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forasecondtherewedwon · 1 month

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trading paper dolls

Fandom: Masters of the Air Rating: T Word Count: 2228

Summary: Tired of the pin-up girls, Alex draws Buck Cleven in a similar style, never intending for the sketch to fall into the hands of Bucky Egan.

“You even lookin’ at that paper? Ain’t seen you look at that paper in five minutes.”

Alex smiled to himself as he redirected his gaze to the sketch he was working on. Macon was right: he hadn’t been looking. He didn’t need to. He’d done half a dozen of these sketches already since getting forced into this camp and they were all the same—a collection of curves. Eyes, cheeks, lips. Shoulders, breasts, waist. Hips, thighs, calves. Little round rear, if the request came with a specification for that kinda thing. He had his style. He could draw pin-ups in his sleep.

“I thought your neck didn’t work,” he reminded Macon without twisting his own to look up at him in the higher bunk. “Guess it works just fine for snoopin’ over my shoulder.”

“‘Snoopin’’?” Macon echoed, sounding affronted. “Bullshit, snoopin’. Ain’t no privacy here to violate, Alex. You don’t want me to be able to see over your shoulder, you better go sit on the roof.”

Alex released a soft snort and kept sketching. His latest connoisseur of provocative art wanted a brunette. That was easy enough; Alex added a quick outline of hair—more curves—and shaded it in.

“You get tired of that?” Macon asked a few minutes later. Apparently, he’d abandoned the book Alex had brought him.

“Why, you get tired of the smokes these boys are payin’ me to draw ’em?” Alex shot back.

“Not drawin’—drawin’ that. Your little paper dolls.”

Paper dolls. Alex hadn’t thought of it like that. (He liked Macon too much to be insulted; even if he had been insulted, it wouldn’t be enough to put even the smallest dint in the loyalty they had to one another. Nobody was going to watch out for them like they’d watch out for each other.) The drawings were sweet, in a way, with the coy smiles and O’s of surprise on the girls’ mouths, with the way their delicate fingers twirled telephone cords and pressed with childlike thoughtfulness into their dimpled chins. They belied what the boys who asked for them claimed to want: somethin’ sexy to look at while they pulled themselves off whenever they were alone. Or felt alone. Or even felt alone enough.

No, Alex knew what he was really giving them: a little reminder of tenderness. Tenderness even above femininity, because only one guy had asked him to draw a gal in something see-through, another in a negligée (Like Rita Hayworth in Life, he’d said), and the rest had just wanted to see anything that wasn’t a uniform. Props? A tray of muffins coming out of an oven, a basket of kittens, a field of wildflowers. Things that spoke of home comforts and abundance, that evoked softness and pleasing scents. If these drawings of his were like paper dolls, it made sense, because the boys were playing with them—playing make-believe. And so Alex didn’t mind that he’d done six of these already. It made the white boys happy. It passed the time. It kept him and Macon in whatever pitiful item counted as a luxury on this day, this week. If Alex were to be here as long as some of the boys had been here already, he figured it’d help having something to occupy his mind.

“Not yet,” he said, and drew a pair of sunglasses dangling from the girl’s hand, then put a look on her face like she knew you’d watch her bend down to pick them up when she inevitably dropped them. “Anyway, what else would I draw?”

“Pin-up Hitler?”

They both cracked up.

“Alright, alright,” Macon said as their laughter trailed off. “How ’bout these boys?”

Alex lifted his pencil from the paper. That was another one done.

“Our boys?” he checked distractedly, examining his work.

In the silence that followed his words, he could just about hear Macon rolling his eyes.

“The boys in this bunkroom,” Alex corrected.

“Yeah. Think you could draw ’em?”

At this, Alex swivelled around to look at Macon, eyes narrowed and unimpressed.

“Of course I could, but I shouldn’t.” Expression clearing, he raised his eyebrows questioningly. “Don’t you want them to like us? Trust us?”

“Maybe I don’t like or trust them,” Macon replied. Alex sighed, then Macon added, “I never said show the drawings. Just do it for our entertainment, shit.”

“And what are you paying me in for this entertainment?”

“In the promise that I won’t snitch to the white boys that you doin’ pin-ups of ’em,” Macon said, chuckling.

Alex grinned and shook his head.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Well, you know. If you ain’t too busy.”

They laughed harder this time, until Macon swore and laid back, rubbing his neck.

Alex did think for a while. He sat there thinking, then got up and walked over to the window to take a look at the bleak view as he thought some more, then sat again. His pencil was there on his bunk. He had more paper. The other guys from their bunkhouse weren’t about—walking someplace, or scheming, maybe. Buck Cleven had let Alex in on the general idea of a breakout, which was significant, but he knew he was still a newcomer, still on the outside.

It was that frustration that made Alex pick up the pencil. It was the fact that Buck had been the only one to initiate a conversation with him that made Alex choose him as his subject. He just knew his face best, had looked at it openly while they’d talked. Round eyes, full mouth. Not so different from his regular paper dolls.

When Egan and Brady wandered in, Alex calmly slipped the sketch of Buck behind the commissioned drawing of the brunette with the sunglasses. When he got the chance, he’d hide it someplace better, but he doubted there was a more suspicious group on earth than his fellow kriegies; if he tried now, it’d give them reason to distrust him, and if they discovered what he was attempting to conceal... it would be hard to explain.

He retraced lines he’d already drawn, darkened the girl’s hair. Brady and Egan were playing cards on the other side of the room. Alex was thinking about casually lying back and pulling out a book he might tuck the drawing of Buck into when DeMarco swung through the doorway and announced Nazis were ordering men out of the neighbouring hut to toss the rooms.

If he hadn’t had to help Macon down from the higher bunk, Alex might’ve had time. If he could’ve done more than flip the pages over, they might not’ve been noticed. If he hadn’t submitted to Egan’s authority as a superior officer and let him be the last out of the room, ensuring the rest of them got out safely, Alex might not’ve worried as he stood outside in the cold, waiting for Egan to follow them out. Waiting, it seemed, for too long before Egan stepped out and the Nazis shoved past him on their way in.

When it was over, Alex walked back inside to find that one of the pages he’d left on his bunk was no longer there.

—

Bucky leaned against the side of the hut, fingering the folded paper in his pocket. He’d creased it in half quickly, and the edges didn’t line up, giving his fingers something to worry as he stood there, mind swooping and turning like one of the planes the man to whom the paper belonged flew.

It hadn’t been nosiness driving Bucky across the room once DeMarco, Brady, Jefferson, and Macon were out. It hadn’t been mere curiosity. Bucky knew Buck had spoken to the new guy, Jefferson, about helping them work out the topography surrounding the camp. Bucky’s fear, when he saw those pages left behind, was that one of them might have featured some kind of map. And then all their gooses would’ve been cooked. The Nazis would’ve known they were thinking of escape more seriously than a distant fantasy that involved a place to get a steak dinner instead of the crap food that barely kept them alive. Rifling swiftly through Jefferson’s pages was self-preservation—the preservation of the whole group of them. Bucky hadn’t expected to find what was now in his pocket.

Looking at it made him less sure of how to feel, and so he kept teasing himself instead, stroking the edges of the page without taking it out of his coat. Part of what he felt was relief; since it wasn’t a map Jefferson had been drawing, there had been no close call. It also meant Jefferson wasn’t stupid, hadn’t left anything so valuable, so incredibly damning, sitting out in the open like a present for their jailers. But that line of thinking got tangled up with another of the emotions the paper provoked in him: impulsive, hot-headed fury that Jefferson would do a thing like that, would draw Buck like that. Bucky wanted to demand Jefferson tell him who the hell he thought he was to put that down on paper. Only, a confrontation would’ve escalated immediately into a scene—Bucky didn’t trust himself to handle it coolly, not this—which would likely mean having to explain exactly why he was so angry with Jefferson. Buck would see the drawing. Onlookers would see a fracture in their group and think they were weak. It was no fucking good, and so Bucky stood there touching the paper until he couldn’t stand it any longer and, after glancing up and down the corridor between the huts, slipped the page out for further scrutiny.

It was a good likeness; Bucky had known it was Buck right away. If he fought back all the other complex feelings he had about it, he could appreciate that Jefferson had a talent. Bucky cast his gaze around again, then permitted himself to enjoy the drawing on the basis of its artistic merit alone. That was certainly the shape of Buck’s face. Those eyes could belong to no other. He could see what Jefferson had intended with the pose—Buck’s chest thrust forward, his ass pushed out—but it wasn’t as exaggerated as many pin-ups Bucky had seen, and there was still a recognizable Buck-ness in the set of the shoulders, the way the forearms crossed and rested on the bent knee. Jefferson had put Buck in the room they called the library, one of Buck’s shoes planted on a chair as he stared unflinchingly at his observer, those eyes that could belong to no other set in the face with a shape Bucky knew well. And the mouth. The mouth was unmistakably Buck’s too. Like this, Buck could acknowledge what a pretty mouth it was, how swell it would’ve looked on any female pin-up model, but how right it was on the face of his best friend.

Bucky swallowed and refolded the paper. He undid his coat just enough to stuff the drawing into the breast pocket of his shirt, a little closer to his body, a little more secure, he told himself. He possessed no plan for what he’d do with it. Buck, of course, could never see. Jefferson sure as hell wasn’t getting it back; Bucky decided that having to wonder what had happened to the drawing would have to be sufficient punishment for having the nerve to do it in the first place. In a tight moment, Bucky knew he might have to eat the paper. He might have to chew and swallow, forcing Buck’s confident stare and plump lips down his throat. He would hold this depiction of Buck inside himself, break him down and digest him. No one could take it from him. No one would know.

He sniffed and flicked a finger across the end of his nose. He strolled along in the shadow of the hut and, just before stepping out into the pale winter sunshine, pressed his hand to his chest over the place where the drawing rested. No one would know.

Conscious of the need for his shoes to not wear out in case the ideal escape conditions presented themselves, Bucky kept his steps light as he crossed the dirt yard. One of the guards was watching him and Bucky offered a sarcastic smile.

“Beautiful day, huh, Fritz?”

He kept walking until he found Buck. It seemed he was always walking until he found Buck.

They were not yet out of things to say to one another, and there were always new silences to not fill. They could talk close—what petty grievances did they have about the smell of Crank’s socks, the way Murphy had started chewing his fingernails?—and they could talk far—making up baseball scores for the teams back home. Bucky was comforted by their talk, by the undemanding presence of Buck at his side.

Buck was talking to Jefferson, and when Bucky sidled up, he slung an arm around Buck’s shoulders, feeling the paper in his pocket crumple slightly. He looked at Buck as he carried on speaking like Bucky was no interruption. He watched Buck’s lips move, listened to the low, slow, sure sound of his voice. Feeling Jefferson’s eyes on him, Bucky shifted his gaze and stared back. I’ll keep your secret, he told Jefferson with a lift of his eyebrows, and you keep mine.

#my writing #MotA #Masters of the Air #Alexander Jefferson #Richard Macon #Gale 'Buck' Cleven #John 'Bucky' Egan #Bucky x Buck #MotA fic

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yanaleese · 4 months

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if ur fine with nsfw asks, could you maybe do some nsfw headcannons for karma? <3

maybe just the basics like dom/sub, how he acts in the bedroom ect ect (can u tell i never send asks HELP 😭)

if not that's perfectly okay! some sfw ones could be cute too, like his favorite way to cuddle or his love language??

anyways im obsessed with him and had to send in an ask 😪 thank u for blessing me with this wonderful man

LMAO no problem! Also Anon I feel you with the obsession...my friend and I were both simping harder than our willpower to do our exams 😭😭😭😭

Also since this is the first NSFW ask I've decided to split this up into separate posts later on+ a little art to tease your weak heart ❤️. Please enjoy reading what's under the cut.

Content warning: FEMALE reader, HARD explicit smut, detailed kinks such as impregnation, overstimulation, all that good stuff. Please note that this is for 17+ audiences only.

"WAIT! KARMA! THE CAMERA-"

CRASH!!!

Karma Sangre - Normal NSFW:

When Karma is calm and collected, he's the one usually in control. But if you want to play the dom in the relationship, he's happy to step down! Just make sure you let him know, otherwise he'll take that as a challenge and his excuse to fuck the living shit out of you.

Usually before things get steamy, he'll be worshipping your body with kisses and teasing you with all kinds of lewd words from A to Z. When he's horny, he's a lot more talkative, which makes both his raspy voice and soft lips a dangerously sexy combination. It gets even worse when his steamy voice presses against your ears, tempting you into giving in to his lustful wishes.

Once he hears you plead in sexual frustration, he'll begin licking and biting his favorite spots - your earlobe, your tits, your neck. He especially goes after the neck, making sure that your collarbone is left with some bloody bites.

After littering your body in saliva and bites, Karma will book a one-way ticket to Pussyland. To him, missing out on stimulating your clit is missing a chance at seeing you squirm, moan and whimper just by his tongue alone. The piercing on his tongue doesn't help either, as it quickens your climax even further.

Satisfied seeing your pussy drenched in his saliva and your cum, he'll kindly rub your entrance slowly, starting with one digit, and eventually his entire hand. Well, that depends on how long you want to play the 'tough girl' act.

If you decide to go down that route, say your prayers, because your pussy is going to be obliterated...with toys. What, did you think disobedient girls like you get cock? Please. If there's one thing Karma can't turn down is a challenge. By turning down Karma, you lose your privileges of being his personal fleshlight. But hey, at least you can be his personal toyfucker instead!

Now if you decide to be docile, and play the "good girl" act, you can kiss your legs, your pussy and your pride goodbye. With that 7-inch erect cock, your folds will be spasming and tightening so much that it'll drive both you and Karma mad. The poor mattress will be creaking constantly as that veiny cock of his pounds fucking deep into pussy, begging to cum straight into your fertile womb.

Whilst you're struggling to take the pleasure, Karma will be busy murmuring in Spanish about how good you feel as he holds your legs over his shoulder, his huge hands rubbing and licking your aroused nipples before burying his moans in it with words like "Te amo" + "Ven conmigo" and so much more; Duolingo would be so proud of you!

When you're both about to climax, he roughly grabs your chin, pulling you in a tongue-twisting kiss. From the kiss alone, you can already feel your eyes rolling to the back of your head, barely registering the warm, gooey liquid dripping from your pussy to your twitching legs.

As you try to recover by taking deep breaths, you're hit with the reality that your amazing, horny boyfriend is (un)fortunately an amazing bodybuilder with more strength and stamina than your body can take.

Staring at him with a mix of lust and horror, you whine and mewl, sounding like a dying cat. Yes, you loved this sneaky bastard - but dear Lord you needed a break.

"Sleep, Mami. You'll need it." He slurs while caressing the top of your head, playing with a strand of hair. You felt your eyes beginning to close, blotches of darkness dotting your vision instantaneously, as if on command. Narrowing your eyes, you swore you could see his eyes peeking out of his bangs, revealing his dazed yet sinister gaze.

"Because it's a going to be a long night for you and me."

To learn more about Karma, go here!

If you want to see more Karma content, head over to my inbox!

And thank you Anon, for sending in this ask ❤️.

ALTERNATE VERSIONS - LIGHT VER. + TATTOO-LESS VER.

#karma #karma smut #male yandere #karma ask #my ocs #yandere oc #yandere #yandere x you #yandere x reader #yandere drabble #yancore #yandere art #yandere smut #yandere headcanons #yandere asks #ec #sc #karma thirst

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doodle-pops · 1 month

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Lords of Gondolin | With A Musician Reader

Request: hi mina how have you been? i hope you’re doing ok c: i was wondering if you’d write a scenario about human!reader showing off her greatest musical creation to the elves? it’s a piano they’ve spent a decade workshopping & building to perfection. readers also made middle earth versions of the upright bass, acoustic guitar, & cello. they plan on making more instruments cause it’s their passion and how they want to be remembered by. for the lords of gondolin - @dicksoutformtl

A/N: I’m doing just fine! It was fun writing this request know that all of them would be impressed at reader’s craftsmanship. Enjoy!

.𑁍༊˚ Galdor

Galdor is thoroughly impressed by your craftsmanship in creating new and improved versions of some of the instruments they already have while crafting newly discovered pieces as well.

He would have known you were into the musical arts, hence why you were always playing or composing a new piece every few weeks. However, what he had never suspected was a entire batch of new instruments being presented to him.

He is enthralled and eager. While some instruments may not be a favourite to his ear due to the sounds they emit, you can bet he’s informing you of some upcoming festival where you can show off your creative talents.

Galdor is a proud elf Lord who would happily talk about what you’ve created to the others and recommend you to the King to play your pieces at balls. He wants everyone to be aware that you’ve made inventions and they’re groundbreaking.

There are moments when he’d sit around and listen as you explain to him how you created each piece and the inspiration behind them or watch as you play songs on them.

It touches him when he becomes aware of the purpose of your collection of paper in the corner of your room. They were all songs written to be played on these instruments about how much you like or care about him. He’s touched and appreciative.

.𑁍༊˚ Ecthelion

The musical master is too stunned to speak as he enters your humble abode and notices all the new “classical” instruments lying about. Ecthelion’s curiosity gets the better of him and he can’t help but strum the strings of the bass and cello, or press the keys on the piano and gasp at the new pitch echoing.

He becomes aware that these are not instruments that exist in Middle Earth and bombard you with a million questions. “How did you make this?” “Where did your idea come from?” “What inspired you?” “Who are you really?”

Ecthelion probably assumes that you’re not normal to come up with all these instruments since the Valar would have created their instruments for them…so are you a Maiar or Valar in disguise?

You will be followed around until you answer all of his questions with responses that tickle his brain the right way. And be prepared for him to request if you two can now play duets at festivals and balls. He wants you to be the musician couple.

Ecthelion will show you off, more than Galdor and some of the others because he’s proud and wants everyone to know how talented you are. He doesn’t care if the other Lords comments that you’re more talented than him, he would simply acknowledge and say, “Yes!”

And not to forget, he’s making sure that your name gets recorded in the history books as an important figure in music. He’s even more proud when he realises that you’ve outdone musical protégé like Maglor and Daeron.

.𑁍༊˚ Glorfindel

There is not a person without a ten-mile radius who hasn’t been alerted by him of your musical genius abilities. Even Lord Elrond would be shaken aggressively as he is being told about your creation. “Y/N has reinvented the world of music! There is no one as great as them!”

Goodbye Lindir or Ecthelion, hello to Y/N, the new musical protégé of Gondolin or Imladris. Get used to being announced at dinners or balls to play your newest pieces and having Glorfindel looking like a proud dad (if he had a camera, his look would be completed).

Anytime you’re making a trip to your music room, don’t go without Glorfindel or else he’ll barge in all grumpy, complaining that you forgot him. He wants to be present at each new masterpiece you’re making, whether it be a new instrument or song. He likes watching the look of concentration as you play each piece to conclude which suits the song best.

Be noted that he’s curious, so he is bound to touch the piano or cello and gasp as the notes ring out. I can see him being drawn towards the guitar and requesting that you teach him. I don’t know, but Glorfindel playing the guitar suits him (idk if it’s just me).

Cue Glorfindel wanting to join you whenever you’re playing and the guitar can be included. He’ll happily sit beside you and strum away lightly while you play the piano or violin.

Like Ecthelion, be prepared to be announced/talked about by Glorfindel any chance he gets. He’s not rubbing it in anyone’s face, simply expressing how proud he is of his little human creating instruments that “change everything”.

.𑁍༊˚ Egalmoth

Most proud of them all, however, he’s torn between wanting the world to learn about your skills and also keeping them hidden so he alone can know this secret and cherish it.

A bit stingy sharing your talents with the rest of the world because they should be for him to enjoy and praise. He does complain when people don’t praise you enough and encourages them to be louder.

I don’t see anyone surpassing him in terms of being the biggest cheerleader. This elf considers himself blessed to be around such a gifted person (you’re more gifted than his friends in his eyes). You’re a miracle worker creating new instruments unheard of or reinventing old ones.

He wants to learn about your pieces even though he doesn’t know about music deeply, he would to be told everything. Don’t worry if it sounds all foreign to him, he’s understanding.

Egalmoth would inquire if you would like more materials to make more instruments because he understands that it’s your passion. He would even ask if you would like to open up a school to teach others.

Like the others, he would request that you play at dinners when the Lords come over or if the King is hosting a dinner party. Might get annoyed if someone wants to collaborate with you because you sound great on your own.

.𑁍༊˚ Rog

This craftsman is enthralled, amazed, excited, and proud of your creation. You made these instruments all on your own! Rog cannot cease talking about how you designed and crafted all the instruments by yourself. This is one of the rare moments when he's talkative nonstop.

You’ve got one of the great blacksmiths hooked on your inventions and wants to know the process you took to create each piece. He’ll be teary if you mention that you used some of his instructions during his days of teaching you basic material crafting.

Learning more and more that everything was done on your own and you spent years making each puts a type of ride in his heart that’s unshakable. If you show him how each piece is played, Rog finds himself whipped and ready to boast.

It’s strange seeing the quiet blacksmith boasting and talkative, and it’s for good reasons, you. All the Lords know, the citizens know and the King as well. Very soon, you’ll be having a hearing with the King who was intrigued by your new inventions courtesy of Rog cheerful chattering.

Rog doesn’t mind whether you choose to play privately or publicly, the choice is yours and he’s pleased with either decision. He wants you to be comfortable, but he would ask if you could play him a piece so he could experience the beauty of your creations.

.𑁍༊˚ Maeglin

Curiosity caught his attention for a great purpose and it led him to discover new things worthwhile. Maeglin is enamoured and his curiosity is piqued tenfold. Questions rattle off the top of his head about all that he’s seeing and how did you manage to think about creating these pieces.

You’ll be seen as someone highly skilled and great in his eyes because you’re out here reinventing the world of music, something the elves are passionately known for.

“Can I come to watch?” “Can I sit and listen?” “Will you play for others to see what you’ve made?” He will stand in the doorway as you play your pieces and write songs suited best for each with a sense of pride in his chest. You’re a part of his House and creating all these great inventions to make a name for yourself. How could he not be pleased?

Definitely another one who would recommend you to the King to present your showstopping performances during balls. Whether you play with the orchestra or sole, Maeglin is supportive.

You’re Maeglin little songbird who he wakes up to playing your piano or guitar on the balcony or in the drawing room. You provide him with melodies that allow him to melt in and drive his tension away.

Masterlist

Taglist: @ranhanabi777 @lilmelily @rain-on-my-umbrella @mysticmoomin @asianbutnotjapanese @batsyforyou @mcwentfandomtraveling @stormchaser819 @aconstructofamind @hermaeuswhora @lamemaster @zheiya @addaigio @involuntaryspasms

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vestaignis · 2 months

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Маслянные картины от Уиллоби Старший. Oil paintings by Willoughby Senior.

Уиллоуби-старший ( 15.10.16 - 04.02.84). Уиллоуби окончил Школу изящных искусств Национальной академии искусств в Нью-Йорке за два года, а не за традиционные четыре года. Он был автором и иллюстратором книги «Дым на ветрах», опубликованной Swallow Press, о своем более чем 25-летнем опыте среди хопи («Люди мира»). Один рецензент назвал его «наблюдателем, который действительно активно участвует». Все эти годы он также провел среди своих друзей-навахо. Уиллоби получил степень бакалавра искусств в философии. Он также имел степень доктора философии и любил называть ее «прикладной социальной этикой».

Трое детей Уиллоуби запустили сайт об искусстве в память о своем отце и матери, Эйлин-старшей (26.06.21 - 24.03.10). Его дети — Тор-старший, писатель-художник и мастер-плотник; Дон Сеньор-Траск и Ленор Старший. Его семья также издает серию книг, в которых представлены произведения искусства и сочинения Уиллоби, в том числе «Песни юности», «Песни о любви» и «Большой рогатой сове, приди ко мне на порог, умирая».

Willoughby Senior (10/15/16 - 02/04/84). Willoughby graduated from the School of Fine Arts of the National Academy of Arts in New York in two years rather than the traditional four years. He was the author and illustrator of the book "Smoke on the Winds", published by Swallow Press, about his more than 25 years of experience among the Hopi ("People of the World"). One reviewer called him "an observer who is truly involved." He also spent all these years among his Navajo friends. Willoughby received a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy. He also had a PhD and liked to call it “applied social ethics.”

The three Willoughby children launched an art website in memory of their father and mother, Aileen Senior. (06/26/21 - 03/24/10). His children are Thor Senior , a writer-artist and master carpenter; Don Senior-Trask and Lenore Senior . His family also publishes a series of books featuring Willoughby's art and writings, including Songs of Youth, Love Songs and Great Horned Owl, Come to My Doorstep Dying.

Источник : //willoughby-senior.pixels.com/collections/oil+paintings.

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nyupreservation · 1 year

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Preserving Leaf Paintings in an Anglo-Indian Commonplace Book, 1822-1825

Hello, I’m Alexa Machnik, a third-year graduate student at the Conservation Center, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU. I first came to the Barbara Goldsmith Preservation & Conservation Department in Fall 2022 as a student in the graduate course, Conservation in Context, taught by Laura McCann, Director of Preservation. During this course, we delved into the world of library conservation, exploring the value systems that guide preservation decision-making and treatment action in academic research libraries. One of my class projects involved rehousing delicate leaf paintings from an early 19th-century commonplace book, or friendship album, part of the Fales Library holdings in the Special Collections at NYU Libraries (figs. 1-2) [1]. In honor of Preservation Week, I will share the intriguing history of the book and discuss the decisions that were made to preserve the leaves.

Figure 1 [left]: Front cover of the commonplace book, bound in gold-tooled red morocco leather. Figure 2 [right]: Ownership label of “Jane Harriet [Blechynden]” on front marbled pastedown.

The book in question was compiled by Jane Harriet Blechynden (1806-1827) in England between 1822 and 1825. It holds her personal collection of handwritten and acquired materials, with contributions from her sisters, Emma and Sarah, who wrote original poems about sisterhood, separation, and their Anglo-Indian ancestry. The three women were the daughters of a British merchant residing in Calcutta, and while born in India, they were educated in England [2]. There is not a great deal known about Jane Harriet’s life in England, but her impending return to India in 1825 is documented in an emotional verse by Emma (fig. 3):

“Thus in parting my sister we’re breaking a link / Which may ne’er be united again / And firm as that chain was ‘tis painful to think / That absence may send it twain.”

Figure 3: Excerpt from the original poem, “Parting and a Meeting,” signed by Emma.

Jane Harriet’s book offers insights into her personhood, social connections, and sensibilities as an artist and collector. In addition to written entries, she inserted a compendium of acquired materials–pressed flowers, her own original drawings, and numerous paintings–between pages of the book (figs. 4-6).

Figures 4-6 [left to right]: A small sampling of the ephemeral treasures found in the book, including a dried pressed flower, a drawing on pith possibly by Jane Harriet, and a cut-paper silhouette.

Notably, six of these paintings are executed on the dried leaves of the Bodhi tree, a sacred plant indigenous to Asia with distinct spade-shaped, long-tipped leaves (fig. 7) [3]. Although leaf painting has origins in Buddhist traditions, by the time Jane Harriet collected her leaf paintings, it had already evolved into a form of Chinese export art in Europe. Her leaves depict secular scenes of contemporary life in China and botanical subjects, which are typical of the export genre (fig. 8). Their inclusion in the book implies that Jane was among the many people who partook in the avid collecting of China trade goods during the first few decades of the 19th century, a time when European fascination for Chinese culture and art was at its peak.

Figure 7: A leaf painting, as found loose in the book and partially lifted to show the thin, translucent nature of the leaf support.

Figure 8: Another leaf painting from the book, oriented with the leaf tip at the bottom of the image, depicting flowers and a butterfly.

The initial rush of excitement that I felt at finding the leaf paintings soon turned to concern as I gave thought to their long-term preservation at NYU Libraries, where researchers are expected to handle the book. The leaf paintings were loose in between the pages, which raised a series of “what ifs” about the potential dangers they could encounter. What if the leaves slip from the book? What if they bend or break as the pages are turned? What if the painted surfaces become abraded? The paintings were made with opaque pigment-based watercolors on exceptionally delicate, skeletonized leaves that have been primed with a thin organic coating. Despite being intact, their inherent fragility means that they are vulnerable to even the slightest touch. After considerable discussion, the Conservation Unit decided that in order for the leaf paintings to be preserved and safely accessed by researchers, they should be housed separately from the book.

I thoroughly examined the condition of the leaves and the painted surfaces in order to make a housing recommendation. Despite some minor damage, all were in stable condition. Thus, the ideal housing would provide support to prevent any further damage, such as paint loss and leaf breakage, and at the same time allow the leaves to maintain their translucency. To achieve this, I opted to mount them in double-sided window mats with a support made from clear polyester film, or Mylar® [4]. The addition of the Mylar® would not only create a stable surface for the leaf paintings but also enable the viewing of both sides (fig. 9).

Figure 9: View of the double-sided window mat with a Mylar® support.

My next challenge was to figure out how to mount the leaves onto the Mylar® support without the use of adhesive [5]. After consulting with conservation staff and creating mock-ups, short, discreet Mylar® tabs were selected as the best option to secure them into place (figs. 10-11). For this process, I positioned a single leaf painting onto the support and selectively placed the tabs around its perimeter, making sure the tabs did not overlap any areas of paint. I then used a handheld spot-welding pen to fuse the tabs to the support. Since this process was done in-situ, near the leaf, it required lots of precision practice and encouragement from colleagues before I felt confident enough for the task.

Figure 10: Detail of a mounted leaf painting. Notice that the Mylar® tabs are welded just outside the leaf and extend minimally over the edges, holding it in place with gentle pressure.

Figure 11: The backside of a mounted leaf painting viewed through the Mylar® support. This gives researchers access to the painting’s verso, where an underdrawing and other signs of artistic process can be discerned.

At the time of writing this post, I successfully housed the six leaf paintings in their double-sided window mats (figs. 12-13). This housing project, while complete, is just one part of the ongoing effort to preserve the commonplace book, and the Conservation Unit is continuing work on other elements of the book to ensure its safe return to Special Collections.

Figure 12: Example of the completed housing, showing the front of a leaf painting.

Figure 13: Back of a leaf painting.

Though my involvement in the project has come to an end, I have gained a very special appreciation for the commonplace book and the preservation challenges it presents. The experience of learning directly from NYU Libraries Special Collections was especially invaluable, providing me with opportunities to participate in complex decision-making processes unique to large research libraries driven by user needs. Before signing off, I’d like to extend my gratitude to my supervisors, Laura McCann, Director, and Lindsey Tyne, Conservation Librarian, and the entire team at the Barbara Goldsmith Conservation Lab for their unwavering support and enthusiasm throughout this project. Thank you all very much!

Notes:

[1] A commonplace book is a centralized place for an individual to record information, whether it be their personal thoughts or quotes from outside literary sources. Friendship albums, by contrast, contain handwritten entries from the family, friends, or acquaintances of the owner (often female). Both forms of commonplacing sustained popularity in Europe and America throughout the 19th century. To learn more about this fascinating literary genre, see Jenifer Blouin, “Eternal Perspectives in Nineteenth-Century Friendship Albums,” The Hilltop Review, Vol. 9, Issue 1 (2016) and Victoria E. Burke, “Recent Studies in Commonplace Books,” English Literary Renaissance, Vol. 43, No. 1 (2013), 153-177.

[2] Much of what is known about Jane Harriet (also known in her family as Harriet) comes from the Blechynden papers in the British Library (Add. Mss. 45578-663). This large holding contains the diaries of her father, Richard (Add. Mss. 45581-653), and older brother, Arthur (Add. Mss. 45654-61). For a secondary account of the Blechynden household, see Peter Robb, Sentiment and Self: Richard Blechynden’s Calcutta Diaries, 1791-1822 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2011).

[3] Michele Matteini, “Written on a Bodhi tree leaf,” Anthropology and Aesthetics, Vol. 75-76 (2021), 45-58.

[4] The design of the double-sided mats is based on an instructional guide made available by the Library of Congress. “Double-Sided Mat,” Library of Congress, accessed 1 February 2023.

[5] We chose not to use adhesives or traditional paper-hinging techniques to mount the leaf paintings for several reasons. As noted, the paintings are on fragile, non-paper-based supports that have an organic coating, which may be derived from plant gum. The leaf supports are thin, translucent, and highly vulnerable to breakage, so applying hinges directly with adhesive might permanently alter their appearance or risk further damage to the leaves over time, especially if they need to be removed from the housing in the future.

Photographs: Alexa Machnik

#NYULibraries #NYUSpecialCollections #FalesLibrary #nyuifa #nyuart #librarypreservation #libraryconservation #collectionscare #artconservation #paperconservation #bookconservation #artpreservation #preservingthepast #PreservationWeek #preservationweek2023

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mostlysignssomeportents · 9 months

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Open Circuits

I'm kickstarting the audiobook for "The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation," a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and make a new, good internet that picks up where the old, good internet left off. It's a DRM-free book, which means Audible won't carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

Every trip to Defcon – the massive annual hacker-con in Las Vegas – is a delight. Partly it's the familiar – seeing old friends, getting updates on hacks of years gone by. But mostly, it's the surprises, the things you never anticipated. Defcon never fails to surprise.

I got back from Vegas yesterday and I've just unpacking my suitcase, and with it, the tangible evidence of Defcon's cave of wonders. My gear bag has a new essential: Hak5's malicious cable detector, a little USB gizmo that lights up if it detects surreptitious malicious activity, even as it interdicts those nasty payloads:

https://shop.hak5.org/collections/omg-row2/products/malicious-cable-detector-by-o-mg

(In case you're wondering if it's really possible to craft a malicious USB cable that injects badware into your computer and is visually indistinguishable from a regular cable, the answer is a resounding yes, and of course, Hak5 sells those cables, with a variety of USB tips:)

https://shop.hak5.org/collections/omg-row2/products/omg-cable

But merch is only a sideshow. The real action is in the conference rooms, where hackers update you on the pursuit of their obsessions. These are such beautiful weirdos who pursue knowledge to ridiculous extremes, untangling gnarly hairballs just to follow a thread to its origin point.

For the second year in a row, I caught a presentation from Joseph Gabay about his work on warshopping: slicing up shopping cart wheels and haunting shopping mall parking lots during resurfacing to figure out how the anti-theft mechanism that stops your cart from leaving the parking lot works:

https://www.begaydocrime.com/

And of course, I got to give one of those presentations, "An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet's Enshittification," to a packed house. What a thrill! It was livestreamed, and if you missed it, you'll be able to catch it on Defcon's Youtube page as soon as they upload it (they've got a lot of uploading to do!):

https://www.youtube.com/@DEFCONConference/videos

After my talk, I went back to the No Starch Press booth for a book signing – which was amazing, so many beautiful hackers, plus I got to share a signing table with Micah Lee. As I was leaving, Bill Pollock slipped me a giant hardcover art-book, and said, "You're gonna love this."

I did. The book is Open Circuits: The Inner Beauty of Electronic Components, by Windell Oskay and Eric Schlaepfer, and it is a drop-dead gorgeous collection of photos of electronic components, painstakingly cross-sectioned and polished:

The photos illustrate layperson-friendly explanations of what each component does, how it is constructed, and why. Perhaps you've pondered a circuit board and wondered about the colorful, candy-shaped components soldered to it. It's natural to assume that these are indivisible, abstract functional units, a thing that is best understood as a reliable and deterministic brick that can be used to construct a specific kind of wall.

But peering inside these sealed packages reveals another world, a miniature land where things get simpler – and more complex. Inside these blobs of resin are snips of wire, plugs of wax, simple screws, fine sheets of metal in stacks, wafers of plain ceramic, springs and screws.

Truly, quantity has a quality all its own. Miniaturize these assemblies and produce them at unimaginable scale and the simple, legible components turn into mystical black boxes that only the most dedicated study can reveal. Like every magician's trick, the unfathomable effect is built up through the precise repetition of something very simple.

A prolonged study of Open Circuits reveals something important about the hacker aesthetic, a collection of graphic design, fashion and industrial design conventions that begins with this realization: that the crisp lines of digital logic can be decomposed into blobby, probabilistic lumps of metal, plastic, and even wax.

It reminds me of George Dyson's brilliant memoir/history of computing, Turing's Cathedral, where he describes how he and the other children of the scientists building the first digital computers at the Princeton Institute spent their summers in the basement, hand-winding cores for the early colossi their parents were building on the floors above them:

https://memex.craphound.com/2012/03/12/george-dysons-history-of-the-computer-turings-cathedral/

You can see my hacker aesthetic photos in my Defcon 31 photo set:

https://www.flickr.com/search/?sort=date-taken-desc&safe_search=1&tags=defcon31&user_id=37996580417%40N01&view_all=1

In this video, Eric Schlaepfer illustrates the painstaking work that went into decomposing these tiny, precise components into their messy, analog subcomponents. It's pure hacker aesthetic, and it's mesmerizing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byKyJ0b04Lo

But Open Circuits isn't just an aesthetic journey, it's a technical one. After all, Oskay is co-founder of Evil Mad Scientist Labs, one of the defining places where hardware hackers gather to tear down, pick apart, mod, improve and destroy electronics. The accompanying text is a masterclass in the simple machines that combine together to make complex assemblies:

https://www.evilmadscientist.com/

Defcon is a reminder that the world only seems hermetically sealed and legible to authorized parties with clearance to crack open the box. From shopping cart wheels to thermal fuses, that illegibility is only a few millimeters thick. Sand away the glossy outer layer and you will find yourself in a weird land of wax-blobs, rough approximations, expedient choices and endless opportunities for delight and terror, mischief and care.

Back my anti-enshittification Kickstarter here!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/14/hidden-worlds/#making-the-invisible-visible-and-beautiful

#pluralistic #books #reviews #evil mad scientist laboratories #no starch press #Windell Oskay #Eric Schlaepfer #electronics #hacker aesthetic #makers #diy #secret knowledge #gift guide #photography

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hclib · 2 years

Text

PROGRAM

Book Artist Talk with Linda Gammell

Thursday, September 15, 5:30-7 p.m., Nokomis Library

St. Paul photographer Linda Gammell will discuss her artistic and research process for developing her latest artist’s book, “Mississippi, Book of Hours.” The limited-edition book documents her 10-year project of photographing bird’s-eye view images from city bridges, together with a personal essay about growing up along the river’s banks, where the Mississippi became a character in her family’s lives. Her artwork focuses on connections to place, memory, and natural history. Linda is the recipient of a 2020 Minnesota State Arts Board Grant.

Hosted by Hennepin County Library Special Collections, featuring an overview and highlights from the Book Arts and Fine Press Collection at Minneapolis Central Library.

#book artists #artists' books #Book Arts and Fine Press Collection #photographers #Mississippi River #artist talks

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anti-workshop · 4 months

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SHAKY HANDS STICKER CLUB

Hey friends! I alluded to a big thing coming and THIS IS IT!

Patreon sucks ass but it's sort of the name of the game for fundraising things, and we need to raise funds, so here we are!

Do you like stickers? Do you like buttons? Do you like queer leftist shit as well as unique pieces of art you can adhere to the world or wear on your person? Please join our sticker club! You get stickers every month and maybe button/s if you want!

Check it out here -> STICKER CLUB

Also! More short designs will be coming soon! So stay tuned!

Read more below if you wanna know why we're doing this. Warning, it's long and sort of sad.

We started screen printing from one of our basements in 2020. It was, needless to say, the worst possible time to try and start a business. We barely survived and were able to move into the basement of the Milwaukee IWW's new union hall so we could all split the rent and make it affordable.

That was back in 2021. We were still struggling, but through word of mouth we got jobs and kept the lights on. We weren't really able to pay ourselves, but we all had second or third jobs so it was (mostly) fine.

We printed from that basement for about a year (and I hit my head on the ceiling and doorways hundreds of times) when a fellow wobbly and co-op enthusiast invited us to join his co-op as a DBA (doing business as). He sold us on the idea by offering to subsidize our workers' comp, general liability and book keeping expenses so we could try and grow sustainably. After some meetings we agreed to join as a DBA and we put our faith in this fellow worker whose intentions seemed pure and generous. We'll call him G.

Throughout the co-op's history some of our worker-owners' personal lives have been pretty chaotic. Working multiple jobs is stressful enough as a lot of you know, and so is navigating the continued stress of covid, having kids who are dealing with being bullied for being trans, all of us having major depression, adhd, etc. etc. We relied on each other, kept the lights on and just forged ahead, but there were some jobs that we delivered late or very late because of the chaos. G was understandably frustrated by these setbacks, as was I.

Because of the chaos, for about 5 months I was literally the only person working at the shop, performing literally every task from emails to quotes and mockups to invoices to pre-press, press, post-press and fulfillment. The Goncahrov shirts y'all purchased literally paid our rent, and I cannot thank you enough for that.

Then a fellow worker we'll call Z joined the co-op and saved my life. Z is amazing and I love him and owe him so much. He and I just kept at it and did what we could to care for our fellow workers who were struggling while away from the shop.

For about a year we've been trying to get an equipment loan to improve our processes because our little 4-color press and our flash and conveyor dryers suck ass. They're functional, extremely difficult to use, and they make our final product inconsistent and screen printing is a nightmare on them. It was all we could afford so we made the best of it and pursued a loan from a really cool cooperative lender that lends to other co-ops.

After a year of paperwork, making reports of our revenue and costs, analyzing our processes to improve them and show we were a viable business, they finally granted us the loan! We got a new press, better dryer, more screens and an incredible water-based digital printer/plotter combo that allows us to do stickers and decals and banners and buttons and other cool shit like that.

While we were applying for the loan, we were also pursuing a Collective Bargaining Agreement with the PPPWU (formerly the GCC) because we would be the only worker-owned co-op in our region (and maybe the US) to have the allied label, the most coveted union bug for printing. The local president was amazing to work with and we finally got awarded our union label and started paying dues.

It was around the time we began seeking the loan that G was doing and saying things we were a little confused by. He unilaterally fired two worker-owners in his co-op after months of mediation on my part to try and address interpersonal conflict. It's my fault for not seeing the writing on the wall then, but because he had done so much to help us, we justified his actions to look past our concerns.

Then, when those workers were gone he started to get abusive in text threads towards me and the other print folks, and we still looked past it because he had a lot going on in his life and that kind of stress can bring out the worst in anyone.

Well, a few weeks ago it came to our attention that we don't own our print co-op anymore, and we functionally stopped owning it once we signed on as a DBA. We thought we were all worker owners, but it turns out only I am, because I paid in at the time when I had the money. The abuse has escalated to the point that Z has quit, leaving only me the original creator the our co-op who we'll call M.

We're sort of trapped now. We're on the hook for rent at the shop until 2025, as well as the payments for our $30k loan, in a business that's been swept out from under us by someone we trusted who has become toxic and plainly cruel in his treatment of us.

Despite the stress and never really paying ourselves, I've enjoyed learning water-based screen printing and making garments people actually wear! It's been amazing! As the anti-workshop, we've been able to fund programs for our local IWW, the local tenants union and the local pro-palestine, anti-war committee. That has felt so good.

We've made our space an extremely queer, worker-focused spot for folks to learn the ins and outs of design and printing, which I am so proud of.

We're still here. We're still printing. We need to raise the funds to buy our equipment back by paying off this loan, so we can stop being a DBA of G's co-op and be our own entity again.

Failing that, we'll see what happens.

#sticker club #shaky hands #worker cooperatives #antiworkshop

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uwmspeccoll · 2 years

Photo

On this Fine Press Friday!

This week we present Lavengro; The Scholar, The Gipsy, The Priest, by English writer George Borrow (1803-1881). Illustrated with sixteen color lithographs and pen drawings by English book illustrator, painter, designer, typographer, and lithographer, Barnett Freedman (1901-1958), the edition, designed by Oliver Simon, was printed at the Curwen Press in London for The Limited Editions Club in 1936 in an edition of 1500 copies signed by the artist.

Lavengro was first published in London by John Murray in 1851. It is an autobiographical novel, Borrow began writing in 1842 and finished with a text that included fictional episodes that are inseparable from his genuine life experience. It was met with mixed reviews because of the mixture of fact and fiction, however it has become recognized as a classic in 19th-century English literature. Barnett Freedman, who produced the lithographs and pen-drawn illustrations for this edition, worked for the London publisher Faber and Gwyer where he illustrated many books. His first large commission was Siegfried Sassoon’s Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, published in 1931, which provided him some notoriety. George Macy, founder of the Limited Editions Club, commissioned Freedman to provide the illustrations for Lavengro, which marked a new phase of his work with its bright rainbow palette. He also developed a technique for black and white line drawings printed in line block to imitate lithography, which created uniformity in the book. George Macy was so impressed with Freedman’s work that he would later commission him to illustrate several other books including Henry the Fourth Part One from The Plays of William Shakespeare in Thirty-Seven Volumes (1939-40) and Tolstoy’s War and Peace (1938) and Anna Karenina (1951). The latter two were recognized as some of the finest book design of the twentieth century.

For George Macy’s Heritage Press, which often reprinted classics by the more exclusive Limited Editions Club, Freedman illustrated Dicken’s Oliver Twist (1939), Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights (1941), and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (1942). Freedman’s illustrations for Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are regarded among the best done for those titles.

View more posts on books from the Limited Editions Club.

Go here for more Fine Press Friday posts!

-Teddy, Special Collections Graduate Intern.

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ryanhamiltonwalsh · 6 months

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The first Velvet Underground show in Boston - 10/29/66

In Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968 I devoted many pages in service of fleshing out just how important Boston was for VU in the late sixties. But what I didn't get to talk about was the very first time the band appeared in the city on 10/29/66, which happens to be 57 years ago this week. It's a fine excuse to briefly stop thinking about the ceaseless horrors of the larger world and collate/post a bunch of info I've collected about that show as well as their first show in Massachusetts all together in Provincetown a few months prior.

The Exploding Plastic Inevitable—Warhol's multimedia bombardment of lights, film, live music, performance, and dance—was less than a year old when it was scheduled to appear in Boston. This EPI, featuring the music of the Velvet Underground, was to serve as the culmination of Warhol's exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art (the ICA), which at this point was located at 100 Newbury Street (where H&M currently resides). This was only Warhol's second museum exhibition and the mere booking of it at the ICA led to robust conversation in local art cliques. Boston was titillated and ready to have strong opinions about the new pop sensation whom some were calling genius and others a charlatan. More on that in a bit.

But before that exhibit even opened, Massachusetts had gotten a preview of the full Warhol experience late that summer at the Chrysler Art Museum in Provincetown, the coastal resort town located at the very tip of Cape Cod.

The Chrysler Art Museum is the large white building in the background of this postcard on the right.

Since the late 1800's, Provincetown had been in contrast to much of Puritan-singed Massachusetts, welcoming artists and writers as residents and visitors, presenting experimental theater, and supporting thriving art colonies. In 1916, the Boston Globe wrote that Provincetown was 'the biggest art colony in the world.'" By the time the Warhol entourage rolled through, it was also quickly becoming known as a safe haven for LGBTQ folks as well. "There had been a gay presence in Provincetown as early as the start of the 20th century as the artists' colony developed, along with experimental theatre. Drag queens could be seen in performance as early as the 1940s in Provincetown." This, far more than Boston, was the kind of environment you'd imagine the Velvet Underground would be welcomed with open arms. But that's not how things panned out at all.

The Boston Globe previewed the event in late August:

By the time the EPI was set to come to Boston, the Globe preview of that booking (published 9/18/66) was far less dismissive; the write-up noted how the Exploding Plastic Inevitable grew out of Warhol's statements to the press that he had given up on painting (which was a terrific lie):

But back to Provincetown and the Velvets. Save for album opener "Sunday Morning," the debut VU album was already complete at this point, but would not be out until March of next year. Earlier in the summer, the band's first single had been released with Nico on lead vocals on both the A & B side. This no doubt frustrated Lou Reed if not all of the other Velvets. Warhol had convinced VU they needed a mysterious chanteusse in the mix, and they reluctantly, begrudgingly agreed to facilitate Nico's membership in the band while always simultaneously keeping her at arm's length (though both Reed and Cale also eventually both had affairs with her).

On the single version of "All Tomorrow's Parties," the six-minute prepared piano tour-de-force fades out after the 3 minute mark, undercutting its power substantially. The single did not chart. Reed claimed "All Tomorrow's Parties" was about the scene he witnessed at The Factory ("I would hear people say the most astonishing things, the craziest things, the funniest things, the saddest things," he explained) while Cale contends it's about a woman named Darryl they were both pursuing. In any event, it's highly unlikely anyone in Provincetown had heard the single before these performances but, factually, there *was* recorded VU music available out in the world at the time.

The complete EPI entourage in Provincetown featured all the Velvets—John Cale, Sterling Morrison. Nico, Lou Reed, and Maureen Tucker—Warhol himself, dancers Gerard Malanga, Mary Woronov, and Eric Emerson, road manager Faison, and Warhol assistants Paul Morrissey and Ronnie Cutrone. Relatively new to the group was Susan Bottomly (aka International Velvet) with David Croland, her boyfriend.

While it's certainly been mentioned that Susan Bottomly was from Boston (well, Wellesley, specifically), I haven't seen anyone chronicling the VU story or its primary players note that she was also the daughter of John Bottomly, who was not only the State Assistant Attorney General but also the chief of the special “Strangler Bureau," aka a key player in the infamous Boston Strangler saga.

International Velvet's father had never conducted a criminal investigation before heading up the bureau created in order to capture the phantom-like serial killer who had been terrorizing Boston for years, murdering over a dozen women. Bottomly was criticized for the interrogation methods he used on lead Strangler suspect Albert DeSalvo, guiding him directly towards certain ideas and details, for instance, and even more so when he became a paid consultant on the 1968 film The Boston Strangler. Between Bottomly's controversial Strangler hunt being recounted in Gerold Frank's best-selling '66 book, The Boston Strangler, and working on the Tony Curtis-starring-film of the same title, his daughter danced in the EPI, had flings with Lou Reed and John Cale, and appeared on the FEB '67 cover of Esquire sitting in a trash can. Being able to draw a direct line from the Boston Strangler case to the Velvet Underground is truly a hallucinatory, peak-1960's kind of footnote.

But according to Warhol, this was not how the Bottomlys actually felt about Susan's trashcan cover turn and current direction in life: "Her parents weren’t happy with her new ‘career’ - modeling in New York - and later on, when she was on the cover of Esquire, photographed in a garbage can (‘Today’s Girl, Finished at 18’), they were really upset... but they went on supporting her, and she went on supporting lots of her friends.”

Along with Nico, Bottomly was one of the few performers in Warhol's Chelsea Girls film that actually lived at the Chelsea Hotel. Bottomly also appears in the Andy Warhol 1966 film "The Velvet Underground and Tarot Cards" in which, over the course of 65 minutes, all members of the band get their tarot read (there's more on VU's unlikely interest in astrological signs and other occult topics in my book). The film is extremely difficult to screen, but here's a short silent clip featuring Susan.

"I'd be dying to go to bed with Susan Bottomly (International Velvet)," whom Lou was also fucking on the side," Cale wrote in his 2000 autobiography. "Unfortunately [Lou] caught me in bed with Susan and he threw us both out of the apartment." How much of this had already transpired by the time the New Yorkers landed at the curled edge of Cape Cod is unclear.

"Everyone is uptight for amphetamine," Gerard Malanga wrote upon the crew's first impressions of Provincetown and the lack of connections to a dealer in the area. "We're all waiting in front of the museum to go to the beach." Enjoying the beach might have been the last good thing to happen to the EPI team in Provincetown. For starters, apparently, the toilets in the house Warhol rented did not work and members of the entourage were "throwing shit out the window."

Next up, one of the EPI entourage stole various items from a local shop for the show, and the police arrived on stage during one of the performances. They "untied Eric Emerson from a post (which he was strapped to in preparation for being whipped by Mary Woronov) in order to retrieve some belts and whips that were stolen from a leather store." (Source: Up-tight)

Additionally, Gerard Malanga was running out of patience with how little control he had over any visual aspect of the EPI and having to compete for the literal spotlight with the Velvet Underground. In Provincetown, Susan Bottomly refused to dance where Malanga instructed her to and then, during "Heroin," she blocked the spotlight that provided him with any source of light to navigate the space. "I'm in total darkness. Mary is also in total darkness," he wrote in his diary. "Andy seems oblivious to the situation and to my personal feelings."

In a letter written to Warhol but never sent, Malanga griped about the Cape Cod performance: “I thought the Provincetown show got off to a rough but very good start, until you were so kind enough as to let Susan and everyone else not directly connected with the show to get involved with Mary and I on stage…You are slowly taking this away from me by allowing outside elements to interfere with my dance routines…From my vantage point on stage to have more than two dancers the show becomes a Mothers of Invention freak-out.”

Even worse, new dancer Eric Emerson tried to steal a priceless piece of art from the museum "just to see if he could get away with it" and negotiations to return the art without charges being pressed were only narrowly achieved.

Finally, to tie a bow on the cursed Provincetown engagement, the large photograph on the back of the debut VU album was taken during one of the Chrysler Museum performances, and that particular image led to a legal issue which severely affected the impact the first VU LP was able to have with the listening public. It all has to do with the head above the projection of Lou's head, both hovering above the band. That upside down man is would-be art thief and EPI dancer, Eric Emerson.

The best, succinct explanation of the debacle comes from Richie Unteberger's excellent White Light/White Heat: The Velvet Underground day-by-day book:

“Seeing how no one asked [Eric Emerson] about putting his picture on the jacket, he asked Verve for a lot of money,” Morrison later explains in M.C. Kostek and Phil Milstein’s critical Velvet Underground discography. “Verve got scared and airbrushed it out.”

As an immediate consequence, The Velvet Underground & Nico – which has only just entered distribution and the lowest levels of the charts – has to be pulled from stores while Verve/MGM alters the artwork. The delay effectively kills the record’s chances of rising up the charts – not that it goes very far, peaking at a lowly Number 171 on Billboard...When the album finally reappears, Emerson’s image has been airbrushed out, leaving a murky, yellow glow where his face once appeared. Even worse, some copies simply paste an ugly, black-and-white sticker with the album title and Warhol’s production credit over where Emerson’s face had been. There are no winners in this battle.

But how was the music? The Boston Globe's Ray Murphy covered the event and his specific references to the Velvet Underground sound more like how you might describe different shades on a painter's palette than an innovative rock band comprised of five unique individuals:

The performance ended when "all the fuses in the room blew out under the strain of all the projectors, amplifiers, and lights. The quiet made you dizzy."

"It was a wild affair and difficult to analyze," Murphy concluded.

"They got run out of Provincetown on a rail," Cutrone said in summary.

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Less than two months later, the EPI/VU gang marched right back into Massachusetts for a rematch, this time in Boston proper.

Andy's appearance at the ICA in early October for the opening of his exhibit kicked off the Beantown version of Warhol-mania. The Globe reported:

Guess who this chic hangman was? That's right...

The Boston Globe spelled her last name incorrectly here, but other articles about her get it right.

Warhol, as he often did, just stood there and let people project their ideas onto him.

The paper declared Warhol "the hottest living art personality since Picasso and Dali." Then it was off to the races, with droves of Bostonians visiting to see what all the fuss was about, making it the most popular exhibit in the ICA's history.

Future Fletch novelist Gregory Mcdonald covered the phenomenon weeks into the exhibit for the Boston Globe. Mcdonald conjectured that it's not just people who love his art and hate his art, but also a third category of person who knows it's a fraud but finds it delightful that he's pulling one over on the sophisticated art world.

"His work has the limited future of a soup label," Mcdonald writes, unaware how wrong he'll eventually be proven, but then again, Warhol felt the same way. "My work has no future at all," he told the reporter, "I know that." Outside of a good caption joke about an older patron confused about whether she was at the supermarket or an art gallery, the Mcdonald piece concludes in what can only be described as the writer spiraling out trying to put the artist's ethos and its consequences into words:

"What are you currently reading exists this morning in 600,000 copies," he declares, "but by 2:30 this afternoon will not exist at all." And yet, here I am, reading those words and thinking about that same artist. No one saw what was coming.

The EPI event promptly sold out and an additional performance was added for 11PM on October 29th at the ICA. In the lead up to the show, the Velvet Underground are referred to in the press as a "cultural mafia," a preview of the event says the band will be "unleashed," and that "Boston has not seen anything like it." Admission was five dollars.

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Just like the Provincetown trip, Boston had its own unique roster of ancillary players involved with the EPI and VU, and a few of them had some connection to a scene that was just starting to develop up on Fort Hill in Roxbury. The Mel Lyman Family, or Fort Hill Community, like Warhol, would soon receive reams of press coverage in an attempt to figure out who/what/why they precisely were. For now, Lyman and Co. had just acquired several dilapidated houses on Fort Ave. in the wake of Mel's initial audacious claims that he was God. Their alternative newspaper, Avatar, would start the following year in June of '67.

Ronna Page, who would dance in the EPI that night, had previously done a Warhol screen test and is the co-"star" of one of the most infamous scenes in Chelsea Girls in which an amphetamine fueled Ondine slaps her after she calls him a phony. It's a real, unscripted moment. It's also one of the most exploitive, squirmish moments in all of Warhol's work. Warhol said the unexpected violence made him uncomfortable and he had to leave the room while it was happening but Mary Woronov, in her memoir Swimming Underground, reported that privately the director said, "it's our best film yet. It's so beautiful."

The description of her screen test: "Ronna Page, lit only from the left, stares hard at the camera without blinking, until her eyes tear up halfway through the roll."

It was Page who introduced filmmaker Jonas Mekas to Mel Lyman at the Paradox Restaurant in New York, a connection that would lead to Lyman's first book, Autobiography of a World Saviour. It's unclear if she was ever a full time member of the Lyman family or just a friend on the periphery. In 1967, a member of the Fort Hill Community wrote of Page in the pages of Avatar:

The darkly voluptuous superstar, Ronna Page's metier is seducing swamis, and there's more and more work for her every day. Everyone's off to see the Master these days. The Beatles, Shirley MacClaine, Mrs. Frank Sinatra (that's Mia), Kandy Kane, Bobby Vinton are all looking for someone to help them on the journey to spiritual salvation. Can't you just see it! In a few years everyone will be going to their "psychia-christ" to the tune of seventy love — dollars an hour. But as long as our lovely Ronna is around, she'll weed out the swamis who are not bent on salvation but are bent over something else.

The subtext of this gossipy blind item is unknown, and whether this is in praise of Page or a dig is hard to say. In the 1966 "Expanded Arts" issue of Film Culture, Mel Lyman is listed as available for "A full evening show alone or together with Eben Given, Ronna Page, Jonas Mekas, light, images, voice, human presence" (Film Culture 43 [1966]: n.p.).

Also part of the Warhol entourage in Boston is artist and future art critic Rene Ricard, who was actively trying to avoid the Cambridge police for living illegally on Harvard property "and numerous flower thefts - from gardens, flower shops and particularly an alleged heist of one of Andy’s flower paintings."

In a November '67 article in Avatar, apparently Rene wrote an anonymously disparaging piece about himself:

A raging, high-pitched, red-eyed little transvestite called, get this, Rene Ricard, attacked Mel Lyman the other night in the back room (the place) of Max's Kansas City. Mel, slightly startled, but always the Master of the situation, just shut the little thing up by slapping his face. It turned out the reason for his attack was somehow everyone in New York thinks he's ME and he feels that I am ruining his name — YOUR name, you little bitch, think what you're doing to MINE!

Uh, ok. Sure. Maybe you had to be there.

Some of the NY entourage stay with Gordon Baldwin, others with Ed Hood, and because Nico only appears with the Velvet Underground a few times in Boston, this date is a fairly good candidate for one of the times the band stayed in the houses of the Mel Lyman Family. From AW68:

On one such occassion, when Nico simply helped herself to someone’s bed, the German singer was bluntly instructed to find somewhere else to catch some sleep. Personnel from the band and a Fort Hill Community member had certainly crossed paths at least once before; Faith Gude and VU’s whip dancer Gerard Malanga had a brief affair in the early sixties.

At 9PM, Saturday, October 29th, the first Velvet Underground show in Boston began.

Gerard Malanga sets the scene in Up-Tight:

In Jack Bernstein's review of the event for MIT's The Tech newspaper, he knew he had seen something ahead of its time:

To borrow a phrase, "it's the shape of rock to come." Andy Warhol's Expanding Plastic Inevitable featuring The Velvet Underground with Nico performed their new 'psychedelic rock' at the Institute of Contemporary Art Saturday. The biggest difference between this music and the stuff you get on 'frantic forty' radio is that you have to see this to believe it.

Bernstein describes the disorientating nature of the opening of the EPI with its lights, films, and a sense something was about to happen. And then:

Their first number, 'All Tomorrows Parties,' which, incidentally, has been released by Verve records, featured Nico singing, and the Underground, electric bass, electric guitar, electric piano, and supersonic drums, providing the most driving backing I've ever heard...the technical armament of Velvet Underground is something fantastic to behold...the most starling of all was two huge gas-discharge lamps which would flash in syncopated time as the music reached its climax. The only aspect of the performance which could been improved upon was the group's tendency to rely on the background material for too long between numbers, but once the music started, all was forgiven.

It sounds like an unadulterated win, but just like Provincetown, apparently, the New Yorkers left feeling down about the gig. EPI entourage member Susan Pile had a fairly grim assessment of how it all shook out in the end in a letter to her friend:

"Boston’s reaction was an incredible rejection. The thing is, those who do not get involved with the show tend to react in loud objection; those who do get involved are too overcome with the experience (capital E) to do much of anything. And the show in Boston was beautiful--it was a stage show in the auditorium - no dancing by scum on the floor."

But Pile also noted, "the Velvets are getting so much better--their album is done, but everyone is becoming disenchanted with the idea of touring." In truth, it wasn't quite done, and it was going to be awhile before it came out, and even then, it wasn't going to get the praise and adulation it deserved for decades, arguably. A long, long wait was ahead for the band, as an entity and even as a name. Think of the anticipation and crazed majesty of this first performance compared to the final Boston VU show, at Oliver's on Lansdowne St in 1973 with no original members and Doug Yule leading a competent bar band through a set that included some Velvet Underground songs. There would be a long free fall towards obscurity before they would be crowned one of the greatest to ever do it.

"One of the more celebrated rock groups..." indeed.

As would become tradition, the post-VU-Boston-show after party was held at Ed Hood's place in Harvard Square. Pile recalled, "A totally paranoid party - millions of people at Ed Hood’s in total isolation, everyone stoned beyond belief and uncommunicating."

The EPI in Boston generated an avalanche of stimuli, information, and discussion. Maybe everyone had done enough communicating for the night.

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