#it's funny what US newspapers take notice of in Canada

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

lol oh Toronto, once again being a shining star in international news

[spine-buster]

Alone, Together | Chapter 18 | Morgan Rielly

A/N:  These next two chapters are what I consider “The Vancouver Chapters”, so enjoy!  And yes, the BizNasty Does B.C definitely inspired this.

Bee had never been on a plane before, let alone business class.  She knew what planes looked like inside – she wasn’t stupid – but she was shocked to see where they were sitting: nice, plush, individual seats with a footrest, tables, big screens, and even a shelf up against the plane wall.  Morgan made sure they got window seats, because he knew she’d be taking pictures out of the window, especially as they flew over the Rockies.  The flight was just under five hours, so she had a lot of time to get as many pictures as she wanted.  

Bee put most things in her checked luggage, so she really only had to bring her tote bag on the plane.  As she settled into her seat, she automatically opened the window covering and looked out onto the concrete of the Toronto airport runway.  Morgan settled into his seat behind her, leaning in so he could get close.  “You okay, bumblebee?”

She glanced behind her.  “These are really nice.”

“I know.”

“Do you always fly like this?”

“Pretty much,” he admitted.  “I’m a big boy.  I need my space.”

He was built like a fridge so she figured as much.  She also figured they’d be flying back to Toronto the same way.  She obviously had to admit this was nice.  She thought they’d be squeezed together like sardines in economy…not that she would have minded being squeezed next to Morgan.  She’d even prepared for that – she brought a book, Richard Llewellyn’s How Green Was My Valley, headphones, some Gravol (she didn’t know if she got sick on planes, for obvious reasons), some gum for when her ears popped.  She even bought snacks once they passed security.  She’d researched what she would need.  Morgan didn’t bring anything besides a neck pillow and headphones.  She knew he was used to the journey.  He probably knew the exact moment the plane would start to descend into Vancouver.

She also knew that he would want to sleep, but she didn’t know if she would be able to.  She knew it was probably dumb, but she had never been on a plane before and she wanted to remember the experience: the turbulence, the take off, the landing, hell even the airplane food.  It was an early morning flight, still only 6:30am as they boarded, the plane taking off at 7:30.  They’d be arriving at 9:30am Vancouver time if all went well.  His parents would be picking them up from the airport.

Bee wasn’t nervous about meeting his parents.  From what Morgan had told her about them, they seemed to be amazing people, genuinely nice and caring – they had to be if they raised Morgan.  She wasn’t nervous about meeting his brother, either, because Morgan told her so much about him and about his work on all the different movie sets in Vancouver and how cool it all was.  God, and then there’d be Maggie – Morgan’s original girl – wagging her tail and slobbering her with kisses…

She was excited more than she was nervous.  

“Go Leafs go,” a passenger said quickly as he made his way through the aisle, hauling a giant backpack in front of him.  Bee whipped her head around to look at him.  He was in his mid-twenties, light brown hair with a hoodie and track pants on.  She watched as Morgan gave him a tight-lipped smile and a slight nod of the head.  “Shoulda been named an All-Star, Mo.  You’re the best defenseman in the league right now.”

Bee smiled.  Morgan was way too humble to take the comment seriously, even though she knew – and probably everybody on this plane knew – that the guy was right.  Morgan chuckled slightly at his comment.  “Yeah, but at least I get to spend a week at home now,” he said.

“Those videos the boys made for you were funny as shit,” he added, noticing the line in front of him was moving.  “You should be our next captain, bud.  You’re the fucking man.”

Morgan smiled politely.  Bee smiled too, wiggling her eyebrows.  “Thanks bud,” Morgan nodded his head one more time before the guy moved forward, disappearing into economy class.  Morgan leaned forward once he was gone.  “You still need to help me kill the boys after they released those videos.”

“I could never kill them for saying the truth,” she turned away from him dramatically, lying down in her seat just because she could.  

***

Bee knew immediately who Morgan’s parents were because of their waving arms.  Nobody else in the arrivals section looked as excited as they did early in the morning.  His dad towered over his mom – she knew where he got his height from now – and his mom did a little jump of excitement when she saw them.  They followed as she and Morgan walked to their left down the ramp, lugging their suitcases behind them.

When they finally met, Morgan gave his parents big, warm hugs.  His mom rocked him from side to side for a few moments before finally letting go.  Morgan turned his attention to his dad, and Shirley turned her attention to Bee.  “Briony!  It’s so nice to finally meet you!” she exclaimed.

“It’s so nice to meet you too Mrs. Rielly,” Bee smiled.

“No no, you call me Shirley,” she said, extending her arms and giving Bee a strong, warm hug like she just did to Morgan.  

When they let go, Bee focused her attention to Morgan’s dad.  “Mr. --”

“It’s Andy,” he said, giving her a quick hug.  “It’s very nice to meet you Briony.  Is this your first time in Vancouver?”

“Yes!  It’s actually my first time out of Ontario,” Bee said nervously.  

“Well, Vancouver is the perfect city for first-time travellers!” Andy replied.  He turned his attention back to his son.  “Did you guys eat on the plane?  We can go have breakfast.”

“No no, we had something.”

“Alright,” Andy smiled.  “Then let’s go into the city.”

Everybody loaded themselves into the family SUV and Andy drove through the streets of Vancouver while Bee sat in the backseat, head practically out the window as she took in the scenery around her.  She felt a bit stupid taking out her phone to take pictures, but at one point, some mountains appeared in the background, and she couldn’t help but start snapping.  She’d Googled pictures of Vancouver so she’d know what it looked like, but actually being here and seeing everything was totally different.  It was a beautiful, sunny day outside despite it being winter, and the crisp morning air just made everything more beautiful.  

Andy eventually drove to a place called Kitsilano Beach, where he parked the car on a residential street before they began walking.  Even though it was the middle of January, people were still out jogging, playing with their dogs, and Bee even thought she saw one person doing yoga.  They walked along the pavement path, before the beach, the beautiful mountains rising in the distance.  Even some sailboats were already out on the water.  It was all so picturesque, and Bee was sure she was being annoying with how many pictures she was taking.  

“Briony, Morgan tells us you’ve been studying for your Master’s in Financial Economics,” Andy said as she finished another round of photos of the coast, smiling at her as she put her phone back in her purse.

“Oh, yeah,” she nodded.  “I’m finished now though.  Just got the paperwork about a week ago that I’ve passed everything and I’m officially graduating in June.”

“Heeeeey!  Congratulations!” he said excitedly.  “And now?”

“Now I’ve gotta get a job,” she joked.  “I actually have an interview at Scotiabank the Monday we get back.  I’m hoping something comes from it.”

“That’s fantastic, Briony!”

“She graduated with a 3.8 GPA!” Morgan chirped in from behind them where he was standing with Shirley.  “Straight A’s across the board!”

“Hey, can you teach Morgan some things?” Shirley laughed.  

“He’s been learning!” Bee said earnestly.  Shirley whipped her head towards her son in shock.  Andy let out a loud ‘What?!’, causing Bee to laugh.  “It’s true!  He pulled out ‘Keynesian economics’ once during conversation, and now he’s got all the newspaper apps on his phone and will bring up Bank of Canada interest rates.”

“My son, Morgan Frederick Rielly, is bringing up interest rates and Keynesian economics?  Whoa ho ho,” Andy shook his head.

“Can you maybe not embarrass me in front of my parents?” Morgan asked, hands on his hips.

“What’s embarrassing?  It’s cute!” Bee giggled.  

“It’s super cute!” his mom stressed.  “God, trying to get you to watch the news when you were younger was a struggle.  Now she’s saying you have their apps on your phone?  That’s growth, dear.”

As the four continued to walk along the path and joke around, learning more and more about one another, the beach stopped and they walked through a path of trees that obscured their view for a while.  When they emerged, Bee was shocked to see the Vancouver skyline stretched out before her in the distance, the mountains rising behind the tall condo buildings.

“Oh wow!” she exclaimed, walking past the Elsji Point sign to the edge of the Kitsilano Seawall.  She heard the waves crash up against the rocks and stepped on them, trying to get as close to the edge as possible.  “How cool is that?!” she shouted to no-one in particular.

“You like what you see, Briony?” Shirley laughed.  

Bee looked back to see Morgan following behind her, balancing himself on the jagged rocks.  “It’s beautiful!” she called out to his parents, focusing her attention back on the skyline.  She felt Morgan’s fingers tickle the small of her back before he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, standing next to her on the rocks, looking out at the skyline.  “What a view!” she said, smiling from ear to ear as she looked up at him momentarily.  

“I agree,” he smiled, not caring about the skyline.  

***

Neither Morgan nor Bee truly minded that the rest of the day was spent with his parents.  They had taken an immediate liking to Bee, and after taking pictures together at the Kitsilano Seawall, they drove to Yaletown to have lunch before getting back in their car to drive home.  Sometime during the drive, they crossed the Lion’s Gate Bridge into North Vancouver.  The streets became leafier and more tree-lined, tall glass condo buildings making way for large single-family lots hidden by trees or built into cliffs and hills along the coast.  

When Andy pulled in to what Bee could only assume to be their house, she was taken aback by the prettiness of it, and of course the size.  It was huge, bigger than what she was used to of course, with huge windows and a landscaped front yard with giant pots of flowers framing the front door.  Bee felt like she was looking at a castle.  Chateau Rielly.  This is where Morgan grew up.  This is where he’d wake up early for hockey practice and lug his giant bag out to the car.  This is where he’d play in the streets with his brother and friends before getting called in for dinner.  This is where he moved out of, at only fourteen years old, to pursue his hockey dream.  

When Bee stepped inside the house, she was again taken aback at how it truly felt like a home.  Nothing she had ever lived in had felt this warm and inviting.  Right in the entryway, there were framed pictures of artwork Morgan and his brother Connor drew when they were young; weirdly shaped people with a house and a dog.  Morgan had drawn mountains in his while Connor drew a huge sun.  

“Figured you two might want to relax a bit before dinner,” Andy said as he slipped out of his shoes.  “It’s already been a long day.”

A loud bark interrupted everyone, and Maggie came zooming around the corner, running straight towards Morgan.  He bent down immediately and she practically jumped into him, slobbering his face with kisses.  Her tail was wagging so quickly and so excitedly that it was banging against the floor and the wall.  

“Hi baby girl!  Hi!  Hello!  Hello!” Morgan began cooing at her, scratching at her ears and letting her lick his face.  “Hi Maggie girl!  I’m home!  Yes!  I’m home!  Are you happy Maggie?  You happy to see me Maggie?”  Maggie barked in pure elation, even whimpering a few times as she kept jumping up on him.

“Oh, the love fest begins,” Shirley smiled, shaking her head at the sight before her.  “Sorry Briony, he’s going to smell like dog breath for the rest of the night.”

“Maggie loves me and I love my Maggie girl,” Morgan quipped as Maggie continued to lick at his face.  “Maggie, go meet Briony!  Who’s that?”

Maggie’s attention focused on Bee, and she waddled over to her at Morgan’s command and began sniffing her.  Bee didn’t have much experience with dogs besides Sarah Jessica Barker, and even then, Sarah Jessica Barker was a small dog.  Maggie was huge.  Bee stuck out her hand for Maggie to smell, and it only took a couple of sniffs for Maggie to start licking her.  “Hi Maggie.  Hi beautiful girl,” she said, kneeing in front of her to give her some more pets.  Maggie got excited at that and gave Bee’s face a giant lick, causing her to squeal.  

“Oh great!  Now they’ll both smell like dog breath,” Andy rolled his eyes playfully.  “Mo, come on.  Go bring the suitcases upstairs and then come out and see the new deck.”

Morgan left Maggie unwillingly, grabbing both his and Bee’s small suitcases in both hands before climbing the stairs quickly.  Bee and Shirley followed close behind, with Maggie following Andy outside to the backyard.  Once they were all at the top of the stairs, Shirley and Bee took the suitcases from him before he went back downstairs and outside with his dad.  

“You’re in here sweetie,” Shirley said, leading her down the hallway.  She opened the door to the spare room, all done up for Bee’s visit.  There were a bunch of pillows on the bed with a really cozy looking comforter.  Bee noticed a door leading to an ensuite bathroom and another further down the wall, probably a closet.  

She took her suitcase from Shirley, hauling it onto the bed as Shirley walked over to the window to open the blinds, revealing an absolutely stunning view of a rocky cliff and trees, and even a sliver of the ocean.  God, was there anywhere that wasn’t beautiful here?  “Thank you for letting me stay in your home,” Bee said to her.

“Oh, there’s no need to thank me, sweetheart,” Shirley smiled.  “It’s not like we’d let you stay at a hotel when we have extra room.  You have your own washroom right through that door, and Morgan is just in the room beside you in case you need anything at night,” she explained.  

“I almost insisted on it to Morgan,” Bee tried to joke.  “He wouldn’t hear any of it.”

“Then I taught my son well,” Shirley winked, walking over to the bed to start fluffing the pillows, as if they needed any more fluffing.

“I didn’t want you to feel like I was intruding on your time and space,” Bee explained.  “Um, I’m sure Morgan told you about me a little bit, and how I’m not used to all this stuff.”

Shirley stopped fluffing the pillow, placing it down on the bed before giving Bee a concerned look.  “He did, but only because I pried it out of him, like any mom would when he son tells her he has a new girlfriend,” she said.  “Which is all the more reason why you should stay here, in a family home, rather than some stuffy hotel.”

Bee nodded her head.  “Um, I know this might be a bit forward of me, but we can talk about it if you want.  I’m sure Morgan’s told you about that too…how upfront I am about it,” she half laughed.  “I’m not that sensitive about it.  I told Morgan the second time we hung out.”

“Honey, I’m not going to force you to talk about anything.  I’m just…” Shirley couldn’t find the right words.  She sat down on the bed and pat the seat beside her, so Bee joined her.  “I just want to make you feel as comfortable as possible while you’re here.  I know how much my son adores you and how much he cares about you.  And quite frankly, he’d probably kill me right now if he knew we were having this conversation,” she pulled a face, causing Bee to laugh slightly.  “I know your mom had her…troubles, and her addictions, and I know she wasn’t the best mother to you.  But Morgan told me how you worked yourself out of that life, and I know this isn’t much coming from me, but I’m very proud of you.”

Bee felt like crying at her words.  Besides Clarette telling her the same thing, she’d never heard a maternal figure say those words to her.  I’m proud of you.  It was the warmest feeling in the world; the best arrangement of four words Bee could hear from someone.  “It actually does mean a lot coming from you,” she said quietly.  “Morgan has told me a lot about you too.  How educated you are and how you started your own medical company.  He loves you guys so much.  Like I can tell…I can tell he wants to talk about you guys all the time, but he kinda holds back a bit, because he knows I don’t have those same experiences, with parents and a sibling and a dog, so he doesn’t want to make me feel uncomfortable.  But I like hearing that sort of stuff.”

“Morgan is a gentle soul,” Shirley nodded her head.  “A bit rare for a hockey player, but he is.  I remember…oh gosh, he’s going to kill me…” she shook her head quickly, “but I remember when he was a toddler and he grasped the idea of happiness – you know, how things can be happy and sad.  And when he did, all he used to ask was ‘Mamma happy?’  ‘Daddy happy?’ ‘Connor happy?’ ‘Plant happy?’ ‘Chair happy?’  He was always making sure everybody and everything around him was happy.  And if they weren’t, he’d work to make them happy again.  That’s never gone away with him.  It’s something that he’s kept all these years later.”

Bee couldn’t help but smile at what Shirley was telling her.  It was true.  Morgan was very in-tune with people’s emotions.  If one of his teammates was upset or stressed, he’d talk it out with them, lend them a listening ear, and try to make them feel better.  He did the same with her.  Always.  It was crazy how, even as a toddler, he had the same qualities.  “He’s definitely still kept that up,” Bee smiled.  

Shirley placed her hand on Bee’s forearm, giving her a warm smile.  “I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable here, ever.  You are not a guest here.  If you’re every hungry or thirsty, just walk to the fridge and get what you want.  Fall asleep on the couch,” she said, being interrupted suddenly by Maggie’s bark, signalling Morgan and Andy were back in the house.  “You’re a gentle soul too, Briony.  Regardless of what happened in your past, and regardless of the tough exterior you may have had to put on to survive in this world alone.  Inside, you’re a gentle soul.  That’s why my son adores you.  Gentle souls stick together.”

Morgan’s loud footsteps pounding up the stairs prevented Bee from bursting into tears right then and there.  When he appeared in the doorway, he was greeted with Shirley rearranging a picture frame on the armoire and Bee sitting on the bed, looking out the window.  “Everything good?” he asked, taking in the scene of his mother and his girlfriend.

“Just admiring the view,” Bee pointed to the window, which faced out into the backyard, holding in her tears.  

***

“Baby…baby…Bumblebee…Bumblebee…”

Bee thought she heard a voice, but she had been in such a deep sleep, she wondered if it was just a dream.  She opened her eyes, barely, to see a figure standing over her.  “M…Mo?”

“Baby, get up,” he shook her gently.

“What?”

“Get up.  We gotta go.”

“We gotta go?  Where?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“What?!”

“We gotta go somewhere, but it’s a surprise.”

“Is this some sort of sick joke?” she looked over at the alarm clock on the bedside table.  “It’s 4:30 in the morning, Mo.”

“I know.  But you need to trust me.”

She leaned up in bed, looked over to her window to see darkness outside.  “Is the sun even out yet?”

“No.  But that’s the best part.  Come on.  Wash your face and let’s go,” he said excitedly as he left the room.  She could see Maggie in the doorway waiting excitedly before she followed Morgan out of the room.  

She got out of bed and quickly washed her face and brushed her teeth.  She brushed through her hair quickly and put on a hoodie and a pair of jeans, wondering to herself how cold it was outside, since it was still in the middle of the fucking night.  She emerged from her room to see Morgan pouring coffee into two canisters, a cool bag seemingly already packed with Tupperware.  Maggie was waiting patiently at Morgan’s feet, her tongue dangling out and something strapped to her body.  

Bee rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn’t seeing things.  “Am I hallucinating or is Maggie in a lifejacket?” she asked.

Morgan glanced behind his shoulder to smile at her, and smile down at Maggie.  “Yes, she’s in a lifejacket.”

“Is that a shark fin on top?”

“Mhm,” he nodded his head as he closed the coffee canisters.  “She’s not only the queen on land, she’s the queen of the ocean too.”

“Where are we going?” she tried to ask one more time as she watched him fling the cool bag over his shoulder.

“It’s a surprise,” he winked, handing her coffee.  “Now let’s go.”

He guided her through his parents’ backyard, and even through his neighbour’s backyard with a flashlight, down a path of rocks used as steps carved into the edge of the coast until they got to a dock.  Maggie followed close behind them, trotting her way down to the bottom.  There, a boathouse sat housing two compartments.  She could only assume one belonged to his family.  “Are you taking me out on a boat?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Morgan said, holding her hand as she manoeuvred by a few shaky rocks.   “You don’t get boat sick, do you?”

“I have no clue.  Are we allowed?”

“Why wouldn’t we be?” he smiled at her.  “C’mon, let me help you in.”

She grabbed his hand and he provided support as she stepped into the boat from the dock.  He gave her his coffee canister and the cool bag to store before bending at the knees to pick up Maggie in his arms and put her on the boat as well.  When he climbed in, he gave Bee a quick kiss before doing what he needed to do to prep the boat to take it out.  Once he turned the motor on, Maggie barked excitedly and he started driving it along the water.  

He drove the boat through the Strait of Georgia, in between Keats, Gambier, and Bowen Islands, as if he was taking it to Gibsons – a regular summer activity.  The scenery was more beautiful than Bee could have ever imagined, even better than the pictures she had Googled to get a better understanding of what Morgan grew up surrounded with.  The mountains looked like they appeared straight from the water as a light fog lay on their tops, creating a haze to go with the slow-coming sunrise that illuminated the scenery for her.  The deep blue of the ocean mixed with the deep hues of the mountains was breathtaking.  The sound of the water, so calm and so serene as it hit the side of the boat, provided the perfect background music to the scenery before her.  

She was a city girl through and through.  Born and raised in Toronto, a product of the concrete and streets she called home.  But out here, on the boat, with mountains before her and the natural scenery of the Sunshine Coast surrounding her, Bee couldn’t think of a better morning.

Morgan eventually stopped the boat, turning the engine off as he took out a blanket and brought it with him to the seat on the back of the boat where Bee was sitting.  He sat next to her, unfolding the blanket and laying it across them.  Maggie came trotting towards them, still with her shark fin lifejacket on, and lay down at Morgan’s feet.

“Are we just gonna watch the sunrise?” she asked as she snuggled into him.

He wrapped an arm around her and clasped her hand that was lying on his chest.  He brought it up quickly to his lips and kissed it.  “That’s exactly what we’re gonna do,” he whispered.

And they did.  For at least two whole hours, they sat in the boat, attached to each other, and watched the sun rise over the mountains and illuminate everything in its sight.  It made the waves look like a sea of diamonds.  It made the mountains giants among their miniscule existence in the boat.  It made Morgan’s blue eyes shine like sapphires every time she looked up at them and kissed him.  It made her believe there was nothing better than this; there was nothing better than being cuddled next to Morgan, on a boat in the middle of the Georgia Strait, watching the sunrise over the West Coast.

Despite Morgan not wanting the morning to end, he knew that they’d eventually have to get back to his parents’ house for breakfast.  He didn’t want to, though.  He could have stayed out here for the rest of the day.  He could have stayed out here forever.  He could have forgotten about every other worry he had and just live on the boat with Bee and Maggie.  But he knew his parents wanted to spend more time with her before their day in Victoria with their friends, and he didn’t want to deny them getting to know her.  

Suddenly, a small explosion came up from the water.  Water sprung up from something beneath the water, and Bee yelped slightly in fear.  “What was that?”

Morgan paused, a small smile appearing on his face.  He waited patiently for another to happen, and when it did, he smiled even more.  “It’s a pod of whales.”

“It’s a what?!” Bee demanded, suddenly getting scared.  “Oh my God, are they – are they gonna capsize the boat?!”

“No no no, we’ll be fine,” Morgan said.  “They’re peaceful.  This isn’t Moby Dick.”  He walked back to the steering wheel of the boat and turned on the engine.

“Excuse me?  What do you think you’re doing?” she asked as another whale sprayed water from their blowhole.  

“We’ve gotta follow the pod, Bee.”

“Are you nuts?”

“Bee, do you know how rare it is to be this close to a pod?  At this time of year?  We have to!”

“Morgan, we’re going to die.”

She was such a city girl.  He just laughed as he adjusted the motor on the lowest setting, just enough to get the boat moving to follow the whales but not loud enough to scare them in any way.  “Bumblebee, it’s going to be magic.  Don’t worry, we’ll be safe.  My dad and I have done this a lot.”

They began following the pod slowly, Bee looking over the edge of the boat to see if she could see the figures of the whales under the water.  She couldn’t – she figured they were too far away – but then another whale sprayed more water from its blowhole not too far from them and she saw some of it come out of the water.  She gasped at the sight.  “Morgan!  It came up a little!” she called out.

Another whale, seemingly right beside the other one, did the same thing, except its tail fin came up too.  Bee gasped again and she kept muttering ‘Oh my God’ over and over to herself.  After a few minutes and more tails coming up from the water, Bee couldn’t believe what she was seeing.  She looked at Morgan.  “What kind of whales are they?” she asked.

“By the tail, they look like humpbacks,” he said, noticing another blowing of water out in the distance.  They were becoming more frequent now, and he knew what that meant.  He stopped the boat, killed the engine, and went over to Bee, who was still looking over the edge.  “Bee, look out into the distance.  They’re gonna breach.”

“What’s that mean?”

“They’re gonna jump.  All of them.”  He wrapped his arms around her, standing behind her so her back was flush with his chest, and leaned his head gently on top of hers.  He waited patiently, a few more blows of water and some tail fins coming up.

Then the magic happened.  Against the backdrop of the sunrise and the mountains in the distance, the humpback whales began to breach.  One after another, their bodies jumped out of the water, splashing down in a heap.  It was like they were putting on a show for her as they kept breaching, moving across the water but going further into the distance.  They were the only ones out, the only ones witnessing this beautiful, natural display.  Bee screamed and jumped out of Morgan’s arms in pure jubilation as she watched, bending over in shock and bringing her hands up to cover her mouth, almost cackling at what she was witnessing.  More screaming of ‘Oh my God!’ every time one breached, huge gasps at the size of them, pure shock and wonder and elation and euphoria spreading through her veins.  Never, never in a million years did she think she’d be able to witness something so beautiful and ethereal.   

When their activity died down, and they were getting too far to truly see, she looked back at Morgan, her jaw on the floor at what she had just witnessed.  He had a giant smile on his face too, so incredibly happy that she was able to see them.  She walked slowly into his outstretched arms, her hands still over her mouth in shock.  He wrapped his arms around her again tightly, placing a quick kiss on the crown of her head.  

“That was…” she began, but she couldn’t find the right words to truly express what she was feeling.  She’d never done drugs before, but this is what she imagined it was like to feel high.  

“See?  And you thought they’d capsize the boat,” he joked.

“I can’t believe I just saw that.  I…” she trailed off, again unable to truly find the right words.  “Morgan, that was incredible.”

“I know.  It’s magic.”

“Oh my God.  Oh my God.  And you’ve seen that more than once?” she asked.

He nodded his head.  “Quite a few times, actually.”

“God, Morgan.  You’re so lucky.”

Her tone brought him back down to earth a bit; made him truly realize that yes, he was lucky to have been able to witness something like that more than once.  He realized that for someone who had grown up in the city, all concrete and skyscrapers and university buildings, what she just saw really was magic; a reminder of the natural world that still existed, that would still exist after that concrete, those skyscrapers, those university buildings were all gone.  There would always be the ocean.  There would always be nature.

There would always be magic.

***

The sound of Morgan’s scream and splash in the pool was sure to upset the neighbours.  After cooking (read: barbequing) Bee dinner all by himself, he had convinced Bee to take a late night dip in the pool as the sun set on the West Coast.  She didn’t know how to swim, but that didn’t matter to him.  It wasn’t about the swimming.  His parents were spending the night at their friend’s house in Victoria on Vancouver Island, so they had the whole house to themselves.  

He had changed into his bathing suit quickly – an old one he’d found in a drawer in his bedroom that was a bit too small now, but whatever – and met Bee outside before he made a run for it and dove into the pool.  He’d already adjusted the pool temperature so it was a bit warmer.  He thanked God his parents hadn’t winterized it this year because his mom wanted to practice water aerobics and Maggie would swim to get exercise to lose weight (the vet was wrong, Morgan thought – Maggie was a chunky girl but she was a good girl and didn’t need to lose any weight if she didn’t want to).  

He watched as Bee followed close behind him, her comfy bathrobe still on, concealing her body.  She looked back nervously into the house as she watched him swim around.  “You…your parents aren’t home, right?”

“Bee, we drove them to the ferry this morning.”

“And like, we know for sure that they got on the boat?” she asked, fidgeting with the tie on the robe before looking back into the house.

“Can you stop being so paranoid,” he deadpanned.  “They’re gone.  It’s just you and me, baby.  And Maggie.  But she’s sleeping on her bed because it’s past her bedtime.”

“That fact that your dog has a bedtime really says something, you know.”

Morgan watched as Bee disrobed slowly, and he couldn’t help the giant smile that appeared on his face when she dropped it to the floor, leaving her in her one-piece swimsuit.  It was a black deep V-neck, a majority of it the solid colour while a part of it was striped.  It wasn’t high cut at the hips or deeply revealing in any way, but Bee filled it out so well.  As she bent over to fold the robe haphazardly on the deck chair, he saw the material ride up.  He put his fingers between his lips and whistled loudly.

“Can you not?” she gave him a look, somewhere between amused and annoyed.  “You might wake up your neighbours.”

He rolled his eyes.  “Can you get in here?”

She left her robe alone, walking gingerly towards the pool.  She’d never learned how to swim before, and although the pool wasn’t that big, she was still nervous.  She stood at the edge, watching Morgan as he tread water.  That meant he was in the deep end.  “Can you go into the more shallow water,” she requested nervously.

He did as he was told, moving towards the more shallow part.  He watched as she moved with him.  He brought his arms up, beckoning her in.  “C’mere,” he said.

“Morgan…don’t let go,” she said nervously.  “I mean it.  I don’t know how to swim at all.”

“I won’t, I won’t,” he said, licking his lips as she bent down and sat on the edge of the pool.  “You just gonna wiggle in?” he asked.

“I guess?  Should I do something different?” she worried.

“No no, that’s fine.”

“And you’ll catch me when I go in right?”

“Of course.”

She wiggled her body off the edge nervously and landed in the water with a splash, Morgan catching her automatically.  She held on to him around his shoulders with a death grip.  “Mo?” she started kicking her feet instinctively from beneath her.

“I got you, I got you,” he said comfortingly, wrapping his arms completely around her.  “Stop kicking your feet.”

“Well what am I supposed to do with them?”

“Just wrap ‘em around me,” he whispered, his hands trailing down to her thighs.  “Like this.”

“Is that safe?”

He couldn’t help but smile again.  “Yes, it’s fine because I know how to swim.  You’re also only in like, five feet of water, and your incredible hunk of a boyfriend stands at a staggering six-foot-one.”

Bee snorted.  “You are honestly the worst.”

He moved away from the ledge and submerged her more in the water.  She grabbed onto him a little bit tighter as he did so, still nervous about the fact that she couldn’t swim.  “You look incredible in your bathing suit,” Morgan said, trying to get her mind off her fear.

“I think it shrunk.  I washed it before bringing it here and now it keeps riding up my butt,” Bee revealed.

“Whatever happened, it looks incredible,” he repeated, his hands wandering to her butt now that she mentioned it.  “It just hugs your entire body perfectly.  It looks hot.”

“Morgan.”

“I’m being serious.”

“I know you are,” she giggled, and in that moment, Morgan realized she was probably laughing because she could feel his growing erection in his swim trunks.  

“And your boobs,” he continued.  

“Morgan.”

“God, your boobs look even better.”

“Can you not.”

“Nuh uh, you’re gonna hear this,” he shook his head.  “You look phenomenal.”

She smiled at him, biting her bottom lip as she played with the wet hair at the nape of his neck.  She couldn’t believe how the day had turned out.  Even though she had to wake up at 4:30 in the morning because of Morgan’s surprise, it was beyond worth it.  The time they spent together with his parents felt so natural and unforced, like nobody was putting on airs and graces just to impress the other.  Finishing off the day with Morgan’s home cooked dinner and now a dip in the pool, she really couldn’t believe how much fun she’d had.  “I think this might be one of the best days of my life,” she said softly.  “I’ve had so much fun today.  Everything has been so…amazing.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” she nodded her head.  “I know this is my first vacation ever, but I could get used to this.”

Morgan laughed, giving her a quick kiss.  “I’ll bring you here anytime you want Bumblebee.  You just tell me when.”

She bit her lip again, and Morgan couldn’t take it, so he leaned in to kiss her and he wasn’t able to stop.  She reciprocated readily and she felt him move in the water, back to the edge, so he could push her up against it.  As the kisses got heavier and steamier, Bee couldn’t help but run her hands through Morgan’s wet hair and drag her nails down the muscles in his back.  As was usual, Morgan began leaving a trail of kisses along her jawline and down her neck, making sure to move back up to her lips and stick his tongue down her throat.

“Briony?” he said when he pulled away to catch his breath.  He gulped.  Her lips were swollen from all the kissing.  

“Hmmm?”

“I love you.”

She tried not to let her body freeze up.  She tried not to look shocked, or stunned, or that she wasn’t expecting it at all, because she had been for a little while now, because she knew the feeling was there with him, even if he hadn’t said the three words yet, and quite frankly, the feeling was there with her too, it’s just that she didn’t have the confidence like he did to say it out loud first, and - -

“Briony?” his voice, nervous as ever, interrupted her internal thoughts.

“I love you too Morgan,” she said automatically, adamant to not overthink it.  Love was complicated, so complicated, but love was also simple.  If you loved someone, you knew.  End of story.  The feeling could creep up, the feeling could come all at once, the feeling could overwhelm and engulf you completely, but when you knew, you knew.  

Morgan and Briony knew.

[fmpseenandnotheard]

Artist Research...

(1) Boogie-Street & Documentary Photography...

Boogie will blow your mind.

The native of Belgrade, Serbia got his start began documenting rebellion and unrest during the civil war that ravaged his country in the 1990s, and the experience seemed to have a profound effect not only on him, but on his work as well. Though Boogie now resides in New York – he arrived in 1998 – all of his work still carries the urgency and thought-provoking depth of a war-torn country.

Perhaps it’s because Boogie’s latest photographs focus on lives torn apart – from the runaway smoking crack in a drug den that used to be a hospital to the gang member caught in a moment of tenderness while cuddling his newborn child. Boogie appears to have shot everything, everywhere. Beggars on the streets of Caracas, Skinheads in Serbia, birds caged by power lines in Tokyo – the world looks more moody, evocative and meaningful through Boogie’s lens. Every detail takes on a life of its own.

Unsurprisingly, the photography world has taken notice – Boogie has published five monographs and exhibited around the world. He shoots for high end clients, renowned publications and countless awe-struck eyes worldwide.

Daniel: Tell us about yourself, where did the name Boogie get picked up and what’s the story behind it?

Boogie: I’m 40 years old, born and raised in Belgrade, Serbia, moved to NYC in 1998 after winning a green card lottery; I’ve shot a lot, published 5 monographs so far, had some interesting solo exhibitions. My nickname was given to me by my friends some 20 or so years ago after a character from some scary movie.

Daniel: You do a lot of “candid” or better yet documentary photography. Are you always geared with a camera where ever you go?

Boogie: Of course, I’m a photographer, that’s what I do

Daniel: Lots of Gangs, Drugs, Skinhead photography. That screams trouble, are you not afraid meeting with these people, taking their photographs? Have you ever encountered trouble? – How do you approach these people at first?

Boogie: While I was photographing gangsters, skinheads, junkies, it never crossed my mind to be afraid. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to get those photos. People can sense fear easily – plus, I don’t think any photo is worth risking your life for. I encountered some minor problems, but nothing serious, after all I’m still here. I always listened to my instincts, they kept me safe.

There is no recipe for approaching people. You either have it in you or you don’t. Usually if you treat people with respect they’ll be OK with you.

Daniel: You’ve recently signed a deal with HBO’s new show “How To Make It In America” what were your feelings when you first heard HBO was interested in featuring your photography, and what do you think about the show?

Boogie: It was a great gig, I met some very interesting people and got to know how the movie industry works. I haven’t seen the show, just the pilot, which I liked.

Daniel: Here’s a funny question wrapped around the HBO show – so When did you know you finally made it, as a photographer in America

Boogie: ‘Making it’ is very relative. I made it as a human being cause I have a great family and get to do what I love.

Daniel: Have you ever thought of shooting film?

Boogie: You mean moving picture? If so, while working on this HBO show, I realized that being a director of photography is an amazing job. Maybe the only job in the world I would trade for mine.

Daniel: What is your connection with photography, your personal life, and your photographs of poverty?

Boogie: Maybe the way I grew up led me to see things the way I do? I guess so, everything you go through in life has a purpose and influences what you become in the end.

Daniel: Tell us about the shoot in Brazil Sao Paolo, how was it?

Boogie: It wasn’t ‘a shoot’, I just packed my bags and went there for a week. very intense, I shot in some scary neighborhoods, I published a book after, all good.

Daniel: What was Mexico like, where did you visit?

Boogie: I was in Mexico City with a friend of mine Adrian Wilson … it’s an amazing city, great energy, great people. Al these horror stories they tell you before you go there are bullshit. Although I’ve been in some neighborhoods where I was afraid to shoot even from the car. But you have areas like that wherever you go.

Daniel: I know you’ve visited Cuba, Istanbul, Tokyo in addition, what is it that you learn from these trips?

Boogie: Travels are always great experiences, seeing how other people, other cultures live is priceless. It humbles you in a way, makes you appreciate what you have more.

Daniel: Lots of black and white, lots of flying birds. What is it that you like the most about Black & White?

Boogie: No idea, lately I also shoot a lot of color.

Daniel: Which gallery is your personal favorite?

Boogie: You mean on my website? everything there needs an update …

Ref: bloginity.com

Robert Frank

Influential photographer and filmmaker Robert Frank has died at the age of 94. He died of natural causes on Monday night in Nova Scotia, Canada. His death was confirmed by his longtime friend and gallerist Peter MacGill.

He was best known for his 1959 book The Americans, a collection of black-and-white photographs he took while road-tripping across the country starting in 1955. Frank's images were dark, grainy and free from nostalgia; they showed a country at odds with the optimistic views of prosperity that characterized so much American photography at the time.

His Leica camera captured gay men in New York, factory workers in Detroit and a segregated trolley in New Orleans — sour and defiant white faces in front and the anguished face of a black man in back.

Photographer Robert Frank holds a camera in 1954. His photo book, The Americans, changed the way people saw photography and the way they saw the U.S. Frank died on Monday at the age of 94.

Fred Stein Archive/Getty Images

Influential photographer and filmmaker Robert Frank has died at the age of 94. He died of natural causes on Monday night in Nova Scotia, Canada. His death was confirmed by his longtime friend and gallerist Peter MacGill.

He was best known for his 1959 book The Americans, a collection of black-and-white photographs he took while road-tripping across the country starting in 1955. Frank's images were dark, grainy and free from nostalgia; they showed a country at odds with the optimistic views of prosperity that characterized so much American photography at the time.

His Leica camera captured gay men in New York, factory workers in Detroit and a segregated trolley in New Orleans — sour and defiant white faces in front and the anguished face of a black man in back.

Trolley – New Orleans, 1955.

Robert Frank/National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Maria and Lee Friedlander

The book was savaged — mainstream critics called Frank sloppy and joyless. And Frank remembered the slights.

"The Museum of Modern Art wouldn't even sell the book," he told NPR for a story in 1994. "I mean, certain things, one doesn't forget so easy. But the younger people caught on."

Eventually, the photographs in The Americans became canon, inspiring legions. Photographer Joel Meyerowitz remembered watching Frank at work early on.

"And it was such an unbelievable and powerful experience watching him twisting, turning, bobbing, weaving," Meyerowitz said in 1994. "And every time I heard his Leica go 'click,' I would see the moment freeze in front of Robert."

Restaurant – U.S. 1 leaving Columbia, South Carolina, 1955.

Robert Frank/National Gallery of Art, Washington, Robert Frank Collection, The Robert and Anne Bass Fund

Ginsburg was a friend and photography student of Frank. He also starred in Frank's first film, 1959's Pull My Daisy. It was based on part of an unproduced play by Jack Kerouac and featured the author as narrator.

Pull My Daisy, and the other experimental, autobiographical films Robert Frank made, were his reaction to a restlessness he felt around still photography.

"In still photography, you have to come up with one good picture, maybe two or three," he told NPR in 1988. "But that's only three frames. There's no rhythm. Still photography isn't music. Film is really, in a way, based on a rhythm, like music."

Yet Frank's films shared a lot with his photographs. They were personal; they evoked emotions as much as they told stories. They're like home movies, and he made more than 20 of them before returning to photography. By then, he was a legend, acknowledged as an inspiration by such noted artists as Ed Ruscha, Lee Friedlander and Garry Winogrand.

What comes through in all of Frank's work is his ability to catch a moment. And that came from truly looking.

"Like a boxer trains for a fight, a photographer, by walking the streets, and watching, and taking pictures, and coming home, and going out the next day — same thing again, taking pictures," Frank said in 2009. "It doesn't matter how many he takes, or if he takes any at all. It gets you prepared to know what you should take pictures of.

_______________________________________________________________________

(2)  Weegee (1899 - 1968)

Biography

Weegee, born Usher Fellig on June 12, 1899 in the town of Lemburg (now in Ukraine), first worked as a photographer at age fourteen, three years after his family immigrated to the United States, where his first name was changed to the more American-sounding Arthur. Self-taught, he held many other photography-related jobs before gaining regular employment at a photography studio in lower Manhattan in 1918. This job led him to others at a variety of newspapers until, in 1935, he became a freelance news photographer. He centered his practice around police headquarters and in 1938 obtained permission to install a police radio in his car. This allowed him to take the first and most sensational photographs of news events and offer them for sale to publications such as the Herald-Tribune, Daily News, Post, the Sun, and PM Weekly, among others. During the 1940s, Weegee's photographs appeared outside the mainstream press and met success there as well. New York's Photo League held an exhibition of his work in 1941, and the Museum of Modern Art began collecting his work and exhibited it in 1943. Weegee published his photographs in several books, including Naked City (1945), Weegee's People (1946), and Naked Hollywood (1953). After moving to Hollywood in 1947, he devoted most of his energy to making 16-millimeter films and photographs for his "Distortions" series, a project that resulted in experimental portraits of celebrities and political figures. He returned to New York in 1952 and lectured and wrote about photography until his death on December 26, 1968.

Weegee's photographic oeuvre is unusual in that it was successful in the popular media and respected by the fine-art community during his lifetime. His photographs' ability to navigate between these two realms comes from the strong emotional connection forged between the viewer and the characters in his photographs, as well as from Weegee's skill at choosing the most telling and significant moments of the events he photographed. ICP's retrospective exhibition of his work in 1998 attested to Weegee's continued popularity; his work is frequently recollected or represented in contemporary television, film, and other forms of popular entertainment

[howyoutalktostrangers]

“This is how you talk to strangers”

by Will Johnson, originally published in Prairiefire

I’ve been reading the King James Bible lately. I like it so far. Sometimes I sit cross-legged on my roof, smoking cigarettes and flipping through Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy. I haven’t even made it to the New Testament. My favorite book so far is Ecclesiastes. Here’s this guy Solomon with nine hundred wives who can’t even sort his shit out. Everything is meaningless. It’s pretty bleak stuff. Actually, that’s what Hemingway named The Sun Also Rises after, a passage from Ecclesiastes. I read that book about three times a year. If those two were alive, I bet they would be fun to drink with. It would be one of those nights where you end up flipping over a table for no reason. The kind of night where you wake up the next morning and you feel totally humiliated in front of no one but yourself.

I grew up in Labrador City, the Iron Ore Capital of Canada. I was a pretty happy kid, actually. My mother loved us and my father made enough money, which is more or less all you need when you’re little. One day I was sitting on this pier with my two older brothers and this seagull started to pick on a smaller one. It pecked at it viciously and fluffed up its feathers and squawked. We all rooted for the smaller gull, even though it was destined to lose over and over again. My brothers kept throwing them French fries to fight over. Eventually the smaller bird just flew away. I don’t know why I remember that. 

Isn’t the mind terrible?

I never knew how isolated I was until I left. The first time I drove into Toronto I felt like someone was sitting on my face. So many people everywhere. I’ve done a lot of traveling in the last few years—Chicago, New York, Montreal, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Whitehorse, Vancouver, Tofino—but I never really get used to it. Walking on a sidewalk is a contact sport. In the bar everyone looks like a Viking except for me. I didn’t know how I was ever supposed to meet a girl. Shit, I don’t know how anyone ever meets anyone. It seems so illogical. I dare you to go three or four days without talking to anyone. Consider it a spiritual exercise that leads you nowhere worthwhile. Drive around to random cities, listen to On The Road on audiotape, smoke cigarettes and start thinking about everything that’s wrong with you. Seriously, try it. See what you think.

A few years ago I was walking around Charlottetown, just hating my life, and I was looking at this KFC sign. I thought wow, someone’s responsible for making that. I could never make anything nearly as beautiful. If everyone in the world had my drive, we would be living like hobos. I can’t even parallel park.

The greatest moment in life is when a woman lifts her hips, just slightly, to let you pull off her pants. Like this is really happening to me. The second greatest moment is when your car is all packed with everything you own, and you know you’ve got a lot of driving ahead of you, but at the other end is a job. Last year I was sleeping on my brother’s couch and I had been drunk for an entire month. It was time to move on—I was starting to get the distinct impression that his girlfriend didn’t like me very much. As I was pulling out of the driveway my brother ran after me, and when he came up to me in the street I thought he would say something like it’s been good or good luck with the job, man but instead he just wanted to bum a smoke. I gave him my whole pack because I had no idea when I would see him again. He punched me in the shoulder and it was the first time in a long time anyone had touched me.

I got a job as a sports reporter in the Yukon. Every day I go out to these sporting events. Baseball games and track meets and hockey tournaments. I take pictures and I interview people and I doubt they even really notice. I’m just some guy with a tape recorder and they don’t know anything about me. Their bodies are terrifying. They wear tight spandex or bathing suits and they look superhuman. Most of the time I just want to ask them why? Or maybe how? They drink protein shakes and they bike a hundred kilometers a day or they hike to beautiful places I’ll never see. They’re so fucking healthy it gives me the shakes. I covered a 3-day canoe and kayak race, and this guy told me he wears a catheter so he doesn’t have to stop to pee. I wrote a story about it and thought this is it, the end of journalism as we know it. But no one reads the newspaper anyway. And if they do, nobody cares about the fucking sports section.

My favorite song is “Take it Easy” by the Eagles. One time I listened to it fifty times in a row, while I was driving through the Rocky Mountains. I never get sick of it.

I’m terrified of death. Nobody likes it, sure, but sometimes I sit at my desk at work and all of the sudden my fingers don’t work and I can’t function. No matter how much I hate breathing, I don’t think I could ever convince myself to die. Because I don’t know what’s next. My older brother Trent is religious, and he worked for years as a youth pastor at this church out West. That seemed to make him feel better about things, but none of that ever rubbed off on me. Sometimes I think I’ll end up as one of those empty-eyed senior citizens relegated to their wheelchairs. I’ll have friendly foreign nurses that feed me yogurt and give me drugs. They’ll push me to the window so I can look outside. That sounds pretty good to me.

This guy at the newspaper told me to watch Cool Hand Luke. So I did. Firstly, I don’t think there has ever been a more sublimely beautiful human specimen than Paul Newman. His eyes look supernatural. Secondly—damn, is that movie depressing. Not because he dies. More because I’m never going to be that cool. Sometimes nothing is a pretty cool hand. I wish I had that attitude. When Luke’s getting the shit kicked out of him by Dragline, he never gives up. He just keeps swinging. One punch and I would be curled in the fetal position, probably peeing my pants and begging him to stop. I really am useless. Believe me. I’m incapable of honest labour. Most of the time I feel lucky I wasn’t born fifty years ago during any of the big wars. I would have been drafted right away and I wouldn’t have lasted a week. I watch these war movies like Saving Private Ryan and I thank an imaginary God that I’ve never had to pick up a gun. My greatest hardship in life has been living on cereal for a week. Or running out of clean laundry.

My second favorite song is “Flowers on the Wall” by the Statler Brothers.

I met this girl Megan in the steam room at the pool. She was doing yoga on the tiled floor with a pool mat and I was trying not to be a creep. But she was contorting her body into these ridiculous positions that made her muscles bulge and flatten in strange places. I watched the rivulets of sweat. They drew jagged lines down her stomach and dripped off the end of her nose. Sometimes I would wait, holding my breath, while one dangled. Her face was pink and the blond hair that escaped from her ponytail would stick to her forehead and cheeks. She had these elaborate flower tattoos that encircled her arms, purple and yellow and red. The vines were ropy and twisted in chaotic patterns behind the petals. We were the only two people in the steam room but I’m pretty sure she didn’t even know I was there. Her eyes were closed and she took the most relaxed, sensual breaths. It was beautiful. Finally I said something. I asked her if there were any good yoga places in town. Her eyes fluttered open. I said I’d always wanted to learn about yoga, which is probably the biggest lie I told that day. She looked at me, squirted some water into her mouth, and smiled. She said yeah, I teach twice a week at a studio in Whitehorse. You should come out.

Every now and then I realize I have a mother. My mother is a nice lady. And she loves me. If she really knew how I was living my life, I think she would have a heart attack. She’s proud of me for getting a job, but she doesn’t really know me anymore. I wish she did.

My attempts at yoga were pitiful. I spent the whole time wishing I could smoke a cigarette. I’ve never been so uncomfortable in my life. But afterwards, after I had a shower and rolled up my brand new yoga mat, Megan asked me if I wanted to go for beer. I though to myself this is it, this is how you talk to strangers and I said sure, yeah. We walked through the snow to the bar. We sat for two hours and whenever I said something funny she would touch my leg under the table. We bought a six-pack from off sales and walked down to the Yukon River. It was starting to get cold. She told me a bunch of personal shit about her life, but really I wasn’t listening to her words. I was watching the way she laughed, the way she moved her hands, the way her breath hung in a cloud and slowly drifted away.

I was covering this downhill bike race later that week when I broke my collarbone. It was my own fault. I was perched on the side of the trail taking photos, and I was trying to get a follow-focus shot. But everything kept coming out blurry. It was muddy and I was hung over, and as I whipped my camera along with the motion of a passing biker I fell down this embankment. It fucking hurt. I mean, I tumbled and rolled and knocked my head against a tree root. I’m lucky I didn’t break my goddamn spine. My publisher was annoyed and the paper was short-staffed, but it meant I got to sit at home and drink for a few weeks. I felt like Bukowski.

I often fantasize about being productive. I see people jogging around Whitehorse or going grocery shopping and I wonder where they get the energy. One day I want to write a novel, but I can barely convince myself to walk to the gas station for cigarettes. The first time I read The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson I was so relieved. I’m not the only one. I mean, it’s not Tolstoy or Dostoevsky but here’s a person who thinks the world is as absurd and terrifying as I do, and he can actually write something half-decent. When I’m bored I Google stories about Thompson. I rented a documentary about Gonzo journalism from the library. One day I read his suicide note, just because I was curious what was going through his head when he pulled the trigger. Apparently they published it in Rolling Stone. The title keeps repeating in my head, like a mantra: Football season is over.

Megan came over a few times while I was convalescing. She made me a meatloaf and I ate it for every meal, three days in a row. I felt awkward around her. I tried to hide my empties and clean up my house before she showed up, but I didn’t have a phone so most of the time she just appeared unannounced. She was usually in a yoga outfit or her karate clothes. I sat on the couch with her one day and I asked her about the tattoos on her forearms. She looked really sad for a moment, and then she pulled the skin tight in places to show me her scars. They were methodical, horizontal stripes. I wanted to die for a long time, she said. But I didn’t want anybody to know.

By the time my collarbone healed, it was starting to get dark. It scared the shit out of me. Don’t listen to the people who live here. The Yukon is a scary place in the winter. The snow blankets everything and it’s freezing cold and all of a sudden leaving the house is like living in a Jack London short story. Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well. The reporters made fun of me when I showed up to work wearing a parka, but I needed that fur against my face while I smoked cigarettes in the parking lot. Megan was starting to sleep over, and I liked watching her muscular back rise and fall while she snored. I couldn’t believe I’d convinced someone to sleep in my bed.

She showed up at my house crying one night. I tried to talk to her but she just cried into my chest for ten minutes. Finally, when I asked her what was wrong, she said its nothing, you’ll think its stupid. I told her no, of course I won’t think it’s stupid and then she drew her head back and looked at me. There was a huge pink pimple between her eyebrows. I have a bindi, she said. I have a fucking bindi. I usually tuned her out when she started talking about all that eastern mysticism stuff. She tried to convince me to read the Bhagavad Gītā but it just stayed on my bedside table. Whenever she talked about her spiritual beliefs it sounded like she was regurgitating these antiquated phrases she had learned in yoga school, or wherever. I didn’t want to seem insensitive, though, so I listened. She told me she was scared the universe was telling her something. She said the universe gave me a bindi to send me a message.

My favorite poem for a long time was Invictus by William Earnest Henley. I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. But then Clint Eastwood took the title and turned it into a goddamn rugby movie.

I was covering this karate competition one weekend when a guy came up and shook my hand. I didn’t recognize him. He said his name was Eiji Matsumoto, and told me he was Megan’s karate instructor. What a cool name. She’s a very gifted student, he said. I nodded like this was something I had given some thought. I realized that we had been dating for months and I had never seen her fight. I had abandoned yoga after a second try. It made me feel like a bad person, knowing there was this huge part of her life I didn’t know anything about. This guy Eiji was easily a foot taller than me. He looked like he could lift me up and break me in half over his knee. He had the most luscious brown skin and beautiful dark eyes. It made my balls shrivel up into little prunes. Suddenly I wanted to shave.

It was a Thursday morning when I crashed my car. My windshield wipers weren’t working and I was trying to light a cigarette and all of a sudden this truck was stopped in front of me and I swerved off the road. I remember hurtling along. The whole car was shaking and I was wrenching the wheel around like a goddamn child playing with a video game and then I was upside down. One of my windows shattered and glass was everywhere and then everything stopped. All I could see was white, stretching out as far as I could see. People were calling out to me hey, hey are you all right in there? Are you okay? I thought about that bible verse where Jesus says he’ll come like a thief in the night. Some blood was drooling up my nose and I realized I was suspended over the ground, held by my seatbelt. I don’t know where my cigarette ended up.

My older brother Trent was arrested a few years ago. They found child pornography on his computer, and there were rumors he even molested some kids at the church he worked at. I didn’t know how to respond to that information. I still don’t.

For a week after that Megan drove me to work and back. She seemed really impatient, so I tried to spend time with my friend from the newspaper. We sat in the bar and drank too many beers. He kept saying embarrassing things to the waitress, and then we started arguing about Hemingway. He was saying Hemingway would drink beer and I told him no, Hemingway liked drinking Mojitos and bagged wine. We did some whiskey shots and then went out in the snow for a bit. I wanted to go down to the Yukon River, but my friend said it was too cold. We finally wandered into this dingy pub on Fourth Street, and the first thing I saw was Megan. She was sitting with her back to me, having dinner with Eiji. Eiji Matsumoto. My friend said what’s wrong and I said nothing, let’s just get out of here.

Whenever I’m feeling sorry for myself, I think do you know how old the universe is?

My father called me around that time. My mother was in the hospital in Winnipeg and he wanted to buy me a plane ticket. We don’t know how serious it is, he said, but she would like you to be there. I told him I would need a couple of days to arrange things with work, and he said that would be okay. I thought about Hemingway and Thompson, each of them perched over their shotguns. It seems cruel that not everyone gets to choose when they’ll die. My father told me my brother was already driving out from Edmonton with his girlfriend. The others were coming out from Halifax. He told me my mother had been sick for a while, but he didn’t want to worry me. I wandered around the twilight streets and I tried not to think about how fucking scared I was of everything. Relax ­– this won’t hurt.

You don’t really know much about yourself until you try to share space with a woman. Megan complained about crumbs on the counter, my unmade bed and how I always left empty packs of cigarettes everywhere. She kept pestering me to quit, and even convinced me to try the nicotine patch. She played this weird, mystical music and she meditated in our living room when I wanted to watch TV. I felt like Neal Cassady, always hiding things from his wife. I hadn’t brought up seeing her with Eiji because I didn’t want to be that guy. I’m not the jealous type. I kind of liked to see her angry, though. She never seemed like she was in control of her actions, and her moods would jackknife back and forth. One night, while we were having sex, she slapped me. Then she slapped me again. It turned me on so much she just kept slapping me until she was clawing at my chest and pulling my hair. The only ones for me are the mad ones.

I often wonder what would have happened if I never saw Eiji kiss my girlfriend. It was midday and they were coming out of a sushi place on Main Street. I had just bought a magazine and I was standing across the street smoking a cigarette when they emerged, pulling on their jackets. He leaned over and kissed her on the lips. It looked like a goddamn coffee commercial, like there should be music playing or something. I don’t remember crossing the street. I don’t even remember what I screamed at him. Maybe I took a swing, maybe I didn’t. All I remember was the way he looked as he reared back and kicked me square in the sternum. I flew backwards like you see in movies. My lungs felt like they were going to collapse. I was laying on my back on the sidewalk, struggling to breathe and panting when he leaned over me. Football season is over. I looked up at him and Megan while I lay there in the slush. I think I need to go to the hospital, I said. I think I’m really hurt. Help me.

I got drunk on the plane to Winnipeg. They just kept bringing me gin and tonics. I brought the King James Bible with me, but it was starting to lose my interest. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. The New Testament sounds too much like those corny televangelists. I’m not too keen on Jesus, either. But there’s a poetry there, like Shakespeare. By the time we touched down the words were starting to mix together on the page. When the stewardess came to check our seatbelts I held out my empty cup. One more?

My father picked me up from the airport. It was the first time I noticed the deep wrinkles around his eyes. His handshake almost crushed my fingers. We drove through the grey streets for nearly an hour before we got to the hospital. I asked him if Trent was going to be there, and he reminded me that Trent was in prison and probably would be for a long time. We barely spoke after that. I didn’t even really recognize him anymore, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. Neither did he, I guess. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. He led me up the stairs, someone gave me a coffee, and then I was standing in the room with her. Machines were beeping at me and she looked so small. I came to the side of my mother’s bed and her eyes fluttered open. It’s you, she said. It’s my son.

You can’t go long in the Yukon without hearing a Robert Service poem. They’ve got him painted on walls. They teach him in elementary schools. Sometimes you’ll walk into a bookstore and someone will be reciting his poems over the loudspeakers. There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men that moil for gold. The first time I visited Dawson City, I went to the bank where he used to work. It’s right on the main drag, just a stone’s throw from the river, this saggy, dilapidated eyesore. One night I saw kids break into it to get drunk. I peeked in the windows and inside it looks like a warzone. There are spider webs clinging to the heaps of garbage on the floor. I hear there’s talk of restoring it, maybe building a heritage site, but chances are they’ll just eventually tear it down.

My mother reached out to me with these wrinkled hands. A long tube trailed out from her wrist. She touched my face and then she held my neck. I thought she might cry, but she didn’t. I leaned down and kissed her. She smelled like cleaning products. I wanted to tell her all my stories. I wanted her to pull me into her lap and rock me while I fell asleep. I thought about this time, when I was a little kid. My brothers had gone on a trip with my father and left me home sick for the weekend. She took me to the new shopping mall in Labrador City to see a movie. Afterwards we walked through these towering empty halls like we were in a cathedral. She bought me a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and a cinnamon bun. She told me this is our little secret. Don’t tell your brothers or they’ll be jealous. On the way home I fell asleep in the passenger seat.

Do you know how old the universe is?

My mother was discharged a few days later. I went back to work. Megan had already moved her stuff out of my basement suite. The snow was starting to melt, finally. Most days I sat at my desk and listed to John Prine or Willie Nelson. I stood on the sidelines of soccer games. I took pictures of people playing hockey. It cost me an entire paycheck to get my car fixed, so for two weeks I ate nothing but microwave popcorn and scrambled eggs. The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hurries to its place where it rises. On the weekends I walked down to the Yukon River and watched the ice slide into the water. One afternoon a giant chunk tumbled down the riverbank. 

It flowed slowly downstream until I couldn’t see it anymore.

The Literary Goon

[markoftheasphodel]

je me lance vers la gloire

A belated Nagamas gift for @sshining, a fill for the prompt The Deliverance trio/Celica squad (echoes). Can be Canon, modern AU, game of thrones-esque FE steeped in the reality of war and politics, comedy, romance, adventure, angst, crossovers.

How about RBG Trio with cameos from Genny & Mae+Boey, 1970s band AU, intimations of Forsyth/Python/Lukas and a splash of background Lukas/That Girlfriend?

Summer. New York City. 1975

Forsyth skirted around Python’s dead weight on the air mattress as he crept around the apartment collecting their mail and trash. Once he’d shredded all the mail into tiny scraps and wadded it up with all the other refuse in one nondescript plastic bag, he concealed the trash in one end of his duffle bag. Forsyth walked down the six flights of stairs with the sort of purpose that usually prevented anyone from asking him what he was doing there at such an hour.

Fake it ’til you make it, Python called it, but it worked. It really did.

Forsyth opened the rear stair to the alley and got a blast of sticky summer heat along with the general sense of foulness he’d gotten used to since coming to the city. One of the local strays, the black dog with white feet and one white pointed ear, was hanging out by the dumpster, and Forsyth took a moment to scratch the dog on its white ear before he slipped the refuse out of his duffle bag, tucked it into the corner of a dumpster, and just kept walking towards the Y. The only time he made eye contact with anyone was to look at the newsstand guy, who was sitting there melting next to the stack of screaming headlines.

“President to New York: DROP DEAD!”

That hurt. Forsyth had kind of liked the President, had defended him to Python as a decent guy who was in over his head, maybe. He could only imagine what Python was going to say when he finally got around to reading the news.

-x-

Lukas contemplated the headline for a long moment, appreciating the bold blackness, the heft of every letter. He picked up his X-Acto knife and began to cut them apart, the better to admire each one.

-x-

Forsyth could hear the sound of drums echoing all the way down the stairwell as he came back to the walk-up after his workout. Not that it worried him; the racket they made wasn't much worse than the guy with the tool-and-die setup on the first floor. Rehearsing wasn't the illegal part of their situation, it was living there in the industrial space to begin with. They'd get evicted if anyone found out about their mail or their hot plate, but not for Python banging drums at eight in the morning.

Banging wasn't the right word. Too atavistic, Forsyth thought as he huffed up the stairs. What Python was doing was more nimble, more clinical maybe. The opposite of primal.

Forsyth had a smile on when he flung open the door to their walkup to behold Python at the drums, his shirt coming apart at the seams but his hair catching the morning light just so, as though it'd been arranged one lock at a time for that scene, that moment of entry.

-x-

Lukas showed up when Python was putting on his eyeliner and Forsyth was making a beer run.

“Hey, stud,” Python greeted the Lukas in the mirror. If Andrea had been tagging along he wouldn't have said it because Andrea didn't always think Python was funny, but there was obviously no Andrea of the black clothes and black moods in the mirror and Lukas only smiled in response.

They carried on a three-way conversation, Python addressing the reflection before his eyes as the real Lukas spoke to his back, while they waited for Forsyth to show up with the beer. Lukas was dressed today like he belonged on a tennis court instead of an industrial loft with exposed pipes and he was holding a satchel filled with notebooks behind his back. He and Andrea came from a place where they didn't have to take showers at the Y or hide trash from the landlord and it showed. If Andrea'd been there, Python would have tried to get some cigarettes off her; she could afford them.

Forsyth clattered in with the beer and some tale about the sad dogs in the alleyway. Python cut him off with the ting of a cymbal and they fell into rehearsal, Forsyth adding his plaintive guitar on top of the drums while Lukas read weird poems he'd assembled from newspaper headlines pasted onto index cards. It wasn't rock or jazz or anything with a name to it, just the sound of three odd souls reverberating off the pipes and the mirror while the city fried around them.

They were never gonna get famous like this and it was all right with Python.

Winter. 1976.

This was the life. Grabbing dinner from the old lady at the knish bakery a few doors down from The Last Mile, chowing down on rough mouthfuls of kasha that tasted like the best thing he’d eaten all week as he marched through pools of filthy slush on his way back to the club. They'd started sound check without him, and the spare and angular sound of Forsyth's guitar skittered over the bass line with a nervous tension that wasn't like anyone else in the city.

Python set the paper bag bulging with knishes down on a ledge as he watched Forsyth bounce sounds off Lukas. In every band Python'd ever played in from the time they were kids, everybody wanted to be the guitar hero— except Python himself, who’d always wanted to rule over a drum kit. Everybody wanted to sing, whether they could carry a tune in a bucket or not. Everyone wanted to be a rock star.

Forsyth wanted all those things and so Lukas slid on over to playing the bass without a peep of protest. Maybe he actually liked it; Python noticed a look of wonder about him at times as Lukas explored what the fat sound of his new instrument could actually do. When Lukas drew something out of the bass that evoked the sense of black snakes writhing in the muck of a swamp, Python sometimes felt something turn in his gut, like this moment might somehow matter down the line.

Then he remembered they were still three weirdoes from different walks of life improbably playing in a black hole of a dive together, because things like that happened in New York City, as inevitable as murder.

-x-

Boey and Mae told her not go out on her own because nobody'd caught the serial killer yet, but Genny had gotten adept at sneaking around when they were in school and getting into The Last Mile was easy now. She just walked in like she was supposed to be there with her notebook and pen, and if anyone asked Genny gave them the names of magazines that didn't exist. Sometimes she pretended to be from Canada.

That evening when the wind blew cold down the littered streets, the band Genny was hoping to see at The Last Mile wasn't there. They'd moved on to a better club, outside the Bowery. Some new trio was in their place.

Genny wasn't sure at first if they were all boys or not. The drummer had a strange kind of grace, a little feline and a little androgynous (how Genny loved the sound of those words) and his arms somehow were slender with the most wonderful muscles, like the saints’ statues that fascinated her in the priory. The bass player was tiny-- taller than Genny, but everyone was, and very small compared to the gangling singer who fired off strange sounds from his guitar. They held their guitars like weapons, Genny thought, but not like the careless boys who used guitars as stand-ins for guns and other things that shot. These were sacred weapons.

Genny had stars in her eyes and visions of ancient samurai swords in her brain and when the bass player looked at the singer or the singer glanced back at the drummer, she could almost see strands of light connecting them as they played their odd music.

Genny wrote it all down in her notebook. She was very good at writing in the dark.

-x-

Andrea went back to Rhode Island or wherever it was she was from and Lukas used his family money to get them all a place where they weren't in danger of being evicted by the cops. Now all their crap was intermingled the same way their bodies fell into a strangely chaste tangle most nights— Python's wood shop pieces that were never going to make him famous either mixed up with Forsyth's guitars interspersed with Lukas's books and all the strange things that spilled out of his satchel, index cards and notebooks and clippings from magazines.

Lukas carried multiple copies of that weird and glowing anonymous review they'd somehow earned at The Last Mile. Forsyth taped one copy to the fridge and he looked at it every day like something in it sustained his soul. Python thought it was nice but it didn't mean anything. They had a fan, that's all. A nameless fan at that.

He was more concerned about the other things that Lukas carried in his satchel, like the vaguely creepy lyric sheets made of letters cut out of newspapers, almost like Lukas writing a ransom note to himself.

“I’m sadder than you’ll ever know," Python read from one of these sheets, and he wondered if this was some breakup song for Andrea. "What’s that from?"

"Just a song I've been constructing," said Lukas, because he "constructed" things instead of just writing them.

"Okay. What's it about?" asked Python.

“A serial killer," Lukas said through a delicate smile.

“Okay, so it’s topical,” said Python, thinking of the Son of Sam. Topical was probably bad, the way all the great “anthems” of the sixties were laughably dated now, but then again he wasn’t the lyricist so that wasn’t his problem.

-x-

Forsyth saw the literal word on the streets, the proclamation that punk was coming. It meant nothing; he'd read Jack London and Burroughs both and he knew the layers of meaning in the word and didn't care. Some day he'd go home and his father was going to know that the money spent sending Forsyth to college hadn't actually been wasted, but punk wasn't going to get him there any more than the dopey mumbling rockers that he and Python escaped would've.

Maybe the word didn't exist yet.

Forsyth moved through the city that took him in in as it took comers from every corner of the globe, straining to hear some note that'd never been played before, hoping any moment he'd be in the thick of the revolution they'd been promised. He looked past the dead dogs in the gutter and the sordid headlines, because something was coming.

Winter. 1977.

They moved up from The Last Mile to a slightly better species of dive bar and that's where destiny found them. Python noticed him first; he had a radar for squares and this guy was it, baby. He had to be close to thirty, wearing a bowl cut that was about a decade out of date. Nice jacket, though-- real leather instead of pale-blue plastic. Expensive.

“He’s a phony,” said Python, the jacket notwithstanding. “What’s he even doing here?”

He was scouting for talent on behalf of an actual label. Python would've respected him more if this guy, Clive, had been scouting for tail. The second time he brought his girlfriend, though, tall and blonde and exquisitely put-together, looking like money and yet hanging out in a dive with no complaints. The girlfriend, Mathilda, was the one who echoed what that weird anonymous article had already told everyone. They sounded fresh, maybe in a foreign kind of way like fake-Japanese or something with pentatonic scales, and Lukas “looked cute” with his big bass in his hands. That carried some weight with somebody. They got signed.

-x-

"Allow me to do the negotiating," Lukas said to Forsyth, and Forsyth let him. They ended up with a contract that guaranteed things that Forsyth never even thought about, like tying the royalties for songs to the rate of inflation. Lukas was a genius. Lukas was going to make them a fortune.

-x-

When someone broke into their apartment and made off with three guitars, Python couldn't help but notice that Clive bought Lukas not one but two replacements while Forsyth had to go down to the pawn shop and fend for himself. So that was how it was going to be from now on.

Again, if he thought Clive had a thing for Lukas, he would’ve been kind of okay with the disparate treatment, but he knew it was because Clive thought Lukas was the brains, the leader, the essential person who kept a steady stream of words coming through Forsyth’s lips. Clive couldn’t conceive that they were a trinity, each of them as important as the other.

Squares, thought Python. He almost wouldn't mind if the city really did burn this year. Almost.

-x-

The label put them on a package tour with another trio, a group whose guitarist was a girl with two tails of pink hair and whose drummer wasn't white. This was fresh and exciting, and Lukas was pleased to share the bus with them. As they were three and three, he shared a seat with their keyboard player, a tiny girl with a cloud of apricot-colored hair. She was their writer, and like Lukas carried a stack of notebooks, though in her case he saw doodles and what appeared to be short stories in place of his own word collages.

He noticed some other things in her notebook.

"Do you speak French?" he asked on the third day of the tour.

"We learned French and Latin both in school," said Genny in her sweet and small voice.

"What would be the best way to express the phrase 'I hurl myself towards glory'?" Lukas put on the subtle smile that tended to get him what he wanted, and Genny helped him craft the thorny yet crucial middle section of the song that was going to make them.

“I’m glad we’re touring with you,” Genny said on the third day, as the silver moon shone over the sea that glimmered out the window. “I was afraid they’d have us with punks, but then I saw you and I knew everything was going to be fine.”

Lukas heard the shudder in her voice at the idea of spike-haired cretins spitting gobbets of phlegm all over the bus and pissing out the window. Of their group, only Python with his well-tended hair and strategically torn clothes looked even vaguely punk, and Python had too much pride to spit up in public for amusement. He heard the caress in her voice aimed at them, or at him, just as clearly. It pleased and unsettled him in one moment that this tiny girl thought they were safe. But then Genny asked him, in the voice of a someone setting up the trap of a hypothetical question, what he thought of the term New Wave for the sort of music they were doing.

“Some would say there are no new waves at all, only the ocean,” said Lukas, and he looked past her cloud of curls out the window, counting the cars along the turnpike until Genny fell asleep on his shoulder.

To be continued, maybe.

(Yes, it’s the RBG Trio as the not!Talking Heads. My mind made connection between Lukas and David Byrne while I was playing the game last year. Hopefully this fit the bill in some fashion)

[chaospirations]

Bigfoot, Mothman and the Chupacabra may be some of the most widely known cryptids in modern society, but another fascinating cryptozoological classification of mysterious “monsters” are giant animals. Contrary to popular belief, creatures that are considered to be cryptids don’t have to be of a supernatural nature.  They don’t all have to have some hidden power attributed to them. They don’t have to have the power to sense and draw out your deepest fears, to disappear on command or control the environment around them. Some of the paranormal attributes given to cryptids are most likely due to the emotional state or psychological upheaval experienced by the observer after witnessing something totally unexpected or unbelievable to them.  Sometimes, they’re just big.

In 2005, George M. Eberhart wrote an article in the Journal of Scientific Exploration in which he placed cryptids (or reports of cryptids) into ten distinct categories.  Eberhart explained his categorization in the article in reference to his book Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology. In this article we’ll focus on the category “Undescribed, Unusual or Outsized Variations of Known Species.” These may be common animals with notable deformities or attributes.  This may also include known animals that are the rare giant of that species, or suffer from a form of gigantism.

Krystyna ‘Krys’ Pawlowski and the 28-Foot Crocodile

You may have seen this photo floating around the internet and thought it was a photoshopped crocodile.  However, this is not the case, and the story behind it is surprisingly terrifying. 

Ron and Krystyna Pawlowski were Polish immigrants who arrived in Australia in 1949.  The Pawlowskis struggled to make ends meet while caring for their children on a rural patch of land in Kaumba, in Queensland’s Gulf Country.

That all changed on a hot day in 1955. In a nightmarish scenario, three-year-old Barbera Pawlowski was playing near the water’s edge when her brother witnessed a horrific sight.  A massive crocodile was stalking the toddler, and was about to make her it’s next meal.

“My brother came out and saw it and yelled “Barbara, crocodile!” and my mother grabbed a rifle and shot it between the eyes…”

-George Pawlowski

Krystyna Pawlowski had never shot a rifle before in her life, but in that instant she managed to dispatch what remains to be the largest crocodile ever captured or killed in Australia, a monstrous 28-foot croc.  

“One Shot” became Krystyna Pawlowski’s famous nickname, and the family found fortune hunting crocodiles.

Additional link: The story behind the biggest crocodile ever caught in Australia: How a petite Polish immigrant with perfectly manicured nails nailed an 8.6metre monster – Daily Mail

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Hogzilla and Monster Pigs

There has been a noticeable increase in the number of media stories involving wild or feral hogs in recent years.  The latest story at the time of this writing is of a lethal attack in Chambers County, Texas by feral hogs on a woman arriving to work in the early hours of November 24, 2019. 

“Feral swine are the same species, Sus scrofa, as pigs that are found on farms. Feral swine are descendants of escaped or released pigs. Feral swine are called by many names including; wild boar, wild hog, razorback, piney woods rooter, and Russian or Eurasian boar. 

No matter the name they are a dangerous, destructive, invasive species. Feral swine were first brought to the United States in the 1500s by early explorers and settlers as a source of food. Repeated introductions occurred thereafter. 

The geographic range of this destructive species is rapidly expanding and its populations are increasing across the nation.”

United States Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service

Feral hogs, as their domesticated counterparts, if given sufficient food and cover can grow very large. To get an idea of how potentially large a feral hog can get, here’s a domestic analogy. Big Bill was raised from the runt of the litter into a record-smashing 2,552-pound hog. Big Bill’s incredible weight was validated in the Guinness Book of World Records. Bill met an untimely death in 1933 at the age of 3 while en route to the Chicago World’s Fair.  He was subsequently stuffed and put on display as his titanic carcass changed hands to various individuals willing to haul his earthly shell around for a quick buck.

Buford Butler standing with “Big Bill” post-taxidermy

Domesticated hogs are not usually raised to achieve such great weights, as an agricultural commodity, larger pigs are more difficult to house, transport and slaughter.  Moreover, younger, smaller hogs are more appealing to the meat industry and have generally better quality than older, larger market hogs.  However, the outbreak of African swine fever has decimated the pork industry in China, and some Chinese pork producers are beginning to raise hogs “heavy as polar bears” in order to counter the significant losses of their pigs to disease.

Hogzilla male hybrid of wild hog and domestic pig that was shot and killed by Chris Griffin in Alapaha, Georgia. On June 17, 2004, on Ken Holyoak’s fish farm and hunting reserve, Griffin shot the beast and reported it to be at least 12 feet long and over 1,000 lbs. Photos of the kill went viral and caused an overnight media sensation.

A forensic investigation of the animal was conducted revealing it was around 8.6 feet long and approximately 800 lbs.  Although this diminished the initial report, “Hogzilla” was still an unusually large specimen.

Related: list of pigs of significant size.

Monsters In Print: A Collection Of Curious Creatures Known Mostly From Newspapers

by Adam Benedict

This collection of over 170+ articles, direct from newspapers of the 1800s and 1900s, brings some of the most bizarre, amazing, and incredible stories of true monster encounters out of the past and into your hands! Presented with zero spin or bias, this book delivers just the facts and allows you, the reader, to decide for yourself if the stories within actually happened or not. From the funny to the frightening, the sincere to the weird, there is something for everyone within these pages!

Giants of the Deep: Giant Squid

Maritime legends depict all manner of sea monsters from the terrifying to the fantastic.  One of the most famous monsters from the lore of seafarer’s is the Kraken.  Described as a giant, multi-tentacled cephalopod that could wrap its incredibly strong arms around any vessel it desired and drag it and her occupants to the depths of the ocean.  Many now believe that the Kraken of sailor’s stories are most likely sightings of the Giant Squid, genus Architeuthis.

Giant Squid usually reside deep in all of the world’s oceans, and are rarely seen near the surface.  It is estimated that Giant Squid can reach lengths of over 40 feet long and they have the largest eyes in the animal world.  However, being so elusive and mysterious, it is impossible to tell how big Giant Squid are capable of growing. One of the best video close encounters with the giant squid occurred on Christmas Eve 2015 in Toyama Bay, Japan (video clip below) when a juvenile made a rare visit to surface waters.

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Giant Discovery Channel Hoaxes vs Real Giant Sharks

Remember when MTV played music videos?  Also remember when the Discovery Channel used to feature science documentaries and not “mockumentaries” like Animal Planet’s “Mermaids” embarrassment? During “Shark Week” in 2013, the Discovery Channel aired a segment called “Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives.” In the segment, there is a grainy photo that you may have seen floating around the internet.

Still from “Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives”

The photo was alleged to be taken on December 18, 1942 near Capre Town, South Africa gathered by “Nazi archives” and displays a dorsal and tail fin behind a few U-boats with a measurement marker of 64 feet. Without knowing the documentary was fictional, many viewers assumed this photo was powerful evidence for the existence of the Megalodon in modern times.  However, there were also those who questioned the photo, and ultimately proved it to be phony.

George Monbiot of the Guardian began investigating the claims made by the Discovery Channel show, and with a little help from his readers, managed to debunk the photo as a total fabrication.

“Before I wrote the article I conducted an image search, and found nothing. Now I know why. It wasn’t a still picture. A sharp-eyed reader found the frame in some footage of U-boats on Tarrif.net. The footage was shot in the Atlantic. Take a look 12 seconds in.

It’s the same shot. But guess what? No shark. And no swastika. And not off Cape Town. Or anywhere near.

I wrote to the company handling media inquiries, putting it to them that the production company which made the film, Pilgrim Studios, doctored the image and misled the audience. I have not heard back from them.”

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-George Monbiot

Another photo that has been misrepresented as a Megalodon is the now-famous “Sleeper Shark” video.  Having been re-edited and re-packaged by YouTube as “The Mariana Trench Megalodon,”

The Pacific Sleeper Shark

The claims that this is a shark of stupendous size comes from the assertion that the cage in question was a large diving cage when in acttuality it is a small bait cage designed to draw in sharks and fish within the range of the camera.  Also, this was not filmed in the Mariana Trench, the encounter was actually recorded by a submersible in Japan’s Suruga Bay and uploaded in 2008 (see video below).

Thete are many historical accounts of giant Great Whites.  In the 1870s, a 36 ft specimen was captured in southern Australian waters, near Port Fairy, and an 37 ft shark  was trapped in a herring weir in New Brunswick, Canada, in the 1930s. Both of those size estimations remain unverified.  However, there are still giants that roam the water to this day.

The largest Great White ever captured on video so far has been Deep Blue, and she’s our modern equivalent to a real-life “Jaws” with the exception that she’s pretty tolerable about having divers around her.  Deep Blue is approximately 20 feet long and weighs an estimated 2 tons, making her the largest known Great Whites sharks alive. She’s estimated to be around 50 years old and the first documented encounter with this particular shark was about 20 years ago.

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The Lake Michigan Mothman: High Strangeness in the Midwest

This book represents over two years of research by a dedicated team of investigators who have taken dozens of reports of a weird, winged humanoid seen around Lake Michigan. Author and investigator Tobias Wayland has collected these reports for the first time in one volume, along with his analysis and insider perspective as a member of the investigative team. The phenomena described within represent the continuation of a decades-long series of events first recorded in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in the late ’60s, but that has likely been with humanity since our advent, and seems just as likely to be with us until our end.

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Any use of copyrighted material on http://www.nationalcryptidsociety.org is done for criticism, comment, news reporting or educational purposes. The National Cryptid Society including all web pages and social media platforms owned or registered by The National Cryptid Society does not endorse nor is any endorsement of the National Cryptid Society inferred by creators of copyrighted material presented herein for criticism, comment, news reporting or educational purposes under Fair Use allowance quoted above. Various SEO Keywords: Dinosaur, exhibit, for sale, auction, Action, Aggressive, Agile, Allegorical, Apparition, Appeal, Appendage, Archeology, Archosaurs, Astonishing, Attack, Attraction, Awe, Awesome, Beast, Beauty, Behavior, Behemoth, Believe in, Berserk, Bipedal, Bony Armor, Breathtaking, Captivate, Careful, Carnivorous, Cave, Changes, Charisma, Conjure, Conquer, Conquest, Creature, Crests, Cretaceous, Critter, Cruel, Cunning, Curious, Cursed, Dazzle, Deadly, Demon, Dinosauria, Disappear, Discoveries, Diverse, Domination, Dragon-like, Dramatic, Drawn, Dread, Earth, Eek, Encounter, Enormous, Evolution, Existence, Extraordinary, Extinct, Extinction, Eyes, Fantastic, Fascination, Fear, Fearsome, Fiery, Floating, Flying, Forceful, Fossil, Fright, Frightful, Giant, Gigantic, Global, Grand, Grotesque, Groups, Hatch, Herbivore, Hidden, Hills, Historical, Horns, Howls, Imagination, Incredible, Indescribable, Injuries, Invade, Invasion, Jurassic. Extinct, Juvenile, Kill, Kingdom, Land, Large, Leathery, Legendary, Literature, Lore, Majesty, Mammoth, Marvel, Mesozoic, Misshapen, Monster, Mysterious, Mythical, Names, Nasty, Natural, Nemesis, New, Noise, Obliterate, Over-sized, Petrify, Phenomenon, Potent, Powerful, Prehistoric, Prey, Proportion, Prowl, Pugnacious, Pursuit, Quadruped, Quail, Quake, Quest, Quiver, Raptor, Real, Realm, Remains, Repellent, Reptile, Repulsive, Revolting, Roam, Roar, Savage, Scales, Scare, Serpent, Size, Skeleton, Slither, Snout, Soaring, Special, Species, Spectacular, Spikes, Spiny, Stealthy, Story, Surprising, Symbolize, Tail, Tales, Taxonomy, Terrestrial, Terrible lizard, Terror, Tremor, Triassic, Ultimate, Unbelievable, Unique, Unreal, Unusual, Vanish, Vanquish, Variation, Variety, Vertebrates, Vicious, Weight, Weird, Wicked, Wild, Wilderness, Willies, Wince, Wings, World, Wrinkled, Paleontology, Science, Reptile, Ancient, Model, Photo, Video, Caught on, Captured, New, News, Cryptozoology, games, gaming, gamer, Paranormal, Supernatural, Unknown, Unidentified, Mystery, replica, Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Mothman, Dogman, Sea Monster, Champ, Champy, Loch Ness Monster, Alien, UFO, extraterrestrial, Funny, Warning, Caution, Sign, camp, camping, camper, hunt, hunter, hunting, fish, fishing, fisherman, outdoor, recreation, forest, woods, wilderness, spirit, ghost, Paranormal, Supernatural, Werewolf, Wolfman. Monster, creature, crypto, cryptid, cryptozoology, animal, wildlife, wild, scandal, controversy, conspiracy, murder, disappear, missing, Trump, Halloween, holiday, pet, dog, cat, write, writer, writing, read, reader, attack, boar, turtles, reading, campaign, forum, true, truth, folklore, myth, Earth, hollow, flat, round, Mars, Moon, scared, terror, horror, science fiction, documentary, sightings, movie, show, weather, maps, YouTube, translate, calculator, news, donald, suggestion, “how to”, “who is”, “who was”, actor, Virginia, senate, erotic, erotica, nonsense, “when was”  whatever!

Nature’s Monsters, Giant Animals and Fantastic Beasts Bigfoot, Mothman and the Chupacabra may be some of the most widely known cryptids in modern society, but another fascinating cryptozoological classification of mysterious “monsters” are giant animals.

[drtanstravels]

The year 2020 was initially going to be an epic one for Anna and myself with a ton of travelling involved, due solely to the fact that a lot of ophthalmological conferences and other eye-related organisations wanted to take advantage of the potential for 20/20 vision puns. The year started relatively normally, first boarding a ship in Sydney in mid-January and cruising to to New Caledonia and back for my friend’s 40th birthday and then celebrating Chinese New Year in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia almost as soon as we got back. The next month we spent a few days in Mexico before making our way to San Diego so Anna could be inducted into the Macula Society, but that all seems like a distant memory at this point in time. In fact, the idea of taking a cruise ship now just seems insane and it appears as if people will forever now question their decision to get on a giant boat with several thousand other people, but it will have nothing to do with the possibility of seasickness or even the ship sinking. In fact, at the end of March there were still more than 10 cruise ships and 10,000 passengers stranded at sea, all unable to dock anywhere because of the risk of Covid-19.

We definitely dodged a bullet with the ship, but so far a lot of our plans for the first half of the year have been dashed; by the end of July we were supposed to have traveled to China, South Korea, Taiwan, USA again, Ireland, Philippines, Thailand, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. The bulk of those were for Anna’s work, Philippines was a local holiday in place of a canceled conference to use already booked leave, Thailand was a wedding, and both Tanzania and Zimbabwe were for a Safari to celebrate Anna’s 40th birthday which incidentally happens to coincide with a conference that was supposed be held in Cape Town, South Africa. Now we’re not even certain when we’ll be able to go shopping, eat in a restaurant, or just hang out normally with friends again. Maybe the current situation is the new normal for the foreseeable future, but one thing is for sure — I’m certainly glad we’re stuck in Singapore during this pandemic, because the government here got on top of the whole coronavirus thing early, first taking action on January 2 when mandatory temperature checks were issued at Changi airport for passengers arriving from Wuhan and all passengers from China two and a half weeks later. Regardless, the first coronavirus case was reported in Singapore on Thursday, January 23. In an interesting twist, the 12th reported case in Singapore was apparently a prostitute from Wuhan, China, having visited two red-light districts and stayed in three-different hotels, one with hourly rates, with different men.

I sure am glad we got to skip all that

On Friday, January 24 we were set to travel to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for Chinese New Year with Anna’s family, but that was also the first day that mandatory temperature checks at all Singapore borders were enforced due to the first case in the country the previous day so we were met at the airport with insane hold ups (right). Fortunately for us, with all of the flying we do we are classed as Priority Passengers when we fly with Singapore Airlines and other Krisflyer affiliates so we got to skip the queues, check in, have our temperature scanned, and be on our way. This was well before the US had even considered the possibility of taking any measures on the coronavirus, but it wasn’t like they were oblivious to what was going on in other parts of the world; I posted these photos of some of our Chinese New Year dishes on several Facebook food pages (unfortunately, I don’t have links to the exact pages) and the responses generally weren’t all that positive, mainly because of the belief that Covid-19 started as the result of people eating bat soup in rural China:

Steamed fish

Braised chicken

Suckling pig

It was mainly the picture of the chicken that got the attention, but all of the meat dishes were served with the heads merely for presentation and, with the exception of the fish, the head isn’t consumed. Fish heads have been eaten by the poor in both Eastern and Western culture for centuries, but pig heads are a little too crunchy, and if any of the detractors had tasted the chicken without being able to see its cranium, they would more than likely agree that it was one of the better braised chicken dishes they had ever been served, but that didn’t stop the onslaught of hate and racist comments, ranging from, “That’s why you have coronavirus,” to “We need to nuke China!!!” and everything in between. When I clarified that these pictures were taken in Malaysia, not China, the same arguments constantly came up, with people claiming it is the same place. That’s funny, because it takes six hours to fly from KL to Beijing, whereas the flight from Toronto to Mexico City is shorter, yet Canada and Mexico are not generally considered “the same place.” Other detractors on the pages just pointed out that there is a Chinese woman in one of the photos so it must be in China. When I clicked on the profiles of those posting the worst comments, they were almost always Americans so the the citizens there obviously knew there was trouble afoot. It’s strange that the country with the chicken head on the plate is doing far better when it comes to handling the virus than the US currently is.

A screenshot of genuine WHO advice received on January 28

We returned to Singapore on the evening of Monday, January 27 and when we had stopped laughing at the World Health Organization’s advice on reducing infection (left) the following day, we decided to go grocery shopping. Definitely a good decision. On Friday, February 7 the Disease Outbreak Response System Condition (DORSCON) level was raised from Yellow to Orange, putting us in a position where the future was rather unclear. This meant that all healthcare workers were from then on required to take and submit their temperature twice per day in order to prove they hadn’t developed a fever. For the general population, however, that’s when the panic-buying began. Now, I’ve watched enough TV shows and movies that begin with similar events including Outbreak, The Stand, and Shaun of the Dead so I thought I knew the type of stuff people would be hoarding in a time when a virus makes the future a little uncertain; bottled water, canned food, pasta, rice, batteries, that type of thing, but it turned out that those items weren’t that high on the general population’s shopping lists. People here mainly wanted toilet paper and at first I thought it was just the local mentality, but it would eventually turn out to be a global thing. Back when I was in university I had no money so I learnt quickly that many things can be used as toilet paper — I used to use the free Melbourne street-press in desperate situations and then have a shower to wash the newspaper ink off my backside afterwards. Many things can be substituted for toilet paper, but very few can be food, yet that was secondary on most people’s collective minds. Once the toilet paper had run dry that’s when the kiasu mentality kicked in on all other goods. I’ve mentioned ‘kiasu’ before, but for those who don’t know what it means and can’t be bothered clicking that link and scrolling down, here’s the definition:

kiasu

ˈkjɑːsuː/

adjective

1. (of a person) having a grasping or selfish attitude arising from a fear of missing out on something: “kiasu parents enrol their kids in more and more tuition classes.”

noun

1. a grasping, selfish attitude.

Origin: From Hokkien (驚輸 POJ: kiaⁿ-su, kiaⁿ-si); literally: “afraid to lose”

Despite being told time and time again to stay calm and that hoarding goods wasn’t at all necessary, people started taking all of the items on the shelves that they could possibly fit in their car and filled up rooms in their homes to the point that they could start up their own convenience stores. However, if you take a look at the videos in that link, you will see that for some there wasn’t a whole lot of logic involved, especially the people who were essentially just stocking up on condiments and expensive, auspicious foodstuffs. Of course, this idea backfired for a lot of people when it became clear that supermarkets weren’t going to close, especially for those who had stashed perishables and then later had their requests for refunds rejected when their food rotted, as fresh vegetables tend to do over time.

It was Friday, February 14 when we flew out to Mexico and California, going through all of the temperature screenings again as we left Singapore, but absolutely no safety measures whatsoever when we arrived at LAX. When we were to fly back from the US to Singapore more than a week later, after stocking up on hand sanitiser in San Diego, another commodity rapidly becoming in short supply in Singapore at the time, we drove to the airport and were herded into large groups and searched for drugs going out of Los Angeles, but still they didn’t particularly seem all that bothered by people’s health. Kind of unusual, because not long after we had returned to Singapore, a couple of my friends here were put under 14-days home quarantine because one of them had been to the same gym on the same day as a reported Covid-19 case. This action wasn’t taken lightly by the Singapore government, either, as they were subjected to multiple random visits and calls throughout the day without warning, the phone calls requesting they send their GPS coordinates to confirm they hadn’t left the house. In the most Singaporean story possible, one of the first people charged under the Infectious Disease act with breaching a mandatory stay-home notice was a man who was being quarantined for 14 days at home after returning from Myanmar, but felt he just needed to go out and eat bak kuh teh, a regional pork rib soup dish. In a sign of how seriously the Singapore government is taking its quarantine measures, the case went to court, he will be sentenced on April 23, and the Deputy Public Prosecutor Kenneth Chin urged the court to sentence him to at least 10 to 12 weeks’ jail to “reflect the seriousness of the offence” and deter others from committing a similar act! In slightly more subtle measures, Anna developed a runny nose 13 days after our return to Singapore so she had to go to the hospital for a rather painful nasal swab and then we waited until the next day for the results, hoping there wouldn’t be any men in hazmat suits knocking on our door to take us away. The results came back clear, but she was still given five days mandatory sick leave, all because we had been overseas in the previous 14 days.

Temperature checks when entering any public building in Singapore became the norm in mid to late February so even if you went to a shopping mall, you would be screened and then certified with a sticker placed on the sleeve of your clothing to confirm your temperature was in a healthy range. This made shopping in major areas kind of amusing, because you could look at a person’s clothes and see how many different malls they had visited, some of the more obsessive shoppers appearing as if a game of Connect-4 had been played on them. It was Tuesday, March 24 that it was announced that the beginning of the end had officially begun — As of the Thursday, March 26, all entertainment outlets, nightclubs, bars, places of worship, attractions, and tuition centres would be closed and a S$10,000 (US$7000.00) fine and/or six months imprisonment penalty put in place for offending operators, however, eateries could remain open, meaning you could still go out for a drink if the venue was licensed as a restaurant and wasn’t showing anything on screens or playing music. This entertainment closure even specifically included “Axe-Throwing Centres,” something I didn’t even know was a thing here. In fact, I can’t recall ever even having seen an axe for sale in Singapore, let alone someone throwing one! Boy, is my finger not on the pulse:

A huge blow to the axe-throwing industry

Social distancing measures were brought in as well at that time, there needed to be a space of one metre (3’4″) between people and groups hanging out together could consist of no more than 10 individuals and they were still required to be spaced a metre apart. We knew at that time the end was near and then it happened. The Prime Minister gave a formal announcement on Friday, April 3 saying that as of Tuesday, April 7 a “circuit breaker” would be put into place for at least four weeks and that is where we are now. What’s this circuit breaker I hear you ask in your internal monologue? Well, it is a stricter set of laws that means all non-essential business and workplaces are closed, schools are also closed and have become home-based learning, and any food and drink establishment has become takeaway or delivery only. To add to all of this, everybody is required to stay at home except for essential tasks such as buying necessary goods, dog-walking, or forms of solo exercise and if you do leave your abode, there is a S$300.00 (US$210.00) fine for not wearing a face mask when you do so, increasing after the first offence. For a little perspective, Florida Govenor Ron DeSantis has extended “essential services” to include professional wrestling matches of all things. Anna had managed to purchase some masks online for us when the outbreak first happened and the government also delegated four reusable masks per person per household, but the reusable masks are just too small for me; my big nose makes the mask painfully pull my ears forward, while the surface area of the mask only allows me to speak through clenched teeth like a ventriloquist, otherwise my aforementioned massive nose pops out over the top. Fortunately for us, the circuit breaker was announced with a few days warning so we had time to think of some hobbies to fill in our homestay. I enjoy art and have always loved Bob Ross’ The Joy of Painting, every episode of which is currently available on YouTube, so I showed Anna a couple of episodes and she was keen to take up landscape painting, however, we have recently sold our apartment, yet are still staying in it and I can’t see us successfully being able to paint all that cleanly so she opted for sewing instead. This meant going to Spotlight to buy some supplies and a sewing machine to get started, also finding that they sold wall art of a dog that eerily resembled ours in the process, and while we were in the mall I decided to purchase a PS4 so I could play video games in between tasks, chores, and errands while Anna was making Tim-sized masks among other things. The only problem was that, while the rest of the world had only recently caught up and were panic-buying toilet paper, Singaporeans had moved on to purchasing emergency gaming consoles. They were sold out everywhere! We still got the sewing machine, as well as a case of beer and some other groceries, but those larger items in a trolley with some stuff from the supermarket would have given the impression to others that we were doomsday prepping too. The following day was the last feeling of freedom we would experience for at least a month so I walked into town to visit Funan, a mall specialising in electronics, with the intention of buy a PS4, but it was impossible to find one anywhere, the stores had just resorted to putting signs out the front saying that all consoles were sold out, they even had very few games, so all hope was lost… or so I thought. The last store I tried was Best, a chain of electronics stores, and I saw a display box in a cabinet so I thought I may as well ask, only to be met with a reply of “sold out.” Upon closer inspection, it appeared as if the security seal was still on the box so I asked the elderly man working in that department if I could see the box in the cabinet and the look on the employees’ collective faces confirmed my suspicions, I may have found one of the very last PlayStations in Singapore, complete with five games including an old favourite of mine, Grand Theft Auto V. I took it over to a younger, dumbfounded cashier, he opened up the box and told me that the membership included would have expired so he knocked an extra S$50.00 (US$35.00) off the price, an action that was met with death-stares from all of the other male customers in my immediate vicinity. I tried to play it down by blatantly lying and saying that the PS4 was for my non-existent son, but that didn’t really clear the air with the other shoppers. A few scenes from the days before the circuit breaker kicked in:

The line in front of me at the butcher just so I can buy meat for our dog…

…and the line behind me

Whomever is responsible for creating example pieces at Spotlight Singapore should be fired!

I don’t recall having anyone come into our apartment to take photos recently, except for a real estate agent

It really does look like I’m hoarding stuff…

…but there’s a slab and a sewing machine in there

Things are looking bleak

Even if I were lucky, not a whole lot available in the way of games, either

These masks simply don’t fit

So, since we’ve been put on a stay at home notice, Anna and I have both been collectively losing our minds and we’re only a little over a week in. After we went grocery shopping we decided to clean out our cupboards and fridge to store food more easily and that’s when we realised that we probably should’ve cleared out our kitchen a lot earlier. Besides many other outdated goods, we found some baking soda that expired in 2015, a bottle of Sriracha sauce that was so old that it had turned dark brown, and some grated cheese in the freezer that should’ve been thrown out more than two years ago. However, after a little research we discovered that the cheese expiry only counts if it’s stored sealed in the fridge, but frozen, grated mozzarella lasts indefinitely so I later used it to cook with and we’re still here. The next day I plugged in the PS4, downloaded NBA 2K20, and tried to create my own player by scanning my face and it does resemble me, but only if I had recently suffered a stroke, mainly due to the fact that I was staring into a light while doing the facial scanning. It’s still a bit of fun, though. The last major event was that eight days into quarantine there was an internet outage islandwide, but Anna thought it may have just been our place so she tried the old adage of “turn it off and on again” to get the modem restarted. The only problem was that she didn’t turn the devices off individually, she decided to just turn everything off at the wall, an event that stopped our TV from working again. Initially we thought she may have blown a fuse, but when a repairman was able to come over three hours later with us sans internet or TV, we were informed that the circuitboard was burnt out, would need to be replaced for a substantial amount of cash, and wouldn’t be ready for another four days. We do have a second older and smaller TV that we are now using in the meantime, but its screen is pretty burnt out too, with weird, snowy white patches all over it and only watchable from directly in front, otherwise appearing to be a cloudy version of a negative picture. Cool. Some of the latest images from our quarantine:

Our five-year old baking soda

This was about three years past its date, too

The internet outage that resulted in Anna killing our TV

The old replacement TV when viewed from the front

Now viewed from the side

The side view adjusted for angle

If you’ve made it this far through the story of living in Singapore during Covid-19, then congratulations. The beginning of this post says that we made some amusing and interesting discoveries during the pandemic thus far so here they are, my equivalent of tl;dr for this post:

Don’t have unprotected sex with animals, wild or otherwise, if you want to avoid contracting the coronavirus

A large portion of the Covid-19 virus in Singapore was initially more than likely spread by a hooker

Eating bak kuh teh has the potential to land you in jail

Axe-throwing is a game here

People panic-buy gaming consoles in Singapore too

Some also tried to return hoarded goods for a refund when they rotted

Frozen cheese lasts indefinitely

Florida classes pro-wrestling as an “essential service”

Watching our current TV is how people with cataracts would probably experience it

There’s at least almost three more weeks left of quarantine officially remaining here and I still think that is a little optimistic so I’m almost certain there will be a sequel to this post. In the meantime, to give you something to which you can look forward, I came up with an idea that I am certain someone else would’ve thought of as well — Although I’m not a particularly hairy person, I’m not going to shave or cut my hair until I’m allowed to hang out with friends in public again, and I will take a photo in the same pose as an earlier one to show the results of my complete lack of hard work, a la the Beatles:

(image source)

Dealing with Covid-19 has been a trying time, but we've made some interesting and amusing discoveries in the process The year 2020 was initially going to be an epic one for Anna and myself with a ton of travelling involved, due solely to the fact that a lot of ophthalmological conferences and other eye-related organisations wanted to take advantage of the potential for 20/20 vision puns.

[debrahnesbit]

The LawBytes Podcast, Episode 22: Navigating Intermediary Liability for the Internet – A Conversation with Daphne Keller

The question of what responsibility should lie with Internet platforms for the content they host that is posted by their users has been the subject of debate around in the world as politicians, regulators, and the broader public seek to navigate policy choices to combat harmful speech that have implications for freedom of expression, online harms, competition, and innovation. To help sort through the policy options, Daphne Keller, the Director of Intermediary Liability at Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society, joins the podcast this week. She recently posted an excellent article on the Balkinization blog that provided a helpful guide to intermediary liability law making and agreed to chat about how policy makers can adjust the dials on new rules to best reflect national goals.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. The transcript is posted at the bottom of this post or can be accessed here. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Episode Notes:

Keller, Build Your Own Intermediary Liability Law: A Kit for Policy Wonks of All Ages

Credits: Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, May 28, 2019

Transcript:

LawBytes Podcast – Episode 22 transcript powered by Sonix—the best audio to text transcription service

LawBytes Podcast – Episode 22 was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors. Sonix is the best way to convert your audio to text in 2019.

Michael Geist: This is Law Bytes, a podcast with Michael Geist.

Dan Albas: Minister, number nine of your guidelines: free from hate and vile extremism. One, the prime minister has been obviously talking a lot, refers to protecting Canadians from hate, violent extremism as well as disinformation. Now, I believe no one here defends hate speech and all Canadians deserve to feel safe in their communities and online. My question is, how will you enforce this measure? How will you monitor these platforms while also protecting free speech?

Navdeep Bains: So free speech is absolutely essential. It’s part of our charter rights and freedom. This is why I became a liberal. And this is really core to our democracy and what it means to be Canadian. But at the same time, there’s clear limitations to that when it comes to hate, for example. And we see newspapers and broadcasters that hold themselves to account when it comes to not spewing that kind of hate on their platforms. So clearly, these digital platforms that have emerged also have a responsibility. We all are very aware of the 51 individuals that were killed in New Zealand, in Christchurch. And that really prompted this call to action where the prime minister was at Paris to say platforms need to step up. If they had the technology, if they had the ability to bring people together, to connect people and then investing in A.I. and all these different technologies, they need to deploy those technologies to prevent those platforms from being used as means to disseminate extremism, terrorism or hate. And so that’s what we’re trying to do with the government as a government is really apply pressure to these platforms to hold them to account. And those platforms recognize they need to step up as well. And that’s one key mechanism of how we want to deal with this.

Michael Geist: The debates over intermediary liability, which focus on what responsibility should lie with Internet platforms and service providers for the content they host that’s posted by their users has been taking place around the world in Parliament’s op ed pages and the broader public debate. Much like the exchange you just heard between Canadian Conservative MP Dan Albas and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains from earlier this spring, there are no easy answers with policy choices that have implications for freedom of expression, online harms, competition and innovation. To help sort through the policy options and their implications, I’m joined on the podcast this week by Daphne Keller, the director of Intermediary Liability at Stanford Center for Internet and Society. Daphne, who served as associate general counsel for Google until 2015, worked on groundbreaking intermediary liability litigation and legislation around the world while at the company, and her work at Stanford focuses on platform regulation and Internet users rights. She recently posted an excellent article on the Balkanization blog that provided a helpful guide to intermediary liability lawmaking and agreed to chat about how policymakers can adjust the dials on new rules to best reflect national goals.

Michael Geist: Daphne, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast.

Daphne Keller: Thank you. It’s good to be here.

Michael Geist: Great. So as you know, there’s been a lot of momentum lately towards regulating online speech and establishing more liability for the large Internet platforms. That’s an issue that we’ve been grappling with, really, I think, since the popularization of the Internet. Back in the 1990s. But today there seems to be more and more countries expressing concern about online harms and looking especially to the large platforms the Google and Facebook and others to do more with real legal and regulatory threats if they don’t. So before we get into some of the challenges inherent with this kind of do something demands. I thought we could set the groundwork a little bit from a couple of perspectives, both with the law says now and with the platforms have been doing. Why don’t we start with the laws and recognizing their differences, of course, between lots of different countries. Where have we been for the last number of years anyway, even going back a couple of decades with respect to some of these liability questions?

Daphne Keller: Well, a lot of countries never enacted Internet specific content liability laws. So depending where you are in the world, it might be that these things get resolved just based on existing defamation laws or existing copyright law. But in the U.S. and the European Union, the law has been relatively stable going back two decades-ish. In the US, we’ve had two very major statutes that occupy almost the whole field. We have the DMCA Digital Millennium Copyright Act for copyright, and that sets out a sort of detailed takedown process with a lot of prescriptive steps. And then the other major U.S. law is Communications Decency Act 230, generally known as CDA 230, which is a very broad immunity for most other kinds of claims for anything that’s not intellectual property or a federal crime. So things like defamation or invasion of privacy claims, the platforms are just immunized. In Europe – is it useful if I go into some detail about Europe or is that wandering off topic for you?

Michael Geist: I think it’s really useful because from a Canadian perspective in particular, we’ve on the one hand got now the USMCA, That seems to put some of the U.S. rules in place in Canada, at least at a high level, via trade. But at the same time, I don’t think there’s any question but that what’s been taking place in Europe is influencing a lot of the thinking amongst some Canadian politicians.

Daphne Keller: Yeah, okay. So the main law on platform liability at the EU level is the e-commerce directive, which was passed in 2000 and it’s implemented in different member state laws slightly differently. But the basic concept is you get limited immunity if you are a certain kind of intermediary. So you have to be hosting or caching or transit provider. So it’s a little bit of a funny immunity in that it’s not clear if it covers search engines or some other things you might expect to be covered by intermediary liability protections. But if you’re eligible for those safe harbors, the rule is basically you have to take down unlawful content if you know about it. However, the member states and the courts implement the law. They can’t compel you to go out and proactively monitor. It’s just a reactive, knowledge based obligation. And that I think has had some some real shortcomings just because it lacks a lot of the procedural protections that you see in something like the DMCA, where, for example, the person who’s being accused of copyright infringement is supposed to be able to get a notice that it’s happened and be able to challenge it and so forth. There isn’t that kind of detail in most European laws. And so platforms have an even greater incentive to just take an accuser’s word for it and go ahead and take content down, even if it’s not at all clear that it’s illegal because it’s much safer to take things down and avoid risk for yourself. And you know what empirical data we have shows this happening shows lots and lots of unfounded allegations and lots and lots of erroneous takedowns.

Michael Geist: Right. I mean, I think the situation sometimes can be somewhat similar in Canada, where without some of the clear cut procedural safeguards faced with the question of what might be unlawful content or might not be, sometimes large platforms may err on the side of taking down just because it’s simpler to do that. So we’ve got large platforms having some amount of protections, safe harbors in both the major jurisdictions, stronger procedural protections such that perhaps, I suppose the bias is more to leave up in the United States unless the process is met, whereas in Europe that may reverse. How how do the companies handle some of those kinds of differences? Is it as simple as in the US they’re more likely to err to leave content online and in Europe and perhaps similar countries without those procedural protections they’re more likely to take things down.

Daphne Keller: Certainly, I mean that if if we’re talking about the big platforms like the Facebook and Googles and Twitters of the world, they all have nationally specific versions that are targeted to users in a particular jurisdiction and often are optimized for them in ways that are about commercial success. There will be a Google Doodle that’s relevant for a local holiday that’s shown just in that country, for example, but also by having different versions of the service for different countries, you can sort of sandbox legal compliance and say, OK, we’ve established that this content is illegal in France, so we’re going to take it down from the French version of the service, but we’re not going to apply French law globally.

Michael Geist: Right. So that, of course, gets us into the question of things like the Equustek case that we had in Canada, where you get a single country like Canada trying to make those decisions not just for its own citizens, but effectively for others by a court order. But we’ll park that for the moment and stick to it, because if this stuff gets so complicated so quickly and I guess stick, stick primarily to the the pressure for more regulation, the sense that somehow the rules, as you’ve just articulated, are at least in the minds of certainly some politicians, and we certainly see it as part of the discourse not good enough. That erring even on one side or the other still has left us, in a sense with a certain amount of harm online. And I think there’s a greater concern and appreciation for that. So there is unquestionably mounting pressure to do more from a regulatory perspective as a way of requiring, in effect, these large platforms to do more. Now, you’ve been really prolific on the issue and written all different kinds of things on it, but it was a piece on the blog Balkanization that really crystallized it for me because it highlights the challenges of intermediary liability laws. I guess as a starting point, what are we often trying to balance when it comes to these laws?

Daphne Keller: So there are generally three goals that legislatures are trying to balance. One is to prevent harm. So to take down content if it’s defaming someone or if it’s a movie piracy or, you know, causing harm. Another is to protect free expression. And obviously, there’s this tradeoff where the platforms are very afraid of liability. They’re likely to err on the side of taking things down and so controversial speech gets suppressed and so forth. And then the third goal is protecting technical innovation and economic growth that can come with it. So, you know, if you are a small startup, it’s really important to have immunities and, you know, know that you’re not going to be required, for example, to build a 100 million dollar content filter, because right now, at least in the US and in Europe, if you start a new platform and you want to compete with Facebook or compete with Twitter, you can know with relative certainty what kind of legal exposure you’re setting yourself up for and what it is you’re going to have to take down and potentially pay lawyers for. But but if that becomes less certain, then it’s harder and harder for small companies to enter the market and for people to experiment with new technologies. So just to recap, the three goals being balanced are harm prevention, free expression protection, and innovation.

Michael Geist: Sure. And I guess before we get into sort of how how you move some of those dials with those three three goals, I’m going to assume that many countries will look at each of those three policy objectives somewhat differently. Some may have constitutional norms that provide very strong protections on the freedom of expression side and are more willing to give, let’s say, on the innovation side.

Daphne Keller: Yeah, absolutely. And that kind of manifests in two ways. One is that some countries prohibit more speech than others. So, you know, they strike a balance. For example, that protects privacy more and sacrifices free expression and exchange or vice versa. But also that manifests in how countries set up their platform liability rules, you know, whatever it is that you are prohibiting. Your platform liability rules are going to need platforms to err in one side or the other. And so if you are starting from less speech protective goals, then maybe you’re more tolerant of a rule that’s going to lead platforms to take down a little bit too much speech or a lot too much speech.

Michael Geist: Right. And certainly we’ve seen, at least in some places, perhaps with or without some of the constitutional norms around freedom of expression, there’s been certainly, at least lately, a great deal of emphasis on the harm side.

Daphne Keller: Absolutely.

Michael Geist: And if that’s the priority, then, you know, if if we’re if we’re kind of trying to deal with each of these three things, there may be real implications, I think is what you’re getting at. Ultimately, you either for fostering innovative competitors in this space or for the safeguards around freedom of expression.

Daphne Keller: Yeah. And I think right now we’re seeing a big tendency for policies from Europe to get exported to the rest of the world, either via other countries adopting similar laws or via platforms taking European law and just applying it globally. But that’s kind of problematic, not just because of the conflict with United States law, which is what you hear about the most, but because of the conflict with a lot of other countries’ laws. If you compare in human rights law, the European Convention or the EU charter, they prioritize some things like privacy and personality rights protection relatively high compared to the Inter-American convention, which explicitly is set up to prioritize free expression more highly.

Michael Geist: Right. And we we ran into some of those questions in Canada last year around Web site blocking related issues where again, it was free of expression versus copyright versus privacy versus even net neutrality type issues. And you’ve got to grapple with each of those kinds of competing objectives. Why don’t we stay for a moment with the implications for freedom of expression around this? Because they’re at least as part of the discourse lately, there’s been a tendency to amongst some certainly to sideline that, to sort of say, well, listen. Of course, it may have some implications, but we’re now focused more on the harm. As we start getting into intermediary liability type rules, what ultimately are some of the real implications for the negative of potential negative effects, I suppose, for freedom of expression?

Daphne Keller: Well, I mean, already we see things like governments abusing copyright takedown systems to suppress criticism. The Government of Ecuador got caught using DMCA requests to try to take down police brutality videos and critical journalism. So, you know, even with the systems that we have now, there’s a lot of opportunity for abuse. Sometimes it silences really important political speech. Other times, the abusive takedown requests are like one commercial competitor trying to silence another, which is also a problem. But then there’s just that there’s there’s a lot of room for important speech to disappear.

Daphne Keller: The maybe most politically consequential shift that I see right now is the tremendous emphasis in Europe and in some other regions on terrorist content, because I think as platforms err on the side of taking down too much to be safe, the thing that’s kind of adjacent to so-called terrorist content is likely to be political speech about tough issues, you know, about American military policy in the Middle East or about immigration policy in Europe. And so that sort of erring on the side of taking down too much when what you’re looking for is potentially violent extremist supporting speech, threatens some really important stuff.

Michael Geist: That’s interesting. I mean, in Canada, we’ve largely avoided the takedown rules and copyright that you referenced. Successive governments have in a sense, I think looked at the experience elsewhere and seen some of these kinds of implications, such as the Ecuadorian example that you just provided and largely avoided adopting that, though many of those platforms that, of course, were very popular in Canada still use effectively take down systems. So Canadians find themselves subject to it at a certain level, even if it isn’t found within our laws. It’s striking to talk about sort of some of these decisions and the removal of content. What role, if any, do the courts play in all of this or is this just it falls to the platforms and they are the ones making these calls?

Daphne Keller: Well, it depends where you are. There are some very interesting rulings internationally saying the courts have to be involved in in some countries. So in Argentina, the Supreme Court ruled that for for most kinds of content, a platform doesn’t have any legal obligation to take it down until a court has looked at it and given it a full and fair due process and adjudicated that it’s illegal because they didn’t want to put platforms in the decisions of being the arbiters of speech rules. There is a similar ruling from the Supreme Court of India saying you need an adequate government authority to decide what’s illegal and you shouldn’t put it in the hands of platforms. That, of course, isn’t how it has worked in the US with copyright or in Europe with that that knowledge base takedown systems that they have. And that created a sort of asymmetry in the access to remedies for the people who are affected by takedowns. If you’re somebody who is a victim of defamation or a rights holder whose copyright is being infringed and a platform doesn’t do what you want, you can sue them. And here you can take it to court and get your rights enforced. But if you’re someone who’s an online speaker and you have been wrongly silenced by a false accusation or an error, in most countries, you don’t have standing to go to court and challenge that. So there isn’t a way to correct the errors of over removal. There’s only a way using courts to correct the errors under removal.

Michael Geist: I mean, it’s it is for those that are accustomed to seeing your due process as a core part of protecting freedom of expression, the notion that we would ultimately leave to large platforms these decisions, can be pretty frightening. And it was again, the site blocking issue in Canada, the proposal that was put forward was one that did not involve direct court oversight, which was one, one or a part where the real concerns lay. When you start vesting so much responsibility in these platforms to make these kinds of decisions. There are those that say that’s that’s appropriate in part because they are increasingly likening the platforms to publishers and saying is this sure looks a lot like a conventional publisher, shouldn’t they have the same kind of responsibility? What are some of the implications as you see it, as of treating large Internet platforms as akin to a conventional publisher?

Daphne Keller: Well, I think it would be impossible for them to function if they were treated like publishers. Publishers do pre publication review of the editorials that they put up or the, you know, TV shows that they air. And if there is something controversial in there, they have a lawyer look at it and decide if it’s legal. You can’t layer a process like that on top of Twitter or Facebook. You know, what are they supposed to do? Hold all of our tweets while they have their legal team, evaluate them. Just. There isn’t a model where truly publisher-like legal responsibility can be put on platforms, but we still get to post things instantaneously and communicate and have a soapbox or talk to our friends, you know, all of the uses that we value that comes from having an instantaneous communication platform on the Internet, depend on those intermediaries is not having to carry with you everything we say.

Michael Geist: I mean, that does highlight the particular challenge that I know you that you’ve seen. I see it at least one of the Internet content moderation at scale conferences. When you start getting into just the sheer amount of content that exists and what it ultimately means to put responsibility on a platform potentially to vet all of that, even to not vet it, even to try to deal with all of it is something that we haven’t really seen. I think really before in publishing or content history. It’s everybody having the opportunity in a sense to speak and using these platforms to do it. What are some of the implications if you if you move towards almost a one size fits all type approach saying that we are going to have this requirement, whether it’s vetting beforehand or even take action after given the scope and size of what’s taking place. If we treat the Facebook as akin to know other other platforms or large sites that have a lot of user generated content out there, the Wikipedia’s or Reddit’s of the world.

Daphne Keller: Yeah. Well, I mean I do want to be clear that I’m not saying our only choices are give them complete immunity or, you know, lose the Internet. That is the point of the Balkanization piece is there are a lot of knobs and dials you can turn in the laws. You could have an accelerated TRO process to get something taken down or you could have some kinds of content where we do expect platforms to know it when they see it and take it down and others where you wait for a court, which is what the law de facto does anyway right now. You know, platforms even in the US have to take down child sex abuse material immediately if they see it. They’re not supposed to wait for a court to assess it. But the rule is very different for defamation, you know, where it’s often very difficult to know the correct legal assessment. So, you know, just with that background that I don’t think we we need an all or nothing system and I’m not saying lawmakers in the 90s got things perfect and we should never re-ask any questions. But whatever the obligations are that we put on platforms, the kinds of things we might reasonably ask Facebook or YouTube to do are very different from the kinds of things we might reasonably ask a small local blog or a two person company developing a chat app or, you know, smaller competitors to do.

Daphne Keller: And I think lawmakers are often falling into a trap where they say we need to regulate platforms. And what they have in mind is Facebook and YouTube and they know that YouTube can do things like spend one hundred million dollars developing a copyright filter and they know that Facebook can do things like hire is at 20 or 30 thousand people at this point to do content, moderation. You know, they just sort of really move mountains and put tremendous resources into this. And so they craft laws accordingly. They say, well, platforms should have to filter, platforms should have to have very rapid human review when they’re notified that something is unlawful. And that’s tolerable for Google and Facebook. I think those laws could you are very likely to change the major platforms so that they take down a lot more lawful speech, but they’re not going to go out of business. But if you are Medium or Automatic or even Pinterest or Reddit. Reddit has 500 employees. They don’t have a multi-tens of thousands of people moderation team. And so the kinds of rules that might plausibly be imposed on very large platforms just won’t work for small platforms.

Michael Geist: No, I think that’s a good point. And I think we’re certainly we’re law we’re sort of past the prospect of saying it’s there are no rules out there. I think you’ve highlighted it. There’s there always have been some and in some places there’s been an expectation of even more aggressive take down and moderation. But it’s clear we’re moving more and more. The question is, I think, as you’ve put it, how you adjust the dial at a certain level. One of the things that is was striking to me is how much emphasis there has been on the platform responsibility for harmful speech, let’s say, as opposed to the focus on individuals themselves. So, you know, in the aftermath of Christchurch, for example, terrible event where almost all the focus seemed to be on what Facebook did or didn’t do or YouTube did or didn’t do, as opposed to the individual who did this and other people around that that might have been doing this. Do you have thoughts on what we might do to not just focus on platform responsibility here, but individual responsibility as well for where there are people purveying hate or engaging in things that are illegal under various laws.

Daphne Keller: Yeah, I think the focus on platforms is on the one hand understandable because they represent a choke point. You know, like they can shut down a lot of individuals in situations where it’s hard for plaintiffs and law enforcement to go find those individuals. But they’re a pretty bad choke point because they won’t stand up for the individual speakers interests outside of, you know, relatively special circumstances. But on the other hand, focusing on the platforms really risks failing to address the underlying issues. And this we’ve seen this in the EU terrorism context. There’s been tremendous energy put into making platforms take down videos that are recruitment videos or terrorist violence videos. And then when civil society organizations in Europe have asked the police, well, how many of those uploader is did you go try to find or how many of the video creators did you prosecute? How many actual investigations came out of this? There don’t seem to be a lot of a lot of efforts being put in that direction. And so, you know, it’s not that all but all enforcement should move off of platforms and onto individuals. But it certainly is the case that focusing so excessively on platforms is missing out on really important pieces of solving the problem.

Daphne Keller: The other I mean, for many cases, there is another complication here, as you know well from from the copyright context and from other contexts where you work, which is online, speakers who are sharing illegal content are often anonymous. And so if we say the law should go after the speakers more, you know, that starts inviting lawmakers to strip away at anonymity rights or propose that platform should have to retain the real I.D. of people who post content. So, you know, there are huge policy tradeoffs in any direction there.

Michael Geist: Yeah. It’s I think it’s really striking just how each time you peel back just a little bit on some of these policy choices, it’s not the slam dunk that you sometimes hear about as part of discussion. Just you just regulate that. You know, they broke it. They’ve got to fix it sort of thing, because there are there are those kinds of choices. I assume you don’t have much of a crystal ball and it’s tough to know where we’re necessarily going. So rather than us closing by asking what is this landscape going to look like in 12, 12 months or 24 months, I guess I’m curious, are you optimistic that as there is action, because I think it certainly feels like there’s a lot of momentum there, that that countries and politicians are going to get the complexity that that you’re highlighting here? Or are we at a point at a moment in time where there is just there’s the so-called tech-lash and strong momentum towards you got to do something that some of those implications will simply get lost in the rush to do something?

Daphne Keller: I’m not optimistic in the US, and this is part of why I put up that Balkanization piece, because I see people proposing laws that are just ignorant of sort of the known doctrines that can be deployed in intermediary liability. You know, they say, oh, well, let’s just tell platforms to be reasonable without looking at what are platform is likely to do. If they have a vague standard, well, they’re likely to just take everything down to avoid risk. So I think we are at risk in the US of getting laws that are so badly drafted that they might just be unconstitutional. But going through the process of passing a law and then litigating to figure out if it’s unconstitutional is not a really good way to arrive at standards. In Europe, I’m in a way more optimistic. It’s it’s not that I like most of the legal proposals that have been coming out of Europe now, but that’s mostly because they represent a sort of policy tradeoff that I wouldn’t make between free expression protection and harm prevention, for example. But European civil society has been very active on intermediary liability issues for quite a while. And so you tended to see in the legal proposals coming out of the EU at least process protections, you know, at least ideas like if you’re going to use a technical filter to identify supposedly unlawful content, you should have some humans double check to make sure that filter didn’t make a mistake. Or you see legal proposals saying things like you, you should notify big users and give them an opportunity to challenge or that the latest draft of the terrorist content regulation, which is very close to becoming a law there, has some really impressive transparency provisions for government. So saying not just that platforms have to be transparent about what they’re taking down and why, but also that if governments are requesting that content be taken down, they need to tell the public what it is that they’re doing. So we are slowly moving toward kind of knowing what the what the dials and knobs are and what are the things that we can do to help create more protections. And in a way, slowing things down seems like our best chance of building up a more educated set of policy making, more education in the policymaking community so that we get better laws.

Michael Geist: Well, I think you’ve done it. You’ve done a lot to try to help educate because they say the stuff that you’ve been working on, the large databases that highlight the kinds of cases that are out there that allow for a more comparative look as well as some of the analysis is in many ways where people need to start once they’ve once they’ve concluded that there needs to be some kind of policy measures taken or regulatory measures taken. There has to be recognition that’s step one. that’s not the end of the story. That’s really in many ways just the beginning of trying to craft things that are both effective, but also reflect the sort of values that domestically exist as well as constitutional norms and all the other policy priorities that you say can be fiddled with, I suppose, with those knobs and dials.

Daphne Keller: Yeah, well, hopefully we’ll do a good job.

Daphne Keller: Daphne, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast.

Daphne Keller: Thank you, Michael.

Michael Geist: That’s the Law Bytes podcast for this week. If you have comments suggestions or other feedback, write to lawbytes.com. That’s lawbytes at pobox.com. Follow the podcast on Twitter at @lawbytespod or Michael Geist at @mgeist. You can download the latest episodes from my Web site at Michaelgeist.ca or subscribe via RSS, at Apple podcast, Google, or Spotify. The LawBytes Podcast is produced by Gerardo LeBron Laboy. Music by the Laboy brothers: Gerardo and Jose LeBron Laboy. Credit information for the clips featured in this podcast can be found in the show notes for this episode at Michaelgeist.ca. I’m Michael Geist. Thanks for listening and see you next time.

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The post The LawBytes Podcast, Episode 22: Navigating Intermediary Liability for the Internet – A Conversation with Daphne Keller appeared first on Michael Geist.

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A Brief History of Personality-Driven Luxury Travel Companies

An Abercrombie & Kent safari camp constructed in the Moroccan desert. Luxury travel has evolved significantly over the years. Abercrombie & Kent

Skift Take: These four entrepreneurs took the first steps toward what would become modern adventure and luxury travel, and their first-hand accounts hold lessons -- and entertainment -- for all those who followed in their wake.

— Samantha Shankman

It’s our fifth birthday this week. Click on the logo for more big stories.

Between 1962 and 1979, four of today’s largest and most successful luxury travel companies emerged.

Built around the personalities of a single explorer enchanted by the world and enabled by commercial aviation, these companies have stood the test of time despite broad changes in industry operation and customer expectation.

Skift spoke with Geoffrey Kent, George Butterfield, Sven-Olof Lindblad, and Andrew Harper throughout the summer to tell the story of how these businesses emerged, how they adapted over 55 years, why (or why not) they stayed independent, and what challenges they face for the future.

The Right Conditions

None of today’s luxury travel pioneers set out to build the world’s most successful full-service travel companies. They were lawyers, photographers, polo players, and editors before diving deep into the travel industry and shifting how and where people go. Quietly, however, the conditions were being set for their success.

Commercial aviation took off in the 1950s and everyone from poor college students to industry titans were eager to see the world in a way that was simply not possible beforehand. Airlines were actually profitable and actively promoting tours and trips in addition to selling tickets.

These were an entrepreneurial group who began several projects. These companies, however, were very much born out of their own pleasure in exploring the world and wanting to share that or find a way to continue doing it for the rest of their lives.

“It was almost by accident,” they say.

The focus was not so much on “luxury” as we define it today, but on providing the highest quality experience in that day whether that meant the best safari camps, the most informed guides, or access to untouched areas. These companies were in many cases the first to enter destinations from China to the Galapagos Islands and had a front row seat to unsoiled territory — a privilege that is nearly impossible today in the age of overtourism.

Before bemoaning the current possibilities for exploration, let’s look back at 1962 when an African safari was designed solely for hunters and much of the continent had never been touched by a foreign visitor.

Abercrombie & Kent’s Ascent to Luxury Leader

Abercrombie & Kent was launched in 1962 by a young Geoffrey Kent who saw an opportunity to design a first-class safari experience in Kenya where tastes were slowly shifting away from hunting expeditions as global appetite for safe adventures grew.

Kent’s years in the British Army gave him the planning skills to coordinate the first safari which required old British Army trucks, stealing the staff of his parent’s country club, and wrangling old friends together to lead the trip. Kent does a fine job of chronicling the early days of his empire in his book Safari, which is also serves as an interesting perspective into colonial Africa.

Perhaps most interesting in A&K’s early days is how the sales structure grew. Kent went to the Abercrombie and Fitch hunting and sporting goods store in New York and proposed that they sell his safari tours to a American customer base.

At first, they thought a safari would be too uncomfortable for the leisure traveler, but they came on a trip and were convinced, as Kent tells it.

“They thought it was the most wonderful idea because they only sold hunting supplies and they saw the change coming.”

The average photographic safari in that day was $25 per person per day while the average hunting safari was $500 per person per day. Kent sold his tours for $200 per person per day.

From there the company grew to include gorilla tours, walking tours, horseback safaris, canoe tours, and night drives across Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

“I had the base of this incredible camp that became my HQ,” says Kent.

“Once I could do that, I could go anywhere… and there was nobody else there.”

In addition to hosting his own tours, Kent was also white-labeling the camps for the original Lindblad and one another U.S. company. That is until he properly launched in the U.S. in 1972.

He set up a U.S. office and was visiting individual travel agents before finally convincing British Airways agents to sell his tours. That was the magic bullet it took for his sales to go from nothing to $10 million to $90 million in the U.S.

Throughout this time, Kent was also gaining a reputation as one of the best polo players in the world, which led him to rub shoulders with the wealthy individuals who were both interested and able to afford his trips. His role, for example, as a Rolex ambassador put him regularly in front of a room of Rolex clients where he could pitch his business.

Abercrombie & Kent grew internationally and was often one of the first operators in new destinations, such as China or Bhutan.

Then, last year, the company entered into a deal to be acquired by Chinese tourism developer and investment group Zhonghong Holdings.

“If they hadn’t been so nice and so understanding, which an American and European company wouldn’t be, then I wouldn’t have done it,” says Kent.

The Chinese consumer also poses an interesting opportunity for Kent, who still sees the U.S. as the primary market for experiential travel. He explains that Chinese customers have to see a physical advantage to booking with a company rather than the soft power that his brand might hold in Western countries.

“If the Chinese can Google it then you’ll have a hard time selling it. You have to offer something that they can’t get any other way,” he says while pushing Antartica expeditions.

Two trends that he sees continuing for the future are the growth of multi-generational travel and active travel, from hiking to Kilimanjaro to deep dives, which a younger audience is asking for more and more.

Butterfield’s Journey from Students to Bikes

Around the time that Geoffrey Kent was getting started, George Butterfield was traveling from Canada to Europe for his first student tour where the first inklings of his future business were born. Butterfield was first a customer then an employee and — after graduation — he decided to start his own student tour to get back to Europe.

“The first trip attracted 40 students, which was beyond our wildest dreams, with $60,000 in revenue and $12,000 profit after the trip. From a $1,5000 start to revenues and profit year one, we thought, ‘We’ve got to do this again’,” explains Butterfield.

The evolution of the company starts with student trips and does not reach its eventual business of luxury bicycle tours until 1980. And there was quite a journey in between.

The student trips continued to grow rapidly, but Butterfield and his team continually received requests from the students’ parents for an adult version of the tour. The student trips always had an element of bicycling, but Butterfield wanted to test the concept of an all-bike tour paired with great hotels.

That first tour was conceptualized in 1972 and cost $190 with a standard room for the week. Butterfield partnered with Lufthansa Airlines spread 30,000 brochures throughout North America.

“Not a single person was interested in taking that trip,” Butterfield says.

Throughout the 1970s, Butterfield continued growing his company by adding student tours and representing other businesses including Abercrombie and Kent in Canada. However, he started to notice a shift in the students’ travel habits.

“There was a sea change in attitude. Students started traveling on their own and by the late 70s our student trips began to wane. I realized that student trips were not going to be our future,” explains Butterfield.

Around that time a friend suggested that Butterfield try a biking tour with a cultural angle. He laughed off the suggestion saying that he had already tried it in 1972 and it did not work. To humor his friend, they put a single ad for a bike tour in The Globe and Mail newspaper in 1980.

Within 24 hours, it sold out.

In five years, Butterfield went from hosting one bike tour to 70 tours per year.

The last student tour was run in 1993.

“Something happened and I’ve never understood what it was that changed bike tours from a failure to a success,” says Butterfield.

“As far as I know, we were the first people to put together fine hotels and biking.”

The hotels were at first surprised to see adults in bike gear coming into their fine establishments, but Butterfield says the staff began to prefer his groups to all others. The bikers came in with a smile after a day of fresh air and exercise while other travelers arrived tired or cranky. This marriage of luxury and adventure was still a very new idea in the 1980s.

Butterfield himself however is cautious with the word luxury.

“The word luxury was never used by us into the 1990s. We thought high-end or high-quality. The word luxury has a funny connotation for me. The world luxury doesn’t suit me. Luxury to me means interesting, high-quality, unusual and really really comfortable.”

When we spoke to Butterfield in July, he had just returned from a biking trip in Japan. He says that he never could have imagined in the early days that one of the best tours his company offered would be in Asia, but he can’t stop himself from gushing about the experience.

“The trips have never really been about biking as much as what happens in between.”

Butterfield is still involved in company operations and has no plans to sell.

“If you don’t do it every year, you forget what the business is really about,” says Butterfield from Bermuda, where he’s checking accommodations for a group of guests coming in for the America Cup.

“It’s not just about sitting in some office and being isolated and making grand plans. It’s where the rubber hits the road.”

Biking today is championed as a green way to travel and that’s clearly had an impact on Butterfield who, outside of Butterfield and Robinson, has dedicated himself to solving the carbon problem of the world. He says that he spends most of his time in the environment sector and works with city governments and businesses investing in new eco-friendly technologies.

“I said 10 years ago, I have to stop the world from dumping pollution in the atmosphere and I then can die happy. I mean that,” he says.

“The biking actually fits nicely into that.”

Sven Lindblad’s Voyage From Son to a Legacy All His Own

Sven Lindblad was not always by his father’s, Lars-Eric Lindblad’s, side. In fact, the elder Lindblad was often away traveling during Sven’s childhood.

“He was always a heroic figure for me,” says Lindblad, who was working on a book of photography in East Africa when his father approached him about coming to work with him.

“I had not really planned to go into the business as I was very happy with what I was doing in East Africa, but I decided to join him,” he explains.

Lindblad joined his father’s company during an exciting time when China was first opening up. He worked in the New York office for just over a year before proposing what would become Lindblad Expeditions today.

“At a certain point, I really wanted to focus more on the essence of what I believed Lindblad to be, so I suggested the formation of a division, which was then called special expeditions.”

At the time of launch in 1979, Lindblad wanted to focus on safaris and small nature-based land trips and had too little capital to even dream of ship expeditions. The first boat was chartered in 1981 and the inventory slowly grew to include more chartered and then owned boats. Itineraries were equally distributed between land and sea until 2001 when he decided to focus primarily on ships.

“The ships were a fixed commitment from a business point of view and that shift turned out to be a really healthy idea because we were able to create the kind of focus we needed to grow our business down the line,” explains Lindblad today.

“My attraction to ships had to do with my time in Africa. Ships are a way of being flexible and getting away from the trappings of tourism, which has certainly accelerated in the last decade. A lot of places are beautiful places are now very overcrowded.”

Lindblad created all of the original itineraries based on this own interests more than a calculated approach to appealing to customers. He calls some of his first trips “wacky counterintuitive ideas,” and was pleasantly surprised to see how hungry travelers were for more time in nature with intelligent informed guides.

“I wasn’t familiar with the travel industry but I was familiar with geography. I felt that if I offered people itineraries that I would really love to do myself and I could create those experiences as I would love to do them then they might work. I didn’t do market studies. I didn’t have the resources or ability to do that,” he says.

“The only thing I could do was follow my gut.”

>>Related: See Sven-Olof Lindblad speak at the 2017 Skift Global Forum.

The original magic of many Lindblad expeditions was that they took travelers to previously untouched destinations from the Galapagos to Antartica. There was a true sense of adventure and privilege in being among the first to visit a place.

Although that sense of virgin exploration is gone, Lindblad says that these trips are only getting better and still help people escape from destinations burdened with overtourism.

“People ask me all the time if the age of exploration is over. I think it’s the opposite in many ways. There are so many more tools available than there were in the past. We used to make so many mistakes because we didn’t know any better. It’s more nuanced now and I actually find it pretty exciting.”

Technology of course plays a big role in fine-tuning the expeditions and it’s also changed how travelers experience them. Lindblad’s customers move more quickly from topic to topic and don’t have the same patience. They are also much more interested in photography, a interest that is more than satiated thanks to Lindblad’s partnership with National Geographic.

Lindblad approached National Geographic 13 years ago to form what he calls “a natural partnership.”

“National Geographic’s mission was to explore the world and disseminate that the information. Our job is take people there.”

Although Lindblad doesn’t credit the partnership with his company’s survival, he does believe that the partnership is extremely valuable, helping it weather the 2007 crisis and continue to build healthy profits. The expeditions regularly host National Geographic photographers, scientists and engineers.

Lindblad’s mission today is very similar to that of the young man who decided to leave East Africa and join his father decades ago.

“I believe that certain type of travel helps people understand the world better. The minute someone travels somewhere and has certain experiences, they see the world differently. I think it’s important to get out there.”

Andrew Harper’s Undercover Mission Continues

Andrew Harper is a pseudonym for a man, and his successors, who have built a legacy based on their unbiased reviews of luxury hotels and now experiences around the world.

The original Andrew Harper (whose real identity has never been revealed) was a 40-year-old ad man in New York City who grew tired of the grind. He and his wife made the bold decision to leave corporate life behind and embark on a year-long trip.

He decided to create a newsletter chronicling their stops and adventures and send it out to anyone interested. The first Hideaway Report, still Harper’s staple product, was a hand-typed letter sent to 60 people in 1979.

Within five years, there were thousands of subscribers. Motivated by its adoption, Harper bought advertisements in The New York Times, The Economist, and The Wall Street Journal and continued to grow his base. Before long, thousands of subscribers were paying $150 a year for the reports and Andrew Harper had a new profession. His brother came on to run the financials and they together operated the business for the next 25 years.

“He started in 1979, which is when international travel really started to take off. Airlines got into the business of promoting travel and the five-star hotels in Bangkok became as popular as the five-star hotels in Paris,” explains the current Andrew Harper.

“He was lucky. He hit it right on the crest of the wave and took it into the beach. The sources of information that we have today did not exist back then. Travel+Leisure was two years old and Conde Nast Traveler did not even exist.”

After decades on the road, the original Andrew Harper started to grow weary of the constant travel and began looking for a replacement in the late 1990s. Harper was put in contact with an English journalist with a career in publishing that spanned the U.S. and England. He invited the young man to his home with a business-class ticket and they agreed to a contractor role.

During this time, the original Harper also started to consider selling and the company was acquired by a group of investors from Austin, Texas. The original held onto his shares but stepped out of the day-to-day operation and by 2007 the English journalist had fully taken the reins as the new Andrew Harper. This is the man that Skift talked to in July.

Harper travels in two-day to 21-day sprints chronicling his observations in both notes for the print publications and blog posts that are quickly posted online. Harper today is supported by a team of editors that also research, write and travel. The increased manpower is allowing Andrew Harper to significantly grow its digital footprint and offerings.

Still, the company as a whole is facing a challenge similar to many publishing companies. Its user base continues to age.

The core of Andrew Harper’s business is long-term subscribers with high annual renewal rates. We’re talking about 30+ year subscribers — a statistic that today’s magazines would drool over. Many of those readers however are 60 years old or older.

Although the legacy of the brand continues to attract the children and even grandchildren of subscribers, Andrew Harper is looking at way to capture new subscribers.

“Like everyone else, we’d love to reach affluent millennials, but are the tastes of millennials so different than baby boomers that we actually need two different products?” asks today’s Andrew Harper in a surprisingly refreshing conversation.

“We can’t change so much for the millennials that we piss off the baby boomers; that’d be cutting our own throats.”

Readers can access tons of free content on the website, but the team is focused on how to convert some Internet readers into $395-per-year subscribers. One option they’ve considered is different membership tiers. The current subscription includes the monthly Hideaway Report, Harper Collection with 12 travel guides, travel benefits at hotels, and travel planning services.

Although the concept is the same as in 1979 — Harper and his editors stay in hotels undetected in order to write completely unbiased reviews — the scope of their digital and print coverage has expanded to include the breadth of lifestyle experiences demanded by luxury customers.

“People are much more interested in spa and fitness centers. People’s taste in cuisine has changed and they are much more interested in a healthier lifestyle,” Harper explains.

“Luxury is different than when we started. There’s no questions about that, but people are still looking to Andrew Harper to give them access that other publications cannot.”

Harper is facing challenges similar to any publishing company except it has the benefit of a legacy brand that is both respected and trusted. The company brought on a new CEO in April 2017 and is working hard to transform the legacy brand. We’re excited to see how they package their content and introduce new products for a new kind of customer in the months ahead.

[loudsociocollective-blog]

One Last Dance with Media

Hello again, 

This will be my final blog post. I know, I know, I'm sad too. But duty calls elsewhere and all that jazz. So for this last one, you just have to listen closely..

Ever notice how media outlets always try to appear unbiased? Yeah me nether. Because I never really watched that closely to pick it up. Like I mentioned in my last blog post, lots of us consume media texts mindlessly; without critically analyzing what we are actually allowing into our brains.. which then influences our future thoughts and actions. Gotta be careful with that stuff, it’ll getcha. 

Thankfully, sociologists have been looking critically at the media for decades. Theorists like Anderson and Sharrock have been paying extra close attention. They noted in their journal “Biasing the news: technical issues in media studies” that other media scholars basically suck at content analysis and have been focusing on all the wrong things. The right way to critically anaylize bias in media text is by looking at 1)  bias of news producers 2) background/societal influence, 3) the produced text; 4) reading of the text. Doing an in depth analysis of a media text in the Anderson/Sharrock fashion would take a while. Since I only have your attention for approximately 1200 words, I’m gonna keep this short and sweet and focus on 1) background/societal influence and individual bias, 2) briefly speak to audience interpretation 

Okay so no one wants to be biased. No newspaper journalist looks at a juicy news piece and strategizes how to write the paper so its biased. Bias is a natural occurrence where individuals/corporate or societal opinion influences how we understand things. Everyone is biased, even if the desperately want to be objective. Theres just no getting around that. 

Anderson and Sharrock point out that media scholars have been treating journalists as attempting to be biased for decades. But in reality, no journalist wants to appear biased. That would completely ruin their reputation - just look at Fox news! (queue my bias). Overall there are a number of complex things that go in to unintentionally making an article biased. 

When people think bias, they usually think of news stories and media texts that tackle controversial topics. They often forget that bias undertones are also present within media texts that at face value appear unbiased. 

I picked an example to illustrate my point with more clarity: 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/prime-minister-to-march-in-halifax-pride-parade-1.4209625

This article explains the events of this past weekend, where Canada’s Prime Minster, Justin Trudeau, confirmed he would be marching alongside the LGBTQQP2SAA community at the Halifax Pride Parade. 

I would like to start off by pointing out that this article tries its very best be objective and unbiased. CBC even has a page where it states that every single news article attempts to be unbiased, truthful and objective. Ironically it says not everyone will like their posts (insinuating its audience is biased L O L). The point is, CBC wrote this article in hopes that it would be objective and unbiased. Did they succeed? Well, no. But they tried their best!!! its not they were biased in the obvious sense.... like: 

“Trudeau to march in Halifax Pride Parade Saturday.... dang it” 

OR 

“Trudeau to march in Halifax Pride Parade Saturday... Yay!!!!

Because sometimes, this is what its like. The incorporation of specific words and phrases changes the tone of the presented information. In this sense, language does a lot to introduce bias to a media text. Using descriptive words adds influence to how a message should be taken. Like above, the first pretend title says ‘dang it’ which insinuates the author is not happy with Trudeau's star appearance. Whereas the later exemplifies the author is real excited about this topic. 

But in this article, Its much more complex than that. The amount of language, the type of language and the structure of language all contribute to how a media text is biased or non-biased. One could argue that using too little, or too much language, the order the words are presented in, and the usage of descriptive vs. neutral words influences bias. These biases are created through individual experience and interaction with societal norms and experiences. Based on this experience, individuals, communities and/or corporations create opinions on the world and act/think in accordance to them. 

Personally, I thought (my bias) that CBC actually did a pretty good job at remaining almost unbiased in this article. Objectively, they answered the 5 W’s: 

Who - Trudeau 

What - Pride Parade 

Where - Halifax 

When - This weekend 

Why - Wanna support LQBTQP2SAA peoples 

and then provided a quote for both sides which included both Trudeau’s and the Pride Parades Twitter*** account’s comments. In this way, some could argue that since they mostly used neutral words, followed the objective 5 W’s format, and provided a stance from both parties, that this article was relatively unbiased. 

HOWEVER, there are two large problems with the quotes that were provided. First, the quotes were hand chosen by the journalist/ CBC staff. They Provided quotes that, in their opinion, represented the story the best. In order to do so, they would need to have a decision on what the story was trying to say, and what all parties felt about the topic. Secondly, the quote presented from the Pride Parade was from the Halifax Pride twitter account, and offered an excited statement from the Pride community in response to Trudeau’s attendance. As well, its hard to know who runs the Halifax Pride twitter account, and what biases they may individually have!!!!! 

BUT, there was actually a missed response from the pride community regarding Trudeau's decision to march in the parade. Some felt that his presence overshadowed the meaning of the event, and took away from they event’s progress and autonomy. Was this lack of information intentional? its too hard to say. But the fact that it was not mentioned makes this article inherently biased to the excited/ not mad response to the Prime Minister’s attendance. 

Not to mention that they noted that Trudeau is the first president to attend this type of event ever, which makes him look good to the liberal peeps out there (funny, as CBC has been accused of having a liberal bias).  

I chose this article specifically because although it is close to being objective, it proves that basically nothing is, since everything is biased. Its not CBC’s fault. Their company, and the author just have opinions that naturally influence their writing. They make statements about objectivity, but really complete objectivity is impossible. 

I also chose this article because it made me critical of my own biases. I proudly support the LGBTQQIP2SAA community and although Trudeau is by no means perfect, I think he's better than the previous Prime Ministers Canada has had. In this regard, I had to look at how my own biases, as a reader, were incorporated into this article. How I personally think that CBC did a pretty good job at attempting to be unbiased. BUT my next door neighbour could think I'm nuts. 

In the end, its clear that bias is prevalent everywhere and in anything and everything we do. Language plays a large role in how we present a text. Then, the audience reads the text, and places their own biases on the article (like me, when i read it and was happy that pride was receiving attention and positive representation). With both the author and the thousands of readers, and thousands of biases, things can get complicated fast. 

Basically everything is biased. So is nothing biased? I don't know. Thats pretty philosophical for me. But it is interesting to look closely and critically at the way bias is manifested in such mundane and unlikely things in society. Next time I'm looking for recipes online, I might take into account that the Betty Crocker ‘best chocolate chip cookies in the world’ may not actually be the best in the world (dang it). 

Alright this has been fun, but everything must come to an end. Its been a pleasure rambling to you on the internet. Thanks for listening!! 

Christine, out.