#anti inventing anna

[johnwickb1tsch]

bittersweet ~ a yandere!John Wick x fem!reader sunshine/grump coffee shop AU... Part 7 all chapters

I knew the pleasure of vexing and soothing him by turns; it was one I chiefly delighted in.

–Jane on Mr. Rochester, Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

-It's no real mystery, why you dig out your beloved old copy of Jane Eyre. From the early 1900s, it had seen better days when you’d scored it in the local used book store, many years ago. You’d been a teenager then—and those days were long behind you. It seems you never outgrew your liking of a dark and broody anti-hero.

It’s safer to read about it though, than pursue the real thing.

Lately every time Mr. Wick comes into the shop you feel slightly agitated, as though you don’t quite fit into your own skin. You remember the sensation of his fingertips on yours, like a burn.

Mr. Wick sees you reading your tattered novel on your break, but doesn’t comment. You’ve seen him with old classics in hand and reckon he must be something of an aficionado.  

You put it away in your shoulder bag in the back after the break.

The next day, it’s gone.

You know you left it in your bag. Where the fuck could it have gone? Why would someone fucking steal it?

A couple of weeks later, it reappears on the counter by the register you favor.

You hardly recognize it at first, for it has received an encompassing makeover. It has new leather covers with gorgeous embossed gold lettering, and marbled end papers, and the tattered thread of the binding repaired. There are gilded arabesques on the spine and delicately drawn climbing flowers on the cover. You wouldn’t have even thought it the same book, if not for the intricately printed title page unique to your edition, with an old pencil mark in the corner you recognize.

Such a restoration would have cost a fortune.

You knew, because you’d looked into it.  

Further compounding the mystery, there is a beautiful jacquard embroidered ribbon bookmark inside. It’s on the page where Rochester has sat Jane down in the arbor, and is telling her that she has rejuvenated him from his unhappy existence without actually admitting anything, asking in the most roundabout way possible if it would be so very bad to take a second wife who would make him a new man, while his first is still living, the big idiot.

“Is the wandering and sinful, but now re-seeking and repentant, man justified in daring the world’s opinion, in order to attach to him for ever this gentle, gracious, genial stranger, thereby securing his own peace of mind and regeneration of life?”

Jane tells him, of course, that a man shouldn’t base his redemption on another person, but within himself. You are not sure you would have had the strength to speak so frankly to a man you secretly loved.

Well, maybe you would.

You are utterly mystified by the whole thing, to say the least.

But later, you are browsing the local book store, and the owner is reading Anna Karenina in what looks like freshly bound leather. The style looks familiar.

“Did you have that restored?” you ask, feeling like Nancy Drew hot on the trail of a fresh lead.

“Yeah, that new guy in town, John Wick did it for me. He says he’s just a hobbyist, but he does amazing work. Usually you have to send off to Florence for quality like this, seriously. It’s a dying art.”

Darren lets you look at the book, and you are impressed by the craftsmanship.

The spine decoration matches yours. There is a plate in the back that proclaims: Bound by John Wick.

The sneak.

You are touched to the tips of your toes, your heart filled with butterflies. Was the bookmark purposely left on that page, or just a random placement?

You hardly dare hope, and tell yourself it’s an invention of your own fancy. The gift of the book is magnificent enough. No need to further muddle things with secret communications that aren’t really there.

The next day you approach Mr. Wick’s table with hands on your hips, affecting annoyance. “You stole my book.”

He actually has the grace to look sheepish about it, casting those lovely dark eyes downwards.

“Yeah.”

“Thanks. I really love it.” It’s the understatement of the century.

He looks up through his hair, the surprised sparkle in his eyes taking your breath away. Suddenly, he looks ten years younger.  

“Yeah?”

The corners of your mouth twitch. This man speaks like he’s paying five cents per word, you swear. “Yeah. Why didn’t you tell me you bind books?”

He just shrugs, and you cannot help but laugh.

“I’ve never owned anything so fine. Thank you, truly.”

 He nods again, and you sense that you’re maybe making him uncomfortable with your gratitude. You suspect it’s not why he did it at all.

“Will you show me sometime? How you do it?”

There is a flash of something dark in his eyes before he turns his attention back down to his own book. It feels like dismissal, but you have no idea what he’s hiding underneath it all.

Still waters run deep.

“Anytime you want,” he offers as you turn to go.  

You smile at him over your shoulder as you go back to your station, a secret lightness fluttering in your heart. On your break you flip through your refurbished book once more, taking even more pleasure in it knowing that John poured over every detail of it. You don’t know much about bookbinding or leather work, but you suspect he freehanded the little flowers on the front, and that moves you to your toes.

You flip to one of your favorite scenes because you find it so funny, when Jane puts out the fire that nearly burned Rochester up in his sleep, because undoubtedly he’d drank too much earlier to easily rouse, the lovesick scoundrel. Afterwards he doesn’t want her to leave but can’t outright keep her in his room without behaving an absolute blackguard.

“Strange energy was in his voice, strange fire in his look.”

You cannot help but glance up at your tall dark bookworm in the corner, an aching warmth spreading in your heart for the sight of his furrowed brow, his concentration (you think) focused on the tome in his hands.

You know you are a ridiculous thing.

[pochiperpe90]

[Eng] Elle Italia - Daily Venezia: THE HISTORY IS US

Luca Marinelli is almost unrecognizable in the role of Mussolini in the series M. Son of the Century, directed by Joe Wright. Two greats together to tell one of the darkest and most criminal periods in History

Personal opinion: M. Son of the Century is one of the masterpieces of the 2024 Mostra. It's a shame it can't win, because it's a TV series, even if its director continues to call it a film. A seven-hour long film, which will be released in eight episodes on Sky and Now in the early months of 2025. It’s produced by Sky Studios and Lorenzo Mieli for The Apartment, a Fremantle group company, based on the novel by Antonio Scurati, written by Stefano Bises and Davide Serino. The director is Joe Wright, the protagonist is Luca Marinelli. It tells with historical accuracy the rise of Mussolini and our country's surrender to dictatorship.

Sensitive material, it reminds us that we invented fascism, and perhaps a foreign director, let's say, could have approached it with greater detachment, without our sense of guilt.  Wright looks at me almost with pity, in a good way: “But I share that sense of guilt, I reject national borders, there are no nations: the similarities between us human beings are more than the differences, I feel as responsible as you Italians…I was very careful to tell the truth without being didactic, I tried to understand without sympathizing, maintaining a critical distance... Mussolini was fascinating, he seduced a nation and many others. If I hadn't shown that charm then people might have thought that Italians were all idiots. That balance was my main concern... On a more personal level it's a series about toxic masculinity, which is like nothing else in us, we have it inside us. We have to understand our responsibilities and turn our backs on them, so as not to end up morally bankrupt".

Every day it took Marinelli two hours of makeup and hair to get into Mussolini's shoes. "It was something I brought home with me," the actor confesses, "in the same shape as on the set: the 22 kilos I had gained, my hair cut as you see it in the scenes.  The black lenses. were the things I could leave in the makeup van. Working with all the different departments was fascinating”.

It must not have been easy for him to shoot so convincingly in the fascist salute: “These are filthy and brutal things that the role required of me, but of course there is a big difference between what is considered right and what the role requires. I certainly did not take pleasure in carrying out certain actions or even in expressing myself in that way, but rather the opposite. What I had to face during the production of the project, as a convinced anti-fascist that I am, really cost me a lot. I did not come out of it intact”. But he was in the hands of an excellent director, a master in the cinematic transpositions of great books (Anna Karenina, Atonement, Pride and Prejudice).  How does he approach them? "The film," Wright continues, "is what happens in my head while I read the book. I'm dyslexic and so when I read I think I see beyond the words, I create the scenes and I edit, zooming in on small details that interest me. M. is a mash up between Scarface, Man with a Movie Camera and 90s rave culture." Tom Rowlands' techno music creates the right atmosphere: "I didn't want anything classic, kids have to see it too, they have to understand the roots of fascism." Luca Marinelli is monumental in the role of the "duce." "He's one of the greatest actors in the world, along with Gary Oldman. But, like Gary Oldman, he doesn't know it."

[alcarenka]

Honestly I'm very disappointed for what I read from you here on tumblr, since theorically I'm one of your moot on twitter. All these freaky theories about Jannik amaze me. You don't know him. And I don't know him too.

No one pretends to say that Jannik is a saint, but this treatment he is receiving is so stupid. If you don't like him, ignore him. Simple as that. Many sinneristi will eventually write ugly things about Carlos, that doesn't mean that every sinnerista is bad. Many of us like Carlos, a lot.

So stop with this no sense, because it's getting ridiculous.

Ok I do not mind about that, it is my opinion and I am not gonna change this idea. If you do not like what I am saying, go and silence my account or unfollow me. Anyway on twitter I have been posting tweets implying that I have stopped supporting jannik or that, for example, I don't like his relationship with anna and her too. As you said there in the response, you could do the same and ignore me like you told me to ignore jannik and I have been doing that in the last weeks.

I do not know him too (well I met and interacted with him at the mutua madrid open) but like it or not, I have my reasons why I have been disenchanted with him and his game and therefore stopped supporting him, for example on twitter. Concerning the "freaky theories" as you said, for me it is not freaky theories because jannik gives his statements or does many actions just for the pr and to give a good image, and none of you can deny that to me (and if you do, you are blind). Also, you can see that he tells a lot of contradictory things and is kinda a hypocrite. Like you can go and check his statements about keeping his relationships private when he was with maria and now you see that with anna, his relationship is public. In my opinion, his radical changes are just a movement of pr and marketing because I see all those same movements in multiple famous people in my country that in the end, all these movements were only for pr, winning followers and money, and keeping a clean image.

Of course, jannik is not a saint but your fandom is treating him like a god because for example, you are not capable to recognise his errors and if anyone does it, you start sending hints or posting tweets throwing messages ‘twisting’ reality just because you don't recognise his mistakes. I say all this because that happened to me when the failed discourse in the final of halle open. Or even no one can talk to your fandom because every opinion that goes against him does not sit well with you. That's why I express my honest opinion on tumblr because I know 100% that if I state my honest opinion on twitter I will end up cancelled, with my account suspended, persona non grata in italy or many citations insulting me or with hate just for having a different opinion than others.

And about "sinneristas writing bad things about carlos", it is bad that these kinds of people write only bad things about him, like insulting him because of acne or teeth or even inventing doping allegations when he is the one who has not tested positive in anti-doping tests. I KNOW that all sinneristas are not like that. And I tell the same thing to some carlos' fans who do the same thing with jannik, but please don't let your fandom generalise all fans with those bad people as you say that all sinneristas are that way.

Finally, unfortunately for you, I'm not gonna stop with my opinion, for me, is not nonsense, I only ask for respect for my opinion as I respect other opinions different from mine. In my country, we have a proverb which is quite right and fits this situation… it says “piensa mal y acertarás” (“think the worst and you will not be far wrong”). Anyway, what's really ridiculous is that your fandom bases its personality on the partner of your favourite player (or even endorse her) and, on top of that, idolises a woman who is pro-russian 🙊​🤷​

[jimmythejiver]

I don't have the citations and receipts to prove it, but I swear most creative decisions in the post-Eisner era of Disney has been fueled by the fact that their biggest rival Universal owned the rights to Wicked.

Think about the fact that they had Stephen Schwartz on Pocahontas and Hunchback of Notre Dame during the Renaissance and got him for their send up Enchanted with Idina Menzel in the cast) which like Tangled and Frozen would not be what they are without Wicked, from the stupid titling scheme to initially hiring Kristen Chenoweth as Rapunzel before replacing her with Mandy Moore and ultimately hiring Idina Menzel (again) for Elsa and deciding she ain't so bad after all and hell let's delete Kai and invent Anna the plucky contrast to her to really drive it home.

How about the fact that they bought and made a meh adaptation of Into The Woods, the original 'Kind is not Good' fairytale subversion broadway show. The okay that was a thing Maleficent movies where the king rips off her wings and Mal was misunderstood she was Briar Rose's real protector, see.

The fact that they sure love to market their villains, but boy do they not like to make new ones that aren't corrupted forces of nature that need their heart back to be good again or c.e.o.'s who gave us utopia only to find out he killing the planet oopsies or deceptive seemingly trustworthy Wizard-like authority figures who will stab you in the back in their best interest. A villain is either a twist to be subverted or is the hero you followed along, see. Something tells me the Mufasa movie is their half-apology or reasoning for why Scar is like that when the new Aladdin and Little Mermaid did shit for Jafar or Ursula but make them bland because they didn't have time to bake another uwu, babied misunderstood anti-villain so they made sure they can't chew the scenery or have too big of personalities to latch onto by children either, that be irresponsible.

Disney wants Elphaba and they're mad they don't have the special sauce that Broadway somehow wrangled out of a confusing book full of misdirection that pleased no one but the author and people who hate the Judy Garland film and would never read Frank L. Baum anyway to understand these characters are just different from that film and the shoes were not the Wicked Witch's birthright she wanted their power, it was not that deep, but so much of Maguire's decisions don't work once you account for Baum's that never accounted for the future MGM's art and costuming department, casting and script consolidations, but all Disney sees is, 'That Judy Garland movie should've been ours and fuck these people making sequels and prequels, those should've been ours.'

We see the root of this problem that existed before Eisner took over with Return to Oz under Ron Miller. As a company they've never forgiven anyone for having piece of the Oz pie. Oh, post-Eisner they swung their dick again and made that forgettable James Franco prequel, I almost forgot! A warning to Universal who guarded Wicked's movie rights for decades and the anger they have that Warner Bros. still owns the rights to the Judy Garland film while all of Baum's books are in the public domain before Eisner's lawyers could lobby with Senator Bono to extend copyright law in the 90's.

Eisner cooperated with Warner Bros. to license an Oz sequence with an advance for it's time Wicked Witch animatronic in the Great Movie Ride, in fact a majority of the films i. Thatbride came from WB's vault. Bob Iger let that ride get scrapped for Pirates of the Carribean's update for Red. You know what else Eisner didn't do that Bob Iger did? Not make a stupid Cruella prequel to explain why she's so misunderstood, just a straight live action remake of the cartoon and Jungle Book that was boring, and not a whole lot of these were as churned out in his era as there was bad sequels to the cartoons, but oops Iger's doing that too.

Real point is Wicked the musical premiered in 2003, Eisner stepped down in 2005. Eisner and his people couldn't figure out the Snow Queen as anything but a romantic comedy co-starring a villain love interest because he forgot Ariel existed as a misunderstood and manipulated hero who could have served as a template for another similar Andersen character. Under Iger's people they casted og Elphaba and decided halfway they needed to not make her a villain after all. Coincidence? I think not!

[wildcardaces]

@ruby-static "game flashbacks" edition!

Where my man Shawn really does get ticked by a specific sentence XD

But first!

Shswn: when was speech invented?

Anna: i-- hmmmmm.....

Shawn asking the real questions and making Anna think along with him!

Anna: are you OK?

"yes...!"

"thank you for releasing me!"

Shawn hears that sentence and immediately has war flashbacks to his favourite video game of all time. Anna knows, she watched him play though the entire thing in one sitting SJDKAHFKW-

And the finale!

Speaking of his favourite video game!

Shawn: this character is a LEECH

Shawn: a STAIN!

Shawn: he is an alt-right WINNIE THE POOH

Shawn: THAT CONVERTED A GENERATION OF KIDS INTO ANTI-CAPITALISTS!

Clay: I love this man...

Shawn half way through a 2 hour long PowerPoint gets to his most hated character and he just goes off on him *whEEZE*

[grandhotelabyss]

Lol at the idea of commissioning Pariah to do the writing, (who incidentally also used to be in those dismal leftie fb groups years ago) if Salomé didn’t exist we would have to invent them. I confess I’ve never been completely convinced by either the left-libs freaking out about Lana as conservative chanteuse or the far right seeing in her a harbinger of some kind of youthful populist-reactionary turn. She reminds me of a kind of girl (and guy, although there were way less of them) I remember from high school who wanted to be counterculture, but didn’t do politics and wasn’t really interested in pissing off their parents in any way other than the normal way that all teenagers invariably do just by being teenagers.* Yeah there was a conservative leaning there, and even a bit of racism, but I think it was mostly a mix of aesthetics and cultural inertia- America is after all an ambiently conservative nation. It seems very odd to me that that type of person ever got radicalized enough to start throwing around the race science stuff the way Anna and Dasha did, but then they’re probably hardly representative specimens, and my memories of that type are all from before left-activist rhetoric became so completely inescapable during the Trump era

*A part of me is tempted to say that this is on a slightly higher register the role Paglia fulfills as well (this is the purpose of Camille) I’m sure the context of the original quote is nonsense, but I’ve always thought (I think?) Naomi Wolff was onto something when she described her as Phyllis Schlafy for the nipple-pierced set. There’s something of the sense while you’re actually reading or listening that this is some hot, revolutionary, stuff but then if you actually think about it you’re circuitously being persuaded via decadent aesthetics to have your parents or grandparents sexual/racial etc mores (this is not entirely serious and I know I’m doing injury to her program by describing this way, but I think it’s also the appeal of her aside from the imperious declaration of this and that.)

I think Oscar Wilde invented Salomé. I discovered her more recently, find a leftist phase hard to imagine.

Back in the '90s and early '00s, the religious right had enough power to allow the counterculture to be a broad political anti-church that included secular libertarians (e.g., Kurt Loder and Kennedy on MTV) or libertarian-ish figures like Paglia. As long as you weren't a Bible-thumper, nobody asked you what you thought about taxes. "Fiscally conservative, socially liberal" was like "I listen to everything but rap and country." Things were just politicized in a different way than they are now. I don't think everybody should have to be deeply politically engaged.

The racial thing with Anna and Dasha is because they're children of immigrants. (I'm allowed to say this because I'm one too.) I don't say "white" immigrants, either; I don't even say "non-black" immigrants, because I've graded the composition essays of Somali students here in Minneapolis, and they're also capable of sounding like Steve Sailer. The "critical race theory" idea—I think Baldwin was the first major writer to make the point—of immigrants defining themselves against African Americans is just true; I've seen it again and again.

On the other hand, Paglia was liberal on race, if in an aestheticized way that earned her a rebuke from bell hooks. Whenever she did talk about race, she took a romantic pan-POC (to include Italians and Jews) and anti-WASP stance. She blamed the feminism she despised on an almost racial Anglo-Saxon female frigidity. (There's a reason she became friends with Edward Said.) This seems less absurd when you read an early feminist tract like Olive Schreiner's Woman and Labour and find that it sounds like a Nazi pamphlet, heralding feminism as the rebirth, after industrialism caused a small setback in white women's estate, of the always-independent Teutonic sisterhood, this as against the immemorial slavery of women practiced by the "darker races" (presumably, again, to include Italians and Jews). But there are even strains of this kind of thing in Wollstonecraft and Fuller, too. Some have even wondered why Gilman's famous wallpaper is yellow.

As with Paglia, my own thinking about gender and sexuality ranges beyond the bounds of liberalism in either direction or all directions, while I can't say the same for race. I think it's irresponsible, to say the least, for humanists and artists to indulge anything like biological racism. Gender and sexuality are endlessly fascinating and unsolvable riddles, whereas I've never been able to get intellectually interested in race; masculine and feminine are cosmic forces, but "black" and "white" are the flimsy contrivances of the pirate and the sociologist.

[supersexyactioncomics]

Sometimes I find it hard to tell if evangelical Christianity invented colonialism or if colonialism invented evangelical Christianity or if they simply reinforced each other every step of the way into becoming the worst possible versions of themselves.

For a religion obsessed with selling itself “the best part is when you get other people to join” isn’t a great selling point. It’s just a fucking pyramid scheme.

(No hate to Quakers, Anna Borkowska, Francis of Assisi, and other antifascist/anti-colonialist Christians.)

how can you be so controversial and yet so brave

(reposted from Twitter)

Hey so, have I ever told you about the time I was at an interfaith event (my rabbi, who was on the panel, didn't want to be the only Jew there), and there was a panel with representatives of 7 different traditions, from Baha'i to Zoroastrian?

The setup was each panelist got asked the same question by the moderator, had 3 minutes to respond, and then they moved on to the next panelist.

The Christian dude talked for 8 minutes and kept waving off the poor, flustered, terminally polite Unitarian moderator.

The next panelist was a Hindu lady, who just said drily, "I'll try to keep my answer to under a minute so everyone else still has a chance to answer." (I, incidentally, am at a table with I think the only other non-Christian audience members, a handful of Muslims and a Zorastrian.)

So then we get to the audience questions part. No one's asking any questions, so finally I decide to get things rolling, and raise my hand and the very polite moderator comes over and gives me the mic.

I briefly explain Stendahl's concept of "holy envy" and ask what each of theirs is.

(If you're not familiar, Stendahl had 3 tenets for learning about other traditions, and one was leave room for "holy envy," being able to say, I am happy in my tradition and don't desire to convert, but this is something about another tradition that I admire and wish we had.)

The answers were lovely. My rabbi said she admired the Buddhist comfort with silence and wished we could learn to have that spaciousness in our practice. The Hindu said she admired the Jewish and Muslim commitment to social justice & changing, rather than accepting, the status quo.

The Christian dude said he envied that everyone else on the panel had the opportunity to newly accept Jesus.

I shit you not.

Dead silence. The Buddhist and Baha'i panelists are resolutely holding poker faces. The Hindu lady has placed her hands on the table and folded them and seems to be holding them very tightly. Over on the middle eastern end of the table, the rabbi, the imam, and the Zoroastrian lady are all leaning away from the Christian at identical angles with identical expressions of disgust. The terminally polite Unitarian moderator is literally wringing his hands in distress.

A Christian lady at the table next to me, somehow unable to pick up on the emotional currents in the room, sighs happily and says to her fellow church lady, "What a beautiful answer."

anyway I love my rabbi to death and would do anything for her

except attend another interfaith event

[tilbageidanmark]

MOVIES I WATCHED THIS WEEK (#198)

MASTER, A BUILDING IN COPACABANA (2002) is considered one of the best Brazilian movies of all time, and justifiably so. The large 'Edifício Master' is a 12 story apartment building situated in a lower middle class area of Copacabana of Rio. Important documentary director Eduardo Coutinho rented one of the small 1-bedroom units there for a month, so that he could meet and interview dozens of the tenants who live there. In a sparse, simple and unadorned manner, they each talk about their lives, which often were filled with pains, loneliness, hardships and separation. Many of the stories are emotionally sad, some even tragic, and all very human. But so many of them also recite some of the poetry they write, or sing some of the samba songs they compose, and generally opens up without pretensions. Simple and non-judgemental. 9/10.

(I want to see his 'Jogo De Cena' but I can't find a copy online with English subtitles! - HELP, please!)

🍿

PIROSMANI (1969) is my first Georgian masterpiece which was not made by Sergei Parajanov. It's an awe-inspiring biography of Nikolai Pirosmanashvíli. He was a self-taught, naïve Georgian painter who lived during Vincent van Gogh's time, and like him, died destitute and unappreciated by his piers, only to find prominence decades after his death. (Japanese Trailer Above.)

It's an absorbing and visually-stunning film, composed of rural tableaux and primitive folk setting, a mixture of Henri Rousseau, Gauguin, Édouard Manet, Bruegel and Jodorowsky. A sad, slow and formal composition, full of sublime pathos and simplicity. Best film of the week!

After watching it, I discovered an excellent explainer from a YouTube channel called 'Plan-Séquence' (which offer similar analyses about other less-known masterpieces).

(Pirosmani later was also the inspiration for a Russian pop song called 'A million roses', which apparently became a big hit in the 1980's).

🍿

2 CZECH MASTERPIECES:

🍿 First watch: ECSTASY (1933), the controversial, groundbreaking erotic romance, the film that Hitler banned throughout Nazi Germany. Gorgeous, young Hedy Lamarr swimming naked, running naked, showing her breasts, making love and having an orgasm (off screen) was far too indecent for "proper" society to see.

The drama played in a silent movie style, with very sparse dialogue. I saw it in the original German, but there were also French and Czech versions. It also contained an early example of 'Smoking after sex', long before 'The Graduate' and even before 'Now, Voyager'.

Good for Hedy [Not 'Heddy'!] to have invented Frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS), which enabled code-division multiple access (CDMA) communications in World War 2.

🍿 Mr. Prokouk: A Horseshoe for Luck (1946), my earliest slapstick film by famed Czech stop-motion animator Karl Zeman. It introduced the character of Mr. Prokouk, which became an 'Everyman' symbol in Czechoslovakia, as popular as 'The Tramp' and Mr. Hulot. An anti-superstition fable, but also a PSA for recycling.

🍿

I previously only saw 'Larisa', Elem Klimov's biography of his wife, Larisa Shepitko. THE ASCENT (1977), a harrowing World War 2 nightmare, is my first searing masterpiece by her, and the last film she finished before dying young at a car accident. Two Russian partisans starving in the snow, fighting the Nazis, going through hell and losing their souls. it's as heavy as the most depressing Dostoevsky novel, and a prelude to her husband's even darker 'Come and see'. The film was shot outdoors at forty degrees below zero, and you freeze just by watching it. [*Female Director*]

🍿

ANNA KENDRICK X 2:

🍿 WOMAN OF THE HOUR, her new, directorial debut is an ominous feminist nightmare masquerading as a true crime thriller about a sadistic serial killer.

This light comedy about a stupid television show is transformed into a creepy tale of systematic misogyny and degradation. Women led to live in a watchful state of fear wherever they went, always assessing everything and everybody around them, lest they be harmed. The men, and not only the creepy-as-fuck killer, were casually abusive, contemptuous and sexually-harassing. In 1978, it was in the air and water, and completely unremarkable. Thank God it's not like that any more, and women don't have to 'Choose the Bear over Bachelor Number Three'... /s.

Technically, it was well done, with menacing sound track of White Noise ambiance. 7/10. [*Female Director*]

🍿 She's my crush from 'A simple favor', 'Up in the air' and 'Alice, darling' but I didn't realize that she started as a talented child actor and that she could sing (''Ladies who lunch" at 17), and dance as well as act.

THE CALL (2014) was just a little improve thingy where she plays herself in a pink sweater and in an office setting.

🍿

'Color guard' is a combination of cheer-leading/baton twirling/marching band/spinning choreography and high-school dancing competition.

David Byrne staged a big event in 2016 and produced the documentary music performance CONTEMPORARY COLORS because he found this less-known art form fascinating. And he brought in other artist friends to spice it up, like The Beastie Boys, St. Vincent, and Nelly Furtado. Apparently, the making of this production led him to the format of ‘American Utopia’, which was much better, and which I now want to re-watch one more time.

🍿

2+ CHAPLIN MUTUALS FROM 1916:

🍿 THE PAWNSHOP, Chaplin's 6th film at Mutual, and one of his funniest two-reelers. For 25 minutes, he clowns, pratfalls, slapsticks and pantomimes. Edna Purviance is also lovely here. Perfection! 10/10.

🍿 THE RINK (Colorized) was his 8th (out of 12) film for Mutual Films. He plays a clumsy waiter, as well as a master skater, calling himself Sir Cecil Seltzer, C.O.D. Later on, he will show his skating skills again in 'Modern Times'.

🍿 Bonus: I never heard of his home movie NICE AND FRIENDLY from 1922. It's a 10-minutes improvised sketch he made as a wedding present to his friends, the Mountbattens. Strange and private, it's not on a level of any of his 'finished' productions. It features 8 year old Jackie Coogan, a year after 'The Kid', and it ends with the title card: "All of which goes to prove something very profound but we are not quite sure just what it is".

🍿

Max Barbakow's 'Palm Springs' had been one of my favorite Guilty Pleasures in the last few years, and I've seen it 15 times or more, and enjoyed it every time. I just love everything about it. So I was waiting to see what he will cook up next. But the only commonality with his new comedy BROTHERS was the one-time use of the slur name 'Shitbird'... There were simply zero redeeming qualities to this flat, unfunny, formulaic suckface, not even the scene where Josh Brolin was jerking off that orangutan. One point for this being T. Emmett Walsh's last movie. 2/10.

🍿

GEOFFREY JONES X 2:

🍿 LOCOMATION (1975), a terrific British industrial documentary about the transformative history of trains, from it "primitive" beginning in 1825, and how it altered the landscape, the world. It uses a montage of prints, paintings, lithographs, photographs and and clips set to electronic music, but without any words. 7/10

🍿 Jones must have been working for British Rail. His riveting crisp SNOW (1963) was also about the excitement of train riding. From a group of railwaymen shoveling snow on the tracks, to the cozy fun ride in a blizzard, this too was a wonderful hymn to traveling by train. If he was American, this film would be selected to the National Film Registry. Great rhythmic collage, and jazzy soundtrack too.

🍿

I love Ali Wong and seen all her stuff more than once or twice. In her 4th nasty standup which just dropped, ALI WONG: SINGLE LADY she continues to overshare in specific details her intimate and depraved sex-life, but none of it is new or shocking. I still admire her taboo-breaking feminist strength, her constantly-horny independence, and the fact that she doesn't take shit from anybody. But the Chinese-American version of the abject materialism she revels in is not so funny any more. From her decade-long public confessions, I feel sorry for her ex-husband. 4/10.

🍿

3 SHORTS:

🍿 THE GOALKEEPER, a fine mime piece by Jacques Tati. Not sure when or where it is from.

🍿 ESSUN DORMA (1987) was directed by Ken Russell, part of the British anthology music film, 'Aria'. Ten filmmakers were tasked with interpreting a piece of classic opera. M'eh: You could get away with a lot back then.

🍿 ANÉMIC CINÉMA (1926) was the only avant-garde "film" made by dadaist Marcel Duchamp, basically showing some spinning disks like a Seriograph with superimposed dirty, nonsensical proverbs. As offensive as the urinal 'Fountain'.

🍿

BOOKWORM is a new family film from New Zealand about a gifted girl of 11 and her estranged father on an adventure trip out in the wilderness. It started well enough, and I'm a sucker for this plot line, (I watched the similar, and much better, story 'Gifted' with Chris Evans - twice!) - as the girl reminded me of somebody I know... But then I took a break right in the middle of it, and when I returned to it the next day, the whole thing crumbled into a disappointing, unbearable mush. Kiwi nature shots were lovely, and the film was coated with a filter of A.I. sheen, the kind you see on r/midjourney. 2/10.

🍿

2 POLITICAL DOCUMENTARIES ABOUT JAMES CARVILLE:

🍿 "I'm the son of a great salesperson. We have come to devalue salesmanship. But if you're not willing to sell, you're not willing to win."

CARVILLE, WINNING IS EVERYTHING, STUPID is my 3rd documentary by Matt Tyrnauer (After 'The Reagans' and 'Where's my Roy Cohn?'). It's a CNN-produced and CNN-deep exposition, slick and watchable, that can be consumed in the background while doing the dishes. It was made during the last 6 months of Biden's campaign until his bumbling debate in June 2024.

🍿 And, being a completist, and not expecting much from it, I thought I'll also sit through D. A. Pennebaker's (and wife) 1993 THE WAR ROOM, the behind-the-scenes documentary about the Clinton for President campaign. But this is the difference when you have a 'good' filmmaker behind the camera.

It's odd to relive this whole sordid affair a generation later, when all the players were young, unpolished, and relatively untarnished. Fascinating to see how things were done then - as compared to now! 8/10.

🍿

I started watching Elaine May's celebrated A NEW LEAF a couple of times before, and failed. This time, I promised myself that I'll sit through it. Unfortunately, in spite of gritted teeth and frequent stops, I could only tolerate 46 minutes of this overrated 'comedy', before throwing in the towel. I hated everything about it: Walter Matthau as a romantic but asexual anti-hero "playboy", the hoity-toity lifestyle of the ultra-rich class of 1971 Manhattan and herself as the fumbling spinster with her awkward round glasses. Unfunny to the core, annoyingly cringey. Couldn't finish it. [*Female Director*]

🍿

(ALL MY FILM REVIEWS - HERE).

[numbwhileintertwined]

listing my favorite things bc im bored

Movies:

Lilya 4-Ever

Christiane F

Level 16

The Chalk Lines

The Tourist

American Mary

The Man Who Cried

The Rum Diary

The DaVinci Code

All of Pirates of The Caribbean

All of Fantastic Beasts

Alice in Wonderland

Orphan

Twister

Room

But I'm A Cheerleader

Interstellar

2001: A Space Odyssey

Blade Runner 2049

Kids

Buffalo 66

The V*rgin S*icides

Eyes Wide Shut

Requiem For A Dream

Prozac Nation

Thirteen

Marie Antoinette

Priscilla

Midsommar

The Florida Project

Trainspotting

Bones and All

Enter the Void

White Oleander

Soylent Green

TV Shows

South Park

Hannibal

SVU

Alba

Criminal Minds

(Old) Grey's Anatomy

(Old) Station 19

The Idol

Inventing Anna

(Old) New Amsterdam

Everything Sucks

Midnight Mass

The X-Files

Books

Aeneid- Virgil

Dante's Divine Comedy- Dante Alighieri

The Brothers Karamazov- Dostoyevsky

Industrial Society And Its Future- Ted K

Anti-Tech Revolution- Ted K

Technological Slavery- Ted K

The Golden Ratio- Gary Meisner

Imperialism THSOC- Vladimir L

The Ego and Its Own- Max Stirner

The Art Of War- Sun Tzu

The Iliad and The Odyssey- Homer

Speak- Laurie Halse Anderson

Wintergirls- Laurie Halse Anderson

Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen

Brave New World- Aldous Huxley

1984- George Orwell

Crime and Punishment- Dostoyevsky

L*lita- Vladimir Nabokov

The Bell Jar- Sylvia Plath

The Egyptian Book of the Dead

Decoding the Universe- Charles Seife

Art

Our Lady of Kazan- Unknown

A Limier Briquet Hound- Rosa Bonheur

Cats- Armando Spadini

Thunder Storm on Narragansett Bay- Martin Heade

The Martyrdom of Saint Thecla- Pietro Valsecchi

The Abduction of Europa- Rembrandt

The Albobrandini Madonna- Titian

The Sistine Madonna- Raphael

A Young Girl and Her Dog- Joshua Reynolds

Girl at a Window- Rembrandt

Rio Palo Battle- Jose Espinosa

Valley of the Yosemite- Albert Bierstadt

The First Thorns of Knowledge- Unknown

Inside of a Church- Carl Graeb

Highland Raid- Rosa Bonheur

After the Rain- Rae Bredin

Girl Getting Out of the Bath- Paolo Vetri

Shipwreck 1783- Claude-Joseph Vernet

The Birth of Venus- Nicolas Poussin

Virgin Mary of the Cathusians- Manuel Bayeu

Puerto Mediterraneo- Claude-Joseph Vernet

The Consecration of Saint Nicholas- Paolo Veronese

First Mass In Brazil- Vitor Meireles

The Death of Sardanapalus- Eugene Delacroix

Europa- Titan

Divine Shepherdess- Manuel de Samaniego

Saul and David- Rembrandt

Respect- Paolo Veronese

Moses with the Ten Commandments- Rembrandt

Westminster Abbey- Max Ainmiller

Song of the Waters- Jerome Thompson

guys i have over 2k pics saved on google arts and culture I gotta stop

[xtruss]

I Don’t: My Very Modern Marriage!

Here Comes The Tax Break, or Why Getting Hitched should Be About Finance, Not Love

— By Anna Baddeley | Illustrations: Mari Fouzp

“You can hold hands if you want to.” We had arrived at the part in our ceremony where we had to parrot a legal declaration, and the registrar was clearly desperate to inject some romance into proceedings.

In June, my partner and I were bound together in the eyes of the British state. We didn’t get married though – we got a civil partnership, a type of union invented for gay couples in 2004 that was recently opened up to straight couples after a long campaign to change the law.

We had opted for a pared-down ceremony, with no guests apart from the two friends who were acting as our witnesses. The venue was Room 99, the cheapest space to get married at Islington Town Hall in north London.

“I’d rather not hold his hand,” I said. “Mine are too sweaty.” The registrar apologised, worried she had offended me. I hadn’t meant to make her feel awkward, but I’m one of those people who instinctively makes a joke when put in an uncomfortable situation. And I was keen for the ceremony to be as unromantic as possible. We were doing this not for love, but for tax.

Some Women grow up dreaming of a white wedding. I didn’t. My parents weren’t married when I was born, as was the norm at my primary school in east London. Then we moved to a small town in the countryside. My new school-friends were scandalised. A teacher who had assumed my parents were divorced was shocked to discover that they were still together: “But they’ve got different surnames!”

I’d Rather Not Hold His Hand, Mine Are Too Sweaty

My mum and dad got together in the early 1980s when it was cool to be anti-marriage, at least in lefty London circles. At that point most people bought into the idea that the engagement of the heir to the throne was the greatest love story ever told. Few seemed bothered by the prospect of a 20-year-old virgin marrying a man rumoured to be seeing another woman, and who, when asked if he was in love with his betrothed, said “whatever love means”. Spare Rib, a feminist magazine, sounded a rare note of dissent, giving away badges that read “Don’t do it Di!”

In 1989 a picture of my family appeared in a women’s magazine under the headline “Maternity without matrimony” – my parents had agreed to be interviewed about what was then still an unconventional lifestyle choice. “Whether they’re out on a shopping spree on a Saturday afternoon or queuing up to see the teacher at their elder daughter’s school open day,” the article begins, “Kate and George and their two small daughters, Anna and Natasha, look like any other normal family.”

When I was growing up, marriage seemed like a relic from another age. I assumed everyone else felt the same way and was slightly perturbed when my university friends started getting engaged. “But why?” I recall asking one of them. Marriage seemed so conservative, so anti-feminist (a father “giving away” his daughter to another man?) and, since it had become socially acceptable to have sex before it, rather unnecessary (unless you were very religious).

Staying together because you signed a contract also struck me as wholly unromantic. Goldie Hawn once said that she chose every day to be with Kurt Russell (together, but not married, for 37 years and counting). I thought that was lovely.

As for weddings, I could see why some people liked them but I hated being the centre of attention. I also hated wasting money. When the average deposit necessary to buy a flat in London is £50,000, it seems obscene to me that British couples typically spend more than £30,000 on a single day. No wonder they ask their friends and family to pay for their honeymoon, possibly the worst wedding trend of recent times.

The Social and Economic rationale behind marriage used to be clear: sanctified, legal reproduction; a business deal between two families. Now that the feudal backdrop has disappeared, people get married for more waffly reasons. For most millennials, it’s merely an excuse for a party.

I Was Keen For The Ceremony To Be As Unromantic As Possible

When marriage is seen purely as a celebration of love, the legal and financial benefits are obscured. I suspect few of my friends got married because of the tax breaks, but in Britain marriage can reduce your income-tax bill, capital-gains tax and the inheritance tax your children have to pay (you also get automatic status as the next of kin in times of crisis and the right to claim some of your spouse’s money if you break up).

Both in Britain and America marriage is increasingly confined to the moneyed middle-classes, perhaps because weddings are so expensive. Because marriage brings so much socio-economic clout, this increases the gap between the rich and the poor, unwed masses. Bridget Jones was right to moan about “smug marrieds”.

As I began to read the money pages of the newspaper and got more clued up, I wondered if my partner and I should grit our teeth and get hitched, especially once we became parents. But the cultural baggage of marriage, particularly its patriarchal roots, bothered us.

We wanted our relationship to be recognised in law. But we also wanted a modern, equal partnership, clean of assumptions about what a marriage should be and the inescapably gendered roles of husband and wife. Which is why a civil partnership appealed, particularly if the ceremony could be conducted quietly.

That heterosexual British couples can become civil partners is something of a legal accident, rooted in historical discrimination against gay people. Civil partnerships were drawn up to appease the bishops of the Church of England, who still get a say in British lawmaking, and who, in the 1990s at least, didn’t think gay people should be able to get married.

Civil partnerships gave gay couples more or less the same rights as marriage gave straight couples. But soon after civil partnerships were introduced, straight people wanted to get them too. Many countries already allowed heterosexual couples to ratify their relationship without getting married – in France, a contract known as pacs has long been a popular alternative to marriage.

When My University Friends Started Getting Engaged, I Asked Them Why

Over the years various attempts to expand the scope of civil partnerships in Britain failed. Making different provisions for heterosexual and gay people looked increasingly odd after the latter won the right to get married in 2014. Then, in 2018, a judge ruled that exempting straight couples from civil partnerships was illegal under equality law, forcing the government to support a change in the rules.

Opposite-sex couples have been able to become civil partners in Britain since December 31st 2019. I asked our registrar whether Islington Town Hall had seen an increase in footfall from marriage-avoiders. She said it had, mostly “mature couples” who wanted to get their affairs in order. I didn’t ask whether, on the wrong side of 35, we counted as one of them.

Despite my allergy to romance, I surprised myself by how much I enjoyed our moment of union. We weren’t going to tell anyone apart from our families but then decided that we might as well. Being congratulated is nice. And it has made my mother-in-law very happy. Is there still time to open a honeymoon fund? ■

— Anna Baddeley is a Eenior Editor of 1843 Magazine

[kafkaoftherubble]

Alright. I usually refrain from commenting on discourse posts—especially those that don't pertain to my usual domains because I always believe I either don't know enough or my opinions aren't something so enlightening it's worth sounding aloud—but I want to weigh in on what you reply to @/these-detestable-hands there.

Be warned, it is long—but again, if we hope to have some nuances in a conversation, brevity often does more harm than good.

I don't deny the prevalence of American (or even, as you brought up, Christian) soft power in globalization. But I don't think chalking this up as all "Americanization-is-white-washing" is remotely close to the full picture.

Why is these-detestable-hands' alternative inferences somehow an example of a "cultural Christianity" class of arguments instead of legitimate possibilities? Dude. They're themself are European. They are not White, either. When they said Europeans do don this type of aesthetics, they were just speaking from their experience growing up.

I'm from Malaysia, a Southeast Asian country that is Muslim-majority, socially conservative, and politically, visibly infused with anti-American rhetoric. And yet I've seen this same aesthetics, mixed and matched with others, among the people I live with. Mainland China has an even louder blaring of anti-American tone (it's considered a politically correct stance there), and yet some of their young people also show up in this sort of aesthetics.

Tell me: do Americans somehow have a monopoly on bun hairdos? Or that straight-short hair? Or that way of wearing a jacket? Or the man's facial hairstyle and white shirt? Or a bland t-shirt, that sort of dress, etc.?

Because I've seen similar fashion techniques in diverse cultures, past or present. The reason why they look so "whitewashed" here, methinks, is because these characters are fair-skinned. That's really it, innit? I could easily imagine a Malaysian Indian in the male's outfit, or a Chinese in that bun-haired Anna getup (bun-haired [发髻, article in Chinese] is a very ancient hairdo in Chinese history, going back about 6000 years ago or so, with many types being trendy throughout different dynasties). There's a plethora of people who could or do dress up like this. I've seen it.

Now, you might argue that this is because American soft power has become so embedded in globalization that people take up their cultural import without being aware of it. "Even if people from other countries like Malaysia adopt aesthetics like this, can we really say that it is completely devoid of American influence, considering how dominant it has become especially after World War II?"

No. I'll concede we cannot unequivocably say the American influence, however its shape or form, is absent. But I will also tell you that this argument is weak, because all cultural osmosis is multidirectional. Yes, there will be hints of American elements in certain fashion trends or aesthetics, but when it came to different parts of the globe, they always blend with local cultures (including fashion sense), and that includes Europe. By saying this "boring" aesthetics "can also be found in Europe", these-detestable-hands was (I hope I'm getting you right, mate) saying that Europeans can also just come up with this from their own local fashion sense regardless of how much American input there might be.

One of the things that really prompted me to write a response, other than your strange example for "cultural Christianity" (I'll get to that later), is the latent Americentric undertone when you refute these-detestable-hands' arguments. You made it sound like everything in this image can only be American inventions. That if I were to propose that maybe this isn't necessarily an example of "Americanization", I am being blissfully unaware of "cultural Americanism," because somehow other cultures are incapable of coming up with an aesthetic like this. Or even if they could, it's because they have seen the American Whites do it first, and so any similarity in other cultures' modern fashion sense is just following this American trend, instead of them coming up with something of their own and mix-matching different elements from different places that are not necessarily American in origin alone.

The Americentrist assumptions, therefore, are these:

People of other cultures or regions have no choice but to be subjected under American influence wholesale just because Americans have had really strong soft power tools for a few decades. This is ignoring how, in this modern era, different cultures and societies of the world often pick and choose what elements of a non-native culture they want to adopt, adapt, and reject.

People of other cultures/regions cannot possibly have come up with modern-day aesthetics that are similar to this^ on their own, even by mix-matching with whatever cultures they have seen. Even if they did, it's gotta' be Americanization at work, nothing else. To this, I wonder what un-Americanization in the modern era supposedly entailed. Are we Malaysians only allowed to be in our "traditional" outfits to be rid of "Americanization," for example? Am I, Malaysian Chinese, only allow to wear qipao or changshanzhuang to avoid the corrosive force that is "whitewashing" or the "American mold?" Do you know that the qipao is also not a purely Han Chinese cultural product, but influenced and adapted from another tribe(s) in China, among other things?

Of course that's not what you meant. I get it. My point here is to show how decrying this^ as "Americanization" without leaving room for other legitimate reasoning is itself Americentric.

"This is whitewashing; you guys just don't know it yet! They're being stripped off of their cultural background to fit into an American mold!" The non-American, who proposed a different viewpoint, are being told. But this isn't an American mold. This is a more of a modern mold—a bland fashion trend one could even say are

(1) fostered by the lack of options we have as consumers when it comes to fashion,

(2) the homogeneity of fashion sense propagated by celebrities (of different origins, I have to stress, but nonetheless they are rather homogenous because these are essentially one small elite group's preferred aesthetics being marketed toward a diverse population of different tastes),

(3) one of the safest ways to "look presentable" in the modern era when you don't want to spend too much time fussing over it, but sweatshirts, sweatpants etc. are not acceptable under your current circumstances,

and more.

It's a whole web of cause-and-effects, not a single line of it—which these-detestable-hands' arguments provide. So why dismiss them?

I suggest reading The Lies That Bind by Kwame Anthony Appiah, a Ghanian British-American philosopher. His chapter on "Culture" is exclusively devoted to topics like these, including the Americentric assumptions I marked out just now, but the entire book is a meditation on identities as a whole.

----

Also: no, the idea of "revenge is good" is not believed by Christians or "people brainwashed by Christianity" only. Revenge is simply retributive justice done by an individual, and the idea of retributive justice itself predates Christianity. It is seen in the Code of Hammurabi, an ancient Babylonian legal code, for example. It's just an instinctive way of exacting justice, hence seemingly "good." I don't know what made you think it's a Christian idea, nor what examples had made you come away with that understanding.

Or maybe I misunderstood what you wrote there. In that case, my bad.

----

Important addendum (to avoid having people misunderstand my position):

I did not say Americanization is not a real phenomenon. I'm a Chi-Eng translator and my translation guide is explicitly made to follow American localization regardless of the reader-base's preferred English. That's one of the many examples of it.

What I'm saying is that this particular case is not a strong case of example of "Americanization", and that the other person's arguments also legitimate.

My friend blocked me because I wouldn’t stop sending him this picture

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

John Lennon and Sir Paul McCartney at 20 Forthlin Road (Mike McCartney/PA)

* * * *

Simon Kuper: If you put together Anna Funder’s recent book on George Orwell with Jennifer Burns’ biography of Milton Friedman, an oddly similar story emerges. Both men, especially Friedman, co-created their most famous works with their wives. In Friedman’s case, with several other women besides. Orwell’s marriage to Eileen O’Shaughnessy seems to have prompted his best writing. She had written a dystopian poem about 1984 and helped convince him to turn his anti-Stalinism into a fable, Animal Farm. A little later, Friedman had the advantage over sexist male peers in realising that there were brilliant female economists who possessed few career options beyond working for him. To quote his wife Rose: “You can’t tell who wrote what, the style is the same throughout the books. I always tell people we work as one; we are one.” Funder and Burns have given forgotten women their place in history. But their findings also point to a truth that’s becoming evident about writing: often it’s collective rather than singular. The myth of the Great Writer creating in solitude is only sometimes true.

People have long understood that most acts of creation are collaborative: pop music, sport, films, inventing the atomic bomb. Only for books, especially fiction, does the presumption of the lone genius hang on. That might have surprised Shakespeare, who co-wrote some of his plays and adapted many from other writers’ work. But at some point, literature grew snooty about collaboration. Writers who did do it, like the two cousins who co-wrote detective stories under the name Ellery Queen, often pretended there was a single author. The author Malcolm Gladwell told Vanity Fair: “Writers . . . have this false ethic of originality. Whereas musicians are like, ‘Yeah, totally — we took this little bit from that song. And it’s inspired by this.’ I love how open they are about the fact that creativity is a collective enterprise. I want writers to be able to talk that way.”

Look at what happened when two musicians, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, co-wrote. They took collaboration for granted. Their biographer Hunter Davies, who had the unfathomable privilege of sitting in Paul’s house in Cavendish Avenue, St John’s Wood, watching them write “With a Little Help from my Friends”, recounts their method. They would sit there for hours, John playing the guitar and Paul “banging on the piano”, and when one of them thought up a line, they would edit it together. “Do you believe in love at first sight?” tried John, but there weren’t enough syllables for the melody. Paul added “a” in front of love, then John changed the opening to “Would you believe . . . ” While they were writing, visitors often dropped by — one friend sat reading a horoscope magazine — and John and Paul asked them for suggestions. The two would collaborate with anyone. Davies says that their assistant roadie Mal Evans, who wasn’t even a big Beatles fan, supposedly came up with the name “Sergeant Pepper”. Lennon and McCartney, equal parts inspiration and irritation, were better together, perhaps like Orwell and O’Shaughnessy.

This kind of literary collaboration made a comeback in our century. During the “golden age of streaming”, now ending, some great novelists co-wrote television series in writers’ rooms. Dramatists in Shakespeare’s time had worked in much the same way. In my brief glimpses of writers’ rooms, I saw the potential. One day, working on a fictional series that went nowhere, our team included an Italian woman who had been flown in for her expertise in writing female characters. Every writer has weaknesses and blind spots. A good writers’ room has fewer. No wonder that one of the most admired novelists of our time, Elena Ferrante, may in fact be a writers’ room. Elena Ferrante is a pseudonym. There is a whole genre of literary sleuthing devoted to uncovering who she is. In 2018, Rachel Donadio wrote an essay in The Atlantic magazine that possibly solved the mystery. Donadio suggested that Ferrante is at least two people: Anita Raja and her husband Domenico Starnone. Other writers and editors may have chipped in, too. After all, both Raja, as a literary translator, and Starnone, a successful screenwriter, had backgrounds in collaborative writing. Donadio also unearthed Starnone’s novel Autobiografia Erotica di Aristide Gambía, never published in English, which riffs on the mystery of Ferrante’s identity and laments a male author’s inability to create female characters. Perhaps Milton Friedman was also a writers’ room and (to a much lesser degree) Orwell. They should have just said so.

[Financial Times]

[claricedemedicis]

Inventing Anna really doesn’t sit well with me.

What was this supposed to be? Some sort of feminist commentary by portraying Anna (a real life scammer with real life victims, FYI) as some girlboss who just girlbossed a little too hard and got into trouble?? 

The entire show is just: She wouldn’t have gotten into trouble if she was a man, amiright? What a girlboss!

There are real life people she has hurt and victimized, but the show portrays these people as just as bad because “why did she go to Morocco anyways?” even though Anna’s lies forced a friend to take on over $60k in credit card debt. 

I would be remiss if I didn’t call out Shonda Rhimes for this portrayal: Shame on you. You’ve managed to make people sympathize with a conwoman, while her victims get unnecessary hate in your effort to turn this vile, narcissistic person into a boss babe. 

[djuvlipen]

The Nazi genocide against Roma was a genocide in its own right: Roma were not collateral damage to the Shoah, they were the victims of specific anti-Romani policies that were carefully debated by Third Reich politicians for years before they were implemented.

Like the genocide against Jews, the genocide against Roma gradually moved from the definition of the Roma as racial enemies, to their deportation in slave labor camps, and to their extermination on the Eastern Front and in death camps. Here is a comprehensive summary of how the Nazi anti-Romani genocidal policy unravelled:

(source: Roma Resistance During the Holocaust and Its Aftermaths, Angéla Koczé, Anna Lujza Szasz, eds.)

Don't let anyone fool you into believing the genocide against Roma didn't happen or that exterminating the Roma was only a collateral of the anti-Jewish genocidal policy. The Romani genocide is not an invention of anti-racist activists, it's just an incredibly under researched subject

[grandhotelabyss]

Do you think you'll ever write a full-blast 'difficult' work — something in total contradistinction to Major Arcana where you give (very generously and successgully) so much to the — something for the professors to chew on (not that they would even bother these days) — the kind of book that makes you struggle with it, even question if you can, though it rewards you if you do? Do you have a Sound and the Fury or a Ulysses in you, if not a Finnegans Wake?

(Subquestion: do you think you have an avant-garde idea that would necessitate being expressed in a book like that?)

Thanks, great question! I don't know. I wouldn't do a re-tread of psychological modernism, not for the length of a book anyway, though Major Arcana does have stream-of-consciousness passages here and there. (And a not-entirely-linear structure requiring some assembly by the reader.)

If I did something that formally radical in a novel—though I guess what I'm about to propose has also been done, by Delany, M. John Harrison, Anna Kavan, and others I'm sure—it might be more like a science fiction narrative that was violently anti-world-building, where the nature of the imagined society and technology was occluded for the reader rather than overtly explained or even subtly implied. The novel always comes to me as a melodrama, though, a pageant.

I am more tempted toward difficult poetry, or prose-poetry, on the Pound and Eliot model, a type of ideogrammatic composition that confronts the reader with a collage or montage of allusions (of an almost private but also far-reachingly public significance) they have both to decode and to arrange intelligibly. I am especially attracted to such a way of writing about politics. I've experimented on here and in some of the Substack footnotes with this kind of thing. For example, I imagine some readers found this to be a difficult passage:

An anon asked me: “If someone were to accuse you of being a psyop, what would they accuse you of?” I wrote: I would be accused—I sometimes even am accused—of running the opposite of the psyop I’m actually running. This is because, in true psyop fashion, I sometimes used to openly claim to be running the opposite psyop of the one I actually was/am running. I’ve even darkly hinted that it’s worse than you think, just to throw you off the track, but also to keep you coming back for more. (Deep lore: how would someone with crazy eyes, red yarn, pushpins, and a corkboard get from me to Michael Aquino in two steps? I revealed the answer once, only once, behind Katherine Dee’s paywall, on my first ever podcast appearance, during which Kat and I correctly predicted in 2021 that the dissident right would become the next iteration of neoconservatism, years before a straight line could be drawn from BAP through Anna K. to Bari Weiss.) I could say more, but then it wouldn’t be a psyop, would it?

Of course it would be helpful to be as erudite as a modernist poet, would be helpful to have read all The Cantos, would be helpful to have begun to study Chinese. But such a style in prose is what attracted people to the late Jameson as well, and to "theory" in general. This is a type of difficulty I think I could achieve and also think might be salutary for readers to encounter. And yet sometimes it seems like it would be too easy to write that way. Why not just take the extra step of explaining oneself?

I am not one of those writers who is at war with the language, who feels a need to deform language radically or to invent new languages. My "experiments" tend to take place "above" the language level, as it were, on the level of genre and narrative and archetype. To make an (imperfect) analogy to the order of scientific knowledge, Joyce was a physicist while I am a chemist or maybe a biologist. But never say never—we'll see!

[fatehbaz]

hi i was wondering if youd read/recommend the book animal geographies? i was thinking about reading it off a friends recommendation but they normally dont read much on ecology so. i figured you might have a more discerning eye.

thanks no matter what, i really appreciate the excerpts you post on your blog a lot

Hi. Thank you for the kind words and support.

Wanna preface my response by saying that I never want to place too much value/attention on academia, physical books, formalities, institutions, European/US knowledge systems and their hegemonic “classifying imaginations”. In other words, it’s cool to be careful to not to place too much emphasis on texts/books, especially when we’re specifically reading about animal autonomy and critical/radical perspectives on human-animal entanglements in colonialism/imperialism/extractivism. But there are some good books. I’ve read Animal Geographies. Pretty good for the time that it was published, which was 1998. But there has just been such an enormous amount of new thinking/writing that has happened, especially since 2010-ish (in the past 10 years or so), featuring more focus on animal agency/autonomy and featuring newer, non-white, non-Western, anti-colonial perspectives and better holistic and/or interdisciplinary inclusion of other disciplines (human geographies, imperial histories, etc.) that it now seems introductory or dated.

It’s an anthology. A similar, newer anthology I’d recommend would be something like

-- Animal Places: Lively Cartographies of Human-Animal Relations (2018, edited by Bull, Holmberg, and Asberg).

-- Critical Animal Geographies: Politics, intersections and hierarchies in a multispecies world (2017, edited by Kathryn Gillespie and Rosemary-Claire Collard)

-- Affect, Space and Animals (2017, edited by Jopi Nyman and Noraa Schuurman)

-- Shared Lives of Humans and Animals: Animal Agency in the Global North (2019, edited by Tuomas Rasenan and Taina Syrjamaa)

-- Historical Animal Geographies (2018, edited by Sharon Wilcox and Stephanie Rutherford)

(I prefer to cite/learn from diverse sources. Unfortunately, all of these anthologies are from the same "human-animal studies" publishing series, but still.)

I like anthologies because sometimes we/readers don’t have time/attention for a full-length investigation/book and sometimes it’s nice to get snippets, like a sampler platter, of various threads of new thinking, especially since a lot of the language in “critical animal studies” disk horse is so new.

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Not to knock A.G. though. Animal Geographies would probably be included in a list of “classics” of the genre, along with Crosby’s Ecological Imperialism (1986), Harriet Ritvo’s The Animal Estate: The English and Other Creatures in the Victorian Age (1987, though I also love her other related book, The Platypus and the Mermaid and Other Figments of the Classifying Imagination); Virginia Anderson’s Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America (2004); and Breeds of Empire: The ‘Invention’ of the Horse in Southeast Asia and Southern Africa 1500-1950 (published in 2007 by Bankoff and Swart, who explicitly criticize the eurocentric focus of “animal studies” and environmental history disciplines). There is a whole array of these kinds of animal studies books/articles that focus specifically on Victorian British/US manipulation of animals and taxonomy, race, geography, colonialism, etc.

But by around 2010, anti-colonial and non-Euro-American stuff got far more attention in formal publishing, and the agency/autonomy of animals as actors and living beings got much more attention also. Some of these “new classics” include Kathryn Yusoff’s work; Gorgeous Beasts: Animal Bodies in Historical Perspective (an anthology from 2012); Anna Tsing’s The Mushroom at the End of the World (2015); Centering Animals in Latin American History (an anthology from 2017); and Mikhail’s work like Nature and Empire (2011), The Animal in Ottoman Egypt (2016), and Under Osman’s Tree (2017).

After 2017-ish or so, studies on animal autonomy, animals as agents, animals in imperial/colonial context, etc. have flooded bibliographies. Some of the publishers which promote a lot of this kind of work: University of Arizona Press, University of North Carolina Press, UC Press, and Routledge.

Hope this helps. :)