#just klaas things

[dianastrength]

"Ich weiß, was du letzte Staffelpause getan hast"

Wir lieben die rosa Wand.

Wir lieben Herzchenaugen und Cardigan-Joko.

Wir lieben die und die lieben sich.

Passt.

[fearsjay]

Früher: Ich bin nicht homophob, ich bin jokophob!

Heute: Ja kann ja sein, dass ich ihn erotisch finde. Wer weiß..

[flufftruck]

i think maak would make one of those forum posts that end up being reposted everywhere and i imagine one of said posts going:

hey i really fucking hate my stepdad but im required to learn 3 other lanuguages for my studies but i dont want to learn any of the ones he knows. does anyone have any cool recommendations for languages to learn? btw hes a linguist and speaks 11 languages and multiple dialects and 6 of them are non-tribal

[individualkarpal]

Mir fehlen die Worte für dieses Foto… für diesen Moment…

—> JUST SAYING: Wir reden hier von einem Moment kurz nachdem Joko den aktuellen Weltmeistertitel bei #DUDW gewonnen hat. 👀

*

Diese so natürlich wirkende Nähe.

Die Ruhe zwischen ihnen die das Bild für mich ausstrahlt.

Jokos (angedeuteter) Kuss auf Klaas‘ Schläfe und wie er Klaas nicht nur den Arm um die Schulter legt sondern auch noch, wenn man die Bewegung seiner Hand beachtet, gezielt nach ihm greift und ihn an sich zieht.

Klaas, der sich so selbstverständlich an Joko schmiegt, seine Hand auf dessen Brust ablegt. Und die Augen dabei schliesst?!?!😍

#Heaven Help♥️ #Insane Things JK do #imdead

[multi-fandom-imagine]

Day 16:Baking holiday cookies

Fandom:Criminal Mind's

Character: Spencer Reid

Naughty or Nice.

A/n: This should have been posted yesterday, I just been so tired.

"You know, Christmas wasn't alway's on December 25." Spencer gave you a smile as he watched you make the cookie dough.

Pausing, you rose your brows giving him a light grin as you tilted your head to the side. "Really?"

Spencer gave you a bright smile as he stepped forward leaning against the counter top. "Oh ya! While Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, the actual date of the big event is lost to history. There's no mention of December 25 in the Bible and many historians say Jesus was most likely born in the spring. Some historians posit the date was originally chosen because it coincided with the pagan festival of Saturnalia, which honored the agricultural god Saturn with celebrating and gift-giving." Doing his best to not go on a rant he watched as you placed the cookies into oven.

Shaking your head you had a small smile on your lips as you grasped his chin. "Do you have any other fun facts for me?"

Standing straight, he gave you a bright smile eagerly nodding his head."Oh ya, St. Nick was more generous than jolly.You probably already knew that the idea of Santa Claus came from St. Nicholas. The saint wasn't really a bearded man who wore a red suit; that look came much later. In the fourth century, the Christian bishop gave away his large inheritance to the poor and rescued women from servitude. In Dutch, his name is Sinter Klaas, which later morphed into Santa Claus."

It was cute seeing Spencer get excited over the smallest of things, you liked hearing him spout little random facts and he must be happy that no one is yelling at him to stop.

Hearing the oven beep, you took out the cookies then pressed a kiss to his cheeks. "While I love your cute little rambles, how about you help me decorate these cookies!"

Grinning, he nodded his head quickly grabbing an icing bag. "Okay!" Moving to stand next to you, Spencer gave you a smile. This was going to be a fun Christmas weekend.

[swugflower]

Okay since everyone is talking about Barbie, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, I want to share my favorite German television tale: #GoslingGate

Okay, it’s 2017 and these two silly German TV guys, Joko and Klaas, decide they want to have a quite fancy German TV price.

Since they would never win it the normal way they came up with a plan. They would manage that Ryan Gosling, very famous that year for La La Land, win a price. Naturally they faked a PR company and with just a few calls managed to talk the price show into agreeing to give Ryan Gosling such a price they wanted.

Thing is, they don’t know Ryan Gosling.

So… they faked their own Ryan Gosling. They called up some random chef from Munich called Ludwig - who doesn’t even speak English - and kinda and a little looks like Ryan Gosling.

Together with a huge team and a ridiculous plan (like forbidding the TV show to mention that Ryan Gosling would show up) they managed to get Fake!Ryan into a fucking LIVE SHOW, where this rando Ludwig, who very obviously is NOT Ryan Gosling, walked onto the stage and managed to get the price.

And at the award show they had people like Nicole Kidman and the camera like cuts to her, looking confused af and everyone is so lost and you just know the poor translators were trying their hardest to explain to the actual celebrations what just happened.

Against all odds these silly TV guys and some dude named Ludwig managed to fake Ryan Gosling and win/steal a prestigious price.

Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure:

And it is some of the funniest shit ever. It’s my favorite thing that ever happened.

It happened in 2017 and I regularly re-watch fucking GoslingGate. I get invested and excited everytime.

And, as a lovely little update and tie this all back to Barbie: dear Ludwig, chef from Munich, was at a premiere from Barbie as basically a stand in for Ryan Gosling.

And let me tell you, I screamed when I saw the pictures.

Anyway, xoxo I love Ludwig and I hope he’s having a great day

[etapereine]

oh, what a thing to do

@wtfanworkclassification stage 3: prompt -> yellow (231 words)

also on ao3.

it's both a surprise and not, when the unfortunate commissaire comes to find remco after the race. 

stand on enough podiums, and you learn to recognize the signs - even from a relatively inexperienced winner: eyes on him during the ceremony, a hand lingering a beat too long on his shoulder after photos. he'd just assumed that in this case "childhood friend" might have trumped "cocky stranger." remco's not disappointed to be wrong.

they'd been almost back to the bus, him and mattia and klaas, when the commissaire caught up with them, so it's a long walk back. he's always wondered, in a morbid sort of way, how a person gets chosen for that role. do the commissaires draw straws before the race? is it in a job description somewhere? measure sock heights. watch for sprint deviations. tell a guy the race winner wants to fuck him.

it helps, he's found, to have something to focus on besides the obvious - not because he's nervous, exactly. remco evenepoel doesn't really get nervous, and certainly not about the prospect of getting off with a hot guy. it's not always mutual, he knows, but instinct says in this case it might be. it's a flattering thought.

the commissaire leaves him outside the trailer, and remco's not shy about knocking.

matteo jorgenson is still wearing the yellow jersey from the podium, when he opens the door.

[galli-halli]

Sich aLS frEUnD ein superpeinliches Kuhkostüm anziehen, nur um Joko beim Lachen zu beobachten. Just Klaas things.

[charlie-rulerofhell]

Lord of the Lost - The electric plug of the iron maiden

So yesterday I stumbled across this interview with Chris in the new Sonic Seducer magazine. It was pretty short and didn't exactly give us the most specactular news, but as always, Chris had some nice things to say (such as about the bass track on 'The Curtain Falls', speaking up politically or participating at ESC again (ARD, I'm staring at you very intensely, you know what to do!)). And since I was on a short train ride anyway, I used the time to type down some translation for you all. Enjoy!

Lord of the Lost

The electric plug of the iron maiden*

(* the article purposefully doesn't use the band name 'Iron Maiden' here, but the literal German translation 'Eiserne Jungfrau', probably because the journalist thinks they're funny)

Christoph Kutzer

The very moment that the ESC-hype has cooled down, Lord of the Lost are back to continuous operation on various stages. Whether it's at the Agra hall of the WGT or in the Nokia Arena of Finnish Tampere: Energetic live shows are guaranteed. Then there are also the new songs on the extended edition of 'Blood and Glitter'. Chris Harms talked to us about the most recent events, the bass of Iron Maiden's subwoofer Steve Harris and about how Michael Jackson's guitarist found her way to a LOTL record.

Question: Right now, you are constantly alternating between playing club shows, festivals and support shows for Iron Maiden. Isn't that quite a challenge?

Chris: For us as a band it doesn't really matter where we're playing. It's very common to play at different festivals for a varying amount of stage time, on smaller and bigger stages. So we're used to that for a while now. Actually, all the logistics have become easier for us, since we now have an own crew member for every position and every thing that needs to be done. We [as a band] do not have to set up the stage nor do we need to take it down. Sometimes, the moment that the concert begins is the first time that I enter the stage, which I haven't even seen all day long. This way, we as a band get the chance to fully concentrate on doing what we're actually there for: making music. Plus, it offers many well-payed jobs for all the lovely people of our crew. For them of course, this modular setup is a challenge, with all the planning that needs to be done and the stage itself as a construction site, when you play a Maiden show one day, a club show the other, and then on the third day some open air concert.

Question: You are now touring with Iron Maiden for the second time. Have you noticed any differences in the audience?

Chris: That's hard to tell at this point, because as of now we only had one proper Maiden show this year, which took place in Tampere, Finland. We did know the Finnish audience since 2010, but only from festivals or performing as headliners, so it was definitely a different experience. But we'll continue our journey with Maiden in the next days. Just today, we have arrived in England, right now I'm enjoying the evening sun on some English highway rest stop, roughly hundred kilometres north of London.

Question: Did something change for you concerning the requirements? Did your show get bigger? The venues do have impressive sizes …

Chris: Well, the internal setup of Maiden's stage is the same as last year, it might just look different to the outside. This is why we could keep the foundation of our 2022 setup, while implementing some reasonable expansions. To make this tour, we had to ramp up quite a bit, because we practically have to offer a complete production where every single plug is our own. Maiden just gives us one big power plug, and they attach us to their light and sound system, but the rest is ours. Iron Maiden have a great, kind and helpful crew, we made some beautiful friendships there, and it's always an amazing teamwork.

Question: For the shows, you have brought a new opener, 'The Curtain Falls'. I was impressed by everything Klaas is playing there. Is that some hidden reference to Steve Harris?

Chris: Well, it actually is to some degree. After the Maiden tour of last year, I bought myself Steve Harris's signature model of the Fender P-Bass, kind of as a memory to this alleged once-in-a-lifetime experience. So this led to me writing one song on this exact bass, imagining the kind of song that I would like to open the summer shows with. I wanted to write something that, in my eyes, would be the perfect opener. That's how 'The Curtain Falls' came to be. And since all these bass lines from the demo in which I played every instrument on my own have shaped the song so much, we actually kept my original bass track for the final version of the song. Klaas said: 'Let's keep your track, it has so much spontaneity and soul, you cannot reproduce that for the album version. But I'm looking forward to playing that live.'

Question: Were 'The Curtain Falls' and 'noituLOVEr' only produced after the original record was completed? Since both songs are just on the newest edition.

Chris: Exactly, both songs were written when 'Blood & Glitter' had already been in press. All the other new songs were actually recorded together with the rest of the album in Finland, March 2022, but we wanted to keep them for the extended version. It would have been too many duets for the main record.

Question: One of those features has the guitarist Jennifer Batten, who has become quite a legend with her collaboration with Michael Jackson.

Chris: A friend of mine is playing the bass in Jennifer's solo band. He told me that she really enjoyed LOTL when he showed her some tracks that one time. So I gathered all my courage and asked him to ask her for a guest solo. She said 'yes' immediately. The little boy in me who had watched this legendary 'Live in Bukarest' concert of Michael Jackson on tv back then in the 90s, and who totally lost it seeing Jennifer Batten play, was very very happy once we found out that Jennifer would actually be part of a LOTL track.

Question: Since we're already at special moments: How did you experience your performance this year at WGT? Was that a little bit like coming home?

Chris: In a way, WGT is always like coming home. But this year I could finally put this really big checkmark behind another dream: For one time, being the headliner at WGT at the Agra hall.

Question: But apart from scene borders, you actually have one of the most colourful audiences you could imagine in front of a stage. Is the typical Lord of the Lost fan willing to face all these new surprises? Like the glitter currently, which might not have been that expected?

Chris: Hm. I think the glitter was actually not that surprising at all. It has always been a part of us. Maybe not to this extent or this concentrated. Also, luckily there is no typical Lord of the Lost fan. All of them are so unbelievably diverse, and I think that's fantastic!

Question: In November, you will play at Gothic Meets Klassik again. Then there is the LORDFEST in December. I would imagine both events to be very preparation-heavy. Where do you get all that time from?

Chris: Well, the Gothic Meets Klassik event has been prepared for years. We were supposed to play there in 2020 or 2021, I cannot properly recall, but then it had to be postponed. So all the notes have already been written. For everything else, we do have three rehearsal days in Leipzig, right before the show. That's it. Which means that the hardest part of the preparation for me right now is to actually buy a nice suit. For the LORDFEST, most of the preparation is done by our crew and the local production, so it's all in the hands of other people who'll get the instruction from us to arrange everything as we want it to be, and within a certain given budget. The only thing we need to do is come up with a setlist, get in touch with some surprise guests, then rehearse for two or three days, and then we can already get on stage.

Question: I feel like over the years you have taken a more and more political stance. Was that just not this visible before when you hadn't yet been this much in the spotlight or was there a growing need not to leave certain things uncommented?

Chris: I have always been someone who wouldn't keep quiet about these things, but back then I was quicker to get intimidated by those people who tell you to 'make music and not politics', which is utter bullshit of course. Apart from that, I gotta say that I still don't see it as political to think that Nazis are shit. But yeah, when I have to stand up and fight for a freer, more tolerant and sympathetic world, then I will always do that. Online and in real life.

Question: Will you be watching the upcoming ESC together as a band event and revel in your memories?

Chris: If we do find the time, we will do that. But even more importantly, we will apply again every single year. Even when it's practically a given that we won't be allowed to participate again after having come last once. But the experience was so awesome, we need to have that again!

[cosmic-bat]

I originally didn’t want to make a post about the London meet and greet because I don't want to come across like I'm bragging or anything but if anyone (@spooky-cowfish especially) really does want to read about it then here you go...

So we go into the main gig hall and the boys are all standing at the barrier, well Chris is straddling it and has trouble getting over which was quite funny. They count us a few times as everyone filters in which made it felt like a school trip😂.

After the initial hello they say they're gonna do individual photos and talking/questions so they all split off in different directions. Pi walks straight towards me and my new queue friend and we were not prepared 😂 we awkwardly say hi and take photos, he asked if I wanted anything signed and I had a small rainbow flag but I'd forgotten a pen so he said he'd come back to sign it. Can I just say his eyes are so piercing!!! Like woah!!!! He has great energy too.

Next I went to Gared and the awkwardness had gone so I managed to chat and joke with him more. He's super nice and quick witted, very funny. I managed to borrow a pen from someone and made a stupid joke about him being left handed and he went "No I'm just trying it out" 🤣😭 I'm sorry Gared. I told him to just sign anywhere but he said "No, I have to do it properly" he's so sweet!!

Then I went to Klaas and omfg, first thing I did was ask for a hug so we hugged and I squeezed his waist (it had to be done). He is so lovely, we chatted about fancy venues and he bragged about how he saw ghost years ago in a nice small venue, his favourite Ghost song is Mummy Dust btw! I can't lie, I was just staring at his long hair and cute glasses for a bit without realising🤣.

Then I got to Nik and he was the most prepared cuz he actually brought a pen lmao. Anyway he's super chill and easy to talk to, he asks you where you're from and how far you've travelled to get there. After he signed my flag I say danke cuz it just comes out naturally now and he looks me dead in the eye and says "You're welcome" LOL.

Before leaving him Pi was walking past so I called out and asked for him to use Nik's pen to sign my flag and ofc he was like "Oooo what pen am I using?😏" Nik handed him the sharpie and was like "This one, not the other one down boy. That's later" and I was standing there like 👁👄👁 wtf is happening right now.

And then Chris was left. He's just so lovely and sweet too omg! When he took my phone to take a selfie (I think we had all decided the boys to take the pics cuz they're good at it lol) he somehow changed the camera to video and omg it's my favourite thing, he says "It's filming!" when we realise it's a video and I've had it going around and around in my head for days🤣. I get a selfie with him and then he takes a pic of our shoes cuz apparently his new photo thing is shoes. My mouth works faster than my brain so I say "Wikifeet?" as a joke and he's like "No it's not a kink thing."

Anyway I ask him to sign the flag and am about to shout for anyone with a pen I can borrow again but Chris is like "I'll go steal Nik's." and he just runs off to get it🤣. I go to help him hold the flag tight so it's easier to sign like I did with the others but he's there holding it against his thigh figuring out which side is the right one😂.

Then it's the group photo in the final minutes, so everyone is walking towards the barrier, I am stupidly walking backwards and fucking walk into Nik omfg PSA: look where you're walking otherwise you may bump into a drummer! Klaas appears next to me out of nowhere then he kneels down on the floor (you can see this in the London group photo lmao), so I'm like 'oh god I'm gonna have to get down there too otherwise it'll look weird' so I awkwardly get on the floor and copy his pose cuz no way am I gonna be down there on both my knees😂 A few photos were taken with count downs done in multiple languages. Then Klaas stands back up so effortlessly and I'm there struggling cuz my platform boots are heavy. Once I'm up Klaas says "You made it!" like ha ha yeahhhh.... I should start working out😂

Finally we say bye then us lot get taken into a corridor that's on the other side of the venue instead of being let back out into the queue outside. So I'm there chatting away to my new friend and I pull out google maps to show her where abouts I live cuz we want to meet up again. But all of a sudden I feel a hand on my shoulder and a sweet "Excuse me" and I turn to find Pi behind us trying to get past LMFAO OOPS.

Honestly it was the best night of my life.

Although, I have to say one more thing. It was interesting to watch the standard queue being let in and everyone rushed to the middle and Pi's side, I was like 'well, more Klaas for me then hehe'.

[legiomiam]

Tagged by @awritingcaitlin x8 PART 4 OF 4. my words are: bring, crime, battle, clear, building, shoot, smirk, space, spot, sweet

I’ll tag: @mariahwritesstuff, @mr-writes, @mjjune

your words are: help, jacket, cook, dark

Some backstory: these are going to be from scenes I did before This Dark And Divine Place was nothing but vibes. When Rashka and Bahram (guess who found out they were spelling their own character’s name wrong) were just starting out.

Some character’s names were changed- any form of Verrance/Verence/Varence, etc are Klaas. Sonya is Marjorie. Neecey/Neesy is the nickname the kids gave to Synthian before she had a name.

Also the tense shifts ALOT because I did not write any of this in order and bounced around so this isn’t stuff A to Z it’s just scenes I wrote for sprinting to get a feel of the story. So when the timer ran out I stopped writing the scene.

I’ll apply appropriate warnings… but most of this is probably NSFW

☙❦❧

BRING

I wondered if Thema could tell, but not wanting to breach any of their trust I kept my mind in my own head and their own thoughts in theirs — even if they screamed at me. I wanted to mention it to Thema to see if I could train that.

I was good at keeping thoughts from making their way through my shields but when they were thought with such emotion it was like running into a wall at the speed of a runaway carriage. The thoughts would splinter apart like wood and bone and my own mind would scream — begging to be put out of such misery.

Would they all leave me on the streets, angry when finding that I could do such a thing?

So I kept it to myself, I kept each thought even those from the hunters that worried that I would sneak into the town and feed on the children, tear apart the women. They even worried that I would seduce the men much like I seduced Bahram into bringing me back each time.

The distrust there hurt but I understood why, our blood was at war since we were clay and stones, since we were cooling corpses being brought back to life.

☙❦❧

CLEAR

Bahram turned and glared, his mouth opened and I slammed into him. Shock clear on his face as my fists connect with it, he moves to stop me — to shift once more — but I push my way into his mind and hold it. Shock was there as he couldn’t move so I could hit him over and over.

The man Naveen was arguing with in the hall jumped the barrier ready to incapacitate me. Without looking at him, staring into wide hazel eyes instead I sense the man behind me freeze. His heart raced then turned into a slow sluggish thump as his veins darkened. Patches of frostbite appear on his skin and air leaves him in puffs.

It’s not the blood of my father in me that should be feared.

Bahram kicked as I stole the air from his lungs, then gasped to suck in much needed breath as I moved off him, the man behind me dropped shivering as his skin went grey, it would be reversible with proper healing. 

I let the hold on the prince’s mind go as I walked from the training center, a small rope was what I balanced on ready to fall off.

They were lucky that I was not my mother.

☙❦❧

BUILDING

Fuck. Him.

I wanted to bare my teeth and growl. I wanted to rip his throat out.

He already stopped my food supply and I knew from his own putrid thoughts he wanted me weak so I would agree to marriage with him for the chance to survive.

I would not agree, there was nothing for me. Once I may have been his, may have longed for a seat on top of my family’s throne with his kingdom uniting with mine. Although now that I know just how cruel he is I have no want, no need to ally myself with such a monster. The sound of the building of burning fae children that was his men’s doing roared in my head, mighty and full of unprecedented rage

☙❦❧

SHOOT

I was faster than the Fae behind me, but Bahram was trained for years on how to be defensive against my kind. Plus whatever this shifting was, where he was and wasn’t. An ankle hooked around mine and I hit the mud, grass freezing.

In rage everything was shooting from me in waves, ice forming in thick spears after him.

Wear her out and she’ll be done.

Krishorn’s thought was loud and I already knew that was the tactic, catching me off guard to apprehend me, see what threat I was. That’s what training was to see if I had a limit and what it was.

I let myself glimpse his thoughts and perfectly timed when he would appear behind me, ice shooting out and slicking under his feet. Satisfied in the balance he lost.

☙❦❧

SMIRK

He hummed as his hand tangled in my hair as he slid up enough to lay his back against the pillows, who needs that many pillows?

“I’ve had you every way I could think of and I have a few places I’d like to revisit, but my favorite.” That fucking smirk, “is this.” His hand slid around so his thumb brushed against my mouth.

☙❦❧

SPACE

He did need my hand in marriage to join two of the most powerful bloodlines in the council. My limbs grew heavy and with the anxiety the cold began to grow and I saw the men holding on to me puff out white clouds of quickly cooling air.

The frozen shards shot out in my frightened state and soon the guards had to let me go as I encased myself in a frozen solid immovable cage. Spikes started to form out of the ground to keep them at bay.

From inside my safe space

☙❦❧

SPOT

A rage filled me and just as suddenly went out like blowing out a candle when Nessy chirped and swiped at Johan. He took a step back, hand still holding the basket as Nessy growled louder, her body shifting onto her hind legs coming to be a couple feet taller than him. Her black glassy eyes never leave him when Reign begins to wail. Really wail for the first time.

Everyone stared at the moving basket in shock as I pulled myself together and struggled towards it, Reign getting louder than I’ve ever heard him scream.

I gently take the basket and set it down, pulling back the blanket to make a noise at him from his hiding spot. A bubbly hiccup and sniffle, he coos and waits for Neesy to chirp back.

The feeling of what mental capabilities my blood has given him.

I pull my baby from the basket and wrap him back in the blanket and hold him close, eyes ever shifting to the new threat of Hunters who could also kill him.

Kill us.

☙❦❧

SWEET

Dirty fingers pry my jaw down, they probe my gums and push hard around the slits, it’s painful having my fangs forcibly withdrawn from their resting spot. He tasted like stale tobacco and the too sickly sweet smell of rot. Of dozens of vampyres that have been slain by these hands, nowadays anyone could be a fanger. Any human who thinks that they’re protecting their own but go the illegal way about it by selling parts of my kind on the markets.

But I am tired, so tired of everything that has happened, I’m tired and pissed. Pissed because the man that I wanted most in the whole entire world couldn’t tell me goodbye, and then somehow was slain at the hands of a monster.

[pevekay]

Brian Klaas: The Fluke

The idea that small changes have Ripple effects that produce profound consequences.

There is literally no event in which it's unimportant, everything is an infinite number of causes and effects that fit together in an interlocking pattern that produces the outcomes of our lives.

We control nothing but we influence everything, it's a subtle Paradigm Shift about how you think about the way the world works.

We have the illusion that we've basically controlled the world we basically have tamed it. We control nothing but we influence everything and I like that message so much more than the illusion of control.

Chaos Theory: a fancy way of saying, if you have a slight problem with your measurement or there's a slight tweak initially in the system over time it can blow up to a huge shift.

I think like basically our lives are somewhere between Chaos and Order and sometimes things are going to happen because they just work or they are sort of Trends or whatever and other times this tiny little shift changes everything forever.

You have this mentality

a) that everything happens for a reason, there's a grander purpose to everything and

b) that when you think about the way that you're supposed to live that you are a purely strategic actor who's in control of all all of the outcomes which you know.

I genuinely feel like I have no Cosmic purpose I don't think there's anything wrong with that I think I still have an influence on the world I still think I care about a huge number of people and I want to live my life as best I can.

Contingency and Convergence in evolution Contingency is the sort of stuff happens, theory of evolution and convergence is the everything happens for a reason version of evolution.

When a little bit of noise enters the system everything can go wrong and so you know I do worry about that, the the sort of Holy Grail of efficiency and optimization has made us much more prone to the upheavals from so-called Black Swan events.

I would rather have a world in which we have slightly less efficiency, slightly less optimization, but more slack in the systems, more give in the systems so that there are fewer catastrophes.

Some people believe that people get where they are, essentially because of what they did and some people believe that context is really terribly important.

We're pattern detection machines who make sense of the world through stories that have clear-cut causes and effects. We basically exist in a world in which false positives where you sort of falsely attribute patterns are something where it's potentially annoying whereas false negatives where there is a pattern and you don't detect are deadly and that's asymmetrical. So our brain has basically been fine-tuned by Evolution to detect patterns and there are million ways this is the case I mean if you've ever seen images in a cloud if you've ever seen you know toast that looks like a face that is all part of the same cognitive architecture. So we've got this sort of you know pattern detection machine that tells stories to make sense of the world through causal narratives that are often incorrect but they're very comforting. What we do is we stitch together a neat and tidy narrative through the messiness of history.

Superstition is basically the byproduct of the causally unexplainable, the sort of random and I think one of the reasons why we don't have Superstition in as as prominently in in sort of rich countries as you know was in the past is because we have the illusion that we've basically controlled the world we basically have tamed it.

When we don't have a reason for something our brain invents it and that is the way we make sense of the world because it's just not evolutionarily useful to be bewildered by things it's so much more adaptive for our survival to infer cause and effect.

I think the main thing that I have sort of internalized in researching this book (Fluke) about the arbitrariness and randomness of the world is there's so so much stuff we don't understand.

Every action every moment of Our Lives is both the culmination of every single thing that came before us in exactly the pattern it had right from The Big Bang onward and also that we are therefore part of that story where every decision we we ever make every person we talk to every moment of kindness or cruelty all of that is shaping how the world will be for someone a hundred or thousand or even if humans exist you know a million years in the future.

How do you know that the past is going to be like the future?

if the world is rapidly shifting in its causal Dynamics, those patterns that you use to to basically drive the algorithm become more dangerous and I think this is the stuff that we don't always grapple with.

What AI is basically doing is, it's taking patterns from the past on training data and it's then trying to navigate a future now that has always been a problem. So I'm worried about turning over critical decision- making to AI in a world in which underlying cause and effect Dynamics are more fluid than ever before.

[flufftruck]

Igh (ī-gəh) is a good name for Klaas sister

Iggh or iigh even

[2bpoliticallycurious]

On Democracy In one small paragraph, Kahn outdid himself. He: *Dismissed the importance of democracy as a political issue. *Disclosed that the Times coverage is poll driven. *Asserted that coverage of the economy and immigration is favorable to Trump. *Whined that more coverage of democracy was tantamount to becoming a partisan publication.

Here’s what [Joe Kahn, executive editor of The New York Times] said: "It’s our job to cover the full range of issues that people have. At the moment, democracy is one of them. But it’s not the top one — immigration happens to be the top [of polls], and the economy and inflation is the second. Should we stop covering those things because they’re favorable to Trump and minimize them? I don’t even know how it’s supposed to work in the view of Dan Pfeiffer or the White House. We become an instrument of the Biden campaign?" [color/emphasis added] (Smith had asked Kahn to respond to Pfeiffer, a former Obama official, who recently complained that the editors at the Times  “do not see their job as saving democracy or stopping an authoritarian from taking power.”)

That one paragraph, posted on social media by NYU professor Jay Rosen, elicited a storm of critiques.

Cartoonist Ruben Bolling was among those upset by Kahn’s dismissal of democracy as a key issue. [emphasis added] "Hate to Godwin’s Law this, but what if the Berlin Bugle in 1931 said, Hitler may be a threat to democracy, but polls show that most Germans are most concerned about Communism and the Jewish problem. A journalist’s job is not to reflect the polls, but to cover the objectively important stories." [color/emphasis added]

University College London professor Brian Klaas wrote: "It is insane to me that someone in this role doesn’t understand that democracy is the superstructure for literally everything else. Democracy isn’t an issue that matters because of public opinion. It’s *the* issue that makes free public opinion possible." [color/emphasis added]

Veteran political observer Norm Ornstein wrote: "This is both cringeworthy and frightening. I can’t say it is sleepwalking to dictatorship. He is not sleeping. It is marching in that direction." [color/emphasis added]

I have been very frustrated by the The New York Times election coverage. Now I know why.

It is beyond absurd that Kahn thinks that if the NY Times informs its readers about the current attempts by the right to destroy our democratic republic, it would somehow make the NY Times an "instrument of the Biden campaign."

No, it would be fulfilling one of the major purposes of a free press in a democratic republic--to speak truth to power and to inform the populace of real dangers to our democratic institutions.

[edited]

[See more quotes from the article about Kahn's quote under the cut.]

Entrepreneur and writer Anil Dash concluded: "Just so you know, NYT fully believes they have no obligation to stop the fascist attack on America. They’ve finally said so explicitly. Act accordingly." [color/emphasis added]

Many objected to Kahn’s argument that democracy is a partisan issue. [emphasis added] Extremism researcher Mark Pitcavage wrote: "This quote strongly suggests the exec editor of the NYT can’t even think of democracy as an issue other than as a Biden campaign strategy." [color/emphasis added]

OG blogger Heather “Digby” Parton wrote: "This is so, so tiresome. Nobody says it’s his job to “help” Joe Biden. It would be nice if they could find it in their hearts not to sabotage him though." [color/emphasis added]

Others were horrified that Kahn breezily suggested that the economy and immigration were favorable stories for Trump. [emphasis added] Journalist and author James Surowiecki wrote: "If the NYT covers it accurately, the economy is not an issue that is 'favorable to Trump.'” [color/emphasis added]

A Twitter user named Hank Hoffman wrote: "The Exec. Editor of @nytimes  believes immigration, the economy, & inflation are issues 'favorable to Trump.' "Just to take immigration, why would a plan for militarized mass deportations & concentration camps be 'favorable to Trump?' How’s a STRONG economy 'favorable to Trump?'" [color/emphasis added]

Some took offense at the notion that the Times was so poll driven. [emphasis added] Journalist Reed Richardson wrote: "Conceptualizing democracy as a kind of niche issue that a free press should only prioritize in coverage according to how many people rate its importance in a poll is a huge tell about why the NYTimes’s current election coverage has been so myopic, timid, and consistently unable to meet the moment." [color/emphasis added]

Others thought that was just a cop-out of an excuse. [emphasis added] University of Illinois professor Nicholas Grossman wrote: "Biden’s age isn’t among voters’ top issues in polls, but the NY Times made it a recurring top story anyway Voters sure didn’t say they care about the president of Harvard, but the Times made that the number one story for days. When NYT editors care, they don’t defer to polls." [color/emphasis added]

I encourage people to read the entire article. It is worth it.

“But critics like me aren’t asking the Times to abandon its independence. We’re asking the Times to recognize that it isn’t living up to its own standards of truth-telling and independence when it obfuscates the stakes of the 2024 election, covers up for Trump’s derangement, and goes out of its way to make Biden look weak.”

— New York Times editor Joe Kahn says defending democracy is a partisan act and he won’t do it

[27timescinema]

INTERVIEW – GIORGIO GOSETTI

By Pau Canivell (ES) // Photos © Klaas Mertens (BE)

Giorgio Gosetti is the General Delegate of the Giornate degli Autori, the parallel section of the Venice Film Festival. I had the pleasure to conduct this interview with him during the final days of this intensive period, so I could ask him about the selection process of the films that I had to judge as a member of the 27 Times Cinema jury.

We just announced that Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person is the winner of the Giornate degli Autori this year. As the General Delegate of this section, did you expect this movie to win the award when you were making the selection?

Well, partly yes, partly not. First of all, I have to mention that all the selection belongs to Gaia Furrer, the Artistic Director, so she decided to include the film. Personally, I was firstly happy because from the very second time in the history of Giornate, we have a special attention to the cinema from Quebec. They came several times. We discovered a couple of great directors, like Denis Villeneuve or Jean-Marc Vallée. So, to have a newcomer, a woman, and a fresh talent, was a pleasure. Secondly, this kind of film, it's in a way my idea of a good selection because it deals with a genre.

Is it possible to know if you had a favourite film during the selection process?

I have to respond with three titles, but the others are to me on the same level for very different reasons. One thing I like more in this selection is the variety, so I think that in this sense Gaia Furrer made a wonderful work. My personal cup of tea is a film which is not in competition: Photophobia, a documentary. I was really touched and moved by this film. Secondly, Humanist Vampire… is a very good one for me, because it's a film open to the audience, which is so important to me. Thirdly, I think that the Malaysian film, Snow in Midsummer, was a masterpiece. I think that, especially in Asia and the US, it could be understood, and it's the confirmation of a real talent. But this is a very, very personal point of view. If I was together with Gaia at the time of the selection, probably I would have chosen the same films.

Since you mentioned the documentary Photophobia, this year we haven't seen any documentary in the official competition. When you are making the selection, is it one of your main goals to always incorporate a documentary?

I prefer to include them in the official selection, and even to include them in the official competition. This is the reason why we don't have different ways for documentaries and fictional films. And together with Gaia, we were discussing this yesterday. We may have to be more brave and take the opportunity to include a documentary or two or three.

Did you consider including Photophobia in the main competition?

Yes, but then we decided to put it outside. When you see a film in April or May, you're not sure about the final number of films. But you have to keep in mind that you have just ten places. Maybe we have to learn this lesson. If we are really convinced about one documentary, we have to put it in the competition. This year it was a little bit more complicated because we received 1,200 films.

You also mentioned the diversity this year. As a member of the jury, I wanted to ask you if you try to think about a common theme when you are programming a selection? The competition started with Oceans are the real continents, and we had Humanist Vampire... just in the middle, which was very refreshing and made a lot of sense. The section finished with another light-hearted movie, The Summer with Carmen. Are those some of the reasons for the order?

Yes, the first thing that I can say is that it's important not to have a concept in your mind, you have to face the single movies and to be in love with them or not. In every kind of programme, you discover that in a way, your choices were driven by common sense, and a single theme appears in front of you. The common theme of this year’s section is generosity. The idea that the only chance humanity has to overcome this terrible moment is to be generous, is to be together with each other. Being a film festival programmer is just like being a music composer. You have to keep your ears to the music. It's rhythm. And you're right, if we have a film able to refresh the section [like Humanist Vampire...] you have to put it more or less in the middle.

In addition, Oceans are the real continents is the movie that stayed with us the most. So it makes a lot of sense for us that it was the opening film because it just kept improving in our minds as days passed by.

The decision to put it on the first row was good for the jurors because when you see ten movies, maybe the first one you see fades in your memory.

To end the interview, I wanted to ask you: what do you think that GdA provides to the Venice Film Festival as a whole that perhaps other sections don't fulfil?

I'm competitive, so I really want the best for the Giornate. But I think that we work for the same goal [as the other sections of the festival]. Of course, we try to have a shape, an idea, a brand able to be recognized. Once we have a film we want, sometimes it happens that it ends in another section. Gaia and I belong to different generations. I'm in love with the other programmers, but I don't trust them. I think that every one of us tries to do the best for himself and to save his point of view and his arguments, to convince a director or a producer. Gaia is much more open. She's younger, and that’s a good thing. She discusses with the others, with Alberto, with Joana, with other sections. Maybe it's a good approach because it's less competitive if the others understand our point of view. To be a community is always a good thing.

[berlinini]

LOL! The club mate question, you asked me that last year when Louis was about to come to Germany for the late night show with Klaas hahah. I don’t think he has but he probably should😭

just the same thoughts bouncing between the corners of my brain like that DVD thing 😭

ok then can someone ASK him so we can settle the debate... imagine how hilarious it would be, à la Sergio interaction ("have you tried club mate" "clubbing, mate?")