Thursday, February 11, 2010

Google Darlington



Interesting stuff - here's The Mystery of Darlington Manor, "A Dramatic Adventure for Castle Falkenstein."

And then there's The history and antiquities of the parish of Darlington published in 1854 - ooh, research for my story.

And here's Darlington House, a fancy-schmancy restaurant.

Ooh, and I was Elvis Presley's Bastard Love Child by Andrew Darlington. OK, getting pretty far afield now.

back to the Curse

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Sunday, January 31, 2010

The Mermaid & Tam Lin



Here's a performance of "The Mermaid" a folk song I used in the last installment of "The Darlington Curse." The song is #289 of the Child Ballads

I adapted Child Ballad #39 - "Tam Lin" into a play several years ago, and now wonder if it cursed me.

The lyrics in this video clip of "The Mermaid" are slightly different from the version I used in Darlington.

And speaking of Darlington, and yet again.

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Friday, January 29, 2010

Hot Man in Regency Period Clothing of the Week - January 29, 2010



Here we see the hot Regency man very conspicuously displaying his hat label. This comes by way of the previously mentioned Oregon Regency Society. On their "description" page they rightly identify Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres as a prime source of Regency imagery. Although if I know my Ingres, this image, although interesting, and the guy is pretty cute (the outfit helps) is not by Ingres.



Well which will it be first: sonnet or Darlington?

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Monday, January 25, 2010

pangs of love


Echo from mythology

It's time for the old pangs of despised love in Darlington

Darlington Literotica excerpt report:

Readers: 877
Votes: 8
Rating: 3.50

I should mention that my story "Victorian Boots" which has been online for almost two years now has had 4278 readers, 8 votes and a rating of 3.25 - so I guess I'm becoming a better prose writer.

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Friday, January 22, 2010

Hot Man in Regency Period Clothing of the Week - January 22, 2010



Is it Friday already?

Here we see Colin Firth looking good as Mr. Darcy - with some handy call-outs explaining what the various parts of his costume are called. I just saw Colin Firth on the Daily Show the other night. As Jon Stewart said: "set your TV for 'handsome'"

Well still no feedback on my Darlington excerpt on Literotica, but the statistics have changed: now it's been viewed by 807 readers, been rated by 8 and its score has raised slightly to 3.50. I guess that last person quite liked it.

I just realized I've been writing this story for 5 months now. Here's the latest installment.

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Thursday, January 14, 2010

practical magic



DC33

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Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Ritual time in Darlington



You never know when you're going to have to call in a psychic exterminator.

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Friday, January 08, 2010

Hot Man in Regency Period Clothing of the Week - January 8 edition



Wow it is hard to find a variety of images of Ben Whishaw as Keats in Bright Star. In most of the pix available online he's wearing the same old blue suit. Granted he's poor and no doubt doesn't have many suits, and he does look nice in the blue suit, but come on! It took me forever to find this one picture (above) in which he's wearing something else besides the blue suit. There was one scene in Bright Star in which Keats participates in chamber music singing with a large group of young men, every last one of them wearing Regency period clothing. I love that scene and can't find one single image of it online. I guess I'll have to wait until the film is available online and take screen shots.

At least there's now a different trailer online:





Speaking of the Regency period, it's the first Darlington installment of 2010.

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Wednesday, December 30, 2009

time for a garden par-tay!



Of course, some people are never satisfied...

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Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Regency stand-up?

I guess they didn't have stand-up comedy in Regency England. But they did have the early incarnation of Pantomime



Oh look, it's Paul O'Grady's Panto!



The British can be extremely strange.

Speaking of which...

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Sunday, December 20, 2009

demonology



This latest episode of the Darlington Curse mentions sulfur again - which as we know is the mark of demons. The Long Island Paranomal Investigators provide more info on the identification of demons.

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Friday, December 18, 2009

Hot Man in Regency Period Clothing of the Week - December 18 edition

From "Becoming Jane" James McAvoy shows how to wear a waistcoat.



Ooh - this trailer of "Becoming Jane" has a clip - alas all too brief - from the excellent Jane voyeristically watching the guys skinny-dipping scene.



Meanwhile, the Darlington episodes are coming fast and furious...

I herewith apologize to all my readers who have been justly dismayed by the depravity..."

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Thursday, December 17, 2009

the left-hand path



The philosophical implications of taking the left-hand path.

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Wednesday, December 16, 2009

even in Darlington



Disillusionment happens even in Darlington.

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Sunday, December 13, 2009

Faire une pipe - c'est-ca sais?

I know not how long I lay...

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Saturday, December 12, 2009

weehee!



More jolly times in Darlington

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Friday, December 11, 2009

Hot Man in Regency Period Clothing of the Week - Dec. 11 2009

Is it Friday already? It must be time for the Hot Man in Regency Period Clothing of the Week. I think it's appropriate to feature some major cravat action here:



Some helpful info:

Cravat variations



Waistcoat


The waistcoat image comes by way of the Oregon Regency Society. Who knew there was an Oregon Regency Society?


Bonus hot guy - "Mr. Darcy" models a man's Regency period shirt - which did not unbutton all the way down, as you can see.

This information will all be very helpful for the next DC installment.

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Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Les Fleurs du Mal


The Absinthe Drinker by Viktor Oliva

Somebody surely does love absinthe.

I am undone.

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Friday, November 27, 2009

le fee verte



The French surely did love their absinthe.

Oliver Acton, not so much...

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Friday, November 13, 2009

that darn Chesterton!



Chesterton is stuck...

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Thursday, November 12, 2009

alrighty then...



Well that's better....

I paused for a moment

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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

falling readership?

Geez, if nobody's going to read my story I don't know why I should bother writing it...

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Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Trying to throw your arms around the world...



Lyrics:

Six o'clock in the morning
You're the last to hear the warning
You've been trying to throw your arms
Around the world
You've been falling off the sidewalk
Your lips move but you can't talk
Tryin' to throw your arms around the world

Sunrise like a nosebleed
Your head hurts and you can't breathe
You been tryin' to throw you arms around the world
How far you gonna go
Before you lose your way back home
You've been trying to throw your arms
Around the world

Yeah, I dreamed that I saw Dali
With a supermarket trolley
He was trying to throw his arms around a girl
He took an open top beetle
Through the eye of a needle
He was tryin' to throw his arms around the world

I'm gonna run to you, run to you, run to you
Woman be still
I'm gonna run to you, run to you, run to you
Oh, Woman I will

(And you just gotta, you just gotta make your faith...see...)

Nothin' much to say I guess
Just the same as all the rest
Been trying to throw your arms around the world
And a woman needs a man
Like a fish needs a bicycle
When you're tryin' to throw your arms around the world

I'm gonna run to you, run to you, run to you
Woman be still
I'm gonna run to you, run to you, run to you
Woman I will

-------

This song wins the award for "Best use of the feminist motto 'a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle' in a song"

This is not Betsy's motto, alas.

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Saturday, October 24, 2009

prancing pony



The Prancing Pony, as we all know, is where Aragorn liked to get his drink on.

His blue eyes sparkle and he prances like a pony and makes silly jests and talks and talks (not Aragorn)

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Friday, October 16, 2009

dreamy dreams



The Darlington Curse or The Curse of Darlington??? Apparently the Town of Grimsby has been getting its ass kicked by Darlington for 31 years now.

ooh that sexy Keats and his dreams...

And look - Ben Whishaw, who played Keats, has the same birthday as Katha Pollitt.

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Thursday, October 15, 2009

Tea time



eventually in any English story, there will be tea...

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Thursday, October 08, 2009

good morning



Time for a story - here's hoping you had a better night than Oliver Acton.

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Friday, October 02, 2009

back to fantasy



All this excitement has almost made me forget my story.

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Thursday, September 24, 2009

Freemasonry & Dan Brown

Well the Masons don't seem nearly as annoyed at Dan Brown's book about their group as the Catholic Church was about "The DaVinci Code" - nevertheless, the National Geographic felt the need to debunk Masonic myths in its latest issue.

The most fun thing about Masonry, from what I know, is the role it played in "Die Zauberflote." I was first introduced to that opera through "Amadeus" one of my favorite movies. Speaking of which - it's a good excuse to show a bit from that movie - and this exerpt includes my Facebook friend Christine Ebersole.

Although I always found it odd that they disparage Mozart's appearance in this movie: "looks and talent don't always go together" - I think Tom Hulce is extremely cute here - especially in those cute little jackets they wore back then.



And everybody loves the Papageno/Papagena duet! Birds of a feather...




And speaking of roughly that time period...

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Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Autumn equinox

Today is the first day of autumn, the most soulful and yet the most sensual season. And it's Krugman day. And on top of that, this Saturday is the Emily Dickinson reading marathon in Amherst and I'm on the reading team. Wow, too much excitement.

Plus the playwriting and fiction writing.

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Friday, September 18, 2009

bright star, big city



Ooh, the NYTimes really likes "Bright Star".

I have no qualms whatsoever about watching a movie solely for the fun of seeing guys in Regency period costumes (see "Becoming Jane"), but this is a bonus: "That Fanny and Keats must sublimate their longings in letters, poems and conversations seems cruel, but they make the best of it. As does Ms. Campion: a sequence in which, fully clothed, the couple trades stanzas of “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” in a half-darkened bedroom must surely count as one of the hottest sex scenes in recent cinema."

And boy if anybody knows about sublimation, it's me. Speaking of which...

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Monday, September 14, 2009

Love & lucid dreaming

A lucid dream is a dream in which the sleeper is aware that he or she is dreaming. I find this a very interesting phenomenon. I've never been able to pull one off for more that an instant before waking up, but there are supposedly techniques you can use to prolong your dream while you are aware you are dreaming. But what if you are in a lucid dream and you feel like you will never wake up - what if you are trapped in a lucid dream?

A lucid dream is the best metaphor I can think of for what I've experienced over the past couple of years. I fell in love with someone with whom I intuited would probably not return my feelings, in spite of getting along well and having many things in common and having a happy facility for creating beauty together. This last part especially caused me to develop a feeling - a beautiful dream - of what it would be like to have a romantic relationship with the man. And the dream is so beautiful that even when I was ex-communicated by the one I loved - I can't seem to fully wake up from the dream. I know it's a dream - and yet I keep dreaming. I do occasionally get glimmers of hope for the attainment of full consciousness - sometimes I hear the alarm clock in the distance, sometimes I feel my cat hitting me in the face, sometimes I can smell the coffee, but I just can't quite attain full consciousness.

And while the struggle continues I pour the dream into art - poetry, fiction, plays, even music. Because I find it diverting and therapuetic, but also because it would be good if something besides anguish could come from this freakish grey netherworld. And perhaps I may even one day realize with my full emotions as well as my brain, that in fact it did turn out for the best - the art I derived from the experience was far more worthwhile, much more real, than any sure-to-be-fleeting happiness I might have had from an actual relationship with such a person. And so the process continues.

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Saturday, September 12, 2009

Then she placed a hand on each side of my face

very gently and brought her lips to mine, but not quite touching.

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Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Good women live on stage

Well who said evil people are useless? Without the nasty women who inspired me with their petty mean-spiritedness, I would never have written The Good Women of Morningside - now it's going to be performed at the Chatterton playlab September 26 & 27 - I wonder if they'll come and see it? But now I know who they are and what they look like, probably not. And of course they are also inspirations for a couple of characters in my ongoing saga, although not in this latest installment.

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Friday, September 04, 2009

D9



When I next saw Betsy, I informed her of this strange fight.

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Thursday, September 03, 2009

Mongoose vs. Cobra



Pretty eerie music for that. Here's more eerieness.

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Tuesday, September 01, 2009

DC7



Soon our "get acquainted session" as Lady Hilliard called it came to an end and I prepared to depart

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Sunday, August 30, 2009

Tips for drinkers

from Marcus Porcius Cato c. 200BC
If you wish to drink deep at a banquet and to enjoy your dinner, eat as much raw cabbage as you wish, seasoned with vinegar, before dinner, and likewise after dinner eat some half a dozen leaves; it will make you feel as if you had not dined, and you can drink as much as you please.


fiction set c. 1800 AD

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Saturday, August 29, 2009

Dulcissime



DC5

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Friday, August 28, 2009

D4



time for tea

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Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Darlington Curse 3



Mr. Oliver Acton?" I said, extending my hand. He shook it and reached into his waistcoat pocket and produced a small leaf of paper on which he wrote in pencil: "Do you believe me?"

"I have not made up my mind." I said, truthfully. "It does strain credulity."

He beckoned me follow him down the lane on the west side of the grounds.


D3

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Sunday, August 23, 2009

The Darlington Curse part 2


I did not see the Cornings very often - they had moved into a small estate down the road in 1811 and we never had much cause to socialize - the Cornings were homebodies and I did all my socializing at the neighborhood pub and the Literary Society."

The reader, I hope, will have patience with me for stopping the narrative here - I said I would reprint the letter in its entirety and so I shall. However, I wanted to give a little background about Mrs. Corning at this point...
more...

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Thursday, August 20, 2009

The Darlington Curse

by N. G. McClernan

The first in a multi-part serialization...



more...

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