#he will just hand me an existentialist poem

[abby-howard]

Working on Slay the Princess in a nutshell

[somewatching]

An apprentice turns artist

‘Paris Calligrammes’ (2020) Review

Ulrike Ottinger drives her petite sky-blue Isetta with owls she has painted on it herself towards Paris in 1962. The car breaks down due to engine damage. She hitchhikes only to find a cool black Citroën stopping. This big car has five men in it. Ottinger assumes they are bank robbers but feels safe around them. They bring her to Paris.

She is 20, and has gone there to become an important artist. “Everything fascinated me,” she says, “walking and seeing became my most exhilarating pastime.” Calligrammes, on the other hand, is the title of a “collection of poetry by Guillaume Apollinaire, published in French in 1918,” according to Encyclopaedia Britannica. The subtitle of this collection is “Poems of Peace and War.”

She walks around with and sees everything through a camera. This helps this documentary find its footing and footage very much. It is her personal account, nonetheless, that breathes life into the film.

Yes, Paris is the protagonist. There are so many details, people, and places, though, that you will lose count of them. Each of them has a backstory that is equally interesting. And tangentially fascinating to why the 20-year-old set out to Paris in the first place.

To exemplify, she reads out from her French book in English. It turns out that almost all of it but the last line is a quote from a polymath, who died in a forest at the age of 41, with an open copy of ‘Hamlet’ by his body: “Advice to the good traveller: A town at the end of the road. And road extending a town. Do not choose one or the other. But one and the other by turns. I gladly followed that advice of Victor Segalen”

If I were to detail the backgrounds and trivia about each of the individuals that Ottinger goes through in the course of her 129-minute documentary, I would be writing about 20th century France and not about Ottinger's 2020 film. I will stick to the prominent ones because the documentary is about the artists she meets. She herself has made the job easier by dividing the film to ten chapters.

Fritz Picard of the Librairie Calligrammes is first. The name ‘Baxter’ has replaced ‘Calligrammes’ today, and the storefront has Ottinger’s books. Back then, too, it was a place for “anyone with an interest in German literature.” “An antiquarian bookstore” which was a hangout for the Jews. Most books were authored by banned writers, or rescued from being burnt in Nazi Germany.

Picard, in a 1963 interview, says that his bookstore houses everything “from Goethe all the way ‘downhill’ to 1933.” He had to flee, however, leaving behind his beautiful private collection. Famous names from 1952 onwards drown Picard’s guest book, which Ottinger finds in time for her film. Of actors, artists, scholars, sculptors, writers, Dadaists, Marxists, and “Heideggerians” (Picard was a classmate of Heidegger, apparently).

On the one hand, you have Ottinger dropping names and, on the other, you have them complemented with the visuals from the guest book – people have drawn and doodled (a lot!), left messages, just signed, praised the man, and seemingly pasted an entire postcard. There is footage of Picard’s interview and Ottinger telling us how he could identify them by typeface. He shows us by recognising an 1843 German Shakespeare book.

It is almost as if he is hunting fossils at a rapid pace in any second-hand book storage facility, classifying them, labelling them, and saving them for the future. He also ruminates about passing them on and how all antiquarians have to pass on their collection.

Johnny Friedlaender is second and Ottinger takes us to his studio. A member of the École de Paris, she learns etching techniques from him. Working with him establishes Ottinger as an artist and lands her a radio interview for her ‘Israel’ portfolio. There are eight more chapters to the documentary, but not all of them are as long as Picard’s. Friedlaender’s bit was lesser than ten minutes.

The third chapter is Saint Germain des Prés, famously known to have the literary and philosophical giants Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone De Beauvoir write their books in there, as Ottinger mentions. The café finds multiple mentions in Sarah Bakewell’s acclaimed non-fiction, ‘At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails,’ which is a gem of a book. “You could receive phone calls there, and they would reliably pass on messages,” Ottinger says, and acknowledges the apricot cocktail.

By the time we come to the fifth chapter titled ‘Pop! My Parisian Experiments with Forms,’ colour takes over the documentary briefly and it is, rightfully, introduced by the 1964 ‘Dieu, est-il Pop?’ The gaze then turns towards three-dimensional art, exhibitions, moving images; all of which can be glimpsed on Ottinger’s website. The film itself seems adapted from a book she wrote, the one she was reading out from, and she has written quite a few.

‘Paris Calligrammes’ is an example of how an artist took the trouble to be at the heart of where everything is. She worked hard under the mentorship of true artists. And became one herself – one with too many feathers in her cap. Ulrike Ottinger wrote, filmed, and directed this documentary. She not only brings in the personal, but the political, too, which I have not gone into. Anette Fleming edited the film while Timothée Alazraki gave it its original sound.

Ottinger has let her work and inspiration speak for her. Little do we know of her personal life, or parents, or partners, or politics through this documentary. She has never been to Israel when she is called for that first radio interview, yet her paintings – at least, the ones she has shown us in this film of that collection – are stunning. She's gone back to Germany now, but how can anybody dare not call her a Parisian?

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG174!

- I absolutely ADORED how the sound effects were telling a story by themselves, giving a graduating sense of dread, with variations and quieter moments. With the wind blowing and occasionally howling, getting stronger, almost covering Jon’s voice at some points, it really felt like the sounds were competing with the words to give The Vast’s statement? (And in my mind, it felt like the team of editors competing against Jonny! It was so nice!)

I also loved how the steps of the colossus were adding a bit of pressure and gravitas, both to the statement and to the conversation: the distant low-pitched impact right after Martin’s “Do it.”, asking Jon to smite Simon? It was an easy trick, but it worked SO WELL to highlight the “Oh SHIT” moment! It was more subtle at other points of the arguments, but still reinforcing the feeling, that ideas were violent by themselves while the words were hammered in.

- I reaaaaally liked the tone Jon used in the statement, too, because it was very soft and rhythmic? There wasn’t the edge of cruelty that we had heard in other statements + combined with the fact that the focus wasn’t much on victims-hurting-other-victims-because-forced-by-the-Fear-system this time around, the statement felt more existentialist and overall a bit of a breather, which, ha. Fitting for The Vast, I guess. (Still people suffering, still people in pain, but one of the less upsetting statements this season, for me?)

- A bit surprised that Simon didn’t go for a space-related domain, but this one also made sense given what he had told Martin in season 4:

(MAG151) SIMON: I’ve actually been toying with the idea of trying to do something with the scale of humanity itself; you know, emphasise all that “overpopulation” nonsense, but… honestly, it just… doesn’t ring true for me. We’re all just so tiny and pointless, you see; it’s hard to really get past it. […] Do you know when the last ritual I attempted was? MARTIN: I… I don’t know, that space station? SIMON: Oh goodness no, that’s the future my boy!

Was this domain Ex Altiora made a reality, or it’s “just” that The Vast tends to be a bit less creative – big thing, too big for the human mind to compute, threatening you?

(MAG046, Herbert Knox) “It told the tale of a small, unnamed town high on a clifftop that sees a monstrous creature about to approach. The poem is unclear on whether it is a beast, a demon or a god, as it uses the words interchangeably. It is seen far-off, its head and body lost amongst the clouds. The majority of the story details the villagers’ attempts to prepare to do battle against this creature, but each time they devise a counter-measure, the thing gets closer and is shown to be far larger than previously suspected, rendering their preparation insignificant. At last, when it is almost upon them, its impossible vastness undeniable, the villagers surrendered to despairs, and hurled themselves off the clifftops onto the rocks far below.”

Still laughing a lot that Simon called this one “Junior” (I mean, he was proud of naming his last ritual “The Awful Deep”…).

- It was interesting how both statements dealt with the same situation from different perspectives, and how each related to The Vast? Edward was part of the colossus, Mehreen was watching it approach and threaten to crush her.

Edward was part of the colossus that we could hear since the very beginning (the impact followed by gusts of whistling wind marking the colossus’s footsteps, which were putting a strain on the bodies, including Edward’s, intertwined all through it): he was part of a whole, lost in the whole, in pain and faced with two alternatives (staying there, suffering and submitted to movements he didn’t control, or falling). It was very odd because it felt almost comforting that the other hands brought him back in when he was expelled from the whole since, at that moment, he feared the fall the most (“He is falling, and he is so small, and so afraid he wonders if he will ever hit the ground. He does not want to die smeared over that flat and hateful wasteland far below, and he flails, limbs throwing themselves violently around, trying to catch a hold of something, anything to save himself.”) – it felt like others were… saving him? Helping him? Still leaving him the choice (“Despite his dread, it takes only a moment for him to make his decision: he reaches out with his other arm, and feels it gripped by a dozen hands as, slowly, inexorably, Edward allows himself to be pulled back into the great, suffering colossus.”)? Though in the grand scheme of things, he was still stuck in an unpleasant, excruciating painful situation, but… compared to previous statements, it was still partially on his terms, instead of something that was absolutely inflicted to him with no way out? Amongst the small things that made me go “!”, the “every body” (“Every muscle in every body tenses all at once”): going back to the original meaning of the phrase, with the fact that “everybody” is, at the core of the word, “every body”. I felt like it was working well with the concept of The Vast: the fact that individuals aggregated together form something larger.

For Mehreen’s part: part of the horror, in her case, was that The Vast played on her sense of her responsibility/duty, not only on what would personally happen to her and her only. She was the only one able to take care of her “family” while they had various reactions to it: the daughter (who is helpless), the husband (who is in denial over what’s happening – this one sure hits differently with the current pandemic), and the mother (who is… only “berating” over wrong decisions). But what interests me the most is how she was dealing with memories: we’ve seen in previous statements that people’s memories are a fuzzy thing, twisted and rewritten to further feed the fears. It was obvious with Mehreen’s family (the fear “gave” her people to have to care for, further isolating and crushing her towards the threat), but I find it very interesting that compared to previous domains, she felt… on the verge of awareness about it?

(MAG163) ARCHIVIST: “Next to him, Charlie saw Ryan, who he’d known since childhood – though the other details were hazy. Ryan gave him a thumbs-up and an encouraging smile – before his face exploded inwards to a sniper’s bullet, peppering the boat with shards of bone and gore.”

(MAG164) ARCHIVIST: “There was never a time before the disease, no matter what the old bastards tell you. It has always been in the village, always festered in the dark corners where nobody could stomach to check, where good neighbours wouldn’t dream to speculate.”

(MAG165) ARCHIVIST: “Its pace remaining as it ever was, it does not care for coming pains as you are torn. Doesn’t it know who you are? No… And soon… neither will you. […] You will be someone again, someday. […] “I’m still Hannah!” you try to scream, but are you? No. Perhaps there’s some Veronica as fragments there, or Julian, or Anya, but… no. You feel the last of names and “who” you might have been be torn away and borne towards new bodies. New pages, blank; determined to be people.”

(MAG166) ARCHIVIST: “When had the crushing pressure in his chest become literal? When had the empty promise of the horizon finally vanished completely, replaced by the pitch darkness of this “forever wall of earth”? Sam did not know. Time had no meaning here. […] His existence was static, and eternal. Immutable. “Sleep” was only a memory, because even the prospect of unconsciousness might have made his present state slightly more bearable. Food as well, he knew, must be a thing, for he could feel the hunger, but his imagination failed to picture it. The only smell he knew was the damp, and the dirt.”

(MAG169) ARCHIVIST: “How long as she lived here? How long have these cramped, dingy rooms in the back of this sprawling rundown tenement been the place her heart calls home? She cannot recall, but long enough for her to grow into love for it, to cherish every rusted appliance, every crumbling piece of plasterboard, every – flickering – lightbulb. […] Sabina cannot… picture their faces, but knows that should they wake to see the state of the place… their anger would be blistering. […] What floor was her flat on again? Surely, it can’t be this high. […] Limping and desperate, she turns to see her furniture in flames, the bookshelves full of memories, that she can’t quite place [STATIC RISES] but knows are precious to her, curl and float away as ash. The photos on the wall of her family whose faces seem indistinct but she knows that she loves, begin to blacken, as the glass pops out of the frame.”

(MAG174) ARCHIVIST: “When it had first covered her home, bathing the street beyond her window in unexpected shade, she had thought it an eclipse. There wasn’t supposed to be one then, she is… sure of that – although if pressed, she could not have told you what day it is today. Before the shadow fell, she is sure that the sun was shining brightly – although, if pressed, she could not have pictured it. And the humid heat of a lingering summer had left the world sleepy, and unprepared – although, if pressed, she remembers the heat, but not the season. […] Mehreen cannot quite make out their faces as she bundles them into the car, old and shuddering as it coughs into life. Does she remember having a child? A spouse? Does she remember her mother having such a cruel sneer? It doesn’t matter. They are here now, and she has to save them.”

(+ Martin’s predicament in MAG170, when his memories were escaping him and he was mostly able to remember the painful parts only, or Francis’s “friends and families” being only brought in to deepen their pain. If Martin was any indication: it’s really upon remembering who he truly was and the bits of his life that weren’t unpleasant that he managed to free himself from the house’s influence, enough for Jon to find him and, it seems, give his protection again.)

It’s all very dream-logic: the rules are new, you just accept them as is, and you only go “… Wait” as an afterthought. What is interesting regarding Mehreen is that the interrogations felt like she was on the verge of waking up – or was that Jon, as a narrator, who was able to perceive that these bits of information were falsehoods created by the nightmare? Was that distancing just a special flavour in this domain, or something linked to the fact that they’re getting closer to the Panopticon / to The Eye’s domain?

- … Vast-typical, but I’m still !! that there are apparently domains without ground:

(MAG174) ARCHIVIST: I’m not entirely sure what you were expecting, it’s The Vast. The clue is in the name! MARTIN: Yes, alright…! ARCHIVIST: Just be glad that this is one of the domains that actually has ground to walk on.

Let them fly, Jonny!!

(… Though there are probably also Vast domains with only water. Deep, deep water.)

- NOT A SURPRISE but Everything About Simon This Episode Was Beautiful.

(MAG174) MARTIN: Fine! Fine. How about Simon. How close are we to him? [STATIC RISES] ARCHIVIST: Hum… Close, [STATIC FADES] but he’s able to move a lot faster than we are in this place. MARTIN: Meaning…? ARCHIVIST: Meaning I know where he is, but… if he doesn’t want us to reach him, I don’t know if we’ll have much of a chance. MARTIN: … So… So what, we’re just going to trust him to… [CHUCKLING] show up to his own execut– [SIMON CRASHES ON THE GROUND] MARTIN: [SURPRISED SCREAM] ARCHIVIST: [TINY CHUCKLES] MARTIN: Jesus! ARCHIVIST: Uh… Apparently! [CLEARING AWAY RUBBLE] SIMON: [STRAINED] … Hello…! [BONES CRACKING] [GROAN] Hello. Dreadfully sorry. [SIGH] I only just noticed you were both here! That’s the problem with having such a big place, you know – [INHALE] you can miss things if you’re not careful.

* Simon was probably NYOOOOOM-ing in the sky until then. I’m only surprised that there wasn’t a direct “Enjoy Sky Blue” reference.

* The fact that Simon crash-landed. What an entrance.

* =D And the self-inflicted prophecy has been fulfilled: Jon met Simon Fairchild. (MAG124: “Fairchild seems to travel far and wide for his victims, with no motivation other than… variety. I do not think I ever wish to meet him.”) Though honestly, Jon took his meeting with the old man faaaar better than I would have thought – I was assuming that he would get on Jon’s nerves much more easily.

* Martin’s prophetic words AND Jon’s “Apparently!”: was it to answer Martin’s comment about Simon showing up, or Martin’s scream of “Jesus!”. (Peter called him a “grubby Jesus” behind his back, Jon is allowed to call other avatars the same!)

* Old man popping back bones and dusting off rubble. Simon, ilu.

* I’m still such a fan of Simon’s breathlessness and intonations! You can hear that he’s a Vast avatar from the way he talks and breathes!

* I am laughing so much:

(MAG174) SIMON: Good to see you again, Martin! And you must be the famous Archivist, Herald of the Ceaseless Watcher, Harbinger of the New Age, etcetera. Lovely to meet you at last. ARCHIVIST: [SHORT EXHALE] SIMON: Simon Fairchild, at your service.

Over that “etcetera”. SIMON…………………… (It was so dismissive while, at the same time, HE chose to give Jon honorifics and nobody had asked.)

Really love how he’s still so funny and amiable while being absolutely awful =D Someone is having a great time.

- That someone wasn’t Martin.

(MAG174) SIMON: And how are you, Martin? Still trying to save the world and all that? MARTIN: … Yes. SIMON: Pity. … Well. Armageddon… it’s not for everyone, I suppose. I’m quite enjoying it, of course. Although… Junior over there can be a little bit of a handful. [DISTANT LOW-PITCHED IMPACT, FOLLOWED BY GUSTS OF WIND] MARTIN: [AGGRAVATED INHALE] I might have guessed you’d be happy living in this nightmare. SIMON: I mean… not that it matters but… yes I am! Honestly, I think you could be too if you set your mind to it. But I’m not one to tell you how to live your eternity. MARTIN: … No. You’re not. Because I’m done listening to you! SIMON: I’m sorry? I’m not sure I follow. MARTIN: All those lies you told me… You helped to do this, you turned the world into your… your playground! SIMON: Hum… Not to be a pedant, but if you recall, I was actually doing a favour for Peter. And if Peter had won, none of this would have happened. Also, not to make excuses but they weren’t exactly lies, just… oversimplifications of complicated truths! And guesses. … A lot of guesses. [FOOTSTEPS] … A–almost all guesses really, now I come to think about it. MARTIN: Shut up! I don’t care.

… I would have loved to hear Simon and Elias interact, because “oversimplifications of complicated truths” as a new way to say “lie” is right up Elias’s alley (purposefully misleading, making guesses and presenting them with more certainty than you hold). It’s horrible that, technically, Peter was probably the most transparent avatar of the lot regarding his convictions? He was genuinely fearing The Extinction, he was genuinely hating Gertrude, he was genuinely trying to get Martin to join The Lonely for his own interests.

- Ooooh, how the tables have turned…

(MAG166) HELEN: Oh, hello! [FOOTSTEPS] In a better mood, are we? Feeling more secure now you’ve learned how to kill~? ARCHIVIST: [SHARP INHALE] Something like that. MARTIN: Will you tell me how he did it? ARCHIVIST: Martin… MARTIN: He just keeps going all vague about it! HELEN: Oh, goodness. You see what you’ve done to the poor boy, Jon? He’s coming to me for clear answers. [HELEN LAUGHS AND LAUGHS] ARCHIVIST: Shut up! HELEN: It’s very satisfying though, isn’t it? Teasing out vague information; you see why Elias got a kick out of it. ARCHIVIST: Shut up! MARTIN: Jon…! HELEN: You’re right, Martin. He is tetchy…! MARTIN: I didn’t say he was te– HELEN: So! So! An explanation.

(MAG174) SIMON: Goodness! We’re rather tetchy, aren’t we? ARCHIVIST: We’ve… [CHUCKLING] not been having an easy journey. MARTIN: Jon. ARCHIVIST: What – it’s true, we haven’t.

Jon&Simon vs. Martin, just like Helen&Martin vs. Jon (down to the “tetchy”).

- I’ll be laughing forever over Simon fleeing the heck out of the situation and saving his own life in the process:

(MAG174) MARTIN: That’s enough. Jon? ARCHIVIST: Uh… Yes? MARTIN: … Do it. [DISTANT LOW-PITCHED IMPACT, FOLLOWED BY GUSTS OF WIND] ARCHIVIST: Uh… SIMON: “Do” what? MARTIN: … Kill him. ARCHIVIST: Uh… SIMON: Han–hang on. Can he do that? MARTIN: He can, and he’s going to! [FOOTSTEPS] SIMON: Oh! ARCHIVIST: [STAMMERING] Oh, uh… SIMON: Right, just, hum… Seems a bit rude, to be honest! MARTIN: … Jon? ARCHIVIST: J–just give me a moment, I– SIMON: In fact, yes! You know what? I’ll, I’ll probably just be going, then! I–I–I’d prefer to keep existing, if it’s all the same to you, hum…! MARTIN: J–Jon?! ARCHIVIST: I– SIMON: Been lovely chatting to you! Good to see you guys! MARTIN: [STAMMERING] SIMON: Feel free to pop by again when you’re feeling less, uh. Murdery. MARTIN: Jon!! SIMON: Byeeeee! [SIMON DEPARTING / YEETING HIMSELF OUT] [WIND GENTLY HOWLING] [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] [FOOSTEP] MARTIN: You let him go. ARCHIVIST: … Yeah…

SIMON. Some have mentioned that Simon was a cartoon character and, yeah. Absolutely. The sudden stammering and amiability while he was behaving like a coward? The fact he really didn’t want to die despite his Grand Talks about the meaningless of one’s existence in The Vastness Of The Universe?

(MAG151) SIMON: It’s all a matter of perspective, you see. My patron has gifted me with… quite frankly, an absurdly long life. An appropriate gift, and one that serves to provide a certain distance from things. Of course, a paltry few centuries is nothing, really, but it’s more than most get. And even in that brief time, I’ve seen all sorts of ebbs and flows to balance off things. […] MARTIN: Assuming The Extinction doesn’t derail everything…! SIMON: Which is why… I’m happy helping Peter. But! If it does: then I’ll either be dead, which will be fine, or… I’ll adjust. […] Life has continued through dozens of apocalypses already. Ice ages; pandemics; calamities; extinctions… The only reason this one feels special is because, well… it’s happening to you. And that’s the sort of solipsism that tends to come with loneliness – in my experience. So. My feeling is that I’ll help out where I can; but ultimately, if this “Armageddon” comes off, then… so be it. Either billions suffer and life goes on; or billions suffer and life doesn’t. In the grand scheme of things, it’s all… much of a muchness.

Slightly hypocritical, uh? When it comes to himself, he’s ~insignificant~ but still ready to cling to his own life as long as he can enjoy things.

- Jon explained his reasons for stopping the Smiting Avatars quest, and they’re very sound arguments… but it’s still interesting that it confirms that the only avatars he killed (Not!Sasha, Jude, Jared) were the ones who marked him, while Jon was more lenient towards the ones who hadn’t (Arthur Nolan, Oliver, Simon, Helen if we assume that Michael marked Jon first, and that Michael!Distortion and Helen!Distortion are different enough). Helen has not been super threatening this season, but she has tried to upset him on purpose, making fun of him, and yet, Jon didn’t really raise the possibility of eradicating her (he only mentioned that it would hurt them both, but mostly Helen, if he were to use her corridors). I’m reassured that he’s not trying to mindlessly kill avatars but it’s still curious…

(And I still wonder how Jon would react in front of Daisy and Melanie, who marked him for the Hunt and Slaughter…)

- I’m still very curious about Helen trying to push so much for murder?

(MAG174) HELEN: I just wanted to add my vote to the disappointed side. MARTIN: Wait, really? HELEN: I was rather looking forward to watching an old man metaphysically explode. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] HELEN: Honestly, I feel a little bit cheated. The others were exceptional fun. ARCHIVIST: … Y–you were watching? HELEN: [CHUCKLING] Of course! As much fun as the new world is, I am not about to miss a real, honest-to-godless demigod murder spree! [LAUGHS AND LAUGHS, ECHOING] MARTIN: [SIGH] You’re really not helping. HELEN: I’m not trying to! ARCHIVIST: Look, it’s none of your business. Either of you. [DISTANT LOW-PITCHED IMPACT, FOLLOWED BY GUSTS OF WIND] MARTIN: Like hell it isn’t! ARCHIVIST: Martin. MARTIN: Don’t “Martin” me! Sure, he looks like a harmless old man, but if– ARCHIVIST: I know, Martin – I know all the things he’s done. HELEN: Fantastic…! So, rip him up! Pop him! Oh, oh, but, hum, just give me a bit of a head-start so I can find a good spot.

* Helen, absolutely proud that she’s “not helping”.

* … Helen, you REALLY sound like you have a death wish.

* Helen had already watched Not!Sasha’s smiting in MAG165 (since she commented about it in the following episode), and now acknowledged that she watched the others. It’s the third time she’s appeared in front of Jon&Martin. For someone who claimed to be enjoying the new world and be exceptionally busy… Helen has been spending a LOT of time looking at Jon&Martin’s journey. Why…? Is it because their conflicted feelings are feeding her? Is it because she’s monitoring them? Is she hiding someone (Annabelle, or Georgie&Melanie) inside of her corridors…? She had contributed to Jon getting his last mark (it’s still a bit unclear to me, but Peter&Martin were discussing about “the door” at the beginning of MAG158: she might have given Peter the tunnels’ map), but we still don’t know much about her intentions apart from “enjoying the chaos” (which… would be enough considering The Distortion). Why is she so encouraging of Jon’s murder spree, in a way that is so transparent…? Is it a remnant of the original Helen Richardson, trying to feel better about her own choices by having Jon succumb to the temptation of monsterhood like she has…?

* It’s… interesting that Jon couldn’t apparently tell that she had been “watching” when he smote the other avatars. I’d have thought he would be able to tell but, apparently, if he’s not focusing, he can’t know that she’s there.

- When it comes to the episode feeling like a “breather”: technically, it wasn’t hard after last week! But it was significantly less tense, and there was progress regarding Jon’s own boundaries and what he wants to do with his powers, and… cute bantering. Jon being a chirpy little SHIT from the start of the discussion segment:

(MAG174) MARTIN: [SIGH] … [BAG JOSTLING] Is it much further? ARCHIVIST: [SMALL CHUCKLE] Yes. MARTIN: Urgh…! ARCHIVIST: I’m not entirely sure what you were expecting, it’s The Vast. The clue is in the name! MARTIN: Yes, alright…! ARCHIVIST: Just be glad that this is one of the domains that actually has ground to walk on. MARTIN: Whatever. [DISTANT LOW-PITCHED IMPACT, FOLLOWED BY GUSTS OF WIND] S–so how far are we from the other side? And–and don’t say time and space don’t work here, that’s a cop-out and you know it. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Fine! Three days. MARTIN: Thank you. [SILENCE] … Wait. Wait, what counts as a day? ARCHIVIST: [CHUCKLING] What an excellent question! MARTIN: Oh my go–! You can be infuriating sometimes, you know that? ARCHIVIST: [ANGELIC] … Yes!

… No static =D While on two other occasions, Jon used his powers to “know” about things:

(MAG174) MARTIN: Fine! Fine. How about Simon. How close are we to him? [STATIC RISES] ARCHIVIST: Hum… Close, [STATIC FADES] but he’s able to move a lot faster than we are in this place. […] MARTIN: … You’re removing evil from the world! ARCHIVIST: I, I’m not, though, am I? [STATIC RISES] The tenement fire is still burning; the mortal garden is growing wild; the carousel i– HELEN: Ugh! [STATIC FADES]

So Jon didn’t even try on that first one. I mean, Martin brought it onto himself – how could Jon describe distances without Objective Time And Space except by “far” and “close” (like in MAG167, where Jon confirmed that they could rest a bit since the next domain was still far from them)? Martin is the little kid on the car backseat, uh.

… But also: Martin closed the last episode saying that the kids from The Dark’s domain would “just need to hang on a little longer”, and that the faster they would reach the Panopticon, the faster they could put a stop to this. No wonder he was impatient to reach the end of this one, since he knows now what the kids’ nightmare looked like.

(I’m still REELING over Jon’s “Yes! :)” over knowing that he’s infuriating sometimes. He knows and he’s proud of it and knows that Martin is dating this infuriating prick =D)

- … So, once again: avatars know about Jon’s status and that the apocalypse happened through him.

(MAG164) HELEN: What would I have to gloat about? Much as I am delighted by this brave new world in which we find ourselves, I can take no credit for it. This was all… you!

(MAG165) NOT!SASHA: Well, of course you want to wallow in my shame like your voyeur master!

(MAG166) HELEN: We’re all here, Martin. The Stranger; The Buried; The Desolation; all of us. But The Eye still rules. All this fear is being performed for its benefit. And so, there are now exactly two roles available in this new world of ours: the watcher, and the watched. Subject, and object. Those who are feared, and those who are afraid. And Jon, well… he is part of The Eye; a very important part.

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: “This report is being sent to: The Great Eye, that watches all who linger in terror, and gorges itself on the sufferings of those under its unrelenting, stuporous gaze! And its Archive, which draws knowledge of this suffering unto itself. […] Perhaps once it might have horrified me, or given me some sense of pursuing the ultimate release of the world that you have damned.”

(MAG169) JUDE: Fancy seeing you both here. To what, exactly, do I owe the pleasure, the honour, of being graced by the great and powerful Archivist, harbinger of this new world, and his, uh… valet…? […] Just messing around~! Wouldn’t want to keep you from your oh-so-special business, Your Holiness.

(MAG171) JARED: Mm. … So, is there any way this doesn’t end in me dead? I’m guessing that’s on the docket if you’re here. Unless you’re just here to smell the flowers.

(MAG172) ARCHIVIST: “THE SPIDER: Oh, Francis… It’s such a shame, but I couldn’t do such a thing even if I wanted to! The man in the audience saw to that!”

(MAG173) CALLUM: … You’re the Eye guy, right? ARCHIVIST: That’s right. CALLUM: So you’re like… real important. ARCHIVIST: [HUFF] I suppose I am!

(MAG174) SIMON: Good to see you again, Martin! And you must be the famous Archivist, Herald of the Ceaseless Watcher, Harbinger of the New Age, etcetera. Lovely to meet you at last. ARCHIVIST: [SHORT EXHALE] SIMON: Simon Fairchild, at your service. [FOOTSTEPS] ARCHIVIST: I know who you are. SIMON: [CHUCKLES] Of course you do! I imagine you know pretty much everything by this point. How is it? How does it feel? [SHUFFLING] ARCHIVIST: … Strange. SIMON: Yes! I can imagine. These gifts can feel very disconcerting at times. I’m sure you’ll get used to it eventually. […] We don’t get many visitors these days, and, well. You might be the closest thing the universe has ever had to an important person! ARCHIVIST: Uh… I, hum… SIMON: I mean, obviously you’re still ultimately finite and all that, but [INHALE] altering the very fabric of reality, that’s… [WHISTLE] That’s pretty good going, all things considered. […] HELEN: [CHUCKLING] Of course! As much fun as the new world is, I am not about to miss a real, honest-to-godless demigod murder spree! [LAUGHS AND LAUGHS, ECHOING] […] I honestly thought that actually ending the world would be enough to stop you whining, but no! You’re the most powerful person, in a world where the worst consequences imaginable have already happened! Absolute power, with zero responsibility! What more can you possibly need to just – enjoy – yourself – a tiny – bit!

So, nothing new, but still eternally laughing that Jon was apparently marked as harbinger-of-the-apocalypse and that nobody cares about Jonah.

- I’m squinting at what Simon said regarding Jon’s powers:

(MAG174) SIMON: Well, in that case, thank you for swinging by to my… huge corner of the apocalypse. We don’t get many visitors these days, and, well. You might be the closest thing the universe has ever had to an important person! ARCHIVIST: Uh… I, hum… SIMON: I mean, obviously you’re still ultimately finite and all that, but [INHALE] altering the very fabric of reality, that’s… [WHISTLE] That’s pretty good going, all things considered.

Because it reminds me of the wording used for Hill Top Road?

(MAG139, Eugene Vanderstock) “But it seems the fight scarred the place in a way far deeper than simple fire. A scar in reality, that I believe has since been compounded by the interferences of other powers.”

(MAG146) HELEN: There is… something wrong, with Hill Top Road. You know it as well as I do. Some strange “scar in reality” at the centre of… whatever it is the Spider is spinning.

(And it’s still interesting regarding Jon’s status: if he is the one who “altered the very fabric of reality”, can he alter it back? Can he alter it in another way again? It still feels like if someone can do anything about the new configuration, it will be him…)

- I’m suuuuuuuuuuuuper glad at Martin’s rant and anger towards Simon, because it’s… coming close to talking about his own feelings regarding the apocalypse – the fact that he was misled all through season 4 to believe that The Extinction was the most urgent threat, and the fact that he was used by Jonah to give Jon his last mark with The Lonely, and the fact that… Martin chose to not kill Jonah Magnus’s body, unaware that it was still playing the game (and making Elias win). Martin hadn’t mentioned his own guilt so far, the fact that he was used by Jonah (and by Peter, and that Simon played with him a bit) and that he could have technically prevented everything if he had just stabbed Jonah in the Panopticon. I wonder if he will talk about that at some point?

It’s also interesting that this episode ended with the awkwardness of Jon inviting Martin to “lead on” before remembering that he’s the one knowing about the direction and correcting himself (“Follow me, then”) while Martin had expressed some anguish over the fact that he was “following, al–always following, never leading; never leading” in MAG170: it feels like there could be some feeling brewing over his own uselessness and powerlessness right now? Or like someone (Annabelle, Helen, Jonah) could definitely try to use it against him – Annabelle already did (“Does he even need you at all?”), which Jon kind of appeased the following episode (“Yes, Martin, you are my reason.”), but it could still come into play.

- Overall I’m not surprised that Martin absolutely wanted Simon dead in these circumstances – and it might be why he embraced the smiting spree so easily, because it could allow him (through Jon) to hurt back the avatars and monsters who had toyed with people? Peter is already dead, and Jonah is still far away. I reaaaally didn’t like the smiting spree, but I can understand how Martin had wanted to embrace it as a short-term solution; that’s the closest thing he could have to get some power back. (Simon admitted that The Extinction and what he had told Martin had mostly been “guesses”, but I also still wonder if it’s not going to be relevant, though not exactly as defined by Adelard… Simon had told Martin, in MAG151, that cataclysms and end-of-the-worlds had technically always been a thing depending of the point of view – it doesn’t mean that everything was bollocks.)

- Once again, what is Martin’s status in the new world? Because Simon’s comment definitely sounded like he was seeing Martin as one-of-the-avatars:

(MAG174) MARTIN: [AGGRAVATED INHALE] I might have guessed you’d be happy living in this nightmare. SIMON: I mean… not that it matters but… yes I am! Honestly, I think you could be too if you set your mind to it. But I’m not one to tell you how to live your eternity.

We haven’t seen Martin use Lonely powers apart from the end of MAG149, and his status was ambiguous in the Lonely house from MAG170, but mmmm…

- I’m laughing so much over Martin still being petty over Jon sparing Simon, because it sounded ONCE AGAIN like jealousy and it makes Martin out to be so over-the-top:

(MAG174) MARTIN: Why did you let him go– ARCHIVIST: Uh… MARTIN: –Jon? ARCHIVIST: I don’t… know, I just–! [SIGH] I didn’t want to kill him. MARTIN: Why not? Because he was nice to you? [FOOTSTEP] Because he was charming, because he was fun? ARCHIVIST: No, I–I–I, I just…

Martin is a bitch and I LOVE HIM. (Also, that sounds like Martin himself found Simon charming&fun.)

I’m able to appreciate his over-the-topness because he also gave genuine reasons, was aware that it was a bit humiliating:

(MAG174) MARTIN: … Good point! [SMALL CHUCKLES] I’ll keep my apology, then. [RUSTLING OF CLOTHES] [BAG JOSTLING] [SMALL CHUCKLES] … I do kind of wish you’d waited until after Fairchild to have your crisis, though. ARCHIVIST: You really want that old man dead…! MARTIN: I mean, su–, yeah, sure, when you say it like that it sounds bad! ARCHIVIST: But what did he do to you? MARTIN: … He threatened to throw me off a rollercoaster. ARCHIVIST: Ah! MARTIN: … Okay, I, I know it sounds like a joke, but– ARCHIVIST: No, obviously, he’s an avatar of The Vast, I understand, it’s a scary threat coming from him. MARTIN: Yeah! ARCHIVIST: It just… doesn’t sound like a scary threat. MARTIN: Thanks for that.

Martin sounds INCREDIBLY PETTY, once again, but it’s also very valid: back in MAG151, I appreciated how his “How do you feel about… rollercoasters?” / “Uh… neutral” answer had protected him from both of the usual outcomes (getting recruited as a Vast avatar or fed to it as a victim), but it’s true that it was still a threat, thrown casually by a powerful avatar who was flexing that he could just kill him if he wanted to. It doesn’t feel good to be spared just because your potential tormentor decided that you were “no fun”.

It was cute of Jon to very awkwardly try to break it down, and kind of make it worse in the process – because yes, it sounded like a ridiculous threat said like this… but also, Simon would have done it, and it was a genuine threat.

- I’m absolutely delighted that Jon explained his feelings regarding the smiting – a mix of firmness and getting his points across, and that Martin apologised for pushing him in that direction ;w;

(MAG174) ARCHIVIST: I–I just–! … This whole… “avenging angel” thing, I–I’m not… It doesn’t feel right. MARTIN: … It seemed to feel right when we were avenging all the wrongs done against you! ARCHIVIST: I know. I–I–I know, alright? But, well, th–… [SIGH] That’s kind of the problem, I have all this… power and, and I, I want to use it to try and help, but I… I don’t know, I mean, I do. Uh… I’ve done so much damage, an–and anything that might help to balance that is–! [SOFT SIGH] … But killing other avatars, it, it’s not… I, I don’t think it makes anything better. I think it just makes me worse. MARTIN: … You’re removing evil from the world! ARCHIVIST: I, I’m not, though, am I? [STATIC RISES] The tenement fire is still burning; the mortal garden is growing wild; the carousel i– […] [SIGH] I, I, I… [SIGH] I’m sorry, Martin. After meeting the child, I thought… I’ve been… I really hoped things would be simpler, you know? A nice, straightforward apocalypse. MARTIN: [INHALE] No… [SIGH] No, I’m sorry. Cheerleading you when you’re on a magical murder spree probably… wasn’t a great idea. ARCHIVIST: I started it. MARTIN: … Good point! [SMALL CHUCKLES] I’ll keep my apology, then.

Sentence of the episode for me: “But killing other avatars, it, it’s not… I, I don’t think it makes anything better. I think it just makes me worse.”

I’m glad that Martin was able to keep (some of) his pettiness in check enough to hear him out, though, and that he apologised (I really didn’t hear the “I’ll keep my apology, then” as something serious, but as cute banter between a couple who are back on the same wavelength: Martin had already admitted that he behaved poorly – it’s not something he can exactly take back); and on the other hand, that Jon also explained how it didn’t work. It’s like Martin isolating himself during the statement: they’ve made a mistake, they’re ready to acknowledge it, and they decide to not make it again. (Though, where was Martin during the statement portion this episode? At least in MAG171 and (partially) MAG172, he had stayed close to Jon.)

Right now, the problem with Jon’s powers really isn’t whether he can but whether he should – and the fact that he feels like it might be negatively impacting him is a valid argument (+ the ethical concern, not mentioned, of being judge/jury/executioner all by himself). The season began with The Eye wanting Jon to leave the cabin, wanting for the cabin to be his “chrysalis”, and… that cannot be good.

- I still lovelovelove how, since the reveal in MAG158 that “Elias Bouchard” was actually Jonah Magnus, Jon&Martin… are still mostly sticking to “Elias”.

(MAG158) ARCHIVIST: Uh– yes. And I’d wager that Elias’s body, uh… BASIRA: Gotta be Jonah Magnus, right? ARCHIVIST: I’d say so. BASIRA: [SIGH] And he’s been body-hopping like whatever was in Rayner. […] PETER: … No. No! This isn’t fair, do you have any idea what you’ve done? You knew, he must have– MARTIN: Elias– … Jonah had nothing to do with it.

(MAG160) MARTIN: Are we… … Are we safe here? ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Safe as anywhere else. If Elias wanted to find us, I imagine he could, but… I doubt the police will be able to. […] Does she know if they’ve found the old prison yet? The… Panopticon, Elia– … Magnus’s body.

(MAG161) MARTIN: [SIGH] Gloating, Jon. [CREAKING SOUND] Elias won, and there were some tapes he’d kept for himself, and he wanted to gloat. So, he sent them! ARCHIVIST: He’s not… MARTIN: I–I don’t see– ARCHIVIST: … “Elias”. MARTIN: Jonah, then. I don’t know, I find it hard to think of him as… I don’t really like to think of him!

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: No, no, lo–look… I, I–I was listening, and I–I was filled with this… hatred. This anger; I–I wanted to leave, and hunt down Elias, a–and…! MARTIN: W–wow, okay… […] Do you think it’ll do anything? Confronting Elias? ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] I… [SIGH] Maybe? MARTIN: No, I’m serious. Do we… [PAUSE IN THE PACKING SOUNDS] Is there a chance that we can undo this?

(MAG164) MARTIN: What about Elias? [STATIC INCREASES] ARCHIVIST: He’s inside the Panopticon; the tower, far above the world. MARTIN: That one? ARCHIVIST: Yes. [PAUSE] MARTIN: How is he? ARCHIVIST: Hard to say. The, the way this works, this… “new sight”, the knowledge is, is… [SIGH] It’s somehow wrapped up in the Panopticon? An eye can’t… see inside itself. MARTIN: Mm. ARCHIVIST: But I can feel him in there. MARTIN: Hm. That sounds… gross. ARCHIVIST: It is! [CHUCKLES]

(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: Help us with what? MARTIN: ‘xcuse me? ARCHIVIST: Annabelle, help us with “what”? Our–our, our journey, killing Elias, vanishing the Entities – what?

(MAG174) MARTIN: Thanks for that. … Hang on, you’re still down to kill Elias, right? Uh, oh, Jonah, whatever. ARCHIVIST: I’m still going to confront him. [INHALE] I don’t know if killing him is something I’m even… capable of, but if I can and I have to, I will. MARTIN: Yeeah? ARCHIVIST: Don’t worry. I won’t hesitate.

Because: same. He still doesn’t really register as “Jonah Magnus” to me.

I’m also laughing a lot at Martin, who began the season with “I don’t really like to think of Elias :/” and, since then, has most often been the one to breach the subject of Elias (+ we can add MAG170: “I mean, the interview was weird, I… I don’t really remember the man who talked to me. Just his eyes. They stared at me; th–through me, and… and, I–I knew that he knew what I’d done. God, I…! I was so scared, but… but then he smiled and shook my hand…! What was his name? [CREAKING] He said I “had the job”…! [CHUCKLE] That he “looked forward to working with me”! … I was still so scared I could barely move my arm…! I was so terrified I’d let him down…!” – even when he was losing his memories, still remembering Elias’s eyes, and THIS is how MartinElias can still w–)

I really wonder if they’ll even try to call him “Jonah” when face-to-face with him, or… will still stick to “Elias” out of habit.

- … Well. That is, if Elias still has a face. We know that some part of him still remains in the Panopticon-Institute (MAG164: “He’s inside the Panopticon; the tower, far above the world.”), that Jon can still “feel” him there, but the fact that Jon can’t know more about it (because “an eye can’t see inside itself”) combined with the fact that Jon’s anger towards him was a key point in making them leave the cabin and the confrontation with Elias is still their current goal… keeps making me think that Elias might not be in the same state as he was in MAG158. Stuck in layers and layers of spiderwebs? Merged with the Panopstitute (since his powers relied on Magnus’s body staying in the middle of it)? Stuck inside of his old body? What is the part of Jonah Magnus can feel inside the Panopstitute: is it Jonah Magnus’s body or his consciousness? Is it still both?

- Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Jon.

(MAG174) MARTIN: Hang on, you’re still down to kill Elias, right? Uh, oh, Jonah, whatever. ARCHIVIST: I’m still going to confront him. [INHALE] I don’t know if killing him is something I’m even… capable of, but if I can and I have to, I will. MARTIN: Yeeah? ARCHIVIST: Don’t worry. I won’t hesitate. MARTIN: … Right. [DISTANT LOW-PITCHED IMPACT, FOLLOWED BY GUSTS OF WIND] [INHALE] Right, alright then. Good. … Let’s go, then. We don’t want to keep him waiting!

“I won’t hesitate,” he hesitated, hesitatingly.

Well. Not exactly: Jon’s tone was casually firm, but also felt a bit distracted and, most importantly… why the need to add so many conditions, Jon.

* “if I can”: true that, unlike other avatars until then, Elias is tied to Beholding. Can Beholding’s powers be used against another Beholding avatar? Elias resisted the compulsion in MAG092 (… or so he said, before spilling everything ~on his own terms uwu~ – he, at least, was able to delay the effects), so Jon’s cautiousness is understandable.

* “if I have to”: that one is a bit more unexpected, because that’s… a big condition. In what circumstances would Jon “have to” kill Elias? It’s good, though, because it implies that it’s not about plain revenge anymore, but whether it could help the situation.

Anyway: the shift to “confront Elias” is a good one! … And gives me the feeling that Elias either won’t be in a state to be confronted, either will have further contributions to make.

(- Martin’s “We don’t want to keep him waiting!” also brings to mind that Elias is probably aware that they’re coming, right now. He’s in the middle of the seeing-it-all tower: unless he’s already incapacitated, they won’t be taking him by surprise, and he might be prepared to welcome them.)

- … Welp, I was feeling like we were hitting rock bottom last week, hope-wise, but this episode felt… like a breather (ha)? Not exactly hopeful per se, but definitely lighter (Martin firm about wanting to save the world, Jon finally wording what was bothering him with the smiting, Martin apologising, Jon and Martin reaching an understanding, not playing Helen’s game and thinking about the Elias case). So, #BackToWorryingOverDaisy – Jon didn’t want to kill Simon, doesn’t want to kill avatars just for the sake of it, but there is still Daisy running wild…

(And I would still feel a bit (lot) miffed if Jon were to kill her, given that she’s part of Basira’s story, that Basira promised her and that Basira arguably got the worst of it when it came to being manipulated without achieving/“winning” anything in season 4? I think it’s more likely that Jon could have the power to incapacitate her and give the time for Basira to fulfil her promise, if there is no other way, but I don’t know, I keep hoping that there could be another way with the fact that Jon can change the rules (turning the feared into the afraid, changing the “fabric of reality”) and that Daisy had a connection to The Eye (she signed a contract in season 4)…)

   MAG175’s title is mysterioooous. If MAG174 hadn’t happened, I would have said “Vast” but… Mm. Only Spiral and Hunt left when it comes to domains, so I would wager Spiral, more specifically with digital fuckedupness, reminiscent of MAG065? (But I could also see how it could tie with Hunt if thinking about beginnings, and it could go very well with Extinction too… if this one ends up relevant again). In itself, the title feels perfect for lore about the new reality (tying in with a few meta considerations and comments which have been made by various avatars), so mmmmm: could also be a switch in perspective with Annabelle or Elias, I guess…

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

Production ask game if its still going, Andrea Chenier or Werther

Hello! 19th-century operas about 18th-century poets, go!

Andrea Chenier:

Disclaimer: I’m not delusional enough to say I know this opera super-well because I don’t, but I know enough to say “Let’s do this anyway.”

I do feel like this opera could work outside of period, but I would personally prefer to set it in period because a) I feel like that’s where it makes most sense, b) I’m a sucker for anything related to the French Revolution, and c) I’m also a sucker for Rococo stuff. (Related: give me all the Rococo for Act I.)

I believe this opera is about two things: class conflict and mob mentality. 

Class Conflict: One of the reasons I want all the Rococo for Act I is to set up that inevitable revolution: you have all the grandeur on one hand, and people who are starving in the streets, or being worked to the bone for nothing, on the other. So there should be both incredibly over-the-top 18th-century setpieces and costumes and extremely ragged, muted costumes for the peasants. Chenier should be somewhere between the two: maybe a stylish but muted-color costume for him. And as for the whole “coming up with a poem” plotline of the first act, I’d try to make it clear that at first, he’s trying to come up with something that’ll fit his audience’s sensibilities, but he can’t because the reality of poverty and tyranny cannot be ignored. I’m not 100% sure how I’d do that, though. I’d also have the peasants turn a little bit destructive to further emphasize how out-of-touch everyone at the ball has to be in order to continue as if nothing ever happened- the evidence is right there, with the room having been partially destroyed.

Mob Mentality: There’s this really wonderful interplay going on between characters and chorus: the characters are able to manipulate the chorus for better or worse (mostly worse), and there’s this general atmosphere of intrigue where almost no one can trust anyone else- betrayal runs rampant, and not even young boys are safe from the zeal for the Revolution. Am I saying the chorus is necessarily bad? No (and in Act I, despite whatever damage they cause, they are good). However, their noble ideas are twisted by their own sense of “you are even suspected without cause and you die”. With that, I’d try to emphasize the inescapability of the chorus (maybe through having them onstage more often) and have the set (and also possibly chorus) literally close in on the principals until it’s just a small space in Act IV.

Also, lots of dark muted colors for Acts II-IV, except for the very end, which has this transcendent, light-filled “Liebestod” feeling, so make it bright and open the set back up as Chenier and Maddalena decide to take control of their own end and go out together. :)

Werther:

Period: It does not matter super-much to me, although personally, I really like the idea of an early-20th-century Werther who’s drawn to existentialist and/or nihilist ideas although he cannot bring himself to fully accept them.

Costumes: Since everyone in this opera is part of this sober-minded village except Werther, a lot of subdued colors and styles for the costumes- pretty, okay, but bland. Werther, on the other hand, is dressed in what was once a very nice out-of-period (partly too far back and partly too far forward) yellow-and-blue outfit but has now become a little faded around the edges and looks more like one of those outfits you see wanderers wearing in paintings. But it has to be yellow and blue. Come on @ every production that doesn’t have him wear yellow and blue.

The way the prelude got staged in the 2014 Met production broke my heart in so many ways and it was good, so I’d do something like that. Also, I really want to see Charlotte running through the snow, so I’d stage That One Interlude too. (All the onstage snow!)

Sets: The outdoor sets should be really beautiful and should capture the specific months (July, September, December), while the indoor sets should be more...stifling.

Psychological elements are everything in this opera, especially in regards to both Werther and Charlotte, who both seem like they’re losing their minds slowly because of all the societal pressure. They both try to lose themselves in other things, from writing to daily married life to reading to religion, but their own love and all the baggage that come with it are undeniable and inescapable. So whoever Werther and Charlotte are played by, they’d have to be really good actors in order to portray that kind of psychological anguish (also, Charlotte commits suicide after Werther dies. You know she does.)

I’d also try to do something with the Christmas-carol bookend: despite everything that’s happened, ultimately, nothing changes. It’s still that little, innocent, stifling village with the children happily singing, oblivious to the wider world and the problems that come with it. I’m not sure how best to capture that (maybe because I’m not an experienced director), but I have that idea, and that’s the beginning. :)

I hope you enjoy!

[keanuital]

John Wick solidified Keanu Reeves as one of the greatest action stars of all time

With A History Of Violence, Tom Breihan picks the most important action movie of every year, starting with the genre’s birth and moving right up to whatever Vin Diesel’s doing this very minute.

John Wick (2014)

In the entire history of American action cinema, there are very, very few movies that take their fight scenes as seriously as John Wick does. Some of the action set pieces in John Wick—the home invasion, the one-man nightclub siege—are straight-up masterpieces, and the movie never lingers long between these exquisitely crafted depictions of mayhem. But my favorite scene in the movie isn’t a fight. It’s the part where Viggo, the movie’s lead Russian gangster, has to tell his son just how badly he’d fucked up. Viggo’s boy, Iosef, has broken into the home of a “fucking nobody.” He’s killed the man’s dog, stolen his car, and left him unconscious. Viggo, played by the late Swedish actor Michael Nyqvist, doesn’t mind any of this. He just minds that Iosef did all this to the wrong guy.

Carefully and patiently, Viggo tells Iosef that he and his associates used to call John Wick, that nobody, baba yaga—the bogeyman. And then he continues, “John wasn’t exactly the bogeyman.” Dramatic pause. “He was the one you send to kill the fucking bogeyman.” A moment later, as that sinks in: “I once saw him kill three men in a bar with a pencil. A fucking. Pencil.”

That scene comes before any of the movie’s fights, and it tells us a whole lot of things we need to know. It tells us that Wick is an absolute avenging angel of death, of course, and it gives us context for the life that he left behind when he fell in love and got married. But that scene also tells us what kind of movie we’re watching. It’s a movie that takes place in its own universe, that leaves behind any notion of realism or naturalism. It tells us that we are watching myths and archetypes, that the movie is going to be a sort of tone-poem homage to history’s great bleak, existentialist action movies. It tells us that directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch know their Melville and their Woo. The first time I watched John Wick, I spent that entire scene cackling with glee. That scene promised a lot, and the movie paid off on it.

I have to imagine that the person who greenlit John Wick thought he’d be getting another Taken clone; 2014 was the era of the Taken clone. A few years earlier, Liam Neeson had revitalized his career by playing a leathery, regretful death-dealer in a cheap, unpretentious B-movie, and other aging movie stars were trying to do the same with theirs. Denzel Washington made The Equalizer. Sean Penn made The Gunman. John Wick, originally titled Scorn, could’ve turned out to be one of those.

Instead, John Wick turned out to be a whole new mold: a sleek, stylish, and deeply silly studio B-movie that takes place in its own fully realized world. And after years of choppy, illegible Hollywood action scenes, it revived the visceral beauty of a well-shot, well-choreographed fight, succeeding in making Keanu Reeves look like an absolutely unstoppable killing machine. These days, people aren’t making their own Takenknockoffs anymore. They’re more likely to make John Wick clones, like Ben Affleck in The Accountant, say, or Charlize Theron in Atomic Blonde. That’s a good thing. The John Wick clones have been way better than the Takenclones.

In some ways, John Wick was a very familiar movie. Over the years, we’ve seen a lot of quiet, soulful, and well-dressed hitmen pulled back into the killing game by tragedy, forced to eliminate their old bosses. We’ve seen a lot of broken loners going on quests of revenge after seeing their families die. We’ve seen badasses so cold that they take out entire armies of anonymous cannon-fodder types. We’ve seen underworld stories in which the police barely even seem to exist. John Wick is, in a lot of ways, a traditional action movie, one that works very much within the rules and structures of the genre.

But in other ways, John Wick is a strange statement of a movie—one that takes all those tropes and makes them as weird and otherworldly as possible. For one thing, when John Wick goes to war with the Russian mob of New York, he’s not avenging any actual people. Instead, he’s avenging the death of a dog, an adorable puppy gifted to him by his dead wife. Iosef insists, over and over, that it was just a dog, as if this is going to help him in any way. It’s a beautiful little subversion of an old revenge-movie trope. People hate seeing dogs die in movies, so we’re spared the usual Death Wish-style scene of rape and murder. Even the dog dies offscreen. Instead, we get to skip straight to the revenge. And the movie knows it’s absurd for Wick to be killing dozens of people to avenge a dog that he’d only had for, what, a day? But it works on a couple of levels. At one point, Wick says that the dog represented all the hope he had left in the world, telling us that that’s what sent him off on that killing spree. So it’s an effective story device. But it’s also a grand cosmic joke. Because after all, it was just a fucking dog.

Taking this simple and unreal pretense as its starting point, the movie builds an entire world. This is a universe full of hitmen. There are so many, in fact, that they have their own hotel, a place where any actual killing is expressly forbidden. That’s one of the rules of this hitman world that everyone understands. Another is that everyone is supposed to pay for stuff in gold coins. Even the police seem to know what’s going on. At one point, a cop comes to Wick’s door and sees a body lying on the floor behind him. His response: “You, uh, working again?” Wick: “No, just sorting some stuff out.” That’s good enough for the cop, who backs right out. John Wick: Chapter Two, the movie’s 2017 sequel, builds on all of this and turns it into something even more gloriously alien. But it’s all there in the first movie—a violent hidden world, right under our noses.

A year before starring in John Wick, Keanu Reeves went to Hong Kong and China to make his directorial debut. Man Of Tai Chi isn’t what you might expect from the moment that an aging movie star steps behind the camera. Instead, it’s a great little underground-fighting movie, one made with a slightly incoherent plot and a great respect for fight choreography. The movie almost makes more sense as a collection of fight scenes than as a traditional narrative. It’s mostly in Chinese, but Reeves himself plays the villain, a glowering evil American billionaire who makes people fight to the death. And he made the whole thing as a vehicle for Tiger Chen, a Chinese martial artist who’d been one of the fight choreographers for The Matrix.

Man Of Tai Chi was, for me, the moment that Reeves became an all-time elite action star. He’d already had a surprising number of classic action movies on his résumé: Point Break, Speed, the Matrix movies. He’d done many of his own stunts in Speed and trained hard in wire-fu for The Matrix. But I’d always thought of him as an actor who sometimes did action movies, not as a straight-up action star. Man Of Tai Chi revealed Reeves to be something else: someone so in love with the genre that he’d make a labor of love like that. And John Wick is the moment he solidified his spot in the history of the genre. Keanu Reeves is, quite simply, one of the greatest action stars of all time. He might be the single greatest, no qualifiers necessary.

Think about it: Reeves was 50 when John Wick came out, and he still went out of his way to make the movie as hard and physical as possible. He recruited his Matrix stunt doubles Stahelski and Leitch to direct the movie even though they’d never directed a movie before. (Reeves’ devotion to the Matrix stunt team is, to my mind, one of the most endearing things about him.) He threw himself into training, learning styles of martial arts that he’d never attempted. And he pulled off these incredible fight scenes—scenes that mix gunplay with hand-to-hand grappling in believable ways, scenes in which he has to pull off these great stunts without the benefit of quick-cutting. He even did a fair amount of his stunt-driving. And he put in an affecting, grounded performance on top of all of that, bringing this absurdist world to life with the sheer weight of his facial expressions and body language. And he delivers his best badass lines with absolute panache and confidence. (Viggo: “They know you’re coming.” Wick: “Of course. But it won’t matter.”)

There’s a ruthless efficiency to the way Reeves moves in the movie. The way he kills people tells more of a story than the actual story does. He’ll punch someone, then shoot him, then punch him again. Sometimes, he’ll take a bad guy down in a leglock, holding him immobile while he shoots a couple of other bad guys, and then shoot the original bad guy while that guy is lying helpless on the floor. A scene like that one-man nightclub invasion is put together with absolute precision, ratcheting things up gradually until it becomes something insane and surreal. It’s beautifully lit and shot and edited, like Drive or something, but all of that atmosphere serves to highlight the action. There’s a scene near the end where Viggo, on the way to his final showdown with Wick, laughs maniacally. It’s not because he thinks he’s going to win. He knows he’s about to die. He’s just having so much fun watching Wick work. We, the audience, knows how he feels.

John Wick made an impact. It made money and earned critical raves, something that I don’t think anyone expected of it. It spawned a whole universe‚ two movies, with another on the way, and a spin-off TV series called The Continental reportedly in the works. One of its directors went off to make Atomic Blonde, an instant-classic action movie in its own right if only for that incredible single-take apartment-building fight. John Wickspawned imitators. But more to the point, it proved that an American studio B-movie could be truly great, that it could compete with anything coming out of South Korea or Thailand or Indonesia. It proved that we don’t have to settle for bullshit. It raised the stakes. People keep asking if American action movies are back, and I hadn’t really had an answer. But now, yeah, I’m thinking they’re back.

X

[btsiguess]

This is just to say has really got my brain working. I've gotten super into philosophy and literature bc of it?? and then I ended up having a dream bc of it?? I was wondering if you had any suggestions for things I could maybe learn about/study (both philosophy and literature) Thank you for the amazing story!!

This is the question I was BORN TO ANSWER I’m so excited, okay.

So I’m actually an English and Philosophy major at school (wow big shock right?) and the two actually really go hand in hand. You get a lot more out of literature when you understand how people were thinking at the time and philosophy gives you such great insight into that. Also especially in the case of earlier literature, everything was being written and read by educated people. So really if you were writing literature you were well versed in Philosophy and that created an atmosphere where authors were alluding to philosophical conversations in their work, assuming their audience would understand the references. It’s for that reason that these two fields really supplement one another.

A lot of philosophy is very dry, if I’m being honest, a lot of the “great” philosophers are really difficult to read because they basically talk in circles to prove their points.

I personally prefer some of the more contemporary philosophers? Gauthier is my favorite, he’s a wild ride. And I like a lot of the philosophers who sort of also made it as authors (so like, Kafka and Camus. But a lot of people find them tedious, because they… are…) the existentialists as a whole are also really fun? But also SO exhausting. But that’s just philosophy in general (e.g. In philosophy class a few days ago we were discussing whether or not ANYTHING IS REAL AT ALL OR IF WE ARE ALL JUST???????????? NOTHING WE COULD ALL JUST NOT EXIST?)

***

Literature is DEFINITELY my main passion though, so I can absolutely suggest some actual specific stuff for you?!?! Just like my favorite things! All of these you can probably find online??!

- I feel obligated to start off with one of my favorite poems, and the place where my title comes from: “This is just to say” by William Carlos Williams (what’s it about idk but I think it’s damn cute every time.)

- “The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket” by Yasunari Kawabata (this was my first introduction to any East Asian literature and it sparked my interest in non-western culture so it is very important to me! Without it I would have never found BTS, and a HUGE amount of other things that I now think are critically necessary for my life.)

- “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving (it’s especially interesting if you look at it as a metaphor for the American Revolutionary War which happened about 50 yrs prior to its publication// I think Katrina is a personification of America, Ichabod is a personification of the British army, and Brom is the American/union soldiers which makes it SO much cooler idk)

AND NOW FOR MY ALL TIME FAVORITE IF YOU ONLY LOOK ONE THING UP LET IT BE THIS:

- “My love for you is so embarrassingly” by Todd Boss. (I carry a copy of this poem around in my wallet?! Yikes I’m a n e r d. But seriously. It’s beautiful.)

I don’t want to overwhelm you with suggestions? So I’ll stop there. And if you want specific essays or PDFs of anything relating to philosophy sent your way I can definitely do that, lol. I’m a TA (my university lets undergraduates be TAs 😎). I have them on hand and literally I love LEARNING and sharing knowledge and also I am so hype about literature and philosophy so, really thank you for letting me gush?

Please! Feel free to even send me a message if you want to continue talking about this? I can send you suggestions based on your personal likes and dislikes ❤️

Also, one last thing before I go! Thank you so much for letting me know you liked the story and I’m honestly so SHOOK that it’s gotten you interested I. Philosophy and literature?? I seriously can’t imagine a better way to end my day! I love you 💕💙

Keep in touch xx 😘

-btsiguess

[castlehead]

Wandering Radical

     Perhaps at the end of the day I am the sun, am as absurd as calling      It a morning sun or setting, like a battle between mind and mind,

               To scope the angles of the clouds and sweetly To assume the when, sans context

        Of the time, completely blind to when, the sky in either case a mirror                          Image. Its qualities indicate both ends of today,

    Revealing the same hued leveling frames congealing on the horizon              Like wet sugar at the bottom of your cup of tea, which I am

Not sure this is; or I am The sun’s ill-researched absurdity Itself, whose heat spills all serious upon

     The blank heavens: a blank dark as had ruled Across the garden grounds where-

   -The radical will, is fated to, wander. It is when Our watches tell us that the day is come, yet light is not Yet light but lesser dark. Something vague on the horizon

   Upheaves the severest corners Of sleep, but leaves us as of then not sensitive to the explosive Draught wakening senses to their duty; drippingly,                                  A high peace of morning, a piece of the

Peace, of time in fickle frames unmovable. The-         -Radical takes a walk.

                      It is how he does his time on this visionary Earth, Or call it prison, fabrication---it is this fabricated

             Intensity of devotion that makes him Properly diurnal.

             In his quakes of pattern, The radical configures      An equivalent paean for the sun and

Moon. I memorialize the minutes of his life by linking these. All of him is all of me accumulated, but in frames of death, not Life, though the radical takes some action to deny his lack of self, Once fetched together by the sun and once all the frames are single-file

As like the resuscitated breather’s breath, the radical Enacts his betrayal of me and himself, he takes his walk back To the moon’s fugitive remaining parts,

             Essentially backing the wrong horse, his reasoning a roast         Of change of day, a circular riposte

Unto that offense of passing time, that is, a passing into The light of day, as if his own reality were more at stake

In a fluxive World. This choice resulted quickly in diffusion, him                 With the rest of night among the weltering calm

                                    Palinode, and pallet, of dawn colors---this        To catch the memory of being, as if he was at all

Before I made him wander, by being in the night,              He is from bones to flesh to a frame among frames    Of passing time, a circular riposte

Unto some offense, when to be the footman both      Of a sun and Moon, independent of the meld of both Into some other---since in being, One cannot be, without an Other---

             Robs time from the already-flimsy being Of the radical, makes his realness flee

Into something metaphorical already, even before I write it so: He has been there before, in the metaphor. He says

    This in the garden, and suddenly finds no     More to be found there but tombs, tombs

Garbed in glitz and beads for epitaph of words Soaking in the petty stylings of truth’s obligatory

Temporalities, and those truths especially of life, In bleak essay for our dank attachments Daily to be rid, for sake of his

And any life of radical, And he lamed by these withered words about it.             Yet they are not idiom

To be put together, the way one as him, but not him, The way I put together the blueness of the atmosphere And light through the big tree: with my massive-

-Painter’s hands, I cluck him out his hoot, contrary hoot,                     And find I holler answer in

My own mind: he sees himself---in my gusty, Gutsy absurdness; yet unsated, continues licking at these

     Chromatic choirs of light through lewd yew trees. It was his sun heaved upwards to the other side

Of the planet, for he was there where I cannot be, The same as maker cannot be the made. He eyed

The sun: it was the same answer---to night’s different gilding, Artifice both, for both come from my hands; what drapes

The dark of damfool night in a slightest glow of visibility Rides on the backs of particles of light later, depending on That ignorant steed, to paint the morning reality instead.

                 The radical unsheathed by Dawn, realizes nothing of this wilderness of symbols, but Sees clouds where they should be, and as is normal, he

Battles certain pained thoughts that, weakened by Sleep, had almost made a night of his day, this day.

A weal reddens at the rejection Of moon in its final places, somewhere In the moon, as it turns inward, a touchy thing:              Its ardor to oppress

The dawn is like a perspective once asleep, then made alive to Meet the challenge of the old inevitability that will compromise it,

Settling the pitch of night’s end finally upon the cities’ Grace as much upon the valley, and all of this, a slow contumely

Unto that moon, a passive, suffocating greyness to its Light, leaking away into usurping horizon: the radical Takes a walk: I am filled with a madness to confess

What he might have gotten away with never affirming, If he just only lived the lie, that he was born, not made. The

         Sketchy, yellow light to heat the frost on grass                  To runoff watering lower berths, lower hills. Tell me his

                          Reality, o nature, or my nature.              A whisper of wind got blown like a charge. Some

Cold glaucoma at first was deadly lush in my wandering radical      Who saw this night in him the horse to back.                                        As opposed to that Which took its place, and does, whether I create Or not; having no alternative.

The sun broke out across the nothing new like an Omen by the reins. In blowing hymns of rays---

There were pink yellows, majesties of common, virilest Red into vermilion---the caroled heralding of the sun

Got at him, cornered all the frames Of him, being so enhanced at soul By the drooping weight of bell-flowers Among other garden vesture finally Mid garofani and rosa venturing

Curled thorns up to meet the oxidation of self’s throne, He sitting like the sun at the tips of his head, fighting to Be as massive as the sun, thinking in steps, inconclusive Frames that want the very flat face of meridian their

Home.---Disinterested, apart, I the sterilest painter Could only hope his interest tell the story enough, As if, being a mirror in dark, all that is here is what

Is here. If the sky were conscious of reactions to itself, But not the source of that, the origin of its own self- -Most metaphysical; and wearying of no obligated Approbation/dismay towards a lot of unfelt reality          As tunes this poem here,---then, my

Light might could speak in a spark Or charge through the yew trees, back At him, and make him live, more than

One thousand Frankensteins, for the big, Blue bushes---or what light through staid

Clouds: by the time of this frame the day was obviously day, and Yet the radical sought some communicant or symbol for this, Searching for certainty about all the selfhood, anything

As might state its line of reasoning to him, As if I owed him my logic! I told him life

Only existed so he might put himself at stake, Risk to regard the brittle branches of the little Trees as a heft equivalent to the heft of his

        Reality, which I painted from scratch; one tree, one instance Of a tree in the particular, all that was needed.

So it seemed, I was the sun, or wasn’t, Or was the wisdom of the sun.

     I saw time’s rambles. I took a walk this time. I switched him out; I switched

This mind of mine to strange frames Of the radical’s within, and moved That microcosm to another crown, Throne, another chord for him to Feel real in hearing: for the royal Equipage to harp out and just for

Time, for time's dreadfulness in being, bearing out- -Portals into fiction I spot there in the air I desperately breathe.

      This was harder than one could                   Think to do. That is, to grab this thing I made

As if I could also be it, know the battle of the sun And moon my own, yet something different From that too. To grab-

                               -All of time’s incessant religion, always multiplying             Into further depths, barely there. You’d have to do it,

Grab it differently, grab different: yes: each and Every second, make and be a different body for The frame. You'd have to dismiss the servile

Shadow of fawning publicans that follow you around, Saying about how you are so great, bickering about when Which second out of all the seconds should grab you,

That is, me, on my infinite coattails, and kill me off, while moves All long time along, isolating being from the sun, the moon from

Being; nay any heralding of light’s Meridian pathway across land and sea,

A suggestive throne but not for any sycophant. There is A need of mine, that is, to separate the hope to go on, Debased by now, from the rule of the frames Over this sucking choir.

A comfort: confusion and pure spectacle proceed with Chromatism, charisma---the pure hoot, pure hail of the

Commodious reaching of time, and light, and light unfolding; Telling, heralding itself as pleasance, eden of edens. But The radical is never there. Nor am I, however the balance Might go. All that could survive once the both of us fossilize into The symbols, forms, ratiocinations, metaphors that built us, he And I, we realize, become with the gradualness of nightfall A brute spectacle of all these different frames,

And I the painter, I am one who moved my heart of the sun From its nestled tomb in some headachey beyond beyond

The trees squared in the hills. The hills like lonely Wizards’ hats that loom, and not one bright finality

. . . . . . .

in the bunch of 'em. This bunch of cosmic minutes out of time and made of a time that differs from these my, your dripping frames. In FRANCE, the existentialists,

absurdists and surrealists would think of what I’ve made so far as so much beauty, malformed by a- -damned spectacle: of technicolor light: yes: through

famished trees. And yet, how may I take one frame, and call that my religion: is such a thing not the

same if chosen from any frames’ minutes, droll and fabulous microcosms shooting like full rays of sun, and

the sun, the ultimate, the viol, singing sadness out of tune, to show absurd beauty in a sleep? I- -took a walk. It is impossible to escape the sad

strains of this gay blowing, an impossible poise, a- -hymn, a waltz of chromatic diligence regarding this the span, the catalogue of minutes’ colored light in

a day as wide as wanderers in spaces. Cursed, this demeanor of the sun goes off into cacophony. In the sewn sky. Bowels, led from an open maw

of time, down. The radical shakes his locks at this nice, religious consistency of frames. Again, are not the followers of time, like is the radical, not more than time’s followed rules incarnate?

One can’t, or won’t, babble out a frame of multiples, and call it questing for the walk he took that morning I had made him to take.

But did I keep my reverie intact: is it          spastic as surreal rays through this moment of a-

-tree, or many trees, this dallied instance: what choral agony is there to follow, after followers and radicals give up with rhetoric:

questions are not questions; no more were drips of time the frames of time. No more were suns the last

of a truth; a kindness. There’s millions of suns left. There's millions of ways the way I walk will leave the blowing sun the blowing wind---or tiding---of

                               immaculate change. I took a walk because I was the radical, the radical was I, a changeling, feeling

out for the code for a being in the sun and in the                                                     moon. For all these sad strains

of waltz broke through religion, time’s religion, which, after all, is the only religion. To what else

are we forced to adhere, day in, day out: and- -how is it there’s no God for this hymn of the beholder: is he beholding gold sides, green sides,

pink yellows? Absurdity is deep running. It is my rebellion; the rebellion of a- -wanderer wandering, having no alternative.

To sum up, to instate, clip the infinite to ends, that is my mission. It is to round out the brittle, brittle branches of the tree---make the tree

a part of the sun, and walk, with rays blowing in my face. Dis-organize the senses; break the new wood. For something in the heart of time's- -quite idiomatic, allusive, seeming done before, and yet no further notion of the hymn is taken,

elaborated out of dull surprise. Out of dreamt, dreamy frames of blithe light in a quiet fury. In a ghost, a moving ghost of meaning. God’s ticking

clock. So what is it I'm always speaking of: I do not know, and it makes me anxious to move on from whatever it was that rose, having no

alternative.

[lifeofaliterarynerd]

We Need Diverse Books: Arab American Heritage Month edition

If You Could Be Mine - Sara Farizan // Seventeen-year-old Sahar has been in love with her best friend, Nasrin, since they were six. They’ve shared stolen kisses and romantic promises. But Iran is a dangerous place for two girls in love—Sahar and Nasrin could be beaten, imprisoned, even executed if their relationship came to light. So they carry on in secret—until Nasrin’s parents announce that they’ve arranged for her marriage.

Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel - Sara Farizan // High-school junior Leila has made it most of the way through Armstead Academy without having a crush on anyone, which is something of a relief. Her Persian heritage already makes her different from her classmates; if word got out that she liked girls, life would be twice as hard. But when a sophisticated, beautiful new girl, Saskia, shows up, Leila starts to take risks she never thought she would, especially when it looks as if the attraction between them is mutual.

A Tale of Highly Unusual Magic - Lisa Papademetriou // Kai and Leila are both finally having an adventure. For Leila, that means a globe-crossing journey to visit family in Pakistan for the summer; for Kai, it means being stuck with her crazy great-aunt in Texas while her mom looks for a job. In each of their bedrooms, they discover a copy of a blank, old book called The Exquisite Corpse. Kai writes three words on the first page—and suddenly, they magically appear in Leila's copy on the other side of the planet. Kai's words are soon followed by line after line of the long-ago, romantic tale of Ralph T. Flabbergast and his forever-love, Edwina Pickle. As the two take turns writing, the tale unfolds, connecting both girls to each other, and to the past, in a way they never could have imagined.

Shooting Kabul - N.H. Senzai // In the summer of 2001, twelve year old Fadi’s parents make the difficult decision to illegally leave Afghanistan and move the family to the United States. When their underground transport arrives at the rendezvous point, chaos ensues, and Fadi is left dragging his younger sister Mariam through the crush of people. But Mariam accidentally lets go of his hand and becomes lost in the crowd, just as Fadi is snatched up into the truck. With Taliban soldiers closing in, the truck speeds away, leaving Mariam behind.

Ms Marvel Vol. 1 - Wilson Alphona & Adrian Alphona (Artist) // Kamala Khan is an ordinary girl from Jersey City — until she's suddenly empowered with extraordinary gifts. But who truly is the new Ms. Marvel? Teenager? Muslim? Inhuman? Find out as she takes the Marvel Universe by storm!

Ask Me Not Questions - Maria Budhos // Nadira and her family are illegal aliens, fleeing to the Canadian border -- running from the country they thought was their home. For years since emigrating from Bangladesh, they have lived on expired visas in New York City, hoping they could someday realize their dream of becoming legal citizens of the United States. But after 9/11, everything changes.

The Girl Who Fell to Earth - Sophia Al-Maria // The daughter of a mixed marriage spends time with her father’s family in a Gulf State, tries to reconcile her two radically different heritages.

Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood - Ibtisam Barakat // Memoir of a young girl set in a time of war and displacement, but revealing solid family experience.

Does My Head Look Big in This? - Randa Abdel-Fattah // When sixteen-year-old Amal decides to wear the hijab full-time, her entire world changes, all because of a piece of cloth.

Under the Persimmon Tree - Suzanne Fisher Staples // Najmah, a young Afghan girl whose name means star, suddenly finds herself alone when her father and older brother are conscripted by the Taliban and her mother and newborn brother are killed in an air raid. An American woman, Elaine, whose Islamic name is Nusrat, is also on her own. She waits out the war in Peshawar, Pakistan, teaching refugee children under the persimmon tree in her garden while her Afghan doctor husband runs a clinic in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan.

Written in the Stars - Aisha Saeed // Naila’s conservative immigrant parents have always said the same thing: She may choose what to study, how to wear her hair, and what to be when she grows up—but they will choose her husband. Following their cultural tradition, they will plan an arranged marriage for her. And until then, dating—even friendship with a boy—is forbidden. When Naila breaks their rule by falling in love with Saif, her parents are livid. Convinced she has forgotten who she truly is, they travel to Pakistan to visit relatives and explore their roots.

Rebels by Accident - Patricia Dunn // A Troubled Teen Sent to Cairo Finds Revolution is Everywhere, Including in Ourselves

The Space Between Our Footsteps: Poems and Paintings from the Middle East - Naomi Shihab Nye // In an unparalleled collection, honored anthologist Naomi Shihab Nye brings together the work of over 120 poets and artists from nineteen countries in the Middle East. In turn compelling, lyrical, tragic, and humorous, this rich anthology opens the door to the Middle East and beckons readers to explore our common ground.

Persepolis -  Marjane Satrapi, Translated by Mattias Ripa // Wise, funny, and heartbreaking, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi’s memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah’s regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq.

A Thousand Veils - D.J. Murphy // When Fatima Shihabi, an Iraqi poet and journalist, learns she is marked for death by Saddam Hussein's secret police, she flees Iraq, evading Saddam's helicopters hunting her in the desert, only to discover that no other country will grant her asylum. Her flight from Saddam's vengeance, and the extraordinary efforts of Charles Sherman, a Wall Street lawyer, to save her life, is the subject of this gripping novel, inspired by a true story.

The Secret Sky - Atia Abawi // Set in present-day Afghanistan, this is the story of two teenagers, one Pashtun and one Hazara, who must fight against their culture, their tradition, their families, and the Taliban to stay together.

The Wrath & the Dawn - Renée Ahdieh // In a land ruled by a murderous boy-king, each dawn brings heartache to a new family. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, is a monster. Each night he takes a new bride only to have a silk cord wrapped around her throat come morning. When sixteen-year-old Shahrzad's dearest friend falls victim to Khalid, Shahrzad vows vengeance and volunteers to be his next bride. Shahrzad is determined not only to stay alive, but to end the caliph's reign of terror once and for all.

Ronit & Jamil - Pamela L. Laskin // Pamela L. Laskin’s beautiful and lyrical novel in verse delivers a fresh and captivating retelling of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet that transports the star-crossed lovers to the modern-day Israel-Palestine conflict.

The Bastard of Istanbul -  Elif Shafak // At its center is the "bastard" of the title, Asya, a nineteen-year-old woman who loves Johnny Cash and the French Existentialists, and the four sisters of the Kazancı family who all live together in an extended household in Istanbul

The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf - Mohja Kahf // Syrian immigrant Khadra Shamy is growing up in a devout, tightly knit Muslim family in 1970s Indiana, at the crossroads of bad polyester and Islamic dress codes. Along with her brother Eyad and her African-American friends, Hakim and Hanifa, she bikes the Indianapolis streets exploring the fault-lines between “Muslim” and “American.”

[lelou-quotes]

The sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858–1917 CE) coined a special term in the latter part of the 19th century describing something similar to what you’ve identified: a sense of growing alienation from “nature and creativity” combined with a feeling of “purposelessness” produced by a “rat race” existence promoting mindless consumerism instead of virtue or community. The word Durkheim coined is anomie. I found a good working definition of the word (see below):

When a social system is in a state of anomie, common values and common meanings are no longer understood or accepted, and new values and meanings have not developed. According to Durkheim, such a society produces, in many of its members, psychological states characterized by a sense of futility, lack of purpose, and emotional emptiness and despair. Striving is considered useless, because there is no accepted definition of what is desirable.

Durkheim grew up and died occupying two very different worlds: he was born before scientific advances—by Darwin, Lyell, Currie, Maxwell, Freud, Weber, and even Durkheim himself—successfully challenged a traditional, ostensibly religious, narrative that people were taught to believe as true in their churches; it was a romantic narrative placing everyone and everything in its place helping adherents make sense of the world. This worldview, conservative for the most part, was far from perfect but what it lacked in progressivity it made up for in coherence.

By the early 1900s Durkheim and other intellectuals felt a sense of impending dread—expressing itself through a suicidal arms race between Great Britain and Germany and, eventually, through the violence of the Great War itself. This impending sense was accompanied by a breakdown in traditional values and social norms, i.e. the Gilded Age promoted values like self-interest and the profit motive at the expense of higher values like pursuing truth for truth’s sake and seeking the public good.

This is one of the reasons young men greeted the Great War with such enthusiasm. The existentialist philosopher Martin Heidegger said observing war “provides a metaphysical reawakening of the spirit.” Conflict would give a directionless generation purpose; and there were at least three thinkers—France’s Henri Bergson and Germany’s Friedrich Nietzsche and Oswald Spengler—who all wrote extensively on what they deemed was the cultural decline of the West. (Many of those young men whistling tunes on their way to destruction—on both sides of the coming conflict—were carrying copies of Nietzsche’s Ecco Homo in their pockets.) Some say art imitates life: if this is the case, then the novels of Herman Melville and many of Emily Dickinson’s poems indicate a growing sense of despair (particularly echoed in the masses); that is, they were born into a world full of rainbows and creative potential only to later find themselves in mid-life inhabiting a grey one dominated by consumerism, urban decay and natural selection.

I was born in 1971: looking back I think I was taught to possess a healthy respect for authority; I feel like we used to all fundamentally share something akin to a single narrative (the echo chambers of the political “left” and “right” didn’t exist yet and post-modernism and moral relativism were still fringe ideas); most reasonable people didn’t think their personal opinions were more trustworthy than the knowledge of experts; scientific knowledge was considered authoritative, not dismissed out-of-hand as partisan when conclusions didn’t conform to one’s political ideology; people prized flexibility of perspective rather than stubbornness; communities were healthier largely because churches were stronger, and so on and so forth. I sound like a conservative. I am not. If I identify as anything, it’s as a rationalist. All I am trying to say is the world feels different today than it did back in the 1970s.

Things have changed since then: we’ve become increasingly polarized and egoistical, less concerned (if contemporary research in sociology is accurate) with the public good and more with our own personal path to wealth. Science, arguably our best and most trustworthy way of looking at the world, has become a casualty in an increasingly post-truth world: theories like evolution, anthropogenic climate change, the Big Bang, and even vaccines, etc. have all become regarded as “liberal” ideas, instead of reflective of a single shared reality, by the conservative news media. (Conservapedia, the foil to Wikipedia, actually has an article on Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity where relativity is described as a liberal attempt to undermine conservative values.) Anti-intellectualism has produced a climate where pseudo-science—flat earths, Moon landing conspiracies, pyramid creating aliens—flourishes while genuine science critical to the public interest is under constant fire from corporate interests attempting to maintain profits by promoting the status-quo through a combination of propaganda and plausible deniability.

Computers and the Internet certainly existed when I was born; however, we were a long way away from the advent of either Facebook or Twitter and the eventual weaponization of social media. Social media and smartphones, perhaps more than anything else in contemporary culture, displaced a sense of fair play, community, and pride of purpose previously making society—however flawed it was in the 1970s and 80s—cohere. That coherence is gone. I’m not so pessimistic to say there’s no sense of community any longer; however, it’d be naive to suggest communities are not becoming increasingly vulnerable due to shrinking municipal budgets, rural depopulation, austerity measures enacted by provincial, state and federal governments, and a shrinking middle class (eight exceedingly wealthy people control more wealth than the lowest 3.7 billion people on the planet combined).

I’m a secondary school history teacher: I see all these kids with their faces buried in phones sitting on couches with other kids and their faces buried in phones—ten of them sitting together not saying a word to one another; the silence is broken only by the occasional chuckle or swipe. They are plugged in but disconnected. All of them are lonely because the one thing they crave online (a sense of connection and belonging) is nearly impossible to find in either worlds grey or virtual.

Suicide rates in adolescents and young adults is rising in the West. This is in large part due to how much time they spend alone online rather than spending time outside with one another. Related to this, albeit this is just anecdotal, I’ve noticed over my 20 year career more and more kids simply have no idea how to play outside. They can’t take their minds off their silicon obsessions; and collectively speaking, society is stuck in a sort of “Pavlovian despair” where we get rewarded to do precisely what we do not want to do: wake up and check the smartphone; go to work; check smartphone; complete some meaningless tasks that would be completed by someone else anyways; go home; watch a little TV, check email, social media; off to bed, repeat, and get paid.

But what can you do? You have to eat. Yet, you don’t necessarily have to do what you’re currently doing. You can get paid and do something meaningful: for me it’s working with ideas and shaping the thinking of young people. I find my work purposeful when I try to get students to think carefully about what they think about (become aware of their own thoughts) and practice a questioning attitude. There are things I’d love to change about working in education but, in the aggregate, I’m happy and I can’t imagine myself doing anything else. I think I’d be bloody useless, though, if society collapsed and we’d have to all survive through hunting and by our witts…

So, to directly answer your question: yes, there are plenty of people who are unhappy in their job—feeling anomie—who’d rather be just about anywhere else.

https://www.quora.com/My-family-thinks-Im-crazy-for-hating-a-9-5-job-I-want-more-free-time-and-more-outdoor-time-in-my-work-I-feel-like-a-dull-slave-in-the-office-Am-I-the-only-one-hating-9-5-office-jobs

[birdmitosis]

#he will just hand me an existentialist poem #and then i have to draw it

Working on Slay the Princess in a nutshell