alexxkay | Alexx's Patreon Update: May, 2022 (Reply)

Due to various Life Issues, missed almost two months of productivity. But I'm back now! (I did get a little productivity in during those months, reading two books relevant to Cinema Purgatorio and making small additions to our notes there.) The main accomplishments though were updating the Jerusalem Timeline with items from Voice of the Fire, and annotating chapter 12, closing out Book I. (I should mention that TartanCrusader did a first pass at notes for chapter 12, which were quite helpful. Me being me, I did end up adding a lot, though.) Further details below:

Annotated chapter 12 of Jerusalem, Choking on a Tune. Highlights:
- General: In parallel plotlines, we follow Mick Warren in the aftermath of his 2005 accident, and the events leading up to his accident in 1959.
- "mysterious turquoise shavings" - The tanning of leather employs the chemical Chromium (III) Sulfate which renders the leather a distinctive bluish-purple colour. So these are scraps of dyed leather. (See also Phyllis Painter's turquoise shoes in the following chapter, Upstairs.)
- "wire mummies that the lab chimps had at last lost interest in." - A reference to the infamous "wire mother" experiments, in which infant monkeys were "raised" by mother figures made out of wire.
- “Bachelerie di Northampton – the […] student population” – Bachelerie literally means “aspirants for knighthood”, though in the historical documents that Moore is presumably referencing, the phrase is associated with “turbulent democracy”. This “Bachelerie” is not explicitly associated there with students, but it is a a plausible reading.
- “it would be Cambridge that became a seat of learning, rather than Northampton” – A 1985 history says of this:
  In 1265 […] King Henry III ordered the removal of the students and university from Northampton […] A 14th-century chronicle suggests that this was because the students had sided with Simon de Montfort against the King at the siege of Northampton in 1264 [but others] argued that contemporary sources indicate that the detrimental effect of a university at Northampton on the borough of Oxford was the overriding reason.
- “washed-out portrait photographs” – Moore has mentioned these pictures in interviews as part of the initial inspiration for Jerusalem:
  I remember being in the living room in the fairly dark house that I used to live in on St. Andrew’s Road in Northampton, an’ I’d be looking up at these framed pictures of, er, unfamiliar Victorian gentlemen […] I can remember looking at these old pictures of people who were probably my grandfathers or great-grandfathers, and thinking, “I wonder if they know they’re dead?” […] thinking, “No, er, they probably don’t know they’re dead, but the th-thought that follows on from that is, “There must be people in the future looking at pictures of me, an’ wondering if I know that I’m dead.”
- “treacherous mangle” – In the UK, a mangle is a domestic device whereby wet clothes are passed between two closely-set rollers (which are turned by means of a manually operated handle) in order to squeeze the moisture from them.
- “TV Century 21” – TV Century 21 was a weekly British children’s comic published in the late 1960s. It frequently featured science fiction stories; Mick is regarding his 2006 furniture as looking “futuristic” by 1959 standards.
  - Moore and O’Neill homaged TV Century 21 for the cover of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Tempest, issue #2.
- “Captain Scarlet” – Referring to Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, a science fiction TV show, and also a tie-in comic in TV Century 21. The character was classically handsome, with a full head of hair, so Mick is likely punning on the currently-scarlet state of his face. There may also be an allusion to Captain Scarlet’s frequent “deaths” and subsequent resurrections.
- Tunes brand Cherry Menthol drops are still being sold as of 2022. Sadly, my best efforts have been unable to locate an image of the period packaging described here.
- Today, Tunes are no longer “square-cut”, possibly because of choking incidents such as the one we’re about to see. Ironically, Tunes once had a famous slogan “Tunes help you breathe more easily”, and some modern packaging still prominently features the word “BREATHE”. Wikipedia claims that Tunes are related to the Spangles brand, and I did find some period images for those, see below.
- "On the blue sheet up above were big and drifting shapes of white that you called lions [...] Cabbages, was that the word? Or generals?" - It seems Michael is losing his language ability, and is unable to remember the word "clouds". The "lions" mention in particular calls to mind the Hob's Hog chapter of Voice of the Fire, where the language-challenged narrator refers to clouds as "sky-beasts".
- “the centre cannot hold” – Almost certainly an allusion to Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming“, a poem whose themes echo the darker moments of Jerusalem.
- "his dilapidated wonder of a tale" – See next chapter and the rest of Book Two!
Updated the Jerusalem Timeline with events from Voice of the Fire.
- In the course of going through my annotations for the earlier book, I've corrected a few errors and made a few additions (though tried to keep from getting too perfectionist/distracted).
Read Dark Carnival, Moore's primary source for Cinema Purgatorio #14.
- Clarified several points that Moore, due to space issues, was unclear about.
- Sourced several images that O'Neill clearly used as reference.
Read The Bad and the Beautiful, Moore's primary source for Cinema Purgatorio #15.
- Noted further parallels with the un-filmed opening to Sunset Boulevard.
- Sourced several images that O'Neill clearly used as reference.
- Minor corrections and additions.
Integrating reader comments on various projects.