital (why?). And I also might be seeing a nephrologist, a kidney specialist, because my poor old ageing kidneys might be out of whack as well. In the hospital, they found a spot on my lung which terrified me, though the followup x-ray seems to have indicated it was resolved. But my doctor is not so sure. So, more tests, more specialists, more trips to the lab.

I am trying to convince myself, and sometimes I even seem to believe it, that the surgery fixed everything and I am now back to full and vibrant health. But once they gut you like that, you're never quite the same, and I feel it almost every day.

I don't want to overshare online, but it gets lonely sometimes, and this blog is supposed to be more personal than, say, Facebook or YouTube (which I am now "off" in many ways, just fed up and not wanting to keep feeding something nobody watches anyway). I feel the same about the blog: I do post links on Facebook sometimes, but I am not sure why I bother.  I am convinced nobody really reads them. They are, however, there for my own reference, so that is something.

Something, but I am not sure what.

So when I find something as superb as this series, whole and complete, and in magnificent HD, it geos a long way (though not far enougth)  to make me feel this is all worthwhile. But I had a thought at the grocery store today, when I could not lift a five-pound bag of sugar into the cart: the natural limits of a human lifespan used to be "threescore and ten" - and by that reckoning, I'm already one year over the limit.

So why is this statement so subversive?

An artist, a man, a failure, MUST PROCEED. Proceed: not succeed. With success, as any world or unworld comprehends it, he has essentially nothing to do. If it should come, well and good: but what makes him climb to the top of the tent emphatically isn’t ‘a billion empty faces’. Even success in his own terms cannot concern him otherwise than as a stimulus to further, and a challenge to more unimagineable, self-discovering – ‘The chairs will all fall by themselves down from the wire’; and who catches or who doesn’t catch them is none of his immortal business. One thing, however, does always concern this individual: fidelity to himself.

- e. e. cummings

Lots of people object to this statement. For one thing, they don't like the use of "man/he/his", which is absolutely not allowed now - for God's sake, why doesn't he say "a man OR a woman", "he OR she", etc., especially with all the pronoun confusion affecting language right now? But the idea that failure is part of the game echoes my all-time-favorite quote from Teddy Roosevelt, which dares to call itself "The MAN in the arena". (Can't have that!)

But even more subersive is the idea that success has nothing to do with you. If it comes, fine, but if you strive for it, you will be chasing a phantom. Our entire culture revolves around success or failure, defined in terms of dollars and one's contribution to the overall economy, the GNP. Very seldom is artistic merit even considered. Popularity and the ensuing financial gain is the whole story.

The last few lines are the most subversive, and totally nonsensical to most people: the claim that how an artist's work is received is "none of his immortal business" (how I love that phrase!), and that the sole necessity of art is fidelity to himself (herself, itself, elephant self, Old Testament prophet self, Joan of Arc self, etc. etc. etc.)

This quote, along with a few others, has informed my life, and I have come back to them again and again because they run counter to cultural pressures and expectations. So many artists are crushed by this. Even artists who make a lot of  money, and are therefore deemed "successful" go through the tortures of the damned, because it is NEVER ENOUGH. Jump high, higher, higher - no, sorry, you failed to grab the brass ring. Maybe next time.

Go get 'em, Teddy! (Read at your own risk!)

 

Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, on Americans:

“As for my own country, it is hard to say. We are barbarians of a certain kind, and what is most unpleasant we are barbarians with a certain middle-class, Philistine quality of ugliness and pettiness, raw conceit, and raw sensitiveness. Where we get highly civilized, as in the northeast, we seem to become civilized in an unoriginal and ineffective way, and tend to die out. In political matters we are often very dull mentally, and especially morally; but even in political matters there is plenty of rude strength, and I don't think we are as badly off as we were in the days of Jefferson, for instance.”

Whew! Let me blow out the flames coming from that particular statement. Though it was in a private letter and not meant for public consumption, it's more than candid about what T. R. perceived as the woeful limitations of his beloved country and its (too-often-craven) citizens. 

Of course, you're not supposed to like or admire Roosevelt. He killed animals, he seemed to love war, he pounded the podium when he gave a speech. (And those teeth!) But I've always loved the man, and have always wanted to know more about him. To this end, I'm making my way through an 800-page biography by H. W. Brands, called T. R.: The Last Romantic. But I have to tell you, the portrait he paints of the Old Lion is woefully un-romantic. 

I watched a PBS series on the Roosevelts (and how I wish they'd show it again, all 8 hours of it!), and my favorite two hours was devoted to T. R. And yes, the portrait that emerged was of a true romantic: fiercely passionate about everything (especially his family - he was devoted to them), sometimes too opionated for his own good, and not one to suffer fools gladly (or at all!) - yet at the same time, warm and gregarious, genuine, sincere in his patriotism (his vision was of what Americans COULD be, but somehow never were), and a lot of other things. 

But this Brands character does not even seem to like Roosevelt, and there are little jabs at his character on every page. Talk about thinking in black and white! This fellow has decided T. R. needs to be deconstructed, or should we say, given a hatchet job. I have ordered another bio (there are no doubt hundreds of them) which has been criticized for sentimentalizing Teddy too much. But what the PBS bio got right, and what Brands missed by a mile, was his complexity. 

The man was positively Byzantine, and was full of so many opposite traits that you wonder how he got along. But one commentator said, "What you MUST know about T. R. is that he was a depressive." The fierce exterior disguised a very tender heart, and he was hypersensitive, not to mention a ferocious intellect which soared above most of his contemporaries. THAT is the T. R. I want to hear about, read about, get to know better.

I even wrote in my journal about this! The book critic in me never quite dies, and each book I read comes under analytical scrutiny, but this one. . . I kept getting so turned off that I had to unload somewhere:

I am getting fed up with the TR book, which is a disappointment after a good start. It begins quite positively, but as it goes along the author gets more and more snide, then just starts taking shots at him on every single page. He’s literally attacking the man, claiming he did everything for his own gain and towering ego. Nothing about the latent depression, nothing about the warmth and charm of the man, which his supporters never failed to notice. (They named the Teddy bear after him, for God's sake!) But the book is all about his insufferable ego and how he’s basically a windbag, hot air that is all designed for self-aggrandizement and political gain. He doesn't befriend people - he "cultivates" them. 

I LOVED the PBS program, watched it more than once, and it was far more nuanced, claimed he was actually a secret depressive, his heart irreparably broken by the loss of his first wife. The portrait was of someone far more complex and nuanced than this Brands guy comprehends. I did order another bio, just out of interest. But it does seem the guy really doesn’t like Roosevelt and even thinks he was a phony. Typical politician, full of P. T. Barnum hype and even dishonesty. 

So why did he write this? As with the Van Gogh book, I see contractual obligation on every page. Brands signed a contract to write this, then began to get bored and irritated about ¼ of the way through, a contempt that just grows and grows. I’m reading it now because it supposedly helps me get to sleep, though it did not work last night. 

Enough said!

Rest, rest, perturbed spirit

Drove downtown in the rain
Nine thirty on a Tuesday night
Just to check out the late night
Record shop
Call it impulsive
Call it compulsive
Call it insane
But when I'm surrounded I just can't stop
It's a matter of instinct
It's a matter of conditioning
Matter of fact
You can call me Pavlov, dog
Ring a bell and I'll salivate
And how'd you like that?
Dr. Landy, tell me
You're not just a pedagogue
Cause right now I'm
Lyin' in bed, just like Brian Wilson did
Well I'm
I'm lyin' in bed, just like Brian Wilson did, oh
So I'm lyin' here
Just starin' at the ceilin' tiles
And I'm thinkin' about
What to think about
Just listenin' and relistenin'
To smiley smile
And I'm wonderin' if this is
Some kind of creative drought because
I'm lyin' in bed
Just like Brian Wilson did
Well I'm
I'm lyin' in bed, just like Brian Wilson did, oh
And if you wanna find me I'll be
Out in the sandbox
Just wonderin' where the hell all the
Love is gone
I'm playin' my guitar and buildin'
Castles in the sun, woh wo woh
And singin', "fun, fun, fun"
I'm lyin' in bed
Just like Brian Wilson did
Well I'm
I'm lyin' in bed, just like Brian Wilson did, oh
I had a dream
That I was three hundred pounds
And though I was very heavy
I floated 'til I couldn't see the ground
I floated 'til I couldn't see the ground, oh
Somebody help me
I couldn't see the ground
Somebody help me
Couldn't see the ground
Somebody help me
Because I'm
I'm lyin' in bed
Just like Brian Wilson did
Well I'm
I'm lyin' in bed, just like Brian Wilson did, oh, yeah
Drove downtown in the rain
Nine thirty on a Tuesday night
Just to check out the late night
Record shop
(Late night record shop)
Call it impulsive
You can call it compulsive
And you can call it insane, oh, oh
But when I'm surrounded I just can't
Stop

They took my eyes away. . .

I don’t like to post rants (too much), but this was a really bad experience. I noticed my glasses had a little gap where the frame was coming away from the lens. I took them back to SpecSavers where I bought them (2 years ago, so they weren’t ancient), and they took them into the back room. At one point I saw a guy, some repair person I guess, and he was holding them by one arm and waving them around. Then they gave them back to me and said, “No, we can’t fix them, but we’ll give you $50.00 off on your next pair!” The glasses cost $400.00, so this wasn’t much of a comfort, and for some reason I didn’t want to deal with them again. 

I noticed the frames didn’t feel right when I put them back on. When I got home, I saw that the split was far worse, and the damage now went halfway around the lens. All their manhandling and screwing around (I mean, waving a screwdriver around) had damaged them FAR worse than they initially were. I went to Pearle Vision to ask them what I could do, and they gave me a card for a glasses repair shop in Burnaby. (Nothing is close by in these parts.) We drove and drove and drove, couldn’t find a parking spot, etc. etc.. All the usual exhausting stuff. But the damage was still fixable. They did something called a laser weld, and now they look and feel perfect – BUT – they charged me $105.00. I doubt if we can get any of it back.

(P. S. Once more, this is a Facebook post that I copied and pasted. I was shocked to see my last post was in May. Surely some of them got lost? No, it's that I am still exhausted and having to parcel out my energy very carefully. Yesterday was draining and frustrating, as we always have  to drive around a lot, especially for medical things - nothing is E*V*E*R close by, as if Poco is the dark side of the moon and too primitive even for the most basic services. But never mind, the glasses are fixed, and I am NOT GOING TO HAVE ANOTHER EYE TEST - I am so tired of being tricked and even shamed into buying things I do not want OR need. So there.)

Back Yard Bear: he's at it again. . .

BEAR ATTACK!

So I get up in the morning, look out the window, and my three 6-foot-tall bird feeder poles are GONE. They’re not there anymore! I ran outside, and all the poles (thick metal pipe) were flat on the ground. It could only be a bear flattening them down. But, there were no food trays hanging on them – they were just empty poles, but the bear managed to crush them anyway.

Then it got worse! My husband discovered the bear had broken in through the fence and ripped out some of the boards. He wasn’t too happy about that, and now has a project, once it stops raining. We have already had to rebuild our fences more than once due to nocturnal ursine raids.

Bears are more of a problem all the time in these parts, and we’re right on the edge of a large green space with a creek running through it (SALMON!). We try to live in harmony with nature, but if it isn’t bears it’s raccoons or squirrels. Coyote sightings are relatively rare, but you’re more likely to hear them getting together at night for a group howl. Added to the weird bassoon-notes of barred owls, it makes for some hair-raising night noise.

But the bears are the worst invaders, though you can’t blame them for needing to eat constantly to maintain their massive bulk. People are being told to take all their bird feeders down (and I never leave the seed trays out overnight), and even barbecues have to be put in the garage, because the smell of cold grease is attracting them and they can literally rip a barbecue apart.

Being one who likes to win an argument, even with Nature, I want to try a new kind of pole that I can actually take down at night. I think Bill wishes I would just stop spending so much time and $$ on things that always get destroyed. But I am not willing to give up yet. It’s my worst trait.

Back Yard Bear: THE REVENGE!
The bear who smashed down my 3 birdfeeder poles will have a harder time pushing this one over, I hope! I always take all the feeders inside at night, but empty poles are no challenge for a beast who can easily snap a metal pole in two.

One hair-raising back yard bear story comes to mind: we used to have windowpane-mounted feeders which were great for seeing the birds close-up. Then in the middle of the night, we heard a pound-pound-pound and a CRASH. Running downstairs, we saw a large black bear standing on its hind legs at the window, swatting at the glass. We realized it would only take one paw-swipe to break the glass, and then we’d have 200 pounds of bear wandering around in our living room.

We managed to scare it away (after several tries), but the window feeders had to be taken down permanently. I thought the poles would be bear-proof, but apparently there’s no such thing. And squirrels are already trying to scale the new one, or parachuting down from the huge cedar tree in the back yard. The birds always come back, and I love them, but I can’t even add up how much time, energy and $$ I’ve spent on equipment over the past 10 years or so. I am hoping the fact I can partially dismantle the new pole at night will make a difference. But who knows. So the saga of me versus the I-don’t-care-bear continues.

(NOTE: this is actually two Facebook posts I copied and pasted. I'm just not up to blogging  a lot lately, since I am still hacking my way through the jungle of what is so delicately called "health issues". I do wonder sometimes if I am ever going to come out of this perilous woods. I feel all right, actually almost back to normal, but still have to have tests, and more tests, and lab work, and maybe even two more specialists on the other side of the lower mainland. It SUCKS and I want it to be over!)

Donald and the "fat shots": taking a shot?

DIRECT QUOTE from Donald Trump on health care and prescription drugs:

"I'll tell you a story, a friend of mine who's a business man, very very very tough guy, most of you would have heard of him, highly neurotic, brilliant businessman, seriously overweight, and he takes the fat, the fat shot, and he called me up and he said, uhhhhhh, President, he calls me President, he used to call me Donald, so that's nice respect, but he's a rough guy, smart guy, very successful, very rich, I wouldn't even know how we would know this, could I ask you a question? I'm in London, and I just paid for this damn fat drug I take, I said it's not working. He said (long pause) I just paid $88, in New York I paid $1300, what the hell is going on? He said I checked and it's the same box, made in the same plant, by the same company, the identical pill (sic), a businessman, but he's not familiar with this crazy situation that we have, but (long pause) but he was stunned, but it was just one of those stories, I brought it up with the drug companies, represented by somebody who's very very smart, good person too, and we argued about it for about half hour, and finally he just said, because they can't justify it. He just said look (long pause, then in husky voice), look, you got me. You got me. I can no longer justify, they've been justifying this crap. Years, they said oh, it's research and development" (he rambled on incoherently for another five minutes, but you get the idea. Whoever his "friend" is, does he really want to be identified with "fat shots"?)

The Saga of Abbie, the Corset Queen

                                

NOTE: I dredged this up from somewhere, and it's probably the longest post I've ever made, but the photos are simply superb, so here it is again. A very cute Victorian period poem with glorious illustrations Enjoy! 

The Saga of Abbie 

Who Is Happy And Well And Corsetted To The Limit 

by Anonymous

1 In my hourglass corset I'm laced every day,
My little wasp waist is shrinking away.
The stays squeeze me inwards so small and so nice,
In a pattern of lacing that grips like a vice.

2 When I was a child I could never understand

Why the shape of my mother was stately and grand,

But early one morning I once chanced to see

How Dad laced her corsets as tight as could be.

3 Dad said to Mama, "You're not tightened yet",

And he pulled till his forehead was glistening with sweat,

While Mother said gaspingly, "Close them you must",

While breathing so fast in her trembling bust.

4 At last Dad succeeded, the laces were tied,

An Ma was so slender, I ran to her side,

My eyes big with wonder, my mouth wide agape

As I longingly gazed at her beautiful shape.

5"O Mother, o Mother," I gasped out of plea,

"O when can I have a wasp waist for me?

A real lady's corset, all lace-trimmed and blue.

I so want to be beautiful, just like you".

6 Mother smiled as she held smelling salts to her nose,

Then she said "Ask your Daddy", and pulled on her hose,

But Daddy demurred, "We need more time to think",

But Mum whispered, "Let her", and tipped him a wink.

7 That night Mother said as we sat round the fire,

"Is a nice waspy waist what you really desire?"

"O yes, Mummy, yes. Do let it be soon".

But suddenly Mummy fell down in a swoon.

    

8 Up jumped my Daddy and went to the drawer

And took out the scissors (I'm sure that he swore)

To cut Mummy's laces. She feebly gasped,

"No, don't cut the lace", as her waistline she clasped.

9 It did not take long for my Mum to recover,

While Dad fussed around like an overwrought lover.

He said, "Listen, Abbie, now I'm warning you

That's what tight-lacing will usually do".

10 I replied, "So I faint, but I truly don't care,

I want a wasp waist like my Mummy, so there.

O, please Mummy do try dear Dad to persuade,

To let me be corsetted. Please get one made".

11 Daddy hummed and he hawd, "So that's what you say,

You're just like your Mother; she gets her own way.

If that is the garment you're dying to wear,

Tomorrow we'll go to the corsetière".

12 My anticipation was loaded with bliss,

I rewarded them both with a hug and a kiss.

That night in my bed as in slumber I curled,

I dreamt I'd the tiniest waist in the world.

13 We went the next day to the corsetières.

And inside the shop she displayed all her wares.

So graceful the shapes of the corsets and stays,

I stood there enchanted, my eyes all a-glaze.

14 She measured me up, she measured me down,

She looked through her pince-nez, her brow in a frown.

"A wasp waisted corset? We have just the thing

To make you a lady with a waist like a ring".

15 They took me upstairs, I was in such haste,

The corset was clasped round my tender young waist.

"Now come to the mirror and see with your eyes

Your waist whittled down to its tiniest size".

16 I looked in the mirror, my heart was so full,

And then on the laces I started to pull.

I wanted the tightness, so comfy to savour;

My parents had done me the loveliest favour.

17 "Do you think you can manage to lace in yourself?"

Asked Mother. In answer I grinned like an elf.

"I love the sensation", I tugged hard with zest

Till my arms ached again and I took a short rest.

18 "How do you feel?" asked the corsetière,

"It's a lovely sensation", I had to declare.

"I want to be smaller, with bosom up thrust,

And the smaller the waist the larger the bust".

19 Then mother said, "Let me start pulling you in".

"Your arms are not strong enough for you to win".

So taking the laces she started to tug;

Oh, the sheer joy of that beautiful hug.

20 "Please pull. O please pull my little waist in,

I want to be tiny, delightfully thin".

I felt the desire to endure like a saint,

But I fell to the floor in a rapturous faint.

21 I opened my eyes, and I smiled with delight.

There, I'd had my first faint in my corset so tight.

I rose to my feet and I asked, "Where's my corset?"

Mother said, "It is here, but this time don't force it".

22 "Please Mummy replace it and wrap it round me,

A wasp-waisted lady I'm dying to be.

I'm no longer a child, I'm a woman, so there,

And when I get home please put up my hair".

23 Once more in my corset, the corsetière

Pulled slowly the laces with consummate care.

"I'll not close the corset this time", she averred,

"We don't want a faint like the last", she observed.

24 Gently she pulled the laces along,

My waist became small in the corset so strong.

The stays, readjusted less tight than before,

Were fastened, but open an inch or more.

25 Across at the mirror I gazed with awe;

I stared, and could hardly believe what I saw.

My waist was a stem, a beautiful figure,

My chest looked and felt extended and bigger.

26 I saw my breast heave I was breathing so fast,

But I had an hour-glass waistline at last;

And later as Mum and I walked down the street,

We were conscious of pride in our figures so neat.

27 Then back at home the day was to face,

With a corset so tight that I could not unlace.

At lunchtime I ate up as much as the rest,

And felt that my dinner was stuck in my chest.

28 "Don't worry", said Mum at the end of the meal,

"It's only a transient discomfort you feel;

It will all pass with patience and rest,

And in time you will tackle your eating with zest".

29 I patiently got trough the rest of the day;

My corsets felt tighter, but I felt so gay,

And upwards and downwards I savoured the touch

Of the tapering body I wanted so much.

30 My waist is reduced to an eighteen inch span,

A sight for the eyes of susceptible Man.

Be it never so tight I'll endure the squeeze,

For a lady must ever appear at her ease.

31 One lovely night I went out to a dance.

My favourite swain I sought to entrance.

A corset that measured half an inch less

I wore with patience under my dress.

32 Then David my boy-friend said, as he went past,

"Our Abbie's a grown up young lady at last",

And in the first dance, he held my hand tight,

And asked "How many dances can you spare tonight?"

33 In no time at all my dance card was filled.

This night was my night, and how I was thrilled;

And as we whirled round in the gaslight so shady

I was no more a child but a regular lady.

34 My little wasp waist felt as solid as wood,

I bravely endured it as much as I could.

The joy and excitement helped me to forget it,

A wasp waist is mine, I'll never regret it.

35 And as we went round in a lighthearted whirl,

David said softly, "You beautiful Girl".

I gently responded without any haste

And daringly guided his hand round my waist.

36 And then on the lawn outside the dance floor

He placed his two hands round my waistline once more.

We kissed and we kissed, and he held me so tight,

I very near fainted with tightness that night.

37 My next tiny corset reduced by an inch

To sixteen and a half, a regular pinch.

I'm wearing the corset, awake or asleep,

My hour-glass stem I'm determined to keep.

38 Now that I'm tight in my corsets all day,

I sometimes feel consciousness fading away.

The pain and discomfort deny me my peace,

But nothing will urge me my stays to release.

39 It's my firm intention with might and main

A sixteen inch corset my size to attain.

Said Mum, "It will cost you devotion and tears

If you want a waist measure the same as your years".

40 The new corset came and was opened in haste,

A garment in elegant beauty and taste.

A sixteen inch corset with lace white and blue

To make my desire to be smaller come true.

41 "Please, Mummy, come help me the corset to try".

"You'd better ask Daddy, he's stronger than I".

So up in the bedroom, the corset was placed

Around my slim body prepared to be laced.

42 As Daddy pulled only gently at first

I felt that my up swelling bosom would burst.

The tightening in was an exquisite thrill

As I put all my trust in his strength and my will.

43 Daddy tugged on the lace until he perspired,

And the corset was closed as I had desired.

Across to the mirror I tottered to see

My new shape reflected; oh could that be me?

44 Hips flared into curves so majestic and sweet,

My chest was so large I could not see my feet.

My waist was a sensuous curve of blue,

A tight little thread that united the two.

45 As I went to the door, I knew I was pale,

But I entered the room like a ship in full sail,

My chest, as I walked swayed from side to side

And Mummy and Daddy surveyed me with pride.

46 That night in my bed, so determined was I

To sleep in my corset I wanted to try;

But try as I might, I started to weep,

For the merciless corset would not let me sleep.

47 By midnight I just couldn't stand any more,

And I tiptoed downstairs past Mum's and Dad's door,

And there on the sideboard, because it was handy,

I took a large drop of Napoleon brandy.

48 The tot was so strong, so I staggered to bed,

I fell on the mattress and lay down my head;

But sleep was denied and just would not come,

And by four in the morning my tummy was numb.

49 To breakfast I went all tired and teary,

My wasp waist had left me weepy and weary.

Said Mother, "In time you'll not feel the pinch.

Come up and I'll let it out just half an inch".

50 The pain and discomfort transcended belief,

I was grateful to Mum for providing relief.

But I was resolved that come what may,

My stays would be closed by the end of the day.

51 To hold and keep your waist small and indented

Expansion by night must be firmly prevented.

Your corsets by night will your figure be moulding,

A seductive wasp waist is an asset worth holding.

52 When I took off my stays a new pleasure I found,

Without their support I tottered around;

My uncorsetted waist was fragile and frail,

My top half would give way like a tree in a gale.

53 On opposite walls two mirrors I've placed,

So I can admire the back of my waist.

Minus my stays, of support I'm bereft,

And in rapturous pleasure I sway right and left.

54 I see in my mirror my outstanding chest,

While my heart is a-fluttering inside my breast.

A sigh of content comes up to my lips

As my burgeoning breast overhangs my hips.

55 My sixteen inch waist I now carry with ease,

My waist has adapted itself to the squeeze.

I thought I was down to my limit in size,

But the Man of My Heart thought otherwise.

56 Now Raymond my husband you must understand

Loves to caress my waist with his hand.

He said, "Now your waist is down to this size,

A waist like your neck would bedazzle my eyes".

57 'Twas the voice of the charmer, and I as his wife

Will go to extreme for the man in my life.

To be much smaller my waist must be pressed;

I'll make him so happy, I'll give of my best.

58 A corset of half an inch smaller was brought,

A body of fifteen and a half inches taut.

That evening my husband requested to lace,

And into his hands the new corset I place.

59 "Just let me relax for a moment", I said,

You can lace me in tight as I lay on the bed".

My spouse took the laces all set to begin,

And slowly but firmly he pulled my waist in.

60 He tugged at the cords till I asked him to rest,

To close the new corset would be a big test.

With only one inch left apart to defeat,

I arose with his help, and I swayed on my feet.

61 I found if I went on my hands and my knees

He could pull in my waist with more expertise;

The flesh fell away and my body felt lightened

As Raymond pulled hard and the corset was tightened.

62 He pulled and he tugged till the corset's constraint

Became far too much, and I felt a fresh faint.

With Raymond I desired no quarrel or friction,

But my waist was protesting against its restriction.

63 A last final heave and Raymond was able

To tie up the laces as taut as a cable.

He tenderly helped me to stand on my feet,

As he clasped me around his fingers could meet.

64 I hugged him and kissed him in mounting passion

My slenderness made me exult in my fashion.

Connubial bliss we have found every time,

Is enhanced by a corset, and truly sublime.

65 "I'll never remove my corset", I said,

"Until it has moulded my waist to a thread;

It shall squeeze me and train me, that's my resolution,

I'll take it off only for regular ablution".

66 Raymond's delight and encouragement worked.

From lacing my corsets my man never shirked;

And several weeks later without any haste

Another proud inch was removed from my waist.

67 At fourteen and a half my waist was my pride,

The pain and discomfort I took in my stride.

Though I sometimes have fainted because of the pinch

I'll not ease the lacing, not even an inch.

68 My hips and my bust were a sight to be seen,

My waist was a tiny tight tube in between;

Whenever I ventured alone in the street

I felt pride in the sound of following feet.

69 My husband, enraptured, was bursting with pride

At the way people stared when we walked side by side,

And often young ladies bedizened in style,

Asked, "How do you stand it and still keep a smile?"

70 If Ray wanted something, he put on the charm;

His speech became like silver while stroking my arm,

He murmured such love, so caressing his voice,

"Please, please lace in smaller", he gave me no choice.

71 I tried to demur, even put up defiance,

My smooth-tongued charmer induced my compliance.
I had to admit as he gave me a hug,
Tight-lacing had captured me, just like a drug.

72 He gave me a corset so tiny to don.

A fourteen inch body, Could I get it on?

As he pulled came Desire, to be smaller yet.

I will be fourteen inches without a regret.

73 The corset went in with a pitiless grip,

I said, "Hold the laces, don't let them slip".

Ray answered, "I'll close it by hook or by crook.

Ah, I've done it. Now go to the mirror and look".

74 "Hold me up. Raymond, darling, my knees feel so weak",

He did so, I leaned with my head to his cheek.

My waist was compressed in its captive confinement

In superlative style and rounded refinement.

75 My mirror I love, for to see myself there

With a waist like a wasp is an ecstasy rare.

There I can admire my middle so frail,

My breathing so rapid, my features so pale.

76 He held me so tight as he stood by my side,

He knew that my knees were about to subside.

My small strangled waist could be crushed in no more,

I felt my knees give and I sank to the floor.

77 A few moments later I roused with a sneeze,

For Ray had pushed my head down to my knees.

His murmuring words were of love and of praise,

But all I could say was, "Don't loosen my stays".

78 "Are you sure you can stand it", asked he.

I answered, "That only depends upon me.

I am quite determined the tightness to bear,

And I'll sleep trough the night in my corset, I swear".

79 I slowly awoke as the dawn came to creep,

And below my wasp waist my hips were asleep.

As Ray pressed my tummy with finger and thumb,

I had lost all feeling, my muscles were numb.

80 There are many sensations tight-lacing bestows,

There's a feeling of weakness from hips down to toes.

When walking your chest sways from side to side

And your waist gives way weakly if you take a big stride.

81 These lovely sensations when felt in good measure

Will give the tight-lacer a world full of pleasure.

All men will admire your delicate sway,

The envy of women will make you feel gay.

82 In spite of the pain and discomfort I felt,

I wished that my flesh could be ordered to melt.

Now Raymond has said that he'd love me to wear,

A thirteen inch corset like Madame Polaire.

83 He showed me Polaire in a corset of lace,

With an hour-glass form of perfection and grace.

"That's only a picture, it may be quite true,

But I'll have a REAL thirteen inch waist for you".

84 I wanted so much my wasp waist to maintain,

But could I endure being smaller again.

The drug of desire to be tinier still,

Has conquered my body and strengthened my will.

85 The promise of gaining a torso so trim,

To be really admired in my figure so slim

Was almost too much, I chafed at delay;

But the thirteen inch corset arrived the next day.

86 The corset was lovely, I just had to smile,

I held the stay up to admire it awhile.

"Don't let us hurry", I ventured to say,

"Enjoyment is better for a little delay".

87 Though Ray was impatient, "All right", he agreed,

"To see you laced in is a pleasure indeed.

Whilst I don't mind a little suspense,

My desire for your lovely wasp waist is intense".

88 With arms around each other we stood tightly clasped,

I could feel my heart thumping; "Please lace me", I gasped,

With a movement of joy and in trembling haste

He fitted the corset around my waist.

89 "Please place it on loosely at first", I began,

"My shape in the mirror I'd like to scan,

My fifty four inches of bust to admire,

I think my new corset can lift it up higher".

90 "I'm waiting no longer", at last he declared,

"I'm lacing you in, or will you be scared?"

I smiled at him fondly and said, "Let's begin",

And in tense excitement he was lacing me in.

91 He pulled on the laces quite gently at first,

Then tighter, still tighter, I was ready to burst.

The hold of the corset was gripping at length

As firmly he pulled with all his strength.

92 My waist in its corset was much tighter now,

I wanted it closed no matter how.

My tight little waist was protesting amain

As Raymond continued to tug once again.

93 "Don't stop, please go on," Ray responded with vigour,

While I held my breath and endured the rigor.

As Ray on the laces his finger did press,

I heard him ejaculate one word, "Success".

94 The corset was closed, I was smaller still,

My thirteen inch waist was martyring thrill.

Swaying I went to the mirror to see

My waist microscopic; oh could that be me?

95 I clasped my hands round it as tight as I could,

My waist felt as hard as a column of wood.

My fingers and thumbs almost touched front and back.

How fragile it looked, but I felt on the rack.

96 I walked up and down with unsteady stride,

Ray holding my arm as he paced by my side

My waist was protesting, I swayed like a tree,

Enjoying the weakness that came over me.

97 Ray gave me some brandy, I took it in sips.

I rested my hands of the shelf of my hips.

The cone of my bust emerged like a flower,

I could gaze at my figure for hour after hour.

98 My thirteen inch waist by now is the norm,

My waist has surrendered, I keep it in form.

My body's resistance to corsets has gone.

No more do I tight-lace, I put corsets on.

99 The envy of women, the praise from the men

Would urge me to tight-lace all over again.

So if you desire to be praised for your taste,

Wear an unyielding corset and sport a WASP WAIST.

100 My upper part sways with each step as I stride,

My burgeoning bosom I carry with pride.

The ground I can only see eight feet ahead

In my six-inch heel shoes as I daintily tread.

101 The span of my waist is a minuscule measure,

A wee link my husband adores like a treasure.

I love my wasp waist, I'm the happiest wife,

With a waist like a stem I will wear all my life.