#hopefully it’s like magician or lawyer or some shit

[greyroses02]

No regrets…she deserves this skin 😭🥰😭🥰😭

Look at her in all her glory…She’s so pretty and beautiful it almost makes me cry

[letterboxd]

Docs.

“I was very intrigued with this idea of the chest-burster scene.” The origins of Alien, and other Sundance 2019 documentaries.

Park City, Utah: Sundance has long had a reputation as the pre-eminent launching pad for cinematic documentaries, and that was especially true last year when a bunch of Sundance 2018 premieres went on to do extremely well at the box office. Titles such as RBG, Won’t You Be My Neighbor? and Three Identical Strangers have made a significant theatrical and critical impact in 2018 (not to mention an impact on our Year in Review).

Sundance 2019 had no shortage of buzzed-about docs on offer, with the highest profile one being Dan Reed’s Leaving Neverland, about the long-term sexual abuse two men claim they suffered as children at the hands of pop star Michael Jackson.

Although it only screened once, it was unquestionably the most talked-about film of the festival, and by all accounts an extremely harrowing watch. HBO will air the film in early March. (Letterboxd member David Ehrlich’s in-depth review is worth a read.)

Other documentary titles that garnered buzz at this year’s Sundance Film Festival include The Great Hack, covering the Cambridge Analytica Facebook scandal, Alex Gibney’s The Inventor: Out for Blood In Silicon Valley, about controversial blood-testing start-up Theranos and its founder Elizabeth Holmes, and Where’s My Roy Cohn?, a look at the life of the infamous New York lawyer best known these days for mentoring a youthful Donald Trump.

There were three other documentaries making waves at Sundance that Letterboxd had the chance to see. Read on for details.

A young Harvey Weinstein in Ursula Macfarlane’s ‘Untouchable’.

Untouchable After Leaving Neverland, this was the title that generated the most discussion around Park City. Ursula Macfarlane’s film examines the sexual misconduct charges surrounding disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein via gut-wrenching, first-hand testimony from some of his accusers.

It also chronicles Weinstein’s rise to power in the movie business, and his long tradition of wielding power and access to control the way media reported about him. Following the screening, Macfarlane acknowledged that the story being told in her film isn’t finished yet, with Weinstein yet to stand trial.

“We had to make a decision,” she explained. “Because you could carry on filming this story for God knows how long it’s gonna take until there’s some kind of conclusion. But we wanted to make our film evergreen in a way. So we did make a decision quite early on that we would begin with the arrest and we would end with the arrest. It almost became a kind of mythological, epic story.”

“It remains to be seen, of course, as to whether the legal system itself is capable of prosecuting someone like Harvey Weinstein,” added producer Simon Chinn. “Our hope is, through watching [Untouchable] you’ll get a clearer understanding of the nature of abuse in this industry and why the legal system is insufficient in dealing with it, perhaps. But equally, hopefully, you will understand how plausible the women who are accusing him are. For me, the film shows irrefutably that these women are to be believed. Let’s be clear about that.”

‘Untouchable’ on the red carpet, from left: producer Simon Chinn, director Ursula Macfarlane, actor Rosanna Arquette, and producers Poppy Dixon and Jonathan Chinn.

One of Weinstein’s accusers, actor Rosanna Arquette, appears in the movie and was present at the screening.

“A lot of women are not in this [film] because they were too afraid to speak,” said Arquette after the screening. “And I’ve heard from all of ’em, pretty much, during this process. Today. Everybody’s triggered. I’m here for all of them. I stand in solidarity for them, representing them. Just by telling your story, you help another person tell their story, so it’s a chain reaction across the world. So for that, we all very blessed to be a part of that because it’s helping people heal, slowly but surely.”

The Amazing Johnathan is the subject of Ben Berman’s untitled documentary.

Untitled Amazing Johnathan Documentary The Amazing Johnathan is a successful Las Vegas-based magician/comedian with a slightly sadistic edge to his act—his most famous gag involves appearing to slice a knife into his own arm.

Before watching, we weren’t sure that this would be the most inspired topic for a documentary, but the film was not at all what we were expecting. This is one of those documentaries that eventually becomes more about its own making than the ostensible subject matter.

Not that The Amazing Johnathan isn’t worthy of a doc—he’s a plenty interesting guy in a unique situation and the film gets a lot of value out of examining him. But the film has more to say about the nature of documentary filmmaking itself, as director Ben Berman becomes more and more central to proceedings.

There are secrets revealed throughout the film that might make you question its veracity. We won’t spill them here, but following the screening, Berman stood up to attest to its truthfulness.

“It’s absolutely real shit that happened,” he swore. “The biggest theme of the movie is trying to determine what’s truth versus what’s illusion, right? So to have that experience continue into you guys watching it is very exciting.”

The film’s comedic sensibility betrays Berman’s previous involvement in oddball comedy shows like Eagleheart, Lady Dynamite and various Tim and Eric projects.

The Amazing Johnathan himself was also present, and an audience member asked him about his current relationship with Berman, considering that it gets pretty strained in the film. “I don’t know what our relationship’s like,” he replied. “It was only towards the very end that I hated him. He definitely made up for it, what a genius ending.”

A sketch of the notorious chest-burster scene from ‘Alien’.

Memory: The Origins of Alien Screening as part of the festival’s genre-leaning Midnight section, this documentary about Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic Alien is the latest work from film nerd extraordinaire Alexandre O. Philippe, the Swiss director behind such documentaries as 78/52 (2017), which was entirely about the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, and The People vs. George Lucas (2010), which examined Star Wars fan discontent.

Philippe’s latest film is a deep scholarly dive into the cultural forces that lead to Alien’s creation. He factors in Greek and Egyptian mythology, underground comic books, sci-fi B-movies and the art of Francis Bacon.

“For Alien to become an A-movie in 1979, it doesn’t make sense,” Philippe said following the screening. “This is not a time when people were ready for it. And what becomes really interesting is this idea of, when a movie becomes that successful, at a time when the environment is not quite ready for it, what does it mean? It means, in a way, that there were certain images and certain ideas, and that we as a collective unconscious, and I truly believe this, that we summoned this film, we collectively put it on the screen.”

Philippe’s film champions the contributions of screenwriter Dan O’Bannon, who is often overlooked in favor of Scott and HR Giger, the Swiss artist behind the film’s iconic creature design. O’Bannon’s first attempt at the screenplay that would eventually become Alien was named ‘Memory’, hence the documentary’s title.

From left: Alexandre O. Philippe, Ridley Scott, HR Giger, Dan O’Bannon.

“To me, this film really is about the triptych of O’Bannon, Giger and Scott, and the symbiosis between those three people. It’s essentially an essay about those three extraordinary people meeting.”

The film was originally just going to be about the film’s most notorious scene before Philippe expanded his scope: “I was very intrigued with this idea of the chest-burster scene and, especially after 78/52, of making another film about another scene that had an impact on us as a culture. It seemed like a natural fit. But we did an early sizzle [reel], and it didn’t feel right.”

The resulting documentary is strong argument for the value of a film that does nothing but critically examine another film.

“What I really hope is that this film will make people look at Alien and consider it in a different light and maybe wanna go and dig deeper into it. Great movies, you can go over and over and over again and you will never ever get to the bottom, you will always see something new.”

Hulu has acquired ‘The Untitled Amazing Johnathan Documentary’. ‘Untouchable’ and ‘Memory: The Origins of Alien’ have yet to announce distribution deals. Reporting by West Coast editor Dominic Corry.

[mindwideopen]

Ramble on, which is what I tend to do, and please don’t get me started about Led Zeppelin, because they sing one of my favorite songs, “freakin ALL of them but most of all “whole lotta love” and the most underrated, “four sticks” off of Led Zeppelin 4...) Oh, and one more thing.... frickin Robert plant is a freakin frickin genius, (which is a double genius because 2 positive words, doubled) because in this song he talks about golem from the lord of the rings trilogy, which is one of my favorite movies because of the very sèxy Ian McCellan and Peter Jackson, director that made the most grody scene ever, where a guy ate a woman’s ear cause it fell in his custard, “dead alive”, but peter Jackson is one of my favorites, but his wife Fran, who hides from the public like me, and is a genius writer and the other writer the other pretty lady that talks about the screenplay in the appendices of the supplemental of the 10,000 dvds we got of all three movies, so I love that, and that guy that played golem and all the actors, awesome! His name is Andy circus no relation to Barnum and Bailey. Walt! Let me look up the 2 talented that wrote lotr screenplays, not jrr Tolkien who was one of the fathers of fantasy as we know it today) ladies: um, gorgeous! Wth?! Both of them!!!! And genius writers!!!! My god! And a dame! Wow! (I’m sorry I swore around the dame.... I’m embarrassed but I can’t erase cause it would be too involved if a process, and they’re judging me no doubt on my run on sentences among other things....🙀🙈🤷‍♀️🤣) Dame Frances Rosemary Walsh DNZM is a New Zealand screenwriter, film producer, and lyricist. She has won BAFTA and Oscars for her music, film-producing, and script-writing. And Philippa Jane Boyens MNZM is a New Zealand screenwriter and producer who co-wrote the screenplay for Peter Jackson's films The Lord of the Rings series, King Kong, The Lovely Bones, and the three-part film The Hobbit, all with Jackson and Fran Walsh. And peter Jackson is cool too, but alas, Robert plant beat him to the mention of golem in an artisticly huge way. (see? I always get to my point, sometimes, just takes a bit...) So Robert plant discussed golem in this song, ramble on, which is also like John bonham’s killer awesome 37 hour drum solos, where jimmy page was waiting, and checking his watch, and went off stage and got breakfast, lunch and dinner, and then a few showers, and some sleep, and put on his fancy rose costume, because they had time to embroider it during his wait to go back onstage, and he ate again, and did other rock star shit, by saying that he took his girl away, because she was his precious, and I have always found that factoid to be ingenious and innovative, because he must have been obsessed and insane about her, and it’s a good thing golem took her away, otherwise he would’ve probably ended up with a serious restraining order... goodnight! 😘😘😘😘

PS. I also like fran Drescher (which took me 12 times to type), as well as the adoration I have for dame Fran Walsh, which is my friend Carrie’s last name... holy crap! I gotta go...cause I gotta watch charles haid sceam his head off at literally everyone always some more in “altered states”.... the movie... also with William who Hurt no one cause nice man hopefully, and Blair Brown... oh shit... brown... buster brown? Brown and serve sausage? No! Cause a gorgeous lady, not part of some people who arent vegetarians balanced breakfast... Brown what, though?! omg... he’s eating a goat in the movie... I’m out... 🙈🙈🙈😳🎥😈👹👿👺🙈 oh! And John laroquette was in this movie, and in “night court”, as a lawyer with Harry the magician judge... I never understood all of his schtick, I mean, they must’ve been so lenient back in the courts in the 80s... I mean, he was like a cross between Steve Martin, Groucho Marx and Gabe Kaplan, from welcome back kotter, who was also like Groucho, cause who wasn’t back in the 80s? and John also played a jerk in one of the movies I saw recently, but I can’t remember which one... I was surprised because I really enjoy him as an actor. 🤷‍♀️🤣

[fakesurprise]

Bends in the Road

9.

Nothing tried to stop us from entering Oscars Bend, which was probably for the best. Noah isn’t bleeding any longer and my head isn’t hurting, but Wilbur gets slowly out of the car at the motel without trying to hide how sore he feels.

“Noah can get your things, if you want?”

Wilbur steps toward the hotel and stops as Noah moves in front of him. Wilbur lets out a gasp a moment later.

“I can help. You need to let me. And rest,” Noah says, loud enough that I catch every word.

Wilbur walks back and sits in the car again. I get my things, going to help Noah only to find he’s already getting the last of Wilbur’s bag packed.

“You didn’t unpack at all, did you?”

“No. Easier to leave,” he admits.

“Aram again?”

“No. Parents.”

I stop at that. “Noah,” I say as he’s heading to the bathroom to look for things.

“My dad burned my arm a year before they died,” he says, soft as normal. “After that, I knew things weren’t normal. I kept a bag packed. Waiting under my bed.”

He goes into the bathroom and comes out with the last of Wilbur’s things.

“You have one at Lia and Aram’s?” I ask.

Noah flinches visibly and nods, once.

I step forward, hugging him gently. I’m not a hugger by nature, and a tight hug would hurt, but he offers up a small, shy smile when I pull away.

Noah puts everything into the car as Wilbur stands, looking at the both of us, and the town. “Where to?”

“Jennifer or John. Smiths. We went there first; I imagine there was a reason?”

He nods to me, looks at Noah. “Relax it when you have to.”

Noah nods, and just walks along beside me. I look across him at Wilbur, who pretends not to notice. He’s definitely walking easier than he was earlier. It’s dinner time, so most everyone is eating in their homes. I knock on the door. This time it’s opened a crack; Noah shoves it open before it can be closed.

“Jennifer. John.” I get nothing further out, watching a grown adult collapse in a faint in front of me.

“Maybe not them,” Noah says, entirely serious. I rub the bridge of my nose.

“No vision, I think. Just terror. Bob Plint?” Wilbur offers. “If he’s hiding his son from the authorities, some talent could be part of that?”

This time, we all take the ramp to the house. Bob Plint opens the door after my knock, spots Wilbur. “You! Get off my porch,” he snaps. No magic, but expecting to be obeyed as a kind of magic all its own.

I smile. He steps back from the smile. I’ve mastered the smile no one would ever catcall, as much a part of my as my talent. “We have questions about Oscars Bend. What protects it. And why.”

He steps backward. “No. My son and I are safe here. I will tell you nothing.”

A TV is on further into the house. “Safe. You think you’re safe?” I ask, and my talent puts a dangerous purr in my voice.

Mr. Plint does not move. “I do not now what this is. I do not know what you are. But I am all my son has.”

“We’ve heard about that. Hiding him from the world,” Noah says, and there is an edge under the words.

Bob Plint moves aside, half-shoved by the air as Noah walks into the house. I follow. Bob Plint shakes off the shove and breaks free of Wilbur’s grip to enter the living room as well.

It is small. One large screen tv, a single couch, walls filled with DVDs, VHS tapes and Blu-Ray. The boy in the wheelchair doesn’t turn. His eyes are fixed on the screen, head lolled to the left. His eyes track us once he can see us, and he looks puzzled but for all I know I’m projecting. There is a catheter attached to the chair, and Alvin is wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and a bib that catches saliva. He is thin, but not as thin as I expected in my head.

“I feed him often, so he does not lose weight. I look after him. This he enjoys: his movies, my voice. We visit neighbours. We bother no one.”

“And if you die?” I ask, turning to Bob Plint.

He pales. I try and tone my talent down a little, but I have a feeling my talent has nothing to do with this. “I have a will, provisions, an expensive lawyer in Appleford. But he is my son, and to be – in an institution, even one that calls itself a school, is not something I desire. It is time he would not be with us. I am likely to outlive my son, and we decided to – to spend as much time as we could with him.”

“Tina wanted him in a school. To learn what he learn.”

“She refused to believe the doctors. I believed them.” He does not ask how Wilbur knows his wife’s name.

I look at Alvin. There is pain, but for him it is a normal. A constant. I have no right to try and offer aid that would not last. I turn my gaze to Noah.

“He is pulled to his father. And the TV,” Noah adds as another fact. “We are in the way of the Little Mermaid. I think it best we move.”

I do so, and Noah turns his daze on Bob Plint. “You kidnapped your son from the world, but the selfishness turned into other things. It is still wrong, but it is – we will be back, I think, to try and help. And we are not the type your lawyers can reason with.”

Bob Plint smiles then. The smile is thin, bitter. “This is Oscars Bend. It will not bend for you.”

I let out a sigh. I can get answers, but not without hurting him. “Let’s go. Using the stairs,” I add to Wilbur, who does so without a word. Bob Plint is a monster, no matter his heart, but not our monster. Not right now.

Across the right, lights are at the McTavishes. More than were on earlier. We cross the road in silence. Noah’s talent is a humming in the air around us. The front door of the Truman residence opens and a stout, balding man in his seventies walks down the stairs and toward us. Gerry. Edith had mentioned her husband was in town getting supplies. Hopefully not for a lynching.

Gerry Truman walks spryly for his age and shakes his head as he approaches us. He has never met us, but he doesn’t bat an eye at any of us. “You do not belong here. Leave.”

“I don’t think we can,” Wilbur says. “Not without answers.”

Gerry shakes his head. “You have eaten the food of Oscars Bend freely. By that binding, I compel you.”

Something pushes into me, at me, from a direction I can’t name. Noah shakes his head slightly as if clearing it.

“I am a magician, they are my friends, and warded as well,” Wilbur says mildly. “I wondered about the food. At where the stories about fairies and food came from. I am afraid you cannot get rid of us so easily.”

The old man just looks tired at that and nods once. “They said no,” he says, not raising his voice.

Windows snap open in the McTavish household. Gerry dives to the ground. Nothing moves in slow motion like it does in a movie. One moment I am frozen, the next the world is filled with thunder.

I’ve seen guns shot, and muzzles flash. At least eight people, all firing at us. The air in front of us shimmers, and metal strikes the earth as bullets ram into Noah’s will. There is a second volley, a third and then the entire house rocks on its foundations.

For a moment I have this ludicrous notion the house is going to rise up like some kind of mecha before I realize it’s Noah telling them to stop it. I think this definitely qualifies as a shout.

Edith Truman walks out of her home calmly as her husband limps away back toward the house. The old lady with no pain, head held high. “This is my town. You will harm no one here.”

“They are trying to hurt us,” Noah says, his voice carrying in the silence empty of gunfire. “I won’t let them.”

“You were allowed to act earlier, because Mark needed to learn a lesson. I am not allowing anything now. This is my place. My home.”

“But you are no magician,” I say. “A focus of this place, yes. Something neither magician nor talent. You’ve given to the land, it has given to you.” And the words seem to be pulled out of me. “You took it’s pain. You had children, and you put the pain inside them. A sacrifice for a sacrifice. Power for power.”

“Be silent.” And even Wilbur is rocked at the force of the command. “You will depart, or feel our wrath. There is no Outsider here. I would allow nothing like that here you foolish children.”

“Shit,” Wilbur says, very softly. Being a magician. Making a connection. “This place has power to give, but this much? Against all of us? Not without being warned, I think. Who told you we were coming?” he says, and I shudder a little at the chill in his words.

“You do not know? You do not –.” And Edith Truman laughs, short and sharp, thinking she has power here.

“Wilbur. No.” Noah has one hand on Wilbur’s left arm and Wilbur grunts a little and glares at Noah. “You said your magic isn’t about the living. You could make her into a ghost This whole place? I can feel you pulling it?”

Wilbur stops dead. He whispers shit again, his voice cracking, and the air is warmer than it was moments ago.

“You think y–” and Edith Truman staggers back as Noah walks toward her.

“Wilbur may not wish to act. Anya would hurt far more than you, since you are tied to this town. You did that, as protection? I can feel the push, the pull of things. But I can push only you.”

And she hurls backwards onto her back, the same way Wilbur did outside Appleford.

Edith Truman stands, shakily, looking old for the first time. “This is my place!” she screams, and the earth itself shudders underneath us

I grab the pain she’s calling from it, shoving it into Gerry’s truck. The truck turns into something from modern art moments later.

“You cannot use ghosts here,” Wilbur says, terribly gently. “That is my place.”

“And you can’t stop me,” Noah says, and he sounds tired as he walks toward Edith again. She gestures, and Noah just walks forward. “Tell me who told you. Who warned you. Who made this happen. Tell me, and we might leave,” he says, and there is no hesitation in his voice at all, the talent speaking as much as Noah is.

Edith Truman stares wild-eyed at Noah. There is a pressure around us, like an egg being cracked, but nothing breaks. Noah doesn’t slow, and the old woman whispers something as he reaches her.

Noah stops. “Oh,” he says, loud enough that I heard it, and walks back toward us “We are leaving. Don’t try to stop us. Please.”

At the word please, every house in Oscars Bend shudders just a little.

Edith Truman just sits. Sits down in the middle of the street, whispering names of the lost. Her power isn’t broken. Not yet. And for Noah, this is done. He doesn’t like having to be like this, and Wilbur is keeping the dead at bay.

I walk past Noah, who stops and gives me a surprised stare. “This town is whole, yes. Protected, yes,” I say, threading my talent into my words. Everyone here has known pain. Everyone hears my voice, though I try and keep it from Alvin Plint. “But protection must be earned. And respected. And change with time. Some sacrifices are not worth the cost. And real power does not always require sacrifices. Sometimes you just need to acknowledge it. To become it. To be part of a place, and let it be part of you. Everything else is desperation.”

“No.” Edith Truman stands, shakily. “I gave you everything,” she says, not speaking to any person.

“Sometimes that is too much,” I say. I turn. I walk away. 

“Oh,” Noah says as I reach him. “Becky?”

“A power was going to claim her. Oscars Bend, with our help, and we’ve definitely outstayed our welcome since she’s going to come into that power. I don’t think we want to be here for that.”

[wellmeaningshutin]

Short Story #30: Media.

Written: 1/25/2017

The actress, known only as Greta, has had her reality dating show renewed for its second season. For those of you who are not familiar with “Perfection”, the show involves 30 contestants, of no specific gender, that have to compete with each other to prove that they are a suitable companion for the perfect woman. Polymaths, Olympic athletes, CEO’s, magicians, all of the worlds greatest people try to prove that they are indeed worth it, often putting themselves through grueling competition to show their worth. Who can forget last seasons tiger hunt, in which Daniel Schmitt wrestled the Siberian tiger to death, with his bear hands, only to be mauled to death during his attempt to drag the corpse out of the arena? Or the Yale professor who shot the professor from Cornell, in order to gain a few extra minutes to solve his equation. Or the performance artist who drank a bottle of bleach and liquefied her insides, moving Greta to tears and applause, almost winning, except for the rule that contestants need to be alive to win.

Its rumored that this season will include mercenaries, world leaders, investment bankers, show dog breeders, self proclaimed psychic detectives, environmental lawyers, cult leaders, five star chefs, opera stars, and a man who can sneeze with his eyes open. It truly

Anne flipped through the magazine, bored with the article, but it turned out that the thing was just full of reality show promotions. Wasn’t this supposed to be about news? Flipping over the cover, she realized she accidentally grabbed “Global Reality”, the magazine that specializes in reality shows all over the world, instead of “Global Real”, which, although having a crappy title, was very informative and covered world news. She looked at the magazine table, sifted around, but couldn’t find the magazine she wanted. Looking around the room she saw that a young girl, somewhere around the age of 16-17, was reading the magazine while sitting with somebody who was probably the mother. Shit. Searching through the pile again, she finally decided to settle on a nature magazine, boasting stories like “The Technicolor Geyser”, “Mysteries of the Egg”, and “Australia: Is it Sentient?”. She was mainly curious about the third article.

For years, Australia has been known to have some of the most dangerous and alien species on the planet. Dog creatures with pouches on their stomach, with massive feet and travel by jumping. Jellyfish the size of your fingernail that have the death size of the Holocaust. Flightless birds. But why do such oddities lurk on the surface of this continent early, and why can’t they be normal creatures, like cows, lizards, and, dare I say, humans? An animal anthropologist, Simon Haulfis, claims he has the answer.

His theory is that Australia is a sentient land mass, but has been asleep for quite some time. If it was awake, it would be clear that it was alive, because we would all probably be enslaved or eaten by it, unable to stop it, but this comes in later in the theory. First, we need to examine the living angle. Why does Simon believe its alive. His first part to tackle this theory, is how come no civilization was apparent on the continent until it was discovered by the Europeans?

Looking at the magazines again, she realized that this was still probably the best thing to read. The clock on the wall showed that she still had twenty minutes until she would be called in, so she had to settle with this nonsense. Anything too keep her mind off of what was going to happen.

You might say, “Well there were indigenous people there, living there for quite some time!” Simon explains against this: If those are to be real people, then how come they didn’t have civilization, like the noble Europeans? How come they were equipped with magical sticks that, when thrown, would magically return to their user? How come their words were nonsensical? They, like the animals on the island, were only figments of Australia’s dream.

She made sure nobody could see the cover of the magazine. It was embarrassing to be reading this racist nonsense, but she wanted to give it at least one more chance to prove itself.

Like the Africans, the aborigines clearly weren’t human-

It went flying back into the magazine pile. With eighteen minutes left, she decided to settle on another magazine, but none seemed appealing. Settling on three different ones, she had to chose which was the least terrible: Cooking with the Homeless, Tech Supremacy, and Marching Band. She settled on the cooking magazine, and found an article titled: How to spice up the soup kitchen.

I decided to check out the soup kitchen to see how the homeless felt about it, to get a perspective of the real people, the real America that was swept away by the fascist, money grubbing, wall street elite. When I walked in the place smelt strongly, and although it was hard to describe the smell, it made my eyes water and I wanted to retch. I had to drink some mineral water to calm myself down, and inside I went to see what real life was all about.

I set myself down at a table with minimal people at it, since there was no way in hell I was going to let one of those people touch my $300 pea coat. I watched the way they slurped up their pathetic soup, it looked like tomato but without, you know, anything that would make it delicious. From the looks of it, it probably came out of a can, but these people seemed happy, their taste buds probably destroyed from all of the heroin they probably injected into their tongues. They seemed happy, but I knew they were faking it. Real Americans like these folk could never feel the emotions we felt, they couldn’t afford it! They imitate us like its a fashion trend, or maybe they learned how to use it when they claw at us with their dirty hands, begging for our hard earned money.

I asked a mother of two if she was enjoying her soup, she replied in a horrid voice, saying “Yes, its nice today.” I shook my head, pitying the poor woman. When asking how it tasted good, she replied “I don’t know, its good soup.” After multiple questions on if she could taste, or if this was better than the sewer water that she usually drank, she threatened to assault me. Poor woman probably only understood violence when she was growing up on the hard streets, I felt bad for her and her kids who she probably had to sell for sex, the boy, who was around the age of 8, was probably the money maker in the group, but that money would probably only go towards drugs and lottery tickets, because these poor, real folk can’t understand much. Its all the corporations fault, you see, that these sub-humans

This magazine also got tossed into the pile. Marching Band was picked next, since there was no way this one could just be demeaning other people, right? She still had twelve minutes left, hopefully this would be good enough to stick with. However, almost all of the pages were just literal music, written down on the pages, note after note, but she finally found a single article on organizing bands, which seemed long enough to last until she was called up for her dreaded appointment.

For instruments like Clarinets, Cellos, Gongs, you’re going to want chinks.

She skipped several paragraphs ahead, hoping to find something redeeming.

For your percussions you’re going to want blacks, but keep them away from jazz or they’ll use it to impregnate your women.

Into the pile it went. She ran her fingers through her hair and stared up at the ceiling, deciding to not even try the magazine with “supremacy” in the name, and instead counted the ceiling tiles. There were only twenty of them, and it was a quick count. Ten minutes left, still a long time, could she make it? She thought about how weird it was that all of the people in the room had so many different stories, but they were all probably here for the same reason, all of them had to fix a mistake they made and live with the consequences. The protesters outside almost made her turn away, but who were they to make her feel awful, this was already a traumatic experience for her. She didn’t even want her to be here in the first place! It was a lesson for her to learn: don’t fall in love with a married man. The more important lesson was probably: make sure a condom is always used. But how was she supposed to know that he took it off in the middle of sex, how was she supposed to know that he was going to berate her into coming here, what did she do wrong, why did she deserve this, why did he put her through this when he had been so nice to her, all those things he said… tears welled up in her eyes, a lump rose in her throat, her mouth quivered, people were starting to look. Taking a couple deep breaths, she decided to pick up another magazine to distract herself, only eight minutes left, she could push through. Grabbing one at random, opening up to a random page, she started to read.

-but its not just the fluoride in the water that they use, oh no, studies have shown that they are starting to embed secret messages in popular music. They make sure that the patterns of the songs make pictures in your head, so that you know what to think, who to hate, who to vote for, every little thing gets controlled through this. For example, the song “It Must be Tuesday” is actually a hidden message that when deciphered, through sound melding thaumotological heuristics, reads:

Worship the government like it is the true lord and savior, Jesus Christ, which you must ignore and instead worship this false idol. Be tolerant of the gays, even though they are some of the worst sinners on the Earth, devil incarnates, and make sure to vote for their rights. Buy lots and lots of soda so that you may ingest it and stay fat and docile, so our politicians can forcibly take religion out of schools, and our police men can rape your women and desecrate our churches.

Power through, five minutes, she had to just skip ahead and power through.

which is total bullshit if you ask me, but I’m just smart enough to trust the words of “Scientists”, who worship the false idol, “Science”, and try to put fake bones in the ground to disprove the story of our creation! I’m not stupid, and neither are you, so don’t believe a word of their lies! Don’t buy their snake oil! If a teacher tries to fill your kids with these blatant lies then take them out of that school and use the home school system to correct any damage that may have been done to their souls, and get them back onto the righteous path.

Now, I want to disprove another lie of science: Global Warming. Now, the blessed oil companies, factories, and car emissions aren’t heating up the Earth, why that’s just a load of hooey! What’s really happening is lots of people are leaving our holy church and are adulterating with filthy religions, like Judaism, Buddhism, or Islam, or even worse: some are going down the dark path of atheism. God is angered by this, for the world is now no different that Sodom and Gomorrah, so hell on Earth is finally arriving and oh lord can we feel the heat!

She decided that spending the last several minutes on her phone was probably a better idea, and decided to look at what was happening on social media. Skimming through, she saw a couple videos of puppies and kittens, but it seemed like she had built up a tolerance to those, and required more and more cuteness to appease her. Her grandma posted a picture that said: If you don’t like this picture then you are a sinner. Like it if you walk with Jesus every day, and comment if you can feel the light of the lord inside of you. Right after there were two more posts by her grandma, who it seemed didn’t do anything other than this. One was an article to the website of the last magazine that she read, “INFORMATIC”, and the other read:

I love my grandkids, today one of them sent me a pair of gloves in the mail, I found them in my mailbox :)

They must know how cold I am, and its a good pair, I have a pair just like them but I lost them, so I can’t compare, but they’re the same I promise :) :) :)

A friend of hers, who worked at the local movie theater, posted:

I can’t believe that Sails to Freedom won the Oscar, you know that the only reason that this movie won was because it was pandering to feminist liberal bullshit! Why didn’t a movie with men win, huh? Now THAT’s sexism! I’m tired of people coming into the theater to see this bullshit, everyone knows that women aren’t oppressed anymore, fucking entitled bitches. Why didn’t Skull Crusher win the Oscar, huh? Bullshit man bullshit.

Comment: Calm down dude, its just a movie, I don’t even understand how its supposed to be “feminist”

Original Poster: BECAUSE THE LEAD CHARACTER IS A WOMAN, DUMBASS! God, try thinking for yourself instead of the liberal media.

Comment: Actually, I thought it was sexist because the cast wasn’t all women, and I’m angry that it won the Oscar!

She put her phone away and decided to sit with her eyes closed, thinking about nothing, listening to the sounds of the waiting room, until she was finally called in. For some reason she thought of her old dog, Tulip, that she had back when she was a kid, and the doghouse that it used to live in. Tulip had the cutest habit of trying to talk like people did, but all that came out were sounds that were somewhere between a bark and a growl. She remembered running through the yard with the dog, or the long walks through the park. The way Tulip hid under her bed whenever the lightning scared her. Being greeted with licks and that cute noise whenever she came home from school. Those were better times.

“Anne?”

She opened her eyes and looked around the room. At the back she could see a nurse with a clip board and a blank face. Grabbing her purse and sweatshirt, she stood up and walked towards the nurse, ready for her appointment, unsure if life was going to be better or worse.