#America Slow AF

[shadesofecclescakes]

Are you a big fanfic reader? What have you read lately and what's been your favourite fic so far?

Oh mannnnnnnnn. Why don't you ask me to pick a favourite child while you're at it???

Just kidding. I don't have kids. But I assume having to pick a favourite would be hard if I did.

So, am I a big fanfic reader? YES. And what haven't I read lately? We are lucky enough to have so many talented writers in this fandom that it's possible to subscribe to numerous multi-chapter fics to the point where you're just constantly getting update emails. Which I do. It's great. It gives me something to do at work aside from, y'know, work.

*Me at work being smug about being paid to read porn* (Also I just wanted to look at this gif)

So what is currently on my endless update list? Coming up after the cut!

I am an absolute whore for human AU, so if you like that then you will probably like:

The Cure for a Broken Heart by @rofell

a medical student AU based in the Canadian medical system (I'm a Canadian so I was pretty excited about that). It manages to tackle the continued systemic discrimination of Indigenous people in our medical system (and in general), homophobia and the ensuing trauma from those things all while also being informative, funny, sweet, romantic and hot af. Like. It's so good.

Free by @maaikeatthefullmoon

This is another one with with a heavy topic that also does a great job of making sure to break it up with some excellent fluff, hurt/comfort and humorous moments. And it's handled with the sensitivity and thoughtfulness necessary to write something that takes place in a mental health ward and deals with some intense situations. Definitely make sure to read those author notes before diving in. They lay it out very thoroughly.

The Sincere Way by @tsyvia48

A martial arts AU. Crowley is a karate sensei and Aziraphale is his student. Slow burn that keeps you on the edge. The screams I have scrumt at my screen over this one. Plus you learn a lot about karate (but it never gets boring or over-explainey. Excellently balanced) which is pretty cool. Mostly light (there is some angst. This is the Good Omens fandom. I think we are all sad, wet chihuahuas at heart). Funny and sweet.

Terminus by @emotional-support-demon-crowley

Plus One by @caedmonfaith

Astronaut AU. Aziraphale is an astronaut who meets his mission controller, Crowley, over the comms system when he finds himself in need of assistance.

Super cool concept and really well-done in my opinion. Like, I don't do any space or physics-related work (ok I straight-up failed math 9) but I find it entirely believable. And it's well-written which is the entire point. Cute, funny slow burn with an intriguing mystery happening in the background.

Aziraphale has family money but a shitty family (except for Muriel! Never Muriel!) and his shitty brother Gabriel is getting married to shitty Michael, an Earl's daughter.

Aziraphale's family disproves of his entire life pretty much and he has been lying to them about having a boyfriend. Now they are expecting him to bring said boyfriend to the wedding. His famous footballer friend sets him up with their mechanic, Crowley.

It starts as a slow-burn but becomes a hilarious, smutty romp that just gets more and more insane. The chapter titles alone have made me cackle out loud.

Some older human AUs I'm a huge fan of include Old Vines by @sevdrag. Crowley owns a vineyard and Aziraphale is a wine critic. It is so amazingly written. It makes me think of the author Joanna Harris (Chocolat, The Five Quarters of the Orange) because it's SO beautifully, vividly descriptive that I end up craaaaaving wine. So have a bottle on hand if you're giving this a read.

Also the love story in this. My god. I devoured it. The story and the (many bottles of) wine.

There is also Loosely Ballroom by marginalia_device and mortifyingideal. It's a Strictly Come Dancing (Dancing with the Stars in North America) AU and it is so. Fucking. Good.

But it comes with a disclaimer. It's unfinished and looks likely to stay that way. But honestly? Still worth it. It's nearly finished (I think) so you have most of the story. And it's just SO good. It's been a while since I read it but it was one of the first human AUs I read and what got me hooked on them.

If you're still with me...nice! Just know that was me holding back and that isn't my entire list by a long shot. If you want more recs, feel free to message me and also share your own!

I just finished Slow Show the actor AU by @mia-ugly and yes please.

Some serious angst, pining and hot hot smut.

There is another long-form multi-chapter actor au I loooved but I can't remember the name for the life of me. Just that the show they were on was basically good omens and that they swapped roles with great success (inspired by the whole Michael thinking Neil wanted him to play Crowley when he wanted Aziraphale thing).

Thanks for the ask! That was really fun!

[rillils]

how do explain stucky from the moment they met to where they are now (together in each others arms) to my friend who knows nothing about marvel

ohh this is a tough one, honey! i think i've got two options for you:

the short answer:

stucky is a compendium of all the best tropes out there, and i'm sure i'm gonna miss a few:

soulmates? check! star-crossed lovers? check! battle husbands? super check! mutual pining? check! 'and they were roommates'? check! best friends to lovers? check check check! long-lost lover comes back from the dead? fuck yeah, check! temporary amnesia? check! dude in distress trope? check! 'they will always find each other and choose each other in every lifetime'? also check! identity porn? extra check! saved by the power of love? you guessed it: check! slow burn or childhood sweethearts? you decide!!! did they share their first kiss when steve was 16, as per a popular fanon theory? did they only confess their feelings during the war? did they only get together much later, when bucky was healing in wakanda? you can pick literally ANY point in their timeline, and it will still make sense! they're all equally valid! you can even have multiple different headcanons at once, i mean who's gonna stop you??? all you have to do is join in the fun! 💕

the long AF answer, aka:

STEVE & BUCKY'S LOVE STORY, UNABRIDGED SOMEWHAT ABRIDGED, part 1/3

all right, let's set the scene:

imagine two young kids, let's call them steve and bucky. they meet, they immediately take to each other, they become instant besties! and as they grow up together, facing many hardships, their bond deepens. not only are they best friends; they are also each other's family. they take care of each other, and they both know they can always rely on one another in times of need.

when steve's mom (and only remaining relative) passes away, bucky reminds him that he's not as alone in this world as he thinks he is: bucky will always be by his side. bucky will always love him unconditionally, will always be there for him, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer, and he wants steve to know that.

in fact, he asks steve to move in with him, thus offering steve both a literal and a metaphorical home.

and steve says yes!

SO. they are each other's home, they're living together, they're getting by all right. but then war breaks out, and eventually it reaches their little home as well: bucky is drafted, and steve, due to his many health issues, and despite his best intentions, can't follow the boy he loves onto the battlefield.

it's a very difficult time for them both - so much so that they can't even bring themselves to talk about it.

they have no choice but to say goodbye for now, knowing that they might never see each other again. but here's something you might not know yet about steve: he's the most reckless, most stubborn fucker america's ever seen. he's not gonna let this stop him!!! instead, he goes and gets a very sweet, kindly scientist to fucking experiment on him, because screw it, he's going to fight in this war if it's the last thing he does. and that's how he goes from Smol Steeb to Lorge Premium Steeb.

of course, things don't go exactly as he predicted, and steve is made to be the star of a war propaganda-fuelled musical kinda thingie, which he resents (but he looks fucking precious in his costume)

BUT! he does get closer to the actual battlefield. which is where he discovers that bucky has been captured by the enemy (!!!!!!!) and is most likely dead by now. but steve isn't willing to give up so easily! he'll believe bucky's dead when he sees it with his own eyes. so, he embarks on this suicide solo mission in the attempt to get bucky back, even if it means wandering on his own. into enemy territory. where he would be shot. on. sight. with no protection for his dumb ass except for a bunch of theater props!!! but such is the power of love, y'all.

against all odds, steve finds bucky very much still alive! and as soon as bucky recognizes him, even as confused as he is, he pulls out this beautiful, ecstatic, angelic-ass smile, like he's just seen god or he got high on some real good edibles or maybe both idk, like my man here was having a serious Religious Experience™ you guys

and i just wanna say, they could have totally kissed here and it would have made plenty of sense. but that's true of like 90% of their scenes in this franchise, so *shrugs*

ANYWAY steve takes bucky in his arms (well technically yes he does) and brings him to safety, and on their way there, bucky proves once more just how hard he meant that "with you til the end of the line" from before

afterwards, steve is finally given the chance to fight, just like he wanted.

bucky, on the other hand, could very well leave the war behind and go home; but when he learns that steve is staying, he chooses to stay too, and fight by his side. and he tells steve so in this very intimate, softspoken, delightfully suggestive conversation, which can be summed up like this:

and so they walk right back into the heart of the fight, only this time together, as they were always meant to be!

but. during an especially tricky mission, they're surprised by the enemy, and as a result, bucky falls to his death into a deep ravine.

steve is devastated. overwhelmed with guilt, grief and rage, he vows to bring down the people responsible for his loss, even if it costs him his own life.

and um, it kind of does? cost him his own life?

victorious after his last vis-a-vis with The Antagonist™, steve still chooses to sacrifice himself to prevent the catastrophe set into motion by the aforementioned Antagonist™. he's flying a jet over the frosty expanse of the atlantic, and you know, from the outside, you could easily argue that he could try to save himself. if he really wanted to. but with bucky dead, and the people responsible for all this pain, either dead or captured, it seems like all the will to fight is gone from steve; and so he plunges the jet straight into the ocean, and himself with it.

is this the end of their story?, you might ask.

the answer is: of course not!!!! the best is yet to come, babes!!!

EDIT: here is part 2

[bitchyfoxymama]

NSFW Alphabet - Steve Rogers

Warnings: its very very dirty, smut, gender and pronouns not used however highly implied afab reader.

A/N: omg Liv is finally posting something that isn't Moon Knight or Bucky related?? Couldn't be!

...

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

Ooo Steve is so good at aftercare, he will be at the ready with a warm washcloth to clean you in between your thighs, water and snacks because fucking a super soldier can be tiring. Especially since his stamina is pretty high. 

B = Body part (Their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

His favorite body part on himself is his muscular thighs. He enjoys how he is able to fuck you so deep by hip thrusting into you. His favorite body part on you is your hands, he loves how soft they are and how they feel in his own calloused ones. 

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically… I’m a disgusting person)

He loves using his finger to hold his cum inside your aching cunt. He also loves watching it drip out. Will also eat his own cum out of your cunt. 

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Has a fantasy of fucking you from behind while Bucky takes your mouth. Has told you about it and youve agreed. Now you both want to talk to Bucky about it. 

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?

He knows exactly what he is doing. This man has being fucking since before he went into the ice so he knows a thing or two for sure

F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual)

Loves fucking you from behind while infront of a mirror, being able to see your face as he takes you from behind.  

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

You both started laughing when you had queefed due to Steve pounding into you and causing you to start to laugh so hardy, which in turn caused him to laugh as well. 

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

Very well groomed, trimmed. A dirty blond color 

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…) 

When you both had sex for the first time he made it so romantic. Candles, music, brand new comfy sheets. 

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

Oh hoe hoe this man's is so dirty, like he will literally keep your used panties to jerk off with. Had yall just had sex in the last couple of hours and he finds your panties you left? Immediately hard and puts them on his face to fuck into his hand. He may look like America's Sweetheart and he is but he's also hella pervy haha 

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

This man's has a mommy and daddy Kink. That is all 

L = Location (Favourite places to do the do)

He likes to do it in the training room. The risk of being caught turns him on. Especially if he's fucking you after the both of you have just spared? He loves it, it's almost animalistic how much your sweaty body turns him on. 

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

Your natural musk and body scent turns him on to no end. Sometimes after you've trained he will jump your bones(only if you want and aren't too tired). He also loves how domestic you can be with him. When yall move out and get your own place, just the way you act turns him on. You sitting in your corner nook reading a book? Hot af. 

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

He  like slapping you in the face with his hands(prefers to use his cock), any bodily fluids except for cum and spit those are all hard nos - examples: scat or urine. 

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc) 

He is so amazing giving oral. He is like a man starved, you are the oasis in a desert and he is thirsty for your essence. However when you give him oral? He's gone! You literally suck his soul out of his cock. 

P = Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

He's likes it's rough and slow, and however you want it. You want him hard he will fuck you from behind while he holds your arms against your back. 

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

Loves quickies, he's pulled you into many a closet in the compound just to fuck your brains out real quick. Wanda has had many questions as to why your blouse was ripped and your hair a mess when you met her for lunch once. 

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

Was literally in you balls deep when Bucky came to get him for their usual morning run with Sam. Kept fucking into you slowly making your toes curl and your eyes go into the back of your skull as Bucky was on the other side of the door. Super soldier hearing and smell let Bucky know just what his best friend was doing to his best girl. Bucky wants in. 

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…

This man is a super soldier, he can last for a long while. However if you get tired he will infact stop and will help himself in the bathroom

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?

He loves those remote control toys. Like he will use them on you while you're out with the rest of the gang on an outing. He'll use it on you. When it's just you and him in the bedroom he will get a vibrating cock ring and use it.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

This man will edge the fuck out of you. Will tease you until you have tears falling down your cheeks. He will make it worth in the end as described in previous parts. 

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

He gets loud. So loud infact that it made Tony sound proof everyone's bedrooms just so they could all get a good night's sleep and not have the image of Steve pounding you into the mattress. 

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

Won't admit to it but has jacked off to the thought of Bucky fucking you while he watches. 

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words)

BIG. DICK. ENERGY. and it's correct. This man is thick, and long but not to long, just above average. He hits all the right places when he's fucking into you. He fills you up so nicely. 

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

The last time this man's fucked was back in the 1940s, his sex drive is so high especially when it comes to you! Get it baby 

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards) 

He will literally wait until you have fallen asleep before he even thinks about sleeping himself. He's a gentleman like that. 

[pastelsugar6w6]

You think America and England argued over the redundancy of bows when guns exist? Like America saying a bow is slow and cumbersome af he can totally catch an arrow mid air or matrix out of the way. England offers to test that theory. Long story short, America is sitting in an emergency room with an arrow in his shoulder and England is with him looking smug

[stele3]

https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/iceland-lava-flows-slow-after-fourth-eruption-since-december-2024-03-17/

[bandzboy]

This just means we gotta find a way to increase the HYBE protests somehow. The question is: how?

While it seems like HYBE is already in hot water for other things (all the Min Heejin stuff for example), if looking at SM is any hint, it might be slow. Perhaps there's a way to speed things up?

At this point, if more HYBE artists would say something—even at a risk—that would mean a lot. Preferably the bigger the name, the better. A bigger artist would probably have more impact if they say something (especially if multiple artists speak), and it'll cause a lot more commotion and backlash if HYBE tried to punish them for it. They don't have to be BTS-big, but the bigger the better.

In the meantime, I'm still thinking about those letters that one pro-Pal MOA gave TXT. Something to let them know about the situation and where MOAs stand. Even if the direct purpose of the letters wasn't to get them to speak up, I hope the letters do help in other ways. And if we could extend that to other HYBE groups, that would be neat.

i think there are plans of there being another protest in front of hybe america again (idk when since i think it's still being planned) but if there is a confirmation i will let everyone know of that and also with what happened today and his stupid statement i feel like a lot of people will be moving

i will be sincere, i kinda gave up on asking idols to speak up. even tho yes, it would be amazing but as someone who was working TIRELESSLY to get any sort of sign or response for a while i just felt embarrassed and a lot people that participated and i have talked with on twitter on my boycott gc felt the same thing and unfortunately, at this point, my expectations on that are very low and i've talked about this many times but there might be two things as to why this is happening it's either 1) they are being silenced for real (wouldn't be a surprise however i don't wanna weight on that too much) 2) they just don't give af and truly are fine with being silent and it's a very hard pill to swallow and probably hard to accept. that's why my bigger goal is to fight against zionism on that company while keeping a safe distance from the people i stan and i hope that is understandable why. a lot has happened in the past few months and the silence is unbearable and i just feel embarrassed to beg grown people to speak up about a genocide. there was one day where i was just sitting in my bed and thinking like damn i just feel like we are all embarrassing ourselves to get nothing in return. these idols might even support palestine but even if they were being silenced they should try everything to make it know that they do support it and getting absolutely nothing is just wild you know what i mean? i hope i conveyed this well and i hope it's understandable. it's always valid to question the morals of people that i have supported for a very long time and have wasted my love and energy on! with that being said, idk what to do regarding that but i decided that is best to focus on what is more important which is talking about palestine, fight against zionism and support palestinians! i was hoping that idols would use their platforms because it's what they should do but i don't wanna waste my time on that regard anymore

[firsttarotreader]

Chris has done some cute romantic comedies. "What's your number" is adorable. He carried Captain America and has good comedic timing and is charming AF (I know you don't like marvel movies but a lot of people do. They're fun). I'm looking forward to seeing him with Pedro and I can't wait for the press. Dakota is like plain white toast, she's so bland, but she was watchable in the Persuasion movie she did recently. I'll be seated. Past Lives was a gorgeous film. Slow, yes. Beautiful, fuck yes. All my own opinions and I don't expect people to agree with me. Just offering a different perspective.

Maybe since Pedro is doing Eddington he decided a romantic comedy was a better choice. Ari Aster has made two of my favorite horror films. I'm really excited about Eddington. Pedro loves working with and supporting his friends and hyped Past Lives like crazy. It's obvious he really genuinely loved the film. Doing a film with a fellow Marvel actor? He's close with Mark R. So many reasons for him to make choices, none of which we may know. But he's smart and does what makes him happy. I'm really excited for him and hope he enjoys every second. There will always be disappointments. The cards tell us that 😉

Again, all my opinions only. I appreciate you 💜

You have the right to your opinion on that, of course. 😄

[harrelltut]

Hollywood script writers for NASA graphics & SpaceX CGI sky alien illustrators [a.i.]... WE ARE WAITING!!!

IMMORTAL U.S. MILITARY KING SOLOMON-MICHAEL HARRELL, JR.™

ommmmm

ommmmm

ommmmm

ommmmm

this better be some good 1999 y2k 2000-2023 american 9/11 cgi space alien invasion [a.i.] program technology from 2001!!!

are the greys related to the nordic aliens?!?!?! [insert evil evil laugh emoji]

[anonil88]

Me watching younger and older YJ fans push for less adult storyline and knowing to keep ratings the writers may just do that.

But, fr fr I'm a little sad if that does happen, we finally get adult queer representation that isn't one note and people aren't so here for it. I really hope the next season is more balanced of slow to fast and visually more horroresque. Still it was personally refreshing to see someone with a black queer family and think that could be me in 20 years sans the sleepwalking cult stuff. Then to see a full ensemble of women in that age range struggling to hold their trauma in broken pots is nice. Especially because the show is not a dramedy like Hacks or a limited series like Mrs. America. This show is sits very in between Desperate Housewives and Castle Rock/Penny Dreadful. Which is a great space that needed more interest but those aspects may get shoved to the back of the freezer along with some of the more interesting adult plots. The story does need more room to breath and for other characters to get a starter course in the wilderness. Which may be the right move IF they don't get a full 10 episodes or more, but that doesn't mean it won't suck for a trade off to keep the seasons coming.

I love the 96/97 timeline I really do and get the need for it to take focus as were really in it now. Just would hate for that part of the story to completely wipe out the older storyline or postcrash and it turn into a Riverdale or Stranger Things type of show which it was not marketed as. The writers got me fully on board with more teen (and adult) Van going forward cause her role in the chaos is getting interesting af same for Akilah. But, as I get older, i am 27 now, I naturally am starting to find it harder to relate to the younger counterparts. Which is a little scary, but I think its majorly because that market of tv is saturated in a thats all we get. Everything feels a little like we jump from one show to the next and there is no reprieve or space from teenage angst or the pitfalls of youth. The shows not focused on that arent promoted as well or focus on things personally idgaf about like gold panning. Fountain of youth focused shows should exist and are important i usually advocate for them, but I just hate that studios might make it all the tv we get so that they can make money. With the strike going on we have 0 clue what will come out or be greenlit but with so much cancelled that cover the older age range, queer people, etc. and isn't business background i am a bit like hmm about where the tv market will go. The TV market often bends to the loudest voices and the biggest wallets.

Post strike and fair wages being given, a market that solely appeals to the younger market and those who don't want a deep plot is kinda terrifying. Amp up the action, visuals, and drama but delete the expose and complexities entirely because it will keep viewership is such a luke warm take. And im seeing a lot of that in fan spaces in general but currently online for yellowjackets. A tv formula like thatvfeels very hamster on a wheel to me. I settle for established older women and a wrench of trauma thrown into their lives, especially with queer non cis-men rep, cause there's not much for my age range that's specific to that age range. I don't think I could settle for "wilderness baby" theory 4000 and "Laura lee is alive" theory 700 for a full 3 more seasons with 0 Shauna playing frogger with her minivan.

[airdeari]

"You're gonna wanna see this one, chief," an officer said to their Communist ghoul of a commander, who appeared to be doing nothing but standing on an elevated platform and sneering over the dark, vast room lit by the blue light of monitors.

"What? Chief?" barked the commander, disgusted. "That's the language of Capitalist pigs!"

In front of each computer, innocent, god-loving Christians sat blinking their bleary eyes at their screens, hands shackled to their keyboards. Pacing the aisles between their seats were the evil Chinese officers brandishing rods, ready to rap any knuckles that weren't tapping fast enough like nuns in Catholic school. Wait, that makes the West sound bad for some reason. Scratch that one out. Make them have whips. Yeah. The echo of whip cracks rang out through the high ceilings of the coding concentration camp, and shit, because of the evil Commies, who we are America is better than.

"I'm so sorry, Supreme Leader," said the officer from before, using his proper form of address. "I just wanted to tell you about our newest recruit's progress."

They pointed, looking sidelong in the direction of their hand as if afraid to look at the thing head-on, their finger trembling ever so slightly. The shadow cast by this prisoner of the comically evil Communist cell was smaller than all the others, and fuzzier.

"It's responding well to the treatment," they said. "You've got to see it."

"Very well," huffed the evil commander. With his hands folded elegantly and evilly behind his back, he descended the stairs to the main floor of the open air prison. Meanwhile, the officer from before was dragged off by the secret police and executed immediately by off-screen gunshot for insubordination, to no fanfare but their own cries of protest, suddenly silenced.

Down on the floor, buzzing above the desperate ticking of keys was the sound of kitty cat paws going tappa tap tap with epic gamer swag. The source of the sound, and of that ominously small and fuzzy shadow, was a litle kity.

"hewwo =^w^=" said the kity, who was very cute, but very evil because it was hacking for the Commies, even though it was being forced to in a prison labor camp, because we don't like it so everything it does is wrong and their fault always.

The evil commander nodded his own greetings to the cat. "I understand you're doing very good work here," he said, then squinted at the convenient desk placard and read, "maia."

"? i dont speak chinese lol" maia said, slow blinking.

"You have done very well, comrade. Officers!" the commander boomed, to make an example of the prisoner. "Fetch this comrade a pudding as a reward for its sick af hacking!"

For a while, maia just said "? ? ?" while comically and cutely tilting its head, then it saw an officer inserting their key into a massive padlock on a decrepit minifridge, out of which they pulled a small, slightly dented cup of unbranded generic Communist slop. The small kity hopped up and down on its desk in excitement upon seeing the pudding, saying "yayayayay n_n i loveee pudding its the only reason i do my silly little girlhacking tbh!! thank u china u are sooooo epic and i swaer allegieacnce to communism now"

As the officer set the pudding cup down on the desk, peeling back the foil lining on the top, maia shoved its whole little snoot into the tiny opening. When it pulled up its head to lick a circle of pudding off of its mouth, the residue remained around the rest of its face and it looked like a clown. It shook its head to fling off the pudding. One droplet hit a giant red button that said NUCLEAR LAUNCH CODES and depressed it and then all of the nukes in the world hit the United States and everyone in America died the end

giving yall full permission to write RPF about me in the chinese praise kink based hacking camp cause it's a hilarious concept and i need someone to explore it in writing

[tseneipgam]

"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974."

"

After decades of neglect, I find myself thinking about departed great- aunts and -uncles, long-lost grandfathers, unknown fifth cousins, or, in the case of an inbred family like mine, all those things in one. And so before it's too late I want to get it down for good: this roller- coaster ride of a single gene through time. Sing now, O Muse, of the recessive mutation on my fifth chromosome! Sing how it bloomed two and a half centuries ago on the slopes of Mount Olympus, while the goats bleated and the olives dropped. Sing how it passed down through nine generations, gathering invisibly within the polluted pool of the Stephanies family. And sing how Providence, in the guise of a massacre, sent the gene flying again; how it blew like a seed across the sea to America, where it drifted through our industrial rains until it fell to earth in the fertile soil of my mother's own mid- western womb. Sorry if I get a little Homeric at times. That's genetic, too."

"Tessie laughed the suggestion off. But behind her sarcasm was a serious moral reservation. To tamper with something as mysterious and miraculous as the birth of a child was an act of hubris. In the first place, Tessie didn't believe you could do it. Even if you could, she didn't believe you should try. Of course, a narrator in my position (prefetal at the time) can't be en- tirely sure about any of this. I can only explain the scientific mania that overtook my father during that spring of '59 as a symptom of the belief in progress that was infecting everyone back then. Remember, Sputnik had been launched only two years earlier. Polio, which had kept my parents quarantined indoors during the summers of their childhood, had been conquered by the Salk vaccine. People had no idea that viruses were cleverer than human beings, and thought they'd soon be a thing of the past. In that optimistic, postwar America, which I caught the tail end of, everybody was the master of his own destiny"

"Meanwhile, in the greenroom to the world, I waited. Not even a gleam in my father's eye yet (he was staring gloomily at the ther- mometer case in his lap). Now my mother gets up from the so-called love seat. She heads for the stairway, holding a hand to her forehead, and the likelihood of my ever coming to be seems more and more re- mote. Now my father gets up to make his rounds, turning out lights, locking doors. As he climbs the stairway, there's hope for me again. The timing of the thing had to be just so in order for me to become the person I am. Delay the act by an hour and you change the gene selection. My conception was still weeks away, but already my par- ents had begun their slow collision into each other. In our upstairs hallway, the Acropolis night-light is burning, a gift from Jackie Halas, who owns a souvenir shop. My mother is at her vanity when my fa- ther enters the bedroom. With two fingers she rubs Noxzema into her face, wiping it off with a tissue. My father had only to say an af- fectionate word and she would have forgiven him. Not me but some- body like me might have been made that night. An infinite number of possible selves crowded the threshold, me among them but with no guaranteed ticket, the hours moving slowly, the planets in the heavens circling at their usual pace, weather coming into it, too, be- cause my mother was afraid of thunderstorms and would have cud- dled against my father had it rained that night. But, no, clear skies held out, as did my parents' stubbornness. The bedroom light went out. They stayed on their own sides of the bed. At last, from my mother, "Night." And from my father, «See you in the morning." The moments that led up to me fell into place as though decreed. Which, I guess, is why I think about them so much."

"When this story goes out into the world, I may become the most famous hermaphrodite in history. There have been others before me. Alexina Barbin attended a girls' boarding school in France before becoming Abel. She left behind an autobiography, which Michel Foucault discovered in the archives of the French De- partment of Public Hygiene. (Her memoirs, which end shortly before her suicide, make unsatisfactory reading, and it was after fin- ishing them years ago that I first got the idea to write my own.) Gott- lieb Göttlich, born in 1798, lived as Marie Rosine until the age of thirty-three. One day abdominal pains sent Marie to the doctor. The physician checked for a hernia and found undescended testicles in- stead. From then on, Marie donned men's clothes, took the name of Gottlieb, and made a fortune traveling around Europe, exhibiting himself to medical men."

"What do you think I want?" He spoke with pent-up force. "I want a woman." Desdemona gripped her belly, patted her heart. She took two steps backward and from this vantage point examined her brother anew. The idea that Lefty, who shared her eyes and eyebrows, who slept in the bed beside hers, could be possessed by such a desire had never occurred to Desdemona before. Though physically mature, Desdemona's body was still a stranger to its owner. At night, in their bedroom, she'd seen her sleeping brother press against his rope mat- tress as though angry with it. As a child she'd come upon him in the cocoonery, innocently rubbing against a wooden post. But none of this had made an impression. "What are you doing?" she'd asked Lefty, eight or nine at the time, and gripping the post, moving his knees up and down. With a steady, determined voice, he'd answered, "I'm trying to get that feeling." "What feeling?" "You know"- grunting, puffing, pumping knees - "that feeling." But she didn't know. It was still years before Desdemona, cutting cucumbers, would lean against the corner of the kitchen table and, without realizing it, would lean in a little harder, and after that would find herself taking up that position every day, the table corner snug between her legs. Now, preparing her brother's meals, she sometimes struck up her old acquaintance with the dining table, but she wasn't conscious of it. It was her body that did it, with the cunning and silence of bodies everywhere."

"In his presidential address at the annual convention of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality in 1968 (held that year in Mazatlán among lots of suggestive piñatas), Dr. Luce intro- duced the concept of "periphescence." The word itself means noth- ing; Luce made it up to avoid any etymological associations. The state of periphescence, however, is well known. It denotes the first fever of human pair bonding. It causes giddiness, clation, a tickling on the chest wall, the urge to climb a balcony on the rope of the beloved's hair. Periphescence denotes the initial drugged and happy bedtime where you sniff your lover like a scented poppy for hours running. (It lasts, Luce explained, up to two years -tops.) The an- cients would have explained what Desdemona was feeling as the workings of Eros. Now expert opinion would put it down to brain chemistry and evolution. Still, I have to insist: to Desdemona peri- phescence felt like a lake of warmth flooding up from her abdomen and across her chest. It spread like the 180-proof, fiery flood of a mint-green Finnish liqueur. With the pumping of two efficient glands in her neck, it heated her face. And then the warmth got other ideas and started spreading into places a girl like Desdemona didn't allow it to go, and she broke off the stare and turned away. She walked to the window, leaving the periphescence behind, and the breeze from the valley cooled her down."

"When they hear knocking, they jump. Stepan goes to the window and looks down. "It must be Father." «Go. Let him in! Quick!" Toukhie says. Karekin vaults down the stairs two at a time. At the door he stops, collects himself, and quietly unbolts the door. At first, when he pulls it open, he sees nothing. Then there's a soft hiss, followed by a rip

ping noise. The noise sounds as though it has nothing to do with him until suddenly a shirt button pops off and clatters against the door. Karekin looks down as all at once his mouth fills with a warm fluid. He feels himself being lifted off his feet, the sensation bringing back to him childhood memories of being whisked into the air by his father, and he says, "Dad, my button,; before he is lifted high enough to make out the steel bayonet puncturing his sternum. The fire's re- flection leads along the gun barrel, over the sight and hammer, to the soldier's ecstatic face."

"It didn't occur to Dr. Philobosian that the twisted body he stepped over in the street belonged to his younger son. He noticed only that his front door was open. In the foyer, he stopped to listen. There was only silence. Slowly, still holding his doctor's bag, he climbed the stairs. All the lamps were on now. The living room was bright. Toukhie was sitting on the sofa, waiting for him. Her head had fallen backward as though in hilarity, the angle opening the wound so thit a section of windpipe gleamed. Stepan sat slumped at the dining table, his right hand, which held the letter of protection, nailed do With a steak knife. Dr. Philobosian took a step and slipped, then f into heri of blood leading down the hallway. He followed the red into the master bedroom, where he found his two daughters. They were both naked, lying on their backs. Three of their four breasts had been cut off. Rose's hand reached out toward her sister as though to adjust the silver ribbon across her forehead."

"

On the deck of the Jean Bart, the three new French citizens looked back at the burning city, ablaze from end to end. The fire would continue for the next three days, the flames visible for fifty miles. At sea, sailors would mistake the rising smoke for a gigantic mountain range. In the country they were heading for, America, the burning of Smyrna made the front pages for a day or two, before be- ing bumped off by the Hall-Mills murder case (the body of Hall, a Protestant minister, had been found with that of Miss Mills, an attractive choir member) and the opening of the World Series. Ad- miral Mark Bristol of the U.S. Navy, concerned about damage to American-Turkish relations, cabled a press release in which he stated that "it is impossible to estimate the number of deaths due to killings, fire, and execution, but the total probably does not exceed 2,000? The American consul, George Horton, had a larger estimate. Of the 400,000 Ottoman Christians in Smyrna before the fire, 190,000 were unaccounted for by October 1. Horton halved that number and estimated the dead at 100,000."

"It was the custom in those days for passengers leaving for America to bring balls of yarn on deck. Relatives on the pier held the loose ends. As the Giulia blew its horn and moved away from the dock, a few hundred strings of yarn stretched across the water. People shouted farewells, waved furiously, held up babies for last looks they wouldn't remember. Propellers churned; handkerchiefs fluttered, and, up on deck, the balls of yarn began to spin. Red, yellow, blue, green, they untangled toward the pier, slowly at first, one revolution every ten seconds, then faster and faster as the boat picked up speed. Passengers held the yarn as long as possible, maintaining the connection to the faces disappearing onshore. But finally, one by one, the balls ran out. The strings of yarn flew free, rising on the breeze."

"Bride and bridegroom performed the Dance of Isaiah. Hip to hip, arms interwoven to hold hands, Desdemona and Lefty circumambu- lated the captain, once, twice, and then again, spinning the cocoon of their life together. No patriarchal linearity here. We Greeks get mar ried in circles, to impress upon ourselves the essential matrimonial facts: that to be happy you have to fund variety in repetition; that to go forward you have to come back where you began."

"as difficult for me as identifying guests in my parents' wedding al- bum, where all the faces wear the disguise of youth."

"Historical fact: people stopped being human in 1913. That was the year Henry Ford put his cars on rollers and made his workers adopt the speed of the assembly line. At first, workers rebelled. They quit in droves, unable to accustom their bodies to the new pace of the age. Since then, however, the adaptation has been passed down: we've all inherited it to some degree, so that we plug right into joy- sticks and remotes, to repetitive motions of a hundred kinds. But in 1922 it was still a new thing to be a machine. On the factory floor, my grandfather was trained for his job in seventeen minutes. Part of the new production method's genius was its division of labor into unskilled tasks. That way you could hire anyone. And fire anyone. The foreman showed Lefty how to take a bearing from the conveyor, grind it on a lathe, and replace it. Hold- ing a stopwatch, he timed the new employce's attempts. Then, nod- ding once, he led Lefty to his position on the Line. On the left stood a man named Wierzbicki; on the right, a man named O'Malley: For a moment, they are three men, waiting together. Then the whistle blows."

"A word on my shame. I don't condone it. I'm trying my best to get over it. The intersex movement aims to put an end to infant gen- ital reconfiguration surgery. The first step in that struggle is to con- vince the world- and pediatric endocrinologists in particular- that hermaphroditic genitals are not diseased. One out of every two thou- sand babies is born with ambiguous genitalia. In the United States, with a population of two hundred and seventy-five million, that comes to one hundred and thirty-seven thousand intersexuals alive today."

"which (on the heads of soldiers) had chased my grandparents out of Turkey, staining the earth a dark maroon. Now here they were agan, in Detroit, on the heads of two handsome young Negroes. (And fezzes will appear once more in my story, on the day of a funeral, but the coincidence, being the kind of thing only real life can come up with, is too good to give away right now.)"

"Generally speaking, Americans like their presidents to have no more than two vowels. Truman. Johnson. Nixon. Clinton. If they have more than two vowels (Reagan), they can have no more than two syllables. Even better is one syllable and one vowel: Bush. Had to do that twice. Why did Mario Cuomo de- cide against running for President? What conclusion did he come to as he withdrew to think the matter through? Unlike Michael Dukakis, who was from academic Massachusetts, Mario Cuomo was from New York and knew what was what. Cuomo knew he'd never win. Too liberal for the moment, certainly, But also: too many vowels."

"a sniper is cowardly, sneaky; he kills from a distance, unseen. It was convenient to call them snipers, because if they weren't snipers, then what were they? The governor didn't say it; the newspapers didnt say it; the history books still do not say it, but I, who watched the en- tire thing on my bike, saw it clearly: in Detroit, in July of 1967, what happened was nothing less than a guerrilla uprising. The Second American Revolution...the revolution wasn't televised. On TV they called it only a riot."

"

The bedroom grows still. Inside my mother, a billion sperm swim upstream, males in the lead. They carry not only instructions about eye color, height, nose shape, enzyme production, microphage resis- tance, but a story, too. Against a black background they swim, a long white silken thread spinning itself out. The thread began on a day two hundred and fifty years ago, when the biology gods, for their own amusement, monkeyed with a gene on a baby's fifth chromo- some. That baby passed the mutation on to her son, who passed it on to his two daughters, who passed it on to three of their children (my great-great-greats, etc.), until finally it ended up in the bodies of my grandparents. Hitching a ride, the gene descended a mountain and left a village behind. It got trapped in a burning city and escaped, speaking bad French. Crossing the ocean, it faked a romance, circled a ship's deck, and made love in a lifeboat. It had its braids cut off. It took a train to Detroit and moved into a house on Hurlbut; it con- sulted dream books and opened an underground speakeasy; it got a job at Temple No. 1… And then the gene moved on again, into new bodies . . . It joined the Boy Scouts and painted its toenails red; it played "Begin the Beguine" out the back window; it went off to war and stayed at home, watching newsreels; it took an entrance exam; posed like the movie magazines; received a death sentence and made

a deal with St. Christopher; it dated a future priest and broke off an engagement; it was saved by a bosun's chair .. . always moving ahead, rushing along, only a few more curves left in the track now, Annapolis and a submarine chaser . . . until the biology gods knew this was their time, this was what they'd been waiting for, and as a spoon swung and a yin yin worried, my destiny fell into place … On March 20, 1954, Chapter Eleven arrived and the biology gods shook their heads, nope, sorry … But there was still time, everything was in place, the roller coaster was in free fall and there was no stopping it now, my father was seeing visions of little girls and my mother was praying to a Christ Pantocrator she didn't entirely believe in, until fi- nally- right this minute! -on Greek Easter, 1959, it's about to hap- pen. The gene is about to meet its twin. As sperm meets egg, I feel a jolt. There's a loud sound, a sonic boom as my world cracks. I feel myself shift, already losing bits of my prenatal omniscience, tumbling toward the blank slate of person- hood. (With the shred of all-knowingness I have left, I see my grand- father, Lefty Stephanides, on the night of my birth nine months from nOW, turning a demitasse cup upside down on a saucer. I see his cof- fee grounds forming a sign as pain explodes in his temple and he top- ples to the floor.) Again the sperm rams my capsule; and I realize I can't put it off any longer. The lease on my terrific little apartment is finally up and I'm being evicted. So I raise one fist (male-typically) and begin to beat on the walls of my eggshell until it cracks. Then, slippery as a yolk, I dive headfirst into the world."

"on the other side of these proper emotions was an altogether improper relief. The worst had happened. This was it: the worst thing. For the first time in her life my grandmother had nothing to worry about. Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. Id like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train- car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." Id like to show how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age.? Id like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." Ive never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've en- tered my story, I need them more than ever. I can't just sit back and watch from a distance anvmore. From here on in, everything I'll tell you is colored by the subjective experience of being part of events. Here's where my story splits, divides, undergoes meiosis. Already the world feels heavier, now I'm a part of it. I'm talking about bandages and sopped cotton, the smell of mildew in movie theaters, and of all the lousy cats and their stinking litter boxes, of rain on city streets when the dust comes up and the old Italian men take their folding Chairs inside. Up until now it hasn't been my world. Not my Amer- ica. But here we are, at last."

"Not only are they widely set (like Jackie O.), they're big. Too big for a baby's face. Eyes like my grandmother's. Eyes as big and sad as the eyes in a Keane painting. Eyes rimmed with long, dark eyelashes my mother couldn't believe had formed inside her. How had her body worked in such detail? The complexion around these eyes: a pale olive. The hair: jet black. Now press all the buttons at once. Can you see me? All of me? Probably not. No one ever really has. As a baby, even as a little girl, I possessed an awkward, extrava- gant beauty. No single feature was right in itself and yet, when they were taken all together, something captivating emerged. An inadver- tent harmony. A changeableness, too, as if beneath my visible face there was another, having second thoughts."

"The only way to check the amount of film left in the camera was by reading the counter inside the lens. In the middle of Christmas scenes or birthday parties there always came a moment when Milton's eve would fill the screen. So that now, as I quickly try to sketch my early years, what comes back most clearly is just that: the brown orb of my father's sleepy, bearish eye. A postmodern touch in our domestic cinema, pointing up artifice, calling attention to me- chanics. (And bequeathing me my aesthetic.) Milton's eye regarded us. It blinked. An eye as big as the Christ Pantocrator's at church, it was better than any mosaic. It was a living eye, the cornea a little bloodshot, the eyelashes luxuriant, the skin underneath coffee- stained and pouchy. This eve would stare us down for as long as ten seconds. Finally the camera would pull away, still recording. Wed see the ceiling, the lighting fixture, the floor, and then us again: the Stephanides."

"

"Oh, I see.? And now pink gums disappear as Miss Marsh begins to add it all up. Let's see. Southern Mediterranean. One point. Not in one of the professions. One point. Religion? Greek church. That's some kind of Catholic, isn't it? So there's another point there. And he has his parents living with him! Two more points! Which makes- five! Oh, that won't do. That won't do at all. To explain Miss Marsh's arithmetic: back in those days, the real estate agents in Grosse Pointe evaluated prospective buyers by something called the Point System. (Milton wasn't the only one who worried about the neighborhood going to hell.) No one spoke of it openly. Realtors only mentioned "community standards" and selling to "the right sort of people.? Now that white flight had begun, the Point System was more important than ever. You didn't want what was happening in Detroit to happen out here."

"With the same concentration he trained on the aorist tense of ancient Greek verbs - a tense so full of weariness it specified actions that might never be completed - Lefty now cleaned the huge picture windows, the fogged glass of the greenhouse, the sliding doors that led to the courtyard, and even the skylights. "

"Did they display mechanical ingenuity? Or a commitment to the Protestant work ethic? In a word: no. There is no evidence against genetic determinism more persuasive than the children of the rich. The Charm Bracelets didn't study. They never raised their hands in dass. They sat in the back, slumping, and went home each day carry- ing the prop of a notebook. (But maybe the Charm Bracelets under- stood more about life than I did. From an early age they knew what little value the world placed in books, and so didn't waste their time with them. Whereas I, even now, persist in believing that these black marks on white paper bear the greatest significance, that if I keep writing I might be able to catch the rainbow of consciousness in a jar. The only trust fund I have is this story, and unlike a prudent Wasp, I'm dipping into principal, spending it all . ."

"But what about the discrim- ination of being sent to war? Which sex was really thought to be expendable? I felt a sympathy and protectiveness for my brother ld never felt before. I thought of Chapter Eleven in an army uniform, squatting in the jungle. I imagined him wounded on a stretcher, and I started to cry. The voice on the radio droned on: "February twenty- first- one hundred and forty-one. February twenty-second-seventy- four. February twenty-third -two hundred and six.?"

"There were clusters of freckles on her forearms and wrists, an entire Milky Way spreading across her forchead, even a few sputtering quasars flung into the wormholes of her ears. Since we're in English class, let me quote a poem. Gerard Manley Hopkins's "Pied Beauty," which begins, "Glory be to God for dap- pled things.? When I think back about my immediate reaction to that redheaded girl, it seems to spring from an appreciation of natural beauty. I mean the heart pleasure you get from looking at speckled leaves or the palimpsested bark of plane trees in Provence."

" It was hard on my organism. My nervous system launched into "Flight of the Bumblebee" The violins were sawing away in my spine. The timpani were banging in my chest. At the same time, trying to conceal all this, I didn't move a muscle. I hardly breathed. That was the deal basi-cally: catatonia without; frenzy within."

"Oh yeah," said Jerome. "All kinds of strange epiphenomena." The Oracle of Delphi had been a girl about my same age. All day long she sat over a hole in the ground, the omphalos, the navel of the carth, breathing petrochemical fumes escaping from underneath. A teenage virgin, the Oracle told the future, speaking the first metered verse in history. Why do I bring this up? Because Calliope was also a Virgin that night (for a little while longer at least). And she, too, had been inhaling hallucinogens. Ethylene was escaping from the cedar swamp outside the shack. Dressed not in a diaphanous robe but a Pair of overalls, Calliope began to feel very funny indeed. "Want another beer?" Jerome asked.

"Ecstasy. From the Greek Ekstasis. Meaning not what you think. Meaning not euphoria or sexual climax or even happiness. Meaning, literally: a state of displacement, of being driven out of one's senses. Three thousand years ago in Delphi the Oracle became ecstatic every single working hour. "

"

It was called evolutionary biology. Under its sway, the sexes were separated again, men into hunters and women into gatherers. Nur- ture no longer formed us; nature did. Impulses of hominids dating from 20,000 B.C. were still controlling us. And so today on televi- sion and in magazines you get the current simplifications. Why can't men communicate? (Because they had to be quiet on the hunt.) Why do women communicate so well? (Because they had to call out to one another where the fruits and berries were.) Why can men never find things around the house? (Because they have a narrow field of vision, useful in tracking prey.) Why can women find things so casily? (Because in protecting the nest they were used to scanning a wide field.) Why can't women parallel-park? (Because low testosterone inhibits spatial ability.) Why won't men ask for directions? (Because asking for directions is a sign of weakness, and hunters never show weakness.) This is where we are today."

"

But it's not as simple as that. I don't fit into any of these theories. Not the evolutionary biologists' and not Luce's either. My psycho- logical makeup doesn't accord with the essentialism popular in the intersex movement, either. Unlike other so-called male pseudo- hermaphrodites who have been written about in the press, I never felt out of place being a girl. I still don't feel entirely at home among men. Desire made me cross over to the other side, desire and the faciticity of my body. In the twentieth century, genetics brought the Ancient Greek notion of fate into our very cells. This new century we've just begun has found something different. Contrary to all expectations, the code underlying our being is woefully inadequate. Instead of the expected 200,000 genes, we have only 30,000. Not many more than a mouse."

"

"There have been hermaphrodites around forever, Cal. Forever. Plato said that the original human being was a hermaphrodite. Did you know that? The original person was two halves, one male, one female. Then these got separated. That's why everybody's always searching for their other half. Except for us. We've got both halves al- ready?' I didn't say anything about the Object. "Okay, in some cultures we're considered freaks," she went on. But in others it's just the opposite. The Navajo have a category of Person they call a berdache. What a berdache is, basically, is someone Who adopts a gender other than their biological one. Remember, Cal. Sex is biological. Gender is cultural. The Navajo understand this. If a person wants to switch her gender, they let her. And they don't denigrate that person- they honor her. The berdaches are the shamans of the tribe. There the healers, the great weavers, the artists."

"From Zora's manuscript I became acquainted with the hijras of India, the kwolu- antmivols of the Samba in Papua New Guinea, and the gueredoche of the Dominican Republic. Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, writing in Germany in 1860, spoke of das dritte Geschlecht, the third gender. He called himself a Uranist and believed that he had a female soul in a male body. Many cultures on earth operated not with two genders but with three. And the third was always special, exalted, endowed with mystical gifts."

"

It would not be strictly truthful to say that he was afraid. Milton Stephanies did not admit to being afraid. The physiological mani- festations of fear, the racing heart, the torched armpits, went on in him without official acknowledgment. He wasn't alone among his generation in this. There were lots of fathers who shouted when they were afraid or scolded their children to deflect blame from them- selves. It's possible that such qualities were indispensable in the generation that won the war. A lack of introspection was good for bolstering your courage, but in the last months and weeks it had done damage to Milton. Throughout my disappearance Milton had kept up a brave front while doubts worked invisibly inside him. He was like a statue being chiseled away from the inside, hollowed out. As more and more of his thoughts gave him pain, Milton had in- creasingly avoided them. Instead he concentrated on the few that made him feel better, the bromides about everything working out. Milton, quite simply, had ceased to think things through."

"I wanted to take a nostalgia bath to calm my nerves before seeing my mother. The streets were still full of trees, bare in winter, so that we could see all the way to the frozen river. I was thinking how amazing it was that the world contained so many lives. Out in these streets people were embroiled in a thousand matters, money problems, love problems, school problems. People were falling in love, getting married, going to drug rehab, learning how to ice-skate, getting bifocals, studying for exams, trying on clothes, getting their hair cut, and getting born. And in some houses people were getting old and sick and were dying, leaving others to grieve. It was happen- ing all the time, unnoticed, and it was the thing that really mattered."

"

Like the Sun Belt or the Bible Belt, there exists, on this multifari- ous earth of ours, a Hair Belt. It begins in southern Spain, congruent with Moorish influence. It extends over the dark-eyed regions of Italy, almost all of Greece, and absolutely all of Turkey. It dips south to include Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Egypt. Continuing on (and darkening in color as maps do to indicate ocean depth) it blan- kets Syria, Iran, and Afghanistan, before lightening gradually in In- dia. After that, except for a single dot representing the Ainu in Japan, the Hair Belt ends. Sing, Muse, of Greek ladies and their battle against unsightly hair! Sing of depilatory creams and tweezers! Of bleach and beeswax! Sing how the unsightly black fuzz, like the Persian legions of Darius, sweeps over the Achaean mainland of girls barely into their teens! No, Calliope was not surprised by the appearance of a shadow above her upper lip. My Aunt Zo, my mother, Sourmelina, and even my cousin Cleo all suffered from hair growing where they didn't want it to. When I close my eyes and summon the fond smells of childhood, do I smell gingerbread baking or the pine-fresh scent of Christmas trees? Not primarily. The aroma that fills, as it were, the nostrils of my memory is the sulfurous, protein-dissolving fetor of Nair."

"It occurred to me today that I'm not as far along as I thought. Writ- ing my story isn't the courageous act of liberation I had hoped it _would be. Writing is solitary, furtive, and I know all about those things. I'm an expert in the underground life. Is it really my apolitical temperament that makes me keep my distance from the intersexual rights movement? Couldn't it also be fear? Of standing up. Of be- coming one of them. Still, you can only do what you're able. If this story is written only for myself, then so be it. But it doesn't feel that way. I feel you out there, reader. This is the only kind of intimacy I'm comfortable with. Just the two of us, here in the dark."

"

Don't be so naive, Milt," Jimmy Fioretos again. "Who do you think's jamming the radar? It's the Americans, Milt. It's us.?" "How do you know!" my father challenged. And now Gus Panos through the hole in his throat: "It's that god- damned -sssss- Kissinger. He must have- ssssss- made a deal with the Turks." "Of course he did? Peter Tatakis nodded, sipping his Pepsi. "Now that the Vietnam crisis is over. Herr Doktor Kissinger can get back to playing Bismarck. He would like to see NATO bases in Turkey? This is his way to get them? Were these accusations true? I can't say for sure. All I know is this: on that morning, somebody jammed the Cypriot radar, guaranteeing the success of the Turkish invasion. Did the Turks possess such tech- nology? No. Did the U.S. warships? Yes. But this isn't something you can prove .."

"The Object slept on her back. She told me once that back-sleepers were the leaders in life, born performers or exhibitionists. Stomach- sleepers like me were in retreat from reality, given to dark perception and the meditative arts."

"

Like a convert to a new religion, I overdid it at first. Somewhere near Gary, Indiana, I adopted a swagger. I rarely smiled. My expres- sion throughout Illinois was the Clint Eastwood squint. It was all a bluff, but so was it on most men. We were all walking around squint- ing at each other. My swagger wasn't that different from what lots of adolescent boys put on, trying to be manly. For that reason it was convincing. Its very falseness made it credible. Now and then I fell out of character. Feeling something stuck to the bottom of my shoe, I kicked up my heel and looked back over my shoulder to see what it was, rather than crossing my leg in front of me and twisting up my shoe. I picked correct change from my open palm instead of my trouser pocket. Such slips made me panic, but needlessly. No one no- ticed. I was aided by that: as a rule people don't notice much. It would be a lie to tell you I understood everything I was feeling. You don't, at fourteen. An instinct for self-preservation told me to run, and I was running. Dread pursued me. I missed my parents. I felt guilty for making them worry. Dr. Luce's report haunted me. At night, in various motels, I cried myself to sleep. Running away didn't make me feel any less of a monster. I saw ahead of me only humilia- tion and rejection, and I wept for my life. But in the mornings I woke up feeling better. I left my motel room and went out to stand in the air of the world. I was young, and, despite dread, full of animal spirits; it was impossible for me to take a dark view too long. Somehow I was able to forget about my- self for long stretches. I ate doughnuts for breakfast. I kept drinking Very sweet, milky coffee. To lift my mood, I did things my parents wouldn't have let me do, ordering two and sometimes three desserts"

"

San Francisco, that cold, identity-cleansing mist that rolls over the city every day, explains better than anything else why that city is what it is. After the Second World War, San Francisco was the main point of reentry for sailors returning from the Pacific. Out at sea, many of these sailors had picked up amatory habits that were frowned upon back on dry land. So these sailors stayed in San Francisco, growing in number and attracting others, until the city became the gay capital, the homosexual Hauptstadt. (Further evidence of life's unpredictabil- ity: the Castro is a direct outcome of the military-industrial complex.) It was the fog that appealed to those sailors because it lent the city the shifting, anonymous feeling of the sea, and in such anonymity per- sonal change was that much easier. Sometimes it was hard to tell whether the fog was rolling in over the city or whether the city was drifting out to meet it. Back in the 1940s, the fog hid what those sailors did from their fellow citizens. And the fog wasn't done. In the fifties it filled the heads of the Beats like the foam in their cappucci- nos. In the sixties it louded the minds of the hippies like the pot smoke rising in their bongs. And in the seventies, when Cal Ste- phanides arrived, the fog was hiding my new friends and me in the Park."

[yuzuyoon]

the baby star candy nickname was actually given from the bighit staff in one of jk’s posts, i think it was because of their birthday and ever since then armys have stuck with it and try to add more stuffs or just combine wtv words sound cute 🥴 its weird af how they see him as all cute and innocent but at the same time they want sexualize him to the point they say things like they want to fuck w him….. there’s a different between seeing someone as both cute and hot versus seeing someone as an innocent baby yet also be sexually attractive to them. weird af. but what can anyone except from a fandom who ships members between them only bc they get angry if they date or just hangout w a woman 😭😭

i can get behind calling idols cute. i even can get behind finding cute clips of idols and saying that it's "baby" because let's be real, "baby" has about 50 million meanings nowadays that don't literally mean "a baby." i can't get behind saying stuff like that to the point where people would think you're talking about an infant if the post was taken out of context. and then going and posting about the idol in borderline sexually vile ways.

i call jimin cute all the time because i find him adorable. am i going to make a post about how he's a cute baby that cant do anything wrong and is too pure for this world and whatever else people say? no?? because it's weird. even trying to figure something to say for that sentence took me a hot minute and lowkey gave me the ick

on another note, i got excited seeing female staff accompanying jimin and jungkook for their show. the bar is so low 😭 i need another bts x female collab song at some point. like a properly promoted, main track, they're together for performance type deal. we got spoiled with the slow dance live clip. i was lowkey expecting sofia to have recorded stuff back in america so seeing her with jimin made me so happy

[needyoulikeaheartbeet]

the tortured poets department: the anthology - first listen

THIS IS SO EXCITING So I have been exhausted 25/8 because of work and my body constantly aching from long covid (i love ma life) so I only got to listen the next day I tried to stay up until midnight but I literally only made it to ~11:45 lmao

My eyes popped out of my head when I woke up to a double album drop - 31 SONGS TO LISTEN TO IN ONE GO I WAS SO HYPE I also laughed bc ofc taylor did a surprise release and now we have 31 new gems to treasure HERE ARE MY FIRST THOUGHTS !!

1. Fortnight SOFT SYNTH OH HER VOICE?????  OH I LIKE THIS  Y DID THAT REMIND ME OF FLORENCE OL ENDLESS FEBRUARY… I LOVE YOU ITS RUINING MY LIFE  I really like post malone  HELL YA  FLORIDA She said america its like she said my name

2. The Tortured Poets Department Ok drum O no fuckin body alright gf SPARKLY Charlie poot  You awaken with dread, pounding nails in your head  I laughed in your face and said - i like how she sings that!!! Wow her lows and highs in this song are wild! Bridge is best rn in this song !! oh wow jack lucy wowee  Omg the ring?????????????  Hello jack

3. My Boy Only Breaks His Favourite Toys Oh okay her VOICE Miss voice The deep parts helloooooooooooo  This wasnt the sound i thought we’d get for this song at all but this is cool (i was expecting like a sultry old timey jazzy "my boy" song in the same like arena of the start of christmas tree farm old timey version lmao) Litany This is gonna get stuck in my head often i can already see it i can already tell  Danger in the heat of my touch  Once i fix me hes gonna miss me???? Wow thats so real  Told me im BETTER OFF  Imma shake my fist

4. Down Bad THIS SOUND HELLO? Ok but her oice?????  YAAAA What is this noise bro  Oo cosmic love But the way she sings the verses???  Ofc hi jack  Its gonna grow on me ik aaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAA bubble sound There are so many f words  I might just die it would make no difference real  Ok but these worbly sounds are nice  THAT SOUND AT THE END GIVES lana vibes

5. So Long London Hello choir  Oh so SO long LONG OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Lmao Oh  Ok i kinda love htis  Ok i love her VOICE HELLO?  OO Omg Omg Omg THE SPINE BRAIN MAKE LAUGH LINES WOEOWOEWOEOWE (why did i write brain? HAHA) OH THE TRAGEDY STUF that is so good  Whoa holy shit the lyrics  ALL THAT YOUTH FOR FREE???? N HER VOICE? WOW  2 graves 1 gun  OH LAYERING IS THAT PIANO OR SYNTH IDK ITS SO GOOD My mouth has been open Her voice im screaming i love it and the FASTNESS SO GOOD  THAT GUITAR  Bro????????????????????????? I want to put this on repeat

6. But Daddy I Love Him I want to prance on my tip toes and throw leaves one by one  Reminds me of a 2000s movie Omg jack and aaron on this one  Im vibin Ok bitchin Omg thats a WILD part lmfaooo HELLO?  Thats kind of crazy lmaoooo like i get it but wowee  Its giving ours vibes  Im having his BABY? yeah you should see my face LMAO What is happening in this song lmao IM NOT CATCHING ALL THE LYRICS YET ITS TOO SOON AND NOW I FEEL LIKE THAT MR KRABS MEME   i like when she sings it was chaos etc

7. Fresh Out The Slammer OH HELL YEAH ELL  YEAH I AM ALREADY INTO IT Interesting drum  Wow her range in this song too that was so low  Is that a violino PRETTY MELODY O it slowed down  Ok i like the ending bit

8. Florida!!! her vocals MUAH LIL REVERBY GUITAR the drums threw me off ok florence vocals! so flowy bodies body in my mind they sink into the swaMP???? ok the home and town part is nice at the end here oo

9. Guilty As Sin? Ok beat AM I ALLOWED TO CRY !!!!! Ok chorus is NICE  Ok so far this is my second fave!!!!!!  Ok i really like this  WHAT IF HES WRITTEN MINE ON MY UPPER THIGH ONLY IN MY MIND Without ever touching his skin HOW CAN I BE GUILTY AS SIN BEECH Theyre gonna crucify me anyway HOLD ME OO Wow religious hello  Nice bridge Oh I choose you and me religiously eEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Oh wow interesting way to jump back into the chorus that is different I LIKE IT Ok IM INTO THIS

10. Who's Afraid Of Little Old Me? This is reminding me of 2013 idk why  OHHHHHHH YOUDONT GE TTO TELL ME ABOUT SAD YES BEECH OH WOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW YES  OK YES  The guitar and the intonation and her VOICE YES SCREAMIN HELL YAAA Omg i love this  Ok another top song  Omg i love this  Ok this is #2 … or #1… !! Everything about this !!!!!!!!  WHOS AFRAID OF LITTLE OLD MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEe SELF WRITTEN YAS Oh the but what ifs so real lmaoo  Omg yes Asylum where they raised me?? Bb :(  drunk on my own tears???  Lol put narcotics into all my songs ha ha Circus life made me mean Lured hurt taught caged ??? calle dcrazy? Aw :( i am what i am cause you traine dme??? Oh

11. I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) Ok i liked that first sound Good guitar Shes delulu ? Texas part was lana like Wow face… that was really low   Domme vibes ????? good boy? Come closer? Ill show you heaven if youll be an angel all night? Okkkkkkkk maam ! Oh i liked i told you hes my man hec ya Lmao whoa maybe i cant thats funny

12. loml Pinnano Ok this is going to be nice  Omg i thought i was better safe than starry eyed ok!!!!! This sounds sweet  I like  Topper  Aw the way she said you said im the love of your life about a million times  Blew in with the winds of fate omg  Omg the fakes line  CONMAN WOW Omg never before and ever since HER VOICE STHUSHGRJ THIS IS A STORY WOWOEWOE OWEER I love this Omg the vocals in th eback  Mr steal your girl then make her cry wow  UNRECALL SONG!! Omfg cant get out of bed bc something counterfeit is dead OKKKKKKK This is a top song Valiant roar  Bland goodbye Woweweowoeoweooweotwetirfv Nfkjnksjnsn Braids of lies !!!!!!!!!!!!! This is so good stfu :(  OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD YOURE THE LOSS OF MY LIFE SHUT THE FUCK UP SOMEONE GUESSED IT WOULD GO FROM LOVE OF MY LIFE TO LOSS OF MY LIFE SHU T UPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP Im crying btw holy shit that was so good.

13. I Can Do It With A Broken Heart Oh zippy  HEY EY EY Lol  Aw while on tour Mirroball? Hello lol  He said he’d love me all his life  Omg thats so fuNNYYYYYYYYYYYYY SHUT UP LMAO Barbie !! It's giving Barbie!! LOL Im laughing so much this is great  Im so depressed, i cry a lot  Amaizing. So real. What a professional  LMAO i cannot  IM SO DEPRESSED I AC TLIKE ITS MY BIRTHDAY EVERY DAY <3  I CRY A LOT BUT I AM SO PRODUCTIVE ITS AN ART Ok i love this so much lmaoooo  Cause im miserable! And nobody even knows!!! What a professional queen  LMAO TRY AND COME FOR MY JOB? I love her stfu  I wanna listen to it again please omg

14. The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived Ofc jw lmao help me  who the fuck was that guy  Oh the beat is building  Omg ? Who tf ghosts taylor swift ? im gonna fight Rusting my sparkling summer wow  Oh my god this is savage i dont miss what we had but could someone give a message to the smallest man who ever lived KNGKJFNG Deep voice Oh bridge vocals YAAAAAA STRINGS YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA You deserve PRISON?? GIRLL Slip through the bars that was nice  CRASHED MY PARTY NICE  PERFORMING nice i love how shes singing these parts !!!!!!!!!! Ok i like how that tied up and ended neat

15. The Alchemy Ok i like this alreadyyyyyyyy It's reminding me of Glitch??? idk why Love white wine  Ok yaaa ! Smooth  Low vocals allooo  But even the instrumentals i love  Top ranking  song  Oh winning streak sound in the back i love

16. Clara Bow Ok i like the heaviness of the guitar yes Think i might die! Aw lights of manhattan  Promise to be dazzling Stringy sound!!  Stevie nicks!  Knew this was aaron  Suits in LA - i love when she does this in songs man idk she does it so well :)  Im dancing  Beauty is a beast etc nice  Girlish glow flickers just so omfg nice  Its hell!! On earth!! oMG THIS PART IS SO NICE STFU You look like taylor swift?? Omg  The futures bright dazzling DUDE SHE DOES THIS SO WELL SHUT UP I LOVE SONG WRITER TAYLOR SWIFT. this is so soft Reminds me of The Lucky One

17. The Black Dog This sounds sad already Oh  Oh that is sad Oh its a bar You forgot to turn it off  :c  Best laid plans!!!!!!!!!!  Oh in the shower  Rain soaked body was shaking omg ............................. IS THIS MY SHOW. ok erica not everything is abt u BREATHING CLEAN AIR SMOKE OGMKGJF Aw :( set fire to all my clothes  hello jack Omg our/my dreaming

18. imgonnagetyouback WE WONT GET FOOLED AGAIN NONO Thats the vibe Ok nvm

Oh Thats nice This will grow on me fr sure NICE BRIDGEEE LOL even if handcuffed Oooo play the game part Im poison either way skfjdn Ok going back into chorus was v nice end chorus is so nice w back vocals

19. The Albatross AARON VIBES  I like how her voice sounds it is TO MY TASTEEEE Ok this is a top so far i think  It is giving folklore  Oooo vocal range  I'm dancing And i tried to warn you about them that is very taylor sounding 

20. Chloe Or Sam Or Sophia Or Marcus Why cant my name be chosen Oh i like the piano hello??????  My bones out?  Oh the guitar? Bro this is SO pretty Oh this is so good wowowowow Its building up ?? i love this This tops the albatross  Depths of your sigh??  Her breathin?? Float in your orbit Her voice !!! stop it! I love this SAY YOU LOVED ME AAAAAAAA Oh vocals i love Will i always wonder TOP SONG HOLY SHIT i am hurt

21. How Did It End? Ok hi vocal i love u  SO MUCH? Wow Omg the QR CODES Flower! I love the piano and her voice wow  Oh i love that so much the VOCAL TUNE Learned the right steps to different dances!!! Top song i think idk omg  I would do so bad singing to this by myself between verse and chorus oof lol Oh guitar heading into bridge i loooooooooooooove this stuff Yes aaron My beloved ghost and me thats cute I cant pretend like i understand either

22. So High School GUITAR BEBIIIIIIIII very good DRUMS This is p different!! LOW Cute this is giving like 2000s romcom vibe  Lol thats cute marry kiss or kill me INTERVIEW - OMG BETTING ONALL THREE?  Awwww car door This is so cute Ok this part is cute and catchy you knew what you wanted and boy you got her !!  She is so in luv very cute  Ok im dancin this is really cute I feel so high school every time i look at u !! TRUTH DARE SPIN BOTTLES thats so catchy i love it  I can dance around to this for sureeEEEEEEEEEEEEe ok i love

23. I Hate It Here I hear u countin This is so aaron I like the concept of secret gardens I also hate it here  1830s good clarification omg shes so right This is good??? LUNAR VALLEYS !!!! Only the gentle survived Wow this is so REAL I dreamed about it in the dark the night i felt like i might die? Omg. is she me?  This is very real i am hurting Ill save all my romanticism??? HELLO? Made me feel worthless? CURRENT FLIES THROUGH ME? LOVE  Wow i love this song? This is a top im not kidding  An anthem  YOU ARE A POET TRAPPED INSIDE THE BODY OF A FINANCE GUY LMAO?  Sorry Finance guy 

Thats so funny I loved this song Im kinda crying now though i feel seen  Tbt the story i tried to write in high school called the art of disappearing

24. thanK you aIMee I like her voice  Down the stairs? I cri lmao  I cant forget the way you made me heal!!  Laughing at each baby step i take? Same searing pain!!!  Aw. prayed that one day i could say !!!  You know what i am totally with this fuck you aimee hell yeah  KGNKFSJGFSNGFSKG ANDREA LMFAO PLEASE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WISHED YOU WERE DEAD??? ANDREA!!!! LOL  OMG I BUILT A LEGACY THAT YOU CANT UNDO. GOOSEBUMPS.  Wow  Bro this is good?  Aw bea tmy spirit black and blue  Im laughing so much about andrea PLEASE Aw i pushed each boulder up that hill  This sounds country This warm my heart idk ilu taylor what a complex feeling to capture

25. I Look In People's Windows Same Dancing to this guitar  I spied the catch in your breath ooo  Chorus is fun  Omg what if your eyes looked up and met mine OOOOO LOVE VOCALS If someone looked at me while i was looking into their house id scream This is a nice song  Does it feel alright to not know me  OMG Im addicted to the if onlys  This is so good LOL like im some deranged weirdo  The downtown part man wow

26. The Prophecy I heard the countin  Oooo i like where this guitar is taking us  Ok so far im enjoying this  Caught lightning in a bottle  Oh!!! Cursed like eve ot bitten!!  Change the prophecy wow  Aw Just wants someone who wants my company :(  Ok dude this is so good??????  This is literally so good?  DRUMS HELLO IM HYPE  Very last drops of an ink pen  This is so good????? BUT EVEN STATUES CRUMBLE IF THEYRE MADE TO WAIT Greige Aw So someone will tell me itll be okay Is that string instrument?? This song is the version of the hello god its me when will it be my turn meme Omg vocals wow that was magical  REminds me of seven

27. Cassandra Placing daydreams  PIANOOOOOOOOOO Omg in ym tower weaving nightmares? They say what doesnt kill you makes you aware what happens if it becomes who you are  Payroll line is like the vibe i thought my boy etc wouldve sounded  Omg no one heard NICE SNAKES omg i understand  Do you believe me now omg  A mourning warning no one heard wow  Omg she sang so low how does she do that

28. Peter Oh i LOVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE this piano  I wanna learn it  This is self written  Omg peter pan???  Promises ocean deep but never to keep Is the sound muffled I LOVE THAT OLD TIEMY 25???  Oh shelf life omg  Lost to the lost boys chapter of your life !! Oooo the way she sang the light speak now vibe  I really love the piano  the repetition is an interesting choice i need my brain to process it and figure out what it mean

29. The Bolter I like the soun I like story :)  Cute melody  Oh WHORE ok!! caught me off guard ngl  lmaoo  As she was leaving it felt like breathing !!!!!!!!!!!!!! Making him care oh All roses portrait poses omg  LOL what a charming saturday!  Oooooooooo littlest leaks  races/aces sound nice  Escape in escaping nice  Hands around each others shoulders and swaying to the beat and singing lmao  Then i would jump abt all her lives lol  Sounds nice 

30. Robin Pinnano Her voice sounds so clean and smooth  Omg thats the aaron beat  Wow deep voice Her range  Aaron guitar sounds or is tha tbass  Looooooooooooooooooooooong may you roar  In sweetness  tiger…WOODS?  Tbh idk whats happening in terms of lyrics i am not processing them right now but her voice is pretty  This is about a child? And childhood before you are CORRUPTED ? owwie :( wholesome :(

31. The Manuscript PINNANO Good voice i like I love the story tellin  Is this the first time she said sex  I eat kids cereal  Oh :( owwie Aaron sounds  Good vocal omg One last souvenir  Oh but the story isnt mine anymore wow!!!  What a journey! 

this album is incredible

[tenaciouspostfun]



Nimbus Blog

WHAT'S HAPPENIN' NEW YORK

a look inside the great white way by Broadway Bob

All American Sex Addict/Woke AF

4/3/2024

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​"All American Sex Addict/Woke AF" at The Sargent Theatre of Actors is unique play. The real positive about this play is the even level of actors in this show; no one stands above the other in any noticeable way. In many off off Broadway shows one or two actors are leaps and bounds above the rest of the cast, but not here:the blend and workmanship is pretty consistent throughout the 80 minutes due to nice direction by Phoebe Leonard- Dettmann. While the female actors put forth a better performance than the male actors, the plot of the story keeps the audience locked in and we never really see any weak links.

Reminiscent of the 80's, 90's and well into the 2000's, off off Broadway had many shows like this one... raw, edgy and in your face; after Covid, however, many of the off of went the way of climate change, political and LGBTQ. It left a vacuum of what was off off Broadway and what it should be. Oddly enough, "All American" focused on the woke but in a fun way, a comical way. It poked fun at the up tightness of the politically correct, it drove a spike in a way at the heart of the easily offended. We get a debate about whether there is a such thing as a sex addict. According to Jack (Peter Buck Dettmann) there is, he has written a screen play that says so. Unfortunately, the people involved in the story are offended by the many things that Jack has to say. Jack will defend his writing by stating that there is no one more woke than himself.

As Jack is a real character, he firmly believes what he is doing and who he is doing it too is correct and justifiable. His ex girlfriend, Ashley (Shelby Allison Brown) has had it with him, she feels that Jack has not captured her in the movie. Andie (Danielle Aziza) who is pragmatic and the voice of reason tries to reel in the movie with her thoughts and comments. More insults fly when Riley (Alex Mayer) enters the play. She too is insulted at her being portrayed in a negative light. In Matt Morillo's play, we get a smattering of the absurd, and what it is like to live today in America.

Under greens, blues and cool white lighting, Maile Binion keeps the lighting basic. As in the staging, the basic lighting is unassuming and yet effective. The costumes range from creative to erotic. Where the policewoman's uniform was a comical touch, Riley's costume near the end of the performance was oozing sexuality, her dance was the creative highlight of the show.

Even though the show about an hour in gets slow for about 5 minutes, it is a worthwhile show to see. It has a bohemian edge to it as well as comedy and the PC bantering has the audience taking sides. In this small theater the audience feels like part of the action which adds to the plays allure.

......................................................................................................................

Next up is The Sign of The Times at The New World Stages. Based on a tale set in the 1960's and amid social change it features songs from that era.

Songs like Downtown", Rescue Me", and "Give me some lovin are just a few in this anticipated show. Jukebox musicals are dependent on the staging, acting and the songs that are chosen. It always helps too when the lighting hits the mark and that the costumes are believable as well.

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ROBERT M. MASSIMI

is a resident drama critic for Metropolitan Magazine and other sources.  He has produced a dozen plays on Broadway, has worked as a film editor, and is also a member of the Dramatists Guild.  He is the acting director of  the SWM-NY division.

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[harrelltut]

HIM [JEHOVAH] WAR [JW] REPORTS [Jr] on MICHAEL's [GOD's]... 1968 Hi:teKEMETIC Gen X DNA Cloud [D.C.] Compu_TAH [PTAH] of Highly Official... U.S. Ægiptian Deutsch Military [DM] King TUTANKHAMÚN's Afterlife RNA [TAR = TARTARIAN] NANOTECHNOLOGICAL Records from 1943 Langley Field, VA

IMMORTAL U.S. MILITARY KING SOLOMON-MICHAEL HARRELL, JR.™

everything official... no theories... all 9 ether scientific facts 

EYE LOVE [EL] WAR on Earth [WE]

[moondonky]

Lowkey Sailing

Wise words from my father, Sorry are relationship wasnt what u expected lol.. my favorite line rn, idgaf damn near cut off everyone, clippin and jigging with an idea in my head, gaining knots.. I'm glad I don't talk much, that I don't trust much, I camouflage everything but me, I don't need a ship to swim but I have one..

Effin millennial why not, when by myself I don't have to worry about much, can be wild without sum chick judging me expecting sum gay standard, or my attention lol, I only drive fast when I'm alone, risks I take are my own, i dont need anyone whispering to chill or slow down,, done resting and thinking and poking and testing but still waiting and watching, when it comes to the winds it's all about timing.. lol u know what's funny all I really want is an r2d2 trashcan ai robot that follows me around,, and has a little safe compartment to hold my gun and valuables, and it'd be like a giant cellphone robot that can send messages for me, and hold all my private data. they should make that lol instead of like missles and weapons of war..

U know to me society has been playing the same game, working the same job, at least in America, it's like part of growing up, like a next chapter, America is in its dirty thirtys right now, if u compared to an age lifespan,, other countries old af set in ways, why america innovates, still young more skilled, it's like growing up, twenties was the buildup, room for fun but eventually, u take on some responsibility and u move up.. u gotta earn ur right to start building by contributing, that is America.. they can say whatever they want America was never capitalistic, of course they would they've turned everything into a buisness there no longer services,, they can twist the constitution but there's nothing wrong with it,, just doing it wrong lol.. u know what there really afraid of, let me whisper in your ear, there afraid of everyone in mass trending ideas and as a majority telling them what the fuk they should be doing like a fucking employee, cuz if there gonna be a fucking business there gonna be we the people's fucking business, imma call tax a subscription, should be worth it,, and it should be a dollar amount not a percentage, for everyone, even if u make millions or have to pay with ur free welfare, a number everyone can afford lol