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Have I answered my own question?

My question is...how does one get to sell art in London?

I haf heard legends of massive art parties also, GOD KNOWS whot they do there. Roll about in it, I would imagine.

I have three or four friends that have opened galleries within five years of leaving their studies and these people come from all parts of the social strata, not just the rich. But they are all socially adept.

I think I've already been over what it takes to sell art as an artist.

OK, here's another ILM-y one--who does the superbitchy 80s club hit with the spoken bit that goes something like "that tramp couldn't satisfy a CHEESESTICK, let alone my man!"

Can someone give me a specific example of a novel or film where you get a couple of characters who meet each other in different settings across history? So maybe it starts in the middle ages, then they meet again in the early 1900s, then again in a modern-day setting. The implication is that it's the same two people, maybe reincarnated. They may or may not be aware of their encounters in the past.

Similar to this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-or2AET9L4

Isn't this pretty much Good Omens

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Omens?wprov=sfla1

?

Don't know it...I just need two or three examples for something I'm writing. I know I've seen a film or two like this.

The fountain?

Just read a description and that looks exactly right--thanks.

There was an episode of The Sandman that was exactly this:

6 "The Sound of Her Wings" Mairzee Almas Lauren Bello August 5, 2022
Morpheus, now aimless after obtaining his tools, is visited by his sister Death and accompanies her as she escorts the deceased to the afterlife. Death attempts to show Morpheus the possibility of finding purpose and fulfillment in his duties as ruler of the Dreaming. In a flashback to the Middle Ages, Morpheus and Death visit a tavern where they encounter Hob Gadling, a commoner who vocally wishes to never die. Death agrees to spare Gadling for as long as he wishes. Hob and Morpheus continue to meet each other once every century. Hob maintains that no matter which turns his life takes, he still does not wish for death. Hob hypothesizes that Morpheus continues to meet with him because he is lonely and friendless, which greatly offends Morpheus. Due to Morpheus's capture by Burgess, he is unable to attend his regular meeting with Hob. When their usual location is sold, Hob chooses a new tavern a block away, hoping that Morpheus will find him. The two reunite in the present day; with Morpheus finally acknowledging Hob as a friend. Elsewhere, Desire continues their plans.

I think all of those work. I'm just going to say it's been used many times and cite one or two of these as examples. When I watch the video, I know it's a device I've seen before. If anyone knows, it would be good to cite one really famous work that may have used the idea first.

Can someone give me a specific example of a novel or film where you get a couple of characters who meet each other in different settings across history? So maybe it starts in the middle ages, then they meet again in the early 1900s, then again in a modern-day setting. The implication is that it's the same two people, maybe reincarnated. They may or may not be aware of their encounters in the past.

While the ten parts take place in different times and places, they are connected by a group of characters that are reincarnated into each time but are identified to the reader by the first letter of their name being consistent in each life.

cloud atlas

Those look good too...not to keep pushing this, but can someone give me an example of something before the Marshall Crenshaw video (1983)? I'm a big Crenshaw fan, but something tells me this device wasn't his invention.

I don't know what it says about me that the first film I thought of was Rockula (1990), but it was. Not pre-83, though.

The revelant part from the wiki summary: "In the 1680s, Ralph was involved in a romantic relationship with the mortal girl Mona. Mona was killed by a pirate, who happened to be her jealous ex-boyfriend. Mona is reincarnated every 22 years, but keeps getting killed by pirates on the anniversary of her original death."

Revelant? Relevant. Maybe I was thinking of her being a revenant.

Maybe Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion concept fits?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_Champion

There was a French animated series in the 70s called Once Upon a Time…Man, where each episode featured the same archetypal group of characters in different eras from prehistory to the future.

Time Bandits does this with the Michael Palin & Shelley Duvall characters

there is likely a stronger precedent than that though

Wasn't there a Christopher Reeve movie like this, "Somewhere in Time"? Or Aronofsky's "The Fountain"?

(Sorry, "The Fountain" was mentioned already.)

Oh, what was the creepy bestseller? "Time Traveller's Wife"?

Somewhere in Time involves hypnosis-powered time travel (lol)

TTW came to mind for me too, not sure it's exactly right but it's definitely playing with this idea

I believe the Branagh/Thompson movie Dead Again fits

There can be... only one... HIGHLANDER!

Weirdly, Highlander was apparently inspired by The Duellists, which was inspired by Barry Lyndon, so maybe the trope itself is just an extension of "Doofus has recurring escapades through different eras of a doofus life" to "Doofus always be doofus-ing"

Somewhere in Time was fun but it is not that. Somewhere in Time also sorta parallels the novel Time and Again by Jack Finney.

Finney had a bunch of time travel stories but none had that specific plot point (quasi-immortal people reuniting at various points).

Definitely a lot of that in the Dr. Who, Sandman, Gaiman universes.

Also take a look at the lovely Tom Holt book Flying Dutch

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Dutch?wprov=sfla1

I saw a video recently that pointed out that Jack wasn't the only eternal recurrence in The Shining -- the Grady character also had an old-timey counterpart (that Jack meets) but also a separate contemporary version with a different murdered family that wasn't shown, but talked about.

Dead Again, definitely--that's one that I've seen.

Time Traveler's Wife is different; no reincarnation and only one of them travels. Similar in a way to the classic children's book Tom's Midnight Garden, but much ickier.

I know I must have read something like this, but all that's coming to mind right now is the Saki story where the woman keeps being reincarnated in different forms so that she can keep playing pranks on her brother in law, which is not what you are looking for.

cloud atlas is basically this

oh i missed darraghmac's post. read the book, don't watch the movie.

The earliest literary example of this is likely the Three Immortals trilogy by George S Viereck and Paul Eldridge (My First Two Thousand Years: The Autobiography of the Wandering Jew (1928), Salome: The Wandering Jewess and The Invincible Adam (1932)).

The most canonical literary example of this is probably Virginia Woolf's Orlando (1928).

As noted, Michael Moorcock makes extensive use of this device across much of his output from the 70s onward, including "Breakfast in the Ruins", the Oswald Bastable trilogy, the Dancers at the End of Time books, and the majority of the Jerry Cornelius material (the latter of which is based more or less exclusively on this concept).

Also as noted Jonathan Mitchell makes extensive use of this device, most prominently in Cloud Atlas, but also across multiple novels (Utopia Avenue, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, Ghostwritten, etc.) which feature an aggressively ridiculous YA novel conceit (usually in the background/subplot but not always) about immortal vampires (more or less).

The Sandman TV episode referenced above is based on issue #13 of "The Sandman" ("Men of Good Fortune"), originally published in March 1990.

I just finished Cloud Atlas (the book) and I don't remember any examples of this thing? I mean, there are connections between the characters in the different time periods but do they ever actually meet?

Excellent, thanks everyone. I think I'm good now--I'll leave it at this:

“Whenever You’re on My Mind”’s video borrows a narrative device that has been used by many authors and filmmakers over the years (e.g., Virginia Woolf’s Orlando and, more recently, The Fountain, a 2006 film with Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz): a couple of characters keep encountering each other across history, interactions separated by decades and sometimes centuries.

(Shakey?!)

I just finished Cloud Atlas (the book) and I don't remember any examples of this thing? I mean, there are connections between the characters in the different time periods but do they ever actually meet?

it's more that the characters exist in a shared universe. Characters in Cloud Atlas show up in Utopia Avenue, for example, and are linked by their relationship to immortal figures who figure in multiple books (Jacob De Zoet is a reincarnation of protagonist in The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, etc.)

various connections are broken down here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_Avenue

yes, so, as I thought, nothing to do with clemenza's question.

it absolutely has to do with Clemenza's question, because as noted in the Utopia Avenue wiki multiple characters (via a form of reincarnation) meet across different periods in history, including De Zoet, Marinus, and abbot Enomoto. Cloud Atlas takes place in this continuity, as evidenced by characters from it appearing in other books, even if the immortal characters themselves do not appear in Cloud Atlas itself.

The most canonical literary example of this is probably Virginia Woolf's Orlando (1928).

I thought of this but isn't it only the titular Orlando who exists through time? They don't have a recurrent counterpart, right? Or have I just completely forgotten a major part of the book?

That's part of what I was after, yes, more than one character...For what it's worth, the Marshall Crenshaw video even falls slightly short of my description. The woman in the video appears four times, but three of the four are (literally) the same person in a different setting and looking different. The leap across time really only happens once.

Orlando engages energetically with life in the 18th and 19th centuries, holding court with great poets, notably Alexander Pope. Critic Nick Greene, apparently also timeless, reappears and promotes Orlando's writing, promising to help her publish The Oak Tree. She meets Green earlier in the book in the early 17th century.

Can someone give me a specific example of a novel or film where you get a couple of characters who meet each other in different settings across history? So maybe it starts in the middle ages, then they meet again in the early 1900s, then again in a modern-day setting. The implication is that it's the same two people, maybe reincarnated. They may or may not be aware of their encounters in the past.

The Tale of Genji frequently uses the metaphor of lovers being bound together because of a connection in a previous incarnation. as far as i know that's not an idea invented by Murusaki but a convention of romantic discourse in Buddhist Japan

Honglou Meng or Dream of the Red Chamber or Story of the Stone or whatever you know it as is built around characters who're incarnations of spirits from previous incarnations

it's just dawned on me neither of those are strictly the answer to the question but hey

There must be some vampire fiction that does this. Also thinking of something from maybe the Lucifer or Constantine comics?

John Constantine is clearly a reincarnated character - one of whom shows up in Sandman (as female) during the French Revolution.

similarly shows up in the first Books of Magic GN at the end of time

There must be some vampire fiction that does this.

Coppola's Dracula

Dracula finds a picture of Jonathan's fiancée Mina Murray and believes she is the reincarnation of Elisabeta.

which is not in Stoker's original novel iirc

What We Do In the Shadows has touched on this trope too - Nadja and her "reincarnated" lover S1 etc.

Ha I might be thinking of that. Vague memories of Anne Rice's Memnoch the Devil too, but I probably read that 25 years ago, lol.

Orlando engages energetically with life in the 18th and 19th centuries, holding court with great poets, notably Alexander Pope. Critic Nick Greene, apparently also timeless, reappears and promotes Orlando's writing, promising to help her publish The Oak Tree. She meets Green earlier in the book in the early 17th century.

― famous instagram dog (Shakey Mo Collier)

Ahhh, thank you! I had totally forgotten about that.