#iain did so good with the line art!

[amazzyblaze]

Coloring page of Hardison and Eliot in "The Three Strikes Job" (Inspired by @lindseymcdonaldseyelashes ' gif sets)

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Hot Brown Morning Potion Podcast Episode 5 - The Deluxe Elf Interview with Devon Giehl and Iain Hendry

Transcription Part 1 of 2 (includes Wonderstorm questions and Kuno's questions)

[Transcriber's Notes: This took me SO LONG to transcribe, like multiple hours and I'm only halfway done... But I will make it through at least this one episode because I want fellow Moonfam enthusiasts to have a text source, not to mention make it easier for deaf/HoH people to follow along. I guess I'll tag @kuno-chan since she said it was OK at the beginning of the podcast, sorry if I'm bothering you!]

KUNO: Hi guys, so I have a personal request for this particular podcast episode if you guys could tweet, post, both at least one piece of information that you learned from this particular episode, that you love, that inspired you, that you thought was cute, whatever. Like, I really—one thing that really tends to happen is that people listen to the podcast and they kinda just go about their day. We don’t actually see the information circulate through the community, which we really try to have creative questions—questions that are fun and explore the characters in different situations. And it would just be really, really cool—it would mean a lot to me to see this actually circulate through the community, actually circulate through the fandom, and see, you know, it would be awesome to see it be inspired—to inspire fan works, fan fiction, fan art, especially fan art. I just—we talked like a solid hour at least—really like a solid hour about Runaan, Rayla, Ethari, that family, um, and Moonshadow elves a lot. We talked a lot about that. And I think this is information that a lot of people really wanted, even if it’s in largely headcanon form. But Devon and Iain were so gracious and we talked so much about that family, and including Ruthari, and of course some Rayllum in there. So if you guys could live tweet, or even just one tweet, at least one tweet. Tag us, tag me, tag Hailey, tag @HotPotion, even if you send it directly to me on Tumblr, that’d be awesome and we’d retweet, reblog all your stuff. It would be good for the podcast and I just really want to see this information circulate through the fandom, so at least one tweet. Alright, um, let’s get to the episode though. Thanks! Hope to see you guys on social media about this.

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KUNO: Alright, hey everyone, this is the Hot Brown Morning Potion Podcasts with your hosts Tamika and Hailey, and we are here with Devon Giehl and Iain Hendry, two writers on The Dragon Prince at Wonderstorm, and Devon being actually the recently announced lead writer at Wonderstorm, so say hi everyone!

DEVON: Hi!

IAIN: Hi, this is Iain…

DEVON: Hi, I’m Devon… (laughs)

KUNO: And so we have a ton of stuff to get through today, um, a lot of questions, so—but we’re going to ask Iain and Devon a little bit about themselves first, since I think—I’m not sure if this is the first interview they’ve really had, personally, so uh, Hailey do you want to start—head that?

HAILEY: Um, yeah, sure. Uh, could you tell us about your roles at Wonderstorm?

IAIN: Uh, sure, uh—I’m also a writer at—official title “Senior Writer” at Wonderstorm. I was one of the writing team on the show, not quite as early as Devon, who was basically employee 1 after the founders but um, I joined sort of, end of 2016 when season 1 writing was really starting to get rolling, and was you know part of the process all the way through all the seasons. Uh, and since this—it’s such a small start up company, all the writers take a bunch of other, like, production roles on the show. Like, throughout all three seasons we’ve done, like, continuity notes work, we’ve given feedback on like every step of the production process. And then the other kind of side things we have, like you know, very top secret game that we’re making in here. And like, kind of straddle the line between the show writing and the game so that that’s all kind of on point and feels like it’s in the same universe with the same characters as The Dragon Prince, but ah, can’t say too much about that just yet.

DEVON: Iain does a lot of—a lot of secret work (laughs). Um, yeah as for me, I’m also a writer on The Dragon Prince and my—I was a Senior Writer until very recently, and now I’ve been made into a Lead Writer, which means I just get to flex a lot. Um, but I started in, I think the very, very end of 2015 when Wonderstorm was first getting off the ground as like a tiny, tiny startup. And we were basically four people in a room about, I don’t know, like 20 ft by 10 ft. It was really, really awful—

IAIN: Really smelly.

DEVON: Really smelly, really tiny, like only a skylight for a window, it was great. And I—so I was involved in like the earliest of brainstorming for the show. I helped sort of like put together a lot of the pitch deck when we you know took it around to studios and like, I named like most of the characters—is like my most self-indulgent claim on the show cause I got to do a lot of really silly stuff. Um, but yeah, and then I like help out on a million other fronts at Wonderstorm too because we’re a small company and—yeah, the funny thing about the—the small tasks we have, like you mentioned continuity checks. Um, we often had to make sure that Callum’s backpack and book and Rayla’s bindings were always correct, and that was kind of, the funniest and most intense, like, stage of production ever. Cause you would, you know, watch one shot and then the next shot would come up and Callum’s backpack would have disappeared. So we had to be like, “OK, let’s give Callum backpack back on.”

IAIN: Yeah, and it’s not just for accuracy, but like, the way fandoms operate, like, we just knew if Rayla’s binding reappeared sometime, it wouldn’t be viewed as an error. People would be like “WHAT DID THE KING GET UNKILLED WHAT HAPPENED OVER HERE”.

DEVON: No it was just the—

KUNO: Oh, yeah.

IAIN: Woo!

DEVON: —continuity’s way harder than anyone thinks it is (laughs). It’s a lot.

KUNO: Oh bless you guys for knowing that though cause we—we totally would. Like, think, there was a point I remember saying that they changed Viren’s eye color because they didn’t want too much continuity with Rayla’s eye color and I feel like we were really that close to having a ‘Viren is Rayla’s real father’ issue. We really were. Somebody had to have thought about that issue (laughs).

DEVON: I actually think there is—there’s still at least one shot in the show where Viren has the wrong eye color and if you can find it, congratulations (laughter in background). That’s where we missed—missed it. So it’s in there somewhere.

KUNO: Xadia CSI (IAIN laughs). So you two are married, um, can you tell us what it’s like being married writing partners?

IAIN: You wanna go?

DEVON: Um, yeah, I mean it’s—we actually knew each other professionally before we dated, so it wasn’t like we—it’s sort of like, it was easy for us to—to remain work partners because that was how we existed in the first place. Like I met Iain when I interviewed him for a job and I—he was great (IAIN laughs), he was fun, he was all right.

IAIN: Apparently I passed.

DEVON: But um, so yeah we had a professional relationship before we had a dating—‘dating’ relationship. Um, so it’s strange because a lot of people will say like, “Oh, that’s probably terrible. You probably, like, become absolutely sick of each other” but somehow we’ve managed to—to have like, two relationship patterns where when we’re at work and we’re working on writing stuff we have this very professional thing going on and then at home, we’re just married idiots and we have a lot of fun. So like, I don’t know, I’m never tired of you, personally.

IAIN: No, (DEVON laughs) yeah I mean when we’re writing it’s generally like, Devon’s the one on the keys uh, you know, putting the words in and so on, and it will kind of bounce back and forth between like, I’ll have the idea for the—how the scene should flow and I’ll kinda narrate bits and then we’ll go back and smooth things over. But I mean, I could imagine that with some people it would get tense, but I think Devon and I, we’re just absolutely the most comfortable with each other and neither of us takes it personally when it’s like, “that line that you pitched isn’t working” or “this joke could be funnier”, anything like that.

DEVON: It’s usually Iain who’s—cause I usually type cause I type really too fast.

IAIN: She’s really too proud of her typing (laughs).

DEVON: I type super fast, it’s my only real talent, but—like I’ll just sort of go off on some sort of like incredibly unnecessary, long description of something and Iain will sort of let me get about like four or five lines into this unnecessary nonsense and he’ll just sort start going like, “OK so like, do we really—do we need that? I mean, you know, could we sort of parse this down a little, a little less, a little less”. And then I, just like, “Ugh, fine” (laughs).

IAIN: But um, every word she writes is great.

DEVON: Mmm (skeptically)

IAIN: It’s perfect.

DEVON: Completely not true. Also in our scripts I think like—

KUNO: Aw.

DEVON: —in terms of the way that we work professionally, I think like a lot of my strengths are in—in really almost self indulgent levels of drama and he can kind of pull me back from being too indulgent on those fronts. And then I think that Iain is objectively absurdly funny and so when you kind of look at our episodes usually everything that’s pretty funny and lighthearted and like the sense of levity often comes from you and then if there’s anything that just feels really painfully sad it’s probably me?

IAIN: I’m the funny one.

DEVON: (laughs) It’s true.

KUNO: Aw, I feel such a connection to you Devon, because I’m actually, episode 3 was actually one of my favorite ones because I love all that like domestic stuff. I love just kind of like—oh, I don’t know what you call the trope, like a safe house trope where you go somewhere, you’re still kind of in the adventure but we’re in a space right now, a narrative space where people are safe, if that makes any sense. Like you—if you’ve ever seen How To Train Your Dragon, like (T/N I don’t know what was said here, sorry!), the base is the safe place, that kind of thing. So, I totally get that, I actually see—episode 3 was one of my favorites outside of pretty much every episode where Rayllum was a thing. (laughter from multiple people)

HAILEY: The whole season basically (laughs).

KUNO: Pretty much the whole season, um. I think there was one more question about two.

HAILEY: Yeah sooo.

KUNO: Before we get to the elves.

HAILEY: Yeah, definitely. Uh so it was mentioned that you’re now lead writer, Devon, and can you tell a little bit more about what that entails if you can, and how that’s been going?

DEVON: Yeah, I mean… I actually don’t know what I can say about it, um… I think it—it means that uh, for future Dragon Prince stuff I’ll sort of like take a bit more of an active role in leading the—the development and the storylines and things like that. It also means that from a company perspective um I’ve been kind of involved in some other side stuff that Wonderstorm is quietly looking into developing and um I help a lot with other IPs that we would love to make a real thing someday and that’s kind of all I can say about it I think or I’ll get in trouble.

HAILEY: All right, that’s great, that’s good to know, thank you.

KUNO: The Dragon Prince 2 (laughter from multiple people). I’m totally joking everyone that’s not a thing so don’t take that for—

HAILEY: Wow.

KUNO: I’m joking.

IAIN: Two dragons.

DEVON: The Dragon 2 Prince.

KUNO: Yeah. OK also if there’s anything that you guys say that you want redacted this is probably not going up for another week because I have to get our reaction episode out. So anything you guys think about that you’re like, “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that” just message us and we’ll redact that. Yeah, cause we know that—

HAILEY: Or just say it. Just tell us, like, what’s—

DEVON: Hopefully we have some self-control but—

KUNO: Okay, so we are going to get really indulgent here and I think this is going to be really in Devon’s wheelhouse. We have a lot of questions and a bunch of the scenarios so try to get through as much of it as possible. Um so the first question is can you tell us more about the Silvergrove? What is the government system like in Silvergrove? Who runs it? If you could tell us that is that the only—at least like the leadership role? Um, is that the only Moonshadow elf village? And also do they actually get any real daylight because I noticed when the illusion thing happened it just got shady and I’m like, “They might be taking this Moonshadow thing too far”. Like the elves—do they really like that much? So like tell us about the Silvergrove and where Rayla grew up.

IAIN: So I guess it’s probably worth just starting off with a kind of blanket like, ‘if it hasn’t been in the show, we can’t say it’s 100% fact. A lot of this is just gonna be what kind of we thought, rough shape of things happen in our heads—‘

KUNO: Yeah, absolutely.

IAIN: —going into the writing and so on. So you know, don’t come after me with any, uh, fandom lawyers, anyone. But um yeah, I guess like it’s sort of—it’s most useful for us to think about it in comparison to how the Sunfire elves, like clearly they have very structured society. They have a queen, obviously, and they have large cities and so on whereas we think Moonshadow elves live in, as you saw, much smaller communities. And I think the Silvergrove is not the only one of those, it might be one of the better known ones where clearly the best assassins come from. But uh, I think are other ones out there, um, and maybe even Moonshadow elf people do not know where all the other ones are. Obviously the Silvergrove is hidden and maybe they don’t even have access to all the other ones. So I think there’s a sort of community run vibe to things. I think you know when they decided to—to ghost Rayla, and before that Rayla’s parents, I think that was probably a ‘let’s all come to a consensus before we make a decision about something like this’. I think, Devon, if you want to talk about the kind of like sunlight vibes things, because that was a big part of your driving force behind how this episode looked and felt.

DEVON: Um… well… first, I will say that it was potentially from the top down a complicated visual decision to have episode 3 take place in a Moonshadow elf shady forest grove and also the kingdom of sunlight.

IAIN: Yup.

DEVON: It created a couple production problems in terms of like the way we wanted the Silvergrove to look was very like evening themed and cool colors and you know shaded. And I had this really sort of self indulgent thing where I really wanted it to be as close to night time as possible and yet the story line in Lux Aurea was clearly taking place in the middle of the day. So we came to this sort of compromise that you know it is technically daytime through the whole day and there is enough tree cover that it’s already pretty shadowy but also I think there is some magic at play that’s sort of like generally um shrouds the whole thing in more of like a night time vibe. And my inspiration for that was I’m a big World of Warcraft player, or was I don’t super play a ton anymore but I really loved Ashenvale and some of the night elf regions and they had that similar thing that no matter what time of day it was it always felt like at least dusk or like this sort of like ever—ever shaded feeling. And I indulgently kind of wanted that to be where Rayla came from. So that’s what that’s about.

IAIN: Yeah and I think they’re magical beings. They don’t need vitamin D from the sunlight or anything like that. They’re totally fine if they just get moonlight every so often.

DEVON: But yeah, don’t write a script that has, you know, moon themed place and sun themed place at the same time. It was a… questionable choice (laughs). But I think it turned out—

KUNO: Yeah, ‘cause I was wondering—I was wondering—I was like “Okay” because a lot of the stuff you run through—you run the okay, if I were to write a fanfiction how do I use this. So it’s like, do they just never like—if they like—if Callum were to say live in the Silvergrove would he just have to get used to the fact that like it’s just never totally bright daylight or unless you leave the Silvergrove in the forest, uh, and like—that type of—is that what’s kind of like going on, they just like their shade?

DEVON: I think they like their shade. It’s like Scotland in the winter.

IAIN: Oh yeah, except we all get miserable by around about February when we haven’t seen sunlight in several months. But um yeah, I think it’s kind of like yeah, a combination of ‘oooh, magic’ and also just extremely, like, thick tree cover in the deepest parts of the forest. But I don’t think you have to travel too far. But uh, I think there’s a reason why everyone in that town was a Moonshadow elf and there were no Sunfire elves or random humans just like, chilling and living there. I think only the most goth of kids would be able to live in the Silvergrove without going a little bit mad.

DEVON: I mean you only have to go as far as the adoraburr field which clearly still gets a significant amount of daylight.

IAIN: Yeah.

KUNO: And you said there’s not really like a leader. They do as a community, but is there anyone that like makes decisions, like is there anybody that like if they were to go to somebody, like if they have like village leadership decisions. And obviously, um, blanket statement that all this we assume is kind a little bit of headcanon so it doesn’t have to be like for gospel, but you know for purposes of writing stuff.

DEVON: Um the way I thought about it—well, to back up a tiny bit, there was actually a version of the story where there might have—this was super, super early on, we were thinking about how the story might play out and we talked about there being potentially another Moonshadow elf leader type character that they would meet who, you know, was the one who ultimately called for the Ghosting decision. But that didn’t really fit the sort of, like, very personal nature of the story we wanted to play out with Rayla specifically. Um but thinking about that and the way that we were, you know, trying to shape it—I would imagine that like the assassins are sort of like a specific group that live in the Silvergrove which is otherwise—it’s not all assassins, like, not everybody there is an assassin. And I think that means that like you know Runaan was the leader of the assassins so he might consult with the leader of the blacksmiths who may be someone over Ethari but maybe it’s him now who might consult with the other general leaders—I don’t know. Like I think it’s more of a counsel of different groups than one single authority. It just seems like that would be a better fit for Moonshadow elves than the sort of like very, very strong-army, structured, high-and-mighty feeling that the Sunfire elves have, so, does that make sense?

KUNO: That totally makes sense, a little bit like an oligarchy, I think I had the idea that like they sound like they like a counsel. Like it sounds like a elven conciliatory.

DEVON: Yeah I think like someone might say, like obviously something horrible has happened and Rayla is exactly the person we thought she was. I’m calling for a—a ghost vote. And then you know—

IAIN: With a cooler name than that.

DEVON: No I think it’s canonically, I’m sorry—

IAIN: Ghost vote?

DEVON: The canon is “ghost vote” now.

IAIN: Okay.

DEVON: But yeah, they would all sort of like weight in kind of like a town hall scenario about of like why this is obviously the correct call and they would all sort of like have to come to some sort of agreement about what to do versus the Sunfire queen just being like “mph, time for the light, light decides!”

IAIN: Yeah.

KUNO: Okay um the next question being almost a little on that, does Ethari regret, um, what does he—does Ethari regret doing the banishing spell now that he knows the truth about Rayla?

DEVON: Oh absolutely 100%. But I don’t think he would have the power to—to reverse it. Like I think he could do a quick charm to help reverse it in the moment just to speak with her but ultimately it would take a lot for him to undo it and I’m not—we haven’t talked about what he’ll get up to in the meantime, but I don’t know he would be able to pursue it so directly—I’d have to talk about it, I think it would be an interesting side thought to think about how he might pursue redeeming her in the eyes of her people knowing what he knows, but—

IAIN: Yeah I think given that we said it would take everyone to do it collectively and make an agreed decision it would similarly everyone would have to understand the truth and go back on it and ‘oh I saw her one time and she said she didn’t do anything wrong probably isn’t enough to overturn that. But yeah I think he probably felt some regret even at the moment, but you know he’s in some of the worst grief of his entire life and he’s not going to make perfect rational decisions. And I’ve seen you know some people were slightly upset that he got so angry with Rayla in the moment of seeing her but I think like when you first see the person that you’ve tried to convince yourself sort of took the most important person in your life away from you, you’re gonna feel a big mess of feelings and it will bring up some grief that maybe you thought you were just—just starting to get over, so ah. Yeah I think hopefully he can turn that around in the years to come but they’ve all had a rough time. They’re at war. It sucks (DEVON laughs). Don’t go to war, kids.

KUNO: Hailey did you want to ask the next one or did you want me to?

HAILEY: Sure I can ask it. Could you—so I mean—you mentioned a stuff—a couple things about their government system and whatnot, but is there anything else you could tell us about Moonshadow culture, like what their day to day is like, and what it means to be a Moonshadow elf?

DEVON: Um I do think that a lot of the fandom I’ve been pleased to see has picked up on this sort of idea of a fairly rigid culture and you know there’s a lot of importance placed on things like honor, loyalty, and the ability to commit to things. And um I think that could come off as pretty strict but I actually think it comes from the place of valuing a close knit community. And I think, like, to the idea that we said like they probably have some kind of counsel instead of some single authority kind of ruler. It’s—I think their day to day would be very much going about their business in ways that support each other you know? Like does that make sense? It’s—you go to the blacksmith and he does work for you and it’s friendly and conversational but it’s productive—it’s all very for the good of the community.

IAIN: Yeah I think early on in season 1 even Rayla says that you know they’re not really meant to show their feelings. So I think everyone kind of commits to doing their task for the good of the village and doesn’t gripe about their day to day until something bad happens as the entire series to this point has been driven by. But um yeah I think they uh—they’re just committed to having a good, small, close knit village life and all supporting each other the best they can. And then occasionally the dragon queen tells you to go kill someone and that’s your job so you better go do that without complaining about it.

DEVON: I think we use the words “reclusive yet intimate” in the article we put up about the two moon creatures, the moonstrider and the shadowpaw. And I liked that a lot because I think they’re reclusive in the sense that they’re a little bit shut off from the wider world and they’re um isolationist in their preservation of their own culture but they are very close to each other and that is something that they hold at such an—like a preciousness level but it’s also a bit extreme, like if you betray that in any capacity like obviously they take that very seriously. And so it’s a double edged sword if you will, to have a community that supportive and that close but also your ability to perform all of yourself for the good of that community can be your undoing so—

KUNO: No I actually kinda get that um ‘cause I’m Pacific Islander so I think we’d call that what you’d call a collectivist society where it’s like the needs of the group supercede needs of the individual so I kinda like I—it’s not the extreme I think that they are because they’re very like reclusive but um I kinda live like that in a little bit of way. It’s what I grew up with. So I actually totally get that which might be why I like that so much (multiple people laugh). Um so the next question would be how does the banishing spell work that, um, that was used on Rayla politically and magically? I think we’ve talked a little bit about politically already but magically is—I’m assuming it’s a collective decision or does each person, like, opt in? Like could Ethari have opted out of doing it or did we—did they all have to agree?

DEVON: I think everybody have to agree?

KUNO: And how is it broken?

DEVON: I don’t think you can opt out?

IAIN: Um I think ‘how is it broken’ is something we definitely want to save for—for the future uh we really hope that Rayla manages to undo that. In terms of I think that it’s just culturally ingrained that you wouldn’t opt out. Um I think they would probably just argue forever until they manage to come to an agreement. So I—yeah I don’t think there’s you know half the elves in that village who are seeing Rayla and were like “Oh hey Rayla how’s it going?” I think uh they all came to the collective decision. That’s kind of the political angle. Um sorry, what was the other part? Magically how it works?

KUNO: Yeah? How would you do it?

IAIN: I—again, you know if it’s not in the show it’s not canon, but I sort of inspired by how the entrance spell works where they do a dance and there’s a ritual and I imagine it’s kind of similar. Like I think there’s a lot of that kind of like ritualistic style of magic and it’s kind of like what you see when they put the flowers out onto the water as well. There’s you know a collective dance probably involving a lot more people, a lot more cool intricate runes that happen only with a much more somber mood than the fun, happy times of Callum and Rayla dancing around in the forest. Um so yeah it’s probably—I would imagine it’s probably tied to some whatever the saddest phase of the moon is and that’s when they all get together and really somberly and really sadly uh commit to never seeing this person again. At least that’s the part of the plan. An interesting question that I think could be something that fanfiction writers such as yourself could get into is has any one of these ever been broken before or have they all been pretty sure that they would never need to go back on it? Is that going to be something that Rayla is going to figure out for the first time ever or is there a precedent for this happening. And we don’t have an answer right now but I think that would be a cool story to think about and write.

DEVON: Oh man I love the saddest phase of the moon idea. Imagine if they do it at the new moon because it’s like the moon’s face is hidden forever. Whoo.

IAIN: Whoo.

DEVON: Sad.

KUNO: Maybe we’re birthing things while we’re doing this interview. I actually think it would be like Callum does the Historia Viventum thing and it would be so—cause now I’m just imagining this whole village doing this sad dance which is the Banish Rayla dance essentially. And like that would be so sad for Rayla to witness that just for the drama of seeing her entire village decide to just not see her ever again. And that’s like wow, I’m so sad now.

DEVON: I love sadness.

IAIN: Yeah Callum just crushing a series of Moon Opals to show such a clip show of all of Rayla’s saddest history moments (laughs).

DEVON: Oh god.

IAIN: That’d be great.

DEVON: Thanks Callum.

KUNO: Thanks Callum. Um, she’d love him anyway. But um okay so some of my favorite stuff, what was it like for Rayla when her parents had to leave her to live with Runaan and Ethari and what was that transition like for them all? How old was like Rayla too?

DEVON: This was one that we’ve had a couple different ideas about so this is another one that’s like heavy not quite canon bubble. Like if we actually end up doing a story that involves some of these details it’s likely to change and be slightly different but the versions that I’ve liked have involved her being pretty young. And because honor is such a you know key part of Moonshadow culture I think like overall it was something that she felt you know sad about because she knew that she wasn’t going to be directly seeing her parents very often anymore. And—but it was uh such a huge honor that she felt you know pride in what her parents were being selected to go do. You know, act as Dragonguard and serve as these sort of like honorific, um, warriors that left the collective of the Silvergrove to go represent Moonshadow elves in the service of the Dragon Queen. And I think she had—she grew up being told what an honor that was and how much pride she should have in her parents because that is such a special thing. And then I think like it speaks a lot to how proud she was when she believed that they ran away and abandoned that duty because you know, how could they? If that was their reason for leaving her when she was a child and then they ran away from that job, like, how important could it have really been? And then you know, I’m sure that makes her feel very, very small. It made her feel so hurt that she told Callum at first that they were dead so she took it pretty hard.

KUNO: Yeah.

DEVON: But I think the other thing about it that we’ve sort of kicked around is that like, Runaan and Ethari were Rayla’s parents’ close friends and I think she was familiar with them enough that she didn’t feel like she was being you know left with two strangers. It’s sort of just like, you’re going to be under the care of people who are already very, very close to you and care about you quite a bit.

IAIN: Yeah I think with like Moonshadow elves in general the thing I think about a lot is like the good and evil that comes from suppressing your true emotions to show a different face to the world and I think we see a lot of that in Rayla. Like I think she probably committed pretty hard to Ghosting her parents because she had this like big mess of like sadness that she’d left but at least the soft landing of Runaan and Ethari to live with and so on. But believing like this sadness is worth it because they’re doing something so noble and then the betrayal of that—it just came out in kind of a messy like toxic way, right, where now she’s committed to becoming an assassin at a really young age in a way Ethari doesn’t agree with and so on. But I mean on the other side I think having a strong handle on your emotions is often one of Rayla’s strengths right? Like we saw in episode 5 of this season after she’s going through a whole lot of stuff, both her family situation and this new development with Callum, she’s just able to like operate as a cool badass extremely cool assassin without letting any of that affect her. But you know I think there’s balance in how you handle your feelings and how you externalize them in a good way that people can learn from, but sometimes you gotta—you gotta work (laughs).

KUNO: That makes sense. Oh well yeah I always had this personal headcanon which I kind of like incorporated into my fanfictions where she felt abandoned by her parents so in a way it’s kinda like slightly—kinda like that except it was all those feelings that have been repressed from years and years basically came out when she felt like—like the abandonment came to like the head when she felt like they had left because they had ran away—they kind of like ran away like from her.

DEVON: Oh yeah, absolutely.

KUNO: In a way—their duty to—

DEVON: I think that validates the suppressed feeling, you know.

KUNO: Yeah, since their duty to the Dragonguard was in it’s own way more important and that’s something that was like okay because it was an honor but since they ran away it’s like obviously it was more important in a terrible way, if that makes any sense?

IAIN: Yeah I mean I think it’s like she did her best and she’s trying to be a grown up but it’s hard at a young age to accept that you know there are meant to be higher callings than a bond between parents and children, right? Like that’s hard for her to grasp and she probably didn’t express that openly ever really. But I think it really did help that she had two genuine loving father figures ready to accept her with open arms even if one of them did train her to become the best assassin of her generation, which again I wouldn’t advise to—to most parents out there.

DEVON: I do think like even that was considered, you know, honorable. It was you know, you’re going to—not only are you going to get to live with Runaan and Ethari, like Runaan is the leader of the assassins, or at least maybe at that point in time he wasn’t the leader but he was very up and coming. I don’t know, it could be either or, but that I think was probably something that she fully embraced and fully wanted, like you know, ‘this is my purpose in life, this is my calling, my parents have gone off to do their calling and it’s a great honor for them, and this is my path and what I’m going to do with myself’. And that didn’t end up being true but it was probably a comfort to her at the time.

IAIN: Yeah.

KUNO: That makes a lot of sense. Moving on, okay, this, we’re getting real indulgent now—do you know what Ethari and Runaan’s wedding was like and what are Moonshadow elf weddings are like in general?

DEVON: Um, I have a, so a lot of the dancing stuff is because I have an enormous soft spot for tropes involving cute dances, like, just a huge, huge soft spot. And the thing that comes to mind is, if you’ve seen the movie Prince of Egypt, which is such a weird reference—

KUNO: Yeah, I love that.

DEVON: —the scene where he and the girl, I forget her name, they do the thing—

KUNO: Tzipporah.

DEVON: —with the ribbon and they do the cute little dance with the ribbon. For some reason that’s what I think of when I imagine what a moment in their wedding would look like would be a dance with a ribbon that they sort of use to—you know, Moonshadow elves love ribbons, I guess, but this is a good ribbon! It’s a love ribbon. But anyway, that’s just my idea. I love that specific—that song that, “Through Heaven’s Eyes”, it’s during that sequence but that—

KUNO: Yeah.

DEVON: —would be my go-to inspiration for like, it’s like that and then you know, everybody dances with them because Moonshadow elves like to dance.

IAIN: Yeah, I kind of like the idea of the—there’s a lot of these symbols that are sometimes extremely sinister. I mean I think Ethari even kinda calls this out when he shoots the—the Shadowhawk arrow to inform the queen that her son is in fact alive. But like, Moonshadow elves believe that death and life are not good and evil, they’re mirrors of each other and an important part of the cycle. And you know, the moon has cycles and that’s an important part. So I think thinking about all the rituals and stuff that they have, which initially you’re introduced to as ‘let’s go murder someone party’, like if that was—there was a kind of inverse to that that was a big part of their wedding ceremony I think that would make a lot of sense to Moonshadow elves because this is two people binding their lives together forever. Binding for a shared purpose in a good way and not the grim ‘let’s go kill Prince Ezran’ kind of way.

KUNO: Yeah. Cause naturally this is involving like several ships so I’m like, I had to ask that. And on the piggyback of that, as detailed as possible, can you describe courtship customs for Moonshadow elves?

DEVON: Oh man.

KUNO: I mean like dating—dating customs, like a headcanon even if it’s just headcanons.

IAIN: Devon is deep in thought (laughs).

DEVON: I’ve never—like for some reason the—the headcanons that I’ve thought about are more specific to like, Runaan and Ethari than I’ve really sort of like branched out into thinking about how Moonshadow elves do this in general. So I imagine there’s intended—there’s some formality to it, I would imagine, in that like, because they’re so, you know, purposeful and thoughtful with how they express their feelings if at all, I think it would be, you know, exchange of gifts like small favors and making your purpose known in a way that starts small but has purpose. So I think like, there’s versions where Ethari would put extra detail into the work he was doing for Runaan which you know, could be perceived as a sign of affection or Runaan was coming to Ethari asking him to work on his weapons or metalcraft stuff a little bit more than was necessary and—stuff like that, where it’s a bit stiff and difficult but I think like once—once there is clear reciprocation I think there can be more of an open discussion about it, does that make sense? But I think Runaan probably struggled with this a whole lot, like, ‘cause he’s—did I, it might have been you who I responded to on Twitter but someone asked me something along these lines and I think Runaan had a really hard time even with this first sort of like simple offerings of affection because that’s just him. Like he sort of takes that aspect to an extreme. Like he has a hard time being like “here is the way I wish to express myself in a soft way and not with a—a sharp object. So I think Ethari had an easier time because he’s just more naturally soft (laughs).

IAIN: Yeah I sometimes think that Runaan is the most Moonshadow elf of all Moonshadow elves, but like, you know, it’s—

KUNO: I was gonna say that.

IAIN: Yeah, um, you know when they have such a hard time showing their feelings and they sometimes feel like they’re not supposed to and so on, and so Runaan is trying to pick up on the tiniest possible hints through professional exchanges and so on. And I think when it’s actually time to confess that there’s a feeling there you would, I think especially Runaan would have to be 100% sure and then do it entirely in private, the most private situation possible where there could be no possible spies who could see this if it was going to go wrong because that would just be the end of his entire life, obviously.

DEVON: Yeah he would bind himself to his own death (laughs).

IAIN: Yeah, that’s it. Gonna assassinate myself because I confessed love and it didn’t get reciprocated. That’s that.

DEVON: It’s over.

IAIN: So yeah, lot of—lots of awkward advances where they’re trying—trying to have the escape hatch of “Oh I didn’t really try to suggest that I liked you, this was just me asking you for a professional favor by let’s never speak again”.

DEVON: And then he comes back the next day (DEVON and IAIN laugh).

KUNO: Oh my goodness. Uh I felt—I—I kinda like headcanoning now that Ethari tells Rayla all this “how I met, you know, your surrogate dad” kind of stuff. Like, and that’s how she—she’s like, this is how you do love apparently.

DEVON: I do think that like, yeah, he had a much easier time and probably picked up on stuff. And to me there’s a side of Ethari that you don’t really get to see in the episode because he’s very sad. I think he’s a—he does have a playful side and I like to imagine that while Runaan was doing his, like, really just not-the-best attempts to display affection early on, like Ethari would pick up on them but not necessarily give the full signal back. And he played a little bit oblivious but he absolutely was—he’s just more emotionally in tune. So I think, “Oh hey, you’re back again, wow. I thought I did fantastic work on your blades last time. I cannot believe they’re already dull!” Like and he just sort of like, he knows—he knows there’s something there.

IAIN: I think like this kind of gets echoed in Rayla, like where Callum in an effort to pick her up and be honest about how he feels that she’s just an incredible person. Like to her that’s like, ‘person being entirely open with their feelings in a positive way? That’s a love connection!’ And then it goes wrong for one entire episode and then it turns out that Callum was also not fully aware of how he was feeling and so on. But I think like, yeah, I think that’s why she was like immediately “Wow, this is clearly meant to be romantic and this is—this is going exactly the way I want!” and then it didn’t. But then it did! So we’re all happy.

DEVON: Aww.

KUNO: I am! I’m certainly happy. Um—uh let’s see—the next one is—okay. What was Rayla like as a child growing up in a household she did—household? Um, she mentioned going to school and we’d love to know how baby Rayla fared as a student and just a child growing up in the Silvergrove and what that experience is like for a Moonshadow elf child?

DEVON: You want—you want me to do this one?

IAIN: Go for it.

DEVON: Yeah, um, I think Rayla was feisty (laughs) in a word. I think she—for some reason there’s a scene in the beginning of Korra where she’s already mastered like, three elements and she like comes out punching. I kind of think about that when I think about baby Rayla. She knows she’s—there’s that end credit scene where she’s got the two sticks and she’s posing with them and Runaan’s sort of lifting one of them up and I’m thinking like, okay so sheg’s like, from a tiny, tiny age thinking like, “I’m gonna be the coolest assassin the Moonshadow elves have ever seen!” and she’s like rambunctious about that almost, because you know, as a child you don’t really understand what the ramifications of that are but it’s considered like a highly, highly valued, honored position and so she’s obviously like, “Yeah I’m gonna do that and I’m going to be the best at it and there will never be any complications whatsoever!” In terms of Moonshadow elf childhood, I think with the way that I would think about it is—we talked about the sort of community aspect. I imagine Moonshadow elves have pretty, like, what’s the word, like, a lot of general education, sort of, like, “this is what weaponsmithing is like and this is gardening and raising crops and things to provide for the community” and so I think they would have a lot of ‘school’ that covers a lot of just like, life basics because you are expect to find a place that contributes to the collective whole. Does that like—?

IAIN: Yeah, I think like it’s also lucky for Rayla that a big part of Moonshadow elf culture is what we would call PE. Like I think she excelled at striving to be an assassin warrior and so on. Especially like, she’s trying to live up to her parents who at first were honored Dragonguard and you know, Runaan as well. I think in terms of like, more academic stuff like if there was Moonshadow elf history lessons and “let’s go out and understand the, you know, ecology of the Moonshadow forest” and stuff I think she was probably a bit kinda like, rambunctious and not super paying attention and running off and not really giving it her all and so on. Um, you kind of get that impression from early on where she knows what Primal sources are and she’ll explain that to Callum but like, when she’s talking about ‘how do you do that Moonshadow form thing’ she’s like “I don’t know, it just feels right”. Like I think that’s—she did everything very intuitively and focused on the things she cared about and understood and kinda did what she—did what she could on the other subjects, I guess, but didn’t care as much.

DEVON: Yeah I feel like if you imagine the kid that is going to grow up to be an artist is doing doodles on their math homework and just sort of like doing the math homework but—but you know, clearly the effort is being placed elsewhere. I think it’s that but she was excelling at PE and assassin training and therefore fell very, very easily into her supposed path.

KUNO: The—this isn’t on the thing, but did—did she ever—did she ever really have any friends? ‘Cause she doesn’t really mention—ever mention friends. I—maybe that has to do with the whole assassin thing where if she wasn’t learning being at school she would probably doing assassin stuff with Runaan or assassin training stuff—I guess not really assassinating. But um did she have really friends growing up?

IAIN: I think if she had friends they were not super close. And I think she valued her alone time. There’s a sweet moment early in—well end of season 1 where she like tries to cheer up Ezran by saying that fitting in is overated and I think she felt that a little bit. Um and you know I think there’s some amount of when you’re being trained in the art of an assassin like you’re probably somewhat taught to—to keep people at arm’s length a little bit, right? And I think she—she took that to heart. So I think that’s a big part of why when she was first traveling with Callum and Ezran there wasn’t that much trust between then and it was kinda like, it was Ezran honestly that bridged the gap being most empathetic number 1 child. And yeah, I think having a close friend is relatively new to her.

KUNO: Makes sense. Like just few, not the many. Um okay then next question before we get to Hailey’s batch of them are um, what are Runaan’s feelings toward Rayla as of right now and everything that’s happened since season 1? I understand he’s in a coin, he’s in a finacial crisis, he’s probably not thinking about it too hard—

DEVON: Oh my god (laughs).

KUNO: But you know, like he’s gotta be—you know he’s not doing anything right now, I’m assuming, so like what would be his feelings about her at the moment?

DEVON: I mean he’s got a lot of time to think, wherever he is. I think like—I got into this a little bit on Twitter in a self-indulgent rant at one point where I think he went through a lot very quietly during the first few episodes of the show where he very, very much wanted Rayla to succeed, even if he wasn’t necessarily like being the dad on the sideline of the soccer game, like, cheering for her. But he thought this was her moment, this was her time to prove that she really was more dedicated to you know, her cause and her people than her parents were because they had, you know, been the subject of such shame. And then ah, everything goes the way it does, I think he has a brief crisis of, “Is this my fault? Did I fail to train her well enough? Like, was Ethari right?” Because he always thought she had, you know, a softer heart. And I think like those are the types of things that he’s still stewing on, um like did—”did he overstep? Was it something—was he so eager to give her the opportunity to prove herself that he, you know, ultimately put her in a position where she could not succeed?” I think like, the other thing that I mentioned on Twitter was I think he took her off the mission both because he very, very much wanted to give himself and the others a chance to complete the mission even if it meant their deaths. But it also meant that Rayla had the chance to survive even if it was potentially going to be misinterpreted and she’d get slapped with the Ghosting, I think he believed that her alive was better than everybody being dead. So I think like, he’s got a lot—a lot to work through and I think like—I think he feels guilty. I think there’s the smallest part of him that he has the—again, a lot of time to potentially stew on and reflect on is he does feel like he put her in a position that was, you know, not fully taking into account the type of person she was and more projecting onto her the type of person he wanted her to be and gift he wanted to give her of redeeming herself in the eyes of her people for her parents. And I think he’s gonna have to work through that. Poor dude.

KUNO: That’s so sadly heartfelt. That’s so sadly heartfelt. Here I am thinking that he’d be, like, maybe a little angry with her, ‘cause obvious reason, but now it’s like, oh he feels guilty. Like, “Oh, okay, let’s just slap the angst on, okay”.

DEVON: I mean, I think like—

KUNO: Yeah, mm-hm.

DEVON: Sure he’d have some anger, like, “Awgh, I gave her everything. I gave her the exact opportunity she needed”. But I think like the guilt and the reflection leads to the “Maybe I—maybe it was me who stepped too far here”.

IAIN: Yeah, I mean another part of it is like, we don’t know what it’s like being trapped in the hell coin dimension, right?

DEVON: Oh I do. I—I mean—

IAIN: Oh you do?

DEVON: It sucks.

IAIN: Oh it sucks?

DEVON: When it happens to me on the reg (IAIN laughs).

IAIN: But you know, does it feel like an eternity is passing? Does it feel like no time has passed? Is he in eternal pain? Because if it’s like real bad—

KUNO: Oh my god.

IAIN: —in there I can imagine that like yeah there’s definitely some of those kind of anger feelings that you don’t want to feel in but you do sometimes, right? Like it’s like, if he has a snap moment of “I wouldn’t be in here if she hadn’t gone off and disobeyed our orders and, like, lied to me and so on”. So if he ever comes out uh don’t know what side of the emotional coin he’s gonna land on.

DEVON: Ohhh, please leave.

KUNO: Oh my god.

DEVON: Get out, oof, ouch.

IAIN: Finger guns.

DEVON: I do think like that sort of complex—

KUNO: It sounds—

DEVON: —emotion is just, I don’t want to give any time to that pun, we’re moving on. Like that sort of complexity of emotion and relationships is something that I really like in the show overall. Like you said earlier, you saw some people that were a little bit upset that Ethari was so willing to lash out at Rayla at first and I think like to me that was always part of the big, big thematic of the show, which is this sort of endless cycle of people being willing to hurt each other and not forgive each other and not, you know, accept that you can choose peace. It’s, you know, it’s—Runaan having that impulse to anger is a very natural thing and it doesn’t—I don’t think it necessarily makes him a bad person for feeling that. And I don’t necessarily think that Ethari having his moments of grief lead him to actions that are ultimately like, regretful, like I don’t think he would want that to define him in the long run. Like those are very human things but those are the things as we acknowledge them and as are—so long as we are capable of recognizing how flawed we are and how violent and…

KUNO: Messy.

DEVON: Messy! Thank you, that’s like, I was going to say like churning, messy is good. Like messy emotions can be and how they can like, dictate the way we treat each other, um, but forgiveness and patience and acceptance are ultimately just so much more powerful than those negative perpetuating lashing outs. That was an inelegant way of ending that screed, but yes.

KUNO: I actually really love that um ‘cause I from the beginning I’ve loved their father-daughter relationship so I love how complicated it is, ‘cause the truth is you know every parent-child relationship is a little complicated, except theirs is a little more complicated with assassination going on in the works, the family trade. So I love that it is this complicated ‘cause I know I remember in the beginning where people were like you know—you know she does have a dad. And it’s like I know she has a biological dad but until I am told otherwise that’s her father. I don’t care and I love their relationship so I love that that really reflects that. Another—the next question out of me before we get to, um, Hailey’s, which are all about different elves, is um, course I have to ask, my policy is one Rayllum question per interview. Um what are Runaan’s feelings—whah, no, whoop, how would Ruthari and Runaan react to Rayla’s relationship with Callum considering he’s not only a human but a human prince? ‘Cause as far as we know Runaan really hates, um, humans and I’d love to see that story later, both individually and as a couple. Because as far as I know, Ethari probably doesn’t know that their in a relationship unless he sensed it?

DEVON: Oh man, I—I think you should take this one, but I do want to say that I saw one comment on Tumblr at one point where someone said that they wished that Ethari had said something to Callum along the lines of like, “Take care of her”. And I want to travel back in time and pretend that was in the script ‘cause I think that would have been really, really nice. And I do think like, he picked up on the fact that Callum was important to her even if it—he didn’t necessarily read it as romantic right off the bat. I think he mostly was like, “Oh this guy is kind of like a cute—he’s a human but he’s, you know, a friend to someone I care about and that in and of itself is valuable and there’s something there”. So I think—pretend that was in the script. I wish I had thought about something like that but—

KUNO: I will (DEVON laughs).

IAIN: Yeah.

KUNO: That’s canon as far—as far as I’m concerned that’s canon.

IAIN: I think uh it would be best for everyone involved if they found out together, uh, because I think Runaan’s impulse would not be good immediately. I think like, when you spend so much time as an assassin and you drill into your head that the people that you’re meant to kill are not people, they’re the enemy right? Like I think that’s—sometimes that’s a thing he turns on to do the job and so on, but I do think that’s gonna bleed into his personality and it’s—you know, especially given his extremely recent history he’s not got the best feelings about humans. So I think it would inspire an immediate negative reaction in him that would not be pleasant for Callum and Rayla, but I think Ethari just has a much softer heart and that is where Rayla kind of got that side from. So I mean I’m not going to say that he would immediately—you know, they’ve been at war for hundreds and hundreds of years with humans and they’ve been told all through their history that humans committed the original sin of dark magic, et cetera et cetera, but like, I think it would take not that much time of seeing Rayla and Callum together for Ethari to see that there’s something there and then I think Ethari would have the ability to ah, to talk Runaan down pretty quick. But I also think that like, Runaan might not even show any of this, there might just be a kind of seething resentment that he’s not really talking about inside. Um unless it was like on the battlefield or something and he was like, “That’s a prince that I’m meant to kill” or something like that. But overall I think Ethari would sense that Runaan was not like—was not taking this well and they would be able to talk it through. At least that’s my gut.

DEVON: No, that sounds right (DEVON and IAIN laugh).

KUNO: I feel like poor Callum is just always on the edge of “Am I going to die tonight?” while he’s there, “Is this gonna be it?” Just gonna be like, “Oops sorry I had an accident—hey I had an accident in the middle of the night, you know, just a knife to the throat, that’s all”.

IAIN: I mean, he’s doing pretty well, like he said as they were about to meet Ethari and Rayla was like, “Remember Runaan?” He was like “Oh yeah, that guy who tried to kill me as soon as he met me? Cool guy”. Callum’s doing pretty well on the acceptance front these days.

DEVON: I do—

KUNO: Yeah.

DEVON: I do want to say that I think Ethari and Callum would get along really well because I think they both have sort of like a soft hearted friendliness to them that they would have a fun rapport. And that’s the sort of like “Trees to meet you” line is definitely supposed to be like—they’d you know, crack some goofy back and forths and I think that would soften Runaan too because he couldn’t ever hate someone that Ethari liked.

IAIN: Yeah, I think it’s a weird—

KUNO: Aww.

IAIN: —reversal where like Callum’s the one doing the dad jokes and Ethari’s like humoring them and Runaan’s like, “I don’t understand. Trees do not meet.”

DEVON: “Please stop saying ‘trees to meet you’.”

KUNO: Aw it never gets old. I love that. Um alright, Hailey, take it away. Your turn.

[hypnoticwinter]

Good Books I Read This Year

This is a list of the books I read this year that I actually enjoyed.

1. Against a Dark Background - Iain M. Banks One of Banks’ few non-Culture books, and the best of that small group (The Algebraist comes close second). No-nonsense ex-military lady in the far future goes through enormous shit to get people off of her back. Getting the gang back together was a bad idea. The very first book I will point to if someone tells me SF can’t be literary. Sharrow is the reason I can’t stop writing strong, nuanced female characters. If you read none of the other books on this list, read this one.

2 and 3. A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe | A Bad Deal for the Whole Galaxy - Alex White Pulpy science fiction with a space magic twist. Competent writing and high stakes. Eager to read the third which is out but which I haven’t been able to find on #bookz yet.

4. Alhazred - Donald Tyson Going to tentatively recommend this one. Stick to the grimoires, Tyson, you aren’t a novelist. That being said, the fleshing out of Alhazred’s life is fantastic, the book is well-researched historically, and I thought the actual structure of the plot was good, sticking just to Alhazred’s life without going too high-stakes. That being said, you did my girl Martala dirty, Tyson. Basically everything but the writing is good. Except for Martala. Martala deserved to be more of a character than that.

5. The Loosening Skin - Aliya Whiteley What if people were bugs and had to shed their skin every now and then? Exactly the kind of writing I do, taking a concept and saying ‘what if’ and then expanding on it. Good characters. The whole drug thing came off a little half-baked but it worked out.

6. Aurora - Kim Stanley Robinson Reminds me of SMAC. Good hard-ish SF about a generation ship that decides it ain’t worth it any more and turns around. Robinson is very good about thinking through all the ramifications that come from speculative technologies and Aurora is no exception. 

7. Bear - Marian Engel Ignore the memes, this is genuinely some of the best literary fiction I’ve read in a long time. Won that medal deservedly. Like a better version of The End of the Story.

8. Recursion - Blake Crouch An actually interesting time travel story. Stakes are very high and, even as far as time travel goes, I didn’t have to suspend my disbelief a huge amount. Very good characters.

9. The Gone-Away World - Nick Harkaway Beyond impressed at how Harkaway managed to blend martial-arts movie aesthetic with the post-apocalyptic firefighter stuff. The twist blew me away the first time I read it. Genuinely pleasant to read.

10. The Books of Babel 1-3 - Josiah Bancroft For worldbuilding, 10 out of 10. For plot, I think Bancroft maybe should have just gone with a trilogy, because the stakes are getting a little high and I think it may jump the shark soon. Waiting for book 4 to see. Reminds me strongly of Abarat, but not as out-there.

11. Prosper’s Demon - K J Parker Fantastic novella about a possession and an exorcist. Easy to find, easy to read, left me wishing that it had been a novel. Not that it wasn’t wrapped up well, but I wanted more.

12. Provenance - Ann Leckie A science fiction coming-of-age political drama? Sign me up. Written decently but Ingray and whatshername the security officer should have gotten more time together, as it is she feels like an afterthought. Do love Ingray. Would love another novel in the same setting. Maybe there is one.

13. The Luminous Dead - Caitlin Starling Drop what you’re doing and read this book. Truly fantastic work with the characters, of which there are just two - it is an incredibly fine line keeping characters realistic in the high-stakes situations this book portrays and Starling does so wonderfully. Wish the ending were different but I understand what she was going for. Can’t speak well enough of this.

14. A Memory Called Empire - Arkady Martine Another science fiction coming-of-age political drama? Sign me up. This one is better than Provenance, if just for the plot - really fantastic stuff. Once again would love another novel in the same setting. Martine is going to be one to watch.

15. The Complete SF Collection - Richard Morgan Altered Carbon - amazing. Broken Angels - fantastic. Woken Furies - great. Market Forces - this man is horrible, don’t make me read about him. Black Man - good but not as good as the first three. Great schlocky stuff. Made me want to watch the TV show, which doesn’t happen often. Morgan knows exactly what he’s writing and doesn’t pretend it’s any better than it really is. That being said, Altered Carbon is very good.

16. Blindsight - Peter Watts Peter Watts is vastly underrated and Blindsight may be one of his best stories - worth reading for any science fiction fan. Raised some very interesting questions about consciousness and thought for me. Quintessential science fiction - pushing the envelope in all the right places. Love this.

17. The Rig - Roger Levy Fantastic self-contained SF on the same lines as Against a Dark Background. The twist again blew me away. Wrapped everything up nicely at the end which I found a little surprising, but I think it worked.

18. Artemis - Andy Weir Normally I hate Andy Weir but this was fun. Moon girl gets in over her head and has to make tough decisions to put stuff right. Good for her and so on. Didn’t make me want to read any of his other novels but this one was okay. Don’t think you’re off the hook, Andy.

[clarasimone]

Iain Glen in HENRY IV, part 1: in 3 hours 50 minutes, and counting...

On BBC Radio 3, Sunday April 26, 19H30 UK time (available to all on the BBC’s website if you listen to the play live)

Yesterday, in my teaser interview with @pnienor​, our resident Bard expert singled out a specific scene in which the King stands out: “...the exchange with Hal in Act 3, scene 2, I think, is where you find out just how good he is at keeping his crown and why. You want Hal to emulate him after this and he does.” ... Sooooo wanting to investigate this a bit further, I went into the text which will enable Iain Glen to shine and, lo and behold, I found yet more meta-theatrical resonances to enjoy! 

During Henry’s lengthy (!!) impassioned address to his son, at one point he explains how he won the admiration of his people through modesty. While the previous King pranced around like some red carpet hungry star (my image ;-), his shying away from the public eye made his rare appearances all the more glorious and commanded respect. 

Reminds you of anyone? 

I CANNOT wait to hear Iain Glen say (and please also note the Jorah-ish reference to banishment!):

If I had been so publicly visible, so overly familiar to people, so freely accessible, so cheap and available to the common hordes, then public opinion (which helped me get the crown) would have stayed loyal to King Richard. I would have stayed a banished man, with no reputation and no promise of success. But because I was so rarely seen in public, people were amazed by me when I did appear; they acted as if I were a comet. Men would tell their children, “That’s him!” Others would ask, “Where? Which one’s Bolingbroke?” I was more gracious than heaven; I acted so modestly that I won the allegiance of their hearts, and the shouts and salutes of their mouths. They even did so when the King himself was present.This is how I kept myself fresh and new. I was like a priest’s ceremonial vestments: rarely seen, but admired. I appeared seldomly, but marvelously, like a feast made all the more impressive by its rarity. Now, ridiculous King Richard pranced about with vapid clowns and superficial wits, quickly lit and just as quickly burnt out. He degraded himself, mingling his royal self with those skipping fools.

(...) They didn’t look with a special gaze, as they do at the sun when it shines only rarely.

**********************************************************************

Oh Ser, we do look upon you as the Sun :-) And you have indeed succeeded in keeping yourself fresh and new throughout your long and distinguished career, one which is entering its harvest season. Long live the King!

edit by @favor757​ 

Below the dot-dot-dot, the original text of Act 3, scene 2 (I’m still not sure how much this BBC 3 production will have modernized it)

Act 3, scene 2 - London. The palace.

Enter KING HENRY IV, PRINCE HENRY, and others

KING HENRY IV

Exeunt Lords

PRINCE HENRY

So please your majesty, I would I could Quit all offences with as clear excuse As well as I am doubtless I can purge Myself of many I am charged withal: Yet such extenuation let me beg, As, in reproof of many tales devised, which oft the ear of greatness needs must hear, By smiling pick-thanks and base news-mongers, I may, for some things true, wherein my youth Hath faulty wander'd and irregular, Find pardon on my true submission.

KING HENRY IV

God pardon thee! yet let me wonder, Harry, At thy affections, which do hold a wing Quite from the flight of all thy ancestors. Thy place in council thou hast rudely lost. Which by thy younger brother is supplied, And art almost an alien to the hearts Of all the court and princes of my blood: The hope and expectation of thy time Is ruin'd, and the soul of every man Prophetically doth forethink thy fall. Had I so lavish of my presence been, So common-hackney'd in the eyes of men, So stale and cheap to vulgar company, Opinion, that did help me to the crown, Had still kept loyal to possession And left me in reputeless banishment, A fellow of no mark nor likelihood. By being seldom seen, I could not stir But like a comet I was wonder'd at; That men would tell their children 'This is he;' Others would say 'Where, which is Bolingbroke?' And then I stole all courtesy from heaven, And dress'd myself in such humility That I did pluck allegiance from men's hearts, Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths, Even in the presence of the crowned king. Thus did I keep my person fresh and new; My presence, like a robe pontifical, Ne'er seen but wonder'd at: and so my state, Seldom but sumptuous, showed like a feast And won by rareness such solemnity. The skipping king, he ambled up and down With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits, Soon kindled and soon burnt; carded his state, Mingled his royalty with capering fools, Had his great name profaned with their scorns And gave his countenance, against his name, To laugh at gibing boys and stand the push Of every beardless vain comparative, Grew a companion to the common streets, Enfeoff'd himself to popularity; That, being daily swallow'd by men's eyes, They surfeited with honey and began To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little More than a little is by much too much. So when he had occasion to be seen, He was but as the cuckoo is in June, Heard, not regarded; seen, but with such eyes As, sick and blunted with community, Afford no extraordinary gaze, Such as is bent on sun-like majesty When it shines seldom in admiring eyes; But rather drowzed and hung their eyelids down, Slept in his face and render'd such aspect As cloudy men use to their adversaries, Being with his presence glutted, gorged and full. And in that very line, Harry, standest thou; For thou has lost thy princely privilege With vile participation: not an eye But is a-weary of thy common sight, Save mine, which hath desired to see thee more; Which now doth that I would not have it do, Make blind itself with foolish tenderness.

PRINCE HENRY

I shall hereafter, my thrice gracious lord, Be more myself.

KING HENRY IV

For all the world As thou art to this hour was Richard then When I from France set foot at Ravenspurgh, And even as I was then is Percy now. Now, by my sceptre and my soul to boot, He hath more worthy interest to the state Than thou the shadow of succession; For of no right, nor colour like to right, He doth fill fields with harness in the realm, Turns head against the lion's armed jaws, And, being no more in debt to years than thou, Leads ancient lords and reverend bishops on To bloody battles and to bruising arms. What never-dying honour hath he got Against renowned Douglas! whose high deeds, Whose hot incursions and great name in arms Holds from all soldiers chief majority And military title capital Through all the kingdoms that acknowledge Christ: Thrice hath this Hotspur, Mars in swathling clothes, This infant warrior, in his enterprises Discomfited great Douglas, ta'en him once, Enlarged him and made a friend of him, To fill the mouth of deep defiance up And shake the peace and safety of our throne. And what say you to this? Percy, Northumberland, The Archbishop's grace of York, Douglas, Mortimer, Capitulate against us and are up. But wherefore do I tell these news to thee? Why, Harry, do I tell thee of my foes, Which art my near'st and dearest enemy? Thou that art like enough, through vassal fear, Base inclination and the start of spleen To fight against me under Percy's pay, To dog his heels and curtsy at his frowns, To show how much thou art degenerate.

PRINCE HENRY

Do not think so; you shall not find it so: And God forgive them that so much have sway'd Your majesty's good thoughts away from me! I will redeem all this on Percy's head And in the closing of some glorious day Be bold to tell you that I am your son; When I will wear a garment all of blood And stain my favours in a bloody mask, Which, wash'd away, shall scour my shame with it: And that shall be the day, whene'er it lights, That this same child of honour and renown, This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight, And your unthought-of Harry chance to meet. For every honour sitting on his helm, Would they were multitudes, and on my head My shames redoubled! for the time will come, That I shall make this northern youth exchange His glorious deeds for my indignities. Percy is but my factor, good my lord, To engross up glorious deeds on my behalf; And I will call him to so strict account, That he shall render every glory up, Yea, even the slightest worship of his time, Or I will tear the reckoning from his heart. This, in the name of God, I promise here: The which if He be pleased I shall perform, I do beseech your majesty may salve The long-grown wounds of my intemperance: If not, the end of life cancels all bands; And I will die a hundred thousand deaths Ere break the smallest parcel of this vow.

KING HENRY IV

A hundred thousand rebels die in this: Thou shalt have charge and sovereign trust herein.

[eurusholmmes]

Be There When I Need You | J.M.

I have been attracted to older actors literally since I was 13 years old, and finding out that Iain Glenn existed did me absolutely no favors. Please enjoy this one shot, and love Jorah Mormont just as I do. 

Prompt: Could u do a Jorah Mormont x reader where the reader sacrifices herself during a battle to save him ( she’s a total badass)? Loads of angst please and thank you!

Female Reader. This is the longest fic I’ve written in a while, and I’ve also never seen GoT s8!!! I worked really hard on this. Please let me know what you think!

Please go follow my main blog @morganas-pendragons where I will eventually be writing more GoT content!

Tagging @orderoftheflamingflamingos because I know you love Jorah 

Living in the North as a girl who was born and bred in the South was no easy feat. Your father was an expert tradesman who often found himself at the Bear Islands where he very easily befriended Lord Mormont, who often made the trades for needed supplies much easier. 

You weren’t supposed to meet his son Jorah quite yet, but you did. He was standing tall at his fathers side, no older then fifteen years old, and you admired just how regal he looked standing there. Absolutely divine. It was hard not to marvel at the strong, handsome features of the heir to the Bear Islands, but what you were unaware of is how he gazed at you. The daughter to another Lord of a much smaller house, soon to be wed to keep the trade routes and exchanges successful and plentiful for the following years.

  “My Lord, allow me the pleasure of introducing my daughter, Y/N Y/L/N to your son.” 

Jorah attempted to hide his fascination of you behind a smile and the gentlest press of lips against the back of your hand. “My Lady,” He greeted. “I believe we have quite a future ahead of us.” 

Given that your land was not that far from that of the Islands, your father requested that you stay behind to learn the art of swordplay with Jorah. He was the most talented swordsman of his age until you came around and beat him at his own game. Women were not meant for battle, but marrying a man like Jorah Mormont would be a whole other war to face. 

  “Is that how you do it, Ser?” You mused as you lightly pressed the dull edge of your training blade against his throat, knee pinning his chest to the ground as he laid flat on his back. You had often taken advantage of the art of seduction to catch him off guard, and it never failed you. 

  “I’m not a knight yet, Y/N.” 

His pupils dilated as you bent down and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. It was a daring move, sure, but over the time you’d been living inside the castle with the Mormonts you had never dared to venture further then holding his hand. 

   “When we wed, I will move all the Heavens above to ensure you receive your knighthood. There’s no one more deserving of it.” 

Your relationship evolved over the next few years. Jorah preferred to remain intimate behind closed doors - taking to holding hands and soft, desperate gazes across the rooms when you both occupied them. He was well respected by people, worthy of their love, and you were greatly looking forward to when you ruled the Islands together. 

What you weren’t anticipating was those three dreaded words. The ones you very rarely said with your lips and instead said with your actions. You didn’t want to love him, but you did, and the very thought of it absolutely terrified you. Sent dread down to your very core - because you knew what would happen next. 

  “I love you.” Warm hands, gentle caresses against the apples of your cheeks in the light of the fire blazing in his chambers. The two of you had retired sometime ago after the wedding preparations for the day had been finished, and Jorah wanted nothing more then to cradle you close and disappear from the world with you. 

  “Jorah-” 

  “I do. I have loved you and I will never stop loving you.” His hand travelled down the curve of your arm until it wrapped around your hip, urging you close enough that you could feel the crevices of his body against your own. You had always fit well together, like two missing pieces of a puzzle. 

  “Don’t fall any deeper in love with me.” You whispered. You spread your fingers out over his heart and lifted your head just enough to meet his gaze. Soft and warm, just like the rest of him, with his very clear adoration of you evident in the blues of his eyes. 

  “Why?” 

  “Because you won’t be there when I need you.” 

And just as you suspected, news arrived on the day after your wedding that Jorah had been involved in a slavery ring and had been caught by Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell. 

He had fled Westeros with only a note and a wedding ring left in the crevices of your bed with the intent of you finding it. You took his note in your hands and read his poor explanation as to why he’d been forced to hide such a treasonous act from his wife, of all people, and how he promised to be with you again when the time came for him to be pardoned. 

Bitterness kills. Bitterness kills. Bitterness kills. 

But forgiveness heals, and there was no possibility of holding a grudge against Jorah for as many years as your heart would’ve desired. You eventually forgave but you had no intentions of forgetting anything that had occurred. 

You became Queen of the Bear Islands after Jorah was exiled. Years passed and you ruled better then you would’ve anticipated, but the ring around your neck was a constant reminder of the man you’d loved and the man you’d lost. 

That was until Daenerys Targaryen arrived and the threat of the Night King loomed over your heads. Forced to fight with the North for the safety of Westeros, you left your council in charge and travelled to Winterfell for the battle against the Wights. 

You weren’t expecting what you saw waiting at the front gates. 

  “Khaleesi, if I may-” Daenerys laid her hand on Jorahs arm as she watched a horse with a single rider come into view further down the road, eyes softening as she recognized your form that sat on top of it. She had been the one to keep in contact with you about Jorah since he’d mentioned leaving a wife to rule the Bear Islands, but he’d never spoken more than that. You were too precious a memory. 

  “I believe someone has come to see you, Ser.” 

Jorahs eyes followed the stride of the horse until it skidded to a stop before him, and the breath dissipated in his lungs when he realized it was you sitting atop of it. He half expected you to berate him, to scold him for leaving you behind and to drive your fists into his body until his skin was streaked in black, blue and purple. 

He had tried so hard to forget about you. Forget the way your eyes lit up when he entered a room, or the way your hands felt when they traveled his body. The curve of your smile and the way your body felt beneath his hands. The way you showed no fear in the face of death, or how well you held yourself in battle. But he could not forget how deeply you loved him. The way you always whispered sweet nothings in the dead of night about how good a man he was and how honorable he’d become. How when he woke up from nightmares you’d already be sitting at his side and would curl a single strand of hair behind his ear and sing Jenny of Oldstones to lull him to sleep. 

How he’d left you with nothing but a ring to remember him by. 

  “Don’t fall in love with me, Jorah.” 

  “Why?” 

  “Because then you won’t be there when I need you.” 

Silence pierced the air as you dismounted and allowed one of the Unsullied to take your horse to the stables before you turned to greet Daenerys and Jorah. He stood at her side, hands behind his back and head bowed so he would not have to meet the coldness of your stare. 

Daenerys, however, saw no bitterness for the man beside her. The same man who had vowed his sword and his life to her cause, and had hidden the memory of the woman he loved deep within his heart so he would not be forced to revisit the pain of leaving her behind.  

  “Your Grace, it is a pleasure to finally meet you face to face.” Daenerys smiled and held up a hand, motioning to Jorah with a flick of her head. She very clearly was ready to leave the two of you alone for much needed reconciliation after years apart. 

  “The pleasure is all mine, My Lady. If you’ll excuse me, I have some matters that must be attended to.” Once Daenerys disappeared from view, you moved forward and extended your hand just enough to unlace Jorahs from where they trembled behind his back. Your fingers trailed down the furs that lined his arms until they linked with his own, and he stared down in disbelief before you lifted his chin just high enough to meet his eyes. 

  “Oh.” Oh indeed. “Jorah Mormont, you insufferable man.. Never has a woman missed her husband as I have missed you.” Your chest constricted painfully when you heard the way his breathing hitched and saw the tears that formed in his eyes. 

  “I remain undeserving-” 

  “Never has there been a man more deserving of my love.” You cradled his face in your hands and pressed the ghost of a kiss against the curve of his mouth just as you had done all those years ago on the training grounds. “A man more honorable, or more loyal.” Your lips trailed until they hovered over his own just close enough to feel the warmth of his breath against your skin. “No one I have loved more other then you.” 

He claimed you with his kiss. It’s difficult to preserve your emotions in front of Winterfells gates and not let him take you right there, but there had never been a time in your life when you had been so touched at how gentle he was. Years have passed since you had done this - allowing the man you love to lay his claim to you with his mouth and the slow caress of your tongue against his own. Jorah hoped you couldn’t hear the way his heart thundered when you tangled your fingers through his hair and wound them tightly enough to pull his face away. 

  “Tell me again.” He breathed. Your eyes narrowed on his lips, the flesh swollen from the intensity of your kiss. His chest was having and his hair untamed by the way you gripped it, but never had there been a time where Jorah Mormont looked so sinful. “Tell me again.” 

  “I love you.” 

No one talked about the way they saw the two of you emerge from the same chambers the following morning. How much more Jorah smiled in Daenerys presence when he knew that you were near, or how your laughter sang in the halls of Winterfell’s keep. 

He took you again the night before the battle. Your head was dazed with the effects of the wine Jaime Lannister had so graciously offered you to drink, and then again, and then again until you’d lost count after five goblets worth. The eldest Lannister was rather intriguing to be around especially when he wove tales of his times in Kings Landing - the Capital of the South - and it made you miss home even more then you had as a young girl. 

But the home you’d come to know since then was burning holes through the back of his skull from across the room, where Tormund Giantsbane made a raucous about how you were his and he should make that known to the suitors who were so clearly drawn to you. 

  “Home.” 

You had just begun to unlace his shirt when he caught your hand in his own, and your brow furrowed in confusion as his eyes fluttered shut. Whatever he was trying to prevent you from seeing beneath the fabric very clearly embarrassed him. “Jorah?” You whispered, fingers dancing along the curve of his jaw. Just the very touch of you set every nerve on fire. 

It had been so long since he'd done this. Had intimately been with a woman, let alone been with you, and you had yet to be made aware of the scars that came with his greyscale. He loathed the kind of man he’d become in his absence from you, so why should he believe you’d love him like this?

  “I don’t want you to see this.” 

  “See what?” 

   “Daenerys did not speak of my greyscale. I was away from her in search of a cure, which I found, and now there are so many-” You wrenched open the laces of his shirt and pushed it over his shoulders, gaze softening at the array of ridged scars that lined his torso. There were so much more then the last time you’d seen him. 

  “Scars?” You lifted your head just enough to brush your lips against the one closest to you, and Jorah trembled beneath your touch as you continued your trek across the valleys and ridges of his chest. “A lot of women think scars are sexy.” 

He was stunned when you flipped your position and were able to straddle him. Your knees locked at his hips and you were hunched over just enough that you were able to brush your lips against his chest, and the groan you emitted was the sexiest thing you’d ever heard. 

Then he said it again, in the midst of desperately trying to control the tears brought upon by your acceptance. 

  “Don’t fall any deeper in love with me, my wife.” 

  “Why?” 

  “Because then you won’t be there when I need you.” 

The sounds of battle raged on around him as he desperately sought out both you and Daenerys. His sight was shrouded in darkness from the ash that rained down from the heavens, corpses lined the Earth at his feet and the smell of blood remained pungent in the air. He didn’t even want to think about what would happen if the blood belonged to you. 

Daenerys had accepted you and Jorah as her sworn shields the same day you’d met her, and after much time spent together, you vowed your service and your life to The Dragon Queen in the halls of Winterfell. You and Jorah had been apart too long and you were adamant that you wouldn’t be separated anytime soon. 

Only the Gods had other plans for you. 

It was just when he found you in the midst of fending off a wight that had been ready to attack Daenerys that the first blade pierced through your armor. Daenerys froze as you stood your ground, gritting your teeth so hard that your ears began to ring. 

Then the next blade came, and the pain followed with it. It began as an ache in your abdomen, and continued on until your entire body felt as if it had been doused in dragon fire. Every cell of your existence was screaming. Your eyes burned and your hands were stained scarlet, but yet here you stood. 

Jorah was paralyzed in his place, and it was right before the last blade pierced you that you desperately screamed his name. Screamed so terrifyingly loud that he was positive you were lost to him. 

 You both had gone and done exactly what you feared the most: You had fallen in love with each other, and now after just getting you back, Jorah Mormont was about to lose the only thing in his life besides Daenerys that had given him a reason to breathe. A reason to wake up in the morning and keep moving. 

  “Hey, hey Y/N,” His voice bordered on the edge of a plea as your eyes fluttered and lifted to gaze at the sky. “We will take you to the Maester at once. Your wounds will heal and we will return to the Bear Islands once Daenerys holds the Iron Throne. I swear it,” Jorah swallowed the knot in his throat as a broken laugh fell from your lips. “Y/N-” 

  “I told you not to fall in love with me, you idiot.” 

  “And I told you I’d never stop loving you.” He curled his fingers through your hair and cradled your head in his hands, focusing on the rise and fall of your chest. It was slowing down now. Your breaths were fewer and fewer with each minute that passed. “Please, Y/N-” 

  “Never has there been another, Ser Jorah Mormont.’’ Tears trekked through the blood that stained your cheeks as he rested his forehead against your own. And for a moment, it was just the two of you, and no one else. There was no war against the Night King, no threat of Death looming overhead, no war of The Queens for the seat on the Iron Throne. It was just the two of you. Only you. “My heart has been yours, and it remains yours-” 

  “I swear it.” 

Daenerys was the one to pull him from his internal hysteria when she saw your eyes go blank and your chest stop moving. Her hand fell to your own that laid limp at your side, and the breath was knocked from her lungs as she recognized the shape of a wedding band even through the ash and blood that stained the metal. 

When Jorah took the ring into his hand and wiped the blood from the metal, he caught sight of the engraving you’d had done only days after the wedding had taken place. He’d never seen it before now, but the sight of it only wounded him more deeply as he cradled your head against his chest. 

I am his and he is mine 

  “From this day,” He held the ring to his lips and kissed it. “Until the end of my days.” 

[tio-trile]

Do you have any earlier art pieces that you can post? I’m have trouble keeping faith that my skills will get better, you’re an amazing artist and I’d love to how you’ve progressed. And do you have any tips, books or anything that you could point me towards, like skill wise and such. Thanks. ❤️

I kept my Deviantart account activated in case I ever want to feel particularly cringey, if you scroll to the bottom you can find some of my art dating back to 2011. https://www.deviantart.com/tio-trile/gallery/

Here’s a very early digital art I found that I did in 2010 with my first tablet and...MS paint I’m assuming??? And apparently it’s Vincent Van Gogh fanart?!

My art is far from great or perfect now, but as you can see, as long as you keep drawing, your skills are bound to get better. A big part of the “good art” you see is just from the sheer mileage the artists have on their practice -- If you even just scribble lines or circles on a page everyday, your lines become braver and prettier just from that. So draw draw draw. In terms of technical skills, other artists who have been drawing for a long time will definitely have some shorthand and summaries, but sometimes artists do it differently, and you just have to look at a lot of stuff and find the one that you feel comfortable with. The tips usually all work in conjunction and help each other, so looking at how other artists do things will usually only help you. Don’t be afraid to copy art while practicing, in the end the way you draw that comes out most comfortably -- that’s your style.

Sasa Tseng (dconthedancefloor) used to have a lot of great and clear tutorials in her tumblr but I guess her blog got deleted for NSFW?? I’m sure they’re still somewhere on Google, or you can check out her other social media accounts. My fanart style may not look it but in middle school Shadowline by Iain McCaig was my bible; I just love his style a lot. A tip that come to mind is try to be mindful of the silhouette to make the story of your drawing clearer.

Feel free to ask me for any other specific tips! Happy to be practicing and learning together, and best of luck in your endeavors!

[tinabritton-photography]

Clean White . . . The Next Project. NOT FINISHED -

Albert Watson

The iconic image below was captured by Scottish fashion photogragher, Albert Watson, in 1973. It was commissioned by Harper’s Bazaar Watson and framing their feature around Hitchcock’s prowess as a gourmet chef and his recipe for a Christmas goose.

There is nothing I don’t love about this image. The stark white background pushes Alfred Hitchcock and his prop (the defeathered duck wearing a bow tie) to the forground. There are no distractions of shadow. It’s purely about Hitchcock and his Christmas bird.

Amazingly, as this was Watson’s first famous subject, and since Watson had basic kit containing 2 lights, he managed this clean white portrait with only a white backdrop (to contrast with Hitchcock’s black suit), one light to the background and 1 umbrella light on Hitchcock himself.

The contrast in this image is amazing. I am a photographer that loves high contast images. This has always been a favourite of mine. It is humorous. It makes me smile (if you can get over the fact that he his holding a poor, plucked dead duck :(. ) There is an unimplied feeling about this image, as it is obvious to me, being a portrait photographer of sorts, that Hitchcock was at ease with Albert Watson. Humourous even. This says a lot about the photographer himself.

The image itself is crisp, the lines unhindered. There is no light spill. Nothing is out of place. As for pattern, there is a ‘gooseflesh’ pattern to the duck. 

1973, Alfred Hitchcock

(Johnson, 2019) (Profoto and stories, 2019)

Irving Penn

Jean Patchett, 1949

Irving Penn’s image depicts Jean Patchett in a dramatic fashion post. I chose this image not only for my love of hats, but for the close-fitting netting on her face that cause the honeycomb line pattern. The stark white background and high contrast really shows off her demur ‘oh my’ pose. There is nothing I don’t love in this image. The negative space has been made just as important as the positive. The eye starts at the top of the hat, moves around and down to the face and décolletage area, traces her fingers around then to her arm and leading back to her hat.

Since I love hats, this is my chosen image for practice in the studio on 1st of October 2019 when we come back from the holiday weekend.

(An American Goddess of Paris Couture: Jean Patchett | Official Site, 2019) (Christies.com, 2019)

David Bailey

Johnny Depp, 1995

David Bailey’s image of Johnny Depp is striking. Liquid blacks are riveting against the white of the background in this high contrast image. Depp’s fingers interlaced into his hair and the rings on his fingers create interest as the eye moves down to his black eyes then travels to his lips, up his arms and back to his hands. 

(Wall Street International, 2019)  (Artsy.net, 2019)

Platon Antoniou -

Was born in London in 1968. He first attended St Martin’s School of Art for Graphic Design and then recieved an MA at Royal College of Art for Photography and Fine art. He has worked for such magazines as ‘George’, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Rolling Stones, Esquire and GQ. Platon has captured images of many Presidents, from Barack Obama to Vladimir Putin. His last Presidential Portrait was of Bill Clinton. (All-about-photo.com, 2019)

Below we have a bold and graphic portrait of Stephen Hawking taken late 2017.  What draws me into this image is all the mechanical detail of Hawking’s chair leading our eyes into the face of the man himself. The perspective of this image, in my opinion, is superb. We are looking straight into the face of this great man. The graphic detail of this portrait, the blacks against the stark whites, and the perspective combined make this one of my favourite images of Platon.

(Platonphoto.com, 2019) (Medeiros, 2019)

Flóra Borsi - 

I’m throwing a wrench into this mix of famous photographers and images. For this brief we were to include 5 clean white images. It did not say the image could not be new, or old, or from only the very famous. Above I have included some iconic images that are some of my favourites.

However, during my research I found this young woman, and her series of white portraits. Flóra Borsi is a young fine art photographer from Hungary. She has exhibited solo in many places including the USA and Budapest to group exhibitions in France. She has been featured in publications from Adobe Creative Cloud and Adobe Photoshop to The Wall Street Journal.

While I am aware, at some point, after capture, that this image, most probably, has been taken into photoshop and added to, I just couldn’t exclude them. That being said, I could see that the image was indeed taken as a clean white, because we can see the slight reflection from the perspex beneath the model (unless of course, that was added as well, but I don’t think so).

This image is part of a series called Des Monstres by the photographer Flóra Borsi. It is fluid, graphic and most striking. Dark Fantasy meets Atmospheric. Everything about it screams motion. It feels alive. The extremes in contrast are eye catching, not only that, it holds the veiwer’s attention as the eye moves around the canvas. The perspective and flowing garment wrapping around this female model transforms the piece into a living artwork. Fascinating.

(Floraborsi.com, 2019)

Below are images of Alex Reilly showing us how to set up a clean white studio.

image from inside the isle we created.

taking readings with the Sekonic L-308S light meter.

Adam is the assistant. Alex is setting up the key light.

My test images Today . . . 12th September . . .

Noticed the red glare in Adam’s glases, so I had him remove them . . . Background grey. Adam’s face, in my opinion is too dark on the right. 

Again, we have the passport image of Adam. The background here is too grey. Adam is not looking into the camera. He was making a face, but it’s awesome because some of his personality is shining through. 

Much better. Here is Adam again. I wish I had noticed the headphones. I need to be more vigilant and aware of extraneous objects that do NOT need to be in the portrait. Again, the background is grey. 

Image of me that Alex took. There is no spill. The background is white. There has been no post processing. Question, Adam and I used the same set-up and took our images right after Alex did. What happened?

MY FINAL IMAGES on First day of Clean White Project With Alex Reilly

In Studio with Alex we were shown the correct way of setting up for Clean White. We used to lights on the background and 2 lights on the subject. We used the Sekonic L308S Flash Meter to insure even lighting of the background. It was at F11. Then we were better able to set up for the image, insuring we were at F8 for the shots. 

Here we have Adam in my 1st 2 images of clean white. We only got to take a couple of images each. He is looking directly into the camera. His eyes are in sharp focus. I took this image and his next into Lightroom. First I changed the settings to monochrome and worked within those parameters. I cropped the image to remove the headphones and bring immediacy to the portrait. There is a real punch to the image now after working with the contrast, highlights, shadows, whites and blacks. Then I moved on to the B&W Mix settings. I took the yellow to +51, the orange to +7, green to +9, magenta +100. I then went into transform change the vertical setting to -10. This brought Adam more in line with looking straight at the camera. I cropped the image further by bringing up the scale and close cropping. I wanted his eyes to be the main event really.  

We took the images into Lightroom with Alex in Imaging class to finish them.

This is a fun image of Adam. His eyes are serious, yet he is pursing his lips. I made the same adjustments to this image as I did with the one above.

This is my passport image I have edited in Photoshop . . . I have taken away the slight greyish tint using adjustment masks. It took longer than using Lightroom with Adam’s images. This is much better. I have cropped the image to the correct measurements required by the UK Passport website. 

2ND Day of Clean White In Studio with Dawn Martin

I feel the second day was more difficult. First of all, we had much trouble with the lights where we were working in the studio. Alex from the store was called in, and between Iain (Alex Reilly was unable to attend the class that day) Alex (store) and John, they helped change out the lights. By this time, 3/4 of the morning class time was gone. We were to get 1 silhouette, 1 low-key and 1 high-key image completed. That wasn’t to be. Our group was not quite as successful as we were the first day. We were shown a totally different way of doing the Clean White, and I felt it was confusing. But as we learned on the day, there are many different ways of capturing clean white images. 

The 2nd half of the day, Studio 2, was also chaotic. As a group, we kept forgetting to check our images to see if the clean white was achieved. So the first half of my clean white images in the contact sheet below were either too blue, too sepia, or had chromatic aberrations. Finally around half way through we were capturing more acceptable images. The images were not in total silhouette however, because of light leakage caused by the close proximity of the nearby ‘studios’ throwing light onto the subjects during flash. 

Contact sheet

In the above contact sheet, you can almost tell, before ever having seen the images up close, which photos were good, and which are not so much. We could have gotten a lot more acceptable images if we had checked often throughout the process. I have learned a lot today.

Final practice shots from 24th September . . . Still need work . . .

Adam . . .

Derek . . .

Hannah . . .

Derek . . .

Aiden . . . 

AL . . .

Johnson, B. (2019). Photographer Albert Watson on getting the stars to pose - Macleans.ca. [online] Macleans.ca. Available at: https://www.macleans.ca/culture/movies/up-close-and-personal-2/#gallery/albert-watson/slide-3 [Accessed 11 Sep. 2019].

Profoto, T. and stories, P. (2019). The story behind the image of Alfred Hitchcock. [online] Profoto. Available at: https://profoto.com/uk/profoto-stories/albert-watson-alfred-hitchcock [Accessed 13 Sep. 2019].

An American Goddess of Paris Couture: Jean Patchett | Official Site. (2019). Photo Art Gallery - An American Goddess of Paris Couture: Jean Patchett | Official Site. [online] Available at: https://jeanpatchett.com/galleries/photo-art-gallery/ [Accessed 13 Sep. 2019].

Nationalgalleries.org. (2019). Platon Antoniou | National Galleries of Scotland. [online] Available at: https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/artists/platon-antoniou [Accessed 17 Oct. 2019].

Christies.com. (2019). How Irving Penn ‘changed the way people saw the world’ | Christie's. [online] Available at: https://www.christies.com/features/Guide-to-Irving-Penn-9751-1.aspx [Accessed 13 Sep. 2019].

Wall Street International. (2019). David Bailey. Stardust. [online] Available at: https://wsimag.com/it/arte/13965-david-bailey-stardust [Accessed 13 Sep. 2019].

Artsy.net. (2019). David Bailey | Johnny Depp (1995) | Artsy. [online] Available at: https://www.artsy.net/artwork/david-bailey-johnny-depp [Accessed 13 Sep. 2019].

All-about-photo.com. (2019). Platon (Antoniou) Photographer | All About Photo. [online] Available at: https://www.all-about-photo.com/photographers/photographer/377/platon-antoniou [Accessed 19 Oct. 2019]. (All-about-photo.com, 2019)

Platonphoto.com. (2019). platon. [online] Available at: http://platonphoto.com/gallery/portraits/business--technology/edwardsnowden/ [Accessed 19 Oct. 2019]. (Platonphoto.com, 2019)

Medeiros, J. (2019). Stephen Hawking obituary: a life defined by brilliance and mischief. [online] Wired.co.uk. Available at: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/stephen-hawking-obituary [Accessed 19 Oct. 2019]. (Medeiros, 2019)

Floraborsi.com. (2019). Flora Borsi - Des Monstres. [online] Available at: https://floraborsi.com/des-monstres [Accessed 19 Oct. 2019]. (Floraborsi.com, 2019)

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“We Wargamed the Last Days of Brexit. Here’s What We Found Out.”

Digital Elixir “We Wargamed the Last Days of Brexit. Here’s What We Found Out.”

Yves here. It seemed fitting to post again on Brexit, if nothing else to commemorate, if that’s the right word, Boris Johnson becoming Prime Minister of the UK Wednesday afternoon.

It’s not a good omen that the EU has felt compelled to debunk Johnson’s campaign claims about Brexit that have been taken up again by allies. From the Guardian:

Boris Johnson’s claims that crashing out of the EU with no deal would be less painful because of a series of “side deals” that the UK has already done with Brussels have been dismissed as “rubbish” by the EU….

Iain Duncan Smith referred to 17 side deals on the table while the former chancellor Norman Lamont told Sky News hours after Johnson won the Tory leadership contest that “there is no such thing as no deal” as there were “all sorts of side deals that were done”.

A senior EU official described the claims of side deals as “pure rubbish”, pointing out that the so-called deals are unilateral positions taken by the EU alone to keep the basics functioning on their side of the border.

Michel Barnier felt compelled to remind Johnson that the Withdrawal Agreement was the only deal on offer:

We look forward to working constructively w/ PM @BorisJohnson when he takes office, to facilitate the ratification of the Withdrawal Agreement and achieve an orderly #Brexit. We are ready also to rework the agreed Declaration on a new partnership in line with #EUCO guidelines.

— Michel Barnier (@MichelBarnier) July 23, 2019

Other EU leaders were more pointed. From the Independent:

The EU has shot down Boris Johnson’s Brexit plan within moments of his appointment as Tory leader, in the latest sign that the bloc has no plans to make concessions.

In an intervention timed to coincide with Mr Johnson’s election announcement, Frans Timmermans, the European Commission’s first vice president, told reporters in Brussels that the EU would not renegotiate the deal reached with Theresa May.

Another EU commissioner, Vytenis Andriukaitis, also warned that politicians like Mr Johnson were undermining democracy with “cheap promises, simplified visions, blatantly evident incorrect statements”.

A new article at Politico takes up the theme that EU leaders see Johnson as a joke:

After years of laughing at him, Europeans simply don’t take Johnson seriously. At this stage, it’s difficult to imagine what could change their minds.

While Europeans may take delight in lampooning Donald Trump, they also respect (and fear) the power of his office…

But no one’s afraid of Johnson.

Though the U.K. remains a key strategic player within Europe, that reliance cuts across both sides of the Channel. Following the seizure of a British-flagged oil tanker by Iran last week, for example, the U.K. responded by calling for a European naval force to protect sea routes in the Strait of Hormuz.

When it comes to the economy, the U.K. is far more dependent on the EU than vice versa.

That’s why Europe’s response to Johnson’s threat to leave the EU come what may on October 31, deal or no deal, has been a polite yawn.

Corbyn has promised a “surprise” no confidence motion (huh?) but it’s not clear his fellow MPs would be keen to have elections now, given how badly Labour has been polling. Bloomberg reports that Johnson said he won’t call a snap election.

To elicit further reader input, we’re posting yet another Brexit piece that has us scratching our heads. It described how the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (IWM) and the ERSTE Foundation in Vienna set up a large team that was diverse by background, nationality, and political views, to “wargame” Brexit.

What is frustrating is that the effort got so much right in terms of how it assigned roles and set parameters, but got one part disastrously wrong: that Brexit is a default, and the Government has to either sign the Withdrawal Agreement, ask for an extension, or revoke Article 50 to prevent an October 31 departure. By making Parliament the focus of the wargame, the exercise had the effect of getting the participants to see Parliament as in charge when it isn’t.

This is consistent with the fact that Parliament isn’t taking steps sufficient to prevent a crashout and seems to be kidding itself about the effectiveness of its gambits to date. Only legislation instructing the Prime Minister could do that. Mere motions or the blocking of particular avenues, like keeping the Government from proroguing Parliament, aren’t adequate. The fact that MPs aren’t objecting to the normal summer recess or the expected September break for party caucuses is a sign of unseriousness.

If Johnson were clever and determined to have his Brexit, he’s minimize but not entirely eliminate Parliamentary time for Brexit. Of course, MPs could try to add a “no crashout” amendment to another bit of legislation. Could Johnson schedule any “must have early on” bills for early in the session, before enough MPs realize only legislation can stop a no deal if that’s what Johnson wants or winds up stumbling into?

As you’ll see, the wargame results in vote for a second referendum. It’s hard to see that happening by the end of October, or even year end, if for some reason the UK asks for an extension and the EU agrees to a short one. And it’s hard to see a second referendum solving anything. The tacit assumption is that UK voters will reverse themselves, but what if they don’t? And I’ve yet to see how to formulate second referendum questions to get at what “Leave” means.

And statements like this don’t help the second referendum cause. It comes off at too close to saying a second referendum result reaffirming Leave would not be acceptable:

By Luke Cooper, a Senior Lecturer in International Politics at Anglia Ruskin University and a Visiting Fellow on the Europe’s Futures programme at the IWM in 2018 – 2019. He is currently writing a book on the crisis of the European Union. @lukecooper100. Originally published at openDemocracy

Scenario planning plays an important role in modern politics. Political contestation is the art of out-manoeuvring opponents. By attempting to anticipate the moves they will make in response to events and problems, party leaderships or factions plan for possible eventualities. They seek to defeat the other side by outwitting them strategically. Simulation games are aimed at helping these efforts by building up a picture of how their opponents behave.

Interpretive Hypotheses

Such games can hone strategic thinking, but they are, of course, necessarily imperfect, ‘probabilistic’ exercises. However well scenarios are prepared for there will always be too many variables for us to ‘know’ the future. There are simply too many possible events and factors that might occur, and interact in unique, complex and contingent ways, for us to be entirely sure what the actual course of history will be. E.H. Carr made this point in his famous text, What is History? Carr argued that, by the middle of the twentieth century, historians had abandoned determinism and were now more modest in their goals. ‘Content to inquire how things work’, as he put it.[i]

Rather than believing the goal of an enquiry into the past was to achieve certainty about the course of events in the future, Carr instead proposed a method based on hypothesis and interpretation. For Carr a good hypothesis constituted a ‘tool of thought, valid in so far as it is illuminating, and dependent for its validity on interpretation’.[ii] The logic of this principle was simple. History does not follow a strict determinism. But neither is anything possible. Drawing on Carr we might say that any study of a political process requires interpreting the mix of interests and circumstances in order to illuminate how exactly it evolves over time. Carr serves as a useful frame for a simulation game exercise.

The Brexit Simulation

A group of us recently participated in a simulation game to model the future of the Brexit process. By assuming different roles amongst the forces in conflict over the future of the United Kingdom, we hoped to gain a greater understanding of the process and what might come next. We solicited the help of Richard Barbrook, an academic at Westminster University, and director of Digital Liberties, a UK-based cooperative that has pioneered the use of participatory simulations to anticipate political scenarios. His book, Class Wargames, applies the ideas of the French situationist, Guy Debord, who advocated the use of strategy games as performative, even theatrical, exercises to understand one’s political opponents and their strategic thinking. Barbrook designed the game, which he called, Meaningful Votes: The Brexit Simulation.

Collaborating on this initiative with the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (IWM) and the ERSTE Foundation in Vienna we assembled a group of participants in Vienna comprised of civil society, journalists, academics and intellectuals.They were a mixture of nationalities, from Austria, the Balkans, the United States and Britain, and held a plurality of political views from left to right. For mainland European participants the game provided an opportunity to empirically rationalise a crisis that many had found inexplicable; for example, the refusal hitherto of the British parties to find a compromise on Brexit in Parliament is highly alien to those used to the political systems with a culture of building consensus (often with proportional representation), that exist in Germany, the Netherlands and Austria. Each participant took on the role of a faction within Parliament with the game beginning after the defeat of the heavy defeat of the First Meaningful Vote on 15 January 2019.

Simulating the Factions

As Brexit has radically disrupted the existing British party system, the factional roles assumed by players did not tend to align with a particular party leadership. Instead different Tory and Labour factions were represented within the game. Each player had a series of votes allocated in the British Parliament. Larger factions had two different vote allocations: ‘waverers’ and diehards. They could potentially cast these votes in different directions. Another element of the game design lay in a consciously British-centric approach. An assumption underpinning the game was that the EU side would act as, in gaming-terms, a ‘dummy-player’. This refers to when an actor is present within a scenario, who does not face choices that affect the overall arc of the decision pathway. With modifications to the Withdrawal Agreement persistently ruled out by the EU, had players assumed this vantage point they would not have faced any choices. As a dummy-player, the umpire thus articulated the position of the EU-27 states at key decision-making points across the game.

Following the playful spirit of Debord’s legacy, this really was a game.Players accumulated points in relation to different votes passing and goals being reached. Some had hidden objectives that were revealed at the end of the game, identifying a potential conflict between the public statements of factions and their underlying motivations. The ‘winner’ had the most points at the end of the game.

Towards ‘No Brexit’

So what happened? And what did we learn from this exercise?

The outcome of the game eventually resolved itself in a new referendum. By this stage the game had moved into the near future of early autumn 2019. The cross-party negotiations had failed to reach a breakthrough acceptable to both leaderships. Softer members of the Tory Brexit Delivery Group then split away from the party leadership, crossing the floor to support a new referendum. Interestingly, this came as a surprise to the game designer, Barbrook, who had anticipated a stalemate and a further extension of Article 50 at the end of October 2019.

If this suggests the game had a Remain bias, other moments in the scenario serve to refute this. At an earlier moment in the game a majority emerged in Parliament in spite of opposition from Labour and the Remain parties, for the kind of technological solution to the Irish border question favoured by the ERG as an alternative to the troubled ‘Irish backstop’. Assuming the dummy-player function, the EU then intervened via the umpire into the Parliamentary scenario to rule out an agreement without the backstop. With Parliament then voting against leaving without a deal, the political factions were confronted with the same problem they have at the current time.

The crux of this decision is ultimately a narrow one: few options are still available to parties, making the outcome relatively straightforward to model. Leave on the deal May has negotiated with the EU, which is unpopular with Brexit voters and with Labour Remain voters who would like a second referendum. Or negotiate changes to the UK-future relationship document (the Withdrawal Agreement will not be reopened by the EU) to make the Brexit deal softer, making it more palatable for the Labour Party but even less acceptable to Brexit voters and Brexiters in the Tory party. As the changes are not legally binding on a future Tory prime minister even a Labour Party leadership wishing to ‘deliver Brexit’ has little incentive to support such a deal. This leaves only two further choices. Hold new elections in the hope they might produce a balance in the Parliament more conducive to striking a deal. Or, move towards a new referendum, which includes the opportunity to remain in the EU.

Globalisation, Brexit and Strategic Choices

The outcome of the game is not an exact prediction of events in the near future. One player’s calculation that at a certain stage the mainstream of the Tory party will have to try and ‘move on’ from Brexit by peeling off towards a referendum is what Carr called an interpretive hypothesis. It will be tested in the months ahead.

Rather the game offers an insight into the interests that will shape this and the core contradiction underpinning the process: that there is not a tangible, pragmatic form of Brexit acceptable to the people that want Brexit. The vote in the game for ‘technological solutions to the Irish border’ was analogous with, though not identical to, Parliament’s vote on the 30 January 2019 for the ‘Brady amendment’, which mandated the government to seek changes to the Irish backstop as a condition for passing the Withdrawal Agreement. Having passed by 317 votes to 301, Theresa May hailed it as demonstrating a ‘substantial and sustainable majority’ for leaving the EU. When the EU insisted on the Irish backstop, the refusal of the hard Brexiters and the DUP to compromise forced a logic of events that points increasingly to ‘no Brexit’.

“We Wargamed the Last Days of Brexit. Here’s What We Found Out.”

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Iain Macnab by Herbert B Grimsditch

Below is an essay on Iain Macnab. Someone who is talked about for his and Claude Flight’s Grosvenor School. I didn’t really know a lot about Macnab but the text and illustrations are from The Artist, April 1937. 

The old adage that "Those that can, do; those that can’t, teach” is one of those half-truths that are dangerous from their very speciousness. It is a good thing to dissect and expose them once in a while. So far as the fine arts are concerned, one need not look far for examples to prove the frequent falsity of this cruel and facile allegation. 

 Iain Macnab - LNER Poster

Sickert is one conspicuous case; Tonks (whose recent loss we mourn) is another; and among the younger men one could hardly select a better subject than lain Macnab, who can both ‘do’ and ‘teach’ with talent and finish, and who is an artist teacher because he has the two-fold vocation. 

The clarity of his exposition, the whole-hearted enthusiasm with which he descants on art, the breadth and catholicity of his views, mark him out a born teacher; while his own production as a painter and engraver is proof of his capacity as a practising artist. 

Macnab is of Highland ancestry, and comes of an ancient and celebrated line of Scottish armourers, the Macnabs of Barachastalain. He has always found his hand respond easily to any new technique, and he is inclined to attribute this manual aptitude to the ingrained hereditary habit produced by an age-long tradition of fine engraved work on pistols and other arms. Also, there were artists on both sides of his family. His father was in the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank, and Macnab was born on 21st October, 1890, at Iloilo, in the Philippine Islands, which were then under Spanish control. He lisped in Spanish as an infant but at the age of four he was brought home to Kilmalcolm, in Renfrewshire.

 Iain Macnab - Fisherman at Portofino, 1937

During a holiday in Ireland at the age of seven a gypsy foretold that he would become an artist. He was educated at Merchiston and left school at eighteen. Already as a boy his interests were turned to sculpture, painting and cartooning, with the first perhaps pre-eminent, but the career chosen for him was that of chartered accountant, and he duly served his artiles thereto in Glasgow for five and a half years. He was due to sit for his final examination in October, 1914; with the prospect if he passed, of an excellent post in the Philippines, leading to the early reversion of a complete business.

But the outbreak of the war formed a pretext for abandoning accountancy, and Macnab enlisted at once as a private in the Highland Light Infantry. Being already trained in the school cadet corps, he found himself in France by the end of October, 1914 and is a Mons Star man. In April, 1915 he was granted a regular commission in the 2nd Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. During the battle of Loos he was blown up by a shell. After some little time symptoms of grave internal injury became evident; and in July, 1916 he was invalided out of the service. 

 Iain Macnab - Spring Landscape, Tossa, 1936

His cure was by no means complete, however, and it was not until 1918 that he was well enough to take the art course he had promised himself. 

In that year he became a student at Heatherley’s. He had already seen and studied many good paintings; he had an uncle who knew several of the Impressionists, and who used to talk art with him; and in general his mind was well stored with paintings lore. He started work with the determination to be a professional artist or nothing; the amateur status had no attraction for him. His rapid progress, his fertility in ideas, and his clear and ready exposition of them, led Henry Massey, the Principal of the School, to see in him a potentially valuable teacher. So strongly did Massey feel this that after only a year he offered Macnab the post of joint Principal of Heatherley's. 

With this offer Macnab closed, and as a teacher worked with enthusiasm at the School till temporarily put out of action again, in 1925, by a too-vigorous pull at the etching press. While convalescent in a nursing home he decided that the time had come when he needed, for the proper expression of his educational theories, a school under his sole personal control; so, once well again he found a big house in Warwick Square, Belgravia, and on 19th October, 1925 opened there the Grosvenor School of Modern Art.

 Iain Macnab - Illustrations for Burns’s Tam o’Shanter, 1934

Macnab had thought out the broad principles on which he wished to run his school. His idea was not so much to train students to paint what they saw, in the crude sense, as to teach them to isolate from nature the elements that are truly pictorial, and then to develop their own personalities. His ambition was to make artists. 

To be an artist, as distinguished from a mere competent draughtsman, he felt, it is necessary first to have a personality to express. It is indispensable to the production of a work of art that an emotional reaction shall take place. Of that reaction the drawing is only a vehicle. He stresses the cardinal importance of composition; the students are encouraged to approach every problem in terms of design from the beginning, and to build up their drawings gradually on logical principles. 

The preliminary visualisation of a subject in planes and its resolution by successive steps into a picture giving the illusion of three-dimensional form are clearly expounded in his recent book on ‘Figure Drawing.’ He is a firm believer in the virtues of wood-engraving as a discipline for all artists, since in this medium every mark must have its significance, and the whole thing must be thought out thoroughly in advance, for there is no scope for fumbling or retouching.

 Iain Macnab - Figure Drawing, 1936 

Macnab considers himself lucky to have attracted, from the first, a serious-minded type of student, took kindly to his inexorable rule of silence while at work in the studio. This rule shows his common sense, and is by no means the mark of the martinet. No one, indeed, could be less like the more starched kind of pedagogue than Macnab; and when the time comes for exposition and discussion he not only admits but encourages the criticisms of students. 

He believes in the thorough ventilation of the subject, and strives to train his pupils to see the inwardness of widely-differing styles. Side by side with his teaching activities Macnab has pursued a versatile course as an artist. He began painting in 1918, and has developed, both in oils and water-colours, a distinctive style that, while it has nothing outré about it, is thoroughly in the modern trend of design. 

In October, 1922 he decided that he would like to etch. He was told of five-year courses and suchlike, but this did not suit him, so he bought copper, tools, acid and a book on etching, and within three months had produced six prints which were good enough to secure his election as an Associate of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers. For some years he exhibited etchings at the Academy, but in 1929 he decided that the copper was altogether too facile and deserted it for wood engraving. 

Iain Macnab - Illustration from Burns’s Tam o’Shanter, 1934

This medium he took up largely because of its recalcitrance, because of the stern discipline it imposes. In it he has done some of his finest work; and one might go a long way before finding wood-engravings to equal the ‘Tam of Shanter’ illustrations here Shown, with their beautiful distribution of blacks and whites and their admirable translation of the famous story into graphic terms.

Macnab is a member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, Honorary Treasurer of the National Society, and was made a full R.E. in 1935. He has held only one one-man Show, at the old Albany Gallery, Sackville Street. He exhibits each year at the Royal Scottish Academy, and frequently at the London Group, the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, the New English Art Club and the National Society. He has achieved much, and much more may be expected from him in the future.

[eclecticmuses]

Agents of SHIELD: a DragonCon Post-Mortem

Now that I’m back home from the con and actually have time to sit down and type, I thought I’d do a rundown of all my experiences AoS-related to share with you guys. I attended both the Saturday and Sunday panels and made a few trips to the Walk of Fame (autograph hall) to meet the cast members who attended. I had a great time, as I always do at DragonCon (this was my 10th year attending!) and I’m already looking forward to next year. Hopefully we’ll get just as many AoS guests then.

My big takeaways from the panels and chatting with the guests: - we haven’t seen the last of Talbot/Graviton - “have hope” for Mackelena - I think Liz still considers Jemma and Fitz to be married - Mark Kolpack (sfx supervisor) is directing an episode this season - don’t bother asking anyone anything about season 6 because all they will say is “I can’t say anything”

More details on the above and my talks with the guests below the cut because this is going to get long (sorry to all of you on mobile!)

Talbot/Graviton: I went by Adrian’s table on Friday and told him I’d met him once before at his last DragonCon appearance in 2010 and had been hoping he’d come back ever since I’d started watching AoS because I love him as Talbot. When I told him I kinda hated to see him go out the way he did, Adrian was kinda like “hey--you never know--” and then asked me what’s at the center of the sun. When I blanked, he said (according to Marvel lore) it’s gravitonium. And when I told him I’m glad we’re getting season 6, he said “good things are coming” like he’s in the knowledge loop, and that made me kinda perk up like WHAT DO YOU KNOW. He reiterated the bit about gravitonium and the sun at the Saturday panel, and whenever he was asked a question about Graviton, instead of saying something like “he’s gone, he’s defeated, he’s dead” he’d just say “I can’t say anything” and was super coy. I think he also said he’s visited set since they’ve started filming season 6. Soooooo yeah I think he’s coming back.

Mackelena: someone asked Natalia a question on Saturday about how Mack and Yoyo are doing going into season 6 and after hemming and hawing for a minute, she just said to have hope for them. That was about the most direct answer any season 6 question got.

Fitzsimmons still married: this one is fuzzy in my memory because Liz wasn’t actually asked a lot of FS-related questions at either panel but I think she (as in she, Liz) still considers them married. At least, that’s how I took it. One that sticks out more to me was the person on Sunday who said FS seem to be in a calmer spot right now and Liz deadpanned “Are you caught up on the show?”

Kolpack directing: Dichen confirmed this on Saturday.

No season 6 clues: Seriously. They were so mum. No hints, aside from Natalia’s one about Mackelena. Not even speaking to them at their tables (not that I directly asked for hints).

Alright, here’s how things went speaking to them individually.

Max - I met him first, on Friday. I must have spoken to him for about 10 minutes or so because he didn’t have a line. He was so nice, and very chatty. He asked where I was from, how long of a drive it was, Chicago vs Atlanta humidity (lol), etc etc. He said aside from one brief job in SC that he’s never actually been to the South. I said that I knew he didn’t have the official story on how Davis survived, but what did he think happened? He said he didn’t know, but he’d read some good fan theories, and that when he originally came back Jed had floated putting him in a back brace and a cane or a wheelchair, but ended up just going with his Mystery Scar. He did say it’s kind of strange to be filming now, knowing it won’t air for so long, and that there’s a chance the premiere might get bumped up if another show flops but he wouldn’t count on it. We talked a little about my costumes and he asked me to come back on Saturday so he could see my servitor costume (I did and he liked it). Also, he said he thinks we’ll really like season 6. Also also, he’s tall. Like, damn. I’m 5′7″ and I only came up to his chin.

Dichen - I got really nervous talking to her for some reason, but she was really sweet about it. I told her about my experience being on the signing side of an autograph table and how surreal it was. She said she gets nervous talking to us, too. Soft-spoken and just a very nice woman.

Natalia - I saw her twice, once on Saturday and once on Sunday. On Saturday I told her how much I admired her for her outspoken activism and how strong she is about it and how I don’t always feel very brave to do the same, but I tried to support a good cause by buying some lipstick. She laughed and said I should take some glamor photos of me putting it on. When I went back on Sunday, I had my marauder Fitz with me and she kinda freaked out over our costumes a little, saying they were fantastic and so good and had we shown Liz yet? Then I gave her a print of my season 5 group art and she freaked out again. She said she wanted to frame it and hang it on the wall of her house and put it on Instagram when she did (and made sure my name was on the back so she could). I didn’t expect her to reply to my Instagram/tweet of our photo together, and I REALLY didn’t expect her to both Instagram and tweet my art a few hours later! Having her call me Mama to my face and on social media, honestly I feel blessed. She was so warm, I’m so, so glad I got to meet her.

Liz - I’ve met her before of course but I still get nervous every time. I went Saturday in my servitor costume and as soon as I stepped in front of her, she said “Hello again!” I was like, “you remember me?” And she said “Yes, yes, because you always do the lovely costumes!” So that was super nice. I asked her how she was doing and if she’d had a good flight in (she’d arrived quite late the night before) and she said she was just glad she hadn’t had to take a red eye. She complimented my costume again and signed the 100th episode poster I’d brought, and then I presented her with the leopard print cat ears. My con roommate and one of my best friends had brought several of them, left over from building a costume, and I was like LEOPARD PRINT I should bring Liz a pair! She legit gasped when she saw them and asked if she could put them on right that second. I told her of course she good, so she did and put both of us (and my sister!) on her Instagram. I ended up having to go back later in the afternoon because I’d forgotten the card with Deke’s mom’s quote I was going to get signed for @agl03‘s daughter and Liz was still wearing the cat ears. I asked how she was holding up because my sister had advised her that they hurt after being worn for awhile, and she said that she’d had to take a short break but she put them back on because they were too adorable. :D I also remembered to ask her how she enjoyed shadowing Clark (she loved it) and that I knew she couldn’t say whether or not she’d been asked to direct an episode (she gave me an “of course not” face lol) but if she COULD direct, would she? She said of course she would, it’s her dream! On Sunday Jason (my Fitz) and I had our photo op with her right after the panel and she was like HEEEYYYY when we came in and told us we looked great. At her table, I got another selfie and gave her a print of the same art I gave Natalia. She too said she’d hang it on her wall at home, and propped it up on her table so everyone could see it. Then I thanked her for being so candid with her Instagram story where she talked about getting rid of her old jeans, and how I’d held on to a pair of jeans from before I’d had my son for a loooong time, hoping to fit back into them someday. Then I thanked her for going through the tag we’d made for her re: that story on Twitter, and she said we were all very sweet for doing it.

That’s about the sum of my AoS DragonCon experience. I’ll be happy to answer any questions any of you might have about the panels and the individual guests! One last tidbit. At the Saturday panel, conversation somehow got turned to which cast member they’d like to put on Queer Eye. Natalia said Iain because he’d be so uncomfortable the whole time, and Max said Jeff because he’s been to his house. When Dichen protested that Jeff keeps a tidy house, Max was like “Ookay.” Also Adrian told a really funny story about shooting his finale fight scene with Chloe that had everyone laughing.

[buzzedbabe]

@thewolfdragon @richard-madden @maddennfl86 @thenorthremembersalways @thefashionprofessor @robbstarkmademedoit @what-would-wonderwoman-do

story below for those that can’t read it

How much time are you spending thinking about Bodyguard? A lot, I bet. The new BBC thriller, about the relationship between an ambitious and unknowable home secretary and her PTSD-addled protection officer, was written by Jed Mercurio of Line of Duty fame, and was cynically and artfully designed to hook, obsess and fixate an audience into appointment viewing.

Bodyguard is made to steal us away from all newly acquired suit-yourself, binge-watch and content-stream habits, with charismatic heroes who might actually be despicable antiheroes and a succession of frenzied plot twists that simply must be consumed on the night lest someone catch you out with a spoiler on social media. Even if that doesn’t happen, even if your viewing isn’t partly ruined by a stray Facebook comment, watch an episode even a little late and find yourself locked out of all the best conversations, the most detailed post mortems, most frenetic speculations. Bodyguard is, in essence, a middle-aged Love Island, a reason to gather excitedly round the screen at the prescribed hour in a way that hasn’t really happened since the late Nineties.

Bloody hell, it’s good, I tell its star Richard Madden. The 32-year-old Glaswegian actor made his name as Robb Stark in Game of Thrones and consolidated it as Prince Charming in 2015’s Kenneth Branagh-directed Cinderella. Now, after playing Mellors in Mercurio’s 2015 Lady Chatterley’s Lover for the BBC, he trembles on the verge of Poldarking himself into borderline indecent, heavily fetishised glory as Bodyguard’s David Budd, the protection officer at the heart of the story.

“Oh, right,” he says. His accent is broad, non-posh Scottish; unexpected to those who remember it as generically Yorkshire in Game of Thrones. His eyes are intense. He’s arch and funny; he’d probably qualify as dangerously charming if there weren’t also something watchful and cautious about him. “Thanks very much! I enjoyed playing something a bit more adult, less boyish. I’m keen to play more grown-up roles, without actually growing up myself. Pretending to be adult. I’m done playing princes. Princes and royalty and lords. Also, it’s nice not to do an accent.” David Budd is – conveniently – Scottish. “One less thing to think about. Shall we get a drink? It is a Tuesday night, after all.”

It’s a Monday, I point out, but all the same we order a beer and wine from the front desk of the photographic studio in which we sit.

This is not the first time Madden and I have met. Three years ago, he bowled up to me at a friend’s party and demanded to know why I hadn’t featured him in Grazia magazine’s Chart of Lust recently. A placing in the list (which I compile weekly, and does exactly as its title suggests – rates the most fanciable people of that moment’s news), is deeply coveted among those who present themselves as above that kind of vanity, but definitely aren’t. Newscasters, Hollywood A-listers, national treasures, disruptive artists (Grayson Perry once told me he’d pinned his mention up on the wall in his studio), award-winning novelists … I’ve been lobbied by spads chasing mentions for their political charges on more than one occasion. But this was the first time a candidate had ever approached me in the flesh. I was both impressed and amused by his front.

“It does my frail ego good,” he’d elaborated, which, I’d thought, demonstrated a surprising amount of self-awareness in a young actor.

I remind him of our first meeting.

“Oh, God. Great start,” he says. Then, “I’m just trying to work my way up [the chart].”

Well, let’s see how this goes, shall we.

One of the reasons I think Bodyguard resonates so hard with its viewers is that it’s dealing with themes of safety – and so are we all. Terrorist attacks, suicide bombers and rooftop snipers recur from episode to episode; our current nightmares, and most catastrophising daytime fantasies, the ones that flicker through our minds every time we board a plane, go to a concert venue or swipe into a subway system, are played out in high definition on our small screens. Madden’s David Budd thwarts and buffers and foresees and repels; a hero with a fantastically of-the-moment brief. If Poldark is our ultimate historical TV pin-up – manly, tortured, good with his shirt off – then Budd is our ultimate Threat Level: Severe pin-up – manly, tortured, good in a bulletproof vest (“An actual bulletproof vest,” he’ll tell me, “which is so comfortable, for five months”).

I run this theory past Madden. How nervy is he in London right now?

“I don’t feel unsafe. I used to be more panicky, but I’m just less uptight. A few years ago, I’d get off at Tube stations because I’d have a sense of something.”

How much of David Budd’s wariness did Madden inherit through the course of filming?

“You get to a point where you clock everything. That’s what I’m doing for 12 hours a day, so …”

Walk into a room, scope it out for the nearest exit?

“I did that anyway. My dad’s a fireman, so that’s built in. Check into a hotel, first thing I do, find the fire exit.”

Richard Madden was born just outside of Glasgow, an only boy among older and younger sisters. His mother, Pat, is a classroom assistant. There were no other performers in his close family – no pub-singer uncles, no sisters at dance school.

You’re, like, a rogue luvvie.

“Yup!” he says.

How does that happen?

“I don’t know. I was fat. And shy. Crushingly shy, going to what was a fairly tough high school. Aggressive. Masculine. So I thought the best thing to do would be to go and be an actor. Ha ha! Not go and play football. Or get good at boxing. I’ll go and be an actor. They’ll love that.”

Aged 11, Madden joined Paisley Art Centre’s youth theatre programme. “And of course, they did not love that. But then I managed to dodge a couple of years of school, because …”

Because he was good enough to be cast, as a young teenager, in professional roles: in the film adaptation of Iain Banks’ Complicity, and in a kids’ TV show called Barmy Aunt Boomerang.

“So I was like, ‘I’m going to be acting, and not go to school.’ And get paid.”

Did you realise you were good? “I don’t think you ever feel good at it.”

He gave up acting in his mid-teens – “Life got a bit shit, when you’re on telly, among your peers, and you’re 14 years old”. He returned to it when he was 17, “because you have a bunch of teachers going, ‘Right, now you must decide what to do with the rest of your life,’ and 17 is of course the best time to choose.”

In 2004, he began studying at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. “I wasn’t allowed to apply for drama school unless I applied for a ‘real’ course as well, which was computing science. I didn’t even know what it was. Had no interest. And then, luckily, the day before my first exams, I received a letter saying you’ve got into drama school, so I went to my exams and just wrote my name.”

At 22, barely out of the RSAMD, he was cast as Robb Stark in HBO’s epic, fantastically successful Game of Thrones. Stark is the noble, brave, integrity-hampered son of Sean Bean’s Ned Stark; a character with a genuine and credible claim on the kingdom’s iron throne, all of which condemned him to a phenomenally gruesome death in an episode entitled The Rains of Castamere, only fans of the show (among whom I count myself, unashamedly) call it “The Red Wedding”, on account of the blood-drenched ceremony during which Madden, his pregnant wife and his mother all die.

Madden says he thinks that early, formative brush with a TV career was both “a head-f***” and, “I was so thankful for it, because, going into the world of Game of Thrones, I’d already learnt so much from doing it as a kid, of feeling isolated, or getting arrogant because you’re on a TV show. I’d kind of done all that. I could deal with it a lot better.”

A lot better than whom, among your co-stars?

He cackles. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Yes! Can I guess? “No.”

Madden went into Game of Thrones knowing he would die within three series – the books on which the shows are based spelled out Robb Stark’s demise long before Madden was cast – which he thinks is a good thing, professionally speaking. “I didn’t just want to be known as that guy from Game of Thrones.” It also meant that his celebrity has, until this point at least, been tinged with pity, partly for the grotesque manner of his fictional death, partly because he was booted out of that juggernaut of a TV sensation early.

That might be about to change with Bodyguard. I am reasonably confident Madden’s fame is about to be tinged with something rather more lecherous. David Budd is in no sense a straightforward romantic hero – physically and emotionally scarred, with an undivorced wife and kids squirrelled away in a safe house – but heavens, he does brooding intensity well. His love affair with Keeley Hawes’ home secretary, Julia Montague, is as intensely sexy as it is quietly subversive, for making no reference to Hawes’ Montague being ten years older than Madden’s Budd. The whole thing is designed to charm the pants off us, and I wonder how prepared Madden is to receive the unbridled lust of thousands of women on social media.

If Twitter erupts with lechery …

“I won’t look.”

Why?

“Because if I do, and if I believe someone going, ‘Oh God, he’s hot,’ then I’ll also have to believe the person that goes, ‘He’s got pumpkin teeth.’ Do you know what I mean?”

Yes, but, you are widely considered handsome, so …

“I don’t see it.”

Truly not?

“Truly not.”

It is form for beautiful young actors to deny their looks, in the interest of seeming more humble and likeable than they really are, but I think, in Madden’s case, he could mean it. He tells me fame has made him feel less attractive, not more. “You chat to a girl at a bar, have a couple of drinks, and shy Richard is slowly going. This is going well. And then it’s, ‘My boyfriend’s a really big fan. Can I get a picture?’ And you go, ‘F***.’ You think they think you’re hot, but it’s because you’re on telly.”

I ask Madden if he thinks he’s irredeemably defined by the chubby, shy child he used to be.

“I feel like I should lie down on that sofa and give you a hundred quid.”

Were you really so scarringly fat?

“Thirty-eight inch waist when I was 12. I didn’t wear denim until I was 19, because denim is really hard to take up. My mum couldn’t take my jeans up.”

Would you say you have body issues?

“Absolutely, yeah.”

Despite all of which, Richard Madden does OK with women. When I originally met him, he’d been in the final stages of a long-term relationship with the actor Jenna Coleman, who stars as Victoria in the ITV show, and who is now in a relationship with her onscreen Albert, Tom Hughes. Since then, Madden has been gossip-column-linked to a succession of beautiful women – model Suki Waterhouse and TV presenter Laura Whitmore among them – none of whom seem notably put off by his pumpkin teeth.

“I think in the last year I was, as far as the tabloids went, dating seven different people. And when you receive a text saying, ‘Are you sleeping with blah blah,’ and you go, ‘No,’ that’s a bit weird.”

Who are you sleeping with?

“I’m not saying.”

But you are sleeping with someone?

“I am sleeping with someone. I am very happy with someone. There are pictures of it on the internet.”

If it’s the one everyone thinks you’re dating, I say – by which I mean the 21-year-old Ellie Bamber, with whom he was pictured most recently at the Serpentine Gallery summer party – then she’s another actor. Is it really a good idea to go out with other actors?

“Yes and no. Yes, because you understand what each other’s going through. No, because, there’s a certain level of self-focus you need, in order to do the job you’re doing. That’s hard on all relationships, because what am I going to talk to you about? I walk up and down for 12 hours a day, dealing with this character’s shit. That’s all I’ve done, every day, for the past three months … I really haven’t got anything to offer you as a friend.”

We return, briefly, to Bodyguard. He says he got on brilliantly with Keeley Hawes. “Love her, love her to pieces. She saved my arse, because it’s not a fun job. It’s not a comedy. But then Keeley and me, me and her, off screen, were just like two kids.”

Were you paid the same?

“No idea. I imagine she earned more. I care less about how much other people are paid, and more what it takes for me to shut up and go and do my job. The equality thing needs to be addressed hugely between male and female co-stars; I know that from friends of mine. But there’s only so much I can do for myself. Agents and lawyers, they do all that stuff. I just kind of deal with what I need to, so I don’t look a producer in the eye and f***ing hate them when they’re talking about their villas, and you’re thinking, shit, I’m getting the bus at the weekend, because I don’t have the money for a cab, you know?”

How rich are you?

“Not very. People think I am, because of Game of Thrones, but you know, when I signed up for that I was 22, with f*** all on my CV, so I was paid f*** all.”

Then, somehow, we end up talking about his body again.

“In between filming, I eat pizza, drink, don’t work out, get fat, then it’s six weeks till you have to be naked again. It’s always six weeks. Actually, that’s if you’re lucky. I have ten days till I take my clothes off again this time.”

What’s the occasion?

“I’m filming Rocketman, the Elton John film, and I play John Reid, his first boyfriend, his manager for 28 years.”

A straight man in a gay role; casting that has become contentious after Disney named comedian Jack Whitehall, who is straight, as the voice of its first openly gay hero.

“Yeah, and Taron Egerton [who is playing Elton John] is a straight man in a gay role,” says Madden, “and I think we’re all f***ed if we start going down the route of you can only play a gay part if you’re a gay actor. Diversity, equality and pay – of course we need to make sure of all that, but at the same time … I read reports that so and so’s pulled out of this role because they’re not transgender, and you go, yeah, but they’re a f***ing actor, and they’re probably really f***ing good in the part, and maybe that is part of the reason why that film’s getting made …”

We wind up with him telling me he isn’t bothered about an Oscar. “Because, who won best actress last year? Best actor? Best supporting actor? What won best musical?”

No idea.

“So what does it matter?” he says.

After which, he is beautifully mocking (off the record) about a very famous actor’s latest endeavour, before hugging me goodbye and pretending – well – he hopes to see me again soon, socially. Richard Madden made it to No 2 in the current issue of Grazia’s Chart of Lust Bodyguard continues tomorrow at 9pm on BBC One. Episodes 1 and 2 are on BBC iPlayer

[thecaffeinebookwarrior]

The Dos and Don’ts of Beginning a Novel:  An Illustrated Guide

I’ve had a lot of asks lately for how to begin a book (or how not to), so here’s a post on my general rules of thumb for story openers and first chapters!  

Please note, these are incredibly broad generalizations;  if you think an opener is right for you, and your beta readers like it, there’s a good chance it’s A-OK.  When it comes to writing, one size does not fit all.  (Also note that this is for serious writers who are interested in improving their craft and/or professional publication, so kindly refrain from the obligatory handful of comments saying “umm, screw this, write however you want!!”)

So without further ado, let’s jump into it!

Don’t: 

1.  Open with a dream. 

“Just when Mary Sue was sure she’d disappear down the gullet of the monstrous, winged pig, she woke up bathed in sweat in her own bedroom.”

What?  So that entire winged pig confrontation took place in a dream and amounts to nothing?  I feel so cheated! 

Okay, not too many people open their novels with monstrous swine, but you get the idea:  false openings of any kind tend to make the reader feel as though you’ve wasted their time, and don’t usually jump into more meaty action of the story quickly enough.  It makes your opening feel lethargic and can leave your audience yawning.

Speaking of... 

2.  Open with a character waking up.  

This feels familiar to most of us, but unless your character is waking up to a zombie attack or an alien invasion, it’s generally a pretty easy recipe to get your story to drag.

No one picks a book to hear how your character brushes their teeth in the morning or what they’d like to have for dinner.  As a general rule of thumb, we read to explore things we wouldn’t otherwise get to experience.  And cussing out the alarm clock is not one of them.  

Granted, there are exceptions if your writing is exceptionally engaging, but in most cases it just sets a slow pace that will bore you and your reader to death and probably cause you to lose interest in your book within the first ten pages.  

3.  Bombard with exposition.  

Literary characters aren’t DeviantArt OCs.  And the best way to convey a character is not, in my experience, to devote the first ten pages to describing their physical appearance, personality, and backstory.  Develop your characters, and make sure their fully fleshed out -- my tips on how to do so here -- but you don’t need to dump all that on the reader before they have any reason to care about them.  Let the reader get to know the character gradually, learn about them, and fall in love with them as they would a person:  a little bit at a time.   

This is iffy when world building is involved, but even then it works best when the delivery feels organic and in tune with the book’s overall tone.  Think the opening of the Hobbit or Good Omens.

4.  Take yourself too seriously.

Your opener (and your novel in general) doesn’t need to be intellectually pretentious, nor is intellectual pretense the hallmark of good literature.  Good literature is, generally speaking, engaging, well-written, and enjoyable.  That’s it.  

So don’t concern yourself with creating a poetic masterpiece of an opening line/first chapter.  Just make one that’s -- you guessed it -- engaging, well-written, and enjoyable. 

5.  Be unintentionally hilarious.

Utilizing humor in your opening line is awesome, but check yourself to make sure your readers aren’t laughing for all the wrong reasons (this is another reason why betas are important.)  

These examples of the worst opening lines in published literature will show you what I mean -- and possibly serve as a pleasant confidence booster as well: 

It was like so, but wasn’t.

— Richard Powers

Those of us acquainted with their sordid and scandalous story were not surprised to hear, by way of rumors from the various localities where the sorceresses had settled after fleeing our pleasant town of Eastwick, Rhode Island, that the husbands whom the three Gordforsaken women had by their dark arts concocted for themselves did not prove durable.

— John Updike

The cabin-passenger wrote in his diary a parody of Descartes: “I feel discomfort, therefore I am alive,” then sat pen in hand with no more to record.

—Graham Greene

Indian Summer is like a woman.

— Grace Metalious

If these can get published, so can you.

Do:

1.  You know that one really interesting scene you’re itching to write?  Start with that.

Momentum is an important thing in storytelling.  If you set a fast, infectious beat, you and your reader will be itching to dance along with it.  

Similarly, slow, drowsy openers tend to lead to slow, drowsy stories that will put you both to sleep.

I see a lot of posts joking about “that awkward moment when you sit down to write but don’t know how to get to that one scene you actually wanted to write about.”  Write that scene!  If it’s at all possible, start off with it.  If not, there are still ways you can build your story around the scenes you actually want to write.

Keep in mind:  if you’re bored, your reader will almost certainly be bored as well.  So write what you want to write.  Write what makes you excited.  Don’t hold off until later, when it “really gets good.”  Odds are, the reader will not wait around that long, and you’re way more likely to become disillusioned with your story and quit.  If a scene is dragging, cut it out.  Burn bridges, find a way around.  Live, dammit. 

2.  Engage the reader.

There are several ways to go about this.  You can use wit and levity, you can present a question, and you can immerse the reader into the world you’ve created.  Just remember to do so with subtlety, and don’t try too hard;  believe me, it shows.  

Here are some of my personal favorite examples of engaging opening lines: 

"In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." 

-- Douglas Adams, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

"It was the day my grandmother exploded."

-- Iain Banks, Crow Road.

“A white Pomeranian named Fluffy flew out of the a fifth-floor window in Panna, which was a grand-new building with the painter’s scaffolding still around it. Fluffy screamed.”

-- Vikram Chandra, Sacred Games.

See what I’m saying?  They pull you in and do not let go.

3.  Introduce us to a main character (but do it right.)

“Shadow had done three years in prison. He was big enough and looked don't-fuck-with-me enough that his biggest problem was killing time. So he kept himself in shape, and taught himself coin tricks, and thought a lot about how much he loved his wife.”

-- Neil Gaiman, American Gods.

This is one of my favorite literary openings of all time, because right off the bat we know almost everything we need to know about Shadow’s character (i.e. that he’s rugged, pragmatic, and loving.)   

Also note that it doesn’t tell us everything about Shadow:  it presents questions that make us want to read more.  How did Shadow get into prison?  When will he get out?  Will he reunite with his wife?  There’s also more details about Shadow slowly sprinkled in throughout the book, about his past, personality, and physical appearance.  This makes him feel more real and rounded as a character, and doesn’t pull the reader out of the story.

Obviously, I’m not saying you should rip off American Gods.  You don’t even need to include a hooker eating a guy with her cooch if you don’t want to.  

But this, and other successful openers, will give you just enough information about the main character to get the story started;  rarely any good comes from infodumping, and allowing your reader to get to know your character gradually will make them feel more real.   

4.  Learn from the greats.

My list of my favorite opening lines (and why I love them) is right here.

5.  Keep moving.  

The toughest part of being a writer is that it’s a rare and glorious occasion when you’re actually satisfied with something you write.  And to add another layer of complication, what you like best probably won’t be what your readers will like best. 

If you refuse to keep moving until you have the perfect first chapter, you will never write anything beyond your first chapter.  

Set a plan, and stick to it:  having a daily/weekly word or page goal can be extremely helpful, especially when you’re starting out.  Plotting is a lifesaver (some of my favorite posts on how to do so here, here, and here.)

Keep writing, keep moving, and rewrite later.  If you stay in one place for too long, you’ll never keep going. 

Best of luck, and happy writing.  <3

[trashartandmovies]

Berlinale Film Festival 2021, Industry Event, Day 1

We all knew the 71st Berlinale would be different, but who’d have guessed we’d be given a twofer? At this point, the juries for the Competition, Encounters, Shorts, and Generations sections have all handed out their awards. These juries got to watch the films in their respective categories on the big screen. Meanwhile, the press were given the opportunity to screen these movies at home, as well as the films in the Berlinale Special, Panorama, Forum and Forum Expanded sections, as well as the six films making up the Perspektive Deutsches Kino category and episodes from the six television shows included in Berlinale Series. (The always excellent Retrospective section is only screening during the summer.) Altogether, around 150 at-home screenings were made available to the press. We had five days to watch them. I was able to watch 22 of them. This is Part One.

———

I’m sure everyone covering the festival is hoping that the Summer Special, in mid-June, will go smoothly and we’ll be able to catch at least a fraction of the movies we weren’t able to see. (For geo-blocking streaming reasons, a few films in the lineup weren’t available at all in my geo-region. Including two in the Competition: the FABIAN adaptation and Daniel Daniel Brühl’s directorial debut NEXT DOOR.) Usually, the press is given a week ahead of the festival to check out the Panorama, Forum and Generations titles. One assumes it’s so that audiences may get some recommendations on these lower-profile movies in the inevitable situation when all the high-profile films are sold out. Will this happen in the summer? Unless I missed a press release, the details around the Summer Special are still a bit vague. Rightfully so, since we’re still living in week-by-week uncertainty as far as lockdown measures go.

All we can do now is cross our fingers and hope for a chance to get a look at some of the these titles, because when presented with the challenge of covering a 150-movie lineup over just five days, you have to make some obvious decisions. I suspect many people did what I did — try to watch all the Competition titles and get in a few Encounters, Specials, some shorts and hold out hope for one or two stray Panoramas or Forums. To make matters more heartbreaking, the press screenings went like this: every morning at 7:00 AM, you’d get an impossibly long list of films to watch until 7:00 AM next morning. You’d get a few Competition titles, a few Encounters and Specials, and a deluge of films from the other categories. For many films, all you could do is look at the title, nod, and say to yourself, hopefully we’ll meet again soon, because there’s no way I can fit a sixth movie in today without losing my mind.

(Now there was a wrinkle added to this plan. Over the weekend of March 6 - 7, the press could screen the award winners that got announced on Friday. But it was difficult to try and take this into consideration in any strategic way.)

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Like most film festivals, Berlinale usually kicks things off with a star-studded opening night movie that’s usually too mainstream for the critics. With no red carpet to be concerned with this year, that wasn’t the case. Instead, on Day One, the closest to a big movie star name was Iain Glen (Game of Thrones). Glen isn’t the lead in Tim Fehlbaum’s TIDES, shown in the Berlinale Special program, but he does play a key role as an astronaut who’s landed back on Earth, generations after human had mostly left the increasingly inhabitable planet. Humans have been living in a space colony called Kepler, but everyone ended up sterile, so missions are being sent back to Earth in the hopes that they can once again live there and get their reproductive groove back.

That’s the underlying story of TIDES, and it’s just one element that will likely feel very familiar to anyone who’s well-versed in post-apocalyptic cinema. The color palette is stark, with muted colors. The landscape is barren, this one with lots of water, rather than the desert locales of Mad Max. In fact, the notorious WATERWORLD came to mind more than once while watching TIDES. There’s even a doll in the film that looks just like Dennis Hopper’s character in that film, eye patch and everything. That little detail may be one of the most interesting things about the film.

The main character of TIDES is another astronaut, played with a committed intensity by Nora Arnezeder. She crash lands on Earth, is held captive by central casting post-apocalyptic scavengers, and eventually tries to track down a McGuffin that will let her contact Kepler and report back that there are people reproducing on Earth. Meanwhile, she also suspects that something might remain of the previous mission that was comprised of her father and Iain Glen.

The main attraction here is Fehlbaum’s use of stunning landscapes and practical locations, like a beached industrial ocean liner that serves as inspiration for one of the primary sets. The art design and costumes are all exceptional, while the acting and photography are all decent enough. But it never does much with the conspiracy it tries to entertain us with. Its attempts at being thrilling look good, but can’t help but feel like pretty standard stuff at this point. It’s worth noting that one of the film’s producers is Roland Emmerich, a man who knows a thing or two about making generic high concept action pictures. Some things, like the art design and the pleasingly diverse and international cast, set TIDES apart. But the story is far less inspired.

Faring better were the Day One Competition titles. I started with MEMORY BOX, a lively picture wherein a daughter gets to better understand her mother when a box of the mom’s old teenage diaries and correspondence ends up on their doorstep. (This mother-daughter connection is essentially the same theme that Céline Sciamma’s PETITE MAMAN covers in a different, more sci-fi, fashion.) As the daughter, living in a nice house in Montreal, digs into her mother’s old journals, scrapbooks and tape recordings, the film travels back to 1980s Beirut through the eyes of her teenage mom. It makes these trips back in time through some pretty cool moments of collage-like animation — putting scrapbook pages into motion and diving into photographs and contact sheets that come alive. Plus, the soundtrack is killer, full of lively 80s post punk like Killing Joke, The Stranglers and Blondie.

There’s romance, the trauma of war, a strong refugee story, and a poignant tale of cross-generational understanding. The kicker is that it’s very autobiographical, with the film mirroring co-director Joana Hadjithomas’s own story of corresponding with her friend in Paris while Beirut was falling down around her. These journals are backed up by old photographs taken in Beirut from the other co-director, Kahil Joreige. Like last year’s fascinating BLOODY NOSE, EMPTY POCKETS, and this year’s A COP MOVIE, Berlinale movies are continuing to find success in blurring the line between documentary and narrative fiction. The movie has a little trouble maintaining momentum all the way through, but I loved the experimentation on display here, and the unique ways it tells its story. It helps that MEMORY BOX really sticks the landing at the end.

Next up was ICH BIN DEIN MENSCH, or I’M YOUR MAN — another film, like many in recent years, interested in the ethics behind artificial intelligence and robots with emotions. Think of it as a romantic comedy version of BLADE RUNNER, or an updated version of the forgotten-by-time Ann Magnuson and John Malkovich vehicle MAKING MR. RIGHT. This one, based on a recent short story by Emma Braslavsky, is directed by Maria Schrader, who recently helmed the popular Netflix series Unorthodox (she’s also a veteran film and TV actress, from Tatort and Deutschland 86 to AIMEE & JAGUAR). Schrader continues to prove that she has a good eye for framing and storytelling. The movie doesn’t always escape the problem that many German movies continue to struggle with, which is that they often feel like a good TV movie rather than a work of cinema, but it manages better than most.

The general idea is that Maren Eggert plays Alma, a researcher who is assigned the task of spending a couple weeks with a new personal companion robot named Tom, played by the dreamy-eyed Dan Stevens. Alma is, of course, a completely rational-minded person who is happy to just get through the two weeks with as little interaction with Tom as possible. In her mind, it’s an impossibility that a piece of technology could fulfill a human being’s needs. Of course, as each day goes by, Tom continues to surprise her and wear down her defenses.

It’s a pretty well-worn story by now. The issues that get raised over the course of the movie are some that Star Trek: The Next Generation was dealing with on a regular basis (Tom is similar to Data, though Stevens doesn’t need any special contact lenses), but there are some interesting wrinkles here. Few movies have looked at this subject from the female perspective. And if there’s one that that this year’s Berlinale truly excelled at, it’s offering a wide variety of movies by female directors and/or with female leads. We’ve covered three movies that fit that criteria already, and many more will come. What’s more, Maren Eggert gives us a character who’s at an age where she’s wrestling with the question of whether or not her child-bearing days are behind her. When’s the last time Hollywood dealt with that subject? So, while Alma starts off as a very emotionally distant, academic type, and the best thing about the movie is uncovering her past and getting to understand why she has put up so many walls. I’m not sure it does much with the subject of AI or robot companions, but it does provide a charming odd-couple story and I don’t have any complaints with Eggert winning the festival’s best actress award.

The nightcap on Day One was INTEURODEOKSYEON, or INTRODUCTION, the newest film by the prolific Korean auteur Hong Sangsoo. At last year’s Berlinale, Sangsoo was also in the Competition with the excellent THE GIRL WHO RAN, and he doesn’t disappoint with INTRODUCTION. Ironically enough, if you’re unfamiliar with Hong Sangsoo and don’t know where to start — understandable given the nearly 30 films he’s directed in the past 25 years — INTRODUCTION ain’t a bad way to start. It’s not his best work, but it’s pretty damn good, and a very accessible entry-point into the man’s style and thematic interests. And it barely cracks the 60-minute mark, so you’re not committing to much.

This one ping-pongs between a young man, Youngho, and a young woman, Juwan, both trying to figure out what to do with their lives. Juwan wants to study fashion in Berlin, Youngho wants to become an actor. Both run into problems with these pursuits — some of which are out of their control. In Youngho’s case, it leads to a hilariously drunken dinner confrontation with Ki Joo-bong, who may or may not be playing a version of himself, since he’s only credited as “Old Actor.” The esteemed Korean actor Joo-bong has appeared in Park Chan-wook films, SAVE THE GREEN PLANET, as well as few of Sangsoo’s other films and some 70 other movies. In INTRODUCTION, his character is revered by every other person he meets. And his advice to Youngho is an eruptive highlight in a movie that’s otherwise pretty subtle.

Subtlety is often Sangsoo’s thing, but the emotions he leaves you with tend to be pretty strong. This is his magic. He writes very realistic, dialog-driven scenes that, on their own, are nuanced and deceptively simple. But these quiet scenes build up to an ending that makes everything come together in a profound way. Even if you’re familiar with Sangsoo’s work, INTRODUCTION may come across as slight, or a minor work in the maestro’s deep catalog, but I found it’s pleasures to be more immediate than usual. To my knowledge, no one is writing screenplays like this. The way he reveals characters, develops them, and draws connections through casual lines of dialog, sometimes nested deep within a conversation, is practically his trademark move, and it’s never not remarkable. It demands your attention and then rewards it at the end. His technique is patient, confident and hugely sophisticated. The only problem I see is that, given his track record of releasing one or two movies a year, his talent is in danger of being taken. Don’t be one of those people.

[clarasimone]

Iain Glen nailing Hamlet (1991)

In 1991, after winning the Evening Standard Film Award for Best Actor, Iain Glen gave his soulful all, not on the stage in London, no, not yet, though really he could have, but at the Old Vic in Bristol, donning the persona of the Dane, Hamlet. He won the Special Commendation Ian Charleson Award* for his performance and yet it appears we will never see but stills from this production as no video recording was made, not even by and for the company. The University of Bristol has the archives of the production: the playbook, the programme and black and white stills. The V&A archives have the administrative papers. In our day and age, this sad evanescent corporeal sate of affairs is unimaginable. The memory of the play, of this performance fading away? We rebel against the very thought. We brandish our cell phones and swear we shall unearth and pirate its memory, somehow, somewhere. Even if we have to hypnotize patrons or pull out the very hearts of those who saw Iain Glen on stage, those few, those happy few, to read into their very memory and pulsating membrane just how brilliant he was. Because he was, he was. That’s what they’ll all tell you... 

Below, those pics and testimonies....

*(The Charleson Awards were established in memory of Ian Charleson, who died at 40 from Aids while playing Hamlet at the National Theatre in 1989)

- Iain Glen is a rampaging prince, quixotic, technically sound, tense as a coiled spring, funny. ‘To be, or not to be’ results from throwing himself against the white walls, an air of trembling unpredictability is beautifully conveyed throughout. ‘Oh, what a rogue and peasants slave’ is blindingly powerful. My life is drawn in angrily modern post Gielgud Hamlets: David Warner, Nicol Williams, Visotsky, Jonathon Price. Iain Glen is equal to them. He keeps good company. THE OBSERVER, Michael Coveney

- Paul Unwin’s riveting production reminded me more strongly than any I have ever seen that the Danish Court is riddled with secrecy. Politics is a form of hide and seek: everyone stealthily watches everyone else. Iain Glen’s Hamlet is a melancholic in the clinical sense: his impeccable breeding and essential good nature keep in check what might be an approaching breakdown. His vitriolic humour acts as a safety valve for a nagging instability, his boyish charm is deployed to placate and deceive a hostile and watchful world. Glen brings out Hamlet’s fatal self absorption: the way he cannot help observing himself and putting a moral price tag on every action and failure. He is a doomed boy. And his chill but touching calm at the end is that of a man who has finally understood the secrets behind the closed doors. The Sunday Times, John Peter

- This is an excellent production of Hamlet from the Bristol Old Vic. The director Paul Unwin and his designer Bunnie Christie have set the play in turn of the century Europe. Elsinore is a palace of claustrophobically white walls and numerous doors. All this is handled with a light touch, without drawing attention away from the play. Our first encounter with Hamlet shows him bottled up with rage and grief. Glen gives a gripping performance. The self-dramatising side of the character is tapped to the full by this talented actor. The Spectator, Christopher Edwards

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The following though is my favorite review/article because it situates Iain Glen’s creation is time, in the spectrum of all renowned Hamlets.

How will Cumberbatch, TV’s Sherlock, solve the great mystery of Hamlet? by Michael Coveney - Aug 17, 2015

In 1987, three years before he died, the critic and venerable Shakespearean JC Trewin published a book of personal experience and reminiscence: Five and Eighty Hamlets. I’m thinking of supplying a second volume, under my own name, called Six and Fifty Hamlets, for that will be my total once Benedict Cumberbatch has opened at the Barbican.

There’s a JC and MC overlap of about 15 years: Trewin was a big fan of Derek Jacobi’s logical and graceful prince in 1977 and ended with less enthusiastic remarks about “the probing intelligence” of Michael Pennington in 1980 (both Jacobi and Pennington were 37 when they played the role; Cumberbatch is 39) and emotional pitch and distraction of Roger Rees in 1984 (post-Nickleby, Rees was 40, but an electric eel and ever-youthful).

I started as a reviewer in 1972 with three Hamlets on the trot: the outrageous Charles Marowitz collage, which treats Hamlet as a creep and Ophelia as a demented tart, and makes exemplary, equally unattractive polar opposites of Laertes and Fortinbras; a noble, stately Keith Michell (with a frantic Polonius by Ron Moody) at the Bankside Globe, Sam Wanamaker’s early draft of the Shakespearean replica; and a 90-minute gymnastic exercise performed by a cast of eight in identical chain mail and black breeches at the Arts Theatre.

This gives an idea of how alterable and adaptable Hamlet has been, and continues to be. There are contestable readings between the Folios, any number of possible cuts, and there is no end of choice in emphasis. Trewin once wrote a programme note for a student production directed by Jonathan Miller in which he said that the first scene on the battlements (“Who’s there?”) was the most exciting in world drama; the scene was cut.

And as Steven Berkoff pointed out in his appropriately immodestly titled book I Am Hamlet (1989), Hamlet doesn’t exist in the way Macbeth, or Coriolanus, exists; when you play Hamlet, he becomes you, not the other way round. Hamlet, said Hazlitt, is as real as our own thoughts.

Which is why my three favourite Hamlets are all so different from each other, and attractive because of the personality of the actor who’s provided the mould for the Hamlet jelly: my first, pre-critical-days Hamlet, David Warner (1965) at the Royal Shakespeare Company, was a lank and indolently charismatic student in a long red scarf, exact contemporary of David Halliwell’s Malcolm Scrawdyke, and two years before students were literally revolting in Paris and London; then Alan Cumming (1993) with English Touring Theatre, notably quick, mercurial and very funny, with a detachable doublet and hose, black Lycra pants and bovver boots, definitely (then) the glass of fashion, a graceful gender-bender like Brett Anderson of indie band Suede; and, at last, Michael Sheen (2011) at the Young Vic, a vivid and overreaching fantasist in a psychiatric institution (“Denmark’s a prison”), where every actor “plays” his part.

These three actors – Warner, Cumming, Sheen – occupy what might be termed the radical, alternative tradition of Hamlets, whereas the authoritative, graceful nobility of Jacobi belongs to the Forbes Robertson/John Gielgud line of high-ranking top drawer ‘star’ turns, a dying species and last represented, sourly but magnificently, by Ralph Fiennes (1995) in the gilded popular palace of the Hackney Empire. Fiennes, like Cumberbatch, has the sort of voice you might expect a non-radical, traditional Hamlet to possess.

But if you listen to Gielgud on tape, you soon realise he wasn’t ‘old school’ at all. He must have been as modern, at the time, as Noel Coward. Gielgud is never ‘intoned’ or overtly posh, he’s quicksilver, supple, intellectually alert. I saw him deliver the “Oh what a rogue and peasant slave” soliloquy on the night the National left the Old Vic (February 28, 1976); he had played the role more than 500 times, and not for 37 years, but it was as fresh, brilliant and compelling as if he had been making it up on the spot.

Ben Kingsley, too, in 1975, was a fiercely intelligent Royal Shakespeare Company Hamlet, and I saw much of that physical and mental power in David Tennant’s, also for the RSC in 2008, with an added pinch of mischief and irony. There’s another tradition, too, of angry Hamlets: Nicol Williamson in 1969, a scowling, ferocious demon; Jonathan Pryce at the Royal Court in 1980, possessed by the ghost of his father and spewing his lines, too, before finding Yorick’s skull in a cabinet of bones, an ossuary of Osrics; and a sourpuss Christopher Ecclestone (2002), spiritually constipated, moody as a moose with a migraine, at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

One Hamlet who had a little of all these different attributes – funny, quixotic, powerful, unhappy, clever and genuinely heroic – was Iain Glen (1991) at the Bristol Old Vic, and I can imagine Cumberbatch developing along similar lines. He, like so many modern Hamlets, is pushing 40 – as was Jude Law (2009), hoary-voiced in the West End – yet when Trevor Nunn cast Ben Whishaw (2004) straight from RADA, aged 23, petulant and precocious, at the Old Vic, he looked like a 16-year-old, and too young for what he was saying. It’s like the reverse of King Lear, where you have to be younger to play older with any truth or vigour.

Michael Billington’s top Hamlet remains Michael Redgrave, aged 50, in 1958, as he recounts in his brilliant new book, The 101 Greatest Plays (seven of the 101 are by Shakespeare); Hamlet, he says, more than any other play, alters according to time as well as place.

So, Yuri Lyubimov’s great Cold War Hamlet, the prince played by the dissident poet Vladimir Visotsky, was primarily about surveillance, the action played on either side of an endlessly moving hessian and woollen wall. And in Belgrade in 1980, shortly after the death of Tito, the play became a statement of anxiety about the succession.

There’s a mystery to Hamlet that not even Sherlock Holmes could solve, though Cumberbatch will no doubt try his darndest – even if he finds his Watson at the Barbican (Leo Bill is playing Horatio) more of a hindrance than a help; there are, after all, more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in his friend’s philosophy.

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Oh! Did I say that we were never going to see Iain Glen in the skin of the great Dane? Tsk. How silly of me. Meet IG’s Hamlet in Tom Stoppard’s postmodern theatrical whimsy ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, shot the year before the Bristol play.

Though almost surreal and most often funny as the film follows the Pulp Fiction-like misadventures of two forgettable Shakespearian characters, crossing paths with other more or less fortunate characters, their time with Hamlet makes us privy to the Dane as we never quite see him in the Bard’s play... but for one memorable scene,  in which Iain Glen absolutely nails it, emoting the famous “To be or not to be” which you see tortures his soul, brings tears to his eyes and contorts his mouth; the moment made all the more memorable by the fact that it is a silent scene. You never hear him utter the famous line, but you see the words leave his lips and feel them mark your soul.

I’m kinda telling myself that it’s 1991 and I’m sitting in the Old Vic, in Bristol, not London. Not yet.

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 9/4/20 – TENET! MULAN! I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS (but now that I’ve seen Tenet and Mulan, I’m better)… and More!

It’s Labor Day weekend… it is, isn’t it? I can’t even remember what day of the week it is anymore, and it looks like movie theaters across the country are generally all reopened except for a few specific areas. While theaters seem to be playing a variety of old and new movies – and Chadwick Boseman’s breakout 42, in which he plays Jackie Robinson, will be shown in 300 AMC theaters starting Thursday --  it still feels like we’re not quite where we should be. That said, only three states remain fully closed as far as movie theaters go: New York (eff you, Cuomo!), North Carolina and New Mexico. California is slowly rolling out movie theaters reopening in certain sections but not in L.A. or San Francisco just yet. Honestly, I’m having a rough week, and I’ll be surprised if I even get through half the movies that I have seen and planned to review, let alone everything else I have to do.

Finally! The movie that’s looking to be one of the most controversial movies of the summer, if not the year, comes to the United States. Of course, I’m talking about Christopher Nolan’s TENET (Warner Bros.), his tribute to James Bond movies with John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman) playing a super-spy (of sorts) who teams with Robert Pattinson to perform intricate heists on a mission to find out who has discovered bullets that travel backwards through time and brought them back into our time. Also starring Elizabeth Debicki and Kenneth Branagh, the movie has received mixed to positive reviews with about 76% on Rotten Tomatoes. You can read my full review right here and a second technical review here.

Right now, it looks like Tenet is going to be playing in roughly 3,000 theaters over Labor Day weekend with only a few states fully closed including my own (New York), as well as North Carolina and New Mexico. A few other states like New Jersey and Maryland are reopening but it may be too late to get Tenet in there. California has a few areas open but not Los Angeles or San Francisco.

Although I’m hesitant at making any predictions right now or doing a full-blown analysis – there so many unknowns in a pandemic -- I think a four-day opening of somewhere between $25 and 28 million should be possible even with limited seating in most theaters that have reopened. I think people are ready to go back to theaters despite the negative narrative created by certain irresponsible film critics who seem to care more about their own personal health than that of the industry that has allowed them to pay rent and live large for years.

Another movie that I’ve been looking forward to and actually my most anticipated movie of the year is Disney’s live action remake of their animated classic, MULAN, this one directed by one of my favorite filmmakers, Niki Caro of Whale Rider fame. I cannot tell you how excited I was to finally see this movie after being invited to a press screen back in March, and then have it systematically cancelled as everything else started shutting down. Fortunately, I got a screener and while not my favorite way to watch a movie, I absolutely LOVED IT!

It stars Yifei Liu as the title character, made famous in the 1998 Disney animated movie, and it follows a similar story of a teen girl who steals her father’s sword and armor and pretends to be a man to join the Imperial Army under secrecy. There are definitely major changes in Caro’s version, most notably the lack of songs and no sign of Mushu, the adorable dragon voiced by Eddie Murphy. This is also not meant for small children, because it’s PG-13 not because it has anything terrible like someone waving genitals or swearing but because some of the action does get intense without much blood or anything terrible. I mean, this is definitely a SOFT PG-13, if that’s even a thing.

The movie is gorgeous and in the vein of movies I love like Zhang Yimou’s Hero and Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and it’s even exec. produced by Bill Kong, who produced many of those films. The point is that I love these kinds of movies, plus I’ve long been a fan of Caro’s, and everything just comes together beautifully from the performance by Yifei Liu to the fantastic characters around her, including ones played by Jet Li and Donnie Yen (reuniting from Hero!), as well as an amazing witch played by the indelible Ms. Gong Li, who is also terrific. Sure, there’s a few issues with the dialogue, but this is not a kiddie movie, as much as it’s something on par with the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and I just love all of the decision Caro and her all-Asian cast make in telling this story in a new way. I particularly liked how the film followed Chinese traditions and dealt with things like “chi,” but as with the animated film, the stuff in the army 

On top of the amazing martial arts fights, there are also some terrific battle scene that would do Braveheart proud, and it’s all pulled together by Harry Gregson-Williams’ score, which may be one of my favorite pieces of music this year. Definitely a score I’ll be buying since it brings so much excitement and emotion to every scene, but that’s just as much a credit to Ms. Caro and her fantastic cast, who in a couple scenes, particularly between Liu and Li, had me tearing up almost as much as every single time I’ve watched Caro’s debut, Whale Rider.

I’m sure that fans of the animated movie (which I only saw for the first time earlier this year) will have different expectations, but you can’t fault Disney for being a little bit concerned and undeservedly dumping it to the Disney+ streaming service (which you can watch it at a premium of $29.95) rather than giving it the theatrical release it truly deserved. Honestly, if for some strange reason, Disney decides to play it in a bunch of theaters once they’re fully open, I would not hesitate to watch this again in what I consider a much-better environment for a movie which is likely to end up in my top 10 for year. It’s probably my favorite straight-up Disney movie (not including Pixar or Marvel) since maybe Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella, although I kind of enjoyed Mary Poppins Returns, too.

I also have a crafts review of Mulan over at Below the Line, so check that out!

While I’ve generally been mixed on Charlie Kaufman’s movies that he directed himself, I couldn’t NOT watch I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS, his new movie on Netflix, starring Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemons as a young couple going to visit his parents, played by Toni Collette and David Thewlis. At first, it looks like they’ll get stuck in a snowstorm, but then they get there and then they leave and once again get stuck in a snowtorm. No, this isn’t Centigrade 2, but actually something far FAR worse, to the point where I’m not even sure where to begin.

It starts with Buckley’s “Young woman” – yes, Kaufman doesn’t even bother giving her a name – being picked up by her boyfriend Jake (Plemons) before the long ride through the snow to his parent’s house. The whole time, we hear her inner thoughts about wanting to break up with Jake for one or reason or another, her thoughts always been interrupted by Jake making a statement that seems out of the blue. When they get to his parents’ farm in the middle of nowhere, things start to get weird, and I don’t want to go into too many details because if you read my review and decide to sit through it anyway, then it’s your own fault.

Apparently, this was loosely based on a book of the same name by Iain Reid, but it was adapted by the guy who wrote Adaptation, so Kaufman pretty much just went off and did his own thing based on Reid’s general premise. What I find particularly weird is that some of the early reviews talked about this movie as if it was a horror movie, but I just don’t see that at all. It’s just a really dry and weird comedy that doesn’t really take off. While parts of it remind me of the comics work of Daniel Clowes (Ghost World), who I genuinely love, other parts just get so weird, and at times, it reminded me of David Lynch’s Eraserhead or M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit, but only because there are so many WTF moments that you wonder what the actors must have thought while they were doing what Kaufman told them to do. Again, I’m not going to ruin the experience of being thoroughly confounded by some of the weirder moments but after Buckley and Plemons leave the farmhouse, they’re back driving through the snow and having far more intelligent conversations about such mundane topics. At one point, I thought, “This movie must be over soon, right?” and I checked, and there were 43 more minutes to go. That’s when I went from angry to outright ballistic, because I knew that there were so many other things I could be doing than listening to all the talking, talking, talking… They eventually arrive at an abandoned school and go there for shelter, and I was like, “Oh, good, now we get to the horror stuff.” Nope.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things is the perfect movie for the scant few that raved about Darren Aronofsky’s mother!, or those who consider Holy Rollers a masterpiece of the highest order. Awful, aggravating and almost unwatchable at times, I’d only recommend Kaufman’s movie to people as a practical joke. Nah, I’m not that mean. It’ll be on Netflix tomorrow. Good luck with it.

Filmmaker and Rooney* frontman Robert Schwartzman directs his third feature, the comedy THE “ARGUMENT” (Gravitas Ventures), which takes the simple idea of a cocktail party and turns it into a riotous and sometimes strange comedy of errors, of sorts.

Dan Fogler and Emma Bell play couple Jack and Lisa, he a writer, her an actress, who have been together for some time, and Jack is ready to pop the question. After the final of a stageplay Lisa is co-starring in, Jack throws a cocktail party at which he’s gonna propose. He invites over his agent Danny Pudi from Community) and his wife Sarah (Maggie Q) but Lisa has invited her amorous co-star Paul (Tyler James Williams from Everybody Hates Chris all grown up!), who brought his own bubbly girlfriend Trina (Cleopatra Coleman).  As Trina starts drinking, thing just get worse and worse, and it inevitably turns into a full- on fight between Jack and Lisa aka the “argument” of the title. Jack is convinced that if they have a do-over on the night, they can prove who is right.

Oh, yeah. That couldn’t possibly work, right? Well, I’m not going to spoil it, but the one do-over turns into several, which turns into Jack trying to script the perfect cocktail party with the six of them … or rather five after Maggie Q’s character quits in a hilarious huff where she does impressions of the other five. (I’ve always found Maggie to be hilarious from talking to her years ago, and it’s great that her comic skills are finally being used, along with her beauty.) Eventually, Jack brings in actors to play each of them and perform the script he’s written so they can all sit back and figure out where things went wrong. Honestly, The “Argument” is more like the Charlie Kaufman movies I liked (such as Adaptation), and the movie has a vibe a lot like the play God of Carnage, which Roman Polanski adapted into a movie that nobody saw and few gave a fair shake. Also reminded me of Ike Barinholtz’s The Oath, which I quite enjoyed. The main leads are great, but I gotta give additional kudos to Maggie and Cleopatra Coleman, who gives a surprisingly layered performance as possibly the first ditzy African-American not-blonde “blonde” in movie history?

Although Schwartzman didn’t write this movie – it’s written by Zac Sanford who made The Chumscrubber -- he does a great job using his talented cast to throw many surprises at the viewer, and I was laughing quite hardily as the movie went on, because I really enjoyed the characters portrayed not just by the main six but also the actors playing the actors. Yeah, I know it might get confusing but at least this doesn’t have time travel, so if you want a fun and unexpectedly clever dark comedy, do check out The “Argument” which will be in theaters and On Demand, and apparently, you can even order it bundled with WINE?!?!? (*And you can also check out Rooney on Spotify!)

Another really nice surprise this week was Jeff Barnaby’s apocalyptic horror film BLOOD QUANTUM (Shudder/RLJEFilms), which was released on VOD, Digital HD, DVD and Blu-Ray earlier this week but is also on the awesome horror streamer, Shudder, I guess right now? It involves a community of indigenous people in the reserve Red Crow who face the undead when an infection hits the village through a bunch of animals who come back to life and then infect the humans. The movie starts on the first night of this plague and then cuts forward six months when the people of Red Crow have shut themselves off from the rest of the world with the hopes of keeping those still alive uninfected from the hordes of “Zeds” outside their gates.

I’m a little bummed I didn’t have press notes for this movie because there are so many great characters and performances, but it was hard to keep track of them without a scorecard. It does star Michael Greyeyes from Fear the Walking Dead, as well as Forrest Godluck (The Revenant), Kiowa Gordon and Elle-Máijá Tailfeatures, but other than Greeneyes, who plays the sherriff trying to keep his family safe, I could barely keep track of the characters or figure out who played them, and that’s a shame.

I generally liked the recent Train to Busan: Peninsula but Blood Quantum works just as little bit better, mainly from the interaction of the characters in a world full of sex and drugs and gore galore where you never who is gonna get killed but for the most part, they’re likely to go in a way that involves blood that pours like a waterfall. You add to the quick pace of Barnaby’s direction the amazing score that almost sounds like Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and you have a movie that makes you realize that Barnaby has made a film that perfectly captures the spirit and feel of John Carpenter’s best work. 

I actually watched John Leguizamo’s feature film directorial debut CRITICAL THINKING (Vertical Entertainment), way back in March, literally my very last press screening before movie theaters shut down, little realizing that it would be the last press screening for six months! It’s written by Dito Montiel, who I’ve generally been mixed on, and it’s based on a true story from 1998 where a Miami teacher, played by Leguizamo, tries to save a group of Latino and Black teenagers from the inevitable drugs and crime that kids from the underserved ghetto usually get into by teaching them chess and getting them all the way to the National Chess Championship. I didn’t get to rewatch it to write any sort of intelligent review, but as you can imagine, it has a Mr. Holland’s Opus or Dead Poet’s Society feel, but mixed with the little-seen Disney movie, Queen of Katwe, which I generally enjoyed much more. I do think Leguizamo did a pretty decent job with his first feature as a director and maybe if the crazy early days of COVID weren’t distracting me so much, maybe I would have enjoyed it more. This is a movie that I need to rewatch with a better head on my shoulders.

Tyler Norwood’s doc ROBIN’S WISH (Vertical) takes a look at the last years of comedian and actor Robin Williams, who died from suicide in August 2014 at the age of 63. To everyone who knew him, from close acquaintances to fans, it was a mystery why Williams would take his own life with things going so well in his marriage to Susan Schneider. After his death, the autopsy showed that he was afflicted by undiagnosed diffuse Lewy body dementia, and apparently, that was enough to do his head in to the point where suicide seemed like the only solution.

This is a very different than the equally good Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind, because it does focus so much on Williams’ last years and his relationship with Schneider, who plays a much bigger role in this movie with in-depth and intimate moments. It also does a good job talking to Williams’ neighbors in Marin County, who laud the comedian’s commitment to entertaining those in the community. It also interviews Shawn Levy from the Night at the Museum movies, who talks about how Williams wouldn’t let anyone around him know what was going on, maybe because he didn’t really know himself.

Williams’ death was tragic but even moreso when you realize what he must have been going through, and the only thing else I will say is that the notably teary documentary Dear Zachary may finally have some competition as the most tear-inducing real-life film you ever watch. Even so, it’s wonderful and does as great job shining a light on how hard something like dementia hits people when they least expect it. (Also, the score and cinematography for the film are fabulous at provoking those sorrowful emotions even more.)

Arthur Jones’ doc FEELS GOOD MAN is available right now On Demand via the Fantasia Film Festival and will be available via other film festivals, like Oxford Film Festival, starting Friday. (It will also be in theaters, including Oxford’s drive-in!) The movie follows the journey of comics artist Matt Furie, who drew a comic called “Boys Club” that featured a strange frog character named Pepe, who I never heard of, but apparently, the odd underground comic character went from being a popular meme to becoming a symbol of the alt-right. It sounds pretty crazy, but it is an absolutely crazy story as Furie sees his lovable and peaceful slacker character get out from under his control as right wing kooks like Alex Jones from InfoWars gloms onto him.

At first, I wasn’t sure if I’d find this as interesting as the HBO doc, Beware the Slenderman (which I also happened to see at Fantasia a few years ago), but the way that Jones tells Furie and Pepe’s story is really quite compelling, especially as he (and we) watch the craziness surrounding his character unfold, and Pepe becomes less and less like something he wanted to be associated with. (Furie and his wife spent thousands of their own money-making Pepe T-shirts and merch only to have to destroy it all once Furie gets pegged as the creator of a hate image. I mean, holy shit, this thing gets ugly!)

Apparently, Feels Good Man won an “Emerging Filmmaker” Jury Award at Sundance, and it’s well-deserved. I’d recommend the movie to anyone who likes comics or politics and doesn’t mind when the two things collide.

There are a few other movies that I want to write about that I didn’t have time to watch despite having screeners and who knows, maybe I can watch them over this longer weekend if things aren’t too crazy screener-wise. (I lost quite a bit of time with my trip to Connecticut to see Tenet, unfortunately.)

First, there’s Julius Berg’s THE OWNERS (RLJEFilms), which stars Maisie Williams from Game of Thrones and Sylvester McCoy aka Doctor Who #6 (I think?). It’s about a group of friends who want to break into an empty house in which there’s a safe full of money, but when the elderly couple (including McCoy) return home early, they turn the tables in a deadly game of cat and mouse. Yeah, it does sound like it could be fun, and it’ll be in select theaters, On Demand and digital this Friday.

Also out on Digital, as well as DVD, Blu-Ray this week is the anime CHILDREN OF THE SEA (Shout! Factory/GKids) from director Ayumu Watanabe and STUDIO4ºC who made Mind Game and Tekkonkinkreet. It’s about a young girl named Ruka whose father works at an aquarium where she comes across two mysterious boys who were raised by dugongs (a type of sea cow) so they’re very familiar and acclimated to water, to the point where they have to be in or near it at all times, kind of like Aquaman. I did watch a little bit of this, and I do have to say that it looks gorgeous, definitely more photo-realistic than the work of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. I’m sure I’ll get around to watch the rest of it because I do enjoy well-made anime -- Weathering With You and Ride Your Wave are likely to be in my year-end Top 25, for instance – so hopefully, fans of anime and fantsy will check it out.

On Amazon Prime this Friday is Eric Merola’s doc THE ANDORRA HUSTLE, which look at the country of Andorra, located between France and Spain in the Pyrenees mountains, holding a population of 80,000 people who find themselves at the center of one of the most convoluted robberies in history in 2015 when a the private bank Banca Privada d’Andorra was shut down by the government to destroy the Catalonian Independence Movement, leaving dozens of innocent civilians facing jail time for laundering money after losing their life savings.

A couple prominent science fiction series premiere this weekend, including the Ridley Scott-produced Raised by Wolves on HBO Max and Away, starring Hillary Swank on Netflix. Someday, I hope to have

There’s a lot of other stuff that I didn’t have to watch or even think about it, so yeah, this is a little bit of a “lite edition” of the Weekend Warrior, so I apologize. Hopefully, I’ll be able to do better next week.

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

[virtual-lara]

IGN FilmForce - Iain Glen  Interview - Lara Croft Tomb Raider

Interview appeared on the IGN FilmForce website, dated to 30th May 2001. Article was written by Spence D.

Glen discusses swordplay, stunts and playing the villain Manfred Powell in the upcoming action-adventure film.

Up until this point Iain Glen hasn't been much of a household name over here in the States. Sure, he had a bit part in Gorillas in the Mist and he played Hamlet in Rosencrantz and Guilderstern Are Dead. And yes, that was him opposite Nicole Kidman in “The Blue Room” on Broadway. Plus those lucky enough to catch the recent art house fare Beautiful Creatures got to see him as a raving smack addict. But, for the most part he'd be what us Yanks consider a Merchant Ivory type player. You know what I'm talking about. He's one of those actors who's spent a vast amount of their time starring in period dramas predominantly created for and by British television. But to label Glen as just another Brit doing angst-ridden period dramas would be a total shame. I mean the man's done his share of stage, to boot, and coupled with his Royal Academy training, calling him anything less than a thespian would be an insult.

While Glen has racked up a worthy body of work, one can't help but wonder just how much of it can be said to have helped prepare him for the road ahead. I mean he's about to be thrust into the pop cultural mainstream thanks to his role as baddie Manfred Powell in Tomb Raider. Talk about doing a 180. But hey, every actor has his day and it's about time that this Edinburgh-born Scotsman cracked the Hollywood inner circle.

I caught up with Glen last October on the set of Tomb Raider. Decked out in his Powell expedition garb – black fedora, black jeans, white shirt, black hunting vest – Glen allowed us into his dressing room during a break in the shoot. While we assaulted him with our tape recorders and asundry questions, Glen kicked back, had a smoke, and swigged some water (trust me, after repeating the same line 30 times in a row inside of an artificial fog saturated set that's hotter'n an easy bake oven – those lights they need to illuminate sets emit some serious heat waves, and you'd wanna kick back with a bottle of water, too).

The fact that he was only too eager to talk to the press, further illuminates his readiness to weather the media storm that a summer blockbuster of this caliber will no doubt create. Toss in the fact that he's down right charming and witty (during the course of our meeting the man pulled a veritable Merle Streep, slipping in and out of more eclectic UK dialects – ranging from working class Scotsman to hoity-toity Londoner than one could easily keep track of) and you know that he was more than capable of holding his own against Angelina/Lara. But then you wouldn't expect anything less from a classically trained Scottish actor, would you?

IGN FilmForce:

I saw a little bit of a working clip and noticed that you engage in a little swordsmanship in the film. How much extensive training did they give you on the blade?

Iain Glen:

Well, luckily I went to drama school at the [Glen affects a stuffy Brit post accent] Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and there are various classes that you can take extracurriculum. And I and Ralph Fiennes were completely obsessed with sword fencing so there's this evening halfway through the course called "The Prizefights" where you're supposed to do armed or unarmed combat, which most students spend about two weeks preparing for. But Ralph and I had been at it for like two years, you know, endlessly rehearsing our fight. Just 'cause we loved it so much. So I was very familiar with swords. Actually, as often is the case in film, you're kind of pushed for time, but they got the right chap on board and he showed me this simple sequence. And it's like anything that you do in a skill that you need, don't try and learn how to use the thing as a whole, just use it for the particular tune you need to play. So I felt lucky that I had had so much sword training in my early days.

IGN FilmForce:

Did you at all immerse yourself in the games? Or did you try and distance yourself from them? I realize that Lara is the only character that has been transferred from the games to the movie and the rest of you have been created for the sole purpose of the film itself.

Iain Glen:

No I didn't. I mean I was unfamiliar with the game. But actually the producers very kindly gave me, as one of a number of gifts before we started, the game. I looked at it, obviously, with interest, but as I say, I really think that it's something for the director that's useful, it's very useful probably. But for an actor, I can't see it being useful, really. I mean you can get a mood of something perhaps, but if it's not on the page, if it's not within the world that we're creating from the script, then I don't think you're gonna be able to nick anything from the game that's gonna help you in a way. And certainly not for a character who doesn't exist, you know, except for in the story. So, no...you just hope that, you know if you're doing it right and you're doing the story, then connections will be made and people might assume different things, which should be nice. But I don't think as an actor, unless I'm missing out on something hugely, that there was a lot to be gained from really immersing myself in the game.

IGN FilmForce:

Are you all afraid that if this movie really takes off and becomes the proverbial summer blockbuster, that you will become typecast as the typical English villain?

Iain Glen:

Hmmmm. Right. Well, it's nice because I don't think...I mean if I look back at what [I've done] I don't think I've done the sort of English villain for me as an actor before. I don't think so, particularly, certainly nothing that has got any big overlap with what I'm doing now. So, as far as I'm concerned, in relationship to where I am, it was a really valid choice and respectable, whether it was a big movie or how much money they might want to pay you, it was purely as an artistic choice. It was about something new to do and thus it was a good choice. Subsequent to that, if people want to send me a lot of parts in playing a baddie villain, the only way I'll be typecast is if I accept them. So it's kind of...you know, you might be frustrated that people don't think "Oh, he's a good actor, he did that and maybe he could do something else." But my fate is in my own hands and you know, I can guarantee I won't be doing anything that's kind of like what this is or you know, is such a match to this that it's sort of not interesting to do. We'll see. I mean I've loved the shape, if I've had any, of my [slips into a Scottish brogue] career. My credo has always been to just keep duckin' and divin and keep dodgin' and keep doin' different things. I've loved going from the mediums and doing theater and doing new writing and doing Shakespeare and doing classics, doing musicals, doing film, doing small English films, doing medium-sized European films, and doing American – hopefully – big films. That's what I'll keep doing, if I possibly can. It's nice to inhabit an area that I haven't, you know, for a good few years been in this sort of scale...well, I probably have never been in this sort of scale of picture, but I have been on sort of large scale pictures before, and it's nice to do it again.

IGN FilmForce:

I know that Angelina did quite a few of her own stunts. I mean she did the wild bungy dance of death and the motorcycle slide out. Do you get to do any stunts of that caliber? And how much of your stunt work did you do?

Iain Glen:

Ummm, well I don't really...I suppose on the sort of stunt scale she has the most and then Alex, the character Daniel [Craig] plays has the second most. They're kind of the active tomb raiders. I kind of have an army of people around me, which I can then sort of dish out to my minions a lot of the dirty work. Ummm, but that being said, we are entering two sequences right now where all of the kind of action stuff will take place and it's a bit of a...I don't quite know how we'll do it, but there's a fair amount of action in that. But nothing in her league. There's just lots of running, tumbling, and shooting sort of stuff, but not what Angelina is up to. And quite rightly, you know, 'cause she's Lara Croft [this last bit he says with a wink and a smile].

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