#ragtime

[awhitewomansinstagram]

If you ever feel like you’ve made bad decisions just remember that somewhere out there is a theatre director at an all-white high school about to choose the spring musical

[bi-accident]

Niche skill check

[detroitlib]

Portrait of James Reese Europe, also known as Jim Europe, ragtime and early jazz bandleader, arranger and composer. Europe wears World War I military uniform. Printed on front: "Lt. Jim Europe."

E. Azalia Hackley Collection of African Americans in the Performing Arts, Detroit Public Library

[hah-studios]

Part of the Ragatha is Caine's Assistant AU I have on the backburner.

The bowtie hyperfixiation is fierce rn.

[offarawaysnfuturedays-inmydreams]

"the sound of distant thunder suddenly starting to climb it was the music of something beginning an era exploding, a century spinning in riches and rags and in rhythm and rhyme the people called it ragtime"

RAGTIME at the 2025 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

[aminahartz7]

based on this post

but instead of purring he bzzzzs like a bee

+bonus shenanigans

[godlessondheimite]

you just know that if he were real in 2025 he’d commit a great as*as**nation and his reddit account would be funky as fuck

[droughtofapathy]

Outside of its context "Back to Before" is a triumphant power ballad, but textually this isn't Mother taking back her power. It's not her deciding to change the world as some kind of great pioneer of women's suffrage. I think a lot of the version tend to focus more on the power ballad belting aspect, rather than a character-driven performance. This is a woman who has fallen out of love and it's breaking her heart. It's not "Get Out and Stay Out." It's letting go of decades of blissful ignorance. It's regret and exhaustion and resilience. And part of it is resignation. Because Mother doesn't leave him. She stays. She endures. Father dies on the Lusitania in 1915. That's about ten years after "Back to Before." For another decade, Mother endures. And in that decade, she's wide-awake to so much that she'd been happy to turn a blind eye to in the past. But she stays.

The book details more about how Mother and Father are pretty much not speaking to one another in the ensuing years. And the fact that she knows better--wants more--but stays anyway speaks to me as a choice made out of safety and security. Because being Mother is safe. Her story is an awakening for herself, but not for the world. She and Father see what happens to Coalhouse and Sarah, and it opens their eyes, but it does not change them. Not really. They just...shift. After everything Mother sees, she stays. And I think that speaks to America. What Ragtime is really about, even if I'm not entirely sure any of its white creators know what they've done. White outrage. Words. We cannot go back. But what are you doing to move all of us forward?