More reflections!

Oct. 1st, 2025 11:52 pm
loganberrybunny: Drawing of my lapine character's face by Eliki (Default)
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243/365: On the towpath, Kidderminster
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This morning's post was very heavy, so let's shift gears back to light stuff now. I intend and hope that there'll be a run of lighter posts now before I go back to anything too much more serious. Today, more reflections! A bit less in the way of sunshine this time, though... this is part of the Staffs & Worcs Canal in Kidderminster, very close to the town centre in fact. Tesco is under five minutes' walk from here. I quite like walking along the towpath sometimes, as long as it's not too muddy. There was an irritating diversion a bit further on owing to some work being done on a large canalside building, but that couldn't be avoided. I went to Sainsbury's instead of Tesco, but that's near the same canal so it didn't make much odds!

One final point in case I forget tomorrow: for a few days now (I'm not sure exactly how many) I won't be posting any 365 photos on here as I'll be spending much of my time at UK PonyCon and simply won't have the time. I'll keep taking a photo each day, and I'll upload them in batches when I'm back and have the time.

(no subject)

Oct. 1st, 2025 11:10 am
greghousesgf: (pic#17098464)
[personal profile] greghousesgf
Well, dumbasses fucked up again, I had been paying less rent than I was supposed to for two months without them bothering to tell me so I had to pay them extra just now. And my father isn't answering his phone.

(no subject)

Oct. 1st, 2025 09:43 am
disneydream06: (Disney Birthday)
[personal profile] disneydream06
Today it is my pleasure to send out...

*~*~*~*~*GREAT BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY WISHES*~*~*~*~*

To my friend, [personal profile] man_of_snows.

I hope you have a spectacular day. :)


Disney 1
loganberrybunny: Just outside Bewdley (Look both ways)
[personal profile] loganberrybunny
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You want to know why I hate David Hess? This is why I hate David Hess. I was originally going to leave this post until later, but I've decided I need to get it out now. I'm going to have a nice weekend with friends, and I need this out of my system – because nice it isn't. It follows on from this post that I made ten days ago, in which I gave Hess's comments about the rape scene in a documentary about the making of the film. These follow-up posts also concern the rape scene, in which Hess played Krug, the rapist, and Sandra Peabody played Mari, the victim.

Content warning: sexual assault, abusive behaviour

You know how rare it is for me to put any content warnings at all on my posts. This one is a special case, because sadly the material I'm including is much more disturbing than usual. The post I linked to above was bad. This post will see worse, especially the final extract. This post is obviously extremely NSFW, though it's all text apart from two links to audio/video clips. The first quote is entirely by Hess, from a featurette. The second features Hess and several other film personnel from a book. The last – and the most disturbing of all – is from a DVD commentary track with Hess and two fellow villain actors, Marc Sheffler and Fred Lincoln.

Disturbing content under here )

140 in 1400 List

Oct. 1st, 2025 12:46 am
zhelana: (Games - Despair)
[personal profile] zhelana
Finished this month

Write 300k words in 2025
Read 12 new fiction titles 2025
Read 12 new nonfiction titles 2025


Progress This Month


Exercise every day in 2025
Weight lift every day of 2025
Brush teeth 360 times in 2025
Shower weekly 2025
Go to fighter practice 12 times in 2025
Art Every Day 2025
Paint 12 times in 2025
Write in Spanish every day of 2025
Write in Russian every week of 2025
Finish my memoirs
Write weekly 2025
Work through a book of writing exercises
Read 2 pages of Spanish every day 2025
Clean 2 minutes per weekday 2025
Clean 10 minutes per week 2025
Cook 12 times 2025
Watch a video in Spanish every week 2025
Watch a video in Russian every week 2025
Read 3 science textbooks
Read 3 social science textbooks
Read 3 history textbooks
Work through 3 math textbooks
Go to temple 12 times in 2025

Riverine

Oct. 1st, 2025 12:16 am
loganberrybunny: Drawing of my lapine character's face by Eliki (Default)
[personal profile] loganberrybunny
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242/365: Sunny Severn, Bewdley
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I try not to repeat myself too much, but when you have a river right there it's hard to resist sometimes. So I know this isn't the first time I've posted a photo of the River Severn in Bewdley, but that's what you're getting again tonight! The effects of the Wribbenhall flood scheme (now finally nearing completion) are very obvious on the opposite bank. Also, I like reflections and clouds, and here you get both! :D

(no subject)

Sep. 30th, 2025 12:34 pm
greghousesgf: (pic#17098462)
[personal profile] greghousesgf
Yesterday after the guy fixed my toilet they asked me to go down to the apt bldg main office to do the recertification. All I had to do was sign a couple of papers. They've been doing these ever since they took over this bldg and the first time I had to turn in lots of bank statements and call the SS on their office phone and fill out a million forms (and they lost some and claimed I didn't give them to them in the first place!) and every other time it was only a few forms and now all it is is two signatures. And at first they made everybody in the bldg do it at the same time and now they don't and it used to be once every nine months and this time I went over a year and a half before they had me do it again.
loganberrybunny: Drawing of my lapine character's face by Eliki (Default)
[personal profile] loganberrybunny
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241/365: Dashboard ducks
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sings Dashboard ducks! Let's get dangerous... wait, wrong duck. Anyway, this was a fun sight in the main car park in Bewdley this morning. An ordinary hatchback, except that the top of the dashboard shelf was full of plastic ducks. Because why not? Actually I think one of those ducks looks a bit dragonish, but who am I to judge that? I do wonder if the owner of this car has been to the Duck Store in Shrewsbury, since they have an entire wall of ducks. But who knows? It was just nice to see something light and silly and harmless and fun. We need more people doing things that are light and silly and harmless and fun.

(no subject)

Sep. 29th, 2025 10:47 am
greghousesgf: (pic#17096873)
[personal profile] greghousesgf
The maintenance guy fixed my toilet and I had a great time with my friends yesterday. We hung out at their place and had yummy food and we also went to this really nice cafe near their house and did a little shopping.

Songs From The Movies.....

Sep. 29th, 2025 06:14 am
disneydream06: (Disney Music)
[personal profile] disneydream06
Laura Branigan's "Self Control" was used in the 2015 movie, "The Mirage".





What is laughable about this music video is, it was considered to racy for MTV and they would only play it at night. :o
loganberrybunny: Just outside Bewdley (Look both ways)
[personal profile] loganberrybunny
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Marc Sheffler's cliff threat was a clear-cut case of targeted abuse of Sandra Peabody, committed in order to coerce a more emotional reaction out of her for the following scene. I've recently got hold of a DVD of The Last House on the Left which includes the full commentary track that features him telling a differently phrased version of it (I paid £5 in a CeX) which I'll come to in a future post, and what that's revealed is that the targeted abuse wasn't the only concern. Here's an example that seems quite wildly reckless to us looking at it in 2025, and would correctly be considered totally unacceptable in modern movie-making, but which wasn't targeted at Sandra Peabody alone:

In the film, there's a scene where Mari (Peabody) and her friend Phyllis (Lucy Grantham) are kidnapped by Krug's gang. Their hands are bound (in front) and they're gagged with cloths while drugged, then carried down the fire escape from the flat where they're caught, stuffed into a large car boot (=US trunk) and driven off to the Connecticut woods. I already knew from David Szulkin's book¹ that the fire escape scene wasn't done with camera tricks, dummies or stunt doubles. Peabody was genuinely carried over David Hess's (Krug) shoulder while tied and gagged as he ran down two storeys on a rather rickety fire escape and threw her into the car along with Phyllis who was already there.
¹ Wes Craven's Last House on the Left: The Making of a Cult Classic, 2nd edition 2000.

This kind of thing wouldn't have been shocking at all to people in the same world of ultra-low-budget exploitation. Doing your own stunts saved money, and that mattered. And bluntly, young women acting in this world were often seen more as props than partners. What I didn't know beforehand was what happened after the filmed scene ended. Here's Fred Lincoln, one of the villain actors, giving a brief comment about it on the DVD commentary track:

Transcript
LINCOLN: I thought we really pushed it because we really left ‘em in the car till we got to Connecticut. But that was because we didn’t have enough money to buy another car. We only had room for that many people.

As far as I know, that's the only time this fact is mentioned in a public source. The disc has a second, more conventional commentary from director Wes Craven and producer Sean S. Cunningham, and they say nothing at all over this scene. Szulkin's book doesn't mention it, either. So this is based on a single source, although one who was definitely there – you can see his character in the car in the movie. The details of exactly how this transport happened are not certain. But the impression Lincoln leaves is that they drove straight to their Connecticut location (about an hour's drive away) with the two women bound and gagged in the boot the whole time. Quite possibly without even a basic safety check (stop car, open boot, check women aren't in serious trouble, close boot, drive off) along the way – though that part is a possibly, not a probably.

This seems completely astonishing to us today – but 1971 exploitation was not us today. The crew didn't quite trust entirely to luck – Lincoln already knew Peabody to some extent from previous work together, and none of the personnel were at the level of callousness where they'd have accepted a significant risk of the actresses being seriously injured or worse at the end of the drive. But they probably didn't think much beyond "We'll get there in about an hour, and there's plenty of air for them in that trunk." Discomfort and anxiety were not widely considered unethical in that world of movie-making at that time.

So in the early 1970s, in ultra-low-budget exploitation movie filming by a crew who were mostly highly inexperienced, this wasn't astonishing. It wasn't absolutely routine, but "We didn't have the money for a second car" would have been accepted as a rationale for transporting the women in the boot, and "We needed to get out fast as we didn't have permits" (which was routine for such crews) would have been accepted as rationale for not stopping to untie them first. These would not have been modern prop restraints, so doing that wouldn't have been a near-instant task. Also, the route would have taken I-95 (already in existence) and stopping on that to take bound women out of the boot and untie them would have attracted a lot of attention, something they didn't want.

Lincoln's "really pushed it" comment may well also refer to a second factor that I as a Brit didn't initially think of. They were driving from the outskirts of New York City to Connecticut – crossing state lines. For that era's crews, the biggest risk might have been thought to be not that something would go disastrously wrong for the actresses bound in the boot (that risk was small, even if potentially catastrophic) but that they might be stopped by a patrol for some unrelated reason. A patrolman requiring to see in the boot and finding two bound and gagged women there, on an interstate trip, could mean huge trouble for the crew, since a suspected kidnapping crossing state lines becomes a suspected federal offence. It might even bring FBI involvement. That couldn't be smoothed over with "we're just making a film" in a way a purely state-level stop might have been.

The fact that Grantham was in the boot as well is important for this particular incident. She is consistently spoken of as being easy-going and popular with the crews, and there is no story anything like as serious as the Sheffler cliff one relating to her. That, together with Lincoln's quote on the commentary track, makes me pretty comfortable with believing that his explanation that extreme cost-cutting was the primary motivation was true. In this case, the men didn't aim to mistreat Sandra Peabody. They simply thought that leaving her (and Grantham) bound and gagged in the boot was acceptable in the context of the way they were operating – and that thinking wouldn't have been wildly out of line with how others thought at the time.

Finally, there's the issue of consent. In these productions, consent was often treated as a "one and done" thing: ie "You signed up for this film, you read the script, so if we need to make things a little rougher than we initially told you in order to get it done, then that's just part of this business." So long as nobody was actually seriously hurt, it was likely to be considered within the bounds of acceptability. And remember, in 1971 not merely social attitudes but the actual law supported this in some cases. A woman agreeing to marry a man had to say yes of her own free will – but after she was married, then she quite literally lost the ability to say no to her husband. Marital rape was not criminalised in all US states and the UK until the early 1990s.¹
¹ And some states still have glaring exceptions, eg Mississippi requires aggravated force to have been used.

So "one and done" was baked into the law in that case, meaning it was easier for film crews to rationalise it as being acceptable here as well. We can't be sure that the women explicitly consented to spending an hour like that, and there's at least a non-negligible chance that they didn't – that it would have been seen as being folded into the consent they were seen as having granted by signing up to this kind of movie. It's possible, for example, that they were told something like "We'll tie you up, carry you down the fire escape, throw you into the car trunk, close the lid and drive off" – but not the specific detail that they'd be in there for the full 40-mile drive. Again, this sounds astounding to us in 2025, but to people working in this part of the movie industry in 1971, far less so.

My point of writing all this is that this incident can be seen as a baseline in the Last House shoot. It wasn't absolutely routine, as Lincoln's "really pushed it" shows, but it wouldn't have inspired outrage, not within that world in the early 1970s. When I write about abuse on this set, I mean things that go beyond that, such as Marc Sheffler's cliff threat – where the actual physical danger lasted much less time but was much more severe and, crucially, was inflicted because of the effect on Peabody. "It was the 1970s" doesn't excuse that even if you understand the baseline of unsafe and degrading corner-cutting and risk tolerance that the car boot drive demonstrates. (Not that it excuses this either, but the two things are different kinds of unacceptable.) 

One final point. Sheffler's threat at the cliff was made in a place where just he and Peabody could hear. Wes Craven knew he was up to something, but didn't know the details – and Peabody might well have avoided telling him about it. But with this car boot trip? I find it very hard to believe he wouldn't have known. He was right there, as the director of a shoot with a tiny crew count. So Craven accepted the idea of these two young women being driven for an hour, quite possibly still bound and gagged, in a car boot. Yet as far as I know, he never acknowledged it publicly. That aspect is on him as the man in charge of the set (totally in charge on a non-union shoot that small), and I don't care how much of a horror icon he later became. That aspect is on him.

I don't have an audio clip to link to for this specific incident, so I hope you'll accept my assertion that my transcript above is accurate: I made it myself after listening to Lincoln's comment several times.

Monday At The Movies.....

Sep. 29th, 2025 05:49 am
disneydream06: (Disney Movies)
[personal profile] disneydream06
This Week's Movie Quote...

James Bond: Moneypenny, what would I do without you?
Moneypenny: My problem is that you never do anything with me.

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 3


Which Movie Does This Quote Come From?

View Answers

You Only Live Twice
1 (33.3%)

On Her Majesty's Secret Service
0 (0.0%)

For Your Eyes Only
2 (66.7%)

I Don't Have A Clue...
0 (0.0%)




Last Week's Movie Quote...

Audrey: [of Orin's disappearance] It wouldn't be terrible at all. It would be a miracle, not to mention the money I'd save on epsom salts and ace bandages.

Yes, it comes from the 1986 movie, "Little Shop Of Horrors".
It starred Rick Moranis, Ellen Greene, Vincent Gardenia, and Steve Martin, John Candy, and Bill Murray.



Those Who Knew or Guessed Correctly...
[personal profile] meathiel
[personal profile] chaquir
[profile] sidhe_uaine42
[personal profile] legalmoose LJ
[personal profile] thoughtsbykat
[personal profile] adminbear
[personal profile] mrdreamjeans
[personal profile] seaivy
[personal profile] sunshine_two
[personal profile] legalmoose DW
[personal profile] murakozi
[personal profile] joseph_teller

Another late-night quick post

Sep. 29th, 2025 12:44 am
loganberrybunny: Drawing of my lapine character's face by Eliki (Default)
[personal profile] loganberrybunny
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240/365: Restored WW2 air raid shelter, Bewdley Museum
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Too tired to write more than a couple of lines tonight, but here's a photo from Bewdley Museum. Pleasant weather this afternoon.

(no subject)

Sep. 28th, 2025 10:58 am
greghousesgf: (House Schroeder)
[personal profile] greghousesgf
Good news: I got invited over to my friends' place for French toast later today.
Bad news: My toilet is busted. It won't flush and it being Sunday I can't get ahold of the maintenance guys. I tried calling them twice and there isn't even a voicemail. I also looked all over the bldg for them. Let's fucking hope they fix it tomorrow.

A Day In The Life.....

Sep. 27th, 2025 10:25 pm
disneydream06: (Disney Happy)
[personal profile] disneydream06
While on vacation for the fair I decided I was finally going to go to the Spam Museum. Spam as in the canned meat, not crappy emails. :p
The maker of Spam is Hormel and their headquarters is in Austin, Mn. which is about 30 miles away from my place.

IMG_6215
Da Museum... )

Very quick late-night post

Sep. 28th, 2025 01:04 am
loganberrybunny: Drawing of my lapine character's face by Eliki (Default)
[personal profile] loganberrybunny
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Miniature road workers, Worcester, 27th September 2025
239/365: Miniature road workers, Worcester
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I was in Worcester today to see Pony fandom friends, and as usual a good time was had. This was the last Worcester meet before UK PonyCon next weekend, so there was a fair amount of chat about that. While I was in the city, I noticed this fun little artwork outside the Guildhall gates. The artist was nowhere to be seen, so I have no idea whether there was any specific reason for creating this collection of inches-high roadworkers, but I thought it was fun nevertheless.

(no subject)

Sep. 27th, 2025 01:14 pm
greghousesgf: (Boingboing)
[personal profile] greghousesgf
Yesterday was surprising. L. called me in the morning and invited me over. When I got there I found out they are NOT going to have to move, they just have to get another job. (The person they were doing in home care for has to be in assisted living now and L. is only certified for in home care, not assisted living facilities.) L. is not particularly worried about getting another job and has plenty of leads and has already been on some interviews. We had a great time talking and listening to music and watching videos and we went out for lunch. Later that afternoon some high school near L.'s house was apparently doing some hazing bullshit involving throwing eggs at eachother. I stayed out of the way. I hope L. didn't get their house egged. then that night I went to my favorite movie theater for all you can eat pasta and Reservoir Dogs.

The Walsall Concerto

Sep. 26th, 2025 11:44 pm
loganberrybunny: Drawing of my lapine character's face by Eliki (Default)
[personal profile] loganberrybunny
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Pedestrianised shopping street, Walsall, 26 Sep 25
238/365: Pedestrianised street, Walsall
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I went on what originally seemed like a bit of a wild goose chase today to find a particular product. That's something I'll talk about elsewhere, so I won't elaborate here – except to say that I did, in the end, find it. Anyway, I ended up in Walsall, which isn't the worst town in the Midlands but isn't the best either. There was, however, a very impressive guy in one of the main shopping streets playing an amplified. He was going for the sort of rocked-up classical sound that people like Lindsey Stirling are known for, and I think he did a very good job. Today's photo doesn't feature him, but it was taken in a Walsall street very like that one. As you can see, the dull weather wasn't exactly bringing out the crowds.
loganberrybunny: Just outside Bewdley (Look both ways)
[personal profile] loganberrybunny
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It depends on who reads this from outside Dreamwidth World, but it's possible one or two will who may remember me, in a very different context a few weeks ago, being unusually if briefly vehement in my negative opinion of David Hess. Well, today you get to find out why. Some of it, at any rate. This isn't everything. I'll get there.

As for the details: to copy/paste my intro comment from last time, the forty-minute documentary Celluloid Crime of the Century, which has a copyright date of 2002 but was released in 2003, is included as an extra on many collectors' editions of the The Last House on the Left. That's the documentary featuring Marc Sheffler's cliff threat, which I've already covered. Well, in the very same video we get David Hess, who played Krug, the sadistic leader of the gang, talking about his actions in the rape scene. In which, let me remind you, he played the rapist and Peabody played Mari, his victim. Between the two segments of Hess's interview is a short section from producer Sean S. Cunningham, which is simply descriptive of Krug's terrifying nature, so I've left that out of the transcript. Here's what Hess said: 

Transcript
HESS: [Sandra was your] archetype upper-middle class Protestant – repressed Protestant – you know. And how do you deal with that? How do you deal with it? Well, you try to find ways of stabbing her and her repression.
[CUNNINGHAM comments briefly.]
HESS: I scared the living shit out of her, man. She really thought I might—I started to pull her pants down, and grab her tits and everything, and I mean she really, I mean... and I looked up at Wes [Craven] at one point and I said, "Can I?" And then she freaked.

And yes, you are reading that right. No, that was not in the script. Yes, he was improvising while filming a rape scene. Yes, like that. So, in this interview segment, does Hess apologise for doing this to Peabody? Does he say it was wrong? Does he go even as far as expressing mild regret and saying he maybe wouldn't have done the same these days (ie in 2002)? Well, what do you think? Of course he doesn't. He just tells the story as another "tale from the set".

One of my extremely rare content warnings for the below video: this one is not simply done with Hess on camera and little else. This segment is specifically about Mari's rape scene, and so there are several stills of her character in and around that part of the film. It's not possible to cut the video to avoid these. There is also a short video clip of part of the rape scene that ends immediately before Hess's comments begin. You don't actually need the visuals, though, so if you want to just listen to the audio you'll still hear everything that matters.

Video of Hess recounting this story
Celluloid Crime of the Century (YouTube) – time stamp set to start of Hess's anecdote at 18:23
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