#as if it wanted to embrace the horror of its conceit but at the same time couldn't bear to be too cruel

[variousqueerthings]

I feel bad, because the man who laughs was a fascinating movie in which conrad veidt did absolutely beautifully, with a performance that went well beyond the stratosphere of silent film excellence at the time

but also I am going to go back and save every instance of someone calling for the dog in that film, because the dog is called "homo" and I did a juvenile little chortle every time I saw it in the titles

[nikrei]

September Comics Round-Up

Did not make my schedule of one year per week but also 1967 had 17 titles to read so I think that's okay.

Action Comics (336-371) (1966-1969)

The superman understanding of the ancient Greek pantheon/mythos is the messiest bullshit i have ever seen. 1! Never acknowledges that wonderwoman exists! 2! Completely mixes up greek and Roman names for gods. 3! Sooo many randos get upgraded to gods usually Achilles but most notably just now: prometheus???

Superman (183-213) (1966-1969)

Okay one of the oddest conceits that they like to have superman do is, when he needs an emergency Clark Kent double, he finds a random amnesia patient about the same size gets them to dress up as him, and then afterwards cures their amnesia, which almost always wiped out their memories of portraying Clark Kent (i don't think it works that way??) Where is he finding all these people just wandering around?

Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen (91-117) (1966-1969)

Whelp, it's more Jimmy, nothing really new to say.

Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane (63-89) (1966-1969)

They are getting a bit more modern and experimental with Lois's fashion and hair and I'm really enjoying it. On the other hand I had to read, with my very own eyes, and editor letter response that said "everyone knows women can't keep a secret" in answer to why Jarvis gets to know Bruce's identity but Lois can't know Clark's.

World's Finest Comics (156-182) (1966-1969)

I think WF is #1 for number of "imaginary tales" but I particularly liked the one where the Kent's adopted Bruce after his parents death. Jimmy and Dick's friendship continues to delight.

Superboy (127-153) (1966-1969)

I love Insect-Queen Lana more than anything else going on in this run, lana's love of bugs and whole-hearted embrace of the weird body horror transformations adds such an interesting facet to her character I love her. Also it is extremely funny of them to deage ma and pa by editorial order via an alien tv director deaging them to please his possible sponsers.

Adventure Comics (342-376) (1966-1969)

This is starting to get a little bit plotty almost! I'm enjoying it a lot. I'm also enjoying that we are starting to get character building moments out of uniform. The Ghost of Ferro Lad story about had me in tears! However! Save me from anti-feminism sixties story that is supposed to be happening a thousand years from now.

Aquaman (26-43) (1966-1969)

Garth nickname collection: Little Sardine, Sardine, Tadpole, Little Minnow, Minnow. Orm has shown up! I'm really liking him actually his unknowing uncleness to aquababy is v cute and fun. Speaking of aquababy I am expecting him to die any day now I am constantly surprised that he's still alive.

Green Lantern (43-58) (1966-1968)

Loving the artist team on this honestly, everyone is so fluid and expressive, and Hal's waist is snatched all the time. The split into two bodies issue really made me fall in love with plain old Hal Jordan, he's just so good even/especially when he is just a guy. Also, I love it when Hal uses the invisible power lantern as a weapon.

Justice League of America (34-60) (1965-1968)

Same old justice league stuff. Issue 57 is one of the worst things I've read in a while and I'm so not surprised that it hasn't been collected in any trades (judging by its lack of digital colors)

The Brave and the Bold (58-81) (1965-1969)

1967 is truly a guessing game of "which flavor of racist will we be today?" Will we be anti-indigenous? Anti-asian? Anti-black (no, no then we'd have to admit black people exist, better scratch that and make it "anti-robot") I'm so tired they think they're being so progressive with these storylines about "look at how well this culture is assimilating! The mystic old ways of their people are at once the enemy and something to be revered. From a distance tho. Wouldn't want to get too close." Its not just a Brave and the Bold problem but a bunch of it just happened in a row in that title so this is where I'm complaining.

Doom Patrol (94-121) (1965-1968)

Okay I knew it would happen but i still cried when they died... literally took me two pages to go from "la-di-da" to tears damn..... Rita my darling I'll miss you!!! I can't believe that we don't get a reaction comic for Gar and Steve tho.... just bam, they're dead, it's over. People in the sixties u've really let me down by letting it end this way.... more people should have written in.

Hawkman (12-27) (1966-1968)

This continues to be really good! Despite being extremely 60s-brained they try as hard as possible to show katar and shayera as equals in everything they do, its not katar saving her every time (tho he does a lot of the time it is still 60s brained) recommended if you are interested in the hawks and thanagar!

House of Mystery (156-173) (1966-1968)

Dial H for Hero is a v fun little set up, and I am sort of obsessed with Robbie's little catchphrase/ exclamation "sockamagee!" They gave me one (1) issue where his friend who is a girl finds out his identity and gets to try out the dial herself, only to them have her bungle everything and lose her memory of it because she's "just a girl" I hate it here (the 60s). J'onn J'onzz continues in the backups and continues to boot be what i expect. He's investigating crimes now but he is also committing identity fraud to do it (impersonating a millionaire that he saw die)

Metamorpho (1-17) (1965-1968)

Rex <3 Sapphire forever i love them! They really go overboard on the 60s slang in this title to the point where I am really not sure that anyone actually talked like that. The way smaller titles bend over backwards to pretend superman doesn't exist for their plots to work is honestly a little endearing. Rex literally hanging out with the guy in JLA, but noooo aliens are mysterious and uncommon, and the president is Definitely gonna call Rex Mason about them. Not a huge fan of the love triangle introduced, and it gets down right bizarre at the end with a bit of a cliffhanger, but overall worth a read if you are into Metamorpho!

Teen Titans (1-13) (1966-1968)

Rereading because the titans are my darlings. I especially love the little bits at the start of the issue where they are just kids hanging out.

The Spectre (1-10) (1967-1969)

I really love Neal Adam's art it's got a really delicate touch and dramatic shading, and he does figures really well. Also a shout out to Jerry Grandenetti/Murphy Anderson for some truly inspired panel layouts and lettering stuff, you don't get a lot of this back in the 60s. They decided to tell an entirely different sort of story for the last two issues and it is not a neat transition tbh.

Showcase (73-80) (1968-1969)

Some fun character intros for the creeper, hawk and dove, bat lash (surprise fave, what a guy), and dolphin, and some other guys too.

Anywho, that's that for September! Here's how my spreadsheet is looking:

As u can see I have given in and decided to go back and pick up The Atom, so I have that to look forward to in October!

[trashbunnywrites]

A light in the dark

Kento nanami x reader Angst

Spoilers if you squint

Part of collaboration with @suna-reversed

One light shines in the drive

One single sign that our house is alive

Our house, our own

So why do I live there alone?

His life was a pattern that he followed all too well. Going to work , grabbing his lunch , working again , and going to sleep. Everything he did was mundane and uninteresting. He didn’t care about what type of work he did as long as it paid well. Waking up everyday and dragging himself up with heavy feet.

He was a shell of his old self, merely a ghost who wanders around waiting for death to approach. He asked himself why he’s even trying over and over. The answer was the same, “because I am yet to die”.

Nothing chipped away at his life force like returning to an empty home day by day. Pieces of him crumbled and disappeared, just like his will to live. His body moved robotically as he went inside. Taking off his shoes , his suits , jumping in the shower , having dinner , and going to sleep. The cycle never ended.

Tell me why I wait through the night

Why do I leave on the light?

You know, I know

Our house was a home long ago

It feels like yesterday, yet centuries ago. Another curse showed itself and people were in danger. What makes that the fourth this week ? The higher ups didn't care or do anything about the increases in grade 2 and higher curses besides giving orders and punishments in the shadows.

Swiftly calculating the ratio and defeating the smaller curses was an easy feat, and the grade 1 curse has yet to show itself. Walking deeper into the abandoned mental asylum he vowed in his head. He will leave jujutsu tech and it’s teaching behind once he graduates. Everything about being a shaman was a joke.

Feeling a powerful presence behind him, he took his weapon out and was prepared to strike. The disfigured curse held something, or someone to be accurate in one hand. It dangled what appeared to be a girl in her uniform in front of him mockingly.

The vein in his forehead was ready to burst open. He didn’t need an added complication in his way. The curse was prepared to swallow the girl, but he was faster. Cutting off its tentacle for an arm was an easy feat, exorcising it while avoiding the civilian was anything but that.

As he was about to finish up, he heard a scream. If she has energy to scream this loud, then she’s not hurt. The curse was startled by the loud noise and attacking the girl giving him a chance to strike the finishing blow.

“How did you do that ?”

A shaky question reached his ears. He felt himself straighten in interest, is she able to see them as well ?

Take this chance 'cause it may be our last

To be free, to let go of the past

And to try to be husband and wife

To let love never die or to just live our life

“Are you sure it’s not too expensive? I know it’s close to my university but I feel like it costs too much !”

Looking at the source of the voice, his lips tugged up slightly as he fought a smile. The rent is on the higher side in this area, but he won’t let it get in their way. It took them half a year to find this place and who knows when they’ll find a good one like it again.

“Working hard should solve this issue”

His stoic response made her pout, he chuckled and grabbed her close to him. As their lips connected, her arms wrapped around him so lovingly. Their body heat increases, as he kisses her harder. Just when he felt himself about to lose control, he pulled away panting.

“I don’t want to postpone it anymore, don’t you want to live together ?”

Her beautiful eyes sparkled at him at the thought, the blush from their kiss still adored her face. He tried to get himself away from her embrace, looking into her eyes so full of love makes him lose himself in them. He was happy.

Take this chance 'cause it may be our last

To be free, to let go of the past

And to try to be husband and wife

To let love never die or to just live our life

“Please Nanami ! It’s too much and eating at your health”

Her pleading voice irritated him, can’t she see he’s doing this for them ? How else would he be able to afford living in such a place while she studies ?

“Do you have any suggestions that won’t put us in the street ?”

His harsh tone made her flinch. as soon as the tears gathered in her eyes, he raised his hand. “It seams you still have some maturing to do. If you think you can go on acting like this, I’ll have to say you’re an idiot”

“But you love me the way I am, right ?”

The stern look he gave her made the heavy lump in her throat burn even more. She wants to work and help, yet he refuses. Moving might be a hassle, but it’s better than him working himself to the bones. He disagrees on that too.

“Why are we even together then ?”

Her question was full of anguished and it shocked him. Her face was full of tears as she ran off. Few seconds after he watched her leave the door, he came to his senses. However, he was a few seconds too late.

Take my hand and let me take your heart

Keep it far from what keeps us apart

Let us start with a light in the dark

The scream of his student as the domain shattered woke him from his daze. Looking in shock at him as he landed smoothly. The patches face curse face turned into horror. Yes, the proud and conceited king of curses won’t forgive an insult like that.

His fist clenched so hard it drew blood. Proud and condescending ? Isn’t that exactly what he was when he drove her away ? Refusing to change places or accept her help was his downfall.

The anger and self hatred surfaced. Observing the bleeding curse in front of him, his rage exploded. He knew it was his fault, but he denied. Living everyday waiting for her to return or for death to take him first, before gojo approached him.

His kicks and punches landed hard on his target, everything he saved in the depth of him decided to come out at once. He can’t let that curse live, he can’t handle losing another bright soul.

The image of her looking back to him as she was about to leave flashed. Another wave of emotion swept over him. All of those memories were like an oil to the fire inside him. Why didn’t he stop her when she looked back ?

Night falls, I stare at the walls I stare at these walls

I wake and wander the halls

I get lost in these halls And I ache to the bone

It's like nothing I've known

I can't get through this alone I can't get through this alone

The shining stone was brightnest than anything he had seen. The second brightest after his beloved eyes of course. It glistened even more on her finger. Those doe like eyes looking at the shine and smiling every time took his breath away.

“It’s a cheap replica, do you like it that much ?”

He asked with an eyebrow raised. It was a colored glass stone and barely worth much. Why is she so happy with it when she deserves diamonds ?

“It reminds me of your eyes ! It gives me a warm feeling, like you’re always by my side as long as I’m wearing it”

Her cheerful happy tone felt him with nothing by adoration. Grabbing her to sit in his lap as they watched the movie was an instinct. The blush covering her face was adorable as usual. He could feel her heart beating from her back, or was it his heart ?

“He’s getting away ‘”

The angry tone of yuji snapped him back to reality, right those times are nothing but memories. The dark hole in his chest expanded as he started chasing after his target.

Take this chance and we'll make a new start

Somewhere far from what keeps us apart

And I swear that somewhere in the night

There's a light

A light in the dark

Chaos was everywhere, everyone on their side were injured including him. He could feel the eyes of his student looking at him. He smiled, Some say “nothing brings you serenity and clarity than staring in the face of death.”

Taglist: @absolute-flaming-trash

[dracoyoflam]

HDTH Chapter 8: Running And Hogwarts

They walked onward through the morning with no unexpected problems halting their progress – only Draco’s injury gave them cause to pause and rest. The sun shone brighter through the trees, the breeze rustling the leaves and making dancing patterns on the forest floor. “Hermione, we need to stop and rest for a minute, my ankle is killing me.” Draco gasped as he breathed through the pain.

Hermione stopped and sat down on a fallen branch from a nearby tree. “Alright, but we can't stay here long if you want to be in bed at Hogwarts before tonight.” Draco walked up and slumped down next to Hermione on the fallen branch. A flash of pain shot through his skull like an axe had fallen upon it. “Hermione... Argg!” “Draco! Are you ok? What's wrong?” She grabbed his hand not knowing what else to do. Suddenly the pain stopped, he sat there for a moment with the sweat running down his face. “Draco are you alright?” she asked as he shook in the aftershocks. He turned slowly to face her, as grey eyes met amber there was a moment of understanding. He quickly pulled her toward his body, pressing his lips to hers in a rapid, bruising kiss; then he slowed into a more adoring, gentle embrace, with their lips barely brushing against each other – sending little shocks of magic through both their bodies. They moved closer to each other, and the hand that Draco didn’t have around Hermione’s shoulders met with her upper thigh. They angled their heads for a better alignment of their lips and the kiss slowly deepened to allow their tongues to tentatively duel. Suddenly, rustling bushes and trees in the distance interrupted them; the crackling of leaves rubbing against each other was followed by a very loud squealing sound from the same area. “What in Merlin’s name was that?” Draco asked, breaking the kiss – his eyes wide as the squealing became louder and closer to them. Hermione stood up, leaving him on the fallen tree branch. “I don't know,” she answered, “but I think our stop is over. It's probably a good idea to start running, now.” Yet another loud squealing came through the trees. Draco, with adrenaline flowing through him stood up quickly, suddenly able to ignore the pain as his flight-or-fight reflexes took over. “Yeah, good idea, let's go.” They started running (though, in Draco’s case, hobbling) as fast as they could through the thick forest. They stopped abruptly when they came to a small open space, trees stood around it like prison bars. “Which way Hermione?” He looked at her desperately, hoping she knew what to do next. She set her wand on the palm of her hand and spoke clearly, “Point me!” The wand spun to point North. “Ok, let's go. Follow me Draco!” She held her hand out with the wand in front of herself, her other hand gripping his and practically dragging him as they continued to run and limp as fast as they possibly could through dense forest. Finally, the trees gradually thinned out into a few sparse saplings in a clearing. They were panting for breath, holding the stitches in their sides and calming down. It seemed like forever-and-a-day before they finally stood still. Panting hard Hermione looked at Draco and tried to speak but between gasping breaths it was mostly nonsense and broken sentences. “We... lost... whatever... was… squeal” They tried to listen for any more movement in the distance above the pounding of their hearts, rushing blood and heavy breathing; hearing nothing but the natural rustling of branches in the wind, they sat down in the grass to catch their breath. Hermione lay back, and turned her head to look at Draco, who’d done the same. “Like I said, I think we lost whatever it was that was back there.” He laughed, “Thanks for clarifying, I didn't understand what you were talking about just a minute ago.” He sighed, “So, are we getting close to being at Hogwarts yet?” After the rush of adrenaline had abated, the pain in his ankle returned tenfold, he gritted his teeth through the sudden throbbing; it had worsened with their flight. Hermione sat back up and looked around them. She smiled with a huge grin before standing. “What is it Hermione?” he groaned, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. “Well, it looks like we're almost there. In fact, if I'm right, which I should be, Hogwarts is just a little bit past these trees, that was the forbidden forest we just dashed through. I think we should keep walking.” She suddenly transformed back into the bossy know-it-all everyone recognized, “Now, if you walk with me, we will be there just before dark, like I said this morning.” Draco smirked at her as he stood up. “Yep, you're so smart, but I'm faster, even with a bad ankle. I'll race you to the Great Hall!” “Don’t be stupid! You’ll end up doing more damage that way! I said walk with me!” she huffed, one hand on her hip and the other wagging a finger in his face. With a huff of acquiescence from Draco and a face of triumph from Hermione, they both set off walking; Draco trying to walk faster to prove to the witch that he could; he gave up the idea after yet another tongue lashing from the witch after she saw him wince. Within half an hour, they were finally stepping over the Hogwarts threshold. -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- They walked side by side through the doors of the Great Hall and came to an immediate halt. What was supposed to be a big room with four long tables and house banners was a mass of shattered windows, torn flags and splintered wood. The enchanted ceiling was a mere view of dull oak beams. They turned to each other in great horror and shock. “Draco, this is awful! I wonder what happened!? Do you think any students arrived after what happened with the train?” she gasped. “Well, I haven’t seen anybody yet and I don’t hear anyone.” He mumbled. Hermione turned and ran out of the Great Hall and up the stairs as fast as she could. She was heading to the Gryffindor common room with Draco behind her, trying to breathe through the pain of running on his injured ankle after her. They got to the door supposedly hidden by the Fat Lady; the frame was broken and thrown to the ground, the fat lady nowhere to be seen. Draco motioned towards the open door of the common room. Hermione walked in front of Draco, through the portrait hole and into the Common room; tears rolled down her face. The formerly comfortable furniture was a mass of rags, stuffing and charred wood; carpets and rugs were in shreds. The walls had obvious spell burn marks on them. The little tables and desks people had used for their homework were piles of grey ash and charcoal. The room was ice cold without a fire in the grate or people bustling around. She started walking up the stairs to the girl’s dormitory. It looked like the room had been subjected to a tornado. Beds were on their sides, the drapery torn and tangled; the small fireplace in the centre of the room had been dragged from its chimney, and thrown into one corner; the wooden floor was charred and scratched and the window was missing, blown out from its frame by the force of whatever had ransacked the room. ‘I’ll be better off in the common room tonight.’ Hermione thought numbly. The room that had been her home for a fair portion of six years was unrecognizable. She pulled herself together and ran a cleaning spell over her body before transfiguring her T-shirt into pajamas and removing her jeans, shoes, socks and bra. She searched the room for a quilt that hadn’t been ruined beyond repair, shrunk it with her wand and tucked it into the waistband of her pajamas. Looking into the next dormitory, she found one bed that could be repaired; its curtains were a lost cause. With several spells, the bed was as good as new – its mattress was a mass of tangled springs and stuffing and she discarded it; the bed was shrunk so it would sit in the palm of her hand. Further searching found a mattress, which also became a miniature. Sheets were impossible to locate among the shreds of cloth; and most pillows were piles of feathers and limp cotton bags, one had survived destruction, and this too was shrunk down. Returning to the common room, Hermione set about clearing a space near the fireplace before returning the furniture to its original size, and arranging the quilt over the bare mattress. She duplicated the pillow for comfort. She looked over in the corner and saw a dark figure in the shadows; she froze in fear for a moment before pointing her wand at the figure, before she realized it was Draco grinning at her. “What do you want?!” she yelled in anger and embarrassment at her moment of fear. “Calm down Hermione, it’s just me!” he chuckled. Draco stepped out of the corner and into the small bit of light in the room. He had a tiny smile on his lips and Hermione immediately noticed that he didn’t have a shirt on; that his jeans were now soft, grey cotton pajama trousers. His muscled torso was in clear sight. ‘Wow’ she thought as he walked closer to her. “What Hermione, never seen anybody as good looking as me?” he said, flexing his arms and posing. Draco smirked at her and laughed to himself at his own humor. Hermione, who was starting to get used to his conceited jokes, decided to play along. “Oh yeah Draco, I’ve never seen anyone better looking than you in my entire life.” She spoke with complete sarcasm, though she knew that what she was saying held more than a hint of truth. He turned to flex his back muscles, and she wondered for a moment what it would be like to hold him, hug him, to press her fingers into those shoulders… She blushed slightly as she realized what she was thinking, her breath hitched and Draco noticed the little gasp and her flushed appearance. He stalked over to the bed, like a big cat ready to pounce on its prey. Hermione sat down, and stared up at him waiting to see what he would do. Draco bent over and she leaned up; their lips met for a moment and then they pulled away to check each other’s reaction… … They had both liked it.

[ncfan-1]

ncfan listens to The Magnus Archives: S4 EP121, ‘Far Away’

And we’re back with Season 4! The first episode was not what I expected in some respects, but in retrospect, I suppose I probably should have been expecting Jonny Sims to cover this as quickly as possible after the opening. Namely, what exactly it means to be entangled with the Powers—a very relevant concern for Jonathan Sims, who is currently only still alive because he is so badly entangled with one of those Powers. We have the return of one of the themes that has been recurring and central to the show ever since we found out that normal humans can become agents and avatars for the Powers, presented from a new perspective, and we have an interesting moment from Georgie. Onwards to my rambling thoughts!

- I was hoping we’d hear from Oliver (alias ‘Antonio Blake,’ the statement giver of MAG 11 ‘Dreamer,’ and whose presence is all but outright stated in ‘Hive’ and strongly implied in ‘Grifter’s Bone’) again, since his experiences seemed like a rather unique insight into the way the supernatural works here. I’m a little sad he’s been corrupted into becoming as inhuman as he seems to be (he’s only superficially human, now), but that is how the story goes, isn’t it? The more exposure you have to the Powers, the more you interact with them, the more you get wrapped up in the world of the supernatural, the less human you become. Another parallel/potential foil for Jon.

- And I could tell, judging from the sheer amount of interference on the tape recorder when he came in, that there was something seriously up with Oliver. Him being one of the undead, perhaps similar to Justin Gough or the gamesters, was interesting.

Related to that, though, is Oliver still associated with the End? Because he makes mention of spiders in his head, and the strands that held him in England, kept him from leaving, that he wouldn’t look at, seemed more reminiscent of the Web than the tentacles Oliver sees that are associated with the End. Because it sounds like there was a bit of a tug of war between the End and the Web for control of Oliver Banks, and to me, it’s not entirely clear as to whether he was fully claimed by one of them, or if he still has them both fighting over him.

The Web seems like a force in the world that would have the ability to stick its feelers into a lot of different situations. Beyond arachnophobia being a pretty common phobia, there are a lot of situations you can find yourself in where the fear of losing control, the need to keep control, or the fear that someone might exert control over you and abuse it. Children in abusive situations, either at home or at school or church or elsewhere—hell, it doesn’t necessarily have to be abusive; I suspect a child with overly strict and controlling parents would, even without abuse entering into the picture, be a potential target for the Web. (And no, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most of the child statements—statements where the statement giver was a child when all hell was breaking loose—we have involve the Web, somehow.) Toxic work situations that involve an abusive, controlling boss, and you can’t easily get away from that job to find another. And if you yourself happen to be a person who needs a lot of control in your life, that might get the attention of the Web, too. If I had to guess at which of the Powers has the most victims, currently, I would guess it’s the Web.

- It is possible that Oliver escaped the End’s grasp by embracing the Web, instead. Last season, we saw Julia Montork describe finally being able to shake the influence of the Dark by embracing the Hunt. This may be an issue for Jon. He was initially marked by the Web, and seems to have escaped being claimed by it by rushing into the arms of the Beholding, instead, but he’s just as terrified of the Beholding, and even if he’s much freer about using the powers it grants him than Gertrude was, he doesn’t want it, doesn’t want to be claimed by it, doesn’t want to be anything but a human being. He’s an addict—the way he gets the shakes whenever he goes too long without a statement has all the hallmarks of withdrawal, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Jon took up smoking again during his conversation with Jurgen Leitner, just after he was first made aware of what was happening to him—but he doesn’t actually want it. So what’s a man to do?

Make choices, as it happens. And in this world, nothing is for free.

- Oliver’s story provides a good example of how things inevitably deteriorate when you’re too deeply entangled with the Powers. I can’t remember who said it, but someone on Tumblr said that the Powers run on nightmare logic, and I’m inclined to agree. If you’re someone who is more fed upon than feeding, if you’re who gives a Power satisfaction more by being something it feeds on than something that spreads fear of it to others, then your life is a living nightmare, now and forever (Not that I think the people who feed it constantly, the way Jude Perry is implied to, are having a uniformly wonderful time, either; the adoration must be mingled with fear—but that’s a topic for another post). You never reach the point where things are as bad as they’ll ever get, and can’t get any worse; it can always get worse, and it will get worse if it drags on long enough. And there is no escape. Case in point: Oliver.

It used to be that Oliver only saw the veins/tentacles when he was dreaming, but eventually—and I actually predicted this back in my recap of ‘Grifter’s Bone’—it started to get to where he could see them when he was awake. Perhaps the terror of seeing people’s deaths predicted in his dreams was starting to grow a bit stale, and the End felt the need to pick up momentum again, escalate things so that it could juice Oliver’s fear a bit more efficiently.

And it worked; the fear certainly wasn’t stale anymore. Oliver was desperate to escape seeing the veins in his waking life, and he went to great lengths to try to find a place where there were fewer people dying—only to find that, once out in the country, he could see the future deaths of animals, as well. The more afraid he became, the stronger his foresight became. The more he desired to escape it, the greater the lengths he would go to to escape. The more he tried to escape, the more deeply entangled he became. And the more deeply entangled with the End (and, it seems, the Web) Oliver Banks became, the more divorced from humanity he became, the more inhuman he became, until he was willing to steal a dead man’s identity to get a good night’s sleep, until he was completely willing to doom a ship full of innocent people to make it all stop.

- My favorite background music cue from S1 is back; I’m happy.

- “Under all that awful fear, it felt like… home.” This is what it means to be an Avatar. To be as terrified as you are fascinated, and as fascinated as you are terrified.

- Point Nemo is potentially a convergence point for a few different Powers. The great, terrible creature Oliver sees swimming deep under the water may be the Vast creature Antonia Hayley saw in ‘High Pressure,’ and water stretching on forever, the sky stretching on forever, is classic Vast territory. At the same time, this point of the open ocean, so far from land that the satellites in orbit overhead are closer than the nearest human settlements, is definitely something I associate with the Lonely—and until mention was made of Captain Maccabee, I swear to you I thought the ship was going to turn out to be the Tundra. And of course, I imagine the End must have at least a low-level presence everywhere on the planet, because everywhere on this planet there is, if only on a bacterial level, things that can die.

Point Nemo can’t be the only convergence point on the planet, and I wonder about those others. Are they places where the veil between our plane of reality and the plane the Powers inhabit are a bit thinner? Do the convergence points themselves act as interstices, places where reality is more fluid than in other areas? Or is it something else?

- Georgie immediately twigging to there being something very wrong with Oliver was an interesting moment, because they have both been marked—and, arguably, claimed—by the End, though only one of them actually actively serves any Power. Is it a moment of like recognizing like? I am, at least, half-convinced that when Georgie says that Oliver reminds her of someone, she was referring to the corpse woman she talked about back in Season Three.

- There’s an interesting moment where Oliver refers to the End and the Web as ‘he’ and ‘she’ respectively. I wonder if this is a personal conceit of his, or if he started assigning genders to different Powers after specific experiences.

- Oliver tells Jon that, like him, he has a choice. He’s no longer human enough for the End to claim him—he’s already long since crossed that line—but he’s too human to survive as he is now. As far as Oliver is concerned, the horrors of Jon’s new life will tear him apart if he doesn’t shed his humanity. Jon is at a transition point, and it’s very uncomfortable to be at that transition point, to be inhuman, and yet still human.

- And at the very end, Jon takes his first unaided breath in roughly six months, and the tape recorder goes haywire… which does not signal good things.

As Oliver said, Jon has to make a choice, has to choose, one or the other. And as I said, in this world, nothing is for free. Nothing comes without a price.

I’m not sure what Jon has done, if he’s finally firmly chosen the Beholding, or if he found some other, equally damning way to come out of the coma. What I don’t think is that he’ll wake up being instantly as inhuman as Elias had become by the time we met him. It doesn’t make sense for his character for him to go directly to that place after where we last left him in S3. Just remember, the very last thing we listened to Jon do before going off to stop the Unknowing was burn Gerry’s page. However difficult it was for him, he managed it, managed to take this stand against being fully subsumed into the Beholding and becoming fully inhuman, and that means something.

But I do think he had to barter another piece of his soul away to wake up—nothing without a price. And I think he’ll be struggling even harder against the tide, when he comes back. He might, perhaps, be not unlike Beric Dondarrion from A Song of Ice and Fire, who was brought back to life so many times, and was less himself every time.

- I have a speculation that may be blown completely out of the water come next week. As I mentioned earlier this episode, there’s roughly six months between the last episode and this one. What I suspect is that we’re starting out Season 4 in medias res, and that the teaser that was dropped probably takes place, chronologically, not long before this episode. That teaser did have an air of mid-season terror to it.

[thesinglesjukebox]

BILLIE EILISH - WHEN I WAS OLDER

[6.75]

You're still young enough to GET OFF MY LAWN, BILLIE.

Tim de Reuse: Lovely, whispered vocals, delivering a vague breakup narrative that can't decide what kind of imagery it's going for; a tender and atmospheric start that leads into an overwrought climax; a tune with no real central conceit and no sense of overarching direction, drifting around from pleasant moment to pleasant moment until it decides to end. [5]

Katherine St Asaph: The pace of pop in 2019 is so overcharged that someone like Billie Eilish releases what seems like 50 songs per month in 30 different styles. But it's truly remarkable what percentage of those 50 are more interesting than anything her peers are doing. "When I Was Older" sounds simultaneously like a murder ballad and a futuristic slasher soundtrack. The menace is just the slightest bit Sucker Punch (which came out when she was NINE), but it's also palpable. I can't imagine the amount of restraint it took not to blow the whole track up, "Yellow Flicker Beat"-style. I also feel like her answer to that would be along the lines of "Amount of restraint? Fucking whatever, grandma." [8]

Ian Mathers: With this being the fourth song I've heard from Eilish that's both great and in (broadly speaking) the same register, I've confirmed I don't really need any bangers from her. The increased digital distortion here marries well with her usual, unusually young in life doom and gloom. Personally I could do with a whole album of variations on this theme, at this point. [8]

Edward Okulicz: Eilish is clearly in a period of great productivity if she can toss a single this good out on a soundtrack at a time when you'd expect her to be stashing it for her yet-to-appear debut album. There's something very video game about the production, with the layered vocals capturing attention despite in places having almost no accompaniment also bringing to mind Imogen Heap. It certainly doesn't bring the hooks but it's a beautifully tense and smartly produced bit of moody pop. The minimalism means that I can blast this on repeat for an hour and barely notice it's restarted at any point. [9]

Thomas Inskeep: Yeah, Billie, you're 17; "When I Was Older" isn't exactly something I'm coming to you for experience on, especially when you've Auto-Tuned your voice to hell. If there's such a thing as twee electropop, this is it. [2]

Iris Xie: To me, this song is an exploration of pleasant oblivions, of a fantasy where you creep into a warm embrace and you never need to return to your old life. It's an escape, but not so far removed from the realities that you face. The intro and the instrumental have a dreamy music box start, with low, slow hums. The reverb and exhalations make me feel like I'm underwater, panicking, and then realizing that I can breathe underwater and start exploring the depths. When the snare drums kick in, the dynamics get even headier and it makes you want to crawl to somewhere, anywhere, in a hazy but edgy atmosphere. A lullaby for horrors, where danger is not elaborated on but hinted at. [7]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: More often than not, Billie Eilish's singles prove how a mishandling of restraint can lead to the most dreadfully tedious work. Not so with "When I Was Older" -- Eilish's brother and producer FINNEAS builds tension here in a manner that's wisely gradual. At a certain point, all the compounding production quirks amass into a colossal, inescapable vortex of sound. When Eilish's voice starts to stutter, it sounds as if she's held captive by the instrumentation. As she reflects on a collapsed relationship, the song embodies how lingering on such thoughts can subtly balloon into torturous yearning. Eilish can thus declare the titular line because she already knows her fate: one where she's thrown overboard, left drowning in a sea of unattainable futures. [6]

Alfred Soto: Whether "When I Was Older" deserves obsessiveness on the playback mechanism of your choice depends on your concentration and your tolerance for furtive electronic twitches. Stick with it, though, and its tonal and lyrical twitches fascinate. Singing as if from the bottom of a sea of glimmering pixels, Billie Ellish takes feminist tropes from Virginia Woolf and Björk to PJ Harvey to wreck notions of subject and object: she's submerged in one verse, watching this film in another. Inspired by Roma, she said. I'd say it surpasses Roma in ambition and deed. [9]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[dfroza]

people fight their wars, vying for control of earth

but earth belongs to its Creator who has promised to right every wrong done here. Love will cleanse all the evil that exists, wiping it clean.

this will be A grand end of time when life begins Anew

and so in the meantime we have the inspiration of the Spirit here with us to illuminate through the Body of the Lord, the Church, the Bride (A great mystery unveiled)

and we have the Scriptures to guide, to reveal the sacred Heart of our heavenly Father and of the Son.

Paul has written of this in his letters, continuing with Today’s reading from the New Testament in the Letter of 1st Timothy:

If any of you aspires to be an overseer in the church; you have set your heart toward a noble ambition, for the word is true! Yet an elder needs to be one who is without blame before others.

He should be one whose heart is for his wife alone and not another woman. He should be recognized as one who is sensible, and well-behaved, and living a disciplined life. He should be a “spiritual shepherd” who has the gift of teaching, and is known for his hospitality.

He cannot be a drunkard, or someone who lashes out at others, or argumentative, or someone who simply craves more money, but instead, recognized by his gentleness.

His heart should be set on guiding his household with wisdom and dignity; bringing up his children to worship with devotion and purity. For if he’s unable to properly lead his own household well, how could he properly lead God’s household?

He should not be a new disciple who would be vulnerable to living in the clouds of conceit and fall into pride, making him easy prey for Satan. He should be respected by those who are unbelievers, having a beautiful testimony among them so that he will not fall into the traps of Satan and be disgraced.

And in the same way the deacons must be those who are pure and true to their word, not addicted to wine, or with greedy eyes on the contributions. Instead, they must faithfully embrace the mysteries of faith while keeping a clean conscience. And each of them must be found trustworthy according to these standards before they are given the responsibility to minister as servant-leaders without blame.

And the women also who serve the church should be dignified, faithful in all things, having their thoughts set on truth, and not known as those who gossip.

A deacon’s heart must be toward his wife alone, leading his children and household with excellence. For those who serve in this way will obtain an honorable reputation for themselves and a greater right to speak boldly in the faith that comes from Jesus Christ!

I’m writing all this with the expectation of seeing you soon. But if I’m delayed in coming, you’ll already have these instructions on how to conduct the affairs of the church of the living God, his very household and the supporting pillar and firm foundation of the truth.

For the mystery of righteousness is beyond all question!

He was revealed as a human being,

and as our great High Priest in the Spirit!

Angels gazed upon him as a man

and the glorious message of his kingly rulership

is being preached to the nations!

Many have believed in him

and he has been taken back to heaven,

and has ascended into the place of exalted glory

in the heavenly realm.

Yes, great is this mystery of righteousness!

The Letter of 1st Timothy, Chapter 3 (The Passion Translation)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the 29th chapter of the book of Jeremiah that shares a letter he wrote that both instructs the people and warns against the spread of lies:

The prophet Jeremiah wrote a letter from Jerusalem to the elders, priests, prophets, and all the rest who had been taken to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. (This was after King Jeconiah of Judah and his mother had been taken into exile, along with servants of the court, officials of Judah and Jerusalem, and many of the craftsmen and artisans.) The letter was hand-carried by Elasah (son of Shaphan) and Gemariah (son of Hilkiah), whom Zedekiah king of Judah dispatched to Babylon on a diplomatic mission to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.

Jeremiah’s Letter: This is what the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies and God of Israel, says to those He exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses—make homes for your families because you are not coming back to Judah anytime soon. Plant gardens, and eat the food you grow there. Marry and have children; find wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, so that they can have children. During these years of captivity, let your families grow and not die out. Pursue the peace and welfare of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to Me, the Eternal, for Babylon because if it has peace, you will live in peace.”

This is what the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies and God of Israel, says to you: “Do not be fooled by the false prophets and fortune-tellers among you. Do not listen to dreamers or their interpretations of dreams, for I did not send them to you. They are prophesying lies in My name!” So says the Eternal. If you want the truth, this is what the Eternal has to say: “You will remain in Babylon for 70 years. When that time is over, I will come to you, and I will keep My promise of bringing you back home. For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Eternal, “plans for peace, not evil, to give you a future and hope—never forget that. At that time, you will call out for Me, and I will hear. You will pray, and I will listen. You will look for Me intently, and you will find Me. Yes, I will be found by you,” says the Eternal, “and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations where you’ve been scattered—all the places where I have driven you. I will bring you back to the land that is your rightful home.”

Now you might say, “The Eternal has raised up prophets here in Babylon who tell us other things.” This is what the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, has to say about the king who currently sits on David’s throne and all those who remain in Jerusalem and were not taken into exile: “Watch, for I will send war, famine, and disease on them. I will make them like figs so rotten they cannot be eaten. I will pursue them with war, famine, and disease. I will make them a horror to the watching world, an object of cursing and terror, of scorn and blame wherever I scatter them because they have not listened to Me,” says the Eternal. “They ignored the warnings I sent to them again and again through My servants, the prophets. And you who are in exile are no better, for you have not listened either.” Therefore, hear now the word of the Eternal, all you who have been exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon. This is what the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies and God of Israel, says about your so-called prophets, Ahab (son of Kolaiah) and Zedekiah (son of Maaseiah), who are telling lies in My name: “Watch, for I will hand them over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and he will execute them right in front of you. Even their names will be used as a curse by those in exile from Judah when they say, ‘May the Eternal treat you like Zedekiah and Ahab who were burned alive by Babylon’s king.’ These men have engaged in disgraceful acts among My people Israel. They have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives and told lies in My name, prophesying when I never gave them a message. I know this because I am a witness to all they have done,” so says the Eternal.

Say this to Shemaiah the Nehelamite:

Jeremiah’s Letter: This is what the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies and God of Israel, says about you: “I know that you sent letters on your own authority to the people in Jerusalem, to the priests, and specifically to the priest Zephaniah (son of Maaseiah). In that letter to Zephaniah, you said, ‘The Eternal has appointed you as the priest in charge of the temple to replace Jehoiada. When a madman tries to speak like a prophet, you must take action by putting him in shackles and in the stocks. So why haven’t you put a stop to Jeremiah of Anathoth who poses among you as a prophet of God? He sent a letter to those of us in Babylon predicting that our exile will be a long one. He actually said we should settle in this place—building homes and planting gardens of food that we can enjoy for many years.’”

When Zephaniah the priest received this letter, he read it to Jeremiah the prophet. It was then that a message came to Jeremiah from the Eternal concerning all of this.

Eternal One: Write back to all the exiles and tell them, “This is what the Eternal says about Shemaiah the Nehelamite: ‘Because Shemaiah has acted like a prophet when I did not send him, and because he has misled you with lies, watch! I will now punish him and his descendants. None of his family will live here long enough to see the good I will do for My people in the coming years because his words stirred rebellion against Me,’ so says the Eternal.”

The Book of Jeremiah, Chapter 29 (The Voice)

A link to my personal reading of the Scriptures for Saturday, September 11 of 2021 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible along with Today’s Proverbs and Psalms

A post by John Parsons that reflects upon this time right here, & now:

The ten days from Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur are known as Aseret Yemei Teshuvah (עֲשֶׂרֶת יְמֵי תְּשׁוּבָה), "the Ten Days of repentance," otherwise called the "Days of Awe" (yamim nora’im) in Jewish tradition. Since man was created for the sake of teshuvah, Yom Kippur, or the Day of “at-one-ment,” is considered the holiest day of the year, called “Yom ha-kadosh” (יוֹם הַקָּדוֹשׁ). It is the climax of the 40 day “Season of Teshuvah.”

As I’ve mentioned before, the "Day of Atonement," or Yom Kippur, is actually written in the plural, that is, as Yom Ha-Kippurim (יוֹם הַכִּפֻּרִים), perhaps because the purification process cleansed from a multitude of transgressions, iniquities, and sins. However, the name also alludes to the two great atonements given by the LORD God of Israel - the first for those among all of the nations who turn to Yeshua for cleansing and forgiveness, and the second for the purification of ethnic Israel during Yom Adonai, the great Day of the LORD (יוֹם־יְהוָה הַגָּדוֹל) at the end of days. There is a connection with the holiday of Purim, too, since Kippurim can be read as Yom Ke-Purim, a "day like Purim." Thus the day on which Yeshua sacrificed Himself on the cross is the greatest Purim of all, since through His loving intervention we are eternally delivered from the hands of our enemies...

The Torah refers to Yom Kippur as “shabbat shabbaton” (שַׁבַּת שַׁבָּתוֹן), a time when all profane work is set aside so the soul could focus on the holiness of the LORD. The first occurrence of this phrase is found in Exodus 16:23, regarding the restriction of collecting manna in the desert during the seventh day. This restriction was later incorporated into the law code for the Sabbath day (Exod. 31:15; 35:2). The phrase also occurs regarding Rosh Hashanah (Lev. 23:24), Yom Kippur (Lev. 16:31; 23:32), two days of Sukkot (Lev. 23:39; Num. 25:35), two days of Passover (Lev. 23:7-8), and the day of Shavuot (Num. 28:26).

If you add up these days, you will find there are seven prescribed days of “complete rest” before the LORD, and the sages identified Yom Kippur as the Sabbath of these other special Sabbath days, that is, “Yom ha-kadosh” (יוֹם הַקָּדוֹשׁ), which occurs on the tenth day of the seventh month of the Torah’s holiday calendar. Indeed, the Talmud notes that "seven days before Yom Kippur, we separate the High Priest," corresponding to the seven-day seclusion of Aaron and his sons before the inauguration of the Tabernacle (Lev. 8:33).

All of the Jewish holidays find their origin in the events of the Exodus, which were later commemorated as rituals at the Tabernacle. On the first of Nisan, two weeks before the Exodus, the LORD showed Moses the new moon and commenced the divine lunar calendar. This is called Rosh Chodashim. Two weeks later, God was ready to deliver the Israelites from their bondage in Egypt. Earlier that evening the Israelites kept the Passover Seder and sprinkled the blood of the lamb on their doorposts. At the stroke of midnight of Nisan 15 the LORD sent the last of the ten plagues on the Egyptians, killing all their firstborn. On the 6th of Sivan, exactly seven weeks after the Exodus (49 days), Moses first ascended Sinai to receive the Torah (Shavuot). Just forty days later, on the 17th of Tammuz, the tablets were broken. Moses then interceded for Israel for another forty days until he was called back up to Sinai on Elul 1 and received the revelation of Name YHVH (Exod. 34:4-8). After this, he was given the Second Tablets and returned to the camp on Tishri 10, which later was called Yom Kippur. Moses' face was shining with radiance in wonder of the coming New Covenant which was prefigured in the rituals of the Day of Atonement (Exod. 34:10).

Recall that there were two revelations of the Name YHVH, first as "I AM WHO I AM" (a play on the Hebrew verb hayah [הָיָה] given to Moses in Exodus 3:14-15 which was later "incarnated" during the intervention of the Exodus (Exod. 6:1-8)), and the later revelation of YHVH’s mercy disclosed after the sin of the Golden Calf (Exod. 34:6-7). It is the later revelation that foretold God's Name of the new covenant, just as the second tablets took the place of the former tablets that were shattered. Ultimately Yeshua is the "wonder" of the covenant of the LORD (Exod. 34:10), the manifestation of the attributes of God's mercy (middot rachamim). For more on this topic see the article, “Yom Kippur and Chesed" on the Hebrew for Christians website. [Hebrew for Christians]

9.10.21 • Facebook

Today’s message (Days of Praise) from the Institute for Creation Research

September 11, 2021

Evil Men

“Fret not thyself because of evil men, neither be thou envious at the wicked; For there shall be no reward to the evil man; the candle of the wicked shall be put out.” (Proverbs 24:19-20)

Many of us remember the horror of September 11, 2001. The United States had not been attacked on its continental soil since the Civil War, and the whole country stood glued to their TV sets in stunned agony at the evil atrocity of the terrorists’ hostility.

Loud and often have been the vows of retribution since then, but “wars and rumours of wars” continue unabated (Mark 13:7). Nothing (according to the Scriptures) will stop the hatred of evil men against that which represents the name and lifestyle of the Lord Jesus (John 15:18), but the vengeance belongs to God alone (Hebrews 10:30).

The challenge for most of us is that we forget that the Enemy is not merely this or that terrorist group (there have been countless such groups over the millennia), but “the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). If we are constantly in turmoil over the latest iteration of evil displayed in living color every day on our evening news, our souls will never gain peace.

It is the “joy of the LORD” that brings us strength (Nehemiah 8:10). It is the delight of being “rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate” (1 Timothy 6:18) that allows us to sense something of the unilateral love of the Lord Jesus. Seeking “the kingdom of God, and his righteousness” first (Matthew 6:33) is what brings our heavenly Father’s steadfast supply of all that we may need (Philippians 4:19).

Perhaps when evil days creep into our lives or our memory, we would do well to focus our “affection on things above, not on things on the earth” (Colossians 3:2). HMM III

[recentanimenews]

Bookshelf Briefs 11/16/20

A Bride’s Story, Vol. 12 | By Kaoru Mori | Yen Press – Being at a yearly schedule for this series is bad, but it could be worse: Yotsuba&! seems to come out every 3-4 years. The best part of this volume sees Mr. Smith and Talas meeting up with Anis and Sherine, a married couple that, as before, remains defined by the lack of husband in their lives. He’s there, to be sure, but this may as well be a yuri couple for all the emotional beats. Also, learning how to write everyone’s name is very awesome and cathartic. Elsewhere, Karluk is reminded that everyone has different skill sets, and Pariya has to deal with unexpectedly being on her own. The “plot” of the series barely exists, and I’m not sure it will last till Karluk comes of age. But it’s peaceful and the art is gorgeous. – Sean Gaffney

Cherry Magic!: Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?!, Vol. 1 | By Yuu Toyota | Square Enix – With a title and conceit like Cherry Magic!, I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting much from the series, so I was delighted to encounter a surprisingly charming and lighthearted first volume. After turning thirty without experiencing so much as a first kiss, Adachi finds that he can now read people’s minds when he physically touches them. The ability can occasionally be helpful, but in general he tries to avoid using it. Things take an awkward turn when he bumps into his coworker Kurosawa, inadvertently learning he’s been hiding a crush on him. Kurosawa is a popular and nice enough guy, but Adachi, being romantically inexperienced, isn’t quite sure what he should do with his newfound knowledge—especially considering that Kurosawa hasn’t actually mentioned anything about liking him yet. Cherry Magic! is a silly but sweet romantic comedy; I had fun reading it and would happily read more. -Ash Brown

Farming Life in Another World, Vol. 1 | By Kinosuke Naito and Yasuyuki Tsurugi | One Peace Books – If you liked everything about In Another World with My Smartphone but wish that the magical smartphone had been replaced with a magical farming tool, have I got a series for you. Most of the plot beats are even the same, although Hiraki manages to get it on with most of his wives a good 20 or so volumes before Touya. Despite that last sentence, those who are buying this for the “snu snu” will not be happy—it’s far more interested in the farming, as well as his accumulation of wolves, spiders, and brides. I’m honestly not unhappy that we only got the manga version of this—I suspect it would be tedious in prose. As it is, it’s perfectly good slow-life isekai with a farming bent. – Sean Gaffney

Himouto! Umaru-chan, Vol. 11 | By Sankakuhead | Seven Seas – This is the penultimate volume of the original series, though I understand there are several spinoffs. That said, there’s nothing here indicating that we’re headed for a big finish or climax. Which makes sense—this is not really that kind of series. It does show us how Umaru and Ebina met, which is as cutesy as it sounds. Indeed, cutesy is the watchword for every single chapter. Even the sibling relationship friction, which was what drove many of the early volumes, seems to have been dialed way back as they’re mostly getting along now. It’s a good sign that the series should be wrapping up, really, and so it is. That said, if you love Umaru-chan, this should make you happy. – Sean Gaffney

Revolutionary Girl Utena: After the Revolution | By Chihi Saito | Viz Media – I am, to put it mildly, not a fan of the original Utena manga. So I was initially incredibly uninterested in this 20-years-later single-volume afterword. That said, it does not seem to even take place in the same universe—it feels like Saito was told to make this an anime sequel more than a manga sequel. Good news, this means Juri is gay again. Not surprisingly, I found the Juri/Shiori/Ruka story the most interesting, though I still hate Ruka more than the creators want me to. Elsewhere, Touga and Saionji turn into Scooby Doo investigators, and Miki and Kaoru are still really into incestual subtext. I still prefer Artistic Veggie Platters as an Utena continuation, but this is OK. – Sean Gaffney

Teasing Master Takagi-san, Vol. 10 | By Soichiro Yamamoto | Yen Press – The “future” chapter showing Nishikata and Takagi married and having a daughter was wildly popular with readers. We don’t get another in the series here—by this point there was a spinoff all its own to take care of that—but we do see an older Chi in middle school, trying to be what her mother was with the guy she likes and failing miserably. It’s pretty adorable. As for the actual cast, they pet dogs, go fishing, eat candy, and make everyone think they are the most sickeningly sweet couple you’ll ever meet without actually being a couple. There’s no “plot advancing” chapters here, but there’s lots of cuteness, and Takagi is the most likeable of the “teasing” girls we see a lot of these days. – Sean Gaffney

That Blue Summer, Vol. 8 | By Atsuko Namba | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – Rio’s days in the tranquil village of Ueko are coming to an end. She has ended things with Ginzo because it was too hard, knowing they could never be together long-term, and tries to put on a brave face about going back home to Tokyo. But once she gets there and tries to move on, it’s clear she’s just going through the motions. I really liked that I wasn’t sure that the main couple would actually end up together, and also that the romance between a couple of side characters wasn’t just filler but a way to put things into perspective for Rio. What I liked most, though, is why Ginzo loves Rio—she’s the one who encouraged him to embrace his passion for graphic design, who created opportunities for him that boosted his confidence. This has been one of my favorites of the Kodansha digital-only shoujo offerings! – Michelle Smith

Yoshi no Zuikara: The Frog in the Well Does Not Know the Ocean, Vol. 1 | By Satsuki Yoshino | Yen Press – Despite my good intentions, I have yet to read Barakamon. And so I must ask… is this what Barakamon is like?! ‘Cos it’s good as hell! Naruhiko Tohno is a struggling manga artist who still lives in the remote village in which he was born and raised. He’s been writing fantasy manga for ten years and isn’t exactly gung-ho when his editor suggests he try writing rural slice-of-life instead, but it ends up selling far more than his previous series. I definitely enjoyed the segments about Tohno and his life growing up, particularly the obvious links between his middle-school friends and classmates and the characters in his manga, but I’m a little sad that we don’t spend more time with the characters in his manga, because they were totally charming, too. Guess I gotta go read everything in English by Yoshino-sensei now! – Michelle Smith

Yowamushi Pedal, Vol. 15 | By Wataru Watanabe | Yen Press – I mentioned as I was reading this that it’s astonishing that Watanabe has not turned his hand to horror manga, given everything about Midousuji in this volume, which is simply mind-numbingly creepy. That said, wow, he’s a good cyclist, and he likely will help to goad Naruko into becoming more well-rounded. Elsewhere, we learn how difficult it is to find new members who are as good as the old ones—the previous year was unusual, after all—and also not to abandon a potential member just because you judge them at first to be not worth your time. I hope to see more of our new huge son. It did feel weird that this volume did not have a major race in it, but I’m sure that’s coming soon. – Sean Gaffney

By: Ash Brown

[rbzpr]

Portrait of Robespierre (Merlin de Thionville)

This pamphlet, which bears the name of Merlin de Thionville, but is also commonly attributed to Roederer, was published in the summer of 1794 – mere weeks after the events of Thermidor. The author seeks to explain Robespierre’s fate based on an analysis of his (allegedly) pathological character. In this respect, this work is one of the foundation stones of the Thermidorian imaginary, as it establishes many tropes that would come to shape Robespierre’s légende noire: it paints the picture of a pale and paranoid Incorruptible, a small-minded and conceited man, plagued by his temperament, and motivated solely by envy and hatred. 

(It is interesting that, throughout the text, Robespierre’s condition is not portrayed as malignity, but rather as an illness from which he suffers.)

Apart from constantly denying any merit to Robespierre, the pamphlet is full of allusions to his alleged “unmanliness” or sexual deviance, claiming that he hated women, and referring to him as a “vile eunuch”. (In the same vein, the author even speaks of a “twofold impotence”.) This can be regarded as an effort not only to ridicule Robespierre, but to dehumanise him – going as far as to compare him to a human machine.

The people who delight in finding connections between faces and moral attributes, between human faces and those of animals, have observed that, as Danton had the head of a mastiff, Marat the one of an eagle, [and] Mirabeau the one of a lion, Robespierre had the one of a cat. But this face changed its physiognomy ; it was at first the worried, but quite sweet look of a domestic cat, then the untamed look of a wild cat, then the ferocious look of a tiger cat.

Robespierre's temperament was firstly melancholic, he ended up being atrabilious. At the Constituent Assembly, his complexion was pale and dull ; at the Convention, it became yellow and livid: for a long time, he only spoke at the Constituent Assembly by moaning ; at the Convention, he only spoke by foaming. The history of his temperament is a great part of his history.

The abilities of his intellect have always been limited ; but in principle, they were rather sound. He always had only few ideas, but fixed ideas ; little imagination, but a tenacious memory ; little movement, but always the same direction. These circumstances were due to the melancholic temperament, which renders the spirits idle and sparse, the brain dry and rigid. Consequently, black bile turned the movement of his ideas into torment ; his ideas, into dreadful phantoms ; his imagination, into fury. [This is] the ordinary destiny of tyrants, [who are] always driven to fury by fear, to fear by fury ; each day, [they become] both more cruel and more miserable.

He never had any knowledge. Nothing remained to him of the sterile studies which he had made at the collège, not any more than of his exercises of the barreau. While working on award subjects proposed by provincial academies, he had gained some notions that were rather philanthropic than philosophical. His education was limited to this. He never had the slightest idea of government, administration, [or] negotiation. He never knew anything between war and the total extermination of the enemies, between anarchy and oppression, between the vexatious management of private property and household tasks, and the absolute error of public administration ; and still, he could only wage war by means of [other] men, only oppress by means of tyranny, and only reign by means of money.

He never felt these gently energetic means, these physical, intimate and urgent passions from whence these proud moral passions, which often appear to be so superior to their origin, are derived from. A vague and displeasing anxiety, the effect of his temperament, was the only principle of activity which he contained within himself. This anxiety ceaselessly drove him mad, and ceaselessly brought him back [into this state of mind]. It continuously pressed him to seek help against himself, and not pleasures ; subjects of distraction, and not objects of affection.

Incapable of growing attached to anything, Robespierre loved himself firstly [and] exclusively ; but soon, he became the enemy of everyone, and he then lost the ability to love himself ; he had need of general misfortune, and no longer knew where to find happiness.

It is false that he had the honour of loving women ; on the contrary, he made them the honour of hating them. If he had loved them, would he have been cruel?

It is false that he had loved glory. In truth, upon leaving the collège, he developed, in the pugilism of the barreau, a need for spectators and applause, for which his bad personality had prepared him: but this need greatly differs from the love of glory. Always eager for noisy acclamations, what has he done in order to obtain honourable acclamations? He only loved the noise whose object he was, because he was placed at its centre, and because there was nothing else that was more suitable to daze him.

Finally, it is false that Robespierre had loved supreme power: he was neither capable of exercising it, nor of enjoying it. One assumes that he was ambitious for tribuneship, at a time when he only thought of appearing at the tribune. One assumes that he aspired to supreme power, when, occupied with demonstrating the growth of his power, as Octavian had been with disguising his, he ensured that he would lose it, whereas the latter ensured that [his power] would increase. He may have had the confused idea and the vague desire to bring the French to a superstitious submission towards his opinions, to a sort of imbecile idolatry whose object he was ; but he was not worthy of striving for obedience. If he desired to appear to be a king, this was precisely through his incapacity of being one, and at most so that no one else could be. If he aimed for the apparatus of power, this was without loving power, and [due to being] a vile eunuch who could not suffer seeing it in other hands.

No doubt, he ended up wanting supreme tyranny ; but this was because it had become necessary for him in order to maintain its insolence ; he had the audacity of usurpation, only in order to not reduce anything of the impudence of his apparent supremacy.

Moreover, I do not claim to deny that he was, for a long time, jealous of the power that was necessary in order to fulfil his vengeances, or his hatreds, and that this power was tyranny ; but he shared it with others, and it is sad to think that, if it was limited to him, he would still have exercised it.

Robespierre only ever felt the menial passions which stemmed from egotism: that is to say envy, hatred, vengeance ; and still, these passions lacked the resilience of courage within him.

Envy was his dominant passion. When, at the Constituent Assembly, he saw so many gifted persons embracing so much glory, he was annihilated. The réviseurs disgraced themselves, he respired, and he believed that he had brought them down. But Condorcet, the orators of the Gironde, [and] Brissot appeared on the stage ; a new crisis: they perished, and Robespierre still respired. So many orators. Only Danton remained at the tribune ; Danton was accused, the envious Robespierre forgot himself for a moment to the extent of defending him ; but, having soon come to himself, that is to say to envy, he gave him up. I did not have the time to worry about the power of Marat, who died before the Girondins: but being obliged to preside over his apotheosis, he rather seemed to drag him to voyerie, than to bring him to the Panthéon. When he had no more rivals at the tribune, he raged against those who were applauded there before him, and who could still return there ; he raged against the men of merit, whom modesty had held in obscurity, and whom our indigence of talents could draw from there, one after another. He raged against the women who were famous because of their intellect or their look ; against virtuous men, because they were respected ; against courtesans, because they were the object of attentiveness ; he raged against the dead whose names one still recalled, whose writings one read ; he proscribed the memory of those whose heads he had proscribed. He suppressed the accounts of our victories, who occupied too much time in the assemblies, and too much space in the gazettes. The idea of this Panthéon, where so many heroes had taken their place, and where made one for Marat, bothered him. His proscriptions [did not go as far as to include] the blade [of the guillotine], which would have tormented him through its fame, if it had not been the end of other, more bothersome celebrities, and one of the columns of his. He resuscitated the Eternal only because the Eternal is invisible, and because, in making all eyes raise towards heaven, he drew them away from earth, where he wanted only his voice to be heard. His hydrophobia never equalled his horror for everything that attracted attention. Envy was in half of the crimes that ruined him ; and if he had not perished because of the crimes that envy had contributed to make him commit, he would have died of envy itself.

Robespierre did not have other talents but those of his vices, and even only had a part of those. Sometimes, he demonstrated oratorical talents, which did not suffice, over and over, to make an orator out of him, and he has never demonstrated the slightest talent of action.

His style has always been weak and diffuse, without colour and movement. The reason for this is simple: all his ideas were vague and confused, he had few of them, and they reproduced in his mind with difficulty. There are people who believed that he was always ready to speak about everything, and capable of speaking about everything, because on the occasion of everything, he spoke, not of things, but of persons who had spoken before him, and of their bad intentions, etc. The only clear things in Robespierre's mind where the sights of hatred and the ones of envy. But how could one express oneself with energy, when one is animated only by shameful passions, and with bravery, when one wants to harm, and when one is weak?

One can be astute, adept in the language of despicable vices ; one is eloquent only in the abandonment of the great virtues, and at most in the one of the vices that possess greatness. Robespierre mastered the art of perfidious insinuations outstandingly, never the one of frank persuasion, and of energetic conviction. And even his urge to harm showed itself for a long time only through his fear of offending, he only attacked from behind ; his bolts were poisonous ; but he fired them from so far away, and so dampened or shrouded, that one often succumbed without having felt them. At the end of his reign, at the time where he had the courage to directly attack the miserable persons who did not dare to defend themselves, he sometimes spoke as an insolent and cruel enemy, [but] never as a superior enemy.

Since his death, a writer who made a portrait of him, claimed that he had the talent of refutation. This merit is one of those to which he was a stranger to the most. It is not because he lacked logic, he had enough of it in order to steer his thoughts well ; but he lacked the sagacity and the knowledge that are necessary in order to penetrate and decompose the thought of others, and to reduce it to its value. In fact, he never competed with anybody, he always stayed beside the question, and only attached himself to the adversary.

In 1790 and 1791, it was very difficult for him to obtain access to the tribune ; and even more difficult to [bring the audience to listen to him] when he succeeded in making himself heard, as he was so obscure and nebulous, or tedious and lethargic. He would never have obtained the attention of the assembly, if he had not obtained the one of the tribunes ; and he would never obtained the latter, without the trickery of the prophetism that he exerted when the réviseurs had justified his preceding declamations, and above all without the adulation wherein he wallowed in front of the tribunes. It is through this trickery and this baseness that he succeeded in forming the kind of confrairie [sic] with which more adept people have created this faction, whose orator he was without being its leader. Always spineless in his speeches, he could hardly incite public opinion ; it was neither up to him to stir, nor to shape the wills. Ah!

The Bastille and the [feudal] despotism fell in 1789. A constitution has been made in 1790, Belgium [has been] invaded in 1792, the monarchy abolished, the republic created, the faction of réviseurs dispersed, the one of the Gironde knocked down, superstition destroyed, the revolutionary government established, a formidable army created, a large flotilla equipped, Belgium reconquered a second time ; Mirabeau, Barnave, Lafayette, Condorcet, Vergniaux [sic], Brissot, [and] Chaumette, annihilated. In the end, the tyranny of Robespierre himself [has been] established, cemented, exerted, ... and Robespierre did not play any part in those of these events that were purely glorious, and contributed only menially to all others.

Apart [from the fact] that he was incapable of doing [things], he was incompetent in making use of something that has been accomplished ; he was also the born enemy of every organisation. There was no institution that, according to him, was not contrary to the principles, only by existing. In his twofold impotence, it was necessary for him that the entire social apparatus collapsed, that every recourse seemed impossible, that the salut public was entirely desperate, in order to appear necessary, without being obliged to make himself useful, and [in order to] reign without moving, over a people [that was] dazed by hardship, and convinced that henceforth had to expect glances from its leader.

These are events [that are] foreign to Robespierre's schemes, which explain the extraordinary fortune of this ordinary man. It is because he has done nothing, while the circumstances worked for him, that he obtained this power for one year, which, in truth, committed a century of crimes. If he appeared to be constant in his attitudes, it is because he did not have any. If he appeared to have been a powerful factious [man], it is because he was only the orator of a faction for a long time. If he appeared to have risen above so many men with diverse talents, it is because they [constantly] overthrew each other, and because he alone remained on his feet, in the arena ; and he remained on his feet only because he had neither marched, nor acted. And if one fixed one's gaze on him then, it was only because he had forbidden everyone else to compete with him, and because he had the floor for five years, and because he had always said the same thing, and because the things that he had said, having been inspired by hatred, vengeance and envy, unfortunately almost became prophecies. Once in his entire life, he wanted to march ; he made one step, a single step, without support, without precursor and without guide, and this step led him ... to death.

Construct a human machine that is weak and feeble: animate it with the passion of envy, place it in the circumstances where Robespierre found himself, and you will start Robespierre again.

At first, one called him the patriot Robespierre, then the virtuous Robespierre, then the great Robespierre. The day came when the great Robespierre was called a tyrant, and on this day, a sans-culotte, thinking of him, and lying on a pallet at the Committee of General Security, said: So here is a tyrant, is that all he is?

Every educated man is indignant at public indignation when he hears of the names which it gives to Robespierre ; there is not one that is not a favour. He was neither a Sulla, nor a Catiline, nor an Octavian, nor a Cromwell. All these men were warriors ; some of them were skilled usurpers. Robespierre was not even a Nero, even if Nero died cowardly: Nero was at least a bold gladiator. Will Robespierre be called Catiline, because he was surrounded by Cetheguses in order to intrigue ; Octavian, because he had an Antoine to immolate ; Sulla, because he had Malliuses in order to corrupt the armies ; Cromwell, because he had Vanes to perorate ; finally, Nero, because he has Anicetuses to assassinate? Ah, accept therefore that his devotees called him a God, since he also had a paralytic to march at his sides.

One does not vary any less on the political title which it is appropriate to give him. He was neither dictator, nor emperor, nor king, nor protector, nor triumvir, nor tribune. He was the Appius of the decemvirs ; and he found Clodiuses who, in order to please him, threw another Virgin, not into his hands, but onto the scaffold.

Some people think that Robespierre will be a great figure in history. It is not Robespierre who is remarkable in the current times of the French republic ; it is the French republic before Robespierre. History will say little about this monster ; it will confine itself to these lines:

« In these times, the debasement of France in the interior was so great, that a bloodthirsty juggler, without talent and without courage, [who was] called Robespierre, made all citizens tremble under his tyranny ; while twelve thousand warriors shed their blood at the frontiers for the republic, he brought her [i.e. the Republic] to her knees through his proscriptions. She was still there, when vengeful hands delivered her from tyranny ; and even if she applauded his fall, she still not dared to rise in all her greatness. »

MERLIN DE THIONVILLE.

Source: Merlin de Thionville, représentant du peuple, à ses collègues [...]

[mrmichaelchadler]

Larry Cohen: 1941-2019

Since the creators of B-movies generally do not have such luxuries as famous actors, familiar properties and large budgets to work with, they have to rely more heavily on an ingredient that is just important but much lower in cost—a great idea. Not just any great idea, of course, but the kind of idea that makes you stop in your track and think “Man, I’ve gotta see that.” The problem is that, in many cases, even if they do manage to beat the odds and come up with that killer idea, they don’t always have the resources or talent to do it justice. 

One B-filmmaker who never had that problem was Larry Cohen, who passed away this weekend at the age of 77. He may have never had the same level of name recognition as such contemporaries as George Romero or John Carpenter, but his films, in which he took often outrageous premises and built upon them with witty dialogue, incisive social commentary and colorful characters, were among the best genre films of their era and continue to pack a punch today.

Cohen was born on July 15, 1941 in Manhattan and from a young age, he developed a fascination with movies. In an interview I did with Cohen a couple of years ago, he professed a special fondness for the films produced by Warner Brothers during that era. “It was a great studio—they had really ballsy movies and political movies … They were shot at a fast pace with a lot of action and fast talk, as opposed to MGM movies, which were a lot slower and more luxurious. He began his career as a writer for television, first by writing for such shows as “The Defenders, “The Fugitive” and “Rat Patrol” and then by creating such shows as the 1965-’66 Western “Branded” (sorry fans of “The Big Lebowski”) and the 1967-’68 paranoid sci-fi saga “The Invaders.” Watching the shows that he created today, one can actually see the ideas and conceits that Cohen would embrace throughout his career—especially in the mixing of standard genre tropes with sly commentary about what is going on the real world, including the blacklist and the Red Scare—coming together in distinctive ways that set them apart from a lot of what was going on in television at that time.

He then began to make the move into writing feature films in 1966 with “Return of the Seven,” a largely forgettable sequel to the hit Western “The Magnificent Seven,” “I Deal in Danger” (1966), a spy film comprised of the first four episodes of another series he co-created, “Blue Light,” and the psycho artist horror film “Scream, Baby, Scream” (1969). Later in 1969, he would come up with what would prove the first great example of his kind of audacious storytelling that would eventually become associated with his name. In “Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting,” on which he cares a co-writing credit with Lorenzo Semple Jr., Cathy (Carol White) arrives from London to live in San Francisco and immediately meets and falls in love with the seemingly nice and clean-cut Kenneth (Scott Hylands). She soon becomes pregnant but then begins to discover that Kenneth is deeply disturbed and elects to not only break up with him but to have an abortion as well. Some time passes and Cathy has now married a rising politician and given birth to their child when Kenneth turns up again with a shocking demand—Cathy must kill her baby to even the scales for having aborted his child. Channeling real-world concerns into a thriller framework, this was a truly startling screenplay (one that almost certainly would not pass muster today) and if the execution did not quite do it justice—although the screenplay required a daring test pilot of a director to do it justice, Mark Robson, fresh off the success of “Valley of the Dolls,” was strictly United material—it certainly promised better things to come in the future.

"Bone"

Like so many screenwriters, Cohen tired of directors messing with his material and finally moved into the director’s chair in 1972 with the bizarre dark comedy, “Bone.” As the film begins, Beverly Hills couple Bernadette (Joyce Van Patten) and Bill (Andrew Duggan) interrupt their latest round of bickering when they discover a strange man (Yaphet Kotto) on their grounds and invite him in, assuming he is an exterminator. The man, Bone, isn’t and takes the two hostage but soon discovers that his captives are not as rich as they appear to be. Nevertheless, he sends Bill to the bank to get more money and threatens to do great harm to Bernadette if he doesn’t return. While in line, Bill gets distracted by a sexy young woman (Jeannie Berlin) and decides to abandon his wife. While all this is going on, Bernadette gets increasingly drunk, seduces her captor and launches a plan for them to murder Bill and collect his insurance money. Making the most of what were presumably limited resources, Cohen devised an ingenious work that tackled racial, sexual, and class concerns in a manner that pulled no punches and got great performances from his cast to boot. Although closer in tone to something like “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolff?” than anything else, the film ended up being sold more along the lines of a straightforward exploitation movie—one wonders what the typical grindhouse crowd must have thought when they encountered this instead of the usual junk that they were presumably expecting.

Cohen was then contacted by Sammy Davis Jr., who wanted to do a film where he was the central character for a change, and the idea of doing a contemporary version of the Warner Brothers gangster films of the Thirties came up. When Davis couldn’t pay for the script for “Black Caesar” (1973) due to tax trouble, Cohen ended up selling it to American-International Pictures and wound up directing the film as well with Fred “The Hammer” Williamson in the lead. Charting the rise and fall of Tommy Gibbs (Williamson), who begins as a kid struggling to survive on the streets of Harlem, becomes the head of the black crime syndicate and wages a war against his enemies that leads to his downfall, the film was fairly conventional in its structure, Cohen added any number of twists that are still startling to observe today—in perhaps the most infamous bit, the adult Tommy gets the drop on the racist cop who beat him as a child when he was doing shoeshines on the street, smears the guy’s face with shoe polish and forces him to sing before beating him to death with a shine box. These wild bits, coupled with Williamson’s undeniable screen charisma and a driving soundtrack by James Brown, helped make the film a hit and AIP clamored for a sequel despite the fact the central character had definitively died. 

Needless to say, that didn’t stop Cohen and by the end of 1973, he had “Hell Up in Harlem” in theaters with Williamson again in the lead. Like most rushed sequels, this is a relatively undistinguished programmer but it does contain one magnificently inspired sequence in which Tommy chases an attacker through the streets of New York that seems to end when his quarry eludes him and boards a plane taking off for Los Angeles. That doesn’t stop Tommy—he boards the next flight to L.A., spends the next few hours flying out and lands just in time to finish things up at the baggage claim at LAX.

"It's Alive"

Not wanting to be pigeonholed solely as a blaxploitation filmmaker, Cohen made his shift to the horror genre where he would achieve his greatest fame. His first effort there, and one of his most famous films, was “It’s Alive” (1974), in which he took one of the squirmier premises in screen history—a woman gives birth to a monstrously deformed baby that slaughters anyone unlucky enough to cross its path—and embroidered upon it with a narrative that managed to make its so-called monster somehow sympathetic in the manner of Frankenstein’s Monster, presented some extremely pointed commentary regarding the pharmaceutical industry (who devised the pills the mother took that presumably caused the mutation and who need the child killed in order to cover up their culpability) and included moments of jet-black humor as well as well as impressive contributions from makeup maestro Rick Baker and famed composer Bernard Herrmann. Completed in 1974, the film was released by a regime at Warner Brothers that did not get it and thus the film only received a limited release. Three years later, the film was re-released with an inspired new ad campaign (“There is only one thing wrong with the Davis baby. It’s alive.”) and became a box-office hit that would inspired two Cohen-directed sequels, “It Lives Again” (1977) and “It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive” (1987) and a 2009 remake that was so bad that Cohen claimed that the head of the studio that made it actually apologized to him for it.

From this point, Cohen embarked on a series of wildly ambitious films (especially considering the low budgets that he was working on) that continued to join together familiar genre tropes with increasingly pointed social satire and commentary. In “God Told Me To” (1976), he tackled religion with a story of a New York cop (Tony Lo Bianco) trying to solve a rash of bizarre violent crimes perpetrated by people who claim that God told them to kill and stumbles upon a cult whose leader (Richard Lynch) inspires some startling revelations about his own past and possible connection to the increasingly bizarre happenings. “Q-The Winged Serpent” (1982) involves a giant flying serpent that is flying around decapitating New Yorkers and a small-time crook (Michael Moriarty) who happens to discover the beast’s hiding place and tries to trade that information to the police in exchange for a big payday. “The Stuff” (1985) was a broad satire target crass commercialism and corporate indifference in telling the tale of a brand new dessert treat, known as The Stuff, that sweeps the country and turns those who eat it into addicts. An industrial spy (Moriarty) hired by the now-struggling ice cream industry investigates and it turns out that the Stuff is a living parasitic organism that is essentially eating the very same people who are eating it—a minor fact that those selling the substance seem blithely unconcerned with in their quest for profits. In “The Ambulance” (1990), a comic book artist (Eric Roberts) investigates the disappearance of a woman he just met—after collapsing on the street, she was picked up by an ambulance but never made it to any hospital—and uncovers the expected mad and elaborate conspiracy.

Among genre movie fans, the films that I have just cited, with the possible exception of “The Ambulance,” are justly famous, not only for the films themselves (which expertly blend the comedy and horror genres with style and ease) but for the stories regarding their productions. In “God Told Me To,” there is a scene in which someone dressed as a policeman begins to shoot up New York’s St. Patricks’s Day parade. Considering the number of elements that would be occurring, there was no way that he could possibly get the required permits to film during the actual parade and recreating it would cost far too much money. Instead, he just took his actor—a then-unknown Andy Kaufman, just to add to the weirdness—and stuck him into the parade and filmed without any permits. As for “Q,” that film came about when Cohen was fired from another movie that he was directing, a big-budget adaptation of the pulp classic “I, the Jury” and decided to conceive another movie to do instead—not only did “Q” beat “I, the Jury” into theaters, it cost only a fraction of that film’s budget and wound up being a bigger hit to boot.

"Full Moon High"

Although these horror/satire hybrids would be the films that he would become most associated with, Cohen would occasionally change things up with unexpected forays into different types of filmmaking. “The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover” (1977) was an ambitious biopic that centered on the 40-year career of the former FBI director (Broderick Crawford) but which also served as a corrosive look American history during that time. Although the budget limitations are a little more obvious this time around, the film hit more than it missed. “Full Moon High” (1981) was a sweet-natured comedy in which Adam Arkin plays a teenager in 1959 who is bitten by a werewolf while on a trip to Romania—rendered ageless by this attack in addition to the usual side effects, he returns to his old high school 20 years later to reenroll, this time posing as his son. Although it had the misfortune to come out in the midst of a mini-glut of werewolf movies (that included “The Howling,” “An American Werewolf in London” and “Wolfen”) and disappear from view, it remains a charming work that suggests what the later “Teen Wolf” might have been like if it was actually good. 

Cohen then returned to his early thriller roots with two 1984 films that he shot back-to-back. In “Special Effects,” Eric Bogosian plays a filmmaker driven mad by a massive flop who accidentally films himself murdering a one-night stand (Zoe Lund). After discovering a lookalike (also Lund), he elects to make a movie about the dead woman utilizing that footage but when it gets destroyed, he becomes convinced that he needs to recreate it. In “Perfect Strangers,” a Mob hitman (Brad Rijin) discovers that a young, pre-verbal boy has seen him committing a murder and is ordered to kill the kid but before he can, he finds himself getting into a relationship with the boy’s mother (Anne Carlisle). “Wicked Stepmother” (1989) was another overt comedy but one perhaps better known for its own oddball behind-the-scenes story—after filming for a couple of weeks in the title role, star Bette Davis suddenly left the production  and rather than shut everything down, Cohen rewrote things so that her character would suddenly change her appearance so that the rest of the part could now be played by Barbara Carrera.

Although it would become harder over time for Cohen the director to get work—especially since the studios were now specializing in expensive versions of the B-movies that he specialized in—he still found work as a screenwriter and his name turned up on the screenplays for such films as “Best Seller” (1987). “Maniac Cop” (1988), “Body Snatchers” (1993,” “Guilty as Sin” (1993), and “Cellular” (2004). Of his work as a pure screenwriter during that time, his best-known project is probably the 2003 hit “Phone Booth,” a thriller in which a fast-talking publicist (Colin Farrell) with a messy personal and professional life impulsively answers a call at the last phone booth in New York and finds himself targeted by an unseen sniper who threatens to kill him if he attempts to leave. Cohen originally pitched the basic idea for the film to no less than Alfred Hitchcock but it was abandoned when they could not conceive of why the guy would have to remain in the phone booth. 

Cohen’s final film as a director was “Original Gangstas,” an entertaining blaxploitation revival that brought back some of the genre’s greatest icons—including Fred Williamson, Jim Brown, Ron O’Neal, Richard Roundtree and Pam Grier—to kick some young punk ass. However, while he wasn’t doing anything new, his legacy continued to flourish. A member of an informal club of genre filmmakers known as the Masters of Horror, he would go on to direct an episode of the horror anthology series by the same name in 2006. He had reportedly been working with JJ Abrams on a project anthology series for cable television. 

"Q: The Winged Serpent"

His oeuvre returned to the spotlight in 2017 with the release of “King Cohen: The Wild World of Filmmaker Larry Cohen,” a wildly entertaining documentary in which Cohen looks back on his crazy career and which features additional testimonials from friends and coworkers as well as a slew of mouth-clips that will make you want to see the full features immediately. Among students of the genre, Cohen’s influence as a storyteller cannot be denied.

Of course, any discussion of the works of Larry Cohen at this site cannot conclude without mentioning an anecdote that Roger and others would often cite. In 1982, “Q” screened at that year’s Cannes Film Festival under the original title “The Winged Serpent.” As those who have seen the film know, the movie is largely dominated by a brilliantly out-of-left-field performance by Michael Moriarty, the kind that might have earned awards had it not been included in a film where giant creatures tear the heads off of topless sunbathers. Anyway, after the screening, there was a luncheon and the following conversation was said to have taken place between Samuel Z. Arkoff, the B-movie legend who produced “Q,” and film critic Rex “Myra Breckenridge” Reed.

REED: Sam! I just saw “The Winged Serpent!” What a surprise! All that dreck—and right in the middle of it, a great Method performance by Michael Moriarty!

ARKOFF: The dreck was my idea.

A great story, of course, but the genius of Cohen—and I do mean “genius”—was that he took concepts that others could have easily reduced to dreck and transformed them into witty, provocative works that pushed all the right buttons. As a filmmaker, Larry Cohen was a true master—not necessarily of horror alone. For film fans who have long sparked to his offbeat output, his passing will prove to be a great loss.   

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[justintimereviews]

Top 10 Films of 2016

10. Everybody Wants Some!! (Richard Linklater)

With Linklater behind the camera I was not surprised when Everybody Wants Some!! demonstrated just as much comedy, nostalgia, and Texan Buddhism and its spiritual predecessor, Dazed and Confused. Tracing the exploits of a 1980’s college baseball team during the first few days on campus, the film delights in a carefree place and time where youth is finally unsupervised and everything is possible: sex, drugs, sports glory, the future. Importantly, Linklater is careful not to endorse all of his characters’ behavior or philosophies, but rather at times point out their vulnerabilities and masculine mini-crises (in some ways this could make for an intriguing companion film to my pick at #4). While Everybody Wants Some!! was one of the funniest, biggest-hearted movies of the year, the tagline on the movie poster lets us in on Linklater’s true aim: “Here for a good time. Not a long time,” as if to slyly spell out the thing that these manchildren—like all of us—really want so much more of.

9. La La Land (Damien Chazelle)

It may not feel like the right moment, politically, to indulge in a whimsical Hollywood musical about beautiful Hollywood people. But at face value La La Land is well-scored, well-acted, funny, and more introspective than its “follow your dreams” conceit implies. I like watching Chazelle examine the trade-off between ambition and joy, both in Whiplash and his latest film about conflicted artists. In the former, Miles Teller’s obsessive jazz drummer got served what I’d consider far from a happy ending (his father’s appalled face in the final scene is the perfect audience proxy). On the other hand, Teller’s character did manage to achieve his dream, which was always the point. With La La Land, Chazelle’s screenplay and Justin Hurwitz’s composition take another bite at the apple: is your dream really worth achieving if you have to do it alone?  

8. Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan)

With one of the year’s strongest scripts and two sublime performances from Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams, Lonergan’s meditation on guilt and grief lived up to its Sundance hype. Without any voiceover and a dearth of bells and whistles, Manchester felt like watching a stageplay in that it left its ensemble no room for error. The actors’ faces and a deftly employed flashback mechanism did most of the legwork, telling a familiar story but on its own heartbreakingly beautiful terms. Most surprising was the film’s humor, particularly from newcomer Lucas Hedges’ poignant and complex portrayal of a grieving teenager.    

7. Arrival (Denis Villeneuve)

Fresh off the heels of directing 2015’s best thriller, Villeneuve gives us 2016’s best sci-fi with Arrival. More than almost any director working today Villeneuve understands how to use tension in his films, and the deliberate pace of Eric Heisserer’s script plays right into the auteur’s wheelhouse. Villeneuve—as he did with Prisoners and Sicario—uses genre and high-concept storytelling to examine something basic and constitutional about humanity. In this case, he offers up interstellar linguistics and inky tentacle monsters to teach us about the meaning of life. Arrival also boasts the year’s most breathtaking shot, compliments of the uber-talented DP, Bradford Young:

6. Jackie (Pablo Larrain)

Typically biopics are not as artistically provocative as Larrain’s Jackie: it’s a dark, often unsettling portrait of the inscrutable first lady as she tries to do the impossible. On top of consoling her children and managing her own grief, Natalie Portman’s Jackie charges herself with planning her famous husband’s funeral, preserving his (and her own) place in history, and coming to terms with what life will be like once she’s no longer insulated by her beloved Camelot myth. Frequent voiceover and fragments of disparate, interstitial conversations that reveal Jackie’s inner monologue cause the film to play like a dream, not unlike if Terrence Malick were storyboarding. Strangely, I didn’t know if I even liked the film up until the last 30 minutes, but once it was done I was convinced Larrain and Portman’s collaboration was a work of art.  

5. Little Men (Ira Sachs)

I’m fascinated with how the things that happen to us as children influence who we become as adults. Your current career, relationship, hobbies, and emotional disposition could all be the result of some discrete event in your past, say a best friend moving away, or a role model’s fall from grace. Ira Sachs’ Little Men explores this phenomenon through the tale of Jake and Tony (Theo Taplitz and Michael Barbieri, both tortuously charismatic), two childhood friends brought together and torn apart by circumstances out of their control. Their frustration and confusion with the complications of their parents’ lives is so familiar it hurts. But in Sachs’ bittersweet ending he reminds us of what’s important about these formational—if short-lived—friendships: that they left their mark on us, and we on them.

4. 20th Century Women (Mike Mills)

I did not know much about late 1970s America going into this film, let alone the role that punk rock, feminism, and Jimmy Carter played in shaping the American identity. It’s just a period of history I never paid much attention to. I’m somewhat happy this was the case because I really enjoyed learning about it through Mike Mills’ story. Annette Bening, Greta Gerwig, and Elle Fanning play three women of three distinct generations in 1979 Santa Barbara. Bening, a single mother, enlists the two younger women to help raise her adolescent son during a time when men—and the country at large—were undergoing an infamous crisis of confidence. Like Linklater’s film, 20th Century Women is a time capsule flecked with the cultural particulars of a specific, often overlooked era. In spite of this and its excellent soundtrack, what stays with me most is one of Bening’s lines about her son, delivered to Gerwig’s much younger character: “You get to see him out in the world as a person, I never will.” It broke my heart.          

3. Krisha (Trey Edward Shults)

If “family holiday horror” is a genre, Krisha is its Citizen Kane. Hypnotizing camera technique and an unnerving score immerse us in an estranged matriarch’s attempt at reconciliation with the family she abandoned many years before. This film made me very uncomfortable. And seeing it has forever changed how I will look at substance abuse—and Thanksgiving turkey—for the better. The only thing more shocking than the experience of watching Krisha is how the film was made. Shults—in his feature film debut—shot entirely at his parents’ Texas home over the course of 9 days, filled the cast almost exclusively with family members (including his aunt in the titular role), and worked on a paltry budget of about $100,000. I’m excited to see what he can do with 10x that.

2. O.J.: Made in America (Ezra Edelman)

The near eight-hour saga does much more than chronicle the rise and fall of the football star turned actor turned tragic figure: it draws a direct through line connecting the highly publicized Trial of the Century (and the myriad emotions on display following the controversial verdict) to key social events in Los Angeles during the decades prior such as the Watts riots, Latasha Harlins killing, and Rodney King beating. Edelman tantalizes you early on with O.J. as an American mythic hero. His was a Horatio Alger success story for the 20th century, having made it out of the San Francisco housing projects to become a Heisman Trophy winner, NFL rushing leader, precedent-setting corporate spokesman, and beloved TV and film personality. Most importantly, he transcended race, such that Simpson himself liked to explain “I’m not black, I’m O.J.” So when he was accused of murdering Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, suddenly the entire country looked to his trial as a referendum on American race relations and social justice. It is an ambitious and towering film, intimate enough to engage yet comprehensive enough to say something profound about American society. For maximum effect try to watch it all in one sitting.  

1. Moonlight (Barry Jenkins)

Moonlight is the most affecting, emotional film I’ve seen in the last 5 years. Jenkins and the three actors that play Chiron accomplish something so rarely done on screen: they create a fully formed identity of a person. With concentrated dialogue, purposeful imagery, and—most of all—the actors’ eyes, Moonlight is a cinematic allegory of self-actualization and personal discovery that one can’t help but relate to. But Chiron’s story is anything but universal. The film paints an ultra-specific portrait of a young man from Miami that I for one have almost nothing in common with. Moonlight’s achievement, then, is the way it embraces Chiron’s uniqueness while at the same time tapping into universal truths about humanity, sexuality, and identity; by the end of the film we know this other person named Chiron. How Jenkins does this is something I’m still trying to figure out. There’s very little dialogue, no grand set pieces; it’s a soft, whisper of a film. And yet the last 10 minutes broke me down. There were lots of great movies in 2016, but Moonlight is essential.  

 What else I liked in no particular order: The Lobster, Hell or High Water, Fences, Silence, Eye in the Sky, American Honey, Captain Fantastic, Nocturnal Animals, Florence Foster Jenkins, Sing Street, The Nice Guys, Hidden Figures, Swiss Army Man, Café Society, Knight of Cups, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Kubo and the Two Strings, Midnight Special, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, The Witch

What I haven’t seen (yet): Paterson, Elle, Lion, I Daniel Blake, Loving, A Bigger Splash, Toni Erdmann, Miss Sloane, Your Name, The Fits

Some further reading on these films I really enjoyed:

Last Taboo: Why Pop Culture Just Can't Deal With Black Male Sexuality, by Wesley Morris

High Tide: Kenneth Lonergan on Manchester by the Sea, Filmmaker Magazine

The State That I Am In: Pablo Larrain Interview, Film Comment

How SXSW Winner Trey Edward Shults Shot "Krisha" With His Family in 9 Days, No Film School

The Year's Most Captivating Performances, by Wesley Morris and A.O. Scott