Digital Photo editing + Poetry collage example

This is a piece I made inspired by the recent slew of anti-trans legislation being pushed in America, as well as my own experiences dealing with the psychiatric and medical system as a trans person pursuing gender-affirming care. 

Final Reflection

 And like that, Winter is over. Spring has come again, and somehow I've grown another year. Keeping this blog has been an interesting experience, and an overwhelmingly positive one. I have always struggled with the notion of my academic creativity and personal creativity being two different planets, and while that still feels true to some extent, this blog has helped me bridge that gap in some way. It's a middle ground, where I can post about whatever I'm working on, while also following the protocol of the larger blogging assignment. It's also been an interesting avenue for personal updates, and it's wonderful to notice the way my posts improved, both in quality and tone, as I began to take better care of myself, both physically and emotionally. On this blog, I shared my poetry, my and my family's art, my projects, and bits and pieces of my personal life. My favorites are by far my draft for my poem "The Aftermath of the Larger Forgottonia Rapture" and my photo-poetry. Overall, I think I will return to this blog throughout college, to continue to share my journey and the projects I make, to keep "The Academic Confessional" living up to it's name.

As a child, I had a blog called "The Sunflower Press". I only made three posts because to me, I had nothing to write about then. My life was that of an unremarkable kid. While I know that child would be proud now for my abundance of life-writing material and art projects, I wish I would have written more about my life then, in all it's fullness and beautiful simplicity. Life is much more interesting at nineteen than it is ten, but much more complicated and exhausting, or so I've learned. And I'll keep learning!

Overall, I feel like keeping this blog has taught me the importance of an easily accessible and not-often-read creative outlet. No matter who I become, or where I end up, creativity and especially writing will be a constant companion throughout my life.

Fanfiction Exploration Assignment

I was very excited when I saw this assignment. I have been writing fanfiction for fun and as a kind of "warm up" for my writing sessions, as I find it's something I can write without having to worry about it being "the best" necessarily. Recently, I have been out sick, and between trying to stay abreast with schoolwork, I've been writing fanfiction, as a way to give my brain a break from academic projects while still having it in what I've dubbed "writing mode".

While it doesn't fit any of the prompts above, here is a piece I recently wrote about the characters from "O Brother Where Art Thou", one of my favorite movies. The movie itself, one could argue, is fanfiction. It's a loose retelling of The Odyssey, instead of the commanding Ulysses escaping off of Calypso's Island with his men in tow, "Ulysses Everett McGill" busts off a penal farm in 1935, with two fellow inmates. Their goals and obstacles are strikingly similar, however. Our brave heroes face railyard oracles, politicians, baptism, sirens, possible amphibious transmogrification, and polythemus the cyclops in the form of a Mississippi Bible salesman. While that is exciting in and of itself, one of the things in this movie that I found really compelling, was the nature of the relationship between Everett's accomplices, Pete and Delmar. For a friendship between two men, depicted between escaped convicts in the 1930s, it's surprisingly tender- and affectionate. The two constantly hold each other through hardship, sling an arm around the other’s shoulder, hug, and even hold hands when they both think they're about to die. When the pair is baptized by the New Revival Congregation (representing the Lotus Eaters of yore), it is Delmar who convinces Pete to join him. Additionally, while Pete seems to enjoy the company of women, Delmar is another story. When the group stumbles upon sirens, Delmar looks far more discomfited than lustful, and when Ulysses asks him if he's ever "been with a woman" Delmar shifts away and says "well- I- I got the family farm to worry about before all that." Because of all this, and my father's comment when I mentioned I had seen the movie, "Y'know, I think the sidekicks in that movie are a bit gay for each other." Because of this, I wrote a piece exploring that, specifically in the context of the baptism and their reasons for doing so. I also found a way to incorporate Ulysses into the story too, not as a part of the relationship, mind you. Just because his dialogue is distinct and very fun to write, so as a non-judgmental comrade, he offers Pete some nonreligious council over his feelings. I posted this on the fanfiction, fanart, and other transformative works site, Archive of our own. I did this a few weeks ago, and have since been surprised to see people leaving "kudos" (likes) and positive comments, when I thought I'd be the only person who would read, let alone write anything for this fictional pairing. One user even wrote to me "I couldn't even sleep last night because of how much I loved this fic! I just lay awake and replayed it in my head, it feels like a deleted scene from the movie!"

While I can't stress the importance of original writing, fanfiction can be a great way to have fun, find community, and meet friends with similar creative interests.

• Main Content

Wo

On Saving and The Reasons Therefore

Work Text:

 

"Everett, you mind if I ask you something?"

 

Ulysses Everett McGill squinted in the gloom. The trio had ducked into the woods after The Sheriff and his men had burnt the barn they thought they were hiding in, and had decided to sleep in shifts. It was Everett's turn, which made Pete's consciousness strange. Delmar slept soundly across from them both, sprawled akimbo in a deer bed. 

 

Pete asking Everett was another rarity, typically he demanded to know something, or eschewed any advice Everett felt his companions sorely needed. Slightly unnerved, he shrugged. "Sure thing, Pete." Pete exhaled. "I know you ain't the believing kind, but, figuring there is a God, d'you think he cares why folks get saved?" Everett furrowed his brow. "That's mighty existential for you, Pete. Mind sharpening your point?" There was a beat of silence as Pete gathered his thoughts and, Everett thought, grappled with the meaning of "existential". "I mean, supposing you got saved for the wrong reason? Is that just as bad as not getting saved at all or is the man upstairs just happy to have you on board?" Ulysses blinked as he processed Pete's words, recounting the day's events. He heard Pete shift nervously on the grass, and somewhere in the distance, an owl called. "What would constitute a 'wrong' reason, do you reckon?" Ulysses probed. 

 

Despite the darkness, Pete still stared into the ground. More quiet, the sounds of crickets and the last dying dregs of the cicadas that would be gone once September came in earnest. "I dunno," Pete said unconvincingly, "Selfishness I suppose- doing it just so you can be worthy of- of something or somebody." Ulysses tilted his head.

 

 He considered Pete's words, gave them a few good turn-overs in his mind. He had a hypothesis, but he'd need more evidence to convict. "You mean, doing it for somebody so that you're on the same moral standing as that party, in hopes of keeping or pursuing a relationship?" Pete huffed through his nose. "Forget it. You're talkin' like one of them greasy-palmed lawyers again." Ulysses was not about to let Pete clam up on him, not when some at least mildly interesting truth was about to rear its head. "Pete, how do you feel about Delmar?" "Shuddup." Bingo . "I had a feeling that might've been it." "You don't know what you're talking about, Everett. I ain't no goddamn fairy." Ulysses knew he'd need to diffuse this situation, no matter how fun it was to get Pete angry enough to chew glass. "Maybe I don't, Pete, you're right." He murmured, a touch patronizing. "But, in the slim chance that you do harbor certain non-platonic feelings for our companion, I'm certainly not gonna tattle. Ain't nothing wrong with being sweet on someone, and as far as I'm concerned, there ain't a lick wrong with fairies, or their related ilk." Pete let out a breath. "But it-" Ulysses laughed. "I knew you were too smart to properly get saved." Pete went quiet, and Ulysses knew he'd said something wrong. "Everything alright?" "So I ain't saved then." Ulysses chuckled awkwardly. "Why should it matter?" 

 

There was a stretch of silence that paired nicely with the fresh marinating of shame Ulysses Everett McGill was now experiencing, one broken by Pete, voice on the edge of tears. "Because…cause he's so good . And I ain't . That's why I got saved. He started talkin’ of heaven- and- and I- Lord, Everett, he’s the only friend I got. Can’t stand the idea of us not goin’ to the same place when we pass.” 

Everett’s brow furrowed. Religion was a tool of charlatans, used as an opiate to pacify and sedate the unsatisfied masses, and as far as he was concerned, should be viewed with the most acrid cynicism one could muster. That being said, Pete’s talk had a funny way of wringing his heart like a farmer’s wife with an old washrag. What an awful quandary to ponder, to be shut out of paradise from your sole because you loved your friend the wrong way. 

 

He’d known that Pete and Delmar were buddies on the penal farm, due to being vastly different lame ducks brought together by choice. Delmar was prime for being picked on by just about everyone due to being soft-headed and weak, much too sunny for any self-respecting inmate. Pete had a hair trigger that made him wary to foremen and inmates alike, but cried easy, and woke up shouting in the night for reasons even Ulysses didn't know. Pete protected Delmar, and Delmar gave pete comfort, that's just how it was. He'd hadn't considered to possibility that there'd be more to it, but it made about as much sense to him as his own want for his wife. Every pot has a lid, his mother had once told him. 

 

Ulysses thought, and thought hard. He wasn't well-versed in the christian faith, but he knew enough to know what most pastors thought of men like Pete. What they must think about Delmar too, he added mentally, what with his clinging to Pete and polite disinterest in women. "Pete, considering you're a born-again god-fearer, you believe yourself to be made by the man upstairs?" Pete looked at him warily, squinting in the dark. "Suppose I do. What's that got to do with anything?" He whisper-hissed through his teeth. 

 

Ulysses uselessly smoothed his shirt, a habit left over from the days he would take time to let a courtroom simmer before he delivered a claim that would have the prosecution eating their hats. "Well, keeping with the hypothesis that the good lord made you, and that he knows all…" he gave a measured shrug, "He already knows you're sweet on Delmar, 'cause he made you that way. If you ain't been struck down yet, I don't think he minds." Pete seemed to consider this for a long time. "But what about them church folks, pastors and priests and such, that say it's a mortal sin? They know a whole lot more about religion than a goddamn crackerjack lawyer and a- a hick queer." Ulysses laughed. "No they don't, Pete. Those folks ain't got no direct line to god. No holier than you or I or- or a cowpie in the street." 

 

This seemed to shock Pete into catatonia, and Ulysses took the opportunity to continue. "Don't you read the news? Seems like every day you hear about some Baptist pastor stuffing his wallet with church money, or some other worse vice. Sure, I'm sure plenty are good 'n righteous folk, but at the end of the day, they're mortal people interested in controlling the behavior of a constituency, based upon their own moral compass." Ulysses could barley make Pete out in the darkness, just a slumped, fuzzy effigy cast in the blueish summer dark. "I…I'm not quite sure what you mean." Pete muttered, and Ulysses sighed kindly. 

 

He knew Pete understood, just that he didn't dare believe what Ulysses told him. So, he repeated himself, again, perhaps a touch more condescendingly than required. "They're just people who like tellin' others how to live, so those folks'll live like they live." Pete was sitting with his head in his hands. "I- that sounds like blasphemy, Everett." Dissapointment and pity welled up within Ulysses. Then Pete raised his head. "But I don't think you're wrong." Ulysses grinned in the dark. "Good man, now you're understanding. As long as all parties walk away happy, it's of my educated opinion that the lord don't care about your sway." Ulysses fished a crumpled packet of cigarettes out of his pocket, and delicately fished out the last one.

 Even without looking, however, he could tell Pete was looking at Delmar. "I just wanna be good enough for him." Ulysses felt his heart pang in a way he typically reserved for holidays and thoughts of his family.

 

 He lit a match, the sulfur seeming to roar in the quiet, and held it to the battered smoke. "Pete," he said as he inhaled, holding both the smoke and his friend's attention, "something tells me you already are."

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"Arsenic and Old Lace" and Adaptation Theory in Multi-Modal Storytelling: The Second Movie Adaptation

1969 Movie Adaptation

 By far the most interesting adaptation I have seen, however, remains the 1969 version. Presented as a TV movie, it attempted to rejuvenate the story for a new audience.

     Elaine is no longer Reverend Harper’s daughter, instead her last name is Dodd, and she and Mortimer go on a date at a loud, flashy dance club. Mortimer is a television critic, and the jokes are adapted to suit this. The tone is much more comedic, and many jokes are made to the audience’s desensitization towards the theatrical violence being introduced to America via television becoming mainstream.

    Jonathan and the doctor are much more over-exaggerated and ineffective, and are far more physical than any other iteration, played up as a joke. One could even argue that the attitude change towards homosexuality, from frightening deviancy to something to be pitied and laughed at, is to blame for this. This is by far the quirkiest adaptation out there, and was definitely trying to find an audience in the younger generation, though to what rate of success I don’t know. Overall, I find it really interesting how these adaptations can show us a lot about the mode of storytelling used, and about the contexts of where and when it was made. Arsenic and Old Lace remains one of my favorite plays, movies, and radio shows up to this day.

Bibliography

    Schaefer, George. Hallmark Hall of Fame- Arsenic and Old Lace. NBC Television Network, 1969.

Kesselring, Joseph. Arsenic and Old Lace. Dramatists Play Services Inc., 1941

"Arsenic and Old Lace" and Adaptation Theory in Multi-Modal Storytelling: The Radio Adaptation

  1952 Radio Adaptation

   The 1959 radio play version is much more similar to the original play in many ways, and therefore there’s not as much to say about this interpretation. It has a significantly shorter runtime, less exaggerated slapstick and more fast-paced storytelling. It was presented as an episode of hour-long radio drama versions of Broadway plays, titled “Best Plays Presents”, and presents a much more condensed version of the original play.   

    The scenes of Mortimer visiting the judge and doctor are omitted, only referenced, as are many of the scenes with the policemen. Most of these adaptations are easily explainable as that of time constraints, although despite this, it remains one of the most faithful adaptations of the original play, with actors like Boris Karloff (Jonathan Brewster) and Jean Adair (Abby Brewster) vocally reprising their roles. 

Bibliography

Kesselring, Joseph. NBC's Best Plays, Episode Arsenic and Old Lace, NBC, 6 July 1952.

Kesselring, Joseph. Arsenic and Old Lace. Dramatists Play Services Inc., 1941

"Arsenic and Old Lace" and Adaptation Theory in Multi-Modal Storytelling: The First Movie Adaptation

1944 Movie Adaptation

The most well-known adaptation, the 1944 movie version, has some minor but significant differences from the play.

    For one, the bitter wartime humor and much of grandfather Brewster’s backstory is left out. It’s not too much extrapolation to say that this could be because of the shift in the civilian attitude of the current war as something winnable that had a coming end, rather than a grim perpetuity. Many of the characters are simplified, and much of the dark humor is gone, a change that could be contributed to a change in director from Bretaigne Windust to Frank Capra, or from scrutiny from the Hays Office, the moral code office of hollywood at the time (like Mortimer’s final line of “I’m a bastard!” being changed to “I’m the son of a sea cook!”).

    Some scenes were cut or shortened, most likely to keep the movie’s runtime under two hours. The largest change, however, was the movie’s shift from an ensemble cast to having a much stronger focus on Mortimer and Elaine’s romantic relationship, with both of their characterizations significantly altered. The movie gifts Mortimer with a strong distaste of marriage (which he quickly overcomes) absent in the play, and severely limits Elaine’s character from a worldly spitfire, to a much more placid girl-next-door.

    It is my belief that this adaptational choice also has to do with the larger societal context of the war for the time, in many ways, their own struggle mirrored that of many soldiers (some of who got to see the movie a month before its larger theatrical release) and their civilians at home: A happy domestic life is incredibly close to coming to fruition, but first they had to deal with trials and tribulations the likes of which they’d never seen, and do their best to be proper, ideal citizens while they did it. The civilian attitude of the war and the necessity of marriage had changed, and so the story had to change with it. However, an interesting thing to note about this slightly sanitized adaptation is that for all of it's scene cuts and word-mincing, the horror elements only alluded to in the play are highlighted. In a strangely sadistic scene, we watch as Jonathan snaps on black medical gloves, stroking his hand over a case of glinting surgical instruments as he looms over Mortimer, intricately tied to a chair. During the entry of the second world war, there was an uptick in noir films, a term given to the gritty and often violent crime dramas that gained immense popularity and signified the slow death of the Hays code, and the larger death of the cultural "innocence" before. America was seeing and hearing about war like never before, and in some ways, it made lasting changes in expanding what the public was normalized to seeing in world news.

Bibliography

Capra, Frank, director. Arsenic and Old Lace. Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc., 1944

Blum, John Morton. V Was for Victory: politics and American culture during WWII. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1976.

Kesselring, Joseph. Arsenic and Old Lace. Dramatists Play Services Inc., 1941. 96 pages, et al.

"Arsenic and Old Lace" and the adaptation theory in multi-modal storytelling, post series introduction

 Introduction

 Biological adaptation theory states that, when an organism finds itself in a new environment, over time, it or its descendants will physically change to better suit the new habitat. It’s my opinion that different adaptations of stories roughly do the same thing, only instead of an organism to a habitat, it’s a story, to not only a different mode of storytelling, but to the time and place it’s being changed in or for.

    A good example of a story with multiple adaptations that vary significantly depending on the version, is Arsenic and Old Lace. One of the longest running plays in Broadway history, it was a phenomenon when it was released in 1941, but written in 1939, and spawned multiple movies and radio adaptations. The synopsis goes as such: The Brewsters are a well-to-do Brooklyn family, made wealthy by a now-dead grandfather doctor, who apparently performed experiments on his patients. While having tea with the local reverend Doctor Harper, aging philanthropists Abby and Martha, and their mentally ill nephew Theodore “Teddy Roosevelt” Brewster, discuss their other nephew. A reluctant and thoroughly modern theater critic named Mortimer, who’s dating the reverend’s daughter, Elaine. They also discuss the annoyances of living in the current world war, with Abby making such remarks as “You know, reverend, I’m beginning to think this Hitler fellow isn’t very christian.” The reverend leaves, and Mortimer makes a visit to his brother and aunties on his way to pick up Elaine. While there, Mortimer discovers a dead body. Naturally, he immediately informs his aunts, who tell him not to worry as, “he’s one of our gentlemen!”. As it turns out, the aunts murder old men as a form of charity. Not wanting his aunties to hang, Mortimer devises a solution: he’ll forcibly institutionalize his brother and pin the crimes on him. While there’s a lot to unpack there, it gets worse. While out getting papers signed, who should come home but the third brother, “criminally insane” Jonathan Brewster, accompanied by Herman Einstein, his personal plastic surgeon, who affectionately calls him “Johnny”. Now with two pairs of murderers in the house, it’s up to Mortimer to keep the body count low and his fiancee from knowing.

Boris Karloff as Jonathan Brewster

    The largest thing to call attention to in the original play, however, is how the American civilian attitude of reluctance towards involvement with the world war at the time, shines through in the comedy. Not much had to be changed when it debuted on Broadway after the U.S. became involved, if anything, it can almost be compared to modern "pre-covid" humor, laughing at the first-world problems that seemed so serious in a simpler time.

In this series of posts, I’ll be going through each adaptation and describing what went into each change and speculating as to why through analyzing the contexts of the era when each was released. This play has always been one of my favorites, and as someone with an interest in both media analysis and history, this project felt like a natural progression. The original play, in both plot and tone, will be used as a control group, as it came first and therefore all the other adaptations will be compared to it.

Bibliography

Kesselring, Joseph. Arsenic and Old Lace. Dramatists Play Service Inc.1941. Page count 96, et al.

    
Blum, John Morton. V was for victory: Politics and American culture during World War II. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1976.