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sunboundprometheu · 5 years

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Hello, @wastelandhistorian, I am your @langblrsecretsanta this year! You said you’re interested in “any ancient language” and in history, so I constructed your gift around two passages about deserts from ancient historians. One passage is from the Roman historian Sallust’s monograph Bellum Jugurthinum (The Jugurthine War), which describes a war between Rome and King Jugurtha of Numidia in North Africa; the other is from the Greek historian Herodotus and describes implausibly large ants in the north of India. I’ve translated each passage and then made a short vocabulary list with desert-related terms. I hope you enjoy this gift!

Sed quoniam in eas regiones per Leptitanorum negotia venimus, non indignum videtur egregium atque mirabile facinus duorum Carthaginiensium memorare; eam rem nos locus admonuit. Qua tempestate Carthaginienses pleraque Africa imperitabant, Cyrenenses quoque magni atque opulenti fuere. Ager in medio harenosus, una specie; neque flumen neque mons erat, qui finis eorum discerneret. Quae res eos in magno diuturnoque bello inter se habuit. Postquam utrimque legiones, item classes saepe fusae fugataeque et alteri alteros aliquantum attriueret. veriti, ne mox victos victoresque defessos alius aggrederetur, per indutias sponsionem faciunt, uti certo die legati domo proficiscerentur: quo in loco inter se obvii fuissent, is communis utriusque populi finis haberetur. Igitur Carthagine duo fratres missi, quibus nomen Philaenis erat, maturauere iter pergere, Cyrenenses tardius iere. Id socordiane an casu acciderit, parum cognovi. Ceterum solet in illis locis tempestas haud secus atque in mari retinere. Nam ubi per loca aequalia et nuda gignentium ventus coortus harenam humo excitauit, ea magna vi agitata ora oculosque implere solet: ita prospectu impedito morari iter. Postquam Cyrenenses aliquanto posteriores se esse vident et ob rem corruptam domi poenas metuont, criminari Carthaginiensis ante tempus domo digressos, conturbare rem, denique omnia malle quam victi abire. Sed cum Poeni aliam condicionem, tantummodo aequam, peterent, Graeci optionem Carthaginiensium faciunt, ut vel illi, quos finis populo suo peterent, ibi viui obruerentur, vel eadem condicione sese quem in locum vellent processuros. Philaeni condicione probata seque vitamque suam rei publicae condonauere: ita viui obruti. Carthaginienses in eo loco Philaenis fratribus aras consecrauere, aliique illis domi honores instituti. Nunc ad rem redeo. (Sallust, Bellum Jugurthinum 79)

But since I have come to talk about this region because of the affairs of the Leptitans, it does not seem inappropriate to recall a famous, incredible deed done by two Carthaginians; the place has suggested this matter to me. During the period when the Carthaginians' empire extended over most of Africa, the Cyrenians were also powerful and rich. Between them was a sandy, featureless field, with neither rivers nor mountains to demarcate their borders. This fact kept them in a great and protracted war with each other; both sides' armies and navies often conquered, often were routed, and each country had inflicted great losses on the other. Fearing that a third party would attack when the near-victors and nearly defeated were exhausted, they entered into a peace agreement stipulating that on a certain day deputies would leave home and that the place where they met would be considered the border between the two peoples. So two brothers named Philaeni were sent from Carthage and moved with haste along their way. The Cyrenians moved more slowly. Whether this happened due to laziness or chance, I don't really know. In any case, in these areas, storms not unlike those at sea tend to inhibit travel, since when wind blows throughout flat and barren places and then lifts sand from the ground, that sand, whipped up by a powerful force, tends to fill one's face and eyes: and so, with one's vision impeded, travel becomes delayed. After the Cyrenians saw that they were somewhat behind and became afraid of being punished at home for their mistake, they accused the Carthaginians of leaving early and confused the matter, preferring anything over leaving as the losers. But when the Phonecians sought another deal (as long as it would be fair), the Greeks let the Carthaginians choose between either those brothers being buried alive at the border they wanted for their people or going themselves on the same condition to whatever place they wanted. The Philaeni accepted the deal and sacrificed themselves and their lives to their country: so they were buried alive. The Carthaginians consecrated temples at that place to the brothers, and other honors were established for them at home. Now I will return to my topic.

harena, -ae, f. sand

harenosus, -a, -um sandy

ager, -gri, m. field

flumen, -inis, n. river

mons, -tis, m. mountain

tempestas, -atis, f. storm, time

aequalis, -e equal, level

nudus, -a, -um nude, barren

gignentia, -um, n. plants

ventus, -i, m. wind

humus, -i, f. ground

ἄλλοι δὲ τῶν Ἰνδῶν Κασπατύρῳ τε πόλι καὶ τῇ Πακτυϊκῇ χώρῃ εἰσὶ πρόσουροι, πρὸς ἄρκτου τε καὶ βορέω ἀνέμου κατοικημένοι τῶν ἄλλων Ἰνδῶν, οἳ Βακτρίοισι παραπλησίην ἔχουσι δίαιταν. οὗτοι καὶ μαχιμώτατοι εἰσὶ Ἰνδῶν καὶ οἱ ἐπὶ τὸν χρυσὸν στελλόμενοι εἰσὶ οὗτοι: κατὰ γὰρ τοῦτο ἐστὶ ἐρημίη διὰ τὴν ψάμμον. ἐν δὴ ὦν τῇ ἐρημίῃ ταύτῃ καὶ τῇ ψάμμῳ γίνονται μύρμηκες μεγάθεα ἔχοντες κυνῶν μὲν ἐλάσσονα ἀλωπέκων δὲ μέζονα: εἰσὶ γὰρ αὐτῶν καὶ παρὰ βασιλέι τῷ Περσέων ἐνθεῦτεν θηρευθέντες. οὗτοι ὦν οἱ μύρμηκες ποιεύμενοι οἴκησιν ὑπὸ γῆν ἀναφορέουσι τὴν ψάμμον κατά περ οἱ ἐν τοῖσι Ἕλλησι μύρμηκες κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον, εἰσὶ δὲ καὶ αὐτοὶ τὸ εἶδος ὁμοιότατοι: ἡ δὲ ψάμμος ἡ ἀναφερομένη ἐστὶ χρυσῖτις. ἐπὶ δὴ ταύτην τὴν ψάμμον στέλλονται ἐς τὴν ἔρημον οἱ Ἰνδοί, ζευξάμενος ἕκαστος καμήλους τρεῖς, σειρηφόρον μὲν ἑκατέρωθεν ἔρσενα παρέλκειν, θήλεαν δὲ ἐς μέσον: ἐπὶ ταύτην δὴ αὐτὸς ἀναβαίνει, ἐπιτηδεύσας ὅκως ἀπὸ τέκνων ὡς νεωτάτων ἀποσπάσας ζεύξει. αἱ γάρ σφι κάμηλοι ἵππων οὐκ ἥσσονες ἐς ταχυτῆτα εἰσί, χωρὶς δὲ ἄχθεα δυνατώτεραι πολλὸν φέρειν.

τὸ μὲν δὴ εἶδος ὁκοῖόν τι ἔχει ἡ κάμηλος, ἐπισταμένοισι τοῖσι Ἕλλησι οὐ συγγράφω: τὸ δὲ μὴ ἐπιστέαται αὐτῆς, τοῦτο φράσω: κάμηλος ἐν τοῖσι ὀπισθίοισι σκέλεσι ἔχει τέσσερας μηροὺς καὶ γούνατα τέσσερα, τά τε αἰδοῖα διὰ τῶν ὀπισθίων σκελέων πρὸς τὴν οὐρὴν τετραμμένα. οἱ δὲ δὴ Ἰνδοὶ τρόπῳ τοιούτῳ καὶ ζεύξι τοιαύτῃ χρεώμενοι ἐλαύνουσι ἐπὶ τὸν χρυσὸν λελογισμένως ὅκως καυμάτων τῶν θερμοτάτων ἐόντων ἔσονται ἐν τῇ ἁρπαγῇ: ὑπὸ γὰρ τοῦ καύματος οἱ μύρμηκες ἀφανέες γίνονται ὑπὸ γῆν. θερμότατος δὲ ἐστὶ ὁ ἥλιος τούτοισι τοῖσι ἀνθρώποισι τὸ ἑωθινόν, οὐ κατά περ τοῖσι ἄλλοισι μεσαμβρίης, ἀλλ᾽ ὑπερτείλας μέχρι οὗ ἀγορῆς διαλύσιος. τοῦτον δὲ τὸν χρόνον καίει πολλῷ μᾶλλον ἢ τῇ μεσαμβρίῃ τὴν Ἑλλάδα, οὕτω ὥστ᾽ ἐν ὕδατι λόγος αὐτούς ἐστι βρέχεσθαι τηνικαῦτα. μεσοῦσα δὲ ἡ ἡμέρη σχεδὸν παραπλησίως καίει τούς τε ἄλλους ἀνθρώπους καὶ τοὺς Ἰνδούς. ἀποκλινομένης δὲ τῆς μεσαμβρίης γίνεταί σφι ὁ ἥλιος κατά περ τοῖσι ἄλλοισι ὁ ἑωθινός, καὶ τὸ ἀπὸ τούτου ἀπιὼν ἐπὶ μᾶλλον ψύχει, ἐς ὃ ἐπὶ δυσμῇσι ἐὼν καὶ τὸ κάρτα ψύχει.

ἐπεὰν δὲ ἔλθωσι ἐς τὸν χῶρον οἱ Ἰνδοὶ ἔχοντες θυλάκια, ἐμπλήσαντες ταῦτα τῆς ψάμμου τὴν ταχίστην ἐλαύνουσι ὀπίσω: αὐτίκα γὰρ οἱ μύρμηκες ὀδμῇ, ὡς δὴ λέγεται ὑπὸ Περσέων, μαθόντες διώκουσι. εἶναι δὲ ταχυτῆτα οὐδενὶ ἑτέρῳ ὅμοιον, οὕτω ὥστε, εἰ μὴ προλαμβάνειν τοὺς Ἰνδοὺς τῆς ὁδοῦ ἐν ᾧ τοὺς μύρμηκας συλλέγεσθαι, οὐδένα ἂν σφέων ἀποσώζεσθαι. τοὺς μέν νυν ἔρσενας τῶν καμήλων, εἶναι γὰρ ἥσσονας θέειν τῶν θηλέων, παραλύεσθαι ἐπελκομένους, οὐκ ὁμοῦ ἀμφοτέρους: τὰς δὲ θηλέας ἀναμιμνησκομένας τῶν ἔλιπον τέκνων ἐνδιδόναι μαλακὸν οὐδέν. τὸν μὲν δὴ πλέω τοῦ χρυσοῦ οὕτω οἱ Ἰνδοὶ κτῶνται, ὡς Πέρσαι φασί: ἄλλος δὲ σπανιώτερος ἐστι ἐν τῇ χώρῃ ὀρυσσόμενος. (Herodotus 3.102-105)

Other Indians live in the city of Caspatyrus, bordering on the Pactyic country, having settled farther toward the north than the other Indians; they have a lifestyle similar to the Bactrians'. They are the most warlike Indians, and they made expeditions for gold, because this region is desolate throughout due to its sand. In this desert and its sands, there live ants smaller than dogs but larger than foxes; some of them have been hunted for the King of Persia. These ants make their shelters underground by digging up sand in the same way as ants in Greece, and they are very similar in shape to those ants: but the sand they dig up contains gold. The Indians travel to this desert precisely for that sand: each man yokes together three camels, a male on either side to draw by the trace, and a female in the middle. The female is mounted, having been deliberately separated from her offspring at the earliest time possible. These camels are no slower than horses and moreover are more capable of bearing significant burdens.

I will not describe how camels look, because Greeks already know; but I will mention this, which is not known about them: in its back legs, a camel has four thighs and three knees, and its genitals are turned toward the tail between the back legs. The Indians, in this way and with this manner of yoking, ride out to plunder the gold when, according to their calculations, the heat will be at its greatest and the ants are therefore hiding underground from the heat. (The sun is hottest in these people's land in the morning, not at midday as is the case elsewhere, but from sunrise until the markets close. At this time, it is so much hotter than at noon in Greece that supposedly people drench themselves then; at midday, the day is just about as hot in India as elsewhere; and the sun after high noon becomes like it is in the morning in other places, then becomes rather cold as it sets, until at sunset it is very cold.)

Now, when the Indians reach this region, they fill the little sacks they carry with the sand and ride back as quickly as possible, because once the ants perceive their scent, they chase the men (so the Persians say). Supposedly, the ants' speed is so singular that, unless the Indians have a headstart while the ants are gathering, none of them will escape. Then they unharness the male camels as they lag behind, because the males run more slowly than the females, one at a time; but the females, remembering the offspring they have left behind, do not give in at all. This is how the Indians acquire the majority of their gold, according to the Persians; the rest is mined in their country but is more scarce.

ψάμμος, -ου, ἡ sand

ἔρημος, -ον desolate

ἐρημία, -ας, ἡ desert, wasteland

μύρμηξ, -ηκος, ὁ ant

γῆ, γῆς, ἡ earth

κάμηλος, -ου, ὁ/ἡ camel

θερμός, -ή, -όν hot

καίω, καύσω, ἔκαυσα, κέκαυκα, κέκαυμαι, ἐκαύθην burn, kindle

καῦμα, -ατος, τό burning heat

ἥλιος, -ου, ὁ sun

Happy holidays!

#langblrsecretsanta2019 #latin #ancient greek #langblr #polyglot #vocabulary #korean vocab #ancient greek vocabulary #greek vocabulary #latin vocabulary #history

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momocon · 5 years

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MomoCon is happy to bring crafters, prop makers, costume creators, and so much more to the 2020 event! Many more craftspeople are also coming soon! Downen Creative Studios is a passionate cosplay educator, obsessed with creating multimedia content and tutorials to help cosplayers create next level costumes and props. In 2018 she founded SheProp!, and is the host and producer for the ShePropTalk podcast. In addition to high-quality screen accurate builds, she worked with Marvel Studios to create a replica of the Wasp costume from “Ant-Man and the Wasp“ for the “Marvel Becoming” video series. She has been interviewed twice on Adam Savage’s “Tested”, and she is a product ambassador for Plaid Crafts and Thibra. She created the “Cricut for Cosplay” video tutorial series, and has been published in Cohaku and Cos Culture Magazine. Dustin Fletcher, FlashFletch Cosplay, is a cosplayer who enjoys doing crazy make ups and builds, as well as doing charity work for Heroes Alliance. When not cosplaying he is a Set Costumer and Ager/Dyer for film and television focusing on the superhero and horror genres. As well as the Co-DM of D4, a 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons actual play live streaming show. His credits include Avengers: Infinity War, Captain America: Civil War, Constantine, Goosebumps 1 and 2, Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Powers, The Walking Dead, Venom, Black Lightning and More. Photo by: ALeeStudios Casey Renee Cosplay is an award winning cosplayer focused in sewing. She won Twitchcon Cosplay Contest in 2018 and had the honor of judging the Twitchcon Cosplay Contest in 2019. Casey is incredibly passionate about cosplay craftsmanship, Disney, historical costuming and creating educational content.She loves sharing her experience with others and help the cosplay community as a whole learn new things and celebrate craftsmanship. Photo by Alexandra Lee Studios.

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sweetstrawberrykissesao3 · 5 years

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Can I please request toddler/year old agere Bruce being shy and sweet? Maybe he has a new caregiver? Thank you very much in advance and it’s perfectly ok if you rather not do this

Warning, Bruce was abused by his dad (Using the comic book canon backstory) and I make references to it, nothing graphic

This is my first time really writing Bruce or Ant Man, but I thought these two would make a good lil family https://archiveofourown.org/works/18568153/chapters/46921633

I really liked how it came out and if I write more avengers regression work (or possible a littleverse story with more characters) I think I’ll def use Ant Man as Bruce’s primary caregiver over Black Willow, I think it’s kind of cute! I hope you enjoy it!

#avengers #Age Regression #Agere #requests

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treago · 5 years

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A SUMMARY OF WHAT HAPPENS IN EARTHBOUND BY YA BOI TREAGO

your neighbor who is a fucking annoying asshole bothers the police to try and see a meteor

a telepathic bug from the future will emerge from the meteor.

an alien will attack you and potentially wreck your shit if not for the bug

your mom kills the bug, and he tells you with his dying breath to go to 8 special places

a man called “Lier X. Agerate” destroys his own home and digs into the earths crusts and finds a golden statue

You assault a local gang and their steam robot

You fight an enormous ant so you can listen to music

You fight the police force to get them to remove a roadblock

Fight a local insane man in a park

You pay a cool looking kid to rip you off

you pay this fat kid that lives with rats to invent cell phones and the ability to erase pencils from this plane of existence

You encounter and subsequently destroy a cult that now has possession of that gold statue from earlier to recuse a psychic girl

You fight a giant mole to listen to more music

same local insane man in the park gives you ten thousand dollars. you give a local band thats in debt ten thousand dollars so you can ride a tour bus through a tunnel full of ghosts

You see a town full of zombies and decide that staying at the hotel would be a great idea, and so are thrown into a pit in a cemetery. Your psychic friend contacts a nerd in boarding school telepathically

Nerd gives bubblegum to a monkey. Monkey leads you to the lochness monster

Nerds father who abandoned him 10 years ago gives him a space ship, so he can crash into the pit in the cemetery and lock pick a door.

Fat kid invents zombie paper which is like fly paper for zombies. You put it in a circus tent and enjoy your life

You encounter friendly aliens. One of them will tell you the password to an enemy base is 3 minutes of silence. You go behind a waterfall and do nothing for 3 minutes to fight sludge

You trip balls in a hot springs with an alien while drinking coffee

You take a bus to the city. It breaks down in the desert. You walk the rest of the way to the city.

The same band gets indebted to another theater.

You go to the desert near a mining dig. You fight the 3rd strongest mole, the 3rd strongest mole, the 3rd strongest mole, the 3rd strongest mole and the 3rd strongest mole. A construction worker gives you a diamond for the trouble. You pay off the debt with said diamond.

A haunted mall abducts your psychic girlfriend.

Local insane man visits the city to find golden statue and fucking dies writes a haiku and tells you go insane

You decided going insane is a pretty great idea and go to an alternate dimension.

In the alternate dimension you square up with the golden statue. You destroy it and discover your been dissociating in a warehouse.

Your neighbor somehow becomes a business person in this city

Fat kid makes trout flavored yogurt dispenser. The delivery guy just gives it to a random person in the desert. A maid mentions her boss would love a yogurt dispenser

You then give a bunch of monkeys pizza, hamburgers, sandwiches, eggs, towels, rulers. A guy in a turban gives you your shit back.

A monkey teaches you how to run to other towns at the speed of not having to deal with the bullshit teleport

You enter the business mans building an destroy his security robots because the maid forgot to tell you a password.

You talk to the businessman and discover he was possessed by the statue from early. He returns your friend.

Your neighbor fucking pisses off in a helicopter says he doesnt need the businessman anymore.

You fight a mushroom near stonehenge to listen to music

You eat cake and have a bad trip.

Now controlling a prince, you meditate so hard your consciousness rips your arms, legs, ears, eyes away from you. You’re now officially a psychic prince. Also none of that happened. He teleports to the rest of the group.

You visit a theater and get an autograph on a banana. You give the banana to a guard to go into a sewers and kill a rat. You listen to some music near a weird sculpture

You go to the princes home together and fight the avatar of storm and thunder. You listen to music on a pink cloud.

You go to another desert, walk through a pyramid. The prince gets bored and fucks off to learn how to summon meteors.

A man in a giant rock robot gives you his submarine so you can access a a swamp. More sentient sludge will try to attack you. Prince will come back and beat the shit out of it with meteors.

You meet more aliens. The fat kid and nerds dad gives you the ability to erase erasers from existence back at stonehenge

You discover a secret alien base in stonehenge that has abducted people. You kill these aliens. They are the ones your bug friend protected you from early on.

Fat kid donates a book about overcoming shyness to a library. You give it to an alien. He directs you to a sentient rock. The sentient rock directs you to a different alien, but that is evil. You listen to music and get a message from yourself about yourself and your unease.

You are dropped into a world where everything is gigantic. You get near a cave of lava and fight a dog made out of carbon. you listen to music.

You retreat into your own psyche. At the heart you discover the golden statue is a reflection of yourself. You destroy it and wake up

You upload your consciousness into robots, dying and being reborn in the process, and then go to the future to fight the expression of evil.

Your fucking neighbor is there being an asshole in a robot, along with your flesh body stuck in a machine.

The evil cannot be defeated, so your characters pray help from:

aliens, the indebted band, the psychic girls parents, the boarding school, the princes town, the local gang leader, your family

You are swallowed by darkness

There is one last prayer is the final bit of support is YOU! the player holding the controller.

The kids die and their spriits float away

its okay they get back to their flesh bodies i guess

#press J to skip

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imaginationstimulation · 3 years

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He cupped the two halves of my tush and spoke directly to them. “Run away with me, girls,” he whispered. “She doesn’t understand our love.”

I lay still, staring out the window, letting them have their time together. If I protested, I’d only make his case stronger: I’m less fun than my own butt. Which is not untrue. In my essence, I am a stone, unmoving for ten thousand years, unless picked up and moved. It’s not just sex; I find this whole experience—life—gratuitously slow and drawn out. See it crawl, second by fucking second. If I’m a workaholic, it’s only because I hate work so much that I’m trying to finish it, all of it, once and for all. So I can just ride out the rest of my life in some kind of internal trance state. Not a coma but, like, a step above that.

Our son, Sam, trotted in sleepily, and I warned him not to get in the bed: “It’s all bloody.” Alex quietly removed his hands from my body; he hadn’t noticed that I was bleeding. Sam pulled back the sheets and studied the mess, smiling giddily. “You got your period.”

“Yes.”

“You said it was coming soon and you were right!”

“Yep.”

This new generation of men has been taught (by me) to feel excited about the menstrual cycle. It’s like tadpoles turning into frogs or the moon that follows them wherever they go. I’ve been waiting a long time to have my period cheered on. More and more women my age have given up on our men and are getting together with millennials, youngsters raised by women who were born in the sixties, rather than the forties. I hear it’s great. Not a lot of hangups. But that isn’t an option for me because I need a man with a historical perspective that encompasses my whole lifetime. If anything, I regret not having met Alex sooner. If we had met at my birth and I had been able to assess how narcissistic my parents were, I could have left the hospital with Alex and got started on our relationship immediately. He would have been eight years old—young, but not too young to keep me alive. I need that in a man.

Sometimes my love for him is so intense that I want to crawl inside his body. I want him to be pregnant with me and never give birth, just hold me in. At other times, I wonder, Who is that guy? And why is he in my house? When I get that look on my face, he sticks out his hand and says, “Hi, I’m Alex. Your husband.”

Sam used his small pointing finger to tap each old bloodstain on the sheet; they dated back more than a decade, a disgusting constellation. It was one of those things you didn’t notice until suddenly you did. Like ants. Like everything.

I dressed and brushed my teeth. If I went to the mall immediately and got a new sheet, then the chore wouldn’t have time to gather weight. Once a task goes on the to-do list it settles in, grows roots—the trick is to preëmpt that. I could get a tent light while I was there. We were going camping the next weekend with another family, although unfortunately I wasn’t sure I would be able to join. Too much work to do.

“I can get new sheets,” Alex said, slowly climbing out of bed, limb by limb. Sam asked if we would be watching TV today, yes or no.

“Not sheets—just one fitted sheet. There’s only one place that sells Cariloha-brand California-king sheets individually. What is it?”

“Macy’s?”

“Nope.”

“Amazon?”

“Definitely no. I told you about my bad experience—”

“You did. I forgot.”

Bedding is an unregulated corner of Amazon, where companies charge radically different prices for the same bad sheets. You can’t even get nicer sheets by paying more—money has no meaning there. And don’t bother typing in words like “Egyptian cotton” or “thread count”—you’re just offering them more precise ways to bamboozle you. Get up, find your keys and your purse, and go outside. I hate it as much as anyone, but sometimes you just have to.

My plan was to park on the street and walk into the mall, get the sheet, and go. By not parking in the parking garage, I would outwit the psychology of the mall designers who wanted you to sever ties with the outside world. But walking in off the street was disorienting. I entered through Bloomingdale’s and had to wade through the store; it was like pushing through coats to enter Narnia. Once I made it into the mall, I had no idea where I was. It took me a long time even to find a map, then I traced my finger back and forth between You Are Here and the Low Cost Luxury Sheets Kiosk to memorize my path. The man standing next to me took a picture of the map and then trekked on, studying his phone. Pretty clever. As I walked, I glanced sideways at his tan, brawny body and floppy brown hair, just to confirm. Yes. He was a famous person. An actor. Or maybe a hotelier. Maybe this was André Balazs or whatever his name was. No, an actor. Electricity revved through my veins for no particular reason, just as a courtesy to his stature. I kept an eye on him as I walked toward the sheet kiosk, bracing myself for the moment when he would peel off in another direction. But he didn’t; we continued walking alongside each other, and I began to feel that we were together. And he kept looking at me, out of the corner of his eye. This couldn’t be true but it was. Somewhere between BabyGap and Lady Foot Locker the tables had turned. Now he recognized me.

I was twenty-two when the video was shot. I needed quick money so I could get out of a bad relationship—not a lot, just first and last and a security deposit. I couldn’t admit my plight to my parents, because I had already done this and they had written me a check, with great relief, and that was what my quasi-abusive boyfriend and I had been living off for the past six months. He had come up with the ploy.

“Make it sound bad but not too bad. Don’t say I hit you. Say I threw a chair at you or something.”

“You did throw a chair at me.”

“Obviously I wasn’t fully serious when I did that.”

I felt obligated to stay until my parents’ money ran out, since asking for it had been his idea. Then he punched not my face but the wall right next to my face and I had to move very quickly from terror to concern and rush him to the emergency room, where a young, temporary doctor said that we could either wait four hours for the real doctor to arrive and fix the bone in my boyfriend’s hand or let him “have a go.” The temporary doctor high-fived me after he’d popped the bone back in.

The next morning, I woke up early and walked down to the cluster of newspaper boxes in front of the old people’s bar, and discreetly pulled out the sex-themed paper. I’d always known that this option would be there for me if I really needed it. Just as my parents were there if I really needed them, except for this one time.

I chose the job that seemed to offer the most money for a one-time deal. I thought that they would shoot it in a hotel but it happened in an apartment, on an old couch. I wasn’t directed so much as given a series of props to make my way through, like an obstacle course. A turquoise Teddy bear, a pillow, an empty beer bottle, a metal bowl. Not everything was clear to me (the bowl), but I was too nervous to speak; I just laughed again and again to demonstrate consent. My biggest fear was that one of these men, the man with the lights or the cameraman, would misinterpret my nervousness and halt everything, shutting down the set on the ground that I was being objectified against my will. At that age, I assumed that everyone, deep down, was a feminist. So one had to be careful not to trigger feminism where one didn’t want it.

I was waiting for a costume, something black and sexy or pink and trashy that would help catapult me out of myself. Instead, a man with a baseball cap, who was maybe the director, just said, “O.K., we’re rolling.” I was in shorts, a T-shirt, and sandals. I looked down at my shirt. It was from a sushi restaurant in my home town, but if you just glanced at it you might think it was racist, because of the fake Asian lettering. I imagined thousands of viewers waiting for this racist girl to get herself off. I quickly undressed and made a scissors gesture to the camera to indicate that this first part, the part with the racist shirt, should be cut. No one acknowledged this suggestion, so I rubbed against the Teddy bear, and rode the big pillow. I held the bowl, uncertain, and then set it aside. I put the beer bottle into my vagina. With all this moving around, it was impossible to become even slightly turned on—back then I had to shut my eyes and make my body completely stiff to generate any feeling. But no one said anything until after I had heaved my last fake orgasmic sigh.

“O.K., we got that,” a woman with a clipboard said. The man in the baseball cap gave me a firm nod, like a satisfied coach. I understood then that the five-hundred-and-fifty-dollar fee was not the price of my beauty or my sex appeal; it was my naïveté that I’d sold. Every person, no matter how plain, has one great erotic performance in her—the one in which she doesn’t know what she’s doing and is desperately trying to save her life. A second performance would be a copy of the first, which would require skills I didn’t have.

My face wasn’t anywhere you could see it unless you entered a credit-card number and clicked past dozens of professionals—“college beauties,” “hot Korean girl,” and so on. But a few people made it through the gauntlet. The first time I was recognized was at a healthy-Mexican restaurant; a pale man in gym clothes stared at me for a long time before making a scissors gesture in the air. It was electrifying, as if all my clothes had fallen off at once. I looked away but there was no denying our intimacy; he’d come while watching me. The next one was a father with his family; he scissored his fingers down low, surreptitiously. The last was a butch lesbian teen-ager; she just walked right up to me and asked. Each time, I’d hurry home and enter my credit-card number, clicking quickly past the college beauties and the hot Korean girl. Though I’d felt nothing at the time, seeing myself through these people’s eyes was profound and overwhelming. I’d cry out with abandon; my body would shake and shiver as I came. Then I’d sleep, immediately, for at least two hours.

The video shoot became the central sexual experience of my life; to this day, I can’t orgasm unless I imagine that I’m the pale man, the dad, or the young lesbian watching it, sometimes all of them together, crowded around one computer screen. I’m them, I’m me, I’m them, I’m me, I come. I showed it to each boyfriend I had after that, to blow their minds but also to explain my sexual orientation; I was oriented around myself in that video and anyone who’d seen it. There was only one boyfriend I didn’t tell. He was a very classy man, emotionally speaking, and I didn’t want to give him any indication of basket-casery. After I married him, I kept meaning to bring it up, to draw him into the fold of my sexuality, such as it was. But I waited too long; we were so close now. And after the butch lesbian there was a lull, a seventeen-year lull, in which no one recognized me.

I arrived at the Luxury Sheets Kiosk and the brawny man with floppy brown hair idled a few feet away, trying to decide what to do. The scissoring gesture didn’t seem to occur to him. I ran my hand over the sheets while the cashier rang up a tall woman who kept adding one more thing. His eyes met mine, and I gave him a secret little smile. Truth is, I wanted to collapse with relief. Though a lot had happened in the past seventeen years—marriage, a child, my career—it was suddenly clear to me that I’d only been going through the motions, an exhausting simulation. I wasn’t a stone. I was one of life’s biggest fans, the best example of a living thing. The amateur sex video was like a seed I had planted in my youth; it would always sustain me. Not financially but by sending me these messengers when I was most in need. My blood moved around in my body; I felt the purpose of every muscle. I was ready to dance. And just then a beat began, so I rocked my hips and pressed my wrists together, swinging them like a girl in bondage who nonetheless wanted to party. The beat ended abruptly; it was the tall woman’s ringtone.

“Hello?” she answered impatiently; she had enough going on with all these sheets. I couldn’t believe I’d danced to her ringtone. Maybe it was O.K. Who knows? Who can really see themselves? He was approaching. He was nearly beside me, his face open with surprise. I opened myself, too.

“You’re my neighbor,” he said.

“In what sense?” I said, my eyes twinkling.

“Well, in the sense that I live in the house next door to yours.”

“The house on the corner?”

“Yeah, it’s a duplex. We live in the apartment that faces Amador Street.”

“Oh. Do you park on Amador?” I was bringing up parking just to hurt myself. I hated this conversation.

“I park on Amador and my wife parks in the garage,” he said. “Although lately we’ve been trying to ride our scooters more. I’m Joel.”

I thought about bringing up my husband, tit for tat, but I was too tired. The previous few seconds had taken everything out of me. We parted, saying that we would definitely see each other soon, ha-ha.

I drove the long way around the block to avoid Amador Street on my way home. I parked and turned off the car. It was hot but I left my seat belt on, folded my hands in my lap, and took some slow breaths. Before Joel, I had still believed I could be recognized. Now I knew I was too old. How do you mourn that kind of loss? It just pulls your whole life down. My phone rang: Alex.

“Are you home?”

“Yes. I’m in the driveway.”

“Yeah, we heard you drive up. You coming in?”

“In a sec. I need to pour my heart out to someone so I can be empty and unburdened when I come inside.”

I waited for him to say, “You can pour your heart out to me,” but he was quiet and we got off the phone. He never takes the bait. Which is good. It teaches me to be more direct in asking for what I need. Or does it? So far it hadn’t.

We’d been tunnelling toward each other for years. It was hard work, but the assumption was that eventually our two tunnels would connect. We’d break through—Hallelujah! Clay-encrusted hands finally seizing each other!—and we would be together, really together, for the remaining time that we were alive. So long as we both dug as hard and as fast as we could, everything would work out. But, of course, neither of us knew for sure how the other person’s digging was going. One of us might have been doggedly tunnelling toward the other person, while the other person was curling away in another direction. That person might not even have been aware of how off course he or she was. One of us might have tunnelled straight down for a few weeks, in anger, and then tried to get back on track, but now honestly had no idea where to go. We might break through—Hallelujah!—only to find that we were seizing the dirty hands of a stranger. What to do then? Or we might simply get tired, and stop digging, decide that here was good enough. All the while saying things like “We must be getting close!” and “I can’t wait until the day finally comes!” We might never meet up at all; we might die before it happened. Or worse: maybe there had never been any hope of our meeting up, because what was that even a metaphor for? Oneness? A child’s dream of love? I got out of the car and went inside, carrying the new fitted sheet and the tent light.

The next weekend, I was unfortunately not able to go on the camping trip. I stood in the driveway and waved goodbye to Alex and Sam, tearful for no reason. Then I went inside and walked around the house, room by room, looking at all our stuff through the judgmental eyes of a monk or a nun. I did my work, very slowly, over the course of the day. At 8 p.m. I started watching TV and at 2 a.m. I turned out the light. Then the earthquake happened.

I flew out of bed and moved down the hallway like a person on a wobbly rope bridge. I lurched out the back door and along the side of the house to the sidewalk. The shaking stopped. The street lights were off, no moon. Car alarms were beeping in syncopation. A huge branch was draped across my car. Someone was standing on the corner, waving. It was Joel. I had successfully avoided interaction all week. Now I ran to him through the dark.

“I didn’t get my shoes!” I yelled dumbly, as the pavement trembled again.

Joel thought it was safest to stay outside; I thought so, too—less stuff to be trapped under if it fell. He called his wife, who was in Sun Valley, Idaho. I didn’t call Alex, since I was safe and a middle-of-the-night call is always alarming. Joel’s earthquake-survival kit was more elaborate than ours; we spread out high-tech blankets and pillows on the lawn on his side of the duplex and lay down, waiting for dawn.

Once the car alarms had been silenced, the night was strangely quiet. The freeways were almost empty. Without the lights or the hum of cars, the sky took its place as the foremost thing. Joel and I stared up at it—an enormous gray arena we could fly around in just by lying there.

“Looking at the sky should be a ride at Disneyland,” Joel said.

This was such an accurate way to describe it. I thought about the accuracy for two or three minutes and then said, “Yeah.” We squinted at our houses in the dark and saw that they were leaning; they had shifted. I thought we’d probably move, rather than repair ours; Joel’s was a rental, so he said they’d move for sure. Maybe to Ireland. I said we’d probably move to Ireland, too. The chances seemed high that we would be neighbors again, in Ireland. We scooted toward each other, for warmth, and when I turned on my side Joel spooned me, very innocently. All bodies were good, I realized. Joel’s stocky form beside me was unfamiliar, but good. Hugging. It hit me like a ton of bricks. Hugging was so moving, so basic. Why had I ever taken pride in not being a “hugger”? Two people embracing was the very building block of life.

“Hugging is the building block of life,” I whispered. Joel was quiet and this was exactly right; more words would just take away. I pressed my hand against the lawn, palming the whole earth like a gigantic basketball. Warm tears ran into the hair at my temple, one after another after another. Hello, stranger, I thought. And by “stranger” I meant not Joel but myself. My blood moved around in my body. I felt the purpose of every muscle. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t seen the video.

When I awoke, it was light out and I was lying with the next-door neighbor on his lawn. I could tell right away that our houses were fine. It took only fifteen minutes to straighten up the books and the dishes that had fallen. The earthquake had been big, but no one was saying that it was “the big one.” When Alex and Sam got home, I told a story about hiding under the dining-room table. Our earthquake, the one that Joel and I had survived, was private. I friended him on Facebook the next day and we started e-mailing. Mostly we wrote about details from that night—the silence, the sky, how time had seemed to stretch out. I didn’t have any specific or adulterous plans; I was just wholly open. I saw us going on a road trip. Or maybe taking ayahuasca and throwing up in buckets. His penis was moving in and out of me most of the time. Sometimes I made it very small, like a finger, so that it wouldn’t distract me too much as I worked or emptied the dishwasher. Just a little thrusting tick-tock that drowned out the real sound of time: 7 a.m., 4 p.m., 6 p.m., the most brutal of time’s representatives, but hardly the whole battalion.

I was waiting for Joel’s response to my last e-mail when Alex and I stumbled on him, almost literally. We were coming home from a date night; Joel and his wife were lying on their lawn, staring up at the evening sky. They’d brought out the same pillows and blankets, and a bottle of wine. It was adorable in a way that people like us find cloying, so Alex raised his eyebrows at me before calling out to them.

“Sorry! We usually park farther up but the trash cans are out.”

“No, no,” Joel said, rising to his feet. “We’re good.” He swept his hand toward their reënactment. “It’s a lot more fun without all the shaking!” His wife raised her glass toward me and smiled; she knew the whole story. Alex nodded, cocking his head curiously in my direction. I stared at the familiar blue geometric pattern of the pillowcases. Joel had taken the exquisite energy of our experience and plowed it back into his marriage. How wise. This option had never occurred to me. I had always detonated each thing in the very place where I found it.

Even after I acknowledged that I hadn’t hidden under the dining-room table as I said I had, Alex was still confused. We’d been reading in bed for less than thirty seconds when he started up with the questions again.

“It’s just so unlike you. You hate camping.”

“I know. It was an extreme situation.”

“And you’ve never once said hi to the neighbors.”

“And I still don’t want to! Joel is a completely uninteresting person.” This was now true again.

I turned out my light. He left his light on and lay next to me, waiting. Leaving a space for my confession. I had done nothing. Nothing! My heart pounded nonetheless, the dumb beast. Just as I started to roll over, Alex turned to me and used his big hands to pull all my hair back, stretching my face into surprise. He held me like this, studying my posture of alarm, then let go abruptly and fell onto his back in frustration. We embarked on a silence. It grew and grew until it was a sort of god that we could only submit to. After fifteen or twenty minutes I almost giggled—somebody say something!—and then I realized with horror that he was probably asleep. This wasn’t our silence; it was mine alone. I lay paralyzed as it hollowed and darkened, expanding in every direction with a familiar cruelty. Hello, stranger. Once, many years ago, Alex had saved me from this black hole with the kind of understanding that makes everything else in life possible. Even ingratitude.

He shifted under the covers and I held my breath. If he was awake, I would try. If he was asleep, I would sleep, too, and probably forget to try, or forget that it mattered, or what I meant by try. Try to be brave.

“Are you awake?” I whispered.

“Wide awake.”

I sat up and told the story of the video, starting with my quasi-abusive boyfriend and ending with meeting the neighbor twice. Alex was mostly quiet, only asking a few questions (“What was the bowl for?”). I left out the hugging and the e-mailing and the tick-tocking tiny penis, but, still, when I was finished he silently walked out of the room. I took a breath and held it. I had made a terrible mistake. Why had I done this? My mind stopped, poised to shatter.

Then he came back, holding his computer. He solemnly opened it in front of me, like a violin case before a maestro. I typed in the URL. The Web site looked a little different, but the major landmarks were still there.

“You need a credit card to get to it.”

He left and came back with his wallet. He typed in his credit-card number and I clicked around. I wasn’t sure where to go because the college beauties and the hot Korean girl were gone. It was all new girls. They looked extremely young. I scrolled in a daze. Brunette. Underage. Small tits. I stopped clicking.

“When was the last time you saw it?” Alex said quietly.

“I don’t know. I have it pretty memorized so I don’t need to. . . . Not since we’ve been together.”

“Oh. I think they update . . . you know, just . . . for the viewers.”

It seemed obvious now that they wouldn’t still have a video from the nineties.

“Yeah, of course. I just thought maybe they had a section for . . . alumni or . . . I don’t know.”

I shut the computer. It was too bad. Really too bad. How bad? The consequences would be enormous, I felt.

Alex was in the kitchen now, opening cupboards.

He came back with a Teddy bear, an empty beer bottle, and a bowl. He picked up his pillow and pulled the comforter aside, arranging everything along the foot of the stripped bed.

“I can’t re-create it, if that’s what you’re thinking. It was true amateur porn, not fake.”

“I understand—the real deal.”

“The people who saw it . . . they were really overcome by it. It was their top video to watch, porn-wise.”

As we talked, Alex seemed to be riding the pillow slightly, maybe unconsciously.

“You’re talking about the pale man—”

“The pale man, the dad, and the butch girl. Yes.”

Now he was rubbing the Teddy bear against his crotch. He slid off his boxer shorts. Well. Well, now. I sat back. He was very much an amateur. He didn’t know what he was doing and he was desperately trying to save his life. I’d never seen him move his hips like that. It was funny, or no, actually not funny, just disorienting, slightly grotesque. He picked up the beer bottle, and, after a moment of honest hesitation, sucked its mouth and then—I reached under my nightgown—began slowly working it into himself. I had never wanted to see this, but I came immediately, and hard. He brought himself to the end of the show, manually. I held my breath, waiting for him to come on the new sheet. I’d have to wash it again. Who cares? I do. Just a little. Just enough to ruin each day. And then, with a swift and professional gesture, he grabbed the bowl and came into it. That was what the bowl was for. ♦

Published in the print edition of the

September 4, 2017

, issue.

Miranda July

is a filmmaker, an artist, and the author of five books. Her latest movie, “Kajillionaire,” will be released in September.

#miranda july #short story

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kurtismcilroy · 7 months

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Does anyone have any age regressed Ant Man headcanons? I am deprived 😭🙏

If you do, feel free to leave them as a reblog or in the comments :)

#ant man #ant man mcu #ant man marvel #marvel ant man #scott lang ant man #scott lang #marvel agere #marvel age regression #fandom agere #fandom age regression #sfw age regression #sfw agere #age regression #mcu age regression #mcu agere #agere #agere headcanons #sfw interaction only

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auskultu · 7 years

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HOUSE-TO-HOUSE SEARCH FOR SNIPERS BEGUN AS RIOT ENTERS 6TH DAY

Homer Bigart, The New York Times, 17 July 1967

NEWARK – National Guard troops and the police hunted house to house for snipers today after gunfire claimed three more lives in this riot-torn city.

Nearly half of Newark’s 23.7 square miles was an occupied zone. As sporadic sniping continued, guardsmen and policemen—weary and trigger-quick after days and nights of tension—were reported to have engaged each other in several accidental gunfights.

The actions of the guardsmen and the state police drew angry protests yesterday from moderate leaders of the Negro community. They accused the militia and the police of harassing peacemakers and of destroying Negro-owned stores.

12-Year-Old Boy Killed The latest riot victim was a 12-year-old Negro boy, Michael Pugh, who was shot in the side early this morning. He died in Newark City Hospital.

Witnesses said he was emptying a pail of garbage in front on his home on 15th Avenue. His family said the shot had come from a group of guardsmen standing a block away.

The boy’s death raised the toll in the six days of rioting to 24 dead. Early last night, Mrs. Eloise Spellman, 41, died of gunshot wounds. She had been caught in crossfire between guardsmen and snipers while in her 1Oth-floor apartment at 322 Hunterdon Avenue.

Earlier, a teen-age Negro was shot in the chest by the state police while allegedly looting a store at Bergen Street and Custer Avenye.

Since the riots began, more than 700 have been injured am more than 1,200 arrested.

The police radio kept warning: "Be sure of target. HoId fire until you are sure of target.”

A state trooper, CpI. Samuel Leon, was shot twice, in an arm and the buttocks, and ws: taken to Newark City Hospital That hospital game under sniper fire for the third straight night. Doctors and nurses dropped to the floor during 10 minutes of sniping that started at 9:30 P.M.

The police began shooting from hallway windows and guardsmen threw tear gas into an abandoned three-story house near the hospital, but failed tc rout any suspects. Two guardsmen were overcome by tear gas.

Gov. Richard J. Hughes reported late yesterday that there had been a reduction in violence. But at 9:30 P.M. sniper suddenly intensified in two separate areas—High Street, Orange Street and Central Avenue.

At 11:30 P.M. all city bus ceased operation. Except for the occasional crackle of rifle fire, the city fell silent.

Governor Hughes said at news conference yesterday that despite the efforts of the powerful force of guardsmen and state and city police the situation remained critical.

The Governor’s command post in the Roseville Avenue Armory was not far from where a sniper was reported to have taken up a firing position. A large crowd of whites that ha been loitering all day in front of the armory was disperse and the streets were cleared.

The police had warnings of rising vigilantism among white living near the ghetto. Three white teen-agers were arrested when a search of their car disclosed a rifle and a shotgun.

Businesses Advised Governor Hughes asked major business concerns to remain closed today. He said that the national railroad strike would clog the streets with thousands of commuters trying to read work by car or bus and that he did not want traffic jams in the riot area.

He asked, however, that food stores and restaurants remain open. Banks and public utilities will also open.

Newark College of Engineering will be closed both day and night. Rutgers University will be open in the day but closed at night.

Mr. Hughes directed all schools in Newark to remain closed today, and urged that only essential businesses—among them food stores and pharmacies—open. He said liquor stores and taverns would remain closed "until we can say order has been restored.”

One of Newark’s largest employers, the Public Service Electric and Gas Company, said only 500 essential workers among its 2,500 employees would be called in today.

The Prudential Insurance Company of America, which employs 9,000 people, said its Newark headquarters would be closed.

The riots and the railroad strike prompted the Selective Service System to postpone the induction of 500 men who were scheduled to report today. Col. Joseph T. Avella, the state’s director of Selective Service, said draft boards would notify those affected of a new induction date.

The Governor said he hoped for an early resumption of critical services, such as garbage collection, in the Negro districts. This, he said, would depend on the security situation. Thousands of residents of the heavily Negro Central Ward lined up for hours to receive meager rations of food as the first supplies since Wednesday night began moving into the area under armed guard. Distribution centers manned by volunteers were set up in housing projects and community centers and five supermarkets were reopened under police guard.

Emergency distribution of food might be adversely affected by the national railroad strike, he said.

The first efforts to bridge the gulf between the white and Negro communities collapsed yesterday.

Peace Effort Fails A five-man interracial committee that had recruited several hundred persons to urge the mobs to "cool it” reported complete failure. The peace missionaries, who wore lime-colored armbands, said their leaders had decided to drop the campaign because of harassment by the National Guard and state police.

Adam Garrett, a committee member, said the volunteers would confine their efforts to telling Negroes living in the besieged areas where to go for emergency food and medicine.

Far more damaging to prospects for peace was the reaction of middle-class Negroes to what they called "wanton destruction” perpetrated early today by state policemen and guardsmen.

They charged that shop windows bearing the sign "Soul Brother”—indicating that the owner was a Negro—had been systematically smashed by state troopers’ bullets or been bashed in by the rifle butts of guardsmen. Most of this destruction, they said, took place along Bergen Street, in one of the better Negro residential areas in the West Ward.

Yesterday morning, groups of well-dressed Negroes stood on the street corners of the West Ward and surveyed the damage with somber wrath. J. J. Brown, the proprietor of a record store on Avon Avenue, had put a sign on his damaged window. It said: “State Police Shot Up This Store!”

Residents said two carloads of state troopers entered the area sometime after 3 A.M. and fired into the store windows. Guardsmen joined in the destruction, they said, using rifle butts.

Governor Hughes, at a late afternoon news conference called the charges “hearsay” but added that he was “disturbed” by the reports ai would be glad to investigate the Negroes would provide “facts, figures, time and places.”

Immediately after the Governor’s news conference a delegation of 40 Negroes, armed with photographs of smashed storefronts and some slugs from .38-caliber bullets that said were found inside the stores, arrived at the Rosevil Avenue Armory to see the Governor and confront him with telegram they had sent to Pre ident Johnson.

They said they wanted the National Guard and the state police replaced by “fully integrated Federal troops.”

The telegram to the President explained that Federal troops were needed because of “wanton destruction of property and “actual murders” committed by the police and Nationl Guard men.

Dr. Reynold C. Burch, a leaf er of the group, said innocent Negroes had been killed in “indiscriminate firing” by the ant riot forces.

The telegram also cited “inflammatory statements” by Governor Hughes and Mayor Hugh J. Addonizio and the alleged mobilization of white vigilantes in areas bordering the Negro ghetto.

This vigilante move was fostered, the telegram said, by "ignorant statements made by the Mayor and Governor.” It urged action by the President "by nightfall.”

Governor Hughes said he was aware of Negro charges that the presence of the National Guard and the state police was only adding to the legacy of hate left by the nation’s worst racial explosion in two years He said he was “assessing” the role of the Guard and the police.

But he called the snipers "unregenerate criminals” and said the guardsmen and the state police would “remain until order is restored.”

Weary National Guard men who said they were members of Headquarters Company of the 114th Division, from Woodbury, N. J., ducked sniper fire in the Negro Central Ward in the hours between midnight and dawn yesterday.

“It’s a lousy thing,” a private first class said as he clutched his M-1 rifle with its fixed bayonet. "The first time we ever shot at anyone, and we're shooting at Americans.” The police revised their figures downward last night on the number of persons arrested land injured. They said 1,257 had been arrested and 702 injured.

In a predawn conference yesterday, Governor Hughes offered executive clemency to any prisoners who would give evidence leading to the conviction of a sniper.

Coatless, red-eyed with fatigue, still incensed over the shooting of a fire captain by snipers, the Governor denounced the sniping attacks as “senseless, terrible and criminal.”

He said that State Attorney General Arthur Sills would urge Essex County Prosecutor Brendan Byrne to propose maximum sentences for charges growing out of sniping incidents. He also said he would ask the State Supreme Court to expedite the court calendars to allow the earliest possible processing of these cases.

"I will urge clemency for looters if, and only if, such persons give information leading to the arrest of a person for sniping,” the Governor said.

No Conspiracy Seen Governor Hughes, appearing with Mayor Addonizio on a televised news conference at noon, said the police estimated that as many as 25 snipers were operating in the ghetto. He said he had been told that "some” of those arrested were from outside the city, and added that the police believed some dead snipers were still in or on buildings in Central Ward.

Neither the Governor nor the Mayor said he had any evidence of a conspiracy by an outside group, but the Governor said that “the rather expert sniping, the jumping from place to place—the cruel and despicable efficiency with which this sniping occurred—indicates some organization and some coordination between these criminals participating in it.”

He charged that many of the rioters were "committing violence because they hate America.”

Early yesterday afternoon, escorted by a carload of state policemen with riot guns, Governor Hughes made a quick tour of Negro districts. He said he was pleased to find a partly looted chain grocery had reopened again for business.

He said he thought that the looting and plundering phase of the disorders was over, but reports of scattered pillage later in the day proved him premature.

Mr. Hughes said he had told the Episcopal Bishop of Newark, the Right Rev. Leland Stark, one of the sponsors of the national black power conference scheduled to start here Thursday, that he couldn’t think of "a worse time or a worse place to have a black power meeting.”

He insisted again that he did not need Federal troops. What the Federal government should do, he said, is send all possible economic aid to the city.

Newark is chronically depressed, with an unemployment rate considerably more than double the national average. Economic misery is the root cause of the riot, the Governor said.

Local leaders of the Congress of Racial Equality and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee held a news conference yesterday afternoon and issued a demand for "immediate withdrawal of National Guard units and state and Newark police from the ghetto.

James Hooper, chairman of the Newark CORE, said Mayor Addonizio had neglected Negro problems. One major grievance, he said, was lack of relocation facilities for people displaced by the proposed construction of a medical college in the heart of the ghetto.

The presence of troops and police only intensified the rioting, Mr. Hooper said.

"Parents aren’t going to sit back and let their kids get shot up,” said Jesse Allen, a CORE organizer. “They’ll go into the streets, too. Then this town will turn into a cemetery. The police are out of control and the National Guard is out of control, too.”

The leaders said the black power conference should proceed as scheduled.

But the crowd of white men loitering near Governor Hughes’s command post in the Roseville Armory sounded equally aggressive.

“If they want war, they’ll get it,” growled one man.

Something very much like war has occurred here as sniper fire from roofs and blackened windows has caused police to spray bullets into tenements and housing projects at scattered points.

Half a dozen fire stations have come under sniper fire. Engine Company 12, in the West Ward, was forced to stay in its quarters for several hours by intense fire.

#1960s #1967 #1967 newark riots #60s #african americans #ghetto #inequality #law and order #national guard #new jersey #newark #police brutality #race riot #racism #sixties #white backlash #riots

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