I promise I tried to post a Gang Roundup in April, but it simply didn’t happen. I kept telling to myself that ‘this week I’m finishing to schedule my posts, and I’ll prepare the roundup”, but that week ended up being the last in April. At that point I though it was just as well that I posted in May. And it’s also quite late too.
I know, I know, I’m a disaster at deadlines.

But the good news is that you get a two months worth of links, how about that?

Metropolis at 90

Carrie-Anne over at Welcome to My Magick Theatre Blog always blogs about silent films on their birthday. That’s true. She’s seen more than 1000 silent films and I can assure you that she knows what she’s talking about.
I like her film-birthday posts a lot, becuase she always goes in great detail about the film history.

So it’s no surprise that, Metropolis being one of my favourite silent movies (and stories) I enjoyed her birthday posts a lot.
Here’s the whole series, but if you brows her blog, you’ll find other similar series for different films.

Part I  | Part II | Part III | Part IV

About the Irish Wars

David Lawlor is the author of a series of (at the moment) four novels set during the Irish War of Indipendence and Civil War spanning from the Easter Rising (1916) to the mid 1920s.
He’s not only an expert of this time, but is also very passionate about it since his family – particularly his grandfather – was actively involved in these wars.

David writes fascinating articles about the Irish 1920s. Here are a couple of the most recent.

Ireland’s Civil War – when truth was stranger than fiction…

Michael Collins is one of the most well-known and loved Irish patriots, though some say (and David is among them) that he remained an unblamished figure of hero because is died young. His death impacted Irish history in more than one way, and though it was in part caused by Collins’s own disregard for his safety, external events also had a great importance.
Among this, the rivarly between two brothers who chose the opposing sides of the fence in the Civil War.

How 1916’s rebels dressed to impress

It won’t come as a surprise that what I most like about history is its social aspect. I am interested in the big events, of course, but what really fascinates me is people’s everyday life. What they wore, what those things cost, where people bought them, and if at all possle why they bought them.
In this article, David has a closer look on how the rebels of the Easter Rising dressed, what it cost to them and even why they chose to dress like that.
Fascinating stuff, if you ask me.

The Irish Novel That’s So Good People Were Scared to Translate It

So, let’s stay in Ireland for a bit longer.
“Cré na Cille” (Churchyard Clay) is a novel that was written in Irish Gaelic in 1948. It is a satiric piece of literature recounting the observations of spirits in a graveyard about life around them – and especially their own fellow townfalk.

Translating a text is much more than just match wronds from a language into another. It’s more than finding the right sintax to render a sentece in a different language. It is also a work of interpreation, where not just the mining, but also what is beneath it has to be translated, and before that can be done, it has to be interpreted, which means interprete an entire way of life from a different perspective.

No wonder that for decades Irish translators refused to work on this novel for fear to mistranslate the text into English. And even more intersting that now there are two new translations, and they sounds quite different one from the other.

 Zeppelin Mania

You can always count on CW Hawes for a fascinating account of the airship era. This is not the first time I link to one of his series about airship history and I have a feeling it won’t be the last.
In this series, you will find a detailed breakdown of books about airship and their time, as well as excerpts from a few of those books.

Part I | Part II

And this a little something more.
The British Dirigible R101

What Really Felled the Hindenburg?

The 4th May was the 80th annyversary of the Hindenburg disaster.
Still today, it isn’t sure what caused it. There are many theories, there are testimonies and even footage of the disaster, but none of this had been enough to reconstruct the events that brought to the biggest airship disaster of all times.

I’ll confess I haven’t had the nerves to watch the videos yet. Just the photos give me the chills.

And so, this is it for this month. I hope you enjoyed the roundup. What is it that you enjoyed the most. I’ll have a wild guess… No, I won’t!
See you next month with more Diesel Era links.

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See the 1920s Come to Life in Gorgeous Color Videos

If you are like me, you’ll think that the first attempts at colour in the film industry were in the 1940s. Well, I should think again. Turns out the first attempts at colour were in the 1920s.

Have a loook!

Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries: The Feminist Sherlock You Should Be Watching

I know I’m coming to this series (both novels and tv show) very late, but I’m really enjoying it (you might have noticed). Miss Fisher Mysteries are among the best research 1920s stories I’ve encountered so far, and this is a great plus in addition to very relateble characters and intersting plots.

It is true that there are attitudes in the stories that are more modern, but I like the way Kerry Greenwood handles them, so that this is still acceptable in a historical setting.

This article looks in-death at what are the most stricking characteristics of this series (and this characters), how they relate to the historical setting and why they appeal to the modern readers.

The Early Women Filmmakers Blogathon is here!

I’m sorry that my messy March didn’t allow me to talk about this, but it’s still worth checking out. This is a blogathon organised by Movie Silently about women in the film industry in the 1910s and 1920s. Quite a few surspirses in here.

“Today, women direct under 10% of all films released and entertainment writers act as though women with megaphones are a modern phenomenon. Hold your horses! Alice Guy was not just one of the first women to direct, she was one of the first directors, period. Mabel Normand taught Charlie Chaplin a few tricks. Lois Weber was diving into social issues in film before Angelina Jolie’s grandmother was born. Women have always been directors, whether the men liked it or not.
It’s time to give these talented women directors their moment in the sun and the Early Women Filmmakers Blogathon aims to do just that. This is a topic that is dear to my heart and I am just tickled pink to be hosting!”

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Renaissance by Yecheilyah Ysrayl

When seventeen-year-old Nora White successfully graduates High School in 1922 Mississippi and is College bound, everyone is overjoyed and excited. Everyone except Nora. She dreams of Harlem, Cotton Clubs, Fancy Dresses, and Langston Hughes. For years, she’s sat under Mr. Oak, the big oak tree on the plush green grass of her families five acres, and daydreamed of The Black Mecca.

The ambitious, young Nora is fascinated by the prospect of being a famous writer in The Harlem Renaissance and decides she doesn’t want to go to College. Despite her parent’s staunch protest, Nora finds herself in Jacobsville, New York, a small town forty-five minutes outside of Harlem.

Shocked by their daughter’s disappearance, Gideon and Molly White are plagued with visions of the deadly south, like the brutal lynching of Gideon’s sister years ago. As the couple embark on a frightening and gut wrenching search for Nora, they are each stalked by their own traumatic past. Meanwhile, Nora learns that the North is not all it’s cracked up to be.

Can Gideon and Molly overcome their disturbing past in time to find their daughter before it’s too late?

None of Us the Same by Jeffrey K. Walker

It all began with such enthusiasm, parades and dances and handsome young soldiers in fine new uniforms aching to prove themselves worthy on the field of battle. How did it all go so horribly wrong? When the guns fall silent, can Deirdre overcome her lingering guilt through a new life with Jack, himself battered and trying to forge a place for them at the edge of a wounded Empire now at peace? Can shell-shocked Will bear the weight of his family’s expectations back in Newfoundland?

Their way forward is fraught with guilt, family intrigue, and ill-advised choices yet tinged with blossoming love and acceptance. Can they move past their shared history of suffering and loss in None of Us the Same?

Sweet Wine of Youth: A Historical Trilogy

I’m excited to bring you this first of three books set during and the years after the First World War, an epoch of unprecedented violence and social change. None of Us the Same looks to the consequences of the War on those most profoundly impacted by it. I invite you to join in the exploration of their lives through boldly drawn characters and a vivid historical setting, all created by a writer who knows first-hand what it means to endure mortars and rockets.

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