#i like larry leroy

[sirfrogsworth]

sirfrogsworth please i am begging to know your boomer uncle’s thought process when he installed all those spam search bars what on earth was he TRUING to do

This was my Uncle Larry. He died in 2014 from a lifetime of smoking.

But while he was alive, he was what my grandma would refer to as "a character."

I feel like seeing his photo gives a partial explanation of the toolbar fiasco.

He was a man stuck in the 1960s but extremely curious about new things.

It was the early 2000s and I was trying to make some extra money. So when he was interested in getting a computer I offered to build him one from scratch.

What I didn't consider about this arrangement was that I was basically signing up to be my uncle's IT person. If something went wrong, it could possibly be due to a mistake I made.

He called me up complaining he couldn't see his websites and that the computer was running slower than normal.

I boot up his system and it takes 10 minutes to get to Windows. The desktop was filled with random programs he installed. And when I opened his web browser I was immediately greeted with a dozen pop up advertisements. Once I nuked them all, all of the different search toolbars were revealed. There was maybe a few inches of space for viewing websites and he had just been looking at photos a segment at a time for weeks before wondering if maybe it wasn't supposed to work like that.

I asked him why he installed all of this crap and he told me he didn't realize he had a choice. He just thought you had to say yes to everything that popped up on the screen. He also opened every spam email he received.

To make matters even worse, when he was searching for lewd pictures of Catherine Bell (aka the "JAG lady" with nice cans), he ended up on various softcore porn sites containing ever more dangerous pop up ads. And he clicked on all of those as well.

He loved the internet. It was a wonderland for such a curious person. He loved typing in random things and just reading and looking at pictures for hours. Aside from Maxim photos of TV celebrities, his searches were pretty innocent. He looked at old cars he used to own and lawnmowers he wanted to buy. He read old war stories and found websites helping him learn how to whittle walking sticks.

But he had no sense of danger. He had a Leroy Jenkins approach to life. He just sort of jumped into whatever without any fear or caution. Which is probably why my parents were so pissed at him when he offered 8 year-old me a ride on his new motorcycle. He immediately took me off-road and up a steep hill without a helmet or telling me to hold on. And it was a Harley, so not really meant for that terrain.

I tried a virus scan and it just said "You have every virus." So I had to nuke his Windows install from orbit. I then gave him computer lessons, which he paid me for, so that sort of worked out despite how frustrating it was to keep him from clicking on random things.

Uncle Larry taught me an important lesson.

Never tell your family you know about computers.

[meta-squash]

Squash's Reading List Year In Review 2024

(I've also posted this on WordPress here, where it might be more readable: https://jesuisgourde.wordpress.com/.../30/readinglist2024/)

Last year I read 92 books. I didn't plan on trying to surpass that number but I did, quite easily. This year I read 116 books. I didn't start off with any specific reading goal, but early on I decided to make it my goal to read more books by not-cis-men (women, trans/nonbinary people, etc) than by cis men. I hit that goal with 72 books. I did want to reread a number of books; I reread 7 books, but not all were the ones I listed in my last yearly reading review. I read 89 fiction books and 27 nonfiction. Of the nonfiction, the genres were mainly biography/autobiography, essay, science, and history. I read 45 books from small press publishers. I read 39 books by and/or about queer people. I don't have a super nice photo spread this year because I read a lot of books at work; I was going to screenshot my goodreads grid but unfortunately they have (frustratingly) changed the format from grid to list in the past week.

Here's a photo of the books I read that I do own, which isn't a whole lot, since I read most of the books at work this year:

I'll do superlatives at the end, here is the list of what I read this year, in chronological order. (Apologies for the random line breaks in the middle of the list, tumblr doesn't like it when you have 50+ lines without breaks)

-The Sorrows Of Young Werther by Johann von Goethe -The Changeling by Joy Williams -Child of God by Cormac McCarthy -Pierrot Mon Ami by Raymond Queneau -The Ghost Network by Kate Disabato -The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan -Richard III by William Shakespeare (reread) -The Recognitions by William Gaddis -A Kestrel For A Knave by Barry Hines -Grief Is The Thing With Feathers by Max Porter -Bluets by Maggie Nelson -The Wild Party by Joseph Moncure March -The Hospital by Ahmed Bouanani -I Love Dick by Chris Kraus -Minor Detail by Adiana Shibli -Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson -Rent Boy by Gary Indiana -One Or Several Deserts by Carter St Hogan -Samedi the Deafness by Jesse Ball -Norma Jean Baker of Troy by Anne Carson -Die My Love by Ariana Harwicz -Missing Person by Patrick Modiano -Petite Fleur by Iosi Havilio -Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi -The Address Book by Sophie Calle -In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado -Plastic Jesus by Poppy Z Brite -New Animal by Ella Baxter -The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds by Paul Zindel (play) -Green Girl by Kate Zambrino -Death In Spring by Merce Rodoreda -Harold's End by JT LeRoy (reread) -Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto -Stranger To The Moon by Evelio Rosero -H of H Playbook by Anne Carson -When The Sick Rule The World by Dodie Bellamy -Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson -Agua Viva by Clarice Lispector -Not One Day by Anne Garreta -Mauve Desert by Nicole Brossard -Binary Star by Sarah Gerard -Slug and other stories by Megan Milks -Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block (reread) -The Deer by Dashiel Carrera -Mean by Myriam Gurba -Humiliation by Wayne Koestenbaum -The Toaster Project: Or A Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance from Scratch by Thomas Thwaites -Kind Mirrors, Ugly Ghosts by Claire Donato -Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield

-Notes on Thoughts and Vision & The Wise Sappho by H.D. -Harrow by Joy Williams -A Feast Of Snakes by Harry Crews -Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York by Lucy Sante -Milkshake by Travis Dahlke -Little Fish by Casey Plett -Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor -Sex Goblin by Lauren Cook -Biography of X by Catherine Lacey -Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller -Hir by Taylor Mac (play) -Daddy Boy by Emerson Whitney -Notes On Camp by Susan Sontag -Transformer: A Story of Glitter, Glam Rock, and Loving Lou Reed by Simon Doonan -Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo -Acid Snow by Larry Mitchell (reread) -33 1/3 Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures by Chris Ott -The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides -red doc> by Anne Carson -Darryl by Jackie Ess -A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan -The Postman Always Rings Twice by James Cain -Body by Harry Crews -St Sebastian's Abyss by Mark Haber -The Quick & The Dead by Joy Williams (reread) -Don't Think Twice: Adventure and Healing at 100 Miles Per Hour by Barbara Schoichet -Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer -Timbuktu by Paul Auster -Nevada by Imogen Binnie -The End We Start From by Megan Hunte -Organ Meats by K-Ming Chang -Like Flies From Afar by K. Ferraro -Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe -Bestiary by K-Ming Chang -Playboy by Constance Debre -Red Dragon by Thomas Harris -Parting Gifts for Losing Contestants by Jessica Mooney -The Outline of My Lover by Douglas A Martin -Monstrilio by Gerardo Samano Cordova -Essex County by Jeff Lemire (reread) -Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have To Offer by Rax King -The Death of Francis Bacon by Max Porter -Lover Man by Alston Anderson -Cecilia by K-Ming Chang -The Employees by Olga Ravn -It Lasts Forever And Then It's Over by Anne De Marcken -Mercy Killing by Alandra Hileman (play) -Tentacle by Rita Indiana

-Nox by Anne Carson -What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami -McGlue by Ottessa Moshfegh (reread) -Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin -John by Annie Baker (play) -Widow Basquiat by Jennifer Clement -All Down Darkness Wide by Sean Hewitt -The Blue Books by Nicole Brossard -The Book Of Difficult Fruit: Arguments for the Tart, Tender and Unruly by Kate Lebo -Blood Of The Dawn by Claudia Salazar Jimenez -The Balloonists by Eula Biss -Ravage: An Astonishment Of Fire by MacGillivray/Kirsten Norrie -Gods Of Want: Stories by K-Ming Chang -Fem by Magda Carneci -Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary by Miss Major Griffin-Gracy and Toshio Merino -Mr Parker by Michael McKeever (play) -Fucking A by Suzan-Lori Parks (play) -Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha -Otherspace, a Martian Ty/opography by Brad Freeman and Johanna Drucker

I DNF'ed a few books, but all were put down with the intention of finishing them at some point. Mostly they were books I needed to read when I was less busy/in a different headspace. I DNF'ed: Soldiers Don't Go Mad: A true story of friendship, poetry and mental illness during the first world war by Charles Glass, a reread of Her by HD, and The Apple In The Dark by Clarice Lispector. The Lispector and HD are both modernist novels that need 100% attention, and the Glass book is a nonfiction book (very good so far) that I put down in favor of something that at the time was more interesting.

I gave out a lot of 5 stars this year. The books I rated as 5 stars were: The Changeling by Joy Williams, The Recognitions by William Gaddis, Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield, 33 1/3 Unknown Pleasures by Chris Ott, Transformer by Simon Doonan, Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, Body by Harry Crews, Organ Meats by K-Ming Chang, Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe, and Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin.

~Superlatives~

Like last year, I'm going to do runners-up because I read so many books.

Favorite book: The Recognitions by William Gaddis. I have to pick this one as my favorite for the year, because reading it was a journey, and because it was a book that was exactly everything I love in a book: fascinating, very human characters, weird formatting, great dialogue, metaphors galore, and most importantly, hundreds of cultural, artistic, historical, biblical and literary references. I started this book on January 4 and I finished it February 22. It was so unbelievably dense, probably the densest novel I've ever read, and I absolutely loved it. So much is going on in this novel that it's hard for me to summarize. In the very shortest version of a summary, it is a novel about counterfeits (specifically paintings, but counterfeits in all and any forms) and Catholicism in 1930s/40s New York. The main character is a young man named Wyatt Gwyon, a talented artist who instead of painting for himself, becomes a skilled counterfeiter-- not because he wants to make money, but because he's obsessed with the perfection of making exact interpretations of other people's art. He also struggles with religion and belief due to his strange religious upbringing. Many, many other characters are also focal points throughout the novel. The book is unique in that it doesn't use quotation marks when characters speak and rarely uses "he said"/"she said" or any similar phrase. But Gaddis is incredibly talented at writing dialogue so that each character's voice comes through, and it's obvious (except when he doesn't want it to be) who is speaking. Gaddis is also wonderfully scathing, and much of the novel is incredibly witty and intelligent observations about the Modernist art world and artistic spaces in general. The characters are all fascinating, there is a lot of mirroring and metaphors. I say this book is about counterfeits in every form, because it constantly highlights different ways in which each character is faking something, or lying, or pretending to be/know/do/think something they are not. This book was incredible, I annotated every single page and had so much fun reading it, even though or perhaps because it was so unbelievably dense.

Just for a bit of reference, here are a few of the more annotated pages in my copy of The Recognitions:

Runner up: Body by Harry Crews (more on this one further down)

Least favorite book: Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi. I was so disappointed by this book. The blurb on the back made it sound like it was going to be really beautiful and interesting and unique. It wasn't. It was all tell and no show. It follows Ada, a person who is born with one foot in the spirit world. A traumatic experience at university causes her to develop split personalities as the spirits from the other side step forward to protect her from trauma. Unfortunately, the spirits who now control her body have darker, more dangerous desires. Sadly, there was almost no plot, just description after description of Ada's unhealthy relationships and erratic behavior. But because the narrative is so distanced from said relationships and from Ada, the high stakes of this behavior is not felt, not really. Interesting characters can easily save 'all tell and no show type' books, but none of the characters get delved into with any depth, even Ada. The show rather than tell narrative also seriously undermines the poetic prose that crops up almost at random. This book felt flat. No plot, little stakes felt, no interesting characters, tell rather than showing everything, and it's not compelling at all.

Runner up: Playboy by Constance Debre. The back of this book describes it as a memoir detailing the writer's "decision, at age forty-three, to abandon her marriage, her legal career, and her bourgeois Parisian life to become a lesbian and a writer." Which sounds amazing! But it isn't! It's unbelievably pretentious and quite boring. It's mostly just complaining hidden by a facade of faux-philosophical meandering and directionless autobiographical vignettes. The author is a lawyer and she spends most of the time complaining about poor people and about women. It's so hilariously misogynistic. It's just various vignettes of her relationships with various women (who she dislikes and disparages for being femme or having bad bodies or for having lowbrow/uncultured interests etc etc) and then her going and visiting her ex-husband and teenage son, and then complaining that she has nothing. There's little to no emotion in the book, she is not charming, and her pseudo-philosophical musings are boring.

Most surprising/unexpected book: Body by Harry Crews. This book crept up on me in terms of a favorite. Crews' writing is not for everyone, but it's absolutely for me. The book follows bodybuilder Shereel Dupont and her trainer, Russell, who are at the world bodybuilding competition. Shereel has left home to compete over the past year and is now one of the most likely to win. Unfortunately, her family, who are "corpulent rednecks" with odd habits, show up to cheer her on, causing disruption and chaos throughout the hotel at which the competition is held and turmoil for Shereel herself. This book blew me away completely. Every time I thought it had reached a plateau of weirdness and chaos and insanity, it ratcheted that all up even higher, culminating in the most perfectly fucked up ending.

Runner up: Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin. A mother trapped in the liminal space between life and death is made by an unfamiliar changeling child to retell the events of the recent past, desperately trying to pinpoint the moment she can reverse the environmental poisoning of herself and her daughter. I picked this book up because it sounded interesting, and then it ended up being an amazingly written short horror novel. It had a lot of interesting thoughts on motherhood and the horror of being a parent - not in a negative way, but the horror of wanting to protect and keep your child safe and the inability to do so.

Most fun book: Like Flies From Afar by K Ferrari. I fully judged a book by its cover with this one, and it did not disappoint. Small-time criminal/oligarch Mr Machi thinks he's hot shit, until he pops a tire on the way to an appointment and discovers an unidentifiable corpse in his trunk. As he scrambles to deal with the body, his paranoia grows as he tries to calculate who out of all his enemies and employees might be responsible, and who is trying to frame him, and who the body might be, and his life slowly transforms into a nightmare. Everyone in this book is loathsome, but in a way that is so fun to hate. The whole novel is a romp of panic and paranoia, people who think they're so cool and hard exposing how uncool they are, and a mystery that's so fun because watching the protagonist panic is a kind of schadenfreude.

Runner up: Transformer by Simon Doonan. This is a book for people who love Lou Reed, by a man who loves Lou Reed. It's just a wonderfully written biography that focuses mainly on the album Transformer, but also gives Lou Reed's history and is interspersed with stories about Doonan's own thoughts and experiences with Reed. The whole book is really passionate and vivid, and fun to read even if you don't have the album immediately to hand.

Best queer book: Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield. Leah, a marine biologist, has returned from a deep-sea voyage that went wrong. Her wife Miri begins to realize that something is wrong, and Leah came back changed. The narrative switches between Miri's point of view as she tries to reach Leah and struggles help her despite not knowing what's happening to her wife, and Leah's point of view as she remembers and recounts what happened to her during her submarine voyage. I started this book at work and brought it home. In the middle of reading it, I stopped to finish some task (I think it might have been to make dinner), and ended up having to cut the task short because I needed so badly to keep reading. The most compelling part of the book is the very different ways the two characters' love for each other shines through, even in the darkest moments of the novel.

Runner up: Darryl by Jackie Ess. The titular narrator of this novel discovers that he genuinely enjoys a cuckolding lifestyle, watching men have sex with his wife. But then he realizes that part of the reason he likes it so much, is that maybe he wants to be the wife. His explorations with sex and gender and relationships (and basketball) begin to unravel his marriage and his friendships and his own mind. Then he learns more about one of the men his wife has been sleeping with, and things get dangerous. I loved this book because despite it being written by a trans woman, the story doesn't at all go where you'd expect regarding gender or sexuality. It's satirical, it's witty, it's got some cool things to say about kink and about gender, and it's totally original.

Saddest book: Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. This is a classic I'd been meaning to read for a long time. The narrator is an American WWI soldier named Joe who was hit by an artillery shell and has woken in the hospital having had his arms and legs amputated, as well as most of his facial features mutilated beyond use/recognition. Trapped in his body, he drifts through memories and musings on life and war and philosophy as he tries to keep track of the days and to figure out some way to communicate with the hospital staff. It's no wonder this book is a classic. The writing is incredible, the imagery vivid and the plot totally gripping, even as it switches between the peaceful past and the horrible present. The end is completely gut-wrenching.

Runner up: Minor Detail by Adania Shibli. This novel explores what in history is a minor detail, and what impact that little moment might have on someone in the future. The first part of the novel opens in Palestine in 1949, in a military camp, where a group of Israeli soldiers (led by a captain suffering from a bite-induced hallucinogenic fever) kidnap, rape, and murder an unnamed Palestinian woman and bury her body in the desert. Fifty-odd years later, a Palestinian writer learns about this "small" moment in history, which occurred 25 years to the day before her birth, and becomes obsessed with learning more. She obtains an illegal pass to the Zone in which the woman died, determined to go there and find more information. I don't want to summarize much more because I don't want to give away any of the hard-hitting plot points. But Minor Detail was published in 2020, and it explores the cycles of violence and the ways in which oppression has not changed for the Palestinian people. It's a book that I wish I had read twice because (as the title suggests) there were a lot of small details that repeated themselves or were less noticeable at first but slowly grew or became important later in the story, and I'm sure I would have noticed more.

Weirdest book: The Changeling by Joy Williams. I love Joy Williams! I love everything she writes! Her themes are always so interesting and her writing style is so unique. The main character, a young woman named Pearl, escapes her terrible marriage by joining a rich older man and in doing so ends up living with him on an island that is populated by children he has taken under his wing. Pearl wants little to do with them and spends most of her days getting drunk by the pool -- the children are eerily smart and her son has joined their games and lessons, and they all want her attention. But her son is less and less her son as time goes on, and the children are not always the children, and the adults in the house are all bizarre and half-mad. I wish I could give a better summary, but Joy Williams books are always difficult to summarize, because so much of the stories are less about the plot and more about the characters just feeling things at the reader, and the plot is often built on or around odd occurrences and philosophical musings. This book blew me away with its imagery and its metaphors. I want to reread it, because it was just so amazing. My absolutely favorite thing about Joy Williams (and this is true for all of her books) is the way she writes these incredibly profound and philosophical phrases like they're nothing at all, like they're so easy, just breezes on by them even though she's just punched you in the chest. It's amazing.

Runner up: Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin.

Most gripping book: Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe. This book is an absolute masterclass in pacing. It tells just a few fragments out of the whole history of the Irish Troubles, but the fragments that are focused on are woven together with brilliant timing, humanizing and vivid portrayals, fantastic analysis and contextualization, and altogether excellent writing. Every time I put this book down I wanted to keep reading, to know what was going to happen next. The book has 3 focal points: Gerry Adams, (alleged) leader of the IRA; Dolors Price, a member of the IRA; and the family of Jean McConville, a woman kidnapped by the IRA. At first, all three storylines are disparate, but Keefe slowly weaves them together, pulling all the threads of context and action and years in prison or government or delinquent schools together slowly but steadily. The book reads like a thriller, and I adored it completely. (Yes, I do know about the miniseries. I haven't finished watching it yet!)

Runner up: Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield.

Book that taught me the most: Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe

Runner up: The Toaster Project: Or A Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance from Scratch by Thomas Thwaites. This could also go under weirdest book, easily. As a graduate art school project, Thwaites decided to attempt to build the simplest (and cheapest) appliance he could think of - a toaster - fully from scratch. Quite literally, starting with mining the elements to make the right kinds of metal and figuring out how to make the right kind of plastic. Half of the book is Thwaites' attempts to build various elements of a toaster - and how they go wrong, or right, and why it's so hard. The other half discusses all the processes that go in to making all these elements in a more manufactured setting, their impact on the environment and the economy, and the difference between cheap mass-produced products that break down vs more expensive products that last longer. The writing was fun and included photos and diagrams and interviews with various industry professionals Thwaites contacted to learn more.

Most interesting/thought provoking book: The Recognitions by William Gaddis

Runner up: Organ Meats by K-Ming Chang. I've now read everything this author has published and this is by far her best book. Her narrative style is so unique and so poetic, and the themes she always comes back to are so interesting, and they culminate in this amazing novel. This magical realist novel centers around two best friends, Anita and Rainie, who are both first generation Taiwanese-American. The story opens when they are adolescents, and Anita has recently learned that they come from generations of dog-headed women and women-headed dogs. They vow to become dogs together, tying a string around each other's throats as collars and playing at dogs in the empty lot near their apartment complex. But Anita's dreamlike imagination and obsessively loyal personality starts to clash with Rainie's more reserved nature, and when it becomes too much, Rainie's family moves away. Rainie grows up, while unbeknownst to her, Anita has sunk into a dreamworld and her body has begun to rot. She narrates her family's past and her mother's bloodline because she cannot narrate her own present. When she returns to the town she grew up in, Rainie discovers Anita's condition, and knows that she is the only one who can save her. This novel is beautiful, incredibly poetic, and experiments with formatting and narration in really unique ways. Its exploration of friendship and queerness and obsession and tradition and folklore is absolutely fascinating. I often write in my books and underline sentences or paragraphs that I really love. I didn't write in this one, because I would have ended up underlining the entire novel.

Longest/shortest book: My longest book was The Recognitions by William Gaddis at 952 pages, and my shortest was Notes On Camp by Susan Sontag at 57 pages.

General thoughts on all the other books that didn't get superlatives:

-Child of God by Cormac McCarthy. This is the first McCarthy book I've ever read (I know, I know) and I really enjoyed it. You just watch a horrible guy walk around in the rural countryside of a small town, doing increasingly fucked up things and committing various awful crimes. Which is exactly up my alley in terms of literature. The main character, Ballard, is someone who is so weird and pathetic that he becomes turned inside out into evilness. You feel sorry for him but you also hate him and he's also fascinating because he's so fucking weird. It's a great book.

-The Ghost Network by Catie Disabato. This book was so much fun to read while living in Chicago. It's a rock n roll mystery novel that riffs on Situationism and the L tracks and maps. A rock star disappears, and the main character who is a fan of her's is determined to find out what happened to her. What she uncovers is a series of clues based on defunct lines and stations of the Chicago transit system, and the Situationist concept of detournment, which lead her towards finding out what actually happened to the rock star. This book was so much fun, and so much of it was based on real life defunct train lines and the actual Situationists, both of which I found really interesting. The ending was also just so good! Somehow I managed to have read everything I needed to in order to get every single reference in the book, which was really surprising to me, because they all came from different places.

-New Animal by Ella Baxter. This book baffled me. It is about a woman who works as a makeup-artist at her family's morgue. When her mother dies unexpectedly, she skips the funeral and goes to stay at her estranged father's house. While there, trying to figure out how to vent her grief, she decides to try out the local kink scene. Her first experience is with a dom who is a manipulative, horrible asshole. She has a bad time, but wants to try again, so she goes to a place that hosts scenes. She acts like she knows what she's doing when she doesn't, no one gives her any instruction, so she fucks up massively, and everyone has a bad time. It's the worst portrayal of the kink scene I think I've ever encountered. The author said she did a lot of research but it just seems like a lot of terrible assumptions and misinterpretations. I thought it was going to be a book that positively portrayed kink and people who like the kink scene, but it's very much not. It didn't even feel like the author was doing this so the character would learn that she can't run from her grief. It seemed more like the author had one bad experience due to poor communication or shitty individuals, and then decided that's what the whole scene was like.

-Harold's End by JT LeRoy. I read this book in high school (or perhaps just after graduating) and totally fell in love with it, and then never saw another copy until recently. It was so good to reread it, to re-experience the gorgeous watercolor portraits that come with it. The novel follows a young street kid/hustler who lives with other street kids; all his friends have pets but he doesn't. A john takes a liking to him and buys him a snail as a pet, who he names Harold. The book follows him as he lives on the streets and as his relationship with the john develops. The book is classic JT LeRoy, and the end is LeRoy's usual style of characters experiencing a life lesson and growth but not necessarily in a happy way. It definitely holds up!

-Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson. This was such a fun and weird book and I really enjoyed it. Markson's idea for the novel was "what if someone actually lived the way that Wittgenstein's Tractatus suggests?". What we get is a woman who believes she is the last person on earth (it is never confirmed whether this is true or not). She muses on life, culture, art, philosophy, and her past, and discusses her trips across the world despite its emptiness. But her story changes constantly; she's always referencing things she said before and editing herself. It's a weird, fun, fascinating novel with a lovably weird main character.

-A Feast Of Snakes by Harry Crews. Yet another fucked up book that I loved. It follows Joe Lon Mackey, a former high school football star that now lives a dead-end life in his hometown in Georgia. Each year the town hosts the Rattlesnake Roundup, where people come from many states away to try and catch as many rattlesnakes as they can in order to win a competition. Joe Lon is in charge of the event now that his father is too old and ill. He's uncomfortably self-aware of his own personal failings and his inadequacy and his abusive relationship with his wife; he'd rather not think about any of it and is incapable of figuring out how to change things. But his old girlfriend is returning for the event, and his father's attempts to control the goings-on from afar mean he's unable to stop thinking about where his life has ended up and where it's going. All this drives him slowly crazy with desperation until the insane ending. Crews is incredibly talented at writing characters that are likeable despite being so flawed and fairly awful people. This book is no exception.

-Milkshake by Travis Dahlke. What a weird novel! In a near-future dystopian heatwave, an 11 year old girl escapes the environmental catastrophe by traveling back in time to her past life as a fertilizer salesman whose marriage is slowly collapsing. I really enjoyed it, because it was just so odd. Now that I'm thinking about it, I feel as though it would have been really interesting to read just before or just after reading Tentacle; both books focus specifically on time travel and on environmental disaster.

-Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor. At the opening of the box, a Witch has been murdered in a small village in Mexico called La Matosa. The rest of the chapters are narrated by different characters, who all have some small or large hand in the death of the Witch, who was a woman who the whole town visited in secret for medicine, fortune-tellings, and advice. The narrating characters include a schoolgirl, a drug dealer, a prostitute, a hapless husband who wants to make something of himself, and a teenager in love with his young girlfriend. With each narration we learn more about the Witch, and her mother who was a Witch before her. Slowly, we get inklings of the nature of the murder, and the revelation at the end is brutal. Melchor's writing is incredibly vivid, and the characters are all caught in the cycle of poverty, driven by superstition and fear and hardship. None of the characters are likeable, but they're all so human.

-Biography Of X by Catherine Lacey. In a dystopic alternate-universe US, where the Southern Territory split from the North after WWII and established a fascist theocracy, a woman named CM grieves her recently deceased wife X, who was a famous artist. Despite X's wishes, CM decides to delve into her wife's past, researching her history before they met and before she was known as X. She uses her credentials and privileges as a journalist to cross into the Southern Territory and learn about X's family and the communities from which she came, her activism and her hidden lives, and begins to realize that maybe learning all this about the woman she loved won't benefit her in the long run and that maybe their relationship wasn't as rosy as she thought. This novel combined fiction and real life in really fascinating ways, and includes both real and fake sources in its footnotes.

-The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides. A famous and successful painter murders her husband and then refuses to speak. A psychologist who is also a fan of her work is determined to get her to speak again. Obsessed with uncovering the truth, he ends up taking risks that threaten himself and his patient. A fun mystery that went down easy. It didn't attempt to be too realistic from the start, so suspension of disbelief wasn't hard. I do think the book could have done without the entire last part. Leaving it on the realization of what had happened and allowing the reader to sit with that realization (especially with how creatively the twist is presented) would have had more impact I think than the slower and less engaging denouement of the last 3 chapters, which were far weaker than the rest of the book.

-Acid Snow by Larry Mitchell. I reread this book for the first time since about 2009 and really enjoyed it. It's a very sad novel about a man living in NYC during the height of the AIDS epidemic. Most of his friends and lovers have died and he's scared and sad about his own life and cynical about love, but he's attracted to the man who owns the shop below his apartment. It's a dark book, sad and scared and jaded. I think the main character's anxiety and grief that slowly escalates into paranoia is an amazingly surreal way to portray all the emotions that consumed the queer community at that time. I also loved the sort of lack of closure at the end - because many people didn't get that.

-Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer. I don't generally go for science fiction novels, but I read this one because so many people said they had liked it. I really enjoyed it. The unnamed narrator, a biologist, is part of an all-female expedition into a harsh, unknown territory that has appeared adjacent to the US. The suspense and strangeness of the novel had excellent pacing. The descriptions were also so vivid and clear, which made the story's weirdness so compelling. I loved watching the main character struggle to remain objective the whole time while knowing that she's failing. Her growing fascination and terror is so fun to read as each feeling tries to overtake the other. I also think it was great as a standalone and I feel no interest in reading the other books in the same universe.

-Nevada by Imogen Binnie. I'm a bad queer person, I hated this book. In it, the narrator, a trans woman, is frustrated with her life and has just broken up with her girlfriend, so she steals her ex's car and drives away, ending up in a small town where she spends the night with a department store employee. I just really don't like books that are meandering tell and no show without characters or a plot that are interesting. This entire book felt like someone recounting their weekend over breakfast, complete with casual informal language and overuse of the word "like". Which would be fine if any of the characters were compelling, or if the plot was really interesting and went somewhere, but it didn't. A good portion of it is just musings on New York City, but without the creativity or vividness that other portrayals of NYC have to offer. After I read it, I learned this book was kind of the catalyst for a specific style of trans writing. Which also explains why I hated Detransition, Baby when I read it a couple years ago, as it's a sort of literary descendant of this. I'm happy to read books that are tell rather than show....so long as something interesting happens or at least one of the characters is unique and compelling. This book sadly has neither.

-Essex County by Jeff Lemire. I read this for an English class in university, so this was a reread and I really enjoyed reading it a second time! All the stories in this collection are so beautiful and compelling, all the characters are so real. And the art style is fantastic. The stories revolve around characters living in the titular Essex County in Canada, across a number of generations. It weaves together their relationships and their lives, much of which revolves around hockey. There were some storylines I remembered quite well and others I didn't remember at all, so it was really nice to revisit this one.

-Ravage: An Astonishment of Fire by MacGillivray. Man, this book had so much potential. This novel is a fake biography of a fake poet who disappeared from a Scottish island in the 1960s after falling into delusions that he has become a demon. The fascinating thing about this book (at first), is that it's completely convinced that it is an actual nonfiction book. It gives no hints that it's fake, and the first 50 pages are convincingly written with an academic, nonfiction voice as the novel is utterly convinced of its own delusion of factualness. The novel claims to be an analysis of found papers: first, the poetry and written tracts of Tristjan Norge, a Norwegian poet, then the analysis of his works by MacGillivray, and finally, the diary of his companion Luce Montcrieff. Unfortunately, it is fairly repetitive in a way that bogs the reader down quite a bit. Even so, I think I would have enjoyed much, much more if the ending did not abruptly switch genres to a supernatural/fantasy novel in a way that was startling and had no previous indications of earlier in the book. Up to the last 20 pages I thought it was interesting, even when it was dense, but the end felt like the author didn't know how to end the novel and just used the deus ex machina of supernatural occurrences.

My goal for 2025 is to read majority nonfiction. I don't know if I'm going to actually meet that goal, but I'll try. I don't have any goals for how many books I want to read, especially because I tend to read nonfiction quite a bit slower than fiction, so I don't have a good idea of what my reading amount goal should actually be. This year I also forgot entirely about my attempt to read all of Jean Genet's (translated) works, so I will hopefully actually meet that goal in 2025, since I only have one or two books left to read. But my first three books of the year are going to be Soldiers Don't Go Mad by Charles Glass, which I started this year but didn't finish, The Declared Enemy: Texts and Interviews by Jean Genet, and Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks by Patrick Radden Keefe.

[brennacedria]

One thing about Welcome to Night Vale that makes it so engaging for me is that Cecil's repetition subconsciously created this sort of call and response effect in me.

The easy one is the Glow Cloud (all hail). Like, even if I hadn't typed that all hail just now, I still would (and did) say it. Others are similar follow-ups and descriptions immediately following mostly proper nouns:

John Peters--you know, the farmer?

Larry Leroy, out on the edge of town,

Old Woman Josie (out by the car lot)

...and various iterations of how Steve Carlsberg is just the worst

These are just a tiny handful of examples; I'd say there at least a dozen or two that have wormed their way into my subconscious to be recited without effort or awareness as they occur.

I know that for some people, this kind of repetition is going to be an irritant. But for me, it not only cements these characters in their own reality but also brings me into Night Vale itself. It brings Night Vale to me.

[kevin--of-desert-bluffs]

WTNV quick rundown - Live Show - The Attic

Read the rest here!

Now, I usually do the live show rundowns approximately in line with whatever episodes were posted around the same time, but I've had this in my inbox a while and kind of want the draft gone so here it is! I'm sure not much happened between August 2022 and August 2023...right? /sarc

Featuring the voice of Meg Bashwiner as Deb and Sympthony Sanders as Tamika Flynn.

In space no one can hear you scream, but they can see you scream, oho, they can see you just fine, Welcome to Night Vale.

Cecil found a door to an attic he didn't know he had, in which he finds a projector and slides from a childhood trip to the grand canyon which he didn't remember taking until he touched the slides.

Cecil plays the slides for 'everyone' even though only he can see them. He has nothing but positive memories of the trip, they are good memories but they feel completely brand new to Cecil as he remembers them. Such as;

Cecil brought up a beaver from his trip which pees in Abby's bed and she doesn't talk to him for a week. He also took home a snake that he claims looked like his mother, so he named it mother. It had a 'non-traditional number of tails'. He also remembers taking a stuffed animal (a taxidermy peasant) on the trip, which he left behind.

He keeps realising he's not sure who is taking the photos, especially one of them all sleeping. The pictures get weirder and weirder as he goes through them. The memories less perfect.

He plays it one last time and it shows a portal inside of the grand canyon, followed by the stairs to his attic. Cecil decides he must investigate the attic.

Cecil hasn't been the only one discovering a door to an previously unknown attic. He figures out that all the doors lead to the same attic, which contains the perfect object for each of them. A object which could not be perfect outside of the Attic due to now existing in an imperfect world and therefore started to change and warp.

Cecil is forced to admit that there was no family ropad trip to the Grand Canyon. His mother would talk about it sometimes and put them in the car but she would just turn back and tell them to go to bed.

Cecil decides he must create new memories. Therefore, Carlos, himself and Esteban will be going to the Grand Canyon once they figure out where it is and how to get out of NV to get there.

He also figures out via runes found in the Attic which match Wendy's new runic name that it's part of their new campaign to create a perfect burger. Greg, their new life coach, is the one who gave them advice to create this interdimensional space where everything is perfect. After this, Greg is giving up the life coach business after advising them to do this and opening a curiosity shop in Maine.

Weather: "Words Are Hooks" by Danny Schmidt

Other people affected and what they found include; Tamika Flynn, who found a doll called Wretched Gretchen. She has fond memories of the doll for a while, before realising she is holding a pumpkin not a doll and having more negative memories of it. She was apparently more charmed when it was being creepy as opposed to cute.

Larry Leroy found an old air riffle he believes he used to shoot tin cans with and he used to have tournaments with his brother. Later it turns to memories of shooting birds - none of which are real.

Dana believes she found an old saga gensis she used to play with it with her grandfather. Later it turns into a shoe box full of mud which when reached into is deeper than it looks and contains her grandfathers watch, stopped at the exact time of his death.

Jackie Fierro found an old novel she used to love which she used to read to escape her rocky childhood. Later she realises it just hasn't held up. This is apparently true.

Harrison Kip believes he found a first edition mint condition Lee Marvin baseball card from his rookie year. This confuses Cecil because he doesn't remember Lee Marvin ever getting into baseball, but Harrison insists he played for the NV Orange Milks and then got into movies after that. His card might actually be a copy of Wuthering Heights.

Cecil also remembers through the sides, having a childhood dog, black and white, floppy ears, loved to eat dice called Backgammon (or Gammy). He also used to call his grandmother Gammy, who he says he played with, but also that she died before either he or Abby was born. Also Gammy the grandmother used to act very bizarrely.

Cecil's has a therapist, an iguana called Eugene over at the Pet Co' who 'really listens'.

Cecil teaches children about meditation in the Fun Facts Science Corner. Apparently the military wants to try and use meditation to create super soldiers. Cecil tries to guide everyone in meditation but accidentally teaches them to teleport and can't get them back home.

Harrison Kip's religion bans suspense and knock knock jokes. They also apparently cut a man open once. A part of the dogma involves being told to 'get real'. It involves a '12th god in the 4th circle'.

Cecil and Harrison both used to cuddle up with the radio to sleep.

Cecil's mother only wanted him to do activities that would be useful later, like tongue twisters and kite eating.

The actual news for the day is this; there is a fire raging in the scrublands, all of the trees were stolen, the portal on Portal Road is spitting out shadowy shapes and hissing prophecies into everyones ears, today is the day that they chose one citizen to be thrown into the big NV into the big pit of fun.

Monday is now called 'The Best Day'. Friday is now 'Boring McBad Day'.

Dark Owl Records is holding a workshop for those wanting to become a musician. There will be a 7 hour presentation which will tell you why being a musician is actually passe. It costs $50.

There are tryouts happening for a cheerleading soccor squad. Captain Rowan O'Donahue is the cheerleading captain and comes on the air to talk about the tryouts. He says soccor games are called soccor appointments. He tells us a brief history of cheerleading, claiming it came from Norman times. He says in England soccor is called lacrosse. He gets everyone to do a call and response chant. Those who don't make it will be put on 'a list'. Just 'a list'.

Abby used to be a cheerleader and was the smallest on her team. Being a cheerleader apparently involves some kind of trial where you collect life pendants.

Cecil's room apparently has no windows, blood stains which are still wet and human and chips of bones in it.

You can apparently get your eyes removed and cleaned at the sunglasses place in NV.

Apparently Cecil (after seeing The Craft) started to dabble in witchcraft.

There is apparently a Cave of Despair in NV which Cecil tries to trick a Leo (any Leo, all Leo's) into.

Joan of Arc was a photographer, according to Cecil.

Cecil becomes aware that music plays whenever he starts to talk and starts to question why and where it comes from. He plays around by saying different things in different tones to change the music. He then discovers that there is indeed a man close by to him playing music and is surprised by the fact. He suggests swapping places with the man. The man is kind of embarassed and not sure what to say and Cecil is not very good at playing music either. The man tries to tell a joke but 'doesn't understand humour'.

Stay tuned next for a line of people on stage and other people nabging their hands together. And from all the memories I have ahead of me to all the memories you have ahead of you. Goodnight Night Vale, good night.

[kei-maki]

Quite the Discovery

A small writing that only @secretly-larry-daley will understand, posting here because it was too long for Discord

A summer breeze whisked its way into the open air of the hanger Leroy found himself walking towards as he carried a small sack lunch and a water bottle in his hands.

The vast space of the hanger was used for the members of the Air Attack to team to hang out after a long day- a rec room of sorts. And with fire season beginning to come to an end, everyone found themselves visiting the hanger more often. They called it the Bunk.

The Bunk was outfitted with your standard rec room trimmings, a pool table, a ping pong table, and even a karaoke machine. Then near the back of the room stood an old fashioned tv surrounded by chairs and small sofas that everyone used on movie nights- or when the team watched CHoPs behind Blade’s back.

Leroy had been planning on watching something by himself while he ate his lunch, only to find his spot on the couch already taken by Dusty- the former racer having already switched the tv on for himself.

The pilot merely shrugged and continued his way over to the couch. He didn’t mind that he had taken the tv for himself. If anything, he grew somewhat excited at the prospect of watching something with his friend as they enjoyed the peaceful afternoon.

But as the team’s Lead grew closer to the tv, he couldn’t help but take notice of what exactly the other man was watching. It was the latest Grand Prix Formula One was hosting that year.

Leroy stop just behind the couch and leaned forward to rest his forearms on its backrest as he watched the vehicles on the screen maneuver in quick, calculated movements. Each and every attempt to inch forward in hopes of taking the first place spot. But he knew with certainty that that wouldn’t be an option once he saw who it was that was holding that position.

“Hey Dusty, whatcha watching?” He asked conversationally.

“Oh- hey Roy!” Dusty greeted, turned his head around to face the other pilot, grabbing onto the headrest with his left arm to help. He must’ve not noticed him from how invested he was in the events playing out on screen. “I was just catching up on the latest race. I can change it and put on a movie for the two of us if you want though.”

Leroy waved a hand dismissively. “Nah, you’re good. I’ve actually been meaning to check in myself.” Leroy moved so he was now sitting on Dusty’s left on the couch. “I thought you only watched the Piston cup, though.”

“Usually, yeah. But I was rewatching a few of the races from the World Grand Prix the other week and grew a bit curious about the other racers and how they were doing. So I’m planning on going through a few of their races as they come out before switching between them, that way I can see what they’re all up to.” Dusty explained.

“I was most curious about how the guy in first place was doing, so I decided to watch him first. His name’s-“

“Francesco Bernoulli.” Leroy smiled, knowing exactly who the man in first place was.

“A cocky bastard for sure, but one who mellowed out just a bit after the World Grand Prix. Started his career back in 2009 and was a prodigy right out of the gate. Quickly started a rivalry with Piston Cup champion Lightning McQueen with their frequent comparisons by fans, but the two eventually ended up getting together sometime after the WGP concluded. But the fact wasn’t discovered by the public until around this time two years ago.”

Dusty was taken aback by his friend’s knowledge of the racer. Stunned to silence even, for the moment as he was dumbfounded.

“I thought you said you were only a casual racing fan?? And when he got together with McQueen if it wasn’t found out until later???”

“Ah, well…” Leroy leaned back into the couch. “When he’s your brother you’re kind of expected to know what he’s like. And when he’s found a boyfriend. Because while he can be suave he panics just as the next person much around his crush and needs constant advice-” He caught himself ranting and stopped.

“Well- I think you get the point.” He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, before turning back to face the tv.

No.

Dusty, in fact, did NOT get the point. Not when his mind raced with the first part of Leroy’s rant.

‘When he’s your brother you’re kind of expected to know what he’s like.’

Wait wait wait. Wait hold on hold on. Hold on. Wait. WAIT. WAIT WHAT???!!

Dusty simply sat there, scrambling to find the words to find clarification as to what he meant. Because there was NO WAY they were ACTUALLY related. Right???

It didn’t help that Leroy was completely unfazed by his statement, just sitting there and watching the race as if he didn’t just drop a huge piece of information.

“You-“ Dusty tried, which seemed to get Leroy’s attention again.

“Wait hold on- you- wait. Ok,” Dusty took a deep breath as he tried to recollect himself.

“Can I get I repeat on that?”

Leroy looked confused now. “On what?”

“ON THAT- YOU- the first part of your sentence!!!”

“Uh…” Leroy thought about it for a moment. “‘When he’s your brother you’re kind of expected to know what he’s like?’”

Dusty’s mind froze once more. Trying to process the information still.

“You… you- you meant to- YOU…. You’re related to Francesco Bernoulli????!!!!”

Leroy furrowed his brows further at that.

“Yeah? You didn’t know?”

Hold the fuck up. WHAT.

“YOU NEVER TOLD ME????”

Roy flinched at the yelling and promptly paused the tv before answering.

“My name is literally Leroy Bernoulli, you didn’t connect the dots?”

“You think I can remember someone’s last name!??”

Now Leroy began raising his voice as well.

“IT’S LITERALLY IN MY FILE!”

“IM NOT THE ONE WHO DOES PAPERWORK ALL DAY IVE NEVER EVEN SEEN YOUR FILE! And even then, how am I supposed to know that it’s the same Bernoulli as FUCKING FRANCESCO!??”

“WELL, HOW COMMON DO YOU THINK THE NAME BERNOULLI IS???”

“I-…“ Dusty shut up then. Yeah, the racer was the only one he knew with that last name

“Exactly.”

It really began to sink into Dusty now. This man was actually…

“Well…?” He asked expectantly.

“Well, what?”

“WHAT’S IT LIKE TO HAVE HIM AS A BROTHER?”

“STOP SHOUTING. Jesus Christ…” Leroy unpaused the tv, watching his brother finish the race in first place with ease.

“He’s a cocky bastard, just like I said.” Leroy began to smile regardless of his statement though. “But I’m proud of him, I’m happy he was able to accomplish his dream as I was able to accomplish mine.”

“Huh…” Dusty was still reeling, but he could admire the support and love that filled Leroy’s eyes in that moment.

“Still a leccaculo though.”

“What does that mean?”

“Asslicker.”

“I mean…. You’re not wrong.” Said Dusty, remembering the Italian’s relationship with Lightning McQueen.

A look of silent horror flashed in Leroy’s eyes in that moment. Almost as if he were experiencing war flashbacks.

“You have no idea…”

[littlebetesofeverything]

Welcome to Night Vale Ep 19A

Whoo, I passed and then enjoyed a weekend of fun and travel. I am definitely moving next year, but fingers crossed I get my number 1 destination of choice. Now I can enjoy these next 2 episodes in peace.

I'm interested because this one has both A and B episodes? Cool

My one thing about Cecil, is that I sometimes don't know if he is using sarcasm.

oh no, property damage. But I agree on the raccoon point.

"pretend that mere walls are enough" that should be the new slogan for the US during hurricane season.

I forgot about Spiderwolves. All I remember is that it was part of a Ned's Declassified episode. Now that is how you use telepathy.

Dragging Desert Bluffs is always lovely.

Okay, now this sandstorm is becoming more Night Vale like. Is that why we have a B version?

Larry Leroy is an amazing name, ngl. "Consequences were a choice" sounds incredible.

OOHhhhhhh. yeah, that is why it is A and B, huh?

"Not unpleasently" is certainly one way to describe it, I'm sure. Wait is financial?

oh man, if Night Vale has an emergency, it HAS to be an emergency. Ah, now the doppelganger fun is starting.

Yeah, let's not kill the doppelganger just in case that breaks the continuum. Although I want to meet the person who keeps a sword on hand.

Oh shit, someone is dead. I bet that stapler has the murder weapon. Cecil, I love your priorities. Fuck Steve Carlsberg.

This was a cloud seeding experiment? Give Steve a break, he might not have listened to you Cecil, or the mayor.

Yeah, you suffer in silence when your government fucks up. I would like to argue about helpful pandemics though.

Now there is a VORTEX???? Cecil, snap out of this babe. You curious shit! GET BACK HERE DAMNIT!

UHHH, who the fuck is Kevin? and is he from Desert Bluffs? Screw this guy.

Ah, Desert Bluff also got caught in the sandstorm. That is my guess at least.

Cecil description now, please give me. Well this gives nothing, thank you Stupid Kevin.

I don't like him, give me Cecil back, that is not a plea. It is a demand.

Don't think you can just use the weather to distract me. Even if it is soothing and sorta relaxing.

Oh thank god, Cecil is back. NEVER LEAVE ME AGAIN! I have two different ideas now on what Cecil looks like: monster or radiohost.

Yes we are all alive, thank goodness. Can we circle back to how Cecil may want an exorcism for Stupid Kevin touching his stuff.

Yeah, I am just gonna hit play on the next one.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1978/05/09/the-father-of-kwanzaa/ec0fe360-c895-47d3-a5b6-0a1a09a471b1/

The Father of Kwanzaa

By: Hollie I. West

Published: May 9, 1978

"I created Kwanzaa," laughed M. Ron Karenga like a teenager who's just divulged a deeply held, precisions secret.

"People think it's African. But it's not. I wanted to give black people a holiday of their own. So I came up with Kwanzaa. I said it was African because you know black people in this country wouldn't celebrate it if they knew it was American. Also, I put it around Christmas because I knew that's when a lot of bloods (blacks) would be partying!"

The overwhelmingly black audience at Howard University's recent National Conference of Afro-American writers broke into laughter. The joke was on them - and millions of other black Americans who taught Kwanzaa, the seven-day festival of harvest, was African.

Since he created the holiday in 1966, numerous Afro-Americans have come to celebrate the occasion between Dec. 22 and Jan. 1 as an alternative to Christmas.

Nevertheless, the ploy was not malicious. Karenga, political activist in the late '60s, currently a college professor and frequent lecturer asked: "Can you imagine 30 to 40 million people not having one national, non-heroic holiday? We couldn't wait around for someone to do this for us."

In the late '60s and early '70s, he had a profound effect on the thinking of Amiri Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones) and other Afro-american cultural figures who spread his philosophy.

From his base in Los Angeles, Karenga came to national prominence following the Watts civil disturbance. He was seen frequently on television and made numerous speeches. A civil rights observer called him "one of the leading theoreticians in the national black power movement."

His role was described as a study in contrasts. He urged militant self-defense by blacks, but he also conferred with white politicians on civil rights issues. His bald head and Genghis Khan-styled beard and moustache gave him a fearsome look, but in face-to-face meetings he was calm and soft-spoken.

Using the tough rhetorical style of the '60s, he wrote in "The Quotable Karenga," a thin handbook given to his followers: "When it's burn, let's see how much you burn. When it's kill,' let's see how much you kill. When it's blow up," let's see how much you blow up."

But times have changed. Between 1971 and 1975 he dropped out of sight while serving a prison term for ordering the beating of a woman. He is appealing. Now he was resurfaced and said he is rebuilding his movement.

Although the popularity of Kwanzaa mushroomed dramatically, Karenga also established Kuzaliwa, a tribute honoring Malcolm X's birthday on May 19, and Uhuru Day, a commemoration on Aug. 11 of the 1965 Watts civil disturbance.

The 1960s were a time of fervent cultural activity among blacks. Theater groups and writers workshops sprang up in most large cities. And Karenga took advantage of this.

He spoke to large and small, middle-class and working-class black organizations from CORE to Baptist church groups, carrying the message of Kwanzaa. At the same time, Baraka spoke for the Karenga philosophy to thousands of people at Congress of African Peoples meetings. He also wrote tracts that were published by black publishing houses.

The Kwanzaa idea began to pop up in black mass publications such as Ebony and Jet. From there it was picked up by white publications - daily newspapers and magazines - and radio and television.

Who is this short, squat man with the high-pitched voice and the flery rhetoric, and what is the current measure of his influence?

A. B. Spellman, writer and National Endowment for the Arts official, said: "There was no theory of nationalism in the '60s. What Karenga did was to rationalize the nationalist impulse and try to codify it."

Larry Neal, writer and executive director of the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, said: "Vocabulary and Kwanzaa are the major influences he's had. People started studying Swahili. Kwanzaa was like Topsy. It just grew.

"People wanted form, structure. He spoke to a need."

But Baraka, a former black nationalist who's become a Marxist, is not so charitable in his current assessment of the man whose ideas he once proselytized.

Said Baraka: "There was a vacuum created after Malcolm X died . . . Karenga was very well organized. He moved into the vacuum.

"He did a positive thing as far as Kwanzaa was concerned. But in a way it was another form of bourgeois nationalism. And he taught male chauvinsim."

"People have slandered me," complained Karenga. "I's slow building an organization in this atmosphere. There's a lull in the (black liberation) movement and I've got to dismantlef the bogus image that has gone up around me."

In his rapid-fire black preacher's oratory style, marked by staccato rhythms and syncopated long and short phrases, Karenga said, "What I said in the '60s I stand by. I'm still black. I still put black first. I'm still for the cultural revolution. Until somebody develops an alternative, more comprehensive view of reality, I've got to ride with mine."

Karenga was not always so outspokenly black. In the early '60s, he was Ronald Everett, the 14th child in the family of a farmer and part-time Baptist minister in Parsonburg, Md., on the Eastern Shore.

After receiving his master's degree in political science, he dropped his "slave name" and took on Karenga. In 1965 he organized US (as opposed to "them"), and gave himself the title Maulana (Master teacher). In 1976, he received a doctorate in urban development.

He would not say how large his following was before his 1971 imprisonment or how many followers he has currently.

"Our movement has been discredited," he said, "and I'm trying to rebuild it. The day I got out of captivity I went to a meeting."

His goal is to construct a national cultural network among Afro-Americans.

"We don't have a national culture," he explained. "We have a popular culture. We confuse influence with power. Influence is the ability to effect. Power is the ability to change."

--

By: Bruce A. Dixon

Published: Dec 29, 2018

[..]

But for many of us who took part in or were simply aware of the Black Panther Party in the late sixties and early seventies, the Kwanzaa holiday is inseparable from the career and persona of its inventor, Ron Karenga, now a professor in California. Back in the day, Karenga headed up an organization called US. As a tool of COINTELPRO, the federal counterintelligence program directed at movement organizations, Karenga’s US organization murdered two leading members of the Black Panther Party in Los Angeles, Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter and John Huggins, and two more in San Diego, Sylvester Bell and John Savage.

To my knowledge, Mr Karenga has never expressed the faintest remorse or regret for these murders, or for his part in furthering the nefarious aims of federal and local police agencies in their assault upon the movement of those times.

Karenga was later convicted, along with his wife, of kidnapping and torturing two women in his own organization, a crime for which he served four years in prison, and one of which he still claims to be innocent. Some of Karenga’s close and credible associates however, like former US chair Wesley Kabaila, maintain Karenga was not only responsible for those women’s torture, but that it was part of an ongoing pattern over the years.

“I’m a feminist,” Kiilu Nyasha, a former Black Panther in New Haven, CT told me. “How can I honor a holiday made up by a man who tortures women in his own organization?”

[..]

==

Reminder that Kwanzaa is a fake holiday invented by a black nationalist Neo-Marxist felon who tortured, branded and waterboarded two women.

It has absolutely no African origins. None.

Happy Kwanzaa.

[luci-z-wont-shut-up]

Episode 3

Ok so blah blah arctic lights surface of the moon Nightvl Vale area31-type lights I *think* i got it

Ah yes, me on my way to drink the newspaper and read my daily 2% milk.

I. I don't have the aptitude to deal with processing all of that right now. Like first you have a Waterfronglt IN THE DESERT, where there is n9 water, and the you havI'M SORRY OPENLY STEAL BABIES????? WE ALL STAND BY AND LET THEM DO IT????

Wait okay so. Is this all one cult or...?

Okokokok so. November 10th is. Fuckin. Hooded figure day or whatever. So there's Kiddie Slide Lurker, the Dog Park Cultists, and then the. Frickuin. Baby Snatcher. I GUESS.

fjdjejdjejdjrjrj at least he's honest about how useless it'll be otherwise. 50,000, tho?

Wait. Wiawaiwaiwaiwait. 50,000 what. He didn't say 50,000 humans, or 50,000 people. 50,000 w h a t.

"Contract negation season" so yalls r demons or sumn, good to know

Oh, *US*. So he's one of... whatever the fuck these things are. Idk WHY, but I just kinda been assuming that this dude is some sort of maybe-psychic but otherwise normal human who's just used to all the ways Night Vale is Like That, that's how he'd survived for so long, but I STAND CORRECTED IG

Oh wait rewound and he says "station management only communicates with us through" so I misunderstood. Carry on

"Spat out like a sunflower shell through teeth" where did this man go to school. Where did he learn to speak the English language. What sort of books did he read. Why is he like this.

Ok so the Cthulu radio managers live in the Dr Who telephone booth or whatever the fuck. Good to know

Laughing my head off what the fuck is turqoise-taupe X'D

Me @ literally all of Night Vale: WHY CANT YOU JUST BE NORMAL

Night Vale Red-Flagged "Litter": *naruto-runs at me*

Sorry I'm tired

NOOOO NOT THE BOOKS

Wait. Wait these are just Leitners hahahahahahahahhhhaaaaa

No okay sorry, I need to STOP w the TMA brainrot. *slaps own face* WTNV ONLY

Okay wait how about this. Mimics. DND mimics. There we go.

I'm sorry WHAT is a front for Wordl government?? What s o u r c e s? Oh black helicopters, yep, that would do it SEVEREL WEEKS?????? Poor Chad goddamn

Is this gonna be a thing? Is radio interns dying just gonna be a thing? Are they the SCP D-Classes of NV?

Wtf poor Chad's parents oh my god

Play ball secret police trusted what the FUCK is happening anymore

Ok information is sliding off my brain again imma stop here and pick up again at w/etf Larry Leroy is doing next time

[sporadiceagleheart]

Happy birthday darling I have no presents and fantasy cake but I hope I make you happy with everything I made like this edit right here with all of your pictures in it Shirley Jane Temple Black 1928-2014 April 23rd 1928-February 10th 2014 and special rest in peace to those who passed away Bishop Rance Allen, Conway Twitty, Loretta Lynn, Lisa Loring, Bob Saget, Betty White, Heather O'Rourke, Judith Barsi, baby Leroy, baby Peggy Montgomery, Peggy cartwright, Darla Jean Hood, Jean Darling, Peaches Jackson, Mary Ann Jackson, Dorothy DeBorba, Mary Kornman and Mildred Kornman, Kenny Rogers, Patsy Cline, Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, Eazy-E, rest in peace Ana Ofelia Murguía December 31st 2023, Jim James Edward Jordan, Lucille Ricksen, Judy Garland, Margaret Hamilton and Terry and Pal, Eva Gabor, Geraldine Sue Page, Pat Buttram, Joe Flynn, Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman, Gene Wilder, Jack Albertson, Richard Belzer, Richard Harris, Bernard Fox, Raymond Burr, Perrette Pradier, Jeanette Nolan, Larry Clemmons, Bing Crosby, John Candy, John Heard, John Fiedler, Beate Hasenau, Billie Burke, Roberts Blossom, Billie Bird, Bill Erwin, Ralph Foody, Jack Haley, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Frank Morgan, Jim Nabors and Frank Sutton, John Wayne, Clara Blandick,Charley Grapewin, Buddy Ebsen, Angelo Rossitto, Clarence Chesterfield Howerton, Bridgette Andersen, Dominique Dunne, Dana Plato, Robbie Coltrane, Lance Reddick, Betty Ann Bruno, Betty Tanner, Elizabeth Taylor, Helen McCrory, Ray Liotta and Tom Sizemore and Burt Reynolds, Zari Elmassian, Frank Cucksey, Vyacheslav Baranov, Vladimir Ferapontov, Carol Tevis, George Shephard Houghton, Irving S. Brecher, Richard Griffiths, Andy Griffith and Don Knotts, Joe Conley, Alan Arkin, Jerry Heller, Fred Willard, Mary Ellen Trainor, Morgan Woodward, Anna Lee and John Ingle, David Lewis, Ken Curtis, Ed Asner, James Caan, James Arness, Amanda Blake, Avicii, Jane Withers and Virginia Weidler, Milburn Stone, Natasha Richardson, Joanna Barnes, Cameron Boyce and Tyree Boyce, Cammack"Cammie"King, Denny Miller, Jane Adams, June Marlowe rest in heavenly peace to all of them actors and actresses this is Shirley Temple birthday edit of the year

[t4tcecilos]

ok maybe its just because i recently read it devours! and its in my brain but. i think carlos’s arc in it devours! and lubelle/the uowii’s current. Thing. are paralleling HARD.

carlos trying to save night vale (because that’s all he knows) but harming it in the process on accident…..

lubelle/the uowii trying to “fix” night vale (because that’s what their whole ‘mission’ is) but harming it in the process knowingly….

it devours! concludes w carlos snapping and refusing to listen to others in the pursuit of science/his idea of what saving the town is, until larry leroy gets him to listen and understand by being understanding of him. itd be interesting to see what the opposite of that could look like <3 im very excited to see where this is going… :)

[arvonoon]

I like you, have this unorganised list of character names I’ve accumulated

Moxxi

Crash

Warden

Fawn

Samuel

Mack

Lacey

Georgia

Clarissa

Fredrick

Bonnie

Chime

Florence

Gregory

Kyler

Quincy

Paula

Emmet

Jack

Larry

Victor

Liam

Henry

Kich

Tambre

Eurypterid

Blithe

Jubilant/Jubilee

Barchan

Argent

Billow

Zephyr

Axel

Lyle

Leif

Ace

Grey

Alizarin

Arylide

Bleu

Sienna

Umber

Carmine

Carnelian

Celeste

Celadon

Cordovan

Crimson

Fuchsia

Cairo

Otto

Briggs

Colby

Rocco

Rory

Brielle

Emery

Oaklee

Vienna

Frankie

Aubriella

Clementine

Charli

Piper

Saffron

Cleo

Luz

Clover

Delphinium

Dogwood

Filbert

Hollyhock

Hyacinth

Magnolia

Mimosas

Mugwort

Mallow

Nosegay

Orchid

Cattleya

Osmunda

Ophir

Phlox

Rhododendron

Wisteria

Zinnia

Agate

Malachite

Topaz

Onyx

January

April

May

June

August

Jasper

Rosaline

Tourmaline

Lotte

Camibeth

Lillian

Parsley

Belliana

Moonbow

Bush

Zippy

Wyrd

Amaranth

Amberjack

Oribi

Joyce

Wilby

Leto

Jett

Dahlia

Harriet

Hilda

Loretta

Maude

Molly

Phoebe

Rook

Mallard

Auk

Kagu

Cashew

Yale

Yara

Sunny

Yvonne

Yoland

Yonder

Zora

Zaire

Zuri

Nifty

Breezy

Finicky

Gaud

Ampersand

Yogh

Wynn

Ethel

Hoosier

Jamie

Kaira

Fox

Hale

Orla

Rielle

Raine

Sabrina

Indigo

Axton

North

Augury

Alchemy

Sanguine

Florid

Chroma

Saffron

Ochre

Sepia

Tawny

Henna

Ecru

Lichen

Plumose

Beryl

Fir

Conifer

Creek

Rivulet

Bourn

Rill

Spate

Monsoon

Sleet

Sirocco

Graupel

Morass

Jovian

Presley

Clint

Helge

Reggie

Rosine

Cyrus

Bowie

Atlas

Phoebe

Hannah

Aster

Sirius

Leo

Jupiter

Neptune

Kara

Prima

Freyr

Freyja

Vili

Ymir

Ananke

Erebus

Gaea/Gaia

Theia

Arete

Bia

Corus

Zelos

Angelos

Charon

Hecate

Arke

Addax

Alk

Hemlock

Belladonna

Agave

Chervil

Laurelf

Verbena

Gazania

Amaranth

Holly

Snapdragon

Alyssum

Dicentra

Clarkia

Clematis

Bob

Rome

Chester

Arien

Granger

Yarrow

Eranthus

Aconite

Snowgum

Josephine

Aria

Adele

Agatha

Juno

Livvy

Marissa

Nerida

Noelle

Pandora

Simone

Wren

Verity

Georgina

Roxanne

Camille

Addison

Vince

Kei

Erin

Drew

Dakota

Morgan

Marley

Kingsley

Salem

Parker

Darrian

Vireo

Ocelot

Maxton

Raleigh

Zyrille

Pangea

Narah

Enzo

Aubade

Aureate

Kalon

Paralian

Serein

Mycelium

Reishi

Agarikon

Godfrey

Hughes

Rolfe

Keld

Howe

Mell

Liard

Lockram

Nacre

Nim

Nisus

Nivial

Nyala

Ingle

Inkhorn

Iridal

Iroko

Ixora

Rach

Rorulent

Russet

Genevieve

Urushiol

Cullet

Herman

Regent

Towser

Joyce

Gail

Dale

Goldie

Mildred

Irene

Leroy

Marian

Alvin

Milton

Leona

Roland

Leslie

Loretta

Hattie

Lottie

Vivian

Vera

Vance

Sloane

Elkhorn

Caligo

Achlys

Cecilia
Mila

Rufus

Cassia

Marius

Canigula

Lutrine

Astaroth

Arcturus

Cygnus

Cetus
Baxter

Correa

Marianna

Daphne

Ciar
Myra

Reuben

Rhoda

Manuel

Lori

Beverly

Colby

Elias

Brody

Colton
Mulberry
Myrrh

Myrtle

Holm

Valonia

Aleppo

Corsican

Leuke

Rhodon

Karya

Datura

Petra
Enoch

Ada

Adelaide

Edith
Argent
Iain

Maskrey

Alston

Bingley

[kerink]

240 react

the boy is holding a knife

i cant believe tamika cant disarm a boy

theyre friends 💕

aww poor boy

god i love larry leroy hes so funny

the boy needs to see the is it good is it fun did i like it chart

THE BOY IS LOOKING FOR CARLOS?!

double bar...

the deconstructed calamari did make me laugh

OH SO EARLS FOOD WASNT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU CECIL

the boy is interested in the dow....

they can see the lighthouse...

SO MUCH OF IT IS BEAUTFIUL

the boys headed for cecil...

ohhh the boy is aging

is the boy gonna end up being kevin after all holy fuck?!??

he doesnt want to hurt cecil and hasnt yet but well seeee smiles big

the boy speaking into the mic but isnt voiced

dont be afraid....

he knows who the boy is...

it is it is holy fuck

holy fuck that was beautiful we havent had a performance like that in awhile

[c-40]

A-T-4 048 A Marley Marl Mix

I mistakenly assume people know influential figures like Marley Marl. Nowadays Marley is know as a hip hop innovator because of what he was doing with sampling like isolating drum beats (albeit a few years after Art Of Noise and y'know Marley Marl remixes Buffalo Gals and this gets him his job with Mr Magic on New York's first all rap radio show, the remix he says changed the course of his life, so I'm guessing he's probably aware of Trevor Horn and his production outfit, but that said, within American hip hop circles who don't know any better, yep! he was a pioneer. You could say Americans being oblivious to things that happen outside America is as American as apple pie [apple pie also comes from England]). In the mid 1980s Marley Marl forms The Juice Crew and through to the end of the decade he produces a string of foundational hip hop records (including imo some of the best hip hop ever made), UNSUNG have just premiered a video on Juice Crew and their label Cold Chillin' (who Marley later sued). What is talked about less is Marley Marl's contribution to the Hip Hop and RnB sound with his dj blends broadcast on his radio show and remixes like Paula Abdul's Straight Up, Stephanie Mills' Something In The Way (You Make Me Feel) that Kid Capri made his own, and of course En Vogue's Hold On

In Hip Hop's 50th year Marley was awarded BET Hip Hop Awards' ultimate honour, the I Am Hip Hop award. It was presented by Timberland and Swizz Beats and Marley was given a tribute performance by LL Cool J and Rakim (Eric B. was Marley Marl's friend and roommate, Eric B. For President and other tracks on Paid In Full were recorded on Marley Marl's home studio setup)

High praise indeed. Marley Marl is big deal

I posted Roxanne's Revenge last week the 1984 record Marley made with Juice Crew member Roxanne Shanté but Marley Marl's name had been printed on record centre labels for a while. In 1983 he'd made a record with his then girlfriend Dimples D, an answer record to Run DMC's Sucker Mcs (yes there is a pattern). Perhaps it's his association with Mr Magic but from the get go Marley is working with some well established dance music names in New York, he mixes Glen Adam's Chicken Scratch (which was recorded at Blank Tapes) and CDIII's Get Tough which was put out by Prelude Records. The year he releases Roxanne's Revenge you can see he's working on those connections. He begins mixing records for the Aleems (both their own group Aleem featuring Leroy Burgess and Captain Rock), Marley Marl works up the Bonus Beats mix of Magic's Message for his boss Mr Magic with Davy DMX (who was a member of Orange Krush and worked alongside Larry Smith and Russell Simmons) Magic's Message was produced by Spyder D and Patrick Adams (Adams would go on to engineer most of Eric. B. & Rakim's albums) the exec producer is Steve Rifkind who is the founder of Loud Records (Wu-Tang, Mobb Deep). George Kerr also employs Marley Marl to mix a few of the early hip hop records he's making with Vaughan Mason

Carlos C. Ward - A New Way (Dub) more cowbell

Captain Rock - Cosmic Blast (Dub) who did the beatboxing? This is one of the tracks Marley Marl mixed for the Aleem brothers

The next two are mixed for George Kerr, both are co-written and performed by Duane Jones. Hassan & 7-11's other 1984 single City Life is mixed by Jazzy Jay and engineered by Jay Burnett, it's well worth checking out

Hassan & 7-11 - Emotions Can Be Serious (Dub)

K'mch - Break Easy (The Free & Easy Way)

Marley Marl mixes two records with Jim Cline for Express Records in 1984

Just Four - Games Of Life Tricky Tee is a member of Just Four

the other is Lets Get It On by Les Love & The Love Kids

Mr. Magic - Magic's Message (Bonus Beat Mix)

[kei-maki]

Most of these don’t have proper refs yet BUT

Here’s Lorenzo (though he goes by Leroy), and he’s the Piston Peak Air Attack Team’s LEAD

Then this is the precious old man that is Sundown (real name Luciano), who’s a former pirate ship now repurposed for education and learning

Sunray, or Ray for short- kind of a self insert but still love her

Cove, a sarcastic but well meaning travel guide

My beloved Isabella, who’s a fan kid and who I can’t stop giving angst to

And last but not least, Ferdinand! McQueen’s pet Roomba! (And actually has a small ref :DD)

Hope you like them ^^

Also tagging my friend @secretly-larry-daley to share as well

Reblog this if you want your WoC Ocs to hang out with my ocs

[kevin--of-desert-bluffs]

Kevin and Cecil: doubles, counterparts, twins, some combination?

Reblog for exposure please!

Definitions, for and against arguments, explaination of last option:

Doubles. Definition: exact copies of the citizens of Night Vale and of Desert Bluffs which split from them during the sandstorm. Essentially a newly created clone whose looks, personality and memories were/are identical to each other. For example: Dana is not sure if she's the original Dana or the double, due to the exactness of the memories of being Dana right up to the point of seeing the other Dana. Every double is described as looking, sounding and acting identically to the person they're a double of be it Cecil or Kevin reporting. Lawrence Lavine (Larry Leroy's counterpart but not his double) details the sensation of suddenly feeling like he had two hands scooping sand until there was suddenly two complete versions of him. Evidence for: Both Kevin and Cecil describe a picture of the other sharing their physical likeness, even down to what the other is wearing in the photo matching what the speaker is wearing now (or, posesses at least). Their likeness in looks is also mentioned when they physically meet during the Strex arc. Neither of them spawn any other kind of double, despite the fact that people indoors did still spawn one (such as Dana, and the imagined alive version of Vanessa Kevin seems to insist on manifesting). Kevin says directly that he 'thinks he saw his double' when the two cross back through the vortex. Evidence against: Both existed before the sandstorm, so unless (likely Cecil) spawned a double when he was very young and that double was taken away and raised as Kevin, this is very strange. Cecil doesn't actually say he met his double when seeing Kevin in the vortex.

Counterparts: a term not mentioned in canon but which can be used to explain the relationship between two characters with similar but not necessarily identical names, lives, personality traits and roles/jobs as somebody from the other town. For example: Dana Cardinal/Dan Cardozo, Larry Leroy out on the edge of town/Lawrence Lavine out in the Edgertown Development, Old Woman Josie (full name Josephina)/Grandma Josephine, Pamela Winchell/Pablo Mitchell. The fact that they seem to have similar jobs etc hints that whilst being different people they have made similar decisions in life. Evidence for: Cecil and Kevin share a lot of the same likes and dislikes which is more obvious in the brief glimpses we get of Kevin from before Strex changed him, even Cecil comments on this in Triptych. They both have the same job (obviously). They both didn't experience a creation of a double, but did make identical decisions to go through the vortex showing more likemindedness without being the exact same person (possibly).

Twins: two children born at the same birth (according to Google, but we all know what twins are, right?). Evidence for: If Kevin and Cecil are just twins from a seperated marriage, it could explain why Kevin mostly remembers a dad and Cecil only had a mother and why they're physically identical and somewhat similar in other ways but still different even before Kevin's brainwashing. Kevin mentions having siblings, but his memory of his past is hazy. They could have been split when they were too young to really remember each other and Abby could have her own reasons for not wanting to tell Cecil about Kevin even after the Strex arc and Kevin coming to town.

Evidence against: Although Kevin briefly and unreliably mentions siblings, Cecil doesn't except for Abby. The grown Cecil from Casettes even explicitly says he doesn't have a brother (although he's technically talking about Cal here) which doesn't necessarily invalidate the other points but could do. It seems like something Abby would have mentioned to him at some point though regardless of any reasoning I can think of but people are unreasonable all the time.

Last option: We know there's many timelines and that Cecil is a constant in all of those timelines. If there can be a timeline which is identical except instead of Abby, Cal was born OR a mini version of NV which is now under the bowling alley then why couldn't there be a timeline where Cecil was favoured by a Smiling God and not Huntokar and was raised in DB as Kevin? In the newer episodes, Kevin, refreshed to a child by Carlos' meddling science, has no idea who he's supposed to be and is completely lost. I don't know if that's completely related to this theory but it is interesting.

Facts to possibly ignore for meta reasons: Kevin and Cecil having different names and voices.