#my choir teacher sounds exactly like him too so it makes it even worse when my own class doesn’t get my pain

[gavindna]

Matthew Curtis is a scourge on the choral world and I feel like only two other choir kids might understand my plight

[yet-another-greek-myth-gay]

Since I am currently very deeply invested in Hogwarts Mystery, I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time developing my version of Jacob’s Sibling in my mind. I’m kind of proud of the character I created, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to put her out there in the character universe of Hogwarts Mystery OCs.

Now, full disclosure, I’m not an artist. I don’t have any beautiful drawings attached to give you an idea of what I’m visualizing (at least, not any I drew). More or less, this is just going to be a bunch of word vomit about the character I’m crafted, and I’ll probably go back and edit it a bunch of times as I think of more details. If it isn’t too much trouble, I’d love to hear people’s opinions of her! Thank you to anyone who reads, and I hope you like her as much as I do!

BE WARNED THAT THIS CHARACTER SHEET CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR HOGWARTS MYSTERY.

FULL NAME: Helena Winifred Bancroft.

NICKNAME: Most people call her Nellie; only her mum calls her Helena. She also occasionally gets Nel, and Jacob used to call her Pip, short for Pipsqueak. Her and Rowan also had unique nicknames for each other, with Nellie calling Rowan “smart girl” and Rowan calling Nellie “sweet girl.”

DATE OF BIRTH: March 11th. She’s a Pisces.

BLOOD STATUS: Half-blood.

FAMILY: Nellie’s family consists of her mothers, a pureblooded Auror named Juliette and a muggle school teacher named Carolyn, and her half-brother Jacob. (Juliette is mum, Carolyn is mama.) Both her and Jacob’s respective fathers were muggle men that Juliette was involved with in the past, and neither are involved in their lives. The Bancroft bloodline is matrilineal, and while not necessarily famous, prides itself on producing particularly powerful witches.

BACKGROUND: She grew up in a small coastal community, where she was an avid swimmer, frequent visitor of the beach, and overall just a total water baby. Her family was comfortable financially, but chose to live fairly humbly, and Nellie was content with that. While she occasionally played with the local muggle children, most of Nellie’s time was spent either following Jacob around like a little shadow or playing with the fairies that lived in her mama’s garden. (She spent all her time telling them how pretty they were, so they tolerated her.) Unsurprisingly, she was a bit of a loner.

HOUSE: A proud Hufflepuff, just like Jacob.

DREAM: First and foremost, to find Jacob. However, in the long term, she’d really like to own a Hippogriff sanctuary and work as a breeder (with entirely moral methods, don’t worry). They’re by far her favorite creature, and she wants to spend the rest of her life working with them.

DEEPEST SECRET: That she wonders all the time if Jacob is worth saving. Growing up, he was her best friend and her hero, and there was no one she loved more. But watching how he changed in the last year or two prior to his disappearance, and hearing some of the stories at school, she honestly wonders if the loving brother she remembers exists anymore. And if he doesn’t, is the boy he left behind someone she wants to bring back? 

She’s also been hiding a growing resentment toward her mum. While Jacob’s disappearance took a toll on them all, she sometimes feels like her mum’s put so much of her emotional energy into missing Jacob that she doesn’t have enough left to love her anymore, and she secretly hates her mum nudging her to find Jacob, even if it’s at the cost of her own happiness and safety.

...sometimes she wishes it had been Ben.

MOST TREASURED OBJECT: For years, it was her seashell locket, a gift she’d gotten from Jacob for her sixth birthday, with the little sculpture Barnaby made her for their Valentines Day date coming in at a close second. Now, it’s a spare pair of Rowan’s glasses, which Nellie had kept on hand since their first year, given how often Rowan misplaced hers.

WAND: Nellie’s first wand is ten and a half inches long, made of pear wood with a unicorn hair core. Her second, which she purchases in her fifth year, is eleven and a quarter inches, with an alder wood base and a phoenix feather core. Lastly, her third, which she gets after she graduates and keeps for the rest of her life, is ten and two thirds inches long, built from beech wood, and possesses a unicorn hair core.

PATRONUS: An African Bush Elephant.

ANIMAGUS: A Kooikerhondje dog.

BOGGART: Jacob’s corpse, shambling towards her like a zombie, sobbing about how she failed to save him.

BEST MEMORY: Jacob trying to teach her spells when he came home for his first break in his first year of Hogwarts. She would’ve only been five—they’re six years apart—so it’s a faint memory and she couldn’t do any of them anyway, but it was still happy enough to stick with her.

WORST MEMORY: The year Jacob disappeared, their mum mandated that he come home for breaks. (He’d been staying at school the past few years, but with everything that was happening, their mothers wanted to keep an eye on him.) He was on edge the entire time, bitter and aloof, and when Nellie tentatively tried to get him to play, he exploded at her about wasting his time. In that moment, his face twisted and red with rage, his tall, lanky body looming over her, Nellie didn’t recognize her brother at all, and that scared her more than anything. For the longest time, that was her worst memory.

Now, her worst memory is being in that forest grove, staring down at Rowan’s unmoving body, her gaping mouth and empty eyes. Even decades later, Nellie has dreams about it. Certainly, no memory will ever be worse than that one.

QUIDDITCH: After being trained by Skye, Nellie played as a Chaser for two seasons and a Beater for one, before retiring to a reserve chaser. There just wasn’t enough time, and she didn’t really have the competitive spirit for it. However, she remained friends with Skye, Orion, McNully, and Erika, and still enjoyed training with them to keep her skills sharp.

GREATEST STRENGTHS: Nellie is an overwhelmingly compassionate person. Her mama likes to joke that Nellie could spend all day waiting for a scoop of her favorite ice cream, and she’d still offer it to the first gloomy person she saw on the street. (Basically, if there’s a little pink heart next to a choice, that’s the one she’s making. Empathy is definitely her highest stat.) She never fails to go out of her way to help people, even if it’s to her own detriment. She just has a very warm energy, which makes it easy for people to feel safe confiding in and depending on her.

GREATEST WEAKNESS: Unfortunately, Nellie’s compassion is a bit of a double edged sword, and she can be guilty of stretching herself too far trying to please everyone and, subsequently, letting herself fall to the wayside. She’s also embarrassingly naive (a negative consequence to her desperate belief in the inherent goodness of people), and has a tendency to get a little too emotionally invested in things. She also stakes a lot of her personal value in her ability to keep others happy—if she isn’t capable of keeping those she loves safe and content, she feels she has no value at all.

APPEARANCE: In short, Nellie is about as far from intimidating as any one person can get. She never surpasses five feet tall, nor does she develop past her scrawny adolescent physique. Her face is round, with a little button nose and big ocean blue eyes. She’s covered from head to toe in freckles, and has a slight case of buck teeth with a tiny tooth gap, though nothing she considered worth getting braces over. She also has a scar on her thumb from the time her mum tried to teach her how to whittle. It didn’t go well.

However, her most defining physical characteristic is her hair. Curly and sandy blonde, she grew it long for the first fifteen years of her life, only cutting off the occasional inch to keep it healthy. It was very carefully maintained, because although Nellie doesn’t consider herself a vain girl, she loved her hair, which grew to reach her thighs at its longest. It was the only feature of hers she considered genuinely and objectively beautiful, and she prided herself on it. In the summer after her fifth year of Hogwarts, she chopped all that treasured hair off into a bob, her only reasoning being that it was more practical. It certainly had nothing to do with the fact that Rakepick had grabbed her by her exceptionally long braid when she’d tried to run to Merula’s aid in the Buried Vault. 

STYLE: Nellie dresses exactly how you’d expect a stereotypical Hufflepuff to dress. She favors bright, pleasant colors, likes embroidery and floral print, and values comfort over anything. Her current favorite outfits both involve overalls, with one consisting of denim overalls with embroidered butterflies on the chest pocket and a white t-shirt, and the other being a pair of faded overalls that she personally painted with flowers, despite being an absolutely terrible artist, and a yellow turtleneck. She pretty much always wears a pair of light weight, embroidered boots, and is never seen without her seashell locket.

VOICE: I picture her sounding similar to AnnaPantsu. There’s a reason she was able to make the choir, after all! (Even if she ultimately surrendered her spot to Merula.)

BEST SUBJECT: Unsurprisingly, Care for Magical Creatures. Her kind nature and respect for all magical beings makes her a bit of a natural. She’s also proven herself to have a knack for Divination. She’s no Seer, but she’s pretty good at deciphering omens and swears that she does sometimes see visions in crystal balls. She’s also decent at Transfiguration.

WORST SUBJECT: Anyone would suck at Potions if Snape spent the entire class glowering at them the way he does at Nellie! It’s awfully hard to focus when your professor is breathing down your neck, staring dismissively into your cauldron like you’ve already made a mistake. She also just has a really poor memory, so any class that requires her to follow a sequence of meticulous steps is going to be one she struggles with. She also has difficulty in History of Magic for a similar reason—all of those dates and names just go in one ear and out the other.

BEST FRIEND(s): Rowan. Nellie loves every member of her eclectic group of friends dearly, but Rowan was her first friend, and will always, always be her dearest. For whatever reason, they just clicked perfectly, and completely got each other. Her death changed Nellie irreversibly. For at least a year after Rowan’s death, Nellie wore the spare pair of glasses she’d kept for her everywhere. Even once she stopped, they were almost always in her bag. Nellie was eventually able to manage again, but she never really moved on.

The runner up was undoubtedly Bill. He completely adopted her as (yet another) younger sibling, and they never quite lose that closeness, even when Jacob comes back into the picture. After all, Jacob can’t replicate the experiences Nellie had with Bill. While he was doing his part to protect Nellie as best he could, and that’s admirable, it wasn’t him that was by Nellie’s side throughout every trial she faced at Hogwarts. It was Bill, and Jacob would never be able to imitate the connection that gave Bill and Nellie.

In the wake of Rowan’s death, Nellie also develops a surprisingly close friendship with Erika Rath. They’d already been developing a friendship, but Rowan’s passing was the catalyst for them growing closer. During one of her training sessions with Erika (which Erika had told her she could sit out of, given the circumstances, but Nellie insisted), Rowan’s glasses fell off, and cracked. The damage was minor and entirely fixable, but Nellie had a complete breakdown, allowing herself to cry for the first time since Rowan had died. And Erika sat there with her, holding her tight, the entire time. While the rest of her friends were tiptoeing around her, not sure what she needed and scared of saying the wrong thing, uncomfortable in the face of such overwhelming grief, Erika took everything Nellie threw at her in stride. The fits where all Nellie could do was scream and cry, the anger that had her beating her fists against the ground and snarling threats brutal enough to make her sick, the guilt that left a hollow pit in her stomach and made her wish it had been her instead. Every ugly thought, every wave of emotion, Erika stuck with Nellie through them all, keeping her grounded her during a time where she felt she could completely drift away. It’s impossible to describe the sort of bond that gives people.

WORST ENEMY: For a while, it was Emily Tyler. With Merula, at least she has qualities that Nellie can respect—her ambition, her bravery, her fierce determination—and they’ve had a few moments where it feels like some genuine bonding has occurred. She may not approve of a lot of Merula’s behavior, but at least she can sort of understand her. But Emily Tyler is just so superficial and mean spirited, and Nellie simply can’t stand her. Now, though, it’s easily Patricia Rakepick.

LOVE INTEREST: Barnaby Lee, though not at first. Nellie housed an absolutely fierce crush on Skye Parkin for a while, but it quickly became apparent that Skye didn’t return her feelings. To Skye, Nellie was like the sister she never had, and Nellie didn’t want to jeopardize that. There was also some sort of tension going on between her and Merula in their fifth year, but nothing ever came of it. After the events that transpired in the Vault, Merula decided Nellie wasn’t worth the trouble. It’s one of her biggest regrets. 

Barnaby was actually crushing on Nellie long before she had any romantic feelings for him—ever since that first duel, actually, when she completely whooped his ass while apologizing after every blow. (A scene I actually explored here.) It took a little while, but Nellie eventually fell for Barnaby’s good heart and noble nature. He may not be the brightest bulb in the box, but he never fails to make her feel cared for. He can make her laugh when nobody else can, and although she’d loathe herself if he got hurt for her sake, it honestly feels a little nice to have someone trying to protect and take care of her for once, instead of the other way around. They also both love magical creatures, so a lot of their “dates” just consist of them hanging around the Care for Magical Creatures paddock and feeding whatever they find. Random little fun fact, Nellie’s pet name for Barnaby is just to say “Barnaby dear” as though it’s one word, and it never fails to make Barnaby feel super giddy.

PETS: Whoo boy, Nellie’s pets. First and foremost, there’s Astrid, her Lesser Sooty Owl. A remarkably intelligent bird, Astrid is usually found occupying the rafters above Nellie’s head, watching over her like a worrisome mother. She usually sleeps in Nellie’s dorm, rather than the owlery, and has a habit of picking at knots in Nellie’s hair (and, surprisingly, Rowan’s as well) with her beak as though she’s trying to straighten them out. 

While she adores Nellie, Astrid is notably less fond of Klepto, her mischievous Niffler. If Astrid is like Nellie’s mother, Klepto is like an obnoxious toddler, always causing trouble and fussing for her attention. He’s remarkably clingy, enough so that Nellie’s taken to hiding him in the dorm rather than keeping him in the grasslands. (She can’t help it! He throws a fit if he can’t sleep pressed against the soles of her feet!) 

Then there’s Flora, a particularly slothful fairy who has taken to riding in the pockets of Nellie’s robes, content to spend the rest of her life being carried around and lavished with compliments and sweets. Her and Astrid have a sort of tenuous truce, since they both have a bit of a fierce streak when it comes to defending Nellie. 

There’s also a Hippogriff and a Common Welsh Green on the grounds, both of which Nellie is determined to befriend, but that’s still a bit of a work in progress at the moment.

FUN FACTS:

• Nellie ends up going grey—or white, rather—fairly early. Her hair’s almost entirely white by the time she turns thirty. She’s insecure about it for a while, then decides to just embrace it. It looks elegant, and Merlin help the person who tries to tell her otherwise.

• Given how incredibly physically affectionate Nellie is and how much she adored Rowan, it’s no surprise that she almost always kissed Rowan on the top of the head when saying goodbye. Just like she did in the forest grove, chest tight with anguish but eyes painfully dry.

• Barnaby and Nellie are married by the time they’re twenty. Maybe it’s a result of almost dying young on multiple occasions, but Nellie wasn’t keen on waiting. She didn’t want to take the risk of never getting the opportunity.

• Nellie has always wanted a big family. After how fractured hers became when Jacob disappeared, that desperate desire only increased. Fortunately, Barnaby, with his tiny, miserable family, wanted to create a large, happy one just as badly.

• On that note, they end up having five daughters: Ivy (Ravenclaw), Jade (Ravenclaw), Miri (Hufflepuff), Aurora (Slytherin), and Rowan (Hufflepuff). Many were surprised Nellie waited until her last child to name one after Rowan, but the truth was, she just wasn’t ready. She’d always known she wanted to, but it always felt too soon.

• As a frequent visitor to the Burrow, Nellie grew close with all the Weasleys. She actually babysat Ron and Ginny a far bit after she graduated Hogwarts.

• Bill and Jacob never get along. Though Bill can logically understand that Jacob was trying to protect Nellie, he can never really forgive Jacob for the distress he put Nellie through. And while Jacob understands that Nellie needed support and he wasn’t there to provide it, some part of him resents that Bill stepped into his role as Nellie’s brother.

• Although they were once close as sisters, Nellie and Skye’s friendship definitely changed for the worse in their sixth year. The drama surrounding Nellie getting trained and befriended by Erika all occurred in the month leading up to Rowan’s demise. Having Skye—someone Nellie considered a close friend—be so caught up in her own grudges and jealousy that she called off their friendship in a fit of anger not even a week after Rowan had died, while Erika—a friend she had only just started to make—acted as her rock throughout the whole grieving process, really changed Nellie’s perspective on Skye. To be fair, Skye did eventually apologize, and they picked up the pieces as best they could, but things were never the same.

• While Nellie focused more on the changes her friends went through after the events in the Buried Vault, there’s no denying that she changed as well. She hardly slept her entire sixth year. She cut off all her hair, and she jumped with every loud noise. Her naivety, one of her defining traits, withered, and left only wariness behind. She went from trusting everyone, to trusting no one. Then Rowan’s death came, and she crumbled completely. For a long time after it, she couldn’t function at all.

Thank you to @treebels​, for the lovely artwork.

[sports-sanders-sides]

Damien McDermott Conquers the World: Chapter 1

Chapter One

If you had told me a year ago that I would be standing up on stage receiving my high school diploma, along with several scholarships to colleges I had only dreamed of getting into, I would’ve called you crazy. Hell, I probably would’ve cussed you out and beat the pulp out of you too. But here I was, unable to fight back tears as my mother beamed up at me with pride. I didn’t even care about the whispers and criticizing words of my “friends” behind me, I just took my place in the seats and stared at my diploma with wonder. I felt two sets of strong arms wrap around me and I beamed up at my boyfriends, Emile and Remy, who had graduated with me. Their eyes shone with pride and Emile, who usually hated displaying physical affection, gave me a kiss so passionate that I almost fell off my chair.

“Oh my god, we did it!” Remy practically squealed, jumping up and down with excitement. A few fellow graduates around us smiled at Remy fondly, another fantastic improvement from this year. Emile laughed and ruffled Remy’s hair, making our lover whine and scramble to fix it. As the last few names were called the two of them returned to their seats and we all turned to face the front and finish the rest of the ceremony. It was boring to have to sit through almost 1,000 names being called, and I couldn’t wait for the after party at my house, with just my boyfriends, my real friends, my mom, my brother and sisters, and me. It was incredible how much my life had changed in just one short school year. It may have been hard, but I regretted none of it.

***

September 6, 2017, the first day of my senior year of high school. Well, technically the first day of my second senior year. I’d taken all the classes, done all the curriculum, and even started a school hockey team the year before, but apparently I have to actually do the work. Who knew, right? My blood was boiling as I walked through the familiar beige hallway and I shoved this skinny blond kid into a locker to make myself feel better. He cussed after me but I ignored him, making myself as tall and intimidating as I could with my staggering height of five feet three inches. I thought I recognized him from a couple baseball games I’d been dragged to by friends, but I wasn’t quite sure.

“Yeah, so? It’s fine man, that kid’s probably been through worse than a shove,” I said with a snicker, trying to fall into stride with Patton as we walked to class, my much shorter legs having a hard time keeping up with his pair of beanpoles.

“‘That kid’ is Virgil, I’ve already told you that, and he’s my age so don’t sound do patronizing. You’d like him if you gave him a chance! I think you two could be friends!” Patton sounded so excited as he said that, it almost made me not want to shoot him down.

“You know I don’t do that friend shit. Besides, I don’t have time for it anymore. I need to focus on graduating,” I replied, grudgingly muttering out the last part. Patton awed and wrapped an arm around me in a side hug. Except he didn’t let go, but that’s just Patton. I smiled a little bit and continued on until the two of us reached the classroom. Well, it wasn’t exactly a classroom. The round room, as it was ‘affectionately’ called, operated as the orchestra room, green room, girls changing room, audition room, intro to guitar room, and the sometimes marching band room. It was the only place in the entire building where the air conditioning actually worked, and as it was in the music suite, no one but the music and drama kids knew about it. A couple jocks and cheerleaders knew here and there because they took Mx. Joan’s intro to guitar class, as Patton and I were today, but they were the good ones, and were welcomed into the giant, dysfunctional, drama-filled family. Some of them even auditioned for the school musicals, and there were three guys from the football team who were basses in the choir. Roman, my best friend’s younger brother, was the high school quarterback but always auditioned for the plays, was in the guitar class, and was a RAGING homosexual. I could see his crush on Patton from a mile away, but I didn’t say anything. I knew it would happen in its own time.

“Damien, Patton, you’re late,” Mx. Joan said as we entered the room. Patton smiled sheepishly and apologized, but I grabbed my guitar off the stand and took my seat. The teacher chuckled and checked our names off on their list as present before turning back to the rest of the class to resume the lesson. Patton had sat beside Roman already, but the seat on the other side of him was empty. I plopped down, nearly sending the tiny metal chair buckling to the floor.

“My bad,” I said with a shrug when Mx. Joan whipped their head up to look at us. I could see them fighting back a smile and jotted down another victory in my mind.

“I’ll excuse it this time, but if you’re late again I’ll mark you down. Now let’s begin; Does everyone have their books?” There was a faint shuffling throughout the room as the other students and I pulled out our music books from our backpacks. The same books had been used for years, and were tattered and worn and marked up by past students. My own book had had a crude drawing of a certain appendage with the words ‘Mx. Joan sucks dick’ until I scrubbed it off the cover with rubbing alcohol. I mean, from how they flirted with Mr. Sanders it probably wasn’t wrong, but it still pissed me off. I felt a tap on my shoulder and glanced up to see Patton looking down at me.

“Hey, can I share your book? I forgot mine at home,” Patton said with a sheepish smile on his face. I shrugged and was about to say yes before my eyes fell on Roman, who was already plucking at his guitar strings. A small smirk spread across my lips.

“Nah, we’re on different levels. Why don’t you ask Roman?” I suggested innocently, trying not to laugh as Patton’s face burned. He mumbled something before turning to Roman and I sat back, satisfied with my little matchmaker game. Who knew I’d actually have fun at school?

Tag list: @ascreamingstrawberry @simplesuccessions-is-very-dead @patchworkofstars @abrownswann @chaoticcharm-stone-posts @emo-sanders-sides-loving-unicorn @starryfirefliesbloggo o @thefallendog @ultimate-queen-of-fandoms2 @silly-aesthetic-me me @accidental-sanders @ninjago2020 @yeet-ya-chickenstrips @vampiregeek2002 2 @hissesssss @moonstonefox 2 @book-of-charlie @shanisaur r @randomfanderfriend @thatonetuesdaywhensam-deactivat @saltlouie e @i-sold-my-soul-to-thefandom m @sunshine-in-a-petal @spacenerrrd d @demonalisa2004 @moxietytrash h @tinysidestrashcaptain @rangercorpses s @pattonly-anxious @ren-allen n @kanejandkruge

[aethelredism]

Liberty’s Secret

As promised, my review of Liberty’s Secret. @transboyvax @lemonysnickit

I found this movie on Amazon Prime and I can’t decide if it’s terrible or amazing.

Liberty’s Secret is the story of a Jewish, sapphic political campaign manager and a fundamentalist Christian preacher’s daughter who fall in love. Oh, also, it’s a musical, which I didn’t realize going into it.

The movie opens in a diner. Senator Kenny Weston is about to make a staged appearance in a small-town diner, but a patron of the diner ruins it by accusing Senator Weston of corruption and even goes so far as to call him one of the lizard-people. The incident ends with Senator Weston covered in scrambled egg, and the video gets over twenty million views on YouTube. Enter Nicole Levine, Kenny Weston’s communications manager. We are supposed to believe that Nicole is a ball-busting career woman. Nicole, for the record, looks like if Elizabeth Olsen was somehow even blander. Kenny Weston’s actor does a poor imitation of George W. Bush. The campaign managers decide that Kenny Weston is too middle-of-the-road and needs to swing heavily to the right; on Sunday, they’re taking him to a small evangelical church.

Cut to Liberty Smith, a pretty pastor’s daughter working with the five other people in her church’s choir. The song is sickeningly saccharine, with Liberty doing most of the singing while the other five provide harmony. Liberty encourages them to work on their enunciation, even though they sing a total of three words in the entire song. She then decides to rehearse the song a second time so that we can hear it in its entirety. This is how we know Liberty is a talented singer.

On Sunday, Nicole is with Senator Weston’s campaign at Pastor Smith’s church. When the pastor announces that Liberty will be singing a song she wrote at the age of twelve, Nicole turns to her campaign friend Yolanda and gags. This is setting up Nicole and Liberty to not get along, even though of course we know that they will later fall in love. Senator Weston’s campaign decides that Liberty is pretty and compelling enough to garner the votes that Weston needs.

The following Sunday, Weston and his campaign return, where the church sings about how they have to rub-a-dub-dub, bubble-and-scrub their souls. After the song, the Weston campaign are invited to the Smith house for Sunday dinner, where he bores them with cheesy Christian jokes. Pastor Smith finds out that Nicole’s last name is Levine, and he goes on to mansplain to her the origin of her name, which means descended from the Levite priests. He tells her that her ancestors have a few things in common with him. Nicole, like the unimpressed Jewish lesbian that she is, tells him that her ancestors lent his a few books. Weston’s smarmy campaign manager, whose name I don’t even remember because he’s so unmemorable, expresses how much they’d love to bring Liberty on their campaign. After making sure Weston is pro-life and his little girl will be safe–by having Nicole act as Liberty’s personal chaperone–Smith agrees to let Liberty go.

Nicole is later shown complaining that she has to babysit the crazy Christian girl. Weston’s campaign decides to use “I Hear America Singing” as their campaign slogan, which Nicole points out is a quote from the bisexual Walt Whitman. Go Nicole! Later, Nicole and her friend Yolanda go to a bar. Even though it’s in Washington D.C., there are about five other people in said bar. A woman who is supposed to be dressed like a hussy approaches Nicole, stating outright that they should hook up. “I have a new hot tub,” she says enticingly. Nicole shrugs her off, but it has been established that Nicole is a Lesbian.

Meanwhile, Liberty is packing a suitcase to go on the campaign trail. Her father makes fun of her for bringing a tome called “Foreign Policy in 1948” with her. This is how we know that Liberty is interested in politics. Her father also expresses that he is concerned that she is single at the ancient age of 24, and he had married her mother when he was 21. Liberty says that she’s not ready to settle down yet. When he leaves the room, she breaks into a song about how she doesn’t want just a fling or casual relationship–she wants a serious, committed relationship, no matter what the person is like. In a split-screen duet, Nicole sings that she is also looking for that special someone, but not just anyone. They end the song attempting to look at each other through the split-screen.

Liberty’s entire church sees her off when she and Nicole disembark for the campaign trail. Liberty sees the slogan and says that it reminds her of Walt Whitman. Wow! Chemistry! Nicole does not look impressed by Liberty, but a roadtrip montage made mostly of green screens reveals them talking and laughing and generally getting to know one another. A news reporter named Rolf Schnitzer–I kid you not–reports that Liberty is doing wonders for Senator Weston’s campaign. He then shows the video of Liberty’s music video, where she sings about how she sees a future in the good ol’ days and urges Americans to return to family values. There’s another montage of the two women becoming friends, and then we’re thrown into a studio made entirely of green screen as Nicole drills Liberty about her upcoming interview with Rolf Schnitzer. Liberty confesses that she’s worried about her television appearance and about being asked a question she doesn’t know the answer to. Nicole tells her via musical number the rules to faking an interview. Nicole helps Liberty with her body mic, a quirky moment that shows us just how attracted they are to one another. Liberty only answers two or three questions during the interview, but afterwards Nicole assures her that she was “perfect”.

After the interview, Yolanda tells Nicole that they have to fly back to Washington and invites Liberty to join them. “Nikki could show you around town between sessions, huh, Nikki?” Yolanda asks slyly, because Yolanda ships the hell out of them. Liberty agrees  to go. Cut to a shot of D.C., followed by a campaign meeting, where it is revealed that Weston is a terrible public speaker who cannot write speeches or answer questions to save his life. What does this mean? We don’t know, because it’s never really addressed again.

Liberty, Yolanda, and a bunch of Nicole’s friends we have not met throw her a surprise party at a bar. Liberty tentatively asks the waitress if they have, like, ginger ale? She then gives Nicole a present that she picked out in the Supreme Court gift shop–the complete writings of Louis Brandeis, mentioning that if Nicole is to pursue law school (was this ever mentioned earlier in the film? I genuinely don’t know), she might want to have the book. She then spills ginger ale and, flustered, thanks Nicole “for the gay–I mean date!” After a montage of Liberty wandering D.C. (or a series of green screens), she somehow ends up in a forested area and sings about how she is afraid to admit that she’s in love with Nicole. Nicole finds her just in time to join in for the end of her song, and then they kiss. The moment is ruined by the loud sound of a smartphone taking a picture–when they pull away, they see a woman in a pink jogging suit holding up her phone. She smiles at them and then runs away. Nicole and Liberty look at each other with their dead, unreadable eyes.

Cut to Rolf Schnitzer, calling the incident “Kissgate” and informing viewers that it has brought criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike. Liberty is walking down the street when she comes across three youths, who all open their jackets to reveal “We Saw the Kiss” t-shirts. Who the hell does that? Were they wearing these shirts in anticipation of running into Liberty?

Liberty walks in on a campaign meeting and apologizes, then announces she’s leaving. Nicole chases after her and calls Liberty’s father a bigot; in turn, Liberty calls Nicole a bigot. She defends her father and criticizes Nicole, saying that love means you give up your life for theirs. Nicole calls it codependency. “So you’re saying Jesus was codependent?” Liberty sneers before leaving.

The next scene shows Liberty kneeling beside her father as he prays for her soul and asks God to clean it. She says that she thinks praying only made her feel worse. It is revealed that she is being sent to conversion therapy. “But with all those gay men there,” her father says, “They’re bound to have a great glee club!”

Cut to Nicole and Yolanda in a bar, where they are watching the news. A small crowd gathers when the anchor reports that Liberty has been sent to a facility near Lynchburg, Virginia–ironically, the home of Liberty University. Nicole sings a sad song about how much she misses Liberty.

We next see Liberty at conversion therapy, where the girls are all obviously interested in her and the boys are obviously still gay, as is the instructor who claims he’s a success story, but is the epitome of a limp-wristed dance teacher. During a number in which the respective boys and girls keep getting mixed up as to who exactly they’re supposed to be ogling, Liberty realizes that she is a Lesbian–when the number ends with a bang, she grabs her coat and flees the scene.

Cut to Yolanda casually dropping in on Pastor Smith. She tells him that she was also a pastor’s daughter and that her older brother was caught with another boy from the choir. He ran away at the age of sixteen and died from what we can only assume was AIDS. Yolanda then sings a soulful ballad about how Jesus is an atheist–and so is she.

Liberty, who has run back to the same forested area where she and Nicole first kissed, has a Harry Potter moment in a completely white room. Her mother appears and tells her that her father will get over it. “By the way,” she says, “Could you ask your father to get over me? I’ve moved on.”

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

Liberty’s mother leaves. When she wakes up, Nicole is on the bench beside her. The women kiss in slow-mo.

Cut to Rolf Schnitzer, who is interviewing Kenny Weston. He reveals that the public has a generally favorable opinion of the “Liberty-Levine” relationship and says that Weston’s poll numbers have been because of his poor handling of the relationship. Weston blunders on about how he doesn’t think gay people used to exist and asks Rolf if he’s seen that movie “Humpback Mountain”.

The next scene is of Liberty and Nicole’s combination Christian-Jewish wedding. Liberty’s father walks her down the aisle. Nicole is wearing a pantsuit.  They sing their wedding vows as the priest and rabbi bless them and then give one of the most chemistry-less kisses in existence. Nicole tosses the bouquet–it is caught by Pastor Smith, who looks at Yolanda, then shouts, “L’chaim!” The crowd cheers. Cut to credits. An hour and a half of  your life you will never get back–or an hour and a half well spent? You can’t be sure.

[punkscowardschampions]

Fearghal & Fraze

Fearghal: Your sister has had the baby, 10.30 ish this morning, both healthy, no complications Fraze: Cheers for letting me know Fraze: I'll have to give her a bell when she's home Fearghal: Yeah about that Fearghal: if you could give her a couple of days, it'd be greatly appreciated Fraze: What's the craic? Caleb being a twat again like or what? Fearghal: No, well, not exactly but there is some shit she needs to get in order Fearghal: on strict orders to tell you all as much as you need so you're not worried but she'll give you the rest in her own time Fearghal: thought I'd get to you sharpish, on the off chance Ro wants to talk to Bea about it Fearghal: Know they don't usually talk but, she might, I dunno Fraze: Fucking hell Fraze: The kid got two healthy heads? Fearghal: As good as, son Fearghal: that's how it feels Fearghal: The kid ain't Calebs Fearghal: obviously so, you understand Fraze: Jesus Christ Fraze: It's white, ain't it? Fraze: What's Ali doing about it Fearghal: Right Fearghal: Keeping it of course Fearghal: but that has everything else a bit up in the air, her and the lad, he's meant to be going off to Singapore with her Fraze: Does she know who the other lucky lad is? Maybe he'll take the plane seat Fearghal: Oi, enough of that Fearghal: She does and it isn't fucking likely Fraze: Calm down, da, you know I've got her back Fraze: You gonna go round there and sort him? You ain't getting any younger, gotta be careful Fearghal: Fucking cheek Fearghal: Don't think there's much point, no talking to some people and anyway, what do I do for the best? Fearghal: She doesn't want him, get nothing forcing a piece of shit Father on the poor little sod Fearghal: Might be better off with him out of it frankly Fraze: She knows how to pick 'em Fearghal: Sound like your Mother, boy Fearghal: can't say he doesn't love his kids Fraze: Poor cunt Fraze: I'd go mad Fearghal: Same Fearghal: its not all it sounds, she's not cheated or been reckless but Fearghal: I'll let her explain herself Fearghal: Poor kid, all she's been doing since Fraze: It's a head fuck all round Fraze: Fair play if she's got any words Fearghal: She needs all the support she can get right now Fearghal: that's all we need from you lot, got it? Fraze: yeah yeah old man I hear you Fraze: What you think, I'm gonna wet the baby's head and drown the poor fucker Fraze: Come on Fearghal: You're not exactly known for your tact, are ya son Fearghal: Hence the preparation so you don't say something really fucking stupid Fraze: She's still my sister even if she is making a holy show of it Fearghal: None of you are angels Fearghal: but we're family, its a life sentence, no parole Fraze: Too right Fraze: Who's telling Joe? Fearghal: You can, if you'd like Fearghal: no chance of me or your Ma getting a response really but Fearghal: know he feels he can to you lot, when the mood takes him Fraze: Putting it strong but I will for what it's worth Fraze: He's gotta be told Fearghal: Cheers Fearghal: and if you could forewarn Bea to be on her best behaviour should Ro come-a-knocking Fearghal: rather you than me Fraze: Cheers yourself then Fraze: Ali coming back to yours? Fearghal: For now, yeah Fearghal: got about a month 'til she goes Fearghal: if she does Fraze: Rather you than me Fraze: Don't miss the kids being that small Fearghal: Loving the terrible twos that much, are ya? Fraze: I love a row, yeah? Fraze: It's hilarious Fearghal: Any excuse for a tantrum eh Fraze: Buster clocked me the other day, I was well proud Fraze: Great jab on him Fearghal: 'Course he does, he's a McKenna Fearghal: know what to get him for their next birthday then, I'll tell Ma Fraze: Speaking of, does Hallmark do a 'sorry your kid came out white' card or we improvising that hard on the gift front? Fraze: Fucked us all up there Fearghal: Funny, keep it up and you'll be dealing with worse than your toddler's Fearghal: I'm not sure she's incredibly arsed but you know what you need, wasn't that long ago Fearghal: She's not going to start sobbing at the sight of a babygro Fraze: I was gonna get her and the lad shit for Singapore case they started missing the homeland Fraze: Awkward Fraze: I bet she's desperate to fuck off out of it now Fearghal: It'll still be appreciated Fearghal: Last I heard she's determined to still go Fearghal: I'll intercept the post if there's a change of plans, like Fraze: She'll go just to prove she can Fraze: Stubborn fuck Fraze: Good thing the real dad don't want a look in like Fearghal: Mother's daughter Fearghal: Yeah, no danger of that Fearghal: Maybe when they come back he'll have manned up Fraze: I can't imagine having to hop on a plane every time your kid's got a shitty nappy Fraze: Don't sound like he's bothered though Fraze: Not like she needs him Fearghal: Nah Fearghal: Not every cunt is lucky enough that the relationship with the Ma works out though Fearghal: can't have the kid or her all to yourself all the time if you've fucked it Fearghal: but co-parenting and sharing is better than nothing Fearghal: if you ask me but he disagrees Fraze: No cunt'd keep me from my kids Fraze: Nothing to do with luck Fraze: It's an excuse for him to be a pussy and cry off if he gets challenged later Fraze: Can't be that loved up with her if it's the first we've heard Fraze: He's a twat. End of Fearghal: You know what I mean Fearghal: Heaven forbid you two ever broke up, you'd do what you could and make the most of your time with them Fearghal: Not sulk like a soppy twat because its unfair Fearghal: The feeling certainly is not mutual, from what I understand, at any rate Fearghal: But I thought the same Fraze: You gonna say next that it was all bad luck Ronnie's da was a waster and bowed out? Fraze: Some cunts honestly Fraze: Too busy crying to wipe your kids eyes Fraze: Ali's well rid Fearghal: I've got no room to judge Fearghal: he was a kid, made my own mistakes at his age, arguably as bad Fearghal: S'too short to be angry about it, you just have to get on with it Fraze: You don't get to be a kid when you have one, simple as Fraze: Tell me who the cunt is of Ali's I'll write that on his head for him Fraze: Proper spell it out Fearghal: Nah, you don't Fearghal: but even if you don't raise the kid, your childhood's still gone Fearghal: I doubt Josh went on to do great things with his life, or he don't have regrets about how he handled it Fearghal: I don't think its my place, son Fraze: Ma had me though, don't get greater, yeah? Fraze: I reckoned on you saying that. Ah well. Had to give it a shot Fearghal: So you say, so you say, boy Fearghal: You know you'd never hear the end of it Fearghal: Wouldn't be appreciated, like Fraze: Yeah Fraze: Probably won't hear the end of Bea if I don't tell her who it is though Fearghal: She'll probably work it out Fearghal: They're brighter than us Fearghal: Your Ma didn't seem surprised but first I'd heard of it Fearghal: Naturally, or maybe coulda intervened before now Fraze: Sounds legit Fraze: Fuck's sake Fraze: Our family needs their heads banged together, us two excluded Fearghal: Preaching to the choir boy Fearghal: we do alright Fraze: You were never a choir boy Fraze: Might bring Joe out of his hole, I'd take that Fearghal: 'Course I was Fearghal: fucking angelic, mate Fearghal: Yeah Fearghal: as usual, keep us posted Fraze: Fuck off Fraze: The cat thinks you're dying when you let a tune out Fraze: 'Course Fearghal: Well, lots changed since those days Fearghal: Balls dropped for one Fearghal: Career over Fraze: Regrets, you've got a few, yeah? Fraze: On you go, lad Fearghal: Too right, take me back Fearghal: Miss those nuns Fraze: Bet they miss you too Fearghal: I wouldn't bet on it but you know Fearghal: Only got better with age, in all the ways Fraze: Don't fancy your odds? More for them Fearghal: Oh trust me, you don't wanna face them on anything Fearghal: There's a reason we spared you the Catholic Schools Fearghal: aside from being relapsed and your Ma a filthy heathen Fraze: That'd do it Fraze: Damned the lot of us Fearghal: Might've done Fearghal: Not what we had in mind but Fraze: You're alright da I've competed my fair share of sins Fraze: Heaven's not a place for me Fearghal: I reckon we're best off if I don't know Fraze: Pissed my own bed with no help from ya, either way Fearghal: Oh well, at least we'll all be in the same place on the otherside Fraze: Stuck with all of yous Fearghal: Looks like it Fearghal: Tried to lose you all back in Liverpool but Fearghal: ya followed Fraze: Shouldn't have had a pint in your hand constantly it'd be easier to get rid of me Fearghal: 🍀 Fearghal: What can I say? Fraze: Given up the cigs yet, mate? Fearghal: Have you? Fearghal: Cheeky git Fraze: That's a no Fraze: And with a newborn in the house! Shocking behavior like Fearghal: Well, might be able to get through a whole pack by myself without your thieving mitts about, eh? Fraze: Quick learner and I had a good teacher Fearghal: How did any of ya survive honestly Fearghal: God knows Fraze: 🍀 Fearghal: Must be Fraze: Unless the bloke from downstairs with the horns wants to take credit, like Fearghal: If so, you're slacking in spreading the evil about for him Fraze: Got the next generation to do it for me Fearghal: Started doing that Damien shit have they? You were a bugger for staring at us as we slept, creepy lil fucker Fraze: Those twins from the Shining have got nothing on my two Fraze: Thank Christ they weren't both girls Fearghal: Woulda been a cracking costume but not good for your nightmares Fearghal: Ahh, those were the days Fearghal: Appreciate 'em Fraze: I do Fraze: It's fucked up that lad is so keen to miss out Fearghal: Well, he hasn't got the experience to know what he's depriving himself of Fearghal: Hm, might've been a giveaway that Fraze: I swear not to break his legs Fraze: Not looking to get you in shit with the girls Fearghal: I understand Fearghal: Its very fucking tempting Fearghal: You've got three guesses, use your head, kid, given enough away like Fraze: I reckon he's the kind of cunt to shop us, wouldn't put it past him by the sounds Fraze: Last thing anyone needs Fearghal: No chance, which makes it all the more Fearghal: Type of lad who can't go running to garda for anything Fraze: Fuck Fearghal: Yeah Fearghal: Why else would Ro be in a fucking state too Fearghal: Bastard Fraze: She's always in a state about something Fraze: I can't blame her this time though in fairness Fearghal: Apparently, its been years in the making, you know the type, gets so many yes' Fearghal: A no don't sit right, it wasn't THAT though, before you really get angry Fearghal: the chase, whatever, we've all been there and its obvious he's a scumbag but her sister Fearghal: Didn't need to go there, did he? Fraze: Opportunistic cunt Fraze: I bet he got her drunk as well as Fraze: Biding his time 'til she was at any rate Fraze: She wouldn't go near him otherwise and he knows it Fearghal: She was, your Brother reluctantly told us, didn't wanna snitch but wanted us to have the full picture Fearghal: it was back when Caleb wasn't coping with the boy and they had their break Fearghal: Your Sister wasn't coping as well as she fronted either, apparently Fraze: Fair play to Tommo, this lad's a bigger rat Fraze: Glad he had her back when it was kicking off like Fearghal: Yeah, glad she had someone she could confide in Fearghal: 'cos obviously Ro was out of the question Fearghal: So much for loyalty from him to Caleb though...after all that family has done for him Fraze: Yeah Fraze: Great lad all round, ain't he Fraze: No surprise he isn't stepping up for his kid Fearghal: Yeah, not unless she stays with him Fearghal: Over my dead body, sunshine Fearghal: She won't, even if she has to leave without Caleb, she's not daft Fraze: Over his if he fucking tried it Fraze: Nobody's keeping her from going Fearghal: Its all she's wanted and worked for Fearghal: Though your mother isn't thrilled about the idea of her going out there alone with 3 babies in tow Fearghal: I'm not either but I know she can Fearghal: fucking how, I do NOT know Fraze: None of us want her over in wherever the fuck but it's where she's gotta be Fearghal: Right Fearghal: None of you can be normal and do one thing at a time, can you? Fraze: Who'd you think we got that off, you soft twat Fearghal: Fair, I never did the School thing and your Mum only went back inbetween you lot and Mr Oopsy-Baby himself Fearghal: Still proud of her Fearghal: and yous, glad you are but fucking hell Fearghal: gonna be in the ground 'fore the year is out, I tell ya Fraze: It'd be one hell of a party but there's plenty of shit to celebrate before you pop your clogs Fraze: If only Ali not being saddled with the local wannabe Fearghal: True Fearghal: I'll do my best to stick around then Fearghal: No promises Fraze: Try and earn a bit more before you're in the ground Fraze: Save us lot paying out Fearghal: Just fling me in the sea Fearghal: I'll write it in the will, no suspicions like Fraze: Trying to get the garda on me, are ya? Fraze: Unlucky Fraze: Gotta get up earlier than that, lad Fearghal: Oh well, had to try, ay? Fearghal: Reckon Rock's still young enough to fool Fearghal: Probably have me off the cliff whilst I'm still living like Fraze: He would Fraze: Watch yourself Fearghal: Got to Fearghal: Got Rio running 'round doing his bidding at the mo Fearghal: not needed tonight but might escape to the pub for the peace Fearghal: Irish Da style Fraze: 'course Fraze: Have one for me Fraze: Cambs can't compete Fearghal: I'll save it for the next time yous are over Fraze: Get yourself down here and save me from all these posh twats Fearghal: No chance, lucky you got a mongrel of an accent, catch a note of mine and I'll be banned with the dogs and blacks Fraze: Might get that burial sooner than you reckoned Fraze: Make your mind up Fearghal: Reckon I could take 'em but not in the courts like Fearghal: they'd have to fucking kill me, got no dosh to dole out Fraze: I'll let you off then Fraze: This once Fraze: Less good for us lot behind bars than you'd be in a box Fearghal: Know what I'd prefer Fearghal: Might bump into one of me brothers Fraze: Perfect time for a family reunion right now Fearghal: Fuck no Fearghal: Avoiding 'em in hell too like Fraze: Best of luck with that one Fraze: I'll raise a glass to it Fearghal: You can raise it again to the fact you never had to meet 'em Fraze: Any excuse for another drink, yeah Fearghal: If MY Da taught me anything worth remembering Fraze: A recycled lesson would be the only one I take to heart Fraze: fuck's sake Fearghal: What can I say? Fearghal: Not full of wisdom just full of shit Fraze: That makes one of us Fearghal: When yours can string a proper sentence together come back to me boy Fearghal: see how clever you feel when a kid's running rings round ya Fraze: Never gonna happen, I've got all the answers Fearghal: 😂 Fearghal: Well, best be off Fearghal: the kids are running riot and the baby is screaming along with your Ma so Fearghal: that's my cue to jump ship Fraze: yeah don't let me keep ya Fearghal: Catch you later mate Fraze: Look after yourself Fraze: And that lot Fearghal: Will do Fearghal: You and yours like

[laravural]

Joseph Campbell on The Impact of Science on Myth (1961)

Taken from  “Myths To Live By” by Joseph Campbell.

"I was sitting the other day at a lunch counter that I particularly enjoy, when a youngster about twelve years old, arriving with his school satchel, took the place at my left. Beside him came a younger little man, holding the hand of his mother, and those two took the next seats. All gave their orders, and, while waiting, the boy at my side said, turning his head slightly to the mother, "Jimmy wrote a paper today on the evolution of man, and Teacher said he was wrong, that Adam and Eve were our first parents."

My Lord! I thought. What a teacher!

  The lady three seats away then said, "Well, Teacher was right. Our first parents were Adam and Eve."

  What a mother of a twentieth-century child!

  The youngster responded, "Yes, I know, but this was a scientific paper." And for that, I was ready to recommend him for a distinguished-service medal from the Smithsonian Institution.

  The mother, however, came back with another. "Oh, those scientists!" she said angrily. "Those are only theories."

  And he was up to that one too. "Yes, I know," was his cool and calm reply; "but they have been factualized: they found the bones."

  The milk and the sandwiches came, and that was that.

  So let us now reflect for a moment on the sanctified cosmic image that has been destroyed by the facts and findings of irrepressible young truth-seekers of this kind.

  At the height of the Middle Ages, say in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, there were current two very different concepts of the earth. The more popular was of the earth as flat, like a dish surrounded by, and floating upon, a boundless cosmic sea, in which there were all kinds of monsters dangerous to man. This was an infinitely old notion, going back to the early Bronze Age. It appears in the Sumerian cuneiform texts of about 2000 B.C. and is the image authorized in the Bible.

  The more seriously considered medieval concept, however, was that of the ancient Greeks, according to whom the earth was not flat, but a solid stationary sphere in the center of a kind of Chinese box of seven transparent revolving spheres, in each of which there was a visible planet: the moon, Mercury, Venus, and the sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, the same seven after which our days of the week are named. The sounding tones of these seven, moreover, made a music, the "music of the spheres," to which the notes of our diatonic scale correspond. There was also a metal associated with each: silver, mercury, copper, gold, iron, tin and lead, in that order. And the soul descending down from heaven to be born on earth picked up, as it came down, the qualities of those metals; so that our souls and bodies are compounds of the very elements of the universe and sing, so to say, the same song.

  Music and the arts, according to this early view, were to put us in mind of those harmonies, from which the general thoughts and affairs of this earth distract us. And in the Middle Ages the seven branches of learning were associated with those spheres: grammar, logic, and rhetoric (known as the trivium), arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy (the quadrivium). The crystalline spheres themselves, furthermore, were not, like glass, of inert matter, but living spiritual powers, presided over by angelic beings, or, as Plato had said, by sirens. And beyond all, there was that luminous celestial realm where God in majesty sat on his triune throne; so that when the soul, at death, returning to its maker, passed again through the seven spheres, it left off at each the accordant quality and arrived unclothed for the judgement. The emperor and the pope on earth governed, it was supposed, according to the laws and will of God, representing his power and authority at work in the ordained Christian commonalty. Thus in the total view of the medieval thinkers there was a perfect accord between the structure of the universe, the canons of the social order, and the good of the individual. Through unquestioning obedience, therefore, the Christian would put himself into accord not only with his society but also with his own best inward interests and the outward order of nature. The Christian Empire was an earthly reflex of the order of the heeavens, hieratically organized, with the vestments, thrones, and procedures of its stately courts inspired by celestial imagery, the bells of its cathedral spires and harmonies of its priestly choirs echoing in earthly tones the unearthly angelic hosts.

  Dante in his Divine Comedy unfolded a vision of the universe that perfectly satisfied both the apprived religious and the accepted scientific notions of his time. When Satan had been flung out of heaven for his pride and disobedience, he was supposed to have fallen like a flaming comet and, when he struck the earth, to have plowed right through to its center. The prodigious crater that he opened thereupon became the fiery pit of Hell; and the great mass of displaced earth pushed forth at the opposite pole became the Mountain of Purgatory, which is represented by Dante as lifting heavenward exactly at the South Pole. In his view, the entire southern hemisphere was of water, with this mighty mountain lifting out of it,on whose summit was the Earthly Paradise, from the center of which the four blessed rivers flowed of which Holy Scripture tells.

  And now it appears that when Columbus set sail across that "ocean blue" which many of his neighbors (and possibly also his sailors) believed was a terminal ocean surrounding a disklike earth, he himself had in mind an image more like that of Dante's world - of which we can read, in fact, in his journals. There we learn that in the course of his third voyage, when he reached for the first time the northern coast of South America, passing in his frail craft at great peril between Trinidad and the mainland, he remarked that the quantity of fresh water there mixing with the salt (pouring from the mouths of the Orinoco) was enormous. Knowing nothing of the continent beyond, but having in mind the medieval idea, he conjectured the fresh waters might be coming from one of the rivers of Paradise, pouring into the southern sea from the base of the great antipodal mountain. Moreover, when he then turned, sailing northward, and observed that his ships were faring more rapidly than when they had been sailing south, he took this to be evidence of their sailing now downhill, from the foot of the promontory of the mythic paradisial mountain.

  I like to think of the year 1492 as marking the end - or at least the beginning of the end - of the authority of the old mythological systems by which the lives of men had been supported and inspired from time out of mind. Shortly after Columbus's epochal voyage, Magellan circumnavigated the globe. Shortly before, Vasco da Gama had sailed around Africa to India. The earth was beginning to be systematically explored, and the old, symbolic, mythological geographies discredited. In attempting to show that there was somewhere on earth a garden of Paradise, Saint Thomas Aquinas had declared, writing only two centuries and a half before Columbus sailed: "The situation of Paradise is shut off from the habitable world by mountains or seas, or by some torrid region, which cannot be crossed; and so people who have written about topography make no mention of it." Fifty years after the first voyage, Copernicus published his paper on the heliocentric universe (1543); and some sixty-odd years after that, Galileo's little telescope brought tangible confirmation to this Copernican view. In the year 1616, Galileo was condemned by the Office of the Inquisition - like the boy beside me at the lunch counter - for holding and teaching a doctrine contrary to Holy Scripture. And today, of course, we have those very much larger telescopes on the summits, for example, of Mount Wilson in California, Mount Palomar in the same state, Kitt Peak in Arizona, and Haleakala, Hawaii; so that not only is the sun now well established at the center of our planetary system, but we know it to be but one of some two hundred billion suns in a galaxy of such blazing spheres: a galaxy shaped like a prodigious lens, many hundreds of quintillion miles in diameter. And not only that! But our telescopes now are disclosing to us, among those shining suns, certain other points of light that are themselves not suns but whole galaxies, each as large and great and inconceivable as our own - of which already many thousands upon thousands have been seen. So that, actually, the occasion for an experience of awe before the wonder of the universe that is being developed for us by our scientists surely is a far more marvelous, mind-blowing revelation than anything the prescientific world could ever have imagined. The little toy-room picture of the Bible is, in comparison, for children - or, in fact, not even for them any more, to judge from the words of that young scholar beside me at the counter, who, with his "Yes, I know, but this was a scientific paper," had already found a way to rescue his learning from the crumbling medieval architecture of his mother's Church.

  For not only have all the old mythic notions of the nature of the cosmos gone to pieces, but also all those of the origins and history of mankind. Already in Shakespeare's day, when Sir Walter Raleigh arrived in America and saw here all the new animals unknown to the other side, he understood as a master mariner that it would have been absolutely impossible for Noah to have packed examples of every species on earth into any ark, no matter how large. The Bible legend of the Flood was untrue: a theory that could not be "factualized." And we today (to make matters worse) are dating the earliest appearances of manlike creatures on this earth over a million years earlier than the Biblical date for God's creation of the world. The great paleolithic caves of Europe are from circa 30,000 B.C.; the beginnings of agriculture, 10,000 B.C. or so, and the first substantial towns about 7000. Yet Cain, the eldest son of Adam, the first man, is declared in Genesis 4:2 and 4:17 to have been "a tiller of the ground" and the builder of a city known as Enoch in the land of Nod, east of Eden. The Biblical "theory" has again been proved false, and "they have found the bones!"

  They have found also the buildings - and those who do not corroborate Scripture, either. for example, the period of Egyptian history supposed to have been of the Exodus - of Ramses II (1301 - 1234 B.C.), or perhaps Merneptah (1234 - 1220), or Seti II (1220 - 1200) - is richly represented in architectural and hieroglyphic remains, yet there is no notice anywhere of anything like those famous Biblical plagues, no record anywhere of anything even comparable. Moreover, as other records tell, Bedouin Hebrews, the "Habiru," were already invading Canaan during the reign of Ikhnaton (1377 - 1358), a century earlier than the Ramses date.

  The long and the short of it is simply that the Hebrew texts from which all these popular Jewish legends of Creation, Exodus, Forty Years in the Desert, and Conquest of Canaan are derived were not composed by "God" or even anyone named Moses, but are of various dates and authors, all much later than was formerly supposed. The first five books of the Old Testament (Torah) were assembled only after the period of Ezra (fourth century B.C.), and the documents of which it was fashioned date all the way from the ninth century B.C. (the so-called J and E texts) to the second or so (the P, or "priestly" writings). One notices, for example, that there are two accounts for the Flood. From the first we learn that Noah brought "two living things of every sort" into the Ark (Genesis 6:19-20; P text, post-Ezra), and from the second, "seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean" (Genesis 7:2-3; J text, ca. 800 B.C. +- 50). We also find two stories of Creation, the earlier in Genesis 2, the later in Genesis 1. In 2, a garden has been planted and a man created to tend it; next the animals are created, and finally (as in dream) Mother Eve is drawn from Adam's rib. In Genesis 1, on the other hand, God, alone with the cosmic waters, says, "Let there be light," etc., and, stage by stage, the universe comes into being: first, light; and the sun, three days later; then, vegetables, animals, and finally mankind, male and female together. Genesis 1 is of about the fourth century B.C. (the period of Aristotle), and 2, of the ninth or eighth (Hesiod's time).

  Comparative cultural studies have noe demonstrated beyond question that similar mythic tales are to be found in every quarter of this earth. When Cortes and his Catholic Spaniards arrived in Aztec Mexico, they immediately recognized in the local religion so many parallels to their own True Faith that they were hard put to explain the fact. There were towering pyramidal temples, representing, stage by stage, like Dante's Mountain of Purgatory, degrees of elevation of the spirit. There were thirteen heavens, each with its appropriate gods or angels; nine hells, or suffering souls. There was a High God above all, who was beyond all human thought and imaging. There was even an incarnate Savior, associated with a serpent, born of a virgin, who had died and was resurrected, one of whose symbols was a cross. The padres, to explain all this, invented two myths of their own. The first was that Saint Thomas, the Apostle of the Indies, had probably reached America and here preached Gospel; but, the doctrine had deteriorated, so that what they were seeing around them was simply a hideously degenerate form of their own revelation. And the second explanation, then, was that the devil was here deliberately throwing up parodies of the Christian faith, to frustrate the mission.

  Modern scholarship, systematically comparing the myths and rites of mankind, has found just about everywhere the legends of virgins giving birth to heroes who die and are resurrected. India is chock-full of such tales, and its towering temples, very like the Aztec ones, represent again our many-storied cosmic mountain, bearing Paradise on its summit and with horrible hells beneath. The Buddhists and the Jains have similar ideas. And, looking backward into the pre-Christian past, we discover in Egypt the mythology of the slain and resurrected Osiris; in Mesopotamia, Tammuz; in Syria, Adonis; and in Greece, Dionysos: all of which furnished models to the early Christians for their representations of Christ.

  Now the peoples of all great civilizations everywhere have been prone to interpret their own symbolic figures literally, and so to regard themselves as favored in a special way, in direct contact with the Absolute. Even the polytheistic Greeks and Romans, Hindu and Chinese, all of whom were able to view the gods and customs of others sympathetically, thought of their own as supreme, or, at the very least, superior; and among the monotheistic Jews, Christians, and Muhammedans, of course, the gods of others are regarded as no gods at all, but devils, and their worshipers as godless. Mecca, Rome, Jerusalem, and (less empathetically) Benares and Peking have been for centuries, therefore, each in its own way, the navel of the universe, connected directly - as by a hot line - with the Kingdom of Light or of God.

  However, today such claims can no longer be taken seriously by anyone with even a kindergarten education. And in this there is serious danger. For not only has it always been the way of multitudes to interpret their own symbols literally, but such literally read symbolic forms have always been - and still are, in fact - the supports of their civilizations, the supports of their moral orders, their cohesion, vitality, and creative powers. With the loss of them there follows uncertainty, and with uncertainty, disequilibrium, since life, as both Nietzsche and Ibsen knew, requires life-supporting illusions; and where these have been dispelled, there is nothing secure to hold on to, no moral law, nothing firm. We have seen what has happened, for example, to primitive communities unsettled by the white man's civilization. With their old taboos discredited, they immediately go to pieces, disintegrate, and become resorts of vice and disease.

  Today the same thing is happening to us. With our old mythologically founded taboos unsettled by our own modern sciences, there is everywhere in the civilized world a rapidly rising incidence of vice and crime, mental disorders, suicides and dope addictions, shattered homes, impudent children, violence, murder, and despair. These are facts; I am not inventing them. They give point to the cries of the preachers for repentance, conversion, and return to the old religion. And they challenge, too, the modern educator with respect to his own faith and ultimate loyalty. Is the conscientious teacher - concerned for the moral character as well as for the book-learning of his students - to be loyal first to the supportings of myths of our civilization or to the "factualized" truths of his science? Are the two on every level, at odds? Or is there not some point of wisdom beyond the conflicts of illusion and truth by which lives can be put back together again?

  That is a prime question, I would say, of this hour in the bringing up of children. That is the problem, indeed, that was sitting beside me that day at the lunch counter. In that case, both teacher and parent were on the side of an already outdated illusion; and generally - or so it looks to me - most guardians of the society have a tendency in that direction, asserting their authority not for, but against the search for disturbing truths. Such a trend has even turned up recently among social scientists and anthropologists with regard to discussions of race. And one can readily understand, even share in some measure, their anxiety, since lies are what the world lives on, and those who can face the challenge of a truth and building their lives to accord are finally not many, but the very few.

  It is my considered belief that the best answer to this critical problem will come from the findings of psychology, and specifically those findings having to do with the source and nature of myth. For since it has always been on myths that the moral orders of societies have been founded, the myths canonized as religion, and since the impact of science on myths results - apparently inevitably - in moral disequilibrium, we must now ask whether it is not possible to arrive scientifically at such an understanding of the life-supporting myths that, in criticizing their archaic features, we do not misrepresent and disqualify their necessity - throwing out, so to say, the baby (whole generations of babies) with the bath.

  Traditionally, in the orthodoxies of popular faiths mythic beings and events are generally regarded and taught as facts; and this particularly in the Jewish and Christian spheres. There was an Exodus from Egypt; there was a Resurrection of Christ. Historically, however, such facts are now in question; hence, the moral orders, too, that they support.

  When these stories are interpreted, though, not as reports of historic fact, but as merely imagined episodes projected onto history, and when they are recognized, then, as analogous to like projections produced elsewhere, in China, India, and Yucatan, the import becomes obvious; namely, that although false and to be rejected as accounts of physical history, such universally cherished figures of the mythic imagination must represent facts of the mind: "facts of the mind made manifest in a fiction of matter" as my friend the late Maya Deren once phrased the mystery. And whereas it must, of course, be the task of the historian, archaeologist, and prehistorian to show that the myths are as facts untrue - that there is no one Chosen People of God in this multiracial world, no Found Truth to which we must all bow, no One and Only True Church - it will be more and more, and with increasing urgency, the task of the psychologist and comparative mythologist not only to identify, analyze, and interpret the symbolized "facts of the mind", but also to evolve techniques for retaining these in health and, as the old traditions of the fading past dissolve, assist mankind to a knowledge and appreciation of our own inward, as well as the world's outward, orders of fact.

  There has been among psychologists a considerable change of attitude in this regard during the past three-quarters of a century or so. When reading the great and justly celebrated Golden Bough of Sir James G. Frazer, the first edition of which appeared in 1890, we are engaged with a typically nineteenth-century author, whose belief it was that the superstitions of mythology would be finally refuted by science and left forever behind. He saw the basis of myth in magic, and of magic in psychology. His psychology, however, being of an essentially rational kind, insufficiently attentive to the more deeply based, irrational impulsions of our nature, he assumed that when a custom or belief was shown to be unreasonable, it would presently disappear. And how wrong he was can be shown simply by pointing to any professor of philosophy at play in a bowling alley: watch him twist and turn after the ball has left his hand, to bring it over to the standing pins. Frazer's explanation of magic was that because things are associated in the mind they are believed to be associated in fact. Shake a rattle that sounds like falling rain, and rain will presently fall. Celebrate a ritual of sexual intercourse, and the fertility of nature will be furthered. An image like the likeness of an enemy, and given the enemy's name, can be worked upon, stuck with pins, etc., and the enemy will die. Or a piece of his clothing, lock of hair, fingernail paring, or other element once in contact with his person can be treated with a like result. Frazer's first law of magic, then, is that "like produces like," an effect resembles its cause; and his second, that "things which once were in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed." Frazer thought of both magic and religion as addressed finally and essentially to the control of external nature; magic mechanically, by imitative acts, and religion by prayer and sacrifice addressed to the personified powers supposed to control natural forces. He seems to have had no sense at all of their relevance and importance to the inward life, and so was confident that, with the progress and development of science and technology, both magic and religion would ultimately fade away, the ends that they had been thought to serve being better and more surely served by science.

  Simultaneously with these volumes of Frazer, however, there was appearing in Paris a no less important series of publications by the distinguished neurologist Jean Martin Charcot, treating of hysteria, aphasia, hypnotic states, and the like; demonstrating also the relevance of these findings to iconography and to art. Sigmund Freud spent a year with this master in 1885 and during the first quarter of the present century carried the study of hysteria and of dreams and myths to new depths. Myths, according to Freud's view, are of the psychological order of dream. Myths, so to say, are public dreams; dreams are private dreams. Both, in his opinion, are symptomatic of repressions of infantile incest wishes, the only essential difference between a religion and neurosis being that the former is the more public. The person with a neurosis feels ashamed, alone and isolated in his illness, whereas the gods are general projections onto a universal screen. They are equally manifestations of unconscious, compulsive fears and delusions. Moreover, all the arts, and particularly religious arts, are, in Freud's view, similarly pathological; likewise, all philosophies. Civilization itself, in fact, is a pathological surrogate for unconscious infantile disappointments. And thus Freud, like Frazer, judged the worlds of myth, magic and religion negatively, as errors to be refuted, surpassed, and supplanted finally by science.

  An altogether different approach is represented by Carl G. Jung, in whose view the imageries of mythology and religion serve positive, life-furthering ends. According to his way of thinking, all the organs of our bodies - not only those of sex and aggression - have their purposes and motives, some being subject to conscious control, others, however, not. Our outward-oriented consciousness, addressed to the demands of the day, may lose touch with these inward forces; and the myths, states Jung, when correctly read, are the means to bring us back in touch. They are telling us in picture language of powers of the psyche to be recognized and integrated in our lives, powers that have been common to the human spirit forever, and which represent that wisdom of the species by which man has weathered the milleniums. Thus they have not been, and can never be, displaced by the findings of science, which relate rather to the outside world than to the depths that we enter in sleep. Through a dialogue conducted with these inward forces through our dreams and through a study of myths, we can learn to know and come to terms with the greater horizon of our own deeper and wiser, inward self. And analogously, the society that cherishes and keeps its myths alive will be nourished from the soundest, richest strata of the human spirit.

  However, there is a danger here as well; namely, of being drawn by one's dreams and inherited myths away from the world of modern consciousness, fixed in patterns of archaic feeling and thought inappropriate to contemporary life. What is required, states Jung therefore, is a dialogue, not a fixture at either pole; a dialogue by way of symbolic forms put forth from the unconscious mind and recognized by the unconscious in continuous interaction.

  And so what then happens to the children of a society that has refused to allow any such interplay to develop, but, clinging to its inherited dream as to a fixture of absolute truth, rejects the novelties of consciousness, of reason, science, and new facts? There is a well-known history that may serve as sufficient warning.

  As every schoolboy knows, the beginnings of what we think of as science are to be attributed to the Greeks, and much of the knowledge that they assembled was carried and communicated to Asia, across Persia into India and onward even to China. But every one of those Oriental worlds was already committed to its own style of mythological thought, and the objective, realistic, inquisitive, and experimental attitudes and methods of the Greeks were let go. Compare the science of the Bible, for example - an Oriental scripture, assembled largely following the Maccabean rejection of Greek influence - with that, say, of Aristotle; not to mention Aristarchus (fl. 275 B.C.), for whom the earth was already a revolving sphere in orbit around the sun. Eratosthenes (fl. 250 B.C.) had already correctly calculated the circumference of the earth as 250,000 stadia (24,662 miles: correct equatorial figure, 24,902). Hipparchus (fl. 240 B.C.) had reckoned within a few miles both the moon's diameter and its mean distance from the earth. And now just try to imagine how much of blood, sweat, and real tears - people burned at the stake for heresy, and all that - would have been saved, if, instead of closing all the Greek pagan schools, A.D. 529, Justinian had encouraged them! In their place, we and our civilization have had Genesis 1 and 2 and a delay of well over a thousand years in the maturation not of science only but of our own and the world's civilization.

  One of the most interesting histories of what comes of rejecting science we may see in Islam, which in the beginning received, accepted, and even developed the classical legacy. For some five or six rich centuries there is an impressive Islamic record of scientific thought, experiment, and research, particularly in medicine. But then, alas! The authority of the general community, the Sunna, the consensus - which Mohammad the Prophet had declared would always be right - cracked down. The Word of God in the Koran was the only source and vehicle of truth. Scientific thought led to "loss of belief in the origin of the world and in the Creator." And so it was that, just when the light of Greek learning was beginning to be carried from Islam to Europe - from circa 1100 and onward - Islamic science and medicine came to a stand-still and went dead; and with that, Islam itself went dead. The torch not only of science, but of history as well, passed on to the Christian West. And we can thereafter follow the marvelous development in detail, from the early twelfth century onward, through a history of bold and brilliant minds, unmatched for their discoveries in the whole long history of human life. Nor can the magnitude of our debt to these few minds be fully appreciated by anyone who has never set foot in any of the lands that lie beyond the bounds of this European spell. In those so-called "developing nations" all social transformation is the result today, as it has been for centuries, not of continuing processes, but of invasions and their aftermath. Every little group is fixed in its own long-established, petrified mythology, changes having occurred only as a consequence of collisions; such as when the warriors of Islam broke into India and for a time there were inevitable exchanges of ideas; or when the British arrived and another upsetting era dawned of startling, unanticipated innovations. In our modern Western world, on the other hand, as a result of the continuing open-hearted and open-minded quest of a few brave men for the bound of boundless truth, there has been a self-consistent continuity of productive growth, in the nature almost of an organic flowering.

  But now, finally, what would the meaning be of the word "truth" to a modern scientist? Surely not the meaning it would have for a mystic! For the really great and essential fact about the scientific revelation - the most wonderful and most challenging fact - is that science does not and cannot pretend to be "true" in any absolute sense. It does not and cannot pretend to be final. It is a tentative organization of mere "working hypotheses" ("Oh, those scientists!" "Yes, I know, but they found the bones") that for the present appear to take into account all the relevant facts now known.

  And is there no implied intention, then, to rest satisfied with some final body or sufficient number of facts?

  No indeed! There is to be only a continuing search for more - as of a mind eager to grow. And that growth, as long as it lasts, will be the measure of the life of modern Western man, and of the world with all its promise that he has brought and is still bringing into being: which is to say, a world of change, new thoughts, new things, new magnitudes, and continuing transformation, not of petrifaction, rigidity, and some canonized found "truth."

  And so, my friends, we don't know a thing, and not even our science can tell us sooth; for it is no more than, so to say, an eagerness for truths, no matter where their allure may lead. And so it seems to me that here again we have a still greater, more alive, revelation than anything our old religions ever gave to us or even so much as suggested. The old texts comfort us with horizons. They tell us that a loving, kind, and just father is out there, looking down upon us, ready to receive us, and ever with our own dear lives on his mind. According to our sciences, on the other hand, nobody knows what is out there, or if there is any "out there" at all. All that can be said is that there appears to be a prodigious display of phenomena, which our senses and their instruments translate to our minds according to the nature of our minds. And there is a display of a quite different kind of imagery from within, which we experience best at night, in sleep, but which may also break into our daylight lives and even destroy us with madness. What the background of these forms, external and internal, may be, we can only surmise and possibly move toward through hypotheses. What they are, or where, or why (to ask all the usual questions) is an absolute mystery - the only absolute known, because absolutely unknown; and this we must all now have the magnitude to concede.

  There is no "Thou shalt!" any more. There is nothing one has to believe, and there is nothing one has to do. On the other hand, one can of course, if one prefers, still choose to play at the old Middle Ages game, or some Oriental game, or even some sort of primitive game. We are living in a difficult time, and whatever defends us from the madhouse can be applauded as good enough - for those without nerve.

  When I was in India in the winter of 1954, in conversation with an Indian gentleman of just about my own age, he asked with a certain air of distance, after we had exchanged formalities, "What are you Western scholars now saying about the dating of the Vedas?"

  The Vedas, you must know, are the counterparts for the Hindu of the Torah for the Jew. They are his scriptures of the most ancient date and therefore of the highest revelation.

  "Well," I answered, "the dating of the Vedas has lately been reduced and is being assigned, I believe, to something like, say 1500 to 1000 B.C. As you probably know," I added, "there have been found in India itself the remains of an earlier civilization than the Vedic."

  "Yes," said the Indian gentleman, not testily but firmly, with an air of untroubled assurance, "I know; but as an orthodox Hindu, I cannot believe that there is anything in the universe earlier than the Vedas." And he meant that.

  "Okay," said I. "Then why did you ask?"

  To give old India, however, its due, let me conclude with the fragment of a Hindu myth that to me seems to have captured in a particularly apt image the whole sense of such a moment as we today are all facing at this critical juncture of our general human history. It tells of a time at the very start of the history of the universe when the gods and their chief enemies, the anti-gods, were engaged in one of their eternal wars. They decided this time to conclude a truce and in cooperation to churn the Milky Ocean - the Universal Sea - for its butter of immortality. They took for their churning-spindle the Cosmic Mountain (the Vedic counterpart of Dante's Mountain of Purgatory), and for a twirling-cord they wrapped the Cosmic Serpent around it. Then, with the gods all pulling at the head end and the anti-gods at the tail, they caused that Cosmic Mountain to whirl. And they had been churning thus for a thousand years when a great black cloud of absolutely poisonous smoke came up out of the waters, and the churning had to stop. They had broken through to an unprecedented source of power, and what they were experiencing first were its negative, lethal effects. If the work were to continue, some one of them was going to have to swallow and absorb that poisonous cloud, and, as all knew, there was but one who would be capable of such an act; namely, the archetypal god of yoga, Shiva, a frightening, daemonic figure. He just took that entire poison cloud into his begging bowl and at one gulp drank it down, holding it by yoga at the level of his throat, where it turned the whole throat blue; and he has been known as Blue Throat, Nilakantha, ever since. Then, when that wonderful deed had been accomplished, all the other gods and the anti-gods returned to their common labor. And they churned and they churned and they went right on tirelessly churning, until lo! A number of wonderful benefits began coming up out of the Cosmic Sea: the moon, the sun, an elephant with eight trunks came up, a glorious steed, certain medicines, and yes, at last! A great radiant vessel filled with the ambrosial butter.

  This old Indian myth I offer as a parable for our world today, as an exhortation to press on with the work, beyond fear."