#Dr. Oliver Wolf Sacks

[starrylol]

Some Dr Wolf sketches for practice💚🙏

[bucksboobs]

My thought on this episode of Brilliant Minds? Good. I like that the Carol and Morris storyline is going somewhere, it touches on where Oliver’s history with drug abuse seems to have started, we got to see Daddy Wolf again. Van’s little reveal was kinda crazy honestly, and wow could they be more obvious about Wolf and Nichols than having Oliver answer a call from him while the camera pans to a painting of patient’s beloved wife? Not the same emotional landslide of Roman and Alex’s story but still a touching story nonetheless. I like that this feels like a baseline episode and it still gets you a little misty eyed at times. There’s a lot of heart in this little medical drama, which makes sense for something inspired by the works of Dr Oliver Sacks. Good episode

[qveenpoppy]

anyways as i recover from this week's episode, i need you all to see this picture (from roman's actor's, aka alex ozerov-meyer's, instagram) of an official cast/crew shirt featuring artwork of dr. wolf as an actual wolf (and a quote from dr. oliver sacks, but unfortunately you can't really read it here)

[hazelcephalopod]

Alright. So the new medical drama “Brilliant Minds” staring Zachary Quinto as a neurologist called Dr. Oliver Wolf (I believe based loosely on and the work of Dr. Oliver Sacks, tangent go look him up when you have a minute you won’t regret it.) has been out for a while now. Tbh it’s both House-esque, and suffering from a serious case of season one and frankly odd choices. I personally love that, everyone -it the large opening cast- has a suitcase of backstory, the pacing is somehow breakneck and slow. Just haunting the whole thing are Wolfs dead daddy issues, and inability to let people in resulting in impulse control problems, and abrasives -he’s really nice to his patients, and anyone standing in the way of their care he’s not at all. He kidnaps an old man with dementia from his nursing home in episode one so the man can play the piano at his granddaughters wedding. Gleefully, on a motorcycle! Also he’s faceblind, gay, and well, refusing to deal with any of his mental problems.

Is it it good? At times it’s excellent and the most recent episode alone pulls it well above most tv I’ve seen lately. There are certainly, oddities, as I said a very serious case of season one and this season should have more episodes. Idk how many episodes it’s gonna have but I know it’s not enough. I think it deserves a second season. I really want to see where it goes. I really want to see how far they can get with it. Plz watch it!

[hollywoodoutbreak]

Star Trek actor Zachary Quinto graces network television once more, this time stepping into the captivating world of medicine in the new drama series Brilliant Minds. Inspired by the remarkable works of Dr. Oliver Sacks, Quinto embodies the essence of Sacks' brilliance while carving out a unique path for his character.

Quinto, alongside executive producer and creator Michael Grassi, is deeply inspired by Dr. Sacks' legacy. However, they've masterfully crafted a narrative that pays homage to Sacks while venturing into uncharted territory, offering a fresh and compelling perspective.

Quinto's portrayal of Dr. Oliver Wolfe promises to be a captivating exploration of the human mind and the complexities of the medical world.

Don't miss Brilliant Minds, airing Monday nights at 10/9c on NBC and streaming the next day on Peacock.

[starman-waiting-in-the-sky07]

Benjamin Franklin

The jetsons

Yogi bear

Boxtrolls

Nightmare before Christmas

A land before time

Octodad

katamari prince

Madagascar

Robot devil

Disenchanted

Shadow wizard money gang

Sack boy

Sam and max

Hagrid

Robin Hood

Alvin and the chipmunks

Twitter bird

Triangle factory guy

In the night garden

Octonauts

Baby Jake

Ghost cod

Plato

Isaac newton

The twits

Digdug

Q!bert

Wreck it Ralph

Bfg

Charlie and the choclate factory

Queen Elizabeth the second

Queen Victoria

King Henry VIII

Edmund mcmillen

More Isaac characters, azezeal, cain

More bible characters, beelzebub, cain.

Mary magdelane

Mary (ghosts)

Boudicca

Pride flags

Countries

Vladimir putin

Teddy roosevelt

Kamala Harris

GIMP mascot

Spy x family more

Concepts (music, language, etc)

Fargos mutant mod characters

Hatsune miku

Miku binder Jefferson

Richard ayoade

Peanut butter jelly time banana

Snoop dog

Big brother (1984)

Animal farm characters

Einstein

Midas

Pot of greed

Super greed

More bible characters (Lilith)

Barney

Rev love joy

Kirk van houten

Duffman

Julius hibbert

More hunger games (trainer, sister, villain)

Buccarati

Guido mista

The noid

Ham burgaler

Grimace

Clippy

Kabru (dungeon meshi guy)

The seven deadly sins

Huma kavula

Police officer

Eddie and lou

Cleveland

The UK

French person

Bobo buddy

Van Gogh

The Mona Lisa

Eli (half life)

Barney (half life)

Chase

Rubble

The DM

the other 2 gorgons

Hermes

Achilles

Arachne (spider lady who crossed Athena)

Athena

Aphrodite

Apoim(Pokémon)

Dawn

Lord krump

Olivia

Bobbery

Wolf man

Frankenstein

Frankensteins monster

The creature from the black lagoon

Ed Sheeran

Big Ben

Totoro

Arrietty

Ponyo

No face

Howl

Calficer

Kiki

Witch of the wastes

Porco Rosso

Han Solo

Jack sparrow

Peter Pan

Wendy

Captain Hook

Lego joker

Lego Batman

Alfred

The riddler

Beavis

Butthead

Dorothy

Scarecrow

Cowardly lion

Tin man

The wicked witch of the west

The wizard of oz

Rocky

Barbie

Ken

Tarzan

Jane

George of the jungle

Wally (where’s wally)

Kermit

Fozzie

Animal

Miss piggy

Scooter

Gonzo

Rowlf the dog

rizzo the rat

Pepe

Dr Bunsen honeydew

Beaker

statler and waldorf

Swedish chef

Sam eagle

Sweetums

Walter

Camilla the chicken

Elmo

Big bird

Count countula

Oscar the grump

Professor squackencluck

jeopardy mouse

Count duckula

Nero

Dawn crumhorn

Isambard King Kong Brunel

Quark

Pandaminion

Stanley

The narrator

Micheal Myers

Jason voorhees

Jack the Ripper

The muffin man

The gingerbread man

The runaway pancake

Sweeney Todd

Burke and hare

Mad hatter

Alice

Tweedle dum and tweedle Dee

Cheshire Cat

Queen of hearts

March hare

Generic cowboy

Billy the kid

The lizard cowboy movie rango

Dust papyrus

Red dead redemption guy

Zombie

Cotl angel guy

Ratau

A Crumpet

Caesar

Nero (Roman emperor)

Brutus

Shakespeare

Dr. House

Billy Joel

Ziggy stardust

Major Tom

Lord snooty

Bash street kids

Paddington

Rabbit (whinnie the Pooh)

Heffalump (Winnie the Pooh)

Elvis Presley

Hong Kong phoeey

Dick dastardly

Inspector gadget

Lady Gaga

Labyrinth

Davy Crockett

John Lennon

Superpets the hamster thing

Malcolm X

Martin Luther king

Jamie Oliver

Moomins

Pied piper

Little red riding hood

Bjorn (peggle)

Erina

Gary charmers

Catgirl

Mary(had a little lamb)

Nimona

The tortoise and the hare

Charlie (bit my finger)

Shy guy

Booster

Teddy bear

Dracula

Shaun the sheep

Timmy time!

Megamind

Kung fu panda

Tangled

Alan turing

Charles Babbage

Picasso

Jan misali

princess Diana

Walt Disney

Steven after not surviving

David Attenborough

James cordon

More lego movie

More toys

Jack in the box

Star signs (Virgo etc)

Apollo

Emojis

Donkey Kong jr

Psycho cannibal guy

Flork of cows mr rich

Petaly

Mike

Pearl

Mrs puff

Pain girl

Ramshackle

Nigel and marmalade

The one with the three eyed guy

Gloink king

Pikit

Gooseworx bounty hunter girl and that series in general

Goncharov

Destiel

Hamlet

Ood

Mars rover

Elon musk

Buzz aldrin

Neil Armstrong

Danny devito

Rory pond

Gummy bear

Smaug

Bard the bowman

Beorn

Big hero six

King of the hill

moral Orel

Rocky horror picture show

Death note

Starman earthbound

More Star Wars

Leia

Droids

Jabba the Hutt

Boba fett

Baby yoda

Palpatine

Lotr orc

Beaty and the beast

Douglas adams

Jimminy cricket

Winston Churchill

Even older Joseph

Duolingo bird

Pinky and the brain

Orson wells

KEKW guy

Animaniacs

Captain caveman

Risk of rain

Steve Harley

Chess peices

Rosa parks

Super paper Mario

Newer paper Mario partners

Koopalings

Red dwarf

Ghengis khan

Matt groening

Pandora

Sontaran

The silence

More futurama- Sal, old lady, roberto, bird lawyer, cops,

Crash bandicoot villains and girl

Monsier bloque Mario and Luigi

Oddish

Gary

Arceus

Wonder over yonder

The office

More roald dahl characters

Roald Dahl

Mariah Carey

Hansel and gretel

The three little pigs

Star Trek

Monster prom

All the doctors

The man who sold the world

Professor oak

More ut yellow

Harambe

David tennant

[ironworked]

Brilliant Minds 1.01

Spoiler free: I really enjoyed this one! If you whittle it down to essentials, it's (yet another) show about a weird/neuroatypical/lone wolf professional who Must Do Things Their Way, with everyone else skeptical at each episode's start but applauding by the end. HOWEVER, the way it's done, the details and the heart of it are what make it (so far) different.

This series is based on Dr Oliver Sack's work,

"Most scientists and clinicians interested in the brain tend to ponder the characteristic traits found across a population of patients with autism, Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia and other conditions, but Sacks was fascinated by the uniqueness of individual patients and what light it shed on the human condition." [x]

and this is what, at least this episode, portrays. It's not a detached intellectual curiosity that drives Zachary Quinto's character; it's a deep empathy with his patients, a desire to understand them and help them live.

Quinto described Dr. Sacks as his “North Star” in his approach to playing Dr. Wolf. “He was an incredible, complex, inspirational and influential doctor and person,” the actor explained. “So, it’s this very unique alchemy for me, where I get to play a character who is inspired by a real-life person, but I’m not tethered to the period or the behavior of that person in real life. I get to take all of the rich tapestry of who Oliver Sacks was and inform the creation of Oliver Wolf, but Oliver Wolf exists in his own world.” [x]

[webseriesviral]

Dr. Wolf - Medical Drama Starring Zachary Quinto Gets Series Order at NBC Subscribe for show updates Receive ne... #movie quote #movies #movie line #movie line #movie scenes #cinema #movie stills #film quotes #film edit #vintage #movie scenes #love quotes #life quotes #positive quotes #vintage #retro #quote #quotes #sayings #cinematography

[bloededhoine]

world building cause twn doesn't part 4: elves!

everyone loves elves! they're a fantasy genre mainstay, archery is so sexy, and they have those E A R S. plus, they play a pretty important part in the witcher universe!

series masterpost

colour code cause i fucking love colour codes - already happened/introduced, probably s2, important background info, stuff that might be in the prequel, extras

background

i'd recommend going through the last parts, or at least the tl;dr's first

elves arrived on the continent about 2000 years before humans, and are divided into 5 distinct cultures of varying importance: aen undod, aen elle, aen seidhe, black seidhe, and aen woedde

elves only came to the continent in one group, but not all of that group stayed. the different branches based on where they settled make up the different cultures

the main two languages in the witcher are common speech and elder speech (aka hen llinge), the former used by most humans and the latter used by the elder races

aen undod

the aen undod are the oldest elven culture, having existed years before the conjunction of spheres

their home world faced some huge catastrophe, so the aen undod left in search of new worlds, leaving their descendants to become all the future elven cultures.

the aen undod spoke the oldest dialect of elder speech, laith aen undod, or one speech

aen elle

the aen elle use a language derived from hen llinge called ellylon, in which their name means "of the alders"

they don't actually live on the continent, having abandoned it years ago for their own world.

however, when the aen elle arrived in this new world, it was already populated by humans and unicorns. unfortunately, these elves are notoriously ruthless and both the native species were eradicated.

the capital of the aen elle world is tir ná lia, and is described as stunningly beautiful, featuring open air buildings made of marble, alabaster, and malachite. here it is in the third witcher video game, by djkovrik on nexus. their screenshots are amazing btw.

[ID: screenshot from wild hunt showing tir ná lia. the city is built on cliffs above a sea, there are waterfalls falling from the cliffs and bridges connecting them. there are mountains in the background and the buildings are fairly small and out of focus, they seem to be in the gothic revival style with ornate windows and steeped roofs. end ID]

the ruler of the aen elle was auberon muircetach, king of the alders and aen saevherne (aen saevherne is the honorary title of an elven mage who has extensive knowledge of magic, geneology, history, and many other subjects). auberon was also ciri's 5 times great grandfather. this gwent card pretty much sums up his vibe: scary yet sexy.

[ID: illustration of elven man with long white hair on a brown horse. he has defined cheekbones and facial features and is wearing a gold crown and blue robes with a red sash, gold belt, and leather boots. he is holding a white unicorn head in one hand. the unicorn's horn is cut off, and is bloody around its neck and where its horn was. end ID]

auberon's consort was another aen elle named shiadhal, with whom he had one daughter, lara dorren. lara is so so so important for the witcher, as she is the beginning of the elder blood, or hen ichaer.

hen ichaer is a gene that carries incredibly powerful magic, and those who have it are usually sources. i talk more abt this in part 3.

for better or for worse, lara dorren fell in love with a human sorcerer, cregennan of lod, and left tir ná lia for him. auberon took this as cregennan "stealing" his daughter and therefore the hen ichaer, and developed a pretty hefty vengeance and dedication to "take back" what was his (yikes).

this also set a precedent of people "claiming" the lives of carriers of the hen ichaer

auberon also formed an elven cavalry known as the red riders or wild hunt (dearg ruadhri in ellylon) and he appointed eredin bréacc glas as their commander. the initial purpose of the wild hunt was to travel to different worlds and capture slaves for tir ná lia, although they later became auberon's tool to find and exploit carriers of hen ichaer.

the wild hunt also uses specially trained mages known as navigators to open portals to other worlds, the most notable of these navigators is caranthir ar-feiniel, who doubled as one of eredin's most trusted men.

the aen elle also live a pretty long time, average is around 650 years, so the timelines are kinda hard to keep track of.

notable aen elle include: auberon muircetach, shiadhal, lara dorren, eredin breácc glas, crevan espane aep caomhan macha (aka avallac'h, also an aen saevherne and lara dorren's ex), caranthir ar-feiniel (also avallac'h's foster son), ge'els (the viceroy of tir ná lia), and imlerith (general of the wild hunt)

aen seidhe

put simply, the aen seidhe are the elves that did not leave when the aen elle did

the aen seidhe don't really have a society like the aen elle, they're pretty dispersed across the world. but, there are certain areas the aen seidhe have claimed as their own.

one of these little civilizations is dol blathanna, also known as the valley of flowers. unfortunately, it's not an independent state, as it was conquered by aedirn in the 1150s. however, then-king baldwin thyssen did allow the elves to retain a lot of their cultural identity and live in peace.

dol blathanna includes the village posada and the capital silver towers, which is where filavandrel aén findháil is from. he's that sexy man right there

[ID: photo of white elf man with blonde hair going to his shoulders. he is wearing tattered green robes and is looking slightly to the side with his lips pursed. end ID]

not that anyone cares, but here's him in the hexer. it's not important to the lore or twn it's just fuckin funny

[ID: old man with white frizzy wig. he is wearing a headband that appears to be rocks on a string. he has what looks like a potato sack tied around his shoulders over a green tunic. he is scowling. end ID]

outside of dol blathanna, there aren't really any places where elves can live with minimal human interaction, although the blue mountains are home to a few incredibly powerful elves

side note: dol blathanna is technically part of the blue mountains, but is in the far southern foothills so they're usually treated as separate entities.

the blue mountains are also a natural border dividing the northern kingdoms from the far east, and where filavandrel went to live after he got fed up with dol blathanna.

they're also the home of ida emean aep sivney, who's also an aen saevherne and future member of the lodge of sorceresses.

next season, we're going to meet the beautiful elven sorceress francesca findabair, also known as enid an gleanna (hen llinge for daisy of the valley)

here she is with fringilla vigo (nilfgaardian sorceress) in twn season 2. note that enid is preggers! that's very odd and i will go into detail on it later

[ID: photo of two women walking side by side. the one on the left is black and has black hair in braids going over one shoulder. she is wearing a silver dress with a similarly coloured floor length coat. the one on the right is biracial and has strawberry blonde hair in a braided updo. she is wearing a floor length blue gown with gold embroidery and a metallic brown cloak. she is pregnant. end ID]

enid is crazy interesting and important for the story of the witcher (and confirmed for season two!), so i won't go too in depth about her now

as i mentioned in part 2, nilfgaard tends to favour elves, leading to a lot of militaristic forces allied with nilfgaard. most notably, the scoia'tael, or squirrels. the scoia'tael are an incredibly ruthless and effective nonhuman guerilla force, generally divided into commandos, units that patrol a given area and eliminate the northern (or simply human) threat.

there are a lot of scoia'tael, so i'll just give you the commanders for now: angus bri cri, coinneach dá reo, iorveth, isengrim faoiltiarna, riordain, and toruviel.

you might remember toruviel as this sexy angry lady from twn, and she is possibly going to get a much bigger role later... pay attention to toruviel.

[ID: young elf woman with white skin and red hair tied over her shoulder. she has a bloody nose and is wearing a light green top with a dark brown leather studded belt. her belt is also around an olive green coat. she looks quite angry. end ID]

the scoia'tael were very well organized, but also quite dispersed, so when nilfgaard needed more specific tasks done, they would assemble specific military units (usually led by some of our favourite squirrels)

the vrihedd brigade was the most important of these units. they were especially notorious for their cruelty in the second northern war, so i'm sure we'll meet at least a few members next season.

their leader was colonel isengrim faoiltiarna (aka the iron wolf), and his officers coinneach, iorveth, riordain, and angus.

francesca findabair is not directly involved with either the scoia'tael or the vrihedd brigade, but she does work quite closely with them very often.

also important to note that not all scoia'tael are aen seidhe elves, most (including all higher ranking commanders and officers) are, but there are a number of nonhumans including dwarves and halflings.

unfortunately, the aen seidhe are slowly going extinct, both from years of genocide from humans and their slow reproductive cycles (elves live a Long time, but can only have children towards the beginning of their lives)

that's why it's so surprising to me that enid is preggers! we don't exactly know her age, but by my calculations she was over 150 in twn (pretty far past the age elves can have children).

because of this, elves are pretty divided between fighting against human rule and seeking coexistence. there are arguments for both camps, mainly that humans are colonizers and should not be trusted for the former, and that elves are dying out already and need to live with humans to survive for the latter.

the most prominent stand for the fight was in the 1060s when an aen seidhe named aelireen led an uprising against humans. most of the elders told her that it wouldn't end well, but she didn't listen and led hundreds of young elves into battle. it was an utter massacre, and basically all elves who could have children died.

yikes

unfortunately, the movement for coexistence was just as unsuccessful. it was led by our man cregennan of lod, lara dorren's husband. the poor simp just wanted to live in peace with his wife, but a lot of humans thought he was a traitor because he married an elf, and he and lara were murdered in 1137 in redania.

the last real push for independence was with the formation of the scoia'tael in the 1260s. I say 1260s because the very beginnings of the scoia'tael were right around 1262-1236 (the start of ciri's timeline) but they became majorly important around 1267. although, even the scoia'tael realized they needed humans to survive and began working with nilfgaard.

however, some scoia'tael are less keen on being nilfgaard's attack dogs, leading to further division amongst the aen seidhe.

black seidhe

remember the elves i talked about in part 2 as being the ancestors of the albans? this is them!

the black seidhe are native to the south, more particularly the valley around the alba river. they are practically extinct, but the nilfgaardians carry a lot of their cultural identity in the nilfgaardian language, a variation of hen llinge.

aen woedde

the wood elves, or aen woedde, is the elven culture we know the least about, they primarily live in the areas around nilfgaardian forests and speak hen llinge.

the only notable wood elf is aenyeweddien, or iskra, a member of the rats, a gang of semi violent youths in the northern realms. we'll learn more about the rats in future seasons.

tl;dr: elves, especially the aen seidhe and aen elle cultures, make up a large part of witcher lore. they are most notable for their long lifespans, magical and historical knowledge, and militaristic alliances with nilfgaard.

[joshversus]

... Holiday Gaming, Year 5

It is absolutely batshit that I’ve been running these stupid Risus one-shot adventures every December for half a decade.  And yet, here we are, and once again I close out a year’s tabletop RPG play with a chaotic mess of wild improvisation and half-baked ideas loosely themed to midwinter celebrations.  You can read about previous years adventures here, here, here, and here.  

This year formed a direct sequel to last year’s game, which was itself a semi-sequel to the first holiday one shot.  

Following a lawsuit alleging image infringement, trademark violations, defamation, and mail fraud (among other charges), Lucifer settled out of court.  As a result of the arbitration, Lucifer (Satan) is legally obligated to fulfill those letters intended for Santa which, due to misspelling, have been delivered to the Infernal Pit instead.  The letters from Good Children, in particular, must be fulfilled on Christmas Eve as is the expected contract with Santa.  Of course, Lucifer himself is embedded waist-deep in Cocytus, the frozen lake at the bottom of Hell, and anyway you don’t get to reign over the entire Inferno without delegating, so the work has been farmed out to lesser demons.  The easy letters are dealt with by imps and various minor servitors, but there remain a few more problematic missives, and the Devil has appointed these to five of the lords of Hell to handle before Christmas morning.  

Our player characters are:

HAAGENTI, President of Hell, governor over 33 legions, in the shape of a winged bull. (Polymath 4, Boozehound 3, Demon 2, Alchemist 1)

AMDUSIAS, Duke of Hell, governor over 29 legions, in the shape of an upright unicorn. (Magical Musician 4, Treebender 3, Booming Voice 2, Demon 1)

BARBATOS, Duke of Hell, governor over 30 legions, in the shaped of a devilish bearded man. (Demon 4, Dr. Doolittle 3, Treasure Hunter 2, Fortune Teller 1)

FURFUR, Earl of Hell, governor over 26 legions, in the shape of a hart with a fiery tail. (Cupid 4, Thunder and Lightning 3, Demon 2, Soothsayer 1)

MARCHOSIAS, Marquess of Hell, governor over 30 legions, in the shape of a winged wolf with a flaming mouth. (Rowdy Boy 4, Demon 3, Fundamentally Honest 2, Flamethrower 1)

(Our demonic cast is directly but loosely based off their attributes as recorded in The Lesser Key of Solomon.)

Lucifer lays out the deal: Get this done before dawn. They’ve got to follow the rules Santa laid on in arbitration:

No teleporting inside the residence.  They can teleport to it, but must get inside physically.

No damage.  No blasting the walls down with hellfire or the like. Santa doesn’t do property damage.

No getting seen, unless being seen fosters belief in Santa Claus and the Magic of Christmas.

If milk and cookies or other snacks have been left out for Santa, they must be consumed.

Letters from Good Children must be fulfilled.

There are five Good Child letters left. Lucifer has provided them with a magic sack which will provide the next letter as each is fulfilled, and also potentially provide gifts or other useful tools (no guarantees).  The letters are revealed first with names and locations, and only once the party is at the residence is the child’s request made visible.  It is also established that the demons all basically have a roughly 13th-16th century European level of understanding.

LETTER ONE comes from Jimothy Sanchez of Passaic, New Jersey.  Jimothy lives with his father Oliver, stepmother Alanis, and his older stepsister Quinn. Jimothy is eight.

The demons arrive via teleportation outside the two-story suburban home of the Sanchez family.  They are confused by the environment, but immediately begin debating how to get in.  Examination of the letter reveals that Jimmy wants a “fidget spinner” and to “go to space like an astronaut.”

Barbatos begins interrogating a nightbird for information on how to get inside. “You’re tellin’ me you want to get in there to give a little boy a ‘present’?  You fuckin’ pervert,” the thickly-NJ-accented bird replies.  Eventually, the bird summons some pigeons, who attack Marchosias.  Furfur responds by summoning lighting to strike the bird’s tree, which splits and bursts into flames.

This wakes the father inside, who (as can be seen through the window) calls the fire department, although the demons are unclear on what’s happening.  Barbatos turns himself into an approximation of Santa (long white beard, red sharkskin suit, curling ram’s horns) as the fire department arrives. Marchosias and Haagenti teleport back to Dis to visit the infernal library and attempt to unravel the word “astronaut”. Amdusias attempts to pull a key out of the magic sack, but gets a viper instead, which she discards on the ground where it almost immediately bites a fireman.  Oliver Sanchez comes outside, and Barbatos introduces himself as Santa, leading to a great deal of confusion.  Marchosias and Haagenti return, and Haagenti attempts to sell the Santa con by turning into an elf, but succeeds only in turning into an Elf on the Shelf, all of which causes Mr. Sanchez to faint.  Barbatos picks up the EotS and they and Marchosias go inside.  After getting the rundown on what “astronaut” means, Barbatos attempts to get a book on Space from the bag, and gets a book about NASA.  Amdusias downs the milk and cookies, and is revolted by the lack of parasites.  Based on the book, he goes to the Moon, where he attempts to collect a footprint left there by astronauts.  Since it’s all moon dust, he just gets a fist of dust.  He brings that back and stuff it and a wooden top (provided by the sack in response to a request for a fidget spinner) into the stocking labeled Jimothy, and the demons collectively bug out while the firefighters attempt to revive their envenomed compatriot.  

LETTER TWO comes from the children of St. Guinefort’s Home for Disadvantaged Children, an archaic Catholic orphanage in NYC’s Lower East Side.  Surprisingly, the children have not requested anything unreasonable, but have requested a badminton set so they can play together.  Haagenti and Barbatos teleport to the roof of the building in search of a chimney, and finding one Barbatos tosses Haagenti (still in stuffed elf form) down it.  Haagenti hits a metal barrier and finds himself trapped.  Furfur joins them and drops a steaming, acidic load of demon poo down it, burning a hole through the closed flue and dumping Haagenti into a disused storeroom.  Barbatos turns into a rat and follows him down.  Haagenti attempts to take the form of a child and only manages to become a naked, horned baby with a devil’s tail, but is at least able to crawl around.  Barbatos goes for Santa mode again, but this time ends up worse, appearing gaunt and skeletal in his red garb.  Barbatos stuffs the baby Haagenti into the magic bag, a transimensional experience which shatters his mind and that of Furfur, who was scrying on their progress at the moment.  The two have a close encounter with and narrowly avoid the notice of a nun doing the rounds, and manage to quickly locate a room full of sleeping children, where a sad, Charlie-Brown-esque tree sits with no presents around.  Outside, Amdusias attempts to prevent any undue attention by summoning the sound of a traditional Christmas carol, but unwittingly makes everyone in earshot lose Whamageddon instead, followed by Fairytale of New York.

Back inside, Barbatos extracts the extremely dazed Haagenti from the sack, and then attempts to get a badminton set out of it.  The sack provides everything required: net, rackets, shuttlecocks, posts, post-hole digger, cardboard tube forms for pouring concrete anchors for the posts, bags of concrete, a backhoe and steamroller for flattening the court, turf, grass seed, chalk, a spreader, etc.  The room is very full, and the tree is entirely obscured.  

The demons retreat to Central Park, where they have a brief altercation with some hoodlums, before heading to the next home.

LETTER THREE was from Emily Chen of Hollywood, California, where she lives with her mother Amy and three brothers Ted, Leo, and Bobby in a three-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor of a walk-up building.  Emily, as the letter reveals, wants a pony.

Amdusias’s tree-bending bends a palm over the fence and lets everybody past the gates of the building, and the demons gather around the door to apartment.  Barbatos uses his treasure-finding skills to locate a key.  It is inside the apartment.  A cat is sensed inside, and Barbatos attempts to convince the cat to let them in.  The cat explains that even if it wanted to, it can’t work the lock.  A bribe of fish is offered if the cat will retrieve the key and push it under the door - the cat agrees if they will give it sushi.  A key is pushed under the door.  It does not fit in the lock.  Haagenti turns it into a more ductile metal to make it fit into the keyhole, and then attempts to firm it up so it can be turned, but in doing so ends up fusing it into the keyhole.  The cat demands sushi, which when extracted from the bag is revealed to be a piece of tamago nigiri.  An offer of salmon is made, but the cat again points out they are not capable of working the locks.  One of the demons tried to turn the cat into a human.  The locks click, the door opens, and a very sexy, very naked, and entirely testicle-less human man is revealed, demanding salmon.  The salmon is given, but the former cat asks for its balls back in exchange for letting them in and not just blowing up their spot right then and there.  Magic succeeds in restoring the man-cat’s genitals, and after garbing himself in a child’s gym shorts and some flip-flops, the cat leaves into the Hollywood night and the demons are free to enter. 

The living room bears a silver metallic tree, which confuses them, but they quickly and successfully extract a full-sized live pony and a bale of moist hay form the sack, the demons depart.

LETTER FOUR comes from Bethany-Ann Mayweather of South Carolina.  Bethany, it turns out, lives in a heavily-fortified survivalist compound in the woods with her dad (Steve), two brothers (Jesse and Dave), and two sisters (Katie and Donna-Lee.  The entire place is surrounded by an electrified fence topped with razor wire.

Emily would like to go to school like other children.

Things get weird.  Amdusias bends a tree over the fence, and Furfur drops down to discover that the clear ground between the fence and the building itself is heavily mined, exploding instantly (but non-fatally, because demon).  Lights are going on at the compound as Furfur starts bouncing around setting off mines and motion-sensing lamps.

Marchosias has the idea that the humans at the first house had somehow summoned that metal chariot in response to the burning tree by talking into that weird curved oblong shape, and that if they do the same maybe the metal chariot will help them get in.  Reaching into the bag extracts a banana.  Marchosias holds it to the side of his head and says hello.

“Hello?” says a sleepy voice from the banana.  “Who is this?”

“Uh, Mark,” responds Marchosias, who is Fundamentally Honest.  “Are you the...cops?  There is a little girl and there is a lot of gunpowder and fire and explosions.”

“What?  No, this is Raffi.  How did you get this number?  Is this a prank?”

It is established that this is not a prank (”Did Steve put you up to this?” “There’s a Steve here but no.” “From Blue’s Clues.” “I don’t know who or what that is.” “Mark, I’m looking at this caller ID here, and it just says ‘banana’.  What’s going on?”).  Barbatos teleports to this ‘Raffi’, the shock of which causes Raffi to suffer a heart attack and die. Barbatos resurrects Raffi as an undead revenant, and after difficulty (”Raffi, how do we call the police?” “RING.  RING.  RING.  BANANAPHONE.”) manage to extract the magical incantation “911″ from the former children’s entertainer.  Marchosias invokes this to the banana and connects to emergency services, and after a very complicated discussion (and some light aerial reconnaissance to pinpoint a location) succeeds in convincing them that there is a dangerous, heavily-armed incident at the compound and a child is in danger.  SWAT is being sent.  Meanwhile, Furfur is drawing gunfire from the survivalist dad, and Amdusias uses spectral music to distract him while they slip inside.

The six-foot-tall unicorn-headed naked figure reaches the crude two-dimensional paper Christmas tree inside the survival bunker and attempts to eat the dry saltines and rehydrated powdered milk that has been left out.  They are interrupted by the sleepy-eyed and tow-headed Bethany-Ann, who asks who they are.  Amdusias explains that they’re subbing in because Blitzen is sick.  Blitzen is Bethany-Ann’s favorite.  Amdusias tells her she’s going to get to go to school soon, and after a hug sends Bethany-Ann to hide under her bed until some nice people come get her.  Furfur attempts to use his lightning powers to dash Blitzen-like over the compound to drive home the Christmas-ness of it all, and instead burns holes through a number of trees as he accelerates to an appreciable fraction of the speed of light.  The remaining demons depart as militarized police descend on the compound.

THE FINAL LETTER is from Marcus Fitzwilliams III, son of Buck and Nancy, brother to Samantha, of Casper, Wyoming.  Marcus is ten, and he would like “a fortnite”.  The demons gather outside the ranch-style suburban home and debate what that means.  Eventually, they decide this means he wants to spend a night in a fort, and locating the Fort Caspar Museum nearby they plan to liberate the child from the house and take him there.  They decide against a plan to bring the fort to the house on the grounds that this might cause property damage.  Everyone but Marchosias goes to the backyard; Marchosias, who at this point looks like Bea Arthur because of reasons, remains out front with the banana to allay suspicion.

In the backyard, Barbatos again attempts to find a key, but fails.  He does detect a dog, and attempts to convince the dog to let them in.  The dog declines. “Stranger bad.  Bite stranger.”  An offer of bacon is made, and raw bacon pulled from the sack.  “Bacon good.  Bite bacon.  Bite stranger.  Good dog.”  This goes back and forth for a bit, and the dog starts barking.  Barbatos attempts to turn into a dog to sell the bit, and turns into a massive, ebon mastiff with glowing red eyes.  The bacon falls on the ground.  Furfur is now hiding in trees behind the house, joined by Amdusias, who attempts to keep things under control by bellowing “somebody let that dog out for a walk”, which comes out in a titanic demonic shout which rattles windows and kills the azaleas.  Lights come on.  The backdoor opens and Buck, carrying a rifle, looks at the giant demon dog and Haagenti, who is still a demonic baby, and the pile of bacon.  In the trees, the flaming tail of Furfur glows. 

“MA, GET UP AND CHECK THE FRONT, I THINK THE METHHEADS ARE TRYIN’ TO ROB US.”

Shit goes sideways quick.  Nancy opens the front door and sees Bea Arthur standing in her yard talking into a banana, and confirms the meth suspicion to buck.  The dog escapes into the yard and eats the bacon.  Baby Haagenti jumps on mastiff Barbatos’ back and the two dash into the house as Buck fires wildly at them and the intruders in the trees.  Nancy shoots the bananaphone and the side of Bea Arthur’s face.  Inside the house, Haagenti and Barbatos dodge bullets semi-successfully.  Haagenti scarfs cookies while Barbatos abandons the original plan and reaches into the bag while thinking “Fort Night”, pulling forth a card with a download code for Minecraft.  Furfur pulls his lightning-assisted flight trick over the house while Amdusias tries a bellowing “HO HO HO” so loud and infernal it shatters windows in houses throughout the neighborhood.

The list complete, the demons depart for Dis, where they are quickly met by Asmodeus, who tells them the boss wants to see them. The demon lords report total success, but receive a thorough chewing-out from Lucifer, who details the many, many violations they have committed and the agonies he is going to inflict on them for their failure.  

“You know the ring where we bury people up to their face in flaming shit?”  “Yeah, that one’s great.”  “Not for the humans.  I’m going to turn you all into humans and stick you there for the next thousand years.”

The demons attempt to portray their actions in a favorable light, and Amdusias protests and attempts to get the sounds of Michael Bublé’s Let it Snow to play and encourage the spirit of the holiday to earn them some clemency. However, it turns instead into Snow’s Informer as Belial reveals himself from behind Lucifer’s torso and tells them he was following and reporting on them the whole time, everyone gets in a Christmas “no, fuck you”, our heroes are consigned to flaming shit, and credits roll. Happy Holidays, everyone.

[bitesizebooks]

Bookshelf Stocktake

Books on my shelf I need to read in 2018

I’ve accumulated so many books on my tiny bookshelf, so to reduce the number of books I have I’m going to try to read all the unread books on my bookshelf:

Modern Romance - Aziz Ansari

The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

Mansfield Park - Jane Austen

Persuasion - Jane Austen

Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen (re-read in 2018)

The Second Sex - Simone de Beauvoir

Gimme Something Better - Jack Boulware & Silke Tudor

This Is A Call - Paul Brannigan

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë

Breakfast At Tiffany’s - Truman Capote

In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

Death On The Nile - Agatha Christie

Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe

Unbearable Lightness - Portia De Rossi

David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

Great Expectation - Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Hound of Baskervilles & The Valley of Fear - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Bacchae and Other Plays - Euripides

Empire - Niall Ferguson

Tender Is The Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

Everything Is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer

Here I Am - Jonathan Safran Foer

The Diary of Anne Frank - Anne Frank

Stasiland - Anna Funder

Tranny - Laura Jane Grace

The Complete Illustrated Stories of The Brothers Grimm - The Brothers Grimm

Tess of D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

High Fidelity - Nick Hornby

Les Misérables - Victor Hugo

They F*** You Up - Oliver James

Deadman Wonderland #1 - Jinsei Kataoka & Kazuma Kondou

Take Your Best Shot - Jacqueline Kent

On The Road - Jack Kerouac

It - Stephen King

Half The Sky: How To Change The World - Nicholas D. Kristoff & Sheryl Wudunn

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying - Marie Kondo

Quarterly Essay: Moral Panic 101 - Benjamin Law

Moby Dick - Herman Melville

All The Galaxies - Phillip Miller

The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern

The Husband’s Secret - Liane Moriarty

Norweigan Wood - Haruki Murakami

Reading Lolita In Tehran - Azar Nafisi

Eight Tales of Terror - Edgar Allan Poe

Attachments - Rainbow Rowell

The Casual Vacancy - J. K. Rowling

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat - Oliver Sacks

Musicophilia - Oliver Sacks

Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare

Swing Time - Zadie Smith

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson

Dracula - Bram Stoker

The Lord of the Rings trilogy - J. R. R. Tolkien (re-read)

Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain

The Color Purple - Alice Walker

Frankenstein - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Vindication of The Rights of Woman - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

They Both Die At The End - Adam Silvera

The Beauty Myth - Naomi Wolf

A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara

Young Jane Young - Gabrielle Zevin

NOTE: Shelf as of December 2017

[beatiewolfe]

DLD News profiles Beatie Wolfe

The Healing Power of Music

August 20, 2019

Karsten

Innovation, Music

Alumni update: What’s new with Beatie Wolfe and her Music & Dementia project?

Try this: Type “music is…” into your favorite search engine and you’re probably seeing suggestions like “my life”, “my best friend” and “my savior”.

This illustrates how important music is to most of us. Listening to the right beat, a catchy melody or touching vocals can lift us up, provide comfort or give us the energy to make it to the finish line – in sports and at work.

British singer-songwriter Beatie Wolfe has been researching the healing powers of melodies for the mind in her Music & Dementia project. Inspired by neurologist Oliver Sacks and his book Musicophelia – Tales of Music and the Brain, Wolfe started giving private concerts to her grandmother who had been diagnosed with dementia.

“Afterwards I would get letters from the carers saying that she’d been so much better the days after the music”, Wolfe recalled at DLD Summer 2015 when she first presented the results of her own project. Supported by the Utley Foundation, a charitable trust, the singer had performed at nursing homes throughout the U.K. – showing that music could significantly benefit patients with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.

Wolfe’s work sparked the interest of Stanford and Oxford universities as well as the American Alzheimer’s Association. It also resulted in the creation of a charity, Music For Dementia 2020, which aims to make music readily available for everyone living with dementia in Britain by next year.

“Seeing the incredible impact, I felt there was a responsibility to take the project further”, Wolfe says today. And while she’s busy pursuing new avenues as an artist, she remains committed to being a vocal ambassador for the advancement of music and dementia research. Her hope is to bring policymakers and health-care providers to pay more attention to the topic – far beyond the U.K. “I’m trying to spread the message and make this much more commonplace”, Wolfe says.

In her new, weekly radio show called Orange Juice for the Ears the 31-year-old singer is exploring the power of music on a more personal level. In each episode (also available as a podcast), Wolfe talks to her guests about songs and artists that have impacted them throughout their lives.

“Music is a universal connector”, Wolfe tells DLD. “It encompasses everything that is stimulating to us.”

Her guests have included Emmy-winning writer and producer Donick Cary (The Simpsons, Parks & Recreation, Silicon Valley), artist manager Janet Billig Rich and Nobel Laureate Dr. Robert Wilson. The astronomer previously collaborated with Wolfe on her Raw Spaceproject, helping her to beam her music into the vastness of the universe via the historic Bell Labs Holmdel Horn Antenna.

Wolfe is known for her love of experimentation. For her debut album she created an interactive app with 3D effects, lyrics and liner notes. NFC chips brought her second album to life: Wolfe designed a tailored suit – a literal album jacket – for her music, and listeners could tap their phones on the NFC chips woven into the fabric to play select songs. Most recently, Raw Space, her third album, was released as “the world’s first live 360° AR experience”.

While she’s busy exploring the creative possibilities of new technologies, there’s also a longing for the past in Wolfe’s experiments. “Growing up, I was completely obsessed with art and storytelling in any form”, she says. But as CDs gave way to downloads, and playlists on streaming services replaced the concept of albums she felt dismayed. “By the time I grew up a lot of what I loved was made irrelevant. The tangible had been replaced by digital.”

Wolfe’s answer has been to adopt technology to “figure out what could be the best of both worlds” because she’s eager to show that music deserves to be more than “a kind of background noise” – even if songs are permanently raining down from the Cloud these days, thanks to Spotify, YouTube, Deezer, Pandora and many other services.

“For me it’s about raising the bar”, Wolfe says. “Everything I’m doing is about reminding people how music can go beyond entertainment.”

A new documentary which chronicles her quest will debut in October. At the same time Wolfe is working on her newest project, a visualization of the CO2 concentration in the Earth’s atmosphere. “It’s part music video and part protest song”, she says. “And entirely interactive.” Stay tuned.

Orange Juice for the Ears

Here’s a sneak preview of the new documentary about Beatie Wolfe, directed by Ross Harris

Watch