#mcgarr

[myburntwritings]

In order: Lou Ditaranto as Iphigenia/Hekate Jordan Ajadi as Polydorus Kathryn McGarr as Hecuba Georges Hann as Apollo

[nodynasty4us]

I read the article, and their supposed grounds are just as stupid as I expected:

"The absurdity of radical Democrat judges removing Donald Trump from the ballot in Colorado will be a stain on the American political system for decades. By their very own interpretation of the law, Joe Biden is 100% not eligible to run for political office," the press release read. "Democrats' insane justification to remove Trump can just as easily be applied to Joe Biden for his 'insurrection' at the southern border and his alleged corrupt family business dealings with China."

I'm putting these yahoos' names in the tags so they are findable if they ever run for higher office.

Republican lawmakers in three swing states have announced their plan to remove President Joe Biden from their state ballots

Aaron Bernstine of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Cory McGarr of the Arizona House of Representatives and Charlice Byrd of the Georgia House of Representatives released a joint statement on Thursday announcing their plan to remove Biden from the 2024 general election ballots in those three states.

Newsweek reached out to Bernstine, McGarr and Byrd via email and phone, as well as the White House and Biden's campaign via email for comment.

[feminismisstillahatemovement]

Three Republican state lawmakers are drafting legislation to remove President Joe Biden from ballots in Georgia, Arizona, and Pennsylvania, Breitbart News exclusively learned Friday.

The three state representatives who are drafting the three bills are:

Pennsylvania Rep. Aaron Bernstine (R)

Georgia Rep. Charlice Byrd (R)

Arizona Rep. Cory Mcgarr (R)

The state representatives’ aim is to fight back against the Democrats’ so-called “lawfare” used to attack former President Donald Trump. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in a 4-3 opinion that the United States Constitution’s “Insurrection Clause” blocks Trump from appearing on the state’s presidential ballot.

“We are joining forces to introduce legislation to REMOVE Joe Biden from the ballot in Georgia, Arizona, and Pennsylvania,” the lawmakers told Breitbart News. “The absurdity of radical Democrat judges removing Donald Trump from the ballot in Colorado will be a stain on the American political system for decades. By their very own interpretation of the law, Joe Biden is 100% not eligible to run for political office.”

“Democrats’ insane justification to remove Trump can just as easily be applied to Joe Biden for his ‘insurrection’ at the southern border and his alleged corrupt family business dealings with China,” they continued.

“Colorado radicals just changed the game and we are not going to sit quietly while they destroy our Republic. To be clear, our objective is to showcase the absurdity of Colorado’s decision and allow ALL candidates to be on the ballot in all states,” they wrote. “To do that, we must fight back as Republicans against the communists currently running our great country.”

Republicans were immediately incensed by the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision. Many floated ideas to block Biden from various state ballots. Texas Republicans threatened to take action predicated on the Biden administration’s open border policies, but no action was taken.

“While GOP elites are asleep at the wheel, the Democrats are very serious about destroying the American Republic,” political strategist Cliff Maloney told Breitbart News. “Thank God for patriots like Aaron Bernstine, Charlice Byrd, and Cory McGarr for stepping up to FIGHT back.”

[somerabbitholes]

Books you would recommend on this topic? Colonial, post colonial, and Cold War Asia are topics that really interest me. (Essentially all of the 1900s)

Hello! An entire century is huge and I don't quite know what exactly you're looking for, but here we are, with a few books I like. I've tried organising them, but so many of these things bleed into each other so it's a bit of a jumble

Cold War

1971 by Srinath Raghavan: about the Bangladesh Liberation War within the context of the Cold War, US-Soviet rivalry, and the US-China axis in South Asia

Cold War in South Asia by Paul McGarr: largely focuses on India and Pakistan, and how the Cold War aggravated this rivalry; also how the existing tension added to the Cold War; also the transition from British dominance to US-Soviet contest

Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World by Robert B. Rakove: on the US' ties with the Nonaligned countries during decolonisation and in the early years of the Cold War; how US policy dealt with containment, other strategic choices etc

South Asia's Cold War by Rajesh Basrur: specifically about nuclear buildup, armament and the Indo-Pak rivalry within the larger context of the Cold War, arms race, and disarmament movements

Colonialism

India's War by Srinath Raghavan: about India's involvement in World War II and generally what the war meant for South Asia politically, economically and in terms of defense strategies

The Coolie's Great War by Radhika Singha: about coolie labour (non-combatant forces) in the first World War that was transported from India to battlefronts in Europe, Asia and Africa

Unruly Waters by Sunil Amrith: an environmental history of South Asia through British colonial attempts of organising the flow of rivers and the region's coastlines

Underground Revolutionaries by Tim Harper: about revolutionary freedom fighters in Asia and how they met, encountered and borrowed from each other

Imperial Connections by Thomas R. Metcalf: about how the British Empire in the Indian Ocean was mapped out and governed from the Indian peninsula

Decolonisation/Postcolonial Asia

Army and Nation by Steven Wilkinson: a comparative look at civilian-army relations in post-Independence India and Pakistan; it tries to excavate why Pakistan went the way it did with an overwhelmingly powerful Army and a coup-prone democracy while India didn't, even though they inherited basically the same military structure

Muslim Zion by Faisal Devji: a history of the idea of Pakistan and its bearing on the nation-building project in the country

The South Asian Century by Joya Chatterji: it's a huge book on 20th century South Asia; looks at how the subcontinental landmass became three/four separate countries, and what means for history and culture and the people on the landmass

India Against Itself by Sanjib Baruah: about insurgency and statebuilding in Assam and the erstwhile NEFA in India's Northeast. Also see his In the Name of the Nation.

I hope this helps!

[valiantarcher]

Fortnight of Books: 2024

Day 4:

Favorite author you discovered this year: I picked up a Mary Johnston book instantly when I found it at a booksale this year, but that's less a new favourite author as it was a hope that a second book by her would be as entertaining as the first. Similarly, while I enjoyed the two short stories I read by Patricia McGarr this year, I haven't rushed to see if I can find more yet. So, an alternate:

A book you enjoyed well-enough but wasn’t a stand-out The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne.

Author you read the most in 2024? Patricia Wentworth.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I recently listened to four new (to my collection) episodes of Daniel Kitson on the radio in 2006. They were a funny, occasionally cringe-worthy bit of history, and I had lots of stuff to say about them that I couldn’t explain very well in a Tumblr post. But the only thing that is still bothering me about those episodes, enough so I need to make a post of it, is the new stuff in the saga of Kitson and Canadian music.

(I've just finished writing this post, and I'm coming back to add a cut here because it is too long. Far too long. But it does have some YouTube videos of great Canadian songs in it.)

Daniel Kitson has a long and frustrating history with Canadian music on his radio shows. I first noticed this history when, in his 2006 Resonance radio show, he played the Barenaked Ladies’ cover of Lovers in a Dangerous Time, and he did not acknowledge that it's a cover. Even though he did usually acknowledge that for covers - he'd say who was singing that song, and then he'd say who wrote it.

Then, in 2018, Kitson played the Barenaked Ladies' cover again, and again, back announced it as a Barenaked Ladies song, and did not say it was a cover. Then, in 2023, he finally played the original version of that song. The original version, for anyone who doesn't know, is by Canadian folk music legend Bruce Cockburn:

It's an incredible folk song from 1984, that Barenaked Ladies took and turned into a quite good pop/rock song. And look, I like the cover! I like Barenaked Ladies in general! I still have their album Everything to Everyone on my abridged music collection that's saved on my phone, because I listen to it often enough to warrant its place there. They're a good band. But they're not Bruce Cockburn. And their version of his song does not hold a candle to the original.

Anyway. In 2023, Kitson played the original song, and back announced it as being by "Bruce Cock-burn - or Co-burn". Amusingly pretending he couldn't work out how to pronounce a name that's spelled Cockburn (it is, for the record, meant to be pronounced "Co-burn"). This is how I know for sure that Daniel Kitson did not know the writer of that song in 2018, or even in 2006. Because when people first learn Bruce Cockburn's name, they're very entertained by the joke that maybe you should pronounce the word "cock" in his name. I know from experience that the humour in that wears off after about a year (for me, it was the year between age 10 and age 11, when my parents introduced me to the great Canadian folk musicians, because they raised me properly) so I'm assuming Kitson was under a year into his discovery of Bruce Cockburn in 2023.

So there's that. There's also the fact that, in his radio shows from the CMG era (these shows being 2006-2008-ish), Kitson used to frequently bring up the debate about who's better, Loudon or Rufus Wainwright. Kitson brought it up as though that was a common debate at the time, as though most people had an opinion and discussed it regularly. I'm pretty sure that's a case of Kitson projecting his own friends' frequent conversations onto society in general. Because I also once listened to all 125 hours of the radio show that Russell Howard + Jon Richardson had from 2006-2008, and those shows contained a hell of a lot of Russell Howard going on about how Rufus Wainwright was the greatest singer and might be the greatest human being of all time.

When Kitson brought up the Loudon vs. Rufus debate in his 2006-2008 radio shows, he didn't use Russell's name, but he did declare that he firmly believed Loudon was a better musician than his son. And Kitson was good friends with Russell Howard at the time. Given that, I can believe that in Kitson's specific world, "Loudon vs. Rufus" was, in fact, a common debate.

When I first listened to those old Howard/Richardson radio shows, I used to be surprised to hear them talk about Rufus Wainwright as though he were some boy band heart throb, because I think of Rufus Wainwright primarily as the son of Kate McGarrigle, sister of Anna McGarrigle, who make up the musical duo Kate & Anna McGarrigle. A musical duo that I have been listening to since I was quite young, because they are among those great Canadian folk musicians I mentioned earlier. They made folk music in their homeland of Quebec, Canada, for a long time, and at some point, one of them did marry the American musician Loudon Wainwright and had some kids. Those kids are Rufus Wainwright and Martha Wainwright, who both became accomplished musicians.

So that's the family. I have music in my collection by both Rufus and Martha Wainwright, and of course I have Kate & Anna McGarrigle albums. I actually don't have any Loudon Wainwright and don't really have any interest in what he does, but I do know he exists. I know he needs to be mentioned in any discussion of the musicians in that family. I know he was one of the musicians who appeared on The McGarrigle Hour, a really cool album that was recorded at a family gathering, and features Kate McGarrigle, Anna McGarrigle, their lesser-known sister named Jane McGarrigle, Loudon Wainwright, Rufus Wainright, and Martha Wainwright, among other highly notable guests like Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt (fun trivia fact, that album was released on my eighth birthday).

The point is that when you think of Rufus Wainwright's musician relatives, you should picture an entire family. And yet, Daniel Kitson clearly only knew Loudon and Rufus. If he'd only brought it up a couple of times, I'd assume he knew and just didn't need to mention the rest of them. But he brought discussed the "Rufus vs. Loudon" thing quite a few times over several years, and he never mentioned that maybe there should be other candidates in the debate of who's the best musician in that family.

It's his mother, Daniel! Stop arguing about whether Rufus Wainwright is better than his father! It doesn't matter, because neither of them are the best musician in that family! The best musician in that family is Rufus' mother, and her beautiful duets with his aunt! I dare you to listen to the harmonies on Matapedia and tell me best in that family is not these Canadian musicians:

Then again, I have heard Daniel Kitson refer to Teddy Thompson as "Richard Thompson's son", without ever mentioning that he's also Linda Thompson's son. Maybe Kitson just isn't aware that sometimes nepo baby singers have mothers.

Okay. So that's the next thing that made me think Daniel Kitson doesn't know very important parts of Canadian music. And it's not like I expect everyone from outside Canada (or, to be fair, many people in Canada) to know about Kate & Anna McGarrigle. But I do expect people to know about them if they're supposed to be someone who knows a lot about music, and specifically, if you know about Rufus and Loudon Wainwright's type of music. Obviously Kate & Anna are more folk/traditional than the Wainwrights, but there's lots of overlap.

I would also expect someone to know about Bruce Cockburn if they're supposed to know a lot about music, because Bruce Cockburn is Canadian folk music royalty. There is a hierarchy to the Canadian folk musicians whom I like. There are the really, really internationally famous ones, like Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell. One level below that, you'd get to someone like Gordon Lightfoot or Ian Tyson or Anne Murray - very famous all over Canada, even among non-music nerds, but not quite as known elsewhere. One level below that would be people like Ron Hynes, Bruce Cockburn. If I encounter someone who isn't particularly into music, I don't assume they know who those musicians are, though I won't be surprised if they do know. And I would assume people who are really into music to have heard of them. Especially if they're playing covers of their songs on the radio. I have to admit, it isn't really all that weird that Kitson hadn't heard of Bruce Cockburn - I don't think Bruce Cockburn is particularly famous outside Canada - but I hate hearing someone play a cover of his song and not know where it comes from.

That Jeffrey Lewis song, of course, references the Leonard Cohen song called Chelsea Hotel #2. A classic Canadian folk song about having sex in a hotel (to be fair to the indie rock guys, sometimes the proper folk music covers basically the same topics), by someone in our absolute top tier of fame. You can't get more famous than Leonard Cohen. Many have tried, none have succeeded.

There are a lot of levels of fame below that in Canadian folk music, and those are the many musicians I love, but never expect anyone else to have heard of outside specific folk music circles. I'm just clarifying that Bruce Cockburn is not one of those people. He's more famous than that.

In his 2006 radio shows, Daniel Kitson used to constantly play The Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song by Jeffrey Lewis. I like the song. It's your classic indie rock song where a guy with a guitar talks about how he's sad that a woman he met didn't fuck him, but it's done better than most of that sort of indie rock thing. I never minded Kitson putting it on over and over, I never fast-forwarded through it even though it was seven minutes long.

One day, after playing the Jeffrey Lewis song, Kitson mentioned that he's learned about the song referenced in there - Chelsea Hotel #2, by Leonard Cohen. And it turns out that's a good song too, and it would be fun to hear them together! So Kitson then played the Leonard Cohen song, which he'd clearly only recently heard for the first time. Afterward, he commented that with the Jeffrey Lewis + Leonard Cohen songs together, those were two great singers playing two great songs.

I had two main issues with that. One was that Kitson was nearly 30 at this point in 2006, and apparently didn't know about Leonard Cohen. And the other was that Kitson thought it was reasonable to put him next to Jeffrey Lewis, like they were on a similar level.

I quite like the many Jeffrey Lewis songs that I've heard Kitson play on the radio over the years. Jeffrey Lewis is good at what he does - good enough for me to like him despite my inherent bias against most things that are labelled "indie rock" (mainly because the words "indie rock" make me think of sad boys with guitars who sing about girls who don't want to fuck them, and by doing this, they take over folk festivals and use up space that should be held by actual folk musicians, but I digress, I will restrain myself from going into my larger rant on that subject). Jeffrey Lewis is cool. But he's still an indie rock singer. You can't compare him to a legend like Leonard Cohen. You just can't.

All this led me to conclude, a couple of years ago, that Daniel Kitson might just know fuck all about Canadian music specifically. He knows every obscure artist to come out of Australia for about twenty years, obviously stuff from other countries, but no Canadians. I joked, once, that technically we don't even know for sure that Daniel Kitson knows who Neil Young is. I'm pretty sure I've never heard him mention Neil Young.

I said this because Leonard Cohen is one of the very few Canadian folk singers whom I'd consider on a similar level of international fame as Neil Young. The top level, with people like Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell...

The above audio clip is taken from one of those 2006 Kitson radio episodes that I recently acquired. See, it turns out this post has been going somewhere, after all. They were playing a game in which Daniel Kitson and his co-host Andrew McClelland would each pick a random song from their respective music players, and then they'd argue over whose song was better.

What the fuck, Kitson? If he'd said he didn't want to play Joni Mitchell because he doesn't like her music, I'd think he was very wrong, but I'd understand. Joni Mitchell's voice is an acquired taste, though I'd argue that Kitson was into plenty of music for which it's far harder to acquire a taste than it is for Joni Mitchell.

But he didn't say he disliked Joni Mitchell. He didn't know who she was. He didn't know to be very impressed that one of the greatest songs ever written just happened to come up while his co-host was randomly skipping through music. And then he talked over it, and, like with Cohen/Lewis but in an example that I'd argue is far more egregious, tried to suggest it might be on the same level as the Mouldy Peaches. Even making that comparison is offensive to me as a music fan and as a Canadian.

Here's the actual song, since Kitson cut it off so fast in the audio clip:

So Kitson had no idea what he was talking about in those radio episodes. However, his co-host, the Australian comedian Andrew McClelland, was much better on Canadian music. In a different episode, Kitson mentioned the Jeffrey Lewis Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex song, and Andrew McClelland mentioned that he has the original Leonard Cohen song on his music player, if they want to play that later. And he had that Joni Mitchell on there. See, it's not unreasonable to assume comedians/music connoisseurs from 2006 would know about those people.

So I know it was Andrew McClelland's music player that supplied the Corb Lund song that suddenly came on in the middle of one of the radio episodes. It must have been McClelland's, because 1) McClelland has demonstrated from other songs that he knows some Canadian music, and 2) it cannot possibly have been Kitson's. There is absolutely no way whatsoever that Daniel Kitson had Hair in My Eyes Like a Highland Steer by Corb Lund on his iPod in 2006. Or ever.

I was utterly shocked when I was listening to a Kitson radio show, heard the first few notes, and realized which song was playing. Hair In My Eyes Like a Highland Steer. That is so odd. Corb Lund is not in Daniel Kitson's music rotation. Corb Lund does not feel like he even exists in the same universe as Daniel Kitson.

Corb Lund is, in my personal opinion, right now, the greatest living Canadian country singer. It was pretty much indisputably Ian Tyson for many, many years, but he died at the end of 2022. I think the mantle then should have passed to Fred Eaglesmith, given how things were going 20, or oven 10 years ago. But Fred Eaglesmith has gone off in all kinds of different directions, some good and some not so much, while Corb Lund has just gotten steadily better and better at writing and performing country music. I think he's our best one. (This is all discounting someone like kd lang, of course, because she's been all over the genre map and hasn't been country for many years, though unlike with Fred Eaglesmith, I think everything she's done in any genre is brilliant.)

I first got into Corb Lund in 2006, when he was much less prolific than he is now. I saw him playing at a local folk festival, was instantly hooked, went home and bought all his albums. It's interesting to me that this radio episode in which Kitson played Corb Lund (I mean, clearly that was actually Andrew McClelland playing Corb Lund) is also from 2006. Big year for people getting into Corb Lund, apparently.

Corb Lund is from Alberta, which is the Canadian province with by far the strongest tradition of country music. He actually started his career, in the 90s, in a punk/speed metal band called The Smalls, which I find hilarious. They've even got a few songs that I quite like.

Then Corb Lund started making country music with his own band, called Corb Lund and The Hurtin' Albertans, in the Alberta tradition. His first few albums were a lot of honky-tonk country, and vaguely blues-influenced alt-country. If you don't know what honky-tonk country music is, the best way I could possibly explain it is to direct you to the YouTube video I posted above, of Corb Lund's song Hair in My Eyes Like a Highland Steer. That is pure honky-tonk. Here's another very honky-tonk song from Corb's early catalogue, to show what quality in the music makes it that sub-genre:

So basically, honky-tonk is what people mean when they say "I hate country music." It's the type of music that gets played in movies when they want to make fun of small town people for how they listen to very country music. Personally, I have a great appreciation for good honky-tonk music (including the two songs I've shared in this post), but it is never what I'd started with when trying to convert someone to being a country music fan. I'd start with the softer stuff, that has more of a crossover with the folk or even blues genre. People have to be already on board with country music, in order to be able to enjoy honky-tonk.

This is all (barely) relevant because I want to go back in time and ask Andrew McClelland why he chose that particular track, to play on Kitson's radio show, in which I assume was an attempt to make Kitson impressed with that music. Hair in My Eyes Like a Highland Steer is a fantastic song, but it's not the one you start with. Even if I only look at Corb Lund's pre-2006 catalogue, which is of course all they had to work with in this 2006 radio episode, there are plenty of songs that are far more accessible generally, and that would be far more in Kitson's wheelhouse. Given the type of music Daniel Kitson usually played at the time, if McClelland has played him Short Native Grasses, Kitson would have been a convert forever:

Of course, I'm just guessing at Andrew McClelland's motivations for putting on that song. I don't actually know what it came on there, because no one explained it at any point! Hair in My Eyes Like a Highland Steer played in the middle of a group of songs, and I was so excited to get to the end of that group and hear Kitson comment on it. I assumed it would be a derogatory comment and I was ready to get mad about it, but what actually happened was even worse: he didn't mention it. Didn't even back announce it. He back announced that whole group of songs, named every other song in there, but skipped the Corb Lund one. And then they never mentioned it again for the rest of the radio episodes! I had to run back the audio just to make sure I hadn't imagined it playing.

If you want an example of the more recent direction Corb Lund has gone, that'll be in a song I've shared a number of times on this blog in the past year or so, usually when I'm feeling suddenly emotional about the very complicated relationship I have with the way I suddenly decided to quit coaching high-level competitive wrestling a few years ago, after dedicating pretty much my whole life to coaching/competing from when I was 14 until I was 30, and of course I've dabbled in MMA and jiu-jitsu and lots of martial arts, and I've trained out of lots of different martial arts gyms and at least know of most of the really competitive martial arts gyms across the country, which makes me think I'd probably have heard of whoever Corb Lund's been hanging out with to write this song, given that he got so many small details shockingly accurate, of what it's like to have a career in combat sports:

This song can quite easily make me cry if it catches me in the right mood. I've already shared it on this blog too many times, and I will take any tangential excuse to share it again. I may have been listening to it again lately as the recent Cobra Kai finale also hit a lot of those same emotional chords in me.

Anyway, aside from my personal issues with combat sports, this song shows how far Corb Lund has come as a musician since 2006. Don't get me wrong, he was great in 2006! I love his pre-2006 albums. But since then, he's become more experimental, more complex, and just a more talented singer. He's also gotten a lot better at yodelling, which is a very specific skill you don't often hear about, but I enjoy listening to someone do it well. Corb Lund's 2012 album, Cabin Fever, is one of my very favourite albums of all time. It's all over the map in terms of cross-genre influence, with rock and blues and folk in there, but at its core it remains country, as Corb always has.

Corb Lund has also become a lot more famous since 2006. He's worked with exciting American country singers, like Hayes Carll. He wrote a beautiful tribute to Ian Tyson when Ian died, and then he, in my opinion, took over as the greatest country singer in Canada. If I wanted to make Daniel Kitson like Corb Lund, I'm confident that I could do it, by picking songs relevant to his interests.

But Hair in My Eyes Like a Highland Steer is an hilarious choice for that. Kitson finally played some Canadian music, at least. On his radio show, even if it clearly didn't come from his music player. That's where I've been going, in this too-long post (see, this post has been going somewhere). That's been the point. To say I got excited to hear the Corb Lund song, because Daniel Kitson finally played some Canadian music. In a very unexpected way.

Here, to end this post, have my favourite song off The McGarrigle Hour, the really really cool album that was released on my eighth birthday, featuring Kate & Anna McGarrigle, and their less important family members:

[modmoth]

Mercedes Mcgarr

[my-burnt-city]

POV: you've stowed away on a time machine and it's dropped you off at Paddington, nearly a decade ago. This is the TDM cast board now facing you. Who are you following?

[Alt: a cast board, listing characters and the performers who are playing them.

William - Omar Gordon, Mary - Laure Bachelot, Dwayne - Oliver Hornsby-Sayer, Andy - James Finnemore, Harry Greener - James Sobol Kelly, Faye Greener - Katie Lusby, Miguel - Georges Hann, Conrad - Alex Mugnaioni, The Dust Witch - Katherine Cowie, Drugstore Girl - Sonya Cullingford, The Barman - Ygal Jerome Tsur, The Grocer - Monsur Ali, The Fool - Alistair Goldsmith, Wendy - Chihiro Kawasaki, Marshall - Jesse Kovarsky, Dolores Grey - Marla Phelan, Andrea - Kirsty Arnold, Claude Estée - Anwar Russell, Frankie - Daniel Whiley, Alice Estée - Emily Mytton, The Doctor - Sam Booth, Mr Stanford - James Traherne, Assistant to Ms Grey - Stephanie Nightingale, The Gatekeeper - Christian From, Romola - Sarah Sweeney, Lila - Kath Duggan, The Seamstress - Annabeth Berkeley, Phoebe - Mia Mountain, Mr Tuttle - Edward Halsted, The Executives - Matthew Blake + Kathryn McGarr, Band - William South, Pete Bennie, Graham Farnsworth + Jake Woodward]

[myburntwritings]

Day 14: Fav group scene

Because we've had singular scenes, duets, and now groups, I am personally taking 'group' to mean 3 or more. Unfortunately for me, this also opens up a much larger pool of scenes to choose from. Not only do you have the finales, the Klub blinding, the wedding sacrifice and storm dance, and the invasion, but you have all the 3 or 4 character scenes that, to some, may not be fully considered a 'group'. For example, the Shell Bedroom scene would technically be a group scene with Hecuba, Polymestor, and Luba. Pretty much everything in Peep counts as a group if you count The Furies, and I always do.

But I'm still going for the blinding. And I'm going to be incredibly specific instance of the blinding here (because who doesn't love specificity?) This was the blinding that took place on the 30th March 2023.

I'd been following Hecuba, played by Kat McGarr. She was, as always, utterly wonderful. At the urging of a friend (@my-burnt-city) I made sure to stand near the window so that I could watch Polyxena and Luba come around the sides of the desk and lift Hecuba down, the three of them storming to the window.

We entered the Klub, and I moved to the far side to the office, the window opposite me. I watched as those who had been summoned entered the ritual one by one. I saw Hecuba stalking behind the crowd, her gaze fixed on Polymestor (Played by Louis J Rhone this show) as he revelled without a care in the world; without a care for her murdered son.

Those summoned moved further into the centre. They began to celebrate, to goad Polymestor into believing they were merely here for enjoyment. The music changed. The ritual began in earnest.

I thought I was imagining it at first. A reflection of an audience member's bejewelled hair clip, a sparkly shirt catching the light in the window.

Apollo appeared, ghost-like through the window. He was wearing the crystal mask, the mask that brings death and destruction to any who put it on. He spread his arms, almost bowing to Hecuba as he recognised her summons. He had ignored her prayers to save her city, but he would not ignore her prayers for her vengeance.

Polymestor moved through the crowd, dancing into the circle. On the other side of the veil, Apollo danced with him. From the other side of Divinity, Apollo controlled this would-be King Pin who offered his prayers to false Gods. Moloch had no power here anymore as Apollo danced and moved the drugged Polymestor to his whim, whirling and writhing him into confusion.

Polymestor was caught by Kampe and kissed deeply. The rest of the summoned dragged him back down to the floor.

Apollo retreated, melting into the background, into the reflections as those bound to Hecuba's vengeance began to extract it. He had no need to be here anymore. He had done as the Queen wished.

He surveyed his good work from the chair behind Polymestor's desk; feet up, lounging. The golden prince of Gods. He removed the mask as Hecuba removed Polymestor's eyes. He left the mask on the desk and disappeared from the office.

I've always loved the blinding. This was the first ever show where I had seen Apollo attend - which became a regular fixture for Loop 1 blinding from this point on. It was something that was not spoiled for me. I did not know it was going to happen, or indeed that any changes had been made at all. It was pure luck that I stood in the spot I did, that I noticed Apollo in the window.

The moves changed over time after this addition. Different Apollos played it in different ways. I also had a show maybe 2 or 3 from the end of the run where I was stood side on to the window, and as Apollo and Polymestor danced, (Polymestor now thinking he sees something in the office,) the reflection from where I was positioned made it so that Polymestor was wearing the mask, fixing his own demise in his craving for power and wealth.

Still, even with 5 months of this phenomenal change, I don't think I will ever get over the very first time I saw Apollo join in with the blinding.

[ulkaralakbarova]

While planet Earth poises on the brink of nuclear self-destruction, a team of Russian and American scientists aboard the Leonov hurtles to a rendezvous with the still-orbiting Discovery spacecraft and its sole known survivor, the homicidal computer HAL. Credits: TheMovieDb. Film Cast: Dr. Heywood Floyd: Roy Scheider Dr. Walter Curnow: John Lithgow Tanya Kirbuk: Helen Mirren Dr. R. Chandra: Bob Balaban Dr. David Bowman: Keir Dullea HAL 9000 (voice): Douglas Rain Caroline Floyd: Madolyn Smith Osborne Dr. Vladimir Rudenko: Savely Kramarov Christopher Floyd: Taliesin Jaffe Victor Milson: James McEachin Betty Fernandez: Mary Jo Deschanel Maxim Brailovsky: Elya Baskin Dimitri Moisevitch: Dana Elcar Dr. Vasili Orlov: Oleg Rudnik Irina Yakunina: Natasha Shneider Yuri Svetlanov: Vladimir Skomarovsky Nikolaj Ternovsky: Victor Steinbach SAL 9000: Candice Bergen Commercial Announcer: Gene McGarr Jessie Bowman: Herta Ware Film Crew: Director of Photography: Peter Hyams Production Design: Albert Brenner Costume Design: Patricia Norris Novel: Arthur C. Clarke Set Decoration: Rick Simpson Original Music Composer: David Shire Costume Supervisor: Bruce Walkup Editor: Mia Goldman Costume Supervisor: Nancy McArdle Casting: Penny Perry Editor: James Mitchell Visual Effects Supervisor: Gregory L. McMurry Set Designer: Greg Papalia Sound Designer: Dale Strumpell Stunt Coordinator: M. James Arnett Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Ray O’Reilly Camera Operator: Ralph Gerling Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Michael J. Kohut Transportation Coordinator: Randy Peters Supervising Sound Editor: Richard L. Anderson Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Aaron Rochin Music Editor: William Saracino Still Photographer: Bruce McBroom Location Manager: Mario Iscovich Set Designer: Gregory Pickrell Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Carlos Delarios Conceptual Design: Paul Huston Property Master: Marty Wunderlich Makeup Supervisor: Michael Westmore Chief Lighting Technician: John Baron Hairstylist: Vivian McAteer Script Supervisor: Marshall Schlom First Assistant Director: William S. Beasley Stunts: John C. Meier Stunts: Mic Rodgers Movie Reviews: Wuchak: _**Another trip to Jupiter to find answers**_ After the mysterious failure of the Discovery One mission to Jupiter in 2001, Dr. Heywood Floyd (Roy Scheider) resigned his position as head of the National Council for Astronautics. Several years later, the Soviets send the spacecraft Leonov & crew to Jupiter along with three Americans, including Floyd, to help investigate Discovery and the malfunction of the vessel’s sentient computer, HAL 9000. Keir Dullea returns as the missing astronaut David Bowman while Helen Mirren plays the captain of the Leonov. Bob Balaban and John Lithgow also appear as the other two American astronauts. “2010: The Year We Make Contact” (1984) is realistic science-fiction that’s less artsy and more dramatically compelling compared to its predecessor, “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968). That doesn’t make it better, of course, just different. “2001” raised questions while this one provides answers, which some people inevitably won’t like. The questions include: Why did HAL malfunction? What was the real reason for Discovery’s original mission, unknown to Floyd? What happened to Bowman? What is the purpose of the colossal monolith orbiting Jupiter? Both films compliment and counterbalance each other. This one’s more of a straightforward space adventure in the near future. Unlike Star Wars, which is space fantasy, “2010” is space-oriented adult science-fiction. Star Trek is too, but “2010” is far more realistic, which I appreciate. In other words, don’t expect any Klingons or spacecraft dogfights. This is more along the lines of “Mission to Mars” (2000) and “The Martian” (2015). The film runs 1 hours, 56 minutes. GRADE: B r96sk: A much more standard affair compared to its predecessor. Given that’s the case, I honestly enjoyed this more than ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ – if only because it’s more closer to what I’d personally want from a film than what that 1968 ...

[batminute]

Bat Minute Beyond - Chunkz of The Joker: Chunk 5 - Teri McGarrness and the Dark Wayne Knight (with Luke Mears and Mary Mears)

Minutes 21-25

We’re back as Commissioner Gordon (not that one) is sick of Terry and his ways. GO AWAY, IDIOT! But let's talk about clowns first...

Bruce (we're still finding it hard not to call him Batman) is researching The Joker. HOW could he have returned? Is it even him? WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?!? Whatever it is, it's not fair to drag Terry into this - give the suit back, kid.

THAT'S IT, I'M MOVING BACK IN WITH MUM!

The next episode follows in one week! Same Bat Pod, different Bat Minute!

Join us on Facebook at the Bat Minute Listener's Cave!

The Bat Minute theme song is by the band Rat Bit Kit and Ash Lerczak (aka Doc Horror) of Zombina & The Skeletones and Double Echo.

  Today's guests: Luke Mears and Mary Mears

  Check out this episode!

[moviesandmania]

Hanukkah - USA, 2018 - trailer and release news for Sid Haig's last appearance

Hanukkah – USA, 2018 – trailer and release news for Sid Haig’s last appearance

‘Jason can have them on Friday… Obediah will be observing the Sabbath.’

Hanukkah is a 2018 American slasher horror feature film written, co-produced and directed by Eben McGarr (House of the Wolf Man; Sick Girl). The My Way Pictures production stars Sid Haig (Spider Baby, House of 1,000 Corpses, The Devil’s Rejects), Caroline Williams (Texas Chainsaw Massacre II, Contracted, Halloween II, Hatche…

[dearholder]

Pushing the limits headers like if you save/use | if you use © dearholder on twitter

[comfortfromyourpain]

Alert S1 EP3 Jason tackling perp scene.

[my-burnt-city]

gently weeping on the tube because usually hecuba asks polymestor "where is my son? is he safe, like you promised?" but last night polydorus was sharol so kat hecuba asked "where is my child? are they safe, like you promised?" 😭😭😭

[myburntwritings]

Day 18: Fav Line

In a show that is predominantly silent, at least in terms of dialogue, this should be an easy question. But it's not. The thing with having a predominantly dialogue-less show is that when there is dialogue, it hits harder because there is the surprise of hearing it.

Persephone and Hades have a lot more dialogue than the rest of the characters, and there have certainly been some zingers in there. Mallory Gracenin's Persephone saying "I know" after Sam Booth's Hades said "They're fake" into her mouth during a kiss. Hades fist-pumping as he says 'real' through the instrumental break of his Peep performance.

Practically EVERYTHING in Peep, especially 'Oh... My... GODS!"

Milton Lopes' Zagreus' increasingly cheesy and hilarious pick up lines to Eurydice, made all the more entertaining by the fact he wrote them on a piece of paper and stuck them to his forehead to walk across Troy.

I have some lines of dialogue through 1:1s and interactions that have stuck in my mind. "Don't fuck it up." "Huh. You really are a masochist." These little moments that felt so personal that I don't feel right sharing them fully. Then you have the time Kat McGarr had me help her get changed, and then used "Screw me in hell and call me Michele." in the name rhyme. But I think, in the end, I'm going with:

"That's why you came here. Not to be told a story, but to live inside a dream."

I know some people might not count it, because it takes place in the museum entrance, not inside Troy or Mycenae. But, for me, this line holds a significant power.

I'm a writer. I write and publish novels. I tell stories for a living.

I have 'escaping reality by any means necessary' on most of my social media, and that confirmation that we've come to this place to live inside a dream, the way I often wish I could live inside books, is very personal to me. Because, despite the fact I am telling people stories, my aim is to make people forget that. To let them live inside a different world, a different dream, and forget for a little while.

Punchdrunk does it ever so well. I only hope I can someday inspire people the way they do.