Emperor Norton
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ashleynaftule.bsky.social
Emperor Norton
@ashleynaftule.bsky.social
680 followers 1.4K following 370 posts
Playwright. Associate Artistic Director at Space55 in downtown Phoenix. Freelance journalist. Next play "Selena and Judy Go Dancing" runs June 6-15 at Metro Arts.

Check out my radio play "Radio Free Europa":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbQ23qB5-6c
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ashleynaftule.bsky.social
I think people REALLY underestimate just how much stuff is out there. Just in terms of film alone, you could spend your life sifting through a century plus of cinema and not even come close to exhausting the good stuff. Curation helps keep us from wasting our time on the bad stuff
December 11, 2025 at 4:06 AM
ashleynaftule.bsky.social
My guy here looks like a real-life full size Todd McFarlane action figure, we need five SWAT teams & a fire truck full of holy water on site ASAP
December 9, 2025 at 6:45 PM
ashleynaftule.bsky.social
Started playing Balatro and this game is so good I’m serenading my Switch in the style of Enrique Iglesias’s “Bailamos”: “Balatrrrrro/let the jokers multiply you, Balatrrro” My dog has never been more ashamed of me
December 6, 2025 at 3:47 AM
Reposted by Emperor Norton
paulduane.bsky.social
Found the relevant pages, feels like an eyewitness account of the creation of the world, yeah that's hyperbole but holy shit
Otis is playing a bright red dime-store guitar, strumming simple bar chords as he sings: 'Sitting' in the mornin' sun, I'll be sittin' when the evenin' comes - The front of the guitar is cracked, as if someone has stepped on it. As he sings, Otis watches Steve, who nods and nods, bending almost double over his guitar, following Otis's chords with a shimmering electric response. 'Sittin' in the mornin' sun -' 'But I don't know why he's sittin',' Otis says, rocking back and forth as if he were still singing. 'He's just sittin'. Got to be more to it than that.' He pauses for a moment, shaking his head. Then he says, 'Wait. Wait a minute,' to Steve, who has been waiting patiently. I left my home in Georgia, Headed for the Frisco bay - He pauses again, runs through the changes on his fractured guitar, then sings: 'I had nothing to live for, Look like nothing's gonna come my way - I write music everywhere, in motels, dressing rooms - I'll just play a song on the guitar and remember it. Then, usually, I come in the studio and Steve and I work it out. Sometimes I'll have just an idea, maybe for a bass line or some chord changes - maybe just a feeling - and we see what we can make out of it. We try to get everybody to groove together to the way a song feels.' After 'Dock of the Bay' was recorded, Steve and Booker added guitar and piano fills. The song boomed into the studio from a speaker high on the rear wall, and Booker played precise little bop, bop-bop figures, while Steve followed the vocal with an almost quivering blues line. The speaker went dead, then the engineer's voice came: 'Steve, one note's clashing.' 'Sure it is,' Steve tells him. 'It was written to clash.' Which, in point of fact, is not true, since nothing has been written down so far. 'Let's do it once more,' Steve says. 'We can do that bridge better. I can. First part's a groove.' Inside the control room, Otis and Duck are talking. 'I wish you all could go with me to the Fillmore on Christmas,' Otis says. 'Man, so do I. I got some good fren's in San Francisco. We could rent one of them yachts.' 'I got one already. Three bedrooms, two baths, sumbitch is nice, man.' 'My ole lady's kill me,' Duck says. When the recording is finished, Steve and Booker come into the control room, followed after a moment by the little boy in Congress sneakers. The tape is played back at a painful volume level. Steve and Otis stare deep into each other's eyes, carrying a kind of telepathic communication. The little boy, looking up at the speaker the music is coming from, says, 'I like that. That's good singin'. I'd like to be a singer myself.' If you got the feelin', you can sing soul. You just sing from the heart, and - there's no difference between nobody's heart.' 'That's it,' Otis says when the record ends. "That's a mother,' says Booker.
December 4, 2025 at 6:28 PM