Three of my recent cephalopod paintings, in order of creation. Nautilus on blank skateboard, Kraken on wood panel, Japanese Firefly Squid on blank skateboard.
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Vivien, dear Vivien - an exquisite actress, thoughtful, fearless, gracious, and enormously kind. A lovely little pink cloud floating through the lives of all her friends, hovering over the setting sun, and thinking of everyone but herself.
Olivier was a first-rate actor and a second-rate person. Larry always wanted to be a big movie star, and while he was considered the greatest actor on the stage, he was never in the first rank as a star in the movies. Then Vivien comes along and gets Scarlett O’Hara. Wins the Academy Award. Biggest picture ever made. Suddenly Larry says, ‘Oh darling, we really must get you out of Hollywood now. Let’s go off and do Shakespeare together.’ Now Vivien could do anything, but he was clearly trying to keep her in her place, which was billed beneath him. Then a few years pass and Vivien returns to make Streetcar. And she’s brilliant. Wins the Academy Award. Most talked-about movie of the year. And suddenly Larry says, ‘Oh darling, we really must get you out of Hollywood now. Let’s go off and do Shakespeare together.’ Small man. Giant actor. Very small man.
– KATHARINE HEPBURN on VIVIEN LEIGH and LAURENCE OLIVIER
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Now Valentinian was chosen emperor in Bithynia (as we have said before). He gave the signal for the march for the next day but one, and assembling the chief civil and military officials, as if ready to follow safe and sound advice rather than his own inclination, inquired who ought to be chosen as partner in the rule. [...] Dagalaifus, at that time commander of the cavalry, boldly answered: "If you love your relatives, most excellent emperor, you have a brother; if it is the state that you love, seek out another man to clothe with the purple." The emperor, angered by this, but keeping silence and concealing his thoughts, forcing the pace, entered Nicomedia on the first of March, and appointed his brother Valens chief of his stable with the rank of tribune. Then, on his arrival in Constantinople, [...] on the twenty-eighth of March he brought the aforesaid Valens into one of the suburbs and with the consent of all (for no one ventured to oppose) proclaimed him Augustus. Then he adorned him with the imperial insignia and put a diadem on his head, and brought him back in his own carriage, thus having indeed a lawful partner in his power, but, as the further course of our narrative will show, one who was as compliant as a subordinate.
AM 26.4.1-4
there's some hint of 'no one's allowed to talk shit about my brother but me,' energy, but also generally I'm just kind of obsessed. not with Valentinian I, but with Valens. hello.
I'll probably get into Valens later, since he's taking up a significant amount of room in my thoughts, but for now, it's the 'oh! the brothers were co emperors!' that's making the wheels spin. (the last time I was reading about brothers, or people made to be like brothers, as co-rulers, it was with Tiberius. and that goes about as well as you expect it to lmao)
Failure of Empire: Valens and the Roman State in the Fourth Century A.D, Noel Lenski
⭐ I have a tip jar (ko-fi)!
⭐ and other places I'm at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app
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