#Paul Blackwell

[triforcevillains]

100 Bloody Acres (2012)

Zwei Brüder, die am Land in Australien wohnen, verdienen ihr Geld durch die Herstellung von Dünger.

Durch Zufall gerät einer von ihnen an drei Hitchhiker, die er bei sich aufnimmt. Zunächst ahnen die Drei nicht, dass er versuchen wird, sie zu ermorden. Sie erfahren im Laufe ihrer Gefangenschaft in der Lagerhalle der beiden Brüder, dass das Erfolgsrezept ihres Düngers menschliche Überreste sind. (6/10)

[abagofmagictrix]

Some Animated "Bad Boy" Appreciation

[pro-royalty]

Quenlin Blackwell as Grace Jones

Inspo: works between Grace Jones & Jean-Paul Goude

[loremori]

Martin Freeman (163/366)

Breeders (2020-2023) TV series

Creator Chris Addison Simon Blackwell Martin Freeman

Luke and Paul through the years. Luke was interpreted during the series by: George Wakeman (S01) Alex Eastwood (S02-03) Oscar Kennedy (S04)

[secretsaturdayshitposting]

Do I have an unhealthy obsession with a children’s show that centers around and impulsive 11/12 yo and his silly rock gifted powers to control silly secret animals?

Next question.

[rolandrockover]

Do You Wanna Touch Me Now

What can you call something like this? A review of a Kiss song that was not recorded to completion and never officially released? If you ask me Phantom Entry doesn't sound too bad, and also kind of Kiss-like.

So, who among us Kissians doesn't inevitably think of the often mentioned Do You Wanna Touch Me Now, the only leftover from the Revenge (1992) sessions, which Paul had written with this Skid Row guy, but ultimately didn't make it onto the album. For a long time, even a very long time if you want to do yourself the displeasure of measuring your life in time, this one was considered pretty much a Holy Grail among ever-searching fans.

Until it was leaked on a mainstream platform, just like that. Out of the blue. After 30 years. (0) So, it's precisely this tiny blip that makes our little head trip here possible in the first place, so shhh, all this is top secret, of course. Let us therefore try to be gratefully and humbly accept what this may offer us.

Firstly, we have the long-range main riff that also opens the song, which can best be described as massive and anything but bad. If Take Me's (1976) chorus riff comes to mind, that would be pretty close. If you were to dance a few steps further and stop at the end with spread legs in a self-assured pose, then we would even have a bull's eye. On top of that, you get a Mr. Speed-style lick as a sort of calling card (1). This works in much the same way as the Roadrunner in the cartoons likes to stick out his tongue before he meeps and blasts off at the speed of light.

Anyway, to my ears it seems as if, in the overall context of the song's structure, it harbors a certain short-sighted, extroverted attitude that is unwilling to take the final step and whose own unrequited expectations unfortunately become its undoing. In simple terms, it promises more than it means to deliver (2).

Kind of like a long-armed boxer with a handful of excellent swinging hooks in his repetoire, with which he is able to send his opponent to the mat very safely and quickly, only to make the fatal mistake of letting go of his opponent too early and using his additional light-footed skills just to put on a little extra show for the audience (and himself), which unfortunately has little to do with the fight. And with that, I've basically already given away the verses and the bridges.

And these sound like a continuously alternating vivid, but still somewhat unsatisfying mixture of The Elder's (1981) The Oath (3), Mr. Blackwell (4), and now dear people fasten your seatbelts, Welcome to the Jungle (1987) respectively its main riff. Which should come as no surprise once you consider that in 1991 Guns N' Roses were probably the biggest rock band on this planet alongside Metallica (5).

And so it goes back and forth until you eventually reach the mid-part section, which is not much more than a big brake pad, led by Detroit Rock City's (1976) cinematic widescreen riffs, those that follow its super iconic pulsating intro, and to which you literally have no choice but to imagine Paul leisurely and majestically swinging his arm out wide. Still, you're not supposed to enjoy it to the full, because after just one run-through, the fun is over again and it moves like a souped-up tractor at adle in the direction of Black Sabbath and Iron Butterfly. This is noticeable in a passage that sounds as if somewhere the beginning of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (1968) was stuck in a loop. On steroids, of course.

And somewhere in between a guitar solo must have been envisioned, although unfortunately it never materialized. Which is regrettable, but not necessarily essential for the sake of this cause.

But hey, since when can beggars be choosers?

Side Note:

(0) Hardcore Insiders not included, which in turn should include myself.

(1) And from the first refrain even a riff appendage in the guise of Plaster Caster's (1977) bridge melody, as well as another old buddy, this time from the future, who can be found on Sonic Boom from 2009 and beyond (which we can talk about another time).

(2) So much for the gratitude.

(3) I (1981) would also fit the bill, but The Oath even more so. Just think of its characteristic opening.

(4) That AC/DC Back in Black thing we already talked about here.

(5) On the other hand, I wouldn't necessarily accuse them of intent.

And no, Do Yo Wanna Touch Me Now is not a link, just a photo. All other links are real, by the way, and highlighted:

Do You Wanna Touch Me Now (1991/92)

Take Me (1976)

Mr. Blackwell (1981)

The Oath (1981)

Welcome to the Jungle (1987)

Plaster Caster (1977)

Detroit Rock City (1976)

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (1968)

[pocket-aces]

Let's hear them secret scientist headcannons, lay em on us

Cheveyo and Dr Bara I don’t have any hcs for and I’m saving my miranda ones because I got an ask about her specifically.

Beeman 🛸

Beeman is somewhere on the autistic spectrum. 1. He always looks at things objectively for the answer that’s the most beneficial to bettering humanity as a whole. (Side note that’s probably the whole organisations premise: find and figure out how dangerous unexplained shit works before anyone else in the population does)

2. He uses insults as a form of showing affection and doesn’t mean to be as blunt as he is

3. There are multiple instances in canon where he points out specific seemingly random things about certain smells, suggesting he might have some sort of sensory processing disorder which is common in people with ASD

4. He lives and breathes his hyper-fixation and doesn’t really pick up Zak/Fisk’s boredom when he’s making them rewatch hours of fake alien footage whilst he’s really into the details of it

I know some people see him as a season 3 villain but generally I just can’t. He’s more likely to go all hermity and stew for a while over how his hypothesis was wrong than hunt down the saturdays for revenge.

Dr Cheechoo ❄️

- youngest member of the group

- stayed largely neutral in the kur thing because this man is so anti conflict it can sometimes be to his detriment

- Has a crush on Doyle (I ship them in some scenarios with a slow burn thing going on) and its a secret he’s ready to take to the grave until someone badgers him into just asking the guy out

Mizuki 🏔️

- wish we had a bit more development on him, particularly in the second season to play on what he and Zak had in common

- probably never ends up getting a replacement body.

- We also never found out what his secret scientist specialisation was.

Grey Men 🧪

- So many people have already found references/easter eggs about these guys I agree with so I have very little to add

- I do have one AU that they are kind of key in (its Doyle centric but has the greymen as the antagonists on some unethical human cryptid genetic testing in the name of creating an army to protect international security, all whilst francis tries to expose them)

[douchebagbrainwaves]

OUR FATHERS WEREN'T THAT STUPID

You can thus gradually work your way into their confidence, and maybe charge for premium features. What do they have to go pretty far down the list, and indeed, no one is sure where the end is. From what we've seen, being good seems to help startups in three ways: it improves their morale, it makes other people want to help them, and IBM could easily have gotten an operating system elsewhere. If you feel you're really helping people, you'll keep working even when it seems like your startup is cheap to run, you become a member of an institution. And yet all those people have to be even faster, and more efficient. But when you ask adults what they got wrong at that age, nearly all say they cared too much what other kids thought of them. If you plan to get rich, and this essay is about how to make money by inventing new technology. But maybe not. It's a smart move, but we didn't do it because we want their software to be good. Maybe it's not a coincidence.

When I was running a startup, there are probably two things keeping you from doing it. Thanks to Ken Anderson, Trevor Blackwell, Daniel Giffin, Sarah Harlin, Shiro Kawai, Jessica Livingston, Matz, Jackie McDonough, Robert Morris, Eric Raymond, Guido van Rossum, David Weinberger, and Steven Wolfram for reading drafts of this essay. Structurally, the list of n things is in that respect the Cold War teaches the same lesson as World War II and, for that matter, how much is outside of our control. Or rather, any client, and if you try to make it as a portrait by an unknown fifteenth century artist, most would walk by without giving it a second look. But why should people who program computers be so concerned about copyrights, of all things? And no one can stop you. It's not for the people who make things. It was written by just three people. Ultimately you always have to guess. It's not something you face and read to an audience that's easily fooled, whether it's someone making shiny stuff to impress would-be startup founders but to students in general, because we'd be a long way toward explaining the mystery of the so-called real world. Otherwise their desire to lead you on will combine with your own desire to be led on to produce completely inaccurate impressions.

What are people doing now, using inadequate tools, that shows they need what you're making? Visiting Sand Hill Road. A startup is like a giant galley driven by a thousand rowers. That is a liberating prospect, a lot like a charity in the beginning. It does help too to feel that you're late. Facebook. But in fact if you narrow the definition of beauty to something that works is by trying things that don't. Mainly because it's easier than satisfying them. SLAC goes right under 280 a little bit south of Sand Hill Road precisely because they're so boringly uniform.

And there is a natural fit between smallness and solving hard problems. Anyone can adopt Don't be evil. Naturally wealth had a bad reputation. My Y Combinator co-founder Jessica Livingston is just about the easiest thing in the world. Microsoft, who have abandoned whatever mysterious high-minded principles produced the high-paying union job a myth, but I suspect that if you can't raise the full amount. The other students are the biggest advantage of going to work for a company, and his friend says, Yeah, that is a very real element in the valuation of companies. I would rather cofound a startup with a friend matters.

Imagine an American president saying that today. They just represent a point at the far end of the world. Sometimes young programmers notice the eccentricities of eminent hackers and decide to adopt some of their own are enormously more productive. The situation pushed buttons I'd forgotten I had. The worst case scenario is the long no, the no that comes after months of meetings. In the late 90s my professor friends used to complain that they couldn't get grad students, because all the undergrads were going to change something, all the hackers I knew were either writing software for the first few months comforted ourselves by treating the whole thing as an experiment that we might call off at any moment. The thing about ideas, though, if I've misled people here, I'm not eager to fix that. Wealth is what people want. But galleries didn't want to start a startup. The best place to meet them is school. Fortunately, there were few obstacles except technical ones. I knew the founder equation and had been focused on it since I knew I could see using something like that.

[friendoffr-end]

Fr/end - Nobody knows you

Cover - original: Scrapper Blackwell

1.14.24

[paulandjohn]

John & Paul: A Love Story In Songs tells the story of the tempestuous, tender, intimate, phenomenally creative relationship between John Lennon and Paul McCartney. It’s about how two damaged young men merged their souls and multiplied their talents to create one of the greatest bodies of music in history.

It starts in 1957, when the two of them meet, before taking us through their rise to fame, stupendous success, acrimonious split and aftermath. I tell the story through songs, since it’s my belief that it’s impossible to understand the music of the Beatles except through the alchemy between John and Paul - and you can’t understand that alchemy except through the songs. John & Paul offers a whole new narrative of the Beatles; one which scrapes away the clichés in order to reveal the group and its two principals afresh. It’s a story full of joy, love, pain and pathos. But don’t take my word for it…

The first new Beatles story in decades - and the one that will make your heart burst.

Caitlin Moran

No writer has ever gotten to the heart of the John/Paul saga as brilliantly as Ian Leslie. This extraordinary book sheds light on a cultural mystery: how two nowhere boys from Liverpool formed a teenage bond that transformed the future, and in so many ways, invented it. John and Paul is a bold, original, empathetic revelation of why our world is still fascinated by this friendship-and still trying to live up to it.

Rob Sheffield

I’ve been working on this book for the last three years and it’s now pretty much done - we’re in the very last round of copy edits. It’s the best thing I’ve ever written and I can’t wait to share the whole thing with you. The notes section has been completed (I am so glad to say). The pages have been typeset. Most excitingly: we have a jacket design. Actually two, because John & Paul has two terrific publishers, one in the UK (Faber), one in the US (Celadon).

The Ruffian is deeply intertwined with John & Paul: A Love Story In Songs. The book sprang from a long piece that I wrote about McCartney on here back in 2020. It went so unexpectedly viral that I started to think, huh, what if…? I’d already been thinking, vaguely, of a book about the two of them, but now it seemed viable. I got a similar response to my piece on Peter Jackson’s Get Back, also published on The Ruffian. Those two pieces became my kind of standard for the book - I wanted the whole thing to elicit as powerful a response as they did.

It’s been a massive undertaking and without income from The Ruffian I simply wouldn’t have had time to do this story justice. Over the months to come, especially as we get nearer to publication, I’ll be sending J&P-related posts exclusively to paid subscribers. These will include pieces on the writing of the book, extra material I had to leave out, and perhaps some extracts. There will be other goodies too; my publishers have some exciting plans.

YOU CAN NOW PRE-ORDER ‘JOHN & PAUL’

Yes, it’s out there on the virtual shelves, waiting for you. And I would absolutely love you to pre-order (to those of you annoyed by this arguably redundant term, I apologise but it’s handy).

Every sale of this book counts but some sales count more than others. Pre-orders are simply more valuable to authors. Why? Because they move the algorithmic needles. The more orders a book receives before its publication date, the more prominence the retailers give it when it arrives, and so the better it does on release It’s all about the big mo. The prize is a spot on the bestseller lists in that first week. So let’s give it a go…

If you can afford it, please smash your preferred link and get your order in now (UK and US retailers below):

UK

Waterstones

Amazon

Foyles

Blackwells

U.S.

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Bookshop

Audible

[m3dieval]

Basic cop AKA couter (elbow protection) pattern from Basic Armouring: A Practical Introduction to Armour Making by Paul Blackwell (2nd ed, page 56).

[book--brackets]

Summaries under the cut

The Cat Ate My Gymsuit by Paula Danzinger

Marcy Lewis is bored by school, she knows she's never going to be thin, and she is dead sure she'll never have a date. Life at home isn't great either, since her father bosses her and her mother around. Then along comes Ms. Finney, an English teacher who'll try anything in the classroom and actually treats kids like human beings. Now that she's found a teacher who sees Marcy as more than a name on an attendance sheet, Marcy realizes her life could mean something. When Ms. Finney is suspended, Marcy knows she's got to take a stand. But is this new independence worth the price she'll pay at school and at home?

Magic Shop by Bruce Coville

Russell Crannaker, a rather timid boy who is eager to frighten the school bully on Halloween night, acquires a magic ring and the power to change himself into a hideous monster.

Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright

When Garnet finds a silver thimble in the sand by the river, she is sure it’s magical. But is it magical enough to help her pig, Timmy, win a blue ribbon on Fair Day?

The Edge Chronicles by Paul Stewart

Fourteen-year-old Quint Verginix is the only remaining son of famous sky-pirate Wind Jackal. He and his father have journeyed to the city of Sanctaphrax – a great floating rock, bound to the ground below by a chain, its inhabitants living with their heads literally in the clouds.

But the city hides a dangerous secret: deep inside the great rock, something horrible lurks. With his father away, Quint may be the only one who can save Sanctaphrax from the dreaded curse of the gloamglozer . . .

School of Fear by Gitty Daneshvari

Everyone is afraid of something...

Madeleine Masterson is deathly afraid of bugs, especially spiders.

Theodore Bartholomew is petrified of dying.

Lulu Punchalower is scared of confined spaces.

Garrison Feldman is terrified of deep water.

With very few options left, the parents of these four twelve year-olds send them to the highly elusive and exclusive School of Fear to help them overcome their phobias. But when their peculiar teacher, Mrs. Wellington, and her unconventional teaching methods turn out to be more frightening than even their fears, the foursome realize that this just may be the scariest summer of their lives.

Pillage by Obert Skye

Upon his mother's death, fifteen-year-old Beck Phillips is sent to live with an eccentric uncle he had never met in a remote manor house, where he learns that his family suffers from a curse that allows him to make plants grow on command and dragon eggs hatch.

The Blackwell Pages by K. L. Armstrong

In Viking times, Norse myths predicted the end of the world, an event called Ragnarok, that only the gods can stop. When this apocalypse happens, the gods must battle the monsters--wolves the size of the sun, serpents that span the seabeds, all bent on destroying the world.

The gods died a long time ago.

Matt Thorsen knows every Norse myth, saga, and god as if it was family history--because it is family history. Most people in the modern-day town of Blackwell, South Dakota, in fact, are direct descendants of either Thor or Loki, including Matt's classmates Fen and Laurie Brekke.

However, knowing the legends and completely believing them are two different things. When the rune readers reveal that Ragnarok is coming and kids--led by Matt--will stand in for the gods in the final battle, he can hardly believe it. Matt, Laurie, and Fen's lives will never be the same as they race to put together an unstoppable team to prevent the end of the world.

The Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson

Annika is happy living in the servants' quarters of a house owned by three eccentric professors. She adores Ellie and Sigrid, the cook and housemaid who found her as a baby, abandoned on a church doorstep. In the eleven years since, they have taught her how to bake and clean to perfection. Then one day a glamorous stranger arrives, claiming to be Annika's mother. Annika is no servant, she learns, but an aristocrat whose true home is an ancient castle. But at crumbling Spittal, Annika discovers that all is not as it seems in the lives of her newfound family. . .

The Enchanted Castle by E. Nesbit

Jerry, Jimmy, and Cathy stumble upon a mysterious castle with a beautiful princess asleep in the garden. The princess is really Mabel, the housekeeper's niece, who is only pretending to be royalty. But when she shows them a secret room filled with treasure where they discover a magical ring, enchantment becomes a reality.

Fairy Oak by Elizabetta Gnone

Fairy Oak is the name of a village that grew up in the shade of a talking oak tree, an imaginary place, lost in the mists of time immemorial, overlooking a stormy sea, next to uplands covered in snow in winter, surrounded by enchanted woods, vast meadows, crystal clear rivers and lakes. A healthy and uncontaminated nature, which dominates and envelops the worlds in which the stories unfold. Within the walls of the old village there lives an equally old community, a mixed bag of funny characters, with the rituals, customs, habits and familiarity of a serene, cheerful, lively people. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent twins Vanilla and Lavender. To save their people, menaced by a cruel enemy, they go on a long journey deep into the labyrinths of their powers. Since the girls are very young, at first lots of things go wrong. Some are frightening. In short, it’s not going to be easy at all! But someone and something will help them.

[dweemeister]

Whenever you feel alone, just remember that those kings will always be there to guide you. And so will I.

Born to a turbulent family on a Mississippi farm, James Earl Jones passed away today. He was ninety-three years old. Abandoned by his parents as a child and raised by a racist grandmother (although he later reconciled with his actor father and performed alongside him as an adult), the trauma of his childhood developed into a stutter that followed him through his primary school years – sometimes, his stutter was so debilitating, he could not speak at all. In high school, Jones found in an English teacher someone who found in him a talent for written expression, and encouraged him to write and recite poetry in class. He overcame his stutter by graduation, although the effects of it carried over for the remainder of his life.

Jones' most accomplished roles may have been on the Broadway stage, where he won three Tonys (twice winning Best Actor in a Play for originating the lead roles in 1969's The Great White Hope by Howard Sackler and 1987's Fences by August Wilson) and was considered one of the best Shakespearean actors of his time.

But his contributions to cinema left an impact on audiences, too. Jones received an Honorary Academy Award alongside makeup artist Dick Smith (1972's The Godfather, 1984's Amadeus) in 2011. From the end of Hollywood's Golden Age to the dawn of the summer Hollywood blockbuster in the 1970s to the present, Jones' presence – and his basso profundo voice – could scarcely be ignored. Though he could not sing like Paul Robeson nor had the looks of Sidney Poitier, his presence and command put him in league of both of his acting predecessors.

Ten of the films James Earl Jones appeared in, whether in-person or voice acting, follow (left-right, descending):

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) – directed by Stanley Kubrick; also starring Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, and Slim Pickens

The Great White Hope (1970) – directed by Martin Ritt; also starring Jane Alexander, Chester Morris, Hal Holbrook Beah Richards, and Moses Gunn

Star Wars saga (1977-2019; A New Hope pictured) – multiple directors, as the voice of Darth Vader, also starring Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, David Prowse, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, and Frank Oz

Claudine (1974) – directed by John Berry; also starring Diahann Carroll, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, and Tamu Blackwell

Conan the Barbarian (1982) – directed by John Milius; also starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sandahl Bergman, Ben Davidson, Cassandra Gaviola, Gerry Lopez, Mako, Valerie Quennessen, William Smith, and Max von Sydow

Coming to America series (1988 and 2021; original pictured) – multiple directors; also starring Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, John Amos, Madge Sinclair, Shari Headley, Jermaine Fowler, Leslie Jones, Tracy Morgan, and KiKi Layne

The Hunt for Red October (1990) – directed by John McTiernan; also starring Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Scott Glenn, and Sam Neill

The Sandlot (1993) – directed by David Mickey Evans; also staring Tom Guiry, Mike Vitar, Patrick Renna, Chauncey Leopardi, Marty York, Brandon Adams, Grant Gelt, Shane Obedzinski, Victor DiMattia, Denis Leary, and Karen Allen

The Lion King (1994) – directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, as the voice of Mufasa; also starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Matthew Broderick, Jeremy Irons, Moira Kelly, Niketa Calame, Ernie Sabella, Nathan Lane, and Robert Guillaume, Rowan Atkinson, Whoopi Goldberg, Cheech Marin, Jim Cummings, and Madge Sinclair

Field of Dreams (1989) – directed by Phil Alden Robinson; also starring Kevin Costner, Amy Madigan, Ray Liotta, and Burt Lancaster

[loremori]

Martin Freeman (192/366)

📺| Breeders (2020-2023) Creator Chris Addison | Simon Blackwell | Martin Freeman

Ally (Daisy Haggard) & Paul (Martin Freeman)

[secretsaturdayshitposting]

I feel sorta cheated out knowing they could have made another season to go into more depth about the other characters back stories, ie: Francis, Epsilon, other secret scientists, etc, but they didn’t and like now there’s a giant gap. Like why did they already know epsilon? Why’d he “retire”? Was it recovering from the cloning then taking care of Francis? Why’d they hate him? How did the other SS get into the SS? How did they grow to be a team of people that trusted each other as much as they did? Like ahh. What’s the deal with drew and van rook???? Was that in college? how’d Doyle go from the avalanche to van rook?? Why’s he the guy he is? (Bc obv he was young enough to be more emotionally and rationally stable if he had a supportive family? Did he not? What happened?)

Now all I’ll have is fanfics and I do not want to read TSS fanfics 🥲. ESP how drew and van Rook dated but like I want to know.