#of all the things that occurred this evening the periodic drum feature was perhaps the most thrilling

[kindahoping4forever]

Clips of Ashton performing Lose You live @ The Belasco - 18 July 2024

[chanluster]

the duke and i | {m} ; {f}

teaser | bridgerton! au | f2l! au | approx. 25k words

“The Duke of Hastings can show you much more than what you write of.”

s u m m a r y >> wishing to be a successful writer in the regency period seemed next to impossible for the sole daughter of a dead earl. with arising pressures from your mother to tie the knot, you turn to your dearest friend, hwang hyunjin, duke of hastings and the most eligible, scandalous bachelor of the season, for assistance. when he suggests the insane of idea of marrying each other to help each other, you agree to the proposal, unaware of just how much the duke can teach you of the wonders of matrimony.

w a r n i n g s >> noble! reader, duke! hyunjin, hyunjin is a fucking rake, reader is a fucking nerd, also really really innocent, hyunjin is sosososo hot, a lot of teasing, endearments, sexual tension, kissing, making out, corruption kink!!!!! corruption! fucking! kink! oral (f. receiving) fingering, unprotected sex (stay safe hoemies!!) orgasming on multiple occasions, (kind of) hate sex, there is fluff i promise, tiny bit of angst

p l a y l i s t >> here!

t a g l i s t >> @fivefootfuryanon @h0eforhyunjin16 @seoulicitae @linoscult @aliceu @hwangi @shipsaremything98 @babyyynatty @kabira @danyxthirstae01 @sunseokkies @lunefilm @severetimetravelnerd @minaamhh @starry--koo @ninjaleeknow @hyunjeonnies @inlovewithasa @titleisyettobemade @maedesculpaeusoubi​@healinghyunjin @fleeingreality (send an ask if u wish to be added!!)

a u t h o r ’ s  n o t e >> hello hi i am finally writing this fic!! bridgerton may be problematic but simon basset was still the sexiest man i’ve ever seen in period dramas so here is hyunjin being that exact sex god in this teaser i hope you enjoy <3

back to masterlist

“____, YOU HAVE WRITTEN A BLOODY MASTERPIECE!”

Your entire body stilled.

“I...I did what?”

“Wrote a masterpiece!” He swiped through the pages, lighting up at each word that passed his gaze. “A bestseller! An award winning novel!” 

A smile worked its way onto your lips. “You...you really think so?”

Sighing out in exasperation, he set the papers upon the desk as he began to lose his initial anger. “How could you be embarrassed about something so beautiful?” He put his hand on the gold chair, leaning onto its head. “Your descriptions were lovely, the characters are perfectly imperfect. You have really outdone a lot of the writers in circulation.”

Your shoulders sagged a little — almost as if you had been carrying a heavy burden, and this man had taken it off of you.

You made sure he saw your joy when you said, “Thank you, blondie.”

Seeing the pure contentment upon your face had your friend looking away, eyes narrowing to the plans once again.

“There was, however, one thing which needed improvement.”

The setback had you straightening once again, eager to hear. At least he was not sweetening it fully. “Go on.”

“As I was reading through, right till the end, I noticed a lack of very important details.” 

That was quite strange. “A lack of?” you asked, when you were so sure that you had added too much of everything.

“Yes.”

His fingers drummed against the velvet of the chair.

“I noticed that there was a deep lack of...passion.”

An incredulous look was your reply. “Passion?”

“Yes, passion. Desire.” He jerked his head towards the papers. “I hardly saw any of those emotions in the book.”

This new information was certainly quite worrying. “But I do not understand,” you started. “My whole novel is based on this relationship, of the love that blossoms and grows—”

“I understand that, darling, I really do,” he said. “I know what you are going to say.” 

The drumming continued. “But where is that residing in the chapters? Where is that physical lust implied in the characters?”

Lust. 

You had heard of the word before. Heard of its implications, yet never grasped the weight of its meaning. Was it just another form of longing? 

If only your mother had given you an education on this side of love.

“What do you mean...lust?”

Hyunjin raised a groomed brow. “What else could I mean, angel?”

The way he voiced that question, that endearment had you parting your mouth, unable to say anything. You tried to speak, to say something to ease the tension which came slithering back into the bedroom.

“I...what were you expecting? From the relationship.”

Curling his locks behind his ear, his gaze became obscure. “You spoke of forbidden love, of...of a coupling which should not be occurring but happened through the fate of the universe. Is that right?”

When you nodded, he carried on. “See, I did not sense that from their exchanges. Their emotions are tame, chaste. An innocence which cannot be tainted.

“Now where is the fun in that?”

You dared not break his gaze. “What is that ‘fun’?”

His eyes seemed to darken. “That ‘fun’ in the relationship is physicality. Where is that in your novel?” 

He took a step towards you. “Where are the unbreaking stares? The curious hands, aching to caress another’s? Where are the trembling breaths, the lust-stained sighs that fan lovers’ lips?”

The duke had you craning your neck back as he looked down at you. “Where are the kisses, my darling?”

You gulped. “K-kisses?”

“Yes, kisses,” he repeated softly. “Lips enveloping lips, tasting your inner workings? Travelling to your neck, your collarbone...places which cannot even be whispered in polite society?”

Each part he mentioned had its goosebumps pricking.

The bastard still did not stop. “Where is that passion, ____? Where is that forbidden love, which makes the heart burn wilder?”

And as he descended before you on his knees, hands settling on your lap, you had a feeling swirl up your sides which had never struck you before.

“If I were the man in your book, I would not be tame with you.” 

His eyes offered a new, intimidating darkness. “Because if you were my woman, then I do not think I’d control myself. The moment I’d catch the innocence dancing in your eyes, I’d have waltzed it away into my shadows.

“Only God could save you from my hunger, then.”

Silence descended upon the two of you.

One waiting for the other to speak, and the other unable to form the words to do so.

The moon had illuminated your husband, one side of his face glowing like a celestial being, the other side basked in darkness. How strange, when he had compared himself to it just a few moments before.

You seemed unable to look away from him. His gaze, always intense, now became so penetrating you wondered whether he could glance at your soul, quivering from his feedback. 

Improvements which you still did not quite comprehend, despite the implications.

Somehow, he could see it on your face. “I have a feeling you still do not grasp the idea. Is that correct?”

A half nod. “I…” God, speak! “I just...I have never understood it, Hyunjin.”

Your head dipped down, darting at the plains of your hands. “You asked me about lust, and I simply cannot answer because I do not know. I have never experienced such emotion.

“Hell, I have not witnessed a single action that you spoke of. How could you expect me to write of desires I have never even felt?”

This.

This was unchartered territory. This was a terrain you had not explored with him.

Yes, he was your best friend. But one does not talk of such...dangerous conservation when your best friend happens to be a man — a complete rake, at that.

It seemed as if the rake, too, was thinking the same. 

His legs, a force which had never let him down, threatened to buckle under him. His mouth opened, only for silence to answer you. 

Lord and all His subjects help him. He did not think he could contain it any longer.

And as his eyes exposed you, vulnerable before him, he only knew of one thing — one fact within this ocean of uncertainty you swam in.

He would jump into the waters for you. But not in the notion to haul you out to safety.

No, the duke would drag you down further, with him as your sole saviour.

Or even your destroyer. Your fated undoing.

For the Duke of Hastings will absolutely ruin you, body and soul.

“Hyunjin?”

A blink.

A singular action, dragging him back to dark, dark reality — sweeter than his fantasies as it sat before him, shy and wide-eyed.

An innocent reality all for him to defile.

“Yes, angel?”

You tried not to shudder at his lilting whisper. “How am I to be helped?”

The man did not even think of the possibilities, to your surprise.

If only you knew, how long he had kept them hidden for.

“How about...how about I assist you?”

Confusion washed over your features. “And how would you assist me, Hyunjin? You have never written a novel.”

His answer was a chuckle, revealing slight glimpses of his teeth as he stood.

“That is true, yes.”

Sitting down beside you, he planted his hands behind him on the bed, leaning into the position. 

“But what I can provide aid for is the one feature you lack in your writing.”

His voice right behind gave you a fright.

“Pure, raw lust.”

Looking over yourself, you watched him reclined in ease. Your speech was uneven as you said, “And...and how will you help me with that?”

“Simple, my darling.” A pause, looking you over. “I shall provide you with examples. Show you what truly happens between a man and woman when all they yearn for is each other.”

He saw the further questions in your gaze. The questions you dared not voice out loud, perhaps dared not understand. 

Smirking, he sat himself up, eyes never leaving yours as his hands encircled your own, bunched up in your dress. As his fingers brushed against your linen he felt his skin go aflame. 

“If, of course, you would let me.”

Tilting your head slightly upwards, you sensed a foreign warmth envelop your face, burning at the sight of your friend studying you like an empty canvas, begging to be filled.

Maybe you were an empty sheet of paper, waiting to be painted with guidance by the master. Maybe that master was beside you all along.

“What will you do to me, Hyunjin?”

There it was. The question which may have been his drug — his purest form of opium. 

Because when his hands travelled upwards, sliding to your face and imprisoning you with his stare, he knew he would become addicted.

A shame he did not care for his well-being when you were so fucking tempting.

“Show you what real passion tastes like.”

[radramblog]

Radiohead Retrospective Part 6: I try to sing along but I get it all wrong (‘CAUSE I’M NOT)

I don’t have as much to say about the lead-in to Hail to the Thief, much like I didn’t have much to say about that for Amnesiac. There isn’t as earth-shattering a shift as Kid A, and there isn’t a big story like with The Bends or OK Computer.

Hail to the Thief was (probably) the first batch of music Radiohead recorded after the sessions that produced Kid A/Amnesiac, meaning they had the full breadth of that experience to work with. What we received as a result was somewhat of a fusion of the electronic/jazz-influences of those albums and the rockier stuff of the band’s past.

Now I’ve heard a fair few complaints that this album is too long. That’s probably fair, it’s their longest album, with a total of 14 tracks, meaning it does kinda drag on a bit. Thom Yorke apparently agrees, seeing as he put out an alternative tracklist in ’08 (link) missing four songs. At the same time, I’m going to pull Death of the Author on this one, because as much as I’ve seen people complain that there’s too many songs on this, nobody ever seems to get along with which ones they’d cut- let alone people wanting to pull B-sides in the mix.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves there, aren’t we? Suppose I should just talk about the fucking album.

We begin this record, like all Radiohead records, with studio chatter. Wait, what the fuck? Yeah, it’s quiet but it’s there. Why not, right?

2+2=5 is a lovely little banger to open on. Unquestionably a rock song, it features a very slow and quiet (and heavily panned) first half before just fucking exploding in the latter half. It genuinely might be the most aggressive track the band has put out, a manic cascade of energy and breathy falsetto that’s genuinely headbangable. It’s also a fun thing to try and read the lyrics for, since the booklet the album comes with gives up for this bit and just goes “eezeepeezee NOT” or something along that line.

Oh yeah, that’s actually something worth bringing up. Neither Kid A nor Amnesiac had lyric booklets, deliberately obscuring the actual words to the songs, to the point where people had pretty wide interpretations of what they actually were. Considering the incompleteness of 2+2=5’s entry in it’s booklet, perhaps similar occurred with that. I’m still unsure if the subtitle of this post is actually the real lyrics.

Most people, I think, read the name of this track and just kind of assume it’s about 1984, the book boomers bring up whenever their freedumbs are impinged upon. And it’s not not about 1984, but there are extremely specific political references as well- Hail to the Thief, title of the album and line in the track, is a quote regarding the U.S. President of the time, George W Bush, who lost the popular vote but won the electoral college- something that sounds awfully familiar to those of us living in 2021. “January has April Showers” similarly refers to the unseasonable weather of Bush’s inauguration.

The last thing I’d like to bring up before we finally move onto the second track is that every single song in this album has a subtitle- for 2+2=5, it’s (The Lukewarm). According to Yorke, it’s a reference to Dante’s Inferno- the Lukewarm being the people around the edge of hell, damned due to their passive indifference- the kind of people the song’s lyric, “you have not been paying attention”, is referring to. I’m literally learning these meanings now, so we’ll see how many are worth bringing up.

Perhaps fortunately for my word count, Sit Down. Stand Up (yes the full stop/period is part of the title) (that’s not the subtitle) doesn’t have quite as much going on. Though it does have a video, for some reason. It’s a sort of repetitive trance of lyrics set to an electronic percussion, distant piano, and….I don’t know what other instrument is making those light dings. A xylophone? Interestingly, much like 2+2=5, it’s one that builds slowly into a chaotic finish, the raving of that track reflected in the almost cold mania of the raindrops the raindrops the raindrops the raindrops the raindrops……. It’s a decent enough song, but I legitimately cannot imagine listening to it ever outside the context of this album. Which is weird, because I definitely remember doing so when I was younger.

Track 3 is Sail To The Moon, a lullaby or ballad or sorts, a calm after the storm that is the previous track. Quite literally, considering it’s repeated lyric. And also literally, in that it was actually written for Thom’s son at the time. The subtitle, (Brush the Cobwebs Out of the Sky) evokes a very literal interpretation of the song’s title, which doesn’t actually reflect the lyrics.

Sail To The Moon is, as any good lullaby should be, utterly soothing. It’s calm, with Thom’s vocals just drifting across the piano, loose guitar, and percussion like a low tide. This is one of those songs I’ve come around to much more with time, because I distinctly remember skipping this a lot. You’ll find I’ve listened to this album a fair few times, though the section between 2+2=5 and Go To Sleep is one I skipped a fair bit, I think.

Backdrifts is a heavily electronic song that apparently in part predates Kid A and Amnesiac, which is kind of interesting- we’ll see a bit more of that later. As a track, it’s kind of spacy- the synth instrumental feels like something out of an eerie sci-fi film, if you notched the tempo up a bit.

Backdrifts is also the first song where I can see the “too long” argument come in. Not for the album (though I believe it’s one of the ones the alternate tracklist leaves out), but the song itself- I’m not sure this is a song that needs to be the second longest on the album (and only by a second). It’s fine, but considering what it comes off and what follows it, it’s in a bit of an awkward spot.

Go To Sleep is another one that kinda took me a while to get. I always heard it as being one of the top tracks on the thing, but it never really clicked with me for a while. I suppose I’ve never been massive on purely acoustic-guitar-led affairs? With age, though, I’ve better appreciated the depth the song has. Possibly the folkiest song the band has, it might have taken me getting into R.E.M. to recognize what the song is.

And the song is good!

But unfortunately for Go To Sleep, Where I End and You Begin is my favourite Radiohead track.

Holy shit, this song sounds so fucking sick. That percussion, that bassline, those fucking Ondes Martenot babyyyy. The song is spacey and ethereal, but tied down by the more traditional elements of the instrumentation. The fantastical lyricism tying into very real themes of personal boundaries, how they define how people interact, and how when they fail, things tend to go badly- “There’ll be no more lies, I will eat you alive”. It’s just an absolute fucking track.

I don’t think I can possibly explain why I like this song so much. Opinions and favourites are kind of like that. But it just speaks to me. The hyper-fuzzed out guitar soloing in the bridge, the loneliness of the second verse, it’s just incredible.

Also it possibly references Optimistic with the lyrics which is cool! I also like that song a lot.

The subtitle, (The Sky Is Falling In), is something I’ve not been able to find a reference for regarding it’s meaning, but since I like the song so much, I’m going to do some interpreting. If we assume the song is about boundaries in a relationship, it’s clear that the final lyrics are the utter devastation after those boundaries are breached. But “The Sky Is Falling In” fits better with the third verse, what with the house falling into the sea- the tipping point has broken, the household (or, the house) is in freefall, the sky is falling with it. But that’s just my opinion, man.

Still with me? We’re not even halfway.

We Suck Young Blood can best be described as off-kilter, perhaps even deliberately out of tempo. A very pointed use of handclaps, typically a part of substantially more energetic tracks than the dirge this song presents. I’m sure this isn’t what the song is about, but at face value the lyrics read like some sort of social service run by vampires- give us your young blood, and we’ll make things better for you. In a way, it’s kind of fun, silly even. I suppose the claps help with that. The track is otherwise just, melancholic- slow, piano-y, even the sudden pickup barely lasts- though I always forget it’s there, making it kind of a surprise every time. Like, oh shit, we’re going somewhere for a bit, I need to put my seatbelt back on- ah never mind it’s over (and then the song keeps going for a while).

We come now to The Gloaming, the song that was originally going to be the title track for the album. They changed it, apparently, because it got rejected- too gloomy, apparently. According to Wikipedia, a fair few of the subtitles from the album’s tracks also came from proposed names for the album proper.

The song itself is also pretty gloomy, as it happens. Apparently, it’s literally about the rise of fascism, so fair enough. An electronic track, with many a repetition, feeling uneasy and cold the whole way through (making the subtitle, Softly Open our Mouths in the Cold, pretty apt). It feels almost minimalistic at times, without especially many lines running through it- and without a big crescendo like many to most of these songs have, it feels somewhat lifeless- a deliberate choice, no doubt.

Oh shit, are we up to There There? We are! God this song fucks. Those opening drums are iconic, not to mention the way it layers onto itself. And the video! Eerie horror at its finest.

Like, I know Where I End and You Begin is my favourite song on this album unquestionably. But there is no doubt in my mind that There There is the best song on the album.

Good enough that I don’t have anything really interesting to say about it? Like many songs on this album, it’s got a big old crescendo, but the build is just so smooth, and the climax is just such a swelling. “We are accidents waiting to happen” is such a powerful lyric, and it’s hardly the only one on the song. A comment I’ve seen about the song describes the guitar as akin to laughter, a mood I can definitely see in the track itself.

Anyway the song ended so I guess I gotta move on.

I Will is kind of an interesting case. It’s unquestionably one of the most emotional songs on the album, considering it was written about a U.S. bombing of a shelter that wiped out 408 innocent people, and that’s fucking horrifying (S.O.P. for the Army it seems). It’s short, and…well it’s not sweet, but it is tragic and haunting.

It’s also a song that went through variation on variation before finally appearing on this album. Early live performances date to 5 whole years before Hail to the Thief, and considering the bombing was in 1991, it was probably written well before then. Versions of this track are kind of everywhere as a result- one early version was eventually chopped up and reproduced into Like Spinning Plates on Amnesiac- reconstructions of the process are available on citizeninsane.eu- or they were, at least, because apparently that site’s embeds relied on Flash.

I do particularly want to highlight the Los Angeles version of the song, which was a b-side on 2+2=5 (and also was on the Com Lag EP), because it’s a fuller version of the track- not necessarily better, but the full band is involved, making it a much different experience.

Track 11, A Punchup At A Wedding, has become somewhat of a meme on the Radiohead subreddit. Mostly it’s a result of the opening lyric, literally “No” 42 times over. The subtitle, for reference, is also all “No”s. On a similarly lighter note, the track is apparently a result of the band stumbling upon just a needlessly scathing review of one of their live shows, making it one of the few Radiohead tracks I could confidently say is about one person in particular. With all the second person, the lyrics probably wouldn’t be out of place on an early Linkin Park track (whether that’s an insult or not, I’ll leave as an exercise to the reader).

The slow, almost marchlike rhythm of the song well suits the tone of the lyrics, and to be clear, the tone is pretty much “Man, what the fuck is wrong with you?” and the emotions that come with being torn down by someone who doesn’t know you or really recognise what they’re doing. I suppose it’s refreshing for the metaphor to be this obvious for once. It’s a pretty decent song, piano-driven like many a song on the album, which means theoretically if I ever relearn the instrument I could play it. Maybe.

Myxomatosis, while a pretty fucked up disease, is an absolutely excellent song. If 2+2=5 is the heaviest rock song on the album, Myxomatosis is the heaviest electronic song on it. The lyricism is incredibly dark, unsettling and violent, suiting the harsh buzzing synth line. They say fuck in this one! And the way the entire song save percussion drops for the key line (I don’t know why I feel so tongue-tied/skinned alive) is so excellent. Interestingly, said line also appears word-for-word in Cuttooth, a B-side from Amnesiac, though the mood is profoundly different.

I suspect the song being named Myxomatosis and being pretty clearly about public perception and fame should give you a hint as to how the band views the media and the world of the rich and famous- the subtitle, (Judge, Jury, & Executioner), certainly adds to that. Thom sounds a mix of hesitant, confused, disgusted, and frustrated on the track, and it works incredibly well.

We’re finally on to the penultimate track, Scatterbrain. And I’m going to be honest, I don’t know what this one’s about. I’m out of patience to figure out what Genius is going on about, though it’s fairly incomplete for this track anyway. It’s relatively simple, for a Radiohead track, and pretty enough, but I can see why people don’t tend to like this one as much. I distinctly remember it being bottom of the list or close to it on a subreddit poll at some point (might have been above We Suck Young Blood, which I don’t agree with).

Scatterbrain kind of just has the problem of being a pretty decent album track, right between two of my favourite songs on the album. Which is awkward as always.

Our final song is A Wolf at the Door, and talk about a closer. Thom has described it as like waking up from a nightmare and finding out reality is worse, which is both relatable and upsetting. The song is grim, with confusing imagery in the verses leading to a desperately emotional chorus about someone’s children being fucking ransomed. Also, a bridge with more Nos than A Punchup at a Wedding, where are your No (x105) memes Reddit, get it fucking together!

The lyrics of the verses in A Wolf at the Door have a swaying flow to them that’s almost rap-like, especially since the falsetto that Thom usually sings in around this time is completely absent from them. This makes it one of the few rap-ish songs I’ve actually tried to perform, and I’d probably be pretty okay if I didn’t keep forgetting bits.

The song is just, frustration (verse 1), desperation (chorus), anger/frustration (verse 2), and back to desperation (chorus) again, which doesn’t quite fit the stages of grief cleanly, but that’s probably fine. The final vocalisation of the song (and thereby the album) feels almost like a sorrowful howl, which makes less sense the more I think about the imagery and intent of the lyrics, so maybe just ignore that actually. There is just so much imagery packed into this track, especially in the second verse, that listing it out is pointless- but it all just clicks so well, into this deluge of frustration and madness carried along by that instrumental that just seems to get lower and lower forever.

Anyway that’s the whole album, isn’t it? I’m going to keep this outro brief, because we’re approaching 3000 words at this point, but I think that fact says it all. There’s a lot of Hail to the Thief, but it never really misses per se. It has less great songs, but no bad ones. I’d argue my own biases probably cloud my judgement, but even if some of the tracks are more forgettable, the highs are so high for me that it easily stands among the band’s best.

Unfortunately, not everyone agrees with me. But that’s fine, this is my opinion, the rest of the world is allowed to be wrong.

A lot of things would happen between Hail to the Thief’s release in 2003 and the followup, In Rainbows, in 2007. But that’s ultimately a story for another day. A week from today, to be precise.

See you then?

[mattbrothersscriptwriter]

My Top 20 Films of 2019 - Part Two

I don’t think I’ve had a year where my top ten jostled and shifted as much as this one did - these really are the best of the best and my personal favourites of 2019.

10. Toy Story 4

I think we can all agree that Toy Story 3 was a pretty much perfect conclusion to a perfect trilogy right? About as close as is likely to get, I’m sure. I shared the same trepidation when part four was announced, especially after some underwhelming sequels like Finding Dory and Cars 3 (though I do have a lot of time for Monsters University and Incredibles 2). So maybe it’s because the odds were so stacked against this being good but I thought it was wonderful. A truly existential nightmare of an epilogue that does away with Andy (and mostly kids altogether) to focus on the dreams and desires of the toys themselves - separate from their ‘duties’ as playthings to biological Gods. What is their purpose in life without an owner? Can they be their own person and carve their own path? In the case of breakout new character Forky (Tony Hale), what IS life? Big big questions for a cash grab kids films huh?

The animation is somehow yet another huge leap forward (that opening rainstorm!), Bo Peep’s return is excellently pitched and the series tradition of being unnervingly horrifying is back as well thanks to those creepy ventriloquist dolls! Keanu Reeves continues his ‘Keanuassaince‘ as the hilarious Duke Caboom and this time, hopefully, the ending at least feels finite. This series means so much to me: I think the first movie is possibly the tightest, most perfect script ever written, the third is one of my favourites of the decade and growing up with the franchise (I was 9 when the first came out, 13 for part two, 24 for part three and now 32 for this one), these characters are like old friends so of course it was great to see them again. All this film had to do was be good enough to justify its existence and while there are certainly those out there that don’t believe this one managed it, I think the fact that it went as far as it did showed that Pixar are still capable of pushing boundaries and exploring infinity and beyond when they really put their minds to it.

9. The Nightingale

Hoo boy. Already controversial with talk of mass walkouts (I witnessed a few when this screened at Sundance London), it’s not hard to see why but easy to understand. Jennifer Kent (The Babadook) is a truly fearless filmmaker following up her acclaimed suburban horror movie come grief allegory with a period revenge tale set in the Tasmanian wilderness during British colonial rule in the early 1800s. It’s rare to see the British depicted with the monstrous brutality for which they were known in the distant colonies and this unflinching drama sorely needed an Australian voice behind the camera to do it justice.

The film is front loaded with some genuinely upsetting, nasty scenes of cruel violence but its uncensored brutality and the almost casual nature of its depiction is entirely the point - this was normalised behaviour over there and by treating it so matter of factly, it doesn’t slip into gratuitous ‘movie violence’. It is what it is. And what it is is hard to watch. If anything, as Kent has often stated, it’s still toned down from the actual atrocities that occurred so it’s a delicate balance that I think Kent more than understands. Quoting from an excellent Vanity Fair interview she did about how she directs, Kent said “I think audiences have become very anaesthetised to violence on screen and it’s something I find disturbing... People say ‘these scenes are so shocking and disturbing’. Of course they are. We need to feel that. When we become so removed from violence on screen, this is a very irresponsible thing. So I wanted to put us right within the frame with that person experiencing the loss of everything they hold dear”. 

Aisling Franciosi is next level here as a woman who has her whole life torn from her, leaving her as nothing but a raging husk out for vengeance. It would be so easy to fall into odd couple tropes once she teams up with reluctant native tracker Billy (an equally impressive newcomer, Baykali Ganambarr) but the film continues to stay true to the harsh racism of the era, unafraid to depict our heroine - our point of sympathy - as horrendously racist towards her own ally. Their partnership is not easily solidified but that makes it all the stronger when they star to trust each other. Sam Claflin is also career best here, weaponizing his usual charm into dangerous menace and even after cementing himself as the year’s most evil villain, he can still draw out the humanity in such a broken and corrupt man.

Gorgeously shot in the Academy ratio, the forest landscape here is oppressive and claustrophobic. Kent also steps back into her horror roots with some mesmerising, skin crawling dream scenes that amplify the woozy nightmarish tone and overbearing sense of dread. Once seen, never forgotten, this is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea (and that’s fine) but when cinema can affect you on such a visceral level and be this powerful, reflective and honest about our own past, it’s hard to ignore. Stunning.

8. The Irishman

Aka Martin Scorsese’s magnum opus, I did manage to see this one in a cinema before the Netflix drop and absolutely loved it. I’ve watched 85 minute long movies that felt longer than this - Marty’s mastery of pace, energy and knowing when to let things play out in agonising detail is second to none. This epic tale of  the life of Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) really is the cinematic equivalent of having your cake and eating it too, allowing Scorsese to run through a greatest hits victory lap of mobster set pieces, alpha male arguments, a decades spanning life story and one (last?) truly great Joe Pesci performance before simply letting the story... continue... to a natural, depressing and tragic ending, reflecting the emptiness of a life built on violence and crime.

For a film this long, it’s impressive how much the smallest details make the biggest impacts. A stammering phone call from a man emotionally incapable of offering any sort of condolence. The cold refusal of forgiveness from a once loving daughter. A simple mirroring of a bowl of cereal or a door left slightly ajar. These are the parts of life that haunt us all and it’s what we notice the most in a deliberately lengthy biopic that shows how much these things matter when everything else is said and done. The violence explodes in sudden, sharp bursts, often capping off unbearably tense sequences filled with the everyday (a car ride, a conversation about fish, ice cream...) and this contrast between the whizz bang of classic Scorsese and the contemplative nature of Silence era Scorsese is what makes this film feel like such an accomplishment. De Niro is FINALLY back but it’s the memorably against type role for Pesci and an invigorated Al Pacino who steals this one, along with a roll call of fantastic cameos, with perhaps the most screentime given to the wonderfully petty Stephen Graham as Tony Pro, not to mention Anna Paquin’s near silent performance which says more than possibly anyone else. 

Yes, the CG de-aging is misguided at best, distracting at worst (I never really knew how old anyone was meant to be at any given time... which is kinda a problem) but like how you get used to it really quickly when it’s used well, here I kinda got past it being bad in an equally fast amount of time and just went with it. Would it have been a different beast had they cast younger actors to play them in the past? Undoubtedly. But if this gives us over three hours of Hollywood’s finest giving it their all for the last real time together, then that’s a compromise I can live with.

7. The Last Black Man in San Francisco

Wow. I was in love with this film from the moving first trailer but then the film itself surpassed all expectations. This is a true indie film success story, with lead actor Jimmie Fails developing the idea with director Joe Talbot for years before Kickstarting a proof of concept and eventually getting into Sundance with short film American Paradise, which led to the backing of this debut feature through Plan B and A24. The deeply personal and poetic drama follows a fictionalised version of Jimmie, trying to buy back an old Victorian town house he claims was built by his grandfather, in an act of rebellion against the increasingly gentrified San Francisco that both he and director Talbot call home.

The film is many things - a story of male friendship, of solidarity within our community, of how our cities can change right from underneath us - it moves to the beat of it’s own drum, with painterly cinematography full of gorgeous autumnal colours and my favourite score of the year from Emile Mosseri. The performances, mostly by newcomers or locals outside of brilliant turns from Jonathan Majors, Danny Glover and Thora Birch, are wonderful and the whole thing is such a beautiful love letter to the city that it makes you ache for a strong sense of place in your own home, even if your relationship with it is fractured or strained. As Jimmie says, “you’re not allowed to hate it unless you love it”.

For me, last year’s Blindspotting (my favourite film of the year) tackled gentrification within California more succinctly but this much more lyrical piece of work ebbs and flows through a number of themes like identity, family, memory and time. It’s a big film living inside a small, personal one and it is not to be overlooked.

6. Little Women

I had neither read the book nor seen any prior adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel so to me, this is by default the definitive telling of this story. If from what I hear, the non linear structure is Greta Gerwig’s addition, then it’s a total slam dunk. It works so well in breaking up the narrative and by jumping from past to present, her screenplay highlights certain moments and decisions with a palpable sense of irony, emotional weight or knowing wink. Getting to see a statement made with sincere conviction and then paid off within seconds, can be both a joy and a surefire recipe for tears. Whether it’s the devastating contrast between scenes centred around Beth’s illness or the juxtaposition of character’s attitudes to one another, it’s a massive triumph. Watching Amy angrily tell Laurie how she’s been in love with him all her life and then cutting back to her childishly making a plaster cast of her foot for him (’to remind him how small her feet are’) is so funny. 

Gerwig and her impeccable cast bring an electric energy to the period setting, capturing the big, messy realities of family life with a mix of overwhelming cross-chatter and the smallest of intimate gestures. It’s a testament to the film that every sister feels fully serviced and represented, from Beth’s quiet strength to Amy’s unforgivable sibling rivalry. Chris Cooper’s turn as a stoic man suffering almost imperceptible grief is a personal heartbreaking favourite. 

The book’s (I’m assuming) most sweeping romantic statements are wonderfully delivered, full of urgent passion and relatable heartache, from Marmie’s (Laura Dern) “I’m angry nearly every day of my life” moment to Jo’s (Saoirse Ronan) painful defiance of feminine attributes not being enough to cure her loneliness. The sheer amount of heart and warmth in this is just remarkable and I can easily see it being a film I return to again and again.

5. Booksmart

2019 has been a banner year for female directors, making their exclusion from some of the early awards conversations all the more damning. From this list alone, we have Lulu Wang, Jennifer Kent and Greta Gerwig. Not to mention Lorene Scafaria (Hustlers), Melina Matsoukas (Queen & Slim), Jocelyn DeBoer & Dawn Luebbe (Greener Grass), Sophie Hyde (Animals) and Rose Glass (Saint Maud - watch out for THIS one in 2020, it’s brilliant). Perhaps the most natural transition from in front of to behind the camera has been made by Olivia Wilde, who has created a borderline perfect teen comedy that can make you laugh till you cry, cry till you laugh and everything in-between.

Subverting the (usually male focused) ‘one last party before college’ tropes that fuel the likes of Superbad and it’s many inferior imitators, Booksmart follows two overachievers who, rather than go on a coming of age journey to get some booze or get laid, simply want to indulge in an insane night of teenage freedom after realising that all of the ‘cool kids’ who they assumed were dropouts, also managed to get a place in all of the big universities. It’s a subtly clever remix of an old favourite from the get go but the committed performances from Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein put you firmly in their shoes for the whole ride. 

It’s a genuine blast, with big laughs and a bigger heart, portraying a supportive female friendship that doesn’t rely on hokey contrivances to tear them apart, meaning that when certain repressed feelings do come to the surface, the fallout is heartbreaking. As I stated in a twitter rave after first seeing it back in May, every single character, no matter how much they might appear to be simply representing a stock role or genre trope, gets their moment to be humanised. This is an impeccably cast ensemble of young unknowns who constantly surprise and the script is a marvel - a watertight structure without a beat out of place, callbacks and payoffs to throwaway gags circle back to be hugely important and most of all, the approach taken to sexuality and representation feels so natural. I really think it is destined to be looked back on and represent 2019 the way Heathers does ‘88, Clueless ‘95 or Easy A 2010. A new high benchmark for crowd pleasing, indie comedy - teen or otherwise.

4. Ad Astra

Brad Pitt is one of my favourite actors and one who, despite still being a huge A-lister even after 30 years in the game, never seems to get enough credit for the choices he makes, the movies he stars in and also the range of stories he helps produce through his company, Plan B. 2019 was something of a comeback year for Pitt as an actor with the insanely measured and controlled lead performance seen here in Ad Astra and the more charismatic and chaotic supporting role in Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.

I love space movies, especially those that are more about broken people blasting themselves into the unknown to search for answers within themselves... which manages to sum up a lot of recent output in this weirdly specific sub-genre. First Man was a devastating look at grief characterised by a man who would rather go to a desolate rock than have to confront what he lost, all while being packaged as a heroic biopic with a stunning score. Gravity and The Martian both find their protagonists forced to rely on their own cunning and ingenuity to survive and Interstellar looked at the lengths we go to for those we love left behind. Smaller, arty character studies like High Life or Moon are also astounding. All of this is to say that Ad Astra takes these concepts and runs with them, challenging Pitt to cross the solar system to talk some sense into his long thought dead father (Tommy Lee Jones). But within all the ‘sad dad’ stuff, there’s another film in here just daring you to try and second guess it - one that kicks things off with a terrifying free fall from space, gives us a Mad Max style buggy chase on the moon and sidesteps into horror for one particular set-piece involving a rabid baboon in zero G! It manages to feel so completely nuts, so episodic in structure, that I understand why a lot of people were turned off - feeling that the overall film was too scattershot to land the drama or too pondering to have any fun with. I get the criticisms but for me, both elements worked in tandem, propelling Pitt on this (assumed) one way journey at a crazy pace whilst sitting back and languishing in the ‘bigger themes’ more associated with a Malik or Kubrick film. Something that Pitt can sell me on in his sleep by this point.

I loved the visuals from cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema (Interstellar), loved the imagination and flair of the script from director James Gray and Ethan Gross and loved the score by Max Richter (with Lorne Balfe and Nils Frahm) but most of all, loved Pitt, proving that sometimes a lot less, is a lot more. The sting of hearing the one thing he surely knew (but hoped he wouldn’t) be destined to hear from his absent father, acted almost entirely in his eyes during a third act confrontation, summed up the movie’s brilliance for me - so much so that I can forgive some of the more outlandish ‘Mr Hyde’ moments of this thing’s alter ego... like, say, riding a piece of damaged hull like a surfboard through a meteor debris field! 

3. Avengers: Endgame

It’s no secret that I think Marvel, the MCU in particular, have been going from strength to strength in recent years, slowly but surely taking bigger risks with filmmakers (the bonkers Taika Waititi, the indie darlings of Ryan Coogler, Cate Shortland and Chloe Zhao) whilst also carefully crafting an entertaining, interconnected universe of characters and stories. But what is the point of building up any movie ‘universe’ if you’re not going to pay it off and Endgame is perhaps the strongest conclusion to eleven years of movie sequels that fans could have possibly hoped for.

Going into this thing, the hype was off the charts (and for good reason, with it now being the highest grossing film of all time) but I remember souring on the first entry of this two-parter, Infinity War, during the time between initial release and Endgame’s premiere. That film had a game-changing climax, killing off half the heroes (and indeed the universe’s population) and letting the credits role on the villain having achieved his ultimate goal. It was daring, especially for a mammoth summer blockbuster but obviously, we all knew the deaths would never be permanent, especially with so many already-announced sequels for now ‘dusted’ characters. However, it wasn’t just the feeling that everything would inevitably be alright in the end. For me, the characters themselves felt hugely under-serviced, with arguably the franchise’s main goody two shoes Captain America being little more than a beardy bloke who showed up to fight a little bit. Basically what I’m getting at is that I felt Endgame, perhaps emboldened by the giant runtime, managed to not only address these character slights but ALSO managed to deliver the most action packed, comic booky, ‘bashing your toys together’ final fight as well.

It’s a film of three parts, each pretty much broken up into one hour sections. There’s the genuinely new and interesting initial section following our heroes dealing with the fact that they lost... and it stuck. Thor angrily kills Thanos within the first fifteen minutes but it’s a meaningless action by this point - empty revenge. Cutting to five years later, we get to see how defeat has affected them, for better or worse, trying to come to terms with grief and acceptance. Cap tries to help the everyman, Black Widow is out leading an intergalactic mop up squad and Thor is wallowing in a depressive black hole. It’s a shocking and vibrantly compelling deconstruction of the whole superhero thing and it gives the actors some real meat to chew on, especially Robert Downy Jr here who goes from being utterly broken to fighting within himself to do the right thing despite now having a daughter he doesn’t want to lose too. Part two is the trip down memory lane, fan service-y time heist which is possibly the most fun section of any of these movies, paying tribute to the franchise’s past whilst teetering on a knife’s edge trying to pull off a genuine ‘mission impossible’. And then it explodes into the extended finale which pays everyone off, demonstrates some brilliantly imaginative action and sticks the landing better than it had any right to. In a year which saw the ending of a handful of massive geek properties, from Game of Thrones to Star Wars, it’s a miracle even one of them got it right at all. That Endgame managed to get it SO right is an extraordinary accomplishment and if anything, I think Marvel may have shot themselves in the foot as it’s hard to imagine anything they can give us in the future having the intense emotional weight and momentum of this huge finale.

2. Knives Out

Rian Johnson has been having a ball leaping into genre sandpits and stirring shit up, from his teen spin on noir in Brick to his quirky con man caper with The Brothers Bloom, his time travel thriller Looper and even his approach to the Star Wars mythos in The Last Jedi. Turning his attention to the relatively dead ‘whodunnit’ genre, Knives Out is a perfect example of how to celebrate everything that excites you about a genre whilst weaponizing it’s tropes against your audience’s baggage and preconceptions.

An impeccable cast have the time of their lives here, revelling in playing self obsessed narcissists who scramble to punt the blame around when the family’s patriarch, a successful crime novelist (Christopher Plummer), winds up dead. Of course there’s something fishy going on so Daniel Craig’s brilliantly dry southern detective Benoit Blanc is called in to investigate.There are plenty of standouts here, from Don Johnson’s ignorant alpha wannabe Richard to Michael Shannon’s ferocious eldest son Walt to Chris Evan’s sweater wearing jock Ransom, full of unchecked, white privilege swagger. But the surprise was the wholly sympathetic, meek, vomit prone Marta, played brilliantly by Ana de Armas, cast against her usual type of sultry bombshell (Knock Knock, Blade Runner 2049), to spearhead the biggest shake up of the genre conventions. To go into more detail would begin to tread into spoiler territory but by flipping the audience’s engagement with the detective, we’re suddenly on the receiving end of the scrutiny and the tension derived from this switcheroo is genius and opens up the second act of the story immensely.

The whole thing is so lovingly crafted and the script is one of the tightest I’ve seen in years. The amount of setup and payoff here is staggering and never not hugely satisfying, especially as it heads into it’s final stretch. It really gives you some hope that you could have such a dense, plotty, character driven idea for a story and that it could survive the transition from page to screen intact and for the finished product to work as well as it does. I really hope Johnson returns to tell another Benoit Blanc mystery and judging by the roaring box office success (currently over $200 million worldwide for a non IP original), I certainly believe he will.

1. Eighth Grade

My film of the year is another example of the power of cinema to put us in other people’s shoes and to discover the traits, fears, joys and insecurities that we all share irregardless. It may shock you to learn this but I have never been a 13 year old teenage girl trying to get by in the modern world of social media peer pressure and ‘influencer’ culture whilst crippled with personal anxiety. My school days almost literally could not have looked more different than this (less Instagram, more POGs) and yet, this is a film about struggling with oneself, with loneliness, with wanting more but not knowing how to get it without changing yourself and the careless way we treat those with our best interests at heart in our selfish attempt to impress peers and fit in. That is understandable. That is universal. And as I’m sure I’ve said a bunch of times in this list, movies that present the most specific worldview whilst tapping into universal themes are the ones that inevitably resonate the most.

Youtuber and comedian Bo Burnham has crafted an impeccable debut feature, somehow portraying a generation of teens at least a couple of generations below his own, with such laser focused insight and intimate detail. It’s no accident that this film has often been called a sort of social-horror, with cringe levels off the charts and recognisable trappings of anxiety and depression in every frame. The film’s style services this feeling at every turn, from it’s long takes and nauseous handheld camerawork to the sensory overload in it’s score (take a bow Anna Meredith) and the naturalistic performances from all involved. Burnham struck gold when he found Elsie Fisher, delivering the most painful and effortlessly real portrayal of a tweenager in crisis as Kayla. The way she glances around skittishly, the way she is completely lost in her phone, the way she talks, even the way she breathes all feeds into the illusion - the film is oftentimes less a studio style teen comedy and more a fly on the wall documentary. 

This is a film that could have coasted on being a distant, social media based cousin to more standard fare like Sex Drive or Superbad or even Easy A but it goes much deeper, unafraid to let you lower your guard and suddenly hit you with the most terrifying scene of casually attempted sexual aggression or let you watch this pure, kindhearted girl falter and question herself in ways she shouldn’t even have to worry about. And at it’s core, there is another beautiful father/daughter relationship, with Josh Hamilton stuck on the outside looking in, desperate to help Kayla with every fibre of his being but knowing there are certain things she has to figure out for herself. It absolutely had me and their scene around a backyard campfire is one of the year’s most touching.

This is a truly remarkable film that I think everyone should seek out but I’m especially excited for all the actual teenage girls who will get to watch this and feel seen. This isn’t about the popular kid, it isn’t about the dork who hangs out with his or her own band of misfits. This is about the true loner, that person trying everything to get noticed and still ending up invisible, that person trying to connect through the most disconnected means there is - the internet - and everything that comes with it. Learning that the version of yourself you ‘portray’ on a Youtube channel may act like they have all the answers but if you’re kidding yourself then how do you grow? 

When I saw this in the cinema, I watched a mother take her seat with her two daughters, aged probably at around nine and twelve. Possibly a touch young for this, I thought, and I admit I cringed a bit on their behalf during some very adult trailers but in the end, I’m glad their mum decided they were mature enough to see this because a) they had a total blast and b) life simply IS R rated for the most part, especially during our school years, and those girls being able to see someone like Kayla have her story told on the big screen felt like a huge win. I honestly can’t wait to see what Burnham or Fisher decide to do next. 2019 has absolutely been their year... and it’s been a hell of a year.

[taggerbug]

spiderman science

 v. 2.0

If you like Spiderman meta, or want to read what Spiderman would look like if he were more realistic, here you go.This is going to be a long one, folks. Thanks to @redmiel for encouraging me to post these notes. 

Preface: I’ve never read any Spiderman comics, and my first exposure to any sort of Spiderman lore was seeing Spider-Man: Homecoming a couple months ago. I’ve been an amateur entomologist for 12 years, so I decided the best way to cope with the sheer audacity of the meta in that movie (mechanical spinnerets??? cowards) would be to do some research and, essentially, design a Spiderman based on real spider characteristics, adapted to a human form and while keeping a very rough sketch of what Spiderman is supposed to be in mind. This has been a fun project to keep up with, so here’s what I have so far:

Species

Based on what I saw in Homecoming, I’d pin down the approximate species of spider for Peter Parker to inherit his abilities from as being a jumping spider, with a little tarantula and spitting spider mixed in. Jumping spiders are fairly unique among spiders, as they have front-facing eyes (and subsequently, better vision), are active hunters rather than sit-and-wait hunters, and of course can jump up to 14 times their own body length. I’ll explain the tarantula and spitting spider traits later.

Silk

What kind of Iron Man-worshipping heretic gives Spiderman mechanical spinnerets and artificial web fluid?? Real spider silk is so much cooler to work with. As a precedent, let’s put spinnerets on Spiderman’s wrists. The silk glands would be located in the shoulders, as that’s the best location that can be transferred to human anatomy - the spitting spider’s venom and silk glands are located in the cephalothorax, the first segment of a spider’s body. 

Anyway, spider silk is really neat. It’s stronger than a steel thread of the same size, can stretch up to 200 times its original length, and the spider (peter) can control the diameter of the silk thread with the spinnerets! The web-based combat in Homecoming was okay, but it completely missed out on a few natural defenses that spiders actually use silk for, like dropping down on prey with silk nets, or setting up an “alert system” with silk triplines.

“Spider Sense”

I was actually mildly pleasantly surprised at the way the “spider sense” was portrayed in the Infinity War trailer. Spiders can detect low-level vibrations with the hairs on their bodies, similar to the way Peter’s hair suddenly stood up. In this context, the detection of low-level vibrations can be translated to being able to perceive sudden movements and lurking enemies without being a terrible stretch.

Assorted Physiological Features and Behaviours (not including combat-based)

Key terms are in bold, because this is a lot of text.

Here’s the fun part, in my opinion. Spiders have so many cool and often unrealized anatomical traits, and as long as you make sure that transplanting a spider characteristic to Spiderman won’t kill him, it’s all good.

To walk on walls like spiders, Spiderman would have microfibers on the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet, and would also have microscopic claws tipping his fingertips. Most spiders have two or three claws on the ends of their legs, which are bigger proportionally than what I’m proposing, but I’m trying to let Spiderman retain at least a hope of preserving a secret identity (the only reason I can’t even give him more eyes).

Another thing that’s really cool about spiders is that instead of focusing the lens of the eye and the iris remaining the same size, like humans, they focus the iris and the lens stays the same size. This usually can only be seen by looking closely at a jumping spider who is focusing on different objects, but in a human it would be a bit more noticeable, and would probably appear as a strange flickering in Peter’s eyes when he looks around, but nobody would be likely to notice the cause of the flickering unless they used the same methods as with a jumping spider - looked very closely and intentionally. Simply put, when Spiderman focuses on a new object, the colors of his eyes would dilate or contract, instead of the pupil. 

Now that I think about it, a (weak) connection could be made to the way Spiderman’s suit’s eyes focus the main white part, instead of the black lining, but then again that could simply represent a squinting motion of the eyelids instead.

“Ballooning” is a behaviour exhibited solely by baby spiders and extremely small adults, although it is sometimes (and perhaps more accurately) called “kiting”. In this, the spider assembles a triangular-shaped sail of sorts out of silk, which is then used under the right wind conditions to float on the air currents. This is, in my opinion, absolutely fascinating and a devastatingly unused opportunity that Marvel could be taking advantage of. 

Spiders are unable to thermoregulate, so throughout the day some species constantly seek out warmer areas, such as areas with more sun. For Spiderman, this could mean that whenever he enters a room, he unconsciously finds the warmest spot possible and stays there as long as he can. It also means that his ability to function would be reduced in winter, as most spiders hibernate or outright die.

Some common health problems for spiders are dehydration and lack of humidity! This is especially apparent in tarantulas, but applies to most species. Spiders have fluid-based joints (I’ll mention that in Combat-Based Abilities), so staying hydrated is essential to basic movement. A sign of dehydration in spiders is the abdomen shrinking suddenly (which is a late-stage sign, and usually means the spider needs to drink soon or it will die) which, in Spiderman, would be exhibited as sudden and severe weight loss around the stomach and hips. As long as he keeps some humidifiers in his apartment and drinks tons of water, he’ll be fine, but the danger of dehydration would be felt much more acutely by him than humans.

Spiders breathe through spiracles, or tiny holes on their sides that connect to a primitive trachea. Spiderman definitely cannot have a spider’s respiratory system, as book lungs are essentially the arachnid equivalent of asthma, but having a few spiracles on the sides of his collarbone/upper chest that connect to his trachea would aid in oxygen intake, if not actual lung capacity. This would also allow Spiderman to survive for a period of time if being strangled from the neck up (but would be ineffective against suffocation by compression).

The popular depiction of a spider feeding is of a spider injecting its prey with a dissolving enzyme and then drinking it, but some spiders secrete this enzyme while breaking the prey apart with their pedipalps and mandibles. The latter is more easily translated, and so Spiderman could have the dissolving enzyme incorporated into his saliva, so that food would partially dissolve in his mouth and then be swallowed.

One last note that can be read as either a sweet concept, or a hilarious idea, is the courtship process of spiders. Generally, male spiders present females with gifts (usually food),but in jumping spiders and peacock spiders, the males also dance and “sing” for a female they hope to impress (the singing is accomplished by making clicking noises and tapping on a surface). For examples, look up videos of “jumping spider courtship” or the same with peacock spiders. If you’ve ever seen a .gif of a spider moving oddly with a set of drums poorly edited into it, that was most likely a courtship dance. 

Combat-Based Abilities

These are some other features that deal more directly with how Spiderman would move and fight. First, let’s discuss jumping. Leaping from building to building is all well and good, but doing that by swinging from sticky strands of silk is the most unnecessary - and unsafe - thing I’ve ever heard of. Firstly, as with jumping spiders, Spiderman would need to attach a silk safety line to whatever he’s jumping off of. Not only does this provide a measure of security in case he falls, but it stabilizes the actual jump (the same is true for jumping spiders). Furthermore, the actual process of jumping is fascinating. To make a jump, a jumping spider will suddenly force hemolymph (the spider equivalent of blood) into the legs, which abruptly straightens the joints and propels the spider forward. In Spiderman, this would look like him crouching on the edge of a building, silk safety line attaching one wrist to the building, and then suddenly changing his blood pressure  to force blood into his legs, causing the legs to extend abruptly and propel him forward. Isn’t that cool?

Now, I know that I’ve said in the past that Spiderman must only have a human endoskeleton if he wants to survive, BUT exoskeletons are really cool so I’m bastardizing the concept to fit my needs. An exoskeleton is the hard “shell” that surrounds a spider in lieu of internally placed bones, like humans. The reason Spiderman can’t have a proper exoskeleton is because that would severely limit his movement and make most human motions, as well as his signature agility, impossible to perform. However, since exoskeletons are comprised of layers of chitin (the layers are called cuticles), Spiderman could have a few thin layers of chitin covering his limbs and part of his back. Immobile areas, like the front and back of his limbs, would be plated with semi-rigid plates of chitin, with joints only covered by a superficial layer to connect the exoskeleton while still allowing a full range of movement. This arrangement would not cover his stomach, chest, neck, or head. In order to grow with a partial exoskeleton, Spiderman would need to molt, especially often as a teenager. Molting occurs periodically in a spider’s growth, and involves shedding the old, too-small exoskeleton for a newer, softer exoskeleton that is more comfortable for the spider’s increased size. The new exoskeleton hardens after a couple of days, during which time the spider is vulnerable to predators. In the days leading up to a molt, the spider will experience difficulty moving, due to the old exoskeleton separating from the spider itself. Once Spiderman reaches his full growth (adulthood), molting will stop.

One last thing about molting that’s really cool! If a spider loses a leg before its final molt, it will regrow the limb inside its new exoskeleton, so when it next molts, it has the leg back! By application, as long as he doesn’t die of blood loss, Spiderman could safely lose a limb as long as he’s still a child. However, the new limb would not be available until the next molt. So if Spiderman loses an arm and is set to molt two months away, then he would not have that arm until the two months are up and he sheds his old exoskeleton. Not like the mutant from X-Men who regrew his limbs instantly (i think it was in last stand?). For Spiderman, there would be a waiting period, and any loss of limb after his final molt in early adulthood would be permanent. Just another cool thing to think about!

Finally, the venom. I cannot resist designing a spider-based hero without the use of venom  - it’s the most commonly known characteristic of spiders, even though most are harmless to humans.  For fangs to be incorporated into human anatomy, they would have to be based on an up-and-down movement, like tarantulas, rather than the sideways bite that most spiders use. Those would be tucked into the upper jaw, and connect to the venom glands in the shoulders as previously discussed (with the extra glands, homeboy’s going to look like an olympic swimmer). Based on Spiderman’s moral compass in Homecoming, the use of venom would be a last resort, and when used, the fangs would  would open downwards (à la snake) and deliver a neurotoxin. I chose a neurotoxin for the type of venom because I figured it would be more useful to Spiderman to have the symptoms of such (muscle cramps, temporary paralysis, sometimes death) instead of a localized flesh-damaging venom.

That’s all for now! I hope you enjoy this information as much as I did while writing it. If you have any questions, feel free to send an ask, but if you’re asking about anything other than entomology (how does spiderman force blood into his legs without having a heart attack? hell if i know, buddy) I won’t know.  As stated earlier, I also have barely any knowledge of actual Spiderman lore, so please don’t get mad because I didn’t know something that happens in canon. I just like spiders.

In conclusion,

marvel needs to hire an arachnology consultant!

[grapevynerendezvous]

The Yardbirds - Yardbirds’ Greatest Hits

As the mid-sixties were in full-swing I was paying more and more attention to the music of the day, and rock music was winning me over. 1966 was the year I fully turned the corner and The Yardbirds’ Shapes of Things definitely was a major factor. I was aware of their other songs that had been playing on the radio. I spent a lot of time looking at records in stores when I’d be with my mom while she was shopping for other things. I rarely bought anything though. I would look at the Yardbird albums but I was weary of what the other songs were like and didn’t bite the bullet. 

When Epic Records decided to do an anthology of The Yardbirds in the U.S., it gave me an opportunity to get what mostly I wanted, those songs I had been hearing and especially Shapes of Things. I can clearly remember standing in an aisle at Gemco in Palo Alto one evening. I was near the record section and there was music being played on the store system. Shapes of Things came on, and while I am not exactly sure it was the first time I ever heard it, I do remember standing there in awe. I recall thinking to myself that it was one the most amazing things I’d ever heard and I knew I would get it someday. Just not that day, or anytime too soon because I was only thinking LPs at the time and it was not on any of the Yardbirds current albums. As it turns out the Greatest Hits album was to be its’ first time on LP, and it never came out on a Yardbirds studio album, in England or the United States. Their other U.S. hits up to that time are also on the Greatest Hits album, along with other songs that will be noted later.

The original Yardbird members were Keith Relf on lead vocals and harmonica, Jim McCarty on drums, Chris Dreja on rhythm guitar and later bass, Paul Samwell-Smith on bass and also producer, and Anthony “Top” Topham on lead guitar. Topham left the same year the band formed in 1963. Following that The Yardbirds became known for having three lead guitarists that are all ranked in the top five of Rolling Stone Magazine’s 100 Greatest Guitarists list, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. Beck and Page played with the band at the same time for a period of time, but  little was recorded with the two of them together in the studio or live. They first received notice when they replaced The Rolling Stones as the house band at the Crawdaddy Club in the suburban town of Richmond.

The first hit record for The Yardbirds was For Your Love which was written by Graham Gouldman when he was eighteen years old. He was influenced by The Beatles to give songwriting a try. He was with a band called The Mockingbirds and they were with a record company. He had two songs that he had written and submitted to the company for use, but the one they rejected was For Your Love. The Yardbirds picked it up and it became a smash hit. This was actually the bands’ third single effort, the first two being primarily blues-based. One had failed to chart and the other, only issued as a single in England reached No. 49 on the UK Singles Chart. For Your Love, recorded in February 1965 and issued in March in the UK, and April in the U.S on Epic Records, reached No. 3 on the UK chart and No. 6 on the Billboard Top 100. This was the only hit single that Eric Clapton played on. He was a blues purist and had expressed his displeasure with this more commercial venture. For that, and other reasons as well, he suddenly quit the band the day the single was released in England. As it is, he and Chris Dreja only performed during the double-time middle break section. The rest of the piece was performed by Keith Relf, Jim McCarty and added musicians Ron Prentice on double-bass, Denny Piercy on bongos, and Brian Auger on Harpsichord.

On the heels of the hit single For Your Love, the eponymous album was an American release on Epic records in July 1965. Three of the cuts were recorded in March and April shortly after Clapton had departed and Jeff Beck had come on board. The balance of the album contained recordings from as far back as March 1964, while Clapton was the lead guitarist. It included all three singles plus their B-side tracks. Producer Giorgio Gomelsky selected all the numbers. Group chronicler Gregg Russo notes, "The cover was somewhat of a joke, as Jeff Beck was humorously seated in front of a keyboard that he did not play on the album.” Eric Clapton was not included on the cover, nor was he mentioned anywhere on the album. It was The Yardbirds first album to chart on the Billboard Top 100 at No. 96.

One of The Yardbirds most popular songs, Heart Full of Soul, which was another Graham Gouldman composition, was recorded in April 1965. Gouldman had followed his first success with the band with another demo that they immediately picked up. Music critic Richie Unterberger described Gouldman as "a genius at effectively alternating tempos and major/minor modes”. Martin Power noted that the tempo shifts and use of double-time, as in Heart Full of Soul, was a feature of Yardbirds live performances and became known as a “rave up”. This was the first hit with Jeff Beck on lead guitar, a guitarist who had more varied style influences. He experimented with guitar effects such as feedback, and the fuzz box that he used to create a sound that, as described by music writers Pete Lavezzoli, Alan di Perna, and Martin Power, introduced Indian influenced guitar style to rock music. This occurred after it was originally attempted to have an Indian sitarist play that part. The band didn’t feel it worked and Beck tried out a new fuzz box that was a prototype developed by Jimmy Page. It has been indicated by Alan di Perna that Beck's playing helped introduce "the psychedelic sub-genre known as raga rock’”, which became popular over the next two years. It was released in the U.K. in June and cresting on UK Singles at No. 2, and the U.S. in July reaching No. 9 on Billboard Top 100.

Heart Full of Soul was included on the American album Having A Rave Up (with The Yardbirds). The A-side of this album contained more studio material recorded in 1965 while the B-side had live recordings from 1964 with Eric Clapton on lead. Giorgio Gomelsky was once again the producer. I’m A Man, their third single, was recorded in September and released in November. It peaked on  the Billboard Top 100 at No. 17. The B-side cut was Still I’m Sad which was part of a double-side hit with Evil Hearted You in the U.K. neither song of which was released as a single in the U.S. Still I’m Sad and the live Smokestack Lightning from the Rave Up. album are on the Greatest Hits album as well as I’m Not Talking, which was from For Your Love.

I’m A Man was written by Ellas McDaniel aka Bo Diddley and was a hit for him in 1955. The Yardbirds had recorded a live version for their first album in the U.K., and it is included on the B-side of the Rave Up album. I’m A Man as a single is definitely one of the songs that got me very excited about the band. Beck played a percussive effect on his guitar, termed “scratch-picking” by Gene Santora, which provided the double time beat and the instrumentation (“that builds to a crescendo“) climax on the studio version. I’m A Man is “perhaps the most famous Yardbirds rave-up of all” according to critic Cub Koda. Later versions of the song by bands like Chicago and The Coffis Brothers have paid great homage to that rave up style. It is also felt to be an early example of both psychedelic and hard rock styles.

The aforementioned Shapes of Things was called by Jeff Beck “the pinnacle of The Yardbirds”. It was the first recording in which he incorporated sustain, and guitar feedback which he had discovered through experimentation and began using in his playing. Producer Giorgio Gomelsky arranged for recording to be done while The Yardbirds were in the U.S. on tour at Chess Records Chicago studio in December 1965. Beck was not completely satisfied with the guitar solos he did at Chess so they did the finishing recording at Columbia studios in Hollywood in January 1966. It was simultaneously released in both countries near the end of February topping out on the UK Singles Chart at No. 3 and at No. 11 on the Billboard Top 100 on May 14. It appeared in the U.K. on a various artists collection in September ’66, while its’ first album appearance in the U.S. was Greatest Hits. The concept and development of the song is at least partially summarized by what Jim McCarty had to say. “We were really coming from not trying to create a sort of a 3-minute piece of music, it was just something that seemed natural to us. We started with the rhythm, we used a bass riff that came from a jazz record, got a groove going with that and then added a few other bits from elsewhere, other ideas that we'd had. And I think it was a great success for us, it was a good hit record that wasn't really selling out. And it was original.” With Beck’s ground-breaking techniques,, Paul Samwell Smith’s desire to use a bass line idea from jazz icon Dave Brubeck’s song Pick Up Sticks, and Keith Relf’s lyrics and melody the song for many, as Cub Koda wrote, “represents the Yardbirds' creative peak”. Relf’s lyrics were described by Beck biographer Martin Power as pro-environmental or anti-war. Jim McCarty felt that it more reflected opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Those words seem timely from an environmental point-of view, even more so today:

“Now the trees are almost green, but will they still be seen, when time and tide have been

Fall into your passing hands, please don't destroy these lands, don't make them desert sands”

They will always be timely from an anti-war perspective as well.

Over Under Sideways Down, the next hit single and was inspired by “Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley & His Comets. Recorded in April 1966 in May in both in the U.K. and U.S, t peaked at No.10 and No. 13 respectively. Jeff Beck played both the guitar and bass on the record. It was the only single on the album that followed, and was backed by, the instrumental, Beck’s Boogie. That album, called The Yardbirds, was recorded in England in April and May and released on Columbia in the U.K. on May 14  It was produced by Paul Samwell-Smith and Simon Napier-Bell. It was the only album in which Jeff Beck was lead guitar on all tracks. All songs in the album were written by all five band members. It became known semi-officially as Roger the Engineer based on Chris Dreja’s cover drawing of audio engineer Roger Cameron. It was their only studio album released in the U.K. and the only one on the UK Album Chart, reaching No. 20. Meanwhile the American version of the album was titled Over Under Sideways Down. Released on Epic three days after the U.K. version, it reached No. 52 on Billboard Top 200. Two of the songs were omitted and there was slightly different placement on the record for the rest. While the album wasn’t among the best at the time,  American music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine said that it was "the Yardbirds' best individual studio album, offering some of their very best psychedelia”.

Happenings Ten Years Time Ago was recorded following the Yardbirds/OUSD release in July, September and October, and after the departure of Paul Samwell-Smith, who became a producer on other projects. Jimmy Page had come aboard, first filling Samwell-Smith’s bass role, and then as an additional lead guitarist when Chris Dreja moved to bass. In  the recording however, John Paul Jones was on bass. Happenings took a deep dive into psychedelia and this description in an AllMusic review by Matthew Greenwald sheds light on it: “Led by a dark, Middle Eastern/psychedelic guitar riff, the song is quickly transformed into a frenetic, almost psychopathic rhythm, giving the whole affair a weird and powerful atmosphere. The idea of going back and forwards into time is paramount here, and was certainly one with the overall psychedelic ambience of the time”. Released as a single in October in the U.K. and November in the U.S., it failed to rise to the level of the previous six (including Evil Hearted You/Still I’m Sad released only in the U.K.) top 20 singles. It crested at only No. 43 on UK Singles Chart and No. 30 on Billboard Top 100. Happenings Ten Years Time Ago made its’ album appearance on the Greatest Hits Album.

It wasn’t until some years later that I learned more about The Yardbirds roots in blues music. Of course the Greatest Hits album had a few blues tunes on it, including the Bo Diddley’s blues-rocker I’m a Man. Primarily though they started to become more mainstream in an attempt to be commercial. Along the way they became cutting edge in other recording and performance styles. What attracted me to their music in particular was that it had a harder edge to it than most of the songs on the air. That rave up factor I suppose. In fact, the Yardbird sound was a conduit to yet-to-come Hard Rock music. Also, they started experimenting, particularly with Jeff Beck and later Jimmy Page, with different instrumentation and techniques. Shapes of Things, and the later hit single Happenings Ten Years Time Ago, are now considered important examples of the psychedelic music that became a primary form of music in the rock scene for the next few years. Shapes of Things, says Richie Unterberger "can justifiably be classified as the first psychedelic rock classic”.

I have never seen The Yardbirds, although the opportunity to see the recent group reformed with new players by Jim McCarty and Chris Dreja (who had to drop out due to health issues) was available to me in the past few years, but I was unable to do so. Of course I have had the honor of seeing Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page in some of their other reincarnations. Guitar rock at its’ best.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yardbirds#Discography

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yardbirds_discography

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-yardbirds-mn0000489303/biography

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/yardbirds-band-history/

Shapes of Things https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OjcB-D5Yy4

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