Saturday

On a heavier Saturday, in the US, some of us will set the clocks back and pretend we will get more sleep, or for many of us, another hour to toss and turn. Stories today dig a little deeper into standards, the infamous Double Standard to start, wrapped around an interesting story about Old Hollywood. New Hollywood follows the old with weekend screen recommendations from CONSEQUENCE and great use of the sun.

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There is a website called Ranker, and part of the catch or gimmick of the website is the voting option on most of the info on the site. The site is also an example of why we are against advertising in an online publication. The way the site displays ads, popups, videos, etc., is up there with the robocall. The challenge is the writing, the stories, and the content in general are good, forcing us to put up with the terrible environment to read the info. Like a robocall, I make a mental note of every popup and interruption, and it diminishes my thoughts on the brand being advertised. The website is where you land, but the effort they put into putting you there is like the content, which is excellent. 

The Ranker website is brought to us from Weird History, another publication, and a YouTube channel reporting on interesting stories. It includes high-level production in most of its work. Today’s reflection comes from an email series they put out called Cultivating Curiosity – Old Hollywood. The story we reviewed came with a wonderfully titillating headline about old Hollywood actresses known for screwing around.

The women in this piece, many of them well-known to this day, some of whom haven't acted in 75 years, were all portrayed as actors who played life the same way they played acting roles but chose to be the masculine character, doing what they wanted, without regard for how it looked to anyone else. Double standards in Hollywood and elsewhere have been written about as long as there has been a "standard" to put them up against. Reading this story and the stories about these women, some of whom acted in silent films before women were granted the right to vote in The Constitution, made me wonder if anything they did was out of the ordinary. There are 10 women on this list, and the ratio of men to women who acted this way is 10 to 1. A woman who chose to use their power and could do so based on fame, wealth, and circumstance was somehow portrayed as a rebel; men in similar situations were portrayed as simply… men?

I've been working on several pieces that dive into our internal fears that get in the way of our own creative work. When the fear of feedback causes us to go into the endless loop of edits and stops us from getting on stage or publishing our work, our inner demons win, and our self-worth takes another hit. An actress from 50 years ago who decided not to give in to general mores of the time or care about the gossip, in some ways, continued the same confidence they had to get up on stage in the first place. This is interesting and goes to the thread of all the other places in your life that can open up when you embrace that fear and move forward with your creative endeavors. Confidence and your ability to overcome fear in one area can help in others.

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Liz Shannon Miller from CONSEQUENCE brings another great set of what to watch this week. Miller starts with an interesting role reversal in the HULU series Quiz Lady, where your favorite high-strung Grey’s Anatomy doc (Sandra Oh) plays the screw-up, and actor and comedian Awkwafina plays the straight one. Of the many recommendations on the list worth checking out, the one I've added to my list, is Miller's flashback film – Zodiac from 2007. This is David Fincher’s movie about the Zodiac Killer from the 60s and 70s. 

Here’s another cool list from Ranker – this one has 29 Low-Key Photos like this:

It does make you wonder what it looks like on a cloudy day?

Yesterday’s highlight of indieCAST and the bands with new music forced me to figure out what Shoegaze meant. For someone as into music, as I am, I have heard the term but never put together what it means. After learning what it meant, PedalHeadz is more accurate. As a genre of music, here is the best explanation I found on the term, along with a Spotify Playlist called Shoegaze.

Shoegaze is a subgenre of alternative rock music that emerged in the late 1980s, primarily in the United Kingdom. It is characterized by its use of heavily distorted and layered guitar sounds, ethereal and dreamy vocals, and a focus on creating a wall of sound that envelops the listener. The name "shoegaze" is derived from the tendency of some of the musicians to stare at their effects pedals while performing rather than engaging with the audience.

Shoegaze music often features a dense and immersive sonic landscape, with a strong emphasis on reverb and feedback effects, creating a hypnotic and otherworldly atmosphere. It's known for its introspective and emotionally charged lyrics, and it had a significant influence on subsequent genres like dream pop and noise rock.

Shoegaze above.

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🤘We are here every day, and every minute you spend with us sends ripples of gratitude through our souls! 🤘

With A Shout newsletter is written by Johnny Christian with the support of a thousand idea bits and the help of many people.

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