#I took my time with 100 Years after picking it up at a thrift book market

[vrisbian]

Looking back, I want to lightly shake the shoulders of whichever persons on here, in response to Encanto being well liked, would in cheerful graphics recommended 100 Years of Solitude as if it were an equivalent novel. Like I know you were long form trolling.

Encanto 100% references 100 Years of Solitude, as it should when it dares play in the Magical Realism genre and sets the story in Columbia. 100 Years is a classic, Marquez is a founder of the genre, and its an interesting story of a family that goes through colonialism, civil war, political violence, classism, religion, race, etc etc through generations. It is also unpleasant. It is horrific. It is deeply incest ridden, brutally sexual, bloody, and entropic. Which isn’t a shock considering the subject matter.

It is absolutely not a Young Adult Novel (as I saw it being put first and with YA magic books after it) and not something I would really recommend to a general audience that enjoyed a family movie with songs and hope.

[joliepixie]

I’ve been reading almost everyday since April 16th thanks to the stay at home order. Not that I’m complaining but I feeling like it’s time to return to work if only for my activity level! its become a struggle to remove myself enough to go for a walk or run. Anyways onto the books.

Left to right:

1) I ordered this book when I was in the middle of the Throne of Glass series as a nice book to break up the series (can’t read series books back to back I get bored that way) but also to fulfill the Sarah J. Maas craving I was having without having to invest in a series. I don’t know was expecting with this book but for me it made me realize I’m not that into superhero books... don’t get me wrong it was a good book and I think I gave it 3 stars?? It just didn’t resonate with me. I didn’t much enjoy the characters and I had a hard time believing catwoman was this super badass didn’t lose one fight to anyone type of character that had assassin training. I preferred the early chapters when she was just a kid trying to make a living by fighting I think following that would have been a bit more interesting. Ok Just checked rated it 4 stars... This is why I do these “reviews” cause sometimes I don’t know how I feel about a book till I sit down and start blabbing about it. So yes a 3 star book for me.

2) Ok I have a serious addiction apparently. After reading the Throne of Glass books I wasn’t done with Sarah J. Maas’ writing style yet so with me having a week of uninterrupted home time left and having a serious book hangover I decided to re-read the ACOTAR series again.. probably just the first two because I like the build up to Rhys and Feyra’s relationship. Needless to say other then having to spend the majority of this book with Tamlin I love this book or more specifically the under the mountain trails. Going into the book for the first time last year I wasn’t expecting the trails and being a huge fan of competitions, trails, etc. I was enthralled. Love this book and love the second book even more. Oh and I promise I will be branching out from Sarah J. Maas soon considering I’ve had all her books read and just waiting for breath and sky now.

3) Another re-read/slowly trying to read every book on my bookshelf after a reading slump of 3 years. As I’ve been saying to my friends. I’m weeding out the weak deciding what to keep and what to give away. Anyways, absolutely love this book. Say what you will about Nicholas Sparks but he knows how to tug at the heart strings. When I first read this book I was in highschool and getting through those last 100 pages is tough is a terribly sad type of way. I remember I had to give my dad a hug when he got home after sobbing on the couch for hours. This book broke and I went in knowing this and I spent my entire night crying, let my dad know I loved him, and woke up with sore and puffy eyes so bad that I couldn’t read at all the next day. Regardless of how much I love this book I’m keeping it for the sake of the memories I have with it and as a reminder to let my parents know I love them unconditionally and never stay mad.

4) If you remember I picked this book up on one of my thrifting trips with my friend. Funny story I accidentally bought two copies thinking they were different stories. I have a obsession with Paris (even though I haven’t gone.. just waiting for covid to end so I can get out there) which was the main reason for this purchase and I’m glad I got it. I read this immediately after Kingdom of Ash because I needed something quick and what better then a book of short stories some involving Paris? I loved the majority of the stories in this book and will definitely be re reading a few someday. I tried reading this author other book me Before You when I was really young but being so young I don’t think I appreciated it as much as I should have. After picking up this book and being reacquainted with this authors writing style I think I’ll be trying some of her other books and probably dusting off my old copy of Me Before You.

5) I’ve been having an tough time with thrillers recently where I’ve read a lot that just didn’t sit well with me. This one reminded me why I like thrillers so much. I found this one fast paced and didn’t have to sit through chapter after chapter of the characters drinking while she took her medication. Sometimes I find with thrillers we are always given these characters that are so dependent on there vices which are used against them to make them seem crazy rather then something actually happening which drags on and sometimes used as a crutch in writing do you get what I’m saying? Even though this book did have a bit of this happening it wasn’t used nearly as much as other books and like I said very fast pace. It was neat how there wasn’t a grand reveal but the main character just worked it out on her own. I was happy with the ending as well and thought it ended the book well. All and all I liked this book a lot.

6) Was hoping I could write about book 6, 7, and 8 altogether like last time but I have very different feelings about each book so here we go. I love this book probably just as much as Heir of Fire and Queen of Shadows. I really loved getting to see all the characters interact like Manon joining up with the crew. The skull bay fight with Lysandra was definitely one of my all time favourite scenes and having Dorian slowly master his powers was fun to read as well. My favourite part of this book was definitely Lorcan and Elide parts. Elide was a character that I could give or take when I first met her but she’s slowly become my favourite character and I loved everyone of her chapters as well as the slow building romance with Lorcan. And if you know me you know I have a great hatred for Chaol so this book got a added bonus for not having a single chapter from his perspective!

7) This was a struggle. I looked up if I could just skip this book but unfortunately it had major plot points you couldn’t miss. I was dreading this book. I read a lot of reviews about how people hated Chaol but still really found this book likeable so I went in hoping that would be my experience too. It wasn’t. I actually ended up buying the audiobook because I really couldn’t picture myself sitting and reading this book... it’s not that I hated it I just don’t like chaol and besides Yrene and Borte didn’t really care for any of the characters in this book. I’m glad I listened to it because I definitely needed this story to continue and I really did try not to hate Chaol so much but I just can’t stand him.

8) Ok. The final Throne of Glass book. I gave it 4 stars. The middle three books are my favourite and I will re read over and over this one I don’t see myself going back to it. I have it four starts because I’ve followed these characters through a eight book series and a month of my time. I’ve fallen in love with these characters and there stories, I will always love these character, and of course Elide and Lorcan! Now here’s why I didn’t like this book as much nor think I’ll read it again (other then Lorcan and Elide story.) throughout this book I felt like Rowan became a background character like I’m all for a strong female lead and her doing shit her own way but Rowan was suppose to be her equal and I just felt like he did nothing. Like the final fight he spent the majority of it chasing Aelin? I get it she didn’t have her full powers but she was handling her own couldn’t you do the same? It just didn’t sit right with me that this character that was introduced to us in Heir of Fire that trained Aelin and is her equal was just kind of brushed aside and became this clingy male that spent the majority of the book following Aelin around not doing anything other the pleading her not to leave him. Like what happened to the badass Rowan that I grew to love...? Also was really angered me Aelin losing her powers? What’s up with that?! It just felt so cheap to me.. after again reading about how strong she is and then forging the lock which did nothing by the way what was the point of that anyways, and then she just loses all her power only having a ember left??? I hate when authors do this.. I also felt the scene with Erawan, Maeve, and Aelin was just dull. I was still upset that Aelin wouldn’t get to use her powers against them and in the end it was more of a match of words then a battle just felt a little cheap to me. I was just disappointing , Aelin a character we have come to love and watch grow and get stronger hardly hold her own against Maeve... This book has a all around different feel to it compared to the other books and maybe it’s because it was the final battle and and the final book to the series I was a bit disappointed with it but I did enjoy it and felt a huge accomplishment when I finished the series. Reading that finally few chapters really put me into a hangover knowing it was over and like Aelin felt when everyone was heading home I felt that too. It’s goodbye for now.

[lovesamillionstories]

100 Free Stagedorks Headcanons Babey!

They Infodump to each other constantly

They watch bootlegs together

They have weird noise contests where they just make random sounds and whoever makes the weirdest one wins

Jeremy paints Christine's nails even if he's not very good

She also paints his but she's really good and does pretty nail art.

They say I love you a lot

Christine and Jeremy share stim toys

He finds it a lot easier to be dorky around her

Jeremy calls Christine, "Chrissy"

Jeremy makes Christine a lot of charm bracelets

She makes him little stuffed animals

They listen to musicals on shared earbuds

They practice lines together for shows

After rehearsals they always make hot chocolate or lemonade depending on the weather

They like to bake together and always make a giant mess

They study together, Jeremy helps Christine with focus problems

Jeremy loves to kiss Chrstine...not just on her lips but also her cheeks and her forehead and her nose

Christine likes to steal Jeremy's cardigan and Jeremy finds it adorable

They do cosplay together and make the costumes

When they're both really excited together they're very loud

They play with kittens at the animal shelter even if Jeremy is allergic

They're always so happy to see each other even if they saw each other like an hour ago

They make pillow forts

Jeremy makes her daisy chains and she wears them until the flowers die

They sing along whenever they listen to musicals together

They write fanfiction together.

Jeremy reads the warrior cats books because Christine likes them, he ends up emotionally invested

They both cry at movies

Christine sits in Jeremy's lap

Christine puts her hair in pigtails and Jeremy dies on the spot

They learn sign language together

They like to do scenes from musicals together, with costumes and everything

They're planning to write a musical together

Christine loves learning about Jewish things from Jeremy

Jeremy helps Christine babysit her younger siblings

Christine's five year old sister Sadie asks if Christine is going to marry Jeremy and she always gets embarrassed because yes she wants to but also like they're so young

Jeremy draws pictures for Christine all the time and she keeps them all

They hold hands any chance they get

Christine smooches Jeremy's hands

They try and watch a horror film once and end up terrified

Whenever Jeremy has trouble sleeping Christine rambles to him about something until he's tired

Jeremy loves telling people how pretty his girlfriend is and how he loves her so much

Christine likes to tell people about how her boyfriend is so sweet and she loves him so much

Christine has a weighted blanket and Jeremy loves it so much that she gets him one as a gift

They buy a bag of 1000 ladybugs and release them for fun

They have a roadway trip planned to New York to see a ton of Broadway shows. They can't do it because they don't have enough money but it's very well planned out

The both lose their shit whenever they see a baby because they both love babies

They paint together and make a huge mess

They go thrift shopping together and look for weird clothes

They try weird cooking experiments that usually come out horrible but sometimes work

Jeremy writes Christine love letters

They like going on weird dates and almost never do anything typical like going out to dinner

They see a lot of local theater together

Neither of them will kill spiders, they just name them and it scares their fiends

They paint an underwater scene on Christine's wall. They don't ask her parents for permission

They try and copy the noises of every bird they hear

Christine tries to hand feed squirrels while Jeremy reminds her that rabies are a thing

They feed and try to make friends with stray cats

Christine said I love you first and it took Jeremy a few minutes to say it back because he just could not believe it

Sometimes they have long emotional discussions about the struggles of being neurodivergent

Christine cuddles Jeremy and lets him be the little spoon whenever he's feeling sad

Christine helps Jeremy with anxiety

Jeremy learns ways to help Christine with her rejection sensitive dysphoria

Christine is bad at remembering her ADHD medication so Jeremy reminds her everyday

Christine always sends Jeremy a good morning text

They're prone to talking very late at night, especially during the summer

They go on walks in the woods and nearly get lost every single time

They try and save money for Broadway shows but end up spending it on something stupid

They have a minecraft wedding

They play Pokemon together

They also watch the Pokemon anime

Jeremy watches my little pony with Christine even if he was a little apprehensive about watching a girls show but he got over his toxic masculinity and ended up liking it.

Christine thinks the bright colors Jeremy likes to wear are the coolest.

They take too many couple selfies

Jeremy's got a whole folder on his phone just for pictures of Christine

They build model kits together

Christine tries to teach Jeremy to sew and he injures himself too much

Jeremy shows Christine video games, she ends up better then him

Jeremy makes jokes about Christine being his gamer girl gf

Jeremy teaches Christine all the constellations

They both text with a lot of exclamation points

They go to pride together

They share custody of a betta fish that lives in Christine's room and say it's their son

They talk about moving to NYC together after high school

Jeremy sometimes gets insecure about their relationship but they always talk and work it out

Christine gets upset when she can't make Jeremy feel better when he's sad

They go on dates to build a bear and make bears for each other

Their senior prank is putting glow stars on class room ceilings

They spill glitter on Christine's carpet and they can not figure out how to get it out

They go on dates to the fabric store where Jeremy helps Christine pick out patterns and fabric

Jeremy Instagram is basically just him posting about how much he loves Christine

Jeremy's nervous about Christine meeting his dad but Mr Heere loves her to bits immediately

They like to read to each other

They go all out on snacks for movie nights

Neither of them really like Halloween after Jake's party so on Halloween they watch non scary movies in Christine's room

Whenever they find a new musical or show they listen to/watch it together

They have matching socks

Jeremy can pick Christine up

They go to prom together, Jeremy thinks Christine in her dress is the prettiest thing he's seen ever

They take forever with goodnight texts because they take too long with the the I love yous.

[orangepeelers]

pretty photographer

 read part 1 here!

the biggest idiots on the surface of the planet go on a date 

***

After Sirius had left, Remus sat down at his kitchen table and edited the pictures, waiting for Lily to get home. He could still barely process what had happened, with the unbuttoned shirts and tattoos and makeup... Safe to say, the editing was not going very quickly.

Lily finally got back at around 10, dragging an oversized canvas in with her bag of art supplies. Remus quickly slammed the laptop shut, where he had totally not been studying Sirius’ tattoos. 

“Where’ve you been?”

Lily laughed. “Geez, mum. Had to stay late at school to work on this stupid project.” She shot a look at the canvas that was taller than she was. “Stopped by at James’ on the way home. His roommate was there.” She waggled her eyebrows teasingly. 

Remus tried to sound casual. “Oh?”

“Yeah, sounds like the shoot went very well,” she said, walking to their small kitchen to brew a pot of tea. “Like maybe there will be a follow up meeting to, y’know, discuss how well it went.”

Remus got up from the table and swatted her arm. “Oh, shut up.”

“So what did you think of him?”

“Sirius?”

She rolled her eyes. “No, my great-uncle who you also met today. Yes, Sirius.”

He sighed. “Drop-dead gorgeous. Overwhelmingly confident. Tattoos and piercings and long hair... basically who I picture when I think of my soulmate. How could you not at least show me a picture beforehand?”

She smiled and shrugged. “Element of surprise. But you got his number, right?”

“More like he gave it to me while I was paralyzed with hot-guy syndrome. But yes.”

“And you’re going on a date with him?”

He sighed again. “Well, I don’t know... He’s way out of my league.”

Lily turned to face him. She studied his face thoughtfully for a moment, before slapping him across it.

Remus jumped about a mile. “Lily! What was that for?”

“You are seriously the biggest idiot I’ve ever met. You met your literal dream guy, he gave you his number, and you’re not going on a date with him?”

Remus thought for a moment while he rubbed his face. She was right, Sirius was his dream guy. And he had been flirting with him for the whole shoot... “Okay, fine. I’ll text him.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You better. You can’t go throw away James’ and my hard work just because you’re nervous.”

Remus couldn’t help but laugh. “Of course you and James are behind this.”

“Couples who plot together, stay together. Now go text him, before I drink all of this for myself.”

Remus poured himself a mug of tea before retiring to his room. He stared at the posters and photographs on his wall while he worked the nerve up to retrieve the slip of paper from his pocket. 

remus: hey is this sirius?

sirius <3: pretty boy! you finally texted

Remus blushed at ‘pretty boy’. The words made him feel all giddy inside, like someone had taken his stomach and turned it into a butterfly sanctuary. He grinned as he typed.

remus: well, i couldn’t stay away from a drop-dead gorgeous model like you, could i? 

sirius <3: my charms are pretty irresistible

remus: so i was thinking

remus: do you maybe wanna go out sometime?

remus: if not that’s totally fine

sirius <3: why wouldn’t i want to go out with someone as cute and thoughtful as u? 

sirius <3: not to mention a very talented photographer

Remus felt so happy he could scream. Cute and thoughtful? This guy was definitely not the garden-variety Tinder hookup

remus: i can’t take all the credit for the pictures. i do have the privilege of working with some of the most attractive people on the face of the earth

remus: so how about i pick u up saturday at 7? it’ll be a surprise

sirius <3: i love surprises

remus: saturday it is :)

A smile so wide he felt like it would crack his face in half spread across Remus’ face. He couldn’t believe he’d just gotten a date with someone so... Sirius. “Lily!” He called, “Saturday at 7!”

He could hear the grin in her voice as she called back. “See? Told you!”

That night, he went to bed grinning like a fool. The next few days were torturous as he counted down to Saturday. When the day finally arrived, the hours crawled by like old slugs. His heart wouldn’t stop going 100 beats per second. 

Remus mulled over what he should wear for what must’ve been at least 45 minutes. He finally settled on a thrifted green jumper and worn blue jeans, with his well-loved pair of brown converse. He quickly texted Sirius.

remus: btw i hope u like biking

sirius <3: i like anything as long as it’s with u ;)

He rolled his eyes but smiled like an idiot. Grabbing his red bag, he knocked softly on Lily’s door.

She opened it and nodded approvingly. “Here, let me take a picture so I can show it at your wedding.” Remus pretended to make a face at her but obliged, sticking up a peace sign. “Good luck with your dream boy!” She gave him an affectionate hand squeeze. “Not that you’ll need it.”

He laughed. “Thanks, Lil.” He squeezed her back before heading out the door and hopping on his bike. James didn’t live far, which was convenient for Lily, and he supposed, him as well. Before he knew it, he was knocking on their green door.

James opened the door and grinned his signature mischievous grin. “Oh Sirius, your prince is here to see you!”

“Bugger off!” Sirius quickly came to the door and gave James an unceremonious shove. He was dressed in black jeans and a Green Day t shirt, with a black denim jacket covered in patches, as well as yellow Docs. He snapped his fingers before Remus could open his mouth. “Damn! Hang on, I’ll be right back.” He rushed off quickly.

When he came back, he was holding sprigs of lavender tied with a green ribbon. Sirius smiled sincerely. “For you. Lily told me they were your favorite.”

Remus almost proposed to him right then and there. Before he could lose his nerve, he gave Sirius a quick peck on the cheek. “I love them. Thank you.”

The two stepped outside, Sirius dragging James’ bike. “Haven’t ridden one of these in years. My favorite mode of transportation is motorcycle.”

“Well, I hope you didn’t forget how to, because I have a spectacular night planned for us.”

First, Remus led them to his favorite secondhand bookshop. They locked their bikes outside and stepped in, reveling in the smell of old ink and paper. 

Sirius took Remus’ hand. “This place is amazing.”

Remus looked over at him and couldn’t help but smile. Sirius was scanning the shelves hungrily, drinking the shop in with his eyes. “I’m glad you like it.” He squeezed his hand. 

They wandered around the shelves, laughing at funny titles and pulling out the things that caught their eye. Sirius picked out an old book with photographs of couples in it for Remus “Because I’m dating a photographer!” and Remus picked out a book of plants, since he found out Sirius had been trying to start a garden. They paid for the books and left, Remus leading the way to their second destination.

They parked in front of a cheerful old Italian restaurant filled with warm light and people living. Remus instructed Sirius to wait outside. “I’ll only be a moment, promise!” He quickly walked in and came back out with three white boxes of Italian food. 

Sirius raised his eyebrows inquisitively, but Remus only smiled. “Let’s go to the last place.”

They arrived at Remus’ apartment building. Sirius grinned. “Oh, that’s the direction we’re going in?” Remus swatted him but laughed.

“Get your mind out of the gutter. Come on.” Remus unlocked the door and they climbed what felt like eons worth of stairs, talking and laughing the whole way up. Just before they got up the last flight, Remus made Sirius promise to close his eyes. He took his hand and they walked up together. 

“You can open them now,” Remus said softly. Sirius opened his eyes and scanned the area. They were on the roof, where they could see all of London sprawled out beneath them like jewels on velvet. Lights glimmered white and gold, illuminating the people and cars bustling about like small insects in a field. It was perfect.

“D’you like it?”

Sirius turned to face him. “I- I love it. This is incredible, Rem.”

Remus smiled at the nickname. “Here, help me set up.” He pulled the food and a blanket out of his bag, along with some matches and candles. They set the boxes down on the blanket and lit the candles. The air was cool enough for them to see the steam coming off of the fresh pasta and garlic bread. 

They dug in, and Remus was happier than he could remember in a long time. Sirius was an excellent conversationalist, not to mention the biggest flirt he’d ever met. They talked and talked until the last dregs of sauce had been wiped from the boxes, the last piece of garlic bread split in half. It was colder now, and Remus shivered against the wind. 

“Come here.” Sirius held his arms open and Remus sat between his legs, leaning his back against Sirius. His heart was beating so fast now, nestled against Sirius’ warm chest. He felt safe and his heart felt full. He wanted to freeze this moment and live in it forever. 

Sirius pulled Remus closer, rubbing his thumb against his shoulder. “Can we live here forever?”

Remus put his arms on either side of Sirius’ hips and turned around. “Yes, please.” They looked at each other for a very full moment before Remus closed the distance between their lips and kissed him. It was like no kiss he’d ever had before, sweet and full of warmth. Sirius’ lips moved gently against his, and he felt his cool lip ring against his warm mouth.  Remus placed his hands at the nape of Sirius’ neck, pulling them chest to chest and curving his legs around his lower back. Sirius’ hands roamed the soft regions of Remus’ jumper. They pulled apart for a moment, breathless. 

For once, Sirius was at a loss for words. “I- I’m... Um, I-”

Remus laughed and put their foreheads together. “Just shut up and kiss me.”

[d-l-dare]

“The Jacket”

As a scientologist, I'm always skeptical about things I can't see. If I'm ever presented with anything that puzzles me, I do everything I can to figure it out. Which is why I was having trouble comprehending what was happening with my jacket.

I know, why are you getting so worked up about some mystery involving your jacket? Because the problem with it is something so bizarre that it might baffle you as well. My jacket, a thin, black zip up hoodie I'd picked up for cheap at some thrift store. The jacket is so thin that you'd believe if it was cold out it would change very little from wearing a simple t-shirt. This particular jacket, no matter how cold or hot it is out, is always very hot. The heat coming from within the jacket was almost painful. I needed to figure out why it was so hot inside so I could remove it if I could.

"No wonder they were selling it for so cheap," my wife said. "If it was almost painfully hot to put on, it makes sense they were having trouble selling it." As she spoke, she never lifted her eyes from the health book she was reading as we lay beside me in bed. I was on my laptop, doing any research I could on the company that produced the jacket. There were never any customer complaints about any of their jackets, most complained that they were too thin and left them cold.

Our six year old son, Nate, walked in our room, a terrified look on his face.

"There's a monster hiding in my closet." he cried.

"You were only having a nightmare, hun," my wife said after walking over to him and giving him a hug. She walked with him to his room and put him back to sleep. She returned after a few minutes.

"I don't know what's gotten into that kid, he won't stop talking about ghosts and monsters." she said. "I told you we shouldn't have let him watch those scary movies with us the other night."

"Babe, it was Halloween. It would be unnatural for someone not to watch something scary on the scariest night of the year."

***

The next day, after dropping Nate off at school, I went to the basement and went to work on trying to find out what was inside the jacket that made it so hot. I felt around the inside of the jacket to see if I could find any kind of heat source. There wasn't one present. In fact, it wasn't hot on the inside at all. I zipped the jacket up to see if it would change anything. It was still just as cool inside.

I tried slipping the jacket on and zipping it up. Sure enough, within a few minutes time, the inside of the jacket heated up. It continued to heat up until it was too painful to keep in. I took it off, puzzled on where the heat was coming from. I felt around, perhaps there was a heating pad inside that reacted to the warmth of a human body? It was a stretch but it was worth a try. I felt around again. It was completely smooth inside all the way around. There was no way there was something hiding in there.

I looked at the tag and it only said it was made with "100% Real Cotton". Just like the tag on any regular piece of clothing would say. I decided to throw in the towel. There was no way I could figure out what was going on with it by myself without tools.

***

Later that day I brought Nate home from school. He asked me where my jacket was. I asked him which one I was referring to. Of course I knew the one. He said the one with the man inside.

"What do you mean the jacket with a man inside?" I asked.

"There was a jacket you were wearing yesterday with a man inside." he explained. "It was like when you put it on you were wearing the man who was wearing the jacket. I think he must've been a ghost."

"You think I was wearing a jacket that was already being worn by a ghost?" I asked.

He nodded. "And he looked angry when you had it on. Like he wanted to burn you."

[thegoldendice]

Love Is A Battlefield

Fandom - American Horror Story 1984

Pairing - Xavier Plympton/Reader

Rating - Explicit

Warnings - Suicide, Violence, Mental Heath Issues, Sexual Content, Language, Religious Content

Chapter - 10/12

Read on - ao3, ff.net

Fic Summary - The year is 1984. You're a poor student living alone in L.A., plagued by your problematic relationships with a false friend and a disturbed ex. You meet Xavier Plympton, an aerobics instructor with a dark past, at the gym where you’ve taken a reception job. You quickly develop feelings for him, and you learn to your relief that he likes you too. Soon a deadly series of events befall you and the people in your life. Overwhelmed by tragedy and with your blossoming romance cut short, you are left a wreck. Six years later you discover that while Xavier is dead, he hasn’t quite departed. You soon realise that if you are to be with him and finally achieve true peace and happiness, you must take your own life and become a Camp Redwood ghost.

Chapter Summary - You grudgingly leave camp for a short time so you can buy the supplies that will help you facilitate your change to permanent Redwood resident.

“Did I ever tell you how much I like your earring?”

“No.” Xavier's voice is barely louder than a whisper. “Did I ever tell you how much I like your face?”

You blush, turning your head to nuzzle into the hand that Xavier has raised. His fingers rest on your jaw, his thumb traces the line of your smile.

“I will understand, if you don't come back—“

“I'm coming back, Xavier.” You interrupt, trying to suppress the exasperation you feel, knowing that Xavier can't help but doubt you even now.

The wooden sign that denotes the entrance to the camp creaks above your head. The morning sun already splits the ground and a bead of sweat trickles down your spine. You try desperately to muster the strength to turn and walk away from your love. Knowing that you will see him again soon doesn't help. He has been wholly responsible for bringing joy and meaning back into your life, and to leave him, even just for a few hours, feels torturous. The trees murmur around you, singing songs you don't understand. Xavier lowers his hand.

“Go.”

You have no response, unable to acknowledge the finality of saying goodbye. You look into Xavier's eyes. Tears fill them, matching your own. You smile and turn, walking quickly.

“Hurry back!” He calls, voice breaking a little.

You look back over your shoulder, making sure to appear happy. You give him one last smile, nod, and then face forward in order to run to your car, tears flowing freely at last.

~

It was far easier than you thought it would be to sell the car. It's a piece of crap, but the first dealership you happened upon in the first town you came to deigned to take it for a hundred bucks. You could have shopped around, but you were desperate to complete your tasks and get back to the camp. You assumed that $100 would be enough to buy your supplies, plus a few little extras - a couple of new items of clothing for Xavier and Montana and second-hand copies of your favourite books. Your original plan was to also procure a cheap TV and VCR, and some tapes of movies that have come out in recent years. You know for a fact that Xavier would get a kick out of the Ghostbusters sequel, but you just don't have the time or the funds. You can always describe the movie to him.

After a successful thrifting trip, you head to a drugstore. You have no idea if there are limits to the amount of non-prescription drugs a person can buy. It's one of the things you neglected to find out about during your past forays into suicide planning. You always just assumed you would be at home when the time came, and have access to your mom's drug cabinet. You have decided to visit several drugstores, just to be safe. You have to run back into the final one, having almost forgotten the antihistamines that will ensure your stomach doesn't try to rid itself of the other pills you intend to take. Your final purchase is alcohol. Your hand quivers slightly as you reach to pick up a bottle of vodka. It feels very real now, but you don't doubt that you are doing the right thing. You think of Xavier and it fortifies you. You've had to use the last of the money you brought to L.A with you, as the cash from the sale of your car ran out quicker than you thought it would. Hitch-hiking back to Redwood won't be fun, but what else can you do?

Sitting at the side of the road back out to the woods, backpack stuffed with supplies, your mind drifts to last night when Xavier took you, upon your request, to see Ramirez. You watched from the far corner of the dank, gloomy cabin that held his trapped soul. Faint wisps of black smoke surrounded his dead body as he came back to life. He wasn't given a chance to talk before Montana stabbed him in the heart with a kitchen knife.

“You're lucky I've lost my taste for killing.” She'd smirked at you. “It used to get much messier than this, right baby?”

Trevor had grinned at her in response, causing you to shiver slightly. You'd left then, heading back to the cabin you'd been sharing with Xavier, not feeling entirely convinced that Montana had in fact lost her love of gruesome killings. Xavier had followed you at a slight distance, only speaking when you were both back at the cabin, sitting cross-legged on the bed.

“Are you okay?” He asked, concerned.

You nodded.

“I don't like the thought of you killing. I know he's evil. I'm not saying he doesn't deserve it. It's more the thought of you relishing in taking a life.”

Xavier was silent for a minute, considering.

“It was a distraction, I guess. I thought I had nothing else to be here for. I won't deny that I enjoyed it. I was so bitter Y/n. I tried so hard, at the end, to be good. I saved fucking Margaret all for her to kill me anyway.”

“I know.” You responded sadly, reaching for Xavier's hand. “It's over now. You have me. It may not be much but I hope that me being here will help.”

Xavier took a deep breath, squeezing your hand.

“It’s everything. Please don't ever doubt that. Obviously, I still have to take my turn killing him, I swore a pact, but it's just a chore to me now.”

“Maybe I will get to a point where I will be able to help you or at least keep you company?” You offered, timidly.

Xavier raised your hand to his lips and kissed it. “No pressure.”

You are pulled out of your daydream when a car draws up alongside you. A middle-aged woman with a kind expression rolls down her window and asks you where you are headed.

Time to go home.

~

You spot Xavier before he catches sight of you. You are touched that he waited right where you left him. He's sitting against the low wooden fence at the side of the road, drawing swirls in the dirt with his favourite knife. He'd be difficult to miss, the neon, mesh vest that only he would wear catching the eye a mile off. The sight of him sends a thrill of delight through you. You don't think you'll ever stop finding him beautiful. He looks up, hearing your approach, and rises with a wide grin spread across his face.

“Told you I'd be back.” You say as you approach, trying not to run and dive on him.

You are not given the chance to speak again, as Xavier promptly wraps you in his arms, covering your face with kisses the moment you pass under the Camp Redwood sign. He presses his lips hungrily against your own, and before you know it you are swept off of your feet.

“You're not seriously planning to carry me back to the camp are you!?” Your voice is full of incredulous laughter.

“Shut up.” Xavier grumbles, before kissing you again.

You allow yourself to be carried all the way to your cabin, where your joyous reunion lasts for several glorious hours.

Notes: I left Y/n’s favourite books unnamed and open to interpretation.

Please note, the next chapter will include the actual suicide, I don’t plan on being overly descriptive but please avoid if you think it will bother you.

[ifjgh]

So, in other news...

I’ve noticed a few people seem to be interested by my rsd curse. So I thought I might add what I think is an explanation (to be fair I’m still not sure) and some details to this strange occurrence in my life. (It gets kinda long, so it’s under the cut.)

One thing you should know about me is that my family LOVES thrift shops, and I usually go with them. (This is already a start to a horror story...) I also happen to like comic books, mostly DC, and a couple of years ago (i’m horrible with dates and time, so I don’t remember exactly when, but at least 3 years) I stumbled upon a small pile of comics from the 90′s. They were in decent condition, some with slightly bent corners and such, but other than that they looked almost mint. So I started digging through them and at the time I was getting into the Legion of Super-Heroes comics, so I decided to keep an eye open for them. Really didn’t have hope to find any, but all of a sudden I see this...

How could I not resist! This is the moment where I unknowingly opened Pandora’s box. Ever since I had this thing in my possession a lot of things in my life went down hill. I don’t want to get into much detail about this particular thing, but to sum it up, it involved a lot of “unnecessary” doctor visits and a lot of pain, missing tons of schooling, and depression. Kinda heavy, I know, but I felt I couldn’t skip that stuff. At some point I ended up putting this “comic” away somewhere in my house, and I forgot about it, and I seemed to block out all that bad stuff. UNTIL RECENTLY, my stupid brain decided to do some spring cleaning and GUESS WHAT I FOUND! It started out as small things at first, sneezing when ever I though of it or to an extent “rad skater dudes”, a huge snow storm (which I kinda shrugged off, I live in Michigan so ya get used to it, but it never seemed to go away, we still have ice and snow on pretty much everything at the moment), and my phone almost breaking in various ways ( one time I was going to read this “comic” digitally and every time it would freeze my phone to a point in which it took several hours and several restarts to work properly again, this wasn’t because of some virus ridden site, no, this was on the DC Comics app.). Those were just warnings. Recently, my poor puppy has been have some pretty serious tooth trouble, and the vet can’t pin-point a cause, I’m not saying I know the cause, but I don’t thinks it’s too crazy to have some suspicion. Everything at work has been great, until about a week ago, we’ve had an type of sickness going around that has never been near here before, and that means we have to ramp up our cleaning (i’m a custodian at a school) trouble is we really can’t, we always do 100% it’s pretty much impossible to do any more, but our boss doesn’t seem to get it, or at least doesn’t understand. I myself am starting to come down with something, it’s not to bad yet, but I feel it wanting to. 

I realize how crazy I sound, but it always happens all at once, and that fact that it’s always after I come in contact with that “comic”. I’ve since lost it, but I know it’s still in my house somewhere. This is just scratching the surface of my “curse”, and I haven’t even talked about the blue mask I recently picked up from that same thrift place. It gives me constant uneasiness. Sorry if this got kinda long, some people where interested and I thought I’d share, plus it felt kinda good to get my crazy theory of my chest.

Have a great rest of your day!

[freeadmission]

Service.

I started working in the service industry during the pandemic. I needed to because I had to stay afloat and a friend of mine got me a job at a local hotel restaurant as a host. The job was a few blocks from my house and lasted for a year. I wanted to move on from Hosting to being a server but there was just no room for me there.

(I have learned more about myself and people working in the service industry than I ever have at school or in any kind of relationship I have had. This is not a negative thing by any means, it is very positive because what I learned helped me learn more about myself and how my actions affect others.)

So on I went and got another gig, at the encouragement of my boss. He gave me a glowing reference and I stayed at the next gig for 6 months working as a server/hostess and sometimes bartender until they went to counter service and laid off their entire waitstaff and trimmed their kitchen too. A decision they made to be able to keep the restaurant alive during very trying times after the government subsidy ran out.

From this gig I went back to another hotel, further from home, one with a long history, training manuals and a lot to remember and facilitate as a host. I work there 3-4 days a week and usually work in the studio 1 day a week and carry my camera and shoot on the street the rest of the time. I keep a sketchbook at home for evenings when I keep my continuous line drawing practice going. I buy sketchbooks from the dollar store and pencils and pens there too. Lately, I have been picking up some groceries there too.

Before the pandemic, I was keeping my creative pursuits afloat by working as a photographer’s assistant. I had my name on a couple of large rental houses in town and I would get gigs when photographers came to town and needed a hand. There is a small group of really great assistants here in Vancouver and I was really lucky to work with a lot of them over the few years I did it full-time. It also taught me a lot.

Some people assume a lot about my life but the truth is I have always kept a job that has supported my creative pursuits. A job that has covered all of my monthly bills and enabled me to focus on creating commercial photo work and mural work. The goal is to not need the serving gigs anymore and make my entire income from my photography and mural work. I choose not to assist anymore and focus on my goal of working commercially, the service jobs keep me afloat so I can keep this goal in mind. It’s my focus.

I submit to Vogue every week, stay up late every Sunday evening or set an alarm to submit at 11:01 pm. I do not get paid by Vogue, it is an open submission and I have only been accepted a few times in 2022. I am hoping for more before the year ends. I will keep trying, keep shooting and keep submitting, it is an evolving practice for me and so far I have 12 images published with them and I like that feather in my cap.

I live lean, don’t own a car, and don’t have any real vices except thrift shopping and often I don’t spend on that because the amount of clothing I find makes up for what I would have spent in a thrift shop. Even when I do go and decide to spend money on items I am very discerning about what I decide to purchase and at what price point. I take the bus, and EVO’s around town or ride my bicycle or walk. I take books out of the library and often shop from the day-old produce bin at Kins. The lady knows me there and knows she has been keeping me in smoothies for years. Old fruit blends great and tastes great too.

I took a spot in a shared studio space in January and when the rent went up an extra $100 a couple of months ago I offered to clean it once a month instead of paying the increase and that offer was welcomed. It takes about 3 hours to clean it from stem to stern but I like doing it, it gives me more of a feeling of belonging there. We are a community of artists in the space who all support each other and I really love being a part of it.

I don’t believe in being taken care of, even when I am in a long-term relationship the costs get split, dinners, entertainment, groceries, rent, and travel, split. I don’t believe in someone taking on the bulk of the cost of a partnership because of said partnership. If there is a large skew in earnings then we have figured out what the equal cost is and kept that as a guide until things changed because sometimes they do.

All of this is to say that I work hard to support my creativity and passion and saving money is something I do so that I can travel and take my camera and sketchbook to different parts of the world.

I thought it would be good to share something personal here on the blog. Each week I think about what I am going to say and sometimes the posts write themselves because I have a lot going on and sometimes it’s a grind to keep these balls in the air this week I just wanted to share how that juggling happens.

[girls-can-get-married]

Katie & Minya

From Katie (the bride in a dress): Minya and I met in 2006 while volunteering and it was love at first sight. She was serving lasagna and I was doing a bad job of not being obvious while smiling at her from across the room. We quickly became friends, although we didn’t officially begin dating until May of 2009. Minya, who is Serbian, had gone home to visit her parents in Montenegro for a few months and we began Skyping with each other every day until she finally decided to come back to LA. I like to joke that we won the “lesbian U-Haul” contest because I basically picked her up from the airport, brought her back to my apartment, and she never left!

Minya proposed at the meditation gardens overlooking the Swami’s surf break in Encinitas, CA. We were originally going to get married in our hometown of Los Angeles, but our plans fell through and we ended up stumbling upon Spencer’s which is located on the grounds of the Palm Springs Tennis Club. We love everything about Palm Springs: the mid-century vibe, the foodie scene, and its gay-friendly atmosphere, so the decision to move the wedding out there was an easy one. Spencer’s was the perfect mix of old Hollywood elegance and breathtaking desert landscapes, complete with picturesque palm trees, a vast mountain backdrop, and a couple of 100-year old cacti that framed the space we decided on for our altar. Leslie, the coordinator at Spencer’s, was very accommodating and worked with our budget to help us create the perfect set-up, menu, and wedding cake. Once we knew we were sticking with the restaurant, we went out to the bridal shop together and I purchased the first dress I tried on. Minya found her suit shortly after, but spent some extra time looking for shoes since they are always her favorite accessory!

We knew we wanted to pay for the wedding ourselves which meant not hiring anyone to help plan and incorporating a lot of DIY elements while sticking to a very tight budget. Spencer’s is a unique venue in that the ceremony took place outside in a garden setting, the cocktail hour took place around the pool, and the dinner reception took place in the banquet room overlooking the pool and the restaurant. I knew my love of soft pinks, greens and golds would work nicely in the ballroom setting, but my love for a southwestern palette had me torn and I knew hot pink, orange and pops of yellow would work well with the bougainvillea and vibrant desert locale. We decided on the best of both worlds by spending our wedding weekend at the famed Saguaro Hotel, know for its bold colorful design. We gifted bright floral robes for our bridal party to get ready in and added desert staples like air plants and succulents into all of our floral pieces, as well as fresh rosemary from our florist’s home garden which is a Serbian wedding tradition (our bouquets smelled great!). I made countless trips to thrift (and Dollar) stores for things like antique serveware, mason jars, votives, and frames, which were all spray-painted gold and used as centerpieces; I took advantage of free printables for things like our guest book and “Mrs. & Mrs.” cake signs; and I hand stamped all of the escort cards with a simple gold leaf. I looked to Etsy for everything from floral crowns for the flower girls and bow ties for the boys, to our wedding bands which are brushed and hammered from sustainable, eco-friendly recycled 18K gold. Minya and I spent the last few weekends cutting our own table runners from discount summer fabric and putting together all of our “To have and to hold” wedding programs which doubled as fans for our guests. We made sure to infuse elements of our personalities wherever we could, from ring boxes that paid homage to our love of bikes to handwritten quotes on chalkboards from some of our favorite poets. I was nervous about how it would all come together so it was amazing to look around the room and see how all of our handmade DIY decorations had transformed this fairly dark banquet room into a romantic, magical atmosphere.

With regard to our ceremony, most of our guests had not been to a same-sex wedding before and weren’t sure what to expect, so in a way it was exciting because it allowed us to sort of “break the rules” a bit and left us with a clean slate to build upon. It also presented unique challenges throughout the planning process like changing routine ceremony wording and deciding on how we wanted to be announced. It was very important to us that our ceremony be traditionally structured and spiritual in nature, while maintaining a sort of classic, relaxed vibe in the spirit of Palm Springs. Our ring bearers wore matching sunglasses and our flower girls made a barefoot entrance. In honor of my aunt Isabel who passed away a few years ago, I wore her favorite pieces of jewelry which served as my “something borrowed.” Our parents walked us down the aisle to a string quartet version of Etta James’ “At Last” and we exchanged handwritten (and very tearful) vows with each other in which we promised to never go to bed angry and to take each other’s temperature even when the other person thinks “she’s fine.” We made sure to combine our Irish and Serbian cultures with meaningful elements like a traditional handfasting ritual (tying the knot) and little gold bells were given to guests with tags that read, “As we share our first wedded kiss, ring this bell for lifelong bliss. Ring the bell with all your might ’til the happy brides are out of sight!” which of course made for a very sweet exit, accompanied by Ray LaMontagne’s “You Are The Best Thing” as our recessional. Other special moments were during the reception when one of our flower girls caught the bouquet (she was so excited), blessings from our sisters, and my father’s toast which had everyone in the room, including our vendors, in tears as he welcomed Minya’s parents in their native Serbian language and reminded everyone that “love is love.” People are still talking about his speech and how perfect it was, and I will forever be proud of him for the words he shared that night.

The highlight of our wedding was most definitely our guests. Friends and family came from near and far to be there and we were so overwhelmed with all of the love and support we received in those busy days leading up to the big day. It was more wonderful than we could’ve ever imagined and we are looking forward to spending our anniversary weekend in Palm Springs for years to come!

http://www.onabicyclebuiltfortwo.com/2015/02/wedding-katie-minya.html

ACTUAL SERBIAN BRIDE :-)))))))))

#SERBIAN LESBIAN

[writings-of-a-hufflepuff]

Tastes Like Home

Fandom: Marvel/Avengers

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warning: N/A

Writer: @imaginesofeveryfandom aka @thequeenofthehobbits

Summary/Request: Requested by anon:  Could you please write a one shot where Bucky and the Reader are thrift shopping and they find an old baking recipe book that was the same type Buckys mother and sister used when doing most baking. The reader buys it and bakes banana bread for Bucky after finding out it was his favourite. When he tries it he says it "tastes like home."

Note: In the 1930s 4 pounds of bananas or 12 bananas averaged about 19 cents or 14 pence, which today is about £9.19 or 76 pence a banana comparatively in 2016 the price for 1 pound/3 bananas was 58 cents or in the UK it’s something like 11p a banana if you maths it out give or take. So quite an expensive banana and you’d need a few for your banana bread. 

Also it was a different species of banana back in the 40s so they taste different.

PS: The history student in me had to check cause...I’m terrible and I have to write these things as spot on as a I can, blame university. 

You loved second hand shops, you could spend all day in second hand shops. The random nick knacks and trinkets the things you never knew existed but in fact did. It was a wonderful past time, and a relatively inexpensive one, less so than going into any other sort of shop. 

You and Bucky both enjoyed going into these shops, he sometimes saw things from his childhood and things that sparked memories and it was nice experience for the two of you, to trawl through all the random and strange things and occasionally stumble on something that meant something to one of the two of you.

“What ya’ lookin’ at?” You come up behind him, arms wrapping around his waist, poking your head around his arm to have a look at the item he’d picked up. Today was another day of visiting second hand shops, you’d both been busy lately and with Bucky now starting to get more involved with the Avengers it was nice to take some time out to do something simple. You glanced at the book in his hand, a very, very old cover, one that almost looked like it might break ‘The Eagle Cookbook’ a picture of a hand holding up a platter was seen in the middle and it had obviously been published by a newspaper trying to get a bigger following. 

“My mom had this book...”

“Yeah?” You press your cheek into his arm, watching him think back to memories he’d only recently gotten back. Bucky still didn’t remember everything, but he remembered a lot and that made life easier for him and harder at the same time. It couldn’t have been easy to know so many people and never see them again, to only know Steve from before. 

“She and my sister...they used to bake when we could afford it....bananas were really expensive....so we’d put money aside and then ma would bake banana bread on the odd occasion...y’know, a treat...” You could imagine a younger Bucky keeping money aside after his first job, putting it in a jar under his bed for the day he had enough money for a single banana.

You slip your arms from around him and gently take the book, flipping through the pages until you find the one you’re looking for, “This recipe?”

“Yeah...” You could see the wistful look, the thinking back to a time that he was no longer a part of, to the people that he’d never see again. You look at the price on the back and don’t wince, while it’s not cheap (probably because of it’s age) you would pay over and above the odds for Bucky. 

“What are you doin’, doll?” 

“I’m going to make you banana bread.” You say matter-of-factly handing the book over to the cashier and paying for the ragged thing. You’d most definitely type of recipes out again just in case the thing got further damaged. 

You ignored his protests as you left the shop, stopping by the grocery shop on the way back to your home. Bananas, flour, eggs, and more all going into the basket. Bucky was always amazed during grocery shops, the variety, the pricing, he still thought a dollar was expensive. Honestly the hardest part was finding really ripe bananas in the shop, it had taken asking around until you got the perfect bananas. 

You baked, sometimes a lot and sometimes not at all, but you had baked in the past so you took great joy in standing in that kitchen following the instructions on a recipe book that was nearly 100 years old. 

You had banned Bucky from going anywhere near the kitchen while you were baking, hoping there’d be an added level of surprise when you finished even though he knew what you were baking. It wasn’t special looking you noted as you took hold of the finished product on it’s plate. But then banana bread never was, it was always simple, but tasty. 

You hoped it tasted the same.

“Close your eyes!” You call out as you bring a plate with a slice of the bread on it out to Bucky, watching him sit eyes closed, a little smirk on his face. You knew he’d appreciate the effort, but you were worried it wouldn’t live up to the memory, the expectation. 

“Open.” You feed him a piece of the bread and wait...and wait...and wait. It’s nerve wrecking watching him chew the bread, swallow and contemplate. It’s not until he’s opening his eyes and grinning up at you, dragging you onto his lap that you feel the worry ease away. 

“Tastes like home.” He kisses your cheek, “Thank you...” Truth is it didn’t taste quite like home, the bananas were different now and that was okay. What mattered to him was that you tried and that’s what made it taste like home. You didn’t need to know that it wasn’t exactly the same, you just needed to know that he appreciated you and love you for the effort you put in.   

“I’d do anything for you, Buck.” And you could. You’d bake banana bread everyday. You’d bake every recipe from his childhood. Hunt down every little symbol of home for him. 

[imamotherfuckingstar-lord]

Start Small

Steve Rogers x Reader, angst

A/N: This is me getting through my own grief. 

Summary: Steve tries to help with after the passing of a family member

“Remember when Dad got mad at us for coming home late?”

“Yeah,” Ana laughed and smacked your arm. “100% your fault.”

“Well,” you shrugged with a coy smirk. “Ben was really hot, I couldn’t stop kissing him!”

“Whatever. Hey,” she nodded in your direction. “Do that thing again.”

You sighed in false annoyance and Ana rolled her eyes, but they lit up as fire danced from the tips of your fingers. She sat in awe as you wiggled both hands in the air, just like you always use to do when the two of you were in high school - when she couldn’t sleep and you would sneak up on the roof of your childhood home. She’d bring her flimsy FM radio she found at a thrift store one and the night would drift on while the two of you sat up on the roof, watching the fire dance from your hands until your eyes were heavy with sleep.

The room smelled stale and Steve’s eyes wandered to the figure under the covers of the bed. Several bottles of tequila laid on the ground nearest to the bed and he held the the brown moving box tight in his arms. He quietly made his way around the piles of clothes, books, and take out bags, kneeling down on the side of the bed. Picking up an empty bottle, he looked over at the nightstand and saw that it was nearly noon. He groaned and decided to make as much noise as possible as he gathered the bottles, tossing them roughly into the box. As of late, you were making a kill with recycling.

Steve paused when he heard you shuffling on the bed and he stood up, internally fighting thoughts of just letting you be and helping you through the grief you were experiencing.

“I made breakfast,” he finally said and you groaned. “You have to eat sometime, all this take out and alcohol isn’t healthy.”

“I’m fine,” you argued, tossing the blanket off.

Steve watched as you got off the bed and walked over to the music dock across the room. You pressed play on the Ipod and turned the dial all the way up on the speakers. He winced a bit when the music came blaring, loud and unapologetic. It was the same song you played over and over for the last two months, after the team barred you from missions. You were becoming a liability to your own self, a risk no one wanted to take and worse, you didn’t seem to care.

“Are you coming out for breakfast?”

Steve hollered of Johnny Cash & June Carter singing ‘Jackson’ just as you walked into the bathroom, he sighed and hung his head - leaving the room, the music muffled as he closed the door behind him.

...

You leaned against the bathroom door, waiting for the sound of the bedroom door closing, before you peeked out. Steve was gone and the guilt mounted itself onto your shoulders, along with everything else. It wasn’t like you didn’t appreciate what he was doing for you - you loved Steve with every ounce of your heart, but it was broken right now and not even he could fix it.

“I'm goin' to Jackson, and that's a fact. Yeah, I'm goin' to Jackson, ain't never comin' back…”

Leaving the bathroom, you stumbled to the bed and collapsed onto your back, staring up at the ceiling. Ana was always sang the June Carter parts and you were Johnny, a cigarette in between your sixteen year old lips. The two of you would walked down to the park near the house, sneak into the baseball dugouts and listen to music, smoke cigarettes like the amateurs you were.

It was fun and stupid, it was youth at it’s best.

And now..it was all gone.

Ana was gone and you were left without a off tune singing partner - the world was less bright, less hopeful.

It was less.

Your stomach grumbled and you knew you had to go to the kitchen - there was no more granola bars stashed away, all the tequila bottles were empty. Taking a deep breath, you got up and turned off the music, walked back into the bathroom and stared at the hollow eyes in the mirror.

...

“How is she?”

Natasha asked, stirring her coffee with a spoon.

Steve shrugged in defeat. “Not good, it’s been months since Ana passed.”

“Everyone has their own way of grieving, her sister passed unexpectedly,” Nat pointed out and Steve nodded.

“I know, I don’t expect her to be okay, but I can’t help but worry...she’s broken and I don’t know how to fix her.”

“I don’t need fixing,” you spoke loudly, waking into the kitchen and right toward the coffee machine. The pair watched as you poured yourself a cup and grabbed a muffin off the kitchen island.

“Where’s Bucky?”

“He’s gone on a mission with the others,” Steve said, an unnecessary pang of jealousy tightened in his chest. It seemed that Bucky was the only one that could bring a little life into you - you had sought him out several times and the two of you would disappear for hours, only for you to come back and head straight to your quarters. Steve never asked Buck what the two of you did during that time, he trusted you both, but it was killing him that he couldn’t be the emotional support you needed.

“I’m going back to my room.”

“No,” Steve protested, jumping out of his seat.

Nat sent him a warning glare, but he strode toward you, taking both the muffin and coffee from your hands.

“You can’t just lock yourself up, I can help - we can all help,” Steve pleaded and Ana popped into your head. In many ways, Ana and Steve were alike. Chaotically good. Always wanting to do the right thing, even when it took some wrong - always looking out for those they loved the most and in that moment, you couldn’t love him more.

Still, it hurt.

Every bone in your body ached, every beating in your heart felt like a thousand stabs, because Ana was gone and never, never would you see her smile again, hear her laugh again, feel her body next to yours on the rooftop of your childhood home. When you got that call , it was Steve who had to wrangle you in, because you lost control of your power. Fire flew from your hands and it was lucky that you were on a mission, far away from civilians. He had ran behind you, gripped you tight and whispered gently into your ears.

“It’s okay, I’m so sorry, it’s going to be okay,” his lips touched your ears and you whimpered, falling down to the ground, but he caught you. His hands wrapped around your waist tightly and he felt the warmth from your hands dying down until they were cold.

“It’s going to be okay...sweetheart...so..sorry.”

A tear fell down the side of your face and you looked over to Natasha, you gave you a genuine smile - not those fake, forced sympathetic smiles, but a real one and you were grateful.

Steve placed the coffee and muffin down to grab your hand, squeezing it lightly until you glanced over at him.

“It’s going to be okay,” he promised. “I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, but it is. I’m right here for you, I’ll always be here for you. I love you, I’m not going anywhere, okay?”

You listened to every syllable that left his lips and for the first time in months, you felt hope again. Looking into Steve’s blue eyes, you felt a hint of life in your heart again. Sure, it would not happen fast - truthfully, you would never be the same again, but you had Steve and that was a start.

Giving his hand a tightly tug, you managed a small smile. “Okay, but can we start small?”

“Of course,” Steve grinned, stepping forward to press a kiss onto your forehead. “How about a muffin and coffee?”

“Sounds perfect.”

....

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[wonderhead]

for the love of god, woman!!!

Yesterday I took my toyota (((echo echo echo))) in to get the windshield replaced. It survived a hail storm sometime before I owned it and the windshield was a cracked disaster. the wildcard I bought the car from recommended a place in s. burl so I went there. The folks at the glass place were like, “YOU AREN’T GOING TO HANG OUT HERE FOR TWO HOURS, ARE YOU?” and I was like, “Nah. I’m gonna wander around.” It is on a road loaded with stores I’ve been intending to visit for a while but hadn’t had the time to, so I decided to hoof it. I love walking in places where things are close but everyone drives to them cause I feel like a big middle finger to the noisy cars blasting by. Also I was thinking, thank goodness all these electric cars are coming, automobiles are freaking noisy. 

Among my stops were two bedding stores, a stone countertop place, a place selling airstream trailers, a pet food store selling leashes and goat milk, a paint store, and this thrift store I’ve always wanted to visit. In between stops I was listening to an interview with naomi shihab nye where she talked about the power of poetry, and about this word that describes the spaciousness in poetry: “And a girl, in fact, wrote me a note in Yokohama on the day that I was leaving her school (...) it said, “Well, here in Japan, we have a concept called ‘yutori.’” And it is spaciousness. It’s a kind of living with spaciousness. For example, it’s leaving early enough to get somewhere so that you know you’re going to arrive early, so when you get there, you have time to look around. Or — and then she gave all these different definitions of what yutori was to her.But one of them was — and after you read a poem just knowing you can hold it, you can be in that space of the poem. And it can hold you in its space. And you don’t have to explain it. You don’t have to paraphrase it. You just hold it, and it allows you to see differently. And I just love that. I mean, I think that’s what I’ve been trying to say all these years. I should have studied Japanese. [laughs] Maybe that’s where all our answers are. In Japanese.” 

This struck me as the thing that I learned most when I was getting divorced, about giving myself space and time to wander around because there were answers I couldn’t find on my most direct route to singletown. And my favorite thing about my unemployment is also giving myself the gift of this time, trying to rush less and be more present with other people. 

I talked to the man in the stone store about his favorite stone to work with, which is soapstone, and about this bench he has on display that his grandfather got out of a barn somewhere and he confessed that like me, he also has particleboard countertops in his kitchen. 

I wandered into some airstream trailers on display which were very attractive but smelled like new chemicals, and so did not 100% appeal to me. 

And then I finally visited this thrift store I have been intending to visit for some time. Outside there were the BEST vermont shirts I have ever seen, which were bright orange and had a moose on them and looked to be handmade. I got into conversation with the owner about these first, and complimented her on her style. She had a great fluffy dog as well, who trundled in and sniffed me thoroughly. And then things got surreal. We talked about our lives and our degrees and when I mentioned that I had my library and information science degree she started telling me about having to fight with the school librarian in town when her son brought home a book she found intolerable. I sort of reeled internally at how to respond to this affront to freedom of expression without offending her (in part because we were having a good conversation and in part because I felt like being combative would be unlikely to encourage positive discourse) and ended up saying something like, “It’s wild world, right? And there is so much awfulness in it. I think we all want to protect our kids from negative stuff. But I have to say for myself, I’ve sometimes read books about lives and experiences I would NEVER want to have but reading those things has given me an understanding and an empathy for folks/lives/experiences that I would never have had otherwise.” 

Then we talked about how we met our partners, she told me about her kids and how she ended up in Vermont (the clinton administration's impact on communities through their policies in shutting down military bases factored into this), and about her husband’s military career and his subsequent call to the ministry. We also talked about our previous relationships with alcoholics and about the power of prayer in finding the best human. As well as the importance of forgiveness. 

She also complained that missionaries aren't being allowed into India anymore.  There was a skirt I really liked there and a couple of other things but I didn't buy anything. I declined her invitation to church this weekend, and to bible study, but I can honestly say I think we both benefited from the conversation. 

Then I went to the paint store to buy some paint the same color as mayonnaise, checked out more beds, and picked up my car (which looks great) and drilled the staff at the glass store about their favorite restaurants. All in all, I have to say it was a good day. 

[captaindoubled]

All my old psych text books and notes are in storage so I don’t remember the exact terms but there is a concept in psychology that says if you’ve worked very hard or paid a lot of money for something (joining a club or frat for example) you have a harder time critiquing said thing. It’s because you’ll look like a damn fool if you’ve spent all this money or put forth all this effort just to hate it in the end.

I wonder if anyone has looking into it in terms of Video Games.

Like I’ve been getting more and more into video games lately and Video Games as a Media Form has been getting really interesting to me as far as Psychology In the Media.

And beware, under is just a really long thought piece on media and critique:

Music, Movies, Tv Shows, Books, Comic Books, either don’t cost a lot of money or don’t cost a lot of time as far as investments. Or both.

Music- You can hear a new song on the radio for free or through apps like Spotify or Pandora before investing money into it.  And it only lasts less than 4 mins on average so you aren’t exactly investing a lot of time into a new song.

Movies- You can watch a new movie that comes out for as cheap as the cheapest theater in your area is. If I want to splurge on a new movie that I want to see, I can go to the big theater for $13 bucks but if I don’t give a crap either way, I’m dropping $3.50 for a matinee at the cheap seats. It’s an hour and a half of my time at most and I can’t even buy a good cup of coffee for that price. After the movie comes out and you’ve seen it in theaters you have rent the movie or buy it, for no more than $25 for most movies, including blue ray now a days.

Tv Shows- Other than the Cable bill, Tv is free and shows are plentiful. The only time investment is when you’ve watched a few seasons of a show and then it starts going downhill. I plan on watching every episode of Supernatural even though it’s hot garbage because I’d already invested 5 seasons into it before it went down hill (for me). I can understand why some people would have a hard time parting with it even hating it 12??? Seasons in. I can’t stand it and I’m still going to watch it.

Books- They take a lot of time as far as investment depending on how fast you read but books of all subjects are variable and if you buy books like I do (Thrift shop!) it’s a very cheap entertainment source. Even if you buy it full price, on average it’s about 12 bucks a book, more for hardcover. Book series though (*cough cough* Harry Potter *cough*) Can fall into the “This is actually a long investment” to the point where it becomes impossible to critique. Many people in my generation grew up with Harry Potter, it was a cultural phenomenon. It also took a very long time to get through the entire series because of time.

Comic books- Comic books are a bit more expensive (depending on what you are reading) and here is probably the closest to video game culture bubble. Comic book issues don’t release book sized editions like well, books. 30 or so pages per issue over the course of months. It can take you a year to wrap up a story line or more, (depending on the writer and the actual plot or just release dates). Comic issues can run a wide varitiy of prices which many not seem like a lot but some comics cost more than the movie cheap movie price I listed. They also may be printed in limited quantities? Or because the nature of comics (especially in the big name companies) the plots are so complicated, cross comic spanning and just down right hard to grasp sometimes that getting into comics is an intimidating venture.

For people who get into comics, are really into the decade long stories sometimes, it may not be an expensive hobby (or it can be if you make it so) but it is a laborious activity that requires a lot of time if you plan on getting invested in it. By the time you get to a point in a story where it’s highly offensive, you may find ways to excuse the problem because it’s harder to criticize something that’s you’ve spend so much time on.

 But Video Games are the nexus of time investment and monetary investment.

Video Games require first an expensive system in order to play them. Unlike movies and music that can literally be played on any device that you own (with the exception of Blue Rays but even though multiple companies make Blue ray players) Video Games have to be played on the system they are made for. And over the past few decades, the variety of game systems have decreased to Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft and PC. PC having the most variety as far as games but require a system that can handle the graphics of the new games and just general knowledge of computers to figure out if your computer can handle a game. This has people buying overpriced Alienware computers or other marketed Gaming Computers because they are considered “game ready”.  This is a huge money investment for a lot of people, including having a decent TV to play these games on, or a monitor , ect ect.

(the only person I know who is an exception to this is my mom who bought a ps3 just to watch Netflix. But I worry about her act first think later thought process doesn’t count)

Then Video Games themselves cost a lot of money. Especially your big name AAA games. $40 and up is pretty standard. Smaller games and indie games tend to be a lot cheaper and they are honestly they saving grace for the video game industry because of that.  They also release on PC but don’t require NASA level computers to play them a lot of the times.

I looked at my first play through of Dragon Age: Inquisition that I’ve been doing a completion route on and so far I’ve done 100+ hours on this play through alone. This doesn’t include the 6 other inquisitors I have with anywhere between 10 and 30 hours of play time on each of them. Just looking at the time I’ve spent between the entire series (Origins, 2 and Inquisition) I have over 400+ hours of time invested into this one game series.

And for someone who tends to have at least one Completionist run per game the website https://howlongtobeat.com/ has beating these three games at about 284 hours. But just beat them at BARE MIN, main story only – It would take 121 hours!!! That is a lot of time!

This doesn’t include the time I’ve spent non game time. (Fanart -fanfic, ect)

Fun part is:  I fucking can’t stand Dragon Age 75% if the time. I could complain about that game series until the sun consumes this planet in a heat death. But I’ve invested so much time in character creation, headcanons, ect that I’m ready and waiting for new information about the next game!! I understand this bias, I understand that if I had to pick between Mass effect and Dragon Age (Mass Effect being a game I enjoy infinitely more Dragon Age) I’d pick Mass Effect every single day, I’m still going to give Bioware my fucking money and time in art and headcanons, and I don’t even feel bad about it.

I don’t feel bad critiquing it because I’m a Bad Fan ™ and I understand being able to still enjoy something but look at it with a critical eye. There are people who don’t understand this concept though and have absolutely invested more time than I have in just this one series and absolutely go through mental gymnastics to justify some of the absolutely disgusting things that exist in this game.

Video Games as a fuels allows this sort of blind loyalty. If you’ve invested that much time and money into even just one game (Still going dragon age) like Dragon Age 2, which is the shortest of the series, you are still spending more than most of the mediums up there. It’s very hard to hate something you’ve spent so much time and money on. Psychology tells us that.

There is a bright side for the future of video games and why I think the bubble of gamergate busted. With the rise of Let’s Play, people on youtube posting videos of cut scenes (I rely on these people a lot before I go out and buy a new expensive game), and just the general main streamness of video games, it’s harder for Video Games to be as closed off as they are.

And I’m not saying that this is an excuse, this is just a reason. You can, I am like this and a lot of people I know are, can consume media that is bad, call it out, regardless of how long or how much money they’ve spent on it. But I understand why it happens the other way around, because big video games have creature a culture around it that makes it above critique.

[micaramel]

James Benning in Joshua Tree (December 25), 2011. Photo by Heinz Peter Knes

  Artist: James Benning

Exhibition Title: Down the Rabbit Hole: JB in JT

Arranged by: Julie Ault and Martin Beck

In Collaboration With: O-Town House, Los Angeles

Note: at the request of O-Town House we have adjusted this project’s presentation.

  Shortly after I arrived in Joshua Tree some three weeks ago, going into lockdown with Julie and Martin, we decided this was a perfect time to realize our plan for a James Benning exhibition of his works in their home. The idea for a private exhibition of James’s works here was hatched last Christmas, a time when the gang usually descends on Joshua Tree for some quality time at the kitchen table and in front of the fireplace. But now, considering the current circumstances, developing this exhibition as a virtual one seems to resolve several issues—of privacy, access to the public, and keeping busy and engaged with the world. Down the Rabbit Hole: JB in JT is conceived as part of a continuum with two earlier exhibition projects. The first, Tell It To My Heart, which traveled from the Kunstmuseum Basel to Culturgest in Lisbon and ultimately to Artists Space in New York, was an exhibition based on the artworks Julie has collected over decades, many of them the results of conversations and collaborations with other artists. The curatorial team was equally significant, and the project strove to develop a different mode of mapping the ways art and history touch our lives through relationships and collaborations. The second project in this lineage was inspired by the first, titled 31 Friends by James, for which he made 31 artworks for as many friends. The works were shown at the Marfa Book Company in Marfa, TX, and, after the exhibition ended, were given to their intended owners. James then asked everyone to send him a photograph of the works in their new homes. Those framed photographs were presented at O-Town House. James described 31 Friends as an “attempt to pay homage to the ability of art to produce community as opposed to just commerce.” The line drawn from Tell It To My Heart to 31 Friends to Down the Rabbit Hole is indicative of an ongoing effort to sustainably engage artistic practices and align the language around this work meaningfully with our lives. Down the Rabbit Hole  brings together (nearly) all the artworks and some artifacts made by James that are distributed in Julie and Martin’s house and grounds in Joshua Tree. Many of these objects are on permanent display, others were unearthed from drawers and closets. Most objects we photographed as they are installed, others we staged, and, collectively, we put together an annotated checklist, supplying details about the work and some stories of how they came about. Picking up on the aspirations of Tell It To My Heart and 31 Friends, this exhibition also reads as a conversation. The works are listed in chronological order to make present the unfolding of friendship over many years; the show becoming an extension of ongoing collaborations with a view toward the future. Moments of recollection, such as Down the Rabbit Hole represents, become crucial to finding fresh ways of thinking about the role art can play in the construction of community. By drawing lines across time, as we rummage through James’s traces here at the house, together, we are taking stock, reviewing, and recounting the conversations that grew into plans and then into actions. Enduring interests and subjects, obsessions, and curiosities have become shared experiences and the medium with which we solidify our lives together.

— Scott Cameron Weaver

    After Traylor, 2004 Colored pencil on cardstock Two parts 6 1/2 × 4 1/4 inches and 6 1/2 × 8 3/8

James often came to Joshua Tree around the holidays to visit our mutual friend Dick Hebdige. In 2003 they came over to our house a couple evenings. Sitting by the fire, James said, “I usually don’t like places like this, but I like it here.” I think he was referring to all the colors. When Dick and James came over the following Christmas, JB brought this wonderful gift. It seems reasonable to me now, but at the time, copying Bill Traylor imagery, and doing it well, was astonishing. (JA)

    Two sugar pine cones (Pinus lambertiana) from Hatchet Peak near Pine Flat, ca. 2005 Approx. 11 × 4 × 4 inches each

When coming to JT from his place in the Sierras, James sometimes brings a couple of large pine cones with him. We integrated most of them into the landscape, and some have disintegrated over the years. These two we kept on a stand on the patio. They sometimes get blown off by the wind and we find them somewhere between the cactuses. (MB)

    Clock, 2006 9 inches diameter Acrylic paint on clock

I needed to keep busy, part of my nature, so inspired by the many cans of paint in the garage (due to the many different colors used inside and outside of the house [what is it 36? I think it’s 42]), I decided to paint a clock I had just found in a local thrift store using a few of those colors. (JB)

  Continue the exhibition after the jump.

    AFTER JESSE HOWARD (DETAIL) J.B., 2007 Colored pencil on cardstock Two parts 6 1/2 × 4 1/4 and 6 1/2 × 8 ½ Pencil (verso of larger part): A MAN HAS NO RIGHT TO DEFEND HIS FAMILY DECATUR. ILL. OCT. 11. 1961 OF ALL THE UN=AMERICAN. UN=CIVIL- IZED WAY OF LIFE! ARREST: A MA- N AND THROW HIM IN JAIL! BECA- USE HE HAD NO PERMIT TO CON- STRUCT A FALLOUT SHELTER, FOR HIMSELF=AND=HIS=FAMILY. JESSE HOWARD

This was the second set of drawings made for this two-part frame. The first set was two Bill Traylor drawings (see After Traylor, 2004), but they looked rather silly so small, so I replaced them with these two truncated drawings of a Jesse Howard painting that I copied and is hanging in the replica Kaczynski cabin I built in the Sierras. I’m not sure what happened to the first set. (JB)

Once taken out of the frame, the first set, After Traylor (2004), was kept in the bottom shelf of a covered sideboard, visible right when opening its door. The unprotected drawings were vulnerable. This display, if one could call it that, always felt a bit treacherous and, recently, Julie packed the drawings in glassine and cardboard and stored them safely in the Christmas closet. (MB)

    Freedom Club, 2009 Wood carving 2 × 9 7/8 inches

Kaczynski embedded a signature of sorts—the letters FC—in the bombs he made from 1980 on, and in the mid-nineties signed letters to public figures and editors FC. FC (Freedom Club) was supposed to be an anarchist terrorist group. Kaczynski’s 1995 letter to Scientific American is worth repeating: “Scientists and engineers constantly gamble with human welfare, and we see today the effects of some of their lost gambles: ozone depletion, the greenhouse effect, cancer-causing chemicals to which we cannot avoid exposure, accumulating nuclear waste for which a sure method of disposal has not yet been found, the crowding, noise and pollution that have followed industrialization, massive extinction of species and so forth…. We emphasize the negative PHYSICAL consequences of scientific advances often are completely unforeseeable….  But far more difficult to foresee are the negative SOCIAL consequences of technological progress. The engineers who began the industrial revolution never dreamed their work would result in the creation of an industrial proletariat or the economic boom and bust cycle.” This carving was a step in James’s process of furnishing his Kaczynski cabin. After a while, he replaced it with one reading FC, and I asked if I could have this one. (JA)

    James Benning and Sadie Benning Untitled, 2010 Pencil on cardstock, framed Two parts (left part drawn by Sadie Benning, right part drawn by James Benning) Drawing: 6 1/2 × 4 1/4 inches and 6 1/2 × 8 1/2 inches Frame: 8 × 14 1/2 inches

This was the third set of drawings made for this two-part frame. I was going to continue to change the drawings for this frame, but since this is the only collaboration between Sadie and I, it seemed best to end the series here. (JB)

James and Sadie like to settle on the couch in front of the fireplace when they visit. One Christmas we got a new couch. Knowing that we wouldn’t be home when they arrived, and that they would immediately take their places in front of the fire, we wrapped a large ribbon around the couch and made it an in situ present to them. (MB)

    After Traylor by J.B., 2010 Colored pencil on paper Drawing: 12 3/4 × 8 1/2 inches Frame: 21 1/2 × 14 1/4 inches Pencil on backing board: APARTMENT FOR PEOPLE TO GO AND THEN COME OUT UP A ELEVATOR AND THEN JUMP OUT THE WINDOW. ONLY THE MANAGERS CAN GO THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR. NAME OF THE APARTMENT IS “THE PEOPLE’S APARTMENT”. 100 PEOPLE LIVE IN IT, EVERONES THE SAME AGE, BUT SOME ARE 10, 20, AND 40. by VANESSA

    Vanessa’s name is Vanessa Basilio. She was about eleven at the time, 2010. She was a CAP student. CAP is Community Arts Partnership. CalArts students teach kids in disadvantaged communities, and then the kids have a show at CalArts. When I saw her piece (house and text), I was most impressed and asked her if I could trade her an artwork for it. She was excited to make a trade, but told me she wanted to see what I could offer. I told her I could trade her a house for her house. The next day I met her and her mother, and showed her the After Traylor house. She really liked it and we made the trade, and I took a picture of her holding her house but can’t find the photo. (JB)

James made another version of the After Traylor (2010) drawing that he gave Vanessa for our house; he transcribed Vanessa’s description of her house on the frame’s backing board. A photograph of the work by Heinz Peter Knes, showing the drawing in context at the house, adorns the back cover of the first volume of Tell It To My Heart. Proofing the catalog, none of us noticed the image was reversed, the bird looking to the left rather than to the right. (MB)

    (FC) Two Cabins by JB, 2011 Edited by Julie Ault Contributions by Julie Ault, James Benning, Dick Hebdige, Theodore J. Kaczynski, and Henri David Thoreau Designed by Martin Beck Published by A.R.T. Press, New York

I still intend to write something about the Two Cabins constellation and Thoreau and Kaczynski copies James gave me. (JA)

    After Thoreau, 2011 Ink on chipboard, framed Drawing: 10 × 8 inches Frame: 18 1/2 × 15 1/2 inches

This is a copy of one of Henry David Thoreau’s many drawings that he made as the town surveyor of Concord, Massachusetts. The frame is tramp art from the 1930s. (JB)

The autodidactic orientation of both Thoreau and Kaczynski finds a correlation in Benning, who takes immense pleasure in learning. Ted Kaczynski created a numeric code to shield his most self-incriminating journal entries about his bombing campaign. JB meticulously copied the dense document and hung it in his Kaczynski cabin. He made a second copy for me, but it’s not in Joshua Tree. Empathy is palpable in his copies, and so is James, who leaves traces. I regard the reproduced TK code and the Thoreau survey as outlying companions linked by James’s acts of copying, thereby completing the triad of primary protagonists in FC: Two Cabins by JB. (JA)

    intertitle study for Stemple Pass, 2012 Typewriting on paper 11 × 9 1/4 inches

I spent a few weeks working on Stemple Pass at the kitchen table in JT. This was made while I was working on the intertitles. I believe there is a photo of me doing just that, in the first Tell It To My Heart catalog. (JB)

Tell It To My Heart was an exhibition about the artworks given to and acquired by Julie over a few decades. For the catalog, the works were photographed in situ, “at home” in our NY apartment and the JT house, installed on the walls, packed up in closets, under the couch, in drawers, and other odd places. Some of the images didn’t even show artworks, just the environment. The only person appearing in the catalog’s photography is James, seen from behind, with headphones on, sitting at the JT kitchen table, editing a film. (MB)

    After Beck 11 × 15 3/4, 2013 Acrylic paint on wood panel 11 × 15 3/4 inches

Martin gave me a painting of his that was hanging on the wall in JT. It was a painting that I always admired. I was going to make an exact copy of it and replace it in the same place. It proved to be too difficult for me to reproduce, so I made this painting instead. It was the same dimensions as the painting I tried to copy. (JB)

Back in 1996, I gave a painting I had made as an art student to Julie. It was the first painting I considered to be quite good and therefore was precious to me. Soon after we got the house in JT, the painting moved out here, which is where James saw it. Expressing his admiration, he wondered if there were others like it. I had a similar same-size one from that time in storage at my parents house in Austria. James and I then cooked up a trade: I would give him that painting and he would copy it for me. When visiting my parents next I took the painting to NY and sent it to him in the mail. Quite a few months later, at Christmas out in JT, James gave me his version of it. While James was working on the copy, Sadie painted a white version as a companion piece. Unbeknownst of the impending gifts, I had made two drawings, to give them as presents, one for James, one for Sadie, both saying “the same thing can be done in different ways.” (MB)

    Thinking about the Unabomber, 1987/2014 Enlarged photobooth photograph, framed Image: 4 3/4 × 4 3/4 inches Frame: 12 1/2 × 12 1/2 inches

Thinking about the Unabomber, 1987/2014 Enlarged photobooth photograph, framed Image: 4 3/4 × 4 3/4 inches Frame: 12 1/2 × 12 1/2 inches

In 1987 a woman witnessed a man wearing aviator glasses and a hooded sweatshirt placing a package outside a computer store in Salt Lake City that turned out to be a bomb. The widely circulated police sketch made from her description was the first representation of the Unabomber. (JA)

The last year I lived in NYC, Sadie visited me and we went to Coney Island and made this photo in a photobooth. I was thinking about the Unabomber because a number of my friends and I thought the Unabomber might have been Leo Burt, the only person never to be arrested for the Sterling Hall bombing at the University of Wisconsin, in protest against the Vietnam War. In 2014 I re-photographed the photo. (JB)

    Three Paper Airplanes, 2014 Signed contract; three one hundred-dollar bills, folded Laser print on paper, framed Print: 9 3/4 × 8 inches Frame: 12 1/2 × 10 1/2 inches Bills: 1 1/2 × 6 × 1 1/4 inches each

Julie bought this piece for $600 and paid with 563 single dollar bills. I then gave the three secretaries (the three women who keep the CalArts film school running) $200 each. The piece was in the spirit of Douglas Huebler—he was teaching at CalArts in the 1980s—and was one of the reasons I took a job there. I like his art very much, and he was an amazing guy. (JB)

For several years, whenever James needed a book for his Kaczynski library and research into artists he was copying, he asked me to scope out the possibilities online and order the books, since I had a credit card. This provided a productive exchange about the books’ contents and various editions. Periodically I’d give him the tally. On one occasion, he owed me $563 and paid me in one-dollar bills stuffed into a big envelope. Not needing the cash at that moment, I kept the reimbursement “as is.” A few years later, James told me about his paper airplanes made from one-hundred dollar bills and said he wanted to get more than their value to split the money between the three women that run the film department, who do a lot for him. So I pulled out the envelope and made up the difference to $600. (JA)

This work was really hard to photograph—it is usually stored in a protective box in a cabinet. Scott and I kept moving the paper airplanes around the house and tried about a dozen different settings until we settled on this one. Another image we shot looks very similar except that the hundred-dollar bills sit on a pink ground with a yellow glow coming in from the sides. Julie liked the green ground better, so we went with that. (MB)

    After Ono by J.B., 2014 Photocopy, framed Print: 7 1/4 × 5 3/8 inches Frame: 11 1/8 × 9 1/8 inches

This is a reproduction of a call for entries by Yoko Ono for a show (This is Not Here) at Emerson Museum, Syracuse, NY, to open on October 9, 1971. (JB)

    After Ono by J.B., 2014 Photocopy, framed Print: 7 1/4 × 5 3/8 inches Frame: 10 7/8 × 8 3/4 inches

    After Warhol (smiling), 2014 Serigraph, silver and black oil-based ink on paper Print: 25 × 24 1/2 inches Frame: 26 1/2 × 26 inches

I love this sexy exuberant photograph of Andy Warhol, grabbing Parker Tyler’s crotch. JB made it in the spirit of Warhol, as part of a diptych, the other half being After Noland (smiling). I’m often amazed by the images and narratives James annexes and activates. (JA)

    After Noland (smiling), 2014 Serigraph, silver and black oil-based ink on paper Print: 25 × 24 1/2 inches Frame: 26 1/2 × 26 inches

For quite a few years, I’ve been spending summers in JT, mostly by myself. The only friend who doesn’t mind the heat and visits regularly is James. During the hot days, we both work and tool around, he under the covered patio, I in the garage studio. In the evenings, I prepare food; he makes gin-and-tonics, we listen to music and talk about work and life. At first, I wasn’t sure why James thought I should have an image of Ruth Ann Moorehead (“Ouish” of the Manson girls). I know he likes Cady Noland’s work and I do too. I love the image and, of course, understand why he chose it. (MB)

    Thirty-one Friends (October), 2015 Published by Marfa Book Company, Marfa, TX

In the years 2014–15 James Benning made 31 works of art for 31 friends, and produced a book, recounting a story of each friendship and describing the works created with them in mind. Some of the works referenced work by other artists—Andy Warhol, Marie Menken, Bill Traylor, Jean-Luc Godard, Jesse Howard, Henry Darger, Henry David Thoreau, Cady Noland, Robert Smithson, Jasper Johns, Miroslav Tichý, and Ted Kaczynski—inferring another set of (imagined) friends. In the summer of 2015, these works were exhibited together along with the publication at the Marfa Book Company, in Marfa, TX. At the show’s closing event, the artworks were removed from the walls and given to each of the friends for whom they’d been made. The works then traveled to places near and far—Bastrop, Texas, Duisburg, Germany, Sydney, Austria, downtown Los Angeles…. The final chapter of this project happened in 2018 at O-Town House, and consisted of the photographs James asked each friend to take of his gifted artwork in situ— gathered together from their disparate locations. 31 Friends represented a self-professed exercise in prioritizing the mechanisms in art that foster genuine examples of community. (SCW)

    June 2nd, 1984, 2015 Acrylic paint on thermometer 15 1/2 × 2 3/4 inches

In the summer of 2015 James generously helped me with the shoot and edit for the Last Night film which is based on the records David Mancuso played on June 2nd, 1984, at the last party at the Prince Street Loft. To keep the sound clean we had to film with windows closed and swamp cooler off, making for a rather hot environment. To get a little break, one afternoon we went to the 99 Cent Store where James bought a thermometer. He painted it pink and, after thinking for a while what other decoration it should have, decided on June 2nd 1984. (MB)

    After Chris B., 2018 Acrylic paint on match-head on nickel coin in wrapping paper 1 × 2 inches Edition 7/20

After Chris B., 2018 Acrylic paint on match-head on nickel coin in wrapping paper 1 × 2 inches Edition 19/20

I made this work in JT while recuperating from major surgery. (JB)

James was pretty under the weather after his surgery. We were all worried about his vulnerability and waiting it out. One morning I was going to the store and asked if anyone needed anything. James suddenly perked up and said he needed twenty nickels, some metallic paper, and a box of red-tip matchsticks. I couldn’t find red matches anywhere, only Diamond-brand green tips. He then asked for red paint and a small paintbrush and proceeded to meticulously color twenty of the green tips red. With his obsession and ambition restored, we knew he was recovering. (JA)

James made this edition as gifts for friends while convalescing under Julie and Martin’s and Dick Hebdige’s doting care in Joshua Tree, staying at their places a few days each, wearing the pajamas bought for him by Sharon Lockhart. The work was inspired by the 1979 installation, The Reason for the Neutron Bomb, by Chris Burden. The original work, now in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, comprises fifty thousand nickels and match sticks, all placed on the floor in a grid, with the red match-heads all pointing in the same direction and the words of the title painted across the wall behind them. With each red match and nickel representing a Soviet tank, Burden’s installation spoke to the escalating arms race at the height of the Cold-War. (SCW)

    Ault + Beck, 2019 Acrylic paint on wood board 9 1/4 × 23 inches Sign reads: AULT + BECK 9224 VIA ROCOSA PSALMS=148=8

Soon after we bought the house, Jennifer Bolande and Cannon Hudson stayed here for a few weeks. They were having some packages sent and, in order for the carrier to find the house, painted a sign showing our names and address. Over the years, the sun burned off the paint and made it illegible. When James arrived for the recent Christmas holidays, we asked him to make a new sign, which he eagerly took on, commenting: “Now I have something to do and don’t have to stare at the walls.” His sign uses Jesse Howard’s lettering and cites a psalm Howard included in one of his paintings. Psalm 148:8 reads “lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do his bidding.” The day after we installed the sign, it snowed—a rare and lovely occurrence in the desert. (MB)

    Genius Christ, 2019 Acrylic paint on wood board 5 7/8 × 12 7/8 inches

In celebration of our favorite genius. (JB)

    Love Saves the Day, 2019 Acrylic paint on wood board 10 7/8 × 12 7/8 inches

Once James finished the two signs and needed more things to do in order to stay busy we started thinking of other signs that might be needed. I asked him if he could make one for the garage studio, referencing the Loft and David Mancuso. We decided on the phrase Mancuso used on the invitation to the first Loft party in 1970. (MB)

JB has copied Jesse Howard’s signs for many years, and replica signs figure into his recent projects Found Fragments and Alabama. A hand-painted recycled license plate that hangs from a thick rusty chain crossing his driveway in Pine Flat reads: “POSTED Henry David Thoreau KEEP OUT.” For some time previously, it read, “POSTED T.J. Kaczynski KEEP OUT.” (JA)

    Sketches for Genius Christ and Love Saves the Day, 2019 Laser print and pencil on paper 5 × 13 inches and 8 1/4 × 17 1/4 inches

These scraps of paper contain the scale calculations and printouts James used to transfer the sign layouts to the boards. They now are in the same place in the sideboard which the two-part After Traylor (2004) drawing inhabited for a long time. (MB)

    after Darger (Welcome), 2020 Acrylic paint on garage door 6 feet 11 inches × 25 feet

This work doesn’t exist yet. James had the idea for it over the holidays but wanted to wait for warmer weather to paint it. We thought including a mock-up here might insure it happens—hopefully soon as he can safely come to JT. (MB)

We were all talking about the influx of people to Joshua Tree over the last few years and envisioning a message to anyone coming up the driveway who didn’t belong there that they’re in the wrong place (or, perhaps, the right one). Naturally, the Vivian Girls came to mind, and James had just the Darger image on his laptop to extract from, Second Battle of McAllister Run they are pursued. The section he plans to superimpose on the garage door shows Glandelinians bearing bayonets, hunting for the girls, who hide behind trees, as if to say: welcome to the realm of the unreal. (JA)

  Images courtesy of O-TOWN HOUSE, Los Angeles

  Shortly after I arrived in Joshua Tree some three weeks ago, going into lockdown with Julie and Martin, we decided this was a perfect time to realize our plan for a James Benning exhibition of his works in their home. The idea for a private exhibition of James’s works here was hatched last Christmas, a time when the gang usually descends on Joshua Tree for some quality time at the kitchen table and in front of the fireplace. But now, considering the current circumstances, developing this exhibition as a virtual one seems to resolve several issues—of privacy, access to the public, and keeping busy and engaged with the world. Down the Rabbit Hole: JB in JT is conceived as part of a continuum with two earlier exhibition projects. The first, Tell It To My Heart, which traveled from the Kunstmuseum Basel to Culturgest in Lisbon and ultimately to Artists Space in New York, was an exhibition based on the artworks Julie has collected over decades, many of them the results of conversations and collaborations with other artists. The curatorial team was equally significant, and the project strove to develop a different mode of mapping the ways art and history touch our lives through relationships and collaborations. The second project in this lineage was inspired by the first, titled 31 Friends by James, for which he made 31 artworks for as many friends. The works were shown at the Marfa Book Company in Marfa, TX, and, after the exhibition ended, were given to their intended owners. James then asked everyone to send him a photograph of the works in their new homes. Those framed photographs were presented at O-Town House. James described 31 Friends as an “attempt to pay homage to the ability of art to produce community as opposed to just commerce.” The line drawn from Tell It To My Heart to 31 Friends to Down the Rabbit Hole is indicative of an ongoing effort to sustainably engage artistic practices and align the language around this work meaningfully with our lives. Down the Rabbit Hole  brings together (nearly) all the artworks and some artifacts made by James that are distributed in Julie and Martin’s house and grounds in Joshua Tree. Many of these objects are on permanent display, others were unearthed from drawers and closets. Most objects we photographed as they are installed, others we staged, and, collectively, we put together an annotated checklist, supplying details about the work and some stories of how they came about. Picking up on the aspirations of Tell It To My Heart and 31 Friends, this exhibition also reads as a conversation. The works are listed in chronological order to make present the unfolding of friendship over many years; the show becoming an extension of ongoing collaborations with a view toward the future. Moments of recollection, such as Down the Rabbit Hole represents, become crucial to finding fresh ways of thinking about the role art can play in the construction of community. By drawing lines across time, as we rummage through James’s traces here at the house, together, we are taking stock, reviewing, and recounting the conversations that grew into plans and then into actions. Enduring interests and subjects, obsessions, and curiosities have become shared experiences and the medium with which we solidify our lives together.

— Scott Cameron Weaver

  Link: James Benning at O-TOWN HOUSE

from Contemporary Art Daily https://bit.ly/2Vr0Hq6

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New top story from Time: Beastie Boys Story Tells It Like It Was—But You Can’t Help Missing Yauch

If you were around and into music circa 1987, your feelings about the Beastie Boys may have depended on your tolerance for obnoxious, sexist, hard-partying dude bros. That’s how they presented themselves as performers, and that’s largely the fan base they attracted. Which is not to say women didn’t sometimes love them—their pimply machismo was its own kind of rascally energy. Plus, they were just kids, being ridiculous. Sample lyric: “Girls! To do the dishes/Girls! To clean up my room/Girls! To do the laundry/Girls! And in the bathroom/Girls! That’s all I really want is girls.” Going all schoolmarm on them was a waste of energy.

Thank God, though, they didn’t go on that way forever: The follow-up to the Beasties’ 1986 hit album License to Ill was 1989 Paul’s Boutique, a much better, more adventurous work that sold many fewer copies, though it’s now considered a modern classic. In Beastie Boys Story—which airs on Apple TV+ beginning April 24—surviving members Adam Horowitz and Michael Diamond (a.k.a. Ad-Rock and Mike D) take to the stage, turning the Beasties’ story into an oral history, enhanced with sound and video clips, concert footage and general archival stuff. Adam Yauch, known as MCA, was both the founder of the group and guy whose vision helped hold it together for more than 20 years; he died in 2012, from parotid cancer, and though he’s present in spirit in Beastie Boys Story, you can’t help feeling that the whole thing would be a lot more fun, and smarter, if he were around. Horowitz and Diamond seem to feel that way too. At times their reflections have a settin’ on the front porch wistfulness, a mood that hits almost all hell-raisers at some point. There are moments when Beastie Boys Story has the aura of a heavy sigh, laden with the knowledge that the skateboard long ago skidded off the half pipe.

Still, if you’ve ever felt even a scrap of affection for the band, Beastie Boys Story has its charms. In 2018 Horowitz and Diamond released a book detailing the group’s history—it was called, with typical forthrightness, Beastie Boys Book—and devised a stage show to promote it. Beastie Boys Story, directed by longtime Beasties collaborator Spike Jonze, is a revised version of that show, filmed at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn. Horowitz and Diamond, looking more hip dad than hip hop in their chinos and zip-up jackets, relay the story from day one, describing themselves, circa the early 1980s, as hardcore-obsessed New York City high schoolers whose lives revolved around Bad Brains, Misfits and Circle Jerks concerts. It was at one of these shows that Diamond and Horowitz met Yauch. Around this point in the film, two vintage photographs flash on the screen: One shows Yauch at 16, looking tough yet adorable in a thrift-shop raincoat, its lapels dotted with home-made badges; in the other, there’s a rat perched on his head.

Beastie Boys Story covers both the high and the many low points of the band’s career. They started out as an intensely amateur hardcore band before being transformed, by producer and Def Jam founder Russell Simmons, into a novelty: A trio of white rappers barely out of high school. Horowitz and Diamond explain that the Beasties started writing songs and raps as a goof, starting out with dumb phrases that they’d use to try to crack each other up. (The song that put them on the map with New York DJs was the kooky-raucous “Cooky Puss,” an ode to a particular style of Carvel ice-cream cake advertised on television.) They also liked to make fun of drunken white frat-boy types—until, when they were given the chance to open for Madonna on tour, they decided their strategy for getting noticed was to, as Diamond puts it, be “as rude and as awful as possible on-stage.” They went from being guys who made fun of party bros “to actually being those dudes,” he says.

After months of grueling touring—and partying—the group took a breather, eventually breaking with Simmons and regrouping in Los Angeles to try something new. From there, they continued to reinvent themselves, gradually, as they became full-fledged adults. Onstage, Diamond and Horowitz reckon with some of their brattier material. Diamond tells a story about how around the time of the band’s fifth album, Hello Nasty (1998), a journalist was grilling Horowitz about his claim that the band had grown up over the years, reminding him of how long it took for the Beasties to finally shed their sexist vibe. As Diamond recalls, Horowitz said, “I’d rather be a hypocrite than the same person forever.”

The Beasties had to change, and Beastie Boys Story charts that long, winding trek. Yauch was always the Beastie with the wildest ideas and the most effortless talent: When the trio decided they needed to become real musicians who could actually play instruments, Yauch picked up the double bass as if it were nothing. After visiting Tibet, he became involved in the Tibetan independence movement, organizing the Tibetan Freedom Concert, a series of festivals whose proceeds were used to support the cause. A clip from one of the events shows him greeting young monks in training one by one, clasping their hands in his, his face radiating pure joy. As Diamond puts it in the movie’s press notes, “Yauch made everything more interesting.”

Maybe that’s why, even though Yauch feels present in spirit, his physical absence burrows a hole in Beastie Boys Story. In 2004 I was assigned by the New York Times to review the Beasties’ video for “Ch-Check It Out.” I liked the song; I thought the video, directed by Yauch’s alter ego Nathanial Hornblower, was lame. A month after the review ran, the Times received a letter from Hornblower himself, which began like this:

To the Editor:

I had the great pleasure of reading your unsolicited critique of the ”Ch-Check It Out” music video [”Licensed to Stand Still” by Stephanie Zacharek, May 16]. It took some time to get to me, as it had to be curried (sp?) on goatback through the fjords of my homeland, the Oppenzell. And in the process the goat died, and then I had to give the mailman one of my goats, so remember, you owe me a goat.

The letter went on to detail the numerous ways in which Hornblower’s work would stand the test of time, despite the opinion of the “so-call New York Times smarties,” and ended thus:

In concluding, ”Ch-Check It Out” is the always best music film and you will be realizing this too far passing. As ever I now wrap my dead goat carcass in the soiled New York Times—and you are not forgetting to buy me a replacement! Please send that one more goat to me now!

Watching Beastie Boys Story reminded me of the genius of that crazy, not to mention 100 percent correct, letter. Horowitz and Diamond all but come out and say that Yauch was the best of them—the guy who first brought them together and then held them together, always coming up with new ideas they never would have dreamed of. He’s the missing ingredient from this documentary, as Horowitz and Diamond know all too well.

And I’m sorry I never got to send that goat.

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If you were around and into music circa 1987, your feelings about the Beastie Boys may have depended on your tolerance for obnoxious, sexist, hard-partying dude bros. That’s how they presented themselves as performers, and that’s largely the fan base they attracted. Which is not to say women didn’t sometimes love them—their pimply machismo was its own kind of rascally energy. Plus, they were just kids, being ridiculous. Sample lyric: “Girls! To do the dishes/Girls! To clean up my room/Girls! To do the laundry/Girls! And in the bathroom/Girls! That’s all I really want is girls.” Going all schoolmarm on them was a waste of energy.

Thank God, though, they didn’t go on that way forever: The follow-up to the Beasties’ 1986 hit album License to Ill was 1989 Paul’s Boutique, a much better, more adventurous work that sold many fewer copies, though it’s now considered a modern classic. In Beastie Boys Story—which airs on Apple TV+ beginning April 24—surviving members Adam Horowitz and Michael Diamond (a.k.a. Ad-Rock and Mike D) take to the stage, turning the Beasties’ story into an oral history, enhanced with sound and video clips, concert footage and general archival stuff. Adam Yauch, known as MCA, was both the founder of the group and guy whose vision helped hold it together for more than 20 years; he died in 2012, from parotid cancer, and though he’s present in spirit in Beastie Boys Story, you can’t help feeling that the whole thing would be a lot more fun, and smarter, if he were around. Horowitz and Diamond seem to feel that way too. At times their reflections have a settin’ on the front porch wistfulness, a mood that hits almost all hell-raisers at some point. There are moments when Beastie Boys Story has the aura of a heavy sigh, laden with the knowledge that the skateboard long ago skidded off the half pipe.

Still, if you’ve ever felt even a scrap of affection for the band, Beastie Boys Story has its charms. In 2018 Horowitz and Diamond released a book detailing the group’s history—it was called, with typical forthrightness, Beastie Boys Book—and devised a stage show to promote it. Beastie Boys Story, directed by longtime Beasties collaborator Spike Jonze, is a revised version of that show, filmed at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn. Horowitz and Diamond, looking more hip dad than hip hop in their chinos and zip-up jackets, relay the story from day one, describing themselves, circa the early 1980s, as hardcore-obsessed New York City high schoolers whose lives revolved around Bad Brains, Misfits and Circle Jerks concerts. It was at one of these shows that Diamond and Horowitz met Yauch. Around this point in the film, two vintage photographs flash on the screen: One shows Yauch at 16, looking tough yet adorable in a thrift-shop raincoat, its lapels dotted with home-made badges; in the other, there’s a rat perched on his head.

Beastie Boys Story covers both the high and the many low points of the band’s career. They started out as an intensely amateur hardcore band before being transformed, by producer and Def Jam founder Russell Simmons, into a novelty: A trio of white rappers barely out of high school. Horowitz and Diamond explain that the Beasties started writing songs and raps as a goof, starting out with dumb phrases that they’d use to try to crack each other up. (The song that put them on the map with New York DJs was the kooky-raucous “Cooky Puss,” an ode to a particular style of Carvel ice-cream cake advertised on television.) They also liked to make fun of drunken white frat-boy types—until, when they were given the chance to open for Madonna on tour, they decided their strategy for getting noticed was to, as Diamond puts it, be “as rude and as awful as possible on-stage.” They went from being guys who made fun of party bros “to actually being those dudes,” he says.

After months of grueling touring—and partying—the group took a breather, eventually breaking with Simmons and regrouping in Los Angeles to try something new. From there, they continued to reinvent themselves, gradually, as they became full-fledged adults. Onstage, Diamond and Horowitz reckon with some of their brattier material. Diamond tells a story about how around the time of the band’s fifth album, Hello Nasty (1998), a journalist was grilling Horowitz about his claim that the band had grown up over the years, reminding him of how long it took for the Beasties to finally shed their sexist vibe. As Diamond recalls, Horowitz said, “I’d rather be a hypocrite than the same person forever.”

The Beasties had to change, and Beastie Boys Story charts that long, winding trek. Yauch was always the Beastie with the wildest ideas and the most effortless talent: When the trio decided they needed to become real musicians who could actually play instruments, Yauch picked up the double bass as if it were nothing. After visiting Tibet, he became involved in the Tibetan independence movement, organizing the Tibetan Freedom Concert, a series of festivals whose proceeds were used to support the cause. A clip from one of the events shows him greeting young monks in training one by one, clasping their hands in his, his face radiating pure joy. As Diamond puts it in the movie’s press notes, “Yauch made everything more interesting.”

Maybe that’s why, even though Yauch feels present in spirit, his physical absence burrows a hole in Beastie Boys Story. In 2004 I was assigned by the New York Times to review the Beasties’ video for “Ch-Check It Out.” I liked the song; I thought the video, directed by Yauch’s alter ego Nathanial Hornblower, was lame. A month after the review ran, the Times received a letter from Hornblower himself, which began like this:

To the Editor:

I had the great pleasure of reading your unsolicited critique of the ”Ch-Check It Out” music video [”Licensed to Stand Still” by Stephanie Zacharek, May 16]. It took some time to get to me, as it had to be curried (sp?) on goatback through the fjords of my homeland, the Oppenzell. And in the process the goat died, and then I had to give the mailman one of my goats, so remember, you owe me a goat.

The letter went on to detail the numerous ways in which Hornblower’s work would stand the test of time, despite the opinion of the “so-call New York Times smarties,” and ended thus:

In concluding, ”Ch-Check It Out” is the always best music film and you will be realizing this too far passing. As ever I now wrap my dead goat carcass in the soiled New York Times—and you are not forgetting to buy me a replacement! Please send that one more goat to me now!

Watching Beastie Boys Story reminded me of the genius of that crazy, not to mention 100 percent correct, letter. Horowitz and Diamond all but come out and say that Yauch was the best of them—the guy who first brought them together and then held them together, always coming up with new ideas they never would have dreamed of. He’s the missing ingredient from this documentary, as Horowitz and Diamond know all too well.

And I’m sorry I never got to send that goat.