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fanficfanattic · 1 month

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Will you share your Jamie Tartt playlist? 👀

Buckle up boys! Hold on to your butts! Other ways to say brace yourselves!

To Build a Home (feat. Patrick Watson) by The Cinematic Orchestra

I'll Be Good by Jaymes Young

Sorrow by Bad Religion

The Greatest by Sia

Love I'm Given by Ellie Goulding

Runaway by AURORA

Achilles Come Down by Gang of Youths

Move by Oliver Tree

High Hopes by Panic! At the Disco

Outrunning Karma by Alec Benjamin

Home by Cavetown

The Perfect Space by The Avett Brothers

A Better Son/Daughter by Rilo Kiley

False Confidence by Noah Kahan

Legend by The Score

The Competition by Kimya Dawson

In the Blood by John Mayer

Winner by Walgrove

Icarus by Bastille

Sympathy by The Goo Goo Dolls

Take Yours, I’ll Take Mine by Matthew Mole

People Help the People by Birdy

Daylight by David Kushner

Cough it Out by The Front Bottoms

Sober by P!nk

The Cave by Mumford & Sons

Tear It Up by Queen

Waves by Dean Lewis

Soldier by Ingrid Michaelson

We Don't Believe What's On TV by Twenty One Pilots

Blood In the Cut by K.Flay

Chameleon/Comedian by Kathleen Edwards

Water (feat. Rostam) by Ra Ra Riot

All is Soft Inside by AURORA

Pieces (feat. Noah Kahan) by Matoma

Dog Days Are Over by Florence + the Machine

Rise up With Fists!! by Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins

Gone, Gone, Gone by Phillip Phillips

HandClap by Fitz and The Tantrums

Hi Ren by Ren

I Don't Belong In This Club by Why Don't We & Macklemore

Skinny Love by Birdy

Raising Hell (feat. Big Freedia) by Kesha

Go Places by The New Pornographers

The Night Starts Here by Stars

Ghost by Ella Henderson

Here We Go by WILD

If I Be Wrong by Wolf Larsen

Part of Me by Noah Kahan

We're Going to Be Friends

The White Stripes

Bitch by Meredith Brooks

Samson by Regina Spektor

Let's go to Hell by Tai Verdes

Raise Hell by Brandi Carlile

Power Over Me by Dermot Kennedy

Don't Tell the Boys by Petey

Sober Up (feat. Rivers Cuomo) by AJR

O.N.E. By Yeasayer

Locked Up by Ingrid Michaelson

Like a Stone by Audioslave

Leave the Light On by Overcoats

Tough (feat. Noah Kahan) by Quinn XCII

touch tank by quinnie

Warrior by AURORA

Too Sweet by Hozier

I'Il Think of You by Kurt Hugo Schneider

Into the Ocean by Blue October

Star Fire by Sleeping Wolf

Happier (Stripped) by Marshmello & Bastille

Knievel by Tommy Lefroy

Walk Me Home by P!nk

Brat (Humor Me) by Deore

Am I Wrong by Love Spit Love

Someday by One Republic

7 Years by Lukas Graham

Stick Season by Noah Kahan

Like a Prayer by Madonna

Little Bit by Lykke Li

Bruises by Lewis Capaldi

Don't Carry It All by The Decemberists

Freaking Out by The Wrecks

Will Do by TV on the Radio

The Dirt by Tor Miller

Hope of Morning by Icon for Hire

Smile by Mikky Ekko

The District Sleeps Alone Tonight by The Postal Service

Blood Brothers by Ingrid Michaelson

All My Friends by The Revivalists

Fuck Authority by Pennywise

Crazier Things by Chelsea Cutler & Noah Kahan

Kiss With a Fist by Florence + the Machine

Unstoppable by Sia

Can't Go to Hell by Sin Shake Sin

World's Smallest Violin by AJR

All I Know So Far by P!nk

Knocking at the Door by Arkells

Little Lion Man by Mumford & Sons

The Seed by AURORA

Wine, Women and Song by Harvey Danger

The Cult of Dionysus by The Orion Experience

All You Wanted by Michelle Branch

Young Blood by The Naked and Famous

Truth No. 2 by The Chicks

Homesick by Noah Kahan

Family Line by Conan Gray

The Moon Will Sing by The Crane Wives

Heroes Never Die by NateWantsToBattle

My Number Tegan and Sara

Masterpiece by Big Thief

Til It Happens To You by Lady Gaga

I Don't Wanna Live Forever (Cups Version) by Kurt Hugo Schneider

Sit Down by James

Robots by Dan Mangan

Windowsill by Arcade Fire

Be OK by Ingrid Michaelson

Bite the Hand by boygenius

The Top (Bonus Track) by Primo the Alien

MEAN! (Remix) [feat. Noah Kahan] by Madeline The Person

Home We'll Go (Take My Hand) by Steve Aoki & Walk Off the Earth

From The Bottom Of My Heart by The Wallflowers

FourFiveSeconds by Rihanna and Kanye West and Paul McCartney

I Am the Resurrection by The Stone Roses

Chrome Plated Heart by Melissa Etheridge

Precious Love by James Morrison

Bones (feat. One Republic) by Galantis

Let's Go (feat. Icona Pop) by Tiesto

Unbelievers by Vampire Weekend

So What by P!nk

I Don't Feel Like Dancin' by Scissor Sisters

Creature Fear by Bon Iver

Brother by The Rural Alberta Advantage

Save Me by Noah Kahan

High and Dry by Radiohead

Power by Little Mix

Dirty Paws by Of Monsters and Men

The Boy Does Nothing by Alesha Dixon

Set You Free (Edit) by N-Trance

Stronger by Britney Spears

First Things First by Neon Trees

Kings & Queens by Ava Max

Welcome Home, Son by Radical Face

Capsize by FRENSHIP & Emily Warren

We Were Kings by Ryan Star

Come Undone by Duran Duran

Young Folks by Peter Bjorn and John

Pride by Noah Kahan & mxmtoon

Everywhere by Michelle Branch

Blow Me (One Last Kiss) by P!nk

Dust Bowl Dance by Mumford & Sons

Bad Blood by Bastille

Blue Monday by New Order

Make Believe by The FAIM

Midnight Show by The Killers

Can't Fight the Moonlight by LeAnn Rimes

Ophelia by The Lumineers

Shaky Ground by Freedom Fry

Grounds for Divorce by Elbow

Heaven and Hell by Let's Play Dead

Survivor by The Score

Ready Now by dodie

Young Blood by Noah Kahan

Ain’t No Reason by Brett Dennen

King by Years & Years

Bulletproof by La Roux

Beating Heart Cadavers by Acollective

How to Rest by The Crane Wives

Santa Monica by Everclear

Beds Are Burning by Midnight Oil

Get Some by Lykke Li

Sky Full of Song by Florence + the Machine

Beautiful Trauma by P!nk

Parachute (Serban Ghenea Mix) by Ingrid Michaelson

Down to the Bottom by Dorothy

YES MOM by Tessa Violet

Numb Little Bug by Em Beihold

Rise Up by Andra Day

Maps by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Hurt Somebody by Noah Kahan

#jamie tartt #my jamie tartt music playlist #179 songs

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mediaevalmusereads · 6 months

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The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. By Taylor Jenkins Reid. Washington Square Press, 2017.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Genre: historical fiction

Series: N/A

Summary: Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?

Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the ‘80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.

***Full review below.***

CONTENT WARNINGS: underage sex/statutory rape, domestic violence, abortion, death of queer characters, drunk driving

OVERVIEW: This book has been on my TBR for a while, after I heard much ado about it a number of years ago. I'm getting better at clearing my backlog, so here we are. Overall, I can see why a lot of readers might like this book. The Old Hollywood setting and string of juicy scandals is addictive, and the protagonist is delightfully messy. However, I personally struggled to immerse myself in the story because of Reid's writing style, so for that reason, this book gets 3.5 stars.

WRITING: Reid's prose is fairly serviceable in that it's straightforward and quick. Readers who want to zip through a book can easily do that here, and I understand the appeal.

However, I personally found the writing to focus more on telling rather than showing, and as a result, it lacked depth. I didn't experience things with the characters; instead, I felt like I was being told "X was sad" or "I missed Y." There was also a lot of dialogue, which by definition means a lot is told. Overall, the writing style doesn't leave a lot of room for readers to infer a lot, so I felt like I was being told exactly what to think and how to interpret things. After a while, my brain got bored.

In a similar vein, the quick pace of this book is partially due to the fact that a lot happens, and I felt like there wasn't enough time or space devoted to emotionally significant moments. As a result, I didn't feel like I got an in-depth look at Evelyn or Hollywood or anything; we just kept moving along, so it was difficult to really latch onto things that would have made a deep impression or communicated a message.

Still, there were some things I liked. I think organizing the book in sections named after each of Evelyn's seven husbands was smart. It set the tone for the section to follow and kind of gave me Cell Block Tango vibes. I also liked the various newspaper, blog, and gossip magazine clips that interspersed several chapters. They briefly took me out of the story and reminded me of how the outside world sees celebrities and how they trade on information and invasion of privacy.

PLOT: The plot of this book follows two timelines: in the present, we follow Monique Grant, an up-and-coming writer who is tasked with an exclusive interview with Hollywood icon Evelyn Hugo. In the past, Evelyn narrates her life and reveals the secrets behind her seven marriages in the 1950s-1980s.

I personally liked most of this plot because I was drawn to the scandalous, salacious, cut-throat world of Hollywood, and the drama made for an interesting story. Evelyn is not exactly painted in the best light, but that made her story even more interesting and motivated me to read on. I also loved the relationships over time and the reflection on fame versus living truthfully.

The present-day timeline was a little dull, consisting mostly of Monique going to and from Evelyn's place and trying to decide how best to deal with her boss. While I appreciated Monique's ambition, I didn't find her story nearly as exciting. Not even her relationship with her soon-to-be-ex-husband felt suspenseful, and though her mom seemed lovely, their relationship didn't make for a good story. There was a twist near the end, but as touching as I found it on paper, it didn't feel particularly earned because of the flat writing style.

CHARACTERS: Evelyn, the protagonist, is easy to like - or at least stay interested in. She's ruthless and ambitious, and I enjoyed watching her do just about anything to get what she wants. She's also messy in a way I find compelling and raw; she isn't above manipulating people and stacking the cards in her favor, but part of me wanted to see her succeed no matter what she did.

Monique, the POV character in the present day, was fine but a little dull. I personally did not find her arc very interesting, and part of it might have to do with the writing style. I didn't really feel her loss for her father or her ex-husband, so their absence didn't have much of an emotional impact.

Celia, Evelyn's fellow starlet, is also messy in a way I found hard to look away from. I loved that she was ambitious but in a different way from Evelyn, and I appreciated the ways she could be both sweet and cruel.

Harry, Evelyn's best friend and producer, was very sympathetic. I liked his relationship with Evelyn and the life they built together, and I felt immense sorrow for him at various points in the book. I do wish Reid had been less blunt about stating that the two were "best friends" and had done more to show us, but it is what it is.

TL;DR: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is most memorable for its complex protagonist, but it is ultimately held back by a writing style that moves too quickly and privileges telling over showing.

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thealmightyemprex · 4 years

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1970′s Bond films ranked

the 1970′s are reallly were an interesting peiod for Bond .Lot of trend chasing and films that range from camp to big spectacles .Also it’s interesting cause even if the films are flawed,I dont dislike the 70′s Bond films

5.Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

Connery’s last time as Bond....Unless you count Never Say Never Again.....Or the From Russia With Love video game-LAst time in an official Bond film! It’s often callled Connery’s worst but I dunno I like it better then You Only Live Twice or Thunderball .Like it’s not great but it’s overhated .Yes the effects are bad !Yes it is jarring as hell to watch this AFTER On Her Majesties Secret Service with how campy and tacky this film is.Yes, Tiffiny is dumb!Yes,Plenty’s death comes out of nowhere ! Yes Vegas is kind of a lame setting for a Bond adventure !.......Buuuuuuuuut I dig the campiness ,I think Connery is better here then he was in You Only Live Twice ,Jill St John delivers a fantastic performance (She is fun to watch ) ....And I might get hate for this but I kind of love Charles Grey as Blofeld ,he is so camp it’s hard for me not to love him .But my favorite thing about the movie and probabbly why I dont hate it like everyone else does is I love the films heavies Mr Wint and Mr Kidd .They are an assassin couple who share a dark sense of humor ,and I just adore Bruce Glover and Putter Smith performances ,with Glover being very smooth and slimey as Wint while Smith is very flat and matter of fact as Kidd,they compliment eachother well.I dunno I know people hate this movie but I cant bring myself to HATE it

4.The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

Hoooooo boy Imma have to explain myself here....I know this is considered one of the BEST Bond movies......It just does very little for me .It’s a well made movie,Carley Simons theme song is great ,Roger Moore is fantastic ,the sets are gorgeous and Jaws is one of the best henchmen in the series ,being bothe scary but also strangely likeable (Being one of only three recurring villains in the entire franchise ),the story of two agents from opposing factions being forced to work together is great......But the Bond Girl and villain suuuuuuuucccccck.Triple X is supposed to be Bonds equal ,but she is just a damsel in distress most of the time and Barbra Bach is so wooden .Stromberg is one of the lamest villains ,Curd Jurgens is too subdued ,we dont reallly get a great dynamic between him and Bond ,and he’s just not in the movie a lot .The film itself doesnt wow me....But I think it’s a good movie ,I think it’s a good starter Bond film ,just kind of meh for me personally

3.The Man With The Golden Gun(1974)

Ok.....This film is flawed.The Writing on Bond is too mean,Roger Moore seems uncomfortable ,Goodnight is about as intelligent as a rock ,and the main evil scheme doesnt fit with the personality of the villain,feeling very shoehorned in .That said ,I stilll like this film a lot .Maude Adams as Scaramangas mistress is a tragic characer and a great performance ,there are many memorable scenes including an impressive car stunt ,Soon-Tek Oh (Who most will know as the father in Mulan ) as Lieutenant Hip is one of my favorite Bond allies .Above alll else the villains are what make this film.Herve Villechaize is fantastic as the henchman Nick Nack who works for the villain ,Scaramanga but under the understanding that if Scaramanga dies he inherits Scarmangas island home (Which is an AWESOME villain lair complete with a deadly fun house ).Francisco Scaramanga is my FAVORITE Bond villain, played EXCELLENTLY by Christopher Lee ,a dark mirror of James Bond ,a deadly assassin who loves to kill ,views Bond as his equal and is a deadly shot with his signature golden gun .One of my favorite scenes in the film is where Scaramanga details his backstory of befriending an elephant in the circus ,it’s a great villain origin.It’s a flawed film and I wont disagree that Spy Who Loved Me is technically better ,but I just enjoyed this film more,and it’s a fun film to me

2.Moonraker(1979)

Well I imagine most of my oppinions are unpopular ones so here we go.....This is one of my FAVORITE Bond movies.....Yes,the one where he is in space is one of my favorites .In truth the finale in space is kind of where my attention starts to drift ,but I honestly love this movie .I love the relationship between Bond and Holly Goodhead ,Roger Moore is at his best , Jaws is back which is awesome(And gets his own mini subplot about falling in love ,which is adorable),lot of great action,space battles ,and one of my favorite Bond villains Hugo Drax,a meglomaniac who wants to start a master race ,he’s very quiet and reserved while still having this larger then life melodramatic air to him. He also has such a fun dynamic with Bond a ,obsessed with giving Bond,in his words ,an“Amusing death “ .Surprisingly there are some great scenes of horror in this film,while also having fun campy scenes .Yeah this film can be silly but I like silly,and I like this movie .....Theme song sucks though

1.Live and Let Die

This was my first Bond film so naturally it holds a special place in my heart .It’s a good intro Bond film ,for it being Roger Moores first film as Bond he comes in swinging ,he is great in this movie.I love Jane Seymour as the Bond Girl Solitaire ,with a sympathetic backstory (Although there is one plot element that is kind of cringey and skeevy ).David Hedison plays Felix Leiter and is in my oppinion the BEST Felix (So glad they brought him back for Licence to Kill ) .The film also introduces Sheriff JW Pepper ,who is a love him or hate him type character and honestly he is so over the top and qoutable ,I kind of love this goofy character .The villain ensamble is great ,with Whisper (a man who speaks only in a whisper) and Tee Hee ( a man with a mechanical claw for an arm and who constantly laughs ) being fun henchmen.The big baddie Kananga I feel is an underratted villain ,with Yaphet Koto giving the character a sense of charm and intelligence but with a rage bubbling under the surface .However the scene stealing character is Geoffrey Holder as Baron Samedi,he only has a few lines and is only in a few scenes but Holders physicality ,imposing stature ,bombastic laughter ,natural charisma,help bring this very strange and enigmatic character to life .Set pieces are magnificent including a double decker bus chase ,a boat chase ,and a memorable scene involving an aligator farm .(Also film contains,my favorite villain death in the series .or at least the bad guy death that has stuck with me the most cause.....It is so bizarre ) .This film is one of my favorite Bond films....AND THAT THEME SONG SLAPS

#james bond #live and let die #moonraker #the man with the golden gun #the spy who loved me #diamonds are forever

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luckyspike · 5 years

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Spooky Halloween - A Good Omens Fanfiction

in which the line between the real world and the supernatural gets a little thinner

and the ineffables deal with it as well as they can

Everyone who knew Crowley’s true nature - these days, this included the Them, and a select few adults - assumed that Halloween would be prime time for the demon. It was, after all, the eve of the spirits, when the physical world pulled in closest with the supernatural, and the borders between the two broke down. It was the day when spooky was loved and celebrated, and surely Crowley would be all about that, wouldn’t he?

It was why Anathema was struggling particularly hard with Crowley’s outright refusal to show up at Adam’s Halloween party. “Come on, Crowley, you have to be kidding, what do you mean you don’t go out on Halloween?”

“I don’t,” he replied firmly. In the background, she could hear something that sounded suspiciously like plants being ripped out of the ground. “Stay in all day. 24 hours.”

“But it’s spooky. You love spooky.”

“Yes, but you know there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.”

“Oh?” She thought it over. “Like, too reminiscent of Hell, because I could convince him to tone down the decorations.”

“No, not that.” She heard him huff, and there came the sound of a body flopping into the grass. She had trouble not smiling, imaging the demon sprawled out on the lawn of the cottage, because she knew him and knew that was precisely what he was doing. “Me.”

“What about you?”

He groaned. “You can be really thick sometimes, you know it, Book-Girl?” She bristled, almost snapped a reply, but he had plowed on. “The boundaries between the human world and the supernatural are blurred. My corporation can only keep it together so well when that border breaks down.”

“Oh.”

“I mean, Aziraphale’s too,” he added, as an afterthought. “But he just gets sort of gimpy on that leg and has some extra eyeballs. He could - and he has - pass it off as a costume if he really needed to. Whereas me, well …” He sighed. “If I don’t just go serpent altogether I can hold a vaguely-human shape but it sort of stretches the limits of credibility to say it’s a costume or makeup or what have you.”

“Ah. Sorry I, uh, didn’t think of it that way. I think I understand now.” And she did. Crowley made some kind of non-specific noise on the other end of the line, and she went on, “Seriously, sorry.”

“Eh, don’t be. Natural assumption, really. And I have gone out on Halloween,” he added, “but because I needed to do some proper demon things. The scales and the horns really do help.”

She tried to imagine Crowley looking anything like a proper demon, and failed miserably. “I can imagine,” she said anyway. “Well, alright. I’ll tell the Them … something. Say you’re not feeling well or something.”

“Just tell them the truth. Adam’s the Antichrist, I hardly think demons doing demon things is going to be a shocking revelation.”

“Well, no, but I think if I tell them you’re spending the day cooped up because you look properly scary for once they’ll be even more disappointed you didn’t put in an appearance. You know how they are.”

“True.” He sighed. “That’s fine then, tell them whatever. And, ah, enjoy the party.”

“You’ll be alright by the weekend? I was thinking that new movie about the possessed priest -”

“Oh, yeah. Like I said, twenty-four hours, back to normal. Mostly. Might be a bit of ash around the fingertips but I’ll definitely be fine by Saturday.”

“Good,” she said, like they were discussing a brewing cold or sore throat, and not Crowley becoming an eldritch horror for a short period of time. “Alright, well, uh, good luck I guess. Hope it’s not too bad.”

“It’ll be awful, but thanks all the same.”

It always started at the stroke of midnight. Crowley and Aziraphale waited for it, knew it was coming, and took up stations where they would both be most comfortable. Aziraphale settled in n the library, books stacked high and at the ready, and an old but serviceable cane leaned up against the side table. Crowley carefully spread a few cheap old blankets over the couch and placed the iPad and his phone in easy reach. Preemptively, they both let their wings out, and Aziraphale took the time to rub some of the ache out of Crowley’s bad wing while his hands were still unfettered by eyeballs.

“We really have to look into fixing this,” he murmured, working the stiff joint of the wrist a little looser and ignoring the way it cracked, bones grinding arthritically. Crowley made a little noise of appreciation. “Even just the joint - I don’t know how we could get the feathers to grow back, but if we could get this wrist less contracted -”

“Can’t be done.” Crowley sighed, and Aziraphale let the wing go, the better to allow the demon to slump sideways into his chest. “Would’ve done it if I could.”

“I know that, dear boy.” He ran his hands down the leading edge of the wing, following the warped bone into Crowley’s shoulder and rubbing the muscle where the limb attached. Crowley sighed again, happily this time. “But I’ve never helped you look for a solution before.”

“S’pose not. Still don’t think there’s much to do about it, though. I mean, short of getting God or Raphael to fix it.” He snorted. “And fat chance of that.”

“I’ll have a look anyway. Perhaps - oh.”

The clock on the buffet chimed. One, two, three, all the way to midnight. Crowley groaned. “Here we go.”

It wasn’t a painful transformation, but both had scars from the Great War, and the aftereffects weren’t enjoyable. When all was said and done, Aziraphale was leaned back into the couch, massaging his right thigh, and Crowley was carefully extricating himself from the angel’s lap, mindful of the ash raining from his form and Aziraphale’s newly-visible multitude of eyes. Cautious of the eye now in his palm, Aziraphale grabbed the tip of Crowley’s broken halo - horns, now - and guided it away from his wing. “Careful.”

“Sorry.” They exchanged a look. Exasperated, frustrated, but most of all, tired. It wasn’t a terrible trade-off, one day each year, but neither particularly enjoyed the in-between form that Halloween forced, and it had grown old over the years. “I hate this.”

“Me too.” Aziraphale sighed, and closed most of his eyes, although a few along his wings stayed open. “Twenty-four hours.”

“Ugh.” Crowley made a vague gesture, head leaned back over the sofa, eyes closed. “Don’t even feel like doing anything.”

“Take a nap?” Aziraphale suggested. He stood, hobbling from the couch to the chair, and picked a book from the top of the pile. “I’ll be reading.”

“Mm. What book?”

“Oh? Ah.” He didn’t bother to close it again, and instead blinked open the eye on his palm to read the cover. “It’s contemporary.” This was said with the same tone as he might have informed Crowley of a particularly insistent customer in the shop. “But I suppose it was well-reviewed. It’s a signed first edition.” Crowley made an interested little noise. “‘The Da Vinci Code’ by a Dan Brown. Supposedly has a good deal of Bible lore.”

“Haven’t you read that?” The demon looked up, grinning, and Aziraphale didn’t mind the fangs. “C’mon, you can’t have missed that.”

“I didn’t. I’m just getting to it now. Have you read it?”

“Nah. Downloaded it ages ago but then everything happened with the kids and I forgot about it. Meant to, though.”

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows. “I could read aloud, if you’d like. Good a way to spend the next 24 hours as any.”

Crowley hummed. “Can’t say I disagree. If you’re going to read, though, ah, and I don’t need hands -”

“Of course, dear.” There was a relieved hiss, and after a few seconds an enormous black winged snake was draped over the couch, coils heaped on coils to fit on the now-sagging piece of furniture. Leisurely, Crowley slithered forward, off the arm of the couch and across the empty space between there and Aziraphale’s chair. “Come around,” he encouraged, while Crowley draped the front length of himself around Aziraphale’s shoulders, until the tip of his snout was tucked under the angel’s chin, and the length of himself with his wings was resting on the floor, wings splayed out lazily. “Comfortable?”

“Yesss. You?”

“Budge off my right shoulder a bit, there’s a love. Right.” He turned from the title page, and started to read: “Fact: The Priory of Scion - a European secret society founded in 1099 - is a real organization.” He stopped. Frowned.

“Wasss it? Don’t remember that one,” asked the Serpent of Eden.

“I’m fairly certain it was not,” replied the angel of the Eastern Gate. He read on, expression growing more disapproving by the word. “In 1975 Paris's Bibliotheque Nationale discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Leonardo da Vinci.’ Well, that’s utter tosh. Who published this pulp?”

Crowley’s forked tongue flicked the tip of his nose, and Aziraphale heard a hissing sort of laugh. “Who caressss? Go on, I want to hear thisss.”

All in all, it was not a bad way to spend 24 hours. By the midway point of chapter one, Aziraphale was so bent out of shape about the inaccuracies that he all but forgot about the ache in his leg, or that Crowley dribbled a little ash onto the rug every time he laughed. At some point, cocoa appeared, and Aziraphale pretended not to notice as Crowley sipped at it, even though the sheer size of his snout made stealth a bit difficult, considering the gentle thunk he made every time he shoved his nose into the cup. The reading went a bit slow, too, considering they had to stop roughly every five paragraphs to criticise something, or point out some inaccuracy, but the interludes were mutually enjoyable, and neither found they minded.

Ordinarily, Aziraphale would have been able to read a book of that length within 24 hours. It was the reason for the other books settled within easy reach, after all. But when the clock again chimed midnight, and the eyes faded back into the ether, Aziraphale just paused, marked his place with a finger between the pages, and took a sip of fresh, warm tea. “Well, there we are. Another Halloween.”

“Yeah.” Crowley stretched his newly-returned limbs - wings included, he was loath to put them away yet if he didn’t need to, it felt so good to let them breathe now and then - and flopped back onto the couch. “Not the worst I’ve had. Possibly top ten best, actually.”

“This book is dreadful.”

The demon patted the sofa next to him. “Well, yeah, but in a good way. C’mere, I gotta know what happens.” Aziraphale grumbled a little but he obliged, moving over to the couch once again with his usual gait, although he too left his wings out, albeit without the eyes. He settled, and Crowley slouched up against him, a tumbler of scotch suddenly in his hand. “You think they find the Grail?”

“I rather hope not, honestly.” Aziraphale scowled. “It’d be a real shame if he butchered that as well.”

“You know there’s a prequel?”

“No.”

“Honest truth. Called Angels and Demons.” Crowley waved his free hand. “Whole series, actually. Never read any of them.” He raised an eyebrow. “Might be fun?”

“You have a strange definition of fun, Crowley.” Absently, he kissed the top of Crowley’s head, ignoring the way the demon’s hair tickled his face. “Comes with being a demon, I suppose.”

“Comes with having a sense of humor. We should read them.”

“No.”

“Well not right now. Later.” He gestured vaguely. “After I get the garden cleaned up for the winter, maybe.”

“Hm. I’ll have time to read a few palate-cleansers.”

“There’s the spirit.” He snuggled in closer, right wing wrapped around Aziraphale’s shoulders and the left covering himself like some kind of massive feathery blanket. “Go on, let’s see if they get the Grail.”

Aziraphale sighed, defeated and resigned, although Crowley could see the tiny movement well enough to note the little twitch at the corner of the angel’s mouth, almost a smile. “Very well.”

He turned the page, and kept on reading.

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #good omens fanfic #crowley #aziraphale #the da vinci code #spooky eldritch angels and demons #dont let the text fool you #i unabashedly love the da vinci code #i wish i didn't enjoy fanfiction so much

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thenewsguru · 6 years

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Democrats' Turn To Socialism Is Ominous Sign For The Party

Big Left Turn: Are socialists becoming the new Democratic Party mainstream? After candidates endorsed by the socialist party won nomination battles for state legislative seats in Pennsylvania and far-left progressives triumphed over moderates elsewhere, the answer seems to be yes. Four — count 'em, four — candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America won spots on the ballot during this week's primary elections in the Keystone State. Two of them won't even be opposed by a Republican in the general election. Some are writing it off as a fluke, a local aberration, but it isn't. Increasingly, the national Democratic Party is being California-ized — pushed to the far left on issues ranging from single-payer health care, an open border and tax hikes to hostility toward Israel, opposition to the Second Amendment, and a loathing of the U.S. military. As for those who say local elections often have kookier, more extreme candidates, Ed Morrissey of Hot Air has this rejoinder: "One could just as easily ask why Democrats couldn't find successful candidates that hewed closer to Tim Ryan than Bernie Sanders for those seats." Morrisey notes that other states similarly had political upsets of moderate Democrats by far-left candidates, including Idaho, Nebraska, and Oregon. So it's not just a narrow regional phenomenon. Speaking of socialist Bernie Sanders, his campaign in 2016 seems to have opened the way for the mainstreaming of socialism in the Democratic Party. That's quite a change, given that just 10 years ago Democrats insisted on their moderate bona fides and recoiled from being called "liberal." But this has been happening for some time. As has been well chronicled, America's public schools and universities have been turned far-left in their curriculum and teaching, with extreme political correctness and the enraged shaming of conservatives as the only real behavioral guidelines remaining. Sadly, a mere 28 years after the collapse of communism, a new generation of youth not then born or too young to understand it see that epochal event as ancient history, irrelevant to their new understanding of the world. They do not understand that the topping of communism wasn't merely a repudiation of the gerontocratic rulers of communism, but of the very idea of socialism.

Socialism Goes Mainstream

Unfortunately, the acceptance of socialism now permeates all strata of society, according to a 2017 survey of adults by The American Culture and Faith Institute (ACFI). The basic findings weren't too surprising: 48% described themselves as politically moderate, while 25% said they conservative and 17% liberal. Those who called themselves both socially and fiscally conservative made up just 6% of the population. But here's the bombshell: Of those queried, four out of 10 adults said they preferred socialism to capitalism. That's 40%. This is what an irrational hatred of Donald Trump has wrought. "It ought to set off alarm bells among more traditionally-oriented leaders across the nation," said ACFI Executive Director George Barna. It seems even among adults, the lessons of the Cold War and of more than 100 years of tragic socialist history have been entirely lost. Let's start with these two stark facts: First, there has never been a successful socialist government in history. None. Everywhere socialist precepts are put in place, poverty, loss of freedom and rights, and societal decline inevitably follow. Collapse is a frequent result. Second, socialist governments are murderous. According to the "Black Book of Communism," written by French former Marxist Stephane Courtois, socialist regimes killed over 100 million people during the 20th century. No other ideology or "ism" came close to that blood-soaked record. Whether it's the USSR, China, Cuba, Vietnam, former East Germany, North Korea, Laos, Nicaragua, Zimbabwe, Cambodia, Venezuela or any of the other failed experiments in socialism, it's never worked anywhere. It's led only to misery, deprivation, government control and a loss of basic human rights. Socialist regimes always start off with high ideals, promising "free" this, and "free" that — education, health care, whatever. But as their ideas fail, they inevitably resort to compulsion, and eventually torture, political "re-education," imprisonment, exile, and murder for those who disagree. What's perhaps most surprising is that we have today yet another very clear example of the failure of socialism taking place in our own hemisphere: Venezuela. The Washington Post, to its credit, toted up what has happened in Venezuela since socialism was imposed on the country with the world's largest oil reserves and a once-thriving middle class.

Venezuela's Bitter Lesson

"Since Maduro took over from Hugo Chávez — his mentor, who died in 2013 — Venezuela's crisis has steadily intensified as a result of lower oil prices, corruption and a socialist system plagued with mismanagement. But as Maduro has sought to further consolidate power in the past 12 months, the economy, public services, security and healthcare have all but collapsed. "Armed gangs and Colombian guerrilla groups are operating unchecked on Venezuela's borders. Pro-government militias are terrorizing urban areas, while police stand accused of extrajudicial killings. Four of the 10 most dangerous cities in the world are now in Venezuela, according to a 2017 study by the Igarapé Institute, a Brazilian think tank that studies violence. "Hundreds if not thousands of members of the armed forces are deserting, in part because of meager rations, according to military analysts. Power and water grids and the transportation systems are breaking down. In just the first three months of the year, Venezuela suffered 7,778 blackouts." You might want to read the whole thing. It's just the latest try at socialism that ended in misery, soaring crime rates, unnecessary deaths from routine illnesses, the dissolution of civil society, and the collapse of national institutions. We call that Socialist Realism. We wonder why those celebrities and politicians who in the past gave fawning and obsequious love to Venezuela's hated socialist leaders — including Sean Penn, Michael Moore and, yes, the clueless socialist Bernie Sanders — have suddenly gone mute? Today, more than anything, the ideals of socialism are splitting this country apart. They're also splitting the Democratic Party apart, and damaging civil reasoned discourse in our society. It's a shame, on a par with the hateful and bitter debate the presaged our Civil War. It is a great, self-evident truth that socialism doesn't stack up against free-market capitalism when it comes to guaranteeing the universal and inborn rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. As for those in America who think socialism is the answer, they are correct. But only if the question is: What one thing would end our precious experiment in democracy and republican government, leading to mass misery, impoverishment, and even death? Read the full article

#democrats #JesseWatters #Liberals #Socialism

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screwwasp5 · 4 years

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Leading 5 Tips For Beginning A Car Valet Solution

Passage Washing Machine

Content

Extra On Autos.

Include Inside Hair Shampoo To Valet.

Mini Valet.

" Valet": Va

Car Detailer Frequently Asked Question:.

Increase Vehicle Worth: Have Your Vehicle Detailed.

British Dictionary Definitions For Valet.

Here Are All Locations We Give Our Mobile Cars And Truck Valeting Solutions By Postcodes.

After those, it makes sense to do the doors and after that the sills. The sills are usually the dirtiest area, so you may need to spend a bit of time on these. We advise starting with the wheels since some of the dirt from these can sprinkle onto the paintwork over, which would reverse any kind of hard work you would certainly place in if you were to do the body first.

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If the leather is severely split and also the shade is broken, you might need to change the seats. Using your microfibre towel, tidy the windshield, side home windows, back window and also sunroof. Utilize a round motion to cleanse the inside of each window.

Much More On Autos.

The butler, as the senior male slave, has the highest servant condition. A valet is a male slave who works as individual attendant to his company. release your own products on parking-net. commanage information, tasks, tenders, firms, events, showcases, educations, organizations and literature. Initially, one of the maker's major downsides was the need of making use of one clean formula for all products. Modern digital passage washers can keep an eye on and adjust the chemical degrees in specific pockets, effectively overcoming this issue.

The most popular car service company has two mobile car valet services, one that will do chauffeur-driven rides and one that will do private limousines. This company also has a mobile car rental service that offers chauffeur services to clients who need them. The luxury limousines and chauffeur services do come at a price however, so it's important to shop around to find a good value for your money.

A solid service model is one which operates in the short-term and also the long-term, so it is very important that the design is verified to function financially over a variety of years. Your service design ought to work with the tiniest amount of money being made use of and the maximum quantity of effort on your component. At the end of the day, you do not require to reinvent the way in which a company is run, you simply require to stick to the most effective principles in order to succeed. But a business savvy mind and fresh technique can go a lengthy means.

What is included in a full car valet?

A general full valet designed for vehicles that require a pro outside wash and basic liquid wax with the interior fully valeted consisting of full vaccum, shampooing and stain removal of seats, carpets, mats, door linings, roof lining and sun visors, all plastics and vinyl's cleaned and polished with boot valeted.

In great residences, the home is occasionally divided into divisions with the butler in charge of the dining-room, wine cellar, and also pantry. Some additionally have fee of the entire parlour floor, and house cleaners caring for the entire residence as well as its appearance.

Include Interior Hair Shampoo To Valet.

When developing a service model, the easiest thing to do is take inspiration from others operating in the exact same market. The first step to producing any kind of kind of organization is to make a strategy and also approach for launch. We'll provide a bespoke quote based on the size of your organization and what you require.

Can you pressure wash car engine?

Pressure Washer Time Using a pressure washer, lower the pressure a bit to avoid blasting water into the electrical components. If you can't adjust the pressure, be sure to hold the wand further from the engine. Spray away all of the cleaner and residue until the engine is as clean as possible.

Carnauba waxes and sealants create a hydrophobic barrier that basically makes it challenging for mud crud to stick to wheels as well as paint. Wax is terrific for door jambs, wheels, and other areas where corrosion generally starts. It's one thing to keep your vehicle clean, however it's an additional to aid shield what you have, so you aren't stuck to a huge costs at the body store in the future. When a vehicle's clear coat has actually been worn down to the paint layer, compounds can after that penetrate the paint layer as well, ultimately getting to the sheet steel and triggering corrosion areas.

Leporello, valet of Don Giovanni in the 1787 opera by Mozart. Figaro, the Matter of Almaviva's valet from Beaumarchais' play The Marriage of Figaro, along with the Mozart and also Rossini operas based upon it. Kato, Assessor Clouseau's valet as well as martial arts partner in the Pink Panther motion pictures, presented in A Shot in the Dark. Hugo Barrett, in the 1948 Robin Maugham novella, 1958 play and 1963 Joseph Losey movie The Slave.

This is a company that specializes in valeting cars and the hiring of mobile or semi-private cars. Most car service companies only have one or two car valets on staff that will do all the valet tasks for them. But a car service company that has multiple car valets can save money by having different car valet services that each charge for a different type of service.

Guarding Your Investment - A car that is in good problem cosmetically, can be worth numerous hundreds and sometimes countless Euros greater than one in poor problem. If there are any kind of persistent stains, utilize a foam cleanser as well as damp cloth to obtain these out. Oscillating buffers are best for using wax, however typically they can create even more harm than great if you're unsure exactly how to use them.

All the best car valet companies also provide the option to reserve a car through their websites. You can book your desired car online through their website and also reserve the car you need for free. This is another way to save time as all you have to do is fill out the form and submit it online. you are all set for your rental.

Mini Valet.

Mervyn Bunter, developed in 1923 by Dorothy L. Sayers in the Lord Peter Wimsey series, furthermore an apotheosis of very discreet competence, taking his obligations beyond what was expected of a valet to aid his master. Valets discovered the abilities for their function in different methods. Others started out as soldier-servants to army policemans or guardians to naval policemans. In a bachelor's family the valet could carry out light housekeeping responsibilities also. Please assist boost this area by including citations to trustworthy sources.

Rochester van Jones, the valet of Jack Benny on Benny's radio and tv programs, introduced in 1937. Woodhouse, Sterling Archer's valet in the television collection Archer, created in 2009. Smerdyakov, the valet to Fyodor Pavlovitch in The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Pork, Gerald O'Hara's valet in the 1936 unique Selected the Wind. Probert, valet to Sir William McCordle, and Robert Parks, valet to Lord Stockbridge, in the 2001 movie Gosford Park, directed by Robert Altman.

After https://www.mirrorfinishvaleting.com/pricelist.php , run the dustcloth along the switches to remove any type of dust and also gunk that may have built up. If you have time, you can utilize a cotton swab to eliminate any crud in hard to get to areas, such as detailing on the steering wheel. Bear in mind to make use of a clean cloth or you will certainly just be redistributing the mess you have actually just tidied up. Canteen, paper and cardboard things ought to be positioned in the recycling container.

Also, if you go on to the roofing system next off, the excess water will flow down from the top, which will certainly pre-wet your bonnet and home windows while doing so. Although several like to use chamois natural leather, this can in fact do more injury than good by scratching the paintwork, as can a sponge. As far as the regulations go for operating in the motor trade, the lower line is that you need to have electric motor profession insurance to protect you, your team and your organization.

Does Dish Soap harm car paint?

Don't use household cleaning agents like hand soap, dishwashing detergent, or glass cleaner on the paint. These aren't formulated for use on a car's paint and may strip off the protective wax.

The first is that you will certainly have the ability to copy any of the best methods you see your rivals performing. That is why you need to always have services to troubles within your service design, so you are prepared for any type of scenario. No service design ought to exist without backup plans for obstacles. That is why you need to demonstrate how the business will certainly run in one, two, three, 4 and more years, with the number of personnel and financial investment plainly revealed. At the end of the day, if you are setting up a business, it's because you'll want to have the ability to gain a lot of cash as well as eventually quit working.

Should I wash my car if it's going to rain?

Best Time to Wash a Car First, we must point out that rain will NOT clean your car. In fact, it will make your car dirtier. Rain water collects contaminants on its way down. As the contaminated water lands and dries on your car, it leaves behind water spots on the paint.

As well as do not neglect to include motor profession insurance prices in your estimations. You do this for a number of businesses in your city and also for that reason, get the same in return, with those companies suggesting you to their very own clients. This can be an effective strategy for creating leads for the restaurant and also they will certainly be happy to supply a discount rate if you are able to obtain people into their service.

When people hire car services, they often think that the car service they get is a special car service only reserved for VIPs. This couldn't be further from the truth, as car rental services are just like any other business and have to make a profit, so the car services companies have come up with a unique business plan called car valet.

The best thing about car valet services is that they offer a great way to save money and time. Instead of having to spend hours looking for the right cars to rent or driving to different rental agencies to check on availability, all the work is taken care of for you. Once you are ready to rent a car, all you have to do is to get in touch with the car rental company and tell them you need a car and they will contact the car rental agency for you. They will then call the car rental agency, tell them what you want and they will bring the car to you at the specified time.

" Valet": Va

Is it bad to wash your car every day?

While washing your car improperly can damage it, washing it as often as you'd like won't hurt your vehicle, even if you do it every week. Therefore, washing it every day or even every week could be seen as excessive, unnecessary and more work than is needed, but if you have the urge to wash wash away.

If you 'd like to look into this instead of using the wax by hand, talk with a professional valeter at your local Arnold Clark branch. Allow the wax rest for a few mins as per the guidelines. After that, eliminate the wax with a microfibre towel when all set. You can after that move onto rinsing the roof, then bonnet, home windows and also mirrors.

Automobile Detailer Faq:.

The mobile car valet services also provides the same services for people who don't have time to drive their own cars. They can book a rental vehicle for you or if you prefer, depending on your budget and they can also pick up the rental vehicle for you whenever you're not available. They can even drop off the car on your doorstep if you're staying somewhere other than the place you rented the car.

Increase Vehicle Worth: Have Your Car Detailed.

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You can also check out online sites that offer car valet services for you. They give you the options of renting one, renting from one company and getting a vehicle through the internet and renting an entire fleet of vehicles.

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The modern use is usually brief for the valet de chambre (French for "area valet", in modern terms the room, though not originally so), defined in the following area. Please aid boost this post by adding citations to dependable sources. Nothing - our van is totally furnished with water, generator as well as all essential tools.

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While We Tidy Your Auto.

If you think of a clear coat on a lorry, it truly resembles the skin on your body. It secures what's underneath and is the first line of protection versus dust, acid rain, bird droppings, tiny rocks, and just about anything else that you can consider. While you might incline driving around with a dirty car, it can eventually cost you quite a bit of cash if you neglect or overlook your vehicle. Thanks to all authors for developing a page that has been read 532,254 times. He is ASE accredited, has an AA level in Automotive Repair work Modern Technology, as well as has more than twenty years of mechanic experience

Can I just wash my car with water?

you can easily wash your car with a pressure washer using water only, but you need to be careful about the pressure that is going to exert on your car cause if it is more than what it should be then your car can be damaged. the standard pressure to wash a car without any damage is about 180 to 250 bar.

In the last word, it can be said that hiring car valet services are quite beneficial for people who don't want to worry about the car parking and maintaining. They can leave everything to the professional and they can enjoy the benefits of enjoying their car free of all the troubles.

Is it better to hand wash your car or machine?

As long as you know what you're doing, hand washes typically do a much better job of cleaning the vehicle. If you're willing to spend the proper time, you'll likely be able to remove more dirt and grime compared to an automatic wash. Finally, most automatic car washes will use either air drying or blow drying.

You ought to secure every one of your prized possessions and stuff that can obstruct, such as work and gym bags, kids's toys, books and magazines. This can be a good possibility to arrange personal belongings that have been forgotten in the automobile. In antiquated English, varlet also might suggest an unprincipled man; a rogue. Jockey's valet-- a staff member who preserves a jockey's closet and ensures the proper attire is put on for each and every horse the jockey races.

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COVID-19 has not closed our shop, and also no person here has actually examined favorable for the infection. We're practicing risk-free distancing within our shop and also entrance hall, and are currently running by visit just. Please phone call to make a consultation, and as always, you and your lorry are safe with us.

According to Edmunds, a new auto sheds regarding a 3rd of its worth within a year, and pitted edges, early indicators of rust, and also exposed unwaxed paint can be like putting money down the drain. This is something to consider if you are aiming to trade or resell your vehicle in a couple of years for a new design. Wax as well as sealers secure your auto's clear coat, just like lotion safeguards your skin in the winter from splitting.

A butler is usually male, as well as accountable of male slaves, while a housekeeper is generally a female, and also in charge of female servants. Typically, male servants were rarer as well as as a result much better paid and also of higher status than women servants.

In modern times, valets-- or valet attendants-- park automobiles for high end dining establishments, nightclubs as well as special occasions that attract significant groups.

Wherever they work, valets make reasonably reduced wages compared to many professions.

Valets need to make reliable use room, so they usually park vehicles close-- and also obtain them when patrons leave.

Valeting is the cleaning of a lorry to remove dust and gunk, leaving the surface areas clean and glossy.

Individual valets drive motion picture celebrities, company execs and various other stars to meetings, parties as well as meetings.

. By utilizing this solution, some info may be shown to YouTube. If you have spots on your rug, attempt 401 or any other carpet spot elimination product. Typically you spray it on the spot, wait 5 mins, and then scrub it with a towel or paper towel. If you such as to use scents in your car, you can spray or install a new air freshener product.

Some of the companies even offer mobile car valet services where you can get the same services from the comfort of your home, so they can make their way to your place and pick up your rental vehicle. These are great if you're on vacation and don't have a vehicle of your own.

Our team will certainly have the ability to deliver a bespoke quote to you, no matter the size of your business, so make sure to contact us by calling us on orclick right here to enter a few details and also obtain a recall. The concern of cost is likewise a huge factor in the location of your business, due to the reality that it is more affordable to acquire and lease buildings in the North of England compared to the South. Thecosts for setting up this kind of businesscan vary relying on whether you have a mobile van (approximately ₤ 10,000 approximated start-up expense) or your own properties (assume even more around the ₤ 30,000 mark).

There are also companies that offer car valet services for the people who are not comfortable enough to drive themselves. The company will take over the car driving duties and you will be left with the responsibility of maintaining the vehicle and the parking. It may be an added cost but you will save a lot of time and effort because you won't have to worry about parking the vehicle.

#car valet #car valet dublin #mobile car valet #dublin mobile car valet

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suzanneshannon · 4 years

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5 Myths About Jamstack

Jamstack isn’t necessarily new. The term was officially coined in 2016, but the technologies and architecture it describes have been around well before that. Jamstack has received a massive dose of attention recently, with articles about it appearing in major sites and publications and new Jamstack-focused events, newsletters, podcasts, and more. As someone who follows it closely, I’ve even seen what seems like a significant uptick in discussion about it on Twitter, often from people who are being newly introduced to the concept.

The buzz has also seemed to bring out the criticism. Some of the criticism is fair, and I’ll get to some of that in a bit, but others appear to be based on common myths about the Jamstack that persist, which is what I want to address first. So let’s look at five common myths about Jamstack I’ve encountered and debunk them. As with many myths, they are often based on a kernel of truth but lead to invalid conclusions.

Myth 1: They are just rebranded static sites

JAMStack is 99.9% branding and .1% substance. 😳😆 https://t.co/nxoEVQ43oE

— Nicole Sullivan – Black Lives Matter (@stubbornella) February 9, 2020

Yes, as I covered previously, the term “Jamstack” was arguably a rebranding of what we previously called “static sites.” This was not a rebranding meant to mislead or sell you something that wasn’t fully formed — quite the opposite. The term “static site” had long since lost its ability to describe what people were building. The sites being built using static site generators (SSG) were frequently filled with all sorts of dynamic content and capabilities.

Static sites were seen as largely about blogs and documentation where the UI was primarily fixed. The extent of interaction was perhaps embedded comments and a contact form. Jamstack sites, on the other hand, have things like user authentication, dynamic content, ecommerce, user generated content.

A listing of sites built using Jamstack on Jamstack.org

Want proof? Some well-known companies and sites built using the Jamstack include Smashing Magazine, Sphero, Postman, Prima, Impossible Foods and TriNet, just to name a few.

Myth 2: Jamstack sites are fragile

A Medium article with no byline: The issues with JAMStack: You might need a backend

Reading the dependency list for Smashing Magazine reads like the service equivalent of node_modules, including Algolia, GoCommerce, GoTrue, GoTell and a variety of Netlify services to name a few. There is a huge amount of value in knowing what to outsource (and when), but it is amusing to note the complexity that has been introduced in an apparent attempt to ‘get back to basics’. This is to say nothing of the potential fragility in relying on so many disparate third-party services.

Yes, to achieve the dynamic capabilities that differentiate the Jamstack from static sites, Jamstack projects generally rely on a variety of services, both first- or third-party. Some have argued that this makes Jamstack sites particularly vulnerable for two reasons. The first, they say, is that if any one piece fails, the whole site functionality collapses. The second is that your infrastructure becomes too dependent on tools and services that you do not own.

Let’s tackle that first argument. The majority of a Jamstack site should be pre-rendered. This means that when a user visits the site, the page and most of its content is delivered as static assets from the CDN. This is what gives Jamstack much of its speed and security. Dynamic functionality — like shopping carts, authentication, user generated content and perhaps search — rely upon a combination of serverless functions and APIs to work.

Broadly speaking, the app will call a serverless function that serves as the back end to connect to the APIs. If, for example, our e-commerce functionality relies on Stripe’s APIs to work and Stripe is down, then, yes, our e-commerce functionality will not work. However, it’s important to note that the site won’t go down. It can handle the issue gracefully by informing the user of the issue. A server-rendered page that relies on the Stripe API for e-commerce would face the identical issue. Assuming the server-rendered page still calls the back end code for payment asynchronously, it would be no more or less fragile than the Jamstack version. On the other hand, if the server-rendering is actually dependent upon the API call, the user may be stuck waiting on a response or receive an error (a situation anyone who uses the web is very familiar with).

As for the second argument, it’s really hard to gauge the degree of dependence on third-parties for a Jamstack web app versus a server-rendered app. Many of today’s server-rendered applications still rely on APIs for a significant amount of functionality because it allows for faster development, takes advantage of the specific area of expertise of the provider, can offload responsibility for legal and other compliance issues, and more. In these cases, once again, the server-rendered version would be no more or less dependent than the Jamstack version. Admittedly, if your app relies mostly on internal or homegrown solutions, then this may be different.

Myth 3: Editing content is difficult

Kev Quirk, on Why I Don’t Use A Static Site Generator:

Having to SSH into a Linux box, then editing a post on Vim just seems like a ridiculously high barrier for entry when it comes to writing on the go. The world is mobile first these days, like it or not, so writing on the go should be easy.

This issue feels like a relic of static sites past. To be clear, you do not need to SSH into a Linux box to edit your site content. There are a wide range of headless CMS options, from completely free and open source to commercial offerings that power content for large enterprises. They offer an array of editing capabilities that rival any traditional CMS (something I’ve talked about before). The point is, there is no reason to be manually editing Markdown, YAML or JSON files, even on your blog side project. Aren’t sure how to hook all these pieces up? We’ve got a solution for that too!

One legitimate criticism has been that the headless CMS and build process can cause a disconnect between the content being edited and the change on the site. It can be difficult to preview exactly what the impact of a change is on the live site until it is published or without some complex build previewing process. This is something that is being addressed by the ecosystem. Companies like Stackbit (who I work for) are building tools that make this process seamless.

Editing a site using Stackbit

We’re not the only ones working on solving this problem. Other solutions include TinaCMS and Gatsby Preview. I think we are close to it becoming commonplace to have the simplicity of WYSIWYG editing on a tool like Wix running on top of the Jamstack.

Myth 4: SEO is Hard on the Jamstack

Kym Ellis, on What the JAMstack means for marketing:

Ditching the concept of the plugin and opting for a JAMstack site which is “just HTML” doesn’t actually mean you have to give up functionality, or suddenly need to know how to code like a front-end developer to manage a site and its content.

I haven’t seen this one pop up as often in recent years and I think it is mostly legacy criticism of the static site days, where managing SEO-related metadata involved manually editing YAML-based frontmatter. The concern was that doing SEO properly became cumbersome and hard to maintain, particularly if you wanted to inject different metadata for each unique page that was generated or to create structured data like JSON-LD, which can be critical for enhancing your search listing.

The advances in content management for the Jamstack have generally addressed the complexity of maintaining SEO metadata. In addition, because pages are pre-rendered, adding sitemaps and JSON-LD is relatively simple, provided the metadata required exists. While pre-rendering makes it easy to create the resources search engines (read: Google) need to index a site, they also, combined with CDNs, making it easier to achieve the performance benchmarks necessary to improve a site’s ranking.

Basically, Jamstack excels at “technical SEO” while also providing the tools necessary for content editors to supply the keyword and other metadata they require. For a more comprehensive look at Jamstack and SEO, I highly recommend checking out the Jamstack SEO Guide from Bejamas.

Myth 5: Jamstack requires heavy JavaScript frameworks

If you’re trying to sell plain ol’ websites to management who are obsessed with flavour-of-the-month frameworks, a slick website promoting the benefits of “JAMstack” is a really useful thing.

– jdietrich, Hacker News

Lately, it feels as if Jamstack has become synonymous with front-end JavaScript frameworks. It’s true that a lot of the most well-known solutions do depend on a front-end framework, including Gatsby (React), Next.js (React), Nuxt (Vue), VuePress (Vue), Gridsome (Vue) and Scully (Angular). This seems to be compounded by confusion around the “J” in Jamstack. While it stands for JavaScript, this does not mean that Jamstack solutions are all JavaScript-based, nor do they all require npm or JavaScript frameworks.

In fact, many of the most widely used tools are not built in JavaScript, notably Hugo (Go), Jekyll (Ruby), Pelican (Python) and the recently released Bridgetown (Ruby). Meanwhile, tools like Eleventy are built using JavaScript but do not depend on a JavaScript framework. None of these tools prevent the use of a JavaScript framework, but they do not require it.

The point here isn’t to dump on JavaScript frameworks or the tools that use them. These are great tools, used successfully by many developers. JavaScript frameworks can be very powerful tools capable of simplifying some very complex tasks. The point here is simply that the idea that a JavaScript framework is required to use the Jamstack is false — Jamstack comes in 460 flavors!

Where we can improve

So that’s it, right? Jamstack is an ideal world of web development where everything isn’t just perfect, but perfectly easy. Unfortunately, no. There are plenty of legitimate criticisms of Jamstack.

Simplicity

Sebastian De Deyne, with Thoughts (and doubts) after messing around with the JAMstack:

In my experience, the JAMstack (JavaScript, APIs, and Markup) is great until is isn’t. When the day comes that I need to add something dynamic–and that day always comes–I start scratching my head.

Let’s be honest: Getting started with the Jamstack isn’t easy. Sure, diving into building a blog or a simple site using a static site generator may not be terribly difficult. But try building a real site with anything dynamic and things start to get complicated fast.

You are generally presented with a myriad of options for completing the task, making it tough to weigh the pros and cons. One of the best things about Jamstack is that it is not prescriptive, but that can make it seem unapproachable, leaving people with the impression that perhaps it isn’t suited for complex tasks.

Tying services together

Agreed. In yesterday's web you could grab an instrument and begin playing. Today's web development feels like a conductor trying to pull together a massive orchestra into a cohesive song – you have to understand each individual musician's part to have any chance of success.

— Brian Rinaldi (@remotesynth) May 1, 2020

When you actually get to the point of building those dynamic features, your site can wind up being dependent on an array of services and APIs. You may be calling a headless CMS for content, a serverless function that calls an API for payment transactions, a service like Algolia for search, and so on. Bringing all those pieces together can be a very complex task. Add to that the fact that each often comes with its own dashboard and API/SDK updates, things get even more complex.

This is why I think services like Stackbit and tools like RedwoodJS are important, as they bring together disparate pieces of the infrastructure behind a Jamstack site and make those easier to build and manage.

Overusing frameworks

In my opinion, our dependence on JavaScript frameworks for modern front-end development has been getting a much needed skeptical look lately. There are tradeoffs, as this post by Tim Kadlec recently laid out. As I said earlier, you don’t need a JavaScript framework to work in the Jamstack.

However, the impression was created both because so many Jamstack tools rely on JavaScript frameworks and also because much of the way we teach Jamstack has been centered on using frameworks. I understand the reasoning for this — many Jamstack developers are comfortable in JavaScript frameworks and there’s no way to teach every tool, so you pick the one you like. Still, I personally believe the success of Jamstack in the long run depends on its flexibility, which (despite what I said about the simplicity above) means we need to present the diversity of solutions it offers — both with and without JavaScript frameworks.

Where to go from here

Sheesh, you made it! I know I had a lot to say, perhaps more than I even realized when I started writing, so I won’t bore you with a long conclusion other than to say that, obviously, I have presented these myths from the perspective of someone who believes very deeply in the value of the Jamstack, despite it’s flaws!

If you are looking for a good post about when to and when not to choose Jamstack over server-side rendering, check out Chris Coyier’s recent post Static or Not?.

The post 5 Myths About Jamstack appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

5 Myths About Jamstack published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/

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recruitmentdubai · 4 years

Text

5 Myths About Jamstack

Myth 1: They are just rebranded static sites

JAMStack is 99.9% branding and .1% substance.

https://t.co/nxoEVQ43oE

— Nicole Sullivan – Black Lives Matter (@stubbornella) February 9, 2020

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

A listing of sites built using Jamstack on Jamstack.org

Want proof? Some well-known companies and sites built using the Jamstack include Smashing Magazine, Sphero, Postman, Prima, Impossible Foods and TriNet, just to name a few.

Myth 2: Jamstack sites are fragile

A Medium article with no byline: The issues with JAMStack: You might need a backend

Myth 3: Editing content is difficult

Kev Quirk, on Why I Don’t Use A Static Site Generator:

Editing a site using Stackbit

Myth 4: SEO is Hard on the Jamstack

Kym Ellis, on What the JAMstack means for marketing:

Myth 5: Jamstack requires heavy JavaScript frameworks

If you’re trying to sell plain ol’ websites to management who are obsessed with flavour-of-the-month frameworks, a slick website promoting the benefits of “JAMstack” is a really useful thing.

– jdietrich, Hacker News

Where we can improve

Simplicity

Sebastian De Deyne, with Thoughts (and doubts) after messing around with the JAMstack:

Tying services together

— Brian Rinaldi (@remotesynth) May 1, 2020

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Overusing frameworks

Where to go from here

If you are looking for a good post about when to and when not to choose Jamstack over server-side rendering, check out Chris Coyier’s recent post Static or Not?.

The post 5 Myths About Jamstack appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

source https://css-tricks.com/5-myths-about-jamstack/

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#web developer #web development #website developer

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mechagalaxy · 5 years

Text

Sten Hugo Hiller - 627184: Mountain Climbing Mecha Combat #1092

(By Sten Hugo Hiller - 627184)

Mountain Climbing Mecha Combat #1092

Brought to you by ANN

Highlighting the November 3351 Nifty Chrono

Just after the end of the Selfsame event, the Gaming authorities announced the upcoming competition:

-A Nifty Chrono.

As usual when we have a Mech specific event, the lower tops had different rules than the rest of us.

On the two lowest tops there were no restrictions whatsoever, if you could get a Mech into the formation it was accepted.

On the nine highest tops however, only the 40 ton Nifthel would be legal, not even a sidekick or two was allowed.

For me that was no problem at all. My first really succesfull formation, the 40 ton Snoozers had once upon a time consisted of only Nifthels, and I still have four dozens of them.

So I signed up immediately, and returned to the compound to give my Nifthel pilots the good news that their services would once again be needed.

That was when events started to go horribly wrong.

When one of the Star Leaguers return after winning one of the KotM events, there is usually a crowd waiting.

Champagne is popped and the winner sprayed, and a big party (paid for by the winner) is held.

As my forces had been unable to secure the win, no such ceremony was expected, but upon arrival at my quarters a crowd had gathered.

In place of the champagne shower, I was hit by bucketfulls of salt, icy water. Shockingly enough by itself, but the live wire nearby made it a hair-raising experience.

As I stood stunned in place, the group of officers who had recently been convinced to help battle the paperworkmonster appeared.

As to avoid unpleasant discharges and damage to equipment, they quickly relieved me of my sidearm, locator, tools and comunicator. Then they frogmarched me to ammobunker 32.

It had been emptied of all ordenance a week ago in preparation for installment of some advanced firefighting equipment, and was supposed to be empty.

But there was a desk and a chair there, as well as hundreds of crates of paperwork. I was unceremonelly dropped in the chair, and was told they would let me out, maybe, when this batch was done.

After they had left, there was not much to do except dig in at the work. Those bunkers are almost unbreachable even by Advanced mecha weaponry, and the comunication devices had been removed as well.

All that was left was a camera, no doubt recently installed by the cabal who had brought me here to keep track of my progress.

Those Bunkers are as mentioned pretty secure. they are also made for maintaining ammunition in peak condition. In other Words, regular temperature (12 degrees Celsius) and 40% humidity.

I quickly stripped, and wrung most of the water out of my clothing, then put it back on. Sitting naked at the desk would surely lead to hypothermia, but if my body heat was trapped inside the coveralls I might stay warm enough to be functional.

After four hours or so, as the still wet clothing had stolen enough body heat, my fingers grew to numb to hold the stylus any longer. I got up and did some PT, but my strenght were flagging. I managed to work up a decent sweat before exhaustion forced me back to the chair, but that sweat soon cooled and helped drain my bodyheat away

Unable to keep awake, I drifted off into unconsciousness.

And woke up shivering and sweating as rough hands swayed me back and forth, slapped my cheeks and pinched me everywhere.

Rescue had arrived in the persons of my Nifthel pilots.

As they had heard of the event being held, and not been called up, they had launched a base wide search for me. If I was trying to refuse them their shot at glory, they would find me and force me to the mountain.

Semiconcious, I was dragged to the hangar, and one of the pilots entered the Cockpit along with me to make sure we went to the arena.

As we arrived, the force that had been left to hold a spot had been pushed to the foothills, but a couple quick strikes saw us on the top.

Art which point the A.I. measuring my Health (among other things) sent a distress signal.

Normally such a distress signal is sent to the units C.O. but as this was the C.O. it got routed to the nearest friendly Commander, in this case our chief medico; Jorge.

He rushed to my side, and over the protests of my crew had me shipped back to the infirmary immediately to battle the developing pnumonia.

Our top boss, Tony, came to see how I fared, and wondered how I had come to such a state.

I truthfully told him (not the whole truth) it was working on the paperwork, and getting all sweaty doing it.

As to his concern about how it was to be done now, I told him of those officers who recently had pitched in, and how well they had done. (Some merit badges were even suggested)

He brightened up, and said such officers surely belonged to staff, and went to tell them of their promotion and new duties.

The treatment worked, and soon the need to do somthing got me out of bed. A trip to the Circuits soon had me calling up my top formation to kick butts and secure Crystals. Unfortunately, the sickness had made me to woozy to remeber to switch back to my Nifthels, which caused my crew on the mountain to be thrown off the top and down into the foothills.

It took hours before a delegation of them managed to find me and get force me to get their Nifthels back to the top.

To make matters worse, that happened yet another time, and when the Nifthels were back on the top that time, the score situation was looking bleak.

Both Colin Toenjes of the Heroes and the Brotherhood of Arcane Dragon`s Darryl Proctor had kept active on the top, and as a result their totals was now thousands higher than mine. There were still over two dozen scorerounds left, but unless someone else sent them to the foothills and kept them there, both would outscore my forces.

Well, that did not happen, and my crew were not happy about the final placement.

Nothing to it. Write it up as SOP; In a Chrono, ALWAYS get back in formation immediately after doing whatever task had you out of it.

At least my monitoring equipment had kept working, and as the event closed I knew the highest scorers had been:

Div 1 342+ (22 Commanders): Bernard Johnson, Warlock (+8570)

2: Jeff Haas

3: Shawn Wretham

4: Ben Rail

5: Sal Vezzosi Jr

6: Claude Poirier

7: Sherriff Leary Wretham

8: Robert C Goetz Sr

9: Daniel Scott

10: Gary Muenzel

Div 2 -341 (18 Commanders): Were Wolf, M&L Blood Wolves (+15010)

Div 3 -218 (15 Commanders): Colin Toenjes, Heroes (+2520

Div 4 -175 (14 Commanders): Larry Tsang, HF Dragoons (+19520)

Div 5 -143 (20 Commanders): Eman Eliforp, Mad Scientist.7 (+14290)

Div 6 -102 (21 Commanders): Spartia Mechapoulos, Ronins (+21670)

Div 7 -76 (22 Commanders): Ann Kristin Hiller, Sacrificial Lambs (+14350)

Div 8 -56 (14 Commanders): Alan Lau, MurderMechs (+22860)

Div 9 -38 (13 Commanders): NameOfProfile, Mad Scientist 1 (+13260)

Div 10 -23 (31 Commanders): Iain Bryce, **R.V.** (+8370)

Div 11 -13 (18 Commanders): Karen_H, Cold Dead Hands (+21980)

On the nine tops where only Nifthels were to compete

4(3S)+1S+5(G,3S)+3(2S)+3(G)+2(G,1S)+4(G,2S)+1S+1(G)= Five Golds, thirteen Silvers and six Bronzes were awarded to Commanders who, as the event ended, had formations looking to be legal.

The remaining winners obviously had one or more non-Nifthels in their formations.

Total Contestants: 208

Total medals claimed: 161 (of 165 possible)

Compared to the Selfsame we just had, participation rose by fifty-eight Commanders. It seem the combination of long sign-up times and Chrono is what Commanders like.

But, even though the total number rose, on some of the tops there were to few Commanders to claim all the prizes.

A total of four Bronzes from a trio of tops had to be returned for resmelting after the award ceremony.

The highest score achieved in this event was on K7 where Sacrificial Lambs` Ann Kristin Hiller stayed on the top for sventy-nine scorerounds and collected 97 850 points.

Highest gap to the runner-up was on K8 where Alan Lau of the MurderMechs had an advantage of 22 860.

Lowest score needed for a medal was on K8 where 1320 was enough to get a Bronze.

Eight Golds were secured by margins in excess of 12 000, while only one was decided by less than 3000.

This indicates pretty strong winners, but how claose was the struggle for the lesser prizes? To find out, we take a look at the differences between the medal tiers in this event:

..Silver to Bronze....Bronze to nothing

Div 1 ......6460......………..3740

Div 2 ......4050...…............2900

Div 3 ......2420...….........…..N/A

Div 4 ......6380...….........…..N/A

Div 5 ......4830...….........…..240

Div 6 ......5460...…............4420

Div 7 ......6620...….........…..420

Div 8 ....22200...….........…..N/A

Div 9 ......1930...….........…..N/A

Div 10 ….5440...…............1500

Div 11 ….8880...…............2640

Overall, solid walls. But two of the seven contested Bronzes were decided by less than 500. A difference easily achieved by signing up early.

This was one of the non-events.

None of the clans got more than one win. None of the unaligned Commanders got a win. None of the last events winners got a follow-up win.

Upcoming event: Quadruple Rainbow

This is the most inclusive of the Rainbow events.

A Commander is allowed to use up to four Mechs of each model.

Event ends October 4 between 0000 and 0030 New York Time

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captainderyn · 7 years

Text

Thieving With Dignity: Chapter Four

Thank to @shortmandown for editing as always and @delavairesslegacy for inspiring me to get my ass back into gear and write this chapter by reading it and yelling at me about Rielay and Hugo :’) you guys are great!

Cross posted to ff.net

Title: Thieving With Dignity

Chapter: 4/?

Summary: A brief interlude in the chaos of Rielay’s new life. Decisions are questioned, realizations are had about her situation, and forgotten meeting may just give Rielay the escape she needs.

**Under the cut as usual

The hangar was blissfully quiet as Rielay moved around the remaining cargo that had yet to be loaded back onto her ship. It was just her and the boxes, the soft inhale and exhale of her breath on top of her footsteps the only noises alongside the power systems of the spaceport. Her tears had dried, leaving her cheeks and eyes red; the panicked horror she had felt faded to a hollow nothing. Hugo was gone, she was alone and had no out. It weighed heavy on both her mind and heart.

The hiss of the turbo lift shattered her mind numbing routine, immediately snapping her to high alert. She pressed her back to the crates she had been taking inventory of, thanking the stars that the stack was tall enough to hide her. Her hand drifted down to the blaster at her hip, closing around the grip and resting lightly on the trigger. As the footsteps padded closer she held her breath.

“Perfect flying condition?” A voice muttered as the footsteps stopped. “Bullshit.”

She let out her breath in a huff, whoever this was had nerve. Rielay glanced over at the Promise; if this was where she was going to die, she might as well do it with at least her ship’s dignity still intact,and slid out from behind the boxes. “Talking shit about my ship, stranger?”

Her blaster was pointed at the stranger’s chest, prepared to be met with the brawn of a bounty hunter. But, she blinked and let her blaster drop down to her side, there was only a lanky young man stuffing a datapad back in his jacket.

At her voice he started, looking around wildly and taking hurried steps back towards the door until his eyes caught on her as she stalked closer.

Oh stars. She scowled, the young man towered over her by at least a head and she had to turn her chin up just to glare at the surprise and very faint amusement playing across his face. She should have stayed behind the crates, at least then she’d still have the idea of being threatening. At least, it it came down to a fight, he was more than likely going to judge her skills on her height. He’d have to learn the hard way that that wasn’t anywhere near the truth.

Whoever this was though, definitely was not a bounty hunter. Not like any other bounty hunter she’d come into contact with. Compared to the types like Nalan he was a kitten, visibly unarmed and dressed in the light clothes of a civ. He looked as though he’d never left the upper levels. “Did ya get lost or something?”

The kid ran a hand through his hair, digging around in his pocket for something when she crossed her arms and continued to stare at him with a deep rooted suspicion. “No, but are you Captain Taqq?”

“I might be.” She hedged, snatching the piece of flimsi he held out and quirking an eyebrow when he swore, shaking out his hand. There were scrawled numbers across it, the access code to the hangar. In her own handwriting. That had only been given to one person other than Hugo, and the young man in front of her definitely wasn’t Chridan Deryn. A quick shot of panic iced her veins and she cast her eyes around, scanning for any unfamiliar shadows, any rifles that could be trained on her, any sign that Chixi’s hunters had finally caught up to her. “Where’d you get this from?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but not fast enough. There was too high a chance he was a distraction for an ambush, far fetched as it would have seemed a few weeks ago. That chance, that gut feeling, was not something she was going to ignore. Not again. Her blaster was whipped up again to be trained on his chest and he held up his hands, backing away with wide eyes. “Who are you, where did you get this from and what do you want with my ship?”

“Get that thing away from me.” The kid had guts, snapping at her like that when she had a firearm within shooting distance. One movement of her finger and he’d drop the ground like a rock, silent as one too. “If you’d listen, captain-”

“I don’t want to listen.” She brought her other hand up to steady her blaster, it had begun to quake with her hand. “Not if you’re some distraction just waiting for me to drop my guard enough to kill me!”

This, finally, gave him pause and she took a breath. Utter bafflement crossed his expression before settling into irritation. Admirable, she thought. She could be about ready to pull the trigger and he had yet to qail. Either he was an idiot or he wasn’t a bounty hunter. She wasn’t yet ready to choose which.

He blinked at her, scrubbing a hand across his face and narrowing his eyes at her. “Are you…? Bounty...what?” He shook his head and muttered something she couldn’t catch. “Look, crazy lady, I’m Emeldir Deryn, my father sent me to look at your ship. For installations, I think.”

Oh. Deryn. She looked at him inquisitively, thoughts clearing enough so she could start to see the resemblance. Same red-brown hair, same bright eyes--though narrowed at her in irritation. A small giggle threatened to force its way out and she dropped her blaster back down again, clapping a hand over her mouth. Stars he wasn’t…

A snippet of conversation from the Senate Tower flashed to the forefront of her thoughts. The gossip of a group of senators, talking about a young man with an attitude causing chaos in that day’s Senate meeting. She had been too preoccupied to focus in on the details but Deryn had definitely come up.

“Emeldir Deryn?” She couldn’t keep the laughter out of her voice. “Not the Deryn that had the old senate geezers throwing a fit?” Desperately she tried to reign in her fraying composure, but he looked to uncomfortable now, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck as it turned beet red, creeping into his face. It sent her back into a fit of giggles and she grabbed onto one of the cargo crates, dropping her head down onto her arm. She must look insane to him, but stress was one hell of a drug and of all the kriffing people to work on her ship…

“I’m not a senator.” He muttered defensively, pale eyes meeting her own watering ones with such awkwardness and defiance that she had to clamp her hand over her mouth again, shoulders shaking.

“I mean, you aren’t the only one that’s bad at their job.” She offered with a lopsided, half hearted grin. Teasing the son of the person she had thought could do work on her ship wasn’t the best idea she had ever had, but he wasn’t even meant to be here. And he was so easy to nettle. She straightened, shaking her head and quieting her laughter. Unprofessionalism wouldn’t get her anywhere. And it wouldn’t do Emeldir Deryn any good either, except maybe make him leave faster. Now that was an idea. There wasn’t any more reason to waste the kid’s time. “Look, kid, as great as it is to have company you don’t need to be here.”

“What do you mean? My dad sent me here-”

“Your services aren’t needed. She won’t be my ship soon enough and I don’t have the credits to spend.” She motioned towards the hangar door. “So don’t let me waste your time.” “Why would you want your ship looked at if you're selling?” He really wouldn’t take the hint, would he? She wasn’t here to spin him a wild tale about the details of her bad decisions and even worse actions.

“Circumstances change.” Rielay said, gesturing towards the door again, more firmly this time. “Now please, leave.”

Yet still, he lingered, looking at her ship with a look of deep concentration. His shoulders rose and fell once in a sigh and when he looked back at her he had an eyebrow raised. “I’ll assume you ran short on the credits you thought you had?”

Now, now, that tone implied that she hadn’t thought this through. And she hadn’t, but that was a small details that she could afford to leave out. “Are you implying I’m of the rough and tough smuggling type?” Rielay knew she should be offended and quite probably very worried that he could read her easily after only half a meeting, but she found she could only tilt her head and eye him with incredulity. He looked at her with his other eyebrow creeping up, thoroughly unimpressed.

“Captain Taqq, do you know how many smuggling vessels I’ve worked on? I know you’re not a ‘businesswoman’.” He made air quotes around the fake title she had given herself. “XS freighters aren’t exactly warships or pleasure vessels.”

She most certainly should be angry with him. She’d be lying if she didn’t have a soft spot for guts and sarcasm and instead she held up a hand, shaking a finger. “That’s where you’re wrong. I am a businesswoman, just no the legal kind.” This banter took the weight off her shoulders, the familiar quips and retorts falling easily to mask her stress and almost hid the looming fate of her and her ship.

The corners of his mouth quirked up in the barest hint of a grin. “In any case, if a businesswoman type like yourself were to, say, need a few jobs I may know where to find some.”

Either she was definitely going out of her mind or he was looking just over her shoulder, glancing in her direction as though the words that had come out of his mouth made any sort of sense. Maybe that was even more than the hint of a grin pulling at the corners of his mouth. “You...what?” She held up a hand when his mouth opened. “No, I heard you.”

“Then I suggest we take a look at your ship, before it gets too late.”

So he was serious. Rielay turned slowly, shaking her head slowly. “I...well, sure.” She finally stuttered out, regaining her wits enough to stride ahead of him, spreading her hands out in a grand gesture when she reached the ramp. She wasn’t about to shoot a gift Bordok in the mouth. If this kid was serious--and his eyes read serious like a lit up billboard--then she may have some use for him after all. “Well, this is the Promise. She’s got to be one of the fastest and most nimble freighters you’ll ever see.”

She caught his eyes straying to the dents and spray paint and hopped up on the ramp, growling; Even if he would help her, he wasn’t about to get away with insulting her ship twice in one sitting. “Hey! Eyes up here kid, it’s been a rough trip.”

`“I’m sure.” Emeldir’s eyes scoured the metal one last time before he shook his head. He was unruffled by her sharp tongue now. She glanced at him sideways before stepping into the airlock with the young man close behind. To find someone completely unbothered by her, to even return it in kind was a rare thing. She hadn’t expected to find it in the stuffy upper levels of this rock. “Do you fly solo?”

“I had someone. Things didn’t work out as planned. Just as the installations on my ship didn’t.”She looked around, a frown pulling at her mouth and listened for any the familiar sounds of another body moving around her ship, But it was quiet. A small sigh escaped her lips. She was lonely already and it showed, this was information that this kid had no reason to know.

“What do you need to see here kid?”

He rattled off the information like he had done it several times before. The engine room, or wherever the systems in her ship were kept. For wasting his time, at least he was professional about it. His casual offer still caught her off guard, if he could pull through then this could change everything. But if it was just a cruel joke...well, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to help it if her blaster accidentally misfired.

Two engines stood still on either side of them when they stepped inside the engine room, controlled by a panel in the middle. “The hyperdrive is over there.” She pointed to another removable panel, surrounded by the entrances to her crawlspaces. Hopefully nothing he needed was in those crawlspaces, she had made them for her use only and she doubted he could fold himself small enough to fit. “I don’t know what you’re looking for but the engines have been modded for maximum power and the hyperdrive has been upgraded multiple times. Not necessarily with all standard parts for this model.”

Emeldir went to the left engine, examining it as he spoke. He moved as she had in the shipyards of Coronet City, confident and with ease as though he could do this in his sleep. Impressive. “I need to see the power your vessel is holding,” He noted something to himself under his breath. “So that when installing the new defenses we don’t overload the system or accidentally redirect power from the engines or the hyperdrive. The last thing I want to do is damage your ship.” Another sideways look with the slightest of smirks. Well, wasn’t he just having a field day making subtle jabs at her and her kind. Who knows how many smugglers he had met with an unhealthy attachment to their ships. She was no different and he was taking no small amount of pleasure in needling her about it.

Maybe it was payback for her own teasing of him.

It shouldn’t be this easy for some teenager to so quickly shift her suspicion to good natured irritation. It shouldn’t have been this easy for her to work a favor out of him. He had to be playing a game and Rielay needed to figure out what it was so she could put the power back in her hands. For now though, she’d play along.

“Right..so what’ll be the cost for this system I want. Chridan Deryn didn’t seem too keen to tell me right away.” She asked as Emeldir replaced the panel he had taken out and stood back to his full height. “And tell me more about this offer of yours.”

“Your looking at a lot of credits.” Emeldir looked over his shoulder at the ship’s systems, working his lower lip between his teeth as he did the math in his head. He just ended up shaking his head, drawing a hand slowly across his jaw. “I can’t tell you the exact amounts, not with the small ecosystem of brands you have growing in here.”

If she hadn’t seen his brow wrinkle or his eyes narrow while he tried to calculate all the different costs needed to work around the parts she might have called him out right then and there for trying to cheat her. His doubt appeared genuine, as did his apologetic look. She didn’t peg him as the kind to be a stellar actor and liar. She’d take this chance.

“Okay..so your deal.” She raised her chin and looked up expectantly. “You said you had a work around for a captain in a tight situation?”

He dipped his head, leaning his shoulder against the wall. “I do, though it may not be exactly the work a smuggler is accustomed to.”

She was quick to answer. “Anything is better than the situation I’m in now.” Her fingernails drummed on her arm in a quick, nervous beat. “Though I must say I don’t know what a young kid such as yourself would have for connections.”

Casual, but if he was lying he would catch on it. She hoped, at least, that if he were lying he wouldn’t be able to think fast enough to skim over her tripwire.

Emeldir answered smoothly, crossing his arms in a mirror of her own. If he weren’t an upper levels specimen he could have just as easily fit here, in a smuggler's ship. His mannerisms, if she looked over the accent and refined politeness, wouldn’t look out of place on Nowhere. “You’d be surprised at the people I meet through my father’s business and my mother’s career,” He pushed himself off the wall to pace in the small space, gesturing as he spoke. Despite his smooth answers Rielay could tell he was pulling this plan together as he went, the slight pauses and expressions crossing his face were telling enough.

“There are a lot of senators looking to regain support among the people for the next election but none of them actually want to go down and get their hands dirty enough to help the people that aren’t supporting them. I’m confident most of them will agree to have a..third party do the work in their names, especially since it isn’t fully legal.” A sideways glance was sent her way. She gave a slight nod, waving her hand from him to continue. “Or, depending on how many credits you’ll need there are a few high paying locals that want gang trouble taken care of.”

Gang deals and slightly illegal work? That was her job description in a nutshell. “I’m in. Send me the details and I’ll report back to you in a few days.”

“I’ll give the details, but I have one requirement.” Rielay stiffened, eyes immediately narrowing and her jaw setting.

There it was, the catch in this miracle. What would it be? A cut of the payment, something else? Her voice was clipped. “Oh? And what’s that?”

His brow furrowed in the first sign of doubt she had seen from him in this whole exchange and he looked away briefly before meeting her eyes, To his credit whatever doubt was there was gone, replaced by a firm confidence. “I want to come with you.”

Oh of course--Rielay blinked at him before barking out a strained laugh, “Come again?”

Significantly less sure of himself he shrugged, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “I..want to go with you. On the missions.”

She most certainly was not going to take an untrained, unarmed kid through the underlevels of Coruscant. She wasn’t going to risk a senator’s son by even taking him in the mid levels of this planet. Whatever game he was playing at she wanted no part of. She was having a hard enough time winning her own. “Absolutely not.” Come to think of it, why would he even want to tag along? Most Coruscanti civilians were allergic to the idea of danger. “Why would you even want to?”

“I don’t want to try and get elected as a senator, I don’t even want to finish learning how. I want to help people and you're the one that can help me do that.”

That was almost laughable and Rielay would have snorted in derision had he not been looking at her with all of the excitement of an akk dog pup. He didn’t know what he would be getting into. But, if these were to be multi-step jobs it may not be so bad to have an extra set of hands.

“You’re looking at the wrong woman if you want a means to help people. I don’t help people, I help myself.” She tried to put as much gruffness into her voice as possible. All she had to do was ignore the very story behind Hugo joining her crew and she could almost believe her own lie. “And this isn’t easy work. It gets dangerous.”

It did the exact opposite of her intention, it seemed to solidify his resolve even more. “I understand and I won’t get in your way. It’s a duly beneficial agreement. You get your credits, I don’t have to play at being a senator for a few days.”

Stars why was she even thinking of agreeing to this? She had to pause, think about what was more important; the credits this would surely bring her, or the threat that Emeldir may pose? It took only one glance around her ship for her decision to be made. He was right, as long as he stayed out of her way they wouldn’t have any trouble. Even if he was trying to trick her she could rely on her skills and reflexes to get her out. It was enough of a chance to make her decision the only correct one.

Maybe, she silently thought, he could even use that persuasive tone of his and that boldness to put a few more credits into her hands. She looked up at the ceiling, breathing out in a chuckle before sticking out her hand and meeting those akk-puppy eyes. So this is what rock bottom felt like, shaking hands with a teenager on a deal that had the high chance of getting her arrested for killing a senator. “You’ve got yourself a deal, kid. I expect you back here by six sharp tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll be here. Thank you, Captain Taqq.” Emeldir smiled at her before stepping away and disappearing out of hangar.

No, thank you Emeldir Deryn. Rielay watched him go, waiting until the sound of the lift faded before she spun to face her ship. A grin of her own split her face and she bounced on the balls of her feet before giving in entirely to excitement and leaping into the air, pumping her fist. The Promise could stay hers, these easy credits would guarantee that. Noble men and woman with political careers at state wouldn’t dare back out of a deal. All she had to do was drag the young Deryn around for a few days and then she could get off this rock and get the hunters off her trail.

Rielay looked into her ship from the bottom of the ramp, then down at her chrono quickly. It wasn’t too late for all the shuttles to have left. If she moved fast enough she could find Hugo and bring him back here...back home.

She was on the main floor of the spaceport faster than she could plan, having practically sprinted to the lift and punched the button. By the time she hunted down one of the spaceport employees that worked the shuttle tickets she was nearly out of breath. Her hands whacked the desk as she skidded to a stop. “Is someone named Hugo around here?” She asked quickly. “Tall, blond hair, scars-” She gestured around her face and neck, blinking hopefully up at the employee with a beaming smile to match. “Probably would have approached you a few hours ago. I’m a...close friend and need to talk to him.”

The employee, human, gave her an odd look, taking a step back from the desk to scan through a database listing ticket transactions. She frowned, scrolling before pausing and looking over at Rielay before looking back at the screen. “The shuttle he bought tickets for left a little while ago.”

It felt like Rielay had been punched in the gut and the smile slipped off her face. “Oh..do you know where it was headed? There was a miscommunication, I need to contact him!”

“I’m not authorized to tell you that, ma'am.” The look sent her way might have been sympathetic but Rielay looked away before it could register. She knew what this must look like, something ridiculous that might have come from a romance holo-vid. Two partners have a fight, one leaves.

That wasn’t the case and she barely acknowledged the information that there were halo terminals around she could use to contact him, muttering a thank you before wandering back towards the lift in a daze.

A little bit. She had missed him only by a little bit. On the floor of the hangar she tried to pick up his comm signal, but all she received was static. She threw the piece of technology across the floor, running a hand over her face. A split second decision had ripped the man that had cared for and protected her for years away from his home, turned him out on the streets...just for it to be false alarm.

Five years of loyal service and she had repaid him by throwing it back in his face. Taking out her panic on him just as...Rielay’s hand clamped over her mouth to muffle a cry...just as Zav had taken her anger after the Sacking of Coruscant on her. There would be no apology chance now, no chance for Rielay to tell him she was wrong. No chance for him to come back to her ship as Rielay had been allowed to remain on the Resolution.

Her new line up of jobs that had looked like a perfect miracle had lost some of its shine now that her excitement had been dashed. Saving her own hide, though it had been her goal all along, seemed like less of an achievement with her failure to take care of her crew. Hadn’t she said that crew was family and should always stick together?

If she couldn’t raise his comm signal now he would be long gone from Coruscant by the time she did. She should have thought dammit, let Hugo help her instead of trying to take this on alone.

Her datapad beeped from where she had discarded it on a pile of boxes, drawing her hand away from her face. With leaden steps she trudged over and picked it up. A message flashed across the screen from an unidentified source.

Here are the details you asked for. -Emeldir Deryn

There were several documents attached and she clicked the datapad off, curling her fingers around it. She may not be able to get Hugo back but she could still fix the rest of the mess she had made. And perhaps that could ease the guilt chewing on her heart.

If she could get her ship she could go get Hugo...if he’d even want to return to the Promise. Maybe, at least, she could help him find new work. But first she had to make it through her jobs. One step at a time.

#swtor #Thieving With Dignity #swtor fanfic #my writing #oc: Taqq #oc: Emeldir #oc: Hugo

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marketingonlineconsulting · 6 years

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miguelmarias · 5 years

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Forever falling: Vertigo

For some, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) has always been one of those ‘bedside’ films (as François Truffaut put it, before such a thing could be taken literally) – which means that we store it so well in our minds, and in our hearts, that we can think about it and ‘watch’ it again whenever the mood takes us. We do this to delve a little bit deeper into the film’s inexhaustible and fascinating enigmas, to relive our first impressions and to compare Hitchcock’s film to the rest of filmmaking – if only to reassure ourselves of its status as an unsurpassed peak, making films that hold more prestige for critics and historians seem lesser works by comparison. And yet the truth is that its status as a great work has only been admitted comparatively recently.

None of Hitchcock’s films, for instance, featured in Sight & Sound’s first top ten in 1952, and Vertigo didn’t feature in the 1962 critics’ poll, compiled four years after the film’s release. In fact Vertigo didn’t appear in the poll until 1982, when it came seventh. By 1992 it was up to fourth (and sixth in the newly instigated directors’ poll); then in 2002 it came second (remaining sixth for the directors).

Why did it take so long? Unlike, say, Bicycle Thieves, which was more or less instantly acclaimed as a masterpiece (coming top in the 1952 poll, only four years after its release), films such as Vertigo and John Ford’s The Searchers (1956) initially met with a mixed reception from critics – and with indifference from the public. Which means that, beyond the mere passing of time and the perseverance of their defenders, these works must have something very special about them to have been able to finally impose themselves as great works.

But why, in the case of Vertigo, do we come back again and again, even though the art of cinema and the film’s original audience have changed? The generation that first revered the film has got older and gained experience, but we have also lost illusions and enthusiasm. Why, after watching Vertigo more than, say, 30 times, are we confident that there are things to discover in it – that some aspects remain ambiguous and uncertain, unfathomably complex, even if we scrutinise every look, every cut, every movement of the camera? Why do we never get tired of Hitchcock telling us the story of Scottie Ferguson’s obsession with three people in one – Madeleine Elster, Carlotta Valdes and Judy Barton – even though we know it by heart?

Narrative discoveries

It is generally accepted that Hitchcock was one of the great film narrators. He has long been considered a skilful artisan at the service of his audience, willing to flatter us, and eager to make the biggest profit with his products – a direct concern for him, because he participated in the financing of his films, which meant that his future creative freedom depended on good commercial results. Hitchcock always wanted to keep his hands free so he could make something greater than he’d made before.

The tendency among earlier critics was to try to reduce him to the role of ‘master of suspense’, perhaps because his success sparked off a multitude of inferior imitators. Hitchcock’s narrative discoveries, the structural audacity with which he surprised us – the death of the love interest 70 minutes into Vertigo, or of protagonist Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) 40 minutes into Psycho – all those innovations were considered mistakes by critics then. These were possibilities no other producer would have tolerated; even with Hitchcock’s creative autonomy, few would have dared to attempt them.

Of course Hitchcock understood the importance of dramatic narrative and character conventions. He knew how to play with them and pretend he was complying with them – as when retired policeman Scottie (James Stewart) initiates his investigation of Madeleine Elster (Kim Novak) at the behest of her husband Gavin (Tom Helmore) – so that the spectator, trusting in orthodoxy, would anticipate the position where the director wanted them to be, allowing him to create and dilate that mixture of tension and uncertainty that is ‘suspense’.

Come the time, he also knew how to brutally undermine those conventional expectations (making us realise, for instance, that Scottie has been suckered into the Elster case because of his fatal flaw, the vertigo he has experienced ever since he was left dangling from the edge of a roof during a chase in the film’s opening sequence), leaving the spectator disoriented – and therefore ready to be taken wherever he wanted us to go.

Hitchcock knew that an excess of confusion can distance, that too many explanations can tire and make us lose the thread, that a prolonged vagueness can jeopardise the credibility of a story. Yet he also knew that if one wants to put aside (or forget for a while) the plausible and go deep into the terrain of the extraordinary and the improbable, ambiguity is necessary to preserve a fragile realism – in misè en scene, wardrobe, behaviour. Hitchcock was never spineless in this regard: when he was certain, he would jump in and violate any rule.

This allowed him to dive into the depths of the invisible, the ungraspable, the imperceptible, the unsafe, the weightless, the strange, the impossible (that which worryingly can happen). And this would provide him with the most adequate and efficient tools to lure us into that “momentary suspension of disbelief” of which Coleridge spoke, and elongate it in order for us to immerse ourselves in the inextricable depths of the human being. I won’t use the word ‘soul’, even though I’m sure Hitchcock believed in the existence of something like this.

There is no need to be a Christian to succumb to Hitchcock, just – ever so slightly – Freudian or Jungian. I suspect that Hitchcock, regardless of how sceptically or ironically he considered the jargon of psychoanalysis and its therapeutic virtues, didn’t ignore the theories and the institutions of the different psychoanalytic schools. Subjects that preoccupied and intrigued Sigmund Freud and his followers – such as sexuality and repression, dreams and the Oedipus complex, fear and the ‘lapsus’, lies and masks, sublimation and mythology, jokes, the subconscious and feelings of guilt, the illusion of grandeur and the persecution complex, paternal or authoritarian figures and possessive mothers, the family structure and hereditary features, child fixations and hysteria, hypnotism and schizophrenia, the uncanny and many others – seem like a repertoire of themes that recur in Hitchcock’s filmography.

That said, Catholicism provided Hitchcock with certain variations (or aggravating circumstances) on some of these themes: the notion of sin; the fear of knowledge and of woman as dangerous temptress; the expulsion from Paradise and the shame of the body; the mythologising of virginity and maternity; plagues and the way to the cross; mourning and the cult of the dead; faith in the afterlife and in the resurrection of the flesh; the Ten Commandments and the Seven Deadly Sins as opportunities for transgression and guilt; miracle healing; eternal punishment; the consecration of ‘the wrong man’ in the figure of Christ; confession and its inviolable confidentiality; the inquisition and torture; the devil as seductive and astute being, proudly defiant of the divine supremacy; the conflict between predestination and freedom; the Apocalypse and the Last Judgement…

It would be as ridiculous to deny the importance of Judaeo-Christian obsessions in Hitchcock as it would be to reduce everything to a succession of Catholic dogmas and rituals. These obsessions are the perfect complement, conflictual and partly antithetical – and therefore dialectical, to his psychoanalytic sources of inspiration.

Another even less explored cultural source for Hitchcock – which strengthens the Catholic (which came from his education by the Jesuits) and the Freudian (which he encountered during his film apprenticeship in Weimar-era Germany) – is surrealism. This may be obvious, but in order to highlight it we need to look at the composition and framing, the texture and the combination of his images – above all in the silent part of his British period, chronologically the closest to those encounters.

Like the surrealists, Hitchcock thought that the interior (what happens ‘inside’) and the imaginary (dreamed, remembered or hallucinated) are as real as the external and tangible to which ‘reality’ is normally restricted. The influence here is not primarily literary but rather pictorial, and can be sensed in paintings by Richard Oelze, Max Ernst, Emil Nolde, Dorothea Tanning, Hans Bellmer, and in some of their predecessors, such as Friedrich, Böcklin, Munch and Fuseli.

Lastly, there remains a vision of the world to which this last clue drives us: romanticism. From many spheres – musical, literary, pictorial – and from various places – British, German, Italian, American, Russian – the footprints of romanticism can be detected in Hitchcock’s films. One feels the spectres of Poe, Stevenson, Hawthorne, Melville, George Du Maurier, Emily and Charlotte Brontë, Mary Shelley, Wilkie Collins, Georg Trakl, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Achim von Arnim and Gérard de Nerval.

In the same way, one can hear – under the curiously related melodies composed for his films by such different musicians as Franz Waxman, Hugo Friedhofer, Roy Webb, Maurice Jarre, Miklós Rózsa, Dimitri Tiomkin and above all Bernard Herrmann – measures and harmonies by Wagner, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Richard Strauss, Fauré, Franck, Rachmaninov, Debussy, Britten, early Stravinsky, the Schoenberg of ‘Verklärte Nacht’ (‘Transfigured Night’) – all of them centred in the recreation and transmission of emotions.

For me romanticism – often concealed under a layer of cynicism and humour, as in Lubitsch, Sternberg, Wilder, Ophuls, Stroheim or Mankiewicz – is the key to Hitchcock’s unequalled capacity to unsettle and move the spectator with a degree of implication and intensity that goes beyond a supposed ‘identification’ with the protagonist – an identification that Hitchcock tended to rupture violently and traumatically, and which in general was projected not on to a single (male) person, but on to the couple, at least.

Notorious (1946), for instance, is not the story of Devlin (Cary Grant) – even if its first part is told from his narrative (but not visual) point of view – nor is it that of Alicia (Ingrid Bergman), as the title may make us think; it is the story of that couple – or more so, of the triangle composed by Sebastian (Claude Rains), and the quadrilateral that would include his ominous mother (Leopoldine Konstantin).

More than the drama of the neurotic woman personified by Tippi Hedren, Marnie (1964) narrates her complex relationship with Mark Rutland (Sean Connery), and the no less ambiguous relationship with her mother. Vertigo, of course, is not just the story of Scottie, but also – even more so – of Judy in her different simulations or incarnations, manipulated, feigned, spontaneous or forced.

Seduction manoeuvres

Another reason why Vertigo turns out to be so intriguing, complex and suggestive stems from the fact that it gathers together a strange synthesis of various myths of Western culture, connected to the mystery of artistic creation, which is perhaps the film’s ultimate subject.

The most obvious myth is Pygmalion, combined with the Frankenstein variant of Prometheus; others would include Orpheus and Eurydice, although in a very sombre version, and almost inverted; the double or Döppelganger of the romantics and German expressionists, filtered through the schizoid sieve of Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; the love in death and beyond this world of ‘Tristan and Isolde’ (and it is no coincidence that the ‘Liebestod’ of Wagner’s opera is the audible origin of Herrmann’s score, mainly of the ‘Love Theme’); some vampire tales and the novel Peter Ibbetson by George Du Maurier (not the pale and miscast film version by Henry Hathaway).

Some others could also be mentioned, such as Faust, but what’s interesting here is that it is not a case of showing off cultural references, but of a melancholic and tragic story of love (much more than a detective story), full of multiple resonances that are admirably integrated, and which converge in what Robin Wood, Jean Douchet and Eugenio Trías have considered a parable of creation, and of the mise en scène.

Let’s not forget that Vertigo is a succession of mises en scène and seduction manoeuvres. The first shows us how Gavin Elster, an old friend from student days, requests Scottie’s services as a detective in order to use him in an improbable criminal conspiracy. First he tempts him, like Mephistopheles, with a return to action, restoring Scottie’s lost confidence. Once this route fails, Elster intrigues him with the implausible story of Carlotta Valdes and the power it exerts over his wife Madeleine – a story told in encircling movements, going up and down the different ‘levels’ of his huge office, like the scriptwriter and director who first seduce the producer, then the actors and finally the audience. Elster banks on the fact that – in a third phase, admirably staged in Ernie’s restaurant – Scottie is going to be captivated by the ethereal, ghostly, hieratic and gliding beauty of Madeleine, which will finally convince him to believe such a fantastic tale and accept the mission of following and protecting her.

From the moment he positions himself inside his car at the door of Elster’s mansion and furtively follows Madeleine, Scottie thinks he is directing the second mise en scène. The mix of contemplation and distance and growing curiosity is intoxicating as Scottie, without realising it, starts falling in love with an imaginary person whom he dreams of saving, without ever suspecting that ‘Madeleine’ has been forced to interpret a role. He follows her, bewitched, through different places, each more or less funereal: a flower shop, which she enters through the back door; the cemetery of the Mission Dolores; the museum where she contemplates the portrait of the unfortunate Carlotta; the lonely room in the sinister and desolate McKittrick Hotel (a herald of the house in which Norman Bates coexists with the memory of his mother), in which Madeleine vanishes like a ghost, as if she were a hallucination of Scottie’s.

His unconscious desires start to become a reality when Madeleine throws herself into San Francisco Bay by the Golden Gate, giving him the opportunity to save her like some knight errant – and to feel, as in the Chinese tradition he cites, responsible for her; to take her to his flat, undress her, watch her sleeping and talk to her for the first time. In this phase, a relationship of affinity binds these prowling idlers. They visit different places on the outskirts of San Francisco, exchange confidences, fears and dreams. This phase is consummated – once Scottie is in love with Madeleine – with the unseen murder of Elster’s real wife, presented traumatically to Scottie (and the viewer) as a suicide that he couldn’t prevent.

The third mise en scène takes to the limit the condition of the powerless spectator, which we share with Scottie; it’s a painful repetition, under the effects of the loss or abandonment syndrome of the previous ‘movement’. Like an inconsolable widower, Scottie revisits the places where he first followed and spied on Madeleine from a distance, and those where they were together: the giant sequoias, the solitary coast beaten by the swell and the wind, the Mission San Juan Bautista.

The fourth mise en scène – after a few false alarms that leave us breathless, making our heart skip in rhythm with the wounded and depressed Scottie – starts when the ex-detective bumps into Judy Barton. A shop assistant, she seems carnal, even vulgar – very far from the formal elegance and distinction of Madeleine, who was so pale and whispering, so shy and fragile, so ethereal and disturbed; but in Judy he discovers an echo of the loved and lost image. Now Scottie becomes scriptwriter and producer, director and wardrobe designer, make-up artist and decorator, as he obsessively tries to transform Judy into his Madeleine, taking that resemblance as a starting point, polishing and fine-tuning her into the yearned-for image of his unacceptably lost love.

But Judy is scared, because she knows what Scottie and we still don’t. The key moment of the film – truly revolutionary from the dramatic and narrative point of view – is the revelation (for us the spectators, when we hear Judy writing her confession; Scottie’s realisation will still take a bit longer) of what really happened on the top of the bell tower of the Mission. This is a moment that gives a different sense to everything we think we know, and changes our point of view: we shift from Scottie’s viewpoint – from the sadness and desperation we’ve shared – to Judy’s, which allows us to consider her as a victim.

The fifth mise en scène begins when Judy, trapped by the love she had to feign for Scottie when she was experiencing his so intensely, gives herself away – almost abandons herself to love – with an indirect confession. (It’s difficult to know to what extent it’s conscious on Judy’s part; is she even jealous of the fictitious Madeleine, who was herself?)

When Scottie tries to regain control of the drama – which will now be that of vengeance, as he is determined to force a confession out of Judy – he will drag her to her death. And this is the definitive disappearance of Madeleine that will drive Scottie to the absolute void. In the end, Scottie is left ‘suspended’ over the abyss, just as he was when a compassionate fade-out closed the film’s prologue of the police chase over the roofs of San Francisco.

During this gradual process of spiral ascents and falls, punctuated by ominous low and high angles, we the viewers are successively – or simultaneously – busybodies and onlookers, meddlers and dupes, accomplices and sceptics, co-scriptwriters and extras, witnesses and victims of three machinations: Elster’s, Scottie’s and – above both of them, permanent and masterly – Hitchcock’s.

Miguel Marías

Sight & Sound 2012 poll essay

https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/features/greatest-films-all-time/forever-falling-vertigo

#miguel marías #alfred hitchcock #vertigo #sight & sound

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hermanwatts · 5 years

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Sensor Sweep: D&D Cartoon, Tim Kirk, Lin Carter, Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers

Animated Cartoons (CBR.com): When CBS ordered a series based on the latest trend, fantasy role-playing games, perhaps they didn’t know what awaited them. Debuting on Sept 17, 1983, Dungeons & Dragons (inspired by the game created by

Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and published by TSR) came to air already surrounded by controversy. The game’s use of occult imagery wasn’t the only factor disturbing parents groups. Some even declared it a literal danger to young people.

Art (Black Gate): Tim Kirk, another artist who has had a major professional career, was nominated for Best Fan Writer 8 times in the between 1969 and 1977, winning the Hugo in 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974, and 1976. It would be fair to say that for me, coming into contact with fandom in this period, my image of “fan art” was formed by Tim Kirk’s work, along with two more artists who won for their 1970s work, William Rotsler and Alexis A. Gilliland. (Not to slight the excellent Phil Foglio, but for whatever reason his art didn’t enter my consciousness until later. And Alicia Austin, four-time nominee and 1971 winner, was and is a favorite artist of mine, but for her professional work.)

Fiction Release (DMR Books): DMR Books is proud to present our next release: the picaresque fantasy novel The Road to Infinity by Gael DeRoane. It will be available in digital and trade paperback editions very soon (within the next few days), and the classic size edition (6.5” x 4.25”) should be released before the end of June. Read on for more:

Poised on the brink of manhood, young Aran Dyfar makes a rash and momentous decision that will either elevate him to glory or seal his doom.

History (Barbarian Book Club): “No silver, no Swiss,” commented Gian Trivulzio, a Milanese Condottiero during the Italian Wars. He was talking about the Swiss Mercenaries that served in the armies of the Italian City States. They were expensive and often sieges and sacks depended on the city’s ability to pay foreign soldiers.

A more recent quote “Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics,” quoted to Gen. Robert H. Barrow, Commandant of the USMC.

Fiction (Uproxx.com): Martin is no casual fan of Lovecraft. He regularly cites the writer as one of his earliest reading obsessions. He’s visited

Lovecraft’s grave in Rhode Island, and even wrote some elaborate fan fiction back in 2011 pitting Jaime Lannister against Cthulu in a deathmatch. When George sat down to speak with Stephen King, their conversation kept leading back to Lovecraft’s influence on both of their writing.

Fiction (DMR Books): When I was eleven years old, I preferred Lin Carter’s Jandar of Callisto series to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ books about Mars. Sacrilege I know, and that’s not the case today, but as a kid, I liked that the Callisto books were written in modern language, and the events described not only took place within my lifetime, they were still occurring now, in the 1970s when I was reading them. I could almost believe they were true.

Gaming (Player One): What happens when you have a cyberpunk futuristic world and put in the themes of H.P. Lovecraft? You get the latest offering from Stormling Studios, Transient. Aside from this announcement, Stormling Studios also released a reveal trailer. So what is the game all about? It begins in a distant and post-apocalyptic future. Whatever remains of mankind are now living in the Domed City Providence, an enclosed citadel that was created in order for humans to survive the harsh environment. Amidst all of this, the story focuses on Randolph Carter, a member of ODIN, a hacker-for-hire group.

Robert E. Howard (John C. Wright): The Devil in Iron was published in the August 1934 issue of Weird Tales, several months after the previous story, Queen of the Black Coast. It is the eleventh published story in the Conan canon. We have reached the halfway mark of the published Conan stories completed by Robert E. Howard.

Howard here recycles elements of his own previous stories – there is a magic blade as in Phoenix on the Sword, the sole bane of an otherwise invulnerable eldritch monster, who is a resurrected necromancer as in The Black Colossus.

Comic Books (Paint Monk): Our tale begins as Conan, Bêlit, and Zula battle Stygian warriors in the catacombs of Luxor. As the fight progresses, the trio finds a secret passage that allows them to descend further into the depths beneath the city.

Zula shows some empathy toward the Stygian soldier’s fate – Conan and company are killing them simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Bêlit declares she will kill any Stygian, because they were the people who helped her Uncle overthrow and kill her Father.

History (Real Crusade History): Henry was born May 3, 1217, the third child but the first son of King Hugh I of Cyprus and his queen Alice de Champagne. (Alice was the daughter of Isabella I of Jerusalem and her third husband Henri de Champagne.) When Henry was just eight months old, his father died suddenly, while absent from the kingdom on the Fifth Crusade. According to the constitution of the kingdom, a minor king’s regent was his nearest relative resident in the Latin East, in this case, Henry’s mother Alice de Champagne. However, Alice showed remarkably little interest in wielding political power.

Fiction (Eldritch Paths): I was reading The King Beyond the Gate, the second book in David Gemmell’s Drenai Saga. I really enjoyed the larger-than-life heroes in Gemmell’s first book, Legend. Druss the Legend was an awesome character, taking on scores of baddies and coming up on top. Even the leader of the enemy invasion force respected the strength and sheer force of will that was Druss. I was expecting, no, wanting more of the same from the second book. Most of this second book seemed to deliver.

RPG (Pulp Rev): Designing for games is vastly different from designing for stories.

Readers engage a prose story through the plot, characters, and prose. The writer guides them on a journey in the mind, directing the story from start to finish.

Gamers engage a game through its mechanics. By playing as their avatar, they create their own experience.

Readers and gamers have different ways of approaching their chosen media. The requirements of these media lead to different design choices.

Writing (Mad Genius Club): Write the soldier as he (or she) is, not as you wish to caricature them, not as your narrative demands. Haven’t served in the military? Start looking through your list of friends for somebody who has. Sit down and ask them questions (bring drinks), listen and be respectful. See, contrary to popular belief, we will talk. If you show yourself to be trustworthy, we’ll tell you the unvarnished truth about life in the service. What hurt, what sucked, what made us laugh, made us cry, made us mad, made us happy, what made it home for us.

RPG (Brain Leakage): About three or four sessions into my current campaign, I noticed that my players didn’t really like the abstract nature of D&D combat. No matter how much narration and dramatizing I did, combat just felt too passive to them. Specifically, they wanted to do something besides stand there and take it while the enemy rolled against their AC. Now, one thing I’ll say in favor of D&D combat RAW. It’s streamlined. And if the players are happy enough to fill in the blanks by imagining feints, dodges, and other maneuvers happening in between declared actions and combat rolls, then it’s fine.

T.V. (Pulpfest): Rod Serling’s THE TWILIGHT ZONE ran on CBS from 1959 to 1964. It remains in syndication to this very day. A new version of the series — narrated by filmmaker Jordan Peele — premiered on CBS All Access on April 1, 2019. Sixty years after its original debut, Rod Serling’s remarkable creation is still very much embedded in the public consciousness.

The creator of THE TWILIGHT ZONE was born on December 25, 1924 in Syracuse, New York. His brother, the late novelist and aviation writer Robert Serling, said: “We were fairly close as kids and we played together a hell of a lot, despite the seven-year difference. The two of us used to read AMAZING STORIES, ASTOUNDING STORIES, WEIRD TALES — all of the pulps. If we saw a movie together, we’d come home and act it out, just for the two of us.”

Lit Crit (George Kelley): Just by chance, I stumbled across this 1976 Arkham House edition of L. Sprague de Camp’s wonderful Literary Swordsman and Socerers at my local public library. I immediately took it out and read it. De Camp’s informational essays on these fantasy writers made me want to drop everything and reread some of the great books by these authors. I’m a big fan of Lord Dunsany, but I haven’t read more than a fraction of his oeuvre. I’ve read most of Lovecraft, but I can always pick up one of his collections and find delight in its pages.

Sensor Sweep: D&D Cartoon, Tim Kirk, Lin Carter, Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

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