#mr. monk meets the candidate

[mr-stottlemonk]

pls imagine monk running away from some wacko that the police are trying to catch while stottlemeyer and the rest run after them.

and all stottlemeyer can shout it is "MONK STOP TOUCHING THE POLES"

[mushroomwriter]

MONK 1x01 Mr. Monk Meets the Candidate

[earnestly-endlessly]

First, thank you SO MUCH for all the fic recs you’ve been blessing us with! I really appreciate all the time and effort you’ve put into making these. Second, could you recommend some historical AUs? Thank you and I hope you have a lovely day :D

Thank you so much for the kind words anon. It’s so good to hear that you guys like these recs. I really enjoy creating these lists and finding fics that are both well-loved but also those who are underrated in the fandom. 

I have a LOT of historical AU fics so I hope there are some you haven’t read before. The fics are, more or less, in chronological order, so it starts with Ancient Rome, moves on to the Middle Ages, then to Regency era, etc. etc. This should make it a tad easier to find fics from different eras. Enjoy! 

                                 Cherik Historical AU Fic Recs 

History Repeating – winterhill

Summary: From a kinkmeme prompt, this is a series of vignettes about Charles and Erik throughout the ages. Each chapter is written as a self-contained era.

Wanton in the Air – Rosie_Rues

Summary: In which Charles rescues a gladiator from the arena and soon becomes somewhat disconcerted by this handsome new slave and his sharksome grin.

Pantheon – Yahtzee

Summary: In the year 96 AD, all Rome is aware that their gods have begun to Mark certain people with their gifts – the healing power of Apollo, the metal control of Vulcan, the deathly touch of Pluto, or the mental powers of Minerva. When those gifts fall to slaves or barbarians instead of the Romans themselves, strict control is necessary.

Then a gladiator from Judea meets an enslaved scribe from Britannia, and the repercussions will shake the Empire itself.

Taken By His Majesty – Pookaseraph

Summary: Erik’s mission was simple, sneak into the Celtic pretender king’s tent, assassinate him, and return to Rome with his father’s honor restored. Unfortunately, he didn’t count on Charles. When the prince chooses to take him as his personal slave, Erik feared the worst, and his concerns weren’t entirely unwarranted. The worst, however, turns out to be falling in love with the greatest enemy of Rome’s primacy in Briton. A historical romance set during the early days of Rome’s occupation of Briton.

Terrible with the brightness of gold – brawlingdiscontent

Summary: The war is lost.

With the futures of his people and his children at stake, former Crown consort Charles of Normandy awaits the arrival of England’s new master, the fearsome Viking warrior, Erik Lehnsherr. (Inspired by 11th century historical events)

“For who could look upon the lions of the foe, terrible with the brightness of gold, who upon the men of metal, menacing with golden face, … who upon the bulls on the ships threatening death, their horns shining with gold, without feeling any fear for the king of such a force?” - Encomium Emmae Reginae

Burn Your Kingdom Down – spicedpiano

Summary: Erik’s people were brutally massacred when the Crusaders took Jerusalem. The sole survivor, Erik fled to northern Europe, only then to be captured as a thrall by Viking raiders. Since that day he has fought his way up to leading a group of Vikings on an invasion of the Christian mainland, killing every Crusader he can find. But when he captures a thrall of his own, a young witch who gives his name only as Charles, he discovers that there is a darker magic than his at work - and the fate of the known world may rest in his hands.

More Than All The World (The Werewolf’s Tale) – Luninosity

Summary: An Erik/Charles story very loosely based on Marie de France’s 12th-century French werewolf tale, in which Erik is the man transformed into a wolf (he’ll get changed back by the end, it’s not that kind of story, though they very definitely do fall in love) and Charles is a king and eventually there’s a happy ending. Also, a villain’s nose gets bitten off.

The Conspirator’s Gift – kaydeefalls

Summary: Medieval mystery AU. In the aftermath of a bloody siege during the 12th-century English Anarchy, the monk Henry and tradesman Erik discover evidence of murder: one corpse too many hidden among the fallen rebels. To see justice done, Erik must tread carefully through the conflicting and treacherous loyalties of civil war, as well as the potentially dangerous schemes of the enigmatic young Lord Xavier.

As Dark Longs For Day – Yahtzee

Summary: A daring young thief escapes from the wicked bishop’s dungeons, thinking herself free – until she encounters a rider with a black horse, a tame hawk and a dark secret. And who is this mysterious young man who only appears at night, accompanied by a protective wolf?

No Longer in Silence – Black_Betty

Summary: It has been eight years since Charles has seen Erik. Eight years since they parted under unkind circumstances and Erik went off to sea. The boy he once knew is Captain Lehnsherr now and they are as known to one another as strangers, and yet–Charles finds that eight years has done nothing to diminish the feelings he had when he was 16 and in love. It’s unfortunate then that Erik doesn’t feel the same way. (Persuasion AU)

Dance With Me – wallhaditcoming (uvcatastrophe)

Summary: After his most recent tour, Erik Lehnsherr has finally earned the rank of Captain and a commission on a vessel all his own. With the prize money he has collected and this new rank, he finally feels secure enough in his future to propose to the man he has loved for years. He just prays that Charles is willing to have him.

Connexions – keire_ke

Summary: When Mr Lehnsherr of Thornfield first began seeking a tutor suited to educate his young daughter, he could hardly have expected the young gentleman who turned up at his door, nor the connection they would forge.

The Master of Charlton Park – Gerec

Summary: On the brink of losing his ancestral home, omega Charles Xavier agreed to do the unthinkable; he would sacrifice his own happiness for the sake of his family, and bear a child for a married alpha and his mate.

But Charles never expected that alpha to be Erik Lehnsherr, with whom he shared an impossible love and undeniable passion.

Move Still – Black_Betty

Summary: Erik Lehnsherr hates dancing, but has a very specific reason for throwing a ball…

To Turn and Look When Thou Hearest the Sound of My Name – lachatblanche

Summary: North and South AU.

Erik, the master of the Genosha steel mill in the north, has lived a hard life, building his industry from scratch with the aid of his adopted sibling, Emma. When Charles Xavier, a young, southern gentleman, takes up residence near the mill, Erik finds himself drawn to him, despite Charles making it very clear that he cares neither for the north nor for Erik.

Based on Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel (takes place about midway through the story).

Frost fairs and fair frosts – diner_drama

Summary: The social circles of the upper end of London were in uproar - not only had the Thames frozen over, but the atypical weather had also prompted the mysterious and uncanny Dr. Xavier and his peculiar young charges to make the journey all the way from his mansion in Chester.

Erik Lehnsherr was not entirely certain that he could countenance meeting another of Mrs. Frost’s high society friends without suffering a violent fit of apoplexy, but perhaps the charming country doctor could break through his iron defences.

What We All Long For –  Nos4a2no9

Summary: Charles Xavier was heir to a vast fortune before his stepfather stole his birthright, his dignity, and his freedom. Forced to serve as Kurt Marko’s informant and as a sexual plaything for the wealthy men of Europe’s upper crust, Charles yearns for nothing more than a quiet life free from shame and abuse.

The death of his stepfather seems to offer a way out, but Charles is once again forced to serve the Markos when his stepbrother offers him up as collateral in a game of chance. Suddenly Charles becomes the property of Erik Lehnsherr, a mysterious gambler with a thirst for revenge.

When love between the two men begins to blossom, Charles finally discovers what is at the heart of Erik’s tragic story, and why he is set upon a devastating course of revenge that will endanger Erik, Charles, and everything they have longed for.

Roses & Cinnamon – TurtleTotem

Summary: Charles Xavier lost more than his leg in the war with Napoleon, and the man he’s just pulled out of the water has ghosts of his own – especially when Charles’s involuntary projected hallucinations prove catching. Raven, meanwhile, faces the choice of whether to marry respectably or run away with a carnival fortune-teller.

Ironwood Hall – wheel_pen

Summary: Erik and Emma are Alpha siblings living in an ancient house in the Victorian era… a house that has strong opinions about who its family should marry, that has dispatched unsuitable spouses in the past. The latest candidate? A creative young Omega named Charles Xavier.

Somewhere between Rage and Serenity – Hyperballad

Summary: Charles Xavier is Erik Lehnsherr’s servant in this fic, set in the late Victorian period. Although Charles was quietly enamored with his employer, he had no intimation that the other was equally infatuated with him. Only with the coming of a dark force in their lives would these feelings be brought to light and it will test the strength of their will. Would the raging lust win over a tranquil heart?

In a Compromising Position – Fireflydown (Hyperballad)

Summary: Erik Lehnsherr is Charles Xavier’s newly hired manservant in his Victorian Household. He may be cheeky at times and amiable towards his master but he holds a dangerous secret that would trigger the following events and it will change both their lives forever.

Better Outrun My Gun – Magnetism_bind

Summary: Erik is searching for the man who murdered his parents. Charles runs a saloon with his sisters.

Taming the Wild – Penguina

Summary: A Cherik Wild West AU: Mutants in the Wild West.

Charles Xavier finds himself crossing the entire ocean to America to find his sister Raven. However the task turns out to be more difficult than he expected because Raven is nowhere to be found.

In the meantime Charles settles in a small town where he starts a new life as a school teacher. There he meets Erik Lehnsherr - the town’s blacksmith. Although at first he believes Erik is the rudest person he’s ever met, the two start a friendship and Charles becomes a teacher to Erik’s kids.

However both Charles and Erik have their own little secrets that no one should ever uncover.

Would Charles find his beloved sister and is she still alright? Would Erik’s tragic past haunt him forever and prevent him from finding his happiness? Would Charles have the guts to admit that his feelings for his new friend are a bit past the line of friendship? This and more in Taming the Wild!

The Gunpowder Files – Tawabids

Summary: In a 19th century Britain, the wealthy Xavier-Marko couple pay Erik, a hired killer, to put their disabled son Charles “out of his misery”. Instead, Erik saves Charles from dealing with those kind of parents ever again. Charles follows Erik back to London and eventually convinces the assassin to take him under his wing and teach him the trade. When their lives cross paths with a destructive opium cartel led by the shadowy Sebastian Shaw, they decide to take down the businessman down no matter the cost.

Steel Roses – Mikanskey, ximeria

Summary: The year is 1864. While unrest brews in Europe, Charles Xavier is finally able to start his research after spending years trying to find funding. Riding the tailcoats of Charles Darwin, he sets out into the British countryside to find out how much truth there is in folklore, how much of it that can be explained by his own kind, gifted humans with special abilities.

Little does he expect to find new friends, new challenges, a budding attraction both emotionally and physically. Not to mention an enemy with far more nefarious and sinister plans than he could have ever imagined.

Erik Lehnsherr is set with a good business, a manor and grounds, staff and acquaintances he can lean on if needed. However, having tracked down and killed the man who killed his parents, he feels adrift, wondering if this is where he’s supposed to end his life; a respectable man with a respectable business.

Dragging a drowning Englishman out of the river starts him down an entirely unforeseen, but not necessarily, unwelcome path.

They were Paris… – Mikanskey

Summary: Paris, at the end of the 19th century.

This is where Erik decided for a while to lay down his meager luggage.

This is where he hoped to find calm and inspiration for his art.

But instead this is where he found love…

With pulses that beat double – aesc

Summary: It has been thirteen years since Charles watched his beloved childhood companion walk out of his life. Now, in fin-de-siècle Paris, a chance overheard remark may lead them to each other’s sides once more.

The Body in the Bedroom – telperion_15

Summary: Autumn, 1909 – Viscount Charles Xavier has invited friends and acquaintances to spend the weekend, hoping for good company and interesting conversation. But he doesn’t bank on murder being committed under his roof, nor his growing interest in the enigmatic Erik Lehnsherr…

In which there is a country house party (what else?), murder most foul (of course), and almost everyone’s a suspect (naturally).

Your soul is a chosen country – aesc

Summary: He sends letters, of course, because out in the sticks there’s not much to do except tend to Westchester’s endless affairs. And, of course, avoid tending to those affairs by going on walks, riding, and writing letters that make him hard and thrill secretly when he hands the properly-sealed, addressed envelope to the butler.

I was in London the other day, and in a bookseller’s along The Strand I found the most interesting and instructive volume. Or rather, it would have proved instructive if we had not already worked our way through much of the repertoire.

Blue Skies – baehj2915, marourin

Summary: At the tail end of the 1920s, the Twentieth Century is finally changing for the better. When Charles and Erik meet, it seems like an appropriate expression of the zeitgeist–a confluence of passion, romance, and change. But the good times never last. Erik and Charles have to discover if they can weather the gray days together, or at all.

A September as Sunny as Spring – Black_Betty, ikeracity, keire_ke

Summary: Charles Xavier was part of a famous vaudeville act before an accident cost him his career and his ability to walk. He’s pulled together a new life as a musician in Hollywood, but is finding it difficult to navigate his feelings for his old friend and partner, Erik Lehnsherr, the most sought after matinee idol of their generation.

Famous film duo Frost and Lehnsherr are two of the most well-known and admired mutants in the public eye, having built their fame and fortune on silent film blockbusters.When the rise of the new “talking pictures” phenomenon threatens all their careers, they must band together to try to prove that their days of stardom are far from over.

Lay with Me Amongst the Grapevines – kageillusionz

Summary: Young Master Charles’ friend from Oxford comes to stay with him at Westchester House during their break. Their relationship changes over the course of Mr. Lehnsherr’s stay, warmed by the summer sunshine and their mutual affection.

The Eldest of the Gods – lapetitesinge

Summary: It’s 1928, and sixteen-year-old Charles Xavier is intrigued by the new boy joining him at Eton College. He’s thrilled to realize that they may be alike in more ways than one, but there’s more standing between them than he can possibly guess.

Robbers – dsrobertson

Summary: 1933. Bank robber AU.

The Bureau of Investigation are after Public Enemy Number Two, bank robber Erik Lehnsherr. Charles Xavier is fiancé to Special Agent Moira MacTaggart. A closet homosexual, Charles visits the Manhattan pansy club scene and meets Max Eisenhardt. Only as time goes on, Max Eisenhardt turns out to be Erik Lehnsherr. Public Enemy Number Two.

Charles learns exactly what happens when you accidentally fall in love with a male bank robber in 1930s America.

Sign of the Times – dsrobertson

Summary: Casablanca-ish AU.

Charles Xavier meets Erik Lehnsherr in Paris, 1937. They spend the next two years with one another, stupid in-love, until war comes heavy in September 1939. Erik leaves for Poland and the Resistance movement there, promising to return. Charles is left in Paris, where Nazi jackboots march in, Summer of 1940. He becomes a member of the underground French Resistance, publishing illegal newsletters, leaflets, until news comes through in February 1942: Erik is dead. Charles throws himself into more dangerous work, meeting with Communists, helping derail a German train, and he does too much, goes too far. His friends find him safe passage out of France, out across the Mediterranean, to Morocco, Casablanca. It is here he finds Erik, alive.

Alone No more – MacandLacy

Summary: Erik and Charles each thought that they were alone. When they meet as children and discover otherwise, it changes their lives. Set before and during World War II.

The footsteps of uprooted lovers – ninemoons42

Summary: Against a turbulent backdrop of artistic, social, and political upheaval, the playwright Charles Xavier and the photographer Erik Lehnsherr find themselves meeting under less-than-polite circumstances, but part rather more amicably than they’d met.

When they find each other again in a Barcelona that is falling inexorably toward war, they find themselves taking up arms, each in his own way, and together they join a struggle for freedom, for love, and for their very lives.

Theme and Variations: War – ninemoons42

Summary: Erik Lehnsherr is a musical prodigy and a man destined for great things and great stages. But his life is shattered by a terrible accident that leaves him blind and trying to find his way back to his life, his music, and his place in the world.

Then he meets Charles Xavier, an agent of Section 8 of the Military Intelligence Directorate of Providence, and he finds himself listening in to clandestine radio transmissions and clicking Morse code, and these sounds are part and parcel of a war that can only take place in the shadows and the hidden places of history.

Hier steh ich an Marken meiner Tage – MonstrousRegiment

Summary: Erik Lehnsherr is a spy in the SS, and his British liaison is strategist Charles Xavier. Their relationship from the moment they meet to a year after the end of the war.

“You’re the only person in the world who knows what I am.”

A fish hook; an open eye – fabeld

Summary: Charles Xavier’s wealth protects him from mandatory service in the British Armed Forces, but he refuses to sit idly by when his telepathy can be used to assist the Allied Powers. As a British spy, Charles gains the Nazi Party’s trust and is sent to Paris to complete one last mission. His plan is disrupted when he runs into someone he never thought he would see again.

WWII AU with nods to Atonement.

A Light That Never Goes Out – R_Cookie

Summary: It was meant to be the war to end all wars; these two men were never supposed to meet. One a German Jew, the other a British surgeon. The odds that their paths should cross were next to none - but War defies the expected. It always has, and always will.

From the beaches of Dunkirk to the treacherous slopes of Monte Cassino - this is their story.

WWII AU.

Xmas in Connecticut – Yahtzee

Summary: In December 1944, the entire nation loves Rebecca Lawrence - “America’s Most Beloved Homemaker.” Her columns about leading the ideal life in the country help lift people’s spirits on the home front during World War II. But when her publisher asks her to host a war hero for Christmas dinner, the world is in danger of learning the truth … which is that “Rebecca Lawrence” is imaginary. Really, she’s a combination of Raven’s snappy writing and Charles’ knowhow in the kitchen.

However, this war hero, Erik Lehnsherr, is headed to Connecticut, so Raven and Charles have no choice but to find a way to make the imaginary real - at least,

Infamy – Yahtzee

Summary: In the aftermath of the Second World War, Erik Lehnsherr – survivor of Dachau, former resistance fighter in Occupied Europe – joins forces with US intelligence to hunt down escaped Nazis. A sensitive mission in Rio de Janeiro calls for Erik to recruit a new operative … one nobody is sure whether to trust. Charles Xavier is the stepson of convicted Nazi spy Kurt Marko, a rapidly worsening drunkard and a homosexual who hardly even bothers to hide his predilections. Hardly ideal.

But Charles is the only person with any chance of getting close to Sebastian Shaw. The one man who might allow them to complete the mission.

And although Erik’s business is keeping secrets, Charles brings something out in him that he’s worked desperately to hide –

What Dreams May Come – AnnaMcb24

Summary: Erik is a holocaust survivor who has recently lost his wife–the only person in his life who kept him sane. He continues to suffer in his dreams–facing the same agonies that plagued him in his early life–until one day he dreams of a young boy who endeavours to free Erik from his subconscious prison. However, the boy holds a great many secrets and, while he works to save Erik, Erik works to reveal his saviour’s identity.

Meanwhile, young Raven Xavier has lost her mother and is slowly uncovering the secrets of her family home–secrets that will lead her directly to one Erik Lehnsherr.

By Faint Indirections - kianspo

Summary: Erik is in his ~50s, and lonely and bitter. He survived the Holocaust and was only ~14 when the war ended; and even ~40 years later, living in a country that helped to end WW2 and the Third Reich, homosexuality is still a taboo topic. Then one day, he stumbles over Charles, who is young(early 20s) and bright and smart and cheeky and full of energy and beautiful. And moving in the same street where Erik lives.

[agirlinjapan]

Red Data Girl: My Wish on the Night of the Shooting Stars (Week 7)

Red Data Girl: My Wish on the Night of the Shooting Stars By Noriko Ogiwara A Translation

Miss the last piece? Read it here!

Check out the RDG Translation twitter!

Help me pay for my next translation project on Ko-fi.

Last week was an unintentional break from RDG. Sorry for the wait and thank you being so patient with me as I balance life, translating, and for the next month, National Novel Writing Month. Things are getting a little wacky right now.

This is the last week in chapter 1 of RDG 6.

Translation Note:

Jinbei, what Daisei is wearing in this episode, is a type of casual, traditional festival wear from Japan. They make good summer pajamas as well because they’re light and comfortable to wear. Jinbei are traditionally worn by men, but in recent years, women have begun to wear them as well. I have a cute Hello Kitty jinbei set myself. :)

Red Data Girl: My Wish on the Night of the Shooting Stars By Noriko Ogiwara Chapter 1: Disappearance Part 3 (3 of 3)

The email’s main text was followed by instructions on how to work the video chat. She turned the possibility of seeing and speaking to her father over in her head a few times, her heart beating fast all the while. Then she checked the clock and saw that there was still an hour or so left until nine.

Mayura will probably be back in the room by nine. It looks like it will take me a bit to set everything up, and I don’t know if everything will work the way it’s supposed to. Maybe I should just start getting ready to call him now…

If she did video chat with her father, she would definitely want to introduce Mayura to him, she thought. Daisei would want to meet her roommate as well. Izumiko excitedly started getting ready.

As it was the first time, a few parts of the set up puzzled Izumiko, but the software installation wasn’t particularly complicated. It was finished in much less time than she had expected. When she tried to see if placing a call would work, Daisei immediately appeared.

“Oh, Dad.”

“Hey, Izumiko.”  

“It’s not nine yet already, is it?”

“It’s not.” Daisei wasn’t the sort of person to be surprised by the unusual. He smiled at her through the screen. “I wasn’t quite ready yet either, but there was a necessary change in plans.”

“There was?”

“Yes, because my one and only daughter called me.”

Daisei, who worked for a programing company, seemed nonplussed to still be sitting in front of his computer in the middle of the night, as strange as the situation might have been. He was visible from head to shoulders on the screen and was sitting in front of a bare, pale green wall. As usual, he wore his round glasses and his hair was uncombed. His clothes could have been pajamas or loungewear—either way, he always wore traditional garb of some sort when he was dressed casually. Right now, he appeared to be wearing an indigo jinbei.

“How have you been? Is school fun?”

“Dad, you’re being too carefree.” The complaint was out of Izumiko’s mouth before she realized it. “You already know what’s going on, don’t you? Mom came to the festival, and Mr. Sagara’s here at school. Things were hard before that, too. It hasn’t been anything like fun.”

“But you look happier than you did before. Just looking at you makes me feel better.”

“Please don’t feel better just because I’m in front of you now.”

“Anyway, it looks like the video chat is a big success. I can see you while I’m at work now. I’m never this happy! From here on, we can see each other whenever we want!”

Daisei’s voice was filled with glee, and with it, Izumiko’s shoulders relaxed. The video chat definitely was something to be excited about.

“Yeah. I’m happy too. There’s a lot of stuff I want to talk to you about.”

“Then we can get right to that. Your powers that you’re still figuring out influence spirits. Something in that process interferes with electromagnetic waves. That’s why electronics break around you. Even if you haven’t found a way to control that influence you have over electronics, it doesn’t mean there aren’t other options to address the problem. For example, what if there were ways to manipulate your abilities unconsciously?”

Izumiko opened her mouth to respond, but before she could, Daisei quickly continued.

“That laptop was a daring interpretation of an idea of mine, and it was a try at something new. You’ve had a very hard time using the internet until now, but the actual reason for your troubles was the opposite of what you’d think. Your abilities tap into the actual computer networks very easily, and, as a result, change the range of the wavelengths. It must be my genes. I’m very easy to get along with. Common sense would say that your laptop shouldn’t be able to connect to the internet. But you’re the last piece of the puzzle. You supply the wavelengths that connect the machine to the web.”

“Wait a second. I’m part of the set up?”

“Let me put it this way. Asceticism is founded on mental concentration through chanting sutras, right? It’s sort of like that.”

Izumiko stared at her triumphant looking father in utter confusion. “I have no idea what you’re saying, Dad. I thought I just became the goddess for real a few days ago, but you’re saying I’ve always been the goddess?”

Daisei seemed to notice that he had said too much as he often did. He lowered his voice a little and said, “Ah… Well, yes. We’ve known that for a while. Sorry for not saying anything up until now. But there was no easy way to tell you until you noticed it yourself. No one really knows what it means to change the future. Even your mother can’t say anything for sure.”

“Why did you enroll me at Houjou Academy if you knew it was the school where they were choosing the World Heritage Candidate from the start?” After asking the initial question, Izumiko’s tone relaxed as she continued. “You knew about the future the goddess is talking about. Will I probably become the World Heritage Candidate?”

Daisei nodded, his expression deadly serious. “I discussed it with you mother and we both decided on sending you there. Hey, Izumiko. Becoming the World Heritage Candidate won’t be a bad thing for you. You’ll be recognized as someone who contributes to the whole world, and the amount of people looking out for your safety will grow, too.”

“But the goddess…”

“The goddess didn’t bring the world to a sad end in the future because she became the World Heritage Candidate. The problem is that her abilities span in many directions. As ascetic monks, our job is to use the goddess’s powers to interact with this world for the better. But think about all the people who aren’t interested in her for that reason.”

With Izumiko rendered speechless, Daisei continued.

“The more your power is used in a stable manner, the less dangerous the world will come to recognize it as. Your powers are completely unknown to the world, and because of that, research organizations from all over the globe will probably want to desperately get their hands on you. Then there will be many people who want to profit off of you as well. Just the simple fact that you can break electronics without touching them could have military and weaponry potential. And that’s just the start of what your abilities could be used for.”

Izumiko involuntarily looked down at her hands. “Military weapons?”

“All of human civilization is coming to rely on electronic communication. In this age, my Izumiko could probably move satellites in outer space all by herself.”

“I wouldn’t do something like that.”

“Of course you wouldn’t.” Daisei gave her another easygoing smile. Quickly letting tension go was another one of his qualities.

“However, all those people out there don’t know that you’re not that kind of person. That’s why we’re all working so hard to protect you. If there comes a time when someone tries to deceive you into thinking they can teach you about your abilities, we’ll be there to step in. Hopefully that won’t happen for some time longer, though.”

“Are the ascetic monks studying me?” Izumiko asked, confusion evident in her voice.

“If they are, it’s to find out how to prevent the future’s destruction.”

“Are they studying my actual body to do that? They’ve done experiments too, haven’t they? They’ve done them on Miyuki, as well.”

“Do you not want those tests to happen?”

“They make me uncomfortable.”

Unable to come up with a more logic based explanation, Izumiko had no choice but to say “uncomfortable.” However, uncomfortable was only the very beginning of how she felt. She wanted to resist all that was happening to her without her knowledge with all her very being.

“Dad, you’re an ascetic monk, right? Someone who prays and trains in the mountains? The ascetic monks learned the knowledge of the mountain spirits at some point, so unlike the diviners and ninjas who have the same beginnings as them, they were able to distance themselves from the country’s government and grow from there. That’s what I heard at least, but I’m guessing it’s mostly right.”

Izumiko paused to check that she was correct. When she saw Daisei nod, she continued. “I have a feeling that what you and the others are doing is separate from what the other ascetic monks are doing. I mean, right now there’s no way you could be training in the mountains when you work at an American company. I have a really bad feeling about this research. How would you describe the goddess’s powers? Would you say that the ascetic monks control her power? Does that mean they have a power that could become military weaponry?”

“Stop, Izumiko. It’s not like that.” Daisei shook his head sharply. His expression was pleasant, although somewhat troubled. “I’m a sucker for my field of study, and I have a tendency to get completely absorbed in what I’m working on. The ascetic monks are not involved in any sort of conspiracy. Besides, think about who your mother is. She’d never let me fall into anything like that.”

He was right, Izumiko admitted. Angering Yukariko would be an incredibly terrifying thing to do.

“So you’re saying Mom’s alright with all this testing?”

“That’s…” Daisei began to respond, but then paused for a moment.

“That’s?”

“You need to understand that any organization, no matter who they are, needs a source of funding. In order to achieve our goal of protecting the goddess, we need the appropriate funds to come from somewhere. If we don’t want a government sponsorship, the need for that money to come from undisclosed routes becomes that much more important. In the past or now, that sort of thing doesn’t change. Do you understand?”

“About the money?...”

“It’s something that’s unavoidable. I know about making money. The American company I’m working for now is a cover of some sort for something else that has plans to eventually start up as an independent company in its own right. For the time being, the ascetic monks don’t know about it.”

“You’re making a new company in America? You’re not coming back to Japan?”

“For now, I’m planning to start the company here,” Daisei answered excitedly. “Before, you said the ascetic monks couldn’t do anything in America, but that’s not true. There’s even a Native American group much like us here.”

Izumiko was quiet for a bit, but then she said in a small voice, “You’re doing this all for yourself.”

“No I’m not. I’m only thinking about y—”

“I’m ending the call now.”

“Wha? Wait, Izumiko?”

Izumiko saw the surprise on Daisei’s face, but she clicked the end button anyway. The call screen went black, and the room went back to being silent.

Izumiko stared at the blank screen, and let out a long sigh as she considered where her anger had come from.

…Of course Dad didn’t understand at all. Neither of my parents spend any time around me. Obviously they wouldn’t have a clue about how I feel.

Like a child with a new toy, her father was completely caught up with living in California. Thinking about her too easily distracted father made her feel reproachful of him. He had said he was doing everything for her over and over during their discussion on the screen, but if that was the case, Izumiko would have preferred that he come back to Japan.

Realizing that Mayura hadn’t returned to the room in time for her to meet Daisei, Izumiko pondered this thought for a bit along with everything else. At this point, Izumiko doubted that she would have been able to happily introduce the two to each other.

Dad acts like a kid when he’s at home, but he’s really an adult man. He lives in a world I know nothing about…

Doubt hung over Izumiko like a grey cloud. Daisei wasn’t the sort of person to have ulterior motives, but while he might have thought he was doing everything for her, the things he had wrapped himself up in were anything but that.

To Izumiko, the idea of living and working in a faraway country was a bit hazy to her, but it was still something she could get a sense of. Was her father just an easygoing man with a pleasant disposition who had been placed in a difficult situation?

My powers flared up at the festival and I broke the electronics, made the shikigami disappear, and flew into that other dimension all because Takayanagi and the diviners thought that they could control me. But if I really think about it, the ascetic monks have been doing the exact same thing from the very beginning. They’re planning to eventually use the goddess’s powers for themselves.

Izumiko clenched her fists tightly as she thought about this. She remembered the things Yukimasa had told Miyuki. They were the sort of things he would certainly say. And before that, Yukimasa had told Izumiko that once she left school, she would live a life surrounded by endless security.

Of course that meant that the ascetic monks would be the ones guarding her.

If the goddess’s power is dangerous just like Dad said, and it’s something people want to get their hands on… obviously the ascetic monks would want to get their hands on it, too.

For the first time, Izumiko grew distrustful of the people who had been around her throughout her whole life. She had always felt uncomfortable with something about her situation, but it hadn’t stemmed from a suspicion of her home or the ascetic monks. Now though, a new viewpoint was forming inside of her. Nonetheless, there was still a chance that she could be wrong about everything.

What should I do? At this rate, I won’t be able to trust anyone around me, no matter who they are….

Just like that, Izumiko realized how easy it would be to hate people. The makings of such a feeling had been inside her from the start.

Deep down inside of herself, she had been holding onto this terrifying trait all along without ever knowing it, and now it had come to the surface. She was sure she could overcome the hatred somehow. But if she did manage to get rid of those frightening feelings, she couldn’t help but know that the same things that had set her off would happen again, and cause those same feelings to come rushing back to her.

Keep reading!

[xannnina]

TV Show: Monk Song: Hot&Cold Band: Katy Perry

Episodes used: Monk 1x01 - Mr. Monk and the candidate Monk 1x02 - Mr. Monk and the psychic Monk 1x04 - Mr. Monk goes to the carnival Monk 1x08 - Mr. Monk and the marathon man Monk 1x09 - Mr. Monk takes a vacation Monk 1x10 - Mr. Monk and the earthquake Monk 1x12 - Mr. Monk and the airplane Monk 2x02 - Mr. Monk goes to Mexico Monk 2x03 - Mr. Monk goes to the ballgame Monk 2x04 - Mr. Monk goes to the circus Monk 2x05 - Mr. Monk and the very very old man Monk 2x06 - Mr. Monk goes to the theatre Monk 2x07 - Mr. Monk and the sleeping suspect Monk 2x08 - Mr. Monk meets the Playboy Monk 2x10 - Mr. Monk and the paperboy Monk 2x11 - Mr. Monk and.the captain's wife Monk 2x12 - Mr. Monk and the three pies Monk 2x15 - Mr. Monk gets married Monk 3x02 - Mr. Monk and the panic room Monk 3x04 - Mr. Monk gets fired Monk 3x09 - Mr. Monk takes his medicine Monk 6x04 - Mr. Monk and the bad girlfriend

[dramaaroundtheworld]

Thirst. We all have it. And we all seek out that thing that’s going to quench it. To say Dragon Ball Z presents us with some real thirsty moments would be an understatement. The beloved series finally made its way over to Crunchyroll on March 15, thanks to the Funimation merger and, now that we’ve had ample time to revisit season 1, it’s time to delve into the finer points of the thick thighs and sweaty guys that make up this feast. And we’re not just talking about chiseled abs and pulsing pecks. Oh no. Dragon Ball Z is like Baskin Robbins, 31 flavors of FINE. While your average list will examine “most memorable scenes”, or “heroic moments”, we’re here to give the people what they really want: where characters land on the thirst rankings. Be it your first time watching or a refresher course, we’re here to show you which characters are a nice appetizer, which are a three course meal, and which are just empty calories. Mild spoilers for season one. Now let’s break down these tasty cakes.

GOKU

Goku, the main character. A beautifully sweet dumb boy, with a big heart and bigger pectoral muscles, Goku is determined to train and be the best, while also protecting his family and friends. And you know what? That kind of basic, naive heroic boy energy has a certain sexiness to it. Google “Is Goku a Himbo?” and you’ll find the answer to be a fairly consistent “yes”. Not a lot going on here outside of good looks and big punches and there is nothing wrong with that. Though the question of whether or not he is a good dad is another matter entirely… Thirst Level 9/10

PICCOLO

The man who never wanted to be a father, but fatherhood chose him (see: Goku who is, in fact, a very bad dad, so Piccolo had to pick up the slack). The man with a mysterious past. The man who was once a sworn enemy, but is now a trusted friend. We love an antihero, and Piccolo is one of the best. Something of a Wolverine type. A loner. Which of course makes him the perfect candidate to take on the training of a temporarily fatherless Gohan, a task he does not want to do! But excels at. Begrudgingly. Makes us love him more. If Mr. Miyagi was a bit meaner, a bit leaner, and a lot greener. 9/10

KRILLIN

Goku’s best friend and training partner from the original Dragon Ball series. A short king. Krillin may not be the most powerful– seriously, every opponent he fights feels compelled to remind him of this–but he’s determined, and will always have your back. You got to love a loyal companion who always put in maximum effort. Thirst Level 7.5/10

YAMCHA

This beautiful long haired dope. Thor is asking him for conditioning tips. A former martial artist/teenage bandit who suddenly pivoted to a career in professional baseball and is the best player on the team. It’s Gambit meets Ken from Street Fighter and Casey Jones all rolled into one. What more do you need? Constantly screwing things up with Bulma (don’t worry, we’ll get to her!) and making huge personal sacrifices. Plus he has scars. We dig scars here. And say what you will about Yamcha‘s much memed death pose–you know you’re checking out dat ass. 9.5/10

YAJIROBE

Look not everyone here is a lean mean fighting machine. Take, for example, Yajirobe: a thicc daddy who enjoys his meals and wants to survive. Coming through when he’s most needed, even if it takes some convincing. A man who likes to eat and wants to live to eat again? There’s satisfaction in that simplicity. This is a man who knows who he is and what he wants and we dig that kind of commitment. He loses some points due to the constant nose picking. Look we all do it, but subtly man! 6/10

TIEN

Aaah, Tien Shinhan. Perhaps the most ripped and singularly dedicated to his own betterment of the group. This three eyed monk man is all about the concentration and training. When we meet him, he is literally stopping a waterfall. But he’s not stopping us from..well, you get it. Constantly shirtless. Always looking out for Chiaotzu. Continues fighting with just one arm. Which makes you wonder what else he could do with just one arm… All that said, he makes it pretty clear that he’s less-than interested in carnal desires. Would much rather train than bang. Which is totally cool, and we respect his boundaries. Even if Bad Launch maybe doesn’t. Still kind of a bummer and, for out personal taste, sadly, a buzz kill on the Thirst Levels. 7/10

MASTER ROSHI

Dirty minded old man, can’t keep his hands to himself, does not matter how jacked he is. Also talks loudly while in the bathroom. 2/10

OX-KING

A Zaddy all the way. All about making meals and checking in on his daughter. Dresses like a college professor or librarian, but with some little shorts and short shirtsleeves showing off those 80s wrestler ripped arms. Don’t let Ox-King‘s big smile, glasses and friendly beard fool you. This ox hunk will put you in a Kimura Submission. And you may just want him to. 8.5/10

KING YEMMA

Another big Zaddy, but seems too interested in laying down the law and not dealing with dead people’s bullshit. King of all ogres, judger of souls who makes the final call on whether they go to heaven or hell. Inflexible to the point that he has two ogre minions guarding a tree to make sure no one but him can eat the fruit off of it. Can’t build a relationship or the foundations of one here. His way or the highway, and that Snake Way is a long one. 3/10

KING KAI

Can’t stop making jokes, thinks he’s the funniest one in the room, even when something serious is going on. Also talks way too much about his car. Huge red flag unless you’re Dom Toretto or Speed Racer. 4/10

PRINCESS SNAKE

A snake woman, who wants to eat and digest you, but also she wants to feed you first? There’s probably folks who are into that! But let’s talk about her servants. Paid? Doubt it. Adequate breaks and killer benefits? Definitely not. Red flags a plenty. Plus she full on changes her appearance to that of a fetching blue skinned ginger to make an extremely false first impression. All good relationships need to start with trust and that’s not an option here. She will give you a hot bath, which is pretty good, until you realize it’s basically a stew base and actually part of her plan to cook and eat you. Ultimately? Right down the middle. 5/10

LAUNCH

A woman with a spilt personality, so we’re ranking both. One, Good Launch, a blue-haired, very sweet, very confused young woman who likes to run around in the flowers, with a Disney’s Snow White-esque cadence (4/10) and the other, Bad Launch a super violent blonde whose interests include robbing banks, rocket launchers and Tien, again, a man who has no time for love. Unclear whether she wants to kill him or kiss him. A little of both, probably. Violent, scary, big step on me mommy energy. 9/10

RADITZ

Do you have a cool friend? And he has an older brother who is kind of like your cool friend? But also a psycho who may want to kill you and destroy the planet? Well that’s Raditz. If Bill Paxton from Weird Science got super powers and tried to destroy everything including his brother. 4/10

NAPPA

Dude got them thick thighs and he’s not afraid to show them off. Just a big meaty man made of man meat. Attempts to kill a child, also a confirmed mass murderer of adult people. Hurts Nappa‘s ranking, big time. 4/10

BULMA

This queen with her iconic, ever changing blue hair. There’s an episode of her in a tube top where Bulma and Krillin meet up with Yamcha and she leans against a light pole and let me tell you this woman is cut. Arms looking huge. She may not be out there fighting aliens, but girl is for sure hitting the gym. At the end of the season, she’s on an extraterrestrial ship running around looking like Ripley at the end of Alien, in a white tank and underwear, fully aware of, yet unfazed by, the fact that she forgot her pants. Nothing sexier than confidence and girl genius, Bulma Briefs, has it in spades. She makes her own clothes, invented the Dragon Radar, enjoys junk food and bossing people around. 10/10.

BUT HEY, YOU FORGOT…

Now you’re probably wondering, “where are the rest?” Well they’re mostly children and animals which…no, just no. And we don’t talk about Mr. Popo. But there is the elephant in the room, or rather the hot tempered, spiky haired prince of all Saiyans in the room, Vegeta. Where is he in the thirst power ranking? Honestly, it’s difficult to judge. Remember, we’re specifically looking at the first season here, and long time Dragon Ball fans might forget that, we don’t actually get much Vegeta in season 1 (and yes we know Ox-King and Launch are only in the like one episode each, but they’re carryovers form Dragon Ball and have history). He’s a cold psychopath who turns into an ape, nearly kills the hero and then gets beaten up by a child and Yajirobe with Krillin jumping in on support. He’s more looming threat than personality. He spends most of the season sleeping or bossing Nappa around. Nothing wrong with a short bossy daddy, but hard to rank on that alone. So, given the limited evidence…inconclusive on Vegeta’s Thirst Level. Chi-Chi isn’t that heavily featured either. And we know we’ve got some real ringers waiting in the wings to make their future season appearances…

[newstfionline]

Monday, February 8, 2021

America’s Mothers Are in Crisis (NYT) By now, you have read the headlines, repeating like a depressing drum beat: “Working moms are not OK.” “Pandemic Triples Anxiety And Depression Symptoms In New Mothers.” “Working Moms Are Reaching The Breaking Point.” You can also see the problem in numbers: Almost 1 million mothers have left the workforce—with Black mothers, Hispanic mothers and single mothers among the hardest hit. Almost 1 in 4 children experienced food insecurity in 2020, which is intimately related to the loss of maternal income. And more than three-quarters of parents with children ages 8 to 12 say the uncertainty around the current school year is causing them stress. The pandemic has touched every group of Americans, and millions are suffering, hungry and grieving. But many mothers in particular get no space or time to recover. Philip Fisher, a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon who runs an ongoing nationally representative survey on the effect of the pandemic on families with young children, says, “People are having a hard time making ends meet, that’s making parents stressed out, and that’s causing kids to be stressed out.” This buildup can lead to toxic stress, “And we know from all the science, that level of stress has a lasting impact on brain development, learning and physical health.” Almost 70% of mothers say that worry and stress from the pandemic have damaged their health.

Pandemic’s Toll on Housing (NYT) As the pandemic enters its second year, millions of renters are struggling with a loss of income and with the insecurity of not knowing how long they will have a home. Their savings depleted, they are running up credit card debt to make the rent, or accruing months of overdue payments. Families are moving in together, offsetting the cost of housing by finding others to share it. Even before last year, about 11 million households—one in four U.S. renters—were spending more than half their pretax income on housing, and overcrowding was on the rise. By one estimate, for every 100 very low-income households, only 36 affordable rentals are available. Now the pandemic is adding to the pressure. A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia showed that tenants who lost jobs in the pandemic had amassed $11 billion in rental arrears, while a broader measure by Moody’s Analytics, which includes all delinquent renters, estimated that as of January they owed $53 billion in back rent, utilities and late fees. Other surveys show that families are increasingly pessimistic about making their next month’s rent, and are cutting back on food and other essentials to pay bills.

In pandemic, more people choose to die at home (AP) Mortuary owner Brian Simmons has been making more trips to homes to pick up bodies to be cremated and embalmed since the pandemic hit. With COVID-19 devastating communities in Missouri, his two-person crews regularly arrive at homes in the Springfield area and remove bodies of people who decided to die at home rather than spend their final days in a nursing home or hospital where family visitations were prohibited during the pandemic. He understands all too well why people are choosing to die at home: His own 49-year-old daughter succumbed to the coronavirus just before Christmas at a Springfield hospital, where the family only got phone updates as her condition deteriorated. “My daughter went to the hospital and we saw her once through the glass when they put her on the ventilator, and then we never saw her again until after she died.” Across the country, terminally ill patients—both with COVID-19 and other diseases—are making similar decisions and dying at home rather than face the terrifying scenario of saying farewell to loved ones behind glass or during video calls.

Trump’s Senate impeachment trial (AP) Arguments begin Tuesday in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump on allegations that he incited the violent mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Will he be convicted? It’s unlikely. While many Republicans were harshly critical of Trump for telling supporters to “fight like hell” and go to the Capitol, their criticism has since softened. The shift was evident during a Jan. 26 test vote. Only five Republican senators voted against a motion that was aimed at dismissing the trial. It will take a two-thirds vote of the 100-member Senate to convict Trump of the impeachment charge, which is “incitement of insurrection.” If all 50 Democrats voted to convict him, 17 Republicans would have to join them to reach that threshold. Most Republicans have avoided defending Trump’s actions the day of the riot. Instead, lawmakers have argued that the trial is unconstitutional because Trump is no longer in office.

Ecuadoreans vote for president (Reuters) Ecuadoreans choose a new president on Sunday, with many voters weary of painful economic austerity measures and eager for a return to socialism, encouraging left-wing candidate Andres Arauz who hopes to win without needing a runoff vote. The 36-year-old economist, a protege of former president Rafael Correa, leads in polls on promises to make $1 billion in direct cash payments to families and to disavow the conditions of a $6.5 billion IMF financing package. His main rival, Guillermo Lasso, has been hurt by his image as a conservative banker, and pollsters say the possibility of low voter turnout due to the pandemic could dent his support. Lawyer and indigenous activist Yaku Perez is third in the polls. An Arauz victory would extend Latin America’s return to leftist policies, already evident in Argentina and Bolivia, a challenge for Washington as it duels with China for influence in the hemisphere.

With Carnival scrapped, Rio’s Sambadrome hosts vaccinations (AP) In a normal year, Rio de Janeiro’s Sambadrome would be preparing for its great moment of the year: the world’s most famous Carnival parade. But a week before what should be the start of Carnival, the pandemic has replaced pageantry, with the great celebration put on hold until next year as Rio struggles to quash a rise in COVID-19 cases. The Rio mayor’s office opened a drive-thru immunization station Saturday at the Sambadrome, where a line of cars queued up on a broad avenue built for floats. Rio’s city government officially suspended Carnival and warns it will have no tolerance for those who try to celebrate with open street parades or clandestine parties, saying it is monitoring social media to detect any.

Public Buildings Set Ablaze in Chile After Police Shoot Street Juggler (NYT) Demonstrators angered by the fatal police shooting of a popular street juggler set several public buildings ablaze in southern Chile Friday night, leaving a city of almost 34,000 people practically without public services. The shooting took place after the juggler, identified as Francisco Martínez, did not comply with a police officer’s request to provide identification as he performed at a busy intersection in the center of Panguipulli, a popular lakeside community, witnesses said. An argument followed, during which the officer pulled out his gun and fired at least two shots at Mr. Martínez’s feet, witnesses told reporters. Videos taken by witnesses, which spread widely on social media, show the juggler jumping to avoid the shots then running toward the officer with his props in the air. The officer then shot him in the chest, witnesses said, and he died at the scene. Police then barricaded themselves in their station. Since protesters were unable to attack the police station, they turned to other government symbols. Ten public offices in the city of Panguipulli burned to the ground, including the municipal government building, the post office, the civil registry, a local court and a water management company, the authorities said.

Himalayan glacier breaks in India, up to 150 feared dead in floods (Reuters) As many as 150 people were feared dead in northern India after a Himalayan glacier broke and swept away a hydroelectric dam on Sunday, with floods forcing the evacuation of villages downstream. “The actual number has not been confirmed yet,” but 100 to 150 people were feared dead, Om Prakash, chief secretary of Uttarakhand state where the incident occurred, told Reuters. A witness reported a wall of dust, rock and water as an avalanche roared down the Dhauli Ganga river valley located more than 500 km (310 miles) north of New Delhi.

Protests sweep Myanmar to oppose coup, support Suu Kyi (Reuters) Tens of thousands of people rallied across Myanmar on Sunday to denounce last week’s coup and demand the release of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in the biggest protests since the 2007 Saffron Revolution that helped lead to democratic reforms. In a second day of widespread protests, crowds in the biggest city, Yangon, sported red shirts, red flags and red balloons, the colour of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy Party (NLD). “We don’t want military dictatorship! We want democracy!” they chanted. On Sunday afternoon, the junta ended a day-long blockade of the internet that had further inflamed anger since the coup last Monday that has halted the Southeast Asian nation’s troubled transition to democracy and drawn international outrage. Massive crowds from all corners of Yangon gathered in townships and headed toward the Sule Pagoda at the heart of the city, also a rallying point during the Buddhist monk-led 2007 protests and others in 1988.

Palestinian leader’s path to elections is fraught with peril (AP) Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ call for elections has thrown his political future into peril, forcing him to negotiate competing demands to engage with a friendlier U.S. administration, mend the rift with his militant Hamas rivals and keep his unruly Fatah movement from breaking apart. It’s far from clear the elections will actually be held. Doing so will require an agreement between Abbas’s secular Fatah movement and Hamas, which have been bitterly divided for more than a decade despite multiple attempts at reconciliation. The two sides plan to meet in Cairo this week. The outcome of the talks will largely depend on the 85-year-old Abbas. He has spent decades nonviolently seeking a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, territories seized by Israel in the 1967 war. Instead, he has come to rule an increasingly autocratic and unpopular Palestinian Authority confined to parts of the occupied West Bank. Reconciling with Hamas and holding elections could shore up his legitimacy and meet longstanding Western demands for accountability. But even a limited victory by Hamas, which is considered a terrorist group by Israel and Western countries, could result in international isolation and the loss of vital aid—as it did after Hamas won the last parliamentary elections in 2006.

[a-bit-of-lit-blog]

i noticed y’all have been enjoying my novel masterposts. so im just going to keep posting because im obsessed with books like that T.T

for my study-like-rory studyblr friends who want to read all the books mentioned in gilmore girls (because hello?? who doesn’t??), here’s a list! pls let me know if i missed a book, but i think it’s quite a complete list! enjoy!!

#

1984 – George Orwell

A

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain

Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay – Michael Chabon

An American Tragedy – Theodore Dreiser

Angela’s Ashes – Frank McCourt

Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl – Anne Frank

Archidamian War – Donald Kagen

The Art of Fiction  – Henry James

The Art of War – Sun Tzu

As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner

Atonement – Ian McEwan

The Awakening – Kate Chopin

Autobiography of a Face – Lucy Grealy

B

Babe – Dick King-Smith

Backlash – Susan Faludi

Balzac & the Little Chinese Seamstress – Dai Sijie

The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

Beloved – Toni Morrison

Beowulf – Seamus Heaney

The Bhagava Gita

The Bielski Brothers – Peter Duffy

Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women – Elizabeth Wurtzel

A Bolt From the Blue & other Essays – Mary McCarthy

Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

Brick Lane – Monica Ali

Brigadoon – Alan Jay Lerner

C

Candide – Voltaire

The Canterbury Tales – Chaucer

Carrie –Stephen King

Catch – 22 – Joseph Heller

The Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

The Celebrated Jumping Frog – Mark Twain

Charlotte’s Web – EB White

The Children’s Hour – Lilian Hellman

Christine – Stephen King

A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess

The Code of the Woosters – PG Wodehouse

The Collected Short Stories – Eudora Welty

The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty

A Comedy of Errors – William Shakespeare

Complete Novels – Dawn Powell

The Complete Poems – Anne Sexton

Complete Stories – Dorothy Parker

A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

Cousin Bette – Honore de Balzac

Crime & Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Crimson Petal & the White – Michael Faber

The Crucible – Arthur Miller

Cujo – Stephen King

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime – Mark Haddon

D

Daughter of Fortune – Isabel Allende

David and Lisa – Dr. Theodore Issac Rubin

David Coperfield – Charles Dickens

The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown

Deal Souls – Nikolai Gogol (Season 3, episode 3)

Demons – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Death of a Salesman – Arthur Miller

Deenie – Judy Blume

The Devil in the White City – Erik Larson

The Dirt – Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mark, & Nikki Sixx

The Divine Comedy – Dante

The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood – Rebecca Wells

Don Quijote – Cervantes

Driving Miss Daisy – Alfred Uhrv

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde ­– Robert Louis Stevenson

E

Complete Tales & Poems – Edgar Allan Poe

Eleanor Roosevelt – Blanche Wiesen Cook

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – Tom Wolfe

Ella Minnow Pea – Mark Dunn

Eloise – Kay Thompson

Emily the Strange – Roger Reger

Emma – Jane Austen

Empire Falls – Richard Russo

Encyclopedia Brown – Donald J. Sobol

Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton

Ethics – Spinoza

Eva Luna – Isabel Allende

Everything is Illuminated – Jonathon Safran Foer

Extravagance – Gary Kist

F

Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury

Fahrenheit 911 – Michael Moore

The Fall of the Athenian Empire – Donald Kagan

Fat Land:How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World – Greg Critser

Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S. Thompson

The Fellowship of the Ring – J R R Tolkien

Fiddler on the Roof – Joseph Stein

The Five People You Meet in Heaven – Mitch Albom

Finnegan’s Wake – James Joyce

Fletch – Gregory McDonald

Flowers of Algernon – Daniel Keyes

The Fortress of Solitude – Jonathon Lethem

The Fountainhead – Ayn Rand

Frankenstein – Mary Shelley

Franny and Zooey – JD Salinger

Freaky Friday – Mary Rodgers

G

Galapagos – Kurt Vonnegut

Gender Trouble – Judith Baker

George W. Bushism – Jacob Weisberg

Gidget – Fredrick Kohner

Girl, Interrupted – Susanna Kaysen

The Ghostic Gospels – Elaine Pagels

The Godfather – Mario Puzo

The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy

Goldilocks & the Three Bears – Alvin Granowsky

Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell

The Good Soldier – Ford Maddox Ford

The Gospel According to Judy Bloom

The Graduate – Charles Webb

The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

The Group – Mary McCarthy

H

Hamlet – Shakespeare

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – JK Rowling

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – JK Rowling

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius – Dave Eggers

Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

Helter Skelter – Vincent Bugliosi

Henry IV, Part 1 – Shakespeare

Henry IV, Part 2 – Shakespeare

Henry V – Shakespeare

High Fidelity – Nick Hornby

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire – Edward Gibbons

Holidays on Ice – David Sedaris

The Holy Barbarians – Lawrence Lipton

House of Sand and Fog – Andre Dubus III

The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende

How to Breathe Underwater – Julie Orringer

How the Grinch Stole Christmas – Dr. Seuss

How the Light Gets In – MJ Hyland

Howl – Alan Ginsburg

The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo

I

The Illiad – Homer

I’m With the Band – Pamela des Barres

In Cold Blood – Truman Capote

Inferno – Dante

Inherit the Wind – Jerome Lawrence & Robert E Lee

Iron Weed – William J. Kennedy

It Takes a Village – Hilary Clinton

J

Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

The Joy Luck Club – Amy Tan

Julius Caesar – Shakespeare

The Jungle – Upton Sinclair

Just a Couple of Days – Tony Vigorito

K

The Kitchen Boy – Robert Alexander

Kitchen Confidential – Anthony Bourdain

The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini

L

Lady Chatterley’s Lover – DH Lawrence

The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 – Gore Vidal

Leaves of Grass – Walt Whitman

The Legend of Bagger Vance – Steven Pressfield

Less Than Zero – Bret Easton Ellis

Letters to a Young Poet – Rainer Maria Rilke

Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them – Al Franken

Life of Pi – Yann Martel

Little Dorrit – Charles Dickens

The Little Locksmith – Katharine Butler Hathaway

The Little Match Girl – Hans Christian Anderson

Little Woman – Louisa May Alcott

Living History – Hillary Clinton

Lord of the Flies – William Golding

The Lottery & Other Stories – Shirley Jackson

The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

The Love Story – Eric Segal

M

Macbeth – Shakespeare

Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

The Manticore – Robertson Davies (Season 3, episode 3)

Marathon Man – William Goldman

The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov

Memoirs of  Dutiful Daughter – Simone de Beauvoir

Memoirs of General WT Sherman – William Tecumseh Sherman

Me Talk Pretty One Day – David Sedaris

The Meaning of Consuelo – Judith Ortiz Cofer

Mencken’s Chrestomathy – HR Mencken

The Merry Wives of Windsor – Shakespeare

The Metamorphosis – Franz Kafka

Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides

The Miracle Worker – William Gibson

Moby Dick – Herman Melville

The Mojo Collection – Jim Irvin

Moliere – Hobart Chatfield Taylor

A Monetary History of the US – Milton Friedman

Monsieur Proust – Celeste Albaret

A Month of Sundays – Julie Mars

A Moveable Feast – Ernest Hemingway

Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf

Mutiny on the Bounty – Charles Nordhoff & James Norman Hall

My Lai 4 – Seymour M Hersh

My Life as Author and Editor – HR Mencken

My Life in Orange – Tim Guest

My Sister’s Keeper – Jodi Picoult

N

The Naked and the Dead – Norman Mailer

The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco

The Namesake – Jhumpa Lahiri

The Nanny Diaries – Emma McLaughlin

Nervous System – Jan Lars Jensen

New Poems of Emily Dickinson

The New Way Things Work – David Macaulay

Nickel and Dimed – Barbara Ehrenreich

Night – Elie Wiesel

Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen

The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism – William E Cain

Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell

Notes of a Dirty Old Man – Charles Bukowski

O

Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

Old School – Tobias Wolff

Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

On the Road – Jack Keruac

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch – Alexander Solzhenitsyn

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey

One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life – Amy Tan

Oracle Night – Paul Auster

Oryx and Crake – Margaret Atwood

Othello – Shakespeare

Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens

The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War – Donald Kagan

Out of Africa – Isac Dineson

The Outsiders – S. E. Hinton

P

A Passage to India – E.M. Forster

The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition – Donald Kagan

The Perks of Being a Wallflower – Stephen Chbosky

Peyton Place – Grace Metalious

The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde

Pigs at the Trough – Arianna Huffington

Pinocchio – Carlo Collodi

Please Kill Me – Legs McNeil & Gilliam McCain

The Polysyllabic Spree – Nick Hornby

The Portable Dorothy Parker

The Portable Nietzche

The Price of Loyalty – Ron Suskind

Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

Property – Valerie Martin

Pushkin – TJ Binyon

Pygmalion – George Bernard Shaw

Q

Quattrocento – James McKean

A Quiet Storm – Rachel Howzell Hall

R

Rapunzel – Grimm Brothers

The Razor’s Edge – W Somerset Maugham

Reading Lolita in Tehran – Azar Nafisi

Rebecca – Daphne de Maurier

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm – Kate Douglas Wiggin

The Red Tent – Anita Diamant

Rescuing Patty Hearst – Virginia Holman

The Return of the King – JRR Tolkien

R is for Ricochet – Sue Grafton

Rita Hayworth – Stephen King

Robert’s Rules of Order – Henry Robert

Roman Fever – Edith Wharton

Romeo and Juliet – Shakespeare

A Room of One’s Own – Virginia Woolf

A Room with a View – EM Forster

Rosemary’s Baby – Ira Levin

The Rough Guide to Europe

S

Sacred Time – Ursula Hegi

Sanctuary – William Faulkner

Savage Beauty – Nancy Milford

Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller – Henry James

The Scarecrow of Oz – Frank L. Baum

The Scarlet Letter – Nathanial Hawthorne

Seabiscuit – Laura Hillenbrand

The Second Sex – Simone de Beauvior

The Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd

Secrets of the Flesh – Judith Thurman

Selected Letters of Dawn Powell (1913-1965)

Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

A Separate Place – John Knowles

Several Biographies of Winston Churchill

Sexus – Henry Miller

The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafron

Shane – Jack Shaefer

The Shining – Stephen King

Siddartha – Hermann Hesse

S is for Silence – Sue Grafton

Slaughter-House 5 – Kurt Vonnegut

Small Island – Andrea Levy

Snows of Kilamanjaro – Ernest Hemingway

Snow White and Red Rose – Grimm Brothers

Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy – Barrington Moore

The Song of Names – Norman Lebrecht

Song of the Simple Truth – Julia de Burgos

The Song Reader – Lisa Tucker

Songbook – Nick Hornby

The Sonnets – Shakespeare

Sonnets from the Portuegese – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Sophie’s Choice – William Styron

The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner

Speak, Memory – Vladimir Nabakov

Stiff, The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers – Mary Roach

The Story of my Life – Helen Keller

A Streetcar Named Desire – Tennessee Williams

Stuart Little – EB White

Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway

Swann’s Way – Marcel Proust

Swimming with Giants – Anne Collett

Sybil – Flora Rheta Schreiber

T

A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

Tender is the Night – F Scott Fitzgerald

Term of Endearment – Larry McMurty

Time and Again – Jack Finney

The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffeneggar

To Have and to Have Not – Ernest Hemingway

To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

The Tragedy of Richard III – Shakespeare

Travel and Motoring through Europe – Myra Waldo

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith

The Trial – Franz Kafka

The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters – Elisabeth Robinson

Truth & Beauty – Ann Patchett

Tuesdays with Morrie – Mitch Albom

U

Ulysses – James Joyce

The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (1950-1962)

Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Harriet Beecher Stowe

Unless – Carol Shields

V

Valley of the Dolls – Jacqueline Susann

The Vanishing Newspaper – Philip Meyers

Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

Velvet Underground – Joe Harvard

The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides

W

Waiting for Godot – Samuel Beckett

Walden – Henry David Thoreau

Walt Disney’s Bambi – Felix Salten

War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

We Owe You Nothing – Daniel Sinker

What Colour is Your Parachute – Richard Nelson Bolles

What Happened to Baby Jane – Henry Farrell

When the Emperor Was Divine – Julie Otsuka

Who Moved My Cheese? Spencer Johnson

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Edward Albee

Wicked – Gregory Maguire

The Wizard of Oz – Frank L Baum

Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

Y

The Yearling – Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion

OTHER RESOURCES:

19th Century Novels Masterpost

20th Century Novels Masterpost

21st Century Novels Masterpost

Rory Gilmore’s Reading List

Series Masterpost

[mr-stottlemonk]

no one is ever as proud of monk as stottlemeyer is. smitten, that's what he is, and it's only s01e01.

[grgop]

Arrival on Dugi otok: The monastery and the locals in Zaglav

Zadar’s archipelago. The trip started in Zadar and ended up in Zaglav on the first day.

I took the bus **from Zagreb to Zadar **at 6am and planned to get on the first boat that goes for **Zaglav **afterwards. While almost missing the bus in the morning I managed to get there in time and bought the ticket for my catamaran. The ticket for the non-islanders was about 20 -25 HRK (around 3 Euros) for one direction. Soon enough I was aboard the catamaran whose trip to Zaglav took around an hour and 15 minutes. During the trip I had the pleasure to talk to one of the locals from Sali who shared some tips on the DOs and DON'Ts on the island.

On it’s way to Zaglav we went beneath the bridge that connects the islands Ugljan and Pašman passing by the town of **Kali **(another place on the list to visit). Then you find yourself surrounded with multiple islands I couldn’t remember the names yet the last one to the west had numerous hills, so long you couldn’t see its end. Of course it was Dugi otok (the Long island). I’ve never been so far to the west in this area and the inner Indiana Jones for exploring and adventures was waking up.

This was my printed map of the island. I removed the names of the wanted locals for the interview and where to find them in each place due to privacy.

Soon we reached Sali and headed then few minutes to the north to Zaglav. I took all the stuff I had and I had several bags and a luggage. Just before we reached Zaglav I had two phone calls from my local saviours. One was from friar Izak, the monk from the monastery, who was waiting for me and my stuff with his squad in his car. The other one was Goran, the guy responsible for delivering the bakery products across the island throughout the year in his van. He was the one who helped me with the vehicles by lending me his old car to use for four days. Just when I stepped on the island he was there at the gas station tanking it up fully. Yes, full till the end. I gave friar Izak and his fellas my stuff and met with Goran and his family to take me up to the monastery.

Here it was where I earned the name „The Baker“ in the next couple of days. It started with his wife asking me „So, are you a baker?“ and later on several locals who’d see me coming by car (as Goran does) would frequently ask me „Are you a baker?“. In the end I gave up and said „Yes, I am a baker“. The second name that followed me was “The Journalist guy”.

We went uphills. Now here is a thing with the most places on Dugi otok. The core of these villages is mostly on the hill, not next to the sea. People went down to the coast much later. The monastery was at the end of the road on the hill. Also, the roads are only for one vehicle at the time which was interesting as you had to be careful if someone from the opposite direction was coming from behind the corner and then one of you two would have to somehow the way to step aside. That was done either by going backwards or finding a quick spot to move aside. Not to say that many of these roads or streets were pretty narrow and at some points you were surrounded with the stone fence wall. All of this makes it easy to damage your car. In the beginning I was more careful with it but then grew confidence because simply the things like that are just normal there and you gotta accept it. Again, you can’t do this in Zagreb without bad consequences.

**The monastery of St Michael **

The entrance as seen from the center of the yard

Voila, there we are at the monastery. Somehow typical Dalmatian look or actually Mediterranean. Bell tower, local graveyard and the monastery with its yard and garden just at the end of the street. Soon arrived friar Izak and the other dudes. Passed through the gates in the middle of the wall and entered the yard. It was guarded by two cats.

The Franciscan monastery and the church of St Michael were built back in the mid-15th century by the Franciscan order of the Glagolitic monks. Glagolitic is one of the old Slavic scripts, somewhat similar to Cyrillic, that was preserved in Croatia mostly on the islands and some northern areas within the religious context and local or folk language. The monastery today is of course an expanded version of the original one.

The monastery and the church as seen from the bell tower

When seeing all these stuff inside the yard and this whole idea of being in the monastery I quickly returned in my head to Robin Hood games where you had to sneak and climb around monastery’s walls and hallways. It would have been awesome if I had visited it with my friends back in the childhood though even now it could serve as a cool film location. But the best impression of the monastery and its surroundings is surely early in the morning when it’s fresh and enjoyable to be outside, the shadows are soft, relatively quiet, you can hear the animals and prepare for the day with pleasure. I tried doing some exercise in the morning but failed.

The look from the entrance into the yard. My window is on the second floor in the middle.

When you say „a monastery“ you might think of the medieval buildings where they still use the candles but man, I got 5-stars room with my own bathroom. So there were now three of us residing in the building and each of us had our own room upstairs. Once you enter the monastery you are in the hallway where to your right is a small library. Straightforward you got one SOS restroom and then the stairs to our rooms. The hallway there was filled with some large paintings of religious content and Glagolitic engravings. Back downstairs, to the left, one enters the „living room“ where they can watch TV and turn on the oven when necessary. Few steps behind and you enter a modest kitchen with plenty of food. Oh yes, they said I just pick up whatever I want and they had lots of stuff. Even better, behind the kitchen in the basement they had a pantry. It felt like Goku being on King Kai’s small planet with whatever you want.

Some hallway paintings of…well… someone

The look from the windows on the other side towards the north. What you probably see are the islands of Krkata (the closest one), then Iž and maybe far away Ugljan or Sestrunj..or something else, who knows, so many islands…

One part of my room…the rest is in the mess but there’s a table behind me, the window and to the left is the small hallway with the wardrobe and separated bathroom

The view from my room taken in the evening

Soon enough I was welcomed with the lunch. They have a lady who cooks and cleans for them every day and this was also covered so that I don’t have to spend money aside. As you can see this all was really way more than I expected.

Friar Izak taking care of the stuff in the kitchen

This was probably the only lunch I had with them as I spent every next day somewhere else waddling around. We made some rules about breakfast around 7am and had dinner together in the evening. Even though they usually go to sleep by 10pm we used to talk about different topics until midnight.

The first photo is of the monastery’s yard. The second one from the Church’s interior

And what about friar Izak? He definitely is a guy with lots of energy and ideas. Born in Zaglav in 1936 but spent most of the time away from the island he is a a big church musician, conductor and a researcher of the Glagolitic heritage. He is also one of the founders of the mixed choir “Bašćina” (Heritage) and several years ago revived the real Renaissance Zaglav liturgical singing. He is fun to talk to and throws the jokes all the time. More about the conversations and his stories in the upcoming posts.

Zaglav: An afternoon in the bay of Triluke (Three ports). Meet the first locals.

After lunch I decided to go down to the village on the coast. Grabbing my camera and other stuff I took the path that goes to the bay. I had it in plan to meet with Zvonko – the young gas station owner whom I reached few days earlier. He knew I’d come and so he helped me to find the potential candidates for the interview. But what about Zaglav?

The road down to the bay of Triluke

It’s a village in the southern part of Dugi otok between Sali and Žman. The records say it was inhabited in 15th century and many of the locals are the descendants of people who flew before the Ottomans. The population of Zaglav is around 174 people though there used to be 300-500 people just few decades ago. I’d say today it’s even less than 170 but we will find out more in 2-3 years. People there mostly live from tourism, sailing and fishing with some small agriculture part. Some work in Sali or move to Zadar or other places on the mainland. Zaglav has a relatively good boat connection with other places and the mainland. Here used to be a ferry port before they moved it to Brbinj. I didn’t go around the whole village on the bay but down there you can find a few restaurants and the gas station also serves as a small store. **This gas station for the cars and the boats is the only one on the island. **

So while walking through this street downstairs I met Zvonko and his dog at the gas station and soon was introduced to the other local dudes who gathered nearby and enjoyed some drink. There I met my future companion and help for the upcoming days - Mirel. After receiving a welcoming drink and introducing myself Zvonko took me to our first star - his father who was repairing the fishermen’s net. Here comes the summary of the interview I had.

Mr Špralja the Sailor

As I approached hime while repairing the net he started explaining me the type of the net he uses and what kind of fish it can catch. He learned the skill from his father and grandfather. Being in pension for many years and not being able to move a lot his main hobbies are repairing and maintaining the nets plus doing some work with agriculture. Right now he had problems with the holes made by the dolphins but as he said - it’s gonna take him around a week to finishing repairing this net around 100 meters long.

His family came from Bakar to Zaglav and** Kornat island** which is the story many other locals shared.

He had spent over 30 years sailing around the world going twice around the equator and visiting all the continents and ports except for Australia and New Zealand. He told me the only experience he remembers most that scared him was during their trip aboard the Jordan Nikolov ship on the Atlantic ocean during the stormy weather where he had to go down inside the ship and make sure to have the gas ventilation closed. As he added “There are no good things on the sea, only the bad ones.”. Also, he believes the young sailors nowadays have it much easier as they don’t have to spend a whole year on the boat and vehicles (technology) is much faster and precise.

Speaking of the food and how it used to be back then he started with the meals they got on the ship. As there used to be 30-50 crew members they had two cooks and one assistant adding that the food was “solid”. On the island, back in his youth days, the main food was fish. The meat as we eat it today was not available and couldn’t be bought easily. You would use what you had of your livestock which included lamb, goats and mutton. In winter they used to fish for the smaller fish, 30-50 of them weighing around a kilogram. In spring there was more of the bluefish such as mackerel or chub. Cuttlefish or an octopus were also options. Dried octopus, he added. They didn’t have much of the potato and people mostly ate collard greens. Berries and beans were also popular. The problem was that the fields on the island were not as rich and potent for the agricultures as it is on the mainland and there has never been much of the freshwater. Those families who had some livestock such as goats or sheep would make milk and cheese. For breakfast you had milk and cheese, fish or some other meat for lunch and for dinner different types of greens.

Repairing the net where two bigger holes were made by the dolphins

What about games and how they used to play as children? The hide and seek obviously never gets out of fashion, no matter the generation. Among other games football was popular, played in the “Old village” upon the hill. However, there weren’t balls like today so they used the the ones made from rags. During the carnival and masquerade there is a custom of setting a fire etc.

And schools? He told me there was around 10 of them in the generation that went to school in Zaglav and Sali that had up to 7-8 grades. Those who wanted to learn a foreign language would have to go to Sali. There he learned a bit of German and his knowledge of English came through navigation around the world. In the end, he forgot almost everything since he returned to the island.

Finally, he believe young people will have an easier life as there are much more opportunities than in his days. Tourism is the number one industry. The problem with the agriculture he sees is that it’s not enough today to earn for a living and many fields were divided into plenty of smaller parcels and those who own them stopped carrying for the land. He concluded again that only with the tourism he can see the youth prosper.

Afterwards we visited three more people whom I asked similar questions. However, I will share the story of the last ones – an old couple living alone in their home. The story of Marjan and Vera Špralja is one of the sad ones you are going to hear.

Life story of Marjan and Vera Špralja

I met them upstairs on their terrace enjoying the snacks and soft sunlight. Though at first a bit reserved and silent soon they warmed and opened up. Quiet simple and modest people who had experienced a lot. Both over 80 years old.

We started with the family background. They came to Zaglav from Kornat island though their ancestors came to these areas from the mainland around Bakar town. Marjan was the eight out of ten siblings and probably the only one who stayed on the island whereas the other went to different places and countries looking for the better opportunities. One of his brothers is living in Australia. They stayed here on the island as the simple shepherds and fishermen. They spent 20-30 years living in the Old Zaglav upon the hill before moving to the bay. They also spent most of their lives on Kornat island. Further on, they explained me the name of the bay – Triluke (Three ports) and the division between the village „up there“ and „down here“. Up in the Old Zaglav (S_taro selo_) there are mostly seniors living, not many of them…while the bay is filled with younger members of the community, families with children.

Speaking of the past they reminded me that once there lived around 400 people in Zaglav while today there might be not more than 50-60, he guessed. The school that used to be open is now closed. This also comes from the fact that families in the past were much bigger with 5-8 siblings. The same case was with my grandmother.

I wondered how the two of them had met. They happen to meet each other back in the elementary school. They said they finished only 3-4 grades and have the essentials skills for living – writing, reading, driving the car and the boat…and some knowledge about the agriculture. There were no teachers, they said. The one teacher used to come twice per week to teach the locals.

We moved to the stories of being on the sea. Marjan is an experienced fisherman and we would have needed an extra day to listen to all of it. The biggest enemy he’s always encountered was the stormy weather at the sea and the wind. One time, during such occasion, he was forced to jump from the boat into the sea in order to push it to the shore otherwise the boat would have been lost.

However, the biggest tragedy they have encountered is with their children. Their son died at the age of 19 losing battle to illness and their daughter (50) is fighting the similar battle laying immobile in the hospital. “Misery and sorrow, that’s our story.” Vera told me.

She moved on saying “We had the sheep on Kornat island, we were fishing, we had a vineyard…and I had been working at Mardešić Fish Factory in Sali for 26 years. And ill children. Nowadays people complain they have no time for anything. They have one child and still busy all the time.” - “Yeah, they waste their whole day trying to put on the make-up”, added Marjan. “We also got up earlier than people today.”

The house they live in was built by Marjan himself. They sold one house to a cousin who took care of them since they won’t have any heirs - otherwise they would keep it for their children. Vera is today suffering from several pains and the similar goes with Marjan. Apart from the cousin who visits them sometimes they have no one else on the island who can help them. The hard life and problems took toll on their health.

We came back to childhood they also described as a misery and famine. Marjan explained there was no such luxury as today to have smoked ham and cheese on your table along with other food we throw away recklessly…but dried figs mostly. Vera carried on pointing me the oranges, olives and lemons they have in their garden. They are happy as they get the fruits from those trees three times in a year.

We ended up our conversation with them asking me about my background and how come I ended up on Dugi otok. They thanked me for visiting them and I was thankful them having shared their time with me.

We are done with the interviews in Zaglav. I came back to the gas station where I met Mirel leaving in his car. He gave me a book about Dugi otok and NP Kornati. As I found out Zvonko had told him to watch over me and help me getting around. Sounds like Sam and Frodo thing. We made a deal to visit Sali in the evening and go for some pizza.

I returned back to the monastery and spent some time talking to the monk-dudes.

Dinner with cheese, bread and wine with my fellas from da monastery

More about the upoming evening in Sali and visiting the cliffs of Telašćica near Fort Grpašćak in the next post!

Grgo

[toldnews-blog]

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/world/asia-pacific/king-of-thailand-to-be-formally-crowned-in-an-ornate-spectacle/

King of Thailand to Be Formally Crowned in an Ornate Spectacle

BANGKOK — In a gilded ceremony set to start at the auspicious time of 10:09 on Saturday morning, with his new queen by his side, King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun of Thailand will be formally crowned.

King Maha Vajiralongkorn, 66, ascended to the throne in 2016, after the death of his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who reigned for seven decades. But the official coronation was delayed for more than two years as the nation mourned the death of his father, who was the longest-serving monarch in the world at the time.

Thailand has been rived by political schisms for nearly two decades, and members of the royal family, although considered to be above the cut and thrust of politics, have been drawn into the disorder.

What will happen?

At 10:09 on Saturday morning, in the Thai year 2562, the precise hour picked by royal astrologers, the king will begin the royal purification ceremony in a Bangkok throne hall, in which consecrated water will be poured over his head from a canopied shower. Then comes an anointment in which he will be blessed by the sacred water, drawn from locations in India and Thailand representing the eight cardinal directions of the compass.

Afterward, King Maha Vajiralongkorn will sit on a throne under a nine-tiered umbrella as he is presented with the ornaments of his position: a golden plaque with his official title and horoscope, “the ancient and auspicious orders” and the “weapons of sovereignty.”

A Great Crown of Victory, weighing 16 pounds and topped with a diamond from India, will be placed on his head. Other royal regalia include a pair of enameled slippers and a fly whisk made from a yak’s tail.

In the afternoon, the king is scheduled to take up his royal residence, meet with royal and government representatives and, finally, travel to the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, where he will be designated the “royal patron of Buddhism.”

On Sunday, the king will board a royal palanquin to be carried through the capital. Well-wishers, dressed in yellow, the color associated with the king, are expected to throng the streets. Temperatures are expected to reach nearly 100 degrees over the weekend.

Many of this weekend’s rituals date back at least 300 years to the royal Ayutthaya period. The last coronation took place in 1950.

“The coronation will mark the history of a new era, and it will give us a chance to confirm to ourselves that we, the Thai people, and the Thai country, have a long history and long linkages between the monarchy and the people,” said Thongthong Chandransu, an expert on the Thai royal family.

Who will be conducting the ceremonies?

Thailand is a Buddhist kingdom, and the country’s king is considered the guardian of the faith. But many of the coronation ceremonies will be presided over by Brahmin priests from the Hindu faith.

“In our tradition, our king is a god from the heaven, so this has a strong influence from Hinduism,” Mr. Thongthong said. “But you know our country is Buddhist, so for the monarchy, these two things, Hindu and Buddhist, are mixed up together in the ceremonies.”

While Hindu priests will anoint the king, the supreme patriarch of Thailand, the highest national authority of Buddhism, will also chant. On Sunday, the supreme patriarch will give a sermon addressing the 10 rules of being king.

In Saturday’s ceremonies, Buddhists monks are expected to light candles. Hindu holy men will blow conches. Ceremonial offerings are likely to include a three-tiered rice offering, bananas and a cooked pig’s head.

Who is his queen?

On Wednesday, the Thai Royal Household Bureau announced that King Maha Vajiralongkorn had married his royal consort, Suthida Vajiralongkorn Na Ayudhya, a former flight attendant, and that she had been promoted to queen.

Queen Suthida is the king’s fourth wife, and after leaving her job at Thai Airways, she made her way up the Royal Thai Army hierarchy until she held the rank of general. Her official position before becoming queen was as deputy head of the king’s personal guard.

The king’s pet miniature poodle, which died in 2015, held the military rank of air chief marshal, according to an American embassy cable released by WikiLeaks.

In a video circulated by the palace to mark her promotion on Wednesday, Queen Suthida was seen prostrate on the ground in a pink outfit, as the king sat above her and anointed her with holy water.

The Thai king has seven children. For years, his youngest son, Prince Dipangkorn Rasmijoti, 14, from the king’s third marriage, was considered his heir apparent. He studies in Germany, where the king spends much of his time. It is not clear whether King Maha Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida have any children.

What is the king’s role?

Thailand has been a constitutional monarchy since a military coup — the first of many in the country — jettisoned absolute monarchy in 1932.

Another successful coup, in 2014, was justified in part by a military that said it was protecting the monarchy from politicians who had disrespected the royal institution. In elections last month, a military-linked party claimed victory, but the official results will not be released until later this month.

Thailand has been torn by political conflict for years. In February, a party loyal to Thaksin Shinawatra, an exiled former prime minister, nominated the king’s elder sister, Ubolratana Rajakanya Sirivadhana Varnavadi, as its candidate for prime minister.

Hours later, a royal command from the king called her candidacy “improper and highly inappropriate,” quashing her political aspirations.

The Thai monarchy, which is among the richest in the world, is considered above politics. A day before the elections last month, the first since the 2014 military coup, the king released a statement echoing a speech by his father that counseled voters to “support good people to rule the country and prevent bad people from gaining power and causing trouble and disorder.”

Thailand is governed by some of the most stringent royal defamation laws in the world, which make criticizing members of the royal family punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

After the king divorced his third wife in 2014, members of her family were purged from high-ranking positions. Some were charged with lèse-majesté and other crimes.

In the days leading up to the coronation, which is costing more than $30 million, transmissions by international news networks have been disrupted in Thailand and articles about the royal family blocked online.

[jokerepair74-blog]

Links 12/8/18

P-64, the mountain lion known for his successful freeway crossings, found dead after surviving Woolsey fire Los Angeles Times :-(

‘Make better choices’: Endangered Hawaiian monk seals keep getting eels stuck up their noses and scientists want them to stop Washington Post. NT: “A species even stupider than humans.”

Fraser River chinook critical to orcas are in steep decline, new research shows Seattle Times (furzy) :-(

World’s First Insect Vaccine Could Help Bees Fight Off Deadly Disease NPR (David L)

Listen to the soothing sounds of Martian wind collected by NASA’s InSight lander Techcrunch

We Asked 105 Experts What Scares and Inspires Them Most About the Future Motherboard (resilc)

MIT researchers create a robot houseplant that moves on its own engadget (Dawn M)

Should you pass on the meat and reach for the muffins instead? Psychology Today (Guardian “report” and original study). Martha r: “The funniest and clearest debunking of a crap diet study by elite “scientists” that i have yet to see.”

Researchers Decry “Misrepresented” Findings in Fuel Efficiency Rollback Plan Scientific American (Robert M)

Bitcoin falls 10% as bad news descends like ‘cockroaches coming out of a hole’ MarketWatch (EM)

California Gives Final OK To Require Solar Panels On New Houses NPR

UPS Tries Delivery Tricycles As Seattle’s Traffic Doom Looms Wired

Huawei

Canadian Prosecutor Lays Out U.S. Allegations Against Huawei CFO Wall Street Journal. This story isn’t paywalled and has a detailed summary of the bail hearing. The points that struck me:

….the warrant for Ms. Meng’s arrest was issued by a court in New York on Aug. 22 of this year….

Mr. Martin, the attorney representing Ms. Meng, said she isn’t a flight risk, saying that she would never breach a court order.

“You can rely on her personal dignity,” he told the court, adding that she also would not flee because it would “humiliate and embarrass” her father, “who she loves.”

Huawei executive accused of hiding connection to firm violating U.S. sanctions, B.C. court told Globe and Mail (Marshall). Key section:

Final approval to extradite Ms. Meng will be up to Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould if the judge rules in favour of U.S. prosecutors. Ms. Meng, however, could appeal, which could delay a decision for years.

France: Macron scrapping fuel tax is ‘not enough,’ says man who inspired Yellow Vests DW

Brexit

From guurst. Be sure to watch the clip. It has an even more deadly quote:

“I think you would mess it all up for us, the way you have messed it all up for yourselves.”

Heidi Nordby Lunde, president of Norway’s European Movement, is sceptical about calls for the UK to strike a Norway-style deal with the EU. pic.twitter.com/uEpiO3yXPp

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) December 7, 2018

Theresa May told to quit by Cabinet ministers if her Brexit deal falls and she fails to get better terms from EU Telegraph

No-deal Brexit: Disruption at Dover ‘could last six months’ BBC. I have trouble understanding why six months. The UK’s customs IT system won’t be ready and there’s no reason to think it will be ready even then. I could see things getting less bad due to adaptations but “less bad” is not normal

The Great Brexit Breakdown Wall Street Journal. Some parts I quibble with, but generally good and includes useful historical detail.

British MP suggests threatening Ireland with food shortages over Brexit, Twitter outrage follows RT (kevin W)

It’s crunch time for Labour. Empty posturing on Brexit will no longer do Guardian. Shreds the Corbyn op-ed we criticized yesterday.

BREAKING: UK exhausted from endless stream of Brexit bollocks so here’s a picture of some puppies. pic.twitter.com/nR9mMVbz5k

— Have I Got News For You (@haveigotnews) December 6, 2018

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Top U.S. general urges Google to work with military Reuters. EM: “Wow, this guy is clueless even by top-brass standards. For example: Google Is Helping the Pentagon Build AI for Drones.” Moi: I assume this is intended for the great unwashed masses, to give them the impression that Google and the surveillance state are not joined at the hip.

‘Conditions met’ for Assange to leave Ecuadorian embassy Agece France-Presse (furzy). If you believe the claims made, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you

Big Brother Australia cracks open encrypted messaging

Dear Tumblr: Banning “Adult Content” Won’t Make Your Site Better But It Will Harm Sex-Positive Communities Electronic Frontier Foundation (Chuck L)

Trump Transition

Mueller says Manafort lied about contacts with Trump officials The Hill

Tucker Carlson: «Trump is not capable» Weltwoche (Anita)

Cohen’s Leniency Bid Fails; U.S. Seeks Significant Jail Time Bloomberg

Dems Who Rejected Corporate PACs Took Money from Corporate-Funded NewDemPAC Sludge. Martha : “Packed with facts. Lists of candidates and donors quite detailed.”.

A Black Perspective on GHW Bush Bruce Dixon, Black Agenda Report (Glenn F)

If @BlackSocialists weren’t championing a message of truth for The People their campaign to raise $$$ would be a dud. But LOOK!! Look at what avg, ordinary ppl hav done for them!! They’ve dug down deep & given of what little they had to help @BlackSocialists make a difference!! https://t.co/6Ga0ZYiRW5

— Kate “For the Love of Humanity VOTE” Martin 🌎🌍🌏 (@K810Mt) December 7, 2018

L.A. County Sheriff’s Department suspends operations by unit that stopped thousands of innocent Latinos on 5 Freeway Los Angeles Times

Jennifer Siebel Newsom could be California’s ‘first partner’ Mercury News. EM:

This perfectly captures the kind of substance-free identity-political virtue signaling today’s corporate Big Dollar Dems specialize in. Note that ‘partner’ even sounds like a corporate term. One wonders whether the Newsoms had the minister who officiated their wedding replace the word ‘union’ with ‘merger’.

Fake News

Former diplomat challenges ‘fake’ Guardian claims about Julian Assange meeting Paul Manafort The Canary (furzy)

Facebook to buy back additional $9 billion of shares Reuters

Millions of Americans Could Face Surprise Emergency Room Bills in January Bloomberg. Gah.

Bitter end to dismal week on Wall Street Financial Times

From Nixon to Trump: Here’s how stocks performed under each U.S. president Yahoo (resilc)

Uber Lays Groundwork for IPO Wall Street Journal

Congress may have accidentally freed nearly all banks from the Volcker Rule Yahoo (furzy)

US Regulators Have Essentially Become Do-Nothing Institutions ProMarket (Asher)

Class Warfare

Send Noncompete Agreements Back To the Middle Ages Bloomberg

Airbnb rentals in London block sparks call for action Financial Times

Welcome to Our Modern Hospital Where If You Want to Know a Price You Can Go Fuck Yourself McSweeney’s (martha r). Not his best writing but OMG the examples..

Dollar Stores Are Targeting Struggling Urban Neighborhoods and Small Towns. One Community Is Showing How to Fight Back. Institute for Local Self-Reliance (martha r)

Antidote du jour (martha r):

Bonus video. Robert H: “Household tips and cats – antidote bonus.” Moi: “What chill cats.”

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

This entry was posted in Links on December 8, 2018 by Yves Smith.

Post navigation

← Is the Internet to Blame for the Rise of Authoritarianism? Jane Sanders: Climate Crisis Critical Issue in 2020 Elections →

Source: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/12/links-12-8-18.html

[allineednow]

<p>Murray River Organics board Strikes back in fight for survival</p>

Murray River Organics chairman Craig Farrow expects an external investigation into problems at the company to be completed before shareholders vote on a push to remove all directors.

The board ordered the investigation last month and said it would focus on "significant operational errors and questionable operations decisions".

The move followed an inventory write-down for the sultana and currant producer, which declared two earnings downgrades in May, and management changes.

Managing director and chief executive Erling Sorensen, who co-founded the firm with Jamie Nemtsas and Brian Meredith, resigned last month. Mr Nemtsas departed as chief operating officer in August.

Two shareholders, BLBD and Meredith Nominees, which are linked to Mr Meredith, have requisitioned an extraordinary general meeting scheduled for January 24 and nominated candidates to replace Mr Farrow, Lisa Hennessy and Ken Carr on the board.

Shareholder backing hunted

The directors composed to shareholders on Friday urging them to vote against all resolutions proposed by the Meredith companies, which have a combined 5.39 per cent stake in Murray River Organics.

"Your board is concerned that the proposed resolutions are prompted by an effort by former management, whom your board considers primarily responsible for your company's poor performance, to re-exert their influence over your organization and gain control without making a formal takeover offer," the letter stated.

"It's extraordinary that entities with relevant interests in approximately 5 per cent of the issued shares of your organization would try to appoint all members of the board."

The board alleges the settlements sought from the Meredith Group are consistent with a proposal Mr Nemtsas took to Mr Farrow in October, looking for the appointment of Andrew Monk and Steven Si as directors.

"I'm passionate about Murray River Organics being successful and I believe in very good management and very good boards," he said. "That's the way my votes will be voted as an individual."  

Notice of resistance

Thorney Investment Management, the company's biggest shareholder with 16 per cent, has advised it'll vote against the settlements.

A dissenting shareholder block, such as entities linked to Mr Nemtsas and Mr Sorensen, delivered a rebuff to the board at last month's AGM, voting down all but one resolution, including the remuneration report and the re-election of manager Don Brumley.

Murray River Organics, which climbed from the Nemtsas family farming operations and a wealth management firm owned by Mr Nemtsas and Mr Sorensen, floated at $1.30 in December last year.

The share price plunged to 29cents after both earnings downgrades in May and closed at 42cents on Friday.

In November, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission issued Murray River Organics with an infringement notice in relation to allegations that it had contravened continuous disclosure obligations in the period from April 26 to May 4.

The company paid a $33,000 penalty to complete ASIC's investigation without admission of liability.

[ojamesy]

Like Joyce, Stephen Dedalus is an appropriater of words; unlike Chandler, Stephen is very much aware of what he is doing. Sometimes he calls attention to his source, as in Scylla, where ,he cites "a saying of Goethe's which Mr Magee likes to quote. Beware of what you wish for in youth because you will get it in middle life" (9.450-52); elsewhere, he does not disclose his source, for example in Telemachus, when he adapts one of Oscar Wilde's aphorisms in his description of Irish art as "the cracked lookingglass of a servant" (1.146).(18) Stephen engages in two pieces of writing in Ulysses, both of them plagiaristic to some degree: his vampire poem adapts lines from Douglas Hyde and his telegram to Mulligan quotes George Meredith without attribution. I don't want to get bogged down with questions of Stephen's maturity as a poet; let's just say that he is clearly intelligent, well read, and talented, but that, not having written Dubliners or Portrait, he is not quite the Joyce who wrote him into Ulysses. Yet he is on his way, and one mark of his Joyceness is his casual and creative appropriation of other people's words. Ireland, he will tell Leopold Bloom, is important because it belongs to him, and a similar claim might well be made about his semantic environment--about words that are ultimately important because they belong, or can be made to belong, to him.

"After God," according to Dumas pere (or fils), "Shakespeare has created most" (9.1028-29). Joyce's claim was not that he had created so much, but that Dublin could be recreated from his works. Ulysses displays at times such fidelity to historical reality that its ventures into pure fiction seem an aberration. It is hardly surprising to discover that Ruby: the Pride of the Ring is based on a real novel (although one that went undiscovered for decades until Mary Power found it); what is surprising, and perhaps even a little disappointing, is that neither Sweets of Sin nor "Matcham's Masterstroke" has been located, although Kenner has at least published another masterpiece by Philip Beaufoy.(19)

It is Beaufoy, that master of the cliche, who first accuses Bloom of plagiarism, in Circe (15.822); later the same accusation is leveled by Lenehan (15.1734). The first charge follows Bloom's claim to be an "author-journalist" who is "bringing out a collection of prize stories"; the second follows Bloom's adaptation of Lenehan's riddle. Both times might be regarded as Joyce's response to charges that he was not an original writer but someone who merely reshaped or repackaged others' material: a plagiarist, in short. The plagiarism theme becomes even more overt in Finnegans Wake, but it is worth pausing over these two passages from Circe, the only occurrences of the word "plagiarist" in any of Joyce's works, apart from puns in the Wake.

One thing we might note is that both Beaufoy and Lenehan are at least as vulnerable as Bloom to charges of plagiarism: Beaufoy writes formula fiction not much better than The Bridges of Madison County, while Lenehan is just as parasitic with respect to words as he is in other ways. We might also note that in Calypso, after reading "Matcham's Masterstroke" in the outhouse, Bloom dismisses that story's literary qualities while envying its financial success; he then thinks of a story he might write, based on what Molly says in the morning. Again in Eumaeus, Bloom will speculate on "whether he might meet with anything approaching the same luck as Mr Philip Beaufoy ... suppose he were to pen something out of the common groove ... at the rate of one guinea per column. My Experiences, let us say, in a Cabman's Shelter" (16.1228-31). The story Bloom imagines writing sounds more Joycean than Beaufoyish, since it would be based on the world around him, not on the formulas of popular fiction; he envies Beaufoy's ability to command the princely sum of one guinea per column for his work but does not plan to follow his example in other ways.

The charges of plagiarism in Circe have another function, traceable to the romantic belief that since the work of art ideally expresses and epitomizes the artist's identity it should be original, spontaneous, unique. A plagiarist, then, is someone who takes over and claims another person's identity--that is, another writer's work. A plagiarist is the mirror image of a writer who adopts a pseudonym, as Bloom does when he writes to Martha Clifford under the name Henry Flower, for the plagiarist and the pseudonymous writer both assume an identity they do not possess: one falsely claims a work and the other a name, but at heart each is a thief of words.(20) Looking back briefly at "A Little Cloud," we might recall that Chandler, who is an unconscious plagiarist (although he skips writing the poems and goes directly to plagiarizing reviews), also imagines using his mother's maiden name to make himself seem more Irish, a tactic calculated to appeal to "the English critics." His willingness to adopt a different name and his desire to fit into the English stereotype of an Irish poet both testify to his lack of any identity of his own.

Of all chapters in Ulysses Circe is the one most pervasively concerned with constructions of identity, and therefore one where issues of plagiarism logically arise. It is useful to place the charges of plagiarism in context. Beaufoy's accusation comes after Bloom is stopped by the watch, who demand his "name and address" (15.718). Claiming first to be "Dr Bloom, Leopold, dental surgeon," Bloom then presents a card that identifies him as Henry Flower. The scene becomes increasingly absurd as Bloom "produces from his heartpocket a crumpled yellow flower," which he says is "the flower in question," adding, "You know that old joke, rose of Castile. Bloom. The change of name. Virag" (15.733-41). When Martha Clifford appears and asks Henry Flower to clear her name, Bloom calls it a case of "mistaken identity." In this scene, which abounds in references to false or mistaken identity, it is appropriate that Bloom would claim to be a writer and would in turn be denounced by Philip Beaufoy, whose own name, we might note in passing, is in all likelihood a pseudonym.

The second accusation, by Lenehan, comes after Bloom's role as municipal reformer draws both praise and disparagement, perhaps reflecting on some level Bloom's desire to propagate his ideas and his belief that if he does so he will be attacked. When Nosey Flynn asks Bloom to sing a song Bloom obliges him, leading Hoppy Holohan and Paddy Leonard to react in very different ways: Holohan says, admiringly, "Good old Bloom! There's nobody like him after all," but Leonard yells, "Stage Irishman!" (15.1726-29). Either Bloom is unique ("There's nobody like him after all") or he is a stereotype, a stage Irishman. Throughout Circe, and in fact throughout Ulysses, Joyce tries to balance the general and the particular, recurrence and originality: Bloom is (and is not) one of a kind, just as this day is and is not typical, he is and is not Jewish, the book's action is and is not like that of the Odyssey. In Finnegans Wake, Joyce will explore the implications of recurrence and difference with respect both to identity and to writing or narration; here the charge of plagiarism, coming just after the opposing views of Bloom's identity, states the connection between writing and identity very neatly. It is also interesting that this is not Bloom's first appropriation of Lenehan's Rose of Castille riddle, since he connected it to his own name changes in the passage cited earlier, shortly before being accused by Beaufoy of plagiarism. Once again, Bloom's name changes and plagiarism are associated with one another as variations on the theme of false identity.

Questions of identity and originality spill over into Eumaeus and Ithaca. Of the book's twenty occurrences of the word "original," it is worth noting, six occur in Eumaeus and two in Ithaca; the word disappears when we reach Penelope. Even more strikingly, of all forms of the word "origin"--origin, original, originality, originally, originals, and originating--there are a total of 34 instances in Ulysses, including six in Eumaeus and fifteen in Ithaca.(21) Most of the usages of "original" earlier in the novel are unrelated to questions of artistic originality: in general they refer either to original sin or to the "original" language from which something has been translated. When we reach Eumaeus, all of this changes: most of the occurrences of "original" in this episode deal either directly or indirectly with questions of literary or artistic origins. The first case, Bloom's attempt to get back to his "original point" (16.778), seems an exception until we note that it leads into Bloom's theory about the origin of Biblical proof of God's existence: "My belief is, to tell you the candid truth, that those bits were genuine forgeries all of them put in by monks most probably or it's the big question of our national poet over again, who precisely wrote them like Hamlet and Bacon" (16.78083). Note that Bloom has just cast doubt on the authorship of the most canonical of all works, the Bible and Shakespeare's plays. The phrase "original point" resurfaces later, this time in truncated form ("reverting to the original"), as Bloom offers the example of those who worked their way up by "sheer force of natural genius," a term that carries associations with artistic genius even if Bloom simply means native intelligence.

Other instances in Eumaeus are more directly connected with the concept of originality. When talk drifts to a shipwreck we are told that it was commemorated in "a fine piece of original verse of distinctive merit" by Albert William Quill (16.910-11). There was such a poem published in the Irish Times in 1896, but if there is any "distinctive merit" to the poem it is not apparent from the passages quoted by Weldon Thornton.(22) Stephen's attempt "to be original on the spur of the moment" by asking why the chairs are put on the tables at night (16.1708-10) is perhaps less than Bloom might have expected from the professor and poet he has rescued from Nighttown, but of course the point here is that Bloom's faith in the originality of poets is being held up to question. The other two uses of "original" deal with non-literary arts: sculpture (Bloom thinks or says that a statue would give a better impression of Molly's curves than we get from a photograph, since "Marble could give the original" [16.1451-52]) and music (Bloom imagines that "original music ... different from the conventional rut, would rapidly have a great vogue as it would be a decided novelty for Dublin's musical world" [16.184850]).

Why so much emphasis on originality in Eumaeus? To begin with, we might note that this is one of the most pervasively original chapters in Ulysses, one so original in its fundamental technique that several generations of readers found the style boring and thought the point was that because the characters are tired, so was the language. It is true that the language of Eumaeus is hackneyed, but this is a kind of inspired, triumphant banality whose only rival in modern literature is the dialogue in Waiting for Godot. Mark Osteen observes that the Nostos section of Ulysses, beginning with Eumaeus, involves a concern "with origins and originality" and "expose[s] tensions in the concepts of originality, genuineness, ownership, and value upon which the economies of money and realism are founded."(23) The cliche-ridden style of Eumaeus is a sort of debased currency, yet one that is strangely vibrant, as if. Joyce set out to show that the most unoriginal expressions could be used in an original manner.

---Patrick McCarthy, Something out of the Common Groove: Joyce and Originality

[footballleague0]

Inside the Cleveland Indians clubhouse during their historic 22 game win streak

The Indians do all these things and more, but what they do not do, except under the duress of direct questioning, is talk about the streak, at least while it’s happening.

“The mindset really isn’t on the winning streak,” Greg Allen says.

“We’re not wrapped up in it,” Kluber says.

“We’re not talking about it as much as you guys are,” Cody Allen says.

Everyone else certainly talks about it. Some analysts call it the most dominant stretch of baseball ever played. Led by Edwin Encarnacion and Carlos Santana, Cleveland hits more home runs than its opponents score runs. Kluber and Carlos Carrasco lead the pitching staff to an ERA under 2.00. Their run differential across the 22 wins is greater than their run differential for all of last season — and that team won the pennant.

They sweep the Orioles and the Tigers.

They steadfastly say they aren’t that concerned with the record.

“We haven’t talked about it at all,” Kluber says.

“We’re playing good baseball,” outfielder Jay Bruce says.

Ballplayers are always concerned about anything that might upset the delicate equilibrium they have constructed one routine day after another. Only the rare team can be like the 2017 Indians; nearly every other team would let the streak consume them, including last year’s Indians. One of the players quotes a former Cleveland coach, Scott Radinsky, who pitched in the big leagues and fronted an underground but important punk band, a kind of free spirit who allows a clubhouse to function, to balance the prima donnas and the insane.

He always said he wanted to play with the kind of men he could lose with.

The same idea applies to winning.

“Success will mess with you,” Bauer says. “Sometimes you get, ‘I can skip this because I’m good.’ It takes a lot of mental discipline to stick with it regardless of outcome.”

The Indians say the streak brings lightness and air to the room. But they refuse to chase it, or revel in it, or pretend that it has its own meaning or value, other than getting them back to the postseason, where they came up one run short a year ago.

A streak brings attention and pressure, which continue to exist after the spark that creates it is extinguished. So they’ve spent six months in present tense, taking cues from their manager, who conducts 22 postgame news conferences while sidestepping and tap-dancing and refusing to say the streak carries any significance. “That’s why Tito is so good at what he does,” Allen says after a win, as Pitt and Penn State play on a television near his locker. “Regardless of if we won 10 in a row or lost eight in a row, he’s the same guy.”

As the son of a major leaguer, Terry Francona (far right) grew up in stadiums and feels most at ease among players. Rick Osentoski/USA TODAY Sports

Down the hall, Francona sits in his office behind a huge framed picture of himself as a child, in the Indians dugout with his dad. He is, perhaps more than anyone else in the game, a creation of this weird, subterranean clubhouse world. “I’m probably more comfortable here than I am anywhere,” he says, gesturing around at the concrete walls. “I think I have an advantage because I grew up here.”

Some of his earliest memories are from clubhouses.

His father, the original Tito Francona, played for nine teams, including six seasons with Cleveland. Young Terry once walked across a field before a game to shake Ted Williams’ hand. “Mr. Williams,” he said, “I’m Mr. Francona’s son, and he wanted me to come over and say hello.”

Williams grinned at the boy.

“Well, you are a great-looking kid!” he replied. “Now I want to know one thing, young man. Can you hit?”

Francona saw how his father’s friends treated each other and the game, and every lesson he got about how a man behaved was taught by ballplayers. His humor, his ethics, his personal code — all shaped inside a stadium. As an 11-year-old, Francona got to go with his dad on a three-city road trip, through Minnesota, Chicago and Kansas City, riding the planes and buses, hearing the dirty jokes and lining his pockets with free clubhouse candy. His mom sent him off with combed hair and a sport coat and got back a road-busted mess of a kid, who loved every minute.

“It was probably the 10 funnest days of my life,” Francona says during the streak.

“Success will mess with you. Sometimes you get, ‘I can skip this because I’m good.’ It takes a lot of mental discipline to stick with it regardless of outcome.”

– Trevor Bauer

So he’s been happy these past weeks, not because he’s managing a team into the history books but because he’s been at a baseball stadium. Sitting in his office, which was exactly 68 degrees, he brings up something his old boss Theo Epstein once said about him. “He loves the game,” Epstein told Boston Globe baseball writer Dan Shaughnessy. “He physically loves the clubhouse. Emotionally, I think he loves to let go of the outside world. Some people compartmentalize the job. Tito compartmentalizes the real world and throws himself into the clubhouse. He loves every aspect of the clubhouse.”

Francona smiles at the insight.

“I remember when I read that,” Francona says. “I was like, damn. I obviously know Theo was smart, but if I was going to be candid, that’s pretty damned close. To me, this is probably my real world. I admit that.”

The clubhouse cost him a marriage and his health, and he can’t count the nights he’s spent on a couch in a stadium, curled up beneath a blanket, alone. In his office in Cleveland, there’s a red and blue Indians-colored afghan that clearly looks as if it’s for more than decoration. Most days, he gets to his office early, not because he’s a hard worker, he says, but because he feels at home. Watching a stadium wake up makes him happy. Sitting in an empty cathedral like Fenway or Wrigley calms him; the present and past combine, the things he sees and the things he remembers washing over him together. He liked the way the boards creaked at the old Yankee Stadium because Babe Ruth probably heard that same noise. Even now, he enjoys hotel lobbies, because he’d hang out there when visiting his dad on the road, giving his old man space to sleep in and get ready for the game.

He will, when asked, cop to at least one superstition.

There’s a friend, whom he has nicknamed Gray Cloud, who’s always brought bad luck.

“I will not talk to him,” Francona says. “He is text only. He’s cost me one job, he’s not getting in the way again.”

Simplicity is the primary goal when he’s constructing his existence. In Boston, he even spent most seasons living in a hotel. For Francona, every day is the same, down to the number of water bottles he lines up in the dugout, and the hourlong swim he takes and the cribbage game he organizes. “I have a car here that I use about three times a year,” he says. “I got a little moped. I take it everywhere downtown. I know all the police. It’s Cleveland. After games, I’ll go down the one-way and they’re like, ‘Hey, good game.'”

He points out his office door.

“It’s parked right here in the hallway.”

He played 10 seasons in the big leagues and jokes to his players about what a lousy career he had. But he played through severe injury and pain, a grinder who understands the hopes all players bring with them into the clubhouse. He understands doubt and fear and ego and swagger, and what internal problem each of those things is an attempt to solve. During the streak, as more reporters arrive every day in the small interview room to talk about the streak, he’s more interested in finding out why the Browns released Pro Bowler Joe Haden, refusing to engage in record-chasing narratives, talking about how a season is fluid and how only today exists. He smiles and sighs when people keep asking questions, as if they think he’s spinning them and not living by the codes he internalized as a boy.

Winning brings pressure, but Corey Kluber was at his robotic best during the streak. Michael F. McElroy for ESPN

The streak will mean nothing come October. A year ago, the Indians took 14 in a row, rolling through opponents, and they still came up a game short in the World Series. That Game 7 loss influenced many things about this season, including the 22 games the team just won. Kipnis, the clubhouse monk in charge of Jobu, took the World Series loss harder than most.

“A lot of things got smashed,” he says.

He pauses a beat.

“I was one of them.”

In the ninth inning of Game 7, he launched a ball down the right-field line that just went foul. Standing in front of his locker, he says he’s watched that replay a lot. “Fraction of an inch,” he says, then demonstrating with his hand the slight bat angle that would have changed their lives. His hand doesn’t seem to move at all. It’s a tiny difference. “The following month you’re at home in your boxers eating pizza,” he says, “and you’re watching Rizzo and Bryant on late-night television and on SNL and you’re like, the fork in the road.”

When baseball people look at the Indians, other than wondering what kind of analytics the team uses to help its pitchers scout opponents, that is what they talk about. How did the team not let last year’s close call derail this season before it even began?

That’s Francona.

At the beginning of the season, the team did suffer from a hangover. Kluber says the starters were slow and sluggish. Kipnis says the games didn’t seem to matter as much. Francona called a rare meeting early in the summer, feeling his team caught in the back draft of last season, not living day to day, breaking the code. The players say things turned around after that, and the winning streak is the clearest and most outward example. There are others.

Last year’s streak took on meaning and affected the clubhouse dynamic in small but real ways. If the music wasn’t on in the clubhouse, someone would say something. Winning changed the mood in the room, and by the time it ended in Toronto, that’s all they could think about.

“That’s been the most impressive thing about this streak,” Bauer says. “You come to the field and it doesn’t feel like we have a winning streak going. We had a streak last year, and the intensity ramped up and then it got to the point where it just caught up to us. This year it feels completely different.”

Bauer’s been watching Francona closely and thinks Tito’s life growing up in clubhouses, and the decades of experience in them as an adult, has built up this almost sixth sense about the subtle interpersonal dynamics some managers don’t even know exist.

“He’s in tune with how this environment works,” Bauer says. “He gets here, and something might seem off. Before anyone is even at the field, he’s aware that something is off. Or something is on. Or something is different. He doesn’t realize he’s picking it up. It’s just his sense for it. It’s flow state. It occurs to him, and he doesn’t even realize it.”

No team has won as many games in a row as the 2017 Cleveland Indians, which is not how they want this season remembered. Last October left them longing to feel that joy and stress again, and they have almost made it through a long 183 days.

The streak ending is almost a relief because now the real business can begin.

The postseason is less than a month away.

“You’re like …” Kipnis says, and then he inhales deeply, like someone stepping out into the fresh air for the first time, “… we’re back. You can see how we’re playing. The team’s been waiting for it. You see us getting close to it, and we’re almost back there again.”

Wright Thompson A senior writer for ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine, Wright Thompson is a native of Clarksdale, Mississippi; he currently lives in Oxford, Mississippi. Previously, he worked at The Kansas City Star and the New Orleans Times-Picayune. In 2001, he graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

The post Inside the Cleveland Indians clubhouse during their historic 22 game win streak appeared first on Daily Star Sports.

from http://ift.tt/2xjZt3Z from http://ift.tt/2f7UQQD

[newstfionline]

Across Myanmar, Denial of Ethnic Cleansing and Loathing of Rohingya

By Hannah Beech, NY Times, Oct. 24, 2017

SITTWE, Myanmar--The Buddhist abbot tucked his legs under his robes and began to explain.

Rohingya Muslims do not belong in Myanmar, and they never have, he said. Their fertility allowed them to overwhelm the local Buddhist population. But now, somehow, many Rohingya seemed to be gone.

“We thank the Lord Buddha for this,” said U Thu Min Gala, the 57-year-old abbot of the Damarama Monastery in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State in western Myanmar. “They stole our land, our food and our water. We will never accept them back.”

An overwhelming body of published accounts has detailed the Myanmar Army’s campaign of killing, rape and arson in Rakhine, which has driven more than 600,000 Rohingya out of the country since late August, in what the United Nations says is the fastest displacement of a people since the Rwanda genocide.

But in Myanmar, and even in Rakhine itself, there is stark denial that any ethnic cleansing is taking place.

The divergence between how Myanmar and much of the outside world see the Rohingya is not limited to one segment of local society. Nor can hatred in Myanmar of the largely stateless Muslim group be dismissed as a fringe attitude.

Government officials, opposition politicians, religious leaders and even local human-rights activists have become unified behind this narrative: The Rohingya are not rightful citizens of Buddhist-majority Myanmar, and now, through the power of a globally resurgent Islam, the minority is falsely trying to hijack the world’s sympathy.

Social media postings have amplified the message, claiming that international aid workers are openly siding with the Rohingya. Accordingly, the Myanmar government has blocked aid agencies’ access to Rohingya still trapped in Myanmar--about 120,000 confined to camps in central Rakhine and tens of thousands more in desperate conditions in the north.

The official answer to United Nations accounts of the military’s mass burning of villages and targeting of civilians has been to insist that the Rohingya have been doing it to themselves.

“There is no case of the military killing Muslim civilians,” said Dr. Win Myat Aye, the country’s social welfare minister and the governing National League for Democracy party’s point person on Rakhine. “Muslim people killed their own Muslim people.”

When asked in an interview about the evidence against the military, the minister noted that the Myanmar government had not sent any investigators to Bangladesh to vet the testimony of fleeing Rohingya, but that he would raise the possibility of doing so in a future meeting.

“Thank you for advising us on this idea,” he said.

The Rohingya, who speak a Bengali dialect and tend to look distinct from most of Myanmar’s other ethnic groups, have had roots in Rakhine for generations. Communal tensions between the Rohingya and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists exploded in World War II, when the Rakhine aligned themselves with the Japanese, while the Rohingya chose the British.

Although many Rohingya were considered citizens when Myanmar, also known as Burma, became independent in 1948, the military junta that wrested power in 1962 began stripping them of their rights. After a restrictive citizenship law was introduced in 1982, most Rohingya became stateless.

Even the name Rohingya, which the ethnic group has identified with more vocally in recent years, has been taken from them. The Myanmar government usually refers to the Rohingya as Bengalis, implying they belong in Bangladesh. The public tends to call them an epithet used for all Muslims in Myanmar: kalar.

The nomenclature is so sensitive that in a speech this month, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and de facto leader of the government, referred only to “those who have crossed over to Bangladesh.”

Some ethnic Rakhine politicians are hailing the Rohingya exodus as a good thing.

“All the Bengalis learn in their religious schools is to brutally kill and attack,” said Daw Khin Saw Wai, a Rakhine member of Parliament from Rathedaung Township. “It is impossible to live together in the future.”

Buddhist monks, moral arbiters in a pious land, have been at the forefront of a campaign to dehumanize the Rohingya. In popular videos, extremist monks refer to the Rohingya as “snakes” or “worse than dogs.”

Outside Mr. Thu Min Gala’s monastery in Sittwe, a pair of signs reflected an alternate sense of reality. One said that the monastery, which is sheltering ethnic Rakhine who fled the conflict zone, would not accept any donations from international agencies. The other warned that multifaith groups were not welcome.

The abbot claimed that the authorities in Rakhine had stopped a car owned by the International Committee of the Red Cross that was filled with weaponry destined for Rohingya militants who carried out attacks against the security forces in August. Mr. Thu Min Gala claimed that sticks of dynamite had been wrapped in paper with the Red Cross logo. The Red Cross denied these accusations.

“We don’t trust the international society,” the abbot said. “They are only on the side of the terrorists.”

At another monastery in Sittwe, an elderly abbot, U Baddanta Thaw Ma, halted my conversation with a young monk by slapping the air in front of my face. “Go! Go! Go!” he yelled in English, before switching to the local Rakhine dialect. “Go away, you foreigner! Go away, you kalar lover.”

Public sentiment against Muslims--who are about 4 percent of Myanmar’s population, encompassing several ethnic groups, including the Rohingya--has spread beyond Rakhine. In 2015 elections, no major political party fielded a Muslim candidate. Today no Muslims serve in Parliament, the first time since the country’s independence.

A couple of hours outside Yangon, the country’s largest city, U Aye Swe, an administrator for Sin Ma Kaw village, said he was proud to oversee one of Myanmar’s “Muslim-free” villages, which bar Muslims from spending the night, among other restrictions.

“Kalar are not welcome here because they are violent and they multiply like crazy, with so many wives and children,” he said.

Mr. Aye Swe admitted he had never met a Muslim before, adding, “I have to thank Facebook because it is giving me the true information in Myanmar.”

Social media messaging has driven much of the rage in Myanmar. Though widespread access to cellphones only started a few years ago, mobile penetration is now about 90 percent. For many people, Facebook is their only source of news, and they have little experience in sifting fake news from credible reporting.

One widely shared message on Facebook, from a spokesman for Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s office, emphasized that biscuits from the World Food Program, a United Nations agency, had been found at a Rohingya militant training camp. The United Nations called the post “irresponsible.”

The Myanmar government, however, insists the public needs to be guided.

“We do something that we call educating the people,” said U Pe Myint, the nation’s information minister. He acknowledged, “It looks rather like indoctrination, like in an authoritarian or totalitarian state.”

In Yangon, Mr. Pe Myint this month gathered local journalists to discuss what he called “fabricated news” by foreign reporters and a “political war” in which international aid groups favored the Rohingya.

Last month, a mob in Sittwe attacked Red Cross workers, who were loading a boat with supplies that locals believed would only go to the Rohingya.

Even among officials who might otherwise champion human rights, frustration has been directed at foreign critics. Quietly, some defend Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s failure to call out the military and protect the Rohingya by saying it would be political suicide in a country where hatred of the Rohingya is so widespread. They see the recent international pressure, at best, as ignorant of domestic complexities and, at worst, as intent on hindering Myanmar’s development.

U Ko Ko Gyi, a democracy advocate who was jailed for 17 years by the military when it ruled Myanmar, evoked national interest.

“We have been human-rights defenders for many years and suffered for a long time but we are standing together on this issue because we need to support our national security,” he said.

“We are a small country that lies between India and China, and the DNA of our ancestors is to try to struggle for our survival,” Mr. Ko Ko Gyi said. “If you in the West criticize us too much, then you will push us into the arms of China and Russia.”

The humanitarian situation has grown desperate within Rakhine while the official block on aid largely continues.

Throughout the state, ethnic Rakhine have been warned by community leaders not to break the blockade. Last month in Myebon Township, in central Rakhine, women’s activists prevented international aid groups from delivering assistance to an internment camp where thousands of Rohingya have been sequestered since the 2012 sectarian violence, according to foreign staff.

But U Tun Tin, a Rakhine trishaw driver, needed the money and delivered food to the Rohingya camp. Shortly after, his wife, Daw Soe Chay, said she was accosted by a crowd that forced her to a nearby monastery.

Inside the religious compound, they beat her and sheared her hair. Then the mob marched her through Myebon, wearing a sign calling her a “national traitor.”

Despite his wife’s ordeal, Mr. Tun Tin said he did not regret having sent supplies to the camp, where Rohingya say their rations are running low.

“They are human,” he said. “They need to eat, just like us.”