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mattnben-bennmatt · 6 months ago

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LET'S TRY IT BEN'S WAY

Vanity Fair (October 1999)

A college dropout, Ben Affleck found sudden fame in 1997 after he and Matt Damon teamed up as writers and stars of Good Will Hunting. But at 27, even as he is offered up to $12 million a movie and acquires the spoils of success—the new house in the Hollywood Hills, the Tribeca loft, the five motorcycles—Affleck remains, indisputably, a guy. EVGENIA PERETZ gets him talking about the "Matt 'n' Ben show," his romance with Gwyneth Paltrow, and his upcoming thriller Reindeer Games, for which he literally knocked himself out

By Evgenia Peretz

To Ben Affleck, nothing is more meditative than a motorcycle. Today he has selected his red Suzuki GSX1300R Hayabusa, nicknamed "the Blackbird Killer," to take his passenger from Hollywood to the Brentwood branch of Koo Koo Roo, the fast-food chicken chain popular among those on "the Zone Diet." The route he takes? Scenic and maddeningly winding Sunset Boulevardideal terrain, apparently, for Affleck to do what he finds most uplifting: dodge between SUVs and BMWs, barrel up the lanes at 100 miles an hour, and play a hair-raising little game in which he weaves in and out among a line of cones set up in a construction zone. Affleck rides a motorcycle everywhere. He owns five of them, including a Yamaha R6 and a BMW R 1100 S.

"I don't think of it as 'I'm Bike Guy Affleck says over a barbecued-chicken lunch, for which he shelled out the entire $8.50. "I can't stand those guys who talk to you and all they say is 'Gonna put my leathers on and hit the canyons.' I'm not Adrenaline-Junkie Guy. "

He may not be Bike Guy or AdrenalineJunkie Guy, but spend a few minutes with Affleck, who's usually seen around town in baggy army pants, a T-shirt, and a leather jacket, and one thing becomes clear: he sure as hell is a guy. His best friends—and he does have other friends besides Matt Damon—are still his buddies from Cambridge, Massachusetts. They're currently camped out at his new, Mediterranean-style house (undergoing renovation) in the Hollywood Hills. He longs for the time when models looked like Christie Brinkley. He thinks Tom Cruise is a god. He stands behind Hootie. He has been known to forgo sex for video games. (A wall in his Tribeca loft—yes, Affleck is bi-coastal—is lined with old-school arcade favorites, including Ms. Pac-Man and Millipede.) And, these days at least, his favorite words seem to be "chump," "weak," and, especially, "jackass." "Jackass," to Affleck, is the worst of insults. A jackass is what he fears he sounds like in profiles like this one.

Indeed, Affleck might well come across as a jackass were it not for his acute self-awareness (which borders on the neurotic), his willingness to look like a fool, and the fact that he is naturally curious, disarmingly smart, a bit flirtatious, and lampshadeon-his-head funny. It is these very qualities, in fact, that make Affleck irresistible to men and women, and decidedly un-jackassy. These qualities have also made Affleck one of the busiest actors of his generation, a movie star without delusions of grandeur, who has bridged the gap between independent and mainstream films without getting too much grief for it. To wit, the 27-year-old Affleck has, in a little more than two years, kissed a boy in Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy, saved mankind from an oncoming asteroid in Armageddon, stolen scenes in Shakespeare in Love, and, along the way, picked up a best-original-screenplay Oscar for Good Will Hunting, which he famously co-wrote with Damon.

"He's larger than life and yet people can relate to him," says the producer of Affleck's upcoming thriller Reindeer Games, Bob Weinstein, who thinks Affleck is this generation's version of Harrison Ford and Mel Gibson. Or, as Sandra Bullock, his costar in the recent romantic comedy Forces of Nature, puts it, "He has that lummox quality. He's not afraid to make a fool of himself, but then he'll turn around and kick your ass."

Even the hard-boiled director John Frankenheimer, who cast Affleck in Reindeer Games—a kind of modem take on the Rat Pack heist movie Ocean's 77—melts a bit when talking about Affleck. "He has a very winning, likable quality about him," says Frankenheimer, who immediately thought of Affleck when he first read the script. "I've been doing this for a long time, and I've worked with some of the best and some of the worst. And he's really one of the nicest—really one of the nicest."

To hear Affleck tell it, his success has been sheer luck. "I have a personality that's kind of willing to let myself skate by," he says, "to get B's and not really try." But Reindeer Games, it must be said, provided him with the opportunity to put in a little effort. "I wanted him to like me—I wanted him to think I was good," Affleck says of Frankenheimer, who has directed 34 films, including The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May, and Ronin. "I worked twice as hard just out of fear of having him say, 'You're a sham. You're a fraud.'"

In his role as Rudy Duncan, a down-on-his-luck ex-con who gets pulled into a casino robbery on Christmas Eve, Affleck, for the first time, is on-screen in virtually every scene. For the first time, he gets to engage in some "hard-core-style sex," with co-star Charlize Theron. And—also for the first time—he finds himself on the receiving end of actual physical pain. He gets chased by a vindictive gang of truckers. He falls into freezing water. And, throughout, he has his face pummeled by the trucker-in-charge, played by Gary Sinise.

And so it should come as little surprise that, in the midst of shooting, Affleck experienced his first Grade 3 concussion when, while filming a prison brawl, an inmate played by the Washington Redskins' 315-pound defensive tackle, Dana Stubblefield, accidentally slipped and landed on Affleck's head, knocking the actor unconscious. "I don't remember what happened.

I saw the tape later, and it's hard to tell. But the noise is kind of unmistakable. I just go, 'Whomp! Bang!'" says Affleck, suddenly looking and sounding like an 11-year-old skateboarder relating his latest awesome wipeout. "And my head goes, 'Boom!' Bounces off the concrete. It's like 'Whack!' Knocked me so stone-cold out that I don't remember a thing. That was the day I realized I had no chance of playing in the N.F.L." He sounds sincerely disappointed.

Is there anyone in America who doesn't remember exactly when, why, and how Ben Affleck became Ben Affleck? Naturally, he did it in typical guy fashion—alongside Matt Damon, his best friend from down the street since Affleck was eight years old. First they starred in the sensitive 1997 buddy picture Good Will Hunting, in which Damon played a working-class math savant and Affleck had a smaller but funnier role as his wisecracking sidekick. Then, at the Oscars, they scored major points by bringing their moms as their dates. Before you knew it, Ben 'n' Matt hysteria was full-blown (notwithstanding a vocal minority who considered their whole aw-shucks thing a big, annoying act).

"It was such a good publicity thing for marketing people," says Damon later at Affleck's house. "We ended up just talking about our friendship, which is really kind of a weird thing to do.... Hey, Ben," he asks, "what do you think about whoring out our friendship for personal gain?"

"At a certain point, some things in your life shouldn't be used to sell movies," Affleck replies. "Hey, I have two sphincters! See my movie!"

In the public mind, Affleck and Damon have become Hollywood's very own Bert and Ernie. Damon can't go on location without people wondering what in the world has happened to Affleck. For Affleck's part, the men reno [sic] his house call him Matt, and he is routinely congratulated for his work in Saving Private Ryan. On Affleck's coffee table in his Tribeca loft sits a recent issue of YM magazine—someone's idea of a joke, Affleck swears. Ben and Matt are on the cover, promising "Every Juicy Detail!"

Just as their friendship has become a warm and fuzzy American legend, the story behind Good Will Hunting will forever be a part of Hollywood lore: that it all began in 1992 with 40 pages that Damon churned out for a writing class at Harvard; that, after showing it to Affleck, then a struggling actor in L.A., the two worked it into a script; that it was briefly a "NASA thriller"; that they eventually amassed 1,500 pages; that they sold the script to Castle Rock Productions; that the project was put into turnaround, largely because Castle Rock demanded that the film be shot at a location cheaper than Boston; that the two were given 30 days to find a producer; that, with just 3 days left, Harvey Weinstein rode in like a white knight and purchased it for $ 1 million.

Weinstein also agreed to shoot the film in Boston, which allowed Affleck and Damon to feel comfortable doing the Boston accent, which, for obvious reasons, is near and dear to their hearts. "It was the whole reason I did the movie—just to do the accent," Affleck says, not entirely facetiously. Given any opportunity, he will launch into full-voltage riffs about Boston landmarks— from Jordan's Furniture commercials ("I think these sofas hajfta go!") to the pride surrounding the brutal winters ("Stock up on wahta, it's the Noreasta!"). He endlessly amuses himself with the names of Massachusetts towns ("You don't know me, fucker, but I'm from Hull. Bitch, I'm from Lynn. You don't know Medfield. Come down to Medfield, then we'll see what the fuck's up!").

"The Boston accent is more of an attitude than an accent," Affleck explains. "Underneath everything you say has to be the attitude of: You're an asshole, I know better than you, fuck you." It's an attitude that Affleck knows well. Dinner at the Afflecks' home, in Central Square, Cambridge, was characterized by heated debate on any topic, including whether to have the television on while eating. At times Affleck's reality wasn't so far from the scrappy existence depicted in Good Will Hunting. In addition to Ben and his younger brother, the up-and-coming actor Casey Affleck (who played Ben's weaselly younger brother in Good Will Hunting), there was Affleck's mother, Chris, a public-school teacher, and his father, Tim, an alcoholic and a frequent gambler who worked as a janitor, an electrician, and a bartender. "At the end of the football season," Affleck says of his father's tendency to bet on the games, "there would either be tough times or we'd get a VCR." The parents divorced when he was 12, and Tim is now a counselor in an alcohol-rehab center.

Affleck's neighborhood was largely African-American. So while other white kids from Boston were spending the 80s listening to the Cure and writing Goth poetry, Affleck (then called "Biz" to Damon's "Matty D") was listening to Prince and break-dancing in a nylon Puma sweat suit. "I was a real chump," he says.

Perhaps. But he was still on his way to starting his acting career. When he was seven, a casting-director friend of his mother's got him a tiny role in the independent movie The Dark End of the Street. By age eight, after winning a part in the PBS science series The Voyage of the Mimi and a brief stint as a Burger King pitch-boy, the young wiseass was hooked. Even as Affleck and Damon were starring in plays at Cambridge's Rindge and Latin high school, they were plotting their paths to glory. They had a joint bank account, designated strictly for New York excursions (the upcoming auditions and all), and even conducted "business lunches" during which, Damon recalls, "we'd basically sit over our cheeseburgers and not talk about anything." When Damon went to college at Harvard, little changed. Affleck hung out with Damon's new Ivy League friends and did his part to help drain the beer supply at the Delphic, the frat-boyish "finals club" Damon belonged to.

For Affleck, college held considerably less appeal than it did for Damon. After two months at the University of Vermont, he dropped out—much to the dismay of his mother, who, Affleck says, "always wanted me to be a history teacher." And so it was on to Los Angeles, where he and another friend lived in a one-bedroom "shit hole" on Franklin and Cherokee—"the Times Square of L.A.," as Affleck puts it. Between auditions, he spent his time rustling up the $300 rent and generally living a Slacker-style existence in which he spent too much time fielding calls from someone named "Fat Ed." "He'd always call and be like 'Yo, this is Fat Ed. Motherfuckers owe me $70 for groceries!'"

Luckily, it wasn't long before Affleck was getting movie work—the 1992 prep-school drama School Ties, Richard Linklater's 1993 Dazed and Confused, and Kevin Smith's embarrassing 1995 homage to New Jersey, Mallrats. Invariably, Affleck would be cast as the lunkhead, perhaps because he had yet to grow into his leading-man looks. Most of his roles required him to beat the crap out of some pencil-necked pre-adolescent. "I'd always go in for the lead," says Affleck, "and they'd be like 'You're interesting as Steve. We'd like you to read Bruiser.'"

Smith saw that Affleck had more to offer, and cast him as the main character in Chasing Amy, the 1997 Sundance hit that landed Affleck on the indie-film map. Playing an insecure, flabby, goatee-wearing cartoonist, Affleck got to do some hard-core, scenery-chewing emoting, including a monologue in which he pours his heart out to a yammering lesbian, played by Joey Lauren Adams. The scene was profoundly informed by Affleck's personal life at the time: he was in the process of breaking up with his high-school girlfriend. "I could strongly identify with the feeling of unrequited love," says Affleck. "Basically, I was in love with someone for years and years. And ultimately I felt like she just didn't love me in the same way—which was extremely painful."

Affleck would never admit that he likes to talk about mushy stuff—"It would be very difficult for me to say, 'That hurts.'" But get him started on any topic—including love and relationships—and he's virtually impossible to shut up. Nothing sends him on a sentimental roll quite like Gwyneth Paltrow, his girlfriend of a year, with whom he split last January.

"Gwyneth has a lot of things that haven't come across in her public image," says Affleck, who is forever defending her against the perception that she's an ice queen. "She's extremely funny, she's extraordinarily smart—not because she's a 1,600-on-theS.A.T. girl, but smart in the way that she kind of gets it," says Affleck. "She's actually the funny, down-to-earth fat girl in the beautiful girl's body." He is equally valiant about their well-publicized breakup. "People's stories always seem more interesting and more full of intrigue from the office-gossip perspective," says Affleck, perhaps referring to tabloid accounts that had Paltrow alternately sneaking around with Joe Fiennes, Viggo Mortensen, and ex-boyfriend Brad Pitt. "But when you're on the inside of your own relationship, you know the answers to those kinds of questions are much more mundane than when it's all shrouded in mystery and infused with conjecture: 'I heard he caught her in a menage a trois with a transvestite and two Pygmy lesbians!'"

Like a true movie star, Affleck is determined to keep the details of their relationship hidden. Like a true guy, he can't quite help himself from doing the opposite. An amateur photographer (his current passions are his Widelux camera and his Adobe Photoshop), Affleck keeps several albums of his work in his loft. Amid pictures of Cambridge, his mother, and his brother are pictures of Gwyneth: Gwyneth with flowers in her hair, Gwyneth waking up in the morning, Gwyneth dressed as Romeo on the set of Shakespeare in Love, Gwyneth about to head into Makeup. "Isn't she pretty?" Affleck says wistfully, gazing at the last image. "She's much more beautiful just natural like this than when she's all done up." He's lost in a Gwyneth moment. "I'm getting sad." But he's no sucker, and makes it clear that there will be no weeping here.

Affleck wasn't always so evolved in this department. Think back to the height of the Ben 'n' Matt frenzy, in 1997, when Affleck was dating Paltrow and Damon was seeing her friend Winona Ryder. "It was so gay," Affleck says, in the eight-year-old-girl sense of the word. "If I had gone by the tabloid stories of it, I would have been like 'Look at these fuckin' chumps. I just want to smack these people.' And I kind of wanted to smack myself," he admits. "But it's one of those things you kind of can't help. What are you going to say? 'Look, dude, don't go out with her. It'll look really weak.'"

Cringe-worthiness wasn't the only issue. More than anything, Affleck was concerned about how the tabloid stories would affect those around him—such as his ex-girlfriend. He likens the tabloids to "the friend who says, 'I don't want to get involved, but I did see Cathy blowin' three guys.'" Equally bothersome are the tabloid items describing Affleck as a rabid Lothario —buying out all the condoms in a 7-Eleven in Wisconsin (a state he's never set foot in), and getting cozy with Mariah Carey, Pamela Anderson, and, most recently, navel-baring pop star Britney Spears. "Britney Spears is 16 years old, O.K.?" says Affleck, rolling his eyes. "Can you dig it?"

Nor has Affleck been excluded from one of Hollywood's favorite games: Guess Who's Gay. His sexuality has been the subject of blind tabloid reports, and Affleck is often told that it's a foregone conclusion in the gay community that he and Damon are in love—a nugget that Affleck seems to get a particular kick out of. According to Hollywood gossip, says Affleck, "not only is every [actor] gay, but somebody has a friend who slept with them. Maybe there are gay people who are in the closet in Hollywood—I'm sure there probably are—but I'm sure they didn't sleep with Henry's friend. " As for his own sexuality, Affleck says, "I like to think that if I were gay I would be out. Rupert Everett-style."

Though Affleck has learned to handle the rumors with panache, his sudden fame and formidable wealth (he is now offered up to $12 million per picture) have been a bit harder to reconcile. "It's a tricky moral issue for me," says Affleck. "[Sometimes] I feel that maybe I should just keep $50,000 and give everything [else] away." His healthy Cambridge-liberal guilt is hard to miss. Even Frankenheimer, who briefly met Affleck's mother, couldn't help but notice that Affleck's "childhood was well formed and that he grew up with the right values." On the other hand, Affleck is too smart to pretend that he doesn't enjoy "priming the pump." "I once read an interview with a young actor who was saying, 'I'd like to live in a country house—the kind that Henry Miller lived in,'" says Affleck. "And I always thought, I want to live in the house that Reggie Miller lived in."

True to his guy-with-a-conscience form, Affleck has found himself somewhere in the middle: Sure, there are the two homes, the five motorcycles, the marble bathroom, the four computers, and the two cars (a Chevy Malibu and '69 Cadillac Sedan DeVille, which he shares with his brother). But he also gives a lot of his money to charity and to "needy individuals, whom I seem to come across with increasing regularity," has recently purchased a house for his mother, and, let it not be forgotten, often eats lunch at Koo Koo Roo. Yes, he implies, on occasion his behavior veers toward the prima donna-ish—he's been known to snub the press at movie premieres. But when he complains about anything, he feels "tacky," and when he catches himself trying to escape conversations with aggressive fans—by, say, claiming he needs to "go to the bathroom"—he feels, well, "shitty."

"Hey, Ben!" says a grizzled Koo Koo Roo patron who, in his full biker regalia, resembles a 70s-era Hell's Angel. Instead of running to the rest room, Affleck stands, bear-hugs the man, and launches into a long discussion about teeth. The interloper, you see, is not a Hell's Angel at all; he's Affleck's dentist, Dr. Stan Goldman, and Dr. Stan Goldman, like almost everyone who has crossed Affleck's path, is a serious fan.

"Love that dude," Affleck says after Dr. Goldman congratulates him for his work in Shakespeare in Love, bums a Camel Light, and takes off on his Harley. "I got sent to him by Disney when we were doing Armageddon. Fixed my tooth. My tooth was cracked and fucked up."

If the $100 million Jerry Bruckheimer asteroid juggernaut marked the moment when Affleck began worrying about his teeth (the whole set looks better than it used to), it was also the event that propelled Affleck from indie boy to action star—and spawned the inevitable talk about "selling out." It is an accusation that Affleck finds roundly preposterous. "How many opportunities do you have to go onto the space shuttle? To go into the neutral-buoyancy laboratory?" he says. For one thing, Affleck was raised on Star Wars. For another, he realizes that "just because a movie's independent doesn't mean it's good." Yes, he remains involved in several upcoming lowbudget projects (Kevin Smith's beleaguered religious send-up Dogma, Ben Younger's Wall Street drama The Boiler Room, Billy Bob Thornton's southern comedy Daddy and Them, and Jay Lacopo's The Third Wheel, a romantic comedy about a date gone haywire, which he and Damon are producing). But nothing lights up Affleck's bullshit meter like a lousy art-house film with a pretentious title. "I'm always like 'Yecch,' " Affleck says, cringing. "You know, Manny and Chuck with the Strawberries, or whatever it is. I want to see Enemy of the State

Which is not to say that Affleck plans to spend his career spraying bullets into gangs of international terrorists or delivering Bruce Willis-type lines such as "Yippee Kai Yay!" with a straight face. In Affleck's opinion, there's nothing so inane as "the best there is" movies. "[Hollywood] can't make a movie unless the lead guy's the best so-and-so," says Affleck, launching into a testosterone-pumped movie-trailer voice. "It's always like 'The best valet parker there ever was! And now he's back, for one ... big ... party!'"

If anything has characterized Affleck's role choices, it's the instinct to keep looking for what's different. "His wheels are constantly turning," Sandra Bullock says. "I don't think he can turn his head off."

And so Affleck, burned out on Armageddon's "deep-core drilling," chose to do Shakespeare in Love, despite fears that the cast was "going to be a bunch of R.S.C. knighted British people who were going to hate me and make fun of me." Next was Forces of Nature, which touched a nerve. "I identified with that dilemma, that fear of commitment," Affleck says of his character, a conservative groom-to-be who questions everything when he meets the free-spirited Bullock. On a few occasions, Affleck even rewrote dialogue in hopes of making the scenes more honest. "He'd brainstorm, and he'd get quiet for 20 minutes," Bullock recalls, "and we'd know what that meant. He was writing 12 pages of dialogue."

"I wished they had used more of my stuff," Affleck admits. "In retrospect, I think that movie would have been better served to be edgier.... If [Bullock's character] had been talking about sex toys," says Affleck, "that would have freaked this guy out, and he would have been made uncomfortable."

If Affleck is looking for a little discomfort, now is his moment. The new film Dogma—in which Affleck and Damon play angels with a penchant for automatic weapons—has come under attack by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, which thinks the film ridicules the church. (Affleck views the controversy as, in essence, "three guys who had this little jury-rigged operation in Duluth who were trying to get their names in the papers.")

More emotional turbulence may be ahead for Affleck as he begins shooting Don Roos's romance Bounce, opposite Gwyneth Paltrow. And with Reindeer Games, the world will see what Affleck looks like as a victim. "I saw him as a throwback protagonist," Affleck says of his most recent character. "The hard-luck protagonist who doesn't look good all the time, who's constantly getting shit on, and who has the opportunity for a wry loser's irony. He kind of reminded me of my dad," he says. "Not that my dad's a loser, but [he has] that tough-luck sense of humor."

And thus it appears that Affleck may be nearing the end of guy territory and approaching manhood, a secure place to utilize some of the skills he's picked up from his various directors—directing, alas, is yet another target Affleck has set his sights on— and to explore the jackassery that he fears so intensely. Among the many issues that Affleck is now confronting are, he explains, a limited capacity for compromise and a lack of willingness to put his energy into a romantic relationship. "The reason I'm single," Affleck says, "is because I wouldn't want to be with anybody right now who would be willing to be with me."

And, just for a moment, Ben Affleck sounds a little like Woody Allen. But only a little.

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ambrossart · 9 months ago

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That was so cool ! I love skelly. Can we get some fun facts about Christie Gibson or Jake Newham? I think we don't much about him . Thank you 🩶

Since somebody else requested Christie as well, we’ll just focus on Jake for this one.

— Jake Newham, the Senior Class President

Jake Newham comes from a very ambitious and academically focused family. His parents, who divorced when he was nine, are both Harvard grads who now work in politics. Jake’s father is a highly sought-after political consultant, and his mother is the Director of Communications for Senator Ryan Bradley (D-ME) as well as a published author. Due to his parents’ demanding careers, Jake currently lives with his grandparents in their West Broadway Victorian home. He also has an older sister, Amy, who recently obtained her master’s degree in international relations.

Although his parents have tried their hardest to avoid this, Jake does put a lot of pressure on himself to not only succeed, but to excel in everything he does. He worries that all of his accomplishments will ultimately amount to nothing and he won’t ever reach the same amount of success as the rest of his family. Due to this, Jake really struggles with self-confidence, and he often gets steamrolled by stronger personalties like his vice president, Jackie O’Connell. When Jake won the student council vote, Jackie told him that he only won because he’s a man. Deep down, Jake wonders if that’s true.

While the greater student body considers Jake a major dork, he’s actually fairly well-liked among the seniors. Unfortunately, Jake is so focused on his future that he seldom makes time for friends. As soon as he entered high school, Jake started preparing for college. He joined clubs that he knew would look good on an application. He took the most difficult classes he could in order to get an edge over the other applicants. Now that Jake’s about to graduate, he feels a little regretful over some of those decisions, but he stands by them nevertheless.

— Fun Facts

Jake lives on the same block as Liz Mueller. The two of them were very close growing up and could even be considered childhood sweethearts. They went their separate ways in high school: Liz became popular and Jake turned his focus to school. They’re still friends, but they don’t hang out much anymore.

He started taking trumpet lessons when he was ten. He also plays the piano.

He’s captain of the varsity soccer team. He’s a center-midfielder.

He has terrible eyesight and wears contacts even though he hates the way they feel against his eyes. He always keeps a pair of glasses in his backpack just in case.

Yes, he does wear a retainer at night.

And yes, he does often approach Richie at school to ask about his sister. Richie used to find this really annoying, but now he thinks it’s funny as hell and loves messing with him.

He first met Evelyn at the school’s annual student council retreat, a three-day camping trip where newly elected members do team-building exercises and develop their leadership skills. Evelyn stood out because she was so outspoken and enthusiastic.

Similar to how Paul and Lenny tease Evelyn about Jake, Jake’s friends and teammates frequently tease him about Evelyn.

Despite his instant attraction to her, Jake has always been hesitant to pursue a romantic relationship with Evelyn. This is partly due to Jake’s academic ambitions but also due to Evelyn’s ambivalence toward him. He could never quite tell if she liked him or not.

Eventually, Jake began to suspect that she may like someone else, but Henry Bowers was the very last person on his list. Yeah, that was a major shocker.

Honestly, Jake’s not too upset over Evelyn’s rejection. He’s a little wounded, of course, but ultimately he thinks it’s for the best. He’s gonna be graduating soon anyway.

#poor jake #everyone was so suspicious of you #answered asks #thanks for the ask!#paper men #ambrossart

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mellowquint · 2 years ago

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The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog Liveblog!

Part 1; the Dining Car

OKAY WE'RE FINALLY DOING THIS READY, SET, LEGO (wait wrong fandom–)

So insert character is first time working for the train huh, okay cool cool

Oh god now i have to name them uhh (yes i will be referring to they/them, non-binary characters ftw)

… I went with Trainee (get it cuz uh train and yeah I'll see myself out)

Darling your scribbles are fine, better than mine actually

Trainee is a nervous train wreck *ba dum tss* yeah ok I'll stop making train jokes

Oh dang here comes the conductor. Apparently todays the conductor's last day after thirty two years.

OOHH THE TRAIN IS CALLED MIRAGE EXPRESS

I like how the sonic crew didn't forget about spagonia Jejdkddlfkkdkfk thought that was a one time thing

The menu only has 3 things, Why? lmao

Wait they're ALL MICROWAVE MEALS?? Can't they afford a chef? This is someone's speaking who has not gone onto these fancy train cars yet so forgive me

Oh fun tidbit the trains actually used for event's only.

"So I'll need you to do everything in your power to make sure our paying guests are well taken care of, understood?" Sir yes sir

AAAHHHHH AMYYYY SHE LOOKS SO ADORABLE WITH THE BIRTHDAY CAKE HEADBAND AND THE DRESS

HELP TAILS IN HIS DETECTIVE OUTFIT HE'S SO CUTEE

oh so it's Amy's birthday party!! Murder mystery theme eh? Someone's an Agatha Christie fan~~

ROUGE AND KNUCKLES YES also Rouge girl you just got on the train don't go stealing gift shop pens just yet lmao

"What cast of characters am i stuck with" OH SHOOT HE KNOWS 🤣

"Why can't i be normal for one second" you and me both Trainee

Also Sonic immediately bolting to get chilli dogs lmao, never change blue gumball dork

WHOOOO LOOKIT ALL OF THEM, ALSO HOLY MOLY BLAZE IS HERE TOO???? COOL COOL COOL

EHH okay so now i collect the tickets, like a normal person, this wont be an embarrassing trip

"well the birthday discount certainly helped!" You and me both Amy

OH NEW LORE DROPPED, AMY'S A FAN OF TRUE CRIME PODCASTS!!! (I wonder if she would like the Magnus Archives…)

"Here's the key that unlocks any door in the train" hmm seems kinda sus, but oh well birthday girl gets the birthday key

and Blaze is here to grace us with her presence and elegance, reminding why I love her. Love how she just casually tells us that she's visiting from a separate dimension like it's nothing lmao

Sooo Blaze has sweet tooth cannon? Yes.

LMAO TRAINEE NO "Why can't i win in this group"

Rouge darling please give the conductor his money back it's to early to steal anyones lunch money

Y'know it's a bit awkward knowing that Trainee just realised he's talking t The Sonic The Hedgehog, like my dude did you not know what he looks like? Either way Sonic's pretty chill

"I brought my own sparkle gelatin. It's a jelly that can melt away even the most jaded hearts" Tails imma need you stop being so cute and wholesome for ONE SECOND OKAY I CAN'T TAKE IT ✨🥺

Awww Trainee and Tails are jelly buddies!!!

"Thank goodness someone on this train is normal" buddy wait till you see the kid fly an airplane and can fly with his two tails lmao

Espio why you holding that rose who is it for 👀

DID ESPIO SERIOUSLY READ TRAINEES MIND?? (Edit he did in fact, something about his Ninjutsu or something)

"Can you cling into walls" "i most certainly can" okay just tell the conductor that, I'll now know where to find you then. In the air vents.

"Do you sell gift bags here" ….. shadow you didn't forget to bring Amy a present her birthday party right?

"Robot arm reminding me that one AI from Wall–E, hopefully we're not going to that route

"Actually, uh Train, the conductor wants me to have the whole plate" lmao you ain't slick Trainee

Okayyy last but not least we have Vector, who does not in fact have his ticket, aanddd now we're supposed to find it

"I wonder what cake topper Sonic picked out for me" "...shoot, i was supposed to give Amy a cake… what am i supposed to do?" Ya done goofed you blue gumball dork

"You don't need to bow everytime you see me" sure Blaze it's not like i was stress responding. definitely.(seriously tho i love her dialogues)

Okay imma take a gamble and ask shadow if he sees any tickets

"Only three items on the menu..? You don't even have drinks listed" THAT'S WHAT I WAS SAYING!!! Also we only have like three drinks too, water, coffee, and chaos cola

"I'll have to take you up on the coffee soon. Just the beans and A spoon, though" …… shadow um what??? WHAT DO YOU MEAN BEANS AND A SPOON ONLY YOU HOT TOPIC WANNABE??? NOT EVEN WATER OR MILK???

I spent 5 minute hitting every random object where's the ticket – OH WAIT LEFT ARROW

NAPKIN IT'S IN THE NAPKIN

"Lost ticket added to you inventory" YES BUD LET'S GOO

Poor trainee has to double shift on being the microwave expert AND security guard smh, Trainee better has a good paycheck

I'm hoping up on here saying to PLEASE TELL ME WHO DID ALL THE SPRITES IN THE GAME THEY'RE ALL SO WONDERFUL AND EXPRESSIVE MY GOD

…. Oh. OH!! SO THAT'S WHY THEY'RE ALL WEARING SPECIFIC CLOTHES. Amy's you nerd she even got them all lore cards i love this girl

So Sonic's role is to be the ship captain. I do wonder why a ship captain of all roles since their in a train setting but ill take

AJDHKJHFKJSLKJFLKJFFKJLA I LOVE THIS SCENE

Oh shadows supposed to be a locksmith?.... I wasn't the only one who thought he was gonna be a barista stationed at the cafe right? My guy might have to dress a little bit more specific for a locksmith

and of course we;ve got our birthday girl as the journalist!

Sweet got a map of the train baby!! Alsooo the lounge looks suspiciously close to the conductor's car…

Well with that out of the way let's get started!!!

Oooohhhh ok cool cool cool got i

"This way there's always a neutral party" yes tails you go you smart cookie

Y'know it's very sweet of all of them to play along with the murder mystery roleplay. Everyone wish they have friends like that

Tails you adorable smart nugget how come you keep getting cuter and adorable by the minute 🥺✨

"My lore is that I'm a nosey person turned journalist" aww c'mon birthday girl don't bring yourself down lol

SUDDEN MYSTERIOUS SHAKE

Oh wait it's just the train moving

Why is it even shaking THAT much???

Anndd screen goes dark, welp i guess that's it for the dining car scene for now

Aanndd that's all for part 1 hope you guys enjoy and see you guys around part 2!!

#the amount of times i have to switch back between two devices just to edit this one postvis unbelievable #part 2 will probably come a bit late as i try to wrestle the Tumblr app post editing #anyways hope this entertains you guys in a way #I may have spent the majority of the game just gasping for air that i keep forgetting too screenshot scenes lmao #and if there's any inconsistencies throughout the whole post no you didn't see that #eh whatever im having fun #sonic the hedgehog #sth #the murder of sonic the hedgehog #tags to add later #sonic

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spaghetti-academia · 4 months ago

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My name is Spaghetti! My pronouns are he/they, and I'm 22 years old. TERFs and bigots are not welcome here.

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

I graduated from college, so now what does one do with their studyblr?

On this blog, you'll find: book reviews, book memes, and other book-related stuff! I may also post stuff related to movies and TV shows, but most of my posts are going to do with reading.

Important note: I like to read non-fiction. I do not agree with every author I read. Reading their book is not an endorsement.

Currently reading

Before She Sleeps by Bina Shah

The Bible (English Standard Version)

The Death of Democracy by Benjamin Carter Hett

Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance

Homestuck by Andrew Hussie (look for my Homestuck liveblogging)

July 1914 by Sean McMeekin

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey

Lightlark by Alex Aster

The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

Secret City by James Kirchick

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

key: fiction non-fiction webcomic

yes i'm aware that this is a lot of books

What genres do I like to read?

Fantasy & Sci-Fi - always been a huge fan of these genres. I'm a huge sucker for interesting worldbuilding, and I'd like to read more about soft/social science fiction

History - Learning about history is super important! It reveals a lot of about why things are the way they are

Society & Politics - I studied sociology and political science in college, and I want to keep learning.

What are some of my favorite books?

The Warriors series by Erin Hunter

Wolves of the Beyond series by Kathryn Lasky

World War Z by Max Brooks

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

I'm also participating in The Hardest Reading Challenge You'll Ever Do (HRCYED) by Qwordy!

Books I've read so far in 2024

#spaghetti-academia posts #bookblr #reading blog #books #bookblr intro

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hellsitesonlybookclub · 1 year ago

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The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie

Chapter 25-26

CHAPTER XXV

THE WHOLE TRUTH

A slight gesture from Poirot enjoined me to stay behind the rest. I obeyed, going over to the fire and thoughtfully stirring the big logs on it with the toe of my boot.

I was puzzled. For the first time I was absolutely at sea as to Poirot’s meaning. For a moment I was inclined to think that the scene I had just witnessed was a gigantic piece of bombast—that he had been what he called “playing the comedy” with a view to making himself interesting and important. But, in spite of myself, I was forced to believe in an underlying reality. There had been real menace in his words—a certain indisputable sincerity. But I still believed him to be on entirely the wrong tack.

When the door shut behind the last of the party he came over to the fire.

“Well, my friend,” he said quietly, “and what do you think of it all?”

“I don’t know what to think,” I said frankly. “What was the point? Why not go straight to Inspector Raglan with the truth instead of giving the guilty person this elaborate warning?”

Poirot sat down and drew out his case of tiny Russian cigarettes. He smoked for a minute or two in silence. Then:—

“Use your little gray cells,” he said. “There is always a reason behind my actions.”

I hesitated for a moment, and then I said slowly:

“The first one that occurs to me is that you yourself do not know who the guilty person is, but that you are sure that he is to be found amongst the people here to-night. Therefore your words were intended to force a confession from the unknown murderer?”

Poirot nodded approvingly.

“A clever idea, but not the truth.”

“I thought, perhaps, that by making him believe you knew, you might force him out into the open—not necessarily by confession. He might try to silence you as he formerly silenced Mr. Ackroyd—before you could act to-morrow morning.”

“A trap with myself as the bait! Merci, mon ami, but I am not sufficiently heroic for that.”

“Then I fail to understand you. Surely you are running the risk of letting the murderer escape by thus putting him on his guard?”

Poirot shook his head.

“He cannot escape,” he said gravely. “There is only one way out—and that way does not lead to freedom.”

“You really believe that one of those people here to-night committed the murder?” I asked incredulously.

“Yes, my friend.”

“Which one?”

There was a silence for some minutes. Then Poirot tossed the stump of his cigarette into the grate and began to speak in a quiet, reflective tone.

“I will take you the way that I have traveled myself. Step by step you shall accompany me, and see for yourself that all the facts point indisputably to one person. Now, to begin with, there were two facts and one little discrepancy in time which especially attracted my attention. The first fact was the telephone call. If Ralph Paton were indeed the murderer, the telephone call became meaningless and absurd. Therefore, I said to myself, Ralph Paton is not the murderer.

“I satisfied myself that the call could not have been sent by any one in the house, yet I was convinced that it was amongst those present on the fatal evening that I had to look for my criminal. Therefore I concluded that the telephone call must have been sent by an accomplice. I was not quite pleased with that deduction, but I let it stand for the minute.

“I next examined the motive for the call. That was difficult. I could only get at it by judging its result. Which was—that the murder was discovered that night instead of—in all probability—the following morning. You agree with that?”

“Ye-es,” I admitted. “Yes. As you say, Mr. Ackroyd, having given orders that he was not to be disturbed, nobody would have been likely to go to the study that night.”

“Très bien. The affair marches, does it not? But matters were still obscure. What was the advantage of having the crime discovered that night in preference to the following morning? The only idea I could get hold of was that the murderer, knowing the crime was to be discovered at a certain time, could make sure of being present when the door was broken in—or at any rate immediately afterwards. And now we come to the second fact—the chair pulled out from the wall. Inspector Raglan dismissed that as of no importance. I, on the contrary, have always regarded it as of supreme importance.

“In your manuscript you have drawn a neat little plan of the study. If you had it with you this minute you would see that—the chair being drawn out in the position indicated by Parker—it would stand in a direct line between the door and the window.”

“The window!” I said quickly.

“You, too, have my first idea. I imagined that the chair was drawn out so that something connected with the window should not be seen by any one entering through the door. But I soon abandoned that supposition, for though the chair was a grandfather with a high back, it obscured very little of the window—only the part between the sash and the ground. No, mon ami—but remember that just in front of the window there stood a table with books and magazines upon it. Now that table was completely hidden by the drawn-out chair—and immediately I had my first shadowy suspicion of the truth.

“Supposing that there had been something on that table not intended to be seen? Something placed there by the murderer? As yet I had no inkling of what that something might be. But I knew certain very interesting facts about it. For instance, it was something that the murderer had not been able to take away with him at the time that he committed the crime. At the same time it was vital that it should be removed as soon as possible after the crime had been discovered. And so—the telephone message, and the opportunity for the murderer to be on the spot when the body was discovered.

“Now four people were on the scene before the police arrived. Yourself, Parker, Major Blunt, and Mr. Raymond. Parker I eliminated at once, since at whatever time the crime was discovered, he was the one person certain to be on the spot. Also it was he who told me of the pulled-out chair. Parker, then, was cleared (of the murder, that is. I still thought it possible that he had been blackmailing Mrs. Ferrars). Raymond and Blunt, however, remained under suspicion since, if the crime had been discovered in the early hours of the morning, it was quite possible that they might have arrived on the scene too late to prevent the object on the round table being discovered.

“Now what was that object? You heard my arguments to-night in reference to the scrap of conversation overheard? As soon as I learned that a representative of a dictaphone company had called, the idea of a dictaphone took root in my mind. You heard what I said in this room not half an hour ago? They all agreed with my theory—but one vital fact seems to have escaped them. Granted that a dictaphone was being used by Mr. Ackroyd that night—why was no dictaphone found?”

“I never thought of that,” I said.

“We know that a dictaphone was supplied to Mr. Ackroyd. But no dictaphone has been found amongst his effects. So, if something was taken from that table—why should not that something be the dictaphone? But there were certain difficulties in the way. The attention of every one was, of course, focused on the murdered man. I think any one could have gone to the table unnoticed by the other people in the room. But a dictaphone has a certain bulk—it cannot be slipped casually into a pocket. There must have been a receptacle of some kind capable of holding it.

“You see where I am arriving? The figure of the murderer is taking shape. A person who was on the scene straightway, but who might not have been if the crime had been discovered the following morning. A person carrying a receptacle into which the dictaphone might be fitted——”

I interrupted.

“But why remove the dictaphone? What was the point?”

“You are like Mr. Raymond. You take it for granted that what was heard at nine-thirty was Mr. Ackroyd’s voice speaking into a dictaphone. But consider this useful invention for a little minute. You dictate into it, do you not? And at some later time a secretary or a typist turns it on, and the voice speaks again.”

“You mean——” I gasped.

Poirot nodded.

“Yes, I mean that. At nine-thirty Mr. Ackroyd was already dead. It was the dictaphone speaking—not the man.”

“And the murderer switched it on. Then he must have been in the room at that minute?”

“Possibly. But we must not exclude the likelihood of some mechanical device having been applied—something after the nature of a time lock, or even of a simple alarm clock. But in that case we must add two qualifications to our imaginary portrait of the murderer. It must be some one who knew of Mr. Ackroyd’s purchase of the dictaphone and also some one with the necessary mechanical knowledge.

“I had got thus far in my own mind when we came to the footprints on the window ledge. Here there were three conclusions open to me. (1) They might really have been made by Ralph Paton. He had been at Fernly that night, and might have climbed into the study and found his uncle dead there. That was one hypothesis. (2) There was the possibility that the footmarks might have been made by somebody else who happened to have the same kind of studs in his shoes. But the inmates of the house had shoes soled with crepe rubber, and I declined to believe in the coincidence of some one from outside having the same kind of shoes as Ralph Paton wore. Charles Kent, as we know from the barmaid of the Dog and Whistle, had on a pair of boots ‘clean dropping off him.’ (3) Those prints were made by some one deliberately trying to throw suspicion on Ralph Paton. To test this last conclusion, it was necessary to ascertain certain facts. One pair of Ralph’s shoes had been obtained from the Three Boars by the police. Neither Ralph nor any one else could have worn them that evening, since they were downstairs being cleaned. According to the police theory, Ralph was wearing another pair of the same kind, and I found out that it was true that he had two pairs. Now for my theory to be proved correct it was necessary for the murderer to have worn Ralph’s shoes that evening—in which case Ralph must have been wearing yet a third pair of footwear of some kind. I could hardly suppose that he would bring three pairs of shoes all alike—the third pair of footwear were more likely to be boots. I got your sister to make inquiries on this point—laying some stress on the color, in order—I admit it frankly—to obscure the real reason for my asking.

“You know the result of her investigations. Ralph Paton had had a pair of boots with him. The first question I asked him when he came to my house yesterday morning was what he was wearing on his feet on the fatal night. He replied at once that he had worn boots—he was still wearing them, in fact—having nothing else to put on.

“So we get a step further in our description of the murderer—a person who had the opportunity to take these shoes of Ralph Paton’s from the Three Boars that day.”

He paused, and then said, with a slightly raised voice:—

“There is one further point. The murderer must have been a person who had the opportunity to purloin that dagger from the silver table. You might argue that any one in the house might have done so, but I will recall to you that Miss Ackroyd was very positive that the dagger was not there when she examined the silver table.”

He paused again.

“Let us recapitulate—now that all is clear. A person who was at the Three Boars earlier that day, a person who knew Ackroyd well enough to know that he had purchased a dictaphone, a person who was of a mechanical turn of mind, who had the opportunity to take the dagger from the silver table before Miss Flora arrived, who had with him a receptacle suitable for hiding the dictaphone—such as a black bag, and who had the study to himself for a few minutes after the crime was discovered while Parker was telephoning for the police. In fact—Dr. Sheppard!”

CHAPTER XXVI

AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH

There was a dead silence for a minute and a half.

Then I laughed.

“You’re mad,” I said.

“No,” said Poirot placidly. “I am not mad. It was the little discrepancy in time that first drew my attention to you—right at the beginning.”

“Discrepancy in time?” I queried, puzzled.

“But yes. You will remember that every one agreed—you yourself included—that it took five minutes to walk from the lodge to the house—less if you took the short cut to the terrace. But you left the house at ten minutes to nine—both by your own statement and that of Parker, and yet it was nine o’clock as you passed through the lodge gates. It was a chilly night—not an evening a man would be inclined to dawdle; why had you taken ten minutes to do a five-minutes’ walk? All along I realized that we had only your statement for it that the study window was ever fastened. Ackroyd asked you if you had done so—he never looked to see. Supposing, then, that the study window was unfastened? Would there be time in that ten minutes for you to run round the outside of the house, change your shoes, climb in through the window, kill Ackroyd, and get to the gate by nine o’clock? I decided against that theory since in all probability a man as nervous as Ackroyd was that night would hear you climbing in, and then there would have been a struggle. But supposing that you killed Ackroyd beforeyou left—as you were standing beside his chair? Then you go out of the front door, run round to the summer-house, take Ralph Paton’s shoes out of the bag you brought up with you that night, slip them on, walk through the mud in them, and leave prints on the window ledge, you climb in, lock the study door on the inside, run back to the summer-house, change back into your own shoes, and race down to the gate. (I went through similar actions the other day, when you were with Mrs. Ackroyd—it took ten minutes exactly.) Then home—and an alibi—since you had timed the dictaphone for half-past nine.”

“My dear Poirot,” I said in a voice that sounded strange and forced to my own ears, “you’ve been brooding over this case too long. What on earth had I to gain by murdering Ackroyd?”

“Safety. It was you who blackmailed Mrs. Ferrars. Who could have had a better knowledge of what killed Mr. Ferrars than the doctor who was attending him? When you spoke to me that first day in the garden, you mentioned a legacy received about a year ago. I have been unable to discover any trace of a legacy. You had to invent some way of accounting for Mrs. Ferrars’s twenty thousand pounds. It has not done you much good. You lost most of it in speculation—then you put the screw on too hard, and Mrs. Ferrars took a way out that you had not expected. If Ackroyd had learnt the truth he would have had no mercy on you—you were ruined for ever.”

“And the telephone call?” I asked, trying to rally. “You have a plausible explanation of that also, I suppose?”

“I will confess to you that it was my greatest stumbling block when I found that a call had actually been put through to you from King’s Abbot station. I at first believed that you had simply invented the story. It was a very clever touch, that. You must have some excuse for arriving at Fernly, finding the body, and so getting the chance to remove the dictaphone on which your alibi depended. I had a very vague notion of how it was worked when I came to see your sister that first day and inquired as to what patients you had seen on Friday morning. I had no thought of Miss Russell in my mind at that time. Her visit was a lucky coincidence, since it distracted your mind from the real object of my questions. I found what I was looking for. Among your patients that morning was the steward of an American liner. Who more suitable than he to be leaving for Liverpool by the train that evening? And afterwards he would be on the high seas, well out of the way. I noted that the Orion sailed on Saturday, and having obtained the name of the steward I sent him a wireless message asking a certain question. This is his reply you saw me receive just now.”

He held out the message to me. It ran as follows—

“Quite correct. Dr. Sheppard asked me to leave a note at a patient’s house. I was to ring him up from the station with the reply. Reply was ‘No answer.’”

** ***

“It was a clever idea,” said Poirot. “The call was genuine. Your sister saw you take it. But there was only one man’s word as to what was actually said—your own!”

I yawned.

“All this,” I said, “is very interesting—but hardly in the sphere of practical politics.”

“You think not? Remember what I said—the truth goes to Inspector Raglan in the morning. But, for the sake of your good sister, I am willing to give you the chance of another way out. There might be, for instance, an overdose of a sleeping draught. You comprehend me? But Captain Ralph Paton must be cleared—ça va sans dire. I should suggest that you finish that very interesting manuscript of yours—but abandoning your former reticence.”

“You seem to be very prolific of suggestions,” I remarked. “Are you sure you’ve quite finished.”

“Now that you remind me of the fact, it is true that there is one thing more. It would be most unwise on your part to attempt to silence me as you silenced M. Ackroyd. That kind of business does not succeed against Hercule Poirot, you understand.”

“My dear Poirot,” I said, smiling a little, “whatever else I may be, I am not a fool.”

I rose to my feet.

“Well, well,” I said, with a slight yawn, “I must be off home. Thank you for a most interesting and instructive evening.”

Poirot also rose and bowed with his accustomed politeness as I passed out of the room.

#hellsitesonlybookclub #bookblr #agatha christie

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jlf23tumble · 4 years ago

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Top 10 Niche Interests

Fixations? Obsessions? This is incredibly hard because I have wayyyy too many niche interests, so instead of stressing about it, I tried to channel the 10 things that immediately speak to me and maybe aren't so obvious from what I post here, like how much I'm obsessed with wigs, doll furniture, incredibly specific blogs, all forms of clothing with pockets, swimming pools, whimsical bus stops, over-the-top bathrooms, etc. etc Instead, I opted for some specifics that feel a little more evergreen and long tailed, like, so LIFE-long tailed that it's tough to nail down when or how they became part of the national psyche. I thank @alienfuckeronmain for the initial tag, and I'm tagging her AGAIN for round two because I know she has a billion additional niche things, and she'll post them, and I'll scream because it'll trigger five other things I neglected to post here, and I'll probably post my own round two, arggggh, insert aggressive sighing. Anyway, I tag ANYONE who wants to do it, just tag me so I can see!

1. Indoor Trees

I have no idea why this concept PULLS so hard because houseplants are kind of meh to me, but you want to plant an entire-ass TREE indoors, in the place where you live? Me, too, and I'd add a conversation pit plus a combo gold/red bathroom, among other things, and, bam, we're in my imaginary dream home, which I have literally, constantly ALWAYS mentally constructed from the time I was about six or so. (If you're curious, it has multiple themed rooms, and the closest I've seen to it recently is the outstanding Dita von Teese AD feature, but Amy Sedaris’s apartment comes close, too). There are two (2) 1960s houses in Long Beach with magnificent indoor trees, but I can't find them online, so have this modern interpretation and cry with me about how I can't visit the multi-story fake tree inside Clifton's Cafeteria for a good long while:

2. Conventions of Fans of Any Kind

One thing that I don't think I'll ever lose is how much I *love* people who are fans of SOMETHING, people who have a passion and create something about it or cosplay it or simply gather to celebrate it and connect to other people through it. The Internet provides in all kinds of ways, but I'm talking specifically about IRL conventions and the way my heart pitter pats when I first walk in those doors, SWOON! And it doesn’t matter how big the convention is or how random, I've been to smaller events like CatCon and the My Little Pony convention all the way up to biggies like WonderCon and Comic Con, and I have yet to be disappointed. I might know jack shit about what I'm walking into, but I want to see the merch, hear about the panels, and check out the people who are fucking PUMPED to be there. Sadly, I think it's gonna be a lonnnnng time until these come back, but I can live vicariously through my old photos, sigh:

3. Dutch Wax Fabrics and African Fashion

I'm not the snazziest of dressers, but textiles, colors, and patterns have been an obsession that has soothed my visual soul for as long as I can literally remember. Wax fabric marries all three of those touchpoints, plus throws in a healthy dose of style, and I count myself lucky to have seen two big exhibits on the subject (this was one of them), oh, how I wish there were more! For sure, there's a fucked up underlying colonial/imperialist history here, but there's also humor and color and vibrancy, a reclamation of sorts, and multiple levels of fashion that take my breath away. I cannot do the different patterns justice at all, but the fan motif is one of my faves:

4. Hearst Castle vs. Madonna inn

These two fall into my #home tag because they're where I'm from, and they speak to me as equally sublime and ridiculous, camp and kitsch writ large and small, different (yet similar!) versions of Xanadu that two rich white men built as shrines to their own personal "taste." And the irony is that a lot of people shit on Alex Madonna for being tacky (the Madonna Inn is...uh, something else), yet praise WR Hearst for all the high-class art and architecture, most of which is fully lifted from desperate churches between and after world and yet they're both more or less the same concept (lodging for weary travelers, self-aggrandizement, questionable taste-mixing). Hearst Castle edges out slightly for me because it's bigger and has spectacular scenery and history, plus it gives me doses of LA noir thanks to the way Hearst killed a guy in a jealous Charlie Chaplin-related rage and Hedda Hopper covered it up, all kinds of old Hollywood shenanigans happened up there, etc. But I'm low-key an expert on both houses of the holy, I'm OBSESSED with both, and we can leave it at that. I mean, come on:

5. Snow Globes

I had to cull my personal collection slightly just to fit it all on the dedicated shelf in my bathroom, and I seriously need to refill all the water lines, but nothing beats a snow globe in terms of memorable souvenir, especially when you put it in a bathroom. The majesty!!! The jewel of my collection is the one from Sherwood Forest because WHY NOT celebrate a historic place and moment in the basic way?? He robbed from the rich to give to the poor, and the gift shop about 100 feet from the tree he hid in does the same! The circle of life! The irony of all the watermarks on this blessed image...protect:

6. Highly Specific Museums

Look, we can all agree that the more venerated museums in the world are a form of garbage in terms of what they represent, what they've done, and who runs them, but I'm here for the museums that collect and celebrate things that tend to get overlooked. There are too many to list that I love that are still thriving, so I'm going to say goodbye to four recently departed faves. RIP to the Pez museum, I'm so glad I saw you and purchased your stale candy souvenirs. RIP to the museum of terrible food, you were a pop up when Phoenix and I saw you, and I will forever think about the worker describing people literally vomiting during their visits. RIP to the currywurst museum in Berlin, I've had currywurst exactly once and it was not for me, but I respect the Journey you took me on, including obscure east German TV shows that helped make you so popular (??). Finally, RIP to the velvet painting museum, there's no way to mince words, the person who owned you was crazy AS FUCK and had zero clue how to run a business, but I'm so glad I saw you multiple times and purchased my own velvet treasure (not this exact one, but remarkably similar):

7. Liminal Spaces: Grocery Store Edition

Confession time for those who don't know me all that well, I'm a big time voyeur, and nothing fills my heart with joy like a walk at 7 or 8 pm, the witching hour when people haven't pulled the curtains, and I can scope out their decorations/furnishings without it being "weird." Another confession is how much I unabashedly adore grocery stores in other countries and will spend at least an hour wandering aisle by aisle, falling in love with how much everything is different yet completely the same:

8. Agatha Christie Novels:

As a child, I was a fairly compliant reader--I had to read something for school? Okay! For my mom? Sounds good! But the books that sparked the initial fire for me to read something purely for myself were second-hand (probably fourth- or fifth-hand, judging by cover art) Agatha Christie short story anthologies, which were the gateway drug to full Agatha Christie novels, then other mystery novels, and so on. But getting back to Agatha, I obviously loved all the stories, but every decade spawned incredibly good cover art (like, exceptionally good), and this particular artist's are right up near the top for me (I go back and forth on a lot of the '50s and '60s ones):

9. Scopitones

I link my obsession with scopitones both to my love of music videos in general and a shop in Austin, TX, that sold DVD compilations of them in particular, but either way, they're underappreciated and kitschy all in one! Francoise Hardy and the rest of the ye-ye's are my forever girls for this medium, but seemingly every country cranked them out, both actual set videos and "live" performances? If you don't know what they are, scopitones were machines that played music videos in French cafes in the '60s (??), so it was sort of your proto-MTV way to see your faves sing and dance. Oh, Francoise...so moderne!!

10. Cover Songs

I have so much patience and love for cover songs of any stripe, the more genre-bending and/or surprising, the better! My only minor beef is the trend in slooooooooowing down songs to make a point, but even those ones have a special place in my heart if they're effective. Live Lounge feeds my hunger the best, but my meta fave for representing this concept is Pulp's Bad Cover Version, which was already lyrically INSPIRED, a song about bad cover versions in terms of relationships, but then they did a video that was a visual "bad" cover version, with actors lip synching over an audio "bad" cover version, and all of it just worked? The cover for the single is someone in the band as a boy, making his own bad cover version of a Bowie album cover, it's meta meta meta, and I love love love, here's the video, if you're curious. In the more sublime cover category, I'm absolutely addicted to all of Orville Peck's covers, I truly hope he officially releases them sometime soon, but I wholeheartedly support any artist who does it:

#tag games #niche interests #god i have a few

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keeloves · 6 years ago

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Top 10 Characters that deserved better.

10 Alexis Glenn from Famous in Love

Despite my problems with this character I wasn’t very pleased with her treatment on the show Famous in Love. Yes I know she was a snob and behaved like a jealous bitch but I felt she had some redeeming qualities about her. For one thing I would have her accept the fact she was bisexual and not have those run of the mill lame excuses as in “I don’t like labels” bisexual isn’t a bad word. I also would have her apologize to Paige for how she treated her and maybe they can get along but they don’t have to be besties. Another thing I didn’t like was her being used by Jake and then being dropped like a hat just because things didn’t work out in his favor. No one deserves that. I also felt she deserved better than to be used by Ida. I would love to give Lexi a redemption arc.

9. Milah from Once Upon a Time.

Even though I didn’t really care for Milah, I felt she deserved better than to be killed by Rumple twice. The first time having her heart ripped out and crushed literally and then being thrown into the lake of lost souls. I felt she had remorse for leaving Baelfire/Neal behind. I honestly felt she could have given Belle advice on how to leave Rumple and they could have become friends or something. Anyways she deserved to move on from the under world not be thrown in a lake of lost souls.

8.Belle French Once Upon a Time

I am convinced that Adam and Eddie hated Belle. First off why did they keep her in a relationship with a man who lies to her, manipulates her and has told her multiple times he won’t change. Yet here she is going back to this man again and again. She kept going back to Rumple and even enabled him. She was once so scared of him that she felt that her child would be better off away from the father. Not only does she get lied to and manipulated she gets mind raped, raped if Belle and Rumple had sex in the fantasy world where Rumple was the Bright One. He even went so far as to stalk her and put a tracking bracelet on her to know where she was at all times. Belle always looked scared of Rumple and was always backing away from him. That relationship should have ended when Belle banned Rumple from Storybrooke. Nope she gets forced back in a toxic relationship and even Emilie De Raven said that she wouldn’t give Rumple as many chances. I know I have said this before but I am going to say it again. Belle should have been bisexual and go be happy with Ruby or OUAT should have introduced Prince Adam. Any one of those relationships would have been better than Rumbelle.

7 Logan Huntzberger

I thought Logan was one of the most well developed characters on Gilmore Girls as in the original series. When we first meet him he was promiscuous and slept around. However, he was fully willing to commit to Rory and become the boyfriend she needed and wanted. He was allowed to grow and develop. All was going great with his character until the revival. He and Rory are both cheating with each other on their significant others and Amy seem to make Logan resort to his fuck boy ways. I am sorry to Matt Czuchry who had to play a digressed character and props to you for making Logan likable despite the way he was written.

6. Angela Moore Boy/Girl Meets World (Using the Collage because I loved the Versatility Angela had on Boy Meets World I did not make this Collage BTW)

I know I keep bringing her up but I can’t help it. I am so bitter that Girl Meets World committed defamation of a black female character. They bent and twisted the narrative to make Angela look like a villain and they also made her look like one more person that mindlessly abandon Shawn when that is not the case. She left to Europe with her father and she was going to come back and be with Shawn. Now in Girl Meets World she was just another person who abandon Shawn? No that is so disrespectful and this completely racist how she got treated. Also I don’t want anyone to come at me and tell me the treatment she got wasn’t racially related. Seriously look how the other characters got treated as in the white characters got treated then look at how Michael Jacobs treated his only black female character from Boy Meets World. She was the only main black character period and all she got was paid dust. So yeah her treatment whether or not it was unintended was absolutely racist.

5. Hazel Alden Degrassi

Degrassi literally had no idea what to do with this character. She was on the show for six seasons and only got one single story line about her Muslim back ground and we didn’t get that story line until season 2. She was there as a “main character” so Degrassi could pat themselves on the back for diversity brownie points. Andrea Lewis (Actress for Hazel) did the best with what she had tow work with but it wasn’t much. She was there to be Paige’s side kick and to help aid white character’s story lines. She honestly felt like the Christie to Paige’s Barbie. In fact here is a a link to an article on what Andrea had to say about her time on Degrassi read and enjoy. https://missandrealewis.com/2013/03/28/new-post-a-real-conversation-about-degrassi-tbt/

4. Audery from Descendants

I know she is a classist snob and I know she wasn’t the nicest but she didn’t deserve to have her boyfriend stolen from her be dumped in front of the entire school. She deserved to be a more fleshed out character. I mean I wouldn’t really like someone who put a love drug on my boyfriend stole him from me and then he broke up with me in front of the entire school. Anyways Audery deserved better and didn’t deserve to be humiliated.

3. Graham from Once Upon a Time

I am so bitter how Once Upon a Time treated him. He was used abused and then killed off. Adam and Eddie still this day deny that he was raped by Regina.He had his heart ripped out literally as punishment for not killing Snow White. Regina’s ultimatum was basically “Do what I say or you die” and he literally has no choice because his heart in is Regina’s possession and now he is under a curse without his heart so he really has to do what Regina says without even being aware of the “Why” of the situation. This all changes when Emma comes to town and when he kisses Emma he starts to remember he is actually the Huntsmen. The moment he starts to take back control from Regina she kills him by crushing his heart. To me that is not even the worst thing about this situation its the fact that this issue is never addressed and Regina is never called out for raping Graham.

2 Mulan From Once Upon a Time

I used this picture because my heart breaks for this gorgeous character. Mulan a bisexual Asian woman is paid dust and yes it is confirmed she is bisexual by the writers and it honestly feels like Adam and Eddie want to pat themselves on the back for the so called “representation.” Mulan arguably the biggest bad ass of the Disney Princesses was reduced to being an aid for white character story lines. She wasn’t allowed to have a love interest despite everyone around her got to have a love interest and she just kept getting screwed over. I am forever bitter about Sleeping Warrior. That ship had the best chemistry the best build up only for the writers to go the hetro normative route with Aurora. Then we had have been with Ruby and we could have gotten Mulan Rouge. That didn’t happen either. She deserved much better than to be a token character of color to only aid in white character story lines. The treatment of Mulan on Once Upon a Time and the treatment of Angela on Girl Meets World will forever leave a bitter taste in my mouth.

Finally Number 1 Dinah Laurel Lance’/ Black Canary/Black Siren

I am forever bitter on how Arrow treated their most iconic female super hero character. In the comics Dinah Lance was her own hero, was a member of the Justice League and she helped co-find her own hero team called Birds of Prey. She helped people like Sin Lance (Asian character later white washed by Arrow) Helped Roy Harper through his drug addiction and morally centered and is one of the best hand to hand combat fighters. She is up on Batman’s level of hand to hand fighting. However in Arrow she is treated like shit, had a boyfriend who serial cheated on her with her sister, and now he is a dad a child where the baby momma is another woman he cheated with while he was with Laurel. The show had people gas light her and when she finally exploded all of a sudden it was her fault because god forbid she responds like a normal human to being treated like shit for no reason. Sara never apologized to Laurel she just went back to fucking Oliver again despite the fact that is why the Lance family fell apart. Laurel was told she was never good enough to be the Black Canary despite she is the damn Black Canary in the comics. She has helped out Sara and Oliver multiple times despite the fact they are the reason she had to deal with her family falling a part. The people on the show continued to miss treat her. Not once did she get an apology by Oliver or Sara she had to call them out first. Then after the horrible treatment, the gas lighting and mental abuse they show runners decide to kill her off for Olicity. Her dying words are about how Olicity and propping up Oliver and his relationship with Felicity. First off “HOW FUCKING DARE YOU GUYS DO THAT TO LAUREL’ 2 You damn well know how Oliver treated Laurel so you have some damn nerve to do that! Then you have Black Siren get knocked out by Felicity despite the fact she could get up after getting hit by a car on the Flash. Then you weaken her Canary cry when on the Flash it took out a whole building but on Arrow it barely makes the room shake. Then on the Flash great hand to hand combat skills only for her to be easily taken down by team Arrow. The thing that makes me most angry and bitter about this is that I know Katie Cassidy Rodgers actually did her homework on the character she was playing, I know KCR worked out for this role and she was so excited to be in this role. She even had costume design ideas for her Black Canary Suit and you kill her character off for shock value and you wait two episodes before to tell her that Laurel will be the one in the grave. This absolutely disrespectful to the actress and this proves how lazy these writers are.

Anyways this was my rant on characters who deserved better. I would love to know your thoughts.

#top 10 list #once upon a time #arrow #descendants #famous in love #degrassi next generation

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newagesispage · 4 years ago

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OCTOBER 2020

PAGE RIB

The Stones opened Rolling Stones # 9 on Carnaby St.** Bill Wyman auctioned off many unique items for the Prince’s Trust.**Wyman’s bass used for groundbreaking records in ’69 and ’70 broke a record at $384,000. The famous amp that got him into the Stones went for $106,250 and the most expensive toilet seat cover sold at auction with the tongue logo went for $1,142. Brian Jones Rock and Roll Circus guitar sold for $704,000.

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VOTE!!!!

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In San Francisco people can order dinner and drinks delivered with a drag queen performance.

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Joaquin and Rooney had a baby that they named River.

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Real Time has been renewed thru 2022.

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The new film, No Sudden Move about 1955 Detroit will star Don Cheadle, David Harbour, Benicio Del Toro, Ray Liotta and Kieran Culkin.

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Shep Smith is back with Just the Facts on CNBC.

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The Presidential debate: Well, Good Biden moments-“You don’t panic, he panicked.” “It is what it is cuz you are what you are.” “Everybody knows he’s a liar.” Wouldn’t know suburbs unless he took a wrong turn.” “Will you shit up man?” “Get out of your and trap.” Imagine if Bernie or a younger candidate with real energy were there. Imagine someone quick on their feet because we need that. The bully style of scary clown 45 does fluster a normal person as it supposed to. Joe held his own and had real dignity though. It is hard to not respond to the President’s ridiculousness but he needs to be ignored. Trump and son both seemed like they were about 8 Red Bulls into the day with all that pent up anger. Who should be drug tested? Biden? Trump went on about forest management but most of that land belongs to the Federal government. ** I have never seen my mailperson trying to sell ballots.** Trump said that bad things are happening in Philadelphia. Biden should have showed some love for the state. He is on a tour of it now though. ** Chris Wallace said, “Why you not?” Was that a real question? 45 said, “I was a private business people.” They all had a little trouble talking. It is exhausting the way people put up with his manners. **As soon as the debate was over, the Trump army wasted no time reaching out to goons to be poll watchers. Do they know that you just can’t show up randomly for that??**Apprentice insiders say Trump abuses Adderall.

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The other day when Trump took the podium for a rant, an open mike caught a someone saying, “Oh shit” On Fox.

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For those who insist Trump is a religious man, I’ll grant you he pays taxes like a church. –Stephen Colbert

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Letterman is ready with My Next Guest Needs no Introduction. This season includes Robert Downey Jr., Lizzo and Dave Chappelle.

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There are about 9 million feral swine in this country known as super pigs.

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There is talk of Levar Burton replacing Alex Trebeck when he retires. YES!!!!

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Cigar Afficionado magazine has named CBS Sunday Morning the greatest show on tv.

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The U.S. built tunnels under Trump’s wall to let water, garbage, DDT and other toxins flow thru. Millions were spent for nothing and now millions more will be spent to address this problem that empties into the Pacific Ocean.

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Days alert: Melissa Reeves is being replaced. Is it that she does not want to commute from Nashville or that she is a bit too conservative or something else? Is it an end of Days with old side characters and replacements of the stars??** Ava is coming back, JJ is back, Eric and Sami are gone. ** Absolutely loved the pic of Abigail 1 that confused Abigail 2. Funny!!!! It reminded me of the OLTL moment during Asa’s funeral when Blair saw the 1st Blair in a flashback.

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“Smaller than expected” would probably explain a lot about the proud boys. –Andi Zeisler

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Why does anyone listen to Christie or Rudy??

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Looting isn’t part of protesting just like murder isn’t part of arresting.

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A judge has said that Florida has created an “unconstitutional pay to vote system.” This has now been overturned. What are the things that can be termed felonies to keep one from voting? The list includes releasing helium filled balloons, driving without a license, catching the wrong lobster and disturbing turtle eggs. Amendment 4 was originally put into effect to stop freed slaves from voting. But SB7066 makes sure that felons complete the terms of their sentences. The fines, fees and restitution can be hard to navigate. There must be proof before they can vote but all counties keep their own records and there is no organization statewide. Mike Bloomberg, John Legend, Michael Jordon and others are paying off millions of dollars in debt for felons in Florida so that they can vote if they can unravel some of the puzzles. Now Florida Republicans are saying that that is also illegal.

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Two thirds of the world’s wildlife has disappeared in the last 50 years.

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At our own peril, we have to step up or everything is lost. –John Batiste

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Michael Jordan will start up a Nascar team with Bubba Wallace.

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Laraine Newman signed up to be a poll worker. How do you get people to vote? Celebrity poll workers? Hey whatever works as long as the masses don’t gawk and hold up the lines.

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A refrigerator sized asteroid is headed to earth and may arrive about the time of the election.

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So the coronavirus relief funds were funneled by the pentagon to defense contractors.** What kind of a selfish fucking world do we live in? At least we know which people in this world give a flying fuck about the rest of us. Rally and fair participants, relief money scammers and mask protesters, we hear you loud and clear!!

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The Emmys went on thru the week of the 14th thru the 20th. Winners included RuPaul, Don’t fuck with Cats, Leah Remini, The Apollo, Eddie Murphy, Last Week 2nite, SNL, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Crown, Better Call Saul, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Archer, Hollywood, Maya Rudolph, Dan Harmon, Bad Education, Cherry Jones, Regina King, Julia Garner, Mark Ruffalo, Uzo Aduba, The Last Dance and Stranger Things. Schitt’s Creek (and practically the whole cast), Dave Chappelle and Succession took home the big ones. Norman Lear became the oldest Emmy winner ever. Letterman ‘hitchhiked’ to the Emmy’s to present an award. I was really rooting for Amy Sedaris!!

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Bill Murray and Rashida Jones will star in Sofia Coppala’s On the Rocks.** The Doobie Brothers want Bill Murray to stop using their music to sell his golf clothes.

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Danny Trejo and Jessica Tuck will star in ‘The Shift.’

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Illinois is pulling down statues including Chris Columbus. Woo Hoo!!

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13 mummies have been discovered in a well, stacked one on top of the other. The Egyptian discovery from about 2,500 years ago has been well preserved.

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Hysterectomies on immigrant women in detention camps?? Really??

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Scientific American mag is 175 years old has never endorsed a candidate but Joe Biden id their man.

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Word is that in Indonesia the anti- maskers are forced to dig the graves of the Covid 19 victims.

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The Breonna Taylor case continues with a settlement and too few charges.

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Scary Clown 45 announced he will call in to Fox and Friends every Monday or Tuesday but a host told him that they were not committed to that.** The Scary campaign put up ads with “Support Our Troops” but the problem is they are Russian troops and jet fighters.** Trump did a phone interview on Fox Sports and talked about golf.

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It is a shame that Hillary lost the election and many more of us would be alive if she were running the show. But, I can only imagine the shit they would have given her.

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Brad Pascale, Trump’s former campaign manager, went to the hospital after being taken into custody in Florida after threatening suicide.

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Just remember , 1619 Project: Good 1776 Commision: Oh my! Why do these rich old fucks want us to stay as stupid and uninformed as they are? Haven’t we been in the dark long enough? They are the fake news masters.

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Jim Carrey will play Biden on SNL. Chris Rock will be host the season 46 opener on Oct. 3. New players will be Lauren Holt, Punkie Johnson and Andrew Dismukes.

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Gulf War Syndrome is a chronic and multi symptomatic disorder that has affected military personnel from the Persian Gulf War. The DOD is resisting the strong evidence and needs more of a spotlight. The possible exposure to chemical weapons may even have been passed on to their partners through sexual contact. All of this came to light in the mid 90’s thru complaints that were told to Ross Perot. Let’s hope Tammy Duckworth looks into this further.

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Amy Coney Barrett has been nominated to the Supreme Court. Her previous statements tell us she believes the ACA is unconstitutional, abortion is always immoral and the country should undo marriage equality. She is a member of People of Praise.** If she was a Muslim and everything else was the same regarding her beliefs and associations, Republicans would call her a religious extremist and never let her step near the Supreme Court. –Wajahat Ali.** Notorious A.C.B. ?? Do they have one original idea other than new ways to cheat and steal??

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Finn Wittrock has a funny little Emmy Uber ride on Funny or Die.

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Breonna Taylor’s neighbor’s wall got more justice that Breonna herself. –Jordan Uhl

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Go Stevie Wonder!!!

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Dax Sheppard went off the wagon for a while.

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A Giant Gundom? Really?

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A fun prank would be if we stopped this from becoming a dictatorship on Nov. 3rd and whatnot. –George Wallace

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Sen. Kevin Kramer has been acting a little crooked on building the Wall.

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The Metropolitan Opera has cancelled the whole season.

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Happy Doomscrolling

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Can dogs be trained to detect the coronavirus?

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Rand Paul is an idiot. Birx and Atlas have ruined reps. Give ‘em Hell Fauci!! ** Everything Atlas says is false. –R. Redfield

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Eric Trump must testify in court about the Trump business’s a judge has decreed. The Trump biz has made about 19 billion in the last 3 years.** The world is gobbling up the news about the Trump tax returns with tales of debt, the $72.9 milliion refund and foreign influence. How does the IRS let a refund like that happen? How bad of a businessman do you have to be to lose that much $? National security threat. One of his fans will probably bail him out.

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Bet we’d all own houses if we stopped eating so much avocado toast and committed tax fraud. -Kashana

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Mary Trump has sued The President and his siblings for fraud.

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Ellen is selling off $10 mil in art.

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61% say we should abolish the electoral college.

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The Netflix series, Challenger :The Final Flight reminds us that like The Titanic, the arrogance of man can change so many lives.

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Wilderness of Errors is a great doc. It proves just how right the book and mini -series got it.

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The remains of the 1644 warship, Del Menhorst have been found off the Danish coast.

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Everybody is talking about Jeff Daniels in The Comey Rule. The actors were upset when Showtime was going to push back the release until after the election. The actors said they wouldn’t promote the film so the film has premiered.

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David Tennant gets better and better and now he is giving us DES on ITV. Quality AND quanity.

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Independent prosecutors are not going ahead with a case against NE Patriots Robert Craft for soliciting prostitutes.

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America has no memories. –Wallace Shawn

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Tyler Childers has released ‘Long Violent History”. Give it a listen.

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Does it seem like the administration gets a word of the week and they really push it? Caravan-Herd-sedition-looters- Antifa. It is like they all share a brain and do not have a thought of their own.

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Chris Petrovski `will star in ‘Listen’ about a young Israeli soldier.

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On a personal note, I love the way that Autumn makes my brain feel. The spring allergies are gone, the hot muddled summer thinking fades and everything opens up.

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Gubler is back and in the video for Future Islands ‘Moonlight’.

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Niecy Nash wed Jessica Betts.

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Check out the Curious life and death of… on the Smithsonian channel.

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Conan is looking hot with his grown out hair.

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I just love Mel Rodriguez and Weijia Jiang. Some people just don’t get enough credit.

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Vet’s crisis line: 1-800-273-8255

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Donald Trump is taking page out of Charles Manson’s playbook. Start a race war, then convince the public you alone can end it. He’s a lying racist piece of garbage. –Rob Reiner

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Serious Question: Would good Christian conservatives have mounted a Go fund me for Timothy McVeigh? –Michael Mckean

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Old Navy will pay employees to work the polls on Election day.

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Trump is the most effective anti -liberal in my lifetime. –Newt Gingrich

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Tommy Chong does not seem too happy with Joe Rogan.

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Anna Faris is leaving CBS’s Mom as it heads into its 8th season.

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Q Anon should take advantage of the ACA. –Joe Biden

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Word is that the White House told Federal agencies to ban race based sensitivity training. The thinking is that Un American propaganda training sessions have no place in Federal Government.

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I wish I lived in a country where John Kelly, James Mattis and John Bolton had at least half the balls of Sally Yates, Maria Yovanovitch, Fiona Hill, Reality Winner, Christine Blasey Ford or Stormy Daniels. – Andrea Junker** If only Mad Dog Mattis had the balls of Olivia Troye – Michael Mckean

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38 million Americans live in poverty.

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80 year old Sam Little with a possible 93 murders has now been called the most prolific serial killer in the U.S. and he has a photographic memory. Whoever takes this on, please let David Alan Grier play him in the movie.

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You must check out the album, the Angel Headed Hipster.

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Everybody is talking about Cottage Core.

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The Trump campaign can’t help themselves with things like playing ‘knockin’ on Heaven’s door’ and ‘Fortunate son’ at rally’s. It was like the time my Grandfathers young wife brought a purse to the funeral that boldly stated ‘Jackpot.’ True Story.

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Glenn Howerton and Seth Meyers should play brothers on something.** Also Meyers and Larry Wilmore wondered if the cancellation of Wilmore’s show was a reason for the racial unrest and terrible results of the last election. Hmmm.

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Can we remember this election enthusiasm for all future elections? We need to take things seriously EVERY time.** So many say that even with our divide, we all want the same things in the end. I do not think that is really true. It seems that in this divide, we have different ideas about what we want this country to be.

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Harry Styles has replaced Shia LaBeouf in Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling.

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Cat Cora has filed for a restraining order against her ex- wife, Jennifer who it seems has been stalking her.

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Showtime’s The Comedy Store sounds interesting with stories like Jimmie Walker who claims that Freddie Prinze wanted to kill John Travolta.

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Maplecroft, Lizzie Borden’s last house sold for about $890,000.

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A woman ref in the NFL?? It’s about time!

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Doc Martin will end after its 10th season.

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Kelly Clarkson is being sued by her management firm.

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Pope Francis refused to meet with Mike Pompeo.

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R.I.P. Tom Seaver, Sophie Farrar, Kevin Dobson, Toots Hibbert, Stevie Lee, Bruce Williamson, Ben Cross, Diana Rigg, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Rev. Robert Graetz, Ron Cobb, Gale Sayers, Dan Dettman, Kevin Burns, Mac Davis, wildfire casualties, Covid victims and Helen Reddy.

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the-desolated-quill · 7 years ago

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Vincent And The Doctor - Doctor Who blog (People Like This Episode?)

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Oh I hate talking about these kinds of stories! The ones that receive critical acclaim and are adored by fans because of how deep and meaningful they supposedly are, and then I have to come along and explain why those episodes are nothing but pretentious, patronising bollocks.

Okay. Two disclaimers. I’m not very fond of Doctor Who’s celebrity historical episodes because they’re usually just an excuse for the writers to wank themselves silly to a famous historical person as opposed to telling a compelling story (see The Unicorn And The Wasp and Victory of The Daleks), and I’m not a big fan of Richard Curtis. I do like Blackadder for the most part, but his other stuff I just don’t care for. (I don’t even like The Vicar of Dibley very much, which is positively sacrilegious I know). If you’re into either, fair enough. They’re just not to my taste. But the thing to bear in mind is my hatred for Vincent And The Doctor goes beyond personal taste issues. Not only do I think this episode is monumentally crap, I also found it to be extremely insulting, and I’ll explain why in a bit.

In the previous episode Rory was erased from existence, which means Amy can no longer remember him, although she still feels occasionally sad without knowing why. To cheer Amy up, the Doctor takes her to an art gallery to look at Vincent Van Gogh’s painting. This surprised me ever so slightly. I honestly didn’t think Amy would be the type to be into all this artsy fartsy stuff, but that’s only because we’re 10 episodes in and I still don’t actually know anything about her. Think about it. What have we actually learned about her? How has she grown since the first episode? First person to come up with a satisfactory answer wins a fiver.

It’s almost as if she’s suddenly obsessed with Vincent Van Gogh not because that’s part of her character but because the plot requires her to be. Also, since Rory was erased by the light shining out of Moffat’s crack (teehee), Amy seems to have been reduced to a wide-eyed, innocent little bunny rabbit in this episode. I can’t help but feel sorry for Karen Gillan. She’s a good actor, but Moffat rarely gives her any good material to work with.

Anyway the Doctor spots some weird creature in one of the paintings and decides to travel back to 1890 to meet Vincent Van Gogh, played by Tony Curran who admittedly does a marvellous job with the material he’s been given, although the less said about his awful pantomime-esque performance when he’s required to fight the invisible monster, the better. Here’s the problem with celebrity historicals, and I mentioned this in my review of The Unicorn And The Wasp. Usually these episodes are only entertaining to those who are interested in the historical celebrity. To everyone else, it’s just monumentally dull. I’ve never been that interested in Agatha Christie, so having to listen to the Doctor constantly talk about what a great writer she is made me feel a little bit nauseous. I’ve seen Van Gogh’s paintings. They’re okay. I’m not that much of an art lover, so I can’t really comment further, but to listen to the Doctor and Amy talking, you’d think Van Gogh was the reincarnation of Christ. It all feels utterly self indulgent. Like with Agatha Christie and Winston Churchill in their respective episodes, there’s no effort to actually explore what his life was like or anything. Instead we’re given this romanticised version of him that Richard Curtis can spend 45 minutes pouring his admiration over. It’s fine if you like Van Gogh, but spare a thought for the uncultured swines like myself who have to suffer through this too.

‘Oh look! There’s all his famous paintings! And they’re still wet! Oh no! Don’t put the coffee pot down on them! You’ll leave a stain! How can you not see how utterly perfect and amazing you are Van Gogh?! OMG! Look at his bedroom! Just like the painting! (Even though the bedroom wasn’t actually in that town. Also have you noticed that they built the bedroom to look exactly like the painting to the point where the proportions look really weird when the Doctor walks around in it?). Oh did you hear that? He doesn’t like sunflowers! How hilarious! And he fancies Amy! How sweet! Go PondGogh!’ And so on for another 40 excruciating minutes.

For the record, I don’t buy Van Gogh and Amy’s feelings for each other even for a second considering that they’ve only known each other for a day. Plus the whole thing feels less romantic when you remember that Van Gogh most probably had syphilis at the time.

But wait. This is Doctor Who, isn’t it? Better shove a monster in for no reason. What do we have this week? The Krafayis. An invisible monster that only Van Gogh can see and resembles a giant, mutant CGI turkey. Not exactly one of Doctor Who’s best monsters, now is it? So how’s the Doctor planning to see it? With some tech of course. But not something sensible like a pair of goggles or something. No. Instead he uses this awkward looking harness thing with a rear view mirror attached so that the only chance you can see the Krafayis is if it’s standing right behind you. What a stupid idea!

But as I said, this is all a taste issue. If you like it, good for you. I’m glad someone does. Where I absolutely draw the line however is when Richard Curtis starts giving us his patronising views on the blind and the mentally ill.

Yes the big twist is that the Krafayis is blind, and in one fell swoop it goes from being a savage creature of hate to being a cuddly little bundle of joy in its condescending death scene. They also perpetuate the age old myth that blind people have excellent hearing (which is not true by the way. it’s a lie created by the sighted to make themselves feel better). Oh and the reason why only Van Gogh can see him? Because he’s mentally ill and therefore can see things other people can’t.

How anyone can find this episode to be anything other than insufferable I don’t know.

There’s been a lot of debate as to what kind of mental illness Van Gogh may have had, but Curtis decides to go for bipolar with a touch of synesthesia. This is very dark and sensitive territory for Doctor Who, but with careful handling it could potentially be emotionally rewarding, spreading awareness to important issues surrounding mental health. This is not the case here. Curtis’ portrayal of mentally ill people consists of nothing but patronising and insulting cliches. He’s bipolar, which means he’s fine now even though he was sad a few minutes ago. Being mentally ill makes you a genius. Being manic makes you a loveable eccentric. Having mental health problems allows you to see the wonders of the world in a way ‘normal’ people can only dream of.

For those of you who don’t know, I suffer from manic depression. Do you see now why I might have a bit of a problem with this? Yes there’s a correlation between those with mental health problems and those who enter creative fields like art and writing, often because art and writing are an excellent way to express ourselves and to make sense of the world around us. I myself am a writer and have had a lot of time to refine my craft. Spending nearly three years stuck at home whilst recovering from alcohol addiction gives you a lot of free time to do such things. But I absolutely resent the idea that artists, writers and other creative people are good at what they do because of their mental illnesses, as though it’s some special gift bestowed upon us by the Art Gods. People who think that are either ignorant, pretentious or stupid, and I would be more than happy to give those pricks my mental illness so they can see what it’s fucking like to be me. I can assure you it isn’t pleasant.

But wait! It gets worse!

It’s tragic that Van Gogh never knew just how successful he would become, right? if only we could tell him or show him how famous and well regarded he would be. That in my opinion is all the more reason not to do it here, but Curtis just can’t help himself at this point. The Doctor and Amy take Van Gogh to the art gallery in the future, they all stand on this turntable thing as Van Gogh cries while Bill Nighy talks about how not only is Van Gogh the greatest artist who ever lived, but is also the greatest, most awesomest person ever born in the entire universe, all while some awful pop ballad plays in the background to drown us in slush.

youtube

Good God, this is fucking awful! Who the hell thought this would be a good idea?! Talk about over-egging the pudding.

And then, big shock, Van Gogh kills himself. Amy is surprised because she thought showing him the future might inspire him to keep working. Me? I’m not in the least bit surprised. He gets taken into a blue box that’s bigger on the inside than the outside and travels to the future where he sees all the success and fame he will never get to experience in his lifetime. That’s more likely to cause his suicide than prevent it, if you think about it. And I HATE the Doctor’s speech about how life is split into good things and bad things. What is he, a fucking primary school teacher now? Depression is a little bit more complicated than that. But then again this is written by the same fucking moron who believes being mentally ill makes you a badass painter, so I guess I shouldn’t be too shocked.

Richard Curtis clearly thinks he’s written a sensitive and sympathetic tribute to a renowned artist who tragically took his own life due to mental health problems. I think Curtis royally fucked up with a paper-thin story that’s both patronising and insulting. And remember I have mental health problems, so according to Richard Curtis, I’m a genius. So basically if you disagree with me... you’re wrong :)

#vincent and the doctor #richard curtis #doctor who #eleventh doctor #matt smith #amy pond #karen gillan #steven moffat #bbc #review #spoilers

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toldnews-blog · 6 years ago

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Transcript for Sanders campaign example of ‘Netflix model of fundraising’: Former Obama adviser

I want to make sure that in the years to come, the same opportunities that were there for me, a kid that grew up in the public schools in Texas, can be there for anybody. I’m in this fight because I truly do believe this is our moment. I believe it is time to restore truth and justice. How about that? You see every single day that president trump is trying to undermine our constitution. I am going to run for president. What’s going to be different this time? We’re going to win. First votes are a year away, but the campaign in full swing this February. Let’s talk about it with our round table, with Chris Christie. Also Heidi kite Heitkamp, a former democratic senator from North Dakota as well as our reporter from “The Washington post”. Welcome to you. We have our political affairs director, and also Alex Castellanos, an ABC news contributor. Let’s start with Bernie Sanders. He says he’s going to win this time around. 77 years old and already targeted by the president as a democratic socialist, but 24 hours into his announcement of that fund-raising base. $6 million in right away, and another $600,000 from people who pledged to give him every single month. It’s like the Netflix for running a campaign. He’s going to be a challenge this time around. I worked on Howard Dean’s campaign in 2004. Against John Carrigan. And everybody else in the world, and there was a sense it was a battle for the hearts and minds of the democratic party, but at some point in Iowa, new Hampshire, South Carolina, early on, departments decided we don’t — Democrats decided we don’t want a revolution. We want to beat George Bush. Bernie Sanders is going to find this time people don’t want a revolution but they want Donald Trump. Bernie Sanders, his ideas have been adopted by many other candidates, many other Democrats, but there is that concern that he’s going to pull the party too far to the left. Well, I think that a couple of things are going to happen. You’re going to see people get in who are going to broaden the scope of democratic ideas that are going to be put on the forefront, but to the point of the money, money doesn’t matter as much as what it used to in my opinion. When you step back and take a look at kind of the record crowds that everybody’s enjoying in Iowa — I mean people are coming out because they want to examine each candidate and pick the candidate who in their mind, the highest priority is who can beat this president. Money may not matter, but the sign you have this movement behind you could. It could and I disagree with the senator having gone through it a couple of years ago. Money matters because what’s going to happen is whoever emerges out of this will wind up having a huge target on their back when they start to do well, and they have to have the money to answer, and if you don’t have the money to answer, you’re going to lose because I love all the characterization of Iowa and New Hampshire voters especially early as being so discerning and they want to come and meet you in person. They want to meet everybody in person, but they also watch what comes in their mailbox and what comes over the TV and guys like Alex wouldn’t have made the fortune he has made over time. Sanders will matter, but, you know, it’s a Republican dream that Sanders could be the nominee. Can I jump in and say it’s increasingly — the Democrats on capitol hill and Democrats jumping in on 2020 are becoming increasingly glaring where you see the candidates supporting medicare for all? The new deal, and free college getting corporate money it of politics on capitol hill. Nancy Pelosi is keeping her — She’s holding the line against some of her new members as well there. They’re introducing ideas, but they are not going to be voted on on the floor and there is a reason for that, and that’s because most Democrats on the hill are afraid of these ideas and I think they go too far. It’s a presidential campaign. Politics will just swamp public policy over the course of the next 18 months of or so. They’re going to have to be careful. That shows. It shows. It shows the divide in the party though. President trump loves the the idea of Bernie Sanders front and center. He couldn’t be that lucky again, could he? The democratic party is going as crazy far left as Republicans did far right under Obama, and it’s a gift. I mean, socialism didn’t work for the pilgrims the first two years half of them died and now that’s the democratic party agenda. There are three democratic primaries to take on trump and all of them are going — there’s the establishment primary with Biden and klobuchar. What about the quakers? That was their model. You’re going to have the Progressive primary, which Sanders has the money and the lead and you have kamala Harris and Cory booker for the Obama black primary. Which one — I think kamala Harris is going to succeed in that one, and you will see Bernie Sanders and maybe klobuchar. I would bet you right now kamala Harris can go beyond. She’s being pegged — I would be careful there. There is no such thing as the Obama black primary. I think kamala — Yes, there is. They are both extraordinary candidates who can appeal. That’s my point about kamala Harris. I agree with, that but that’s — right now the democratic primaries — You’re all judging — you’re all judging the democratic party ideas by the people who are in now. What happens when Michael Bennett gets in? What happens when brown gets in? What happens when you see Bloomberg get in? You mentioned Joe Biden. Do you think he’ll get in? I do. I think the vice president will feel a calling and feel a necessity to bring that gravitas and I think the minute he gets in, he’s going to be the recognized front runner. There is an opening for that right now. He has name I.D., a lot of democratic voters are sitting there because they don’t know the alternative, but the soul of the democratic party is rapidly anti-Trump and going crazy left and belongs to ocasio-cortez. That is wishful Republican thinking. The democratic party. We did it as Republicans. Alex, there are folks who are sitting in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, California, which was an early state on super Tuesday this time who are worried about the education of their children. They are concerned about health care. Which is why Warren is — This is what happens in Washington, D.C. At the end of the day, they’re going to dominate. We’re going to move away from Let’s get back to this. Let’s get to what’s practical here, and what campaigns come down to are candidates. Forget about all the ideology and everything else, it’s candidates. Who’s going to perform. Who’s going to perform. You have seen this. I have seen this. I have lived it. Kamala Harris learned this in her first week when she’s talking about smoking pot listening to tupac. Tupac’s album didn’t come out until six years after she was in college. You’re shaking your head, Patrick, but let me tell you. She has probably told that B.S. Story in California a thousand times and no one ever called her on it. When you run for president, they call you on everything and who’s going to perform — Whether they tell the truth now? That’s a new standard. When the lights go on — when the lights go on, there is only two alternatives. You either shine or you melt. Those are the only two alternatives for presidential candidates and we’ll see who does what and it’s way too early to try to figure it out with these folks and when Joe Biden is seen as the front runner which I think he is if he gets in, this is a guy who has run twice and hasn’t exactly shined both times he ran. Governor, you know a thing or two about fanciful tales. Oh, Patrick. But at the end of the day, the governor is right that this really is about performance. You showed the clip at the very beginning, George. Every candidate with the exception of Amy klobuchar started each sentence with I. I believe, I feel. They understand at the end of the day, it’s whether people can trust their value and their story. One of the things we have been seeing is since the government shutdown, the president has something of a comeback recently. Heading towards the mid 40s, and not there yet, but this emergency will be front and center on capitol hill this Right. Exactly. The president thinks this is a good re-election. Something that he can run on and that’s going to help him and, you know, it shows that he is obviously catering to his base and she’s showing he’s putting them front and center, but in doing that, he has sort of upended the re-elections potentially of other senate Republicans. There are 22 senate Republicans — They don’t want his vote. They don’t. And a lot of them were privately telling the president, please don’t do this. Don’t do this. This is going to create a terrible precedent. If we have a president Bernie Sanders someday, if he’s going to do something with the green new deal on his own, and call this an emergency, we can’t have that. We’re seeing a lot of those same Republicans who privately were telling him, don’t do this, come out and say that they’re not going to push back against him. Still his Republican party and by the way, if the election were held today against the democratic party he’s running against, I think Donald Trump will win by more than he won last time. The democratic party is going crazy left. The only thing that has changed — neither party has changed. Republicans nor departments as president trump is elected and now he’s not theory, but he’s fact. It’s an impressive record. Security. The midterm election — Excuse me. The appropriation of that fact. Let’s not forget that happened. That’s important. But women in particular — That’s what you have to understand. Midterms are a referendum on the incumbent. Presidential years are choices and the Democrats are offering a choice of going left. Trump is saying — Democratic choice is not — that’s not yet clarified. That’s why you have a primary contest, Alex. Trump’s choice is clear. Growth and locking the doors at night and security. The Democrats’ response has not been about either of them. It’s been about the mommy bear party caring and nourishing, like a 1950s sitcom. So health care — health care, child care and — I’m not advocating. I’m just telling you. Trump has a strong hand going into 2020. If you think the economy in a year is going to look like the economy today, you are wrong, and the tax refund issue is real. I know this. I mean, you’re going to say while the taxes were reduced, people count on that we fund and they feel they got shortchanged and they look at economic and business investment that never materialized. They looked — they packaged this signature piece for this president. It’s not a great political strategy. And I’m not hoping for bad news, but I think bad news is predictable in this cycle. I mean, I’m not the only person saying this. I think — look at — It’s socialists. One of the indicators in the economy is agriculture. We have record bankruptcy. Alex is counting on that socialism label sticking, but Chris, I want to bring up a different point inside the Republican party. It seems to be trump’s Republican party right now. You had bill weld saying he’s going to run against him. Larry hogan, governor of Maryland had this to say this week. I was just sworn in a month ago for my second term, and I have got a lot of work to do here in Maryland. I would say I’m being approached from a lot of different people, and I guess the best way to put it is I haven’t thrown them out of my office. How real is this idea of the significant challenge to the president? Not real. There is probably nobody in American politics who knows Larry hogan better than I did because I was there in 2014 who went in there when no one thought Maryland was winnable and I invested $2 million in him and we got him over the finish line. He won both times. Only the second Republican ever to be re-elected governor of Maryland in the history of the state because he’s a smart politician, and a smart politician is not based on this set of facts to challenge Donald Trump in a primary because these guys have 80% approval ratings among Republicans. I think what Larry is doing and he has got some issues he cares about. She’s going to use it as a platform to speak out about the issues to bring the party back towards where he is, but the idea that Larry hogan — bill weld isn’t serious and no one takes him seriously. Larry hogan would be serious, but my theory is he wouldn’t do It’s political suicide to do that right now. This is Donald Trump’s party still. Two years later. Look no further again to the national emergency. It comes out as an investigation. Larry hogan will be with a whole group of people running. Republicans were out speaking against this emergency declaration for weeks. He ignored them and they’re backing off, and this is trump’s party. What does happen with these follow-up investigations? We haven’t seen Robert Mueller’s report. And do you sense any concern among your former colleagues on capitol hill that if Robert Mueller finishes his job and hands it off if they’re going to be wary of going too far? I hope so. I think they are. I think they realize that one of the worst things that can happen in my opinion is impeachment. I think that you have to win at the ballot box in order to have a — have a real future for this country. Does that mean no investigating? No, it doesn’t mean no investigating, but it does mean — what do you do with that investigation? All of that information is critical and important and the public needs to know. 20% of the public believes whatever the president says. The next 20% will say, yeah. He doesn’t always tell the truth. So what? You have 40% who aren’t really going to ever care. You’re looking at the 20% that you hope you can persuade. The past is prologue. The polling a year before president Nixon resigned said that 50% of Americans thought too much media attention was being paid to watergate. The day he resigned, a quarter of Americans still supported Richard Nixon. Are you full speed ahead? Democrats in congress are absolutely going to continue these investigations. Ere’s more than enough fodder when you consider every institution that Donald Trump has touched, has come into being questioned from his cabinet picks like his current labor secretary to his foundation that he had to shutter. Here’s the thing though. There better be some there there. If they’re going to decide to go down that road — Patrick. Patrick, this is a different context now because when you are getting into a presidential election cycle, people see it as not being necessarily legitimate, but being political. Even more political when you have these candidates that they’re not going to be able to control themselves. How does that affect your former colleagues in the southern district right now that seem to have a serious investigation? Not a lick. Not a bit. They don’t care. When I was U.S. Attorney in new Jersey, everyone used to refer to them as the sovereign district of New York. They believed they are sovereign power onto themselves in the southern district. And they listen to no one. They barely listen to the attorney general. They will do whatever they think they need to do, and that’s what I have been saying as you know, for ten months here. The southern district of new York investigation is monumentally more perilous than Bob Mueller ever was or will be. They have two tour guides and no restriction on where they can go. That is the last word. Thank you all very much.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

#election news #indian politics #political news #political news articles #politics news #US politics

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tardisgirlepic · 8 years ago

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Ch. 3: “World Enough and Time” Analysis Doctor Who S10.11: Doctor’s OMG Hair, Meet Delilah’s Mr. Razor & More

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Samson & Delilah: Doctor’s OMG Hair, Meet Mr. Razor

OMG, I could not believe how long the Doctor’s hair had gotten at the beginning of “World Enough and Time.” From now on, to distinguish Doctors, I’ll refer to the Doctor’s hair that we saw at the beginning of the episode as “OMG hair.”

In fact, it was even funnier that I had mentioned it in the previous analysis with my sudden revelation about Samson & Delilah, where River was Delilah.

Yes, DW is playing out this Old Testament story.

Due to time, I didn’t get to talk about the entire Samson & Delilah story and how it fits in. But I’ll show you in a few minutes how this fits together with River.

Funny: “A Thing Happened…”

First, though, a funny thing happened while watching the episode. I was so intent on getting subtext and trying to pick up dialogue that I wasn’t looking for John Simm. I’m not sure I would have recognized him under the makeup anyway. However…

Once he said

RAZOR: People, people, people, people, people! People, they are people.

I knew he was John Simm because only his Master has spoken this way before.

However, here’s the funny part: I didn’t catch his name on the first viewing. Once I watched with subtitles, I had another OMG moment when I realized his name was Mister Razor!

Wow! Ha..ha!

Mr. Razor & Delilah Will Give Samson a Haircut

There’s some additional information about the story of Samson & Delilah that’s quite important, so I’m going to weave it together here from different sources, including the razor part I mentioned from the previous analysis:

Wikipedia says

Samson had been dedicated as a Nazirite, "from the womb to the day of his death"; thus he was forbidden to touch wine or cut his hair.

While the 11th Doctor did abstain from alcohol, he had a shaved head in his last episode “The Time of the Doctor” and was wearing a wig for most of the time. Now, I see that the Samson and Delilah story was playing out then with Clara metaphorically asking God to restore Samson’s powers to defeat the Philistines.

The 12th Doctor drinks alcohol.

According to BibleStudyTools.com:

The summary from Scripture starts with Samson's birth was announced by an angel during a dark time for the Israelites. Israel was under the rule and oppression of the Philistines. Samson was born a Nazirite and was set apart with supernatural strength from God to do His work in the nation of Israel. Samson became great in his own eyes and began to pursue women outside of God's plan for his life. During his wedding sermon to a Philistine women, Samson was so humiliated by her and the wedding guests that he sought revenge by killing 1,000 Philistine men.

We’ve certainly seen the Doctor’s pride and ego take over, at times.

Anyway, regarding Samson, Wikipedia says

He then falls in love with Delilah in the valley of Sorek. The Philistines approach Delilah and induce her with 1,100 silver coins to find the secret of Samson's strength so they can get rid of it and capture their enemy.

We saw this money scene playing out with River in THORS. However, as we also saw how not everything was as it looked. We saw the Roman cross behind the money ball with access to all the banks, as River is really trying to save the Doctor from this alternate universe.

Delilah keeps trying to figure out the source of his strength, and Samson keeps telling her different sources, which she tries to exploit. But they are all lies.

This is mirrored with River. She said the Doctor’s name in “The Name of the Doctor,” which would have led to his torturous death, except Clara saved him. River knows this alternate universe has to die.

Eventually after much nagging from Delilah, Samson tells Delilah that he will lose his strength with the loss of his hair. God supplies Samson's power because of his consecration to God as a Nazirite, symbolized by the fact that a razor has never touched his head. Delilah calls for a servant to shave Samson's seven locks, then woos him to sleep "in her lap" (either literally or figuratively). With this, Samson has finally broken the last tenet of the Nazirite oath; God leaves him, and Samson is captured by the Philistines, who blind him by gouging out his eyes. After being blinded, Samson is brought to Gaza, imprisoned, and put to work grinding grain by turning a large millstone.

Here’s where the Doctor is blinded by eyes being gouged out, like we heard and saw in multiple ways with other characters and references in “The Empress of Mars” analysis.

Ohila, in “Hell Bent,” told the Doctor that he had broken every code he ever lived by, and we see his fall in one way, kind of sort of, in that episode. We’ll see it from a different angle in this last upcoming episode of the season. So Missy may be playing Delilah, or will it be River or Clara? Or is there something else?

I’ve often wondered about Missy’s 3W Institute in the finale of Season 8 where we see Danny Pink die. While the episode suggest 3W stood for “I love you,” I also saw it potentially as being Missy, River, and Clara, where 3W stands for “3 Women.” Vastra and Amy fit in here, too, but that is beyond this right now.

Anyway to finish Samson’s story, according to BibleStudyTools.com:

The Philistines brought Samson out before a great crowd of rulers and thousands of people gathered in the temple to celebrate his capture. Samson's hair had begun to grow back and as he leaned against the pillars of the temple, he prayed to God for strength once more to defeat the Philistines. Samson used all of his might and pushed down the temple, killing himself and thousands of Philistines and rulers.

God forgave Samson and still accomplished great things through Samson. It was through Samson's destruction of the temple and his death that the Israelites were freed from Philistine rule.

So Mr. Razor is the metaphorical symbol of the razor in this Old Testament story.

And this is foreshadowing the rescue and the Doctor’s fall and death. This is just more evidence of what we’ve examined over and over. While he’s not supposed to fall in love, as we examined before, it is necessary for the rescue.

Wow, how cool is that!?

Anyway, there’s a lot more to this. It’s a truly epic love story that spans all of DW, but I’ll save this for later…

Operation Exodus & Genesis of the Cybermen

Wow, I’ve been geeking out, since the airing of the episode, about all the cool things that are coming together!

Operation Exodus explains why we saw all those robots in Season 8, including the half-faced man in “Deep Breath” wanting to go to the Promised Land – Heaven. However, that’s the wrong Book. We’re not in the 2nd Book of the Old Testament right now. Before that, we have the Fall of Man and the Doctor.

We’re back in the 1st Book: Genesis.

As we’ve examined in various chapters, we are, indeed, going back in time and telling the backstory of the Doctor.

This is the epicenter of the Time War.

Don’t Make the Doctor Angry: “The Unicorn and the Wasp” & 1056

We keep seeing Floor 1056 come up in “World Enough and Time.” But what does it mean? It has a connection to “The Unicorn and the Wasp” and is from The Devastator series of Doctor Who: Battles in Time trading cards, meaning the Vespiform sting.

I’ve been wanting to talk about “The Unicorn and the Wasp” since the very 1st episode of Season 10 aired. However, I ran out of time to put it in “The Pilot” analysis. I would have put it in “Knock Knock,” but I ran out of time there, too. Anyway, this is the 10th Doctor story with Agatha Christie in 1926 (yet another 1926 reference) where a murder takes place after the Doctor and Donna crash a garden party. The odd thing is that later we see a giant wasp that turns out to be the murderer.

The Hybrid

Well, it’s not quite that simple because it turns human, and the Doctor can’t figure out whodunit right away. The wasp is actually a hybrid, who doesn’t realize he is a hybrid for 40 years of his life because he grew up in an orphanage. Normally, he lives the quiet life as Reverend Arnold Golightly, the vicar of a small English village until his death in 1926. He is the son of a human mother and Vespiform father. Vespiforms are an ancient and wise insectoid species.

In 1926, some time after his 40th birthday, his church had a break in. His temper flared when he caught the bandits in the act, discovering he had the ability to change from a humanoid appearance into a wasp-like alien.

The thieves are associated with a Greek Cross, meaning they represent Doctors. From all the subtext story, this suggests to me that the Doctors intentionally are driving the Doctor over the edge, so he has something to fight for. We saw that with Missy using Clara to push him over the edge and go hell bent through the universe.

As far as insects go, Clara has called the 12th Doctor a stick insect. Of course, there’s the insectoid shadow that we looked at prior to the airing of TRODM.

The Unicorn

The Unicorn refers to Scotland. In fact, according to Wikipedia, “The Lion and the Unicorn are symbols of the United Kingdom. They are, properly speaking, heraldic supporters appearing in the full royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom. The lion stands for England and the unicorn for Scotland.”

Why the Wasp? & What’s “Knock Knock” Got to Do with It?

In 1991, Peter Capaldi appeared on the TV series Agatha Christie’s Poirot with David Suchet who played Poirot. Suchet also played the landlord in “Knock Knock.” These appearances by both actors are important.

Capaldi played Claude Langton, who was being set up for murder by someone who wanted to commit suicide in the episode “Wasp’s Nest.” Therefore, having David Suchet in “Knock Knock” was a strategic move to bring in a bunch of subtext.

The Patriarchal Cross

The connection to “The Pilot” comes in with the Patriarchal cross, which I haven’t talked about before since I have yet to post my Religious metaphors chapter. Due to lack of time, I’m going to skip the images. However, there are crosses on the university building that match the cross the reverend’s mother is associated with. Bill actually is associated with the Patriarchial cross. By the metaphors, that would make Bill the parent of the reverend, the Doctor. But there’s more pointing to this…

In “The Lie of the Land” analysis, we looked at the woman with the son at the beginning, who was taken away with the shoebox. The subtext showed she was a mirror of Bill. And the boy had a rabbit, a symbol of redemption.

Also, interestingly, Mr. Razor says

RAZOR: You are dear to me. You are my dearest person. You are like BILL: I know. RAZOR: A mother to me. BILL: Definitely not a mother. RAZOR: Or an aunt.

Mr. Razor is playing the 24th Doctor.

I have no doubt that Bill and the Doctor are related. She is playing, among other things, various Doctor’s faces. And she is the namesake of the 1st Doctor, William Hartnell, while Heather is the name of Hartnell’s wife.

Episode Title References: a Poem, a Book, the Apocalypse & Rescue

The title “World Enough and Time” is a brilliant reference, and obviously DW has had this reference in mind for a long time. The title references multiple things, but it initially alludes to a line from the 17th-century poem, "To His Coy Mistress," written by English author and politician Andrew Marvell. The bolded words are ones that I want to give more information about.

To His Coy Mistress

Had we but world enough and time,

This coyness, lady, were no crime.

We would sit down, and think which way

To walk, and pass our long love’s day.

Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side

Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide

Of Humber would complain. I would

Love you ten years before the flood,

And you should, if you please, refuse

Till the conversion of the Jews.

My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than empires and more slow;

An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;

Two hundred to adore each breast,

But thirty thousand to the rest;

An age at least to every part,

And the last age should show your heart.

For, lady, you deserve this state,

Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear

Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

Thy beauty shall no more be found;

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound

My echoing song; then worms shall try

That long-preserved virginity,

And your quaint honour turn to dust,

And into ashes all my lust;

The grave’s a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue

Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may,

And now, like amorous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour

Than languish in his slow-chapped power.

Let us roll all our strength and all

Our sweetness up into one ball,

And tear our pleasures with rough strife

Through the iron gates of life:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.

So world enough and time is about the poet wishing he had more time with the coy lady. There are 4 other references that I highlighted worth mentioning here. We’ve seen lots of birds of prey lately. There’s the mention of the sun: the Doctor running with his companions to avoid the sunset and the passage of time.

Wow, how interesting the poet uses “My vegetable love”! That’s interesting when compared to the normal “animal love.” This most likely refers to a couple of things in DW. First, since we are talking about the Garden of Eden, garden goes along with vegetables. In fact, the Doctor mentions “garden”:

DOCTOR: Short version. Because of the black hole, time is moving faster at this end of the ship than the other. It's all about gravity. Gravity slows down time. The closer you are to the source of gravity, the slower time will move. (Jorj looks blank) If you're standing in your garden, your head is travelling faster through time than your feet. Don't they teach you this stuff at space school?

However, vegetable love may also come back to something we looked at with the “Heaven Sent” analysis in Chapter 17 of Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who the 4th Doctor story “The Seeds of Doom,” where 2 alien pods land on Earth. One opens and creates a jungle-like environment. They can possess animals and take revenge on animals eating them. Plants and trees have an important place in the story. The basic plot is playing out in this finale. Just substitute people for plants.

The other reference in the poem is much bigger – “before the flood” – and alludes to multiple things.

Genesis & Noah, “Before the Flood,” & a Rainbow

With all the talk of the Book of Genesis, the line with “before the flood” takes on new meaning in DW. It’s a flood on a grand scale – an apocalyptic event, a Ragnarök of sorts. Of course, it refers to the story of Noah’s Ark, where God instructs Noah (a righteous individual) to build an ark to spare him and his family, along with some animals from the flood that will destroy the world before its rebirth.

The poem’s line also alludes to the Season 9 episode “Before the Flood,” where we see the Fisher King creating ghosts. So this flood is meant to destroy the source of the ghosts, the Fisher King, who actually puts his arms out and makes himself into a cross before he dies. He’s being crucified. The Fisher King, as we’ve examined, is supposed to be a good character from Arthurian Legend.

Because the flood was so devastating and people would fear rain, God made a promise to Noah and all Earth that he would never send another flood to destroy all life again. The visible sign he sent was a rainbow.

We saw a rainbow at the end of “The Eaters of Light,” just before everyone got in the TARDIS. While the episode was mostly about another view of “Face the Ravens,” it showed the outline for this week’s “World Enough and Time” (with people united together, pawns in the Chess game), and the rainbow to show the results of “Hell Bent” and the upcoming final episode.

The Flood & “The Unicorn and the Wasp”

The flood and waters relate to “The Unicorn and the Wasp,” too. Golightly’s mother Clemency told the story of how she had had an affair. When she came back to England, she locked herself away, saying she had malaria, to hide the pregnancy, even from her husband.

CLEMENCY: It was forty years ago, in the heat of Delhi, late one night. I was alone, and that's when I saw it. A dazzling light in the sky. The next day, he came to the house. Christopher, the most handsome man I'd ever seen. Our love blazed like a wildfire. I held nothing back. And in return he showed me the incredible truth about himself. He'd made himself human, to learn about us. This was his true shape. (A giant wasp.) CLEMENCY: I loved him so much, it didn't matter. But he was stolen from me. 1885, the year of the great monsoon. The river Jumna rose up and broke its banks. He was Taken At The Flood. But Christopher left me a parting gift. A jewel like no other. I wore it always. Part of me never forgot. I kept it close, always.

ROBINA: Just like a man. Flashes his family jewels and you end up with a bun in the oven. AGATHA: A poor little child. Forty years ago, Miss Chandrakala took that newborn babe to an orphanage. But Professor Peach worked it out. He found the birth certificate.

There is a geographical connection with the poem, as both have aspects set in India: Delhi and the Ganges, respectively. The poem, therefore, is meant to relate to Clemency and Christopher, the hybrid’s parents. Since we have multiple faces of the Doctor, who is whom?

Also, Golightly’s father died in a great monsoon, and the son, himself, drowned. The 2 characters who have drowned or nearly so, are Rory in “The Curse of the Black Spot” and the 12th Doctor in “Heaven Sent.”

The Poet & the Daughter

There’s even more to glean from this title reference. The poet and his tutoring give us some very important subtext, too. According to Wikipedia:

"To His Coy Mistress" is a metaphysical poem written by the English author and politician Andrew Marvell (1621–1678) either during or just before the English Interregnum (1649–60). It was published posthumously in 1681.

This poem is considered one of Marvell's finest and is possibly the best recognized carpe diem poem in English. Although the date of its composition is not known, it may have been written in the early 1650s. At that time, Marvell was serving as a tutor to the daughter of the retired commander of the New Model Army, Sir Thomas Fairfax.

Sir Thomas Fairfax Gives Us Information about the Rescue & Apocalypse

The Doctor is mirroring Marvell, who is tutoring Sir Thomas Fairfax’s daughter, played by Bill. According to Wikipedia, Sir Thomas Fairfax’s nicknames are “Black Tom” and “Rider of the White Horse.”

We’ve examined the Rider and the White Horse in connection with the New Testament Apocalypse in “The Lie of the Land” analysis. The White Horse symbolizes Conquest and there is a debate by some on whether the Rider is Christ or the Antichrist. DW is playing both sides of the war, which comes back to what we’ve examined in multiple ways: the Horse and Rider, along with the name Lucifer, CAL’s world and “Turn Left.”

In one universe, the Doctor is seen as the savior of the universe. However, in the other universe, he would be the Antichrist, the Destroyer of Worlds. According to Wikipedia,

Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron (17 January 1612 – 12 November 1671), also known as Sir Thomas, Lord Fairfax, was an English nobleman, peer, politician, general, and Parliamentary commander-in-chief during the English Civil War. An adept and talented commander, Fairfax led Parliament to many victories, notably the crucial Battle of Naseby, becoming effectively military ruler of the new republic, but was eventually overshadowed by his subordinate Oliver Cromwell, who was more politically adept and radical in action against Charles I. Fairfax became unhappy with Cromwell's policy and publicly refused to take part in Charles's show trial. Eventually he resigned, leaving Cromwell to control the republic. Because of this, and also his honourable battlefield conduct and his active role in the Restoration of the monarchy after Cromwell's death, he was exempted from the retribution exacted on many other leaders of the revolution. His dark hair and eyes and a swarthy complexion earned him the nickname "Black Tom".

In the DW world, it sounds like Bill’s father (the Rider of the White Horse) is trying to rescue her. With the gender change, it could be her mother. Since Bill is a face of the Doctor, the Doctor’s Mother metaphor would apply to her. The Doctor, himself, has to be rescued, too.

This all foreshadows redemption and rightful restoration after the DW revolution.

Robert Oppenheimer & the Righteous War in the Bhagavad-Gita

I can’t get this relevant quote out of my head, so I’m adding it:

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds” – Robert Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer, according to Wikipedia, was an

American theoretical physicist and professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is among those who are credited with being the "father of the atomic bomb" for their role in the Manhattan Project, the World War II undertaking that developed the first nuclear weapons used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

…

Oppenheimer later recalled that, while witnessing the explosion, he thought of a verse from the Bhagavad Gita [shown above]

The Bhagavad-Gita is Hindu scripture in Sanskrit, which Oppenheimer could read. It is often just referred to as Gita. This is very appropriate to the Doctor and what is happening.

The Gita is set in a narrative framework of a dialogue between Pandava prince Arjuna and his guide and charioteer Lord Krishna. Facing the duty as a warrior to fight the Dharma Yudhha or righteous war between Pandavas and Kauravas, Arjuna is counselled by Lord Krishna to "fulfill his Kshatriya (warrior) duty as a warrior and establish Dharma." Inserted in this appeal to kshatriya dharma (chivalry) is "a dialogue ... between diverging attitudes concerning methods toward the attainment of liberation (moksha)".

This passage reminds me of the Ice Warriors and the Doctor in “The Empress of Mars,” pledging their duty as warriors.

Science & World Enough And Space-Time

Being that we are talking about Black Holes, space-time science is important. DW is using real science on the spaceship, when talking about time dilation. Time would be slower closer to the Black Hole due to the immense gravity. However, I do question the almost negligible space distance of 400 miles against the force of gravity of a Black Hole. I’m no expert and I’ll leave it at that.

Having said that, this is all metaphorical, and we know we are in the alternate universe, so it doesn’t matter. There’s plenty of other stuff that tells us other things aren’t right. The 400 miles, refers to the Library, once again.

I actually do see this spaceship-Black Hole relationship in the episode as brilliant. I’ll show you why in a bit.

Anyway, the title of the episode relates to a 1989 book by the American physicist John Earman called World Enough And Space-Time: Absolute vs. Relational Theories of Space and Time.

Goodread’s description says

Earman introduces and clarifies the historical and philosophical development of the clash between Newton's absolute conception of space and Leibniz's relative one.

It leads into Einstein’s theories on relativity.

BTW, I do love the title World Enough And Space-Time in relation to DW. It’s so appropriate.

Black Holes & the Eye of Harmony

Since we are touching on science and relativity, it seems appropriate to examine the Black Hole metaphor here, which includes the Eye of Harmony. The existence of the Black Hole metaphor in “World Enough and Time” is a reference to “The Impossible Planet” and “The Satan Pit,” so we know, from our previous examinations, that slavery and the Beast are involved. These last 3 Season 10 episodes have been about facing one’s beast.

The Doctor, Nardole, Missy, and Jorj are looking up at the Black Hole, which really is the Eye of Harmony. And it’s a djinni with an octagon. From “The Impossible Planet,” we learned that people could go mad by looking at it.

We need to revisit the definition of the Eye from the Wikia because it tells us what can happen. According to the TARDIS Wikia, regarding the Eye of Harmony in the TARDIS Cloister Room in the Doctor Who movie in 1996:

It was a stone structure shaped like a hemisphere which appeared to open outwards like an eyelid. While inside the Cloister Room of the TARDIS, the Master described the Eye as "the heart of this structure". The Doctor said it was "[t]he power source of the heart of the TARDIS." Both the Doctor and the Master claimed to Chang Lee that it belonged to the Doctor; the Doctor referring to it as "my Eye" and the Master saying that "now it belongs to him". The Eye responded to a physical linking device. The particular structure of a human eye had the effect of opening it.

Opening the Eye allowed the Master and Lee to see a visual projection of the Doctor's past and present forms and let them see what the Doctor saw so that they could find him. It also assisted in returning the amnesiac Doctor's memories. The Doctor claimed that if he looked into the Eye, his "soul" would be destroyed, and the Master would be able to take over his body. Leaving the TARDIS' Eye open for too long would result in space-time distortion, and any nearby planets would be "sucked through it".

Here’s where I find this situation with the Black Hole and the spaceship brilliant. From the movie, opening the Eye allowed the Master to see a visual projection of the Doctor’s past and present forms. This is exactly what is happening due to time dilation. On his TV, the Master has found the Doctor and is viewing him and others in their past and present forms at the same time, due to time dilation near the Black Hole in the Eye of Harmony. This is such a brilliant way to do this! It’s so elegant.

The Eye of the Black Hole is most likely the Doctor’s, as the movie suggests. That means the Master can take over the Doctor. There are multiple Doctors, so things aren’t the way they may seem. The Doctor has been taken over, but I’ll talk about that in another chapter.

Is the Doctor in the Opening an Imposter?

The Doctor in the opening appears different than we’ve ever seen him. OMG hair and fierce look. He also does something strange.

The Tardis materialises in a snowstorm. The Doctor steps out, falls to his knees and starts to regenerate. He cries out in pain.) DOCTOR: No. No. Nooooo!

The Doctor not wanting to go is a big red flag to me, especially for a Doctor who has been suicidal. I could possibly see that this is really him if he were in the middle of saving someone.

However, this is very much a Master thing to do. We know the Doctor has been usurped, so chances are that this is not the real Doctor.

BTW, the Doctor is wearing his raggedy 11th Doctor-type jacket again.

In the Next Chapters

We’ll take a look at how “World Enough and Time” is applying concepts set up in “Heaven Sent,” along with “Face the Raven.” Also, we’ll look at the meaning of “Doctor Who” as the Doctor’s title, how. We’ll also look at the Master, some really creepy subtext in the Hospital metaphor, the meaning of solar farms, Mondas, and more.