#And then hop in a jam jar to save the future

[completeoveranalysis]

[5]

I got a little carried away there But there are some more things I want to talk about. 

(Let's not all act surprised at once)

Like, this is the first time THIS version of Watanuki (post Memory Loss) is seeing his (probable?) parents’ faces. He can’t remember what they looked like or much about them, so THIS will be his first formative moment actually ever seeing them. 

I also quite like the look of shock on Lava Lamp’s face. UNDERSTANDABLE. He’s been going through quite a lot of Events all at once, and now suddenly time is collapsing, his (probable) parents are out of their jam jar prison looking the same age as him, and also his brother/twin/clone/other self has just shown up unannounced as they all hang out in the void. I would be shocked too!

Meanwhile, some other minor details! Their mother(?) looks at Watanuki with so much instant affection that I have no doubt that these probably are their parents, even if Clamp haven’t said the words “These are their parents” just yet. There’s such a gentle relief and unfiltered joy in her gaze as she looks to Watanuki - they had hoped for him to continue to exist, and here she can finally see that the wish came true. 

Also. Complete side note, but the more I try to describe who I'm talking about the more I realise there is a hilarious number of Syaorans and Sakuras on this page. 

Like, how many Syaorans are there? Two? NOPE sorry there are three Syaorans here, and maybe two Sakuras - but one of the Sakuras is actually the combination of two different Sakuras at once. And depending on Time shenanigans, the number of Sakuras is actually anywhere between 1 and 4 - but technically 2 for now!

But speaking of Syaoran mathematics let’s also look at the right-most Syaoran’s expression there. Would you say it’s mostly neutral? A little… emotionless? 

An interesting detail wouldn’t you say? 

I’ve lightly suggested it in passing before but now I’m mostly convinced that, actually, yes, Clamp probably would write a timeline where your clone is also your dad.

And there IS space in the timeline for it. Right after Nihon - Syaoran vanishes for an indeterminate amount of time. Enough time to make this all make sense? PERHAPS.

And if that was true then my other leading guess would be that the Super Sakura would be their mother…? Eventually? Which would mean that she’s in this picture twice here.

[berlysbandcamp]

Force Majeure is an uplifting suite of real, soulful comfort music – an album that cathartically encapsulates an all-too-familiar human experience of 2020. Featuring 11 pieces performed by bassist Dezron Douglas & harpist Brandee Younger across a series of live-streamed shows from their living room in Harlem, NY, the album was self-recorded by the duo using just a single microphone. The same day Governor Andrew Cuomo shut down “non-essential” businesses throughout the state of New York, Douglas & Younger set up a window to the world that would prevail as a weekly musical reprieve over the devastating weeks and months to come. As the early effects of covid-19 plagued the citizens of New York City, Douglas & Younger did as we were all ordered to do — shelter-in-place. From their apartment in Harlem, their reflex as players and community-builders was immediate. Broadcasting via social media and spreading the word to friends and family, the duo hosted “Force Majeure: Brunch in the Crib with Brandee & Dezron,” a Friday morning live stream where they performed songs, said “hi” to friends tuning in, and passed a digital tip jar. The name “force majeure” — known to diligent contract-readers as a seldom-invoked bit of legalese that voids commitments in event of “extraordinary circumstances” — was, for Douglas & Younger, a reference to the sudden loss of livelihood that they and their musician peers suffered in the wake of covid-19. “We vowed to become a part of the resiliency of this city,” says Douglas. “You can take the work away, but you can’t stop musicians from being creative. Live streaming is just a part of it. The world as a whole saw that arts & entertainment is an integral and vital part of this ‘service’ city. We, musicians and creatives, are as essential to this city as the MTA is. The NYC community responded with love and honesty on a high level. Expression became vital for people to make it through the day and, at the same time, listening and watching expression became vital.” The success of Douglas & Younger’s initial live streams turned their series into an ongoing weekly ritual for a fast-growing audience of supporters. For most, it was a momentary musical break that helped ease the stressful weeks of lockdown, even as the weeks turned into months and the re-opening date extended further and further into the future. In late May, as the country erupted over the compounded murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and countless other Black Americans, Douglas & Younger continued to connect from their Friday morning platform, uniting with more and more people through the healing power of playing, sharing, and listening. The series got attention from NPR, The Wall Street Journal, Boiler Room, Downbeat, and others; but regardless, finding the creative energy to devote to the project was a regular challenge for the two musicians. “Sometimes it was hard to be creative because the mood in the world was so dark, but every Friday we felt compelled to give back and allow GOD to heal through vibration,” says Douglas. Not only was the human connection vital, the duo felt a responsibility as stewards of music’s future. “Whatever the next thing is, I will make it a point to be involved because Music saved my life, saves lives, and must be taken care of.” The repertoire that Douglas & Younger performed began with standards they knew and music they wanted to learn (or “get inside of,” as Douglas often said), but evolved on a week-to-week basis to incorporate shifting emotions, milestones, and special requests from friends and family. Younger recalls: “In choosing the repertoire we played, it was definitely more organic and personal. When we realized a birthday of a certain artist or holiday was coming, we'd do something in dedication… Sometimes we'd pick the rep based on our mood. On those very dark days that Dez mentioned, we'd play “Sing" to perk up the mood. Something about that song just brings smiles all around. It was very hard to fake when the mood was dark, though. Marvin Gaye helped us out a lot during that time, as did some spirituals.” With what became their brunch staples they covered a broad range of memories and sounds, including classics by The Stylistics, The Jackson 5, Alice & John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Kate Bush, Sting, and The Carpenters, as well as a co-written original composition with which they ended every set, “Toilet Paper Romance.” From the earliest sessions, the duo worked alongside International Anthem to review the weekly recordings; together they compiled, edited, and eventually arrived at the stream-to-songbook of Force Majeure. Between the choicest takes of tunes chosen for the final album sequence, they put excerpts of their sometimes cute or comedic, often profound banter. Notably Douglas’s voice ends both side A and side B with off-the-cuff variations of: “Black Music cannot be replicated, it can only be expressed.” Like poetic bookends for Force Majeure, his words could also serve as foundational principles for the work, underscoring the importance of authenticity and integrity in music. Douglas elaborates: “Black Music, no matter what genre, is exactly what it is — Music created by Black Musicians for the sake of vibrating on our own frequencies of understanding and empathy. I love all music, but I also recognize that music is a cultural and regional vibration. You don’t have to be Black to play Black music, but if you are out here making money off of Black Culture and have no empathy for the People and the Culture then you are even more part of the problem. Black Lives Matter because for a long time our lives didn’t matter and it was Normal — normal to society and normal to us as Black humans. What’s different between then and now is the fact that the Virus has given people time to focus on the current social media platform used to document evil in this world. The filming and documentation of the loss of human life to evil is more powerful than Politics and Government. It’s LIFE showing us how Inhumane we are as a Human Race. Yet we still haven’t figured it out yet. Let’s hope we aren’t the catalyst for this planet to implode. That would be unfortunate considering we have the chance to fix it. We have the chance to do right by Mother Nature and we have the chance to do right by each other. We always have a chance. Change is inevitable, but is evil and selfishness and self-righteousness a part of change? Certainly! Is Love and Empathy and Humanity a part of change? Most definitely! What side are you on? We are on the side of Love.” Douglas & Younger understand that the revolution begins with a transformation of the heart. And for the heart to be transformed, it must be lifted up. “This album is a testament to the power of music to uplift us through the most challenging times,” says friend, collaborator, and fellow International Anthem recording artist, Makaya McCraven. Force Majeure is an uplifting suite of real, soulful comfort music – a spiritual salve, emanating warmth from the hearth of a Harlem sanctuary. - bio by Joe Darling & Scott McNiece - Bassist, composer, bandleader, and educator Dezron Douglas has established himself as a major force in contemporary creative music. A protégé of the great Jackie McLean, the Downbeat Magazine 2019 Rising Star is known for his work with Pharoah Sanders, Ravi Coltrane, Cyrus Chestnut, David Murray, Louis Hayes, and also with piano legends George Cables, Eric Reed, Mulgrew Miller and Benny Green. Douglas has recorded on more than 100 albums, contributing to the artistry of numerous bandleaders and maintaining an integral presence in the sounds of his peers, which include Keyon Harrold, Jonathan Blake, Melanie Charles, and Makaya McCraven. He is an active music educator, currently on the Jazz Studies faculty at NYU Steinhardt. He has released 6 albums as a lead artist and maintains a variety of projects that he uses as platforms for his compositions. His band, Black Lion, released their latest single “COBRA” in October of 2020. Harpist, composer, educator, and concert curator Brandee Younger is known for her work with Ravi Coltrane, Moses Sumney, Lauryn Hill and producer Salaam Remi. The New Yorker has described her instrumental craft as “radiant playing ... as cogent on hip-hop and R&B albums as it is set against classical and jazz backdrops.” Her work often extends to illustrious heights, featured by Beyoncé in Netflix’s concert documentary Beyoncé: Homecoming as well as Quincy Jones and Steve McQueen in 2019’s “Soundtrack of America” series. She recently joined the harp faculty at NYU Steinhardt and the New School in Manhattan. When Alice Coltrane passed away in 2007, her son Ravi Coltrane asked Younger to perform at the memorial. Her performance “moved me and everyone in attendance from the first glissando,” Coltrane told the New York Times. “No harpist thus far has been more capable of combining all of the modern harp traditions — from Salzedo, through Dorothy Ashby, through Alice Coltrane — with such strength, grace and commitment.” Younger recently signed to Impulse! Records, with whom she has a new album planned for release in 2021. Douglas & Younger are long-time companions in life and in music. The two East Coast natives met early in life and have accompanied each other, personally and professionally, through equally prolific careers. “Brandee and I met in college, University of Hartford, Hartt School of Music, back in 2001,” remembers Douglas. “Her practice room was across the hall from mine. We began a friendship instantly through music and Black culture. We would jam a lot in college when she wanted to practice ‘Jazz.’ She was a Classical Harp and Music Business double major and she was heavily influenced by Jazz and Black Music so I sort of became an outlet for her to walk on the wild side in the eyes of University and Classical politics.” To this day, Douglas and Younger often accompany each other in the ensembles they lead, respectively. The two have played together in the Ravi Coltrane Quartet, with The Baylor Project, and in sessions for Makaya McCraven’s 2018 release Universal Beings, on which they are both featured artists. Force Majeure is their first release as a duo.

[gemder]

a bubbline wip, featuring a dissociative episode by our fave punk rock vamp. set shortly after Stakes.

She doesn't know how long she's been hovering over the couch like this, with her gaze trained on the bumps and dips on the ceiling and her bass planted in her arms. How many times has she sung that old song, so old and resilient it survived the death and rebirth of the world (and the both of hers twice over, now) just by hiding in the corner of her mind she doesn't like to visit? She can't see the sun or moon rise through the entrance to her hideaway from this part of the house, and the cave-imposed darkness tells her nothing of the time or how much of it has passed.

She doesn't dare budge from her spot. She's been turned twice now; she knows from experience that any sudden action, anything to startle her base thought process, could spark that bloodlust from last time. That was some ugly biz, if she remembers correctly. It's been a while, but something like an uncontrollable urge to drain the lifeforce of every living creature within 30 miles sticks to you. She's just going to have to wait it out, until the itch in the back of her throat dies down and she doesn't worry it'll become an insatiable burning for hot blood, no matter how long it takes.

Marceline has had an excessive amount of time to learn how to be alone; 1003 years, in fact. So why does it never get any easier? Why does being left never hurt any less? Why does she seem to be so completely destined for eternal loneliness? What asshat decided she deserved to spend the entirety of her neverending life without a single constant presence?

Mom went out with promises of keeping safe and finding food and I love you so much, sweetie, that alone is strong enough to bring me back to you. It took two weeks before little Marcy came to the conclusion that her mom wasn't coming back with food or supplies, or even returning empty handed. Simon let a stupid magical crown take over every single cell of his brain and wrote a bunch of scattered letters about it while it happened instead of, you know, telling the frightened 7 year old she was going to be left soon. Dad just up and left to go back to running the Nightosphere after a few weeks, with nary a parting word nor any notice. Her post-apocalyptic comrades had no choice but to flee from an otherwise inevitable extinction. Bonnie had to go and grow up, and in the process decide that her 900-something year old girlfriend wasn't mature enough.

(She checked that old, busted up camper as often as she could over the following months. There was never another life in that thing after she hopped down the little steps and let the screen door slam back with the carelessness of a 6 year old.)

(She found a decomposed corpse months later that just happened to be wearing some torn up rags that looked like her mom’s old sweater and jeans. It must have just been a coincidence, though; there were a lot of recently dead back then, and even more moth-eaten sweaters in the world.)

(“I’m trying to save you, but who's going to save me?” ‘I don't know, old man, maybe you could have saved yourself? You could have not purposely used the magical relic that was making you go bananas?’ If a 7 year old could make it through the apocalypse without magic then so could a fully grown man.)

(He left her to survive on her own in the name of being executive manager of hell and he still wonders why she wants nothing to do with him, why she used to have such a hard time so much as calling him “dad” when he’s never been anything like what she was lead to believe dads were supposed to be like.)

(She’s 1000 years old, how in the name of the nightosphere could she not be mature enough?)

(Over the years she’s replaced the world “hell” with “Nightosphere” the same way the being once referred to as “God,” back when even she was young, is now called by their proper name of Glob. The Nightosphere really is hell, so it fits.)

(Sometimes she takes the time to think about how she's the heir apparent to the actual, literal, real life hell, and how she's one of the oldest beings around these days, maybe the oldest to still really be sane, but still a messed up teen.)

(She doesn't know how old she was when she was turned; years and months and all that are hard to keep track of when the species that invented it is all but extinct. Is she old enough to drive? Probably. She does and can regardless, because screw the old ways. Old enough to drink, smoke, vote? Debatable. The point is that she’s 1000 years old but actually, like, 18. What the fuck.)

She drifts, both mentally and physically. She's had plenty of time and isolation to ponder the Big Things about life and the world and why and how things happened the way they did, and what it means. She will have an abundance of opportunities in the future to think about these things, too. Some day she'll reflect on this part of her life in the far away, nostalgia-filtered sepia tones she currently thinks of her childhood and adolescence. She'll remember when Finn and Jake were the heroes of Ooo, when Simon used to chase after princesses who will have long since passed, when she couldn't get over her ex-girlfriend who happened to be sentient candy. It will be distant and she will miss it terribly, the same way she misses her mother, and Simon when he was Simon, and fries in a long-abandoned diner. But it will be a wound long since closed and numbed, like the deep scar she got on her calf sometime in her early teens that still exists today, preserved in her immortality and a sentimentality that prevented her from insta-healing it away, sting and blood long gone.

She has forever to reminisce, but only right now to live in the present. She makes mental patterns in the bumps on the ceiling, and slowly loses grip on her body. She is a million miles upwards, where the sky holds no oxygen and the stars are still pinpricks in a sea of indigo construction paper. Like a kid poking holes in the top of a jar of lightning bugs, equipped with a fork and enthusiasm at being able to destroy something for the sake of encapturing something else. She is, at the same time, hovering above her uncomfortably hard couch. One of her hands slips from its place atop her bass, and Shwabl licks it from his spot next to her on the dusty carpet.

She doesn't hear the knock at the door. She is right there, but she is centuries back and in a different part of the continent entirely. She doesn't hear Bonnie getting increasingly agitated, trying and failing not to raise her voice at her through the door. She doesn't notice when Bonnie lets herself in regardless of Marceline’s lack of response, or when Shwabl jumps up to attention at the guest.

It's the “Marceline, what -” that breaks her dissociative spell. That tone of exasperation in that particular voice is a very familiar one, especially within the last decade. She comes to to find that there are fresh tears in the corner of one eye and the words to a song as old as her youth on her lips.

“Oh, hey Bombòn. How goes it girl?” Marceline has had a millennium to convince the world that she's chill and totally not a big mess, and it shows in the lilt to her voice that screams ‘I'm just chillin’’ and not ‘I've been dissociating and crying and probably singing for who-knows-how-long and I'm really messed up’. She still doesn't dare move from her spot, because moving around could still trigger what she's trying to wait out.

“It's been three weeks, Marcy. Three weeks, and all that heavy biz, and no one's heard from you since. Doesn't that seem even a little bit irresponsible to you? Didn't you think people would worry? Or even wonder ‘hey, what happened to that girl who saved all our butts and got revampified?’”

“Dude, I've just been chilling. You know how it is; jams, games, pets, it keeps a girl busy. It’s cool. Ice cold, in fact.”

Bonnie sighs. Marceline has heard that sigh a million and three times over by now, and she's learned to like that particular sound from the pink girl; it's the one thing about herself that she can't manage to sweeten to the point of oversaturation, until it (like the rest of her) is practically dripping sugar. Marceline likes to deal with the authentic rather than the idealized versions of people, because the latter rarely ever means anything good is coming her way.

(She rationalizes that the Ice King component of Simon, while not idealized, is not authentic in the least; the products of full humans getting mixed up with magic seldom are. The authentic Simon Petrikov is the one who found a 6 year old girl in the ruins of a suburban New Mexico town and still had enough selflessness in the aftermath of the apocalypse to comfort her and take care of her.)

The sigh doesn't lead to the reprimanding the vampire expects. Instead, she watches as Bonnie leans down in her peripheral vision to pet Shwabl, expression focused intently on the dog. She's doing that same schooled neutrality shit she used to do during those globawful trade meetings - the ones Marcy used to steal her away from the go gallivanting through the rock candy mines.

“What kind of sweet tunes have you whipped up, then? Lay it on me girl.”

Marceline lets her face adopt a smirk - the expression has become a reflexive habit after centuries of being a bitter undead loner - even as something in her stomach drops. Bonnie rarely asks about her music because she knows so much of it is personal, and that which isn't is vulgar or morbid and prone to being shared regardless, not to mention the fact that Bonnie’s interests definitely don't lie in the arts, or punk rock music, or most of the uglier parts of Marceline.

“You know my latest album is the epitome of personal mush, Bons. It's so personal I'd have to kill you if you heard any of it. But, I do have a new demo about a fisherman.”

Bonnibel definitely wants something out of her; she has that smile she reserves for Cinnamon Bun and Finn when he's going on about dumb 13 year old boy things, the one that's polite and reservedly encouraging, the one that Marcy has always found to be condescending although it always looks as sweet as its wearer who is literally made out of candy, almost as sweet as the girl’s public persona.

The thing about being 1000 years old and also a teenage girl is that you spend forever being a socially-minded person on some level or another, because back in the day that's how girls were socialized to be - social-driven creatures who cared more about what Allyson wore on Tuesday or what Theresa said about Serena in math class than anything practical. So Marceline has had a long time to notice the tells and ticks of the select few she surrounds herself with often enough to care about. PB smiles like her kindergarten teacher used to on particularly trying days when she thinks the people she's with are idiots but can't call them out for it. Her eyebrows droop when she's so tired that sheer willpower will no longer keep them up. She plays with her hands when she's nervous. She used to chew on her hair when she was younger and in the process of creating her kingdom, when stress was a new feeling she hadn't yet made a feedback loop out of.

This is totally, completely because of the sexist socialization of the old world, and nothing else. Totally not because they dated for a good chunk of time, or because one or the other might, maybe be having rose-coloured thoughts about the other again.

“Everyone and their granny has heard that one, Marcy. If you've had all this time to do nothing but groove and game then I wanna hear some tunes! Don't be a butt about it.” She's trying to gode the older girl, but Marceline is itching to get out of this particular conversation. Somewhere in her cursed, mostly re-dried blood she knows this is a test.

“I don't bust into your lab and start interrogating you about your experiments - can you just lay off, man?” she says it more harshly than she had meant to, but being yanked back to reality and immediately questioned over every move will do that to a person. “Tell me what's been going on in Candyland. You finally get all the earwax off of your junk?”

“You know if you did ask about my science experiments I would be happy to tell you all about them - well, the ones that aren't classified. It's called caring, Marce, it's a thing that friends do.”

A tense silence follows as Marceline thinks of something biting (but not petty!) to throw back at her.

“And yeah, actually, I did. The dingus left a huge mess but there's nothing my purple cleaner can't get rid of.”

Bonnie can't leave a single box unticked, can she?

“Glob, that stuff is nasty. The fumes make me gag, and I don't even need to breathe!”

The princess raises a brow at her. The queen furrows both of hers in frustration and fixes her gaze back on the bumps on the ceiling. When she was younger she used to make images out of the dips and dots in the kindergarten room ceiling; the RV’s was smoothed and didn't allow that particular part of her imagination to play around.

“And I think the expression you're looking for is sharing is caring, Bubs. It's a thing they used to say waaaaaaaay back in the day whenever the old people got tired of little kids fighting over toys.”

*******

this was gonna be a longfic feat. mutual pining by our fave disaster gays and more references to marcy’s life pre- and during the apocalypse bc i have a lot of feelings about Stakes. might come back to it, who knows!!!

[adambstingus]

7 WTF Sex Scenes That Will Destroy Your Sanity

Sex scenes, while occasionally controversial, are a fairly regular part of cinema, from Eyes Wide Shut to Boogie Nights to Casablanca before they had to cut out all the orgy scenes. But in addition to their ability to titillate, certain movies (especially horror) like to get real creative with how far they can stretch the definition of erotica. And while some sexual experimentation can make for a great anniversary, too much of it might just put you off having sex for the rest of your life.

We’d warn you of all the nudity in this article, but it’s honestly the least inappropriate content you’re going to find compared to …

7

Denise Richards Does A Striptease For A Dinosaur’s Disembodied Brain

Post-Jurassic Park Hollywood tried to jam dinosaurs into just about every movie, from The Flintstones to that movie where Whoopi Goldberg was legally forced to solve crimes with a dino buddy. Then there’s Tammy And The T-Rex, an instant classic where Denise Richards plays a girl whose dead boyfriend (played by Paul Walker) has his brain transplanted into a robotic dinosaur. Why not a real dinosaur? Because that would be ridiculous.

You’d think the screenwriters would have their hands full with the whole cyborg tyrannosaurus plot, but they somehow managed to also find time to add in a whole bunch of weird sexual tension throughout the movie– like a schoolyard fight that results in a surprising amount of dick-grabbing.

Scenes like the penis pinch seem out of place in Tammy And The T-Rex, which is quite the achievement if you think about it, but that’s not the movie’s fault — it’s the fault of uptight censors. You see, the movie was originally intended for mature audiences, with its violent scenes eventually cut out for the American release, such as this moment where the lovable T-Rex rips a guy’s head off.

But the weird sex stuff was totally fine for preteens, so that was left in. The very final moment of the film features a particularly baffling attempt at sexiness. After removing her boyfriend’s brain from the T-Rex, it now lives a hellish existence in a petri dish in Denise Richards’ room, wired to a camcorder that cruelly has the lens cap on while she’s out.

So what does she do to satiate Paul Walker’s existential agony? In a moment that was trimmed down for the PG version, she does an elaborate striptease. It’s pretty much the closest we’ll ever get to seeing what Krang’s bachelor party would look like.

And because the brain that lives on her nightstand obviously doesn’t have a penis, it reacts to arousal by ejaculating sparks all over her teddy bear, which is a fire hazard.

The movie ends with Richards jumping on the bed for the really naughty stuff to happen. Of course, we don’t get to see any of that because the movie fades to black.

The brain in the jar also can’t see any of that, because the bed is out of its field of vision. Brains don’t have arms, Denise, you need to move the camera for him! Or, y’know, unplug him and let him pass blessedly on into eternity. Whichever.

6

Ninja Women Dispatch Enemies With Their Magic Genitals

It’s a common movie trope that the femme fatale assassin uses her sexuality to eliminate her target. But Female Ninjas Magic Chronicles 3: Sacred Book of Sexual Position (not a porno) boldly asks the question, “What if female assassins literally used their genitals to kill people?”

The sequel to a movie in which the Catholic Church hides treasure maps in vaginas, Female Ninjas Magic Chronicles 3 finds a gang of (not surprisingly) female ninjas seeking an ancient book of sexual positions. Along the way, they have to best a series of warriors with their feminine ninjitsu skills … which mainly involves them getting molested and then erupting vengeance from various orifices. For example, one ninja quickly transitions from sex to squirting a guy in the face with acid breast milk, like some misguided erotic version of the dilophosaurus attack in Jurassic Park.

Cinefile Videos

Cinefile Videos “No use dying over spilt milk.”

In another hectic battle, one ninja busts out the aptly named “Vagina Bubbles From Hell”– a slow-moving mass of vaginal soap suds …

Cinefile Videos

… And this lethal bubble bath literally kills a dude, who we can only assume went to the afterlife red with embarrassment.

That’s not even the dumbest vagina-related magic power in the movie. That honor is reserved for the powerful mystic who turns her enemies’ … uh, goo, into a weapon with her vagina silly-string (from Hell).

5

The Hilarious Werewolf Threesome In The Howling II

Werewolves combine the worst parts of puberty: the rampant hormonal rampages and the unfortunate body hair. So, despite the Twilight saga’s most mediocre efforts, you can’t make a werewolf sexy. Case in point, The Howling II.

A sequel to the werewolf classic, with a subtitle that sounds like a line from Dracula’s Friars Club roast, Howling II: … Your Sister Is A Werewolf opens with Christopher Lee. In space. Talking about werewolf boning. Don’t worry, the British accent totally sells it.

After all that build-up about “beasts” and “fornications,” we finally see the Werewolf Queen’s castle, a temple of sin filled with … old people, for some reason. Apparently, the werewolf community is totally cool with senior citizens getting bussed to their Zorro-themed orgies.

Three of the werewolves splinter off to a candelabra-filled bedchamber to have a threeway. Well, we say “threeway,” but it’s mostly just a whole lot of watching and not a lot of movement. For all of Christopher Lee’s ranting about the abject sin of lycanthropy, these two hairy asses are fumbling about like it’s werewolf prom night at their werewolf Catholic school.

Eventually, the Werewolf Queen joins in, but seemingly goes to great effort not to physically touch the other werewolves, probably because the filmmakers didn’t want her $200 manicure getting tangled up in all that recycled pubic hair.

If there was a porn parody of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats directed by someone who had never had sex before, this is probably what it would look like:

4

A Nurse Bangs An Anatomically Correct Medical Dummy In Front Of A Child

Pin is a Canadian horror movie about a young man who kills people because a medical dummy told him to.

In a flashback, the killer’s backstory shows that his doctor father used the anatomically correct dummy to teach his kids. He even did the voice of the dummy, just to maximize the chance of future psychic traumas.

Eventually, his son starts to think the dummy is real. It doesn’t help his delusion when the kid catches a nurse using the dummy as a marital aid.

What starts as some gentle petting quickly turns into a speedy run-through of years of sexual education for the peeping tom …

… Then she crushes that dummy’s ass in what the Kama Sutra calls the “Loveless Marriage Lotus.” The kid’s reaction shot says it all.

With this brief but potent girl-on-medical-equipment action, we now know exactly (through shared trauma) why this child becomes a deranged killer. That’s one psychosis out of the way, but what about the nurse’s? The movie never explains what the hell is going on with her. Do the filmmakers think that this how health care providers spend their coffee breaks? Why don’t we follow her around for ninety minutes and see where that angel of death vibe may lead? Probably to a mannequin store.

3

Jason Voorhees Kills A Potential Threesome In The Wackiest Way Possible

We all know Jason X wasn’t exactly the strongest of the Friday The 13th movies; it has a cast of terrible actors, a spaceship set that looks like a sci-fi-themed Motel 6, and a musical score that was likely played on a toddler’s bumblebee-shaped keytar. But it did do the one thing all Friday The 13th movies are supposed to: make teens everywhere regret wanting to have sex.

The movie finds a group of futuristic students on a field trip in space when the frozen body of Jason Voorhees comes to life and starts murdering people — another good reminder of why permission slips always need to be signed. At one point, the intrepid group of survivors trap Jason in what’s basically a holodeck simulation of a country resort, in a desperate attempt to slow him down with wistful nostalgia.

Worried that Jason won’t simply drop his machete in favor of drinking mai tais in a deck chair, they add in some horny teenagers …

… Who immediately get naked and try to seduce a confused Jason …

Jason, even though it wasn’t on the menu, picks the murder option. He lets the naked child-supervisors get into sleeping bags and then beats one sleeping bag against the other sleeping bag …

… And to neatly wrap things up, kills the other counselor with one whack of a sleeping bag to a tree.

Which is both a call-back to Friday The 13th Part VII, and a handy way to save money on gore effects. But let’s go back to the holodeck for a sec. Which future pervert thought it was a great idea to program a university research vessel with the simulation of a summer camp sex fantasy that hasn’t been relevant since the late 80s? Even more disturbing, these topless gals are specifically simulations of Camp Crystal Lake counselors, a place only known in this universe as the site of a famous massacre. What we’re saying is that that sleeping bag whack-a-mole we just saw Jason do is probably the least gruesome act ever performed on that holodeck.

2

Troll 2: The Goblin Queen Bangs A Dude With A Corncob (And Ejaculates Popcorn)

Aside from the fact that it was technically the first Harry Potter movie, Troll 2 is most well known for being possibly the worst movie of all time. Troll 2‘s human protagonists were maybe even less believable than the puppets, so it’s not surprising that the movie’s brief dalliance with eroticism would be about as sexy as sticking your junk into a thresher just because it said it loved you.

The scene in question starts with All-American boy Brent sitting in front of the TV, channel hopping, when suddenly he lands on a woman seductively caressing some corn on the cob — which is some kind of black magic, or the Green Giant commercials used to be a whole lot more fun.

The mysterious temptress then tells Brent to go outside because she’s waiting near his trailer and holy shit, all those beer commercials were right after all!

What Brent doesn’t know is that she’s actually the Goblin Queen, presumably hanging out in trailer parks because she’s fed up with her husband’s baby-stealing and their unnecessarily muppet-filled house. But we can forgive him for being … distracted.

They go back inside the trailer to do it, hard. But she has one condition: the corn gets to play too.

Because this is all part of her evil trick, Brent’s orgasm causes an explosion of popcorn as if he’s part of Orville Redenbacher’s wet dreams …

… Which then almost kills him as he drowns in his own salty, butter-soaked sex corn.

Troll 2 obviously performed very badly at the box office, but this scene makes us wonder if that was merely due to the movie being terrible, or the fact that it showed audiences the most popular concession-stand food covered in sex mucus?

That’s the difference between a regular bad movie and Troll 2. A regular bad movie will ruin 90 minutes of your life; Troll 2 will ruin your moviegoing experience forever.

1

Faust Has The Most Disgusting Sex Scene Of All Time

Faust: Love Of The Damned tells the story of an artist named John Jaspers (thus dodging the litigious wrath of famed artist Jasper Johns) who sells his soul to the devil in order to become a demon superhero and avenge his girlfriend’s death. Think Spawn, but if his mom made his costume for him.

One memorably horrifying scene finds the devil (who in the movie looks like a 90-year-old woman doing her best John Malkovich impersonation) about to get it on with his girlfriend — because in the age of internet dating, there’s always the odd chance that you accidentally wind up going out with the Prince of Darkness …

… But it turns out the woman has crossed him, so as a punishment he uses his evil magic to make her boobs and butt turn gigantic, and then melt. Again, he’s the devil, so we can’t be 100 percent sure this isn’t just some weird demonic foreplay.

Eventually, the seductress is reduced to nothing but a shuddering, liquid, four-leaf clover of female sexuality. It’s a pretty fucked-up, gross scene. If David Cronenberg ever directed an episode of Red Shoe Diaries, this is probably the nightmare factory he’d produce.

You (yes, you) can follow JM on Twitter, or check out his podcast Rewatchability.

For more all time awkward moments in fictional fornication, check out 5 Most Unintentionally Hilarious Movie Sex Scenes and The 6 Creepiest Sex Scenes in Video Game History.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out 5 Sex Scenes Made By People Who’ve Never Had Sex, and other videos you won’t see on the site!

Follow us on Facebook, and we’ll follow you everywhere.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/7-wtf-sex-scenes-that-will-destroy-your-sanity/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/176327569462

[allofbeercom]

7 WTF Sex Scenes That Will Destroy Your Sanity

Sex scenes, while occasionally controversial, are a fairly regular part of cinema, from Eyes Wide Shut to Boogie Nights to Casablanca before they had to cut out all the orgy scenes. But in addition to their ability to titillate, certain movies (especially horror) like to get real creative with how far they can stretch the definition of erotica. And while some sexual experimentation can make for a great anniversary, too much of it might just put you off having sex for the rest of your life.

We’d warn you of all the nudity in this article, but it’s honestly the least inappropriate content you’re going to find compared to …

7

Denise Richards Does A Striptease For A Dinosaur’s Disembodied Brain

Post-Jurassic Park Hollywood tried to jam dinosaurs into just about every movie, from The Flintstones to that movie where Whoopi Goldberg was legally forced to solve crimes with a dino buddy. Then there’s Tammy And The T-Rex, an instant classic where Denise Richards plays a girl whose dead boyfriend (played by Paul Walker) has his brain transplanted into a robotic dinosaur. Why not a real dinosaur? Because that would be ridiculous.

You’d think the screenwriters would have their hands full with the whole cyborg tyrannosaurus plot, but they somehow managed to also find time to add in a whole bunch of weird sexual tension throughout the movie– like a schoolyard fight that results in a surprising amount of dick-grabbing.

Scenes like the penis pinch seem out of place in Tammy And The T-Rex, which is quite the achievement if you think about it, but that’s not the movie’s fault — it’s the fault of uptight censors. You see, the movie was originally intended for mature audiences, with its violent scenes eventually cut out for the American release, such as this moment where the lovable T-Rex rips a guy’s head off.

But the weird sex stuff was totally fine for preteens, so that was left in. The very final moment of the film features a particularly baffling attempt at sexiness. After removing her boyfriend’s brain from the T-Rex, it now lives a hellish existence in a petri dish in Denise Richards’ room, wired to a camcorder that cruelly has the lens cap on while she’s out.

So what does she do to satiate Paul Walker’s existential agony? In a moment that was trimmed down for the PG version, she does an elaborate striptease. It’s pretty much the closest we’ll ever get to seeing what Krang’s bachelor party would look like.

And because the brain that lives on her nightstand obviously doesn’t have a penis, it reacts to arousal by ejaculating sparks all over her teddy bear, which is a fire hazard.

The movie ends with Richards jumping on the bed for the really naughty stuff to happen. Of course, we don’t get to see any of that because the movie fades to black.

The brain in the jar also can’t see any of that, because the bed is out of its field of vision. Brains don’t have arms, Denise, you need to move the camera for him! Or, y’know, unplug him and let him pass blessedly on into eternity. Whichever.

6

Ninja Women Dispatch Enemies With Their Magic Genitals

It’s a common movie trope that the femme fatale assassin uses her sexuality to eliminate her target. But Female Ninjas Magic Chronicles 3: Sacred Book of Sexual Position (not a porno) boldly asks the question, “What if female assassins literally used their genitals to kill people?”

The sequel to a movie in which the Catholic Church hides treasure maps in vaginas, Female Ninjas Magic Chronicles 3 finds a gang of (not surprisingly) female ninjas seeking an ancient book of sexual positions. Along the way, they have to best a series of warriors with their feminine ninjitsu skills … which mainly involves them getting molested and then erupting vengeance from various orifices. For example, one ninja quickly transitions from sex to squirting a guy in the face with acid breast milk, like some misguided erotic version of the dilophosaurus attack in Jurassic Park.

Cinefile Videos

Cinefile Videos “No use dying over spilt milk.”

In another hectic battle, one ninja busts out the aptly named “Vagina Bubbles From Hell”– a slow-moving mass of vaginal soap suds …

Cinefile Videos

… And this lethal bubble bath literally kills a dude, who we can only assume went to the afterlife red with embarrassment.

That’s not even the dumbest vagina-related magic power in the movie. That honor is reserved for the powerful mystic who turns her enemies’ … uh, goo, into a weapon with her vagina silly-string (from Hell).

5

The Hilarious Werewolf Threesome In The Howling II

Werewolves combine the worst parts of puberty: the rampant hormonal rampages and the unfortunate body hair. So, despite the Twilight saga’s most mediocre efforts, you can’t make a werewolf sexy. Case in point, The Howling II.

A sequel to the werewolf classic, with a subtitle that sounds like a line from Dracula’s Friars Club roast, Howling II: … Your Sister Is A Werewolf opens with Christopher Lee. In space. Talking about werewolf boning. Don’t worry, the British accent totally sells it.

After all that build-up about “beasts” and “fornications,” we finally see the Werewolf Queen’s castle, a temple of sin filled with … old people, for some reason. Apparently, the werewolf community is totally cool with senior citizens getting bussed to their Zorro-themed orgies.

Three of the werewolves splinter off to a candelabra-filled bedchamber to have a threeway. Well, we say “threeway,” but it’s mostly just a whole lot of watching and not a lot of movement. For all of Christopher Lee’s ranting about the abject sin of lycanthropy, these two hairy asses are fumbling about like it’s werewolf prom night at their werewolf Catholic school.

Eventually, the Werewolf Queen joins in, but seemingly goes to great effort not to physically touch the other werewolves, probably because the filmmakers didn’t want her $200 manicure getting tangled up in all that recycled pubic hair.

If there was a porn parody of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats directed by someone who had never had sex before, this is probably what it would look like:

4

A Nurse Bangs An Anatomically Correct Medical Dummy In Front Of A Child

Pin is a Canadian horror movie about a young man who kills people because a medical dummy told him to.

In a flashback, the killer’s backstory shows that his doctor father used the anatomically correct dummy to teach his kids. He even did the voice of the dummy, just to maximize the chance of future psychic traumas.

Eventually, his son starts to think the dummy is real. It doesn’t help his delusion when the kid catches a nurse using the dummy as a marital aid.

What starts as some gentle petting quickly turns into a speedy run-through of years of sexual education for the peeping tom …

… Then she crushes that dummy’s ass in what the Kama Sutra calls the “Loveless Marriage Lotus.” The kid’s reaction shot says it all.

With this brief but potent girl-on-medical-equipment action, we now know exactly (through shared trauma) why this child becomes a deranged killer. That’s one psychosis out of the way, but what about the nurse’s? The movie never explains what the hell is going on with her. Do the filmmakers think that this how health care providers spend their coffee breaks? Why don’t we follow her around for ninety minutes and see where that angel of death vibe may lead? Probably to a mannequin store.

3

Jason Voorhees Kills A Potential Threesome In The Wackiest Way Possible

We all know Jason X wasn’t exactly the strongest of the Friday The 13th movies; it has a cast of terrible actors, a spaceship set that looks like a sci-fi-themed Motel 6, and a musical score that was likely played on a toddler’s bumblebee-shaped keytar. But it did do the one thing all Friday The 13th movies are supposed to: make teens everywhere regret wanting to have sex.

The movie finds a group of futuristic students on a field trip in space when the frozen body of Jason Voorhees comes to life and starts murdering people — another good reminder of why permission slips always need to be signed. At one point, the intrepid group of survivors trap Jason in what’s basically a holodeck simulation of a country resort, in a desperate attempt to slow him down with wistful nostalgia.

Worried that Jason won’t simply drop his machete in favor of drinking mai tais in a deck chair, they add in some horny teenagers …

… Who immediately get naked and try to seduce a confused Jason …

Jason, even though it wasn’t on the menu, picks the murder option. He lets the naked child-supervisors get into sleeping bags and then beats one sleeping bag against the other sleeping bag …

… And to neatly wrap things up, kills the other counselor with one whack of a sleeping bag to a tree.

Which is both a call-back to Friday The 13th Part VII, and a handy way to save money on gore effects. But let’s go back to the holodeck for a sec. Which future pervert thought it was a great idea to program a university research vessel with the simulation of a summer camp sex fantasy that hasn’t been relevant since the late 80s? Even more disturbing, these topless gals are specifically simulations of Camp Crystal Lake counselors, a place only known in this universe as the site of a famous massacre. What we’re saying is that that sleeping bag whack-a-mole we just saw Jason do is probably the least gruesome act ever performed on that holodeck.

2

Troll 2: The Goblin Queen Bangs A Dude With A Corncob (And Ejaculates Popcorn)

Aside from the fact that it was technically the first Harry Potter movie, Troll 2 is most well known for being possibly the worst movie of all time. Troll 2‘s human protagonists were maybe even less believable than the puppets, so it’s not surprising that the movie’s brief dalliance with eroticism would be about as sexy as sticking your junk into a thresher just because it said it loved you.

The scene in question starts with All-American boy Brent sitting in front of the TV, channel hopping, when suddenly he lands on a woman seductively caressing some corn on the cob — which is some kind of black magic, or the Green Giant commercials used to be a whole lot more fun.

The mysterious temptress then tells Brent to go outside because she’s waiting near his trailer and holy shit, all those beer commercials were right after all!

What Brent doesn’t know is that she’s actually the Goblin Queen, presumably hanging out in trailer parks because she’s fed up with her husband’s baby-stealing and their unnecessarily muppet-filled house. But we can forgive him for being … distracted.

They go back inside the trailer to do it, hard. But she has one condition: the corn gets to play too.

Because this is all part of her evil trick, Brent’s orgasm causes an explosion of popcorn as if he’s part of Orville Redenbacher’s wet dreams …

… Which then almost kills him as he drowns in his own salty, butter-soaked sex corn.

Troll 2 obviously performed very badly at the box office, but this scene makes us wonder if that was merely due to the movie being terrible, or the fact that it showed audiences the most popular concession-stand food covered in sex mucus?

That’s the difference between a regular bad movie and Troll 2. A regular bad movie will ruin 90 minutes of your life; Troll 2 will ruin your moviegoing experience forever.

1

Faust Has The Most Disgusting Sex Scene Of All Time

Faust: Love Of The Damned tells the story of an artist named John Jaspers (thus dodging the litigious wrath of famed artist Jasper Johns) who sells his soul to the devil in order to become a demon superhero and avenge his girlfriend’s death. Think Spawn, but if his mom made his costume for him.

One memorably horrifying scene finds the devil (who in the movie looks like a 90-year-old woman doing her best John Malkovich impersonation) about to get it on with his girlfriend — because in the age of internet dating, there’s always the odd chance that you accidentally wind up going out with the Prince of Darkness …

… But it turns out the woman has crossed him, so as a punishment he uses his evil magic to make her boobs and butt turn gigantic, and then melt. Again, he’s the devil, so we can’t be 100 percent sure this isn’t just some weird demonic foreplay.

Eventually, the seductress is reduced to nothing but a shuddering, liquid, four-leaf clover of female sexuality. It’s a pretty fucked-up, gross scene. If David Cronenberg ever directed an episode of Red Shoe Diaries, this is probably the nightmare factory he’d produce.

You (yes, you) can follow JM on Twitter, or check out his podcast Rewatchability.

For more all time awkward moments in fictional fornication, check out 5 Most Unintentionally Hilarious Movie Sex Scenes and The 6 Creepiest Sex Scenes in Video Game History.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out 5 Sex Scenes Made By People Who’ve Never Had Sex, and other videos you won’t see on the site!

Follow us on Facebook, and we’ll follow you everywhere.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/7-wtf-sex-scenes-that-will-destroy-your-sanity/

[gossipnetwork-blog]

Justin Timberlake's 'Man of the Woods' Album Review

New Post has been published on http://gossip.network/justin-timberlakes-man-of-the-woods-album-review/

Justin Timberlake's 'Man of the Woods' Album Review

On his fifth album, Justin Timberlake continues to stay dedicated to Timbaland/Neptunes futuresex beats and his familiar lovesound come-ons that have made him the biggest male pop star of his generation. But, as its title implies, much of Man of the Woods also comes with the moonshine-and-mason-jar glisten of country, blues and folk. You might expect a smooth guy like JT to use this backdrop for a pickup-truck cruise across the Florida-Georgia line. Instead, he has something more timely in mind for our new dark age: It’s the end of the world as we know it, and Justin Timberlake wants to have you naked for the apocalypse.

To Timberlake, “rustic” means “survivalist,” as opposed to “downhome,” and he sounds like he has the warmest, coziest doomsday bunker on the prairie. “Some shit’s ’bout to go down, I’ll be the one with the level head,” he croons in “Supplies,” a song where he compares his love to light, firewood and emergency generators. “The world could end now, baby, we’ll be living in The Walking Dead.”

A happy husband and – as of 2015 – a proud papa, Timberlake moves from lothario to white knight, trades his suit and tie for some overalls, and sings about Ron Swansonian ideals like protection, pride and elbow grease. “Livin’ Off the Land,” which starts by sampling a commercial for the History Channel wilderness survival show Mountain Men, mixes stuttering beats with strummed guitars for a working man’s lament about paying off credit card debt to save your relationship. The whining steel guitar and cavernous 808s of the minimalist title track offer a country-rap whisper somewhere between Sturgill Simpson and Ying Yang Twinz. “The Hard Stuff” would be a straight “for better or worse” country radio ballad with Timberlake promising “I’ll be there when the storm comes” if not for its electronic wagon-wheel beat.

Wife Jessica Biel stops by to wax romantic about wearing her hubby’s shirt (“It makes me feel like a woman, it makes me feel sexy it makes me feel … it makes me feel like I’m his”) before the log cabin cuddle “Flannel.” There, Timberlake sings “It’s been with me many winters, it will keep you warm” on a song that sounds like Fleet Foxes’ indie-folk swoon “White Winter Hymnal” with a drum machine. Shortly after Timberlake began dating actress Biel in 2007, that band of indie beardos broke out, and it’s hard not to hear Timberlake similarly seeing love with the same calm, paternal, somewhat retrograde tone of the Fleet Foxes, who once sang “Your protector’s coming home, coming home.”

Man of the Woods takes a while to settle into a rural core. Most of the album’s first half is cosmopolitan future-funk of the highest caliber. It’s hard to call opening track “Filthy” “pop” since the production is so avant-garde. Timbaland and Danja conjure a testosterone electronic chainsaw grind and match it with vintage Larry Graham-style slap bass: The fact that the two musical elements don’t exactly match groovewise creates a beautiful and disorienting tension unlike anything on the radio. “Midnight Summer Jam” is like an update of Earth, Wind and Fire’s “Shining Star” where the hooks are more wine-splashed than sugar-coated. “Sauce” sounds like Primus doing War’s “Slippin’ Into Darkness” – the Chili Peppers need to cover it on their next tour.

All that’s really missing from this part of the LP is Justin Timberlake the pop icon. Instead, JT the co-producer seems more than happy to playing giddy cheerleader and hypeman to these wild beats – adding lines like “Act like the South ain’t the shit!” and “Go ahead, say I won’t!” and “I don’t like it, I love it!” – with his voice pushed a little to the background with no giant hooks to speak of. Some would consider this a waste of one of pop’s greatest showmen, but free your mind and let your ass follow: These are some uptown-funky jams, rare in the hot minute since pop turned narcotic and club-centric.

Of course, by playing so fast and loose with genre, Timberlake fails to see the forest for the trees. Man of the Woods is easily the least cohesive listen from the man who gave us a post-millennial robo-Thriller (2002’s Justified), an EDM-anticipating collection of extended art-pop (2006’s Futuresex/Lovesounds) and two discs of impossibly bloated yet stylistically confident grooves (2013’s 20/20 Experience). Here, Timberlake freely switches between the autobahn and the dirt road, and it’s hard to follow him down every detour. The windswept rural titles of “Montana” and “Breeze Off the Pond” belie the fact that they are basically weakened, post-Weeknd retro-pop. A soulful duet with Alicia Keys that recalls fellow Memphis soul man Al Green’s “Love and Happiness” is nice but inconsequential. On “Waves” he takes a flight to an island and it’s hard to even tell what the cheap-sounding guitars are supposed to evoke. Even standout “Man of the Woods,” gorgeously matching back-porch croon with hip-hop boom, feels a little off when he goes full Trey Songz (“But then your hands talking, fingers walking, down your legs/Hey, there’s the faucet”).

Still, parts of Man of the Woods are his most exploratory music in years, whether it’s the skippy, juddering avant-funk or making meaningful modern countrypolitan without sounding like a disco ball in a Solo cup. It’s not perfect, but you can’t raise a barn without getting your hands dirty.

Take a look back a Justin Timberlake’s greatest music video moments in anticipation of his new album, Man of the Woods. Watch below.

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[readbookywooks]

`I told some of you last Thursday of the principles of the Time Machine, and showed you the actual thing itself, incomplete in the workshop. There it is now, a little travel-worn, truly; and one of the ivory bars is cracked, and a brass rail bent; but the rest of it's sound enough. I expected to finish it on Friday, but on Friday, when the putting together was nearly done, I found that one of the nickel bars was exactly one inch too short, and this I had to get remade; so that the thing was not complete until this morning. It was at ten o'clock to-day that the first of all Time Machines began its career. I gave it a last tap, tried all the screws again, put one more drop of oil on the quartz rod, and sat myself in the saddle. I suppose a suicide who holds a pistol to his skull feels much the same wonder at what will come next as I felt then. I took the starting lever in one hand and the stopping one in the other, pressed the first, and almost immediately the second. I seemed to reel; I felt a nightmare sensation of falling; and, looking round, I saw the laboratory exactly as before. Had anything happened? For a moment I suspected that my intellect had tricked me. Then I noted the clock. A moment before, as it seemed, it had stood at a minute or so past ten; now it was nearly half-past three!

`I drew a breath, set my teeth, gripped the starting lever with both hands, and went off with a thud. The laboratory got hazy and went dark. Mrs. Watchett came in and walked, apparently without seeing me, towards the garden door. I suppose it took her a minute or so to traverse the place, but to me she seemed to shoot across the room like a rocket. I pressed the lever over to its extreme position. The night came like the turning out of a lamp, and in another moment came to-morrow. The laboratory grew faint and hazy, then fainter and ever fainter. To-morrow night came black, then day again, night again, day again, faster and faster still. An eddying murmur filled my ears, and a strange, dumb confusedness descended on my mind.

`I am afraid I cannot convey the peculiar sensations of time travelling. They are excessively unpleasant. There is a feeling exactly like that one has upon a switchback--of a helpless headlong motion! I felt the same horrible anticipation, too, of an imminent smash. As I put on pace, night followed day like the flapping of a black wing. The dim suggestion of the laboratory seemed presently to fall away from me, and I saw the sun hopping swiftly across the sky, leaping it every minute, and every minute marking a day. I supposed the laboratory had been destroyed and I had come into the open air. I had a dim impression of scaffolding, but I was already going too fast to be conscious of any moving things. The slowest snail that ever crawled dashed by too fast for me. The twinkling succession of darkness and light was excessively painful to the eye. Then, in the intermittent darknesses, I saw the moon spinning swiftly through her quarters from new to full, and had a faint glimpse of the circling stars. Presently, as I went on, still gaining velocity, the palpitation of night and day merged into one continuous greyness; the sky took on a wonderful deepness of blue, a splendid luminous color like that of early twilight; the jerking sun became a streak of fire, a brilliant arch, in space; the moon a fainter fluctuating band; and I could see nothing of the stars, save now and then a brighter circle flickering in the blue.

`The landscape was misty and vague. I was still on the hill-side upon which this house now stands, and the shoulder rose above me grey and dim. I saw trees growing and changing like puffs of vapour, now brown, now green; they grew, spread, shivered, and passed away. I saw huge buildings rise up faint and fair, and pass like dreams. The whole surface of the earth seemed changed--melting and flowing under my eyes. The little hands upon the dials that registered my speed raced round faster and faster. Presently I noted that the sun belt swayed up and down, from solstice to solstice, in a minute or less, and that consequently my pace was over a year a minute; and minute by minute the white snow flashed across the world, and vanished, and was followed by the bright, brief green of spring.

`The unpleasant sensations of the start were less poignant now. They merged at last into a kind of hysterical exhilaration. I remarked indeed a clumsy swaying of the machine, for which I was unable to account. But my mind was too confused to attend to it, so with a kind of madness growing upon me, I flung myself into futurity. At first I scarce thought of stopping, scarce thought of anything but these new sensations. But presently a fresh series of impressions grew up in my mind--a certain curiosity and therewith a certain dread--until at last they took complete possession of me. What strange developments of humanity, what wonderful advances upon our rudimentary civilization, I thought, might not appear when I came to look nearly into the dim elusive world that raced and fluctuated before my eyes! I saw great and splendid architecture rising about me, more massive than any buildings of our own time, and yet, as it seemed, built of glimmer and mist. I saw a richer green flow up the hill-side, and remain there, without any wintry intermission. Even through the veil of my confusion the earth seemed very fair. And so my mind came round to the business of stopping,

`The peculiar risk lay in the possibility of my finding some substance in the space which I, or the machine, occupied. So long as I travelled at a high velocity through time, this scarcely mattered; I was, so to speak, attenuated--was slipping like a vapour through the interstices of intervening substances! But to come to a stop involved the jamming of myself, molecule by molecule, into whatever lay in my way; meant bringing my atoms into such intimate contact with those of the obstacle that a profound chemical reaction--possibly a far-reaching explosion --would result, and blow myself and my apparatus out of all possible dimensions--into the Unknown. This possibility had occurred to me again and again while I was making the machine; but then I had cheerfully accepted it as an unavoidable risk-- one of the risks a man has got to take! Now the risk was inevitable, I no longer saw it in the same cheerful light. The fact is that insensibly, the absolute strangeness of everything, the sickly jarring and swaying of the machine, above all, the feeling of prolonged falling, had absolutely upset my nerve. I told myself that I could never stop, and with a gust of petulance I resolved to stop forthwith. Like an impatient fool, I lugged over the lever, and incontinently the thing went reeling over, and I was flung headlong through the air.

`There was the sound of a clap of thunder in my ears. I may have been stunned for a moment. A pitiless hail was hissing round me, and I was sitting on soft turf in front of the overset machine. Everything still seemed grey, but presently I remarked that the confusion in my ears was gone. I looked round me. I was on what seemed to be a little lawn in a garden, surrounded by rhododendron bushes, and I noticed that their mauve and purple blossoms were dropping in a shower under the beating of the hail-stones. The rebounding, dancing hail hung in a cloud over the machine, and drove along the ground like smoke. In a moment I was wet to the skin. "Fine hospitality," said I, "to a man who has travelled innumerable years to see you."

`Presently I thought what a fool I was to get wet. I stood up and looked round me. A colossal figure, carved apparently in some white stone, loomed indistinctly beyond the rhododendrons through the hazy downpour. But all else of the world was invisible.

`My sensations would be hard to describe. As the columns of hail grew thinner, I saw the white figure more distinctly. It was very large, for a silver birch-tree touched its shoulder. It was of white marble, in shape something like a winged sphinx, but the wings, instead of being carried vertically at the sides, were spread so that it seemed to hover. The pedestal, it appeared to me, was of bronze, and was thick with verdigris. It chanced that the face was towards me; the sightless eyes seemed to watch me; there was the faint shadow of a smile on the lips. It was greatly weather-worn, and that imparted an unpleasant suggestion of disease. I stood looking at it for a little space--half a minute, perhaps, or half an hour. It seemed to advance and to recede as the hail drove before it denser or thinner. At last I tore my eyes from it for a moment and saw that the hail curtain had worn threadbare, and that the sky was lightening with the promise of the Sun.

`I looked up again at the crouching white shape, and the full temerity of my voyage came suddenly upon me. What might appear when that hazy curtain was altogether withdrawn? What might not have happened to men? What if cruelty had grown into a common passion? What if in this interval the race had lost its manliness and had developed into something inhuman, unsympathetic, and overwhelmingly powerful? I might seem some old-world savage animal, only the more dreadful and disgusting for our common likeness--a foul creature to be incontinently slain.

`Already I saw other vast shapes--huge buildings with intricate parapets and tall columns, with a wooded hill-side dimly creeping in upon me through the lessening storm. I was seized with a panic fear. I turned frantically to the Time Machine, and strove hard to readjust it. As I did so the shafts of the sun smote through the thunderstorm. The grey downpour was swept aside and vanished like the trailing garments of a ghost. Above me, in the intense blue of the summer sky, some faint brown shreds of cloud whirled into nothingness. The great buildings about me stood out clear and distinct, shining with the wet of the thunderstorm, and picked out in white by the unmelted hailstones piled along their courses. I felt naked in a strange world. I felt as perhaps a bird may feel in the clear air, knowing the hawk wings above and will swoop. My fear grew to frenzy. I took a breathing space, set my teeth, and again grappled fiercely, wrist and knee, with the machine. It gave under my desperate onset and turned over. It struck my chin violently. One hand on the saddle, the other on the lever, I stood panting heavily in attitude to mount again.

`But with this recovery of a prompt retreat my courage recovered. I looked more curiously and less fearfully at this world of the remote future. In a circular opening, high up in the wall of the nearer house, I saw a group of figures clad in rich soft robes. They had seen me, and their faces were directed towards me.

`Then I heard voices approaching me. Coming through the bushes by the White Sphinx were the heads and shoulders of men running. One of these emerged in a pathway leading straight to the little lawn upon which I stood with my machine. He was a slight creature--perhaps four feet high--clad in a purple tunic, girdled at the waist with a leather belt. Sandals or buskins--I could not clearly distinguish which--were on his feet; his legs were bare to the knees, and his head was bare. Noticing that, I noticed for the first time how warm the air was.

`He struck me as being a very beautiful and graceful creature, but indescribably frail. His flushed face reminded me of the more beautiful kind of consumptive--that hectic beauty of which we used to hear so much. At the sight of him I suddenly regained confidence. I took my hands from the machine.

[zenruption]

Why You Should Become A Clean, Green Business Machine

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 In the modern age, after decades of waste and pollution, the world is finally starting to wisen up to the fact that it’s completely unsustainable to consume in excess and faster than the planet can replenish its vital resources. It sounds quite obvious when phrased as such, and yet we still don’t do enough as a society to protect our environment, ozone layer or our futures from devastating damage.

As a business, it’s easy to think such matters are out of your hands. You’re just one fish in a big sea, so surely there’s no reason in hurting your head over such matters? You’ve got profit to make, so you can’t be wasting time and money becoming a more green, sustainable, eco-friendly business, right? Wrong. Here are some reasons for becoming a clean, green and sustainable business, and I’ll explain why it most certainly won’t have negative effects on your operations.

It’s cost-effective.

That’s right. The thought of adopting an environmental policy sounds like other policies and operational advice your organisation is encouraged to adopt, which often causing groaning and moaning, because they cost precious company time and money. Maybe you switch off when you hear the mention of environmental ideas and policies, because that sounds like yet another headache for your business, and a costly one that you don’t need right now.

In reality, you couldn’t be further from the truth if you think this way. Most businesses realise the benefit of becoming greener and sustainable when they think about its usefulness beyond simply saving the planet: it could save your company. I don’t just mean in the sense that the world won’t burn in a horrible disaster, but you’ll also be saving your company huge amounts of money.

Cost-effectiveness is the main benefit of running a green business, and I’ll explain some of the ways you could be reducing costs through sustainable methods, whilst also explaining added benefits of doing so. Some companies offer environmental testing services, if you want to know how successful your organisation currently is at respecting and preserving the environment throughout its operations. You’ve most likely enacted some smaller measures, such as reducing paper wastage or maybe even recycling, but there’s so much more you could be doing.

Greener travel isn’t meaner travel.

Commuting to work is a stressful experience. Encouraging your employees to cycle into work, and you can hop on your bike whilst you’re at it, is a great way to turn the agonising fury experienced during traffic jams into sheer bliss. Perhaps you could even take more picturesque side roads through your local town or city. Of course, I don’t need to tell you that, as well as this being a stress-inducing approach to travel, it’s also incredibly environmentally-conscious.

In some cases, employees might be far out in the suburbs and unable to bike to work in any time less than two hours, or something ridiculous such as that. That doesn’t mean they can’t adopt environmentally-sensitive methods, as even car-sharing is a much more conscious, green approach to travel.

Remember, this will benefit your business in so many more ways than reduced pollution; you might find that you have a happier team under your employ each morning. Your workers might be calmer and more peaceful after a relaxing bike ride into the office. Of course, cycling may not be right for every employee, but even car sharing and suggesting employees take it in turns to be the half-asleep passenger in one another’s cars might be enough to kickstart somebody’s morning in a slightly gentler and less jarring manner.

Think about the consumer.

Yes, you may have thought about this in the past when considering greener solutions to business. The consumer is impressed by sustainability, and this is obviously a great incentive for your business to become an environmentally-conscious and progressive organisation. You need to weave green ideas into your marketing campaign, after enacting them within your business.

Of course, you should ensure you’re actually doing all you can to be a green, eco company on an internal basis, but it only makes sense to start projecting those green improvements externally. You’re a business at the end of the day, and profit is what keeps you afloat. Contrary to belief, as I mentioned before, green practices within businesses do not cost time or money. They save time, save money, and, if you shout loudly enough, green methods can make you more money through reeling in greater numbers of environmentally-orientated consumers.

Adopting green methods should be for the right reasons. Environmentalism is in all of our interests, as we each rely on the planet for our very existence. It’s a selfish and a selfless act to preserve the world in which we live, and using your shiny new environmental-warrior badge to impress consumers is one way in which you’re using a selfless act to selfishly improve your business. It’s nothing of which you should be ashamed, as long as you are following through on your promises. Show the consumer how you’ve cut down on resources such as paper, or other manufactured processes, and boast about the benefits of recycling. You could even donate to an environmental cause in order to show that you’re a human organisation, and not just some cold, corporate entity. At the end of the day, your company is comprised of people, and you might find that employees respect the business more when it strives to be more than a money-making machine. Be better than that. You can be a clean, green, profitable machine.

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Sustainability means productivity.

Believe it or not, you’re not just sustaining the plants and the trees when you act in an environmentally-conscious manner. You’re sustaining human beings by creating a healthier workplace. Yes, that’s right. When you create a more hygienic, sustainable and environmental environment, health benefits seep through as a happy side effect. If you’re wondering how this can be achieved, I’m talking about more than reducing paper waste.

Simply offering healthy, organic food in the cafeteria can make a difference. It’s tempting to sell cheap, unhealthy food, but every seemingly-cost-effective method can have costly consequences further down the line. The same goes for using environmentally-friendly cleaning products; you’re pumping your employees full of less rubbish, and this means less sick days in the future.

This means your organisation isn’t forced to pump out so much money in order to cover medical costs. It’s a win-win situation, as you’ll have a healthier and more productive workforce, given the decrease in sick or simply lacklustre employees full on food lacking in nutrients or anything with energy.

Reduce and reuse before you consume.

I’ve already mentioned countless ways in which your company could waste far less and save much more money. I could probably mention countless more, but we’d be here all day. Still, I think it’s important to note all the small things which can be reduced in order to create a more eco-friendly company at little to no effort, but with huge cost savings in the long-term. One such way is reduced energy usage, as you need only switch off lights and you’ll notice that tiny savings every day add up to huge cost savings for your company every year.

It’s easy to look at environmentalism as nothing more than a spot of recycling here and there, or the act of buying a wind-up torch instead of an electric one. However, being green is about much more than green products. In fact, being green is about reducing your consumption, rather than consuming more products simply because they’re sustainable. That’s actually less sustainable, and you should only consume things once you’ve gotten all the use you can out of old items.

That’s why your business should be saving money through green policies; you don’t have to go out and buy yourself a wind turbine to power the company and come across as environmentally-conscious. You need only reduce the things you already use, and make a bold statement that you’re going to waste less.

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Reinvent your business.

I mentioned that adopting greener solutions around the workplace can not only impress your employees and improve the internal operations of your business, but it can impress consumers on an external basis. Much like any overhaul of a company’s image and operations, sometimes a new face or a reinvention can be great for a business in terms of promotion and popularity.

Going green could be the boost your business needs to do a little spring cleaning and check over every last element of your company’s operations. It could help you find more effective ways of doing everything, in terms of time, cost and people management.

Save the world.

Remember that thing which gives us life? Yes, I saved the best for last. The most important reason for a business to become green, believe it or not, is the green thing on which it relies to carry on running. Environmentalism, at the end of the day, is built not on increased profit margins or reduced costs; it’s built on the goal of saving the planet, and that’s something in which we should all be invested.