#the j word agenda is thriving

[kellyvela]

He was always one of us . . . .

[billehrman]

Main Street Catches Up to Wall Street

It is a welcome relief to put 2020 in the rear-view mirror. The pandemic was the ultimate disruptor causing change everywhere. It is hard to fathom that over 1.8 million people worldwide, with 338,000 being in the U.S., have died so far from the virus. Over 83 million people caught the virus last year.  Everyone’s life was impacted in some way which will influence how we live our lives and invest for years to come. We were very fortunate that monetary bodies and governments moved swiftly to provide huge amounts of liquidity to the real economy and financial system. They did a great job and deserve credit for preventing an even deeper recession than occurred. At the same time, the U.S government started project Warp Speed to accelerate handling/reducing red tape on all phases dealing with the coronavirus including medical services, equipment, therapeutics, and vaccines.

  Wall Street’s financial markets went to new highs driven by excess liquidity while many parts of main street were suffering big time. 2020 was truly a tale of two cities.We thought it interesting to cite a few data points from March to November 2020 that support how much liquidity was provided to the system, far in excess of real economic needs. First, total personal income increased by over $1.03 trillion. The Cares Act added $499 billion, stimulus checks added $276 billion, and other added income was $294 billion while wages fell by only $43 billion. Second, total household outlays actually fell $535 billion as consumer durable/non-durable spending rose $99 billion while services fell a whopping $575 billion.  Interest payments fell $59 billion. The combination of higher personal income and falling spending pushed the savings rate above 15% to $1.56 trillion. Currency in circulation spiked 14% since February while bank deposits are up near 20%. Where did all of this money go? Not Main Street! Herein lies the big shift that we expect in 2021. 

The Fed did a great job stabilizing the market last spring, but the economic recovery and stock market move to new highs centered around all the liquidity/savings in the system. While whole sectors on the economy suffered from the pandemic, other areas that thrived in the new normal benefitting big time. Anything related to more time spent at home for every facet of life became an opportunity. As Chairman Powell said many times “this recession was caused by the pandemic rather than any financial stress in the system and it is up to the government, as well as the Fed, to provide the bridge to the other side.”

 As we enter 2021, the outlook for controlling the pandemic is excellent as we are already distributing highly effective vaccines with many more on the horizon.  Unlike last year, this recovery will be sustainable as the weather warms, openings increase, pent up demand is beginning to be met, inventories are built, and everyone by the summer gets vaccinated in the U.S and by the end of the year in the world. 

The key word above is sustainable as we expect the recovery to pick up steam sequentially through 2021 into 2022 supported by several additional stimulus plans, rising consumer/business confidence, a desire to get out and return to a more normal existence, an accommodative Fed for another few years and finally a synchronous global recovery. While 2020 will go down as the year for Wall Street, 2021/2022 will benefit Main Street, too.

 We see the prospects for a red-hot economy beginning by late spring extending well through 2022. Ironically, we do not expect the unemployment rate to fall to levels associated with the level of growth we foresee as companies have learned to do more with less which is good for margins/profits and also may be a positive holding the Fed off even further from beginning a shift in its policy away from super accommodative. After all, full employment is one of the two main Fed mandates.

 We are watching the Georgia runoff. It is widely believed that a Republican win would be good for the markets as it would prevent Biden’s from passing his liberal agenda including higher taxes. We can argue the other way, too, as a Democratic controlled Congress will pass much more stimulus to support growth/employment than a split Congress and would probably wait until mid 2022 at the earliest to propose any tax changes until after the economy is well on its way on firm footing. We would be against any tax changes that penalized growth, hiring, research and capital spending. We sorely need an infrastructure program as well as revitalizing industrial America, transportation/ports, farming and technology. The U.S must remain globally competitive especially as China uses its influence to enhance its global competitive position. The U.S needs to respond to Brexit and the recent China/Eurozone trade pact.

Markets finished the year on a high note as investors poured some of their excess cash on the sidelines back in. Around $180 billion was raised from IPO’s in 2020, more than double last year’s level and is another indication that creativity is not being hurt by the likes of Facebook and Google. Corporate debt issuance was at record levels too as companies took advantage of low interest rates. All of this is further proof of all of the liquidity in the system which will be ever present in 2021 and 2022 as long as the Fed maintains its near zero interest rate policy. We are ending 2020 with over $3.5 trillion still in cash and money market funds. This money is waiting to commit so do not expect much of correction if one occurs as the pundits predict.

Investment Conclusions

2020 was the year for Wall Street as all the excess liquidity provided by monetary authorities and governments found their way into financial and hard assets. We are looking for a shift in 2021 as our economy, as well as the rest of the world hurt by the pandemic recover as the weather warms, openings accelerate, and we start to return to a more normal existence.

 This recovery/expansion will be sustainable as we all have the opportunity to get vaccinated this year. We would not be surprised to see a super cycle as pent-up demand is filled, inventories are replenished and trillions of additional stimulus find its way into our economy. Profitable investing will shift from reliance on excess liquidity to economic growth/corporate profits and cash flow.  We see the shift from Wall Street to Main Street in 2021/2022 benefitting those companies leveraged to a sustainable global economic recovery including industrials/capital goods, industrial commodities, transportation, special situations and technology at a fair price. 

Listen closely to year-end earnings reports as we expect to hear a lot about the margin story that we see unfolding across corporate America

.Stay invested as the outlook for the next 24 months looks excellent. Main Street will kick in while the government and Fed will remain all in driving continued but diminishing excess liquidity into the system benefitting Wall Street/risk assets. Continue to avoid the bond market.

We wish all of you a very Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year.

Our investment webinar will be held on Monday January 4th at 8:30 am EST. You can join the webinar by entering https://zoom/us/j/9179217852 into your browser or by dialing + 646 588  8656  and entering the password 9179217852.

Remember to review all the facts; pause, reflect and consider mindset shifts; look at your asset mix with risk controls; do independent research and …

Invest Accordingly

!Bill Ehrman

Paix et Prosperite LLCPaixetprosperite1@gmail.com917-951-4139

[ao3feed-harrydraco]

by Marzipan1870

Time has passed since the end of the second wizarding war and much has changed. The school has been rebuilt back to it’s former glory, Hogwarts has thrived with new students flooding the hallways and old students returning to finish their studies, and the golden trio is determined to stay out of trouble.

Draco Malfoy has returned to Hogwarts for the soul purpose of muscling his way through school. Does he get tripped in the hallways? Yes. Does he get spit on during passing periods? Yes. Does he have unresolved feelings for the famous chosen one? No, of course not! Why would you even suggest such a thing?

Unresolved feelings aside things promise to be very interesting at Hogwarts this year and wether Draco likes it or not his world will be turned upside down. Surviving school, getting good grades, and avoiding Harry freakin Potter are on the agenda for the determined Malfoy. One itty bitty problem with this plan arises when Harry starts hunting Draco down every chance he gets.

What’s Potters goal? Why must he get in the way of Draco’s plans again? And how much stress can Draco take before he explodes?

Words: 703, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: M/M

Characters: Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley

Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley

Additional Tags: Drarry, Bottom Draco Malfoy, Top Harry Potter, Sassy Draco Malfoy, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Sort Of, Fluffy Content, POV Draco Malfoy, Slytherin Pride, Gryffindor, Slytherin, Good Slytherins

[idic-fictional-reality]

3 works

1,402,781 words

Draco/Harry, Tom/Luna, Hermione/Severus, Sirius/Lucius

Life Renovations: At times people are forced to evolve in order to survive. Sometimes people must be free in order to thrive. After a summer of torture with the Dursleys, Harry falls into a self induced magical coma. Draco-who holds a hidden torch for him-jumps in to help. There they meet and decide many things that could very well change the Wizarding World forever.

Life Agendas: SEQUEL to Life Renovations. Harry and Draco's 7th year has started and along with that, a new order is rising. The Wizarding World will never be the same again. 

Life Crusades: Sequel to Life Agendas. Harry, Draco and Co. head to the Ukatae realm where they plan to take back what is rightfully theirs. Nothing is ever easy, is it? But in the realm things are definitely never dull. Very AU and OC's within.

[cwhitestone-blog]

Sept 2019

Introduction

I belong to Piney Point Baptist Church, in Rogers, Arkansas. ��The church has a women's ministry. Some of us are going to the Women of Joy conference in Branson, MO.  I signed up to go as well. But since I have been studying the postmodern church I had reservations about going. A little research on the speakers at the Women of Joy conference revealed my concerns were not unfounded. I discovered, mostly by watching excellent discernment ministry YouTube videos, that many W of J speakers also speak at conferences, at churches and on so-called Christian television or radio stations which promote a false Christ for a new, emergent spirituality. 

If I did go to the W of J conference, it would be good fellowship with sisters. The speakers would probably not preach anything overtly heretical. It might be fun listening to their stories. After all, these are professional speakers and storytellers. Yet I cannot in good conscience attend. I do not judge anyone for going though. It could be an opportunity to be discerning. 

What am I to do for my sisters who haven't been told the whole story about these hidden things? What is wrong with this Women of Joy conference is what is wrong with the big picture, the emerging new spirituality. I believe my sisters would want to know, so my convictions lead me to share this.

Leaders from different types of churches, from the Bible preaching to the liberal ones, share platforms at conferences and preach at each others' churches. This alliance becomes an amalgam of truth with error. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. 

Some of the speakers at the upcoming Branson MO 2019 W of J conference are part of a group of professional speakers who make the conference rounds. While Women of Joy looks innocuous, many other conferences promote false doctrines and worldly agendas. Why are the same speakers sharing platforms, endorsing false teachers? This is not guilt by association but guilt by participation. 

Many of these speakers who speak at W. of J. confererences also preach at mega churches which promote heresies. I will outline these heresies as we go. They are Word of Faith, the New Apostolic Reformation, the Emergent church and New Age Spirituality. These professional speakers share platforms with those who preach these heresies. Not only do they not challenge the false teachings but they promote the false teachers. But this is spiritual adultery and idolatry....a social club of religious stardom, the speakers forming an entertaining entourage, fame more important than truth. 

Thus, conferences and churches merge, which is an agenda of the emergent church. These professional speakers promote Who's Who in religion, from Joel Olsten, TD Jakes, Joyce Meyer, Rick Warren, Mike Bickel, Kenneth Copeland, Francis Chan...whoever. They use Bible words like grace and love, not sin and holiness. Sadly many sincere seekers are taken in by the religious buzzwords. 

A few of the Women of Joy speakers I researched also speak on the Jesus Calling radio station/podcast.  Jesus Calling by Sarah Young is the bestselling channeled book sold by Christian publishers, which speaks for a false, New Age Jesus. I will elaborate more as we go, what research brought me to this conclusion. Some W of J speakers preach on problematic networks like DayStar TV, which hosts Joseph Prince and other fake healers. 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

The following are some of the areas I am going to research and write about in upcoming posts.  Just sharing with you the outline of topics to be discussed.

Let's look at the big picture...

I. How did the church arrive in this crisis? 

A. Mega Churches and who started them

Peter Drucker first groomed Bob Buford, then Rick Warren and Bill Hybels. 

Bob Buford

Rick Warren was heavily influenced by New Age Self-Esteem guru Robert Schuller.

    Robert Schuller:

Seeker-Friendly C3 Churches 

Church growth is a profitable business. These mega churches offer entertainment, community and a promise of heaven for everyone. They preach self esteem pop-psychology, inclusivism and ecumenism. 

B. The Emergent, Merging Church in its many manifestitations 

1. New Age Mysticism and Religious Experience Replace Truth

C. The Fall of the Evangelical Church 

Many faithful believers within SBC churches like Piney Point Baptist love the Lord and want to follow him. They do not know that the leaders of the SBC have joined hands with those who preach false doctrine and that these same people honor and meet with Pope Francis. Pope Francis has been meeting with world leaders saying religions should merge. I believe he intends to be the head of these religions in the name of world peace. (Video)     Yet Rick Warren says, if you love Jesus you'll love Pope Francis. Citation The leader of the SBC, Greer, says we should be fierce advocates for the LGBTQ community. Please watch the YouTube The SBC is Fallen The Southern Baptist Convention has fallen. It is my earnest prayer that the leadership of Piney Point Baptist will get us out of the SBC, so that our tithes do not contribute, even in a tiny way, to ungodly agendas. $$$$$$$$$$ 

The SBC includes, in its compromise with the world, over 45,000 churches. Many of these are not Evangelical, Baptist or Bible teaching. Many help lead people to hell.

E. The New Apostolic Reformation, NAR

F. Word of Faith

G. The Crazy Conference Scene

like Passion, frequented by Word of Faith and NAR heretics; as well as Show Me Your Glory and the Gathering. These conferences blend denominations and apostasies more. .

Chan, Bickle and Louie Giglio did the One Thing Conference. Kevin DeYoung, Together for the Gospel, invited Chan to his conference, even though DeYoung is more orthodox. 

These men speak at The Call, The Send, The Altar Conferences, The New Jesus movement, with its Signs and Wonders (as prophesied, “all lieing signs and wonders”). They speak of “A Dream, God's Dream”...These are their conferences seeking to bring the worldwide transition for the anti christ. That is a nightmare. It's all about Unity. Hellsong, Tod White, Heidi Baker, NAR (New Apostalic Reformation – see Note.) leaders, Jesus Culture (Bill Johnson)...they will all be at The Send conference (like Jesus sent out his apostles). 

Who are the Leaders at the Women of Joy Conferences?

A. First let's look at the leaders at the Branson MO Oct 2019 W of J Conference

Liz Curtis Higgs speaks on LifeTodayTV which features Beth Moore. I believe there is evidence Moore has walked away from the faith. 

Beth Moore used to seem like a good Bible study teacher until she got a vision from God that evangelicals should unite with Catholics. She befriends the superstars of the false church system including Joyce Meyer, the Olsteens, and Hillsong leaders. 

Annie F. Downs

Annie Downs is affiliated with Pastor Ray Johnston's Bayside Church. Bayside does Thrive conferences which host heretics like Francis Chan, who is part of the New Apostolic Reformation (See note.) Ray Johnston replaces doctrine with the social gospel. 

Downs podcasts on the Jesus Calling channel. 

Also, Annie Downs speaks and writes for Relevant, which features Carl Lentz, leader of Hillsong New York. (It is relevant who Relevant represents.) 

Carl Lentz

Karen Kingbury - fine.

Sheila Walsh was a former host of the 700 Club host. She speaks at Saddleback with Warren, and at Hillsong. 

B. Now let's look at speakers at other W of J confererences.

Bianca Olthoff  seems really suspect. I took one look at her picture and thought, “transgender” but, of course, that was my gut reaction and I don't know; although I did find a strange YouTube video which may confirm this. “B*thel C*urch: Dr Bianca Olthoff Preaching Hebrew Swag Conference transgender approved satanic mind control.” At _____, Bianca says, “you can bless my heart if...(pause)...no one told me you could see up my dress.” Her meta message seems to be, don't tell what you might have seen up my dress. I wouldn't doubt that Olthoff would be capable of mocking Christian women in this way since she is affiliated with Bethel Church. She hosts “Bible” studies with names like “Play with Fire Small Group Bible Study.” 

Bethel Church, Bill Johnson

Alli Worthington – links a Katie Perry song to her page which comes with a parental advisory. She makes the rounds. 

Lysa Terkeurst - Lysa wrote a decent book about two gardens but Lysa Terkeurst is someone I will no longer read because she speaks at Elevation, endorsing Steven Furtick. (I recommend women's Bible study books by Susan Heck, who has memorized 23 books of the Bible.) 

Steven Furtick, Elevation

Lisa Harper makes the rounds to Hillsong and Hillsong Colour Conference, Elevation Church, the C3 San Diego Church... She is also on the Jesus Calling Devotional Podcast and the 700 Club. 

Hillsong churches andHillsong Colour Conference

Christine Caine

III. Have they Joined the Heresy Club? 

A. The Respectable Deceived

Even some seemingly spiritual giants are straying. John MacArthur, for instance has put his dubious friendships over truth by sharing speaking platforms with NAR leaders and others. I thank God that MacArthur is still a godly Bible teacher, though. 

What's wrong Ravi Zacharias? He speaks at Saddleback mega church with Rick Warren. Ravi commends Joyce Meyer and Henri Nouwen. Elaborat He can tell you why Christianity makes more sense than the Koran yet he endorses leaders who deceive. 

Lee Strobel makes a convincing case for Christ yet hooks up with Willowcreek mega church. (Elaborate)

These men often preach correct doctrine. Yet, apparently, intellectual assent to a set of propositional truths does not give them spiritual discernment regarding false teachers. They are not heeding scriptures which tell us to watch out for wolves in sheep's clothing. We are certainly not to promote them.

Beth Moore, once a spiritual giant to evangelical women with her Bible studies, is still a darling of the SBC, making the rounds at mega churches, yet she is now preaching a different gospel, a different Jesus. Beth said she had a vision: God wants Protestants to unite with Catholics. Beth is completely inclusive, preaching with Word of Faith Joyce Meyer, both saying, “there should be no divisions.” She has heavily influenced the SBC ecumenist, political operative Roger Moore. 

Francis Chan, NAR, is a popular conference speaker who hangs out with cult leader Mike Bickle, Pastor Rick Warren and Lou Ingle. Chan says if you speak against Rick Warren, God might kill you. YouTube 'Apostasy Report – Francis Chan The Deceiver” Servus Christi. 

Mike Bickle –  YouTube “Mike Bickle false teacher.” 

Btw, I live in Rogers, Arkansas and was curious about The Joppa House of Prayer because I drive by it. When I visited I saw worship leaders from a conservative congregation, Fellowship Bible Church in Lowell, helping with the music in the sanctuary. But when there is no live music, The International House of Prayer is livestreamed on the big screen in the sanctuary. This was my introduction to the IHOP cult. I knew something was wrong right away hearing the Kansas City prophets make false prophesies on the big screen.  But who is sounding the alarm about this at Fellowship Bible Church?  Then I went into the healing rooms and saw advertisements for healings offering which use New Age and Word of Faith practices.

IHOP and the Kansas City Prophets - 

What the Bible Says About False Teachers and Deceivers

Regarding associating with and promoting heretics, read 1 John 1:10, “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting.”

Watch  “Mike Bickel IHOP and Mysticism.wmv” – Soapa Preachers. 

Rick Warren – says, if you love Pope Francis you'll love Jesus. One could write books about what is wrong with him; yet Pastor Rick is on Christian radio, with his seemingly harmless checklists for how you are doing in the Christian life. How about what he is doing in the Christian life?! 

Jesus Calling by Sarah Young

Hillsong

Carl Lenz

700 Club

Bethel Church

Steven Furtick, Elevation 

and on and on.

[thetjaqua]

Mastery Journal: Final Chapter

Thomas J. Aquilina 

“What’s right is what’s left if you do everything else wrong.” - Robin Williams

August 18th, 2018

Mastery Journal – Business of Film

     It has been a strange experience for me going through a new form of education let alone a collegiate style of academics for the second time in my life. It is hard to put into words whether I have learned from my experiences alone or combined with the lessons given by the faculty. It is an unusual feeling to question my decisions, and my goals have gone into this program with an open mind only to have it narrowed and closed upon leaving. It is not for lack of effort on my part but from the perspectives of a faculty that comes from different avenues of the entertainment business. I have always been taught, in my previous forms of academics, that it is the faculties responsibility to evaluate and work with students to better them not only in their craft but in their humanity as well. We are a fickle wave of creative creatures, continually trying to keep up with an ever-changing industry that seems less enticed every year, month, week and day to welcome younger artists. I see it in the school and how some individuals’ work is held higher than others only due to their strong personality and not their love or true mission as a creative. But I remain hopeful trying to see the better side of humanity in the ever-churning maelstrom that is entertainment. 

     When I came to Full Sail, my goal was to learn as many aspects of filmmaking that were not already in my wheel-house, but I see now that this was a mistake on my part. I became aware as the months went on that the ones with a functioning, viable, and most-likely lucrative intention were the ones fully rewarded for their efforts. We were here to learn but also to achieve monetary gain through the guise of creativity and art. I understand that this is the goal of all businesses in entertainment but the drive for one to be successful in art and successful in business are two very different cogs of the same machine, at least in my own experience. Finding the balance between creativity and success became very challenging for me as I found myself appealing to stories that were viable to the human element, to sympathy, and emotion.    Arriving in the Business of Film was both a blessing and a curse, although I lean more towards blessing. I appreciated the reality of the class and how we as artists need to be aware of the traps set by people on either side of the metaphorical table of entertainment. I learned smaller details about industry practices that I had heard off-hand but never understood the real weight of the subject matter. And through it all, I became more aware that I was more prepared and wired to what the niche consumers were wanting than the corporations and production houses. The few who may not be as success hungry as others had something that the sharks of our class didn’t. We had been intuitively aware of the thriving markets before they had become trends, we could see the media waves coming and those going out of style. Which in many ways, gives us an advantage in the private market of entertainment. We don’t need to rely on traditional forms of media to make a living, and we are a generation that will both shape and dictate the trends as we move forward.          As someone who went through a different career track before this,, I am still very concerned about my financial safety in the coming months. Unlike other fields we must ensure our work remains prevalent despite an ever-moving business around us, we must be the creator, distributor, and agent for ourselves all in one to provide we stay prevalent. As enticing and useful paying an agent can be, I cannot financially justify it despite its perks.       I am confident in my knowledge and work, but I am not optimistic of those who may wish to hire someone like me. There is a stigma of our generation; a needy, self-consumed, angst of a workforce, that is continuously depicted in newspapers and traditional media as those who ask for too much money and don’t produce the work. While you, the reader, know this to be false (I hope), the manipulation of a population by the news is staggeringly powerful today and can advertently affect us as a workforce. 

     I have already first hand noticed jobs I applied for 12 months ago change from needing one to two years of experience to five, which is baffling. And the classic response of “we love your experience and resume, but sadly have chosen someone else,” has infuriated me to no end. Recognition of a viable candidate and refusal to even offer an interview is mind boggling and if I am to speak my mind, offensive as someone who has sat in the hiring chair before. To identify an ideal avenue, a possibly successful one and not pursue it is to accept defeat as a business. Status-quo is no longer a viable business model, I know because I worked for a company who did just that and will probably slowly crumble into oblivion within my lifetime. 

 You might be asking then what did you learn? Why come to Full Sail? To quote Spielberg; “I daydream all the time,” and I do to this day. I dream of stories and of a future where I can help others tell their stories, and if I believe in that reality, it will come to be as long as I stay true to who I am. That is the lesson I have learned from Full Sail; did I gain film production knowledge? Yes, to a degree I did, but what I learned most of all is that no matter where I go there will be a status-quo agenda, and if I am to be successful I must ignore this agenda and pursue my goals in spite of it. And one day I will be able to have a hand in changing the system, the stories, and the way we hire new talent for the better.

[trcubledycuth]

🤧 – comforting them when crying

              It was a sickly surreal feeling to have your life ripped out from beneath your feet. It’s not that he didn’t have a choice in the matter, but with enough force, anyone’s willpower would crumble under the sheer determination of everyone around him. The hold on Adrian might have been comparable to one of the gigantic snakes that frequented Australia and Peru—  the kind that squeezed the life out of you, the very air from your lungs. Fucking Anaconda the movie, realness. But Julian wasn’t trying to kill his brother, instead he was wrapped around him clinging for dear life with his face buried deep against his neck —   dark brown curls mangled with his tear covered face and the reality of it all. He was a grown man, but he’d also just lost the love of his life, possibly the movie he was shooting— Olivia was being extremely tight lipped about it considering they were ‘working through things’ and exploring their options; she made it quite clear Julian needed to focus on getting better— as if he were actually sick. Three months was a long time to be out, six if he really fucking sucked. But those were purely the tip of the iceberg, weren’t they? 

              Right alongside Cecelia and his career stood Adrian Quinn. And if this didn’t classify as letting someone down, what did? It’s not even that he’d meant to lie to him… . Reality just sort of slipped away when he’d been so focused on how not a big deal it was. Really, finding out he’d hooked up with guys was the last thing that should have been a worry because it meant far more than that. At least in the eyes of the normal. Julian just hadn’t considered it to be anyone’s business really. He didn’t even know what he was doing half the time, couldn’t that just be this weird silent area that didn’t exist unless he was looking at it? It was Tommy that complicated things. And soon to be some GHOSTS from his past, ready to cash in on the train wreck that was America’s Favorite falling from grace. Everyone needed their hand in the honeypot before EVERYTHING was gone. 

             Was he just going to ignore the drug problem? Well. That wasn’t really a problem, it just got exacerbated and sounded a lot worse. Except for the fact he wasn’t headed to rehab for a sex addiction, or anything of the sort. But … DEFLECT DEFLECT DEFLECT. 

              The past week had left him feeling like Hell warmed over, struggling to get a grip on what had happened. All he’d done was run from his problems, every single one of them. Holly dragged him down to the bottom of the hole, then used his next to unconscious self to climb up the ladder, leaving him crumpled in the darkness as she came out victorious, so brave. She was being applauded for speaking OUT, it took so much out of her, this dark secret hanging over her head for so long. A secret SO MANY allowed to thrive, slithering below the surface, silently collecting it’s ‘victims’. Try as they may to keep JULIAN out of the loop, Adrian had left his phone on the hospital chair when he’d went to grab J a drink and he’d helped himself, bypassing the passcode in one try and trying to see what everyone was trying to guard him from. 

             For good reason. It was worse than he’d thought. 

     So much worse than he fucking thought. 

            Yeah. They didn’t have confirmation he was drugged out, or headed for Rehab, but they did have his silence — it’s own admission of guilt while Holly tried hard to peddle back, claim he was just as much of a victim. They had the photos of him kissing her, Holly straddling his lap and BACKING that turbulent love affair built upon the foundation of a HOLLYWOOD CLASSIC. 

           Two things he didn’t remember, but the photos didn’t lie. He could even pinpoint when it was from and … She was there, wasn’t she? He’d been with Brock but … Jackson, Jackson had been there too …  It wasn’t a wonder Cecelia reacted as she did. When had these even come out? Recently giving all of the shit she’d spewed over the past, what, six years credibility? It made him sick to his stomach. It wasn’t enough having EXPOSED him to the world with those BRIGHT BEGINNINGS where he did, and would have done anything to feel like MORE than he had. To actually get the shot to BE something and prove to the world what he knew he was capable of. The awards at home weren’t for nothing, he was brilliant at what he did. Maybe a little too brilliant considering the double life he’d been living right below the nose of THE PEOPLE HE CARED MOST ABOUT. 

        At some point the pilots grabbed their parachutes and jumped, Julian hadn’t gotten the memo and the plane that was symbolic for quite literally everything as it crashed into the ground and he felt every single fucking shard of torn metal using his body as a pincushion, as if he was a new age Voodoo Doll that had it  coming. Who knows. Maybe he did deserve it. When it first broke he’d done his best to disappear. It worked out great considering Europe gave him reason to truly melt into the role, forget his own issues and obsessively lock himself within the mindset where NOTHING ELSE MATTERED. Something Brock had subtly used to further his— their own agenda, unknown to JULIAN. 

       THE WORLD had never truly known who Julian was, but it was easy to get a false idea. Living vicariously through his frequent Instagram posts, hours upon hours of interviews and shoots, behind the scenes bullshit all heavily weighing on the internet. His IMDB bursting with trivia added years ago from his management and the countless people that had cycled through, an ever rotating door of faces and names that didn’t matter for more than a few months at a time. It’s not to say the world didn’t have SOME idea of who he was. He’d started being real after getting rid of Holly and the management that had suggested it for the boosted career he was on his way of getting but everyone always had their own agenda.

       And maybe that’s why he was finally breathing easy when Adrian was back at his side, always there for him to come home to with Cecelia to talk, de-stress, and just live. When he looked back upon his life (which was admittedly far too often), Adrian was there. And things went wrong, real wrong when Adrian left. His brother was so far ingrained into WHO HE WAS that it felt like A PIECE OF HIM WAS MISSING. Yeah, Adrian had essentially raised him, but he’d also been his partner in crime, the RING LEADER. And without that he struggled. Things escalated and his parents came to realize that they really didn’t know their youngest, at least not since HE’D CHANGED. Funnily enough he hadn’t changed, Adrian just wasn’t there to keep the lies going, and he floundered to do it himself for a few months. And maybe that’s when it all started. The constant nagging and explosive fights over nothing, constantly at head with one another in a uncompromising game of tug of war where neither side would EVER understand one another. 

    It left him empty. Aching for something more. For some form of understanding that seemed like a mythical beast, because the one person who got him was on the other side of the UNITED STATES. Hardly a world away, but stuck isolated in WINE COUNTRY … Well, first world problems, right? That’s how most would have looked at it. Fights with the parents? Pft, typical. Problems at school? Typical. Feeling empty, worthless? CLASSIC TEENAGER. It was both the driving force and what caused him to crumble because he NEVER grew out of it and now that … Now that everyone was turning their back? 

      It had him feeling sixteen again. Though even his parents hadn’t come close to the crushing weight that made it hard to breathe, forcing his lungs to struggle for air, knuckles white with the sheer force in which they were curled into Adrian’s jacket. Switzerland. The private jet was sobering, each passing minute pushing him closer and closer to the brink of no return. He was pale, quiet, lost. He’d found his place to belong and … How did he get so far from it? Holly quite literally was ruining everything, or was he just running from his problems again? Placing blame where it needn’t be? He could have went through and proposed to Cecelia, but she deserved FAR MORE than the shitshow Holly was handing out free admission to. If he was going to propose it was going to be special not some spectacle for the world to sit by and watch, this was his life, not a role. 

    But this is what he signed up for, right? That’s what everyone said. Boohoo, go cry into your pile of money; something that was often yelled from the other side of the glass as people tapped and prodded, shoving phones and cameras in his face, curling around him to grab that surprise selfie to say THEY MET JULIAN QUINN AND TOOK THIS REALLY AWKWARD PHOTO, failing to mention they couldn’t be fucked to so much say hello or show any human act of decency. Well, unless screaming in his face counted. 

     Yes, this is exactly what he signed up for when he wanted to be an actor. Acting was his escape, all he’d fucking known for how long? He’d gotten good at it out of necessity, then left the very reason why in the review mirror, never looking back. Doing whatever it took to prove himself. Turns out, it hadn’t been the right choice. Deep in Switzerland, in a town Julian still couldn’t pronounce, they stood on the sidewalk shrouded in darkness, the bitter cold nipping at every piece of skin his tears touched. It was some ungodly hour in the morning and he was left scrambling, trying to convince his brother that he didn’t need to go. Days were spent in the hospital, locked in hopeless arguments trying to derail the trajectory of his immediate future with no avail. 

      “I don’t wanna go— Adrian, please.” The words were sobbed into his neck with reckless abandon. When Adrian moved to Los Angeles, surely this wasn’t what he’d expected; BUT AT SOME POINT, things got a little messy. “I can’t be stuck here for three months.” And that was being optimistic, “Everyones gonna know, I gotta talk to Cee, I didn’t—“ Didn’t do what Holly said he did? Didn’t do what the photos said he did? “I don’t remember … I wouldn’t have, you know that.” What did Adrian really know anymore? Temptation was at every corner but when it came to his heart, and the heart he held in his hands; he was one of the good guys. Everyone paled in comparison to Cecelia and they were GOING TO HAVE A LIFE TOGETHER. Er, they were supposed to. That’s all he wanted. “She hates me, I can’t be here, I have to make it right,” Even if she hated him, and didn’t want to hear from him but she’d VANISHED far before he could CONFRONT what he hadn’t known was out there. Did she just think he was looking her dead in the eyes with a MOUTHFUL OF LIES? Likely … But they weren’t all lies, not this. 

      Sadly he didn’t get to pick and choose what she believed, no matter the amount of conviction he spoke with. “Adrian, please don’t leave me.” Please don’t hate me. Meaning as there regardless of what Adrian heard, or could make out. He was on a tangent, muffled emotion spilling out of his mouth. A fucking mess in a last ditch effort not to be stuck in his own personal PRISON OF NO ESCAPE for the next ninety fucking DAYS. Paying just under $70,000.00 a month for … what? He didn’t need this. 

      His own personal hell was being locked in a room with himself, no distractions. This was basically the same thing save for EVERYONE that was going to come at him with that sickly smothering ‘concern’ to make him BETTER. Actually this this was the hell now. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry— Please just … don’t go.” He needed him. 

[amateursoundwizard]

Comic book characters are extremely logical leads for pulp novel series. After all they’re basically the modern versions of characters like Doc Savage and Sherlock Holmes. Their series provide a clear template for self contained adventures. You put the character through the template and deliver a satisfying episode. It’s just logical.

For my money, no character has thrived in words the way Spider-Man has. Sure, there were some damn good Batman anthologies and the Justice League series from 2002-2004 was superb. Spider-Man trumps them all though with a rather vibrant run in prose reaching from the 70s to today that merits study.

Now to be clear, I’m not covering every book. In fact I’m completely skipping the YA Super Thriller books because I haven’t read them and I’m not paying $10 a book to do so. I’m trying to touch on at least a bit of every era though. I’ve read all of the Boulevard novels and I’ll give them a healthy amount of focus, but I’ll also look back at the 70s novels, the 2000s Pocket novels, and even the oddity of Mary Jane.

So let’s get swinging!

Mayhem in Manhattan: The very first Spider-Man novel. Normally when I look at first adaptations of characters, I have to cringe because the writers clearly don’t grasp the characters at all, such as with the rather sad Avengers and Captain America pulps. However, this is a special case. One of the writers, Len Wein, cocreated Swamp Thing, Nightcrawler, Storm, Colossus, and Wolverine. The other writer, Marv Wolfman, cocreated the Black Cat in addition to writing Crisis on Infinite Earths and The New Teen Titans. These men didn’t understand the material. They created the material, complete with both writing sizable Spider-Man runs.

Needless to say the book is one of the best I’ll cover here. It’s very brief, half the word count of most of the books to come in fact. But it feels like a lost arc of the comic. The villain’s plan is a fittingly silly yet of the cultural moment one. Also, while it starts as if the villain is some random character we’ve never heard of, he’s eventually revealed as good old Doctor Octopus, giving us a really solid plot. All the characters sound dead-on, especially J. Jonah Jameson.

What really makes this stand out though is the depiction of New York. Both men were NYC natives and the book feels like it’s set in a real place. It’s not just generic big city. There’s nice texture to it. This one isn’t too hard to find, thankfully, and well worth the read.

As for the follow ups, Crime Campaign and Murdermoon, I’d call them just OK. The rest of the 70s prose was really bland. They did at least tend to use A-list villains but there wasn’t much energy and they were rushed. They’ve aged poorly.

The Venom Trilogy: Diane Duane kicked the Boulevard/Byron Press era with three books: The Venom Factor, The Lizard Sanction, and The Octopus Agenda. I remembered enjoying the trilogy in my initial read and couldn’t wait to reread the books. I was sorely let down. Duane’s bloat in the books is almost unconscionable. These books read like the most decompressed works in comic history. I’d barely call them books. There’s so little going on per book yet they charged hardcover prices for these.  My best guess is that Duane, a gifted fantasy writer who worked great in Star Trek, was simply a bad fit. The pacing and subplots she dwells in don’t feel out of place if these were books in those realms. But as Spider-Man stories, they don’t work. There’s no hum here. There’s just a lot of dead air. This felt like a bad omen.

The Ultimate Spider-Man: No, not connected to the 2000 Universe. This is a set of short stories that by and large does the trick. There’s hits and misses. The extended origin novella played better before it was beaten to death. A second anthology, Untold Tales of Spider-Man is much stronger with some blissfully eclectic stories.

Carnage in New York: This was a far different story: A fluff piece about Spider-Man trying to stop Carnage from getting his hands on a trigger that turns people violent. Not the most original story but a great use of a solid villain in a highly compact 250 page story. It actually felt like an arc.

Venom’s Wrath: There were a lot of Venom stories. It was the 90s after all. This was a solid one. Venom’s a bit overhyped on the cover, more looming as a threat while the actual villains, a group of Puerto Rican nationalists, dominate the book. Fortunately I actually found that plotline quite gripping, especially as it focused on nationalism and identity. Something to note for tie-in writers: Since you can’t change the status quo, giving the reader fascinating stories you can control is a must.

Doom’s Day trilogy: Spidey shared the spotlight for this trilogy with other heroes, The Incredible Hulk on book 1, Iron Man on book 2, and Fantastic Four on book 3. What winds up happening is he never feels like he really belongs in any book. Honestly the entire trilogy feels like an attempt to do a megacrossover welded to the biggest title in the line.  None of these books really work and despite the title, Doctor Doom only really gets anything to do in book 3. Pass.

Valley of the Lizard: Another book that had the same benefit as the above book. The villains here are great, gargoyle creatures that worship The Lizard as a messiah. They’re creepy and unnerving threats that provide nice contrast to the canon villain, who’s one of the more gripping enemies Spidey has. There’s even a nice portion told from The Lizard’s POV.

Time’s Arrow trilogy: Spider-Man teams up with the X-Men to fix the timeline. These are really X-Men stories with Spider-Man in them. They’re decent, having fun with the characters and Marvel’s various timelines. But ultimately not a must-read. I barely finished this trilogy myself.

Goblin Moon: The only time Norman Osborn actually appears in a prose novel and one hell of a great Green Goblin story. This really captures the complex rivalry between the hero and villain. One of the greats of the line.

Emerald Mystery: The only book in the entire line told in first person, which fits as it’s a riff on the detective story. A quick but nicely textured read that nailed the formula. Also the very last Spider-Man book issued by Boulevard.

The Sinister Six Trilogy: Follow this logic. Book one was a $7 paperback. The next two books jumped to a different publisher and became $25 hardcovers which were in print 2-3 years later and treated as stand alone while book one was out of print. The books themselves started great but sputtered to a halt sadly. Much of the trilogy is built on a reveal that we the readers know is impossible. A lot of wasted potential really.

Mary Jane/Mary Jane 2: Rarely do I read a “wait what!?!” tie in like this. These are books set in roughly the Ultimate universe centered around a teenage Mary Jane Watson and and her connection to Peter Parker. They’re honestly quite weird. They’re books that don’t satisfy any fanbase really. They’re only so-so romance novels and not in any way satisfying Spider-Man novels. Just…weird. But for that reason highly recommended.

Down These Mean Streets: The second Pocket era of Marvel books was nowhere near on par with the Boulevard run. The books just never had the same energy despite several writers coming over including series editor Keith R.A. DeCandido, who turned in this not bad but agonizingly bland read. The plot just isn’t anything to write home about I fear and the prose was meh.

The Darkest Hours: Jim Butcher writing Spider-Man was a big deal since he created The Dresden Files, a superb series which was exploding in popularity when this book was released. His name even scored this book a deluxe rerelease. So is it that good? Yes. It’s a solid read drawing heavily from JMS’ run on the character while bringing in Black Cat for flavor. It’s not world defining but it’s good.

Requiem: Unlike the other Pocket books, this one actually felt a bit different. It helped that Jeff Mariotte came from the Buffy/Angel books and brought a similar spirit, using the horror evoking Carrion and the Scriers as his villains. This was an interesting, genuinely creepy read. The one to seek out from this line.

So, what conclusions have I reached from this study? Really just one. Peter Parker has one of the most distinct voices of any character in comics and I think that enables him to work well in prose. Capture his spirit and the books almost always work. After all the character succeeds in both street level stories and cosmic adventures. Spider-Man is eternally malleable and that makes him pop where another character might get generic.

So, what character/franchise will I look at next? I’m batting around a couple. Possibly a slayer. Possibly a bit of Trek. But that’s in the future.

Web of Words: Spider-Man in Prose Comic book characters are extremely logical leads for pulp novel series. After all they're basically the modern versions of characters like Doc Savage and Sherlock Holmes.

[kellyvela]

[adultsec]

A Time To Live

When you discover the ability to disassociate, you almost feel powerful. You decide to mute the noise. You decide, you can’t control the rest, and focus, if you’re strategic, on yourself, not the void. 

Your flaw can be, (don’t let this happen to you..) that in the dismissal of all those things that hurt you, in the dismissal of all those things that afflict you, you can’t disassociate with portions of life, it’s like a light bulb, it’s either on, or off. The darkness fades away memories of smiles, laughs and hugs, the good and bad don’t differ in the darkness, it’s just dark, and no one stands out, we’re all the same, bumping into walls. 

This was something I did. 

One day, I turned on the lights, and instead of seeing people walking slow scared to bump into walls, as intended, people were charging at me, and my kids were being stepped over. Not to mention, some people learn to live in the darkest moldiest corners and thrive, like mold. They seem just like you and me in the crowd, nothing more nothing less, but in a dark room, where you laid down, flat, versus trying to find a wall, you laid there, safe enough to make sure you heard what’s needed. That’s not enough to thrive. 

If you’re not sure why the darkness isn’t healthy, for a moment, lets stop to see why we require Vitamin D: “ The Vitamin D Council -- a scientist-led group promoting vitamin D deficiency awareness -- suggests vitamin D treatment might be found helpful in treating or preventing autism, autoimmune disease, cancer, chronic pain, depression, diabetes, heartdisease, high bloodpressure, flu, neuromuscular diseases, and osteoporosis. However, there have been no definitive clinical trials.” -  Daniel J. DeNoon 

With that knowledge, we can have a small understanding as to why the light is actually good, light is a symbol for knowledge, hope, “the light at the end of the tunnel” isn’t really a bad thing when we hear that, is it? So why do we latch on to the darkness, the defeat? 

Creating goals, focusing on life, can be productive, but if and when you wake up one day, to a tragedy, because we can’t live on earth without paying that cost, we all experience a tragedy, what do we do? 

We realize, people don’t stop smashing their head onto the walls, in the dark or under the sunshine. We experience that when the light hits, sure, no one looks pretty, no one seems alert, but waking up usually takes at maximum a few hours, and for some people, you learn, that they don’t wake up, in fact, they make choices, and moves, as if they had a blindfold. 

So, what can we do, help? We can’t. 

Do we, disrupt them, and try to teach them? Maybe, but the expectation should be null, they may never adopt your lessons or grow with you, they might like that moldy corner. That’s okay, but their darkness shouldn’t take you with them, there is a moment when you realize, that disassociation was okay back then, but now, you’ll have to face this experience with all emotions. Why? Because you want to do as much as you can so your loved ones don’t grow roots in the mold, so they can open their mind to the light, the possibilities, and also the heartbreak, and pain, believe it or not, it can be healthy when dealt with reason. 

When you realize, “I am emotionally connected to a person, a friend, a person, I’ve been vulnerable with”. That shouldn’t be a burden, that should relieve you from the weight and tell you, I’ve done my part, I didn’t intentionally go out of my way to hurt them, I just don’t think this situation is okay for me, emotionally speaking. Some people don’t see what’s best for you, it’s not their job, it’s our own job to determine that. 

Parenting is something we see correlated with nurture, when you see the word parenting, you can think of safety. That, hopefully, is your experience, but it wasn’t mine, and so, therefore I have the “superpower” to go around the world really observing people, offering advice, and being there as I can. When any, relationship begins to feel heavy, awkward, stressful, and the vulnerability you had with this person becomes a wall, revise your emotions, realistically. 

Consider all the lovely memories, you might get sad, I personally process those memories like I do when a good piece of art is before me. “I am experiencing this art now, this monument, man-made, but I can’t sleep, eat, live in front of it, I gotta move on, so I thank the hand of the artist, and move on to the next piece” 

More often than not, people are like art, their value lays deep in them, or it could be a mask they wear, but everyone you come across contributes to your life, their words, their sadness, their joys, their emotions (if they’ve let you in) are the art. 

We get attached, and that’s something I stopped doing very young, about when I was 17, a German woman I worked with, almost, gave me permission to let myself believe people are an experience, like any other, and those who do love you, and want to stay with you, it will be effortless, you’ll bond, don’t force things. 

In the darkness it was easy to love the common sounds I heard, only because, I love noise, but not because it was conducive of growth, when I think hard, the growth that’s poured into my life, has come from self reflection. Lately, and randomly, I stop growing, and realize that I’m stuck, in the mud. 

So I’m back at square one, sort of, I am no longer in the dark, but I was on a bridge, thinking I could keep communication with people who remained in the dark with me, but they grew mold, they have blindfolds. I can’t stay, my kids can’t stay, but it’s healthy to see all those things, as they age, they can have their own opinions about their experiences, but the difference I’m making for them, is the consistency that I have their back. I will now with full awareness help them keep a night light in the dark, to help them observe and learn and grow, seeing people as an experience, to love the things they love, and to always be aware, (hopefully) that the light is real, it’s in you, it’s your mind, the facts, and knowledge you pick up as you walk on. 

No one is perfect, and no one is prepared to question life, most think, “this is the way it is”, I’ve challenged that in the past, and I fell into a moment, where I did this too, laid in my own shit. Though, behind the ears of my kids, where all the coins come from, I saw an opportunity, to help my kids and myself, leave the things we can’t control behind, and absorb opportunity and emotional awareness daily. To see people with empathy, as creatures of their own story, and so long as we’re in a safe place, find love, support, in one another, our home of 6 is a safe haven, walls stay outside, and inside, we’re all just hanging out, and eating Doritos, asking about each others day without wondering if anyone has a different agenda, we’re all just there, loving one another. 

Abi -2019

[bassfanimation]

The Secret Girlfriend Theory

Before anyone chortles at the title of this, please bear with me.  It’s something that, I think in the ending of the Sherlock series, actually makes sense if I had to dissect his relationships with women (romantically speaking).

Since so many people have enjoyed the “I Love You: A Man’s Perspective” post,  I also had a great talk with my hub about this new theory of mine, and again, his interpretation from a man’s perspective is really interesting.  We also had a very personal talk, which opened my eyes to something I didn’t know about him before.  I’ve asked if I can include it here and he’s totally cool with. He’s also completely amazed that people like our banter, but mostly he likes that it’s opened up new avenues of discussion in the fanbase.  I’ll denote in the post between our views for clarity.

A small disclaimer: this is merely my (and some of my dude’s) own personal view, coming from our own worldviews and experiences. In no way am I writing any meta, thoughts, or opinions that are meant to invalidate anyone else’s reading of the show or characters.  Everyone can have their view and their story, and it’s ok.  These are just ours.  Art and media is open to everyone’s interpretations.

This is another long one folks, so take a potty break now!

In The Final Problem, Sherlock had to say the most painful words he’s had to say throughout this entire series: “I love you.”  What’s worse, he had to say these words in front of the two people he has most wanted to impress in his life: John and Mycroft.  I think them being in the room with Sherlock for this test was highly, highly significant. 

Sherlock has always been like the Wizard of Oz, which I wrote something back a while ago. I’m not sure if I can find it though as I think it was on the end of someone else’s post, but I might be wrong. Anyways, Sherlock make believes he is a larger than life figure in front of literally everyone, but none moreso than John Watson, and his brother Mycroft.  

With John...John is Sherlock’s #1 fan. Sherlock wants John to believe he is the ubermensch.  He’s Superman, literally.  Even Moffat and Gatiss have stated things that lead you to believe they too thought of Sherlock Holmes as a comic book hero. To young boys, he is just that. Sherlock, in turn, thrives off of John’s adoration for him and his skills, he clearly eats it up.  Most immature, childish people crave attention, and Sherlock is the picture of immaturity at the start of this series.  Because of Sherlock’s need for John to see him as this super-intelligent, amazing man, he has to hide a lot of the more ‘human’ aspects that he has deep inside himself.  It’s why John thinks he’s a “machine”, early on.  Sherlock, in effect, cannot let John Watson see how the sausage is made. (no dick jokes now, this is a clean post, you can send me dick jokes later tho)

Next, with Mycroft, it’s very obvious as to why Sherlock hides all his feelings even more around his big brother.  With John, Sherlock is Superman.  With Mycroft, Sherlock is only a child, and he makes this very well known in how he talks to and treats him.  He taunts Sherlock constantly about sentimentality.  He mocks love, he cares nothing for feelings, and he uses the mere notion of Sherlock “feeling” against him.  Any sort of emotion Sherlock has he absolutely cannot let Mycroft become wise to them.  I like to believe that Sherlock actually idolizes his big brother, and loves him deeply (we see in the family videos).  He’d never show it of course, because to show it would mean Mycroft would probably roll his eyes at him and Sherlock, until this point, couldn’t handle that.

Now, let’s take a good look at the women in Sherlock’s life (that we know of) who’ve had even any inkling of romantic or sexual attraction with Sherlock.

Irene Adler.  Even as a Sherlolly shipper to the grave, I will never deny Irene and Sherlock’s very real attraction.  Gatiss has stated Irene and Sherlock were “made for each other”, and he’s right, in a specific way.  BC has stated that he truly believes Sherlock and Irene had a night together (that means sex, to be indelicate about it, heheh) after he saved her. Now, technically that’s not canon, as canon only pertains to what happens on screen.  But, if the actor that’s playing the character has imagined that in the character’s backstory, and is playing that character with that in mind, then I feel it’s so close to canon it might as well be. *shrug*  Anyways...there was an intimate, sexual love affair between Sherlock and Irene...with one very interesting aspect that spans across to other women, later: it was a secret, until now.  More on that later.

Sherlock never allowed John to know that he knew Irene was alive.  Sherlock purposely kept Irene’s existence as a connection to himself as secret from everyone.  From John, to Mycroft, to literally anyone, even Molly Hooper, of course (though I like that Molly never considered it a secret, she deduced it pretty clearly when Sherlock ID’d Irene’s body despite her face being unrecognizable).  We see in TSoT that Irene appears inside Sherlock’s mind, naked, and seductively touching his face.  Irene Adler is a secret, but she is firmly, undeniably still part of Sherlock’s life, his dreams, his lust, his admiration...all of that.  But she is his secret romance. Again, I’ll revisit this in a bit.

Janine Hopkins is up next.  We don’t meet Janine until TSoT, which is also where Irene Adler pops into Sherlock’s mind, AND Molly Hooper is present and shown in contrasting ways to Sherlock more than a handful of times. All three of these women are making a very bold impact in TSoT, which is the episode featuring John and Mary’s wedding.  For me, that is no coincidence.  Mary also is playing a hugely impactful role, but not a romantic one.  Many JLers interpret TSoT and the women in it as Sherlock struggling with his losing John because he’s in love with John. It’s totally fine if you want to see that. For me though, I think it’s the opposite.  We have Irene inside Sherlock’s head, nude.  We have Molly Hooper, who is now engaged but keeping her eyes firmly fixed on Sherlock (not to mention him peeping into the frame from behind as Molly’s kissing on Tom).  And we have Janine who is actively looking to hook up with a man at the wedding. She’s a sexually mature, sexually available woman who has a pretty clear agenda. I rather loved that about J, she’s awesome.  I’ll come back to that with a thought from my hub, later.

Now, Janine and Sherlock actually get on really well. They laugh together, Sherlock tries to impress her a bit, he goofs off with her. They have a really nice rapport, yet still she ends up dancing with someone else at the end of the wedding. We see her with another guy, we see Molly unfortunately chained to ol’ Meat Dagger McGee, Mary dancing romantically with John...and Sherlock goes off, alone...as Molly watches, helplessly. (damn that made me cry) 

In the very next episode, His Last Vow, we see that Sherlock is actually dating Janine.  Most of us knew that it was under false pretenses just because of the canon ACD story where Holmes fakes an engagement.  The important part to notice is that In the first part of the episode, Sherlock has a near meltdown when Mycroft approaches his room, where Janine is sleeping.  He physically threatens Mycroft to get him out of 221B and away from nosing about. He’s hiding a secret.

After Mycroft leaves, Sherlock goes to take a bath, and Janine then comes out of his bedroom, wearing one of his shirts as her pj’s.  John is utterly gobsmacked, reflecting us, the audience, as we’re feeling the same.  Janine then proceeds to act like a typical ‘girlfriend’.  Sherlock eventually comes out of his room fully dressed, and the two put on a show in front of John that looks very normal, despite the audience knowing it’s bull.  I think all of us remember the very awkward kiss Sherlock and Janine share that made all of us sort of recoil, because it felt unnatural.  I know there’s about 10,000 meta pointing out that this means Sherlock is not into women, but I think there may be another reason that kiss was so weird. My hub has a good take on it.  I’ll also bring this back up later.

Near the end of HLV, when Sherlock’s lying in the hospital with his gunshot wound from Mary, Janine visits him there.  Her revenge and her words here now have a new meaning to me than they used to.  She says, “I know what kind of man you are, Sherlock Holmes.”  Then we see the tabloid news paper where Janine has blabbed to the press about her and Sherlock’s highly voracious sexual relationship. “He made me wear the hat!”, one of the headlines says. Sherlock looks really defeated by it all, and Janine says he didn’t have to lie to her, that they could have been friends.

Putting the rest of the series together, Janine’s words, and her “revenge” have a new meaning for me. It lines up with Irene, AND with Molly.  Sherlock Holmes’s private life has never been examined much. If anything, it’s remained very “off screen”. Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat drew a lot of inspiration for Irene Adler from The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes.  I think that right there is what makes me think Sherlock’s love life was, in the BBC version, “private”.  It’s something he wanted kept out of the public view, his friends’ view, everyone.  It was not for them to know about it, especially considering how closed off Sherlock’s own true heart really was.  It was basically DEAD, as the coffin in TFP represented. 

Now, for Molly Hooper.  Loo Brealey stated in a PBS podcast interview that she got this feeling that there was a lot going on behind the scenes with Molly and Sherlock.  It’s never out in the open, but the way they interact leads you to think there is something there.  We’re not sure what, but it’s deliberately set up to be an ‘are they or aren’t they’ question.  Personally, I found Eurus’s test to give us the definitive answer: they ARE.  The reason I think this is true, is how it was all laid out.  It was made to be A) in front of John and Mycroft, B) the words I Love You had to be said, and they had to be REAL, Molly made sure of that or she wouldn’t have said it back to him (also genius on Eurus’ part), and C) how she told him to say it.  She said, “You say it.  Say it like you mean it.”  This just absolutely smacks of two people who have a “something” together, but neither has actually made it REAL, until now.  Not only were they BOTH forced to make it REAL, but it wasn’t a SECRET anymore. Mycroft knows it, John knows it (fkin finally), Eurus already knew it because she’s a badass queen.  Sherlock is now terrified, the most private part of his life is now out in the open.  The coffin was smashed.  Skadoosh, you have a heart and everyone knows it now, no going back.

I think Molly Hooper has always been Sherlock’s ‘secret girlfriend’ (I know how dumb that sounds but I don’t have a better term) because that’s the way it was supposed to be: out of our view.  Sherlock Holmes doesn’t flagrantly date women like Bruce Wayne, he doesn’t go on publicly identified dates at all (can you imagine the paparazzi).  His heart IS his most guarded secret, and I don’t mean the friendly love he shared with John. That was well out in the open from the first series. It was even featured in the newspaper, which neither was happy about.  No one likes their life blared about and dissected by the public.  Also they’re Holmes and Watson, it’s the most iconic love between two men ever.  No, in this series...Sherlock’s heart was the thing he struggled most to keep under wraps. It’s the thing that he was most afraid of, it’s the thing that made him most vulnerable, it’s the thing he could not risk, not even for us, the viewers! 

Back to some ideas between me and my hub.  

My view of Janine’s revenge was meant to be a huge slap to Sherlock by saying, “Look what I did, I let the public think they’re in on your sex life. I told lies about the most private thing you can do with another person. I made it into a joke.”  Janine made Sherlock’s heart into a JOKE, let that sink in.  

Now, Janine also said she “knew what kind of man Sherlock is”.  This line is hotly debated by fandom as to what that means. I thought that that meant she knew he was a lying shit, and also he didn’t want people to know him, or his private affairs, especially regarding his most guarded emotions. That’s why Janine stuck it to him good.  He made her heart a joke, so she made his a joke right back.  Also, the awkward kiss?  To me, that was so awkward, because Sherlock didn’t love Janine...he loved someone else, he just didn’t know it yet.  I think he was so stiff and weird with Janine because it really wasn’t genuine at all, and it made him feel terrible on some level that he was there, hurting someone else (Molly) by being with Janine. He was betraying the good man Molly thinks he is...big time.  I think that’s also why he didn’t have sex with her.  A lot of people use that as evidence that Sherlock isn’t into women, but in the context of the series as I personally see it, I think he was close enough to Molly at that point that he felt like he’d be betraying her horribly to sleep with another woman.

My husband, who I just talked to this morning about this, has a wildly interesting view of Janine and Sherlock, and why that felt so odd. My hub thinks that Janine scared the pants off of Sherlock.  He has always viewed Sherlock as a normal guy, but also, he’s a nerd.  He is an immature, extremely childish, inexperienced NERD.  He said that a sexually experienced woman who is very comfortable with her appetites for sex probably scared Sherlock shitless.  He said Sherlock is essentially a virgin, despite having most likely had sex with Irene Adler.  He noted that Sherlock and Adler probably only were together after it was on his terms, not hers.  He went to Adler to save her, he was in that control over her at the time, meaning the intimacy they shared was on his terms.  With Janine, however, she held the advantage over him, big time.  My hub also thinks Sherlock was still highly inexperienced with sex, so, that aspect alone would mean he may very possibly avoid being in a situation with Janine where he could come off as a horrible sex partner...much like young guys fear when they have no effing clue how to please an experienced lady. 

My hub also said he feels Janine was Sherlock’s “tantrum”.  He came back from his faked death and everyone had moved on.  He expected John to just whip back into things.  He expected Molly to still be there at his beck and call.  We saw the heartbreaking stairwell scene.  She had moved on from him.  At the wedding, we see Molly looking at Sherlock almost the entire time, and she is staring daggers at Janine as well.  My dude says he feels Sherlock probably saw all this happening and said, “Well fuck it, if they’ve all moved on, heh I can do that, watch me I’m going to make them all so jealous, because I’m a great big fucking child and I can show them *sticks tongue out*”.  So, he tries, but it’s a woeful wreck.  I find this reading insanely cute, and heartbreaking, considering Sherlock even says to Mycroft on the phone, “I’m not a child!”  Yes, you still are, Sherlock. :(

Let’s circle back around to Irene Adler for a moment where I’ll talk about my views first.  I see Irene as Sherlock’s secret romance.  I do believe they had a something shortly after Belgravia, but I don’t think it lasted.  I think it was a short-lived, hot, firey affair in which two people who suddenly came together, and fit sexually and intellectually, clicked like hell.  Irene Adler was Sherlock’s absolute fantasy come to life.  We have all had those people we’ve looked at and just oozed lust for. Celebrities, singers, you name it. We all have our own personal fold-outs. Hell I have a Sherlock standy in my office that my own husband gave to me, LOL!  I’m a lustful cow and Sherlock is hugely sexy to me...but he is also a fantasy.  An image.  Sherlock is not who I’d spend my life with.  Sherlock isn’t going to come home, cook me spaghetti, rub my back, listen to me cry, etc. That man is my husband, who I truly love and loves me back for exactly who I am.  I think, from my personal interpretation, Irene Adler is Sherlock’s ‘standy’.  He does have strong feelings for her, and he always will because he obviously was intimate with her, and I think she was his first “love”.  She’s gorgeous, dangerous, mysterious, smart as hell, and even sexier than she is smart.  She is the ultimate fantasy.  His secret fantasy, which we ALL have.

My hub’s view of Irene Adler is slightly more simple in that to him, she represents Sherlock’s desire, his sexuality.  She is the flesh’s fantasy, in the flesh!  What’s neat though is that she was also highly, highly intelligent, which was also a turn on for Sherlock.  In the end though, Sherlock is already a genius.  Irene was much more about the flesh than the mind, in this particular adaptation.  In the books, Irene Adler was much more of an intellectual foil, so this read on the BBC Adler is very much aimed at sex, specifically Sherlock, and his very obvious interest in sex (and not with men).  My hub and I agree though, that we both think that Irene is who Sherlock thought of for sex...not what he actually wanted in love.  The fantasies we all have, the porn we watch, the fanfic I read, hell...that’s all great fun, but it’s not who we really are inside.  We don’t want our fantasies at the end of the day.  We want love.  We want honesty, softness, common interests, trust, reliability.  Sex is the sprinkles on the cake.  When we’re old and in Depends we want someone who smiles at us like we’re the most beautiful person on Earth.

On to Molly Hooper, and why I believe she was truly Sherlock’s ‘secret love’, his real love.  Molly was there with Sherlock from the very start, and always, always, always shown in a romantic (and even sexual) context.  Even when the writers used her as the butt of jokes, it was still in relation to her love for Sherlock (stuff it with your fake feminism, there’s a point to it).  Her love was ever present.  

Now, Molly was also there when Sherlock behaved at his worst.  She was aware of his moods, his volatility, his childishness, and still she remained strong in the face of that.  She saw his emotions even when he was sure he’d locked them away.  John and Mycroft sure didn’t see them.  Molly really knew what kind of man Sherlock was, only unlike Janine...she was okay with that.  She didn’t like when he was mean, but she corrected him.  She tried her best to help him be better, and he let her do it.  What did John say about Mary?  John said he wanted to be the man Mary thought he was.  Sherlock asked Molly in TRF, “If I wasn’t the kind of man I think I am, would you still want to help me?”  The answer was an unbending yes.  Sherlock allowed himself to be made a better man in large part thanks to Molly Hooper, not Irene, not Janine.  Mary was the love of John’s life.  What would that make Molly to Sherlock?  To me it’s very clear, maybe it’s my shipper goggles, I won’t deny I love them, but to me the parallels speak for themselves.

Talking to my husband, he said he’s always related heavily to Sherlock, and I had never known why until this morning.  He recalled when we first met, how closed off he was.  He often spouted out random facts and knowledge, so much that my grandma used to call him a “Know It All”. We had a hard time connecting as anything other than friends, because quite frankly, I thought he was cold.  We had a big fight once, and I cried and I said that he never showed emotion.  When I was happy, I wanted him to be happy with me.  When I was sad, I wanted him to understand that I was sad, and to be sad with me.  He was raised in a family where the men were kind of closed off.  Oddly enough he also had wanted to be a forensic pathologist, LOL.  But it took YEARS for him to open up to me, and me to him, cause I’ve had my own horrible childhood woes that have led me to be very scared of intimacy.  YEARS.  People kept asking us if were were a “thing” and we never knew how to address it, until one day he just asked what we were.  It was at that point that we gave it a go, we became a “thing”.  We still had a long, long way to go though. Long story short, we’ve been with each other in some fashion for 17 years.  We’re still learning how to love and to be open.  For men, it’s twice as hard to learn. It takes a long time for them to understand their own feelings, and even then they’ll find new ways to be confused, LOL.  It is human.

I’ve always thought of myself as Molly Hooper; lonely, a little weird, strange interests, plain, and probably no one’s lifetime love.  And now I know my husband has always thought of himself a lot like Sherlock Holmes; lonely, emotionally sensitive but closed off out of fear, often insecure, intelligent with facts but afraid of emotion, having to unlearn aloofness and to be ok with trust.  Forever we were together, but not together.  Everyone sort of saw us and thought maybe we were a thing, maybe we weren’t.  Were we secret lovers and didn’t realize it?  We didn’t even know for ages, until one day, you just open your heart.  After that, you see what happens.  For us, our love for each other doesn’t fit the typical mold.  We’re not everyone else, but we fit perfectly with each other.  Perfectly.

Molly and Sherlock also fit perfectly, especially if you view them as who they really are, as the kind of people they actually are.  He was closed off, a nerd to the 9th degree, not very “normal”, messy, childish, moody, stupid a LOT of the time, and not very popular with anyone.  She was lonely but open, also a nerd to the 9th degree, not very “normal” herself but she didn’t care and didn’t pretend to be, had a sadness in her that she tried to turn into a smile for others, ignored but accepting of it, overlooked by everyone (except by one person), not very popular with anyone yet one person still came back to her time and time again. I find the stairway scene extra telling now, considering it was Molly trying to be “normal”, stating her and Tom have a dog and they go to pubs with friends...then as Sherlock insinuates that not every man she loves can be a sociopath, she whispers to herself, “Maybe it’s just my type”. Girl does not fit into any “normal” mold whatsoever, just like Sherlock doesn’t fit into a mold of any sort.  I love that so much about them, it kills me, because I relate so much.

Molly and Sherlock are like me and my hub.  The secrets that you don’t realize are there, right in front of you.  Sometimes, people don’t even know what they feel.  Sometimes it takes years, a crushing event, hell even a drunk night of Mario Kart and tamales.  You just know when you know that you love someone. It’ll hit you like thunder and it’ll scare the shit out of you.  That’s why I, and my hub, think Sherlock really did mean what he said to Molly, and that he’s known on some level for a very long time that she was the real deal.  She’s not his standy.  Not his foldout.  Not an experiment.

Molly as Sherlock’s real love might have been a secret before, but now she’s real, and his love is real for her too now.  It became real in front of John Watson and Mycroft Holmes, the other two most important people in their circle.  The coffin that Sherlock obliterated in front of them?  That’s the secret being destroyed.  The love is revealed.  Their love may not fit a mold, it may not be the kind of relationship you think of when you think of ‘boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend’, but it doesn’t have to be like everyone else’s relationships.  These two people fit in their own way, and I think Molly has always, always been okay with that.  Similarly, Sherlock knows she’s okay with that.  Their realness is theirs to make it their own.  You can’t go back to be a secret once you say “I Love You.”  That is as real as it gets.

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Required Reading

Photographer John Kucko captured this icy home in Webster, New York. Kucko told Colossal that the building is roughly 20 feet from the rocky shores of Lake Ontario. (via Colossal)

The “Schultz storm” of the Whitney Biennial has dominated art world headlines all week, and one of the most extensive — and well-researched — pieces is by Josephine Livingstone and Lovia Gyarkye in The New Republic:

In her painting, Schutz has smeared Till’s face and made it unrecognizable, again. The streaks of paint crossing the canvas read like an aggressive rejoinder to Mamie Till Mobley’s insistence that he be photographed. Mobley wanted those photographs to bear witness to the racist brutality inflicted on her son; instead Schutz has disrespected that act of dignity, by defacing them with her own creative way of seeing. Where the photographs stood for a plain and universal photographic truth, Schutz has blurred the reality of Till’s death, infusing it with subjectivity. The angle of the painting’s view is directly over the body as if Schutz is looming in her imagination. The colors are pretty. Looking at it is like stepping inside a dream that Schutz had about Emmett Till in his coffin. Since this case is one so importantly defined by visual legacy and competing narratives, an artist seeking to paint him ought literally to know better.

Tom Finkelpearl writes about the impact of the NEA, NEH, and other supporters of culture on New York City:

Last week a new study was released that shows how culture functions on a neighborhood level. The report by the Social Impact of the Arts Project at the University of Pennsylvania, led by Mark Stern and Susan Seifert, is titled “Culture and Social Wellbeing in New York City.” Funded by the New York Community Trust’s Cultural Agenda Fund and The Surdna Foundation, it is based on reams of data from several city agencies, the U.S. Census Bureau, and other sources. Their analysis says that the abundance of cultural assets in neighborhoods correlates with improved outcomes for crime, education, and health. One intriguing finding is that the improvements are more pronounced in lower- and moderate-income communities. That is, high rates of cultural assets in well-off neighborhoods do correlate with improved social indicators. But in the lower income communities there is greater benefit. This research looks at community ecologies, interlocking multiple measures of well-being. Cultural participation predicts lower rates of serious crime, lower rates of child abuse and neglect, and better results in public schools. Culture is good for the spirit and good for the city as a whole. Now we have a study that supports the idea that culture is an integral ingredient of a thriving neighborhood.

Some thoughts by Richard Brody on British actors playing American (and specifically African-American) roles:

The fundamental question that Jackson doesn’t address—but that his remarks imply—is whether the imaginative leap that it takes to do a part well contributes to or detracts from a performance. In other words, do actors’ efforts to create characters strip away what’s interesting about the actors themselves, as people rather than as bearers of skills? In the case of Kaluuya, the gap between the experience of being a black person in Great Britain and the United States is perhaps not as wide as Jackson assumes, which is something that Kaluuya addressed in a recent interview in GQ. “The Brixton riots, the Tottenham riots, the 2011 riots, because black people were being killed by police,” he said. “That’s what’s happening in London.” When it comes to the experience of racial minorities, appearance is, to a significant extent, experience; a Klan member or a racist police officer won’t ask a black person for a passport—any more than for a diploma or a bank book—before launching an epithet or an attack. Kaluuya acknowledged as much in the same interview when he said, “I resent that I have to prove that I’m black. . . . I see black people as one man. When I see people beaten on the streets of America, that hurts me. I feel that.

Why did Thomas Campbell leave the Metropolitan Museum? Well, it’s complicated, and the reasons appear to include this:

Another problem was Campbell’s friskiness with certain women on the staff. He had been warned about it early in his tenure but still carried on. More recently a legal action was brought against him and the Met, but it was settled.

Emoji 5.0 is in the pipeline, which means there will soon be lots of new emoji to use. Gizmodo has ranked the candidates for you:

FBI officials arrested a person in Maryland who reputedly sent a strobing image to political writer Kurt Eichenwald that caused him to have a seizure:

“What Mr. Rivello did with his Twitter message was no different from someone sending a bomb in the mail or sending an envelope filled with anthrax spores,” Lieberman says. “It wasn’t the content of the communication that was intended to persuade somebody or make them feel badly about themselves; this was an electronic communication that was designed to have a physical effect.”

All signs are pointing to the White House preparing to purge its ranks of federal employees not deemed sufficiently loyal to the President:

Conservative news outlets, including one with links to a top White House official, are singling out individual career government employees for criticism, suggesting in articles that certain staffers will not be sufficiently loyal to President Donald Trump by virtue of their work under former President Barack Obama.

The articles — which have appeared in Breitbart News, the Conservative Review and other outlets — have alarmed veteran officials in both parties as well as current executive branch staffers.

After the US banned laptops and tablets on certain flights from West Asia and North Africa, one corporation used the opportunity to throw shade at a certain government:

i believe this is shade http://pic.twitter.com/8SJfnrvhNn

— Self Own (@SubMedina) March 23, 2017

This is the most insanely elaborate and well-researched article about how professional basketball players all came to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before games:

The legend has been passed down by NBA generations, chronicled like a Homeric odyssey. The tale they tell is of Kevin Garnett and the 2007-08 Celtics, and the seminal moment of a revolution. Bryan Doo, Celtics strength and conditioning coach, recalls it as if it were yesterday, how before a game in December of that season, an unnamed Celtic — his identity lost to history, like the other horsemen on Paul Revere’s midnight ride — complained to Doo of incipient hunger pangs.

“Man, I could go for a PB&J,” the player said.

There was a #pizzagate rally in DC this weekend, and it’s fascinating that so many still stand by the conspiracy theory. They also made some interesting signs:

Lot of aesthetics at today's Pizzagate rally http://pic.twitter.com/kLiEaKMpiI

— Will Sommer (@willsommer) March 25, 2017

Some things you can’t explain:

Okay. I know this cake is a number 1 and it says “Emma," but it LOOKS like a dick with balls that says “WEED" http://pic.twitter.com/3NZfwA4DCg

— Elizabeth Sampat (@twoscooters) March 24, 2017

Required Reading is published every Sunday morning ET, and is comprised of a short list of art-related links to long-form articles, videos, blog posts, or photo essays worth a second look.

The post Required Reading appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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The MozCon Virtual 2020 Final Agenda

New Post has been published on http://tiptopreview.com/the-mozcon-virtual-2020-final-agenda-2/

The MozCon Virtual 2020 Final Agenda

We’re just about a month out from this year’s MozCon and we couldn’t be more excited! If you’ve never considered it before, it’s high time you became acquainted with the idea of a “couchference” — a full-fledged conference held from the comfort of your home office space, real office space (depending on your local quarantine phase), or even your sofa.

On July 14th & 15th, we’ll be charting brand-new territory with MozCon Virtual: with a choose-your-own-adventure two-stream show, robust opportunities for online networking, and some of the industry’s top speakers, you’re in for all the turbo-charged SEO education and peer interaction of in-person MozCon with none of the troubles of travel. Plus, at $129 per ticket (including full access to the professionally produced video bundle, a $350 value!) you’ll access incredible marketing thought leadership at an unheard-of price:

Nab my ticket and video bundle for $129

And remember, this is a great opportunity for our friends around the world and those who aren’t able to travel to experience the MozCon magic live! If this will be your first time attending, we’d love to hear what talk you’re most excited for in the comments. (All talk times are in Pacific, so keep that in mind when planning your day! We promise we won’t judge if you’re watching in your jammies.)

Read on to see what your favorite industry leaders are speaking on this year!

Tuesday, July 14th

8:30am – Networking

Open time for attendees to connect with other attendees and MozCon partners.

9:00am – Keynote – Welcome to MozCon Virtual 2020 + State of the Industry

Sarah Bird, CEO of Moz

Sarah has a storied history of kicking MozCon off with a bright, sparkly bang. The fearless leader of Moz will be welcoming each and every one of us to this year’s virtual event, laying out all the pertinent details of the conference, and setting the tone for two jam-packed days of learning with a look at the State of the Industry.

9:25am – Keynote – Thought Leadership and SEO: The 3 Key Elements and Search Ranking Strategies

Andy Crestodina, Co-founder and CMO, Orbit Media

Everyone wants to do it, but no one really knows what it is. So what is thought leadership? What isn’t it? And how does it affect search rankings?

This presentation is a data-rich perspective on the oh-so-popular topic of thought leadership, filled with practical takeaways for becoming an authority. And it’s all about the relationship between thought leadership and SEO. We’ll see how the research answers the questions and informs the tactics: Can brands be thought leaders? Can it be outsourced? Do you need to publish research? Or strong opinion? And how does it attract links and authority, rankings, and qualified visitors? Learn how a personal brand combines with content to drive big wins in SEO.

10:20am – Stream 1 – Great Expectations: The Truth About Digital PR Campaigns

Shannon McGuirk, Head of PR & Content, Aira

In her talk, Shannon will challenge the desire for virality over consistency when it comes to digital PR and link building campaigns, while exploring the impact on the industry, team morale, and client expectations. By honestly sharing her own shortcomings, she’ll push you to learn from your own campaign failures using tried and tested frameworks that’ll mean you can face any creative campaign or outreach struggle head-on.

10:20am – Stream 2 – Whatever You Do, Put Billboards in Seattle – Getting Brand Awareness Data from Google

Robin Lord, Consultant, Distilled

How can you harness the vast power of Google data to gain special insight into city- and product-level brand awareness? Robin will lead us on a journey through his Google Trends methodology to use Adwords search volume data for better brand intelligence.

11:15am – Stream 1 – How to Build a Global Brand Without a Global Budget

Phil Nottingham, Brand and Video Marketing Strategist, Phil Nottingham Ltd.

As funnel-based marketing becomes less effective and harder to measure, “building a brand” is frequently touted as the panacea for all marketer’s woes. But it’s unclear how this can be achieved scalably and with a limited budget. Large enterprises resort to huge creative advertising campaigns that get their names out there by force of spend alone — but this isn’t realistic for the smaller companies and the number of impressions is not the number of people impressed. In this session, Phil explains how modern brands are built through advocacy more than awareness alone, offering a deliverable method of brand marketing to radically shake up your content strategy.

11:15am – Stream 2 – The Science of Seeking Your Customer

Alexis Sanders, Senior SEO Account Manager, Merkle

Users are at the core of everything we do in modern SEO. However, finding and understanding audiences can be daunting. Alexis will cover how to find your audience, share tools that are available for all price points, and show ways in which she’s found audience research to be useful as an SEO.

12:10pm – Birds of a Feather discussion groups

Connect and chat with like-minded marketers on a wide range of digital marketing topics!

12:55pm – Keynote – Moving Targets: Keywords in Crisis

Dr. Peter J. Meyers, Marketing Scientist, Moz

Too often, we take a once-and-done approach to keyword research, but Google changes at the pace of information, and that pace speeds up even more during a crisis. How do we do keyword research in fast-paced industries and during world-changing moments? Dr. Pete provides concrete tactics for adaptive keyword research and spotting trends as they happen.

1:45pm – Stream 1 – A Novel Approach to Scraping SEO Data

Rob Ousbey, VP Product, Moz

Throughout a decade in SEO consulting, Rob needed to extract data from websites on many an occasion. Often this was at scale from sites that didn’t have an API or export feature, or on sites that required some kind of authentication. While this was primarily a way to collect & combine data from different SEO tools, the use-cases were endless.

He found a technique that helped immensely, particularly when traditional tools couldn’t do the job — but hadn’t seen anyone using the same approach. In this very tactical session, Rob will walk through the steps he’s used to extract data from all sorts of sites, from small fry to the giants, and give you the tools and knowledge to do the same.

1:45pm – Stream 2 – Let It Go: How to Embrace Automation and Get Way More Done

Francine Rodriguez, Manager of Customer Success, WordStream

Let the robot uprising begin! We’ve all heard horror stories about the dangers of automating your tasks, but now is not the time to deny yourself extra help. Robots never sleep. They don’t get tired or overwhelmed by their to-do lists, and they’re ready to work round-the-clock to accomplish whatever task we set before them. In this talk, you’ll explore all the areas were automation is kicking butt in PPC — and how you can harness the power of robots to make more time for other efforts.

2:35pm – Keynote – Designing a Content Engine: Going from Ideation to Creation to Distribution

Ross Simmonds, CEO, Foundation

What does it take to develop a content engine that drives results? In this presentation, Ross will share data around the power of having a content engine, tools & strategies for content ideation, tools and tactics for content creation, and frameworks that brands can use to ensure that their content is distributed effectively after hitting publish. This presentation will help you not only uncover content-market fit, but also capitalize on it.

3:30pm – Networking

Open time for attendees to connect with other attendees and MozCon partners.

4:30pm — Day One is in the books!

Wednesday, July 15th

8:30am – Networking

Open time for attendees to connect with other attendees and MozCon partners.

9:00am – Welcome to Day Two!

Cyrus Shepard, emcee

9:10am – Keynote – Accessible Machine Learning Workflows for SEOs

Britney Muller, Senior SEO Scientist, Moz

“Machine learning” and “automation” aren’t words SEOs need to fear. Machine learning enthusiast and ambassador of technical SEO Britney Muller shares a series of workflows intended for any SEO to access and use in their everyday work — no intimidation required.

9:55am – Stream 1 – How to Be Ahead of the (CTR) Curve

Izzi Smith, Technical SEO Analyst, Ryte

Let’s face it: Carrying out SEO magic is all in vain when you’re forgetting about how your brand and products are being surfaced in the SERPs. By not properly analyzing or enhancing our organic CTR, we’re greatly limiting our potential. Izzi will help you create the perfect SERP engagement strategy by covering practical ways to uplift your significant CTR, such as remedying your critical keyword rankings that could soon be lost, leveraging brand-empowering entity features (and assessing the risks of doing so), more intelligent testing of rich & featured snippet optimizations, and a whole lot more. CTR-you-ready?? You better be!

9:55am – Stream 2 – How to Go Beyond Marketing for Clients: The Value of a Thriving Brand Ecosystem

Flavilla Fongang, Brand Strategist, 3 Colours Rule

Too many marketers serve their clients the bare minimum of what’s expected from an agency. To stand out among the crowd, cultivate real loyalty, and maximize the lifetime value of your clients, you have to go beyond mere marketing — developing a thriving brand ecosystem that aligns with the brand’s ultimate goals. Flavilla Fongang shares her tried-and-true framework for optimizing the customer journey, improving acquisition and retention, and going beyond what’s expected to serve your clients well.

10:50am – Stream 1 – How to Promote Your Content Like a Boss

Brian Dean, Founder, Backlinko

Creating content is easy. But getting people to see your content? That’s a different story. Brian Dean shares over a dozen practical strategies that you can use to spread the word about your latest blog post, podcast episode, or YouTube video.

10:50am – Stream 2 – Google My Business: Battling Bad Info & Safeguarding Your Search Strategy

Joy Hawkins, Owner, Sterling Sky Inc.

What’s the harm in a little misinformation here and there? In the realm of local SEO, Joy Hawkins is here to outline exactly that. When it comes to local search and Google My Business, bad info can be make or break for your campaigns. Follow real data from a recent case study that illustrates why strategic decisions should be based on accurate information — and what can happen when that info is bad, wrong, or just plain incomplete.

11:45am – Birds of a Feather discussion groups

Connect and chat with like-minded marketers on a wide range of digital marketing topics!

12:10pm – Keynote – Runtime: The 3-Ring Circus of Technical SEO

Michael King, Managing Director, iPullRank

Mike redefined technical SEO and its importance in our industry back in 2016. In 2018, he taught us everything we didn’t know about SEO. This year, he’s back to share the hottest technical tactics to up-level your efforts, plus the case studies and data that should be guiding your decisions.

1:25pm – Stream 1 – Everyday Automation for Marketers

David Sottimano, Independent Marketing Consultant, Opensource.org

As a general rule, we shouldn’t be doing things that a computer can do better. However, a lot of automation is achieved through programming expertise — and that expertise isn’t usually a marketer’s forte. In this session, you’ll learn how to gather data, use machine learning, and automate everyday tasks for marketers using low-code or no-code solutions.

1:25pm – Stream 2 – Red Flags: Use a Discovery Process to Go from Red Flags to Green Lights

Dana DiTomaso, President and Partner, Kick Point

Ever get a few months into working with a new client and you’re thinking “if only we’d known…”? Or how about when you start that new job, except you can’t seem to make any forward progress because you’re always mopping up prior mistakes? Running a discovery process at the start of a project — or even as its own project — will help you turn those red flags into green lights.

2:20pm – Stream 1 – Competitive Advantage in a Commoditized Industry

Heather Physioc, Group Connections Director, Discoverability, VMLY&R

SEO isn’t dead — it’s commoditized. In a world where search companies are a dime a dozen and brands tout bland “unique selling propositions” that aren’t unique at all, how can you avoid drowning in the sea of sameness? What are you doing that’s any different from every other SEO firm? In this talk, you’ll learn how to find, activate, and articulate your competitive advantage. Learn how to identify unique strengths and innovative offerings that equate to competitive advantage through these real, working examples so you can bring them to life in search. You’ll leave with actionable tips and homework to help your search business stand out — and that you can use with clients to help them find their competitive edge, too.

2:20pm – Stream 1 – I Wanna Be Rich: Making Your Consultancy Profitable

Russ Jones, Principal Search Scientist, Moz

How will your company weather the next update? How will you avoid layoffs and salary cuts? Being a master of SEO doesn’t guarantee that your consultancy will succeed. After a decade and a half of experience, Russ Jones will outline the techniques that will keep your clients happy and your bottom line healthy.

3:10pm – Keynote – The CMO Role Has Been Disrupted: Are You Ready for Your New Boss?

Wil Reynolds, Founder & Vice President of Innovation, Seer Interactive

CMOs have the shortest tenure in the c-suite, and the CMO role has been eliminated at some of the largest brands. CEOs are now asking tougher and tougher questions about the value of marketing — and oftentimes marketers are not prepared.

Connecting your data and building your data flywheel is one way to support the swift answers CEOs expect from their CMOs. We need to get stronger at bridging our day-to-day work to the value it drives. And more than ever, “brand lift” isn’t enough to satisfy CEOs.

This presentation will start at the top. How businesses are run, how CEOs talk, and how we as search marketers can use the data we have access to everyday in new ways to answer the questions of the c-suite and raise our visibility and value in organizations.

4:15pm – Networking

Open time for attendees to connect with other attendees and MozCon partners.

5:15pm – That’s a wrap for MozCon Virtual 2020!

See you there?

Chatting with speakers via Q&A, connecting with peers and potential partners over Birds of a Feather groups, absorbing all the knowledge for another fruitful year of marketing… we can’t wait to share it with you! 

Yep, I’m going to MozCon Virtual!

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The MozCon Virtual 2020 Final Agenda

Posted by cheryldraper

We're just about a month out from this year's MozCon and we couldn't be more excited! If you've never considered it before, it's high time you became acquainted with the idea of a "couchference" — a full-fledged conference held from the comfort of your home office space, real office space (depending on your local quarantine phase), or even your sofa.

On July 14th & 15th, we'll be charting brand-new territory with MozCon Virtual: with a choose-your-own-adventure two-stream show, robust opportunities for online networking, and some of the industry's top speakers, you're in for all the turbo-charged SEO education and peer interaction of in-person MozCon with none of the troubles of travel. Plus, at $129 per ticket (including full access to the professionally produced video bundle, a $350 value!) you'll access incredible marketing thought leadership at an unheard-of price:

Nab my ticket and video bundle for $129

And remember, this is a great opportunity for our friends around the world and those who aren't able to travel to experience the MozCon magic live! If this will be your first time attending, we'd love to hear what talk you're most excited for in the comments.

Read on to see what your favorite industry leaders are speaking on this year!

Tuesday, July 14th

8:30am – Networking

Open time for attendees to connect with other attendees and MozCon partners.

9:00am – Keynote – Welcome to MozCon Virtual 2020 + State of the Industry

Sarah Bird, CEO of Moz

Sarah has a storied history of kicking MozCon off with a bright, sparkly bang. The fearless leader of Moz will be welcoming each and every one of us to this year's virtual event, laying out all the pertinent details of the conference, and setting the tone for two jam-packed days of learning with a look at the State of the Industry.

9:25am – Keynote – Thought Leadership and SEO: The 3 Key Elements and Search Ranking Strategies

Andy Crestodina, Co-founder and CMO, Orbit Media

Everyone wants to do it, but no one really knows what it is. So what is thought leadership? What isn’t it? And how does it affect search rankings? This presentation is a data-rich perspective on the oh-so-popular topic of thought leadership, filled with practical takeaways for becoming an authority. And it’s all about the relationship between thought leadership and SEO. We’ll see how the research answers the questions and informs the tactics: Can brands be thought leaders? Can it be outsourced? Do you need to publish research? Or strong opinion? And how does it attract links and authority, rankings, and qualified visitors? Learn how a personal brand combines with content to drive big wins in SEO.

10:20am – Stream 1 – Great Expectations: The Truth About Digital PR Campaigns

Shannon McGuirk, Head of PR & Content, Aira

In her talk, Shannon will challenge the desire for virality over consistency when it comes to digital PR and link building campaigns, while exploring the impact on the industry, team morale, and client expectations. By honestly sharing her own shortcomings, she'll push you to learn from your own campaign failures using tried and tested frameworks that’ll mean you can face any creative campaign or outreach struggle head-on.

10:20am – Stream 2 – Whatever You Do, Put Billboards in Seattle – Getting Brand Awareness Data from Google

Robin Lord, Consultant, Distilled

How can you harness the vast power of Google data to gain special insight into city- and product-level brand awareness? Robin will lead us on a journey through his Google Trends methodology to use Adwords search volume data for better brand intelligence.

11:15am – Stream 1 – How to Build a Global Brand Without a Global Budget

Phil Nottingham, Brand and Video Marketing Strategist, Phil Nottingham Ltd.

As funnel-based marketing becomes less effective and harder to measure, "building a brand" is frequently touted as the panacea for all marketer's woes. But it's unclear how this can be achieved scalably and with a limited budget. Large enterprises resort to huge creative advertising campaigns that get their names out there by force of spend alone — but this isn't realistic for the smaller companies and the number of impressions is not the number of people impressed. In this session, Phil explains how modern brands are built through advocacy more than awareness alone, offering a deliverable method of brand marketing to radically shake up your content strategy.

11:15am – Stream 2 – The Science of Seeking Your Customer

Alexis Sanders, Senior SEO Account Manager, Merkle

Users are at the core of everything we do in modern SEO. However, finding and understanding audiences can be daunting. Alexis will cover how to find your audience, share tools that are available for all price points, and show ways in which she’s found audience research to be useful as an SEO.

12:10pm – Birds of a Feather discussion groups

Connect and chat with like-minded marketers on a wide range of digital marketing topics!

12:55pm – Keynote – Moving Targets: Keywords in Crisis

Dr. Peter J. Meyers, Marketing Scientist, Moz

Too often, we take a once-and-done approach to keyword research, but Google changes at the pace of information, and that pace speeds up even more during a crisis. How do we do keyword research in fast-paced industries and during world-changing moments? Dr. Pete provides concrete tactics for adaptive keyword research and spotting trends as they happen.

1:45pm – Stream 1 – A Novel Approach to Scraping SEO Data

Rob Ousbey, VP Product, Moz

Throughout a decade in SEO consulting, Rob needed to extract data from websites on many an occasion. Often this was at scale from sites that didn't have an API or export feature, or on sites that required some kind of authentication. While this was primarily a way to collect & combine data from different SEO tools, the use-cases were endless.

He found a technique that helped immensely, particularly when traditional tools couldn't do the job — but hadn't seen anyone using the same approach. In this very tactical session, Rob will walk through the steps he's used to extract data from all sorts of sites, from small fry to the giants, and give you the tools and knowledge to do the same.

1:45pm – Stream 2 – Let It Go: How to Embrace Automation and Get Way More Done

Francine Rodriguez, Manager of Customer Success, WordStream

Let the robot uprising begin! We've all heard horror stories about the dangers of automating your tasks, but now is not the time to deny yourself extra help. Robots never sleep. They don't get tired or overwhelmed by their to-do lists, and they're ready to work round-the-clock to accomplish whatever task we set before them. In this talk, you'll explore all the areas were automation is kicking butt in PPC — and how you can harness the power of robots to make more time for other efforts.

2:35pm – Keynote – Designing a Content Engine: Going from Ideation to Creation to Distribution

Ross Simmonds, CEO, Foundation

What does it take to develop a content engine that drives results? In this presentation, Ross will share data around the power of having a content engine, tools & strategies for content ideation, tools and tactics for content creation, and frameworks that brands can use to ensure that their content is distributed effectively after hitting publish. This presentation will help you not only uncover content-market fit, but also capitalize on it.

3:30pm – Networking

Open time for attendees to connect with other attendees and MozCon partners.

4:30pm — Day One is in the books!

Wednesday, July 15th

8:30am – Networking

Open time for attendees to connect with other attendees and MozCon partners.

9:00am – Welcome to Day Two!

Cyrus Shepard, emcee

9:10am – Keynote – Accessible Machine Learning Workflows for SEOs

Britney Muller, Senior SEO Scientist, Moz

"Machine learning" and "automation" aren't words SEOs need to fear. Machine learning enthusiast and ambassador of technical SEO Britney Muller shares a series of workflows intended for any SEO to access and use in their everyday work — no intimidation required.

9:55am – Stream 1 – How to Be Ahead of the (CTR) Curve

Izzi Smith, Technical SEO Analyst, Ryte

Let’s face it: Carrying out SEO magic is all in vain when you’re forgetting about how your brand and products are being surfaced in the SERPs. By not properly analyzing or enhancing our organic CTR, we're greatly limiting our potential. Izzi will help you create the perfect SERP engagement strategy by covering practical ways to uplift your significant CTR, such as remedying your critical keyword rankings that could soon be lost, leveraging brand-empowering entity features (and assessing the risks of doing so), more intelligent testing of rich & featured snippet optimizations, and a whole lot more. CTR-you-ready?? You better be!

9:55am – Stream 2 – How to Go Beyond Marketing for Clients: The Value of a Thriving Brand Ecosystem

Flavilla Fongang, Brand Strategist, 3 Colours Rule

Too many marketers serve their clients the bare minimum of what's expected from an agency. To stand out among the crowd, cultivate real loyalty, and maximize the lifetime value of your clients, you have to go beyond mere marketing — developing a thriving brand ecosystem that aligns with the brand's ultimate goals. Flavilla Fongang shares her tried-and-true framework for optimizing the customer journey, improving acquisition and retention, and going beyond what's expected to serve your clients well.

10:50am – Stream 1 – How to Promote Your Content Like a Boss

Brian Dean, Founder, Backlinko

Creating content is easy. But getting people to see your content? That's a different story. Brian Dean shares over a dozen practical strategies that you can use to spread the word about your latest blog post, podcast episode, or YouTube video.

10:50am – Stream 2 – Google My Business: Battling Bad Info & Safeguarding Your Search Strategy

Joy Hawkins, Owner, Sterling Sky Inc.

What's the harm in a little misinformation here and there? In the realm of local SEO, Joy Hawkins is here to outline exactly that. When it comes to local search and Google My Business, bad info can be make or break for your campaigns. Follow real data from a recent case study that illustrates why strategic decisions should be based on accurate information — and what can happen when that info is bad, wrong, or just plain incomplete.

11:45am – Birds of a Feather discussion groups

Connect and chat with like-minded marketers on a wide range of digital marketing topics!

12:10pm – Keynote – Runtime: The 3-Ring Circus of Technical SEO

Michael King, Managing Director, iPullRank

Mike redefined technical SEO and its importance in our industry back in 2016. In 2018, he taught us everything we didn't know about SEO. This year, he's back to share the hottest technical tactics to up-level your efforts, plus the case studies and data that should be guiding your decisions.

1:25pm – Stream 1 – Everyday Automation for Marketers

David Sottimano, Independent Marketing Consultant, Opensource.org

As a general rule, we shouldn't be doing things that a computer can do better. However, a lot of automation is achieved through programming expertise — and that expertise isn't usually a marketer's forte. In this session, you'll learn how to gather data, use machine learning, and automate everyday tasks for marketers using low-code or no-code solutions.

1:25pm – Stream 2 – Red Flags: Use a Discovery Process to Go from Red Flags to Green Lights

Dana DiTomaso, President and Partner, Kick Point

Ever get a few months into working with a new client and you’re thinking “if only we’d known…”? Or how about when you start that new job, except you can’t seem to make any forward progress because you’re always mopping up prior mistakes? Running a discovery process at the start of a project — or even as its own project — will help you turn those red flags into green lights.

2:20pm – Stream 1 – Competitive Advantage in a Commoditized Industry

Heather Physioc, Group Connections Director, Discoverability, VMLY&R

SEO isn't dead — it’s commoditized. In a world where search companies are a dime a dozen and brands tout bland "unique selling propositions" that aren't unique at all, how can you avoid drowning in the sea of sameness? What are you doing that's any different from every other SEO firm? In this talk, you'll learn how to find, activate, and articulate your competitive advantage. Learn how to identify unique strengths and innovative offerings that equate to competitive advantage through these real, working examples so you can bring them to life in search. You'll leave with actionable tips and homework to help your search business stand out — and that you can use with clients to help them find their competitive edge, too.

2:20pm – Stream 1 – I Wanna Be Rich: Making Your Consultancy Profitable

Russ Jones, Principal Search Scientist, Moz

How will your company weather the next update? How will you avoid layoffs and salary cuts? Being a master of SEO doesn't guarantee that your consultancy will succeed. After a decade and a half of experience, Russ Jones will outline the techniques that will keep your clients happy and your bottom line healthy.

3:10pm – Keynote – The CMO Role Has Been Disrupted: Are You Ready for Your New Boss?

Will Reynolds, Founder & Vice President of Innovation, Seer Interactive

CMOs have the shortest tenure in the c-suite, and the CMO role has been eliminated at some of the largest brands. CEOs are now asking tougher and tougher questions about the value of marketing — and oftentimes marketers are not prepared. Connecting your data and building your data flywheel is one way to support the swift answers CEOs expect from their CMOs. We need to get stronger at bridging our day-to-day work to the value it drives. And more than ever, “brand lift” isn’t enough to satisfy CEOs. This presentation will start at the top. How businesses are run, how CEOs talk, and how we as search marketers can use the data we have access to everyday in new ways to answer the questions of the c-suite and raise our visibility and value in organizations.

4:15pm – Networking

Open time for attendees to connect with other attendees and MozCon partners.

5:15pm – That's a wrap for MozCon Virtual 2020!

See you there?

Chatting with speakers via Q&A, connecting with peers and potential partners over Birds of a Feather groups, absorbing all the knowledge for another fruitful year of marketing... we can't wait to share it with you! 

Yep, I'm going to MozCon Virtual!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

via Blogger https://ift.tt/3fUdb10 #blogger #bloggingtips #bloggerlife #bloggersgetsocial #ontheblog #writersofinstagram #writingprompt #instapoetry #writerscommunity #writersofig #writersblock #writerlife #writtenword #instawriters #spilledink #wordgasm #creativewriting #poetsofinstagram #blackoutpoetry #poetsofig

[fmsmartchoicear]

The MozCon Virtual 2020 Final Agenda

Posted by cheryldraper

We're just about a month out from this year's MozCon and we couldn't be more excited! If you've never considered it before, it's high time you became acquainted with the idea of a "couchference" — a full-fledged conference held from the comfort of your home office space, real office space (depending on your local quarantine phase), or even your sofa.

On July 14th & 15th, we'll be charting brand-new territory with MozCon Virtual: with a choose-your-own-adventure two-stream show, robust opportunities for online networking, and some of the industry's top speakers, you're in for all the turbo-charged SEO education and peer interaction of in-person MozCon with none of the troubles of travel. Plus, at $129 per ticket (including full access to the professionally produced video bundle, a $350 value!) you'll access incredible marketing thought leadership at an unheard-of price:

Nab my ticket and video bundle for $129

And remember, this is a great opportunity for our friends around the world and those who aren't able to travel to experience the MozCon magic live! If this will be your first time attending, we'd love to hear what talk you're most excited for in the comments.

Read on to see what your favorite industry leaders are speaking on this year!

Tuesday, July 14th

8:30am – Networking

Open time for attendees to connect with other attendees and MozCon partners.

9:00am – Keynote – Welcome to MozCon Virtual 2020 + State of the Industry

Sarah Bird, CEO of Moz

Sarah has a storied history of kicking MozCon off with a bright, sparkly bang. The fearless leader of Moz will be welcoming each and every one of us to this year's virtual event, laying out all the pertinent details of the conference, and setting the tone for two jam-packed days of learning with a look at the State of the Industry.

9:25am – Keynote – Thought Leadership and SEO: The 3 Key Elements and Search Ranking Strategies

Andy Crestodina, Co-founder and CMO, Orbit Media

Everyone wants to do it, but no one really knows what it is. So what is thought leadership? What isn’t it? And how does it affect search rankings? This presentation is a data-rich perspective on the oh-so-popular topic of thought leadership, filled with practical takeaways for becoming an authority. And it’s all about the relationship between thought leadership and SEO. We’ll see how the research answers the questions and informs the tactics: Can brands be thought leaders? Can it be outsourced? Do you need to publish research? Or strong opinion? And how does it attract links and authority, rankings, and qualified visitors? Learn how a personal brand combines with content to drive big wins in SEO.

10:20am – Stream 1 – Great Expectations: The Truth About Digital PR Campaigns

Shannon McGuirk, Head of PR & Content, Aira

In her talk, Shannon will challenge the desire for virality over consistency when it comes to digital PR and link building campaigns, while exploring the impact on the industry, team morale, and client expectations. By honestly sharing her own shortcomings, she'll push you to learn from your own campaign failures using tried and tested frameworks that’ll mean you can face any creative campaign or outreach struggle head-on.

10:20am – Stream 2 – Whatever You Do, Put Billboards in Seattle – Getting Brand Awareness Data from Google

Robin Lord, Consultant, Distilled

How can you harness the vast power of Google data to gain special insight into city- and product-level brand awareness? Robin will lead us on a journey through his Google Trends methodology to use Adwords search volume data for better brand intelligence.

11:15am – Stream 1 – How to Build a Global Brand Without a Global Budget

Phil Nottingham, Brand and Video Marketing Strategist, Phil Nottingham Ltd.

As funnel-based marketing becomes less effective and harder to measure, "building a brand" is frequently touted as the panacea for all marketer's woes. But it's unclear how this can be achieved scalably and with a limited budget. Large enterprises resort to huge creative advertising campaigns that get their names out there by force of spend alone — but this isn't realistic for the smaller companies and the number of impressions is not the number of people impressed. In this session, Phil explains how modern brands are built through advocacy more than awareness alone, offering a deliverable method of brand marketing to radically shake up your content strategy.

11:15am – Stream 2 – The Science of Seeking Your Customer

Alexis Sanders, Senior SEO Account Manager, Merkle

Users are at the core of everything we do in modern SEO. However, finding and understanding audiences can be daunting. Alexis will cover how to find your audience, share tools that are available for all price points, and show ways in which she’s found audience research to be useful as an SEO.

12:10pm – Birds of a Feather discussion groups

Connect and chat with like-minded marketers on a wide range of digital marketing topics!

12:55pm – Keynote – Moving Targets: Keywords in Crisis

Dr. Peter J. Meyers, Marketing Scientist, Moz

Too often, we take a once-and-done approach to keyword research, but Google changes at the pace of information, and that pace speeds up even more during a crisis. How do we do keyword research in fast-paced industries and during world-changing moments? Dr. Pete provides concrete tactics for adaptive keyword research and spotting trends as they happen.

1:45pm – Stream 1 – A Novel Approach to Scraping SEO Data

Rob Ousbey, VP Product, Moz

Throughout a decade in SEO consulting, Rob needed to extract data from websites on many an occasion. Often this was at scale from sites that didn't have an API or export feature, or on sites that required some kind of authentication. While this was primarily a way to collect & combine data from different SEO tools, the use-cases were endless.

He found a technique that helped immensely, particularly when traditional tools couldn't do the job — but hadn't seen anyone using the same approach. In this very tactical session, Rob will walk through the steps he's used to extract data from all sorts of sites, from small fry to the giants, and give you the tools and knowledge to do the same.

1:45pm – Stream 2 – Let It Go: How to Embrace Automation and Get Way More Done

Francine Rodriguez, Manager of Customer Success, WordStream

Let the robot uprising begin! We've all heard horror stories about the dangers of automating your tasks, but now is not the time to deny yourself extra help. Robots never sleep. They don't get tired or overwhelmed by their to-do lists, and they're ready to work round-the-clock to accomplish whatever task we set before them. In this talk, you'll explore all the areas were automation is kicking butt in PPC — and how you can harness the power of robots to make more time for other efforts.

2:35pm – Keynote – Designing a Content Engine: Going from Ideation to Creation to Distribution

Ross Simmonds, CEO, Foundation

What does it take to develop a content engine that drives results? In this presentation, Ross will share data around the power of having a content engine, tools & strategies for content ideation, tools and tactics for content creation, and frameworks that brands can use to ensure that their content is distributed effectively after hitting publish. This presentation will help you not only uncover content-market fit, but also capitalize on it.

3:30pm – Networking

Open time for attendees to connect with other attendees and MozCon partners.

4:30pm — Day One is in the books!

Wednesday, July 15th

8:30am – Networking

Open time for attendees to connect with other attendees and MozCon partners.

9:00am – Welcome to Day Two!

Cyrus Shepard, emcee

9:10am – Keynote – Accessible Machine Learning Workflows for SEOs

Britney Muller, Senior SEO Scientist, Moz

"Machine learning" and "automation" aren't words SEOs need to fear. Machine learning enthusiast and ambassador of technical SEO Britney Muller shares a series of workflows intended for any SEO to access and use in their everyday work — no intimidation required.

9:55am – Stream 1 – How to Be Ahead of the (CTR) Curve

Izzi Smith, Technical SEO Analyst, Ryte

Let’s face it: Carrying out SEO magic is all in vain when you’re forgetting about how your brand and products are being surfaced in the SERPs. By not properly analyzing or enhancing our organic CTR, we're greatly limiting our potential. Izzi will help you create the perfect SERP engagement strategy by covering practical ways to uplift your significant CTR, such as remedying your critical keyword rankings that could soon be lost, leveraging brand-empowering entity features (and assessing the risks of doing so), more intelligent testing of rich & featured snippet optimizations, and a whole lot more. CTR-you-ready?? You better be!

9:55am – Stream 2 – How to Go Beyond Marketing for Clients: The Value of a Thriving Brand Ecosystem

Flavilla Fongang, Brand Strategist, 3 Colours Rule

Too many marketers serve their clients the bare minimum of what's expected from an agency. To stand out among the crowd, cultivate real loyalty, and maximize the lifetime value of your clients, you have to go beyond mere marketing — developing a thriving brand ecosystem that aligns with the brand's ultimate goals. Flavilla Fongang shares her tried-and-true framework for optimizing the customer journey, improving acquisition and retention, and going beyond what's expected to serve your clients well.

10:50am – Stream 1 – How to Promote Your Content Like a Boss

Brian Dean, Founder, Backlinko

Creating content is easy. But getting people to see your content? That's a different story. Brian Dean shares over a dozen practical strategies that you can use to spread the word about your latest blog post, podcast episode, or YouTube video.

10:50am – Stream 2 – Google My Business: Battling Bad Info & Safeguarding Your Search Strategy

Joy Hawkins, Owner, Sterling Sky Inc.

What's the harm in a little misinformation here and there? In the realm of local SEO, Joy Hawkins is here to outline exactly that. When it comes to local search and Google My Business, bad info can be make or break for your campaigns. Follow real data from a recent case study that illustrates why strategic decisions should be based on accurate information — and what can happen when that info is bad, wrong, or just plain incomplete.

11:45am – Birds of a Feather discussion groups

Connect and chat with like-minded marketers on a wide range of digital marketing topics!

12:10pm – Keynote – Runtime: The 3-Ring Circus of Technical SEO

Michael King, Managing Director, iPullRank

Mike redefined technical SEO and its importance in our industry back in 2016. In 2018, he taught us everything we didn't know about SEO. This year, he's back to share the hottest technical tactics to up-level your efforts, plus the case studies and data that should be guiding your decisions.

1:25pm – Stream 1 – Everyday Automation for Marketers

David Sottimano, Independent Marketing Consultant, Opensource.org

As a general rule, we shouldn't be doing things that a computer can do better. However, a lot of automation is achieved through programming expertise — and that expertise isn't usually a marketer's forte. In this session, you'll learn how to gather data, use machine learning, and automate everyday tasks for marketers using low-code or no-code solutions.

1:25pm – Stream 2 – Red Flags: Use a Discovery Process to Go from Red Flags to Green Lights

Dana DiTomaso, President and Partner, Kick Point

Ever get a few months into working with a new client and you’re thinking “if only we’d known…”? Or how about when you start that new job, except you can’t seem to make any forward progress because you’re always mopping up prior mistakes? Running a discovery process at the start of a project — or even as its own project — will help you turn those red flags into green lights.

2:20pm – Stream 1 – Competitive Advantage in a Commoditized Industry

Heather Physioc, Group Connections Director, Discoverability, VMLY&R

SEO isn't dead — it’s commoditized. In a world where search companies are a dime a dozen and brands tout bland "unique selling propositions" that aren't unique at all, how can you avoid drowning in the sea of sameness? What are you doing that's any different from every other SEO firm? In this talk, you'll learn how to find, activate, and articulate your competitive advantage. Learn how to identify unique strengths and innovative offerings that equate to competitive advantage through these real, working examples so you can bring them to life in search. You'll leave with actionable tips and homework to help your search business stand out — and that you can use with clients to help them find their competitive edge, too.

2:20pm – Stream 1 – I Wanna Be Rich: Making Your Consultancy Profitable

Russ Jones, Principal Search Scientist, Moz

How will your company weather the next update? How will you avoid layoffs and salary cuts? Being a master of SEO doesn't guarantee that your consultancy will succeed. After a decade and a half of experience, Russ Jones will outline the techniques that will keep your clients happy and your bottom line healthy.

3:10pm – Keynote – The CMO Role Has Been Disrupted: Are You Ready for Your New Boss?

Will Reynolds, Founder & Vice President of Innovation, Seer Interactive

CMOs have the shortest tenure in the c-suite, and the CMO role has been eliminated at some of the largest brands. CEOs are now asking tougher and tougher questions about the value of marketing — and oftentimes marketers are not prepared. Connecting your data and building your data flywheel is one way to support the swift answers CEOs expect from their CMOs. We need to get stronger at bridging our day-to-day work to the value it drives. And more than ever, “brand lift” isn’t enough to satisfy CEOs. This presentation will start at the top. How businesses are run, how CEOs talk, and how we as search marketers can use the data we have access to everyday in new ways to answer the questions of the c-suite and raise our visibility and value in organizations.

4:15pm – Networking

Open time for attendees to connect with other attendees and MozCon partners.

5:15pm – That's a wrap for MozCon Virtual 2020!

See you there?

Chatting with speakers via Q&A, connecting with peers and potential partners over Birds of a Feather groups, absorbing all the knowledge for another fruitful year of marketing... we can't wait to share it with you! 

Yep, I'm going to MozCon Virtual!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!