#armenian knitting

[theanticool]

Libraries and Adult Lonliness

As we all know, making friends as adults is hard. And while the internet has made it easier to make friends with people around the world, actually meeting people you can meet with on a regular basis and just hang out with us tough. The common answer to meeting new people is to find people who are interested in the same stuff as you. As such, finding places to meet new people who may have similar interests to you is important. And that’s why I think the library is a great resource!

As a children’s librarian, one of the things I try to point out to parents when they come in to sign their kids up for the library is that we offer adult programs too. Obviously we have book clubs - my library has 4 different book clubs for people who read different types of books. I’ve posted about it before with knitting/crochet circles. But for people who have or want to explore different interests, and meet new people via that new interest, you may want to check your local library to see their programming. For example:

Hiking: Many libraries offer things like hiking kits. These can be things such as maps for local trails, hiking sticks, a water resistant backpack, binoculars, bird guides, and the like. But some libraries having hiking clubs, such as the Poughkeepsie Public Library Distruct in NY.

Language Learning: Many libraries have access to language learning platforms such as Rosetta Stone or Mango Languages. But many other have dedicated classes where adults can come and learn languages. If you’re in L.A. county, the public library offers classes in beginner Russian, Chinese, Korean, Italian, Armenian, etc!

Music: there are many libraries that have maker spaces where you can go and record music. There’s one in the Newark Library and at a branch of the Brooklyn library. There are also ones that allow you to check out instruments. But there are also ones where you can receive free music lessons, such as the Dallas Public Library (this program was online during the pandemic but is now also offered in person!)

I could keep going.

Singing, dancing, theater, yoga, sketch comedy, creative writing, RC Cars, foraging, cemetery tour groups, jewelry making, baking, woodworking, painting, etc. If you have a niche interest or would like to get into a niche interest, there is a chance your library has had or will have a program about it. And if you’re looking to meet new people, it is a great place to start.

[harminuya]

Portraits of our Elders - Parandzem

Parandzem Babajanyan Karapetyan, born 1936 (88yo). She worked 40 years as a librarian in Kornidzor where she's from. An early memory of hers is singing in the 1948 Olympics. She married in 1958 at 22 years old. Her husband Smpat Karapetyan was 24. He was an accountant for the communist party of which they were both members. They were a working couple during times when forming large families was preferred in the village. They had 1 child, a daughter named Lena. Parandzem has 4 grandchildren and 1 great grandchild. She used to make Armenian traditional dresses aka Taraz. She loved to knit traditional socks. Boasting 230 pairs knitted and given away to friends and family. Unfortunately, now due to old age, her left eye is blind and her right eye is losing vision. Her smile always persists.

Her Taraz was an Armenian SSR-wide typical dress however it's most common in the Tegh community. Slide 8, Parandzem is the the woman on the left. Picture was taken in her 50's. She kept her dress all these years and feels young and happy wearing it

By shantkatcherian.

[tortiefrancis]

[ ID: Photo of a two Armenian kids, one sitting on a chair and the other on the floor, with fruit around them. The kid on the floor hands the other an apple. They both smile. The child on the chair has light skin and long, light brown, braided hair, and wears a dark headband with beads and string, a blue velvet dress with a white pace collar, a red apron with golden embroidery, and knitted socks. The child on the flor has light skin and short, light brown hair, and wears a red headband, a white shirt, a red embroidered vest, beige pants with red embroidered fabric on them and green shoes. /End ID ]

Armenian children, Armenia, by Atelier Marashlyan

[coldfetish]

krea.ai sdxl prompt: ---------- (frost:1.5), (natural full breasts:1.25), (nipple:0.1), (nostrils:0.1), (side view:0.5),

brave pretty cute teenage sexy nude petite girl, (wearing backpack:1.55), (shouder straps:1.4),

(skinny:1.3), (slim:1.3), (emaciated:1),

(blush skin:1.3), (pale:1.1),

(photo:1.3), (real:1.3),

(closeup:1.3), (crowd of men hikers in padded winter clothes behind:1.65), (group of men hikers behind:1.65),

(hugging:0.1), (touching:0.3), (surprised:1.3), (hips:1), (posing:0.3), (struggling:1),

(nude:1.6), (nude arms:1.3), (nude shoulders:1.3), (nude waist:1.3), (nude hips:1.3), (nude chest:1.3), (blue light:0.5), (frosted:1.5), (selfie:0.3), (arctic ice:1),

(wet:1.3), (sprinkled with ice:1.3),

--------negative-------: ugly, bad quality, low resolution, image with artifacts, bad anatomy,disconnected limbs,(penis:1.5), (mustache:1.3),(pregnant:1.5),mature,armenian,persian,asian,chinese,japanese,african,black, render,scandinavian,german, (bodybuilder:1.3),(panties:1) (masculine:1.5),(sleeves:1.3),(frozen:1.3),(pubic hair:1.3),(finger:1),(hand:1),(brackets:1),(bad teeth:1),(bad eyes:1),(moles:1),(freckles:1),(makeup:1.3),(umbrella:1.3),(sport:1.3),(jogging:1.3),(boots:1.3),(heel:1),(panties:1.3),(rope:1),(hand:0.5),(heels:1.3),(foot:1),(finger:0.5),(sleeping:1.3),(bra:1),(happy:1.3),(boots:1.3),(wrap:1.3),(sweatshirt:1.3),(pullover:1.3),(knit:1.3),(fur:1.3),(tripod:1.3),(polarbear:1.3),(collar:1.3),(rock:1.3),(back:1.3),(ass:1.3),(moles:1.3),(shirt:1.3),(bodysuit:1.3),(chocker:1.3),(mustache:1.3),(ski:1.3),(water:1.3) -------------- prompt influence, sharpness: 10.5

[mesetacadre]

2. The Rise and Development of Nations

[...]

The bourgeoisie and its nationalist parties were throughout this period the chief leading force of such nations. Class peace within the nation for the sake of "national unity"; expansion of the territory of one's own nation by seizure of the national territories of others; distrust and hatred of other nations, suppression of national minorities; a united front with imperialism— such is the ideological, social and political stock-in-trade of these nations.

Such nations must be qualified as bourgeois nations. Examples are the French, British, Italian, North-American and other similar nations. The Russian, Ukrainian, Tatar, Armenian, Georgian and other nations in Russia were likewise bourgeois nations before the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the Soviet system in our country.

Naturally, the fate of such nations is linked with the fate of capitalism; with the fall of capitalism, such nations must depart from the scene.

It is precisely such bourgeois nations that Stalin's pamphlet Marxism and the National Question has in mind when it says that "a nation is not merely a historical category but a historical category belonging to a definite epoch, the epoch of rising capitalism," that "the fate of a national movement, which is essentially a bourgeois movement, is naturally bound up with the fate of the bourgeoisie," that "the final disappearance of a national movement is possible only with the downfall of the bourgeoisie," and that "only under the reign of socialism can peace be fully established."

That is how matters stand with regard to the bourgeois nations.

But there are other nations. These are the new, Soviet nations, which developed and took shape on the basis of the old, bourgeois nations after the overthrow of capitalism in Russia, after the elimination of the bourgeoisie and its nationalist parties, after the establishment of the Soviet system.

The working class and its internationalist party are the force that cements these new nations and leads them. An alliance between the working class and the working peasantry within the nation for the elimination of the survivals of capitalism in order that socialism may be built triumphantly; abolition of the survivals of national oppression in order that the nations and national minorities may be equal and may develop freely; elimination of the survivals of nationalism in order that friendship may be knit between the peoples and internationalism firmly established; a united front with all oppressed and unequal nations in the struggle against the policy of annexation and wars of annexation, in the struggle against imperialism—such is the spiritual, and social and political complexion of these nations.

Such nations must be qualified as socialist nations.

These new nations arose and developed on the basis of old, bourgeois nations, as a result of the elimination of capitalism—by their radical transformation on socialist lines. Nobody can deny that the present socialist nations of the Soviet Union—the Russian, Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Tatar, Bashkir, Uzbek, Kazakh, Azerbaijanian, Georgian, Armenian and other nations— differ radically from the corresponding old, bourgeois nations of the old Russia both in class composition and spiritual complexion and in social and political interests and aspirations.

Such are the two types of nations known to history.

You do not agree with linking the fate of nations, in this case the old, bourgeois nations, with the fate of capitalism. You do not agree with the thesis that, with the elimination of capitalism, the old, bourgeois nations will be eliminated. But with what indeed could the fate of these nations be linked if not with the fate of capitalism? Is it so difficult to understand that when capitalism disappears, the bourgeois nations it gave rise to must also disappear? Surely, you do not think that the old, bourgeois nations can exist and develop under the Soviet system, under the dictatorship of the proletariat? That would be the last straw...

You are afraid that the elimination of the nations existing under capitalism is tantamount to the elimination of nations in general, to the elimination of all nations. Why, on what grounds? Are you really unaware of the fact that, besides bourgeois nations, there are other nations, socialist nations, which are much more solidly united and capable of surviving than any bourgeois nation?

Your mistake lies precisely in the fact that you see no other nations except bourgeois nations, and, consequently, you have overlooked the whole epoch of formation of socialist nations in the Soviet Union, nations which arose on the ruins of the old, bourgeois nations.

The fact of the matter is that the elimination of the bourgeois nations signifies the elimination not of nations in general, but only of the bourgeois nations. On the ruins of the old, bourgeois nations new, socialist nations are arising and developing, and they are far more solidly united than any bourgeois nation, because they are exempt from the irreconcilable class contradictions that corrode the bourgeois nations, and are far more representative of the whole people than any bourgeois nation.

The National Question and Leninism. J. V. Stalin, 1929

[scentedchildnacho]

Uhm yea I liked the lecture with the hare Krishnas a woman who is a practitioner arrived to show me conduct expectations.....trainer.....so good wanting to help master and now I can just be a lay person....

You have to want to get into something so it balances back to realistic conduct expectations

You have to be kind of strong spoken and big voiced and if I think about meditation I think about knitting and then I can't really yell the San skrit tongue tied

Well it's more for the young men packers to be free from packing meat so serial killers do need strong influences in women

Hudson Bay company it's more so indigenous men can be free from their labor

Yea I'm going to stop by my friends temple till I do enough learning from master to not have to have this logic mentality problem me anymore

I do have an unconscious logic problem

He asked me my favorite place to go....I just said cities I like going to cities to learn to do economics better.....cities use to be way better and rural use to be really sad though... Like small town or rural poor use to be what was really sad and cities nice lots of people so lots of trade lots to occupy people....and help them and now cities have become such horrible rural sprawl and nothing progresses

Its me so i notice a new Christianity think it can save itself with marijuana kids and they are just corrupt people afraid of having to lose payments

Its marijuana although some may be Christians the secular cannot be converted it's secularism

That's me about really annoying rural people their drug kids forever psychedelics never stops harassing people with mass murder drug wars

The Methodist pastor kept blaming police for night stalking so last night he admitted it's his ownership of the church that hires police to remove sleepers it's that we he said just don't want to so

Because they kept making statements about what police do or not do and I was like you can't really know about a foreign occupation ....its police no one knows what language they actually speak or who they are their an occupying no one

Im from the states no one would pay me to go disturb others.....that's baltics to Fred Hampton foriegn people paid them to call Fred a terrorist and murder him

And that's no one police doesn't like facts misrepresented the police work for majority voters and they should not have to be called completely irrational and wrong their parties don't like reality checks and enjoy watching others raped and killed not themselves and their children

Their neighborhood doesn't want to see the reality of its conduct standard

Their business isn't so profitable if consumers see that spending there impoverishes others

That and police that don't want to do the job left and they finally found police that will kill old impoverished women sacrifice it to restart the war with the mid east

Their only there to shock people of Armenian and the most notorious Muslims so they can keep warring in the mid east

I believe them the methodists in there are Jews and their owners would rape and kill them if they didn't find impoverished people to attract their attacker to

I don't know what's going to happen to that pastor for it......but I suspect some of our help has been priorly incarcerated for drug felonnies and would prefer to rape and kill me of cops before having to ever be incarcerated ever again the drug war produced a very horrible Holocaust expression in people

So I will be leaving there is no help at all from biden...bye great den......and kamela or the mela fucka just more and more wallet grabbers off the welfare so....

Well they kept calling sleeping not collapse and that no appropriate triage response to poverty was important so by civil war statute their federal felons but nothing formal in help is arriving at all so I don't know what will happen to them for that I've found out I have deep karmic beliefs that karma only accurately plays out as an organic process and passively refuse to interfere or get involved

I think they do stalk me for meaningless jail rapes because Tobi treangens mother told me about weed or marijuana that all those beach goers had to tolerate icky girl on girl french porn films for male perverts and if I don't know what it's like to be fucked they will keep chaseing me till i prefer homosexualism mostly and men are Santa Claus

My culture is heteronormative and I am lesbian girl on girl french porn was all too masculine to have any sexual reality....

Because women actually are really offended by an animal that sticks it's butt at it like a masters kid to slaves

And I am not a queer

Otherwise I think they do it to me because my birth fathers mother was clever to me......she knew to allow me negativity so I have never had drive and ambition that could get me into trouble when I could just be a simpleton.....so to them they just do what my grandmother did

They feel their kids ambition to pay for school with drugs I suppose is just being put in jail for others so they stalk me with I should be sacrificed to them I guess

The pastor......he never works or offers to help with physical stuff to do at meals.........so I think I do have some belief in retributive means.....uhm if he can't stop being manically gross and wanting to see cop fucks an endangered woman then I think he should have to experience what a cop fuck is like before calling them to finish off terrorist victims

Because that's usually what happens to cop callers...if cops feel prank called too much they finally turn on the caller for refusing to leave them alone

[brookston]

Events 1.7

Holidays

Charlie Hebdo Day (France)

Distaff Day (Medieval Europe)

Estelle Reel Day (Wyoming)

Festa del Tricolour (Tricolour Day or Flag Day; Italy)

Flash Gordon Day

Harlem Globetrotter’s Day

Hydrogen Bomb Day

I'm Not Going To Take It Anymore Day

International Programmers' Day

International Silly Walk Day

Invisible Pain Day

Jupiter’s Moons Day

Limestone Day (French Republic)

Millard Fillmore Day

National Alaskan Malamute Day

National Bobblehead Day

National Job Hunting Day

National Nicholas Cage Day

National Old Rock Day

National Pass Gas Day

National Plagiarism Day (Ghana)

National Run-For-Your-Life Day

No Pants Subway Ride Day

Old Rock Day (a.k.a. Roc Day)

Pioneer’s Day (Liberia)

Remembrance Day of the Dead (Armenia)

Tommy Johnson Day

Tumbes Anniversary Day (Peru)

Usokae (Bullfinch Exchange Day; Japan)

Victory from Genocide Day (Cambodia)

World Day of the Postage Stamp

Food & Drink Celebrations

Jinjitsu (Festival of Seven Herbs; Japan)

Nanakusa no Sekku (Festival of Seven Herbs; Japan)

National Tempura Day

1st Sunday in January

Ati-Athan Festival begins (Philippines) [1st Sunday through 3rd Sunday]

Feast of the Holy Family [Sunday after Xmas]

Second Sunday of Christmas [2nd Sunday after Christmas]

Trappist Beer Day [1st Sunday]

Festivals Beginning January 7, 2024

Carnival of Limoux (France) [thru 3.17]

Golden Globe Awards

Independence & Related Days

Bascal (Declared; 2009) [unrecognized]

Constitution Day (Ghana)

Empire of Agber (Declared; 1998) [unrecognized]

Matthew City (Declared; 2016) [unrecognized]

Feast Days

Albert Bierstadt (Artology; Saint)

André Bessette (Canada)

Baptism of the Lord (Christian)

Bl. Widukind, Duke of Saxony (Christian; Saint)

Canute Lavard (Christian; Saint)

Charles of Sezze (Christian; Saint)

Council of the Holy Prophet John the Baptist (Romania)

Distaff Day (a.k.a. Saint Distaff’s Day; Starza Pagan Book of Days)

Easter Day (Sudan)

Feast of Sekhmet (Ancient Egypt)

Felix and Januarius (Christian; Saint)

John the Baptist (Eastern Orthodox Church)

Justicia I: Themis’s Day (Pagan)

Koshogatsu (Shinto Goddess Izanami)

Lucian of Antioch (Christian; Saint)

Merelots (Remembrance Day of the Dead; Armenian Apostolic Church)

Nativity of Christ (Orthodox Christian)

No Knitting Day (Pastafarian)

Numa (Positivist; Saint)

Orthodox Christmas (a.k.a. ...

Bozic (Serbia)

Christmas (Russia, Eastern Europe)

Christmas Remembrance Holiday (Armenia)

Coptic Christmas (Egypt)

Craciunul Pe Stil Vechi (Moldova)

Eastern Christmas (Sudan)

Genna (Ethiopia)

Krishtlindjet Ortodoske (Kosovo)

Leddet (Coptic; Eritrea)

Palestinian Martyrs’ Day

Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret (Artology)

Raymond of Penyafort (Christian; Saint)

Rudder Rabbit (Muppetism)

Russ Meyer Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Say No To Knickers Day (Pastafarian)

Sekhmet (Ancient Egyptian New Year's)

Synaxis of John the Forerunner & Baptist (Coptic)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Fatal Day (Pagan) [2 of 24]

Perilous Day (13th Century England) [5 of 32]

Prime Number Day: 7 [4 of 72]

Shakku (赤口 Japan) [Bad luck all day, except at noon.]

Umu Limnu (Evil Day; Babylonian Calendar; 1 of 60)

Premieres

Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2), by Pink Floyd (Song; 1980)

The Avengers (BBC TV Series; 1961)

Bad Day at Black Rock (Film; 1955)

The B.B. Beagle Show (Hanna-Barbera TV Pilot; 1980)

The Birthday Party (Disney Cartoon; 1931)

Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (Cook Book; 1896)

Building a Building (Disney Cartoon; 1933)

The Butcher of Seville (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1944)

Cannery Woe (WB LT Cartoon; 1961)

Changes, by David Bowie (Song; 1972)

Crossroads of Twilight, by Robert Jordan (Novel; 2003) [Wheel of Time #10]

Empire (TV Series; 2015)

Fame (Film; 1982)

Fred Ott’s Sneeze (Early Short Film; 1894)

Hare-Brained Boris or The Dumb Bunny (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S5, Ep. 246; 1964)

Henry V, by William Shakespeare (Play; 1605)

Homeless Homer (Oscar the Lucky Rabbit Cartoon; 1929)

Hooch Coochie Man, recorded by Muddy Waters (Song; 1954)

The Hustler, by Walter Tevis (Novel; 1959)

The Image of the City, by Kevin Lynch (Science Book; 1960)

Lion Hunt (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1938)

Little Quacker (Tom & Jerry Cartoon; 1950)

The Lone Stranger and Porky (WB LT Cartoon; 1939)

Mckeesport on the Prod or The Pennsylvania Poker (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S5, Ep. 240; 1964)

Mules and Men, by Zora Neale Hurston (Folklore; 1935)

Paranoid, by Black Sabbath (Album; 1971)

The Pelican and the Snipe (Disney Cartoon; 1944)

Pop Team Epic (a.k.a. Poptepipic, Anime TV Series; 2018)

Pretenders, by The Pretenders (Album; 1980)

Robinson Crusoe Isle (Oscar the Lucky Rabbit Cartoon; 1935)

Saturnin, by Zdeněk Jirotka (Novel; 1942)

The Shanty Where Santa Claus Lives (WB MM Cartoon; 1933)

Spitfire Girl, by Jackie Moggridge (memoir; 1957)

The Spirit of ’43 (Disney Cartoon; 1943)

Start Mater, by Gioacchino Rossini (Opera; 1842)

Suddenly Last Summer, by Tennessee Williams (Play; 1958)

Werewolf of the Timberland (Animated TV Show;Jonny Quest #17; 1965)

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist (TV Series; 2020)

Today’s Name Days

Raimund, Valentin (Austria)

Ioan, Ioana, Ivan, Ivanka, Ivayla, Ivaylo, Ivet, Kaloyan, Vanya, Vanyo, Yoan, Yoana, Zhan, Zhana (Bulgaria)

Lucijan, Rajmund, Zorislav (Croatia)

Vilma (Czech Republic)

Knud (Denmark)

Hirvo, Kanut, Nuut, Susi (Estonia)

Aku, August, Aukusti (Finland)

Aldric, Cédric, Raymond (France)

Reinhold, Valentin (Germany)

Gianna, Giannis, Ioanna, Ioannis, Jeannette, John, Prodromos, Yanna, Yannis (Greece)

Attila, Ramóna (Hungary)

Luciano, Raimondo (Italy)

Juliāns, Rota, Zigmārs (Latvia)

Julius, Liucijus, Raudvilė, Rūtenis (Lithuania)

Eldbjørg, Knut (Norway)

Chociesław, Izydor, Julian, Lucjan, Walenty (Poland)

Ioan (Romania)

Bohuslava (Slovakia)

Raimundo (Spain)

August, Augusta (Sweden)

Alda, Aldea, Alden, Aldo, Aldric, Canute, Knut, Knute, Millard, Miller (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 7 of 2024; 359 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 7 of week 1 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Beth (Birch) [Day 13 of 28]

Chinese: Month 12 (Jia-Zi), Day 26 (Geng-Wu)

Chinese Year of the: Rabbit 4721 (until February 10, 2024)

Hebrew: 26 Teveth 5784

Islamic: 25 Jumada II 1445

J Cal: 7 White; Sevenday [7 of 30]

Julian: 25 December 2023

Moon: 17%: Waning Crescent

Positivist: 7 Moses (1st Month) [Numa]

Runic Half Month: Eihwaz or Eoh (Yew Tree) [Day 13 of 15]

Season: Winter (Day 18 of 89)

Zodiac: Capricorn (Day 17 of 31)

[brookstonalmanac]

Holidays 1.7

Holidays

Charlie Hebdo Day (France)

Distaff Day (Medieval Europe)

Estelle Reel Day (Wyoming)

Festa del Tricolour (Tricolour Day or Flag Day; Italy)

Flash Gordon Day

Harlem Globetrotter’s Day

Hydrogen Bomb Day

I'm Not Going To Take It Anymore Day

International Programmers' Day

International Silly Walk Day

Invisible Pain Day

Jupiter’s Moons Day

Limestone Day (French Republic)

Millard Fillmore Day

National Alaskan Malamute Day

National Bobblehead Day

National Job Hunting Day

National Nicholas Cage Day

National Old Rock Day

National Pass Gas Day

National Plagiarism Day (Ghana)

National Run-For-Your-Life Day

No Pants Subway Ride Day

Old Rock Day (a.k.a. Roc Day)

Pioneer’s Day (Liberia)

Remembrance Day of the Dead (Armenia)

Tommy Johnson Day

Tumbes Anniversary Day (Peru)

Usokae (Bullfinch Exchange Day; Japan)

Victory from Genocide Day (Cambodia)

World Day of the Postage Stamp

Food & Drink Celebrations

Jinjitsu (Festival of Seven Herbs; Japan)

Nanakusa no Sekku (Festival of Seven Herbs; Japan)

National Tempura Day

1st Sunday in January

Ati-Athan Festival begins (Philippines) [1st Sunday through 3rd Sunday]

Feast of the Holy Family [Sunday after Xmas]

Second Sunday of Christmas [2nd Sunday after Christmas]

Trappist Beer Day [1st Sunday]

Festivals Beginning January 7, 2024

Carnival of Limoux (France) [thru 3.17]

Golden Globe Awards

Independence & Related Days

Bascal (Declared; 2009) [unrecognized]

Constitution Day (Ghana)

Empire of Agber (Declared; 1998) [unrecognized]

Matthew City (Declared; 2016) [unrecognized]

Feast Days

Albert Bierstadt (Artology; Saint)

André Bessette (Canada)

Baptism of the Lord (Christian)

Bl. Widukind, Duke of Saxony (Christian; Saint)

Canute Lavard (Christian; Saint)

Charles of Sezze (Christian; Saint)

Council of the Holy Prophet John the Baptist (Romania)

Distaff Day (a.k.a. Saint Distaff’s Day; Starza Pagan Book of Days)

Easter Day (Sudan)

Feast of Sekhmet (Ancient Egypt)

Felix and Januarius (Christian; Saint)

John the Baptist (Eastern Orthodox Church)

Justicia I: Themis’s Day (Pagan)

Koshogatsu (Shinto Goddess Izanami)

Lucian of Antioch (Christian; Saint)

Merelots (Remembrance Day of the Dead; Armenian Apostolic Church)

Nativity of Christ (Orthodox Christian)

No Knitting Day (Pastafarian)

Numa (Positivist; Saint)

Orthodox Christmas (a.k.a. ...

Bozic (Serbia)

Christmas (Russia, Eastern Europe)

Christmas Remembrance Holiday (Armenia)

Coptic Christmas (Egypt)

Craciunul Pe Stil Vechi (Moldova)

Eastern Christmas (Sudan)

Genna (Ethiopia)

Krishtlindjet Ortodoske (Kosovo)

Leddet (Coptic; Eritrea)

Palestinian Martyrs’ Day

Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret (Artology)

Raymond of Penyafort (Christian; Saint)

Rudder Rabbit (Muppetism)

Russ Meyer Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Say No To Knickers Day (Pastafarian)

Sekhmet (Ancient Egyptian New Year's)

Synaxis of John the Forerunner & Baptist (Coptic)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Fatal Day (Pagan) [2 of 24]

Perilous Day (13th Century England) [5 of 32]

Prime Number Day: 7 [4 of 72]

Shakku (赤口 Japan) [Bad luck all day, except at noon.]

Umu Limnu (Evil Day; Babylonian Calendar; 1 of 60)

Premieres

Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2), by Pink Floyd (Song; 1980)

The Avengers (BBC TV Series; 1961)

Bad Day at Black Rock (Film; 1955)

The B.B. Beagle Show (Hanna-Barbera TV Pilot; 1980)

The Birthday Party (Disney Cartoon; 1931)

Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (Cook Book; 1896)

Building a Building (Disney Cartoon; 1933)

The Butcher of Seville (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1944)

Cannery Woe (WB LT Cartoon; 1961)

Changes, by David Bowie (Song; 1972)

Crossroads of Twilight, by Robert Jordan (Novel; 2003) [Wheel of Time #10]

Empire (TV Series; 2015)

Fame (Film; 1982)

Fred Ott’s Sneeze (Early Short Film; 1894)

Hare-Brained Boris or The Dumb Bunny (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S5, Ep. 246; 1964)

Henry V, by William Shakespeare (Play; 1605)

Homeless Homer (Oscar the Lucky Rabbit Cartoon; 1929)

Hooch Coochie Man, recorded by Muddy Waters (Song; 1954)

The Hustler, by Walter Tevis (Novel; 1959)

The Image of the City, by Kevin Lynch (Science Book; 1960)

Lion Hunt (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1938)

Little Quacker (Tom & Jerry Cartoon; 1950)

The Lone Stranger and Porky (WB LT Cartoon; 1939)

Mckeesport on the Prod or The Pennsylvania Poker (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S5, Ep. 240; 1964)

Mules and Men, by Zora Neale Hurston (Folklore; 1935)

Paranoid, by Black Sabbath (Album; 1971)

The Pelican and the Snipe (Disney Cartoon; 1944)

Pop Team Epic (a.k.a. Poptepipic, Anime TV Series; 2018)

Pretenders, by The Pretenders (Album; 1980)

Robinson Crusoe Isle (Oscar the Lucky Rabbit Cartoon; 1935)

Saturnin, by Zdeněk Jirotka (Novel; 1942)

The Shanty Where Santa Claus Lives (WB MM Cartoon; 1933)

Spitfire Girl, by Jackie Moggridge (memoir; 1957)

The Spirit of ’43 (Disney Cartoon; 1943)

Start Mater, by Gioacchino Rossini (Opera; 1842)

Suddenly Last Summer, by Tennessee Williams (Play; 1958)

Werewolf of the Timberland (Animated TV Show;Jonny Quest #17; 1965)

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist (TV Series; 2020)

Today’s Name Days

Raimund, Valentin (Austria)

Ioan, Ioana, Ivan, Ivanka, Ivayla, Ivaylo, Ivet, Kaloyan, Vanya, Vanyo, Yoan, Yoana, Zhan, Zhana (Bulgaria)

Lucijan, Rajmund, Zorislav (Croatia)

Vilma (Czech Republic)

Knud (Denmark)

Hirvo, Kanut, Nuut, Susi (Estonia)

Aku, August, Aukusti (Finland)

Aldric, Cédric, Raymond (France)

Reinhold, Valentin (Germany)

Gianna, Giannis, Ioanna, Ioannis, Jeannette, John, Prodromos, Yanna, Yannis (Greece)

Attila, Ramóna (Hungary)

Luciano, Raimondo (Italy)

Juliāns, Rota, Zigmārs (Latvia)

Julius, Liucijus, Raudvilė, Rūtenis (Lithuania)

Eldbjørg, Knut (Norway)

Chociesław, Izydor, Julian, Lucjan, Walenty (Poland)

Ioan (Romania)

Bohuslava (Slovakia)

Raimundo (Spain)

August, Augusta (Sweden)

Alda, Aldea, Alden, Aldo, Aldric, Canute, Knut, Knute, Millard, Miller (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 7 of 2024; 359 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 7 of week 1 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Beth (Birch) [Day 13 of 28]

Chinese: Month 12 (Jia-Zi), Day 26 (Geng-Wu)

Chinese Year of the: Rabbit 4721 (until February 10, 2024)

Hebrew: 26 Teveth 5784

Islamic: 25 Jumada II 1445

J Cal: 7 White; Sevenday [7 of 30]

Julian: 25 December 2023

Moon: 17%: Waning Crescent

Positivist: 7 Moses (1st Month) [Numa]

Runic Half Month: Eihwaz or Eoh (Yew Tree) [Day 13 of 15]

Season: Winter (Day 18 of 89)

Zodiac: Capricorn (Day 17 of 31)

[possessivesuffix]

Taxonomy is just hard in general, in some ways harder than the reconstruction of clear bottom nodes. Serious taxonomic difficulties are all over the place even just in Indo-European. Does Tocharian branch second? Is Italo-Celtic real? Is Greco-Armenian? Indo-Slavic? West Iranic? Insular Celtic?

though phonology also gets much harder, once you go beyond "this is a closely knit dialect continuum" or "we present a reconstruction based on 100 basic vocabulary items"; mainly because etymological validity starts being a major problem. Is it tenable to analyze this unaccounted-for syllable as a suffix? Is this a reasonable semantic shift? Is this a loanword from one branch into another? Whoops this etymon was a loanword from a major contact language, do I now need to also learn Arabic / Fula / Mandarin / Tok Pisin / etc. to be sure there aren't a dozen more of these in my data?

I'd also love to see a review article or database or something of what exactly is the state of reconstruction in various language families. First-pass-done from all main varieties (e.g. Kartvelian), first-pass-done from some varieties (e.g. Dravidian), not done but underway with many partial results known (e.g. Kra-Dai), "done" but not published widely in any form (e.g. North Bougainville), "done" in someone's largely inaccessible thesis from 1973; not done but readily doable from current data, not done and documentation situation unclear, not done and definitely needs more fieldwork, too fragmentedly attested to be ever well-doable…?

my dream job–and i mean “job” loosely, i would do this for no pay–would be reconstructing protolanguages for families that are pretty well established, but who still need somebody to obsessively crawl through their lexicons and grammars to work out the exact sound correspondences

[professorpski]

Vogue Knitting, Winter 2021-2022

The cover features Michelle Obama, interviewed by a 14-year-old reporter (yes, 14), who was one of the many people who turned to making during the pandemic. To keep with the theme of new knitters, Mary Jane Mucklestone offers a technical article for learning how to knit mittens. All the rest of the designs offered are rated Easy, including several pullovers, or Intermediate which is most of the patterns, or Complex.

The natural theme appears in several features, including a section on cables with neutral colors. You see here  Sipapa by Jane Yu is one of them with crossing cables across the front on a drop shoulder pullover in Cascade Yarns Friday Farbor which mixes merino and silk. Its directions take up almost 3 pages, so you can see why it was rated Complex. The Aloba cowl by Monica Christine Maier is made from Brooklyn Tweed Dapple, a mix of wool and cotton, rates an Intermediate for difficulty.

After the neutral colors in cables, we get the sections on bugs (yes, bugs). Malachite in Manos Del Uruguay’s Alegria and Fino, lace-weight yarn, has you covered in bugs created with mini skeins and duplicate stitch and design by Hue Wang Harbich. I’m not sure how many people outside of entomologists are hankering to be covered in beetles, or have an enormous beetle pointing up their torso. I show you the most successful of these 7 designs, one by Jacqueline van Dillen called Atlas which stylizes the beetle motif far more than most of the others. It is a cardigan in brioche stitch done in Plymouth Worsted Merino Superwash. It doesn’t shout BEETLE at you. A murmur at most.

Finally, you see one of the simplest sweater patterns: Bostonia, which is an oversize pullover by Hannah Thiessen done in Woolfolk Flette, a worsted weight wool.

In addition to the product and book columns, a new yarns column, a large gift advertising section (I must admit I always peruse this section with excitement), this issue offers an article by Meg Swanson on Armenian knitting which uses long floats to carry colors and her explanation of the best method she found to trap the long floats. There is knitting fashion news, interviews with makers, a bit on the bugs that eat wool and a piece on cochineal, a natural dye.

You can find it at your local yarn store, newsstand, bookstore, or here: https://www.vogueknitting.com/

[aberrate]

WIP of the blanket i'm working on

[nikabeautyaccesories]

🎯 Արծաթագույն ականջօղեր և բրոշ!!! 👭Հավաքածու բնական քարերով ☺Շտապեք ձեռք բերել, ✉Գրեք կամ ☏Զանգահարեք +374 99 22 66 84 #nikabeautyaccessories #yerevan #երեւան #հայկական #madeinarmenia #sirov #sirun #withlove #nice #armenian #woodworking #արծաթ #silver #forsale #sale #exclusive #knitting #akanjoxer #сережки #earings #collection #հավաքածու #колекция #кирпичный #brosh #կախազարդ (at Yerevan, Armenia) https://www.instagram.com/p/BvrkmC5BL--/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1flw9ota9w4ia

[alecscudder1987]

september 18th, 2023, 10:48:23 A.M.

day one of my september poetry event, #bluepansypoetry! day 1 (cas day!!!!!!) inspired by "french novel," by ritchie hoffman.

transcription under the cut <3

We pile into the car, hands knit cable-stitch over the gearshift, 

well fed on blueberry-honey pancakes and tiny, breathless grins.

This is how real Westerners ride, sweetheart.

He coaxes us into town, only speeds a little 

around the corner at Hayes, the one where

the spraypaint on the trashcans say Fucking Sunshine. He cracks a Yeah, how's it feel, jealous?  and now He can't stop smiling. 

I can see it in His eyes, how

Sunday's heaven now.

Life is bright on him.

He drives me to the little Armenian church next to the hardware store and when we pull around to the tiny lot out back

where the priest parks her 2007 Toyota Corolla (the Godliest of cars), He whispers in my ear

that He loves me! (Hallelujah!) and for once

I don't ask my father for forgiveness

when I put my hand on his thigh and kiss his warm red mouth. My father is bones, and He's all sweetness, an utter gentleman, big calloused hands soft on my jaw, 

Cowboy boots and all, He says, in my ear again, wet and close. 

I thought I might make pilaf tonight. You comin'?

I kiss Him, and He laughs. God,

you hear me?

He laughs.

[bitletsanddrabbles]

New Years Resolution: Spend Less Time On This Hell Site

I'm not going away all together.

I couldn't if I wanted to.

I'm not kidding when I say this place is an addiction.

There are so many really great people, with great ideas, people I have no access to anywhere else, really. Ao3 comments, I suppose, but they don't really have a way to ask questions or brainstorm ideas. Admittedly, I've gotten rather picky about who I follow back (mostly because we all tend to reblog from the same sources and I really only need a picture on my dashboard five times at once), but there are people I count as mutuals even if all we do is chat in comments or the occasional ask or IM. I've learned an amazing amount from you all, things that have helped me in ways you really wouldn't have thought, including getting through the day at my job. If someone could explain why no one on the planet, regardless of where they come from, seems to understand the purpose of a trash can, my life would pretty much be complete. There are people on this site who I can pretty firmly say are the reason I survived 2020 with anything resembling sanity. Or, you know, possibly the reason I survived it at all.

On the other hand, I used to do more. Part of that is the pandemic. Local businesses have shortened their hours, so no matter if it's a work day or a day off, I can't arrange my time the way I used to. Still, it's been at least two years since I finished a scarf for the charity Mum and I knit for. My house, never 'neat' is getting to the point even I can't stand it. I want to get far enough in Duolingo's Spanish course that I'll be on par with a five year old Hispanic kid by the time I reach 90. I want to learn to cook and sew so when the glue holding the fifty near independent small countries we call 'states' together finally disintegrates I can survive the resulting economic crash (assuming of course my state isn't immediately absorbed into Canada. I'd be okay with that one too). On the off chance we somehow dodge economic ruin* I'd like to at least be able to make my clothes fit properly some day, and lord knows they'll never do that off the rack.

And there again, there are the wonderful, delightful people I follow who I wouldn't trade for the world, but who are very fond of talking about politics and not so fond of using a #politics tag so I can filter those posts out before I've read enough to figure out I shouldn't be reading them. This means that it's not infrequent for me to come home after eight hours of dealing with thousands of people from every geometrically improbably corner of the globe, picking up the trash they leave in the carts of dropped on the ground, the ice cream they leave on shelves to go to waste, etc., hop on tumblr in hopes of relaxing and find posts casting broad aspersions on my country, what passes for my culture, my skin colour, and the sex/sexuality/gender identity of half of my family and countless of my coworkers. The things that are supposed to support my 'acceptable status' are inevitably things I don't agree with and find hypocritical at best, borderline fascist at worst. I get frequent reminders that I have the worst education anywhere, but that my ignorance is inexcusable because I could easily fix it if I just shelled out the money to get a PhD in everything, or at least moved into a library and read the entire catalog. That the reason I'm continually hacking through language barriers at work is because I've not bothered using Duolingo to gain fluency in every language on earth, including Chamorro and Armenian. And the reason my country, and in fact the whole world, is still having problems is because people like me just don't care enough to figure out how to solve anything.

In short, I spend entirely too much time thinking of the occasion when my father told me that we're hurting people just by living in the country we live in and being the colour we are, and that all we can do is pray the people we're hurting can forgive us. Funny thing, I'm just as convinced now as I was then that if my existence is a problem the contents of my medicine cabinet will solve things a lot better than praying my unseen victims will forgive me for being born. Maybe even more so.

And I've promised Mum I'd not leave her to take care of my cat if I can help it.

So, in 2022, I am giving myself an hour a day, maximum, to be on this hell site. Preferably less. I will spend the rest of the time reading the million books I've gotten for Christmastide, cooking, knitting, cleaning, writing, researching, petting my cat, and anything else I can come up with that is...well. Not this.

Hopefully my mental health will improve, but the way things are going, we'll get a fourth Covid variant and the anti-maskers will storm the state capitol and force the governor to lift all regulations, so we won't even be allowed to hand out masks at the door anymore, forget being cross when people refuse to wear them because mandate? What mandate?

Still, all I can do is try, right?

* given that when one of our local billionaires proposed an income tax for the top 5%  (himself and, like, three other people) the voters turned it down, I've not much hope there.

[ronweasleyisourking]

Reimagining HP Characters to Piss Joanne Rowling Off Pt. 1

Harry Potter

Punjabi, Armenian, Greek, and Welsh on his dad's side

Irish on his mother's side

Grey ace, biromantic

DADA professor

Still with Ginny bc they are in love 💕💕

Luna and Rolf are his queerplatonic partners

Named his son Arthur Rubeus def not anything else

Dated Cho and Seamus

PTSD

Ron Weasley

Jewish

Trans guy

Bisexual

Was never in the Aurors cause I said so

In a happy marriage with Hermione

Amazing father to his three kids with her

Very long hair

Loves to cook and knit and paint

Dated Lavender, Dean, and Neville

ADHD, Dyslexia, Anxiety, and PTSD

Hermione Granger

Black

Queer

Has two siblings, Cymbeline and Cornelius

Reversed anti-werewolf laws and created protections for all magical creatures while minister of magic

Also banned the use of love potions

In a happy marriage with Ron Weasley

Dated Padma, kissed Luna once

Anxiety and PTSD

Neville Longbottom

Jewish; celebrates Jewish holidays with his mum's family, the Fawleys. Augusta celebrates Yule.

Demiboy (nonbinary)

Bisexual, Demiromantic

In a relationship with Hannah Abbott and Theo Nott

Was never in the Aurors cause I said so

Dated Ron and Luna

Dyspraxia, Dysmorphia, Anxiety, and PTSD

Ginny Weasley

Jewish

Trans girl

Polysexual

With Harry and Luna

Queerplatonic partners with Rolf

Only writes for the Quibbler

Dated Michael Corner, Dean Thomas, and Katie Bell

Depression and PTSD

Luna Lovegood

Granddaughter of Garrick Ollivander

Norwegian

Trans girl

Asexual, Panromantic

With Ginny and Rolf

Queerplatonic partners with Harry

Dated Parvati and Neville, kissed Hermione once

Autism and PTSD

Lavender Brown

Black

Her grandparents were from Haiti

Trans girl

Bisexual

In a relationship with Parvati

Dated Ron

Didn't die

PTSD

Dean Thomas

Black

Raised in Australia for 8 years

Pansexual

In a relationship with Seamus

Dated Ron

PTSD

[leverage-commentary]

Leverage Season 2, Episode 3, The Order 23 Job, Audio Commentary Transcript

Dean: Hi, I'm Dean Devlin, Executive Producer.

John: John Rodgers, Executive Producer.

Chris: Chris Downey, Executive Producer and Writer, and this is: The Order 23 Job.

John: Writer of this episode.

Chris: Yes.

John: That's right, this is number two written, number two aired.

Chris: Yes. Now- yeah this is- we meet our bad guy here, in this scene. His name is Eddie Maranjian, he's played by an actor Melik Malkasian, and Dean, you discovered him.

Dean: Well when we got to Portland, we wanted to see some of the local talent, so we went to an improv group and he was really one of the outstanding performers in the improv group. So when you wrote the part, I saw that it was Armenian; I remembered that I'd seen an Armenian actor and he came in and he just knocked it out of the park.

John: Now this is about affinity crimes this episode. And this- and by the way, this happens- takes place in the fictional town of Bellbridge, Massachusetts, which we chose for episode two. Bellbridge, Mass has become our fictional city in Leverage where just bad things happen. In the season finale it’s actually-

Chris: It's a cesspool of evil.

John: It's a cesspool of evil and corruption and remember we like- we're gonna do an episode where an entire town is corrupt. Well, we've already slandered Bellbridge; might as well get our money's worth. Tell me why you chose an Armenian villain here other than your hatred of all things Armenian.

Chris: Well, you know, we were very influenced by the Bernie Madoff scandal, and one of the things that came out of that was people asking the question: how were these people duped into investing all their money and losing it in a Ponzi scheme? And the original Ponzi scheme was named after Charles Ponzi who was an Italian immigrant in 1920 who preyed on fellow Italian immigrants in a scheme- in a Ponzi scheme; subsequent investors of the scheme pay off the previous investors. And so we wanted to kind of explore - how could people be duped like that? And we kind of decided, well let's do an Armenian bad guy, kind of arbitrary, just to sort of, take a little bit of that-

John: Well it’s the same close knit community, a lot of financial- many people don't know, but a lot of America- a lot of big developments in the Midwest are actually developed by Armenians.

Chris: Yes. Yes.

Dean: Well this episode was directed by Rod Hardy, who in season one directed the terrific episode The 12 Step Job, and he, again, knocked it out. He's an Australian director, friend of our DP Dave Connell who introduced us to him, and he's really become a great friend of the show and part of the extended Leverage family.

John: Now this show, interestingly, really shows off the glory that is Portland. Because we had a court house episode last year, the Juror Number 6 Job, where we built the courtroom on our soundstage in an old aluminium milling plant in the valley in LA. Where they’re probably shooting porn now.

[Laughter]

John: Meanwhile, the lovely city of Portland gave us access to all these government buildings, so we can do long walk and talks down massive government corridors.

Dean: And real courtrooms.

Chris: Many cities have the old federal courthouse- there are great stately federal courthouses built in the early 20th century, the 1920s, and then the new federal courthouse. And the old federal courthouses just kind of sit there, and we saw this when we did a location scout before the season started, and it was in the back of my head when conceiving this episode.

John: This episode was also born of one of the first ideas we put up on the wall of cards. If you listen to first season commentary, you know Chris and I - before we hired the writers - started throwing around- just throwing up cards on a wall of just stuff we always wanted to do on heist shows. And one of the things we were talking about was a great old Mission Impossible episode where they convince a guy that the end of the world has come.

Chris: Yes.

John: They do so through a periscope and some cunningly developed models.

[Laughter]

John: We realized that, probably, modern audiences were too sophisticated for the telescope, but we took the idea of convincing a guy that the apocalypse had come and kinda ran with it a very cool post-modern way.

Chris: I mean, if you look at, sort of, the headlines that were running at the time this was conceived, it was Bernie Madoff and swine flu. And that basically, this episode is the marriage of those two things.

John: So as you can tell, it takes really no training to be a television writer. Just pick two random things from the newspaper and combine them and then you have an episode. 

[Laughter]

John: They're talking about the cupcake, nice, soft federal prison he's going to. Interestingly, right after this, they stopped sending these guys to the prisons. Just because I think the idea that these guys had brought the entire world to the brink of financial ruin meant that they can no longer skate away- Bernie Madoff actually got into his first prison fight a little ago.

Chris: Oh, really?

Dean: In an argument over Wall Street.

John: Yeah, as happens. And how did we pick the Order 23? Where'd Order 23, the title, come from?

Chris: I don't know. I think it was, you know, just kind of a spooky number, I think it was, and we knew this- the con for this one was supposed to be built around sound. 

Dean: And as I was saying earlier, about this episode being directed by Rod Hardy, we are now being joined by-

John: Rod Hardy

Chris: Rod Hardy! Yay!

Rod: My apologies, Hollywood traffic is always tricky.

[Laughter]

John: And he's driving on the wrong side of the road; it's just bad.

Rod: You people drive on the wrong side of the road.

John: I know, you wanna- I'm having my traditional Guinness. Do you want one?

Rod: I'd love one.

John: We will see what we can do. So the gentleman- we've just met our feds and our gentleman- the gentleman playing the two security guards - who are they?

Chris: Yeah, it's Victor Morris playing Deputy Marshal Robert Corville, and Joshua Sawtell is playing Charlie Merrill. Little fact about this show - this show is cast entirely in the city of Portland; these are all Portland actors.

John: Yeah, that's right; we didn't fly anyone up from LA for this one.

Rod: The cast really stood up to the line of anything. I mean Melik in particular- we were very, in one way, keen to find someone locally for a whole bunch of reasons, but he showed a true, sort of, level of performance that I thought worked really well in this episode.

Dean: Absolutely.

John: There's two things in this sequence that are interesting from a writing standpoint - other than the fun of seeing Beth Riesgraf in a ventilation shaft. One: poison in the water is, of course, an homage to You Only Live Twice, the Bond film, and the wire, by the way, is digital.

Chris: Yeah. Well this part is real, but that part is digital.

John: This is digital and the whole drop down. But two: where did the villain speech come from? Who was explaining that?

Chris: Oh, this is kind of the psychology of hedge funds, and it was- I believe it was from a column my dad sent me from the Wall Street Journal. You know how your dad sends you articles and things? And, you know-

John: ‘This would be a good movie.’ Yeah, I get that all the time.

Chris: ‘This would be good.��� I was going through it, and this is be all about why people invest in hedge funds; about the fear that other people make more than them. And fear was kinda the theme of this episode, so it kind of, sort of set it up here.

Rod: And I'm sure you mentioned before, but to me the wonderful thing about this story that brought it into today was that it was the Bernie Madoff story. In a way you want him to be Bernie Madoff.

John: Well the first season was really the Madoff variation.

[All Laugh]

John: First half of the season- because, you know, the show got picked up and were like, ‘Oh, second season - what are we gonna do? We hadn't really thought about it.’ And then the world economic system collapsed and, you know, ready made villains began to fall out of the newspapers.

Rod: Yes. The thing about Malik’s performance that I always found appealing was, when you first did the audition, was the fear in his eyes. You know, underneath all the sort of men with great bravado, there's a wonderful sense of fear. Which I think our bad guys always come to the floor with, which is terrific. Here it is; look at those eyes.

Chris: I love this shot here, too. I love- I just love the way you composed this.

John: Did you digitally fog that or-? 

Rod: No, just put it out of focus. It’s easier; the DP is very good at that sort of stuff.

[All Laugh]

John: Oh, he's gonna be filled with rage. And then we take him- now this is interesting - this is one of the few locations. It really only happens in 2 locations: the courthouse and the hospital. And then we go back to the hospital.

Chris: The whole episode takes place- that was another thing I wanted to do, was do an episode that takes place entirely - not just in one day - but really in about 6 hours.

John: Now it was interesting - this was really the first episode where we started to hammer in on the second season theme, which we realize was the more you are constrained in time and space- because our team at this point is very, very good. People watched the first season; they know how incredibly talented they are. How do you challenge a super team? You have to keep throwing obstacles in their way. And rather than just complications, you kept making the situation more and more constrained. And this is also a great one. Tim really dug in on the whole ‘Oh, so I like hurting people this year.’ He really dug in on it. 

Rod: I gotta tell you, I look at the show now, and I look at the difference between the LA versions and the Portland version - and I love the Portland version. It just feels different, and has a different sense to it, which is great.

John: It feels bigger. 

Dean: And we have such access to such a varying architecture, varying designs. And we can shoot in places we would never be allowed to shoot in Los Angeles, and I think it adds to it.

John: Because of little things like safety regulations and employment laws. Meanwhile in Portland, we’re basically running a giant child labor camp and, yeah, starring the entire city of Portland.

Dean: I love your use of the bullet time here, and going down the hall, and through-

Rod: Well, so, it was your invention. And I just think it’s, unfortunately I do - when I go to work on other productions - never do I enjoy working on other productions better than this one, but I do try to steal that idea occasionally, because it is so clever and so wonderful.

[Laughter]

John: It just keeps the pace up and moving, because to a great- one of the things you do find in a show - it's a lot of people sitting around looking at computers. And in order to stop it- Now where- how did we wind up using sound so much in this? It was the-

Chris: Well the idea of this was, again, we mention it - great Mission Impossible where they convince somebody they were in a submarine or a bomb shelter. And the great thing about that is using sound. This was a con that was built around sound; about the noise in the hallway that was gonna slowly drive this guy insane, and-

Dean: You know, what's interesting about that, is when I saw the rough cut and we only had the temp sounds on it, I liked the episode, but it wasn't, for me, like, a super great episode. Once the sounds came in, it was suddenly, ‘Oh wow, this thing just took a big leap,’ because- well Rod, you had so well directed the actors to the sounds, that without the sounds there, it was like we were missing a character. And when the sounds came in, it was like the other character was in the room.

Rod: I say these days, sound to me brings in at least 70% of a movie. It's quite extraordinary. Where 20 years ago it was less than 50, now it's up above cause it creates the whole sense of where you are.

John: By the way, the speech that nurses don't wear the tight little white uniforms anymore, is actually a speech Beth gave up that we just wound up putting in the show.

[All Laugh]

Dean: Yeah.

John: Nice try guys. And this is one of the perfect examples of the bickering brother relationship. This really is the proto episode for that.

Rod: It’s that Lethal Weapon stuff which is great.

Chris: In my mind, they share an apartment with bunk beds and NFL [unintelligible.]

[All Laugh]

Chris: That's how I write it.

John: In your head, that's how they- they've been adopted by Mr. Drummond. Are they like the Different Strokes kids? Is that your theory?

Dean: I love this bit.

John: I also love the weirdly, and if we can talk about the actors for a moment, I love the weirdly disaffected face Beth always puts on when she's about to do physical harm to someone. Yeah, it really- if you ever notice in the ventilation shaft, she has poisoned someone and she is giggling; she is giggly. And in here, she's just kind of got these dead eyes when she's, ‘Oh, time to go give a man a skin rash to convince him he's dying.’ It’s another Thursday afternoon for Parker.

Dean: And these guys you got to play the cops are terrific. 

Rod: They worked out really well, didn't they? I did notice the priest in the background there. I really wanted to work on- the first episode, I wanted to have a priest or a nun in everything, and unfortunately, I couldn't find the right place, but in the hospital it was great.

Chris: There’s another great bullet time.

Dean: Yeah, that was a really great one.

John: This also was another thing we did a lot first season, where we really became part of the pattern this year, which is to split them up in twos and threes. Is to- you know, last year, if you look, a lot of times they kind of fold over and cross in each other’s stories a lot. Well this year, in order to give each character a little room to breathe, we really started building- not really B stories, but physically- simultaneously, but physically separated.

Dean: But this part right here is a very interesting deviation from what we normally do, and it worked really well, which- normally the heart and soul of our show is the victim and their story, but here it switches to a new victim that we’re introducing here. It was quite the surprise, I thought, and became a very emotional part of the story.

John: Well that's cause the victim was in Act 0 in this episode. I mean, you start in the courtroom, which is very difficult to get the emotional hit of a lot of our other episodes.

Chris: Well, one of the things I think that- it kinda-

John: Wait a minute, Rod’s afraid to pop a beer.

Rod: It's never a good time for this. Is it now? [Opens beer.]

John: It is- it is traditional on all of our commentaries to usually hear me opening that, so it's good to hear you taking that over for me.

Chris: I was gonna say that one of the things we have typically in the con, is that one of the members of the team gets, sort of, over invested in the con. That's- we've done that as a sort of a source of comedy, but in this case it's kinda like Eliot sorta becomes- he becomes a cop in a sense. You know?

John: Yeah.

Chris: So I mean, like, it's when they wear the costume - sometimes one of them actually, sort of, becomes that costume.

John: And it's also interesting to see how fans react to any sort of storyline like this, where they just assume you're trying to reveal something about the character’s past or some sort of subtle hints that we’re laying in. It’s like no, Eliot doesn't like guys who beat up kids. It's not- I mean there's plainly other stuff going on that Christian chose in order to base his acting around...

Dean: This was the episode, though, where we all suddenly watched the dailies and said, ‘Christian’s really taking it up a whole other level this year’. And then he did. Because it was this episode, and then Tap Out, he took the character that he had built in season 1 that we had liked and were familiar with, and he added these real interesting layers to it that just, I thought, really elevated it.

John: Ah, the [in a Boston accent] Revere Claw there you go. That is Gina doing the great Route 1. I’ll tell you exactly from where Route 1 she’s up on - she's just past Mike Clarke’s Comedy Club up on Route 1, with the dealerships. That hair right there, is the [in a Boston accent] Revere Claw named after Revere, Massachusetts, to establish a certain socioeconomic and strata one might say, except it's actually in Revere. At least when I was growing up, it’s teased out so finely it’s only 5 or 6 hairs; it's really insane - it's like a fish’s krill mask.

Rod: I would love to see- I'd like to see a reel at some stage of all these characters cut together from each of the characters. Put on one of these DVDs, cause it would be such fun to see the journey you take them on; it’s fabulous.

John: Well the fans do that. That's part of the fun of watching the YouTube fan videos.

Rod: Well done fans.

John: It’s watching like, ‘Oh, I'd forgotten how cool that moment was.’ Yeah, because we're gonna make any of these by hopefully the end of the run. Even at this point, we’re 20 hours in and it’s- there’s gonna be moments you forget.

Rod: You know, the tricky thing about this episode also was, and I know it happens a lot in the series, but for me, you'd shoot a scene like such we’re watching now, but at the same time you have to get that security, sort of, version of it. so it was always- Dean’s always makes what he shows - it was always that much more difficult; there's so much to be done, which is just interesting.

Chris: There’s a lot of layers. Well an interesting thing that made me think, looking at Melik here was, and I - and this I gotta say to Rod - we, in day one of this shoot, I think, Dave went on day one and day 2, Melik had to go from arrogant to literally- I mean, on the verge of insanity. And I mean, maybe Rod, talk about how you had to get him there over the course of the first two days of this shoot. I mean, that’s a lot.

Rod: I used an old director’s tool, which was basically, ‘you'll never work again if this doesn't work.’

[All Laugh]

John: Ah. [In an Australian accent/mimicking Rod] ‘Now the way I want you to have fear here, is to be actually afraid of the fact that we're gonna fire you.’ That’s really- use the sense memory of unemployment.

Rod: That’s right. That's all true. My god, I have the same fears every time I work. You know, what's interesting here was, Day 1 he had to go from the beginning to the very end of the thing, so for an actor to- by the way, who has done the terrific things in his time, but nothing as quickly as we make this show. So I might say all power to him for being able to keep it going right to the end of the day. But it made that first day of our shoot really a tricky one, and one of the hardest of the whole shoot in a way, because he had- you know, you can shoot this stuff very quickly, but it's not just about shoots, it's about keeping the performances alive and real on the same level, and he was able to do that. But you know what? The way I was able to talk to him about it, a good thing was, he listened.

Chris: Yeah.

Rod: He just listened, and that was really helpful. We do this together. I mean, that's what the journey is - you do it together.

John: Now there's- we breeze past the speech where Tim is explaining to Beth Riesgraf- or, pardon me, Nate is explaining to Parker how they're gonna do this. How they're gonna basically hypnotize this guy. How they're gonna drive him to the edge. And we’d- you know, you'd done a fair bit of research and we'd just started reading Jonah Lehrer which is a lot of neuroscience, and we got a really nice email, actually, from a neuroscientist which was like, ‘Hey, you know what? Usually I call bullshit on television, but pretty good theory; that would actually work.’

Chris: Yeah. I felt pretty good about that. We got really interested in neuroscience in this beginning of season 2.

John: Well especially Apollo Robbins, who was our consultant who had actually lectured at the big neuroscience convention, you know, as they were starting to understand that magicians and illusionists have a very basic understanding of how the mind and eye track objects and understand things and perceive things, that neuroscientists can only do through experimentation. So there's this weird, cool melding now of the two fields. And yeah, we got totally sucked into it, but that's the great thing about writing.

Chris: Yeah.

John: Anything you think is cool, you can use. Yeah, you're right - Chris has an awful lot to do here because he's got to also sell this ‘don't call anyone,’ and he really does. He really digs in on it.

Dean: Yeah, I'll tell you, when I started watching this on the dailies I was saying to myself, ‘Chris is digging deeper this year’. And speaking of that, we also just went through Gina's scene - Gina, who showed up this season 2 pregnant; had to deal with going through pregnancy-

John: None of us knew that, by the way, none of us had anything to do with that. Just put that out there.

[Laughter]

Dean: But, you know, going through-

Rod: DNA test results are coming, by the way.

Dean: But going through that for the first time, and yet she then also stepped up and brought her characters to a whole other level, and all the characters she created this year were phenomenal. And this one, we'd never seen her do anything like this, maybe a little hint of this in the season finale last year- no I'm sorry in Homecoming, the airport scene.

Chris: It's the first time we've had her do, what I would call a ‘low status’ character. Generally she plays very high status professionals and, you know, it was just interesting. Oh yeah, here- 

Dean: This is a great scene.

Chris: This is our ER scene.

John: This is actually- I actually- yes, you'll notice no one's running, which is a big complaint all ER nurses have; which is people always run in the scenes. I actually got food poisoning in college and this happened next to me. I remember us talking about this, yeah, the whole flatlining and shadows, it's a very-

Rod: You know what Chris? This is one of the hardest scenes I've done for a very long time, because it's all about perception. You know, the audience has to know one thing, but the character - who we have to really feel his fears is there thinking something else, and it was-

Chris: And then I love the way you frame this shot, just- You know, just him peeking out a little bit of the gauze and, kind of, now getting his POV.

John: It's very- this is a hard episode, very few spend this much time with the bad guy.

Rod: But you know what? I know I picked this episode up, and read it, and I could hear people saying, ‘this is the easy one; there's only two locations.’

[All Laugh]

John: This is one of the- that look she just gave is great. This is one of the times you have to remind Beth that Parker’s not as good of an actress as she is. It’s like, ‘that was perfect and Parker wouldn't be that good, but good!’ Now he's losing his mind. This- and by the way, this is- we've established in thief 101, each one has skills, and this was two fold: one, we love the fact there is a grabber claw-

Chris: Well that was- I have to give Apollo credit for that. I mean, we kinda ran this one by him and he literally sent me a picture of the grabber claw; there was a link on where you could buy it - he really supplied the whole thing.

John: Oh, well that's a lot of the tech people figure is unbelievable on the show. I remember they called last year about the credit card scanner on Beth’s thigh, and they said it was unbelievable. I said, ‘I have two on my desk. You want me to send you one?’ But the other one we needed to establish is - Hardison, can’t pick pockets. You know, each one has very specific uses, and even through the rest of the season, if you watch the DVDs, you can always see Gina or Beth does the lift - always. And it's always a handoff to Hardison or Kane. You know, it's- pardon me to Aldis and Kane. I'm only one Guiness in. I can’t -

[All Laugh]

John: I'm a lightweight. I have to go back to last year doing the commentaries. Get my levels back up. See last year we did these while we were shooting them and I drink while we shoot; that's my policy.

Rod: Now this is- What about this policeman with a ponytail? For god's sake. Truly, what is this?

[Laughter & Cross Talk]

Chris: The fun train is roaring down the tracks! 

Rod: Now this kid was just terrific.

John: Yeah, this kid was great.

Rod: We will see something of this boy again. No lines. Watch his eyes; he's got such an awareness.

Chris: Now what was it like casting? I mean, did you just-? Because I wasn't there when you cast him. Did you just immediately see this and-?

Rod: I think John was there.

John: Yeah, the kid just stood out. Very, very good.

Rod: He just came out. He was just there were people that just do or don't, and this kid had a real sense of it, which was just great.

Chris: And here we have all the sounds.

Dean: I love how you moved into that super close up where it’s almost fisheye; that's just great.

Rod: The good thing about our cast is you can get to those close ups and things are going on in their minds. All the time, there's something going on in their minds.

John: Well that's the tricky bit, where you have to see the performances up, because it’s a con or heist show, so at no point have they gone and talked to the suspect, and they're hanging out for coffee. The tension is always there in every scene. The con has started - particularly in this one, we’re up and running from moment one.

Chris: Tim, here, really loved a lot of the neuroscience stuff and he improved the almond tonsils. Which I guess is the term for the amygdala - the fear center of the brain.

John: And that's also where we get into Sophie's bizarre relationship with cruelty. I don't even want to start- I don't even want to go into what that started on the web.

Dean: But it did set in motion an arc for Tim, which is that he's going into a strange darker place now that he's sober, and we played that out for the whole rest of the season.

John: The whole idea is that he can never not be addicted to something, and if it's not gonna be booze- Well, and that's the idea, the first half of the season, he's really replaced booze with control and that feeling of superiority, that feeling of righteousness. So when he then starts drinking again, he actually has a factor that wasn't in the first season. And as a result, he's a thousand times worse in the second half of the season than he was all last season. Yeah, because now he’s not just a drunk, he’s a righteous prick who's a drunk.

Dean: By the way, we also breezed by the setup of using Star Trek as a warning device. That is absolutely- what was the origin of that idea?

Chris: That came out in the room. I can’t- did you pitch that?

John: No, it was a room pitch that somebody came up with it.

Chris: I wish I could remember. This is Steve Coker, who is more of a comedic actor, and I think this was, you know, one of his first, kind of, real dramatic roles as the abusive dad.

Dean: Terrific in the part.

John: Yeah, good job. And also the way- I liked the way this ends. Yeah, you fully believe he’s gonna throw him off. I like the way that this ends, which is you have to leave town. That was another thing we kinda hit this year a couple times, which is, you know, each one of these people is beginning to realize that the way they live their life - they've left wreckage, and they've blown out of towns, and they've gone on their lives.

Dean: That's a great shot.

Chris: Look at his feet off the ground.

Rod: Hitchcock! It’s Hitchcock.

John: Don't tell them where you steal from! And also, this is another thing which is - we call up a mini speech of evil here, which is each time the villain explains why he's not a bad guy in his own head. Because nobody's a bad guy in their own head. So this guy smacks his kid around, he probably got smacked around by his dad. He turned out ok; what's the big deal? And like he says eventually, you know, Eliot's gonna blow town.

Chris: And the other thing here was, he talked about how he would get out of jail in 5 minutes. It sets up, kinda, the power. You know, even a small story like this, there are power dynamics that you don't expect.

Dean: Right there - just that little reaction that Christian does, it showed a vulnerability that he never showed last year. That was really interesting. That- I'm not sure how you got that out of him, but it started a very good trend.

John: And also, the sort of realizing he has to choose a different resolution path here. Like he can’t- he would just kill that dude. Like 5 years ago? He would just break that dude’s leg. I joked later that-

Dean: Well it's almost as though his heart started working again. 

John: Yeah, and it's bothering him.

Rod: That's a good line; I like it.

Chris: That's another great shot. I mean, now he's really-

John: Okay, this guy. 

Dean: Where did you find this guy?

Chris: Talk about this guy. Talk about this casting session.

John: When we were auditioning- When you become a Hollywood producer and it’s like then there's gonna be a casting couch and a casting room where you get to get people naked, and I'm sitting there with Rod and the skinny guys were coming in and Rod goes, ‘I'm very sorry could you take your shirt off?’ And I was like, ‘this is not the people taking their shirt off I thought it would be.’

Rod: You were gonna have to have-

John: And he had these poor bastards like shitless and scrubbing themselves in terror in the middle of the-

Dean: This guy was awesome.

John: By the way, that is a- I am going to claim, because it was so eerily similar, that that was a visual reference to the great George Romero movie The Crazies. Because if it isn't an homage to The Crazies? It should be.

[Laughter]

John: That- the whole hazmat suit and-

Chris: That’s real rain folks. We got a- we don't have to pay for atmosphere in Portland; that's real rain.

Dean: Now those hardcore Electric Entertainment fans out there, if you remember the show we did, Blank Slate, this was one of the first times we stole music from Blank Slate and put it into an episode.

[Laughter]

John: Use all the parts of a buffalo in cable television.

Dean: We believe in recycling.

Chris: Now this was-

Dean: I love this scene.

Chris: I love this too. I love the way you composed this shot, Rod. Talk about that.

Rod: And let me tell you, we’re in the kitchen of a disused hospital that was suddenly becoming a mortuary. So it was a real challenge all around, and the art department did a nice job of putting that together. And we’re turning the supposedly the simple good cop into, now, the bad guy, which was a lot of fun.

John: I also love- I believe it was in the room- well what would be in a murderer's trunk? and I whipped out the five things, and you were like, ‘that was way too fast.’ That-

[All Laugh]

John: ‘We’re gonna go out and look in your trunk right now.’ No and the- this is one of the times- cause again, we have to play with the conventions of the show in the second season, he doesn't have the earpiece in. And who’s in communication, who’s not in communication often begins to be the things they hinge around. This is- a lot of stuff happens in this one.

Chris: It sure does.

John: We drive the guy crazy, we kidnap a security guard.

Dean: And there's an assassin that he has to deal with.

John: Turns out this is an assassin, there's an abused kid. The hell's going on?

Chris: For how many minutes? 40?

John: 42:30?

Dean: That's a nice act out?

Rod: But it's a simple little show to do in seven days.

[Laughter]

Dean: By the way, great fight scene.

John: Lemme ask, if this is a kitchen- 

Dean: Where do those come from?

Rod: We built those. Everything was put in; we kept sort of two or three of the walls and put in those.

Dean: The drawers.

Rod: The drawers. Yeah, only two of the drawers would open, but that’s okay; 

John: That’s all you need.

Rod: That’s all you need for this show.

John: This is a particularly brutal fight scene. I love the fact that he's like, ‘wrong day’. Yeah, slamming people’s hands in drawers, I think I took that from Queen & Country script. 

Dean: But it's just so great. He's in such a bad mood over this kid. He couldn't kill the other guy; this guy he can take out.

John: And then the spinning the bowl thing.

Dean: I love the Jackie Chan reference.

John: It’s very Jackie Chan. I'm fairly sure it’s from the one where he's a cook, I can’t remember the- Who Am I?- no it’s not Who Am I?, it’s a different one.

Chris: Rod, I think you said we need to put a body on this gurney here to throw him on. I think originally mine said empty gurney and you said let’s put a body on there.

Rod: If there's a fight in a mortuary, there's gotta be a dead body somewhere.

[Laughter]

Dean: And then throwing him on top of the body is just awesome.

Chris: Here it is on top of the body.

John: You know this like, nice person, has passed away after years of peacefully dedicated-

Chris: Oh, they were a terrible person.

John: We only dump our guys on terrible people.

Rod: Come back to the man screaming.

John: This one really ramps up.

Dean: Look at that. He went for it, he really went for it.

John: Is that the 10 millimeter that gives you the-?

Rod: Yeah it is, and a lot of actors, who were much more experienced than him, wouldn't have gone as far as he did, which is one of the reasons I knew he'd be right.

Chris: But I'm saying that credit to you, because I remember you getting there and you were like ‘man there’s- there's spiders on you!’ I mean, you really just brought him to the brink.

John: And then he threw the spiders on him.

Rod: Exactly the way I felt waking up in my hotel room you guys put me in. I understood his fear.

[Laughter]

John: His fear of dirt.

Dean: I love the whole fact that his nose is bleeding just off the suggestion-

John: Yeah, I've seen in hypnosis, boils have been raised, blisters. That's absolutely possible.

Dean: Tim was terrific in this part, too.

John: Tim loves- all actors love a death scene. Even if it's a fake death scene.

Rod: That's a good fall.

John: That's a good fall. Yeah, he's absolutely out of his mind at that point. 

[Laughter]

John: Handcuffed, people dying around him.

Dean: Look at the feet! The feet are what makes that shot so good.

John: Wait, was that a dummy or did we actually have a stuntie?

Rod: No, they were actual rubber feet.

John: And then getting yelled at.

Dean: Wrath of Khan.

John: Wrath of Khan, yeah. We actually went through on the day. It’s like, ‘now is the rule that the good ones are the alarm or the bad ones?’ We went back and forth for a while. I know it's the- it’s one of the little geek cred things you have to watch. Once you establish a character like Hardison is a geek - you can never let it go. Because I hate, as an actual geek, watching television and they've got some 1988 version of what a computer nerd looks like. You know, and that's so- he has to know his Doctor Who and he has to know his Star Trek pretty well.

Chris: This was like a change from the first draft to the second draft, I think. In the first draft- because I just had Nate die, it was like well, we’ve already seen Sophie die, so what's worse? 

John: That’s a repeated beat.

Chris: What's worse is that he's just being locked-

Dean: To die.

Chris: To die with this guy.

John: We've also built up - the army's coming. This is The Crazies, we’re doing The Crazies.

Rod: What other show do you get this kind of madness? For god's sake, it’s just-

Dean: In our writers room.

John: It's a very tiny writers room, with a lot of booze and heat, and it really creates this. Yeah, I just realized that this is The Crazies; this is now the army is coming to destroy- now actually, by the time you're hearing this, The Crazies the remake is already out, so you probably know exactly what I’m talking about. But there's a great, horrifying- an old George Romero movie from the 70s-

Dean: I love Tim’s switch right there. And done.

John: ‘And, I’m up.’

Dean: And this guy was great.

John: It’s kinda parallax feel, too. It's a very 1970s paranoid vibe to the whole thing. And look,  there's that walk again; that look when the emotions she's supposed to have as a human are gone. And what the hell? The hell’s going on?

Dean: And another great bullet time. And the head coming out.

Chris: The great thing is it gives you a sense of geography. You know, like, where he's coming.

John: Well, we actually talk about something in the show called the heist head. The hardest thing about writing cons in a heist is the geography; you have to understand the geography. It's like writing bedroom farce; it's all based on going in and out certain doors at certain times.

Rod: By the way, shows with two locations like we had, make it more difficult to shoot in a way; you gotta keep the audience aware of where they are, but at the same time make it more interesting. 

John: Absolutely. And that's the big challenge is resetting the geography so the audience doesn't have to stop and think, ‘wait, where are they?’ Because at that point, whatever emotional response is gone.

Chris: Now here- this is the scene I talked about; how this scene affected the shooting-

John: Yeah.

Chris: Afterwards.

John: By the way, these cops, I believe, he beats up in the season finale.

[All Laugh]

Dean: Christian really dug in for this scene, you know, and -

Rod: But it's what makes this show worth it. That these guys can go through all the Robin Hood stuff, but they get into that emotional line and that's what makes it really, to me, a fun thing to watch.

John: It's also fun, because if you know Chris Kane and you see kids around him, Chris basically- kids basically treat Chris like Batman. So seeing him interact with a kid in this way, is very much the way Chris actually talks to kids in real life. You know, he's very honest with them, he's very direct, and it's a very real scene; it's a better scene than I've seen in shows that this for real-

Chris: Yeah.

Dean: But there's a turn he makes here, which is really interesting. He starts off, like, really confident that he's just gonna solve this and talk to the kid, and when he realizes his impotence in this scene, it, again, his heart comes to the surface, which is something we hadn't really seen before with this character.

Chris: It's true. And his impotence comes out when Hardison touches him, I mean, you see his reaction then.

Dean: He's not used to not being able to handle something.

John: But this is a better version of this scene than I've seen in shows, like hospital shows, where you're supposed to be with the big orchestral moment. And yeah, this is a believable, great bit of acting by two very good actors. That kid is great. He actually didn’t have braces; we actually screwed those braces on him.

Chris: And right here, and I love this shot, too; him scared in the frame by the two of them. 

Rod: He's arm was broken, but we had to break it for the show.

John: Again, the great thing about shooting in Portland. You know, tax credits, but Oregon really looks the other way, I find. 

Chris: Now, and just in terms of the ending, there was another that was written that was more a traditional ending, where the team’s together and pays the victim the money. And after we saw the scene shot, I remember I talked with Rod the next day. You know what? That's the emotional high point of the show. Let's just- let's end it on closing that story and that's the end of the episode.

John: Yeah, I mean, that's to a great degree; a tough one on this, is that the B story kind of takes over most of it. But you never know that. You never know that until you see the performances; til you see the cut.

Chris: This is a great turn back for him, back to evil.

John: Back to- and he's evil again. He’s- you know, you can't keep a good evil man down.

Chris: Now Rod, please tell us- this is an amazing shot.

[Laughter]

Rod: This all came out of nowhere, with 20 minutes to shoot it and, I might say, the genius of our DP David Connell, added with my genius, and a long lens. Because you can create many things. 

Chris: It's a movie shot; that is a movie shot right there.

John: Also, this is the- I think this it’s referenced later, but it's unclear, this is the bad guy. This is the assassin’s car; that’s why there’s actually keys there, because they have set this up for him in order to- And did we shoot that with the suction cup mount while driving?

Rod: Yes.

Dean: And I love the jump cutting in there that just puts you on edge with him. This is a beautiful shot right there.

Chris: Oh and he really fell.

Rod: This guy threw himself into it so much .

John: Now there was also- and again this is super, super intimate. So he has hidden the money back from his trial back in this courthouse, right? And we make a point of the fact that there's, and she's learned to fight this year, too, which I love. And there's another episode where you show that Eliot has actually been teaching her how to fight. The fact that this place has not been refurbished is because this is a very low budget town, which is in a lot of financial trouble. And that's actually- in the-, although the scene that was cut, explained how he got the gun into the courtroom, because they had not refurbished the metal detectors. That's actually a plot point in the season finale that all the security that was supposed to go to the town was stolen.

Chris: Oh that's right, you’re right.

John: Yeah no, no I totally did that intentionally.

Dean: It's explained at the end of the things.

John: If you watch the season finale and this episode they actually- Bellbridge has a continuity.

Rod: This bit I love. When they let him go, I think is just so terrific.

Chris: And this is an iconic shot in the show, Rod. I mean, they- we used this shot of them-

Dean: A lot in trailers.

Rod: Is that right? Good.

John: And they know he's screwed. Look at the face like, ‘yes, yes your infinite raging, yes; and do exactly what we predicted.’

Rod: Fell and slipped again.

Dean: That shot right there.

John: And they all make a nice choice; each one of them looks at Nate in a different way. This is- and I love, by the way, that who on earth would think would work? ‘I'm in my underwear; I'm running around in the street; I've escaped from the police; who will believe me?’ Yeah, this is a very Twilight Zone, this a very William Shatner look out the window: ‘he's right there!’

Dean: It is, yeah.

John: It's all local actors for the cops.

Rod: Everybody in this show.

John: Yeah there was no one from LA, holy smokes.

Dean: It just goes to show what talent depth there is in Portland. We had no idea. Originally we thought we were gonna be bringing up 4 to 5 people per episode and we really averaged one.

John: And they bounced him hard off that. 

Rod: This show would be the only one you didn’t bring anybody into. 

Chris: Yes. 

John: But the other ones we only did really one role an episode.

Chris: I like the way you did this, too; how you came off his back and around tells the whole story. And then-

Dean: And then transition; terrific.

John: It’s like you thought about this. Like you spent hours preparing.

Rod: It’s like it was planned.

[Laughter]

John: Ahh gimmick security footage. Where would we be without gimmick security footage? Leverage relies on the fact that this is a surveillance society. And this is- we use this a couple times - the guy looking out the cop car window. It’s sort of that William Shatner looking at the thing in the window, that's exactly what it is

Dean: Well it's the rule we have in the show; it’s not enough-

John: This is Dean’s big rule.

Dean: Yeah, my big rule is the villain can't just lose, he must suffer.

Rod: Right. Yeah, yeah.

Dean: He must suffer, otherwise it's not good enough.

John: He’s humiliated.

Chris: And also the gloat; you want the gloat.

Dean: The gloat, you want the gloat. Now where is this-? This scene seems very you, the lawyer-

John: Oh, he totally wrote this. Every now and then on the law stuff, he digs in.

Chris: Well I was trying to marry the notions of the law and neuroscience, and I'm not sure it was entirely successful here.

Rod: Well can I just make a comment? I’m not sure if I understood what it meant.

[All Laugh]

John: He still directed the hell out of it.

Chris: It was about the nature of intent, really, in a crime and that’s-

Rod: I think we may have shot this about midnight or one am and I said to you, ‘what does this actually mean?’

John: It’s Latin, just keep moving.

Chris: It’s Latin, yeah, exactly.

John: And Parker has the money. This is actually- this is a character that Chris does on a regular basis when he plays roles. When he has Eliot doing the role, it's always an ‘aw shucks I'm just here to help you’ guy. He very rarely intentionally frightens people. You know it's a very interesting choice that is, ‘yeah I'm just your pal; this is all good news; we’re all- we just all wanna go home’. So this is- only two drawers worked, this one and which one?

Rod: That's it, the other side.

John: The other side.

Dean: I love this. I love that he smacks him. 

John: Yeah.

[All Laugh]

John: ‘We all saw that.’

Dean: I love their relationship.

John: Yeah, because, you know, he’s gotta make sure that as annoying as Hardison is, he's not gonna get hurt.

Chris: And the other thing that's not important here is another kinda late addition in the script, was we wanted to- you know they manipulate the US Marshals here, but we wanted them to have a win. We wanted to give them something, so that it’s not- they're not just chumps.

John: It's very tricky, in the room we talk about, when we manipulate innocent people, they should be rewarded.

Chris: Especially law enforcement.

John: Especially law enforcement. Because you know he's not- he didn't do a bad thing, you know. And in the end, he's a good Marshal and he's gonna bring the guy in. So, you know, we always wanna make sure they always fall on the side of angels. And it's not always easy. They leave wreckage behind, yeah, and this was also nice - the moment he gets the favor out of him.

Chris: Yeah, he owes him.

Dean: And what's nice is that he comes up with it as it's happening, as opposed to having this planned out. You see it really, like, you see the idea just enter his brain.

John: And there.

Chris: That's a great acting moment.

John: Now originally, by the way, Chris, you had the- I would like to note, the drivers license of the evil father found with the assassins car so that the-

Chris: I think I did. 

John: The evil father not only lost custody of the kid, but went down as an accessory for assassination and murder.

Chris: I think I did have that, that might've been- I think that was too far.

John: Your original payoff was a bit more ruthless. But he's great, by the way, that's Victor. He's great in that scene. Cause look, he’s warm with the kid and then he basically puts on the cop eyes, and it's like ‘do not even try. Do not even try’. Yeah, it's a great performance.

Chris: And then here this last bit was the- was what we added as the- as the new ending. Which was, we wanna make sure that the audience knows this kid is gonna be safe.

Dean: And I think the first time we ever ended on the show on Christian.

John: Yeah. I would like to know the first time we saw this, the lights came up and I said, ‘oh he's going in there to kill that dad.’

[All Laugh]

John: It's just like, ‘oh man he's going in there, he's gonna choke him into unconsciousness, shove a pretzel down his trachea, and make it look like an accident and let him choke to death on the floor. Ahhh, kid’s out of the way.’

Rod: This stuff happens at the end because you allow the story to unfold. And we talked about it as we were shooting, but you guys allow it to unfold, so it has a natural sort of tempo. I really liked it.

Dean: Well thank you, again, for being on the show season 1, 12 Step, my favorite episode. You killed it again with this. And thank you so much for being here.

Rod: I'm gonna be there for seasons 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11.

John: God bless - that’s 6 more than I'll be there for.

Dean: From your mouth to our accountants’ ears.

Rod: It was fun.

Dean: Thank you.

Chris: Thanks a lot.

John: Thanks a lot.