Meet John Doe and His Girl Friday
Apr. 2nd, 2026 08:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI happened to be in Boston while the Harvard Film Archive was putting on a series of movies on the theme “The Woman and the Typewriter,” and you’d better bet we were on that like white on rice. We managed to hit up two of the three films, and the third was The Hudsucker Proxy which I’m sure is just fine but not old enough to interest me.
The first was Meet John Doe, Frank Capra’s dark mirror of his earlier film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Barbara Stanwyck is about to lose her job at the newspaper, so she fires off one last inflammatory article: a fabricated letter that claims to come from a man calling himself John Doe, who says he’s going to jump off City Hall in protest against the prevailing conditions of society.
The article causes a huge furor, so Barbara Stanwyck is called back to the newspaper. To keep the uproar going, the newspaper casts a man as the “writer” of the letter: Gary Cooper, an out-of-work ballplayer who finds himself thrust in the limelight as he travels the country giving speeches to the John Doe Clubs that keep popping up, filled with everyday ordinary people who are sick and tired of the way things are and have decided to move forward on a small, local scale, helping their neighbors. Their only rule? No politicians!
But of course the politicians want to get their grubby fingers on this rapidly growing movement. Edward Arnold (who played the sleazy politician in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) is back as an even sleazier politician, who hopes to use the John Doe Clubs to facilitate the fascist takeover of the United States!
I must confess I felt that this plan was half-baked, which indeed is how I felt about the John Doe Clubs in the first place. Then the movie steps back from the tragic ending that it seems to have been building toward, which undermines the story still more. ( spoilers )
The second movie was His Girl Friday, an all-time fave which I’ve seen at least twice before. Star reporter Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell), dressed in an iconic diagonally striped hat and suit, comes back to the paper to tell her former boss (and ex-husband) Walter Burns (Cary Grant) that she’s getting married again. Walter Burns at once sets out to stop the marriage, getting Hildy’s new fiance arrested at least four times in one night, while also enticing Hildy back into the newspaper business with a humdinger of a story: a man on death row whose execution in the morning has become a political hot potato.
Do Hildy Johnson and Walter Burns have a healthy relationship? Absolutely not. Will their inevitable remarriage at the end of the movie end up lasting more than six months? Absolutely not. Does any of this matter to me as Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell exchange barbs at top top TOP speed? Also absolutely not. Shine on, you crazy diamonds! You are terrible for each other and I love that for me.
The first was Meet John Doe, Frank Capra’s dark mirror of his earlier film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Barbara Stanwyck is about to lose her job at the newspaper, so she fires off one last inflammatory article: a fabricated letter that claims to come from a man calling himself John Doe, who says he’s going to jump off City Hall in protest against the prevailing conditions of society.
The article causes a huge furor, so Barbara Stanwyck is called back to the newspaper. To keep the uproar going, the newspaper casts a man as the “writer” of the letter: Gary Cooper, an out-of-work ballplayer who finds himself thrust in the limelight as he travels the country giving speeches to the John Doe Clubs that keep popping up, filled with everyday ordinary people who are sick and tired of the way things are and have decided to move forward on a small, local scale, helping their neighbors. Their only rule? No politicians!
But of course the politicians want to get their grubby fingers on this rapidly growing movement. Edward Arnold (who played the sleazy politician in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) is back as an even sleazier politician, who hopes to use the John Doe Clubs to facilitate the fascist takeover of the United States!
I must confess I felt that this plan was half-baked, which indeed is how I felt about the John Doe Clubs in the first place. Then the movie steps back from the tragic ending that it seems to have been building toward, which undermines the story still more. ( spoilers )
The second movie was His Girl Friday, an all-time fave which I’ve seen at least twice before. Star reporter Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell), dressed in an iconic diagonally striped hat and suit, comes back to the paper to tell her former boss (and ex-husband) Walter Burns (Cary Grant) that she’s getting married again. Walter Burns at once sets out to stop the marriage, getting Hildy’s new fiance arrested at least four times in one night, while also enticing Hildy back into the newspaper business with a humdinger of a story: a man on death row whose execution in the morning has become a political hot potato.
Do Hildy Johnson and Walter Burns have a healthy relationship? Absolutely not. Will their inevitable remarriage at the end of the movie end up lasting more than six months? Absolutely not. Does any of this matter to me as Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell exchange barbs at top top TOP speed? Also absolutely not. Shine on, you crazy diamonds! You are terrible for each other and I love that for me.
Wednesday Reading Meme
Apr. 1st, 2026 04:54 pmsineala
What I Just Finished Reading
Still no books, only migraines. Trying to read today's comics before today's migraine happens.
What I'm Reading Now
Comics Wednesday!
( Captain Marvel Dark Past #1, Doctor Strange #5, Nova Centurion #6 )
What I'm Reading Next
I wish I knew.
Still no books, only migraines. Trying to read today's comics before today's migraine happens.
What I'm Reading Now
Comics Wednesday!
( Captain Marvel Dark Past #1, Doctor Strange #5, Nova Centurion #6 )
What I'm Reading Next
I wish I knew.
April 1, no fooling
Apr. 1st, 2026 12:16 pmsholio1. My snowy spring icons are generally an accurate image of how spring is going around here, but this year perhaps more than most. It isn't even supposed to be above freezing today. By the end of the week we may finally start getting some 40-ish temperatures. The entire month of March has been absolutely frigid - many low temperature records were set - and we still have 3 feet of snow. SPRING WHEN???
2. I realized how much I miss fandom bingo cards when I discovered a new one at![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
whatif_au, which is taking requests for cards. (Full list of AUs at the link; you can veto up to 3, and you can request a 3x3 or 5x5 card. Note that you WILL have to join the comm to post a request.)
So anyway I requested a card.
Will I do anything with this? who knows. But it's fun to have a bingo card again! (Biggles cowboy AU immediately came to mind because it would be hilarious.)
3.unconventionalcourtship is back for another round. You pick a Harlequin/Mills & Boon book blurb and write a fic based on it. I don't recall that I've ever officially done this, but it's always fun to see what people come up with. List of blurbs here and also a plot generator which allows you to put in character names. (I recall having fun with this in the past.)
I'm not sure that this is something I actually want to write, but I can't help thinking how much Londo & G'Kar would loathe being in a Harlequin/Mills & Boon plot, and no one around them would be having any fun at all, either.
2. I realized how much I miss fandom bingo cards when I discovered a new one at
whatif_au, which is taking requests for cards. (Full list of AUs at the link; you can veto up to 3, and you can request a 3x3 or 5x5 card. Note that you WILL have to join the comm to post a request.)So anyway I requested a card.
| Sentinel/Guide | Treasure Hunter | Holiday Mythology |
| Robot | WILD CARD | Decade Specific |
| People with Disabilities | Fake Relationship | Cowboy |
Will I do anything with this? who knows. But it's fun to have a bingo card again! (Biggles cowboy AU immediately came to mind because it would be hilarious.)
3.
unconventionalcourtship is back for another round. You pick a Harlequin/Mills & Boon book blurb and write a fic based on it. I don't recall that I've ever officially done this, but it's always fun to see what people come up with. List of blurbs here and also a plot generator which allows you to put in character names. (I recall having fun with this in the past.)I'm not sure that this is something I actually want to write, but I can't help thinking how much Londo & G'Kar would loathe being in a Harlequin/Mills & Boon plot, and no one around them would be having any fun at all, either.
Wednesday Reading Meme
Apr. 1st, 2026 12:32 pmosprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
I went to the library to get one of the 2026 Newbery books, but instead got ambushed by Kate DiCamillo’s Lost Evangeline, which features a TINY GIRL standing on a SPOOL OF THREAD. How was I to resist?
Sadly the book did not focus on tiny Evangeline repurposing objects for her tiny world: spool of thread as stool, etc. But it DID feature a scene where Evangeline rides a cat, which seems like atonement for Kate DiCamillo’s The Tiger Rising where there’s a girl riding a tiger on the cover and then no one rides a tiger in the book at all, except in a dream which I think we can all agree does NOT count.
littlerhymes and I have also finished H.M.S. Surprise! (How many “surprise” puns did we make while reading this book? Many.) Jack does indeed start the book by losing the massive fortune from the Spanish treasure ships, although the Admiralty gives him nearly ten thousand pounds to make up, which would be a pretty tidy fortune in itself if (a) one were not comparing itself to hundreds of thousands of pounds of prize money, and (b) it didn’t all go to pay off Jack’s eleven thousand pounds of debt.
So he and Sophia STILL can’t marry, and indeed even though Jack has made another fortune by the end of this book, it ends with them still unwed… The next book had better open with a wedding, my god.
In news of Stephen’s matrimonial endeavors, Diana Villiers almost promises to marry him, then elopes with a rich American. Stephen is heartbroken but tbh I think Jack has a point when he says that this is the best thing that could have happened to Stephen, given that the man fights a duel for her in this book and would inevitably have to fight many more should they ever wed.
I see this is the book where the movie got the scene of Stephen operating on himself, which in the book occurs even though there are other surgeons available. Stephen doesn’t trust them! (Probably fair.) He will operate on himself in the mirror, moving his own ribs aside to get out the bullet lodged in his chest! Agonizing. This man is so metal. I could never.
What I’m Reading Now
Mikhail Zygar’s The Empire Must Die: Russia’s Revolutionary Collapse, 1900-1917, which I found on my Kindle marked as unread but clearly did read at some point, because I marked the passage where a young Nicholas II (not yet Nicholas II as his father is still alive) attempts to say something about politics at the dinner table, only for said father to start throwing bread rolls at him. Ah, the perfect way to train the heir to an empire: discourage any and all attempts to take an interest in politics.
Anyway, since I’m enjoying the book and have clearly forgotten it completely, I’m traipsing through it again. The defunct Narodniks, now regrouped as the SRs (Socialist Revolutionaries), have begun assassinating ministers again.
What I Plan to Read Next
Yesterday at the library I was simply unable to resist Katherine Applegate’s Pocket Bear.
I went to the library to get one of the 2026 Newbery books, but instead got ambushed by Kate DiCamillo’s Lost Evangeline, which features a TINY GIRL standing on a SPOOL OF THREAD. How was I to resist?
Sadly the book did not focus on tiny Evangeline repurposing objects for her tiny world: spool of thread as stool, etc. But it DID feature a scene where Evangeline rides a cat, which seems like atonement for Kate DiCamillo’s The Tiger Rising where there’s a girl riding a tiger on the cover and then no one rides a tiger in the book at all, except in a dream which I think we can all agree does NOT count.
littlerhymes and I have also finished H.M.S. Surprise! (How many “surprise” puns did we make while reading this book? Many.) Jack does indeed start the book by losing the massive fortune from the Spanish treasure ships, although the Admiralty gives him nearly ten thousand pounds to make up, which would be a pretty tidy fortune in itself if (a) one were not comparing itself to hundreds of thousands of pounds of prize money, and (b) it didn’t all go to pay off Jack’s eleven thousand pounds of debt. So he and Sophia STILL can’t marry, and indeed even though Jack has made another fortune by the end of this book, it ends with them still unwed… The next book had better open with a wedding, my god.
In news of Stephen’s matrimonial endeavors, Diana Villiers almost promises to marry him, then elopes with a rich American. Stephen is heartbroken but tbh I think Jack has a point when he says that this is the best thing that could have happened to Stephen, given that the man fights a duel for her in this book and would inevitably have to fight many more should they ever wed.
I see this is the book where the movie got the scene of Stephen operating on himself, which in the book occurs even though there are other surgeons available. Stephen doesn’t trust them! (Probably fair.) He will operate on himself in the mirror, moving his own ribs aside to get out the bullet lodged in his chest! Agonizing. This man is so metal. I could never.
What I’m Reading Now
Mikhail Zygar’s The Empire Must Die: Russia’s Revolutionary Collapse, 1900-1917, which I found on my Kindle marked as unread but clearly did read at some point, because I marked the passage where a young Nicholas II (not yet Nicholas II as his father is still alive) attempts to say something about politics at the dinner table, only for said father to start throwing bread rolls at him. Ah, the perfect way to train the heir to an empire: discourage any and all attempts to take an interest in politics.
Anyway, since I’m enjoying the book and have clearly forgotten it completely, I’m traipsing through it again. The defunct Narodniks, now regrouped as the SRs (Socialist Revolutionaries), have begun assassinating ministers again.
What I Plan to Read Next
Yesterday at the library I was simply unable to resist Katherine Applegate’s Pocket Bear.
Trad Wife, by Saratoga Schaefer
Mar. 31st, 2026 10:59 amrachelmanija
Camille is a tradwife influencer, living in near-total isolation from all humans but her awful and mostly absent husband Graham and her nosy neighbor Renee. She directs her own life like it's a perfect Instagram post, constantly obsessing over the perfect shade of beige and how her followers will react if she disagrees with a more successful tradwife influencer's insistence on a folic acid-free diet. The best way to get followers is to get pregnant, and she and Graham haven't managed that yet. But there's something lurking in the dark, deep well near the dark, deep woods that might be able to solve that problem for her.
The first quarter or so of this book is so repetitive and anvillicious that I might have DNF'd it if I hadn't been reading it for the horror book club. However, it picks up once Camille has sex with the creature in the well. (Camille tells herself it's an angel but can't stop calling it "the creature;" its actual nature is pleasingly ambiguous.) Her extremely weird pregnancy and increasingly desperate efforts to conceal its weirdnesses from Graham, Renee, and her online followers had me glued to the pages, and once her baby is born, I went from being entertained to actively loving the story. I don't want to give away too much about the baby, but I think it's the first time I have ever gotten deeply attached to a fictional baby. Of course, it helps that the baby isn't quite human...
The story is predictable but in a good way once you're past the interminable first quarter; you can't wait for certain things to happen. It gets increasingly batshit and darkly, gleefully funny as it goes along. It's a good female rage book, and has some quality monsterfucking scenes. Despite the rough start I really enjoyed this.
( Read more... )
Content notes: Very gory.
Incidentally, there are at least three novels called Trad Wife or Tradwife released this year. One by Sarah Langan is coming out in September.
March Writing and April Goals
Mar. 31st, 2026 08:08 amosprey_archerIt’s been a long time since I posted about writing, because it’s been a long time since I’ve written very much, but visiting skygiants and genarti and asakiyume inspired me to get back in harness. I am working very slowly on a secondary world fantasy novelette involving a princess in a tower and a magical paper bird and a sorceress’s apprentice.
If this sounds familiar, this story has been in the works for about 15 years. This time I’m going to finish it, though! I finally know what happens!
I also published Diary of a Cranky Bookworm this month, and since it’s basically not selling, I’ve decided that in the future I’ll continue to self pub m/m and m/m/f but will look for trad pub options for anything else. Or might just not write anything but m/m, at least at novel length. The m/m has made 15 times more money than all my other books combined.
I have however accrued a small stable of short stories, mostly fantasy, mostly not romantic, many possibly not publishable. (I know there are readers for a story about a tiny person who lives in a library, but are there venues?) (The one story about the grizzled warrior who falls in love with the magical coffee shop she manages is a shoe-in for publication somewhere, though.). My goal is to submit at least one story each month. May they come back with their pockets full of gold!
skygiants and genarti and asakiyume inspired me to get back in harness. I am working very slowly on a secondary world fantasy novelette involving a princess in a tower and a magical paper bird and a sorceress’s apprentice. If this sounds familiar, this story has been in the works for about 15 years. This time I’m going to finish it, though! I finally know what happens!
I also published Diary of a Cranky Bookworm this month, and since it’s basically not selling, I’ve decided that in the future I’ll continue to self pub m/m and m/m/f but will look for trad pub options for anything else. Or might just not write anything but m/m, at least at novel length. The m/m has made 15 times more money than all my other books combined.
I have however accrued a small stable of short stories, mostly fantasy, mostly not romantic, many possibly not publishable. (I know there are readers for a story about a tiny person who lives in a library, but are there venues?) (The one story about the grizzled warrior who falls in love with the magical coffee shop she manages is a shoe-in for publication somewhere, though.). My goal is to submit at least one story each month. May they come back with their pockets full of gold!
Revisiting My 2019 Reading List
Mar. 30th, 2026 08:32 amosprey_archerI haven’t quite finished the 2017 books yet, but I had some extra time at work Friday and what better use of that time than to go through my 2019 reading list and decide which authors to revisit? So here we are.
Katherine Applegate - Pocket Bear
Grace Lin - Chinese Menu: The History, Myths, and Legends Behind Your Favorite Foods
Shaun Tan - The Arrival. I read Tales of the City in 2019 and found it pretty downbeat, butlittlerhymes clued me in that Tan also wrote picture books so of course I have to give those a try.
C. S. Lewis - considering The World’s Last Night and Other Essays, although I’m also interested in Studies in Words
Toni Morrison - Beloved
Ben MacIntyre - Agent Sonya: Moscow’s Most Daring Wartime Spy
Lisa See - Daughters of the Sun and Moon. Her newest book! Not yet out, in fact.
Jacqueline Woodson
Penelope Farmer - the university library has Eve: Her Story, but also a book called Soumchi which appears to be written by an Israeli writer named Amos Oz, but nonetheless has Farmer’s name attached in the catalog. Did she translate? Or write the preface? May check it out just to solve the mystery.
Dorothy Gilman
George Gissing - Demos. After New Grub Street, I felt I had to explore Gissing further, and according to Wikipedia, George Orwell thought Demos was one of Gissing’s best novels.
E. M. Delafield - The Provincial Lady in Wartime
George Orwell - The Road to Wigan Pier
Vivien Alcock - A Kind of Thief. I found this book at a used bookstore so it has become my next Alcock
William Dean Howells - Their Wedding Journey
Booth Tarkington - Penrod. I’ve meant to explore more Booth Tarkington since I read Seventeen. At last I’m getting around to it!
Barbara Cooney - Letting Swift River Go. When I visitedasakiyume we went to the Quabbin on a foggy day, and asakiyume mentioned that Cooney illustrated a book about the building of the Quabbin, so of course that's next on my list.
Susan Cooper - torn between Dreams and Wishes: Essays on Writing for Children and Green Boy
William Bowen - Merrimeg. Bowen was a children’s fantasy author in the 1920s. I’d really like to read his book The Enchanted Forest, but it doesn’t appear to be on Gutenberg or FadedPage, so I’ll content myself with Merrimeg for now.
Katherine Applegate - Pocket Bear
Grace Lin - Chinese Menu: The History, Myths, and Legends Behind Your Favorite Foods
Shaun Tan - The Arrival. I read Tales of the City in 2019 and found it pretty downbeat, but
littlerhymes clued me in that Tan also wrote picture books so of course I have to give those a try. C. S. Lewis - considering The World’s Last Night and Other Essays, although I’m also interested in Studies in Words
Toni Morrison - Beloved
Ben MacIntyre - Agent Sonya: Moscow’s Most Daring Wartime Spy
Lisa See - Daughters of the Sun and Moon. Her newest book! Not yet out, in fact.
Jacqueline Woodson
Penelope Farmer - the university library has Eve: Her Story, but also a book called Soumchi which appears to be written by an Israeli writer named Amos Oz, but nonetheless has Farmer’s name attached in the catalog. Did she translate? Or write the preface? May check it out just to solve the mystery.
Dorothy Gilman
George Gissing - Demos. After New Grub Street, I felt I had to explore Gissing further, and according to Wikipedia, George Orwell thought Demos was one of Gissing’s best novels.
E. M. Delafield - The Provincial Lady in Wartime
George Orwell - The Road to Wigan Pier
Vivien Alcock - A Kind of Thief. I found this book at a used bookstore so it has become my next Alcock
William Dean Howells - Their Wedding Journey
Booth Tarkington - Penrod. I’ve meant to explore more Booth Tarkington since I read Seventeen. At last I’m getting around to it!
Barbara Cooney - Letting Swift River Go. When I visited
asakiyume we went to the Quabbin on a foggy day, and asakiyume mentioned that Cooney illustrated a book about the building of the Quabbin, so of course that's next on my list. Susan Cooper - torn between Dreams and Wishes: Essays on Writing for Children and Green Boy
William Bowen - Merrimeg. Bowen was a children’s fantasy author in the 1920s. I’d really like to read his book The Enchanted Forest, but it doesn’t appear to be on Gutenberg or FadedPage, so I’ll content myself with Merrimeg for now.