One of the great masters of drawing, and made famous through the wacky inventions featured in the film of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Like Thelwell, Papas, Searle and Tenniel, Emett got exposure through the pages of Punch. Today, he is as much one of the fathers of Steam Punk as he is the natural successor to Heath Robinson.
Here is my take on his idea about Economics:
I have been drawing the opening sequence for my documentary about Edward Lear, “Following Lear”. Here is the latest version with some detail:
It is a complex scene featuring a swing in a music hall.
One of my early memories of watching black and white tv was of a girl on a swing in “the Good Old Days”. I think that swing was brought out on a number of occasions actually, and at least once, in the 25th Anniversay season, Les Dawson was strapped to it in drag. It was generally there for the song “Swing me just a little bit higher, Obadiah do”. It made a lyric loaded with innuendo seem homely and very jolly.
The music hall was full of daring routines and “the Good Old days” captured some of that spirit throwing acrobats and trapeze artistes directly into the auditorium. In the mid 19th Century, there was a craze for tightrope walking over the heads of the audience. Brilliant! I wonder how often there were accidents?
One of the early films made by Dame Joan Collins in 1955 was about Evelyn Nesbit Thaw, tied up in a messy muder trial and called “the Girl in the red velvet swing”. Of course, at a time when she was dazzling in BA and Cinzano adverts, she went on to make a slightly more scandalous film featuring an aquatic swing that arguably re-ignited her career, was based on a book by her sister Jackie, and somewhat incongruously, propelled her as staple fodder for family viewing in nearly a decade of “Dynasty”. What seemed very daring in the “Stud” and the “Bitch”, however, would today seem tame, and the thought of an A- grade star like Joan Collins getting involved in such stuff would no longer raise an eyebrow, particularly after Gielgud, Helen Mirren and O’Toole romped through “Caligula” at the end of the 80s.
I like the “Girl in the Red Velvet swing” though; it treats the subjects rather better than the subsequent film “Ragtime” which is both pedestrian and laboured. The publicity photos for La Collins, moreoever, are a treat. They are even better than the movie! Doesn’t she look radiant!
There is also a swing scene, though fairly modest in “the Boyfriend”, designed by Tony Walton and a great scene in an early Angela Lansbury film,”Till the Clouds roll by” .
I think I have now looked at almost all the swings in the movies!
The problem with swings is that every single frame represents a change in perspective- a nighmare for 2d drawing and I have had a few attempts so far. I am quietly pleased with the lastest effortwhich I will work on over the next month.
The music is by David Watson and the song is sung by Thomasin Tresize. If the spirit of the animation is a bit racy, I suppose that is to do with Joan Collins as much as with the hint of naughtiness that Tom suggests as she sings it!
I think it is meditative of course…. I tried to time the swing to the bars of music and it looks too premeditated- a bit like an early Mickey Mouse film. The idea of timing animation to hit the beat gave the whole screen animation/ music industry a very bad name, and it is bizarre that this was taking place at exactly the same time that Astaire was developing his technique of dancing OFF the beat. It’s when the dancer hits the beat at a specific moment that the magic happens. So the swinging motion is now independent of the beat (just).
Here’s the sequence partly storyboarded:
and here is an early sketch:
http://hiphopdx.com/news/id.44401/title.russian-rap-battle-racks-up-15m-views-in-3-days#
Russian Rap Battle Racks Up 15M Views In 3 Days
August 16, 2017 | 7:20 PM
by Somhairle Cinnsealach
Russian Rap Battle Racks Up 15M Views In 3 Days
YouTube/versusbattleru
“War and Peace.” “Crime and Punishment.” Oxxxymiron vs. Slava KPSS.
All triumphs of Russian penmanship.
While even America’s most popular rap battlers generally max out at a few million YouTube views (a milestone that can sometimes take years to reach), Russian league Versus is sprinting past its competition — already racking up almost 15 million views on an hour-long video that came out on August 13.
The battle, which went down in St. Petersburg earlier in August, went crazy-viral in Russia, a country famous for its prowess with the written word.
We can’t understand any of it, of course, but if you’re confident in your Russian-speaking abilities then check out the battle below.
One of the competitors, Oxxxymiron, had been undefeated until he came up against his opponent, who took the W after a unanimous decision from the five judges.
As one of Russia’s biggest Hip Hop figures, Oxxxymiron’s battle rap showings have always generated huge interest, but nothing on this scale before.
According to a detailed piece by The Calvert Journal, “Even RIA Novosti, one of the biggest Russian news agencies, has published four news stories and a large feature on the battle in the last two days.”
After his defeat, Oxxxymiron shared an in-depth Instagram post following the battle.
168.1k likes
4,755 comments
Пара слов о баттле (спойлеры) 1. После драки кулаками не машут (объясните это СТ, который до сих пор доказывает, что выиграл). Поэтому судейское решение я, разумеется, принимаю. 2. На мероприятии были судьи, потому что я поставил такое условие. Вариант “мы час срем друг друга просто так, для взаимного промо” был для меня исключен, т.к. это не дружеский матч. Поражений, в отличие от забытого текста, я никогда не боялся, поэтому настоял на том, чтобы баттл судили – и считаю, что это было верное решение. 3. Почему я проиграл? Потому что, как и на прежних баттлах, ушел в лирические отступления, которые мне реально интересно писать, в отличие от бесконечного “сетап-панч, сетап-панч”. Возможно, я по жизни слишком зациклился на том, что в свое время повлиял на баттлрэп – а вместо этого мне самому стоит поучиться у баттловиков, чей мир с тех пор перерос в нечто иное и самостоятельное. Хотя гонка за количеством панчей все еще кажется мне довольно унылым подходом к баттлам. Но и мой подход “проповедник а-ля Loaded Lux” явно требует корректировки на будущее. Не будь проигрыша – я бы, наверное, так и не осознал, что нужен апгрейд. Апгрейд будет, Нарния пока подождет. 4. От всего мероприятия получил дикий кайф. Единственный облом – “поддержка” Версуса. С таким же успехом мы могли сразу пойти на Слово с 10 корешами – именно столько человек активно топило за нас, остальные версус-резиденты были типа слишком крутыми, чтобы высказывать саппорт рэперам своей лиги, как это делала толпа от Слово (по видео все очевидно, я думаю). Ну и сливщики инфы – конченые. 5. Make Battle Rap Great Again: сказано – сделано, это был исторический баттл. Оппонент молодец. Может теперь кто-нибудь поймет, что я не забронзовевшая статуя, не все всегда просчитываю, и готов рискнуть всем чисто по фану, из спортивного интереса. И вскоре сделаю это снова)
5 DAYS AGO
Google Chrome’s translation of Oxxxymiron’s Instagram post goes on to explain why he felt he lost the clash, and why there are no hard feelings.
“Why did I lose? Because, like on the previous battles, I went into lyrical digressions, which I really enjoy writing, unlike the endless “setup-punch, setup-punch.” Maybe I’m too focused on life, That at one time influenced the Battleplay – and instead I myself should learn from the Battlists, whose world has since grown into something different and independent. Although the race for the amount of panche still seems to me a rather dull approach to the battles. But my approach “preacher a la Loaded Lux” clearly requires adjustments for the future. Without losing – I probably would not have realized that I needed an upgrade. Upgrade will be, Narnia will wait.”
“Make Battle Rap Great Again: said – done, it was a historical battle. Opponent well done. Maybe now someone will understand that I’m not a moribund statue, I do not always calculate everything, and I’m ready to risk everything purely for fans, out of sports interest. And I’ll do it again soon).”
from Hiphopdx.com
After writing about St Theodore, I was sent a copy of an icon of St Theodora, whose feast is on 11th September, a very different saint, though, to the Empress found in mosaics around the Church of Agia Sophia in Istanbul. There are very few images of this Theodora. This is my version here-
A few years ago I was in Northern Albania searching for the women who dressed as men in local villages. Maybe they no longer exist, but that tradition goes back some way and seems, from this story, to have Christian precedence. (in contradiction of Deut 22.5 and maybe of 1 Tim 2.9) I think St Theodora is a model for the Twenty-first Century!
St Theodora was an early ascetic from the Fifth Century, during the reign of the Emperor Zeno. She was among 10 women who lived and dressed as men in Oktodeka, one of the many monasteries surrounding Alexandria. The abbot simply assumed she was a eunuch.
At some point, she was accused and presented with a child that she was supposed to have fathered with some serving wench. Together they were expelled from the Monastery. Now, the hagiography makes a great point of telling us that the child was not hers and that the tales were fabricated; it is also not at all clear at thispoint that any of the other monks actually realised she was a woman. However, there is also a story of an adulterous affair that she had while she was still married to her god-fearing husband, Paphnutios. She seemed to have been told by a fortune-teller that if a sin was committed during the dark and that if no one else could see, then God would not see it either. She was distraught and sought the advice of an abbess who heard her confession, and reminded her that Mary had washed Christ’s feet with her tears. It was repentance for this affair that drove her into the monastery in the first place.
A period of repentence passed while she and the child wandered around the desert and they were then readmitted to the monastery. She had brought the child up as her own and while he seems unnamed, he is recorded to have been a godly and good boy in all respects. When she died, the abbot was astonished to find that Theodora was a woman and not a man after all.
What happened to Paphnutios? After his wife’s death, he seems to have been inspired to become a monk as well. Oh! And her “son” ultimately became abbot.
While the story is riddled with holes, it nevertheless makes very good reading and St Theodora emerges rather well as an early Christian version of Victor/Victoria or Mulan. Whether she had illicit sex once or twice does not seem to matter much- she took responsibility for the child who had been given to her (think of the teacher in “the Corn is Green” by Emlyn Williams- do you remember Toyah Wilcox as the naughty girl who leads Morgan Evans astray?) and seems to have kept herself to herself so much that even her supposed gender remained unknown.
It is tempting to see in St Theodora some sort Patron of the modern age, perhaps more clearly than the highly colourful and embellished story of the soldiers St Sergius and St Bacchus (or of Juventinus and Maximus martyred about 50 years’ later). Their story is improbable and the actual text (the passion) is full of anachronisms. Their humiliation when they refused to sacrifice to Jupiter was to be paraded in women’s clothing and beaten to death – that happened to others too. A “John Boswell” from Yale fairly recently suggested that Sergius and Bacchus were in fact lovers, described in a martyrology as erastai. He argues that before their execution, they were married in a rite called adelphopoieis and had received some form of Church blessing. All this is a bit spurious. John Boswell’s claims, nevertheless, make fantastic reading, but that, I am afraid is where it ends. He describes a civil ceremony for the emperor Basil I and a mass gay wedding taking place in the Lateran. Even if his claims were about a Wagnerian-style “Blut–Brüderschaft“, I find it odd that it should ever have taken place in the Lateran. But as the present incumbent of the Lateran might now say, “Who are we to judge?” Indeed!
Here are a few screenshots of a sketch of the Bridesmaids’ chorus from TRIAL BY JURY.
Here is a first colour version:
This is the preferred version:
see: https://animate-tim.com/2017/05/16/a-few-thoughts-about-trial-by-jury/
animate-tim.com 