Local nightlife: people dancing or at a show*

“Don't know why There's no sun up in the sky Stormy weather Since my man and I ain't together Keeps raining all of the time

Oh, yeah Life is bad Gloom and misery everywhere Stormy weather, stormy weather And I just can get my poor self together Oh, I'm weary all of the time The time, so weary all of the time

When he went away The blues walked in and met me Oh, yeah if he stays away Old rocking chair's gonna get me All I do is pray The Lord will let me Walk in the sun once more

Oh, I can't go on, can't go on, can't go on Everything I have is gone Stormy weather, stormy weather Since my man and I, me and my daddy ain't together Keeps raining all of the time Oh, oh, keeps raining all of the time Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah raining all of the time Stormy stormy Stormy weather Yeah”

– Elisabeth Welch, Stormy Weather (Harold Arlen & Ted Koehler, 1933)

A radiant Goddess (Elisabeth Welch) performs the torch song Stormy Weather. Enchanted sailors dance.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for July is, for unknown reasons, mostly not date-related and follows some sort of vacation narrative.

My ideal vacation spot, country, city, town, or resort*

 

An island, in this case Capri (granted I've never been there), off-season, in a space and time lost in the mists. It'll occasionally rain and it's cold enough to dress up.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for July is, for unknown reasons, mostly not date-related and follows some sort of vacation narrative.

Characters say or wave hello on Say HI Day

 

A sickly composer meets and becomes infatuated with a boy during his stay in Venice.

[Favourite] best friends in film for National Best Friends Day (USA)

“I'm going with this one.”

– Zeca de Curva, running into the storm

The close friendship between two young men raises suspicion when the younger of them disappears..

A [favourite]* fictional athlete for Dennis Haysbert's birthday (1954).

 

Close friends Hsiao-Tung and Yung-shen spend their time together, wandering about, eating dumplings, and training for athletics. Until one of them pushes too hard, leaving the other alone in his grief.

 

* this month's Bales' Challenge is marred with “favourites”, something I don't believe in. Instead, I stick to great cinema and will squeeze in a few LGBT-themed films for Pride Month.

An LGBTQ actor, director, or character over 55 for Honor Our LGBT Elders Day (USA)

“Ich bin meine eigene Frau” (“I am my own woman/wife”)

– Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, in response to her mother's request to settle and get married

The extraordinary life of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, Berliner, gender bender, Nazi killer (her own father, with a wooden rolling pin, mind you), prisoner, custodian, museum founder, barmaid, Stasi informer (arguably), den mother to the GDR's LGBT+ youngsters, but most of all, her own woman.

“Murder's nothing. It's just a simple experience. Murder and rape? Do you know what beauty there is in evil?”

A Shakespearean play or quote for the Bard's (assumed) birthday (1564).

Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said Thy edge should blunter be than appetite, Which but to-day by feeding is allay’d, To-morrow sharpen’d in his former might:

So, love, be thou; although to-day thou fill Thy hungry eyes even till they wink with fullness, To-morrow see again, and do not kill The spirit of love with a perpetual dulness.

Let this sad interim like the ocean be Which parts the shore, where two contracted new Come daily to the banks, that, when they see Return of love, more blest may be the view;

Or call it winter, which, being full of care, Makes summer’s welcome thrice more wish’d, more rare.

– William Shakespeare, sonnet 56 (Fair Youth)

Accompanied by Coil's brooding lust and Judi Dench's solemn recital of 14 of Shakespeare's sonnets, men cross dreamlike landscapes and dark desires.

Someone is snubbed or rejected on Pluto [Discovery] Day*.

“His body is golden like molten gold. This hand of his… will smooth away these wounds. Justin, he is as beautiful as the sun. This sun which caresses me… is his burning desire. He is Phoebus Apollo. The sun… is his… burning kiss.”

– Sebastian

Sebastian, member of the Emperor's personal guard, is exiled after an incident. He finds himself on a rocky outpost, and the object of the other men's lust. One of them – a centurion rejected by the Christian boy – subjects Sebastian to torture and eventually lifts him up martyrdom.

 

* Pluto Demoted Day is on August 24