Discover Top Posts Tagged with #fran hoepfner

Nepo Babies by Fran Hoepfner

There was a time when nobody really cared if the kid of a famous actor, musician, or comedian followed the family business. If your father owned a bakery, chances are you ended up making bread. If your mother worked at the family diner, you probably learned how to carry plates before you learned algebra. In entertainment, it was not much different. The kids of stars simply drifted into movies,…

#celebrity families #classic cinema design #entertainment culture #film poster style #Fran Hoepfner #golden age Hollywood #Hollywood poster #nepo babies #nepo baby #pop culture illustration #retro movie art #vintage lobby card

Fran Magazine breaks down the Maestro trailer for easter eggs, reveals, hidden messages, and Mahler

The amount of times I wheeze-laughed over Fran in this in the office yesterday. Reports of film writing's death to Tiktok publicists have been greatly exaggerated, if I can help it!!!

#Fran Magazine #Fran Hoepfner #Maestro #Bradley Cooper #Leonard Bernstein

This was not, in my assumption, a passive and formal and rigid girl; this was a weirdo trapped in the social norms of turn of the century England. “Mother doesn’t like me playing Beethoven—she says I’m always peevish afterwards,” Lucy tells Mr. Beebe at one point. Has a more goth sentence ever been uttered? In a documentary produced 30 years after the film’s release, Bonham Carter herself says she imagines she got the part because she came in looking so disinterested, slumped over, and moody. Lucy Honeychurch is a young woman burdened by the rigorous expectations thrust upon her from every side. She ought to marry Cecil. She ought to stay at home. She ought not to travel alone or live in London or be by herself or anything that exerts any type of independent thought. No wonder she’s in a bad fucking mood all the time! Maybe that’s why the Emersons seem so appealing. They answer to no one.

A Room With a View (1985)

#a room with a view #fran hoepfner #film #review

What was the best movie of 2015? It was Magic Mike XXL. I’m pretty sure it was Mad Max: Fury Road, wasn’t it? Mad Max: Fury Road is an incredible movie, but the best movie of 2015 was Magic Mike XXL. Magic Mike XXL looked like it was a bad movie. Is Magic Mike XXL a bad movie? No, as I have said twice before, and will now say a third time, it was the best movie of 2015. Please do not make me go over this again.

#magic mike xxl #movies #bright wall dark room #fran hoepfner

There’s always like some kind of chorus of little no’s every time you say something bad about yourself — aloud, online, whatever. It’s okay! I would so much rather say something aloud about my chubby arms than internalize it until it becomes bottled up, until I’m pulling at the skin alone in my room at 2am trying to figure out what my body is.

On being ugly by Fran Hoepfner

#Fran Hoepfner

Our fourth finalist is FRAN HOEPFNER, for her manuscript, whales/Wales/wails. Check out (and share!) a sneak peak of the manuscript, above. Fran Hoepfner is a writer based out of the Chicagoland area and a recent graduate of Kalamazoo College in Michigan. She was previously published in Kalamazoo College's literary magazine, The Cauldron, and the winner of its Divine Crow Award for Poetry in both 2012 and 2013.

#poetry #whales #wales #wails #fran hoepfner #spoken word #slam poetry #writing #button poetry #exploding pinecone #ep chapbooks

9th

by Fran Hoepfner

Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso

The 9th premiered on a bright day in May, the sun bouncing off the grey decadence that was Vienna in the summertime. The streets and their people busied themselves as I walked to the Kärntnertortheater around midmorning, greeting those who made eye contact with a curt nod and nothing more. They knew, at this point, not to say anything; the citizens of Vienna and I had made this silent agreement years ago. My wrist flicked about as I walked, running through the various switches in both pace and feeling.

A mere two rehearsals with an orchestra before a premiere was rare. Risky, even. I may not have been able to hear them, but I knew what my peers had been saying over the last few weeks. I knew what they had been saying over the last few years. I was done. I had lost my talent. Nothing I had written since my 5th Symphony was worthy of recognition. They had hated my 8th Symphony. To the papers, they had said my hearing loss was at fault for my lack of proficiency. To my face, they had said it was a great tragedy. What they had said to each other, I could only guess. I knew, though I had not yet confided in any of my peers, the 9th would be last. Scherzo: Molto vivace

I hear a constant, persistent G-sharp. When, at the ripe age of 25, the G-sharp grew in volume and severity in both of my ears, I knew I was cursed. Let a composer have a B-flat, a C, an A... Let him have something with which he can write and write well. None of the symphonies that flourish over time will have been written in G-sharp. The note has followed me wherever I go, creeping mercilessly into my art.

That afternoon, during a brief dress rehearsal, Umlauf, the Kärntnertortheater’s most recent director, brought Henriette Sontag to me. He did not have to bother to introduce her; her name is more than well-known throughout central Europe. He had her sing a note. I had no idea what the note was, but I watched her throat pulsate and her lungs rise within her chest. I could only guess it was a D, but all I heard was the G-sharp. Her face reddened, and as she released the note, Henriette gasped for breath. I was amazed, for a moment, at her beauty. She had a full face and long golden hair. When she paused to catch her breath, I watched her chest heave, blushing slightly. Those who make music are beautiful to me; I had no choice but to assume the note she sang was correct.

I smiled, G-sharp ringing between my ears. Umlauf suggested, in so few motions and mouthed words, for us to share the stage in front of Vienna that evening. He was, after all, the theater’s true director. I was simply a composer to him, not a conductor. A deaf composer, at that.

I paused, but when Henriette nodded, I knew to give in.

I tried to ask Umlauf if he would like to share my G-sharp, if we were indeed to share the bounty of my art that evening. He laughed uncomfortably, wobbling his head in the uncertain way people tend to do when they do not understand what you are trying to tell them. Adagio molto e cantabile

My friend, a doctor, told me almost thirty years ago that some people lose all hearing entirely. They live life in silence. I cannot imagine a better peace. The G-sharp persists through all of my thoughts and desires. But to live in silence? I could fill only parts of my brain with music—humming timpani rolls and blaring brass. The rest of my brain would be open, silent, ready to explore painting or writing or politics. As my hand rose for the first time that evening, flicking a baton over the strings’ gaze, I watched their eyes. They did not follow the turning of my wrist, but instead, their eyes were stitched to Umlauf. The audience stared at him too. You always know, whether you are looking or not, when someone is looking at you. And at my final symphony performance, they were not looking at me. My peers and strangers, wealthy and working class, those who admired my work and those whose tongues had only just learned how to pronounce my name all sat at my feet, and not a soul acknowledged my presence. Presto

I decided to close my eyes at the start of the Presto. I knew my work better than Umlauf, better than the musicians, and better than anyone seated behind me. I could feel the music. I could feel the room. My eyelids flickered shut, and for once, I felt what might have been music. The G-sharp faded away and I knew, with every muscle in my body, how the Presto sang. The trumpets rose in the back, growing in a volume I knew existed whether I could hear it or not. When Henriette opened her mouth, a clear C rang. Her mouth would gape, and her chest would pull in huge gasps of breath. Those who had doubted my abilities would learn. They would learn that I had not lost any talent with my hearing. The 9th would put me into the history books, and forever cement my name into the stones of Vienna’s streets.

I felt a firm hand on my back, my body shook, my eyes opened. It was Umlauf, eyes widened, hand on my wrist. He pointed behind me, and the orchestra stared up at me, bows in their laps, horns in their hands. It was over. My 9th had ended and I had not. I had missed it, conducting past the finale, but truly, what did it matter? Umlauf had directed them, not me.

The audience rose to their feet, their hands furiously moving together, their mouths open with a noise I could not hear. Tears streamed down the faces of some patrons, both men and women, in the front rows. The G-sharp rang in my ears, and I wept.

#fiction #fran hoepfner