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bunkershotgolf · 3 years ago

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AUBERGE RESORTS COLLECTION WELCOMES PRIMLAND, HOME OF THE ACCLAIMED HIGHLAND COURSE, TO ITS PORTFOLIO

The scenic Blue Ridge Mountains resort welcomes golfers, families, friends and couples looking for a one-of-a-kind retreat in the great outdoors

Auberge Resorts Collection is delighted to announce that it will welcome Primland, a majestic all-season mountain retreat in Virginia, to Auberge’s portfolio of award-winning hotels, resorts and residences as of June 1. Located at the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains on 12,000 expansive acres, Primland, Auberge Resorts Collection offers luxurious accommodations, a championship golf course, exquisite farm-to-table cuisine helmed by new Executive Chef Elliot Cunniff from Soho House in New York City, a serene spa and a level of outdoor adventure that is unrivaled on the east coast. In one of the most breathtaking mountain settings, the resort boasts impressive year-round activities for the entire family, including golf, horseback riding, fly fishing, alfresco yoga and meditation, kayaking, hiking, sporting clays, archery, stargazing in one of the largest observatories in the Eastern U.S., RTV trail riding and tennis. With Auberge Resorts Collection’s highly personalized service, Primland will be the quintessential escape this Summer.

“We are incredibly honored that the Primat family has chosen Auberge to be the stewards of Primland, one of the most spectacular resorts in the country,” said Dan Friedkin, owner and chairman, Auberge Resorts Collection. “It is an absolute privilege to bring our brand to this unparalleled experience in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.”

Primland, Auberge Resorts Collection was initially purchased by late French industrialist, Mr. Didier Primat, in 1977 as an outdoor activity retreat for his family. In the early 2000s, Mr. Primat decided to expand the land’s capabilities and construct the resort and golf course in an eco-conscious and thoughtful manner. Primland, Auberge Resorts Collection is rooted in a love of the land, which is expressed in the resort’s extensive efforts to minimize the impact on nature while enjoying its beauty.

“Auberge Resorts Collection has mastered a crafted approach to unique and personal service,” said Harold Primat, president of Primland. “We are excited to partner with the award-winning brand to realize our family’s vision to create one of the top-end mountain resorts in the U.S. and share the Primland experience with guests from around the world.”

Primland, Auberge Resorts Collection features 62 rooms, including standalone cottages, cabins and treehouses. At the center of the property—which was recently voted "Best Resort in the U.S. South,” in Condé Nast Traveler’s Readers’ Choice Awards 2020—sits the Lodge, featuring a soaring great hall with twin fireplaces, a full-service spa, fitness center, indoor swimming pool, private theatre, game room and one of the largest telescopes and observatories in the Eastern U.S. The resort’s exceptional culinary program boasts three regional cuisine restaurants, a two-story wine cellar and private dining experiences for intimate gatherings and celebrations.

One-of-a-Kind Accommodations

Accommodations boast beautiful mountain settings with amenities such as in-room fireplaces, private balconies with undisturbed views and deep soaking tubs. The main Lodge features nine Mountain Rooms and sixteen Blue Ridge Suites. The Lodge’s most exclusive suite is the Pinnacle Suite, a two-story 1,800-square-foot glass-walled aerie located in the observatory tower, providing stunning views of the stars and vistas.

Across the property are several styles of standalone accommodations. The chalet-like Pinnacle Cottages and golf course Fairway Cottages each contain separate wings with rooms and suites that can be booked individually or groups can lodge together by opening up the common living room. The resort also features 11 spacious Mountain Homes containing between one and seven bedrooms.

Just a short drive from the Lodge, three Tree Houses are perched on the edge of the mountains, offering an experience that nods to Primat’s love of nature and the region. These intimate cabins are set in the strong limbs of the property’s oldest and most beautiful oak trees, giving way to treetop views of the majestic Kibler Valley and North Carolina piedmont from a vast private deck. While conjuring childhood memories, each of the Tree Houses is unique, taking on its own personality through bespoke decor.

Farm-to-Table Blue Ridge Mountain Cuisine

Primland, Auberge Resorts Collection’s exceptional culinary destinations and programming are overseen by Executive Chef Elliot Cunniff, who joined the resort in Spring 2021. Chef Cunniff comes to the resort from New York City, where he got his start working under Daniel Boulud before moving up the ranks to, most recently, executive chef at Soho House New York. Chef Cunniff brings a wealth of creativity to all of the resort’s exceptional restaurants, including the signature restaurant, Elements, a harmony of the Virginia Highlands’ natural abundance and Southern comfort flavors, beautifully presented in a fine dining atmosphere. The property’s more relaxed eatery, 19th Pub, serves casual, hearty pub fare alongside a bar well-stocked with draught beers, single malts and spirits, as well as moonshine cocktails, which harken back to the region’s rich bootlegging history. The Woodland Grill is located at the Outdoor Activities Center for easy grab-and-go sandwiches between adventures. Schlumberger Wine Cellar, located in The Lodge and perfect for private events, features varietals from the world’s finest vineyards, including the resort’s sister property, Domaines Schlumberger, in France’s Alsace region. Set on its own ridge top is Stables Saloon - located in Primland’s former horse stables - where traditional Southern food and live bluegrass music come together for a rustic and convivial dining experience.

Adventure and Wellness

Primland, Auberge Resorts Collection centers around its vast acreage and outdoor activities, just as Mr. Primat intended when he purchased the property as an outdoor retreat. One of the most beloved experiences of The Lodge is deep space star gazing through the professional-grade telescopes at the Observatory. The Outdoor Activities Center offers fly fishing, horseback riding, hiking, biking, archery, RTV trail riding, sporting clays and water sports on the 3-mile long Talbott Lake. For golf enthusiasts of all skill levels, the Highland Course at Primland is an 18-hole, Audubon-certified, all bentgrass greens course carved from the mountains’ natural landscape by renowned golf course architect Donald Steel.

After a day of adventure, The Spa at Primland offers rejuvenating and energizing treatments that combine Native American healing rituals and European spa techniques.

A Destination Worth Exploring

While guests may find everything they need and more on the property, Primland, Auberge Resorts Collection is surrounded by enchanting mountain attractions and numerous local towns that are well worth exploring. From the quaint shops of Meadows of Dan to the historic Mabry Mill, Fairy Stone State Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, local wineries and an abundance of bluegrass and country music festivals, there is so much to see and do on a day trip outside the gates of the resort.

“Each of our properties is unique and captures the soul of the destination, and Primland encompasses the best that the Blue Ridge Mountain region has to offer. It is a natural fit for Auberge Resorts Collection,” said Craig Reid, president and chief executive officer, Auberge Resorts Collection, “We look forward to welcoming our guests to this extraordinary destination.”

Primland, Auberge Resorts Collection is conveniently located two hours from Charlotte, five hours from Washington D.C, and just 90 minutes from two regional airports, Piedmont Triad (PTI) in Greensboro and Roanoke Regional. The resort’s partnership with NetJets provides guests with special benefits when flying privately through two nearby airports, Blue Ridge and Mt. Airy-Surry County, only 45 minutes away. The property also features a helipad located at the North Gate.

Primland, Auberge Resorts Collection is now accepting reservations. For more information, please visit aubergeresorts.com/primland.

About Primland, Auberge Resorts Collection

Primland, Auberge Resorts Collection resonates with people who immerse themselves in luxurious elegance whenever possible. Value Mother Nature’s masterworks. Celebrate the scintillating moments when fish take the bait. Cherish the soothing serenity of golden mountain sunsets. Rush with adrenalin while traversing RTV trails. Feel child-like wonder while stargazing through a professional-grade telescope. Embrace treehouse lodging perches with panoramic views. Relish playing an award-winning trophy golf course. Rejuvenate through caressing spa treatments. And covet organic ingredients served tastefully in farm-to-table culinary dishes.

For more information, please visit aubergeresorts.com/primland/

Connect with Primland, Auberge Resorts Collection on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

About Auberge Resorts Collection

Auberge Resorts Collection is a portfolio of extraordinary hotels, resorts, residences and private clubs. While each property is unique, all share a crafted approach to luxury and bring the soul of the locale to life through captivating design, exceptional cuisine, innovative spas and gracious yet unobtrusive service. With 19 hotels and resorts across three continents and eight new hotels under development, Auberge invites guests to create unforgettable stories in some of the world’s most desirable destinations.

For more information: aubergeresorts.com

Connect with Auberge Resorts Collection on Facebook Twitter and Instagram @AubergeResorts and #AlwaysAuberge

About The Friedkin Group

The Friedkin Group is a privately-held consortium of automotive, hospitality, entertainment, sports and adventure companies. These organizations include: Gulf States Toyota, GSFSGroup, US AutoLogistics, Ascent Automotive Group, Auberge Resorts Collection, AS Roma, Imperative Entertainment, 30WEST, NEON, Diamond Creek Golf Club, Congaree and Legendary Expeditions. The Friedkin Group is led by Chairman and CEO Dan Friedkin. For more information, visit www.friedkin.com.

#golf #new #Golf Courses #submission

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isslibrary · 4 years ago

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New additions to the Indian Springs School Library May thru August 2020

Bibliography

Sorted by Call Number / Author.

152.4 O

Owens, Lama Rod, 1979- author. Love and rage : the path of liberation through anger. "Reconsidering the power of anger as a positive and necessary tool for achieving spiritual liberation and social change"--.

200.973 M

Manseau, Peter. One nation, under gods : a new American history. First edition.

304.8 K

Keneally, Thomas. The great shame : and the triumph of the Irish in the English-speaking world. 1st ed. New York : Nan A. Talese, 1999.

305.5 V

Vance, J. D., author. Hillbilly elegy : a memoir of a family and culture in crisis. First Harper paperback edition. "Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis--that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck. The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.'s grandparents were "dirt poor and in love," and moved north from Kentucky's Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually their grandchild (the author) would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of their success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that this is only the short, superficial version. Vance's grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother, struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, and were never able to fully escape the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. Vance piercingly shows how he himself still carries around the demons of their chaotic family history. A deeply moving memoir with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country." -- Publisher's description.

305.8 D

DiAngelo, Robin J., author. White fragility : why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism.

305.800973 D

Dyson, Michael Eric, author. Tears we cannot stop : a sermon to white America. First edition. I. Call to worship -- II. Hymns of praise -- III. Invocation -- IV. Scripture reading -- V. Sermon -- Repenting of whiteness -- Inventing whiteness -- The five stages of white grief -- The plague of white innocence -- Being Black in America -- Nigger -- Our own worst enemy? -- Coptopia -- VI. Benediction -- VII. Offering plate -- VIII. Prelude to service -- IX. Closing prayer. "In the wake of yet another set of police killings of black men, Michael Eric Dyson wrote a tell-it-straight, no holds barred piece for the NYT on Sunday July 7: Death in Black and White (It was updated within a day to acknowledge the killing of police officers in Dallas). The response has been overwhelming. Beyoncé and Isabel Wilkerson tweeted it, JJ Abrams, among many other prominent people, wrote him a long fan letter. The NYT closed the comments section after 2,500 responses, and Dyson has been on NPR, BBC, and CNN non-stop since then. Fifty years ago Malcolm X told a white woman who asked what she could do for the cause: Nothing. Dyson believes he was wrong. In Tears We Cannot Stop, he responds to that question. If we are to make real racial progress, we must face difficult truths, including being honest about how black grievance has been ignored, dismissed or discounted. As Dyson writes: At birth you are given a pair of binoculars that see black life from a distance, never with the texture of intimacy. Those binoculars are privilege; they are status, regardless of your class. In fact the greatest privilege that exists is for white folk to get stopped by a cop and not end up dead...The problem is you do not want to know anything different from what you think you know...You think we have been handed everything because we fought your selfish insistence that the world, all of it--all its resources, all its riches, all its bounty, all its grace--should be yours first and foremost, and if there's anything left, why then we can have some, but only if we ask politely and behave gratefully"--Provided by publisher.

305.800973 G

Begin again : James Baldwin's America and its urgent lessons for our own. New York, NY : Crown; an imprint of Random House, 2020.

305.800973 O

Oluo, Ijeoma, author. So you want to talk about race. First trade paperback edition.

320.9 B

Bass, Jack. The transformation of southern politics : social change and political consequence since 1945. New York : Basic Books, c1976.

323.1196 L

Lowery, Lynda Blackmon, 1950- author. Turning 15 on the road to freedom : my story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March. Growing up strong and determined -- In the movement -- Jailbirds -- In the sweatbox -- Bloody Sunday -- Headed for Montgomery -- Turning 15 -- Weary and wet -- Montgomery at last -- Why voting rights? -- Discussion guide. As the youngest marcher in the 1965 voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, Lynda Blackmon Lowery proved that young adults can be heroes. Jailed nine times before her fifteenth birthday, Lowery fought alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. for the rights of African-Americans. In this memoir, she shows today's young readers what it means to fight nonviolently (even when the police are using violence, as in the Bloody Sunday protest) and how it felt to be part of changing American history.

364.973 U.S.

U.S. national debate topic, 2020-2021.

420 M

McCrum, Robert. The story of English. 1st American ed. New York, N.Y., U.S.A. : Viking, 1986.

488.2421 A

Balme, M. G., author. Athenaze : an introduction to ancient Greek. Revised Third edition. Book I -- Book II.

510 C

Clegg, Brian. Are numbers real? : the uncanny relationship of mathematics and the physical world.

530.092 F

F©œlsing, Albrecht, 1940-. Albert Einstein : a biography. New York : Viking Penguin: a division of Penguin Books USA, Inc, 1997. Family -- School -- A "child prodigy" -- "Vagabond and loner" : student days in Zurich -- Looking for a job -- Expert III class -- "Herr Doktor Einstein" and the reality of atoms -- The "very revolutionary" light quanta -- Relative movement : "my life for seven years" -- The theory of relativity : "a modification of the theory of space and time" -- Acceptance, opposition, tributes -- Expert II class -- From "bad joke" to "Herr Professor" -- Professor in Zurich -- Full professor in Prague, but not for long -- Toward the general theory of relativity -- From Zurich to Berlin -- "In a madhouse" : a pacifist in Prussia -- "The greatest satisfaction of my life" : the completion of the general theory of relativity -- Wartime in Berlin -- Postwar chaos and revolution -- Confirmation and the deflection of light : "the suddenly famous Dr. Einstein" -- Relativity under the spotlight -- "Traveler in relativity" -- Jewry, Zionism, and a trip to America -- More hustle, long journeys, a lot of politics, and a little physics -- Einstein receives the Nobel Prize and in consequence becomes a Prussian -- "The marble smile of implacable nature" : the search for the unified field theory -- The problems of quantum theory -- Critique of quantum mechanics -- Politics, patents, sickness, and a "wonderful egg" -- Public and private affairs -- Farewell to Berlin -- Exile in liberation -- Princeton -- Physical reality and a paradox, relativity and unified theory -- War, a letter, and the bomb -- Between bomb and equations -- "An old debt. Albert Einstein's achievements are not just milestones in the history of science; decades ago they became an integral part of the twentieth-century world in which we live. Like no other modern physicist he altered and expanded our understanding of nature. Like few other scholars, he stood fully in the public eye. In a world changing with dramatic rapidity, he embodied the role of the scientist by personal example. Albrecht Folsing, relying on previously unknown sources. And letters, brings Einstein's "genius" into focus. Whereas former biographies, written in the tradition of the history of science, seem to describe a heroic Einstein who fell to earth from heaven, Folsing attempts to reconstruct Einstein's thought in the context of the state of research at the turn of the century. Thus, perhaps for the first time, Einstein's surroundings come to light.

530.092 G

Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. 1st ed. New York : Pantheon Books, c2003.

539.7 B

Lise Meitner : Discoverer of Nuclear Fission. Greensboro, NC : Morgan Reynolds, Inc, 2000. A biography of the Austrian scientist whose discoveries in nuclear physics played a major part in developing atomic energy.

598.07 T

Watching birds : reflections on the wing. United States : Ragged Mountain Press, 2000.

811 D

Dabydeen, David. Turner : new and selected poems. 2010. Leeds : Peepal Tree Press, Ltd, 12010.

811.54 J

Jones, Ashley M., 1990- author. Dark // thing. Slurret -- //Side A: 3rd grade birthday party -- //Side B: roebuck is the ghetto -- Harriette Winslow and Aunt Rachel clean -- Collard greens on prime time television -- My grandfather returns as oil -- Elegy for Willie Lee "Murr"Lipscomb -- Proof at the Red Sea -- Sunken place sestina -- Hair -- Antiquing -- The book of Tubman -- Harriet Tubman crosses the Mason Dixon for the first time -- Avian Abecedarian -- Harriet Tubman, beauty queen or ain't I a woman? -- Broken sonnet in which Harriet is the gun -- Recitation -- What flew out of Aunt Hester's scream -- Election year 2016: the motto -- Uncle Remus syrup commemorative lynching postcard #25 -- To the black man popping a wheelie on -- Interstate 59 North on 4th of July weekend -- Red dirt suite -- Love/luv/ -- Summerstina -- Ode to Dwayne Waye, or, I want to be Whitley -- Gilbert when I grow up -- I am not selected for jury duty the week bill -- Cosby's jury selection is underway -- A small, disturbing fact -- Water -- Today, I saw a black man open his arms to the wind -- Xylography -- I see a smear of animal on the road and mistake it for philando castile -- There is a beel at morehouse college -- Dark water -- Who will survive in America? or 2017: a horror film -- In-flight entertainment -- Imitation of life -- Broken sonnet for the decorative cotton for sale at Whole Foods -- Racists in space -- When you tell me I'd be prettier with straight hair -- (Black) hair -- Kindergarten villandelle -- Song of my muhammad -- Ode to Al Jolson -- Hoghead cheese haiku -- Aunties -- Thing of a marvelous thing / It's the same as having wings. A multi-faceted work that explores the darkness/otherness by which the world sees Black people. Ashley M. Jones stares directly into the face of the racism that allows people to be seen as dark things, as objects that can be killed/enslaved/oppressed/devalued. This work, full as it is of slashes of all kinds, ultimately separates darkness from thingness, affirming and celebrating humanity.

814.6 G

Gay, Roxane, author. Bad feminist : essays. First edition. A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched young cultural observers of her generation, Roxane Gay. "Pink is my favorite color. I used to say my favorite color was black to be cool, but it is pink, all shades of pink. If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. I read Vogue, and I'm not doing it ironically, though it might seem that way. I once live-tweeted the September issue." In these funny and insightful essays, Roxane Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman (Sweet Valley High) of color (The Help) while also taking readers on a ride through culture of the last few years (Girls, Django in Chains) and commenting on the state of feminism today (abortion, Chris Brown). The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture. Bad Feminist is a sharp, funny, and spot-on look at the ways in which the culture we consume becomes who we are, and an inspiring call-to-arms of all the ways we still need to do better.

822.3 T

the tragical history of Doctor Faustus : The Elizabethan Play. Annotated & Edited by John D. Harris, 2018. Wabasha, MN : Hungry Point Press, 2018.

822.33 Shakespeare

Major literary characters : Hamlet. New York : Chelsea House Publishers, c. 1990.

822.8 W

Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900. An ideal husband. Mineola, N.Y. : Dover Publications, 2000.

823.914

Vincenzi, Penny, author. Windfall. 1st U.S. ed. Sensible Cassia Fallon has been married to her doctor husband for seven years when her godmother leaves her a huge fortune. For the first time in her life, she is able to do exactly as she likes, and she starts to question her marriage, her past, her present, and her future. But where did her inheritance really come from and why? Too soon the windfall has become a corrupting force, one that Cassia cannot resist.

843.8 F

Flaubert, Gustave, 1821-1880. Three tales. Oxford ; : Oxford University Press, 2009. A simple heart -- The legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller -- Herodias.

909 S

Sachs, Jeffrey, author. The ages of globalization : geography, technology, and institutions. "Today's most urgent problems are fundamentally global. They require nothing less than concerted, planetwide action if we are to secure a long-term future. But humanity's story has always been on a global scale, and this history deeply informs the present. In this book, Jeffrey D. Sachs, renowned economist and expert on sustainable development, turns to world history to shed light on how we can meet the challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century. Sachs takes readers through a series of six distinct waves of technological and ideological change, starting with the very beginnings of our species and ending with reflections on present-day globalization. Along the way, he considers how the interplay of geography, technology, and institutions influenced the Neolithic revolution; the spread of land-based empires; the opening of sea routes from Europe to Asia and the Americas; and the industrial age. The dynamics of these past waves, Sachs contends, give us new perspective on the ongoing processes taking place in our own time-and how we should work to guide the change we need. In light of this new understanding of globalization, Sachs emphasizes the need for new methods of international governance and cooperation to achieve economic, social, and environmental objectives aligned with sustainable development. The Ages of Globalization is a vital book for all readers aiming to make sense of our rapidly changing world"--.

937.002 B

Bing, Stanley. Rome, inc. : the rise and fall of the first multinational corporation. 1st. ed. New York : Norton, c2006.

937.63 L

Laurence, Ray, 1963-. Ancient Rome as it was : exploring the city of Rome in AD 300.

940.3 B

Brooks, Max. The Harlem Hellfighters. First edition. "From bestselling author Max Brooks, the riveting story of the highly decorated, barrier-breaking, historic black regiment--the Harlem Hellfighters. The Harlem Hellfighters is a fictionalized account of the 369th Infantry Regiment--the first African American regiment mustered to fight in World War I. From the enlistment lines in Harlem to the training camp at Spartanburg, South Carolina, to the trenches in France, bestselling author Max Brooks tells the thrilling story of the heroic journey that these soldiers undertook for a chance to fight for America. Despite extraordinary struggles and discrimination, the 369th became one of the most successful--and least celebrated--regiments of the war. The Harlem Hellfighters, as their enemies named them, spent longer than any other American unit in combat and displayed extraordinary valor on the battlefield. Based on true events and featuring artwork from acclaimed illustrator Caanan White, these pages deliver an action-packed and powerful story of courage, honor, and heart"--. "This is a graphic novel about the first African-American regiment to fight in World War One"--.

940.53 B

Browning, Christopher R., author. Ordinary men : Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the final solution in Poland. Revised edition. One morning in Józefów -- The order police -- The order police and the Final solution : Russia 1941 -- The order police and the Final solution : deportation -- Reserve Police Battalion 101 -- Arrival in Poland -- Initiation to mass muder : the Józefów massacre -- Reflections on a massacre -- Łomazy : the descent of Second Company -- The August deportations to Treblinka -- Late-September shootings -- The deportations resume -- The strange health of Captain Hoffmann -- The "Jew hunt" -- The last massacres : "Harvest festival" -- Aftermath -- Germans, Poles, and Jews -- Ordinary men. In the early hours of July 13, 1942, the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101, a unit of the German Order Police, entered the Polish Village of Jozefow. They had arrived in Poland less than three weeks before, most of them recently drafted family men too old for combat service--workers, artisans, salesmen, and clerks. By nightfall, they had rounded up Jozefow's 1,800 Jews, selected several hundred men as "work Jews," and shot the rest--that is, some 1,500 women, children, and old people. Most of these overage, rear-echelon reserve policemen had grown to maturity in the port city of Hamburg in pre-Hitler Germany and were neither committed Nazis nor racial fanatics. Nevertheless, in the sixteen months from the Jozefow massacre to the brutal Erntefest ("harvest festival") slaughter of November 1943, these average men participated in the direct shooting deaths of at least 38,000 Jews and the deportation to Treblinka's gas chambers of 45,000 more--a total body count of 83,000 for a unit of less than 500 men. Drawing on postwar interrogations of 210 former members of the battalion, Christopher Browning lets them speak for themselves about their contribution to the Final Solution--what they did, what they thought, how they rationalized their behavior (one man would shoot only infants and children, to "release" them from their misery). In a sobering conclusion, Browning suggests that these good Germans were acting less out of deference to authority or fear of punishment than from motives as insidious as they are common: careerism and peer pressure. With its unflinching reconstruction of the battalion's murderous record and its painstaking attention to the social background and actions of individual men, this unique account offers some of the most powerful and disturbing evidence to date of the ordinary human capacity for extraordinary inhumanity.

940.54 S

Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands : Europe between Hitler and Stalin. New York : Basic Books, c2010. Hitler and Stalin -- The Soviet famines -- Class terror -- National terror -- Molotov-Ribbentrop Europe -- The economics of apocalypse -- Final solution -- Holocaust and revenge -- The Nazi death factories -- Resistance and incineration -- Ethnic cleansings -- Stalinist antisemitism -- Humanity.

951.03 S

The search for modern China : a documentary collection. Third edition.

973 M

Meacham, Jon, author. The soul of America : the battle for our better angels. First edition. Introduction : To hope rather than to fear -- The confidence of the whole people : visions of the Presidency, the ideas of progress and prosperity, and "We, the people" -- The long shadow of Appomattox : the Lost Cause, the Ku Klux Klan, and Reconstruction -- With soul of flame and temper of steel : "the melting pot," TR and his "bully pulpit," and the Progressive promise -- A new and good thing in the world : the triumph of women's suffrage, the Red Scare, and a new Klan -- The crisis of the old order : the Great Depression, Huey Long, the New Deal, and America First -- Have you no sense of decency? : "making everyone middle class," the GI Bill, McCarthyism, and modern media -- What the hell is the presidency for? : "segregation forever," King's crusade, and LBJ in the crucible -- Conclusion : The first duty of an American citizen. "We have been here before. In this timely and revealing book, ... author Jon Meacham helps us understand the present moment in American politics and life by looking back at critical times in our history when hope overcame division and fear. With clarity and purpose, Meacham explores contentious periods and how presidents and citizens came together to defeat the forces of anger, intolerance, and extremism. Our current climate of partisan fury is not new, and in The Soul of America Meacham shows us how what Abraham Lincoln called 'the better angels of our nature' have repeatedly won the day. Painting surprising portraits of Lincoln and other presidents, including Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and Lyndon B. Johnson, and illuminating the courage of such influential citizen activists as Martin Luther King, Jr., early suffragettes Alice Paul and Carrie Chapman Catt, civil rights pioneers Rosa Parks and John Lewis, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and Army-McCarthy hearings lawyer Joseph N. Welch, Meacham brings vividly to life turning points in American history. He writes about the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the birth of the Lost Cause; the backlash against immigrants in the First World War and the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s; the fight for women's rights; the demagoguery of Huey Long and Father Coughlin and the isolationist work of America First in the years before World War II; the anti-Communist witch-hunts led by Senator Joseph McCarthy; and Lyndon Johnson's crusade against Jim Crow. Each of these dramatic hours in our national life has been shaped by the contest to lead the country to look forward rather than back, to assert hope over fear--a struggle that continues even now. While the American story has not always--or even often--been heroic, we have been sustained by a belief in progress even in the gloomiest of times. In this inspiring book, Meacham reassures us, "The good news is that we have come through such darkness before"--as, time and again, Lincoln's better angels have found a way to prevail."--Dust jacket.

976.1 S

Smith, Petric J., 1940-. Long time coming : an insider's story of the Birmingham church bombing that rocked the world. 1st ed. Birmingham, Ala. : Crane Hill, 1994.

F Bir

Birch, Anna, author. I kissed Alice. First. "Fan Girl meets Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda in this #ownvoices LGBTQ romance about two rivals who fall in love online"--.

F Bra

Bradbury, Ray, 1920-2012, author. Fahrenheit 451. Simon & Schuster trade paperback edition, 60th anniversary edition. Introduction / by Neil Gaiman -- Fahrenheit 451. The hearth and the salamander ; The sieve and the sand ; Burning bright. History, context, and criticism / edited by Jonathan R. Eller. pt. 1. The story of Fahrenheit 451. The story of Fahrenheit 451 / by Jonathan R. Eller ; From The day after tomorrow: why science fiction? (1953) / by Ray Bradbury ; Listening library audio introduction (1976) / by Ray Bradbury ; Investing dimes: Fahrenheit 451 (1982, 1989) / by Ray Bradbury ; Coda (1979) / by Ray Bradbury -- pt. 2. Other voices. The novel. From a letter to Stanley Kauffmann / by Nelson Algren ; Books of the times / by Orville Prescott ; From New wine, old bottles / by Gilbert Highet ; New novels / by Idris Parry ; New fiction / by Sir John Betjeman ; 1984 and all that / by Adrian Mitchell ; From New maps of hell / by Sir Kingsley Amis ; Introduction to Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 / by Harold Bloom ; Fahrenheit 451 / by Margaret Atwood ; The motion picture. Shades of Orwell / by Arthur Knight ; From The journal of Fahrenheit 451 / by Fran©ʹois Truffaut. In a future totalitarian state where books are banned and destroyed by the government, Guy Montag, a fireman in charge of burning books, meets a revolutionary schoolteacher who dares to read and a girl who tells him of a past when people did not live in fear ... This sixtieth-anniversary edition commemorates Ray Bradbury's masterpiece with a new introduction by Neil Gaiman ; personal essays on the genesis of the novel by the author; a wealth of critical essays and reviews by Nelson Algren, Harold Bloom, Margaret Atwood, and others; rare manuscript pages and sketches from Ray Bradbury's personal archive; and much more ... --- From back cover.

F DeL

White noise. 2009; with an introduction by Richard Powers. New York, NY : Penguin Books, 2009.

F Gri

Grisham, John, author. Camino Island. First edition. Bruce Cable owns a popular bookstore in the sleepy resort town of Santa Rosa on Camino Island in Florida. He makes his real money, though, as a prominent dealer in rare books. Very few people know that he occasionally dabbles in the black market of stolen books and manuscripts. Mercer Mann is a young novelist with a severe case of writer's block who has recently been laid off from her teaching position. She is approached by an elegant, mysterious woman working for an even more mysterious company. A generous offer of money convinces Mercer to go undercover and infiltrate Bruce Cable's circle of literary friends, ideally getting close enough to him to learn his secrets. But eventually Mercer learns far too much.--Adapted from book jacket.

F Hem

Hemingway, Ernest, 1899-1961, author. The sun also rises. The Hemingway library edition. The novel -- Appendix I: Pamplona, July 1923 -- Appendix II: Early drafts -- Appendix III: The discarded first chapters -- Appendix IV: List of possible titles. A profile of the Lost Generation captures life among the expatriates on Paris' Left Bank during the 1920s, the brutality of bullfighting in Spain, and the moral and spiritual dissolution of a generation.

F Hur

Hurston, Zora Neale. Their eyes were watching god. 1st Harper Perennial Modern Classics ed. New York : Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006. Foreword / Edwidge Danticat -- Their eyes were watching God -- Afterword / Henry Louis Gates, Jr. -- Selected bibliography -- Chronology. A novel about black Americans in Florida that centers on the life of Janie and her three marriages.

F Kid

Kidd, Sue Monk. The invention of wings. The story follows Hetty "Handful" Grimke, a Charleston slave, and Sarah, the daughter of the wealthy Grimke family. The novel begins on Sarah's eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership over Handful, who is to be her handmaid, and follows the next thirty-five years of their lives. Inspired in part by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke (a feminist, suffragist and, importantly, an abolitionist), the author allows herself to go beyond the record to flesh out the inner lives of all the characters, both real and imagined. -- Provided by publisher. "Hetty 'Handful' Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke's daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women. The novel is set in motion on Sarah's eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other's destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love. As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women's rights movements. Inspired by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, the author goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handful's cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in her search for something better. This novel looks with unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no reader unmoved. -- Publisher's description.

F Nab

Vladimir Nabokov. Glory. United States : McGraw-Hill International, Inc, 1971.

F Orw

Orwell, George, 1903-1950. 1984. Signet Classics. New York, NY : Berkley: an imprint of Penguin Random House, LLC, c. 1977. "Eternal warfare is the price of bleak prosperity in this satire of totalitarian barbarism."--ARBookFind.

F Sal

Salinger, J. D. (Jerome David), 1919-2010. Nine stories. 1st Back Bay pbk. ed. Boston : Back Bay Books/Little, Brown, 2001, c1991. A perfect day for bananafish -- Uncle wiggily in Connecticut -- Just before the war with the Eskimos -- The laughing man -- Down at the dinghy -- For Esme--with love and squalor -- Pretty mouth and green my eyes -- De Daumier-Smith's blue period -- Teddy. Salinger's classic collection of short stories is now available in trade paperback.

F Tho

Thomas, Angie, author. The hate u give. First edition. "Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil's name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. But what Starr does or does not say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life"--.

F Tho

Thomas, Angie, author. On the come up. First edition. Sixteen-year-old Bri hopes to become a great rapper, and after her first song goes viral for all the wrong reasons, must decide whether to sell out or face eviction with her widowed mother.

F Tol

The Hobbit : or There and Back Again. First U.S. edition; Illus. by Jemima Catlin, 2013. New York, NY : HarperCollins Publishers, 2013.

F Ver

Around the world in 80 days. Classics. Trans. by Geo. M. Towle. Lexington, KY, : October 29. 2019.

F Ver

Around the world in 80 days. Illustrated First Edition. Translated by Geo. M. Towle. Orinda, CA : SeaWolf Press, 2018.

F. Gri

Belfry Holdings, Inc. (Charlottesville, Virginia), author. Camino winds : a novel. Hardcover. "#1 New York Times bestselling author John Grisham returns to Camino Island in this irresistible page-turner that's as refreshing as an island breeze. In Camino Winds, mystery and intrigue once again catch up with novelist Mercer Mann, proving that the suspense never rests-even in paradise"--.

SC A

Alomar, Osama, 1968- author, translator. The teeth of the comb & other stories.

SC Mac

Machado, Carmen Maria, author. Her body and other parties : stories. Contains short stories about the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies. "In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies. A wife refuses her husband's entreaties to remove the green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague slowly consumes humanity. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery within the seams of the store's prom dresses. One woman's surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted houseguest. And in the bravura novella 'Especially Heinous,' Machado reimagines every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a show we naïvely assumed had shown it all, generating a phantasmagoric police procedural full of doppelgängers, ghosts, and girls with bells for eyes. Earthy and otherworldly, antic and sexy, queer and caustic, comic and deadly serious, Her Body and Other Parties swings from horrific violence to the most exquisite sentiment. In their explosive originality, these stories enlarge the possibilities of contemporary fiction." -- Publisher's description.

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brookstonalmanac · 4 years ago

Text

Events 2.1

1327 – The teenaged Edward III is crowned King of England, but the country is ruled by his mother Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer. 1411 – The First Peace of Thorn is signed in Thorn (Toruń), Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights (Prussia). 1662 – The Chinese general Koxinga seizes the island of Taiwan after a nine-month siege. 1713 – The Kalabalik or Skirmish at Bender results from the Ottoman sultan's order that his unwelcome guest, King Charles XII of Sweden, be seized. 1793 – French Revolutionary Wars: France declares war on the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. 1796 – The capital of Upper Canada is moved from Newark to York. 1814 – Mayon in the Philippines erupts, killing around 1,200 people, the most devastating eruption of the volcano. 1835 – Slavery is abolished in Mauritius. 1861 – American Civil War: Texas secedes from the United States. 1864 – Second Schleswig War: Prussian forces crossed the border into Schleswig, starting the war. 1865 – President Abraham Lincoln signs the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. 1884 – The first volume (A to Ant) of the Oxford English Dictionary is published. 1893 – Thomas A. Edison finishes construction of the first motion picture studio, the Black Maria in West Orange, New Jersey. 1895 – Fountains Valley, Pretoria, the oldest nature reserve in Africa, is proclaimed by President Paul Kruger. 1896 – La bohème premieres in Turin at the Teatro Regio (Turin), conducted by the young Arturo Toscanini. 1897 – Shinhan Bank, the oldest bank in South Korea, opens in Seoul. 1908 – Lisbon Regicide: King Carlos I of Portugal and Infante Luis Filipe are shot dead in Lisbon. 1918 – Russia adopts the Gregorian calendar. 1924 – Russia–United Kingdom relations are restored, over six years after the Communist revolution. 1942 – World War II: Josef Terboven, Reichskommissar of German-occupied Norway, appoints Vidkun Quisling the Minister President of the National Government. 1942 – World War II: U.S. Navy conducts Marshalls–Gilberts raids, the first offensive action by the United States against Japanese forces in the Pacific Theater. 1942 – Voice of America, the official external radio and television service of the United States government, begins broadcasting with programs aimed at areas controlled by the Axis powers. 1942 – Mao Zedong makes a speech on "Reform in Learning, the Party and Literature", which puts into motion the Yan'an Rectification Movement. 1946 – Trygve Lie of Norway is picked to be the first United Nations Secretary-General. 1946 – The Parliament of Hungary abolishes the monarchy after nine centuries, and proclaims the Hungarian Republic. 1950 – The first prototype of the MiG-17 makes its maiden flight. 1960 – Four black students stage the first of the Greensboro sit-ins at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. 1964 – The Beatles have their first number one hit in the United States with "I Want to Hold Your Hand". 1968 – Vietnam War: The execution of Viet Cong officer Nguyễn Văn Lém by South Vietnamese National Police Chief Nguyễn Ngọc Loan is recorded on motion picture film, as well as in an iconic still photograph taken by Eddie Adams. 1968 – Canada's three military services, the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Army and the Royal Canadian Air Force, are unified into the Canadian Forces. 1968 – The New York Central Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad are merged to form Penn Central Transportation. 1972 – Kuala Lumpur becomes a city by a royal charter granted by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia. 1974 – A fire in the 25-story Joelma Building in São Paulo, Brazil kills 189 and injures 293. 1979 – Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns to Tehran after nearly 15 years of exile. 1989 – The Western Australian towns of Kalgoorlie and Boulder amalgamate to form the City of Kalgoorlie–Boulder. 1991 – A runway collision between USAir Flight 1493 and SkyWest Flight 5569 at Los Angeles International Airport results in the deaths of 34 people, and injuries to 30 others. 1992 – The Chief Judicial Magistrate of Bhopal court declares Warren Anderson, ex-CEO of Union Carbide, a fugitive under Indian law for failing to appear in the Bhopal disaster case. 1996 – The Communications Decency Act is passed by the U.S. Congress. 1998 – Rear Admiral Lillian E. Fishburne becomes the first female African American to be promoted to rear admiral. 2002 – Daniel Pearl, American journalist and South Asia Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal, kidnapped January 23, 2002, is beheaded and mutilated by his captors. 2003 – Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during the reentry of mission STS-107 into the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard. 2004 – Hajj pilgrimage stampede: In a stampede at the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, 251 people are trampled to death and 244 injured. 2005 – King Gyanendra of Nepal carries out a coup d'état to capture the democracy, becoming Chairman of the Councils of ministers. 2009 – The first cabinet of Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir was formed in Iceland, making her the country's first female prime minister and the world's first openly gay head of government. 2012 – Seventy-four people are killed and over 500 injured as a result of clashes between fans of Egyptian football teams Al Masry and Al Ahly in the city of Port Said. 2013 – The Shard, the sixth-tallest building in Europe, opens its viewing gallery to the public. 2021 – A coup d'état in Myanmar removes Aung San Suu Kyi from power and restores military rule.

#Events

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ashhdolll · 4 years ago

Text

One Semester

Part One

Have you ever made love before? Not that quick, rough, pumping sex you have after a night out and the high from that “You up?” text has got you going, no I’m talking about real love making. The love is writhing and rotating between the two of you, I mean you can FEEL it being created as your bodies do that familiar dance. You want more, they want more, because what you’re creating isn’t just physically pleasurable, it stimulates your whole being... See I’ve done that just once in my life before and it has fucked everything up for me every since.

Senior year of college in Greensboro all you want is a fucking blunt, a paycheck and your degree. That’s it. If you haven’t joined an organization by now don’t even worry about it, you’re officially almost nonexistent on campus and that’s how you wanted it to be.

While a good majority of my friends had graduated in May, my senior year had extended to the fall semester so I would have to wait until December to turn my tassel. The fall graduation also extended my living situation another year that I had not planned nor saved for and why would I? There was weed to buy nigga!

To help my parents pay for my rent I decided to return to my old fast food job, I won’t say which one but if you have four dollars and some change you had a nice meal that could hold you for two hours. It was my second go round working there (I had previously worked there my sophomore year) and the manager, Ms. B was just as much of a crazy pastor’s wife looking bitch as before. Just imagine Shirley Caesar 5’9 with permanent shoulder pads and Shenehneh’s wig-you see it? Okay, that was my manager, she was loud, mean, blunt, and still one of the best women I know. She was the type of grandmother that my sensitive soul couldn’t handle so God sent her to me in another way-every reprimand stung for me and I had to learn not to take it personally. She was strong and I loved that about her and she loved me too. I was great with the customers inside and even better with them when I worked the drive thru, coming back to that job was like riding a bike. Listening to an order with four number 3 meals, two large and two medium. Oh and can one of the drinks be a half and half vanilla/chocolate shake? She loved how I would shove the ice in the cups, pour drinks and begin taking another order all before the former car has even paid for their meal. I had to be like that or Ms. B was going to bitch me out in front of everyone and loudly too. Her voice was like the crack of the whip, almost everybody would jump or got into their respective places when they knew she was around or heard her coming. She noticed everything which always annoyed me when I would be trying to sneak a four piece nugget in my pocket to snack on so that I could soothe the hunger pains stabbing my stomach.

I worked five days a week and also had class five days a week so morning shift was my friend. Waking up at 7:30am just barely making it to the 8am shift was a real struggle for me, especially since my shift was supposed to start at the time I got up. But, I had gotten used to it, and at eight in the morning my work started. Slicing tomatoes, breaking up red onions, opening fresh packs of mayonnaise (six containers of each) and also making bacon.

Now the bacon was the hard part. In the morning it was a bit easier since we opened at 10am. If I had gotten to work at my scheduled time I may not have been so overwhelmed but it was my senior year and if I didn’t want to be in my class I needed to graduate what the hell did I look like rushing to work for less than $9 an hour?

There was a process to the bacon that is simply too long to explain. In verbatim, there are six sheet pans you use to cook the bacon in the oven at a time. Six pans = one tin container of bacon. Before morning shift starts, Ms. B wanted ten containers of bacon ready. Two for each sandwich maker and then another six on the side over a warmer filled with a a bit of boiling water-to keep it hot. It was a tiring process, bacon got too burnt? Put another six in, start again. Bacon not done yet? Keep it in for another three minutes then it’ll be perfect. But shit, I haven’t even starting putting the fucking mayo in smaller tins, gotta go to the free- ‘JADA DID YOU CUT UP THEM TOMATOES YET?’ Ms. B would yell that from her office, she knew I forgot. Lemme get these tomatoes. Slicing, slicing, slicing, putting them in the tin containers. Slicing, slicing slicing, more containers. Slicing, slicing, cut your left pointer finger. Red drips down and the pain is almost not there but at the same time you can feel it. “JADA IS THAT BACON BURNING??”

Got to start another six pans.

These were my mornings from May to December. It would usually just be me, Ms. B and another older lady, Ms. Lydia who for some reason enjoyed being Ms. B’s bitch although they were around the same age and same height. Always “yes ma’am”-ing her like a house slave. By 10am the orders started and I was always the one taking orders until about 11 or 11:30, making my job duties change to taking orders and money, washing dishes, cutting bacon to put in the fridge so that it’d be ready for whoever my replacement was and trying not to burn my final six pans of bacon.

Either Jessica or Devon would come in and take over taking orders while I rushed finished my other duties before 1:30pm which was when I was off because at 2pm, I had class. If Jessica was coming in, it was definitely going to be a giggle fest. The customers loved her and so did I. She was five foot even, had beautiful caramel skin was just a naturally beautiful woman with brown playful eyes. All types of men wanted her affection but her girlfriend was the apple of her eye, she couldn’t be swayed. From the moment I met her we clicked. From jokes, to relationships, to marijuana we meshed. It was like I was meant to be there with her to survive this job because she sure as hell made coming to work a lot easier. She had my back at work and outside of it and I always spoke up for her whenever Ms. B made a slick comment about her (She would always say “I don’t know why you and Jessica have to always be talkin’ back” ‘because you always talkin’ hoe’ was my telepathic response).

When Devon would come in, it was a “hi” and “bye” situation. I had avoided that particular burger joint my senior yet to hopefully wipe of greasy memories from working there as a sophomore so to come back was a little embarrassing. There were a few people I knew that were still working there but they weren’t in school. The Locals is what us college kids called them. The Locals weren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Most had kids and were in their late 20s or early 30s. Making my stomach drop and forcing me to think “What’s next? What happens when December ends?”

Devon was A Local, born and raised in Greensboro and had went to college for a year before withdrawing-he was an In-Betweener. He was three years my senior but didn’t work there when I did previously yet he was an amazing worker. Always on point, always clear and fast too. He was about 5’10 and had a very strong build, but you knew he also indulged in an extra slice of cake or two. Not chubby but solid. A man. Skin the perfect walnut color with a full low black beard, not that scraggly at all. Devon wore glasses, black frames and square and his work hat covered his completely shaved head. I’ve always liked guys that knew having a shaved head was much better than sporting a barely there hairline or premature balding. Completely shaving it all off told me that that particular man was realistic and in touch with what is. I like people like that, who don’t live in a fantasy and know how to accept things how they are.

Devon was attractive, plain & simple. But was he my type? The hell if I knew, I didn’t think I had a type. After a break up with my boyfriend of two and a half years I didn’t give a fuck about a “type”. Give me liberty or give me dick. But I had gotten tired of the random, late night fucks. It’s great, don’t get me wrong, but having someone that loves you after he orgasms is the thing I missed the most. I was tired of dealing with men in general and my focus was on graduating and paying my rent. Everything else in between that was a distraction.

Anyway, Devon was a dweeb for sure. When he’d take orders sometimes he’d change his accent. Going from a terrible ‘English’ accent to an even worse ‘African’ accent. He mostly took orders in his normal voice but on occasion when he was extra bored he’d switch up to entertain himself. His Johnny Cash impression was pretty good though.

We had been working together for about two and a half months. By that time I stayed away from almost every side conversation that came my way if it wasn’t from Jessica. I just wanted to work these measly six hours and go the fuck home, nothing more, nothing less. I’d speak to Devon in passing. (“Can I get some ice please?” “He says his burger was supposed to have no ketchup, not no mustard” “Can I get a small fry please?” ) and he was always so helpful. I appreciated it immensely. When things were busy we’d bump into each other at the fry station-it was very tight over there no more than about three feet of space. Everyone was always squeezing, knocking and prodding into one another’s rib cage. Devon would fill up a carton of fries while simultaneously elbowing my tit as I waited to stand over the hot bulbs and get my carton of fries. Other days I couldn’t wait and I’d have to force myself to get there, if he was standing there I’d lightly touch his back to let him know he was about to get pushed out of the way. I couldn’t wait to go home and smoke.

When we had slow moments we’d chat. Or rather they’d talk while I eavesdropped and cleaned my area, because if you weren’t cleaning or stocking something Ms. B would ask you why. Now you standing there looking lazy and stupid. I learned in life that it’s best for you to do what you know needs to be done without someone telling you to. I was cleaning around front counter after the lunch crowd cleared out. The lunch rush is what you fear and also what you thank God for because it allowed three hours to go by and you were really working. No jokes, no kikis, straight up labor.

As I was cleaning up, Devon and the sandwich maker that day Ahmad were joking around like guys do and ended up on the subject of Spongebob Squarepants, which then leads Devon into a ballad of ‘Striped Sweater’.

‘What in the fuck...’ I think to myself. I had to turn away to keep from laughing in their faces. These grown niggas singing a song from a cartoon. Graduate me please. It wasn’t so silly that I was annoyed but it was silly because I hadn’t seen that type of carelessness and vulnerability before from a guy since my break up. A lot of men in college I surrounded myself with were professionals in training. Already thinking about what they were going to do next when I myself hadn’t even started to think about what’s happening right in front of me. But that also made them stiff to me-as if they cared too much about how the world was going to perceive them once they left the university world. I’m sure Devon was not attempting to portray himself as carefree, he was just singing a song from memory. He was just being himself, a funny and unapologetic square who loved Christian hip hop. But that’s when I finally noticed him. He was watching me think because when I turned his way he quickly looked around and pressed on his headset-oh he’s just taking an order. No words come out. Yeah, he was watching me.

The days went by and we would talk more and more. Little bids here and there. His quirkiness & sweetness made me feel good. I didn’t know it then but that’s how I felt. One day, during our shift while it was slow and we were talking he asks “Do you have a Facebook?”

“Yes.” I answered.

“Okay type your name in and then I’ll add you”

And so it began. So not only was I able to see Devon at work, but I’d come home, take a shower and see what post he’d tag me in, reactions to my statuses. I’d see comments on my pictures “You think you cute” “Lips!!” It was fun. Playing that little game. See I’m not stupid, men are men. He looks good, I look good, I mean come on. As fun as this was I knew we were going to get down to business-real business. Grown business. He was still living with his family on the other side of Greensboro and I had my own place. ‘Let me know when you’re ready for me because I am’ was the aura I was beginning to give off to him. I knew he wanted it but didn’t know what to say or how to initiate it properly. He was treading lightly and I appreciated it so I decided to take the reins and invite him over.

The first time he came over I wasn’t nervous. It was going to be my own research project as to why or why not he deserved to be inside me. We were just going to watch something on TV, snack, talk about work and then he’d leave and I’d make my decision from there. I had been off that day but had already showered a crowded library and the gym stench from my tired body. I very much wanted to reschedule his presentation but it would’ve been my third time rescheduling with him and I knew he wouldn’t have came over at all if I pushed it to another day-a guy has his limits. Plus I figured the visit would be short, no more than an hour then back to my blunt and Netflix. A modern romance.

A text then knock at the door alerted me of Devon’s presence. My roommates were gone so I had the apartment to myself for a while with no distractions so I could really make my decision. I opened the door and there he was, fresh off work in his all black uniform. The stench of grease and old meat filled my nostrils and apartment making my stomach turn. I smiled.

“Hey how are you?” I asked motioning for him to come in further.

“I’m good, just tired.” He said while coming in and standing over me. Devon was inches away and I could smell the nuggets he ate on his breath. I looked up at him and realized how much taller than me his when I don’t have my work shoes. I felt little, but safe. He give me a nice warm hug I lowkey didn’t want because now my Dove body wash was getting mixed with grease. As he pulled away he took off his book bag and work shoes and his height fell two inches-that’s better. I looked down as saw three holes in his socks but didn’t say anything, nor did he. He was tired and took the bus to faithfully to make it to work and home every day. ‘I’ll buy him some more’ I thought to myself.

I walked to the kitchen and opened the fridge, “You want some juice?” I ask. I had bought some just for him because he loves sweet drinks. Sodas, juice, ICEE’s, whatever. As long as it had some type of simple syrup in it, that nigga was gonna drink it. No answer. I turned and looked back at him and caught him looking at me. Like it was the first time he’d really seen me. And technically it was, he’d never seen my outside of work or outside of a picture on whatever social media account. No, he was looking at me now. The at home Jada. The Jada that very rarely wears a bra or panties at home and who has much more under her work uniform then he guessed. Whose skin shines with moisturizer instead of sweat from work, the tattoos he didn’t know she had on that pretty brown skin. He was seeing me for the first time and I knew he liked what he saw. I liked that he liked it.

“Huh” he said.

If you can ‘huh’ you can hear. “Do you want some juice?” I asked again.

“Yea that’s cool”

I dipped my head into the fridge to cool my face and pretend to look around for the one juice that was sitting in front of me. The heat from my face was matching the heat downtown where my second brain (aka vagina) was located.

He sat on the couch and patiently waited as I poured his drink. Talking about some sports notification he got on his phone-like I gave a fuck. As I brought him his cup of juice he reached into his book bag and pulled out a bag of food from our job and traded me. I opened I sat next to him and I saw that it was filled with four chocolate chip cookies from our job. It costs ninety-nine cents to add to any meal and customers rarely took advantage of it. I picked up the slack for their obliviousness and stole cookies whenever the coast was clear. Devon would help and drop them in my bag when I’d be leaving for class. He knew they were my favorite.

I smiled again. Two smiles in less than five minutes? Yes it’s a wrap. “Thank you, I appreciate it” I told him.

“You’re welcome big heed”

I rolled my eyes, this nigga is so corny I love it. “How was work today?”

He sucked his teeth, “Man you know how it is, Ms. B yelling, hungry construction workers, annoying college kids like you.” He smirked at the end and looked at me out of the side of his eye.

“What the hell ever.” I softly nudged him.

The TV was turned to Family Feud and he seemed interested but I was not. Steve Harvey and his constant disbelief at outlandish answers was getting old but I put up with it for the sake of nostalgia.

We chatted, watched TV and showed each other things on our phone. Devon gulped down his juice and set it on my mama’s wooden coffee table. “Your place is nice”, he observed, “You don’t stay by yourself do you?”.

“No”, I answered “I have two roommates but one is moving out in a couple weeks.”

“Are they here now?”

“No”

Silence. Thinking. Thinking about us here alone together. Wondering.Things could happen, they should. Back to reality.

“Do you wanna watch anything else?” I asked him and handed him the roommate.

He took it from me and put it back on the coffee table. “Nah I don’t mind watching this”, he says and he wrapped his arm around me.

Ahh shit. I hadn’t been this close to a male body fully clothed in a minute. Although he smelled like an air fryer he felt so soft and firm. I relaxed but still squirmed under his arm. Not out of being uncomfortable but to give some sort of relief to my pulsating lower brain. This moment had been brewing since we started talking outside of work. The slick comments, innuendos and fake eye rolls had all lead up to this. As soon as Devon pulled me to him, the faucet turned on. Baby she was ready, begging, yearning almost. She needed it. Now.

“You good?” He asked and looked at me. We were so fucking close I could smell the last of the sweet juice on his breath. His pouty full lips were inches away. So no my nigga, I am not good and I would like your lips on both sets of mine, please and thanks.

“Yea, I’m fine” I croaked out. Perfect now I sound like a twelve year-old.

“Mhm okay.” He said still looking at me. Or in me rather because he was looking deep into my eyes. As if my eyes were going to give him the answer to a question he just thought of asking. With his left arm around me he held my face with his right and kissed me deep but gentle (that’s how all of our encounters would be...). Firm enough to let me know he was a grown man but also soft enough to let me know he knew how to take his time. It was like kissing a plump cloud, very soft and I needed more. The kiss went from sweetness to straight up lust in a flash. I pushed myself up to give more mouth and he pressed right back into it. Opening his mouth slightly I went in for the kill and slipped my tongue into his mouth. Tracing it and he held on to my face. He tasted so sweet. The kiss continued and an electric shock went down to the middle of my green sweatpants. I moaned in his mouth. He moaned back. The front door swung open.

It was my roommate that was moving and her boyfriend. And here I was in her couch pre-best orgasm of my life sucking face. Welcome home. Me and Devon quickly separated out of embarrassment and also gratefulness. Had they come five minutes later we would have been much more than roommates, definitely family.

“Hey how are y’all doing?” I asked sweetly. I know we looked nuts, my shirt was twisted, we’re breathing heavy, it smells like fries in here. She’s gonna call the fucking cops on me. We had only been leaving together for a few weeks. We barely spoke or saw each other because she was in nursing school. Gone early in the morning, coming in in the evening and going straight to bed. She didn’t even use the kitchen. A quiet girl who never interfered, I hope she’s doing well. Devon and I scooted away from each other slightly to look more comfortable and less like humping rabbits.

“Good, you?” She said with some surprise in her voice and eyes. Her boyfriend glanced quickly then looked straight ahead making a beeline for Jordan’s room. I didn’t answer and watched as she shuffled behind him. Good, hurry up and get the fuck in your room. I wanted to turn the desire up a few more notches in here. It was early September and in Greensboro the breeze begins to get crisper in the evenings. The cold air they brought in when they opened the door turned the heat down that we had generated.

Bruce Banner was back.

As the door closed to Jordan’s room I looked at him and smiled. He kissed me again and held my face. “You’re so pretty with those dimples.”

I cheesed harder. Marry me.

Devon released my face and checked his phone. “I gotta go lil mama.”

My heart broke. Not really but the one in my vagina sure did. If the sex was like the kiss it was definitely going to give me what I needed, and wanted.

‘Just ask him if he wanna fuck you from behind in the doorway real quick’, my Lower Brain whispered.

‘Calm the fuck do-well that’s not a bad idea, I don’t think my other roommate is going to be home for a -no. Stop, just relax.’ my Actual Brain decided.

“Oh, well alright. Can you come by again tomorrow?” I asked him hopefully. He stood up and walked to put his shoes back on and I followed. As I walked it felt like a puddle of lust was in between my legs. Send help.

Devon turned and looked down at me, pulling me close to him by my waist. I could feel the hardness in his pants slowly depleting.

Lower Brain, “Girl that’s just how he gon look when y’all fuck’

RB: Bitch, I know I can’t wait, shut up!’

He kissed me deep again, but quick, so he wouldn’t get us both started again. “I can’t do tomorrow, but Tuesday after I get off at five I can come by.”

LB: Tuesday is a day and a half away, you sure you’ll be okay?

“That’s perfect”, I said looking up at him. “I’m out of class out 4:45.”

And it really was perfect. I’m always out of class around 4:45, he’s off at 5pm but when you work in fast food, you’re never really going to get off at your scheduled time. At five is when you begin to have an attitude because your replacement is taking their time getting to your position to relieve you or they haven’t shown up at all yet-oh and people are still ordering because they have no idea there’s a shift change taking place through the intercom. Then the complaining to whatever manager on duty starts which is when they realize they have to let you go. After stocking up your replacement, stuffing burgers, cookies or even a salad into the bag you brought with you to work and getting your complimentary drink it was finally time to clock out. See by that time it’d be around 5:45pm, Devon would let me know he was on the way or outside and I’d already be showered, shaved and ready to finish what we started.

“Perfect.” I love the fast food industry.

#ashleysimonee story #ashleysimonee #ashhdolll #ashhdoll story

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enneagramspam · 5 years ago

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ISABEL LOVELACE

8w7

“Don't die. Be a big girl, and don't die.“

Isabelle Lovelace is a textbook Eight; as a Captain, she is authoritative, resourceful and strong-willed, but also prone to domineering and confrontational behaviour. Upon her return to the Hephaestus, she demonstrates the ruthless, authoritarian streak of a deeply disintegrated Eight, but over the course of the series she is able to integrate back into a healthier Eight, a heroic figure who is genuinely able to protect her crew.

Basic Fear: Of being harmed or controlled by others

“Oh, I'm not following one of your orders? Gee, must be Monday…”

In comparison with the rest of the cast, who grow to reasonably distrust Goddard after betrayal, Lovelace has never been good with authority of any kind; it’s simply a facet of her personality. This is made clear in Greensboro;

“There's been times when I haven't seen eye-to-eye with my superior officers. Like all those times they gave me stupid orders. On those occasions, I was inclined to carry out my orders with a bit of... creativity.”

Lovelace remains her own ultimate authority, following orders only when they suit her, and as such, she is not truly beholden to them at all. Interestingly, there are pages of glowing testimonials from those who served under Lovelace, while those above her in the chain of command found her to be disobedient and punished her as a result; being a good leader and a bad follower isn’t at all uncommon for an Eight.

Lovelace takes great pride in her independence, and expresses contempt for those that, in her eyes, allow themselves to be controlled, particularly her rules-obsessed second in command Officer Lambert, who effectively represents this basic fear- she calls him “an asinine teacher’s pet,” and repeatedly admonishes him for a lack of “a mind of his own,” even ridiculing him in front of the rest of her crew. Lambert is in fact the perfect foil to Lovelace, because while he is endlessly obedient to Goddard, he repeatedly undermines her, as Hilbert observes;

“You are perhaps needing someone who... questions superior officer? Who does not immediately do what is told? Who will fight for what they think is right way of doing job?”

Taking all this into account, it’s no wonder Lovelace dislikes Lambert so much when he both represents the control she so fears and the disobedience she cannot tolerate. The anger he provokes causes her to slip into the role of the intimidating Eight, which causes some friction with the rest of her crew, who describe her as “scary,” and observe that her personality is fundamentally combative; “she’d be bored without something to fight against.”

Lovelace’s preoccupation with control is part of the reason that her discovery that she is an alien replica of her previous self subject to the whims of the aliens who created her is so distrubing for her- this is the avenue the habitually manipulative Kepler takes to try and unsettle her, preying on her basic fear;

“Are you sure that it's you that made the choice? Less than two days ago you were speaking words that weren't your own. … Maybe they're always in control, and they've made it so you can't tell. What if everything you think you're doing for yourself is just our friends out there pulling strings? What if your thoughts aren't your own?”

For Lovelace to even admit that this bothers her is difficult; Eights natrual tendency is to avoid vulnerability. It’s not until her control is completely taken away when she is trapped in a time loop orchestrated by the same aliens in Out of the Loop, driving her to disintegration and essentially forcing her to do so in the hopes of moving on.

“I - I'm sorry. I... Maybe Kepler's right. Maybe I'm not in control of what I'm doing.”

Ultimately, Lovelace is forced to live her basic fear, again and again, to begin to overcome it. Her arc culminates in her worst possible scenario- Cutter, the manifestation of the insidious control she has been raging against throughout the series, gaining direct control of her by manipulating the psi-waves that affect her alien physiology;

“If you have enough psi-waves in the air … you can control all sorts of things. What do you think, Isabel? Pretty neat, isn't it?”

Lovelace can’t wrest herself from Cutter’s control entirely- she shoots Minkowski, and is unable to fire at Cutter. She is, however, able to distract him for long enough for Minkowski to kill him. Not only is this a direct confrontation of Lovelace’s basic fear, with her being forced to accept that sometimes the situation is out of her control, this scene forces her to eschew her basic desire, and instead, rely on someone else to protect her; as an Eight, this is the logical conclusion to her arc.

Basic Desire: To protect themselves (to be in control of their own life

and destiny)

“There’s something I needed to remind myself of. That you're not just what you were made. That you can grow. At least... when you assholes don't interfere.”

Repeatedly, Lovelace cannot stand seeing others allowing their destiny to be decided for them- even when she particularly dislikes the person in question. When Eris announces her intention to self destruct on behalf of Goddard, she is furious;

“You can't just let these people delete you! You should fight this! ...Just because someone made you something doesn't mean that's all you're going to be. You can be more.”

She reacts similarly, if far more explosively when Hilbert is unfazed upon discovering that Goddard were planning on betraying him;

“What... the hell... is wrong with you? (BEAT) I will never understand you. How are you not angry? How are you not revoltingly angry? They were going to leave you up here. To rot … Listen to me, you despicable waste of a soul: that's not how you react to this. Humanity 101: when someone lies to you, when someone betrays you, when they leave you to die, alone, in the cold, you DO NOT FIND IT PERFECTLY EQUITABLE! You get angry, and you do whatever you have to in order to show them they have made the worst mistake of their lives. It doesn't matter what you have to give up, who you have to hurt, how far you have to go -”

Indeed, Lovelace goes to every length to be the one in control of her own destiny and to protect herself and those that she cares about. Aside from her dead man’s switch, there’s her response to Kepler’s game of “eeny-meeny,” when he is deciding who to shoot in Desperate Measures- she interrupts him with a “fuck you,” and then proceeds to insult him and spit at him. What could be mistaken, though, for an outburst of pure aggression and resentment is clearly shown to be an attempt to deliberately provoke him and thus control the situation in the only way she can, and an attempt to protect Eiffel;

EIFFEL: “Captain... why did you - you didn't have to -

LOVELACE: “Yes, I did. I did. It's fine.”

She smiles at him. Sadly.

Inaction- and particularly, feeling helpless- drives Lovelace to distraction. She’s desperate to try to take control of the situation in Pan-Pan, repeatedly dismissing Minkowski’s plan to make a distress call, “The only way we're going to get off this station is if we do it ourselves.” On the other side of things, Lovelace’s mini episode, Greensboro, is markedly different from those for each other character. Critically, she doesn’t interact with Cutter, who has a pattern of exploiting the cast’s basic fears, and in reflection of this, it’s her basic desires that Rachel, who is interviewing her, praises and tempts her with;

“You. Deep space. Mission command. You've got … Glowing recommendations from practically everyone you've given an order to. And when you're multiple light years away from your superiors? It's probably good to have someone who can think for themselves.”

It’s easy to understand why Goddard took this unique approach with Lovelace specifically; threatening to control her would result in automatic pushback and rebellion from her, whereas promising her a degree of the control that she so craves was the perfect way to ensure that she agreed to work with them.

Disintegration to Five:

“I invented being paranoid on this station.”

Enneagram Institute describes deeply disintegrated Eights’ actions as “vengeful, barbaric, murderous.” This is particularly true of Lovelace- the first time she flees the Hephaestus, she leaves behind a message promising to exact revenge against Goddard:

“So if you're listening to this: Run. And. Hide. Because by the time that I'm done you will feel more helpless and more alone than all the innocent people you've ever hurt. See you soon.”

Like an unhealthy Five, she is secretive and fearful, leaving her paranoid. She initially admits to turning on Hilbert without proper cause; “I was so paranoid by that point, I think I would have turned on anyone who was with me.” This indiscriminate destructiveness is a hallmark of a disintegrated Eight, and when Minkowski confirms, “You attacked him?” Lovelace simply answers, “Best defence.” She goes on;

“I figured it was just a matter of time before he tried to kill me. So I incapacitated him and I ran. I got on the ship we'd constructed and left him behind. (beat) Not my proudest moment.”

Her violence continues when she returns to the Hephaestus- pouncing on Hilbert on sight, choking him and bashing his head against a wall. Like an unhealthy Five, she is suspicious and information obsessed- planting a gun with a hidden listening device so that she can eavesdrop on Minkowski and Eiffel.

In addition, Enneagram Institute says of disintegrated Eights, “If they get in danger, they may brutally destroy everything that has not conformed to their will rather than surrender to anyone else.” This repeatedly holds true of Lovelace;

““I hope you don't think we'd go down without a fight.”

Indeed, she threatens to invoke the “Taking You With Me,” trope on multiple occasions, to the point that it becomes something of a running joke for her;

“Believe me, kids, right now I'm up for killing everything and everyone on this boat.”

Perhaps the most serious example, though, is the explosive she wires to activate should her heart stop or increase too much which she reveals in the episode aptly named Mutually Assured Destruction, a failsafe she describes, unfeelingly, as “insurance.” When Minkowski doubts her, “You’d be killing yourself. I don’t buy it,” Lovelace simply answers; “Then you’ve never been as scared as I have.” This neatly demonstrates Lovelace’s complete unwillingness to surrender or be subjugated, willing to completely self destruct in order to avert this outcome. Additionally, she uses this threat as a means of seizing control of the station, becoming the ruthless, dictatorial disintegrated Eight;

“There's a new sheriff in town, and I am not taking suggestions, complaints, or objections. Here’s what’s going to happen… Whatever game Command is playing with this station is over. Welcome to my Cold War, kids. Fasten your seat belts, stay out of the way, and don’t try me. Any questions?”

Integration to Two:

“I realized something. The whole epic rampage of revenge thing? Isabel Lovelace wouldn't do that. The terrible wretch that you people made Isabel Lovelace into? Oh, she'd do that. But... I'm not going to be that person anymore. (BEAT) I'm going to be Isabel Lovelace again. Even if I never have before.”

When integrated, Lovelace’s has the sincere care for those around her of a healthy Two, using her own strength of character to support them. A good example of this is when she quite generously agrees to take over for Minkowski when she feels unable to command the station. It’s significant that Minkowski convinces her by appealing to her own respect and need for control;

“ I... I did what I did because I lost control. And until I get it back, I don't think my hands are the best ones for this crew to be in.”

Also notably, Lovelace is demonstrably reluctant to take control, establishing it only happens, “on the very clear understanding that this is a temporary situation, and that [she is] going to sort [her]self out and kick [her] out of [her] chair ASAP.” This Lovelace, genuinely looking forward to ceding control to a person she respects and trusts, is a far cry from the control obsessed woman she is introduced as. Additionally, she uses her strong authority with the goal of actually meeting the needs of her entire crew- for instance, in Theta Scenario;

LOVELACE: “I'm not making that call for everyone. We're voting, and we're not doing anything until we have a unanimous decision.”

EIFFEL: “Fine, lets v-”

LOVELACE: “No. We're not gonna make an informed decision until we know as much as we can about what the hell has been going on here.”

EIFFEL: “Why?”

LOVELACE: “Because I'm the Captain, that's why. That call I will make.”

As aforementioned, Lovelace is also able to depend on Minkowski during her most dire moments during the finale. Early in the series, Lovelace clearly felt that it was her destiny to personally take revenge on Cutter on behalf of her crew, with her promising that outcome to him as an inevitability;

“I'm going to really mess you up someday. You know that, right?”

Allowing Minkowski to be the one to take him down instead is a subtle but incredibly important demonstration of her growth- she thoughtlessly sacrifices an opportunity she would have been unlikely to have given up on without a fight earlier in the series. This courage and self-sacrifice is far more along the lines of what one would expect from an integrated Eight.

w7:

“Let's just say that I am very eager to be a private citizen again.”

Maintaining her own freedom and happiness is a big priority for Lovelace, which is indicative of her Seven wing. She dislikes ruminating on painful subjects, and while she generally copes by being action-oriented; her refusal to confront her grief is explored in Variations On a Theme, where she has no tolerance for herself slipping into present tense when speaking about her past group;

“No. Focus. Work. Be here. Be now. Don't stop to remember. Don't stop to think. Stay away from the ghosts.”

And, in Need To Know it’s revealed she was deliberately getting high on painkillers after the disastrous events of Who’s There?;

“I got a broken an arm trying to save one of my crew members. It was a very difficult time.”

Turning to addiction as a form of escapism is not uncommon for a Seven in disintegration.

Additionally, despite her extreme fury towards Goddard, Lovelace is also driven for much of the series by an extreme desire to return home;

“I want to go back to earth.”

It’s only in her internal monologue- presented as fragmented and scattered, as many disintegrated Sevens can feel and behave- that she acknowledges the painful truth that returning to earth won’t truly fulfill her desires- earth is longer home, and home is gone;

LOVELACE: “I will do this. I'll do it faster. Better. Deal with crazier. Won't die harder. Fix this goddamn engine. Get them out. Go home.”

SECOND LOVELACE: “You can never go home. You were home.”

THIRD LOVELACE: “And now you're back. And you can never go back.”

LOVELACE: “I know. I know.”

In fact, Lovelace’s powerful desire to get off the station is more reminiscent of the blind claustrophobia of a disintegrated Seven- the desire to escape a painful atmosphere- than a draw towards a compelling, satisfying one. Towards the very end of the series, this changes. Significantly, she mentions earth not just in the context of revenging on Goddard or escaping the Hephaestus, but as presenting the opportunity for revitalizing, healing experiences, with something close to the optimism of a healthy Seven;

“Oh, there are so many choices. Look up some old friends, take apart Goddard Futuristics brick by brick... maybe go to Disneyland? But first, I'm going to take a long vacation, somewhere warm and quiet, where nobody has any idea who I am.”

Ultimately, though, her wing isn’t very developed- she’s more than willing to stay on the station late in the series to try and learn more about the aliens and their wants (and by association, about their control over her), and doesn’t try to flee the situation in the same way that Eiffel wants to at that point. Similarly, she’s willing to die to protect him in Desperate Measures- her core desires and fears as an Eight will always overpower the aversion to pain associated with her wing whenever both come into play.

#Isabel Lovelace #8w7 #Type 8 #Wolf 359 #enneagram #wolf 359 spoilers

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geejaysmith · 5 years ago

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Wolf 359: A running list of things I have a heightened appreciation on second listen, pt. 2

Part one here.

SEASON 3:

Pan-Pan: Still a little miffed they didn't explicitly do the "we have to huddle to conserve body heat" trope. Yes, it's corny, but also shut up, let my touch-starved space disasters cuddle.

So Eiffel stopped Hera and Minkowski arguing in season 1 to address an emergency, and now with Eiffel absent, the team starts arguing again. The fact he doesn't exactly have much Pride In His Own Self-Sufficiency to get in the way of "hey! Guys! Remember, imminent death? More important priorities happening?" tends to defuse situations like this aaaaaand now he's absent.

"Cutter will send a squad of psychos to come up here and kill us faster!" ...she's not wrong.

"Pick a corner and relax! Hop to it!" I just like this line delivery.

"The entire station is a SPACE YUKON and this thing is overheating!" I know, it's like it's symbolic or something.

Episode 29: "we all feel responsible for losing Eiffel and are lashing out because we're scared and sad and grieving and fear getting backlash while we're vulnerable if we admit we need help, and we don't know what to do but keep going because the alternative is breaking down and possibly never getting back up again." Alternatively: "It's Metaphors All the Way Down."

Mayday: Eiffel's frustrated screaming.

Brain Ghost Minkowski showing up like "Yeah, we know I'm a hallucination, or Weird Alien Shit, or maybe just a clever metaphor representing the abstract process of thought, but who gives a crap, this is more interesting than listening to you talk to yourself for an entire episode."

BGM: Hi, I'm your thought processes externalized using a face and personality that you subconsciously think you need to hear from in this situation, possibly because you think so little of yourself you need to hear it from somebody else first. Eiffel: Oh hey cool, this is just like this one web comic I kept up with sometimes back on Earth- BGM: Not another word.

Eiffel getting slapped by Brain Ghost Lovelace, who is a projection of his thoughts.

What is that whispering in his head that reminds him of the Hermes' name supposed to be anyway? Score one for my Weird Alien Brain Shit theory. Having Lovelace's alien juice in your system comes with such fun side effects.

"I dunno, I only know what you know." "Shut up, don't go meta on me." / "Hilbert wouldn't know that word! He's never even heard of Empire!" Yeah, toldja: it's Brain Ghosts.

Brain Ghost Hilbert may represent the realist in Eiffel and the brutal, calculating reality he doesn't want to confront, but Brain Ghosts Minkowski and Lovelace are his cooler head and ingenuity, working him through staying calm and devising a way to survive, and Brain Ghost Hera, who appears when Hilbert tells him it's hopeless, telling him that against all the odds he will be okay, is his stubborn determination to never, ever quit. They're all his determination to live when Doug might want to just stop trying. They're the better parts of himself, reflected in the voices of his friends.

And Hilbert. But I digress- HOLY FUCK, I just realized the brilliance in the one-two punch of the Brain Ghost Brigade contrasted with the previous episode's Stress Fracture Argue Crew, it's The Sound And The Fury all over again.

Paging the Wolf 359 incorrect quote blogs: "Save my friends! And Zoidberg Hilbert!"

Sécurité thru Don’t Poke the Bear: Maxwell! I've missed you! (':

"And I build pretty awesome battle drones on the weekends." ...Does Maxwell have her own souped-up version of one Jamie Hyneman's Blendo?

Eiffel, realizing he's starting to sound like Minkowski: My god, what have I become.

Eiffel mumbling to himself in general. "This is hell and I'm in it."

Is it just me or is Kepler's pig story not as agonizingly drawn out to listen to the second time around?

A Matter of Perspective: Funzo: 12 different board games, three of them TCGs and maybe at least one TTRPG, all tossed in a blender, because Pryce and Cutter are psychopaths.

The Funzo manual is the size of the actual Bible and don't try to convince me otherwise.

How into the game the girls all get.

Headcanon: Minkowski and Lovelace are both the types to get stupidly competitive over any kind of game regardless of their initial level of investment.

Eiffel keeps a photo of (it's implied) him and his daughter taped to the underside of his console...

"He looks so... happy." shUT UP

"I had no idea Eiffel had a-" daughter. Was it "daughter" you were going to say Minkowski. Well, no one else knew you were married til you brought it up, so turnabout's fair play.

"You think you know me? You know the artist formerly known as Warren Kepler, you've met my job. Aside from that, there's no one left for you to know." In light of the series finale, I, uh... I don't if I like this, Scoob. Also, stop reminding me all these people are human persons underneath all the desensitization to horror and violence.

"Happy birthday, Eiffel." They remembered! Hope this one is less traumatizing than the last, Doug.

"Happy Kwanzaa!" "Lovelace."

"Long Story Short, that's the last time I saw Maxwell's feet" wh. What. What happened involving Maxwell's feet. What's. why-

And to make a long story short, that's where my "Maxwell has hands for feet" headcanon came from.

Need to Know: Minkowski's dreams, apparently, include both creating musicals and commanding a deep space mission. She's gotten the latter way the hell off the bucket list, somebody with actual songwriting skills want to get in and write the former with me?

Lovelace overindulging on painkillers for her broken arm after losing Officer Fisher... "It was a difficult time." ):

Aaaand serious implications of the above are immediately headed off by Lovelace quacking aggressively at Jacobi.

Fire and Brimstone: where is my fanfiction about Lovelace overseeing Minkowski during her solitary confinement?

The Backstory Episodes: Zach Valenti wrote all the backstory episodes! I just find that kind of sweet.

Once in a Lifetime: Small detail I only noticed on my second listen, after a fanfic put the thought in my head: Minkowski's parents are only referred to in the past tense. Oof.

"Thank you for coming in on such short notice. We had a hiccup in staffing for this upcoming quarter." So... according to the wiki's timeline, the launch for the second Hephaestus mission was some time in late March 2013. The beginning of this episode (and Eiffel's) states it takes place in 2013, with 3 months of training, meaning they were probably brought on board in January and the whole thing moved *ridiculously* fast. Everything points to them wanting to get people up in space as quickly and with as little fuss as possible, giving the newcomers no time to think it over or do additional research. Once they start the training program, they're probably too busy to look further into Goddard's deep space missions, and are likely in an environment where Goddard Futuristics can cut them off from other information sources. The people they select are relatively isolated (Minkowski and her husband being an exception) - the easier to make them disappear. Even Lovelace has been stationed at "a lot of very isolated, very quiet outposts", the implication being her superiors wanted her somewhere out of the way. Kind of makes me wonder about the rest of the Hephaestus 1.0 crew...

Greensboro: Nice ominous foreshadowing you've got there vis a vis Captain Lovelace and "are you an alien?"

Decommissioned: "We're not about to force anyone to do something they don't want to do!" ...Marcus Cutter deserves to have his trousers ablaze constantly.

All Things Considered is still a bit confusing (because I somehow keep listening to it while doing something else) and I'll need another listen to figure out what probably actually happened, but it is also hilarious.

"Eiffel had engaged the machine, but that's why I build in extra safeguards. My mistake, clearly, was to assume that would be enough to stop the slapstick routine."

“All Things Considered”: Did you have fun with this over-the-top romp of hilarity and and hijinks, dear audience? Good! Because that was us burning off our comedy quota for the rest of the season. Get ready for six whole episodes of nonstop emotional gut-punches!

MEMORIA.

Just... Memoria.

Putting this quote here because of Reasons: "Three years... Three and a half years... I've had this thing in my head breaking me, and making me think it was all my fault, that there was something wrong with *me!*"

So Memoria is still one of the best episodes and the last five minutes fuck me up in a special little way.

Time to Kill: "Or the one outside is the real Jacobi... and the alien is already in here with us." The funny thing, Maxwell, is that you were half-right and didn't even realize it, and you *were* just speaking to Lovelace.

So... do alien duplicates only get reloaded from the singular "snapshot" of the person, or does getting flare-scanned once give them a continually updated source of info? What I'm getting at is: if another Jacobi shows up post-finale, would he need to be filled in on events between his horrible, terrible death and the present?

Persuasion: Maxwell switching to First Name Basis to get Jacobi to be honest with her.

I always forget until the scene after that Hilbert is totally setting up the Space Telephone to manipulate her, but of all the ways he could've gotten Minkowski around to "we are disposable and need to act *now* before these people decide they're done with us", it still kinda touching that this is the method he chose.

Desperate Times/Desperate Measures are just a blur of "oh god oh god oh god" and it's just as nailbiting the second time around. One thing I love about this podcast is how comfortable it is with (for its medium) long stretches of silence, which can feel a LOT longer when you have no other forms of feedback except dialogue to know the first gunshot was just a warning.

So you really *do* feel Minkowski breaking out into laughter when Eiffel tries to invoke Air Force code is a release of the tension that's been building for multiple episodes. Like he's finally gotten through to them just how far this has all gone and how much further it could still go. I keep saying this: when the situation starts to threaten violence, he's got an amazing gift for keeping the rest of the crew in touch with their common humanity when the rest get far too used to a world that runs on self-interest and subterfuge. Hell, he even gets Hilbert and *Kepler* opening up over the course of the story (presuming Kepler is being honest when he talks about being a shell of himself, but even though he was trying to manipulate Eiffel, that doesn't exclude there being a kernel of truth in those words).

Speaking of Kepler: he's definitely riding the adrenaline high of the situation and it turns him into a monster with a manic streak. It makes Jacobi's and Maxwell's relative calm all the eerier by contrast. Those two really do make you forget that all of this is... pretty horribly routine for them.

Until they meet their match, that is, when the women of the Hephaestus refuse to stand down, and each of them is unspeakably badass in their own way. What Kepler didn't account for is that they're ready and willing to die together rather than sacrifice one another for their own survival.

Although again, the irony of the situation is that just dropping the station into the star could have let them avoid, /gestures at season 4. BUT I'm not gonna rain on the Badass parade here.

Bolero, aka "The podcast kicking me in the feelings while I'm down."

The way Minkowski orders everyone else out of the room before Brain Ghost Lovelace conversates with her. ...did she pop up in the middle of that conversation, I wonder? And all this when psi-wave radiation is spiking, apparently. Coincidence?

Oh come on Hera, war is no reason to end a friendship- Look, I came here from Metal Gear. I see folks dunking on Hilbert and I'm just over here like "he's still not as revolting as Huey Emmerich."

Listen I've seen enough of Warren Kepler and Marcus Cutter in this fandom to know y'all aren't above liking a bad guy, you just prefer the ones who're having fun with it.

"You're gonna come to my funeral! And you're gonna like it! ...I mean you're gonna feel really sad! And cry! And stuff! GOT IT??" Ah, good ol' Eiffel.

THE COMPUTER ALSO HAS BRAIN GHOSTS

"If I'm not your doctor, then what are we?" "We're... complicated?" Listen, Eiffel, if you're not careful, I'm going to start shipping you and Hilbert ironically For The Lulz, and we all know where shipping things ironically always leads.

Errybody gets brain ghosts this episode. Again: I accept that this is a device that's more interesting than an alternative method of expressing these same ideas, but the ambiguity of a Watsonian explanation (is it all in their heads? Do they really see an apparition of some kind?) lets me do my Weird. Look, I once wrote in a joke in a fic about Death from Discworld complimenting a Quirky Miniboss Squad member from Metal Gear Solid 3 on his taste in interior decorating arena design, and that spawned entire subplots in projects for two different fandoms, and eventually roped in a third fandom to elaborate further on their now-intertwined cosmology. Do not underestimate how much I can give myself to work with.

The last ten minutes of Bolero also fuck me up in a special way, partly because We Are Dealing With the Hard and Unavoidable Fact of Death but also the aliens are about to throw a curve ball that'll... alter that last part a little.

Like, words cannot describe the "Dead Man's Curve in the wet" hard right turn of going from being in mourning for several beloved characters (including my favorite) to SURPRISE, SHE'S BACK! I love it.

I'd have to check the scripts to be sure exactly because some words got lost in Lovelace's respiratory spasms but I do like to imagine the her head wound closing up in front of a horrified Eiffel and Minkowski, with a side order of glow-y shit. I've drawn too many Homestuck god tier revivals I guess.

Update: I DID check the recording script's stage directions to see just how disgustingly physical the whole event is and okay, so no weird glowing shit (I reserve my right to depict it that way anyway) but I'm delighted to report that the gross anatomical-ness I was picturing? It's worse! It is so much worse!

The goddamn AGONY that is the Special Episode being TWO HOURS LONG when it comes right after the BIGGEST CLIFFHANGER IN THE SERIES.

You have NO IDEA WHAT KIND OF TEMPTATION IT WAS TO SKIP THIS AND COME BACK TO IT LATER

LOVELACE 1.0 I LOVE YOU BUT ALSO I WANNA TO SEE WHAT'S HAPPENING TO FUTURE-YOU RIGHT NOW

Change of Mind: love the framing device placing this episode as within Lovelace's mind during her successful cranial reconstruction saving throw.

"Buncha nerds, gonna crash my-"

Just how familiar she is in this place, with these people... Hera was installed in her sister's grave (as another post put it), but Lovelace lives in the gutted cadaver of her home.

Zach Valenti's Lambert voice *does* sound like a bad Minkowski impression.

"I have a physicist to put the fear of *me* into." That's my girl. She kind of was more of an ass pre-Total Party Kill, though? Like come on, Isabel, how necessary *is* all this arguing with Lambert?

Fourier's voice is very nice, also. Very soft, very easy on the ears.

I'm now appreciating how it sounds like Fisher is the older and calmer mediator among the crew.

Also the image of Isabel just floating out in space and listening to some chill tunes is sooooo good.

Hey Doc, did it turn out Fisher was too perceptive to live. Was getting caught outside in that meteor shower really an accident. Hey. Hey Hilbert. Answer me.

Also goddamnit, has EVERY character in this series has read Harry Potter?

Did the Fishers always differentiate each other by audio channel? I had to rewind the scene when I realized Lovelace's questions in my right ear weren't getting an answer.

"Say you're a big pink elephant!"

*gunshot* *gross biological dissolving noises* WHY

"Just because somebody made you something doesn't mean that's all you're going to be - you can be more!" I wrote this line down prior to the end of the episode's confirmation that it's a Big Thematic Point.

Aaaand we're back to the framing device, and with that, season 3 wraps. Or maybe season 4 kicks off? Either way, hell of a way to kick it off.

Cecilia Lynn-Jacobs had a hand in writing this episode? Aw... that's sweet...

So, yeah, headcanon: Alien resurrection does the weird glowy thing to close any obviously fatal maladies, then the gross biological viscera part kicks in, hence Lovelace sounding like she's trying to hack up her lungs as soon as she starts using them again.

Listen, sometimes the gross biological viscera parts are my favorite parts, okay? Okay.

#wolf 359 #wolf 359 spoilers #long post #i underestimated how detailed these posts would get as the plot ramped up lmao

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