#also if you ever longed for a light read among the lines of. early 20th century adventures of small town's beloved crime-solving duo

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bsd s1 spoilers without context

[justforbooks]

Fifty Great Classic Novels Under 200 Pages

We are now end of February, which is technically the shortest month, but is also the one that—for me, anyway—feels the longest. Especially this year, for all of the reasons that you already know. At this point, if you keep monthly reading goals, even vague ones, you may be looking for few a good, short novels to knock out in an afternoon or two. So now I must turn my attention to my favorite short classics—which represent the quickest and cheapest way, I can tell you in my salesman voice, to become “well-read.”

A few notes: This list will define “classic” as being originally published before 1970. Yes, these distinctions are somewhat arbitrary, but one has to draw the line somewhere (though I let myself fudge on translation dates). I did not differentiate between novels and novellas (as Steven Millhauser would tell you, the novella is not a form at all, but merely a length), but let’s be honest with ourselves: “The Dead” is a short story, and so is “The Metamorphosis.” Sorry! I limited myself to one book by each author, valiantly, I should say, because I was tempted to cheat (looking at you Jean Rhys).

Most importantly for our purposes here: lengths vary with editions, sometimes wildly. I did not include a book below unless I could find that it had been published at least once in fewer than 200 pages—which means that some excellent novels, despite coming tantalizingly close to the magic number, had to be left off for want of proof (see Mrs. Dalloway, Black No More, Slaughterhouse-Five, etc. etc. etc.). However, your personal edition might not exactly match the number I have listed here. Don’t worry: it’ll still be short.

Finally, as always: “best” lists are subjective, no ranking is definitive, and I’ve certainly forgotten, or never read, or run out of space for plenty of books and writers here. And admittedly, the annoying constraints of this list make it more heavily populated by white and male writers than I would have liked. Therefore, please add on at will in the comments. After all, these days, I’m always looking for something old to read.

Adolfo Bioy Casares, tr. Ruth L.C. Simms, The Invention of Morel (1940) : 103 pages

Both Jorge Luis Borges and Octavio Paz described this novel as perfect, and I admit I can’t find much fault with it either. It is technically about a fugitive whose stay on a mysterious island is disturbed by a gang of tourists, but actually it’s about the nature of reality and our relationship to it, told in the most hypnotizing, surrealist style. A good anti-beach read, if you plan that far ahead.

John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men (1937) : 107 pages

Everybody’s gateway Steinbeck is surprisingly moving, even when you revisit it as an adult. Plus, if nothing else, it has given my household the extremely useful verb “to Lenny.”

George Orwell, Animal Farm (1945) : 112 pages

If we didn’t keep putting it on lists, how would future little children of America learn what an allegory is? This is a public service, you see.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) : 112 pages

A people-pleaser, in more ways than one: Sherlock Holmes, after all, had been dead for years when his creator finally bent to public demand (and more importantly, the demand of his wallet) and brought him back, in this satisfying and much-beloved tale of curses and hell-beasts and, of course, deductions.

James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice (1933) : 112 pages

A 20th century classic, and still one of the best, most important, and most interesting crime novels in the canon. Fun fact: Cain had originally wanted to call it Bar-B-Q.

Nella Larsen, Passing (1929) : 122 pages

One of the landmarks of the Harlem Renaissance, about not only race but also gender and class—not to mention self-invention, perception, capitalism, motherhood and friendship—made indelible by what Darryl Pinckney called “a deep fatalism at the core.”

Albert Camus, tr. Matthew Ward, The Stranger (1942) : 123 pages

I had a small obsession with this book as a moody teen, and I still think of it with extreme fondness. Is it the thinking person’s Catcher in the Rye? Who can say. But Camus himself put it this way, writing in 1955: “I summarized The Stranger a long time ago, with a remark I admit was highly paradoxical: “In our society any man who does not weep at his mother’s funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death.” I only meant that the hero of my book is condemned because he does not play the game.”

Juan Rulfo, tr. Margaret Sayers Peden, Pedro Páramo (1955) : 128 pages

The strange, fragmented ghost story that famously paved the way for One Hundred Years of Solitude (according to Gabriel García Márquez himself), but is an enigmatic masterpiece in its own right.

Italo Calvino, tr. Archibald Colquhoun, The Cloven Viscount (1959) : 128 pages

This isn’t my favorite Calvino, but you know what they say: all Calvino is good Calvino (also, I forgot him on the contemporary list, so I’m making up for it slightly here). The companion volume to The Nonexistent Knight and The Baron in the Trees concerns a Viscount who is clocked by a cannonball and split into two halves: his good side and his bad side. They end up in a duel over their wife, of course—just like in that episode of Buffy. But turns out that double the Viscounts doesn’t translate to double the pages.

Kate Chopin, The Awakening (1899) : 128 pages

I know, I know, but honestly, this book, which is frequently taught in American schools as an example of early feminist literature, is still kind of edgy—more than 120 years later, and it’s still taboo for a woman to put herself and her own desires above her children. Whom among us has not wanted to smash a symbolic glass vase into the hearth?

Leo Tolstoy, tr. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886) : 128 pages

Another classic—Tolstoy can do it all, long and short—particularly beloved by the famously difficult-to-impress Nabokov, who described it as “Tolstoy’s most artistic, most perfect, and most sophisticated achievement,” and explained the thrust of it this way: “The Tolstoyan formula is: Ivan lived a bad life and since the bad life is nothing but the death of the soul, then Ivan lived a living death; and since beyond death is God’s living light, then Ivan died into a new life—Life with a capital L.”

Richard Brautigan, In Watermelon Sugar (1968) : 138 pages

Brautigan’s wacky post-apocalyptic novel concerns a bunch of people living in a commune called iDEATH. (Which, um, relatable.) The landscape is groovy and the tigers do math, and the titular watermelon sugar seems to be the raw material for everything from homes to clothes. “Wherever you are, we must do the best we can. It is so far to travel, and we have nothing here to travel, except watermelon sugar. I hope this works out.” It’s all nonsense, of course, but it feels so good.

James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912) : 140 pages

Another early novel on the subject of passing—originally published in 1912, then again under Johnson’s name in 1927—this one presented as an “autobiography” written by a Black man living as white, but uneasily, considering himself a failure, feeling until the end the grief of giving up his heritage and all the pain and joy that came with it.

Thomas Mann, tr. Michael Henry Heim, Death in Venice (1912) : 142 pages

What it says on the tin—a story as doomed as Venice itself, but also a queer and philosophical mini-masterpiece. The year before the book’s publication, Mann wrote to a friend: “I am in the midst of work: a really strange thing I brought with me from Venice, a novella, serious and pure in tone, concerning a case of pederasty in an aging artist. You say, ‘Hum, hum!’ but it is quite respectable.” Indeed.

Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962) : 146 pages

If you’re reading this space, you probably already know how much we love this book at Literary Hub. After that excellent opening paragraph, it only gets better.

Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man (1964) : 152 pages

Isherwood’s miniature, jewel-like masterpiece takes place over a single day in the life of a middle-aged English expat (who shares a few qualities with Isherwood himself), a professor living uneasily in California after the unexpected death of his partner. An utterly absorbing and deeply pleasurable novel.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, tr. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, Notes from Underground (1864) : 154 pages

Probably the best rant ever passed off as literature. Dostoevsky's first masterpiece has been wildly influential in the development of existential and dystopian storytelling of all kinds, not to mention in the development of my own high school misanthropy. Maybe yours, too? “It was all from ENNUI, gentlemen, all from ENNUI; inertia overcame me . . .” Actually, now I’m thinking that it might be a good book to re-read in pandemic isolation.

Anna Kavan, Ice (1967) : 158 pages

The narrator of this strange and terrifying novel obsessively pursues a young woman through an icy apocalypse. You might call it a fever dream if it didn’t feel so . . . cold. Reading it, wrote Jon Michaud on its 50th anniversary, is “a disorienting and at times emotionally draining experience, not least because, these days, one might become convinced that Kavan had seen the future.” Help.

Jean Toomer, Cane (1923) : 158 pages

Toomer’s experimental, multi-disciplinary novel, now a modernist classic, is presented as a series of vignettes, poems, and swaths of dialogue—but to be honest, all of it reads like poetry. Though its initial reception was uncertain, it has become one of the most iconic and influential works of 1920s American literature.

J.G. Ballard, The Drowned World (1962) : 158 pages

Only in a Ballard novel can climate change make you actually become insane—and only a Ballard novel could still feel so sticky and hot in my brain, years after I read it in a single afternoon.

Knut Hamsun, tr. Sverre Lyngstad, Hunger (1890) : 158 pages

The Nobel Prize winner’s first novel is, as Hamsun himself put it, “an attempt to describe the strange, peculiar life of the mind, the mysteries of the nerves in a starving body.” An modernist psychological horror novel that is notoriously difficult, despite its length, but also notoriously worth it.

James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room (1956) : 159 pages

Still my favorite Baldwin, and one of the most convincing love stories of any kind ever written, about which there is too much to say: it is a must-read among must-reads.

Willa Cather, O Pioneers! (1913) : 159 pages

A mythic, proto-feminist frontier novel about a young Swedish immigrant making a home for herself in Nebraska, with an unbearably cool and modern title (in my opinion).

Françoise Sagan, tr. Irene Ash, Bonjour Tristesse (1955) : 160 pages

Sagan’s famously scandalous novel of youthful hedonism, published (also famously) when Sagan was just 19 herself, is much more psychologically nuanced than widely credited. As Rachel Cusk wrote, it is not just a sexy French novel, but also “a masterly portrait that can be read as a critique of family life, the treatment of children and the psychic consequences of different forms of upbringing.” It is a novel concerned not only with morals or their lack, but with the very nature of morality itself.

Herman Melville, Billy Budd, Sailor (1924) : 160 pages

Bartleby may be more iconic (and more fun), but Billy Budd is operating on a grander scale, unfinished as it may be.

Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) : 160 pages

Everyone’s gateway to Pynchon, and also everyone’s gateway to slapstick postmodernism. Either you love it or you hate it!

Franz Kafka, tr. Willa and Edwin Muir, The Trial (1925) : 160 pages

Required reading for anyone who uses the term “Kafkaesque”—but don’t forget that Kafka himself would burst out laughing when he read bits of the novel out loud to his friends. Do with that what you will.

Kenzaburo Oe, tr. John Nathan, A Personal Matter (1968) : 165 pages

Whew. This book is a lot: absolutely gorgeous and supremely painful, and probably the Nobel Prize winner’s most important.

Djuna Barnes, Nightwood (1936) : 170 pages

In his preface to the first edition, T.S. Eliot praised “the great achievement of a style, the beauty of phrasing, the brilliance of wit and characterisation, and a quality of horror and doom very nearly related to that of Elizabethan tragedy.” It is also a glittering modernist masterpiece, and one of the first novels of the 20th century to explicitly portray a lesbian relationship.

Yasunari Kawabata, tr. Edward G. Seidensticker, Snow Country (1937) : 175 pages

A story of doomed love spun out in a series of indelible, frozen images—both beautiful and essentially suspicious of beauty—by a Nobel Prize winner.

Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) : 176 pages

This novel, Rhys’s famous riposte to one of the worst love interests in literary history, tells the story of Mr. Rochester from the point of view of the “madwoman in the attic.” See also: Good Morning, Midnight (1939), which is claustrophobic, miserable, pointless, and damn fine reading.

George Eliot, Silas Marner (1861) : 176 pages

Like Middlemarch, Silas Marner is exquisitely written and ecstatically boring. Unlike Middlemarch, it is quite short.

Muriel Spark, The Girls of Slender Means (1963) : 176 pages

The girls of Spark’s novel live in the May of Teck Club, disturbed but not destroyed by WWII—both the Club, that is, and the girls. “Their slenderness lies not so much in their means,” Carol Shields wrote in an appreciation of the book, “as in their half-perceived notions about what their lives will become and their overestimation of their power in the world. They are fearless and frightened at the same time, as only the very young can be, and they are as heartless in spirit as they are merry in mode.” Can’t go wrong with Muriel Spark.

Robert Walser, tr. Christopher Middleton, Jakob von Gunten (1969) : 176 pages

Walser is a writer’s writer, a painfully underrated genius; this novel, in which a privileged youth runs off to enroll at a surrealist school for servants, may be his best.

Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958) : 179 pages

Read for proof that Holly Golightly was meant to be a Marilyn.

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1958) : 181 pages

A powerful, clear-eyed, and haunting novel, which at the time of its publication was transgressive in its centering of African characters in all their humanity and complexity, and which paved the way for thousands of writers all over the world in the years to follow.

Leonard Gardner, Fat City (1969) : 183 pages

Universally acknowledged as the best boxing novel ever written, but so much more than that: at its core, it’s a masterpiece about that secret likelihood of life, if not of literature: never achieving your dreams.

N. Scott Momaday, House Made of Dawn (1968) : 185 pages

House Made of Dawn, Momaday’s first novel, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and is often credited with ushering in the Native American Renaissance. Intricate, romantic, and lush, it is at its core about the creaking dissonance of two incompatible worlds existing in the same place (both literally and metaphysically) at the same time.

Chester Himes, If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945) : 186 pages

Himes’ first novel spans four days in the life of a Californian named Bob Jones, whose every step is dogged by racism. Walter Mosely called Himes, who is also renowned for his detective fiction, a “quirky American genius,” and also “one of the most important American writers of the 20th century.” If He Hollers Let Him Go, while not technically a detective story, is “firmly located in the same Los Angeles noir tradition as The Big Sleep and Devil in a Blue Dress,” Nathan Jefferson has written. “Himes takes the familiar mechanics of these novels—drinking, driving from one end of Los Angeles to another in search of answers, a life under constant threats of danger—and filters them through the lens of a black man lacking any agency and control over his own life, producing something darker and more oppressive than the traditional pulp detective’s story.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925) : 189 pages

All my life I have wanted to scoff at The Great Gatsby. Usually, things that are universally adored are bad, or at least mediocre. But every time I reread it, I remember: impossibly, annoyingly, it is as good as they say.

Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin (1957) : 190 pages

Still one of my favorite campus novels, and short enough to read in between classes.

Charles Portis, Norwood (1966) : 190 pages

Portis has gotten a lot of (well-deserved) attention in recent years for True Grit, but his first novel, Norwood, is almost as good, a comic masterpiece about a young man traipsing across a surreal America to lay his hands on $70.

Philip K. Dick, Ubik (1969) : 191 pages

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and A Scanner Darkly have more mainstream name recognition (thank you Hollywood) but Ubik is Dick’s masterpiece, filled to the brim with psychics and anti-psis, dead wives half-saved in cold-pac, and disruptions to time and reality that can be countered by an aerosol you get at the drugstore. Sometimes, anyway.

Clarice Lispector, tr. Alison Entrekin, Near to the Wild Heart (1943) : 192 pages

Lispector’s debut novel, first published in Brazil when she was only 19, is still my favorite of hers: fearless, sharp-edged, and brilliant, a window into one of the most interesting narrators in literature.

Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (1962) : 192 pages

This novel is probably more famous these days for the Kubrick film, but despite the often gruesome content, the original text is worth a read for the language alone.

Barbara Comyns, Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead (1954) : 193 pages

Comyns is a criminally under-read genius, though she’s been getting at least a small taste of the attention she deserves in recent years due to reissues by NYRB and Dorothy. This one is my favorite, permeated, as Brian Evenson puts it in the introduction of my copy, with marvelousness, “a kind of hybrid of the pastoral and the naturalistic, an idyllic text about what it’s like to grow up next to a river, a text that also just happens to contain some pretty shocking and sad disasters.” Which is putting it rather mildly indeed.

Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) : 194 pages

In 194 pages, Janie goes through more husbands than most literary heroines can manage in twice as many (and finds herself in equally short order).

Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome (1911) : 195 pages

To be honest with you, though it has been variously hailed as a masterpiece, I find Ethan Frome to be lesser Wharton—but even lesser Wharton is better than a lot of people’s best.

Joan Lindsay, Picnic at Hanging Rock (1967) : 198 pages

The mood this novel—of disappeared teens and Australian landscape and uncertainty—lingers much longer than the actual reading time.

Angela Carter, The Magic Toyshop (1967) : 200 pages

“The summer she was fifteen,” Carter’s second novel begins, “Melanie discovered she was made of flesh and blood.” It is that year that she is uprooted from her home in London to the wilds of America, and it is that year she comes to term with herself. “It is often the magical, fabular aspects of Carter’s stories that people focus on, but in The Magic Toyshop I responded to the way she blended this with a clear-eyed realism about what it was to live in a female body,” Evie Wyld wrote in her ode to this novel. “In a novel so brilliantly conjured from splayed toothbrush heads, mustard-and-cress sandwiches and prawn shells, bread loaves and cutlery, brickwork and yellow household soap, the female body is both one more familiar object and at the same time something strange and troubling.”

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[fairfieldthinkspace]

Can the Trauma of War Lead to Growth, Despite the Scars?

By Phil Klay 

When we speak of trauma, it is usually as something to be avoided at all costs. But the suffering that war brings can be a strange and terrible blessing.

This article is part of a series on resilience in troubled times — what we can learn about it from history and personal experiences.

The French weapon deployed against Spanish troops in 1521 was, contemporaries said, “more diabolical than human.” The rapid-firing light bronze cannon shot iron balls that crushed battlements, careened wildly and sprayed shards of stone in all directions. At the Battle of Pamplona, one cannonball twice injured the leader of a small Spanish garrison defying calls for surrender, nearly killing him, first by striking one leg with stone shrapnel, then in the other leg by the cannonball itself. His name was Íñigo López de Loyola. The effect on Loyola was not only physical, but also spiritual: Today, he is better known as St. Ignatius.

Back then, he was no saint. One biography describes him as “a rough punkish swordsman who used his privileged status to escape prosecution for violent crimes committed with his priest brother at carnival time.” But this near-fatal injury changed him, along with a few religious books he read during his exceptionally painful convalescence, in which his bones had to be broken again and reset, and where he came so close to death he was given last rites. He went on to found the Jesuits and send disciples all over the globe, in what the British historian Dom David Knowles suggested was Christianity’s “greatest single religious impulse since the preaching of the apostles.”

When we speak of trauma, it is usually as something to be avoided at all costs. “Interest in avoiding pain,” wrote the utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer, is among “the most important human interests.” And yet soldiers like St. Ignatius, who found in their suffering a strange and terrible blessing, are not rare. Senator John McCain, brutally tortured at the Hanoi Hilton, famously declared himself “grateful to Vietnam” for giving him “a seriousness of purpose that observers of my early life had found difficult to detect.”

His might be an extreme case, but the expectation of exposure to some trauma has long been part of the draw of war. “The law is this: no wisdom without pain,” wrote the ancient Greek playwright and military veteran Aeschylus. “Wanted or not by us, such wisdom’s gained; its score, its etch, its scar in us goes deep.” Perhaps that’s true, but it leaves us with an ugly and, to some, offensive question: Can suffering be a gift?

In the early 20th century, the German writer Ernst Jünger, who had proudly served four years in brutal front-line fighting in World War I, declared the answer was a resounding yes. “Tell me your relation to pain,” he claimed, “and I will tell you who you are!” Civilization before the war had slid into bourgeoise decadence, he thought, fleeing from self-sacrifice and prioritizing safety. But the war heralded a new sort of man.

“Hardened as scarcely another generation ever was in fire and flame,” he wrote of himself and his fellow soldiers, “we could go into life as though from the anvil; into friendship, love, politics, professions, into all that destiny had in store. It is not every generation that is so favored.” Postwar Germany convinced him that the industrialized world these men returned to, which happily destroyed workers’ bodies for the construction of railways or mines, was ruled by the same cruel logic as the trenches. Men would have to rise to the challenge by accepting pain, and accepting the cruelty of the age. This is toughness and callousness elevated to a first principle. Unsurprisingly, many of Jünger’s admirers became Nazis.

One of their victims was an Austrian of Jewish descent named Jean Améry, who after the war forcefully rejected, in the starkest terms, any notions of suffering as a gift. Likewise, notions of stoic detachment born of the trenches were absurd to a man who had been tortured by the Gestapo before being sent to Auschwitz. Améry experienced pain beyond description; he was hung by his arms until they ripped from their sockets, and then horsewhipped. For the tortured man, he wrote, “his flesh becomes total reality.”

More lasting than the pain, though, the experience destroyed his ability to ever feel at home in the world, which requires faith in fellow men. Humans are a social animal, our inner self in constant outward search for communion. Torture inverts that expansive, capacious self into a collapsing star. Whatever you thought you were — a mind, a consciousness, a soul — torture reveals how simply, and casually, that can be destroyed. “A slight pressure by the tool-wielding hand is enough,” Améry wrote, to turn a cultured man into “a shrilly squealing piglet at slaughter.” There is wisdom here, though of a dark sort. “Whoever was tortured, stays tortured.” Améry committed suicide in 1978.

Where does that leave those who suffer? For the medical community, the safest option is addressing symptoms, not metaphysics. The writer and former Marine infantry officer David J. Morris has described his own therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder from his time in Iraq, during which he was urged to retell the stories of his trauma, practice breathing exercises, and reframe his cognitive responses to his environment and his traumatic memories.

But he was not encouraged to grow in response to what he had gone through; when he would try to speculate on how his experience might be converted to wisdom, psychologists would admonish him, he reported, “for straying from the strictures of the therapeutic regime.” One senior psychologist at the Department of Veterans Affairs told him that notions of post-traumatic growth were an insult to those who have suffered. For a medical community grounded in science rather than spirituality, and rightfully leery of telling the Amérys of the world to look on the bright side, suffering is no gift.

But another current can be found in theories developed during the Vietnam War. The study of psychological trauma suffers from what the psychiatrist Judith Herman has called “episodic amnesia,” in which periods of active interest, frequently following wars, are followed by “periods of oblivion.” But the generation of soldiers disaffected from war during Vietnam organized and demanded the first systematic, large-scale investigations of war trauma’s long-term effects. In addition to a medical diagnosis — PTSD was added to the American Psychiatric Association’s official manual in 1980 — many of these same veterans and their allies argued for the spiritual and moral significance of their condition.

Psychiatrists like Robert Jay Lifton and writers like Peter Marin argued that the suffering of Vietnam veterans was not simply neurosis, but appropriate moral response to horror. “All men, like all nations, are tested twice in the moral realm,” Mr. Marin wrote. “First by what they do, then by what they make of what they do.” Rather than numbing themselves to pain, they needed to sensitize themselves, to become alive to the “animating” guilt they supposedly lived with. Guilt forces the suffering consciousness outside of itself, the theory goes, sparking empathy and a drive to make reparation.

Whether guilt results in healing, though, is debatable. Some of the most fascinating research on growth after war trauma emerges out of a four decade-long study initiated by Zahava Solomon, which followed the PTSD trajectories of veterans of the 1982 war in Lebanon and the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, also known as the Yom Kippur War. A 2016 analysis of Israeli P.O.W.s from the 1973 war, who faced systematic torture, deprivation and social stigma, did find that those who reported the most guilt about their experience also reported the most growth. However, those veterans also had greater reports of PTSD symptoms as well. As Aeschylus warned, the wisdom they felt they had gained came with deep scars.

None of this would likely have surprised Ignatius of Loyola. In his tradition, suffering was at best a mystery: God never really answers Job, and Christ’s prayer to “let this cup pass me by” goes ungranted. As a Jesuit friend recently told me, suffering is never a gift, never truly willed by God; suffering is real, and awful, and not to be forgotten. “Consider how the Divinity hides Itself,” Ignatius’ followers have been directed to ask for hundreds of years, “how It could destroy Its enemies and does not do it, and how It leaves the most sacred Humanity to suffer so very cruelly.” But of course, that doesn’t mean that we cannot respond to such suffering with grace.

Phil Klay is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, a visiting professor at Fairfield University and the author of “Redeployment,” winner of the 2014 National Book Award for Fiction, and the forthcoming novel “Missionaries.”

[cooltrainererika]

Alt-talia x Evillious Chronicles: The Key to Zorn (Part 1 v. 1)

Couldn’t come up with a better title. 

This is for Alternate Universe/AU, or Angst, it can qualify for both. 

Okay… so… holy hell. 

This is the longest fic I’ve ever written. And it isn’t even finished. 

I thought “Superbia” was long. But… I outdid myself. Over FORTY FREAKIN’ PAGES IN GOOGLE DOCS. And again, this is not finished, I’m splitting it so I at least have the hope of releasing something! With two routes! This is a novel, folks!

I’m probably going to repost this for the Christmas event since I want as much people to see them as possible. Because there are some Christmas elements here. So yeah, you can take this as an early Christmas fic too.

This will be a movie, folks. Grab a seat and some popcorn. 

Also, look, it’s goddamn Ludwig torment again! For the fourth time in the span of a month! And this might just be the most elaborate way I’ve tormented the poor guy yet. But I didn’t really have many options. 

So I wanted to enter Mirror Week, but in the main canons write in, Alt-talia and Hetalia Emblem, I haven’t come up with any use for 2Ps, and in the former case I can’t see how I could use them. 

However, there was one Alt-talia spin-off AU I had been thinking they would exist on; I didn’t know whether I wanted to release media to it so early, and due to a reason I will explain in a moment, I was reluctant to release media about it in general. But… I went with it. 

This is my Evillious Chronicles AU. Yes, an AU of an AU. What about that. 

Basically, the Evillious Chronicles is what started as a series of Vocaloid songs telling a much larger story; it has since ballooned into a vast, tangled network of light novels and other such media. It’s as confusing as it sounds. Some of you may have heard of the songs “Daughter of Evil” and “Servant of Evil”; those were the first songs to be released in that series. Those two songs weren’t self-contained, oh no. 

The thing is, for this AU I wanted to write just based on the seven sin songs (and Servant of Evil), with accompanying Hetaloid covers, and leave the rest of the story up to the audience. I’m still planning on that. However, I still wanted to enter the event, so here I am presenting a version of events for one of the arcs; however, it is merely the route that hews closest to Evillious canon from what I can gather of it. So yeah, NONE OF THIS IS HARD CANON. Especially since I wasn’t sure on the roles of some characters here. 

Also, if I somehow ever get to publishing my main Evillious x Hetalia fics sometime in the future; first of all, hi. But more importantly, please, I implore you, do not read this before reading The Muzzle of Ludwig. Especially the second half. I tried to avoid spoilers, but someone becomes extremely obvious with contextual clues. 

Also… it’s not like I wanted to write Ludwig torment again. But he was basically my only option, since he was the only one whose sin most likely overlaps with… well, it’ll become clear as this goes on. Ludwig’s story here is based on Nemesis Sudou’s story. Though since Nemesis and Ludwig are vastly different characters, there may be some plot holes, unfortunately. 

And THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: for those who have read none of my other works yet, Alt-talia has often vastly, vastly different characterizations. I based most of these characterizations off of their late 19th century to very early 20th century personalities in Alt-talia. Special OOC warning for the following characters: Austria, Hungary, and Prussia. Minor OOC warning for Germany. I used @askimperialludwig ‘s version of the character as a reference, along with my personal perception and research. may add more later. 

Also, credit to my friend @tomboyjessie13 , my Evillious consultant, for helping me through this!

I can’t let this be too long, since the fic is long already. Let’s go!

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(Also... people who read my fics, please reblog them. I work hard on them, and want many to see them!)

And since I forgot to add this above the cut; this canon is also one of the few times Nyotalia characters canonically exist as their own entity in my works, if not the only one so far. It’s kind of necessary, since otherwise it’ll turn into a complete sausagefest. However, as I have no set personality for them in main Alt-talia canon, I basically write them the same way as I would their male counterparts, with maybe some minor changes. I do have some ideas for Nyotalia characters in “what if” stories for main Alt-talia canon, but since this would be an Alt-talia spinoff, most of my theoretical audience would be there for the Alt-talia characters who appear in most Alt-talia media. Not to mention male stereotypes for countries are usually more fun anyway. However, in this universe two counterparts of the same character can co-exist. I try to avoid that though. 

Also, a character named “Arendt” is briefly mentioned; this is Brandenburg. He isn’t really that important though, and really I’ve barely fleshed him out, so that’s all you need to know.

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The Key To Zorn

In a certain continent, there was a forest.

A serene, peaceful forest, where inside one could almost feel mystical energy in the clear, unpolluted air.

Until, under the evening sky, a gunshot sounded.

Ludwig Beilschmidt, a boy of merely 8 with innocent, cornflower blue eyes, ran through the forest he knew so well, a basket of wild berries and herbs in his arms and a small sack over his back.

Soon, in his view, among the trees and wild cornflowers was the only place he had known all his life, the little wooden cottage he called home.

The boy immediately checked his old, somewhat rusted mailbox, a look of anxiousness on his face - one which immediately turned to disappointment upon finding there was nothing there.

He sighed.

“Nothing today either...”

He reached up somewhat, twisting the doorknob and opening the wooden door.

“I’m home!”

No one answered back.

As per usual.

He didn’t expect one anyway.

Ludwig went to the dining table, setting the basket and sack, as well as his small, old-model pistol, down on his side of the table. Inside the sack was a small rabbit; the poor little thing. He hoped it didn’t struggle for long after he had shot it.

He prepared dinner as he always did, the bubbling as the ingredients stewed the only sounds other than the cries of the wildlife outside.

And he ate in silence by the light of the lamp, staring at the empty, vacant other side of the table, the light of the sun dim and faint.

“Mutter, is it good?”

Nothing.

Ludwig sighed again, going back to shoving the stew into his mouth.

——-

Ludwig tucked himself into bed after a bath and a change of clothes, now in his old, almost too small pajamas, having finished the book in his hands an hour ago - while he had reread it and others several times already, it was a window into a world different from his, where friends supported each other and families told stories in front of the fire - but now that it was over, here he was, once again, stuck in loneliness, on his own, within the cold, dark walls of a small cabin.

Once again, it was quiet. All too quiet; except for the sounds of the forest.

Now as he had nothing to distract him, every rustling of the underbrush, every animal cry made him bristle. The forest was his comfort by day, almost a second mother, but by night, it was dark, feral. 

He pulled his blankets up to his face, curling up, shaking like a leaf. He felt any moment, a beast could break through the walls and tear him to shreds.

He missed his mother so much, oh how he missed her. Her harsh but protective voice, her calloused hands squeezing his wrists. He missed his onkel Arendt, who told him stories of the battles he and Mutter had been through.

She’s dead. She’s dead, accept it.

No, no she wasn’t.

She couldn’t be. She had to be alive.

She was too strong to die.

She would come back. She always came back. 

His mother wouldn’t want to see him like this anyway. He was being pathetic.

“Einz, zwei, drei...”

He took a deep breath. He was stronger than this. 

Imagining his mother was standing by his bed, staring at him with disapproval at his fearful behavior, finally his shivering started to lessen ever so slightly.

He needed to make it so that when she came home with another medal shining on her chest, she could come home to a son she could be proud of, after all.

“Good night.”

He said to no one in particular, as he let the faint moonlight be his comfort, finally closing his eyes.

Lu li la la lu li la la la...

A soothing, calming melody played in his mind; Ludwig didn’t know where he knew it from, but as it surrounded him in soft, almost familiar gentleness, the shivering stopped, his muscles loosened, and he was finally lured into the welcome embrace of sleep.

Lu li la la lu li la la la…

Lu li la la lu li la la la...

———-

“FIRE!”

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Birds flew away in massive numbers, disturbed by the sudden noise.

Ludwig blew the steam off his pistol, seeing that the bullets had all landed near-target. Almost there.

Not bothered by the recoil anymore, he lined up the shot again, swearing he would get it right this time.

Every two days he did this, before 10 sets of running, marching, and every parallel bar routine; this wasn’t how most children his age passed their time, willingly anyway, if the books he read were any indication, and surely he felt sorry for the animals who had to hear such things, as they were the closest things to friends he had. But it broke the silence. 

And most of all, he could almost sense his mother beside him during these practice drills; he could feel her hands on his arms guiding him in his aim, and hear her voice shouting in tandem with him as he shouted “FIRE!”. In fact, sometimes he swore she actually was there, by his side.

He took a deep breath and aimed again.

“FIRE!”

-----------------------

When he came home, he once again saw a basket of supplies.

They always puzzled him. They came at such random, unpredictable intervals, filled with food, a few bottles of milk, several cartridges of bullets, and even occasionally a book, toy, bar of soap, or other extra, but by the time he found them no one was ever there.

He should be grateful. Though he wished someone would explain to him.

Oh well.

-----------------------------

Days passed, then months.

Once again, on the night of his 9th birthday, Ludwig laid alone, the weak moonlight unable to brighten his gradually deepening pit of despair.

The silence was maddening. He craved for any touch, for any warmth of another person, for anything. But even that simple wish was too much to ask.

He bunched up the worn blanket, the cold, frigid winter air seeping into the cabin.

Every day, he wondered if he was slowly going mad. 

Holding a cornflower and his mother’s black cross necklace to his chest, looked out into the moon, to the night sky peeking from a clearing in the trees.

A star shot through the night sky, and Ludwig was quick to make his wish.

I hope Mutter will answer my letters soon.

She had always told him that believing in such things was foolish.

But what was the pain in hanging onto the little light he could find?

-------------------

Now’s your time.

Alright. I’m going in. See you. 

------------------

One cold, chilling day, towards the final days of the year he turned 9, Ludwig stepped outside to check his mailbox again.

Snow lightly dusted the ground, softly landing on his old, worn coat.

He had checked his homemade calendar; Sancbruma. Such a lovely holiday. But now, just yet another cold, freezing, lonely day. Oh well. He had known Pater Natalis wasn’t real for years to need confirmation.

But this day, after creaking the old thing open, he found something.

His heart almost stopped.

Immediately, he ripped the envelope often, his heart pounding in his ears, his breath quickening, and he immediately glued his focus to the words, written specially to be understandable to a child.

Ludwig Beilshmidt, we are sorry to inform you that…

Time seemed to stop. He swore his heart stopped.

Dread shot through his body like lightning.

He read on, clinging onto the little hope that still remained with him all those years as they escaped from him, flying away as he fell deeper.

…

…

Tears fell from his face.

She was gone. 

She was really gone.

Finally, suppressed despair replaced dread, filling every corner of his mind and body, every nerve, every muscle. 

But mixed with it, and eventually almost overpowering it in the concoction of emotion, was wrath. 

Pure, unbridled wrath.

He tore the paper and screamed, his screams piercing the serene forest air.

Tears fell from his eyes like a burst dam as he cried into his hands, cursing whoever had killed her, her fate, the cruelty of the gods.

If only he could get his hands on whatever bastard killed her, he would strangle them, he would gouge out their eyes, he would shoot them in the leg and watch them bleed to death, how dare they take his mother away!

He had always been told the best came to those who were patient.

He was proven wrong that day.

All those years, waiting, hoping, hoping for nothing.

Nothing. 

His mother was never going to come back. Ever. 

Grief, anger, and sadness gripped his small frame as he shook, on the ground, his young brain besieged with intense emotions and reality, dreaded, painful reality.

Don’t cry. How pathetic. Is that how I raised you?

Ludwig forced himself to take deep breaths, desperately fighting his tears and holding back the flow of the concoction of emotions any further. 

No, his mother wouldn’t want to see him like this. He couldn’t let her be honored like this.

“Einz, zwei, drei, einz, zwei, drei...”

He took a breath with every word, forcing his emotions back and attempting to lock them away, until finally once again he could think somewhat coherently.

It was here he noticed something wet poking his hand.

There was something in front of him.

A dog.

A medium-large dog with pointy, perky ears and snout; a magnificent, beautiful coal-black Fernirhund, its bright, intelligent eyes a rare violet. 

He didn’t notice it before in his panic, but now the dominant emotion in his mind was confusion.

As he sniffled, the dog nudged him again with its nose, looking up at him with its soulful eyes.

“...A dog?”

The dog stared at him back.

Ludwig’s mind immediately jumped back to the beginning of the year.

I hope Mutter will answer my letters soon.

“Are… are you from my Mutter?”

Silence.

Immediately, he embraced the dog, making it yelp, crying into its fur.

“It’s adorable! I love it Mutter! Thank you!”

It let him cry into its fur, as the boy’s short arms wrapped around it in the first living thing it had embraced, nay, touched, in years.

He was actually holding something living. Oh, it had been so long. Oh so long.

He had almost forgotten what it felt like to hold life in his arms, to feel its warmth, to feel its gentle rising and falling, to hear the subtle sounds of another’s breath in his ears.

For the first time in years, despite the unforgiving cold of the winter morning air, warmth reached Ludwig’s heart, happiness brewing with and overpowering now subdued despair and rage.

<Sure… Whatever makes you happy, kid.>

------------------------------------------

“Oy vey… I was too late again.

...This world is fucked.”

-------------------------------------

Ludwig put a saucer of stew in front of the dog, which surely enough it soon started lapping up.

“It’s good right? What should I call you… I’ll have to give you a name.”

He stared at the dog, deep in thought.

“Oh, I know… Schwarzchen!”

The dog looked at him.

“You like it? Then Schwarzchen it is!”

<...I didn’t say anything. ’Blackie’? You cannot be serious.>

--------------------

That night was different from usual.

Ludwig nestled his head in Schwarzchen’s fur, holding onto him like a stuffed animal, running his fingers through his soft coat. It had seemed reluctant at first, clearly not used to such close contact but as Ludwig begged it to stay, as if it understood him, it decided to stay with him. 

The dog’s breathing neutralized the deafening silence he had gotten so used to, its warmth protecting his small body from the frosty air.

It was like heaven.

Oh, he almost forgot something.

He took his mother’s necklace from his bedside table, putting it around the dog’s neck like a collar.

“There. Perfect. It suits you.”

He barked.

“Good night, Schwarzchen.”

That night, sleep came to Ludwig easier than usual, as he was surrounded by his new companion’s soft breathing and warm fur.

----------

“Hallo. Kid. Wake up.”

Ludwig awoke, his eyes fluttering open.

Once his eyes focused, he almost yelped in shock.

He was somewhere he didn’t recognize, some formless void; Schwarzchen was nowhere to be seen, nor were the walls of his cabin or even his forest, all that remained was his bed.

In front of him was a man clad in what seemed to be a long white lab coat and some type of mantle, or at least Ludwig assumed, his clothing style almost resembling that in illustrations in one of his novels, ostensibly chronicling ancient legends; but not just any man. 

A man who looked almost exactly like how one would imagine Ludwig would look like when he was older, save for his unnatural purple, almost magenta eyes that shined with a calculating glint, a scar under his left.

“H… hallo?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not here to hurt you.”

“I… Who are you?”

The man smiled at him softly; despite his harsh features, it calmed some of Ludwig’s nerves, just a little.

“That isn’t important. But you’re lonely, right? And it’s causing you pain, yes?”

His voice was deep; much lower than Arendt’s, the only other reference he had for an adult man, surprising Ludwig a bit.

The boy nodded.

The man dug into one of his pockets, taking out a key.

“Here. I’ll be your friend; all you have to do is take the other end of this key, and you won’t feel any of that loneliness and pain any more…”

Tentatively, Ludwig took it.

The boy gasped as he suddenly felt something overwhelming and indescribable other than energy blitz between him and the strange man through the key; it was painless, in fact almost manic energy, bright lights flashing in his vision.

Ludwig woke up.

The boy laid there, his eyes wide, his mind mulling over what he had just seen.

“A dream… it was a dream… Who was that man?”

He turned, and there Schwarzchen was. 

“Never mind… Good morning, Schwarzchen.”

<Are you really going with that name?>

Ludwig blinked.

“...Did you just…”

<I thought children were supposed to be creative?>

Ludwig’s eyes widened. He held his head; it seemed to be coming from within his head, like a thought, instead of from his ears.

“...Schwarzchen? Is that you?”

<Yes, this is the dog. And I have a name.>

Ludwig took a few seconds to process the information.

“...What? ...Mein Gott, I’ve really gone crazy…”

<No. This is real. I’m speaking to you through something called telepathy. Speaking to you through your mind. I could explain all the intricate details but it would probably short-circuit your child brain.>

“I know what it is. But it’s just like in the stories! Wow! I didn’t know they really happened!”

<Well you could say that.>

Ludwig sat up on the side of his bed.

“You keep insulting my naming sense. So what is your name?”

“Schwarzchen” looked him directly in the eyes.

<Well, well, it’s the same as yours, funnily enough. Ludwig.>

“We have the same name? What a coincidence.”

 <But I know that is confusing. Just call me Lutz. That is what everyone calls me.>

“Alright… Lutz it is. ...I liked ‘Schwarzchen’ though.”

<...Whatever, kid.>

---------------------------

Like that, Ludwig and Lutz became friends. 

His 10th birthday had been the best birthday he had in years, even if it was just the two of them.

Over time, Lutz taught the boy how to use telepathy; and without him saying a word, he became a third hand to him.

...Sometimes. Other times, the dog merely yawned, telling him to “Do it on his own.”

Ludwig wondered if all dogs were like this. But even then, he didn’t mind. Even if Lutz was a cold, snarky jerk sometimes, it didn’t matter.

Every day, they ate together, went hunting together, bathed together, and at the end of the day slept together.

He could almost forget his loneliness, and the fact that his mother would never return.

Almost. 

——————

As Ludwig braced himself on his bed, he once again counted his breaths. 

The wrath he felt that day; it was coming back. From within, it seemed to spread to his entire body, to the point it was unbearable. 

He would never forget that pain. He couldn’t. But mindless rage was for the foolish. 

He wouldn’t forget. But he would remember, silently. 

When he looked to Lutz, Lutz didn’t seem afraid at all. He merely stared at him with those violet eyes. 

Ludwig embraced Lutz, not letting go. 

-----------------

Lutz stared at the young boy as he slept, his chest rising and falling.

<How cute.>

It was easy.

A bit too easy.

What did he expect from a child though.

<Still, would have liked a bit more of a challenge.

Oh well. Sleep tight, kid.

...Though why do you have to use me as a pillow?>

--------------------

Over the next year, Ludwig grew. Now on the cusp of puberty, he became stronger, he could run faster and further, and he could shoot with more and more accuracy.

On the morning of his 11th birthday, Lutz presented him with a query.

<Kid.>

“Huh? What is it, Lutz?”

<Now that you know that your mother isn’t coming home…>

Ludwig froze.

<Don’t cry on me.>

“I wasn’t going to”

<Yes, yes. In anyway, since you know you mother isn’t coming home, what’s the point staying in this place anymore?>

The boy pondered it.

<I’m a dog and even I think it’s pointless waiting for someone if they’re clearly dead. Well maybe I’m not the one to talk here.>

He was right.

“But… This is all I have ever known.”

<Don’t worry about it. You’re smart. I think. You should find out what to do soon enough.>

“...Jawohl. I don’t know what my purpose is being here forever too… It’s not like this place will disappear either. And it’s not what Mutter would want me to do. ...We’re leaving tonight.”

————-

Ludwig opened his drawer.

There it was; the notice he had torn up all those years ago. 

Why did he still have it? 

Just so he would never forget, probably.

Ludwig sealed the notice into a pouch before the rage became too much to bear, stuffing it into his bag, going to fetch his clothing. He had a sailor suit saved up for “special occasions”; he hoped he hadn’t outgrown it already. 

--------------

Ludwig looked behind his back one last time to the small cabin, the cornflowers, the trees he had known for his entire 11 years of living. 

It felt so odd to know he would be away from it. 

He quickly ran back, Lutz grumbling behind him, and picked a few flowers, pressing them between the pages of a book. 

<Are you done now?>

“Jawohl. Coming, coming!”

-----------

When Ludwig entered the capital, the little truly important belongings he had on his and Lutz’s backs, he was in awe.

It bustled with energy, with people, rickety, clanking automobiles and trolleys spewing steam or smoke that made him cough if he went to close, radio commercials resounding through the air, as well as delicious smells the likes of which he hadn’t known in years, some never before, but mixed in with the inexplicable smell of whatever was coming out of the automobiles. 

Ludwig wasn’t quite sure whether he liked it or disliked it, but most accurately he would describe it as a strange mix of the two; but more than anything, everything was so new.

He marveled at the sight of a trolley passing by, when he heard honking behind him. 

“Get out of the way brat!”

Ludwig stepped back, hopping back to the sidewalk, and an automobile clunked on, its driver looking at him irritated.

But its movements fascinated him, how the machine seemed to move magically, how it seemed to have a life of its own.

“...Where should I even start?”

<Well? Do you have any relatives?>

“Not that I know of.”

Lutz pointed in the direction of some other children, in a way much like how a pointer or setter dog would.

<You could try living on the streets like them for a few days. See where it gets you.>

“...Oh.”

Ludwig sighed. He may as well. 

————-

“Shoo! Shoo!”

“No money? We aren’t a charity, sorry.”

“Outta the way!”

————-

Ludwig slept in an alley that night, huddled in his old blanket, snuggling against Lutz, who had gotten used to the close contact years ago. 

He was so tired. He just remembered he hadn’t slept for an entire day, and it was finally catching up to him. 

He had gotten some attention due to being cleaner-looking than the rest, though Lutz was far more charming in their eyes. But more often than not, the overwhelming message in the air was clear; he wasn’t welcome here. 

“Lutz?”

Lutz looked up. 

<What is it, kid?>

“Why didn’t you tell me I needed money for everything?”

<Didn’t you read about it?>

“I didn’t know it was this necessary.”

<I can’t hold your hand all the time.>

“...Lutz?”

<...What now?>

“There’s so many people here. But I still feel so alone.”

<Well at least you got some to get through the night. Don’t be choosy.>

“Jawohl… Good night.”

————

Seeing no reason not to, Ludwig had decided to explore the city a bit more the next morning, after having helped himself and Lutz to a piece of bread and some beef jerky he had bought, plus the miscellaneous items he had been given the day before.  

After a long while of walking, taking in the different sights, from the historical landmarks and building to new projects, some even in the midst of being built, neatly separated or together, working in at times harmonious and at times chaotic tandem. Every so often he saw stray animals run about. After some time he started to see schoolchildren, some about his age, run to school with their friends, adults dressed in suits on their way to work. 

Until, Ludwig started to feel the air change. 

It felt somewhat... sticky? The breeze seemed stronger. And inexplicably salty. 

For he had reached the city harbor. Birds, they were called seagulls he believed, cawed above. Fishermen had far since left the dock, and in the distance, trade ships were being loaded to go who knows where. And they were floating on a vast, open field of water, water, nothing but water.

“Lutz... is this...”

<The ocean? What, you don’t even know what the ocean is?>

He had heard his mother’s stories about the ocean; while she had never been a woman of the seas per se, she was in the army, not the navy after all, he had heard her describe growing up near it. It was odd thinking that she, too, had been a child once like him.

This ocean was to her like the forest was to him, quite possibly.

She had also spoken about a rumor; a rumor that a wish put into a bottle and cast into the sea would, eventually, be granted. She had dismissed it as childish of course. And she did say that she much preferred the land after growing up.

Though according to Onkel Arendt, she would at times, despite this, just go to her childhood home, staring out into the eternal ocean.  

He wondered what she had thought as her red eyes stared out into the distant horizon, the salty breeze flowing through her silver-white hair.

It was strange, imagining his mother like that. The sea was so free, almost careless; the complete opposite of her. But maybe that was exactly what drew her to it.

Ludwig started running along the dock, letting Lutz chase him, the briny wind rushing past him and through his hair. People had started to come to swim, and the city was starting to fully come to life. 

Even if life was hard, at least he had some way of entertaining himself when everything was so brand new. 

--------------

One day, a duo of teenagers spotted Ludwig.

And being the thugs they were, Ludwig suddenly found himself in confrontation with two kids much larger, older, and stronger than he; even if Ludwig was tougher than most 11-year-olds, these two seemed to be about 14 at least, if not, and probably, 15.

“Hey street rat, where’s your mutti?!”

Ludwig tried not to pay them any heed, even if he bristled at the rude words. 

“...What business do you have with me?”

The shorter one grabbed him by the collar. 

“I asked you a question, shorty!”

After the initial shock and fear, Ludwig felt a flash of anger. His fists clenched as he tried to struggle his way out. And worst of all was that he couldn’t do anything. 

<Kid. Listen.>

“What?!”

<Listen to me. Tell me to “Intimidate”. Now. Don’t ask questions.>

“Of course! ...Intimidate, Lutz!”

————-

Ludwig stood there, dumbfounded at what he had just witnessed, as the teenagers ran away, screaming “DEMON DOG! DEMON DOG!”.

And there Lutz was, looking terribly bored, as if nothing had happened. 

“How… how…”

<I’m a Very Amazing Dog, you could say.>

————

A week passed; Ludwig counted, as he always valued timekeeping, no matter what. The other street children left him alone, eyeing him strangely. Occasionally, he heard extortionists threatening some unfortunate soul. 

That was when, however, Lutz told him something vital. 

<Hey. Have you ever considered asking the police if you have any relatives?>

Ludwig looked at the dog, puzzled.

“What?”

Lutz pointed at a building.

<There. It says “POLIZEI”. Can’t you read?>

“...Why? Won’t they throw me in jail or something?”

<Actually they have records too. They might have your mother’s family on file.> 

Lutz looked up to see Ludwig’s dumbfounded face staring back at him. 

“...Why didn’t you tell me that, you mutt?!”

<Thought it would be interesting to observe you. Also don’t be too loud. Everyone will think you’re a crazy person. 

Ludwig took a look around, and indeed there were some passerbys staring at him. 

Ludwig loudly sighed, his palm on his face. 

“...Fine. Thanks anyway.”

--------------------------

“Your name?”

“Ludwig Beilshmidt.”

The officers looked at him for a few seconds.

“...As in Julia Beilshmidt? General Julia Beilshmidt?”

“Jawohl.”

They were in shock.

“...Excuse me? Is something wrong?”

“Erm… We apologize. Ja.”

“Do I have any relatives? I need some place to stay.”

“...Ja. We will search immediately. Please wait here. But it may take a while.”

————-

“Hallo? Is this the police? Why must you be calling?”

“Well, you see, sir… It appears that a relative of yours has suddenly shown up out of nowhere. ...He claims to be Beilshmidt’s son.”

“...Mein Gott. Julchen did say she had a son… I knew she wasn’t the type who should be able to take care of a child. I will be there as soon as I can.”

-------------

<This is boring.>

“I know, Lutz. Shut up.”

Lutz yawned.

“He should be here soon-”

It was then that the door to the police station opened with just enough force to be noticeable without slamming. 

Standing there was a dark brown-haired gentleman with a large, curly cowlick, probably in his thirties, most likely affluent from his clothing.

“Excuse me, I hear there was someone waiting for me here?”

Ludwig stood up, and their eyes met.

“Hallo. ...You are Ludwig?”

He adjusted his glasses, then his tie.

“Ja?”

He looked him over.

“Ah, I can see some of the resemblance. Though you’re actually somewhat adorable, unlike her.”

“...Is that an insult against her?”

Realizing his mistake, the man cleared his throat.

“Ah, sorry.”

He outstretched his hand.

“I am Herr Roderich Edelmann. Your mother’s cousin. Nice to meet you. I’ve heard about you, but it is nice being able to see you with my own two eyes.”

Ludwig took the hand, shaking it. 

“Ludwig Beilshmidt. Nice to meet you, Sir.”

Then, suddenly, Roderich’s formal facade dropped and he pulled the boy into a hug.

“You’re so precious! You may call me Onkel Roderich! Don’t worry, we will take great care of you!”

Lutz looked on in amusement as Ludwig’s cries of shock became muffled in the man’s chest. 

Ludwig was flabbergasted. It had been so long since he had been hugged. He only could relive them in his memories, and they weren’t frequent, but here he was, feeling it yet again, surrounded by warmth; he didn’t know how to process it. 

But if there was one emotion he was certain about as the man smoothed his hair and cooed over him, it was that he felt loved.

————-

Ludwig held on tightly as the automobile rocked around them. Roderich didn’t seem to mind it whatsoever, but Ludwig had only heard of an automobile once, and had seen, much less ridden, none. Roderich was happy to make him comfortable next to him though, warning him whenever a bump or “pothole” was coming up. 

“I forgot to ask… what is that dog doing with you? A purebred Fenrir no less?”

Lutz was lazily sprawled out in the back seat behind them, his ears pricking somewhat at the mention of him. 

“Oh, that’s Lutz.”

“...Lutz? As in…”

“Jawohl.”

Roderich looked puzzled. 

“Erm… Mutter named him.”

Roderich huffed.

“Ah, Julchen, of course…”

“He was my last Sancbruma present from her before she died.”

Roderich quieted for a few seconds.

“Oh… I see. We will accommodate him too. Do not worry. ...Also, no need to ‘jawohl’ around me.”

“Jawo… ja.”

—————

Onkel Roderich was a renowned musician; he was a master of many instruments and even knew how to compose, but his main forte was the piano. He was sought after for his talents across the land.  

And he had the house to show it as well. 

“Welcome to your new home, Ludwig.”

Ludwig took it all in; the house was already larger than average compared to others in town, and as a boy who had grown up in a small log cabin all his life, it seemed especially enormous. 

A woman with long, light brown hair came up to them, looking from Roderich to Ludwig. 

“Ah, Erzsébet! This is my nephew, Ludwig. He will be staying with us from now on.”

Roderich bent his knees so he was at Ludwig’s level. 

“Ludwig, this is Erzsébet, my wife.”

“H… hallo. Nice to meet you, Tante Erzsébet.”

Ludwig outstretched his hand. 

The woman merely eyed him for a few seconds.

“Hallo. I guess.”

She said, gruffly, with a distinctly foreign accent.

Roderich sighed. 

“Erzsébet, why do you have to be like this?”

“Why do we have to take in this ratty-looking kid?”

Ludwig scowled. 

“Hey!”

Roderich held Ludwig closer, glaring at her. 

“Erzsébet! He’s a child! Have you no heart?!”

“Fine, fine.”

She shook his hand, roughly. 

“But the dog is cute though. And wow, a Fenrir?! Hallo, come here!”

Lutz merely yawned. 

Ludwig couldn’t help but snicker as an unamused frown crept across Erzsébet’s face. 

“...Whatever. Make yourself at home I guess.”

She walked off. 

“Prepare the bath and extra room for the boy! Come on now!”

Roderich commanded, and soon after servants bowed and quickly ran upstairs in single file. 

“Don’t mind my wife. She wasn’t exactly enthusiastic to hear from you. But she will warm up to you eventually. Though… you are in need of new clothes, aren’t you?”

He gave the boy a once-over, making Ludwig look down to his old, beaten-up and washed out child-sized military uniform. 

“Sadly, we do not have any clothes your size as of now. I will have a servant hire the tailor immediately. Meanwhile I will order them to wash what you have now.”

<He’s awfully happy to see you, isn’t he?>

“Ja… he seems like a nice person.”

————

That might, Ludwig had the best dinner he had ever had. 

He could only marvel at the dishes in front of him; even those he had heard of before looked so refined. And there was so much of it! The variety of bread available was amazing.

But he couldn’t let himself forget his discipline. Even if it took all his willpower not to start gorging himself on everything like he had been possessed by some demon of gluttony. 

“Onkel, what is this?”

“A chocolate torte, you see. A type of cake.”

Ludwig remembered actually having a cake a grand total of once. He still remembered its sweetness so well and it was probably the best thing he ever had eaten. And then there were two other things he had only read about before. 

...And Lutz seemed unusually interested in it.

He couldn’t blame him though, it’s aroma was mesmerizing to Ludwig’s senses.

“Chocolate? Is that what the brown is?”

“You have never had chocolate before?! Mein Gott, Julchen, What have you done?”

Ludwig was quick to take a bite, and he froze. 

The mellow, deep sweetness melted on his tongue, spreading throughout his mouth in such an indescribably perfect way, a tinge of bitterness within that instead of detracting from the experience, somehow harmonized with the sweetness in such a heavenly way. 

“...Ludwig?”

“...It’s amazing.”

Roderich seemed somewhat amused by how floored the boy was. 

“Even your mother was quite a fan.”

<Hey, hey. Kid.>

Ludwig was surprised by the unusual agitation in Lutz’s thoughts. He didn’t think he had ever heard anything like it before. 

“Lutz? What is-“

<I need it. Now. Don’t ask questions!>

Ludwig almost panicked, giving a piece to the impatient dog. 

“Ludwig!”

“I… erm… It was unfair to have it to myself!”

“...Wasn’t chocolate poisonous to dogs?”

Erzsébet questioned. 

“Wait wha-“

<Don’t worry. ... Ahh, bliss...>

Ludwig smiled nervously. 

“He’ll be fine.”

The couple just stared, confused. 

“Erm…”

“Trust me! I know him well. ...Can I have more? Please?”

“Absolutely.”

His face absolutely lit up at that, and in the corner of his vision Ludwig saw quite possibly the most genuine expression of joy he had seen from Lutz in all the time he knew him. 

“Why’s it that everyone in your family loves chocolate so much?”

Erzsébet asked as her husband took another piece. 

“Why don’t you is the better question.”

“...Actually, yup, you two definitely are related. Leave some for me though!”

————

Roderich doted on the boy; he made sure he had the nicest clothes and the nicest food that he could afford. 

He had made sure the room was in absolute best condition, that his pillows were always fluffed and bed always made, even if Ludwig insisted he wanted to do it on his own. 

He taught him everything about the basics of civilization, how to read more complex sentences, how to play the piano and the violin, even how to dance. He took him with him to work, across the city and sometimes even country to places he had at best read about and to meet so many new people.

His next Sanctbruma and 12th birthday were the most extravagant he had ever had. 

Yet…

Yet something was missing. 

Despite the man’s kindness, he felt something wasn’t right. Ludwig couldn’t put a finger on what, and he felt awful about it to be sure; he did so much for him, what more could a boy ask for?

But yet…

Sure, Erzsébet never completely warmed up to him; even if she wasn’t as cold to him, according to Lutz she was merely tolerating him. And the same was true for many of the servants. 

But that didn’t change the fact that Roderich himself was nothing but loving towards him. Even if he had curfews and other such rules, he never had trouble with rules. His mother raised him to obey rules. And while he was often busy, he still tried his best to spend time with him.

Finally, he actually had someone who resembled a parent after all those years. He should have been thankful. 

But he wasn’t doing anything wrong. 

Someone had to be doing something wrong. 

At times, he still lay awake at night, those lonely days and nights and that fateful Sanctbruma playing back in his mind; as well as the accompanying emotions of pure hatred and wrath. 

Once, Roderich has entered the room at an inopportune time to Ludwig curled up in his bed, seething, growling at him to leave him alone. 

While he didn’t say anything about it at dinner, it was obvious he was disturbed by it. 

“...Lutz. Why can’t I be happy? I still feel alone, but I don’t even know why.”

<Maybe you’ve been alone for too long. You’re past the point of return, kid. Maybe you should come to peace with it.>

“At least I have you.”

<Whatever.>

———

“Ludwig.”

“Ja, Onkel Roderich?”

The man sighed.

“It has been over a year since you started living with us. What is it with your standoffish behavior? Is something wrong? I will listen to it.”

“...I just can’t, Onkel.”

“Excuse me?”

“I… Something just doesn’t feel right. I don’t know why.”

The man looked so disappointed.

“I try my best to make you happy, Ludwig. I really do. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to satisfy your needs.”

“Nein. It isn’t that.”

Roderich shook his head.

“As I was saying… the chords for this piece are…”

—————

Ludwig continued to do his practice drills whenever possible, even if they had taken a different shape; makeshift targets became proper shooting galleries, improvised exercises became possible using an open space between buildings and proper equipment. And as he grew more and more by the day, his physical abilities took leaps and bounds above what he had been capable of before. He just wished he could go more than weekly. At first, Roderich objected, but it didn’t take long for him to cave in. 

After all, he had to keep himself in shape, especially as he now had access to all the candy and chocolate that could be plausibly afforded. 

After a while, Roderich started to continuously try to ask him to consider other options in this weekly time slot. He was never too forceful, however. And after a while, as Ludwig expressed his clear annoyance, it finally ceased just as it had begun. 

There was another episode that irked Ludwig.

One night, as he went to get a glass of water, he had seen Roderich, seemingly sneaking away from his room. 

“...Onkel?”

The man bristled as soon as he turned on the lights. 

“Erm… Ludwig, I didn’t expect you to be awake..

Then, Ludwig saw it. 

In his hands was his mother’s necklace. 

“...What are you doing with Mutter’s necklace?”

He immediately stuffed it inside his pocket and turned around, a fake smile on his face. 

“What necklace, my dear Ludwig?”

“I know you’re hiding it.”

The man sighed, taking it back out again. 

“I… I wanted to put it in a place it will be safer in.”

Ludwig tried not to grill him further, even as he felt something fueled by doubt start to boil within him. 

“I’m sure it will be safe with me. It’s been so for all the years I’ve had it. Can I have it back now?”

“...Ja.”

Ludwig swiftly took it back, going down to get his glass. He really needed one. 

“You could tell a servant to get it for you?”

“No. I prefer to do it on my own.”

When Ludwig had returned to his room, he had quite the things to say to Lutz. 

“Lutz. Why did you let him take it?”

<I was sleepy, kid. Why do you care about that thing so much?>

“It’s from Mutter. You should know. ...Lutz. If anything, protect this with your life.”

<Oh come on now.>

“I’m serious. It’ll be the last thing I ask of you.”

<Alright, alright. Whatever.>

“You aren’t sincere, are you?”

<What do you want from me? Good night.>

——————

One day, as Ludwig overheard some servants speaking to each other in hushed voices, glancing at him every so often. 

He was able to catch two things; “Miss Erzsébet” and “barren”.

He wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. But for whatever reason he didn’t like the sound of it. 

That night, after some shouting, once again Roderich stormed out of the master bedroom, telling Erzsébet to “Get a hold of yourself already, you indecipherable woman!”, to his own separate room, as Erzsébet shouted some words back that sounded really angry and probably inappropriate. 

<There goes the lovely couple.>

Lutz thought, as Ludwig tried to sleep. Lutz, meanwhile, had no trouble. 

————

13-year-old Ludwig stood outside of the bar, alongside Lutz, as always, and other members of his gang. 

It was in a seedy, rough part of town. And it was where their rival gang frequented most often. 

It wasn’t the most well-to-do of bars, to say the least; as soon as they entered, the air smelt pungently of alcohol, and ambiently of various nasties. 

<Ergh. Try coming here as a dog.>

They immediately saw their target; the offending gang’s leader. 

Their leader went up to confront her rival, fists clearly ready to fly. 

“Hey! We know ya killed him!”

“Who?”

The rival boss said, with a cheeky grin. 

“Ya know who!”

The two continued to escalate their argument, until they became close to blows.

“Enough yammerin’! Get ‘em, boys n’ girls!”

Suddenly, they were grabbed by the rival gang bangers, including Ludwig, who held back a yelp. 

“We didn’t kill one of yer ratpack, asshole! Now get out or we’re gonna force ya out!”

“...You better tell us.”

Ludwig said, tersely, utilizing his now lowering voice and copying his mother’s tone. 

The rival boss laughed.

“Or what, kid? What are ya gonna do, huh? Man your recruiting standards have gone down!”

His boss smirked. 

“Ya better listen to the kid.”

“Or what?”

They laughed uproariously. 

“Lutz. Restrain.”

Their laughing instantly stopped, their faces going sheet white, all the other bar patrons, the bartender, and staff turning to gawk. 

For they bore witness to the gang boss being pinned down, on the floor, between the claws of a giant, terrifying hellhound, its eyes glowing, its fangs bared, its breath in the unfortunate gangster’s terrified face. 

Ludwig walked up to the rival boss with measured steps, the gangsters holding him having let go out of sheer terror, the thumping of his feet the only sounds other than his companion’s breathing and the squeaks and sputtering from bystanders and rival gangsters, and pulled out his old pistol, aiming it at the thug’s head, glaring daggers so sharp that they could gouge eyes out. 

Show your enemy no mercy.

Once again, he thought he felt his mother voice in his ear. 

“Tell us the truth.”

The rival boss sputtered, shaking like a leaf, looking awfully smaller than the much younger boy. 

“We… we… d-d-di…”

Ludwig cocked his pistol.

“Speak in a real language!”

The rival boss flinched, and the rest of the rival gang huddled, terrified. 

“W-we didn’t do anything! I-I swear! I swear!”

Ludwig lowered his pistol slightly. 

“...Really?”

“J-ja! I swear! I swear by both the Heavenly and Hellish Yards! P-p-please let me go, Sir!”

“...Alright. Lutz, release.”

The dog shrank back down to size, returning to his original, fluffy, cute self. 

His boss grumbled. 

“Whoop. That was pointless. Lud, let’s get outta this dump.”

They turned to leave, the other people in the bar still staring at them. 

“W-Wait.”

Ludwig and his boss turned back to the humiliated rival boss. 

“We might’ve not killed ‘im. But I-I have a good idea who might’ve.”

———-

“So, Lud. Good job today. We’ve got ourselves a lead.”

“Jawohl.”

Their boss patted Ludwig on the head and gave the group a once-over. 

“Ok. You’re all dismissed.”

Ludwig was quick to leave, the others staring after him.

“What’s it with him? I swear, it’s like he doesn’t wanna be associated with us.”

“He said something about a curfew.”

“Really? Kid still follows curfews? What is he, 10?”

-----------------

When Ludwig came back, Roderich was waiting for him. 

“Ludwig.”

“Onkel Roderich?”

Roderich’s expression was serious and stern. 

“...What have you been doing?”

“What do you mean, Onkel Roderich?”

Roderich held Ludwig’s shoulders. 

“Let me state this plainly.”

He took a deep breath. 

“You’re involved in gang activity, aren’t you?”

 Ludwig was in shock.

“How…”

Roderich shook his head, his hand on his forehead. 

“Ludwig. I am sure even Julchen taught you to obey rules.”

“I… I don’t want to depend on you for everything. I feel like a leech.”

Roderich was shocked.

“You’re only 13, Ludwig! It is alright! It isn’t worth putting yourself at risk like this!”

“I don’t know how to do anything else.”

Roderich shook his head.

“Don’t say that. You could deliver newspapers, or use those piano skills I taught you-“

“And they’re my friends.”

“Friends?! I care for you, why do you need them?! Do you even know any of their names?!”

“...” 

“You’re going to get into trouble eventually, young man.”

“I… I know!”

Roderich flinched. 

Ludwig looked down and stormed back into the house, Lutz running behind him, into his room, throwing himself onto his bed. 

“Hmph, teenagers...”

Erzsébet mumbled. 

—————-

“Ludwig?”

Roderich opened the door to Ludwig’s room that night, peeking in.

Ludwig couldn’t bare to look him in the eye. 

“I’m sorry.”

Roderich sighed.

“Is it because I’m not Julchen?”

The boy felt a pang of guilt. 

“I’m sorry! I don’t hate you, I’m thankful for what you’ve done, and-”

“I see. Just try to forget about her, alright?”

Ludwig froze. He felt like someone had stabbed his heart. 

“But…”

“I do so much for you. I give you everything. What was it that she had that I don’t? I’ve been a far better parent than that stone-hearted, cruel, cold-”

<Oh no. You’ve done it now.>

“DON’T SAY THAT ABOUT MY MUTTER!”

His voice cracked terribly, but he didn’t care. 

Roderich stumbled back, his face pale, horrified. 

Silence. 

“Ludwig… I’m sorry.”

Ludwig buried his face into his pillows. 

“...I’ll tell the servants to bring you dinner. I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Leave me alone!”

“...I’m happy with any path you want to take. Just please stay safe.”

Roderich sighed and closed the door. 

From that day on, Roderich started informing Ludwig of where police may find him, and locations of stations across the city. Anything for his safety, he had said. 

But from that day on Ludwig knew; he knew that his suspicions were true, that all this time he was trying to make him forget about his mother. He couldn’t let that happen. It was only confirmation when he heard him brutally disparage her one night in a drunken stupor during one of his binge-drinking sessions.

Once again, Ludwig could trust no one.

And once again, wrath simmered within him.

----------------

Their boss summoned Ludwig and the rest of the gang to a gathering; to sort out their clues, they had said. 

Ludwig was appreciated for his abilities; but outside of the action, he sat somewhat removed from the rest. He couldn’t connect with them much either. 

His mother had despised lawbreakers; “scum”, “rats”, she would call them. If she knew what he was doing now, she would have caned his palms until they were raw and bleeding. She would have told him he was better than this. He never would have imagined he could stoop this low too. After all, he was his mother’s only son. He should have been destined for greatness.

Quite honestly, he didn’t fully understand what he was doing here either. How did he even get here? Was it just a business affair? Were they really his friends? 

Maybe it was because this was the closest thing to military service he could find. Even if it were on the other side of the law. 

A girl a year or so older than him, the second youngest in the gang, came up to him attempting to speak to him. Ludwig hesitated, but in the end continued to be fascinated with the clues they had and Lutz. 

“Hey give up on Herr Stick-In-The-Mud already! Bet he’s never even kissed a girl!”

A gangster said, using the nickname they often used when ribbing him.

“What’s with him? He to good for us?” One of them muttered when Ludwig refused a drink.  

“Ja. Imagine being one of us and caring about drinking ages. Never can understand Herr Stick-In-The-Mud.”

“Ja. Where was he raised, His Majesty’s Elite Imperial Barracks?”

“Hey, hey, did you hear that Boss might have the hots for him too?”

“Why don’t you fuckwits shut the fuck up?” Their boss barked at the last one. “The kid’s basically an infant!”

<You’re the most rule-bound gangster I’ve ever seen.>

“Why do they treat it as a bad thing?”

<You’re the one who joined a street gang, genius. They’ve got different rules.>

Ludwig looked at the bottle of cheap moonshine he had been offered again, sighed, and took a gulp. 

He immediately gagged. 

The last time he’d had booze was when Roderich had allowed him to try beer, and even then he had basically diluted half of it with water and it definitely didn’t taste like... whatever this bottle of horse urine was. 

“Ack! This is awful! ...I did it, are you happy now?”

“That’s the spirit!”

“Doesn’t count! He gagged!”

Ludwig took a deep breath.

“Let’s get back on topic. We are discussing the murder of a fellow comrade. This is no time for inane chatter.”

Finally, the air became solemn.

“Ja, reasonable, I guess…”

“Now, onto the information Scout 2 gathered...”

—————-

Ludwig, more than anything, considered himself a logical person. 

He and his mother both despised vagueness. It seemed pointless, really, all the dancing around the true meaning of your words in the name of “politeness”. While apparently many in this part of the continent were considered similarly blunt and practical, it seemed even then he was exceptional. 

So his own emotional turmoil, how he could never seem to explain himself, frustrated him more than anyone else. It angered him. 

But one thing he knew for sure was that he looked forward to stopping by the library on the way home. Thank goodness Roderich had taught him to read to a level more appropriate for his age; it was difficult at first, but he was also fortunately a fast learner. 

He always had taken a fascination with the sciences. They were at first glance unpredictable, but once broken down and observed, logical. They made sense, they were rational. Recently, he started finding them more investing than fiction, in fact. And his new reading skills finally made the higher levels of it beyond simplistic drawings attempting to explain the laws of physics and magic accessible.

Which was why today he sat outside the library in his usual spot, looking through a medical encyclopedia, munching on one of many bars of dark chocolate and a small loaf of bread.

Lutz licked up pieces of chocolate Ludwig had given him, peeking from under him.

“HERS?”

<Hereditary Evil Raiser Syndrome.>

Ludwig looked to Lutz in shock. 

<A rare genetic, psychiatric disorder with no known cause. Those afflicted by Hereditary Evil Raiser Syndrome, a Hereditary Evil Raiser, or HER, is said to be at their core an incarnation of malice, "programmed" to destroy the gods, everything they created and everything related to them. Therefore, as a natural prerequisite, they typically show extreme cruelty and having the compulsion to increase their own kind and ensure the continuation of their "mission" to spread malice by any means necessary, taking immense pleasure in doing so. Currently there is no known cure, though in high-functioning individuals it may be managed, and manifest in lesser ways.>

“How…”

<I have my ways.>

“Though… Hereditary Evil Raiser Syndrome? Who names this stuff?”

<Hey. They probably had their reasons.>

“Why do you care? Did you come up with it?”

<Maybe. Plus, that’s rich coming from the kid who literally named me “Blackie”.>

Ludwig sighed. 

“I... Fine. And wait... are you reading with me?”

<Yeah, I can read. I never told you?>

Ludwig continue to stare at him.

“I... I just didn’t think you would...”

<Turn the page already. I already know this.>

"Maybe you could try reading a novel, Lutz?”

<Don’t care. Why should I care about what you flesh-apes think, much less fake ones? No one in the world knows what I’m thinking anyway.> 

Ludwig closed the encyclopedia. 

“You mean you feel that no one understands you, right?”

Lutz looked up, his ears erect.

His words struck him like a spark of lightning. 

“That makes two of us”

An awkward few moments passed. For once in his life, Lutz had nothing to retort back. 

Why was he so shocked? 

Ludwig blinked, confused. 

“Lutz? What’s wrong?”

<...Nothing.>

Lutz didn’t know what he had just felt. 

“That makes two of us”

It should have meant nothing, coming from this brat. 

But yet...

Whatever. It probably still meant nothing.

-------------------------

“We’ve got our guy! Rich bastard’s not gonna know what hit ‘im.”

Their boss said, confidently, gesturing to an assassin she had bought into their abandoned factory hideout. 

The assassin looked across the crowd of gangsters.

“So. Which one of you brats wants to come?”

“Actually, we’ve got a good clue already for who’s gonna be a good fit for this mission.”

Ludwig waited, anxiously. He would gladly take the job of avenging his fallen comrade, of course. 

“Ludwig!”

Ludwig stood to attention.

“...You’ll be providing nice clothes for us to blend in!”

Ludwig was speechless.

“How… Why?”

<Turns out you aren’t as tough as you thought. Better luck next time, kid.>

But when all had left, he went up to his boss. He needed answers.

“Why am I excluded?”

She looked at him as if he was stupid.

“I don’t think ‘Giant Enemy Dog’ is a viable weapon to use on a cruise ship.”

“But… I can shoot well too! You said I was a great marksman!”

“You’re good. Gotta say that. Still, don’t know about your skills in stealth yet. Can’t risk it. Now, see ya.”

Then, she abruptly cut him off and left.

-----------------

Three days later, Ludwig and the rest of the gang not chosen for the plot awaited at the dock. 

Soon, they spotted the assassination party, coming towards them. 

One person was clearly missing. 

“Hey! Boss! ...Boss? And where’s...”

Her face was dire.

“Shot dead. ...He spotted us.”

“He saw all our faces. All of you are fucked. We’re all fucked.”

More silence.

“...WHAT?!”

Silence immediately gave way to panic.

Ludwig stood, frozen.

“How… Why…”

He clutched his head, overwhelmed.

“But it can’t…”

Emotions swirled inside the boy, overpowering all of his senses, all of his thoughts. 

What was going to happen to him? His friends? 

“No, no, no, nonononononono…”

<You know what to do, kid.>

Suddenly, he bolted. 

Along the harbor, he ran. 

Then, in a burst of emotion and without much thought, as if on instinct, he acted immediately as Lutz took a running leap into the sea. 

“SIC ‘EM, LUTZ!”

He didn’t even bother with the telepathy. 

Everyone could only look on in shock and horror as Lutz became an utter behemoth of a beast, seemingly not completely solid and with a godlike glow, his tail alone twice the size of the ship; to those who were watching from afar, it would have looked as if a demon dog had risen out of the sea itself. 

The ship was no match for the beast. Before anyone could fully comprehend what was going on, the ship had been sunk, every single person on it with it.

----------------

Ludwig walked back to the gang, who all stood staring at him, utterly horrified.

Finally, someone broke the silence.

“...Holy shit.”

Another turned to him, their eyes wide.

“...Lud? Did you just…”. 

The boy’s mind was blank. What could he even say?

He had killed all of them. Every single one of them.

But in the end...

“Mission accomplished…?”

“Am I trippin’?”

“Did we just witness a massacre?”

“...What the fuck?”

Ludwig took a deep breath.

“But we accomplished our mission. ...I did what I had to do.”

“Ja, but… Holy shit.”

“In anyway…”

Their boss cleared her throat.

“Let’s… Let’s go with this loot before the cops find out.”

The rest could only muster a “Ja” in unison.

Lutz trotted up to Ludwig, as unbothered as always.

“Lutz…”

<Just did as I was told. Don’t complain to me. Here.>

In the dog’s jaws was a doll; an eerily faceless, unusual, porcelain-ish doll of indeterminable gender.

<Here. I brought a present.>

“What is…”

<Have it. Since I can’t give you Sancbruma presents, here it is, months early.>

“It’s… it’s probably from a dead child, Lutz!”

<Don’t be ungrateful. Oh, and your buddies are waiting. You should go.>

“...Ja. I did what I had to do. We killed him. That’s all that should matter…”

————-

The news of the shipwreck was all over the radio. They had listened to it in their hideout, huddled around the device. 

“The perpetrator is currently unknown. However, many claim to have heard the voice of a boy or young man scream for the dog to attack…”

————-

When Ludwig came home, Roderich was standing in front of the door, in shock. 

“Ludwig…”

“Onkel?”

“...It was you wasn’t it?”

Ludwig looked down to his feet. 

“Lutz, specifically…”

<Hey.>

Roderich pulled him into a protective embrace. 

“You could have put yourself in so much danger! What if the police find out about you?! Don’t you dare do that again.”

"...”

Roderich pulled him in. 

“Now, come in before someone recognizes you.”

—————

Roderich rarely ever let him join the rest of the gang since that day; it was too dangerous, he had said. 

He went out in mostly in a dark hood for a disguise, at times without Lutz, for over the radio, one expert had identified the beast as “a black Fenrir transformed with powerful magic.” 

Later that year, a month before Sancbruma and two months before his 14th birthday, he had heard something unusual. 

<Ludwig… Ludwig…>

“Huh?”

Telepathy. But Lutz wasn’t with him; it came from the doll in his bag. 

Ever since that fateful day, Lutz had told him to carry it for some vague reason he couldn’t understand; his alleged simple explanation was “It’s amusing to see you carry around a girly doll like that.”

<Ludwig...>

He took the bag off his back and looked in.

<Someone is after you. You have been found out. You must run.>

“What?! How do you…”

<Do not ask. Please, please run… you must.> 

He slung it back over his shoulder.

“Lutz!”

He had to get Lutz. Now. 

But by the time he had gotten home, it was too late. 

“No, Sir, he is not here. You will not find him here…”

“There he is!”

Two figures stood with Roderich; two figures he didn’t recognize. 

A tanned, sturdy-looking man in a black suit, probably from the south of the continent, turned his attention away from Roderich, and pointed at Ludwig, gun in hand. 

“Ludwig Beildshmidt! You are under arrest!”

Ludwig’s eyes widened. Emotions and stress once again blitzed through him. 

“Lutz! Restrain! ...Lutz? Lutz?!”

His eyes darted next to the man to the other figure, what Ludwig thought to be a long-haired, somewhat tall foreign woman in eastern attire, her dark, raven hair pulled back into a ponytail; seemingly holding Lutz back without touching the dog, but clearly struggling. 

“Hurry!”

She shouted, in a foreign accent Ludwig didn’t recognize. 

Ludwig bolted. 

“Don’t you dare, you-“

“Herr Edelmann! Stop, or you will be arrested as well for interfering with police procedure!”

“Don’t touch him!”

The mysterious man finally shoved the weaker-looking man off him and gave chase, but Roderich grappling with him had given him some extra time...

“Ludwig! RUN! RUN!”

But before Ludwig could escape, all of a sudden he was blindsided by a third person, jumping on his back and pinning him down, the boy’s small body no match for the adult. 

“LUDWIG!”

“Let me go, LET ME GO!”

That was the last thing he remembered saying before he had been slammed on the back of the head. 

Ludwig blacked out.

To be continued in part 2...

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Author’s notes:

So I had to split this thing in half since it became much longer than I expected. Wow this is a monster. You will see the parts listed here after I write them. Parts, because this will have two different routes! Hopefully! Then again it seems like no one read this... 

Also, the scene with the sea is even more ambiguous “canon” in this already ambiguously “canon” story, but I wanted to write it in because I liked it, having seen the idea that Prussia has some kind of connection to the sea before and liking it. I wish I could find it now. I think Alt-Prussia would have grown up with the sea when he was younger, and while he would stay very strictly a land fighter (in fact the Prussian navy was never all that good, being mostly a merchant fleet. Even the German navy, while it did go through a growth period in the 1880s in competition with Britain I believe, by WWII at least their Kriegsmarine kind of sucked. It’s why the invasion of Britain never happened, their navy would have been laughably curbstomped), and I still associate England, Netherlands, or Portugal way more with the ocean, maybe the North Sea has some kind of soothing effect on him. 

Also adorable child!Germany is adorable. Why do I love this kid so much? Why is he so damn cute?!

[starfleetisapromise]

Section 31 - a few thoughts

I’ve been wanting to talk about Section 31 for a while, because it ties into some work I did a couple of years ago on Star Trek and geopolitical hegemony – these are just a few random thoughts generated from this week’s episode. It’s long so tl;dr - many of the current “hater” fans don’t like the grittier, darker Trek because it forces them to recognize that the US may not be the flawless beacon of freedom and democracy that they like to think it is.

There’s been some interesting fan reaction to the appearance of Section 31 in Discovery and, at least outside of Tumblr, a lot of it has been largely negative. Negative along the lines of “the Federation would never be involved in anything that shady”. When it’s pointed out that Section 31 is obviously based on the CIA, the reaction is to double down and claim that, because the CIA is a US organization and subject to congressional oversight, they aren’t shady either.  Which is, frankly, fucking hilarious – or it would be if so many people hadn’t died as a result of the CIA being shady as fuck.

It’s no coincidence that Section 31 first appears in the latter half of DS9. By the early 1990s the Cold War was over and we were finally allowed to acknowledge all the shit that the West, and the US in particular, had pulled in the interests of “defeating communism” or, as it turned out, “making the world safe for American corporations”.  

DS9 is also the first iteration of Star Trek to come out from under the shadow of Roddenberry’s idealist vision of the world – idealism that is rooted very firmly in his belief in an early 20thcentury Wilsonian world order where the US was the shining beacon on the hill, a light for other nations to emulate. Both TOS and TNG are firmly entrenched in the idea that the Federation is some kind of benign hegemon (an oxymoron if ever there was one) and that’s one reason those captains are always relatively comfortable trashing General Order One. If your morality is superior to everyone else’s then it’s no great tragedy to set a lesser civilization on the right path. Roddenberry isn’t even subtle about it with his whole “wagon train to the stars” mentality. But the dark side of that hegemony is really nicely explored in DS9 – we even get this fabulous quote from Edington in Season Four:

Everybody should want to be in the Federation. Nobody leaves paradise. In some ways, you’re even worse than the Borg. At least they tell you about their plans for assimilation. You assimilate people and they don’t even know it. Edington ST:DS9 4:21

With DS9 and the appearance of Section 31 we get the first acknowledgement of what lurks in the shadows of that shining beacon on the hill. That there is a reality where ideals are often a cover for a much darker agenda. In the case of the US and the 20th century, that agenda was promoting and protecting American capital.

This is my favorite picture of Kennedy. He was determined to support the Congo’s Patrice Lumumba’s government, but the CIA covertly undermined him. In this photo he received the news that Lumumba had been assassinated.  

In the process the CIA was directly responsible for hundreds of acts of subterfuge and deception, ranging from assassination (Che Guevara, Salvador Allende, Patrice Lumumba, Ngô Đình Diệm, among others) to medical experiments (MKULTRA and the Cameron experiments at McGill) the training of death squads and torture teams (at the various Schools of the Americas in the US and Panama); and the overthrow of governments deemed unfriendly to US interests (Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Panama, the Congo…etc. etc.) Hell, they even got peripherally involved in the French army plot to overthrow De Gaulle in 1961 and maintained “stay behind” operations in European countries that armed and funded right wing paramilitaries to “fight” communism. 

Section 31 has the potential to be all of that; and certainly the books that accompany ST:Enterprise talk a lot about Section 31’s “nation building” and interference in multiple non-Federation political systems. And this seems to be pissing people off in exactly the same way that DS9, ST:Enterprise and the reboot movies – all of which acknowledged that there was a dark side to the Federation – and by extension, since the Federation is just an alter ego for the US, a dark side to American foreign relations. 

These fans (and they aren’t all old white guys, a lot of them seem to be young white guys) who complain about the new Trek not being “real” Trek because it’s darker and grittier; who prefer the juvenile humor and bright shiny colors of “The Orville”; who long for the nostalgia of TOS and TNG, and complain about the direction ST has taken, simply don’t like the way in which their conception of themselves, and their conception of the US, is challenged by this darker reality. Of course, they also don’t like not being able to see themselves as central to the narrative, in a cast that is much more diverse than anything seen in any other Star Trek series – but that’s a whole other discussion.   

Which brings us to this week’s episode and Pike’s encounter with Leland. Clearly, they were friends, possibly still are friends, but Pike firmly believes that Section 31 crosses lines that shouldn’t be crossed (and he probably doesn’t know the half of what they do). While it’s possible that Leland is still one of the good guys (there certainly were and are, good moral people in the CIA) Georgiou’s comment about cover ups and things happening to the wrong ambassador, indicate that he’s personally crossed some of those lines somewhere along the way. He’s right that Section 31 does what they do so that the rest of Starfleet can do what they do; but Pike is right too, there are lines that shouldn’t be crossed, no matter the stakes. Which circles back nicely to the end of Season One and Burnham’s speech about principles being all that matter. And gives us a nice point of congruence between Pike and his new crew. Personally, I like this more complex Federation, I’ve liked it since DS9; no country is exceptional, they are all flawed and our media needs to illuminate that so we can reflect on it, not bury it under false rhetoric.

Further reading:

Owning the Future: Manifest Destiny and the Vision of American Hegemony in Star Trek 

https://gammathetaupsilon.org/the-geographical-bulletin/2010s/volume58-1/article2.pdf

Naomi Klein The Shock Doctrine

Stephen Kinzer Overthrow

David Talbot The Devil’s Chessboard

[dweemeister]

Little Caesar (1931)

For a brief window in the early 1930s, Hollywood studios churned out a small flurry of gangster films that would define the genre into the present day. Among those influential progenitors was Mervyn LeRoy’s Little Caesar, released by Warner Bros. With Little Caesar, Warner Bros. was about to assume an identity of being the “dark” studio – greenlighting socially conscious films replete with human depravity and cynicism towards authority figures or, you know, gangster films where the police are given no nobility. Little Caesar, based on W.R. Burnett’s novel of the same name and adapted by Francis Edward Faragoh, Robert Lord, and future 20th Century Fox studio head Darryl F. Zanuck, is best remembered today as the film that made Edward G. Robinson a Hollywood superstar. Robinson and Little Caesar, as a film, resembled nothing moviegoers had seen before and demand for these movies – to the horror of state and local censors and special-interest morality groups – skyrocketed.

Audiences, in the opening throes of the Depression, admired these gangsters for their craftiness in assuaging their living conditions in dire economic times while hoping for their demise. Gangster films were an expression of wrath – bottled up within Western audiences due to the obvious costs of such behavior, but fully unleashed within the confines of fiction. That wrath could be consuming for characters in these films, and was often directed at the police, politicians (at any level of government), and other crime bosses with the gall to impose their own rules on a main character. By the end of the decade, this appealing aura would be reversed by the Hays Code – a set of guidelines by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) created in 1930, not fully enforced until 1934, and replaced with the MPAA ratings system in the United States in 1968 – by turning gangsters into unflattering personalities or shifting the narrative to the police attempting to capture the criminals.

Caesar Enrico “Rico” Bandello (Robinson) starts out as a minor criminal in the lower Midwest, along with friend Joe Massara (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.). Discontent with their fortunes, they travel to Chicago – Rico joins Sam Vettori’s (Stanley Fields) gang while Joe pursues a long-held dream of being a dancer. Rico wants to help Joe rise through the gang’s hierarchy, but Joe declines when he learns the next heist is at the Bronze Peacock – the dinner-and-a-show establishment where he works. The friends go their separate ways, with Joe heeding his dance partner Olga’s (Glenda Farrell) words to leave the gangster lifestyle. At the Bronze Peacock, Rico – against the orders of “Big Boy” (Sidney Blackmer) – hails the Chicago police commissioner with a fatal gunshot. Open gang war has broken out in Chicago’s Northside, Rico believes Joe knows too much about what he has done, and friendships and fates will be determined in the film’s closing acts.

In supporting roles are William Collier, Jr.; Ralph Ince; Thomas E. Jackson as a police sergeant; Maurice Black as a rival boss; and George E. Stone as one of Rico’s henchpersons.

For modern audiences, one of the most glaring impediments to investing oneself into Little Caesar is the clunky acting from everyone who is not Edward G. Robinson (Fairbanks, Jr. feels like he is simply reading lines too often; Farrell is in her first credited feature film and will grow into her reputation as the wisecracking blonde in later comedies and musicals). The dialogue is delivered in stilted fashion, with theatrical voices being used in every scene (this is a legacy of the silent era, as actors and filmmakers were still trying to adapt themselves to synchronized sound – if Little Caesar was a silent film, I would be calling the acting anything but “clunky”). Despite this, the friendship between Rico and Joe feels like it existed even before the first minute of the film begins.

As a pre-Code film, Rico and Joe’s friendship also contains potential homoerotic subtext – Rico is completely dismissive of women as objects of sexual attraction (opens the possibility of other subtexts), he criticizes Joe’s attraction to Olga, almost always keeps his hands on his gun (concealed or otherwise) when rival men are around, the two are complete opposites but want the other to reform their ways, and Joe is the only person in the film that Rico can share his private ideas and life with. This subtext was overwhelming to ‘30s audiences, forcing W.R. Burnett (the author of the novel) to write a lambasting letter to the producers about the “conversion” of his originally and explicitly heterosexual title character. No matter Burnett’s complaints, the fact that the screenwriting team of Faragoh, Lord, and Zanuck packages this convincing friendship (or whatever it is) within a seventy-nine-minute runtime is an impressive achievement. It is also impossible without the performances of Robinson and, to a lesser extent, the junior Douglas Fairbanks.

Robinson, along with James Cagney, defined gangster films of the 1930s. Their relatively short stature – Robinson was 5′7″, Cagney 5′5″ – does not suggest a domineering physical presence on paper. But as Rico, Robinson is a fearsome menace constantly compensating for something. Rico cares little – but understands completely – about the ramifications of violence on society, friends, and families. Unlike many gangsters that would follow him, he is not seen under the influence of harder drugs or alcohol – he commits all his schemes and homicides sober. He does not have the athletic or imposing build of later gangsters, nor the cadence to force someone holding up their hands before their lights are turned off to piss their pants. Without any of this, Rico bathes himself in violence, committed to never being cuffed by the cops while still breathing (a promise to himself and the police that he exclaims several times, beaming with pleasure). His intelligence has justified killings in the name of gang loyalty and the familial structure it provides. His instincts allow him to evade capture and death from the hands of the police and rival hoodlums for a time, becoming the most feared – and, in a perverse way, admired – gangster of the Windy City.

Little Caesar does not have the scope of a gangster film directed by Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather trilogy) or a Martin Scorsese (1990′s GoodFellas, 2006′s The Departed). Many of the clichés found in the genre have not been codified yet but appear in this film: the small-time ruffian who shoots his way to the top, the friend of said ruffian attempting to escape a life of crime before meeting an end that involves the gallows or gunfire, the girlfriend who wants their man to stop working with the gang, the intransigent crime boss too set in their ways to prevent their usurpation, the rival crime bosses who instantly recognize the upstart as a destabilizing force in the balance of gang power, the police figures gunned down to kickstart what will lead to the film’s climax. All those aspects appear in Little Caesar – omitting, for the purposes of this review and in respect for those who have not seen the film, clichés in gangster movie finales. The gangster picture, in its concentration on violent masculinity, is one of the least versatile genres innovated by Hollywood. The blame for that dearth of narrative versatility should not be assigned to films that appeared before those tropes became tropes.

With film noir the eventual successor to the early 1930s gangster films, Little Caesar does not have the chiaroscuro lighting that would define film noir. Nevertheless, some of the imagery from cinematographer Tony Gaudio (1936′s Anthony Adverse, 1938′s The Adventures of Robin Hood) breathes grittiness and even a hint of tragedy to this set-bound production when the action is not set indoors. Otherwise, Little Caesar is not imaginatively shot for long stretches. With only one chilling exception, the lack of close-ups almost prevents Robinson, as Rico, from establishing invisible bounds that his subordinates dare not cross.

Though this review, among most all others one could find on Little Caesar, has waxed about Edward G. Robinson’s violent-with-a-smile performance, Robinson himself was squeamish to the sound of gunshots. In the rushes, LeRoy and editor Ray Curtiss noticed, “Every time he squeezed the trigger, he would screw up his eyes. Take after take, he would do the same thing.” To resolve this, Robinson’s eyelids – in any scenes that involved Rico firing his guns – would be taped. Robinson, by all accounts, was anything but Caesar Enrico Bandello or any other of the gangsters he would portray on-screen. The immigrant son of a Romanian Jewish family, Emanuel Goldenberg was a fine arts lover who spoke to and of others with gentleness. He was more of a Christopher Cross from Scarlet Street (1945) or, maybe, a Martinius Jacobson from Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945).

Robinson would take on gangster roles – comedies and dramas – until Never a Dull Moment (1968). Somewhat typecast as the tough gangster in the coming decades, few other Robinson performances were as frightening as this. For almost that performance alone, Little Caesar is one of the most important and accomplished films of the early 1930s. It is not the first gangster film ever made, but the gangster film playbook that it wrote – alongside the other great gangster pictures shortly to follow it – has undergone few sweeping revisions since its release.

My rating: 9/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

[zukadiary]

The Sky is on the Banks of the Red River / Citrus Breeze -Sunrise- ~ Cosmos Troupe 2018

For the first time ever I’d been here a full month without seeing any of *my* ladies, and while BADDY was an absolutely thrilling experience worth the sacrifice, my first viewing of Soragumi felt so much like a long-awaited return home I teared up as soon as the prologue started.

Amazing prologue aside, Red River was not my girl Koyanagi-sensei’s best work. Watching it I can imagine why it was tempting for her; Soragumi must be a tricky troupe to write for right now. Not only are they absolutely stacked with tracked talent, tracked?? talent, and non-tracked upperclassmen who nonetheless never fail to land high-profile roles, but they’re unusually stable. With Kiki’s move coming right after Maa’s taidan, essentially the only spot to open up in the last 3+ years has been top musumeyaku. Everyone—particularly 95th downwards—is 3+ years stronger, more polished, and more charming... but they have nowhere to go. Take that and add the retiring Magee and it’s an even bigger conundrum. Red River has A LOT of characters, and it definitely succeeded in giving every one of those people a solid principal role. However, it’s also a very long manga, and in an effort to give everyone a juicy character I think Koyanagi tried to stuff way too many storylines into a measly hour and a half. I got everything because I read the manga ahead of time, but I think it would have been difficult to understand even for a Japanese person who has not read it (it almost felt like watching the shinko of a 2-act, where they abridge it on the assumption you already know the whole story). Also unfortunate: while the characters’ storylines do all ultimately intertwine, they unfold very much separately, such that it often doesn’t make sense to have them on the stage at the same time. As a result a bunch of the major roles, while distinctly juicier somehow, wound up with less actual stage time than some of the more minor roles. On the plus side it was visually nice, pretty good for some unexpected people, and definitely gets a passing grade for stage fighting, which, I’ve recently come to appreciate, is something that gives certain troupes a great deal of difficulty, making it oh so satisfying when it’s done well (I assume? It’s possible it was only done well in my very narrow Soravision). Makaze and Madoka have also DRAMATICALLY improved their harmony sound since West Side Story. It hit me right in the chest.

People will be quick hits, as there was not exactly room for deep character exploration in this show:

Makaze seemed to relish all the campiest parts of playing a shoujo manga love interest, from her delivery of the ridiculous lines to her execution of the overly aggressive “romantic” gestures. Plus she’s just downright handsome, and absolutely believable as the greatest warrior prince given her stature. 

I thought Madoka was absolutely wonderful given the limitations of the role, which winds up fairly badass but is still a sixteen year old girl. Madoka played Yuuri with amazing strength, and she’s such a natural actress even the groan-worthy manga lines came out passable. Someday I hope they let her play an actual adult though.

Kiki was a favorite less in terms of Ramses as a character and more in terms of this continued evolution of New Kiki. It was not as much of a shocking portrayal as some of her recent characters (Bernardo, whatever that dude’s name is in Yamataikoku), but still definitely a progression for how effortless it came off. Even as the nibante she’s not exactly on stage all the time, but outside of the prologue she gets the best song. A+++ on the visuals too.

Aichan as the Prince of Darkness and Akkii as Nefertiti kind of fall into the same category for me (I just realized writing that that they play siblings, but that’s not why). I feel like they both had extremely minimal stage time and storylines stuffed in at great pains (especially Aichan), and relied entirely on the wow factor of their visuals to give their roles weight—Aichan as the stereotypical dark sexy dude in an impressive floor-length wig, and Akkii as a very glitzy queen. If we hadn’t had to send off Magee and thus had one more prominent role open, I’d say the story would have benefitted from cutting the Prince of Darkness storyline entirely.

Seiko as Queen Nakia and Magee as her sidekick Urhi are the real villains of the manga, and in the rushed storytelling I think we lose a bit of how truly diabolical they are. I think I’m less frustrated with Nakia simply because I’m delighted that that’s the role Seiko landed, but Magee’s involvement felt extremely subdued. 

Zunchan is once again the perfect little brother, but is betrayed and killed fairly early.

To my VERY PLEASANT SURPRISE, Riku, Sora, and Makise, who I assumed would wind up being Nobodies 1, 2, and 3 respectively, somehow wound up benefitting from the storyline battle among the principal characters; while they weren’t exactly blessed with a wealth of lines, they were on stage a lot, and actually contributed quite a bit to the general progression of things with their wordless background acting. No idea how much of that will show up on the DVD, but in the theater it was a joy to watch. Special shout-out to Sora slow-motion kicking Moeko’s ass all the way on the right wing of the stage while Makaze and Kiki have their dramatic final wrestle in the middle.

And a few people really lucked out! I have no idea who Mitsuki Haruka bribed to land Ilbani, but that’s the most I can ever remember her doing in a Grand Theater show (not complaining, I adore her). Fuuma Kakeru was a disheveled old man, but got her OWN! SOLO! and a very passionate one at that (more solos for Kakeru 2k4ever). And Manami Hikaru, armed with youth and shortness, benefitted from the fact that Tito, a fairly major character, is a literal child.

I LOVE CITRUS BREEZE WITH ALL MY HEART.

I remember thinking right around when Tsukigumi started in the Grand Theater that Citrus Breeze is the perfect thing to follow BADDY, because one has no choice but to forgive its lack of innovation in light of Soragumi’s 20th anniversary. I TAKE IT BACK because that implies that there is SOMETHING TO FORGIVE. It’s old, and it’s definitely on the wholesome side, which is not usually my thing... but it’s perfect. I love the songs, I love the dance numbers, I love the costumes, I love the big round 1970s music variety show light bulbs screwed into the sets that radiate nostalgia. Much of it is the same old Citrus Breeze, but—and it’s possible this is because I’ve only seen past versions in the form of mediocrely rendered Sky Stage recordings—this one felt so bright and polished and perfected. I’m pretty certain it’s my favorite.

Highlights, though it’s hard not to just say all of it:

Kiki’s Paradiso scene, basically only as long as it takes to saunter across the ginkyou once, but plenty to take in in that short time (I was most struck by how expertly she spread her hand on her hat at the final pose)

Mr. Bojangles, a shoo-in for favorite if Asu e no Energy didn’t exist, for a) Kumichou center b) SPATS and c) Sora dancing on a level so OTHER that it hurt my stomach

The chuuzume, which instead of being the fire-up type is just beautiful in a heartbreaking way

Madoka’s opera. I knew she was talented but I didn’t know she had that in her. She’s so stunningly beautiful in that scene too (and something about a heartbroken Kiki throwing down a glove to duel just kinda makes you wanna cry).

Chiaki hamming up the center of the rockette with these knowing expressions that are mostly fun but definitely also a little dangerous

Asu e, I bawled through it both times and listened to it on loop through my full 8 hour work nights 3 days in a row. The old Japanese lady next to me the second night screamed WOOOO all by herself at the end of it and I was so happy. Sora’s dancing, once again, a whole other level.

More than one lovely sendoff scene for Magee

And the SUNRISE bit, a very classic otokoyaku dance in bedazzled white tails in front of a burning sun, not out of place in the wholesomeness of the rest of the revue but with just enough fire to melt you the exact right amount. 

I’ve SEEN IT and I knew I’d LIKE IT but I didn’t expect to love it THIS MUCH. I could watch it 1000 times. 

[aion-rsa]

The French Dispatch Review: Wes Anderson’s Love Letter to Journalists

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

There’s a line early on in Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch that will surely make any room full of journalists howl in amusement. Sitting at his desk, and under the typical kind of droll bewilderment we associate with Anderson heroes, Bill Murray’s editor of the film’s eponymous magazine exclaims, “She was told to turn in a few hundred words. This story is 14,000!”

Anyone who’s ever worked in a newsroom can feel seen by a throwaway line like that. Which is of course by design since Anderson’s new film exceeds being simply a love letter to the press; it’s a fawning portrait of adoration for the printed word in general, and The New Yorker in particular. Because in spite of the film’s intentionally embellished setting in Anderson’s current home of France, The French Dispatch, as both a fictional periodical and a film, is a painstaking recreation of the real wit and urbane conviviality we associate with that magazine. It’s a film filled with human interest stories, quizzical languor, and the occasional earnest epiphany. It also isn’t afraid to run long.

However, as with many an issue of The New Yorker, some of its stories will generate a naturally greater interest than others, which can be more of a bug than a feature when Anderson’s publication is also trying to build a larger, cohesive narrative through its many vignettes and storytelling cul-de-sacs.

Beyond the interstitial (and occasionally interluding) grind of daily life at the Dispatch, Anderson’s 10th film is primarily a triptych depicting the insulated world of Ennui-sur-Blasé, a fictional grand old city that’s as stereotypically French as that name implies. It was there that Arthur Howitzer Jr. (Murray) moved as a young man in the early 20th century, convincing his Kansas newspaperman father that the folks on the great plains needed monthly reports from the South of France. Quickly nurturing one of the most cosmopolitan reputations out of the Midwest, Howitzer’s The French Dispatch is a titan of prestige by the 1970s—which is when the film’s latest issue, with the articles that comprise our film’s vignettes, is going to print.

Among those stories are “The Concrete Masterpiece” by J.K.L. Berensen (Tilda Swinton), an art critic who’s turned the life story of psychopathic murderer, but brilliant artist, Moses Rosenthaler (Benicio Del Toro and Tony Revolori at different times in his life) into a bemusing treatise on the war between art and commerce. Meanwhile Frances McDormand’s Lucinda Krementz guides us through “Revisions to a Manifesto,” and her questionable reporting and support of a student uprising led by the young Zeffirelli (Timothée Chalamet) who is outraged, OUTRAGED!, that he is not allowed into his school’s female dormitories. Finally, Roebuck Wright (Jeffrey Wright) provides the strangest review to ever come out of food criticism when “The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner” turns into an unlikely kidnapping and hostage scenario.

Ever a visual perfectionist, Anderson imbues The French Dispatch with so many sumptuous sequences that it is probably his most decadent feast for the eyes to date. The film continues the adroit compositions and perfect symmetrical lines of his previous work, but it also attempts to surpass it. Recall The Life Aquatic scene where Anderson creates a life-sized diorama of all the rooms on Murray’s ship? I counted at least two sequences in Dispatch that did the same, including with a similarly bisected airplane. And remember the storytelling significance between the shifting aspect ratios in The Grand Budapest Hotel? Every “story” in The French Dispatch plays even more ambitiously with that trick while also throwing in punctuation marks of color or animation in its otherwise largely black and white, 4:3 presentation.

The French Dispatch truly does appear to be Anderson’s most richly composed film in the sense that nearly every frame is so densely populated with details and subtle visual quips that only when folks have the ability to pause the film will half of them become discernible. For Anderson’s longtime fans, it’s luxuriant—to the point of hedonism.

However, the way it feeds its essentially anthological storytelling structure proves much more cluttered.

The film’s wrap-around narrative about the Dispatch itself is Anderson at his most whimsical and familiar; it is therefore unlike most anthology films in that I suspect the film’s bookends will be most viewers’ favorite bits. But other than one other brief amuse-bouche of an “essay”—the Owen Wilson-led short, “The Bicyclist,” which is essentially a table-setter—the dry whimsy usually associated with the filmmaker is mostly supplanted by a more wistful melancholy befitting Ennui’s name.

That marriage between light and dark, and absurd and dreary, works best in “The Concrete Prison” when Del Toro’s self-loathing modern art painter and his obsession over his muse/prison guard Simone (Léa Seydoux) is sardonically juxtaposed with the lustful capitalism of Julian Cadazio (Adrien Brody), who is the businessman who makes Moses an internationally sought after artist. The pure cynicism in the tale, and the way Cadazio plainly demands “a double standard” be applied to a great artist who may have “accidentally” decapitated a bartender, is only complemented by the vignette’s flashes of color and anamorphic framing whenever Moses’ art is viewed onscreen. Beauty drowning out rapacity.

It’s a concept strong enough that it could’ve easily been a feature-length Anderson film. And yet, by contrast, “Revisions of a Manifesto,” barely has enough gas to sustain its less than 30 minutes of floorspace. That article’s similar experiments with color and form, and even French New Wave influences, feel more arbitrary than inspired, with the resolution ultimately reading as glib. In this way, the whole film suffers from being Anderson’s most detached and remote work to date. To be sure, it is as personal a tale as any for the filmmaker, with it not being hard to imagine the Texan-born child of the ‘70s growing up in his own American heartland backyard and dreaming of cosmopolitan living through episodic narratives arriving each week in the latest issue of The New Yorker.

But perhaps for that reason, the only characters with any genuine sympathy and emotional resonance are a few of the journalists, particularly Murray’s editor and Wright’s final essayist, who’s off-the-record conversations with the boss give the movie some fledgling pathos. There are overarching themes, of course, about the sanctity of art and narcissism of youth, but in a slighter work it becomes fairly muddled.

But even as a minor experience in the director’s oeuvre, The French Dispatch is still a worthwhile one: a treat to discover in the mailbox for those already subscribing to Anderson’s catalogue (myself included). It’s just for this issue, the illustrations buoy articles that you might’ve otherwise skimmed.

The French Dispatch premieres at the New York Film Festival on Oct. 2. It opens in the U.S. and UK on Oct. 22. 

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[sunlitneon]

12 Excellent Reference Books for Collecting Vintage Costume Jewellery in the UK

You have a thirst for knowledge and want to recognize extra approximately the vintage dress jewelry for your series.  Remodelling jewellery But which e book to shop for in case you are living inside the UK?

There are masses of reference books to select from and maximum have been written in the US by authors who have a collection primarily based in the US. How specific is that to us within the UK?

So here is a brief manual of 12 books to give an excellent over view of expertise from Victorian via to the eighties and past. Actually there are greater than 12 books right here, because a few authors have written more than one book this is beneficial.

This manual have to cover wellknown unsigned pieces and a few signed portions of jewellery. However there aren't any particular books ever written for the majority of the mass produced signed dress jewellery made via UK groups or made for the United Kingdom market aside from Wilson and Butler.

1. Costume Jewellery: A Collectors Guide via Caroline Behr (Miller's) (ISBN 1-84000-373-1)

A exact vicinity initially a general over view and time line from Victorian, Art Deco, Arts and Crafts, 1950s, Czech, Austrian and some designers. Easy to read and has properly pix. Hand bag length and ideal to examine at the educate

2. Vintage Costume Jewellery: A Passion for fabulous Fakes by Carol Tanenbaum (ISBN 1-85149-511-8)

A have to to buy and has the time line with improved information. Includes Art Nouveau, Birmingham silver, system, intro to Bakelite and plastic and a glossary. Loads of desirable snap shots however none of the backs (a have to for identity but not often protected in any book)

three. Secrets To Collecting Jewelry: How to BUY MORE for much less! With the aid of Leigh Leshner (ISBN 0-89689-180-1)

Again a time line and over view via history but an absolute gem of a e book because it has indicates the backs and mechanism or findings which can be crucial to courting jewellery. This e-book seems at style and substances with precise images. Prom jewelry, artwork plastic, retro, production strategies, Scandinavian, cameos. Mostly short data but a excellent visible guide. US e book with $ rate guide (2005). Another terrifi ebook to read at the bus or teach as fits into your bag.

Four. Jewels and Jewellery Clare Phillips (V & A) (ISBN 978-1-85177-535-four) or Jewellery: The Decorative Arts Library edited by using Janet Swarbrick (ISBN 1-902328-13-2)

Could now not decide which of those UK books was the most informative. So have I even have protected each

Jewels and Jewellery consists of substances, a chronology of styles and manufacturing and distribution. Photographs of museum and pieces. Includes silver filigree, Berlin Iron, pearls, glass and teeth. Faith jewellery, cut metal, mourning and love jewellery now not simply jet or bog oak. Lalique, Ashbee, Liberty Cymric, Wilson, Gaskins and a time line pre Victorian to the 2000s.

Jewellery is a visual birthday celebration of the world's awesome jewelry making strategies. From the historical international until 1989. Full of statistics and images with more unique references to Jewellery inside the UK.

5. Popular Jewelry of the '60s, '70s & '80s via Roseann Ettinger (ISBN zero-7643-2470-5)

Three many years of jewelry displaying fashion and political developments that influenced the designs. US ebook with $ fee guide (2006) The majority of antique jewellery discovered is from this era and so makes this book useful to read. Well illustrated with pieces which are recognizable here inside the UK. Including Mod jewellery, japanese influence, Pop Art, novelty, revival pieces, love beads, Art Metal, jade, plastic, wooden and pave. The creator has produced other reference books on different a long time which can be well worth making an investment in.

6. Collecting Art Plastic Jewelry by way of Leigh Leshner (ISBN zero-87349-954-9)

Bakelite is rare to discover in jewelry in such quantities and range as in the States. It is beneficial to recognize and notice the type of designs plastic has been used or with other materials. Celluloid, Lucite, thermoset, thermoplastic, laminated, reverse carved are greater generally determined here within the UK and effortlessly over appeared. This e book does make you examine plastic accessories in an entire new light. Does no longer comprise sufficient statistics on galalith, the early plastic type this is greater commonplace inside the UK. For this examine books on Jakob Bengel.

7. Collecting Costume Jewelry 303: The turn aspect Exploring gown jewelry from the back by using Julia C Carroll. (ISBN 978-1-57432-626-0)

This is the ebook that gets to the fundamentals need to have expertise of vintage dress jewellery. The distinctive components such as the stones and cabochons that may be precious in courting and hardware clues that can be missed. Cameos, rhinestones, signed jewelry and pictures of the signatures, artwork glass, pin backs and a lot greater. I examine this book and always discover some thing that I have now not observed earlier than. One of my most valuable books in terms of information. Also has a segment of designers which include Jonette Jewelry Co (JJ) that aren't always discovered in different books. US book with $ price guides (2010)

Julia Carroll has produced different books together with Costume Jewelry one zero one and 202 on this extreme. Both books are well really worth having for reference as well.

8. Baubles, Buttons and Beads: The Heritage of Bohemia by Sibelle Jargstorf (ISBN 0-88740-467-7)

This is some other gem of a book; as we had an abundance of antique jewelry imported into this united states of america from Bohemia up till the Second World War and then in smaller portions after. Still available to find and collect but costs are rising. Sections on buttons, filigree, glass beads, plastic and glass cameos, 1930s, tooth and greater importantly the records. After studying this e-book it has helped me date and identify cameos, filigree brooches and brightly coloured rhinestone jewelry of the 1920s and 30s. Hand completed and system made get dressed clips and the extraordinary finishes used.

Sibylle Jargstorf has produced other books on beads and glass which are priceless.

9. Cameos: A Pocket Guide by Monica Lynn Clements and Patricia Rosser Clements (ISBN 0-7643-1728-eight)

Although there are numerous books on cameos, this small packet manual is full of cameos in materials other than shell. Shell is the most accumulated cameo jewellery kind however for me it did no longer have an appeal. I wanted to recognise greater about the glass, plastic, metallic and gemstone cameos that I become locating. How to become aware of the substances used and while had been they made. This e book has an abundance of photographs covering a big amount of cameos in those substances and extra importantly recognizable for the UK marketplace. US e-book with $ rate guide (2003) For greater extensive data on cameo jewellery then acquire any of the versions of Cameos: Old and New by means of Anna M Miller.

10. Victorian Jewellery by using Margaret Flowers (No ISBN)

Not a e book on antique but vintage jewelry that is now out of print but nonetheless available in numerous editions. First published in 1951 however well well worth analyzing. Insight into the Victorian influences and visible in revival portions. Birmingham's position in mass produced jewellery. This ebook is often sited in later books as being influential. Has the Victorian length in three parts and each segment has the maximum used motifs of that duration. Did make me chuckle at the sheer snobbish mind-set of the author at times however well worth analyzing. Few pics and in general in black and white that aren't that clear.

Eleven. Scottish Jewellery: A Victorian Passion by Diana Scarisbrick

Scottish jewellery is found in abundance inside the UK. From the mid nineteenth century with the upward thrust in recognition, had factories in Scotland and England churning out designs and portions within the lots. This persisted into the past due 20th century generally in Birmingham. This book is a great introduction. Not as extensive as might have been and do not assume facts on vintage Scottish memento jewellery from Miracle, The Ward Brothers, Exquisite or Hollywood. Pages of pictures of agate and silver brooches and bracelets. But complex via the image guide on the quit of the book. A suitable starter book to understand Scottish motifs.

12. Warman's Jewelry: Fine & Costume Jewelry 4Th Edition by means of Kathy Flood (ISBN 1-4402-0801-eight)

This is the 4Th edition of the Warman's Jewelry Identification and Price Guide. So 3 different books to attain and read. In this version two centuries are blanketed with pearls, figural, cameos, Art Nouveau, Art Deco and plastic. The difference among Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian jewellery. Again web page after web page of jewellery pix. Good mix of clean antique, vintage and present day jewellery. A blend of worldwide extensive designs hat I observed relevant to the UK. US e book with $ charge manual (2010)

This is only a quick reference of fashionable books for vintage jewellery with a view to exchange as extra books come onto the market or I find out out of print books. Then there are extra precise books on Bengal, Avon, Sarah Coventry, Egyptian Revival jewellery, Haskell, D & E, Wilson & Butler and such a lot of extra to examine

Even with this amount of information I still feel that I actually have simply skimmed the surface. As stated formerly there's a lack of data on jewelry from Ciro Pearls, Sphinx, Exquisite, Miracle, Hollywood, Thomas Le Mott and plenty of other organizations that mass produced jewelry on this u . S . Within the 20th century, that is now very collectible global huge.

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[cutsliceddiced]

New top story from Time: A New Wave of Horror Films About Women’s Deepest Anxieties Is Perfect Viewing for Our Summer of Discontent

Even if most horror movies, until fairly recently, have been made by men, women are still central to their impact and meaning. What would King Kong have been without his tiny captive inamorata Fay Wray, or Frankenstein without Elsa Lanchester, his bewigged, wild-eyed bride? Sometimes women represent fragility and innocence in horror movies, symbols of purity worth saving; other times they’re sympathetic companions or spokespeople for misunderstood monsters.

But their allure goes further and deeper than that—especially when it’s women who are doing the looking. Today, the term “the male gaze” is thrown around more loosely than its originator, filmmaker and film theorist Laura Mulvey, intended. Even when there’s a man behind the camera, the lens doesn’t always simply cater to man’s desires. Women love watching other women; we identify, we admire, and sometimes we feel a frisson (or more) of desire. Other times we recoil, though that may only intensify our fascination. So what happens when women filmmakers take control of the horror genre themselves?

Women filmmakers have been making horror movies since, well, the beginning of movies—Alice Guy-Blaché and Lois Weber contributed to the genre early on. But what’s notable now is the growing number of women filmmakers who are exploring expectations and anxieties specific to womanhood, as well as the mysteries of female erotic power. In the past two months alone we’ve seen a raft of horror movies made by women—Natalie Erika James’ Relic, Romola Garai’s Amulet, Josephine Decker’s Shirley and Amy Seimetz’s She Dies Tomorrow—that are keyed in to women’s experiences in canny, unnerving ways. To define all of these films as horror, in the classic sense of the word, is admittedly a slight stretch: some are more strictly psychological than supernatural, less studies of things that go bump in the night than maps of the turmoil in our heads. But even that is a reflection of what horror, seen through women’s eyes, can mean: the things that scare women the most are already inside them. For years, male filmmakers have been concocting outlandish scenarios for us, while we’ve been storing up material for centuries.

Rob Baker AshtonImelda Staunton and carla Juri in ‘Amulet’

Horror movies made by women and specifically addressing women’s anxieties or hyperreal strengths aren’t new—Karyn Kusuma’s Jennifer’s Body (2009), Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) and Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook (also 2014) are just three noteworthy examples from the past decade or so—though it’s still surprising there haven’t been more of them. No one could have foreseen that the summer of 2020, a mini-epoch during which many of us have been confined largely to our homes, unable to socialize in the usual ways and freer than usual to nurture our own personal neuroses, would provide the perfect soil and weather conditions for a new wave of horror movies made by women to flower so fully. Some of the current crop are more effective than others, but all share one trait: They’re about vulnerability but not necessarily victimization. Most of the women in these movies aren’t heroic in the superhero sense, but they’re also not the girl who needs to be saved.

Amulet, the directorial debut from actor Romola Garai (who also wrote the script), may be the most technically ambitious of these films, and through the first two-thirds, at least, it’s jaggedly compelling. An ex-soldier from Eastern Europe, Tomas (Alec Secareanu), has taken refuge in London, working odd jobs and sleeping in a flophouse. A nun with a seemingly generous spirit (Imelda Staunton) finds a place for him to live, in a decrepit house inhabited by a young woman, Magda (Carla Juri). Magda’s ailing mother is kept locked in an upstairs room—it’s dutiful Magda’s job to tend to her day and night, and the responsibility is wearing her down.

Garai layers the plot with so many feverish ideas and images that you wonder how, in the end, it’s going to come together. There’s a woman who can’t escape horrific memories of wartime rape. And Tomas, who seems to have fallen under the spell of a strange little goddess statue he’s dug out of the earth, needs to come to terms with his inflated view of himself as a protector of women, when his own interests are clearly all that matter. For him, the house itself appears to be a moist, sticky trap: It’s at first a place he doesn’t want to be, though it soon becomes one he can’t leave. Magda, meanwhile, appears to be the trapped innocent, the woman who needs saving; she’s also a fabulous cook—but what, exactly, is she serving up? Garai has some grim fun with notions of what men expect women to be vs. who they really are. The movie is marred by a confusing coda that only muddies its already too-vague ending, but it does feature one enduring image: a squirmy, newborn bat-looking thing that emerges from a womb with all its teeth. If that’s not a childbirth-anxiety metaphor, I’m not sure what is.

Sometimes the scariest things we give birth to aren’t, at least literally, living things. In Shirley, directed by Josephine Decker and based on a novel by Susan Scarff Merrell, Elisabeth Moss plays a fictionalized version of Shirley Jackson, the author of one of the most elegantly chilling ghost novels of the 20th century, The Haunting of Hillhouse, as well as the “The Lottery,” a whoppingly effective short story that was for years a nightmare-inducing staple of junior-high literature classes. In Shirley, Moss’ Jackson is the wife of a seemingly jovial Bennington academic (Michael Stuhlbarg) who actually exerts brutish control over her. He invites two young newlyweds, Rose and Fred (Odessa Young and Logan Lerman) to move into their comfortably ramshackle Vermont home, but really, he’s just looking for cheap labor: Shirley, neurotic almost to the point of being incapacitated, is incapable not just of keeping house but of performing basic tasks, like getting dressed for the day.

Thatcher Keats—© 2018 Thatcher KeatsMichael Stuhlbarg and Elisabeth Moss in ‘Shirley’

Shirley is controlling and manipulative in her own way, but she’s also deeply charismatic. She has a knowledge of witchcraft and folklore, and an affinity for the Tarot. But most of all, she’s blazingly intelligent, and Rose, who has had to put her own studies on hold with the birth of her first child, is drawn to her. Shirley’s lack of suitability for the real world—she’s treated as an oddity and a pariah by her husband’s university friends—means she lives in a world of her own, one in which she drinks too much and stays in bed too long, unable to move and, worse, unable to write. When she confronts a blank page, she’s really staring down a demon. She’s so difficult, in her husband’s eyes, that he’s taken up with the ostensibly more attractive wife of a fellow academic—so her sexual power has been diminished too. Shirley isn’t a horror movie in the conventional sense, but it’s a picture that stirs up the murk of so many women’s fears: If I can’t create something of worth, does that mean I too am worthless? If I have a child, what part of myself do I lose—and how do I ever get it back? This movie has a strange, heady earthiness, like an alluring perfume sourced from an enchanted, and somewhat treacherous, forest.

If the season’s most memorable horror movies have been made by women, that’s not to say men aren’t capable or interested in shaping horror scenarios from a woman’s point of view. In Leigh Wannell’s The Invisible Man, released in February, Moss played a woman stalked by the controlling boyfriend—cloaked by an invisibility suit—she’d thought dead. And Janelle Monáe stars in Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz’s upcoming Antebellum, playing a successful modern-day writer who suddenly finds herself living a very different life, in what looks like the pre-Civil War south. Never underestimate the power of the sympathetic imagination, and remember that women are free to explore the dimensions of men’s inner lives, too.

But even though men must feel just as much stress as women do when it comes to doing right by an elderly parent, I’m not sure a man could have made Relic. Emily Mortimer and Bella Heathcote play Kay and Sam, a mother and daughter who drive out to Kay’s mother’s house, way out in the country, when they learn that she hasn’t been seen for days. They let themselves in and poke around her things, tidying up and taking stock of all the placemarkers we use to track exactly where our parents are at as they age. There’s some shriveled fruit stacked in a bowl; little Post-It reminders (“Turn off the stove,” “Switch off the light”) abound, most of them exactly the sort of thing that a person whose memory is failing might write to herself. But among them is one that reads, “Don’t follow it”—a suggestion that she’s being stalked by something, as opposed to someone.

The next morning, Kay’s mother—and Sam’s grandmother—appears in the kitchen, as if she had never gone missing. But something is clearly wrong. Edna, played by Australian actor Robyn Nevin, is herself—yet not herself. One minute her eyes are dancing with warmth; the next they’ve gone cold, as if her own family members have suddenly become hostile strangers. She gives Sam, who’s always adored her, a ring, only to later angrily accuse her of stealing it. Kay, who’s filled with mostly unspecified guilt—does a daughter’s guilt ever have to be specified?—recognizes that she hasn’t been in touch with her mother as often as she should have been. She also thinks it’s time she found a safer place for Edna to live. She visits a nursing home, where the manager says with businesslike cheerfulness, “Think of it as independent living with the edges taken off.” It’s the most chilling line in the movie.

Courtesy of IFC MidnightEmily Mortimer in ‘Relic’

Director Natalie Erika James—who co-wrote the script with Christian White—uses horror-palette colors to explore tensions endemic to mothers and daughters, both between Edna and Kay and between Kay and Sam. Tempers flare over the smallest things; at one point or another, each of the three bristles when she senses another is telling her what to do. There’s nothing supernatural about any of that. But something is happening to Edna—she’s changing in ways that alarm Kay and Sam. Anyone who has watched a parent age—who has seen the number of selves one person can inhabit in a lifetime, moving from one stage to another in a gentle gradient spanning decades—will recognize Kay’s anguish. Relic’s ending is an embrace of terror and tenderness. So many horror filmmakers start out with great ideas and don’t know how to wrap them up. James caps off her debut feature with a quietly intense operatic flourish that feels earned.

If our imaginations are capable of conjuring great horrors as well as wonder, here’s a question: Can we pass our most acute fears, virus-style, on to others? In her shivery, evocative and sometimes surprisingly funny existential thriller She Dies Tomorrow, writer-director Amy Seimetz burrows deep into some of our dumbest 3 a.m. fears and wonders aloud, What if they’re not so dumb? Kate Lyn Sheil plays Amy, a young woman who, as she’s moving into the house she’s just bought, becomes seized with a fear she can’t explain: She’s certain she’s going to die the next day. In a panic, she calls her closest friend, Jane (Jane Adams), begging her to come over. When Jane finally shows up, she tries to talk sense into her friend—only to return home, get into her PJs, and suddenly feel paralyzed by the same fear. When Jane confesses her anxiety to others—to her brother (Chris Messina), to the doctor to whom she goes for treatment (Josh Lucas)—they too downplay her distress, only to find themselves captive to the same debilitating panic minutes later. The whole movie is like a game of telephone in which an urgent message is passed along from one player to another, fuzzy at first before emerging into disquieting clarity.

Courtesy of NeonKate Lyn Sheil in Amy Seimetz’s ‘She Dies Tomorrow’

She Dies Tomorrow takes place in a world much like the one we’re living in right now, one that feels untrustworthy, not fully readable. It’s also a place where we might feel regret about some things we are capable of controlling: at one point, Amy tells a guy who appears to be a fairly new lover (Kentucker Audley) that she once ended a pregnancy. His face clouds over as she elaborates; the information seems to trouble him more than it does her, even though she’s the one who will carry the knowledge of the act forever. She notes that her life would be so different if she’d kept the child; she probably wouldn’t have been able to buy this house. Her practicality is the opposite of coldness—she knows the cost of her choice, because it lives inside her every day.

And what if it’s not the greater world but ourselves we can’t trust? Our certainty that we’ll have a tomorrow amounts not to everyday optimism but to a kind of arrogance—though we probably need that self-reassurance to survive. This is less a movie about death than one concerned with how we go through life without giving too much thought about its stopping, though that’s a certainty for all of us. Even when we think we’re thinking about death, we don’t really know what to think: No one trustworthy has yet returned from the other side to tell us what it’s all about. She Dies Tomorrow is all about the unreclaimable yesterday, the day before we knew. It’s a thoughtful movie with no jump scares; its jitters are baked all the way through.

Fear of death isn’t specific to women, obviously—the male characters in Seimetz’s movie are susceptible to it too. But maybe, given women’s often complex relationship with aging—which includes the fear of losing sexual allure—our fear of death has a slightly different tenor from the way men experience it. In Shirley, the aging, matronly protagonist is not only unable to write, which is her chief measure of her own self-worth; her husband has also taken up with a supposedly superior woman—and isn’t the moment we lose faith in our own magnetism itself a small death? Watching our parents age, as Kay does in Relic, is the ultimate reminder that we’re next; it’s also a test of our mettle when we see the traits that have calcified in our forebears begin to manifest themselves, in smaller ways, in us. In Amulet, the exhausted Magda has a different problem: she’s simply waiting for her mother to die, so she can be free. All of these movies were conceived and made before we had any sense of how a worldwide pandemic would shape and circumscribe our lives. But all, in some way, speak of constricted freedom, of carrying on with life until it decides it’s through with us. They’re about all the things we can’t protect ourselves from, what we used to call, in more innocent times, fear of the unknown. Now we know what to fear, only to realize that knowing isn’t necessarily better.

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6 Dog Breeds That Make The Best Emotional Support Animals – Dogtime

There are a few dog breeds who are naturally prone to the affection and devotion required to be an emotional support dog. art4petz.com/

Developments come and go; quite often. However; a lot of escape the mold and turn timeless timeless classics interior-lovers can’t get more than enough of. All of us love the creativity of contemporary house design tips; but there are a few old bookmarks that would not be heading anywhere shortly. 2020 is actually a year filled up with classic interior design trends we all love. Read on to discover the top house trends 2020 has to offer that are here to stay! 1 . Layered Lighting Kitchen Tendencies 2020 Modern kitchen design trends by simply Decorilla designer; Francis G. Since the intro of layered light not too long ago; we’re certainly not turning again. Working with diverse levels of light enables designers to create a great atmosphere that they couldn’t just before. Regardless of Interior Design Design; task and accent lamps is woven into the kitchen’s blueprint. Contemporary kitchen interior planning by Decorilla interior artist; Betsy Meters. We can all become very thankful for this house trend. Today; dark nooks and crannies are a factor of the history and so can be described as stark over-lit kitchen. 2 . Kitchen Trends 2020 Favourite: Open-Plan Home Remodel Simple kitchen home design by Decorilla designer; Sonia C. A premier requirement of a home renovators have can be an open-plan kitchen area. Ever-evolving interior layouts have shifted from cubicle-like spaces inside the early 20th century to wall-less living. Today; homeowners rely on zoning through storage solution and furniture to create unique areas at home. Home home design by Decorilla interior designer; Lauren A. Open-plan is a priority and tops your kitchen remodel tendencies; as people are much considerably more integrated than they were at the outset of the century. Architects and interior designers alike are taking the best tendencies and regularly reinventing the kitchen layout to add storage; clever technology; and seamless movement into modern-day homes. several. Open Shelving in Kitchen Design Kitchen interior design simply by Decorilla custom made; Corine Meters. Styles and trends in the past often get a visit again; and Kitchen Open Shelves is one such golden-oldie. Open shelves had been a necessity but not a kitchen cabinets trend. Before the arrival with the cabinets; 19th-century kitchens were basic with open cabinets lining the walls. Kitchen design trends 2020 – strong and colourful pops Shelving took a back couch for a few decades until it re-emerged as a great on-trend dish holder in the year 1950s. Luckily; the contemporary version is smart and efficient. With open up shelving home owners and designers can personalize a kitchen to truly set their style-stamp on it. 5. Classic Kitchen Trends 2020: Tile House interior design by Decorilla home designer; Corine M. Tiles are a different great example of how a preloved trend got a reorganisation. Colorful characteristic walls with Mexican floor tile; backsplashes with subway ceramic tile; and even checkered floor porcelain tiles were every hot house trends. That they continue to consume the attention of trendsetters and homemakers equally. Kitchen pattern – backsplash design Ceramic tiles are practical; replaceable and sturdy; which makes all of them a firm favorite in the kitchen redesign trends. All their ceramic; concrete floor; cork or glass material base likewise make them a greener alternate; which is an in addition to for the environmentally-friendly style community. 5. Essential House Design Component: The Lunch break Bar House design simply by Decorilla in house designer; Aldrin C. Not simply is the lunch break bar a fantastic place to complete on nourishment; but it is usually the perfect location to add creature comforts into the house. This trend was the finale of the advancement of two furniture pieces: the dining table (later a breakfast nook) plus the kitchen island. Kitchen design trends – breakfast bar The breakfast bar can easily house units and also dual as everyday seating although you’re entertaining; which is precisely why this tendency is so popular. Many modern homes have got islands with seating and pendant signals that create a lovely feature vignette in the kitchen. 6th. Shaker Home Cabinets Happen to be Here To Stay House interior design by Decorilla home designer; Aldrin C. Kitchen sets cabinets which may have door fronts are often within a five-panel shaker style. The definition of Shakers refers to a religious sect that believed in minimal living and producing the household furniture themselves. The Shakers came up with the shaker style and also the unique shaker-style pantry. Kitchen styles 2020 – shaker case The shaker kitchen cabinets were made famous because of its functionality and modern day aesthetic. Today we’re so accustomed to this style of cabinetry we might not see how impressive this design and style was due to the time. six. Kitchen Trends 2020: Butcher’s Block Surfaces Kitchen trends 2020 – butcher block counters Grocer blocks are becoming a must-have in designer dining rooms; but their beginning is very simple. Blacksmiths used softwood since an anvil shock absorber; and butchers used hard wood as an area for chiselling meat; hence the name “butcher block”. Kitchen trend 2020- butcher shop block counter tops Today; heavily cut timber with a neutral finish could be as beautiful as it is functional. The modest butcher’s block progressed from a great industrious worktop to a practical trend and has become a house essential; along with pots and pans. Whether you want a small butcher stop or a wooden island; you won’t go wrong by adding this kind of piece of character into your home. Inspired to add timeless house trends with your home? Schedule a Free Interior Design Appointment with among Decorilla’s expert designers today! [images: 1; a couple of; 3; four; 5; six; 7; almost eight; 9; twelve; 11; doze; 13; 14; 15; of sixteen; 17; 18]; room safe-keeping

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[bluegrasshole]

do all the get to know your author questions bc they're all good and i can't pick

ko…. you need to work on your decisiveness (but thank you)

1) is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?

i mean.. not really. i had decided not to write any more fanfiction to focus on an original story i started but then… i wanted to get used to the setting, work through some personal stuff… kind of warm myself up while still writing the other one… so i’m writing a nurseydex lighthouse story like i said i would

2) what work of yours, if any, are you the most embarrassed about existing?

my entire fanfiction.net account is bad. so so so bad. and surprisingly recent. also i HATE my early zimbits stuff, but of course one of them is like my second most popular piece so i can’t delete it. like really hate. and it’s frustrating because i have good stuff from that time period, so i don’t even fucking know what was going through my mind.

3) what order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?

chronological but i tend to go back and add things obsessively. i like getting the skeleton down first just to get the basic plot and know where i’m going, then i go back to add in details – the meat of the skeleton if you will… and you know i like details

4) favorite character you’ve written

any dex is my favourite, but also specifically jack from samwell gentlemen’s hockey because he cracks me up, and i really loved writing parvati in that one parvender piece. 

5) character you were most surprised to end up writing

camilla? in strange lovers i didn’t even know i was writing camilla until i realized like 3k in that my character who i’d named millie and was blonde was in fact… camilla. she snuck up on me

6) something you would go back and change in your writing that it’s too late/complicated to change now

oh… i do go back and fix things often (in strange lovers i went back to rewrite parts of ransom’s character and his role months after i originally posted it because i realized i had written some pretty shitty stuff regarding black men) but, meh, row upon row is always one i’d like… want to go back and fix, especially the rushed ending, but i can’t go back and change it now because it’s been read by too many people…

7) when asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?

super embarrassed. only my best friend knows because she’s also a writer but i still don’t feel super comfortable talking to her about it. we’re getting there with each other. she doesn’t write fanfiction ya feel though i think she’s read some

8) favorite genre to write

lmao idk i like writing comedy but plot is hard so i don’t often do it. character studies i guess, AUs, angst

9) what, if anything, do you do for inspiration?

music, and listening to people tell stories about themselves or others, just being around people is inspiring to me. i recently went to a show that was a mix of folk music and storytelling about prince edward island? and it was incredible i left there feeling so invigorated

10) write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?

i do most of my writing in a café a minute from my apartment, with or without music depending on if my wireless headphones are dead or not, always w a blended matcha latté

11) what aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?

oh man. i mean since i started writing in like, 2010? i mean, everything, obviously. but since 2015 – christ. still everything? well, definitely verb tenses/points of view/epithets/general structure and technique, definitely better at rhythm though that took some serious work and a couple stories focussed solely on rhythm and flow. i think i’m much better at nuance now – weaving different themes together to make at least a semi-coherent story… and general prose, i think. finding a balance between minimalism and appropriate imagery. i’m more comfortable playing around with grammar then i used to be. idk, i think my voice has just overall developed into something clearer and distinct from others.

12) your weaknesses as an author

plot and dialogue-heavy scenes. i like writing dialogue and i think the lines themselves are good usually, i just have a hard time, like finding the balance between dialogue, dialogue that has to accomplish something, and prose. and writing a neat point-a-to-point-b plot is a losing battle

13) your strengths as an author

i’ve been told setting, and i think that’s about right. i get obsessive about crafting like, a complete world where it feels like there are things that happen outside of the plot and the main characters. building fucking lore into the setting is the most fun for me. i think the details make the story.

14) do you make playlists for your current wips?

heeeelll yeah

15) why did you start writing?

idk i spent a lot of time on the internet and all the quote unquote cool kids were doing it. i was in a RP where we were all pretty close friends (still follow them on all social media including fb) and we just like, wrote each other fic. i was pretty good at writing before then (for a kid) and even was runner-up for a national award or something in grade six? i barely remember what it was for but i do remember the piece was called “autumn’s opus” and it was comparing the seasons to an orchestra or a piece of music idk. it was pretty killer for an 11-yr-old if i do say so myself

16) are there any characters who haunt you?

oh i don’t know about haunt but i do get sad about jack and kent all the time

17) if you could give your fledgling author self any advice, what would it be?

read your dialogue out loud to see if it sounds natural (it probably doesn’t) and put dooooown the epithets. it’s lazy writing and you don’t need them. and reread reread reread reread. in different fonts, different colours, on differents days, out loud, by different people… reread!!

18) were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they?

absolutely anything by fluorescentgrey but especially her historical AUs, familiar’s character designs and rawness, waspabi’s dialogue and humour, montparnasse’s prose and tenderness, misandrywitch’s everything, and this piece which inspired a tattoo and pushed me to start experimenting with my own writing a couple years ago… among many others

19) when it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

oh i usually just give up halfway through that’s how

20) do you write in long sit-down sessions or in little spurts?

usually i go to the café and sit for like 5 hours and if i get a few hundred words out of that i’m happy

21) what do you think when you read over your older work?

ugh it’s so bad and shitty and i hate it all

22) are there any subjects that make you uncomfortable to write?

well, yeah. i don’t like writing about religion so i just… don’t, much. strange lovers had the most religion of anything i’ve ever written. and i’m cautious about writing about race though i’ve done it a few times… i don’t super like writing traditional coming-out stories because i just don’t care all that much so i’ll usually twist them around somehow if they’re necessary. 

23) any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing?

all of my life experiences inform my writing. that’s not me being facetious i just mean that i really like listening to people tell stories and telling stories myself and gossiping etc that i think it’s clear that i prioritize that in my writing

24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?

ah yes coal mining in 20th century nova scotia lmao

25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of

the very first paragraph from my nurseydex wip: 

There are days where you think you could lose yourself in the fog and there are days where you wouldn’t mind. When you wake and it’s there eating the world up, surrounding it all like a living thing, voracious, and it’s even hungrier at night, and the only thing that reminds you you belong to the earth and are tied to it like the oldest and most solid daybeacon in the harbour is the horn, loud and long and haunting and filling. And the light. The light, the light, always the light.

[mitchbeck]

CANTLON: PACK VANQUISH DEVILS IN OT

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings HARTFORD, CT - John Gilmour’s overtime breakaway goal, his second of the game, allowed the Hartford Wolf Pack to escape with a 4-3 victory over the Binghampton Devils at the XL Center Wednesday night. The Devils' Josh Jacobs lost control of the puck at the right point. Gilmour was right there to collect the loose puck and, while playing three-on-three, and with room to operate, and with his tremendous speed, nobody was going to catch Gilmour. Gilmour charged in on Cam Johnson and slipped his 20th of the season through the five-hole. He is the third Wolf Pack player this season to hit the 20-goal mark. The goal came at the 2:20 mark of overtime and gave Hartford the win and two points. “Certainly, we would like to close these games out a little earlier, so we went to overtime, but as long as we're getting the results (a win) we're a happy bunch," Gilmour said. Gilmour wasn’t going to mess with success. He went with the breakaway move he's most comfortable with and that's helped him tally his fifth game-winner,l tops on the team. “That was a bit of a gift and I had some space and went with the move I’ve been using,” Gilmour remarked with a laugh. "I had that all planned out once I touched the puck,”. For the Pack's head coach, Keith McCambridge, Gilmour is the go-to guy right now. “He has the ability to pull away from his checks when he has that much room to skate and he can finish for us. He’s playing great hockey for us right now. When trailing from behind, John is the guy you want hopping over the boards for you. He can score a goal and the trust is there for him defensively." Gilmour has 12 points in his last six games and is the leading point-getter for all AHL defenseman with 51. The Wolf Pack record improves to 27-28-6-3 (63 points) and has them in eighth place in the Atlantic Division. They trail the Springfield Thunderbirds by one point and are nine behind the fourth place Providence Bruins. Binghamton sees their record drop to 24-34-6-0 (54 points). They sit in eighth place in the North Division six points behind the Laval Rocket. The Wolf Pack used the powerplay to perfection in tying the game at three just past the midway point of the third period. While in a four-on-three situation, McCambridge wisely took their timeout. Off the ensuing face-off, the Wolf Pack were able to light the lamp in just seven seconds. “Crucial moment in the game," McCambridge said. "We had the chance to calm things down. We got the chance to do what we wanted to on that powerplay, and Vinni (Lettieri), of course, is a big piece of our powerplay. He can shot that puck. It was quite evident there.” Tim Gettinger won the draw and got the puck back to Gilmour at the right point. Gilmour, in turn, hit the ever-dangerous Lettieri with a diagonal pass. Lettieri then wired his patented shot from the left wing circle for his team-leading 22nd goal at 11:17. The Pack seems to never take the easy path as evident in parts of the third period. Goaltender Brendan Halverson had to make several key saves to prevent Binghamton from establishing a two-goal lead. He also took his high wire act early when he handled the puck and it nearly went in the back of the net. Once again, a Wolf Pack opponent scored early in the second period and gained the momentum and had traction after a well-played first period. Ex-Pack, Alex Krushelnyski, tallied his first of the season. Nick Sorkin was on the left wing side behind the net. He took a pass from Sam Kurker and reversed direction on Pack defenseman Julius Bergman. Brendon Crawley then left his spot to go play him and fell down. Sorkin sent a pass to Krushelnyski, who wasn’t picked up by Gabriel Fontaine and zipped his first AHL goal of the season low to the stick-side to tie the game at one. “We got a little too happy and comfortable there (early in the second period). You can’t take your foot off the gas pedal in this league. You saw that (early) in the second and part of third as well," McCambridge said. The Devils made it 2-1 as they used their second powerplay to take the lead. Ryan Schmelzer was deep in the right-wing corner and got Ryan Lindgren to come to him. That left Nick Saracino alone in front. Schmelzer had the time to take the pass, turn to face Halverson. His first attempt was stopped, but he got to the rebound and jammed it in for his fourth goal of the season. “We got away from what we were doing in the first, cheating and cutting corners, but over a matter of time, we got back to what we do best and came out on top,” said Steven Fogarty. The Wolf Pack used their second powerplay to tie it but did their damnedest not to. The first 1:30 of the man advantage was simply atrocious until McCambridge put out his top PP unit and competency set in. Ryan Gropp did a good job gaining the offensive zone with a strong rush down the right. He then passed to Fogarty, who made a quick snapshot/pass. With Gettinger setup in front, the puck went off his stick blade, deflected off his stick shaft and then over the shoulder of Devils' goalie, Cam Johnson. The goal was his 13th of the year and came at 13:14 with just two seconds remaining on the powerplay. “I saw him and I tried a fake pass/shot kinda thing, and fortunately he got his stick on it for a good tip,” said Fogarty. The Devils though ended the period with a goal. The Pack's defense got all tangled up allowing Egor Sharangovich to get behind Darren Raddysh who pulled him down as they crashed into Halverson. The ref immediately signaled for a penalty shot, but they reviewed the play first to see if the puck crossed the goal line before the net was dislodged and it hadn't. Sharangovich remedied it on the ensuing penalty shot. He slowed down and went to his backhand, shooting from the right wing side beating Halverson for his ninth goal of the season with just 4.7 seconds left in the period. It gave Binghamton a 3-2 lead. “That was tough to get a goal in the last minute, let along the last seconds, but we rebounded well and got the tying goal in the third,” said McCambridge. The Wolf Pack first goal was a record setter. The Wolf Pack’s top line got the offense generated. Lettieri pushed the puck up to Fogarty who was coming in off the left wing. Fogarty used Devils' defenseman Tariq Hammond as a screen and zipped a shot on Johnson. He made a left pad save, but the rebound went right to the hard-charging Gilmour who buried his 19th of the season at 12:07. The goal broke the team record for goals scored in a season by a defenseman. It's a record that stood for eleven years and was held by Andrew Hutchison who went on to win the AHL’s Eddie Shore Trophy that season. With the goal, Gilmour took over the scoring lead among AHL defenseman from Zach Redmond of the Rochester Americans. “(Scoring the record-setting goal is) very special obviously, and nice to get a pat on the back, but we have ten games left here. We still have points to get here,” Gilmour said. McCambridge started the game by changing all his defense combinations and shook up his bottom two lines from the previous game. He changed the lines again in the second period even a bit more when the team did not come up with much of a jump as they did in the first period. SCRATCHES: Dawson Leedahl (upper body, week-to-week) Rob O’Gara (lower body, week-to-week) Sean Day (lower body, day-to-day) Shawn O'Donnell (healthy) Chris Bigras (ankle, out for the season) If Day isn’t ready for the weekend another body will be added for the backline. LINES: Fogarty-Lettieri-Gropp Fontaine-Beleskey-Meskanen Butler-St. Amant-Wallin Greg Chase-Ronning-Gettinger Gilmour-Wesley Raddysh-Lindgren Bergman-Crawley NOTES: Wolf Pack recall Libor Hajak will likely not return this season after suffering a shoulder injury in New York. Thankfully, the injury is not as serious as first thought, but with the Rangers and Wolf Pack not making the post-season, they opted to not take an unnecessary risk and shut him down for the rest of the season. The penalty shot was the 38th against the Wolf Pack in their 22-year history of the franchise. It was the third that Halverson has faced. Te most by a goalie was Chad Johnson, who faced six. The last Wolf Pack successful penalty shot was taken by Dan Catenacci on April 14, 2017, against Utica. Attendance was announced at 1,775 making it the 18th worst home crowd in Wolf Pack history. In reality, there were only maybe 500 fans in the building. 26 of the 39 least attended games in team history have come under the Global/Spectra umbrella. The top day is Wednesday with 27 games, 5 on Tuesday and 2 on Thursday. Paul Carey (Salisbury Prep) and Connor Clifton (Quinnipiac University) were recalled by Boston from Providence. Congrats to now two former UCONN seniors for signing their first pro contracts. Captain Miles Gendron signed two contracts, one deal for the rest of the season with Ottawa’s Double-A affiliate, the Brampton Beast (ECHL), and a one year deal for next season to play for Belleville (AHL). He could make his pro debut for Brampton on Saturday against Ft. Wayne. Karl El-Mir signed an ATO deal with Providence (AHL). Other collegiate signees today include; Canisius College (AHA) saw three of their players sign. Ian Edmondson with the Wichita Thunder (ECHL), and Jimmy Mazza to the Reading Royals (ECHL) and Dylan McLaughlin to the Rockford Ice Hogs (AHL). Hans Gorowsky went from the University of Alabama-Huntsville to Adirondack Thunder (ECHL), while Jay Dickman of Bemidji St. State (WCHA) signs with the Florida Everblades (ECHL). The first player to go to Europe after this past season is Jacob Ratcliffe, from Division III's Westfield St. (MASAC). The first New Zealander (Canterbury, NZ) male player to play US college hockey at any level, will play with the Sydney Bears (Australia-AIHL) this summer. Goalie Grace Harrison plays varsity for St. Lawrence University (ECACHL) and is the only other Division I New Zealander in Kiwi hockey history to date. Pack jersey of the night: #5 Tommy Hughes, #46 Jordan Owens and a very unique defunct Lewiston Maineiacs QMJHL jersey. Howlings has learned former Ranger Colton Orr who resides in Southwest Connecticut is part of a consortium that has purchased the Danbury Ice Arena. No word if they will pursue a low-level minor league team, junior level or collegiate team to be the main tenant. Read the full article

[delhi-architect2]

Journal - 6 Predictions About Post-Pandemic Office Design — And Why They’re Mostly Wrong

James Woolum is Interior Architecture Partner at ZGF. With a career in architecture spanning 29 years, Woolum has significant experience designing corporate, healthcare, research, and institutional environments. His design approach leads to honest, authentic, and user-focused solutions deeply rooted in the unique culture, process, and community of each client.

I’ve always loved science fiction movies, particularly those that offer a glimpse of the (near or distant) future without trying to completely re-invent the world from scratch. Think of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Marin Civic Center in Gattaca, the Bradbury Building and Wright’s textile block Ennis House in Blade Runner, and yes, even London’s baroque-revival Royal Opera House in The Fifth Element.

Cut to today. The crisis-casting regarding the future of workplace in the post-quarantine era has been rampant, but now that the return to the office looks imminent, the rubber is about to meet the road for task forces assigned to create smart staffing plans and safe workplace programming. The assumptions, predictions and recommendations to date have ranged from flat-out falsehoods to some viable suggestions, but a lot of them have relied on the basic premise that the future of workplace is going to look something like the past. In the absence of real-world precedents, I couldn’t help but wonder, are we relying too much on convenient fiction to calm our collective concerns?

As designers, we have a duty to observe without bias or preconception, and a responsibility to approach issues new and old with sensitivity and optimism. Now, more than ever, we in the design community must remain open-minded, agile and committed to being part of the solution — whatever form it may take. So, what is the future of workplace design? The simple truth is that we just don’t know yet. What we do know is that humans tend to overreact to the short-term ramifications of change (or social upheaval) but underestimate its long-term effects.

If we have learned anything from this global pandemic, it is that variables are changing at the speed of light — we can only truly solve for right now but must be prepared to adapt and evolve day to day, week to week and month to month as observations, experience and science emerge. It’s way too early in the game for hard and fast answers. For now, let’s cast aside the fears and take a look at the facts and fictions of workplace predictions in this moment. In the immortal words of Princess Leia, “if you only believe in the sun when you can see it, you’ll never make it through the night.”

The Claim: It’s the End of the Office

The Verdict: Definitely Fiction

ZGF Architects LLP, Los Angeles Office Renovation; image © Garrett Rowland

We’ve proven we can Zoom, Skype and Microsoft Teams with one another in between emails, texts, FaceTime, and chasing kids, pets and significant others away from our home desks. If you’re so inclined, there’s even Goat-to-Meeting. It’s no surprise that we quickly adapted our professional (and social) lives to revolve entirely around technology; we were already so tied to our phones and to the digital realm that the jump to WFH was less like hyperspace and more like a slight side-shuffle.

But it’s important to remember that even before the quarantine, many people were feeling lonely and isolated and, dare I say, socially distanced. For a lot of us, the office is the last remaining outlet for daily face to face social interaction.

The business and personal well-being benefits of being in a shared work environment, able to engage IRL with colleagues and clients, cannot be denied and aren’t going anywhere. Similarly, our newfound success with virtual connectivity won’t be going anywhere either. Between phased return plans and groups who simply can’t return due to childcare or health implications, it will be more important than ever for us to be vigilant in maintaining social and professional bonds among colleagues by any means necessary.

Perhaps safer to say that this is the beginning of the end of proximity bias and that employers will have a much higher comfort level with employees working from wherever they need to, whenever they need to, for any reason. With a greater focus on health and hygiene, wellbeing and safety, we may actually see the workplace of the future evolve into a more thoughtful and meaningful experience.

The Claim: More Space, Fewer Desks

The Verdict: Partly Fiction

Publishers Clearing House, Corporate Headquarters; Image © Garrett Rowland

We’ve been reading and hearing a lot of chatter about de-densification of workspace, increasing spacing between workstations, fewer desks in a given area, etc. The economic realities of the workplace market did not support this approach before COVID-19 and are even less likely to do so after the quarantine is lifted.

The fact is that we’re going to be in recovery mode for some time, both health-wise and financially-speaking, and the idea of ‘doing less with more’ flies in the face of the realities that both people and organizations will be navigating. It is imperative that we take this time now, as well as what will no doubt be a measured return to public life, to observe and analyze how we can sensitively, strategically, and safely design workplaces that actually do more with the same and in some cases less than before.

The Claim: Staggered Seating / The Shift to Shifts

The Verdict: Yes, True. But It’ll Take Work to Make it Work

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, 6500 Wilshire Boulevard, 20th Floor, FPDC Relocation; Image © Garrett Rowland

Creating a staggered attendance plan — effectively bringing shift work to the corporate workplace — coupled with zig-zagged seating arrangements in open work areas is a logical solution that has started popping up in a lot of return to office strategies. Many companies, including ours have pushed surveys to gauge the willingness and ability of workers to come back; an important first step in understanding the scale of the problem. Initial responses across the board seem to indicate that 30% of workers are unable to return to office based on childcare needs, personal health issues, or other circumstances.

The good news is that reduced census means fewer people to accommodate back in the office but there’s still quite a bit of detailed thinking to be done about how to disaggregate those who are able/choose to return, even when they are working on the same team. There’s no one-size fits all solution.

We are considering alternate workdays for different teams, skip-stop seating to allow more social distancing, and amended protocols for use of shared spaces, including assigning enclosed spaces to those who may normally sit in the open plan. We call them “flex offices” for a reason!

The Claim: Anti-Infection Design Is the New Must-Have

The Verdict: Old Facts with a Fresh Coat of Paint

The Lundquist Institute for Biomedical Innovation, Medical Research Laboratory 1 © Connie Zhou

I would argue that major changes in — and expectations of — hygiene and behavior in shared environments will take a front seat, in the end influencing the degree to which more physical interventions are necessary. But let’s break down what we’ve been hearing thus far…

Will we see a return to 8×8 workstations with higher panels or the addition of Plexi-Glass divider screens — essentially “breath barriers,” which one might argue some needed even before the global outbreak? It could happen, but we’ll just be debating their effectiveness for years in the same way we’ve debated high vs low panels for acoustical isolation. We’d be paying a premium for the choice, too. Anecdotal evidence suggests the cost of Plexiglas as a raw material has gone up 25% in the last two weeks alone! While there is definitive science to suggest the current virus is airborne, there is not yet definitive science that higher dividers are guaranteed deterrents to infection.

Will touchless technology for doors, elevators, coffee makers, and more become the new norm when we specify products for workplace environments? I’d say yes, but that was all coming our way regardless; the COVID crisis will have only sped those choices to market.

Will new technologies for fabrics and surfaces allow for more frequent, aggressive, or high-powered cleaning methods? Sure, but we’ve been doing that for years in healthcare environments so it’s simply time for the corporate workplace to catch up.

Will new materials and products saturate the market in response to infection control concerns? My expectation is yes, however, I would encourage caution. Many products are likely to be heavily marketed as “anti-bacterial;” however, even one of the leading anti-microbial formulators has issued a statement that their technology is not proven to have anti-viral Current anti-microbials are also considered worst-in-class for pollution, bioaccumulation in the food chain, and for harm to those who work with the products in factories.

The Claim: Distance Markers Will Become the Norm

The Verdict: I’m For It, But the Details Will Matter

Seattle Children’s 818; Image © Doug J Scott, All Rights Reserved

We’ve all seen blue tape or chalk lines cropping up in grocery stores, banks, and restaurants to help us keep appropriate social distance, but those temporary measures aren’t going to cut it for the long haul. In corporate environments, no matter how casual or creative, even the most functional, informational, and instructive of elements still need to be treated with design savvy. Design, whether it’s through architecture or graphics and wayfinding, is about experience and behavior — sometimes, like following a pandemic, it’s about changing behavior.

To effectively encourage behavioral change, companies will have to demonstrate not only that new hygiene and safety precautions have been implemented, but that they have been recognized as essential measures and embraced as part of the evolving post-pandemic culture. But in times of uncertainty, humans crave consistency and reassurance, so it’s going to be important that interventions such as distance markers or signage indicating expectations for handwashing, wearing of masks, or other social behaviors be fully integrated and treated as an extension of the organization’s branding and identity.

The Claim: One-Way Hallways Should Become Common

The Verdict: Not a Bad Idea, in Theory

Google, Spruce Goose; Image © Connie Zhou

We’ve seen it in airports for years. I saw it over the weekend getting takeout from my favorite Italian restaurant. To get from point A to point B, you must follow a specific route. The idea of creating one-way primary circulation paths in the workplace is a hot topic for many return to office strategies. The goal is to prevent potentially infectious collisions, especially at pinch points or bottlenecks.

Signs are likely to point people in certain directions, even if that means taking the long way to your desk or the bathroom. While it will be a huge learning curve in the corporate workplace, this kind of traffic approach is already very common (and has proven successful) in hospitals to avoid the spread of pathogens. Here, again, we may find that the physical adaptions are much less impactful than the behavioral adaptations.

Overall, will the harsh realities of the post-COVID world alter time hewn preferences and behaviors of the workforce? Absolutely, but only time will tell how drastic or enduring those changes will be.

Architects: Showcase your next project through Architizer and sign up for our inspirational newsletter.

Top image: Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, 6500 Wilshire Boulevard, 20th Floor, FPDC Relocation; Image © Garrett Rowland

The post 6 Predictions About Post-Pandemic Office Design — And Why They’re Mostly Wrong appeared first on Journal.

from Journal https://architizer.com/blog/inspiration/stories/predictions-post-pandemic-office-design/ Originally published on ARCHITIZER RSS Feed: https://architizer.com/blog

[aion-rsa]

TV’s Most Stressful Episodes From Battlestar Galactica to The Handmaid’s Tale

https://ift.tt/3CrdYm2

Warning: contains spoilers for Battlestar Galactica, Chernobyl, Line of Duty, Ozark, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Knick, Lovecraft Country and Succession.

Considering that most of us watch TV to relax, it’s remarkable how many shows leave us adrenalin-flooded, with hearts beating like hummingbird wings. It’s TV characters’ fault; those guys never know when to stop. They’re always attempting a hostile takeover of the family firm, escaping a race of murderous cyborgs or trying to dismantle a totalitarian regime. It’s exhilarating but exhausting behaviour. And the better a drama is, the more invested we are in its characters, so the more we care when they put their life on the line. That means more fingernails chewed, more faces clawed in horror, and more nervous foot-tapping while we should, by rights, be melted into our sofas like… all the chocolate melted into my sofa.

Forget slow TV, canal boat travelogues and laundry-folding background series, these are the TV episodes that left us in need of some quiet time in a dark room listening to whale song. Add your own suggestions below.

Succession Season 1, Episode 6 ‘Which Side Are You On? 

Succession is a brilliant show populated by the richest and most terrible people you could ever wish to spend time with – hell, the patriarch of the family at the centre of this capitalist nightmare, Logan Roy (Brian Cox) has the catchphrase “Fuck Off!”. But this episode, the sixth of season one, is the most Succession-y episode of the lot, and therefore the most anxiety-making. In this episode Kendall Roy’s push to get the board of Waystar to stage a vote of no confidence to remove his father from office comes to a head. Attempting to sway enough board members without alerting Logan to his plans, he’s on a knife edge from start to excruciating finish. Meanwhile this ep has some of the greatest subplots of all time. Logan goes to visit the actual President of the United States who can’t see him because of a threat to security – Logan is obsessed that he’s been snubbed. Tom decides to take Greg out for a ridiculously decadent evening which involves eating a whole deep-fried rare songbird as part of the tasting menu, while we know that Greg has actually had to eat already in an awkward meal with his austere Grandfather, who’s in town specifically for the vote. Also there is an actual terrorist threat. It all culminates in a horror show of lateness, betrayal, disaster and a lot of ‘fuck offs’. Brilliant, tense telly. We love it. RF

Battlestar Galactica Season 1, Episode 1 ‘33’

While Syfy’s (at the time Sci-Fi Channel) superb reboot of Battlestar Galactica technically began with a two-part miniseries, “33” is the show’s first proper episode and it’s amazing. “33” catches us with Battlestar Galactica and its fleet of the last human beings in the universe being pursued across the reaches of space by Cylons. But the Cylons, ever-proficient machines that they are, have found a fool proof way to track down the fleet wherever they are in the universe…every…33…minutes. This episode is a perfect introduction to the themes of the series and the stresses its characters will endure. It’s hard not to empathize with the terror of the exhausted fleet as they face an existential threat every 33 minutes on the dot. AB

Line of Duty Series 3, Episode 6 ‘Breach’ 

Series three was the crossover point for Line of Duty, when it went from thinking crime fan’s drama to a show watched by everybody and their dog (it’s huge with dogs. They love all those flashing blue lights). The series three finale was the show at its most thrilling, specifically in the 10 minutes that followed the sending of a now-famous text message: “Urgent exit required.” That text was sent by ‘The Caddy’, a corrupt police officer and lifelong organised crime gang member who’d framed one of our heroes for murder. Mid-interrogation, The Caddy realised that he’d been rumbled and so alerted his criminal fraternity. They broke him out of HQ and into one of the most tense street chases on TV, courtesy of director John Strickland. Gunfire, shots taken from moving vehicles, cars spinning, people leaping in front of flying bullets, a woman in her mid-thirties being forced to do cardio… Sunday nights on BBC hadn’t been this stressful since that presenter broke that fifty grand vase on The Antiques Roadshow. The culmination of a multi-series arc, it was heart rate-racing TV – the sort of finale that makes you stand up and jog on the spot until your husband tells you to sit down, you’re scaring him. LM

Kitchen Nightmares Season 6, Episode 2 ‘Amy’s Baking Company’

The formula for Kitchen Nightmares (based on the British series Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares) is a simple one. Renowned chef and restaurateur Gordon Ramsay enters into a failing restaurant, yells at the owners and staff for a little bit, then some lessons are learned and business turns around. To say that the infamous Amy’s Baking Company episode of Kitchen Nightmares doesn’t follow this formula would be putting it lightly. This is a stressful episode of television because our hero Gordon Ramsay comes across two genuine sociopaths. Amy’s Baking Company (or ABC) is an Arizona restaurant owned by husband and wife team Amy and Sami Bouzaglo. When Gordon first enters the premises, everything seems relatively normal. But it’s not long before he discovers that Sami is a former mobster who steals tips from the servers and threatens to fight several customers a night and Amy is a bug-eyed fire demon from hell who sees enemies and conspirators around every corner. While it’s usually cathartic to watch Gordon yell at delusional small business owners, this episode has viewers praying Gordon will escape Arizona with his life intact. AB 

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By Andrew Blair

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 3, Episode 13 ‘Mayday’

You could pick almost any episode of The Handmaid’s Tale as one of TV’s most stressful watching experiences; relaxation is not this show’s vibe. Set in a dystopia where the most dreadful things happen on so regular a basis it’s genuinely a wonder to get between two ad breaks without somebody being de-tongued or stoned to death, it’s a contender for the most stressful drama on TV. The series three finale is a particularly tense watch because the stakes are so high. Heroine June has decided to hit the brutal theocracy of Gilead where it hurts – right in its kids. She’s got the word out among resistance channels that she’s getting the children out. Bring her a child of Gilead (all of whom were either stolen from their birth parents and forcibly adopted by members of the ruling elite, or born as a product of state-sponsored rape that is the Handmaid system) and she’ll put it on a plane to Canada. What makes it particularly stressful is that when the kids start coming, they keep coming, and coming. Far more than June had allowed for. With Gilead’s thug soldiers going house to house down the street and a constant threat that somebody could betray her at any minute, June has to think and act fast. A terrifying night-time escape, a heavily patrolled airfield and 86 children to herd and keep quiet… my blood pressure’s up just remembering. LM

The Knick Season 2, Episode 10 ‘This Is All We Are’

Thanks to its dim lighting, superb early 20th century set dressing, and gallons and gallons of blood, surgical drama The Knick is always a pretty stressful viewing experience. Its series finale, “This Is All We Are” is particularly intense though. Through 20 episodes, cocaine (and then heroin)-addicted surgeon John Thackery (Clive Owen) has performed countless gory procedures. When his bowels begin to fail (due to the aforementioned) drugs, there is only one person he trusts to perform the corrective surgery on himself: himself. And that’s how viewers are entreated to the sight of our protagonist cutting open his own guts and playing around inside. That, combined with the usual finale stressors, make for one hell of a stressful episode. AB

Lovecraft Country Episode 1, ‘Sundown’

The first episode of this excellent horror drama is also one of the best and the most stressful. Setting out its stall early on, the show follows Atticus (Jonathan Majors), his uncle George (Courtney B. Vance) and friend Leti (Jurnee Smollett) as they travel into the Jim Crow South in 1950s in search of Atticus’ father. Racism is pervasive from the off but the final act of this ep sees the three racing to cross county lines before sunset to avoid the barbaric ‘sundown’ law that prohibits people of color from being out after dark and the racist sheriffs who want to enforce it. It’s a madly stressful car chase against the actual sun and even though the gang just about makes it, the law men pursue them into the woods to lynch them anyway. Fortunately, just in the nick of time a Shoggoth (many eyed, sharp-toothed killing machine) arrives increasing, but levelling out, the peril. It’s a smart, thrilling, break-neck episode that makes it clear that gore and death are definitely on the table and that monsters come in many forms. RF

Chernobyl Episode 5, ‘Vichnaya Pamyat’

Clearly, watching Chernobyl is a stressful experience. Unless the real-life nuclear disaster drama were very badly made, there’s no way it wouldn’t be. Craig Mazin’s five-part HBO series is extremely well made, which makes it extremely stressful and very involving. The first episode, in which Reactor 4 of the Ukrainian nuclear power plant explodes, unfurls like a fast-paced sci-fi thriller. In it, we see the true version of events that will go on, over the course of the next episodes, to be minimised, lied about and suppressed by a Soviet government determined not to let any chinks appear in its flawless façade, whatever the risk to its people. We meet the key players – those who will lie about the explosion, and those who will tell the truth at dire consequences to themselves. It’s in the final episode though, that crushes all the air from your lungs. In it, Jared Harris’ chemist character Valery Legasov lays the blame for truth suppression and the subsequent endangerment of life squarely at the government’s feet. Legasov does the right thing despite knowing it will cost him everything. Watching it feels like witnessing a man get buried alive. LM

Ozark Season 3 Episode 9, ‘Fire Pink’

Heartbreak is stressful, no? The sensation of one’s heart being squeezed hard, steadily, for 62 minutes, until the point that it breaks, is anybody’s definition of stress. That’s exactly what season three Ozark episode ‘Fire Pink’ does, thanks to Tom Pelphrey’s performance as Wendy Byrde’s tragically unstable younger brother Ben. When an All-American family the Byrdes start laundering international drug cartel money in secret, the key word is ‘secret’. Loose lips sink ships, and just when the Byrdes really can’t afford to fuck up, enter: Ben. He doesn’t mean any harm, but off his bipolar meds, he also can’t be trusted to keep quiet. In ‘Fire Pink’ Ben makes one slip-up after another and his every attempt to right those wrongs only digs him and the Byrdes in deeper. As the hour unfurls, we watch Wendy fight inwardly against what she knows to be true: Ben is just too great a liability and something has to be done. It’s a remarkably stressful hour, involving a speed boat escape, a stomach-dropping appearance from the cops, a road trip, a diner and a phone call. And it’ll break your heart. LM

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At Independence Hall on July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was adopted, and in September 1787, the Constitution was drafted.

A century earlier, William Penn, a prominent Quaker and namesake of Pennsylvania, was a catalyst for the changes that transformed these British colonies into an independent nation. Today, modern office towers exist side-by-side with the narrow cobblestone streets of Independence Historic National Park, which is home to historic buildings and sights, including the Liberty Bell, Franklin Court, and Independence Hall. Many of these eighteenth-century buildings have been handsomely restored. First inhabited by Germans and the Dutch. To the west, along Schuylkill River, lies Fairmount Park, a vast belt of green containing numerous Federal-style mansions, as well as the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Rodin Museum. Just south of that lies the museum district, including the Franklin Institute of Science Museum and the Academy of Natural Sciences.

1. Liberty Bell Pavilion

The liberty bell has long been a symbol of freedom and independence in the United States. It went on tour around the country in the late 19th century in an effort to inspire a sense of freedom and conquer divisions left by the Civil War. . Today, the bell is open to free public viewing in a pavilion that houses exhibits and videos about its history.

2. Independence Hall

Independence Hall originally served as the State House of the Colony of Pennsylvania and is best known as the place where the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776. It was also where the Continental Congress met again 11 years later and wrote the United States Constitution. The highlight is Assembly Hall, where the Second Continental Congress met behind closed doors to discuss their desire for independence from the British. This is where the Declaration of Independence was signed and where George Washington was chosen as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. Independence Hall sits across from the Liberty Bell Pavilion in the Independence National Historical Park. There is no entrance fee, but tickets are timed and limited, and all visitors should be prepared for security screening. Free ESL services are available with advance request.

3. Independence National Historical Park

Independence National Historical Park is quite possibly America's most historic square mile. In addition to housing famous sites, such as Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, many other important attractions line the cobbled streets of this old area. It stood witness to the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 and the creation of the United States Constitution in 1787. It is flanked by Congress Hall, where the first Congress of the United States met from 1790 to 1800 and George Washington and John Adams were elected President, and Old City Hall, which was never in fact the town hall but was the seat of the Supreme Court from 1791 to 1800.

On its east side, at 55 North 5th Street, is the National Museum of American Jewish History.

4. Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Philadelphia Museum of Art contains one of the United States' largest collections of art. It is housed in a Neoclassical building fronted by a broad set of stairs, which became famous after they were featured in the classic American Rocky films. Among the finest sections of the museum are the medieval galleries, which include pictures by Rogier van der Weyden and the van Eyck brothers. In other rooms are Renaissance and Baroque works and art of the 18th and 19th centuries, including pictures by Van Gogh, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Manet, Cézanne, Monet, and Degas. A collection of 20th-century European art is represented by Picasso, Chagall, Matisse, Miró, Paul Klee, and other artists. There is also American art by the Philadelphia artists Thomas Eakins, Charles Wilson Peale ("The Staircase Group", 1795), and many others. In addition, there are fine collections of Asian art, with porcelain, jade, and Oriental carpets.

5. Reading Terminal Market

The Market at Reading Terminal has been a National Historic Landmark since 1995, and is a deeply rooted Philadelphia institution. It has been in operation since 1893, when the Reading Railroad Company built this space beneath their new station to accommodate the farmers and butchers who had been using the area for their open-air markets for decades prior. The old market has undergone renovations, but it has retained its unique ambience and many of the structure's original features. Today, you will find more than 80 merchants, 75 of whom are small independent businesses. Both locals and tourists come to buy local produce; free-range meats; canned goods; fresh-baked Amish breads; and handmade crafts, including clothing, jewelry, and gifts.

6. Eastern State Penitentiary

The Eastern State Penitentiary was built in 1829 with the aim of rehabilitating criminals through solitary confinement. At the time of its opening, it was considered the world's most expensive and high-tech prison. Willie Sutton and Al Capone were some of the prison's notable "guests," and visitors can see Capone's lavish cell as it was during his stay. The prison closed in 1971, and today it is open to the public as a museum. Tours of the facility show many sections that remain much the same as they were during its operational years. Exhibits include an in-depth look at incarceration in the United States, how it compares to other countries, and the ever-increasing disproportionate imprisonment of minorities.

7. Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Museum

This Fine Arts Museum features a collection of American Art from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, including works by early American artists right through to Andy Warhol. It is housed in a National Historic Landmark building designed by American architects Frank Furness and George W. Hewitt. The museum is part of the Fine Arts Academy, and its exhibits and archives are an important resource for the school. In addition to contemporary and historical art exhibitions, the museum features exhibits of work by the academy's students. The academy is also known for being the oldest of its kind in the United States.

8. The Barnes Foundation

Established by Dr. Albert Barnes, this museum is an integral part of Philadelphia's Parkway museum district. It houses some of the world's biggest collections of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, including the world's largest Renoir collection and more of Cézanne's works than there are in all of France. There are just short of 60 Matisse paintings, as well as numerous works by Degas, Manet, and Titian. A large collection of African sculpture. The museum welcomes guests free of charge on the first Sunday of the month for gallery viewings, activities, and family friendly entertainment, while monthly on the first Friday, adults are invited to spend the evening exploring collections, attending lectures, and mingling with like-minded aficionados while enjoying live music and refreshments.

9. Please Touch Museum

The Please Touch Museum is every kid's dream - a place where they can "look with their hands" instead of just their eyes. This completely interactive museum encourages kids of all ages to learn through play, giving them the chance to explore history, fantasy worlds, space, and the big wide world around them. Exhibits like the kid-size city include costumes they can use to play the part while experimenting with different professions. As educational as it is fun, the River Adventures exhibit encourages children to learn about science and physics by using dams, waterwheels, levers, locks, and other water-manipulating equipment. Kids even have an opportunity to explore the garden, where the museum's café grows its produce. Outdoors, you will also find a Dentzel Carousel that is more than a century old, originally operated at the nearby Woodside Park and now fully restored to its former glory.

10. Philadelphia Zoo

The Philadelphia Zoo is home to a wide range of animals from around the world and is active in wildlife conservation and rehabilitation efforts, focusing on educating visitors about the ways humans impact the earth's other residents. One of its most remarkable habitats is Big Cat Falls, a spacious area where the world's largest cats can roam among plants and flowing waterfalls, as well as explore the entire park through a system of tunnels that wind above other habitats - including the human visitors. Another favorite with both kids and adults is the African Plains habitat, where you can meet some of the zoo's most impressive residents, including giraffes, hippos, and a white rhinoceros.

Outback Outpost is home to some of Australia's most fascinating wildlife, including red kangaroos and emus. Other habitats include Bear Country, which is home to species from Asia, South America, and North America, and Carnivore Kingdom, where you can meet dwarf mongooses and even the (vegetarian) red panda. There is also a reptile and amphibian house; an aviary; and Monkey Junction, which is home to two pairs of spider monkeys. At the small mammal house, visitors can see the nocturnal residents as they go about their day, thanks to clever lighting that inverts their sleep cycle. The zoo also operates a primate reserve and a rare animal conservation center, where you can see some of the earth's most endangered animals, learn about issues affecting them, and find out how to help.

See also: Top 10 things to do in Salt Lake City

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