#part of me is debating on making a space cover in homage to this

[abluehappyface]

Going on a family trip in a bit here, so here's a little post from while I'm gone! Here's a Pre-Meiling Era Space Cover of Higan Retour (in fact, based on what my computer tells me, this was made on 1/1/2023!) You can tell this is older, but it still holds up really well! This is actually a teaser post, as there is going to be a Komachi Takeover soon! There isn't a SINGLE bad/just ok cover for Komachi, in fact everything is REALLY good so far, so look forward to it!

[wheelersdealer]

All of You

Summary: You and Steve went from being the troublesome Queen and King of Hawkins High to the mother and father of the party. With a similar fate of working at poorly uniformed stores in Starcourt, and even poorer relationships with Jonathan and Nancy, you escape the Russians early and make an awkward meet up with the group at Hop’s cabin….where the mind flayer grabs onto your leg instead of El’s. 

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Reader, Jonathan Byers x Reader Warnings: STRANGER THINGS SEASON 3 SPOILERS, Profanity, Gore. A/n: This is a "Little Devil” prequel requested by @ponyboy-sunsets. I’m digging the Jonathan elements and contemplating more of this love-triangle. Let me know if you’d be interested!

Starcourt decided that with the mall being the new revolutionary, it was only right to pay homage to the revolutionary hot-spot within its own property.

And you work there in the mock 50s diner with enough space to fit ten to twenty smelly, cramped families. You hate it. 

You’ve avoided having to haul around a beehive or mod wig and took up a ponytail alternative. Big hair or high hair has always been a requirement, even if by crappy wig or extensions.

The top half of your dress was crisp white with a red chiffon neck scarf. You’ve been sputtering and spitting the thing out of your mouth every time the wind has blown it right in there all night. And the bottom half was a deep red with a black felt poodle.

Kicking open Jim Hopper’s cabin with your bare foot and coming face to face with your children in the care of your ex, everyone can see that everything is red.

All of you. 

You drive an intoxicated Steve and Robin, and an eager Dustin and Erica the hell away from Starcourt as soon as those elevator doors open. Well, more like as soon as you spot the front doors of the mall after having to take a detour on account of the guard waiting near the elevator.

Both hands on the wheel yet you’re barely stable, your limbs aching and shaking and burning with how hard you clench your muscles in an attempt to steady your movements. 

You adjust Steve’s mirror and look back where Dustin’s squished between the two dummies who are giggling wildly and flailing, unable to get comfortable like a couple of tired toddlers. Your only choice is to endure the kicking at your back seat, Steve’s strange cooing at all the pretty street lights you pass by, and put all your weight on the gas. 

Erica senses the oncoming doom with the two before you do, and she lets out a strained “Uhhhhhh,” for longer than you like before finally spitting out “Y/n?”

You try your hardest not to snap at her. You can’t not snap at her so you keep your lips shut tight and give her a glance. 

“They’re quiet back there.” 

You look at them through the mirror. Indeed, they’re quiet, Steve’s face halfway out the window, his hand around the ceil, and Robin slumped over Dustin as she tries to get a taste of what Steve’s seeing. 

Your breath hitches and you almost scream, “Dustin, turn Robin’s head away!” 

He scrunches up his nose, ready to ask why. And that’s when Steve begins to hurl. It’s out the window but you can hear it and you close your eyes for just a second as your body shivers. Dustin’s jaw drops and he goes “OooHH—“ just barely getting the gist and pushing on Robin’s shoulder so she can direct her projectile outside of the car.

You wince at it, seeing she perhaps got some slobber on his shoulder and lap. 

But with what they’ve started, you might as well finish it. You hit the gas and Steve and Robin both whimper. The speed certainly does nothing to help their tummy in comfort but you’d like to believe it helps them get all of that gunk out faster. Dustin winces too and pulls his knees up and his hands to his head, preparing for the increased mass of projectile if either Robin or Steve chose to turn their heads to him.

Erica looks away, doing a few double takes but mostly pretending like all that…isn’t what she’s seeing.

“Where are we goING?!” Dustin yells. 

You scrunch your nose, back pressed deep into your seat. And then you fling yourself (and poor, poor, tiny little Erica…and Robin and Dustin and Steve but whatever) forward with the harshest stop you think you’ve ever made in your history of driving….The Byer’s household is lightless, empty. You groan and slap the wheel gently. But for the sake of the possibilities, you hand Erica the keys (hey, you never know when you’ll need another child to drive) and hop out of the car. 

You’re an absolute mess, first of all. And walking in this breeze is the first time you’ve really felt it. The skirt portion of your dress is still quite thick and poofy, but let’s say thicker with how much blood its soaked up from a mix of Russians, yourself, and Steve. 

You knock violently but within seconds deem that useless. And with two hands on the knob you push, prepared to meet a barricade. But there is none. You almost trip inside and as much of a bummer as it is to not be met with the faces of Dustin’s friends and yours (debatable), you’re comforted thinking they might not have come across trouble themselves yet…

So you skip back to the car and halfway down the Byer’s dirt and dead-grass lawn, you stop to pull your stupid work heels from your feet and chuck them off.

You get back in the car and get driving. 

The only other place available is the lab and Hopper’s cabin, but looking back to the last two years of having to deal with this shit you put your bets on the idea that if the others have found themselves in as much trouble as you’ve been in, that they’re going to be secluded. 

“Uck…what the fu—“ You press the gas again and the newly clear-headed Steve grunts as he’s thrown forward into the back of your seat.

“Oh great, glad to have you two back! Did you enjoy your trip?” You mock.

Steve’s curled up in his seat and gripping his head. “Are you mad at me? Or-or something?”

That ‘mocking voice’ is the one you put on for your diner gig, all cutesy and girly and 50s-esk (according to your boss and his pestering). You always use it to taunt customers you’ve found yourself particularly annoyed with throughout the day.

He groans is reminded of the pain, realizes that he really did go through a trip, and decides to put it to rest. 

“Where are we going?”

“Are…?” Robin squints, “Are we driving?” She tries leaning over Dustin to look at the windshield but gravity flings her back against her seat with your speed.

“Yup!” You say through strained teeth. You take a sharp right and drive yourselves straight into the woods.

They all hold onto the sides of the car (as for Dustin, he curls up and tries his best to hold onto Robin and Steve) when your car goes ‘out of control’ and you do a few donuts. But you’re determined, as Erica can see amidst her screaming. You don’t flinch for a second.

After it’s all over and done with, the car rumbling to a stop on dirt and gravel, a mere strand of hair has been flung out of place and lands itself on your forehead. You blow it away, finally get the will to unclench your hands from the steering wheel, then kick your door open. 

You slam it shut and look up the hill and past some trees. There it is — Hopper’s cabin, faint lights seen through the window. 

Never-mind all the sticks and rocks digging into your bare (or perhaps nylon-covered) feet. You stomp forth and Dustin shouts “Y/n, wait!” 

You don’t wait. You keep straight ahead with your teeth dug into your lip. You’d say it hurts and that you’re sad that it’s bleeding after everything,  but frankly the way the red tints your lips fixes up your absolutely battered lipstick and you feel more presentable. 

You run your hand down your dress, grip the doorknob, and give the others a lot. 

To give you some leverage in case this door is barricaded, you put your foot against the door and push, turning the knob and slamming the door into the drywall it lands against.

There’s a collective “AH!” and a cacophony of furniture squeaking and scuffing, but it’s just you.

It’s you facing whaddya know — Jonathan, Nancy, Mike, Lucas, Will, Max, and Eleven. Your eyes jump from one person to the next, and each of their faces is as terrified as the next.

“Y—“ Jonathan carefully gets up. “Y/N?” He stands with Nancy who holds onto his shoulder. “What the hell happened?”

Back to your uniform…

The top half of your dress was crisp white with a red chiffon neck scarf, and the bottom half was a deep red — no, more like scarlet — with a black felt poodle stitched somewhere near the bottom rim. But now, everything is red. Even though the amount of blood wasn’t all that substantial when you really think about it, the sheer amount of sweat collected from this little ‘experience’ has the colors spread. The top half has dried a deep, dark red in some parts, with swirls of white and pink in others. Almost looks like tie-dye, but the clear crunchy texture shows them otherwise. The red of your lips is wholly unnatural, the absolute mess your hair is is just plain out of character…and you don’t have any shoes?

When the wind tries to will the front door shut again, you put your palm against the wood and slam it open.

You spit, “Russians.” 

And in that moment Steve, Robin, Erica, and Dustin pop up behind you. You sway a bit when Steve puts his weight on your back, taking a moment to rest from all of that running.

And then the boys yell “DUSTIN!” 

And the pained look on your face, the one that embodies absolute badassery…it fades as you crack a smile. You let yourself be bumped against the door a bit as Dustin and Erica push past you, Robin, and Steve to reunite with his friends and her brother. 

“I’m sorry did you just…?” Nancy crosses her arms and steps forward. “Say Russians?” She chuckles a little. 

You and Steve become a little more lighthearted, saying “Yeah,” simultaneously.

Dustin jumps and breaks up the group-hug with his party. “Where?” He asks, neck popping up like a groundhog. 

Even Robin and Erica look around, nerve-wracked. 

You squint at the image of Eleven approaching Dustin, wetness and discoloration under her eyes. She taps him gently and when he whips back around and he damn-near tackles her to the ground. You step forward, the care-free look on your face on account of this reunion clearly gone to Nancy and Jonathan. 

You raise your chin and speak to Jonathan specifically without looking.

“What’s going on?” Mike and Will come over and hug you, Will laughing and Mike being more calm about it. With him, it’s more of a side hug. You ruffle his and Will’s a bit before Steve steps in and looks at them incredulously. He beckons, wondering where’s his hug and they bother to give him a weak one. 

Jonathan’s jaw drops and he looks to El then Nancy for answers as he runs his sweaty hands down his jeans. When he’s silent for too long your look at him. Poor, poor…adorable boy jumps a bit. 

He sputters, “We uh-El…Eleven she—“

“It’s the Mind Flayer.” Nancy says over his shoulder. You nod at Steve and Robin, and they both come around to join the conversation. Nancy purses her lips at Robin. You beat her to her question—

“This is Robin, works at Scoop’s Ahoy with Steve. She was also trapped by the Russians.” You point over your shoulder, and she waves faintly. “Go on.” You cross your arms and with your poise, Nancy suddenly feels that intimidation she’s way too familiar with. She deflates, reminded of you and you in high-school…never mean to her, never bothered, but there was this air of sophistication her and peers learned to be fearful of as compared to all the other jocks and cheerleaders (not to say you were one, but the majority of the ‘popular kids’ were. You got clumped in the genre). 

Still, Jonathan and Nancy are quiet. 

She squeezes Jonathan’s shoulder a little tighter. And for the love of wanting to keep the world existing, you roll your eyes and make your way over the kids where Mike and Will have caught up. 

“Hey! Hate to ruin this cute little reunion and your fun time but we need to swap information, now.” You soften up for El. “What’s this I hear about the Mind Flayer?”

She sniffles a bit. “It’s back.”

You nod with a strange smile conjured from your attempt to not spit out ‘no shit’. You run your hand over your jaw and just mutter, “Alright, alright…What do you have on it?” You look at Mike. “Do you know where it’s at?”

Mike sucks his lip in. He sighs before stepping forward to explain. “El said it said that it was building something.”

You lean back. “It spoke?”

Max pipes up, “Through Billy.” 

You click your jaw. “Huh.” Strangely, you don’t need all that much convincing.

Mike continues again. “Since it doesn’t have Will, it went to Billy for a vessel.”

“So Billy’s possessed?” Steve asks. You scoff and push against his head, guiding him toward the couch. Dustin helps with that, grabbing Steve’s arm and (much to Steve’s confusion and sputtering) pulling him to a cushion. Robin leans on you a bit, and to Jonathan and Nancy’s surprise, you don’t do anything about it. 

“He went all cuckoo!” Lucas rolls his finger in a circle near his temple. You’re taken back by that phrasing but okay. 

Mike gets back to expository mode. “The Mind Flayer possessed Billy, and Eleven just went into his memories to find the source—”

“Source of what?” Steve slurs.

“Jesus!” You throw your head back, arms still crossed. “Can you let the boy talk for one second, he’ll explain the answers to all of your questions if you just let him!” Steve slinks back into the couch. Dustin’s jaw is dropped, and he pokes at Steve with a sly smile before Steve slaps his hand away and holds his hand to his throbbing cheek. “Continue, please.” 

Mike blinks, surprised. “O…kay.” He shakes his hair out, and just when he thinks to stop you wave on for him to continue as you head into the kitchen and come back out to stand behind Steve and press a bag of frozen peas to his cheek. He puts his hand over yours but you still don’t move. The kids all go quiet at this strange, strange display of affection.

You urge, “Go on!”

“Uh, right! Sorry!” Mike sits down on the coffee table and looks up at you. “The Mind Flayer has been collecting an army. We call them the Flayed. We think Billy’s its main guy, and basically the big guns is the Mind Flayer made up of the melted flayed.” You and Steve wince together. Mike winces. He doesn’t think it’s cute…but it kinda is — anyways. “El just said how Billy and the Flayed are going to come here. They’re trying to stop her.”

Lucas chimes in. “Cause El closed the gate on him last year and royally pissed him off.” 

And so does Will, who sits on the arm rest. “So it’s not to spread. It’s just for her.” 

Mike nods. “Exactly.” 

You hum. “Okay…okay…Well uh, boy so we got news for you.” You chuckle nervously. You catch Jonathan’s eyes and you both look away on cue. For once tonight you sputter, caught up in your own nerves. But you shake them off and look at Mike. “There are Russians in Hawkins, and they have a lab under the mall…” you look to each person in the room. “They’re opening the gate.” 

Will scoffs. He’s much more offended than doubtful. “What?”

“They’re opening…the gate. We saw it. It’s this weird machine that’s shooting a laser at this wall — it’s exactly where the gate was and it looks like it did back then. They’ve just been working and working cause I figure if the energy stops for a second,” you snap, “it starts to shut again but clearly it’s large enough for the Mind Flayer to have gotten through.”

“We think the Mind Flayer might have been here all along.” You look up and Jonathan’s stepping forward. He has an arm around his waist and his other hand picking at his lips. You smile softly at his cracking voice…but you smile even wider (begrudgingly) at Steve.

“Oh great.” He presses the peas deeper into his face. “Is this ever gonna end?”

You shrug. “Space race dude. Doesn’t matter if they destroy the entire world while they’re at it. Gotta show off.” You two chuckle together.

When you look up, the whole group is wide-eyes at you.

You deflate. “What?”

Nancy chuckles, smirking. “Well, what is this?”

You and Steve look at each other. You speak in unison, “What is what?” Everybody goes a little crazy. Laughing, covering their mouths, letting their jaws drop. Jonathan’s enthusiasm is much less…but he’s still soft about it, smiling at you two in a proud way.

Nancy tilts her head. “The King and Queen are actually getting along? I wouldn’t have bet you two like each other in 50 years even if high school me saw this for herself…what happened to you?”

Robin shrugs. “Eh, having the shared trauma or horrible customers and horrible costumes.” You nod. “And like, the mediocre experience of being captured and tortured by Russians underground I’d figure does that to you.” 

You nod again, smiling at her. 

The laughing stops when there’s a faint screeching in the distance…it’s not high-pitched or squeaky. It’s low and followed by rumbling.

Everybody else seems to let it go somewhat, but you, Jonathan, Steve, and Nancy snap your heads toward the window.

The trees are rustling. 

You instinctively look at Jonathan, and in that moment you take your hand from Steve. You and Jonathan stand together behind Nancy.

“Do you guys hear that?” She whispers. 

You hum but Jonathan tries to convince himself that “It’s just the fireworks.” You look at him closely, and frown at the red bruise and subsequent cut on the left side of his forehead. You pad at it gently, and he jumps but accepts it, furrowing his brows at your similar cuts And then like that you look back to the window when another rustle is seen and heard.

Nancy turns to the kids. “Billy.” She nods at El. “When he told you this, it was here, in this room?” El nods. Nancy looks at Jonathan and you, even Steve when he jumps from the couch and looks around for that distant thudding.

Will (with a shaky hand) reaches for his neck. He chokes on his own breath. “He knows we’re here.”

You ‘adults’ look at each other again, and rush to the door. Jonathan opens it first and when you think to go ahead of him he holds you back. And when you think to go ahead of Steve, he grabs your hand and keeps you near him.

It’s nothing. 

Really. 

You stand together on the dirt road. Just a short distance back is Steve’s car. But just a short distance for the Mind Flayer in its new form is what’s between it and you, it’s spider-like features and its length, width is enough to make the thin trees around it snap and tumble. Despite not needing to, it purposely pushes itself side to side to knock down the thicker trees. 

Steve puts a hand to the small of your back, and likewise, Jonathan puts his hand on Nancy’s shoulders. Both boys usher you two inside with Jonathan staying back to hurry up the kids he’s spent most of his time with, and with Steve staying back to hurry up the kids (and Robin) he’s spent most of his time with. 

Before you get inside completely, you quickly reach for the side of the stairs where you find an axe. You force it out of the stump it’s in and as soon as you get it free, Steve tugs you inside. 

But despite the effort, you shove the axe (the handle) into Jonathan’s chest. He grunts with the weight, you shout a “Sorry!” and continue on while the others begin their routine — barricading.

Your palms are against the table as you try to think when you hear the back door open and see Nancy walking out. You hold a hand to Steve’s chest so he won’t come after you, saying “Stay!” As well as twirling your finger around to gesture the great need of the current room. 

You jog outside and watch her take a shotgun off a wall in Hopper’s shed.

“Hey!” You raise a hand when you’re not too far, and without thinking, she tosses you one. You fumble to catch it and manage (barely), but when she sees you looking at the tool completely bewildered, she hands you hers, already set up with bullets and everything.

“You know how to use that thing?”

“Uh,” you sputter, “N-no?” 

She cracks a smile and walks past you, quipping “Aim and pull the trigger.”

You wince and suddenly hold it with one hand, aiming it away from you. After a moment when you realize the stakes, you say ‘screw it’ to yourself and hold it closer, hold it proper. 

You kick the door shut behind you. Everything’s barricaded.

You stand by her, Jonathan, Robin (with a bat she found in the closet) and Steve, your backs shielding the kiddos stood in the middle of you. You mimic her, holding up your gun like she does and squinting to try and get an idea of aim. She nods, mutters “Good,” and admittedly boosts your ego a bit. 

You roll your shoulders, fwip your hanging pony over your shoulder with a flick of your neck…and wait.

It’s silent.

An eerie, uncomfortable silence.

Jonathan is letting the axe hop in his hands, switching their exact position to avoid his sweaty hands letting the wood become all slippery. 

Then the lamps begin to shiver, and the electricity in the room begins to crackle. 

Steve’s done his best and found himself a frying pan as well as the other children with makeshift weapons.

“It’s close,” Will says in the silence.

And then dust falls on you from the roof. 

You squint at it, hearing branches snap, seeing the trees rustle, feeling even the small mass of the falling teacups send waves of rumbling through the floor.

Max looks over her shoulder. “Where’d it go?”

She’s right…too silent.

Nancy inhales sharp, and you do too. 

In that moment one of the creature’s freakish arms tears through the cabin’s corner, and despite the little shield you guys made for the others, the group disperses as it shoots forward and straight toward Eleven. You did your best to be close to her, Max, and Will, shielding them against the wall but still the creature gets in her face and your arm throw out past her stomach isn’t stopping it from doing anything.

But Jonathan grunts and swings down his axe, splitting the creature’s top surface and splattering himself with the flayer’s mucus-like goo. He raises it up again and chops it. The flayer reels back, shrieking and trying to go for Eleven again, only to be hit and with another shriek it enacts vengeance, whipping itself against Jonathan and sending him crashing into the wall and the ground. He drops his axe and just as he starts to get up again, the creature still goes for him. Jonathan tries getting up but can only back into the wall. And your heart hurts like a son of a bitch at the picture.

Hurray for Nancy who steps in and shoots the thing, blood splattering on the carpet as it rounds to attack her.

She’s out of bullets.

“Shit!” She shouts, still trying to pull the trigger.

You feel like you’re just standing there, useless and hopping between your feet. With an annoyed grunt, you shout “Nancy!” And dare to throw her your gun. She catches it just as the creature is feet from getting right in her face. She shoots it in the mouth and it actually reels back this time and for a long time. You look frantically between it, Jonathan, and Nancy. 

The axe.

You run and slide (much to the pain of splinters and rug-burn in your bare feet), ducking under the creature and grabbing Jonathan’s axe. He’s still dealing with the incredible pain in his back, and he can only watch you bring the axe down on it some more. It’s so, so close to just about snapping in half and you can see the last bits of its tearing, gooey membrane. 

But when your arms are in the air it snaps its neck to look, and rushes for you. 

Jonathan feels just as you did moments ago. But with such close proximity, he wills himself to get on his feet just well enough to wrap his arms around your waist and pull you onto the floor in the corner with him. He holds you tight, arms finding their way to your chest as you slide down together. Your eyes are wide at the creature. 

Another shot is heard.

Nancy’s shot it. And when it does that same thing (whipping to look at her with his mouth of horrid teeth), Steve steps in pulls her from her corner just as the creature smashes itself into the wall. But when it gets back its energy and reels away from the two ready to attack again, Nancy’s gun again won’t shoot. 

You clap your hand over Jonathan’s wrist, and he can feel you squeeze. 

Nancy and Steve flinch. They’re ready.

They pop their eyes open, carnage evidently not taking place yet despite the creature’s intent and it’s screeching. You slap Jonathan’s arm, and together you gasp with joy seeing Eleven standing in the middle of the room, her arm stretched out and fingers tensing as she wills the creature away from Nancy. Her calm expression vanishes as she twists her wrist and pulls her elbow into herself, the creature snapping right where its ‘head’ would begin and El screaming when she gets the job done. Part of it flops onto the floor in a puddle of its own blood and mucus-like texture, and the other half shrieks before haphazardly pulling itself out of the cabin through the hole it came in. 

Max yelps as it flies out right beside her. 

You close your eyes and breath a sigh, Jonathan hugging you a little softer now and putting his forehead to your shoulder as you relish in the relief. 

But, reminded of the situations at hand, you both get up, helping one another. You go and grab Max, dragging her away from the window and you’re met by Steve, who in turn shields both of you and guides you away. Jonathan tries going for the others but that bit of energy he spent on you is gone now and he can’t ignore his fatigue or pain. He grips onto the wall but falls to his knees.

Through the wall where Steve was just about to guide you two, in comes another one of the Mind Flayer’s arm-creatures. You all yell and flinch, Steve pulling you two back and making sure to keep his head down when he’s reminded of the giant hole in the wall where the creature just came through that last time.

You make your way to Jonathan, sprinting while knelt. 

You grab his hand and try to help him up, Steve coming to the other side of him. 

Thanks to El, they’re stopped mid air, both of her arms occupied with keeping hold of the creatures. With heavy breathes and panting, and with a triumphant yell, she pulls her arms to her stomach and again splits them in half. 

While everything is silent and steady for a second, your stomach is still aching and you get up. 

Steve and Jonathan reach for you (Max too), with Jonathan better suited for your waist and Steve better suited for your shoulder. But you break from their grasp. They can’t shout their disapproval on account of how selfish that would seem with El being in the middle of the room doing all of the fighting. They can only huff to themselves and give a similar look of worry, though one also filled with contempt and jealousy for the other.

Jonathan has no romantic feelings. Not anymore at least. Steve wouldn’t admit he does, but he does. Still, their conflict at your varying degrees of closeness is what catches up to them. With you finding Jonathan and his outcast persona so fascinating from a young age, and being able to bond with Steve over the high school hierarchy and sharing a pack of kids. 

You start off knelt but come to stand fully, grabbing El by the shoulders and pushing her out of the way.

They don’t know why…by you looked up at the ceiling and saw more specks of dust. This creature is smart and wouldn’t make the same mistake of going through the walls or windows four times. 

You try to guide her forward, go with her.

But you scream = as the ceiling breaks open and the Mind Flayer wraps around your ankle. Your poor, bare ankle. Its flesh burns against yours and while being caught you slam your chin slams against the hardwood floor.

It roars and shrieks and so does everybody else, Jonathan keeping himself stable on a hopping foot and Mike and El jumping forward together to grab your arms and try desperately to pull you.

Mike’s completely out of his head about now, wanting to help you but (like you) wanting to get El out of the monster’s reach. He closes his eyes while mustering all his strength, and you can’t help but look up (in a disorienting manner) at the thing trying to eat you. 

Jonathan and Steve jump in next — Steve sharing an arm with El, Jonathan staring an arm with Mike. And then comes Max and Will — Max with Steve and El, Will with Jonathan and Mike. 

Mike and Will both open their eyes at the same time and look straight at the creature. Mike whimpers and forces his eyes shut again, muttering himself a mantra so he can get his damn strength and not have to watch his pseudo-older sister get eaten by this fucking monster.

His grip weakens for just a moment to readjust, and he yells “PULL!” the group collectively putting together strength they didn’t even know they could muster.

Nancy loads up her gun again, Jonathan shouting “NANCY! SHOOT IT!”

She manages and it snarls in pain.

“COME ON LUCAS!” Max yells for him.

He doesn’t know where to go or what to do. Robin points him toward the axe, and she runs and picks it up for him while she does. She hands it over and grabs the other gun, struggling to load it but managing well enough. Her aim isn’t the best but she lowers the gun with a wide, goofy smile on her face when she swears she hears it groan in response to her. Then she goes at it again. 

Lucas hops up onto the ottoman and screams as he hacks at the limb. Dustin, with not much more room available to hold onto your arm, keeps watch of Erica while running around the room screaming trying to find something to chuck into the creature’s jaws. He manages to chuck a few things he’s sure Hopper won’t miss (an ashtray, notably) but it doesn’t do all that much.

You’re still struggling and flailing, your breath after a point being so lost you can only breathe and ‘scream’ via deep exhales. 

Lucas starts to get frustrated, seeing progress but not as much as he would like. He hypes himself up, hopping between his feet on the ottoman, and gives the final blow his best shot.

He raises the axe behind his head, stumbles a bit before gaining his balance, then hacks the creature straight in half.

It screams and flails, the mouth inhaling part of itself before the sight of it through the ceiling flees and you fall forward. 

Steve catches you in his arms as everybody’s feet are pulled under themselves and they fall to the floor. Steve rolls on his side, holding you close and trying to coo you to comfort while wiping the sweat, mucus, and blood from your forehead. You would be so lovey-dovey, hugging him tight and chuckling madly in relief but still, the best you can do is laugh silently and even smiling is a chore. 

You collapse into his chest, your hand limp on his cheek and eyes bobbing to the back of your head before coming back around with every rumble of the house as the Mind Flayer does what it does.

The kids are all kneeling around you and Jonathan gently pushes Will and Mike apart so he can too. He puts his hands on the floor by your stomach. The slightest snap of a twig has him looking over his shoulder, and the slight ruffle of Lucas’ jeans on the carpet has him looking at him.

You can feel Steve press quick pecks to your face. He really doesn’t put much thought into them, but when he realizes, he can only be thankful he has the opportunity. 

Mike’s eyes go to your leg, where the other half of the creature is still stuck tight, nearly embedded.

He hypes himself up, bouncing on his feet before hopping up and running over. He gets a strong grip around it (as best as he can considering its slippery skin), and though Jonathan and Steve both spit out slurred “Wait Don’t!”s, Mike pulls it off and your let spurts blood.

You will yourself up off the floor just a tiny bit as you scream, neck craning back and eyes sticking shut with the pain. 

Mike winces at the sound, and after chucking the creature behind him (where it slithers out of the cabin) he hurries to your side, hovering his hands over your stomach and hoping for you to see his face so you can see just how sorry he is but how necessary that was.

Then the Mind Flayer, and Eleven hurriedly gestures Mike, Jonathan, and Steve to drag you off. Will stays behind Jonathan and Max and Lucas stay behind Mike, with Nancy, Dustin, Robin, and Erica assisting in hyping up El as she stands strong below the creature that burst through with the intent to kill her.

She raises her chin this time, not shying away, and she plants her feet. 

Jonathan holds onto Mike’s shoulder and pulls him back, the both of them looking between you and El with worry. 

The creature roars, its saliva splattering against all of you.

But even with this (Jonathan now shielding Mike, you, and Will while Steve cradles your head in his lap), she doesn’t flinch. She raises both arms close together and screams at the top of her lungs, her powers already proving themselves faster than they ever have before as the creature’s head starts to close in on itself.

The display is enough to jolt you awake and you’re trying to scoot even further from it. Steve holds you tighter and coos. 

You can imagine her now and you smile all loopy at the thought of her with all her strength and blood pouring out of both nostrils. 

You’re satisfied seeing the creature already begin to let free a pink liquid.

And you cackle despite being breathless when El rips it in two at the end with a blood-curdling scream.

She falls back into Max, and by now with Steve and Nancy helping you to your feet, you can reach just enough to hug El somewhat tight before you’re pulled apart and everybody starts to rush out of the cabin.

“Go go go!” Nancy yells. She takes your arm from around her shoulder and gives Robin the job. Jonathan holds the door open, doing copious double takes to make sure everybody is out of the cabin. 

Most of the group run to the Jeep.

But already knowing trying to get everybody to fit will be a hell of a hassle, Steve shouts for Robin, Dustin, and Erica to follow him “This way!” Back to his car. 

Jonathan stomps his foot against the dirt and screams “WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!” 

Dustin yells back while hurrying backwards, “WE CAN’T FIT! WE’LL MEET YOU THERE!”

Jonathan looks so pained. He sees Steve pick you up while Robin grabs Erica’s hand. “WHERE?!”

“STARCOURT!” Dustin screams. Then runs. 

“JONATHAN, COME ON!” Nancy’s poking her head out the driver’s seat of the car. 

Jonathan mutters to himself. Even to him, it’s incoherent. He walks backward to the car, and only when he sees the Mind Flayer descend upon the cabin and tear it to pieces does he hurry into the car, Nancy hitting the gas before he even gets the chance to buckle. 

(Message me if you would like to be tagged whenever I post a Steve imagine!)

@stevieharrrr @songforhema @broadwayandnetflix @billyhargrovescigarette @bckysloki @christinawxxx @timeladygallifrey

[littlemisssquiggles]

Oh gosh, I love your theory of Oscar getting his own companion chicken Billina! My only worry is that the show won’t have the time to let Oscar find a farm and thus a chicken to travel with. /remembers that there were penguins in V7E5/ Maybe he finds a penguin chick somewhere on the outskirts of Mantle/Solitas? I think that could be a fun option! Add in the black and white color combo to match with Zwei, and we would have two cute RWBY animal mascots.

Aye, thanks anon-chan. I’m happy you like the Pinehead headcanon.Well, in my opinion anon-chan, I actually don’t think the likelihood of Oscar stumbling upon on a farm in the outskirts of Mantle that unlikely. After all, our heroes did manage to coincidentally stumble upon Brunswick Farms in the middle of Northern Anima on their way to Argus back in V6. So perhaps Oscar might get lucky.

Besides, for me, Oscar doesn’t necessarily need to find a farm per say, just a chicken coop or just a small location where he could take shelter for a bit while discovering an unlikely ally in the process.Y’see my main rationale for Oscar gaining his own animal companion in the formof Billina the Chicken was in reference to the Oz character of the same name.

In the third instalment of the Oz series—Ozma of Oz, an adolescent Dorothy Gale was on her way to Australia with her Uncle Henry before winding up separated from her family yet again, shipwrecked during a storm with only a chicken coop to take refuge in. It is in this chicken coop where Dorothy meets Bill, a lone chicken who was on the same boat as Dorothy before ending up stranded with her. Billina then becomes Dorothy’s animal companion for that book in place of her dog, Toto.

Since we already have Zwei as RWBY’s version of Toto, this is something I’d love to see the CRWBY Writers possibly play homage to for V8 now that Oscar is on his own with Oz. It’s a chance for them to introduce more Oz inspired characters as part of Oscar’s shared story with Ozpin. Currently, much like Dorothy was, Oscar is separated from his family—meaning his team and his allies in need to return up to Atlas to help save the kingdom from Salem.

Perhaps…at some point, while out alone in Mantle, Oscar might end up needing to rest for a bit from the cold, deciding to take up shelter somewhere he pegged he might be the only resident. Judging from the end of V7, it appears that the place Oscar landed in looks like some abandoned mine next to a railway. I glimpsed what looked like old trains in the background behind Oscar. I found this small detail to be interesting since, if I recall correctly, a railway switchman was one of the people that the Little Prince met on his journey while on Earth. So I wonder if it’s no coincidence that Oscar landed near a place with trains. But then again, that’s only my opinion since I could be very much wrong in my observation.

Going back to Billina—perhaps Oscar decides to rest for a while in the place where he landed or maybe the story will resume with Oscar already on the move back to Atlas. Perhaps…at some point Oscar will be forced to stop and rest given his current dishevelled state. So the little prince stops and takes refuge in what appeared to be an abandoned cabin near the mines that he landed in. At first Oscar expected that he was the only thing there only to be met with a surprise when he finds an animal—a lonely baby chick who was also wading out the cold weather. Or something like that.

In the Oz books, Billina was already a full-grown hen when Dorothy first met her. However for Oscar’s Return to Atlas story, I was more sold on the concept of his Billina being a baby chick.  Why? Because firstly, baby chicks are adorable so there’s that appeal and secondly, but most importantly, it creates an opportunity for an Oz reference.

In Ozma of Oz, Billina told Dorothy that her original alias was Bill because as a chick, her owners couldn’t tell if she’d become a rooster or a hen and because of this, Dorothy renames the chickens “Billina”.As a neat little parallel to that story, I dig the idea of Oscar meeting hisBillina as a chick; deciding to dub the little chicken as “Bill” because much like in her Oz counterpart’s story, Oscar couldn’t tell the correct sex of Bill since she was still a baby. So there’s that small joke.

To me, this squiggle meister fell in love with the idea of Oscar gaining an unlikely companion in a tiny golden feathered baby chick that kept following him all over Mantle on his return to Atlas. I notice that baby chicks have a small tendency tofollow their mother hens around where they go so I just love the thought ofthis tiny baby chick following Oscar because it low-key thinks he’s her parent that she imprinted on for warmth since I heard baby chicks bond to things that keep them warm or make them feel safe and protected.

Just picture it. Imagine a moment where an irritated Oscar is pacing on the spot; having a sort of mental discussion or argument with Oz regarding their next plan of action of reuniting with their friends—maybe that’s what the two souls were debating.

Let’s say…it’s a scenario where Oscar thinks the two should focus on finding a way back up to Atlas to stop Ironwood from condemning Mantle to death and making that their top priority while Oz thinks it’d be best that Oscar find their allies first despite not knowing where they might be since as far as Oscar is aware of, he knows that his friends probably made it out of Atlas but that doesn’t mean he knows their exact new location.It’s his best guess at that point versus Ozpin’s. So the entire time Oscar andOz are going back and forth which is reflected in Oscar pacing about, imagine little Baby Bill the Chick just following Oscar around with ever step he makes with Oscar almost stepping on his ‘surrogate child’ at some point.

I think that’s what I’ll call Oscar’s Billina from henceforth for future headcanons and musings—Baby Bill.

With that being said, I love the idea of Oscar being annoyed at Baby Bill following him at first until eventually the little prince’s heart softens when he soon realizes that, much like him, the little baby chick was all alone in the cold and just wanted someone to keep it safe and warm especially in a place like Solitas.

So eventually, Oscar goes from trying to avoid Baby Bill following diligently behind him to basically adopting the chick as his animalcompanion until he reunites with his friends. And this change isrepresented by Oscar carrying Baby Bill around as opposed to her chirping restlessly behind him in the snow. 

Since another beloved Pinehead headcanon of mine is that Oscar will get a nice red scarf as part of his little prince journey for V8 (never gonna give you up) —to complement my new Oscar’s Little Chicken Pinehead headcanon, just picture Oscar sporting a scarf that he rocks as a hood to cover his face from the cold and tucked nice and snuggly in the fabric of his jacket collar is Baby Bill. Like for me, I love the idea of Oscar carrying Baby Bill around in the hood of his scarf when it’s not covering his face and when she’s not riding along in his scarf, one of Baby Bill’s favourite spots to perch is curled up comfortably in the space between Oscar’s jacket collar right next to his bandaged neck; taking full advantage of the warmth radiating from the little prince’s skin.

I dig this idea just as much as I dig the thought of Oscar being hasty to reunite with his friends and protect Atlas but still mindful of the ‘baby’ in his custody; careful not to move too fast to disturb Baby Bill.

So yeah. As you can tell, this squiggle meister is MORE leaning towards Oscar’s Billina being a baby chicken.

Don’t get me wrong—Baby Bill being a penguin chick isn’t a bad idea. On the contrary, I like it. I find it just as adorable as Baby Bill being a regular chicken. However…unless a known fact of Solitas culture is that you are more likely to find penguins in Mantle than chickens, for now I’m going to stick with Baby Bill being just like her Oz counterpart—a regular chicken because of the strongerreference to the Oz books. I’ll keep her being a penguin chick as a secondchoice though since baby penguins as super cute too.

But for now, my interpretation of Oscar’s Billina—Baby Bill will remain as a baby chicken. And much like her Oz counterpart, I dig the idea of Baby Bill being just as spunky and talkative. 

I love the idea of Baby Bill being just like Zwei in the sense that she is surprisingly more resilient than she looks, proving herself to be ‘no ordinary chicken’ by bailing Oscar out of tricky scenarios when one wouldn’t expect a chicken of her stature and age to be helpful.

I also have this funny gag idea where, much like Zwei, Baby Bill is stronger than she appears too or rather, she’s very intimidating despite being only a baby. Y’know giving off that “Mega Ultra Chicken” vibes, if you catch the reference.

Basically I’m picturing Baby Bill as the token animal mascot of the OscarPine Protection Squad—none shall harm the precious freckled littleprince; not if this bite-sized golden chick has anything to say about it.

Besides, if I remember correctly, it was mentioned that in Ozma of Oz, Billina played a role in the defeat of the Nome king since it was said that chicken eggs were poisonous to nomes. 

Who knows? The Little Prince met a king on his journey, right? 

Perhaps…the King character Oscar might run into on his journey might be a RWBY version of the Nome King and its Baby Bill who ends up helping Oscar deal with the Nome King who has a fear of chickens. I dunno. Just gonna toss that one of the table XD

I’m not even sure if we’ll even get more Oz characters in RWBY, much less any more animal companions beyond Zwei. Nonetheless, if there is one animal character I can picture having the opportunity to come to RWBY, it’s definitely Billina. She was practically another Toto. We already have Zwei as RWBY’s version of Toto.

Where’s Billina CRWBY Writers? 

Seriously, I would absolutely love it if Billina gets added to RWBY somehow. Even better if she’s Oscar’s animal companion to mirror Zwei as Ruby’s. But alas, only time and the future of RWBY V8 will tell. 

But for now, I think I’ll stick  with my Baby Bill concept for Oscar’s Billina. There’s something about Oscar being paired with an adorable baby chick that’s just as little and golden as he is that really warms my Pinehead heart.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2020)

[architectuul]

Curating an Exhibition in 2020: Handle with Care

Architecture exhibition Handle with Care: Tales of the Invisible opens at the Lisbon Architecture Triennale on October 15, as part of this year’s program of the Future Architecture Platform. To mark the occasion, here’s the interview with Sonja Lakić, architect, researcher and curator of the exhibition.

Preparing the exhibition at Lisbon Architecture Triennale headquarters, August 2020. | Photo © Sara Battesti

As we’re approaching the winter season of the pandemic which has pushed the entire world into various forms and intensities of isolation, it seems like there could hardly be a better time to reflect upon the practice of care and its relationship to architecture. Our rooms are becoming our worlds. When you began dreaming up this exhibition, did you anticipate it opening in this context of increased awareness of the spaces we inhabit? Absolutely not. The only spaces that curating this exhibition was supposed to unfold in, apart from Lisbon Architecture Triennale headquarters, were, obviously, interiors of Future Architecture platform partners institutions that I was, as it was originally planned, about to visit last spring. I would also add interiors of airports and airplanes to the list. Hotels included. I am still curious about all the breakfasts I missed due to pandemic. I, obviously, ended up making my dreams happen in front of my screen, meeting people sitting in front of their own laptops and/or computer screens, mostly inside their homes around Europe. I vividly remember the variety of blankets, cozy sofas and afternoon naps that violently came to an end due to numerous online meetings across Europe, as well as scaffolding outside an apartment in Turin that reminded me on L’Aquila, where I completed my PhD, planting a garden on a rooftop terrace in Lisbon, dilemmas from Berlin, and, finally, being taken next to a window in Barcelona to clap and support all the caretakers. I dreamt inside all of these homes without stepping inside any of them, appreciating them as the new landscapes of care, and, finally, landed in Lisbon: we are all, obviously, still in the mode of the increased awareness by all means, yet, the exhibition will get you covered from A to Z. It is, after all, handled with care.   

Space Which Meditates: Future Architecture Accessories | Photo © Sonja Lakić

How did your background in architectural research and your lasting interest in lived forms of buildings inform your work on curating this exhibition?

I am somewhat a dissident from the discipline: I work visually, yet, I operate at the scale of the everyday, chasing after the non-evident and doing the storytelling by often using the language of urban anthropology and urban ethnography. I do not believe that architecture is only a physical matter: there is more to the story than meets the eye. That being said, there was only one way to curate the “Tales of the Invisible”: zero concrete. Zero final solutions. Hardly any material architecture. From the very beginning, I knew there would be no space for the permanently built structures: instead, I, again, chose to focus on the human clay and bring different people and thinking experiments to light. I searched for different concepts and ideas, digging deep for passion and determination, attempts and failures, individuals and groups that once made the architecture world turn around, traveling back and forth in time, myself unlearning what architecture may (not) be. There is never a wrong moment to celebrate humankind and this exhibition is, to a certain extent, an excuse to do so: a gentle reminder of what still surrounds us and what we are made of, or, at least, once were.

The creative process: keeping it as analogue as possible. | Drawings and photos © Sonja Lakić

Curator's Log. An excerpt. Preparing "Handle with Care: Tales of the Invisible" exhibition for Lisbon Architecture Triennale under the Lisbon sun. | Video © Sonja Lakić

In your curatorial statement, you refer to this exhibition as to “homage to the quirks of the human mind”, “a call to re-think where we stand” and “a gentle reminder that life comes before buildings”. Can this be interpreted as an invitation to (re)consider the political role of architecture? I, most of all, envisioned the exhibition as a conversation, or, more precisely, a call for heart-to-heart exchange of this kind: my intention and desire is that people experience it and understand it in a variety of ways, yet, in full accordance with who they genuinely are. I never aimed to reach a consensus of any kind since that would mark an end of any debate. I, therefore, thank you for this question: I am more than happy to see that, days prior to the opening, the exhibition already lives its purpose by being interpreted. Thus, to a certain extent, the answer to your question is: yes, this is also an invitation to (re)consider the political role of architecture. What, for example, influenced my curatorial approach is “the awareness to the wonders” that Alberto Pérez-Gómez believes and, moreover, propagates in the book “Built upon Love: Architectural Longing after Ethics and Aesthetics”: we, whoever we may (not) be, should develop and nurture this skill that I interpret as “to stop and smell the roses”. This exhibition does this as well. Referring to your question, I have to say that I, obviously, find architecture political and this is, with no doubt, where consensus is inevitable.

Creating models from a discarded box of chocolate cookies | Photo © Sonja Lakić

Can architecture amplify the human potential for care-giving and care-receiving, and if so, how?

I believe that architecture itself stands for the noble discipline of care. This is why I, once upon a time, decided to study it: I recognised it as an opportunity to care about people while never letting go of mathematics, arts and drawing. For a nerd like me, to be engaged in this wide spectrum of disciplines is even nowadays of crucial importance, and was, therefore, as equally important during the early university days of mine, when I managed to detect  traces of psychology and sociology in very few courses I was enrolled in. 

Architecture, most of all, is all about a very particular responsibility that first comes with the vision of an architect and next translates to “a program” of how to use a building: this is where one needs to be very careful, while, simultaneously, to care a lot. The program is, say, often a recipe for how to live one’s life, as prescribed by an architect: of course, this rarely happens, for the life itself is not to be tamed. Architecture already amplifies the human potential for care-giving and care-receiving. Or, should I say that there are architects who do so? Maybe that would be more ethical. There are beautiful individual minds and collectives who stand for care by their mere existence, embracing their ethics in their texts and variety of programs. To paraphrase Esra Akcan, one of my favorite minds of all times: architecture can heal. And I believe it should. The process of healing may happen through the process of (un)learning, collaboration with other disciplines, seeing the world through the eyes of the other, while, simultaneously, never ever considering anyone as the other. Same goes for care. 

Taking a break in the summer of the 2020: the Sun, the ocean, the drinks, and the disinfectant gel. | Photo © Sonja Lakić

What, however, instantly comes to my mind when thinking about architecture and care, especially the healing process, is whether it is possible for the healing of post-conflict societies, including the country of my origin, that is, the region of former Yugoslavia, to happen via architectural programs that, to put it simply, celebrate life. What if, instead of constantly exposing one to memorabilia that recalls past events and somewhat advocates for the culture of mourning, we take care of people by gently reminding them of all the reasons why it is good to be alive? I am aware that this is somewhat calling for a revolution, yet, this is how “the awareness to the wonders” I previously mentioned may be attempted to achieve, without any actual construction happening: this is where temporary structures, installations and performances and engaging in performative planning and tactical urbanism, could play an important role. We owe it to ourselves, as well as to each of our individual human potentials, regardless of who we as individuals are, to, at least, try, having a little faith in architecture as an event rather than the final say. 

Sonja Lakić at Lisbon Architecture Triennale headquarters, August 2020. | Photo © Sara Battesti

The exhibition draws from the collections of the Museum of Architecture and Design in Ljubljana, MAXXI National Museum of 21st Century Arts and the Estonian Museum of Architecture. What does curatorial collaboration with museums scattered across Europe look like in a time of Covid-19? 

On the one hand, it resembled any other “new normal” kind of experience and, in that sense, it was not any different from any of the pandemic-imposed daily routine since it evolved around the absence of movement and the impossibility of touch. Simultaneously, it was quite a challenge: can you imagine curating an exhibition without stepping into an institution and getting to see a collection? I did dig deep within myself, looking for answers, and have to admit that, occasionally, it seemed to be a bit of a challenge. However, I have to say that I am immensely grateful to all the people that I crossed paths with and whom I collaborated with on this project: words are not enough to describe how easy and smooth the overall process was and how helpful, patient and caring were partners from Ljubljana, Rome and Tallinn. I learned a lot and indeed grew, yet, not only in professional terms: rather, collaboration with Museum of Architecture and Design in Ljubljana, MAXXI National Museum of 21st Century Arts and the Estonian Museum of Architecture had a profound impact on me personally as well and was, in this sense, a game changer. They were all extremely devoted and committed, helping me connect with architects and scientists that I, prior to this exhibition, have only read about. Oh, I went places I never dreamed of, and I will come back for more, however, in person. Hopefully no more screens.

Lisbon people and their balconies. | Photo © Sonja Lakić

A while ago, you stayed in Lisbon as a visiting researcher at ISCTE-IUL; now you’re back to curate an exhibition commissioned by Lisbon Architecture Triennale. What about the city preoccupies you these days? If Lisbon, as a living archive, could preserve one message from this exhibition, what would you like that message to be?

People. People always preoccupy me regardless of my geographical location. I am currently collaborating with ISCTE-IUL again and am also affiliated with ETNO.URB, so there are many big fishes to fry, and I am extremely happy and beyond excited for this. Of course, I could not help it: again, I observed the Lisbon edition of glazed balconies, and I found that one of them is especially dear to my heart, as it conceals the story about the most notorious apartment in the 1980s neighborhood where I found my home. 

As far as the message, I would say it is rather evident: life comes before buildings. People first. Always and forever.

Sonja Lakić (1983) is an internationally trained architect and researcher with a PhD in Urban Studies. Her work evolves around open architecture and dialectical urbanism, with a keen interest in lived forms of buildings hence anthropological and sociological aspects of architectural design and the built environment. Topics of her curiosity that she nurtured in Gran Sasso Science Institute and while briefly appointed as visiting researcher at ISCTE-IUL in Lisbon, include the everydayness of architecture, home(making), housing and informality, buildings as living archives, post-conflict societies. Sonja operates across different disciplines and scales, works visually, and collects oral histories, practicing unconventional ethnography and storytelling mainly through photography. --- By Sonja Dragović

[redtutel]

Rewatching Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

Although I have vague memories of the Episode III promotional material, this is the Star Wars movie where I truly was a part of the hype. December 2015 was a magical time where everyone was just...loved Star Wars. And it created a meme and parody culture that was just as wholesome as the original trilogies. None of that cynical and nitpicky, or in extreme cases sexist and racist, Star Wars fan culture we’re dealing with today.

So much like the first Avengers movie, the magic surrounding its release will make it impossible for me to judge this movie fairy. But I don’t care. I’m still very attached to it. Will this be the viewing where the magic wares off? Or will I find myself considering this better then the film it pays homage to. I’m excited to find out.

Seeing a brand new “A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far, Away” and an opening crawl in theaters was just awesome.

“Will not rest until, Skywalker, The Last Jedi, has been destroyed,” Hey, Foreshadowing! I know there’s a ton of debate as to what was or wasn’t planned in advance for this trilogy, but still.

The First Order is Space ISIS/Neo-Nazis, and Leia leads an army to fight it. Pretty simple. I don’t get why people get so up in arms about how little the politics are explored in this movie. It’s probably a side effect of just how lore heavy Star Wars got after the original trilogy.

The opening shot of a space ship completely covering a moon. A new take on ironic Star Wars imagers. A pretty good summary of this movie. But I feel like such new takes make up for just how many recycled plot points this movie has.

The opening action sequence is the first time in years Storm Troopers have been intimidating (Clone Troopers and Stormtroopers are two different things). It’s pretty impressive. It’s a great way to establish how evil the First Order is.

Finn’s introduction is so impressive. A Stormtrooper who in his first fight, completely looses the will to participate in war. We may never know about his friend he saw die, but despite that, we still understand why he lost his will to fight. It might be a bit awkward for Finn and Poe’s friendship if they ever find out Poe shot Finn’s old Stormtrooper friend.

Kylo Ren stopping a laser with the Force. An awesome new way to use the Force. And I love Poe’s quip “So who talks first?” It establishes Poe as a fun, jokey character, which is why I don’t get why people got upset about his sense of humor in Last Jedi. He’s the sort of character that uses humor to relieve the tension of any situation he’s in.

J.J Abrams made this movie to be watched blind, and I really wish I could (but I saw spoilers before I watched it). Where is Luke? Who is this new Sith? What’s the backstory the old man hits at? There’s a good Stormtrooper? He talks off his helmet? Who’s this girl in the desert? I’d love to discover these things for the first time all over again.

I’m found of robot characters that go against their programming. Finn’s not a robot, but the beginning of his character arc has that concept. He does not believe in this cause, and he fights war terrifying. And he wants to escape.

Anakin was a slave, Luke was a farmboy, and now we have Rey, a scavenger, all alone in the world, just tying to service. She quickly establishes herself as incredibly tough, but also a bit cute. 

Of all the protagonists Rey’s backstory is the saddest in my eyes. While Luke had a happy but boring life with his aunt and uncle, and Anakin had a hard life but a living mother, Rey has had to fend for herself since she was a child, holding onto hope that one day her parents will come. She was all alone in the world. But now that’s going to change.

I don’t take any sides in the CGI/Puppets debate, but seeing puppets in a big Hollywood blockbuster again is pretty nice.

BB-8′s so cute. I have too much R2-D2 nostalgia to consider him my favorite Skywalker Saga droid though.

Rey’s relationship with BB-8 establishes that although she’s a survivor, she hasn’t let it harden her heart. She’s willing to help BB-8, and although she wants him to be on his way, she still won’t sell him off (despite being tempted to)

...Poe’s technically the Leia archetype in this movie. This tough rebel who got captured by the villains, and who sent a droid with something important.

The Finn and Poe escape scene has a lot of great dialogue. I’d argue some of the best banter in the series. It’s a pretty good action scene too.

Of all the characters, I like how Finn’s take on his archetype the most. He’s the Han Solo, the deuteragonist who wants nothing to do with the battle, and joins for selfish reasons, but in the end proves to be a loyal friend and hero. But unlike cool and collated Solo, Finn is nervous and cowardly. But that makes his eventual bravery and loyalty all the more satisfying. 

I don’t know if this is true, but I’ve heard Poe was originally going to die, but Oscar Isaac was so great they kept the character alive. I do believe keeping them separated is for the best, seeing how it makes sure Finn stays around for as long has he does.

Early on we establish that Kylo Ren is abnormally obsessed with Luke Skywalker, to the point where Gnearl Hux questions him.

Finn and Rey’s friendship stars off pretty rocky, but even then they have some good chemistry. At one point Finn’s all beat up, and he asked Rey if she’s okay. He may not be very good at it, but he’s trying to be a gentleman.

I love how the Millennium Falcon gets called garbage. It’s a funny bit of irony, concerning just how sacred everything else from classic Star Wars gets treated.

The first Millennium Falcon chase is another great action sequence. Rey and Finn are figuring things out as they go along, and BB-8′s being cute. And in the end they’re very impressed with each other. Characters becoming friends tough action sequences is a favorite troupe of mine.

Everything from Finn and Poe’s escape to meeting Maz Katana has nothing to do with a New Hope, and thus is a very underrated part of the movie. Although the tentacle monster scene is kind of forgettable.

Both Finn and Rey have no last name. They’ve never had any sort of family before. Heck, Finn didn’t even have a real name until just a few hours ago. They’re nobodies trying to find themselves, which sets of their arc that carries over into the next film

Kylo Ren destroying the console establishes him as short tempered for the first time. He drops his stoic facade and shows his true colors. Kylo looks indimiateing, but deep down he’s an insecure manchild trying his best to inhert a dark legacy. I’m found of this character, as well as similar characters like Berkut and Shiguraki

Did BB-8 give a thumbs up or a bird? The world will never know.

Rey keeps her guard up around people she doesn’t know to well, but she has a very soft and kind side as well. She’s pretty aggrieve to Finn early on, which is probably why....certain people, dislike her. Women and aggression tends to lead to backlash, after all.

I love how Finn slips in a bit of Stormtrooper knowledge. It comes in handy a few times in this movie. Some could say it should come up a bit more, but I think it’s used enough.

“Chewie, We’re Home” What an iconic line. I can still hear the applause.

Seeing Han become the Obi Wan archetype is a very unique direction for the character to take. And he handles the role very well. Harrison Ford may have been sick of this character, but he still brought his A-game. I love that Rey admires Han more for his smuggling than for his war heroics. And it’s very sweet seeing Han admiring just how much Rey knows about piloting. It’s a very sweet father/daughter relationship. In hindsight, Rey and Han don’t even need to be related for this relationship to be this good. Rey lost her parents and Han lost his son, and they can’t help but see each other as a means to fill those voids, even if they deny it to themselves.

The events of the original trilogy are legendary to these characters, which make the “It’s True, All of it” line so cool. It’s pretty interesting how chronologically, the events of one trilogy are legends to the characters of the next one.

Seeing Han be exactly how people remember his is pretty cleverly deconstructed. In-Univse it happened because he needed to escape from the pain of what happened to his son. And now he’s at the point where there’s nobody left to swindle. 

Whenever Rey’s in trouble, she’s always the one to get herself out of it. This is definitely meant as pushback to the fact that in so many things, women always need help while men can aways get out of a situation by themselves.  And I’m all for it. It’s great to see a woman be this strong, but she’s not flawless. After all, she shuts people out and is struggling to accept the fact her parents are never coming back.

Snoke even says “Last Jedi.” Even in this movie, Snoke is convinced that Luke is the hero of this story, and will stop and nothing to stop him. It is interesting that they introduced the Emperor archetype in this first movie, although maybe it was a sign that he wasn’t actually the big bad of this trilogy.

“It the hands of your father: Han Solo.” And the audience gasped (unless they got spoiled first. It’s one of those things we can never un-know). Although if I have to nitpick, I’d be nice if we found out alongside Finn and Rey.

I love that the space chess still looks like stop motion.

Rey doesn’t see herself as the hero. Just the delivery girl. Even Luke saw himself as trying to save a damsel in distress. But though this journy, she becomes a hero.

"Luke felt responsible. He just, walked away from everything.” This was established in this movie? Why did it take until Last Jedi for people to react to that plot point?

“I didn’t know there was this much green in the whole galaxy” I love that line. It’s so endearing!

Finn reminds me of Usopp. A liar and a coward, but someone who will always do the right thin in the end. He’s my personal favorite sequel character

“Women always find out.” Han has a ton of great lines in this movie.

“I’ve already been away too long” She’s so convinced her parents will come back she won’t even leave her planet for a few hours.

With Maz Katana, we’re back in a New Hope. I’m found of this character. It’s fascinating to see someone who’s Force Sensitive but not a Jedi. And she offers some great advice to Rey and Finn. I’d love to see her in the next season of Clone Wars.

Kylo Ren sees Darth Vader as the hero, the dark as good, and the light as bad. But he has regrets, and lakes the discipline and fidelity of Darth Vader. Of all the characters, he’s the one most desperate to fulfill his archetype.

“Though the ages I have seen evil take on many forms. The Sith, the Empire, today it’s the First Order.” “If you live long enough, you see the same eyes in many different people.” Of the the sequel’s trilogy’s biggest themes is that history repeats itself. But despite that, it’s still important to fight evil whenever it arises, instead of just sitting back and letting it happen.

It never occurred to me before, but Finn’s cowardliness might be the lingering effects of his brainwashing. Although he does not believe in the First Order’s Ways, he was still convinced all his life that they’re unstoppable, which is why he wants to run instead of fight. I also like how he’s admits the truth, instead of there being this “liar revealed” thing.

Finn and Rey have truly become friends at this point. Instead of just running away, now Finn wants Rey to come with him. As far as he knows, she’s the only friend he has, and he doesn’t want anything to happen to her. Meanwhile, Rey doesn’t want Finn to leave, because he’s one of the few people in her life to stick with her for this long. If he leaves, he might end of like her parents, who never came back.

Wait...how come nobody was demanding to know Finn’s parents. He was taken from a family he’ll never know after all. How come people accept that Finn’s parents don’t matter, but insist that Rey’s does?

Seeing Rey connect to the force for the first time (outside of  the piloting and scavenging skills I assume she she used them for subcoinsously before the events of this movie) is really impressive. We get flashes of her past, as well as Luke’s past and Kylo’s past, and even hear the voices of Yoda and Obi Wan. ok She’s getting her first glimpse at the Force that binds everything together, and she’s terrified of it. It’s also yet another divination from the New Hope plot, which is very welcome.

I forgot that Rey being Force sensitive was once a spoiler. How time flys.

I really hope Obi-Wan appears in Rise of Skywalker. He spoke to Rey when she connected to the Force for the first time, and I’d love to see that expanded upon.

“They’re never coming back.” A lesson Rey, and the audience, finds difficulty accepting. 

“The belonging you seek is not behind you, it is ahead.” Such a great line. It’s a great summery of Rey’s arc, and I imagine people with difficult pasts can relate to it.

Maz tells Rey and Finn exactly what they need. Rey need to learn to move forward, and Finn needs to learn to fight for what’s right.

Why does the lightsaber choose Rey? I guess her midichlorian count is just right or something. It doesn’t really matter, and I personally find the idea that the next hero can come from anywhere inspiring.

...Come to think of it, Luke’s the only protagonist who isn’t just some rando.

“Why is Maz so interested in Rey” Probably because of her strong connection to the Force.

Rey rejects the saber. Classic rejection of the call. Can you blame her, after that vision?

The First Order sees the Republic as weak and dishonest. Seems straightforward to me. Maybe people were underwhelmed because Neo-Nazism didn’t get as much attention as it did just a few months later.

Starkiller Base. It’s cool looking power-creep. On one hand, since we don’t know anyone from those planets, it’s not as impactful as what happened to Alderan. But then again, we actually see people on that planet die. So It’s a bit of a mixed bag overall.

Finn’s not going to leave until he knows Rey is safe. How touching.

TR-8R. I miss that meme.

Seeing Poe’s triumphant return is pretty great.

Seing Rey’s trying to fight off Kylo Ren with a gun is very tense. This the the first time she looses a fight in this movie. Seeing someone so strong get captured really raises the stakes. This is where they first meet. Their relationship is standard Hero vs Villain in this movie, but things are going to change a LOT in the next one.

Despite how scared he is, Finn still rushes in to try and stop Rey from being capture.

Seeing General Leia for the first time is awesome. Han and Leia’s reuinon is so touching as well. C-3PO’s back to disturbing Han and Leia moments as well, which is pretty funny.

Seeing BB-8 and Finn get reunited with Poe is also very touching. 

Finn is helping the Resistance for the sake of Rey. He’s not quite a hero yet, but he’s getting there.

So the movie did established R2-D2 had the map in his back-up data in the actual movie.

Han and Leia went back to what they know best after the loss of their son. It’s such a tragic moment. 

Kylo almost has the depth  in one movie that took Vader two or three movies to get. I feel like that should be discussed more often.

Kylo’s face is removed to reveal...a normal person. Ben didn’t get any external injuries to turn him into Kylo Ren. It was all manipulation

Rey takes on the Leia role when capture, and Finn briefly takes on the Luke role, But when she frees herself they go back to being Luke and Han, respectively.

Even in this movie, Rey and Kylo are using the force to get to know each other, although mainly on accident. Maybe that’s where Snoke got the idea in the next movie.

After seeing Kylo using the Force, Rey decides to use it in order to escape, although she’s a bit hesitant to do so. It takes her three tires to do the Jedi mind trick, after all. I do wonder where she heard about it. Maybe she figured that if you can read minds, you can change minds.

Rey is a very fast learner in any situation, be it piloting, shooting or using the force. Maybe it’s her midichlorian count. 

Starkill base makes very little logical sense, but its still a very cool concept, and seeing day turn into night serving as a ticking clock is a very cool visual.

“No matter how much we fought, I always hated watching you leave” “That’s why I did it, so you’d miss me.” All these years later, and that still have such great chemistry. 

“That’s not how the Force works.” I love that line, but people misuse it.

Finn is doing something very heroic, putting himself on the frontlines and disabling the shield. But he’s only doing this for Rey. Despite that, he stays true to his word and disables the shields. I love seeing him stick it to his old boss. It’s a fun moment.

The Rouge One “Womp” is even in this movie! How did I never notice it until after Rouge One?

“As Long as there’s light, we’ve got a chance” A classic symbol, but one that still works.

Seeing Rey and Finn reunited is just another very touching moment. “We came back for you.” For the first time in Rey’s life, somebody actually came back for her. I love how Rey describes how using the force to escape was “Something I can’t explain, you wouldn’t believe it.” In general I love how the Force is depicted in this movie.

“We’ll meet back here” No! That was their last moment together!

Ben and Han’s confrontation is another utterly fantastic moment. Ben is tempted to go back to his father, but he’s too devoted to Snoke’s teachings. On top of that, he feels like it’s too late to go this far. He figures that to get rid of these regrets, he has to kill Han Solo. I love how the sky gets dark, leaving red as the only light source. It really makes Ben’s lightsaber stick out when he kills Han. And yet, Han still touchings the check of his son, showing that even despite this, he still loves him. Instead of letting the past die by killing his father, Kylo is left more conflicted than ever.

Meanwhile, Rey lost a chance to have a father yet again.

The snowy forest at night is such a great setting, and leads to an awesome lightsaber fight. Rey gets knocked out, so Finn has to protect her with a lightsaber duel. Kylo is beating himself, increasing his pain to increase his dark power. Finn puts up a valiant effort, but in the end, he gets knocked out, and Rey has to save him. But still, he bought her time, and gave her the strength to use the force to stop Kylo. Seeing Rey grab the lightsaber for the first time using the Force is just awesome. She’s barely holding her own, but true to the character, she’s a fast learning. Meanwhile Kylo is still injured, and maybe a bit worn out from fighting Finn. At the cliffside, Rey is at the ends of her seat, but when she trusts in the force, she manages to beat Kylo after he overpowered her during the rest of the movie.

Finn ends with the movie more devoted to Rey than the Resistance, but he still proves himself to be a loyal friend and a hero. I was worried about him for the two years between Force Awakens and Last Jedi

There’s no words between Leia and Rey. They both just know, Han is dead, and they both loved him. And that’s enough for them to mourn him together.

But in the midts of dealing with the loss of Han, there’s is hope. Specifically, the New Hope.

Seeing Luke for the first time in this movie is such a fantastic cliffhanger.

Overall, I still love this movie as much as when I first saw it. It’s got great action and effects, the new characters are some of my favorites in the series, and the old characters give some of their best performances of all time. Sure it messed with a happy ending, but I’m still investing in seeing how characters old and new are going to try and get that happy ending back.

[jeremys-blogs]

Star Wars and Samurai: A Classic Combo

As I probably mentioned the last time I wrote about this particular franchise, Star Wars has been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember, and as something that I've been watching for that long a time it can be easy to notice certain trends or ideas that keep popping up. Sure, the recurring motifs of lights vs dark, lightsaber fights, space battles and complicated family dynamics are all pretty widely-known, but even the less famous aspects of the wider Star Wars story can be interesting to look at and analyse. Specifically for this talk, I wanted to discuss how the franchise has a very close relationship to Samurai films. Going all the way back to its earliest days, Star Wars has frequently borrowed story concepts from old films about Japan's most famous warriors, and it's worth noting that every time it does so it always creates tales that, while perhaps not universally beloved, always manage to become at least interesting to watch. So that's what I'm going to be doing here today, to look back over the times that I personally know of from Star Wars and which classic Samurai story they drew inspiration from. Because if there's one thing that can make a cool sci-fi franchise cooler, it's basing itself around equally-cool real life figures.

And of course we have to start at the beginning. The original Star Wars, 1977, the film that shook the world. It almost goes without saying that George Lucas drew inspiration from a number of big stories when making his original blockbuster, from classic sci-fi serials like Flash Gordon to more folkloric tales like king Arthur. But perhaps the biggest shaper of the plot of the film came from the 1958 film by Akira Kurosawa, The Hidden Fortress. This story, set during the tumultuous era of feudal Japan, feature two peasants who, unbeknownst to them, are secretly escorting a princess across enemy lines. Now the parallels here are obvious, as the character of Leia is also a Princess in need of transporting to a safe location during a time of war. And the two peasants, while they can certainly be seen as spiritual successors to Luke and Han, perhaps better fit the role that R2D2 and C3PO fill, that of more bumbling and comedic characters who simply found themselves roped into this situation through no fault of their own. Regardless, Hidden Fortress played a big part in making the original movie what it was, and given how beloved a title it went on to be, we should all be grateful to it.

But its worth noting that Kurosawa was by no means limited to the original Star Wars when it came to his influence over the franchise, as his movies provided the basis for a lot of homages over the years. Take, for instance, what is perhaps his most famous work, the Seven Samurai. Now, I realise that this one doesn't technically qualify for a samurai film since the title characters are actually without masters and therefore ronin instead, but it's in the name so that's what I'm counting it as. Anyways, the story of these seven "samurai" who get brought in to defend a local village and help defend it from bandits and even teach the villagers to defend themselves is a plot that might be familiar to fans of the recent Star Wars hit, the Mandalorian. Its fourth episode, Sanctuary, had this as its central premise, even though there are obvious differences, like there only being two people hired to do the job. But even so, the connection is as plain as day. And as you might expect, a story rooted in one of Akira Kurosawa's most beloved films was a damn fine episode in its own right, to the point where I'll even call it my personal favourite of the show's first season.

At this point I imagine that serious fans of every aspect of this franchise will likely feel a sense of familiarity with the previously-mentioned film, as Seven Samurai also served as the inspiration for an episode of the hit CGI TV show Clone Wars. The episode "Bounty Hunters" followed a much more close adaptation of the film, to the point of actually having seven defenders of the village, and in fact the episode even went out of its way to be a love letter to the works of Kurosawa, dedicating itself to him. And it really is a testament to the man's film that it can lead to the creation of not one, but two great episodes from two great shows. Now it's probably going to be a debate among fans as to which one is actually the better episode, regardless of whether or not it's a good adaptation of Kurosawa's work, but regardless they are both fine stories that are well worth watching, and though it might not be fair to credit him as being the progenitor of the idea of outsiders coming to a village's aid, there can be no denying that it's because of him that the trope is as popular as it is.

And speaking of tropes that Kurosawa has helped to make popular, another such idea is the notion of the same story being told in different ways by different people, which was the premise of the movie Rashomon from 1950. The story in question being that of a murder, a crime being described by multiple characters, with uncertainty about who is really telling the truth. Now this one admittedly hasn't had that big of an impact on Star Wars as much as Kurosawa's other films, but this idea of differing perspectives had a very noteworthy appearance in The Last Jedi. Now I realise that this is a very divisive movie among the fandom, but this idea of perspective is right at the centre of one of the film's more controversial choices, specifically regarding the actions of original trilogy hero Luke Skywalker. It frames his actions, his near-attempt at doing something terrible, from the point of view of two people, himself and his nephew. Whether Rashomon was indeed the inspiration behind this particular plot point is unknown, but I would be very surprised if it wasn't, especially considering Kurosawa's shadow over the rest of the franchise. And regardless of whether or not you like Last Jedi, it's undeniable that this particular storytelling technique made for an engaging development with our old hero.

For our final example of the connections between Star Wars and samurai stories we move away from Kurosawa (may he rest in peace) and return again to discussing the Mandalorian. Because with the hit show the entirety of its premise, that of a stoic warrior defending a young child from the dangers around them, we go to the tale of Lone Wolf and Cub. Now here I'm technically cheating a bit as that story, while having plenty of films made from it, actually began life as a manga back in 1970. But even with that difference in mind you can still see the clear connections it has with our favourite spacefaring father and son team. A main lead whose livelihood features a great deal of violence being cast out and vilified in some way and defending this youth is almost exactly what Mando and the Child are going through, though there are obviously plenty of differences in the details and aesthetics. Out of all the samurai stories we've covered, this one is possibly the least well-known, and as such it would surprise me greatly if anyone watching Mandalorian will even come to the conclusion that it drew inspiration from it. Now the series is still ongoing, so it remains to be seen if it will continue this premise, but for right now I think the manga's author would appreciate the love his story is getting in this new form.

And with that, we come to the end of our look at samurai influence in Star Wars. It's worth saying upfront that I have not seen or read everything related to Star Wars, as there's frankly way too much out there for me to every really declare myself an expert on it, so what I've talked about here is all the examples I personally knew of. Are there other samurai references out there in the franchise I don't know about? Quite possibly, and if so then I hope people enjoy them as much as what I've talked about here in this posting. But suffice to say I trust my point has been well made. A sci-fi story it may be, but Star Wars owes much of what it is to that other great subgenre of film, and with the franchise likely continuing on for many years into the future I have no doubt that those films will carry on making their way into whatever movies, TV shows, games, books and so on get made from the Star Wars name. How good they will be I cannot say, but if nothing else then at least the stories made thus far have been of great entertainment value to me, and I'll be more than likely giving them a few more re-watches before I'm done with them 😉

[caveartfair]

Amid Controversy, the Whitney Biennial Plays It Safe

John Edmonds, The Villain, 2018. Courtesy of the artist; Company, New York; and the Whitney Biennial.

Lambrequin and Peplum, , 2017. Diane Simpson Whitney Museum of American Art

Maybe it’s not fair to expect an exhibition as popular and overly scrutinized as the Whitney Biennial to take huge risks—especially not after the last edition dissolved into a still-simmering debate over race and identity politics. And yet, there’s something undeniably flat about the 2019 show, co-curated by Jane Panetta and Rujeko Hockley and opening to the public on May 17th.

There isn’t much here to quicken the pulse, with even the politically inflected works coming across as too polite for our current moment. And if one possible function of the biennial is to act as a kind of cross-section of American artistic practice, this exhibition makes some puzzling choices. An alien visitor to the biennial would be forgiven for thinking that most current painting is of the mildly inept, figurative variety, and that found-object assemblage is the way most humans choose to creatively communicate with each other.

The General,, 2018. Nicole Eisenman Whitney Museum of American Art

But let’s start on a positive note: all the way up on the Whitney’s 6th-floor outdoor patio, lashed by wind and cold rain during Monday’s press preview. Here you’ll find one of the Whitney Biennial’s only true showstoppers, an epic sculpture by Nicole Eisenman called Procession (2019). A parade of migratory humanoids is caught mid-journey, possibly in the process of transporting a series of modernist-looking metal sculptures on plinths.

Every element of this sprawling piece is a delight, from the lovingly sculpted cartoonish genitals to the puffs of steam randomly emitted from unexpected orifices. Procession recalls a heroic journey from millennia past, but idiosyncratic Easter eggs abound: a Kryptonite bike lock here, a pair of New York Giants socks there. The funny, complicated sculpture is comfortable juggling sophomoric fart humor with reflections on power, bondage, servitude, and the pomposity of religion—and art, for that matter. A bumper sticker on the back of the cart reads “How’s My Sculpting? Call 1-800-EAT-SHIT.” Procession’s very placement is a stroke of genius: just outside of the museum proper, as if the procession wasn’t quite able to make it to the halls of culture.

Inside, it’s warmer and drier, but also a little predictable. The ghost of Robert Rauschenberg hangs heavy over work by Eric Mack, Troy Michie, and Tomashi Jackson: photo transfers, quilt-like collages of material, and evocative detritus (other artist’s press releases, political buttons, deconstructed bits of clothing).

Installation view of Nicole Eisenman, Procession, 2019.

Across the board, there’s too much found-object assemblage. Wangechi Mutu’s Poems by my great grandmother I (2017)—a construction of wood and cow horn and a dangling pencil that rotates, drawing a circle on its metal base—could be a small-scale homage to Bruce Nauman’s Carousel (Stainless steel version)(1988). Robert Bittenbender’s unwieldy wall sculptures, cages stuffed to bursting with metal cords and junk, seem like hyperbolic parodies of the magpie aesthetic. There are interesting things about some of these works—including large-scale sculptures by Joe Minter—but the sheer volume of them gives the impression that contemporary artists are basically collectors and curators of things they have bought or found.

One big exception here are inventive sculptures by Puerto Rican artist Daniel Lind-Ramos, who makes magic with palm tree trunks, beads, coconuts, soil, and other poetic objects. As with the best of Nari Ward, a sense of symmetry and gravity give these sculptures a sense of ritual importance, despite their secular materials.

Eric N. Mack, (Easter) The Spring / The Holy Ground, 2018. Courtesy of the artist; Morán Morán, Los Angeles; Simon Lee, London; and the Whitney Biennial.

Sentinel I, 2018. Wangechi Mutu Whitney Museum of American Art

Painting fares the worst of all in the Biennial, which seems to be asserting that the medium isn’t dead, just uninteresting. Kyle Thurman’s figurative depictions of men are a weak stab in the direction of Leon Golub; Eddie Arroyo’s paintings of shabby building facades in the Little Haiti neighborhood of Miami may be conceptually interesting, but they’re imminently forgettable as images. Calvin Marcus’s massive canvases are betting on the fact that size is what matters, even when the subject matter—an Ed Ruscha-esque view through a car windshield; a circle of donkeys; an upside down snowman—seems arbitrary at best.

There are a few bright spots to be found, including Janiva Ellis, a stand-out of the last New Museum Triennial. And Keegan Monaghan’s thickly painted renderings of boring things—a rotary telephone, a bit of wood fencing—have the funky, borderline kitschy feel of Red Grooms. Three works by Marlon Mullen are charming and unexpected—all based on the covers of popular trade magazines like Art in America, abstracted into color, pattern, and the text of marquee names, from Grant Wood to Elizabeth Murray.

5825 NE 2nd Ave., Miami, FL 33137, 2017. Eddie Arroyo Whitney Museum of American Art

An emphasis on photography at the Biennial enlivens things a bit, including a small room’s worth of work by Paul Mpagi Sepuya and his peers and collaborators—who are often credited with authoring certain images, eliciting a confusion that’s ultimately about how porous and fluid creative communities can be. The on-the-rise John Edmonds gets two side hallways for his sensual, elegant portraits of black men and women posing with African masks and sculptures. Curran Hatleberg, who has the third-floor gallery space essentially to himself, was a welcome discovery for this critic; his evocative, empathetic portraits and landscapes fall somewhere between Alec Soth and Gregory Crewdson.

Other highlights include Meriem Bennani’s series of videos, housed here in a series of offbeat pavilions outdoors on the fifth floor balcony. Like much of her work, the new installation begins with a documentary subject—Moroccan teenagers, caught laughing, hanging out, and complaining about how Instagram won’t verify their accounts—but also detours into comedic special-effects absurdity. We see local architecture in Morocco’s capital city swaying and crooning R&B lyrics like “I’m a sexy house in Rabat.”

In the ground floor lobby gallery, the always incredible Chicago-based artist Diane Simpson has a series of sculptures that could be storefront displays or altars. Their forms, made with painted fiberboard, lurk on the edge of familiarity—is that a coffee grinder, a length of armor, a trio of folding chairs?—but never fully resemble any one thing. Olga Balema’s sculptures, meanwhile, have a somewhat similar approach to DIY abstraction, albeit messier; who knew one could cover so much ground with little more than carved styrofoam and tape? And Brian Belott’s installation of freezer units holding ephemeral frozen sculptures show a similar knack for funky, handmade invention, even if not every visitor was impressed. “Marc Quinn,” a jaded woman next to me said, referring to the British artist famous for making a bust of his head with his own frozen blood. “That’s the problem with ice—it’s been done!”

Incoming, 2016-2017. Keegan Monaghan Whitney Museum of American Art

If there’s one area where the 2019 Whitney Biennial really stumbles, it’s with the outwardly political. Surely, part of the curatorial conversation must have involved the elephant in the room: Either engage with the oppressive shadow of Trumpism, or treat the show as a respite from the news cycle. This exhibition merely makes half-hearted gestures toward the topical. There’s a goofy series of wall-mounted photo sculptures by Josh Kline, which depict scenes, including the reception desk of Twitter, being slowly covered by rising water. Marcus Fischer presents a reel-to-reel machine playing the recorded thoughts of fellow artists prior to the 2017 inauguration, probing their “fears and reservations about the Trump presidency.” The results are a beat poem (“civil rights…discrimination…polar bears…fracking”) that’s only revelatory if you’ve been sleeping for the past few years.

Alexandra Bell’s biennial contribution is more substantive—annotated articles from the New York Daily News covering the overblown and racist rhetoric surrounding the wrongly accused “Central Park Five.” One piece includes a full-page newspaper ad, written and paid for by one Donald Trump, which calls for a return to the death penalty and no-holds-barred policing. Bell uses a yellow highlighter to isolate especially egregious language, and replaces all the photographs with black boxes. It’s an interesting exercise, but not as compelling as Bell’s better known series, which reworked pages of the New York Times to address racial bias surrounding the killing of Michael Brown. Meanwhile, Kota Ezawa’s film National Anthem (2018)—which animates the artist’s watercolors of NFL players taking a knee—is a political artwork that absolutely no one visiting the Whitney would be likely to be troubled by. It’s as well-meaning as it is toothless.

More successful are a set of drawings by Christine Sun Kim, which remind us that the personal is always political. The artist, who is deaf, weighs in on various sources of her “deaf rage,” experienced in various settings (“while traveling,” or “in the art world”). The quasi-scientific diagrams pinpoint all the many ways in which a differently abled artist can be pushed to the brink. Kim isolates two instances of what she categorizes as merely “cute rage”: “Being offered a wheelchair at the arrival gate…and the braille menu at restaurants.”

Christine Sun Kim, Degrees of My Deaf Rage in The Art World, 2018. Courtesy of the artist; White Space, Beijing; and the Whitney Biennial.

But there is a single instance of hypertopical critique that hits its target, and hard. The most thrilling and dangerous work in the otherwise tame Biennial comes courtesy of Forensic Architecture. The hard-to-define, multidisciplinary collective chose to call out Whitney board vice chairman and Safariland CEO Warren Kanders for the sources of his wealth—namely tear-gas canisters used against migrants at our southern border, and bullets fired by the Israeli military.

While it’s not mentioned directly in the video, Kanders’s presence on the board has caused a swell of protest in the lead-up to the Whitney Biennial, mainly spearheaded by the collective Decolonize This Place. Fellow biennial artist Michael Rakowitz actually pulled out of the show in solidarity with this movement, but Forensic Architecture has done something more effective: remain, and bite the tear gas-grenade-wielding hand that feeds them. Their film manages a nice balance between the didactic and the poppy, concisely explaining a broader initiative to use machine-learning and artificial intelligence to identify online images of a specific teargas product made by Kanders’s company.

“While my company and the museum have distinct missions,” Kanders was quoted saying in a letter to Whitney staffers, “both are important contributors to our society.” Watch a few minutes of Forensic Architecture’s effective, rapidfire footage and you’ll likely disagree. Kudos to the curators for putting the film, Triple Chaser (2019), in the center of the sixth floor galleries, rather than relegating it to a less prominent corner of the museum. But what does it say about this Whitney Biennial that its most relevant moment is one that seems to call the whole enterprise into question?

from Artsy News

[freely-expressed]

I am not asking for a world without social media, but it would help if there were less of it.

Throughout the history of the world, human connection and belonging has always been of the upmost importance for a society to function and progress through time. From the very beginning, humans have pioneered different methods of communication from rock wall drawings, morse code, writing of letters by way of horse and buggy, to the email/text messaging era and so on. We, meaning humanity, have always had such a strong driving instinctual inclination to communicate, socialize and talk with one another about life and all its vast wonders, no matter how it is done. Today, because we live in the digital age of smartphones and laptops, we now have the instant accessibility of the internet to connect with family, friends and peers within the matter of milliseconds. Social media and the platforms they offer to the public, which started as a small trend, has now today grown into a cultural norm for millions of people around the globe, even and especially adolescent young adults. Because the internet is so vast and widespread referring to content one can access, covering everything from your local weather to global affairs between the U.S and peoples republic of China for example, the worldwide web can be extremely useful or awfully harmful for those who choose to use it and social media today has adopted every thinkable function to include this large array of content with little to no filters.  As parents of an old generation give way to the new digital age and seeing social media being used by their children every day, it has become an ever-so vigorous debate on its effect on mental health. The issue at hand is the idea that millions of adolescent youth, starting at young ages, are using social media in their daily lives often frequently and do not to give any regard to how it is affecting their mental health. As a growing body of literature and many case studies are in development to determine the true physiological effects that social media has on mental health, I am here today to add my knowledge and voice in that growing dialogue and offer a firsthand account of what social media has done to me and my life.

When social media first started finding its way into the world, these companies dreamed of constructing and building websites in such a way where ordinary people could feed that instinctual craving to connect with others in a way that they had never seen before. With platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, that dream became reality and it happened rather quickly. And yet, I believe we are still so blindsided by what an incredible development in the modern world that social media really is that we do not care to pay homage to the facts. Still to this day, a large percent of these companies' users does not fully understand what the overuse and addiction of social media is doing to their mental health and many do not care. There are many consequences that naturally come with spending hours on social media behind a device connecting through the screen instead of face-to-face. However, through the years, people have described this new online experience to be easy, fun, convenient and rather useful for those who feel socially isolated, or maybe socially inept. They also have argued that individuals with mental health disorders, such as chronic depression, use social media and the online community as a safe space where everybody has a voice. No judgement, no criticism.  Anybody can be anyone they want, say whatever they want to say, be whatever they want to be and have no natural real-life consequences. This argument is true in principle meaning yes we do all have a voice on and offline and indeed we can be whatever we want in our own lives, but when one adopts the notion that living in a virtual world that only exists in a screen can somehow allow them to escape and forget their life and the onslaught of responsibilities of life can be very damaging to ones perception of actual life. There are many people who are obsessed with their online reputation and how others perceive them, however this has never been a healthy outlook on your inner self.  

Another common argument for and in behalf of the use of social media is that by going online and scrolling through the array of fitness accounts and or healthy dietician's choice lifestyle accounts can promote and motivate users to adopt new healthy life practices. In an online published article,” Seven ways social media can benefit your mental Health” written by Kevin Naruse, he states,” Announcing a goal via social media and regularly posting about it promotes accountability to others, creating positive reinforcement from friends and stimulating an online “social support system” which may lead the aspirant to form or join other communities dedicated to similar pursuits. This is a classic case of “positive emotional contagion.” Research has shown that sharing a goal publicly not only promotes accountability but helps one stay focused, and dramatically increases one’s chance of success, whether it be weight loss, or sobriety for recovering addict/alcoholics.” If there was any claim that I have disagreed with more, it would be this exact one. For a small minority of people, social media does indeed serve as a motivator and helps them in their efforts to make lofty fitness or diet goals and achieve them while having every person that they are friends with online celebrate with them once they cross the finish line. However, this method of achieving goals is not effective for the mass of people using online media platforms. This is because discouragement, rejection, failure and lack of self-confidence play a paramount role in one's mental health, of which all people are vulnerable to if they share that part of their life with the online world. This all plays into the idea that social media is simply curated content, handpicked perfectly edited photos and videos, and naturally (because lack of resources, money, time, energy, motivation and all other possible human excuses) unattainable standards of life, beauty and fitness. For those with low self-esteem and low self-confidence, being exposed to these standards can significantly higher the risk of mental health issues and heavily discourage those who do try and mirror the myriad of models they see on the screen but come far short.

Because the human race will always search for ways to do things better, such as communicate, today social media has absolutely taken over the world, being the number one method in which we communicate. The final claim in favor of social media that I will be presenting in this essay, and quite possibly the number one reason why social media is so widely popular in the world, is the fact that social media as a form of communication has absolutely no limitations- for example walls, times of day, location and age. Anybody anywhere at any time of day can connect, post, chat, create, illustrate on their preferred social media website. Janis Whitlock, a researcher at the Brofenbrenner center for translational research, has said,” Social media extends what humans tend to do in everyday life anyway, such as connect with friends, look for inspiration, and seek support. That said, the ways in which it can amplify, allow for ceaseless exchange, and transcend the natural boundaries that were inherent in everyday life for millennia is novel. The ways in which all of this impacts wellbeing is complicated by all sorts of factors that are very difficult to study.” While this statement is subjective in nature, stating known and accepted fact and explaining what kind of major impact social media has had, the main conclusion I take from this statement is that there are so many complicated factors that have to be considered when it comes to mental health being altered by social media. Just because something has pushed the limits of histories past, has been adopted by our culture and is seen as beneficial to the world does not also mean that there cannot be negative consequences if not used in moderation. Take for example, modern medicine and the prescription drug issue. 50 years ago, citizens of the western world could not dream of the accessibility of prescription drugs that are privileged with today. While there are many benefits to modern medicine, the U.S. still has an awful prescription drug overuse and addiction rate that has skyrocketed in recent years. And so, it is the same with social media. Many do not see the effect it is having in themselves until they take a closer look at their online habits.

When I was an adolescent boy in the thick of my middle school years, Facebook was extremely popular and almost every single one of my close friends used the website daily. Because I was at a very vulnerable time in my life and would have done anything to fit in at the time or be socially accepted, I created my own account and quickly became infatuated with this new online experience. It was the best thing for a pre-mature 13-year-old boy, right? It could connect me with my friends from school, allow me to have conversations with girls I knew who I thought were attractive, and gave me a platform to share my life experiences, however boring and non-interesting they were at the time. This all seems innocent and it was, but because I was a boy being thrown into his teenage years who had no prior knowledge of the internet's capabilities and no parental guidance, I was exposed to many additional harmful things online that have since effected my life in an extremely negative way, such as pornography. To think I had these traumatizing online experiences, many of which were aggravated and intensified by social media, at such a young age and now to learn that even younger children have multiple social media accounts and use them frequently is frightening to say the least. Being able to enjoy social media for all its benefits and then to counteract the negative things by filtering it all out can be one of the hardest balancing acts young people do when using social media, and honestly many don’t even try. My argument against social media is as follows: Mental Health is already a very difficult and delicate thing to keep unblemished through this long life, especially with all the hardships and perils we face naturally. Rates of suicide, clinical depression and anxiety are already high in the U.S and in other parts of the world. Most studies done on this topic do show confirmed signs of depression and other serious signs of decreased mental health linked to the high usage of social media. This statistic from childmind.org has given us just a glimpse of the problem: Teenage and young adult users who spend the most time on Instagram, Facebook and other platforms were shown to have a substantially (from 13 to 66 percent) higher rate of reported depression than those who spent the least time. While I have always been a user of social media and probably will never stop enjoying the useful and convenient benefits that social media provides, I do want to raise awareness on the negative effects that it is having on our minds and mental health.  

This argument can be disputed and countered with a variety of different studies and articles standing on the other side of the aisle, but because this issues landscape is still so relatively new and there have been no definite conclusions made by professionals such as trained clinical phycologists, there can only be speculation and conjecture as to how and to what degree social media is really taking a toll. For those who continue in this discourse, and I hope many do raise awareness and knowledge of this important issue, the number one piece of advice I would give is to look at it from the bird's eye view seeing all sides and also do not let the statistics game sway you one way or the other. Afterall, if only one precious human life is taken by suicide because of depression, we have a moral obligation to look at all factors involved. Today, I believe social media has never had such a strong influence over our minds and the way we think than it does today. Because of this, we must be constantly vigilant as to how we allow social media to impact us. Researching this issue has brought me so much appreciation for the real, authentic human connection and how nothing can ever replace it.  

[dorcasrempel]

Making wireless communication more energy efficient

Omer Tanovic, a PhD candidate in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, joined the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) because he loves studying theory and turning research questions into solvable math problems. But Omer says that his engineering background — before coming to MIT he received undergraduate and master’s degrees in electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina — has taught him never to lose sight of the intended applications of his work, or the practical parameters for implementation.

“I love thinking about things on the abstract math level, but it’s also important to me that the work we are doing will help to solve real-world problems,” Omer says. “Instead of building circuits, I am creating algorithms that will help make better circuits.”

One real-world problem that captured Omer’s attention during his PhD is power efficiency in wireless operations. The success of wireless communications has led to massive infrastructure expansion in the United States and around the world. This has included many new cell towers and base stations. As these networks and the volume of information they handle grow, they consume an increasingly hefty amount of power, some of which goes to powering the system as it’s supposed to, but much of which is lost as heat due to energy inefficiency. This is a problem both for companies such as mobile network operators, which have to pay large utility bills to cover their operational costs, and for society at large, as the sector’s greenhouse gas emissions rise.

These concerns are what motivate Omer in his research. Most of the projects that he has worked on at MIT seek to design signal processing systems, optimized to different measures, that will increase power efficiency while ensuring that the output signal (what you hear when talking to someone on the phone, for instance) is true to the original input (what was said by the person on the other end of the call).

His latest project seeks to address the power efficiency problem by decreasing the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of wireless communication signals. In the broadest sense, PAPR is an indirect indicator of how much power is required to send and receive a clear signal across a network. The lower this ratio is, the more energy-efficient the transmission. Namely, much of the power consumed in cellular networks is dedicated to power amplifiers, which collect low-power electronic input and convert it to a higher-power output, such as picking up a weak radio signal generated inside a cell phone and amplifying it so that, when emitted by an antenna it is strong enough to reach a cell tower. This ensures that the signal is robust enough to maintain adequate signal-to-noise ratio over the communication link. Power amplifiers are at their most efficient when operating near their saturation level, at maximum output power. However, because cellular network technology has evolved in a way that accommodates a huge volume and variety of information across the network — resulting in far less uniform signals than in the past — modern communication standards require signals with big peak-to-average power ratios. This means that a radio frequency transmitter must be designed such that the underlying power amplifier can handle peaks much higher than the average power being transmitted, and therefore, most of the time, the power amplifier is working inefficiently — far from its saturation level.

“Every cell tower has to have some kind of PAPR reduction algorithm in place in order to operate. But the algorithms they use are developed with little or no guaranties on improving system performance,” Omer says. “A common conception is that optimal algorithms, which would certainly improve system performance, are either too expensive to implement — in terms of power or computational capacity — or cannot be implemented at all.”

Omer, who is supervised by LIDS Professor Alexandre Megretski, designed an algorithm that can decrease the PAPR of a modern communication signal, which would allow the power amplifier to operate closer to its maximum efficiency, thus reducing the amount of energy lost in the process. To create this system he first considered it as an optimization problem, the conditions of which meant that any solution would not be implementable, as it would require infinite latency, meaning an infinite delay before transmitting the signal. However, Omer showed that the underlying optimal system, even though of infinite latency, has a desirable fading-memory property, and so he could create an approximation with finite latency — an acceptable lag time. From this, he developed a way to best approximate the optimal system. The approximation, which is implementable, allows tradeoffs between precision and latency, so that real-time realizations of the algorithm can improve power efficiency without adding too much transmission delay or too much distortion to the signal. Omer applied this system using standardized test signals for 4G communication and found that, on average, he could get around 50 percent reduction in the peak-to-average power ratio while satisfying standard measures of quality of digital communication signals.

Omer’s algorithm, along with improving power efficiency, is also computationally efficient. “This is important in order to ensure that the algorithm is not just theoretically implementable, but also practically implementable,” Omer says, once again stressing that abstract mathematical solutions are only valuable if they cohere to real-world parameters. Microchip real estate in communications is a limited commodity, so the algorithm cannot take up much space, and its mathematical operations have to be executed quickly, as latency is a critical factor in wireless communications. Omer believes that the algorithm could be adapted to solve other engineering problems with similar frameworks, including envelope tracking and model predictive control.

While he has been working on this project, Omer has made a home for himself at MIT. Two of his three sons were born here in Cambridge — in fact, the youngest was born on campus, in the stairwell of Omer and his wife’s graduate housing building. “The neighbors slept right through it,” Omer says with a laugh.

Omer quickly became an active member of the LIDS community when he arrived at MIT. Most notably, he was part of the LIDS student conference and student social committees, where, in addition to helping run the annual LIDS Student Conference, a signature lab event now in its 25th year, he also helped to organize monthly lunches, gatherings, and gaming competitions, including a semester-long challenge dubbed the OLIDSpics (an homage to the Olympic Games). He says that being on the committees was a great way to engage with and contribute to the LIDS community, a group for which he is grateful.

“At MIT, and especially at LIDS, you can learn something new from everyone you speak to. I’ve been in many places, and this is the only place where I’ve experienced a community like that,” Omer says.

As Omer’s time at LIDS draws to an end, he is still debating what to do next. On one hand, his love of solving real-world problems is drawing him toward industry. He spent four summers during his PhD interning at companies including the Mitsubishi Electric Research Lab. He enjoyed the fast pace of industry, being able to see his solutions implemented relatively quickly.

On the other hand, Omer is not sure he could ever leave academia for long; he loves research and is also truly passionate about teaching. Omer, who grew up in Bosnia-Herzegovina, began teaching in his first year of high school, at a math camp for younger children. He has been teaching in one form or another ever since.

At MIT, Omer has taught both undergraduate- and graduate-level courses, including as an instructor-G, an appointment only given to advanced students who have demonstrated teaching expertise. He has won two teaching awards, the MIT School of Engineering Graduate Student Extraordinary Teaching and Mentoring Award in 2018 and the MIT EECS Carlton E. Tucker Teaching Award in 2017.

The magnitude of Omer’s love for teaching is clear when he speaks about working with students: “That moment when you explain something to a student and you see them really understand the concept is priceless. No matter how much energy you have to spend to make that happen, it’s worth it,” Omer says.

In communications, power efficiency is key, but when it comes to research and teaching, there’s no limit to Omer’s energy.

Making wireless communication more energy efficient syndicated from https://osmowaterfilters.blogspot.com/

[caredogstips]

Stanley Kubrick and me: designing the posting for A Clockwork Orange

Philip Castles airbrushed artwork features on book extends for David Bowie and Pulp but his lurid imagery for A Clockwork Orange abides his most notorious work he recollects his love with the director

Philip Castle indicates me into his front room to assure the naked lady on her knees next to the family piano. The plaster statue is battered and unstable and diverting yellow with day, but I would recognise those teats anywhere. This is one of the nude statues that serve as furniture and serve up boozes from their breasts in the sinister, darkly funny opening panoramas of Stanley Kubricks 1971 cinema A Clockwork Orange. There was me, the hell is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to even off our rassoodocks what to do with the evening.

In Kubricks pessimistic lampoon of British youth culture, Malcolm McDowells futuristic ultraviolent mod antihero adjusts the situation in voiceover as the camera washes back from him and his bowler-hatted, white-codpieced droogs, taking in one pornographic bronze after the other, just like this one I viddied with my own attentions, O my brothers, in Castles house.

Aladdin Sane cover with Philip Castles teardrop. Picture: Michael Ochs Archives/ Getty Images

The curators of Daydreaming with Stanley Kubrick, an exhibit of artwork motivated by Kubrick with labour by Mat Collishaw, Michael Nyman, Jane and Louise Wilson and many more, were understandably frantic to acquire it. But its much very vulnerable to move, remarks Castle, who offered up his own work instead to Somerset House in London, including a new portrait of Kubrick.

The story of how Castle came to own an original prop from the Korova Milkbar is a glimpse of the scholastic precision that became Stanley Kubrick one of cinema greatest auteurs, a perfectionist who sought to sculpt every aspect of a film even its publicity.

Castle is a poster and album report artist whose glossy, sometimes lurid airbrush painting form you have witnessed even if you dont know it. His act straddles from the teardrop oozing from David Bowies shoulder blade on the covering of Aladdin Sane in 1973( in his vestibule hangs a periodical signed by Bowie) to portraying Pulp for the treat of their 1994 book HisnHers. He too generated the hilariously over the top 1950s-style sci-fi poster for Tim Burtons Mars Attacks.

The opening background of A Clockwork Orange.

Yet Castles finest hour and perhaps the reason Bowie, Pulp and Burton later wanted to work with him saw right at the start of his job. As a postgraduate from the Royal College of Art at the fag end of its age as the residence of British pa cover, he placed an ad for his illustration work in the Evening Standard. He got a call from none other than Stanley Kubricks publicist, inviting Castle to the directors home north of London to discuss a posting for Kubricks new film.

Kubrick by this time was the most worshipped English expression filmmaker in the world, celebrated for Lolita, Dr Strangelove and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Hed been living in Britain since the early 1960 s and toiled almost entirely from home. He did everything in the house, remembers Castle. The striking stuff was that all the doors were locked. They were all shut tight. They were great dog lovers and were scared stiff the dogs would run out and fade. There were signs on everything: Keep the door shut. I guess they had so many parties going through. It was just curious, something you wouldnt expect.

Its exceedingly pointy … Philip Castles theatrical sign. Picture: Allstar/ WARNER BROS/ Sportsphoto Ltd ./ Allstar

The director looped up his latest film and they watched it, with Castle taking notes and attaining sketches in a Basildon Bond notebook that he still has. Its blue-tinted sheets are filled with sketches of bowler-hatted ultraviolence Kubricks new cinema was an icily sardonic vision of stylised havoc and dehumanising penalty accommodated from Anthony Burgesss 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange.

Castles little notebook establishes, amazingly, that he came up with what is today considered to be one of the classic movie posters of all time practically then and there. One change was that he tried initially to fit his attracts of a brutal searching Malcolm McDowell holding a glinting bayonet over a bronze of a kneeling nude inside a giant word A.

This becomes a parted pyramid in the final form of the poster, which is covered in Castles hyper-pop colours against a grey background with a slogan that attracts no pierces: Being the escapades of a young man whose principal fascinates are assault, ultraviolence and Beethoven.

Eyes dominate the posting. As well as Alexs gazing deadly attention there is a swimming eyeball refer to his medicine, in which his eyes are pinned wide open as he is forced to watch murderou films and Nazi information. Yet what grabs you most is the glisten blade that seems to leap forwards in 3D. Its very pointy, as Castle modestly applies it.

Kubrick wanted to shape every aspect of the movies receipt. He had people going to the cinemas where it was going to be shown to make sure that the screens were clean, recollects Castle. It was in the same spirit of absolute verify that Kubrick sent his sign designer a effigy from the Korova Milkbar so he had been able to portray its features accurately. On the decay figure in Castles lounge rests a bowler hat. This too is an original prop from the film given to him so he could get the arc of its brim just right.

Allen Joness Chair( 1969 ). Photograph: Yui Mok/ PA

Art crowds A Clockwork Orange. The sexist furniture in the Korova Milkbar is inspired by the art of Allen Jones. Kitsch nudes hang in the houses Alex and his droogs infest. He dedicates a slaughter utilizing a marble carve of a penis. The visual world-wide of the movie is a grotesque homage to 1960 s pop art and it is arguably the last great pop prowes masterpiece, an apocalyptic consummation of “consumers interests” imagery of modern life that started with Richard Hamiltons posting Just what is it that prepares todays dwellings so different after all, so pleading? in 1956.

It was logical that a movie so richly designed is advisable to take art into the cinema hall and on to the streets. Kubrick and his team published a lampoon newspaper, The Clockwork Times, for which Castle established some of his best studies lurid paints of epitomes from the film that dwell on its copulation and violence. He has a photograph of his young house proudly constituting under a huge billboard version of his poster on a London street. Yet the strong publicity campaign in which he played such a center duty backfired.

A Clockwork Orange was a smacked but its reception was a real repugnance indicate. Narrations of real-life Clockwork Orange gangs crowded the British newspapers. Kubrick was accused of inducing slaughter and his moral anecdote was accused of debauchery. The director himself censored A Clockwork Orange from British screens. For a long time, until its rerelease in 2000, the sole likenes apart from a few stills that returned British film love a sense of the form and menace of A Clockwork Orange was Castles potent poster.

Castle in his Full Metal Jacket helmet. Photograph: Steve Mepsted

He carried on working with Kubrick and the pair stayed pals, even after the director rejected his sign for Barry Lyndon in 1975 because it was too joke. Their closest collaboration was to come on the Vietnam war film Full Metal Jacket, for which Castle coated a helmet with a peace token and the scrawled statements BORN TO KILL. Kubrick was interested in details such as how it would look in black and white in a single line of a neighbourhood newspaper. Perhaps still scarred by the Clockwork Orange debate, he also went Castle to try an alternative design for Asian markets because he was worried the US helmet would get vandalised.

Yet the artists rememberings of Stanley Kubrick are warm. One daylight the administrator phoned Castle out of the blue. What strange request would it be?

He mentioned: Would you like to buy a puppy?

Daydreaming With Stanley Kubrick is at Somerset House, London, until 24 August.

The post Stanley Kubrick and me: designing the posting for A Clockwork Orange appeared first on caredogstips.com.

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New Post has been published on Side Quest Fitness

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Where You Want to Be (Revisited 13 Years Later)

Tell All Your Friends Where You Want to Be

Rolling Stone once profiled the 100 Best Debut Albums of All Time. The first album an artist releases has the power to propel them into our cultural zeitgeist seemingly overnight. But as a music fan, what’s compelled my curiosity, are the bands whose sophomore attempts become their best work.

For decades, bands with amazing debut albums have gone on to suffer from “the sophomore slump”—releasing sub par or disappointing second records. But there are bands who end up putting out their best work with their second album: Alice in Chains, Radiohead, Nirvana, and A Tribe Called Quest to name a few.

And as much as I love their first album, after a discussion with my friend John Romaniello, I have to admit: Taking Back Sunday’s second album, Where You Want to Be, is better than their first record. (And in many ways, it may be their best work.)

Growing Pains

Tell All Your Friends holds a special place in my heart, and it would be the first album I’d grab if I could only listen to 10 albums for the rest of my life. It’s important to me because Adam Lazzara attended my high school for a few years, which gave me the hope that I could escape my small town and still accomplish great things. And, there’s something about the music and lyrics (including the greatest love lyrics ever written) that helped define much of who I was in high school.

But here’s how I view the first two Taking Back Sunday albums: Tell All Your Friends (TAYF) is high school; Where You Want to Be (WYWB) is leaving your parents to live in your own space, but discovering that you never really escape high school.

In high school, there’s this overwhelming feeling that you can’t really defend yourself, you’re still not 100% independent, and more often than not, there’s this pervading feeling that it’s “You vs The World.” Or put another way: you feel defenseless, dependent, and alone.

As an adolescent, adulthood, even with its responsibilities, is often the place you wanted to be: a destination that means more freedom, independence, and an escape from the crushing world of high school hijinx.

Except those teenage feelings don’t evaporate once you toss your graduation cap. They continue to reverberate throughout most of your early 20s. And if you listen to Where You Want to Be, that’s what you hear: a more mature sounding band musically, but lyrically echoing angsty teenagers stuck in the same emotional cycle. Or as Adam so eloquently points out in the song, I Am Fred Astaire: “older, and wiser, still live with resentment.”

Swinging mics since 1999.

The Album That Almost Never Was

That mature sound almost never happened for Taking Back Sunday, though. In the winter of 2003, John Nolan—founding member, backup singer, and guitarist—along with bassist Shaun Cooper, left Taking Back Sunday; they would later form Straylight Run, and then return to TBS in 2010. According to rumors, Adam had been dating Nolan’s sister, who provided vocals on TAYF, and had presumably been unfaithful in their relationship. (Clearly, blood is thicker than water)

On the brink of breaking up, Adam and the rest of the crew began auditioning and reaching out to friends to join the band. They added Fred Mascherino on guitar and backup vocals, and Matt Rubano replaced Cooper as the bass player. Both Fred and Matt had attended jazz college, which allowed TBS a more diverse musical background to pull inspiration from.

And since Fred and Matt knew their instruments like Varys knows the happenings of Kings Landing, the quality of the guitar and bass in WYWB is cleaner, crisper, more cohesive, and frankly, provides TBS with the sound of a tried-and-true rock band.

Besides the technical improvements of the album, there are a few key places where WYWB stands apart from TAYF: drums, lyrics, and the overall cohesive sound.

Drums

When you listen to the music of the pop-punk or emo scene of the late 90s, you’ll hear something that all the drummers of that era share: a heavy reliance on bashing the shit out of their ride or crash cymbals. Early Blink-182 sounds like Travis is a happy-go-lucky 4-year-old banging away on pots and pans on his kitchen floor.

And when you listen to the drums on TAYF, you hear this strong reliance on ride and crash cymbals. “You Know How I Do” kicks off the album with damn near 60-seconds of O’Connell smashing his cymbal like he’s screaming, “Hey! We’re here, and you will listen to what we have to say. Because I’m gonna hit this cymbal until you pay attention to me.”

But on WYWB, there’s far less reliance on aggressive cymbal bashing. That doesn’t mean O’Connell foregoes using the cymbals. They’re still there in most choruses or breakdowns, and of course in a few intros—they are an important tool. But they’re less aggressive, more composed, and strategic than haphazard.

Again, if you look at TYAF as the high school kid who’s dependent on others for his identity, it makes sense that O’Connell would crash the hell out of his cymbals. Because at the time, that’s what all the “cool” kids were doing.

But if you look at WYWB as that same teen out in the world—independent and experimenting—moving toward his own identity as a mature adult, then it’s easy to see that during this process, O’Connell matured as a drummer.

Lyrics

Since their formation in 1999, TBS has had numerous members amongst its ranks. And every emo fan knows of the feud between one-time member Jesse Lacey, who later went on to found Brand New, and founding member John Nolan. That one incident went on to fuel numerous songs written by Lacey and Nolan.

For the most part, the lyrics in TAYF were co-written by Nolan and Lazzara. But Nolan’s departure left Adam with the responsibility of writing the lyrics for the second album. And lyrically, WYWB shows massive growth from Adam as a lyricist. The departure of Nolan and Cooper, along with Adam’s relationship misdeeds, may have provided him with the right amount of fuel to spark his own creativity as a songwriter.

Lyrically, you’re still getting a ton of the aches and pains of love, lost friendship, and betrayal. But some of what Adam deals with on this album covers topics like drug abuse, that gut wrenching realization that the world isn’t what you thought it was, the pain of unkept promises, and in the final track of WYWB,“...Slowdance on the Inside,” Adam flexes his muscles as a clever wordsmith—solidifying himself as a legitimate, thoughtful, and creative lyricist.

Again, if follow my running theme here, TBS has graduated, they’re maturing into adulthood. They may have similar themes as they did with TAYF, but their lyrics are deeper, more finely tuned, and show a maturity that comes from more of life’s experiences.

Cohesiveness

The big thing that Where You Want to Be does that Tell All Your Friends fails to execute upon is cohesiveness. Besides the angsty teenage driven lyrics of TAYF, musically, there’s very little cohesiveness in the overall voice of the album. But that makes sense if you look at TAYF as the unmatured teenager.

Teenage thought processes, for the most part, lack cohesiveness. In a matter of seconds, you could change how you think, or what you believe, because you either wanted to fit in, felt attacked and couldn’t defend yourself, or because you were trying to impress someone.

Examining and solidifying your thoughts and beliefs into a more coherent and cohesive package is a sign of maturity; that could be debatable in today’s world, however. Still, as we enter adulthood, venturing away from the safety of Mom and Dad, we’re hopefully exploring and piecing together our identity.

And for a band that was on the brink of destruction, TBS needed to show, not only the world but themselves, that they could mature as a band with a more unified sound.

They accomplished this cohesiveness in both the musicality and the storytelling side of the lyrics. The first three tracks of WYWB seize you by the scruff of your neck and refuse to let go until Adam has screamed his lungs out at the end of “A Decade Under The Influence.” Only then do they slow it down with “Photograph,” and even then they only slightly take their foot off the gas; it’s as if they’ve strapped you into this emotional roller coaster and said, “you’re coming on this topsy-turvy thrill ride with us no matter what.”

Like all good roller coasters, the album gives you a break from the emotional highs with “New American Classic.” It’s here, in the second part of the album, where the cohesiveness really shines through.

Corkscrews and Loop-da-Loops

Whether this was intentional or not, I don’t know. But, when the CD was released, on the back of the booklet, they had an A and a B side listed. At the time, I thought this was an homage to cassettes and vinyl of the past. What I didn’t realize until now, is that when you examine the lyrics of each song, it’s as if each side is telling a slightly different emotional aspect of the singer’s story.

In the beginning, there’s the anger, pain, and frustration between the vocalist and the girl he’s singing about. He’s screwed up; she’s screwed up; they pass blame on one another or onto their friends; they want to be with each other, but there’s this prevailing feeling that things are heading in a terrible direction. Adam and the band takes us on his tumultuous emotional roller coaster both lyrically and musically.

Now, you could look at “The Union” as a “break-up” song. But since it’s most likely Adam throwing shade at Nolan and Cooper, we’ll leave that song as a one off from the singer’s relationship issues. “New American Classic”, however, is that moment in the story where the two characters of this album have broken up. They lament about their failed relationship, and they want to get back together. But there’s this looming elephant in the room that they just can’t get past.

What happens after that? Well, like all of us at a young age, we get back together with our ex, hoping we can work it all out.

Pardon the Interruption

And then, as if to say, “we apologize for that brief interruption, now let’s get back to the ride,“ “I Am Fred Astaire” opens with a guitar squeal that signals it’s showtime. And then TBS jumps right back into their punchy melodic riffs, heavy bass drum beats, and Adam’s yearning vocals.

Side-B, however, is less aggressive. It’s not wholly somber, either, but it’s also not screaming in your face. The four tracks after “New American Classic” carry this almost hopeless sense of impending doom to the singer’s relationship.

Adam compares the relationship to a drug addiction, confesses that if they continue this way “they’ll die miserable and old,” and “Little Devotional” is about hiding infidelity from prying eyes. Then it all comes together in an emotional crescendo, the final loop-de-loop on the coaster, with “…Slowdance on the Inside.”

The Outro

Two years transpired between TAYF and WYWB, and a lot can happen in two years. But considering that this album was recorded in only a couple of months, it’s likely that the lyrics for WYWB reflect only a few months of the struggles in Adam’s life.

So maybe he did cheat on Nolan’s sister, and what we hear in these songs is his struggle of falling in love with his paramour, the dangers that relationship presented, and the conflict welling inside of him of being torn between two women.

Whatever the reasons for the lyrics, TBS delivered a cohesive sound lyrically and musically that helps WYWB stand the test of time. It’s not as raw as TAYF, and that’s okay. Musicians should mature. You can’t always play the same old crap year after year; it gets stale for fans, and it creates stagnation for an artist.

TAYF will forever and always be an album I put on, sing at the top of my lungs, and refeel all those high school feels. And though I felt disappointed at the time when WYWB was released, I now realize more than a decade later, and after a discussion with a good friend, that WYWB is a far better album—possibly their best.

Where You Want to Be still holds up musically and lyrically nearly 13 years after its release. And now that I’ve had time to develop as an adult, I can appreciate the more mature sounding band that TBS became while writing and producing this album. This was their first steps into adulthood and the first example that they were able to achieve what some of their other compatriots were not: the ability to mature as a rock band.

[thecrapshoot]

SEARCHING NAPLES FOR SANTO DIEGO

I am a soccer player.  I love the beautiful game.  I am very good at it.  When I was young, I always thought that I could be the best in the world. Unfortunately for me, a lot of outside and in-house things used to often break my confidence as a player.  I was very small, maybe even undersized, when I was younger and I was quick with my feet, but not that fast up and down the field.  I was clever enough to create space to make a pass, but not very strong as it pertained to finishing goals.  I definitely learned as I went, but never achieved the synthesis of speed, size, and strength that I started to experience playing as an adult. Despite those things, I have always admired what goes on in the game of soccer on the international scene and the game has become even more beautiful to me through the way it is played and the tricks and skills that have developed as it has evolved.

When I first visited Italy some two years ago, a voice told me to maybe go and visit Napoli, or Naples, to see where one of the greats of the beautiful game used to roam and ply his trade.  That great was Diego Maradona from Argentina. Diego Maradona was both the player behind the "hand of God" headline at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico (that he and his Argentina ultimately won), and the "Goal of the Century" where he inexplicably dribbled masterfully through an entire team and scored one of the greatest goals ever scored.  That fateful day of June 22nd, 1986 just so happened to be my eighth birthday.

This is a picture of the famous "hand of God" goal where Maradona “allegedly” directs the ball into the net with his left hand.  I was only eight years old when this happened and I would not get introduced to soccer until about two years later. I was more of a kickball and dodgeball guy back then.  

This is the famous "goal of the Century" which further immortalized Maradona at the very same World Cup in the very same game.  Depending how you look at it, this was the goal that redeemed him at the very same World Cup in the very same game.  

This single double-doorway (below) to a restaurant was the only evidence that I saw of the famous love affair between Maradona and Naples.  Maradona came to Naples in 1984 from Barcelona and very quickly helped Naples to win two Serie A league titles and a UEFA Cup as the best team, not only in Italy, but in all of Europe.  It is no fresco, by any means, but I do appreciate having found it. Club football represents the glamorous side of a soccer player's life because it does not represent the "duties" of the national team.  It is nowhere near the burden and so much more money, at least it is in today’s game.

I wandered my way up a hill after I saw this mural and eventually found a pizzeria for my other objective for the day: an authentic Neapolitan pizza.  I thought I would see more in the streets of Naples regarding Maradona, but I did not.  I did not venture that far from the city center but I walked around a significant amount of time and covered a significant amount of ground in my search for some sort of landmark or nostalgic paraphernalia concerning Maradona.  Evidently there are several “makeshift” shrines around the city for the “Golden Boy” like this one but my humble little find was the only one I saw:

Despite the nature of my day trip, I knew very well that my allegiance was to the great Edson Arantes do Nascimento and not Diego Armando Maradona.  This means I prefer Pelé- always have and always will. There was never any competition between Pelé and Maradona because they played in two different eras.  There is only debate about what would have been.  

I always hear the contemporary debate and shudder at the utter blasphemy when someone suggests that someone else other than Pelé is the greatest player in the history of the game.  He won three World Cups with Brazil and would have won four had he not been injured. His Brazil played in four and would have won four from 1958 to 1970.  That means that for sixteen years, Pelé dominated international soccer, and Pelé never got the chance to play against the so-called best players in the world in the top-flight leagues in Europe. Pelé was not allowed to leave his native Brazil and play in Europe under the tag of National Treasure, so he led a relatively confined life while playing in the Brazilian top-flight for Santos for most his career before coming to the United States to help popularize the NASL by starring for the New York Cosmos in 1975, after he came out of retirement.  Because sport so often correlates with politics, and given that when Pelé began playing for the Seleção Brasileira de Futebol, he was not allowed to play abroad in European leagues.  Pelé became part of  Jânio Quadros’s attempt to preserve some little bit of political influence in Brazil.  He and some others passed a law that said  Pelé was not allowed to leave Brazil in order to play for club teams abroad.   Pelé had been drawing interest from Real Madrid, Juventus, Manchester United, etc. to come to Europe and play for the big money.  As a leader, Quadros had fallen out of favor with some questionable political decisions like banning bikinis, and ensuring  Pelé staying in Brazil was purely a political move to win back some of his lost popularity.  Curiously, no succeeding president ever even revised the law.  It was not until after his first retirement that  Pelé tested the international waters in club soccer.

During my travels I have a lot of time to sit and think to myself about random and various things: story lines, blog ideas, poetry, budgeting money, and a host of other things in retrospect.  I told myself that I would go and visit Naples one day to try and get a sense of how beloved Maradona was by the people in Napoli. Before I went, it felt like a guarantee that I would sense a definite hearth there to his homage. Maradona was like a god there during his playing days (some people actually thought he was God with the capital G.), so I figured I would go and take part in the nostalgia of the beautiful game and pay my respects to the legend.

But like I said before, my favorite player growing up was Pelé.  I wanted to be Pelé when I played so that was how I approached developing my game.  I played on the street in front of my house when I was growing up.  I practiced the tricks that were tricks back then.  I imagined myself as Pelé, but the right-footed Pelé.  Though both were considered gods, Pelé's Brazil would have beaten Maradona's Argentina any day of the week.  That being said, the other point of this post is to let you know my stance on the issue of who is the greater player between the two.

First of all, if someone would have asserted to me that day in Napoli that Diego Maradona is the greatest soccer player who ever lived, I would have looked at them with this face:

No diehard sentiment and no loyalist vitriol would have convinced me that that un-articulated assertion was valid.  Nothing anyone can say will convince me that the star of three World Cup winning squads (it should have been four) is not the greatest player of all time. Yes, this man:

The picture above him was also my face as I anticipated my authentic Neapolitan pizza just for me.  I was glad to be able to converse with the pizza maker as he asked me what I wanted.  I told him that I wanted a pizza with a lot of meat.  I didn’t even say anything about Maradona.  He just knew I wanted some pizza.  I sat there consoled by the forthcoming pizza about the lack of Maradona memorabilia that I found.  For some reason, I thought I would see banners, etchings on the sidewalks, real life vandalism in tribute to Santo Diego, but I didn't.

I didn't see any wild parties, fast women, or cocaine, either.  This was the etiquette of the beautiful game then.  Naples in the eighties was rife with the aforementioned. There were gangs, betting, and all types of shady activity going on in and around the game.  Maradona had more of a bad boy image than Pelé. Pelé was the mild-mannered and humble Brazilian and the guy with whom I identified.  I think I knew more about Pelé growing up although Maradona was a generation after Pelé, thus closer to me, chronologically speaking.  I so happened to automatically associate with Pelé when I started playing.  Argentina and Italy were pretty taboo for me then as I had just started studying the French language.  I would not start to study Spanish and Italian until my late twenties.

Roaming around Napoli looking for the spirit of Maradona, I found this quaint little hole-in-the-wall of a café.  I will take this time to tell you, the reader, that waiting for me to admit Maradona is the greatest is like waiting for Godot.  He is not coming and he never will arrive.  He is not fashionably late and he is not held up in traffic in a limousine.  Godot is not coming.  Hey you, Estragon!  Hey you, Vladimir!  He is not coming.  If you really feel that Maradona was a greater player than Pelé, then Maradona's generation never happened.

Just kidding.  But I like that I found this landmark of world literature, too. It is a pretty funny coincidence, given the nature of my day trip to Naples while I was visiting Rome.  Maradona has made several returns to Naples since his heralded playing days and me bumping into this café to the tune of the great Samuel Beckett book tells me that there is a good spirit in Naples and I am glad that I went with my hunch to go and check out the city.

[doctorwhonews]

Empress of Mars

Latest Review: Written by Mark Gatiss Directed by Wayne Yip Starring Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie and Matt Lucas with Michelle Gomez, Anthony Calf, Ferdinand Kingsley, Richard Ashton, Adele Lynch, Glenn Speers, Ian Beattie, Bayo Gbadamosi, Ian Hughes, Lesley Ewen, and the voice of Ysanne Churchman Produced by Nikki Wilson Executive Producers: Steven Moffat, Brian Minchin A BBC Studios Cymru Wales production for BBC ONE First broadcast 7.15pm, 10 June 2017​This review contains spoilers. This review contains spoilers.   Earlier in the week, a friend circulated one of the pictures released by the BBC to promote Empress of Mars. It depicted an Ice Warrior serving tea to the Doctor, Bill and the British officers around a cloth-covered table, with hints of reddish cave walls. He declared that we had reached ‘peak Gatiss’. Empress of Mars repeats many of the techniques used in The Crimson Horror, Mark Gatiss’s previous excursion into Victoriana for Doctor Who, but perhaps with more restraint and to more broadly entertaining effect. There’s a great amount of detail in Empress of Mars which enhances its worldbuilding. Careful attention is paid to the Martian atmosphere. The introduction of Friday the Ice Warrior is a canny reinforcement of the idea that a menacing Ice Warrior bearing down on you is not necessarily hostile, a concentrated homage to The Curse of Peladon. From the Doctor’s poetic description of the Ice Warriors, blending or suggesting details established in Brian Hayles stories with Doctor Who Monster Book lore, the accretions of fandom and the innovations Gatiss introduced in Cold War, we move to learn about Ice Warrior hives and tombs that are not really tombs. The imagery owes something to The Tomb of the Cybermen via Dragonfire, but more widely to every film or television production featuring people or creatures preserved in ice. This is a fortress of solitude for superbeings more than it is a memorial to the dead. Influences are mixed and matched. The rhetoric surrounding the discovery of Iraxxa draws from late-nineteenth century imperialist fiction; I can spot H. Rider Haggard’s She but Gatiss doubtless knows his way around many more. However, the presentation of her tomb owes more to the European Middle Ages than Haggard’s sub-ancient Egyptian fantasies. Bill’s fourth-wall breaking recognition that the Ice Warriors are modelled on Vikings is in some way honoured, though Iraxxa on her bier looks more like a mediaeval knight, gilded like the armour of the Black Prince. Her awakening helps justify the awkward idea that reptilian Ice Warriors have hives like bees, the gold leaf fragmenting and disappearing like the pupal skins of some social insects. Dialogue throughout presents the Ice Warriors as guardians of military honour, but their military honour proves a concept over which there can be debate without integrity being compromised, in contrast with the non-negotiable values of devotion to Queen and Country and of bravery and cowardice proclaimed by the British soldiers. As this last point indicates, worldbuilding isn’t just a matter of sketching in Ice Warrior culture. One of this story’s observations is that the imperial culture of the Victorians is alien to their modern British descendants. By locating the soldiers as veterans of the Anglo-Zulu War – the battle of Isandlwana, 22 January 1879, is mentioned as the site of Colonel Godsacre’s desertion – the soldiers are associated both with both imperial conquest and with one of the British Empire’s most substantial defeats in southern Africa, where a European army equipped with technologically-superior weaponry was no match for a force armed with assegais which they held in contempt. There’s more than an echo of this in Captain Catchlove’s dismissal of the Ice Warriors as ‘upright crocodiles’; and the demonstration of the ‘thin red line’ formation in the episode only shows, as it did at Isandlwana, how soldiers could easily be picked off. Just as there are parallels between Iraxxa and Ayesha of She, then Catchlove has something of H. Rider Haggard’s imperialism about him. He’s far more the ideologue of empire than Godsacre is, and that he is also a practitioner of blackmail and unapologetically avaricious is not just a good character sketch for a forty-five minute drama, but a sharply unsubtle commentary on the reality of the supposedly civilizing mission inspiring British rule as presented by Haggard and others in the late nineteenth century. The most sympathetic of the soldiers is Vincey, the one who has a girl back home, and with deliberate irony this black character he’s given a name which is, in She, the family name of the British descendants of the forgotten white rulers of Kôr in central Africa. Gatiss enjoys the irony of depicting the reality that Victorian Britain was not monolithically white ‘Anglo-Saxon’ with a character name borrowed from a figure intended to represent white superiority. Likewise, his inclusion of Catchpole’s evident attraction at their first encounter towards Bill, whom Haggardian imperialism would regard as inferior to a white person. Bill’s stunned, appalled face at the casual way in which the British officers have named their Ice Warrior ally Friday, and by extension why they think he should to wait on them, helps pay off her earlier string of cultural references. It’s juxtaposed with the way the script is already establishing Friday as a courteous warrior, a mind rather than a shell. Arguably it also points towards Godsacre’s journey from servant of colonialism, whose demeanour is that of a dead man walking (as his grave name suggests) to a more self-aware person serving the colonized, much as Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, rescuer-captor of the original Friday, passes through several states of consciousness of his own actions during Robinson Crusoe the novel.   The regulars have quirks here which might not be found welcoming. Neither Bill’s tendency to spout film anecdotes nor the Doctor’s apparent ignorance of so much pop culture (which surely his tenth self knew about) rang as true as the production hoped or expected. Nevertheless, Peter Capaldi’s fiercely deliberate portrayal of the Doctor’s observation of Martian ritual helps bring home how crucial for all those on Mars negotiation is, and though I found Bill’s characterization early in the episode to be at odds with how she has been portrayed earlier in the series, Pearl Mackie restores her to alert and intelligent Everywoman by the second half of the story. Empress of Mars feels much more cohesively whole somehow than several other episodes have this series. It also feels more welcoming. Perhaps the assembling of recognizable old-fashioned ‘types’ among the characters helps; but so do the warmth of the red Martian soil, the fire, the gold and the green-hued Ice Warriors themselves. In recent years Doctor Who has often seemed grainy and blue, and so much of The Lie of the Land seemed to take place in a dystopian grey haze which reminded me of the post-nuclear Yorkshire of the BBC’s 1984 film Threads. Faced with a warm colourscheme it’s up to Murray Gold’s music to suggest cold and the thin atmosphere ‘topside’, and his thin, reedy notes manage just that. She featured a mysterious African queen who beguiled white men to do her will. Iraxxa, here, does not perform that part of Ayesha's role. Instead, it’s another queen behind a veil who is acting as seductress. It’s never explained why the TARDIS returned itself to the Doctor’s study at St Luke’s with only Nardole on board, but we are invited to guess who is its secret remote operator. The final scene of Missy as contrite woman-child facing the Doctor, backlit, as Murray Gold’s score slithers across the speakers, sets up how compromised the Doctor might just be by Missy, and also how the end of this Doctor’s era, now so close, might be brought about by his belief in an old friend's better nature. On a lighter note, perhaps… Who else of a certain vintage grinned or even punched the air when that high-pitched voice turned out to belong to a certain hermaphrodite hexapod? Who else exclaimed ‘It was Ysanne Churchman’? As the Ice Warriors are welcomed to the universe and give up isolation, those who regretted that this episode wouldn’t be set on Peladon learned that one doesn’t have to go there to use the Ice Warriors to make comments about Britain and its relationship with its neighbours in Europe. By invoking one of Doctor Who's own imperial phases, that of velvet jackets, Venusian aikido and broad political allegory, to warn about British imperial nostalgia (the brief visit to NASA is a concession to contemporary expectations, but feels like a stand-in for a Pertwee-era British Space Control), Empress of Mars recalls strong storytelling values whose appeal rightly stretches beyond the fan audience these references court, and help Doctor Who feel more anchored on Saturday nights than it has sometimes felt this year. http://reviews.doctorwhonews.net/2017/06/empress_of_mars.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr