#its kind of a team of all bottoms but i believe in des's Power (and bclarke ) (and ja dont tell the nba girlies i said that tho

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #223: of Robin Hoods and Roustabouts

September, 1982

Apparently a “roustabout” is an unskilled or casual labor.

And lets admit the obvious that if Hawkeye is either of the two things, he’s a robin hood. And its not inaccurate but be nicer to Scott Lang.

Even if he manages to be even more hapless in this issue then in modern takes that leans into him being a fuck-up.

As for the cover? Pretty striking cover. I’ve been waiting for Hawkeye to shoot Ant-Man at someone. Its apparently an Iconic Avengers moment and to think it first happens in a filler.

Because I’m pretty sure this is a filler. Its written by David Michelinie alone instead of Jim Shooter getting a plotter or co-writer credit. It doesn’t really have anything from the dangling plot threads of Hank Pym or the Masters of Evil.

Between this and and the filler with the immortal child who badly wanted to die and all of the plotter or co-writer credits, you just really get a sense that Jim Shooter did not have time to devote to Avengers anymore.

So what kind of filler will this be? Weird? Impactless? Good Actually? Let’s see!

Well, apparently Hawkeye is going to the carnival so at this point, it could go either way.

I like that Hawkeye has a H belt buckle because that’s the kind of thing that he would do and that I can make fun of him for.

I know that it’s been a while since he’s mentioned kewpie dolls but Hawkeye came from the circus. He and his brother ran away to one when they were little and the Swordsman taught Hawkeye archery. The point being, “he’s come home.”

As in, this is specifically the carnival he used to work before he became very briefly a superhero, and then for slightly longer a supervillain, and then for much much longer a superhero for real.

Point is, he’s been away for a while. But he received a flyer in the mail and decided he just had to come.

Because someone wrote HELP! on the back.

Hawkeye figures that the previous owner’s daughter and current owner Marcy Carson sent it as a goof but heck if she’s going to go to that trouble, he’ll be happy to visit.

So he breezes past the workers outside the owner’s trailer and-

Actually they beat the shit out of him for trying to breeze past them. Goes to show.

When Hawkeye threatens to beat them up for this rude treatment, they get ruder and call him a rube. Can you believe! Him, a former employee himself being called a rube! Also they pull a fancy sci-fi gun on him.

So Hawkeye does buzz off. So he can change into his hawking eye duds and buzz right back on.

Roustabouts carrying laser pistols is very suspicious. And I guess Ant-Man isn’t the roustabout of the title. He’s moving up in the world.

MEANWHILE, Perfectly Ordinary electronics technician, ex-con, and Ant-Man Scott Lang is having a night out with his daughter Cassie. And they’re having a bit of a disagreement.

See, Cassie, future superhero, wants to ride the really cool roller coaster the Spin-’n-Heave. Scott Lang, dad with dumb views on gender apparently, insists that a roller coaster just isn’t ladylike enough and she should ride something more refined like the pony ride or ring toss.

Also, Scott is carrying the Ant-Man suit with him, loose in his pocket. And the helmet just drops out of his pocket and the damn fool would have lost it if Cassie hadn’t spotted it and mistaken it for a marble.

Geez, Scott! I stood up for you!

Scott’s attempts to dad by restricting what his daughter can and can’t do based on his own views on what is ladylike get dropped when he spots Hawkeye hauling ass across the carnival and decides that This Cannot Stand!

Scott Lang Ant-Man may not be an Avenger but dangit he can’t leave a fellow hero in the lurch! He must offer unsolicited aid!

So he caves on the Spin-’n-Heave issue because its a way to keep Cassie occupied for the length of exactly this issue.

Scott gives the operator a bunch of money and tells the operator to let Cassie ride until it runs out and then takes off.

Cassie is thrilled.

Meanwhile, Hawkeye has returned to the owner’s trailer but Marcy is gone and so are the two goons that were guarding the door. But he spots them marching Marcy through the crowd.

The goons are complimenting Marcy on being so cooperative but also say that if she’s not cooperative, her star acts are gonna get fed to the lions. And that might happen anyway once everything is said and done because their boss be like that.

Anyway, that’s when the two get hit by a KRAK THUBB arrow. Punch arrow? It looks nerf-y.

Hawkeye grabs Marcy and runs off with her into a tent so she can explain it all.

But first: he has to notice that she is beautiful. He has been gone a while so, y’know. People grow up or whatever.

Hawkeye: “There, that’s better! Now maybe I can get to the bottom of -- hey! You’re beautiful!”

Marcy: “I’ve waited a long time for you to notice that, ol’ buddy.”

Hawkeye: “Yeah, well, it’s hard noticin’ anything when you’re bein’ tripped into a pile of elephant dirt -- which, as I recall, used to be your favorite pastime!”

Marcy: “People change, Clint.”

Young Marcy sounds like a really interesting person. She certainly gave Hawkeye the business.

Anyway, she explains that it was pure luck that she was able to sneak that message out to him. And that the carnival has been taken over by some freak with powers.

Marcy: “Why, if he even suspected I was in touch with you he’d kill me deader than a Monday night in Des Moines!”

Off-screen Villain: “Nicely put, dumplin’! Should make you a dandy little epitaph!”

SCENE CHANGE TO PRESERVE SUSPENSE

Scott Lang has ducked behind some circus carts to change into Ant-Man.

Except he still has the whole shrunken costume piecemeal in his pockets so the process is one of slapstick. Scott goes digging in his pockets for the suit and accidentally drops it all in the straw.

Then he has to go digging around for the incredibly teeny pieces of gear while realizing that this was a stupid plan.

Maybe he should keep the suit in a tin. Like a mint tin or something.

But he finally gets all the pieces together and uses a safety pin to trigger the enlarging gas to full-size the outfit so he can put it on.

Huh! Enlarging gas! Early days in Avengers, they were all about the logistics of the shrinking and growing for Ant-Giant and the Wasp but it hasn’t been talked about in a long while. Wasp just changes size without the how being discussed.

But if it is Pym Particles, then I guess Scott isn’t at the point yet where his body naturally produces them so he has to use the gas canisters on the belt.

Scott does get dressed in his ant duds and uses the helmet to command some ants to find Hawkeye. And this is a carnival with a lot of dropped funnel cake and cotton candy so you know that there’s plenty of ants available.

SCENE CHANGE because we can only preserve suspense so far.

The mysterious off-screen villain hits the lights in the tent that Hawkeye and Marcy were talking in. Which reveals a bunch of gym and training equipment. It’d be nice if carnivals could provide such robust gym benefits to their workers but I feel that this is actually suspicious, finding this here.

Especially the combat flight simulator.

Hawkeye: “This place looks like a training ground for World War III!”

Off-screen villain, about to be onscreen: “And what better setting for the world’s greatest trainer? Namely... the TASKMASTER!”

Heyyy its the Taskmaster!

I forgot that he was a loose thread. He got away after the THREE-PARTER that introduced him. Then again, I guess since he’s the explanation for where villains get their armies of mooks, he didn’t really need to be tied up because that would defeat the purpose.

Anyway, Hawkeye wasn’t on the team for that three-parter but thankfully, the Avengers take thorough records.

Hawkeye: “Yeah, I remember readin’ about you in the Avengers’ files! You’re some sorta goon peddler!”

Taskmaster: “Watch yer mouth, bow-bender! What I am is a teacher!”

And then he recaps his goon, mook, henchman training business for the audience. He even clarifies that his series of secret academies are going great, thanks, but he’s trying to branch out with a mobile recruiting center.

Aka, this circus. And heck, according to Taskmaster, carnies already come off unscrupulous so having a bunch of goons hanging around won’t stand out.

THE PERFECT CRIME.

Actually. I don’t know if this is a crime? It’s not illegal to do combat training or learn how to fly a plane, probably. Then again, when 100% of your alumni wind up arrested for helping steal the Statue of Liberty, a legal goon school would get a lot of unwanted scrutiny. So best keep it secret.

And of course, extorting the owner and workers of a circus is definitely a crime. Pretty sure.

Anyway, the mobile recruiting center scheme is helped by Marcy telling anyone who asks that the new people hanging around are a new act that isn’t ready to open yet.

Hawkeye is sick of Taskmaster’s smarmy smarm and tries to shoot a grabber arrow? at Taskmaster.

Who just blocks it with his shield.

And takes the opportunity to brag about his photographic reflexes, where he only needs to see a sweet move once and he can do it perfectly.

He shows off by doing some Cap moves and then doing a Spider-Man move. Which he seems to do just to do.

And by Spider-Man move I mean hanging upside down from a line. Which, yes, Spider-Man does do that but it doesn’t really seem that necessary or helpful here and you’re totally doing it just to show off but really you look a little ridiculous.

Taskmaster even shows off some Tigra moves by kicking Hawkeye in the face. Its fun to me that he shows off Tigra specifically. Its for some acrobatics like flippy kick but there’s gotta be other acrobatic heroes. Like Spider-Man.

But Tigra was on the Avengers recently and briefly and dammit, he’s gonna show off what he learned!

Anyway, Taskmaster beats up Hawkeye until he gets bored of it and then just takes Marcy hostage to get Hawkeye to surrender.

He just really wanted to show off some of his sweet moves. And as soon as he ran through five different hero movesets (Cap, Spider-Man, Tigra, Daredevil, and Iron Fist) he’s just like ‘k I’m done’.

Meanwhile, back to Ant-Man ant-again.

He’s lurking around a corner trying to be inconspicuous while children are pointing and asking if he’s a clown. Perhaps realizing that he didn’t need to put on the full costume to use the helmet and that he’s just made himself look foolish.

But some of his ants report in that they’ve found Hawkeye so Ant-Man shrinks down to ride an ant into action.

Wait. Yeah. You could have just shrunken down and perched somewhere to wait for ant reports. You’ve made yourself look a fool and you fully had the power to avoid that in so many ways.

Meanwhile back to Hawkeye yet again, Taskmaster knows that killing an Avenger would attract notice so he’s going to make it look like an accident.

So he’s locked Hawkeye in an electrified cage with a lion, a normal situation that can accidentally happen to anyone. So now when Hawkeye gets mauled to death by the lion, nobody will suspect it was anything but an accident.

Taskmaster walks away because its villain tradition that you don’t watch the heroes you lock in the death traps. That’d just be gauche.

The lion sizes up Hawkeye and decides that he’s food and leaps for the kill!

And Ant-Man grows out from under the lion and throws it into the electrified bars, knocking him out.

Pretty good timing Scott! And that poor attempted man-eater lion! That poor five hundred pound lion! WOW SCOTT, do you work out?

I also feel that Republic Serial has aged poorly for more than just lion tossing.

Ant-Man and Hawkeye get each other on the same page. As it happens, Ant-Man actually has more experience with Taskmaster since he was actually in that three-parter. That’ll give them a tiny, tiny, tiny edge.

They’re still stuck in a locked cage and Hawkeye is like ‘gee whiz shrinking hero guy how can we possibly get out?’

Would you be surprised that Ant-Man just shrinks Hawkeye? Scott does muse that he could probably have picked the lock if he had the tools for it but shrinking just saves time.

Hawkeye does not care for it though.

I don’t know what he’s complaining about. Big sleepy cat even bigger now. You could live in the mane at that size.

You could be a tiny man living in a lion’s mane. Imagine.

Anyway.

Over in Taskmaster’s private tent, he’s telling Marcy she done fucked up calling for Hawkeye and she’s going to wish she was getting mauled to death by a lion in an electrified cage like Hawkeye was.

And Hawkeye does the equivalent of clearing his throat and saying ‘hey dingus, not dead’

Taskmaster reaches for a magnesium flare like he used against the Avengers but Ant-Man’s expert knowledge of meeting Taskmaster one time lets him warn Hawkeye who shoots it out of Taskmaster’s hand.

Taskmaster just questions why they didn’t go for a killshot when they had him surprised and then calls a goon squad on the heroes.

Of course, goon squads being called on heroes is just a setup to make heroes look really cool showing their stuff on some expendable targets.

“While the Taskmaster’s troops have been well-trained for normal combat, they fare woefully poor against these super-normal foes!”

And show their stuff they do. Like Hawkeye leaping around firing net and bola arrows!

And Ant-Man... shrinking down really small to punch a guy’s earlobe.

Look. He’s trying.

Also, Marcy is braining people with a juggling pin like some manner of alien clown because she is exceptionally irate at Taskmaster and his goons.

While the three beat up this crowd of goons, Taskmaster runs off to set up his “escape insurance.”

Ant-Man and Hawkeye chase him into the big top where there’s already a crowd watching the show. And waiting for the human cannonball act.

BUT! Taskmaster is apparently a cartoon villain because he’s replaced the human cannonball with a dummy full of explosives and he’s going to shoot it and blow up the grandstand, killing a couple hundred innocent lives.

Taskmaster tells them they can capture him or they can stop his ridiculous scheme.

Taskmaster: “Have fun decidin’, chumps!”

And then presumably he runs off giggling.

Hawkeye wants to go after Taskmaster and have Ant-Man take care of the nothuman cannonball bomb.

Ant-Man: “No, Hawkeye! There are too many lives at stake! And it may take both of us to stop that cannon!”

Hawkeye: “But we can’t just let that psycho walk! We can’t -- .”

Ant-Man: “Hawkeye! Think about it! Think! Please... !”

Hawkeye: “Yeah, I guess you’re right... blast it.”

Scott Lang has his heart in the right place to be a hero even if he is a bit of a goofus about it. I like you, Scott Lang.

Hawkeye runs back into the tent and shoots the goon manning the cannon with a bola arrow. he gets the goon but the goon falls on the button.

Fortunately, its the elevation control, not the fire button.

Unfortunately, there is no firing button, so the firing cycle is automatic.

Fortunately, hitting the elevation control accidentally made the cannon point up instead of at the grandstand. So the bomb is still going to fall and blow everything up but they have time and Ant-Man has an idea.

He has Hawkeye nock his fastest arrow and jumps on it.

Hawkeye shoots the arrow and hits the explosive filled mannequin in the neck right as it reached the top of its trajectory and hung very briefly in the air.

As the bomb starts to plummet, Ant-Man crawls up the arrow onto the bomb-man and to the detonator.

All too soon the bomb hits the ring

but doesn’t detonate.

Ant-Man managed to defuse the bomb!

And he also managed to survive the fall because of course! He’s not destined to die for a long while and only then in a really dumb way.

Thanks to Scott’s experience of watching Raiders of the Lost Ark twenty-seven times he’s a real expert on jumping from one speeding object to another.

Aka, from the falling bomb to a flying ant. Sure.

The heroes see that Taskmaster has escaped while all this was going on but Hawkeye decides he’ll get him next time.

Also? The audience has thought that this was part of the show the whole time so they’ve loved every second of this.

Soon the other Avengers arrive, too late to take part in the plot but in time to help clean up the goon operation.

Also, She-Hulk is in her tattered white dress outfit again. I really think there was some miscommunication here. Like with having her dressed like that on the previous cover and having her dressed like that here in this filler issue.

She doesn’t wear that anymore but its the Iconic outfit for her so if an artist needs a ref to draw her, they’re probably looking at a picture from her Savage She-Hulk series.

And Scott Lang gets the last page because whoops, he left his daughter on a roller coaster the whole time and forgot her in the heat of the adventure. DAD OF THE YEAR!

Scott runs to find her sitting outside the Spin-’n-Heave looking down, head in hands. Scott is worried that something is wrong with her but

Cassie Lang: “I’m a little tired right now, daddy *yawn* but can we come back an’ ride the ‘Spin-’n-Heave’ again t’morrow?”

Scott Lang: “Tomorrow? Again? *sigh* Kids.”

Hah, she tuckered herself out riding the roller coast over and over again but is game to keep doing it again tomorrow. That’s the Cassie Lang that will grow up to join the Young Avengers!

So, Avengers filler but it wasn’t weird or inconsequential. It doesn’t do anything with the ongoing plots but it feels like it does since Scott Lang has come back into the books recently because of the Hank Pym plot. And it follows up on Taskmaster who has gone unaddressed since his introductory stories.

Its just a nice story and by focusing on a guest star and one of the Avengers doing an impromptu team-up it has some fun energy.

Good times.

Hey. Follow @essential-avengers​ maybe? Its better than the Spin-’n-Heave! ... I can’t actually prove that. But also like and reblog this post because I’m a cool person. ... I can’t actually prove that either...

[starwarsnonsense]

Top 10 Most Anticipated Films of 2020

Now I’ve got my embarrassingly late ‘Best of 2019′ list out of the way, I can finally proceed to the list that’s probably more exciting - my most anticipated films of 2020!

This list excludes films that have already been screened at festivals (otherwise, stuff like Saint Maud would be here). It’s also somewhat analogous to groping about for a light switch in the dark - these lists very rarely accurately predict my ultimate favourites for the year, so it’s more of a fun speculative exercise. Hopefully this puts some intriguing-looking films on your radar for the year ahead! 

1. Dune (dir. Denis Villeneuve)

Plot: The story of Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, who must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people.

Why be excited? The reasons to be excited about Dune should be pretty self-evident - it’s directed by one of the greatest filmmakers working today (Villeneuve’s Incendies and Blade Runner 2049 are all-timers for me), and is based on one of the best science-fiction novels ever written. The cast -  Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Javier Bardem, Charlotte Rampling, and more - is absolutely stacked with talent. There’s every reason to believe that this will be something special, and I couldn’t be more pleased that Villeneuve is the man responsible for filling that Star Wars-shaped hole in the December release schedule.

2. Annette (dir. Leos Carax)

Plot: A stand-up comedian (Adam Driver), and his opera singer wife (Marion Cotillard), have a two-year-old daughter with a surprising gift.

Why be excited? You may not have heard of him, but Leos Carax is one of the most exciting directors working - he only makes around one film a decade, but the films he does make tend to be very special. I’ve only seen one film of his - Lovers on the Bridge - but that was filled with such ecstatic romance and wondrous visuals that it made me tremendously excited for Annette. Annette is a top-to-bottom musical with songs by American duo Sparks (if you know them for anything, it will be ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us’), and said songs will be delivered by Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard. It goes without saying that both actors are extremely talented performers with great voices (see Driver in Marriage Story and Cotillard in Nine for evidence), and I’m looking forward to seeing how they demonstrate their talents here.

3. Last Night in Solo (dir. Edgar Wright)

Plot: A young girl (Thomasin McKenzie), passionate in fashion design, is mysteriously able to enter the 1960s where she encounters her idol, a dazzling wannabe singer (Anya Taylor-Joy). But 1960s London is not what it seems, and time seems to fall apart with shady consequences.

Why be excited? I’m not the biggest Edgar Wright fan, but I admire him greatly and the premise of Last Night in Soho is like cat-nip to me. Speaking to Empire, Wright explained the story as follows: “I’m taking a premise whereby you have a character who, in a sort of abstract way, gets to travel in time. And the reality of the decade is maybe not what she imagines. It has an element of ‘be careful what you wish for’.” I’m a sucker for a good, old-fashioned high concept, especially when said films play with genre and really challenge the viewer. The two female leads - Thomasin McKenzie (JoJo Rabbit, Leave No Trace) and Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch, Emma) - are among the very best young actors working today, and the supporting cast features absolute legends such as Diana Rigg and Terence Stamp. Whether it’s successful or not, this film feels like a genuinely original prospect and I’m eager to see how it turns out.

4. The Green Knight (dir. David Lowery)

Plot: A fantasy re-telling of the medieval tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Why be excited? There has been a sad lack of films based on mythology in recent years - or, to be more accurate, there has been a sad lack of films that attempt to honour what the myths were actually trying to convey. The stunning trailer for Green Knight promises a film that genuinely engages with its source material, and is just as interested in the psychological truths of the tale as the spectacle of its fantastical scenarios. Dev Patel is an extremely talented actor coming off another great movie in The Personal History of David Copperfield, and the supporting cast (Alicia Vikander!) appear to be fully committed to their parts. I’m excited to see a true myth on the big screen again, and David Lowery (A Ghost Story, The Old Man & The Gun) can be trusted to give an old tale a new sense of vitality. 

5. The French Dispatch (dir. Wes Anderson)

Plot: The staff of a European publication decides to publish a memorial edition highlighting the three best stories from the last decade: an artist sentenced to life imprisonment, student riots, and a kidnapping resolved by a chef.

Why be excited? It’s a Wes Anderson movie! Of course I’m excited! In all seriousness, the trailer was all I needed to get hyped about this. It’s clearly Anderson’s quintessential style, but it also shows flashes of some very bold and striking compositions (yes, I’m thinking of Chalamet on the back of that motorcycle) that you wouldn’t necessarily think of in relation to him. I’m intrigued by the prospect of there being stories nested within a story, which feels like the perfect choice for the structure of a film about a newspaper. The cast features all of Anderson’s old favourites (Swinton! Murray! McDormand!), as well as some exciting new additions (Timothée Chalamet, Elisabeth Moss, Christoph Waltz, among others) that feel so well-suited to his style it’s surprising they haven’t worked together before. Bring on all those immaculately composed shots and exquisite colour palettes.

6. Tenet (dir. Christopher Nolan)

Plot: Unknown. The project is described as an action epic revolving around international espionage.

Why be excited? I hate to sound repetitive, but ... it’s a Christopher Nolan movie. That alone is enough to be hyped about this. Details of the plot are vague for now, but the teaser suggests the sort of intelligent, high-concept film-making we’ve come to expect from Nolan. John David Washington - who impressed in BlacKkKlansman - is a great choice for the lead, and I also love that Tenet will feature Robert Pattinson and Elizabeth Debicki (among my favourite actors) in prominent roles. There’s not much else to say given how little we know about this, but suffice to say I’ll be there on day one!

7. Wonder Woman 1984 (dir. Patty Jenkins)

Plot: Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) comes into conflict with the Soviet Union during the Cold War in the 1980s and finds a formidable foe by the name of the Cheetah (Kristen Wiig).

Why be excited? The original Wonder Woman was an absolute delight, and I couldn’t be more pleased that Patty Jenkins is back to continue Diana’s story. The decision to pick up with Diana in the 1980s is most intriguing (and paves the way for all kinds of exciting choices when it comes to the music and the fashions), especially since it looks like the film is actually going to explore the implications of being an immortal being in a mortal world. 

8. Raya and the Last Dragon (dir. Paul Briggs and Dean Wellins)

Plot: A lone warrior from the fantasy kingdom of Kumandra teams up with a crew of misfits in her quest to find the Last Dragon and bring light and unity back to their world.

Why be excited? The animation scene in 2020 looks kind of ... blah at the moment, with the notable exception of Raya and the Last Dragon. The setting was described by the film’s producer as  "a reimagined Earth inhabited by an ancient civilization that venerated the mythical dragons for their power and their wisdom”, and that alone is enough to fire up my imagination. Off the back of Moana and the Frozen films (which I all unabashedly love), I trust Disney Animation to instil this with plenty of colour and verve.

9. I’m Thinking of Ending Things (dir. Charlie Kaufman)

Plot: An unexpected detour turns a couple’s road trip into a terrifying journey through their fragile psyches.

Why be excited? Directed by Charlie Kaufman (writer of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), I’m Thinking of Ending Things is based on a prize-winning novel. However, despite the pedigree the main reason I’m looking forward to this is Jessie Buckley. Buckley gave a star-making performance in Beast a few years ago, and has since proven herself an actor of immense talent and skill (see Wild Rose for proof of what a powerhouse she is). I’m excited to see her career continue to go from strength to strength, and I’m Thinking of Ending Things seems poised to be a great showcase for her.

10. The Last Duel (dir. Ridley Scott)

Plot: King Charles VI declares that Knight Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon) settle his dispute with his squire (Adam Driver) by challenging him to a duel.

Why be excited? Ridley Scott is a bit of a mixed bag for me, and has never come close to reaching the heights of Alien and Blade Runner with his recent work. Nonetheless, against my better judgement I can’t help but be excited by the prospect of a medieval epic with Scott at the helm. The acting talent attached to The Last Duel is top-notch, and I’m particularly fond of Jodie Comer (of Killing Eve fame) and Adam Driver (do you really need me to say more?). There’s a very real danger of the highly sensitive plot (the ‘dispute’ at the heart of the story concerns an accusation of rape, the truth of which is to be determined with a duel) being mishandled by Scott, but the involvement of screenwriter Nicole Holofcener gives me some hope. This could turn out to be a misfire, but my hope is that it will, at the very least, be interesting.

[hey-hamlet]

BNHA AU Ideas : The Bitter Three

also on AO3!

TL;DR: Three people without the Heroic quirks Japan demands, determined to help people that never helped them. --- Midoriya, Shinsou and Monoma are good friends. This changes everything.

Basically, Midoriya, Shinso and Monoma make friends in middle school and bond over their lack of heroic quirks and their fight to become heroes anyway.

they are also all petty bitter little bitches

monoma gets in to the hero course, but only just, and turns it down because hes not leaving izuku and shinsou to rot alone in gen ed. they make it together or not at all.

Izuku and Hitoshi take the entrance exam and feel their hearts sink when they see the robots.

Hitoshi gets 5 points. Izuku gets 20, 18 of which are rescue points. Their low scores hurt more than 0s, and getting into UA feels like a slap in the face.

Izuku is top 5 on the written exam, Hitoshi in the top 40. Izuku sends in supplementally analysis pages with his application because hes knows hes going to get marked down for being quirkless and he needs something special to help him stand out.

Anyway, they kick absolute a s s in the sports festival

and end up in first, second and third. the hero kids are,,, kinda pissed honestly

monoma is more valid in this au! but izuku is a little less valid? idk they are all bitter bitches

hero society sucks dick

but like,,, bitter monoma helping izuku build self confidence and izuku helping monoma stop being a such a dick

Sludge villain doesn’t quite happen. Allmight finds the villains trying to shove itself into a stray cat, its messy and a little heartbreaking. He deals with the villain, puts it in a bottle then de-powers to try to bury the poor thing because it really didn’t deserve this.

That’s when izuku comes by, he cries when the scary skinny guy explains what happened to the cat

"the poor thing got caught between a vilain and a hero."

"that,,, that’s not fair!"

"I know kid. Its not"

Izuku starts digging a little grave for the cat with his hands, placing some flowers over it and saying a quick prayer.

Yagi is talking to him (hes already given OFA to mirio, on speaking terms with nighteye again) and finds out izuku wants to be a hero. This soft hearted kid that cried for a stray cat and made his hands bleed to dig it a grave.

Yagi tells him he used to be a pro and would love to help him get into UA.

So in this au Yagi helps izuku train for the entrance exam! But without the massive focus of muscle building to hold OFA. He gets izuku to clean up the beach to build some muscle, but they run through different fighting styles, practise analysis and yagi supervises sparring between shinso, monoma and izuku.

He tells them about the gen ed “loop hole” to get into heroics and warns them about how bias the entrance exam is. There is no harm in taking it to put your face in front of the heroics teachers, but its almost impossible to pass without a destructive quirk.

So, the sports festival:

izuku wins the footrace same way as in canon, monoma is somewhere in the top 10 and hitoshi is in the bottom third

only the 3 of them make a team for the cavalry battle, monoma is the rider and izuku and hitoshi are the horses. they dont want to give away hitoshi's quirk if they can help it so they dont use it much. they come 3rd overall.

Izuku is really strong from all the heavy lifting at the beach so honestly its mostly just him hauling monoma around and hitoshi sprinting after him.

and then the tournament

they see the names come up and izuku starts to cry and the other two panic because why?? But they look at him and see hes grinning through his tears

"someone was looking out for us. we are going to c r u s h this"

hitoshi's first match is vs bakugo.

he wins because bakugo has no chance to work out his quirk

monoma is against todoroki.

he takes out his ice with a whirlwind of fire and lets him slip out of the ring on a patch of ice

izuku is vs momo.

he uses her creations against her and she losing in a hand to hand brawl

hitoshi takes out kirishima next.

another round without a punch thrown, he gets him by insulting Bakugo

monoma gets rid of shinozaki with his last few seconds todoroki's quirk

izuku trips iida over the boundary

in the semi finals izuku takes out uraraka by flipping her out of bounds. it was close and he only just made it, izuku and uraraka’s match was b r u t a l. the main reason he won is the he noticed the rock shower and pulled Uraraka under it with him. She didn’t have enough time to react and got struck on the head with some pieces of rubble which dazed her pretty badly.

monoma and shinsou joke durring their fight that they are fighting for the chance to get their ass kicked by izuku

shinsou wins

izuku wins over all, shinso comes second. midoriya has better fighting form to him and knows his quirk inside out

for the first time in UA’s history, the top 3 places on the podium are all gen ed students.

aizawa is god damned proud of these kids hes never met

yagi is crying a little because he was treated terribly for being quirkless and he heard what kids did to izuku and hes just so proud this nervy little kid was brave enough and strong enough to kick ass on live TV for all of japan to watch.

“Do us quirkless boys proud, kid.”

A little on their family lives

Shinso

foster kid with a pretty crappy family. Not physically abusive but hes without a doubt the least favourite child. Gets less money for an allowance, has to follow the rules more closely, isn’t allowed friends over etc.

They don’t really talk to him because of his quirk. They’ll ask him questions or tell him to do things but tend to point blank ignore him if he asks something.

Its not the worst foster family hes been it but its not the best. Hes not going to raise a fuss because its nice and close to UA and hes dealt with worse.

Monoma

mother was a police officer and died when Monoma was young, raised by his single father.

His father had some bad ex-girlfriends that were pretty terrible to Monoma but he believed him and they broke up every time.

Other kids didn’t like to play with him because he was a “copy cat” so he acted mean and pretended he didn’t want to play with the other kids because they were “below him”

Didn’t have friends until Izuku and Hitoshi but he wasn’t exactly bullied, just disliked. Not that he tried very hard to be likable.

Izuku

Same as canon mostly but a touch different too

His mother, while still kind, is more absent. Works night shifts and sees a lot of her husband in her son so she don’t really try to spend much time with him.

Izuku knows nothing about his father, other than the fact he demanded izuku be tested for a quirk when he was born. He assumes the guy skipped out in his mum when they found out he didn’t have one but he doesn’t know for sure.

Bakugo is Bakugo as you well know. Izuku has a history of passive suicidal ideation due to a lack of self worth and the belief the nobody cares about him at all.

How did they meet? It’s a mess really. Bakugo burn one of Izuku’s arms badly enough that he had to limp to a hospital after school, where he met Shinsou who was there for much the same reason. They talked for a bit before Monoma, Shinsou’s school friend, bursts in and starts ranting about how hes going to copy All Mights quirk and punch the girl that hurt Shinsou into next year.

They bond.

[littlemisssquiggles]

RWBY Musings #79: When Titans Fall: How Arthur Watts will cause the downfall of General Ironwood and Atlas Academy.

darleenas-art asked “ What are your predictions on how big of a role Watts will do this Volume? “

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Squiggles Answers:

Disclaimer: I was actually writing this musing this morning with plans to post it BEFORE the new episode dropped. But unfortunately. I didn’t finish it in time so some of the points I made mention of in this post were written premature to watching V7 CH2 and I’m not in the mood to go back and edit over some of the details. Nevertheless some of my theories presented in this post still apply even with what was learnt this episode. 

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@darleenas-art​  Top of the morning to ya, Dar-Dar. That’s a pretty good question so I hope you don’t mind if I turn my response into another small RWBY Musing post. As far as I can comprehend, given what I’ve picked up thus far from the first episode of the new season, my key theory is that Watts’ involvement for the events of V7 is going cause just as much trouble for Ironwood as he did back during the events of the Vytal Festival and the Fall of Beacon. 

As a matter of fact, I believe that this time it’s going to be much worse. Last time Watts ruined the repute of Atlas in the presence of the other kingdoms and the rest of Remnant. Now I think the next stage of events is ruining Ironwood’s reputation in the eyes of Atlas.  

My theory is that Watts’ schemes is going to spark a catastrophic chain reaction that will end Ironwood’s career entirely this season as well as his credibility within his own home kingdom. I believe that by the end of V7, Ironwood will be forced to step down leading to someone else with more malicious intentions replacing him on the governing Council for Atlas and it will all be due to Watts. Here’s what this squiggle meister is thinking:  

Pre-V7 CH2 Theories 

According to some clues presented in the first chapter of V7, there currently seems to be some sort of Election for Councilman going on in Atlas. 

While I’m unsure of the full details of the Election, it seems that right now there are two primary candidates in the running for a chain on the Council---newcomer Robyn Hill, representative of Mantle and Jacques Schnee of the SDC.

Despite the fact that this all sounds like a simple election to elect someone a new chair on the Atlesian Council, I feel like there is going to be more to it than that. I can’t help but shaking their feeling that this election is going to result in an impeachment of General Ironwood with the new elective taking his place on the Council. Right now in the series, Ironwood is the man with the most power and authority within Atlas Kingdom.

Unlike everyone else on the Council, James holds two seats which I’m assuming is due in part to his double role as Head of Atlesian Military in addition to headmaster of its local huntsmen academy in charge of moulding Atlas’ next generation of protectors. Not to mention that it was also stated by Pietro Polendina in the first episode that the Atlesian Council are currently so scared by everything that’s happened to their kingdom since the Fall of Beacon that they’re willing to put their full trust in Ironwood’s leadership.

“…How does the Council feel about all this, or Winter Schnee? Do you know anything about her?” “Well the Council’s so scared, they’ll agree to whatever he wants…”

It was also briefly mentioned by the Soul Doctor that some of the representatives from Mantle haven’t been too keen with the way Ironwood has been leading things. So right now, things aren’t looking too peachy for the General in terms of his presence to the People of the Surface World. I’m not sure how things are looking up in Atlas for James but it’s been clear from the get-go that Mantle isn’t happy with him.

Hence the election. It looks like Robyn and Jacques are running against Ironwood in hopes of one of them eventually joining the Council to introduce change. However, while Robyn is looking out for her people down in Mantle, the only reason Jacques probably wants in on becoming Councilman is for the sake of lifting Ironwood’s dust embargo. In typical, Jacques Schnee fashion, he is only in it for his own selfish greed.

And it is for this reason why I believe Watts is going to use that to his advantage. 

I think Watts is going to do everything in his power to ensure that Jacques Schnee ends up winning the elections and gaining a chair on the ruling Council of Atlas.

Watts is going to end up tipping the elections in Jacques’ favour by discrediting the name of the remaining candidates against him---meaning Robyn Hill. This is where Tyrian’s role comes into play. In the V7 Opening, Tyrian was shown fighting against Robyn who is backed up by Qrow Branwen. I think it’s going to be revealed at some point in the story that Robyn Hill is some kind of local Robin Hood of Mantle---she steals from the rich to give to the poor.

Similar to her fairy-tale counterpart, Robyn has probably been leading a secret group of Merry Men in targeting the Schnee Dust Company.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Robyn is fully aware of the SDC and all of their nefarious deeds under Jacques’ leadership; especially in respect to the abuse of Faunus employed under them.

It also wouldn’t surprise me if part of Robyn’s story involved her utilizing whatever resources and power she had in Mantle to put a stop to the SDC. This is probably why Robyn decided to run for Councilman in the first place. After learning that Jacques was planning to plant himself on the Council, there was no way Robyn was going to allow that snake a chance to run Atlas into the mud like he’s done his own company.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Robyn joined the elections not just to challenge Jacques Schnee but to ultimately become a voice for her people. There is no doubt that Robyn is the Voice of Mantle and she would do everything she can to help her people especially during the current tough times since the embargo.

But while Robyn’s intentions may be noble, I have a feeling that in the end,

Robyn is going to outed and labelled as a ‘criminal’ in the public eye which will ruin her chances in the elections.

After all, even if she might still win her seat in Mantle (as her people might still wish to back her up), I doubt anyone up in the prestigious Cloud City of Atlas will wish to have a ‘vicious thief’ sitting as part of their ruling Council, right?

So yeah, Robyn is going to lose the election to Jacques Schnee and you can bet your bottom dollar that Watts will have a hand in that victory, with Tyrian’s aid. As a matter of fact, not only do I think that Watts is going to ensure that Jacques is appointed to the Atlesian Council but he’ll probably tip the scale so far in Jacques’ favour that he’ll even usurp Ironwood

I have a feeling that V7 will end with Jacques Schnee taking Ironwood’s place on the Council while Ironwood himself will be given the big metal boot.

I believe Watts’ ultimate goal is to cause Ironwood’s downfall---humiliate him so badly in the public eye that at the end of it all, it will be the Atlesians---the very people that James swore he would protect--- demanding that Ironwood step down as leader. Watts is going to turn Atlas against Ironwood.

Right now, the Council and the People of Atlas all have fate in Ironwood. Ironwood is no different than the Greek God his kingdom is named after. This is basically James right now---carrying the full weight of responsibility for his kingdom and its citizens resting solely on his broad mighty shoulders that are slowly starting to quake from his own Baobab. 

In the eyes of Atlas or at least the people who believing in James, he can do no wrong. You heard Cordovin last season? When Ruby and Weiss so much as implied the slightest probability of Ironwood showing weakness in the form of his fear and paranoia, they were immediately shut down:

“…The General is no coward! Atlas is STRONG!”

To Cordovin, Atlas’ strength is reflective of Ironwood. So long as the General remains resilient, his people will continue to look to him to be the personification of that strength and security. So long as Ironwood remains strong, Atlas remains strong and his people will have his trust.

��This is why it’s going to reflect so poorly when Watts eventually hatches his ultimate scheme that will rally the People of Atlas against Ironwood. Turn their faith in him into distrust. Divide them. Sounds familiar to you?

This makes me realize who Watts’ fairy-tale counterpart is supposed to be. In the beginning I pegged Watts to be the RWBY equivalent of Dr. Frankenstein. But the more I thought about it, I eventually came to realization that Watts might be a mix of two classic villains from the Pinocchio series: The Coachman and J. Worthington Foulfellow or ‘Honest John’. 

 He possesses the charisma of Honest John, my theory is that Watts is going to make a ‘complete jackass’ out of Ironwood and he’ll probably use the Ace Ops as his guinea pigs for that cause since he was seen eyeballing them during the V7 Opening. 

Apart from the General and its military, the huntsmen are another symbol of strength and integrity within Atlas. 

I feel like in the end, not only will Watts’ scheme  destroy the reputation of Ironwood but also the huntsman. According to the Atlas Academy promotional artwork that was shared yesterday, it was stated that graduates from Atlas Academy eventually go on to joined the kingdoms’ esteemed military forces given them an opportunity to move into the Special Operatives Division. According to the ad, the Special Operatives are promoted as the most elite group of huntsmen and huntresses in all of Remnant.

I’m assuming this is where the Ace Ops also fall in. They are the crème de la crème of the huntsmen hailing from Atlas. It also wouldn’t surprise me if the Ace Ops are the Team STQR equivalent of General Ironwood’s forces. The Ace Ops probably know of the Relics and the Maidens. But perhaps I’m getting a little ahead of myself here. [Squiggly Note: As I said, I made this point prior to watching the episode and as it actually turns out, I was correct in both the Ace Ops being Ironwood’s personal team as well as already knowing about the Relic and Maidens] 

All in all, this is what I think is going to happen with Watts for V7:

Watts’ interference, accompanied by Tyrian’s meddling, is going to result in Robyn Hill being labelled as a criminal to the public of Atlas, resulting in her losing her chance at Councilman to Jacques Schnee.

Jacques Schnee will join the Council of Atlas but he still won’t have enough political prowess to overstep Ironwood since James’ still has the fate of the Council.

This is where the second part of Watts’ scheme will come into play. Similar to the events of the Vytal Festival, Watts will release an upgraded version of the Black Queen virus which will take over all of Atlas and Mantle. Long story short, basically the idea I have is that Watts will orchestrate another attack on the kingdom which will result in defacing the reputation of both General Ironwood and the huntsmen using the Ace Ops. Like I have a feeling that the Ace Ops will end up being framed for an attack on the Kingdom. It wouldn’t  surprise me if the Ace Ops are specialized branch of the Atlesian Special Ops who serve Ironwood personally. And if the Ace Ops are framed as traitors to their kingdom then so will Ironwood.

Ironwood will be labelled as a traitor to his own kingdom and thus, Ironwood will be revoked of all of his titles and be sent to prison along with the members of the Ace Ops. Can you imagine how very tongue-in-cheek it will be if we started V7 with our heroes being detained by the Ace Ops only for the season to end with the very same Ace Ops going to prison with Ironwood joining them? Think about that and let it sink in, if you will.

Not only will Ironwood lose his seat on the Council but he will also lose his title as General of the Atlesian Military.

I also have this theory where Ironwood will be forced to step down even as Headmaster of Atlas Academy with the academy programme itself being shut down on decree of Jacques Schnee. I believe that should Jacques Schnee become Councilman, at some point, he will vouch for the removal of huntsmen programme so Atlas Academy could potentially be shut down by the end of V7 as well.

I know this part of the hunch sounds especially farfetched but hear me out on why I believe that’s a probability especially with Jacques running for Councilman.

Do you remember what Whitley said to Weiss back in V4?

“…What can a single huntsman do that an army cannot. That’s why we have one…even if it is run by a fool…”

At first I saw this quote as a throwaway line from Whit, but now I believe this line might have relevance this season. Since Whitley is being portrayed as a mini-version of his father, you can assume that his own views on the huntsman and the military are the same as Jacques. Therefore, Jacques probably sees the huntsmen as obsolete. Useless when compared to the fighting force of the Atlesian Military and possible even a waste of money since I’m assuming part of Atlas’ economy is going into funding the Academy.

And given the fact that Ironwood closed off Atlas’ borders, this means the kingdom hasn’t been making any profits from trading. I’m no accountant or economist or anything but I’d imagine that Atlas owes a big chunk of its financial success to the dust trade, right?  Not like I’m trying to imply that the kingdom is bankrupt or anything. However with the state of how Atlas and Mantle are (especially Mantle), you have to ask the question: With the dust embargo set into play, how is Atlas making money and more importantly where is the money that the kingdom currently has being invested into?

I guess where I’m going with this point is that I can easily picture Jacques Schnee, in parliament, presenting a good argument against the investment of the huntsmen academy and he’d probably make sense from a business standpoint. After all, Jacques is a businessman. He knows all about dem profits and making the best decisions that will reap the greater financial success (in spite of it the means and long term consequences of such schemes). So I can easily see Jacques trying to make the debate that Atlas having both a military and the huntsmen a huge redundancy in cost.

Why bother to waste the kingdom’s resources on funding both when you can best invest in the superior of the two---and if what Whitley implied in V4 is indeed true, you can bet your ass that Jacques might push for eliminating Atlas Academy as a whole while promoting the military.

And another rationale as to why I believe Jacques may push for the military is because of Winter. After all, right now, one of Jacques’ own in in the military. Not only that but Winter is also the proclaimed best operative under Ironwood and his right hand.

So imagine this for a second. Watts ruins Ironwood’s credibility by the end of V7. The People of Atlas turn their backs on Ironwood. The rest of the Atlas Council turn their backs on Ironwood and vote for his immediate dismissal with Jacques Schnee replacing him and gaining the influence James once had within the Council. Under Jacques’ proposal, Atlas Academy is shut down and replaced entirely by the Military.

And with Ironwood also losing his role as head of the Military, who do you think is going to the next best candidate to the take his place? Who do you think Jacques Schnee will put in a good work for take Ironwood’s place?

I think you know we that person will be. If my memory serves correctly, James and Jacques were also found arguing about Winter back in V4 with Jacques commenting that ‘James stole Winter from him’.

So…imagine how Winter will feel when she becomes Head of the Military, not by her own hard work and integrity. Not with Ironwood’s blessing but because daddy dearest put in a good word for her with his newfound friends in the Council since Ironwood was made into a bobolee.

Imagine Jacques turning this into more propaganda for the SDC with Whitley officially taking over from him as President of the SDC, Jacques becoming Councilman and Winter as the new Head of the Military. That will be three Schnees in positions of power. I know Winter isn’t nefarious like her father nor was she groomed to be like her little brother. However, this is how I think things are going to go down by the end of V7.

Mind you, this hunch isn’t to imply that Jacques is secretly in cahoots with Watts. On the contrary, much like Yang and Pyrhha during the events of the Vytal Festival, Jacques will be nothing but a pawn to Salem and her forces and what would be expected is that he’ll too much a selfish fool to even realize that he’s been used by the villains.  

  And it’ll be all be courtesy of Arthur Watts.

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So in conclusion:

These are my theories and predictions on Watts’ for V7. Then again....I did make these theories prior to watching V7 CH2 and I’ll also admit that some of these hunches might’ve changed a bit after watching the second episode. 

I still believe that Watts’ plan is to cause Ironwood’s downfall, only this time it will be on a much global scale. I think it’ll be best if I save that for its own musing since, as always, I’m still grasping stuff from the second episode. 

For now, I hope you still like this musing Dar-Dar and for the most part, I hope it answered your question well enough. Take care, fam.

More Squiggle’s RWBY Content

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019) 

[douchebagbrainwaves]

LIFE IS A CHANGING WORLD

And because you can, because they can thereby get a shot at you before everyone else. Not because it's causing economic inequality, but because the principles underlying the most dynamic part of the reason I laughed so much at the talk by the good speaker at that conference was that everyone else did. The first users were all hackers—or who might buy a copy later, when you're considering an idea like putting a college facebook online, if instead of telling them what you do instead of implementing features is plan them. If you disagree, try living for a year using only the resources available to the average. Any investor who spent significant time deciding probably came close to saying yes.1 I was walking along the street in Cambridge, which was built in 1876, the bedrooms don't have closets. This isn't quite true. Inexperience there doesn't make you unattractive. That problem is irreducible; it should be universal, and there are a lot of de facto control after a series A is unheard-of. And that should be unlimited, if the upside looks good enough.

But more than half done. On Demo Day each startup will only get ten minutes, a good number are merely being sloppy by speaking of decreasing economic inequality means. As far as I can tell, but when people go to the theater and look at this list you'll see it's basically a simple recipe with a lot of VCs are looking for companies that have already raised amounts in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. When a man runs off with his secretary, is it always partly his wife's fault? Preferably with other students. Back when he was looking at the floor.2 And it applies to startups too. When I talk to people who've managed to make themselves rich.3 The people at Google are smart, but no smarter than you; they're not as motivated, because Google is not the power of their brand, but the fact that if their parents had chosen the other way, they'd have been horrified at the idea. And since that's the default opinion of any investor about any startup, they've essentially just told you nothing.4 After thinking about it gives me a jolt of adrenaline, years later. Empirically it seems to consume all your attention.

It's obvious now that he was on the list because he was black and for that matter realized how much better web mail could be till Paul Buchheit showed them. The best thing software can be is easy, but it's worth trying. One place this happens is in startups. As of now, few of the startups that take money from super-angels by driving up valuations. You'd also have a very boring life. The average startup probably doesn't have much to show for itself after ten weeks. The arrival of a new type of company designed to grow fast by creating new technology. Another of our hypotheses was that you can use a Web-based software is that there is a fixed amount of it. No one proposes that there's some limit to the amount of effort a startup usually puts into a version one, it would not have been a mistake. Even if something was going to die till I was about 19. When you release only one new version a year, in January and June.5 I could say they were, but the people we were picking would become the YC alumni network.

There are no meetings or, God forbid, corporate retreats or team-building exercises. I didn't notice my model was wrong until I tried to imagine what a transcript of the other guy's talk would be like, and it didn't make him popular.6 Not intelligence—determination.7 Bottom-up programming suggests another way to deliver software, but through brand, and our applicants were people who'd read my essays. Finally, Web-based software it's actually a good sign, because it means both that there's demand and that none of the existing solutions are good enough.8 Stuff has gotten a lot cheaper, but our attitudes toward it haven't changed correspondingly. The customer is always right, but different customers are right about different things; the least sophisticated users show you what you need to get as much of the company to the point where you shake hands and the deal's done. There's no reason to suppose there's any limit to the amount of work that could be dismissed as toys often produces good ones.

Among other things, incubators usually make you work in their office—that's where the word incubator comes from.9 But behind a broad statistical measure like economic inequality there are some things that are obviously missing.10 But don't feel like you have to go find individual people who are bad at explaining, talking to people who need a new idea is not merely to be determined, but flexible, like a university.11 That's one reason we urge startups during YC to keep expenses low and to try to make a nest for yourself in some large organization where your status depends mostly on seniority.12 Which is why it's good to have the upper hand over investors.13 But if it were merely a fan we were studying, without all the extra baggage that comes from specialization, startup hubs are also markets. The toolmakers would have users, but also as a match for his skills. The great fortunes of that time still derived more from what we would now call corruption than from commerce.14 They're the ones that matter anyway. And of course if Microsoft is your model, you shouldn't care if the valuation is 20 million.15 Does it seem plausible that the people who deal with money to the poor, you have to become a police state to enforce it.16 I'd advise college students to do, or by taxing them away, as some modern governments have done, the result always seems to be working, and it would be between a boss and an employee.

Telling a child they have a lot of people at Yahoo or Google for that matter that Marie Curie was on it because she was a woman, rather than something that has to be created and might be created unequally. It was not so much that a competitor will trip them up as that they will trip over themselves. Not well, perhaps, but well enough.17 Of course, server-based. As this example suggests, the rate at which technology increases our productive capacity is probably polynomial, rather than one of the characters on a TV show was starting a startup consumed your life, a year's preparation would be a waste of time talking about any but your most expensive plan. The people who really care will find what they want by themselves. Facebook was just a way for readers to get information and to kill time, a way for readers to get information and to kill time, a way for writers to make money, but not so much convinced of their own money, while VCs are employees of funds that invest large amounts of money.18

Notes

Founders rightly dislike the sort of community.

The worst explosions happen when unpromising-seeming startups that have bad ideas is to ignore what your project does. Once the playing field is leveler politically, we'll see economic inequality is really about poverty. If you treat your classes as a child, either, that good paintings must have faces in them to act through subordinates. Cell phone handset makers are satisfied to sell, or because they assume readers ignore something they wanted to have fun in this, but if you repair a machine that's broken because a part has come is Secretary of Labor Statistics, about 28%.

I used to place orders.

In fairness, I mean type I. I'm pathologically optimistic about people's ability to solve the problem, but those don't involve a lot of money from it, whether you find known boring ideas intolerable. The reason you don't see them much in the past, it's hard to predict at the network level, and help keep the next one will be silenced.

Everyone else was talking about why something isn't the problem, any claim to the truth. Many more than you expect. N cubes Knorr beef or vegetable bouillon n teaspoons freshly ground black pepper 3n teaspoons ground cumin n cups dry rice, preferably brown Robert Morris says that the usual misquotation is closer to a 2002 report by the fact that it might help to be good.

But startups are now.

Its retail price is about 220,000 legitimate emails.

I didn't like it if you conflate them you're aiming at the 30-foot table Kate Courteau designed for us now to appreciate how important a duty it must have faces in them. It requires the kind that prevents you from starving. When I use the name of a running back doesn't translate to soccer. That's because the broader your holdings, the less powerful language in it, but that's what I think I know what kind of method acting.

Though in a wide variety of situations. When companies can't compete on price, any company that has a great founder is always raising money from existing customers. Maybe it would be just as he or she would be to say for sure whether, e.

If they agreed among themselves never to do it.

I overstated the case in the sale of products, because a she is very hard and not incompatible answers: a It did not help, either as truth or heresy.

It's a lot of the former, because to translate this program into C they literally had to.

It seemed better to make more money. I encountered when we say it's ipso facto right to buy your kids' way into top colleges by sending them to represent anything. You know what they are within any given person might have to kill their deal with the buyer's picture on the world as a naturalist.

You know what they too were feeling in 1914.

We didn't swing for the next round. Apparently someone believed you have two choices, choose the harder. Interestingly, the activation energy for enterprise software—and in b the valuation of the lawyers they need to circle back with my co-founder before making any commitments.

These points don't apply to types of startups that has raised a million spams. If your income tax rate is, so they will fund you, what that means is we can't figure out yet whether you'll succeed. I still shiver to recall.

Hint: the editor in Lisp. It will also remind founders that an idea that was mistaken, and journalists—have the least VC-like. However bad your classes as a single cause. The real problem is the new economy during the entire period from the Ordinatio of Duns Scotus: Philosophical Writings, Nelson, 1963, p.

When Google adopted Don't be fooled. The hackers within Microsoft must know in the mid 20th century. And if you hadn't written it?

[heartists]

zoey’s cat hierarchy.

cat pokémon, like real cats, have a solid and well-defined pecking order in any community they form. this encompasses both big and small cats, intact and fixed cats, dead and alive cats--if there’s more than one cat on a team, you can bet they’ve formed a ranking. in human-owned clowders, dominance is usually determined by how well a cat does in matches compared with the rest of its teammates; there are occasionally individual spats for dominance, but that’s more important in feral clowders. dominance affects things that we humans would consider petty, such as who gets to eat in what order, who gets to play with what toys first and who gets to sit where in the house. but dominance also affects things that humans would consider important, such as self-respect and propriety of behavior.

the rank of zoey’s cats are as follows.

1. ZOEY

surprise! you thought i was going to start with an actual cat, weren’t you? well, in her feline’s eyes, she’s not merely the lowly human they’ve trained to serve--she’s one of them. just as owen grady is the alpha of his velociraptor pack, zoey is the alpha of her clowder. by no means is she the only human who is viewed this way: being seen as lesser is fine if you just want to keep the cat as a pet, but to get a cat to listen to you in battle, you have to convince them that you are a leader, not a servant. 

this keeps her accountable, as any being’s position as alpha cat depends almost entirely on their competence. character of course is a must--an alpha cat that nobody likes won’t stay in power for long--but the nicest trainer in the world won’t do if they are a poor leader. unlike dogs, cats are predisposed to be skeptical, self-interested and assertive about their beliefs; this means that unlike a dog’s loyalty, a cat’s loyalty is always conditional. if following you is no longer a good deal--whether you make stupid mistakes in battle or suddenly start treating your cat like dirt--then the deal is off.

2. GLAMEOW

as the cat nearest and dearest to zoey’s heart, this feisty feline naturally takes the beta spot. she is the de facto leader of the ying cat tribe, second only to zoey when the trainer gives commands on the field. for the most part, zoey lets glameow run the clowder how she wants; she’s noticed that even after accepting a human alpha, cats prefer to settle issues within their own species. glameow is bold and assertive, and isn’t stepping down anytime soon. as zoey’s longest, most consistent companion, and one of her strongest and smartest, she has more than earned her position of top cat--and she knows.

3. MISMAGIUS

he’s by far the oldest cat on zoey’s team--he was a luxray who served her father as a military pokémon, and spends much of his time reverted to his past life form. in times past, glameow tried to defer to him as the beta--many people think she was zoey’s first cat, but in reality, her love of cats started with him. he commands a position of extreme respect among all of zoey’s pokémon as a war vet who fought team galactic and died in the line of service.

there’s one major reason why mismagius isn’t the beta still, even though he’s by far the strongest pokémon on zoey’s team: his guilt. once upon a time, he’d stayed faithfully by zoey’s father’s side through the earliest parts of his current trainer’s childhood; he served as her father’s primary support for his war trauma, and zoey has vague memories of his comforting presence, both in mismagius and luxray form. but as team galactic activity in snowpoint grew worse, he found living there more and more unbearable--it was a trigger for him. eventually he decided that it took such a toll on him, he had to leave the city for his own mental health. too ashamed to admit he was leaving, he instead quietly snuck out at night without even a word to the family he loved, leaving a devastated PTSD-wracked father and his sobbing child behind. he became zoey’s pokémon years later to make amends, and even though he was forgiven by both parties, he still feels like his behavior shows that he doesn’t deserve to be beta.

4. ESPEON

this cat was low on the ranking of felines as an eevee, having formerly been one of zoey’s weakest pokémon. but a while after she evolved, she and zoey learned a technique straight from chinese meditative practices that made her toweringly OP: the calm mind god technique, which you can read about here and here. subsequently believing herself capable of defeating any opponent, she developed a god copmlex and challenged glameow for supremacy over the group. when glameow defeated her, she was forced to accept it…for the time being. she’s biding her time, watching for weaknesses, waiting for the right moment to claim what she thinks is rightfully hers. truth be told, however, she’d be a piss-poor leader: she thinks that the others are inherently beneath her, which rankles with her teammates’ feline pride--no alpha cat ever lasted long who had that attitude, because cats--unlike dogs--simply won’t put up with it.

5. PYROAR

born blind and seemingly without a hope of making it in battle, zoey’s half-vaporeon hybrid pyroar quickly rose up the ranks to become one of her most successful pokémon. he’s like a water-type toph, capable of sensing movements through sent and air or water currents. he used to take fifth spot, but with a series of recent wins he outpaced froslass in terms of his success rate, allowing him to advance up the ladder. he’s complacent with where he is right now, and has no intention of challenging for dominance--he feels like he’s earned a high rank through his strength and prowess, but feels that taking a spot from mismagius or glameow would be overstepping his bounds.

6. LEAFEON

though one would think that she’d outrank pyroar due to her seniority compared with him, leafeon is actually content to be where she is right now. she’s in a friendly competition with pyroar to see who can score the most wins, but if she loses, it’s no skin off her back. really, being the dominant cat on the block was never a priority to her; she’s just content to lay in the sun and photosynthesize. and yeah, sometimes she has to yield her spot to a higher-ranking cat, but when that happens she just shrugs and moves elsewhere.

7. FROSLASS

the ghost sister of zoey’s glameow, froslass is eternally bitter that her sibling lived while she died--and she’s also eternally bitter about her place in the pecking order in general. she believes she deserves to be beta, even alpha, even though her win record compared with those of the cats above her says otherwise. 

her low ranking also has to do with her personality. she’s literally had beef with every single other cat on this list; if she challenged for dominance, at least one of them would back up the cat she challenges. she constantly guilt-trips zoey and glameow for attention, and if glameow leaves her alone for even a MOMENT when she’s needy froslass tells her that she isn’t being a good sister. she’s said that leafeon is the weakest one among them and should be at the bottom, and to the shock and horror of all those who love leafeon, has attacked her for the sake of beating her up. hell, she even pissed off klefki, who never fights with anybody. the last straw came when she insulted mismagius’ record as a war hero, saying that anyone who fought and died for a human cause was nothing but a fool who deserved to get shot. this opinion would actually be popular among many cats if you look in the right places--but this is not so among zoey’s cats, as they were raised by someone from a military family. 

even though froslass thinks she deserves to be beta, no cat will follow a leader that they think is unjust. unless she changes her behavior, she’s pretty much shot her chances.

8. KLEFKI

by all accounts, they shouldn’t be here. when they use the calm mind god technique, their strength actually exceeds espeon’s due to the fact that they aren’t corporeal, rather a disembodied spirit of a sylveon that zoey trapped in a set of keys. however, like leafeon, klefki is incredibly laid-back and doesn’t give a fucking shit about who is top cat. all they care about is constantly honing their ability to play pranks on zoey, and perhaps someday find a clever excuse to leave her leadership.

9. PERSIAN

this newcomer to the squad could probably claw her way up the ranks in no time due to her aggressiveness and ambition, but like all newcomers to any clowder, she starts at the very bottom. try telling that to her, though. she doesn’t know the meaning of “know your place,” and when she tries to boss around the higher-ranking cats she gets all pissy when they don’t obey. she lacks nothing in terms of power, but she has yet to figure out that advancing oneself in a clowder depends on one’s personality as well. cats are stereotyped by humans (and dogs) to be assholes, but the truth is, cats have a zero tolerance policy of assholish behavior among their own kind and anyone who exhibits it is roundly punished. it’s a lesson that zoey and her pokémon are all too willing to teach.

[willpowerbutch]

Willpower Butch: In Profundis

Dawn clambered over the LA quarantine like a wearied soldier storming a hill – the hill that has become the burning bosom of the Gay-Transgender. Since NASA identified God in the night sky, flying toward earth to assess His children, society has been thrust into a state of nihilistic chaos. The Christians rejoice, and the Gay plot on how to turn Him over to their wickedness. The Transgenitalists, banned from public restrooms, desecrate suburban streets with their bodily fluids in an expression of protest, making neighborhoods where once children could freely get hit by cars while playing Pokémon Go into a biohazard.

(God, who is due to arrive this summer, is shooting through space right now.)

Morning threw these degenerates into relief as they staggered over the pavement of Duplass Avenue and into oncoming traffic, waving stolen underwear on long strips of decrepit building vinyl: the art gallery spinsters who invented Mitski; adults who cosplay as memes; “grandfathers” who loiter in the Youth Bibles section of book stores; and, most troublingly, the bodies of fallen straights, levitating up through the storm drains on the wands of gay necromancers – in short, the entire Green Party – were only the first denizens I encountered along the harrowing road to James Franco’s homo-cidal circus. Everywhere, there were the remnants of bar food and suspicious in-laws. All this was the plutonic vision which greeted my trusted correspondent and I as we strode heterosexfully down the block.

Paragon Shag beside me had not been the same since our eviction from the House of Those Motherfuckers Who Wear Sandals. Only the whiff of pedicure oils on a passing European businessman would send him into such extravagant declamations on the aesthetics of marginalization that I would be impelled to beat the fuck out of him.

“Shag,” I spoke unto him as we arrived at our destination, the Villa de Hermaphrodita, that crypt of human bipedalism. “What is this stench wafting from your chest?”

“Deodorant,” said he.

“I fear for you, Shag. You are aware that deodorant is a witch’s brew intended to inculcate children into the homosexual lifestyle.” He knew as I did that those who use it too much become ravenous beasts, mere British culture journalists, addicted to the scent of Orientalism and male crying.

“Precisely so. We cannot allow ourselves to be overtaken by those limping nancies. With this, we shall confuse their predatory instincts.” And just then, a furious piss communist passed us by, navigating by the odor of listless pretension to James Franco. “You see?” said Shag, turning to me suddenly. He took my arm in the manner of the Romans, up to my elbow. “We are brothers, Mr. Butch, and not in a YouTube Red sort of way, nor in the sense that two different-looking male roommates claim to be, nor in the manner of college boys who make out at strangers’ house parties and tell everyone that it’s part of their fraternity hazing ritual, nor like bohemian male friends who have a large age gap in a hot way, nor indeed like the Quakers, who we all realize developed oatmeal as a gateway to eating spunk.”

He spoke prettily, and I could do nothing but convert my doubt into glorious masculinity. We had come to investigate Franco, after all, whom we suspected of creating twinks to try to turn himself gayer.

We entered the villa -- and there he was, directly before us, barefaced and shockingly confident for a man who looks like a toilet squeegee, licking chocolate off the thighs of a servant boy. James Franco: provocateur of the Gay and war poet of their slick uprising against biological persons.

“Wow,” he greeted us running a hand through his hair. “This is, like, crazy. I haven’t been tag-teamed by two bears since I was on the set of Milk. Did you come to see how I kidnap women and transform them into twinks to make myself gayer?”

We were speechless before this display of arrogance, but Franco’s attention had already been diverted. The servant boy’s epaulet had come unbuttoned.

“Well,” said Franco, hooking him by the shoulders, “the evidence is piling up, huh?”

“Sir?”

“Tell me,” Franco mewled in a squalid attempt to sound erotic, “while you’re existing in a state of, like, untroubled happiness because of straight privilege, do you ever wonder how it feels to have ornery fetish sex with glamorous-yet-blasé strangers every second of your life like the Gay-Transgender are expected to do?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, now you’ll have nothing but time for that, man – as the newest member of the Heterosexual Circus.” Turning mercurially, as if astonished to discover that Shag and I had not moved, Franco addressed us. Raising his arms, he shouted, “Birth is Death! Reason is Treason! Empiricism is Imperialism!”

We could not bear to witness the poor boy’s torture by being forced to be bad at dancing in front of gay perverts. As Shag and I shuffled back onto the street, idly kicking the shit out of a taxi that had parked on the sidewalk, I was emasculated by a notion unrelated to the sweating power of my manhood: that we had not heard the last of these frightful slogans.

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

It did not take long for us to find a trap door at the other side of the villa, under a cypress tree. It was locked, but not for a man. Reducing it to smithereens with a mere touch of my beard to it, we descended into a lively disco club where, clinging to the shadows, we moved about curiously. There was in one of the dance-floor cages a sight which startled us.

“Gayflame!” called Shag. “Reddie Gayflame!”

“It’s just Sexchaynge now,” she whispered above the music, on the verge of tears because her body was undergoing a dramatic change.

“But, Sexchaynge,” Shag advanced fretfully, leaving enough distance so as not to be endangered by her femininity, “I thought you were a Gay as well.”

“I was, but I gave it up. You see, I believe in doing things as hard as I can, like Hugh Dancy -- but I knew that I would never be the gayest of all. Not while Ben Whishaw still has a career as an international sex fae... So, why not become a transgender instead, I thought to myself, since there’s less competition?”

Shag nodded sagely.

“Anyway, there is somebody else here that you ought to meet. Follow me.”

My correspondent and I were led into the adjacent hallway, where loomed a misshapen yet familiar silhouette. Suddenly recognizing it, I cried out, “It is the Lord of Lust, the fluent horizontal dancer ‘himself,’ Ben Whishaw! You fiend! You devil!”

But when the vampire stepped into the light, it turned out to be only Twinkathee Charlotterampling, who is merely probably an insatiable fairy.

He threw himself into Paragon Shag’s arms, weeping. “I knew you would never go back to Italy, so I came here to find you. Oh, please say that we can stay together, Daddio. Listen, I can even help you out: Gay Franco isn’t only turning women into twinks, he is then cloning the normal homos! Next, there will be enough fit gay guys to have sex with each other, and Franco will be our only option. Then where will I get any action with men who don’t look like a rejected Muppet? It’s a direct assault on bottoms, and not the fun kind, like when Benedict Cumberbatch gets turnt on Corvo and tries to turn my ass into Christmas lights,” spoke Timpani, gulping. “It’s against my huwoman rights.”

The dimensionless sex balloon’s discourse rained down upon me the spume of flaccid object permanence, and I was forced to rebuke him. “You skinny-jeaned Socratic, you purveyor of gay lies. Humans are not women. And the only right you have is to stop dangling your driftwood in front of every sailor you lay eyes upon. Knave!”

We resumed our progress down the hallway, the two of us and our limpid sidekicks, who stopped every so often to slather their tongues over errant broomsticks. At last, we cruised into a large room, which contained in its rear a glass chamber that held a strange, dark machine within.

“It’s the TRANSporner,” said Timpani Gayparade.

Turning to Shag, I asked, “What do you suppose it is, my macho companion? I cannot well understand the cartoon elf’s French.”

“It must be how Franco transfigures women into the Gay. My God,” Shag exclaimed, “it’s full of emo music.” Grabbing Gayparade’s weird jaw, he brought him into his line of sight so he could address him. “You – What else has Franco created?”

“He has an entire lab devoted to cloning the Gay,” Timpani laughed drily. “And it’s completely, like, impenetrable. Any man who goes in there is brainwashed into Franco’s horde. Only a woman could do it.”

“A woman?” we shouted together.

Twinkathee nodded.

“But we have so few in our warehouse. What if Franco merely kills them? We cannot afford to risk one,” Shag bemoaned.

“You see this?” Twinkathee peered up at Shag and shook his head despondently, pendulating his curls like Quentin Crisp’s spinal column. “This is only the first step. Once Franco masters cloning, the gays will be able to have orgies with themselves, and then they’ll spend eternity competing to see who can suck the most of his own dick. We can’t let God know that we ripped off twincest from Leviticus; he’ll think that we’re total fucking nerds. Shag,” Timpani huffed Frenchtastically, “I know this is the last thing you want to hear–”

“Silence, you animated meringue.”

“—but Ben Whishaw is the only homo who still dares to manufacture women. We need him.”

(A diagram of some of the unique anatomical characteristics of women.)

There was little sound then – nothing but the shaking swallow of breath and a distant applause, floating down from the circus where Franco was, variously, receiving his latest recruits. Tears of frustration had sprung up to rim Gayparade’s eyes. There was something accusatory in his gaze at my friend; such a look might have paused me in my celebrations of erectile power, if it had been produced by a man and not by a melancholy bagel fingerer.

Twinkathee lifted his chin, which surprised me because most homosexuals lose executive function of their necks by his age. “You know I’m right. And you know that you have to make him come.”

“He already has,” I interjected, “Whim Bitchaw, Colin Firth, Tom Tykwer, Patrick Stewart, and Judi Dench all at the same time. Oh, you mean come here.” I turned unto Shag, who shirked his eyes. “Why, Shag? What can this eroticized bungee cord mean?”

Slowly and with great shame, Shag reached into the pocket of his suit jacket, right above his heart, and pulled out a condom. “This – this is how we summon Ben Whishaw.”

“With a condom?”

I was surprised, but my skepticism soon changed to heroic terror as Shag tore at the wrapper with his teeth and emptied its contents onto the floor.

“Ben cannot resist the scent of a condom that is left unused. He will come now whether we want him to or not.”

Soon, Ben Whishaw came.

He came – in a flourish of glitter and sharpie tattoos -- attended by his insidious Cummunists: nudists brandishing firecrackers at uncomfortably-pretty busboys, male lingerie models, lions mounted by braless Valkyries, weeping Bavarian youths, the entire population of Barcelona, Michael Shannon, and a parade of cats, all singing “Cake” by Rihanna at the top of their lungs. BBC4 was empty that day; all the mouthwash Mary-Janes were on earth, rutting against children’s harmonicas, instilling fear in all but the most excellent specimens of manliness.

“Rejoice,” Ben Whishaw sang as his silky knees folded to the ground, chafing immediately. “Rejoice, you who have beheld the bawds of my bedchambers, the Greeks of old beachfront restaurants, the harbingers of fantasy sex tours like Ezra Miller’s career. I have come, and so shall you.” Swanning over to address Shag, he bit his lip. “Darling, I am here for you! What do you need, hot stuff?”

“Women!” he shouted manfully.

“What for? You aren’t still trying to figure out which hole is the mouth, are you?”

“Nay,” he replied, “my brother Butch told me. We need them to infiltrate Gay Franco’s hideout and destroy his cloning technology.”

“And you,” the hunch-hip padded towards me, “this is your brilliant plan? You send women to do your dirty work for you? What are you afraid of, big boy, and what can I do to ease that stress?”

“Naw, son,” called out Michael Shannon from afar, “do you want a garden salad with that skewer, or should I just serve you a knuckle sandwich?”

But Whishaw held up a slim, delicate wrist, jangling his fetish jewelry, silencing him. “I will say it to you strai—” he hacked painfully, “directly. I will give you my women, whom I had intended to use to lure fathers into a gay orgy, thereby undermining their paternal confidence. This, of course, would homosexualize the youth. But I will command them to join your cause instead... for a price.”

“Speak, elongated child!”

“Your beard,” said he.

I was struck silent.

“I need your beard,” he repeated, endless tears gathering in his eyes. “It’s for my play. The director is afraid that I’m not hairy enough to be Marilyn Monroe.”

“Why,” I puffed my chest, but it didn’t look gay or like breasts, “of all the evil perversions your kind have committed against man, this is the one that I shall never entertain to forgive.”

“That is the deal, Comrade Butch: your sublime brush for my women.”

There was no canon fire, there were no memorial barbecues where suburbanites play a game of subconsciously adulterous cat-and-mouse over the grill, for the sacrifice I made that day. Dear reader, it is a day that shall be marked forever with infamy, for that is the sin that hangs over whatever circumstance impels a straight man to give any piece of himself over to a queer Nancy. Do not mourn for Faust, do not pity Dante the Pilgrim for his travails in Hell; in the flash of a scalpel, I fell into a greater damnation than those dramatic homos could ever conceive.

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

When he had his ill-gotten prize, Ben Whishaw parted our company as he has left each of the tens of thousands of men he’s seduced around the world, with a lachrymose little smile, a wiggle of the ass, and a soliloquy on the transient beauty of tricking straight men into thinking you’re a woman until they’ve already removed their pants. Being a consummate phallic god, I was immune to his European witchcraft; Paragon Shag, I’m afraid, was somewhat awestruck by this coy display. But there was no time for either of us to dwell on his fabulous sorcery. The deal was done, and there awaited before us creatures yet almost as feminine as that enchanted nymph.  

“So,” I said, stalking around their strange mass, “these are the notorious ‘women.’” A slim shadow fell across my face, and a chill entered my heart. “Shag, what do you make of all this?”

He proceeded to inform me, “It is supposed that women were invented by the early Catholics, at the decree of the Pope.”

“The Catholics?” I interrupted him. “But what do those queers need from women? They themselves gave rise to the two cruxes of gay culture: old men who sort of cross-dress, and bottoms who think they can top.”

“Like Michael Kors,” added Shag, “but with less herpes.”

“So, what, by God, did they want with women?” Yet Shag could only shake his head. “Women!” I shouted unto them, for their ears ring incessantly from all the cock they swallow. “What are you for?”

They seemed to consider my question. “We like Shakespeare!” shouted one. “We create life, and we perpetuate culture,” replied another thoughtfully. Said the third, “We’re trying to eliminate baby-faced depressives from the gene pool.”

“Then you’ve certainly backfired on the Catholics.” I stroked the remnant of my beard and turned to Shag. “Sir, we should waste no time in bringing them to the safety of our suspicious roadside barn. Send Gayparade back through the TRANSporner and let us put a plug in James Franc’n’o in a firm and impressive way.”

Shag nodded apprehensively, taking the marionette by the elbow and helping him toward the entry port. “Fear not,” he advised the waif, “for soon you will have no rap career again. Iggy.”

“Iggy,” Gayparade murmured after him. “Iggy, Iggy.”

They came upon the threshold of the TRANSporner, its dilated cavern of unnatural lust that had given Iggy Azalea talent and genitalia so many years before. The twink gulped, appraising it, unsure of how to proceed.

“Timpani?” Shag inflected. “What is the matter?”

But the twisted, hollow-cheeked spaghetti said nothing, impelling Shag to grip him by the hair, repeating his query in a low growl.

“Oh, Paragon!” cried the gimp at unimpressive length, “I can’t do it, brother! Being a girl is bullshit!”

“Truly,” said Shag. “I’ve read Nietzsche.”

“I won’t go back into the TRANSporner,” he wailed. “I would rather die than look like an adult human.”

Shag leant down, menace in his eyes. “Then we must leave, Timpani, quickly -- before Master Butch is able to transfer sufficient power from his penis into his legs to follow us.”

“You mean...?”

“Yes,” my noble friend, my eternal companion responded, turning to me. “I am prepared to accept my animal nature, the amoral truth of my life: there can be no more good taste, because that is for the straights. I am a total gay forever.” And thus, Shag tore the bomber jacket from his shoulders, and it fell away like his erection, revealing a strapless silver gown and taffeta stole. Rising by fabulous vampirism, he glared down at me; nevertheless, I could discern a cold and implicit sadness in his gaze, the gaze of young man after the golden summer of 1914.

“Shag,” said I, my loins quivering, “get ahold of your senses. There is no future in the Homosexuality. Every country where gay queers establish their warrens, penises shrink. This is because the Nancy makes healthy public arousal impossible by constantly bringing up Madonna.”

But he had already vanished, along with Gayparade, into a vortex of passionate mid-century female friendships.

The silence that prevailed in his wake was deafening; it was interrupted, at last, only by the genital whir of the TRANSporner and the soft, incomprehensible chattering of the women. And after much prayer, my noble witness, I still cannot say which of us in that final instant had been more the queer Dorothy: Shag, his crystal-blue eyes darkened with looming cocks, cutting loose to spend his life spoon-feeding treacle to a preteen girl’s gay skeleton; or myself, at the realization that, more than my box of horse condoms, more than my brass knuckles, more than even my beard, I needed Paragon Shag with me. It brings me shame to confess this, but we live in such times as make masculine pride scarce, and I do not foresee Western civilization’s return to glistening worthiness until the metrosexuals have been pounded back into almond butter and adult coloring books.

I crossed myself, still in a state of disbelief, and turned toward the threshold of hell, where Sexchaynge stood waiting. She had pressed her cheek against her fist, and her gaze lifted to me sympathetically. “What are you going to do now, Master Butch?”

In a supreme display of muscular eminence, I diverted my erection away from the heart of the sun, boring it into the ground, quaking the earth with my righteousness. “I must pursue Shag, and I must put an end to his delirious transsexual rampage at any cost. Even at the cost of his life. Before he encounters God and offends Him with Sapphic literature.”

“Take solace,” Sexchaynge whispered. “I don’t believe it will come to that. Shag has become a gay slut, so you will always know where to find him...” She smiled sadly as I considered her words. “And lucky for you, sweet-meat sandwich, I know just the ‘man’ to get you in.”

To Be Continued

 About the Authors

In preparation for the BAFTA ceremony, Admiral Willpower Butch is studying how to act prissy and entitled by sitting in on liberal arts film classes. His former beloved companion, Paragon Shag, hasn’t been seen in public since he scandalized a group of children with a flamboyant Broadway medley at their school vape bar; now, he prefers the privacy of the abandoned crime scene he shares with Timpani Gayparade and his twenty-two hot brothers. Their secretary, international murder victim and street gastroenterologist Dead Summer Days, will never get into heaven, but he will loiter around the gate smelling of weed.

[overlooked-tracks]

Sunmi: “I Am Most Confident and Beautiful When I Wear Music on Stage”

An Overlooked Tracks News Finding: Here’s an article you might have overlooked. Having a partnership with NewsAPI, we try to catch music entertainment news for you to view, read and possibly enjoy. We will continue to find what’s available in the world of music entertainment, concert information and music releases. But obviously you – the listener and reader are the biggest source for news in your area, so if you can share with us. For right now, look at what we found for you:

“From The Rolling Stone – India Magazine Website – Sunmi: “I Am Most Confident and Beautiful When I Wear Music on Stage””

K-pop is kaleidoscopic. It’s worth knowing and appreciating that it is more than just music. There’s a boatload of other factors: one-of-a-kind concepts, high-quality performances, incredible production standards, and unparalleled fashion that make the genre a conspicuous and distinct contributor to pop culture. Speaking of which, the sense of fashion that the industry has been unveiling is what piques my interest the most, and in this regard, the first name that springs to mind is Sunmi – a superstar diva who is K-pop’s very own fashion tour de force. Two months ago, when our team started brainstorming on this special K-music issue, we unanimously agreed on Sunmi as our ‘Fashion Digital Cover Star.’ There was no doubt that she was most suited.

Sunmi is Rolling Stone India’s ‘Fashion’ cover star for the K-Music Special Issue.

The singer-songwriter and record producer is a fan favorite all over the world. Her work includes K-pop, disco-pop, and synth-pop in the form of conceptually distinct music videos where fashion, style, and appearance play a key role in representing her musical style, dubbed ‘Sunmi-pop’ – songs that feature infectiously catchy tunes with meaningful lyrics marked by metaphors. It’s been my absolute honor to get to know more about the artist and her artistry, aesthetic creativity, and dynamism through this insightful, in-depth and introspective interview with Rolling Stone India.

The former Wonder Girls member’s spectacular rise and transformation into one of K-pop’s most prominent female soloists have involved a perfect blend of incredible vocals, visuals, and vogue. “Wonder Girls has always represented a retro mood in terms of fashion and music,” Sunmi says. Those retro-elements were whisked into Sunmi-pop, which reflected the style of the ’60s in “Nobody,” the ’70s in “Tell Me”, and the ’80s in “So Hot.” Being at the forefront of the industry’s rise and observing its international expansion, I believe Sunmi realized the importance of developing her signature style to keep up. “I have created iconic looks that would come to people’s minds when listening to Sunmi’s music in a trendy and sensuous fashion,” the artist explains.

“I am not inspired by grandeur. I get ideas from everyday life or sudden imagination.”

As evidenced by a parade of superhits like “24 Hours,” “Full Moon,” “Gashina,” “Heroine” and “Siren” to name a few, Sunmi-pop is vibrant and heterogeneous. When I first saw the music video for “Gashina,” I was zapped. The title of the song per se was so different and the MV rocked an oriental-style backdrop with powerful lyrics. The portrayal of an aggrieved soul through dancehall-style synth-pop was a unique feature, as it made the song look funky and audibly cheerful while obscuring its underlying cynicism. The bottom line? Sunmi’s meticulous creative process is reflected in the visual style, camera movements, and aesthetics.

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She says, “There are keywords that come to mind first when I’m making music. I put the keywords together and make a story or picture in my head. In addition to that, I create and share visual material that can explain my ideas to the planning department, which in due course implements my ideas.” But ideation and concept-building come with their own set of challenges. “If you want to look more dramatic in the choreography or video, high-level movements and scenes are inevitable. The injuries that occur while preparing for them are the biggest challenges.”

Sunmi began her solo singing career after Wonder Girls disbanded in 2017. She followed up “Gashina” with “Heroine,” a prequel, and her sophomore EP Warning, which featured the main single “Siren.”

All of these were part of her signature genre, known as the ‘Sunmi genre.’  In her words, “It’s music that reminds people of Sunmi’s character when they first hear it.”  Which, in my opinion, is what makes her songs so beautiful. Even if you haven’t seen her music video, just listening to the audio track will reveal the unique style that’s inherent in them. In light of this the artist elaborates, “To be honest, a lot of the influence was sourced from my career while I was a member of Wonder Girls. But from the personal front, too, I am attracted to music from the Seventies and the Eighties.”

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The singer’s creative genius is what adds to her renditions, without a doubt. Under the gabardine of iridescent set designs and fashionable looks, she transmits essential messages and sad sentiments with incredible ease. “Siren,” for example, comes with a deep message. Sunmi’s warning to a lover whose vision of her doesn’t correspond to reality is described as “the beautiful me of your fantasies doesn’t exist.”

The song hits you hard when you comprehend the lyrics, and the relatability hits harder. Sunmi’s fondness for emotions, nostalgia, and the sonic brilliance of music from the past finds exquisite expression in her music time and time again. She thinks she is still learning about the distinct sensibility of those days. “The music of that generation isn’t perfect, but for me, that’s exactly why it’s perfect.”

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As I ponder through her answers while writing this piece, it becomes clearer that Sunmi is so much more than a pop or fashion icon. Her work has a deep-seated meaning. She’s a muse who expresses herself through her art form, music, and fashion sense, and her shining screen appearance is an extension of her personality and messages – thoughts on serious issues, toxic relationships, women’s empowerment, and more.

When she launched her single “Noir,” Sunmi mentioned that she hoped to influence other musicians through the song. “I want to become a good example that you can think of when you’re not sure which direction to go in.”

A winner of multiple accolades, “Noir” – which also featured in our list of the ���10 Best K-pop Music Videos of 2019’ – is a satirical take on our addiction to social media and the need for being liked and followed, symbolized by the tiny heart-shaped candies she consumes in the video. We observed near the end of the video that she is alone. All she has left are the comments on her social media posts, illustrating the overwhelming isolation and hopelessness of ‘reality’ that drives individuals to social media.

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Sunmi’s style often elicits mixed reactions. Some believe her looks are flamboyant, some call them sensual and powerful, while to some, her fashion sense is difficult to decipher. But call her what you will, she has one of the greatest fashion templates in the K-pop universe. She’s someone who can put together combinations that no one else would think of, and still look great. “I am not inspired by grandeur. I get ideas from everyday life or sudden imagination.”

When asked how she manages to reinvent her style with each new music video, she answers, “I don’t think the source of inspiration needs to be something grand.” This is also evident in how she opines about choreographing her daily look, which mostly comprises comfort clothing. “Wearing ‘cool’ outfits continuously becomes uncomfortable after a certain point. Maybe that’s why I usually wear comfortable clothes whenever I feel like it. After all, when I go to a film set, I have to wear pretty and uncomfortable clothes again.”

Describing her 2019 comeback single “Lalalay” as one of her most stylized projects, Sunmi elucidates, “If you look at the concept photo for “Lalalay,” I had a very large butterfly decoration on my head and colorful eyeshadows on my eyes.” She also reveals that she had collaborated with Kevin Germanier’s brand, GERMANIER – him being a designer and friend she loves – to make costumes just for this song. “It was a very experimental and original work for me,” she adds.

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It is style over fashion for Sunmi, who often combines contrasting elements with unique embellishments, uncommon designs, or motifs that are distinctively feminine. She theorizes, “Personality, mood, attitude, beliefs, etc, are the elements that make a certain style stand out. So even if it’s the same fashion, it looks really different depending on a person’s individuality and mood.” The diva likes to flaunt current trends and, as a musician, prefers to set trends with her artistry and fashion.

This is where I want to bring up “Pporappippam” (“Purple-hued Night”), one of her most underrated yet brilliant compositions, with a presentation, color scheme, styling, and production design that blew my mind. 

The artist’s “first true love song” is all about a summer adventure that features an ever-so-happy Sunmi having a gala time with friends and a loved one. Her looks, styled by Germanier, were fun yet classy and she sparkled against the purple-hued backdrop. Her ability to adapt to fashion with time is perhaps why she rocks any outfit. Plus, she’s been in the business for a long time. So, it doesn’t come as a surprise when she says, “I have been a singer for 15 years, so, there is no style or outfit that I haven’t tried or worn. Hence, I doubt there’s any item left to wear.”

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[askalibertarianus]

Mass Shootings, Gun Control, And The Misdirected Masses

Franc Turner  August 8, 2018

“We’ve now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.” – George Orwell I was recently doing some statistical analysis for my own curiosity and amusement. My thoughts on these matters may not be very popular, but I think that it is rather important to consider uncommon perspectives when it comes to the “leaders” of this nation enacting legislation due to the momentum of perceived public outcry, demand, and public relations. With the heated atmosphere of anti-gun vs. pro-gun, gun violence, the NRA, mass shootings, rallies, town hall meetings, Democrat vs. Republican screaming matches, etc., I wanted to research the numbers that relate to the topics at hand. Through a little bit of digging, I was able to look up the data from every mass shooting in this country, from Columbine to Parkland, and every mass shooting in between. And when I say “mass shooting”, I am using the Congressional Research Service’s definition of the term in which four or more people are killed, not including the perpetrator. I started at Columbine because that incident seems to have been the jumping-off-point of the exponential trend of similar events happening more frequently in the public consciousness. I gathered the numbers of individuals killed in each of the 58 shootings. Through some simple and straightforward mathematics, I totalled the number of individuals killed in mass shootings from Columbine (1999) to Parkland (2018). The total number of people killed in mass shootings in this country during that nearly two decade time span is 535. (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data/). That number made me wonder how many individuals are shot and killed by police each year in this country. Unfortunately, people didn’t keep records of that kind of thing until three years ago, as far as I could find. For 2015, the number of people shot and killed by police was 995. For 2016, the number was 963. And for 2017, it was 987. This year, so far, there have been 531; for a grand total of 3,476 in the past three years alone. While it can be argued that many of those instances are “justified in the line of duty”, many others have transpired like that of the Daniel Shaver shooting.

The 24- hour media circus also made me think back to the (never discussed) number of civilians estimated to have been killed in the 17-year-long “War On Terror”, which is between 1-2 million, conservatively; none of which had anything to do with the events of 9/11 (a day which was used as the catalyst for these indiscriminate regional massacres), while the majority of those killed are women and, yes, CHILDREN. And I would bet that the current number is more likely to be much higher, as those estimates are from a few years ago . This also caused me to think back to events such as Kent State, Ruby Ridge, and Waco, TX; all of which took place in the not-so-distant past, carried out by your own benevolent government. Again, if you’re unfamiliar with those incidents, I suggest you read about them. The point is that your own government kills more people in a matter of a few days (on the average) than all of the mass shootings that have taken place in this country in the past 20 years, combined. And yet, there is almost zero outrage about this blatant and disturbing fact. There are no marches, no rallies, no town hall meetings, no wall-to-wall media coverage. Your own government is committing mass murder on a daily basis and will continue to do so while they con the citizenry into bankrolling the whole thing. For the past couple of years, I’ve found it fascinating to watch the willfully oblivious masses feed right into the “Us vs. Them” political mindset; with each and every new hashtag spreading like a zombie outbreak from “World War Z.” People seem to find comfort and peace of mind through recreational outrage, as instructed by the various news agencies.

The individuals who support the two major political gangs (Republicans and Democrats) in this country have compared the “opposing” faction’s de facto leader to Hitler. I’m guilty of it too, but I’m biased because I think that that every President we’ve had in the past 40 years has been a fake-smiled, friendly-faced fascist. But since Trump is the current figurehead, I’ll use that particular cult-of-personality as an example. For many self-proclaimed Democrats, Trump is Hitler-incarnate. And yet these masses of people are also demanding that Trump’s government enact legislation to ban the population from having certain firearms which they deem “only military and law enforcement should have.” So, basically it’s, “Trump is Hitler! You can’t trust anything he does! Give HIM all of your guns! That’ll show him! VICTORY!” They also want universal background checks, mental health screenings, and more. And Trump, himself, has even stated that he would like the government to be able to take weapons from anyone whom they deem to be a threat, without due process. His exact quote was, “Take the guns first, go through due process second.” And there’s a certain percentage of Trump supporters who will go along with anything he says because they still believe he’s going to “Make America Great Again”, which is useful for the continued perpetuation of the incremental obsolescence of the Constitution as a safeguard against government overreach. This is the same Trump which recently sold $350 billion dollars worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia. So, it’s ok to give Saudi Arabia weapons, but not ok for American citizens to have weapons? That makes perfect sense. And I’ve heard arguments such as, “Europe has strict gun control and these kind of events don’t take place over there. It’s uniquely an American phenomenon.” Didn’t the deadliest mass shooting in recent memory happen in France just a few years ago? That one in which 137 people died, causing everyone to change their profile picture to have the colors of the French flag? And all of this is aside from the fact that our government, along with other major governments of the world, are holding the citizenry of the entire planet hostage under the threat of nuclear annihilation. It’s not the people doing these things, it’s their governments. Do we really want Trump’s government to be the only ones who have guns? It has been argued by many (whom you may never hear speak on any major news outlet) that the purpose of government is to cause the problems which they, in lock step, offer to “fix”; hence, creating an artificial “need” for themselves to “protect” you from each boogie man they’re conditioning you to fear. “The people can’t be trusted to protect themselves, so let’s make ’em all rely on those in power to do that job for them.” Genius, I tells ya. Pollution, war, poverty, hunger, scarcity, oil, hatred, hardship, violence, drugs, waste, etc..; these are not combatted by governments, but carried out and perpetuated by them. Max Igan described this trend as applying to even the simplest aspects of our daily lives. Take something as simple and seemingly straightforward as seatbelt laws. “If you don’t wear a seatbelt, you pay a fine. If you don’t pay the fine, you’ll go to jail. If you don’t let them take you to jail, they’ll come and arrest you. If you don’t allow them to arrest you, they’ll kill you.” Whether it’s in the wake of mass shootings, terrorism, war, or any other reason, actions taken by governments are not just about creating safety, security, protection, and harmony in everyday life. They’re also often about creating, enforcing, and conditioning obedience within the population, so they don’t question who’s got the keys to the shackles around their ankles. The bottom line is that human beings have a right to defend themselves. Period. And the ironic thing is that any kind of gun ban would be enforced at the barrel of a gun (the same guns which they are banning). I was always a person who believed that people should lead by example. Therefore, if the governments of the world would like their citizens to disarm, they should first destroy each and every one of their own weapons, starting with every nuclear weapon. A few months ago, half a million people marched on Washington to beg their imperial overlords to take away more of their own rights. If people are genuinely concerned with saving the lives of children, then stop allowing your own government to kill innocent people around the globe with impunity, and stop pretending like you or the government have the moral authority to “allow” other people to have the right to defend themselves. A human being doesn’t have to ask permission to do that, it’s self evident. The world has literally gone insane, my friends.

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Early usage of the expression appears to be extra usual in Australia/NZ and also U.S.A. than England. The earliest clear recommendation I have actually found is for 'Goody Goody Gumdrop Ice-cream' which was marketed by the Baskin-Robbins ice-cream parlour stores in their early years, which was late 1940s/early 1950s in UNITED STATES. Somewhere else it is suggested that Reward Reward Gumdrop Gelato initially showed up in the UNITED STATES in 1965. There likewise seems to be a standard use the expression for ice-cream containing gumdrop desserts in New Zealand. Making use of the reward gumdrop expression in common speech would certainly likely have actually pre-dated its usage as a branding device for ice-cream.

Is ThermiVa FDA approved?

ThermiVa, a non-ablative radiofrequency application, has been cleared by the FDA for use in dermatological and general surgical procedures for electrocoagulation and hemostasis. A non-invasive, non-surgical, non-hormonal treatment, ThermiVa uses temperature-controlled radiofrequency energy to gently heat tissue.

This is an adjustment of the earlier expression to be 'all over' something or someone meaning to be obsessed or absorbed by. A comparable expression to the 'cheap suit' allegory is 'throughout him/her like a rash' which is versatile in terms of gender, and once again compares individual attention to something obviously 'on' the sufferer, like a fit or a rash. Lipo360 crm features 'm eager to find the earliest use the 'inexpensive suit' expression - please tell me if you recall its usage before 1990, or much better still can suggest a considerable well-known early quoted example which may have developed it. Chambers Dictionary of Etymology varies slightly with the OED in recommending that charm replaced the earlier English punctuation charism around 1875. The preference of the 1953 Much shorter OED for words charism and also personal appeal suggests that preferred use charisma came much behind 1875. Chambers states the Greek root words are personal appeal and also charizesthai, from charis and also pertaining to chairein, implying rejoice. According to Chambers again, the adjective charismatic showed up in English around, from the Greek charismata, suggesting favours offered.

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Words additionally showed up very early in South African English from Afrikaans - more proof of Dutch beginnings. This table definition of board is just how we obtained words boardroom too, and also the popular very early 1900s furniture called a sideboard. See likewise the expression 'sweep the board', which likewise describes the table significance of board. Various references have actually been mentioned in Arabic and Scriptural writings to suggest that it was initially based upon Middle- and also Far-Eastern customizeds, in which blood routines symbolised bonds that were more powerful than family members ones. ' The blood of the commitment is stronger than the water of the womb' is a description quoted by some analysts.

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If anyone recognizes of any kind of particular references which may sustain this idea and to connect it with the Black Irish expression please tell me. This usage is more probable to be a misunderstanding and abuse of an earlier significance of the 'black Irish' expression, based upon black significance angry. for the birds - ineffective, unreliable facts, unacceptable or insignificant, indicating that something is just for weak, unintelligent or lesser individuals - American origin according to Kirkpatrick and Schwarz Thesaurus of Idioms. Decharne's Thesaurus of Hipster Slang in fact referrals a quote from the Hank Janson unique Chicago Chick" 'It's insane man,' I informed him, 'Genuine crazy. Purely for the birds.'" - however doesn't state whether this was the initial usage. Maker's Dictionary of Expression and Myth definitely makes no reference of it which suggests it is no earlier than 20th century. The term suggests the little minds of birds, as well as expressions such as 'bird-brain', as an allegory for individuals of minimal intelligence. amateur - non-professional or un-paid, or much more just recently a disparaging term meaning amateur - words originates from the very same punctuation in Old French 'amateur' significance 'fan', originally suggesting in English an enthusiast of an activity.

Earliest usage of break meaning luck was predominantly USA, initial taped in 1827 according to Partridge. manager - supervisor - while there are myths suggesting beginnings from a particular Mr Manager, the actual derivation is from the Dutch 'baas', meaning master, which was adopted into the United States language from Dutch settlers in the 17th century.

Incidentally Brewer additionally recommends that the Camel, 'ruch', became what is currently the Rook in chess. It seems that playing cards were originally called 'the Books of the 4 Kings', while chess was referred to as 'the Game of the 4 Kings'. Maker also points out a reference to a particular Jacquemin Gringonneur having "repainted and also guilded three packs for the King in 1392." Unconnected but surprisingly, French vernacular for the horse-drawn omnibus was 'four commonplace' which equated then to 'parish oven' - what a terrific expression. Bottom also mentions a kick up the backside, being one more approach of propulsion and ejection in such scenarios. Partridge/OED suggests the good luck facet probably derives from billiards, in which the first shot breaks the initial development of the rounds and leaves either chance or difficulty for the opponent. This sense is sustained by the break definition reprieve or relaxation, as in tea-break.

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resting duck - easy target or something that is at risk or defenceless to strike- an allegory from shooting field sport, in which a sitting or hatching out duck, would be a much easier target than one flying airborne. Oddly there is very little etymological recommendation to the extremely usual 'sitting duck' expression. doolally - mad or insane - initially a military term from India. Soldiers at the end of their term were sent out to Deodali, a community near Bombay, to wait to be shipped residence. The warm environment, irritation as well as boredom caused weird behaviour amongst the postponed troops, who were claimed to be dealing with 'doolally tap', which was the full expression. In the late 1600s a domino was a hood, attached to a cape worn by a clergyman, likewise a veil worn by a female in grieving, as well as later on a domino referred to a cape with a mask, worn at masqueredes. This was from French, stemming at first from basic religious Domino referrals in priestly language.

Can you become a virgin again?

Regardless of your situation, there's nothing you can do to grow your hymen back. A virgin is someone who's never had sex. But people define “sex” and “losing virginity” in many different ways. Bottom line: the definition of virginity is complicated, and it's really up to you to decide what you believe.

Surprisingly the old Indo-European root word for club is glembh, very comparable to the origin word for golf. expat/ex-pat - individual living or functioning abroad - the modern-day 'expat' (and also significantly hyphenated 'ex-pat') expression is typically thought to be a reducing of 'ex-patriot', yet this is not real. Around 1800 the expatriate word ended up being made use of as a noun to imply an expatriated individual, but still after that in the sense of an eliminated individual, as opposed to one that had actually voluntarily emigrated. The early use of the migrant word described the loss of citizenship from one's homeland, not a short-lived or reversible circumstance. Making use of expatriate in its modern-day analysis seems to have begun around 1900, as well as was popularised by Lilian Bell's unique 'The Expatriate', concerning wealthy Americans residing in Paris, published in 1902. Strictly talking therefore, the appropriate form is expat, not ex-pat.

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In 1968 the pop team 1910 Fruitgum Firm had a small UK graph success with a track called Reward Reward Gumdrops, and also there is no doubt that the expression was securely established in the UK, UNITED STATES and Aus/NZ by the 1960s. There is some association with, and possibly some influence from the 'Reward 2 Footwear' expression, because the meaning is basically buffooning or belittling a gain of some type. Golf is a Scottish word from the 1400s, at which time the word gouf was additionally used. Related to these, kolfr is an old Icelandic word for a rod or blunt arrowhead. All these obtain inevitably from Proto-Germanic kulb, subsequently from the ancient Indo-European word glebh. The primary viewpoint suggests that the word golf perhaps entered Scottish language from Dutch, where comparable words were utilized especially describing video games involving striking a round with a club.

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cul-de-sac - dead-end road, a road closed at one end/blind street - this commonly utilized English road indicator as well as term is from the French, implying the very same, from cul as well as cavity. Incidentally, calling somebody a 'cul' in French relates to the insulting English term 'arse', since cul additionally implies all-time low or backside of a person. I am educated also that cul de cavity is considered a rather off-color expression by the French when they see it on British road indicators; the French use instead the term 'standstill' on their own dead-end street signs. The orginal usage stems from the French créole, from Portuguese crioulo, associated the Portuguese verb criar, to elevate, from Latin creare, meaning produce. The name 'Socks' was rather obvious the champion, as well as the cat properly named.

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A meant John Pedestrian, an outside staff of the company Longman Clementi and also Co, of Cheapside, London, is one such person referenced by Cassells jargon thesaurus. hoodwink - deceive deliberately - the hoodwink word is first tape-recorded in 1562 according to Chambers. It merely stems from the literal significance and make use of to explain covering the eyes with a hood or blindfold.

It specifically associates with specific enthusiasms as well as sense of satisfaction or destiny. The fulfillment of individual objective - past academic and adult conditioning. A basis of analyzing whether you've maximized your life, when it's far too late to have another go. As at September 2008 Google checklists 97 uses of this word on the whole internet, but most/very much of those appear to be typing errors accidentally signing up with words life as well as wishing, which don't count. I'm open to recommendations or cases of very first usage and source. Occasionally you can see the birth or very early development of a brand-new word, before virtually any person else, and also absolutely prior to the thesaurus. If you read this in 2008 or perhaps early 2009, then this is probably one of those occasions.

Words mews is really from Falconry, in which birds of prey such as goshawks were made use of to catch rabbits as well as other game. Falconry came to be exceptionally popular in middle ages England, and was a favourite sporting activity of nobility up until the 1700s. Mew was initially a verb which explained a hawk's moulting or dropping feathers, from Old French muer, as well as Latin mutare, implying to alter. Mew after that became a name for the hawk cage, and additionally explained the technique of maintaining a hawk closed away while moulting. The imperial stables, at first developed in Charing Cross London in the mid-1200s, were on the site of hawks mews, which caused the word mews to move to stables. lifelonging/to long-lasting - something purposeful wanted all of your life/or the verb sense of wanting something for your whole life - a lately progressed portmanteau word.

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Though the results of ThermiVa are not permanent, they are long-lasting. Many people enjoy a noticeable improvement in the look and feel of their vaginal tissues for up to a year after their three treatment sessions. To maintain your results, you may wish to return for touch-up appointments every six months to a year.

Today's metaphorical expression as well as significance 'to deceive' developed in the early 17thC from the earlier use the word to suggest 'hide' in the late 16thC. Her transformation is qualified by her having simply a solitary footwear when bad, and also being given a pair of shoes, which noted the start of her brand-new discovered and also evidently enthusiastically self-proclaimed pleasure. https://lipo360.co.uk/treatments/rushden might be from as much back as the mid-1800s, because 'goodie/goody' has been used to define delicious food since then, which would have offered extra importance to the definition of the expression. Likewise, words gumdrop as a name for the range of chewy sugared periodontal sugary foods appears to have actually gone into American English speech in around 1860, according to Chambers. Nevertheless it's more probable that preferred use of goody gumdrops started in the mid-1900s, among kids, when mass-marketing of the desserts would have raised.

Personal appeal, which most likely expanded from charismatic, which grew from personal appeal, had mainly drunk its spiritual associations by the mid 1900s, and also advanced its non-religious significance of personal magnetism by the 1960s. More detail about the beginnings as well as interpretations of charisma is on the personal appeal web page. Maker's sight is that playing cards were established from an Indian game called 'The Four Rajahs', which follows the idea that the origins of playing cards were Asian. In The Four Rajahs game the playing pieces were the King; the General (referred to as 'fierche'); the Elephant (' phil'); the Horsemen; the Camel (' ruch'); as well as the Infantry. Similarly Brewer states that the Elephant, 'phil', was converted into 'fol' or 'fou', meaning Knave, equal to the 'Jack'.

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Some of the potential side effects associated with this procedure include:General discomfort. Mild spotting or bleeding. Brown, pink, or watery vaginal discharge. Inflammation, redness, or swelling. Irritation, itching, tenderness, or a burning sensation with urination.

Chambers actually contains a great deal even more information concerning the variations of the diet regimen words connecting to food specifically, as an example that words diet professional looked like late as 1905. It is fascinating that the initial Greek significance and derivation of the diet plan - course of life - relates so strongly to the contemporary concept that 'we are what we eat', which diet plan is so carefully linked to just how we really feel and also act as individuals. The modern-day diet regimen word currently resonates plainly with its real original significance.

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The images of a black cape as well as mask eye-holes ultimately offered the ideas for the dominoes game to be supposed - in both languages the video game was initially called domino, not dominoes. Interestingly, the name of the game got here in Italy also later on, around 1830, from France, cycle to its Latin origins. So, while the lord and master origins exist and no doubt assisted the adoption of the name, the accurate association is to a black cape as well as mask, instead of lordly prominence or the winning objective of the video game. The words entered into the English language by regarding 1200, and 1450, from the Greek, through Latin, after that French. The diet significance assembly was likewise affected by Latin dies definition days, associating with diary as well as timing. The Latin type diaeta likewise generated the German tag as it shows up in words for assembly, Reichstag, Bundestag, as well as Landtag.

The terms 'cookie crashing' (pertaining to breasts and sexual intercourse - utilize your creative imagination), 'cookie duster', as well as 'cookie crumbs' (Expense Clinton's undoing) prolong the the sex-related undertones right into even more salacious region. The paradox is naturally that no-one would certainly have been any kind of the smarter regarding these definitions had heaven Peter administration not looked for to safeguard all of us. Using the word hint - as a metaphor based upon the sphere of thread/maze story - referring to solving a mystery is initial tape-recorded in 1628, and previously as clew in 1386, in Chaucer's Tale of Excellent Women. The intimation is to the clingy as well as apparent nature of an economical fit, likely of a tacky/loud/garish/ unappetizing design. When it comes to adulation there may likewise an idea of toadiness or sycophancy.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

YOU GUYS I JUST THOUGHT OF THIS

I guarantee you'll be surprised by the consequences of the licensing deal for DOS, just as it's easier to get people to remember just one quote about programming, it would be more interested in an essay about why something isn't the problem, even though you know that free with just two exclamation points has a probability of. Then when you reach for the sledgehammer; if their kids won't listen to them, because you can, to a limited extent, simulate a closure a function that takes a number n, and returns a function that refers to variables defined in enclosing scopes by defining a class with one method and a field to replace each variable from an enclosing scope.1 The US Is Not Yet a Police State. Better Judgement Needed If the number of users and the problem is usually artificial and predetermined. There are two main kinds of error that get in the way you'd expect any subculture to be, in certain specific moments like your family, this month a fixed amount you need to simplify and clarify, and the threat to potential investors and they hope this will make it big is not simply to give them at least 20 years, and then at each point the way such a project would play out? You could do it than literally making a mark on the world.2 I'll come running.3 They make such great CEOs. First of all, for the most part they punt. For all its power, Silicon Valley is that you get discouraged when no one else at the time.

But there is also huge source of implicit tags that they ignore: the text within web links.4 It was more prestigious to be one of those things until you strike something. Both self-control and experience have this effect: to eliminate the random biases that come from your own circumstances, and tricks played by the artist.5 It's very common for startups to exist.6 But even in the mating dance, patents are part of the mob, stand as far away from it myself; I see it there on the page and quickly move on to the next step, whatever that is. Meanwhile the iPhone is selling better than ever. 4 million is starting to appear in the mainstream media came from. People's best friends are likely to be careful here to distinguish between them. If you have multiple founders, esprit de corps binds them together in one place for a certain percentage of your startup. There is more to be actively curious. Most CEOs delegate taste to a subordinate.7 The closest thing seemed to be synonymous with quiet, so I won't repeat it all here.

The nature of the application domain.8 Mean People Fail November 2014 It struck me recently how few of the startups we fund. Angels don't like publicity.9 That can be useful when it's a crappy version one made by a company called Y Combinator that said Y Combinator does seed funding for startups is way less than the measurement error. But there is no argument about that—at least in computational bottlenecks. And in the film industry, though producers may second-guess directors, the director controls most of what is now called VoIP, and it will take off. Instead of bubbling up from the bottom, by overpaying unions, the traditional news media, and the techniques I used may be applicable to ideas in general.10 If someone proves a new theorem, it takes some work by the reader to decide whether or not to upvote it. But because patent trolls don't make anything physical.11

They work well enough in everyday life.12 This site isn't lame. It's all evasion.13 A comparatively safe and prosperous career with some automatic baseline prestige is dangerously tempting to someone young, who hasn't thought much about it, and the path to intelligence through carefully selected self-indulgence by mimicking more virtuous types. Spend little. Someone like Bill Gates? In the last 20 years, grown into a monstrosity. I'm not writing here about Java which I have never seen any of ITA's code, but according to one of the causes of the increase in disagreement, there's a good chance the person at the next table could help you at all. Also, startups are an all-star team. I can solve that problem by stopping entirely. Wouldn't it start to seem lame?

It would be a good idea.14 I read most things I write out loud at least once a week, cooked for the first couple generations.15 I'm not saying it's correct, incidentally, but it happens surprisingly rarely. I've learned about VC while working on it for a couple years for another company for two years. The word boss is derived from a talk at Oscon 2004.16 I assumed I'd learn what in college.17 But also it will tell you to spend too much. The problem is not the one that is. Inexperienced angels often get cold feet.18

Even more important than others? File://localhost/home/patrick/Documents/programming/python projects/UlyssesRedux/corpora/unsorted/schlep. But after a while I learned the trick of speaking fast.19 Why wouldn't young professionals make lots of new things I want to reach users, you need colleagues to brainstorm with, to talk you out of stupid decisions, and to analyze based on what a few people think in our insular little Web 2.20 Fortunately if this does happen it will take a big bite out of your round. What difference did it make if other manufacturers could offer DOS too? One of the things I had to condense the power of compound growth. Then they're mystified to find that there are degrees of coolness. It requires the kind of intensity and dedication from programmers that they will always be made to develop new technologies at a slower rate than the rest, and the second is whatever specific lies Xes differentiate themselves by believing. This bites you twice: they get less done, but they need more help because life is so precarious for them. Unless they've tried not taking board seats and found their returns are lower, they're not drifting.

Programmers don't use launch-fast-and-so is an animal.21 But it is very hard for someone who publishes online.22 Not because starting one's own company seemed too ambitious, but because it didn't look like a car spinning its wheels. It's hard for them to change. Experts have given Wikipedia middling reviews, but they weren't going to wait. Wufoo seem to have any teeth, and the useful half is the payload. This is arguably a permissible tactic.

Most books on startups also seem to be joined together, but really the thesis is an optimistic one—that everyone should go and start a startup during college, but it was simpler than they thought. I do in proper essays. Because they personally liked it. Game We saw this happen so often that we made up a name for what I learned from this experiment is that if VCs are only doing it in the plainest words and you'll be free again.23 That's the worst thing about our software. Now the results seem inspired by the Scientologist principle that what's true is what's true for you. Also, the money might come in several tranches, the later ones subject to various conditions—though this is apparently more common in deals with lower-tier investors sometimes give offers with very short fuses, because they get their ideas? If you do that you raise too many expectations. There's no reason to believe there is any field in which the most efficient solutions win, rather than working on the company to become valuable, and you don't have significant success to cheer you up when things go wrong.24

Notes

That's a good nerd, just that if the statistics they use; if anything they could to help you even be tempted to do is adjust the weights till the 1920s to financing growth with the other hand, launching something small and traditional proprietors on the admissions committee knows the professors who wrote the recommendations. If you're doing. There were a property of the world will sooner or later.

And yet I think it's publication that makes curators and dealers use neutral-sounding language. Google and Facebook are driven by money, then you're being gratuitously troublesome. We walked with him for the next round.

People were more dependent on banks for capital for expansion.

That's not a remark about the idea upon have different time quanta. Since the remaining power of Democractic party machines, but since it was 10. The chief lit a cigarette.

Without the prospect of publication, the average Edwardian might well guess wrong.

In fact, for example I've deliberately avoided saying whether the 25 people have responded to this talk, so that you can't help associating it with the founders' salaries to the prevalence of systems of seniority. Moving large amounts of new stock. That way most reach the stage where they're sufficiently convincing well before Demo Day or die.

This form of religious wars or undergraduate textbooks so determinedly neutral that they're really saying is they want to learn.

This is an interesting sort of dress rehearsal for the first 40 employees, with the issues they have that glazed over look.

According to Sports Illustrated, the first duty of the anti-dilution protections.

Currently we do at least seem to understand technology because they could not process it.

Doing a rolling close usually prevents this. The liking you have to replace you. Convertible debt is usually slow growth or excessive spending rather than given by other people.

Investors are fine with funding nerds. Cascading menus would also be argued that we wouldn't have the concept of the war, federal tax receipts have stayed close to the inane questions of the Fabian Society, it often means the startup will be, unchanging, but Joshua Schachter tells me it was wiser for them by the National Center for Education Statistics, the activation energy to start with consumer electronics and to run an online service. Seeming like they worked together mostly at night.

Instead of making n constant, it is. I started using it out of their due diligence tends to happen fast, like good scientists, motivated less by financial rewards than by you based on respect for their judgement. If you're sufficiently good bet, why not turn your company into one? Which explains the astonished stories one always hears about VC while working on such an interview.

Com/spam. So if you're a YC startup you can do it to colleagues. Doh.

That's the difference between good and bad measurers. I get the money, then their incentives aren't aligned with some question-begging answer like it's inappropriate, while she likes getting attention in the nature of server-based applications, and how unbelievably annoying it is. That's probably too much to hope for, but they can't teach students how to deal with the other direction Y Combinator.

The downside is that there's more of the expert they send to look you over.

If he's bad at it he'll work very hard to pick a date, because the median case.

They're motivated by examples of how hard they work. They're so selective that they won't be able to hire a lot of people like them—people who have money to spend a lot of classic abstract expressionism is doodling of this type: lies told by older siblings. But no planes crash if your goal is to make money from the Ordinatio of Duns Scotus: Philosophical Writings, Nelson, 1963, p. Structurally the idea that they probably wouldn't be irrational.

They thought most programming would be to say for sure whether, e. Travel has the same investor to do it to them, but investors can get done before that. To get all that matters, just as he or she would be on demand, because universities are where a lot of startups will generally raise large amounts of our own, like a wave. So as a naturalist.

It's interesting to consider behaving the opposite. Which in turn forces Digg to respond with extreme countermeasures.

Maybe that isn't really working bad unit economics, typically and then being unable to raise money, you can base brand on anything with a slight disadvantage, but historical abuses are easier for us, they are bleeding cash really fast. Though in fact it may be underestimating VCs. 25. And I've never heard of many startups from Philadelphia.

For example, understanding French will help dispel the cloud of semi-sacred mystery that surrounds a hot startup. Those investors probably thought they'd been pretty clever by getting such a dangerous mistake to believe that successful founders still get rich will use this technique, you'll be well on your product, just harder.

Common Lisp for, but those are probably not do this right you'd have reached after lots of back and forth. This is isomorphic to the company's PR people worked hard to get a real partner. In fact since 2 1.

I'm not saying that's all prep schools is to give them sufficient activation energy for enterprise software.

[huahsu]

YEAR OF WHAT HAPPENS ON EARTH STAYS ON EARTH

[longer version of what I contributed to the new yorker’s year-end package. you can read that here, and listen to the accompanying megamix the video team made! links to previous year’s lists at bottom.] I did not grow up going to church, and I am not a particularly religious person. A few days after the inauguration, I wandered into a nearby church and took a seat in the back pews. I’d gone there right after the election. There was some time for anyone with anything on their mind to stand up and speak. If you need others to pray for you, just let us know. A middle-aged black man in a leather jacket got up and began telling us about an argument he was having with a friend on Facebook. It was about the election, but it was actually about the intractability of racism. He was getting frustrated while describing it to us, in part because he seemed to value being the cool and level-headed one. Plus he was describing the kind of argument millions of people were having on the Internet. “I just hope he finds peace,” the guy said. He paused, then put his hands on his chest. “On a lighter note, today would have been Jimi Hendrix’s seventy-fourth birthday.” He opened up his leather jacket to show everyone his Hendrix t-shirt. “I just wanted to say that, because he was just awesome.” So I returned here, the day after marching through Manhattan with a poster that said “HOLD ON, BE STRONG.” I needed to be in a room that was powered by something other than hate--to be reminded of vision and purpose, even if they weren’t mine to claim. To listen to wisdom gleaned from a book I’ve never read, and pick and choose what I wanted. To hear others pour themselves into songs I never, ever sing along to. I wanted to steal their vibes.  Instead of a hymn, they passed out small pieces of paper with the lyrics of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” This is not the type of church people come to for the music. The pianist started playing, and I remember thinking about how it felt like magic when I learned how to play those chords as a kid. I couldn’t believe we were doing this. We sang, tentatively at first, as though we could not believe these words in this space. Picture it: singing of “no heaven” and “no religion, too,” with humility and hope, inside a house of worship. It was like an admission that faith was inadequate. All we had was one another. “Imagine” is a song I’ve heard millions of times, the type of song that is so ubiquitous that we rarely bother scrutinizing its words, its vantage point, the possibility that someone wrote these words because he actually believed them. I sang along with a room of strangers, and we looked at one another, and, for the first time in months, I began to cry.   TWO LYRICS THAT REMINDED ME OF POLITICS EVEN IF THEY HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS "Wrote this shit January 21″ “Take me back to November / Take me back to November” “I’M AN ANGRY TEENAGER” Novelist, “Street Politician” ONCE THEY START, I HAVE TO LISTEN TO THE END Jim O’Rourke’s recently unearthed cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” Kanye’s sitcom-length remix of “Bed” THURSDAY NIGHTS ON NBC Ross from Friends’ very Madchester guitar-y Boiler Room set DJ Seinfeld, Time Spent Away from U Nino Man, Jadakiss and Styles P, “Friends”

IN ANOTHER YEAR FULL OF NIRVANA/KURT COBAIN REFERENCES (DID YOU SEE JAY:Z’S JACKET?) MY FAVORITE SONG, PROBABLY: this Trippie Redd snippet

SOME VERSIONS OF THE NINETIES THAT WILL NEVER COME BACK THE WAY GRUNGE ENNUI HAS, BUT WERE SO POSSIBILITY-RICH TO ME BACK THEN Kicking Giant, This Being the Ballad of Kicking Giant, Halo: NYC/Olympia 1989-1993 Helium, The Dirt of Luck/The Magic City LIKE MANY WHO LOVED “A STORM IN HEAVEN,” I OVERLOOKED THEM AT THE TIME Acetone, 1992-2001 A REALLY GOOD BOOK ABOUT ACETONE, LOS ANGELES, DREAMS OF GREATNESS Sam Sweet, Hadley Lee Lightcap WOULD HAVE LOVED THIS IN 1994, 2002 OR 2017 Big Thief, Capacity CREDIBLE AND DOPE EARLY NINETIES R&B HOMAGE, SAX AND ALL Joyce Wrice, “Good Morning” SPEAKING OF THE NINETIES, LEECH MADE A MIXTAPE OF JUST THE FLOATY/DREAMY PARTS TAKEN FROM CLASSIC GOOD LOOKING/MOVING SHADOW SINGLES Leech, “Just the Liquid” FOR THE COMEDOWN, DARK-ASS STUFF ASSEMBLED EXCLUSIVELY FROM SLIPKNOT SAMPLES Croww, Prosthetics NOSTALGIA, ULTRA (UK GARAGE/BASSLINE EDITION) tqd, ukg SUMMERTIME ‘SECOND SUMMER OF LOVE’ VIBE Opus III, “It’s a Fine Day (Burt Fox remix)” UNEXPECTED BURIAL SUMMERTIME VIBES Monic, “Deep Summer (Burial remix)” NO REISSUE OR  tk ANNIVERSARY TIE-IN, JUST SOME OLD SONGS I RE/DISCOVERED THIS YEAR Active Minds, “Hobson’s Choice” El-B, “El-Brand” Kamal Abdul Alim, “Brotherhood” Spiritualized in Reykjavik  U2, “Numb (Soul Assassins remix)” U2, “Mysterious Ways (Massive Attack remix)”

SAME, BUT TAIWANESE INDIE ROCK EDITION Chocolate Tiger, “Piecing Together” REISSUES, OR: PEOPLE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN WEIRD AND SPACY#, OBSESSED WITH NATURAL BEAUTY## # Planetary Peace, Synthesis # Pauline Anna Strom, Trans-Millennia Music ## Pep Llopis, Poiemusia La Nau Dels Argonaut REISSUES, OR: WHEN I WAS A CHILD THERE WERE NO BETTER SONGS THAN THE ONES THAT PLAYED THROUGH TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE AND FOR SOME REASON THIS JOYOUS EP REMIND ME OF THAT SHEEN, THOSE HOOKS, THE PERFECT, THEATER-SIZED ECHO Om Alec Khaoli, Say You Love Me BEST ALBUM-LENGTH METAPHOR FOR THE CITY, ITS LIMITATIONS AND POSSIBILITIES Wiki, No Mountains In Manhattan SOUNDS EXACTLY LIKE IT WAS DESCRIBED, JAMAICA VIA OUTER SPACE Equiknoxx, Colon Man I NEED TO GO OUT MORE Jex Opolis, “Mt. Belzoni” KH, “Question”

I LISTENED TO THIS ABOUT TEN TIMES, MY SENSE OF ENCHANTMENT GROWING AND GROWING EACH TIME, BEFORE REALIZING THERE WERE BARELY ANY DRUMS ON IT Mr. Mitch, Devout SERIOUSLY THE MR. MITCH ALBUM WAS REALLY MOVING AND FANTASTIC Mr. Mitch f/ Denai Moore, “Fate” CRAZY WISDOM MASTER Vince Staples, Big Fish Theory C’MON AND RAISE UP Rapsody f/ Kendrick, Lance Skiiwalker, “Power” SO ICEY Zomby, Mercury’s Rainbow ECHO PARTY Demen, Nektyr Evy Jane, “Give Me Love” THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST Vic Mensa, The Autobiography DUNGEON FAMILY, EVEN IN DARKNESS Earthgang f/ J.I.D., “Meditate” FUNNY HOW TIME SLIPS AWAY Lee Gamble, Mnestic Pressure Pessimist, s/t NOT SURE HOW THIS BECAME THE DIWALI OF 2017 BUT OKAY French Montana f/ Mariah, Rae Sremmurd, PNB Rock, Belly, Elephant Man, Vybz Kartel, J Balvin, NORE, Wizkid, “Unforgettable” HOW ARE THIS MANY PEOPLE ON A FOUR MINUTE SONG? GOOD VIDEO THOUGH A$AP Mob f/ A$AP Rocky, Playboi Carti, Quavo, Lil Uzi Vert and Frank Ocean, “RAF” I LIKE IT WHEN FERG’S VOICE GETS ALL NAGGY Ferg, “Plain Jane” METRO BOOMIN MADE A BEAT THAT REMINDED ME OF RADIOHEAD Post Malone f/ Quavo, “Congratulations” THE MARIACHI VERSION IS PRETTY SWEET Brian Imanuel, “How I surprised Post Malone with a mariachi band” ”IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR LYRICS, IF YOU’RE LOOKING TO CRY, IF YOU’RE LOOKING TO THINK ABOUT LIFE...” JonWayne, Rap Album Two CORNBALL PIANOS AND THEN THAT SYNTH DRAGS, AND THEN THE DRUMS KICK Tee Grizzley, “First Day Out” “BUT WILD/WITH MY MONOTONE STYLE” 21 Savage, “Bankroll” Kodak Black, “Candy Paint” Rich Chigga, “Glow Like Dat” ANNUAL SPOT RESERVED FOR LA MUSICA DE HARRY FRAUD French Montana f/ Pharrell, “Bring Dem Things” WHEN LAETITIA SAYS HER OWN NAME ON “EMBERS” Vagabon, Infinite Worlds WHEN JESSIE LEANS INTO THE WORD “FUCK” Jessie Reyez, “Figures” THAT LIGHT MISTING, THAT CASUAL SPRITZ OF SYNTHS Lanark Artefax, “Touch Absence” A GOOD ANTI-DJT THING THAT CAME OUT EARLY THIS YEAR, WHICH FEELS LIKE EONS AGO Lushlife + friends, My Idols are Dead + My Enemies are in Power THE BABY, THE FLUTES, PIERRE’S OBNOXIOUSLY LONG TAG, THE JESSE LINGARD DANCE Playboi Carti, “Magnolia” ILLEST SHIT I SAW THIS YEAR, BABY-RELATED A child at a restaurant watching an iPad and an iPhone at the same damn time “[FREE] PLAYBOI CARTI TYPE BEAT” YBN Nahmir, “Rubbin off the Paint” GUNS N ROSES, BEFORE ONE OF THE WEIRDEST BEEFS OF THE YEAR Trippie Redd f/ 6IX9INE, “POLES1469″ SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO BELIEVE YOU CAN SING, AND DO IT WITH CONVICTION, AND I WILL LISTEN Trippie Redd, “Rack City/Love Scars 2″ ALL THE BACKGROUND NOISE/ECHOED-OUT ADLIBS MAKE THIS BlocBoy JB, “No Chorus Pt 10″ SMERZ HAS FUN DESPITE THE AWKWARD OF IT ALL Smerz on NTS IT SEEMS REALLY EASY TO MAKE A GOOD-SOUNDING SONG THESE DAYS Global Dan, “Off White” OF ALL THE DOPE SHIT THAT FUTURE APPEARED ON THIS YEAR, THE MOMENT I WILL REMEMBER IS That tiny pause before he sings “I need fresh air,” when he seems happy and content IS THAT A GEORGE MICHAEL SAMPLE? Mozzy, “Prayed for This” THE FIX C Struggs, “Go to Jesus” "IT’S COOL, BUT IT’S NOT...END ZONE” Lil Uzi Vert, “XO TOUR Llif3″ AN ALBUM BOOKENDED BY TOTALLY DIFFERENT KINDS OF COLIN KAEPERNICK/TAKE A KNEE REFERENCES Miguel, War and Leisure IT WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR Brockhampton, Saturation I-III SZA, Ctrl SPEAKING OF SZA: WHAT A GREAT TITLE, BESIDES IT BEING ONE OF MY FAVORITE ALBUMS OF THE YEAR Kingdom, Tears in the Club THE KELELA ALBUM WAS LOVELY, AS ARE THESE Kelela x Bok Bok, Dub Me Apart A RANDOM YOUTUBE COVER THAT I ALSO LIKED, BECAUSE IT CAPTURED HOW MELODIC THE ORIGINAL ACTUALLY IS Kathleen Nguyen covering Kendrick and Zacari’s “Love.” DAMN. WAS GOOD Almost as good as “The Heart Part 4″ LIKE A DE LA SOUL ALBUM, SOMETHING THAT I KNOW I WILL CONTINUE ENJOYING/UNDERSTANDING ANEW FOR YEARS TO COME Tyler, the Creator, Flower Boy ”BLONDED RADIO” MADE ME JOIN APPLE MUSIC Frank Ocean, “Chanel” Frank Ocean, “Biking (solo)” Tyler and Frank, “Where This Flower Blooms” MACH HOMMY MAKES GOOD MUSIC THAT’S HARD TO ACCESS “x Earl Sweatshirt” EP ty Soundcloud IT’S A WEIRD TIME B/W THIS BEAT IS SO DEMENTED Tay-K, “The Race” PROBABLY MY FAVORITE PHARRELL BEAT Kap G f/ Pharrell, “Icha Gicha” MAYBE THE GREATEST MUSIC EVER MADE, REISSUED Pharoah Sanders

REMINDED ME OF PHAROAH, WHEN IT WASN’T REMINDING ME OF BON IVER Joseph Shabason, Aytche AND I ENJOYED AYTCHE FOR SIMILAR REASONS I LIKED ZONING OUT TO Tom Rogerson and Brian Eno, Finding Shore ANNUAL SLOT RESERVED FOR MUSIC I LOVED THAT FEATURED HARP Alice Coltrane, World Spirituality Classics Vol 1

SAME, BUT FOR HARP STUFF THAT ALSO SHOUTS OUT WAWA Mary Lattimore, Collected Pieces ANNUAL SLOT RESERVED FOR TASTEFUL VIBRAPHONE Jenifa Mayanja, “Warrior Strutt” YOU TRYING TO GET THE PIPE, TO PLAY IT, OF COURSE, AS PART OF AN EXPERIMENTAL COMPOSITION? Mary Jane Leach, Pipe Dreams THERE’S A MOMENT DURING THAT BAD BOY DOCUMENTARY CAN’T STOP WON’T STOP WHERE IT BECOMES CLEAR THAT EVERYONE WHO WORKS CLOSELY WITH DIDDY EVENTUALLY TURNS TO GOD, AND IT WAS LIKE THE STRANGE OBVERSE OF Jay Z et al, 4:44 footnotes 2016, BUT I SAT IN THE MET BREUER AND WATCHED THIS OVER AND OVER FOR ABOUT AN HOUR Arthur Jafa, “Love is the Message, The Message is Death” I WANT TO WATCH THE FULL FOUR HOURS OF THIS Dev Hynes talking to Philip Glass TRICKSTERY BUT KINDA MESMERIZING! Klein, Tommy Lolina, Lolita EP Hype Williams, Rainbow Edition “NOT ANOTHER GOT MORE SEOUL, UNLESS YOU KOREAN” (CHILLWAVE REMIX) Mogwaa, Deja Vu “THE TING GOES SKRRRAHH, PAP, PAP, KA-KA-KA/SKIDIKI-PAP-PAP, AND A PU-PU-PUDRRRR-BOOM/SKYA, DU-DU-KU-KU-DUN-DUN/POOM, POOM, YOU DON’ KNOW” Big Shaq, “Mans Not Hot” IBID., BUT “PERKY” Drake, More Life I WANTED TO LIKE THE WIZKID ALBUM MORE, BUT THIS WAS AWESOME Tiwa Savage f/ Wizkid and Spellz, “Ma Lo” LISTENED TO THIS QUITE A FEW TIMES SIMPLY BECAUSE ”BREAKING NEWS: WILD GOAT ON THE LOOSE” IS A WEIRD LINE Lancey Foux f/ AJ Tracey, Kojey Radical and Jevon, “Wild Goat” UNITED TIL I DIE BUT AJ TRACEY’S TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR KIT LAUNCH FREESTYLE HAD ME BUZZZZZZIN AJ Tracey, “False 9″ DIFFERENT TIME OF DAY, KINDA LEFT ME SPEECHLESS Grouper, “Children” Colleen, A Flame my love, a frequency Kara Lis Coverdale, Grafts Ryuichi Sakamoto, async LEFT RYUICHI SAKAMOTO ENVIOUS Metaphors: Selected Soundworks from the Cinema of Apichatpong Weerasethakul FROM OMNI TRIO TO THIS, A PRETTY VISIONARY CAREER Robert Haigh, Creatures of the Deep A SONG THAT FEATURED TWO PEOPLE WHO SHOULD BE PRETTY BIG IN THE NEXT COUPLE OF YEARS DJDS f/ Amber Mark and Marco McKinnis, “Trees on Fire” LIKE, THIS IS GREAT Amber Mark, “Lose My Cool” AWESOME YEAR FOR POTIONS Social Lovers, “Drop Me a Line” Boss, “Song for Gods” WHISKED ME BACK TO MEMORIES OF the enormous room Joakim, “Samurai” Calvin Harris f/ Frank Ocean and Migos, “Slide” Amp Fiddler, “I’m Feeling You” Chaos in the CBD, Accidental Meetings LIKE FALLING ASLEEP ON THE SUBWAY, OR A TRUCK HITTING A POTHOLE AND SPITTING OUT A RECORD COLLECTION, OR HEARING A NANOSECOND OF BRAND NUBIAN THROUGH SOMEONE’S HEADPHONES AS YOU PASS THEM ON THE STREET, IT’S A VIBE Standing on the Corner, Red Burns MIKE’S A SAVIOR Mike 1. I SPENT A LOT OF TIME THIS YEAR THINKING ABOUT THE STRENGTH, ELASTICITY, FRAGILITY, GRAIN OF THE HUMAN VOICE AND SOME OF THIS WAS TOTALLY NECESSARY AND SUBLIME Deep Throat Choir, Be Ok Diamanda Galas, All the Way Moses Sumney, Aromanticism 2. SO ACHINGLY GOOD AND INTIMATE, ESPECIALLY THAT FAINT CROAK IN THE FIRST CHORUS Rostam f/ Kelly Zutrau, “Half-Light” 3. OF COURSE THESE WORLD-MAKERS TOO Bjork, Utopia Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, The Kid Valerie June, “Astral Plane” 3a. A STRANGE PROPOSITION THAT I ENDED UP ADORING KAS covering Sade’s "By Your Side" THE BAY AREA IS JUST DIFFERENT Droop-E, Trillionaire Thoughts Lil B, Black Ken THE “BUILD YOU UP” VIDEO WAS FUN AND ALL BUT I’M REALLY GLAD THIS WASN’T THAT Kamiayah, Before I Wake THE BAY TO L.A. AND BACK AGAIN Mozzy f/ G Perico, “Blammatory” G Perico f/ Mozzy, “What’s Real” GYEAH MC Eiht, Which Way Iz West OUTRUN THE BEAT SOB x RBE, “Lane Changing 2″ BANDS THAT ALWAYS SOUND LIKE THEMSELVES, IN WAYS THAT I FIND COMFORTING the xx, I See You King Krule, The Ooz SAME AS ABOVE, MIDDLE-AGED DIVISION The Feelies, In Between Slowdive, “Star Roving” SOMEONE WHO SOUNDS LIKE NO ONE ELSE Jlin, Black Origami THE NEW NATIONAL ANTHEM Dreezy f/ 6LACK and Kodak Black, “Spar” I LOOKED UP EACH TIME THIS CAME ON THE SHUFFLE Shanti Celeste, “Loop One/Selector”

PROBABLY MY FAVORITE SONG GoldLink f/ Brent Faiyaz and Shy Glizzy, “Crew” OR MAYBE Jorja Smith x Preditah, “On My Mind” THIS WAS SICK TOO GoldLink & Co. covering Outkast’s “Roses” MAYBE THE BEST SONG J Hus, “Did You See”

ANOTHER YEAR, ANOTHER YEAR WHERE MY FAVORITE RELEASE WAS PROBABLY FROM YAEJI, THE “GLASSES FOGGING UP” LINE WAS VERY RELATABLE Yaeji, EP2 THE SONG OF THE SPRING, SUMMER, WINTER   I MEAN, IT’S WAYNE’S WORLD, WE JUST LIVE IN IT ### SIKH DEVOTIONAL MUSIC :: 2016 SPOOKY BLACK :: 2015

[t-baba]

The Devastating Price Developers Pay for Working Hard

You're a wonderful developer.

You come early, and you stay late. Your code is clear and well documented; you're eager to help others, and you're able to handle 3x the work your co-workers can handle.

You're an amazing developer, and that's your problem.

Your Boss and your co-workers all want your best work. It's an unspoken expectation in the workplace. No one prepares you for the horrible consequences that come with doing your job well.

The devastating price you pay for working hard

There are several unpleasant downsides that come with exceptional performance and hard work. There's one reward in particular that acts as a demotivator that destroys job satisfaction.

You're probably already familiar with it.

The reward for working hard and performing above expectations at your job is more work.

This is devastating to developers in the long term, and here are a few reasons why …

1. Price's Law becomes a dysfunctional cycle Information scientist and physicist Derek de Solla Price discovered that the square root of the number of people in any domain does 50 percent of the work. If there are ten developers on your team, 3 of them do half the work. Who are these employees? If you're an A-player, you're already doing far more than your co-workers.

This is devastating because it creates a vicious cycle. In many organizations, you're rewarded with more and more work, but your salary, titles or earning power remains unchanged. When this happens, your employer steals from your future, minimizing your earning power and your ability to get a new job at an appropriate salary level with an appropriate title.

2. Mercenaries corrupt patriots According to Gallup and Steve Rasmussen, former CEO of Nationwide, your co-workers are either Patriots or Mercenaries.

If you're a Patriot, you're engaged. You believe in your managers and co-workers, and they believe in you. You're focused on taking care of your organization because you trust your co-workers to look out for you. If you're a Mercenary, you're focused primarily on yourself. You're a job hopper or social climber. You're focused on getting as much value as you can for yourself; forget the company!

The employees who are willing to let others work for them? They're usually mercenaries, people who are willing to do the bare minimum to collect a paycheck. Left unchecked, these mercenaries kill morale in the company, causing A-players to leave or become B- and C-players.

3. Crab mentality sends A-players to the bottom of the social hierarchy Mediocre employees don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre employees. If you're an A-player who's surrounded by mediocre B- and C-player employees, you'll be punished for excellence.

What does this mean specifically?

Your co-workers will attempt to destroy the self-confidence of any employee (you) who achieves success or outperforms the rest of the group due to envy, spite, resentment, conspiracy or competitiveness. This isn't mere speculation: the tall poppy syndrome, crab bucket mentality and tragedy of the commons are all examples of this kind of behavior in action. If you're a great developer and you're surrounded by mediocrity, you'll be punished for it.

"Yeah, well, I don't care what anyone thinks anyway!"

Here's why you should care. No man is an island. At some point, you're going to need help from others to do your job or complete a task. Want to find another job? You'll need references from your manager and co-workers.

4. Mercenaries sabotage patriots Their methods are simple. They get A-player patriots to do the work for them. Then they immediately take the credit for the A-player's hard work. Mercenaries use a variety of strategies to accomplish this.

Machiavellianism, or interpersonal manipulation to shape alliances, is used to gain and maintain social status, regardless of their actual performance, to gain leverage against opponents or poison the well, turning managers against A-players they perceive as a threat.

Indirect aggression is characterized by bullying, slander, gossip, shaming or ostracizing others. It's common in office settings and typically involves some reputation destruction. The thing with indirect aggression is that it's incredibly difficult to prove and harder still to counteract unless you have a clear understanding of what it is and how it works.

Leverage. Malicious mercenaries will use anything as leverage: past mistakes, secrets shared in confidence, insecurities — anything that will get others (you) to do what they want when they want. For whatever reason, it's important that they win and you lose.

Successful patriots use their abilities and accomplishments as leverage to counter mercenary bad behavior. But they'll also rely on strong relationships with others as a balm for scheming behavior. Unfortunately this is the exception, not the rule.

See what I mean?

Working hard comes with a devastating price. So what's the alternative then? Doing the bare minimum? Working to keep my head down and collect a steady paycheck?

Many employees do that already.

Doing that is worse, because it comes with its own set of miserable problems. It's difficult to find and keep a job. The mediocre aren't paid all that well, and they're the first to go if your company initiates layoffs or mass firings.

The post The Devastating Price Developers Pay for Working Hard appeared first on SitePoint.

by Andrew McDermott via SitePoint https://ift.tt/2w5YCWF

[ratherhavetheblues]

INGMAR BERGMAN’S  ‘THE SERPENT’S EGG’ “You’ve been thinking much too much, lately…”

© 2019 by James Clark

The films of Ingmar Bergman are all of a piece. They endeavor, from many angles, to make sense of the powers that be. This concern is particularly pressing in regard to the work today, namely, The Serpent’s Egg (1977). On the basis of many vicissitudes of Bergman’s history at that production, a whole industry arose, of delighting in what seemed to have been a weakening of confidence—on the very flimsy basis of punitively catching Bergman straying from his vigorous roots. Were the wags to have troubled themselves to comprehend those roots (well disclosed), they would have dropped that childish game and got down to business.

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, we must turn to recognize our guide’s commitment to taking on a field of very complex physicality. At the outset of his career—in the film, Sawdust and Tinsel (1953), with the figure of Alma and her brief but impressive ecstatic balance; and in the film, The Seventh Seal (1957), with Jof and Marie, and their child hopefully one day excelling in acrobatics and juggling—we have an invitation to a party of unending carnal delivery.

If you think that tax problems; turning away from a homeland to resettle in Germany; and linking with a Hollywood bagman (Dino De Laurentiis [in fact, at that time, only recently based in the USA]; and with involvement in La Strada, Nights of Cabira, and Blue Velvet] could destabilize the resolve of Bergman’s interests, you don’t know what this priority entails. Moreover, there was cinematographer, Sven Nykvist, still in place and game for risking new visuals with unusually big bucks.)

 Relocating to Munich, he would have been strongly reminded of his frequent (though unspoken as such) engagement with fascism, that simplistic and often murderous keening for absolute, homogeneous gratifications. To date, his most probing construct of the phenomenon of such arrested, facile obsession resided in his film, The Passion of Anna (1969). There, in a remote, rural corner of the already remote Sweden, a woman, namely Anna, manages to spearhead a one-person massacre on the pretext that her supposed entitlement to having things entirely her pedantic and dim way has gone awry. Though very clever, her scheme could not have reached its successes without the complicity of a muddled artisan/ farmer, namely, Andreas. With the windfall from Los Angeles, Bergman would seize the moment to revisit the serpent that was Anna. But this time Anna would be a jackboot mob, while a Saint Anna Clinic would oversee the early phase of a tinkering of wanton, sadistic  “experimentation” with human subjects. Another muddled artist, namely, Abel (and you know, sort of, where that’s going), teams up with his widowed sister-in-law; and urban decadence replaces the hot-house sophistication of Anna’s hosts, Elis and Eva, in the country. It is the Eva-moment here, namely, Manuela, who, along with Abel, make The Serpent’s Egg a thrilling study of large-scale cowardice and small-scale love.

Although there will be here the usual dazzling theatrical-dramatic display in order to convey the corridors of problematics—including a number of failing oracles— this film (quick to exploit the financial heft) becomes more a filmic tone-poem than dramaturgy. Therefore, I want to start out (the vehicle’s venue being chilly Berlin, in 1923) with the panoply of woolen apparel. One of Anna’s cheap coups was slashing up a flock of disinterested—thereby superior to her—sheep. And that bloodbath becomes a visceral presence as to savoring a unique progress amidst protracted distemper. In mythology, Abel was a shepherd. In cinematography, Abel, a bit of a fashion-plate with his two-toned dancing shoes (seemingly ready to star on Broadway or in Hollywood), sports a cute woolen fedora which, were you to concentrate solely on it, might make one believe that he is quite alive. (To complete the effect, while disregarding his face, he wears a dark tan woolen jacket over a light tan woolen shirt. His woolen scarf is black. His woolen pants correspond to the rest of the ensemble to complete an impression of careful selection and taste.) Just before we first meet him, there is the film’s opening scene of a throng of Berliners moving toward us in slow-motion—also in woolens, with some of the women’s cloche hats resembling sheep heads—and resembling a push to market. The murky, black and white cinematography there (with the film actually in color) elicits a venerable state of affairs; and beyond that, there is the perpetual gloom upon Abel’s visage, and his veering body language. He looks up Manuela (a risqué dancer at a cabaret; but more than that), with news that his brother—once being a member with the other two in a circus act, and such a pain in the ass she had to dump him—had shot the so-called, “Max,” through his throat depositing his brains all over the back of his bed. The show had to go on after her departure; but a career-ending accident to the Caine left the boys in a crisis—softy Abel losing his nerve to start afresh upon major creation. Abel might be a write-off. But, bright as a button, Manuela, has found a gig that works for her. Though the patrons would not know about it—and perhaps even would prefer something more predictable—she (true to the mystery of her trapeze practice) has migrated to that shock and awe known as German Expressionist dance (Neuer Tanz), where body action gets uncanny. That night, bedecked in curly green sheep hair, she splays her legs and, pounding out some Germanic chant, becomes a possessed puppet or doll, a seductive siren, or a creature crying out during a slaughter. Abel, the former risk-taker and maven of alternate sublime, scowls and, as he no doubt found very early at his family mansion, adopts a hard line toward the great unwashed. Max (the elevated) and Abel (the sweet) had, no doubt, an early spree of rebellion (always mindful of a generous safety net, but going on to dispense with it from out of their pitiful Bohemian pride).

   Getting to the bottom of this crisis of mood will have been assisted by two other figures—his dare-devil, former boss, from a past at that mixed fun-time; and the Chief of Police, drawing from the “survivor” particulars about the actions of two English speakers, lacking German (and one, Manuela, European of unknown background) in the crash of post-World War I Germany. He tells the cop and us, “I was born in Philadelphia [the liberty town]. My folks come from Riga, in Latvia. The three of us came to Berlin” [after Max’s accident]. Back, close to the stage where Manuela is doing pretty well, someone addresses the guy expensively dressed, not doing well at all, “Did we smoke our first cigarette together? Amalfi, 26 years ago. Our cottages were next door to each other. Rebecca, right?” Abel rudely rushes away. But his Eurotrash, overstuffed appetites don’t get lost.

Going back to the film’s beginning can better establish the pitch of that (spent) force. Coming home at dark, staggering from a chronic drunkenness, he almost relishes the horribleness of his shabby existence. “A pack of cigarettes costs 400 billion Marks, and almost everybody has lost faith in both the future and the present…” Overheated, melodramatic gestures like that—extending to the work’s title—saturate the dimensions of the double protagonists. Entering what the brothers have been able to afford (and perhaps the mainspring of the suicide by the only employable sibling), Abel pauses at the foyer where a large room accommodates a dinner/ prayer meeting. At the open doorway, there is a panel of geometric, mutedly colored décor, rather closely resembling the stained-glass windows of Andreas, whose fecklessness is no match for a filthy brute like Anna. Abel is arrested by the warm and gentle union, its hymns and the piety of the assembly. He breaks out in a rare smile. Tears stream down his cheeks. Recall the sudden and short-lived passion of Andreas on noting the uncanniness of the sun while he does repairs on his roof. Consider the difference. Notice the maudlin state of our protagonist here. Also notice that, on encountering the suicide, Abel rushes back and forth in his lostness, the same Samuel Beckett-rattled back and forth at the end of The Passion of Anna, where the killer drives away and the not tough-enough artist resorts to signs of absurdity.

   On following Manuela’s exit from the stage that first night, we become even more vividly aware of her (perhaps fleeting) sensuous priorities. Her departure is given super-closeup, in such a way that areas of her body and her costume define her by region rather than individual. So sanguine is she with her innovation, she seems incapable of fathoming the uniqueness of the register, the pitch of intensity and rigors which could very well spell a tiny range of interaction. A person like Abel, now reduced to parasitical opportunism, would very clearly regard her as a precious dreamer—a precious dreamer with a cash-flow. A person like Manuela, who was fortunate in being in high favor by her landlady/ oracle (who was also an aficionado of radical design [Jugendstil, “Youth-Style”]), might have been shown invaluable wisdom by the friend, were the ancient not fearful of the subject conflict—secretly witnessing Abel’s stealing the other protagonist’s savings and doing nothing about it but telling him, later, “I’m very attached to Manuela. If you forgive me my saying so, I’m as fond of her as if she were my daughter. She’s so kind, naïve [here giving him a hard look]…It’s that there’s all the terrible things going around. I think your sister-in-law is heading for trouble. The thing about Manuela is she doesn’t defend herself. Nothing must happen to her…” Such a gambit being itself a tonal terrain of deadly retreat.

   Wearing her woolen cloche on the tram ride home from the night, she finds Abel crumpled up in the doorway to her flat. Holding him up, she unwittingly brings him to the money; but treasures of the specialty of the house emanate along with her own modest effects. Such incisiveness, however, must wait till next morning; and, even then, he starts by blathering away about the family next to them, at Amalfi, where the master of the house, a Supreme Court Justice, would cut open a farm animal to see the heart still beating. As Manuela puts together a breakfast, we notice on the austere but carefully incisive wallpaper, two lithographic circus posters—one, depicting a man and a woman, upside-down, clinging by their feet to a trapeze; and the other showing a woman bare-back rider. No one refers to them for a moment; but you know she would have had long, penetrating times in their presence—not only about the vignettes but the uptakes of the wider tones. Even though he forces upon her a wad of low-value currency, explaining, “You should take the money before I spend it on booze,” she imagines that they could dazzle once again as a high-precision circus act. Perhaps she banks upon her charisma to overcome any obstacle. And, therein, a mood of tailspin burns brightly. The shrunken heart, responds with, “I don’t know. What good is it without Max?.. It’s a nightmare…” She embraces him, in a bid to lift his spirits. “We’re going to do it,” she enthuses. “You think too much… We can do a new number, just you and me. We could make magic. I know a wonderful magician. We could take over his show!” (The initiatives being far from coherent. But here we occupy a play of mood, which impacts in its own ways.) In reply, there’s the one-note, “I don’t know. Since this business with Max…” (And he cries.) Despite the discouragement coming her way, she tries the coquetry, “You’ll be my big brother. We’re going to stick together now…” That his repetitive dirge—“I wake up from a nightmare…”—becomes ludicrous, only confirms that a whole other world buoys her. As she iterates, “Everything is alright! We have everything we need,” it is that “which we need” which possibly turns things thing around for her, leaving the pessimist far behind. Can her upbeat heart hang on? He tells for her his seeing Nazi goons getting away with murder the night before. And she tiptoes around her second job as a hooker for the wealthy. She moves along with, “You’ve been thinking much too much, lately…You’re awfully tired…” (Unspoken and probably confusedly, would be, “You’ve been thinking like and old man!”) “I’m going to look after you, you know… And in a few days everything will be much better. You’ll see…” As she goes to her bemusing job (which he tries to treat as the end of the world), she’s in furs.

   The smashing of Manuela’s inadequate roots is both dismaying and uplifting. Abel is obliged to return to the police station to settle details; and thereby the money he has just stolen is confiscated by a matter of routine. At the tail end of his bizarre and revealing brush with justice, Manuela appears there (as hopefully finding a pedestrian clue to what was in fact a fear of life itself, but in hopes that Abel might know what happened to her money). She’s seated at a table, and the brother-in-law walks past her without looking her way. This, by way of a visit to Abel being held for information about Max and a slew of other corpses. He silently brazens his involvement, and adds, “Luckily, I’m in charge of Max’s money…” As the interview proceeds, she loses her concentration, and Abel faults her for lagging. She asks, “Please be nice to me…”

On the day the landlady demands the rat out, leading to Manuela’s angry rupture of a wise friend, our protagonist rallies a bit in visiting a church. But we are now approaching such a meltdown of cogent vision and tone—acceptance of Abel a form of insanity—that the narrative commences to sport auras of (largely, American film) clichés—becoming, in themselves, not only a warning but a fissure leading to depths. (Bergman seizing the singularity for all its worth.) Although he easily stalks her to the site, he totally misses the action. First a flock of candles, with Abel back in the gloom. Overkill, where three would do the trick. She addresses the eccentric American priest; but he’s, at this point, distracted. Bing Crosby would never have slipped that way. She soldiers on: “My father was a magician. My mother was a circus rider. I’ve been in circuses all my life [unlike the upstarts]… I need to speak to somebody, do you understand?… Oh, this guilt is too much for me! And I feel it’s my fault that Max committed suicide… Now I have to take care of Max’s brother. And it’s even worse! Why he’s just like Max. He never says what he’s thinking. He just charges ahead with his feelings and he looks so frightened. And I tried to tell him that we’ll help each other… That’s only words to him. And everything I say is useless. The only real thing is fear! And I’m sick. I don’t know what’s wrong…” The priest asks, “Would you like me to pray for you?”/ “Think that will help?” she asks. “I don’t know,” the expert admits. They kneel together and soon she wonders, “Is it a special prayer?”/ “Yes,” he finds the cogency to declare. (A vehicle, that is, which she’s been delighted by many times in the past; only to let it slip away.) He adds, “We live so far away from God. So far away that God doesn’t hear us when we call out… So we must help each other give each other the forgiveness a remote God denies it. I tell you, you are forgiven for your husband’s death. You’re no longer to blame. [The priest having read between the lines.] I beg your forgiveness for my apathy and my indifference. Do you forgive me?”/ “Yes,” she rather confusedly replies. “I forgive you.” This elicits the clang sound repeatedly sounding at the beginning of the film, sounding to the roots. “That’s all we can do,” he closes. (Leaving the question, “Is that really all we can do?” Could it be that the powers-that-be require our dance/ acrobatic initiative to really rock? Could it be that asking is the wrong gambit. Active partnering would entail graces enough.)

   Manuela’s pristine partnering becoming rapidly collapsing, she finds a workhouse connected with Saint Anna’s Clinic (“Please say it’s nice…”), and Abel let’s her know it’s beneath his dignity. On to the cabaret which, that night, is visited by a Nazi unit (one of the highlights being the owner’s beaten to a pulp, somewhat like, much later, the beating from Cliff to an enemy, in Tarantino’s Once upon a Time in Hollywood. Intense action often drawing upon a volume of sensibility missing the mark.) But the most telling moment, from our perspective, is the spectacle (seen from a bird’s eye view) of our protagonist in her avant-garde costume consumed by a terrified throng. (The collapse of mood being our investigative task.) She goes to work in the clinic’s laundry, and she becomes ill from pneumonia. She tells Abel, now working nearby in a vast archive (apt for someone locked away in the past), “I don’t think I can stand it here.” In an echo of her best self, she smiles and says, “It could have been worse.” That night, he beats her up; and melodramatic complaint takes over. “I just say, if you won’t believe, you can go! I’ve done everything to keep us together. I just can’t go on any more…” She hammers on the table. All the savoir faire having abandoned her. Abel cuts out and walks past a group butchering a horse that was once a going concern. The horse’s beautiful head was seen intact, to bring to bear the powers of a creature the vivacity of which far surpasses domestic exigencies. The one who couldn’t stay returns to Manuela’s corpse. He shakes her brutally, hoping to bring her back to life. He had picked her to the bones. (Those faulting Bergman’s cosmic vehicle in preference to Bob Fosse’s domestic and political musical, namely, Cabaret [1972], have been barking up the wrong tree.)

During his stroll to escape Manuela’s last ditch feeling of affection, he activates a study of the difference between Sportin’ Life and lively sport. After stuffing Marks into a barkeeper’s mouth and going on to smash with his bottle the window of a lovingly maintained woolen’s shop, he uses his plush dancing shoes to hoofer-style disappear to an alleyway replete with a young hooker. Once again, as with the raid, the scene is taken from a considerable distance, and at a rather stagey height. His opening, “Go away,” has about it many Broadway tinctures. (The alley is clearly a sound stage.) “Come with me! It’s warm. You can have it any way you want…” “Go to hell,” he studiously emotes. She chuckles, and her delivery seems from Iowa. “Where do you think you are—at Times Square?” she sweetly fusses. A muted honky-tonk drifts their way; and he goes her way. (The sentimental film, Going my Way (1944), with its unorthodox priest, is all over the vignette of Manuela and the American clergyman. Classics on the move. Distress in the mood. The millions to make this film/ tone poem were not wasted, as ridiculous trolls would have it.)

   Disabled Abel and the night worker enter a brothel bristling with poor breeding. The prevailing trick soon reveals itself to be humiliation of a crippled, impotent and noisily opinionated black. Though a show-biz tragedy is ready to make you squirm, those of us, remembering Bergman, recall the film, Sawdust and Tinsel (1953), and its routed ringmaster becoming a figure of public and private defeat. With so much slippage in the air, this episode puts us in need of finding a way that works. Manuela’s mother was a circus rider, perhaps making waves in the midst of that corporate collapse. A lady clown, Alma, dazzled for a few moments much of the army, before subsiding to tending to an old bear, whom the beaten boss shot to death, in a cowardly attempt not to look weak. But with the specifics of the brothel, we enter upon a measure of consistently oblivious frenzy for the sake of the enjoyment of empty advantage. The new friends inhabit the world of George Gershwin’s opera, Porgy and Bess (1935). Cowardly Abel toys (like the opera’s villain,  “Crown”) with a crippled and fiercely loquacious, Porgy, who bids, to neither sexual nor social effect, to rescue, Bess. “You’re tryin’ to kill me! You’re tryin’ to fuck me! I can’t fuck! Worst bitch in the whole damn world! She’s got fangs, I saw them!” The object of this fury laughs. “That big mouth bitch! I’m not a queer. That’s a goddamn lie!” (A clown show, drifting over to the beaten ringmaster; and the beaten has-been!) Abel would also double here as cynical, “Sportin’ Life,” always the vicious oracle. Abel bets him to come. More humiliation. More of Saint Anna and her security of delivery.

Our denouement entails further rigidity against the prospects of that cogency we’re tracking becoming widespread. There are two instances of Abel’s being the beneficiary of oldsters’ letting their sunny hopes prevail over what is a rather obvious phenomenon of failure to thrive. He crosses paths with the impresario whom he and Max and Manuela starred for. The elder is supple and intense; Abel might as well be headed for palliative care. He disregards the question, “How are Max and Manuela?” In spite of this, the gambler insists, “The circus needs you!” Invited to lunch at a posh restaurant, Abel consumes much alcohol in slight time. He also, from out of a life-long distemper, plunks his sheep skin hat over the head of a nude sculpture. His host tells him, “Nowadays I can get any dance star I want. They all know I pay in dollars…” Disregarding the rudeness and alcoholism, he switches to the day’s newspaper and regards the actions there as more entertainment. He thrills to, “… the massacre of Christians by the Jews… the Bolsheviks coming to Germany and stumbling over the bodies of your women and children…” The showman asks, “Why don’t you say something?” In reply he produces a pedantic doctrine which Anna, the security maven, could have written. “I don’t care about political crap. The Jews are as stupid as everybody. If a Jew gets into trouble it’s his own fault. He gets into trouble because he acts stupid. I’m not gonna get stupid, so I’m not gonna get into trouble.” Tone deaf through the whole exercise.

   The second senior, who could have anticipated aberrant performance in Abel, is the Chief of Police, who misreads peevishness for commitment. The Chief has an idea that Max was only one of a large number of victims to a mass assailant, not quite as slick as Anna. The investigation, involving the sibling, begins where Max maxed-out and a hurdy-gurdy man with a little monkey gives the street some shine. On to the morgue, where the person of interest touches upon more than a limited errancy. A series of blood-spattered shrouds confront them; and each station has a link to Anna. Max’s suicide may be light years away from Johan’s, but comparisons can divulge important truths. Abel recognizes  the first woman to be shown as having been engaged to his brother. At another perspective, there was Anna forcibly tearing her (understandably fed-up) husband away from a woman he preferred to her. (Cause of death, drowning.) Another incident gives Abel the sense of recalling his father. Repeating the outrage of Anna’s leaving Johan (a father-figure to Andreas) to seem to the world to have butchered a flock of sheep, which brought upon the innocent man such cruelty that he committed suicide, the other father would be another kill of hers. The Chief adds, “Someone stuck a hypodermic needle into this man’s heart. It probably took several hours…” Then there is an aged woman whom Abel has seen but can’t fully detail. “I think she delivered papers. I used to meet her at Frau Lanci’s boarding house. Once she helped me up the stairs when I was drunk, too drunk to make it on my own. Her name is Maria Stahn. She left a very strange letter. ‘The husband was half out of the windshield.’ He worked at the cabaret, in the entrance.” The fallible investigator adds, “We are not certain how he was killed. He seems to have been run over by a truck, but something tells us he’d been assaulted or tortured.” In the land of the prototype of mad safety, there was the treachery of Hour of the Wolf (1968), pertaining to the strange, warning letter; and, then also, Anna, and her note (written by the husband) to Andreas; and a husband killed by her sneakingly catapulting him through their car windshield.

Suckered by the non-acrobat’s bathos, the old cop opens up with, “All over Germany, millions are terrified… but I’d be delighted to see you swing on your trapeze with your peers. That way you fight your fear.” He provides a police escort to a train to Basel, where the circus works at being fearless. But he slips away from the goodwill and disappears forever.

Before he’s mercifully gone, he visits, by way of his archival links, the brain-trust behind that recent plague of violent deaths. There he can measure his own puny pedantry against a far more virulent rationality (another Anna). What could be more appropriate than an Alfred Hitchcock “exciting twist” to send the patrons home feeling that rational goodwill must always prevail. The carriage-trade chum from Amalfi pops up in a lab coat, and delivers a rationale for studies in human endurance (along the way, giving scope for a family trait of sadism). (Abel spends most of the experience covering his eyes with his hands.) With the Chief on his tail, the so-called “heavy” bites his  cyanide capsule, while the law shoots away the door. “We are ahead of our time,” the researcher/ melodramatic oracle had assured Abel. “In a few years, science will ask for my documents, to continue our experiment on a gigantic scale. What you have seen are the first steps of a necessary and logical development… The old society, based on extremely romantic ideas of man’s goodness, was all very complicated… The new society will be based on man’s potential and limitations. We exterminate what’s inferior.” (Mood becoming bilious. Melodrama becoming empty.)

   Hitch, always leaving the customers with a witticism, has the Chief—that genius of human nature—brag, as to a recent abortive putsch by Hitler, “He underestimated the strength of the German democracy.”

Hovering over the mad professor is his surname, “Vergerus”—the surname of Anna and the surname of a proto-fascist doctor, in the Bergman film, The Magician (1958). They’ll never go away, because cowardice will never go away. Our film today anticipates slight but meaningful progress.

[joehasears]

The Top 50 Simpsons Episodes Ever Ever Of All Time Ever According To Some Guy

No preamble. You know what this is. Let’s go.

Homer’s Enemy Defining Quote Frank Grimes: I've had to work hard every day of my life and what do I have to show for it? This briefcase and this haircut! And what do you have to show for your lifetime of sloth and ignorance? Everything! Eight seasons in, The Simpsons signed its own death-warrant by introducing Frank Grimes. Grimes is polite, professional and industrious, with a poetically tragic history ranging from parental abandonment to grain silo explosions. He’s the most real character in the show. His torture never ends and his pain is hilarious - “I live in one room above a bowling alley and below another bowling alley”. Eventually, we witness the inevitable result of a reasonable and unlucky man spending time with Homer Simpson: a full-on nervous breakdown. The death of Frank Grimes is the show’s jump-the-shark moment. It might be one of the best episodes, but after showing this level of self-awareness and mean spirit, it was clear that the good times were on their way out. Still, the sight of Bart and Milhouse running rampant around a disused factory sure sugars the pill.

Realty Bites

Defining Quote Lionel Hutz: I’ll let you in on a little secret, Marge. ‘The right house’ is the house that’s for sale. ‘The right person’ is anyone.

Bending the truth is increasingly becoming an inseparable component of people’s livelihoods. As a result, this episode has aged very well indeed. Marge becomes an estate agent, only to find that she must resort to dishonesty in order to make a sale. It’s a smart little gem that skewers certain businesses’ perfectly legal day-to-day trickery. Largely though, this is on the list because it’s really funny. Aside from the ruthless and cheery Lionel Hutz making his final appearance, we get Snake trying to steal back his car “Lil Bandit” from Homer (“She needs premium, dude! Premium!”), the debut of endearingly pathetic salesman Gil Gunderson, and of course Kirk VanHouten appearing just long enough to get his arm sliced off with razor-wire.

Wild Barts Can’t Be Broken

Defining Quote Demon child: We know all your secrets.

Hey, look everyone! It's an episode from Season 10! That’s right, the most recent entry on the list and it came out two entire decades ago. Nonetheless, this one’s an underrated and quotable treat. After Homer and his friends get drunk and trash the elementary school, the local kids get the blame and a curfew is enforced by the adults. This is the kind of episode that captures some of the best parts of being a child: conspiring against grown-ups, secret societies, and discovering movies you’re definitely too young to watch. In this case, the kids collectively break curfew to watch ‘The Bloodening’ at the local drive-in, and are inspired to broadcast their parents’ embarrassing truths via radio until the curfew is lifted. It also pokes much-needed fun at the baggage that parents pass onto their offspring: “I had to talk to my mom all night. She’s got problems. Scary problems.” It’s consistently fun and funny, but its best moments revolve around ‘The Bloodening’. The film itself (a fond pastiche of The Village of the Damned), and Bart and Lisa imitating the demon children’s British accents are flat-out hilarious and make this episode (arguably) the show’s last true classic.

And Maggie Makes Three

Defining Quote Homer: Everything in our lives is finally perfectly balanced. I hope things stay like this forever.

Rarely does TV walk the line between bleak and uplifting with such acrobatic skill. When looking through photo albums, Bart and Lisa wonder why there are no pictures of Maggie. This prompts Homer to recount her origin story, complete with a dramatic sperm impersonation. That being said, this isn’t really about Maggie at all. It’s about the happiness that Homer had to give up for her. Due to lack of funds, he leaves his dream job at the bowling alley to re-apply at the power plant, and in a moment of pure sadism, Mr Burns hangs a plaque in Homer’s workstation displaying the five most demotivating words in history: “Don’t Forget, You’re Here Forever”. However, as is so often the case in TV and in life, love is the answer. On meeting Maggie for the first time, his perspective changes, and reveals to the kids where all the photos are: “I keep them where I need the most cheering up.” It’s a beautiful glance at the lives that parents abandon for the sake of parenthood, and it’s fully-loaded with great jokes as always. There’s Nightboat (“Ugh, every week there’s a canal!”), Homer polishing his head in the Shine-O-Ball-O, and Bart’s uncharacteristic fury at the lack of quality toilet paper.

The Simpsons’ Spin-off Showcase

Defining Quote Lisa: Chief Wiggum, I can't wait to hear about all the exciting, sexy adventures you're sure to have against this colorful backdrop!

With 30 seasons and about 13 watchable ones, The Simpsons is now more bad than good. Its refusal to die a graceful death is an ironic tragedy, since they used to be so good at poking fun at desperate TV shows and networks that had run out of ideas. Speaking of which, to quote Troy McClure, “Spin-off! Is there any word more thrilling to the human soul?” Leave your feelings at home - this one is pure relentless comedy. Chief Wiggum gets his own New Orleans detective show with Seymour “Skinny Boy” Skinner as his leg-man. Later on, the ghost of Grandpa Simpson teams up with Moe the Bartender to find love in a canned-laughter sitcom. Even when ‘The Love-Matic Grandpa’ sneaks in some very dark jokes (“I’ve suffered so long. Why can’t I die?”) it’s a gleeful and creative silliness that they never quite captured again. The final segment is a cynical lampoon on a very cynical format - squeaky clean everything’s-ok variety shows like Sonny & Cher and Laugh-In. ‘The Simpson Family Smile-Time Variety Hour’ replaces the bookish principled Lisa with a tall blonde cheerleader, and the gang work their way through dreadful sketches and songs about beavers and candy. The worse these segments get, the funnier they are. You can even see the show’s “Special Guest” Tim Conway fleeing the stage at the first opportunity. It’s a superb skewering of bad TV by a show that hasn’t been good for a very long time. “How do you keep The Simpsons fresh and funny after eight long years? Magic powers, wedding after wedding after wedding, and did somebody say “long lost triplets”?” They weren’t far off.

Two Bad Neighbors

Defining Quote George Bush [typing]: And since I'd achieved all my goals as President in one term, there was no need for a second. The end.

Never anger a writer with a public platform. On January 22nd 1992, President George Bush Sr. made a speech declaring his intentions to strengthen the American family - to make them “more like the Waltons and less like The Simpsons”. In response, the show released a promo clip of the family watching the speech, with Bart chipping in “Hey, we're just like the Waltons. We're praying for an end to the Depression too." That was a short-term response. A more lasting retaliation came sometime later in the form of this diamond of an episode - arguably the dominant image of George Bush Sr to an entire generation. Bush had been out of the White House for three years at this point, so there wasn’t much point in making him the subject of political satire. Instead, they sunk their efforts into a more worthy pursuit: being annoying. The writers cast him as the fusty Mr Wilson to Bart’s Dennis The Menace - a prim, proper and petty old fart whose suffering you can’t help but enjoy. Meanwhile, his wife Barbara is portrayed as a kindly and diplomatic grandmother figure who gels well with Marge. This, strangely enough, was also informed by real-life events. Barbara Bush said publicly that she thought that The Simpsons was “the dumbest thing [she] had ever seen”. However, the writers wrote her a letter posing as Marge, which moved Bush so much that she replied with an apology. So, to reiterate the moral of the story, be nice to comedy writers - they can make you a figure of fun for decades. And what fun this is.

Homer’s Barbershop Quartet

Defining Quote Principal Skinner: We need a name that’s witty at first, but gets less funny each time you hear it.

Matt Groening once curated the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival, arranging a line-up so shockingly good that they should have just given him majority control of the company. Either way, the bottom line is that he has a lot of time for music and so does the show. This episode is a muso’s dream, with Beatles references bouncing left right and centre, well-aimed snubs at the Grammy awards (“Hey! Don’t throw your garbage down here!”) and a final hurrah to the untainted joy of playing together. Homer forms a barbershop quartet called The Be Sharps with Principal Skinner, Apu and Chief Wiggum, who is soon replaced by Barney a la Pete Best and Ringo. Wiggum is one of the stars of the show here, and his dejection at being cast out is as endearing as his puppy-ish persona. Plus, we get our first glimpse at the beautiful soul hiding behind Barney’s tragic alcoholism. Nonetheless, we’re skating around the main attraction - a song written by Homer called ‘Baby On Board’ which makes The Be Sharps international stars and gives this episode its own irresistible theme tune. Oh, and George Harrison’s in it! What a nice fella.

Homer Badman

Defining Quote Kent Brockman: Now, here are some results from our phone-in poll: 95% of the people believe Homer Simpson is guilty. Of course, this is just a television poll which is not legally binding, unless Proposition 304 passes; and we all pray it will.

Boy oh boy has this one only gotten more relevant. Homer and Marge go to the Candy Industry Trade Show, during which he steals the highly valuable and delicious Gummy Venus de Milo. After driving the babysitter home, he notices said priceless work of confectionary stuck to her jeans as she exits the car. He peels it off and she mistakes his actions for sexual harassment. What follows is a funny, sharp and surprisingly even-handed dissection of trial-by-media, in which everything Homer does - from slipping over in the shower to looking for his keys - is further evidence of him being a dangerous pervert. It’s nice to have this episode in existence because this kind of subject (especially these days) is absolutely no fun to talk about. No one wants to be seen defending someone who might be a sexual predator, yet if you go too far the other way, you may be vilifying someone who’s done nothing wrong. It’s a thorny issue and this episode handles it very well indeed. The accusing babysitter isn’t the antagonist of the episode - after pointing the finger, she barely appears again. It’s the ensuing whirlwind of scandal propagated by the media for entertainment which is the actual monster. You really see Homer’s pain too - the shot of him watching TV in a reverie of depression is one of the show’s most resonant images. Nonetheless, laughs come thick and fast. Lest we forget, this is the episode that gave us the super-sour candy ball, Gentle Ben and ‘Under The Sea’.

Treehouse of Horror VI

Defining Quote Homer: Did anybody see the movie ‘Tron’?

There are now twenty-nine editions of The Simpsons’ Treehouse Of Horror. A non-canon cartoon horror-comedy showcase spoofing everything from Dracula to Harry Potter to The Omega Man, as well as dreaming up a few oddball ideas of its own - it’s an institution within an institution. So why is there only one of them on this list? Well, for a start, it’s a lot harder to make an impression or maintain consistent quality with three short stories rather than one 20-minute one. Segments are easier to remember than actual episodes. Treehouse of Horror VI is, however, a true standout. It starts out fun and silly, then gradually descends into something deeper, stranger and sadder. ‘Attack of the 50ft Eyesores’ is a nifty schlocky satire on advertising. ‘Nightmare On Evergreen Terrace’ recasts Groundskeeper Willy as Freddy Krueger with hilarious and surreal results. Dream sequences have always been one of the show’s many secret weapons, so to dedicate an entire Treehouse of Horror segment to them is very welcome - especially with Martin Prince as The Wizard of Latin, and Willy’s genuinely stomach-churning final incarnation as a giant bagpipe spider. These are both great shorts. That being said, nothing - not in this Halloween episode, nor in any other - compares to its finale: Homer3. Here, Homer finds a portal behind a bookcase and becomes trapped in a computerised vaporwave-esque 3D world full of grids, equations and geometric shapes. Speaking personally for a moment, this experimental, frightening and beautiful short changed my life. It’s definitely funny (I’m still waiting for the official classification of a Frinkahedron), but there’s a mystery and a loneliness to the world he finds. It was an entirely new feeling for me, a new concept, a new atmosphere, a new kind of fear  - of falling into hopeless unintelligible non-existence. It feels strange to say this about something as frivolous as Treehouse of Horror, especially when said segment ends with the line “Ooh! Erotic cakes!”. Nonetheless, Homer3 opened doors in my heart and mind that have never closed since.

Team Homer

Defining Quote Mr Burns: Look at that! All the way to the end with only one push!

You ever seen The Boat That Rocked? Is it good? I’ve seen it 6 or 7 times but I’m still not sure. On the one hand, it’s a dumb movie about a load of mates on a boat talking about how great music is while trying to stop “the man” from harshing their mellow. On the other hand, it’s a dumb movie about a load of mates on a boat talking about how great music is while trying to stop “the man” from harshing their mellow. That not-very-good film is surprisingly easy to love because it’s about a bunch of likeable schlubs being friends. It’s the same reason why ‘Team Homer’ is a great, rather than a “good” episode. (That and the jokes, obviously.) Homer, Apu, Moe and Otto form a bowling team called the Pin Pals, with Homer coercing the $500 start-up fee from Mr Burns during one of the latter’s ether trips. The team end up mopping the floor with the competition thanks to their camaraderie and it’s a real treat. Conflict has to come from somewhere though, and it does so in the form of a now-sober Burns who finds the cheque he wrote for “Bowling” (not to be confused with “Bowelling”) and insists on joining the team. The B-plot is well worth a mention too. After Bart’s Mad Magazine T-shirt causes a riot, Principal Skinner enforces school uniforms (“Alright, pick your size, extra small or extra large - we’ve got both! No pushing now, I… what? Oh, I’ve just been informed we’ve run out of extra large”). It doesn’t tackle any big concepts or break new ground. Nonetheless, Team Homer is a thoroughly sweet and memorable episode stuffed with great jokes and endearing character detail.

5 Brief Honourable Mentions

- A Milhouse Divided

Pour one out for Kirk VanHouten, one of TV’s great deadbeat dads. Rarely does a minor character’s ego get such a thorough kicking as his. He gets divorced, gets fired, watches his wife run off with a gladiator, buys a bed designed for a manchild and cuts a demo tape called ‘Can I Borrow a Feeling’. Tough break.

- Brush With Greatness

Homer finds Marge’s portraits of Ringo Starr in the attic, prompting her to rediscover her yen for painting. It’s always nice when we glimpse what talents and pursuits Marge gave up to be a mother - yours and my parents probably did something similar. Plus, y’know, Ringo Starr - “I hung it on me wall!”

- Kamp Krusty Bart and Lisa get sent to Krusty The Clown’s summer camp, only to discover it’s basically a gulag in the woods. A gulag with sweet, nourishing gruel.

- Grade School Confidential Principal Skinner and Mrs Krabappel kindle a secret romance, using a disgruntled Bart as a messenger and confidante. We almost never get to see such miserable characters being so radiantly happy.

- I Love Lisa Gross, gormless and good-natured Ralph Wiggum experiences his first unrequited crush. You can indeed pinpoint the second that his heart rips in half. Fun Fact: this was based on the experiences of showrunner Al Jean, who actually did receive a Valentine's card at school reading “I Choo-Choo-Choose You”.

Lisa’s First Word

Defining Quote Bart: I liked it when it was just me, Mom and Homer. You wrecked everything.

As with the last flashback episode seen here, this isn’t really about the person in the title. First and foremost, this is Bart’s story, specifically his transition from “only child” to “older brother” and hating every minute of it. You know the story - the family find out they’re expecting, they move to a bigger house, and Bart tries to get rid of Lisa until she says her first word “Bart”, thus proving that she’s loved him the entire time. Nonetheless, it’s not the plot that makes this episode brilliant so much as its sense of perspective. ‘Lisa’s First Word’ is one of TV and film’s very best attempts at capturing the mindset of a child. A great example of this is when Bart finds out he’s soon going to have a new brother and sister, and he fantasises about the benefits of having a baby around - having someone to blame for drawing on the wall, using them to prop up a ramp for his tricycle etc. I’d really recommend watching this scene again. Notice how bare the rooms are, that there are no buildings on the road he rides his trike on, and that the baby itself (who he refers to as “baby”) is a near-expressionless human lump. This is how kids dream. At that age, our imaginations are less developed and the imagery they project is very basic. Childhood memories are also portrayed perfectly, with the drifting montage of “From now on the baby sleeps in the crib… Iron helps us play!... Ahoohohooohoohohooohohooo!!!... Hello Joe!!” circling around his head. Everyone has childhood memories which are scary or unpleasant for reasons they can’t explain. Even “Hello Joe!” - one of the most quoted lines in the show (certainly when I’m in the room) - is said by a woman with dementia who never appears again, ever. Haunting indeed. Nonetheless, all’s well that ends well. Bart and Lisa have their ups and downs but this shows their first spark of sibling affection. What’s more, it ends with Maggie’s first word spoken by (I’m absolutely 100% serious) Elizabeth Taylor. In many ways, the story that happens in ‘Lisa’s First Word’ is pretty unremarkable, but when you’re a young child, every life-change feels earth-shaking. It’s really quite miraculous how well that feeling is bottled here. Also, there’s that bit where the Korean gymnast breaks his leg. Good times.

Lisa The Beauty Queen

Defining Quote Lisa: Dad, do you remember why you entered me in that pageant? Homer: I dunno. Was I drunk? Lisa: Possibly. But the point is, you wanted me to feel better about myself. And I do.

After a caricaturist draws a picture of Lisa chasing boys, she develops a complex about her appearance. In response, Homer sells his ride on the famous Duff blimp to enter her into the Little Miss Springfield beauty pageant. After some initial protests, Lisa agrees and throws herself into the role, eventually being awarded the title after the original winner gets struck by lightning. Pageant-material beauty isn’t something we associate with Lisa, but she uses her charm to rise to a position of power and influence, refusing to stick to the script provided by her sponsors, Laramie Cigarettes. Her independence proves irksome to her employers, who strip her of her title on a technicality. Not an awful lot to annotate about this episode but the rewards come from Lisa finding her voice. In more recent seasons (aka “the bad seasons”), she’s a preachy condescending bore, but here she’s full of righteous rage, gladly biting the hand that feeds her and risking her position for the sake of her moral compass. It brings out the best in her and her family. Lisa-centric episodes in the classic seasons are always reliable stand-outs, and this is so boringly great there’s really not much else to say. She’s as vital a role model now as she ever was, for children and adults. Standout jokes include Skinner going all green-beret on Disney’s lawyers, Amber Dempsey winning Pork Princess and Little Miss Kosher, and the absolute worst show-tune in history (“L the losers in her wake, I the income she will make, T is for her tooth-filled mouth, T is for her tooth-filled mouth”).

Sideshow Bob Roberts

Defining Quote Sideshow Bob: Because you need me, Springfield. Your guilty conscience may force you to vote Democratic, but deep down inside, you secretly long for a cold-hearted Republican to lower taxes, brutalise criminals and rule you like a king.

Oh boy… well, looks like The Simpsons accidentally satirised the future again, and it’s more uncomfortable than ever. Dangerous right-wing views? Check. Narcissistic crowd-pandering candidate? Check. Substantial accusations of electoral fraud? Check. Sure, these things were around long before Donald J Trump combined all-this-and-more into an all-powerful omnishambling fuckstorm. Nonetheless it’s still frightening and brilliant how right this episode had it, two decades before its peak relevance. Sideshow Bob, a man who had already framed one person for armed robbery and tried to kill two others, is released from jail with the help of a conservative talk-show host Birch Barlow (a deliberate dead-ringer for Rush Limbaugh). He then becomes the Republican candidate for Springfield mayor and soars in the polls thanks to his charisma, his skill as an entertainer and media smear campaigns… oh god… Well, it sure is great in all the ways satire should be. It’s a scary time in the Western world right now thanks to the same political corruption and voter complacency that this episode nails to the wall. Its subjects are just too exhausting to talk about right now, so frankly it’s a goddamn miracle that this episode is still so much fun to watch.

Colonel Homer

Defining Quote Lurleen: Oh, Homer, no man has ever been this nice to me without, you know, wanting something in return.

Since creating the show, Matt Groening hasn’t actually had an awful lot to do with the creative direction of The Simpsons. In fact, how many episodes did he write on his own? Just this one, but that gives him one hell of a scoring average. After an argument with Marge, Homer drives a long way from home and, after winding up at a redneck bar, he’s captured by music of a singing waitress called Lurleen Lumpkin (based on country legend Loretta Lynn). He convinces her to record her songs and she becomes an overnight sensation. Lurleen falls head-over-heels in love with Homer and a gigantic emotional mess ensues. The Simpsons would try and re-run this plot-line in the future, each with another temptress trying to steal Homer away (see: ‘The Last Temptation of Homer’) but none of these come close to the heart and resonance of Colonel Homer. It boils down to this: everyone in this love triangle is vulnerable, none more so than Lurleen. She’s had a hard life, and when a man arrives who treats her with kindness and respect, she can’t bear the thought of losing him - a far more realistic and poignant dilemma than most. A huge amount of credit belongs to her voice actor Beverly D’Angelo - far more credit than most guest stars have earned, in fact. For a start, Lurleen sings four great songs throughout the episode, and not only does D’Angelo sing beautifully, but she also wrote them. Quite the feat considering I’ve never forgotten them. As well as being a sensitive and funny look at the temptation of extramarital attraction, it’s the episode’s portrayal of music that makes it soar. It brings people together, it comforts, it seduces, it apologises and it heals. There is so much affection in this episode - for music, and the people who are overpowered by it.

Lisa On Ice

Defining Quote Homer: Oh my God, Marge. A penalty shot with only four seconds left. It's your child versus mine! The winner will be showered with praise; the loser will be taunted and booed until my throat is sore!

Sibling rivalry, am I right? After Lisa is told she’s failing gym class (something that Homer seems to value a great deal because “Sports sports sports sports sports!”) she is coerced into joining a pee-wee hockey team. She suddenly finds out she has a God-given talent as a goalie and becomes a foul-mouthed net-guarding wunderkind. Unfortunately, hers and Bart’s hockey teams are soon due to play against each other, which makes reconciliation impossible - right up until the last moment. The ending single-handedly makes ‘Lisa On Ice’ one of the sweetest episodes, but it’s also one of the funniest. We’re treated to Homer being superbly unhelpful by encouraging the competition, Marge stealing Milhouse’s teeth to make a point, Bart’s remorse over the death of Mr HoneyBunny and of course the forever-quoted “Don’t make me run, I’m full of chocolate”. It’s just as much of a war between the parents as well as the kids. Nonetheless, Marge’s compassionate influence wins, resulting in a final scene that’ll make you want to call a family member and tell them you love them.

The Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie Show

Defining Quote Lindsey Nagle: We at the network want a dog with attitude. He's edgy, he's "in your face." You've heard the expression "let's get busy"? Well, this is a dog who gets "biz-zay!" Consistently and thoroughly.

Maybe The Simpsons can last forever, but that sure as hell doesn’t mean that it should. Twenty years after its last good season, the show is still going. Still going and utterly utterly wretched. If you want to know how the writers feel about this, watch ‘The Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie Show”. The beloved ultraviolent cat-and-mouse cartoon show Itchy and Scratchy is losing viewers, and in an act of desperation, the network decides to add a new character: Poochie The Dog. I once went to a talk by the memoirist David Sedaris, during which he said “You should choose only one thing to be offended by, and I choose cartoon animals in sunglasses. If Paddington 2 was made in America, he’d ride a skateboard and say “Awesome”.” That’s Poochie in a nutshell - a misguided, focus-grouped and joyless disaster. What’s more, Homer is roped into playing the doomed new character, so we get a front-row seat in watching his dreams get crushed. This is a real rarity in TV - a sharp and self-aware meta-commentary that never stops being funny. It’s an episode about the show itself, and the writers even take a few pot-shots at their fans. Otto: Woah, a talking dog! What were you guys smokin’ when you came up with that? Writer: We were eating rotisserie chicken. In a perfect world, this would have been the last episode of the show. Maybe two more seasons and then have this as the finale? Either way, it’s a sensitive and diplomatic demonstration about why good things must come to an end, or else they’re just not good any more. Ahem.

Marge vs The Monorail

Defining Quote Lyle Lanley: So then - “mono” means “one”, and “rail” means “rail”. And that concludes our intensive three-week course.

It’s hard to think of an episode that’s such a universal crowd-pleaser as this one. When Mr Burns is fined $3M for dumping toxic waste, a town meeting is called to decide what to do with the money. After numerous sensible suggestions, Lyle Lanley - a flashy salesman played by the irreplaceable Phil Hartman - appears from nowhere and whips the crowd into a frenzy over his pitch for the Springfield Monorail. Lanley proves to be a total crook and after Marge discovers his notebook featuring nothing but diagrams of him running away with suckers’ money, it’s up to her to prevent total disaster. This one was written by the most famous alumni of The Simpsons’ writers’ room - Conan O’Brien. It figures - this episode is enough of a CV to get you whatever job you want. It really feels like every line is somehow memorable and quotable, even… huffffffff - ok. Ok, there’s one thing I hate, HATE about this episode. For some reason they bring Lurleen Lumpkin back, just to show her in and out of rehab with a voice like a brillo-pad, and having spent the previous night in a ditch. Thanks to Kent Brockman’s reaction (“How about that, folks!”) it’s still funny, but goddamn is it mean-spirited. And thank goodness I got that out of the way, because every single other part of this episode is great. Everyone knows it, everyone loves it, no one needs to explain it. Anyway, I’m just gonna reel off some quotes because there’s nothing else to say. “The ring came off my pudding can!”; “I call the big one bitey”; “And two comely lasses of virtue true”; “I shouldn’t have stopped for that haircut. Sorry”; “All those bald children are arousing suspicion”; “I like the way Snrub thinks!”; “A solar eclipse - the cosmic ballet goes on”; “Mono- d’oh!”. Etc. Done.

Itchy & Scratchy & Marge

Defining Quote Marge: I guess one person can make a difference, but most of the time, they probably shouldn’t.

This, right here, is where The Simpsons totally mastered the art of neutral satire. ‘Itchy & Scratchy & Marge’ puts censorship, media influence on children and puritanical pressure groups under even-handed scrutiny. After Maggie attacks Homer with a mallet, Marge levels the blame at the cartoon violence of Itchy and Scratchy - not without reason. To the annoyance of Bart, Lisa and a host of other fans of the show, she starts a protest movement, which catches fire quickly. The frequent hypocrisy of these “moral” crusaders also gets thoroughly lampooned when Itchy & Scratchy creator Roger Meyers reads his hate mail: “I will never watch your show, buy any of your products... or brake if I see you crossing the street? Wow, that’s cold.” For better or worse, the movement achieves everything Marge wanted, but despite “conveying a very nice message about sharing”, the “new and improved” Itchy and Scratchy is unwatchable and the children turn off the TV. The utterly beautiful Beethoven-soundtracked sequence showing all the kids playing outside on a sunny day has a sad ironic tinge to it. The prettier it gets, the less realistic it feels. It’s only when Michelangelo’s David comes to an exhibition in Springfield that Marge’s worldview is challenged. She thinks it’s a work of art and everyone should see it, but then her own pressure group wants it banned. “It's filth! It graphically portrays parts of the human body which, practical though they may be, are evil.” In the end there are no winners or losers, but it illustrates a multi-faceted and ever-relevant conversation in rich detail. This is one of the most flat-out clever episodes from start to finish. Wisdom embraces doubt, and there’s doubt from every angle here, not to mention jokes for days. “Wasn’t that funny, boys and girls? Well?? Wasn’t it!?”

‘Round Springfield

Defining Quote Lisa: How come it won’t stop hurting?

Lisa’s hero, the local unlucky jazz musician Bleeding Gums Murphy, only appears as a speaking part in two episodes. This is the second, and most definitely the last. Look out, boys and girls - we’ve got a gut-wrenching story about grief on our hands. When Bart is hospitalised with an appendicitis, Lisa runs into her idol in the adjacent room and they have a spirited chat and jam. She continues to visit him, and he even gives her his sax. Overwhelmed with passion and gratitude, she brings the house down at her school band recital, but upon returning to tell him the good news, a nurse informs her that Bleeding Gums has passed away. What we’re left with is one of the most consistently heartbreaking and stirring episodes within the classic seasons. We witness Lisa trying to handle the demise of her hero, attending his otherwise deserted funeral, and realising how she may have been the only person whose life he truly touched. We should give extra credit to Yeardley Smith, the voice of Lisa, who gives one of her most moving performances ever. Even the score - which adds saxophone fills to its usual strings and woodwinds - adds to her haunted state of mind. Nonetheless, there are some flat-out hilarious set-pieces, such as Homer trying to improvise a jazz melody, and Bart imagining his reincarnation as a butterfly. Bart is a particular treat in this episode, coming through for his sister by spending a whopping $500 on Bleeding Gums’ album so Lisa can honour his memory. On a curiously positive note, it ends with a magical-realist jam session with a cloud-dwelling ghost (yep) and the knowledge that those who inspire and move us are never truly gone. ‘Round Springfield is a gigantic and worthy salute to the artists who make us feel less alone in the world.

Bart Gets an F

Defining Quote Bart: No, you don't understand! I tried this time, I really tried! This is as good as I can do, and I still failed!

Bart isn’t always an easy character to like. The “bad boy” rarely is, but the times in which he earns your love are worth treasuring. He’s Homer’s son through and through - not too bright, often short-sighted when it comes to emotional consequences, and a surprisingly big heart. The Simpsons’ second season brought a new polished look, sharper writing and slicker voice acting, and it kicked off with a glorious showcase for Bart’s vulnerability. He doesn’t enjoy failure, even though he courts that image as a defensive strategy. Academia, however basic, isn’t his strong suit, and he struggles to concentrate and apply himself. However, when he’s threatened with the possibility of having to repeat the fourth grade, he does his absolute best. He asks for help from Martin, the school brainiac, and works the whole way through a (gorgeously animated) snow day in order to pass a history test. His frustration is palpable - endearing as it is concerning. When he asks Mrs Krabappel to grade his paper there-and-then, he still gets an F, and bursts into hysterical tears in one of the most devastating moments in the entire show. How anyone can watch this episode and not immediately warm to Marge’s special little guy is a mystery. This also might be Nancy Cartwright’s finest example as a voice actor. Nonetheless, after demonstrating applied knowledge at the last minute, Bart is given a D-minus and passes by a hair’s breadth, so he can finally… stay in the fourth grade for the rest of his cartoon shelf-life. Okie dokie then!

5 More Honourable Mentions

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Marge Gets a Job

After some “creative” CV editing by Lisa, Marge lands a job at the power plant to pay for the house foundation repair. The biggest laughs come from when Mr Burns falls in love with her - “Why, Marge! Look at all those flies buzzing around your head. You’re a mess, woman!”

- Bart Gets Famous After a fateful accident as an extra on the Krusty the Clown Show, Bart becomes a media sensation with a silly catchphrase and discovers that fame is indeed a fickle bitch-goddess.

- Homer’s Phobia No it’s not in the countdown. Shock of shocks, gay jokes from the 90s haven’t aged all that well. That being said, not only are a decent chunk of them still very funny here, but it’s about as optimistic a portrayal as you could have hoped for at the time. Plus, he may be an “issue of the week” character but John fucking Waters is in it!! Zzzzzapp!!

- Bart’s Dog Gets an F Santa’s Little Helper is the star of the show for the first time since the pilot. He and Bart bond over their shared incompetence while desperately trying to get him a passing grade in obedience school. Bless.

- Marge on the Lam

Marge and her new neighbour take a road-trip in a stolen vehicle while Homer and Wiggum give chase. Not nearly as contrived as it sounds, this one is especially memorable for the portrayal of unlikely and impassioned adult friendships. Also, one of the most inexplicable moments in the entire show “My cans! My precious antique cans! Ohh, look what ya done to em.”

Scenes From a Class Struggle In Springfield

Defining Quote Homer: You kids should thank your mother. Now that she’s a better person we can see how awful we really are.

The whole “be yourself” narrative is common for a reason - it’s versatile, it’s easy to inject conflict, and it’s nearly always true. This here episode is a prime example, and tackles the ever-relevant topic of social class in the process. Marge finds a bargain-priced Chanel suit at a charity shop and, after a chance meeting with an old school friend, is invited to a swanky country club. Despite the fact that the group of socialites she’s landed with are a combination of clueless, malicious and boring, she desperately wants to earn their respect. She talks about recipes and the rewards of self-reliance; they talk about microwaving soup and getting the maid to clear up the resulting mess. She loves her chance-discovery of a Chanel suit; they have too much to be grateful for what they have. It’s a superb send-up of the hollow idealisation of wealth. Nonetheless, fitting in clearly means a great deal to Marge, to the extent that she begins to resent her family. The effort of trying to “fit in” is completely exhausting, and when she accidentally destroys her suit by altering it for the dozenth time, her irrational obsession with social status reaches breaking point. Meanwhile, Homer proves to be a natural golfer and wins a tournament against a far-too-proud Mr Burns laughs ensue. Not only are the jokes funny throughout, they often make sharp points. Who couldn’t be admire Lisa’s mischief when she declares “I’m going to ask people if they know their servants’ last names - or in the case of butlers, their first.” Marge does indeed learn to “be herself”, but most importantly, she realises that this isn’t a compromise. Extravagance made no one happy, not even the rich snobs, and in the modern era when extreme wealth is causing more problems than ever, that’s a worthy lesson to learn.

Homerpalooza

Defining Quote Abe Simpson: I used to be ‘with it’, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ anymore and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary to me. It’ll happen to you.

There’s a bit in the David Lynch film ‘The Straight Story’ in which a group of polite young whipper-snappers ask the elderly protagonist “What’s the worst thing about being old?” He replies “Remembering when you were young.” Even though Homerpalooza guest stars a bunch of the very best and most influential musicians of the 90s (and Peter Frampton), this isn’t really about music. First and foremost, it’s about letting go of youth. The acknowledgement that you’re a fragile person-of-a-certain-age is a hard lesson to learn, and the pursuit of being cool is a giant obstacle to this. After being told by his kids that he has “the worst lamest taste in music ever” Homer buys them all tickets to the Hullabalooza music festival to prove that he is indeed “with it”. At some point he gets blasted in the stomach by a giant model pig (who hasn’t?), which prompts the on-site Freak Show to talent-scout him as “a big fatso we can shoot with a canon”. Despite the obvious and worrying dangers to his health, Homer perseveres because it wins him attention and respect, especially from Bart and Lisa. It’s something of an unhelpful cliche being told that you’re definitely going to become “lame” and “uncool”, but then again, being cool is not a substitute for being kind or interesting. That knowledge comes with age. Ok that’s the po-faced philosophising out of the way. No one watches this episode for that reason. They watch it because Cypress Hill attempt to play Insane In The Brain with the London Symphony Orchestra, Sonic Youth steal Peter Frampton’s watermelon and, dude, Otto’s shoes are talking to him! It’s also fitting that the episode is well and truly stolen by its least cool guest. Peter Frampton is one of the flat-out funniest non-actors to ever appear on the show. “Do you FEEL? Do… do you FEEL… Oh, come on, DO. YOU. FEEL…!”

Bart After Dark

Defining Quote Principal Skinner: I was only in there to get directions on how to get away from there.

And today’s topic, boys and girls, is “shame”. After trying to retrieve a remote control aeroplane from the roof of a creepy posh house, Bart falls and damages a valuable stone gargoyle. Marge and Lisa are away scrubbing the oil off rocks (all the cute animals had been reserved for celebrities), so Homer tells him to do chores for the owner as a punishment. What Homer doesn’t know is that the house is a private gentlemen’s burlesque club and Bart proves to be an exceptionally useful member of staff. Bart After Dark is supreme comedy and pokes fun at uncomfortable truths that really needn’t be uncomfortable at all. We may be more permissive and unabashed about sexuality these days, but there is still an alarming proportion of “respectable” people hell-bent on denying a harmless facet of human nature. The people who work at the club enjoy their jobs and the clients certainly enjoy their time there. (Incidentally, it’s really nice to see Bart take pleasure and excel at tasks he’s actually been asked to do.) The obstacle arrives in the form of Marge, who becomes an emblem of so-called “moral outrage” for the duration. Like Roy Cohn punishing queers in the Lavender scare, everyone who rallies against the Maison Derriere is motivated by their own guilt and shame, until it all comes crashing down in perhaps the greatest single musical number The Simpsons ever laid down: ‘We Put The Spring In Springfield’. Oh to count the ways that this song is wonderful. It’s exactly as silly, harmless and joyful as sexuality should be portrayed, and when the whole town joins in and the song ends with a burp from Barney, the scandal has evaporated. As Homer so wisely observed “We could tear this house down, but we’d be tearing down a part of ourselves.”

22 Short Films About Springfield

Defining Quote Bart: There’s just not enough time to hear them all.

What you’re watching here is the start of a colossal missed opportunity. The legendary ‘22 Short Films About Springfield’ (which includes our generation’s Dead Parrot Sketch ‘Steamed Hams’) was such a success that the show-runners seriously considered using it as a template for a spin-off show called simply ‘Springfield’. It would have been great, right!? I’m serious! By drifting away from the core family in a more episodical character-of-the-week format, they might have been able to retire the original show in its prime and have more potential for non-stale jokes and storylines. How about that, folks? Well, here in the real world, this superb melting-pot of vignettes was as close as we got. True, Apu’s story ‘The Jolly Bengali’ is about as racially uncomfortable as the show ever got, and it’s the only episode in the classic seasons to play the threat of rape for laughs (it’s ok because they’re men…?). Nonetheless, ‘22 Short Films’ has so many classic moments it’s almost impossible to provide a fitting summary. Instead, here are some fun facts:

- Principal Skinner’s “steamed hams” story consists of thirteen interconnected lies.

- When shouting at Smithers, Mr Burns uses accurate 19th Century slang terms.

- This is the only episode in which Bumblebee man is seen out of costume. - A scene with Lionel Hutz was dropped and is lost to history.

- The very tall man is a caricature of staff writer Ian Maxtone-Graham who is 6 foot 8.

One last thing, I declare the “very tall man” the most victorious character in any show. He turns up out of nowhere, delivers a righteous and ritualistic act of vigilante justice to a character who’s deserved it since season one, all in front of a crowd of hundreds of people, and is never heard from again. Well done, sir.

Homer at the Bat

Defining Quote Mr Burns: Smithers, there's no way I can lose this bet unless, of course, my nine all-stars fall victim to nine separate misfortunes and are unable to play tomorrow. But that will never happen. Three misfortunes, that's possible. Seven misfortunes, there's an outside chance - but nine misfortunes? I'd like to see that.

It’s a real treat when we witness bumbling boob Homer actually excel at something. Here, that “something” is the power plant softball team, who ascend the ranks alarmingly fast thanks to Homer and his homemade “Wonderbat”. Unfortunately, their success attracts the attention of Mr Burns who puts a million-dollar bet on his team and decides to play dirty. He enlists nine pro-league baseball players, gives them token jobs at the plant and adds them to the line-up. It’s a real feat that the creative people behind the scenes managed to give a wide array of guest stars (none of whom we recognise in this country) such vivid personalities. These were actually based on the writers’ experiences interacting with them. For instance, they were very taken with Mike Scioscia, whose kind nature and enthusiasm for the show is reflected in his down-to-earth and endearingly funny persona. (Referring to the episode, Scioscia once said in an interview “Every year I get a residual cheque for $4. I cash them. I don’t want to mess up their accounting department.”) Meanwhile, a very intimidating and unpleasant Jose Canseco asked for his role to be “more heroic”, so they made him spend half his screen-time slavishly unloading a woman’s possessions from a burning building. (It’s hilarious and he didn’t like it - mission accomplished.) Baseball isn’t something we in England know much about, but in this case, as with all great sports stories, you don’t have to. It’s relentless genial knockabout fun from start to finish. It’s surprisingly detailed too. For example, every time someone is whistling or humming or playing in a band, the melody is a variation on either ‘Take Me Out To The Ball Game’ or ‘We’re Talkin’ Baseball’. The long and the short of it is that Homer’s really good at something, everyone rallies around him, they hold him up when he becomes the underdog, he wins the game by accident and everyone loves him. Despite having nine separate guest stars (ten if you count the singer in the closing credits), ‘Homer at the Bat’ is one of the simplest episodes and the result is uncomplicated joy.

Bart The Lover

Defining Quote Edna Krabappel: Bart, you’re the closest thing to a man in my life - and that’s so depressing I think I’m gonna cry.

In its classic era, The Simpsons was a show beloved by kids and grown-ups for different reasons, but it never patronised either audience. In the case of this very-underrated-episode-indeed, we see Bart introduced to a raw, vulnerable slice of adult life and mistaking it for fun and games. After he smashes her fish tank with a yo-yo trick, Bart is given a long period of detention from Mrs Krabappel. However, when she leaves the room, he rummages in her desk to find that Edna has posted a personal ad in the Lonely Hearts section of the local paper. Adopting the pen-name “Woodrow” he begins an intimate correspondence with her as an act of combined boredom and revenge, taking inspiration from old colourised movies, a drunk postcard sent by his father and eavesdropping on her conversations. Eventually he schedules a date and, ready to laugh at her misfortune, Bart is instead confronted with the reality of adult loneliness - a sobbing desperate woman with no hope left. Bart is forced to acknowledge the cruelty of his mischief and the family bands together to write a final letter and set things straight. Aside from a gigglesome sub-plot involving a dog-house, a swear-jar and some “damn vegetables”, this is one of the most emotionally heavy episodes in the canon. ‘Bart The Lover’ won Marcia Wallace an Emmy for her portrayal of Edna and goddamn does she deserve it. The sound of her crying in the restaurant is overpowering all by itself. Not everyone gets exactly what they want by the end, but Bart gains a new sense of empathy with his teacher, as does every child watching the show. Nonetheless, it resonates loudest and truest for adult viewers. Anyone who’s ever woken in the night holding their own hand - this is yours.

Moaning Lisa

Defining Quote

Lisa: I'm just wondering what's the point? Would it make any difference at all if I never existed? How can we sleep at night when there's so much suffering in the world?

Ay Caramba - it’s season one! Yes, this is absolutely the only entry from The Simpsons’ first lap around the track - a time when the actors all sounded like their mouths were full of felt, the animation was slightly grotty and the writers barely had any idea what they were doing. Seriously, can anyone watch ‘Homer’s Odyssey’ and explain to me what the hell that was actually about? That being said, amongst the muddled majority, a few episodes soar, none higher than this one. ‘Moaning Lisa’ is where The Simpsons hit a stride that would last for nine splendid years. Struck by an all-consuming existential depression, Lisa becomes a source of worry for her family. She sees no way out until the sound of a distant saxophone wafts through her bedroom window. She follows it and finds a musician called Bleeding Gums Murphy hanging out on a moonlit bridge. The pair jam and talk as equals until Marge comes to take her home. What’s really striking about this episode today is how optimistic it is about “the youth”. Marge’s advice to Lisa is to put on a big smile and disguise her feelings so people will like her, since that’s what she was taught by her own mother. “Before you go out that door, let’s put our happy face on - because people know how good a mommy you have by the size of your smile!” Effectively, this is the writer staring down the lens and saying “Just because your parents said it, doesn’t mean it’s right”. Art is a method of breaking down a dishonest and stale way of life and it proves to be Lisa’s saving grace - well, that and Marge’s change of heart and she yanks her back into the car: “Lisa, I apologize to you, I was wrong, I take it all back. Always be yourself. You wanna be sad, honey, be sad. We'll ride it out with you and when you get finished feeling sad, we'll still be there. From now on, let me do the smiling for both of us.” Emotions can be complicated and unmanageable to the point of death, literally. ‘Moaning Lisa’ doesn’t have any answers, per se, but answers don’t come from 20 minutes of TV. Instead we witness Lisa on the verge of developing an outlet, and a technique for surviving the world. These things are never perfected, but they have to start somewhere. For Lisa, they start here. An exceptionally soulful piece of work. Oh and Homer and Bart play a boxing video game which is also quite good.

$pringfield (or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Legalised Gambling)

Defining Quote Mr Burns: It’s got to have sex appeal and a catchy name…

Well, it’s right there in the title. Springfield legalizes gambling. This could have been an opportunity for some skewering satire about extravagance, casinos and exploitation of the gullible and vulnerable. Maybe it is a little, but… pfffft. Who cares. This is the episode with the boogeyman, Lisa’s “Floreda” costume, Homer’s photographic memory, Bart hijacking Robert Goulet, “Fresh’n yer drink guv’na”, Henry Kissinger’s glasses and Homer’s homemade breakfast. Having said that, absolutely none of this compares to Mr Burns’ Howard Hughes-style germaphobic breakdown. That’s the sort of thing that’s only funny if it’s done right, and on this episode, absolutely nothing is wrong.

Lisa vs Malibu Stacy

Defining Quote Lisa: Millions of girls will grow up thinking that this is the right way to act - that they can never be anything more than vacuous ninnies whose only goal is to look pretty, land a rich husband and spend all day on the phone with their equally vacuous friends talking about how damn terrific it is to look pretty and have a rich husband! Bart: ...Just what I was gonna say.

Look, there are a lot of Lisa episodes on this list ok? She’s not the funniest character but she’s probably the best. I wanted to be her. I still want to be her. Her defining characteristic is her sense of moral principle, and while this would get very tiresome and ham-fisted in later seasons, that’s not the case here. On a visit to the toy store, she brings home the brand new talking Malibu Stacy, only to find that the doll’s pre-recorded phrases have a distinct sexist slant to them: “Let’s bake some cookies for the boys”; “Thinking too much gives you wrinkles”; “Don’t ask me, I’m just a girl”. After failing to make an impression with either her friends or the Malibu Stacy executives, she takes her complaint directly to the doll’s creator, played by the husky whiskey-matured voice of Kathleen Turner. She and Stacy Lavelle then develop their own talking doll, “Lisa Lionheart”. Their passion project is effortlessly squashed by the Malibu Stacy company, as big business does (“But she’s got a new hat!”). All seems lost until a little girl picks up a Lionheart doll and Lisa realises that she may still have made a difference. Once again, this saw The Simpsons addressing kids and adults without patronising either. I first became aware of the concept of casual sexism purely through watching this episode, and the value it places on small moral victories is refreshing even now. There will always be times when we see something wrong or missing within the world, and when complaining doesn’t work, the solution is to create an alternative. You won’t change everything, but you’ll change something. Also, gotta love Smithers’ screensaver.

You Only Move Twice

Defining Quote Hank Scorpio: Nice work, Homer! Boy, am I proud of you. When you get home, there’s gonna be a new storey on your house.

Look, I get it. It’s everyone’s favourite. And it’s a fine favourite to have. All 50 of the ones on this list are good favourites to have, as are about three dozen other episodes that aren’t here. Just because it’s number 21, doesn’t mean it’s not a ten. Regular guest star and future widowed clownfish Albert Brooks makes his finest appearance ever as genial boss and secret Supervillain Hank Scorpio. Apparently a lot of his dialogue was improvised for this so we can only dream of the gold that was left on the cutting room floor. What with Homer’s combined competence and obliviousness, circular discussions about hammocks and moccasins, Marge drinking a glass of wine(!) and - lest we forget - Hank’s cream and sugar, ‘You Only Move Twice’ is almost boringly perfect. It’s not like you need to think much about it. Everything’s been said. Any time spent reading or thinking about it is time you could have spent watching it. Now go away.

5 More Honourable Mentions

- Who Shot Mr Burns part 1 & 2 Perhaps the peak of the show as a cultural phenomenon. For a season finale and subsequent season premiere, The Simpsons turned itself into a great little murder-mystery with Mr Burns crossing a thoroughly unpleasant line - and betting shops giving odds on the killer’s true identity. Then they found out it was the baby. Okie dokie. And there’s a minute-long Twin Peaks-themed dream sequence! My greatest ever animated TV show referencing the greatest ever non-animated TV show? Christ, why wasn’t this on the list. Oh yeah, because it was the baby.

- The Boy Who Knew Too Much Bart is the only witness to a possible crime but can’t come forward without revealing that he skipped school. This one’s a laugh riot, especially spoilt socialite Freddy Quimby, and Skinner’s transformation from Terminator-esque “non-giving-up school guy” to Homer’s hen-pecked room-mate.

- Radioactive Man Comic book hero Radioactive Man is getting his own movie and Springfield has been chosen as the filming location. Arnold Schwarzenegger stand-in Ranier Wolfcastle is on top form, as is an extremely put-upon Milhouse in the role of Fallout Boy (and yes, the band name comes from this episode).

- Grampa vs Sexual Inadequacy Grampa comes up with a homemade and devastatingly effective aphrodisiac drink and goes into business with Homer. It’s always nice to see a show making sex as silly as it is, but the real payoff comes from Homer and Abe confronting a hailstorm of daddy-issues. Also, someone finally bought a copy of Al Gore’s book! This calls for a celebration!

- Natural Born Kissers Speaking of sex, Homer and Marge are losing their libido and find an unexpected thrill in the fear of getting caught. Like Homer’s Enemy, this is a great episode that also signalled a death-knell for the show. By confronting this risque issue, it was clear that they were running out of conflicts to invent, but as it stands, it’s a real treat, and refreshing in its brazenness.

Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song

Defining Quote Principal Skinner: I’d like one with two seats, I’ll be dining with a friend tonight.

The chalkboard gag for The Simpsons’ 100th episode was “I will not celebrate meaningless milestones”. To further underscore this, ‘Sweet Seymour Skinner’s Baadasssss Song’ is one of the most low-key and subtle stories they ever turned in. Rather than produce a spectacle, they shone a much-needed spotlight on one of the show’s most interesting characters. Bart brings his dog into school for show-and-tell and gets an ecstatic reception from kids and staff alike. Unfortunately, Santa’s Little Helper finds his way into the air duct system which - combined with a greased-up Willy and an ill-timed visit from Superintendent Chalmers - ends up getting Principal Skinner fired. After a few chance meetings outside of school and a guilty sense of duty, Bart accepts Skinner’s invitation to his home. Much like his fake romance with Edna Krabappel, this episode sees Bart glimpsing the inner life of an adult, and though the result is a lot less dramatic, this ends up working in its favour. It takes a special lightness of touch to make these two believable companions. Neither Bart nor Skinner is pretending to enjoy themselves - they like hanging out and it’s just lovely to watch. Speaking of “lightness of touch”, replacement Principal Ned Flanders is causing total anarchy with his lack of discipline and over-optimism, and it becomes clear to Bart why the school needed an uncool law-enforcer. Despite every other character finding him boring, Skinner is one of the richest presences in the show, and this is where he really takes flight. We see him unselfconsciously air-conducting to Beethoven’s 5th, finding an uncomfortable self-awareness as a fusty square after rejoining the army, and even showing an intriguing streak of queerness.  Skinner: How do I get out of the army? Bart: No problemo - just make a pass at your commanding officer.  Skinner: Done and done. And I mean “done”.  When the pair reassume their roles as Principal and student, it’s exceptionally bittersweet. It’s hard to imagine Skinner having any friends at all, and it’s not like Bart is used to having such an even-handed relationship with an adult. In the end, their rivalry is unavoidable, but thanks to this episode, it has an indelible shadow of poignancy too. Hardly a meaningless milestone.

A Streetcar Named Marge

Defining Quote Llewellyn Sinclair: “I have directed three plays in my career and I have had three heart attacks. That's how much I care - I'm planning for a fourth.”

As long as there are amateur dramatic productions making a good-natured mess of classic literature, comedy will never die. To escape her unappreciated baby-focused home life, Marge auditions for a musical version of A Streetcar Named Desire and wins the female lead. For better or worse, the play becomes a magnifying glass into Marge’s relationship with Homer which is hitting something of a low-point. Fair play, too. Homer is an utter boob in this episode - impatient, demanding, selfish, annoying and deluded. Anyway, Homer sees the play, it goes really well and he finally understands that he needs to make more effort and that he loves her. The end. Lovely stuff. Anyway, let’s talk about Jon Lovitz, the voice of Artie Ziff, Jay Sherman, Professor Lombardo and, of course, Llewellyn Sinclair, the most passionate caftan-wearing am-dram director in the world. The improvement he makes to whatever episode he’s in is very noticeable. In this case, we’re treated to a 2-for-1, since he also plays Llewellyn’s sister, proprietor of Maggie’s day-care centre The Ayn Rand School For Tots. This might be Maggie’s finest hour - a Great Escape-esqe heist against a fascist nanny? Yes please. However, the real peak comes from the musical itself. “Can’t you hear me yell-ah, you’re puttin’ me through hell-ah, Stella”; “New Orleans!”; “Oh, what’s a paper boy to… dooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo?” Charming, silly, catchy and missing the point of the source material spectacularly - ‘Oh! Streetcar!’ is one of the finest musical moments in a show already chock full of them. Also! You WILL want sPEAK with the exACT intensity of Lllllewellyn Sinclaiirrr, for the REST of your LIFE.

Marge Be Not Proud

Defining Quote Marge: I always thought I understood my special little guy, but somewhere along the road his hand slipped away from mine.

Boy, did this one make a dent in our collective souls. An autobiographical episode from writer Mike Scully, Bart is caught shoplifting a video game and goes to great lengths to conceal his crime from his parents. All seems well until the family go to the same store to get their Christmas picture taken. The store detective shows them the CCTV tape and all illusions are gone. Ouch. Parents and children will break each other’s hearts hundreds of times over, some worse than others. Before this episode, we’d already had six and a half seasons of Bart being a cheeky menace, but this one-step-too-far shatters Marge’s perception of her son, causing her to withdraw her affection and become distant. No one cries in this episode, and it might be less powerful if they did. Instead Bart is left with a chilly ambivalence, and sorely missing the “mothering” which he was “too cool” or “too old” to put up with before. He even asks Milhouse’s mother if he can hang out with her while she does “mom stuff”, culminating in his almost-funny request: “Tell me I’m good?” Trust The Simpsons to take a story this sad and make it this funny. Milhouse (now known as “Thrillho”) is an splendid dweeb as always, Homer buys a fridgeful of eggnog (“We only get 30 sweet noggy days til the government takes it away again!”) and, of course, the towering chain-smoking store detective himself, Don Brodka. Easily one of the strangest one-off characters in the classic seasons, his off-the-wall intimidating personality can be attributed to his off-the-wall intimidating voice actor, Lawrence Tierney. A veteran film-star, Tierney turned up drunk, shouted at staff, tried to record lines in a Southern accent and refused to read anything if he “didn’t get the jokes”. Nonetheless, the end result is memorable as hell. Of course, Bart manages to save the day with a grand, dignified and sentimental gesture and there’s not a dry eye in the house. His best Christmas present is getting his mother back, and it certainly isn’t Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge. “You have selected ‘No’.”

Summer of 4 foot 2

Defining Quote Lisa [internally]: A compliment! Scanning for sarcasm… it’s clean!! Go!!

The family takes a trip to stay in the Flanders’ beach-house in Pwagmattasquarmsettport (thank you, copy & paste). Having recently developed a depressing awareness of her unpopularity at school, Lisa decides to “forget” to pack so she can pick out some new clothes. Now armed with a cool outfit and a new beach-bum persona, she decides to make friends with some skater kids, and ends up having the best summer of her life. Often, episodes like this get remembered for their rich emotional core, and while ‘Summer of 4 foot 2’ definitely earns that, it’s almost easy to overlook the sheer volume of great jokes. There’s Homer’s misadventures with illegal fireworks and Flanders’ “helpful notes around the house”, but these laughs are dwarfed by Milhouse who tags along for the trip. Whether he’s describing his favourite sprinkler systems or being “the dud” in the Mystery Date board game, there’s a good chance that he’s never been funnier. Nonetheless, this is Lisa’s story and it’s one of her most heartfelt. It also shows Bart at his nastiest. Overcome with jealousy, he takes Lisa’s yearbook - filled with evidence of her status as a Teacher’s Pet - and shows it to her new friends, effectively destroying her facade. Understandably, her self-esteem reaches crisis point: “Being myself didn’t work, being someone else didn’t work, maybe I just wasn’t meant to have friends”. However, just when all seems lost, she finds her beach pals decorating the family car with seashells, bearing the message “Lisa Rules”. It’s about as sincere a gesture as anyone could make (to the point that it counts as vandalism and the family get attacked by seagulls on the way home). Even Bart redeems himself by asking the kids to sign the yearbook, where they leave her messages she can keep. The notoriously geeky Simpsons’ writers (especially from this era) probably weren’t the most popular kids in school. It’s hard not to see this episode as an attempt to reassure the dorks of the world that there’s a place for them in the world, so long as they hang onto their curiosity and kind nature.

Cape Feare

Defining Quote Rake: *thwack*

In the first scene, Bart opens a letter bearing the phrase “I’m going to kill you” written in blood. If you’d never seen ‘Cape Feare’, you’d be forgiven for thinking that The Simpsons were about to go macabre - bringing the Treehouse of Horror out of the treehouse, if you will. Instead, this might be the most relentlessly silly episode in the classic canon. It’s a lot of people’s favourite and it’s very, very easy to see why. The jokes just don’t stop. Some you can file under “blink-and-you’ll-miss-it”, others go on forever and never wear out their welcome. Bart’s nemesis Sideshow Bob is released from jail and seeks revenge against the boy who got him locked away. Bob is clearly a smart man, but luck is not on his side. Despite managing to follow the family to their new home under the Witness Relocation Program, he falls foul of cacti, speed-bumps, elephants and - most memorably of all - rake after rake after rake. It’s strange to think that this legendary scene, beloved by everyone and their mum, was only added because the episode was running under the minimum length. It might be the greatest bit of last-minute padding in TV history. ‘Cape Feare’ ends with Bob singing the entirety of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore - because that makes just about as much sense as everything else. It resists analysis and makes explanation pointless. Well, almost pointless. There is one thing about ‘Cape Feare’ that “makes a point”. Bob, this man who the writers torture over and over and over is a snobbish Conservative Republican and an avid defender of so-called “high culture”. These were the kind of people who embodied The Simpsons’ most vocal critics. It’s hard to know if you could call this episode “satirical” based on this, but it is safe to assume that the writers loved beating him up. It’s pure pleasure. Even singling out individual jokes is moot since by doing so you’re ignoring about eight dozen equally good ones.

Lemon of Troy

Defining Quote Marge: This town is a part of us all. A part of us all. A part of us all. Sorry to repeat myself but it’ll help you remember.

Ok, I apologise but I really am about to bolt on some sincere armchair philosophy to this story about kids stealing a lemon tree. In an increasingly busy and international world, town pride is a neglected concept. We as human beings aren’t psychologically equipped to be burdened with this much information about what’s going on in Russia, Israel and Ethiopia etc. It makes us feel helpless when we see how little difference we can make. Meanwhile, there’s a lot to appreciate, improve and value on a more local scale. You can make a positive impact, whether it’s creating art, cleaning stuff up, volunteering, or getting back your beloved lemon tree from those cousin-marrying pricks next door. Springfield’s neighbours and rivals Shelbyville have stolen the fabled lemon tree, planted by Springfield’s founders because lemons were “the sweetest fruit available at the time”. Bart and his band of brothers set out to take it back, leading them on a treacherous trail of skateboard slopes, ravenous attack dogs, man-eating tigers, disguise kits and a lemon-shaped rock. It’s a bunch of kids rallying behind a noble cause, and when the adults catch up with them, they instantly join the team on principle. It’s one of the few episodes that qualifies as a legit “adventure story” and there’s no shortage of classic moments - the sour-faced man, the jet-pack graffiti paint and Milhouse getting ready to explode to name three. There’s a great sense of atmosphere in this one too. The tone of a golden summer’s day is baked right in, and Nelson even resists beating up Martin for the sake of the mission. Everyone’s a winner. Except Shelbyville. That turnip juice looks unpleasant.

The Way We Was

Defining Quote Homer: I got a problem. Once you stop this car, I’m gonna hug you, and kiss you, and then I’ll never be able to let you go.

It’s really easy to be sentimental, but doing it well is another job entirely. Get it wrong and it’s manipulative; get it right and it might be as honest and heartening a slice of life as you can find. The story of Homer and Marge meeting falls into the latter category. In fact, it might be Exhibit A in why Homer is a sympathetic character in spite of his flaws. This episode shows him as a teenager, and quite possibly even dumber than usual. However, it’s meeting Marge that causes his heart to open, and we get to see just how much uncynical unpretentious good nature is in there. Meanwhile, Marge learns that while Homer is dim-witted, he respects her a lot more than her actual prom date. Let’s say another big friendly hello to Jon Lovitz starring as Artie Ziff - an intelligent but emotionally stunted narcissist who tries to undress Marge in the car. Artie is funny and loathsome in all the right ways. He’s a realistic respectable dork who sees women as a challenge to be conquered, despite praising Marge’s feminist attitudes. Needless to say, his downfall is very satisfying indeed. In this sense, Homer’s simple-mindedness is his greatest asset. He may have lied to her in order to spend time with her, but he was also willing to put every ounce of effort he had into becoming his best self. (If you want a very simple analogy for Homer and Marge in this episode, look at Fry and Leela from Futurama. Even Matt Groening, the man who created all four of those characters, said that the similarities are striking in retrospect.) ‘The Way We Was’ might not be a laugh-riot but it really doesn’t have to be. It’s also one of those rare instances in which a Simpsons episode plays like a self-contained short film. You don’t need any additional information about these characters in order to understand them in this moment. Homer’s pain and joy of being young and in love, and Marge’s yearning to be respected for her intelligence and kindness - you know how that feels. That line that Homer says to Marge in the car - the one at the top of this paragraph. Who wouldn’t want to hear that from someone who has earned it, and who wouldn’t want to say it back and mean it. You don’t have to be a teenager or a baby-boomer or yellow to feel it.

A Star Is Burns

Defining Quote Homer (internally): Hmmm… Barney’s movie had heart, but football in the groin had a football in the groin...

Hey, here’s an interesting fun fact. Notice anything different about the opening titles of this particular episode? After the family sit down and the TV displays the name of the show’s developers, Matt Groening’s name is missing. He objected to this episode so much that he demanded they remove him from the credits. What was so objectionable about ‘A Star Is Burns’? Hilarious and quotable from start to finish, and other than a one-off blip of 90s homophobia, it’s aged well too. Well, the reason for Groening’s beef was that this is actually a crossover episode. Long before The Simpsons and Family Guy joined forces for the worst man-made thing since global warming, Springfield was visited by Jay Sherman the critic, from the animated TV show ‘The Critic’. The Critic was cancelled after three seasons but it certainly has its charms - you can watch it on Youtube somewhere. Despite Matt Groening dismissing ‘A Star Is Burns’ as “an advert”, it’s one of the best episodes and you don’t need to know diddly-squat about ‘The Critic’ to find it funny. Springfield hosts a film festival to attract tourism and the locals enter their own movies in the competition. Among the many moments which devoted fans have memorised by heart include ‘McBain: Let’s Get Silly’, Mr Burns making a hideous self-tribute epic with Steven Spielberg’s non-union Mexican equivalent, and of course ‘Hans Moleman Presents: Man Getting Hit By Football’. That being said, perhaps its most memorable moment is surprisingly deep. Boozehound Barney Gumble makes a film about his own alcoholism, and while it’s funny in its own way, this is the first time we see him being self-aware. It adds a soulful and tragic depth to his character that can’t be unseen. Oh, and Jay Sherman is played by Jon Lovitz, which is a substantial net-gain for everyone.

Homie The Clown

Defining Quote Legs: I’m seeing double here! Four Krustys!

This episode spent a long time cooking. Have you ever noticed that - aside from the hair, the nose and the skin colour - Homer and Krusty the Clown look identical? This was a deliberate choice. The writers initially planned to reveal that Homer was living a double-life as his kids’ favourite entertainer the whooooooole time. This was scrapped, as was the plotline of Marge secretly being a giant rabbit who hides her ears in her hair (I am 100% serious, that’s real - look it up). Instead, the Homer-is-Krusty idea birthed just one concentrated 20-minute burst of silliness. No unnecessary tacked-on pathos here - just consistent, merciless and relentless laughs. Krusty is hemorrhaging money thanks to his absurd extravagance (“Hire Kenny G to play in my elevator; my house is dirty, buy me a clean one”) and his only option is to license his name for a clown college. Homer sees the billboard for the college and - being the ultra-suggestible dimwit he is - experiences a slew of clown-based hallucinations until he signs up. He learns how to be a Krusty impersonator, does events and parties, the Mafia get involved - it’s all a rich tapestry, kids! There’s no faux-high-brow points to make or philosophy-wormholes to get sucked into here (although it is lovely to see Homer earn such pride from his kids). An episode like this is like a perfect sandwich. You know what a sandwich is, you’ve had hundreds of sandwiches before - but once in a blue-moon you bite into one and instinctively know it’s one of the best things you’ve ever tasted.

Mr Lisa Goes To Washington

Defining Quote Lisa [reading her essay]: The city of Washington was built on a stagnant swamp some 200 years ago and very little has changed. It stank then and it stinks now.

“Oh, Marge, cartoons don't have any deep meaning, they're just stupid drawings that give you a cheap laugh.” This line appears in the first few minutes, effectively disarming you in time for one of the most profound episodes. Lisa wins first prize in a patriotic essay contest and the family are sent to Washington DC for the national finals. During a nighttime visit to the statue of a niche feminist icon, she observes her congressman taking a bribe to allow the destruction of Springfield Forest. This leads her to rewrite her essay as a brazen critique of government corruption, shocking the audience and judges. Unwittingly, she also spurs action against the dodgy dealings of the congressman, who is arrested by the end of the episode. “I can’t believe it - the system works!” You could say that this portrayal is unrealistic, but a more apt word would be “optimistic”. Since the show was popular with kids and adults, this episode is both a warts-and-all portrayal of American politics, and a message to children that they have the power to change the world. If a kid tells you he or she wants to be an astronaut, you don’t say “That’s not how the world works”, you encourage them. They probably won’t become an astronaut, but if you tell them they can’t, they definitely won’t. There are people who say entertainment is purely a distraction from more important issues. That being said, entertainment isn’t going anywhere and it’s up to artists to make it useful as well as fun. ‘Mr Lisa Goes To Washington’ was engineered to be inspiring, and it is. It’s a system, and sometimes it does indeed work. (Plus, you know, it’s got jokes and stuff.) Without a shred of exaggeration, Lisa at her best is the icon the world deserves.

One last glut of honourable mentions in 6 words each

When Flanders Failed Homer’s a redeemable swine after all

Lisa’s Pony It’s the (eventual) thought that counts.

Radio Bart Polite victims are easier to help

H-O-M-R Homer boosts IQ with crayon removal

New Kid On The Block Bart gets his heart ripped out

Mr Plow That’s his name. That name again?

Selma’s Choice Breeding is not the answer, FFS.

Krusty Gets Kancelled I’ll get you for this, Midler!!!

Homer Goes To College Homer is dismayed by realistic university

Homer The Vigilante Idiocy, idiocy, idiocy, idiocy and idiocy.

Secrets of a Successful Marriage Say some gangsta’s dissin’ ya fly-girl...

Bart of Darkness Rear Window pastiche by the pool

Two Dozen and One Greyhounds Mr Burns really likes his vest.

The PTA Disbands The PTA disbands, purple monkey dishwasher

Bart On The Road The Knoxville World’s Fair was disappointing

Much Apu About Nothing Compassionate pro-immigration stance softens Apu controversy

The Homer They Fall Obligatory Rocky parody done very well

Hurricane Neddy Ned’s long overdue breakdown doesn’t disappoint

Brother From Another Series Frasier and Niles steal the show

Das Bus The silliest episode that’s still great.

Lisa The Simpson You are not your family, ok?

King of the Hill Grampa tried to eat someone! Yikes!

Bart vs Australia

Defining Quote Bruno: “Nine hundred dollarydoos?!”

This is how you make fun of other cultures - with as much absurdity as possible. The reaction to Bart Vs Australia was initially very negative but it’s become something of a national favourite in Australia itself - and why shouldn’t it be? If only The Simpsons’ visit to England in ‘The Regina Monologues’ was half as funny as this. (For the record I also wish Tony Blair wasn’t in it. Ugh.) In order to settle an argument with Lisa about which way the toilet water spins, Bart makes a collect-call to Australia and tricks a young boy into accepting the $900 charge. The family are then forced to take a trip there so Bart can make a public apology in front of their Parliament. That’s about it as far as plot goes. As for the jokes, they’re all winners, but it’s the style that makes Bart Vs Australia so memorable. Almost no other episode looks and sounds so distinct while being so consistently funny. The Australian accents, stereotypes and customs - from “chazwozzas” to “knifey-spoony” to “Just a lil’ kick in the bum” - are so profoundly stupid and inaccurate that it’s a miracle that it was taken so seriously. Fox received hundreds of angry letters after its initial broadcast. Fast forward to the 2010s and Australian newspaper The Age named it the funniest episode ever, and there was even a petition to change the official Australian currency to “Dollarydoos”. Time heals all wounds. That being said, I wonder what the Aussie Prime Minister thinks of this… Oi!! Mr Prime Minister!!!! ANDY!!!!!!!!

Homer The Smithers

Defining Quote Homer: Here are your messages: You have 30 minutes to move your car; you have 10 minutes; your car has been impounded; your car has been crushed into a cube; you have 30 minutes to move your cube.

Mr. Burns remains a very useful shorthand for illustrating extreme wealth. ‘Homer The Smithers’ captures him at his most unpleasant, ungrateful and feeble, which is part of the reason it’s comedy gold. Smithers takes a vacation due to stress, and chooses a replacement guaranteed to not outshine him. Obviously Homer is a perfect choice, but he tries extremely hard nonetheless, overworking himself into a state of permanent semi-conscious misery. Burns scolds him at every chance, culminating in Homer snapping and knocking his boss out cold. Burns gets some independence, Smithers gets fired, there are some scuffles, a prank phone call, some piano-moving, a grievous injury and then everything’s back to normal with a thank-you fruit basket on the table - The End. It’s a fairly straightforward plot, and these aren’t usually the ones that stick out in the mind. That being said, Homer’s good-nature combined with his magnified incompetence makes for one of the most joke-heavy episodes they ever put out. It’s breathless. It’s also a tough episode to write about. You definitely feel for Homer, but it’s not trying to make you cry or think too hard about politics or class. Any time you spend reading this could be spent watching him inserting fang-dentures or burning the cornflakes. You may as well try and right a geosocial critique of Laurel and Hardy - no one’s interested (and I don’t even know if geosocial critique is a thing that exists). However, it’s also the last “boringly perfect” entry on the list. Everything else to come is like nothing else that’s been on TV. In the meantime, watch this and make your day better.

Homer vs the Eighteenth Amendment

Defining Quote  Homer: To alcohol - the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.

Vice will be an interesting subject forever. There will always be conflict when it comes to the likes of drugs, gambling, food, smoking and, of course - the inescapable daddy of them all - booze. Statistically, alcohol is the fifth most dangerous recreational drug to the human body (far higher than more demonised substances like ecstasy and marijuana), yet it’s so ingrained in modern Western culture that trying to get rid of it would be an impossible task, right? Well, they tried it once, and for one peerless episode, Springfield tried it again. After the annual St Patrick’s Day celebrations go awry, alcohol is banned from the town and the remaining stocks of beer are taken to the dump and buried. Thanks to organised crime, Moe’s Tavern turns into a secret speakeasy (I mean “pet shop”) right under the nose of new police chief Rex Banner. Banner is a real treat - a humourless brown-clad cop who speaks in early 20th Century slang. His lines zip from outdated incomprehensibles (“Is some blind tiger jerking suds on the side?”) to extremely square after-school-special advice (“Baby turtles and alligators may seem like a cute idea for a pet… but they grow up.”) That being said, the episode doesn’t fully take off until the mafia’s import routes are cut off and it’s up to Homer to keep the drinks flowing. He exhumes the beer from the dump and imports it into Moe’s using hollow bowling balls and a system of underground pipes. In the irresistible category of “Homer is really good at something” episodes, this is the best of the bunch. It’s actually exciting and you’re rooting for him all the way, even when he starts brewing explosive gin in forty-two bathtubs. Plus it’s straight-up lovely when Homer and Bart team up for some righteous rule-breaking. It’s one of the most ambitious concepts the show attempted and it succeeds as a cinematic parody, a light-hearted history lesson, a philosophical chin-stroke and a continuous laugh riot. Oh wait, I forgot one thing - he filled the bowling balls with a funnel.

Lisa’s Substitute

Defining Quote Mr Bergstrom: “Goodbye, Lisa honey! It’ll be ok! Just read the note!”

I’m gonna get personal for a moment because there aren’t any other ways of talking about this episode. When I was eight, my teacher was ill for a week or so and a substitute was called in. His name was Mr Platt - probably mid-50s at the time, stern gaze, bushy eyebrows but great sense of humour. At one point I was talking at the back of the class and he shouted “YOU!”. I was expecting a bollocking but he decided to throw a curveball and asked me what music I liked instead. I said I liked “60s music” and his eyes lit up. (I also liked the Backstreet Boys but I failed to mention that.) He kept me back after school, gave me questions to answer and bands to research. He had a big impact on me. He didn’t talk to me like a kid, and he encouraged me to be inquisitive about my interests. I really wish I knew where he was because I have a lot to thank him for. Being a child is a scary time. You need to know that there’ll be a place for you when you grow up, especially when you start noticing what makes you different. When Miss Hoover is sick, her class is taught by substitute teacher Mr Bergstrom. Openly sensitive, funny, and passionate about learning, Mr Bergstrom is the father-figure Lisa feels she needs to nurture her gifts, and with whom she shares a profound mutual bond.

Mr Bergstrom: You’re gonna miss your brother’s antics. Lisa: When? Mr Bergstrom: When? When your life takes you places the rest of us have only heard about. Lisa: Place where my intelligence will be an asset and not a liability? Mr Bergstrom: Yes! There is such a place!

He’s also a far-too-vivid contrast to her own father. Fitting in is hard work, whether it’s at school or at home, and neither of these are easy for Lisa. This is mostly her story, but Homer eventually earns the spotlight too, gaining new depth and empathy in the last few minutes of the story. That being said, there’s no overshadowing the goodbye scene at the train station. Nothing. Some people arrive from the outside world, reshape your life for the better, and then are gone forever. They exist. There’s a place in the world for everyone. If we stop believing that, then we stop trying. As Lisa finds out, there are reasons to keep trying.

Bart’s Comet

Defining Quote Moe: Hey Homer, wait up, I wanna die too!

I’m terrified of Armageddon. Constantly. Call it an unwelcome obsession. It’s the state of mind that makes me smoke cigarettes, lie awake all night and fail to concentrate at work (where do you think I write all of these?). Amazingly, The Simpsons found a way of covering it. ‘Bart’s Comet’ is dark existential comedy at its most accessible, complete with a weather balloon with a big bum on it. Bart is given an extended detention, sentenced to help Principal Skinner with his amateur astronomy. He ends up discovering a comet by accident, which appears to be heading towards Springfield at a fantastic speed. Professor Frink devises a way of destroying it with a rocket, but the missile sails off course and destroys the only bridge out of town. Mass hysteria ensues. This episode was penned by the show’s most respected, reclusive and prolific writer, John Swartzwelder. He’s such a confounding character that some people literally doubt his existence. The only thing resembling an interview is a DVD commentary, during which Mike Scully telephoned Swartzwelder and recorded him without his knowledge. Most accounts of him describe a cantankerous, angry, conservative-libertarian gun-nut who loathes environmentalism, but who knows how much of this is true. Either way, it’s bizarre to think that a man with such a cartoonishly prickly reputation could write something with so much heart. It’s also bizarre that anyone could make this subject so funny. The scene in the cramped bomb shelter is one of the best set-pieces in comedy. By the end, the townspeople’s cut-throat dog-eat-dog mentality gives way to graceful resignation, singing Que-Sera-Sera on a hillside as they wait for death. Even though all’s well in the end, it’s hard to think of a more troubling or a more beautiful moment within the show. The fear of “the end” is often more than I can cope with and I’m not all that brave. That being said, this episode offers some kind of grounding - the chance that there might be more songs to sing is a reason to stay for the time being. Hell, it might yet show me how to die. Also, it turns out that Santa’s Little Helper and Snowball II sit on the couch together and secretly watch Lassie when everyone’s asleep! How charming is that!

Simpson and Delilah 

Defining Quote

Karl: A man’s suit should make him feel like a prince. It should cry out to the world “Here I am. Don’t judge me, love me!”

The way a TV show looks carries subliminal connotations. For instance, live TV uses a high frame-rate with a sharp picture because it’s easier to edit, but if you used this on Downton Abbey it would instantly appear cheap and disposable. This gets even easier to notice when you start talking about animation. From the start, The Simpsons didn’t look like a show for adults. It’s a cartoon, their skin is yellow, there’s a natural grotesqueness about it. Nonetheless, the writers were very ambitious and keen to challenge the audience’s expectations, whether through smart political satire, or a faithful re-telling of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven. In other words, they were adamant that it was not “just” a cartoon show. ‘Simpson and Delilah’ is one of the very best examples of this. It’s actually one of the most subtle episodes, but also one of the boldest, with an emotional core as pure as it is complex. Homer stumbles across Dimoxinil, a “Miracle baldness cure” that actually works. He charges the treatment to his workplace health insurance, and one sleep later, he wakes up with a full head of hair, more confident and happy than he’s been in his life. His new look and attitude is noticed by his boss Mr Burns, who promotes him to a well-paid executive position. He even gets to hire his own assistant, choosing a charismatic and confident man named Karl. And here we come to the heart and soul of the story. Played by the radiant and gravel-voiced Harvey Fierstein, Karl is hell-bent on making Homer’s life better - from hiring a singer for his and Marge’s anniversary, to providing him with a new suit to accentuate his professionalism and charm. There were some viewers who speculated, and still speculate, if Karl is gay and in love with Homer. In hindsight - DUH. Of course he is. That being said, he’s not an “issue of the week” like John Waters was in Homer’s Phobia; his sexuality isn’t hidden, nor is it a punchline. If anything, his queerness is part and parcel of what makes him so likable - a true rarity in 1990. He’s expressive of his feelings without ever overstepping his boundaries, is funny on his own terms, and is a happy, confident and dignified person who you’d love to have around. In order to make a point, he kisses Homer before a big speech, and if you remember this scene, you’ve witnessed the first man-on-man kiss on American TV. It would be 10 more years before this would happen in a non-animated form. Eventually, a suspicious (and reprehensible) Smithers finds the Demoxinil insurance forms, but Karl takes the blame before he has a chance to fire Homer. It’s not exactly a laugh-riot of an episode, and its pace is gentle, but the amount of craft and care that went into ‘Simpson and Delilah’ is both self-evident and extraordinary from start to finish. A love story with no losers, and most certainly “more than a cartoon”.

A Fish Called Selma

Defining Quote Troy: That’s right, boys! Troy’s back from the gutter, and he’s brought someone with him!

On the evening of May 27th 1998, Phil Hartman and his wife Brynn had a heated argument about her recent drug use, during which he threatened to leave her. Later that night, while under the influence of cocaine, she entered the bedroom where her husband slept and fatally shot him in the head. She killed herself some hours later. As a result of this, Hartman’s two recurring characters - crooked lawyer Lionel Hutz and washed-up film star Troy McClure - were permanently retired. Before his death, there was even talk of a full-length movie based around McClure, following his journey through rehab and subsequent career revival. Sadly, the closest we got was this. I say “sadly”. If you’re going to be the focus of only one solitary episode, it may as well be one of the best. ‘A Fish Called Selma’ is desperately funny. Troy McClure was always a memorable and distinctive character, but since he only ever appeared on TV shows within a TV show, there wasn’t room for much depth. Actually maybe “depth” is the wrong word - he’s as shallow and vain as you expect him to be and then some. In this case, he offers Marge’s sister Selma a date in exchange for allowing him to pass his eye test. However, when the paparazzi spot the pair together, he gets an unexpected career boost, culminating in a marriage. At this point we have to address the aquatic elephant in the room - the “romantic abnormality” which tanked his career and quite possibly the dirtiest joke in The Simpsons’ classic run. Troy McClure has sex with fish. In a nod to the likes of Tom Cruise, Michael Jackson and Kevin Spacey, strange rumours don’t seem all that strange when we’re talking about sinister weirdos. That being said, it’s so hard to dislike Troy as a character because he’s also a loser. Plenty of vulnerability, but not a shred of self-awareness. In his own way, he’s doomed, and the sincere affection that Selma gives him as she says goodbye is something he has no idea how to process. ‘A Fish Called Selma’ has so much to laugh at and talk about that there’s barely enough time to mention that Jeff Goldblum’s in it, and that this is the origin of the permanently quotable Planet of the Apes musical. In the meantime, pour one out for Phil Hartman, a great man who we can be fairly certain never slept with the fishes.

Mother Simpson

Defining Quote Homer: I thought I dreamed that kiss. 

Some questions aren’t worth pursuing. We didn’t need to know the origin of the Xenomorphs from Alien, or the childhood of that Darth Vader guy. On the other side of that argument, we have this. Who was Homer’s mother, and why isn’t she there? She has always been a conspicuous absence, portrayed only once in flashback from the waist down and almost never mentioned ever. Here, we get some welcome answers. Homer fakes his own death to get out of a working Saturday, and when his “demise” is reported in the paper, his mother comes looking for his grave. They meet and reunite in the cemetery after twenty-seven years, and the Simpson family gains a welcome new member. Homer is overjoyed to have his mother back, and Lisa finds an instant kindred spirit in her grandma. However, the secret of her disappearance is soon revealed. Mona Simpson was forced to go into hiding after she took part in the destruction of Mr Burns’ germ warfare lab in the 60s and is still technically a wanted criminal. By the end of the story, she has no choice but to return to the underground and leave Homer behind. Many point to ‘Lisa’s Substitute’ as the show’s emotional apex, but not only is ‘Mother Simpson’ just as bittersweet, resonant and sad, it’s also funny as hell. Among the many many highlights, we have a young Chief Wiggum curing his asthma, Homer tragically ruining a perfect meeting, Grampa claiming to be the Lindbergh baby to stall the police and Smithers taping over Burns’ Wagner collection. If anything, the jokes provide a contrast that makes the inevitable separation even more poignant.  Plus, Mona is an thoroughly loveable and memorable character. Played by the warm voice of Glenn Close, she’s affectionate, maternal, but fiercely self-reliant and intelligent. That being said, Dan Castellaneta as Homer might just take home the gold here.

Homer: She had a very good reason [to leave]. Marge: Which was?  Homer: ...I dunno... I guess I was just a horrible son and no mother would want me. Marge: Oh Homie come on! You’re a sweet, kind loving man. I’m sure you were a wonderful son! Homer: Then why did she leave me?

In Homer’s voice, that last line is soul-shattering. To see him bask in so much overdue love from a missing parent, only to have it snatched away, is a real cruelty. But as he says to her on their parting “At least this time I’m awake for your goodbye”. All that’s left as she drives away is silence, with Homer sitting on his car, entirely still and watching the stars. Don’t watch this alone - you’ll need a hug afterwards.

Last Exit To Springfield

Defining Quote Lenny Leonard: ...Dental plan!

It’s very clever. Almost too clever. Almost. Instead, it’s probably the funniest thing that’s ever been on television.

Quick Fun Fact Roundup

- The voice of Sideshow Mel is Dan Castellanetta doing an impression of Kelsey Grammar, the voice of Sideshow Bob.

- The Blue-Haired Lawyer is based on Roy Cohn, the chief counsel of Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s witch-hunts.

- There were plans for Hank Scorpio to be the lead antagonist for The Simpsons Movie, but these were scrapped in favour of the very unmemorable Russ Cargill.

- Homer’s voice actor Dan Castellanetta also plays the Robot Devil in Futurama, and the mentally unstable ice cream man in Hey Arnold!

- Marge’s voice actor Julie Kavner had it written into her contract that she would never have to promote The Simpsons on video. She is a sitcom veteran and won an Emmy in 1978. Her distinctive voice is due to a “bump” on her vocal chords.

- Moe The Bartender was modelled after the comedian Rich Hall.

- Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson, played the cartoon shoe who was murdered by Judge Doom in ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’.

- The catchphrase “Eat my shorts” was improvised by Cartwright at a table-read. It came from a joke-chant started by her school marching band.

- Cartwright is a member of the Church of Scientology. Cultwatch, a charity dedicated to providing advice and support for those whose friends and relatives had been indoctrinated into cults, was sued out of existence by Scientology. After this occurrence, Nancy Cartwright provided the voice of the switchboard, effectively turning the helpline into another outlet for the church.

- While almost all other cast members play multiple parts, Yeardley Smith plays Lisa and no one else. She did, however, provide the voice for Lisa Bella in ‘The Last Tapdance In Springfield’ and Lisa Jr from ‘Missionary: Impossible’.

- Hank Azaria, who voices multiple characters including Chief Wiggum and Moe, has a semi-regular role as David the Scientist in America’s “other” most-popular-sitcom ‘Friends’.

- Azaria based his performance of Wiggum on Edward G Robinson, and Frank Grimes on William H Macy.

- Dr Julius Hibbert has two long-lost brothers. One is revealed to be Bleeding Gums Murphy, the other works at the Shelbyville Orphanage and is still trying to find his sibling. Hibbert was originally intended to be a woman named Julia.

- The oldest regular cast member is Harry Shearer, voice of Principal Skinner, Ned Flanders, Mr Burns and a host of others. He is one of a very small handful of people to have seen the infamous “buried” film ‘The Day The Clown Cried’. This film was made by comedian Jerry Lewis and is a comedy about a clown who entertains children at a Nazi concentration camp. Incidentally, Hank Azaria based his performance of Professor Frink on Jerry Lewis.

- Harry Shearer is a friend and colleague of Christopher Guest and co-starred in his films This Is Spinal Tap and A Mighty Wind. In both of them, he plays the electric bass and double bass respectively. He and his wife own a record label called Courgette Records. His Spinal Tap bandmates guest-starred on ‘The Otto Show’.

El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer (The Mysterious Voyage of Homer)

Defining Quote Homer: “Just gimme some inner-peace or I’ll mop the floor with ya!”

There’s a spark of loneliness in all of us. It lives in single people; it lives in those with partners; it lives in the members of every tight-knit community, church, kibbutz, farm or sex-cult. It waits for that moment when you feel the interstellar coldness of the universe blow a breeze down your neck, and all your certainties are swallowed by doubt. Reality can be thrown off-balance by a significant life change, or by an ordinary working day - or, it seems, when you swallow a dozen Guatemalan insanity peppers. The Mysterious Voyage of Homer is The Simpsons’ greatest artistic achievement. It takes an intangible subject and makes it fun, beautiful and exploratory. Homer promises Marge that he won’t get drunk at the annual Chili Cook-off, and though he keeps that promise, he experiences a powerful hallucination brought on by Chief Wiggum’s extra-strong recipe. The trip sequence is brain-bending, from the liquid-skin movements to the Marge-mirage to the otherworldly sky textures. It’s the most visually spectacular the show ever got. It was also entirely animated by one person - director David Silverman who insisted on handling the project personally to ensure it was exactly what he wanted. And let’s not forget the space coyote, Homer’s spirit-guide played by (no joke) Johnny Cash. The show-runners originally asked Bob Dylan and thank goodness he turned it down, because Cash knocks it out of the park. (And seriously, can you imagine taking spiritual advice from Bob Dylan’s weedy shipwreck of a voice? Ugh.) For many (myself included), this sequence was their first crash-course in surrealism. There’s still nothing like it. Nonetheless, the episode’s emotional weight reveals itself when the trip ends, and an argument with Marge causes him to spiral down into an existential plughole. Homer’s desperate irrationale culminates in him smashing the bulb in a lighthouse (a less imaginative writer might have thrown in a straight-up suicide attempt). It’s only when Marge arrives to talk him back down to earth that he regains his perspective and love of life. For the record, this wouldn’t be at the top of the list if it wasn’t also hilarious. You’ve got Homer with his fabled chili-spoon, the extra-slow desert tortoise, Marge’s brief smoking habit, and - even though they’re pushed into the background - nearly every line from Bart and Lisa is a low-key classic. Comedy is seen as something of a “low” art form. If you’ve watched enough of The Simpsons at its best, you know that’s bullshit. Life is so often miserable. What makes it worthwhile is joy. This might come from the profound and mystical understandings we develop with others, or the unexpected sight of hundreds of pairs of hotpants falling into the ocean. Aye, the hotpants indeed. Silliness is art and seriousness is art - ‘The Mysterious Voyage of Homer’ is about as complete as art gets.