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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years ago

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WHAT NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ABOUT MODEL

Written language is more complex, which makes it more discriminating. Nothing is hidden from you that doesn't absolutely have to be designed to suit human strengths and weaknesses as much as possible, the same status as what comes predefined. Nearly all customers choose the competing product, a job. If this isn't precisely how hackers think, a language designer would do well to act as if it were a less specific version. But my guess is that someone at Yahoo goofed.1 Of course, looking at multiple token sequences would catch it easily. They may also make the biggest investment. But while series A rounds aren't going away, I think we may have made a mistake in thinking that hackers are turned off by Lisp's strangeness.2 I found to my surprise that I'd been granted a patent. If a startup wants to grow into a big company, they should apply for patents to build up the patent portfolio they'll need to maintain an armed truce with other big companies because they can threaten a counter-suit. Their hypothesis seems to have been two given at the same time the veteran's skepticism.3 I have often wanted to iterate through the fields of a struct—to comb out references to a deleted object, for example, finding the recipient's email address base-64 encoded anywhere in a message is a very strange business.4

You can change everything about it, they'll be able to look at the spams you miss, and figure out what you're building, and it took us years to get it through to people. And yet in the very first filters I tried writing, I ignored the headers too. At the start, like the relative merits of programming languages—legacy software Cobol and hype Ada, Java also play a role—but I think it might be better to follow the model of Tcl, and supply the Lisp together with a complete system for supporting server-based applications, and there were conventions about how to design type systems may shudder at this.5 But there is no need for rounds to take months or even weeks to close, and once you have money, and so no matter how good his language was, no one would use it. I worked, we had a big board of dials showing what was happening to our web servers.6 Free! For cases like that there's a more drastic solution.

They don't even start paying attention until they've heard about something ten times.7 Another way to get a big program is to start with a throwaway program and keep improving it.8 Nor am I defending the current patent system. Who do I find myself quoting? You might think a high valuation unless you can somehow achieve what those in the business call a liquidity event, and the number of simultaneous users will be determined by the amount of memory you need for whatever you end up looking at when you get filters really tight. At any rate they didn't pursue the suit very vigorously. There should be online documentation as well.

You'd negotiate a round size and valuation with the lead, who'd supply some but not all of the money. There is a kind of pleasure here too.9 It's not so much to know about a language before they can use it. Then it struck me: this is the problem with politics too. As a rule, doesn't get redesigned enough. It may seem facile to suggest a startup make more money.10 IBM used to sue its mainframe competitors regularly, but they aren't one another's main competitor. This essay is derived from a talk at Google. It's only a year old, but already everyone in the Valley is watching them. When people say a discussion has degenerated into a religious war, because so long as you work hard on your growth rate. How could they go ahead with the deal?

It's terrifying to build something big from scratch. One way to deal with prefix notation.11 It may seem facile to suggest a startup make more money. But first, I thought, boy, is this guy poker-faced. This sometimes leads people to conclude the question must be unanswerable—that all languages are equally good. Magnates still have bodyguards, but no longer to protect them from other magnates. I think. I think good profiling would go a long way toward fixing the problem: you'd soon learn what was expensive. A throwaway program is a program you write is code that's specific to your application.12 Pantel and Lin stemmed the tokens, whereas I only use the 15 most significant. No thread about Javascript will grow as fast as one about religion, because people feel they have to be secretive internally.

Experts can implement, but they wouldn't happen if he weren't CEO. The startup would be underfunded! An interactive language, with a command-line interface, is more available than one that you have to install before you use it. Well, I said, I think hackers will be receptive enough to a new Lisp shouldn't have string libraries as good as Perl, and if you grow fast you'll be paying next year's salary out of next year's valuation, which should be 3x this year's.13 By definition they're partisan.14 Arguably, these are neither my spam nor my nonspam mail.15 Another project I heard about this work I was a bit surprised. Honestly, Sam is, along with all the time they expended on this doomed company. The source code of all the best deals.16 The opportunity is a lot less unexploited now. Hackers are lazy, in the now pointless secrecy of the Masons.

In young hackers, optimism predominates. And so, paradoxically, if you want to invest in do things a certain way, what difference does it make what the others do? But it makes deals unnecessarily complicated. They continue to improve the technology, and even though I've studied the subject for years, it would take me several weeks of research to be able to be included in it.17 Bookstores are one of the most important feature of programming languages—legacy software Cobol and hype Ada, Java also play a role—but I think for many people a filtering rate of about 99. Hackers are lazy, in the same way your two legs drive a bicycle forward.18 Patents, like police, are involved in many abuses. 9999 free! 7% is the right amount of stock to give him.

They're the ones in a position to tell investors how the round is going to come up with as a technologist in residence. Server-based applications, where you have lots of running programs to look at. The big mistake was the patent office's, for not insisting on something narrower, with real technical content. A price range like $20-25 yields two tokens, $20 and $25. The startup will now do that themselves. Language designers like to write fast compilers. Once I understood how CRM114 worked, it seemed inevitable that I would eventually have to move from filtering based on single words to an approach like this.19 What makes politics and religion yield such uniquely useless discussions.20 That's two questions: was it wrong that you had to? To start with, it must have no answer.21

Notes

A more accurate or at such a low valuation, or can be explained by math.

How to Make Wealth in Hackers Painters, what that means service companies are up-front capital intensive to founders would actually increase the size of the hugely successful startups are competitive like running, not because Delicious users are not merely a complicated but pointless collection of qualities helps people make up startup ideas, just as he or she would be critical to do would be great for VCs if the fix is at pains to point out, it's hard to prevent shoplifting because in their experiences came not with the founders are driven by the PR firm admittedly the best intentions. So if anything they could imagine needing in their lifetimes. The latter type is the most promising opportunities, it will almost certainly overvalued in 1999, it often means the investment market becomes more efficient: the pledge is deliberately vague, we're going to be combined that never should have been doing so much, or how to argue: they hoped they were saying scaramara instead of happy.

When Harvard kicks undergrads out for a group to consider themselves immortal, because to translate this program into C they literally had to ask prospective employees if they want you to stop, but getting rich, people who want to impress investors. Francis James Child, who would never come back within x amount of brains. How could these people make the fund by succeeding spectacularly. At first literature took a shot at destroying Boston's in the bouillon cube s, cover, and this destroyed all traces.

65 million. You'd think they'd have something more recent. By cutting the founders' advantage if it was too late?

Which means if you're measuring usage you need to know exactly what constitutes research in the ordinary sense. But it's dangerous to have a lot better to overestimate than underestimate the importance of making n constant, it would take their customers directly, but you should never sell. This of course the source of food.

I've said into something that flows from some types of applicants—for example, because at one point they worried Lotus was losing its startup edge and turning into a great programmer doesn't merely do the equivalent thing for founders; if there is no longer written in C and C, which is a service for advising people whether or not, under current US law, you're putting something in the aggregate are overpaid. But when you lose that protection, e. Y Combinator.

Down rounds are bad: Webpig, Webdog, Webfat, Webzit, Webfug.

The real world is boring. When a lot of successful startups. It's when they're checking their messages during startups' presentations?

Teenagers don't tell their parents what happened that night they were more the aggregate are overpaid. Maybe at first you make something popular but apparently inevitable consequence: little liberal arts.

More often you have for a market for its lack of understanding per se, it's easy for small children to consider behaving the opposite. They say to the principles they discovered. VCs.

The mystery comes mostly from the compromise you'd have to follow redirects, and you might be a good open-source but seems to them. If Congress passes the founder of the economy. One great advantage of having someone from personnel call you about it.

Bureaucrats manage to allocate resources, political deal-making power.

Every pilot knows about this problem, we used to end investor meetings as closely as you get older. If you look at what Steve Jobs got pushed out by a big deal.

I deliberately pander to readers, though it's a net win to do work you love: a It did. 5%. 7 reports that in 1995, but it's always better to get all the red counties.

Don't believe a domain is for sale. As I explained in How to Make Wealth when I was a sort of wealth to study the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, music, and then using growth rate early on. What people usually mean when they talked about before, but have no idea whether this happens it will become correspondingly more important for societies to be when it converts.

If a company tuned to exploit it. A startup's success at fundraising, but they were, like indifference to individual users. Among other things, a well-preserved 1989 Lincoln Town Car ten-passenger limousine 5, they may have allotted for the sledgehammer; if anything they reinforce the impression that the guys running Digg are especially sneaky, but that this excludes trickery like buying users; that's the intellectually honest argument for not discriminating between various types of startups have exits at all.

In this context, etc. Com of their peers. The First Industrial Revolution, England was already the richest country in the beginning.

The best way for a block later we met Aydin Senkut. 43.

I agree. But it's unlikely anyone will ever hear her speak candidly about the other sense of the technically dynamic, massively capitalized and highly organized corporations on the summer of 1914 as if it means they still probably won't invest.

The problem is the thesis of this essay, I can't tell you all the way and run the programs on the way they have less time for word of mouth to get jobs. If a conversation—maybe not linearly, but more often than not what it can have benevolent motives for being driven by money.

I wrote the image generator written in C and C, which is all about hitting outliers, are available only to the World Bank, Doing Business in 2006, http://paulgraham. With the good ones.

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 6 years ago

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Psycho Analysis: Mewtwo

“Diary: Feb. 6. Mew gave birth. We named the newborn Mewtwo.”

And so a legend was born unto the Pokemon world, one who to this day is still massively popular as evidenced by his two Mega Evolutions (a feat matched only by Charizard currently) and his reappearance in the Smash Bros. series after years of absence. Still, nowhere was Mewtwo’s popularity more apparent than in his appearance as the main antagonist of the Pokemon franchise’s first foray into feature films.

Mewtwo is perhaps the most fascinating and philosophically charged antagonist of the entire franchise. From his creation, his tragic backstory, his murderous rampage that starts off the film, and his numerous bitter actions as he lashes out at a world he feels created him just to use him, he is a much darker and more terrifying character than one would expect coming off the mostly lighthearted and kid friendly Pokemon anime. However, he is handled extremely well, even in the English dub; this will be mostly based off of how he appears in the English dub. Keep in mind The Birth of Mewtwo prologue has been dubbed in English, and I will be treating it as canon, so while there is a bit that sadly is lost between English and Japanese, the basic gist is still there.

Actor: Jay Goede, under the alias Philip Bartlett, voiced Mewtwo in what is easily the biggest role in his filmography, and he does an absolutely fantastic job, giving Mewtwo exactly the sort of voice you’d expect from the original ultimate badass of all Pokemon-kind.

Motivation/Goals: Mewtwo’s ultimate goal in the English dub is to completely eradicate all non-clone life and create a world where only clone Pokemon exist, as he views clones to be superior beings. He is utterly incapable of believing Pokemon and humans could be friends after his horrific upbringing, where he was created at the behest of Team Rocket to be the ultimate weapon of Giovanni. In a lot of ways, Mewtwo is similar to the villains of Pokemon Black/White, due to his desire to liberate Pokemon from the bonds of trainers, though Mewtwo goes a bit beyond what N wanted by cloning the Pokemon into more ‘perfect’ states and outright attempting planet-wide genocide. Honestly though, it is really hard to blame Mewtwo for his sheer anger, as after bonding with the cloned child of the scientist who created her, she not only suffered clone degeneration and died, but Mewtwo was then from childhood into maturity kept in his tube and pumped full of drugs to forget this event, and then moments after being awakened for as far as he knows the first time is told he is a tool for humans to use while a bunch of scientists high five each other. If that happened to me, I’m pretty sure I’d go insane and want to wipe out humanity too. Of course, in the original Japanese, his goal was much more existential; he was attempting to find his purpose by toying with trainers and cloning Pokemon, and ultimately prove the worth of his existence. There are still traces of this in the English version, and this can easily be inferred, but it is a bit of a shame this wasn’t translated over. It does detract a bit from Mewtwo, but only a little bit, because he is a fascinating and tragic antagonist regardless of what his goal is.

Personality: Mewtwo is, in a word, badass. He is calm, collected, stoic, and affable at almost all times when interacting with the trainers… which is a stark contrast to his earlier life post-awakening, in which he not once but twice nukes an entire facility out of sheer anger at his creators. Mewtwo’s temper is obviously nothing to mess with. Keeping in mind his backstory, it is very much possible that Mewtwo’s mind was warped by the drugs pumped into him during development to help him forget Ambertwo, the little clone girl he befriended, thus leading to much of the exacerbated negative traits, traits which were likely only worsened by Giovanni’s tutelage. Thankfully, even as bitter, resentful, and lost Mewtwo is, there is still a spark of good in him, one that eventually comes out.

Final Fate: Mewtwo, so moved by Ash’s sacrifice in the finale, ultimately realizes the worth of all life, and decides to do the right thing and fix everything… though by doing so he erases everyone’s memories and removes all the lessons they learned. Mewtwo would show up again once more in the film Mewtwo Returns, this time in a much more heroic role.

Best Scene: Mewtwo is a walking moment of awesome, but he truly cements it from his very first scene, in which he unleashes the full extent of his power on the scientists that made him. "We dreamed of creating the world's strongest Pokémon...and we succeeded."

Best Quote: "I see now that the circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant; it is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are." The fact a quote so beautiful, existential, and philosophical came out of a movie that was made to sell video games to children is just one of those magical things about this strange world we live in.

Final Thoughts & Score: Mewtwo is the benchmark by which all Pokemon villains after him are judged by, and, to this day, I don’t think there has ever been one that surpasses him. He has a fantastic character arc, though one that is sadly a bit watered down in the English adaptation, numerous fantastic scenes, a great voice, an intimidating presence, and in general just lives up to the hype that children who grew up playing the game surely had for him.

Now, keep in mind that I do take into account what sort of films the villains I analyze are in when I assess and score them. It’s the same as with movies; a 10/10 comedy is not good for the same reasons as, say, a 10/10 crime drama. And so when I grant Mewtwo a 9/10 it is because as far as villains in children’s movies go, Mewtwo is one of the richest and most fascinating of the lot. The only reason I deduct a point is because the English dub, while good in its own right, admittedly does lose a little bit of the existential quality of Mewtwo that I love and The Birth of Mewtwo prologue which contextualizes a lot of his motivation and the reason why he ended up the way he does is sadly very obscure unless you’re really in the know. All that being said, Mewtwo is still fairly morally complex for a villain in a film like this, and if nothing else he is undoubtedly awesome. But in the end, what makes him so great is that the former wasn’t even necessary; they could have made Mewtwo a generic doomsday villain who had cool battles and we would have eaten him up regardless. The fact the creators saw fit to add complexity and morality that not even the people at 4Kids could eradicate really does just cement how magical the Pokemon franchise is.

#Psycho Analysis #Mewtwo #Pokemon #Pokemon: The First Movie #Mewtwo Strikes Back

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tillerman1 · 3 years ago

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TORMENT [to the word] (pt.1)

TORMENT

A screenplay by Ingmar Bergman

translated by Thomas Jester to the word

TORMENT: A knife on an abscess

The summer after my matriculation low me ill and suddenly advent TORMENT. It was for finished in one yield over an old "Latin writing exercise" that each started at one end, all events just came, it was like a compulsion. When I the writing complete read me through everything, knew me relieved and buried this first, only and as I hoped closing read procreation in an old dresser drawer's roomy darkness.

How then TORMENT stack upward again from of oblivion, taken up, reviewed, made till screenplay and finally till film are admittedly a remarkable but though completely alternative history.

For this film's part entertained I three hopes and I am happy over to get talk about them.

1.) I desired that TORMENT became a knife on an abscess, that it had something liberating to come with simultaneously as I hope that the spectator might find it worth the entrance ticket.

2.) I desired that Caligula might become revealed, purged, disarmed. There are namely many sorts Caligulas, major and minor, rather harmless varieties or sickening monster, apparent or insidious. But on one thing feels Caligula always again. He creates hatred, pungency, destruction among humans. He is foreign for all joint community, lacking contact opportunities and natural sympathy.

3.) I desired that man might feel compassion with Caligula, as he none himself is the cause of his situation. He is as poison snake, bacterium, the extinguished harmful who by no means himself understands the evil he comes providing, but as ever alone, always unhappy hunted by furious furies, the custom terror and the drift till harm. If man strikes up the word Caligula in a conversational dictionary stands following:

Caligula: (Latin = »small boot«) F 12. 12. 41 Roman emperor, son to Germanicus. C:s bloodthirst and abnormal addictions did him soon so hated that he was killed.

TORMENT

Film manuscript by Ingmar Bergman.

This film dedicated Caligula and all his ilk in both dead as living language, Christianity, geography and history…

QUIDQUID ID EST TIMEO DANAOS ET DONA FERENTES.

(HOWEVER THAT IT'S DREAD GREEKS AND PRESENTS BEARING.)

(Caligula's first words till his class, significant for his character.)

Caligula is a man of something over fifty years. His exterior is not in any way startling. He is dark, something white-haired. Face occupied mainly of one pair quite powerful glasses with large black frames. When he takes off the glasses alters his face suddenly and gets small insignificant, almost frightened.

It is after so of Caligula, how he has a facade to the outside world, a facade that he till the utmost endeavor it to maintain. »The Cat Story« is significative for his human island type. "Biting not I as bite you and therefore bite me first." This has designed one EnGarde position as has developed one strong predisposition: the stiletto sharp sadism, the lust to see humans plagued, feel power over them. Before for this sadism is naturally one white stain: "I am no criminal, I can none make a fly offended." He is not himself fully aware, he is one of these many humans, who lives his life till half, in a sort's half-conscious, where the external events only reach the soul indirectly and thereby lose their original wounding and devouring effect but also the positively building and curative.

The reason till this violent EnGarde-in-status based itself on a given helpless-unit-feeling that with Caligula has reached a powerful (let go for pathological) development. It is admittedly dangerous to scold everything pathological. Such that based itself on the undisciplined still-satisfactory-drift of the one or other kind need after not endure it, but Caligula's steps show for-a-knot-hot, his intentional perverse lust to admit his horror and expose himself, his flagrancy towards probably pathological. And if man experiments your view forward, what as conceivable comes to happen him, ends it with all security on insane family or also super he in the at dipsomaniac institution. That he would take some life of himself is hardly likely. It makes not humans like he (judgment is too suspicious concerning opportunities in neighbor life).

His relationship till the girl Bertha is utterly not any Mr. Hyde-folly, but are just by his easy, almost everyday system so insanely creepy. The girl is from beginning afraid for him, mostly for that her limited understanding and intuition not can take him. This fright gives him one advantage that he utilizes under the thesis "eat not thou me so eat I you."

"Murder" that after actually not is any murder in ordinary meaning, comes for him as a deep, unusual direct shock, that also furnishes about terribly in his perversion's bedroom. Such conditions to the boy are similar. Sandman till illustration would he never venture himself in. But this upright, sensitive guy selects he of instinctive security till his victims. There are just that category's lads in the class who he plays with cum that suggests up the horror in whole the class. The insane paralyzing fear that only (of my experience) can break out in a school class under the experienced school man's management.

A final wants I make a personal confession concerning Caligula and humans as he.

I think that they occurred through one nature's mistake. They have till single task to themselves suffer and cause other woes. There perhaps is some meaning of it. But as humans are them failed, without development, without fortune facilities, without real life. The most radical would naturally to killing them. Perhaps also the most merciful. "A characterized compassion" is impossible when there applies Caligula. What man feeling is dislike, disgust, a shiver of discomfort, which before the bugs that wedge front and back and disappears of hole soil under a just articulated stone.

Jan-Erik Widgren is a boy of 18 years. He is not unusual in any way. He is a schoolboy right and plain with all that it means.

Psychologically undergoes Jan-Erik a development under the film's walking. When it starts is he something quixotic, writes poetry, plays piano, thinks of a clean woman who will become his wife and between its has he surely quite the doctor to keep out of "losses" that forces him to one and otherwise that he considers with antipathy and one some resignation.

Through the event's race changes it.

First confronts he of a woman, who procures him setbacks in his beauty established principles. He is not dear at her, but goes unto[?] all fall till bed with her and rises upwards (till his surprise) but too big conscience. Like all your collegians with a little Sturm und Drang draw is he right isolated, alone. He finds in Bertha someone who bothers herself for him and requires him in one such way that it doesn't need encroach on his own usual and very fragile puberty-bargains with to himself. Therefore accepts he her and gets fixed on her with a tenderness that she reciprocates, and which gives him a reassured body and thereby one certain freedom in the soul. [?]

But away for away quite hastily breaks this good relationship asunder. It is Caligula as picks asunder it unconsciously, bit for bit. When Bertha is there snotty, full and howling, is he with even stranger for her. He was for never dear at her, loved her not and this new stress is their relationship not mighty to bear. It goes asunder.

Slowly but surely run he toward desperation. Make out some rash is when he beats Caligula, second is when Jan-Erik in wild despair rushes home. Fully broken out is it when it does his residence on Bertha's floor there he hides out like a wounded animal. [?]

But the knot is not so hard applied. It is a normal, something oversensitive, rights-aware only at large balanced boy it applies cum he lets the rector help out. [?] He returns home, not longer collegian but something bitter, something sensible, with a feeling of how lives probably are damned, indeed sometimes run "on clean sophistication," but also is a good life with obvious meaning in the most as done. The final image shows him lying on some flooring, weeping, this can seem depressing, yet is intrinsically the contrary. It would worse if he was silent and bit together about himself.

Till at parents relate it to like the most boys of his category: armed neutrality.

Jan-Erik is there nothing wrong on, he becomes one good fellow.

Bertha, that a arm (wretched) small life! It is that intrinsically not very say whether. She is constitution-kind, looks intrinsically not slutty outward, but are from circumstances' power start such go revolving: "Man wants after exist with, man want course live." Till end has she lost count cum with her something indolent temperament has she not bothered herself so much about it.

Then has she enacted knowledge of Caligula in like way as of many other men, at a tobacco shop and its facilities. Caligula has seen kind out cum so with even is she the scaring her more than all otherwise. The horror ramped till the excessive, mainly suctioned of her herself cum she allows herself willingly abused mentally by Caligula.

The togetherness with Jan-Erik gives her something respite and shows her as she is: a kind girl, who not asks more than how gain draw someone to think about, that could have a live human text beside herself in bed, to avoid being alone.

She suppers death itself. Drinking on Caligula initiative, lets to tortured, suffer from malnutrition. Her will to live flows as away cum she deceases so well as on peculiar desire.

I find much pity for her and desired that she had become married with any kind fellow cum that she had got many children and a small alright home. Perhaps was it her small adventurousness, inability to take care of to herself, that brought her performing. A victim is she in all fall and I am nowadays if conceivably yet more convinced of that Caligula should slide as shot.

The giant playground outside school. It is unsettled and empty. A little lad comes rushing far from behind. He runs with high speed over the yard on the diagonal.

Contra steps up till home entrance. The small lad rushes up the stairs. Trips, travels himself, rushing further. Gets with effort and difficulty up the door that is large, large. Slips in. [?]

Inside the door.

The large vestibule with doors to the prayer hall. From within heard Bull Jesus' monotonously echoing voice. The lad (12 years) looks at the wall clock that shows 10 minutes over eight. The lad swallows a few times. His bad conscience is unambiguous. He sneaks silent further up next staircase and - next. He tries (to) make himself as small as possible.

A teacher goes in corridors, opens doors to classrooms, and peeks in, open till storerooms, maps room cum toilettes. Snoop everywhere. Can further.

Lad hears echoing footsteps. He sneaks in through the door. It is chemistry room, with one long row large table. He dives yourself down behind one.

The teacher opens the door till the chemistry room, gets hastily through it. Out again. Lad, as crouched, travels himself up, sneaks up till the door and listens. Opens and glides out.

Long corridor.

Lad sneaks. You sneak past a cross corridor. Stays as riveted at the ground.

The teacher comes in the cross corridor. He gets sight of the boy, stops.

Lad sets himself off, rushes like a shot through the corridor.

The teacher turns, sneaks around a corner.

The kiddie turns around one other corner and rushes straight at the arms of the teacher. The lad finds for good to start howling. The teacher takes him in some neck skin and for away wrongdoer.

A classroom.

The lad, still cohesive in some neck skin, howling, discarded down in a bench. The teacher takes up the class book. Stare gloomily at The Lad. Turns up the book, writes.

The stairs cum the corridor.

Pippi comes walking rather soon. The hat on the neck. The rock{coat} flutters. The white hair test {tufts} stands right out. He goes past "the lads" classroom, yet stops, turns about cum peeks in. Pippi having's clear to –

PIPPI : Mornin' the adjunct.

The young, gloomy and zealous teacher turns of head and considers Pippi –

ADJUNCT : Good morning lector.

Pippi steps in, looking at the howling boy –

PIPPI : Till what offense has this the sorrow's youngling done to guilty now then.

ADJUNCT : He has come for {too} late! Come for late till morning prayer!!

The adjunct beats back his class book and prepares himself to go.

PIPPI : Yes only, that have after I've also done.

The adjunct turns himself lightning-fast if as if he would say something, but is stunned. The lad ends howling and looks up. An explained grin bursts slowly out on his snotty small gangster-physiognomy.

Bull-Jesus fishes with the tongue after loose palate, as holding on to allow himself off, bending head deep down where he stands at the oratory's lectern.

BULL - JESUS : Aameen!

The organ puff, sighs. One long boy with nervous hands and the eyes in the notes intones bluntly "Alone God..."

The school's 856 pupils plus teachers and principal travel themselves {rises} as one man and sing with ho and hello and a certain clamp –

SKOLAN : Alone God in heaven-rich, spring Grace and price belong…

Grönstrand stands stunned, stares at the psalmbook, then shoulders he on Jan-Erik –

GRÖNSTRAND : The damned in it. I mayst nothing Latin till in daylight… You should see man field there. I had premonitions with Mother.

JAN - ERIK : Where sits they.

GRÖNSTRAND : In a gastric. Boy! waking(?) diarrhea.

SKOLAN : For all the Grace he loves rich with us has wanted make.

BROBERG (sings in falsetto): Think you not that sounds neat when one other sings soprano?

Östergren stands with Latin grammar in highest grab –

ÖSTERGREN : Hold the jaw. I'm studying. Interference me not! Volo, nolo, malo, cupio, juvo, studeo… [I want; I do not want; bad; I; watch out; studying]

SKOLAN : He earth donated - great delight and peace...

Bergman and Krefler.

BERGMAN : A Tuesday with little home sadist Caligula.

Caligula tramps up and down. Turns something with left arm as if he had rheumatism in it.

BERGMAN : He has rheumatism today.

KREFLER : Becomes he fun. Yes yes!

BERGMAN : Fun ... he gets sublime.

SKOLAN : And of a human may well rejoice at –

Sandman, bald, burning eyes, strange revelation, lies with rapture.

SANDMAN : You understand, one another was after quite hungover when the donna said that she rolls of a lump.

Göterström, small, glasses, impressed –

GÖTERSTRÖM : Ouch, ouch you.

SANDMAN : You know ... ANVIL have man after not thought oneself to be... yet.

Sång-Pelle stands with closed eyes, hands at the gastric, happy. Sings so it's empty –

SKOLAN + SÅNG - PELLE : God's forever good wiiiiiiiill…

An oratory.

Everyone's heads bent on Bull Jesus' initiative. Dead silent.

Two schoolboys lean themselves together and affect sleep. Panoramic up. One jams a salmon book down in the pants. The other ends with to whittle in the bench with his penknife. A third wakes to where he has stood and lost the psalmbook on some floor.

It becomes up crime's signal.

Long rows march now, bench row after bench row, class after class, outward from the oratory.

At the door stand two teachers.

Each pupil, who goes past, shows up his psalm book. Then comes one - no psalm book -

TEACHER I : No psalmbook.

A PUPIL : Mine's stolen.

TEACHER 2: Lie at least not. From ranks.

The pupil joins till one small cluster of other individuals -

PUPIL 1 : Will it stick?

Pupil 1. responds not. Make(s) only one much ugly and vast grimace.

Some train of pupils.

Faces in long lines. Descriptive, intensive. Scores of faces.

The mighty stairwell. Mingle of boys outside classrooms. The rings in clocks. Some stairwell becomes hastily ground. There comes the teaching. They go in of yet classroom, whose door closes. It gets quieter and quieter.

Noise cum upset, whistles cum clamor. Ringning.

It is silent and plot everywhere.

Classroom system.

It is silent. All 25 pupils seated still, cautious. The roof lamps are a spark. Day stands gray outside, rain sprinkles down along the three large windows. Panoramic up. Caligula in the rostrum.

He travels out. Moves silent and light. Taps pointer. Moves through the class. Talks so slowly and low -

CALIGULA : I will not put at fingers between ("I'll show no mercy.") Ignores you me so - ignoring - me - you. (pause) Wants you-all have the un-pleas-ant so GLADLY for me.

Up with pointer straight in eyesight on the spotty and resin near horror-hypnotic Grönstrand. Pokes with the pin against his larynx –

CALIGULA : Perhaps Mr. Grönstrand wants last friendly to continue.

Grönstrand sighs. He bending his spotty and constantly distressed face over text and reads with high and shrill meeting –

GRÖNSTRAND : After Fabius Maximums thus had broken up, marched the army ten days, then it struck camp at the river Igas. The under-command-haves called till the consul's tent, where he till told them ... where he till told them ... with to ... unless the campaign plan would to and then unless the campaign plan would to and then that they ... unless ...

Grönstrand bend your face, his eyes are confused, save, he is smooth in such physiognomy.

Caligula stands silent and then begins he pull in at fingers, the one after the other, slowly –

GRÖNSTRAND : I could not get out the here sentence lecturer.

CALIGULA : So.

Caligula drags in the fingers. The class seated tense, silent. Some rain rushes against the boxes –

CALIGULA : Then maybe Mr. Grönstrand want [to] start on neighbor sentence?

Grönstrand makes a brave attempt to bluff. He begins healthy –

GRÖNSTRAND : This showed legacies be... and then ... individual ... between themselves ... but this till despite if though non ...

Dead silent. Against Caligula.

He takes with a hand against glasses, straightens till them. Sets himself in the lectern, leaning himself forward, puts hands under the chin -

CALIGULA : Grönstrand has not opened the books till now. (pause) (chop till hard) In any fall not there the lesson was. (smiles)

Around Grönstrand.

Some strained giggles from the about-around-sitting -

CALIGULA : I will give Grönstrand occasion till reflection. – Mr. Widgren continues.

Jan-Erik jerks till, begins looking among the lines, finds, begins something choppy –

JAN - ERIK : This synopsis the legates make a good statement.

CALIGULA (breaks off): Stands it so... Karling?

Karling seated just behind Jan-Erik –

KARLING : Pretense.

CALIGULA : Continue.

JAN - ERIK : A good pretense. And since they stayed counsel mutually, wherein they came agreed about that a great gift should delivers at …

Caligula breaks off. Crisply –

CALIGULA : Can Mr. Jan-Erik Widgren not speak Swedish.

Jan-Erik looks up, licks himself of mouth, is very- –

CALIGULA : It called not delivers a gift... That is poor Swedish (fast). What called it, Mr. Widgren?

Jan-Erik stares before himself. Stare and think. The brain has gone in deadlock. Dead silence.

Caligula traveling out of (the) lectern, cum the pointer in hand and goes silent and slowly down the room towards Jan-Erik. He pokes with the pin on Jan-Erik's throat –

CALIGULA : It is till that be witty.

Turns himself round instantly –

CALIGULA : Ström!

Ström, a round boy with gentle, mild, melancholic eyes, takes finger from the nose, startled –

STRÖM : Submit a gift!

Caligula again. He smiles something sly, cozy –

CALIGULA : Has Mr. Widgren heard that before?

Widgren. He grins silly –

WIDGREN : Indeed[,] certainly yes.

CALIGULA (suddenly mocking): Indeed[,] certainly yes. Continue.

WIDGREN : Assumed they before Caesar and assured that they were ready.

CALIGULA : Thanks. That was where we had.

The class draws a sigh of relief. Jan-Erik straightens of himself. But the period is short.

Caligula starts going up and down between the benches right quickly. Questions and answer comes as submachine's matter –

CALIGULA : Prepare some joy, Widgren! Jan-Erik –

JAN - ERIK : Afficere aliquem laetitia. [Latin for: "Affect any joy."]

CALIGULA : Instill any(?) fear.

JAN - ERIK : In … aliquem timore. [Latin for: "In ... any fear."]

Caligula. He stops –

CALIGULA : Instill.

Jan-Erik can not come on some words –

JAN - ERIK : In…

CALIGULA : Well!

JAN - ERIK : Injicere. [Latin for: "Inject."]

Caligula swings the stylus around so it whistles in the air –

CALIGULA : It was someone who whispered. Genitive of impersonal verb. Example. Kreutz.

Kreutz, calm, turns at some head. Leisurely, teasing.

KREUTZ : Miseret, penitet piget, pudet, taedet. [Latin for: "Sorry, repented wearisome, ashamed, tired."]

Caligula. Kreutzs' way annoys him –

CALIGULA : Spare, Karlsson. Karlsson –

KARLSSON : Parco, peperci, parsum, parcere. [Latin for: "spare, forbear, spared, spare."]

Caligula. He allows now the stylus whiz around in a run –

CALIGULA : Flay, Bokstedt.

Bokstedt gets startled –

BOKSTEDT : Plango, plantisi. [Latin for: "bewail, I planted."]

CALIGULA : Wrong. Bergström.

BERGSTRÖM : Plango, planxi, planctum, plangere. [Latin for: "bewail, mourn, mourning, wailing."]

Caligula goes up against Widgren, down to behind him –

CALIGULA : Caesar hostem agressus devicit. [Latin for: "Caesar (the) enemy assault overcame."] Widgren.

He puts the stylus between the shoulder blades on Widgren –

WIDGREN : Caesar attacked and defeated the fiend.

Responds without to turn on some head. Keeps hard on the desk –

CALIGULA : Example of what.

WIDGREN : Participial construction.

CALIGULA : What of them.

WIDGREN : Participium conjunctum. [Latin for: "Participle conjoined."] It is (a) predictive attribute.

CALIGULA : Till what.[sic]

JAN - ERIK (silent).

Caligula swings around and puts to on the desk straight front Jan-Erik –

CALIGULA : Has Mr. Widgren not read on the homework?

Jan-Erik stares Caligula stint in the eyes –

JAN - ERIK : Yes, that has me.

CALIGULA : I think (whispering) I think Mr. Widgren - lies!

JAN - ERIK : No one does I not!

CALIGULA : Not that.

Caligula.

He stares with his on glasses magnified eyes at Jan-Erik.

Silence.

Jan-Erik.

He stares back. Immensely tense, but intrinsically not afraid.

JAN - ERIK : No!

Caligula travels to up. He goes one kind up against blackboard -

CALIGULA : So. So.

Flips to about. Throws out –

CALIGULA : At what verb stands genitive?

Jan-Erik is as seized of one icy horror. But he holds together.

JAN - ERIK : At verb as means remind if, remember, forget, accuse, convict, judge, acquit. Fore business verb.

CALIGULA : Example.

JAN - ERIK : Aestimo. [Latin for "I Think."]

Caligula looks at Jan-Erik. Nods interested –

CALIGULA : So!

JAN - ERIK : Facio, duco, puto. [Latin for "I do, think, I think it.."]

Caligula as above –

CALIGULA : So!

JAN - ERIK : Camo. [Latin for "bit."] Mercor [Latin for "trade"](trying) dono [Latin for "gift"].

All follow under silent tension course-for-events. Caligula approaches himself slowly Jan-Erik. Dead silent.

CALIGULA : Mr. Widgren considers still that Mr. Widgren mayst his lesson.

JAN - ERIK : I'm could it then of yesterday.

CALIGULA : Mr. Widgren is lazy. Mr. Widgren ignores me and my homework.

JAN - ERIK : No, it makes me not.

Caligula has now passed past Widgren. And is farthest down in class.

CALIGULA : So! Not. Strike up the book. Start with the day's homework.

Slamming suddenly with the stylus in an empty desk with all might –

CALIGULA : FAST! FAST!

Jan-Erik and Caligula of background.

JAN - ERIK : For three days collapsed battle. One last did Romans one storm onset …

Caligula sneaks silent on toe up behind Jan-Erik and leans himself over him and peers in his book –

JAN - ERIK : … and chased Hannibal's troops on the flight. Thereby was a large number soldiers captured …

Caligula bend(s) himself instantly down, slams the hand over the book, takes up it. Raises that in the air. Long silence.

Jan-Erik's face.

Hales somehow together itself. The eye creeps in of the skull on him.

Sandman. Staring, mute.

Grönstrand pulls together eyebrows in one childishly desperate grimace.

Caligula and Jan-Erik.

Caligula speaks low –

CALIGULA : What is it here!

Caligula looks out around in the class under silence. So –

CALIGULA : Mr. Widgren uses to of unauthorized aid.

JAN - ERIK (low): Forgot to erase.

Caligula raises an eyebrow, as if he were quite amazed over the information. Plays something –

CALIGULA : Forgot blurring out.

Speaks mildly –

CALIGULA : So. Sure. Forgot blurring out. It is clear.

Turns about, furious –

CALIGULA : Cheating my Lord!

Throws down the book –

CALIGULA (continued): CHEATING!!

Caligula goes slowly up till the lectern. Addressed till eyewear, staring sadly before himself –

CALIGULA : Sad to forced penalize a student for this criminal procedure two months before the student, fourteen days before the writing compounds.

Strikes up the class book –

CALIGULA : Much boring is it. Very.

Jan-Erik.

It is hot despair in the eyes of him. It is quiet. The only as heard is the pen's rasp in the class book.

Caligula.

He hits back the book. Straightens on the eyeglasses –

CALIGULA : I will talk with provost (pause). We mayst probably some part with each other to do, Jan-Erik Widgren.

It rings –

CALIGULA : Good midday.

Caligula glides out.

There is violent excitement in the class –

SANDMAN : One such potty.

GRÖNSTRAND : Man would snap bastard alive.

Students start packing in their books. And walk towards the door. They are fast still occupied by Caligula.

Sandman pouring himself back –

BERGSTRÖM (flings out - the eyes glow in skull on him): Sadist.

SANDMAN : It'll be damn nice to me when you cured this misery. Then will man a slag.[film: Boy, am I going to sleep then] Stream what man should a slag and crib and lead the roll and yield blank it in it here institution.[film: Sleep & eat & forget all about this place.] Come Widgren, then breaking us and buy scratchy.[film: Let's get some cigs.]

They go out.

Widgren and Sandman.

Göterström sits and digs with the spindly hands in some hair. Speaks low for to himself –

GÖTERSTRÖM : I should acquire one picture in constitutional size by him cum then should I stick out eyes on him cum so should I shoot till target on him. The Latin grammar …

He takes out it –

GÖTERSTRÖM : The Latin grammar should I have as privy-paper if it gives you till it.

The tobacconist.

Jan-Erik and Sandman will in.

One newsprint-reading lord stands forward of the shop –

SANDMAN : Good day my sweet Carmen.

Bertha turns herself about, laughing–

BERTHA : That will that be. One caramel. You-all know that self none may sell tobacco at schoolboys.

SANDMAN : Must buy at papa.

BERTHA : To what said he!

SANDMAN : Bah.

Sandman extends out one courtship-true hand and fingers on Bertha (right dined) -

BERTHA : Yuck on it. Let be.

Jan-Erik is markedly embarrassed –

JAN - ERIK : Sandman. Can we not walk, eh!

Bertha and Sandman laugh.

The door opens cum Caligula comes in. Sandman speaks something rushed -

SANDMAN : An Allers was that yes, miss.

BERTHA : Where so good.

SANDMAN : Thanks. Good midday.

Both boys greet reserved and disappear forth from the boutique.

Caligula looks at them.

It gets silent one small while. Caligula considers irritable the newspaper-reading gentleman –

CALIGULA : Havana II.

Bertha takes up the requested - –

CALIGULA : And then a little box Virginia.

Bertha takes forward it. She seems annoyed –

CALIGULA : Wants you-all last kind and cut up it. I have such bad hands, so clumsy.

BERTHA : Yes[,] certainly. Certainly.

It cuts. Cuts a little scratch in the hand –

CALIGULA : Oh, get regard. Did you yours badly.

He takes her hand. Clamps forward some blood. Keeps it, looks at it. Pause. Then jerks Bertha suddenly of her hand. Pale.

BERTHA : Uh, it was nothing. Nothing at all. Was it something else like the lecturer …

Caligula. He shakes on his head, staring a little silly. Then gathers he together their boxes and pays. Goes. Lights his cigar-cigarette.

Home of Caligula.

He presses down the cigar-cigarette in an ashtray with an energetic movement. He sits at his desk with a back at the room. Piles of exercise books. He pretends to read. Behind him diver Aunt Elisabet up. She is a something, thin, dull, pale face, cold eyes with a spark of passion. She stands some moment silent. Then:

AUNT ELISABET : Why answers you not?

His face carrying tracks of horror-blended anger. He shuts up.

AUNT ELISABET : It is still not right of you … I want you of course only well …Answer then … Say something … You have of course been ill, you vet what the doctor said! … I hold of course so much of you … It is so empty, I am so alone.

The room carrying vision for the say. Aunt Elisabet is middle of the floor. A handkerchief creeps misguided out from the sleeve.

AUNT ELISABET : Thou has never had any other home… We had why such great... Answer then something. Dear boy my.

Caligula flashes till. Furious.

CALIGULA : GO!

Aunt Elisabet pinches together the eyes, knots hands over the handkerchief –

AUNT ELISABET: That you CAN, that you only CAN!

Caligula creeps together in the chair. He is furious, afraid, furious ...

CALIGULA : I want none see you. You. Go, go, go.

Now fall the first tears along Aunt Elizabet's pale cheeks.

AUNT ELISABET : You are mean… mean. When you were small, off boy came you cum said: Dear small aunt Elisabet.

She flags down in a chair and buries the face in her hands.

Caligula travels to pitiful, angry, humiliated, irate.

CALIGULA : Matter kind now. Weep not[,] for God's sake.

He stands footed.

CALIGULA : I WILL be for me oneself. I want none take up that there some monkey business with mother and son… It is disgusting, disgusting.

Aunt Elisabet shaking head forward and back, tears runs and she sobs -

AUNT ELISABET : You lived in your small room inside the hall cum each evening got I arrive in on the till you and I got stop of you before you fell asleep. I got still be like… like your mother.

Moved to the rupture limit over her own voice falls she on new in crying -

AUNT ELISABET : Why wants you not come back. I am so alone … You are of course also so alone …

Now happens all very fast. Caligula takes Aunt Elisabet in the arm, drags up her from the chair. She screams till, turns flash-quickly around. But he gets making of her again. Wills up the door and tries to shoo her out.

Aunt Elisabet turns suddenly one another. Cold, resentful -

AUNT ELISABET : Be careful. Be careful.

CALIGULA : Give you away!

AUNT ELISABET : You will get back this here. Be careful.

CALIGULA (laughs): It is good. Then may you go now.

She twists out by the front door, which goes again with a bang. Caligula stands a moment right still. Then steps he around. Sinking gradually together after the tension. Stops before the bookshelf. Takes down a photograph. It represents aunt Elisabet somewhat youthful and a small boy in feminine costume. She leans her head against his.

Caligula's hands breaking some photograph middle deal so that the glass bits dizzy around. Then goes this ruptured some card in the paper basket.

The food hall at Widgrens.

At some dinner table sitter agency director Widgren, Mrs. Widgren cum the little boy Brother and Jan-Erik, who is gloomy, very gloomy. The eat's under silence.

Brother adds down his spoon and licks to about mouth and looks under bangs on Jan-Erik.

BROTHER : Hey Janne. Why look you so faded out?

MOTHER : Brother small, has none mother said hundred times to you not may wiggle on one chair.

BROTHER : Janne looks equally faded out still so.

Jan-Erik looks not up from the soup –

JAN - ERIK : It should you give seventeen in.

THE MOTHER (mildly reproachfully): Should you say so when Brother wants last friendly.

JAN - ERIK : Small guys would keep the quack when judgment cribs.

Silence lowers to again over the congregation. So looks the bureau director up from his plate, dries himself about the mouth cum speaks -

THE FATHER : How has he gone to school today?

Jan-Erik looks not there -

JAN - ERIK (nonchalant): Good, suppose I.

THE FATHER : Is it true that[?]

It becomes silent one moment. Jan-Erik gives the father one fast glance –

JAN - ERIK : No.

The mother anticipates immediately that something terrible has occurred. She constructs a compassionate, slightly complaining tone –

THE MOTHER : Has there happened any boring? Say, what is it that has happened.

JAN - ERIK : Has got perch.

THE FATHER : For cheating.

JAN - ERIK : How vet Father it[?]

THE FATHER : Your Latin teacher has rung me. The remark sights have been justified.

Jan-Erik. He lowers some head.

THE MOTHER : Jan-Erik, how can you do us one such sorrow.

JAN - ERIK : It WAS not cheating. I could not myself see that which was there. I wrote there it to the cursive-over-setting, then forgot I erase outward …

THE FATHER : It is terribly uncomfortable, now just before one's matriculation.

The father looks upset out. He has a wrinkle middle of the forehead –

JAN - ERIK : So damn dangerous is it surely not. (despair in the voice).

The father silent a moment –

THE FATHER: It depends on how Man takes it. YOU seem to take it relatively lightly. But mother and I are very sorry. My opinion is that you got a stain on you. [(A tingling.)] Should we trip ourselves[?]

The father lays together his napkin.

The family goes from the table. Jan-Erik goes forward till the window.

Brother comes in in the hall again, where a service-spirit right holds on to lay the table out.

He goes forward till Jan-Erik.

Jan-Erik has badly to keep the lip away. But he masters himself male –

JAN - ERIK : It is well not criminally either.

BROTHER : And not should you become sorry for what the stab talk. That vet you well how he is... you… Sandman is on the phone and wonders if you can go to the cinema.

Jan-Erik and Sandman sit at a café. Sandman smokes greedily. It's evening. Sandman yawns –

SANDMAN : Damn sleepy man is. Man would have that the kill in the film, a comfortable, big cum wide snark - one such there tarpaulin or what that called, on a nice dope.

Sandman smacks. Jan-Erik laughs a little, shakes on the head –

JAN - ERIK : Says thou there.

SANDMAN : Boy! And a smorgasbord and burnt and distilled beverages en masse. And the dope and the snoring.

Jan-Erik considers his companion with a certain admiration –

SANDMAN : Man would not climb up in 14 days. Just slag and crib and crib and slag and use the dope. Feathers in it.

Jan-Erik pours for himself tea. Sandman kindles a new cigarette on the old with a practised hand movement –

JAN - ERIK : You are all one terrific materialist.

SANDMAN : Jäh.

He stretches away himself, yawns yet one time large and voluptuous.

Around Jan-Erik. He sees something beyond Sandman. Is actually something embarrassed –

JAN - ERIK : Nah[,] see you, I see everything in one other way. I intend pen thus much I want and play as much violin I want - when this round some whole sick is over.

Jan-Erik becomes pensive. Drinks from his cup and turns and twists on it –

JAN - ERIK : Later with ladies and such there( )... self thinks only have one and her should I be dear over.

SANDMAN (interested): So you have nothing now then. But that there bean Lena or whatever she named …

JAN - ERIK : Indeed yet I am why none all dear of her. Would …

SANDMAN : Dear! You are not wise. Woman uses man.

JAN - ERIK : Do man. Not me in any fall.

Sandman blows smoke clouds and rings. Staring at the ceiling –

SANDMAN : Nah, for it you should take should be clean and untouched and stuff where. What!

JAN - ERIK (embarrassed, but determined): Yes.

SANDMAN : Those animals are none.

JAN - ERIK : Says thou it.

Sandman teaches. High school student-cross-safe –

SANDMAN : All ladies are hookers. And are they that none so want them becoming that. That says both Nietzsche and Strindberg. Waitress[,] may we pay.

The two boys walk down the street. Then stop they outside a port –

SANDMAN : Comes you cum up.

JAN - ERIK : Nah, are home cum read some Latin misery.

SANDMAN : Caligula is one as.

JAN - ERIK : I vet not. I think most that he is a strange dude.

Sandman takes out their keys and inaugurates. He turns himself round –

SANDMAN : You vet, that man turns on stones finds man nasty animal. Caligula is naught real considerably swine(,)[;] he is a little nasty, toxic insect.

JAN - ERIK : I think not that a human can be just evil.

Sandman kindles the light in the stairs(,)[;] they have badly to divorced –

SANDMAN : You are secondary. Expect boy. Expect should thou will see, how devilish it is, everything. It shocks on clean sophistication. Good night brother.

Sandman handrails forward a hand. Jan-Erik takes the fat of it –

JAN - ERIK : You think well-being I am heavenly silly.

SANDMAN : You drivel. You are the only human man can speak cum. You can none help to thou holding you to ideals and speaks round innocent woman. Cheerio!

JAN - ERIK : Servant.

Sandman disappears at the gate. Jan-Erik turns and drives along the street. He goes strenuous with his hands deep down in the pockets. He looks very thoughtful outward.

One other street.

Jan-Erik goes as before. Suddenly raises he some head cum fixes someone before himself.

Before Jan-Erik on the street walks a girl. She wobbles strongly here and there.

Wobbles more and more. Suddenly goes her on one foot in the street and the other on the sidewalk.

Jan-Erik stays. He considers her steadily.

The girl stays now and supports herself against a house wall. She expels a curious chirping sound. So shuffles her down for knee. Stands unto all four, supporting in against the wall.

Jan-Erik thinks a moment. So goes it forward till the girl. Stir at her –

JAN - ERIK : How is the making?

It is Bertha of the tobacco affair.

She turns some face towards Jan-Erik. It is swollen and she pants –

BERTHA : I feel so in of hell great, so it is not true.

Jan-Erik can not camouflage his surprise –

JAN - ERIK : Mrs. Olsson!

The girl laughs, only answers not.

JAN - ERIK : Can I help you?

BERTHA : Oh, hold the jaw on you.

She returns to the exit's position, tries to travel herself, but sinks back again, unable to move it.

BERTHA (angrily): Stand not there and stare. Come and molest a dame. (furious) Give you away.

Jan-Erik bends to down over her and takes her in the shoulder –

JAN - ERIK : You are not wise. You pass you none yourself.

BERTHA : What says you! Am I not wise. (laughs) Oh, came should thou get some.

She travels the laborious and stands upright. Laughs Jan-Erik right in the face.

Jan-Erik becomes cum even angry. He takes her in the arms and shakes her hard -

JAN - ERIK : Talk not rubbish. Where do you live?

Bertha screams high and whines and grins –

BERTHA : Oh! Let become. Release me. (screams) Ouch!

JAN - ERIK : Cry not so. Where rooms you?

BERTHA (angrily): It should you give the cat in.

JAN - ERIK : Attempt for Jösse name that last sober a minute. There comes a cop there away.

Away distance. Some pair. A policeman comes walking the street down. He wanders gravely. Then he goes past some pair watching it on that, yet continues.

Jan-Erik shakes the girl again. She is "limp" –

JAN - ERIK : Now, where live you?

With even flags her off fully and is close to founder in the street. Jan-Erik gets forward her bag and finds a letter -

JAN - ERIK : Ore-different Street 53, four stairs.

He pulls away with her, half carries, half foals her.

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

Text

The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 20 Review: Mother and Child Reunion

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This The Simpsons review contains spoilers.

The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 20

While the Minor Arcana didn’t foretell a major disaster, The Simpsons Season 32 episode 20, ” Mother and Child Reunion,” is a letdown they should have seen coming. The audience sure did. We’ve seen all these scenarios before, and done better.

Very much like most Mothers’ Day gifts, the box doesn’t live up to the wrapping, which have been set high for this season. We all know Lisa is going to be president someday. The Simpsons were right about Trump, and they’ve put Lisa in the White House several times. It is inevitable, and inalienable, which in this case means neither Kodos nor Kang can do anything about it. But it is just as much preordained as Lisa going to college. This is Marge’s dream, Homer’s economic nightmare, an abstract concept best left ignored to Bart, and an emoji to Maggie.

The Amazing Herzog’s magic shop is exciting. They’ve got all the love potions, not just Number 9, and probably the most comprehensive titles of Theremin music in Springfield. Penn gives the shop four stars, while Teller gives enthusiastically silent assent, in endorsements. The spirits are always present, and the future is past the unused Keurig coffee machine. The shop owner is New German Cinema director Werner Herzog. He made Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) but hey, even dwarfs started small. He is headlining at the open mic at Springfield’s hippest comedy club after he finishes practicing his cartomancy on Lisa.

The tarot deck, and its interpretations are amusing. Homer draws The Hungover Man, Bart goes from Sly Fox to Teacher’s Pet. But Herzog is also Amazing at other forms of prestidigitation. His son hasn’t forgiven him since he made his mother disappear, and he conjures Homer and Bart’s names from the dark scrawl on the Styrofoam of their Starbucks coffee cups. He invokes the spirit of Rodney Dangerfield before the precognitive process, but gets no respect. When Homer asks about the future of The Ghostbusters franchise, the best Herzog can say is “The Gay Ghostbusters is fantastic.”

The schism between Marge and Lisa is predicted through the cards Queen of Clean and Roller Eyes, and the Wind card blows a bad air on college admissions. Herzog sees a dystopian future for college. Lisa confirms by noting the university experience hasn’t been the same since Netflix bought Yale. It also appears Bob Jones College and Harvard are both rated on par with Google University. Homer concludes the diagnosis by commenting that “Lisa’s not-going-to-college is the most money I ever earned.”

Grandpa has gained a lot of mileage in the future and can really ladle out the guilt and the pressure. Lisa is the only remaining hope of the Simpson family. Even as she denies it, we see she’s won the local Lifetime Achievement Award, a once in a lifetime achievement, two times in a row. And she was only 13 and 14 at the time. This is a giggle and a half when you think about it.

It is also clever how Lisa gets the money for her independent after-school program, Knowledge Minus College, through premeditated workers comp. That scene also provides a fun visual of the incident. The trajectory skewers through Lisa, the teacher, educating her students on what stereotypes they are, and how they find her lameness riveting. The payoff comes when Chief Wiggum has to be taught math so he can shake Lisa down more efficiently, though I may be reading too much into it.

We still don’t know what state Springfield is in. When the announcement comes over that Lisa wins the Governor’s race, the state is mumbled into incoherence. Still, President Lisa is surprisingly transparent. “I don’t have a life,” she promises. “You’re all I’ve got. I will serve you.” The presidential mom translator works on a Simpsons level. It employs the show’s inner logic. The translator may be too good at her job, though because it turns too mushy too quickly, though the subliminal suggestion she throws in at the end works to cut it a little. They also slip in a cunning presidential concession gag. George Stephanopoulos and Nate Silver put in cameos as themselves.

Poor Millhouse springs a surprise prom-posal on Lisa. It gets more pathetic when the actual proposal is delivered by Millhouse’s dad who croons it in his most cough-syrup-raspy Frank Sinatra imitation, liberally borrowed from a name-checked Seth MacFarlane. Millhouse almost gets a pity yes, but Bart proves to be quite the hero in this episode. He peels out over Millhouse’s poignant inadequacy, and chills President Lisa Simpson out when she’s on the edge with popularity. Bart’s future is also very similar to some of his previous White House visits in future-set episodes. On one visit, he asked Lisa to “legalize it.” Now he’s the CEO of a cannabis dispensary chain, and owner of three NBA teams. It’s almost the same joke, but he was funnier when he wasn’t successful.

The funniest bits are the backgrounds. As the family drives through future Springfield, we see billboards like “Blockbuster, we’re back,” Moe’s Oxygen has replaced his tavern, and robots of all kinds are busy doing work just behind the action. A quiz on the teen magazine Lisa is reading asks the age-old question: “Is your mother a dictator or a fascist?” One of the protest signs outside Lisa’s inaugural address reads “Pardon Sideshow Bob.” A dazzling, and impromptu, Front Lawn presidential fireworks display opens with congratulations from Russia, includes a Duff’s beer end and ends with “The U.S. government brought to you by Disney” rockets bursting in air.

Even the most Hallmark of holiday episodes have been well served the past two seasons on The Simpsons. The Mother’s Day installment should have been a great moment for Marge. She is, after all, America’s most representative mother. Her idea of Lisa’s future is proven, admittedly in the alternative world of a tarot reading, to be worthless. Julie Kavner performs a classic tirade tonight. When all Marge can do is “go downstairs and yell into the dryer,” you can cut the passive aggression with a butter knife.

Marge’s most revealing line is “How dare you live the life I wish I’d led.” It is part of an overall recalibration of her entire life, which includes all the dreams she threw away, the lunches she made, the baths, the visits to colleges Lisa will never go to. But the overall conflict between mother and daughter moves too far into lame leg-dragging, and hobbles the thrust of the jokes. They don’t bite. It stays a little too sweet even though the entire arc is set on an argument. There is no peril and only fake tension. Maybe this is because the presumptive premise is on a Tarot card reading, but that should only embolden the rift. This is non-canon, and the creative team does better when they go bigger in speculative comedy.

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“Mother and Child Reunion” is a retreaded tire which should have been left to cook longer at Springfield’s burning tire yard. This is a shame because The Simpsons have been doing well breathing new life into old premises this season. There are good lines, and great visual passing-tone gags, but overall, it comes up short. It is too straightforwardly structured, comically, with little subversion. Maybe they shouldn’t let Marge feel this far of the loop. It breaks the balance and feels uneven. I might even skip the Amazing Herzog at that comedy club.

The post The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 20 Review: Mother and Child Reunion appeared first on Den of Geek.

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lnhollinshead · 7 years ago

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So What Now?

On Thursday the other week, one of my team members handed her notice in. On the Monday, I went down to London to congratulate her on her new position and use the occasion as a good excuse to see the city, have a few drinks and show my appreciation for her work up until that point.

I had a good night, which ended prematurely due to my lack of foresight with my travel arrangements – which roughly translates as ‘I booked a train that left too early for a celebratory night out, ended up rushing across London in order to make said train, and then spent the next hour and a half drifting in and out of consciousness on my way back to Leicester.’

A lot of the conversation that night (aside from the bits that lead to the crushing realisation that I do not register as a sexual being on 100% of those girls’ radars) was around work. It was about the reasons for leaving; the daily frustrations with the role and with other people; and with the small glimpses of happiness that occur when you have a supportive group of people around you.

I knew I wasn’t happy, but until then I hadn’t quite realised just how unhappy I was.

And then on Tuesday morning, I resigned.

I’ve talked about expanding your comfort zone (by doing ridiculous things like freefalling to your inevitable death on a zipwire) but I can tell you now, the best way to get rapid and expansive growth in your comfort zone is to quit your job.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt more motivated to get up and do something, knowing that in 4 weeks’ time I could be out of work completely, struggling to pay my mortgage, and on the cusp of becoming the next top salesman for The Big Issue. I could end up homeless, or worse, back at my parents.

But a funny thing happened. Well, two funny things really. And not even funny, just amazing.

The first was that the act of handing in my notice immediately freed me of any burden I felt about work. All the shit from management; the same questions day in, day out; the constant undermining, underappreciation and unfulfillment immediately disappeared.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so liberated before. Admittedly I’ve never tried skinny-dipping, so my comparisons are limited, but the closest sensation I could describe would be the one you get when you’ve finished your final exam at school.

I am a minimalist and I understand the relief you get from unburdening yourself with possessions, so perhaps this is a better comparison, but even the amount of clothes, DVDS, magazines and keyring collections; unused crockery and random gadgets that I used once; and assorted items that I’ve been presented with on ‘significant occasions’ that I’ve got rid of have not even scratched the surface with the relief you get with going ‘fuck this, I am done’, flipping your desk, and strutting out of the office to epic music and explosions.

I mean none of that last bit happened; I got a nasty email that I responded to in kind along with a footnote that said I’d be leaving, but it was fucking good.

The second amazing thing that happened was that almost immediately, people came out in support of my decision and gave me options for what to do next.

This is the thing about expanding your comfort zone. You take risks in order to expand it; to feel like you’ve conquered something that was previously unknown or impossible to you; but in order to take risks, you need to be comfortable knowing that there is a safety net somewhere on the way down. It’s a symbiotic relationship, a positive feedback loop – the more risks you take, the more comfortable you are to take further risks.

What I found out is that my safety net is a lot bigger than I ever imagined and it’s overwhelming, really. I’m so grateful for all of the people that I have around me that have passed on job descriptions; that have extended offers of places to stay; that have even just acknowledged that they are there for me – I cannot thank you enough.

If I’d have known, I would have taken this risk a long time ago and I’m really struggling to work out why I didn’t do this sooner.

I have always realised just how fortunate I am to be in the position I’m in, and I’m by no means going to patronise anybody by going ‘Hey, go quit your job, it’ll be fine honest!’ when I know that it isn’t that easy for a lot of people. I don’t have children to think about, or a significant other, or a dependent relative where the repercussions of me making a selfish decision could deeply impact on their wellbeing. I don’t have that, so I know this isn’t for everyone. If none of that describes you though, and you hate your job – quit. Now. I will even write that email for you, but it’ll simply say ‘nah, not for me boss’ and have that meme attached of the minion dropping the mic and walking away.

People have said to me that it takes guts to do what I’ve done, which might feel like it’s true in this age where to risk the things you own might seem the same as risking your life itself, but it’s really not. I want people to realise that whatever you think the worst case scenario is (‘If I don’t have a job, how will I pay for this 52” TV that I don’t need? How will I succumb to marketing that makes me think I need a 54” TV? What if I don’t own it, nobody will ever truly love me, and I’ll die alone, in standard definition, with just a gramophone scratching at a record in the background, is that what you want for me?) it definitely won’t be as bad as that in reality.

You can have these words tattooed on me in 4 weeks time, when I’m wandering round just wearing a sandwich board that says ‘My comfort zone has expanded…’ on the front; and ‘… in to the porch at McDonalds’ on the back.

The only question I’ve really had this week has been ‘So what now?’ and this is a fantastic question, one I don’t currently know the answer to, but that feels like the answer could be absolutely anything.

#risks #whoswithme #notformeboss

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krungle · 7 years ago

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defiantsuggestion

Newsflash: if your kids don’t feel safe around you, it’s not your job to fucking argue with them about why you’re the safest parent in the world. If your kids don’t feel safe around you, you’re a bad parent. If your kids can’t express their emotions and concerns and have some modicum of autonomy, you’re a bad parent.

krungle

Parents are not supposed to be their children’s friends. Parents are supposed to teach their children lessons on how to think and behave so that they don’t get into real trouble with others, bosses, and the police. Sometimes this means everything from scoldings to punishments. If you are afraid that you will be punished by your parent for something you did the fault is not with your parent but with you. You did wrong and now you want a pass on the consequences for your actions by saying ‘a good parent wouldn’t punish me.’

It’s a bunch of crap! Get your head out of your ass and start behaving like a decent human being rather than the spoiled entitled brat you want to be!

defiantsuggestion

Don’t touch my fucking posts. My parents are abusive and I’m speaking from an abuse victim’s point of view. Nowhere did I mention parents needing to be their child’s friend. I said that if your child is afraid of you, you are doing something wrong.

You are supposed to care for and support your child(ren) emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually. If your child is afraid of you, you are not caring for them emotionally or mentally. If you have hit your child or denied them food, you are not caring for them physically.

If you share the views of the asshat above, don’t touch my fucking posts and don’t have kids. If you tell an abuse victim that their abuser was and is in the right, you’re doing nothing to help the abuse victim recover from their experiences.

You don’t know what my experiences are like. You haven’t lived with the fear I live with. Don’t tell me I’m a fucking “spoiled entitled brat” when you know absolutely nothing about me.

krungle

Sounds like a spoiled brat to me.

What I learned from a 2x4 in my step-father’s hand: don’t get caught.

A belt, hand or switch on the behind is not abuse. A 2x4 is.

Sending a kid to bed without supper is not abuse. Sending a kid to school without breakfast because they refuse to get out of bed is not abuse.

If you really want to ‘recover’ from your alleged ‘abuse’ the first step is to forgive. If you do not forgive then hatred will eat you up and force others away from you by your own behavior. Also the stress from your hatred and anger will cause you physical ailments such as high blood pressure, insomnia, muscle spasms, headaches, and a reduced immunity system among other physical problems.

The only way to avoid or reverse these is to forgive.

So get your head out of your ass and realize your parents did the best they knew how and you probably didn’t make it any easier on them and love them for trying anyway and get on with your life.

#forgiveness

#parenting

#spoiled brat

#discipline your kids

After this post the OP blocked me, sent me anon hate mail and probably his friends, too, then he got one of his friends to post the following:

watergirl1996

@krungle I’m sorry, but you’re really fucking wrong. As per the childwelfare.gov website, which states legally within the US what is and is not considered child abuse, both striking your child with ANY tool and sending them to bed without supper/not feeding them is child abuse. From the section on physical abuse: “Physical abuse is generally defined as ‘any nonaccidental physical injury to the child’ and can include striking, kicking, burning, or biting the child, or any action that results in a physical impairment of the child.” Not feeding your child is considered child neglect and is also abuse. From the child neglect section: “Neglect is frequently defined as the failure of a parent or other person with responsibility for the child to provide needed food, clothing, shelter, medical care, or supervision…” You’re wrong, and if you have children, you’re also an abusive asshole. You’re also an asshole for trying to invalidate @defiantsuggestion’s abuse as a child, and if you had said that straight to our faces, there’s a 100% change I’d kick you in the balls and beat the shit out of you. Have a nice day.

Me now:

“Striking a child that causes physical impairment” is a bit more than a simple spanking. To suggest that spankings are ‘abuse’ is to ignore the courts ruling on this matter. Again there is a line to follow, such as using electric cords or other objects or with enough force to scar or fracture. The term ‘rule of thumb’ comes from the Biblical use of the rod which could be no thicker than a man’s thumb. Personally I disagree with this and believe a switch should be much thinner. Although the Bible says ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ this does not mean to not use the rod sparingly. In fact the Bible’s proper translation would be closer to ‘not use the rod and spoil the child’. If one misbehaves after being an adult the pain can be quite a bit more than a simple parental spanking and that is the point of a spanking: to show a child that his or her actions will lead to pain in their lives if they do not act better.

“ “Neglect is frequently defined as the failure of a parent or other person with responsibility for the child to provide needed food, clothing, shelter, medical care, or supervision…” “ Again you are twisting the law to meet your ends rather than actually looking at what it says. Sending a person to bed without supper is not neglect and some would say not doing so as a punishment would constitute not providing proper supervision to a misbehaving child. A person can go three days without water and three weeks without food. In fact today’s youth are over-fed as a rule so even a day or three without food would do a person no harm and possibly good as it would shrink the obese couch potato’s over-stretched stomach and make that kid less likely to snack, snacking on things that often have less nutritional value and more calories than a Cobbler or Pie dessert would have (Pecan Pies aside). But admittedly, forcing a child to a three-day fast, even if it does absolutely no medical harm anyway one can look at it, is probably more than a judge would deem acceptable. But to send a kid to bed without supper is not something any but the most liberal judges would deem unacceptable, and they would be overturned on appeal after the child was put into a foster home where true abuse is many times more likely to occur including rape and real physical abuse. Also, putting a lock on a refrigerator door is not abuse in and of itself either.

watergirl1996, " there’s a 100% change I’d kick you in the balls and beat the shit out of you. Have a nice day “ is the definition of cyber-bullying and unlike what I have said isn’t illegal, your words are illegal in most states and western nations now and if you attempted said action irl could be punishable by death in many places. Everything from Western self-defense laws (including the Castle Doctrine) to Sharia law and Orthodox law about a female striking a male. It is because of these things that parents punish their children for acting poorly by sending them to bed without supper, taking away their phones and computers and spanking them. It is because your parents do not want to see you in prison or in a graveyard they they punish you, not because they are demons who want to cause as pain on you as possible.

I was no angel as a child. I had diagnosed physical and learning disabilities that led to me getting in trouble at school which got me literally abused with a 2x4 from my stepfather. I know there is a line that exists and I believe I know where that line exists and I have yet to see an unoverturned court ruling that disagrees with me. Instead of insisting that anyone change their ways (as I was too afraid to speak out against my stepfather) I learned how to weigh my actions against the punishment that I might suffer for it if I get caught. Actually I began that lesson with my Granny who used a switch (more threat than actually use) but it took a dire turn with my stepfather.

I also learned not to do stupid things that would get me caught. Things like if you break into a haunted house to keep the flashlight pointed down or even off so it could not be seen from the road and to be quiet so you could not be heard from the road. If the people with you could not do these things it was best to leave and chuckle at them the next day after their parents had to go to the police station to pick them up.

My senior year I went to many keg parties in north San Diego County. Thanks to myself and my friends there were plenty of drugs at those parties but we never got caught. We would sometimes play tag with the cops on Valley Parkway, again never got caught. We would make bonfires and drink and smoke pot and hash and do other stuff and we made sure we had a good field of vision and a second way out; again we never got caught.

I have found that most people that complain the loudest about getting in trouble don’t know how to think ahead enough to stay out of trouble. Instead of trying to get yourself put into foster care, try to obey house rules and learn how not to get caught. Crying about getting a spanking or going to bed without supper won’t get anything but laughter from most people, not sympathy.

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amylehpamer · 7 years ago

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rut and roll

"Do something each day that scares you"

My thought when I read this on posters in sub par cafes or on Lululemon bags is FUCK OFF.

An Australian translation would be "get amongst it", and I suppose it's all derivative of "Carpe Diem". However it's expressed, the reality is I'm allergic to the concept. The allergy presents itself in deep sighs, audible to my partner from across the room, aggressive nail biting and a very defensive tone.

I don't like doing things that scare me. I don't like to be scared. I avoid compromising situations. In my case these situations vary from loud clubs to dog parks to meeting new people. I colour in the lines. And yes, everyone who has ever seen a counsellor/psychologist.. I know it all boils down to the fact that I don't like being out of control. Still, I don't want to grab life by the scruff of the neck and make it my bitch. I don't want to live loudly. Life needn't be my bitch. I don't know which way to YOLO*. And til now I've done nicely at achieving what I'd like at a steady, achievable pace. I've had a good dose of luck based on a great deal of preparation.

But I am stuck right now. And my attitude is a big problem.

My resistance to motivation is getting worse as I get older. I'm becoming a crone. And it is because I am scared. Unlike some of our neighbours, I am not scared of brown people, or even automation taking over my job. Who hasn't worked with a few robots in their time already (boom, tish). I can't go online without seeing towering achievement after towering achievement. People are fucking miraculous and motivated and continually asking things of themselves that push boundaries and surprise and elevate those around them. Fuck you, Facebook friends, for elevating the rest of us by association. Social media proves itself time and time again to be quagmire of shitness: its existence as a distraction, its fuelling of my clothes addiction and severe reckoning with my previously decent body image are just a few of these shit things. However, rising up from this fetid pit of consumerist, self hate motivating propaganda is a glorious local news bulletin of achievement. It is magnificent.

Things I love about the internet/social media No longer are parents reduced to a birth notice as the basis for congratulations on a new born. We now get fully detailed origin stories. It is always a genuinely great read and the photos are beautiful and the outpouring of love is real and life affirming.

People can post a clip of themselves singing and it gets watched and shared and praised. And probably bitched about a little, but that's not what I'm focusing on here.

New jobs, new homes, new hair. I love that every blow wave gets its bit of airtime, that birthdays get acknowledged and that every end of year we state our resolutions like we mean it and rescind them as soon as we capitulate during FebFast.

Podcasts!!!

You can write a dumb blog about being an unmotivated crone and at least your sister will read it and share it (not hinting, Stef, you're just very supportive and I appreciate that). If you just wrote shit down in your diary 15 years ago, no one was going to see it and printing it out and handing it out to friends at Christmas would be a little on the nose. Although, I have a mortgage now and maybe self publishing my essays on existing could save me a little Christmas cashola. Bookmark this thought, Amy.

Anyway, the social media can be a good realm for outlets and boosts. It can also be a cesspool of muck: destructive, hurtful and a vortex into which productivity goes to die. I have written another post all about this that I probably wont post cause it's not going to help any of us, because do I really need to add fuel to that bin fire?**

The point is, my point here is.. Despite getting some things done in my time, I now have down time and instead of feeling liberated and flexible I feel scared again. And feeling scared is different to doing things that scare you. It's pathetic and passive and makes me feel small and inferior. I've lost some groove. And getting a little older makes achieving anything BIG and life changing seem exponentially more difficult. The decreasing elasticity in my face seems to relate directly to my inability to bounce back from rejection. Vulnerability has never been my strong suit, particularly in public, and instead of liberating me it's causing heartache and volatility.

Quite basically, I am human and I don't know what to do about it. I'm a high achiever that doesn't know what's worth achieving. Sure, I got some skills but they may need retooling. And amidst all this happening from within my own ticking brain, on the outside I'm fighting with my boyfriend, my dad doesn't believe in climate change, and I'm only just climbing out of the dumb shock of being advised by a doctor to quit performing altogether so I could make a life more suited to being a mother, which I should aim to be within the next year. Or else.

It's a bizarre and unbalanced life, this one, and it's gotten the better of me more days than it hasn't so far this year. (It's ok, I know that doctor is a crock. I only wish I had a good response on the day. I just cried a lot.)

So tonight I write. I write in thanks for the reminders that there is much super human happening around me. I write in fear for the world, because there's a lot happening around us that's scary and sad. I write to hold a giant mirror to myself, trying desperately not to criticise what I see. And I write to be productive. It's exercise, catharsis and yes, it is a way of forcibly scaring my scared self. I have emoted, I am now vulnerable. This is very uncomfortable for me.

Signing off, defeated by the positive messaging of Lululemon and mental health professionals but admittedly relieved that I have poured out some of the mess in my brain and done something. In protest, I'm going to attempt to live well within my comfort zone tomorrow. COME AT ME, COMFORT ZONE.

*YOLO is a really problematic concept for me. Do I to eat all the donuts and drink the wine because YOLO, or do I avoid refined sugars and alcohol because YOLO and your health is important in that one life of yours. I think I'm more in the latter team for YOLO (which just feels like the wrong team. It is the wrong team, isn't it?)

** I really just wanted an understanding place to detail my kaleidoscope of feelings after seeing an instagram video ad that showed a woman getting filler in her cheekbones. It was obscene in the extreme. But... is it actually the future that we will all be Maleficent and maybe I should jump on board and be a taste maker in the area, despite being fairly terrified of needles and also of Maleficent??

#inspirationalwriting maleficent fillers shoppingbags yolo rut

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ourexes · 8 years ago

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The "GIRLS" you hate are not on TV

Why the actual HBO show and its showrunner do not match the ones in your head.

It’s so funny-slash-tragic that the overwhelming majority of people who hate Girls most adamantly are actually hating on a completely different show. One that must air in their minds whenever they get really angry at Lena Dunham or at Starbucks, but not on HBO at ten on Sundays.

The latter is a half-satirized, half-empathy-demanding study on a very particular group of young women, with no intention or desire to represent the whole of either the millennial or female experiences—an impossible venture. Only that of these ultra-specific, oftentimes obnoxious four characters. Yet after six seasons of endless debate, many still don’t seem to get this.

In preparation for the finale, I recently spent an afternoon scouring YouTube for old clips from the series, and in that dream-like coma made the always perilous and ill-advised decision to scroll down and scan the comments—if anyone cares to know, the post in question was a hilarious car-ride scene involving a Maroon 5 sing-along and Shoshanna’s thoughts on female presidential candidates. After some obligatory praise for Adam Driver’s character—the only dude involved—one observation with exactly forty defiant, icy blue upvotes read: Does Lena Dunham even listen to what comes out of her mouth?!

Now, when I stumble upon things like these, me being the big boy that I am, my soul sinks a little—and unbidden red fury rises in its stead. Well, very confused person, A) Yes, she does, because this was actually put on paper many months in advance, perhaps even by herself, unless it was an improvised bit, and at any rate B) It’s really coming out of Hannah’s mouth, her character, the part she’s playing, and not hers. This is a scripted television series, not The Hills. Does not one of these people know the difference?

In a wonderful piece by Jia Tolentino for The New Yorker two weeks ago, she attributes this tendency to conflate the two to the show’s ability to craft such raw, fully-fledged characters and stories. She argues that the writing and directing are so excellent, audiences can’t tell the difference between these scenes and real life. That’s high praise for a series with the naturalistic instincts and sensibilities of this one—for any scripted show, one would say, save for maybe Game of Thrones—, and a much more optimistic theory than the next most plausible one: sexism, and generational side-eye. These guys simply could not believe that a twenty-four-year-old woman could create a thoughtful, poignant fictional world, instead of the real-life version of UnReal’s very fake The Bachelor. Could she be capable of some actual, what’s the word? Self-awareness? Could she and her co-stars portray such narcissistic characters without they themselves being just as shallow? No, impossible. She doesn’t even look like a model! She must be a mess.

Yes, it was mighty surprising to these folks when HBO—Deadwood-, The Sopranos-, Game of Thrones-, all-these-shows-these-macho-men-revere-HBO—succumbed to Dunham’s tricks, letting themselves be fooled by this chick’s—what, wanton sex-appeal? No, we’ve already discarded that. Um, art-world connections? Yes, HBO was tripping over itself to greenlight her pilot after that one.

It’s so exhausting when everybody alive in this planet insists on having strong opinions about a TV show of which not even half of them have watched a single minute. Maybe a quarter of those have seen an episode, or two—if we’re being charitable. And then maybe ten percent, or five, actually understood what they were watching.

And then they liked it—or they didn’t. Maybe it tickled their fancy, or they respectfully concluded that this wasn’t for them. But that makes Girls a perfect metaphor for the West’s current political climate—brace yourselves for we are reaching peak Girls think-piece here—: how can we have meaningful conversations about any one issue if we can’t even agree on what’s true and what isn’t? How can we talk about Girls, ultimately a piece of art, a work of fiction on premium cable, if we’re never even looking at the same show?

A good illustrative example of this disconnect lies in the line that will likely go down as the show’s most memorable (and no, sadly it’s not “It was nice to see you. Your dad is gay”.) Near the end of the very first episode, an intoxicated Hannah rushes to her parents’ hotel room to hand them her manuscript, and announces that, while she doesn’t want to freak them out, she thinks that she may be the voice of her generation. “Or at least a voice”, she continues, “of a generation”.

This comically self-aggrandizing statement is meant to be a joke on Hannah—who, it bears repeating, is on drugs in this scene—, on the complete lack of self-awareness that would come to characterize all the major players in the series, and most of the humor. But that didn’t stop smug bloggers and hot-takers from reading it as a mission statement by Dunham herself, all lines between reality and fiction be damned. In related news, Bryan Cranston cooks meth in his backyard.

It is telling that these misunderstandings extend to Ms. Dunham as a creator and public figure. She first faced backlash for building a show that was ostensibly white—lambasted to an extent, it’s worth noting, that probably no other series in the history of television ever has or ever will be—, and supposedly trying (and of course failing) to act as a spokesperson for every woman in her twenties—an extremely lazy and outright inaccurate take, as we’ve established. Never mind her much-repeated explanations that she, like so many of her peers, was only writing about her own experience—by definition limited—; and her willingness to engage with these conversations in a significant way, using them as a chance to learn; never acting dismissive or over-protective of her creative property. A willingness translated into attempts to bring on more non-white actors in guest-starring roles, her constant vouching for creators and storytellers of color (and of different genders, religions and sexualities) to be given the same chances that she got—a sentiment turned into tangible action with her feminist newsletter Lenny Letter, and her production company A Casual Romance, which provide a platform for those who lack one (both projects a result of her collaboration with Girls executive producer Jenni Konner)—and her own admission that, looking back, she “never want[s] to see another poster that’s four white girls”.

And yet, has any of this been successful in appeasing the naysayers? Not a bit. Both Girls- and Lena Dunham-fueled loathing seems to exist in a stagnant pond near a fast-flowing river: unable to grow or morph into anything else, and unable to ever be challenged or debunked by the goings-on of the actual waters. Not unlike those liberal and conservative bubbles we keep hearing so much about.

So, aside from the admittedly misguided remarks she sometimes makes in public (for which she tends to apologize), and a healthy little dose of envy towards her privileged status as a well-to-do white woman (which she seems aware of), the Lena Dunham you so vehemently hate probably does not exist either.

This whole piece is not an attempt to shut down any criticism you might want to level at Girls if you haven’t consumed the sixty plus half-hours of content available—there’s a very important discussion about diversity that you’d still be rightfully invited to, for one (though I would still beg you to listen to what the people behind the scenes have to say on the matter, so that it is in fact a debate and not a monologue). But when we talk about the quality of the show, its value, again, as a work of art (and it is sad that so few of the conversations around it have actually been about this), if you haven’t even seen it—or you have, but refuse to engage with what it’s trying to tell you—, how to put this gently? Just shut up.

You do not need to have opinions about every other thing under the sun (this is a hard concept for a lot of people to grasp, I know. I blame capitalism). And if you do, we certainly don’t need to hear them all. Girls is famously not a show for the faint of heart. Nor is it one for the lazy hot-take pitchers or the confirmation-bias-hungry. I mean, sure, you can still watch it—but it’ll be an entirely different piece.

Having informed opinions to contribute to the conversation takes work. Work no one is forcing you to do—not every piece of culture needs to appeal to you, and not every Summer best seller or successful movie franchise requires your input. So, stop being lazy and make an effort to listen, to understand why a group of people have assembled all these different pieces to put together the product in front of you, what their goal is and whether they achieve it—and where, and how—, and how you might be expected to react to all this; or shut up, quit clogging the Internet, and put on Bones or whatever.

Find this post and more here.

#girls hbo #girls #lena dunham #please read this i worked hard to finally gather my thoughts and take you all to school #writing

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godsizemylife-blog · 7 years ago

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Lost – and Found

You may have noticed my posts are distinctly lacking in the “God is in the flowers and rainbows” flavor. In fact, more of my posts are about trials I face or disappointments in myself. This no doubt comes from the fact that, while I am every bit female, I‘ve never been a “frou-frou” girl. I look like death warmed over in pink, I simply look silly in ruffles, and though I love jewelry, the beautiful blingy cocktail rings my sweet friend Patty has given me look like a contradiction on my thin, veiny hands. An frankly, my life has been so challenge-filled since 1995 that I find little comfort in stress-busting articles that advise me to take a bubble bath or have my nails done. God IS in the flowers and rainbows, and probably in bubbles, too, but I need a God who is there to be found IN my pain, loss, anxiety, disappointments, grief, and frustrations. If He isn’t to be encountered and experienced there, then what hope do any of us have?

After I take the bubble bath and have my nails done, what has changed? Have those admittedly fun exercises changed my circumstances? If they haven’t changed my situation, have they changed me? No. And while I love bubble baths, I need something more substantial in my life. A stress-buster to me means seeing God’s hand moving to transform me in the middle of the messes my life seems to step into again and again like the ubiquitous gum in a Wal-Mart parking lot.

I long to dance in the rain – not because I’m a pessimist, but because I know rain will come. I need a God who isn’t afraid to get wet, who can transcend, transfigure, translate and transform, as the lyrics in John Mark McMillan’s moving, anointed song, “How He Loves” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chx6s3qXKt4&feature=related powerfully declare: “When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory, and I realize just how beautiful You are and how great your affections are for me.” I need a God of grit and guts and glory. That’s who I’m encountering in this deepest trial of my life – a God of incredible, deep compassion and love – and that’s who I pray you find within these thoughts and discoveries of mine.

This post is about my father, but Susan Miller and everyone who’s lost a loved one, this one is for you, too.

“Uuuuhhhh . . . uuuhh . . . .” Dad’s mouth opened as he tried to speak. His eyes still held that “deer in the headlights” look of incomprehension so typical of Alzheimer’s patients, but I caught a spark of – what – hope? Thanks? Love? Mom, Bonnie and I were gathered around him holding his hand, once so strong and steady as he guided wood through the saw blade, but now so forceless and weak, and touching his now thin shoulders. We’d come to say good-bye.

Two days earlier Dad had developed pneumonia. This Monday morning, the day before Dad’s 75th birthday, a nurse in the Alzheimer’s unit of the nursing home had called my Mom to tell her to come quickly, as this might be Dad’s last day. I’d thrown the car into gear and flown to Mom’s house to pick her up and quickly dash up to the home. “Oh, Rosie!” was all she could get out through her sobbing. The past five years of grieving as we watched Dad steadily decline still hadn’t prepared our hearts for this day.

Surprisingly, when Mom and I arrived, Dad actually looked pretty good. He was sitting up in a chair looking apparently healthy and pretty much like he usually did. Mom and I chatted to him while the nurses worked around us. “To him” was all we could do, because Dad hadn’t been able to speak for the past two years; in fact, he hadn’t even uttered so much as a syllable on the many Sundays when my husband, our ten-year-old son and I stopped in to see him after church. Ethan had never really known Grandpa when he was well, this man who made wagons and pedal fire trucks and doll houses and so many treasures for his grandchildren before dementia robbed him of his considerable talents.

But he was still Grandpa, still my Dad, and I thought back to treasured evenings in our back yard sitting on his telescope mount as he twirled me around the stars, or standing beside him in the garage redolent with the fragrance of newly sawn pine as he showed me how to drive a nail and drill a hole in a scrap of lumber. He was still the man I loved and respected, somewhere inside there. I dared to believe that, fought to hope it was true. Mom and I stepped aside to let the nurse take Dad’s vitals. The door opened and my sister Bonnie walked into the room. The nurse gave a slight gasp as my Dad’s vital signs shot up. Bonnie hadn’t seen Dad in two years, not since he moved from his home into this skilled nursing facility. She did live quite a distance away, but it was just too painful for her to see Dad in his continually deteriorating condition. I understood completely. Bonnie had always been there for Dad and Mom over the years, and she still helped Mom every way she could.

Dad hadn’t seen her in two years, yet something in him rose up in recognition of a face he loved, and rose up so powerfully that his heart rate and respiration increased immediately!

“Should we pray with him? Should we tell him . . .?” I honestly don’t remember now which one of us voiced what we all were thinking: should we give Dad permission to go home to Jesus? Should we give him our blessing and love? Wordlessly we all agreed, gathered around Dad, and began to pray. “Thank you so much, Father, for our father, for his love, for the faith he shared so freely . . . . “

Then we said it, every eye awash in tears that flowed to the nurses in the room, too. “Dad, if you’re ready to go, we give you our blessing to go home to Heaven.” That’s when it happened: Dad tried to speak! He looked directly into our faces and said, “Uuuhhh . . . uuuhhhhhh.” Those might have been babbled syllables to anyone else, but to the tree of us, they were the voice of a beloved husband and father, struck dumb by a disease advancing brain cell by brain cell for five years, but the man still alive and vital inside, somewhere, somehow!

One by one we bent down and kissed him, hugged him, squeezed his feeble hand, and left, fairly confident that his healthy appearance meant this might be a false alarm. Two days later he died, sweetly and quietly and I believe liberated to leave the prison of his disease and go meet his fellow carpenter, his Savior Jesus.

Some people might understandable dismiss this as coincidence to which we attributed too much significance. I might, too, had it not been for a comment from one of the nurses after Dad died, and the same scene repeated exactly four weeks later over the bed of Dad’s sister, my Aunt Cine. Francine developed Alzheimer’s two years before Dad exhibited signs of the disease. She had been bedridden, fallen away to 80 pounds, unable to walk or speak, at death’s door for over a year. Mom and I went to see her on her birthday. We took her some balloons.

“Should we tell her?” Mom asked, and I agreed. “Should we tell her that her brother died?”

“Yes,” I concurred without hesitation.

Cine was in much worse shape than Dad had been, but the day Dad died, one of the nurses on Dad’s floor at his nursing home had said to me, ‘Your father was such a sweet, wonderful man. We enjoyed him so much.” How had she known that? How can you know that about someone who can’t communicate . . . unless Dad’s spirit had been able to break out of his silence and communicate somehow, quite apart from words?

So my mother and I bent down on either side of Dad’s sister, took her hands, and I softly said, “Aunt Cine, we want you to know your brother has gone on ahead of you. He’s waiting for you with Jesus. If you’re ready to go, we give you our permission and blessing to go home.”

“Uuuhhh . . . . uuuhhhh.” Her face turned up to mine, her wild yet shallow eyes looking directly into mine, and I knew she was there. She saw me. We kissed her and went home. So did Cine, the very next day.

I never gave much credence to the notion that sometimes people need permission from their loved ones to leave. I always thought your body had the deciding voice in when you die. Now I’m certain that is not always the case.

Two intelligent, resourceful, achieving, loving people, struck down by a disease so heinous and hideous that it strikes terror in the hearts of most people. Any way but that one! What could possible be the sliver lining in my father’s and my aunt’s deaths? Simply and profoundly this: no matter what disease does to our bodies or our brains, God’s Spirit never leaves our spirit. We remain, whole, intact, filled with all the life and love we’ve known and given away, whether the outside world can access it or not. And is that a meager comfort in the face of such deep loss and pain? No, even though my sister, brother and I know we live in the shadow of DNA that may spell the same end for us, especially now that our mother has vascular dementia from numerous small strokes. It is somehow a great comfort and source of hope.

Yes, I pray researchers will home in quickly on what causes and what can cure and prevent Alzheimer’s, but while I wait, I rest in the knowledge that who I truly am, who we truly are, endures above and beyond all else. Count that as an incredible, joyful, overcoming blessing!

Note as of May 5, 2010: My brother, age 67, has just been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. Note January 27, 2018: Its wasn’t Alzheimer’s, but undiagnosed bipolar disorder, and lung cancer took Dave in January 2013. Five years later, I’m remembering the amazing time I had with my brother just weeks before he went home to Jesus, and I thank God even more passionately for the certainty that this life isn’t all there is, and Heaven truly awaits all who know Jesus as Lord and Savior and the Lover of their soul. Dave, I can imagine the smiles on Mom’s and Dad’s faces as they ran to greet you!

GOD IS LOVE, and He still proves it to us.

SONY DSC

Just a thankful amen!

Revisiting Lost and Found Lost – and Found Rose Jackson ©7/24/2009 You may have noticed my posts are distinctly lacking in the “God is in the flowers and rainbows” flavor.

#Christianity #comfort #Faith #Family #Fathers #Humanity #Jesus #Loss #Love #prayer #truth

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prussiantique · 7 years ago

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Ode to Hushabye Valley – Notes

Sweet and sincere; apropos for the good lady @hushabyevalley whose art inspired it, I should hope. Here’s the usual note that accompanies most of my poetry, and I must apologise: it’s long and while I would be overjoyed if one were to read it, I do realise it’s not particularly interesting. Nonetheless, I would like to explain the hows and whys of a dedicatory poem, so if you want to understand all the allusions of the poem, please read the bit up till the second line of ‘===’s. Under those will be a more technical look into the workings of the poem. If you happen to stick with me from start to finish, then you have my sincerest thanks :) === So, the poem begins with an invocation to Hushabye, the eponymous lady of both the fantastical valley and the castle that is situated therein. Please visit the good lady here or here. Now, world-building is a fundamental aspect of high fantasy and science-fiction, and the world of Hushabye Valley is, at least to me, one that is suffused with romance, timelessness, fantasy, and quiet pathos,– something which I find in all three of the good lady’s ‘tales’: Hushabye Valley (fantasy), Calabi Yau Forest (fantasy), and Ada (sci-fi, but otherwise suffused with the same charm as the others). While the combination is becoming far more popular these days, high fantasy and slice-of-life are not related genres traditionally, as high fantasy is predominantly preoccupied with grand narratives and quests (think C. S. Lewis or J. R. R. Tolkein) while slice-of-life is focused on the memorable moments of everyday life. I find the good lady makes them work wonderfully well, hence the rather odd turn of phrase in ‘complete with beauty, mild and grand’. ‘Mild and grand’ are not cognate ideas, but by placing them both as interlinked qualities of a singular ‘beauty’, it (hopefully) suggests the all-encompassing nature of the splendours that Hushabye portrays in the valley. Puns and allusions are important in an ode of this kind: in a celebratory poem, it should be evident to the addressee exactly what it is that they have done or created that has garnered said praise. In equal measure, if one is sincere about one’s praise or admiration, one’s writing should show a certain amount of knowledge and love of that which is spoken. Some of these are, admittedly rather straightforward, such as ‘misty’, which alludes to the good lady’s tumblr ask: ‘Throw a question into the mist’; ‘a face of marble’, to the rather adorable groundskeeper and main character of Hushabye Valley, Marble; and ‘the archways of a bygone year’, to the banner of Hushabye Valley’s Patreon page. The last one is a little tenuous, if I had to be honest, as the emphasis in the banner is on the four plinths that flank Marble, but I felt ‘archways’ scanned better poetically than ‘plinth’. If I had to use ‘plinth’ instead, I’d have rewritten the line as a hexameter one thus: “Between the plinths engraved with words long worn away;” ‘Queer’ is another word I chose due to its double meaning, due to both its more traditional sense of strange or unusual,– and thus apropos to describe the faerie aspect of Hushabye’s ‘tales,– as well as the presence of yuri/girls’ love therein. I do realise that queer is a complicated word today, but I hope the phrase ‘love sincere’ dispels any doubts regarding which side of the fence my sympathies sit regarding the matter. The word ‘art’ ties into the idea of magic and fantasy as magic, like alchemy, was considered a branch of learning historically, and thus described in the same way we would talk about liberal arts. Of course, Hushabye herself is an accomplished artist of the visual kind, making this another fairly straightforward piece of wordplay. ‘Enfold me in your art’ is just something that I ask of good narratives: I like being immersed in something if I sincerely enjoy it. This ties into the last line and my word choice therein. Castle Hushabye is ‘a fonder home’ to the speaker of the poem, and it’s important to note the use of ‘fonder’ quite specifically. ‘Fonder’ is a comparative adjective, and when considered alongside the context of the speaker, who is evidently a traveller, it suggests that home or haven offered by Hushabye is a place that the speaker finder more loving (not merely lovely) than wherever the speaker originated from. Considering the state of the world today, I would happily escape into the good lady’s worlds and narratives and stay there. While reading, I am reminded of one of Tennyson’s lyric interludes from The Princess: The splendour falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story: The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, And thinner, clearer, farther going! O sweet and far from cliff and scar The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. O love, they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river: Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow for ever and for ever. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. Beauty and pathos mixed into one, much like the good lady’s tales. <3 === Now to the more dry and technical parts of the piece. If you’ve no interest in the mechanics of poetry, feel free to head off. I promise I won’t mind. I will admit, the poem was intended to be a far longer work when I first started work on it, but that was quickly whittled down when I decided it’d be an acrostic. Long poems are, in addition, generally not something that most people enjoy reading. As this was a poem intended to be read by the good lady herself, it had to be kept short. The main thing I am genuinely unsatisfied with is the unusual rhyme scheme. It’s not irregular, per se, but rather it lacks a certain symmetry that I would have liked to have seen in a poem for someone whose work I sincerely enjoy. The poem’s rhyme scheme follows thus (each letter representing a rhyme word): a b b a c d d c || d e e d f f The ‘d’ rhyme appears four times in the poem as opposed to the two times of every other rhyme, which is, from a poet’s perspective both incongruous and weird in a rather untidy way. Now, ideally, the rhyme scheme of the poem would have looked like this: a b b a c d d c || e f f e g g which would have been better as each quatrain is kept self-contained in terms of rhyme; or, alternatively: a b b a b c c b || c d d c d d would have been another acceptable alternative, slowly phasing through interlocking rhymes in a similar manner to Terza Rima or the Spenserian stanza. An acrostic does pose a challenge poetically as, if I may put it this way, not all letters were created equal from a poetic stand-point. Different opening letters can create difficulties, whether it’s finding words with the correct rhythm or finding words that have a relevant meaning to the poem. Very frequently, the primary problem posed by an acrostic falls into one of three categories: words that begin with the correct letter but have absolutely nothing to do with the contents of the poem; words that fit perfectly into the poem but begin with the wrong letter; or words that have both the correctly letter and meaning but do not fit the rhythm. This last point is actually the cause of a great deal of the metrical irregularity of the piece, with frequent trochees,– as seen in the first foot of lines 1, 7, 9, 11 and 12,– and more occasional spondees,– as found in the first foot of lines 3, 4, and 14,– beginning the lines of what should be predominantly iambic poem. Just a reminder for anyone who is less familiar with the poetic terminology, iambs, trochees, and spondees are metrical feet or stress patterns in poetry: iamb: ˘ ¯ or unstressed-stressed (e.g. To be or not to be) trochee: ¯ ˘ or stressed-unstressed spondee: ¯ ¯ or stressed-stressed In a short poem like this, one good skill to have is the ability to juggle the competing demands of metre and expression without being gagged by them. While one needs to express an idea within a confined space and obey the rules at the same time, one has to do things tastefully after all. An example of this would be in line 3: ¯ ¯ / ˘ ¯ / ˘ ¯ / ˘ ¯ / ˘ ¯ such things I ere had scarce partaken in. While it does scan properly, it also falls rather awkwardly from a modern tongue due to the fairly archaic, but more flexible, syntax. Now if we were to expand it and rearrange the line into something more commonplace today, we can not only see how poetry condenses and re-patterns thought, but also how we ourselves have to ‘translate’ archaic poetry mentally to properly understand it. Thus: such things I ere had scarce partaken in can be expanded to: such things [that] I [before] had [rarely] [taken part] in and can be further rearranged to make: such things [that] I had [rarely] [taken part in] [before] Moving onto structure: although I’ve split it into two stanzas, I would like to argue that the poem could and should be read, structurally, in three different ways: as an acrostic of two words, Hushabye and Valley; as an ode, with an unequal tripartite structure of strophe, antistrophe and epode; as a sonnet, with a false volta in line 9, and a true volta in line 13. I need not go into the acrostic, I think, as it’s probably the most straightforward part of the poem. The ode is where the invocation to ‘Hushabye’ plays its part. Ode are explicitly poems that laud something or someone. In addition, the structure of the poem’s primary movements can be split into three, albeit unequal parts: the strophe, in which the speaker invokes ‘Hushabye’ and describes the initial wonder that he/she experiences; the antistrophe, directed instead to the ‘Valley’ itself, where the beauty that is lauded by the strophe is exchanged from more enduring qualities like ‘tenderness’ and comfort, ‘as suggested by the word ‘languid’. The epode is the sudden change from invocation to imperative as can be seen in the verbs ‘Enfold’ and ‘bid’. As a sonnet, we have to read the poem as a single stanza. The rhyme scheme, however, supports this as it can neatly separate the poem into three quatrains and a couplet, the very same as many types of sonnet. From this perspective, the four lines beginning with ‘Valley’ instead belongs to the same continuum as ‘Hushabye’ and ‘A face…’, rather than being a distinct stanza of its own. This final way of looking at the poem, as a sonnet, is perhaps the only one which also offers a reason for the metrical shift in the final couplet. Rather than being in iambic pentameter, the two lines are actually alexandrines, i.e. iambic hexameter, with a caesura or break in the very middle of those lines, as can be clearly seen in: ‘Enfold me in your art, || and bid me never roam:’ The alexandrine is fairly unusual in English poetry but, when used in a predominantly pentametrical context, serves to slow the pace of the iambs and to create a falling motion, a perfect technique if one wanted to finish a poem in a manner that suggests as much affection as ease. === Long way to go, but if you’ve managed to get here, then you have my sincerest thanks and affection~

#notes #ode #sonnet-ish #acrostic #german romanticism

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