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monstrousgourmandizingcats · 1 year ago

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Some books and stories that I think are worth reading in conversation with Yellowjackets

Shirley Jackson, all works but especially The Sundial, The Haunting of Hill House, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Jackson might or might not need any introduction in this fandom. The Sundial is her take on doomsday preppers, Hill House is of course her haunted house novel (one of the classics of that genre), and Castle has a female protagonist who makes Shauna look like a plaster saint.

Flannery O'Connor, The Violent Bear It Away. O'Connor's work has some of the most pervasive darkness and brutality of any major American writer (maybe Ambrose Bierce comes close), and the second of two novels that she completed before her death is no exception. (The first, Wise Blood, is also very good; the intended third, Why Do the Heathen Rage?, only exists as a fragmentary short story.) Francis Marion Tarwater is kidnapped and raised in the woods by his great-uncle, who is convinced that Francis is destined to be a prophet. The great-uncle's death commences a bizarre adventure involving auditory hallucinations, sinister truckers, an evil social worker, arson, developmental disabilities, and baptizing and drowning someone at the same time. Content warnings for all of the above plus rape. O'Connor is also a fairly racist author by today's standards--she was a white Southerner who died in 1964--so keep that in mind as well.

Ruth Ozeki, The Book of Form and Emptiness. Teenage protagonist is schizophrenic and also a channel for a genuinely supernatural force; well-intentioned but poorly-considered efforts to treat one of these issues make the other worse. Sound familiar? There are supporting characters who are affectionate parodies of Slavoj Zizek and Marie Kondo. A minor character is a middle-aged lesbian who cruises dating apps for hookups with much younger women. Some people find this book preachy and overwritten, but I really like it and would plug it even if I didn't because the author is someone whom I've met and who has been supportive of my own writing.

Yukio Mishima, The Decay of the Angel. Can be read in translation or in the original Japanese. This is the fourth and last book in a series called The Sea of Fertility but I wouldn't necessarily recommend the first three as particularly YJ-ish; Decay is because it deals at great length with issues of doubt and ambiguity about whether or not a genuinely held, but personally damaging, spiritual and religious belief is true. There's also more (as Randy Walsh would put it) lezzy stuff than is usual for Mishima, a gay man. Content warnings for elder abuse, sexual abuse of both children and vulnerable adults in previous books in the series, forced abortion in the first book if you decide to read the whole thing from the beginning, and the fact that in addition to being a great novelist the author was also a far-right political personality.

Howard Frank Mosher, Where the Rivers Flow North. An elderly Vermont lumberjack and his Native American common-law wife refuse to sell their land to a development company that wants to build a hydroelectric power plant. Tragedy ensues. I haven't read this one in a long time but some images from the movie stick in my mind as YJ-y. Lots of fire, water, and trees.

Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers. Yes, this is the same Leonard Cohen who later transitioned into songwriting and became a household name in that art form. Beautiful Losers is a very weird, very horny novel that he wrote as a young man; it deals with the submerged darkness and internal tension within Canadian and specifically Quebecois society. One of the main characters is Kateri Tekakwitha, a seventeenth-century Iroquois convert to Catholicism who was probably a lesbian in real life (although Cohen unfortunately seems unaware of this). This one actually shows up YJ directly; the song "God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot" that plays in the season 2 finale takes its lyrics from a particularly strange passage.

Monica Ojeda, Jawbone. Can be read in translation or in the original Spanish. Extremely-online teenage girls at a posh bilingual Catholic high school in Ecuador start their own cult based on such time-honored fodder as Herman Melville novels, internet creepypasta (no, this book does not look or feel anything like Otherside Picnic), and their repressed but increasingly obvious desire for one another. The last part in particular gets the attention of their English teacher, whose own obsessive internalized homophobia grows into one of the most horrifying monstrous versions of itself I've ever read. Content warning for just about everything that could possibly imply, but especially involuntary confinement, religious and medical abuse, and a final chapter that I don't even know how to describe. Many thanks to @maryblackwood for introducing me to this one.

Jorge Luis Borges, lots of his works but especially "The Aleph," "The Cult of the Phoenix," and "The South." Can be read in translation or in the original Spanish. The three works I list are all short stories. The first deals with mystical experiences and the comprehensibility (or lack thereof) of the universe, the second with coded and submerged references to sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular, the third with leaving your well-appointed city home for a ranch in the middle of nowhere and almost immediately dying in a knife fight, which is surely a very YJ series of things to do.

H.P. Lovecraft, "The Colour out of Space," "The Dunwich Horror," "The Dreams in the Witch House," and "The Thing on the Doorstep." Lovecraft in general needs no introduction--the creepiness, the moroseness, the New Englandness, the purple heliotrope prose, his intense racism (recanted late in life but not in time to make any difference in his reception history) and the way his work reflects his fear of the Other. These short stories are noteworthy for having settings that are more woodsy and less maritime than is usual for Lovecraft's New England, for overtones of the supernatural rather than merely the alien, for featuring some of his few interesting female characters, and for their relative lack of obvious racial nastiness. Caveat lector nevertheless.

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick. It's Moby-Dick. Once you realize that Captain Ahab is forming a cult around the whale and his obsession with it you can't unrealize it.

#yellowjackets #books #book recs

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amymbona · 5 months ago

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“Every night when I go to bed, I dream of walking up to hundreds of asks in my inbox that could captivate my attention for the whole day and I wouldn't be able to stop writing”

i feel the need to reveal myself as i’m a sucker for fics and i recommended the blurb of soft patrick 🤭 i love your writing style.

you should totally write something where patrick fails to find anyone who truly understands him except for the reader (yk cause they’ve known each other for forever and the reader is like perfect for him and just an overall amazing person). and he fails to find anyone to connect with, if u know what i mean 😈 PLS GET IT IM SO SORRY IDK HOW TO WORD MY THOUGHTS I LOVE JOSH O’CONNOR

"I LOVE JOSH O'CONNOR" WE ALL CHANT IN UNISON🙌🙌🙌🙌

Patrick Zweig, and I stand by this fact, is absolutely in need of a person who wouldn't judge him for any of his actions. Who'd simply listen, hold him if there's a need (and believe me, there is), and simply let him cry his eyes out. He needs a person who wouldn't sugarcoat anything but at the same time is soft spoken and won't yell at him for simply voicing his worries.

And that person is you.

You're the one who holds him after Tashi's injury, after both his girlfriend and his best friend completely wipe him out of their lives, as a result of something he couldn't possibly control. He lays on your lap, head resting on the soft flesh of your thighs, the four walls of your neat dorm swallowing him in a small bubble of warmth and comfort. And you hold him, fingers delicately running through the mess of his curls, while allowing him to ramble for hours on.

"It's just so unfair to me, like how could I possibly guess that this would happen. Not like I was the one who kicked her to the ground and broke her leg."

He's livid, only too physically exhausted to do something about it, to go slap Tashi like she deserves. His poor boy, despite being familiar with the toughest of trainings, can only handle so much, and then mix of his unsatisfied libido and psychosomatic stomach ache doesn't do him any good.

"And that bastard. Did you see him? He wouldn't even let me talk to her! Acting like her fucking bodyguard."

That is the true twist of the knife stabbed into Patrick's heart, the betrayal of his best of friends, the guy he thought he could trust with his own life. It's simply something that Patrick thought would never, ever happen, the complete one-hundred his best man did. Even you can't really believe what you hear.

"I know, Pat," you whisper, the soft movement of your fingers in his hair faltering as you zone off a bit, trying to come up with the best words to soothe him down. Even though it would be best if you just stayed quiet.

Patrick, too used to the comforting touch you've given him, grabs your wrist with an agitated huff and demonstrates the soft scratching of his scalp, silently demanding more.

So you continue, sighing softly and giving Patrick what he wants. You know this will help calm him down, so why not oblige. You'd much rather see him content, at least partially happy where he is.

"It's just unfair," he pout, nuzzling his face deeper into your lower tummy, an arm thrown around your thighs, holding onto you tightly, "Fucking manipulator. I bet he's fucking her right now."

The voice, despite muffled against the fabric of your sweater, actually make you shudder. The sheer idea of someone betraying their best friend purely for the interest in a girl - someone's girl - seems completely unforgivable. Patrick is definitely not in the wrong for being the offended one here.

"Then what if he is," you mutter, hoping to deliver your words in the best suitable tone to Patrick's ears. "Let the shitty people stay together, Patrick. You're better than them."

Patrick's shoulders tremble lightly at your words and he wants to sob, so so deeply trying to take your words to heart, to really believe them. But he's hurt at the moment. And he doesn't believe he is better than anyone else, let alone Tashi and Art who have been percieved as perfect in his eyes so far. Up until now. At the moment, you're the purest image of perfection, the embodiment of it. And he doesn't believe you're actually with him.

"Don't leave me," he simply whispers, too vulnerable to look you in the eyes while saying it. He hopes the light squeeze of your thighs is enough to let you know how much he really needs you.

You sigh, looking down at the mop of curls on your lap, fingers slowly untangling the mess that somebody left there. "I won't, don't worry."

#challengers #josh o'connor #patrick zweig #patrick zweig x you #patrick zweig x reader #patrick zweig blurb #challengers blurb #patrick zweig fluff #challengers fluff #challengers x you #art donaldson #tashi duncan #josh o'connor x reader

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archeronfilm · 5 months ago

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My Own Private Idaho (1991)

"I wish I read more Shakespeare so I could have something thoughtful to say about this"

In case you don't want to read my deranged fully wrought thoughts on this film, here's the short and sweet version:

This movie was bizarre, rich in symbolism, deeply confusing. It was honestly kind of a rapturous experience and I would recommend it, even if you just watch it to see young Keanu Reeves be gay and homophobic. 4/5 stars.

Okay let's get into the meat. the substance. Spoiler warning for content below the cut.

Content warnings for mentions of sex, sexual violence, and drugs.

Word Count: 5,139

My Own Private Idaho, dir. Gus Van Sant, is a movie I can only describe as a series of deranged and feverish vignettes separated by Microsoft PowerPoint transition slides. It stars, most notably, River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves as the two main characters.

We open with a shot of the dictionary definition of narcolepsy, and then immediately following is our main character, Mike (Phoenix), alone in the middle of a rural road in Idaho. He talks aloud to himself about how he can recognize a road he's been on before, mostly musing about how the road resembles a face. He's got a bit of a coke sniff thing going on, which was a joke I wrote in my notes and then had to include here when I realized he does just have a coke habit.

Mike, as one might guess by that opening shot, is narcoleptic. I am not intimately acquainted with the way that narcolepsy actually presents itself in real life, so I can't comment on how realistic this depiction of narcolepsy is, but he at the very least has Hollywood Narcolepsy.

He falls unconscious and has a dream about his mother in some disjointed feverish farmhouse dreamscape where the clouds move in time lapse and there are no sharp edges. She cajoles him, vaguely, reassuring him that whatever he did was okay.

I can't exaggerate enough, if you haven't seen this movie, that the location-title-cards make me laugh every time they pop up because of the way they look.

A thing this movie likes to do is use Mike's narcolepsy to take him someplace else. Many times it's used to imply that he really did just wake up somewhere, but those are later in the movie. Here it's obvious there was just a time skip.

Mike is sleeping in a chair? No, Mike is getting head in Seattle. For reasons I can only describe as probably psychosexual, there is a harsh cut-in shot of a barn falling from the sky and breaking apart on the ground when Mike climaxes.

We get another core part of his character here, when the man who was just blowing him gets up and throws a couple bills at Mike's chest.

Mike has to beg this man for ten extra dollars through his bathroom door. His dad drowned himself recently, or at least that's what he tells the guy.

After he secures that ten dollars, we get a scene where he's crossing the street and sees a woman who looks vaguely (and I mean, really vaguely) like his mother, and then more of this strange farmhouse world. The people around him cross the street without him. This is going to come up many many more times.

Next, Mike (who it's become clear is also unhoused) is brought into a stranger's house. He asks him to put on slippers before walking in. This odd gesture made me think "Surely, he's not getting paid by this guy. That'd be so bizarre!" and then, "Daddy Carol" gets off cartoonishly to Mike scrubbing his (already completely spotless) living space. "My lucky 44th little Dutch boy. You must scrub Daddy Carol."

We do not get to see him scrubbing Daddy Carol.

Instead, we get another client of his. A rich woman who brings him into her ostentatious home. Two of his friends are already there, Gary, and Scott (Reeves). I say friends, but in this scene he talks to Gary about Sinéad O'Connor, and when Mike says he's never been to a concert in his life before, the word "dude" leaves his mouth like a small child trying to say "damn" for the first time.

This is something about Mike I noticed a few times throughout this movie, but especially in this scene, where he looks around this woman's room at her decor, thinks about how nice her house is. He holds a porcelain conch shell up to his ear to listen to the sea.

This woman who hired him walks in, takes the shell, holds it to her own ear. I can't pretend to know what the director was planning with this shot, but it feels transgressive and wrong to me. This woman walking into his space to initiate sex with him, taking an innocent gesture and almost sullying it with her intent. Not that I necessarily think she's evil. Of course, she's paying him. Of course, he does this for money regularly, but the following undressing feels choppy and stiff, like Mike doesn't know what he's doing.

He barely looks present here, and then remembers his mother and falls stiff and unconscious on this woman's carpet.

His friends carry him out. His narcolepsy is triggered by stress. Here, we get a more in depth introduction of Scott.

It's very cold outside. You can see his breath. Scott soliloquizes to unconscious Mike about how he grew up in a nice neighborhood like this one. He complains about his father, how he thinks Scott is a threat even though he's just a kid. Mike dreams of more decrepit farmhouses. The song "America the Beautiful" plays behind Scott's monologue, for reasons that are totally inscrutable to me.

Scott gives Mike his blazer.

Not speaking of non-sequitur, here is a bizarre and hilarious scene in a magazine shop! It's completely different than the rest of the movie, and I love it. It's barely relevant to anything. We get to see that Mike, Scott, and some other boys have gotten some work as models for gay adult magazine covers. Their photographs start moving and arguing with each other. I have no idea why this scene is here, but it's awesome.

Here's what we learn: Scott will only do gay things for money, because doing it for free makes you a queer. Scott is going to inherit a lot of money. These two facts are repeated at least one or two times throughout the rest of the movie, but I'm absolutely overjoyed that this is the way they chose to present these details. A bunch of shirtless gay magazine dudes cattily talking over each other from their covers.

Mike is running down the street.

Mike averts his eyes. He looks at the ground and then he never breaks eye contact. This man who's pulled over is a little too close to him. Mike doesn't want a ride. He tells the guy to go the fuck home, and the rude cussing leaves his mouth disingenuously, like he isn't used to talking that way. Refusing that ride doesn't work out, because Mike collapses again.

Mike is back in Portland, held by Scott. He doesn't remember the German man, Hans (the same guy from earlier) who drove them home.

Then, in a diner, shoes on the table. This diner is red everywhere, which might mean nothing, but it definitely looks and feels cramped partially due to how not-neutral the walls are.

Here, Mike asks Scott how much he made off him while he was out, and Scott seems affronted that Mike would assume he'd do that. "Mike, I'm on your side" he says.

Mike and Scott can talk to each other. It doesn't feel like Mike is grating words through his teeth under duress, even if it *does* feel like he doesn't care too much about what he's asking Scott about.

In this conversation, we also learn about a new important character, Bob Pigeon. Scott hypes him up a lot, says that he loves him more than his father-- no, more than *both* his parents. Mike sort of ignores this long prattling Scott does about Bob, flatly says it'd be nice to see him again.

There's also this bit right after where Scott talks to this guy and Mike calls him a dickhead while watching them talk through the window, in a way that really just makes him look jealous. It's barely relevant but I thought it was kind of funny.

In the same diner, Mike gets smoke blown in his face by some girl.

This is one of my favorite scenes in this film. It's a kind of interview-ish sequence, the only part of the movie that feels like some kind of documentary about street youth and sex work. It's two or three of Mike's people talking about their negative experiences with sex work. Interspersed are normal film scenes of this girl blowing smoke at Mike across the table, of another girl crying on Scott's shoulder.

Mike seems irritated at the girl hanging onto Scott, jealous. One of the interviewees talks about his traumatic experience with what he described as "basically rape." He winces. The second interviewee, too, reveals that his experience was deeply traumatic. Their discussions are light, casual, they smile, their eyes wander. The things they discuss are disarming, uncomfortable. They don't seem to confront it, laughing through the smoke in this cluttered, stifling diner.

Mike wakes up again. This time, in a plastic tent on the roof of a building. Scott and co. are there, disbursed on some adjacent roofs. They all spot a man approaching. Haggard, in a long coat. Ironically, their bird's eye view is of Bob Pigeon.

Here's an important detail. Bob speaks in poeticisms. In this first scene, there's a while where he speaks in rhymes. More on the poeticism will be interspersed throughout this review.

Scott takes a swig, gives away his cigarette, kisses a girl, walks up some stairs to go see Bob. Mike is already in the room with a sleeping Bob Pigeon, looking at the floor. And then, Scott and Mike gleefully steal Bob's cocaine and attempt to do lines off his boots.

Bob is incensed with rage. Mike hides behind a doorframe, still actively doing Bob's coke while he rampages around this decrepit building hunting down Scott. Scott flees playfully in his three piece suit. He is the only one in a suit, deeply out of place, the mayor's son.

Nobody else in this scene is in a Shakespeare play, only Bob and Scott, who bounce manically off each other while the surrounding scamps mob around them. Despite this, all of them move like they're on a stage, navigating the support beams of this half-constructed space.

Scott pulls Mike aside. Tells him he has a joke to play that he needs Mike's help for. Mike immediately agrees. Scott proposes a robbery scheme, and he, Gary, and Mike dance in a circle. Mike is full of odd energy, unwieldy and foreign.

Scott is 20 years old. He gets his inheritance at 21. In one week.

These street boys are thieves. When Bob and Scott are alone, they kiss, and Scott dances away from it. Scott, paradoxically, doesn't want to be a robbing street scamp. He says he's done it to improve later, to impress his parents with his sudden change of spirit. Bob says he will be his hatchet man. Scott monologues at him, the king of the scene. When they are alone, they keep up their Shakespearean play. Scott likes to talk to himself at people.

Next is the scene where they undergo this night robbery. This movie is so surreal that everything feels serious and ridiculous. All four of them dress in full length pink robes. Mike holds himself around the middle with his robe, he's the only one who holds himself this way.

They carry out the robbery flawlessly. Only for two more mysterious robe-wearers (Mike and Scott, who had broken from the group moments before) to rob them in turn.

Scott's father hasn't seen him in months.

Scott drives a motorcycle with Mike on the back. When they talk, Scott is still in the play. Mike speaks normally.

When they go to see Bob after the night of their prank, they link arms and skip to him. Seriously.

Scott is back in his zone, the surreal play whose script only he and Bob know. Mike, scriptless, speaks as normal.

Scott massages Bob's shoulders, exchanging mirthful glances and snickers with Mike as Bob aggrandizes and lies about the life-threatening encounter he had last night. One of their allies helps him lie.

There were two perpetrators. No, five. No, seven. And Bob fought all of them off bare handed. Scott tries to fact check him, Bob does not falter.

Scott and Bob may both have the script, but only Scott knows it's a script. He's the only one in on the joke. Scott is only playing, he doesn't live here. He smiles wryly as he plays his part across from his scene partner, who lives on the stage.

All the scamps hassle Bob for the lie that Scott exposed. Scott lectures Bob, picks him up, spins him around. Bob knocks him over, but Scott is still on the upstep. Still smiling, always winning their scenes.

Scott talks like a character from a Shakespeare play to put on a show for his friends, you might assume, but that he talks that way just with Mike as well.

Scotty is these kids' ticket out of poverty and destitution. Bob really believes this.

When the police barge into the house to hunt for Bob, Scott and Mike pretend to have sex as a distraction. This works, even though they still definitely have pants on. Scott keeps playing with Mike's nipple, even though Mike keeps smacking his hand away. This isn't thematic, it just made me laugh myself hoarse.

Scott's dad finally gets to see him. When Scott is with the boys, he wears nice clothes. With his father, he wears a denim jacket with no shirt. Scott, keeping up his play, still calls his father "dad."

Scott and Mike are going to Idaho to see Mike's brother, who Scott didn't know he had.

They take a motorbike that Scott stole, which refuses to start on a familiar road, the same road Mike walks down in the very first scene. Scott humors Mike when he asks him to look at the face, even if Scott can't really see it. They laugh.

The bike is still not turning over by the time night falls. Scott and Mike sit by a fire. Scott muses about how good getting away from his rich life. Mike only replies to Scott's casual admission that he had a maid. He would have liked to have lived Scott's life, which he almost says outright instead of just implying it.

Mike wishes he grew up normal, even though he feels well adjusted.

Scott asks Mike what he thinks a normal dad is. Mike doesn't know. He wishes he could really talk to Scott, be honest with him, be close to him. He can't word it. Basically, Mike asks Scott "what are we?" He beats around the invisible bush. He transparently loves Scott, more than Scott loves him.

Scott isn't gay. Two guys can't love each other. Mike agrees, or maybe he doesn't, really. He could love someone, even if he wasn't paid for it. He loves Scott, and Scott doesn't pay him.

"I really want to kiss you, man."

Scott says nothing. Mike gives up, wishes him goodnight, curled into a fetal position by the fire. I love you though, he reiterates. I do love you.

Scott tells Mike to come over to him, opens his arms, cruel. Deeply cruel. Mike crawls into them anyway, falls asleep there anyway. Scott strokes his hair.

Mike wakes up in the middle of the road. The bike still wont start.

The cops show up, and Mike books it. Scott stays on his bike, which could mean nothing about class and background. I did laugh at Scott saying "I guess he doesn't like cops" while we see Mike clumsily fleeing.

He collapsed while running away. Scott carries him someplace. With a trailer. A cat. A familiar house.

Mike wakes up to sandwiches being shoved in his face. His brother. He tries to show mike a photograph of him and his mother, outside "the institution".

Mike was in an institution because his mother "wasn't safe," his brother claims. They were still a family.

Mike is having a bad time about his mother, and Scott leaves to piss. Scott calmly washes his hands while Dick and Mike yell at each other. He saunters back into the room as Mike collapses again. Dick pretends like he doesn't know that Scott heard and saw that.

Mike twitches in his chair, unconscious. Scott steals glances at him. Dick is a painter. He makes family portraits. Sometimes, he doesn't get paid, and he keeps them. Family photos of strangers pepper his walls. It is, to be candid, super creepy.

They drink, Mike smokes, Dick is grilling Mike about what happened with their mom, says Mike is avoiding something.

Their mother fell in love with a scumbag, wanted to marry him. He didn't love her. Mike flashes back. Their mom used to have this gun. A .38 Smith & Wesson. She killed that guy. This cowboy fuck. With Rio Bravo on the big screen, John Wayne on his horse.

Scott says, "how corny." But Mike is fighting for his life. That cowboy was Mike's father.

Mike breaks, yells at Dick. He demands that Dick stop fucking with his head. Mike's mother wasn't a hooker, his dad wasn't some cowboy. His dad was Dick. He knows that, but Dick seems surprised that He does. He throws things. Mike looks at something else, a postcard from his mother. She's out having a great time.

Dick hugs Mike. He cries, grossly. He wants to look her up in the yellow pages. She's at some resort, Yellow Tree.

Apparently, she saved up all her money and headed to Rome. She claimed she was looking for her family, but Mike is not Italian.

In a moment of pure delight, Hans happens to also be at the Yellow Tree resort. He tells them his room number, 407. The number 4 comes up semi-frequently in this movie, and I don't think I'm smart enough to formulate a theory on why.

Mike's first order of business in Hans' room is to take a nice bubble bath. He seems in wonder at the concept of getting room service. He asks for two orders of fries. In this moment, again, Mike is just a kid. He's a poor little kid who never got room service or took a bubble bath.

Hans sits too close to Scott to show him a photo of his mother. He shows her to Mike too, running his hand up the leg of the little boy we just saw take a bubble bath.

Hans then has a full moderately uninterrupted sequence where he performs an avant-garde dance routine from a cassette tape of him when he used to be a performer. It's bizarre. He's kind of killing it (lying). Scott humors him, Mike barely registers it.

Despite this, I still felt a little bad when Scott unplugged the radio to stop him. They're there on business. They're selling motorcycles. Hans seems to understand that that isn't quite true.

Now here, finally, is a scene I really have thoughts about. This is a sex scene. One of the only sex scenes in the movie, shockingly. Hans, Scott, and Mike are portrayed as having sex with a series of still shots. These still shots, I should note, are *not* still images. They are static poses, held still by the actors. It is silent, motionless, odd, underscored by deeply unfitting and bizarre instrumental music.

Something about this scene feels grotesque, violating. It feels like watching violent and uncomfortable performance art, art that you can't really tell the message behind so much as you can feel the visceral unrest. This scene has nothing plot relevant about it, not really, but it's one of the most striking scenes in the film.

It seems like they succeeded in selling that motorcycle, because the next scene is Hans getting pulled over by the cops. Speeding. Hans, for some reason, barely speaks to the officer and spends most of this short scene tenderly stroking the bike.

Scott and Mike, however, are at the airport in Boise with no baggage. They both laugh loudly about what they've just done to Hans. It echoes off the walls.

Mike wakes up on a bench by a fountain in Roma, Italy. Around him are young men talking animatedly in Italian. These boys have something familiar about them. They look, you might suddenly realize, just like Mike and his boys. There's even a blond one in a similar jacket to Mike's. This does not really become relevant, it is just another visual detail of the movie that you can feel in your ribs.

Scott yells for Mike from a yellow cab. The bell tower tolls, and I forget to count how many times it rings. I think it might have been eight.

Scott and Mike take this cab to a building in the sticks. It's overcast, and the grass is green for miles out. It's a farm, the first farm we see outside of Mike's fever dreams.

Scott meets a girl, Carmella, who lives here. It's her uncle's house. She wipes off her hand before shaking Scott's

At the same time, Mike pokes through a dark room calling for his mother. The door in the center of the wall behind him is the only source of light. Outside, Carmella tells Scott that Mike's mom already left a while ago.

Mike's mother was Carmella's friend. She taught her English. When Mike returns, he doesn't really listen to her when he tries to tell him that his mom isn't here. We get another choppy montage of Mike's memories of his mother.

And then, we smash cut to Mike crying helplessly on Scott's shoulder. More memories. His mother dances. Mike cries. Her house was blue. No, green. How could he forget? Mike hums a song. His mother bounces a baby, wearing a little pink jacket, on her hip. The house looks neither blue nor green, but grey.

Mike thanks Scott for coming all this way. He's ready to leave, now.

What I assumed was the next day, Mike climbs the stairs up to a room Scott is in. Scott leaves him outside, so he can be with Carmella alone. Here's the second of two sex scenes.

This one is shot the same as the first. Shooting the sex scenes this way makes them feel similarly strange and almost impersonal, but this second sex scene manages to feel less sad, less avant garde. The poses are not bizarre, nothing about it feels transgressive but that we are seeing it at all. A strange whistling underscores the scene. Scott almost looks sad after they finish, almost, for half a second before closing his eyes.

All three of them eat dinner at a cramped table. Carmella and Scott make eyes at each other, sitting shoulder to shoulder across from Mike. Mike blows smoke in their faces, echoing his lunch with that girl in the diner.

Mike lays in a narrow bed with his coat on. A bed in another room is creaking. We can hear Carmella and Scott giggling.

The clouds on this farm never clear. There is always a mist clinging to the grass. Mike walks through the fields alone, accompanied only by the odd animal and the whistling of the score. He runs into Carmella. She seems upset.

She says it's nothing, but she asks Mike to stay when he stands up to leave. Carmella hands Mike a small spiky plant. La castagna. A chestnut. She says it isn't big enough to eat, but she gives it to him anyway.

Mike says he knows how she feels. She sniffles.

"I think I fall in love," she says. Mike turns away wordlessly. He has, too. But she's luckier than he is.

Their bed creaks again, and Mike lays awake.

Scott says he's gonna take a little time off, like he's cutting Mike loose. Maybe he'll "run into him down the road". He hands Mike money, his share for the bike. Pays him off. "I fell in love, Mike. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry we didn't find your mom."

Scott and Carmella leave in a cab. Mike calls for Scott from the balcony as the cab is pulling away. He watches it leave, powerless. He only ever feels and looks powerless.

Mike stands around with his back to a tree, along with the Italian street boys from earlier. It doesn't really look like he belongs there.

He tries to pick up where he left off. He's in an Italian man's bedroom. But he seizes again, and the older man decides to leave him there. We don't get to know if he left to get help, but I definitely assumed he just left him in that room.

The clouds pass in time lapse. Mike wakes up on a plan. They, *he* is back in Portland.

This is the first time Mike has ever been alone in the diner. The first time it's ever felt empty. The first time we see him wearing only black, his hair combed.

At night, Mike stands on the side of the road outside the diner. A man pulls up, he knows him. A customer.

The car ride is awkward. Mike tries to ask how the wife is. The man is apparently less talkative than usual.

The Simpsons plays on this man's TV. Mike is rapt, laughing and clapping. When he sees the man walk in barely clothed, it's like he disappears. His simple joy drains, and he isn't there anymore. He's transparent around the edges, like a wisp of himself.

Mike is on the street again. Steam billows from a nearby smokestack. Mike lays on the cement near a broken beer bottle, laughing drunkenly.

There's that farm house again, and the field beyond it.

Mike is with Bob. He can't begin to care about whatever the guy talking to Bob is saying. Bob mocks the man's shoes, which are lined with bells. Bob owns the street.

Scott Favor leaves the car, well groomed, with a beautifully cleaned up Carmella in a nice black dress. He wears a suit, and it doesn't feel playful anymore. He is his inheritance.

Bob prowls through, jingle bells ringing as he steps. So, he got the guy's shoes anyway. Hilarious.

This nice venue has Hans in it. It seems like he's with a lover, some blond thing that hangs on to his arm. Good for him.

Scott wears a tan suit, gets introduced to benefactors. HIs father is dead. Carmella is *there*, but she doesn't matter to anyone but Scott. Scott doesn't answer when asked if he wants a political career.

Bob walks in, obviously out of place in such a nice place. People stare at him aghast. As you might have suspected, Bob is not getting what he was promised, what he *thought* he was promised.

Scott doesn't even turn around when Bob calls for him. He stands facing the booth of possible investors, only gracing Bob with his back.

"I don't know you old man. Please leave me alone."

Scott calls Bob his enabler. And, for a moment, you have to believe it. The way that his Shakespearean affect remains even now, the thing he has common only with Bob. There is a red light cast on half of Scott's face. He tells Bob not to come near him now that he's changed. He never once fully turns around, feet always pointed towards the table. Bob is escorted out.

Bob shivers in bed, in the house. He calls out for God, and then he dies. Sweat coats his pallid face. The boys cover him with a blanket and place him on a table. There are candles. Scott Favor broke his heart. The lost boys weep.

These boys, suddenly, are Catholic. Solemn.

The very next scene is a wake, with a priest speaking. For a moment, you could almost fool yourself into thinking it's Bob's. Of course, it's for Scott's father. Scott is tearless. Carmella fiddles with some plant she has in her hands. He glances around.

Across the cemetery, singing. Accordion. The boys sing and hold flowers, sitting in humble metal folding chairs, dancing and swaying. Mike smells a sunflower. This shot is soft around the edges, loose and bittersweet.

Scott's father's wake is clear and crisp. Joyless. Silent. Catholic. The lost boys sway and hold each other while they grieve. They scream. They fight. They throw things. Scott sits silently and still as stone in his chair.

They chant Bob's name. Stomp their feet. Mike is blurry at the edges. He smiles, looks across at Scott, and it seems like he puts him away. Forgets him. Joins his brothers instead. They pile together and hug. A man plays the accordion. There is joy, here, under the overcast sky. We see another shot of salmon jumping through water. The clouds pass in Idaho.

Mike is back on the road again, musing about it again. He knows them, knows he's been on this one before. This road will never end. Mike is wearing blue. Not black, and not his ever-present orange coast. This road probably goes all around the world, he says, and then he collapses in the middle of it again. The camera draws back. The road splits the grass in two. Yellow on one side and green on the other.

A car pulls up to Mike. A truck. Two men step out of it. They rob him.

The next car that pulls up is a man who picks Mike up, puts him in his car. It looks a little bit like Dick. He drives off.

Another barn, the clouds lapse past again.

The movie ends with another text splash.

"Have a nice day."

This movie is hard to write about. I had to attempt to capture how jarring and yet cohesive the vignettes are. How they choppily transition but *feel* continuous. The way this movie is written, shot, is impactful. You can, feel every beat of story hit you while your back is turned. Nothing feels out of nowhere, but everything catches you offguard.

The movie's tagline, "Wherever, Whatever, Have a nice day" might speak to the way the movie is *shot*, but it doesn't speak to how the movie feels as a whole. Sure, the vignettes might be wherever and whatever, but they aren't disjointed, or at least not in a way that makes them feel thoughtless. Nothing means anything, whatever is happening, and all of it matters quite a lot, actually.

You should watch this movie, and then you should agree with me about how the way Mike is portrayed is a hidden, heart-wrenching tragedy that doesn't even lend itself to the main plot. Or how Scott doesn't really belong anywhere. Or how really well the subject matter is handled, shockingly.

More than that, you should watch it because it's good.

Have a nice day.

youtube

#My Own Private Idaho #movie review #movies #film review #film #cinema #writing #positive review #Youtube #Gus Van Sant #Keanu Reeves #River Phoenix #i love this movie and i hope my review is thoughtful and interesting and not just me spewing recap lolll

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arcadian-litterateur · 11 months ago

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bury it | kirin o'connor

𝖒𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙

summary: kirin has a no-side-effects solution to dealing with trauma: he buries it. but as time goes on while he’s trapped on the island, he realizes slowly that this “no-side-effects” solution does, indeed, have side effects—and they might just be eating him alive.

word count: 1.7k

warnings: mentions of ab*se and r*pe

a/n: i know we never got kirin’s full backstory in the wilds before it was cancelled; only a tiny part of it, so i decided to use what little information we had, kirin’s obviously trained responses with josh’s situation, and fan theories to create my own backstory for him. this is a super dark one shot, guys, and it’s not romance or anything. it’s just a backstory for kirin, but i do indeed plan on making more kirin one shots that will most likely use this backstory as a foundation, so keep an eye on that! this is like my own little the wilds world-building, ig you could say. also... @mirchoff here it is! probably not at all what you thought the "kirin one shot" would be but i have a dark side ig. don't worry we'll get less dark kirin content soon.

𝗞𝗜𝗥𝗜𝗡 𝗜𝗦 no stranger to this shitty feeling. This shitty feeling of not mattering to the people he's supposed to matter to. It hit him early, and it fucked with his soul. He had a choice: let it fuck him up, or bury it.

He buried it, and he's been burying it ever since.

On the outside, he's always been the golden boy, the star athlete, the happy, popular jock who has everything he could ever want. He's always been a stereotype; a cliche…an easy-to-read, hard-to-get-with jock.

On the inside, he figures he's still a cliche, just a different one. He's an eccedentesiast. Someone who hides pain behind a smile. The golden boy, sure, but the golden boy with a dark past.

Maybe that's all he is: a remix of all the other broken, blond white boys. After all, what piece of Kirin O’ Connor isn't borrowed? He acts like his mom—she's a good woman, but she’s emotionally unavailable to him, much like his emotional withdrawal from the people around him. He looks just like his dad—fucking piece of shit. He got his jock attitude from the popular boys he used to idolize on television—now he realizes it was easier for them, because they had a script, and he didn't even get a plot summary. His talk comes from his coach—who saved his life, for which he'll always be grateful, but then ended up being a shitty, racist person just like the rest of them, and he hates him for it.

If he thinks about it, Kirin O’Connor doesn't truly like being this convoluted chemical reaction of different people. He wants to be something of his own. But he isn't sure how. And when he's honest with himself, he acknowledges that he's scared he's too fucked up to be anything on his own.

It started when he was a young, young boy, and his mother's father—he will never call him his grandfather—kicked them out of his house. He's not sure when he realized that relatives aren't supposed to be jerks, but he knows without a doubt that the only thing he and that man have in common is blood. He swears he will never be like his mother’s father; he will never sentence someone to cold nights in a car with the backseat for a bed.

Kirin still remembers clearly the days before he was popular. When he was still living in his mom’s car, abandoned by his father and now his grandfather, he watched his mom slowly slip away from him. And when he voiced his concerns to his teacher, explaining as best as an eight-year-old can that his mom needed help, he was mocked by the other children.

He was bullied by the other children for being forced into the role of caregiver too early.

Kirin shoved that pain down and decided that he was above it all. He spent so much time above it all that eventually, everyone else worked their way up, pulling themselves to his level like they envied his life. Gosh, if only they knew what his life was like.

He’s had two stepdads, and neither lasted. The first was named Grant, the second was Harvey. They were both artists, like maybe his mom had a type or something, and they were both sick. Not disease sick, but fucked up in the head, gross sick. Grant would always come home drunk, the classic stepdad with a beer belly and a loud, “Honey, I’m home!” He’d force Kirin’s mom to make his gross, alcoholic friends bean dip and casseroles. They’d trash the living room and then complain when Kirin didn’t clean up after them.

Kirin didn’t understand why his mom put up with it for as long as she did. It was only after Harvey was gone, too, that his mom showed Kirin the scar from the fireplace poker that Grant had stabbed her with when he was too drunk to think straight, whispering out the nasty threats Grant had made towards Kirin if she didn’t keep quiet. Kirin remembered that trip to the ER, but his mom told everyone she’d tripped and bumped the poker. And everyone had believed it, Kirin included.

But if Grant was awful, Harvey was a demon from hell. Actually, Kirin had contemplated this theory totally seriously at one point, so confused as to how someone could be so cruel. What his mom had seen in this guy was beyond him, but once the new couple got back from their honeymoon, Harvey turned nasty, and Kirin had to sit and watch. Harvey didn’t even try to hide the fact that he abused Kirin’s mom from the boy, who was fourteen at the time. He’d almost boast about it, as if he expected Kirin to take his side, too. Instead, Kirin learned the hard way that Harvey was harder to expose than he thought.

Sometimes, if Kirin is feeling especially masochistic, he’ll pull up his shirt and brush his hands along the dull, dark lumps of scar tissue all over his stomach from the countless times Harvey put out his cigarette on the boy’s pale skin. Maybe that’s one of the reasons that Kirin stays tan—it doesn’t hide the scars all the way, but it makes them seem less suspicious. Like they’re birthmarks or freckles.

But the cigarette burns were the least cruel abuse that Harvey subjected him to, and he doesn’t really want to even think about the other shit Harvey put him through. Kirin hasn’t told anyone about the darkest parts of that time in his life. They’ve heard about all the physical abuse; the violence, but he’s never told anyone about the worst of it. Not his therapist, not his CPS officer. Definitely not his mom, even though she’d endured the same, or even worse. If he talks about the hazy memories from those nights, he has to confront the fact that they were real, and so he leaves those memories be. Tells himself they’re just nightmares.

It could be true. Harvey is a consistent visitor in Kirin’s dreams. Even if the real man is locked away in a prison somewhere, he still haunts Kirin’s sleep like a specter.

He haunts Kirin now, even on this godforsaken island in the middle of nowhere. Kirin knows in his head that even if Harvey escaped prison and found Kirin’s old high school, he’d have no way to get to Kirin, because nobody fucking knows where he is.

Even Kirin doesn’t know where he is.

Maybe his memories that he swears are nightmares are the reason he could tell something was wrong with Josh. Kirin can’t explain what exactly tipped him off, but something inside his chest got super fucking tight, like it was constricting all of his blood and was going to rip his heart apart, and so he jumped in and told Josh to come with him. He was convinced he was being paranoid.

But now, staring at the welts on Josh’s chest, Kirin feels his blood chill, his fingertips finding the small pebbled cigarette scars on his torso as goosebumps rise on his body. Josh spews some excuse about gluten when Kirin confronts him about it, and Kirin isn’t having it.

He isn’t proud of what he does next, but he’s desperate to get this boy to tell him what’s wrong—or what isn’t wrong. What might just be in Kirin’s head, like all the nightmares.

So he brings up Seth, uses him as a weapon, as a match that he waves under Josh’s nose, trying to light the fuse in this meek boy, trying to get him to snap and admit something, anything. And just like Kirin knew it would, it works. Josh is yelling at him, talking about how Seth is the problem, and the way his voice quivers as he trails off and his fists tighten up in a defensive stance makes Kirin want to crumple to the ground.

Because he knows that look. That terrified, angry look. He knows that look, because he’s seen it in the mirror on himself. Josh isn’t Josh right now as Kirin stares down at him. Josh is fourteen-year-old Kirin trying to explain away the odd wounds on his stomach to his coach, who isn’t buying it. Josh is fourteen-year-old Kirin breaking down in the lacrosse team’s locker room, finally admitting what Harvey’s been doing.

And in that instant, even before he asks Josh to elaborate, Kirin knows what Josh did. He knows without a doubt what a sick, demented fuck Seth is, and all he can see when he blinks is Harvey, leering and spitting and screaming at Kirin, hurting him in more ways than just physical.

Kirin sees red, and he knows at that moment that he’s going to make Seth pay for what he’s done to Josh, because no one ever made Harvey pay for his worst crimes against Kirin, and Kirin can’t stand to see another r*pist get away with it.

Kirin freezes as the thought flashes through his mind, a hand flying up to his torso again, numbly pinching at one of the scars. He’s never been willing to even think it before. To ever truly face the reality of Harvey’s twisted abuse. But he just did, and the full force of it is crashing down on Kirin, bringing tears to his eyes. He blinks them away, rage almost bubbling out of his throat as he growls,

“I’m going to kill him.”

And he isn’t truly thinking about Seth at that moment, not really, but since he can’t get his hands on Harvey to tear him limb from limb, he’ll have to settle.

Even after he’s pulled away from Seth, the sick asshole sadly still alive and breathing, Kirin knows that he won’t stop protecting Josh. He won’t let Josh do what he did. Because when Harvey hurt Kirin, Kirin buried it. That’s what he did with the hard shit. He buried it. And slowly, it’s killing him from the inside out. Kirin doesn’t want Josh to fall prey to that. Kirin doesn’t want Josh to bury it.

And Kirin thinks to himself that maybe, just maybe, it’s time to pull out a shovel and start digging. Not a grave for Seth or Harvey, (oh, how he wishes), but a hole into the deep abysses in his heart, so he can finally start to unbury all of the shit rotting away from inside him.

Kirin is done burying it.

𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘥

#fanfiction #one shot #angst #the wilds #kirin o'connor #kirin the wilds #the wilds kirin #the boys the wilds #kirin #charles alexander #the wilds angst #the wilds one shot #the wilds season 2 #kirin the wilds backstory #kirin backstory the wilds #kirin character study

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eduquip · 6 months ago

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07/05:

What is the role of writing rubrics? What should be their goal?

This is something I've battled with for a while; I want to recognize students' content and ideas, but analytic writing rubrics make me slip into looking at the form and structure of writing rather than content. 6 + 1 traits writing rubric, a program designed specifically to assess and teach writing, scores based on the following criteria:

Ideas

Organization

Word Choice

Sentence Fluency

Conventions

Voice

Presentation

The only criteria here that focuses on content is the "Ideas" category, and the rest can be measured by grammatical rules or by being an "authority" on writing. It's a teacher's job to have the knowledge on writing and share it with students, then judge how much they have mastered writing as an artform, but not the picture itself. While I think that teaching students how to form their writing is important, this rubric calls for uniform writing based on the genre, not writing that expresses how a student's message came across.

How much do students care about their own writing is it's expected to be up to a teacher's standard? Studies show that students don't think much about teachers' input or feedback on a final draft and don't often heed suggestions on revising their piece or build upon future writing (Neal et. al, 2010). Teachers can use rubric data to help inform student instruction and potentially help students, but according to a 1982 study, teachers provide feedback based on their "ideal" version of a text rather than encourage students to develop their own purpose for communicating (Brannon & Knoblauch, 1982). While this study is dated, I find personal truth in it: when I have graded student writing based on a rubric, I did find myself scratching my head over conventions and lack of "academic" and insightful vocabulary. I had a version of what I deemed great writing in my head and expected my students to reach it. This may be a "me" thing, but my host teacher expressed similar sentiment where she was upset that our students' writing quality was "not where it should be". Maybe it's a failure to express ideas or "impress" their readers, but if the purpose was not to impress or they has expectations unbeknownst to them, analytic rubrics aren't the way to go.

I think rubrics should be used to set goals for students. I think there is flaw to using this as grading criteria because of the stress amounted to the product over the process. Rubrics can be used at the beginning of a project unit to help communicate what's expected of students— setting these goals can help students with their writing process (McTighe & O'Connor, 2005). This can also limit students' creativity within a genre, but if a teacher seeks to help students' structure and organization to develop their writing before ideas, this is one way to narrow the focus. I like the idea of collaborative writing when it comes to helping students find areas to grow in their writing. The issue with feedback on an end product is that students are not responding to it; by leaving feedback on student work and allowing them to respond, students take ownership over their writing and readers can understand intention and help refine or enhance their writing more (Neal et. al, 2010). This can be accomplished with both teachers and peers— students by opening writing up to conversation with multiple people, ideas can be exchanged and the process of writing can help students develop not only style, but ideas and content as well. Rubrics can be used as a tool to guide conversation to help writers convey their purpose for writing in the editing and revising process, but I don't think rubrics should define grades.

Grades can be determined, instead, through this collaborative conversation. Conferencing with teachers about their writing and using rubrics to supplement conversation about reaching goals and areas of improvement can help determine a final grade. Continually setting goals for writing is the best way to help students improve organizationally to deliver their purpose for writing (Gillespie & Graham, 2011). Conversations about writing help students use their voice to advocate for themselves and builds stronger communications. Helping students learn to use their voice and giving feedback without hearing from the writer is just a review, not a means of motivating students to do more.

References

6+1 Traits Writing Rubric, REV 2011

Brannon, L., & Knoblauch, C.H. (1982). On students’ rights to their own texts: A model of teacher response. College Composition and Communication, 33, 157-166.

Gillespie, A., & Graham, S. (2011). Evidence-based practices for teaching writing. Online.

McTighe, J. & O’Connor, K. (2005). Seven practices for effective learning. Educational Leadership, 63(3), 10-17.

Neal, M., O'Neill, P., Schendel, E., & Huot, B. (2010). Teachers' written responses to student writing: A selective bibliography. Journal of Writing Assessment, 3(1), 61-72.

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ear-worthy · 2 years ago

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Two Podcasts About Sleep That Will Not Put You To Sleep

The Industrial Age transformed sleep from "downtime" to "unproductive time." Driven execs tried to one-up each other with the lack of sleep they happily endured to bolster their careers and capture the American Dream.

Thankfully, science stepped in, and research over the last 20 years has revealed that sleep has significant and numerous benefits. Sleep can recharge the brain and flush toxins that accumulate. Sleep can help with memory storage and retrieval, and spur creativity. Lack of sleep can lead to obesity, emotional disorders, and just plain crankiness.

So it's commendable and savvy that a company that offers a product that assists with a better sleep experience would use podcasting as a valuable marketing tool.

Mattress Firm has embraced the streaming audio format to provide mattress-adjacent content, such as tips on how to get a good night’s sleep. The company collaborated with Vox Creative, the branded content studio started by digital publisher Vox Media, to launch the Are You Sleeping? podcast in April 2022.

“The brand was looking to build a community on audio and they really wanted to reach the rest-obsessed and sleep sufferers,” Annu Subramanian, executive producer of branded audio at Vox Media, told Marketing Dive. “They wanted to showcase unique stories to understand why sleep matters, and connect with this audience of people [who] are really starving to sleep better.”

Mattress Firm’s podcast consisted of six episodes that profile the sleep experiences of consumers and four interstitial segments featuring answers to listener questions. Comedian Kate Berlant hosted the series, which also includes commentary from experts like psychologist Shelby Harris, a specialist in behavioral sleep medicine.

In September 2022, Mattress Firm also partnered with iHeart Podcasts to develop a show called Chasing Sleep. The show's first season ran until November 2022, and the second season started this May with an episode called "Sleep And Love."

Interestingly, season one of Chasing Sleep featured Anahad O'Connor of the Washington Post. The tone of season one was reminiscent of the Vox podcast Are You Sleeping? with Kate Berlant.

Then, in season two of Chasing Sleep, two new hosts were introduced -- Katie Lowes and Adam Shapiro, who are a married couple. The tone of the podcast changed appreciably to a more lighthearted, randier vibe, with the first episode discussing post-orgasmic sleep routines and activities.

Now, for the listener, this is all a win-win. Why? Because I recommend that you listen to Vox's Are You Sleeping? with the excellent Kate Berlant. Then, jump to the first season of Chasing Sleep with superb Anahad O'Connor.

Finally, listen to the second and current season of Chasing Sleep with Lowes and Shapiro for a libidinous and light-hearted dive under the sheets to learn more about sleep.

The always wonderful part of podcasting? Both podcasts and all four hosts are terrific in their own way. And listeners will learn a lot more about sleep.

Here's something I didn't know, and it mystifies me. It's from the Cleveland Clinic. Today, 75% of us dream in color. Before color television, just 15% of us did. Does that mean if I start watching Turner Classic Movies (TCM) with most films in black and white, I may start dreaming in grayscale?

#podcast #podcasting #psychology #health #sleep

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irwinspharmacy · 2 years ago

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liskantope · 1 year ago

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If I'm trying to be more empathetic and charitable to Peter Hitchens, I can acknowledge that he was correct in alleging that his interviewer (Alex O'Connor) was mainly just asking him questions that he has addressed extensively in writing -- for instance, he wrote a whole book on drugs ,which was the sole topic of the 40 minutes (not a full hour as Hitchens claimed) of interview that took place before Hitchens ragequit -- which were somewhat on the simple and naive side.

(Also, as someone in the YouTube comments pointed out, O'Connor failed to advertise Hitchens' latest book in the episode. It's standard courtesy to do this at the very end of an episode, and maybe that's what O'Connor had intended to do not knowing the whole interview would get derailed, but it's common to mention it at the start of the episode too and to have a copy of the book in front of you, which apparently O'Connor did not?)

What Hitchens doesn't seem to understand or recognize is something that I've observed about podcast hosts and may not fully understand myself: they tend to invite guests on who have recently published something (this is indeed typically the event that spurs the podcast invitation in the first place) and then ask fairly basic questions that the guest extensively addressed in the publication. Maybe if the discussion on a particular topic goes far enough, it takes on the character of more of a debate with more sophisticated questions, but probably the challenging questions are ones that the guest has addressed and is used to addressing. Most guests seem to understand and have expected this and don't complain about it. I don't have time to look at much else from O'Connor's channel, but the impression from what I have seen is that this is his usual M.O. just like so many other hosts. Hitchens accused him of not having "done his homework", but maybe Hitchens should have done his own homework on how podcast hosts in general and how Alex O'Connor in particular interview public intellectuals about their work.

I have to admit that at first blush, looking only from the point of view of the two people engaged in conversation, this style of interview seems a bit pointless. But I think the real motive is (for the podcaster) to post interesting content to their channel and chat with someone impressive and famous and (for the podcast guest) to have their work magnified and promoted to a large audience that may not have otherwise been very familiar with it. O'Connor basically stated this attraction-for-the-guest explicitly at some point in the middle of the interview but unfortunately didn't seem to have the presence of mind right at the end of the confrontation to bring it up again when Hitchens demanded to know what had been "in it for me [Hitchens]" if they were only going to talk about a topic he had already addressed.

Of course, Hitchens, in his massive intellectual arrogance, not only failed to see that asking questions he'd already addressed in written works was probably the point, but assumed that he answered them so definitively and incontrovertibly in his work that everything would have ceased to be a debate if only the other party had read his work, and anyone still with a question simply must not have read or understood his work. He alleged that O'Connor kept asking questions along the same lines because he obviously didn't understand or just wanted to ignore the answer, without allowing the possibility that he may in fact have not understood or directly answered O'Connor's questions.

One of the most fascinating modern intellectual personalities for me is Christopher Hitchens, but his brother Peter Hitchens (who survives him) is fascinating in his own way, with some extremely similar personality traits to those of his brother (incredibly articulate, charming in a dark, almost cold sort of way, intellect balanced with a profound moral sense that makes disgust towards those who are in opposition to his beliefs visibly radiate from his very bones) as well as similar superficial mannerisms, while at the same time in diametric opposition to his brother on seemingly almost every major intellectual issue.

I just ran into this rather stunning interview with Peter Hitchens gone horribly awry, and it's a combination of entertaining, fascinating, disturbing, and heartbreaking to see the very ugly-on-top-of-bitter side of Hitchens it displays. He is more of an enraged confrontational a-hole here than I ever saw his brother behave like (which is saying rather a lot!) and is far more irrational about it. I've never seen so many instances of the pot calling the kettle black in a single tirade. It's hard to come away from this without the feeling that this Hitchens is a profoundly unhappy person, perhaps in a way that comes from the burden of living in his brother's aggressive shadow for decades and being saddled with a general feeling of weakness in the face of it (just note how many times he utters some version of "I don't have the power" in various contexts). I don't know the man, and yet this video seems more than enough to tell me that he suffers from a profound bitterness that probably makes him toxic to quite a few of the people around him.

#alex o'connor #podcasts

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whogavemoththerighttohyperfix · 3 years ago

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Forgot to post it but yeah I wrote this :,)

#miss peregrine #miss peregrines home for peculiar children #mphfpc #miss peregrines home for peculiar children fanfic #mphfpc fanfic #jacob portman #emma bloom #enoch o'connor #millard nullings #hugh apiston #claire densmore #bronwyne bruntley #olive elephanta #horace somnusson #fiona frauenfeld #LET ME HAVE MORE SIBLINGS CONTENT DAMIT #LIBRARY OF SOULS IS AMAZING BUT LIKE #I WANT MORE SIBLING CONTENT #STILL HAVING SO MUCH FUN WITH THE SERIES THO

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theroyalmisfitmess · 4 years ago

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emma corrin and josh o’connor better star in more than one romcoms together to relieve my bleeding heart and win awards post-the crown...

#I JUST WANT MORE JOSH AND EMMA CONTENT #THEIR CHEMISTRY MAN #JUST TO BE ABSOLUTELY CLEAR #I DON'T SHIP CHARLES AND DIANA #they mentioned they wanna play david and victoria beckham so #emma corrin #josh o'connor

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discworldwitches · 2 years ago

Note

what do you mean art became a commodity because of genocide? (genuine q)

tw for discussion of the shoah/holocaust

while ofc people bought and sold art, commissioned art, and there were art houses like christie's, art didn't really become an investment commodity until the 1960's, after world war ii and the holocaust/shoah.

during the shoah, nazi's stole a tonne of art from museums + nations but also individuals--mostly from jews many of whom were the subjects of paintings, art collectors, friends w artists, art dealers, etc. some of these works were burned, some went into nazi + collaborators collections such as goring's , some of them were lost, some were kept in caves and were ultimately damaged beyond repair, some of them eventually entered into museums like the belvedere (that's a reference to the story of the bloch-bauers), and a large amount (1.5 k) were marked destroyed and then kept by this war profiteer and art "dealer" hildebrand gurlitt.

after the holocaust, a lot of art was missing, destroyed, or missing provenance (which verifies that that piece is real + authentic and is what gives art its value on the market--without provenance, art loses values in huge amounts). some of the art stolen from jews ended up in the hands of collectors and art houses like sotheby's. then in the 1950's the impressionist and modern art dept. in sotheby's opens (which is the type of art chiefly being stolen from jews). then in 1958 there is the huge record-breaking sale of the goldschmidt collection--a collection auctioned off by the nazis in the 40's and somehow ends up in england at sotheby's...

here's a quote abt this famous 1958 event:

It has often been said that the modern art market was born at 9:30 pm on 15 October 1958, a time and date which corresponds to a sale that ended with a total of almost $20.2 million in today’s money, an impressive record at that time. On that evening, the traditional way of auctioning artworks was transformed into a glamorous and ‘modern’ event. Peter Wilson, Sotheby’s newly appointed chairman, literally stage-managed the sale of seven paintings from the Jakob Goldschmidt collection. It was not only the first evening sale, but also the first “Gala sale”, i.e. by invitation only, with ball gowns for the ladies and dinner jackets for the men. Moreover, the television cameras, also newly invited, focused on socialites and movie stars.

so basically this event launched the modern art market. following that in the 60's, art becomes an investment and something that celebrities/people of acclaim definitely want to get their hands on. art shoots up in prices. much of the art on the 50's-60's market that's costing millions of dollars is art stolen by the nazis.

art only continued to grow in value in the 60's and on. christie's and sotheby's competed to break records of how big the sales could be. i found this cover on sotheby's when refreshing my memory on these events:

[id: image of andy warhol on the cover of newsweek next to one of his pop-art portraits of marilyn monroe. the contents advertised next to warhol are typed out in white font: Art for Money's Sake; On the Block: the Warhol Collection; The Booming Art Market. end ID]

i learned about this in uni so a lot of this is from my memory and a brief review of notes/articles linked above. sorry this is so long lol.

if you want to learn more i'd look at herman goring, the degenerate art exhibition, hildebrand gurlitt + his son cornelius, and the book the lady in gold by anne-marie o'connor just to get started.

i also wasn't referring specifically to this but generally a lot of art pieces, artifacts, ritual objects, etc. in trade, in collection or at museums, are there bc of colonialism + genocide.

anyway feel free to ask more questions!!

#fun tidbit: the art auctioneer at the local sotheby's here was stealing art and trading #holocaust -#shoah -

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pelman · 2 years ago

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Give me one fun fact of each of your interpretations of the G&W characters

oh fuck tony i love u /p

uhmm fuck this is hard to choose. uh. im doing as many as i can come up with

GaW: real name is Gamen Watch. Gamen is pronounced kind of like how people pronounce Gaben. he makes music. it is literally this accounts content. in his mid 20s so he feels really really weird when people call him "mister" and act like hes older than he is. adoptive brother of the right judge. can freely shapeshift with little to no limitations, as is shown in both rhythm heaven and smash ultimate. very gay, possibly polyamorous. also actually my husband.

Vermin: real name is Vernon Kasperski. can also shapeshift- something which is held alongside his brother- but to a lesser degree than GaW. has numbers on his feet like his brother, like this comic i did shows. has been absurdly tall since about 16 years old, when he had a massive growth spurt. has lightning powers. has a giant soft spot for marcus since theyve been best friends for 11 years as of present day. can drive, but isnt very trustworthy with it because he road rages and also can barely fit in a car. occasionally hits his head on doorframes. probably listens to nu-metal or something. also gay, but caedsexual because of stuff that happened when he was ~8 years old.

Flagman: real name is Carson Kasperski. can shapeshift too, as is shown in the comic above. is not actually a pirate; he calls himself a "treasure hunter" but really he just scavenges old shipwrecks for possibly-valuables, refurbishes them, and then sells them off. is friends with the divers and calls him his "crew" because its part of the bit. makes jokes about his foot numbers being representative of rule 34 because hes funny sillay like that. has powers of psychic manipulation and suggestion. has a very good memory but is also impenetrably stupid so he gets confused a lot. is 5 years older than vernon and uses this as an excuse to affectionately "bully" him sometimes. bisexual and generally male but doesnt care about pronouns

Stanley: full name is Stanley Fairley. was raised basically-catholic so has a lot of hangups about a lot of things. doesnt actually like killing bugs so his sprayer just incapacitates them instead. has a very strong green thumb and cultivates plants by himself. could drive if he wanted to, but bikes everywhere instead. twink. greatly enjoys jazz and basically all of its variations and is actually pretty good at singing, but doesnt do it a lot. would probably be considered more of an alto than a tenor. very very gay for his boyfriend chief.

Chef: real name is Chief Manson. loves cats, and owns a cat named Brisket that he keeps in his food establishment away from the food itself. lets people pet Brisket as long as they are gentle. got the symbol for capsaicin tattooed on his left arm as a joke on being "hot-headed." would probably give cooking lessons if he were any good as a teacher. can drive. is trans (post-top surgery, non-bottom surgery) and very very gay for his boyfriend stanley.

Manhole: real name is Manny O'Connor. had their name legally changed to manny, which is not short for anything. is incredibly perceptive and can immediately pick up on peoples' emotions, but enjoys being very chaotic and silly as a mode of self expression. is incredibly physically powerful and, if they had the element of surprise, could probably actually beat vernon in a fight, which is extremely rare. hates getting wet. gets wet very frequently because of their job. is probably one of the only people physically capable of doing their job. no thoughts gender empty and pansexual.

Oil Panic: real name is Marcus Hermoso. absolutely annoying and pretty stupid but also capable of real emotional sensitivity and is 100% a big brother type. highly compassionate and affectionate if you get to know him. is very good at making friends despite his tendency to be an annoyance. has bad knees because of all of the running around he does at his job. moved out at 18 and took his younger brother with him because his parents were neglectful as hell. can drive, but dear lord, please do not trust him to do it. music taste overlaps incredibly closely with mannys and basically just boils down to "loud, fast, intense electronica." has pretty great endurance despite the fact that the cartilage in his knees is basically gone. bisexual.

Rainshower: real name is Míchael Hermoso. the accent is very important to his name. generally annoyed at the fact that most people say "miguel" and not "míchael." youngest person in the au by far. (14 years old in "present day") doesnt go to public school because marcus is gone all day, so they get tutored while they take care of the house. doesnt actually mind this arrangement very much. more passionate about sports than he might initially look. generally male but doesnt actually know what their thing is so they flip-flop between gender and no gender.

Left Judge: real name is Chen Teller. yes these are different people. very autistic and very introverted. generally quite lucky. special interest is plushies and textile work. custom-makes its own plushes and sells custom-made close-to-seamless clothes made specifically for autistic people online. hates being touched and the sensation of things rubbing against its skin. does not get enough sleep and tends to ignore bodily sensations quite a bit. likes quite a bit of music ranging between orchestral to deconstructed club-type stuff, though it all has to be pretty gentle. is "gender ambivalent," but uses it pronouns because it likes to feel detached from its own personhood. very weird about attraction.

Right Judge: real name is Barrett Riley. probably the only neurotypical person in the entire au. also the only cishet, though the "het" part is pretty ambigous. works an office job by day. not typically very lucky but is jovial about it so he doesnt mind. can drive and is actually one of the better people to trust with driving you around. generally very friendly and accommodating. adoptive brother to GaW. helps around the area of Flat Zone they live in because they want to. probably does yoga. also is probably a vegetarian. is kind of annoyingly positive to many people. cis dude but primarily uses they/them around other people because he likes to copy chen.

anyways ty for asking there u go

#long post #game and watch #tony

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samsspambox · 3 years ago

Text

Bittersweet Firsts

(a weird amalgamation of a case study, venting, and romance about dr. richter)

1k words.

"Do you remember your first love, Dr. Richter?" They ask him one day, nudging him with their arm.

No, he wants to tell them, he doesn't and will never care for that person while they're with him. But...

"I do."

It would be a lie, and he hates lying about trivial things.

"Tell me about them?" They ask, nothing but curiosity coloring their words, "Who caught the eyes of the great Dr. Richter before I did?"

He chuckled and pressed a soft kiss to the side of their temple, "They may have captured my heart then, but you have it now. I hope that my heart stays with you for the rest of our lives."

They smile and lean closer to him, humming in contentment, "Me too, but still. Tell me?"

He frowned, "It is... not a nice story."

"It doesn't matter," They tell him, grabbing one of his hands and giving it a quick kiss, "I want to know everything about you. The good and the bad."

"You truly never cease to amaze me, do you know that?" He tells her, his frown turning into a rueful smile.

"Yeah yeah, I'm the pinnacle of perfection and all that. Story?"

He chuckles, "Very well then. I was about 15 when I first met them..."

Even as a teenager, Vyn wasn't very well liked. He knew this, being the 'bastard son' of the duke even though he was born within a marriage. The only reason anyone tolerated him was because of his father, and he hated it.

His tutors had instructed his father to let him experience proper schooling after spending most of his elementary and middle school education within the walls of his home. It would benefit him, they would say.

Vyn scowled down at his lunch, stabbing a broccoli with a little too much force. No one would come sit with him, no one would let him sit with them. He was alone.

"What's that broccoli ever do to you?"

Vyn jumped in his seat and turned around. A young girl about his age was standing near him, a tray of food in her grasp.

"What?"

She sat down next to him, "You were stabbing that broccoli like it personally offended you. What did it do, sully your father's honor?"

He wrinkled his nose, "I don't think I'd actually fight anyone talking badly about my father."

"Yikes, I know that one all too well."

He couldn't help it, "Why are you here?"

"Because you looked lonely."

He paused to look at her and found that... she was being completely honest. She didn't look like those people who had sneered behind his back or those others who silently judged him.

"Vilhelm de Haspran."

He extended his hand. She shook it.

"Annabeth O'Connor. Pleasure to meet you."

Their friendship was cautionary at first. She was the daughter of a baron, the lowest part of the nobility and he was a child of someone not in the Church of Svart. Outcasts in their own right, but now outcasts together.

Vyn hated the notion of love at first sight. His father was a perfect example of why it would never hold.

But he still believed in love, and over the course of the year he started liking his new friend more and more until those feelings turned romantic. He liked her. He thought he loved her.

Vyn was never one to sit on his feelings. If he wanted something, he would ask. He had always been a person who was good with his hands. He would carve animals out of wood, make origami pieces, play the piano among other things. On a sunny day he made a beautiful paper rose to gift to her, the day he would ask her out.

"Annabeth?"

"Yes, Vilhelm?"

"Would you like to go on a date with me?"

She stilled, "A date?"

"Yes, a date."

"Oh. Uh. Sure?"

"How does Saturday sound?"

He had thought the date went alright. They went to a museum and walked around in the gardens, had lunch, the whole nine yards. Why was she avoiding him? Any time she would look at him she would stiffen up and turn in the other direction.

Gone were the days they would be sitting side by side in the library. She would join another group of people for lunch, leaving him alone. He got no response whenever he would text her, and in a last ditch effort he went over to her house only to get yelled at by her parents.

One day she had left a note in his locker, telling him to be patient and wait for her since she couldn't date him. He respected that, waiting patiently for the rest of his time at that school, but she never approached him again. He was alone, like always.

He didn't know what he did wrong. Well, he did. He knew exactly what happened: he fell in love. He made the same mistake his father made. He did the same exact thing, but he vowed that it would be the last time. He wouldn't be like this, like him.

"Well, that's not very nice," they told him.

He cracked a smile, "I know. But over time I learned to look at it with a fonder lens."

"How so?"

"It was my first date. While the outcome was not what I wanted, I learned and grew from that experience. It is, as you say, bittersweet."

"Did they ever apologize to you?" They asked, grabbing his hand and playing with his fingers.

"She tried in later years. I did not give them a chance to apologize at the time."

"Why?

"Out of hurt, why else? And I was still a child, I still made mistakes."

They stayed silent for a second, "What would you do now? If they tried to apologize?"

"I would thank them."

"Thank them?"

He smiled, threading his fingers between theirs, "Yes. After all, without those series of events, I would have never met you. In the end, it was for the best."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. Now, would you like to go out to dinner? It is getting late. And, perhaps, you could tell me about your first love as well."

They smiled and playfully squeezed his hand.

Yes, in the end it was for the better.

#definitely ooc but when isn't dr richter whenever i write him #talks from the spambox #some fond memories were unlocked today #this didn't exactly happen to me but something similar enough happened #but i spent the first year out of hs so bitter #now? it's a bittersweet memory #and the closest i ever really was to a relationship #tears of themis #vyn richter #mo yi

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fictionz · 3 years ago

Text

Short Horror Stories for the Season

I’m striving to read another 31 spooky short stories in October. I thought it’d be neat to share the stories I’ve collected from previous years since I often find myself wishing for lists like this as I research new stories and authors.

I’m not a devout genre reader so it’s a mix of stories that may not fall into traditional horror categories, but are still intense reads or appropriate to the moods of the season. I've made sure to include more than just white men from the United States and Western Europe. There’s a line from each story as well to get a sense of what’s in there.

Some stories contain disturbing, violent, and/or sexual content, so fare thee warned.

---

"His Face All Red" by Emily Carroll - “This man is not my brother.”

"The Vampyre" by John Polidori - “His peculiarities caused him to be invited to every house...”

"Lost Souls" by Clive Barker - “Hell possessed a genius for deceit.”

"The Striding Place" by Gertrude Atherton - “Weigall did not believe for a moment that Wyatt Gifford was dead...”

"Dracula's Guest" by Bram Stoker - “Ah! I see, a suicide. How interesting!”

"I am Anjuhimeko" by Hiromi Itō - “That's right, how could anyone possibly have karma as bad as mine?”

"Patient Zero" by Tananrive Due - “So I guess I’ll never have a chance to talk to the President again.”

"If you meet a strange, confident woman, she may well be a witch" by pelsmith - “By the end of the third victim, I slept like a lamb.”

"The Things" by Peter Watts - “I am being Blair. I escape out the back as the world comes in through the front.”

"In the Court of the Dragon" by Robert W. Chambers - “Poor devil! whoever he was, there seemed small hope of escape!”

"The Specialist's Hat" by Kelly Link - “Claire is better at being Dead than Samantha.”

"I want you in my mouth" by lovejoyman - “The first thing Frank noticed, of course, were her breasts...”

"A Study in Emerald" by Neil Gaiman - “I am selfish, private and easily bored. Will this be a problem?”

"The Ghost in the Mill" by Harriet Beecher Stowe - Wal, I know lots o' strange things...

"The Shadow Over Innsmouth" by H.P. Lovecraft - “And why is everybody so down on Innsmouth?”

"From a Farther Room" by David Gilbert - “Alert the media: unhappy, middle-aged white man on the loose.”

"The Overcoat" by Nikolai Gogol - “The young officials laughed at and made fun of him, so far as their official wit permitted.”

"Harold" by Alvin Schwartz - “Now and then the doll grunted, but that was all.”

"The Complete Gentleman" by Amos Tutuola - “When he reached where he hired the left foot, he pulled it out...”

"Der Erlkönig" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, composed by Franz Schubert - “Father, don't you see the Erl-King?”

"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates - “He wagged a finger and laughed and said, 'Gonna get you, baby.'”

"A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor - “Yes and what would you do if this fellow, The Misfit, caught you?”

"Peter Rugg, The Missing Man" by William Austin - “I have heard it asserted that Heaven sometimes sets a mark on a man, either for judgment or a trial.”

"A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner - “Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care...”

"Ted the Caver" by Ted - “He said it sounded like rock sliding on rock. Sort of a grinding sound.”

"The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe - “The fury of a demon instantly possessed me.”

"Death and Transfiguration of a Teacher" by Maria Teresa Solari - “I took off her sock and bit into the heel.”

"Who Will Greet You At Home" by Lesley Nneka Arimah - “Her mother had formed her from mud and twigs...”

"Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers" by Alyssa Wong - “...the rankness of his thoughts leaves a stain in the air.”

"Whole" by firmuhment - “When I first noticed the hole, it was small, really small.”

"A Distant Episode" by Paul Bowles - “The sound of the flute came up from the depths below at intervals...”

"The Apparition of Mrs. Veal" by Daniel Defoe (1706) - “If the eyes of our faith were as open as the eyes of our body, we should see numbers of angels about us for our guard.”

"The Adventure of the German Student" by Washington Irving (1824) - “He was, in a manner, a literary goul, feeding in the charnel house of decayed literature.”

"The Phantom Coach" by Amelia B. Edwards (1864) - “Against what superstition have they waged so long and obstinate a war, as against the belief in apparitions?”

"The Soul of the Great Bell" by Lafcadio Hearn (1887) - “All the workmen wrought their tasks in silence; there was no sound heard but the muttering of the fires.”

"The Damned Thing" by Ambrose Bierce (1898) - “All seemed to be waiting for something to occur; the dead man only was without expectation.”

"Afterward" by Edith Wharton (1910) - “The sunny English noon had swallowed him as completely as if he had gone out into Cimmerian night.”

"The Demon Lover" by Elizabeth Bowen (1945) - “You have no time to run from a face you do not expect.”

"The Lonesome Place" by August Derleth (1948) - “What do they know about a place and time when a boy is very small and very alone, and the night is as big as the town, and the darkness is the whole world?”

"A Visit" (prev. "The Lovely House") by Shirley Jackson (1952) - “A tile is missing from the face of Margaret, who died for love.”

"The Tower" by Marghanita Laski (1955) - “There was nothing left in her brain but the steadily mounting tally of the steps.”

"Night Surf" by Stephen King (1969) - “He said his name was Alvin Sackheim. He kept calling for his grandmother.”

"Don't Look Now" by Daphne du Maurier (1971) - “How to replace the life of a loved lost child with a dream?”

"Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament" by Clive Barker (1984) - “If one has given oneself utterly, watching the beloved sleep can be a vile experience.”

"███████" by Joyce Carol Oates (1998) - “Each of us had one, in our bowls. Warm and pulsing with life and fear radiating from it like raw nerves.”

"In the Water Works (Birmingham, Alabama 1888)" by Caitlin R. Kiernan (2000) - “Fresh wound, these walls, this abscess hollowed into the world’s thin skin.”

"Vampire Princess" by Ryuki Mao (2004) - “The human will want to take you into the light, saying it’s for your own good.”

"Cruel Sistah" by Nisi Shawl (2005) - “One singing note, which he raised and lowered slowly. High and yearning. Soft and questioning. With its voice.”

"The You Train" by N.K. Jemisin (2007) - “All the defunct lines, the dead lines. I think they never really go away.”

"Wet Pain" by Terence Taylor (2007) - “It doesn’t matter whether you believe in ghosts if they believe in you.”

"Hello, Moto" by Nnedi Okorafor (2011) - “It always felt so good to take from people, not just their money but their very essence.”

"Monstro" by Junot Díaz (2012) - “Motherfuckers used to say culo would be the end of us. Well, for me it really was.”

"Pearls" by Priya Sharma (2012) - “All because you couldn't have me.”

"Bugs" by Ageha (2013) - “Hey, pinky promise you’ll play with me.”

"Out of Skin" by Emily Carroll (2013) - “A heap of wet skin and decaying cloth, crowded inside a dark pit I’d never seen before.”

"The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis" by Karen Russell (2013) - “Yolk came oozing out of the mystery, covering all our hands, so that we became involved.”

"How to Get Back to the Forest" by Sofia Samatar (2014) - “The smell in the bathroom was terrible now--an animal smell, hot; it thrashed around and it had fur.”

"None of This Ever Happened" by Gabriela Santiago (2016) - “Someone has to write Uhura looking out the window and dreaming of home.”

"Wish You Were Here" by Nadia Bulkin (2016) - “Hopefully, by the time the world ends, you’ll be gone.”

"Sixteen Minutes" by Premee Mohamed (2016) - “I felt its breath in the night sometimes, like the warm, moist breath of my son when he’d crawl into bed with us.”

"The Taming of the Tongue" by Russell Nichols (2016) - “You don’t know what this boy wants you to see way out here, but ain’t nothing worth getting eaten alive for.”

"A Diet of Worms" by Valerie Valdes (2016) - “Hell, maybe you’ll even stay and watch the movie.”

#fiction #short fiction #stories #short stories #horror #horror fiction #speculative fiction #fantasy #fantasy fiction #reading list #short reads

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