#i wanna cite my sources on the parallels

[nyatbinary-81]

okay. @evil-eyedlurker lets try this again since tumblr ate my last draft.

Part 1: Setting the Stage.

Before we begin, I'd like to recommend reading the book for yourself. There's a free copy here on archive.org. I'd also like to point to my previous post for some context if anyone reading this post is new here. You may also want to watch Dual Process Theory's take, as I agree with pretty much all of their arguments.

You have the appropriate context for this? Good.

Now then.

Within the logbook, there are three known writers: Red Pen, aka Michael Afton; Faded Text, aka Charlie Emily; and Altered Text, aka CC/Cassidy Afton.

There are also, however, three identifiable names: Mike, Cassidy, and Dave. Popular fanon will tell you that "Cassidy" is Faded, as well as being the Vengeful Spirit and the second Golden Freddy spirit. It will now also tell you that CC's name is Dave, previously mstaken to be Evan.

I am here to tell you that popular fanon is, as popular fanon tends to be, wildly off the mark.

As per my last post, I dismissed Cassidy as a little girl for two reasons: firstly, that she has no narrative significance before whenever the logbook takes place, and secondly, because Faded asks too many specific questions to be a stranger. The logbook came out after Pizzeria Sim, and introducing Cassidy as such an important character this late in the story is nonsensical.

But...my theory leaves out Dave. Who is Dave?

Put a pin in that for now. We'll get there. For now, let's talk about Michael Afton.

Part 2: Why?

In my last theory post, linked above, I asked a question that I found to be forgotten: why? Why does faded ask such specific questions? Why is there so much puppet symbolism? Why would CC know the name Cassidy? Why are there so many tidbits that never get mentioned?

I have some new ones today: Why is Mike here? Why are Charlie and Cassidy in his book? Why is the name Dave important?

For simplicity's sake, we'll start with why Charlie and CC are talking. Based on the imagery of the Puppet and birthdays on pages 31 and 98, as well as "The party was for you" (103), it's most likely to set up the Happiest Day, placing this before...whenever that happens. Before Pizzeria Sim, at least.

(Fig. 1: The Puppet/Happiest Day symbolism.)

So...if that's the goal, why is Mike important? Sure, he helps spell Cassidy's name, but only the last couple letters. And of all the available grids, "Dave" is spelt in the Foxy grid. The one animatronic that is associated with Mike.

(Fig. 2: Available grids.)

To me, this implies the name Dave is important for Michael to remember. But why?

...Why would Michael need to remember anything? Surely he remembers, right? I mean, he references the Nightmares and casual bongos and exotic butters and the Bite. Surely, surely that means he remembers!

(Fig. 3: Michael's references.)

Reread all his answers again, all throughout the book, knowing this takes place after Sister Location, during the time he's hunting down his father. Tell me what's missing. (Or you can trust me to tell you, I suppose.)

Mentions of his family, right?

In fact, he's not even the one to bring up the Bite. The logbook brings it up for him; he just responds to it.

Throughout the book, Mike is unresponsive and noncommittal. His doodles exist in the corners and margins, he rarely responds to either the book or Faded's questions directly, he even crosses out his own name. The only thing he repeatedly emphasizes throughtout the book is SURVIVAL. In all caps, SURVIVAL. CERTAIN DEATH.

(Fig. 4: Michael's scribblings as per the previous paragraph.)

Interestingly, he commonly writes about leaving leaving. Such as running away, locking up the animatronics, going on vacation, or dying. This directly contrasts his established desire to find his father, which implies he hasn't gotten that motivation yet.

Michael has been scooped by the time the Logbook happens. Michael, like most spirits, forgot. Forgot less than Cassidy and perhaps the MCI, for whatever reason, but forgot nonetheless.

And Charlie is here to help him remember, the same way she's helping Cassidy remember.

Specifically, she wants him to remember the name Dave, spelled out via the coordinates of the answered questions. The first one of which is answered by Michael, long before Cassidy says "I'm scared" as a potential alternate answer.

Part Three: Fandom Really Needs to Learn to Re-examine Fundamentals.

Take that pin out of "Who's Dave" and "Why is Dave important" from earlier, because it's time to answer those questions.

Okay. So, we've established a few things.

Dave is not one of the spirits in the logbook.

Charlie is pushing for Michael to remember the name Dave.

Michael has lost his memory, and has yet to gain the motive of finding his father.

If all of this is true, "Dave" must be connected to Michael's motivation: finding his father.

But we already know his name! William Afton, as established in...in......uh.........which game was it again? Sorry, hold on, let me just check my sources...*shuffling papers*...oh! Here we go! William Afton's name was established in the novels...and...and for the entirety of The Silver Eyes, he's referred to almost exclusively by his alias, Dave. To my knowledge, his first name is never confirmed in the games.

...What if we've been wrong in accepting that his name is William Afton? What if he is Dave, and it's not just an alias?

Allow me, once more, to set the scene.

Part Four: FNaF is a story. Let's treat it as such.

The date is [REDACTED], just after Michael's scooping. His corpse gets up without him, shambling around with metal for bones and vague remnants of children's souls for a pilot.

Michael himself is stuck in a security logbook; a paltry little thing given to him by his employers, like a twisted joke. He writes and crosses out his own name, and doodles in the margins for a bit.

Charlie, ever the attentive soul, joins him, bringing the Crying Child with her. Two brothers, one memory, or something like that. She begins gauging what he remembers: Does he know who he is? How he died?

Michael doesn't respond. He doesn't need to. It's not hard for Charlie to piece together what happened, especially given his shambling corpse ranting and raving about their revenge.

So, she begins to push Michael to remember his killer. She starts with the nightmares (do you have dreams), the first thing he did. She follows up with his resemblance to his father (what do you see), but Michael goes unresponsive, possibly catching on to her game. Ever the stubborn one, that. Instead, CC responds. So she switches gears, roping CC into helping her spell out both names by directing her questions to him, until Michael finally helps spell Cassidy.

Next to the wordsearch where Cassidy remembers is a mirror; one to reflect EVAD (spelled in CC answer order) into DAVE. Two brothers, one memory, as the saying doesn't go.

Michael's corpse lies cold and empty on the ground, Ennard having escaped into a gutter. He can't move on, not yet. There's only one option left for him now.

Michael looks into the mirror.

And his eyes open purple.

.

also it would be really funny if davetrap had an alias in the games timeline and it was william/will miller THANK YOU AND GOODNIGHT!

[rabbiteclair]

I'm super interested in the paranormal/cryptid post- where did you find the stuff about Japanese and US paranormal encounters? Finding a pattern in encounters like these is something I've always been curious about.

(repeating all the disclaimers from this post, which means that among other things, this isn't gonna give you many historical accounts, and it's very focused on the kind of people who wanna throw their accounts out onto the internet.)

The Japanese Side

The big one I might as well get out of the way up front: Kowabana. The site's got some stories, others exist in podcast form, but the books themselves are up to 12 volumes of translated stuff from 2chan's occult board, the vast majority of which is in the format of first-person accounts of supernatural encounters. If you know any Japanese internet horror stuff, this is where 3/4 of it came from--Hasshaku-sama, kunekune, Kisaragi Station, etc.

(If you aren't solely focused on the 'first-person account' thing, Tara Devlin's parallel Toshiden and Bankai series cover most of the rest.)

Other people have translated this stuff over the years, with wildly varying levels of quality. Saya in Underworld and Okaruto are some of the ones I've found useful in the past.

If you can read Japanese, there are quite a few sites that collect and curate this stuff, and then other sites that aggregate those sites. As an added bonus, a given story might exist in multiple different forms between these sites, and then half of the sites don't exist anymore because this stuff goes back twenty years. I've spent a decent amount of time browsing these, but couldn't give you a good list of solid ones. There is in fact a pretty decent starting list on Tara Devlin's old Tumblr.

There are some Japanese Youtube channels that document a lot of this stuff too, but tbh the only times I've watched them is when I'm about nine google searches deep looking for something, so I don't have a good list.

The American Side

I started making a list here, but it honestly wasn't much of a list. A lot of the English ones that I've encountered have come from some combination of 'wandering on the internet,' 'being on /x/ back when it was new,' and 'the story was included in some other piece of media.' (Like, Oh No Ross And Carrie is probably the single place where I've heard the most accounts of UFO stuff, but I'd be a weird person if I cited that as a good source for them.) Unlike the Japanese side of things, I've never had much reason to approach them in a systematic manner.

Considering that my big source for this on the Japanese side is 2chan's occult board, you'd think that 4chan's /x/ would go here, right? But nah. I mean, there are first person accounts on there, but they're nowhere near as prevalent. There are several places trying to archive /x/ stuff though, so it's out there for anyone who wants to dig through it like a trash gopher.

But, if you want your 'hundreds, if not thousands, of first-person supernatural accounts in one place' counterpart to Kowabana, the best resource on the English-speaking side that I know of is Monsters Among Us. Yeah, it's audio, but that's life. It also has really thorough show notes, which serves as a pretty good starting point for finding other resources. I'm pretty sure there's a whole ecosystem of this stuff on Youtube.

(Really though, if anybody knows of any big text repositories of English, first-person accounts of this stuff, curated to weed out the complete trash, I'd be interested in that myself.)

[jennyandvastraflint]

Hiya! I run into your commercialization of fandom post and got curious about fan activism. Would you mind rambling about it?

Wouldn't mind at all! I'm gonna use some of my slides from my presentation again XD Also, my sources will be linked/cited at the very end once again, except for if I take something directly from a text.

Now, I'm gonna start with a definition of what fan activism actually is... Fan Activism describes fan-driven efforts to address civic or political issues using engagement with and strategic deployment of popular culture content. It's often conducted through the infrastructure of existing fan practices and relationships, and frequently framed through metaphors drawn from popular and participatory culture. Fan Activism can of course be directed towards goals such as keeping a show on air, but it can also be used for political causes.

(more under the cut)

Disclaimer that these "forms" I refer to here are a non-exhaustive list and are obviously not mutually exclusive, meaning one thing can fall into multiple of these or outside of them. It's just some examples Brough and Shresthova brought in relation to these.

Content-related Lobbying wants to keep programmes on air, and advocates for diverse representation - a negative example for this were white Disney fans screaming and sobbing about the casting of Haley Bailey as Ariel and threatening to boycott the movie because "that's not my Ariel >:(((" Of course, there are also positive examples of this, for instance fans' reaction to the cancellation of Warrior Nun (after a year or two of sooo many sapphic cancellations).

Fandom Forward is a campaign that advoates for human rights and equality by utilising narratives from popular media to run advocacy campaigns. Currently, for instance, they are running a campaign called "Save our Progress" encouraging people to vote, and one called "Book Defenders" which encourages people to stand against book bans! (Btw, joining such fan activist campaigns is not only a great way to get more politically engaged, but also to find new friends <3 AND you can use your passion and interest as a force for good in the real world as well :D)

As already mentioned, Fan Activism frequently uses pop culture imagery, and one very prominent example of that would be indigenous and Palestinian rights groups using the fictional Na'vi from the 2009 Avatar film to attract media attention for their cause. This is underlined by the fact that they related their own lives under occupation to the Na'vi people. The picture on the right in this slide is an image taken in 2010 in Bil'in in Occupied Jerusalem, when protesters from the West Bank came together to protest Israel's occupation of Palestine.

With the internet being at our constant disposal, online mobilisation and community building is also a form fan avtivism can take, and they are often followed by one of the other forms, utilising the community that has been built as a way to spread their efforts further.

Fan activism can also be put towards goals of education, for which fan conventions and panels for discussions are an example.

In the presentation I've taken an example for the integration with real-world issues where fans made very evident the parallels between the dystopian scenes in our world and the setting of the Hunger Games, with the richest lavishing in their colourful, beautiful ballgowns while people outside are protesting and a genocide is taking place. There are many videos following the same principle as this one, showing the Met Gala (which also has an incredibly ironic theme) and the ongoing genocide in Gaza at the hand of Israel while the song "The Hanging Tree" plays.

And one other thing that I wanna bring up are Fan-driven charity events! We've seen many artists take up their (metaphorical) quill and offering gifted artwork or fic as a Thank You for donations to Palestine, and the FTH has raised tens of thousands of dollars going to charities every year since 2016!

The brilliant thing about fan activism is that there is a pretty low barrier for entry, meaning any fan who wants to can join these causes with fairly little effort. Take a charity event, for instance; donating five dollars will not only go towards a good cause together with many others donating five dollars, but you also get a little thank you gift from the community.

However, we can't equate all acts of engagement with popular culture as inherently political and activist, as such a framing can have a depoliticising effect. Completely leaving popular culture and fan activism out of the picture, however, is a purist and ultimately unproductive way of viewing the political.

If you're interested in learning more about this, I definitely recommend checking out the sources I'll link, and also Henry Jenkins' concept of civic imagination which describes "the capacity to imagine alternatives to current cultural, social, political, or economic conditions; one cannot change the world without imagining what a better world might look like" (Jenkins et al. 5) and it requires (and is realised through "the ability to imagine the process of change, to see oneself as a civic agent capable of making change, to feel solidarity with others whose perspectives and experiences are different than one’s own, to join a larger collective with shared interests, and to bring imaginative dimensions to real-world spaces and places" (Jenkins et al. 5).

For my part, I can only say that fan activism has definitely played a huge role in me becoming more active politically, and especially in the past year or so, I've participated - while not (yet) as a fanfic writer - in multiple events particularly connected to Palestine. Maybe this is a wake up call for some to also take a step out into the political world through their interest!

(Also, some of these texts are Open Access - particularly the one on the TWC, but some are not - if you would like to read these and other texts, shoot me a message as I can get my hands on SO many texts thanks to my university giving us free access to a ton of academic texts!)

Sources:

Bennett, Lucy. "Fan Activism for Social Mobilization: A Critical Review of the Literature." In "Transformative Works and Fan Activism," edited by Henry Jenkins and Sangita Shresthova, special issue, Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 10, 2012.

Brough, Melissa M, and Sangita Shresthova. “Fandom Meets Activism: Rethinking Civic and Political Participation.” Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 10, 2012.

Shresthova, Sangita, Gabriel Peters-Lazaro, and Henry Jenkins. "Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination : Case Studies of Creative Social Change." New York : New York UP, 2020.

[prestonmonterey]

hey so im v curious about like reality shifting and stuff but idk much about it and i have some questions

hii ok

im like

a bit eepy

but ill try to make my thoughts make sense

so

(forgive me, i wanna learn more about shifting and the community, but all of my knowledge comes from inherently critical sources, so im sorry if i come off as rude or anything, im not trying to be i genuinely want to learn more about this)

reality shifting

to my understanding

is like...kinda a combination of fiction/fanfic and dreaming.

and it stems from the idea of the multiverse?

and the idea. that you can exchange your consciousness with someones from another timeline/parallel universe

and usually this happens when youre dreaming or begins when you sleep

so

(also plz correct me if im wrong on any of the stuff above)

now onto question stuff

i think its pretty important, that like. a lot of the stuff ive seen around shifting and like, response to any criticism is basically like 'youre the only person holding yourself back" like, anyone can shift, so if you cant its your fault

and on one hand i guess this could be motivational? like as long as you try hard enough its possible?

basically i want to make sure it isnt hurting peoples self esteem or mental health

but also. i. had a similar experience with lucid dreaming when i was a kid. my mom had a phase about lucid dreaming and was telling me all about it and was like 'you should try it' so i did. i tried. over and over. to somehow just 'realize' i was dreaming and take control. it never worked for me. and my mom was like 'well i guess youre just not trying hard enough'

and it was really disheartening bc ive always had trouble with sleep (might have like. insomnia or something. ive never been able to sleep well through a full night even before my life was consumed by screens.) and ive always had extremely strange dreams. and in my waking mind of course i know that if my teacher turned into an octopus with an apple for a head (yes this did happen in a dream) i would definitely notice and be like 'hey, thats not right' but it doesnt work like that in dreams. in my dreams it kinda feels like my impulses control me and i dont have any sense of self or logic.

and it felt awful to be told that it was my fault that i couldnt do it.

i also know that lucid dreaming somewhat ties into shifting so thats one of my other concerns, bc ive never been able to lucid dream and i dont know if i ever will

also idk where to put this but like. safety is important to me. i have friends who shift and i want to make sure they arent like, actually at risk of dying? and even seperate from that im wondering if people use this as a form of escapism too often that it becomes unhealthy and like negatively affects other aspects of their life

next question: is there proof

of course theres going to be anecdotal evidence from individuals in the community, and thats super alright. but sometimes people make things up. and sometimes people tell made up things to young, impressionable children who carry those falsehoods into life. and im worried about that

ok so ive read like 1 artice about this all. but immediately it brought up a major red flag for me. it gave an example of a study on shifting. but. it didnt cite its sources

and if anyones wondering that is a huge no-no. anyone can make up conclusions from made up studies. the point of studies is to show that people who are properly educated and know what theyre doing support these claims.

now im not saying shifting is made up in any way. it just seems sketchy to me that seemingly widespread sources talk about studies but theres no links or anything. theyre basically saying 'i saw a thing about it. just trust me.'

also uhh...idk much about the multiverse. but from what i understand. it comes from the idea of free will. and that every time anyone makes a descision, a parallel universe is created where they made a different descision. so i get that that could change a lot of things about the world like the rate of inventions and industrialization and wars and stuff. but really the shifting that ive seen most is into more fantasy leaning worlds. and im kinda wondering how thats possible in the multiverse? like sure theres infinite timelines...but most of those timelines will just be like. the same as this one but samantha chose to put on her right sock first instead of her left sock or something. and physics still applies, right? so how does hogwarts exist? does hogwarts exist? if magic is real in a parallel universe, is it real here?

so basically to sum it up my main questions are:

how do we know shifting is possible for everyone?

is it safe? (mentally, physically etc)

is lucid dreaming necessary?

is there any proof or credible source that i can look to for more info?

and how does this tie into the multiverse theory

also if anyone has any information about scripting and like evrything about reality shifting that would be great

i wanna learn more but im afraid of finding misinformation

ty :3

[ossifer]

21, 31, 37

21. How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

I often do small revisions while writing, going over odd paragraphs and rearranging sentences or rewording stuff so that it hits better, then get it beta read once I've got it in a passable state. After getting it beta-read I try to do all my changes in one big revision that patches up anything cited by my beta reader(s). Once that big revision is done I'll then run the text through a word counter that picks up on overused words or phrases because I am terrible for indulging in repetitive word choice, get it beta'd again, and then post.

31. Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your fic being canon compliant?

I plunged a knife into its chest and ripped the characters from its arms, leaving it to perish alone. That is to say, I take a lot of liberties with canon, with almost all of my fics disregarding swathes of canon. My main thing is that I just haven't really touched on Before the Storm at all due to my personal distaste for parts of it, and basically disregard it whenever i'm writing stuff lol

All of that being said, I do try and ensure that stuff like character voice and characterisation matches up to canon: I often watch playthroughs for refreshers on certain canon scenes and to ensure I can phrase dialogue similar to the source material.

37. Talk about your current wips.

Gladly!

Sweet Music Playing In The Dark - Amberfied AU. Rachel lives and Chloe gets shot in the bathroom as in canon, but for a much different reason. Lots of me indulging in my little grief fixation, things I thought were underexplored in canon, and general messiness as Max and Rachel mourn the one person that connects them.

The Time We Have Left - Post-Bay Richfield (Steph/Max). I swear I don't hate Chloe! This and the aforementioned WIP where Chloe also dies were conceived independently of each other. Steph and Max meeting at Chloe's funeral is just a stray idea that infested my brain.

I Wanna Go There Again - Ambermarsh. Yet another rarepair that I love, and have always wanted to write. Revolves heavily around the parallels between the two both as characters and within the specific AU this takes place. Messy, and hopefully a bit of a slow burn.

40 Questions

[bellshazes]

on the one hand you have the enticing etho back to hcs9 via making a prankable base like someone luring rabbits with carrots, and the "do whatever you want to me, tnt lava whatever/i'm holding you to that - forever" convo from their first i wanna move into your basement bdubs convo in mindcrack s3. which is just one way that when bdubs sort of farcically asserts nobody understands etho during that one limited life convo he's right - he does. care. he does get etho like nobody else.

but also like. idk in the pre-trial mindcrack episode when bdubs' way of getting etho to be less shy & come out of his shell is goading etho into telling him what's wrong with his ugly build and self-deprecating about it and instantly trying to put into practice any half-baked idea etho mentions. to current day literally today telling pearl etho's such a critic pushing up his glasses like a scientist asking this and that question and pearl goes. well i think he respects you he's trying to understand you, not object. and it does not compute it's like he's trying to realize this and it doesn't sink in. i think that's sick of them. i have to check on my dinner cooking so i won't write the etho parallel side to this but i have a spreadsheet to back me up don't even imagine i'm not prepared to cite my sources

when bdubs said in that cow pit outside timberstone walls "if etho does it, i wanna do it... that's how it's always been, ever since i started playing minecraft" he wasn't kidding. you dont even know

[freunwol]

Any wholesome Freunwol headcanons?

hi yes hello yes hi hello yes well

- ive mentioned hair before but like. that just really seems like an important form of intimacy for them i think!!! braiding it, brushing it, freud snuggling into euns hair when he sleeps or vice versa..... the lil things yknow?

- i do wanna touch on the falling asleep in his hair thing bc like. i think that would absolutely make euns heart melt. kind of hard to move tho

- on a similar topic, i do remember seeing a comic of freud giving eun an actual haircut as opposed to a wild boy never-had-positive-interactions-in-his-life mess and it was SO fucking cute so to me its canon that freud gave eun his haircuts & styled it and to eun that was like the second coming of jesus christmas (i bookmarked the comic but the tweet was deleted. Q-Q)

- in the maple m dialogue eun says freud gets quiet when hes angry, which i think only applies to like genuine fury, but also. no talk me angy

- i think the fact that one of euns moves is him transforming into a biggol spirit to slash at stuff is HIGHLY underutilized in fandom sphere... freud sees it for the first time and loses his fuckin mind

- i think they kind of represent different things to each other? like ive prolly mentioned i think freud is a source of stability for eun (not the least of which is cuz house), but i do think eun is a kind of freedom for freud. hes rather one-track minded- judging from his introspection in the journal event, he tended to miss the forest for the trees, getting too caught up in doing and forgetting why hes doing it. i can see fighting bm becoming an all-consuming thing in his life, and struggling to imagine a life outside of it, cuz hes already come this far. being w eun- considering how eun is- would prove as a reminder that he'll have a life after the battle, and no matter what he chooses to do, there will be people who back him up on the decision

- and on a similar topic freud is... probably repressed to the point of not understanding what romantic feelings feel like. he knows the signs of it on other ppl but hes like "hm i feel strangely anxious and warm and my heart is beating very fast... am i having heat stroke" (half joke, he would know, but still too repressed to say anything, i think. he just offers to house eun and stay with him through the good and bad times)

- hes a warm person, and its genuine, but i think often it may be kind of impersonal- more of a politeness thing. so being able to connect with eun and the other heroes is something very special to him, and hes very special to them!!!

- theres a lot of parallels that need to be explored. the moon and mr left a hole open in the roof so he could stare at the moon. the ocean and the wind. the dragon and the... fox? deer? guy? i want so desperately to make a color comparison but their main colors are red and either black or purple so its. not the best of comparisons.

- THE FUCKING ROOF THING I DIDNT EVEN THINK OF THAT DID YOU KNOW. DID YOU KNOW EUNWOL MEANS HIDDEN MOON probably you did, i thought it was silver moon for the longest time BUT. freud made space in his life for eun & emphasized it wasnt a burden because it wasnt and allowed himself to be vulnerable around him and eun came out of his shell bit by bit and was rewarded with love and appreciation from the people who mattered most and mAN. MAN,

[hildorien]

The irony like, if we really assume this as the case, then the real parallel becomes "Elwi perceives Luthien as sacrificing her elvishness for the sake of her lover -> she decides to live as elf on her behalf -> ironically it means her spouse decides to give up his fate beyond stars to stay with her (extra tragic considering his personality) which is more like what the original couple did.

Oh I like that! That makes a lot of sense. Honestly, I wanna talk about someday the idea of Lúthien (the person) vs Lúthien (the myth) in the elvish history inside the narrative itself and how acceptance and want of humanity/mortality becomes removed to enhance the idea of elves falling to mortal decay rather then the idea that if given the chance not everyone would actually be happier with mortality than without and the idea that mortality can be fulfilling is scary because it means there is something there that elves can never have and I don’t think on the whole elves are used to being denied something. That being said, there is obviously idolization of Lúthien as a pinnacle of the elvish supremacy over the world in the first age with her death it marks the elves decline in relevance and feeds into their idea that the best is behind them and their own sense of pessimism around the state of the word: it pays to have the idea that she was sad about it because then they can project their own feelings of the loss of their control over the world and their fears of what it must be like to fade from middle earth onto the idea of Lúthien even though everything we see of her shows that these were probably not the feelings on her own mortality. In a sense, what Lúthien felt ceases to matter, and what matters more is how Lúthien makes the ELVES feel. 

But she’s dead. She can no longer defend herself, like any human after death, her legacy is now in the hands of other people who can spin her in many different directions to the point Lúthien, the person, is almost gone in the collective elvish consequence. I think that happens to a lot of mortals in elvish history, like unlike writing a story about like the Noldor who left which at some point you can just ask them what happened after their reborn, the humans have moved on. This leaves elves to interject their own opinions onto them. They stop being people and become (maybe for the first time in elvish society) a type of myth, of folklore, free of the constraints of worrying if someone will question your work. The dead cannot ask you to cite a source or call you out on claiming fake stuff happened. I wonder if it leaves the elves who did know those mortals feeling uncomfortable in some way. Like seeing your friends, maybe lovers even, debated upon as If they were just characters in a story, which don’t get me wrong, they are, history is just a long story sometimes, but it’s like the existential horror of being talked about in the past tense if you get me. Especially when those mortals are still so alive in those elves hearts and minds and souls.

Well, this got long and pretentious. But yeah, I like the symbolism of it. This is all my opinion of course, it’s only one way of looking at it. But thank you for letting me babble on about ideas on in universe Arda history.

[hextiger]

More Research Excerpts

This time it's Der Alptraum in Beziehung zu gewissen Formen mittelalterlichen Aberglaubens. (English: The Nightmare in Relation to Certain Forms of Medieval Superstition).

You can find the PDF here via Project Gutenberg, but it's in German.

For context though: this appeared in 1902 in a magazine published by Sigmund Freud. That fact is very much apparent throughout.

Introduction

"My focus is not on the historical side but the deepest psychological meaning" phrases that clue you in that there's a lot of nonsense coming

Nowadays the word "Weib" really just reads as "woman (derogatory)"

Dream and Belief

"the breath soul and the shadow soul" I'm sorry what. What! Shadow soul?????

"Freud's discovery of psychoanalysis" I don't know that I'd call it a discovery rather than "wholesale invention" or maybe "ass-pull" but sure

You can at times REALLY tell this is influenced by Freud. Example: "The more people have a certain type of dream the more likely it is that its' subliminal content is of a sexual nature" good (?) news for all the people who dream about their teeth falling out

Something something dreaming of your dead mother or father something something oedipus complex repressed in childhood

You can really tell this was written in the early 20th century. Take me back to the 18th/19th century weirdness please

"In a court in 1516 the jury of Trojes admonished the caterpillars who had devastated some distracts on punishment of curse and excommunication to leave within a certain number of days" I have SO MANY questions

The source for the above is "Cesaresco. Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs, P. 183" which I now have to read

Nightmares

"It is generally known that nightmares have a greater influence on the fantasy of waking life than any other dream" my dude you JUST went on for a whole chapter abt sex dreams so like are you sure

"I have added that the repression of female masochistic sexual urges is more suited to the creation of the typical nightmare than that of the male one, a view that Adler agrees with" I just wanna read abt weird hairy creatures sitting on people's chests, not this nonsense

Ok HERE'S something interesting. Dude's talking about how nightmares express deeply repressed wishes like yes. This I can vibe with

"Digestive problems do not explain the appearance of beautiful women from keyholes" sure but if that were a thing I'd sure as hell take the digestive problems

Incubus and Incubation

"In the middle ages the belief was generally that there were evil spirits whose sole function was to have [...] intercourse with sleeping people" HE JUST SAYS THIS. WITHOUT A SOURCE

"A favorite form that incubi took was that of clergy. Hieronmyus reports the story of a young lady who called for help against an incubus which her friends found under their beds in the form of the bishop Sylvanus. The reputation of the bishop would have suffered if he had been unable to convince them that the incubus had taken his form"

People at the time reacted by saying "Oh an excellent example for the wizardry of Sylvanus" so I don't think this bishop was believed

Anyway I WISH that had been an incubus but it really sounds like it was just a creepy old dude

Sir why do you keep randomly throwing untranslated French quotes in this German text

Oh hey another mention of people who were supposedly children of incubi. This time it's Alexander the Great, Caesar, Martin Luther, Plato, all of the Huns and everyone who lived on Cyprus

You're right, it would be unnecessary to linger on how snakes are phallic symbols thank you for not doing that

"The belief that the soul leaves the sleeper in the form of a snake which escapes through the mouth" UM HOLD ON

I checked the source and yeah, that sure is a thing

This one's from Thorpe. Northern Mythology, 1851, Vol I. P. 289f https://archive.org/details/northernmytholog01thoruoft/page/n309/mode/2up

The Vampire

"The wish for reunion, which has its origin in the living person, is here partially projected on the dead" FINALLY some good content

"Widows can get pregnant by their vampiric husbands visiting" uhuh sure

"After the transformation into a vampire is complete it can be discovered by finding the unburied body with red cheeks, tightskin, full blood vessels, warm blood, grown hair and nails and open left eye"

May have found another source on alps here. Features slut-shaming of sphinxes as far as I can tell

"The Wallachian myth wherein dead redheaded men appear in the form of frogs, bugs etc. and drink the blood of pretty girls"

So depending on which church you were a part of before committing heresy you'd either become a werewolf (roman-catholic) or a vampire (greek)

"Like the vampire the Alp can be the soul of a dead person and suck the blood of sleeping people" whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhy do I only read this now

The Werwolf

Apollo's apparently associated with wolves, which I did not know

Oh yeah I forgot about the part of werewolf lore that's like "Yeah they turn their human skin inside-out cause the other side is a wolf pelt"

If you're born on christmas day you're apparently destined to become a werewolf as punishment for your parent daring to deliver on the same day as Mary

"The seventh son is destined to become a werewolf, the seventh daughter a mare" mmmmmmmmm there's Something here I may be able to use

Quick gallows, wow what's that? Oh. Oh it's a gallows where the person has their hands bound behind their back, is pulled up by their bound hands on a pulley and then dropped from great height??????? That's uh. That doesn't sound like a good experience

Armenian werewolves are women who sinned and were thus punished by having to live for seven years as a werewolf.

There's also a creature that's somewhat between werewolf and vampire which, apparently sucks blood from the soles of the feet of people walking by

Very rough translation but "One has to burn the werewolf because otherwise he will rise from his grave a few days later. In ravenous hunger he will eat the flesh from his own hands and feet and when he has nothing else on his body to consume he will burrow out from his grave at midnight, fall into the herds and steal the animals or even go into houses, lay down by the sleeping and suck their blood from them" this is good, actually

I cannot stress enough how openly freudian this thing is

Werewolves can apparently also leave behind their bodies and wander about at night

Devilworship

"Belief in devils can be traced back to an oedipus complex" ok. sure

Apparently the devil used to be a close parallel to jesus. The whole deal: twelve apostles, went to hell and was reborn, hot bod

The devil had his own bible which was written down in Bohemia and is now in a library in Stockholm k so who's down for a trip to Stockholm after [waves hands] all this is done

"One of the later bynames of the devil was Grendel (english Grant)"

The devil is canonically bisexual and bigender

He can only impregnate folks if he previously acts as a succubus

....Merlin was a son of the devil? He was born because the devil was imitating God? His purpose was to defeat Jesus? Is this what Fate Grand Order is about

"if a woman sleeps alone the devil sleeps with her" well good for her

The devil has a second face on his butt that looks like a beautiful woman's face. He sits the wrong way around in chairs. His genitals are on his back

The Witch Epidemic

Witches like to eat babies, especially unbaptized ones

Witches apparently sometimes turned men into horses to ride to sabbath??? rad

Or they rode the devil himself in form of a horse or goat. sure

Why would witches have stigmata. I want to know, but not enough to check the source that's cited for this

The roman-catholic church is at fault for witchcraft

Apparently 40 year old witches turn into Drude which are also similar to alps

In Conclusion

This entire thing was a trip but I cannot recommend reading it or a translation. It's far too Freudian for my tastes. At least there's a little bit here that I can use for A Pale Imitation and its potential sequels.

[beautifulhigh]

Language of the Falls: Episodes 17-20

If I don't get all my marking done by Monday… then I have no regrets.  2019 is the year I make time for things that make me happy.  Like this podcast and picking it apart to find layers of meaning.

I mean, can I call this officially sanctioned in a way?

In the words of Aerosmith, I don't wanna miss a thing.

And now for the standard disclaimer with the download link:

Everything in here that's recognisably @Kingfallsam was, is now, and will forever belong to The Make Believe Picture Company.  The artistic fair use ramblings are mine.  Any words not mine are cited, linked, referenced, or from the good ol' dictionary by way of Google.  Special thanks to @KingFallsAMTranscripts on Tumblr because finding you meant I could c&p sections instead of having to type them up!  (Man I will miss you now that I'm into episodes you've not done. If anyone knows of a transcript archive post-episode 20 then hit me up.  Please.)

Look, y'all know the deal. What's not mine isn't mine. What's mine under the transformative work rule is mine.  Be nice, like proper nice, and don't come yelling at me.

So.  On with the show.

*presses play and hums the theme tune*

Episode 17 – "Give Peas a Chance"

Happy New Year, 2016. A time of starting over, making resolutions.  And we start with a comment about not going over the "same old subjects".  The New Year has such a deep history to it, from promises to settle debts and return what has been borrowed (Babylonians) to making promises to the gods (Romans).  The concept of the New Year in just about every religion and culture is about making amends for the year gone and making promises and resolutions for the year to come.

And that's somewhat the point of this episode.

Doyle and his portals come back and Ben doesn't want to talk about it, favouring "real subjects". Despite being something that is obviously supernatural on the surface Ben doesn't want to talk about it.  Doyle talks about a doorway and what is setting up to be some kind of mirror universe.  There's a real sensory experience in him passing through it and the subtle differences are so easily overlooked under the cloud of Doyle's drug use.  I still maintain that there has to be more to it than this and that Doyle's place and the breaches between worlds will be important somehow.

The reference to Freaky Friday is the concept of things not being right but also people in the wrong bodies.  The way that the shadows take over a body, the way we hear Cecil being controlled in #71, a Tim that's not Tim?  People are not always who or what they seem in King Falls and that's just the supernatural element.

Ms Baker and her attempt at the biggest gingerbread house is not only a lovely moment of apt naming but also one hell of an attempt.

Coming in at 35.8 million calories and covering an area of 2520 square feet, or nearly the size of a tennis court, the 21-foot high gingerbread house in Bryan, Texas, 90 miles northwest of Houston, has been declared the biggest ever by Guinness World Records. (source)

Dream big, King Falls. Never stop dreaming.

Sammy asks about New Year resolutions which throws up this from Google:

one [parallel with religion] is to reflect upon one's wrongdoings over the year and both seek and offer forgiveness

Sammy has been in King Falls since the start of May.  Jack disappeared a few months before that.  Ben's comment in #77 about Sammy not being a fan of New Year has led to a lot of fan speculation about what might have happened around then.  But whatever it is, whatever his feelings towards this time, he's keeping up the outward projection.  Sammy isn't talking about his resolutions, he's always asking about others.  You've (not) heard his story, King Falls, let's hear yours.  Because otherwise what forgiveness might Sammy need or ask for?  What wrongs does he want to put right?

Troy's call is clearly prefaced with him being off duty.  It's his night off.  It's made clear, from the first line of conversation, that he's not on anyone's clock. They're not giving Grisham or Gunderson or anyone who might be listening any doubt on which to build a case or accusation.  They would have been quick to jump on any notion or hint of impropriety because sometimes it's not what things are it's how it looks and that would have been enough of an opening for them.  So by making it 100% clear that Troy isn't even close to being on duty they're avoiding any kind of comeback.  It's like when I want to say something that's not great I will always look up at the ceiling so no one thinks that my point is directed at them.  "Well Miss looked at me when she said this thing" is what goes home and then parents are on the phone because it's how it looks. So I make it look obvious and that's what Troy is doing here.

And then there's Grisham's commercial.  Except it plays more like a political advert.  "Hi, I'm Mayor Steven Grisham" is a formal introduction and doesn't fit in with what follows.  This isn't something about his political career – at least it's not supposed to be.

I've already talked a lot about Grisham's use of language to divide and it comes out in force again in this: "…wonderful residents… cordially invited… wonderful town… amazing year… lovely town…".  Grisham is not holding back in extolling the virtues of King Falls and how he sees not only the town but its people and the great things that have been done, will be done, and what is being recognised.

And then he signs off with "yours truly".  Which has one hell of an etymological background:

"formal closing" (Barron's); "no personal connection between writer and recipient" (AMACOM)

No. Personal. Connection. Grisham sounds like he cares but he doesn't.  This town isn't as personal to him as he's making out.  It's supposed to be a sign off but it's more than that:

In the 18th and 19th centuries, many letter writers tried to move relatively seamlessly from their message to their farewell. Thus we have numerous examples where "yours truly" appears as part of a final sentence and might encourage readers to equate the phrase with the writer of the letter, rather than reading it as a telescoping of the phrase "I am yours truly." (source)

Grisham's positive language about the town, about the people, about the celebration is seamlessly moved into a reference to himself so that we easily equate one with the other. Grisham becomes wonderful, cordial, amazing, lovely.  Just like King Falls.

Looking at the Cambridge dictionary definition:

Yours truly, a euphemistic alternative to the pronoun 'I' or 'me' – referring to oneself

And to the dictionary for euphemism!

eu·phe·mism

A mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing.

So… "yours truly" is a way of ending something to link the speaker with the message when you don't really want to be or should be linked with the message?  So he wants people to think that he's with King Falls but he's really not.  He doesn't see himself as part of King Falls, not really, and that needs to be made clear to whoever he's really with while at the same time 'telling' people that he's with them.  Standard double agent stuff really.

The "7th straight year" of Best Small Town in America is a lovely call back to the nepotism that Sammy called out before.  Sammy and Ben having to host it is possibly a case of 'keep your enemies close' but the fact that it's at midday is a bit of mean twist for two guys who are pulling the night shift every night.  They're well out of their territory and comfort zone and right under the High Noon sun.

Merv emailed to say they had to do it.  If Grisham is keeping his enemies close then Merv might be doing the same on this side. If Ben and Sammy refused then they would seem petty so by agreeing they're the bigger people.  Merv makes sure that they agree so that they keep Grisham close.  Just as Grisham is the bigger person for inviting them and keeping them close on his end.

When the static cuts in we know that this is what the listeners will be hearing – the in-world rules are being firmly played to – and we hear HFB3 and Pete.  There's an explicit link between them and the Electrolocaust thanks to a clear comment from Pete.  My note for this was "bless" and you should read that in a softly patronising tone.  Pete is the kind of man who really doesn't realise what he's talking about.  He thinks, he says, and he doesn't think about what he's saying and so ends up saying more than he should.  Speak first, think later.  If at all.

HFB3 wants the transmogrifier moving and I grew up reading Calvin and Hobbs:

The Transmogrifier is an invention of Calvin's that would turn one thing into another. Like most of his inventions, it was made originally from a cardboard box, though a later model was made using a water gun. Calvin used the transmogrifiers many times, turning himself and Hobbes into quite a wide array of creatures.

The concept of one thing being and becoming something else is echoed again, something appearing to be one thing (a cardboard box) but being something else entirely.  The other voice in this cut-in segment sounds a lot like Mr Thompson, the school teacher, and is seemingly further evidence of the influence and control that the triumvirate have over the community within King Falls.

The Shotgun Sammy caller strikes again and Sammy is very happy to shut that down.  He's happy to control the narrative when it's something that he's not happy to talk about or to entertain.  Yet when Ben doesn't want to entertain Doyle Sammy is the one willing to hear him out.  It's not quite double standards on Sammy's part it's just adding to the sense of mystery surrounding him.  We are eight months in and we still don't know much about Sammy and his past. Ben's had a fair bit about his life come out over the broadcast but Sammy's cards are pretty much glued to his chest right now.  By shutting down the Shotgun caller and not Doyle it's established that this isn't about not believing what the Shotgun caller has to say, it's about not wanting to hear what they have to say.

When Dusty calls in he says that he's lost – and how's that for a recurring theme?  People are lost, literally, metaphorically, personally, all over the place in this show.  Even when you grow up here, even when it's home, you still can get lost.

"Is this real life?"  Some days Sammy probably thinks it's all just a fantasy.  Maybe wishes that it was?  Reality is not what it was a year, two years ago.  There's a new normal for the new year.  But Dusty's reasons for coming home are a little close to the mark:

"You better believe it! I was just too happy… good kids, great house, wife as hot as road tar! I guess I needed to lose it all just so I could find my roots."

Sammy had a job and money and a house and he had a fiancé and when he lost the latter none of the rest mattered.  So he came to King Falls and found a family he wasn't expecting.

Troy says "BRB", echoing the language that Ben has used before.  It's a choice made to echo how Troy is coming to Ben – literally and figuratively – in repairing the friendship.  And it's clear to anyone who's listening and who's got half an ear on the show what Troy has gotten Ben.  But we talk about the "cat" (even though the yips sound way more like a dog!) and it becomes an open secret.  Like Santa. But we know Riley does transcripts of the show for Grisham and there's no way that he won't know, that they all won't know, about the "cat" that Troy has just gifted Ben.

So why wait until #73 to do something?

Simple.

Effect.

When you make someone wait then it has more of an impact when it happens.  (#before2019 anyone?)  They know that Ben has a "cat".  They let Ben have his "cat".  Ben cares for and loves that "cat" and so, over two years later, it has much more of an impact when that "cat" is taken away from him in the most heart-breaking manner possible.  But right now it feels like a "win" for Ben and co. but it's under the control of someone else, it's still playing by their rules. It takes a couple of years to pay off but when it does?  We are left in no doubt at all as to the power and control that the triumvirate wield over this town and what happens in it.

#before73

Calling the "cat" Peas is a nice bit of word play, linking back to the Peace River in which Serendipity was untimely dispatched into.  Simple geography means that rivers do start up on mountains and we know that once upon a time there were falls in King Falls.  But in KFC3 Ben said about the dams reducing the flow… so was Peace literally stopped up?  Controlled? Contained?

And then, right at the end when we think everything is as it should be, the signal cuts out again. Celestia gets a name check again and this is bigger than a possible-vampire-immortal.  She/it was first mentioned in #7 when HFB3 commanded Celestia to end the call.

Celestia is a female given name, which is a variant of Celeste, and which means "heavenly" or "of the sky" in Latin.

With the lights and the UFOs and radio signals all being up in the air then HFB3 calling… whatever it is he's called Celestia that just gives another aspect of something "up there" controlling the "down here".

Episode 18 – "Make King Falls Great Again"

We are firmly out of familiar and home territory with a daytime outside broadcast.  Even the OB in #3 was in their usual timeslot as they set up the tournament in the dying hours of the night and were due to sign off at their usual time.  The entire town is out (almost) and so in a way it becomes the biggest audience they've ever had.  Grisham is putting them front and centre and that cannot be a good thing.  Ben is back on the rhetoric of how great King Falls is and it feels like the picture perfect propaganda piece that Grisham wants it to be.

And there's a coronation. Um… dictionary?

A coronation is the act of placement or bestowal of a crown upon a monarch's head. The term generally also refers not only to the physical crowning but to the whole ceremony wherein the act of crowning occurs, along with the presentation of other items of regalia, marking the formal investiture of a monarch with regal power.

Coronation in common parlance today may also, in a broader sense, refer to any formal ceremony in relation to the accession of a monarch whether or not an actual crown is bestowed, such ceremonies may otherwise be referred to as investitures, inaugurations, or enthronements.

Yup.  Living in a monarchy does have some benefits like an innate knowledge that a coronation involves, y'know, the monarchy.  Crowns and royals and stuff that makes for Netflix shows.  So who or what is being coronated?  HFB3's book is called King of King Falls and that was just a nice bit of wordplay once upon a time.  I talked about King in my title analysis but this is the first time we've had anything that is even close to that royal connection.  So… is Grisham coronating himself as the de facto leader?  Is it the town itself in a more metaphorical manner?  But monarchs aren't elected, they're not voted in the same way that the town is 'voted' Best Small Town in America.

So it begs the question – is this just for show?  Is this something that they do in order to give the town the impression that not only are they the best town but they are kings and queens of what they are. Grisham has organised this, he's at the heart of it all, and there's another interpretation of coronation:

The term coronation is sometimes used in a semi-ironic sense to refer to uncontested party leadership elections, with all potential party leaders choosing to back a single candidate or to stay silent, rather than stand in an election they are likely to lose.

Grisham has run unopposed in previous years, no one has stood against him before and when they finally do this year it is not a fair fight; it is not a fight that Ron was ever going to win.  So yeah. A coronation of another sort.

Of all the people he could have introduce him Grisham has chosen Sammy.  Enemies close, bigger person, but also an attempt to "poke the bear" as my parents would say.  Nothing will frustrate, annoy, or anger someone quicker than being forced to do something they would absolutely prefer not to do.  Grisham might be banking on Sammy losing his temper (win for Grisham), he might know that Sammy wouldn't risk it and so will be forced to toe the line set out for him by Merv (win for Grisham).  If Sammy does as told he loses the power fight, if he doesn't he still loses.

Grisham: Right. I’ll see you up on that stage, Sammy. Please make it short and sweet. I’ve got an announcement to make.

Sammy: Oh, so I should totally throw away the eight pages of compliments I wrote for ya. Oh, all that hard work right down the drain.

Grisham: Yeah yeah yeah, good stuff, Stevens.

The ambiguity of Grisham's parting line is both a snide comment in response to the clear sarcasm of Sammy's line but also a reference to how Grisham is controlling everything that Sammy is doing.   Grisham has Sammy out in the daytime, in a public arena with a much larger audience than he normally would have, and now he's looking to control the very words that come out of Sammy's mouth.

But Sammy is able to separate his feelings on the matter – he's not Grisham's biggest fan but when it comes to King Falls?  He's very open about how much he loves this town and the people.  Even so he's pragmatic about it – he'd rather the hard truth than a lie and that's part of the not-Shotgun guy we're beginning to see. He wants that honesty, even if it's an option that won't do him any favours.

Pete's stupidity is becoming a running joke, yes, but this is the Language of the Falls so let's look at his language choices.  Phrases such as "take them down" come up a lot with Pete and there are echoes of learned behaviour in his responses.  What Pete says and the turns on dimes that he makes when talking to Ben and/or Sammy almost feel like some kind of Pavlovian training kicking in. He's talking and he's saying what he wants to say and then something happens and suddenly the switch is flipped. He makes comments about the show and the hosts and the audience and desired behaviour (his repeated comment about not listening to the show is designed to lead by example – or at least trying to) echo the expressed opinions of his employer, HFB3.  But he's still Pete and so he still ends up saying a lot more than he ever means to say.

The schedule says they're going to break… but Dusty is hitting the stage?  That's a bit weird on the timing.  King Falls' most honoured son, the celebrated return of the legend, and the Sammy and Ben Show is due to cut to a break when he's starting his big set? Who set the schedule here?  It makes Ben look incompetent but that's only if he knew what time Dusty was meant to go on stage.  And whether Dusty took to the stage on time.  Given Grisham's subtle machinations around the show and these two I would put money on the mismatch being intentional.  Whatever schedule Ben has planned the show around and the relevant breaks will not come at appropriate moments during the celebration.

And now for a word from our sponsors, featuring our very own Sammy Stevens…  From the Chamber of Commerce?  Turns out the whole town isn't there because the elderly can't make it down.  They are actively cut off from this celebration which removes layers of wisdom and experience from the event as well as preventing the "not in front of grandma" thing being an issue.  Nothing like having a bunch of elders around to improve the behaviour of any young 'uns in the crowd.  It's like when I walk into a room all conversation stops because shit, Miss is listening.  If Granny is there then you bet you're on your best behaviour and not, y'know, starting punch ups?

But I'm still stuck on Sammy having to do a spot for a celebration that he doesn't believe in. A three line whip from Merv?  Or Sammy focusing on the people in the town who don't deserve to miss out on something which could bring them some enjoyment.  (Even if the song titles feel like they're from a Simpsons infomercial!)

Emily and Ben continue to be the cutest ever and Sammy continues to not be Shotgun when he makes an honest comment about Ben being invited to a date.  The layers of Sammy's personality are coming out as this was the same man who said that the truth might be hard but it's better than the lie.  But the truth isn't what Ben needs (or wants) to hear right now and so Sammy sidesteps the matter without lying.

(Ernie calling Ben Benny without any correction speaks to the threat that he poses.  But that's an analysis for another Language post.)

Grisham asks about Ben's mom, just keeping up that thinly veiled threat to anyone paying attention. (I'm paying attention.)  He goes on to talk about Storm, making it clear that the 'Sammy and Ben Show' were second choice.  He's controlling them and they weren't his first choice and it's emotional and psychological abuse red flags all the way through his interaction with the two of them.  There's nothing positive or nice in any of his directed comments to/about them and it's textbook manipulative and abusive behaviour.

But Grisham says on the record – and air – that he wants peace.  He wants to mend bridges.  He forces Sammy into the position of having to be "reasonable" and give him what he wants.  And Grisham wants so much more than pulling these hosts into line.  He makes the town celebration all about him, building on the goodwill and mood that is being fostered by the occasion.  When Sammy (rightfully) calls Grisham out on this Grisham acts like he's the one being attacked.  On air.  Publicly.

Ben is the one to weigh in because at the moment he sits in the middle: he believes in the town but he also supports and backs Sammy.  He's the one in the know and is able to bring to the table all the self-serving announcements that Grisham has made over the years.  Ben's quiet realisation that Sammy was right all along plays out in the background of a live (verbal) fight and it's that moment when your plucky hero-in-waiting realises that the person they've been idolising was the baddie all along.  When it becomes clear that Grisham is losing because now Ben is bringing the receipts he starts to gaslight them.

One thing that struck me about this whole episode and its audio quality is the lack of any background feedback.  I've been to outside broadcasts where they've broadcasted to the attendees via huge speakers and so everyone can listen no matter where you are.  I've been to OBs where they broadcasted for anyone not there and so unless you were tuned into your own personal radio you wouldn't hear what they were saying if you were somewhere else on site.  We hear announcements over speakers about the stage but there's nothing to suggest that King Falls AM are broadcasting over them as well.  Be aural overload if you had a set of speakers for the broadcast and a set of speakers for announcements/the main stage.  So I'm leaning towards them broadcasting but it not being heard by anyone in attendance.

Ben says that the whole town is here.  (Most likely hyperbolic but let's run with it.)  The elderly who can't make it are currently being regaled with their own entertainment.  So if the show isn't being broadcast to those in attendance who actually is listening to the show?  Their "biggest audience" and it might actually only be the audience of five that the detractors like to mock them with.

And when it all goes wrong Grisham threatens to have Sammy arrested for "preemptively starting a riot".  Dear Government Agencies monitoring my internet usage, this is why I Googled "is it illegal to plan a crime?".

In criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime at some time in the future. Criminal law in some countries or for some conspiracies may require that at least one overt act be undertaken in furtherance of that agreement, to constitute an offense.

Conspiracy has been defined in the United States as an agreement of two or more people to commit a crime, or to accomplish a legal end through illegal actions. A conspiracy does not need to have been planned in secret to meet the definition of the crime.

Conspiracy law usually does not require proof of specific intent by the defendants to injure any specific person to establish an illegal agreement. Instead, usually the law requires only that the conspirators have agreed to engage in a certain illegal act.

Under most U.S. laws, for a person to be convicted of conspiracy, not only must he or she agree to commit a crime, but at least one of the conspirators must commit an overt act (the actus reus) in furtherance of the crime.

So planning a crime isn't entirely illegal, it's all about the conspiracy.  But there are a few wonderful key points here.  Firstly, you need at least two people for a conspiracy so Sammy alone can't be guilty of this.  Secondly, an actual act must have been committed.  So Sammy preemptively starting a riot isn't a) a thing, and b) illegal even if it were.  But that's the thing with people in authority.  When they tell you something with conviction, something on which they are meant to be knowledgeable about?  It's easy to believe them.

Now if it were a civil conspiracy?

The criminal law often requires one of the conspirators to take an overt step to accomplish the illegal act to demonstrate the reality of their intention to break the law, whereas in a civil conspiracy, an overt act towards accomplishing the wrongful goal may not be required.

OK, so Sammy might not have to do something in order to fulfil the requirements for civil conspiracy but in that case, and this is the most important thing ever, Gunderson cannot be involved.  It's the biggest no-no for the police to get involved in a civil matter unless there is a threat to life or danger of a crime being committed. And since Sammy can't meet the requirements to be charged with criminal conspiracy that removes the latter option, his lack of any physical action (at this point) removes the former.

Basically what I'm getting at, and in the biggest surprise to absolutely no one, Grisham is abusing his position and his power to try and put Sammy back in his box.  This is a little different to the end of #13 where Grisham has Gunderson reprimand Troy as a warning to Sammy and Ben.  That was utterly within the wheelhouses of power and 'justified'. This is not.  

So Sammy does what he has to do.  He loves the town, he loves the people, and he won't stand for someone like Grisham taking advantage of that.  Especially when Grisham prevents Sammy from doing even the little thing he was 'allowed' to do: introduce Grisham to the crowds.  And Grisham is using the platform, the goodwill, to announce that he's running for Mayor.  Again. Which is a red rag to the Sammy.

Once again we hear Grisham trying to shut down the station/feed but this time no one does it so we hear Ben's "commentary".  That's not the interesting thing though.  We clearly hear Ben asking if he should break the fight up, why is no one breaking the fight up?  Yeah… why aren't they?  Grisham was (clearly?) attacked by Sammy first and so by letting that fight go on a little bit longer before someone intervenes?  Just makes him seem like more of a victim.

Grisham wanted to come out looking like the bigger and better person, either by exerting his control over the show or by provoking a reaction that serves his needs.  He wouldn't have been in on this by himself, at the least Gunderson would have been involved.  They set up a situation where Sammy would be provoked into doing something that he shouldn't – verbally or physically – and Grisham's comments and actions were enough pokes to the bear to get him to react.

And that, dear reader, is a conspiracy.

Episode 19 – "Beasts of Burden"

To the dictionary!

beast of burden (noun)

an animal, such as a mule or donkey, that is used for carrying loads

Ben is working overtime in Sammy's absence.  We get the first mention of Ben's notebook from Chet; clearly he's learned from the Electrolocaust.  A backup that will not be affected by anything to do with technology.  It's clear he's having to work harder when he's working with Chet during Sammy's "mandatory vacation".  Ben is using the language no doubt used towards Sammy which further reflects how much his eyes have been opened in recent weeks about the way power moves and controls in the town.  There was a hint of this back in #4 when Ben echoed the "as per instructed" line but this has a different feel to it.

But we also use the word burden in the sense of having a responsibility, of knowledge or information that you maybe didn't want to have or are unable to share.  The phonecall brings the shadows and the danger back into the present and there's so much more to come with that that this wouldn't be analysis but predictions.

"It’s been a great, slow, laid back…misogynistic couple weeks."

Chet isn't misogynistic, he's just… inappropriate.  I mean, he hangs up on all the men and makes a comment about no one calling in to his show. Which means that despite the later hour there's more engagement with the Sammy and Ben Show than there is with the Jazz Corner.  Speaks volumes as to how much more beloved Sammy and Ben are and why this would be such a concern for Grisham and his associates.  Or how less creepy Sammy and Ben are in comparison.  When Emily calls in and Chet hits on her?  She rejects him and he 100% accepts this and doesn't make her feel bad for her decision. That's not misogyny.  That's respect for a woman's autonomy and choices.

Anyone who says that Chet is misogynistic from this point on will have to go through me and my dictionary from this point on. #TeamChet

Ben and Emily talk naturally when it's business but when it's personal they both stumble.  They are safe and secure with things that don't have a personal impact on them, can't make or break their entire emotional wellbeing, but as soon as they step outside that?  Chet's suggestion means I'm having to Google Quaalude:

By the time it reached the US in the 1960s, it was being used to treat insomnia and anxiety. However, it didn't take long for the drug's potent features to be misused.

Quaalude had a novelty but also a distinct selling point. "It got the reputation of relaxing people so that they can have freer sex. (source)

Insomnia, anxiety… It's a late night chat show with an anxious Ben (if not a diagnosed anxiety) and a depressed Sammy.  But of course Chet's more interested in the reputation.  (Still not misogyny.)

Within a few seconds of Sammy's return he and Ben are back in sync expressing their dislike of the creepy caller.  It's been two weeks since they worked together but it's easy to slip back into a routine.  Sammy's working to the absolute letter of his suspension, pedantry at its finest.  I want to know what the email from Merv said and whether there was some between line reading going on with a comment along the lines of "you are suspended from work for two weeks effective immediately and you will not return to work a moment sooner".

And then there's the call itself.  We return from hold to overhear that it's not just this voice but there's others there too. The shadow people are named for the first time and we have a reference to the hiker.  The sense of danger and horror is back at literally the same moment that Sammy walks back into the studio?  Another coincidence?

We have the first mention of the @KingFallsSammy Twitter account.  February 2016 and Sammy has finally got his own work Twitter account, right?  Um…

No.  Not quite.  (Nice promo there, guys.)  But he's part of this town, this community now, and so there's his stamp on this. We have King Falls AM and we have Sammy. He's starting to become his own identity within the wider show, and within the show he's separate from the radio show.  Does that make sense?  Our audience surrogate Sammy is moving beyond his surrogate role now – he's absent at the start of this episode due to his "mandatory vacation", he's absent from #69, most of #75 and #76…  But that's OK.  We don't need a surrogate anymore.  We've had the intro, the tour, we've done the new starter briefings.  We've got our passes and we know where everything is. So Sammy gets to step away from the audience and develop his own part in this.  He's becoming King Falls Sammy.  He's theirs now.

I mean… y'all need to read the spin put on this.  But this was put out during his "vacation" – another line in the email from Merv?

Yeah, I want to know about the line-reading needed in this email.  Merv is reading the riot act but he's also keeping Sammy safe.  Punching the Mayor isn't something you can just sweep under the carpet but Sammy was only suspended for two weeks?  No charges laid?  There are pros and cons to having Sammy removed from the show but it's becoming clearer to everyone that Sammy Stevens is not going to dance to your tune. I firmly believe that Merv supported Sammy here and that the two week "vacation" was a concession made to prevent things from going further.

Ah Greg, everyone's least favourite caller.  He plays the innocent but does call the "business meeting" a date once. Sammy covers Ben's impending comment with one about garden gnomes.

Sometimes gnomes were said to have magical powers to protect or punish people – or to reward them with happiness.  Gnomes are also said to be guardians of secret underground treasures – especially gold!  (source)

We are talking about the perfect contrast between Ben and Greg, the good and the not-so-good.  Punishments, rewards…  They are considered to be creatures with the power to do both good and ill depending on what you deserve or how you have treated them.  And it's their opinions, not yours that matter to the gnomes.  We're back to the every villain is a hero in their own story.  In Greg's opinion he's Emily's perfect knight in froggy armour. In Ben's view Greg is "literally the worst human being" (#68).  Perspectives. Gnomes are cute or they're freaky. They're creatures who will help or destroy.  Depends on your opinions.

The vibe of the 1950s from #14 is back as Greg talks about going steady and a white picket fence.  The almost-malaphors can so easily be written off as cute or endearing until you look at the language he's using: catch librarians (flies) with honey, early frog (bird) gets the bookworm.  Both of these are not actually nice or affirming idioms:

Yes I agree that the fly refers to a negative situation or person. A fly is no-one's friend. Flies are not welcome, desired or embraced. A fly is a pest. I agree that the deeper meaning of this proverb refers to dealing with the unpleasant. And further that to disarm an unpleasant person or situation, one is wiser to use humour, sweet love and kindness, understanding and compassion rather than bitterness, anger, aggression and the like. (source)

He treats Emily like she's prey, like he's hunting her and trying to capture her in some regards. And he's luring her in, like the proverbial fly, waiting and ready to disarm her.

The episode ends with call backs and links to previous storylines but my favourite part is when Archie says "Jack in the Box Jesus".  Something which was started on the Sammy and Ben show has gained traction outside of the show.  Such is their influence so no wonder Grisham behaved as he did.

Episode 20 – "Referencing Aladdin Don't Make It Right"

Ah, Aladdin.  Can I call you Al?  Or maybe just Din?  Or how about Laddin?  Sounds like Laddie, here boy!

I adore this movie with everything I have.  Time was I could quote it, line by line, right through to just after the Prince Ali song.  But more than anything I love that it's a movie where people being who they are is what saves the day.  No one needs to change, it's just about smarts and intelligence and heart.  For 12-year-old Jen it was a movie with a strong independent woman who didn't need no man, and my love affair for the sidekicks was fully secured through Abu and Iago, both of which I still have stuffed toys of to this day.  Because this movie had everything: the unapologetic villain who wants because he wants and will stop at nothing to get it no matter who he hurts along the way; the naïve and well-meaning leader; the strong woman; the unrefined but smart guy who has his wits about him when they're needed the most.

Gunderson (or Grisham); Troy; Emily; Ben.

I can see Sammy as Abu – faithful and loyal, desperate to keep his friend safe, the literal saving grace at times – but I think if I'm going to roll out this analogy to breaking point then they're both Aladdin and they're both Abu.  The faithful pair, both overlooked and ignored due to their apparent insignificance, both the embodiment of the lines:

If only they'd look closer

Would they see a poor boy? No, siree

They'd find out

There's so much more to me

(*sigh* Someday Abu things are gonna change.  We're gonna be rich, live in a palace, and never have any problems at all.  So… money, home, career, fiancé…  Right, Sammy?)

So does that make Merv the genie?  All powerful, giving them what they need and saving them?

Troy's using the station for official business and it's to pass on a message from Gunderson about illegal animals.  Which Ben totally doesn't have.  And Gunderson totally doesn't know about it even if Ben had such an illegal animal. Ben's mentioned Gunderson's thugs before; back in #13 Troy was considered part of them in Ben's rhetoric but now there's a distinction.  Troy's one of "them" with Sammy and Ben rather than the "us" that has been posited against the show.  The fact that the police are involved in this illegal animal crackdown is simply one of control and using the return of the werewolves as pretence.

Pete's continued stupidity puts a few more pieces into place.  He's clearly not acting on instruction, asking about "something funny" which doesn't bear any of the linguistic hallmarks we've seen/heard from Pete before.  This is Pete, this is what he thinks and says and we know that he doesn't think before he speaks.  I mean, why would you ask the people you've been messing with if they noticed you're messing with them?

Bless.

(Who did they hang up on when they were arguing over the call?  What are we missing?  I swear that voice sounded familiar.)

Greg's phonecall ups the level of weird and once again he's calling Ben out, on air.  He's trying to hold Ben to account and show him up by airing this in a public setting.  He goes on about Ben causing drama in front of Granny (it's the whole 'not in front of grandma' element of behaviour control) and somehow that's more offensive than the hidden cameras.  He refers to Emily as a "beautiful creature" which shows exactly how he sees her.

Heard your princess was a sight, lovely to see!

Right before the malapropism – recorded for "prosperity"?  To the dictionary!

prosperity (noun)

the state of being prosperous.

prosperous (adjective)

successful in material terms; flourishing financially.

bringing wealth and success.

Usually you record for posterity:

posterity (noun)

all future generations of people.

To Greg Emily is a sign of success; he talks about a future that seems to centre around Emily (marriage, kids, grandkids) but it's not about her.  He doesn't want a future with Emily, he wants a life into which he inserts Emily.

"You don't know what love is." (Greg to Sammy)

"Fuck you, Frickard." (fandom to Greg)

Sammy won't let Greg "pressure Ben into talking about something he doesn't want to". Sammy gets privacy, it matters and he won't see that invaded especially when he knows how Ben feels about this sort of thing.

"I don't like putting our personal lives out there in the public eye." (Ben, #13)

Sammy's protective streak is kicking in big time and we're seeing the combination of the supportive friend and the dad!Sammy that's been developing over the recent months.  It's an equal relationship: when Sammy gives Ben gives as good as he gets (such as throwing the adulting comment back at Sammy in #17).  But when it matters Sammy has Ben's back, now and always.

And in response Greg calls them heathens:

heathen (noun, DEROGATORY)

INFORMAL

a person regarded as lacking culture or moral principles.

Pot.  Kettle.

Ben shows the value of passive resistance – he interfered with the 'date' in the same insidious way that Greg interfered in the developing relationship between Ben and Emily. Side note for the UK readers: Hush Puppies are a food in this context.  Just in case you were wondering why Ben was throwing shoes.

Greg continues his possessive streak by talking about Emily as a prize, a trophy, but Princess Jasmine Emily has more than a few things to say about this and another trope is subverted (although not if you know the movie) – the girl does not need saving.  Emily Potter is her own woman and she doesn't need a man, she doesn't need anyone fighting her battles for her.  Jasmine held her own in the movie and Emily holds her own here.

20 episodes in and we've got the measure of our hosts; we've seen them learn and fight and take their stances where they need to be taken.  We're learning about the threats – the people and the supernatural – that they face.  But when it comes to the Lovely Miss Potter this is the moment we get to know her. We get to see her outside of Ben's idolisation and Greg's objectification.  We are tethered to the perspectives and viewpoints of the show but now Emily starts to exist outside of that.

This isn't a show that plays into tropes and so the fact that Emily isn't a damsel in distress at any point (even when she literally is) shouldn't be that much of a surprise. But for Ben it is: he learns the lesson about his main squeeze, I mean the girl he's been pining for, I mean, Emily Potter.

That's the thing about Aladdin, he has this notion about Jasmine before he even meets her: she's rich and beautiful and the daughter of the Sultan.  But it's when he sees how adventurous she is (A Whole New World indeed) and learns how intelligent she is ("It's a shame Abu had to miss this.") and actually talks to her?  That's when they start to fall in love.  And over the course of the movie Jasmine holds her own, she fights with Aladdin, and come the end of the movie she wants what she wants even if it's not the 'right' choice for a princess.  She is respected by Aladdin and her father and makes her own choices about her life. She chooses Aladdin, the street rat, because he's the one she loves.

Aladdin needed to see Jasmine for who she really is before they had a chance.  Ben finally gets to see who Emily is and now?  Now they have the beginnings of a chance.

  Well, I'm back at work on Monday so in theory I won't be able to spend hours scrawling in my own notebook about this show.  Having said that, I've already got the start of my notes for 21-24 done and as I said my resolution for 2019 is to make time for me.

In any case, if you felt like saying hi or debating the most inane detail of language you can find me on usual social media and I'm trying to not just lurk on the KFAM Discord.

Until the next time; Be Well, Fandom.

Jen

@jennyreyn

[paralleljulieverse]

Julie Andrews Fantasy LPs #9

Super-cool-Dame-Julie-sings-the-punk-songs-of-Sid-Vicious! Even though the sound of it is something quite suspicious, If you play it loud enough you’ll always sound seditious, Super-cool-Dame-Julie-sings-the-punk-songs-of-Sid-Vicious! Um diddle diddle diddle, um diddle oi! Um diddle diddle diddle, um diddle oi!

                           ____________________________________

When Julie Andrews was honoured with a Special Lifetime Achievement Award at the 53rd Annual Grammys in 2011, media reports took considerable delight in the incongruous sight of the genteel Dame alongside fellow honorees, pioneering US punk band, The Ramones. Photos of Julie sandwiched between Tommy and Marky Ramone, the latter draping his bared, tattooed arm proudly around her shoulder, featured in online and print news stories around the world with commentaries typically drawing amused attention to the “diversity” of the year’s honorees.

Despite the apparent novelty of the odd juxtaposition of “Mary Poppins” and a hardcore punk rock band whose catalogue of hits include numbers like “I Wanna Sniff Some Glue”and “Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment,” there is in fact something of a history of associations between Julie and punk rock.

One of the earliest recorded instances is a parody piece from 1980 by British comedian Mel Smith, made in collaboration with Queen drummer, Roger Taylor. Titled “Mel Smith’s Greatest Hits”, the song is a comic pastiche of the angry male punk anthems of the time with Smith growling about wanting to “jump up and down to my favourite sound...Julie Andrews Greatest Hits.” Elsewhere in the song, he snarls:

Julie drives me frantic Cos I'm a bit of an old romantic And she sounds so nice and she's so precise I'm in paradise with me Edelweiss

Released as a 7″ single, the front sleeve featured cover art of Smith dressed in full Adam Ant-style punk regalia, striking an air guitar pose in the middle of a bedroom bedecked with Julie Andrews memorabilia. The rear sleeve had a similar shot of Smith drooling in mock-lasciviousness over a poster of a beatifically smiling Julie. While clearly tongue-in-cheek, the Smith song signalled an irreverent collocation of Julie and punk culture that would find other, more authentic, expressions as well.

Indeed, in the very same year of 1980, a post-punk experimental outfit “The 49 Americans” released a self-titled EP with a brief track called, simply, “Julie Andrews (A Tribute)” (1980). Engineered by Andrew "Giblet" Brenner, “The 49 Americans” was a collaborative group that developed out of the London Musicians Collective in Camden (Reynolds, 187-188). Inspired by the DIY experimentalism of punk, the group placed a premium on unregulated improvisation with an open, fluid membership and a single rule that players had to swap instruments -- which could be anything from a piano to saucepan lids -- from number to number with the result that they’d often be performing with little or no technical proficiency. The “Julie Andrews” track was allegedly inspired after the group spent an evening watching tapes of Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music and consists of a discordant version of “Do Re Mi” played on a children’s xylophone with non-verbal vocals, (Masters, 112). It was re-released as part of the group’s debut 1982 LP,  “Too Young To Be Ideal”, which was honoured in The Wire magazine’s list of “100 Records That Set the World on Fire (While No One Was Listening)” (Barker et al, 1998).

Other examples of Julie references in punk rock include: “Topless Mary Poppins”, recorded in 2004 by London-based Celtic punk group, Neck; the summarily titled “Julie Andrews” by the Liverpool pop-punk outfit, The Down and Outs, released as a limited run single in 2007; and, most recently, a 2017 release also called “Julie Andrews” by Noose, a self-described four piece rock punk band from Nottingham. Sporting lyrics like, “I wished my baby was like the girlies in the porno movies, But it turns out she was just like Julie Andrews from The Sound of Music,” these songs turn on a kind of shock tactic of mixing the sacred and the profane, arguably something of a stylistic signature of punk. 

Dick Hebdige (1979) famously theorises punk as a “revolting style” whose subcultural disaffection was expressed through a spectacular “bricolage” of appropriated cultural “signs” (106-112). The disordered cacophony of punk music or the riotous mish-mash of punk fashion effect a representational rebellion of “semantic disorder,” he asserts, wherein categorical boundaries are dissolved and ordinarily discrete elements are thrown together in perverse combinations that contravene received “rules” of taste and decency (90). Like a portrait of the Queen with a safety pin through her lip, the family-friendly wholesomeness of Julie Andrews was a resonant symbol of mainstream culture ripe for punk subversion.

There is however another, possibly more interesting, reading of punk’s incorporation of Julie Andrews as other than a simple target for  anti-establishment iconoclasm. In a fascinating article, Ruth Adams (2008) argues for punk, at least in its influential British forms, as part of a long history of populist English cultural dissent. In punk, she writes,“[b]its and pieces of both officially sanctioned and popular English culture, of politics and history were brought together in a chaotic, uneasy admixture...that arguably spot lit the very institutions that it nominally sought to destroy” (469-70). The Sex Pistols, in particular, are interpreted by Adams as “inheritors of the English music hall tradition -- the heirs to the crowns of Arthur Askey and Max Wall, operating outside the ‘legitimate theatre’ and characterized by clownish outfits, silly walks, smutty jokes and cocking a snook at the Establishment” (470).

Far from seeing them as antithetical opposites, this reading places punk and Julie Andrews on something of an artistic continuum -- albeit at divergent extremes -- with both drawing performative and professional energies from the riotous traditions of popular English carnivalesque and working-class musical theatre. Indeed, it’s instructive that the two music hall comics cited by Adams as historical precedents for the Sex Pistols -- Arthur Askey and Max Wall -- actually performed alongside Julie during her long juvenile career on the British variety circuit (Andrews, 150-51). Even after she made the leap to “legit” theatre and Hollywood stardom, the topsy-turvy irreverence of music hall continued to form an integral part of her oeuvre and persona, as evidenced from My Fair Lady to STAR! to Victor/Victoria, from Heartrending Ballads and Raucous Ditties to The Julie Andrews Hour to Julie and Dick at Covent Garden.

It’s possibly for this reason that, alongside the more predictable deployments of Julie as object of punk’s anarchic negationism, she also features as a subject of acknowledged admiration, even inspiration. This seems particularly true of female punk artists, many of whom regularly cite Julie as an important influence. Gina Birch, founding member of post-punk British band, The Raincoats, singles out Julie as a major formative inspiration (Reddington, 27), as does Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill (Juno, 89). In her memoir, Laurie Lindeen (2007), lead vocalist for 1990s grrl punk band, Zuzu’s Petals, even jokes:

“‘What women have influenced you?’ is a very broad question that we are asked every day. We yawn the usual: ‘Patti Smith, Chrissie Hynde, Deborah Harry, and Exene,’ when I should say, “Louisa May Alcott, Julie Andrews, and Carly Simon’” (202)

Pop superstar, Gwen Stefani, who rose to fame as lead singer of ska-punk band, No Doubt, makes no bones about her lifelong adoration of Julie Andrews. She loudly proclaims The Sound of Music as “her one true love” and is said to have cried with joy when Julie granted permission for her to riff vocals from “The Lonely Goatherd” for the 2007 hit single, “Wind It Up” (Apter, 27). Another current pop superstar, Lady Gaga -- who though not directly punk certainly draws heavily from traditions of punk rock -- is equally fulsome in her enthusiasm for Julie, as profiled in an earlier post here in the Parallel Julieverse.

All of which ultimately suggests that this imaginary LP of Julie singing the songs of the Sex Pistols is possibly not as far-fetched as it might at first seem! Oi!

Sources:

Adams, Ruth, 'The Englishness of English Punk: Sex Pistols, Subcultures, and Nostalgia.” Popular Music and Society. 31: 4 (2008): 469–88.

Andrews, Julie. Home: A Memoir of My Early Years. New York: Hyperion, 2008.

Apter, Jeff. Gwen Stefani and No Doubt: Simple Kind of Life. London: Omnibus Press, 2007.

Barker, Steve et al. “100 Records That Set The World On Fire (While No One Was Listening).” The Wire. 175, September 1998: 22-40.

Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Methuen, 1979.

Juno, Andrea, ed. Angry Women in Rock, Vol. 1. San Francisco: Juno Books: 1996.

Lindeen, Laurie. Petal Pusher: A Rock and Roll Cinderella Story. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007.

Masters, Marc. No Wave. London: Black Dog Publishing, 2007.

Reddington, Helen. The Lost Women of Rock Music: Female Musicians of the Punk Era. London: Ashgate, 2007.

Reynold, Simon. Rip it Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984. London: Faber and Faber, 2009.

© 2017, Brett Farmer. All Rights Reserved

[nofomoartworld]

Art F City: Museum Punk Show in Need of A Sound Guy

Gardar Eide Einarsson, “Always Carry A Bible / All Cops Are Bastards,” 2007

Punk. Sus rastros en el arte contemporáneo Museo Universitario del Chopo Curated by David G. Torres Until March 26th, 2017

Featuring: Tere Recarens, Martin Arnold, Johan Grimonprez, Federico Solmi, Dan Graham, T.R Uthco, Ant Farm, María Pratts, Iztiar Okariz, Chiara Fumai, Raisa Maudit, Fabienne Audéoud, Eduardo Balanza, TRES, Raymond Pettibon, Die Tödliche Doris, Mabel Palacín, Christian Marclay, Guerrilla Girls, Brice Dellsperger, Jordi Colomer, Pepo Salazar, Juan Pérez Agirregoikoa, Jota Izquierdo, Israel Martínez, Aida Ruilova, Antonio Ortega, Luis Felipe Ortega, Daniel Guzmán, Jimmie Durham, Mike Kelley, Tony Oursler, João Louro, Paul McCarthy, João Onofre, Santiago Sierra, Yoshua Okon, Miguel Calderón, Nan Goldin, Enrique Jezik, Guillermo Santamarina, VALIE EXPORT, Kendell Geers, Laureana Toledo, Sarah Minter, Semefo, DR. LAKRA, Gardar Eide Einarsson.

MEXICO CITY– I’m struggling to watch Aïda Ruilova’s 2009 video “Meet the Eye,” in which the actress Karen Black alternately attempts to seduce and crazily berate Raymond Pettibon between rapid edits. She’s wearing babydoll-style makeup, which gives her a subtly Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? vibe, and I’m hooked to the melodrama. But I have no idea what the argument is about, because I can barely hear the audio track over the sound of gunshots, a faint electroclash song playing somewhere, countless indistinguishable noises, and the invitation “Let’s go for it!” being repeated in a grating child’s voice.

The gallery is an ADHD nightmare. It contains not one, but two talking Mike Kelley works and several videos by other artists. In one, the Spanish performance artist Itziar Okariz is pissing on a parked car in the middle of New York City. On the other (source of the electroclash track) I catch a glimpse of what appears to be a dead-eyed princess dripping with cum.

By the time I turn back to Ruilova’s piece the loop has ended. My questions are unanswered. The curatorial strategy here leaves me with so many more.  

From Raisa Maudit’s 2012 “FART: Global Art Fair”

Punk. Sus rastros en el arte contemporáneo, now on view at Museo Universitario Del Chopo, is sort of a mess. That’s not to say the work here isn’t good—it’s great—but the show is an overwhelming, over-stimulating experience that’s often draining when it should be wholly inspiring. I can’t think of another exhibition I’ve been to in which I’ve loved nearly every artwork yet couldn’t wait to get the hell out of each gallery. Maybe that abrasiveness is deliberate? The experience did, after all, remind me of trying to have one-on-one conversations with dear friends while a noise musician performs on the other side of a party in a squat. If the past 35 years have rendered audiences numb to “shocking” artworks, perhaps subverting museum-caliber curatorial conventions is the last punk gesture.

That’s a thought I might not have had, were it not for the fact that (I think) I entered the exhibition backwards. The galleries are stacked in a concrete box addition inside the museum—an airy 1902 glass pavilion that, appropriately, was home to Mexico’s famous punk market “El Chopo” until the late 80s. I started from the top floor, the library, where punk memorabilia is arranged in vitrines, more or less chronologically alongside didactic text. This part of the exhibition, at least for me, was surprisingly enjoyable. The text places punk in an art historical context, citing Dada, the Situationists, John Waters’ films, and Warhol’s factory as conceptual forefathers. Alongside the familiar narratives of the CBGBs scene and parallels in London, the curators discuss Spain’s Movida Madrileña—one of my favorite, under-historicized moments in subculture—the Spanish-speaking world’s more recent equivalent of the experimental Weimar Republic years. I got an undeniable thrill from seeing a video of all-female Basque punk band Las Vulpess’ cover of “Now I Wanna Be Your Dog” enshrined in a museum (in Spanish, the song translates to “I like being a slut”, and its broadcast on television sparked a debate about censorship, gender, and “decency” in Spain’s relatively new socialist democracy). From photos of drag icon Divine to punk band Eskorbuto, never had I felt more cool nerding out in a museum. Importantly, the show ties the influence of both European and anglophone punk to Mexican subculture in the 80s and 90s. That’s a topic I’m glad the show gave me an introduction to. (Indeed, I’d like to revisit Sarah Minter’s hour-long video “Alma Punk” from 1992 in a less overwhelming context. It’s a candid DIY document of Mexico’s punk scene from that era.)

Enrique Ježik, “La fiesta de las balas,” (The Bullet Party) 2011.

If the academic and “precious” vitrines of punk history and artifacts were unexpected, the gallery beneath it seemed like a contemporary assault on the culture of display—quite literally. The aforementioned gunshot sounds are from an Enrique Ježik sculpture, “La fiesta de las balas,” 2011. The piece comprises three bulletproof glass display cases, evocative of Damien Hirst works, riddled with craters from bullets. They’re installed in their own room, like a shooting range, but the sound from the shooting recording reverberates through half the museum. The piece stuck with me beyond my initial reaction (a teen boy destruction fantasy) as a commentary on both the cult of art object worship, and the futility of resisting it. Like Warhol’s “Shot Marilyns”, the piece’s value lies in it doubling as a record of the violence committed against it.

But “La Fiesta de las balas” also points to two of the exhibition’s most glaring problems: it’s one of the few works here that actually should be experienced as a physical object, and it’s loud as hell. There are only a few other sculptural works in the show, and at least half of them involve an audio or video component that’s competing with other sounds in an echoey gallery.

Still from Brice Dellsperger’s “Body Double 16“

And sound is a big, big problem for a show that’s overwhelmingly based on video. Don’t get me wrong: nearly every video here is fantastic. I spent untold hours diligently viewing relatively short works such as Raisa Maudit’s 2012 “FART: Global Art Fair” (in which the artist parodies the gallery/artist relationship in a tiara and semen during a fake interview with herself) or Ant Farm’s 1975 “The Eternal Frame,” in which the artists reenact the assassination of JFK, complete with drag Jackie O. But in such a busy exhibition, to expect visitors to sit through Dan Graham’s hour-long “Rock my Religion” is asking a bit much. If you’re curating a program with more time-based-media than a museum has hours, perhaps a gallery exhibition isn’t the way to go. I couldn’t shake the impression that Punk would’ve made a fantastic screening series and publication, with perhaps a much leaner gallery install where noise-emitting sculptures had more space to breathe. It felt like a missed opportunity for content with so much potential for event-based programming and critical writing—especially considering the museum has its own movie theater.

It’s frustrating to view video works when they’re all looping at different rates in a gallery context. There’s a rich history of subversive cinema as a collective viewing experience, and so many of these works would be better on the big screen. I am thinking especially of Brice Dellsperger’s “Body Double 16.” It’s short, but screams for cinematic treatment. In the piece, Dellsperger assumes a variety of characters in drag, committing various acts of violence against the other characters he’s also playing. The artist recreates scenes from A Clockwork Orange and Ken Russell’s Women In Love with surprisingly beautiful cinematography that makes the punk/masochistic content so much stranger. 

Pepo Salazar, “Yoga Alliance,” 2015.

It’s one of many highlights lining the ramp gallery (which is either the entrance or exit, depending on the route one takes). There’s really too much excellent work here to talk about it all—but I’d be remiss for neglecting Pepo Salazar’s assemblage “Yoga Alliance,” which is arguably one of my favorite artworks of the past few years. It comprises a digital print of bald Britney Spears, from her very public meltdown a decade ago, and a black wig hanging from the piece. It has a very “Punk’s not dead” (rather lurking in unexpected places) vibe, and the physical wig almost reads like an invitation to the viewer to join in the rebellion.

Install view with Die Tödliche Doris, “Das Leben des Sid Vicious,” 1981 (L); Christian Marclay, “Record Players,” 1983-84; and Guillermo Santamarina, “Frei vom jedem Schaden!” installation of albums thrown like a discus at the wall in the background.

Descending the ramp, through more video projections, the last piece I encountered (or the first for viewers who start from the bottom up) was Catalan artist Jordi Colomer’s “No Future.” The video follows an old car mounted with an electric sign bearing the titular text as it drives across European cities. The piece is from 2006, and as the “NO? FUTURE!” message crossed a likely expensive, Calatrava-looking bridge, it felt eerily prescient. Filmed just before the global recession and the political turmoil that ensued, Colomer seemed to know that punk would suddenly become relevant anew. If The Decline of Western Civilization is accelerating, at least somebody is still having a little fun while we’re along for the ride.

Jordi-Colomer-No-Future-2006

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