#posthumous diary

[disease]

ばぶちゃん | 死後日記 「CD, 2018」 | BABU-0005 ILLUSTRATION: TREVOR BROWN

[danceintheskies]

RIP Kafka you would have been an incredible tumblrina

[lavendertowerarchives]

To JH:

Upon my swift and timely death, no matter the method,

I bequeath to you the first pick of muscle, fat, and bone from my corpse. It may be for any purpose, preferably to eat. I wasn't kidding when I said I'd give you my body so a vegan could eat meat. Once you're done selecting, grabbing, and roasting (please cook me, raw meat is bad, silly vegan) please let my body be donated to science or whatever. You're under no compulsion to do so, you can have it all if you really want. Share it. It's yours now.

No one is to stop you. I, P.T.S., don't want anyone getting in your way. More accurately, I don't want them disrespecting my wishes, but my dumbass family is likely to stop you and everyone else from doing what I ask of everyone but them. To my younger brother, mother, and father, respectfully piss off. To my older brother, it's not like you tried to stay in our lives anyways.

I'd recommend you choose my rear first, so I can have you eat my ass, just like I tell everyone to do. Again, that's your choice, I'm only saying this for the joke. Similarly, you could keep a fragment of my skull, so I could give you some head. Just like I've always wanted.

[ask-a-gotham-mortician]

Dear diary,

Shit's been getting weird. I should have known what I was signing up for when I decided I was going to carry on this business in the old man's stead. He had told me stories about operating in this city, but perhaps part of me believed he was exaggerating things. Hyperbole. Just for shock value and to keep the conversation going.

Yesterday, a body was dropped off anonymously by somebody who made damn sure that their identity wouldn't be discernable. Shadowy figure in a trenchcoat, all features obscured. The decedent had been some mafioso. You could tell by the expensive jewelry: the gold rings on his hands, the fancy watch, and his custom cufflinks.

His wife stopped by to see him, and it broke my heart. She sobbed into his suit, going on about their daughter and how she had wanted him to see her finish high school, be the first in her family to attend college, make something of herself. (The daughter in question had been too young to accompany her mother, having been dropped off with her uncle.)

I helped the widow to set up the embalming and burial arrangements. I've never been much of a physically affectionate type, but she surprised me with a hug on her way out the door and I couldn't just shove away someone who is grieving.

Later after she had left, sometime around 2 or 3 am, I was startled by a loud, insistent knocking on the door. Big guy, tough looking, very intimidating. He muscled his way in through the entrance, demanding to see the body that had been brought in earlier.

The way he dressed and the manner in which he had carried himself had also suggested mafia. I knew telling this guy no would have been hazardous to my health, and so I had no choice but to comply.

He produced a pair of dental pliers from his pocket, reached into the corpse's mouth, and got to work wrenching away at the dead man's mouth, extracting several gold teeth. I was so flabbergasted that I just stood there and watched with my mouth agape. He shoved a fat wad of cash into my hand and just left. No explanation.

I can only assume this man was from a rival family, knew the guy had a few gold teeth (which these sorts use as a symbol of status), and wanted them for himself, maybe as a sort of trophy.

I guess I have no choice but to continue with the widow's requested services without telling her what happened. It shouldn't matter, anyway, since I normally sew the mouths shut for presentation. You don't want a dead guy's mouth flopping open like a fish in the middle of the eulogy.

I don't know how to feel about all this. I feel… Conflicted. I know that we can't take material possessions with us when we go, so it's rather pointless to be buried with them. I'm also against the defilement of the dead. But this mobster left me with enough cash to cover services for a couple of deceased without going broke if the families can't pay.

[jewish-microwave-laser]

And here is the most devastating fact of Frank's posthumous success, which leaves her real experience forever hidden: we know what she would have said, because other people have said it, and we don't want to hear it.

The line most often quoted from Frank's diary are her famous words, "I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart." These words are "inspiring," by which we mean that they flatter us. They make us feel forgiven for those lapses of our civilization that allow for piles of murdered girls—and if those words came from a murdered girl, well, then, we must be absolved, because they must be true. That gift of grace and absolution from a murdered Jew (exactly the gift that lies at the heart of Christianity) is what millions of people are so eager to find in Frank's hiding place, in her writings, in her "legacy." It is far more gratifying to believe that an innocent dead girl has offered us grace than to recognize the obvious: Frank wrote about people being "truly good at heart" before meeting people who weren't. Three weeks after writing those words, she met people who weren't.

Here's how much some people dislike living Jews: they murdered 6 million of them. This fact bears repeating, as it does not come up at all in Anne Frank's writings. Readers of her diary are aware that the author was murdered in a genocide, but this does not mean that her diary is a work about genocide. If it were, it is unlikely that it would have been anywhere near as universally embraced.

We know this, because there is no shortage of writings from victims and survivors who chronicled this fact in vivid detail, and none of those documents have achieved anything like Frank's diary's fame. Those that have come close have only done so by observing those same rules of hiding, the ones that insist on polite victims who don't insult their persecutors The work that came closest to achieving Frank's international fame might be Elie Wiesel's Night, a memoir that could be thought of as a continuation of Frank's diary, recounting the tortures of a fifteen-year-old imprisoned in Auschwitz. As the scholar Naomi Seidman has discussed, Wiesel first published his memoir in Yiddish, under the title And the World Was Silent. The Yiddish book told the same story told in Night, but it exploded with rage against his family's murderers and, as the title implies, the entire world whose indifference (or active hatred) made those murders possible. With the help of the French Catholic Nobel laureate François Mauriac, Wiesel later published a French version under the new title La Nuit—a work that repositioned the young survivor's rage into theological angst. After all, what reader would want to hear about how this society had failed, how he was guilty? Better to blame G[-]d. This approach earned Wiesel a Nobel Peace Prize, as well as, years later, selection for Oprah's Book Club, the American epitome of grace. It did not, however, make teenage girls read his book in Japan, the way they read Frank's. For that he would have had to hide much, much more.

from "Everyone's (Second) Favorite Dead Jew" in People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn, pp 9–10

[canisalbus]

ive been wondering, how is Machete remembered in the future, like, does history even remember him? are there articles about him? is his life speculated upon?

I couldn't find the post where I touched upon this before, but a few months ago there was some talk of how he might be viewed in modern times. Machete was a very private person, I don't think he would've kept journals or diaries, and he did his best to cover his tracks so I doubt he would leave behind a lot of information about his personal life. A number of second hand accounts about him would most likely be tainted by his unfavorable public image, at least those dating to his final inquisition years.

The nature of his relationship to the Florentine politician Vasco della Gherardesca might be a topic of discussion in some circles, some historians would strongly suspect that they were lovers and others would adamantly dismiss such theories. I suppose there wouldn't be proof unless parts of their extensive correspondence survived to modern day, or some of the artwork Vasco commissioned after his death.

I remember someone suggesting that perhaps they would be mentioned in an occasional video essay or podcast, in a list of historical figures who might've been lgbt maybe, and I found that terribly wholesome. It's heartwarming to think that they would posthumously be granted some of the understanding and support they didn't get enough during their lifetime.

[hard--headed--woman]

Hello and happy Pride Month everyone ! 🏳️‍🌈

As promised, I am going to talk about an important lesbian in history everyday. And this first post is about one of my favourite :

Renée Vivien !

I have seen some people talk about her here but she clearly isn’t as famous as she should be, and she deserves way more recognition!

Renée Vivien, whose birth name is Pauline Mary Tam, was a British writer poetess, who wrote her poetry (and most of her works) in french ; born in 1877, she died in 1909, at only 32 years old.

Renée was openly a lesbian, and she never tried to hide it despite the society she lived in being extremely homophobic and considering homosexuality as an illness. In her poetry, she mentions her love for women a lot, and wrote a lot of love poems for several of her lovers. This even earned her the nickname “Sappho 1900”. ("Sappho 1900, Sappho cent pour cent").

Of Sappho, she was by the way a huge fan : in 1903, she published the work "Sappho", in which the poet's Greek texts are followed by a French translation, as well as verses by Renée Vivien, which thus "completes" the remaining fragments of Sappho's writings. This collection greatly helped to anchor Sappho's work and her identity as a lesbian woman in our culture.

Her work consists of :

Twelve collections of poems, totalling more than 500 poems

Several translations of Greek poetesses (including Sappho)

Seven books of prose

Around ten novels (written under various pseudonyms)

A posthumously published collection of short Gothic tales (written in English this time)

A book about Anne Boleyn's life

It is also possible to read her diary and the letters she exchanged with her lovers, friends and other personalities of her time, including Natalie Clifford Barney, Colette, Kérimé Turkhan Pacha and others.

Pauline studied both in Paris and in London, then decided, once she came of age, to come and settle in Paris. She published her first collection,"Études et Préludes" in 1901, under the pseudonym R.Vivien. This pseudonym later became René Vivien (the male version of Renée) then Renée Vivien, the name under which she will be remembered. We can easily guess that she first chose these neutral then masculine pseudonyms to be able to write and be published despite the misogyny and homophobia of her time, especially given the themes exploited in her writings.

Sadness, death, ancient Greece, love, despair, solitude and love are the most recurrent themes in Renée's poems. There is actually a poetry prize in her name, the Prix Renée Vivien, which rewards poets whose themes and style are close to those of Renée Vivien.

Among Renée's best-known lovers is Natalie Clifford Barney, a famous writer and poet, with whom she had a relationship for several years before leaving her, tired of her infidelities. It is said that Natalie never accepted this breakup and tried until the end to get her back by all means, sending her love letters even years after.

Renée then had a relationship of more than six years with the rich Baroness Hélène de Zuylen, married and mother of two children, with whom she traveled extensively around the world and collaborated on the writing of several works (under the collective pseudonym Paule Riversdale). In a letter to her friend Jean Charles-Brun, Renée admitted that she considered herself married to Hélène.

While still living with the Baroness, she received a letter from a mysterious admirer, Kérimé Turkhan Pacha. What followed was an intense four-year epistolary relationship, interspersed with brief clandestine meetings. In 1908, however, Kérimé, the wife of a Turkish diplomat, put an end to their relationship when she had to follow her husband to St. Petersburg. This break-up probably contributed to Renée's tragic end.

The writer was in deep psychological distress, which only worsened from 1908 onwards. Alcoholic and suicidal, she began refusing to eat properly, and attempted suicide with laudanum. After this failed suicide attempt, she contracted pleurisy, which left her very weak, and then chronic gastritis due to her alcohol abuse. She gradually fell into anorexia, and, with her limbs paralyzed by multiple neuritis, she died on November 18, 1909, aged just 32. Her death was attributed to "pulmonary congestion", probably due to pneumonia complicated by alcohol and anorexia.

After her death, intellectuals, artists and newspapers, out of lesbophobia, tried to make her forgotten by the literary world, describing her as a woman of evil and damnation, perverse and cruel, going so far as to invent for her a life of crime, debauchery, orgies with married women, violence and cocaine consumption.

Today, Renée Vivien's name is no longer known to the general public, and is never mentioned alongside those of great ans famous poets such as Arthur Rimbaud or Charles Baudelaire, despite her gorgeous poetry, her immense talent and fascinating work.

She's personally my favourite, and not only because she was a lesbian. Her poetry is the most beautiful, interesting and deep poetry I have ever seen. She deserves to be as famous as Victor Hugo or Paul Eluard (and even more famous, in my opinion lol).

Here is one of her poems, with its english translation :

A link to some of her poems (in french but you can use a translator) ;

And two links with some of her poems translated into english : 1 and 2.

You should totally buy and read her books and poems, I have them and they're amazing!!! I'll post more translations of her poems in the future for those interested.

Anyway, thanks for reading and see you tomorrow for the second post!

[theamazingmaddyas]

Apollo Cabin Camper headcanons

Lee was an avid writer, and was planning to go for a Creative Writing before he, you know, kicked the bucket. Michael and Will ended up posthumously publishing his diary as a fiction story (because monsters and all) so that he could have his dream of being a published author. Nico brought Lee a copy in the Underworld.

Michael would only ever call his younger siblings his "little siblings" despite the fact that most of them passed him in height at like 9 or 10.

Will has Michael and Lee's names tattooed on his wrist in their handwriting, as well as a quote from one of Lee's poems on his forearm.

Kayla's known she was a demigod since she was really young, since her father had to explain why she has no mother. Darren could see through the mist, and would just shoot the monsters that came because of Kayla's stronger sent.

Kayla was brought to camp by Hedge when he was in Toronto in TLO (is this a common hc? I feel like it should be)

Austin could play any instrument, except the kazoo. For some reason, he sucked at playing the kazoo.

Jerry's accent was so strong his first summer at camp no one could understand him except for the other internationals.

Yan would hide in the armory with their book so that they didn't have to do sword-fighting or archery practice

Gracie would make rainbow loom bracelets for literally everyone. Even though she came to camp after the Battle of Manhattan and the Battle of the Labrynth, she still made bracelets for her deceased siblings based on Will, Kayla, and Austin's description of them.

Will was protective of the chariot in TLH not because he cared about it, but because Michael cared about it

Lee was born in Connecticut, but lived practically his whole life in NYC, and Michael was from Maine.

The cabin has a world map with push pins indicating where everyone is from. Every camper has also signed the wall around it on the day they were claimed, so there's well over a thousand names by the time PJO takes place.

Cabin 7 has a music room in it's basement, that has every single instrument you can imagine. (Austin is banned from playing the kazoo of course)

The only way the cabin can be cleaned is if It's A Hard Knock Life (Broadway version) (and the reprise as well) are playing. The youngest kid sings at Molly, and they play rock paper scissor to figure out who jumps in the laundry basket like Annie (one time Michael accidently fell asleep and was brought to the laundry room by the harpies. He did not let Lee hear the end of it) (The same thing almost happened to Gracie, but Will found her before the harpies could)

It's tradition that the last day of camp the younger campers write a song for their counselor and play it before bed. There's a binder of all the lyrics of every song dated back to the 1940s on the shelf, when the tradition was started

I'm not even sorry about how many there are, I'm just a tad bit obsessed with Cabin 7 (as indicative of my ao3 fics dedicated to them all)

(Octavian's a legacy and I'm only 150 pages into my reread of Son of Neptune, I can't remember if there are any canon Apollo kids barring Octavian's ancestors.)

[froody]

writing fictional Wikipedia articles as outlines for my historical fiction characters and having so much fun. dude look at this:

Daniel Ivey Clairville (3 May 1856 - 5 December 1941) was a prominent figure in the field of animal husbandry, early adopter of germ theory, animal behaviorist, cattle drover, diarist and Quaker theologian. Born in Philadelphia, Clairville apprenticed as a farrier until the death of his father in 1871 caused him to relocate to Texas to seek employment along the Chisholm Trail. Clairville was known for his ability to slow and halt the spread of disease among cattle using sanitation methods he pioneered, reducing cattle loss by up to 60% in herds under his care.

After retiring from the cattle industry in the late 1890s, he attended Cornell University, becoming an adjunct professor at Elgin Polytechnic Institute and publishing several texts on bovine husbandry and behavior.

Clairville was a relatively obscure scientific figure before his private writings about his sexuality, faith and experiences in the waning days of the Wild West were published posthumously.

^ Personal life

Clairville was gay and in a committed relationship with Joseph “Shortie” Alcott (14 November 1860 - 17 July 1906) until the latter’s mysterious death in Texas. Alcott was a train robber, outlaw, gambler, duelist and suspected serial killer. The couple met in the mid-1880s after Alcott was released from Utah Territorial Penitentiary and joined a trail drive lead by Clairville. Their relationship was described as inseparable but contentious by John Matthew Robertson-Clairville, Clairville’s adopted son, who often wrote about the couple’s relationship in his trail diary.

Having worked side by side for over a decade, Alcott initially followed Clairville east when he retired from the cattle industry in the 1890s but became embroiled in legal trouble in Pennsylvania and returned to Texas where he embarked on a crime spree that ended in a fatal two day shootout with a number of Texas rangers.

The details of Clairville’s private life and his connection to notorious criminal Shortie Alcott was largely forgotten until the 1970s when a box of personal letters and diaries was discovered in the attic of his former residence. The diaries of Clairville and Robertson-Clairville along with the correspondence between Clairville and Alcott in the latter’s final months form the basis of the book published by his great granddaughter in 1996.

Analysis of his writings and first hand accounts of his behavior suggest he had autism and OCD.

[whencyclopedia]

Ennin

Ennin (c. 793-864 CE, posthumous title: Jikaku Daishi) was a Japanese Buddhist monk of the Tendai sect who studied Buddhism at length in China and brought back knowledge of esoteric rituals, sutras, and relics. On his return, he published his celebrated diary Nitto Guho Junrei Gyoki and became the abbot of the important Enryakuji monastery on Mount Hiei near Kyoto and, thus, head of the Tendai sect.

Tendai Buddhism had been introduced to Japan by the monk Saicho, also known as Dengyo Daishi (767-822 CE). Based on the teachings of the Chinese Tiantai Sect, Saicho's simplified and inclusive version of Buddhism grew in popularity, and its headquarters, the Enryakuji complex on Mount Hiei outside the capital Heiankyo (Kyoto), became one of the most important in Japan as well as a celebrated seat of learning. Ennin became a disciple of Saicho from 808 CE when he began to study at the monastery, aged just 14.

Travels to China

Ennin was selected as part of a larger Japanese embassy led by the envoy to the Tang Court, one Fujiwara no Tsunetsugu, to visit China in 838 CE and study there. The main aim was for Ennin to study further the Tendai doctrine at the T'ien-t'ai shan. Ultimately, he would stay there for nine years, studying under various masters and learning in greater depths the tenets and rituals of Buddhism and especially the mysteries of Mikkyo, that is esoteric teachings known only to a very few initiated priests.

On arrival at Yang-chou and awaiting to be taken to T'ien-tai shan, the monk wasted no time and there and then found priests to teach him shitan, the Indic script used in esoteric texts. He also made his own copies of such texts and underwent an initiation with a priest called Ch'uan-yen. As it turned out Ennin did well, for by the time the Chinese authorities had organised his transport to his original destination he was informed there would be no time to do so if he were not to return to Japan as planned with the embassy. Ennin decided to stay and passed the winter at a monastery in Shantung run by Korean monks.

In the spring Ennin set off for Wutai, an important pilgrimage site and home to some more learned monks who could help satiate his thirst for Buddhist knowledge. Mount Wutai, where the bodhisattva Manjusri was thought to have appeared, was also a centre of esoteric cults. Over the next 50 days, Ennin acquired such techniques as rhythmically chanting the name of Amida Buddha and changing the intonation each repetition.

From 840 to 845 CE Ennin then studied at Ch'ang-an, learning more of Mikkyo, copying texts and mandalas, and being initiated by three different esoteric masters, going beyond the level that the recognised Japanese master and foremost expert Kukai had reached. In 845 CE Ennin, like many Chinese monks, suffered the persecution of anti-Buddhist emperor Wu-tsung, and he was compelled to return to Japan. This was easier said than done and it took two years, the death of Wu-tsung, and a general amnesty for him to finally find a ship that would make the voyage.

Continue reading...

[anonymous-dentist]

I propose that we posthumously call the Ghost ‘Stanford’ not only because of that whole prison experiment thing but also because of this dude

Like look man, Cellbit tweeting about loving Gravity Falls just shortly before the qsmp prison event Plus the Ghost having diaries left outside of the prison to find (3 diaries, anyone?) just makes it kinda obvious to me personally actually

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The Book of Disquiet, by Fernando Pessoa (1888 - 1935), is a remarkable work in modernist literature. Written in Portuguese and published posthumously in 1982, this collection of fragments and reflections spans around 544 pages in the Penguin Classics edition. Richard Zenith's 1991 English translation captures the essence of Pessoa's introspective musings and is considered by many to be the definitive translation (at least for now).

I read The Book of Disquiet over a few days in mid-July of this year, and I have to admit, the book was not a quick and easy read. I found myself reading brilliant sentences or paragraphs that expressed keen insights, but I often could not recognize how the sentence had been introduced, so I had to skim backwards through Pessoa’s prose filled with “post-Symbolist flights … diary-like musings, … maxims, sociological observations, aesthetic credos, theological reflections and cultural analyses (p.g. xv R. Zenith). Despite these complexities, or perhaps because of them, The Book of Disquiet is on my list of top books that I’ve read in the last few months. 2024 so far has been a time of reflection for me, and one of Pessoa’s passages is especially poignant at the moment. He writes:

“How much I’ve lived without having lived! How much I’ve thought without having thought! I’m exhausted from worlds of static violence, from adventures I’ve experienced without moving a muscle. I’m surfeited with what I’ve had and never will, jaded by gods that so far don’t exist. I bear the wounds of all the battles I avoided. My muscles are sore from all the effort I have never even thought of making (p.g. 309)”

Pesso was an early twentieth century Portuguese poet, philosopher, and intellectual as well as a genuine person of letters. The book is really a collection of his thoughts and ideas collected and put together by the translator, Richard Zenith. The loosely knit text unfolds under the narration and from the perspective of one of Pessoa’s seventy five different heteronyms that he used throughout his oeuvre, the imaginary flâneur Bernardo Soares.

Classified within the genre of existential literature, the book eschews the notion of a traditional plot. Instead, it presents the musings of Soares, an assistant bookkeeper in Lisbon. The setting of Lisbon plays a crucial role, reflecting the protagonist's internal world and his philosophical explorations. Soares often reflects on the tensions between life and death, dreaming and action, or the act of creating and somnolence. Soares reflects:

“I weep over my imperfect pages, but if future generations read them, they will be more touched by my weeping than by any imperfection I might have achieved, since perfection would have kept me from weeping and, therefore, from writing, Perfection never materializes. The saint weeps, and is human. God is silent. That is why we can love the saint but cannot love God (p.g. 65).”

Pessoa's writing style is characterized by its stream-of-consciousness approach. This technique immerses us readers in the protagonist's thoughts, offering a direct glimpse into his reflective and often melancholic mind. The prose frequently employs metaphors and similes, which add depth to the philosophical observations. Imagery and symbolism are prominent, enhancing the thematic elements related to identity, solitude, and the passage of time. Again, Soares muses,

“Everything slips away from me. My whole life, my memories, my imagination and all it contains, my personality: it all slips away. I constantly feel that I was someone different, that a different I felt, that a different I thought, I’m watching a play with a different, unfamiliar setting, and what I’m watching is me (p.g. 186).”

Despite its unconventional structure, The Book of Disquiet has garnered significant acclaim and is considered a pivotal work in modernist literature oft compared to Joyce and Kalka. Much of the writing found in The Book of Disquiet was left behind by Pessoa in a trunk filled with his unfinished and unpublished writing, but despite the challenges of bringing his thoughts to the published page, the book’s influence on contemporary literature is profound.

The book's impact lies in its ability to resonate with readers on a deeply personal level. Pessoa's reflections on the human condition, captured through Soares' introspective lens, challenge conventional narrative forms and invite us the readers to engage in our own self-exploration. The absence of a linear plot is compensated by the richness of the thoughts and emotions conveyed.

For readers interested in existential and philosophical literature, Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet offers a compelling and thought-provoking experience. Its innovative style and philosophical content make it a significant and enduring contribution to literary history.

[Jim Wood]

[oury-boros]

sometimes i wonder how i would feel if people posthumously auctioned off my personal diaries, marketing them as insight into a piece of art that i was not actually involved with. yknow, hypothetically

[hooked-on-elvis]

"Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine)"

The song was originally recorded by The Penguins in late 1954, with Belvin (using the pseudonym Curtis Williams) as lead singer. "Earth Angel" entered the rhythm and blues chart in early 1955 and was #8 on the Best Selling Singles chart. Other charting versions include Gloria Mann's version in 1955, Johnny Tillotson's in 1960 and The Vogues' version in 1969. Excerpt from site: elvis100percent.com

Album: "From The Vaults -'50s" (2016). Originally recorded in 1959 as a home recording (informal session).

LYRICS:

Earth Angel, Earth Angel Will you be mine My darling dear Love you all the time I'm just a fool A fool in love with you Earth Angel, Earth Angel The one I adore Love you forever and ever more I'm just a fool A fool in love with you I fell for you And I knew The vision of your lov-loveliness I hoped and I prayed that someday That I'd be the vision of your hap-happiness Oh, Oh, Earth Angel, Earth Angel Please be mine My darling dear Love you all the time I'm just a fool A fool in love with you

A private recording of Elvis singing "Earth Angel" in Germany (1959) appeared on the 1984 LP "A Golden Celebration" and the track was also later featured in other of Elvis' posthumous albums such as "From The Vaults -'50s" (released in 2016 as part of the monumental 60-CD set "The Album Collection" made by Sony DADC, Austria, which includes also "From The Vaults - '60s" and "From The Vaults - '70s" in the set) and the FTD reissued of the 1959 compilation album "A Date With Elvis" (released in 2017).

Elvis Presley: A Golden Celebration LP cover (1984) -- A few of the private recordings Elvis taped informally at home while stationed in Germany (Army period) are featured on this album, including 'Earth Angel' by the Penguins. The 50th Anniversary LP contains 3 discs with recordings of some of Elvis' most iconic moments in his career, including tracks from Sun Records Sessions, TV appearances, the Mississippi-Alabama Fair And Diary Show in Tupelo, MS (1956), some tracks recorded during the '68 Comeback TV Special (NBC, 1968) and even some unknown-recording-dates tracks discovered in Graceland ("Collector's Treasures"). More info about this album here: discogs.com.

Credits/Sources: Wikipedia; elvis100percent.com; elvisoncd.com; discogs.com.

[skaruresonic]

I'm reminded of the split opinion on whether Sonic Gens and Mania are suitable "first games" for people who want to approach the series.

I personally don't think so, because the appeal of those games is precisely revisiting old levels in a new format, with a new design: you're not going to get the subtle jokes as a newcomer (and Mania can get very obscure with it). But some do think they're nice pastiches for newcomers to at least get an idea of Sonic's history as a franchise, and it helps that they're both solid games.

I assumed Shadow Gens would be the same, but you make a good point, because this game has an actual story. For veterans, it's more of the same thing, if you know Shadow's story this adds very little new, and it's mostly a repeat of what he already went through in ShTH. But newcomers who want to learn more about the cool black hedgehog from the new movie would still be confused: why did Shadow become a hero? Who is Black Doom, why is he obsessed with Shadow, why does Shadow hate him? Let's not even talk about things like Mephiles' boss fight lol. (although personally I find Gerald's mention of the time portals of '06 rather cute)

So I guess this game is for veterans who just want to soak in the Shadow vibes once more, but this time with Good Writing™

If you based your knowledge only on the information provided by SxS Gens - so no supplementary material, no Dark Beginnings, no manga, no movie, no paratext - you would learn the vaguest and broadest strokes of maybe two games, SA2 and ShTH, at most. But nothing specific.

Everything else would just come off as garbled nonsense. Hell, it appeared that way to me and I've been a Sonic fan for (checks notes) 22 years. God I'm old.

I approached this game not with my purist hardhat on (though that wasn't always the case given some lines here and there lmao) but from the perspective of a newcomer who knew nothing about Shadow's past. If everyone was going to argue that this game's existence is necessary on that basis, I thought, how well would it perform as an introductory piece?

From that perspective, I don't think the game does a very good job in giving us a crash course on Shadow's history. Gerald and Maria do nothing - I hate to say it but they're ultimately window-dressing. They don't accomplish anything that, for instance, a posthumous diary or recording could have just as easily provided.

(Tbf, the NPCs in Gens also pretty much did nothing but cheer Sonic on, but it's not like, given this sheer gravitas as seeing your dead loved ones return to life via the power of timey-wimey shenanigans.)

I was actually surprised at how little plot progression there is, given my previous expectations of there being, you know, a coherent story. The plot doesn't really kick in until you've completed 4 out of the 6 available levels, and by then you've pretty much halfway done lol.

Shit happens in weird, patchwork, nonsensical ways. We get boss fights for characters that don't matter but not a boss fight against Sonic, AKA the guy we play as in Gens proper and in a context that echoes a game dynamic where we get to fight each character as the opponent. Shadow is the ultimate life form who gets his ass handily kicked by Sonic. Maria has a delayed response at the news of Shadow's heritage; she's not instantly shocked the first time, but when Gerald says it for a second time she suddenly becomes distressed. Omega claims they showed Metal "mercy" at the end of Heroes, despite questioning whether he should destroy Metal or Sonic to prove his strength. We have to fight Mephiles even though he doesn't matter because reasons.

Characters appear who aren't relevant to the plot, but are given the screen treatment as though the game expects the player to know who they are and why they might (or might not) be relevant.

---

Who is Black Doom, why is he obsessed with Shadow, why does Shadow hate him?

>>gets Silent Hill 3 flashbacks as Black Doom waxes poetic about "possessing" Shadow

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Let's not even talk about things like Mephiles' boss fight lol.

No. Let's. :P

Mephiles' boss is one great big time-wasting in-joke that amounts to an MCU-esque "Well, that just happened." I can easily see newcomers mistaking him for one of Black Doom's minions or something, especially given that his boss arena is found in a cave under Chaos Island and not in Kingdom Valley. Because the latter is where you find Metal Overlord instead.

Yeah, this would definitely confuse newcomers.

As I've said before, the game does the "don't think about a polar bear" thing by bringing up the matter of Shadow's blood, only to backpedal immediately afterwards with "his blood doesn't matter, I swear." At times I felt like I was playing Parasite Eve with talk of mutations and what-not.

And like, sure, the game does stress that Shadow determines his own destiny, but if that's the case, why bring up his blood eighty million times? Why turn it into a friggin' gameplay mechanic? The guy turns into a squid FFS

Oh, and I forgot to mention: the light of God that shone down on IDW!Sonic during his Sermon on the Rock also shines down on Maria when she tells Shadow the reason she gave him his name. Just in case you couldn't get The Symbolism. Very subtle, much cinematic, felt like I was playing SA2 all over again.

[bookreviewcoffee]

Virginia Woolf "A Room of One's Own."

The essay was published in 1929. Almost a hundred years have passed. Surely all the problems that Wolfe talks about have been resolved and there is no point in talking about them? Unfortunately no. I had no idea what this book was about. For some reason, I was sure that this was Virginia Woolf’s autobiography, in which she talks about her craft. But it turned out that this was an appeal in the name of justice. First of all, this concerns the infringement of women's rights. How women were not respected and not valued is very difficult to read. Women were forced to write in attics when they had a rare 30 minutes, to hide them at the slightest rustle, and published works under a male pseudonym. The girls were allowed to write prose, but no lyrics. It was believed that women could not think. In general, girls in Victorian England, if they were lucky, were taught languages at home, since college was closed. They had to stay at home, knit, cook, raise children and serve their husbands. It’s interesting, by the way, what Virginia Woolf said about female composers of classical music. They simply don't exist! More precisely, I personally could not remember a single one.

I had to look. I've certainly found a few of these, but none of the names are familiar to me! But I read some interesting information:

    “Fanny Mendelssohn

During her lifetime, the sister of the famous composer was known only to her family. She was constantly encouraged to write music, but... Then give what she wrote to her brother. It is known that he published several of her works as his own. She died young, from a stroke, at a concert rehearsal, where, along with other people's works, she wanted to openly play her own. The inconsolable widower did everything so that Fanny would posthumously receive her calling. Her correspondence, diaries, notes were published, her works were given her name back.”

Virginia Woolf believes that these men were simply afraid of smart women. They were afraid to show themselves in an unfavorable light compared to them.

In general, the essay is not limited to the topic “women and literature”, it touches on the general position of women, the topic of how important equality is for us. Although it is a stream of consciousness, the book is easy to read. In the process, the author gives us food for thought. “A room of your own” makes you think about how important personal space, income, and education are. Who is the creator? Why have we lost perhaps great works? Why is equality necessary? Why were women belittled? Why do women and men creators need their own room? And much more.

This was my introduction to Woolf,and now I am very eager to get to know her further.

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