#modern day americans love Fake Reality TV News

[xfictionx0]

The Hidden Influence of Media on Our Lives

Intro

Hey everyone! Today, I want to talk about something that affects all of us in ways we might not even realize: the power of media. From TV shows and movies to social media and streaming platforms, media has a profound influence on our lives, shaping our dreams, behaviors, and even our realities.

I’ve been reflecting on how shows like iCarly and Video Game High School inspired my dreams of becoming a content creator and making a name online. It’s fascinating how media can shape our aspirations. Have any of you been influenced by shows or games in your career choices or dreams? Let’s share our stories and talk about how media has inspired us.

Personal Anecdotes:

Not only TV series, but games too. Lately, I’ve been imagining myself living through a game of Super Mario, rescuing the princess kidnapped by Bowser and all that. I think it makes life a little more entertaining when you can draw parallels from your life to your favorite artworks.

Can any of you relate? What shows or games have influenced your dreams or the way you see the world? Feel free to share with me!

Media Influence and Power:

It really makes me wonder how much power media has over us. It makes me think how it’s not too far-fetched that the government might want to manipulate or put subliminal messages in media as part of a psyops agenda.

For those who might not know, psyops are tactics intended to manipulate opponents or enemies, often through the dissemination of propaganda or the use of psychological warfare.

Historical Context and Examples:

Let’s think about some examples. In history, we’ve seen how propaganda has been used during wars to influence public opinion. In more recent times, we’ve seen concerns about fake news and how social media algorithms might shape our perceptions.

What do you all think about this? Have you noticed any ways that media has influenced your thoughts or actions? Do you think there are subliminal messages in the media we consume today? Let’s dive into this topic together!

Personal Reflection and Media Literacy:

For me, recognizing these influences has made me more mindful of the content I consume and how it affects my thoughts and feelings. I try to balance my media diet with different perspectives and sources to stay informed.

America's Role as a Leading Media Distributor:

I think it’s interesting to think about how America is the leading distributor of media and always has been. In the early days, it was Hollywood and television. Today, they are using the internet, with platforms like Netflix, YouTube, and Twitch, as well as all the other major streaming sites.

Let’s take a look back. Hollywood has been the epicenter of the film industry since the early 20th century. Movies produced in Hollywood reached audiences around the world, setting cultural trends and shaping global perceptions of American life and values.

Television further expanded America’s media influence. Shows like ‘I Love Lucy,’ ‘The Twilight Zone,’ and ‘Friends’ became international hits, spreading American culture and ideals far beyond its borders.

The Modern Media Landscape:

Fast forward to today, and the internet has taken over as the primary medium for content distribution. Platforms like Netflix, YouTube, and Twitch are at the forefront, delivering content to millions of people worldwide.

Netflix, for example, started as a DVD rental service and has evolved into a global streaming giant. It produces and distributes original content that competes with traditional television and film studios.

YouTube has democratized content creation, allowing anyone with an internet connection to share their videos with the world. This has led to the rise of influencers and content creators who can reach audiences without traditional media gatekeepers.

Twitch, primarily known for live streaming video games, has become a platform for all sorts of live content, from talk shows to music performances.

Impact of American Media:

American media’s influence is profound. It shapes cultural norms, trends, and values globally. Think about how many global phenomena have originated from American media: superheroes, blockbuster movies, reality TV shows, and even internet memes.

There are also economic and political implications. American companies dominate the streaming landscape, generating significant revenue and exerting soft power.

Soft power is the ability to influence others through cultural or ideological means, rather than force. By spreading American culture and values, these media platforms can subtly influence global perceptions and attitudes towards the U.S.

While American media is dominant, it’s also interesting to see how local cultures adapt and respond. Many countries produce their own content that blends local traditions with global trends, creating unique hybrids.

What are your thoughts on this? Have you noticed how American media has influenced your perceptions or the culture in your country? Let’s discuss how media shapes our world.

Challenges and Criticisms:

Of course, there are criticisms too. Some argue that the dominance of American media can lead to cultural homogenization, where local cultures are overshadowed by global trends. Others point out the concentration of media ownership and its impact on diversity of viewpoints.

Looking ahead, it will be interesting to see how media evolves. With the rise of new technologies like virtual reality and artificial intelligence, the landscape will continue to change. Will America maintain its leading role, or will other countries rise to prominence in the media world?

Closing Thoughts:

It’s always fascinating to think about how media shapes our world and our perceptions. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Make sure to share your opinions in the chat or comments!

[harrelltut]

卍 the U.S. Pentagon + the U.S. Military + the U.S. White House Now [NWO] Contractually ENFORCE My National Powers of A Native Afro American Indian [A.I.] from the U.S. Federal Banking Institution [FBI] Families who Survived My Biblical Flood that TECTONICALLY Sunk Atlantis II My Mythically HIDDEN [MH] Underworld Subcontinents of ATLANTIS [USA = LEMURIA] I Mathematically ENGINEER [ME = U.S. Michael Harrell = TUT = JAH] from My HIGHLY FUTURISTIC Occulted Island [FOI] of Paradisal California [CA] 卍

[rachelbethhines]

Vintage Shows to Watch While You Wait for the Next Episode of WandaVision - The 60s

So the 60s is the era that Wandavision pulls most heavily from for it’s inspiration. So much so that one could make the argument that each of the first three episodes are all set in the 1960s. Episode one pulls from the early 60s with multiple Dick Van Dyke refences, episode two is very Bewitched inspired, and episode three is aesthetically very similar to The Brady Bunch which started in ‘69. As such it was hard to narrow down the list for this decade and I had to get creative in some ways. 

1. The Andy Griffith Show (1960 - 1968)

The Andy Griffith Show gets kind of a bad rap now a days for being, supposedly, a conservative’s wet dream. People claiming it as such have apparently never actually seen the series. Oh yes, it’s very much set in white rural 60s America and will occasionally present the obliviously outdated joke, but the story of a widowed sheriff being the only sane man in a small town full of lovable lunatics, who prefers to solve his and others problems with negotiation and hair brained schemes as opposed to violence has far more in common with modern day Steven Universe than whatever genocidal fantasy fake rednecks have in their heads.  

As the gif above shows Andy Griffith was very subtlety progressive for its time. Andy was a stanch pacifist, pro-gun control, treated drug addicts and prisoners with respect, and all the women he would date had careers, ect. and so on. It’s not a satire making any sort of grand political statements but the series had a moral center that was far more left than many realize. 

But if it’s not a satire, then what type of comedy is it? 

The Andy Griffith Show excels in what I like to call, ‘awkward comedy’. See everyone in Mayberry is far too nice to just come out and tell a character they’re making an ass of themselves, so therefore whoever is the idiot punching bag of the episode’s focus must slowly unravel as everyone looks on in helpless pity until said character realizes the folly of their ways and the townsfolk come together to make them feel happy and accepted once more. Wandavision takes this polite idyllic awkwardness and plays it up for horror instead of laughs.  

2. The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961 - 1966)

The creators of Wandavision actually met with Dick Van Dyke himself to pick his brain and learn how sitcoms were made back then. Paul Bentley also took inspiration from Van Dyke in his performance of the sitcom version of Vision, while Olsen stated Mary Tylor Moore had a heavy influence on her character of Wanda. But more than just being a point of homage, The Dick Van Dyke Show was hugely influential in modernizing the family sitcom and breaking a lot of the unspoken traditions and ‘rules’ of the 50s television era. It’s also just really, really funny.  

3.The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962 - 1965) 

Bit of a cheat here. Alfred Hitchcock Presents actually started in 1955 as a half hour anthology show, but in ‘62 the show got a revamp and was extended into a full hour tv series. I knew I wanted The Twilight Zone to be covered in my episode one recap, but ‘The Master of Suspense’ couldn’t be forgotten. While The Twilight Zone reveled in the surreal and supernatural, Alfred Hitchcock pioneered the thriller genre and made real life seem dangerous, horrifying, and other worldly.   

4. Doctor Who (1963 - present day) vs Star Trek (1966 - present day) 

Just like how westerns dominated the air waves during the 50s, science fiction was the center of the cultural zeitgeist of the 60s. From Lost in Space to My Favorite Martian, space aliens and robots were everywhere. So naturally I had to name drop the two sci-fi juggernauts that still air to this today. If you thought that the rivalry between Star Wars and Star Trek was bad then you’ve never seen a chat full of Whovians and Trekkies duking it out over who is the better monster, the Borg or the Cyberman. But which one has the more influence over Wandavision?

Well Star Trek owes it’s existence to sitcoms. As with The Twilight Zone before it, Star Trek was produced by Desilu Productions and it’s co-founder and CEO, Lucille Ball, was the series biggest supporter behind the scenes, lobbying for it when it faced early cancelation. As with all things sitcomy, everything ties back to I Love Lucy in the end. However despite that little backstory, it would seem that the series has very little to do with Wandavision itself beyond being quintessentially American. 

I would argue that Wandavision owes much to Doctor Who though. Arguably more so than any show mentioned in this retrospective. Time travel, alternate realities, trouble in quite suburbia, brainwashing, people coming back from the dead, ect... just about every trope you can find in Wandavision has also appeared in Doctor Who at some point. As a series that can go anywhere and do anything, Doctor Who was a pioneer of marrying genres in new and interesting ways. 

5. Bewitched (1964 - 1972) and I Dream of Jeannie (1965 - 1970)

It’s hard to pick one series over another because they’re essentially the same show. A mortal man falls in love with a magical girl who upends their lives with magic filled hijinks as they try their best not to have their secret discovered by the rest of the world. And both have their fingerprints all over the DNA of Wandavision. 

There’s only two core differences; Samantha and Jeannie have completely different personalities, with Sam being confident and knowledgeable and Jeannie being naïve and oblivious, along with their relationships with their respective men, Sam and Darrin being married and in love at the start of the series and Jeannie chasing after Tony in the beginning in a will they/won’t they affair, finally only getting together in the last season. 

6. The Munsters (1964 - 1966) vs The Adams Family (1964 - 1966)

Fans of these two shows are forever sadden that there never was a crossover between them. Because they’d fit perfectly together. Both shows are about a surreal and macabre family living in American suburbia and disrupting the lives of their neighbors with their otherworldly hijinks. Sound familiar?     

The main difference between the two shows is the way the characters viewed their placement in the world they inhabit. 

The Munsters were always oblivious to the fact that didn’t fit in. They just automatically assumed everyone had the same personal tastes as them. Whenever they encountered anyone who behaved strangely around them they would write that person off as being the odd one rather than questioning themselves. As such the main cast was structured like a stereotypical sitcom family who just happened to be classic movie monsters. 

The Addams were well aware that they were abnormal and they loved it! They lived life with in their own little world and didn’t care what anyone thought of them. As such the characters were far more colorful and quirky as individuals but there was little in the way of refences to other horror franchises beyond just a general love of the twisted and strange. 

7. Green Acres (1965 - 1971) and the Rual-verse (1962 - 1971)

So the MCU is not the first franchise to bring viewers an interconnected universe to the small screen. Far from it, as sitcoms had been doing this for decades, starting with the ‘rualverse’. Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, and Green Acres were all produced by the same company and were treated as spinoffs of each other, complete with crossovers and shared characters and sets. 

Of the three, the last show, Green Acres, has the most in common with Wandavision. A well to do businessman and his lovely socialite wife settle down in small town America on a farm in order to get away from the stresses of city life, only to find new stresses in the country. Eva Gabor, herself a natural Hungarian, plays the character of Lisa as Hungarian making her one of the few non-native born Americans on tv screens during the cold war. Despite her posh nature and original protests to the move, Lisa assimilates to the rural life far easier than her husband, Oliver. Who, as the main comedic thread, can’t comprehend his new quirky neighbors’ odd and often illogical behavior.  

8. Hogan’s Heroes (1965 - 1971) and Get Smart (1965 - 1969)

So as comic fans have been quick to point out, it’s looking like both A.I.M. (Hydra) and Sword (Shield) will be players in the story of Wandavision. To commemorate that here’s two shows to represent those opposing sides. Although in truth, neither series has anything else in common with each other but I need to condense things down someway. 

In Hydra’s corner we got Hogan’s Heroes. A show all about taking down Nazis from within. 

I love, love, love, ‘robin hood’ comedies where a group of con artists try week after to week to pull one over the establishment. The Phil Silvers Show, Mchale's Navy, and Top Cat, just to name a few examples are all childhood favorites of mine. However while those shows had a lot of morally ambiguous characters, Hogan’s Heroes has very clear cut good guys and bad guys, cause the bad guys are Nazis and the show relentless makes fun of the third reich as should we all. In fact I was watching Hogan’s Heroes while waiting for the GA run off election results. Fortunately my home state decided to kick out our own brand of Nazis this year. 

For Shield, we got the ultimate spy spoof, Get Smart. Starring, Inspector Gadget himself, Don Adams, as the bumbling Maxwell Smart. Get Smart, is a hilarious send up of Cold War espionage but the real selling point of the show, imho, is Max and his co-worker 99′s relationship. You can cut the sexual tension in the air with a knife all while laughing your ass off. 

9. Batman (1966 - 1968)

First was Superman and then came Batman. Yet while Superman was a serious action show, Batman was a straight up comedy. Showcasing that superheroes could indeed be funny. 

Also shout out for Batman being the only show on this list to have an actual crossover with it’s competitor, The Green Hornet. 

10. Julia (1968 - 1971)

Since episode two features the first appearances of Herb and Monica, let’s highlight the first black led sitcom since the cancelation of Amos ‘n Andy over a decade earlier. The show focuses on single mother and military nurse, Julia, as she tries to live her life without her recently decease husband, who was killed in Vietnam, as she tries to raise their six year old son on her own.  

The series is cute. It’s more of a throw back to earlier family sitcoms where there’s no fantasy and life lessons are the name of the game. It’s the fact that the main character is a single black woman is what made the show so subversive and important at the time. 

Runner Ups

There’s much good stuff in the 60s, so here’s some others that didn’t make the cut but I would recommend anyways. 

Car 54, Where Are You? (1961 - 1963)

I call this the Brooklynn 99 of the 1960s. Bumbling but well meaning Officer Toody longs to do good in the world and help anyone in need, but often screws things up with his ill thought out schemes. He often drags his best friend and partner, the competent but anxiety riddled, Muldoon into his escapades. 

Mr. Ed (1961 - 1966)

The grandfather of the sarcastic talking pet trope. 

The Jetsons (1962 - 1963 and 1985 - 1987)

Hanna-Barbera often took popular sitcoms and just repackaged them as cartoons with a fantasy theme to them. The Jetsons has no singular show that it rips-off but is rather more a grab bag of sitcom tropes that feature, robots, computers, and flying cars. 

The Outer Limits (1963 - 1965) 

The Outer Limits was The Twilight Zone’s biggest competitor in terms of being a sic-fi/horror anthology series. 

Gillian’s Island (1964 - 1967) 

The only comparison to WandaVision I could think of was that this is a sitcom about people being trapped in one place. But by that point I was running out of room on the list. Still it’s one of the funniest shows on here. 

So yeah, this took longer than expected cause there’s a lot, here. Hopefully the 70s will be easier. Which I’ll post on Friday. 

[theshortwavemystery]

NOTES FROM WATCHING THE FIRST EPISODE OF “RIVERDALE”

1. Riverdale is a bizarre town that seems cut off from everywhere else, temporally straddled between an eternal 1950’s—more accurately a 1950’s stuck in an endless repetitive loop. But it takes place in the late 2010’s. Even so, the decor in the town is vintage, and the characters recognize this. The activities of the kids are vintage. the internet and cell phones exists, millennials are named, but it doesn’t seem to matter. something is very weird here, as if all these people are ghosts. all the stock scenarios and characters are here, which is to be expected for a teen drama, but there’s an exactness, a literalism, that is too perfect to be unintentional. 2. what is this world? it seems to be a staging of a certain inertia in american culture, which changes in superficial ways—technology, new TV shows, music new taboos—but all if this somehow serves to reinforce, or justify a return to the “leave it to beaver” universe. 3. any reminder that these are modern kids—their frequent references to contemporary TV shows like Mad Men for instance—only serve to increase the spooky vibe. everyone in this town seems to be low key crazy, making the show feel like twin peaks but written by what’s left of your local shopping mall. 4. the show’s script is constantly making fun of itself to the point that we seem directed by it to avoid taking the drama seriously—it is perhaps a smoke screen, like the haze of the presumably northwestern woods that seem to surround the town (it is filmed in Vancouver). the gay best friend is named as the gay best friend, establishing him as a living archaism—i felt bad for him after this. 5. plot points are shown to be cliche—the fake lesbian kiss, once scandalous in the 2000’s, is brushed off as false and an erasure of real lesbians. the script fools us, indicating it means to aim for more intelligent territory. and yet, veronica’s confrontation with cheryl, her tough girl speech, where she reveals her vulnerability as a rich girl fallen from grace but also stands up for betty—this goes without an ironic comment, even thought it is also a cliche, but a more contemporary oneq—the “mic drop” moment. so we see how the naming of particular cliches, employed ironically, serves to hide others the show is earnestly employing. 6. veronica says she needs to be redeemed for her father’s crimes, how is that fair. 7. archie’s desire to make music seems like a stand-in for a recognition that he’s gay. they cover this up by making his character straight but i don’t buy it. because his music itself clearly doesn’t matter. this is similar to the dead poets society where the kid kills himself obviously because he’s gay and he’s afraid his dad will disown him. why? nobody kills themselves merely because their dad shames them for doing theater. the reason is simple: theater is already such a humiliating and abject thing to love that you have to be totally shameless to even start doing it. once you become a theater kid your dad has lost you. in the second episode, the gay friend of betty reveals that he agrees with me here. 8. archie is the decentered center of the show, not a particularly interesting character so much as a holding container for female desire/fantasy. he’s dumb, cute boy who’s kind of artistic and kind of jockish, but the complex psychology belongs to betty, veronica, cheryl so far—all plotting, calculating characters, whereas archie just wants to enjoy himself and be liked—and to be fair, these shallow needs get him in plenty of trouble, but they’re simple needs. but this is always what archie was, even as a comic book character. he’s kicked around like a football like a more jocular charlie brown. 9. archie’s problem is identiied as the problem of "all millenial men", who need to be told what they want—but this is really everyone’s problem. what makes the girls/women different is that they don’t care that they don’t know what they want—they just act on feelings, and try to make the world match up with the feelings. archie thinks he ought to know what he wants, and then do it. but the women, whose desires as women are not even encouraged from day one, are free from this tedious problem. this is why archie is the one who has to be the moral authority regarding his mutual witness to the murder with the hot teacher, while the hot teacher is only afraid people will find out she fucked a student. veronica brushes off archie’s identity crisis as a false dilemma, critiqueing the categories of “jock” and “artist” and insisting he can be both, and anyway who gives a fuck? but this whimsy and indifference toward boundaries can get devious with veronica, who is betty’s friend one second and hooking up with archie the next. 10. although women are still often denied full subjectivity in literature, in real life it’s always been the opposite—men tend to forego personality development in favor of power or the illusion of power, and end up more shallow, rigid and fragile, more prone to the whims of their entourage. they never really have to become anything in particular--masculinity functions like a hive mind. if male relationships superficially appear to have less friction, it is only because men are brutally conformist and end up with little personal to argue about, usually coalescing around some common interest and not prone to discussing their respective inner lives--except, occasionally to defensively deny their existence. so-called "sensitive" men only do this in more devious ways--it's obvious that jughead is the most devious character we've met so far. women, in contrast, are each a hive mind unto themselves, compelled to construct an array of selves, carefully deploying them to get by in a world structured by the male gaze and booby-trapped by the machinations of other women. this complexity is of course terrifying to men who either submit to it as a fetish or suppress it— and one way of accomplishing that suppression in literature is to create stories where the men are supposedly complex and the women supposedly shallow and dependent wholly on men--the typical gaslight job of the mediocre male writer. this is clearly a show that, whatever its other blindnesses, is not going to let that happen. 11. we are told through veronica that archie is more dangerous than he looks. why doesn’t the show want us to figure this out ourselves? this feels ironic on the writers' parts, another winking use of cliche. 12. everyone’s problem is a cliche—archie’s father pressures him to do sports to get into college, he wants to do something else. betty’s mom is controlling and betty is a people pleaser who already in the first episode explodes about how perfect she has to be all the time and can’t she just do something for herself for once? 13. the music is annoying and cloying but it also grounds the contemporary nature of the show, because of its peculiar sense of melodrama, which is endemic to this time period, and the neoliberal overvaluing of the self. 14. the video on this show seems filtered into oblivion, or photoshopped or otherwise conspicuously treated. just like the self-awareness of the script, it contributes to the sense of unreality. 15. more self-aware cliches: archie and betty grew up next door to each other—they’re stuck in a feedback loop of being the ____ next door. cheryl describes herself as the queen on stage at the dance. 16. classic literature is referenced oddly—betty loves toni morrison, even though by the end of the episode, we have been introduced to zero black main characters. is this self-aware critique of white fetishization of blackness? and there's also thornton wilder’s “our town”… veronica suggests that the high school is part of the lost epilogue from “our town”—wilder also presented a transparently fake and timeless town to stage his existentialist story in, one in which horrifyingly, dead people remain in a liminal space between death and life, vainly trying to communicate with the living they can still see. 17. every celebrity/media reference is bizarre. a thin veneer draped over an unchanging reality. "Riverdale" seems not so much about the dark underbelly of suburbia, but about the idea of suburbia is the dark underbelly itself. a murder has to happen because someone has to bring death here, lest everyone become paralyzed by their immortality. 18. archie’s “making a deal” with the hot teacher is way more erotic than anything he’ll do with b or v… why is this happening at the Dance lol, unless we are to read it this way? they have shared the most precious thing in this town, death... why does archie love the teacher and toy with his peers? because they can't give him death. clearly archie is blackmailing the hot teacher into continuing the relationship, but he does so seemingly unaware of his own motives. he lives in the age of youtube tutorials, he doesn't need music instruction. and here is another paradox of the modern gender binary--men think they don't know what they want, but unconsciously they know what they want--they receive their instructions from the Borg Queen of masculinity and pursue it ruthlessly, whereas women end up thinking they know exactly what they want, but unconsciously they don't, because it's fractured amongst their afformentioned hive of selves. This is why both traditonally-socialized genders are completely right in saying the other is full of shit. 19. “we have no past” goes the song josie sings—and maybe this is america’s problem—the past is empty, the past of ordinary suburbia, interrupted only occasionally by wars perhaps but untouched by cultural progress—and because we have no past we can have no present, only an empty recycling of the same void, the same problems, the same catharses—new episodes of the same show. we live forever at the cost of never changing. is riverdale a socially critical prestige drama LARPing in the ironic costume of a CW teen soap??? 20. all the characters are trapped in a carnival haunted house ride. the theme: adolescence. 21. cheryl’s party—brett kavanaugh could have been at this party 22. jughead is the narrator, and i like the idea that this is all in jughead’s head, which is why it’s so unstuck in time aesthetically, so stylized and knowing. and it's no wonder he's the most popular character, because he represents the writers themselves, and fandom is to have an illusion of a privileged relationship not so much with the characters, but with the property's creators--and to be hyperinvested and, if necessary, hypercritical of their choices. 23. the gay hookup is interrupted by the presence of a corpse—a classic trope in teen horror but it’s interesting to see it with a gay pair. it’s as if in the clash between the perpetual 1950’s aura and the contemporary references and morality, a gruesome surplus appears, the specter of homophobia. which, incidentally is a corpse of a man guilty of a sexual act that is still considered taboo—incest. a corpse symbolizes the death of innocence for a hetero couple, but for a queer couple it can’t just be that—it also must evoke the threat of actual murder. which makes this a very different moment. 24. jughead says riverdale has changed—but it has only been revealed to be what it always was—"full of shadows and secrets", as jughead puts it. he must be putting us on—this place is way creepier than Sunnydale, and that place had actual demons… but this is often what a change amounts to—not the addition of a new trait, but the acceptance of one that was already there. 25. jason blossom is a ginger like archie and he therefore seems tied to archie in a unique way. he dies on july 4th, given some fuel to my reading as a show with something to say about america’s self-image. 26. all the parents are single parents or in strained, unhappy marriages in this town. this us realistic, but that should tip us off: what in the show has been realistic so far? debuting in january 2017, "Riverdale" seems retrospectively shaped by the trump era-a teen drama not about the undead, as buffy was, but a teen drama which is itself undead, fitting for a president who also wished to raise the dead, and also what had never lived. riverdale’s preservation of the old “great” america is superficial—indoors, a very contemporary isolation and alienation reign, in contrast even to the desperation of actual 50’s suburbia. 27. is everyone dead already in this show? is riverdale purgatory? is that what explains its being unstuck in time and drenched in fog? but i’ve been to small towns in the northwest that look like riverdale—nothing has been updated since 1954. in order to seem fake, riverdale has to be even faker that real life, even more uncanny—and that’s a tall order.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Welcome to Your Cyberpunk Future by Rudy Rucker

“Welcome to Your Cyberpunk Future”

Draft of a talk by Rudy Rucker for IdeaFestival in Louisville, Kentucky, talk given on September 27, 2017.

Where I’m From

I grew up in Louisville, and I graduated from St. Xavier high-school in 1963, not that I’m a Catholic. My father Embry was in fact an Episcopal priest at St. Francis in the Fields. But my parents had the idea that St. X had the best science courses. It’s a good school. But I regret not having gone to high-school with girls. I could have gone to Waggener with my best friend Niles Schoening. He died last year. And my St. X pal Michael Dorris died a few years back. It’s terrible to see your friends and loved ones go. They’re lost. No backup.

Embry Sr, Nonny, Embry Jr, and Rudy in 1957

I left Louisville, and went off to Swarthmore College near Philadelphia, and then I got a Ph. D. in mathematics, and had a career. At this point I’ve published about forty books. Some are popular science books about infinity and about the fourth dimension. But most of my books are science fiction novels. Literary science fiction. Cyberpunk and transreal. Cyberpunk is about computers merging into our reality—and about us maintaining our individuality in the face of that.

Rudy with big brother Embry and his motorcycle in Prospect, Kentucky, in 1981

When I was growing up, I was fascinated by the Beat writers Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs. It helped that my cool big brother Embry had a subscription to Evergreen Review, which is where these guys were publishing. In grad school I was a hippie, and the 1980s, I was a punk. But at the deepest level I’ll always be a beatnik.

Nevertheless I’m a reliable Louisville boy, and a family man, married to my college sweetheart Sylvia for fifty years now, with three children, and five grandchildren.

Our children Rudy Jr, Georgia, and Isabel in Lynchburg, Virginia, 1978. Cyberpunk kids! One of fate’s jokes was to have me live the home of the “Moral Majority” while I was helping to found the cyberpunk movement.

Being a successful writer doesn’t necessarily pay well, so for most of my life I had a day job. I was a math professor until I was forty, and then the family and I moved to California, and I became a computer science professor. I was faking it, but eventually I knew what I was doing, and then I did some work as a programmer as well. And now I’ve been retired for a dozen years. All I do these days is write and paint and put things online.

What is Cyberpunk?

This talk is called, “Welcome to Your Cyberpunk Future.” Your cyberpunk future is here, and you’re in it, and there’s nothing to be scared of. You’re out in the waves, and you can surf. No need to drown. And it’s gonna get gooder.

Back in the day, William Gibson, John Shirley, Bruce Sterling, and I were among the original cyberpunk authors. The word cyberpunk stood for a certain kind of science fiction literature and film, set in the near future. Gibson’s Neuromancer is a modern classic, and everyone’s read it. I’m known for my Ware Tetralogy novels, starting with Software in 1982. And Sterling generated more press than any of us—with his speeches, novels, and journalism. I co-wrote nine stories with Bruce. He can be annoying. A true punk. But the stories came out great.

Transreal Cyberpunk, a collection of stories by Bruce and Rudy. We self-published it last year, and rand a Kickstarter campaign to fund it. Cyberpunk publishing. “Transreal” means writing SF stories that are autobiographical, or in some way reminiscent of the author’s life.

The word cyberpunk isn’t all that well-known. People aren’t sure if it’s good or bad. The strait-laced and repressive forces in our society might reflexively say cyberpunk is bad. But I’m telling you that cyberpunk is good. Cyberpunk is your friend. Cyberpunk is a key to liberation.

The idea behind cyberpunk is simple. Cyberpunk = Cyber + Punk.

Cyber refers to two things: to people, and to the world that people live in. That is, cyber is about the merging of humans and robots—and cyber is about the physical world mixing with the virtual world of the internet.

One of my paintings . “The Riviera.” In a way, that’s my wife Sylvia and me.

How do people merge with machines? In one direction, we have intelligent programs imitating people. And in the other direction we have people enhancing themselves with devices like smart phones.

Okay, and what about the cyber merger of physical reality and the internet? In one direction, we have computers creating visual effects and virtual realities that resemble our world. And in the other direction our daily world is being augmented by the internet. We spend a lot of time online, and that means the internet is part of the world we walk around in.

Graffiti art at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. A punk diagrammatic crab.

So that’s cyber, now what about punk? In the classic 1980s sense, punk is about sex, drugs, and rock and roll—and about turning your back on conventional rules. As Bruce puts it, “We get in there with spray cans and grunge up those pristine walls.” Cyberpunk literature and film break out of the1970s-type, plastic, white-bread visions of the future. We leave the worlds of Star Trek and Star Wars—and enter the worlds of Bladerunner and The Terminator and Black Mirror.

In the 1980s, when the first cyberpunk novels appeared, a lot of SF novels were about, like, hereditary aristocrats who were colonels in the Space Navy. Some of us had barely escaped being drafted and sent to die in Vietnam. We didn’t want to hear about serving the whims of our so-called leaders. We wanted stories starring people like ourselves. Misfits, artists, stoners, outlaws, women, gays, and people of color. Not officers and cops and rich people.

Punk means countercultural politics. Like, “You’re not my boss. I’m not even listening. I’m doing it my way.”

Even simpler, punk means GTF&WA. Give the finger and walk away.

Software and Wetware

Covers of Software in paperback, (Ace1982 and (Avon 1987). When I published my novel Software in 1982, the word was almost unkown—I learned about the concept of software by reading Scientific American and by doing post-doctoral academic research on mathematical logic and the philosophy of mind at the University of Heidelberg.

The idea for the novel seems simple now. The idea: It should be possible to extract the patterns stored in a person’s brain, and transfer these onto a robot, and the robot will act just like person. By now you’ve seen this happen in about a hundred movies and TV shows, right? But I was the first one to write about it. In the 1980s, “soul as software” was such an unfamiliar way of thinking that it took me a year to figure it out.

Wetware in the Japanese and the Italian editions.

To make my Software be punk, I made the brain-to-software transfer very gnarly. A gang of scary-funny hillbillies extracted people’s mental software by slicing off the tops of their skulls and eating their brains with cheap steel spoons. One of them is a robot in disguise, and his stomach analyzes the brain tissue. They were based on some people who stayed at the same crummy motel as us one time.

My second Ware novel is called Wetware and it’s set partly in a robot colony on the moon, and partly in my beloved home town, Louisville. In Wetware, the robots get even. They start building people. The idea here is that DNA, or genetic code, is a type of program for your body. And since it’s all slimy down inside your meat, we call this code wetware instead of software. Wetware engineering it going to be huge in the 21st century. Biotech. Genomics.

All the wares are in my Ware Tetralogy. You can buy it or, since I’m a punk, you can get it free. I don’t totally write for money. I write to change the world. I want to infect your mind. It’s a type of self-reproduction!

Cyberpunk Now

The cyberpunk writers of the 1980s were canaries in a coal mine. We predicted the future. We are merging with computers. And our physical world is saturated with the internet. And punks have evolved into slackers and Xers and grungers and hipsters and Y’s and millennials and whatever’s next. But the attitude’s the same. Give the finger and walk away. Punk’s still here. Welcome to your cyberpunk future!

The good news is that the internet turned out much better than anyone could have hoped. It grew and spread before business or the government could shackle it. Why? Because those people who designed it and released it—they were cyberpunks. I’m not saying they were hipsters, no, they were geeks. But they were cyberpunk geeks. They knew about computers, but they didn’t want to obey the elite. They released the internet into the wild, and there’s no way for the controllers to get it back. It’s on the loose for good.

Here’s some of the tasty cyberpunk aspects of the free internet.

*Without getting permission from anyone, you can put up a webpage and you can post pretty much anything you want on it. Free speech.

*You can use the internet to publish your art or your books—both online and in print. Freedom of the press.

*Put a smart phone in your pocket and you’ve got a universal communication device. Talk to anyone anywhere. Use video if you like.

*You’ve got access to the total world library in your pocket.

*You can get a reasonably helpful answer to any question—just by typing it into the search bar.

*You can outsource some of your brain functions. Photos, addresses, directions, dates, calculations—you don’t have to remember them anymore. They’re online, in the cloud.

*Email and the social networks let you hang with a virtual gang of friends all day. A good session on the web can feel like a party. You’re in cyberspace, and you’re not alone.

Image of my son Rudy Jr’s ISP Monkeybrains.net. Customers on left.

That’s all good cyber stuff, but we do still need that recalcitrant punk attitude. The browser and social network companies—they’re into building silos of data about you—so pests can pelt you with ads. At the very least, it’s wise to refrain from answering any and all online questionnaires. And never give out your real phone number. GTF&WA.

Even in a democracy, you don’t automatically keep your rights to freedom. You have to win them back, over and over and over again. If you stop being a rebel, they make you a slave.

Cyberpunk Later

Now I’ll mention four possible forms of future cyberpunk tech.

My painting, “My Life in a Nutshell.” How it feels to be using a keyboard all the time! Based on a Philip Guston painting of a guy obsessing over a bottle.

* (1) Smooth interface. Believe me, people are not going to be pecking at tiny smart phone keyboards in ten or twenty years. Voice recognition will finally work. But it’s embarrassing to be talking out loud to your phone, and it’s slow to have to listen to a computer voice. We might end up with a patch or a soft blob that sits on the back of your neck and communicates directly with your devices, and even with other people. A cell phone that’s kind of glued onto your body, and it can read your brainwaves. As a computer science professor and a programmer, I would, however, advise you that any suggestion of implanting such a device is strongly contraindicated.

Like, “Report to the surgeon for release 2.1.7b?” Nah, external devices are fine.

This picture shows a pleasant regress or union you might encounter with telepathy. A yin-yang combo of souls!

* (2) Telepathy. True telepathy might be when, instead of sending information to someone else, you simply send them a link to the location where that information is stored in your own brain. And they can access it there without copying it. Read-only permission of course. And then, relative to you, other people are part of your data cloud.

Here’s my wife Sylvia and me in the digital afterlife. Recorded in Wyoming, 2008.

* (3) Digital Immortality. So how about making a software model of a person? So that, like, I can get my friend Niles Schoening back? In the near term, we already have a simple way for mimicking this process, something that I call lifebox software.

The idea behind a lifebox is get a large and rich data base with a person’s writings, plus videos of them, and recorded interviews. That’s the back end. The front end of a lifebox is an interactive search engine. You ask the lifebox a question, it does a search on the data, and it comes up with a relevant answer.

And for the icing on the cake, add a veneer of AI so the answers fit together into something like a conversation. This will be a huge commercial business soon.

(You can read more about this in my nonfiction book, The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul, online as a webpage.)

* (4) Everything is Alive. The best things in the world are what I like to call gnarly. Gnarl is at the interface between order and randomness. Not all lock-step organized—and not just random scuzz. There’s a whole theory to analyze this. The bottom line is that gnarly processes are, in effect, universal computations that can emulate anything.

Nature is gnarly. Leaves sway in an gnarly, chaotic patterns, never repeating, yet always approximately the same. Water flows in gnarly chaotic motion, too, and flames as well. Chaotic processes form intricately patterned shapes that we call fractals. And of course fractals are gnarly too. Our minds and bodies are gnarly as well. Gnarl is where it’s at.

My point is that any interesting natural process is gnarly, and any such process is, in effect, a universal computer. Even a rock sitting on the ground. A stone is, after all, like a jiggling mass of a septillion atoms, connected by spring-like bonds. There’s a lot happening inside a rock. Why shouldn’t it be as intelligent as I am?

My feeling is that, in some sense, every object is alive—some of the Greeks believed this. They called it hylozoism. Hylozoism = Matter + Alive

Way down the road, we’re not using manufactured tools anymore. And we’re directly talking to the material objects around us. Because every object is alive.

And how exactly do you talk to the objects? Well, if you’re a hylozoic cyberpunk, you’ll find a way.

(More on this in my essay, “Everything Is Alive” in my Collected Essays, and in my novel Hylozoic.)

Cyberpunk forever!

========================================

(Unused Extra Bit): Nature to Computation to Cyberpunk Art

Water in a creek reflecting the sky

Nature’s processes form intricately patterned shapes that we call fractals. Fractals are gnarly. Chaotic things leave fractal trails.

You don’t fully appreciate the gnarliness of water and of reflections of light until you analyze these with computer models of them. For a cyberpunk, a computer can be a funhouse mirror of the world. A distorting lens to see through.

Computer model of water using my CAPOW software.

The way to profit from our merge with computers is not to say “we’re just computers.” Instead you want to say “computers can be as interesting as us.” Cyber can sound dull, but if you punk it up, it’s gnarly.

Painting of the computer model. I call it “Alien Taxi.” A computer simulation of nature’s chaos inspires a vision of an alien vehicle.

A cyberpunk artist sees unknown new forms.

Audio | Text | Slides 

[flairmagazineblog]

Exclusive Interview: Selling Sunset

Netflix is getting most of us through the pandemic and Season 2 of the real-estate meets reality show, Selling Sunset, couldn’t have been released at a better time. What’s more ideal than binge-watching the sale of ultra-luxurious properties to the rich and famous while jade rolling on the couch? 

If you haven’t already binge-watched the entire season then fasten your seatbelts! The American reality show follows the Oppenheim Group’s incredible team of realtors as they broker multi-million dollar deals in Louboutins and designer outfits. Unlike most reality shows, Selling Sunset is a refreshing mix of business and pleasure focusing on both the personal and professional lives of the cast. As you can expect from a reality show, it isn’t all fun and games on the Sunset Strip; the ladies are friends as well as fierce competitors as they strive to outsell one another. Flair Magazine was lucky enough to sit down with two of the stars of the show, Christine Quinn and Heather Rae Young to ask them some of our burning questions.

Christine Quinn

How has your life changed since Selling Sunset was aired on Netflix? 

 Since Selling Sunset has aired, I have been blessed with so many opportunities and new friends!  I did the show because I wanted to entertain and inspire people.  I love interacting with fans.  Social media is such an incredible platform.  I have really enjoyed using my platform as a neutral place for love and kindness. 

Spill the tea! Have you worked with any celebrities? How was it? 

I have worked with loads of celebrities.  I am always surprised on how down to earth and humble most of them are.  I am currently working with Karamo Brown, from ‘Queer Eye’ on Netflix. I look forward to helping him find the home of his dreams. He is such a positive person who prides himself on helping people become the best versions of themselves.  Naturally, I knew we would be the perfect match! I showed a home to Kendal Jenner once. She is naturally stunning and super chill.  I have also worked with Orlando Bloom, he was an absolute blast.

Season 2 of Selling Sunset is out now on Netflix and most of us have already binge-watched it. Can you tell fans what they can expect in Season 3?

Season 3 is the best season yet. I am currently undergoing construction on my home.  You will see an exclusive ‘sneak peek’ of me working with my designer to transform my dream home.  The viewers will also join me in the wedding planning journey, all the way through to the big day.  During the finale, my dream wedding finally comes to life!  There are so many intricate details, and surprises that I can’t wait to share.

(Season 3 will premiere on August 7, 2020)

What is a must-have home design feature that you are currently obsessed with?

 I love to cook and my kitchen is the favorite part of my home.  Beverages are my jam. Flavored waters, sodas, juice, etc.  We decided to incorporate a special glass ‘beverage’ fridge as a display feature in our home.  I want it to be treated as a piece of art with neatly organized drinks by color.  I was actually inspired by Kris Jenner for this piece.  She always has an immaculately clean glass fridge full of refreshing options.  I am a sucker for a fancy bubbly water.

What is your favourite part of working at the Oppenheim Group? 

The family dynamic we have is really special. We are all friends outside of the office, and strive to create a causal, yet fun, work environment. We set our own schedules, and are able to work when we want, and we can be selective with clients.  I love being able to set my own hours and be my own boss.

Heather Rae Young

How has your life changed since Selling Sunset was aired on Netflix?  

Wow life changed a lot for me not only in my personal life but my business life. I am in an amazing  relationship with Tarek El Moussa (from HGTV’s “Flip or Flop” and “Flipping 101”) you get to see the beginning of my relationship unfold with him and his children and how I navigate through balancing a new relationship and my busy work life. We have now been together 1o months and we are so in love. It’s amazing because we are both in the same business and both on TV and have so much in common. He really understands me and my work and we can bounce ideas off each other and I can turn to him for advice since he’s been in this business longer than me. 

After season 1 of “Selling Sunset” came out, we had a lot of  fake buyers and I had to navigate who was real and who wasn’t. I think being a a woman real estate agent in this cut throat business gave me credibility.

Spill the tea! Have you worked with any celebrities? How was it? 

I have personally worked with professional athletes, but the Oppenheim group as a team works with many celebrities.

Season 2 of Selling Sunset is out now on Netflix and most of us have already binge-watched it. Can you tell fans what they can expect in Season 3? 

Well, in my opinion season 2 is juicier with more drama than season 1. Season 3 has even more drama plus more gorgeous real estate, a wedding, a divorce and much more. We are so excited to show the world the amazing homes, designs and architecture that we get to see on an everyday basis. 

What is a must-have home design feature that you are currently obsessed with? 

I am obsessed with mid-century modern design and adding textures to walls. Don’t be afraid to add wallpaper. Sexy lighting to me is one of the most important features in a home. I also love carpet in the master bedroom and master closet. I love waking up and putting my feet down on something warm and soft. 

What is your favourite part of working at the Oppenheim Group? 

It’s a boutique agency so it’s small, which I love because we are like a family, we push each other to be better and work harder. It’s a cut-throat business and other agents can be tough. It’s nice to know we can count on each other with business matters and our personal lives.

Exclusive Interview: Selling Sunset was originally published on FLAIR MAGAZINE

[pinelife3]

Sadness

The treatment of the breaking of the fourth wall in Fleabag is the most compelling thing I’ve seen all year. Throughout the first season, our protagonist Fleabag (played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge who also writes the show) would look at the camera to make witty asides. Usually a sarcastic remark or eye roll to hammer home that she’s sardonic, insincere, perhaps a little underhanded. 

You’ve probably noticed how if you’re in a one-on-one conversation, it’s hard to rag on someone but that in a group it works (because you can pretend it’s good natured humour rather than a scathing attack on their very existence). In Fleabag, the breaking of the fourth wall is a way for Fleabag to safely ridicule whoever she’s speaking to. It’s also a succinct way of delivering backstory, revealing her intentions, and getting us on side. These interactions with the fourth wall are pretty standard, see: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Amélie, House of Cards, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Shakespearean asides, American Psycho. It’s an accepted device. But then in season two, when Fleabag speaks to us, someone takes notice, someone spots her dipping out of their diegetic reality as she speaks to us in ours. 

I thrilled at this. 

Sometimes I feel like I’ve seen everything - but I’d never seen this before. This is the most exciting thing I’ve ever seen on a TV show (forget the Red Wedding). This is a masterful trick, and great storytelling all at once - it demolishes a literary device. But most of the coverage of Fleabag has focused on how sad the show is:

People seem to like that: they like being crushed, enjoy being devastated. Why is that?

I’ve recently cried over two cowboy related things: Brokeback Mountain and Red Dead Redemption 2. 

I cried when I finished Red Dead Redemption 2 because I love Arthur Morgan so much: he was just the sweetest guy, and I was sad the story was over because we can’t go fishing anymore, or crash his horse into trees and fall, or fight gators in the swamps, or brush his horse while we cruise around the old west. I just felt so wistful for his life and the idea of bad guys working hard to be good in a changing world. 

And then I cried at the end of Brokeback Mountain because it is objectively very sad. The shirts tucked inside each other which Jack kept all those years. The possibility that Jack didn’t know how much Ennis loved him. The life they could have had together, and how much they loved each other - but the families and relationships they destroyed along the way as well, because no one ever said what they felt. 

I really liked both Brokeback and Red Dead, because they have great stories and characters. In Red Dead, I have so many fond memories - and for that reason it made me feel strong emotions. But I don’t like Red Dead because it made me feel strong emotions. I don’t like Brokeback because it was ‘crushing’ and/or ‘devastating’ - it was enjoyable because it was a beautiful story with tragic, poignant elements. I like the story - not that it made me cry. Most Fleabag reviews seem to focus on the sadness it made the audience feel as a way to recommend it to people. 

Watch Fleabag - it will make you feel something. 

Prepare to emote because Fleabag is preternaturally sad.

The discourse around the show on Reddit is similar:

Pffft want to feel really sad? Check out this scene from Synecdoche, New York:

It’s very moving, kind of irresistibly so. And I think that’s because it’s calling out to that scared, bitter, self-pitying part of you which is always cringing in the shadows, waiting for someone to invite it out of the garage into the living room. This speech is designed to frighten you: you’ll make misssssstakesss and ruin your life. You won’t even know you’re doing it until it’ssssss toooooo late. You might think your life is nice - but that’sssssssssssss only because you haven’t ssssssssssseen how bad it will get. It’s giving you permission to feel bad without providing any reason to feel bad, and then it’s allowing you to wallow in that bad feeling. It’s poison. 

I promise you, for 99% of people who watched Synecdoche, New York , life is not that bad. People in horrible, war torn places where they aren’t able to watch Charlie Kaufman films because no one dubs indie movies in Kurdish have it bad - and not just because they’re missing out on great films, but because they essentially live in a sandier version of Hell. Haven’t you ever sat in the sun with a dog and seen it look back at you and felt a perfect connection? Haven’t you ever fallen asleep, perfectly comfortable, tucked in beside someone you love? Haven’t you ever eaten pancakes with ice cream, or seen a huge mountain, or been really cold and then gotten into a warm bath? Haven’t you ever seen a baby fake-crying on the tram and then its mum tickles it under the chin and it laughs, and you see everyone around you smile because babies are so pure? Come on! You’re not Othello. Your life is pretty nice. Even Othello’s life was pretty nice right up until the end. 

Pretty nice.

But boring. Right? 

Pancakes? Cuddles?

How am I to thrill at sunsets and smiling babies? 

Good. Now I’m sad again. 

And if the realisation that you don’t have anything to be sad about (except for the ordinariness of the pleasures in your life) didn’t make you sad, check out this compilation of the 10 most depressing moments in Bojack Horseman (ranked in order from least depressing to most depressing!).

A major inconvenience of modern life is that most of us have supremely comfortable, happy, safe lives. And when something goes wrong, you can’t go on a tragic rampage and tear out your own eyes, beat your breast, or wail on the moor in a thunderstorm - even though that may be what you feel like doing. 

Work sucks, no one respects me, and I messed up that section of the Excel spreadsheet so maybe they are right to not respect me: take me to a moor where my tears can blend with rain and my howls will be swallowed by the wind! 

Ordinary people don’t get to live in a tragedy - and besides, there aren’t as many moors around as literature might have you believe. The most you can do usually is make a scene at a family dinner or isolate yourself at a party and then get drunk and walk home crying. Who would write a sweeping, romantic story about an embarrassing fuck up walking home drunk, feeling sorry for themselves.

Oh.

Wait:

And Now For That 2000 Year Old Mystery

Aristotle’s Poetics is the source of the word catharsis (in italics because it’s Greek which is the way I was taught to do it in high school - if only there were Greecian-alics, am I right?), which in common parlance today basically means any kind of dramatic release of emotions. Kickboxing is cathartic. Getting your eyebrows waxed is cathartic. Crying during an emotional episode of a TV show is cathartic. 

Because the word appeared in Poetics, it's original usage related to the theatre, in particular the experience of an audience watching a tragedy: the release of emotions they feel in watching things go seriously wrong for the hero. For this reason, catharsis is often tied to anagnorisis - the moment of tragic realisation. 

Oh god I killed my father and married my mother. 

Oh god, that’s my son’s head on the pike, not the head of a mountain lion.

Oh god, remember when I messed up that bit of the spreadsheet and everyone knew it was me. Existence truly is pain.

You get the idea. It’s not enough that the protagonist is a fuck up: that matter needs to be brought to their attention and they need to reflect on it.

(A more proper (read: academic) definition of catharsis is: “an imitation of an action ‘with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions.’” The emotions the audience feel echo what the people on stage are feeling. The jump scare in a horror movie scares the character on screen and the audience watching at home.)

Aristotle never clearly defined catharsis. So for all this time (2000+ years) people have been trying to infer what he meant from a couple of references to a pretty slippery concept. Even though the general public has their understanding of the word, academics still cannot agree on a definition. But we know what it means, roughly, because we’ve all experienced it. 

Over the weekend I watched Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s other other TV show (not Killing Eve) which had an exchange between an artist and a drunk girl on sadness and how it factors into art:

Character 1: He’s my muse!

Character 2: Your muse?

...

Character 2: Like an artist's muse?!

Character 1: Yes, he is! You think meeting someone like Colin happens to artists all the time?! He gives so much.

Character 2: Yeah, sure, and you just lap it up and just slap it on a canvas.

Character 1: Pardon?

Character 2: "His pain is so beautiful." You're using him to indulge yourself.

Character 1: I am indulging? And what is this? 

Character 2: This is a $4 bottle of wine.

...

Character 2: Sorry if I upset you, Melody.

Character 1: You don't upset me. You bore me. All you seem to want to do is drink and wank and drink and wank.

Character 2: Well, at least I don't have to wank other people's pain onto a canvas, and then shove it in people's faces and call it "my art."

Character 2 in this scene is played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. I can’t be bothered to explain why it’s relevant. 

For the eternity of human brains, or at least for as long as preserved creativity, the most comfortable, secure people in the world have tried to experience the things tragic victims feel - perhaps so they can briefly know what it feels like to be a romantic figure struggling in an unjust world. A passport to feelings and drama we aren’t permitted in every day life. Catharsis is the word to express the reaction, but what do we call an audience who seeks out that sensation? Catharsis chasers?

It’s not insightful to say that people like to watch Fast & Furious movies because they’re exciting and perhaps audiences enjoy that excitement because their own lives are un-exciting. But commending a thing because it will make you sad seems aberrant in some way. A fast and dangerous car that will make you miserable. A roller coaster that will make you depressed. An incredible shootout in the streets of LA that will make you sob in the bathroom cubicle at work every time you think about it. I can’t explain the drive, but like Aristotle I will invent a new word, so that academics can never know what I meant but will still write at great length about it, so that it will slip into common parlance and be horribly misused until eventually, 2000 years from now, a girl can waffle on about it on her blog. And the word will be: scartharsio. Or maybe scorpithoniacs? Or sarcastiharsics? 

Sadness is entertainment for a scartharsio.  

ALL TIME HALL OF FAME: WAILING WOMEN AND MOORS

Nobody knows what it’s like to be me, a sad woman who weeps on moors! 

I’m not being overly dramatic!

[recentanimenews]

Chiyoko Fujiwara Has Come Unstuck in Time: Reveling in the fractured, nonlinear surrealism of Satoshi Kon’s <cite>Millennium Actress</cite>.

This week I had the pleasure of seeing the late Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress in the theater. It’s not just my favorite anime movie but my favorite film of all time, so I’m ecstatic to see that the anime market in the US has grown so much that we can get widespread screenings of Kon’s films, including this one and Perfect Blue. With Millennium Actress fresh on my mind, it seems to me like a perfect time to once again sing the praises of this sublime, quietly breathtaking film.

Lots of films and TV shows follow multiple timelines. There’s the ping-ponging intrigue of Memento, the flash-back-and-forward structure of True Detective and Lost, and the Guy Ritchie-inspired anime series Baccano! But Millennium Actress’s multiple timelines are a completely different breed. The film isn’t a puzzle box to be deciphered, with all its loose ends linked up with their corresponding pieces. It’s a hall of mirrors to be explored, with images bent and reflected endlessly into the distance. Millennium Actress depicts three timelines of vastly different scale and scope, interleaved into one another: the life of its titular heroine Chiyoko, the history of Japanese filmmaking, and the history of Japan itself.

Chiyoko’s timeline plays back relatively consistently, moving forward in time as we watch her age from a newborn to an elderly woman, always searching for the man who gave her a mysterious key one snowy day. Her journey through the world of Japanese film follows a similarly linear progression. It’s when Kon throws the history of Japan into the mix that time begins to distort. Movies can transport you to any place and time, and Chiyoko’s films, by bouncing back and forth between medieval period pieces, modern dramas, and science fiction set in the far-flung future, do just that. The history isn’t just covered by the movies themselves either, but also by Chiyoko’s lived experience, which covers the turbulent history of 20th century Japan. Chiyoko simultaneously exists in all of these time periods at once, immortalized on screen. It’s in this sense that she is a “millennium” actress — trapped in a thousand years of solitude, cursed to replay her tragic love story for all time.

In short, Chiyoko has come “unstuck in time,” the condition described by Kurt Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse Five in which his protagonist Billy Pilgrim experiences moments from the past, present, and future seemingly at random. The allusion wouldn’t have been lost on Satoshi Kon, who repeatedly professed his love for George Roy Hill’s Slaughterhouse Five film adaptation. That single film had an immense influence on all of Kon’s work — Hill’s heavy use of match cuts in particular.

Match cuts, in which one scene transitions to another using one or multiple shared elements, were a favorite of Kon’s across his entire career, and Millennium Actress is a masterclass in the device. Earthquakes, a frequent subject of the cuts, jolt characters out of reverie and back to reality while connecting with Chiyoko’s statement early in the film that her life is tied to earthquakes. Doors also feature heavily, helping to carry the audience between major scene changes, as when the door of a derailed train suddenly leads to a feudal battlefield.

Most important of all, however, is the climactic scene with Chiyoko running to meet the man she’s been chasing after. The entire film is structured around this moment, with seemingly one-off shots — Chiyoko slipping and falling in the snow, her friends laughing about her first love — blending together into a single continuous scene. Though each of these shots is separated by decades of her life, they form a unified whole. We see Chiyoko’s entire life at once, in flattened, non-linear time.

There‘s a temptation, especially among American moviegoers, to explain all of this, to come up with a rational scientific reason for it. “It’s Chiyoko’s memories,” “it’s her mind playing tricks on her,” things like that. This does a disservice to what Kon is trying to achieve. Nearly every scene in Chiyoko’s past is patently impossible, even if you ignore the presence of documentary filmmaker Genya and his cameraman in the flashbacks. She has conversations about her personal life while in character for a film, making specific references to her cherished key and the man she’s after that are obviously not intended to be literal parts of her movie scripts.

In one scene, she’s cleaning her home and finds where her husband hid the key, only for Kon to zoom out and show the entire domestic scene as merely a set, with no camera crew in sight. Are we to believe that the key was hidden inside the set and Chiyoko was cleaning this fake home like a dutiful housewife when she found it? Of course not. What we’re seeing is a bit of reality and a bit of fantasy, placed in a box together and shaken up. Re-separating the parts and labeling them as “fact” or “fiction” is meaningless and detracts from Kon’s message.

That message is one that should connect with anyone who has ever fallen deeply in love with a great story. It’s the conviction that stories are what keep us going, whether they are real or fake or some unknowable mix of the two. And it’s a quintessentially Satoshi Kon insight that when we tell ourselves the stories of our own lives, we are always creating a fiction – inspired by reality but tweaked ever so slightly to grant us that much more clarity and purpose.

Millennium Actress is in theaters in the US for a limited time thanks to Eleven Arts and Fathom Events. Tickets for the Monday, August 19 screening, featuring a brand new English dub, are still available.

Chiyoko Fujiwara Has Come Unstuck in Time originally appeared on Ani-Gamers on August 16, 2019 at 4:51 PM.

By: Evan Minto

[atruththatyoudeny]

Monthly Reads | April 2017

❤ THANK YOU TO ALL WRITERS FOR YOUR HARD WORK AND FOR SHARING YOUR STORIES! ❤ Special mention⭐ & Top 5 + 10 more stories under the cut: ⭐ 1000 Feelings For Which There Are No Names Prompt Challenge ⭐

This is a prompt challenge @suddenclarityharry had the inspiration for after reading some of the feelings described in the book 1000 Feelings For Which There Are No Names. Participants pick a random number between 1 and 1000 and have to use the feeling described to write a short fic in a week’s time! Authors: a-writerwrites, letsjustsee, becomeawendybird, londonfoginacup, icanhazzalou, allwaswell16, phd-mama, flamboyantommo, jaerie, iflovewereall, all-these-larrythings Week One  | Week Two | Week Three - posted tomorrow!

The Afterlife Fic (The Best I Ever Had in My Entire Life... Or Death)  

by LovingCup | Afterlife | 490k AU- After dying in an accident, Louis Tomlinson arrives in the Afterlife. Not Heaven and not Hell, Louis finds himself in Judgment City UK: a pristine city where the food and entertainment are divine and the newly departed must undergo a Review of their life on Earth to determine if they have lived a life worthy of advancement in the universe, or if they must be returned to Earth to be born again in a new body. On his first full day in the Afterlife, Louis meets Harry Styles, and the two have an instant connection. Over the course of their Reviews, they fall in love and begin to find that even though they didn't know each other on Earth, they are nonetheless linked to one another in perfect ways. Both are hoping to move ahead in the universe together, but they are challenged with the threat of separation if one or both of them is sent back to Earth to be born again.

It Comes and Goes in Waves/It Always Does

by roaroftheninth | World War II | post war | 50k “He says that he’s grateful for that ending, because he always wanted to imagine it like that and you were always a better storyteller than he was. But that’s not the ending that should be published, because it’s not the truth.” Summary: It is 1953; Louis makes that nine years since they won the war (eight if you count the Americans, which he never does). His first novel, a best-seller set during wartime, is due for a sequel - but Louis doesn't want to face the ending.

Run away home

by hattalove for 1D Big Bang: Round Four | friends to lovers | horse racing | slow burn | injury recovery| 106k Louis stands, in the middle of a clearing with his hands in his pockets, and stares. This boy—God, this gorgeous, gorgeous boy. He seems so clumsy, confused at the best of times, but there’s a wisdom about him as he speaks, a maturity that belies his age. Louis is hopelessly, wildly attracted to him. or, louis is a successful jockey down on his luck, struggling to get his life back on track after an injury. harry has a horse, a house fit for a prince, and a broken heart. it takes them a while to figure out that they need each other.

Wholehearted

by TheMagicWord | famous/non famous | Coming Out | implied/referenced homophobia | 77k AU. When superstar singer and winner of The Voice Louis Tomlinson tweets “Nothing worse than waking up with no milk for a cuppa !! Gutted” he doesn’t expect someone to bring him some. And he really doesn’t expect that someone to have bright green eyes, long curly hair, and (fucking) dimples.

Safe And Sound (You'll Always Be)

by Rearviewdreamer | Famous/Non Famous | Bodyguard!Harry | 58k When a failed case and a guilty conscience leaves Harry more than a little lost, his boss presents him with a new, less taxing assignment to help him cope. An escape from all the madness is just what Harry needs to get his life back on track. It's just too bad his new client has a grin like the devil, a pair of electric eyes that Harry simply can't get over, and no intention whatsoever of letting him catch a break.

'Till I Tasted You

by kiwikero for HL Famous/Not Famous Fic Exchange | Famous/Non Famous | 15k Louis is Harry Styles' biggest fan. It doesn't matter that Harry is famous for being a food blogger and Louis can't cook to save his life. At least, until Harry offers to give Louis a cooking lesson. Then it matters just a teensy bit.

Life Was A Song, You Came Along

by rainbowninja167 | 37k It's embarrassing how long it takes Louis to recognize his own song. Niall had sung it as a bright, hopeful love song, and that’s honestly how Louis had always assumed it should sound. But this new voice, slow and rough, stripped of any backing instrument, has infused the lyrics with just the tumultuous mix of fear and defiance that Louis can remember so clearly from the night he wrote them. It’s not a comfortable thing, to feel like someone is singing all your secrets back to you. Louis is a songwriter trapped in a lie that could ruin his best friend's career. Harry owns a record store, distrusts everyone in the music industry on principle, but loves Niall Horan's newest album. A modern retelling of Singin' in the Rain.

Moments Of Memories

by momentofclarity | Reunited AU | Fate & Destiny| 17k And that’s when his heart stops. It stops only to a second later flutter like the wings of a hummingbird against his ribcage. The noise of the crowd melts into an intangible buzzing in his ears. He stares at the picture and he knows he should question the reason for why his body has suddenly gone haywire, but he doesn’t. Because he knows those eyes, would recognize them anywhere, and now they are staring back at him from a picture on a wall. Reunited AU. Harry Styles met Louis Tomlinson at the age of 6. At the age of 23 he lost him. What happens when he meets him again 36 years later?

Love Me Like You Do

by lululawrence | friends to lovers | fake/pretend relationship | 4k “Yeah, but is working in a field completely unrelated to what I’m educated in and what I want to do really paying my dues? And Lou, I’m 28. I’m 28 working a job I don’t enjoy, still living with my best friend, minutes from my mom’s house.” “You’re saying that living with me isn’t the best part of your life right now, fucker,” Louis complained, poking Harry in the ribs where he knew he was sensitive. Harry squeaked and moved his arm to protect his side before apologizing. “I didn’t mean it like that, it’s just…” Harry sighed. “I feel like I’m just treading water and I have been for ages now. I’m glad I have a job that covers what I need it to, and I’m incredibly lucky to have you with me as well, but like…” Louis waited, but the silence wasn’t filled. Or the one where it's time for Harry's ten year reunion and Louis being his fake boyfriend for the night changes things more than they expected.

More Than Anything

by LycorisLife | soulmates | fashion design | model!Harry| 13k Being able to see through the eyes of your soulmate may seem like a dream come true to many, but reality proves a little more complicated. For two young boys it's all they could ever wish for but as time passes by they come to realise that there's no pain quite the same as longing to have someone who just isn’t there.

In the Clear

by aclosetlarryshipper | fairy tale | royalty | violence | 80k After Princess Gemma and her fiance Niall are captured by the witch from across the land, Harry and Louis are forced on a journey together to save them. Featuring Lumberjack Liam, Magical Zayn, unsolicited tattoos, and untangling the past. Also known as The Larrietale.

What's Stopping You?

by kikikryslee | roommates | friends to lovers | 14k That shirt was what held his attention again. How many other guys had the same shirt that H and Harry had, and – wait. H… Harry. Harry did yoga. So did H. They both had the same shirt, and had both gotten home ten minutes ago and were cooking dinner. No way. Louis looked at the picture again, and stared more closely at H’s lips. They were pink and pouty, with the lower lip a bit plumper than the top, just like Harry. And H had brown, curly hair that reached his shoulders, just like Harry. Louis looked over at Harry, who was putting his hair back up into a bun as the kitchen was most likely getting warmer. “Holy shit,” Louis whispered. Have I been flirting with my own roommate all this time? --- Or, the one where Harry wants to get over his crush on Louis, so he makes a Grindr account to find someone new. Of course, Louis messages him, not realizing H's real identity. It only takes a few days for them to figure it out.

Even Angels Have Their Demons

by AFangirlFantasy | Angel/Demon AU | forbidden love | enemies to lovers | 50k Louis is appointed the role of Guardian Angel, and his first mission is a boy named Zayn Malik. Unfortunately, it seems that a certain Demon has gotten to him first. Or... an Angel/Demon AU where Angel Louis hates Demon Harry, but somewhere along the way that stops being so true.

The Edge of the Stars

by casuallyhl | Reality TV | 17k Louis laughed. “You think you can convince some random guy to want to go out with me?” “Oh baby,” Jay chuckled. “I can convince all of the UK to want to go out with you.” Or, a Meet the Parents AU where Harry is the man of Louis’ dreams, and it’s up to Jay to convince him to date her son.

Like The Wings Of Butterflies

by sweetly_disposed | circus AU | 15k "Tell you what, why don't you come by sometime, when there's no practise on? I'll teach you how to fly." Or, Harry, Zayn, Liam and Niall are trapeze artists, and Louis has a love for the circus.

[harrelltut]

卍 My HIGHLY AFFLUENT [HA = HARRELL] FAMILY of Business Investors [FBI = PLUTOCRATS] who Generationally Inherited [G.I.] Our Historically NEW [FUTURISTIC] WEALTH from Tulsa Oklahoma’s [OK] Historically Black Wall Street WEALTH District of Greenwood… BEE the Original Monetary Wall Street ELITES who PRIVATELY + ANCESTRALLY [PA] FUND Me [ME = U.S. Michael Harrell = TUT = JAH] @ My HIGHLY Official… U.S. ATLANTEAN [USA] Egyptian Technocracy [E.T.] QUANTUM HARRELL TECH® LLC in California [CA] 卍

[ktbensondc]

Post Modernity & Visual Culture

Post-modernism can be difficult, slippery, and infuriating to define. It dates roughly from the 1980′s to present day (therefore making everyone living through this age Post-Modernists). To say something is ‘post-modern’ is to say that it is trendy or fashionable. However, because we are living through this period, it is difficult to step outside the now to truly understand it. For example, some theorists say it does not exist.

Post-modernism is defined by what it isn’t: modernism. It can be:

anti-modernism

after-modernism

hyper-modernism

Modernism roughly dates from the 1850′s to the 1970′s. It was a sustained period of innovation in the arts. Science and art worked together during this time of overarching political power structures and two world wars. The Second World War disrupted Modernism in Europe and saw it move to America. Modernism is rationalism - the combining of science and art (scientific industrial determinism - what happens in science and industry influenced art).

Key themes in visual culture:

Crisis of representation. Taking an image and correlating it with something to change/give it meaning.

Foregrounding of high (elitist) culture

Belief in grand naratives - modernism is about telling a great story

Modernism as determinism:

Charles Darwin - Origin of the Species

Theory of Relativity - Einstein

The idea of God is scientifically challenged during this time.

1889 Paris Universal Exposition saw the union of science and art

Any account of history is always biased. Within Modernism, we know about cubism because key note collectors pushed up the price. People from different time periods will push for certain trends and tastes, thus leaving us with a certain idea of that time, but we are seeing it through very specific lenses.

After-Modernism Post-modernity reacts to all of this. In Robert Hughes’ The Shock of the New (1980), he announced Modernism was finished. The idea at the time, was that there was nothing left to be ‘modernized’.

Today, we are living in a post-industrial, post-Fordian economic age.

Computerisation - the digital age

Global markets (liberalisation) - You can work for anyone, anywhere

Turbo capitalism vs Post capitalism - we’re in the dying stages of capitalism

No more over-arching story, no grand narrative - are we living through fragmentation? Now there’s no story as Post-modernism displaces it all. There are now individual stories that can be followed through the rise of the Vlogger on social media platforms such as Youtube, or the rise of the Instagram Model. Instead of an overarching story, we see smaller narratives and tune into the day-to-day life of particular people

When we look back, will this time period be a mess? Or will it have structure?

Artists have begun to promote the idea of the ‘individual narrative’. Simon Patterson’s The Great Bear saw him turn the infamous London Underground Tube Map into a map of his interests, thus creating his own personal narrative. Tracy Emin’s My Bed saw her turn the private public. She was promoting the individual in that moment. TV shows like Love Island promote this individual narrative too.

Are we anti-modernist? Lyotard expressed that “Reason has been shaped by a dishonest pursuit of certainty”. Life is too complicated and has a multitude of outcomes. It’s a complex reaction to the failures of Modernism: the holocaust, ecological disasters, for example. How can we look back on this time and think it good?

Anti-foundational - no universal truth, rejection of rationalism

All history is a story, History is written by the victors

Scepticism 

Contradictory attitudes to modern media. Trust in correspondents to tell the truth but the news is packaged for entertainment value so there will always be slippage

Feminists put forward anti-patriarchal perspectives. People who write and promote particular Modernist artists, do so with ideology. Feminists aim to trace back on that time period and write back in artists who were written out

No more rules & Post-truth politics - Emotion is now more reliable than expert opinion, Trump is a key example of how the truth can be denied - Brett Kavanaugh’s recent scandal is another example of how the truth can be denied

Institutional Patriarchy

Modernism Rational (Rules, targeting an audience)

VS

Post-Modernism Experimental/ Iconoclastic (All about the look, the text, being an artist)

Hyper-Modernism Is modernism really dead? Or are we living in an age of accelerating modernism? Is it still constant? A natural unfolding of modernism.:

Modernism is incomplete

Cyclical

Technological advancements

Cyber-Culture

Post internet -> Cultural Hybridity

Technological determinism -> Apple company.

Post internet is a potential name for our time period. Dealing with the ramifications of the post-internet age. Other names include: Post modernism, post capitalism, post structuralism.

Cultural hybridity - In the 50′s you are influenced by what is directly around you, but now you can look all over the world. Global and local ideas come together to make something new. 

Cult of technology i.e. Apple products became a symbol for wealth and high-earners in society. Regardless of the news stories coming out that Apple does purposefully make their products to break them around the time of new releases, people are willing to ignore this for having something deemed trendy and is acts as an icon for their worth.

Where is post-modernism? Merging of high and low cultural forms. High culture:

depth

high value

elitist

long lasting

politically motivated

Low culture:

surface

low value

gimmicky

mass-produced

politically influenced

They merge into one thing

Mutations of public space: Urban or fantasy architectural spaces - sampling of different historical period styles.

Global/cultural hybridity

Turbo consumerism

Hyper Reality

Nostalgia

Mutation of public space in shopping malls built to look the same all the way around. It is false and creates facades. Theme parks such as Disneyland mutate the vast public landscape and build a fictional reality. This is the ‘hyper-real’ in between fiction and reality.

The Unstable Image:

Hyper-real (semiotic overload)

Order of the simulacra

Bricolage

Parody + Pastiche

Intertextuality + Decoding

Hybrid genres and form

Irony

Retrovision

We are now living in the age of images, where there are more images now than ever before. Can this be defined as semiotic overload?  What happens when you have so many images?

Proliferation of images - we can no longer trust them as a result of the advancements of technology- namely, Photoshop which digitally alters an image. We can only look at the surface of the photograph and not dig deeper. The photograph used to mean reality and truth but now it is something to be questioned.

The degradation of the image- the more you copy, a copy, a copy, the further you get from the original. You are manipulating the image. The real is produced and the hyper-real is reproduced.

Reality television is a form of the real being retouched. It is formulaic and offer a falsified version of real life. American reality TV is often faked.

Andy Warhol was interested in celebrity culture and found that by repeating an image of famous actress Marilyn Monroe, he was able to get further away from her image being a photograph of her to something else entirely. The more you copy, the further away you get from the original.

Stage 1 - Reflection of reality Stage 2 - Masks and perverts reality Stage 3 - absence of reality Stage 4 - no relation to reality

Bricoalge - Sampling of images and ideas from the past (design, pop music etc) to create something new. Clash cover deliberately sampled Presley’s first album cover.

Parody - Referring to the original text and making fun of it. Putting new meaning to the original.

Pastiche - Images presented without reality or meaning. Taking the original but do not shine any new light. There’s no meaning, thus it is totally blank.

Intertextuality & Double coding - A text that refers to another text. References to other cultural sites/texts and appeals to different audience demographics i.e. The Simpsons - looking at 2 audiences, in this case, children and adults.

Hybridity & Irony - (Within film) Crushing genres together to create something new. Irony plays with the familiar models.

Retrovision - Nostalgic culture. Reinterpreting or repackaging the past in our own image. Taking all the hits of a previous time to look back on, but also stripping it of its original meaning as a side effect.

Society of the Spectacle:

Mediation - life lived on or through the screen

Multi-medialtiy

Complexity and simulation is the new reality

News is mediated.

Post-modernism - Why bother diffing for the truth? New media technologies means intense personal narratives. The general public are constantly over-dramatising and self editing what they share online, digitally altering the memory of the real life event.

However, in the end, post-modernism is a contested term. It could mean anything.

[itsthe4ground]

The Best Seasons of HBO’s The Wire (Ranked)

Written By Malik G. 

Introduction

What can I say about HBO’s The Wire that hasn’t already been said? Arguably one of the greatest TV shows ever made, The Wire provided audiences with an in-depth look into the city of Baltimore through its various institutions, establishments, and citizens. On the surface, The Wire is a simple story about police officers vs drug dealers but on another level, it’s an analysis of how people come together and interact when placed in a densely populated area.

The Wire could’ve easily taken place in New York, Philly, or Chicago but given how familiarized the creators David Simon and Ed Burns were with Baltimore – one being a Baltimore Sun journalist, the other being a homicide detective – there was no better backdrop. What separated The Wire from other police procedurals like NYPD Blue and Law & Order was its serialized nature. Each episode wasn’t its own case but rather a chapter in the overarching story that is the war on drugs.

Throughout the series, we examined the great American city through the eyes of cops, lawyers, politicians, drug dealers, and even the working class as each season introduced us to a new institution and how it either combats or perpetuates criminality. I could literally go on about The Wire forever (just ask my friends and family). However, I’m here to talk about its five seasons and which had the greatest impact on me as well storytelling and entertainment overall.

Check out where I ranked each season of HBO’s The Wire

Number 5: Season 2 (AKA The One That Left Everyone Confused)

On the first watch, I hated everything about season two of The Wire, mostly due to my lingering questions. Why were we focusing on a bunch of stevedores? What’s with this mysterious Greek character? Is McNulty going to be on marine patrol the entire time? What does any of this have to do with the Barksdale organization? By the time season two had ended, it had garnered my attention but I was still happy to be moving on.

Many distinguish the second season of The Wire as the weakest, mostly because of its 180° shift in terms of focus and narrative. The Major Crimes Unit has been disbanded, McNulty is riding the boat, Stringer Bell is in charge of the Barksdale organization while Avon and Deangelo are locked up, and something fishy is going on at the docks. As unnecessary as many people view season two, in retrospect, it might just be the most significant. While I feel we could’ve done without the mystery of the dead container girls, it was important to know just where the drugs were coming from.

Even though the Avon and Deangelo storyline got pushed back to the second tier, it did provide us with one of the show’s most heartbreaking deaths. Season two might’ve felt like a chore to slog through but on second and third watch, it proves that it belongs right next to the others in regards to character development and storytelling. Also, it gave us the Omar Little vs Lawyer courtroom scene, which is a must-see for anybody that questions how the legal system truly operates.

Number 4: Season 5 (AKA The One That Ended It All)

The series finale of The Wire is probably my all-time favorite next to Breaking Bad. It showed that even though the show was coming to an end, the so-called Game never stops. Drug lord Marlo Stanfield was forced into retirement, McNulty and Freamon were fired from the police force, and Michael and Dukie fit into their roles as the new Omar and Bubbles respectively.

However, season five wasn’t about giving its characters the send off they deserved but rather showing us how the cycle always finds a way to reset itself. The war on drugs could never be won because no one really understands how it operates or where it originated. There will always be another drug lord, cop, and politician to ensure that the drug trade has its highs and lows.

But, onto the season as a whole. The Wire has received critical acclaim for its immense level of realism. That being said, imagine my disappointment when I discovered the primary storyline for the final season. It would revolve around McNulty creating a fake serial killer so that the mayor would grant funds to the police department that McNulty would then funnel into a terminated drug case.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Season five was highly entertaining and superbly written but its premise was just too far-fetched for me to get behind. Also the most action-packed, season five gave us a Marlo vs Omar showdown, which seemed promising only to end rather anticlimactically. I love the final season for wrapping up the series in the most creative way possible but unfortunately, its semi-unbelievable concept forces me to place it at the number four spot.  

Number 3: Season 1 (AKA The One That Started It All)

I still remember the first time watching The Wire. I had just finished binge watching Breaking Bad and was in need of something equally as captivating. Searching through my HBO Go, I came across The Wire and the rest was history. Despite initially finding it boring and convoluted, I quickly became invested in its characters and overall narrative.

Similar to Game of Thrones, I didn’t know what was going on but I was eager to discover what was going to happen next. What really captured my attention was the amount of time that the show dedicated to developing both sides of the conflict. This might sound crazy but season one showed us that there are such things as bad cops and good criminals because, at the end of the day, we’re all people.

The Wire’s freshman season also presented us with so many memorable moments like Kima getting shot, the death of Wallace, and Deangelo’s change of heart. Season one also did a wonderful job at telling a self-contained story so if they weren’t renewed, the audience would be given with an appropriate amount of closure. The Wire provided the perfect template for how a premiere season should be developed with many shows following the formula to this day. 

Number 2: Season 3 (AKA The One That Shocked And Awed)

If season two took a detour through the docks and lives of the working class in Baltimore then season three was a delightful return to form. We found ourselves back on the Westside corners and wow was it mesmerizing. Avon, Stringer, and the Barksdale organization were back in business and this time they were going up against newcomer Marlo Stanfield.

Season three gave us a turf war that proved no matter who wins, the city always loses. In addition to this, police Major Bunny Colvin conducts an experiment that attempts to regulate the drug trade rather than fight it – something quite similar to the dispute regarding prohibition. The Major Crimes unit was up and running in full force and Stringer Bell was the true target again.

Season three is great because it continued to give us more of what we loved while introducing a new institution in the form of local government. It presented us with the grim reality of politics and that everything, including the war on drugs, is fought with the goal of further an agenda.

Arguably the most daring of the five, season three was not afraid to make some risky decisions, killing off fan favorites and leaving viewers with a “what now” attitude. It was in season three where The Wire really found its footing and established itself as a mainstay in pop culture. I couldn’t get enough.  

Number 1: Season 4 (AKA The One That Changed Everything)

Wow. Just wow. That was my reaction when finishing the fourth season of The Wire. I am going to go ahead and say that season four is the greatest season of television…Ever. After the events of the previous season, I was left wondering where the writers could possibly take the story next. Stringer Bell was dead, Avon was back in prison, McNulty had quit the Major Crimes unit to become a beat cop, and Marlo had become the new king of the streets.

Well, The Wire decided to pull another 180 and this time it was executed to glorious effect. We were introduced to the corner boys and their equally diverse and magnetic personalities. Namond, Randy, Michael, and Dukie – Season four showed us the Baltimore drug trade through their eyes and how it trickles down into the school system and their ability to receive an education. If season two showed audiences where the drugs came from, then season four revealed how the modern drug dealer is created.

It’s here where we discover where the Stringer Bells and Avon Barksdales of the world are made. There’s honestly just too much to talk about when it comes to season four. It’s easily the most tragic, enthralling, and introspective season of the series. When we weren’t watching the four main kids combat the struggles of life on the Westside, we got a glimpse of a happy McNulty, a ruthless and murderous Marlo Stanfield (Chris & Snoop = scariest henchmen ever), and how politicians are just as much of a problem as they are a possible solution.

I once spoke with a teacher who said she couldn’t finish the season because of how real and heartbreaking its depiction of education in a lower-class neighborhood was – yeah, it’s that serious. If you never watch another season of TV, watch season four of The Wire aka the one that changed everything.

Conclusion

There’s just so much more to talk about but feel I like I’ve overstayed my welcome. The Wire is a seminal piece of television that is being taught and studied almost a decade after its initial run. The definition of re-watchable, each time you enter the world of The Wire, there will always be something new to pick apart and analyze. If you haven’t yet seen The Wire, sorry for the spoilers but go watch it immediately. For everyone else, let me know how you felt about the popular HBO series in the comments below.  

[buffyfan145]

Ships that Remind me of Vicbourne Part 2

I made a post a few months ago of other couples from others shows, movies, and books I love that remind me of Vicbourne and now have more to add. :D These work too for AU fic ideas if anyone needs them.

Princess Ann and Joe from "Roman Holiday": I mentioned this in a post when I first started watching "Victoria" earlier this year but this is what Vicbourne first reminded me of. I love this movie about Audrey Hepburn's princess who run offs from her advisors for freedom while on a trip in Rome and meets an American journalist played by Gregory Peck who doesn't realize she's the princess at first.  Then once he does the two spend the weekend together and pretend they're a normal couple and she gets to explore Rome and be a normal girl for once.  Eventually she realizes she has to return to her duty and serve her country and that final scene where he gives her the pictures he had taken of them and she walks away from him always makes me cry and so similar to the end of ep 5 of season one after the wedding.

Emma & Mr. Knightly/Josh & Cher from "Emma"/"Clueless": Another Jane Austen novel but it fits with him being a family friend and the age difference.  Also I relate more to the "Clueless" version as I first saw that movie when I was 10 in 1996 and fell in love with Paul Rudd and shipped Josh & Cher, but had no idea till almost 10 years later it was based off "Emma". But now I can't rewatch it without thinking of Vicbourne and if Victoria's dad was still alive and she was raised only by him and he took in Lord M too.

Gilbert & Helen and Lord Lowborough & his 2nd wife from "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall": Already have many posts about this but they really do remind me of Vicbourne and Anne Bronte based characters off of Lord M with Lord L, as well as Byron, Caro, and that whole scandal and even Dash.

Jim Brockmire & Jules from "Brockmire": This is a new comedy show I started watching last week from my brother's suggestion and I love it!!! :D  It's based off an old "Funny or Die" sketch about a baseball announcer who has a drunken meltdown while calling the game after he found out his wife of 20 years has been cheating on him.  The show now is set 10 years later and Jules hires him to call games for the minor league team she owns.  She's younger than him and his boss, but they have a connection and their love of baseball and do end up getting together and dating.  The team also starts doing well after they get together and Jim's convinced this is his 2nd chance, till his ex-wife shows up. LOL The first season is still airing and it got renewed so we'll see how it goes from here but they are cute together and some of the scenes feels like a modern day AU.

Kerry & Cary on "Legion": This couple stood out to me watching season one of "Legion".  Cary is in his 50s and actually shares a body with Kerry who is in her 20s.  At first I thought they were siblings or twins, but then their backstory got introduced and they're different races and Kerry only ages when she's not in Cary's body as he first saw her by herself when he was about 4 or 5 (she was the same age as he was then) and his parents thought she was his imaginary friend.  They can be separated for awhile but do end up having to rejoin.  They can talk to each other too while sharing a body as well.  Then when the Shadow King put them all in the mental hospital fake reality, they were in separate bodies but were holding hands and trying to explain to her that they felt like the same person even with their age difference.  And Kerry ended season one so angry with Cary for leaving her as she was almost killed and he's trying to make it up to her.  So now I feel they're soul mates who share the same body and were born together (which would be an awesome AU).  

Miller & Julie and Alex & Bobbie on "The Expanse": I love these two ships both in the books & TV show.  It's so hard to explain as the show is set 200 years in the future and takes paces on multiple colonized planets in our solar system, but Miller is an 40 something detective investigating Julie's disappearance (she's in her early 20s). He actually falls in love with her though having never met her and she inspires him to change his life, join the Roci team and find out the bigger alien mystery. It's spoilery what happens to them but they do meet and she plays an even bigger role for him and everything, and birds are a big part of the ship too. Then Alex & Bobbie haven't met yet on the show but in the books they become close despite their age difference being both from the Mars colony , and even more so when they both almost die and have to rely on each other in book 5 to survive and reunite with the Roci crew.  In book 6, which came out last year, Bobbie revealed she started to develop feelings for Alex to Alex and now he's a bit freaked out as he's liked her this entire time. LOL :) So I'm excited for book 7 and what happens next and for them to finally meet on the show. :D

[scoutshonor56]

A Tiny Little Man

My title today is a nod and tip of the hat to author J.K Rowling (of Harry Potter fame), who after witnessing the video of Trump arrogantly pushing aside the prime minister of Mentengro, Duško Marković, to get to the front row before a picture taking session during last week’s NATO summit in Brussels, with all the subtlety and decorum of a belligerent drunk shoving his way to the bar after hearing “last call!” tweeted, “You tiny, tiny, tiny little man”.  

 Well, that didn’t take long; in the short span of a couple of weeks Trump has managed to run over America’s global reputation for leadership and diplomacy like an out of control, diesel guzzling, jacked-up four-wheeler at a monster truck rally.  After plowing through his disastrous tour of Europe and the Middle East, culminating with his brutish and alienating scolding of NATO, he turned his big block Chevy around and crushed the Paris climate accord like it was a sacrificial Prius in the arena. What a complete and utter dick.

 Let’s begin with the sound bite that made a summarizing headline or picture subtitle in a lot of the media outlets following his address given this past Thursday afternoon outside the White House: “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.”  Ah, so Kennedy-esque!  Once again this Cheeto-skinned buffoon cares so little about facts, or even investing six seconds worth of background reading to substantiate his clownish proclamations, that he was totally ignorant to the fact that the mayor of Pittsburgh is a Democrat, who quickly responded, “For decades Pittsburgh has been  rebuilding  its economy based on hopes for our people and our future, not on outdated fantasies about our past.  The City and its many partners will continue to do the same, despite the President’s imprudent announcements yesterday.”  The city later bathed some of its landmarks in green light, including City Hall last night (Friday) in support of the Paris Agreement.

 It was certainly no surprise that Trump would back out of the accord, even after the weeks of hand wringing speculation and conjecture by the press and political analysts - my only question was how ridiculous his boilerplate excuse was going to be; how he was going to justify stepping out of a global agreement to join only two other dissenters – Syria and Nicaragua.  Yup, that’s our new cohorts in denial, Trump’s choice of teammates against 195 global signers.  USA! USA!  USA!  Although to be fair, both of these countries, Syria in particular, certainly have a lot more immediate problems to deal with lately; the U.S. has no excuse.  We are the #2 emitter of carbon pollution today, behind only China, and not to mention we were #1 for the better part of the last century.

 On a certain level, there lies the nut of the issue right there: Trump is an old man with old ideas who grew up in a privileged bubble and repeatedly not only professes love for the “good ol’ days” of the 20th century, but based his entire campaign, and now administration, on selling that dream – a dream that is never coming back.  Ahhh, the good ol’ days… when America could do whatever it wanted with total impunity, everyone on TV was white, Mexicans knew their place (in the fields picking produce), and every house of prayer bore a cross as it’s symbol of worship.  

 Every statement issued by this overgrown, petulant and pampered man/child during his speech to the press had at best a tenuous relationship with reality and truth.   A litany of lies and hyperbole (that I won’t even bother to list and repudiate, but feel free to do your own “fact check” on virtually any creditable website), that was meant to give his base a shot a “AMERICA FIRST!” erectile enhancement, and Donny another pathetically transparent ego massage.  Or if I were a cynical person, I suppose I could mention the fact that the coal industry gave 97 percent  of its political contributions to the GOP in 2016, but I won’t mention that…  that the coal industry gave 97 percent  of its political contributions to the GOP in 2016… oh crap, I just mentioned it – that the coal industry gave 97 percent  of its political contributions to the GOP in 2016…

 Yes, Donny spoke like the agreement was a legal contract, filled with unfair, punitive obligations all focused on crushing the American economy and our jobs, like a divorce court settlement that leaves the husband stripped of his finances and livelihood.  We’re being screwed while the rest of the partners are “laughing at us”. I can guarantee you one thing Donny Dickhead, NO one on the face of the planet is laughing anymore – well, maybe Putin - as a matter of fact, I can pinpoint the exact day you stopped being seen as funny by anyone: Nov 10, 2016.  

 Look, I know you have more than a passing familiarity with lawsuits and courtrooms – or at least your legal team does - but the Paris accord was a non-binding agreement; it was more a set of guidelines and promises in good faith to at least try to save our planet from cataclysmic changes that have already started to threaten our very existence as we know it.  It was a golden moment in humanity where everyone in this modern world came together and reached a common consensus that industrialized man is heating up our planet and our time to act is quickly running out. So that maybe Juno isn’t selling swim fins and snorkel gear at the souvenir shops in another 100 years.  That this issue affects us all.  

 As negotiated by Obama, it was a modest, easily attainable, and already kick-started commitment to some common sense goals like higher gas mileage for autos and trucks, and the gradual phasing out of coal, an industry that has been hearing it’s last gasp ever since today’s natural gas extraction technology made it competitively disadvantageous and obsolete in a market driven business.  Besides, facts – oh crap, there’s that fake word again, that to this administration is as pliable as Silly Putty and just about as useful – point out that jobs in renewable energy now far and away outstrip coal, a centuries old, dangerous and filthy technology.

 Even the leaders and CEO’s of the petrochemical industry now (albeit finally) favor a transition as they foresee that the innovators in renewable and cleaner energy will be the smart players of the 21st century who recognize an opportunity when they see it.  The technology and economics have now intersected with the incentive and the will.  You see Donny, it’s called “the big picture”, or “the long game”.  Take the baton and run, or drop back into the rest of the pack: the 3rd, 4th, and 5th placers.  I know it’s a big leap for a blunt-brained, paranoid, egotistical, phallus challenged guy like you, but try to work with me here – people might even start to like you…  OK, that’s a lie, but do you get my point?  Do I have to draw pictures, or shoot you a quick tweet?

 Many a wise man would correctly postulate that science and diplomacy are two of today’s most critical sociological and environmental keystones necessary for survival in this 21st century, but Trump and the GOP party continue to thumb their noses at both.  Nope, to this astute and savvy businessman, who couldn’t even turn a profit with a string of casinos (his three in Atlantic City all filing for Chapter 11 in the early 90’s), everything is a “deal”, where everyone is either a winner or a loser; a gloating victor or a chump.  It’s now become all too clear why Trump gravitates toward leaders like Vladimir Putin, the Saudi princes and various global strongmen (murderous Philippines  President Rodrigo Duterte) - they share his core worldview that life is nakedly a selfish struggle for money and dominance.  

 This outlook was reiterated recently by two of Trump’s top advisers, H. R. McMaster and Gary Cohn, who recently wrote a piece for The Wall Street Journal explaining, “The president embarked on his first foreign trip with a clear-eyed outlook that the world is not a ‘global community’ but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors, and businesses engage and compete for advantage.”  

 I have nothing further for the court.

 Meanwhile, Poor Chancellor Merkel, who during their last meeting had to explain to Trump  eleven times that he can’t just “cut a deal” with Germany, it has to be with the entire European Union, now has Donny giving her his private cell phone number – “Call me babe, we’ll talk.”  And she’s not the only world leader Donny has been handing out his number to; apparently he thinks he’s the #1 pick in his own delusional, global “Dating Game” reality show.  This from the asshole who lathered up the crowds during his campaign with chants of “Lock her up!” because Hillary used a private server for her email while Secretary of State.  I’ve known high school dropout drug dealers with enough common sense to know that a cell phone – ANY cell phone – is susceptible to tapping.  

 Yep, Donny actually thinks he can “renegotiate a better deal” than the present accord, even as the leaders of France, Germany and Italy quickly issued a joint statement saying that the Paris climate accord was “irreversible” and could not be renegotiated.    

 So who are the real winners going to be?  China and India, both of whom are anxious to fill this void of leadership in renewable energy.  Both countries are now fully engaged and committed to the green energy market race. According to a recent Independent, the response to Trump’s idiocy from China's Premier Li Keqiang was a reiteration that there is an "international  responsibility" to fight  climate change. 

 Lately I’ve been noticing that ever since this sideshow barker stepped into the Oval Office, there pops up the occasional, well thought out editorial appearing somewhere making the case that for the good of our nation, not to mention civil discourse, it would behoove both sides – the Trump apposers in particular - to lighten up on the spurs and soften the rhetoric, as no one’s mind is ever changed by being characterized as stupid; and I get that.  But you know what?  That only applies during normal times and under normal circumstances, and the last five months have been anything but.  Sorry, but my patience and civility have run out – and it didn’t take long.  

 If you voted for this imbecilic assclown last November, you, my friend, are the definition of stupid and gullible.  You’re the person who wasted fifty bucks trying to knock over the bottles, or sink the basketball through the hoop at the county fair midway.  I don’t care if you’re a brain surgeon who somehow survived the intellectual rigors of eight years of medical school and then a residency – if you voted for Trump, I wouldn’t let you put a fucking Band-Aid on my finger, because you would somehow manage to fuck it up.  It would soon get infected, rot, and fall off.  Not only that, I’ve got an investment opportunity for you involving a golf course in the Antarctic that I want to talk to you about – oops, wait a minute, the way things are going, that just might be a reasonable proposition by the next century…

 Before I wrap this up tonight, I’d like to borrow a little shtick from “The Daily Show”, that every night for as long as I can remember closes with a Moment of Zen – so here you go faithful readers!

 "For some reason or another, this issue of climate change has emerged as a paramount issue for the left in this country and around the world."

 - Vice President Mike Pence

[wikitopx]

Gender: Female

Origin: Irish

Meaning: High, Noble

1. Meaning of the name "Brianna"

The name Brianna is the name of a girl of Irish origin meaning "strong, virtuous and honorable". Many different versions of Brianna are in the Top 1000 - a sure sign that, although beautiful, Brianna increasingly difficult to make a difference.

This is the most popular spelling. It entered the US list in 1976, rose to the Top 100 in 1988, then got as high as Number 14 in 1999. Country singer Trace Adkins called his daughter Brianna.

Though it sounds like it might be a modern invention, the name actually appeared as far back as the sixteenth century in Edmund Spenser's poem The Faerie Queen. The best girl in the world.

As the best friend you've ever had, and a hopeless romantic, she's the best person you've ever had in your life. If you are sad, or have a problem, she will give you the best advice on how she will solve, or fix, the problem.

Very honest and straightforward, but she's the best person to consult. Often love boyfriends, friends and family. She often dated guys named Chris, Zack or John. When she's with a guy, she's loyal and doesn't cheat, she loves them with all her heart.

Brianna often has red or dark brown hair and brown eyes! Once you know Brianna, she really knows how to make awkward silence disappear and become the loudest person in the room, but also has a nice soft side.

She is a great person, loyal, extroverted, GORGEOUS, different, and this list goes on and on how great and amazing she is. She isn't fake. If she doesn't like you, she doesn't like you and she won't be fake to you or talk about you, unless you have something to say.

But when she likes you, she loves and gives all of the respect you deserve. She is really fun to be with. She is sooo funny, aswell! I love this girl, Brianna, and if you don't know Brianna, meet someone! You are missing out on a great and wonderful and BEAUTIFUL girl.

2. Variation of the name "Brianna"

Bryanna:

Bryanna is an Americanized trend on Briana / Brianna (equivalent to Brian's female). Briana and Brianna were celebrities of the 1990s so we were surprised to see new coins like Breanna and Bryanna appear soon after.

Briana started out as a clear version of Brian's daughter in the 1970s as soon as Brian became a huge success in the US and was the favorite choice of the Top 10 parents. The development of a feminized form of this name naturally followed.

Then Briana caught on like wild fire and soared up the charts in the 1980s and 90s. This is when Bryanna joined the fun. Bryanna is different in pronunciation from Briana, Brianna and Breanna (has the first sound of the bree sound);

Bryanna sounds more true to BRI-an (pronounced a bryr is like a cry). Brian is an Irish-derived name from Gaelic Islamic brígh which means noble, strong, ethical Muslims. Unlike the modern-day female versions, Brian has been around for centuries on the Emerald Isle.

Breana:

Feminine form of Brian, which is believed to be of Celtic origin and of the meaning "strength."

3. Top 3 Famous Person Named Brianna

Brianna Perry:

She is the youngest person to sign a contract with The Goldmind Inc. of Missy Elliott as well as the youngest person associated with Slip-N-Slide Records, the home of rappers Trina and Rick Ross.

Perry first appeared on Trina's Diamond Princess album on the song "Kandi". Since then, she has released several remixes and starred as a regular actor in the reality TV series Sisterhood of Hip Hop. In 2016, Brianna left the big label Atlantic Records due to low advertising and moved ahead with independent label Poe Boy Entertainment.

Brianna Wu:

She is also a blogger and podcaster on matters relating to the video game industry, and unsuccessfully ran for Congress as Massachusetts Representative in 8th district. Wu has begun a second campaign for the 2020 election.

B.Traits:

Brianna Price (born 18 June 1986), better known by her stage name B.Traits (Baby Traits), is a Canadian DJ, record producer, remixer and former radio presenter currently living in the United Kingdom. Her debut single "Fever" featuring vocals from Elisabeth Troy, peaked at number 36 on the UK Singles Chart in April 2012.

More ideas for you: Eliza Name Meaning

From : https://wikitopx.com/name-meanings/brianna-name-meaning-714266.html

[dwestfieldblog]

IT SEEMS TO BE NOW OR FOREVER/ A NEW DISORDER OF THE AGES

(Or is it only ancient and unjustified?) Hail Eris...I escaped England on the day Boris Johnson became the newest puppet of masters, vested interests, donors and manipulators. The evil of of two lessers. 23rd of July, Sirius day (The sun behind the sun). British people prefer characters these days more than actual character. Put it down to the Reality TV facebook twitter lifestyle. A loveable eccentric eh? Blonde and bumbling, good for a laugh huh? Despite the fact that he is a serial barefaced liar, was a very dubious lord mayor of London with highly expensive/ridiculous ideas and utter bollocks at being Foreign Secretary. Boris wrote in 1999 'I am a raving Euro federalist...a pro European of the most violent, dyspeptic and incurable disposition'. (That was until he saw 52 percent of Brits wanted to leave the EU and thought AHA! I smell a way to power.) We all forgive a rogue with boyish charm don't we? Let's see how long the United Kingdom survives. On the day I flew back The New York Times front page had a column: 'Is Johnson how Britain will end?' 

Depressing advert seen on the side of of red London bus...'Bucket Life (KFC) delivered'. Buckets of antibiotic pumped peculiar half 'chicken' type chemicals straight to your door. Good to have the empty bucket handy after one has consumed a feast fit for vomiting straight out again. Obesity well on the rise over there, he says, wolfing an entire packet of chocolate waffles with half a litre of cold milk.

Religion/politics...Nice quoted headline from a Taliban spokesman last month: 'We will not bomb schools or hospitals'. How very decent and noble of them after all these years, perhaps there aren't enough left to bother with. Today on the BBC news their spokesman said they 'never targeted civilians'. Well quite a lot seem to have been accidentally blown up by roadside and suicide bombs...Hard to imagine a decent future for the non fanatical people of Afghanistan, especially the females and shameful that the west is withdrawing because 'peace' is so near. Fnord. Perhaps they will get a cut in the opium profits/prophets. 'Mission accomplished'. Really? Saudi Arabia will now allow women to go out without permission or a guardian. In '2019'? Surely they will microchip them under the veil and have them followed by drones. How long did it take the sheiks just to accept female drivers? Nice folk who agreed to release a woman's rights activist only IF she said she hadn't been tortured. Swine.

'Can Christians in the US survive without bibles? The answer is probably not'. Thus spake the Global Times newspaper, run by the allegedly communist party of China. This, in response to hearing of new US tariffs on Chinese goods...guess where their bibles are made? That's right. 'The spiritual world of most American people is based on China's industrial capability'. Fascinating sentence on many levels. Take five seconds and think on the implications of that, if you will...

I watched several Trump debacles on CNN this summer. As usual, the 'fake news/liberal media' (etc etc) doesn't actually need to make any stories up, he provides a limitless supply of verbatim goodies with which to play. And then tries to deny he ever said them by using outright lies and obfustication (exactly the same as Boris's 'dead cat on the table' idea.) The four congresswomen of colour Trump ranted about...the chanting crowd 'Send her back'....'I didn't like that they did that and I started speaking very quickly'....Live TV coverage showed it took him 13 seconds before he spoke over them, while he turned left and right...and just for a second got that look of shiny eyed pride. His sentence that he had been 'down there' with the first responders on Nine Eleven. Surely his supporters (apart from QAnon who is either a moron, brilliant comedian or Kremlin sock puppet) must know he is lying in their faces..perhaps they really don't care. Like Melania's coat.

One of the congresswomen (Born in Somalia and a naturalised citizen) had made a non racist comment that some congressmen appear to have received money from Israeli businesses to promote their interests. Well..seems likely and fair enough, that is how it usually works everywhere. Those with money pay politicians to dance and the dosh is gleefully accepted. Not just Israel. It looks as if Trump seized on this as a useful way of stirring up manure. Criticising the state of Israel and her government is not racist just because they are Jewish. Corruption is corruption, whatever the colour or creed. And a prostitute is a prostitute. How many of Trump's KKK followers and Republican Christian haters of abortion actually support Israel? Take a calm guess on the percentages of probability. How many 'acting' people has he around him now? (One way of keeping them on their toes...) 'Fat tangerine racist with the brains of a McNugget' indeed. Hopefully he will continue to take no unhealthy exercise and maintain his cheeseburger diet.  

And Yet Another mass slaughter by a man/boy with a gun. In protest at the 'Hispanic invasion'. In Texas. That's right Texas, which used to belong to the Mexicans before the old land grab in the name of oil. Trump rambling that bigotry, racism and white supremacy have no place in America. Well apparently they do and are not diminished by your former and continuing outright lack of total condemnation over the last few years. Although they have been strengthened by your petulant little blonde boy Hitler youth type attitudes towards blacks, Moslems, Native Americans and Mexicans. Germophobia because of colour? (unless the showers are golden) Does darker skin seem dirty to you? You approach black sportsmen and musicians with a type of benevolent fascination rather than actual friendship.  

Extinction Rebellion...Hmm..'And yes, some of us may die in the process', as one of the English leaders of the movement said. Unlikely the 52 year old with a PhD meant himself. However, a placard I saw held aloft by a young protester read; 'WHY AM I BEING EDUCATED IF YOU DON'T LISTEN TO THE EDUCATED' was a highly salient point (albeit without a question mark at the end.) Scientists amass careful evidence of global warming and the politicians, being paid regular large sums by oil, gas, precious metal companies etc, ignore long term survival for the sake of all following generations. Leave it for the kids to inherit a wasteland. However, in the XR handbook, it mentions the protests causing the 'necessary material disruption and economic cost'. Costs which will be mostly paid by those on average to minimum incomes...doesn't really square with XR also seeking the 'redistribution of wealth'. Marxist twats masturbating their egos. Personally, I am far more on the side of the rebellious, always have been and will be, just seems a shame XR seem so full of smugness, radical unbalanced vegans and hatred. (and I would like to know exactly where their funding comes from) Not possible to be a quiet, determined but peaceful fanatic. I have always liked Jaz Coleman's old quote that 'Fanaticism is the only way of dealing with a situation of overwhelming odds.' At last reason makes perfect sense! And speaking of those who love Mother Earth...

Who didn't love Putin's wonderful speech to a manufacturing and industrial forum in Yekaterinburg?....Hilarious stand up comedy as he asked 'How many birds are dying?' (By flying into wind farm turbines.) And followed that heartfelt classic up with 'This is no joke, the worms crawl right out of the ground' (due to the shaking...) 'This is the consequence of these modern forms of energy production'. In other words, keep buying oil and gas and sod clean solar and wind power because some worms and birds have a problem with it. How does the universe not laugh him into a Siberian gulag? Trump had said that wind turbines 'are killing all the eagles'. He didn't mention the worms. Don't mention the worms! It is lovely to know Mr Putin cares so much about our feathered and slimy friends. (Good to see Russia welcomed back into the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe after 5 years out in the howling wilderness for its invasion of Crimea. Well, the PCE were running very low on funding and Russia owed them a lot of well needed roubles. These assemblies cost money...and souls for Yog Sothoth)

Many hundreds of protesters have been arrested in Moscow over the last couple of weeks. They had been asking a fair question of where all the opposition parties and leaders had gone for the local elections. And the main opposition leader was moved from prison to hospital (and then back again) due to having had 'an allergic reaction'. Well, poison can do that to a man. Especially when he thwarts the Kremlin in any way. Whoever described Russia as a democracy? Not Solzhenitsyn. 11th August, one week after it told America that it is watching its missile programme VERY closely and will 'match every step with one of our own', Russia tells Google to stop advertising 'illegal demonstrations' or it will take action against it. Lovely news.

Meanwhile in Hong Kong...How long before the veritable Mrs Lam 'invites' the tanks in to help? Good luck with freedom people, be careful. At least Li Pcheng is dead. (one of the minds behind the June 1989 massacre of students in Peking) As one newspaper over here said 'One butcher is gone, others remain.' Detention Centres/'Vocational Schools' have been set up in Tibet where lucky students 10-20 years old can 'learn law (!) language and employable skills' and renounce the Dalai Lama. The latter is non optional. And the former. China has said the camps are 'all expenses paid humane boarding schools'. Humane is not a word for semantic realists to associate with their regime. One more time, Tibet is NOT China in any way whatsoever and certainly not spiritually. A fair number of Huawei workers were educated at and worked with and for China's varied military agencies. Enough to be worrying that Britain has yet to refuse them contracts involved in building the 5G mobile network. Smart phones for foolish people. Are these really the folk to have linked up to a telecommunications network in a democratic country?

Speaking of which...Seems that most folk in Britain have not got the smallest idea how much they have been manipulated. Direct links between Boris, (still in close touch with Steve Bannon) Farage and Trump. The well interwoven threads of populists pandering to the lowest common denominator in the name of self gain. The democracies of the western world are being turned against themselves in the name of foul hearted demagogues. Lack of balanced education has made a deep mass unawareness of actual facts. Human emotions are being weaponised to make choices based on wrong information.  It has always been so but it is far easier now due to false twitter accounts/facebook et al. Trump's entire vision is based exactly on genuine false news and what he and the other similar familiars are promoting is a virus of illusion and outright lies.  

Psyops..(psychological operations) have been used for centuries. There is much wrong with the EU, but they are way closer to us (Britain) in spirit and democratic culture than Russia and China. Those voting for more control of borders will eventually be gifted with less and less freedom but at least it will have been their democratic choice. Arf. The majority of Britons believe they are making patriotic choices. They are not. They are assisting in the break up and destabilising of friendships based on level headed, pragmatical agreements. And into this weakness will move those whose only interest is mass control. We are serving our enemies.

But that said, it is good to be aware that 'Opinions result from perceptions and perceptions reinforce opinions which then further control perceptions, in a repeating loop that logic can never penetrate.' Stasis and decay result unless a little shock of the new is introduced one way or the other to 'startle the brain enough to re-frame its experiences'. So there you have it. Or as Buddha said, 'We are the result of everything we have thought.' Makes you think, doesn't it? Ha. How do you know you are thinking? So...You knew that would happen but you did it anyway...

Back to normality....

While in London, I played with my band and after we had played a fast song called Natural Chaos, (a classic) the bass player told me I had shape shifted and looked like a reptile. No drugs involved. Very disturbing to be told this as I have various theories about those who look reptilian. Oh well, perhaps cold rage and evil are still within. Shame. I spent three and a half hours one afternoon freeing a bumble bee from a large black spider's web in the garden. Got it out, gave it a couple of flowers to suck from and get energy, some rain drops of water to help clean itself, tiny tiny bits of hedge twig to gently attempt to get the web off like a careful brain surgeon. Got two legs free, very gently helped clean one half of the head (it didn't fight or try to sting me) Put it in sunshine for some seconds to power it up, then back into cooler shade and back to work. Absolute focus of three hours. Web is VERY difficult to get off. I left it alone with some more rain drops from a flower tray to drink from. Went back, tried again until darkness fell. Had to leave it by side of flower bed, still half covered by binding web. In the morning found the bee was dead but had managed to remove the rest of the web itself and die clean. The energy it must have spent would have been massive. Wondered about attempting to mess with nature and whether it is justified but I could not have left it wrapped up and trapped. So, I am a hippy reptile. And according to someone in my family I am also a Socialist and cynical. Cynical I can live with (having checked the exact meaning and origin) but bollocks to Socialism. Labels are truly ridiculous...Libertarian anarchist is closer to a useful definition. Or failed mystic. Arf arf arf. The wizard without any whizz. Maybe.

'Whatever is done for love is beyond good and evil.' Hmmm...First, try define Love.  What do you seek? Happiness and learning, Freedom and magick...Balance?   Between the I and the AM, there sparks the relay of Will and vision and so, creation. 'Not until the male become female and the female becomes male shall ye enter the kingdom of Heaven, Jesus (Yeshua ben Yosif) in the Gospel of Thomas....So, All together now..Yod-He-Vau-He...(To couples too withdrawn to truly open their hearts, fearing pain or too guilty to express their inner nature to their partner or themselves.) Sex without true passion leads to orgasm but without connection by those who have been taught or who have learned to be afraid of love. Chasing orgasms is a fraction of the colossal energy and brain change possible. When Earth blends with Heaven, the astral is born and all take on aspects of the other, empowering all. Merge the fields, unify the forces and don't rush before the fields are charged. Open and focus.

I read in the New York Times today about various problems with tumblr...would be a pity if it vanished. All I have seen in the years I have been on, has been of far more heart and good spirited humour and care than other sources of individual expression on line for free.  All the best back to school...All Hail Discordia and see you with Love at Halloween. Keep expanding your reality labyrinths until now or forever....