Apparently my director went to see a production of West Side Story a few years ago, and the guy playing Chino forgot his gun before coming out for his final scene. Once it got to the big scene where he is supposed to shoot Tony, he screeched “Poison Boots” and kicked the actor playing Tony until he went down. The girl playing Maria then had to jerk the shoe off of Chino’s foot, and had to do the gunshot scene asking “How many kicks Chino? How many kicks, and one kick left for me”.
There should be a blog dedicated to theatrical urban legends. Like that opening weekend of Dracula where Dracula (still hungover) vomited all over the audience during the first stage direction that everyone has a friend of a friend that worked on the show and was there.
or the one where the bridge never came out for Javert’s suicide and so he just pretended to stab himself and then lay there until the lights went out
best story i heard was when a friend of mine saw a show where juliet forgot to bring the dagger out on stage so she just ripped the squib out of her chest and blood squirted everywhere
During a passion play a friend of my brother was supposedly in, one of the roman soldiers who was supposed to stab jesus on the cross and accidentally grabbed the wrong spear- he was supposed to grab one with a fake tip, but instead he grabbed one with an actual metal tip and, well
Jesus screamed “JESUS CHRIST YOU STABBED ME”.
Since that Jesus had to be taken down due to a bad case of stab-itis, the backup Jesus came in, but he weighed significantly less than the original Jesus- which would have been fine, except that at the end the cross was supposed to ascend upwards with Jesus on it, and the weights hadn’t been adjusted.
So Jesus, instead, ROCKETED UP into heaven (or, just, above the stage).
reblog to give warm bread to your mutuals
Me: You know how when you were a kid and you’d wish that you’d get sick or injured in a way that would justify why you didn’t live up to your potential?
Everybody, apparently: No?
Run into a cave and break your ankle so that people have to come find you and they see you lying at the bottom of this beautiful cave and maybe there’s a waterfall and the light from the crystals makes you look really beautiful and they say “Are you okay?” and you say “I think so” and they say “oh my God have you been here alone this whole time with a broken ankle” and you say “it’s okay” and they say “you’re so brave” and you are brave and you look so beautiful surrounded by cave crystals and everyone stands over you and says “oh wow” and “you poor beautiful thing” and “I’m so sorry we let you run into the cave but I’m so glad we found you” and let them carry you home and promise to be your best friends forever and that everything’s their fault and also they named the cave after you and you’re prettier than all of your enemies and your enemies all died of jealousy while you were in the cave.
“How to Respond to Criticism” by Danny M. Lavery for The Toast
the most powerful wizard in the aquarium summons his dinner
the prince has begun practicing curtseying in the mirror. which could mean nothing.
we have good news and bad news, my liege. the good news is that we now know what that curtsying was about: you will be pleased to know that, after several heartfelt conversations between your child, the court jesters and a myriad of singing woodland creatures, you are now the parent of a proud and joyful new princess. the bad news is that, due to a series of events related to the dragon-sized hole in her bedchamber wall,
only 3 out of the 43 total vessels in the sumud flotilla are still sailing. the other 40 are either intercepted or assumed intercepted.
keep your eyes on this. we cannot be passive. we need to hold the iof accountable for this illegal attack in international waters.
here is the list of officials, by country, that you can email. you can choose to email an automated letter, or use a provided template for a more personalized email.
During lockdown I worked on two projects: one was a ditch that needed to be cleared out of tules and cattails but turtles lived there. So I’d follow the excavator scooping out the vegetation and make sure no turtles were trapped in it, and if they were, freeing them and putting them in a safe part of the ditch. It’s extremely muddy, sticky work. Hold on, I have a photo of one of the guys:
ALTNo one is having a good time.
The OTHER project was going to destroy rare salamander habitat and so we had to buy some appropriate habitat. But every mitigation bank was sold out. I found a guy selling future mitigation bank credits through the powers of making a lot of phone calls and then, through the power of polite requests, got our Wildlife Agency rep to sign off on this plan. Except. You can’t say “I gave seven figures to a guy who promises to someday make habitat”, that guy could abscond. You also can’t be like “I supes promise to pay for mitigation AFTER the project.” because WE could not pay out. We were, for various reasons, disinclined to delay the project. The Wildlife Agency rep — bless her, she really held my hand through this whole process — was like “how about you put the money in escrow?” Great. A plan.
So I call an escrow company — which was not an organization used to being cold-called, much less by someone standing next to an excavator, covered in mud. I was trying to provide only the information needed to enable success and NOT go on a five-ten minute rant on salamander life cycles. Also I was DEEPLY out of my depth.
“Hi! I was wondering if you could hold money in an escrow account for a longer period?”
“… Well, in some circumstances we can hold it for up to 90 days — but we’d need to know the circumstances.”
“Ah! I need someone to hold it for up to two years? Do you know of any companies who’d be able to help me?”
“What. What is happening with the house that this is necessary?”
“Oh uh. It’s not a house, per se, it’s a rare salamander mitigation bank. It needs to be built.”
“The salamanders need a custom house?”
“No no no no no uh. They need a pond. We’re paying someone to make a pond. But! They need time to make the pond. Hence the escrow account. So. Who could?”
“So like a lizard house?”
“They are amphibians?”
“Let me. Transfer you to my supervisor.”
<after a pause a different person comes on the line but also unfortunately at this moment the excavator operator fishes a turtle out of the ditch.>
“Hi! Sorry one second I need to put down the phone to help a turtle.” <interlude> “Thank you so much for waiting! I’m back! Can you talk to me about escrow options?”
“What was happening with the turtle?”
“Oh it was trapped in some cattails but I got it out. Sorry for putting down the phone — you need both hands to grab them because they bite! I need an escrow account to hold funds for up to two years?”
“For a house for lizards? Are you a zoo?”
“Ah! Salamanders, actually! And a mitigation bank, not a house. I actually work for X organization.”
“What is a mitigation bank?” (The critical question!)
“Oh when you’re building something and need to impact some rare species habitat you can pay someone to make new rare species habitat.”
“Huh.”
“But this habitat is incomplete! It doesn’t have a pond. So my organization won’t pay until AAAAAAAAA excuse me sorry I fell into a ditch. My organization needs there to be a pond there before they pay for the property. So one path forward is an escrow account.”
“Are you OK?”
“Yes absolutely!”
“What’s the cost of this bank?”
“Two million dollars.”
<the tenor of the conversation became markedly warmer at this point.>
“OK if you get my your contact information then I’ll email you some options and then we can discuss — do you have time now?”
“Unfortunately I do not have email access right this second. Also I need to get out of the ditch. Could we put a pin in this conversation and circle back tomorrow?”
“Of course, I look forward to working with your organization?”
“Thank you so much!”
“Good luck with the. Ditch. And turtles?”
“Thank you! Have a great day!”
my immediate reaction is to scroll past and ignore this but i really do need to internalize it. trouble is, i’m so used to repressing my own needs that i genuinely have trouble figuring out what they even are
For me, it's "friends" instead of "partners," but yeahhhhh
Well played Merriam-Webster.
“There is artificial intelligence, and there is actual intelligence” 🎤🫳
Toad Words
Frogs fall out of my mouth when I talk. Toads, too.
It used to be a problem.
There was an incident when I was young and cross and fed up with parental expectations. My sister, who is the Good One, has gold fall from her lips, and since I could not be her, I had to go a different way.
So I got frogs. It happens.
“You’ll grow into it,” the fairy godmother said. “Some curses have cloth-of-gold linings.” She considered this, and her finger drifted to her lower lip, the way it did when she was forgetting things. “Mind you, some curses just grind you down and leave you broken. Some blessings do that too, though. Hmm. What was I saying?”
I spent a lot of time not talking. I got a slate and wrote things down. It was hard at first, but I hated to drop the frogs in the middle of the road. They got hit by cars, or dried out, miles away from their damp little homes.
Toads were easier. Toads are tough. After awhile, I learned to feel when a word was a toad and not a frog. I could roll the word around on my tongue and get the flavor before I spoke it. Toad words were drier. Desiccated is a toad word. So is crisp and crisis and obligation. So are elegant and matchstick.
Frog words were a bit more varied. Murky. Purple. Swinging. Jazz.
I practiced in the field behind the house, speaking words over and over, sending small creatures hopping into the evening. I learned to speak some words as either toads or frogs. It’s all in the delivery.
Love is a frog word, if spoken earnestly, and a toad word if spoken sarcastically. Frogs are not good at sarcasm.
Toads are masters of it.
I learned one day that the amphibians are going extinct all over the world, that some of them are vanishing. You go to ponds that should be full of frogs and find them silent. There are a hundred things responsible—fungus and pesticides and acid rain.
When I heard this, I cried “What!?” so loudly that an adult African bullfrog fell from my lips and I had to catch it. It weighed as much as a small cat. I took it to the pet store and spun them a lie in writing about my cousin going off to college and leaving the frog behind.
I brooded about frogs for weeks after that, and then eventually, I decided to do something about it.
I cannot fix the things that kill them. It would take an army of fairy godmothers, and mine retired long ago. Now she goes on long cruises and spreads her wings out across the deck chairs.
But I can make more.
I had to get a field guide at first. It was a long process. Say a word and catch it, check the field marks. Most words turn to bronze frogs if I am not paying attention.
Poison arrow frogs make my lips go numb. I can only do a few of those a day. I go through a lot of chapstick.
It is a holding action I am fighting, nothing more. I go to vernal pools and whisper sonnets that turn into wood frogs. I say the words squeak and squill and spring peepers skitter away into the trees. They begin singing almost the moment they emerge.
I read long legal documents to a growing audience of Fowler’s toads, who blink their goggling eyes up at me. (I wish I could do salamanders. I would read Clive Barker novels aloud and seed the streams with efts and hellbenders. I would fly to Mexico and read love poems in another language to restore the axolotl. Alas, it’s frogs and toads and nothing more. We make do.)
The woods behind my house are full of singing. The neighbors either learn to love it or move away.
My sister—the one who speaks gold and diamonds—funds my travels. She speaks less than I do, but for me and my amphibian friends, she will vomit rubies and sapphires. I am grateful.
I am practicing reading modernist revolutionary poetry aloud. My accent is atrocious. Still, a day will come when the Panamanian golden frog will tumble from my lips, and I will catch it and hold it, and whatever word I spoke, I’ll say again and again, until I stand at the center of a sea of yellow skins, and make from my curse at last a cloth of gold.
Terri Windling posted recently about the old fairy tale of frogs falling from a girl’s lips, and I started thinking about what I’d do if that happened to me, and…well…
The Worm Guy
You've possibly seen me refer to my husband as The Worm Guy and muttered 'wtf' before scrolling on.
See, one day, the rain had stopped and the sun had come out. My husband looked out the window and sighed.
"Well, I guess I can go for a walk after all," he said, looking morose.
"But honey, " I said, "you like going for walks..."
"Yeah," he said. "But it stopped raining. So I'm going to spend my whole walk picking up worms from the sidewalk so they don't dry out and die."
"That is a very kind, very you thing to do," I said, still not getting why he was looking so glum.
"All the neighbors see me. And they all say 'Hey, there goes the Worm Guy!'"
Fast forward to today.
Miss Major, one of the mothers of the trans liberation movement, has been in the hospital for 10 days with sepsis and a blood clot.
She has looked out for us for generations, now it’s time to look out for her. Donate if you can: fundly.com/missmajor
Auk mug, Egersunds Fayancefabrik and Jacob Kielland Sømme, designed ca. 1910 (production 1930s)
Delightful avian whimsy + pottery = relevant to the interests of @elodieunderglass
Enchanting; thank you so much!