#it was fine and the works of shakespeare were intended for the common people

[starrypawz]

So yesterday I had a moment of 'Oh I feel more out of place than usual'

My local cinema had a broadcast of a recent Macbeth adaptation with David Tennant, my brother wanted to go see it so we went

And basically it became really evident that 'Oh this screening is full of people from the posh end of town'

[astrovian]

Richard Armitage tweets (13/09/21):

To the new owner, I’m delighted that Gizzy’s jacket found a new home. Thank you for sharing the beautiful story about your parents and for your generosity…here are some answers to your questions:

Question #1 from NJO (New Jacket Owner):

While he was filming Hannibal as Francis/Red Dragon, did he recall that in one of the first few Spooks episodes he was unpacking a box of personal items to decorate his new flat and one of the items was a photo of the Red Dragon and that Lucas was a fan of Blake’s? Question: Do you believe it to be simply a bizarre coincidence you were asked to play Francis or perhaps, could it have been kismet? Have there been any other similar kismet-like occurrences in any of your other works?

Re; Hannibal and M15 (you’re in the US!!!) I use William Blake a lot for research and inspiration but it was a coincidence.

Question #2 from NJO:

I’ve often thought that performing any Shakespearean play on stage would be quite a challenge in part due to the length of the monologues and soliloquys. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if Shakespeare had a hatred of actors, despite having done some acting of his own, and that writing these lengthy passages was an intentionally devious act to make life difficult for actors. RA has commented that he would like to play Richard III. Question: If you were put on the spot, say in an interview or a dinner party (presuming you weren’t too far into your cups) could you recite the opening soliloquy of Richard III by heart?

I absolutely could recite the opening soliloquy to R3. Probably would get a bit ‘paraphrasy’ according to how much I’ve imbibed!!!

Question #3 from NJO:

In almost every movie/TV show I’ve seen RA in, at some point, he picks up and carries a woman somewhere. Most of the time he’s carrying them to a bedroom. (How truly gallant of him to carry these women that are apparently so drowsy they cannot walk on their own to the bedroom to go to sleep?) Must keep this G-Rated. Question: So, Mr. Half-Century man, how is your back holding up?

My back is just fine. Looking for someone to carry me in my next role.!!!

Question #4 from NJO:

As we know, RA likes to write bios for his characters to help him realize the characters’ persona. The director of The Stranger, Danny Brocklehurst, took some of those ideas and added them to the series. While promoting it, RA stated that one of the story lines in the show was something that Richard had experienced himself. Question: Would you be willing to share what experience you and Adam had in common?

Adam Price has a conversation with Johanna Griffin (the amazing @SFinneranTV ) he tells a story about how he met Corrine; the story was peppered with real details about a time I was working in Africa. (Strike Back)

Question #5 from NJO:

RA has been filmed extensively on horseback. Actors often comment on how hard it is to get a nag to hit its mark while filming. According to the “Equine Actors Guild, **” (EAG) these beautiful stallions are well trained in their craft and their hooves do NOT miss their mark. The EAG suggests it is perhaps the fault of the actor on the back of the steed and not the mount itself. Question: Have you ever had trouble getting your hirsute, four-legged thespians to hit their mark? What about the two beautiful Borzoi in Oceans 8?

With regards to horses hitting their marks. I’ve had great experiences and made some firm equine friends on film sets. I did, however, ride a thoroughbred for a short time on Robin Hood, he knew showbiz was a step down from racing, and decided one afternoon to bail…

He tore the bit, and sped off with Gisborne on his back riding with only one rein. So the jacket might have some ‘sweat’ stains, but also I agree with the horse. Racing V Showbiz? No contest!!!

Question #6 from NJO:

WikiFeet, which I didn’t know was a thing until a minute ago, ranks RA’s feet 4.77 out of 5.0 compared to other famous people from Leicestershire. I am not a foot person and do my absolute best to not draw attention to my own feet and quite frankly I don’t notice other people’s feet, including RA’s. Question: How do inane “news” stories and rankings on such stupid things sit with you? As a shy(ish) woman, it would make me uncomfortable, and quite frankly, would chap-my-ass be I in your shoes – pun intended. At this point in your career, are you numb to the idiocy of this and can ignore it and move on with your day, or does it chap-your-ass as well, or do you adhere to the adage that all publicity is good publicity?

I rarely read anything written about myself, apart from items that are brought to my attention (by very kind friends). I try to keep my brain full of the useful stuff; there isn’t that much room for anything else.

[hell-heron]

Romeo and Juliet - Globe production 2009

So, as I think every Shakespeare person on this site, I've spent the past few days rewatching my favorite parts of this over and over again, but only now I've decided to talk about it a lot more in depth and watch all of it. So, did I like it? Yeah, I have to say I expected to like it more because the clips I had been able to watch a while ago were mostly featuring Ellie Kendrick's Juliet's solo scenes which are imho the highlight of the production.

The only comment on this I read from someone whose opinion I trust mentioned there is a lack of chemistry between the titular characters and thst the romance comes off as kind of too childish and silly. Now, it's probably because my opinion of the ideal chemistry is quite less sexually charged than most people, but I only partly agree with this. For example, the lark scene was definitely underwhelming (tho I liked the little preamble where Romeo stares, obviously scared, out of the window and Juliet reaches him as the chorus sings) and the courtship sonnet just average, but the balcony was exceptionally good, Zeffirelli levels even, a perfect balance of flirty humor, passion, tenderness and enthusiasm, also helped by the fact both actors decided this was the moment to be a bit more natural in their acting and drop the... Comedical conceit? I'm gonna elaborate a bit more on this later, but anyway it was very good. There is definitely some tonal issue with the romance, but imho it's more due to the overall inability of almost anyone in this cast to play in a tragedy than romantic chemistry: these kids would have played Beatrice and Benedick just fine.

It's very clear that the director's intent in this was to highlight this play's overlooked comedic influence and, while I appreciate it... Eh it's a bit of a mixed bag. I like highlighting the humor and snark that is already present, especially the two lovers', I kinda enjoy the comedic servant character, some scenes were done in a really nice and original way, but unfortunately it also means everything after the duel falls really emotionally flat. The deaths in particular were hard to watch. I also think Tybalt was underused in this sense and was way too serious (sooo sad because the actor is really pretty and seems good tho he was given fuck all to do) while Paris should have been less comedic, given that the fact this doesn't cut the sexual-harrassment-in-church-scene (THANK GOD) makes him REALLY sleazy and a legitimate threat for Juliet. Though I love the scene where the Capulet's have to basically passively aggressively kick him out of the house.

Another noteworthy point is that the script cuts almost nothing, a few scenes are shortened but all are present. Personally I find this great as I am a big fan of a lot of scenes that are often unappreciated and cut - the aforementioned conversation between Paris and Juliet, the scene were Juliet complains about the nurse being late, a few Bencutio-inclined scenes etc. However they really could have used to skip a few purely comedic scenes involving the servants, and the prologues, seriously? The prologues in the year of our lord 2009?

There's also a little added bickering between Lord and Lady C about whether to have the wedding on Thursday or Wednesday to make fun of Shakespeare fucking up the timeline, which is obviously awkward and unnecessarily but lord do I respect the principle.

The costumes are good, imho, a bit plain/stiff in some cases. In particular I'd like to know what possessed them to have gray as Juliet's main color. But for the rest they look nice, especially Lady C's, Nurse's and the young men. I also appreciate that Juliet wears blue and Romeo red for the wedding, it's really pretty and symbolic, and that there's a difference made clear between everyday clothes and the nice ones for the party or the wedding for Romeo too. I also love his ball headdress of twigs and feathers, very cute and fairylike.

Now - the characterization. As I mentioned I was extremely pleasantly surprised by Ellie Kendrick's Juliet. She's the first actress that I think captures Juliet's snark and feeling of like... Overwhelming urgency and intensity. When she says on the balcony that she's incapable of being as coy and poised and careful with her feelings as other girls, it's believable, when she complains about old people being slow and acting like they're already dead compared to her warm youthful blood and passion, it's... A bit mean as teenage girls will be, but believable. One thing I love about Juliet how Shakespeare wrote is that she has a lot of these little character touches that set her apart from a Stock Romantic Maiden and she really makes it shine more than any other actress. My issue is that her portrayal changes very little through the play: in some cases it works well even in heavier scenes (for example the conversation with Paris and then with Friar Lawrence has such fervor and bitterness to it, I love her little snarky huff when FL doubts she will have the courage to go through with her plans) in other it really doesn't. The poison speech is really, really jarring, I know her speeding up like crazy is meant to convey anxiety but she doesn't really make it come across imho, and she shows almost no emotion in her death. Points added for the Gallop apace fiery footed steeds speech tho, it's really charming and mischievous ad I loved it. She also does surprisingly well with the reaction to Romeo's banishment despite not being usually good with sad scenes

Now, Romeo... Romeo seemed really mediocre to me from the clips and then he grew on me, but he's quite strange. In most of his scenes he seems... Uhm, too dramatic? Too conscious of the fact he's acting? Which I don't know if it's meant to be reflective of Romeo's personality or simply the actor's style. I could appreciate it as a characterization choice if he started acting more naturally after meeting Juliet and dropping his Unrequited Love Angst (which he does for a while), but then for some reason he goes back to it, to the point where the duel with Paris and his death is the worst offender. So it's really unclear what he's doing. His best scenes are definitely the balcony, the conversation with Friar Lawrence (such genuine affection and complicity! This production does GREAT at establishing the kids' relationships with their surrogate parents, I wish it was more common) and his conversation with the nurse, which coincidentally are those where he acts more natural. In these scenes, he comes off as really sweet, enthusiastic and outgoing but a bit awkward. Real quality facial expressions. Again, feels believable when Mercutio says "now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo!". I have a ridiculous soft spot for the moment where he tries to make the "Young Romeo will be older when you find him than he was when you sought him out" joke and it falls completely flat and Nurse just stares at him weirdly.

Overall I appreciate the intent of the actors to give the lovers more of an individual personality than usual, but they take it too far and don't drop it at the appropriate moment

Now, for the secondary cast. Nurse is great, one of the best in the cast for ability to play both comedy and tragedy I think, I liked Lady C's characterization, more bumbling/distressed/trying and failing to parent emotionally inept mom than the usual Slutty Wine Mom which is starting to honestly bore me, Friar Lawrence is really cute and I love they gave him his speech about flowers. The prince is completely forgettable, Lord C a bit too bumbling to be intimidating imho, the Montague nonexistent. I already talked about my issues with Paris

Passing to the boys people actually care about here:

- Tybalt unfortunately doesn't offer much to like. He's very serious and poised and mhh just lacks feral energy. His scene with Lord Capulet is good but the fights are nothing special. He gets slapped by Lord C also :/

- Benvolio is cute! He gets a bit more frat-boyish characterization which is nice after all these tiring nerdy cinnamon roll too pure for this world portrayals, and he's very distinctive from Romeo. I think there's also great Bencutio chemistry here, they had some great scenes in the one after the ball where they look for Romeo together and the "more than prince of cats scenes". The first in particular, featuring the drunk boys trying and failing to make rhymes to conjure Romeo, is one of the better accomplished comedic scenes. Unfortunately there's not as much mileage to take from the "Thou art as hot in thy mood as any Jack in Italy" conversation, he doesn't get mad about it :/. For the rest I like his part in the opening fight and his anger at Romeo in the post-duel scene. Also he's green-coded which is nice

- Mercutio... Agh. So there's a similar problem here as with the lovers, acts great in more light toned, underrated scenes but the main ones are somewhat underwhelming. All the Montacrew conversations are delightful, he's very expressive in his gestures. The aforementioned Bencutio scenes are great and so is the one with the nurse, tho I wish he didn't kiss her, it's not really necessary to resort to sexual harassment to show him as an annoying dick. However there are some points where he comes off WAY more bitter than necessary at Romeo's romantic exploits and ??? People are aware you don't HAVE TO code him as in unrequited love with Romeo if you don't intend to do anything with it, are they? (tho they do have a very cute scene where they lie on the ground together and snuggle as they banter) However, the queen Mab speech and the duel, which are the most important, fall very flat. He can't make up his mind on whether the queen Mab speech is a breakdown or just a ramble to show off his wit, and the Montague boys definitely react like it's the latter. He shows some very nice anger in the "I talk of dreams" bit tho. Overall it's weird and seems boring, too long

I need to have a full paragraph to talk about the duel because it's imho one of the most botched scenes. It's overpowered by the drums, confusing and chaotic not in a good way. Tybalt doesn't seem very interested in fighting Mercutio, nor the other way around, Tybalt seems actually almost uneasy and like he accepted because he was embarrassed to refuse. However this doesn't reflect in the actual fight, which is very violent where this would make me expect a Zeffirelli-like, playful and dramatic duel that goes tragically wrong. Mercutio's death is fairly cold, save for the plague o'er both your houses line which is always awesome, and maybe i influenced by the musical but there's a strong lack of reaction and affection from the Montague boys, they don't touch or hug or even like... Cry or anything. I do like Romeo and Tybalt's duel, in particularly the fact it's mainly a fistfight, to emphasize how much rawer and realer it is than the first one - tho again, because the first one is more violent than warranted the contrast loses a little in strength. There's also no emotion or reaction whatsoever from Tybalt at any point which is a little weird given how this started.

Romeo's reaction is also not great. He's mainly angry, although understandably, doesn't seem to feel guilty or sad at all about either Tybalt or Mercutio. He also repeatedly punches Tybalt's corpse, which... This coupled with the fact they keep him killing Paris, but not the scene where he talks to Tybalt's corpse in the crypt is a little weird. I know some people like to play Romeo's arc as a descent into darkness with him losing his principles and natural gentleness as he's pushed off the deep end, and I'm not necessarily opposed to it, but I don't think anyone involved in this has the capability to handle that well, so it just seems strange and out of character.

He does break down a little in the following scene with Friar Lawrence, but still he doesn't seen particularly mad about anything but his banishment. I do love how he emphasize his feeling of betrayal from his One Trusted Adult tho.

So, overall I really like this. Great cast, some wonderful ideas, very vivid and fun to see. I just wish they could have balanced tragedy and comedy better because literally all the issues come from there

[vanilla-bean-buttercream]

In Our DNA - Chapter 1

Parings: Future Logince & Moxiety | Platonic/Queerplatonic Analogical & Royality Characters: Logan Sanders, Virgil Sanders, Roman Sanders, Patton Sanders Chapter warnings:   Mentions of an eating disorder, brief mentions of abuse, mentions of forced imprisonment (don't worry about the lack of triggers there's a storm comin) Word Count: 3900

Summary:

All people are born different. Some are born with the ability to heal the world. Others are born to bring it to their knees. One thing they share in common is how humanity fears those born different than the majority.

But fear not! There is no such thing as humans that can explode buildings with their voice or alter the memories of others. They can't draw pictures of the future or change the way you feel. Those people are only born in fairytales. We, at the Institute of Outstanding Disabilities and Neurological Assessments, strive to better research those fears and eradicate them. We care for you, that's our motto.

We hope you remember the only thing you have to fear is fear itself.

~The IODNA Head Representative

Ao3 Link

Author’s Note:

Edit: Okay, so originally this fic was going to be a lot darker than it is, but I've decided to go in a different direction. It's a little more lighthearted, and a lot of chapters are not torture porn any longer. So, I'm sheepishly retracting my earlier warning. I'm sorry to those who were here for that. Now, there may be a chapter or two, but not nearly 15 like I was intending, and I'll definitely put warnings on those for you <3

I’m still messing with you all with unreliable narrator and false clues, but it’s a little less messing with if you catch my drift :3

That being said, I've wanted to write an AU with superhuman abilities for a long time, but I never really had the plot to go with it. Fear, because I have discovered such a plot, and it's nothing to sneeze at.

Now, without further ado, please sit back and try to relax as we dive into "In Our DNA"

-

Subject # 240

Defect: Memory manipulation Sex: Male Age: 15 Test #: 3,102

Notes: Subject refuses to eat. Conversations suggest the subject is starving himself to escape. After being exposed to Subject #93, Subject has uncovered the horrors of surviving an eating disorder. Subject started eating the next day.

Test: PASSED

--

“Virgil, I don’t understand why there are so many flavors of frozen lactation,” Logan mumbled as they stared up at the sign.

Virgil chuckled and shook his head. “I know it’s a tough decision, but they’re all pretty good. Stay away from the peanut butter ones though.”

“Are they distasteful?” Logan asked.

“No, but,” Virgil paused, “I mean, you can have it, but you’ll have to be careful around me.”

Logan put a hand on Virgil’s shoulder. “If the consumption of a peanut butter is going to harm you, then I shall refrain from consuming it.”

This time Virgil laughed hard. Logan wondered what they said that was so funny, but Virgil shook his head and refused to answer them.

“Look, how about we both get vanilla. It’s like the base flavor,” Virgil pointed out. Logan watched Virgil play with the squeeze toy in his pocket as he walked up to the counter. He ordered two small cones and paid for their order. After a few minutes, the cashier handed over two cones with two scoops of ice cream on top. Virgil handed one out to Logan.

Logan looked at the ice cream, to Virgil’s eyes, then back at the sugary treat. Their fingers wrapped around the cone’s base. They studied the way Virgil glided his tongue over the ice cream and stared back at their own. Was it not socially acceptable to bite it? Virgil’s eyes flickered to theirs, and he gave a gentle and encouraging smile.

“Hurry before it melts,” Virgil urged.

Logan stuck their tongue out and touched the tip of the ice cream. The chill retracted their tongue. They shuddered. Virgil’s brow rose with both curiosity and amusement, and he watched them stare at the ice cream like it sneezed and offended their ancestors.

“Don’t like it?” Virgil asked.

Logan dared to take another lick. This time, they were bolder and swiped their tongue across the frozen treat. They shivered, but their eyes lit up moments later.

“You good, fam?” Virgil asked through his laughter.

“It’s delectable,” Logan whispered. They licked it again, this time gathering up a rather large amount on their tongue, and held the ice cream in their mouth a little longer than normal. Their eyes widened as the ice turned into cream on their tongue.

“Glad to hear you like it,” Virgil commented and took another lick of his own.

The two walked down the sidewalk of the busy city. Virgil admired the world he used to belong to at a distance. People hurried off to work before they were marked tardy. People kissed their children and hugged their spouse before a long day of loneliness. People talked on their phones to disclose business deals, chatter about the latest gossip, or ask if their family needed anything before they returned home.

In a way, Virgil missed normal, but he’d trade normal any day for the chance to hang out with Logan.

Watching Logan experience life brought a new purpose to Virgil’s dull one. It reminded him of the time he spent teaching his sister how to experience life. He briefly wondered how she was doing and hoped his own family faired out well after his decision. He’d return home one day to check on them, but for right now, his number one priority was keeping Logan safe.

Virgil glanced up at the walls of the city as they strolled through. Business signs flashed and tried to coax people to enter. Several windows had sales tags on them. One, in particular, showcased a poster for the city’s theater, which would be putting on a show of Shakespeare's “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” tomorrow. He hummed. Would Logan like Shakesphere? They seemed to enjoy old novels, so perhaps he could introduce them to theater life next.

“Do you often consume this?” Logan asked and gestured to their ice cream.

“Only on special occasions,” Virgil replied.

“Oh. What are we celebrating?”

Virgil laughed through his nose. “It’s been six months since we escaped.”

Logan’s glasses slid down their nose ever so slightly as their eyebrows rose. They stared down at the ice cream, as if it told them the news, and hummed. “Has it really been that long?”

“Hard to believe, yeah?” Virgil mumbled. The two walked in silence for a block. Virgil watched Logan’s eyes become distant. Logan watched the ice cream drift down the cone and pool at the base of their thumb.

Logan snuffed. Time ruined everything. It ate away at anything that brought them joy. Likewise, they never knew how much they had left. The fleeting number of manmade madness ticked down like a time bomb in their head. It was only a matter of time before they were discovered, returned, and cut away from the time Logan so desperately wanted to keep as their own.

How long would it be until time ripped Virgil from them as well?

“Hey, maybe we should head home,” Virgil spoke and stole a glance over his shoulder. “I mean-”

“Please,” Logan interrupted. They refused to look up and meet Virgil’s eyes.

Virgil nodded his head and sighed. “Okay. Let’s go home.”

The two turned down a corner and headed off in a different direction. Virgil stole glances over at Logan. They continued to stay frozen in thought as their ice cream melted all over their hand. Virgil sighed. Why did he open his mouth? Logan was doing just fine before he ruined it. They could’ve had a nice afternoon in the park watching birds or something domestic like that.

The city paid no mind to two strangers returning home. Had the people known the secrets hidden behind closed lips, they’d offer the two of them up in a heartbeat. Virgil pulled his hood up over his head. Logan would be targeted faster than him, but he still didn’t want to take the risk.

“Thank you for the ice cream,” Logan spoke. They looked over at Virgil and offered a quirk of their lips.

Virgil accepted Logan’s attempt at a smile and replied, “No problem.”

Logan thankfully broke out of their stupor and continued to eat their ice cream. They admitted it tasted no different melted. No matter if it was in a solid or liquid state, the ice cream still held a delectable sweetness to it that Logan enjoyed. If this ice cream could maintain its core being behind imperfect walls, was it possible for them to recover from the damage dealt to them for twenty years?

Logan glanced over at Virgil. Their urgency to return home distressed the older man. However, by nature, Virgil was a paranoid person. He always double-checked over everything to keep them safe. Logan wished it wasn’t their fault. Virgil reminded them numerous times he chose this and it was not Logan’s fault. Still, it never shook the blaring voice in Logan’s head that their escape was their choice and therefore their fault.

Virgil turned them down an alleyway and pushed a board out of the way. Logan slid inside first, and Virgil followed them soon after. The musty smell of their temporary home may have turned Logan’s stomach, but it was better than any over sanitized smell Logan experienced prior.

Logan curled up in the corner of their bed and sighed. They watched the last bits of their ice cream vanish into the cone and slosh around like Logan’s upset stomach. What were they supposed to do now? Did they drink the liquid inside or throw the cone away? It seemed like a waste of perfectly good food.

“You going to finish that?” Virgil asked. Logan snapped up from their thoughts and hummed. Virgil smirked. “You bite it, like eating a cracker.”

“It’s edible?” Logan questioned.

“Yeah dude,” Virgil demonstrated with his own half-eaten cone.

Logan stared down at the cone. They tested it with their tongue. The outside held no significant flavor despite the melted ice cream dribbling down the sides. They cast a cautious glare at Virgil before biting in. The crunch vibrated in their head. While its flavor dwarfed compared to the sugary treat inside, the cone brushed a satisfying texture on their tongue. Some of the ice cream gushed from the crevices and added to the flavor.

Logan bit in again, this time taking a bigger bite. They wondered if Virgil heard the same deafening crunch they did. Was it really that loud? Would others hear them? A quick glance at Virgil proved they had done the right thing, as Virgil smiled softly at them from his patched-up beanbag chair across the room.

“What do you think?” Virgil asked.

“It was indeed satisfactory,” Logan replied. They hesitated for a moment before adding, “I would like to enjoy another at a later date.”

“Cool. Next time, maybe we could try like chocolate or something.”

“Oh, I’ve had chocolate,” Logan perked up.  “It was not frozen, but it was solid. I believe it had caramel inside of it.”

Virgil couldn’t help but smile. “Did you like it?”

“It was-” Logan cut themself off. The smile slipped from Virgil's lips, and he swallowed his nerves back down his throat. Logan continued, “It was a reward for using my abilities for the first time.”

“Christ, I’m sorry.”

“For what? You didn’t administer the chocolate yourself.”

“I mean, you shouldn’t have had to find out about chocolate that way.”

“Some things cannot be helped,” Logan mumbled. They finished up the ice cream and stared down at their sticky fingers. Washing them required leaving, and they were in no mood to escape and clean them now.

“If I spit on a tissue, you can clean that off,” Virgil joked. Logan wrinkled their nose, and Virgil snuffed through his. “I’ll take that as a no.”

“I’ve dealt with worse punishments,” Logan returned. The mirth from earlier disappeared again. Logan noted how they had a habit of making Virgil sad with just a few words. Perhaps they should stop talking. Perhaps if they erased the urge to disclose their past, Virgil could continue to be happy around him.

“You shouldn’t have had to,” Virgil pointed out. He crossed his arms. The pull from his fingers on the material suggested he wrapped himself into a hug.

“As I said earlier, some things cannot be helped,” Logan repeated. They leaned back against the wall and stared up at the ceiling. Their eyes settled upon the third crack from the wall, and they sighed.

“I’m going to make sure it never happens again.”

Logan looked down and met fierce gray eyes. There was a soft sincerity behind it, engulfing Logan in a false sense of security. Virgil proved he would fight for Logan. Why, Logan would never understand. Virgil traded away everything Logan desperately desired just to return them to the normal world.  Still, he had no regrets.

A faint smile quirked on Logan’s lips. Virgil returned the gesture, and he pulled out his phone to scroll through the few contacts he kept in touch with.

Logan stared at the window. Rain clouds offered to cleanse the world of their stale conversation, and Logan watched the small droplets splatter on the window pane. Soon, the soothing rhythm of rain lulled Logan’s nerves away. If there was anything they loved more than being free, it was the sound of rain.

They stole a glance at Virgil curled up in the corner. He too stared out the window. Virgil enjoyed the rain as much as Logan did. Why, he never disclosed, but Logan assumed it had something to do with his past. With how horrible Logan’s own was, they never found themselves curious enough to learn Virgil’s story. They couldn't handle hearing if Virgil was subjected to the same horrors they were or not.

However, if Virgil did come from a past as troubled as their own, perhaps Logan could hold onto the thought of healing. They could move past everything and regain a normal life. They could use their abilities when they chose. They could command their own life as long as Virgil showed them the way.

Perhaps there was hope for them yet.

Logan fell asleep while watching the rain. They didn’t know how much time had passed, but they woke as thunder rumbled in the distance.

As Logan became more aware of their surroundings, they noticed Virgil drawing in his sketchbook. His eyes held a clouded milky gaze, and he stuck his tongue out between his lips as he concentrated.

Logan enjoyed the calm scratches of Virgil’s pencil against the paper. Virgil may have brushed off his talent, but Logan admired every line. They wished they could produce something out of nothing like Virgil could.

Virgil blinked, and he squinted down at his artwork. For a while, he studied the page in hand and chewed on the edge of his pencil. Logan knew that look.

“Again?” they asked.

Virgil’s head popped up from his notepad, and he dropped the pencil from his mouth.

“Yeah,” Virgil replied. He scratched the side of his head. “It’s that same person again. When I first saw it, I was sure I was drawing you, but it’s… off.”

“Off?” Logan mused. They shuffled over to Virgil’s side and stared down at the picture. The person Virgil drew stared back at him with loving eyes and laid down on their side.

“This person has freckles,” Virgil explained. He gripped onto his hair and gave a gentle tug. “I can’t figure it out. Like, do you have a doppelganger somewhere or something?”

Logan quieted at that. Virgil rose a brow and glanced over at his friend. Logan stood and returned to their side of the room without another word.

“Logan,” Virgil started, but he didn’t dare finish his sentence. Logan stared out the window past the raindrops and over the surrounding city.

“I… there is something from my past I have erased,” Logan mumbled.

Virgil swallowed the bile rising through his throat. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

“I… it could be a coincidence,” Logan mumbled. “There is only one person I know of who could look so similar to me, but I haven’t seen her in years.”

“Her?” Virgil questioned. Logan nodded their head. Virgil licked dry lips and inhaled deeply through his nose. “Logan, do you have a sister?”

“I used to,” Logan replied and released a long breath, “but not anymore.”

--

Subject # 240 Defect: Memory manipulation Sex: Male Age: 10 Test #: 1,781

Notes: Subject exhibits extreme paranoia when confronted with revealing the identity of Jane Doe’s twin. Theory suggests the subject is still covering up Event #602 and refuses to disclose information. Further prodding into familial history suggests the family no longer resides at their first residence to confirm this theory.

Test: FAILED

--

Roman sat up in his bed and looked around.

The rain outside turned into a thunderstorm. Its anger shook the windows and blinded anyone who dared gaze at its fury. Rain pounded its fists on the glass.

Roman ran a hand through his hair and sighed. He jumped out of bed and brushed the chill off his arms. He couldn’t explain why, but the storm unnerved him. Perhaps it reminded him of his childhood. Harsh sounds never failed to set his younger self on edge.

Roman walked out to the kitchen and turned on the island light. The storm deafened slightly within the middle walls, but it still echoed from his room. Roman placed water in a kettle and put it over the stove. He turned it on and fished out a bag of chamomile tea and a bottle of raw honey.

As Roman sat down at the table, he supported his head with his palm. Perhaps he should’ve brought his phone with him. Now he was stuck on an island with his thoughts and no lifeboat to escape on.

For a moment, Roman wished his abilities worked on him. He’d give anything to fall into the sweet embrace of peace his voice emitted. His scars were not so easily healed. Every time he thought he was over the panic loud sounds brought, thunderstorms brought it back once again.

His head drifted over to the second bedroom of the apartment. As much as he hated going through thunderstorms alone, he hoped his roommate wouldn’t wake. It had been almost a year since Patton slept through a storm. The last thing he needed was-

The door creaked open, and Roman muttered a curse in his mind. Patton poked his head out of his door and glanced around.

“Ro, you okay?” Patton asked in sign language. Roman snorted. Patton knew him too well. It wasn’t that he couldn’t talk during a storm, but loud words always locked up in his throat. He could barely whisper.

Patton, ever so lovely and supportive Patton, learned sign language just for him. He didn’t want Roman to feel like he was any weirder than he already was, so he refused to talk as well. If the thunderstorms didn’t steal Roman’s breath away, Patton sure did. His care knew no bounds. It fought back against any evils Roman faced.

Well, most evils. The heart could only do so much.

“Yes,” Roman signed back.

Patton strolled out into the kitchen. He eyed Roman before sighing through his nose. He continued to sign, “I know you don’t like thunderstorms.”

“Really, Patton, I’m fine,” Roman lied. The kettle behind him whistled as if calling him out. Roman stood from the table and grabbed his white mug with “Fairest of them all” written on it. He placed the honey and tea bag in the mug and poured the hot water into the cup. The steam already calmed his nerves.

A hand pressed up against Roman’s back, and Roman jumped. He spun his head around. Patton stared down at Roman’s chest with pained eyes. Roman swallowed whatever bravado he put on and sighed through his nose.

“You’re lying again,” Patton signed.

“I just didn’t want to upset you.” Roman sighed. “I may not be going to sleep soon, but you still have a chance.”

“I can handle it.” Patton grimaced.

Roman turned, lifted Patton’s hand from his back, and rubbed his fingers over the knuckles. He whispered, “I wouldn’t mind sitting with you on the couch until we fall asleep.”

Patton sighed and accepted his offer. The two walked into the living room. Roman draped an arm over the back of the couch and waited for Patton to settle in next to him. The younger man curled up against Roman’s side, and Roman wrapped an arm around Patton’s shoulders.

“Have you been up long?” Patton vocalized.

Roman shook his head. He whispered back, “I only woke a few minutes ago.”

Patton watched Roman take a drink of his tea. He rested his head against Roman’s chest and sighed. The storm broke the silence between them. He felt Roman jump every time a loud crash sounded, and his grip on Roman’s chest tightened each time.

“Hopefully it’ll pass soon,” Patton mumbled.

Roman gave a hum of agreement. He glanced over at the remote on the nightstand beside him. The weather channel usually had relaxing music on its forecast. He turned the television on. The channel currently talked about a devastating typhoon near Japan, and Roman changed the channel. There was no need for such negativity now.

He settled on a news station which just so happened to be disclosing the weather at the moment.

“-some passing storms, but it looks to be clearing up within the next 15 minutes-”

Good. Roman exhaled and felt Patton shift under his grip. No doubt Patton was exhausted after a long day at work. Roman regretted keeping him up. However, Patton was too stubborn to go back to sleep without knowing Roman’s mental state improved.

The weather ended, and some reporters came on the television. Roman found his attention shifting in again.

“-been six months since Logan Shea escaped from a mental institution in Greenmeadow-”

“Who’s that?” Patton asked as he blinked at the screen. Roman reached over and grabbed the remote. He turned the television off before Patton could get a good look at the person on the screen.

“Just someone who escaped a hospital,” Roman replied in a slightly louder voice than before.  He yawned and leaned his head back on the couch. The tea was starting to work its miracle. Roman blinked up at the ceiling and fought it off.

“Ro, go to sleep. The storm’s almost over,” Patton ordered, but there was no bite in his voice. Roman gave a hum of acknowledgment.

The silence engulfed them once again. The storms threats paled as they disappeared over the mountains, and its weak flashes extinguished in the distance. Soon the sounds of the city overtook the silence. Horns blared, sirens wailed, and breaks squeaked, but none of those sounds could shake the peace Roman found on the couch.

Patton’s grip on Roman released as Roman’s anxiety slipped away. He could feel his body clinging to consciousness. However, he knew Roman would stay awake longer than he would.

Roman had a cheat code, after all.

Patton recalled the first time he heard Roman sing. He fell in love with his voice, and ever since, he listened to it every night before he fell asleep. Now, here he was in an apartment with him and able to hear the sweet melody in person.

It felt too good to be real. Patton wondered if his life was a fairytale, being rescued by a prince from his evil mother and her dragon. It’s not that Patton thought his mothers were abusive, but they definitely denied him of life. They shut him away from the outside world and forced him to be something he wasn’t.

Normal.

Roman started humming, and Patton knew it was all over. The gentle notes rose into a familiar rendition of Ave Maria. With each note, Patton’s grip on reality slipped farther and farther away. Roman started adding words to his song, and Patton’s eyes closed.

Roman admired the soft flutter of Patton’s eyelashes. His breath fell into even, deep inhales, and tickled the hair on Roman’s neck. Roman restrained himself from brushing a stray lock out of Patton’s face. Instead, he finished his song, picked up Patton into his arms, and walked him back to his room.

Patton didn’t stir as Roman placed him back in bed. Roman covered him up and turned off the light next to him. He then tiptoed out of the room. Roman stole one more quick glance at Patton before closing the door.

--

Subject # 240 Defect: Healing None Sex: Male Age: 6 Test #: 45

Notes: Subject exhibits no signs of healing himself or others. Cancellations for his study have been set in motion, and he shall be returned home soon.

Test: FAILED

--

Event # 547 Subject identification: #240 Sex: Male Age: 6

Notes: Subject exhibits the ability to distort memories as demonstrated on Dr. Patrickson this afternoon.

Actions: Request for Subject #240 to be returned home denied. The subject shall stay to further research his new developing abilities.

Status: ACTIVE

Chapter 2 ->

[mfmagazine]

Patrick Fabian

Article by Ricky Tavi

Photo by Josh Madson

Patrick Fabian is likely one of those actors who seems to have been in so many movies we’ve seen so many TV shows we’ve watched and so many adverts we’ve listened to. And yet because his performances and characters are so diverse and convincing, it just hasn’t seemed necessary to remember his real name.

But Patrick Fabian may not be able to avoid the personality spotlight too much longer. As the season of his current CMT sitcom, ‘Working Class’ just ended, he’s looking at another critically acclaimed success to add to his nearly 20 year acting resume.

Patrick spent some time with us and allowed us to discover something of the real life personality behind the brilliant list of stage and screen characters that this fine actor has so often brought to life.

Our interview reveals a man of humor and humility. He gives us a glimpse of his Working Class co-star Ed Asner - is he easy to work with? – And, with a big smile, drops a hint about the most famous screen character he’d welcome the chance to portray. Read on to discover the fascinating background to one of Hollywood’s better kept secrets – Patrick Fabian.

In your 18 year acting career you have appeared in just about every performance medium possible – stage, movies, TV, voice-over, adverts…..the list seems endless. So starting with the most recent, and where today’s buzz is, please divulge something about the new CMT series, ‘Working Class’.

This has been a great experience and a ton of fun to do. It's a smart, funny sitcom that'll get the whole family laughing; it's a real traditional show in the vein of "Roseanne" & "Everybody Loves Raymond". If you haven't tuned in, now's the chance to see what all the fun's about.  And there's gonna be some kissin'!

Do you think you were an easy choice to portray your character?

Well, I run Parker Foods and am the boss of Melissa Peterman and Ed Asner's characters, so clearly, someone in casting thought I knew how to order people around! That, and wear Armani well. I think I can bring a bit of humor and good nature to the usual traits that bosses possess.

I read somewhere that you are happy to be thought of as a ‘working class actor’. If so, are you bringing ‘real life’ to your part – albeit the show is not intended to be taken too seriously?

The show is meant to make people laugh, we're not solving the world's problems, you know? And being a working class actor, for me, means that I get to do a wide variety of roles and situations, and that I'm fortunate enough to work fairly consistently. Although, let's be clear; if you need me to be a Star, I'm open to that.

Ed Asner, one of your co-stars in ‘Working Class’, is known for his real life advocacy of the ‘common man’. What special energy do you think his outlook on life has brought to the show?

Ed's a man of his word and certainly backs up his beliefs with his actions and I respect him for that. His acting experience and skills are totally fun to work with and I've learned a lot from watching him. He's not afraid to fail in life or work.

Comments from your colleagues in the show talk of the fun and good humor that has made the production work such a pleasant experience. With so many seasoned actors are you all able to stick to the script? Is ad libbing allowed?

I can easily say it's been one of the easiest sets to work on; we laughed all the time. And that tone is set by Melissa Peterman; she's a shining light and considering the crazy schedule we were on, that's no small feat. And Melissa comes from improv, so she's wonderful on her feet and can ad-lib all day long. The writers' wrote us great material and they weren't averse to our going off the rails: we were all looking for the funny.

As an actor you’ve portrayed the deadly serious to the comic. How do you classify yourself primarily – if you do?

I think it's all about the point of view you bring to any particular role, and how that fits into the whole, you know? I'm fortunate to work in both serious and comic worlds and I like it like that. However, if James Bond ever opens up..........

Where do you have the most fun? In theater or movies?

They all have their charms, (and frustrations), but I definitely have a soft spot for live theatre; it's where I learned my craft and the immediacy of a play and it's interaction with an audience can't be beat.

All reports are that you have a great sense of humor. Could you ever imagine yourself as a stand-up comedian? Ever tried it?

I have way too much respect for stand-up to try it. I need writers. Wildly, talented writers making me look good. Daily.

As a serious actor, has Shakespeare featured much in your stage experience?

I got my Equity Card at the Shakespeare L.A. Festival years ago playing Moth in "Love's Labor's Lost". Shakespeare under the stars at the John Anson Ford Theatre in the summertime. A wonderful experience and I would kill to be at the Festival in New York City's Central Park.

Ever played Hamlet? Would you want to?

No I haven't. And yes, given the opportunity, I think every male actor would love a crack at it.

Your career has given you the opportunity for a lot of travel. Much time away from home. Now that you are a parent – congratulations, by the way, to you and your wife, Mandy Steckelberg, on the birth of your daughter Abbey Ray – will you be earning fewer frequent flyer miles?

Well, they say have a baby and the world will provide (or something like that) and so far, that has been the case, although most jobs have kept me local. I thought it would be great to get a series in New Zealand or Europe for a few years while Abbey Ray's still a wee one. But my wife has been wonderful about the work when it does take me out of town. Many of friends have managed it all, so I imagine we will too; we should be blessed with such problems, right?

What are some of your favorite place around the world?

Wandering the old streets of Barcelona, the Playhouses of London, NYC's Central Park, Muir Woods just over the Golden Gate Bridge and Will Rogers State Beach in Santa Monica, Ca.

You are one of the hardest working and most experienced actors in today’s industry – and yet you manage to avoid the excesses of the paparazzi. How do you balance keeping a private life with the demands of your work to be in the spotlight?

Well, going back to what a 'working class' actor is; I'm familiar to a lot of people because I've been in such broad spectrum of venues, but I don't necessarily stand out as one particular role, one that the paparazzi or public is that enamored or obsessed with, so I get the benefits of being known, but without the downside of being crazily sought after. (Again, if you need a STAR, however......)

You’ve been active in the union movement on behalf of stage and screen actors and others in the entertainment industry, and have held union elective office. Could you imagine a political career in the future?

I've really enjoyed my experience on the SAG Hollywood Board; it's a great reminder that you need to have personal responsibility for what goes on in your Union, or for that matter in your City, State and Nation. As much as I would be interested in a political career, I think working with a baby, a chimpanzee and Screech in a single episode of "Saved By The Bell: The College Years", disqualifies me.

It’s difficult to imagine now, that as an actor you’ve ever found yourself ‘resting’. How difficult is it to sift through the offers and scripts to find those that interest you? Are you very selective?

I love to work. And the next job is always the one I'm interested in finding out about. Different jobs rear their heads different ways; this past year has included Commercials, Low-Budget Films, 1/2 Sitcoms, Hourlong Guest Spots, Live Theatre and VoiceOver: I've been wildly fortunate and love to stay busy.

When you are ‘resting’ at home, what do you like to do for R & R?

Take walks with the whole family. (wife, baby & the two dogs) And cooking is very relaxing.

What musical preferences? Are you playing Mozart for your daughter?

I love Rock & Roll and 80's Hair Metal, but there's room in my head for lots of different things. We play a kaleidoscope of music for Abbey Ray; I hope she takes to it, but you cannot force it. (So far, Rock-a-Bye Baby: Pink Floyd is a big hit!)

What movies have you enjoyed recently?

Loved "The Social Network", "Inception" and "The Awful Truth"(Cary Grant)

Your character in “Working Class’ dresses exceptionally well for a grocery store manager! An anomaly of the storyline? Your stage and screen characters have provided just about every costume statement that could ever be made! What styles reflect your personal comfort zones?

Only on television does a store manager sport Theory, Donna Karan & Armani: What a great business! I love comfortable, horse-riding clothing; Robert Redford around 1974. And the 'Swashbuckler' wardrobe from "Xena" will be hard to top.

Can you give an idea of where you see your career progressing over the next few years? Maybe the next James Bond? Could you ever imagine living elsewhere from LA or is that almost a necessity that comes with the work?

Did you say Bond?  I'd love to spend a chunk of time in New York, albeit with a steady gig. But I love Los Angeles, its home for me and my family now and I wouldn't have it any other way.

It’s clear that you are a man with an active social conscience and also a man of letters – graduate of Penn State & California State Universities. Do you have any words of advice to young actors and performers starting their careers in today’s entertainment industry?

It's the greatest business when's it's all working; and absolutely devastating when it doesn't. Don't take it or yourself too seriously. However, learn your craft. Go to school or take class, and take IT seriously.

[austinsirkin]

“The Blue Door Symbolizes Sadness”: Lies Your English Teach Told You

It seems to have become a point of shared American culture that Gen-X’ers and Millennials hate how they were taught literature in high school. Nearly everyone from those generations has the memory of sitting in English class, listening to their teacher explain how something in a book meant something that seemed ridiculous, especially if said teacher was explaining that some minor detail, such as the color of a door, was a part of an elaborate plan by the author to express something incredibly subtle. As a result, many of those students came to feel that literary analysis was stupid, and honestly, I can’t blame them. However, today I’m going to explain why literary analysis is important, and why you’re right to hate the way it was taught to you in high school.

Who Were Your English Teachers?

I’m going to go ahead and throw high school English teachers under the bus, metaphorically speaking. I apologize in advance if you’re a high school English teacher and are reading this (I love you, you’re under-appreciated, and you do important work), but nevertheless it has to be done.

I’m not currently aware of the education levels of high school teachers around the country at the moment, but back in the 80′s, 90′s, and 00′s, the vast majority of high school teachers, especially in English, did not have post-graduate educations. The only requirements to teach in high school were to have either a Bachelor’s degree in the field you wanted to teach, or a Bachelor’s degree in education. In some places you didn’t even necessarily need that, and you could just get a certification. I say this not to diminish teachers themselves, but because it’s important to bear in mind when considering what these teachers said in their classes that they were not experts in these fields. Most of the time, they were teaching from a primer of sorts, which effectively told them what to say. These were the “teacher versions” of the textbooks you had in high school, which came with footnotes containing not just solutions to problems or answers to questions, but general knowledge that would be useful for a teacher to know.

So really, the people who wrote those books that your teachers used are the ones responsible for this whole mess. In that sense, it’s not your teacher’s fault, and you shouldn’t hold it against them; if we’d required advanced degrees in order for someone to be a high school teacher, there’d be teacher shortages all over the country. At least, that was the case a decade or two ago.

While I don’t know exactly who was responsible for writing all of those textbooks, my best guess is that whoever it was, they wrote them a long time ago. I mean, after all, it’s not like Shakespeare’s works have changed in the last few hundred years, right? Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” is still going to be “The Scarlet Letter” a hundred years from now. Right?

Well, not exactly. And that brings us to my second point.

Living in the Past

While specific works don’t change over time (with some notable exceptions including translations and multiple published versions), our understanding of them certainly does. For example, if you’d asked someone to analyze “Romeo and Juliet” in 1597, I guarantee you that their analysis would be markedly different from our analysis today; it’s well known that his plays were seen as common entertainment of the time, rather than high-brow performances for the educated only.

This is important to note, because the field of literature analysis and criticism is a constantly-evolving, changing environment, and what’s most relevant to this article is the idea of “author intent”. This is what lots of us learned in high school, and hated; the idea that by picking apart certain details of a given work, we could discern the intent of the author, where we assumed that every detail was consciously chosen to represent something. For example, as in the name of this article, that the author intended for a blue door to symbolize sadness. Or for a green light to symbolize greed.

The problem with this was that as anyone who has ever written anything knows, sometimes you just choose things arbitrarily*. Note the asterisk there, as we’ll come back to this later.

As a result, the idea of considering author intent was largely abandoned by literary scholars in the 1960′s, so the fact that it was still being taught to high school classes as late as the 00′s (and maybe even still today, but I’m out of touch with high school educations of the 10′s) is not just ridiculous, but rather deplorable. It did a disservice to multiple generations of students, and turned them off to something that’s a precious skill of tremendous importance: reading. Reading critically, specifically.

If you hated the idea of being told what the author thought, or what something symbolized in a book in high school, you were probably right, and your teacher was wrong. As the 20th century went on and the field of psychology developed, literary scholars came to realize that not all decisions in a book were conscious choices by the author. However, that doesn’t mean that those choices have no significance whatsoever. Remember that asterisk up above when I said that things were chosen arbitrarily? Well, we’ve come to understand that when it comes to a creative work, nothing is truly arbitrary, as the human subconscious is full of all sorts of weird things just waiting to get out. So if, for example, you’re writing a story and choose to use a blue door, that may not necessarily mean that you consciously intended for it to represent sadness. Instead, perhaps the scene in question reminded you of an experience you had as a child, where there was a blue door, and you drew upon that as you wrote. If someone were to ask you, “Why did you make this door blue?” you’d likely respond, “I don’t know. It doesn’t really mean anything,” but the reality is that it DOES mean something, it just wasn’t an intentional choice. The author made a correlation in their own subconscious that informed their work, and we may never be able to know exactly why that choice was made.

Thus, the deeper we delve into the idea that the author doesn’t necessarily consciously control every element of their work, the more we undermine the idea of the author as an expert of their own work. That’s why in modern literary analysis, scholars will explicitly ignore things that an author says about their own work (in most cases), and why we don’t usually ask authors questions like “what does this mean?” anymore.

That’s because there’s been a larger paradigm shift in our understanding of literature; we’ve shifted from using literature to explore the one specific person who wrote it to instead using literature to explore humanity. That is, to explore everyone who isn’t the author. And as every reader of a given text has a unique set of experiences and associations, there are huge numbers of possible readings of any single given work.

Often, scholars will perform a reading of a work according to a given critical framework, such as a feminist reading, where they read the text for feminist themes, or a Marxist reading, where they read the text for classist themes. But these themes all exist separately and together all at once, and there’s no longer any misapprehension that we’ve “solved” a text, and have come up with the single, unchanging meaning of the work. That’s because the things that are important about a given work aren’t the things that the author intended to put in it, but the things that the readers took away from it.

What’s It All For, Though?

Thanks, I’m glad you asked! Seriously, though, what’s the point of studying literature from 1597 or 1895 or whatever? You probably thought something like, “I understand why we should read these things in order to understand the greater context of the works of today, but why do we need to analyze them? It seems like a waste of time, and like it doesn’t accomplish anything.”

Well, I can see why you’d feel that way. Performing a poststructuralist analysis of a novel from the 1800′s, for example, may not seem like it accomplishes much. No one is going to use that analysis to stop people going hungry, or create peace in the world. Then again, neither will most work done in America.

What literary analysis does, though, is provide insights into humanity itself, and our search for meaning, not just of our own lives, but of the human condition. Learning it in high school helps guide students toward critical, self-evaluative thinking in a way that no other class does. When there’s no “right” answer, students need to be able to evaluate a text, identify correlative elements, and create an argument around them. That’s a valuable skill on its own.

What’s even more exciting is that as you progress in literary criticism, you come to understand that a “text” is more than just a book. A video game can be a text. A TV show. Even a billboard. Or a chair. Anything created by humans is something that can be analyzed and interpreted. So literary criticism is sort of a middle ground between philosophy and anthropology; it studies things that humans have made, and asks the question, “What does this mean?”

If you don’t care what things mean, and how the things surrounding you in your life fit together into a framework that helps explain who we are, where we are, and where we’re going, then cool. You don’t have to, and that’s fine. But that’s what literary analysis is for, and maybe now you understand why people want to do it. I hope, too, that you can forgive your English teacher for lying to you; they likely didn’t know they were doing it, and they were probably just trying to do their best to help you learn and grow as a person.

Also, you can abandon your dreams of going back in time to ask an author what they meant in the hopes of proving your teacher wrong. You can now prove them wrong without going anywhere at all!

[az-valentine]

Entry 1: Pennywise [AU]

July 2nd, 2018 

In light of recent events – the nature of which I refuse to explain to people who simply couldn't understand – I've been inspired to record a few passages for Humanity to eventually stumble upon. Despite what you may know about me, however little that may be, I assure you, there is far more to me than what meets the eye. You probably know me to be an unpredictable, animalistic Eldritch Abomination that comes crawling out of the darkest pits of your worst nightmares – you are correct. However, I'm far more complicated than that. Yes, I eat flesh and feed on Fear, as it's necessary for my survival. I didn't choose to be this way, it's just how I was created to be. 

Outside of that, I'm actually a fan of your classic literature, like Shakespeare, Twain, Poe, and Lovecraft. I also enjoy taking long walks to admire your older European architecture, and your bigger, more lush and diverse botanical gardens. I don't often leave Maine, let alone the Continental United States, but when I do, it's always a treat. My Eldritch Brethren usually don't care much – or at all – about what Humanity has accomplished in its pathetically short time, but I watched your earliest ancestors crawl out of the ancient muds of this planet, and I'm positive I'll watch you all return to the weeds in due time. 

My past is better left being known only by those closest to me, and left up for interpretation to everyone else. That being said, I feel strangely obligated to offer you a word of warning – don't end up like the protagonists of most Lovecraft stories. Don't go digging for information you have no business knowing. What you know, and what you think you know about Fear, hardly even scratches the surface of the unnamable terrors that lie beneath and beyond your fragile mental barriers. The depths of Madness are not meant to be explored by Mortal minds, for they were never designed to be capable of handling the journey. 

Some have tried, and nearly all have ended up a writhing, unintelligible, gibbering mess before their inevitable, horrific deaths. Some have wound up on that Path without even intending to, and fell victim to similar fates. If there's one thing we have in common, it's our tendency to be curious creatures. I definitely understand the desire to learn about the unknown. I cannot stop you from attempting to uncover lost knowledge and hidden truths, and I can't honestly say I care whether or not you listen to me. However, I still feel compelled to advise against it. Like me, though, you'll do what you please, regardless of the risks. 

Moving forward, those of you that know of me know me to be a Shifter, a being that is capable of taking the form of whatever I want. I'm like a Mimic, but far more interesting, and intelligent. I'm also like Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, except I take no pleasure in gaining legions of followers and spreading Madness. I prefer to be left alone most of the time – to Hunt, eat, sleep, and explore as I choose. Earth isn't the only planet I've been to, but it's definitely one of my favorites. If I wake up during one of my sleep cycles, I'll sometimes take that opportunity to go somewhere new and different, or old and familiar. 

I've seen everything from the bustling cities of Tokyo and Arcturus Prime, to the noxious swamps of Beldron 4, the scorching, temple and monolith-spotted deserts of Alkh'tktuuhl, the ravenous raggle-trees of Nillub, and even the turbulent oceans, black forests, and numerous mountain ranges of an unknown terrestrial behemoth, floating aimlessly through the inky depths of Oblivion. One thing most don't know about me, is that Alkh'tkhtuuhl holds a very special place in my Heart. Those that know the reason why, though, I can count on one hand. 

Unbeknownst to Humanity, Arcturus Prime is still thriving to this day – and if rumors hold true, the Arcturians eventually want to introduce themselves. Don't worry, they're incredibly friendly. In my experiences with them, they're often a little shy, so don't do anything stupid when they get here. You'll need their help if you want your species to survive, thrive, and save the only planet you currently have to live on. They'll slowly work you into the galactic community, and help you learn how to integrate with other people from other planets, as well as how to survive off of your home world. 

Everyone that lives long enough will go through a Great Change at certain points in their lives – this trait is not unique to Humans, or any other Mortal species within the Multiverse, but is present among all sentient Life that has evolved far enough to be capable of experiencing these changes. Even I, the Prince of Fear, have gone through it several times throughout my existence. Indeed, many see me as just a highly intelligent, impossibly powerful beast that's merely good at acting, but I too am a person. 

I am not at liberty to speak of my true origins, or what came before, but I do have quite a few stories I'm allowed to tell. For the sake of brevity – I could write an entire series about my life – I will stick to telling only a few tales that I hold near and dear to my Heart. It's not every day a Mortal gets to learn such personal things about an Eldritch Being, let alone directly from them, so consider this a little gift to Humanity. I still take what I need to sustain myself, but who would I be if I didn't give back every now and then? 

Don't think of me as just a monster – I may be greater than anything a Human could ever hope to become, and I may have needs that cause a conflict of Morality between us, but it doesn't mean we don't share similarities. I don't know why I feel the need to say it, but just like you, I have my weaknesses. I have sore spots, bad memories, times of self-destruction, and an unhealthy relationship with self-hatred. Oh, yes...I can be as vulnerable as the Mortals whose lives I claim. It's not all bad, though. As I stated earlier, some of my guilty pleasures include literature, architecture, and traveling. I also enjoy attending plays, Broadway shows, and operas. At heart, I am an artist, and someone who appreciates the natural beauty to be found spread out across the Universe. 

In fact, for as long as I can remember, I've always taken part in the various cultures' Arts in some way or another. My numerous homes have always had a collection of writings, paintings, and props found in certain visual productions that had struck my fancy. I would occasionally write my own works, such as poetry and prose, plays, and even some music, and then offer it to Yog-Sothoth for his Archives. On top of that, I would often disguise myself as a native of a planet, and audition to play a role in something – not once was I turned down. Who was the best Carmen? Me. The greatest Figaro? Me! 

By now, you must be perfectly aware of the sizeable amount of differences between me, and the Being you've always known me to be. There is an explanation for this, yes, but I struggle to believe that you could fully comprehend what I'm about to describe. If I only lay out the basics for you, there's a good chance you'll be able to follow along. I've made mention of the Multiverse, yes? It's bigger, stranger, more complex, and more terrifying than you may have previously believed it to be. Infinities on top of Infinities, spanning in Infinite directions, through every Dimension, and every conceivable and inconceivable possibility happening all at once, at all possible times. It's a lot to take in, and I urge you not to try and understand it completely. It'll just drive you Insane, like many others before you. 

Back to the point at hand, though...I am not the same Pennywise you've known, as I'm from a different Universe. Who I am, as well as my Past, Present, and Future, have been and always will be completely different from the version of me you're familiar with. I've mastered the Art of Transcending Time and Space, and am able to move freely between Universes. The conditions of my state of existence, though, must remain a closely guarded secret for the time being. Let's just say that I've made promises I can't afford to break, to someone that makes me look tiny, powerless, and insignificant by comparison. 

Perhaps "completely different" was a poor choice of words. If I'm not careful, I'll become the Thing born of your worst nightmares. What's worse? I could get stuck like that, and require another Purification to set me straight. Yes, a Purification...something that all of the Dark and Twisted Souls must be willing to subject themselves to if they wish to enter the Light. Ugh! I shudder to think about going through such a painful experience for a second time. The agony is only temporary, and it melts away into a warm tingle, but it's still horribly unpleasant at first. I won't try to sway you one way or the other, but it was worth it for me. I was fine doing my own thing, and being by myself, but the opportunity was too great to pass up. 

I'd rather not get into the details of the situation, but I regained something I'd lost billions of years ago, only because I chose to go through the process of Great Change. I haven't been happy in billions of years, but I am now, and I'm never giving this up. To be perfectly honest, I only went through this change last October, and so I'm still adjusting to this new Way of Life I've chosen. I may or may not have snacked on a child recently...don't look at me like that, I was starving! And without a long sleep to fall back on anymore, I must feed at least once a week now, depending on the size of the person. 

I wouldn't worry too much if I were you. I've been targeting only the worst of the worst, so as long as you're not a piece of shit person, one worthy of being scared to the point of shitting yourself and then getting eaten alive, you have nothing to Fear from me. Except maybe the occasional scare for my amusement, and to satisfy my need for Fear. 

 July 3rd, 2018 

This entry has already gotten long, and I'm afraid I've run out of Time to tell you a story. Forgive me, I didn't think my introduction would wind up being so long. I'm afraid I have some bad news...I'm set to depart on a series of Hunts for the next three to seven months, and I'm unsure of when I'll be able to continue. This was sprung upon me at the last minute, and I'm in no position to decline this mission. 

Know this, Humanity: I will return, and in no less than excellent health. Chances are, I won't be hungry when I finally make it back. However, don't think for a moment that I won't continue to Hunt the scum of your societies, one by one...both to fulfill my needs for survival, and to make good on my Sacred Oath. 

 Until next Time, 

                  Pennywise 

[douchebagbrainwaves]

I'VE BEEN PONDERING EVELYN

A design choice that gives you elegant finished programs may not give you an elegant design process. If a language had twenty separate users, meaning twenty users who decided on their own to use it. Multics and Common Lisp were big-bang projects, and Unix and MacLisp were organic growth projects. So maybe it has simply replaced the component of social class that consisted of being au fait. It's not what people learn in classes at MIT and Stanford that has made technology companies spring up around them. The investors backed down; we did another round of funding to start approaching them. Hotmail because Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith couldn't exchange email at work. When founders seem unfocused, I sometimes suggest they try to get people to pay you, getting incorporated, raising money, and so its size is proportionate to its complexity, and a given programmer can tolerate a fixed conceptual load, then this is the right way to write software for a startup location is very important.

You don't need to raise money grows with the amount many wanted to raise around $400k. To get the same kind of stock and get diluted the same amount in future rounds. The same is true in the arts. And since a startup ought to have multiple founders, esprit de corps binds them together in a few cities. Where should one look for it? Google is again a case in point. Reading the Wall Street Journal for a week should give anyone ideas for two or three new startups. The key to productivity is for people to come back to their offices to implement them. A round they want a lot because the number of startups founded by business people who then went looking for hackers to create their product for them. That's less the rule now. In practice, to get good design if the intended users and figuring out what customers want.

If anyone has examples, I thought, they did call them essays, didn't they? The low points in a startup is the startup itself. I mean by habits of mind. If you want ideas for startups? Not everything in Simula is an object. If investors are impressed with you as founders, they say they want to talk about whether a startup is more than you'd endure in an ordinary working life. Once investors like you, they'll be able to do what you want and get out of the way, and even have bad service, and people will keep coming. If you work this way. This money isn't revenue. The right way to write software for a startup. Because so little money is involved.

You could make a preliminary drawing if you wanted to create a special visa for startup founders has been creeping downward. But not quite. Startup School.1 If that's true of Boston, it's even more true of every other city. Even if they already know it, you'll probably be fine, whatever else you do or don't do. Wodehouse or Evelyn Waugh or Raymond Chandler is too obviously pleasing to seem like serious work, as reading Shakespeare would have been unbearable.2 But I realize now that was because I'd always implicitly understood it to mean ambition in the areas I cared about. Beneath that the message is there, waiting to be invested.

VCs have a weapon they can use against the super-angels really are is a new form of fast-moving, lightweight VC fund. But it's possible to be part of a Boston batch, which means all those Boston investors got the first look at Dropbox, and none of them closed the deal. For us the test of whether a language could be too succinct for its own good? If you're sufficiently expert in a field, any weird idea or apparently irrelevant question that occurs to you is ipso facto worth exploring. The way you get big in users or employees it gets hard to change something so simple as a name, imagine how hard it is to redefine the problem. But I think that this metric is the most common proposal to be for multiplayer games. At the very least we want options.

Notes

One YC founder who read it ever wished it longer. No big deal.

Charles Darwin was 22 when he was otherwise unoccupied, to the traditional peasant's diet: they had to push to being told that they take a meeting, then over the details. I use the standard career paths of trustafarians to start, e. But having more of the Fabian Society, it will become as big a cause for optimism: American graduates have more skeletons than squeaky clean dullards, but when companies reach a certain threshold.

Thanks to Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris, Dan Giffin, Patrick Collison, Paul Buchheit, Paul Watson, and Sam Altman for putting up with me.

[fansplaining]

Transcript: Episode 71: Lori Morimoto

(episode | show notes)

[Intro music: Awel by Stefsax]

Flourish Klink: Hi, Elizabeth!

Elizabeth Minkel: Hi, Flourish!

FK: And welcome to Fansplaining, the podcast by, for, and about fandom!

ELM: This is Episode 71, Lori Morimoto.

ELM: Who… yeah, yay! Yes. Who you may remember from oh, I wanna say Episode 29. Did I just pull that number out correctly?

FK: I have no idea, we will have it in the show notes.

ELM: Don’t worry about it, don’t worry about it. Our Shipping and Activism episode. I swear to God it’s 29. I don’t know why I’m leaning in on this, but. Which was with Lori, Dr. Lori Morimoto, and Rukmini Pande, both fan studies scholars, where we talked about a specific topic, which was shipping and activism, and how those things aren’t necessarily…What’s the does not equal sign? You know?

FK: Yes.

ELM: Let me say this as awkwardly as possible! We had them both on to talk about a specific topic, so we wanted to talk to them separately about their work generally so hopefully we’ll have Rukmini on sometime in the near future. But first up, Lori!

FK: Yeah, and I’m especially excited to have her on. I think you are too, because she studies transcultural fandom and we had a question about that when we were on Australian live radio that we totally could not answer, so we’ll ask her about that question and hopefully she’ll drop some knowledge on us.

ELM: Yes we were on Australian radio, which was… it was an exciting experience for me, I’ve never done live radio before.

FK: Me neither!

ELM: And it was especially exciting because it was in Australia and we had to go on the air at 7PM our time, which was 10 in the morning their time, and I went on the way to the studio I went to get a coffee, and I was like “I’m going to be on the radio in Australia right now!” And the people at the coffee shop were just like, have you lost your mind? They literally could not process those words. I was like “yeah and the funny thing about it is it’s tomorrow there!” That made it so much worse. They were like “take your coffee good luck you can do it!” So that was exciting for me.

FK: I love that you overshared this to your barista. OK. [laughing]

ELM: I talk, do you not say all sorts of…look, OK. I’ve worked at a racetrack now for 15 years, right?

FK: I say all sorts of weird stuff to, I’m not saying that I don’t, I’m just saying that I love that this particular one you told your barista and they thought you were insane.

ELM: They asked me how I was doing and I just wanted to let them know what was going on! I’m just going to say that if you talk to, don’t be creepy and don’t tell people to smile, ever, but if you find yourself chatting with people in a service capacity, you’re not alone. Tons of people do that.

FK: Yeah. I also chat with people in a service capacity cause they’re humans [ELM laughing] who I’m having an interaction with! It’s only this specific thing which is really hard to explain to somebody that you decided to share. [both laughing] You know sometimes when someone pulls something out you’re just like “why did you choose to share that?” It’s not bad, it’s just like why was that the thing?

ELM: I never feel that way.

FK: Oh my God. OK OK. We need to get back on topic because I think we have a couple of letters to read before we call Lori.

ELM: Yes, we do! They’re about our Fandom Tourism episode, another topic that people…I feel like we keep going through this wave where we’ll do a topic and then we’ll get many weeks of responses. This seems to be one that has struck something.

FK: And then we have ones that we think people are going to respond to and everyone’s like, nope.

ELM: Crickets. [FK laughs] It’s fine, it’s fine. It’s nice to be surprised constantly. So, I don’t know. This is not surprising that people are interested in this because I think this is something that we, you know, I don’t wanna say that we all engage in it but I think that a lot of people and obviously not everyone has the opportunity to travel but you can even do it within the place that you live if you happen to be lucky enough to live in the place where your fandom has taken place. You know what I mean?

FK: Totally. OK. Do you wanna read the first letter or shall I?

ELM: I can read the first letter! This is from Livia, who I believe is the same Livia that wrote in a while back to talk about YA.

FK: I believe so!

ELM: So thanks for writing again! “Hey there. On the topic of fan tourism with non fictional people and places, my friend’s mum is an English teacher and she loves Shakespeare. She has a life size cardboard cutout of him in her classroom.” That’s really good. “Every year…” That was my editorialization. “Every year my friend’s family goes to Stratford Upon Avon in the summer, where Shakespeare used to live, and they always tour his old house and go see his mum’s farm and stuff. My friend says every single time they go her mom is totally awestruck and is like ‘Shakespeare once stood here!’ and always quotes the bit of Romeo and Juliet about paving stones. Thanks again, Livia.” That’s adorable. I like that she does this every time. [FK laughing] I also love the idea, do you, when you visit a place where you know someone that you admire has been, do you think about that? Do you think, like, “X has stood here”?

FK: Yeah!

ELM: Yeah?

FK: Sure! Absolutely!

ELM: That’s funny!

FK: I don’t think that I like, I mean, I don’t sit there and rhapsodize on it, but definitely I can’t imagine it NOT crossing my mind.

ELM: You’re gonna quote Shakespeare at the spot that you’re standing?

FK: Yeah, probably…no, I don’t know. I might, if I were there! I don’t wanna say I’m too cool for that.

ELM: [laughing] It’s just funny to try to think about, sure, you’re also probably breathing the same air molecule. Right? What are the odds? Actually the odds are probably incredibly low.

FK: But isn’t that awesome? We’re all made of stars Elizabeth!!!

ELM: Oh Jesus. It’s just funny. It’s a funny way to think about it. In the same way that I find materiality really interesting. And the fact that…there’s a classic old RadioLab about materiality like this, where it’s about trying to sort out people who care about the specificities of an object, the meaning behind a specific object, vs. the people who don’t. One of the hosts has this total, OK. It’s a baseball that, you know, Hank Aaron held. OK. And the other one is like DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?! IT WAS HANK AARON’S BASEBALL! I don’t know, this is a random example, I don’t think that was actually one of them.

FK: Yeah, it is funny. I think I’m pretty far on the “I don’t care” scale and yet I still get this feeling. You know? I’m not usually super super super invested in that. But it’s not foreign to me, you know what I mean? There must be people who are much less on this scale, who are even further yet like “I don’t care that someone touched this at all.”

ELM: Right? Which is…it’s just interesting to think about that’s all.

FK: OK, should I read the next letter?

ELM: Yes!

FK: OK. This one is from Stephanie Burt who we had on for two episodes before. And she writes: “LotR movie fandom has absolutely transformed international tourism in NZ. There are enormous LotR/ Hobbit film sets or creatures in the Wellington and Auckland airports. As of 2004 6% of international tourists visiting NZ say LotR is one of their reasons for visiting, 1 in 100 that it was their only reason. I suspect numbers are higher today.

“You can take helicopter tours of the country organized around it, and there are several full-time visit-the-movie set places: we’ve been to the most famous one, the set for the Shire in Matamata, central North Island, and it is an absolute delight but, also, a demonstration of industrial-scale tourism, getting tourbusloads of people in and out in an hour, hour after hour. There are other sites that work the same way.

"The prominence of LotR among international images of New Zealand, and its place in the tourist industry, is a source of money and employment but also a source of amusement and sometime irritation for people who actually live there; I suspect book-fandom LotR types are not entirely happy about the widespread misconception that Tolkien intended LotR to take place there—the whole country on occasion seems to have re-branded itself as Middle Earth, and NZ writers sometimes make fun of the image. (The NZ poet Murray Edmond has a very funny new poem about what to do when you find a dead hobbit in your garden.) When you—that is, when I—tell people we’ve recently lived in NZ, "oh! Middle Earth!” is one of the most common things that I hear.

“NZ isn’t MIddle Earth, just like Christ Church, Oxford isn’t Hogwarts. And in both cases it’s slightly annoying both that the fan tourism has made it harder to see the actual people and their cultural production, and that the movie producers’ choice of location has made it harder to bring our own ideas to the books.

"But it’s fun! and it’s an important source of revenue for NZ—especially for the less urbanized parts of the country, which seem to really benefit from the tourism.”

And as you probably can gather, Stephanie spent some time living in New Zealand recently, so.

ELM: Gathered. That’s interesting. I think that’s a really interesting duality going on, this idea of…duality isn’t the right word, but the idea that it takes away, not only are you ignoring the real, I mean, there it seems like it’s more about ecological…it’s not the same as the center of Oxford which is very much man made history, maybe this is natural history. I’m just assuming based on what I know of New Zealand’s sheep population [FK laughs] that it’s not a ton of structures, plus I’ve seen those Lord of the Rings movies, so it’s like…that kind of simultaneously contracting from the real thing and other forms of tourism while imposing this sort of…is hegemony the right word?

FK: You love that word. You love the word “hegemony.”

ELM: I do. Once it came back into my vocabulary a couple weeks ago, I’ve been like “It’s been too long since we said hegemony all the time,” I feel like it’s a very 2000s word, and I wish that we said it more.

FK: I don’t know that I feel the same lack or the same destruction of, oh, the imagination I had in my mind before I read the book—I mean before I saw the movie, now that’s been destroyed by the movie. I don’t feel that way about it.

ELM: Really? Do you not, when you think of Harry Potter characters, do you see the world that Warner Brothers created? Do you see those actors? Maybe not all of them.

FK: Not all of them, but also maybe a sort of conceptual blend, you know what I mean?

ELM: But aesthetically though, they took a very specific…they made a very specific choice. It’s interesting when you look, you’ve seen the new illustrated editions?

FK: Yeah!

ELM: Aesthetically quite different!

FK: Yeah, I don’t feel like they’ve entirely contaminated my mind. And I don’t feel like Lord of the Rings has entirely contaminated my mind, either. I love the actors who played…

ELM: It has for me, but I didn’t read it till afterwards, so.

FK: Yeah, in addition to having read it many times before I saw it I reread it on a regular basis cause I’m that person.

ELM: Many times, Flourish, really?

FK: Yeah! I think I’ve probably read it 20 times. [ELM gasps] Yeah.

ELM: Do you…like the prose?

FK: Yeah! I mean…I wouldn’t say that it’s not…its own thing… [laughing] You know what I mean? It’s very much of itself, but yes, I enjoy it.

ELM: OK, OK!

FK: For what it is. And the way it is.

ELM: Sure.

FK: Yeah! I do like it. And I feel like I get something new out of it every time that I read it.

ELM: Solid.

FK: Yeah but so whatever, I liked the actress who plays Éowyn, she does a good job, but she doesn’t look anything like Éowyn. And that’s OK. You know what I mean? Fine. That’s all right.

ELM: Who’s the actress? Who is that actress?

FK: Miranda Otto.

ELM: What else has she been in?

FK: I have no idea. Not that much that I’ve seen. She’s nice. But Éowyn’s like a Valkyrie and she did a really good, even though she’s very small she did a really good job of…

ELM: She had a presence!

FK: She had a presence, but she’s just not the person I envisioned when I envisioned Éowyn. And that’s OK, it’s all right, but I don’t imagine her when I think of Éowyn.

ELM: Do you imagine Ian McKellan?

FK: Yeah, probably. [laughter] But I think I always imagined Ian McKellan! You know what I mean?

ELM: Yeah. Yes. So did Tolkien when he wrote it.

FK: Probably!

ELM: “Someday!” [laughing]

FK: Yeah. Yeah.

ELM: Alright. Back to Lori. Should we call her?

FK: Let’s call her!

[Interstitial music from the game “Glitch”]

FK: Alright! I think it’s time to welcome Lori Morimoto onto the podcast. Hooray! Hello, Lori!

LM: Hello!

ELM: Welcome back!

Lori Morimoto: Thank you for having me! Oh, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

FK: I actually wonder because…I guess most people come back for our year in review episodes. I was looking at it and I was like “wow you’ve been on the podcast twice!” because of the year in review. So. It’s a pleasure to have you here for a third time.

LM: I’m very excited, so.

ELM: And we were on an episode of Three Patch Podcast together long before Fansplaining, so I just feel like we’re constantly podcasting together, second only to Flourish.

LM: It’s weird how these weird relationships develop online.

ELM: Wow you’re calling our relationship weird!

LM: Noooooo, I didn’t mean it that way [grumbling] [ELM laughs]

FK: Now I know what it must feel like to be the third person staring at me and you, Elizabeth.

ELM: You’re now the third wheel.

FK: Now, I’m the third wheel, it’s so weird! [all laugh]

ELM: Let’s get serious. So when you were on the first time with Rukmini, you were kind of on as experts in a topic. You weren’t really on specifically to talk about your work although obviously your work informed the discussion, but we had you on to discuss a specific issue. But I kinda want to take a step back and talk a little bit about your work. Do you even use the term “aca-fan” any more? I feel like this one is falling out of fashion with some people.

LM: It’s a tricky term, isn’t it?

ELM: Fan studies scholar?

LM: In writing I tend to say “scholar-fan.”

ELM: Like scholar dash fan?

LM: Yeah, scholar dash fan or whatever. Matt Hills does that, and I kind of prefer it to aca-fan just because aca-fan is so loaded now.

ELM: Yeah.

LM: Although on Twitter it’s @acafanmom, so go figure.

FK: Could you just summarize why aca-fan is so loaded? I think some people who listen to this podcast will have followed this, and some people will not.

LM: Well, if you join my Patreon course… [all laughing] I have a whole thing about aca-fan! Basically, it was, nobody’s really sure first of all where it started, it’s generally attributed to Harry Jenkins… Harry. [laughs] HENRY Jenkins. It kind of got a certain reputation within some parts of fandom as kind of academics who are trying to butt in and tell us how we do things and what we do and sort of… an interloper? Kind of? Impression, I guess. On the one side, on the fandom side.

And then on the academic side there were people who were concerned about a whole range of things from the being too close to what you study to aca-fan is kind of a pejorative, almost, or self-pejorative, term that increased not being taken seriously by other academics. So in general, the reason that I’m not particularly fond of it…I’m happy to go after the discipline, because I think that disciplinarity is a problem. Or at least it inhibits certain kinds of conversation. But the fan side of it bothers me enough that I don’t generally refer to myself that way.

ELM: In the context…

LM: In the context of fandom.

ELM: In fandom.

LM: But even in academia I don’t really any more, just because…I don’t know. I don’t feel it, you know?

ELM: Do you feel like you’ve had to take, over the last few years you’ve had to kind of rebifurcate those two parts of yourself? I would say, having been in fandom with you as well, and not just you but there was a period where I felt like I would see more scholars reference their experience and knowledge in discourse, and I think that after some…discourse…

FK: [laughing] In the popular sense…

ELM: People are less inclined to do that these days!

LM: I think that that whole thing…roughly 2013…that was sort of a turning point for me in identifying with that term. I thought that some of the fans that were going “you guys are just throwing your weight around” weren’t entirely unjustified in some ways. In others, things that I worried about at the time have actually kind of come to fruition, which is neither here nor there, but that was about the point that I decided at least within fandom I was still gonna be sort of open as a scholar, as a fan scholar, but I wasn’t really going to throw my weight around as a scholar in fannish spaces, if that makes sense.

ELM: Which is hard, I feel like. Flourish, does this all make sense to you? We’re speaking in veiled terms.

FK: I think it mostly makes sense although I’m curious about what you worried about and what has come to fruition, because when you speak in those terms it’s like “ooooooh, what has come to fruition?” I wanna push but I don’t wanna push, I don’t wanna be like tell me all the juicy gory…

LM: I’ll try to keep it as vague as possible! In the fandom I was in there was a lot of meta being written, some of it was really great, I’m reading it like “oh my god this is amazing.” And others of it read to me at the time I was teaching fan…not fan studies. I was teaching film studies. It read to me like very basic attempts at film analysis that needed some work.

And that was really where I directed my comments, if you will. And especially when some of the fans who were writing it began talking about how, you know, this is basically scholarship, and I’m sort of…it’s really basically not! Come on. And then there was a discussion about how meta is being written for fun, and I think they were right. It is written for fun. It isn’t trying to pass a class or anything like that. And so that was when I backed away.

FK: Right, so it sounds like it’s complex because on the one hand meta is something that’s written just for fun but then when people begin to speak about it as scholarship, which is something you do for work, it becomes like…I’m not sure that I can endorse this as scholarship. I imagine that people who work in the film industry feel similarly to some fan films, or even…

LM: It’s possible, yeah.

FK: Or even in some cases, I’m sure people feel this way about fanfic and this gets into the critique in fanfic aspect. Where does critique come in to any fan practice, and at what point can you not turn your brain off about that?

LM: Yeah, and I do think…as much as there are overlaps, we’re talking very different generic conventions across all of those things that you mentioned. And I think it’s the breakdown of those convention where people start getting a little excited about turf. Not that that was what I was concerned about at the time, it was much less…I’ll take good analysis from anybody! But scholarship is a specific genre of writing, and as intelligent as meta is, and it can be, I have the Fan Meta Reader online, I love it, as great as meta can be it’s a different genre of writing from scholarship. So that’s kind of where I got a little…

ELM: This is interesting though because I feel like a lot of the tensions between fan studies and fans are not…what you described is definitely something I’ve experienced as well, being a professional book critic and watching the ways sometimes people analyze some of these works, and I will feel like a dick but I’m also like “well… this is a really bad reading that you’re doing right now.” And these are things that you kind of practice, and obviously I know that you’re very conscious of this too, there’s levels of access to education and to languages and etc., but as far as I understand it a lot of the conflicts—and not necessarily the ones we’re talking about right now—between fan studies and fans are not so much about “you’re doing your fannish practice wrong,” it’s more about “can you even be trusted in that space, you’re going to study them, fans as lab rats and you’re the scientist.”

LM: Yeah, and it’s a legitimate concern, but one that fan studies itself is really unable to address in any meaningful way because by and large the scholarship on fans that has proven with the fullness of time to be untrustworthy generally doesn’t come out of fan studies, it comes from people who are in social psychology, or other fields basically who sort of…you have the same problem with media studies as well. Television in particular, and film. People are sort of, “well, I can watch films!” From no matter what discipline.

And as younger disciplines, as in the case of fan studies sort of…I don’t want to say we’re the bastard child of media studies but we’re certainly not [all laughing] the shining star, it’s really easy for what we do to just be overlooked. We have no control over what people outside of fan studies are doing. Within fan studies, we have extensive conversations about ethics, about methodologies…the methodology one is growing. But by and large, that kind of scholarship which does exist, I mean, I’ve seen it, and journalism as well, where people sort of flounce in, “oh my god there’s fanfiction!” You know. Shut up. [laughing]

ELM: Even when it’s not in a soul-crushing way… and I don’t wanna, you know, I have good friends who are fan culture journalists who definitely write about X fandom or whatever, here’s what’s happening in this fandom, let me break this down. You can probably…I don’t even need to subtweet. Gav does this. Aja’s done this before, and I’m good friends with both of them. But that’s not…I understand why people get anxious about that. Obviously it depends on how you do it, and it depends on people’s opinions of you as a writer, subtweeting something specific right now. But you know, I think people are always gonna get…do people who are the subject of an anthropological study feel comfortable?

LM: Right.

ELM: Would people, speaking about them in a detached tone as if they’re studying their lab rats, right? And I know anthropology’s very concerned about that. But still. It doesn’t change what it is. But…

LM: Well, if somebody in anthropology was like “here’s this small group of, relatively small group of scholars who study fans, let’s have a look,” yeah! That would feel weird! And I would at least…that’s sort of the approach I try to take with my own stuff. What would I want to know if somebody was talking about me, and how do I make that accessible to fans? So they can see what I’m saying. As you said, a lot of scholarship is inaccessible, not just by virtue of how it’s written or what it’s talking about, but oftentimes just because of the price of the book.

ELM: Literally you cannot access it, yes.

LM: Which you cannot afford it. And so I go to a lot of pains to try and make my stuff available one way or another. And that was really the impetus of the Fan Studies For Fans course over on Patreon.

ELM: Wait, tell us about this course though.

LM: OK! Fan Studies For Fans is a ten-lecture course that I decided to do back in August of last year. I am currently working on the fourth lecture, so it’s about that kind of pace. And it is actually the Patreon fees are by lecture not by month, because I knew this was gonna happen. And basically I’m just trying to talk to people who already have a grounding in what fandom is, at least as we understand it. So to add all of my qualifiers, it would basically be online, English-language, largely women’s fandom. Using that as the baseline that I don’t have to explain, I talk about what it is that we talk about and how we got into those conversations in the first place.

So the first lecture was about the term “aca-fan,” and also discussions about ethics in fan studies. The second one was an overview of the cultural studies origins of fan studies…fan studies comes out of a number of different disciplines, English literature is heavily involved in fanfiction, my own background was media and cultural studies, so I kind of give an overview of how we ended up at the fan studies point. And then the last lecture was the origins of fan studies: when it began, who was involved, what were some of the key arguments, what took off and what has simmered longer. And so the next one I’m talking about how we talk about fanfiction in fan studies.

ELM: So when you say lectures, do you record them in videos, or…?

LM: I record them in audio, which is why I have the new microphone. But I just couldn’t stomach video. No. I wasn’t ready for video yet. So. I post the text as a paid Patreon post and then I include spoken audio component as well. I figured, if you’ve got somebody who’s commuting and maybe they want to listen to it but they won’t have time to read it, that might be helpful, so.

FK: Well, it’s accessible!

LM: I actually also have one person currently who’s been translating the lectures into Dutch! Which has been incredible.

ELM: Fandom is so good.

LM: I know! Fandom is great.

ELM: Fandom is like “I like this, I’m translating it into the language that I speak!” Oh, so great.

LM: The only payment I could offer was full access to everything, but that was basically it! So I was really really grateful to her for taking this on.

ELM: That feels like it just comes from the spirit of fanworks translation, probably.

LM: Absolutely, absolutely. It’s been great, and I know…I have one other person who’s been interested in talking about…I mean, translating into French. But they are interested in doing it once the entire series is complete, which, fine by me. And of course translations are their own property to do with, if they wanna publish them as an e-book or something, more power to them. I don’t care! It’s such laborious work.

FK: That’s exciting too because I feel like even people who are relatively privileged, people who are, whatever, maybe in college and studying and trying to pursue this, often don’t have access because fan studies is so specialized. Unless you happen to be able to reach out to somebody and to really pursue it in that way…you can’t take an intro to fan studies course at every university! You can’t get there.

ELM: Can you in most universities?

FK: No, but at some.

LM: There are some that do it but not a lot.

ELM: You didn’t have fan studies at your college, Flourish.

FK: No but I taught it at MIT.

ELM: So that’s exciting.

FK: Yeah but I’m just saying it’s nice. Because I would have loved to have that and it wasn’t there and the only reason I knew about it even was because I had interacted with Henry Jenkins and otherwise I would have had no clue, and had no ability to have any…

ELM: I didn’t know this existed until less than five years ago, right?

FK: Yeah, yeah!

ELM: Amherst doesn’t have a media, there’s no media studies there. It’s a small fancy liberal arts college.

FK: [laughing] Yeah, there wasn’t media studies at my college either. I was a religion major.

ELM: It has a classics department! Don’t worry about it. So. I mean, to be fair there’s…it’s not that grim. It’s not like, not to drag Oxbridge. They must have other disciplines other than Classics and English.

LM: Sometimes not so much!

ELM: Yeah, it’s true though. We get these messages from college students who’ve heard of fan studies and I think, I imagine often, probably a lot like we were in college, into fandom, and if someone had told me I could study it I woulda been like WHAT? Maybe not. I was really committed to studying the British Empire. [FK laughs] Normal teen stuff! But you know, I just…I don’t know often what to tell them, and I know that you have a lot of feelings about this sort of amorphous field, and I’m wondering what you tell them or how you feel as an independent scholar in a world where that’s a tricky position.

LM: I have a lot of feelings.

ELM: You know, in an interdisciplinary field, too, an independent scholar in an interdisciplinary field.

FK: I would love to hear more about being an independent scholar and, exactly, your viewpoint on that, because I think it’s changed a lot since even just in the past ten years what the conversation around being in academia and studying…

LM: It’s really interesting. It’s kind of a moving target at any time, and so this is really just a snapshot of now. There are an increasing number of fan studies classes that are offered on US college campuses, and British as well I think to a somewhat lesser degree, but mainly because we just have so many colleges. And we have so many people who are interested in teaching about that. They may or may not be publishing in fan studies, but they are teaching about it in some really interesting ways. There are less opportunities for graduate study in fan studies, and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

But I should clarify: there’s, to my mind there’s a real difference between pursuing a PhD in fan studies as a discipline, as sort of the main thing, and pursuing say a master’s if you can. I know that DePaul University enables that, I know there’s an up and coming program at the University of Huddersfield in the UK, that also I believe is going to be a master’s program. I think there are opportunities for master’s students in fan studies, and particularly in promotion. You do see some consultants who are doing this, and that seems to be a slowly growing field, but there are places I think for people who know what to do with Twitter. And know how to interact with fans and who understand fans. And so to that extent, I think there is a place for that kind of study.

A PhD is a trickier proposition, in large part because there are no jobs. [laughing] To speak of. And there are particularly no jobs in fan studies, almost. There’s one out there right now, but that’s about it.

ELM: Don’t tell them about that! Don’t tell anyone else about that! [laughing]

LM: There are virtually no positions that give any indication that they’re interested in fan studies scholarship or teaching, and so that’s something that you have to kind of bring with you in addition to another field. In my case when I’ve applied for academic jobs it’s largely been East Asian media cultures, Japanese and Hong Kong film. The market fell out of that as well [laughing] so I just kinda quit doing it. But a PhD is just trickier and so you find that there are a lot of independent scholars coming out of PhD programs.

ELM: I feel like it’s often, I don’t know if Flourish has felt this way, I’m now ten years out of college and so in established humanities fields…this isn’t humanities obviously but it’s in a similar realm of unhireability. Oh, would you call it humanities? Or social sciences?

LM: What, fan studies?

ELM: Yeah.

LM: Fan studies actually is humanities, yeah. The sociological side of it also functions a bit differently. By and large people who are working in it under the title of fan studies are in the humanities.

ELM: Alright. I was thinking, you know, my college friends, they were like “I’ll do a PhD. English PhD, history PhD.” We even knew then, ten years ago, the hiring rate is something ridiculous like 4%, right?

LM: It’s absurd, yeah.

ELM: But of course, most people I knew were like “well, I’ll be one of them!” And you’re like wow, ok! And to be fair…

LM: Good to be you, right?

ELM: Actually, most people I know did actually get jobs, but they also went to a very fancy college and a very fancy university for a PhD so there’s a reason why they wound up at that, because they were in that pipeline. It wasn’t like they’d got that lucky break or whatever. You know what I mean? But even then, those are deep core established fields. Every university has a history department, you know? I feel like to add on this thing that tons of universities don’t even address in any way…

LM: Right. It gets really…yeah. It’s really demoralizing!

ELM: Sorry! This is not like, we did not bring you on here to make you feel bad about your job market.

LM: It’s the way things are. I’ve more or less made my peace with it. More or less. But I do think that in some ways I think fan studies and even media studies, which have been under attack at some institutions, I think that they’re sort of canaries in the coal mine in a way.

ELM: For what?

LM: For the general unhealthiness right now of in particular American higher education. I can’t speak to other places with as much knowledge. But particularly in the United States, adjuncting, working part time as an instructor, has just increased exponentially to the point where I think I’ve seen some estimates that more than 50% of teaching higher education teaching in the US is done by adjuncts. I don’t know if that’s true. But it is outrageous.

And I’ve done my time as an adjunct. Depending on the institution it can be a good experience or it can be a miserable experience, but what you don’t get is a guarantee of work going forward. You barely get a guarantee of work in a given semester. If a class doesn’t make enrollment then it’s out and you are the front line of people who are gonna get cut should classes not make enrollment. And that’s kind of the situation we’re in and yet we do still have a lot of PhD programs that haven’t yet woken up and figured out what’s going on and so it can be really frustrating if you’re at a discipline-wide conference and they have, say, job market workshops or whatever where they’re talking about how you can position yourself for the job market. It’s like, if you wanna position yourself for the job market, sit down in front of a slot machine, stick some money in, and press the little button, see what happens, because that’s as much chance as you have! It is luck of the draw.

And so right now I’m really reluctant to tell people “yes, you should definitely get a PhD in film, in fan studies,” because there are very very few jobs for people who are coming up.

ELM: It’s interesting because, I’m going back to this fictional asker who is in college and wants to know if they…

FK: Not totally fictional though! We get this amalgamation of many askers…

LM: Absolutely.

ELM: The ur-college student who enjoys fanfiction, it’s funny because I feel like, there have been some really great posts recently, like on Tumblr people will be like “hey actually your time in fandom has prepared you for the workforce in a way that you don’t even know, you’re really good at organizing, you’re really good at etc.” look at the translation thing! Your enthusiasm has actually led you to build these beautiful skills, and I sort of, while I think fan studies is really fascinating and I am in no position to talk about this because I also became a fandom journalist, so I could write about the thing I was into, I do think there’s an impulse to say “well I love fanfiction so much I should probably just go study it forever as an academic.” People do this with English all the time. “I love books so much I should be an English professor.” And I’m wondering if the real answer is “no, for reals, there are no jobs, so you need to find some way to parlay this into something else,” you know what I mean?

FK: It’s especially funny because there is an actual need for people who are capable of doing exactly what you were saying, Lori, taking a basic understanding of, I mean, not basic but a master’s degree level or less understanding of fan studies and experience in fandom and turning that into, “and now I will go run someone’s Twitter account and make sure they don’t screw up.” That has its own problems too, that work is underpaid…

LM: Absolutely, yeah.

FK: Community management work is the pink ghetto of modern internet culture, not that there’s not big issues with that. But I guess as a person who took that route, I see, I constantly have a hiring problem actually because I need to find more people like this. Fandom is a good place to find those people, of course, but if people haven’t prepared themselves in a variety of ways and don’t have all…you have 85% of the skills that’s needed to do this! Please! Come up with the other 15! I know you can do it! But people think they want to be an academic, so.

LM: That’s what I really do think, that there is value in undergraduate and master’s level courses in fan studies, in participatory culture, social media, whatever you want to focus on, for exactly that reason. And I do sort of hold that hope that as we have more and more productions that seem to be finessing social media in particular better, that other productions will have a look over there and in particular why and who’s doing that and how can we do that. That’s a pipe dream, maybe, but I hold out hope!

ELM: When I think about, Flourish, some of the work you do, where I sort of…it often seems like you kind of come in, cause you talk to people in Hollywood about their fans but somewhat, sometimes later in the game, like in more of a consulting way, right? And wouldn’t it be nice if that was part of the equation from the start? And maybe it is, in some places?

FK: Yeah I mean that’s been my entire…my entire, my company’s entire reason for trying to do a bunch, you know what I mean, that’s been a constant battle. How can we get paid to do consulting work and then either convince people to start planning this from the beginning, or getting in on an earlier stage. Of course it’s hard to convince anyone to pay you money to do something good like that at an early stage. I think that the thing is, this is also getting back to some of those complications and why people who aren’t, who don’t understand fandom get into it, because you’ve got a big studio and they’re hiring people in general to do social media, and then someone just gets assigned to a particular franchise and then they’re like…maybe they’re great at social media about K-pop! But they’re like, maybe they can’t translate that over into whatever this franchise is. So. I don’t know it’s all structural and all a mess but regardless I think everybody who works in that space would be better served with a better basis in some of this stuff, and I think that exactly what Lori’s saying about having those, having those classes, having access to those classes and access to those ideas is part of that.

LM: One of the things I think that would be important in those kinds of classes is something that some fan studies classes do and some don’t, to my knowledge, and I’m not sitting in these classes, but they require attention to what you might call…I don’t wanna say the dark side of fandom, but certainly the frictional side of fandom, because that’s where somebody who has that expertise can make the biggest difference.

ELM: So we’re probably at a good halfway point right now, do you wanna take a break and then we can talk about transcultural fandom for the second half?

LM: Sure!

ELM: Alright, perfect, let’s do it!

[Interstitial music]

FK: Alright, we’re back! Lori, I can’t wait to hear about your study of transcultural fandom because we got this ask about it when we were on Australian radio a couple weeks ago…

ELM: I love how you describe a question on Australian radio as an “ask.”

FK: It was totally like an ask! OK but it was, you know, when something shows up in your askbox and you’re like “oh, that’s a question that I don’t know how to approach!” And we both were like “uh…” on live Australian radio.

ELM: Yeah, you’d ignore it but we were on Australian radio so…

FK: We couldn’t do it, we were live. So now we have you. Here. We invoked you even!

ELM: So to clarify what his question was, because I think it uncovers a lot of what you could speak to, was he said that he grew up in Pakistan and that he was…I think he said he was a comic book guy?

FK: Yeah, he was a comic book person!

ELM: He was asking a vague, I wasn’t sure what the question was exactly but it was a vague question, isn’t it great that you could be from Pakistan and you could be a fan of Western comic books or whatever, right. And I completely froze and I was like “I don’t know how to answer this question,” cause yes but also cultural hegemony! And also it doesn’t go in all directions! And it’s not like we’re one big global happy family because there’s a lot of cultural appropriation! And white people in America making bad assumptions about media!

FK: I did find it a little funny that this was on Australian radio and I feel like if I were Australian I might have some opinions about American cultural products, you know? I don’t know, but maybe I wouldn’t I guess. I don’t know.

ELM: So that’s the starting point for us being total dunces about transcultural fandom, so go ahead, explain.

FK: Drop some knowledge!

LM: OK I’ll explain it all! Well, what I was saying before the break about the, not dark side of fandom, but the need to talk about what I’ve been calling the politics of transcultural fandom. That really is the crux of all of this, and one of the reasons that I like to decouple it from darker or anti or whatever, well, anti fandom is its own things. But any kind of darker side is that it’s endemic to any kind of transcultural interaction and usually if I say “transcultural” people tend to hear it as “transnational,” and it can be, but it isn’t necessarily. We have cultures of gender, we have cultures of race, we have cultures of sexuality, all these things, we have fan cultures and producer cultures and we’ve seen what happens when they mix badly. We all have, as fans often times we have intimate experience of fan culture and producer culture interactions going horribly wrong.

ELM: Should we discuss? Do you also still have a vendetta against Cumberbatch, my enemy?

FK: Oh my God.

LM: Oh, I don’t have a…you know, I haven’t paid attention to him? So I don’t know?

ELM: It’s…he’s still, yeah, me neither, me neither.

LM: Mine is more Martin Freeman frankly.

ELM: I just, I can’t.

LM: He really turned me off. But I’m thinking especially, I’m happy to drag in Moffat and sort of beat him a little.

FK: OK. As the official non-Sherlock person of this podcast, let’s get back to other kinds of transcultural fandom! [all laughing, talking]

ELM: I would like to devote the rest of this episode to debriefing about our experiences in Sherlock fandom.

FK: Oh my God.

LM: It was horrible, it really was.

ELM: That’s interesting though, sorry I derailed us, I will re-rail us, that’s not…[all laughing] So it’s funny because I actually feel like just even us asking you about our question from the radio host was, there was an underlying assumption for us that it was a transcultural question, but it’s true, we were shorthanding that to a transnational question.

LM: Well, there is overlap! I don’t want to sound like “transcultural” is completely different than “transnational” cause that’s not the case. There’s a lot of overlap, and oftentimes…generally speaking a transnational encounter will also be transcultural, not always, but that often happens. The same can’t be said for transcultural because it exceeds the national in so many different ways.

But it exceeds them, I think, in really predictable ways sometimes I have essays in three fan studies anthologies that have recently come out, and one of them is coming out this next month. One of them is the second edition of Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World, that’s edited by Cornel Sandvoss, C. Lee Harrington and Jonathan Gray. I have another in the Routledge Companion to Media Fandom, which was edited by Suzanne Scott and Melissa Click, and then the one that’s forthcoming is the Companion To Fandom and Fan Studies, which Paul Booth edited, and I also have an essay in there and all of those in one way or another are focused on transcultural fandom and its permutations.

ELM: Can you tell us, can you give us a specific example of the topics of one of those articles? I’m just curious.

LM: Yeah! The one that I did for the second edition of Fandom, I co-authored that with Bertha Chin, and the title is “Reimagining the Imagined Community: Online Fandoms in the Age of Global Convergence.” And what that one focused on, that one was really speaking…all of them speak to fan studies, arguably more than fandom, because I am trying to sort of make a disciplinary push further in the direction of a transcultural perspective on fandoms.

ELM: You’re such an academic. Can I just say? You’re like… “I like to write about the discipline, not about the…” [laughing] No, I love it, it’s so good, it’s one of my favorite things about academia!

LM: Well, cause I don’t really like talking about people that much! I like to talk about ideas instead because it’s safer.

ELM: I enjoy the history of history lectures that you have to have when you’re in a history class! So.

FK: Yeah but it’s also…it’s a really good point. Even outside of the academic sphere, there’s so much of a focus on…there’s very little focus on transcultural or transnational thinking about fandom. Even when, I mean, for a variety of reasons some of which is that it’s hard to research transculturally or transnationally and some of it having to do with even if you look at just what data can we get, well, it’s hard to get…like, if you’re doing a numerical look at social media talk or whatever you can’t get stuff out of Europe so fine! The United States lets us have everything, let’s just do that.

LM: It just doesn’t exist, yeah.

FK: Obviously it’s a complex thing but I think it’s incredibly valuable and it’s cool that you’re pushing for it.

LM: Thank you, I think so too! So just to give you kind of an idea of what that one essay was about, the term “imagined communities” was popularized by Benedict Anderson in 1991. Actually, the late 80s as well, but then he revised. And the book that he wrote that is titled “Imagined Communities” has a subtitle, oh, I can’t remember word for word, basically it’s “On the Origin of Nationalism.” Which I think is really significant, and which is something I brought into this discussion.

When we say, historically when we’ve used the term “imagined communities” in fan studies, we’ve used it as a way of talking about how particularly online people from all over the world, from all kinds of backgrounds, come together in an imagined community of shared love of something. A show or something. And that is the imagined community, which is fine, tha'ts not not what he was talking about, but the nationalism thing is really important because one of the things that he argued was that the communities that we imagine are generally speaking defined by who we exclude, what we value over what we don’t, what shared assumptions we have which presumes that there are assumptions that may not be shared by all communities, and so this was sort of the gist of that argument was that we need to be paying more attention when we look at fandoms but also within fan studies itself about how these communities are imagined, and what they leave out as much as what they include.

And that’s the kind of argument that I keep making in dfiferent ways over and over and over, that it actually started in a meta-post on Tumblr, where I was playing with this idea, I have a friend who wrote a book and she used the term “contact zones” a lot. And I had never heard it before, like oh, you know, and then I completely forgot about it, and then one day I was thinking about strife in a given fandom that I was participating in.

ELM: Strife!

LM: Strife, yeah! Which never happens in fandom except that one. Never.

ELM: It’s a real anomaly. [all laughing]

LM: And it really resonated. The woman who popularized that term, Mary Louise Pratt, described it as basically a space where people converge oftentimes in asymmetrical power relations and they clash, they fight, they negotiate, it’s a space of necessarily…not necessarily turmoil, but certainly the intersection and, yeah. Clash, of different cultures. Which to me is what a fandom looks like a lot of times, you have all these people, especially as we’ve moved from the more contained communities of places like LiveJournal to Tumblr and Twitter which are much more porous and unstructured, largely unhierarchical in an organizational sense.

I just really like this idea of contact zones! So I write a meta post about contact zones and it gets some traction and I’ve just been running with that ever since and so my interest really now is just what happens in the contact zone? And particularly in terms of transcultural clashes. Or intersections.

FK: So you mean like what happens when you have people with very different backgrounds, different expectations, maybe coming from different internet communities…

LM: And experiences, yeah.

FK: Even before we go to the question of nationalism, or race or anything like that, and interacting with each other.

LM: Right.

FK: That’s amazing. I feel like Twitter sort of is almost ground zero for that, and a lot of things that have happened on Twitter both in fandom and outside have to do a lot with the different online culture spaces.

ELM: That’s funny. To me Tumblr is the prime space I see this.

LM: They’re both, I think…

FK: In different ways maybe.

LM: In somewhat different ways, not very, yeah, they do it sort of differently. But they’re both to me really great examples of these kinds of contact zones that happen rather than that are organized. You know. People kind of… it’s…I was talking about Tumblr with Matt Hills when I first met him, several years ago…

ELM: Matt Hills is a well known fan studies scholar, for anyone who doesn’t know.

LM: He is. He’s one of the big two that gets cited.

FK: It’s notable that he is the person who, when we get mansplained to about fandom, is the person that we are always told to go read. [LM laughing] Because I guess we talk about Henry more on this podcast and so there’s this thing that we don’t know that he exists? It’s great. Hey mansplainers listening to this, you can stop, we know who Matt Hills is!

LM: Ohhh that’s great. He’s a really lovely guy.

ELM: It’s not his fault!

FK: It’s not him! He didn’t ask for this!

LM: He’s also hugely prolific, so you know, good luck reading everything. He was asking about how does Tumblr work because he was doing some preliminary research in that area, and at the time I was always on Tumblr so I said, well, you know, it’s kind of like this, I explained, and he was like “OH, it’s rhizomatic!” I was like “yeah!” I didn’t know what a rhizome was. So apparently a rhizome, for other people who don’t know [laughing], rather than sort of a top to bottom hierarchy of interactions…

Imagine a community on Livejournal. You can close it if you want to to outsiders, and give permission to people to participate, you usually have one person that owns the community, you may have more than one moderator, but it’s structured in that way.

ELM: You make a post and you comment beneath it.

LM: You make a post in a hierarchical structure and on Tumblr, as many of you know, it’s pretty much just I show up, I interact with some people, they may interact with me, I post something, it goes completely left field and I didn’t even intend that but now I’m in trouble…it’s these kinds of points of interaction, these nodes of interaction from which other things kind of spread, that’s more a rhizomatic structure.

Actually if you do, I think they’re still doing it on Tumblr, if you look at the little visualization of a post to see where it went, that’s a rhizome. It’s basically…

ELM: Let’s dig up one of these posts.

LM: They’re great! And see, like, especially if you wrote the post and it went totally someplace you never intended it to go, seeing where that happened is really interesting.

ELM: I think that anyone who’s written a text post that makes a statement, not like you know, just a quote from something, that’s gotten more than I don’t know, a hundred reblogs… You watch it and you’re like “what happened?” Right?

LM: And it’s so interesting, right?

FK: And you’re totally right that that’s the moment in which you realize how quickly the things you said in a certain context have now gone into a different context and you’re like “woah, I don’t even…you clearly have none of the same referents I do, and you’re taking it in a way that’s completely different, is that wrong, is that right, I don’t know, but I know that’s not what I intended so now what happens oh god.”

LM: And that’s a really good way to imagine this contact zone. Because those nodes of contact where people interact with your post, and then take it someplace else, or whatever, or fight back against it, you know. That’s the kind of clashing that Pratt is talking about.

ELM: This is interesting too because the one that I always get hung up on, not to make you talk about shipping again, but the thing I always get hung up on is in shipping culture in particular sometime I feel like these points of contact are happening without people even knowing. When I say “ship” and when other people say “ship” we mean two different things, and obviously I know that “ship” means a lot of things, cause I have to mansplain shipping to people all the time—sorry, fansplain shipping. [all laugh] That’s one thing I find fascinating about Tumblr in particular. We can be looking at the same image, and have a completely different interpretation, and I’ll never know. It’s not like they reblog it and they say the opposite thing from I was thinking. They’ll reblog it thinking we are in agreement, and neither of us would ever think the other person…which is fascinating to me having been in a fandom where you never know if someone’s gonna wind up on a different side of an ideological divide, and you’re trying to read between the lines: is this someone I can’t… you know what I mean?

FK: Isn’t that also especially because of visual language? One thing I’m thinking about is I have a lot of friends who live in Oregon and who are pagan and one of the big issues in Oregon if you are pagan is that you have maybe a tattoo that is something that is a Norse pagan thing and now you’re playing the “is this person a white supremacist or a super hyper liberal pagan hippie?” And there’s no way to tell from the outside! It also could be both.

ELM: Oh Oregon no it probably is both. [laughter] Sorry.

FK: None of my friends are neonazis! I will say this! None of my pagan friends in Oregon are neonazis! But you know what I mean? They’re like oh my God! And isn’t that part of it, the visual culture?

LM: Yeah, the visual aspect of it is 100%… oh, I don’t know. A lot. And I actually have two examples that kind of illustrate what you’re talking about. One I saw years ago, it was a fairly well-known fan artist in a number of different fandoms who had posted a very shippy picture, usual white guy ship, and it was a commission and they had said “here’s the shameful commission.”

Now what she was talking about, which became clear in the fullness of time, was that she had never really done a shippy picture before and she didn’t know if she was doing it right. That was the shame.

ELM: I remember that!

LM: That was the shame she was talking about. But you know, shameful in Anglo-American English language online fandom comes with its own sort of baggage that people just jumped on. And it wasn’t until the artist said that she wasn’t a native English speaker and that this was what she intended that that died off. But there for a hot second, everyone was coming down on this because of a cultural assumption on the one hand…well, just a cultural assumption that everybody who was participating in English language online fandom on Tumblr has a common understanding of what words like “shameful” mean in fandom when that was patently not the case.

A more recent one happened a few weeks ago in a fandom I’m involved in now. Guess. [laughter] Which is also very transnational fandom, where an artist from East Asia posted a drawing of one of the main characters in the fandom in a Nazi uniform. Now, she had written underneath “I don’t mean any, I’m just doing this artistically, I don’t mean anything political by it,” but she had A. written that in her own language and B. it doesn’t really matter if you’re coming at it from in particular a European perspective where you’re like, oh no. We don’t do this.

And eventually that, the artist took it down, took the post down from Twitter, but again, it was…it sounds like “ooh these are really scary,” but in fact these kinds of clashes are endemic to fandom. That is what happens in fandom, it is a condition of fandom almost and especially now that we’re so much more in close contact both in terms of space, we’re all sharing these online spaces, and time, where if you…you know how it goes, if you post something inflammatory before bed and you go to bed, in the morning you’re overwhelmed by anger and all kinds of things. That’s how fast it happens.

ELM: Don’t post before you go to bed!

LM: Never.

FK: [laughing] Sometimes you don’t know that’s going to be and then you wake up and… [all talking over each other] It’s like your pizza box is your pillow, but everything is still on fire.

LM: The main reason I’m interested in this is because when I became a fan, and I harp on about this everywhere so if your listeners have heard this before I’m sorry, but when I became a fan I was 11 years old, I was living in Hong Kong, which was a British colony then, saw a lot of British TV, and I saw Star Wars, the original one, for the first time, 1977, which is how old I am.

At that time, watching an American movie in East Asia where there were very few, you know, I wanted magazines, right? I wanted to see pictures, I wanted to cut them out and put them in scrapbooks, which I did. But trying to get American magazines to do that was next to impossible, and they were outrageously overpriced when you did find them. But what they did have was a bunch of Japanese movie magazines and I couldn’t read it but the pictures were on the cover and if you open it up…right? So I’m an American fan of an American movie in Hong Kong collecting Japanese magazines to read. And because it requires a material experience of being in one place and having access materially to these objects, I had the time to kind of learn about the different cultures that were sort of involved in that experience of being a fan there.

And that’s a time that people do not have now. You see the same things happening, but with no time to learn and so these conflicts just kind of erupt. And so I’m interested in understanding, and I think we should all be interested in understanding, the nature of the conflicts and also what people do…I’m not interested in whether or not something is good or bad or whatever, what I’m interested in is what happens when something erupts. And that’s kind of where some of this other publishing has gone.

ELM: You as an academic, as an observer, obviously you’re not sitting there trying to fix this. I wonder, though, if other people can and should?

LM: Yeah, well, what I’m trying…so there’s one more argument and this one also is kind of theoretical, but what I’m trying to do right now really is look at how, not just how things fall apart, but how people sort of negotiate those kinds of things and come out on the other side. So what I’m working on right now is a way of understanding not just what happens and not just the conflicts but how people sort of approach those conflicts. How they come out on the other side. And so this is an essay that I wrote for, expanded on in an essay I wrote for Paul Booth for his book. It’s called “Ontological Security and the Politics of Transcultural Fandom,” and in that one I put Pratt’s notion of contact zones together with the sociologist Anthony Giddens’s notion of ontological security, kind of putting them together and seeing what happens.

So Rebecca Williams in the UK has been working a lot on ontological security and she has a book called Post-Object Fandom that I highly recommend, I think it’s a wonderful read and it’s such a fruitful notion. So what ontological security basically is is the things that you sort of incorporate into your every day life, they give you a sense of continuity, stability, of things are ongoing. And fandom we theorize is sort of one of those things.

ELM: Define “ontological” please!

LM: “Ontological” is basically the starting point, a foundational thing in a way. An origin point, a starting point. Something that’s at the base of something. So when you have ontological security, when you experience a sense of ontological security it means that everything in your world is pretty much as you expect. That nothing’s being challenged. That I know that if I wake up, and I go outside, my cars will be there, that there are stable things in your life. Both in terms of objects, but also in terms of expectations and experiences and that kind of thing.

So fandom is theorized to be one of those things that contributes to ontological security. I know that if I go to AO3 and I look up a certain pairing, if it’s a popular one in particular, I’m probably gonna find some fanfiction. That kind of thing.

FK: My show’s gonna come on, it’s gonna happen every week…

LM: My show’s gonna come on and it’s not going to upset me. And that’s actually a critical part.

FK: Or possibly it will upset me but in a predictable way that I enjoy. [laughing]

LM: That I enjoy, right. So in the contact zone of any kind of transcultural interaction, a lot of times what happens is that ontological security is destabilized. That the thing that you expected or assumed or whatever isn’t what you thought it was. Or is in some way or another destabilized.

FK: Right. So I thought I knew what the word “shameful” meant in fandom and it turns out I don’t know.

LM: Exactly, exactly.

FK: Or alternately it turns out this person has a different idea than I do and how do I deal with that.

LM: Exactly. So this essay that I wrote looks at three different case studies. One of them is from my dissertation, it was Japanese fans of the Hong Kong singer Aaron Kwok and their reactions to a concert where he came out in this lamé kimono kind of thing and they were like “oh my God.’ You know. Because he was trying to address them as Japanese fans, and they prior to seeing him on stage had a much more intimate relationship with him that transcended or exceeded any time of national orientation. So when he comes out in this gold lamé kabuki thing, they’re like WOAH. He’s separating them, where they had expected to be closer in a way.

Another one was looking at the relationship between a couple of television producers and creators and fans who shipped two of their main characters [Elizabeth quietly cracking up] and the different cultural backgrounds they were coming from. And the last one was three of my fandom friends, who are also black women, agreed to be interviewed for this one, and I was talking about their experiences in normative fandom, which is generally white, sometimes middle class, white is the big one, oftentimes heterosexual, you know, this kind of thing. But white.

And all of them kind of grouped under the aegis of destabilized ontological position, and if you look at these you can kind of see these generalizable reactions. What you often get, and this happened in terms of Racefail, as well. What you often get is a range of about four or five responses to that destabilization, and particularly on the part of the people who are in power, who don’t want to see it.

So you get either "la la la la la I can’t hear you,” just ignoring the problem, you get people who are like “fine I’m out of here,” and they just divorce themselves from the issue, divorce themselves from the fandom, you get people who are try to rationalize why that happened, you know, “oh I didn’t understand that you didn’t understand this word,” it doesn’t make the jumping on this woman about saying "shameful” any less sort of awful, but that’s the excuse for it, “oh I didn’t understand.” You get people who want to fight about it and say “well no you’re wrong and let me tell you why, you shouldn’t have used that word,” people who kind of stick to your guns. And then you get people who, and this is the group I’m really interested in, you get people who say “huh, I hadn’t thought about it that way, let me regroup and see where I am now.” They basically take a step back and say “alright, I need to find out more about this,” and kind of challenge their own orientation towards the thing, their own assumptions, rather than coming from a defensive position. Does that make any sense?

FK: No, it makes perfect sense! I guess the key thing about the rationalization is that it rationalizes it and the end it results in is “and that was why it was correct to jump on you after all,” as opposed to “and that was why I jumped on you and I’m sorry I jumped on you, I feel like it was reasonable for me to do so under some senses but it was still wrong, I thought it was reasonable but it was wrong…” there’s this line between rationalizing and thinking about it and being fair to all involved and that’s really interesting.

LM: So during the racefail thing, a LiveJournal user whose name I can barely say—dysprositos, I believe? D-y-s-p-r-o-s-i-t-o-s? Put out a bingo card with different responses to the criticisms that people were hearing. And this is where I think you can really see how generalizable these reactions are, in terms of rationalization you get people going like “I’m 1/16th Cherokee,” or “I have friends,” or “relatives who are people of color,” or “I don’t see race and we shouldn’t keep bringing it up,” or “well I once dated somebody who was a person of color so back off” kind of thing.

You get people who want to argue or criticize the critique, so “you’re just looking for things to be offended by,” or “you’re racebaiting,” or “this diminishes real racism,” it’s all real racism, right! “Talking about racism and race is impolite,” “you should tone your language down a little,” that kind of thing, and then you get people who just withdraw altogether, “you’re harshing my squee,” you know, “that’s not what fandom is.”

And one of the things I was saying here was that for the fans that I interviewed at least, that’s entirely what fandom is, where normative fans have the luxury of sort of sometimes falling into these contact zones, for the women that I interviewed it seems like this experience of ontological destabilization was part and parcel of the fandom experience in normative fandom. That they can’t get out of it, because it’s always there, it’s always a shoe waiting to drop, you know, and something that’s kind of analogous although not nearly as politically charged or important is when, you know, you’re watching a TV show and you have a ship and you think “ah, this is gonna come to fruition, this is gonna happen,” and…

ELM: You think that?

LM: Sometimes people clearly seem to!

ELM: That was so cynical! [laughing]

LM: But if you watch something like that and you’re like “oh this is totally gonna happen,” and you believe it, and then the creator or somebody comes out and says “never gonna happen!” It’s a very different kind of…

ELM: Or laughs about it.

LM: Or laughs about it, or otherwise. It’s less that thing actually than sort of fangirl ridicule, I think, is probably more analogous in a lesser extent. You’re like “I love this show, I love this creator,” this is one of my fears in my own fandom! I have a very, to-date, fan friendly creator who has been lovely to this point but the possibility of having that destabilized is always there. And I worry every time they say “the show’s coming back,” there’s part of me that’s like “yay!” but there’s part of me that’s like “oh God there’s more opportunity to hurt me!” You know?

ELM: When I was in this Schrodinger’s queerbaiting space, Schrodinger’s ship right now.

LM: Or they could just say the one thing that undoes everything good that they did.

FK: Yeah. Welcome to my life with The X-files. I’m sorry. [wail-laughing]

LM: Oh my God exactly don’t even get me started.

FK: This is interesting because it puts, what I find really interesting and valuable about this and I’m so excited to read this article that you’ve written now, it puts things that are very politically charged to me in a context where it’s like, okay, this is one thing that happens and it’s really important when it happens in this context, whether it’s race or class or cultural, but it’s not unique to those experiences. These patterns and the ways people think about it, it’s a larger way that we deal with our world being disrupted.

LM: Right, exactly.

FK: I find that really really helpful in terms of thinking about those arguments and understanding. Maybe it’ll be helpful in understanding my own reactions when I find myself [laughing] slipping into rationalization or anger as I’m sure I do.

LM: My fear about this one creator just doing something…even though I don’t expect it, the fear is palpable, you know? This is such a silly thing to get worked up about, but it means something to me that to date they have been this person and if that was taken away, what else falls with it? You know? That’s…I think it’s a more in some ways I think it helps to illuminate the real stresses that people who are outside of normative fan culture experience within it, but also I think it takes a little of the sort of intentionality of certain transcultural interactions. Not all of them, obviously, there are some really vicious people out there, but when people kind of inadvertently sort of clash I think it helps to at least understand where they’re coming from, whether or not you agree with how they responded to it, so that looking at the people who didn’t realize that the one artist was not a native speaker of English I’m a little more sympathetic to them, at least as a researcher, for knowing that they didn’t know that.

But I can also recognize that that was an assumption that they needed to deal with, not the person who made the post, and that’s…what did the people do who did the thing that I think is egregious? What did people do when that happens? How do they respond on both sides of it? But especially when you think about it in terms of these kinds of unequal power relations within a fandom. That’s what I’m interested in because this is… Giddens theorized this as part of talking about politics and especially global interactions in a shrinking world, and it’s very much relevant to issues of, you know, tribalism and people kind of retreating to “Make America Great Again.” Whose America? What America? It’s the same kind of thing and that’s one response that I think is particularly unhelpful, but we do have some people who are like “OK, these people say that this guy is a problem, so maybe I will learn a little bit more about that,” or whatever.

It’s the reaction, what happens next, that I think is at the crux of transcultural fan studies and that I think is so important to get in.

ELM: That’s really interesting. OK. So I’m a dumbass because I have yet to pledge to your Patreon course and…I just haven’t gotten around to it!

LM: It’s OK, I’m very late!

ELM: I just want to hear you talk about this stuff all the time, please! This is fascinating. Thank you so much for coming on.

LM: Thank you for having me! I never get to talk about this stuff [laughing] except in writing and then I’m lucky if somebody reads it, so it’s really great to be able to actually talk about it!

ELM: Yeah, I would say, I don’t know how you feel, I don’t wanna put you on the spot but if anyone has questions can they ask them and we can pass them along?

LM: Sure! I’d be happy to look at them.

ELM: Obviously they can reach out to you directly, but…

LM: Yeah, I’m on Twitter, I’m @acafanmom, one word.

FK: Well thank you so much for coming on. This is great.

LM: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it, it’s been really fun talking with you.

[Interstitial music]

FK: It is always a delight to have Lori on this podcast.

ELM: Yeah, well, I didn’t actually realize I was making a mistake with conflating transcultural and transnational.

FK: That was a really good corrective to both of us I think cause I was doing the same thing.

ELM: Despite having read her work. I don’t…it’s fine.

FK: Well…

ELM: Don’t worry about me.

FK: I definitely feel like I could use a more intentional brushup on the current state of fan studies! I feel like there’s a lot of stuff that I just haven’t had time to read so this was a great reminder that there’s lots of cool stuff happening and coming out!

ELM: Yeah actually I don’t know if our listeners have seen this on Henry Jenkins’ blog, you know the series that he’s doing right now?

FK: Oh, yeah! It’s so good!

ELM: Yeah, a lot of content! But so he’s basically having two scholars per installment interview each other, sort of, they’re sort of in dialogue?

FK: Yeah, it’s great! And it’s this very long format sort of back and forth kind of interview thing that’s delightful.

ELM: So definitely check it out on his blog. We can put the link in the show notes but I think everything I’ve read so far has been really interesting. There’s just a ton of conversations and also I know he’s trying to highlight newer and more emerging voices. It’s kind of, I definitely feel like from the perspective of someone who’s sort of…I don’t think I’m a total outsider, I think I know more about fan studies than your average person, but I think from the perspective of an outsider certain voices get privileged repeatedly and certain texts that are older get privileged repeatedly.

FK: Right, because they’re taught in the few classrooms there are - they get taught and retaught and so on. So it’s pretty hard to…

ELM: I think that’s a little too generous. I think a lot of journalists do some really basic googling.

FK: Well, that’s true too. [laughing]

ELM: They’ll pull out the same book from 2005 or whatever and the same basic definitions and they’re good foundational definitions, but it really…it’s a shame to me that there isn’t more exposure in the mainstream outside of that media for a lot of the voices that are coming here.

FK: I agree. State of the world. But we can help change that state by being more up on these things! So let’s do it.

ELM: We’re trying, we’re trying! And, speaking of fan studies, just as a note, I will be going to the Fan Studies Network conference. [Flourish ooooos] In Wales! My beloved Wales! In June! So we’ll do some, we’ll report from there.

FK: We’ll do some #content around it.

ELM: Very excited. Just because it’s Wales. Fan tourism!

FK: [laughing] OK OK. Next thing up, we have a new tiny zine coming out soon!

ELM: We do! You’re gonna wanna pledge for this, because we have the greatest content that this podcast has ever created.

FK: Yeah. It’s pretty astonishing and I don’t think that we can oversell it. I think that we’re, I think there’s nothing we can say that’s gonna be strong enough. I literally howled, Elizabeth commissioned this piece of work and showed it to me, and I started screaming with laughter. So if you wanna find out what it is, you’ll need to pledge… [laughing]

ELM: It’s written by earlgreytea68 who is a very well known fanfiction writer, and the ship, it’s a double drabble and you wanna say the ship?

FK: [laughing] IT’S A KLINKEL FIC!!!! [all laughing] OK so you clearly want to read this. It’s amazing. So.

ELM: It’s really good and I’m really glad that this is where our drink led to the other day. So we got that and some other great stuff, that’s $10 a month on Patreon, Patreon.com/fansplaining. If you were thinking about bumping up your pledge, or pledging for the first time, if you get it in within the next week or so then you can take part in this round.

FK: Indeed! OK. Other things you can do if you don’t have the cash or inclination to give us money to support the podcast you can also review us on iTunes, which helps us find a larger audience and is incredibly helpful. We believe we deserve 5 stars, you can give us however many stars you think we deserve.

ELM: [quickly, quietly] Five stars.

FK: Sniff sniff [both laugh] You can also send in responses to any of our episodes, even if it’s an old one that you’re just listening to for the first time, we love all listener mail, that can go to fansplaining@gmail.com, or you can send it to our Twitter handle if it’s very short @fansplaining, or if it’s kinda longer you can send us an ask although Tumblr sometimes eats asks, the box is open and anon is on, that’s just fansplaining.com or fansplaining.tumblr.com. We also have a Facebook page if you should feel like you still need to be on Facebook.

ELM: Look Flourish, do you really wanna go down this rabbit hole?

FK: Anyway, movin’ on, I think that’s it!

ELM: [laughs] That is it! OK, bye!

FK: Bye!

[Outro music, thank yous and disclaimers]

[nicholasmeyler]

Some Essays

    Wolfy Said I Have a “Pedigree”

NICHOLAS MEYLER·SUNDAY, AUGUST 2, 2020·6 MINUTES

Based on my research, I have concluded that "Great Genius" is actually the name of a Breed, not so much as an accomplishment, or appellation received from making a lasting and brilliant contribution to Society. Rather, it is more like the term "Great Dane", used when referring to a specific breed of dog. There is nothing really great about Danes, although they are fine people, quite often, and I certainly don't want to sow any racist Anti-Danish sentiment on Facebook. Rather, I am simply clarifying the use of the term.

Scientists have concluded that Intelligence is basically hereditary, so I conducted my research on the genetics and genealogy of the matter. I was partly inspired by my familial relationship with the Nobel Peace Prizewinner, Norman Borlaug, who has been credited with saving one billion lives, due to his research in genetics and agricultural science.

My hypothesis, if you will, is simply that Genius runs in families; so I compiled a small family tree of 54,000+ individuals going back 4000 years to test this hypothesis. I realized that a typical example of the "Great Genius" breed might be Isaac Newton, whom I found myself related to along the Pendleton line.

Naturally, I also traced my lineage to Einstein, as well I could, and concluded that we might have shared a common direct ancestor some 500 years ago, since Einstein's family lived in an area also inhabited by my direct ancestors. Reasoning that Einstein himself had some 'clout' in that community, I thought he would be a fitting research subject. He, like Newton, was also known for some discoveries related to Physics.

Prior to that, I had already figured out my ancestral relationships to Lord Byron, Percival Bysse Shelley, John Dryden, and John Donne. Three of those (Byron, Donne, and Shelley) also experienced and wrote about Doppelganger phenomena (which I have repeatedly written about myself, based on the acoustic evidence of hearing my own name in music composed hundreds of years before my birth).

The very ancient surname of "Meyler" is cognate with the legendary wizard "Merlin" of Arthurian legend. Merlin, according to most accounts, was primarily famed for his extraordinary gift of Prophecy, and the fact that he aged in reverse. Today, we would refer to these phenomena as “Superluminal Information Transmission” (or “Reception”), and ‘Metabolic Time-travel’ (i.e. “reverse-aging”). I am involved in both of the fields, myself (the former as a World-leading researcher, and the latter as a professional recruiter).

‘Sir Thomas Mallory’ (one of three Knights with the same name alive at the same time in England) is also a relative of mine (17th great uncle), and the name "Mallory" itself is very similar to Meilyr, Maglorix, or Malleore (variants of Meyler spelling). Mallory was the English nobleman who recorded the epic “La Morte D’Arthur”, which is still revered as the greatest account of Arthur, Merlin, and Camelot in English literature. Before him, Giraldus Cambrensis was the second author in antiquity to write of the myth of Merlin (before Mallory and after Geoffrey of Monmouth) and identified him as a man named "Meilyr" who was able to find errors and lies in the previous text written about Merlin. Giraldus Cambrensis (Gerald of Wales) was my 1st cousin 25 times removed. Speaking of 17th great-uncles, Geoffrey Chaucer was the father of Thomas Chaucer (Parliament Speaker of the House of Commons) who was another 17th great-uncle of mine.

Contemporary with Giraldus Cambrensis was the writing of Gwalchmai ap Meilyr, one of the most revered great Welsh Bards of the 12th century. His works are still widely read, and considered 'immortal poetry'. His family was chosen to be the Royal Bards of Wales for a full century (three generations of Meilyrs). His poetry was frequently panegyric about my 25th great grandfather King Owain Gwynnedd. It is apparent that Gwalchmai, King Owain, and Giraldus Cambrensis were all quite well acquainted with one another. Gwalchmai, moreover, is also widely cited as being another great writer who amplified the Arthur/Merlin mythology extensively.

The one ancient Welsh Bard whose poetry is still most extant (e.g. preserved) is Daffyd ap Gwilym, who is my 18th great grandfather. This, again, is a sign of the hereditary nature of the true 'Great Genius" breed, which I can trace back before the Meilyr Bards to Owain ap Hywel (907-987 AD), my 29th great grandfather.

We cannot help what we are, yet we are still ennobled by the way scholars, for example, embrace the use of the term "Bard" when describing William Shakespeare (a mere in-law of mine, it appears). Shakespeare's daughter married into my family, while (since Shakespeare was the son of first cousins), he is also somehow an in-law via another path altogether (first cousin once removed of husband of first cousin fifteen times removed). Thus, the honorific “Bard” is sometimes even bestown on mere ‘wanna-be greats’ who marry into the right family.

On the purely academic side, and apart from any real ‘thought’ or ‘intellect’, at least I am a 3rd cousin of John Harvard (9x removed). John Harvard’s grandfather Thomas Rogers (my 10th great-grandfather) lived a couple of blocks away from William Shakespeare in Avon. My great-great-grandfather was the founder of UCLA (taking up the first collection to establish a State College in Los Angeles, back in the 1880’s). Another ancestor, a ninth great-grandfather, owned the mansion that became the very first permanent building on the Yale University campus. My great-grandfather on my father’s mother’s side, Albert Carlos Jones, Jr. was the first Opera Impresario in Los Angeles, and worked for the founder of USC.   He was also the youngest person ever to have a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, at that time. With respect to another West-coast school, my other great grandfather J.J. Meyler, who designed the Los Angeles Harbor, trounced Leland Stanford in a famous public debate about where the harbor should be built.

Also, perhaps footnote-worthy is the fact that my direct ancestors founded both Oxford and Cambridge Universities. So, while academia tends to breed a more docile sort of mind, simpler, simpering, pandering for approval of outrageously liberal and ignorant professors and tending towards mediocrity -- being on the ‘Founder’ side is somewhat different -- more disruptive, more radical, more innovative.

Such research, as it stands, has convinced me that "Great Genius" breeds true, and that, like "Great Danes" we are a distinct breed and should simply use this term, however modestly, when describing ourselves. This acceptance of the term is not gratuitous, vain, or boastful. Rather, it is really self-effacing, and humble. We must conform to the standards of the breed, and recognize that nothing we do will ever change our status, whether or not we invent, discover, or create anything, or nothing. We are not responsible for ourselves.

Gwalchmai ap Meilyr’s most famous poem, by far, is “Gorhoffedd”, meaning “The Boast”. Still famous after 850+ years, this is a great example of transcendence of the temporal world. We simply are, and we are not boastful.

   'Wolfy'​ and the Pedigree: A Story of Superluminal Information Transmission

·         Published on May 18, 2017

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 Nicholas Meyler

 Leading Executive Recruiter/Headhunter with (nearly) 30,000 Connections @NicholasMeyler on Twitter

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I’m tired of the rather staid and implausible edict of “Science” which states that Information cannot be transferred or transmitted at Superluminal velocities… which is to say, sending a message from “Future” or “Present” to “Past” cannot be achieved. I offer merely one of my many own personal experiences herein, that dissolves this fantasy of Physicists by clear-cut example. Scientists have contended for a long while, in their efforts to interpret Albert Einstein’s “Theory of Relativity”, that even mere quantum ‘Information’ (or ‘signal’, or ‘meaning’, essentially) is not transmissible at velocities faster than “c”, the constant denoting the speed of light traveling in a vacuum. 

This numerical value is 186,282 miles per second, which is equal to 300,000 kilometers per second. These numbers as upper limits of claimed inviolability of ‘lightspeed’ are widely accepted, almost to the point of autocratic dictum. I believe that these claims are largely correct, but have exceptions. Notably, recent Scientific research has shown that light can actually be accelerated to speeds even hundreds of times faster than the conventional limit of “c”. 

Physicists like Ray Chiao of UC Berkeley, Guenter Nimtz of University of Cologne, and Lijun Wang of the NEC Institute for Advanced Studies have all demonstrated that pulses of light can actually be sent (in special conditions) at velocities much higher than the ‘known’ limit of speed. The conventional caveat, however, is that “Information” itself cannot be transferred or transmitted at superluminal rates, because what is actually being transmitted in these cases, is merely a portion or ‘front-end’ of what is called the ‘wave-packet’. 

Physicists disregard this achievement of superluminal velocity as an exception to the Einsteinian equations simply because only a portion of the light-wave really made it through to the receiver. Guenter Nimtz formulated the reply that even if only the ‘front-end’ of the intended signal actually is transmitted, it is still recognizable and does qualify as Information. I tend to agree with him. In his 1993 experiments, he was able to transmit the sound impulses of Mozart’s 40th Symphony in G minor at a rate of 4.3x lightspeed. In other words, the signals were actually transmitted (via quantum tunneling) before the process was even initiated. Still, physicists argue about whether these actually constitute ‘Information’/‘Signals’. 

This is not just a semantic debate, since Einstein’s Theory (and the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction equations) show that any object (including a photon, which has a rest-mass below 10^exp -27 electron-volts) with non-zero ‘rest-mass’ would have to acquire infinite mass, if it exceeded lightspeed. A rather clever way out of this (which reconciles ‘observation-data’ [i.e. facts] and theory [i.e. speculation]) is that a ‘signal’ might consist purely of vibrations, or “phonons”, which are really massless, and occur in ‘elastic’ structures. 

The great composer Iannis Xenakis compared “phonons” to ‘particles or granules’ of sound, in his textbook “Musiques Formelles”. In fact, he based his entire theory of musical composition on this concept of ‘granular sound’ and used his extreme knowledge of Chemical Physics and Mathematics to create music based on the idea of manipulation of ‘sound-masses’ and ‘sound-clouds’ via abstract mathematics, much of which was based on Ancient Greek thought.

Guenter Nimtz’ more recent work (2009) has been on the idea of “Superluminal” (i.e. “Virtual” as in the Physics of Richard Feynmann) ‘particles’ or ‘quanta’ of vibration, which is what sound is caused by – all sounds are merely vibrations that occur in some medium, whether it be air, the floor of a concert venue where music is much too loud for good health, etc. Given that the Einsteinian “Prohibition” on faster-than-lightspeed Information transfer is based entirely on the impossibility of accelerating objects (or quanta) which possess ‘non-zero rest mass’ – What prohibits the possibility of accelerating completely massless ‘quanta’ of vibration to superluminal rates – i.e. thereby sending ordered vibrations into the Past?_____________________________________________________________

It was in the year 1989, I believe, that I purchased a CD album of Wolfgang Mozart’s “Salzburg Symphonies”, composed when he was a youth below the age of 16. Despite his age, however, Mozart’s enormous precocity and intellect enabled him to compose music which is highly enduring, and permits many listenings. 

The simplicity of the Salzburg Symphonies is undeniable, but they remain as amazing testament to the genius of ‘Wolfy’, who could create immortal symphonies still beloved by many, centuries after his death. It is on track 19 of the album I have of Jaap Schroeder, Christopher Hogwood and The Academy of Ancient Music performing “The Symphonies Salzburg 1766-1772” that the untamed “Wolfy” (aka Mozart) launches into what I once thought was a slanderous diatribe against me, wherein he accused me of having a “pedigree”, which I naturally thought was quite offensive, given the context of someone with a nickname of “Wolfy” (which is highly suggestive of an undomesticated species of canine). 

Canines, to my knowledge (at that time) were the sorts of creatures who had ‘pedigrees’, and I incontestably took offence at Mozart’s apparent speech synthesis directed towards me. I was, generally speaking, rather appalled by the apparent slight, but tried to understand it in the context of the youthful, brash super-genius Mozart taunting a fan or admirer (me) from the distant future (over 200 years later). 

Please bear in mind that these thoughts first occurred to me, listening to this album/CD, around 1989, when I lived in Van Nuys, CA (at 14333 Haynes St.) in a fairly inexpensive apartment in a rather poor neighborhood – although it is true that I lived within a few blocks of a Tchaikovsky competition pianist, a drummer from ‘Iron Butterfly’ (who lived upstairs), and a successful composer named Alexandra Shapiro. Alex Shapiro was beautiful and very intelligent. I remember discussing Stephen Hawking with her, and how strongly she felt sympathy for his physical condition.

Apparently, I am not the only party who has had reason to contemplate the “pedigree” remarks of Mozart, since one need only Google “Mozart, pedigree” to find the following information: http://www.pedigreequery.com/mozart3. It would appear that others have, at least on some level, also connected the cognitively dissonant notes of “Wolfy” and “pedigree” rather clearly. My assumption of, and extreme irritation at, Wolfy’s unintended jape/jibe/jab at my ego, was erroneous, though. I learned some 23 years later, while trying to work out my Ancestry , that a “pedigree” is also something ascribed to humans; in particular, those who descend from long lines of ancestry and/or royalty. 

Although I had no knowledge of it, originally, I do actually have a ‘pedigree’ which extends back over a thousand years. Even without knowledge of having a ‘pedigree’, I did have a pedigree, it seems. What is remarkable about this, though, is that I perceived and ‘heard’ Mozart’s comments which seemed to be directed precisely towards me, in English language, with such vividness that I truly thought I was being personally insulted by the brilliant (but highly juvenile at the age of 14-16) Mozart even though his synthetic speech comments (assuming that they are real) were perhaps actually intended as a compliment. I utterly rejected the idea that I was “Mozart’s dog” and was being teased about my inferior intellect/good breeding, because I knew nothing of my ancient ancestry, and because I had no idea that a “pedigree” was even a term that could be applied to Humans, without condescension.

So, now that I have researched my family tree extensively, including with DNA comparisons of many other people, I know that I am related to royalty with lineage that perhaps goes (arguably or not) back to 2000 BC. I would suggest that this result, which I would have found anathematic in 1989, is an actual state of fact which was communicated to me, somehow, via speech synthesis using purely instrumental modalities in that 19th track of the album, composed by Wolfgang Mozart around 1770-1776.

This strikes me as very strong evidence of the reality of Superluminal Information Transmission (or Transfer), simply because: (1) the concept of being told by a record album performance of music written over 200 years ago that I (personally) have a ‘pedigree’ is highly odd; (2) the indisputability of that acoustic perception, on my part, is certain, because I have been able to describe the perceptions and thoughts I had as a consequence, in detail; (3) the odds against anyone having a ‘pedigree’ (or family tree) which contains 40,000 known individuals is fairly extreme, so there can be no mistaking the correctness of the assertion.

From this one example (and I have many others), it appears to me that the existence of Superluminal Information Transmission is a certain fact, despite many Physicists' claims that it violates “Relativity Theory”, and is therefore impossible.

Henceforth, let us abbreviate “Superluminal Information Transmission” as “S.I.T.” 

“SIT, Wolfy! SIT!” 

    Battle of The Majors: Engineering vs. Philosophy

·         Published on August 24, 2020

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 Nicholas Meyler

 Leading Executive Recruiter/Headhunter with (nearly) 30,000 Connections @NicholasMeyler on Twitter

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I just read a really interesting article by a clever writer named Kristina Grob, a Philosophy instructor at University of South Carolina Sumter. The article discussed the long-term benefits of a Philosophy degree in terms of paying ones’ bills and earning a living, as opposed to other majors like Engineering, which is obviously more geared towards practical applications and material success.

https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2020/08/06/want-good-job-major-philosophy?fbclid=IwAR3mE_MT25ZboA7pdoquawknRH9AvhykYrLSTUW1ZLzUv2Vdobs38NXot-k

I read the article with particular interest because I majored in both fields, at separate schools, to obtain two Bachelor’s degrees. The first was in Philosophy at Princeton, and the second in Chemical Engineering at Cal State Northridge. Even though my family had been engineers for four generations before me, I was the rebellious one who wanted to have a broader mind and wanted to set out on a new path.

My father and grandfather both had Mechanical Engineering degrees from Cornell, and my grandfather was even a Cornell Instructor. My paternal great-grandfather was a Military Engineer from West Point (top in his class, except for the fellow-student he tutored). His name was James J. Meyler and he won perhaps the most important public debate of the early twentieth century vs. Leland Stanford, known as “The Free Harbor Contest”, and was responsible for picking the location and beginning the dredging and construction for the Los Angeles Harbor, which was the largest harbor ever built for many years. There was a street named after him in San Pedro, near the harbor. He also had Army ships named after him, and his portrait stood in the L.A. Army Headquarters for 50+ years.

Even his father, my great-great grandfather (also named Nickolas Meyler, like myself), who was an un-degreed Irish immigrant of the potato-famine, was a master carpenter who successfully filed his own patent for a roof-forming machine –- technology which I have been told by Construction professionals is still used on multi-million dollar mansions in Malibu today.

So, why would I study Philosophy instead?

I didn't want to conform to my family's expectations. And, probably because I badly wanted an education in the Humanities. In fact, I took 13 classes in Philosophy at Princeton (more than any other undergrad I knew) and another 6 in Comparative Literature. Philosophy was the highest-ranked department in the World at the time, so it appealed to me because of the challenge. The thought of earning a living never even occurred to me at the time, I was so impassioned to learn the truths of the Universe.

Towards the end of Senior year, I had some conversations with people about “the real world”. One friend who was a fellow Philosophy major in many of my classes was the grand-daughter of two Nobel winners on her mother’s side, while her father was President of Harvard. Even she, with a mother who was a Philosophy professor (and later a best-selling author), made remarks like “We Philosophy majors are the most worthless people out there.”

After I graduated, I began to realize that it might actually be hard to get a job when Philosophy hadn’t really exactly prepared me for one. I had heard of Philosophers in Europe putting up a shingle and charging $100 an hour for providing advice on Life, etc., but I didn’t think I could make that model work for me. I ended up taking the next year off and read 160 books. My parents were incredibly generous with me, very tolerant and understanding. They realized that I had been through an ‘existential crisis’, trying to find some sense of self-worth and meaning in Life. I also had a peculiar psychosomatic ailment which was attacks of hiccups that went on and on intermittently, for many months.

Finally, my parents insisted that I get a job. Since I was contemplating a possible career in Law, it seemed appropriate that I should take advantage of my family’s personal lawyer being the Executor for the J. Paul Getty Museum Estate. I got a job in the mail-room at a company called Musick, Peeler, and Garrett which entailed mailing enormous checks and documents to members of the Getty family.

I could read a book on the bus to the office, and had hundreds of attorneys to talk with and ask questions about Law. I learned a great deal, met some great people, and eventually began to understand that I was not the type of person who should be a lawyer. This was probably a good way to learn that I was not cut-out for that particular profession.

Eventually, family tradition began to influence me, and I resolved to study Chemical Engineering. I think there were several reasons for this, including my family’s predilection for Engineering, and the fact that I had always liked Chemistry. I also was fascinated with the music of Iannis Xenakis, a Composer/Architect who wrote music about Chemical Engineering, Mathematics, and Physics. I was led back into Engineering by way of the Humanities. I had always been especially good in Science and Math, so I thought it made a lot of sense; plus, it seemed pretty assured that I could manage to make a living at it.

So, a few years later, I did graduate with a Chemical Engineering degree and was able to find an entry-level Chemist job in the Electroplating industry. Here I was working with people who were shop-owners that made $500,000 per year… this was obviously something that made money. I also realized, though, that repeated exposure to toxic chemicals, cyanide, sulfuric acid, hydrofluoric acid, etc. was not really all that appealing.

For that reason, I eventually transitioned to a sales career-path – selling plating chemicals for an esoteric but fascinating process of auto-catalytic deposition of nickel phosphorus (i.e. “electroless nickel”). I learned that the communication and language skills I had acquired while studying Philosophy actually had value in terms of making it easier to explain concepts and make persuasive arguments. I was able to use reason and logic to achieve sales of product.

This was something I hadn’t really expected. All of the sudden, Philosophy actually had a practical application. I could use logic and reasoning to present rational reasons for customers to buy the products I was hawking, and could make them feel good about using them.

Eventually, of course, I transitioned into the career of Executive Search, where I have been for the past 30 years. I use my skills in Engineering and Philosophy both, on a daily basis. Philosophy is very helpful for strategic thinking, ethics, and selling of ‘intangibles’. Engineering, equally, is a passion that is fortuitous to have. Nothing is more exciting to me than cutting-edge Science and Technology being applied at the highest competitive levels to achieve commercial success and successful productization.

The truth, is, at least according to Kristen Grob, that Philosophy majors earn more than their counterpart majors, and maybe as much as Engineering majors. I was shocked with her statement, but it seems to have some facticity. I found it hard to believe that the pursuit of Non-material Wisdom could somehow equate with Science based on the nature of Matter (i.e. Chemistry).

In 30 years of placing Scientists and Engineers, I have only once encountered another person with Bachelor’s degrees in both Chemical Engineering and Philosophy. Only one other person, and I have about 30,000 resumes on file, with probably over 200,000 personal contacts over my career.

What do the facts really say? Since I work with Engineers and Scientists, of course I’m not so likely to see resumes of other Philosophy majors. That doesn’t mean they can’t make money. Some statistics say that the average Philosophy graduate makes $80,000 per year. Certainly, this is comparable to what Engineers earn.

Realistically speaking, would I be the Engineering Headhunter I am today, without having had a Philosophy degree? Probably not. I think that the communication skills alone that I learned were priceless. Having the ability to communicate well is not always common among Engineers. Both disciplines involve problem-solving, but only Philosophy focuses on persuading others of the correctness of one’s viewpoint. This element is neglected in most Engineering curricula. I do think that there should be more of a hybridization between the two fields. It can only help.

Meanwhile, I must also admit that I am the most-followed “Philosopher/Engineer” on Twitter in the World.

Is that worth any money?

Probably not. But it’s a whole lot more fun!

 Was Shakespeare Truly a Bard? A Headhunter's Opinion

·         Published on January 18, 2019

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 Nicholas Meyler

 Leading Executive Recruiter/Headhunter with (nearly) 30,000 Connections @NicholasMeyler on Twitter

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Popular wisdom says that ‘Bards’ are those great story-tellers whose tales are embraced by the audience, not only once, but over and over again, for generations. The idea of a Bard conjures up names like Homer, Shakespeare, and perhaps few others. Reality is quite a bit different, though.

Etymology of the word “Bard” shows that it is of Welsh origin, specifically referring to the great Poet/Singer/Musician/Warriors who were responsible for creating and retelling great ballads like the ancient epic 'Mabinogion', or the King Arthur legend, which is part of 'Mabinogion'.

Owing to unique circumstances, it was in ancient Wales that the Bardic tradition first arose. The culture of Wales was such that the early Princes sponsored official court poets (i.e. “Gogynfeirdd”) who shared many of the same privileges as royalty. In fact, in certain ways, Bards were actually viewed as being even superior to the Kings. Tradition had it that the greatest fear among Nobility was the ever-present possibility that they might be satirized for being unkind or ungenerous to the Bards ("Poet-Gods"). In at least one case, legend tells of a King who died of shame from being scorned by his Bard, Taliesin.

Perhaps the first great Bard was Taliesin. His 6th century poems still exist. The largest number of extant great poems by a Bard are those by Daffyd ap Gwilym (1320-1350), 170 of whose poems still exist. The preponderance of Daffyd’s poems were about Nature and Erotica, filled with a great sense of humor. Yet, it was the Meilyr family of Bards that were the most famous family of Bards that ever lived, being the official court poets of Wales for over a century, and three generations... Meilyr Bryddyd was the first of these, and his religious poems are still known. His son was Gwalchmai, who had at least two sons who were also official Bards of the Princes. Thus, the Meilyr dynasty in Wales established the greatest tradition of factual Bards in human history.

Common lore tells us that Shakespeare was a 'Bard', since author of 37 known still-revered plays and several poems and the set of sonnets. Mere casual reference to "The Bard" often elicits thoughts of William Shakespeare (or "Wm Choxpur" as he sometimes wrote, in addition to perhaps 10 other spellings, indicating a possible degree of illiteracy, by today's standards). "The Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon", or "The Bard of Avon", etc. are similar epithets which have frequently been used to describe both "Shaksper" and even Homer (author of "Illiad" and "Odyssey"), has been described as a ‘Bard’.

Yet, if we look to the actual definition of the word "Bard", we note readily that it is a word from Medieval Welsh. The actual meaning of the word "Bard" encompasses far more than merely being the author of a great text, or set of texts, which survive four, five, or twenty-five centuries. Bards were something altogether different from a mere playwright or author, actually. Much more like troubadours, perhaps. Singularly talented, and not merely limited to authorship, etc. Skilled in performance, battle, song, as well as writing.

I suggest that William Shakespeare is regarded as being the greatest English-speaking 'Bard-like author', largely because of his name, which connotes warrior-like characteristics, or acts (i.e. "shaking a spear"). Part of the tradition of the authentic Bards of Wales is that in addition to being poets, performers, singers, composers, scholars and genealogists for Royalty, they also were accomplished warriors who fought in many battles. So confident of his prowess in battle was Gwalchmai ap Meilyr (1130-1180), author of "Gorhoffedd" (i.e. "The Boast") that he actually wore gold jewelry (a torcque) into battle on behalf of his patron Owain Gwynedd (my 24th great-grandfather, by my calculations).

One might think that, as a Meyler, I would be more closely related to Gwalchmai, but he is actually only a 25th cousin 4 times removed. So, I speak with a degree of relative objectivity, here, being not merely partial to Welsh bards simply because of being related to several. In fact, the other best-known "Gorhoffedd" (a completely different poem) was written by Owain ap Hywel (907-987) who was actually my 29th great-grandfather, although I am much more fond of Gwalchmai's eloquent poem.

In any case, Thomas Rogers (1540-1611), was my 12th great-uncle, and lived 2 blocks away from William Shakespeare in Stratford. Thomas' grandson, was John Harvard, whose name is somewhat better recognized. I may not be related to Shakespeare, but I do deeply respect his incredible mastery of the English language, while, at the same time, being somewhat strict on the meaning of the word "Bard".

I hope I have been fair!

Clearly, William Shakespeare cannot be considered a Bard, unless, perhaps, the pen itself is somehow mightier than the sword. It turns out that not only did William Shakespeare NOT invent the sonnet, but that the sonnet form was actually invented by my 1st cousin 14x removed, Sir Henry Howard (1517-1547).  

 Semiotics and Nobel Peace

NICHOLAS MEYLER·SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2017·10 MINUTES

Semiotics and Nobel Peace: I was Six vs. “We Are Seven”

Having placed myself in the mildly challenging position of defending my claim (or interpretation, or theory, perhaps) that I won the Nobel Peace Prize at the age of six, I thought it might be worth expounding upon that absurdity which I have previously termed (paraphrasing T.S. Eliot writing on John Milton or Edmund Spenser) an “[auditory] hypertrophy of the imagination” – pun intended. Simple inspection of the history of the Nobel tells us that only Sartre is openly acknowledged to have turned one down (in Literature), although some claim that George Bernard Shaw also declined it. Yet, there are some questions about the details of GBS’ refusal – the apparent truth being that he “accepted the honor,” but refused the money. Sartre, perhaps with greater integrity, refused the prize primarily because he wished not to set himself apart from the common man, eschewing distinctions in class and status as a reflection of the Socialist values he shared with Shaw. My own claim to have won the Prize in a clandestine fashion, in 1966, absurd as it must seem, has been bolstered by the recent actions of the Nobel committee; while they certainly haven’t been verbally expressive. According to the rules of the Nobel Trust, it is not allowed for the Nobel committee to release names of nominees for fifty years, and even then, only at their discretion.

My apparently outrageous contention is that I was awarded and then declined the Nobel Peace Prize in 1966, for contact with multiple alien intelligent beings; including many UFO landings in my backyard in Tarzana, California; and involving extensive faster-than-lightspeed travel (which Relativity Theory discloses to be equivalent to time-travel). In point of fact, I think it historically notable that my home (at 4608 Conchita Way, wherein I lived from 1965 to 1982) was purchased by the producer Stephen Deutsch, responsible for such time-travel epics as “Somewhere In Time” (starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour) and “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”. Stephen clearly shares my interest and fascination with Time Travel and Metaphysics, although I tend to be inclined towards the academic side of the field; and I suspect that he bought the house because we had advertised it in the L.A. Times as a “UFO Landing Site”. I don’t have any evidence of this, although it should be possible to obtain through examination of microfilmed copies of real estate ads from the L.A. Times and possibly other publications from 1982. If anyone can produce this evidence, it would be of great interest… and, if this exists only in my imagination (or “hypertrophy” thereof), at least it is a “grand illusion”.

Given that there is circumstantial evidence that I may have been involved in time-travel and faster-than-light travel events, I continue to investigate. George Bernard Shaw’s most popular play is “Pygmalian” (the basis for “My Fair Lady”), whose hero is a phonetician – and it is through phonetics that I have accumulated the largest body of evidence of my own personal possible experiences of time-travel, since my name is found phonetically encrypted in some classic musical compositions, centuries before my birth. Examples I have previously given are Mozart’s 14th and 41st Symphonies, Bach’s 4th Brandenburg Concerto (which also references “Hefner” – another odd character appearing anachronistically as a model in music composed in 1725), Stockhausen’s “Ceylon/Bird of Passage” album, Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon”, and so on. That the “happy few” who have refused the Nobel Prize should be able to find ways to metaphysically help each other (despite large separations in the realm of Time), somehow has a fundamental justice to it, at least.

My theory has been, for more than a decade, that there was a NASA mission to Alpha Centauri in 1966. What the CIA files show as “Alpha-66”, however, is merely an Anti-Castro mission conducted by 66 Cuban emigres… no mention is made in those files of any extraterrestrial affairs. Still, the phrase “Anti-Castro” shares initials with “Alpha Centauri”, and one may draw one’s own inferences… Any faster-than-lightspeed mission might encounter the problem of entering a completely different Universe where that faster-than-lightspeed travel had never occurred. Thus, the mission could have been widely publicized at the time, but have become almost completely forgotten, due to the phenomenon of “Information Loss” (described by Hawking in a well-known 1972 paper).

The belief that a six-year old survived a rocket ride (almost certainly propelled by "dark matter" procured perhaps from the Magellanic Clouds in a “cyclic acausal” manner), in 1966, and achieved contact with aliens (in addition to the landings in the backyard in Tarzana), is obviously a huge leap of faith for anyone to make. Any healthy skeptic should remain a skeptic, without evidence that such an event happened, and it clearly isn’t spelled out in the CIA’s declassified files to “Alpha 66”. However, what is interesting, in the light of the recent award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Mohammed Yunus, is that he is a 66-year old, awarded the Peace Prize in 2006. The trifold occurrence of the digit ‘6’ is interesting. Based on my many requests to the Nobel committee to provide information about my suspicion of having been secretly awarded the Peace Prize in 1966, is this a sign or signification that there is something correct in my assertions? Also, whether a 6-year old won and refused the prize in 1966, or a 66-year old won and accepted the prize in 2006, does the presence of the number '666’ itself make any difference? Is the name “Yunus” in any way a harking back to “Unicef” (the recipient of the 1965 Peace Prize)?

The subliminal lyrics to Pink Floyd’s 1972 album “Dark Side of the Moon” make clear references to me (via phonetic speech synthesis with electronic instruments), and to the Nobel committee. The subliminal lyrics of albums by The Grateful Dead, on the other hand, appear to make reference to me being “Lucifer” (associated both with the'666’ numerology as well as the defamed Catholic Saint (examples of such albums would be “Live Dead” [the song “Dark Star”] and “Dead Set” [“Samson and Delilah”, and “Fire on the Mountain”, etc.]). Since Arthur C. Clarke’s novel “Childhood’s End’ describes the end of humanity (as we know it) resulting from the arrival of an extraterrestrial named "Karellan,” revealed (halfway through the novel) to possess the same physiognomy as the legendary Satan with wings, a tail, and horns, it might well behoove me to ignore the negative Christian mythology associated with the number '666’ just as the Nobel committee appears to have. Beethoven, oddly enough, refers to me as both “Jesus” and “Savior” in different symphonies, possibly because he must have heard Mozart’s 41st Symphony, where I am modeled with Jody Savin (I am speculating that “Savin” was perceived/interpreted as “Saven” by Beethoven, for instance). The subliminal lyrics of “Dark Star” by The Grateful Dead also make reference to me and Jody (actually a minor relationship in the scheme of my life), with an odd discussion about sticking a crucifix into a Black Hole (perhaps with the goal in mind of stabilizing an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, or wormhole to another universe)….

In 1966 and 1967, two years during which the Nobel Peace Prize was not officially awarded, a most lethal war was waged, in denial of our country’s inability to win that war, and Peace was only a distant dream. In harmony and resonance with my mercurial claim of winning the Nobel at the age of six, I offer Wordsworth’s poem “We Are Seven" which focuses on a child’s denial of reality, insisting that her dead siblings are still with her:

We Are Seven by William Wordsworth.

–A Simple Child, That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death?

I met a little cottage Girl: She was eight years old, she said; Her hair was thick with many a curl That clustered round her head.

She had a rustic, woodland air, And she was wildly clad: Her eyes were fair, and very fair; –Her beauty made me glad.

"Sisters and brothers, little Maid, How many may you be?” “How many? Seven in all,” she said And wondering looked at me.

“And where are they? I pray you tell.” She answered, “Seven are we; And two of us at Conway dwell, And two are gone to sea.

"Two of us in the church-yard lie, My sister and my brother; And, in the church-yard cottage, I Dwell near them with my mother.”

“You say that two at Conway dwell, And two are gone to sea, Yet ye are seven!–I pray you tell, Sweet Maid, how this may be.”

Then did the little Maid reply, “Seven boys and girls are we; Two of us in the church-yard lie, Beneath the church-yard tree.”

“You run about, my little Maid, Your limbs they are alive; If two are in the church-yard laid, Then ye are only five.”

“Their graves are green, they may be seen,” The little Maid replied, “Twelve steps or more from my mother’s door, And they are side by side.

"My stockings there I often knit, My kerchief there I hem; And there upon the ground I sit, And sing a song to them.

"And often after sunset, Sir, When it is light and fair, I take my little porringer, And eat my supper there.

"The first that died was sister Jane; In bed she moaning lay, Till God released her of her pain; And then she went away.

"So in the church-yard she was laid; And, when the grass was dry, Together round her grave we played, My brother John and I.

"And when the ground was white with snow, And I could run and slide, My brother John was forced to go, And he lies by her side.”

“How many are you, then,” said I, “If they two are in heaven?” Quick was the little Maid’s reply, “O Master! we are seven.”

“But they are dead; those two are dead! Their spirits are in heaven!” 'Twas throwing words away; for still The little Maid would have her will, And said, “Nay, we are seven!”

Returning again to the topic of signification or semiotics and the Peace Prize; it clearly is unprecedented for the Nobel committee to award the prize (in consecutive years) to persons named “Mohammed”, and yet they have done so (to Mohamed El-Baradei and Muhammad Yunus). This seems to possibly express disenchantment with Christianity (and the mythology surrounding '666’), but it also is a gesture of offering an 'olive-branch’ to Islam, in the wake of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Parenthetically, Muhammad Yunus was also the recipient of the World Food Prize, which was initiated by my distant cousin (a second- or third-cousin) Norman Borlaug in 1986. I find it odd that the media paid so little attention to Yunus as a candidate, given that fact. For most, he was a “dark horse” candidate, possibly because the media is lazy, prefers to disinform, or simply wants to keep information to itself… There is no accounting for an information failure like this, and it reminds me of Einstein’s famous remark that “Two things are infinite: the Universe and human stupidity, and I’m not so sure about the former.”

There are many other points worthy of semiotic analysis in the history of the Nobel prize, but my intention is not to be exhaustive. Rather, I would like to provoke a little bit of thought, and to offer desperately needed (possible) explanations where there have previously been none. Everything, for instance, resolves to “How does a modern person’s name [mine] encrypt itself into art from the 18th century, associated with the Nobel Peace Prize, which also didn’t even exist at that time? And, what is the significance of this bizarre phenomenon?"

To those questions, I hope that I have at least offered a partial answer, although it might seem equally that I am "a miner for truth and delusion,” as the Pink Floyd lyric goes. Still, having barely ever heard of many past winners like Elihu Root, Fredrik Bajer, Frederic Passy, George Pire, etc., I suppose the Nobel Committee might have seen fit to try to award the prize to someone like myself, whose name somehow transcendentally appears (associated with the Nobel Peace Prize) in some very antique classics (while I am still largely unknown, of course). I wonder if that “auditory hypertrophy” of my imagination will ever be fully understood, recognized and explained.

–Nicholas Meyler, November 26, 2006

  Exegesis of My Thoughts on Auditory Doppelgangers in Music

NICHOLAS MEYLER·FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2020·5 MINUTES

Apart from the instances I have previously pointed out in some detail (the passages in Grateful Dead's "Foolish Heart", Trent Reznor's "Closer", and Brandenburg Concerto #4 by J.S. Bach, Mozart’s 14th Symphony K#114 in A Major, etc.), one of the best examples of my auditory time-traveling doppelganger phenomenon I've ever heard is from Karlheinz Stockhausen's "Ceylon/Bird of Passage", which was composed when I was around 15. I'm pretty certain I didn't buy a copy until 1977 or 1978, at the earliest. I had never previously met Karlheinz Stockhausen, except on the UIA/CIA Mission with:

Felix Rodriguez https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A9lix_Rodr%C3%ADguez_(soldier) in 1968, when we brought Stockhausen here from his native planet orbiting the star Sirius, as Karlheinz repeatedly stated.

Stockhausen was very intuitive, very psychic, and studied about or with Indian yogi Sri Aurobindo. He writes about some of his psychic experiences and how his compositions were sometimes based on dream-flights into the Cosmic Oversoul.

In 1975, when this album first came out on Chrysalis Records, I was 15, and I shared an Attorney with the J. Paul Getty Museum Estate, since my paternal grandfather was that attorney's first-ever client. He later also counseled Howard Hughes to some extent. Getty's son Gordon is actually the world's richest composer, to my knowledge. He once gave my Mom a couple of cassettes of his music ("Plump Jack" and "The White Election").

at 5:41 I hear "Borlaug" (My 2nd cousin twice removed on my Mom's side -- a Nobel Peace Prizewinner Agriculturalist credited with inventing wheat strains which saved one billion lives from starvation)

at 10:30 I hear "Getty Deep" emulated electronically (suggestive of the extreme depths at which oil is found). Stockhausen, as a composer, was remarkable for his Capitalistic instinct, being one of the very first artists to purchase the rights to all his music from Deutsche Grammophon recordings.

at 14:15 I hear "Tara, Claudia, Laura... Nick is Nazi, Billionaire Nazi" (which is odd, since I am actually a Republican and not exactly a Billionaire... however, part of the "Doppelganger" idea is that the Double is an 'evil twin', which might actually make a certain amount of sense, then, being someone who would act counter to my best interests. Tara, Claudia and Laura were all girlfriends I hadn't had yet, when I was between the ages of 16 and 24 [accurately predicted by Stockhausen] in reverse order).

at 14:29 "Uma" is clearly spoken by the composer... interesting because "Uma" is from Tibetan Buddhism, and means "the Goddess". Uma Thurman's father is one of the world's leading authorities on Tibetan Buddhism, and named her after the Buddhist Goddess. She was also in a movie with Ben Affleck about an invention that could predict the future accurately, with a "Paycheck" hidden under the newspaper of the bird-cage (reference to "Bird of Passage"?) in the form of a winning lottery ticket.

at 15:30 I hear "Furnix" which could also easily be "Phoenix", "Fur Nichts", "Fur Nicks", etc. Repeatedly spoken throughout the piece is the name "Garuda", which is a winged Hindu deity, also somewhat evocative of the legendary Phoenix which re-emerges from the flames after its own Pyrrhic death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garuda

at 17:55 I hear another synthetic voice reference to birds (i.e. "We're ducky!")

at 19:19 "Getty, pow-wow-wow" seems pretty clearly enunciated, harking back to the Billionaire theme

at 21:00 "Waiter" or "Waaaiiiiitttteerrr!!!" seems to be shouted pretty loudly... not sure what that is about, but it does bring to mind "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" by Douglas Adams, published 5 years later, in 1980. Haven't quite figured that out, yet.

at 22:05 "How, how, how?, etc."

at 22:43 "You're a Leader" (I assume this is a direct but oneiric reference to me...or maybe that Borlaug dude, which is followed by a remarkably clever doubting sentiment at 23:45 to 23:55 "Why??" = "Wwwwwwhhhhhhhhyyyyyy????". Obviously, if someone claims me to be a leader, I want to know why! It does make a nice pun on "lieder" (German for 'song', in this speech-synthesis rich composition).

at 24:10 "Overall"

at 24:42 Composition Ends

“Bird of Passage” (i.e. “How Did We Get Here?”)

At 24:50, the album's second entry begins with the very complex and difficult to comprehend phrase (especially since it is almost steganographically encrypted, muffled and disguised as pure instrumental music, with percussion dominating): "Doppelganger Princeton Peace"

If it were up to me, I would have left out the "Princeton" part, since I was not terribly thrilled with their idea of "Academia" (which mostly seemed to be based on their adamant refusal to read books and actually do research, while insisting on mocking those that actually had done “the homework”); but, in any case (as in Mozart's 14th Symphony, where Princeton is referred to as "a bedwet", it is also equated with "Nobel Peace", for some reason [i.e. that is another example of the time-traveling Doppelganger I have been discussing in some detail]).

at 30:20 "Doppelganger Peace Prize Lives!" or "Doppelganger Peace Prizes"

In this composition, the disguised speech synthesis is much-better hidden, making it harder to provide clear-cut examples. However, at 35:53 "Better get dead!" is pretty clear. This is probably a duppel/doppel entendre, since The Grateful Dead are one of the very few bands which also openly advocate the importance of psychic powers in music. https://stanleykrippner.weebly.com/a-pilot-study-in-dream-t…

37:32 "Figaro's a lunatic!" (reference to Mozart's Nozze di Figaro and/or Rossini's "Barber of Seville"?)

42:50 "Better get dead" is reiterated...

43:29 "Figaro!"

46:33 After what sound like repeated iterations of "Democrat Winner" throughout this piece, the music quixotically ends with what sounds to me like "Reagan" -- a President who wasn't elected yet. Of course, this album was published during the Administration of Gerald R. Ford, before the election of Jimmy Carter, and hence, well before "Reagan".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bHnGorNTT0

 "Things I 'Figured Out' for Myself"

July 24, 2010 at 12:34 AM

from 2005? (approx.) "Things I Figured Out for Myself" I made this list because I sometimes do figure out these nifty ideas 'without help', and then read about them later in the news (as someone else's 'great new discovery'). So, I am working on this list, and will add to it as I recall more such events and instances. 1. Sharks with wings might be an evolutionary path on another planet. (It has been discovered that there were actually winged sharks in the seas of ancient Earth, but they went extinct many millions of years ago). I had a dream once, about being on a catamaran on the placid lagoon of a planet orbiting Tau Ceti ("Ceti" is actually Greek for "sea-monster", and not "whale", as many might presume), and awaking from the dream-experience (which felt like a memory) of being eaten alive by an enormous Great White Shark, with wing-like appendages similar to those of flying fish. Subsequent to my dream, I also learned that Great Whites are well-known for jumping out of the water to catch prey. 2. Epsilon Eridani has an inhabited planet (It has been discovered that there is at least one planet in orbit around Epsilon Eridani, which is probably uninhabited since much too large. However, there still might be smaller planets in orbit there, which are unseen). The SETI project observed a spike or signal from Epsilon Eridani on the first day of operation (if I recall correctly), but it was never repeated. Frank Drake supposedly concluded that this was only terrestrial interference which appeared to be from the direction of Epsilon Eridani, but I am suspicious of the whole SETI project, in principle. 3. Time-travel to the past must exist (Hasn't been confirmed yet, but light has been accelerated to 300x "c" in experiments). If information about the present day (approximately) somehow shows up in music composed in 1725 (e.g. Bach's Brandenburg Concerti), then someone must have put it there. 4. Global warming is real (pretty much confirmed recently). I based that judgment on the fact that California summers keep getting hotter... of course, many other people concurred on that one, so I clearly didn't invent it, but I was way ahead of the curve, and managed to get fired from a job as a chemist back in 1989, partly as a result of my opinions on the subject. 5. It makes lots of sense to assume that space is comprised of an infinite number of dimensions, of infinite size (infinite-dimension theory is getting popular these days, although 11-dimensional M theory leads the pack of theories). Common sense leads one to ask "What is so special about the number 11, anyway?" I can still remember pretty vividly being told that there were definitively 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, or 27 dimensions as well, at different times. Why would we be so gullible as to latch onto the idea that '11 dimensions' is the final and correct solution? 6. If "Finnegans Wake" by James Joyce is a cyclical novel based on human history (it is), then it might be used to predict human history and events before they happen (example... the fall of the Soviet Union and Iran-contra [see pp. 518-519 of "Finnegans Wake"]). 7. Time-travel can be accompanied by information-loss phenomenon (thoughts influenced by Hawking's work, but pushing his 'envelope' somewhat). 8. Information isn't necessarily lost inside Black Holes, since particle pairs are created on the boundary... therefore the 'lost' information could remain accessible and encrypted somewhere (Hawking's information-loss paradox seems to deny this, and then he changed his mind somewhat, and there is also the work of t'Hooft on this subject). My idea that information is actually encrypted and not destroyed is just based on the fact that music contains encrypted information (sent at faster-than-light speeds) which is decodable. Encrypting information in music (or other art) might also be a means of compensating for 'information-loss', since the information could later be retrieved and reconstructed. 9. Since music contains decodable faster-than-lightspeed information, it ought to be useful in predicting future events (I've done a few 'experiments' of this nature, which seemed to work pretty well). Music can be a type of 'artificial intelligence' or intelligence amplification... this would also account for the 20-point IQ gain exhibited in experiments on the 'Mozart effect'. Einstein claimed to have had the inspiration for the Theory of Relativity while listening to Mozart -- this especially makes sense if Mozart's music contains information from the future which might have subliminally influenced Einstein. 10. Based on decoding messages in Mozart, Bach, Pink Floyd, Stockhausen, Frampton, etc., I determined the existence of an 'alternate Universe' or history which diverges from ours in approximately the year 1977. (Recent work by Hawking and Hertog implied that there clearly have been 'other universes' in history, which might be confirmed by examining cosmic background radiation levels -- some of this work is associated with NASA scientist John Mather, who won the Nobel for his efforts). Hawking and Hertog contend that their theory hasn't yet been confirmed, but I am inclined to say that I have already proved it, by using a fairly devious means. 11. There is a great black hole at the center of our galaxy, and it is much larger than previously thought (I was right on both counts, although I might have seriously overestimated the size of the black hole by a magnitude of 3 [digits]). 12. The Vulcans ("Star Trek") could really be based on witness-reports of aliens from Tau Ceti (some claim to have seen beings with pointed ears). "Star Trek" itself could be largely based on Top Secret UFO files, and CIA agents like James Jesus Angleton, Leonard McCoy, and Scotty Miler (among others). The CIA was actually founded two months after the Roswell event (or non-event) in 1947. 13. An extraterrestrial (or UFO/saucer/time-machine) crash at Roswell probably really happened. Among other things, it doesn't make a lot of sense for the Army to bury test-crash dummies in child-size coffins. 14. Prior to Seth Shostak making the proclamation that the SETI project was looking for messages from alien (i.e. ET) life-forms in "all the wrong places," I copyrighted my notes and thoughts on the subject (as "The Encryptment Thesis" in 1994), where I discuss the idea that truly advanced alien civilizations wouldn't send out signals to more primitive planets (like Earth), but would probably encrypt evidence of faster-than-lightspeed travel in 'places' which would have some degree of permanence. Encrypting coded messages (about the future) into great artworks like Bach's Brandeburg Concerti, Mozart Symphonies, etc., would allow a slow "coming to consciousness" for Humanity, that it already has had, and always will have had alien contact, but simply didn't understand it yet. 15. Based on my reading of philosopher/logician Saul Kripke's "Naming and Necessity", as well as my observations of encrypted or subliminal speech fragments in music, I speculated that sound itself may have properties which actually influence or predict events... This is a metaphysical concept which seems tangential to Kripke's thoughts on issues like 'rigid designation', and more along the lines of Russellian thinking. In any case, I think I was the first to try to apply it methodically, yielding successful predictions of severe disasters on multiple occassions. The goal of predicting disasters does make sense, since if they can be predicted, they may also potentially be averted. 16. The movie "Zoolander" is obviously based on Eric Lander of MIT's Whitehead Institute and his work on the human genome project, although the resemblances between Ben Stiller's character and Eric Lander are relatively small. 17. A convenient unit for measuring the rate of time-travel/interstellar travel for a fairly advanced culture would be "lyps" (i.e. "light-years per second"). Civilizations with 'time-suit' or 'lyps' technology would literally be able to travel to other stellar systems in seconds. Given that many of the existing clues about faster-than-lightspeed travel exist as synthetic speech encrypted in music (somewhat like song, but still 'unsung'), I think that the use of the term 'lyps' is sufficiently appropriate. This is my list so far... I will continue to work on it, and see where it leads me. Obviously, it's not that long, yet, but it's a start.

Questioning Biases About Doppelgangers

NICHOLAS MEYLER·MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2017·4 MINUTES

If we take a look at the history of people who have had noteworthy Doppelgangers -- who have at least written about them and sometimes had witnesses who corroborated their stories, the “Double-goers” or “Shadow-walkers” are frequently harbingers of bad omens.

I, however, have been aware of my auditory doppelganger for at least 40 years without any drastic ill-effects, and have actually found its existence to be intriguing and stimulative of a great deal of thought.

Relatively few "musical" or "auditory" doppelgangers have been reported. My analysis of this phenomenon is unique, as far as I know, and involves extremely sane, highly rational people who are among the brightest and most successful people in the World. One of the best-known examples of the idea of a Doppelganger in Art (in Fiction) is Oscar Wildes’ “Dorian Gray”. Wilde’s choice of the name “Dorian” is interesting because it is a musical modality, established in Ancient Greek times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorian_mode, as well as a word evocative of Gold (i.e. “D’Or”). In Wilde’s fantastic fiction, Dorian’s portrait ages and becomes ugly, while he remains the same. In Music, contradistinctively, nothing changes, and all is preserved for the inspection of posterity.

Hearing "Beethoven" subtly mentioned in a Mozart Symphony is an example. Hearing the name "Casiraghi" in Beethoven's "Geister Trio" would be another. Beethoven actually modeled himself in some compositions, where it sounds like he is composing syntheses of his own name... "Wittgenstein" appears to be mentioned in a Haydn symphony, although I can't recall precisely which one. Saul "Kripke" is clearly mentioned in Stockhausen's "Ylem"; Norman Borlaug is very clearly mentioned in "Ceylon" and "Kurzwellen" (before he won recognition for the Nobel Prize), and the "Nobel Prize" itself is mentioned in Mozart's 14th Symphony, a century before it existed.

There can be a degree of indeterminacy about identities modelled in Music (or Art, in general), but I often find portions of Stockhausen’s “Kurzwellen” to evoke some thoughts of Stephen Hawking. This was a composition from 1968, before Hawking was really famed, and it also has a peculiar phrase (i.e. “His wheelchair’s God”) which is odd since it happened to be composed before Hawking was even a Professor at Cambridge, and long before he announced himself as an Atheist.

I once told a friend from Princeton who also attended Saul Kripke's ‘Advanced Logic’ course, that I thought I heard his name mentioned in Beethoven's 8th Symphony, and wondered if he concurred. Within a decade, the "Beastie Boys" composed a tune called "Intergalactic Planetary", which is filled with obvious and clear speech-synthesis, including his name ("Brilliant Burtie" is how they put it), along with the mention of "Another Dimension, another dimension". Burt Totaro's research on higher dimensions in Algebraic Topology is something that appears to be very relevant to this kind of acoustical modeling: https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0209173. Burt eventually went to work at Cambridge University, in Stephen Hawking’s Math Department, and now works at UCLA (a school founded by my great-great grandfather George Gephard).

Other acoustic/auditory doppelgangers exist for several of my Princeton classmates: Jody Savin (Director/Producer class of '82) is modeled with me in Mozart's 41st Symphony. Christopher Gocke (Cancer Pathologist class of '81) is mentioned in Beethoven's 3rd Symphony. "Hoookie" was a nickname for CIA Director/Secretary of Defence James Schlesinger's niece, "Kathryn" and appears in the Brandenburgs as well as the Salzburg Symphonies.

I have been aware of the existence of all these contemporary "acoustic models"/ Doppelgangers for many years, now, and all of them (except Borlaug, who died at the age of 93 or 94) are still alive. This clearly "breaks the mold" on the concept of Doppelgangerism being purely a harbinger of bad things.

My intent is to address the oddity of these observations and find logical ways to account for them. I think their causation might have something to do with my grandparents having been friendly with JFK's CIA Director, who was also the Secretary of the Army in 1948 (the year after the Roswell Crash). John McCone was a Secretary or President of the AEC, the Air Force, etc., and was involved in Project “Bluebook”, which I remember asking about when I was between the ages of 6 and 8.

I look for explanations based on acquisition and use of Alien Technologies, rather than Spiritual/Metaphysical issues, but the truth is that these might actually overlap.

  SETI: Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence

NICHOLAS MEYLER·FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 2019·1 MINUTE

I find it puzzling that no one seems to care about the superluminally embedded speech-synthesis in Mozart's early Salzburg symphonies that clearly enunciate details of events that actually happened in the late 1970's, some hundreds of years after his birth.

Moreover, Karlheinz Stockhausen, who claimed to come from the star Sirius, includes plenty of cryptographic details about both me and my distant cousin, Norman Borlaug, who is credited with saving 1 billion lives. Plenty of prochronistic anachronistic cryptography is embedded in Ceylon/Bird of Passage (Chrysalis Records), for example (published in 1975, several years before I even knew who Stockhausen was, although 5 years after Norman Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Nobel Prize).... The inference that I was the CIA UFO pilot that brought him here from Sirius is fairly obvious, in retrospect. Probably working in tandem with Iran-contra figure Felix Rodriguez.... ("Ear on Contra")

In any case, if the search for neutrinos was conducted in Salt mines, deep below the Earth, I think the search for ET should probably be conducted in Salzburg symphonies several hundred years old. The scholarship of Stockhausen merely amplifies the obvious facts. One thing I didn't like was Neil deGrasse Tyson trying to pass off Edward Snowden as the originator of my theory about Alien cryptography and signal transmission as his own.

   Close Note

Notes on “Watergate”

NICHOLAS MEYLER·FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2017·6 MINUTES

Nixon was extremely interested in UFOs, and so was Haldeman. The conversation dealt partly with a UFO experience/sighting that I had had, personally. My family was also friendly with JFK's CIA Director John McCone, who I definitely met, and who had indicated to me that the Democratic Party (including LBJ) were behind the JFK assassination. Thus, it would have been completely natural for me to be in sympathy with the just-reported break-in at the DNC, and expressing my support (misguided or not). My family has been friendly (over decades) with several different Presidents' closest friends and advisors.

Because of my concern, at the time, that McGovern was fomenting a potential assassination, I actually advised several people that I thought that it would be reasonable to bug the DNC, and listen in on conversations for any possible clues about assassination plots. One of these was Otis Chandler, I believe, who encouraged my effort at protecting the Presidency, despite his being an ardent "JFK Democrat". Chandler was the former owner of the LA Times, and quite well-known. Obviously, if my family was acquainted with the Chandlers, it wouldn't have been very far-fetched to contend that I could have been placed in verbal contact with Bob Woodward.

No one else, that I know of, has been able to explain exactly why Watergate even happened, let alone how they know why it happened, so I suspect that my claim might well "trump" Mark Felt's claim to be a key informant. One key doubt about Mark Felt is that he couldn't possibly have had any knowledge of the 18.5 minutes of tape, nor what it was about, since he wasn't a "Whitehouse insider".

Also, it has been pointed out that Woodward couldn't have been correct to assert (as he claims) that he communicated with "Deep Throat" by placing a flowerpot on his balcony. Adrian Havill's research proved that no flowerpot could have been seen from the street... also, Havill pointed out that "Deep Throat" couldn't have communicated with Woodward by drawing clocks on the newspaper (as claimed in "All the President's Men"), since the papers were delivered in a stack in the lobby, and not personally, so Woodward couldn't have known which paper to pick.

The tape could well have been erased to protect the identity of a minor (I was 12, at the time), and also because UFOs are considered a matter of highest secrecy and national security.

I should also point out that my name "Nick Meyler" makes a fairly obvious pun ("Neck Miler") on Deep Throat... It also makes a pun on "Iran contra" (Miler/Nicaragua), and I do feel I should point out that I actually invented the Iran-contra plot (as I claim in my 2004 and 2005 Marquis' Who's Who Entry).

In fact, I invented Iran-contra, based on p. 518 of James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake", partly out of a sense of moral outrage at people like Woodward, who had exploited me as a minor, and contributed to my delinquency, by giving me an eponym (i.e. "Deep Throat") which is highly sexual, and obscene. Also, I saw an opportunity to help protect the United States from Communism, and to help hostages held in Iran. Note that Ollie North, much better known for his role in Iran-contra than I, has never claimed to have invented the concept. If anything, he said he received the idea from Ghorbanifar (which I of course dispute, since I had sent in a 4-page letter to President Reagan in 1983 or 1984, outlining my reasoning for this covert action -- since my grandparents were friendly with some of Reagan's key supporters, I was listened to, when others might not have been).

Not only this, but the term "Deep Throat" as I understand it, refers to a phenomenon of speech-synthesis (synthetic voice [or "throat"] by musical instruments (also discussed in my Who's Who entry, and in my entry in the 1993 Cambridge International Biographical Society's "Men of Achievement"). I am the subject of a considerable amount of musical art "modeling", and, for example am modeled in the subliminal lyrics of the album "Dark Side of the Moon" (very popular at the time), and numerous other pieces of music.

The fact that I was only 12 to 14 at the time is irrelevant, since I have an IQ which has been reported/estimated at 215 (and I did actually score a 195 on one test, though it might not have been my best performance), certainly high enough to be significantly intellectual at an early age.

"Deep Throat" was probably more than one person, but certainly not mostly Mark Felt. I feel that my claim to be that more or less fictional identity (and certainly not a name of my own choosing, at least as I recall) is sounder, more reasonable, and more accurate than what Woodward and Bernstein are claiming.

Because I was intuitively aware that Bob Woodward was probably a liar, even as a 14 year old, I called upon some of my acquaintances to help me recollect events carefully. As a chessplayer, I was in tournaments ("All the President's Men is also an allusion to "All the King's Men", obviously), and had met people like James Tarjan, who was a US Champion. Tarjan's brother is a world-leading authority on Artificial Intelligence and Computers, and it is well-known that the most famous computer chess programs are named after "Deep Throat" (i.e. "Deep Thought" and "Deep Blue"). I definitely believe that I can remember James Tarjan telling me not to trust Woodward to eventually tell the truth, and that the scheme of overcoming his deception could be accomplished by long-range planning (which chessplayers naturally have a greater faculty for). So, this justifies the naming of the computer programs, and serves the ulterior purpose of outwitting Woodward. Parenthetically, dull chessplayers are sometimes referred to as "woodpushers". I suspect I am a mere "woodpusher" (currently only rated 2040) to James Tarjan, but I am convinced that I have accomplished a goal of long-range planning, to defeat disinformation by the American media.

For those (and other) reasons, I think that the "divulgence" of Mark Felt as "Deep Throat" is a fraud by Woodward and Bernstein. It certainly would make sense, however, that a journalist would like to keep hidden the fact that he dubbed a 14-year old "Deep Throat". I have claimed to be "Deep Throat" before, as early as 2003, in an article I published on "Useless Knowledge.com" To my thinking, Woodward and Bernstein's conduct violates my intellectual property rights, and my right to publicity on this controversial matter.

There are other instance of Woodward blatantly lying, too. For instance, he claimed to have interviewed CIA Director William Casey after brain surgery (Casey couldn't even speak at the time). Casey's widow was quite offended with his lies, I recall. And, after all, when Felt "came out" as "Deep Throat", Woodward and Bernstein both initially denied it -- and then changed their stories within 24 hours.

So, clearly, doubting their account of events is extremely reasonable. My feeling is that I have "force majeur" in demonstrating who more closely resembles that obscene moniker.

I believe (if my memory is accurate) that I was introduced to Nixon telephonically by Robert Haldeman, whose family had been friendly with mine since at least 1963. That would have been the 18.5 minutes of tape that was later erased (i.e. referred to as "Tape 342"). In fact, my phone number at the time was 342-2445, in Tarzana, CA.

 On the Utility of Music as Cryptocurrency

NICHOLAS MEYLER·SUNDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2017·3 MINUTES

On the Micronesian Island of Yap, in olden times, money consisted of large stones carved into several-foot diameter circular shapes with central holes of several inches in diameter.

There was no actual use (or “utility”) for these stones, but they could only be made by taking long and dangerous sea-voyages to islands hundreds of miles away, where the the limestone could be quarried, and then transported back (via outrigger canoe) at an even higher and more perilous risk... The value of this currency was therefore based only on its rarity and the inherent difficulty of its acquisition.

One might also infer, from the roundness of these carved and polished stones, that they could be rolled for spatial intervals, to be transported. This, my Readers, was the invention of “Rock and Roll”.

I suggest that there is much greater usefulness to mere sound-waves (i.e. as “Music”) which seems to justify an even higher value than the old Yap stones (at the very least). I postulate the following:

Time=Money

Information=Money

Intelligence=Money

Therefore, Superluminally-embedded Information which allows alteration of Future History should also be "Money".

Sound has been demonstrated to be able to travel faster than lightspeed (i.e. "superluminally"), because Phonons (quanta of sound/vibration) are massless and therefore not restricted to the Einstein limit of velocity (c= speed of light).

Music itself is the original cryptocurrency. It brings joy to the listener, or a plenitude of other emotions, and subliminally imparts information about 5-Dimensional Hilbert Spaces. In my opinion, that is why People can score 20-points higher on IQ tests while listening to Mozart (i.e. "The Mozart Effect"), because so much of his music is based on time-travel and alternate Universes (Alternate Histories). Einstein himself admitted that most of his inspiration for Relativity came from listening to Mozart, and as an accomplished violinist with a very keen ear, his statement cannot be discounted as mere metaphor.

The primary effect of listening to Mozart is enhanced "Spatial Reasoning" skills, which is quite reasonable if we consider that Mozart's music (especially) contains some of the clearest examples of speech-synthesis and superluminal information content, as well as clear-cut discussions of Alternate World-histories, etc. Ingmar Bergman also agreed with me about this (“Bach and Beethoven show us other worlds”). https://www.facebook.com/notes/nicholas-meyler/ingmar-bergman-on-possible-worlds-beethoven-and-bach/125256810845569/

In any case, one of the reasons Apollo was the Greek God of Music, Prophecy and Reason (in my opinion) is that Music permits Superluminal Information Transmission and thereby enables great Reasoning skills, based on better Information.

The old adage about music being worthless (i.e. "It's worth a song", meaning valueless) is questionable. Rather, Music is perhaps a cryptocurrency of greater value than mere "money" itself.

The idea behind Bitcoin was that digital information has inherent value. This has proven, at least empirically, at least so far, to be true, where Bitcoin has commanded prices up to $15,000 per unit.

There is also a utility to Music, based on psychoacoustical phenomena, which is unique. For instance, acoustical perception of the note A (440 Hz) actually stimulates nerves in the brain to vibrate at exactly 440 Hz ["This is Your Brain on Music" by Daniel J. Levitin: http://daniellevitin.com/…/boo…/this-is-your-brain-on-music/]

No other type of perception of Art forms does this. So, Music, which is clearly an Art, has a unique value unto itself. We also know that Art has value, from recent events like a fairly unknown painting by Da Vinci selling for $450 million.

So, I suggest that we need to re-think our attitudes about Music, and reconsider it to be a medium of communication and commerce which deserves greater attention.

[austenmarriage]

New Post has been published on Austen Marriage

New Post has been published on https://austenmarriage.com/1531-2/

Sifting Through Austen’s Elusive Allusions

Excellent researchers have divined many, many references and allusions that Jane Austen makes in her novels and letters. In his various editions of her works, R. W. Chapman lists literary mentions along with real people and places. Deirdre Le Faye’s editions of Austen’s letters include actors, artists, writers, books, poems, medical professionals, and others. Jocelyn Harris, Janine Barchas, and Margaret Doody have written extensively about people, places and things on which Austen may have based situations or characters. Some of Jane’s references are clear, some artfully concealed.

Yet we should be cautious about the great number of literary or historical finds uncovered by modern scholarship, because we often don’t know how many of these Austen knew herself. When a modern researcher cites an historical person from a couple of hundred years Before Jane, the marginal query must always be, “Did JA know this?” Many, she likely did. But probably not all. Maybe not even most.

Also, we don’t know how many references and allusions are tactical rather than strategic. Many authors include passing topical references with no other goal than to place the events of a novel in a particular time and place. A writer in 1960s America might show anti-war footage playing on a television. A current writer might mention a controversial American president or British prime minister. But unless a common theme directly connects the background references with the main storyline, these references are likely tactical rather than strategic.

Here, “tactical” means the reference has no profound meaning beyond the text. “Strategic” means an effort by the writer to establish a more general social, political, or historical context. A reference to a Rumford stove in Northanger Abbey, for example, is tactical, playing a newly invented appliance off the heroine’s expectations of dank passages and cobwebbed rooms. The naval subplot in Persuasion, on the other hand, is strategic. It incorporates not only the overall historical context but also the moral and intellectual contrast between the military men who have earned their wealth versus the wealthy civilians who are squandering theirs.

For many other items, it is difficult to determine the precise source. Education and literature in Great Britain then involved a small, fairly closed set of people. Limited common sources included the Bible, Shakespeare, and authors from the classical tradition. A common set of teachers came from the same small number of colleges using those limited sources. Everyone who admitted to reading novels drew on the same small pool of books.

It is conventional wisdom, for instance, that Austen took the phrase “pride and prejudice” from Francis Burney’s book Cecilia, where the capitalized phrase appears three times at the end. However, the literary pairing of “pride and prejudice” occurs elsewhere, including the writings of Samuel Johnson and William Cowper, two of Austen’s other favorite writers.

Even First Impressions, the original name for this novel, may have come from a common vocabulary. First impressions, and not being fooled by them, was a literary trope. In Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, the heroine, Emily, and the secondary heroine, Lady Blanche, are warned not to rely on first impressions. This novel, shown above by the headline, is mentioned so often in Northanger Abbey that it is almost a character. The concept also arises in the works of Samuel Richardson. Austen may have borrowed from one of these specific authors. Or all the authors may have used a common literary vocabulary. Indeed, it was the recent publication of two other works with the title First Impressions that led Austen to change her title.

Another question is whether Austen knew the many layers of references that academics often point out. She apparently had free run of her father’s 500-book library, but we don’t know what it contained. As an adult, she had occasional access to the large libraries at her brother Edward’s estates at Chawton and Godmersham. How much she read of the classical material there, we don’t know.

Jane knew Shakespeare and the Bible well. She knew many poets, but would she have read a still earlier classical writer referenced by those poets? Did Austen know Shakespeare’s sources, which were often obscure Italian plays? We might be able to trace many connections back to the Renaissance or before, but she may have known only the immediate one before her.

Harris, Barchas, Doody, and others have given us multiple possible historical references to the name Wentworth in Persuasion. Austen might use the name to tie into this network of families and English history going back hundreds of years (strategic). Or she might use the name because of its fame in her day (tactical). The direct novelistic use is to contrast Sir Walter, who measures family names in terms of social status, with the Captain, who fills his commoner’s name with value through meritorious service. Sir Walter finally accepts Wentworth because of his wealth and reputation. He was “no longer nobody.” Yet the baronet can’t help but think the officer is still “assisted by his well-sounding name.”

Barring a letter or other source in which Austen states her purpose, we have no way of knowing whether Austen intended a broader meaning to “Wentworth” than its general fame. To some, the name in and of itself establishes the broad historical context. To others, it would take more than the three or so brief references to Wentworth, as a name, to show that Austen means to establish a meaningful beyond-the-book purpose.

Another consideration is that, cumulatively, commentators have found an enormous number of supposed references and allusions in Austen. Could a fiction writer, with all the work required in creating, writing, and revising a novel, have the time and energy to find and insert a myriad of outside references and allusions? Could a writer insert many references without bogging down the work?

Every writer who has tried her hand at historical fiction, for example, knows that too much history can overwhelm the novel’s story, leaving characters standing on the sideline to watch events pass by. Every external reference creates extra exposition that creates the danger of gumming up the plotline. It might also create a new emotional tone at odds with the characters’ situation or other complexities that must be resolved. We can’t underestimate the extra work for an author who already has her head full of practical book-writing issues—plot and character development—that need to be kept straight.

Finally, writers often plant things for no other reason than fun. In Northanger Abbey, John Thorpe takes Catherine Morland for a carriage ride early in the story. Barchas points out that he asks her about her relationship with her friends, named Allen, at just the point where their carriage would be driving past Prior Park, the home of Ralph Allen. This was the stone mogul who helped build Bath.

Austen does not explicitly call out the family home. Readers who know Bath’s geography and make the connection to the wealthy masonry clan get an extra chuckle. Readers unfamiliar with the geography, or with the wealthy Allen descendants, would not suffer from a lack of understanding.

All a reader needs to know is that Thorpe thinks the Morlands are connected to a very wealthy family, when in fact their friends named Allen are only modestly well-to-do. Thorpe’s misunderstanding drives the book’s plot. Very likely, all Austen wanted with the Prior Park allusion was to give a wink to the bright elves reading her book.

Thus the author may mean one thing, while later analysts might find something beyond what the writer ever intended. In Mansfield Park, for instance, Henry Crawford reads Henry VIII aloud. A broad interpretation might connect the attitude of the rogue Henry Crawford with the attitude of the rogue Henry VIII: Women and wives are interchangeable, expendable, to be taken at whim and tossed away at whim. Or perhaps the name Henry is nothing more than a tip of the hat to Jane’s favorite brother, Henry.

Austen may well have intended multiple levels of interpretation. But note that she has Henry Crawford himself say that Shakespeare is “part of an Englishman’s constitution … one is intimate with him by instinct.” Edmund Bertram agrees: “We all talk Shakespeare, use his similes, and describe with his descriptions.”

Others may feel that Austen deliberately weaves in as many references as she can. One must imagine her writing with a variety of concordances stacked to the ceiling. But she indirectly tells us of a different approach. One is “intimate” with Shakespeare by “instinct.” She knew the Bard and other writers in depth, and the references come out organically. Much more than by design, this fine writer pulls what she needs from history by “instinct.”

—

The Marriage of Miss Jane Austen, which traces love from a charming courtship through the richness and complexity of marriage and concludes with a test of the heroine’s courage and moral convictions, is now complete and available from Amazon and Jane Austen Books.

[isaiahrippinus]

VinePair Podcast: Live With Kyle MacLachlan, Pursued by Bear for the Great Drinks Experience

Celebrity wines aren’t exactly a new trend: From Francis Ford Coppola to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, to Jon Bon Jovi, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Sting, many a famous name has placed itself behind a wine brand. The rarity is to find a celebrity as involved in their winemaking business as acclaimed actor Kyle MacLachlan of “Twin Peaks” fame.

As part of VinePair’s Great Drinks Experience, MacLachlan and Pursued by Bear winemaker Dan Wampfler joined VinePair CEO Adam Teeter and co-host Zach Geballe for a live recording of the VinePair podcast last week. During the episode, we discuss how MacLachlan and Wampfler became connected to the Washington wine world; why the state can compete with any other growing region on the planet; and how MachLachlan got his start acting — and wine drinking — to impress a girl.

From blending to barrel selection, MacLachlan and Wampfler work hand-in-hand to ensure each of their wines is exactly what they intend it to be: a reflection of Washington State’s great vineyards, and a diligent winemaking approach.

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Or Check Out Our Conversation Here

Adam: My name is Adam. I’m one of the co-founders of VinePair. On your screen you’ll also see Zach, one of my co-hosts. Erica could not be with us tonight, our third co-host. We have Dan and Kyle who are on to talk to us about their wines. We’re going to record the podcast live. What that means for all of you out there is that you’re going to hear how it all happens. We’re going to do a quick intro to the podcast like we normally would, Zach and I will have some banter, then we’re going to go straight to Kyle and Dan. Until then, they’re just going to sit awkwardly on the screen, and that’s fine because at least Kyle has a cool background.

Zach: Dan, show them where you are!

Kyle: Dan has a light! Dan’s in a nice setting.

Dan: Hey, you guys!

A: We’re going to talk through all of these wines. There’s going to be time at the end for you to submit your questions. They can be submitted on your Q&A tab on your screen. With that in mind, Zach, are you ready to go?

Z: Let’s do it.

A: All right cool, we’re recording. From Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter.

Z: And in Seattle, Washington, I’m Zach Geballe.

A: And this is the VinePair Podcast. Zach, what’s going on man?

Z: You look great. I’m jealous. We’re doing this one live, and I can see you. You’ve gotten a haircut. For those of you who are watching this live can tell perhaps, that I did not.

A: I had to commit, finally. It’s receding, so it’s done.

Z: It’s a good look. I might have to do the same.

A: Thank you very much! It’s funny that we’re doing a live podcast because it’s now 9 p.m. in New York and it’s only 6 p.m. on the West Coast. We’ve already had two of these sessions tonight. I just had a great session talking with Marc Farrell, the founder of Ten to One Rum, so I’ve had some rum.

Z: Nice.

Kyle: I’m jealous!

A: We’ve already heard from one of our guests, who I’m super excited to welcome on the podcast. Without further ado, I want to welcome Kyle MacLachlan of Pursued by Bear Wine and Dan Wampfler of Pursued by Bear and Abeja. Did I say that right, Dan?

Dan: Yes, you did. You nailed it. Abeja, which is Spanish for “honeybee.”

A: Awesome. Kyle and Dan, thank you for joining us. We appreciate it.

K: Great to be here. Thanks for having us on, Adam and Zach. This is great.

A: As many know, I tease Zach about living in Washington.

K: That’s fine with me.

A: I would love to know from both of you, initially, what makes Washington wine so special. A lot of people who are wine drinkers in the United States mostly think about California when it comes to wine. But Zach especially has been pushing me for years that the wines from Washington State are amazing. Kyle, I know you had friends encourage you to start a winery. So why Washington State? What is it about Washington State that draws people to wines?

K: I grew up on the east side. I’m from Yakima originally. Eastern Washington runs in my blood. Growing up there — it was the kind of place where you grow up and want to leave, to go seek your fortune, so to speak. It was surprising to me that I found myself back there, really enchanted with what was happening in the wine world. I learned about it simply by tasting wines, and my eyes were opened. I thought, no one seems to be talking about them. I realized, this is a legitimate place to make stuff that’s world-class. That started me thinking about how I might get involved. Through a circuitous route, I met up with Dan, and he’s been involved since 2005 or 2006, when I first started.

A: Dan, what about you? Are you from Washington State originally?

D: No, I’m from Michigan originally. I moved out to Washington in 2000 or 2001. I have an undergrad and masters degree in wine production from Michigan State. I moved out to Washington to take a job as the research winemaker for Ste. Michelle Wines Estates back when it went under a different name.

A: Wow.

D: I moved from research through production, large to small to family-operated.

A: If you were to synthesize Washington State wines, could you both do it? When we think of Napa, we think of Cab. When we think of Oregon, we go to Willamette and we say Pinot. What should we think about as consumers, when it comes to Washington?

D: We can do anything. Maybe not Pinot yet, but we’re still planting. When I moved out 20 years ago, it wasn’t a mature industry. It was a maturing industry that still had critical mass of quality producers and scale. It wasn’t agri-tourism. It was a wine industry. That was exciting to me. Since I’ve been a part of the industry, the fruit quality in the vineyards, the vineyard management, and wine production has continued to raise the bar. What sets us apart from any other industry that I’ve witnessed, is the camaraderie. A high tide raises all boats. With that comes a high tide and a high bar of wine and fruit quality.

K: I completely agree. As Dan said, we can do anything there and anything well. We take inspiration from Bordeaux. We take inspiration from Napa, but we’re not imitating. We have our own flavor profile in Washington state, and it’s a good one. As I got involved in it, I was as surprised as anyone to learn that you really can grow anything there, apart from Pinot as Dan mentioned, but that’s still to come. It’s amazing. You can find anything in abundance and in quality.

Z: I want to ask about one of my favorite varieties here in Washington, Syrah. We have a Syrah here, the Baby Bear from Pursued by Bear. I know Dan, you also make a Syrah at Abeja. Syrah is the variety that I point to a lot when trying to explain what’s possible here in Washington, but our viewers and listeners are probably sick of me saying it. Why don’t you guys say it? And talk about Syrah in particular. We’ll come back to the Baby Bear that I’m drinking right now. What is it about Syrah in Washington that makes for really amazing wine?

D: Syrah is a winemaker’s wine. I’ll explain that. I’ll pick on Chardonnay for a second. Chardonnay, we can steer as winemakers in so many different directions. It’s not that we can overcome terroir, but we can push it one direction or another with so many different winemaking techniques using barrels and yeast. We can do the same thing with Syrah. It’s a very diverse grape in its flavor profile. It’s also sexy in every single one of those categories, whether it’s Old World or New World. It’s a sexy variety from bookend to bookend.

K: I was just drinking some, and I felt very sexy there.

A: Can you go back to the beginning of the creation of Pursued by Bear and tell us a little bit about the name of the winery? It’s a famous direction from a play in Shakespeare. What was the real desire to create a winery? There are a lot of wineries out there that are owned by celebrities, but you’re very hands on. That’s different.

K: I spend a lot of time there, in Dan’s guest bedroom downstairs. It started with a desire to get home more frequently. My career keeps me between New York and Los Angeles a lot, and my dad was still living at the time, in Yakima. I thought this would be something that we could share together, embarking on a journey. I entered into it with no expectations, not thinking it takes three years before your harvest is actually ready to drink, minimum. I just wanted to jump in with both feet without much thinking. That was made possible by my former winemaker Eric Dunham, as Dunham Cellars. He was my introduction into wine in Washington and the community. It really is a community of like-minded people. Crazy, but all like-minded. We do support each other and revel in each other’s differences. We all strive to create world-class wine. We share this common passion and goal. “Pursued by bear” is a smaller portion of a longer stage direction that goes “Exit, pursued by a bear,” which happens in Act III, Scene III of Shakespeare’s play, “The Winter’s Tale.” It’s the most specific, strange, esoteric stage direction he ever wrote. It made me laugh, the idea that the actor gets chased off stage by a bear. It seemed so appropriate to what I was trying to do. It also harkened back to my day job, working as an actor. I grew up going to school in Washington. I was in the theater department there. I graduated in 1982 and was going to go seek my fortune as a repertory theater actor. It all seemed to make sense to me. It was more cohesive when I started. Just jumping in, I met Eric and this idea of making wine was something that had been on my mind for a while. When I finally asked him, I asked if he would partner with me. He said, “Yeah, what do you like to drink?” I said Cabernet, and he said let’s make Cabernet. It was really just that casual, handshake kind of deal. For those of us who knew Eric remember him as being completely like that. Your word is your word. Shake hands and have some fun. Dan came into that family shortly after I met Eric. We were a band of brothers there for a while.

D: I don’t think we shook hands. It was more like shots and hugs at that point, throwing back bottles of Cabernet and Syrah.

K: That’s how we roll in Washington.

Z: Shots and hugs is what Adam and I do when we hang out in person.

A: Which is never. You do live on the other side of the country.

Z: It happens.

D: You guys have cheap shots you can take. That’s the shots and the hugs that you have.

A: Did you buy land? Did you think about that? How much are you taking from growers? How much was it a real trial by fire? There’s a lot of people that think they can start a wine label and figure it out.

K: I was totally way in over my head. I partnered with some really smart people that knew what they were doing. I just jumped in with the idea that this could be a fun adventure. I liked the people I was meeting. I enjoyed the community. When you’re from the east side, whether Yakima or Walla Walla, and there’s some similarities there, when families get together they don’t talk about the east side as much. We’re the black sheep. I had terrific guidance, and I was genuinely interested in learning. I didn’t sit back. I wanted to know where the grapes were being sourced from. I wanted to learn about the AVAs and the sites. I found the process fascinating. It kept me going. It was also a great excuse to grab my dad, jump in the car, drive to Walla Walla, hang out with the Dunhams, taste wine, and have a great time. That was a big part of it in the beginning. I had considered Napa for about 30 seconds, until I started thinking about how much it was going to cost to buy a ton of grapes. It was way outside of my range.

A: Now it costs even more.

K: Washington made much more sense. To be honest, it was the story. My wife reminds me: She says, you’re from Washington. That’s the story right there. One thing my wife really understands is how to tell a story. All signs were pointing in that direction.

Z: You guys have both talked about the experience of making a wine. There’s a whole component of the industry in Washington that’s maturing that has to do with wine tourism. Dan, I know that at Abeja that’s a big part of what goes on. Can you guys talk about what the experience is like to visit Walla Walla? Right now, we’re in a period of time where people traveling to visit isn’t happening so much. In whatever normal times will be, what is that experience like?

D: Walla Walla is four hours from Portland, Boise, and Seattle. We operate a country inn, a luxury inn on our 30-acre parcel. We have the ability to accommodate 28 people. There are weekends where we are booked 100 percent from people outside of the country. Not now. Everyone that’s coming now is driving, and we are still fully booked: This weekend, last weekend, this coming weekend. We’re in Phase Two. Walla Walla is magical because when you head over from Seattle, for example, you go over the mountains and the trees fade away right around Ellensburg. You roll into Walla Walla and it’s lush and filled with vineyards. It’s filled with good people and a quaint downtown. We have some of the best wines and accommodations, but it’s our people that make us stand above, with the best areas of the world.

A: Talk about the relationship you two have. Kyle, you’re very involved with the wine, but Dan you’re the winemaker. How does that work? There’s always the curiosity wondering how it works when someone is the owner-proprietor and not the winemaker, but they’re very involved in the winemaking process. Kyle, how often are you at the winery? Are you helping crush? What are you doing with blending and tasting? Dan, how much are you agreeing with him or not?

D: I will say on Kyle’s behalf, this is by far and away, not a vanity project. Kyle comes to town, less so now, but quite often. We pick vineyard sites together. We pick barrels. We do barrel trials together. We blend every single blend together. Now, we’re sending samples his way. He and I will taste back and forth with samples that were pulled from the same barrels at the same time. We’ll go through and compare notes. We’ve got our beakers and our graduated cylinders and our pipets. We’re doing the blends, and we’re sharing spreadsheets. Kyle’s very involved. That’s the exciting part. He’s inquisitive. He knows what he likes, and he has a phenomenal palate. He knows what he doesn’t like. We agree on most things, but we steer together. Kyle?

K: I feel like I’ve got my brother here next to me when we do our blending and our tasting. We really get along. We see the direction of the brand headed in the same way. I love going up as much as I can get there: participating in the blending, visiting the vineyard sites, talking about the barrels and what we’ll use each year, how much neutral and new, and new sites coming up. Dan was a member of the Washington Wine Commission, and I think you still are. He knows everybody there. He knows all the growers. He’s got great relationships with so many of them. I bring a little bit from my side, like getting introduced to these French oak barrels that we use which are just phenomenal. They work so well with the big red fruits that we get from Washington State. It just pairs beautifully. That was my contribution in coming into the relationship when I first started. There were sources that Dunham was using that I used as well. Then I began to branch out from that as I began to explore. One of the sites that I love is Hugh Shiel’s place, Dubrul. He’s got a wonderful site in Washington. The fruit that comes off of there is very special. You get more and more involved. I lean on Dan for so much. He’s got a terrific palate and his wife has an extraordinary palate. We both rely on her. It really is a partnership. We’re in this together. I’m really flexible and open. I know what direction we want to go in. I feel like I get the same response from Dan. We’re both heading in the same way. We really work well together.

A: Amazing.

Z: Adam, we should talk about these wines.

A: Yes fine, Zach. We can.

A: The first one I want to talk about is Blushing Bear. It was one of our top rosés two years ago. It’s a phenomenal wine. I’d love Kyle, if you talked with us about it. How long have you made a rosé for?

K: Not long: 2015 was the first vintage. It was more like: Everyone is making a rosé, we should make a rosé. Hey Dan! Let’s make a rosé. I wanted to copy the French. There’s a rosé that comes out of the Bandol region. It’s some of my favorite. I was clueless. I didn’t know if we could get the varietals for it in Washington.

D: Mind you, he asked in August. “Hey, can we get this?” I said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

K: Which is why we came up with 75 cases for that first vintage. When we did it, it was phenomenal. When you blend Grenache and Mourvèdre, at the time we had Cinsault as well, you put those varietals together in the right combination and you get that same sort of acid and bright quality that comes with Washington. You have yourself a really fantastic rosé that’s got bite and mineral and flavors and aromas. 2015 was our first, and we’ve made it every year since then. We’ve upped our production higher than 75 cases. We’re still under 500, I think.

A: How much are you producing total?

K: This year we’re right around 2,000 cases.

A: Can you find the wine in all 50 states?

K: We distribute in roughly 18 states, the U.K., and Japan.

A: Oh, Japan! It’s pursuedbybearwine.com, right?

K: Exactly.

A: I love this wine. The fruit is really present. It’s insanely refreshing. There’s a nice quality of lemon and strawberry. It’s everything you want in a rosé.

K: Yes. There’s a little grapefruit and guava in there. We’re both going for something that’s light and refreshing, but it has a little bit of a mouthfeel. It has a nice finish. It’s great chilled. It’s also nice slightly below room temperature. If it gets up to cellar temp, or even a little more, the aromatics come out. You can enjoy it on that level as well.

D: We don’t saignée. Everything is farmed and brought in as rosé. Everything is brought in and we whole- cluster press. We leave it in the press long, we go to our fermentation vessels, we ferment everything in separate lots, then we blend at the end. It’s a true rosé wine, in that it’s not an afterthought. It’s start to finish, our outcome goal.

A: Dan, for our listeners and viewers who don’t understand what saignée is, can you explain that?

K: He’s a singer from… never mind.

D: Saignée is French, meaning “to bleed.” If you have a tank full of red fruit, you open a valve and you bleed off some of the free run. 99 percent of all red skin grapes produce white juice. It’s that skin contact time that extracts the pigments, colors, and tannins. Intentionally, we bring in the fruit for rosé, we keep the fruit in contact in the press, as opposed to just bleeding off from a Cabernet Franc or a Mourvedre, or whatever the varietal is. That’s a much more challenging circumstance to get the color and the aromas. When you nail it, it’s so much more pure, less tannic, sexy, and elegant.

Z: Don’t you have the benefit that the grapes are grown to make rosé? The wine is not a bi-product of making the red wine.

D: Exactly right.

Z: I wanted to ask Dan really quickly about this Chardonnay that I’m drinking. I’ve always been a big fan of the Abeja Chardonnay. On the label here, it just says “Washington State.” Why is that?

D: Great question. First, I want to mention, as the winemaker at Abeja, I’m not the only one. My wife is my co-winemaker. We make all winemaking decisions together. We’re on family vacation, so she has taken the kids in the other room, so there’s no dogs barking or kids interrupting. We’ve been on multiple Zoom calls … anyway.

A: That’s what life is. That’s normal now.

D: It is. To answer your question: Washington State for two reasons. One, we have three different styles of Chardonnay. This is Washingtonian in style. You can help me answer how we make that Washingtonian style, but it’s the acidity, the ripeness, and the character. Second of all, a significant portion of the fruit comes from the Celilo Vineyard outside of the Columbia Valley AVA, from the Columbia Gorge AVA. Because of the percentage difference, it’s also Washington State, as opposed to the Gorge or Walla Walla or Columbia Valley.

Z: You guys can tune in later for my Celilo Vineyards seminar that will only be attended by me and Dan. Dan, can you talk about the winemaking approach? You said Washingtonian, and you nailed the key points here of an expression of ripe fruit with still a lot of acid. What is it in the winemaking process or the thought process that allows you to find this balance of generosity of fruit while still preserving acidity?

D: Fruit source, fermentation style: Is it cool? Are we whole-cluster pressing? What juice are we choosing? Are we new oak? Are we stainless? Are we a balance? All of those decisions play into the steering. Like I led with, Chardonnay can be manipulated as a winemaker in so many different styles and directions. We’re not trying to push it respectfully in a Burgundian way. We’re not trying to push it respectfully in a Chablis way. We’re trying to keep it not tone deaf from where the fruit comes from, which is a blend of several different vineyards. Solilo, our estate vineyard in Walla Walla, and a vineyard based in the Columbia Valley Central. It has the blend of fruit, acidity, and ripeness. It has the blend of texture. My wife and I are all about texture in the wine. We use 100 percent French oak in this wine, although not 100 percent new. There’s a significant percentage of experienced oak. We’re not trying to create “Chateaux Two by Four.” We’re trying to get oak and toast levels to frame the fruit and give it lift and celebrate what those vineyards have to offer.

A: Zach, you opened Baby Bear. I did not.

Z: I did! Adam’s saving that for a more important night than this, apparently.

K: I’ll send you some more.

A: Do you want to talk about that wine as well?

Z: Yeah! Before I give my thoughts, let’s hear from Kyle and Dan. What’s the approach here? You were talking before about Syrah from Washington, that it can go in a lot of different directions. What direction is this trying to go? What do you see as being the guiding principle behind this wine?

K: The Syrah was born in 2008, the same year my son was born. That’s why we called it Baby Bear. I already had Pursued by Bear, so I was stuck with Baby Bear, and off we went. If you can’t make a good Syrah in Washington, you should probably just get out of the business. It’s just the grape that works. I was attracted to the Dunham brand initially because of Eric’s Syrah, his single vineyard Syrah. When I got into the world and we were making Cabernet, I wanted to make a Syrah as well, which we did. But, I wanted to distinguish it from what Eric was doing. In order to make the difference, we brought in special barrels. We were using the same vineyard sources as Eric, from the Columbia AVA and Horse Heaven AVA , which is a fantastic AVA, closer to the Columbia River. There’s still wild mustangs up on that plateau, so they say. Pretty cool spot. We decided to use a large-format barrel to age this. We got a 600-liter puncheon barrel. They’re just beautiful. They’re gigantic. They hold 50 cases of wine. The idea is that you’ve got more liquid in the vessel and less contact with the staves.

D: The surface area to volume ratio is more generous.

K: Chemist right there talking: That’s exactly right. I started to experiment with aging. We started off as a traditional 22 month, 24 months the first few vintages. 26 months, then I started pushing to 28 months, 30 months, 32 months. I held back before we got to 34 months. This is almost three years in barrel. I would taste it and think it was phenomenal. As Dan says, the barrel gives you its oak, and then it stops. Then it’s basically holding the wine. It’s softening, and the tannins are refining. It’s so cool. I could do this because I didn’t need to move it to market as quickly as some wineries. This is not the way I’m making a living, thank god. My living is paying for this experience. It allowed me to be a little more experimental. The blending hasn’t changed much. It’s these two vineyards. The ratio varies sometimes depending on how much comes in: 60/40, 50/50. We do a little bit sur lie. One of the barrels, sometimes we’ll let that just add to the mouthfeel of the wine. Whatever we set in motion from the very beginning, that’s how we’ve kept it from the get-go. No Viognier in sight, this is just 100 percent pure Syrah.

D: We’ve tried to blend different fruit sources almost every year, almost. We keep coming back to this. It works. The two components on their own are great. We’ve had other components on their own that are better. There’s been no better blend between the two. As Kyle said: 60/40, sur lie aging. When we first started doing the sur lie, the cellar crew and even Kyle said it was rough. I said, “Hold on.” We kept it in the barrels, and a couple months later, the chocolate fudge brownie of red wines evolved. Egad! We’ve got it. Let’s do this. Between the puncheons, between the sur lie, and between those two 50/50 blends, we’ve created a unique blend that’s magical.

Z: You mentioned earlier, Dan, texture. That’s a really important thing for understanding these kinds of wines. The flavor in Syrah is important for sure, but when you get a well-made Syrah, which this certainly is, you get that really beautiful, smooth wine. There’s enough that grabs on that almost velcro-y, but it’s not abrasive.

A: You’re making me regret that I should’ve opened the bottle. Not cool.

Z: Adam, it’s not that late. It’s only 9:30 in New York. You can still open the bottle.

A: Now I’m actually glad I’m saving it, though. You guys are making it sound like it’s absolutely incredible, but I’m also missing out a lot. I’m sure people at home or listening on the podcast are feeling that way as well. You should buy some at pursuedbybearwine.com. In terms of the Cabernet, which is the last wine we have from Abeja, I am curious. I’ve had a lot of winemakers say to me that Washington is going to be the next Napa. It’s the future, because of climate change. We’re getting questions that I’m watching come in during the Q&A that are asking about that as well. Is Washington the next Napa because of climate change? Will there be better Cabernet made in Washington than in Napa. I’m curious to hear your thoughts. What happens to Cabernet in Napa? Both of you? What do you think Cabernet can do in Washington? Are these people correct? Will climate change really move up how we think about Washington as the country’s premier growing site? As we all know, Cabernet being the most popular grape in America is not changing any time soon. What does that mean?

D: Wait a minute. You’re saying that Washington isn’t already the most premier Cabernet area?

K: My thoughts exactly, Dan.

A: Fine, fine.

D: I was going to go with my standard Zoom joke where I just mouth the words, and people say you’re on mute. I realized this is not the time for it. I appreciate you teeing that up for me. I’m not a climatologist, but I do believe the global warming trend is continuing to show itself. We are intentionally planting at higher and higher elevations. We are watching crop loads throughout the season each year. In some of the hottest years, like 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008, and some of the coolest years that we’ve experienced in 2010 and 2011, crop load is a huge thing. You get the ripeness of the grapes across the finish line, but you have to get them there at the right time. We work with our grower intimately to make sure that we’re pacing with what’s going on in the growing season, as well as being connected to the site specificity. We are making as good a Cabernet as anyone in the world already. We’ve been doing so for over a decade, different than, but as well as. As more attention is drawn to Washington State, more and more people fall in love with it, then we’re able to over-deliver on quality at the price points because our farming costs are less, and our labor costs are less. Our water costs are less. All these things are being pressured, so it’ll start going up, too, but we’re nowhere near in the economic stresses of Napa. There’s some amazing Cabernets, that are world class, that are coming out of Washington. It’s not a new thing.

A: This wine’s amazing.

D: Well, we have a good team.

K: The Cab is great. You know, Washington is hot. Time will tell as to whether global warming, because it’s impacting different parts of the world in different ways, how much of an impact it’s going to have. It remains to be seen. As Dan mentioned, higher elevations are a little bit cooler. It’s been hot here though. We fight that. Canopy management becomes really important. Washington is a different fall-off. When we get to fall and temperatures begin to change, they don’t drop gradually and nicely like in California. They go along and then they drop off the edge of a cliff. As Dan said, you’ve got to know when to bring your fruit in and harvest. That’s a critical time. Fortunately, Dan is good at anticipating that and knowing when the fruit needs to come off and when it needs to be sheltered.

D: We have a couple of advantages as well. One, we don’t have the fog rolling in. We’ve got cool nights. We don’t have the humidity stresses. Yes, we have mildew pressure like any growing region, but we don’t have it to the extreme that other regions do. We also have the diurnal shift that everyone talks about when they nerd out about wine. It can be 100 degrees at night during an August growing day. It can cool down to 58 degrees, like in Arizona. That diurnal shift allows the ripeness and intensity during the day, then it cools down and lets the vines rest at night.

Z: The other thing that Dan mentioned that’s important here is that there’s a lot of opportunity in Washington to add additional plantings to go up on hillsides. Napa is pretty much planted out at this point. A lot of those warmer vineyard sights, valley floor, are stuck. For now and in the past, it worked to their benefit. If we continue to see more heat and less cooling influence from fog and airflow, that becomes more of a problem because there’s nowhere else to plant grapes. Washington has a lot of land under vine, but only a tiny fraction of what the potential is here in the state. That’s a good resource, although planting vineyards is expensive. It takes a while for them to be usable, but at least it’s a longer-term possibility.

K: Zach, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure there are less acres planted in the state of Washington than in Napa.

A: Zach, you’re the somm. Come on!

Z: I’m not a walking encyclopedia.

A: You are.

Z: I would bet that it’s relatively comparable. Washington might have a little more land under vine than Napa at this point. That’s just an educated guess. All of you listening can Google that and tell me how wrong I am.

D: Anybody from the Washington Wine Commission could answer that.

A: The wines are amazing, but I’m seeing a lot of questions come in from viewers. And I have some myself that might not be related to wine. But let’s be honest, they’re also related to some of the characters you’ve played, Kyle. I’ve got to ask one first. Are you a Cosmo drinker?

K: Any port in the storm, I say.

A: Another one from viewers: If Agent Cooper was a wine, what wine would he be?

K: That’s a good question. Let me see. He’d be a Bordeaux. He’d be something classic. The reason I say Bordeaux is because when I met David Lynch in 1983, and I screen tested for “Dune,” which is the first thing David and I worked on together, when I finished my screen test, I came back to my hotel room, no idea how I’d done, and there was a bottle of Lynch Bages sitting on the table in my little hotel room. It was a gift from David, his way of saying thank you. He wasn’t making all of the decisions about the cast, but it was a really nice gesture. Since then, we’ve traded Lynch Bages all the time. It’s our thing. Cooper is a big part of David, obviously, so I would go with a Bordeaux, even a great vintage of Lynch Bages, like 1990 or 1996. We’ll call him that.

A: Okay. Another one that’s pretty good: If a great wine script came to you that highlighted Washington wines like “Sideways” or “Bottleshock,” would you consider acting in it or helping produce it? Can you think of a movie that would be that movie?

K: Sounds like a writer or a producer. I consider everything. I look at everything. I love to read. I love stories. It comes down to quality. Is it a good story?

A: That’s a fair point.

D: Washington wine is a good story, so I would encourage him to take the role or direct it.

K: That’s what we want to hear!

A: In terms of Pursued by Bear, you don’t make any white wines, correct?

K: We do not. Rosé is as close as we get.

A: Are there plans to make white?

K: No plans, although Dan and his wife make a Semillon that I had six months or a year ago when I was there.

D: Viognier.

K: Was it? Are you sure? It wasn’t Semillon?

D: We don’t make a Semillon. Pretty sure.

K: Must’ve been a different Dan, then.

D: Respectfully. Respectfully, we don’t. Well, maybe we will now.

K: That’s how much I’d had to drink. Anyway, it was extraordinary. No real plans at the moment. It’s tough. Although if I were to make one, Dan and his wife are extraordinary winemakers. We would come up with something fantastic. The idea of a label is so exciting, white wine and what we can do with that. I have five wines now: Pursued by Bear; Baby Bear Syrah, and rosé; the Bear Cub which is a new, lower price point wine which actually goes back to the original blend of the Pursued by Bear. Cab, Merlot, and Syrah. After 15 years, we go back to the original blend because the Pursued by Bear is moving more towards a traditional Bordeaux style. Then I have a single vineyard that I do out of the Walla Walla AVA that’s just been labeled and bottled, called “Twin Bear.” It’s super-small production at 93 cases. It’s a fun little thing to do. It’s beautiful: Cabernet, single vineyard, really elegant. I’ve got my hands full.

A: This one’s not the most fair question, but it’s to both of you. If you were to pick a favorite wine you make, which one?

K: What do you think, Dan?

D: Favorite wine that we make? Whatever’s in my glass right now, so I’ve got four. Favorite wine is like picking your favorite child. We all have one, you just don’t tell your spouse. Just kidding, both of our children are amazing. We don’t bottle anything that we don’t already have a great deal of pride and love for. I love all of these wines, otherwise they wouldn’t make it to the bottle. It depends on the season. If I’m in the middle of a winter night in a hot tub, I’m going to reach for a Cabernet. If I’m on the porch in the summer drinking a Chardonnay, I’m a happy camper. Right now, the rosé is singing. That’s a challenging question to answer. It depends on what I’m eating and what I’m doing.

A: Kyle?

K: I’m really in love with the Bear Cub right now. We just did it in 2016. It has a difficult past. 2016 in Washington was a big year. It was a year that I decided to up production a little bit. I went a little crazy with my wish list. We sourced from a lot of places. Suddenly, instead of producing 500 cases of Pursued by Bear, I had up to 1,500 cases of Pursued by Bear. I said, that’s not going to work. We’ve got to do something with this extra wine. We made the Pursued by Bear. We picked the best lots. Then we picked lots that were almost as good. We turned them into Bear Cub. It gave me a chance to go back to the original blend, at 6 and 7 percent of Syrah in the Bear Cub blend. That was really fun. It was nice to be able to go back and made the wine like we made Pursued by Bear. The Syrah gives it an immediacy. It’s immediately friendly. It’s available. It’s got beautiful aromatics. Because it’s a little unexpected, I’m really digging the Bear Cub right now.

A: Final question: Can both of you think of the first wine you had in your lives that was interesting? That you wanted to know more about? Either in order to make wine or because it was fun to drink. Whatever that was for you, do you have that?

D: I’ll go first. I started brewing beer when I was in high school. I fell in love with fermentation science. Beer led me to wine because I didn’t want to brew beer. You can do that in two weeks. I didn’t want to do distillation because I don’t have 15 years of patience.

K: You’re making it sound so scientific. You were in high school, man! You were making stuff so you could get trashed. Come on.

D: I was really popular in college being the fermentation guy, for sure. My dad, who’s not a traditional wine drinker, he’s a “Miller-Light-after-mowing-the-lawn” kind of guy, he was out at a business dinner, and everyone was around the table discussing what they had brought or what was on the menu or what the most expensive wine was that they’d ever consumed. My dad listened to everyone’s story, and they said, how about you, Dave? He said, “As a matter of fact, I have a case of wine in my basement that was 40 grand.” Everybody was shocked. It was wine that’s a varietal from northern Minnesota. I figured my son’s college tuition was about 40 grand, and this was his senior project, so he gave me a case of it, and it was like, “All right, you win.”

K: I love that story. Mine isn’t quite the same, although admit it, Dan. You were making alcohol so you could get girls. That’s why I got into acting. It’s all about that. In high school, I had a girlfriend, Heidi. I would go over to her house with her family for dinner. We would sit at the table, a proper dinner, the whole family was there. We each got to drink a glass of wine with dinner. I didn’t even know what it was, but it made me feel super grown up. It was a nice wine. That started me thinking in the wine world. That’s my story.

A: Awesome. Dan, Kyle, thank you both so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it. This has been amazing. Kyle, if you do want to send more Baby Bear, or other wines, feel free. I’ll send you my address. This has been amazing. The wines are great. We’ll share with everyone how you can buy both of these wines, both in the chat here as well as in the credits of the show. We really appreciate both of you.

Z: Thank you guys.

D: Thank you very much.

K: Loved it. Thanks for having us on.

A: Take care.

K: Be good. Cheers.

A: Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair podcast. If you enjoy listening to us every week please leave us a review or rating on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever it is that you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show. Now for the credits: VinePair is produced and hosted by Zach Geballe, Erica Duecy, and me: Adam Teeter. Our engineer is Nick Patri and Keith Beavers. I’d also like to give a special shout out to my VinePair co-founder Josh Malin and the rest of the VinePair team for their support. Thanks so much for listening and we’ll see you again right here next week.

Ed. note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The article VinePair Podcast: Live With Kyle MacLachlan, Pursued by Bear for the Great Drinks Experience appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/kyle-machlachlan-pursued-by-bear-gde/ source https://vinology1.tumblr.com/post/622355918051491840

[johnboothus]

VinePair Podcast: Live With Kyle MacLachlan Pursued by Bear for the Great Drinks Experience

Celebrity wines aren’t exactly a new trend: From Francis Ford Coppola to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, to Jon Bon Jovi, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Sting, many a famous name has placed itself behind a wine brand. The rarity is to find a celebrity as involved in their winemaking business as acclaimed actor Kyle MacLachlan of “Twin Peaks” fame.

As part of VinePair’s Great Drinks Experience, MacLachlan and Pursued by Bear winemaker Dan Wampfler joined VinePair CEO Adam Teeter and co-host Zach Geballe for a live recording of the VinePair podcast last week. During the episode, we discuss how MacLachlan and Wampfler became connected to the Washington wine world; why the state can compete with any other growing region on the planet; and how MachLachlan got his start acting — and wine drinking — to impress a girl.

From blending to barrel selection, MacLachlan and Wampfler work hand-in-hand to ensure each of their wines is exactly what they intend it to be: a reflection of Washington State’s great vineyards, and a diligent winemaking approach.

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Or Check Out Our Conversation Here

Adam: My name is Adam. I’m one of the co-founders of VinePair. On your screen you’ll also see Zach, one of my co-hosts. Erica could not be with us tonight, our third co-host. We have Dan and Kyle who are on to talk to us about their wines. We’re going to record the podcast live. What that means for all of you out there is that you’re going to hear how it all happens. We’re going to do a quick intro to the podcast like we normally would, Zach and I will have some banter, then we’re going to go straight to Kyle and Dan. Until then, they’re just going to sit awkwardly on the screen, and that’s fine because at least Kyle has a cool background.

Zach: Dan, show them where you are!

Kyle: Dan has a light! Dan’s in a nice setting.

Dan: Hey, you guys!

A: We’re going to talk through all of these wines. There’s going to be time at the end for you to submit your questions. They can be submitted on your Q&A tab on your screen. With that in mind, Zach, are you ready to go?

Z: Let’s do it.

A: All right cool, we’re recording. From Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter.

Z: And in Seattle, Washington, I’m Zach Geballe.

A: And this is the VinePair Podcast. Zach, what’s going on man?

Z: You look great. I’m jealous. We’re doing this one live, and I can see you. You’ve gotten a haircut. For those of you who are watching this live can tell perhaps, that I did not.

A: I had to commit, finally. It’s receding, so it’s done.

Z: It’s a good look. I might have to do the same.

A: Thank you very much! It’s funny that we’re doing a live podcast because it’s now 9 p.m. in New York and it’s only 6 p.m. on the West Coast. We’ve already had two of these sessions tonight. I just had a great session talking with Marc Farrell, the founder of Ten to One Rum, so I’ve had some rum.

Z: Nice.

Kyle: I’m jealous!

A: We’ve already heard from one of our guests, who I’m super excited to welcome on the podcast. Without further ado, I want to welcome Kyle MacLachlan of Pursued by Bear Wine and Dan Wampfler of Pursued by Bear and Abeja. Did I say that right, Dan?

Dan: Yes, you did. You nailed it. Abeja, which is Spanish for “honeybee.”

A: Awesome. Kyle and Dan, thank you for joining us. We appreciate it.

K: Great to be here. Thanks for having us on, Adam and Zach. This is great.

A: As many know, I tease Zach about living in Washington.

K: That’s fine with me.

A: I would love to know from both of you, initially, what makes Washington wine so special. A lot of people who are wine drinkers in the United States mostly think about California when it comes to wine. But Zach especially has been pushing me for years that the wines from Washington State are amazing. Kyle, I know you had friends encourage you to start a winery. So why Washington State? What is it about Washington State that draws people to wines?

K: I grew up on the east side. I’m from Yakima originally. Eastern Washington runs in my blood. Growing up there — it was the kind of place where you grow up and want to leave, to go seek your fortune, so to speak. It was surprising to me that I found myself back there, really enchanted with what was happening in the wine world. I learned about it simply by tasting wines, and my eyes were opened. I thought, no one seems to be talking about them. I realized, this is a legitimate place to make stuff that’s world-class. That started me thinking about how I might get involved. Through a circuitous route, I met up with Dan, and he’s been involved since 2005 or 2006, when I first started.

A: Dan, what about you? Are you from Washington State originally?

D: No, I’m from Michigan originally. I moved out to Washington in 2000 or 2001. I have an undergrad and masters degree in wine production from Michigan State. I moved out to Washington to take a job as the research winemaker for Ste. Michelle Wines Estates back when it went under a different name.

A: Wow.

D: I moved from research through production, large to small to family-operated.

A: If you were to synthesize Washington State wines, could you both do it? When we think of Napa, we think of Cab. When we think of Oregon, we go to Willamette and we say Pinot. What should we think about as consumers, when it comes to Washington?

D: We can do anything. Maybe not Pinot yet, but we’re still planting. When I moved out 20 years ago, it wasn’t a mature industry. It was a maturing industry that still had critical mass of quality producers and scale. It wasn’t agri-tourism. It was a wine industry. That was exciting to me. Since I’ve been a part of the industry, the fruit quality in the vineyards, the vineyard management, and wine production has continued to raise the bar. What sets us apart from any other industry that I’ve witnessed, is the camaraderie. A high tide raises all boats. With that comes a high tide and a high bar of wine and fruit quality.

K: I completely agree. As Dan said, we can do anything there and anything well. We take inspiration from Bordeaux. We take inspiration from Napa, but we’re not imitating. We have our own flavor profile in Washington state, and it’s a good one. As I got involved in it, I was as surprised as anyone to learn that you really can grow anything there, apart from Pinot as Dan mentioned, but that’s still to come. It’s amazing. You can find anything in abundance and in quality.

Z: I want to ask about one of my favorite varieties here in Washington, Syrah. We have a Syrah here, the Baby Bear from Pursued by Bear. I know Dan, you also make a Syrah at Abeja. Syrah is the variety that I point to a lot when trying to explain what’s possible here in Washington, but our viewers and listeners are probably sick of me saying it. Why don’t you guys say it? And talk about Syrah in particular. We’ll come back to the Baby Bear that I’m drinking right now. What is it about Syrah in Washington that makes for really amazing wine?

D: Syrah is a winemaker’s wine. I’ll explain that. I’ll pick on Chardonnay for a second. Chardonnay, we can steer as winemakers in so many different directions. It’s not that we can overcome terroir, but we can push it one direction or another with so many different winemaking techniques using barrels and yeast. We can do the same thing with Syrah. It’s a very diverse grape in its flavor profile. It’s also sexy in every single one of those categories, whether it’s Old World or New World. It’s a sexy variety from bookend to bookend.

K: I was just drinking some, and I felt very sexy there.

A: Can you go back to the beginning of the creation of Pursued by Bear and tell us a little bit about the name of the winery? It’s a famous direction from a play in Shakespeare. What was the real desire to create a winery? There are a lot of wineries out there that are owned by celebrities, but you’re very hands on. That’s different.

K: I spend a lot of time there, in Dan’s guest bedroom downstairs. It started with a desire to get home more frequently. My career keeps me between New York and Los Angeles a lot, and my dad was still living at the time, in Yakima. I thought this would be something that we could share together, embarking on a journey. I entered into it with no expectations, not thinking it takes three years before your harvest is actually ready to drink, minimum. I just wanted to jump in with both feet without much thinking. That was made possible by my former winemaker Eric Dunham, as Dunham Cellars. He was my introduction into wine in Washington and the community. It really is a community of like-minded people. Crazy, but all like-minded. We do support each other and revel in each other’s differences. We all strive to create world-class wine. We share this common passion and goal. “Pursued by bear” is a smaller portion of a longer stage direction that goes “Exit, pursued by a bear,” which happens in Act III, Scene III of Shakespeare’s play, “The Winter’s Tale.” It’s the most specific, strange, esoteric stage direction he ever wrote. It made me laugh, the idea that the actor gets chased off stage by a bear. It seemed so appropriate to what I was trying to do. It also harkened back to my day job, working as an actor. I grew up going to school in Washington. I was in the theater department there. I graduated in 1982 and was going to go seek my fortune as a repertory theater actor. It all seemed to make sense to me. It was more cohesive when I started. Just jumping in, I met Eric and this idea of making wine was something that had been on my mind for a while. When I finally asked him, I asked if he would partner with me. He said, “Yeah, what do you like to drink?” I said Cabernet, and he said let’s make Cabernet. It was really just that casual, handshake kind of deal. For those of us who knew Eric remember him as being completely like that. Your word is your word. Shake hands and have some fun. Dan came into that family shortly after I met Eric. We were a band of brothers there for a while.

D: I don’t think we shook hands. It was more like shots and hugs at that point, throwing back bottles of Cabernet and Syrah.

K: That’s how we roll in Washington.

Z: Shots and hugs is what Adam and I do when we hang out in person.

A: Which is never. You do live on the other side of the country.

Z: It happens.

D: You guys have cheap shots you can take. That’s the shots and the hugs that you have.

A: Did you buy land? Did you think about that? How much are you taking from growers? How much was it a real trial by fire? There’s a lot of people that think they can start a wine label and figure it out.

K: I was totally way in over my head. I partnered with some really smart people that knew what they were doing. I just jumped in with the idea that this could be a fun adventure. I liked the people I was meeting. I enjoyed the community. When you’re from the east side, whether Yakima or Walla Walla, and there’s some similarities there, when families get together they don’t talk about the east side as much. We’re the black sheep. I had terrific guidance, and I was genuinely interested in learning. I didn’t sit back. I wanted to know where the grapes were being sourced from. I wanted to learn about the AVAs and the sites. I found the process fascinating. It kept me going. It was also a great excuse to grab my dad, jump in the car, drive to Walla Walla, hang out with the Dunhams, taste wine, and have a great time. That was a big part of it in the beginning. I had considered Napa for about 30 seconds, until I started thinking about how much it was going to cost to buy a ton of grapes. It was way outside of my range.

A: Now it costs even more.

K: Washington made much more sense. To be honest, it was the story. My wife reminds me: She says, you’re from Washington. That’s the story right there. One thing my wife really understands is how to tell a story. All signs were pointing in that direction.

Z: You guys have both talked about the experience of making a wine. There’s a whole component of the industry in Washington that’s maturing that has to do with wine tourism. Dan, I know that at Abeja that’s a big part of what goes on. Can you guys talk about what the experience is like to visit Walla Walla? Right now, we’re in a period of time where people traveling to visit isn’t happening so much. In whatever normal times will be, what is that experience like?

D: Walla Walla is four hours from Portland, Boise, and Seattle. We operate a country inn, a luxury inn on our 30-acre parcel. We have the ability to accommodate 28 people. There are weekends where we are booked 100 percent from people outside of the country. Not now. Everyone that’s coming now is driving, and we are still fully booked: This weekend, last weekend, this coming weekend. We’re in Phase Two. Walla Walla is magical because when you head over from Seattle, for example, you go over the mountains and the trees fade away right around Ellensburg. You roll into Walla Walla and it’s lush and filled with vineyards. It’s filled with good people and a quaint downtown. We have some of the best wines and accommodations, but it’s our people that make us stand above, with the best areas of the world.

A: Talk about the relationship you two have. Kyle, you’re very involved with the wine, but Dan you’re the winemaker. How does that work? There’s always the curiosity wondering how it works when someone is the owner-proprietor and not the winemaker, but they’re very involved in the winemaking process. Kyle, how often are you at the winery? Are you helping crush? What are you doing with blending and tasting? Dan, how much are you agreeing with him or not?

D: I will say on Kyle’s behalf, this is by far and away, not a vanity project. Kyle comes to town, less so now, but quite often. We pick vineyard sites together. We pick barrels. We do barrel trials together. We blend every single blend together. Now, we’re sending samples his way. He and I will taste back and forth with samples that were pulled from the same barrels at the same time. We’ll go through and compare notes. We’ve got our beakers and our graduated cylinders and our pipets. We’re doing the blends, and we’re sharing spreadsheets. Kyle’s very involved. That’s the exciting part. He’s inquisitive. He knows what he likes, and he has a phenomenal palate. He knows what he doesn’t like. We agree on most things, but we steer together. Kyle?

K: I feel like I’ve got my brother here next to me when we do our blending and our tasting. We really get along. We see the direction of the brand headed in the same way. I love going up as much as I can get there: participating in the blending, visiting the vineyard sites, talking about the barrels and what we’ll use each year, how much neutral and new, and new sites coming up. Dan was a member of the Washington Wine Commission, and I think you still are. He knows everybody there. He knows all the growers. He’s got great relationships with so many of them. I bring a little bit from my side, like getting introduced to these French oak barrels that we use which are just phenomenal. They work so well with the big red fruits that we get from Washington State. It just pairs beautifully. That was my contribution in coming into the relationship when I first started. There were sources that Dunham was using that I used as well. Then I began to branch out from that as I began to explore. One of the sites that I love is Hugh Shiel’s place, Dubrul. He’s got a wonderful site in Washington. The fruit that comes off of there is very special. You get more and more involved. I lean on Dan for so much. He’s got a terrific palate and his wife has an extraordinary palate. We both rely on her. It really is a partnership. We’re in this together. I’m really flexible and open. I know what direction we want to go in. I feel like I get the same response from Dan. We’re both heading in the same way. We really work well together.

A: Amazing.

Z: Adam, we should talk about these wines.

A: Yes fine, Zach. We can.

A: The first one I want to talk about is Blushing Bear. It was one of our top rosés two years ago. It’s a phenomenal wine. I’d love Kyle, if you talked with us about it. How long have you made a rosé for?

K: Not long: 2015 was the first vintage. It was more like: Everyone is making a rosé, we should make a rosé. Hey Dan! Let’s make a rosé. I wanted to copy the French. There’s a rosé that comes out of the Bandol region. It’s some of my favorite. I was clueless. I didn’t know if we could get the varietals for it in Washington.

D: Mind you, he asked in August. “Hey, can we get this?” I said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

K: Which is why we came up with 75 cases for that first vintage. When we did it, it was phenomenal. When you blend Grenache and Mourvèdre, at the time we had Cinsault as well, you put those varietals together in the right combination and you get that same sort of acid and bright quality that comes with Washington. You have yourself a really fantastic rosé that’s got bite and mineral and flavors and aromas. 2015 was our first, and we’ve made it every year since then. We’ve upped our production higher than 75 cases. We’re still under 500, I think.

A: How much are you producing total?

K: This year we’re right around 2,000 cases.

A: Can you find the wine in all 50 states?

K: We distribute in roughly 18 states, the U.K., and Japan.

A: Oh, Japan! It’s pursuedbybearwine.com, right?

K: Exactly.

A: I love this wine. The fruit is really present. It’s insanely refreshing. There’s a nice quality of lemon and strawberry. It’s everything you want in a rosé.

K: Yes. There’s a little grapefruit and guava in there. We’re both going for something that’s light and refreshing, but it has a little bit of a mouthfeel. It has a nice finish. It’s great chilled. It’s also nice slightly below room temperature. If it gets up to cellar temp, or even a little more, the aromatics come out. You can enjoy it on that level as well.

D: We don’t saignée. Everything is farmed and brought in as rosé. Everything is brought in and we whole- cluster press. We leave it in the press long, we go to our fermentation vessels, we ferment everything in separate lots, then we blend at the end. It’s a true rosé wine, in that it’s not an afterthought. It’s start to finish, our outcome goal.

A: Dan, for our listeners and viewers who don’t understand what saignée is, can you explain that?

K: He’s a singer from… never mind.

D: Saignée is French, meaning “to bleed.” If you have a tank full of red fruit, you open a valve and you bleed off some of the free run. 99 percent of all red skin grapes produce white juice. It’s that skin contact time that extracts the pigments, colors, and tannins. Intentionally, we bring in the fruit for rosé, we keep the fruit in contact in the press, as opposed to just bleeding off from a Cabernet Franc or a Mourvedre, or whatever the varietal is. That’s a much more challenging circumstance to get the color and the aromas. When you nail it, it’s so much more pure, less tannic, sexy, and elegant.

Z: Don’t you have the benefit that the grapes are grown to make rosé? The wine is not a bi-product of making the red wine.

D: Exactly right.

Z: I wanted to ask Dan really quickly about this Chardonnay that I’m drinking. I’ve always been a big fan of the Abeja Chardonnay. On the label here, it just says “Washington State.” Why is that?

D: Great question. First, I want to mention, as the winemaker at Abeja, I’m not the only one. My wife is my co-winemaker. We make all winemaking decisions together. We’re on family vacation, so she has taken the kids in the other room, so there’s no dogs barking or kids interrupting. We’ve been on multiple Zoom calls … anyway.

A: That’s what life is. That’s normal now.

D: It is. To answer your question: Washington State for two reasons. One, we have three different styles of Chardonnay. This is Washingtonian in style. You can help me answer how we make that Washingtonian style, but it’s the acidity, the ripeness, and the character. Second of all, a significant portion of the fruit comes from the Celilo Vineyard outside of the Columbia Valley AVA, from the Columbia Gorge AVA. Because of the percentage difference, it’s also Washington State, as opposed to the Gorge or Walla Walla or Columbia Valley.

Z: You guys can tune in later for my Celilo Vineyards seminar that will only be attended by me and Dan. Dan, can you talk about the winemaking approach? You said Washingtonian, and you nailed the key points here of an expression of ripe fruit with still a lot of acid. What is it in the winemaking process or the thought process that allows you to find this balance of generosity of fruit while still preserving acidity?

D: Fruit source, fermentation style: Is it cool? Are we whole-cluster pressing? What juice are we choosing? Are we new oak? Are we stainless? Are we a balance? All of those decisions play into the steering. Like I led with, Chardonnay can be manipulated as a winemaker in so many different styles and directions. We’re not trying to push it respectfully in a Burgundian way. We’re not trying to push it respectfully in a Chablis way. We’re trying to keep it not tone deaf from where the fruit comes from, which is a blend of several different vineyards. Solilo, our estate vineyard in Walla Walla, and a vineyard based in the Columbia Valley Central. It has the blend of fruit, acidity, and ripeness. It has the blend of texture. My wife and I are all about texture in the wine. We use 100 percent French oak in this wine, although not 100 percent new. There’s a significant percentage of experienced oak. We’re not trying to create “Chateaux Two by Four.” We’re trying to get oak and toast levels to frame the fruit and give it lift and celebrate what those vineyards have to offer.

A: Zach, you opened Baby Bear. I did not.

Z: I did! Adam’s saving that for a more important night than this, apparently.

K: I’ll send you some more.

A: Do you want to talk about that wine as well?

Z: Yeah! Before I give my thoughts, let’s hear from Kyle and Dan. What’s the approach here? You were talking before about Syrah from Washington, that it can go in a lot of different directions. What direction is this trying to go? What do you see as being the guiding principle behind this wine?

K: The Syrah was born in 2008, the same year my son was born. That’s why we called it Baby Bear. I already had Pursued by Bear, so I was stuck with Baby Bear, and off we went. If you can’t make a good Syrah in Washington, you should probably just get out of the business. It’s just the grape that works. I was attracted to the Dunham brand initially because of Eric’s Syrah, his single vineyard Syrah. When I got into the world and we were making Cabernet, I wanted to make a Syrah as well, which we did. But, I wanted to distinguish it from what Eric was doing. In order to make the difference, we brought in special barrels. We were using the same vineyard sources as Eric, from the Columbia AVA and Horse Heaven AVA , which is a fantastic AVA, closer to the Columbia River. There’s still wild mustangs up on that plateau, so they say. Pretty cool spot. We decided to use a large-format barrel to age this. We got a 600-liter puncheon barrel. They’re just beautiful. They’re gigantic. They hold 50 cases of wine. The idea is that you’ve got more liquid in the vessel and less contact with the staves.

D: The surface area to volume ratio is more generous.

K: Chemist right there talking: That’s exactly right. I started to experiment with aging. We started off as a traditional 22 month, 24 months the first few vintages. 26 months, then I started pushing to 28 months, 30 months, 32 months. I held back before we got to 34 months. This is almost three years in barrel. I would taste it and think it was phenomenal. As Dan says, the barrel gives you its oak, and then it stops. Then it’s basically holding the wine. It’s softening, and the tannins are refining. It’s so cool. I could do this because I didn’t need to move it to market as quickly as some wineries. This is not the way I’m making a living, thank god. My living is paying for this experience. It allowed me to be a little more experimental. The blending hasn’t changed much. It’s these two vineyards. The ratio varies sometimes depending on how much comes in: 60/40, 50/50. We do a little bit sur lie. One of the barrels, sometimes we’ll let that just add to the mouthfeel of the wine. Whatever we set in motion from the very beginning, that’s how we’ve kept it from the get-go. No Viognier in sight, this is just 100 percent pure Syrah.

D: We’ve tried to blend different fruit sources almost every year, almost. We keep coming back to this. It works. The two components on their own are great. We’ve had other components on their own that are better. There’s been no better blend between the two. As Kyle said: 60/40, sur lie aging. When we first started doing the sur lie, the cellar crew and even Kyle said it was rough. I said, “Hold on.” We kept it in the barrels, and a couple months later, the chocolate fudge brownie of red wines evolved. Egad! We’ve got it. Let’s do this. Between the puncheons, between the sur lie, and between those two 50/50 blends, we’ve created a unique blend that’s magical.

Z: You mentioned earlier, Dan, texture. That’s a really important thing for understanding these kinds of wines. The flavor in Syrah is important for sure, but when you get a well-made Syrah, which this certainly is, you get that really beautiful, smooth wine. There’s enough that grabs on that almost velcro-y, but it’s not abrasive.

A: You’re making me regret that I should’ve opened the bottle. Not cool.

Z: Adam, it’s not that late. It’s only 9:30 in New York. You can still open the bottle.

A: Now I’m actually glad I’m saving it, though. You guys are making it sound like it’s absolutely incredible, but I’m also missing out a lot. I’m sure people at home or listening on the podcast are feeling that way as well. You should buy some at pursuedbybearwine.com. In terms of the Cabernet, which is the last wine we have from Abeja, I am curious. I’ve had a lot of winemakers say to me that Washington is going to be the next Napa. It’s the future, because of climate change. We’re getting questions that I’m watching come in during the Q&A that are asking about that as well. Is Washington the next Napa because of climate change? Will there be better Cabernet made in Washington than in Napa. I’m curious to hear your thoughts. What happens to Cabernet in Napa? Both of you? What do you think Cabernet can do in Washington? Are these people correct? Will climate change really move up how we think about Washington as the country’s premier growing site? As we all know, Cabernet being the most popular grape in America is not changing any time soon. What does that mean?

D: Wait a minute. You’re saying that Washington isn’t already the most premier Cabernet area?

K: My thoughts exactly, Dan.

A: Fine, fine.

D: I was going to go with my standard Zoom joke where I just mouth the words, and people say you’re on mute. I realized this is not the time for it. I appreciate you teeing that up for me. I’m not a climatologist, but I do believe the global warming trend is continuing to show itself. We are intentionally planting at higher and higher elevations. We are watching crop loads throughout the season each year. In some of the hottest years, like 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008, and some of the coolest years that we’ve experienced in 2010 and 2011, crop load is a huge thing. You get the ripeness of the grapes across the finish line, but you have to get them there at the right time. We work with our grower intimately to make sure that we’re pacing with what’s going on in the growing season, as well as being connected to the site specificity. We are making as good a Cabernet as anyone in the world already. We’ve been doing so for over a decade, different than, but as well as. As more attention is drawn to Washington State, more and more people fall in love with it, then we’re able to over-deliver on quality at the price points because our farming costs are less, and our labor costs are less. Our water costs are less. All these things are being pressured, so it’ll start going up, too, but we’re nowhere near in the economic stresses of Napa. There’s some amazing Cabernets, that are world class, that are coming out of Washington. It’s not a new thing.

A: This wine’s amazing.

D: Well, we have a good team.

K: The Cab is great. You know, Washington is hot. Time will tell as to whether global warming, because it’s impacting different parts of the world in different ways, how much of an impact it’s going to have. It remains to be seen. As Dan mentioned, higher elevations are a little bit cooler. It’s been hot here though. We fight that. Canopy management becomes really important. Washington is a different fall-off. When we get to fall and temperatures begin to change, they don’t drop gradually and nicely like in California. They go along and then they drop off the edge of a cliff. As Dan said, you’ve got to know when to bring your fruit in and harvest. That’s a critical time. Fortunately, Dan is good at anticipating that and knowing when the fruit needs to come off and when it needs to be sheltered.

D: We have a couple of advantages as well. One, we don’t have the fog rolling in. We’ve got cool nights. We don’t have the humidity stresses. Yes, we have mildew pressure like any growing region, but we don’t have it to the extreme that other regions do. We also have the diurnal shift that everyone talks about when they nerd out about wine. It can be 100 degrees at night during an August growing day. It can cool down to 58 degrees, like in Arizona. That diurnal shift allows the ripeness and intensity during the day, then it cools down and lets the vines rest at night.

Z: The other thing that Dan mentioned that’s important here is that there’s a lot of opportunity in Washington to add additional plantings to go up on hillsides. Napa is pretty much planted out at this point. A lot of those warmer vineyard sights, valley floor, are stuck. For now and in the past, it worked to their benefit. If we continue to see more heat and less cooling influence from fog and airflow, that becomes more of a problem because there’s nowhere else to plant grapes. Washington has a lot of land under vine, but only a tiny fraction of what the potential is here in the state. That’s a good resource, although planting vineyards is expensive. It takes a while for them to be usable, but at least it’s a longer-term possibility.

K: Zach, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure there are less acres planted in the state of Washington than in Napa.

A: Zach, you’re the somm. Come on!

Z: I’m not a walking encyclopedia.

A: You are.

Z: I would bet that it’s relatively comparable. Washington might have a little more land under vine than Napa at this point. That’s just an educated guess. All of you listening can Google that and tell me how wrong I am.

D: Anybody from the Washington Wine Commission could answer that.

A: The wines are amazing, but I’m seeing a lot of questions come in from viewers. And I have some myself that might not be related to wine. But let’s be honest, they’re also related to some of the characters you’ve played, Kyle. I’ve got to ask one first. Are you a Cosmo drinker?

K: Any port in the storm, I say.

A: Another one from viewers: If Agent Cooper was a wine, what wine would he be?

K: That’s a good question. Let me see. He’d be a Bordeaux. He’d be something classic. The reason I say Bordeaux is because when I met David Lynch in 1983, and I screen tested for “Dune,” which is the first thing David and I worked on together, when I finished my screen test, I came back to my hotel room, no idea how I’d done, and there was a bottle of Lynch Bages sitting on the table in my little hotel room. It was a gift from David, his way of saying thank you. He wasn’t making all of the decisions about the cast, but it was a really nice gesture. Since then, we’ve traded Lynch Bages all the time. It’s our thing. Cooper is a big part of David, obviously, so I would go with a Bordeaux, even a great vintage of Lynch Bages, like 1990 or 1996. We’ll call him that.

A: Okay. Another one that’s pretty good: If a great wine script came to you that highlighted Washington wines like “Sideways” or “Bottleshock,” would you consider acting in it or helping produce it? Can you think of a movie that would be that movie?

K: Sounds like a writer or a producer. I consider everything. I look at everything. I love to read. I love stories. It comes down to quality. Is it a good story?

A: That’s a fair point.

D: Washington wine is a good story, so I would encourage him to take the role or direct it.

K: That’s what we want to hear!

A: In terms of Pursued by Bear, you don’t make any white wines, correct?

K: We do not. Rosé is as close as we get.

A: Are there plans to make white?

K: No plans, although Dan and his wife make a Semillon that I had six months or a year ago when I was there.

D: Viognier.

K: Was it? Are you sure? It wasn’t Semillon?

D: We don’t make a Semillon. Pretty sure.

K: Must’ve been a different Dan, then.

D: Respectfully. Respectfully, we don’t. Well, maybe we will now.

K: That’s how much I’d had to drink. Anyway, it was extraordinary. No real plans at the moment. It’s tough. Although if I were to make one, Dan and his wife are extraordinary winemakers. We would come up with something fantastic. The idea of a label is so exciting, white wine and what we can do with that. I have five wines now: Pursued by Bear; Baby Bear Syrah, and rosé; the Bear Cub which is a new, lower price point wine which actually goes back to the original blend of the Pursued by Bear. Cab, Merlot, and Syrah. After 15 years, we go back to the original blend because the Pursued by Bear is moving more towards a traditional Bordeaux style. Then I have a single vineyard that I do out of the Walla Walla AVA that’s just been labeled and bottled, called “Twin Bear.” It’s super-small production at 93 cases. It’s a fun little thing to do. It’s beautiful: Cabernet, single vineyard, really elegant. I’ve got my hands full.

A: This one’s not the most fair question, but it’s to both of you. If you were to pick a favorite wine you make, which one?

K: What do you think, Dan?

D: Favorite wine that we make? Whatever’s in my glass right now, so I’ve got four. Favorite wine is like picking your favorite child. We all have one, you just don’t tell your spouse. Just kidding, both of our children are amazing. We don’t bottle anything that we don’t already have a great deal of pride and love for. I love all of these wines, otherwise they wouldn’t make it to the bottle. It depends on the season. If I’m in the middle of a winter night in a hot tub, I’m going to reach for a Cabernet. If I’m on the porch in the summer drinking a Chardonnay, I’m a happy camper. Right now, the rosé is singing. That’s a challenging question to answer. It depends on what I’m eating and what I’m doing.

A: Kyle?

K: I’m really in love with the Bear Cub right now. We just did it in 2016. It has a difficult past. 2016 in Washington was a big year. It was a year that I decided to up production a little bit. I went a little crazy with my wish list. We sourced from a lot of places. Suddenly, instead of producing 500 cases of Pursued by Bear, I had up to 1,500 cases of Pursued by Bear. I said, that’s not going to work. We’ve got to do something with this extra wine. We made the Pursued by Bear. We picked the best lots. Then we picked lots that were almost as good. We turned them into Bear Cub. It gave me a chance to go back to the original blend, at 6 and 7 percent of Syrah in the Bear Cub blend. That was really fun. It was nice to be able to go back and made the wine like we made Pursued by Bear. The Syrah gives it an immediacy. It’s immediately friendly. It’s available. It’s got beautiful aromatics. Because it’s a little unexpected, I’m really digging the Bear Cub right now.

A: Final question: Can both of you think of the first wine you had in your lives that was interesting? That you wanted to know more about? Either in order to make wine or because it was fun to drink. Whatever that was for you, do you have that?

D: I’ll go first. I started brewing beer when I was in high school. I fell in love with fermentation science. Beer led me to wine because I didn’t want to brew beer. You can do that in two weeks. I didn’t want to do distillation because I don’t have 15 years of patience.

K: You’re making it sound so scientific. You were in high school, man! You were making stuff so you could get trashed. Come on.

D: I was really popular in college being the fermentation guy, for sure. My dad, who’s not a traditional wine drinker, he’s a “Miller-Light-after-mowing-the-lawn” kind of guy, he was out at a business dinner, and everyone was around the table discussing what they had brought or what was on the menu or what the most expensive wine was that they’d ever consumed. My dad listened to everyone’s story, and they said, how about you, Dave? He said, “As a matter of fact, I have a case of wine in my basement that was 40 grand.” Everybody was shocked. It was wine that’s a varietal from northern Minnesota. I figured my son’s college tuition was about 40 grand, and this was his senior project, so he gave me a case of it, and it was like, “All right, you win.”

K: I love that story. Mine isn’t quite the same, although admit it, Dan. You were making alcohol so you could get girls. That’s why I got into acting. It’s all about that. In high school, I had a girlfriend, Heidi. I would go over to her house with her family for dinner. We would sit at the table, a proper dinner, the whole family was there. We each got to drink a glass of wine with dinner. I didn’t even know what it was, but it made me feel super grown up. It was a nice wine. That started me thinking in the wine world. That’s my story.

A: Awesome. Dan, Kyle, thank you both so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it. This has been amazing. Kyle, if you do want to send more Baby Bear, or other wines, feel free. I’ll send you my address. This has been amazing. The wines are great. We’ll share with everyone how you can buy both of these wines, both in the chat here as well as in the credits of the show. We really appreciate both of you.

Z: Thank you guys.

D: Thank you very much.

K: Loved it. Thanks for having us on.

A: Take care.

K: Be good. Cheers.

A: Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair podcast. If you enjoy listening to us every week please leave us a review or rating on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever it is that you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show. Now for the credits: VinePair is produced and hosted by Zach Geballe, Erica Duecy, and me: Adam Teeter. Our engineer is Nick Patri and Keith Beavers. I’d also like to give a special shout out to my VinePair co-founder Josh Malin and the rest of the VinePair team for their support. Thanks so much for listening and we’ll see you again right here next week.

Ed. note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The article VinePair Podcast: Live With Kyle MacLachlan, Pursued by Bear for the Great Drinks Experience appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/kyle-machlachlan-pursued-by-bear-gde/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/vinepair-podcast-live-with-kyle-maclachlan-pursued-by-bear-for-the-great-drinks-experience

[ive-always-been-a-pirate]

So, Tumblr thought it would be cool to eat my birthday post to my lovely friend and dark counterpart @optomisticgirl....which is actually super NOT cool. Anyway, I’m posting this a little late, but here it is! Happy day of birth, my Aries partner-in-crime! You are a lady, a scholar, and a wonderful human being.

A little classic literature and verbose Killian smut :) M-rated for certain.

“Well, that’s a long face if I’ve ever seen one,” Granny announced, leaning over the counter to snatch the empty hot chocolate mug. “What’s got you down, Sheriff?”

Lifting her frustrated eyes from the leatherbound book she’d borrowed from the library at Belle’s insistence, Emma attempted a casual smile before addressing the inquiry of the woman who owned the place. It was a rather half assed try, but what was the point in pretending all was well when it certainly was not? They’d been chasing their tails for days over how to put a stop to the Evil Queen’s most recent reign of terror, galavanting through a handful of untold stories until they landed on an author who was dreadfully familiar and the answer to all their problems - according to an odd inkling Henry had while thumbing through a newly discovered version of the storybook. If she’d known sending him with Killian to the author’s abandoned mansion in search of an alternate text would amount to her reading not one but four Shakespeare books - well, she definitely would have thought twice about needing more information.

The whole idea was starting to feel like ��much ado about nothing’ - pun very much intended.

“I'm fine,” Emma sighed, tracing the cover of As You Like It with a distracted finger. “Just not thrilled with everyone’s book recommendations for the Savior lately.”

“Ah, I see,” the old woman nodded as she caught sight of the small stack of novels. “Those aren’t exactly easy reading from what I’ve heard. I’m guessing it’s research?”

“It’s supposed to be,” Emma answered as she flipped through a few pages. “But with the way this guy writes, it’s hard enough to understand what’s going on in the story let alone figure out if it might give us a clue about how to figure out what Regina’s other half is up to.”

“Her ‘worse’ half, I can assure you,” Granny commented as she peeked at the words. “It does look quite complex. Not Henry’s forte either, I take it?”

“He’s been helping Regina sort through things in her vault since yesterday so I’m on book patrol,” she explained, gesturing toward the pile. “Well, failing at book patrol.”

“I wish I could help, but I must say that this Shakespeare guy is even out of my league,” Granny replied, her expression sweet and sympathetic. “But I’m happy to grab you a fresh cup of cocoa and a bearclaw while you keep at it.”

Emma let another exasperated exhale escape her lips but she offered a nod of agreement. Dropping her eyes back down to the text on the pages in Romeo and Juliet, she came across a set of words that she’d read a few times already.

“Ugh - but what does it mean when your ‘bounty is boundless as the sea’?”

She was just about to slam the cover of the sappy, tragic tale closed when the bell above the diner door gave a soft ding. Her attention was quickly pulled that way and it didn’t take long for her to be glad that she’d looked up.

Speak of the sea, she thought with a secretive smile.

“Afternoon, love.”

His voice was smooth and calming in a way that would forever soothe her, a fact she knew her eyes gave away the second she witnessed his handsome smirk. He was always so perceptive to her reactions and it was useless trying to hide just how much she admired watching him walk into a room. She’d given up on her charade of being unaffected by him long ago - and he’d made sure to prove to her a million times over just what a worthwhile decision that had been.

“Captain,” she replied with a bit of a relieved grin, watching his eyes respond to her playful nickname. “Coming to wallow in my misery with me?”

“Misery you say,” he countered, placing a gentle kiss against her hair before grabbing one of the books for analysis. “How could being required to read all day make you miserable? That’s a lifestyle that might even rival a pirate’s.”

He hopped up onto the stool next to her, his fingers flipping through a couple of pages as he joined in her fruitless work. There was something to be said about how willing he was to jump right into just about anything with her. Yes, definitely something - but words were sure as hell not her thing today.

“It’s not the task I’m annoyed with,” she told him as she watched him narrow his eyes at the story. “Just the material.”

“Hmmm,” he pondered, stealing a sip of her drink. “What's not to like about it, love?”

“It's just that Shakespeare can be a little….wordy.”

He grinned at that, running his tongue absently over his bottom lip as he pressed a hand down to prop the book open. The navy blue of his studious stare was almost as deep as the text he was currently immersed in - a particular play about a wild bird of a woman who people thought needed taming. She’d scoffed at the title initially, but it was almost too humorous to watch him bite back his grin when he noticed the book’s name.

“It does seem rather seeped in a wealth of various language techniques,” he remarked as he kept his sight on the fancy writing she was so irritated with, the edge of his mouth curving upward after a moment. “This William appears to be quite the clever man.”

It hit her then - the strange connection she knew she should have drawn from the beginning. She was so busy being perplexed by the author at hand that she hadn't realized she'd just turned his work over to another man who prided himself on an impressive vocabulary. Shakespeare probably had the literary world cornered on lavish language, but as far as this realm went, the pirate at her side was quite the contender.

“I guess,” she somewhat agreed, tilting her neck at him. “Any chance you understand this better than I do?”

He took a moment to process her question before his eyes moved back to hers and he picked up on the intent behind her curiosity. Matching the angle of her head, he radiated pure amusement and the curve of his mouth that told her he didn't plan on brushing that aside.

Oh hell, what had she just gotten herself into?

“Though I believe you're discrediting your ability to decode, I suppose I could offer my insight,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “I'm all ears, love - how can I help?”

The next hour was almost more torturous than the past few had been. Sure, she’d recruited the help of a man who could not only decode ancient Latin inscriptions but also seemed to have a talent for picking apart the work of history’s greatest playright, but that was the problem. He was the always captivating and completely distracting….problem.

“Still with me, Swan?”

“Oh - ummm, yeah,” she said suddenly, blinking several times as she tried to pretend she hadn’t been staring. “I’m just not sure why he’s constantly comparing her to a wasp. He could have picked something a little….nicer.”

“I don’t think it’s meant to be degrading, love,” Killian told her, tapping his fingertips on the counter. “I believe the goal here was to illustrate her as a bold woman - one who stands her ground and speaks her mind.”

Emma didn’t miss the way he looked at her with raised eyebrows, the parallel floating in the air between them hanging heavily as she watched him. They hadn’t made it through the entire text just yet, but she’d read enough to know that she had a few things in common with the leading lady.

“She’s a spitfire,” he smiled, winking once before taking a sip from the mug Granny had passed him. “I dare say she’s what makes the story worth reading. Quite passionate, wouldn’t you say, Swan?”

Emma felt a familiar heat run down her spine at the sound of his innuendo ridden words. He’d said something like that to her once before and the way the accented inquiry seemed to slip off his tongue made her skin tingle. Passionate was a word that definitely came into play whenever he was around and despite the way her morning had started, she’d ended up right back beneath that same adjective once again.

Damn him, she thought as she bit her lip.

Their study session drifted on and with the minutes ticking by, Emma felt her patience start to thin. Watching his skilled finger point out what he believed might be crucial details was a tempting sight rivaled only by the continuous taunts of his academic tongue. Honestly, how he could sound so intelligent and so sinful at the same time was completely beyond her - but she certainly wasn’t upset that he could accomplish such a thing.

Emma listened to a list of clever explanations pass by his lips, each more hypnotic than the previous one. She knew the use of words like ‘volubility’ and ‘peremptory’ should have made her ask questions, but watching the way his mouth moved as he read each one pointed her curiosity in a very different direction.

“So why does he have to say things like ‘utterth’? It doesn’t seem necessary when he could just write ‘said’.”

“A fair question I suppose,” he agreed as he closed the book, his eyebrow arching as he tilted his head. “But it’s about the romantic element of writing, love.”

“Hmmm,” Emma pondered, matching his expression. “Romance, huh?”

“Mmm-hmm. I mean, the word ‘said’ doesn’t seem so appealing when a man can ask….or request….or even plead-” he answered, leaning on the counter a little more as flirtation filled his eyes. “-or even utterth.”

Emma felt a wave of chills take over her body at the sound of his thick accent and at the sight of his subtle bedroom eyes. It was an evolving scene she'd witnessed many times before and as he challenged her with that coaxing smirk, she knew this would only end one way.

“Quite interesting that a writer can gather such a reaction from you, Swan,” he breathed. “Suggestive words like ‘nay but to live in the sweat of an enseamed bed, sowed in corruption-’”

“Wrong story, Killian,” she cut in, her own stare shifting into a state of daring. “I read that one two days ago.”

“I know,” he nodded, his eyes playful and simmering. “But it never hurts to review the text - you know, just to….really get into it.”

The heat built between them quickly, surely enough to start a fire with the nearby stack of novels as kindling - and yes, she had considered that since the moment she saw the flicker of blue flames in his attentive gaze. Yet there was something else that appealed to her the longer he read and the more he allowed the vague stories by Shakespeare to wrap around his lilting tongue. She couldn't fully explain just what was happening, but when he finally closed the cover of the text he'd been analyzing, Emma decided they'd studied enough - at least for now.

“Well, if you’re going to put it like that-” Emma breathed wantonly, flicking her wrist so that a thin swirl of smoke surrounded them. “-then I'd prefer to listen to you continue in private.”

The feel of her magic drew a heat through her body as he took her hands in his, the quick movement pulling them together as the space of the diner vanished. The absence of company suddenly filled Emma with pure need and the intoxicated look on his handsome face once the cloud dispersed told her he felt the same.

“Come here then, darling,” he beckoned once he steadied from their quick transport to one of the inn’s upstairs rooms. “I'll tell you whatever you'd like to hear.”

“Just….you,” she replied as she chased his lips, her body quivering as he tugged quickly at her shirt. “I want to hear you.”

His smile spread as his breath lingered over hers, a soft brush of his lips taking her under and into that sea of passion he seemed to always pull her to. With his touch tracing her cheek, Emma felt her legs weaken familiarly and he instantly adjusted to keep her upright. With his palm hot against her lower back, she reached up to curl her fingers around the collar of his dark leather jacket. It was a move she couldn't resist and one he'd still never tired of if his low moan against her mouth was any indication.

“You'll be the death of me, love,” he mumbled as his hips leaned into hers. “Though I’m hard pressed to find myself upset at the thought.”

“Hard is-” she grinned, her mouth falling open as his teeth traced her collarbone. “-one way to say it.”

“Suppose I should see if there’s a few other ways I can add to that list,” he said with a gasp as she ripped open his shirt. “You’ll need to be a little more indecent for those though, Swan.”

“Seems reasonable,” she smirked as his fingers deftly curled around the fabric of her sweater. “But only if you are first.”

He chuckled at that, a dark and needy sound that went right to her core. She’d never been so easily affected by words or by the lilting tone his seemed to wrap themselves in, but he’d always had a way with that - turning her into a desperate mess with a mere mumble or whisper. Emma felt her knees tremble as his hands brushed her bare skin, their clothes pooling at her feet as he lifted her onto the bed. The mattress creaked as expected - a little fact they’d picked up on one night when they’d had a bit too much to drink and decided to rent a room just up the hall instead of heading home. The noise wasn’t off putting in the least and the low moan the escaped his throat as her touch found his shoulderblades was proof of just how much he didn’t care about the bedsprings.

“Love, lift up,” he requested, rutting against her once as he prompted her to move. “Legs around me.”

Emma followed his heated directions, wondering just where her stubborn spirit had gone. It didn’t seem to exist in the same realm as this passionately wordy man, especially when he was using his tone to tease and tantalize her. The firm feel of him between her thighs began to pull a shaky breath from her lips, but he swept her into a deep kiss that dissolved it instantly.

He’d always been good at that too.

“They’re only words, Swan,” he told her as he paused a moment, his mouth gentle against hers as he pushed inside with a smooth thrust. “But you know there’s plenty I love telling you.”

“Oh,” Emma reacted as her arms draped around his neck. “Like what?”

“A multitude of things, darling,” he answered with a grin against her neck. “Perhaps more colorful than anything you’ll read in any one of those books downstairs.”

“Hmmm,” she pondered as he anchored himself above her. “You might have to prove that to me.”

“I intend to, darling,” he laughed, sliding forward a little deeper. “We, fortunately, have all night for just that.”

“Good thing you have such an-” Emma said with a soft moan, her fingers pressed into his back. “-extensive vocabulary.”

“Oh, love,” he replied, his hand tight on her thigh as he hitched her leg up a little higher. “You haven’t heard anything yet.”

The course of the night proved just how much Emma truly hadn’t ever had the opportunity to listening to. Little praises of his familiar ‘there, Swan’ and ‘yes, just like that’ were mixed in with his heavy accent and punctuated groans while she attempted to remain coherent enough to hear more. He said her name endlessly, like it was a mantra he couldn’t keep from clinging to as he moved relentlessly against her. She wasn’t sure how long they’d been at it by the time she finally fell apart, but he held her tight in his lap as he followed her into the verbal abyss of finishing together. Emma knew her mind was clouded with pleasure, but she was almost positive he’d been mumbling something quite filthy in a language she didn’t know he spoke when she collapsed against his chest. His hair was damp and her fingers carded through it lazily while she regained her own ability to talk.

Not that much needed to be said after something like that - well, maybe one thing.

“Killian?”

“Hmmm?”

“I love you-” she told him as she nuzzled his side. “-and thank you for helping me with the books. I know you had other stuff to do today.”

“Perhaps, but you know this is always my first choice,” he countered, twisting her hair around his finger. “Naked while I tell you all the obscene things you coax me into to saying.”

“Alright, you’ve made your point,” she breathed happily as she leaned up to kiss him. “Now we might have time for a little nap before the studying must resume if you’re interested.”

“I may be,” he said thoughtfully. “But I can think of something else-”

“Hey,” she cut in, weakly trying to stop his obvious and honestly very wanted advance. “Shut up….”

“Oh, Swan,” he laughed, flipping them over and starting down at her with an intention she’d grown to love. “We both know that’s not what you want.”

His lips melted against hers as his hands took hold of hers, his fingers wrapping skillfully around her wrists as he proved just how fast he could talk her into anything. Whatever argument she was pretending she might have planned disappeared as the sheets tangled around their legs and he used his mouth in so many more ways than one - a feat only he could manage so perfectly.

“Perhaps not,” she admitted as his blue eyes darkened. “So why don’t you tell me what you think I want?”

“Sounds like a dangerous game you’re interested in playing, love,” he said with a devilish grin. “But whatever you say.”

“Hey,” she teased. “That’s my line.”

“Well,” he quipped, the hint of a challenge in his gaze. “Let’s see if we can make your lines a little more interesting.”

Tagging some folks: @xpumpkindumplingx, @themmaswan, @spartanguard, @laschatzi, @kat2609, @captainswanismyendgame, @timeless-love-story, @cat-sophia, @eala-captian, @kmomof4, @cherrywolf713, @ilovemesomekillianjones, @phiralovesloki, @deathbycaptainswan

[the-cryptographer]

yugi, outer space, a performance of hamlet

Thank you for the ask :DThis is for the meme I didn’t reblog – here. Given a character, a location, anda random plot point, I’m supposed to write out a plot.

Normally I’d probably do something really canon-based andlowkey, but your AU response to my ask made me want to think of a plotthat’s more wild. So the answer is DSoD modus operandi reversed, plus cheesy sci-fi.

Okay, Yuugi is a young trainee at a Space Station. He’s youngerthan his peers, small and frail, and not handling the physiological aspects ofouter space well.  He’s also notparticularly bookish or well-read compared to his peers – he kind of gamed thesystem somehow to land this position, and lacks a lot of the well-roundededucation that is common amongst those around him. He feels set apart from theothers, ignored and often pushed around or bullied into preforming unfavourabletasks or an unfair amount of grunt work. This suits Yuugi fine though, becausehe’s using his outcast status to remain under the radar, as he collects inteland manipulates resources, and plans to hijack a deep space pod. You see, hehas an older cousin that went missing during a deep space mission, Atem. AndYuugi intends to search him out.

Just as Yuugi is planning to spring his plan into action,the space station is visited by its lead designer, visionary, and the highestman on its chain of command – Seto Kaiba (and also his little brother, Mokuba).Yuugi recognises Seto, and not only in a professional capacity. Seto had somesort of past with Atem that is ambiguous to Yuugi, but he knows they weresometimes friends or otherwise were significant to one another. And Kaiba Corpused to be a military company three years ago, but when Seto took over hisfather’s company, he expanded into space travel and resource management, in away that correlated suspiciously with Atem’s disappearance. Yuugi thinks Seto mayhave built this space station in order to find possible search locations forAtem, either that or to keep them a secret. Yuugi attempts to remain optimisticand search out a possible ally, but Seto proves to be… Seto. He’s rude andcruel, and hits Yuugi with his briefcase. Yuugi, feeling hurt and rash, decidesto go ahead with his plan and take off with a space pod during Seto’s visit. Everythingis going right and wrong all at once. It’s unexpectedly revealed to Yuugi, thatthe space pod will have to be refuelled in unknown space territories in orderto make the hyperdrive leap back to Earth’s quadrant, but Yuugi decides,between now or never, now is a better choice. At the last minute, Seto attemptsto disrupt the pod dispatch though. Mokuba discovered through some careful techmonitoring what was going on, and alerted Seto, with the intention of Setodoing something to stop this that didn’t involve rashly confronting Yuugiface-to-face. There’s some kind of struggle in the pod, but Yuugi asks if Setodoesn’t want to go find Atem too. Seto freezes and, in that moment before hecan snap back at Yuugi that of course he doesn’t and mind your own fuckingbusiness, the pod hyperdrives out into deep space.

Deep space is dangerous and terrifying, for a number ofreasons. Seto proves to be a good hand to have on board, as he’s well trainedin all the practical factors in piloting the space pod. But Yuugi also has toshare the rations he packed only for himself with Seto, and he also must dealwith Seto’s terrible tempers in close quarters. Seto blames Yuugi completelyfor his current situation and badgers him relentlessly. It’s unclear to both ofthem whether they are searching for a way to get back to Earth or are searchingfor Atem. It’s a very oppressive environment, and they both feel it.

Eventually, though, Yuugi and Seto disembark on a planet withalien life. Outside of the confines of the space pod, and surrounded by an environmentand host of beings separate from just him and Seto, Yuugi feels emboldened.They cannot understand the aliens, but Yuugi feels confident that they can makethe aliens empathetic to their plight and recruit help. Seto disagrees. Itbecomes a very ideological argument. Yuugi says it’s in the nature of livingbeing to empathise, and there is a universal experience to needing help. Setosays empathy is not constant throughout living beings, and there is no singleuniversal experience. He cites a number of scientific papers, evidence, andarticles as proof, including Shakespearein the Bush. Yuugi says that even Seto, the most heartless person he knows,felt for him and Atem in a couple of quiet moments on the space pod. Seto harrumphsbut says no more. Eager to beat Seto at his own game, Yuugi takes up thechallenge and attempts to communicate with the aliens acting out a monologuefrom Hamlet. The aliens are freakingconfused and misunderstand everything, but are endeared to Yuugi’s heartfelt performanceanyhow. (In this way, Yuugi and Seto are both proven right.) They take Yuugiand Seto back to their settlement proper. Everyone eats, there’s a lot offutzing around, they eventually discover a way to communicate – through magicor tech probably. Jounouchi and Honda and Ryou are three of the aliens, andthey introduce themselves to Yuugi and Seto. Jou and Ryou both take animmediate shine to Yuugi. Yuugi and Seto end up having to help them with someproblem but, afterwards, they feel indebted and enamoured and decide to tagalong.

More places are visited. There is a planet with an Otogialien, a planet with three Ishtar aliens, and a planet with Mai and Anzu aliens.Anzu, for a split second, mistakes Yuugi for Atem, who she ran into before. It slowlycomes out that Atem saved her life very dramatically. She has some ideas ofwhere he might have gone, but she’s also not sure. She wants to find Atem too,as she secretly wonders if she’s fallen in love with him. Yuugi in themeanwhile, is kind of falling for Anzu.

The relationship between Seto and Yuugi is the heart of thestory though. Seto slowly reveals portions of his past, his fraughtrelationship with his father and lost stepbrother Noa. His current concern forMokuba. The way Atem barged into his life – helped him escape from theinfluence of Gouzaburou and defeated him at every contest both. He feelsconfused by the nebulous nature of his feelings for Atem, as well as his feelingsfor Yuugi and all the aliens he’s suddenly travelling with. And Seto’s interestin the space did develop because of Atem, but he could never decide whether ornot to pursue him into its depths. He also felt unsure how to handle Atem’scousin’s involvement in at the Kaiba Corp run space station. He was aware thatYuugi was hired, but didn’t know the details. Part of the reason he was so rudeand hit him with a briefcase at their first meeting was because he was startledby the resemblance and the resurgence of feeling.

But as Seto reveals these bits of information about himself,the more we recognise the gaps in Yuugi’s side of the story. First, Seto bringsup Yuugi’s disciplinary records from working at the space station. It’s nolonger clear if Yuugi was being treated substandardly by his coworkers, if hewas being ‘bullied’ as Yuugi interprets events. Later, it becomes clear thatAtem didn’t simply go missing during a deep space mission, he had some reasonfor escaping out into space and not coming back – it was a conscious choice onhis part. Furthermore, we realise Yuugi’s motives for going after Atem are notsimply fuelled by concern for his cousin (although that is part of it). Despiteall the optimistic talk, Yuugi believes himself to be uncharismatic andinsignificant and unlikeable outside the presence of his cousin. Atem seemed toopen doors for Yuugi when they were both together, without him Yuugi feelsisolated and incapable, and he blames Atem’s disappearance for the rift thatseems to exist between him and his schoolmates and coworkers.  He believes himself incapable of forming truefriendships with people on his own merits, despite all evidence to the contrarywith the growing hoard of aliens tagging along after him being fussy andprotective.

The story then transitions into discovering the secretbehind the mystery of why Atem left. And saving the universe from evil spaceZorc or something. What will Atem say when they finally find him? Is there aneleventh hour twist or reveal where Seto’s motivations are concerned? Willeveryone ever return to Earth? What about Mokuba – is he fighting againstPegasus’s corporate takeover plans back on Earth by himself? Will anyone kissanyone else? We just don’t know!!

The only thing I know for sure is that Seto’s the one thatgets to get really angry and give a heartfelt shouty speech about how Yuugi ischock full of bullshit and he can shut his mouth and start appreciating thefact that he’s important and has value separate from Atem because who elsesaved Seto from his apathy and dragged him out here into space, and inspiredall these dumb aliens to rally to the cause to boot. And everyone is quiet fora moment before Jounouchi tackle-hugs Seto and says that snooty-pants is finallyright about something and Yuugi better take those words to heart!

[yilinglaozuhot]

Sherlock and the Structure of Shakespearian Plays

While I was watching Hamlet the other day, an idea stuck in my head. Can we apply the structure of Shakespearian dramas to Sherlock? Hell yeah, we can.

Many apologies if there are metas about this exact theme around tumblr (and I’m sure there are some, I just happened not to find them) but I just have to put my thoughts into words. Maybe I can be a conductor of light, too, with my miserable attempt to make sense what’s happened in Sherlock.

So, anyway, enjoy my non-academic rambling about Sherlock, Shakespeare, and drama. 

Warning: it’s long!

Dramas are one of the most ancient kind of entertainment. The Greeks developed a so timeless genre of storytelling that it still has effects on today’s theatres, television and movies. Without them, we couldn’t have any of the above in the form that we know now. So, thank you, ancient Greeks for inventing drama! Kudos to you.

Traditionally, drama has two genres - comedy and tragedy. I don’t explain the differences between the two of them because they are pretty obvious for everybody. Shakespeare was the one who changed the structure and meaning of dramas. Originally, dramas contained three acts - beginning, middle and an end. But time goes by, and the structure had to evolve.

There isn’t a fine line in Shakespearian dramas between comedy and tragedy because he had a unique point of view what are the characteristics of the two genres. Usually, the audience found out what kind of drama they were watching by Act 5 because Shakespearian comedies aren’t about laughing (though there are many puns and different types of jokes in both genres). It’s the end which makes difference between Shakespeare’s dramas.

By the end of comedies love conquers all (yup, that was intended right here), the lovers finally can be together, and there is at least one marriage at the final scenes (in A Midsummer’s Night Dream there are four). Happy endings everywhere.

In tragedies, the opposite thing happen, of course. In Act 5, the shit hits the fan (sorry for the vulgarity but it’s true) and everything falls apart. Lovers are lost, families are in pieces, kingdoms are in ruins. No happy endings, just chaos and decay.

Shakespeare invented the Five Act dramas, and applied the structure to his plays. Here is the format of the Five Act drama structure, copied from this website because I’m a lazy ass and don’t want to dig after my old university notebooks.

Act 1: The Exposition Here, the audience learns the setting (Time/Place), characters are developed, and a conflict is introduced.

Act 2: Rising Action The action of this act leads the audience to the climax. It is common for complications to arise, or for the protagonist to encounter obstacles.

Act 3: The Climax This is the turning point of the play. The climax is characterized by the highest amount of suspense.

Act 4: Falling Action The opposite of Rising Action, in the Falling Action the story is coming to an end, and any unknown details or plot twists are revealed and wrapped up.

Act 5: Denouement or Resolution This is the final outcome of the drama. Here the authors tone about his or her subject matter is revealed, and sometimes a moral or lesson is learned. 

Sounds familiar? We can apply this Five Act structure to Sherlock. We just haven’t seen Act 5 as I stated in this post. And I’m sure I’ve read something very similar from somebody else but I can’t remember what from whom, so I’d be very pleased if somebody could figure out what I was thinking about.

Breaking the fourth wall, huh?

(For some kind of reason this picture reminds me of the drawing room play that was popular in which era? Yup, you guessed right, the Victorian era. But that is a whole new kind of topic.)

Act 1 = Series 1

The Exposition. The audience learns the setting - 2010, London -, and the characters are developed - Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Mrs Hudson, Molly Hooper, Mycrot Holmes etc. “A conflict is introduced.” We have very layered conflicts here between the characters, and also we get hints throughout the whole series for the main conflict that Jim Moriarty brings upon the heads of our main characters. It’s beautifully introduced in ASiP: 

JW: “What’s Moriarty?” SH: “I’ve absolutely no idea.”)

 and revealed in TGG :

“Jim Moriarty. Hi.”

 It’s a well-planned arc to reveal the mystery of Moriarty that works fantastically in S1. The main conflict is introduced for the rest of the play: “I will burn the heart out of you.” But Sherlock is informed that he hasn’t got a heart, so Moriarty has to show him that he definitely has one before he burns it out.

Act 2 = Series 2

Rising Action. Finally, we get to know Moriarty in TGG, and this knowledge arcs through S2. In this Act, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson have to go through many obstacles like The Woman and the Hound. They have to fight with their emotions and develop in character to finally reach the climax of the whole play, The Reichenbach Fall. The conflict (the heart-burning stuff) is fully developed by TRF, and Moriarty makes his first attempt to burn the heart out of Sherlock by ruining his reputation, separating him from the world he knows and the people he cares about. In this series Sherlock learns that he has a heart that can be burnt out of him. We can clearly see how it’s shattering and breaking during the progress of TRF. The first time we can witness is when he confronts John that Moriarty wants the world to believe him as a fraud. But John is still loyal to him even then, and doesn’t believe that Sherlock’s a fake genius. On the rooftop of Bart’s, Sherlock’s heart finally breaks when he calls John to leave a note and I think this is the point he realises that he’s always had a heart. But he doesn’t accept it at this point in the story.

Act 3 = Series 3 + TAB

The Climax. S3 is the turning point of the whole Five Act play. After 2 years of exile, Sherlock Holmes finally returns to London and reveals to John that he’s not dead. Little did he know that John has got on with his life while he was away and wants to get married. A new important character is introduced, Mary Morstan. She is a new obstacle between our two main characters while they try to mend their friendship. John forgives Sherlock, and Sherlock accepts that John has a life that doesn’t entirely depend on him. They come to terms with this new situation though it’s hurtful for both of them. The cracks are there though they try hard to repair them. Meanwhile, Sherlock’s heart breaks some more beacuse of this new situation. This metaphor becomes more obvious when it turns out that Mary is an assassin and shots Sherlock in the chest. Three times. Once in reality, twice in Sherlock’s Mind Palace. We’re introduced to the structure of MP and the theory of Extended Mind Palace (EMP) on which you can read excellent metas from various writers like @the-7-percent-solution, @inevitably-johnlocked, @gosherlocked and many more. If you’re interested in the idea, go and read something from them.

(Honestly, I like being sceptic and questioning everything but as I’m writing this shitton of rambling, EMP theory starts making more and more sense.)

I add TAB as an extension to S3 because in my opinion it’s more connected to the events of S3 than S4. By the end of it we are back at tarmac hell. Sort of. The whole episode takes place in Sherlock’s head. It’s a play within a play. Sounds familiar? We see this device e.g. in Hamlet. Hamlet sets up a play in which the actors reenact the murder of Hamlet’s father in order to unveile Claudius’ guiltiness. Sherlock sets up a whole story in which he tries to figure out if Moriarty is dead or alive. We get a clue from Jim (who is a hallucianation within a hallucination) that 

“[...] it’s never the fall that kills you, Sherlock. [...] It’s never the fall. It’s the landing.” 

And Sherlock, after  he comes back (or does he?) from his Mind Palace to reality, gets to the conclusion that 

“Moriarty is dead, no question. But more importantly, I know exactly what he's going to do next.”

But in the final scene we are back in 1895, Holmes staring through the window of 221B, and slowly the modern day Baker Street starts to leak through the Victorian setting.

Keep in mind this play within a play device because it’s getting rather fun at this point. 

Act 4 = Series 4

Falling Action. S4 begins lightheartedly but it soon turns pretty dark. It’s a series of consequences and the cracks on the relationships between characters become rifts, everybody’s hearts are broken. The audience feels some things are beyond help, the end is coming and “more unknown details and plot twists are revealed.” Hello, Eurus and Redbeard! And after all the shit Sherlock and John have to go through, they all go back to Baker Street, repair their home and their hearts (it’s such a beautiful metaphor, I’m crying). Finally, Sherlock accepts his heart and learns to live with it. 

And they live happily ever after...

Or do they? What is exactly the description of Act 4? “The opposite of Rising Action, in the Falling Action the story is coming to an end, and any unknown details or plot twists are revealed and wrapped up.” Mofftiss created a textbook Act 4 in S4. In the very surface the audience feels it’s really the end, our heroes got their happy endings, and there is also a kind of wrapping up in the plot as we learn details about Sherlock’s past. BUT! But, by the end of S4 we have more questions than before which suggests it really isn’t the end (I don’t want to start listing the fuckery here because we all know that). 

But I have one question that is bigger than every other question. How did exactly Moriarty burn the heart out of Sherlock? Because I’ve already seen heartbreak, loss and pain, but all these events led Sherlock to learn the advantages of having a heart, and accepting it.

Oh, and have you ever read A Midsummer’s Night Dream? And do you remember Puck suggesting the audience that it all might have been a dream, breaking the fourth wall and questioning reality? 

If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend: if you pardon, we will mend: And, as I am an honest Puck, If we have unearned luck Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue, We will make amends ere long; Else the Puck a liar call; So, good night unto you all.   

We, the audience also question the reality of S4, and we have our own Puck... MOFFTISS. They literally tell us they lie and lie and lie and don’t believe a single word they say! So, at least they are honest about lying! Like, are they even real? Those nerds...

Throughout the whole of S4, we get parallels between TAB and S4, and here is a fantastic gifset by @afishlearningpoetry that sums up all the parallels, and gives the feeling that we are all in a well-planned play. The Victorian dream starts to leak into modern days, leading us back to the end of TAB. I think Sherlock didn’t wake up from TAB, and he’s still in his MP, and the different layers he’s built up are leaking into each other.

So, I have a general feeling that S3 and S4 are more tied together than I thought before I started to write this comparison. If I wanted to go further, and why the hell wouldn’t I? I would say we've seen a play within a play within a play in these 4 series. Let me explain.

We have 4 series/4 acts, that’s our “eggshell” play that contains the other plays. Within that “eggshell”, there’s another play, TAB that begins in HLV when Sherlock’s got shot. Within TAB, there’s Series 4. BOOM! Sherlockception.

“You’re too deep, Sherlock.” The water is too deep. It’s time to wake up. Moriarty has finally a heart to burn out.

Act 5 = Series 5 

Denounement or Resolution is yet to come. But will we be watching a tragedy or a comedy? I bet my money on tragedy.

As I was writing this thing I started to think that each series can be considered as 3 Act plays, and I stumbled upon this fantastic meta by @futureofthemasses, explaining all my thoughts and beyond.

Also, there are a lot of foreshadowing throughout S3 and S4 which lead us to the conclusion that Sherlock is a Five Act play. Of course, the writers couldn’t introduce us too soon to the concept because  they like keeping secrets but they also like foreshadowing and planning sub-texts into their scripts.

“You are not a puzzle solver, you never have been. You’re a drama queen.” - John Watson, TSoT

“I never could resist a touch of drama.” - Sherlock Holmes, HLV

“The stage is set, the curtain rises. We are ready to begin.” - Sherlock Holmes, TAB

“Pure reason toppled by sheer melodrama. Your life in a nutshell.” - Mycroft Holmes, TAB

“Sorry! I can never resist a gong. Or a touch of the dramatic.” - Sherlock Holmes, TAB

“The perfect stage for a perfect drama.” - Sherlock Holmes, TAB

“The sound of breaking glass - not a window. Just an old theatrical trick.” - Sherlock Holmes, TAB

“The setting is a shade melodramatic, don't you think?” - Sherlock Holmes, TAB

“Nice location for the final act, couldn't have chosen it better myself.” - Sherlock Holmes, TST. And hullo, parallel to the quote above?

“By the pricking of my thumbs” - Sherlock Holmes, TST (quoted from William Shakespeare - Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 2)

“Once more unto the breach...” - Sherlock Holmes, TLD (quoted from William Shakespeare - Henry V, Act 3, Scene I)

+1 The skull fuckery explained by @mrboddydidit, and it has to be Shakespeare. Of course.

And if you liked this comparison, then...

@justwolfiethings @sofini and @holmesianscholar??? 

idk, don’t take it seriously

Anyway, it was good to get it out of me. I’ll just put this potato out there and wait what will happen...