Strumpet City

I hateeeee that we are stuck with Ian Leslie as an alternative voice to the mainstream Lennon/McCartney narrative. I don't want to rely on this man, and he possibly has the means to really shift the narrative/affect beatle literature/media. Our society depends on the perspectives of men (fuck this, but it is true unfortunately), particularly white men, especially on topics as mainstream and "male dominated" (absolute bullshit) as the Beatles. Like, we can't even get a queer white man on this!! What the fuck? That man has no idea what he is talking about when it comes to the absolute queer shit storm that is Lennon/McCartney.

Crates from every port.

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White Feathers

My Amazon review for White Feathers, a super new WWI-set novel dealing with (among other things) the practice of shaming non-combatant men into joining up by encouraging the women in their lives to present them with a white feather, symbolising their supposed cowardice. I really enjoyed this novel - as I say in the review, it's that rare beast, a 'literary page-turner'.

It can be hard for historical novels to strike the balance between inhabiting the period in which they're written and fully engaging a broad range of modern readers. White Feathers pulls this off with a vibrancy and a lightness of touch that are all the more striking when you realise that this is a debut novel.

Drawings of John Lennon by Klaus Voormann

The Threepenny Opera

Image: Dada Rundschau by Hannah Höch, 1919.

(A review from last year of the Threepenny Opera in the Gate Theatre. Trying to get this post to nestle into the correct chronological space, but Tumblr seems to have a problem with that kind of reverse-scheduling. Hence this introductory note - this review was written in October 2013.)

Seeing the show in the flesh, in the theatre, after years of exposure to the myth, is a slightly disorientating experience. The expected, stunning musical set-pieces are interspersed with narrative-prolonging longeurs, while the most famous songs (Mack The Knife and Pirate Jenny) pop up at rather incidental points in the story. The political message is less a message than an announcement, clunking the audience over the head with the complaints of the oppressed in rags.  The show itself, as presented by The Gate and directed by Wayne Jordan, is both less strange and more wonderful than I’d imagined it would be. This is a production that takes the source material seriously, as shown by the 18-piece orchestra that starts playing as soon as the curtain lifts. From then on the show dazzles with pitch-perfect (and refreshingly unamplified) singing, choreography that manages to be challenging without being confusing and costumes and set design that convey just the right amount of ragged decadence.

The lack of subtlety and nuance in the original storytelling persists through a game reimagining by Mark O’Rowe, but the music and aesthetic for which the name Threepenny Opera is synonymous more than compensates. Allusions to the present economic situation are kept mercifully subtle. This production is no exercise in superficial window-dressing – it is the very sincerity with which the cast and crew present this musical and visual feast that gives this production its extraordinary power.

Highlights include Hilda Fay as Jenny, Mark O’Regan as Mr Beecham and the aforementioned 18-piece orchestra.

Chapter 3: Rulers make bad lovers

New fic: Under his carpet

Under his carpet: Linda Eastman McCartney reflects on the ups and downs her marriage to Paul in a series of snapshots between 1968 and 1990. Chapter 1 of 5 posted.

Plinda fans/Paul superfans dni (JOKING! No sugarcoating, but not a hatchet job on either. Most of it is based on fact, but plenty is invented - speculative fiction an' all that.)

While not shying away from the darker sides of the marriage, this story is primarily intended as a character study about flawed individuals, none of whom are villains. It also explores the tension between visually appearing liberated, as many Boomer women did, and the reality of their domestic lives. A tension which is still relevant today.

Conspiracies and arson - St Patrick's Day in 1741

The Bowery Boys are two guys with a blog and podcast who serve up regular helpings of truly fascinating New York history. With erudition and infectious enthusiasm, they present the histories of countless New York landmarks, from the famous (Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge) to the obscure (the African Burial Ground and Famous Dogs of New York). Today on the blog they remember a shameful episode of the city's history from 1741, where the authorities became convinced, seemingly on no conclusive evidence, that the local slave and freed black community of the city were planning its destruction, and executed over 30 almost certainly innocent people. The Patrick's Day link reveals how the soldiers patrolling Fort George outside the city were so hungover this very morning in 1741 that they didn't catch a mystery arsonist who burned down the camp and almost let the flames spread to the city. In the febrile atmosphere of the time, when the authorities were whipping the white populace into a panicked frenzy about supposed plots, it didn't take long for blame for the fire to be put on the black population.Whoever the arsonist was, if the soldiers had been on the ball that morning the arson could have been stopped and the fire of paranoia dampened. There really are some jobs you can't turn up hungover for! 

Read the full article here. And subscribe to the podcast, it's brilliant!

what is it with dezo hoffman and taking the most erotic photos imaginable of beatles. see also: the smoky hazy sleepy paul in paris 64 pics that john supposedly owned. also a p hot one of george from the same shoot

John Lennon backstage at Stowe School in Buckinghamshire, England | 4 April 1963 © Dezo Hoffmann

"At first neither John nor I liked this picture because it was contradictory to his tidy image. But his expression and the lighting were so good that we ended up liking it. It seems to sum up John at that time." ~ Dezo Hoffmann