sitting on the sidewalk like a baby

alissa // 27 // she/her icon by my partner everywhere @redstoneofaja

[ufonaut]

[julian-fawcett-mp]

John Singer Sargent, ‘Gassed’ and ‘Six Studies for Gassed’ (1918)

[robertwire]

In Gassed there is little suffering. Or rather, what suffering there is is outweighed by the painting’s compassion. In spite of the vomiting figure the scene has almost nothing in common with Owen’s vision of the gas victim whose blood comes ‘gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs’. What Sargent has depicted, instead, is the solace of the blind: the comfort of putting your trust in someone, of being safely led.

— geoff dyer, the missing of the somme

[energyprison]

one million more kitties have been deployed to earth

[carbonatedgatorade]

it makes me feel mean and like an elitist but every time i hear about a new popular book series i'll read the synopsis and go "are you for real?????" and to be fair i am mean and an elitist, i'm willing to own that. but also. are you for real

[aloneandforsakenbyfateandbyman]

My Wicked, Wicked Ways by Errol Flynn, 1959

[ufonaut]

Somewhere else, everything's beautiful.

The Widow Couderc (1971, dir. Pierre Granier-Deferre)

[kino-ani]

Joan Blondell as Carol King Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) Dir. Mervyn LeRoy

[redstoneofaja]

sunshine lollipops and rainbows

[ufonaut]

I know what you've done to your mother and to your wife. Don't think I'll be a victim too.

Creezy (1974, dir. Pierre Granier-Deferre)

[creekfiend]

I identify the most with the woman who has a green velvet ribbon around her neck and keeps being like "DONT untie my neck ribbon or something really bad will happen" and then her husband unties the ribbon and her head falls off. this is extremely real to me. spent my whole life like "please don't do this thing to me or really bad stuff will happen" and everyone around me being like "that sounds fake" and doing it anyway. and then my head fell off!

[ufonaut]

Tough Business has the world's only archive of Richard Stark's Parker reprints in men's pulp/adventure magazines and I'm happy to say we've got some very exciting updates now up on the site! The pages for the reprints of The Seventh ("The Deadly Seven") and The Green Eagle Score ("The Young Bedroom Raiders") now have scans of the title pages, relevant illustrations, and all the info you could ever need about these pulpy takes on the Stark classics. Check them out at the links above! (x)

[ufonaut]

i've written extensively (and will continue writing) about gaycoding in donald westlake's parker series, i think it's a genuinely significant element in what's possibly one of the single most influential pieces of crime fiction in the genre's history and an extremely compelling narrative to begin with. but the average straight reader -- and this has come up countless times -- seems to deny any trace of intention on mr westlake's part, nevermind that he's written about how a "homosexual coloring" is what gives the genre its longevity and endless readability, and nevermind that virtually his every published novel contains at the very least a passing reference to homosexuality.

having read all the novels written under the richard stark and tucker coe pseudonyms and being currently in the process of making my way through the works written under westlake's own name, i figured i'd put together a compilation of every book referencing or featuring gay characters. i'll add to this as i go along and a legitimate piece may eventually come out of this, but my primary goal here is to underline how unusual (to say the least) is the explicit -- often positive, always complex -- portrayal of gay characters in 1960s and '70s crime fiction. the language used varied greatly depending on the pov character and the type of novel, but donald westlake's work created a space for us in a genre commonly associated with an entirely straight male audience in a way none of his contemporaries ever had.

---

the hunter (1962)

memory (1963)

the man with the getaway face (1963)

the score (1964)

pity him afterwards (1964)

the seventh (1966)

the handle (1966)

kinds of love, kinds of death (1966)

the rare coin score (1967)

the green eagle score (1967)

the sour lemon score (1969, gay couple as main characters)

the dame (1969)

the blackbird (1969)

wax apple (1970)

a jade in aries (1970, gay-themed novels with various gay characters in the main & supporting cast)

bank shot (1972)

plunder squad (1972)

nobody's perfect (1977)

[ufonaut]

the busy body (1966)

[ufonaut]

double feature (1977, originally published as enough!)

also in the spirit of this compilation, i ought to mention our pride month special over on tough business concerns westlake as a staunch ally to our community & the homophobic reactions to one of his essays back in the '80s.

[ufonaut]

double feature (1977). writing about gay marriage all the way back in '77!

[ufonaut]

no one in the world has ever written gay people like mr westlake... weeping (double feature 1977)

[ufonaut]

Cure me? Of what?

Mädchen in Uniform (1958, dir. Géza von Radványi)

[redstoneofaja]

point blank poster homage with lee and veronica

[ufonaut]

Our review of The Black Ice Score (1968) is now up on Tough Business! Co-written with my partner everywhere @redstoneofaja, it was a real pleasure to get the chance to do a deep dive into one of Richard Stark's most radical and underrated novels. Read the full review right here, and make sure to check out our gallery of international cover on the novel's main page! (x)

[ufonaut]

Sweeney Todd at the Birmingham Rep starring Ramin Karimloo!

I saw the very first performance last night and I'm still utterly completely blown away by this production. It includes usually cut numbers like Judge Turpin's "Mea Culpa" and the Beadle's parlor song sequence, and it really ramps up the horror of the story. It's a blunt, masterful, viscerally uncomfortable take on Sondheim's masterpiece that I could watch again and again. I really hope it eventually transfers to the West End! (04/07/2026)

[weepyemperor]

if youre a woman and youve never said stuff like hi girlie by age 13 or somrthing its closed off to you forever you cant use words like that because people will know you are faking it so you have to invent your own greetings like "hello". im gendernon conforming