Tuesday, March 30, 2010

CAVALCADE OF STARS . . . Marching Out Their Stuff ~ AT THE BIJOU


Luscious Ladies
and Gregarious Gents

though the flu has got me down
The Shows Must Go On
*AT THE BIJOU*

The velvet curtains shall soon rise
on Our April Fools Follies surprise
with A SexyTouch spritzing cache
before The First Pitch of Opening Day 
but first . . .

*AT THE BIJOU*
 MARCHES OUT OUR
CAVALCADE OF STARS


THE BROWSE 
OF YOUR CAROUSE
~ AWAITS  ~ 

 
Click their names.
Understand their fame.

Be Enchanted each Double*Feature
Tuesday & Thursday
+ Weekend Matinees

Inspiration or Entertainment
is never quite the same,
~ with  ~ 

THE PHANTOM AT THE BIJOU
THE SHADOW (who knows)

and me,

absolutely thrilled about
how you spring back to our shows

*AT THE BIJOU*
 
  
~ Absolutely*Kate
and the fine staff of renown






Saturday, March 27, 2010

THE PRINTS AND THE POPPER ~ Epic*sode 4 ~ ~ "HI JINKS!" ~ By Absolutely*Kate and Harry B. Sanderford of Harbinger*33


~ PRESENTING OUR
   MYSTERY*MATINEE ~

 "THE PRINTS
AND THE POPPER"
  

FROM WHERE WE LEFT OFF
 IN LAST WEEK'S CLIFFHANGER

 *AT THE BIJOU*



Epic'sode 3: "Groping Against Grope"  {{ *CLICK* HERE }} 

CLIFFHANGER Epic'sode 2: "The Clot Thickens" 


~ ~ EPIC*SODE 4 ~ ~

"HI JINKS!"

~ By Absolutely*Kate 
and
Harry B. Sanderford


It was warm the way spring beckoned this year, warm like the spirit within sweet Mrs Laurita Poe walking her little dog Jinks to and fro, to and fro, much like a pendulum, if you can view the wag of that tail. It was the peculiar way Jinks preferred to go. Laurita particularly admired the peculiar ~ the way winds of nature tended to blow. She never complained but went with the flow. Today though, she had method to their traipsing, circling the last remnants of slushy melting snow, past the hardware store, the 5 & 50, which, before inflation used to be the 5 & 10, past Martha's Merry Malt Shoppe and The Lucky Shot Bar & Grille. At the top of the street, the view commanded such a thrill. Laurita and her little dog paused as was their habit, to breathe it all in. The majestic view beckoned the whole valley to breathe it in, a setting which set the stage for the uptown theatre, AT THE BIJOU. Jinks sniffing, enjoying, to and fro, to and fro. Laurita turning, peering, trying to read past the rungs of the hook and ladder truck what was next playing at her favourite neighborhood matinee show.
 
Hook and ladder truck! When half past peculiar, Laurita's preference leaned decidedly to being in-the-know. With Jinks' red leash wrapped loosely in tow she angled both neck and vision, all the better to gain advantage of a vantage point of who or what would possibly enlighten her so. There. Around the back BIJOU parking lot, a dark flash of movement, a car door slam and laughter . . . The fluster of spring wind flutterered a Phillies cap and her ears keened to a low engine hum with gravel on the grind. Laurita was nothing if not kind. Though she and her spouse Edgar were Baltimore fans, she stooped to retrieve the cap before it sank to slush. 

Straightening up, recognizing teenagers she once gave piano lessons to, she called, "Say there Mary Lou! Edward! Heavens, where's the fire? Do you know what's going on AT THE BIJOU?"
 
There was no other explanation for how Mrs Poe's exclamation jolted the lipstick of Mary Lou's liplock on Eddie than what a startle will do when sent spiraling into surging motion. Both physics and physical attraction bear heat and velocity. So did Eddie's moves. Fondling fond farewells through the tiny driver's window of Mary Lou's dimunitive VW, the popcorn popper's head reeled into steel door frame, Eddie's expletive shot clean into fresh air, his grip on the door handle . . . no longer there. Mary Lou gasped at the pinching squeeze of her main squeeze's class ring nipping breast buttons of her no longer pristine Dairy Queen uniform. Her clutch foot slipped. Her boyfriend and his clutch did too. Eddie's instinct kicked in as Mary Lou kicked at that stubborn clutch. But, hustling to regain fast-footing with a slow moving vehicle, his jacket pocket spilled out a parking lot trail. The little dog barked to see such sport and broke away from Laurita Poe.
 
"JINKS! No! No!" It was too late. Or perhaps . . . it was fate.
 
"I'll take that Madam!" claimed the crunch of gravel coming out of her left field of vision, best described as the spectral of a charging blur which bested the Phillies ballcap from the startled Poe's poorer grip. "And this tooooo," chortled the bent torso scooping the I-Phone fast out of Eddie's scrambling reach.
 
"Why, aren't you --- "
 
Jinks barked before he bit and the former was not worse than the latter. Expletives exploded of a matriarchal familial nature, as the man fell to the slush with nary a hush. And the dog ran away with the phone.
 
“Oh dear! I am so sorry Mr. Davenport, are you alright? I don’t know what on earth has gotten into Jinks. JINKS! You come back here this instant!” Laurita pleaded, but Jinks was not so inclined.

“It’s just a scratch my dear. I guess I should have known better when I downloaded that Fetch App,” Leon chuckled rising to his feet and other than the sodden spot on the seat of his pants looked no worse for the wear. 
 
 “You’re sure, you’re alright then? I . . . I had better go get him,” Laurita hesitated. Leon gave the thumbs up and waved her on. Laurita hurried after Jinks still confused about the commotion up front and even more so by her ordinarily gentle Jinks' behavior.  
 
 “You mean that I-phone is yours?” Eddie had not considered this possibility. He’d not yet had a chance to search the phone’s contacts but he’d been sure it belonged to either Ms Jeanette or her abductor.
 
 “Well I can’t be sure of that now son," he said nodding in the direction of Mrs Poe and her runaway mutt. "But yes, well, I mean maybe. I seem to have misplaced mine at any rate. Just where did you find it anyway?” 

 Eddie considered his initial deduction that the I-phone was either Ms Jeanette's or that of her abductor. He wasn't so sure this new information disproved his theory and for the moment sidestepped answering the detective's question. 
 
Leon had propped his boot on the front bumper of the Volkswagen and hiked his pant leg up to dab at the blood on his calf with a handkerchief. Mary Lou tooted the horn apologizing that she really needed to get back to work. Leon stepped back and Eddie stole another kiss through the window as she ground around for reverse. He ducked his head back out the window just as she found it and waved them both goodbye. She tooted once more as she passed her piano teacher Miss Poe who was trying to entice Jinks into a Milkbone for I-phone upgrade.
 
“You got out of the theater in a bit of a hurry Junior. Consta . . . er Captain Phillips will be wanting a statement from you, you know.” Leon said shaking his pant leg straight and pocketing the hanky. 

 “I just went to my locker to get something . . . and then well, I saw Mary Lou, and well . . . ” his cheeks blushed. 

 “Say no more Junior, I understand.”

“I wish you’d call me Eddie, Sir.” 

“Well OK, what was so important in your locker Eddie?”
  
Eddie unzipped his backpack and proudly presented his Super Spy Private Eye Finger Printing Kit. Detective Davenport could see the seriousness in the boy’s face and to his credit suppressed outright laughter but could not arrest the grin that spread on his world weary face. “Ok son, I mean Eddie, we better get back inside and see just what we can turn up.”  
 
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
 
"No way!"
 
"Yes, Way!"
 
A dripping Zelda and a whooping Sugar whooshed out the front lobby of the BIJOU, leveling appreciative up front glances at local out front firefighters, swiftly snapping to attention to flex the femmes their muscled manhood from big shiny vehicles waiting further instructions to the call of the answered alarm. Joey Costanza hooted Zelda's way. Not alarmed, she held hand to ear in C-formation and mouthed, "Call me."
 
"C'mon. Come ON Zelda, let me SEE it!", Sugar tugged impatiently on her sister's soggy silken sleeve. "And why for crying out loud didn't you finish wiping up when we were in there. If I call Mom tonight, she's gonna bitch, big'time."
 
"Sheeesh Sugar. Catch a breath. Cut me a break. Give the Big Sis routine a rest already. You know Mom always liked me best."
 
Sugar punched Zelda's upper arm, but not too hard, or not in any manner to mess up a major manicure as a little dog leaped to see such fun and wagged well his tail into their tale. The spring sunlight outside distanced them in spirit as well from the fear, danger and unease within the theatre's usual carefree nature.  Their giggles were a needed release in sync with the bouncing pup on the rise. "HI JINKS! What's shaking?"
 
Zelda shot the faux injury her best feigned look and rubbed where her sleeve still dripped, "Ewww Shoogs. It stunk in there. If you wouldn't have taken so long stickin' quarters in the Ajax Comb machine to get the red one, we woulda made a quicker, cleaner, dryer getaway. I thought you said the stalls were EMPTY when you looked under."
 
"They WERE. Geee Z, you count on me for everything. No wonder Dad always liked me best. I was concentrating on squirting the soap dispenser to suds away your bloody yucky hands and with so many men in uniforms -- " Sugar paused, her hand to heart, dancing eyes doing double time to sigh on the rise, while playfully scratching under the jumpy puppy's chin. "Whatcha got there, fella?"
 
"Ladies! Ladies," Laurita exhaled on her sprint from Jinks' latest spurt. "How good to finally find someone in the know to let me know WHAT the heaven is going on AT THE BIJOU?! Jinks! Come back here!"
 
"Howdy there Laurita," Zelda drawled to the first friend in their set to have married happily to her ever after. "You see, my fine upstart of a sister here started to wash away the blood from the Ladies Room all over me in the Gents Room which came after the scream and Sparky's lights going out and well, the Professor was there and that sexy Sergeant Stine and what seemed like a platoon of police and there was a candlestick which shed little light in the balcony and -- Shoogs, you remember, that waft of Windsong that stayed on our minds?" Gesturing a shouldered nudge Sugar's way, "Well then, this cockle-brained dame got all intent on the Ajax Comb machine -- "
 
"They still have those things in Gents Rooms? Sugar, show me, let me see, what did you get?"
 
Shaking her head at Laurita's and Sugar's hair-brained heads huddled over a mere twenty combs spilling out of her sister's pink leather bag, midst further exclamations at explanations of the mystery of the muddle and maybe the murder AT THE BIJOU, Zelda stalked her huff off in Jinks' direction, which just happened to be running Joey Costanza's way. "Hey sweet stuff!".
 
Not clear if she meant man or mutt, Joey held on to Jinks red leash til Zelda got up closer and personal. "Hi Jinks. Hey buddy, whatcha got there?"
 
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
 
"So then -- then we hear this tremendous groan from the stall we thought was unoccupied and Zelda and I, well we were scared right outta that masculine zone! Guess that's where you found us, hittin' the street whoopin' and runnin'. And why were you running after Jinks? He always comes when called. Important thing is, I got a big pile of combs to comb through."
 
Laurita hunched down on the marble step of Sugar's cache of coveted combs and caught up in the simple pleasure now too, leaned in, selecting for Edgar a navy blue, then, combing on through, pulled a pale spring green that for her beach bag would certainly do. "Thanks for sharing Sugar. Why do you think they sell pastels in a Men's Room? Just doesn't make much sense to me and -- wait, what about Jeanette? How did she make sense of all of these ghastly goings on?"
 
"Jeanette? Jeanette wasn't there when Eddie and I ran into the theatre from up in the projection room. Didn't I tell you that?"
 
"But Jeanette's always there. Kate even asked Jed to screw that brass nameplate on the back of her seat last birthday, remember? Jeanette's BIJOU people!"
 
"That's why it's so weird Laurita. And then Zelda appeared with blood from the Ladies Room and Harry led the charge for the candlelight brigade up the balcony -- he's so hunky cute, don'tcha think? -- Oh, Zelda -- where'd she run off to?" Sugar twisted, raised her eyebrows and shook the curls of her well-coiffed do at the couple and the dog leaning over Zelda's hand by Engine #9. "Joey. Shoulda known. Zelda always runs back to Joey between who she thinks is The One. Hope that flibbertyjit opens her eyes someday to what's right in front of them."
 
Laurita snickered.
 
"Don't tell her I called her a flibbertyjit, 'k, Laur?"
 
"Your secrets are always safe with me Shoogs." A knowing glance passed between the two.
 
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
 
Joey pulled off his shades and opened his eyes -- wide, to what was right in front of them. "Holy shit Z! I meant 'What you got there buddy?' to Jinks -- " 
 
"Hey Joe. I'm your buddy. I'll always be your buddy. Like what you're seeing Joe?", her stance suggestive, her palm still cupped softly open.
 
"Zelda ~ I may not be the Lone Ranger to you anymore, but that there in your hand is one shining silver bullet. You wanna tell me about it girl?"
 
The little dog yipped at the sudden buzzing in his mouth. No one paid much attention.



* C * L * I * F * F * H * A * N * G * E * R * !

* AT THE BIJOU * 

Please return to next Saturday's Matinee
for the next gut-gripping epic'sode!

" The Prints and The Popper "

Thursday, March 25, 2010

LOVE LETTERS OF SPRING ~ from Scott and Zelda, presented by their fan, Absolutely*Kate, sparking Double*Feature Thursdays & Tuesdays ~ AT THE BIJOU

Spring 1919

Sweetheart,


Please, please don't be so depressed -- We'll be married soon, and then these lonesome nights will be over forever -- and until we are, I am loving, loving every tiny minute of the day and night -- Maybe you won't understand this, but sometimes when I miss you most, it's hardest to write -- and you always know when I make myself -- Just the ache of it all -- and I can't tell you. If we were together, you'd feel how strong it is -- you're so sweet when you're melancholy. I love your sad tenderness -- when I've hurt you -- That's one of the reasons I could never be sorry for our quarrels -- and they bothered you so -- Those dear, dear little fusses, when I always tried so hard to make you kiss and forget -- 

~ Love, Scott


 

Scott -- there's nothing in all the world I want but you -- and your precious love -- All the material things are nothing. I'd just hate to live a sordid, colorless existence -- because you'd soon love me less -- and less -- and I'd do anything -- anything -- to keep your heart for my own -- I don't want to live -- I want to love first, and live incidentally -- Why don't you feel that I'm waiting -- I'll come to you, Lover, when you're ready -- Don't don't ever think of the things you can't give me -- You've trusted me with the dearest heart of all -- and it's so damn much more than anybody else in all the world has ever had --

How can you think deliberately of life without me -- If you should die -- O Darling -- darling Scott -- It'd be like going blind. I know I would, too, -- I'd have no purpose in life -- just a pretty -- decoration. Don't you think I was made for you? I feel like you had me ordered -- and I was delivered to you -- to be worn -- I want you to wear me, like a watch -- charm or a button hole boquet -- to the world. And then, when we're alone, I want to help -- to know that you can't do anything without me.

I'm glad you wrote Mamma. It was such a nice sincere letter -- and mine to St. Paul was very evasive and rambling. I've never, in all my life, been able to say anything to people older than me -- Somehow I just instinctively avoid personal things with them -- even my family. Kids are so much nicer. 


~ Love, Zelda



Jazzed'up lovers? Well yes. The beautiful and the damned? Of course ~many times, both of them, but they've been my literary heroes through love-to-read and adore-to-write years. I scribed my college thesis in Honours Communication on "Elegy to a Poor Son of a Bitch", with more research on Fitzgerald than most libraries at that time had in stock in stacks.  I got an A+ with comments by Professor Bard, (honest - that was his name ~ even I can't make up good stuff like that), in red flowing ink along margins of crisply typed papers. (Remember those? And the joys of 'erasable bond' when it papered out?) The insightful comments and the esteemed professor must surely have manifested into my psyche . . .  for to this day I bear an ongoing regard for comments on-the-flow and professors in the know. Well, one very special sage and tender one in particular.

But this isn't my story. It's Zelda's and Scott's. Past all the folks who hanker Hemingway's way, I've clung to loyalties, as loyalties should be clung to, in the lyrical phrases-make-a-difference Fitzgerald's way. Fellow writers I admire know loyalty's influence too. Author Laurita Miller does it with how Poe fascinates through her certainly not-of-the-ordinary wonder'pieces, while author Anthony Venutolo of Bukowski influence favouring, 'gets it' -  my Fitzgerald appeal and that time in the world of writers in jazzy sassy don't-mean-a-thing-if-it-ain't-got-that-zing mode. You all do. Somewhere inside. Something that moves you, grooves you . . . yes, even behooves you.

Which it did me.
To ponder and write the following Double*Feature piece in a challenge to voice out in one's literary hero's style. My Fitzgerald saved-fave now joins the showcase grace AT THE BIIJOU. This piece endured and THE BIJOU ensued from how swirlcomestances came at me. Phoenix from asses stuff. Isn't that how it goes? When you're open for goodness, it can sail right in.

Thank*You.
For reading this preamble into
my sailing ditty of 'perfect response'.

Absolutely glad am I to know you in how words and worlds sail . . . and how you stroll or saunter in, find your favourite row of red velvet seats AT THE BIJOU, and add to moments of a particular perfect response.

It makes me a far finer person, writer, promoter.
~ Absolutely*Kate


ZELDA SAYRES FITZGERALD ~ The original Roaring 20's American flapper, beloved and damned wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Zelda is a hazy crazy life-endowed incarnation of the most perennial of all fashionable inspiration of that time ~ jazz and liquor. Her poetically troubled marriage intermingled with artistic glamour and ballerina ambitions dancing by. This inspired not only Scott, but an ebullient America on the rise with set curls, creamy pearls, raised jewels, dropped waists and magpie eyes, both innocently and cynically - wide open. 

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD ~ Born poor but lived proud, particularly of his family's relation to Francis Scott Key. Scott was his own brand of eternal-young, dashing, handsome and ambitious. As an Army lieutenant stationed in Alabama he found it smooth and easy to impress girls by talking up his literary ambitions, asking, "What sort of heroine would you like to be?" Perspicaciously he knew it would demand more to attract the wealthy and capricious 17-year-old rebel debutante, Miss Zelda Sayre. Local Southern boys waited around the porch for months for the pleasure of a date. Army aviators vying for attention soared risky fly-by stunts over the Sayre family home, oft times with calamitous collisions.

Scott not of a calamity nature, switched to his other best uniform, the one of the classic Brooks Brothers cut, cutting a rug, regaling his intent to become a famous author, suggesting that the female lead in his novel-in-progress was a girl quite a lot like her. He intrigued her. She took him seriously, and tried him out sexually, as the story likewise was regaled. A tacit agreement was reached. As she expressed it to one of his Princeton classmates, "If Scott sells the book, I'll marry the man, because he is sweet."

SCOTT AND ZELDA ~ were the golden couple who charmed the 1920's, epitomizing the roaring potential of promise. Both brilliance and excess glimmered in their creativity and their marriage. All was grist for the Fitzgerald grin, gin and writing mill ~ tabletop dancing, fountain diving at The Plaza, Zelda letters and Zelda diaries, neighbors, friends, and even spurred on affairs . . . Inspiration was the art for life. 

Scott and Zelda were fabled, fact and fictionalized into Fitzgerald novels as legend and embodiment of the triumphs and tragedies which simultaneously glorified and afflicted their times. 

As writers write
and life imitates art,
passion and poignancy 
will always have their pages.

~ Absolutely*Kate 



THE PERFECT RESPONSE ~ By Absolutely*Kate of Harbinger*33, in the Fitzgerald style


THE PERFECT RESPONSE
~ By Absolutely*Kate,
in the style of the Fitzgeralds

You see, when men rode tandems and coaches to show they knew the social implications of football games in splendid places like Harvard and Dartmouth and Princeton and Yale, and curvaceous young ladies with life in their eyes and divine sparkle to their beings conspired to meet them, I first met Sam Fitzsimmons. There was gin to begin with and a cut glass trophy to dazzle an ending to end all endings when that particular September regatta was in full regalia on a blue and blustery day in Newport Harbour. 

Sam had the smooth affectations of a tender man, but was strong at the riggings and swift at the tending of his lines. It was one line in particular which cleaved to be the cleat knot of my undoing, delivered with keen blue eyes intent upon a proper response, "Miss Fairchild, would you honour me with the correct placement of a kiss should our skiff rise victorious over all notorious competition this side of Jamestown Isle?" 

There was an inner fluster at first, until my soft steely southern upbringing refused to bring up the slightest hint of muster to fluster and a peachy blush sufficed with of course a cool eyelash bat of, "Why ah say, what precisely IS the correct placement of a kiss, Mr Fitzsimmons?" 

Ten years of lush anniversaries afterward, I still polish to dazzling light the cut glass regatta trophy, myself, with nary a housemaid of bric-a-bric tending in sight, for I, Amanda Fairchild Fitzsimmons responded at once that night, to the perfect response to the perfect challenge, when the poised and polished Sam quite perfectly answered, "Why, the kiss which lasts a lifetime."
(c) 2009 ~ Author Absolutely*Kate


Past the Hemingway and Faulkner of Max Perkins' Scribner publishing days, F. Scott Fitzgerald, the beautiful and damned literary hero of Absolutely*Kate's writing days, would have given a Jazz Age swerve, his way, AT THE BIJOU. Absolutely*Kate's style is similar, believing in believers and that the world shall e'er be better with more moxie. You can find plenty of both AT THE BIJOU, her tantalizing showcase for writers' raves becoming readers' faves.

~ Absolutely*Kate is presently raising the mains'l of Harbinger*33, heralding more greatness to be of 33 authors, 3 artists and 3 authenticators in their published-promotable destiny. The Captain creatively knows where both the rum and the pirates are and makes guest appearances aboard some of the crew's now prolific fleet of writers' sites. She's set her tiller hand to writing, writers and e'er new literary horizons ~ for discovery, for adventure. Four books are underway, but not til Harbinger*33 reaches the glory of readers' sees.


Tuesday, March 23, 2010

A STAMP OF APPROVAL FROM THE WILDER SIDE? Here comes Double*Feature Tuesday & Thursday, AT THE BIJOU!



 "It is only in appearance that time is a river. It is rather a vast landscape and it is the eye of the beholder that moves." 

~ Thornton Wilder, when appearing
(in Absolutely*Kate's mind of possibilities),
*AT THE BIJOU*
 
Absolutely*Kate:  Please, Mr Wilder ~ Will you tell us more of what you thought of this week's Double*Feature Tuesday show?


"A dramatist is one who believes that the pure event, an action involving human beings, is more arresting than any comment that can be made upon it.~ T.W.



"A play visibly represents
  pure existing." ~ T.W. 
  

"Love is an energy which exists of itself. It is its own value." ~ T.W. 


Absolutely*Kate:  Mr Wilder, oh ~ Thornton, I agree. The energies of Love and Writing, be it play or poem or prose are True Existings. What do you think of the unique styles of ~


MADAM Z?
HARRY B. SANDERFORD?
and 
LYDIA  STEFANOVSKA?


"Many plays - certainly mine - are like blank checks. The actors and directors put their own signatures on them." ~ T.W.


And certainly sir, in our town,
*AT THE BIJOU*, they did,
for the eye to behold
into
the ritual of art . . . 

~ Absolutely*Kate:  
Why certainly I'll ask Carrie to get you popcorn
and share her sense of scribe-thoughts.

I've placed you right between the grand dame of our theatre, Jeanette,
and our novelist on the rise, Pamila Payne. I think your conversations
shall spark the pure event in itself. 

*DO ENJOY THE SHOW!*

*AT THE BIJOU*