#predominantly John Dies at the End series

[sp0o0kylights]

Q: Why wasn’t there an Adopt a Jock (lol I wrote this as Adopt a Joke. Sorry Steve.) update this week? (slash sevenish days Idk time is dumb) 

A: It was Steddie Big Bang Time! I am so excited to work with both my artists, and REALLY fricken excited to finally be able to give ya’ll a snippet. 

They mention Hopper’s death here but its pre S4, they don’t know he’s actually alive. 

                                              Eddie

         "Tonight is a good night for the other guy, not me, to die."

                         --What We Do In The Shadows

A scenario for you to ponder: 

You are trapped in the dead police chief's cabin. With you are your three best friends, your life-long gay crush, and several children, one of which is supposedly telekinetic.

Maybe two. 

You're not sure because one of the demonic plant-penis dogs prowling around in packs outside gave you a concussion. 

You have two options available to you. 

Option One) you and your loser friends hunker down with your hands over your ears while Mr. Sexy Chest and the children figure a way out. 

This option has the highest chance of you and your besties surviving, unscathed.

Option Two) You tell Mr. Sexy Chest that you know how to hotwire cars and can likely get the police truck outside running in an ill fated attempt at impressing his very straight (and very firm) ass. 

This option has the biggest chance of you dying, a virgin sacrifice to the monsters in the woods like every horror movie idiot known to man. 

Eddie Munson, elbow deep in wires, cursed himself for being a very stupid man. 

"Can I just say, for the record, that this is really dumb?" He huffed, wiping sweat off his brow with the back of his hand.

 The truck had clearly been sitting here since the old man had died. Likely before then, because Eddie had taken one look at the wires underneath the steering wheel and knew immediately the engine was going to need some work before he even bothered trying to wake her.

Steve, who had a hip rested against the truck, turned to look over his shoulder, down at where Eddie was ducked under the raised hood.  "You can but it won't make you feel better."

"Great." Eddie said, planting both hands on either side of the engine. 

Fucking truck.

Fucking--monsters, and the military and Steve Harrington holding a bloody bat with nails in it casually, like guarding Eddie’s back while he stole a cop car was just a casual Tuesday to him. 

It probably was, considering all Eddie had heard. 

"Does it help any if I tell you this is actually one of our better plans, and not just because we usually don't get to spend a lot of time on them?" Steve said it like a peace offering, instead of the absolute insanity it sounded like. 

Eddie sighed. "No Steve, it doesn't." 

"I didn't think it would.” Steve replied and from the corner of his eye, Eddie watched him rub his nose. “It is a little funny though." 

He looked like he was trying to hold back a smile, like he somehow actually found them having spent a solid two hours coming up with a plan to be hilarious, and if it didn’t make his entire being glow brighter than the dumb yellow sweater he was wearing, Eddie would have cursed him out. 

"God I hate how cute you are." Eddie muttered instead, sticking his head back in the engine. If he could just connect this one wire-!

Then his brain caught up with his mouth. 

‘Oh my god I can’t believe I just said that out loud. 

"What?" Steve asked, confused, and oh, thank god. 

“I said I hated how cut up the wires are. Hand me some of that black tape would you?” Eddie said, sticking his hand up, thanking every deity he could think of that his mouth hadn’t managed to out him. 

He’d gotten too far in this backwards, hick town to get murdered now. 

Muttered angrily to himself under his breath as he continued to do his best to get Hopper’s old clunker up and running. 

He wasn’t sure how this guy had the thing going for as long as he did, but as far as Eddie could tell? 

The truck ran on magic and well-wishes, both of which they were fresh out of. 

“Come on, come on…” Eddie coaxed, as he finally managed to successfully splice and tape the two wires he’d been fiddling with together. 

It wasn’t a solid fix, but it should be enough to get them out of here. 

"Dude it's okay. If you're like--freaked out." Steve said abruptly, and where the hell had that come from!? 

Eddie slammed his wrench down on the edge of the truck, standing up from the bent over crouch he’d been in so he could face Harrington. 

"Steve,” He deadpanned, “I think anyone who isn’t freaked out by all this has something wrong with them."

He got a defensive look in return. "I'm just saying! It's normal! You don't have to brave face it or anything, we've all collectively had a lot of breakdowns over this."

He just got a stare in return. 

For a brief second he thinks maybe Steve is bringing up last night. That he’s suddenly returned to his King Shit status, rubbing it in Eddie’s face how he’d had not just one breakdown when the demodogs attacked but another one later, when all the adrenaline had left him with nothing but mounting anxiety and panic. 

Except when Steve turns to look at him his face isn’t mocking at all, and--oh. 

Oh.

Steve, Eddie realized with abrupt clarity, was giving Eddie the speech he wishes someone had given him. 

This wasn't another weird language game or that fake-nice thing people did where they act friendly to get an up front show of Eddie’s weirdness, just to  make fun of him later for it.

This is honestly. Plain and simple. 

Eddie doesn’t know what to do with it. 

“Thanks.” He manages, voice now quiet. “That’s…thanks.” 

Steve looks away again, rubbing the back of his neck and god, where was this Steve Harrington in high school? Yeah Eddie had seen glimpses of him in his senior year but what about all the years prior? 

The guy before him in jeans and a yellow sweater gave off sad single mother vibes so hard Eddie felt an urge to hug him until all the bullshit went away. 

Except the bullshit wasn’t just the seven annoying freshmen, but also crazy monsters and shit. 

“She uh, she should run now.” Eddie said awkwardly, tapping the car as he turned to remove the few tools he and Steve had managed to scrounge up. “I won’t turn her on until we’re ready to go though, because we’re boned if we turn her off.” 

Steve snorted at that, mouthing “boned” at him and Eddie gave a feral grin in response. Stepped into his space, because how could he not, and clapped Steve on a sweater-clad shoulder. 

“Get the kiddos, Stevie. We’ve got an eagle to fly us out of Mordor.” 

[a-man-for-hire-and-his-archives]

Black Sails: 13 Facts About The Starz Hit Worth More Than Stolen Treasure

BY ERICH B. ANDERSON/DEC. 31, 2022 1:15 PM EST

With contemporary series like "Vikings" and "Game of Thrones," "Black Sails" may often be overlooked when compared to other epic dramas of the 2010s, which makes it one of the most underrated shows of the decade. Not only is the scale of the pirate adventure immense with many scenes taking place upon impressive naval vessels, but the political intrigue and intimate interactions of the characters make it an entertaining watch for several different audiences.

The show as a whole does a brilliant job of mixing fiction with historical figures like the notorious pirate captains Blackbeard (Ray Stevenson) and Charles Vane (Zach McGowan) whose lives were so legendary that they verge on fantasy. But at its core, the story centers on the complicated friendship between its two main characters, Captain Flint (Toby Stephens) and his deviously clever quartermaster, Long John Silver, in the years before their sagas are continued in the later tale of "Treasure Island." For a series devoted to such larger-than-life individuals, the making of it also had its fair share of epic details and moments as well, which you can enjoy reading below.

The series is an unofficial prequel to Treasure Island

Although "Black Sails" is its own story for the most part, from the very beginning it was always meant to show the events building up to the classic work of fiction "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson. More than anything, the creators of the series wanted to tie up loose ends to the famous tale and give their explanation to who the characters were up to in the years before, as showrunner Jonathan Steinberg explained to Entertainment Weekly: "At the end of the book, it's recounted by other people that Captain Flint died in Savannah alone, which begs a lot of questions."

Flint's origin is certainly not the only one covered with both Long John Silver's and Billy Bones' backstories explained thoroughly as well. For Billy especially, his situation in the finale of the series gives all new meaning to what happens to him later in the novel. Steinberg added: "It is clear we are suggesting he is on 'Treasure Island,' which I think has a number of implications if you go back and read the book."

After four seasons, it is clear the showrunner was pleased with how the series handled the continuity, saying: "It felt like we had finished the argument a little bit, in terms of connecting it not just to 'Treasure Island,' but to our contemporary understanding of what piracy was, about what Caribbean piracy was."

2. The opening credits features the hurdy-gurdy

Several aspects of "Black Sails" make it stand out as a particularly fascinating TV series, with one of the top being its unique theme music in the opening credits. Not only is the memorable tune composed by the talented Bear McCreary who is well known for his work on "The Walking Dead" and "Battlestar Galactica," but it also features quite an unusual instrument known as a hurdy-gurdy, according to Entertainment Weekly.

Also known as a wheel fiddle, the hurdy-gurdy is a folk instrument that has existed for around 1,000 years and is played to this day all over Western Europe, from Italy to England. In a 2010 TED Talk, musician Caroline Phillips explained that the complex and bulky device originally required two people to operate it until the design was improved a few centuries later, so it could be used by a single performer. Although a fundamental part of the instrument is the strings, akin to a violin, the sound produced can also be compared to bagpipes.

3. The show was filmed in South Africa

While "Black Sails" takes place predominantly in the Caribbean, that was not the place chosen to film the epic pirate drama. Instead, the Starz network went with the fairly new Cape Town Studios for the production, and needless to say that the South African-based company was ecstatic over the decision. Ahead of filming Season 1, Film Afrika producer Vlokkie Gordon said: "We are delighted to have been awarded ['Black Sails'] and it is further proof of South Africa's international reputation for outstanding production skill and expertise" (via The Location Guide). Gordon continued: "A production of this scope provides not only employment for South Africans, but also skills transfer which is in line with Film Afrika's policy of supporting growth and development of the South African film and television industry."

The swashbuckling series was then added to the growing list of productions shot out of Cape Town, including "Safe House," "Chronicle," and "Mad Max: Fury Road," as per the Cape Town Film Studios website. Plus, another Starz series benefited greatly from the elaborate ship sets built there, with "Outlander" using the Jamaican landscapes in its third season, according to Entertainment Weekly.

4. 300 people worked on the pirate ship

The impressive sailing vessels featured in "Black Sails" are almost as important to the story as the characters themselves. Therefore, a ton of work was put into the construction of the sets in order to make the maritime setting feel real for the cast, and more importantly, the audience. In a behind-the-scenes clip shared by Starz, senior rigger Joel Yates explained: "The carpenters building the boat it took them, I think, four or five months. They want it to look as authentic as possible because what we've built is a very accurate replica of a sailing ship."

The end product, called The Walrus in the show, was massive as well, as Yates revealed that the full ship is approximately 140 feet long. And to pull off such an incredible feat, it took a gigantic crew with various skill sets, as construction coordinator Clive Pollack shared: "There are 300 people working on the boat. There are carpenters, sculptors, painters, riggers, sailmakers."

5. There were no bathrooms for cast and crew on the ship

For as grand as the prominent pirate ship is in "Black Sails," it does have its faults as it also serves as the set of a modern TV production. In a 2016 interview with Den of Geek, actor Zach McGowan revealed the biggest problem for the cast and crew on set: "The hardest thing about the ships, most people don't realize, is just when you're on the ship at the top of the deck somewhere, it's very far to the nearest bathroom. There's no bathroom on the ships."

Even with that minor complaint, McGowan went on to stress that being on the deck of the ship at sea was such a great experience that the actor wished he had more of those scenes. It's also his opinion that most of the cast felt the same way, except possibly the ones who spent the most time on board, such as Toby Stephens.

6. The actors went through pirate boot camp

Like most epic dramas featured on premium channels, "Black Sails" is filled with massive battle sequences, in this case often between rival pirate clans, or against the relentless forces of the British and Spanish empires. While the nature of naval warfare means that a good amount of these conflicts are long distance, yet devastating, as cannonballs attempt to rip enemy vessels apart, much of the brutal combat is at close quarters.

All of the fight scenes in the series are quite impressive, so it makes sense that many cast members received special training. In a Q&A with a few of the main actors, shared by Starz in 2015, Luke Arnold revealed: "We all went through a three-week pirate boot camp. Well, the pirates of the crew did at the beginning of shooting." And it was a good thing that they did because when asked if they could survive the rough conditions of the time period, the general consensus was an adamant no. Toby Stephens then elaborated with a laugh: "The real trouble, I'd be ok on Nasau, it was as soon as I'd get on a boat and I had to sail anywhere."

7. Clara Paget came up with Anne Bonny's distinctive look

From Charles Vane, Edward Teach, and Jack Rackham to Captain Flint, Long John Silver, and Billy Bones, "Black Sails" has all sorts of characters based on either historic people or from the famous fictional tale, "Treasure Island." Therefore, both the writers of the show and the actors who portrayed these popular figures had to work with what was already known about them. But at the same time, there was a lot of creative freedom as well.

A somewhat minor, though fascinating aspect of another one of these real characters in the series, Anne Bonny, was thought up by actress Clara Paget. In a 2016 interview with Den of Geek, when asked what she contributed to the role, the actress replied: "I suppose the hat. That came completely organically. I tried on this hat and then I was pulling it down in an almost jokey way, like an old-school Western. Then it became who she is, hiding behind this hat. It really works for the character because, as I said, it shows this vulnerable side at the same time as being a badass through one side or the other. Like schizophrenic, bipolar."

8. Zack McGowan broke a stuntman's jaw by accident

A major reason that the fight scenes in "Black Sails" are so good is because of the enthusiasm of the cast and crew when filming, yet there was one time that may have gone a little too far. When a stuntman on set named Daryl was to be hit with the butt of a rifle by Zach McGowan, the dedicated performer showed no fear and encouraged the actor to strike him square in the face. The veteran stuntman figured it was no big deal since the thing was only made of rubber. Since Daryl seemed more than fine with the idea, McGowan went along with the idea.

In a 2017 interview with Rotten Tomatoes, Toby Stephens recalled the disastrous, though somewhat funny result: "Zach, who's brilliant at this kind of thing, whacked him straight in the jaw, as the guy asked, and totally broke his jaw. It looks fantastic, it actually made the cut, and it looked absolutely brilliant. At the end of it, I just remember Daryl going, 'No, it's fine. It's okay, don't worry about it.'" Fortunately, the stuntman was not seriously harmed, so they were able to joke about it a bit.

9. Zack McGowan climbed the balconies of a building to get rum

"Black Sails" is filled with many incredible exploits of pirate warriors as they battle on the high seas, but a behind-the-scenes achievement by one of the actors was almost as impressive as what was shown on screen. During a break in filming, the cast was having a good time together but needed some rum, so Zach McGowan went to rather extreme lengths to remedy the situation.   

In order to gain access to the prized liquor in a room several floors up, the actor literally scaled the side of the building all on his own. When talking with Rotten Tomatoes, cast member Hannah New described the amazing sight, saying: "He did this like Spider-Man kind of thing where he climbed up these balconies … it's incredible, he does like, God knows how many chin-ups every day. So, he can just chin up these balconies."

After McGowan successfully got the rum and then made the way back down with it in his front pocket, the cast waiting down below were too awestruck to do anything but tensely watch. Fellow actress Jessica Parker Kennedy added: "And none of us videotaped it. I think we were all in such shock, it was so scary, I thought he was going to fall and break his neck and we would have to explain it to our producers the next day."

10. It took all season to film Luke Arnold's underwater scene

In the fourth season of "Black Sails," Long John Silver nearly perishes in the sea as he struggles to escape his sinking ship. Actor Luke Arnold must have been pleased that his character ultimately survived the harrowing experience, but filming the scenes was definitely not easy for the actor. Even though he was confident in the comprehensive training he received beforehand, Arnold still had to overcome a major fear of performing in those conditions.

When asked specifically about those tense underwater moments, he told Collider in a 2017 interview: "That was the beginning of hell that kept getting crazier as it went along. That took all season to shoot. We were in the water tank, from the beginning of the season, stuck underwater, all day." To his dismay, Arnold was right when he assumed it would take longer to finish than the filmmakers first thought, yet it was all worth it, as he added: "Right until the last couple of weeks, I was doing bits of the underwater stuff to make that whole sequence as spectacular as it is."

11. Luke Arnold received a special gift from a producer

Luke Arnold was one of several major cast members of "Black Sails" who was in the show from the very beginning all the way through to the climactic finale. The actor very much enjoyed his time filming the series, so when he found a cherished memento from the early days, it was a big deal. In the same interview with Collider, he revealed: "We were shooting a scene in Season 4 that was back in Eleanor's office, and I found the piece of paper that I was writing the directions to find the Urca de Lima on, which was the very first scene we shot in Episode 103. Nina Jack, who was one of our producers on Season 4, got it framed and gave it to me as a gift, so I've gone away with that. That was amazing!"

On the other hand, there were parts of the series that Arnold did not remember so fondly, mostly from the difficulties that arose in pretending to have lost a leg. In this endeavor, he was able to use a crutch on screen, but the prop caused him so much discomfort that he grew to despise it.

12. Luke Arnold had a legless stunt double

Once Long John Silver tragically loses his leg in "Black Sails," Luke Arnold had some difficulty filming scenes as the character, so he was grateful to have help from a stuntman named Ben de Jager who is also missing the limb. The actor told Collider: "It was great to have somebody who's gone through the experience of losing a leg. He did step in for a lot of stuff, mainly because it was so much easier to have him there. If you're shooting from behind or you're focusing on the foot, it's easier to have someone in who's missing the leg than to do it with me and spend a fortune on visual effects to change things."

Though Arnold certainly got along with de Jager, there also seemed to have been a little jealousy in sharing screen time for the role. The actor admitted that a downside for him was his absence in some major Long John Silver moments of the show.

13. The writers gradually decided to bring back Flint's lover, Thomas

For as dark as "Black Sails" can be throughout the series, it ended on a fairly happy note as the main character, Captain Flint, is finally reunited with the love of his life, Thomas Hamilton (Rupert Penry-Jones). Both men are sentenced to imprisonment on a plantation, yet all that matters to the pair is that they are together again. Viewers may have been somewhat surprised that Thomas had returned to the show given the fact that he was thought to be dead, but over time the writers decided that was not going to be his fate.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in 2017, Jonathan Steinberg explained: "We had a sense in Season 2 when he died off-screen, that any character who dies off-screen, you're taking the word of the messenger as to whether or not it actually happened. We knew we weren't finished with him. And then at some point in Season 3, we realized it would be reasonably late in the series when he came back, so in Season 4 it felt right."

Source: Looper

[redrascal1]

Why Rey, Finn and Poe will NEVER Be Han, Luke and Leia

I remember when Return of the Jedi was released.

As a HUGE SW fan, it was a bittersweet experience. The Skywalker Saga came to a satisfying conclusion, but I was sad that it was over and my fave characters would never grace the big screen again. I wanted to see more of them.

Then came the EU.

I never had that feeling after TROS. And it wasn't just because it was a dreadful film.

Rey, Finn and Poe just didn't possess the charisma of the OT.

I wasn't interested in any more material featuring the three of them.

Mary Sue Rey. Embarrassingly dull Finn. Tedious Poe.

I was glad I wouldn't have to sit through anything else with them in it.

Granted, much of my dislike of Finn and Poe, it was mostly Rey who was to blame for the 'dullness' of the other characters. They were stripped of their personalities to make her look good. The fawning over her was one of the most nauseating things in TROS, and actually made me wince in a lot of the scenes.

Although I have lost some of my respect of Daisy - and a LOT of my respect for John - I still like Oscar very much. And the characters were all great in TLJ.

But, the simple sad fact is....there was one character I would have loved to have seen more of. And we all know who that is.

I could have watched a hundred films, or tv series with Kylo.

Shortly before quitting the SW fan forums one poster accused me of being unfair to diss the others, when they were 'loved' by many SW fans, predominantly on the forums. The poster pointed out I would be 'back in a flash' if DLF brought back Kylo/Ben.

Which of course, is true.

I quit the forums for a number of reasons but predominantly after the revelation of Rey's forthcoming film I was forced to accept DLF had no intention of resurrecting Ben. And it made me realise that SW was unequivocally dead for me.

Without Ben Solo, son of Han and Leia, nephew of Luke, grandson of Anakin and Padme....for me, there WAS no SW. It died when Ben faded into the Force.

I actually walked out of the cinema after that. I later caught the ending on youtube, and was profoundly glad I left when I did. The heart and soul of my favourite franchise was ripped out that day.

Fair play to those who love Rey and Finn. They are expressing excitement at the former's return and the possibility of the latter joining her. and hopefully will get what they wanted. But I quit the SW forums because I have zero interest in either of them. Or talking about them.

One poster said something I agree with 100%.

'I will be happy if I never see them again.' My sentiments exactly.

SW ended not with a bang, but a whimper. I will never read, watch or take interest in it again.

I honestly had no idea when I started watching the ST that it was the beginning of the end of my forty plus year love for SW. But it was.

RIP the Skywalkers. I'm so very very sad to say goodbye to them for ever.

[nyc-uws]

The lost neighborhood under New York's Central Park

Before Central Park was built, a historically black community was destroyed. Help our reporting on hidden histories. Submit a story idea here: http://bit.ly/2RhjxMy If you’ve been to New York, you’ve probably visited Central Park. But there’s a part of its story you won't see. It’s a story that goes back to the 1820s, when that part of New York was largely open countryside. Soon it became home to about 1,600 people. Among them was a predominantly black community that bought up affordable plots to build homes, churches and a school. It became known as Seneca Village. And when Irish and German immigrants moved in, it became a rare example at the time of an integrated neighborhood. Everything changed on July 21, 1853. New York took control of the land to create what would become the first major landscaped park in the US -- they called it “The Central Park.” In the Vox series Missing Chapter, Vox Senior Producer Ranjani Chakraborty revisits underreported and often overlooked moments from the past to give context to the present. Join her as she covers the histories that are often left out of our textbooks. Our first season tackles stories of racial injustice, political conflicts, even the hidden history of US medical experimentation.

The Meme Policeman

- This meme makes it appear as though the entirety or a substantial portion of Central Park was Seneca Village. This isn’t the case, and the real story has much more to it.

-Seneca Village began in 1825, when Andrew Williams, a young free black shoeshiner, bought three lots from a white farmer, aptly named John Whitehead. Shortly after, several other free blacks also purchased plots of land in what’s now the vicinity of 80th-90th streets and 6-7 avenues in Manhattan.

-When slavery was outlawed in NY in 1827, more black residents began to arrive at Seneca. By the 1830s there were approximately 10 homes in the village, and by the mid 1850s the population peaked at between 225-350+ depending on the source. However, by that time it was 2/3s black and 1/3 Irish, with a few Germans scattered in as well. It was approximately 5 acres.

-About half of the black residents owned their homes, a remarkable feat for 19th century New York, 5 times the rate of all NYC residents. While the elites labeled the area as a shantytown because of the crude construction, it was generally more prosperous than many poor sections closer to downtown, and many had lived there for over a decade.

-During the 1840s, NYC elites began a push for a large park as the city swelled, dreaming of something to rival their European counterparts. Initially, the park was proposed in Jones’s Wood, a 160 acre section of the Upper East Side. However, this was shot down both because some feared the wealthy residents would benefit, and because some wealthy owners opposed their land being used.

-The second proposed site was “Central Park,” a 750 acre section in the middle of the island, although at the time it was anything but central. Most of the land, including Seneca Village, was quite rural and miles away from the main part of the city. Today, Central Park looks natural, but originally it was a fairly rugged landscape. Rocky, poor soil was commonplace throughout as were swamps, making it difficult to develop.

-143 acres of Central Park was already owned by the city. The remaining areas were assessed and taken by eminent domain in 1855. These included not only Seneca Village, but “Pitgtown” and Harsenville, among others. Most of the area was occupied by poor Irish and German immigrants. 34,000 lots were assessed by the city. Often, the landowners did quite well, the average resident offered $700 (a decent sum at the time). Andrew Williams was given $2,335, which was less than he wanted, but substantially more than the $125 he paid 3 decades prior. But as with all eminent domain, it was a violation of rights to those who didn’t want to sell or move.

-Many of the inhabitants fought to retain their lands or homes, but ultimately the city used force to remove the residents who didn’t comply. The most affected were the squatters and hog farmers, as they weren’t compensated for leaving. Most of these were poor Irish and Germans. The park was supposed to cost $1.7M but ended up costing $7.39M due to the massive difficulties in landscaping the rocky and swampy landscape. More than the US paid for the entire territory of Alaska a few years later.

-The story of Seneca Village is interesting and important, but Central Park today is 843 acres. Seneca was less than 1% of the park, the remaining sections were mostly poor Irish and German areas, city land or swamps.

https://www.nps.gov/articles/seneca-village-new-york-city.htm https://www.centralparknyc.org/blog/rediscovery-and-research-of-seneca-village https://www.nyhistory.org/seneca/park.html https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Park_and_the_People.html?id=BP-8QgAACAAJ https://www.americanheritage.com/central-park#1 | Facebook

[aion-rsa]

How F9 Brings Back Justice for Han and Asian Inclusion

https://ift.tt/3hakkfH

This article contains F9 spoilers.

One thing is for certain about the Fast and Furious film franchise—it has been a wild ride. Other aspects of the Fast Saga are less certain. Although the F9 title definitively labels the latest film as the ninth installment, it’s actually the 10th film. Or the 11th. You could even say the 12th if you include the short film. It depends how you want to count it. For a franchise laden with car chase clichés, the Fast Saga makes a lot of long, winding detours.

Consider how these movies treat death. Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) set the precedent by ‘dying’ back in Fast & Furious (aka Fast & Furious 4) only to return in Fast & Furious 6, working for the other side. Coincidentally, at the end of that film, there was a major reveal about Han (Sung Kang). The character was introduced in the third film in the series, The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift, but dies about three quarters of the way through the film. Yet he then reappears in the next three Fast and Furious movies, which were set before Tokyo Drift. The circumstances of his death were clarified in Fast & Furious 6. Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw killed Han. Now those events have been clarified even more in F9, thanks to returning director Justin Lin. As it turns out, Han didn’t die at all.

F9 is the fifth Fast and Furious film directed by Lin, and by design, Han Jue’s story arc is the central thread for all five Lin installments. Tokyo Drift was Lin’s first Fast film, as well as the franchise’s sharpest turn. It was almost an entirely new cast in a new setting. Lin stayed on to direct the following three installments. To keep Han’s story going, he shifted gears and jumped back in time. Just like with Star Wars, Fast & Furious through Fast & Furious 6 comprised a prequel trilogy, so the order in which the Fast Saga films were released doesn’t match the story’s timeline. The second film, 2 Fast 2 Furious, is followed chronologically by the fourth, Fast & Furious. The next two are in order: Fast Five followed by Fast & Furious 6. Then comes the third release, Tokyo Drift where Han dies. Fast & Furious 6 and Tokyo Drift take place more or less at the same time. Even the beginning of Furious 7 overlaps with the final events of Tokyo Drift.

After stepping away from the franchise for its seventh and eight films, Lin is back in the driver’s seat in F9, which is why Han is also back. However, Han has always been riding with Lin, even predating his involvement in Fast and Furious lore…

High School Han

In 2002, Lin directed the critically-acclaimed Better Luck Tomorrow. That film also starred Sung Kang in the role of Han. It was a story about four overachieving Asian teenagers who start selling cheat sheets and subsequently fall into the gangster lifestyle of drugs and crime. It was loosely based on the murder of Stuart Tay. Tay was an Asian teenager who was killed by his fellow high schoolers when they thought he would betray a computer heist they were planning. The murderers were college-bound with Ivy League potential, and the story was branded as “the honor roll murder” by the Orange County register. In Lin’s interpretation, Han is one of the murderers.

Widely hailed as a benchmark film for Asian-American representation, Better Luck Tomorrow won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance where it was rigorously celebrated by Roger Ebert, which led to MTV acquiring it. 

When Lin took on Tokyo Drift, he wanted to add a cool Asian character into the mix. He tapped Kang to reprise the role of Han, albeit an incarnation of Han that was tailored to the franchise. The Better Luck Tomorrow Han is young and brash. Han is a teenager, although Kang was 30 he first played him. In Tokyo Drift, Han is older and wiser, a mentor to the film’s protagonist Sean (Lucas Black). Nevertheless, there are connections that make the character whole. The Better Luck Tomorrow Han is a chain smoker. In Fast Five, Han’s girlfriend Gisele (Gal Gadot in her first feature film). She attributes Han’s constant need to occupy his hand to being a former smoker. Tokyo Drift was only four years after Better Luck Tomorrow but the character of Han aged considerably.

Why Han Matters

The Fast Saga currently ranks as the seventh highest grossing film franchise in the world. And unlike the other top-earners,  these movies were arguably the most diverse and inclusive from the onset. While the MCU has Black Panther and the upcoming Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and Star Wars introduced Finn (John Boyega) in its third trilogy, those casts remain predominantly white. In fact, the top 25 top grossing global franchises are all led by white casts. Fast and Furious is the exception. This makes Han the most prominent Asian character in a Hollywood franchise in the world.

What’s more, Han is cool. Until very recently, most Asian Hollywood roles were stereotypical or tokens. Han a richly developed character, even if Better Luck Tomorrow is disregarded. In Tokyo Drift, he’s a wealthy elite street racer with his own garage packed with awesome cars, attached to a club where he’s surrounded by gorgeous women. That was an unprecedented role for how Asian characters were presented in mainstream Hollywood entertainment in the 2000s.

Han’s relationship with Giselle is also extraordinary. While there is a long cinematic history of white men hooking up with Asian women, it was extremely rare for an Asian man to kiss white woman in Hollywood cinema. Han and Giselle become an item in 2009 with Fast & Furious. The following year, it was a huge deal for Jackie Chan’s interracial kiss with Amber Valletta in The Spy Next Door.

Jackie claimed it was his first onscreen kiss and he was already well past a hundred films to his credit at that time, although most of them were China-made. Han got to snog Wonder Woman onscreen before anyone else, including Chris Pine, and if that’s not cool, what is?

Lin carried another actor over from Better Luck Tomorrow. Jason Tobin played Virgil Hu, Han’s cousin and another one of the murderous teens. Virgil is the biggest punk of the gang. In Tokyo Drift, Tobin plays Earl Hu, one of Han’s friends and a master mechanic. Is the Hu surname a coincidence? Not likely for Lin. Tobin also appears as Young Jun in the Bruce Lee inspired TV series Warrior, where Lin is an executive producer alongside Lee’s daughter Shannon. Again Tobin plays a punk gangster. Tobin reprises Earl in F9. 

Beyond Hollywood inclusion and representation where Han really matters is global box office. Hollywood was another COVID casualty. During the pandemic, the United States was dethroned as the biggest box office in the world. As of right now, China claims that title. Perhaps this is one reason F9 premiered there first, as well as in other Asian regions along with the Middle East.

Read more

Movies

Fast and Furious Timeline Explained (Including F9)

By David Crow

Movies

Hollywood Execs Are Crediting Fast and Furious with Growing Embrace of Diversity

By David Crow

It’s been out for over a month and has already grossed $203 million in China alone, plus an additional $8.8 million in the other markets at the time of the U.S. premiere. Thanks to this, F9 is already the fourth highest earner in the world in 2021. It is right behind Godzilla v Kong, but both of them are trailing behind two Chinese blockbusters that most American are completely unaware of yet, Detective Chinatown 3 and Hi, Mom. 

The Fast Saga’s rise has a lot to do with its international appeal, culminating with winning over Chinese audiences. It was under Lin’s steady hand that the franchise became a global player. Adding Han brought Asian representation to an already diverse cast. Tokyo Drift passed an international milestone where the film made more outside of the U.S. in the foreign markets—$33.9 million more. This disparity widened with each successive movie, so by the time Fast & Furious 6 rolled around, the international earnings accounts for nearly 70 percent of the total box office, and the door was open to that lucrative Chinese market.

Furious 7 was the first of the franchise to be shown in China and blew up there with a record-setting $390 million take, earning the title as the biggest non-Chinese film in the country at the time. That helped to elevate the worldwide box office past $1.5 billion, with over 76 percent of it coming from international earnings. The Fate of the Furious did even better, breaking its own record as China’s top-earning foreign film with $392 million, and the international box office accounted for 81 percent of the worldwide take. 

Lin is smart to bring Han back. And if he really wants to appeal to that Chinese market, he’ll boost Virgil Hu’s role in F10. Han is Korean. Hu is Chinese. Tobin has appeared in Chinese films previously, including Jackie Chan’s Rob-B-Hood so the Chinese audience is familiar with him. 

Justice for Han

At the end of the previous installment, The Fate of the Furious, Shaw is awkwardly accepted into Dom’s cookout. Fans of Han Jue and the franchise were outraged. How does Han’s murderer become part of the club? This triggered the Twitter movement #justiceforhan. Now that we know Shaw didn’t murder Han, it’s up to Lin to decide what happens in F10, which he is slated to direct next (it still doesn’t resolve Shaw’s acceptance at the barbecue because Dom’s gang still believed Han was dead then).

Perhaps it’s all some grand scheme by Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell). With the Fast Saga, so much is uncertain, even Han’s name.

For F10, a confrontation between Han and Shaw seems inevitable, especially with F9’s post-credits cameo showing Shaw. Perhaps the next film will finally give enough closure for Shaw to earn his seat at the table, or for Han to banish him from it.

At the end of F9, when the car drives up to fill the empty seat at the barbecue table, it’s uncertain who the driver is. Maybe it’s Jakob (John Cena), Dom’s newly introduced brother in F9. Maybe it’s Shaw coming back for seconds, or maybe Brian O’Conner (although reviving the late Paul Walker digitally again would be tacky now). Maybe it’s even Giselle (sure, Giselle ‘died’ in Fast & Furious 6 but if Gadot came back, just think of how many tickets they’d sell). Fast and Furious is full to twisty turns, like any good car chase. But with Lin in the driver’s seat, Han is sure to get the justice he deserves.

F9: The Fast Saga opened only in theaters on Friday, June 25.

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The post How F9 Brings Back Justice for Han and Asian Inclusion appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3jejd1g

[thisblogisalsoboundforglory]

WHAT I HAVE BEEN READING LATELY

Kage Baker’s Company Series

In the Garden of Iden

Sky Coyote

Mendoza in Hollywood

The Graveyard Game

The Life of the World to Come

The Children of the Company

The Machine's Child

The Sons of Heaven

The Empress of Mars

Not Less than Gods

Nell Gwynne's On Land and At Sea

Black Projects, White Knights: The Company Dossiers

Gods and Pawns

In the Company of Thieves

Ø  Science Fiction written by a woman with Asperger’s. Wildly uneven. Main protagonist is female, but there are lots of POV characters, male and female.

Ø  Big ideas.

Ø  Lots of adventure, some action.

Ø   Small doses of humor.

 Neil Gaiman

Good Omens (with Sir Terry Pratchett)

Neverwhere

Stardust

American Gods

Anansi Boys

The Graveyard Book

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Ø  Neil’s books are a road trip with Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell and a baggie full of sativa.

Ø  Ideas are incidental. The Milieu’s in charge.

Ø  Adventure happens whether you like it or not.

Ø   Cosmic humor. The joke’s on us.

 Connie Willis’s Oxford Time Travel Series

Firewatch

Doomsday Book

To Say Nothing of the Dog (and the novel that inspired it – Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat)

Blackout/All Clear

Assorted:

The Last of the Winnebagos

Ø  Connie loves her historical research. Blackout/All Clear actually lasts as long as the Blitz, but anything in the Oxford Time Travel series is worth reading. Doomsday Book reads like prophecy in retrospect.

Ø  One idea: Hi! This is the human condition! How fucking amazing is that?!?

Ø  Gut-punch adventure with extra consequences. Background action.

Ø   I’d have to say that Doomsday Book is the funniest book about the black death I’ve ever read, which isn’t saying much. To Say Nothing of the Dog is classic farce, though. Girl’s got range.

Neal Stephenson

Snow Crash (After the apocalypse, the world will be ruled by Home-Owners Associations. Be afraid.)

Cryptonomicon

Anathem

Seveneves

Ø  Neal writes big, undisciplined, unfocused books that keep unfolding in your mind for months after you’ve read them. He’s a very guy-type writer, in spite of a female protagonist or two. Seveneves, be warned, starts out brilliant and devolves into extreme meh.

Ø  Big. Fucking. Ideas.

Ø  Battles, crashes, fistfights, parachute jumps, nuclear powered motorcycles and extreme gardening action. Is there an MPAA acronym for that?

Ø   Humor dry enough to be garnished with two green olives on a stick.

  Christopher Moore

Pine Cove Series:

Practical Demonkeeping

The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror (Okay, yeah, Christmas. But Christmas with zombies, so that’s all right.)

Fluke (Not strictly Pine Cove, but in the same universe. Ever wonder why whales sing? They’re ordering Pastrami sandwiches. I’m not kidding.)

Death Merchant Chronicles:

A Dirty Job

Secondhand Souls (Best literary dogs this side of Jack London)

Coyote Blue (Kind of an outlier. Overlapping characters)

Shakespeare Series:

Fool

The Serpent of Venice

Shakespeare for Squirrels

Assorted:

Island of the Sequined Love Nun (Cargo cults with Pine Cove crossovers. I have a theory that the characters in this book are direct descendants of certain characters in Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon.)

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal (So I have a favorite first-century wonder rabbi. Who doesn’t?)

Sacre Bleu

Noir

Ø  Not for the squeamish, the easily offended, or those who can’t lovingly embrace the fact that the human species is pretty much a bunch of idiots snatching at moments of grace.

Ø  No big ideas whatever. Barely any half-baked notions.

Ø  Enthusiastic geek adventure. Action as a last resort.

Ø   Nonstop funny from beginning to end.

 Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London Series

Rivers of London

Moon Over Soho

Whispers Under Ground

Broken Homes

Foxglove Summer

The Hanging Tree

The Furthest Station

Lies Sleeping

The October Man

False Value

Tales From the Folly

Ø  Lean, self-deprecating police procedurals disguised as fantasy novels. Excellent writing.

Ø  These will not expand your mind. They might expand your Latin vocabulary.

Ø  Crisply described action, judiciously used. Whodunnit adventure. It’s all about good storytelling.

Ø  Generous servings of sly humor. Aaronovitch is a geek culture blueblood who drops so many inside jokes, there are websites devoted to indexing them.

  John Scalzi

Old Man’s War Series:

Old Man’s War

Questions for a Soldier

The Ghost Brigades

The Sagan Diary

The Last Colony

Zoe’s Tale

After the Coup

The Human Division

The End of All Things

Ø  Star Trek with realpolitik instead of optimism.

Ø  The Big Idea is that there’s nothing new under the sun. Nor over it.

Ø  Action-adventure final frontier saga with high stakes.

Ø  It’s funny when the characters are being funny, and precisely to the same degree that the character is funny.

Assorted:

The Dispatcher

Murder by Other Means

Redshirts (Star Trek, sideways, with occasional optimism)

Ø  Scalzi abandons (or skewers) his space-opera tendencies with these three little gems of speculative fiction. Scalzi’s gift is patience. He lets the scenario unfold like a striptease.

Ø  What-if thought experiments that jolt the brain like espresso shots.

Ø  Action/misadventure as necessary to accomplish the psychological special effects.

Ø  Redshirts is satire, so the humor is built-in, but it’s buried in the mix.

  David Wong/Jason Pargin

John Dies at the End

This Book is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don’t Touch It

What the Hell Did I Just Read?

Ø  Pargin clearly starts his novels with a handful of arresting scenes and images, then looses the characters on an unsuspecting world to wander wither they will.

Ø  Ideas aren’t as big or obvious as Heinlein, but they are there to challenge all your assumptions in the same way that Heinlein’s were.

Ø  Classic action/adventure for anyone raised on Scooby-Doo.

Ø  Occasional gusts of humor in a climate that’s predominantly tongue-in-cheek.

 Jodi Taylor’s Chronicles of St. Mary’s Series

Just One Damned Thing After Another

The Very First Damned Thing

A Symphony of Echoes

When a Child is Born*

A Second Chance

Roman Holiday*

A Trail Through Time

Christmas Present*

No Time Like the Past

What Could Possible Go Wrong?

Ships and Stings and Wedding Rings*

Lies, Damned Lies and History

The Great St Mary’s Day Out*

My Name is Markham*

And the Rest is History

A Perfect Storm*

Christmas Past*

An Argumentation of Historians

The Battersea Barricades*

The Steam Pump Jump*

And Now for Something Completely Different*

Hope for the Best

When Did You Last See Your Father?*

Why Is Nothing Ever Simple*

Plan For The Worst

The Ordeal of the Haunted Room

Ø  The * denotes a short story or novella. Okay, try to imagine Indiana Jones as a smartassed redheaded woman with a time machine and a merry band of full contact historians. I love history, and I especially love history narrated by a woman who can kick T. Rex ass.

Ø  The ideas are toys, not themes. Soapy in spots.

Ø  Action! Adventure! More action! More adventure! Tea break. Action again!

Ø  Big, squishy dollops of snort-worthy stuff.

 Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell Series

The Beekeeper's Apprentice

A Monstrous Regiment of Women

A Letter of Mary

The Moor

Jerusalem

Justice Hall

The Game

Locked Rooms

The Language of Bees

The God of the Hive

Beekeeping for Beginners

Pirate King

Garment of Shadows

Dreaming Spies

The Marriage of Mary Russell

The Murder of Mary Russell

Mary Russell's War And Other Stories of Suspense

Island of the Mad

Riviera Gold

The Art of Detection (Strictly speaking, this is in the action!lesbian Detective Kate Martinelli series, but it crosses over to the Sherlock Holmes genre. If you’ve ever wondered how Holmes would deal with the transgendered, this is the book.)

Ø  Sherlock Holmes retires to Sussex, keeps bees, marries a nice Jewish girl who is smarter than he is and less than half his age and he’s mentored since she was fifteen in an extremely problematic power dynamic relationship that should repulse me but doesn’t, somehow, because this is the best Sherlock Holmes pastiche out there. Mary should have been a rabbi, but it is 1920, so she learns martial arts and becomes an international detective instead. Guest appearances by Conan Doyle, Kimball O’Hara, T.E. Lawrence, Cole Porter, and the Oxford Comma.

Ø  Nothing mind-expanding here, unless the levels of meta present in a fictional world that is about how the fictional world might not be as fictional as you thought come as a surprise to anyone in the era of tie-in books, films, tv, interactive social media and RPGs.

Ø  If these two geniuses can’t catch the bad guys with their dazzling brilliance, they will happily kick some ass. Adventure takes center stage and the action sequences are especially creative.

Ø  Amusement is afoot.

 Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next Series

The Eyre Affair

Lost in a Good Book

The Well of Lost Plots

Something Rotten

First Among Sequels

One of Our Thursdays is Missing

The Woman Who Died a Lot

Ø  In a world where Librarians are revered and Shakespeare is more popular than the Beatles, someone has to facilitate the weekly anger-management sessions for the characters of Wuthering Heights, if only to keep them from killing each other before the novel actually ends. That someone is Thursday Next – Literature Cop.

Ø  Mind-bending enough to give Noam Chomsky material for another hundred years.

Ø  Adventure aplenty. Action? Even the punctuation will try to kill you.

Ø  This is a frolicsome look at humorous situations filled with funny people. Pretty much a full house in the laugh department.

 Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Series/City Watch Arc

Guards! Guards!

Men at Arms

Feet of Clay

Jingo

The Fifth Elephant

Night Watch

Thud!

Snuff

Raising Steam

Ø  If this were a game of CLUE, the answer would be Niccolo Machiavelli in Narnia with a Monty Python. Everything you think you know about books with dragons and trolls and dwarves and wizards is expertly ripped to shreds and reassembled as social satire that can save your soul, even if it turns out you don’t really have one. Do not be fooled by the Tolkien chassis – there’s a Vonnegut-class engine at work.

Ø  Caution: Ideas in the Mirror Universe May be Larger Than They Appear

Ø  The City Watch arc has plenty of thrilling action sequences. Some other of the fifty-million Discworld novels have less. Every one of them is nonstop adventure. Most of the adventure, however, takes the form of characters desperately trying to avoid thrilling action sequences.

Ø  Funny? Even though I’ve read every book in the series at least ten times, I still have to make sure I have cold packs on hand in case I laugh so hard I rupture something.

[allypacino]

15,22,25

Thank you for the ask <3 I RANTED ranted so I'm putting all of it under the line.

I've seen up to 4x20 so far and I think my favourite episode thus far might be "What Is and What Should Never Be" in season 2, the djinn episode (2x20).

I've put some thoughts into this and I think that this might be my favorite example of early SPN for me. Although it deviates from the norm, the general premise still rests within the monster of the week format while allowing for some of the best character exploration of the series. Don't get me wrong, 4x16 lives in my head rent free and I am always thinking about rebelling against authorfathergod, the theological implications of having the work of angels be undone by a leaky pipe, the holiness that lies in fallibility yada yada but I'm aware that the precarious, dizzying potential Supernatural carried did not mean that the episode itself was perfect on paper. On that level, I thought that 2x20 executed its storytelling really well.

It was during a time where the narrative predominantly relied on Sam as the audience-insert protagonist, and having Dean be the one who we relied on was a fascinating change of pace. The show was famously dark during this period with its lighting and the episode flipped it on its head, letting us see Dean's dream world - and get this. John Winchester is dead and Dean and Sam are estranged.

This literally drives me CRAZY. Even in an ideal world John is not around. What does that mean for Dean, who idolised his dad and copied everything he did? It suddenly introduced this fascinating fold in Dean's characterisation, and allowed for the deconstruction of the nuclear family. Paradise is not just mom and dad and two dogs, paradise depends on the people. And Dean was deep down self-aware enough to know that John, as he knew him, would not fit in. He's always been aware, and even though this was season 2, where he was in throes of guilt over the death of his father, he still couldn't see a way he'd be back.

But the saddest part of the episode is how he felt distanced from Sam. His brother meant everything to him, and here they barely spoke to each other. It was clear that the Dean in this universe was a troublemaking alcoholic. Was he afraid that hunting was the only thing he and Sam had in common? Did he think that he was so awful and worthless that without their trauma that bound them together, he'd be cut out of their lives? Was he relieved that he and Sam had their individual lives? It was devastating to see. Oh toxic codependency we're really in it now!!

Apart from the characterisation, the plot was neatly done and I was genuinely kinda scared by the ghostly visions in this a couple of times. So good job on the horror for back when this was a horror show!

So I think that s1-5 are all about the legacy of John Winchester. Even after his death his shadow looms over the entire show. In many ways this show is about John Winchester, because this show is about authorfathergod. Everything is about what John Winchester left behind and every episode is about Sam and Dean dealing with the implications of John Winchester's decisions to give his life or leave them behind or teach them that they need to suck it up. Every couple of episodes Sam and Deam argue about what dad would do and what it means to be made in your father's image, what it means to have always been destined to be cursed, or carry the anger or the stubbornness. Begotten not made. Where did John come from? And is it your father's fault or your father's father's fault, and will you deal with that or will you take his lessons and pass it on. Is it your duty to honour thy father or is it your mission to rebel. Is your religion only your religion because it was passed down to you by your dad? Do you believe in God or do you believe in the fear of God your father put in you? Who is God but a negligent father. Neither of them answer your prayers.

John was in the navy and his militaristic parenting method and the ruthlessness with which he treated monsters defined the tone of the show in its early days. I read yesterday that s1-2 of spn were the most requested dvds by this military division in? Like 2007? And honestly that's the problem!!! The entire show refuses to address the humanisation of monsters and presents them as almost unambiguously evil, with the protagonists never truly confronting what it means to kill the innocent but different. That's the military! John's navy background, in this way, literally sets up one of the primary flaws of the entire show. The inability to see the enemy as worthy of life because they are inherently other. Yikes yikes! As a post-9/11 show, very haunting to see the influences of the American military here knowing what's happening in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Furthermore John was just... A really bad parent. He never celebrated christmas with his sons (let alone any Jewish holidays, I'm assuming, even though Mary had Jewish ancestors), never even took Dean (or Sam) to a baseball game. He neglected his very young children and made Dean the parent of the household, and punished him by sending him away if he strayed from his orders. He was a goddamn drill sergeant and gave his sons so many issues. He told Dean to kill Sam before he died. He never said he was proud of them. And yeah, he drove out to see Sam at Stanford and also gave his life for Dean, but the guy was terrible at raising his kids.

The thing is that John is a righteous man. He's supposed to have never broken in hell, he saved countless lives, he's like the ultimate hero that Sam and Dean can't live up to. And on a narrative level... That's such a cop out, man. This is a character written for those who can't bring themselves to care, or be responsible to their loved ones, but go "I would die for you and I would kill for you". You know the ones. And maybe they even could. But it doesn't matter, because people are in fact nuanced and sacrificial acts of love does not make up for the years of neglect he put his kids through. But yeah, he's complicated. In "In the Beginning" we see how he was such a hopeful mechanic, far removed from what we know him as, but then you think back to the pilots and you remember how the beer bottles started before any demonic activity, and you know that the picturesque family John hammered into Sam and Dean like a religion was never going to last.

I do think some writers were fully aware of his flaws whereas some loved him as a dad, but in many ways I think that that's totally in character for Sam and Dean, who loved their father regardless of everything yet knew that he was an obsessed bastard. Spn is such an inconsistent show that I feel like the story can get so thin sometimes that the secret good version of supernatural is one step away from breaking out from underneath it. I love it no I don't I do <3

I've said a lot about Sam and Dean BUT my favorite character is Castiel so i am at a direct disadvantage having only seen up to 4x20 here! I have a special love for season 2 because it has a lot of my fave motws, and also ended on a really devastating note of Dean making the hell deal, and I like pain. But Castiel Angel of the Lord is in s4 and also this season has legit been really good. I feel like s5 might be my favorite season from what I know of it though. In conclusion... Idk!!! I love Cas but post-hell Sam and Dean are so miserable. Maybe I'd love Dabb era domesticity instead.

Muchtothinkabout.jpeg I am sorry for procrastinating this for 24 hrs and i'm sorry for this long ass ramble <3 hope it's a little entertaining

[alex-thedominicanrepublic5]

10 Interesting Novels

   ¨ How to drown in a glass of water¨ by Angie cruz 

Cara Romero thought she would work at the factory of little lamps for the rest of her life. But when, in her mid-50s, she loses her job in the Great Recession, she is forced back into the job market for the first time in decades. Set up with a job counselor, Cara instead begins to narrate the story of her life.

¨ Clap when you land¨ by Elizabeth Acevedo 

Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people…

¨After Life¨  by Julia Alvarez

Antonia Vega, the immigrant writer at the center of Afterlife, has had the rug pulled out from under her. She has just retired from the college where she taught English when her beloved husband, Sam, suddenly dies.

¨ The secret footprints¨ by Julia Alvarez 

The Dominican legend of the ciguapas, creatures who lived in underwater caves and whose feet were on backward so that humans couldn't follow their footprints, is reinvented by renowned author Julia Alvarez.

¨Neruda on the park¨ by Cleyvis Natera 

The Guerreros have lived in North Park, a predominantly Dominican part of New York City, for twenty years. When demolition begins on a neighboring tenement, Eusebia, an elder of the community, takes matters into her own hands by devising an increasingly dangerous series of schemes to stop construction of the luxury condos.

¨ Pirate Hunters treasure , obsession and the search for a legendary pirate ship¨ by RObert Kurson

Finding and identifying a pirate ship is the hardest thing to do under the sea. But two men—John Chatterton and John Mattera—are willing to risk everything to find the Golden Fleece, the ship of the infamous pirate Joseph Bannister. At large during the Golden Age of Piracy in the seventeenth century, Bannister’s exploits would have been more notorious than Blackbeard’s, more daring than Kidd’s, but his story, and his ship, have been lost to time.

¨Song of the water saints¨ by Nelly Rosario 

"The circle of myth, history, longing, and grief in "Song of the Water Saints" will envelop the reader as it does the lives of Nelly Rosario's beautifully realized characters."

--Maureen Howard, author of "A Lover's Almanac"

Poetic, transporting, and heartbreaking, this debut novel traces the lives of three generations of courageous Dominican women.

¨ The Farming of Bones¨ by Edwidge Danticat 

The Farming of Bones begins in 1937 in a village on the Dominican side of the river that separates the country from Haiti. Amabelle Desir, Haitian-born and a faithful maidservant to the Dominican family that took her in when she was orphaned, and her lover Sebastien, an itinerant sugarcane cutter, decide they will marry and return to Haiti at the end of the cane season.

¨Tentacle¨ By Rita Indiana 

Lucked from her life on the streets of post-apocalyptic Santo Domingo, young maid Acilde Figueroa finds herself at the heart of a Santería prophecy: only she can travel back in time and save the ocean – and humanity – from disaster. But first she must become the man she always was – with the help of a sacred anemone.

¨The feast of the goat¨ by  Mario Vargas Llosa

Haunted all her life by feelings of terror and emptiness, forty-nine-year-old Urania Cabral returns to her native Dominican Republic - and finds herself reliving the events of 1961, when the capital was still called Trujillo City and one old man terrorized a nation of three million people. 

All from https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/dominican-republic

[newstfionline]

Thursday, January 21, 2021

Biden takes the helm as president (AP) Joe Biden became the 46th president of the United States on Wednesday, declaring that “democracy has prevailed” as he took the helm of a deeply divided nation. The chilly Washington morning was dotted with snow flurries, but the sun emerged just before Biden took the oath of office, the quadrennial ceremony persevering even though it was encircled by security forces and devoid of crowds because of the coronavirus pandemic. “The will of the people has been heard, and the will of the people has been heeded. We’ve learned again that democracy is precious and democracy is fragile. At this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed,” Biden said. Biden came to office with a well of empathy and resolve born by personal tragedy as well as a depth of experience forged from more than four decades in Washington. At age 78, he was the oldest president inaugurated. More history was made at his side, as Kamala Harris became the first woman to be vice president. The former U.S. senator from California is also the first Black person and the first person of South Asian descent elected to the vice presidency and will become the highest-ranking woman ever to serve in government.

A capital under siege (NYT) A presidential inauguration in the United States is usually a celebration of democracy. But when American democracy is under siege, an inauguration can have a very different feel. That’s also been true in the past. 1861: Several Southern states seceded after Abraham Lincoln’s election, and one newspaper described fears that “armed bands” would try to thwart his inauguration. A plot to kill Lincoln forced him to sneak into Washington in the early morning. On Inauguration Day, cavalry members flanked Lincoln’s procession, soldiers blocked streets and roof-mounted snipers eyed the crowd. 1865: Washington was a grim wartime city for Lincoln’s second inauguration, having endured waves of smallpox and torrential recent rains. The crowd that day stood in mud “almost knee deep.” Lincoln rode in an open carriage, with a military escort of both Black and white troops. The actor John Wilkes Booth, soon to become Lincoln’s assassin, was in the crowd that day. 1945: Security concerns and wartime austerity turned Franklin Roosevelt’s fourth inauguration into “the simplest inauguration on record” with “the smallest ever” crowd, The Times wrote. The public portions of the event lasted just 15 minutes, partly because Roosevelt was ailing. He trembled as he stood on the South Portico of the White House to deliver a brief address. Less than three months later, he would die of a cerebral hemorrhage. By the end of that summer, the U.S. had won the wars in both Europe and Asia.

Trump bids farewell to Washington, hints of comeback (AP) His term at an end, President Donald Trump said farewell to Washington on Wednesday but also hinted about a comeback. “So just a goodbye. We love you,” Trump told supporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland where he walked across a red carpet and boarded Air Force One to head to Florida. “We will be back in some form.” Trump departed office as the only president ever impeached twice, and with millions more out of work than when he was sworn in and 400,000 dead from the coronavirus. Under his watch, Republicans lost the presidency and both chambers of Congress. He will be remembered for an attack on the Capitol that left five dead, including a Capitol Police officer, and horrified the nation. The first president in modern history to boycott his successor’s inauguration, Trump is still stewing about his loss and maintains that election won by Biden was stolen from him. Republican officials in several critical states, members of his own administration and a wide swath of judges, including those appointed by Trump, have rejected those arguments.

Final designation (Washington Post) On his last full day in office, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that China had committed “genocide” and “crimes against humanity” through a campaign of internment, forced labor and forced sterilization of predominantly Muslim Uighurs in the Xinjiang region. In an embarrassing blow to Beijing, Pompeo said Tuesday that the United States has documented a dramatic escalation in China’s “decades-long” campaign of repression against Uighurs and other ethnic and religious minorities since at least March 2017. The “morally repugnant, wholesale policies, practices, and abuses are designed systematically to discriminate against and surveil ethnic [Uighurs] as a unique demographic and ethnic group, restrict their freedom to travel, emigrate, and attend schools, and deny other basic human rights of assembly, speech, and worship,” Pompeo said in a statement. The move is likely to put further strain on the world’s two largest economies, whose relations plunged to their lowest depths during the Trump administration.

After historic unpopularity of Trump in Western Europe, new poll suggests broad approval of Biden (Washington Post) New polling data from Europe shows that large majorities among key U.S. allies hold a positive view of President-elect Joe Biden, suggesting a significant shift in European perceptions of the U.S. presidency as Trump’s term comes to a close. But polling data also suggests some potentially troubling trends for transatlantic relations after four years of strained partnership, with indications that European publics believe Chinese power has grown over that of the United States under Trump. Biden, who is set to be inaugurated as president Wednesday, is expected to “do the right thing regarding world affairs” by 79 percent of Germans, 72 percent of the French and 65 percent of Britons, according to polling conducted by the Pew Research Center late last year and published Tuesday. The high ratings for Biden in Western Europe’s largest countries form a stark contrast to those for his predecessor: Pew found that levels of confidence in Trump in Germany, France and Britain were just 10 percent, 11 percent and 19 percent respectively. The U.S. leader has clashed with his European counterparts on issues including trade and military spending, has been greeted with large protests during visits to European capitals, and has waged a war of words with elected officials in Britain and France.

Dutch government to introduce first curfew since World War II (Reuters) The Dutch government is set to add the first nationwide curfew since World War II to its already broad lockdown on Wednesday in a bid to limit the spread of new coronavirus mutations in the Netherlands, broadcaster RTL said. The curfew would allow only people with pressing needs to leave their homes between 8:30 p.m. and 4:30 a.m. local time as of Friday night, RTL said, citing government sources. Schools and non-essential shops have already been closed since mid-December, following the shutdown of bars and restaurants two months earlier. This lockdown will remain in place until at least Feb. 9, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said.

Madrid blast kills 3; apparently linked to gas leak (AP) A powerful explosion apparently caused by a gas leak ripped the facade off a residential building in central Madrid on Wednesday, killing three people and injuring six more, according to the mayor. The first images and footage shared on social media showed a tower of smoke coming out from the six-story building and rubble scattered in Toledo Street, near the city center. Emergency crews could be seen aiding several people on the ground.

Indian village cheers for Harris before swearing-in as US VP (AP) A tiny, lush-green Indian village surrounded by rice paddy fields was beaming with joy Wednesday hours before its descendant, Kamala Harris, takes her oath of office and becomes the U.S. vice president. Harris is set to make history as the first woman, first woman of color and first person of South Asian descent to hold the vice presidency. In her maternal grandfather’s hometown of Thulasendrapuram, about 350 kilometers (215 miles) from the southern coastal city of Chennai, people were jubilant and gearing up for celebrations. “We are feeling very proud that an Indian is being elected as the vice president of America,” said Anukampa Madhavasimhan, a teacher. Harris’ grandfather moved to Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu state, decades ago. Harris’ late mother was also born in India, before moving to the U.S. to study at the University of California. She married a Jamaican man, and they named their daughter Kamala, a Sanskrit word for “lotus flower.”

Businesses reopen as searchers dig in Indonesia quake rubble (AP) Grocery stores, gas stations and other shops were reopening Wednesday in a quake-hit Indonesian city where debris still covered streets and searchers continued to dig in the rubble for more victims. Immediate food and water needs have been met and the local government has started to function again in the hardest-hit city of Mamuju and the neighboring district of Majene on Sulawesi island, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency’s spokesperson Raditya Jati said in a statement. Thousands of people are sleeping outdoors, fearing aftershocks, and the streets of Mamuju were still covered in debris. A total of 79 people died in Mamuju and 11 in Majene from the magnitude 6.2 quake that struck early Friday. More than 30,000 people had to flee from their damaged houses, and nearly 700 others were injured.

American ‘digital nomad’ to be deported from Bali after tweets (Reuters) An American woman and self-described digital nomad will be deported from Indonesia after posting tweets that sparked a social media backlash over perceived western privilege and lack of cultural awareness, after she said Bali was “LGBT friendly”. Only 9% of Indonesians agreed that homosexuality is acceptable, according to a survey by the Pew research centre last June. In a series of tweets at the weekend, Kristen Gray wrote about the perks of her decision to move to the tropical island of Bali with her girlfriend, describing it as the “perfect medicine”, a place that was LGBT friendly, and where the low cost of living afforded her a luxurious lifestyle. After Gray was summoned for questioning on Tuesday, I Putu Surya Dharma, a spokesman for Bali’s Law and Human Rights agency, told Reuters the U.S. citizen would be deported as soon as a flight was available, and was currently being held at an immigration detention facility. Promoting her lifestyle upgrade in an e-book entitled, “Our Bali Life Is Yours”, Gray had also posted about how foreign nationals could enter Indonesia during the pandemic. Indonesia last month tightened border restrictions to stop the entry of all foreigners, with the exception of diplomats and those with existing work or residency permits, in a bid to stem the spread of more contagious variants of the novel coronavirus.

In Iran, hopes for Biden era are tempered by years of hardship and broken U.S. promises (Washington Post) Few countries have more at stake than Iran from the change in U.S. administrations. Over the last four years, the Trump administration upended the fragile bilateral relationship, threatening Iran with war, abandoning the nuclear deal Tehran struck with world powers and reimposing a near-total trade embargo. Last year, a U.S. drone strike in Iraq killed Iran’s most prominent military commander, nearly drawing the three nations into a regional conflict. For many in Iran, a Biden presidency raised the possibility of, at worst, a gentler era, and perhaps even an agreement that would lead to the lifting of sanctions, helping to ease a crippling economic crisis as Iran reels from one of the worst coronavirus pandemics in the world. But nothing was assured. President Hassan Rouhani, commented on the transition Wednesday: “The ball is in Washington’s court,” he said. “If they return to their commitments, we will also fulfill our commitments.” For normal citizens, the path forward was harder to predict, the future hard to see beyond the fog of daily privation. In recent years, as sanctions pummeled the economy, Iranians have watched their savings erode and the cost of everyday goods soar. The malaise, made worse by rampant corruption and government mismanagement, also paved the way for civil unrest. In 2019, after a government decision to raise fuel prices, Iran witnessed widespread protests and a fierce security crackdown that marked some of the worst violence in the country in years.

In Tunisia, Some Wonder if the Revolution Was Worth It (NYT) Tunisia’s dictatorship is long gone. Its president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, fled the country in January 2011 after a brutal 23-year rule, the first strongman to fall in the Arab Spring revolts that began in Tunisia and surged across the Middle East. Ten years later, Tunisians have built a democracy, however dysfunctional, complete with elections and—that rarest of Arab commodities—the right to free speech. But none of it has righted an economy heading for shipwreck. Nearly a third of young people are jobless, public services are foundering and corruption has increasingly infiltrated daily life. Opportunities for most people have become so scant, especially in Tunisia’s impoverished interior, that at least 13,000 Tunisian migrants gambled their lives crossing to Italy by boat just in the last year. “The only positive thing we got out of the revolution was the freedom to say anything we wanted,” said Ayman Fahri, 24, a trade student who said he wanted to leave Tunis, maybe for Turkey, because of the lack of opportunities at home. As for the rest of democracy, he said, “Maybe we understood freedom wrong, because we’ve made no progress in the last 10 years.”

Locust Swarms Threaten Parts Of East Africa (NPR) Aid agencies report swarms of locusts have been descending on farms in northern Kenya, destroying crops and even leaving pastures bare of vegetation. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization in a regional update on the pests says swarms have been detected this week in seven counties in Kenya compared to just four a week ago. Across the Horn of Africa locust invasions have reached dangerous levels in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya, according to the FAO. “For Kenya this is a second wave,” Hamisi Williams FAO deputy country representative for Kenya told Spice FM in Nairobi. “The first wave came in 2020 and we dealt with it.” Kenya attacked the locusts with insecticides both from individual farmers on the ground and aerial spraying from planes. But other countries in the region—ones with fewer resources and wracked by conflict including Somalia, Yemen and Ethiopia—didn’t go after the bugs as aggressively. “We are now suffering the fate of our neighbors who just didn’t do a good job for one reason or the other,” in controlling the desert-dwelling grasshoppers, Williams said.

[ladystylestores]

US nears 4 million coronavirus infections: Live updates | News

The United States is expected to pass 4 million cases of coronavirus on Thursday, amid a surge in cases, predominantly in southern and western states. 

Death toll in Iran from the novel coronavirus has surged past 15,000 as 2,621 people tested positive in the last 24 hours.

Papua New Guinea has put out a call for emergency assistance to the WHO, fearful it might be facing widespread community transmission of the disease.

More than 15 million people around the world have been diagnosed with COVID-19, and at least 8.6 million people have recovered, while more than 622,000 have died – according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Here are the updates:

Thursday, July 23

18:00 GMT – French new cases rise, death toll edges up

France’s public health authority has said there had been a significant rise in new coronavirus cases, as the number of deaths in the country continues to edge up.

The number of deaths in France from COVID-19 rose by 10 from the previous day to 30,182 – the sixth highest casualty toll in the world.

The number of confirmed, new cases rose by 1,000, a 66 percent increase in three weeks, as people adhered less to social distancing measures and increased testing led to the discovery of new clusters in parts of the country.

US: Many still awaiting promised stimulus cheque

17:30 GMT – Florida reports another record virus death toll    

Florida has reported a record daily coronavirus death toll of 173 in the latest reflection of the COVID-19 surge in America.

The state health department said there were 10,249 new cases for a total of 389,868 people infected and 5,518 fatalities.     

For nearly three weeks now Florida has been reporting more than 10,000 new cases a day. Other states in the south and west of the US are also seeing alarming increases as the country now regularly reports more than 60,000 new cases a day.

A total of 82 percent of the new fatalities in this warm, sunny state popular with retirees were over age 65. And 46 percent lived or worked in nursing homes.

17:00 GMT – US evictions set to soar as pandemic protections expire

As the coronavirus began to shut down large swaths of the US economy in March, spiralling millions of people into unemployment, a patchwork of state and federal  eviction bans  were enacted to keep people in their homes.

These protections are vanishing. Moratoriums have already expired in 29 states and are about to lapse in others. On Friday, a federal stay, which protects roughly one-third of American renters who live in buildings with mortgages backed by the federal government, will run out unless Congress acts fast.

As many as 28 million people could be evicted in the coming months, according to Emily Benfer, a visiting law professor at Wake Forest University who is the co-creator of Princeton University’s Eviction Lab, a national research centre on evictions.

Read more here. 

Housing advocates are pushing for continued protections to ensure people will not lose their homes if they fell ill with COVID-19 or lost jobs in the pandemic’s economic fallout [Ross D Franklin/AP Photo]

16:40 GMT – WHO says US Brazil and India can ‘deal with’ pandemic

The World Health Organization has said that the US, Brazil and India, which are all suffering fast rises in coronavirus cases, can still get on top of the pandemic.

They are “powerful, able, democratic countries who have tremendous internal capacities to deal with this disease”, Dr Mike Ryan, head of the WHO emergencies programme, told a Geneva briefing.

US. coronavirus cases are set to exceed 4 million on Thursday, with over 2,600 new cases recorded every hour on average, the highest rate in the world, according to a Reuters tally.

16:20 GMT – WHO chief says questioning of his independence ‘unacceptable’

The World Organization Chief has said that comments questioning his independence would not distract the organisation from its work in fighting the coronavirus.

Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has come under criticism, especially from US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who have accused him of being pro-China.

“The comments are untrue and unacceptable and without any foundation for that matter,” he said ata virtual Geneva briefing when asked about Pompeo’s comments questioning his independence.

He said politicisation was a great risk in fighting a pandemic.

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called the Trump administration allegations that he pro-China “untrue and unacceptable” [File: Fabrice Coffrini/Reuters]

16:00 GMT – Kuwait adjusts curfew, re-opens hotels 

Kuwait’s cabinet has decided to ease the Gulf country’s partial curfew slightly so that it now begins at 9PM (1800 GMT) and ends at 3 AM (midnight GMT), the country’s Center for Government Communication has said.

The country also announced on Thursday that it would enter “phase three” of its coronavirus restrictions on July 28, meaning that hotels and resorts would re-open and taxis would be able to operate.

The previous curfew had been between 8 PM (1700 GMT) and 5 AM (0200 GMT). The decision will be reviewed in a cabinet meeting after the Eid Al Adha break, the tweet said. 

Potential long-term effects of COVID-19 on human beings

15:40 GMT – Spain cases jump 2,615 amid surge in new clusters

Spain’s number of coronavirus cases jumped by 2,615 on Thursday, as the country struggles to contain a rash of fresh clusters of infections that have sprung up since the country lifted a strict lockdown a month ago.

Health ministry data showed a total of 270,166 cases on Thursday, up from 267,551 on Wednesday. Some 16,410 infections have been detected in the last 14 days, the ministry said. 

15:20 GMT – US expected to hit 4 million cases on Thursday

The United States is expected to pass 4 million cases of coronavirus on Thursday, amid a surge in cases in the southern and western states. 

The US, which is hardest hit in terms of both the number of cases and deaths, has so far recorded over 3.97 million cases and regularly been reported more than 60,000 new cases a day. 

Read more here. 

15:00 GMT – Uganda reports first death

Uganda has recorded its first death from the new coronavirus, the ministry of health said, making it one of the last nations on the continent to report a fatality since the pandemic reached it in March.

The country has to date reported just over 1,000 infections, according to John Hopkins University data. 

Global COVID-19 cases could be 12 times higher than reported

14:30 GMT – Virus fallout sends Sweden’s unemployment to highest since 1998     

The Swedish unemployment rate jumped to its highest level since 1998 in June, at nearly 10 percent, due to the economic fallout from the novel coronavirus, Statistics Sweden has said.   

The seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate among 16 to 64-year-olds, the statistics agency’s longest-running series, reached 9.4 percent last month, surpassing the nine percent peak in early 2010 in the wake of the financial crisis.

The rise has been steep: in January unemployment was still at 7.2 percent and in May it hit 8.6. The all-time high of the indicator dates back to June 1997 when it hit 11.7 percent at the end of the severe economic crisis that hit Sweden in the 1990s.     

According to unadjusted seasonal data, Sweden had 557,000 jobseekers in June, around 150,000 more than a year earlier. 

Who says face masks have to be boring?

14:00 GMT – Dutch museums say will be forced to close without gov’t support

Around 100 museums in the Netherlands warned they might have to close because of the coronavirus crisis if they don’t   receive financial support, the Dutch museum association said on Thursday. 

The association conducted a survey of its 430 member institutions, which showed that especially small museums with fewer than 40,000 yearly visitors are threatened by bankruptcy if they don’t receive the support.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the government provided 300 million euros (342 million dollars) in aid to cultural institutions, although   the money benefited mainly large museums, while small ones remain dependent on their own revenue, the association said. 

The museum association called for the government to support small cultural institutions as well. 

Streets normally full with tourists sat empty at the Zaans Museum and Zaanse Schans open air museum in March amid the coronavirus pandemic [File: Peter Dejong/The Associated Press]

13:30 GMT – Iraq infections pass 100,000 mark

Iraq’s total number of infections from the coronavirus has passed 100,000, with  health ministry reporting 102,226 cases had been recorded in the country.

At least 4,122 people have died from COVID-19 in Iraq, it said in a statement.

Iraq has often recorded more than 2,000 new cases a day in recent weeks as the spread of the virus has accelerated. 

This is Joseph Stepansky in Doha taking over from my colleague Usaid Siddiqui.

12:48 GMT – New US jobless claims rise to 1.42 mn

Claims for government benefits by newly unemployed American workers rose to 1.42 million last week, the Labor Department said, reversing weeks of declines as coronavirus cases skyrocket nationwide.

The increase defied analysts’ expectations of another weekly decrease in new claims, which spiked in March as US businesses shut down to stop the spread of coronavirus put have been dropping since.

Adding to the toll were the 974,999 people in 49 states who applied for benefits under a program for workers who would not normally be eligible – an increase of nearly 20,000 from the week prior.

A motorist is handed a bag containing information about open positions at a drive-thru job fair in Omaha, Nebraska [Nati Harnik /AP]

12:26 GMT – WHO: More than 10,000 African health workers infected

More than 10,000 health workers in 40 African countries have been infected with the novel coronavirus, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

The pandemic is gathering pace in Africa, with some 750,000 cases and more than 15,000 deaths across the continent, according to the WHO. 

“The growth we are seeing…is placing an ever greater strain on health services across the continent,” said WHO Africa director Matshidiso Moeti.

12:00 GMT – Cuba sets example with successful COVID-19 strategy

Cuba has been able to send thousands of doctors and nurses overseas to help other countries fight COVID-19.

That is because the island nation has had huge success containing the virus domestically, with a rigorous active screening campaign and strict restrictions.

Al Jazeera’s Ed Augustin reports from Havana, Cuba.

Cuba sets example with successful COVID-19 strategy

11:40 GMT – South Africa sees ‘huge discrepancy’ in virus, total deaths

The South African Medical Research Council is reporting a “huge discrepancy” between the country’s confirmed COVID-19 deaths and the number of excess deaths from natural causes, while Africa’s top health official says the virus is spreading there “like wildfire”.

The new report, which came out late Wednesday, shows more than 17,000 excess deaths in South Africa from May 6 to July 14 as compared to data from the past two years, while confirmed COVID-19 deaths are 5,940.

South Africa reimposes lockdown amid soaring COVID-19 cases

10:55 GMT – Iran death toll surges past 15,000

Iran confirmed 221 additional fatalities from the novel coronavirus, bringing the nationwide death toll to 15,074, according to the Health Ministry.

A further 2,621 people tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, raising the overall count to 284,034, ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari said.

10:24 GMT – Proportion of COVID-19 contacts traced by British scheme rises

The proportion of the contacts of coronavirus-positive cases reached by England’s test and trace system rose in its latest week of operation, figures from the health ministry showed.

The Department of Health said 3,887 positive cases had been transferred to service in the week to 15 July, with 77.9 percent of the 16,742 identified contacts reached and advised to self-isolate, up from 72 percent the previous week.

09:57 GMT – Philippines confirms 2,200 more coronavirus cases, 28 deaths

The Philippine health ministry on Thursday reported 2,200 new coronavirus infections and 28 new deaths.

In a bulletin, the ministry said total deaths had increased to 1,871 while infections rose to 74,390.

09:30 GMT – Bahrain, Qatar have highest per capita virus rate in the world

The small, neighbouring Gulf Arab nations of Bahrain and Qatar have the world’s highest per-capita rates of coronavirus infections.

In the two countries, COVID-19 epidemics initially swept undetected through camps housing healthy, young foreign labourers.

09:10 GMT – Philippine Bishop and Duterte critic tests positive for COVID-19

Renowned Manila-based Bishop Broderick Pabillo has tested positive for the coronavirus, local Philippine media outlet Rappler reported. 

In a statement, Pabillo said his staff had tested negative, and those he came in contact with had been “duly informed”. 

Pabillo who heads the Manila archdiocese, is considered the unofficial head of the Philippine Catholic Church.

JUST IN: Bishop Broderick Pabillo of Manila, outspoken critic of President Duterte, tests positive for COVID-19 @rapplerdotcom pic.twitter.com/AuuT0P5bio

— Paterno Esmaquel II (@paterno_II) July 23, 2020

08:45 GMT – The UN wants to see cash transfers go global to fight coronavirus

Introducing a temporary basic income for the world’s poorest people will not only give them the means to buy food and medicine, but could also help stop the spread of the coronavirus, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) stresses in a new report released on Thursday.

The report, Temporary Basic Income: Protecting Poor and Vulnerable People in Developing Countries, advocates for a time-bound and unconditional cash transfer to serve as a minimum income guarantee for 2.7 billion people living under or near the poverty line in 132 developing countries.

Read more here.

08:10 GMT – Philippines re-imposes non-essential international travel ban

The Philippines has reimposed a ban on non-essential travel abroad, more than two weeks after permitting touristic trips outside the country, a government spokesman said.

Filipinos were banned from all non-essential domestic and international travel from mid-March when a lockdown was imposed to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

Passengers wearing personal protective equipment for protection against COVID-19 queue at the check-in counters in Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Pasay City, Metro Manila [File: Eloisa Lopez/Reuters]

07:45 GMT – China’s Sinopharm says coronavirus vaccine could be ready by year-end – state media

A coronavirus vaccine candidate developed by China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) could be ready for public use by the end of this year, state media reported, ahead of previous expectations that it may become available in 2021.

Sinopharm Chairman Liu Jingzhen told state broadcaster CCTV the company expects to finish late-stage human testing within about three months.

Sinopharm’s China National Biotec Group (CNBG), which is responsible for two coronavirus vaccine projects, said in June the shot may not be ready until at least 2021 as a lack of new infections in China made it difficult to find people to test it on.

07:37 GMT – Germany links over 2,000 cases to slaughterhouse

A German official says authorities have now linked more than 2,000 coronavirus infections to an outbreak at a slaughterhouse last month that led to a partial lockdown in two western counties.

Regional authorities restored some coronavirus restrictions in the Guetersloh and Warendorf areas in late June after more than 1,400 people at the Toennies slaughterhouse in Rheda-Wiedenbrueck tested positive for the virus.

07:20 GMT – Australia reports highest coronavirus deaths in 3 months, infections climb

Australia reported its highest daily number of coronavirus-related deaths in three months as new infections continued to climb in its second-most populous state.

Victoria state said it had confirmed another 403 infections, while five people had died from the virus in the last 24 hours.

The fatalities, including a man in his 50s, mark the country’s biggest one-day rise in COVID-19 deaths since late April.

People wearing face masks walk while maintaining physical distance at Fitzroy Gardens in East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia [David Crosling/EPA]

07:10 GMT – Russia’s coronavirus tally nears 800,000

Russia reported 5,848 new cases of the novel coronavirus, pushing its national tally to 795,038, the fourth-largest in the world.

The country has recorded just over 12,700 deaths to date and more than 570,000 recoveries. 

06:53 GMT – South Korea reports worst economic performance in more than 20 years

South Korea’s economy recorded its worst performance in more than 20 years in the second quarter, the central bank said, as the coronavirus pandemic hammered its exports.

Asia’s fourth-largest economy contracted 2.9 percent year-on-year in the April-June period, the Bank of Korea said.

It was the fastest decline since a 3.8-percent drop in the fourth quarter of 1998, the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis.

06:20 GMT – South Africa reports new high in virus deaths

South Africa’s confirmed coronavirus cases have nearly reached 400,000 as the country reports a new daily high of 572 deaths.

South Africa is now one of the world’s top five countries in terms of reported virus cases, and it makes up more than half of the cases on the African continent with 394,948. Deaths are at 5,940.

Public hospitals are struggling as patient numbers climb, and more than 5,000 health workers have been infected.

Restaurant workers gather in Parkhurst, Johannesburg, to join a national protest organized by the Restaurant Association of South Africa (RASA) against the national lockdown regulations the government issued to fight the rise of COVID-19 [Luca Sola/AFP]

05:55 GMT – Israel names coronavirus supremo as infections grow

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has named a public health professional to head the coronavirus response, his office announced, amid mounting calls for Israel’s government to appoint a dedicated coronavirus response coordinator.

It said in a statement that the job went to Professor Ronnie Gamzu, CEO of Tel Aviv’s Sourasky medical complex, who was appointed the National Coronavirus Project Manager, his office said.

“Professor Gamzu has many years of administrative experience in the health field, including previous service as health ministry director-general,” it added.

05:20 GMT – India sets another daily record for virus cases

India’s health ministry reported a new record surge of 45,720 new coronavirus cases, taking the total tally of infections to 1,238,635.

India has recorded 685 virus deaths in the past 24 hours, as well as 444 previously unreported fatalities, bring the nationwide death toll from the pandemic to 29,861.

Many states in India have started reimposing lockdowns as health authorities struggle to trace transmissions.

India has the third-most coronavirus cases in the world after the United States and Brazil [Danish Siddiqui /Reuters]

Hi, this is Usaid Siddiqui in Doha taking over from my colleague Kate Mayberry.

05:00 GMT – Australia warns of record decline in economy

Australia says its economy is likely to shrink at its fastest pace in history in the second quarter. 

Officials expect the gross domestic product (GDP) to shrink by 7 percent in the three months ended June leaving Australia in its first recession in 30 years. The economy shrank 0.3 percent in the first quarter.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is also forecasting a record budget deficit as the government steps up spending to keep the economy going and people in work.

03:50 GMT – Papua New Guinea calls for WHO help over outbreak

Papua New Guinea has called on the WHO for help, citing a “high likelihood of expanded community transmission”. It has asked the WHO to deploy Emergency Medical Teams for an initial period of one month.

PNG is one of the poorest countries in the Pacific and has limited medical resources. It currently has 30 cases of COVID-19, compared with 11 on Sunday. Most of those affected are medical workers.

Following an increase of cases in Papua New Guinea

there is an urgent need for clinical teams (EMTs) to support the country to prepare for and manage a surge in COVID-19 cases. Read the full request for assistance here: https://t.co/wThzLdAmNh #EMTeams #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/sFt16sP6wJ

— Chantal Claravall (@ClaravallC) July 22, 2020

National pandemic response controller David Manning said the WHO was in the process of mobilising international medical teams to deploy to PNG. Manning said testing was limited beyond the capital, Port Moresby.

03:30 GMT – China reports 22 new cases – most in Xinjiang

China’s National Health Commission has reported 22 new cases of coronavirus on the mainland, most of them in the far western region of Xinjiang where mass testing is under way.

Chinese mainland reported 22 new confirmed #COVID19 cases (18 in Xinjiang), and 31 new #asymptomatic COVID-19 patients pic.twitter.com/QkmHZPY2Rg

— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) July 23, 2020

Urumqi, capital of NW China’s #Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, is carrying out free nucleic acid tests for all residents and people who are visiting the city, in a bid to screen for novel #coronavirus infections and reduce the risk of the epidemic spread. #Covid_19 pic.twitter.com/d55Dvf3GAy

— China Daily (@ChinaDaily) July 23, 2020

03:00 GMT – China offers $1bn loan for Latin America vaccine access

China will offer a $1bn loan to make any coronavirus vaccine it develops available to countries across Latin America and the Caribbean.

Mexico’s foreign ministry says China made the promise in a virtual meeting.

02:30 GMT – California overtakes New York in coronavirus cases

California has overtaken New York to record the highest number of coronavirus cases in any US state.

Health officials say the state’s total caseload now stands at 413,576 – about 4,700 cases more than in New York.

California’s death toll remains much lower, however. It has recorded 7,870 deaths since the start of the pandemic, compared with 25,068 in New York.

01:30 GMT – More records tumble in South America

Brazil and Argentina have both registered new daily records for coronavirus cases.

Brazil confirmed 67,860 cases on Wednesday, while Argentina recorded 5,782 cases. Both countries also reported more deaths from the disease, while Peru added 3,688 previously uncounted people to its death toll, lifting the total to 17,455.

Meanwhile, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has still not shaken the virus, which he once referred to as nothing more than a “little flu”. A test on Wednesday – his third – showed he still had COVID-19.

00:15 GMT – South Korea’s economy in recession as exports slump

South Korea has entered recession after exports recorded their steepest decline since 1963. The economy shrank by 3.3 percent in the three months ended June, compared with the previous quarter.

Exports account for 40 percent of South Korea’s economy, and it plunged 16.6 percent.

Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki struck an optimistic note, however. He says government spending, cash handouts and a slowing pandemic could help growth recover.

Containers at the port of Busan in South Korea on May 13, 2020 [File: Yonhap via EPA] 

00:00 GMT – Final bow? UK warns of theatre closures after lockdown

A UK parliamentary committee on arts and culture says the coronavirus lockdown has pushed British theatre to the brink of collapse.

The committee estimates that more than 15,000 theatrical performances were cancelled in the first 12 weeks of the lockdown that began on March 23, and put total losses at 603 million pounds ($768m).

The UK has about 1,100 theatres from London’s West End to smaller towns and cities around the country.

Steve Clarkson, head of maintenance and facilities at the Palace Theatre in Manchester, carries out a maintenance check of the auditorium on June 19 [File: Oli Scarff/AFP]

—

Hello and welcome to Al Jazeera’s continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. I’m Kate Mayberry in Kuala Lumpur.

Read all the updates from yesterday (July 22) here.

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Kung Fu: Inside The History of a Martial Arts Classic

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It’s been a long journey for The CW to snatch that Kung Fu pebble from the master’s (Warner Bros.) hand, but the new reboot of Kung Fu could not have come at a better time.

Issues of diversity and representation have been at the forefront of our cultural conversations for years now. The rise in Asian hate crimes – nearly a 150% increase in 2020 – has made #StopAsianHate a frequent trending topic on social media. For The CW to launch a show with a Chinese leading actress and a largely Asian cast right now makes a bold statement for inclusivity that lives up to the network’s longstanding slogan “Dare to Defy.”

What’s more, Kung Fu is promoting itself as an Asian family drama which could fill a newly opened gap. Two wildly successful Asian family sitcoms just went off the air – ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat ended its six-season run in 2020 and Kim’s Convenience announced that their final episode after a five-season run will be April 13, 2021 (In the wake of Kim’s Convenience, CBC is launching a spinoff series, Strays, following the character of Shannon Ross, the only white actor credited in show’s opening). This leaves the door wide open for Kung Fu to capture fans of Asian family dramas. Plus it’s The CW, a network that thrives on soap opera-esque dramas. 

CW’s reboot is a complete reimagining of Kung Fu, but what of the legacy of the original franchise? Will this new version bring honor to the Kwai Chang Caine a.k.a. Grasshopper? The original Kung Fu series was groundbreaking in its own way. The show garnered critical acclaim including three Primetime Emmys and two Golden Globe nominations. Even though David Carradine’s Kwai Chang Caine would be called out for whitewashing today, with its heavy reliance on Daoist philosophy, Kung Fu provided many Americans with their first taste of many aspects of Chinese culture, especially Shaolin martial arts. It also had the largest Asian supporting cast of any show for decades to come. 

The Shaolin Temple Days

When the original Kung Fu premiered in 1972, it was the right time too. The pilot was such a big hit that the network decided to show it again (remember this was long before the invention of VHS – back then your only chance to see a show was to watch it when it was broadcast). However, the second showing was preempted by President Richard Nixon shaking hands with Chairman Mao Zedong. China was opening its bamboo curtain to America at the same time Kung Fu was telecast. 

Kung Fu ran for only three seasons on ABC and yet it holds a special place in the hearts of its long standing fans. Kwai Chang Caine was a barefoot half-Asian mendicant monk from the Shaolin Temple who travelled the old west in search of his long-lost half-brother, Danny Caine (Tim McIntire). Caine was a wanted man because he took revenge. He killed the Emperor’s nephew who killed his beloved blind master, Master Po (Keye Luke). Beyond casting almost every Asian actor in the business back then, Kung Fu had an astonishing list of guest stars like Gary Busey, Jodie Foster, Harrison Ford, William Shatner, and many others. 

The Chinese Connection: Bruce Lee Vs. Kwai Chang Caine

For decades, it was rumored that Kung Fu was ripped off from martial arts legend Bruce Lee. Lee had written a treatment that was remarkably similar – a story of Chinese immigrant martial arts master who landed in America during the Wild West era. However, in the definitive biography Bruce Lee: A Life, biographer Matthew Polly uncovered substantial evidence that Warner Brothers already had Kung Fu in development prior to Lee’s pitch. Nevertheless, Lee’s daughter, Shannon Lee, claims that her father auditioned for the part of Caine and was rejected because, ironically, he was Chinese. She went on to develop her father’s treatment into Cinemax’s Warrior (another recent show with a predominantly Asian cast that was cancelled last year).

After the original show ended, Carradine returned to the iconic role of Caine several times. In 1986, Kung Fu: The Movie aired on ABC, reuniting Carradine with Keye Luke and introducing Caine’s estranged son Chung Wang. Even more ironic, Chung Wang was played by none other than Bruce Lee’s son, Brandon Lee. 

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Kung Fu: The Movie was a steppingstone towards a spinoff series attempt, Kung Fu: The Next Generation, with Brandon Lee playing Johnny Caine. Carradine was not involved in this series. Set in modern times instead of the Old West, Johnny Caine was the great grandson of Kwai Chang Caine, but not the Kwai Chang Caine of the original series. The TNG Kwai Chang Caine was named for his great-grandfather – Carradine’s original character – and played by David Darlow. Brandon Lee was cast as both Kwai Chang Caine’s son and his great great great great grandson. Kung Fu: The Next Generation was not picked up. It was only telecast on an unusual short-lived TV showcase called CBS Summer Playhouse, which ran failed pilots every week. Six years later, Brandon Lee died in a tragic on set accident while filming The Crow.

Twenty years after the original series, David Carradine reprised the role of Kwai Chang Caine, or rather the grandson of Kwai Chang Caine, also named Kwai Chang Caine (not the father of the TNG Kwai Chang Caine because the failure of the pilot removed it from canon). That was the first real reboot of the series – Kung Fu: The Legend Continues. Set in modern times again, Caine was paired with a new son, Detective Peter Caine (Chris Potter). The series ran for four seasons, logging twenty-four more episodes than the original. 

After that, Carradine never returned to Caine. He went on to promote martial arts with his book, Spirit of Shaolin, which he wrote in 1991, and some instructional Kung Fu videos that he made in the mid-90s. Carradine was never able to completely shake being typecast by the iconic role of Caine. Over the course of over 200 roles, a few more Carradine parts echoed Grasshopper. Fans were delighted to see him play the flute as Bill in Tarantino’s Kill Bill films (the flute was Caine’s signature accoutrement). Tarantino also referenced Kung Fu in Pulp Fiction when Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) tells Vincent (John Travolta) that he plans to walk the earth like “Caine in Kung Fu.”

In 2008, Carradine played “Crane”, a martial art monk just like Caine, in Kung Fu Killer, a two-part mini-series for Spike TV. Carradine claimed that the role was based on an actual historical figure, which he alleges is how the production worked around Warner Bros.’ copyright on Caine. But Carradine was never able to provide the name of that historical figure. He believed that Crane and Caine were ‘diametrically opposed’ but aside from being more violent (in one fight, Crane knocks an opponent so hard that his spine graphically bursts out of his back) viewers are hard pressed to separate them. The series was slated to have three more installments, but those never happened.

The Barefoot Journey to The CW

Kwai Chang Caine had to walk a lot of rice paper before the character could become this new incarnation of Nicky Shen (Olivia Liang) for CW’s reimagining of the franchise. The first major talk of reboot was back in 2011 (on Halloween no less). Bill Paxton (Aliens, Predator 2) was in talks to direct a screen adaptation. John McLaughlin (Black Swan, The Patriot) was tapped to write the script. The production was from Legendary Entertainment and plans were being made to shoot in China. Paxton said they had intended to follow the original story more or less – Caine ventures across the American West of the 1870s in search of his birth father instead of his half-brother. Paxton claimed that his new production would enrich the scale and grandeur to the level that the show always deserved. This was to be feature films under Warner Brother’s Chinese cooperative venture, Legendary East. As the project developed, other writers who became associated with the reboot film included Cory Goodman (Priest) and Rich Wilkes (xXx)

In 2014, Baz Luhrmann (Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge!) was in talks to direct Kung Fu for Legendary. If the deal had been signed, Luhrmann planned to rewrite McLaughlin’s script. Paxton died in 2017 but his name had faded from talk of the reboot prior to his passing. 

In an unexpected twist, Universal announced that it was opting Kung Fu for a feature length film in early 2020. At the helm is none other than stuntman-turned director David Leitch (John Wick, Deadpool). Leitch has also been attached to a remake of Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon (another property with a long history of attempted remakes). However, since the initial announcements, there’s been no information on the further development on either project from Leitch. 

On the TV side of things, Fox grabbed Kung Fu in 2017 for a new series. Greg Berlanti (Arrow, The Flash) came on board to produce with Wendy Mericle (Arrow, Desperate Housewives) penning the script. This incarnation was the first mention of changing the gender of the main protagonist. The new lead was to be Lucy Chang, a Shaolin nun. Instead of being set in the Old West, she was to be living in the 1950s. And instead of searching for her half-brother, it was her kidnapped child. 

In a successive treatment, Lucy was set in modern times. She was to inherit her father’s Chinatown Kung Fu school, only to discover that it secretly operated as a center to help those in desperate need. Lucy was partnered with a Korean War veteran named J.T. Cullen. The reboot moved to the CW in 2019 with Christina M. Kim (Blindspot, Hawaii Five-0) taking over as writer and producer and Berlanti still attached as a producer. The story is reimagined with Nicky Shen as a young Chinese American woman in contemporary times, who leaves to find herself at a monastery in China, and then returns to her family in America.

In the pilot, there’s no explicit connection given between Nicky and Kwai Chang Caine so far (save for the quick appearance of a grasshopper). Kung Fu is a complete re-imagining, so all bets are off. But as the season progresses, who knows what references and homages are possible? Reboots thrive on their Easter eggs nowadays, and even if Nicky isn’t within the Caine bloodline, Kung Fu will be well served by tucking some call-backs to the original show. 

Will Nicky have to walk rice paper and snatch pebbles from her master’s hand? Will she get those classic Shaolin Dragon and Tiger forearm brands? If she does then perhaps Kung Fu will be the right show for its time while still honoring what came before it.

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Kung Fu premieres on the CW on April 7, 2021.

The post Kung Fu: Inside The History of a Martial Arts Classic appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[orionsangel86]

Hey tumblr people, friends, SPN family,

You may have realised that my blog has become the virtual version of tumbleweed rolling through a desert in recent weeks/months. I noticed on checking my blog recently that I have had an influx of new followers which I think is predominantly thanks to a shout out from Shirley (@destieldrabblesdaily) which I am infinitely grateful for because I consider her one of the best blogs in the SPN fandom. It is for that reason among others that I feel pretty damn bad about not being around recently to share in your speculation, meta and general love for the show.

I haven’t said much since the finale, or even about the finale. I never wrote an episode review for any of the last 3 episodes of season 12. (still haven’t seen 12x21 and don’t plan to) I guess I just want to explain why.

In the past few months SPN has been losing its grip on me, I guess I always thought this would happen one day as it always has in the past with other things that I have falling in love and obsession with until I just… well… get over it. Usually its when a show finishes or movie franchise ends though, rather than whilst it’s still going on. I haven’t felt that itchy desire to constantly check my dash, or write meta or obsess over speculation for the show lately at all. I tried re-watching season 12 and I just couldn’t maintain my concentration. I instead started watching other shows – American Gods is fantastic – and getting out a bit more as well. Tumblr kinda sucked me into this pit where my social life pretty much dried up and became non-existent. Though in all fairness, tumblr also got me through a pretty nasty stint of depression.

I keep hoping that this will be temporary, that perhaps when season 13 comes to our screens that I’ll jump right back in, but I’m not so sure. I guess I’ll watch it, but I don’t know how much I’ll participate in fandom in the future. I want to, I still have that desire to get involved but I don’t have the energy or desire to write meta about the actual show right now. I guess I kinda feel like everything is already being said by the other fantastic meta writers on tumblr and my opinion isn’t really needed.

The thing is, I am tired of SPN. I am tired of the game they are playing with us. I say this, knowing full well that they are dangling destiel in front of us like a carrot dangled in front of a donkey, so close but still so far. Eventually we will get our carrot – of this I am almost certain – but they sure as hell will continue to put us through a bunch of utter crap before we get there.

This is what I am fed up with. I did start re-watching season 12 and I just can’t fathom some things that drove me crazy. Like why when we were first introduced to the British men of letters, it was two strong women who ruled the screen, but by the end, it was another two generic white men to add to our already generic white guy cast. They could have written it in so many different ways to how they did.

Billy’s death pissed me off, so did Alesha’s and Tasha’s. By the time they took Eileen from us I was fuming. Then when they went and wrote off Rowena with an off screen death only told to us in description form I had given up.

On top of this they continued to write scenes of non-con, scenes of violence against POC and women that could easily be avoided whilst maintaining suspense and drama, a dodgy plot point centering around a women fighting her right to choose against the white men trying to take that choice away from her, and on top of it all, fucking Lucifer still being a big part of the show when his character should have died at the end of season 11. His entire story this season was so boring I wanted to skip most of his scenes. I hated HATED his character.

I’m sorry to be negative. The show did some wonderful things this year that I am so happy about. Dean’s story arc was wonderful. His confrontation with Mary in 12x22 had me in tears and I screamed FINALLY out loud as he opened up and admitted things that he has kept inside for his whole life. Dean held this whole season together he really did. The emotional plot was wonderful, it’s what kept me around until the finale because I could see Dabb’s plan for the characters emotional development so clearly in the subtext and later text. Well, until 12x19 for Cas because after 12x19 I don’t understand a fucking thing Cas did and I bloody hope he really has been mind wammied by Jack all this time because otherwise it doesn’t make a lick of sense for his character development.

Ultimately, what season 12 did that was GREAT was threefold:

It built up Dean’s emotional development to its climax where he has finally let Sam ‘go’ and admit the years of abuse he suffered under John, as well as admitting that he was a parent to Sam rather than a brother. Dean’s entire story throughout the whole series has been building to this point and it was WONDERFUL to see.

It built up Sam’s story in the same way, in that he was able to finally break free from under Dean’s wing and accept his own responsibility and place in the world as a whole – as a leader and hero – rather than something tainted and wrong. Season 12 signalled the end of Winchester toxic co-dependency and I was HERE FOR THAT.

It gave us destiel. Now, I say this with certainty guys, although I know it is still contested. Consider it my parting gift to you. Destiel is real and we are going there. Season 12 basically gave it to us because it did things that it cannot now backtrack on. I have never been more certain. Even AFTER 8x17, after Dean’s confession, after “He’s in love… with humanity” and “it was all about saving one human” even after 11x19 and our Hunting Husbands, I still had a whole bunch of doubt on the topic. Now though? I don’t see how it is possible to watch 12x10, 12x12, 12x19 and now, the end of 12x23 without being like “hang on a freaking second – what the hell actually is going on with these guys?” Destiel is gonna happen. This is my speculation for you. Cas will be brought back but he will be brought back wrong and probably under Jack’s control and will walk away from Dean – still crying at his feet – all cold and emotionless as if Dean was nothing to him. Dean will then stop at nothing to get him back. I predict that will happen around the mid-season finale and it will be a big moment for destiel. Another 8x17 but more intense perhaps? Another ‘crypt scene’ but this time with a love confession from both sides? Guys I see it. I can’t not see it now. The one thing season 12 did was take away my doubts. Destiel is real and it is happening and I am pretty sure we will get there by end of season 13.

The problem is, this is no longer enough for me. Even if Season 13 starts with Cas coming back to life in some spectacular beauty and the beast moment which ends in a kiss and a cut to their wedding day… its still not enough anymore. I can’t watch this series just for a ship. I can’t keep going for the fucking carrot dangling in front of me when my hoofs are bleeding and raw and my back is breaking from the weight of all the shit I’ve been forced to carry. The carrot isn’t worth it.

I used to adore this show. Not for destiel, but for the stories, the mythology, the characters and their colourful world of Supernatural things. Now, the characters are slowly reaching peak development and I am getting fed up of watching them get beat down. I want them to have their peace, their happy ending. The stories are no longer fresh and exciting. They are Lucifer and his ridiculous Nephilim baby/not baby.

I am also so fed up of Cas’s story not making sense, of him being controlled or brainwashed or forced to do things he hates. Of his absence when it makes no sense (like when Claire is involved and not a word is spoken about him) or of writers writing him so off key that he comes across idiotic. (thanks Bucklemming). I can’t keep watching the writers butcher this character I adore with all my heart.  

I am so so happy for Wayward Sisters and I will support it with all my might. If only because these writers need to UNDERSTAND that they cannot keep killing off the female characters on this show like they mean nothing. Its just heartbreaking to think that we will never get Charlie, Eileen, Rowena, Billy, Alesha or any of the other female characters who have been wrongly killed off in Supernatural join the female cast of this spin off. I’m excited for Wayward Sisters more than I am for Supernatural right now, because Supernatural is just a massive disappointment for me.

I am sorry I feel this way, its been eating at me for a while. I think it’s the reason I have taken this break. I just can’t put all my time and energy into something that feels toxic to me. I live in fanfic at the moment because it is the characters I adore without the awful truth of canon – even if occasionally canon does still give us those fanfic moments – it’s the other moments that are the issue.

*sigh*

I’m sorry. Part of me desperately wants to hold on with all my might, to come back and throw myself into speculation and meta and all the stuff you guys are so awesome at, but another part of me is so so bitter its preventing me from feeling any joy from it.

Maybe when season 13 comes on I’ll forget this post and just start this blog up again. I certainly miss talking to the bloggers on here I consider my friends, I just feel that without contributing to anything I have no purpose on Tumblr, and I don’t want my negativity to affect anyone else. So in the meantime, this is goodbye. I may still visit and reblog stuff occasionally, but I won’t be writing anything for a while. A long while probably.

It’s been fun Tumblr, but from now on consider this an extended hiatus. Perhaps I’ll see you in the Autumn… perhaps this fleeting romance is over for good. I won’t know until I know. As for Supernatural, I have said my bit. Expect Destiel along with a side of bitter disappointment. Wayward Sisters will be amazing though. So long as they don’t let Bob Singer or Bucklemming anywhere near it that is.

[taylortalkstv-blog]

Russian Doll ep. 7

Alright, now we’re FINALLY getting somewhere. 

After more dying, speculating, and a brief, drunken hookup, Nadia and Alan are finally getting to the bottom of the reason for their time loop.  Nadia suspects that them meeting each other on the first night has caused a “bug in the system”, much like a bug in a computer program.  She suspects this because of the fact that some things stay the same, but other things are changing.  And in recent episodes, more and more things are changing.  First, we have the mirror in the bathroom disappear, then people begin to disappear.  

Another tip off is the fruit in the universe.  Despite the same day happening over and over again, the fruit is rotting, as if it’s been sitting in the same spot for days.  See below for a really nasty photo:

However, these fruit are still edible.  Don’t believe me?

...Yeah.  Things are going somewhere.  

In this episode, we are finally introduced to Nadia’s mother, Lenora, through flashbacks.  We’ve already seen that she has mental problems, but they are highlighted in this episode.  We also get to see little Nadia.  So cute!

In 1991, Nadia and Lenora are buying watermelons (for who knows why), and the song playing during this is “The Promise” by When in Rome.  Her mom says, “This is it, Nadia.  This is the day we get free.”  What does this mean?  We’ll find out.  

I think that using this song for this scene explains why the soundtrack to the entire series is typically 80s rock and roll, and electronica.  While this was 1991, pop culture was still predominantly from the 80s, and this seems to be a large part of Nadia’s identity.  Why exactly are we flashing back to 1991?  What is so significant about it?  Let’s summarize the rest of the episode before answering this question.  

Nadia and Alan go back to the deli to recreate when they first met, when...

What.  the.  heck?

Yes, Nadia sees her younger self walking around.  Then young Nadia starts to bleed, and then Nadia dies.  Why is Nadia seeing herself?

Before I go on, one interesting note that I wanted to point out is the lack of music in the form of song in this episode.  We start off with one song, but the rest seems to only have ambient sounds.  The scene above, for example, has a very creepy, scratchy sound with a ringing high note above.  This made me as a viewer very uncomfortable, and I knew that this was super important so Nadia could figure out her time loop.  This is a weird step away from the usual noise I am used to hearing in this series, so I know we must be close to ending Nadia and Alan’s torture.  

Alan connects the dots and realizes that he needs to tell his girlfriend, Beatrice, he is sorry and he forgives her for cheating.  He needs that closure, and he tells Nadia that she needs to find closure too.  This is where things get interesting.  Through flashback, we find out that Nadia ended up being taken from Lenora, and was put under Ruth’s care.  During a mental breakdown, Lenora went through the house and smashed all the mirrors.  A year after Ruth gained custody, Lenora was dead.  Nadia blames herself for her mothers death.

This is why the 80s music is so important.  It was the music that was around when Nadia’s life was changed forever, and her fatal mistake was made.

She remembers one thing she needs to do before she dies again, and that is to meet John (her ex-boyfriends) daughter, Lucy.  She brings the girl a copy of a book she read as a kid.  It’s a touching gesture, and everything seems to go well until Nadia begins to cough.  She then coughs up blood, spattering it all over Lucy (who is eerily unphased by it????)

 Lucy asks if she’s sick, says “She’s still inside you,” and then Nadia pulls out what seems to be a broken piece of glass out of her throat.  turns into young Nadia, and young Nadia says “Are you ready to let her die?” in a distorted voice.  Nadia nods yes, and young Nadia whispers, “This is the day we get free.”  All the while, we hear the same ambient noises that we heard when we saw young Nadia the first time.  This music is significant here, too, because it suggests that Nadia will no longer be in a time loop.  However, we don’t know, because the episode cuts off on Nadia dying.  What a cliffhanger!

One episode left.  What’s gonna happen?

PS.  While Nadia is on this riveting adventure, Alan goes and talks to Beatrice, meets Mike, and all is good.  Why does Alan get such an easy time, and Nadia gets glass down her throat???

[bamboomarket72-blog]

Netflix's <em>The Haunting of Hill House</em> Is a Spooky <em>This Is Us</em>

The Haunting of Hill House is as classic of a ghost story as you can get. First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson's brilliant gothic horror novel features a collection of strangers—Dr. John Montague, a supernatural investigator; Eleanor Vance, a shy recluse; Theodora, a seductive artist; and Luke Sanderson, a wealthy playboy—who agree to spend a weekend in the infamous titular mansion that has a terrifying past. The three guests are picked for specific reasons by Dr. Montague for his study: Nell because she experienced a supernatural event as a child, Theo because she has exhibited psychic tendencies, and Luke because he's set to inherit the house.

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You can guess what happens next: There are bumps in the night. Objects move about. Everything devolves into madness. Shirley Jackson didn't necessarily invent the haunted house story, but she did set into motion the familiar tropes that would follow both in literature and in cinema (her novel was adapted twice under the title The Haunting—once in 1963 and once in 1999, with the former standing arguably as the scariest haunted house movie ever made).

The Haunting of Hill House is premiere horror, and it's only natural that filmmakers keep returning to its story.

The Haunting of Hill House is premiere horror, and it's only natural that filmmakers keep returning to its story. But to extend the plot (which is so tight that the novel is less than 300 pages) into a narrative television show is a heavy lift, one that would require a vast reimagination of its central structure and the ability to extend its frights beyond the claustrophobic walls of Hill House, is quite a feat—and one that could potentially turn off fans of the original novel and the stellar 1963 adaptation directed by Robert Wise.

That's what creator-director Mike Flanagan manages to do with the 10-part Netflix adaptation (which no doubt will see additional seasons). He completely up-ends Jackson's original premise, which works for this television iteration but may prickle Jackson's fans. Instead of bringing a collection of adult strangers into Hill House, he centers his version around a family in an Amityville-style take on the classic story: An enterprising couple (Hugh and Olivia Crain, played by Henry Thomas and Carla Gugino) move their family into Hill House with the intention of renovating and flipping it for profit. But it doesn't take much time at all for their five children to realize that a darkness lies within the mansion's walls; as in almost every haunted house story, the family is nearly destroyed by an all-encompassing evil.

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But unlike the typical family-moves-into-and-quickly-out-of-a-haunted-house plot, The Haunting of Hill House presents a twist. In very This Is Us fashion, the show flash-forwards (and backwards) in time, examining the Crain children as they are traumatized by the horrors of Hill House—and as adults, a collection of broken personas who are struggling in their specific ways with the emotional injuries that have never healed.

There are specific parallels to the original characters in Jackson's novel found in the five Crain kids. Katie Seigel plays Theo, an empath to the most supernatural extent. There are the twins, Luke (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) and Nell (Victoria Pedretti), who feel specific connections to the house. And then there are two additional Hill House victims. Michael Huisman's Steven is, like Dr. Montague, a paranormal investigator; Elizabeth Reaser's Shirley does not resemble any of Jackson's characters (but she does share her first name). And the Crain name features predominantly in the novel, too; in the book, Hugh Crain built Hill House, and his brutal demeanor infested it with a demonic energy (and cursing his family with his actions, which they had to carry on throughout their lives).

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What made Jackson's novel so radical was that it didn't depend on shocks and jumps to terrify its readers. The book relied on psychological horror, showing how the past manages to lurk in our own brains forever and rot us from within. Nell in particular finds a bizarre comfort inside of Hill House; having cared for her sick mother, whose brutal emotional torments haunted Nell's mind long after she died, the timid and quirky young woman seems to fit within the weird labyrinth of Hill House, a structure that has taken on the toxicity of its human inhabitants and projected it back onto anyone who dares to enter it.

By essentially drawing out a human drama, Flanagan amplifies the psychological spirit of the source material. The experience of living in the haunted house—and living through their mother's suicide, a brutal event alluded to early in the series—has left the Crain children with an emotional burden. The supernatural evil within Hill House presents itself to each of them in various ways (it's a shape-shifting spirit not unlike the unnamed force in Stephen King's It). The grown-up Crain children are damaged, carrying on the pain from their childhood—but that pain sometimes manifests itself in the frightening monsters of their youth.

Is it all in their mind? Are these supernatural beings avatars for their traumas? Or is the horror inside of Hill House, extremely real—and free to roam outside the property, stalking the Crains until they relent to their respective fears because they've simply grown tired of fighting their own anxieties?

Make no mistake: The scares in The Haunting of Hill House are very real and very unsettling. Flanagan, who has made a career for himself by adding a stylistic flourish to what could be simply schlocky horror movies (his Ouija: Origin of Evil is much better than a sequel to a maligned b-movie deserves to be), terrorizes his audience as much as he does his characters. He tends to avoid ominous music, delivering frights with a silent intensity that manages to make this series one of the scariest television shows ever. And it's helpful that the perfectly cast actors (who are perhaps too perfectly cast, as the women look so much alike that anyone with face blindness will have a tough time telling them apart) deliver serious performances that make their characters' terror feel so genuine.

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The best horror movies are the ones that use our own personal fears to scare us. Similarly, the most affecting TV show can cut deep into our emotions, pulling out a response—often through catharsis—because we recognize ourselves in its characters. The Haunting of Hill House manages to both at the same time, using atmosphere and sharp characterization to present our deepest fears—both the mundane emotional kind and the supernatural and unsettling variety—as extremely possible. It's rare to see a horror film evoke such an emotional response. The Haunting of Hill House accomplishes a second feat: It's a truly scary TV show that tugs at our emotions while also poking us with discomfort.

Source: https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a23769214/the-haunting-of-hill-house-netflx-review/

[am-flying-solo]

OOC WEEK: Day Two

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

 (I'm so excited for this one, it's so rare for me to be able to tell gringos about my culture and my country ok, I'm sorry in advance for the amount of videos and links I'm gonna throw here.)

What country are you from?

The big political mess that is Brazil. Born and raised! I'm originally from Fortaleza, in the northeast, one of the poorest regions in the country, known for: its amazing beaches, sex tourism for wealthy gross foreigners and the severe droughts during most of the year. I moved to Brasília, the capital, when I was seven. It's a planned city known for having a desert/savannah climate, lots of politicians and modern architecture (by Oscar Niyemeyer). Now I live in São Paulo, the country's biggest urban center. Who knows where I might go next?

What is your first language? Do you speak any other languages?

My first language is Portuguese. I also speak English (well, obviously) and some Spanish.

What language would you like to learn?

SO MANY. Ok, first maybe German or Russian, but I'd also like to learn French at some point. I've been practicing ASL online, as well as LIBRAS (Brazilian sign language), but it may take me a while.

What’s one movie from your country that you like (or recommend others see)?

This is a hard question, because there are so many that I'd like people to watch, but I can't even find subtitled trailers for most of them on youtube, so bear with me. The most well-known Brazilian movie may be CITY OF GOD. It's gotten a few Oscars and it was a hit on Cannes back in 2002. It's such a gritty, violent reflex of life in the slums of Rio. Most of the actors weren't even properly trained actors, they were real people from the community in which the movie is set. It makes the film even more authentic. Those people are acting out their real lives on screen.

Another big favorite is the drama/dark comedy STOMACH - A GASTRONOMIC STORY. It tells the twisted tale of an amazing cook, with a clever twist - he's in prison. It's funny and dark, with an unexpected ending.  

If you're bored and you have access to Netflix, you might want to check out 3%, the new Brazilian dystopian sci-fi series that offers an interesting latin american take on a genre that's been predominantly american for ages.

I can literally spend all day making movie lists to suggest, someone stop me. 

Pick a song from your country (or in your language) and talk about why you like it

Again, there's so many! But these are some of my favorites:

PANIS ET CIRCENCES by OS MUTANTES, a post-modern critique of the apathy of the bourgeoisie: 

CONSTRUÇÃO (Construction) by CHICO BUARQUE, a neo-concrete poem about the ordinary tragedy in the life of a common construction worker who dies on the job, and a social critique about the hardship of the working class:

And the more recent AMOR MARGINAL by JOHNNY HOOKER, literally translated to "Delinquent Love", a song about love affairs on the margins of society.

Pick a classic song from your country - aka one that everyone knows, one that’s representative of your country, etc

The most well known Brazilian song is probably GAROTA DE IPANEMA (Girl From Ipanema) BY TOM JOBIM AND VINÍCIUS DE MORAES. A classic Bossa Nova song so iconic that Frank Sinatra himself has recorded a cover:

The song that represents my northeastern roots and the place I'm proud to call home, however, is ASA BRANCA (White Wing - it's a type of bird) by LUIS GONZAGA. It's about the long droughts, the plight of the field workers that had to leave the countryside for better opportunities as their cattle and the harvest died, and the hope that the first rain would bring:

What’s a book from your country (or in your language) that you’d recommend?

The first book that comes to mind, and the most inherently brazilian piece of literature for me, is GRANDE SERTÃO VEREDAS, known in english as THE DEVIL TO PAY IN THE BACKLANDS, by GUIMARÃES ROSA. It's widely considered one of the most important south american books of all times, though it's no easy read.

check it out HERE.

It tells the story of Riobaldo, a mercenary in the dawn of the 20th century that, upon reaching old age, decides to tell his story. It's got everything. Outlaws, war, death, a deal with the devil, homoerotic subtext, you name it.    

What’s your favourite childhood story from your country or culture?

Since we're all about werewolves here, I'm going to tell y'all the werewolf story every Brazilian child was told. Unlike the european tradition, in Brazil, a werewolf (we call it Lobisomem) is believed to be the seventh son after six girls. Most stories say they transform on Fridays at midnight on a crossroad, and they can only turn back if they return to that same crossroad at dawn. Some stories say they must cross seven cemeteries before the day breaks to be able to return to human form. They're bloodthirsty and they're said to be specially fond of eating unbaptized babies, which prompted people to baptize their kids as fast as they could.

If you kill a werewolf when they're transformed, they'll return to human form, so you'll end up with no proof that the man you just killed was a Lobisomem. But if you know who he is, and say his name before he expires, he'll stay in wolf form. 

Talk about a tradition from your country or culture that you love celebrating:

Definitely the Festa de São João (Feast of Saint John). It's celebrated on June (usually around the 24th, but it's such a big deal that it happens all over the month), and it's similar to a county fair. There's folk music, square dances, games, a big bonfire and lots of delicious food - mostly corn based. So much corn. People dress up, it's great. It looks like this:

Fave food from your country/culture:

THIS IS TOO HARD. But I'll go with FEIJOADA. It's basically this big ass stew of black beans and pork (usually ribs, bacon, ears, tongue, feet, tail - whatever you wanna throw in), sausage and bay leaves. We eat it with rice, kale with butter and orange slices. It's the best thing ever, I promise.

Best season of the year in your country?

To be honest our seasons here are like hot, hotter, hot as fuck and hellfire. We don't get four defined seasons in tropical countries. I like winter because it's usually less hot. Usually.

What’s one thing that you wish you could change about your country? Why?

Politics. I'm sorry guys, I'm gonna get super political here for a moment: our political system is bred and based on corruption since our colony days, we just suffered a coup d'etat, and we're drowning in economical neoliberalism, which is crushing our already overworked, underfed working force. We're still licking our wounds from 30 years of a bloody military dictatorship. We live to work while our politicians live in luxury, and a brutal military police exterminates people in the slums with no accountability. We're the number one in LGBTQ murders IN THE WORLD, which makes me feel for my safety constantly. We're a dystopian future already. 

Down with capitalism, I'm all for the revolution.

What’s one thing that you’re proud of about your country?

You see, I struggle with this, because I'm deeply involved with politics and sometimes I just feel hopeless about it all. But if anything, I'm proud of my people's artistic sensibility. From oppression, we've created amazing art, we've fought censorship and torture and exile and we still had the heart to create. That's no easy feat.

Name a country you’d like to visit. 

ALL OF THEM. But uh, Ukraine. 

Top three cities you’d like to visit: 

Chernobyl, Paris, Koshu.

What’s the best place in your country that you’ve ever visited?

Ouro Preto! A historical city in Minas Gerais, full of old buildings, old mines that you can visit, pretty rocks and hills. There are almost no cars on the streets, and the streets are all made of cobblestone, and it's like it has stopped in time. It's amazing.

Have you ever been abroad (out of your country)? If so, where did you go?

Nope. I have no money. Help. 

What are some myths or stereotypes about your country or culture that are either true or are false?

Well, we're known for three things: soccer, carnival and beaches. We are totally crazy about soccer, I won't deny it. Carnaval is also a huge deal. Seriously, it's said the year doesn't start until after Carnaval, because January is all about the prepping for the extended holiday/big fucking parties. Beaches are also amazing. Those are all true. 

We don't, however, live in the jungle. I promise. Don't believe the Simpsons, we don't have monkeys roaming the city either. And no, J.K. Rowling, we don't mysterious golden ruins in the middle of the rainforest, try Ecuador, maybe. And we're not all about sex. Brazilian women are often horribly over sexualized by foreigners. 

And that's your overly-long rant about Brazil! 

De nada!

[micaramel]

Artist: Simon Starling

Venues: Franco Noero, Torino and Modern Institute, Glasgow

Exhibition Title: A-A’, B-B’

Date: October 5, 2019 – January 11, 2020

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of images, press release and link available after the jump.

  Images:

Images courtesy of Franco Noero, Torino and Modern Institute, Glasgow.

Press Release:

Galleria Franco Noero is pleased to announce the opening A-A’, B-B’, the sixth solo exhibition by Simon Starling and the first to be shown in the spaces of Piazza Carignano 2.

This expansive new body of work is composed of an intricate network of objects and images held together by physical transformations, juxtapositions, historical facts, speculation and the artist’s own brand of logic. The exhibition is, in part, inspired by the elaborate 18th century interior of the exhibition space it will occupy on Piazza Carignano. The project is in two parts. An exhibition currently happening at the Modern Institute in Glasgow until the end of October, followed by the one in Piazza Carignano.

The exhibition’s title, A-A’, B-B’, refers to two cuts made approximately two hundred years apart, through two very different objects – Giambattista Tiepolo’s painting The Finding of Moses and a blue Fiat 125 Special, which was a favourite car of Giovanni Agnelli, the former head of the Turin-based manufacturer and an influential Italian industrialist. Starling’s ability to identify connections in seemingly disparate narratives ties the story of the cutting of The Finding of Moses to the Fiat supremo.

The Finding of Moses, painted circa 1736–38, takes a humble biblical story and glamorously restages it in the context of, what appears to be, 17th century courtly splendour with all the accompanying trappings; ladies-in-waiting, halberdiers, dwarfs and sylphlike greyhounds. Even the lowly halberdiers are dressed in noble finery. These aristocratic thoroughbreds inhabit a painting of typically eloquent artificiality and contrivance – a masquerade of sorts. In the early 19th century, Tiepolo’s dramatic painting was cut into two unequal parts, splitting the originally panoramic painting. into a more conventionally centered scene, The Finding of Moses, and the somewhat unconventional A Halberdier in a Landscape. The Finding of Moses was placed with the National Galleries of Scotland, whilst the smaller half, A Halberdier in a Landscape, found itself in Agnelli private collection and later tied permanently to the Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli in Torino.

Expanding on this unique division of Tiepolo’s painting, Starling introduces Giovanni Agnelli himself into his ‘masquerade’. Giovanni Agnelli lived a rarefied and glamorous life. Despite his obvious wealth, he sought to maintain a connection with the ordinary people of Turin including his own factory workers. This was manifested not only in his family’s ties to Juventus Football Club but also in his choice of cars. As well as owning a wide range of exclusive, custom-built models, Agnelli was well known for driving a number of standard production vehicles fitted to his own desires while still observing a low profile. He was often seen driving a blue Fiat 125 Special, a standard issue family saloon. The car’s unique number plate, A00000 TO, referring to his nickname L’Avvocato, signalling to the people of the city that he was in town.

For the two-part project, these two masquerades have been conflated in a process of both geographical and material transposition and transmutation. The Scottish portion of the painting, The Finding of Moses, has been reproduced photographically at 1:1 scale at Galleria Franco Noero in Turin – the geographical home of its truncated left side. In turn a photographic reproduction of A Halberdier in a Landscape is shown at the Modern Institute. Further to this geographic transposition, the somewhat brutal logic of the truncated paintings’ two unequal parts will be applied physically to Agnelli’s favoured vehicle, which has been meticulously cut, in proportion to the division of Tiepolo’s painting. The larger front section of the car is exhibited in Glasgow, alongside the reproduction of A Halberdier in a Landscape, while the smaller back section of the car accompanies the larger section of the painting in the Turin exhibition.

To compound ideas around masquerades, the exhibition will present two self-portraits of the artist, simple steel armatures wearing masks made in collaboration with master Noh mask maker Yasuo Miichi. One mask depicts Gianni Agnelli and the other Tiepolo’s Halberdier. Leather-clad casts of the artist’s right hand further define these figures – the work incorporating the mask of Agnelli sees the artist holding the black comedy Trumpets and Raspberries (1974) by Dario Fo, about an exchange of identities between Agnelli and a Fiat factory worker. As Tiepolo’s truncated Halberdier, the artist clutches a halberd and gazes eastwards, emulating the pose from the original painting. Hands will appear again in a series of three daguerreotypes entitled Hand of the Artist’s Father, Hand of the Artist, Hand of the Artist’s Son. These ghostly images, made on mirror-like sheets of silver-plated copper, seem to morph one into the other as time marks and transforms what appears to be the same hand.

Furthermore, Starling links the regal 17th-century setting of Tiepolo’s painting to the production of the late-1960s Fiat through a series of photographs of thoroughbred greyhounds which he made at photo studios housed at the Mirafiori car plant in Turin. These large-scale studios, with their seamless white spaces designed for photographing vehicles, become an oddly fitting setting for these predominantly white, pedigree dogs, the product of centuries of selective breeding and aesthetic refinement.

A-A’, B-B’ continues Starling’s interest in the form of the masquerade previously developed in works such as Project for a Masquerade, Hiroshima, (2010; 2011) and At Twilight (2016), as well as an ongoing interest in the design and manufacturing history of Turin. It also follows threads developed in La Decollazione (2018), which was realised for Manifesta 12 in Palermo and explored the material characteristic of Michelangelo Merisi di Caravaggio’s Maltese masterpiece The Beheading of St. John the Baptist (1608). Both works conflate journeys in both time and space and began life with an interest in painting.

Simon Starling (Epsom, 1967) lives and works in Copenhagen. Starling won the Turner Prize in 2005 and was selected for the Hugo Boss award in 2004. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at international public and private institutions, including: Frac Ile-de-France, Le Plateau, Paris (2019), Musée regional d’art contemporain, Sérignan, France (2017), Japan Society, New York, USA (2016), Experimental El Eco Museum, Mexico City, Mexico (2015), The Art Club of Chicago and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, USA (2014), Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, Australia (2013), Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany (2013), Tate Britain, London (2013; 2009), Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, Japan (2011), Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, USA (2008), Power Plant, Toronto, Canada (2008), Musée d’art contemporain du Vel-de-Marne, Vitry-sur-Seine France and Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin, Berlin, Germany (2009). Among the biennials and international group exhibitions we mention the participation in: 16th Istanbul Biennial (2019), 12th Shanghai Biennial (2018), Manifesta 12, Palermo (2018), 53rd Venice Biennale, Padiglione Scotland (2009), Biennale di Lyon (2007), 8th Sharjah Biennial (2007), 26th Biennial of San Paolo (2004), 50th Venice Biennale (2003).

Link: Simon Starling at Franco Noero and Modern Institute

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