#Sf Nicolae

[acumtv]

DARURI DE SFÂNTUL NICOLAE: ASOCIAȚIA PATMOS ÎNCĂLZEȘTE SUFLETELE COPIILOR NEVOIAȘI

DARURI DE SFÂNTUL NICOLAE: ASOCIAȚIA PATMOS ÎNCĂLZEȘTE SUFLETELE COPIILOR NEVOIAȘI Și în acest an, Asociația Patmos din Onești aduce zâmbete și speranță copiilor aflați în dificultate. Prin proiectul „Fii și tu Nicușor!”, lansat de preotul Ioan Bîrgăoanu, micuții primesc ghetuțe, papucei și șosete, dar și dulciuri, de sărbătoarea Sfântului Nicolae. „Cu ajutorul Milostivului Dumnezeu, toate…

[zippocreed501]

The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)

directed by Nicolas Roeg

[f1archives]

Charles Leclerc with Nicolas Longuet - Zandvoort, 2024

[gollancz]

I realise there is something... deeply ironic and contradictory about being a publisher and talking about the books we sell on a post about anti-capitalism, and there's definitely a level of cognitive dissonance here. BUT. Gollancz has a history of publishing left wing, radical authors and alongside Ms Le Guin, I wanted to just flag some other phenomenal anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist, anti-establishment SFF we have, by some other amazing authors.

Some of these are anti-war, some a commentary on gender and sexuality, others on colonialism, poverty, and the rise of right wing powers. SFF has some powerful writers, and they have been watching, and writing, for many, many years.

GRASS by Sheri S. Tepper - What could be more innocuous than grass? Or more idyllic than a world covered with a wind-whipped ocean of verdant plains? But the planet Grass conceals horrifying secrets within its endless pastures. And as an incurable plague attacks all inhabited planets but this one, the prairie-like Grass begins to reveal these secrets – and nothing will ever be the same again … Considered to be among one of Sheri S. Tepper’s best works, Grass was nominated for both the Hugo and Locus awards. It explores ideas of colonisation, class and sits as part of a rich culture of feminist SF. In 2015, Tepper received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement.

AMMONITE by Nicola Griffith -

Change or die. These are the only options available on the planet Jeep. Centuries earlier, a deadly virus shattered the original colony, killing the men and forever altering the few surviving women. Now, generations after the colony has lost touch with the rest of humanity, a company arrives to exploit Jeep – and its forces find themselves fighting for their lives.

Terrified of spreading the virus, the company abandons its employees, leaving them afraid and isolated from the natives. In the face of this crisis, anthropologist Marghe Taishan arrives to test a new vaccine. As she risks death to uncover the women’s biological secret, she finds that she, too, is changing – and realizes that not only has she found a home on Jeep, but that she alone carries the seeds of its destruction …

AMMONITE won the James Tiptree Jr. award (now known as the Otherwise award) and the Lambda award, both in recognition of its exploration of gender and contribution to works by and about LGBTQ+ communities.

THE FEMALE MAN by Joanna Russ - Joanna. Jeannine. Janet. Jael. Four women, four worlds, four vastly different societies. When these women are suddenly able to communicate with each other through the boundaries of dimensions, they are confronted with what could have been if one thing changed in history. And they find themselves looking at their own worlds with new eyes. Acclaimed as one of the essential works of science fiction, The Female Man examines gender roles in society and remains a work of great power. It won a retrospective James Tiptree Jr. Award and a 2002 Gaylactic Spectrum Hall of Fame award.

GATEWAY by Frederik Pohl - Wealth … or death. Those were the choices Gateway offered. Humans had discovered this artificial spaceport, full of working interstellar ships left behind by the mysterious, vanished Heechee. Their destinations are preprogrammed. They are easy to operate, but impossible to control. Some came back with discoveries which made their intrepid pilots rich; others returned with their remains barely identifiable. It was the ultimate game of Russian roulette, but in this resource-starved future there was no shortage of desperate volunteers. Winner of the Hugo, Locus, Nebula and John W. Campbell awards, Gateway begins Pohl’s space operatic Heechee saga. He was hugely influential in SF as an author but also an agent and editor, and his career spanned decades.

KAIROS by Gwyneth Jones -

London. Early 21st Century. A Conservative government is in power in the UK, bringing increased wealth disparity, an ever-more militant police state, and rising civil discontent as the wealthy govern for themselves rather than the people.

But BREAKTHRU – a pharmaceutical company turned religious cult – have the answer. They call it Kairos.

Kairos allows the user to not just see a different world, but shape the world to their very will. Perfect for a cult of like-minded individuals. Disastrous when it is exposed to the general public.

As disparate groups of people try to shape the world into their own image, reality itself is placed under threat. With society so divided, is there any way to pull the world back together?

THE FOREVER WAR by Joe Haldemann - Private William Mandella is a reluctant hero in an interstellar war against an unknowable and unconquerable alien enemy. But his greatest test will be when he returns home. Relativity means that for every few months’ tour of duty centuries have passed on Earth, isolating the combatants ever more from the world for whose future they are fighting. The Earth he knew is dead. The one he returns to . . . unrecognisable. Winner of the Nebula, Locus and Hugo awards, The Forever War was the first title selected for the SF Masterworks series when it launched in 1999. Inspired by Haldeman’s experience in the Vietnam War, it has been seen as a critical work of anti-war SF.

NATIVE TONGUE by Suzette Haden Elgin -

Set in the twenty-second century after the repeal of the Nineteenth Amendment, the novel reveals a world where women are once again property, denied civil rights, and banned from public life. In this world, Earth’s wealth relies on interplanetary commerce, for which the population depends on linguists, a small, clannish group of families whose women breed and become perfect translators of all the galaxies’ languages. The linguists wield power, but live in isolated compounds, hated by the population, and in fear of class warfare. But a group of women is destined to challenge the power of men and linguists.

Nazareth, the most talented linguist of her family, is exhausted by her constant work translating for the government, supervising the children’s language education in the Alien-in-Residence interface chambers, running the compound, and caring for the elderly men. She longs to retire to the Barren House, where women past childbearing age knit, chat, and wait to die. What Nazareth does not yet know is that a clandestine revolution is going on in the Barren Houses: there, word by word, women are creating a language of their own to free them of men’s domination. Their secret must, above all, be kept until the language is ready for use. The women’s language, Láadan, is only one of the brilliant creations found in this stunningly original novel, which combines a page-turning plot with challenging meditations on the tensions between freedom and control, individuals and communities, thought and action.

SWASTIKA NIGHT by Murray Constantine - SWASTIKA NIGHT takes place seven hundred years after Nazism achieved power, by which time Adolf Hitler is worshipped as a god. Elsewhere, the Japanese rule the Americas, Australia, and Asia. Though Japan is the only rival superpower to the Nazi West, their inevitable wars always end in stalemate. The fascist Germans and Japanese suffer much difficulty in maintaining their populations, because of the physical degeneration of their women. The protagonist is an Englishman named Alfred on a German pilgrimage. In Europe, the English are loathed because they were the last opponents of Nazi Germany in the war. Per official history, Hitler is a tall, blond god who personally won the war. Alfred is astounded when shown a secret, historic photograph depicting Hitler and a girl before a crowd. He is shocked that Hitler was a small man with dark hair and a paunch. And his discovery may mean his death…

THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN IN 1937. I cannot emphasise that enough.

[emmadesignstuff]

BASE SIMS #5

-> They are not dressed, it's only base sims so you can choose the outfits and the body structure, they only have hair and makeup as you see them :) (I put basic EA clothes)

NICOLE (sfs, mediafire) // OLIVIA (sfs, mediafire)

NICOLAS (sfs, mediafire) // MADISON (sfs, mediafire)

KAYLA (sfs, mediafire) // JORDAN (sfs, mediafire)

TIPH (sfs, mediafire) // CHRISTY (sfs, mediafire)

KLOE (sfs, mediafire) // ALESSIO (sfs, mediafire)

You just have to put the .package in your Mods folder

Let me know if you have any issues

special thanks to @sourlemonsimblr for her face masks because it changes everything!!!

[theatheistgirl]

"And you're criticizing my dress sense‽"

Caption This!

[remnantglow]

hi! sorry to bother! any sci fi recommendations with women in them? gay women would slap but i don’t want to be too demanding.

that is not too demanding at all! all of these are heavily focused on women & almost all have gay protags:

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone - poetic romance novella about two women on opposing sides of a war spanning all of time, unfolding through letters

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson* - a tense, dark story about a world in which travel between parallel universes is monopolized, and a woman who is dead in almost every single one

Ammonite by Nicola Griffith - 90s lesbian/feminist scifi classic; thoughtful social sci-fi set on a world where a virus killed off all men and most of the women, about an anthropologist who's come to study the inhabitants and test a vaccine

The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey - domestic thriller about a brilliant scientist whose husband clones her to make a "better" (more docile & housewife-y) version of her - and is then killed by the clone, leaving the two women to cover up the murder

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling - unsettling, claustrophobic horror about a caver on an alien world, her untrustworthy handler being her only contact with the surface world

The Fortunate Fall by Cameron Reed* - bleak, heartwrenching 90s cyberpunk about a lesbian news reporter in a dystopian regime who uncovers more than she bargained for

Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki* - emotional & hopeful scifi/fantasy mix about a trans violin prodigy, her teacher who has a deal with the devil, and an alien running a donut shop

some more, rapid-fire: Dawn by Octavia Butler* (iconic classic sf, first contact); The Telling by Ursula K. Le Guin (social sf, envoy-on-alien-world); The Seep by Chana Porter (utopian, unique take on alien invasion); The Splinter in the Sky by Kemi Ashing-Giwa (space opera, spy thriller); The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart (time travel, murder mystery); The Outside by Ada Hoffman (cosmic horror); Gearbreakers by Zoe Hana Mikuta (dystopian YA, mecha); Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy* (classic sf, time travel)

(*books with an asterisk are ones I'd particularly recommend looking up the content warnings for, as they can get quite heavy)

[romaniasweetromania]

Oraşul a fost, timp de trei săptămâni, capitala Imperiului ţarist. Este cunoscut, din motive întemeiate, cu nume precum „Oraşul lui ce bei?“, „Cimitirul bombardierelor“ sau "Orașul celor 1000 de baruri".

[vintagelasvegas]

Stratosphere, 1996-

Timeline of World Famous Million-Dollar Historic Gambling Museum, Vegas World, and Stratosphere.

VEGAS WORLD '79-'95

'74: Bob Stupak opens World Famous Million-Dollar Historic Gambling Museum and Casino. The casino is closed a month later, and the site is later used for Vegas World and Stratosphere.

'79: Vegas World opens 7/13/79 with a casino and 8-story tower.

'84: 24-floor tower opens.

'90: Stupak unveils “Vegas World Stratosphere Tower” plans in Feb. Conceived by Stupak, preliminary designs were done by AdArt’s Charles Barnard. The architect was Ned Baldwin.

'91: Groundbreaking ceremony (Stupak, J. Jones, S. Miller) on 11/5/91. Leeman Corp., contractor. Concrete pour Mar. ’92.

'93: Perini Building Co. takes over as contractor. Stratosphere Corp. formed, separate from Vegas World, Stupak as chairman. Fire on the tower construction site, 8/30/93. Grand Casinos Inc partners in Stratosphere Corp.

'94: Public stock sale. Height of the tower raised to 1,149 feet. Taylor Int’l takes over as contractor.

'95: Vegas World closed 2/1/95. Tower crane removed in Sep. Topped off via helicopter 11/4/95.

STRATOSPHERE '96-

'96: Stratosphere opens 4/30/96. Las Vegas City Council approves Stupak’s concept for King Kong mechanical ape ride in Feb., idea dropped by summer.

'97: Stratosphere Corp. files for Ch. 11 bankruptcy protection.

'98: Carl Icahn purchases the resort, has the remaining hotel rooms finished by 2001. Ownership transferred to Icahn’s American Casino & Ent. Properties (ACEP) in 2004.

'08: Whitehall Street Real Estate Funds buys ACEP & Stratosphere.

'12: Golden Ent. buys ACEP & Stratosphere.

Circa '90 rendering of the tower by Jack DuBois, AdArt, taken from Charles Barnard’s book The Magic Sign.

Circa '90 illustration by Jack Dubois & Nicolas Casella, AdArt. Illustration shared by Casper Wise.

Nick Casella “started his artistic career in Hollywood working on movies … Ultimately, he made it back to the SF Bay Area where he found work with Electrical Products Corp., which became Federal in 62, and then Ad Art in 78. Nick became the Art Director for Ad Art in the Bay Area.” - Heather David.

Stratosphere, day and night, c. 1996

[gentlebeardsbarngrill]

12/05-06/2024 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; Rhys Darby; Taika Waititi; Con O'Neill; Vico Ortiz; Nathan Foad; Kristian Nairn; Samba Schutte; David Fane; Nat Faxon; Alex Sherman; Guz Khan; Minnie Driver; Netflix on Bsky; Fan Spotlight: Ruby Deluxe Raleigh; Love Notes

= Rhys Darby =

As usual, lots going on with our Pirate Captain! He was out in Portland for two days and had a blast!

It looks like Sketch Fest has added a second show at the Gateway Theatre on January 22nd!

Rhys also ran into a fan who's been coming to shows for years!

Source: SF Sketch Fest / Instagram

= Darby Daily Doodle =

The epic continues!

Source: Rhys Darby's Free substack

= Taika Waititi =

Taika's been very busy too, as per usual! More pictures from his Koko Foundation appearance!

Source: My Beautiful City

This is just a quick picture of Taika from one of the recent Letters Live performances! Not sure if it's new or not but it's new to me so I wanted to share!

Source: Letters Live Instagram

Next up, Belvedere Vodka did some BTS with Taika! You can watch the video here.

Source: Belvedere Vodka Instagram

Taika and Jemaine's show, What We Do In the Shadows is up for 4 Critics Choice Awards! Best comedy series, best actress, actor, and supporting actor in a comedy series! Check out the Article here.

Source: Choice Awards

= Con O'Neill =

Con sent a shot of himself after he made it to Columbus!

Did you know he's got even more swag up on Stands? Now there are Hand signed autographs of THAT scene in s2! Check it out! Hand Signed Autograph on Stands.com

Source: Con O'Neill's Instagram

= Joel Fry =

Joel is going to be joining Ncuti Gatwe, and Nicola Coughlan for this years Doctor Who Christmas Special! check out the trailer below!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Doctor Who (@bbcdoctorwho)

Source: BBCWho on Instagram

= Vico Ortiz =

Some New S2 BTS from Vico! Buttons Character vs Buttons the Stuntman, Nathan and Ewen and Con giggling? Vico spoils us! Check them out on Vico's Patreon.

Source: Vico's Patreon

= Nathan Foad =

Nathan also sent out an arrival photo once he got into Columbus!

Souce: Nathan's Instagram Stories

= Kristian Nairn =

Same with Kristian! they love letting us know when they arrive places!

Source: Kristian's Instagram

= Samba Schutte =

More BTS from Samba's Advanced Chemistry Movie! Thank you as always to the writer, Alec Moore for sharing them! I realize they don't have Samba in them persay, but I thought they were pretty cool-- and Alec is a huge fan and support of OFMD! If you have seen the film and haven't reviewed it yet on amazon, please do! I know they are still looking for reviews here!

"When I saw the @advancedchemmov.bsky.social art department's collection of props that they brought to life from my crazy imagination, I literally teared up. And then Samba-- literally teared up for a scene. The difference is he was acting. "

Source: Alec Moore's Bsky

= David Fane =

Awhimai Fraser, David Fane, and Temuera Morrison were very busy interviewing at several AUS & Aotearoa NZ press junkets!

Source: awhimai_fraser instagram

An interview with ScreenRealm with about their favorite songs in Moana 2!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Screen Realm (@screen_realm)

They were also interviewed by Draw Your Box about Moana 2 and they got to discuss some Cricket for a bit!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Alicia Vrajlal (@leeshiev)

and just for fun, I couldn't resist sharing David Fane laughing so giddly, you can really hear Fang in there.

Source: awhimai_fraser's Instagram

= Nat Faxon =

Our fantastic Swede, Nat Faxon is joining the cast of the (US version of) Ghosts Season 4 as Alexander Hamilton!

Source: Variety

= Alex Sherman =

Our sweetheart writer, Alex Sherman, is campaigning for a really amazing cause. He's created a fundraiser to help sponsor a free 1 week camp for kids who've lost a parent, sibling or caregiver. They've reached their goal, but it can't hurt to help kids in need if you're interested. Alex was a counselor there in the past and he continues to support these kids <3

https://give.experiencecamps.org/fundraiser/5933654

Source: Alex Sherman's twitter

= Guz Khan =

Guz just taking silly pictures with friend Haroon Mota!

Source: Guz's Instagram

= Minnie Driver =

Minnie was out slaying after her bout of Pneumonia!

Source: Minnie's Instagram

= Netflix on Bluesky =

Netflix officially joined bluesky back on the 3rd, and our resident Skyrates-- or whatever it is we're calling them these days-- started in the adoption requests again! If you have a Bluesky and you'd like to join the fun, remember to add the hashtag #OurFlagMeansDeath, #SaveOFMD, #AdoptOurCrew!

== Fan Spotlight ==

= Ruby Deluxe Raleigh =

There's been a request by several of our crew members to help out this wonderful gay bar in Raleigh. If you have some time this Saturday December 14th, at 9 PM and you're in the area, would you be kind enough to help out? "Hey friends! Ruby Deluxe, the gay bar that hosted our Calypso's birthday meetup at Galaxycon Raleigh, is asking for some help to stay running. If you can, consider making a donation or spread the word (or come through if you're local!)" Links to Socials

Source: Kate on Bsky

== Love Notes ==

Hey there lovelies. I really am so late on this one, I'm sorry. It's been a lot lately. I know it has been for a lot of you too. I don't wanna hold this recap up any longer, so here's some love notes from SelfLoveRainbow <3

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dominee Calderon (@selfloverainbow)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dominee Calderon (@selfloverainbow)

Source: SelfLoveRainbow Instagram

[renlishsims]

Nicola Yates Feelin’ cute, might dress EVERTHING pink.  Heh. A rare complete wardrobe from me with a very obvious theme and WAY too much CC for me to list individually.

**DOWNLOAD HERE** (SFS, no ads, CC included - all working at time of posting.)

CC links after the cut.

CC Links Genetics

Comet Eyes / @twisted-cat

Cleavage Overlay / @northernsiberiawinds

Face Highlight / @emmibouquet

Eyebrows / @thepeachyfaerie

Amaya Hair / @gegesimmer

Skin Overlay N25 / @obscurus-sims

Full Body Moles / @lamingtonsims

Kelly Hair / @gegesimmer

Makeup

Thanks to my favourites, @remussirion , @crypticsim , @twisted-cat , @dangerouslyfreejellyfish

Everyday

Alyra Trousers / @its-adrienpastel *No link available, 2022 collection, I think.

Golden Goose Sneakers (Recolor) / @missrubybird

Ola Top / @serenity-cc

Formal

Remas Silk Dress  / @belaloallure3

Asha Pumps / @dallasgirl79

Party

Daffodile Pumps / @dallasgirl79

Taria Pants / @liliili-sims4

Bandeau / @emmibouquet

Swimming

Kori Top /  @aharris00britney

Embellished Leather Slides / @jius-sims

Thea Bikini Bottom / @trillyke

Sports

Chai Top / @viiavi

Ava Shorts / @aharris00britney

Socks / @kismet-sims

Fitness Sneakers / @serenity-cc

Bedtime

Opium Tee  / @sentate

Leggings / @emmibouquet

Hot Weather

Platform Sandals 05 / @jius-sims

Nina Skirt / @simstrouble

Strapless Bra Accessory / @trillyke

Lelia Blouse / @clumsyalienn

Cold Weather

Aspen Boots / @dallasgirl79

Pufferhead Scarf / @mlyssimblr

Cozy Cardigan / @rusty-cc

Pez Jeans / @saurusness

________

With thanks: @mmoutfitters , @maxismatchccworld, @s4lookbookgallery, @mmfinds

[atitudini]

Întrebări capcană din Sf. Scriptura. Sf. Nicolae Velimirovici: Întrebări și răspunsuri

  1. Care este prima icoană a lui Dumnezeu pe pământ? Prima icoană vie a lui Dumnezeu pe pământ este omul, Adam. Continue reading Untitled

[justforbooks]

David Lynch: the great American surrealist who made experimentalism mainstream

From disturbing debut Eraserhead to his masterpiece Mulholland Drive, Lynch’s dark tales combined radical experiment with everyday Americana

No director ever interpreted the American Dream with more artless innocence than David Lynch. It could be the title of any of his films. Lynch saw that if the US dreamed of safety and prosperity and the suburban drive and the picket fence, it also dreamed of the opposite: of escape, danger, adventure, sex and death. And the two collided and opened up chasms and sinkholes in the lost highway to happiness.

Lynch was a film-maker who found portals to alternative existences and truffled in them like they were erogenous zones, moist orifices of existential possibility. He was the great American surrealist, but his vision was so distinctive that he became something other than that: a great fabulist, a great anti-narrative dissenter, his storylines splitting and swirling in non sequiturs and Escher loops. Lynch was unique, in that he took a tradition of experimentalism in movies such as Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid’s Meshes of the Afternoon and brought it into the commercial mainstream, mixing it with pulp noir, soap opera, camp comedy, erotic thriller and supernatural horror.

Who did Lynch most resemble? Maybe Luis Buñuel from the pioneering 1920s, Douglas Sirk from the Hollywood 1940s, Alejandro Jodorowsky from the counterculture 1970s. Or maybe Edward Hopper (whose painting Office at Night has something Lynchian to it) or Andrew Wyeth and his mysterious midwest tableau Christina’s World. But ���Lynchian” could as well mean mainstream or even conservative. Lynch himself was not joking when he talked about his pride at being an Eagle scout in his boyhood.

And he could direct conventionally plotted (if generically freaky) films such as The Elephant Man, with John Hurt as the exploited Victorian fairground attraction, and his adaptation of Frank Herbert’s SF standard Dune – and even the emotional and gentle The Straight Story (whose title concedes its outlying quality), based on the true story of an old man who drove his lawn tractor from Iowa to Wisconsin to visit his estranged brother. Lynch was always passionate about Americana, and Steven Spielberg shrewdly cast Lynch as the western movie legend John Ford in his film The Fabelmans.

Yet with films such as his disturbing, sepulchral debut Eraserhead and (what for me is his masterpiece) Mulholland Drive, a dark fantasia of Hollywood despair, he showed that the challenge to normality was itself erotic. He underlined it with the throbbing and groaning sound design and inspired musical scores from his longtime collaborator, composer Angelo Badalamenti. I will always remember after the first showing of Mulholland Drive in 2001, all of us dizzy and jittery with how very sensual and strange it had been, how witty and how erotic.

Perhaps most remarkably of all, Lynch’s ongoing smallscreen project Twin Peaks anticipated by decades today’s cultural prestige of streaming longform television. And in fact none of today’s Sopranos and Mad Men match Twin Peaks for auteur television. Watch the first two seasons of Twin Peaks from the 90s, the story of a straight-arrow FBI man (played by Kyle MacLachlan) investigating the metaphysical mystery of a violent murder, and see how the second ends with a promise to pick up the story in 25 years’ time – and it actually did. The brightly lit, theatrically soapy look of 90s TV drama was replaced in the third season by the darker, gloomier look of 21st-century high-class TV production. But it was Lynch, through and through.

“This whole world’s wild at heart and weird on top!” wails Laura Dern’s distraught Lula in Lynch’s Wild at Heart, anguished in her wretched motel bedroom, pregnant with her lover’s child – that is, the convicted killer Sailor, a Presleyesque figure played by Nicolas Cage. It’s actually not quite a description of the world as Lynch sees it. In the macabre Blue Velvet from 1986, the world is normal on top, weird underneath, but these layers can’t exist without each other. A clean-cut guy played by MacLachlan, walking home in a suburban American utopia, finds a severed ear on the ground: a symbol, perhaps, of the director’s own hypersensitive perception of underground stirrings and the hidden America. Soon this man is to conceive an obsession with a nightclub singer: part of Lynch’s own longstanding obsession with secret cabarets and occult theatrical rituals, and his particular rapture for the red curtain, rippling and stirring with the mystery it conceals. A Freudian image, yes, but maybe Lynchian is the superseding adjective.

Lost Highway, in 1997, was one of his doppelganger hallucinations, in which Bill Pullman’s troubled sax player and his wife (Patricia Arquette) are terrified by an anonymous tormentor who leaves video cassettes on their doorstep with footage of the outside of their house – an idea later borrowed by Michael Haneke in his movie Hidden.

But for me Mulholland Drive is his masterpiece of eroticism and despair, a brilliant riff on how in Hollywood disillusion is a toxic-waste byproduct of the dream factory. The relationship of Naomi Watts’s saucer-eyed ingénue and Laura Harring’s enigmatic troubled woman is one of the great fraught friendships of modern American cinema.

I myself met Lynch only once, and that was online: a video-linked Q&A for the unveiling of his photographs at the Photographers’ Gallery in London. One of the questioners was someone who had been a walk-on in The Elephant Man and Lynch was instantly hugely excited and insisted on her being brought up to the platform so that he could see her face; he could hardly be persuaded not to simply make the rest of the evening his reminiscences with her. Lynch was always plotting ways to smuggle his audience into new territories of fear, desire and pleasure.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[changingplumbob]

Nicolas Caldwell

Trying @cawthorntales bachelor challenge to woo Mr Bloom

Download from SFS (only cc are his lashes. He was made with the Waterdrop eyes so I'm not sure if his eye colour is custom but it should be whatever swatch looks grey and blue). For him to have all his outfits you'll need: Werewolves, Cats & Dogs, Romantic Garden and Cottage Living.

Forget that I often make self assured and confident sims because Nicolas is anything but...

Tell us a bit about yourself.

Oh shoot I should have figured that would be a question. Umm, I'm Nicolas, which I mean you probably know from the application. Ah, I'm what's called a military brat. My parents are both in the military and did a whole bunch of postings as I was growing up so we were never in one place for very long. It's made me kind of shy I guess, I'm not great at relating to others. I have one sister, Teresa, she's a decade younger than me but we get along.

And why have you applied?

Funny story. Well not really. Ah my younger sister Teresa actually applied for me. I consider myself pansexual but I've only ever been romantically attracted to guys. That was not a fun conversation with my father. But he's fine abut it now. What was I saying? Oh yeah, Teresa. She keeps telling me I need a boyfriend so I don't turn in to a hermit, I've had to shut down several fake dating profiles she's made on my behalf. I told her I'm shy, and the idea of being on camera all day scares me, and having to compete... But I don't want to let her down, she was so excited my application got accepted.

Tell us about some of your likes and dislikes

I'm a bit animal mad, it's what made me become vegetarian. As much as I like being outside hiking, gardening, bird watching... I cannot stand fishing. I just feel so bad for the poor fish, like what a terrible way to die. And even if you throw them back they're probably freaking out thinking they were abducted, and they are definitely still injured from the hook! Sorry... I don't mean to lecture I just... I like animals okay. You can fish all you like just don't expect me to join.

I'm a little bit musical. I mean I don't perform for anyone but myself and occasionally Teresa. Mum tried to get me in to violin but it was so boring. Guitar is my instrument. Well, musical instrument not... you know. Ah... I did a programming course after high school that was not for me, and I'm rather useless at fixing or making things. Except baking! I do like baking. I've definitely got a sweet tooth.

What are you dreading?

People. You'd probably think with having to introduce myself new places so many times it wouldn't worry me but it does. I'm pretty quiet so people can think I'm being a snob when really I just have no idea what to say. Is there a gender neutral or masculine term for resting bitch face? And I don't know if I can take my guitar. Playing it is what calms me down. Well that and cloudgazing. So hopefully the weather is good and I can get outside between challenges. I've really no idea how this show works. Also worried about losing my contacts but that's an everyday worry.

What are you looking forward to?

I mean.. Teresa showed me the picture of Daisy and yeah he's good looking. Those eyes, I just completely missed what she told me right after because I was dreaming. She also said he wasn't actually organizing it so I really really hope he can understand this all being a surprise for me because it's one for him to. And she said he has farm animals! I want to meet them. Hopefully they'll like me and that can convince him I'm a keeper.

Do you have a message for Mr Bloom?

Oh, ah, sure! Umm... hey there good looking. Give me a chance to show you I'm certified boyfriend material. Well not certified because I've never had a boyfriend. *BLEEP* I didn't mean to say that, I don't want the other contestants knowing. Can I start the message again?

EDIT: Turns out he should have green hair... the save file is his brunette look but on the show he will look more like...

[utilitycaster]

Something I am wondering about actually is the long-term effect of the lava bath on Ashton, since it sounds like it did change some of their cracks but not all. I've mentioned Starless as a great book to check out before, and in this interview the author, Jacqueline Carey, talks about the implications of magically healing a disability (specifically as discussed by Nicola Griffith, an SF writer with Multiple Sclerosis); my thought is that it probably improved but did not entirely cure his pain.