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joachimnapoleon · 4 years ago

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May I ask you the question on a rather delicate topic (which bothers me from time to time, when I stumble upon Murat’s mentions in Poniatowski’s biographies etc.)? It is often repeated that they resembled each other in some areas, like their love for parties, dances, horses and women...

So my question will be on that, latter topic.

We all know about Caroline, but what about other women in Joachim’s life? Did he have other significant “love interests”? Was Caroline the first woman he proposed to? Did he... cheat on her???

If you know anything on the topic could you please share it with us? ))) (Because I am very curious why did prince Murat earn such a reputation ;)

Thanks in advance!

Oooh this is going to be a fun one. :)

Murat did acquire quite a reputation for womanizing. Napoleon would say on Saint Helena that Murat "needed women like he needed food." On another occasion (and for some reason Napoleon returned to the subject of Murat's sex life on numerous occasions) he exclaimed "How many mistakes did Murat not commit in order to establish his headquarters in a chateau where there were women! He needed them every day, so I readily tolerated a general having a whore with him, in order to avoid this inconvenience." (From Gourgaud's diary, 3 April 1817.) Apparently Napoleon was quite fixated on this subject because Bertrand records similar remarks from him in an undated note assumed to be from some time in 1820: "Murat supposedly needed a woman each night, but every woman was good to him, and nothing stopped him, whether she had the pox or not." (Vol. 2 of Bertrand's Cahiers de Sainte-Hélène, pg 438) Which is likely a reference to one of Murat's more well-known mistresses, Madame Ruga, a lawyer's wife, whom he met (and possibly fell in love with) in Brescia.

But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. We'll get back to Madame Ruga.

Murat's early life is very poorly documented. Some of his early biographers allude vaguely to him womanizing while he was still a student in the seminary, and even claim that he fought a duel over a young woman before abandoning the seminary to become a soldier. Take it all with a grain of salt. The first actual evidence of Murat having an attachment to a woman, lies in his letters referencing a young woman named Mion Bastide, from his hometown. It's hard to tell how deep his feelings for her ran; he repeatedly asks his older brother for news of her--and also what her "intentions" are, and if she is flirting with the young men of La Bastide while he is away on his military duties. Perhaps they had spoken of marriage at some point while he'd been home. Anyway, he eventually got tired of her not responding to him and moved on. While a captain in the chasseurs à cheval, he apparently had an affair with a woman named Eléonore; I haven't come across any details about this, but his attachment to her was strong enough that he kept a pocketwatch with "Joachim Murat, capitaine de chasseurs à cheval: Eléonore to Joachim - do not forget her" inscribed inside; he only relinquished this watch during the 1812 campaign, as a gift to a Cossack.

During the Italian campaign, Murat had affairs with two men's wives; the aforementioned Madame Ruga, and one Madame Ghirardi (more on her shortly). Madame Ruga is described in Desaix's notes as "young, pretty; wife of a lawyer; like all the Milanese, loving pleasures, having suffered from the venom"--"the venom" (le venin) being a tactful way of saying she'd had venereal disease, which she soon passed on to Murat. "Murat is ill," Napoleon writes to Josephine on 22 July 1796; "the goddess of the ball, Mme Ruga, properly gave him une galanterie," which is another lovely old-fashioned euphemism for giving someone VD. Napoleon continues that Murat "is furious; he wants to put his adventure in the gazettes." But in typical Murat fashion, his fury burned out quickly, and he seems to have been quite infatuated with Mme Ruga--he continued the affair, which is probably what spawned Napoleon's later disgusted recollection on Saint Helena. He even temporarily neglected his duties, until Napoleon sent him a mild reprimand, to which Murat replied with indignation. "I have never had any idea which could be the least disfavorable to you," Napoleon responded drily on 21 June 1797, "but I thought that you were more necessary to your division than to your mistress in Brescia." When Murat was sent back to Italy in 1800--months after marrying Caroline--there's a very good likelihood that he resumed his affair with Mme Ruga. At any rate, they maintained contact for some time; she delivered a letter to Eugène de Beauharnais for him in 1805.

Now on to Mme Ghirardi. Apparently he also met this woman, wife of a General Lechi, in Brescia. Eventually Napoleon sent Murat to Rastadt for peace negotiations at the end of the Italian campaign. According to an article in the January 1908 Revue Napoléonienne, this is what happened next:

But Murat's conquest does not intend to let him go. Desperate to hold him back, she follows him. The beauty flees from Brescia, crosses the Alps and falls into Strasbourg; when Murat returns from Rastadt to Paris, she settles there with him and stays in the same hotel, rue des Capucins-Neufs, number 20. The adventure here is complicated by a comic novel. The husband, worthy and notable citizen of Brescia, makes a lot of noise about his misadventure and instantly demands the lost object. He brings his complaint to Milan; he comes as far as Paris to address a mournful petition to the Directory. He begs Barras and his colleagues to set themselves up as defenders of outraged morality: "Put this young woman betrayed by a vile seducer on the path of righteousness and virtue, give a mother to an innocent child; it is an honest husband who asks for this act of justice. He will be able to publish it throughout the Cisalpine and to his fellow citizens who expect it from you." (...) A singular crossover facilitated the outcome. While the husband brought his action in Paris for restitution of wife, Murat, perhaps judging that the follies of youth should not be prolonged, adopted the part of bringing the fugitive back to Brescia and resuming his military career in Italy.

Napoleon writes to Berthier to inform him that Murat is coming back to Italy to return "this heroine of Brescia," take a vacation in Rome, and then rejoin the army. And that is the last we know of Mme Ghirardi and her affair with Murat.

The short answer to your question as to whether Murat cheated on Caroline is, unfortunately, yes.

And, not to make excuses for him, but it's hard to see it turning out otherwise given that Murat was pretty set in his ways by the time of his marriage. He had long since gotten into the habit of flitting from one woman to another, and he was in his early thirties when he finally married. On top of that, his military duties made it inevitable that he would spend long periods far away from Caroline--which he did--and I just don't think he had either the self-control or the interest in remaining faithful after awhile.

(I'm just going to excerpt this next part from a post I did on Murat's relationship with Caroline awhile back, since it fits in perfectly here.)

They endured a long period of separation very early in their marriage–the first of many, adding up to several total years spent apart between 1800 and their final parting in May of 1815. Murat was sent to take command of a force in Italy in November 1800 while Caroline was pregnant with their first child; they did not see each other again until May of the following year. There are a couple of letters within Murat’s published correspondence that hint that, though he at first attempted to remain faithful to his wife during this interim, he may have given up on the endeavor prior to their reunion. The diplomat Charles Alquier, who befriended Murat in Italy, wrote to him in April 1801, lamenting not being able to spend a few days with him in Florence, teasing that he “would like to witness your gallant successes there and hear you talk about your marital fidelity, without believing it in the slightest.” The following month, after the arrival of Caroline, Alquier teases Murat again along these lines, in a postscript that reads “It was about time that Madame Murat arrived in Florence, or your hard-pressed fidelity was about to escape you.” He had almost certainly resumed his affair with Madame Ruga during this period.

There is a rather fascinating little affair that takes place early in 1806, in which Napoleon and Murat were having a simultaneous affair with a young woman named Éleonore Denuelle de la Plaigne, who was staying with the Murats at Neuilly at the time. Napoleon abruptly put an end to his affair with her when he discovered that she was also sleeping with Murat. Éleonore gave birth to a baby boy at the end of the year, and Napoleon believed the child was probably Murat's--up until he saw the boy in person prior to embarking for Saint Helena. What's particularly fascinating to me about this episode is the fact that Caroline pretty much arranged this affair for her brother--the Bonaparte siblings were so hell-bent on getting Napoleon to divorce Josephine by this point that some of them were acting like glorified pimps, hooking Napoleon up with girls left and right in hopes that he'd eventually produce a baby and prove that he wasn't to blame for the lack of an heir. But the timing of Murat, a man of proven fertility (he had four children by now), swooping in to plant a few seeds of his own at the same time that he undoubtedly knew Napoleon was bedding Éleonore just... let's just say I have theories about this. Suffice to say I think the Murats' sexual dynamic took some interesting twists and turns, and I'm fairly convinced that they each weaponized the other's sexuality on occasion--the Éleonore affair being the first example, and Caroline's affair with Metternich later on being another. This is totally, 100% my own personal theory and there's no way in hell to prove it either way, it's just my own reading of the situation given my current understanding of the personalities involved.

Anyway. The interesting thing about Murat's alleged affairs is that so few of his mistresses have been written of by name, the ones above being the exceptions. I've seen it written that he had a brief fling with the actress Mademoiselle Georges--who also allegedly had a short affair with Napoleon--but it's another one of those things that isn't well-sourced, at least from what I've found so far. As for his mistresses in Naples, I haven't come across the name of a single one. General Guglielmo Pépé only refers to them in the most general terms, remarking that King Joachim considered it dishonorable to refuse to grant a woman a favor "even were she not his mistress," and that he was especially susceptible to the "entreaties of the ladies about the Court". He also recounts Murat telling him once that "The Queen does not much like my giving audience to ladies," to which Pépé rejoined, "I pity the Queen if she notices the gallantries of Your Majesty." But I do find it extremely interesting that there seems to be absolutely no information whatsoever on any of Murat's alleged mistresses in Naples, which makes me wonder if his reputation in that area might be a bit exaggerated and if a lot of his so-called "gallantries" were simple flirtations. He never stopped being a massive flirt or enjoying having women's eyes on him. "He was very vain," Madame Fusil, an actress who met him in 1812, wrote of him, "and he liked women to watch out for him."

I hope I didn't forget anything! And thanks for the ask! ^_^

#asks #Joachim Murat #Caroline Murat #Caroline Bonaparte #Napoleon #Napoleon Bonaparte

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triciaisonline · 6 years ago

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A(N ESTIMATED ) TIMELINE FOR SHERLOCK

PLEASE NOTE: John’s Blog and the show contradict each other at times, in these cases, the show will be taken as canon. In times where the show contradicts itself, if other media cannot solve the mix up, then estimates based on what makes the most real world sense will be used to find an answer.

ADDITIONALLY: I don’t want to get flooded with everyone's headcanons for things where estimates had to be made; but i greatly welcome canon information that might have been missed or ( ie: The Game is Now Escape Room ) have been unable to experience. I also do not consider interviews with cast and crew as reliable sources for the most part, as these answers have also changed throughout the years. It will only be given consideration if nothing else contradicts it and was said without the air of taking the mickey out of us as many interactions with fans have. They like to say things just to get us going. So I consider this less of a word of god and more of a word of the clown.

BIRTHDATES

DATES OF MAJOR EVENTS

NOTES

TL;DR

SOURCES

THIS VERSION IS THE REBLOG FRIENDLY VERSION OF A TIMELINE MADE ON MY OTHER BLOG ( SEE TAGS )

BIRTHDATES:

SHERLOCK HOLMES: January 6th, 1981 ( stated in The Casebook ); making him younger than the actor playing him. However, this does conflict slightly as Sherlock states he was nine years old when Carl Powers drowned, and the article claims it was in 1989, which places his birth in 1980 instead. This was before they gave Sherlock a canonical birthdate in any media, however, and for the purposes of this, we’ll be using the casebook age, and claiming Sherlock was either rounding or misremembering due to the fact his childhood memories are not entirely factual. Additionally, the headstone image shown in The Sherlock Chronicles says 1977, but the previous date is the one considered to be Canon. ( See Notes )

JOHN WATSON: unknown, but somewhere in the 70′s. A popular fandate is March 30th. Judging off of the actor’s age, possibly around 1971, but maybe younger as many actors are playing younger than themselves.

MYCROFT HOLMES: Exact date unknown, but he is seven years older than Sherlock, which puts him to be born around 1973-1974. Which makes him canonically younger than the actor playing him. 02/25/19 EDIT: According to sources, Mycroft is given a birthdate in the Escape Room based on the series, October 20th, 1968. While the October date works fine, year for this doesn't fit the "Seven Years Older" claim on the show. The oldest birth date given for Sherlock is 1977 and that would make Mycroft nine years older than Sherlock, not seven. The year given falls closer to Mark Gatiss' actual age, and leaves me inclined to think that perhaps year for the game isn't entirely factual. That being said, there's still no reason he couldn't have been born October 20th. Based on the "Seven Years Older" claim, stated in show, the best guess is October 20th, 1974.

EURUS HOLMES: Exact date unknown, but she is a year younger than Sherlock, which makes her born somewhere in 1982-1983 depending on when she was conceived.

MARY WATSON: Unknown, but based on the actress’ age, likely 1974; but maybe younger as many actors are playing younger than themselves.

ROSAMUND “ROSIE” WATSON: January 2015. We can infer this because based on how far along Mary was at her wedding, Rosie would have been conceived Mid-April, and if she was relatively ontime, she’d be born late January.

DATES OF NOTE:

REDBEARD / THE MUSGRAVE FIRE: Between 1988-1989 roughly; there is no clear indication on the show as to when these events took place. We can only summarize based on what we know about other events. We know that Sherlock "began" solving crimes at age nine ( see below ) due to Carl Powers; and we know that Sherlock had to be younger than ten years old during the events told in The Final Problem. Assuming that the tragic events of Carl Powers triggered something in him, making him take extra notice due to his own past experiences with Eurus and Victor; but still allowing time for all the events to take place and enough time to have passed for Sherlock to have rewritten the story so completely in his head where he can be suspicious but not fully triggered; I'd place him as seven or eight during these events.

THE CARL POWERS DEATH: 1990

*see notes for Sherlock’s birthday

UNIVERSITY: Sherlock attended the same school as Sebastian Wilkes in the early 2000s. Exact years, and if they were at school for the same duration of time is unknown; but he last saw the man roughly eight years ( if Wilkes can be trusted for accuracy ) prior to The Blind Banker, which would be somewhere in 2002/2003

SHERLOCK AND JOHN’S FIRST MEETING: January 29, 2010

CASE: A STUDY IN PINK: January 30th, 2010

CASE: THE BLIND BANKER: March 23rd-March 27th; inferred by Sherlock deducting the incorrect date on Wilkes’ watch and the on-screen passage of time.

Sherlock traveled to and from Minsk sometime between the events of The Blind Banker and The Great Game; based on the dates given, as well as the close air dates of the two episodes, it’s to be believed that Sherlock left and returned from Minsk on March 28th. This is also made plausible due to the funding Sherlock seems to have for himself, his impatience and the fact that it is a three hour flight each way.

BAKER STREET BOMBING: March 28th; evening

CASE: THE GREAT GAME: March 29 - April 1st; we know this based on both the blog posts and Sherlock updating his website with the case answers.��However, the blog post was edited from the original date of April 6th after it’s initial publication. The reason for this is unknown.

DURATION OF SERIES ONE: January 29th, 2010 - March 29th, 2010: three months exactly.

MISC: John and Sarah go to New Zealand for a week and breakup ( April 2010 )

TRIP TO BUCKINGHAM PALACE ( A SCANDAL IN BELGRAVIA ): September 15th, 2010

IRENE MEETING: September 15, 2010

BAKER STREET CHRISTMAS PARTY: December 25th 2010

IDENTIFYING IRENE’S BODY: December 25th, 2010

IRENE REVEALS SHE’S ALIVE: December 31st, 2010

JOHN PUBLISHES THE CASE: March 12th, 2011;

We don’t know the exact amount of time transpiring between New Years Eve and this point. Based on his track record, it’s likely January 15th is meant to be the date that Sherlock is told Irene is in Witness protection ( John seems to publish immediately, regardless of how tasteful it might be to reveal details of recent cases ). This gap would cover everything from Irene arriving at Baker Street, Sherlock going to the airfield, him beating Irene at the game, and saving her in Karachi. It’s likely, considering how erratic Sherlock is by early March with no cases, that the day John tells Sherlock the lie, is around late January / early February. Allowing Sherlock enough time to have done all of this as well as get riled up in time for Baskerville, which had to have occured before March 16th

CASE: THE HOUNDS OF BASKERVILLE: Early March 2011; by best estimates given as John doesn’t take too long to post his accounts of the events, and he had already finished typing up the case prior.

BASKERVILLE CASE POSTED: March 16th, 2011. This is also the same date Moriarty hacks John’s blog with a video of him inside of their flat. Suggesting he’s already free from his interrogation shown at the end of The Hounds of Baskerville.

The dates surrounding Sherlock’s death and The Reichenbach Fall are highly questionable as the episode, the blog, and logistics for certain events all contradict each other. Joe Lidster, who wrote John’s real world blog, has comically said that Moriarty hacking the blog gave it a virus that messed with the dating system, as a tongue in cheek explanation. Meaning if we were to take that as fact, all the dates in the blog could be false. The newspapers shown in the episode, have dates that suggest different things. I’ve chosen the one which makes the most sense, based on the news reel clip on John’s blog, the statement that he went to therapy three months later, the school holiday schedule for the abduction of the Ambassador’s children and several other people’s attempts to sort this all out. An alternative version can be found here.

MORIARTY’S ROBBERIES: Late March, by best guess. Possibly a bit earlier.

MORIARTY’S TRIAL / RELEASE: April 2011

MORIARTY’S PLAN TO RUIN SHERLOCK: June 12-June 14th, 2011

MORIARTY COMMITS SUICIDE / SHERLOCK FAKES HIS: June 14th/15th; the 15th is the more commonly believed date.

JOHN CONFIRMS ON HIS BLOG: June 16th, 2011

JOHN VISITS SHERLOCK’S GRAVE: Mid/Late June 2011

TOTAL SERIES TWO DURATION: March 29th, 2010 ( The Pool ) - June 2011. Fifteen Months / One Year and Three Months

SHERLOCK DISMANTLES MORIARTY’S NETWORK: June 2011 - Late October / Early November 2013

MARY MAKES HER FIRST COMMENT ON JOHN’S BLOG: April 20th, 2013

JOHN POSTS OLD CASES: April 2013 - October 5th, 2013

WEBISODE ( MANY HAPPY RETURNS ): October 5th, 2013

SHERLOCK RETURNS: Late October / Early November 2013

JOHN ALMOST BURNED ALIVE: Guy Fawkes Day, November 5th, 2013

CASE: THE EMPTY HEARSE / #SHERLOCK LIVES: November 7th, 2013

JOHN AND SHERLOCK’S VARIOUS CASES: November 2013 - May 2014

Another case of Blog vs Screen; John and Mary’s wedding invites are shown throughout The Sign of Three with the date May 13th, while John’s blog states it was in August. The blog is deemed incorrect in this case, as well as his entries about the cases Sherlock reads at the Wedding

ROSIE WATSON IS CONCEIVED: Mid April 2014

JOHN AND MARY’S WEDDING: May 13th, 2014; ( see above note about The Sign of Three )

His Last Vow has the opposite problem as the series finale prior, in which next to no dates are given. We only know the dates at the end of the episode. Just that the events of John getting restless, Sherlock using again, Magnussen visiting, Sherlock being shot, Sherlock leaving early to confront Mary, Sherlock leaving to confront Magnussen, John confronting Mary, Sherlock being taken to Hospital again and being released all happen between May 13th and December 25th, 2014. It can take a couple months for gunshot victims to be released from Hospital, depending on the severity. Applying Mycroft Rules and Television Rules we know that Sherlock likely didn’t stay the time a regular patient would have. Knowing Sherlock he would have wanted out as soon as possible. We know John and Mary were at odds for a bit, reconciling on Christmas. Plus there needed to be time for Sherlock to fake date Janine, John to reach the level of restlessness there was and get Charles’ attention. So these next few dates are estimates. The majority of the scenes shown in episode are out of order and happen in two time periods, before Mary’s revealed and Christmas Day.

JOHN BREAKS INTO THE DRUG DEN / MAGNUSSEN VISITING BAKER STREET: September / October 2014

SHERLOCK GETTING SHOT: September / October 2014

SHERLOCK SNEAKING OUT OF HOSPITAL TO MEET MAGNUSSEN AND MARY: Early/Mid October 2014; presuming based on deleted scenes depicting a Sherlock who was unable to move for a while in recovery that this was maybe days or weeks later when it was deemed safe to wake him up from medically induced coma.

JOHN CONFRONTING MARY: October 2014 ( same day as above )

SHERLOCK RELEASED FROM HOSPITAL: Mid-December 2014, inferred by how the family and friends act as if it was more recent while at the Holmes’ family home.

SHERLOCK SHOOTS MAGNUSSEN: December 25th, 2014

SHERLOCK BOARDS THE PLANE / MORIARTY’S VIDEO GOES LIVE: December 31st, 2014 / January 2nd, 2015; the show itself provides two different accounts of this. Mycroft states in His Last Vow, that Sherlock was in holding for a week, placing the scene at the tarmac in Early January 2015; however, the introduction to The Abominable Bride places the scene with onscreen text in 2014 still. The only way both can be remotely accurate is if Mycroft is rounding up, and it’s December 31st, 2014.

DURATION OF SERIES THREE: Fall 2013 - Winter 2014; just over one calendar year.

CASE: THE ABOMINABLE BRIDE ( REAL WORLD ): December 31st, 2014 / January 2nd, 2015 ( see above )

The first scene of The Six Thatchers, along with the real world scenes of The Abominable Bride and the final scenes of His Last Vow are the same day.

SHERLOCK IS ACQUITTED OF CRIMES: December 31st, 2014 / January 2nd, 2015 ( see above )

ROSIE WATSON IS BORN: Mid/Late January 2015, assuming she was relatively on time.

ROSIE WATSON’S BAPTISM: March / April 2015; based on many modern traditions, the baby’s age and the style of clothing worn by the attendees.

The Six Thatchers covers the majority of one calendar year, no exact dates are given but we can surmise things based on the shown development of Rosie Watson ( whom we know to be a year old by the end of The Final Problem ). Rosie is shown to have full head support and movement before Mary dies, which is something that happens around six months. This would mean Mary’s still alive around June 2015. Allowing for time in which Mary is on the lam, leading to the aquarium, the following are my best guesses for events.

MARY IS MISSING: Summer 2015 ( how long she was gone for is unclear )

MARY IS BACK IN LONDON: September 2015

NORBURY SHOOTS MARY: October 2015

SHERLOCK RECEIVES MARY’S VIDEO / JOHN’S LETTER: Late October. 2015 / Possibly Early November 2015

CASE: THE LYING DETECTIVE: Possibly Mid-December 2015 / Early January 2016

Another case of ‘we don’t know how long’; we know Sherlock returns from hospital on his birthday, but the dates in between are unclear. Nor do we know how long John and Sherlock didn’t speak for. Sherlock would have needed a major detox, as well as treatment for his injuries. Based on the timeframe, it’s unlikely he attended any form of inpatient rehab outside of whatever the hospital had on location due to his injuries. Possibly due to either Mycroft pulling strings, or the more likely, Sherlock refusing and signing himself out when able.

We also know that the jump from The Lying Detective and The Final Problem can’t be too long. Even though Sherlock has had a magical recovery from all ailments between episodes, it’s extremely unlikely that John sat on the ‘I was almost killed by your secret sister’ tidbit for a few weeks. Meaning these episodes likely happen very shortly after one another. It also feels unlikely that Eurus would make herself known to John and then wait weeks/months to then begin acting out again once the secret was revealed.

JOHN AND SHERLOCK’S REUNITING: January 6th, 2016

JOHN’S FINAL THERAPY SESSION WITH EURUS: Somewhere between January 6th - January 13th 2016; assuming he went about once a week.

CASE: THE FINAL PROBLEM: January 13th, 2015 - January 20th, 2016; presuming John was able to tell Sherlock after ( not knowing how long he was knocked out for ); and allowing Sherlock and John some time to figure out their next move. This would also cover the attack on Baker Street and the entire event on Sherrinford Island.

ROSIE WATSON’S FIRST BIRTHDAY: Mid/Late January, 2016

OTHER NOTES:

The Entire Series spans six years.

The Sherlock Timeline runs one year behind real world time, with the show’s episodes in universe during 2016, aired in January 2017

Sherlock Holmes would be 29 in A Study In Pink, and 35 by The Final Problem based on the Casebook date. 30 and 36 by The Carl Powers age. and 33 and 39 by The Sherlock Chronicles age. All would make him younger than Benedict Cumberbatch, born 1976.

An incorrect headstone, as seen in The Sherlock Chronicles would make sense with the fact that until The Lying Detective, John states he never knew his birthdate. Which, had his tombstone had it, would make little sense. Providing an in universe reason for this odd lack of knowledge on John’s part. Perhaps John merely guessed? Maybe Mycroft knew he wouldn’t want it known, so they put a fake date? Especially as Mycroft knew he was alive. Otherwise, this is just another plot inconsistency --- which, I’m getting quite tired of.

We don’t know when Mary and John first met, but we can infer they’ve known each other about a year from dialogue in The Six Thatchers when John is attempting to propose.

Alternate timelines surrounding The Reichenbach Fall sometimes claim the following dates: Sherlock Testifies: May 9th, 2011; Moriarty is freed and visits 221B: September 20th, 2011; The Kidnapping: November 19th, 2011; Sherlock Falls: November 20th, 2011. This comes from a couple on screen newspaper clippings; but they are contradictory to the stated three month interval stated. It’s up to fans to decide which version they feel is more accurate.

More of a musing, but it’s kind of interesting how many times John immediately runs to the internet to share the details of really recent cases fresh in the public’s mind; in contrast to Watson’s monologue in The Abominable Bride about how careful he is to avoid doing that very thing. Which is even funnier if you view it through the long standing canon lens of John is an Unreliable Narrator

TL;DR:

SERIES ONE: January 29th, 2010 - March 29th, 2010

SERIES TWO: March 29th, 2010 - June 15th, 2011

SERIES THREE: November 2013 - December 2014

SERIES FOUR: December 2014 - January 2016

WEBISODE: October 10th, 2013

SPECIAL: December 2014

SOURCES:

AO3 META / SHERLOCKOLOGY / JOHN’S BLOG / SHERLOCK ( WIKIPEDIA ) / THENORWOODBUILDER @ TUMBLR / BAKER STREET WIKIA / SHERLOCK FAN FORUMS / THE CASEBOOK ( BUY / FACTS ) / THE SHERLOCK CHRONICLES / MOLLY’S BLOG / SHERLOCK’S WEBSITE ( official site no longer live, information reposted from various sites listed above ) / CONNIE PRINCE WEBSITE / SHERLOCK: THE GAME IS NOW

#TRICIA MAKES A THING*#TRICIA WRITES*#MY WRITING*#TIMELINE*#AN EXERCISE IN BREAKING MY SANITY*#WELCOME TO MY MISERY*#Sherlock #bbc sherlock #sherlock holmes #SELF REPOST*#repost from deductivereason

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stevepotterwrites · 3 years ago

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A GLORIOUS THOUGHT EXCURSION: On John Olson’s Novel In Advance of the Broken Justy

https://bookshop.org/a/8227/9781935835172

John Olson's thoughtful and often humorous new novel, In Advance of the Broken Justy, opens with a somewhat Kafkaesque quest to find medical attention for the narrator's wife's infected eye late at night in Paris during a doctor's strike and ends on January 8th, 2015 with news of the previous day's terrorist attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices playing on the television in their hotel room as they prepare to leave for home.

In the pages between the personal crisis and the international one, we are introduced to the oddball mix of neighbors in the narrator's thin-walled building who are driving him and his wife, Ronnie, crazy with noise from construction projects, stomping feet, and rather explicitly audible sounds of digestive functions from a neighboring bathroom. Noisy neighbors are enough to drive any introverted, bookish homebody nuts, but our unnamed protagonist tells us, during a seemingly obsessive and often hilariously aggrieved section of narration reminiscent of Thomas Bernhard, that he additionally suffers from hyperacusia — a heightened sensitivity to noise, and tinnitus — ringing in the ears, as well as Generalized Anxiety Disorder for which he has been prescribed a variety of antidepressants through the years.

It's not only their immediate living situation that is cause for aggravation, the couple are also dealing more generally with a growing dissatisfaction with life in rapidly-changing Seattle. Olson writes that his dislike of Seattle, “evolved over a period of time, like an allergy that starts out with a minor rash and then grows into strange secretions and the constant application of topical ointments.” As their disaffection with Seattle grows, so does their love of Paris. “...we each felt an attachment that had become deeply emotional, like a drug. We had become addicted to this city. It inhabited us, as Ronnie put it.”

The love of Paris among certain artistically-inclined Americans has a longstanding literary and cinematic history, of course. Mr. Olson's novel continues a lineage tracing back at least as far as Ernest Hemingway's A Movable Feast and F. Scott Fitzgerald's “Babylon Revisited” through Richard Yates's Revolutionary Road to Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. Unlike Gil Pender, the protagonist of Mr. Allen's film, who is mostly enthralled with fantasies of Cole Porter, Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein and other American ex-pats in Paris during the Jazz Age, Olson's two protagonists are most interested in actual French poets, writers and artists such as; Rimbaud, Georges Perec, Michel Tournier, Gaston Bachelard, Raymond Queneau and Pierre Michon. And while their yearning for Paris is similar to that of the couple at the center of Revolutionary Road, it is a rather more grown-up and grounded love of the City of Lights. Olson's protagonists are a pair of older, working-class poets not young, upper-middle-class, suburban dilettantes like Yates's Frank and April Wheeler.

In addition to their dissatisfaction with home and city, the couple are also dealing with the loss of their beloved car, the broken Subaru Justy of the novel's title. After attempting to adapt to a car-less life, including several comic misadventures with public transit and Car2Go, the narrator takes some money out of savings to buy another used Subaru but somewhat spontaneously decides he'd rather take a trip to Paris than own a car again. Ronnie agrees. Plans are made, tickets are purchased, and their ongoing study of French is kicked into a higher gear. Away they go.

The narrator alludes to dark and outrageous moments in his past, back when he was still drinking and taking drugs. “At the age of eighteen, I left my father's house and struck out for California, following the scent of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. I was into Dylan and the Rolling Stones. I liked the Beatles, but they remained a bit too wholesome for my rebel-without-a-cause setup. And after reading Aldous Huxley's seminal essay, The Doors of Perception, I had a raging desire to experiment with psychedelic drugs.”

He tells briefly of getting beaten up at a New Years Eve party in Burien, attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and three failed marriages. One suspects Olson could write some fine fiction of wild times, drunkenness, heartache and despair in a Kerouacian or Carveresque vein if he felt the urge to mine his past, but part of what I love about this novel is that it doesn't do that. The image of the artist as a young wild man is a popular one and there have certainly been more than enough misbehaving poets, musicians, painters, novelists and so forth to give that cliché some weight, but what makes an artist an artist is serious, longstanding dedication to one's art. It's refreshing to read a novel that dispenses with the youthful misbehavior in a few short sentences and instead depicts the couple at its center as actual grown-up artists.

In Advance of the Broken Justy is not a novel which glorifies the wild kicks of youth or wallows in the despair of drunkenness and divorce, but rather one which celebrates more mature, quiet kicks like the contemplation of works of art in the Musée d'Orsay, the Louvre, and the Georges Pompidou Centre. It is a celebration of bookstores not barrooms. The narrator and Ronnie go on a sort of literary safari, with guidance provided by a list of the best bookstores in Paris received via email from the French poet Claude Royet-Journoud, and enjoy a cafe visit with the poet and translator Michel Deguy.

“One of the main reasons I wanted to go to Paris was so I could stand in a real bookstore once again before I die,” Olson writes. “The bookstores in the United States have deteriorated into something little better than a gift shop, or those book and magazine shops you sometimes see at the airport. Trashy titles. Nothing of any real interest.” He's not grown so jaded that he's lost all perspective, however, and can still see quality on those rare occasions it may be found. He goes on later in that passage to praise Elliott Bay Books and Open Books and elsewhere declares Magus Books in the University District to be one of the best, if not the best, used bookstores he's ever been to.

While at certain points it's clear that the author's imagination is at play, much of In Advance of the Broken Justy reads close to straight autobiography. That, of course, does not necessarily mean that it is, but the pleasures of reading the novel, for me, were often more akin to those of nonfiction. David Shields, among others, would argue that the distinction between fiction and nonfiction is meaningless. Whiile there is some validity to that stance in that in either case the author is working with a blend of memory and imagination, I think it is a bit of an overstatement. Phillip Lopate writes in a section of To Show and To Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction in which he compares and contrasts the tendencies of nonfiction versus those of fiction that, “What makes me want to keep reading a nonfiction text is the encounter with a surprising, well-stocked mind as it takes on the challenge of the next sentence, paragraph, and thematic problem it has set for itself.... None of these examples read like short stories or screenplays; they read like what they are: glorious thought excursions.”

It is Olson's surprising, well-stocked mind which is of the greatest interest here, the consciousness which regards what happens more so than the particulars of what happens, that takes interesting digressions into considerations of the work of Bob Dylan, Marcel Duchamp, Georges Braque, and organic chemist August Kekulé among others. Of the other books I've read recently, it is Patti Smith's second memoir, M Train, I find it most similar to in both tone and content. Smith, the poet-rocker legend, and Olson, the poet's poet who can count luminaries such as Michael McClure, Clayton Eshleman and the late, great Philip Lamantia among his fans, are exact contemporaries, Ms. Smith being the elder by only a matter of months. Their influences overlap to a considerable degree. Both books weave together narratives of domesticity and travel. Both books present the day-to-day lives of practicing artists and consider the lives of their artistic influences. Both books recount journeys to literary sacred ground in search of a sort of spiritual contact high with forebears and idols.

Mr. Lopate's phrase, “glorious thought excursions,” seems like the perfect description of much of Olson's output. Fans of his prose poetry will find moments replete with the reeling riffs of surrealistic, hallucinatory lyricism familiar from his books such as Oxbow Kazoo, Echo Regime, Logo Lagoon and Eggs & Mirrors in the pages of In Advance of the Broken Justy. Preparations for the sale of their 500 square foot condo and a move away from their infuriatingly noisy building (preparations for naught, as it turns out, for neither sale nor move ever transpire within the pages of the novel) instigates a stream of thoughts on the nature of reality leading eventually to the following passage:

“When consciousness meets reality the result is milk. Traffic lights blossom into prayer wheels. Laundry folds itself into armies of tide pool angst and marches around like generalities of floral chambray. Rain falls up instead of down. The acceptance of frogs liberates bubbles of pulp. Time sags with basement ping pong tournaments. Garrets ovulate glass bagatelles. Realism percolates prizefight sweat. Details sparkle like crawling kingsnakes in the mouth of a Mississippi attorney.”

In Advance of the Broken Justy is a thoughtful, grown-up novel for the sort of thoughtful, grown-up readers who seek out real bookstores and is not likely to have much appeal to fans of those trashy, escapist titles found in the sad, little book and magazine shops in airports Olson derides.

Review by Steve Potter. Previously appeared in A Screw in the Shoe from Golden Handcuffs Review Publications.

#book review #john olson #in advance of the broken justy #contemporary fiction #paris #seattle

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doodle-doer · 7 years ago

Text

Working Journal for my final year project (2018)

29th January 2018

Today I edited the live action footage that I have filmed into a short test video consisting of about 20 seconds. This is because I wanted to test how I was going to animate over the top of my footage.

With this I tested it on my original idea of Adobe After Effects, however due to the lack of an onion skin tool I was unable to see what I had drawn on previous frames. From this I tested it within Adobe Animate, this turned out to be harder than I thought it was going to be due to the fact that I was unable to import the clip. After doing some research into this I found that it would be hard to do what I intended due to my clip not being the right format. From this I loaded it into Adobe Premier and then exported it (1920 by 1080 to ensure HD quality) as JPEGs this I am hoping to load into Photoshop and draw on each test fame to and construct the animation that way.

5th February 2018

After exporting my film to JPEGs out of Adobe Premier, I proceeded to import them into Photoshop and drawing over each frame. After consulting Stan for help as to how I could use and onion skin to allow me to see what I had drawn on the previous frame.

However after spending most of the day drawing over each frame, I played the film back and realised that the framing rate was wrong and which meant that the work that I had done played back to quickly.

Goals for next time is to see if I can change the frame rate or slow the footage I had drawn.

12th February 2018

Unfortunately after watching video tutorials and reading online description of the problem I have, there is no way to either slow down or change the framerate of my footage on photoshop.

Upon realising this problem I consulted with Stan who informed me that I can use the software TV Paint to rotoscope over both images and video footage. This was helpful to know as Stan showed me how I can do this. Along with this he also showed me how to add and effect on top of my layers which adds a boil effect to images, this was useful to know as the effect that my growing mass(or characters?) is supposed to look like a flipbook effect so that the growing mass skips rather than flows smoothly.

19th February 2018

After applying the new findings that Stan had showed me the previous week, I loaded my work back into TV Paint and began to work on my fridge scene of my film. This scene is 5 seconds long, after discovering that I had drawn on every frame on my first attempt I made sure each drawing was held for 2 frames. This meant that I could draw a single frame skip across two frames and have the previous frame carry over.

26th February 2018

Arrived in university and continued with the fridge sequence and began to plan ahead for my next shot. This shot being my main cup sequence which will be the longest shot of the film lasting 24 seconds which works out 600 frames at 25fps (frames per second)

28th February 2018

Found out today that an older (cracked) copy of TV-paint given to in my first year at USW allowed me to carry work over from the newer version the university offers. This means I can finish work(Job outside of university) and continue with my animation. As a result I have continued with the fridge sequence and been able to finish it now (11pm).

1st March 2018

After the completion of the fridge sequence my attention has been fully on the longest shot now, having the assistance of Louise (girlfriend) colouring my fridge sequence while my focus is on the cup sequence is a big help.

3rd March 2018

Before heading to work Louise helped me by recording some more audio for my piece this audio will help tie the film together better.

Update (8pm)

Louise recorded her audio again (more clearer) as well edited the recordings together so they are on the same sequence in an audio file.

Continued with cup sequence.

4th March 2018

Continued with the cup sequence after finishing work. As well as this I have started to colour the first 6 frames that I have of the background.

7th March 2018

Continued with the cup sequence drawing-wise after work.

15th March 2018

Continued with my cup sequence where the growth is slowly consuming the background behind the cup.

Update

In the evening I began to colour the first few frames, reason behind this is because my logic is that if I do X amount of frames of line work I can do X amount of colouring so I can balance it out and not have to worry about colouring it at a later date.

17th March 2018

Continued with the cup sequence.

18th March 2018

Continued with the cup sequence

20th March 2018

Continued with the cup sequence

25th March 2018

Louise helped me by taking over the colouring meaning that I can focus on the drawing side of things. Meaning I draw as much as I can, then Louise will colour on a file she copies over.

27th March 2018

Today I looked at the fridge sequence again and while watching I thought the block colour of grey doesn't look good for the theme that I am going for.

So I began experimenting with what I can put on top of the grey mass, so began by colouring over the top of it but in a scribble form to give the mass some texture. Using the method of colouring on one frame and then skipping to the next this allows for the auto fill to fill the frame that I skipped.

30th March 2018

Continued to colour the fridge sequence with the same scribble effect. Managed to colour the entire fridge scene where the growth crawls up the side of the fridge. Really happy with the progress I have made and hopefully I can start working on the potion vial dripping into the cup scene soon.

2nd April 2018

Began working on potion vial to be poured into the cup in the close up scene. To start with, I started to draw it digitally however I did not like how this looked. So instead I drew the image out by hand and scanned it into my Mac computer. From here I coloured the image in Adobe Photoshop to achieve the desired colour effect and exported it as a .png file, so it was have no background and the quality would remain intact.

3rd April 2018

Continuing work on potion vial and importing it into my film. Using the .png file that I previously created, I imported the image into TVPaint to continue working with it. Moving the image along the previously created growth, but I put the vial between layers so that it would look hidden beneath the growth.

5th April 2018

I went back to the video and then discovered that I was having some problems scaling the vial down to size to make it fit in the scene. I discovered that using the transform tool would move other layers such as the foreground or background growth. This meant that the layers would start moving into positions that I did not want them to for no apparent reason. To combat this I spoke to Stan about this, he said that the reason why I was having this problem was because the transform tool was not being turned off. This allowed for a quick and easy movement of the vial.

9th - 10th April 2018

Over the weekend I have been at work so I have not had time to continue with my work. So over the past two days I have been working consistently on my film. This involved continuing with the potion vial scene. I worked on the drop from the bottle into the cup. Also I continued to colour the rest of the scenes which needed a grey colouring and a scribble on top.

12th - 13th April 2018

Continuing with colouring the scenes and working on the potion vial. Colouring the film was the most tedious part of the process, but I discovered a different method of colouring which helped immensely. It involved using the paint tool (in TVPaint) and colouring directly onto the line video track that I had previously drawn. The negatives of this was that the paint tool left lines in between the original linework and the painted edge. However this was easily removed by using the pen tool. Between Louise and myself we managed to colour over 600 frames in the past few days.

16th April 2018

Added more detail and continued to work on the potion vial dropper scene. Decided against using a ladder in the potion vial scene, which was my original plan. By this point the ladder just seems too comical for the mood that I am trying to set. By having the growth control the potion vial to tilt into the cup, I can then allow the vial to disappear back into the growth, making it more mysterious.

17th April 2018

Completed colouring on all sequences. Decided that the front growth in the cup sequence will not be scribbled as I feel like the attention might be taken away from the centre of the frame. If I need to scribble on the growth I can always do so in the next few weeks of post production.

19th April 2018

Edited a draft video which included my fridge sequence, cup sequence and potion vial sequence. This was only a short film so that I can show my lecturers next week what I have achieved so far. I will continue to edit this week in post production.

24th April - 27th April 2018

This week I was focussed on taking my work into university to get feedback from my lecturers. By doing this, if they have any feedback I still have time to complete any additional work by next week in post production. From the work that I showed them they seemed happy but also had a lot of feedback for me to work on. Mainly they wanted to see the entire piece together to understand the context of the video. They advised me to add more animated pieces and varied shot distances into the film to help enhance the context of the video. I decided to add in a tentacle scene of which was in the original storyboards but I was unsure of adding in. This shot involves the tentacles reaching out from inside of the cup. I decided to make this shot an extreme close up instead, this would add further depth and interest in my film to keep the flow going. I did the shot in TVpaint first establishing the colour for the liquid and then drawing each frame of moment. After this I thought the tendrils looked like they where almost floating in the liquid so using the circle tool in TVPaint I created ovals without a filling and repeated them to make the movements more three-dimensional.

30th April - 1st May 2018

Over the past two days I have been working on audio and audio editing. After a discussion with Nikki, Sarah and Graham last week I decided to add some more shots and audio into the film to make the context more obvious. I retook some photos of my character in different poses, screaming and uncomfortable. Also I recorded audio of myself talking and got Louise to record herself talking. These voices were then edited Sony Vegas, I did attempt to edit them in Adobe Premiere but found the process too difficult and time consuming. In Sony Vegas, I used the ‘Reverb’ and ‘Pitch Shift’ effect, which added different layers and levels to the voices. During this process, I tried to edit the voices together to sound like they were arguing with each other inside my head. This is where the reverb effect came in useful as it added an echoing tone to the voices which could be adjusted in each part. Seeing as my piece is focussed on mental health, having the voices echo and whisper added to the feeling that I am trying to achieve. Tomorrow I want to show Graham my work all together with the voices added into the piece.

3rd May 2018

After finishing work, I arrived at University at 12. I showed Graham my film for any suggestions of feedback. He provided me with a few pieces of advice which I spent the rest of the session continuing to implement. Being able to show Graham the piece of work with audio was a good start to the session, because I was able to show him the context of the piece with him being able to understand what the message of the film was.

4th May 2018

In today’s session I continued on from yesterday’s work. I showed Sarah my work so far, she showed me a piece of work called Dad’s Dead a short animated piece, created by Chris Shepherd. It was an interesting animated short that upon further research won different awards for Best Animated Short. Seeing this film, was beneficial to me because it showed how the combination of live action and animation could be blended so seamlessly and how the two coincided with each other.

8th May 2018

In University today, I showed Sarah my work for more feedback and continued to work on my film. Sarah suggested I work on lighting more. So I added a dark vignette effect around the sides of some of the shots. This added a more focussed attention to the centre of the image and also added in a dark, ominous feeling to the piece.

9th May 2018

Today I finalised my animation. Continued to edit the video in Adobe Premiere, imported audio that Louise had previously edited for me. Showed work to Sarah and Nikki for their feedback; they advised that I add a texture of my choice on top of the growth inside of the fridge in the first scene. This was quite a struggle for me as I had already spent weeks scribbling on top of the growth in a consistent pattern to show depth and texture through penwork. Stan showed me how to import an image and overlay it over my work in Adobe After Effects. I wanted to use a static texture gif, but Stan showed me a preset in After Effects which I was able to customise. Unfortunately, halfway through the process the files became corrupt and resulted in me losing the textured project file. When I went back home I spoke to Louise who showed me how to do the same effect in Sony Vegas, this process is called masking. Masking in Sony Vegas is time consuming, as it required me to go around the image and make anchor points where I wanted the static texture to go. I have completed these files and intend to add them to my final film tomorrow and hopefully I will upload my completed work tomorrow as well.

10th May 2018

Arrived into uni today with the intentions to hand in, I began working on the final edit by the adding the textured fridge sequence into areas of my film (suggested by both Sarah and NIkki and to do so). I enjoyed adding the texture over the top of my film as I think it gave it an area of depth to it which enabled it to blend into the live action sequences better, however with the time limit have set myself I was unable to do other areas, but this is something I can do after the hand in and before the show.

After speaking to Nikki and showing her the sequence I have done and explained my reasoning behind what I have done, she was happy with what I have work wise and journal wise. The one question I had to ask was what I had to export the final film out as, this is because in the past films had to be handed in as quicktime files, but recently when I have gone to export areas of my film for testing/ rendering reasons I have had playback problems. Nikki has informed my that the new export method is H.264 which enabled a higher quality export with a lower file size(something I have been having trouble with)

Reflection

At the start of this project my mental health wasn't in the best of places. However, during the time that I spent focussing on this project, not only physically but mentally I feel like I have gained my creative spark again. Just knowing that I have been able to produce a piece of work that reflects what was/still is going on at this moment in time. I really enjoyed this project once I started getting into the motion of it, it has allowed for me to gain more knowledge and understanding in softwares that I feel I neglected the first time around when I was attempting my module. Knowing that I have done my best to get my story(film) and point across and taken the feedback and implemented it in to my work. Knowing that I am a step closer to my goal and dream of finishing university not only for make myself proud for overcoming so much doubt and self punishment, but to make my family proud, and so I can prove to the people who brought me down throughout my life in both school, and within my family life and told me I wouldn't get far, and that wouldn't be able to go to university, that I have done it and much more and come out on the other end stronger. A bit mentally and emotionally scared from the ordeal but scares make for good stories in the future. Maybe my experiences can help others through tough situations as well.

Recourse videos used

How to Pan and Zoom in Premiere Pro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo7PBo6NXlQ&t=3s

Adobe Premiere Pro CC: How to Zoom In On A Picture/Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE0fCF-X1Ps

How to Create a Vignette in PREMIERE PRO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_n-kr1Z3hk

Custom Shape Masking - Adobe Premiere

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIgV5tGDd5s

How to Make Glitch Video Effects in Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2017 Tutorial (VCR VHS Glitch Art Edit)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd1SMC5j4i0

TV Glitch Masking Effect (After Effects Tutorial)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld0Uvhj9VmA

0 notes

josidel · 7 years ago

Text

EPIC TALE OF LOSING $30,000 IN BITCOIN

January 2016, I spent $3,000 to buy 7.4 bitcoins. At the time, it seemed an entirely worthwhile thing to do. I had recently started working as a research director at the Institute for the Future’s Blockchain Futures Lab, and I wanted firsthand experience with bitcoin, a cryptocurrency that uses a blockchain to record transactions on its network. I had no way of knowing that this transaction would lead to a white-knuckle scramble to avoid losing a small fortune.

My experiments with bitcoin were fascinating. It was surprisingly easy to buy stuff with the cryptocurrency. I used the airBitz app to buy Starbucks credit. I used Purse.io to buy a wireless security camera doorbell from Amazon. I used bitcoin at Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles to buy graphic novels.

November, bitcoin’s value had nearly doubled since January and was continuing to increase almost daily. My cryptocurrency stash was starting to turn into some real money. I’d been keeping my bitcoin keys on a web-based wallet, but I wanted to move them to a more secure place. Many online bitcoin services retain their customers’ private bitcoin keys, which means the accounts are vulnerable to hackers and fraudsters (remember the time Mt. Gox lost 850,000 bitcoins from its customers’ accounts in 2014?) or governments (like the time BTC-e, a Russian bitcoin exchange, had its domain seized by US District Court for New Jersey in August, freezing the assets of its users).

I interviewed a handful of bitcoin experts, and they all told me that that safest way to protect your cache was to use something called a “hardware wallet.” This little device is basically a glorified USB memory stick that stores your private bitcoin keys and allows you to authorize transactions without exposing those keys to the internet, where they could be seized by bad actors. I settled on a hardware wallet called the Trezor (the Czech word for “safe”), described by the manufacturer as “bulletproof.” I bought one on November 22 for $100 on Amazon (again, via Purse.io).

When the Trezor arrived, I plugged it into my computer and went to the Trezor website to set it up. The gadget’s little monochrome screen (the size of my two thumbnails, side by side) came to life, displaying a padlock icon. The website instructed me to write down 24 words, randomly generated by the Trezor one word at a time. The words were like “aware,” “move,” “fashion,” and “bitter.” I wrote them on a piece of orange paper. Next, I was prompted to create a PIN. I wrote it down (choosing a couple of short number combinations I was familiar with and could easily recall) on the same piece of paper as the 24-word list.

The Trezor website explained that these 24 words were my recovery words and could be used to generate the master private key to my bitcoin. If I lost my Trezor or it stopped working, I could recover my bitcoin by entering those 24 words into a new Trezor or any one of the many other hardware and online wallets that use the same standard key-generation algorithm. It was important for me to keep the paper hidden and safe, because anyone could use it to steal my 7.4 bitcoins. I transferred my currency from my web-based wallet to my Trezor, tossing both the Trezor and the orange piece of paper into a desk drawer in my home office. My plan was to buy a length of flat aluminum stock and letterpunch the 24 words onto it, then store it somewhere safe. I was going to do it right after the holidays.

The Mistake:

It was 6:30 in the morning. My 14-year-old daughter, Jane, was in London on a school trip, and my older daughter, Sarina, was at college in Colorado. My wife Carla and I were getting ready to leave for the airport to take a vacation in Tokyo. As I was rummaging through my desk drawer for a phone charger, I saw the orange piece of paper with the recovery words and PIN. What should I do with this? If our plane plowed into the ocean, I’d want my daughters to be able to get the bitcoins. The coins had already nearly tripled in value since I bought them, and I could imagine them being worth $50,000 one day. I took a pen and wrote on the paper:

Jane, if anything happens, show this paper to Cory. He’ll know what to do with it. Love, Dad

(“Cory” is Cory Doctorow, my friend and business partner at my website, Boing Boing. He’s not a bitcoin enthusiast, but I knew he’d be able to figure out how to retrieve the master private key from the word list.)

I took the paper into Jane’s bedroom, stuck it under her pillow, and we took a Lyft to LAX.

The Garbage:

We returned from Tokyo on March 24, and I didn’t even think about the orange piece of paper until April 4, when I remembered that I’d put it under Jane’s pillow. That’s funny, I thought. She’s been home more than a week and never said anything to me about it.

I went into her room and looked under her pillow. It wasn’t there. I looked under her bed, dragging out the storage boxes to get a better view, using my phone as a flashlight.

“Carla?” I asked. “Did you see that orange piece of paper with my bitcoin password on it? I can’t find it in Jane’s room.”

“Maybe Jane put it in her desk,” she said. Jane was in school, but I texted and asked her. She said she never saw an orange piece of paper.

“Wait,” Carla said. “We had the house cleaned while we were gone. I’ll call them.”

Carla called the cleaning service we’d used and got the woman who cleaned the house on the line. She told Carla that she did indeed remember finding the orange piece of paper.

“Where is it?” Carla asked.

“I threw it away.”

I knew the garbage had already been collected, but I put on a pair of nitrile gloves and went through the outside trash and recycling bins anyway. Nothing but egg cartons, espresso grinds, and Amazon boxes. The orange piece of paper was decomposing somewhere under a pile of garbage in a Los Angeles landfill.

Carla asked if losing the paper was a big deal.

“Not really,” I said. “It’s just a hassle, that’s all. I’ll have to send all the bitcoins from the Trezor to an online wallet, reinitialize the Trezor, generate a new word list, and put the bitcoins back on the Trezor. It would only be bad if I couldn’t remember my PIN, but I know it. It’s 551445.”

The Forgetting:

I plugged the Trezor into my laptop and entered 551445.

Wrong PIN entered.

I must have made an error entering the PIN, I thought. I tried 551445 again, taking care to enter the digits correctly this time.

Wrong PIN entered.

Uh oh. I tried a slight variation: 554445

Wrong PIN entered.

This is ridiculous, I thought. I knew the PIN. I’d entered it at least a dozen times in recent months without having to refer to the paper. OK, it’s probably 554145.

Wrong PIN entered.

I looked at the tiny monochrome display on the bitcoin wallet and noticed that a countdown timer had appeared. It was making me wait a few seconds before I could try another PIN. My heart fluttered. I went to the hardware wallet manufacturer’s website to learn about the PIN delay and read the bad news: The delay doubled every time a wrong PIN was entered. The site said, “The number of PIN entry failures is stored in the Trezor’s memory. This means that power cycling the Trezor won’t magically make the wait time go to zero again. The best you can do by turning the Trezor on and off again is make the timer start over again. The thief would have to sit his life off entering the PINs. Meanwhile, you have enough time to move your funds into a new device or wallet from the paper backup.” (Trezor is based in Prague, hence the stilted English.)

The problem was, I was the thief, trying to steal my own bitcoins back from my Trezor. I felt queasy. After my sixth incorrect PIN attempt, creeping dread had escalated to heart-pounding panic—I might have kissed my 7.4 bitcoins goodbye.

I made a few more guesses, and each time I failed, my sense of unreality grew in proportion to the PIN delay, which was now 2,048 seconds, or about 34 minutes. I opened my desktop calculator and quickly figured that I’d be dead before my 31st guess (34 years). One hundred guesses would take more than 80 sextillion years.

I broke the news to Carla. I told her I couldn’t remember the PIN and that I was being punished each time I entered an incorrect PIN. She asked me if I’d saved the PIN in my 1Password application (a secure password app). I told her I hadn’t. When she asked me why, I didn’t have an answer.

I knew it would be a mistake to waste a precious guess in my agitated condition. My mind had become polluted with scrambled permutations of PINs. I went into the kitchen to chop vegetables for a curry we were making for dinner. But I couldn’t think of much else besides the PIN. As I cut potatoes into cubes, I mentally shuffled around numbers like they were Scrabble tiles on a rack. After a while, a number popped into my head: 55144545. That was it! I walked from the kitchen to the office. The Trezor still had a few hundred seconds left on the countdown timer. I did email until it was ready for my attempt. I tapped in 55144545.

Wrong PIN entered. Please wait 4,096 seconds to continue…

I barely slept that night. The little shuteye I managed to get was filled with nightmares involving combinations of the numbers 1, 4, and 5. It wasn’t so much the $8,000 that bothered me—it was the shame I felt for being stupid enough to lose the paper and forget the PIN. I also hated the idea that the bitcoins could increase in value and I wouldn’t have access to them. If I wasn’t able to recall the PIN, the Trezor would taunt me for the rest of my life.

The Search:

That morning, bleary eyed, I started looking into ways to get my bitcoins back that didn’t involve recalling my PIN or recovery words. If I’d lost my debit card PIN, I could contact my bank and I’d eventually regain access to my funds. Bitcoin is different. No one owns the bitcoin transaction network. Instead, thousands of computers around the world run software that validates the system’s transactions. Anyone is allowed to install the bitcoin software on their computer and participate. This decentralized nature of the bitcoin network is not without consequences—the main one being that if you screw up, it’s your own damn problem.

I went to /r/TREZOR/ on Reddit and posted:

Feel free to ridicule me—I deserve it. I wrote my PIN code and recovery seed on the same piece of paper. I was planning to etch the seed on a metal bar and hide it, but before that happened my housecleaning service threw the paper away. Now I can't remember my password and I have tried to guess it about 13 times. I now have to wait over an hour to make another guess. Very soon it will be years between guesses. Is there anything I can do or should I kiss my 7.5 bitcoins away?

Most of the replies were sympathetic and unhelpful. One person said I should get in touch with Wallet Recovery Services, which performs brute-force decryption on encrypted Bitcoin wallets. I emailed them and asked for help. “Dave Bitcoin” replied the next day:

I would like to help you ... but I do not see any solution to your problem. You need to either guess your PIN correctly, or find your seed.

A response on the Reddit forum from a user with the handle zero404cool was intriguing:

…all your information is still stored inside Trezor and there are people who know how to get all the information that is needed to get your wallet working again. I have seen it.

He added in another post:

Just keep your Trezor safe. Don't do anything with it. There is no need to try different PIN codes. You can regain possession of all your bitcoins.

The other users on the subreddit thought zero404cool wasn’t on the level. One said he might be a scammer; another accused him of spreading “FUD” (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) about Trezor’s security. I was inclined to agree with them, especially after reading about the lengths Trezor had gone to to make its device impenetrable to hackers. The manufacturer claimed with confidence that the Trezor could withstand any attempt to compromise it. The most obvious way to crack it, by installing unofficial firmware designed to unlock the PIN and keywords, would only have the effect of wiping the Trezor’s storage, the website said.

To confirm, I emailed Trezor and explained my predicament. A customer service representative emailed me back with a link to its “emergency situations guide,” none of which applied to my emergency situation. She wrote:

In all these situations there is either a PIN code or recovery seed needed to get an access to your funds. Unfortunately, without knowledge of at least one of these, no one is able to get access to this particular account with the funds stored on it. Is there anything else I can help you with, Mark?

The situation was starting to feel hopeless. In the meantime, zero404cool sent me a direct message on Reddit offering to help:

Yes, I can help you if you are willing to accept my help. Obviously, you are not going to find these instructions anywhere online. And it requires certain technical skills to complete them properly. A professional can extract all information just in 10 seconds. But this is not public knowledge, it's never going to be.

The problem is that I don't know you. I don't know if your story is real or not. I don't even know if you are a real person who really owns a Trezor. For example, You could as easily ask this to hack into someone else’s device. I can't allow that.

So, for this to work we have to gain each other’s trust I guess.

I wrote back and told zero404cool to Google my name, to help him decide if he could trust me. He’d see that I was one of the first editors of Wired, coming on board in 1993. I founded the popular Boing Boing website, which has 5 million monthly unique readers. I was the founding editor-in-chief of the technology project magazine, Make. A while later, zero404cool replied:

Hi Mark, It seems that you are not afraid of soldering and command line programs. I guess we can proceed with this recovery as DIY project then? I am somewhat busy at the moment; I hope that you are not in too much hurry to complete it?

I replied that I wasn’t in a hurry. I didn’t hear from him after that.

The Hypnotist:

“The hypnosis allows us to open all channels, all information,” Michele Guzy said. I was in a reclining chair in her Encino office, covered in a blanket, concentrating on her soothing patter. My wife, a journalist and editor, had interviewed Michele a few years ago for an article about hypnotism in movies, and I was so desperate to recall my PIN that I made an appointment with her.

Earlier in the session, Michele had me reenact the experience of writing my PIN on an orange piece of paper. She put the paper in her desk drawer and had me sit down and open the drawer and look at the paper. She explained that we were trying different techniques to trigger the memory of the PIN.

The exercises didn’t cause anything to surface to my conscious mind, but Michele told me that we were just priming my subconscious for the upcoming hypnosis portion of my appointment. She dimmed the lights and spoke in a pleasantly whispery singsong patter. She asked me to imagine going down a long, long escalator, telling me that I would fall deeper and deeper into a trance as she spoke. The ride took at least 15 minutes. I felt relaxed—but I didn’t feel hypnotized. I figured I should just go with it, because maybe it would work anyway.

After nearly four hours in her office, I decided the PIN was 5514455.

It took me a few days to build up the nerve to try it. Every time I thought about the Trezor my blood would pound in my head, and I’d break into a sweat. When I tried the number, the Trezor told me it was wrong. I would have to wait 16,384 seconds, or about four and a half hours, until the device would let me try to guess again.

The Final Guess:

I tried to stop thinking about bitcoin, but I couldn’t help myself. To make matters worse, its price had been climbing steeply over the summer with no end in sight. That July, the eccentric software entrepreneur John McAfee tweeted that a single bitcoin would be worth more than $500,000 in three years—“if not, I will eat my dick on national television,” he said, with typical understatement. I didn’t actually believe the price would rise that spectacularly (or that McAfee would carry out his pledge), but it fueled my anxiety.

I couldn’t escape the fact that the only thing keeping me from a small fortune was a simple number, one that I used to recall without effort and was now hidden in my brain, impervious to hypnotism, meditation, and self-scolding. I felt helpless. My daughters’ efforts to sneak up on me and say, “Quick, what’s the bitcoin password?” didn’t work. Some nights, before I went to sleep, I’d lie in bed and ask my brain to search itself for the PIN. I’d wake up with nothing. Every possible PIN I could imagine sounded no better or worse than any other. The bitcoin was growing in value, and it was getting further away from me. I imagined it as a treasure chest on a TRON-like grid, receding from view toward a dimly glowing horizon. I would die without ever finding it out.

Culled from wired.

via Blogger http://ift.tt/2ilp5ES

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courtneyvbrooks87 · 7 years ago

Text

‘I Forgot My PIN’: An Epic Tale of Losing $30,000 in Bitcoin

The Trezor: January 4, 2016: 7.4 BTC = $3,000

In January 2016, I spent $3,000 to buy 7.4 bitcoins. At the time, it seemed an entirely worthwhile thing to do. I had recently started working as a research director at the Institute for the Future’s Blockchain Futures Lab, and I wanted firsthand experience with bitcoin, a cryptocurrency that uses a blockchain to record transactions on its network. I had no way of knowing that this transaction would lead to a white-knuckle scramble to avoid losing a small fortune.

By November, bitcoin’s value had nearly doubled since January and was continuing to increase almost daily. My cryptocurrency stash was starting to turn into some real money. I’d been keeping my bitcoin keys on a web-based wallet, but I wanted to move them to a more secure place. Many online bitcoin services retain their customers’ private bitcoin keys, which means the accounts are vulnerable to hackers and fraudsters (remember the time Mt. Gox lost 850,000 bitcoins from its customers’ accounts in 2014?) or governments (like the time BTC-e, a Russian bitcoin exchange, had its domain seized by US District Court for New Jersey in August, freezing the assets of its users).

The Mistake: March 16, 2017: 7.4 BTC = $8,799

Jane, if anything happens, show this paper to Cory. He’ll know what to do with it. Love, Dad

I took the paper into Jane’s bedroom, stuck it under her pillow, and we took a Lyft to LAX.

The Garbage: April 4, 2017: 7.4 BTC = $8,384

I went into her room and looked under her pillow. It wasn’t there. I looked under her bed, dragging out the storage boxes to get a better view, using my phone as a flashlight.

“Carla?” I asked. “Did you see that orange piece of paper with my bitcoin password on it? I can’t find it in Jane’s room.”

“Maybe Jane put it in her desk,” she said. Jane was in school, but I texted and asked her. She said she never saw an orange piece of paper.

“Wait,” Carla said. “We had the house cleaned while we were gone. I’ll call them.”

Carla called the cleaning service we’d used and got the woman who cleaned the house on the line. She told Carla that she did indeed remember finding the orange piece of paper.

“Where is it?” Carla asked.

“I threw it away.”

Carla asked if losing the paper was a big deal.

The Forgetting: April 4, 2017: 7.4 BTC = $8,384

I plugged the Trezor into my laptop and entered 551445.

Wrong PIN entered.

I must have made an error entering the PIN, I thought. I tried 551445 again, taking care to enter the digits correctly this time.

Wrong PIN entered.

Uh oh. I tried a slight variation: 554445

Wrong PIN entered.

This is ridiculous, I thought. I knew the PIN. I’d entered it at least a dozen times in recent months without having to refer to the paper. OK, it’s probably 554145.

Wrong PIN entered.

Wrong PIN entered. Please wait 4,096 seconds to continue…

The Search: April 5, 2017: 7.4 BTC = $8,325

I went to /r/TREZOR/ on Reddit and posted:

Feel free to ridicule me—I deserve it. I wrote my PIN code and recovery seed on the same piece of paper. I was planning to etch the seed on a metal bar and hide it, but before that happened my housecleaning service threw the paper away. Now I can’t remember my password and I have tried to guess it about 13 times. I now have to wait over an hour to make another guess. Very soon it will be years between guesses. Is there anything I can do or should I kiss my 7.5 bitcoins away?

I would like to help you … but I do not see any solution to your problem. You need to either guess your PIN correctly, or find your seed.

A response on the Reddit forum from a user with the handle zero404cool was intriguing:

…all your information is still stored inside Trezor and there are people who know how to get all the information that is needed to get your wallet working again. I have seen it.

He added in another post:

Just keep your Trezor safe. Don’t do anything with it. There is no need to try different PIN codes. You can regain possession of all your bitcoins.

The situation was starting to feel hopeless. In the meantime, zero404cool sent me a direct message on Reddit offering to help:

The problem is that I don’t know you. I don’t know if your story is real or not. I don’t even know if you are a real person who really owns a Trezor. For example, You could as easily ask this to hack into someone else’s device. I can’t allow that.

So, for this to work we have to gain each other’s trust I guess.

I replied that I wasn’t in a hurry. I didn’t hear from him after that.

The Hypnotist: May 25, 2017: 7.4 BTC = $12,861

After nearly four hours in her office, I decided the PIN was 5514455.

The Final Guess: August 12, 2017: 7.4 BTC = $28,749

Carla and I were folding laundry in the evening when Sarina came in. She was home from college for the summer. “I know what the bitcoin password is!” she said. “It’s 55445!”

“Why do you think that?” I asked.

“Well, you sometimes use 5054 as your password, but since the Trezor doesn’t have a zero, you would have just skipped it and put nothing there. You wouldn’t have made it 5154, you would have just used 554, and added 45 to it.” (I sometimes append my passwords with 45 because the number has a meaning to me.)

Carla looked at me and said, “Your eyes have a spark. Maybe it is the number.” I thought she might be right.

Sarina said, “If it isn’t 55445, then it’s 554455, because sometimes you add 455 at the end of your passwords.”

“That could be it,” I said. “I’ll think about it overnight and if I like it, I’ll try it tomorrow.”

In the morning, I decided that I’d try the numbers. I felt better about them than any other numbers I could think of. I plugged the Trezor in. I had to wait 16,384 seconds, or about four and a half hours, before I could enter the PIN. It was a Sunday, so I did things around the house and ran a couple of errands.

Once the Trezor was ready, I asked Carla, Sarina, and Jane to gather around my computer with me. I wanted them for moral support, to make sure I entered the PIN correctly, and to share in the celebration with me if the PIN happened to be right.

I sat in the chair while Jane, Sarina, and Carla stood around me. My heart was racing so hard that I could hear my head throb. I tried to keep my breathing under control. I entered the PIN slowly. Each time I entered a digit, I waited for one of my family members to confirm that I got it right. After entering 55445, I hovered the mouse cursor over the Enter button on the Trezor website. “Ready?” I asked. They all said OK. I clicked it.

Wrong PIN entered. Please wait 32,768 seconds to continue…

“Ah, shit,” I said.

“That’s OK, Daddy,” Sarina said. “When can we try 554455?”

I opened my calculator.

“Nine hours.”

Carla put her hand on my shoulder. “If it doesn’t work after a few more guesses, you should just break it,” she said. That seemed like the right thing to do. It would soon get to the point where I would have to keep the Trezor plugged into a powered-on computer for months (the countdown starts all over again if you unplug it), and then years and decades. The house we live in has lost power from a tripped circuit breaker, rain, or DWP maintenance at least once a year since we moved in 10 years ago. I could buy an uninterrupted power supply to keep the Trezor juiced during its years-long countdown, but I wanted this to be over, and killing the Trezor would end it.

The next morning before breakfast, I went into the office by myself and tried 554455.

Wrong PIN entered. Please wait 65,536 seconds to continue…

The Email: August 16, 2017: 7.4 BTC = $32,390

Awareness of my forgotten PIN had become something like tinnitus—always in the background, hard to ignore, annoying. What was wrong with my brain? Would I have remembered the PIN if I was in my 20s or 30s? I was feeling sorry for myself when I saw an email from Satoshi Labs, manufacturer of the Trezor, arrive in my inbox.

The subject line read, “TREZOR Firmware Security Update 1.5.2.”

The email said that the update was meant to fix “a security issue which affects all devices with firmware versions lower than 1.5.2.” It went on to say:

In order to exploit this issue, an attacker would have to break into the device, destroying the case in the process. They would also need to flash the device with a specially crafted firmware. If your device is intact, your seed is safe, and you should update your firmware to 1.5.2 as soon as possible. With firmware 1.5.2, this attack vector is eliminated and your device is safe.

Could there be a vulnerability in Trezor’s bulletproof security, one that I could take advantage of? I went to r/TREZOR to see what people were saying about it. The first thing I found was a link to a Medium post by someone who said they knew how to hack the Trezor using the exploit mentioned in the email. The post was titled “Trezor — security glitches reveal your private keys!”

The author included photos of a disassembled Trezor and a screengrab of a file dump that had 24 key words and a PIN. The author also included a link to custom Trezor firmware but no instructions on how to use it. I read the article a couple of times before I looked at the author’s name: Doshay Zero404Cool. It was the same person I’d corresponded with on Reddit five months earlier! I went to look at my old private messages with zero404cool and discovered..

http://ift.tt/2gLntnx

#IFTTT #Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin

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