#with the writers listed in a column right next to the episode names | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nineteenthmay · 2 years

Text

Dan Humphrey as Gossip Girl

Decided to write down my thoughts on the matter. I have seen a lot of people saying that Dan turning out to be Gossip Girl doesn’t make sense, that it was a stupid retcon but while I agree that this idea was not very well executed and there are inconsistencies (like Dan reacting to Gossip Girl’s posts with surprise or shock while being alone) I don’t believe that making Dan Gossip Girl was the writers’ last minute’s random decision or something because there are a lot of signs and circumstantial evidence throughout the series from the very beginning that point at Dan that simply can’t be accidental. Let’s consider...

First, we know that in Gossip Girl’s centre of attention there had always been Serena, Gossip Girl’s first post was about Serena, we see Serena’s picture and hear Gossip Girl uttering Serena’s name in opening credits of every episode etc. Who had been obsessed with Serena since pre-pilot days? Dan. It’s said in 2x25 that the posts started when our gang was at the ninth grade; Dan first met Serena at a ninth grade birthday party.

At the beginning of the pilot when Gossip Girl is introduced during the voicecover of the famous phrase "that's one secret I'll never tell" the camera points at Dan sitting at his laptop. I mean, common, there’s no reason for Dan to be shown right then and there, such things on tv series are never a coincidence. Plus, in the same episode helping his father with fliers Dan recommends to him to have a blog and suspiciously hovers behind Chuck and Nate on a bus listening to their conversation, Chuck actually notices it and asks if he follows them.

The Season 2 finale is another episode that is full of clues. Dan is upset about his name being omitted from the list of graduates and what soon follows is Gossip Girl’s blast with labels where among other stuff Serena is called ‘irrelevant’ (like Dan was made to feel irrelevant a moment ago). Dan’s label is the only one that is inoffensive and it is also very suggestive - "the ultimate insider", indeed, what better label could Dan assign himself as Gossip Girl? Later at the Van der Basses’ penthouse when Serena gathers the gang together to unmask Gossip Girl Dan is very irresponsive to her idea and together with Vanessa conveniently leaves the party right before the gang implements their plan to unmask Gossip Girl. Finally - and it’s pointed out in the series finale - Dan is the first person who appears at the bar where Serena was waiting for Gossip Girl to come. Also, Dan thanks Serena for letting him in her world from outside which not only shows that it was indeed important for Dan to belong to the Upper East Side but his phrasing also sounds kind of suspiciously (in 1x02 Gossip Girl’s voicecover says "the ultimate insider has become a total outsider") .

In 4x09 Dan tells Nate that "Serena van der Woodsen does not exist", the same phrase is repeated by Gossip Girl’s voicecover in the Season 5 finale.

In 5x10 when at a hospital Serena and Nate accuse Gossip Girl for causing Chuck and Blair’s car accident Dan is weirdly defensive on Gossip Girl’s behalf. Next episode we learn that Gossip Girl has shut her site after the accident, Gossip Girl starts to message Nate offering him to investigate what caused the accident and helps him out. Feeling guilty Dan as Gossip Girl would be very interested to prove that someone else was responsible for the car crash in order to clear his conscience. And, indeed, luckily for Dan/Gossip Girl it turns out that the accident was caused by Nate’s cousin Tripp.

Also, around the same time, in 5x12 Gossip Girl seems unsatisfied with Serena running a column for "Spectator" and via messages demands Nate to take down her column. Who else is unsatisfied with Serena making career as a blogger? Dan.

In 5x22 Dan follows Chuck and Blair to the brothel-mansion. We see him sitting in a taxi outside the building and speaking with Rufus on phone but we never see him departing. In the same evening Gossip Girl succeeds in getting into the building and regaining her laptop. In the video that Diana sends to Nate in the Season 5 finale it’s revealed that the person who stole the laptop was a guy.

In 6x01 Nate texts to Gossip Girl asking for help to find Serena but Gossip Girl seems very mad at Serena and announces that "Serena is dead". Who else is very mad at Serena and declares that he doesn’t even want to help her? Dan.

And of course, the last episodes before the finale are transparent: in 6x08 Dan announces to Rufus that he has had a plan all along, in 6x09 when Serena tells him that he is worse than Gossip Girl his facial expression says it all, etc.

These are the things that first come in my mind, I’m sure that one can find more re-watching the series closely.

I also believe that the writers made Serena acting as Gossip Girl briefly in Season 5 taking into consideration the idea of Dan as Gossip Girl so that Serena could forgive him at the end because she had done the same thing.

Plus, Dan was the only one who had a believable motive and it was in line with unsavoury traits of Dan’s character like his envy of the Upper East Siders’ privileges, power and wealth, self-righteousness, lack of self-awareness, hypocrisy, tendency to exploit people around him for his writing purposes.

Yeah, there are holes in this Dan as Gossip Girl business but some things that I have seen being pointed out as plot holes on closer inspection can be explained. I want to discuss the two here: the Rachel Carr situation in Season 2 and Gossip Girl’s blast at Blair’s wedding in 5x13.

So, why would Dan post a rumour about himself and a teacher? Well, why wouldn’t he? It’s important to understand that Dan craved for attention, recognition, fame, power, he wanted to be noticed and talked about. And by posting this rumour he didn’t really risk with anything, he knew that the rumour was false and nothing could be proven, he haven’t started an affair with Carr yet, it happened after and Carr couldn’t be fired on basis on some rumour that was floating on a teenage gossip blog. Moreover, it gave him an opportunity to take down Blair exposing her as a slanderer. Re-watch 2x17, it was Dan who reported on Blair to Carr and suggested to use one of her minions Nelli Yuki to prove that Blair sent the tip, and Dan almost succeeded in getting Blair expelled. Problems for Dan started afterwards when Serena saw him with Carr in intimate atmosphere, took a photo of them and gave it to Blair, and Blair e-mailed the photo to the headmistress and made appearance at the parents-teachers meeting.

Regarding the blast at Blair’s wedding I have seen the question posed - how could Dan send the blast or text anything unnoticed when he literally was standing in sight of everyone at the altar? The answer is simple, he didn’t. It was Georgina, who had stolen the site and was acting as Gossip Girl at the time. Dan only sent the video to Gossip Girl, perhaps in hope that whoever has stolen the site would not be able to resist to such a juicy piece and will post it.

In conclusion, I believe that Stephanie Savage told the truth when she said that the idea of Dan as Gossip Girl was there right from the start. It simply was inconsistently executed partly because they didn’t tell the actors about it (and consequently Penn Badgley couldn’t act accordingly when Dan was reading Gossip Girl’s posts/blasts), partly because they hadn’t decided whether to reveal Gossip Girl’s identity or not, and partly for reasons unknown to us, who knows, maybe there were disagreements between the writers on this matter.

#Gossip Girl

4 notes · View notes

diamond-song42 · 5 years

Photo

Card Shark 36: Raven, Event Organizer

Hola to you! Welcome to a brand new Card Shark! We’re returning to the Crystal Games today with a Friend that doesn’t get the attention she deserves... in the TV show at least. Here’s my take on “Raven, Event Organizer!”

Seriously, can we get an episode about her before the show ends? This card marks the return of a really tricky keyword: Teamwork! Any Unicorn Friends at her Problem automatically gain her printed abilities (I’m not going to go into the intricacies of Teamwork). And what an ability it is! Any time you play an Event, Raven (and, hypothetically, any other Unicorn Friends standing beside her) gets +1 power until the end of the turn! That doesn’t suck. I know quite a few Unicorn Friends that get a lot of attention in decks that could really benefit from this ability. Get some extra power to confront a Problem or prepare for a Faceoff. Easy to understand. Furthermore, we have something now that Raven didn’t have much access to in the first block: Immediate Events. Sure, we had a few Reaction Events at that time, but I haven’t seen one of those used in a deck in ages. Now you can Star Swirl Research or Belly Flop all you want and get your Unicorns some power while you’re at it! Doesn’t matter whose turn it is: If you play an Event, her extra power will come. I think I like it.

So what are her downsides? She seems like a pretty simple card. It’s probably pretty obvious that Teamwork can be a hard keyword to use. Most of the time, you have to pay some amount of AT to activate a Teamwork effect, and that could still apply here. Not to mention there are faster ways to accumulate Purple power than playing a ton of Events. For example, if your Mane’s name is Tempest Shadow, you can start playing 3+ Purple req Friends immediately after flipping her... which you can do on your first turn. My other glaring issue with this card is how difficult it may be to play right off the bat. She has two Purple req - that means, unless you have a Purple Mane Character situated at Under Lock and Tree - you need at least one additional Purple Friend in play to get this card going. And yes, I know Under Lock and Tree is a Starting Problem. I just haven’t seen it used in ages. Lacking Lesson Plans, Searching High and Low, Concerning Cutie Mark, and Trading Traditions seem to be more popular Starting Problems currently in the metagame. So I would say this Friend is... average at best. She can get to some high power levels if you play the right things, but you may be better off using something that doesn’t rely on Unicorn Friends to have its way.

Here are some more cards you can use to make a little magic alongside this card:

*Starlight Glimmer, Magic Instructor. Wanna get the most out of your Events but still do some weird Teamwork-y shit? Try this Super Rare on for size! Though it won’t give you twice the power boost, you can still put a little bit of power on your Unicorn Friends and cause a little chaos (if you play the right Event, that is). Of course, this does require exhausting, so you have to play it wisely to get the most out of the boost. If you do go for this, I’d also recommend adding in some Stubborn Unicorns like Sweetie Belle, Most Traditional, or cards like Hard Hat that can give a Friend Stubborn.

*Trixie, Smoke and Mirrors. Now, I’m not exactly sure how the ability activation order would work, but this could still get to some high numbers if you play enough Events. If Trixie is sitting pretty with Raven and you play an Event, Trixie get a power doubling AND a +1. No matter what, if you play an Event, Trixie will be at least 5 or 6 power strong. And Purple loves Events, so... I don’t hate that. Especially since you can activate it on your opponent’s turn. I really hope I didn’t just break the CCG rule writers’ heads with this.

*Trixie, Hat Trick. Another Trixie card, oh boy! As long as you’re putting more Unicorns into play, Trixie can discount the next Event you play to boost said Unicorns. Wouldn’t it be nice to discount a pricey-ish Event like Redeeming Qualities or Read the Manual down to 1 AT? So much bang for your bit! I cannot stress this enough, though: You MUST keep the Unicorns coming to make the most of this card. Besides playing new Unicorn Friends each turn, there are a few ways you can do this, one of which is later on this list.

*Amethyst Star, Calming Presence. Now I come to what may be the weirdest suggestion on this list. With the advent of cards such as Tempest Shadow, Storm Commander (who I covered in a Shark a few weeks ago!), Purple has risen to a new status as a farming color. But what does that have to do with this card? Well, if you are going the farming route and want to make your Troublemaker Faceoffs easier, Amethyst here can give your other Unicorns her printed ability of reducing a Troublemaker’s power by 1. And if you play an Event before challenging the Troublemaker, Raven shares that power boost with Amethyst! Not to mention that it could be quite the shocker for your opponent. “Okay, your second color is YelloWAIT IS THAT AMETHYST STAR.”

*Sassy Saddles, Expert Marketer. Got a Problem that’s scaring your opponent’s characters away? Allow Sassy Saddles to come in and put a Unicorn Friend Token in play each time the Problem is safely guarded! With Unicorn Friend tokens, you can get more power for each Event played, reduce Troublemakers’ powers down with Calming Presence, and further discount Hat Trick’s Events. Like Hat Trick, however, this can be hard to pull off, but there are ways to steer opposing characters away (such as maintaining a bunch of characters with Showy or playing Events that move opposing characters)...you know, the more I write this column, the more I wonder why the hell I haven’t tried this ridiculous deck idea yet.

Thanks so much for reading another installment of Card Shark! Next week is Everfree Northwest (hooray!), so I have a special EFNW-themed Shark planned. I asked you to tell me your favorite Everfree mascot, and you delivered! See what card I picked to correspond to the winner next week! And if you’ll be there, don’t hesitate to say “hi!” Diamond out!

#my little pony #mlp:fim #my little pony friendship is magic #raven #unicorn #mlpccg #mlp:ccg #ccg #mlp #event organizer #crystal games #friend #purple #teamwork #card shark

1 note · View note

sol1056 · 6 years

Text

hrm, I have several asks that all imply a similar premise in their questions, so I’m answering that particular part of those asks, all in one, here.

and the premise is that I hated S6; but truthfully,I’d be reluctant to say that. Instead, I’d say I found its flaws even more glaring thanks to contrast with parts that I did like, but that what goes in the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ columns depends on the hat I’m wearing when I’m asked.

See, if I were to break out the various levels in which I consume any story, in any media, it’d be something like this: as a writer, as a student of visual media, as an anthropologist, as a technologist, as a philosopher... and that’s not counting the various other things I love that -- if reflected well in a story -- will make me happy: engineering, mechanics, architecture, intercultural communications.

behind the cut: an example in how those parts of my brain react, and a quick rundown of the real issue of the season: failure to be inspired evenly across the character spectrum.

Take a scene like the one where the castle is hijacked. I don’t know for sure, since @ptw30 is too kind to smack the shit out of me, but I had to have sounded like a chaotic jumble in reactions when Pidge realizes there’s a virus, tries to barricade it in, discovers it’s got a counter-attack tailored to defeat her defenses, and then must use her stored shutdown systems as final defense.

writer brain: okay, the series of events is kinda cliched but it’s handled solidly, moving at a good clip, aaaand yep there’s the backlash, aaaaand yep, the final pivot, dialogue is jargon-heavy which reduces tension slightly but that emotional reaction beat at the end, good job there

visual brain: not bad, kinda predictable angle, oh, that’s a nice shot, good grief hate that cliche, glasses do not go full reflective like that, ohh that’s a different angle, lovely contrast with the character’s words, not earth-shattering but solid composition

technology brain: FKN STOP IT THAT IS NOT HOW IT WORKS NO OMFG JUST STOP WTF OF COURSE THERE’S DEFENSES WTF WERE YOU BORN YESTERDAY FKN FIND THE VULNERABILITY NO THAT’S NOT HOW THIS WORKS THAT’S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS NO WONDER PPL NEVER GET WHAT WE DO GADAMMMIT ANKERLNSDFOIXCVUDX OMFG

mechanics brain: uhm, does this castle have no isolated systems? did no one in all this time ever look at the castle and say, gee, all of this is connected by a single computer system and boy maybe we should, like, isolate this shit, where are my physical real-world levers and a big red button that will physically break connections in a case like this wtf

architecture brain: my HOUSE has a shut-off valve so I can turn off all water to outside spigots when there’s a chance of freezing, without putting interior water pipes at risk, what genius built this castle and never thought to do the same for all their crucial and vulnerable systems?

philosophy brain: is this meant to shut the castle down, or an act intended to make the castle explode, how to draw a clear conclusion as to the moral reaction to such an act, ramping up danger gives impression that purpose is simply shut-down, as opposed to going for the jugular by taking out life-support vs turning castle into bomb, (technology brain interrupts to say FKN CASCADE FAILURE DAMMIT) and reaction is good but lacking something (writer brain pops in to say but emotional beat! we have emotional beat!) bc still not enough to leap from here to seeing friend as enemy, where is the ethical decision point to justify murder in self-defense

...you can see there’s a lot going on in any one scene, in my brain.

But that also means I can analyze anything -- from an entire story down to a single dialogue exchange or image -- from one perspective and find it satisfying. And there’s no real contradiction imo to turn around and in the very next analysis put on a different hat and be frothing at the mouth over all the failures and numerous flaws.

No work is perfect, just as no audience is a monolith and neither are any of the individual members of that audience. Every single one of us has experiences across many areas and will bring all of them to bear on our enjoyment of a story. Up to and including sometimes willfully shutting down parts when they get too noisy -- like the way I have to grit my teeth through stories showing tech stuff because visual media pretty much never gets it right.

Here’s the bottom line, though, and the one thing that will overrule every other complaint (not neutralize those complaints, mind you, only backburner them in comparison):

do I give a damn about the characters?

As long as the answer is yes, I’ll be riveted, regardless of the goings-on. And that’s where S6 was a fascinating object lesson in how my reactions to some characters have changed, thanks to events in S3/S4/S5.

I honestly skipped every scene with Coran fixing the castle. I don’t hate him; I just didn’t find him half as compelling as the other plot threads.

I tuned out roughly half of what Pidge had to say, because her descent into amorality (and the lack of ever being called on it) has turned her from one of my favorites into one who doesn’t deserve my time.

I only gave Allura half my attention, b/c her deus ex machina in S5 is too OP and that takes away a huge amount of risk. She’s a walking powerhouse now which means a lot less at stake, and what could’ve been a truly dramatic moment (Lance’s near-death) had no drama for me b/c of course Allura can make it all better. (Plus the compressed pacing in that episode meant the story ran roughshod over that reaction beat.)

I skipped Lance’s scenes once I figured out they’d amount to him pining away (but not actually doing anything about it) -- once again, everyone else is working hard and Lance is wrapped up in himself, and I’m tired of it. Get over it, act on it, move on, I don’t care, just shut up.

I paid attention to Lotor until he went over the edge. I’ve heard enough descent-into-madness speeches from fictional sociopaths, and he didn’t even present a good enough motivation to make his actions riveting.

Uh, did Hunk have anything to say? Other than doing engineering stuff in the first episode... frankly, a chunk of which I skipped ‘cause I’d seen that four-minute teaser. Too long, enough I had no interest in sitting through it again.

If Keith, Krolia, or Shiro was on the screen, I was on it. If it was the clone, though, I kinda half-listened. I wanted that one storyline resolved already, so I could decide whether to stop caring for any of these three, too.

I paid attention to the generals... until Axca revealed she’d been working with Lotor all along, and then I realized the story had been lying to me. I do not forgive that. When Zethrid and Ezor shrugged over previous betrayals (Narti) and agreed to work with Lotor, I stopped paying attention to them, too. I’m here for characters, not plot devices.

Also, Romelle was left-field unforeshadowed swerve exposition fairy with an accent almost as annoying as no-name-father’s attempt at, uh, idk what that accent was (but goddammit it hurt to listen to, so I just muted him when I saw his mouth move). Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll drop Romelle off at the nearest mall so she can go buy herself a reason to be in the story.

And lastly, wtf was that about the castle’s destruction, whhhhyyyyy did we get a larger reaction space for AN EMPTY SHIP than we did for, oh, say, LOSING THE CLONE who’d been part of the team for how many months? wtf was that.

If you look up at my list of reactions to the castle-virus point, you’ll notice that there aren’t any mentions of personal stakes or characters. At no point was I thinking, oh no will everyone be okay (or even oh no not the poor castle) -- because any remaining connection with the core cast was tenuous by that point, at best. I had minimal to no emotional reaction to Pidge’s final emotional beat, because I’ve lost all respect for her as a character, so I don’t care anymore whether she cares or not.

Which means that there will be things -- depending on the hat -- that I either have found, or may be shown (via other peoples’ analyses, usually) are worth my time and/or have a reason to be there and/or make me reconsider. But without that connection to the characters, at least half the story is just going to go by at arms-length for me, now, and that’s a lot harder to come back from, all things being equal.

#voltron legendary defender #vld spoilers #meta #analysis is my chocolate cake #come for the sugar stay for the salt #vld #voltron

17 notes · View notes

papermoonloveslucy · 7 years

Text

Lucy and Paul Winchell

S5;E4 ~ October 3, 1966

Synopsis

Lucy convinces ventriloquist Paul Winchell to appear at the Annual Banker's Banquet. When Winchell is running late, he asks Lucy to stop by and pick up his dummies. When she accidentally leaves them in a taxi the understudy 'dummy' has to go on – Lucy!

Regular Cast

Lucille Ball (Lucy Carmichael), Gale Gordon (Theodore J. Mooney)

Mary Jane Croft (Mary Jane Lewis) does not appear in this episode but Lucy does have a phone conversation with her.

Guest Cast

Paul Winchell (Himself) was born Paul Wilchinsky in 1922. Coming into the public eye in 1948, he became one of the most famous ventriloquists since Edgar Bergen. He hosted the enormously popular children's television show “Winchell-Mahoney Time” (1964-68) in which he shared the spotlight with Jerry Mahoney, one of his most popular characters. Sadly, in a legal dispute over the syndication rights to the show, all nearly 300 episodes were destroyed. Winchell is fondly remembered as the voice of Winnie the Pooh's pal Tigger and (later) Papa Smurf. He returns to “The Lucy Show” to play Doc Putnam in two linked episodes, “Main Street U.S.A.” (S5;E17) and “Lucy Puts Main Street on the Map” (S5;18), as well as doing two episodes of “Here's Lucy.” Surprisingly, Winchell was also an inventor who is credited with the artificial heart, among other innovations. He died in 2005.

Snitchy the Snail appeared with Winchell on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” six months before this “Lucy Show” appearance.

Tessie Mahoney was Jerry's platinum blonde cousin. She was named after Winchell's wife Tessie Nina Moore. Many accused Tessie of just being Jerry Mahoney in drag! Like Winchell, Tessie was from Brooklyn (and sounded it).

Jerry Mahoney (above left) was 'born' around 1935. He was Paul Winchell's co-host on “Winchell-Mahoney Time.” Jerry Mahoney was named after Winchell's grade-school teacher, who encouraged him to pursue ventriloquism. He was carved by Chicago-based figure maker Frank Marshall. The original Marshall-carved Jerry Mahoney is now 'living' at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.

Knucklehead Smiff (above right) was 'born' in 1951, sculpted by Winchell from a copy of Jerry Mahoney's head. He co-starred with Winchell and Jerry Mahoney on “Winchell-Mahoney Time” and many other shows. Like Jerry Mahoney, he now resides at the 'Smiffsonian' Institution, although neither are currently accepting visitors!

Sid Gould (Show Announcer Voice) made more than 45 appearances on “The Lucy Show,” all as background characters. He also did 40 episodes of “Here’s Lucy.” Gould (born Sydney Greenfader) was Lucille Ball’s cousin by marriage to Gary Morton.

Gould performed this same kind of uncredited voice over introduction when “Lucy and George Burns” (S5;E1) performed together.

Marge, a voice on Lucy's intercom is uncredited, as is the female voice of the long distance operator. Marge was also the name of Lucy Carmichael's sister, a character seen in “Lucy's Sister Pays a Visit” (S1;E15).

Having Paul Winchell as a guest star was Lucille Ball's attempt to attract younger viewers to “The Lucy Show.”

Lucille Ball seems to be having occasional vocal problems during this episode.

Upon meeting Paul Winchell, Lucy says “I always read your column” mistaking him for journalist Walter Winchell. Paul Winchell quickly corrects her. She then says “I just get hysterical watching you and Charlie McCarthy” mistaking her for ventriloquist Edgar Bergen. Again, Winchell quickly corrects her. Walter Winchell (1897-1972) was the narrator of Desilu's “The Untouchables” and did the same function for a parody episode on “The Lucy Show” titled “Lucy the Gun Moll” (S4;E25). Edgar Bergen (1903-1978) appeared with Lucille Ball in the 1941 film Look Who's Laughing.

Lucy explains the bank's interest rates to Paul Winchell:

Lucy gave away toasters for new savings accounts back in Danfield when “Lucy Takes a Job at the Bank” (S2;E21).

In the previous episode, “Lucy the Bean Queen” (S5;E3) Lucy was redecorating her apartment. The reveal is delayed as this episode has no scenes taking place in Lucy’s home.

Mr. Mooney returns to the office after failing to find a celebrity to entertain at the Bankers Annual Banquet show. Bob Hope is doing a show for the Girl Scouts in Pismo Beach; Jack Benny is on a tour of Fort Knox; Dean Martin just had an operation to remove a brass rail pressing on his foot. All three of these performers have guest starred on “The Lucy Show.” Pismo Beach was thought to be a funny sounding name and was often used as a punch line in comedy. Fort Knox is an Army base in Kentucky where much of the nation's gold supply is held, so the reference trades on Jack Benny's characterization of a being a miser. Dean Martin's comic persona was that of a heavy drinker, so the reference is to the foot rail found at bars.

Lucy: Oh, gee, aren't there any other movie actors you could call? Mr. Mooney: Yes, yes, but they're all too busy running for public office.

Mr. Mooney is likely referring to Ronald Reagan, who ran for Governor of California in 1966 and won (after this episode aired). He held office until 1975 before setting his sights on the Presidency. In 1980 he was elected 40th President of the United States, an office he held until 1989. His screen acting career began in 1937 and lasted right up until he became Governor. Reagan appeared with Lucille Ball on two episodes of “The Ed Sullivan Show” in the mid-1950s.

Paul Winchell gets a phone call from someone named Gary asking him to play golf. This is probably and inside joke about Production Consultant (and Lucille Ball's husband) Gary Morton's fondness for playing golf.

In the opening scene at Paul Winchell's home, his character Irving Think (a mouse) is standing next to the telephone and Ozwald (with another figure's head attached) is propped up on the sofa. Ozwald was a commercially available doll resembling Humpty Dumpty that required the user to paint eyes and a nose on his or her own chin and hang the puppet upside down to create the character.

After Winchell offers to lend Lucy one of his dummies, Lucy and the episode enters (what Winchell later calls) “the twilight zone.” Winchell's most famous dummies, Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff, become animated on their own, without any help from Winchell (although he may still be providing the voices live). It is a surreal moment for a show that tries to keep one foot in a somewhat farcical version of reality (except perhaps for “Lucy the Superwoman” S4;E26).

Lucy describes her boss as Diamond Jim Mooney after Winchell says he sounds like “the last of the big spenders.” James Buchanan Brady (1856–1917) was an American businessman, financier and philanthropist of the Gilded Age who had a particular affinity for precious stones and jewelry. His had a longtime relationship with actress and singer Lillian Russell. At one point, a TV biopic was planned starring Jackie Gleason with Lucille Ball as Russell, but it never came to pass.

Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff have a food fight with spaghetti, eggs, and cream pies, something they often did on “Winchell-Mahoney Time.”

Mr. Mooney gets a telephone call from his boss, Mr. Cheever, a character who won't actually appear until the end of the season (played by Roy Roberts).

Although Lucille Ball was game to conquer any comic task the writers created for her, becoming an accomplished ventriloquist in a week was a tall order, so Mrs. Carmichael's lips move when manipulating the dummy she borrows from Paul Winchell as workplace therapy.

The Bankers Annual Banquet and Show is being held at the Beverly Ritz Hotel. Backstage there is a Fallout Shelter sign. After the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1961 (the beginning of the 'Cold War' between Russian and the United States), President Kennedy instructed that sturdy large-capacity structures be designated fallout shelters in case of attack. The yellow and black sign with three triangles inside a circle was used to alert the public that the building was designated such a structure. The saloon door scenery used in the silent movie sketch of “Lucy Meets Mickey Rooney” (S4;E18) is also there, although the painted side is turned away from the camera.

As Tessie Mahoney, Lucy suggests that they sing “Your Dime is My Dime” because they are performing for an audience of bankers. This is a pun on the song “My Time is Your Time” written by Leo Dance and Eric Little in 1924. It was made famous by Rudy Valle who guest starred as himself on “Lucy Takes a Cruise to Havana” (1957), the first “Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour,” and does so again in a 1970 episode of “Here's Lucy.”

Winchell (voicing Lucy / Tessie and himself) sings “What Does This Audience Want?” an original song written especially for this episode. The lyrics reference Milton Berle, who appeared in “Lucy Saves Milton Berle” (S4;E13).

Callbacks!

Ventriloquist Max Terhune played himself in "Ricky Loses His Temper” (ILL S3;E19). Terhune was a skilled vaudevillian who specialized in ventriloquism. On the Orpheum Circuit his dummy was known as Skully Null but was re-named Elmer Sneezeweed in the movies. Terhune was listed as one of the top ten money-making stars in Westerns for 1937, 1938 and 1939, appearing as Max ‘Alibi’ Terhune in a string of B-movie 'oaters.’

Actually a call forward – to the stage and film musical Chicago in which a woman (Roxie Hart) becomes a ventriloquist's doll during the musical number “We Both Reached for the Gun.” Here, Lucy takes on the persona of Tessie Mahoney, sitting on Paul Winchell's knee wearing a platinum blonde wig and pink dress singing “What Does This Audience Want?”

Blooper Alerts

Paul Winchell wants to open a savings account at Westland Bank. Although certainly this is within the bounds of reality, it is likely that a big star like Paul Winchell would have his finances administered by a Business Manager and would not be going to a local bank for a savings account.

Mr. Mooney's Dictaphone explodes just by Lucy touching it.

None of Lucy's file cabinets are labeled. With Lucy's wacky filing system it doesn't really matter anyway!

“Lucy Meets Paul Winchell” rates 4 Paper Hearts out of 5

7 notes · View notes

theinsanecrayonbox · 8 years

Text

Chloe Rules/Tardy Sauce

both of these are banked reviews, also talk about their correct matching stories a little too

Chloe Rules:

Kevin! But wait Kev, you live with the teacher, why didn’t your homework get done? (and this also blows my theory about them skipping Kevin episodes since he’s not been introduced yet...or does it...)

Also Tim, the excuse “my dog ate my homework” would work for you since you had a dog…and why would Crocker be surprised you had a talking dog? Oh wait right, I forgot, we’ve retconned all of s9, my bad!

Plus “stupid” upside down would not be “diputs”, that’s backwards. It’d resemble something closer to “pidnfs” or “pidnls” probably

And no, Chloe did not do her homework right, you need first AND last name ion things. For shame missy!

“somebody put a mirror under his nose to make sure he’s still breathing” wow, that went a tad dark. But I love Kevin more knowing what a slacker he is lol

Smoking in the hall…oh wow. Are you sure these kids are still 10/11 there folks? That was funny because it’s a meat smoker, but we all know what they meant. I’m just, wow. I never would’ve pegged Tim for a smoker; Francis totally, but not Tim *makes notes of that for later use*

Heehee the term “grifter” being associated with Timmy, since you know, Inkblot!Timmy is based on Grifter. Heehee, made me giggle

Also loving RoboCop!Chloe. still, this totally feels like the JN episode where Jimmy became hall monitor, but then again, this is a common narrative trope isn’t it, so not that surprising.

“Well I can’t change who I am, because that would involve trying” I’m just gonna leave that line there for you because there’s so much to it ^^;;;

and Chloe has gone mad with power hahahahahaha

why do you keep saying the hedgehog’s name? is that a reference to something specific?

Chloe has a gum sniffing dog…i…hm…you just had to ruin one of my favorite headcanons that Chloe is scared of dogs, didn’t you…hm…you know, I’m keeping it, gag aside, this is a highly trained professional dog, so maybe she can deal with this one but others

But you know, at the same time, “gum sniffing dog” is very obviously “gun sniffing dog”, and the random locker searching…this whole scenario is very dark, realistic and played off as a laugh, but still and…yeah… plus what about the kid in the locker “a bully stuffed me in here a week ago” what’s her response to that? “go tell that to the principal”. No actions against the bully for putting him there, but instead actions against the kid for not getting himself out and to class. That’s victim blaming. And that’s something Chloe wouldn’t do; I mean, yes she’s drunk on power…but still. This whole scene is dealing with some very heavy real life issues and if you’re not paying attention, you’ll miss them for the laughable parody they’re giving.

“Dad what are you doing here?!” that’s what we always ask Timmy when pointless Dad is thrown at us. But at least it’s a small call back to eth fact that Timmy’s Dad went to Dimmsdale Elementary too

Dad hit the nail on the head about angry mobs…just another tick in the dark column (though he has been the subject of and part of several so that does make some sense)

Aww Timmy said he cares about her…true in the next line he sorta said he was more worried about his own safety but still.

And of course, school bell rings, and bam! No more conflict.

But I can see this as some really good Chloe development here. She’s always been told to “be perfect” to follow the rules; she hasn’t had many friends in the past, so of course when she’s thrust into a rule enforcing position, she’d fall back onto the “be the best no matter the cost” mentality that has pushed her up until this point. Was it a bit too extreme, oh yeah, but then again Chloe seems to be an all or nothing sort of girl. This episode also touched on a lot of stuff if you look past the parody, so it was very deep too i think.

As a whole I think these both (the production pair of stories, not the aired pair) work very well together. Dadlantis was fun and stupidly silly, while Chloe Rules was silly, but it was in a distracting sort of way. I think it’s a great episode as a while. Highly recommend it if you want Chloe development, and some fun laughs.

Tardy Sauce/Tacomania:

I’m confused by the name of this episode because it’s listed one way in one place and as another elsewhere, and both are actually pretty good…EDIT: Now we know that Tardy Sauce us the official name, but “Tacomania is still good and I think plays to the story concept more

I’m still not sure if they keep changing her middle names or not…I think I really need a transcript to know what all of her middle names are at this point ^^;

Lol you wanted to catch her, so you thought a literal net would be the best course. That is actually funny. Basic and rudimentary, but actually funny. But also whoot! Chloe has super teeth too!! Idk why that seems awesome. I just like how much of a perfect anti-thesis she is to Timmy actually.

And we cue up more Carmicheal family doing “new age” stuff. Neats. I like how hippie-dippie anthropology they are

Pointless Crocker…I guess isn’t *as* pointless, because here he’s at least a plot point/story device…but why is a teacher making this call? Isn’t it usually the principal or superintendent? That should’ve been a tip off that something was wonky Chloe dear…

Chloe…obsessing over school like that is bad…but yes dear, you are a vegetarian so it makes perfect sense you don’t like tacos, but yes it was a great pun. (You are so relatable I love you lol) and yeah you totally work the system that way; 1 per person but your plus one hates the thing, you totally get two then!

Why are there so many mascot clowns in FOPverse…? Also, Tim, what happened to your fear of clowns??

Oh look another person seeing the fairies and it not mattering. It’s like Da Rules need not apply

Pointless Dad…but the dummies are still a thing…wait no they were hand puppets before. Uhg. But yeah ok, I’ll let you keep the one point for continuity because they are puppets still and it plays to the plot idea about getting extra tacos I guess…

And even Chet Ubetcha sees the fairies and calls them a mystical creature on tv…yup, Da Rules are so still a thing…

But yes Chloe, what an amazing plot twist, Tim tricked you to get tacos, legasp! Though honestly, if the taco stand is that close to school, why did you need to ditch to begin with Tim? I know, you’d use any excuse to ditch school silly question. But really, why?

Tim…the tacos are in the bag still…you can still eat those…even if they weren’t you’d still probably eat them because you’re gross like that. But yeah, seriously, only the bag is yucky dude. AND YOU HAVE MAGIC EVEN! You can easily save those tacos! I just…I don’t get it…

Ok Tim, dude, why you gotta be petty here man? She already said why she wanted to go to school, you obviously know you did bad by lying to her, distracting her from making it to school is just a jerky move. I mean, she’s gonna be wicked tardy, so it shouldn’t count for perfect attendance anyways, but that aside. She threw your tacos in the garbage is why you’re doing it; dude, like I said the tacos were FINE. All making her miss it is going to do is make her HATE you. this is just stupid on your part. I get you’re a twerpy 11/12 (should be 14 honestly by now) year old at this point, so yeah perfectly believable reaction on your part, so A+ writers! I’m just saying dude, if you stopped to think, you’d realize what a jerk you’re being, when this is all your fault to begin with.

You’re not having a wish fight, you were the only one making wishes until the troll wish. And he shouldn’t be able to unwish your wish anyways Chloe, that was previously established, so why reiterate it?

Wait…hold up wait…you did not just say…omr you really did just say that Crocker didn’t you. Tim planned a surprise party because she broke the record? Oh. My. Ra. I did not see that plot twist coming. I am just…oh wow. That was some very good writing. The whole setup felt like a normal plausible scenario, like there was no possible way there’d be an arterial motive to it. I just…wow.

The end button, not so great…

But I’m just, wow. This is a prime example of a non-magical episode that deals with real life stuff, solved in a real life way I think. And it is a wonderful example really. I also think it shows Tim’s real level of maturity that we forget he has. I mean, he planned this whole ruse after all, even when it was something he didn’t understand (though, weren’t you all about perfect attendance way back in TimvisibleI??), and got everyone else on board with it too even though they didn’t get it either. But he knew Chloe’s attendance record meant everything to her, so he made it special for her. I’m just…floored. This is character development. It might not be actiony, or filled with (horrible) sight gags, but it is some very necessary character development that we’ve been sorely lacking for a long time. A+++ on the writing here guys, honestly.

Together, I don’t think Chloe Rules and Tardy Sauce should have been aired together because they’re both pretty strong stories (the former less than the later granted) and the weaker stories *need* the stronger ones to help balance them out. Admittedly Dad-lantis and Crockin the house were both good fillerish stories too, but they pair so well with these that when you split them up, they just didn’t do as well with what the were stuck with. I don’t know if this season was produced with the idea that the A- and B-stories could be separated and ran out of order or not, but I’ve always felt that if the production team put them together in an order, it was probably for a good reason. I know these days the networks want just content to slap in anywhere any time and not care about a continuous story line, and if it’s written that way then it’s great; but when it’s written to go together a specific way, you ruin it by chopping it up and throwing it around willy nilly.

#Fairly Odd Parents #Fairly Oddparents #fop #kp talks fop #review

4 notes · View notes

vsplusonline · 5 years

Text

10 best books by Shashi Tharoor and why you should read them! | The Times of India

New Post has been published on https://apzweb.com/10-best-books-by-shashi-tharoor-and-why-you-should-read-them-the-times-of-india/

10 best books by Shashi Tharoor and why you should read them! | The Times of India

ttps://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/”http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd” >

10 best books by Shashi Tharoor and why you should read them! | The Times of India

TIMESOFINDIA.COM | Last updated on – Mar 9, 2020, 08:30 ISTShare fbsharetwsharepinshare

01/1110 best books by Shashi Tharoor and why you should read them!

A politician, writer, and a former international diplomat, Shashi Tharoor is a well-known in the field of literature. A very popular name in India, he is known as a writer with amazing hits to his credit. An acclaimed writer, Tharoor started writing at the age of six and till date, he has written eighteen books based and centered on India and its history, culture, politics, and society. He has also written hundreds of columns in many famous publications like The New York Times and The Washington Post. In 2019, Dr. Shashi Tharoor got the Sahitya Academy Award for his book ‘An Era of Darkness’ in a non-fiction category in English language.

The man will turn a year older on March 9 and it is a reason to celebrate the literary works of Tharoor. His books provide an insight into the Indian culture, its position in the modern society and how it evolved into one of the largest democracies in the world. Here is a list of 10 books by Shashi Tharoor, which brought a revolution in the Indian writing scene:

02/11The Great Indian Novel (1989)

It is a fictional work that takes the story of the Mahabharata, the Indian epic, and recasts and resets it in the context of the Indian Independence Movement and the first three decades post-independence. Figures from Indian history are transformed into characters from mythology, and the mythical story of India is retold as a history of Indian independence and subsequent history, up through the 1970s.

Pic credit: Penguin

03/11Show Business (1992)

The book parodies and satirizes formulaic Bollywood cinema, using it as a metaphor in an attempt to raise and answer questions about contemporary India and Indians. It is a fictional work that tells the story of Ashok Banjara, a Bollywood superstar. The character and many incidents of Ashok Banjara’s life are inspired by that of Amitabh Bachchan, the biggest superstar in Bollywood’s history.

Pic credit: Penguin

04/11Riot (2001)

In ‘Riot’, Tharoor experiments brilliantly with narrative form, chronicling the mystery of Priscilla Hart’s death through the often contradictory accounts of a dozen or more characters. Intellectually provocative and emotionally charged, it is a novel about the ownership of history, about love, hate, cultural commission, religious fanaticism and the impossibility of knowing the truth.

Pic credit: Penguin

05/11India: From Midnight to the Millennium (1997)

It discusses a wide range of topics like caste, democracy in India, Indira Gandhi, the partition of India, and its transition from a socialist economy to a free market economy. Shashi Tharoor argues compellingly that India stands at the intersection of the most significant questions facing the world at the end of the twentieth century. The answers to such questions will determine what kind of world the next century will bring, and since Indians will soon account for a sixth of the world’s population, their choices will have repercussions throughout the globe.

Pic credit: Penguin

06/11Bookless in Baghdad (2005)

It consists of a collection of previously published articles, book reviews and columns on writers, books and literary musings. In the title story, “Bookless in Baghdad”, Tharoor writes about his experience when he visits Baghdad on a UN initiative soon after the Gulf War.

Pic credit: Penguin

07/11India Shastra: Reflections on the Nation in our Time (2015)

In this book, Tharoor attempts to answer important questions to demystify the complex issues that have been thrown up by the ongoing transformation of the nation. After chronicling India’s transformation over the years in several previous books, he brings his insights into Indian society, economics and politics up to date in wide-ranging short essays that extend the narrative right up to the present time.

Pic credit: Aleph Book Company

08/11An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India (2016)

In this explosive book, Tharoor reveals with acuity, impeccable research, and trademark wit, just how disastrous British rule was for India. Besides examining the many ways in which the colonizers exploited India, ranging from the drain of national resources to Britain, the destruction of the Indian textile, steel-making and shipping industries, and the negative transformation of agriculture, he demolishes the arguments of Western and Indian apologists for Empire on the supposed benefits of British rule, including democracy and political freedom, the rule of law, and the railways.

Pic credit: Aleph Book Company

09/11Why I Am A Hindu (2018)

In the book, Tharoor writes about the history of Hinduism and its core tenets, as well as socio-cultural developments in India that relate to the religion, while elucidating his own religious convictions. It is a repudiation of Hindu nationalism, and its rise in Indian society, which relied upon an interpretation of the religion which was markedly different from the one with which he had grown up, and was familiar with.

Pic credit: Aleph Book Company

10/11The Paradoxical Prime Minister (2018)

In the book, Tharoor examines and questions the tenure of the Modi government. He states that his criticisms are based on “facts and figures”, along with examples. Tharoor claims that he questions “the foreign policy, relationships in the neighborhood, the priorities, the episodic nature of much of our foreign policy conduct, the inconsistent yo-yoing of [the] relationship with Pakistan, etc., etc.” of Modi’s tenure.

Pic credit: Aleph Book Company

Source link

#Fashion

0 notes

one-of-us-blog · 6 years

Text

Rose and Fern (TGP, Episode 13)

Today Eli is forced to watch and recap Rose and Fern, Episode 13 of The Golden Palace. When the girls are faced with a combination of missing funds and the return of a figure from the past, suspicions and passions begin flaring. Will the squad be able to solve these matters and move on before sinking into financial and emotional ruin? Keep reading to find out…

Well, I am once again embarrassingly late in getting a new blog post completed, but before I dive into things let me at least tell Drew what a fine job he did with his recap of Tomorrow Never Dies. Great job, buddy! Because of my tardiness it has been a minute since I read your post, but I seem to recall that you were blown away by the brilliance of Elliot Carver’s scheme to secure exclusive broadcast rights for China. What a villain, amiright? But for some reason, I don’t believe there were any shifts in your list of franchise faves, so we’ll just hurry up and get down to business. It’s time once again to check back into The Golden Palace!

Buttocks tight!

Episode written by Marc Sotkin, directed by Peter D. Beyt

We open to find Chuy removing a burnt duck from the oven. Apparently Sophia has been overcooking food for quite a while, but it isn’t entirely her fault as the oven is broken. Unfortunately, every time the oven repairman shows up, the only thing he services is Blanche. We also find out that Miles has been calling the hotel and leaving messages for Rose, and she laughs at the idea that he got dumped and wants her back. Still, she can’t decide whether she wants to forget all about him, get back together, or go on a Midwest ax murder spree. ‘Tis the season, I say! Blanche tells her to forget about the bum and date some new hunks, perhaps even someone who hasn’t assumed a fake identity and gone on the run from mob justice, nearly gotten her killed by a vengeful criminal, continued to live under an alias even after the truth had come to light, and then cheated on her out of the blue after years of presumed happiness. And to set up our final plot thread for the episode, Blanche speaks to Roland and is informed that he can’t balance the hotel’s checkbook, and that $300 is unaccounted for. She suggests using the “whoopsie” column to set things straight, and this should be a pretty big clue for what is to come later, but he tells her that he believes someone is embezzling money. The two of them are on the case, and agree to stay quiet about the hotel’s financial situation until they have some answers.

Blanche and Rose almost immediately begin arguing about their money problems, but thankfully a woman named Fern shows up to ask about using the hotel to host a wedding. The girls see the potential for some cash, and Rose quickly devises a cow-themed wedding to offer to the bride-to-be. For some reasons, Fern really latches onto the idea and breaks out her checkbook, as the staff of the Golden Palace prepares to milk her for all she’s worth.

Roland soon reports that another $200 is missing. He and Blanche get suspicious and interrogate Rose. She caves to the pressure immediately and admits to stealing a nickel in the third grade as part of a magic scheme that probably inspired Now You See Me. Next, Blanche puts the screws to Sophia, threatening her with one of Rose’s St. Olaf stories. Sophia knows exactly how to handle such matters, and quickly casts suspicion onto a nearby minority, but Chuy is offended by the racial profiling and storms off. Oh, and Rose mentions that she’s planning to get back with Miles for some reason, probably because she’s still making threatening phone calls to him in the dead of night, filtered through a kazoo. Or maybe she just wants to get Carboned one last time.

Fern is soon back at the hotel, and Rose lays out the details of her proposed dairy wedding theme. Miles suddenly shows up, and Rose believes he is there to win her back. But surprise, surprise, Miles is the man who will be marrying Fern, and he was unaware that she was hoping to use The Golden Palace for their nuptials. He only showed up to let Rose know that he was getting married, because why not twist the knife when you’ve already stabbed someone in the back? He was also unaware of the cow-themed wedding, but is pretty psyched about it. Rose flees the scene after hurling an insult at Miles that tips him off that she has been the late night kazoo-caller.

Chuy is looking through some cookbooks for cow-themed cuisine, and the mention of grass sets Cheech up for a fun magic brownie joke. None of the girls are able to sleep due to recent events, but they’re still planning to hold the wedding at the hotel to ease their financial woes. Sophia attempts to deliver a helpful “Picture It,” but the well must have run dry because she’s caught up to the present, and then inadvertently ventures too far into the past.

Miles talks to Rose and apologizes for this whole mess, which I assume includes acting totally contrary to the nature of the admittedly messy character previously established in The Golden Girls. She is a total professional about things, aside from the threat of a public stoning. He is hesitant to get married at the Palace, but she insists that it has to happen there. She needs to see him get married so that she can finally move on with her own life as well (at least for 11 more episodes or so).

We next cut to Blanche counting cash out of the hotel’s drawer, and Roland catches her in the act. She insists she is simply taking some of “her” money for necessary “business” expenses, but Roland points out that what she is doing is called embezzlement. She doesn’t seem bothered at all about this revelation, and even takes some extra money to buy herself a pretty new dress as a way to reward the others.

Lastly, we see Rose tearfully watching Miles and Fern tie the knot through the kitchen window. It’s a sad and upsetting end to the arc of a long-term character, but don’t worry, because we get a funny scene during the credits to show that Sophia has also stolen $100 to buy scratch-off tickets.

The End.

Well, I can’t say I was a big fan of this episode, but it’s mostly due to my dislike of the way the writers have handled the Miles situation in this show. I suppose I’m glad it’s over, if only because I don’t want to see this continue. It also seems like a total waste to bring back the character and actor again, given that he only had two very brief and forgettable scenes. But those complaints aside, I suppose it wasn’t a total loss, as I enjoyed the jokes involving Sophia’s interrogation, Chuy’s magic brownies, and everyone’s apparent love of all things dairy. The embezzlement plotline didn’t really do much for me, and I immediately called that Blanche was guilty, so I think they could have dropped that entirely. Overall, I think the most I can give this episode is a rating of 2.5 poofy hairdos out of 5. Farewell, Miles.

I’ll be back soon (I hope) with my take on Runaways, the next episode of The Golden Palace, and then Drew will return with a recap of The World is Not Enough, the next James Bond adventure. Until then, as always, thank you for being a friend, and for being One of Us!

#golden palace #golden girls #one of us

0 notes

chicagopdlover · 6 years

Text

Tarantino First Look; Academy Class Questions; Chalamet's 'Beautiful Boy' Trailer; L.A.'s "Influencer-Only" Mural

Tarantino First Look; Academy Class Questions; Chalamet’s ‘Beautiful Boy’ Trailer; L.A.’s “Influencer-Only” Mural

What’s news: Leonardo DiCaprio unveiled the first look at Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood . Plus: Lingering questions about the Academy’s record new class, Dana Brunetti launches a new company and an “influencer-only” mural arrives in Los Angeles. — Erik Hayden June 27, 2018 What’s news: Leonardo DiCaprio unveiled the first look at Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood . Plus: Lingering questions about the Academy’s record new class, Dana Brunetti launches a new company and an “influencer-only” mural arrives in Los Angeles. — Erik Hayden Academy Class Questions Having sifted through the 928 member list unveiled by the film Academy, Scott Feinberg has a few questions about the direction of the organization: 1. Is the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences still an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences? In order to meet its diversity goals, the Academy — and, in particular, its largest division, the actors branch — is increasingly inviting people to become members who are tremendously talented, but whose talents have primarily manifested themselves in other media. 2. If you’re good enough to win an Oscar, why aren’t you good enough to join the Academy? I do believe that there is one circumstance under which someone who has not amassed a large body of standout work should still be invited to join the Academy, and that is if that person has made a contribution to a film that was deemed excellent enough to merit an Oscar. 3. Is Oscar campaigning about to go crazy? With the latest class added, this will create the highest number of Oscar voters since the period spanning 1938 to 1945, when certain classes of members of outside guilds, including the now-defunct Screen Extras Guild, were granted full voting privileges, bringing the size of the voting rolls to approximately 12,000. Full column. Elsewhere in film… ► MoviePass parent stock hits new low. The company is losing about $45 million a month on its plan that gives subscribers 30 movie tickets for the price of one; it may need to spend $1.2 billion more if it is to stay afloat and keep growing ► Mark Wahlberg, Peter Berg reteam for Netflix film. The duo have set their next project (their fifth together) with the movie Wonderland , an adaptation from Robert B. Parker’s detective series. Sean O’Keefe penned the screenplay. ► Pete Davidson to lead indie Big Time Adolescence . The SNL star will join Machine Gun Kelly and Griffin Gluck in the pic. The film, which will begin shooting next month, will be the directorial debut of Jason Orley. ► Annapurna president to exit company. Marc Weinstock is leaving after less than two years in that role. According to insiders, his decision to depart is amicable and he will not be replaced. ^Sony’s Quentin Tarantino Manson drama unveils first still. Leonardo DiCaprio posted an image of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood , with him and Brad Pitt featured. First look. ► Amazon unveils Beautiful Boy trailer. Steve Carell, Timothée Chalamet and Maura Tierney star in the drama from the streamer that hits theaters Oct. 12. Full clip . ► Dwayne Johnson’s Skyscraper scores rare China release date . Legendary Entertainment and Universal’s action thriller has locked down a July 20 date, securing a spot right in the midst of Beijing’s summer blackout on imported Hollywood fare. ► Lionsgate finds new film group marketing chief. Damon Wolf, currently co-head of marketing at Sony, will join the studio Jan. 1. His recent campaigns include work on Baby Driver and Don’t Breathe . ► Constantin Film buys production group Hager Moss. The Munich-based production outfit is best known for its dramas and for crowd-pleasing films, including Oktoberfest . ► Independent Film and Television Alliance leaders renew contracts. Jean Prewitt and Jonathan Wolf have each re-upped for another three years with the trade association. Prewitt has headed the group since 2000. ► Writers Guild of America East unveils board candidates . It’s election season for the guild, which revealed a list of 16 candidates nominated for 10 open seats on its council. In Heat Vision : Marvel’s wait-and-see LGBTQ character approach. Graeme McMillan writes: Studio chief Kevin Feige recently confirmed queer characters are coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which lags behind the comic book publisher. Full column. Mega TV Deals It’s official: Fox will be the new home of WWE SmackDown Live, Marisa Guthrie writes: + Fox: The new five-year agreement will commence Oct. 4, 2019, and will give Fox two hours of live event programming 52 weeks each year. It is worth $205M annually, and $1.025B over the life of the pact. + NBC: The network said that is has closed a new five-year pact to keep the Monday night showcase Raw on USA Network. That deal is worth $265M annually, a big premium over the current pact, which is worth about $150M annually for both properties. Currently both programs air on NBCUniversal’s USA. Full story. Elsewhere in TV… ► Charter greenlights its first scripted series. Bad Boys spinoff L.A.’s Finest , starring Jessica Alba and Gabrielle Union, has been ordered by Charter Communications. The 13-episode drama will premiere in 2019. ► HBO casts Jeremy Irons in Watchmen pilot. The actor will topline the pilot from Damon Lindelof. While the pay cabler has remained mum on details, Irons will likely play an imperious lord of a British manor. ► Freeform cancels Famous in Love . Sources say the Disney-owned cabler wanted more money from SVOD partner Hulu for a potential third season amid clashes between star Bella Thorne and showrunner I. Marlene King. ► Lionsgate inks Dear White People showrunner to deal. Fresh off a third-season renewal, showrunner Yvette Lee Bowser has signed an overall deal . Under the pact, Bowser will create new projects for the studio. Quoted: “It seemed like, you don’t need to murder someone that’s committing suicide. I thought the firing was overkill. She’s already dead.” — Jerry Seinfeld to USA Today on Roseanne Barr ‘s firing. ^Can Netflix transform the TV landscape in the Middle East? With over 400M potential viewers, the region has vast potential, but with little variation in programming, audiences are starved for original content. The streaming giant could change all that. Full column. ► ITV COO, CFO to step down. The U.K. TV giant said that CFO and COO Ian Griffiths has advised the board of his intention to retire in the next 12 months. The company is searching for a successor. ► Endemol Shine names head of non-English scripted drama. Lars Blomgren, producer of the Scandinavian series The Bridge , has been hired as the new head of scripted across Europe, the Middle East and Asia. ► Fox Searchlight’s TV division fills out exec ranks. The new arm of the company has tapped Kara Buckley and Danny Samit as vps of television production. The division has yet to launch its first project. ► Sony shutting down Crackle in Canada. The video hub will shift some of its Canadian inventory to two new local ad-supported VOD services, via a partnership with Sony Pictures Television. Dana Brunetti launches new TV and film company. He is teaming with former Relativity exec Keegan Rosenberger to create Cavalry Media with “moderately-priced, premium” programming that includes the Columbus series Hispaniola. The budget for a film will be in the $40M-$80M range. Details. L.A.’s Influencers-Only Mural A stunt: Stroll down Melrose Avenue and there it is: A blue mural with a pink heart and angel wings. A security guard stands out front, next to a sign that reads, “For verified influencers and people with over 20,000 followers only,” Natalie Jarvey notes. What that means. What else we’re reading… — “Comcast hunts for additional cash.” Amol Sharma and Dana Mattioliis report that the company is “exploring tie-ups with other companies or private-equity investors that could provide additional cash as the cable giant pursues a costly acquisition of 21st Century Fox’s entertainment assets.” [ Wall Street Journal ] — ” How’s he gonna react when there’s a scandal?” Joe Pompeo on CNN: “So much appears to hang on the Jeff Zucker-John Stankey bromance. For now, everyone is saying the right thing.” [ Vanity Fair ] — “Hollywood’s instant antihero.” Reggie Ugwu’s Benicio Del Toro profile: “he’s been a strikingly economical player, if not always the most valuable one, averaging an unusually high ratio of memorable moments.” [ New York Times ] — “What does ABC want from The Conners ?” David Sims writes: “The network canceled Roseanne and ordered a rebooted version of the show without its star, but what kinds of stories is the spinoff hoping to tell?” [ The Atlantic ] — “Prince estate signs deal with Sony Music to re-release 35 catalog albums.” Colin Stutz notes: “The deal also includes rights to other previously released singles, B-sides, remixes, non-album tracks, live recordings and music videos recorded before 1995.” [ Billboard ] From the archives… + 10 years ago today: On June 27, 2008, Pixar unveiled WALL-E, a sci-fi adventure that would become a summer hit with critics and audiences. Flashback review. Today’s birthdays: Sam Claflin , 32, Khloé Kardashian , 33, Wagner Moura , 42, Tobey Maguire , 43, J.J. Abrams , 52. Follow The News Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. ©2018 The Hollywood Reporter. 5700 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036 All rights reserved. Unsubscribe | Manage Preferences | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use June 27, 2018

from Christian David Biz https://ift.tt/2yUPCnN via Article Source

#Christian David Biz

0 notes

popolitiko · 6 years

Photo

How Old Is ‘Gaslighting’? by Ben Yagoda

As Anne Curzan noted Monday in her report on the American Dialect Society’s Word of the Year, the winner in the “Most Useful/Likely to Succeed” category was gaslight, a verb defined as to “psychologically manipulate a person into questioning their own sanity.” (Of course linguists would use singular they.)

There was immediate pushback. On the ADS email list, John Baker asked, “What is the rationale for naming ‘gaslight’…? The word has been around for decades. Did it come to some special prominence in 2016?” Arnold Zwicky chimed in: “Over seven decades, in fact. The movie that’s the source of the expression came out in 1944.”

Similarly, when I posted the winners on Facebook, my friend Pat Raccio Hughes commented, “How is that on the list? Isn’t it supposed to be new stuff?” She added that she and her husband had been using it since 1990.

The society addresses this issue in its press release on the voting: “The words or phrases do not have to be brand-new, but they have to be newly prominent or notable in the past year.” So does that apply to gaslight?

Yes, I’d say. The new prominence came from Donald Trump’s habitual tendency to say “X,” and then, at some later date, indignantly declare, “I did not say ‘X.’ In fact, I would never dream of saying ‘X.’” As Ben Zimmer, chair of the ADS’s New Words Committee and language columnist for The Wall Street Journal, pointed out, The New Republic, Salon, CNN, The Texas Observer, and Teen Vogue (“Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America”) all used the metaphor as the basis for articles about Trump.

The New York Times first used the common gerund form, gaslighting, in 1995, in a Maureen Dowd column. But there were only nine additional uses through May of last year. From June 2016 through the end of the year, the Times used gaslighting 10 times, including a Susan Dominus essay called “The Reverse-Gaslighting of Donald Trump,” which riffed on Hillary Clinton’s line in a September debate: “Donald, I know you live in your own reality.”

As so often happens when you get a lot of language observers together, the discussion shifted: from whether gaslight was newly prominent to precisely how old its verb use is. The history begins with Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 play Gas Light (known in the United States as Angel Street). It inspired a 1940 British film and the more famous 1944 American production, directed by George Cukor and starring Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, and Charles Boyer. (Spoiler alert.) The Boyer character tries to drive the Bergman character (his wife) crazy, notably by insisting that the gaslights in their house did not flicker, when in fact they did.

But there is no verb gaslight in Gaslight. As I noted on the ADS email list, in response to Baker and Zwicky, this use emerged some 20 years later, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Its first citation is a sentence from a 1965 article in the magazine The Reporter: “Some troubled persons having even gone so far as to charge malicious intent and premeditated ‘gaslighting.’” The quotation marks around the word are a sign that it was a recent coinage.

Jonathan Lighter, editor of The Historical Dictionary of American Slang, responded that he had noted in the book an oral use from 1956, by a 41-year-old woman, revealed to be none other than his mother. Lighter also said he has a strong memory of the verb’s being used in an episode of I Love Lucy the same year. That set Ben Zimmer to work. He posted:

There’s a 1956 I Love Lucy episode called “Lucy Meets Charles Boyer,” in which Ricky conspires with Charles Boyer to make Lucy think that Boyer is merely a lookalike. There are obvious parallels to Gaslight, but I watched the episode here and I didn’t hear anything about “gaslighting.”

Bill Mullins replied: “I vaguely recall an episode of the The Lucy Show [a later Lucille Ball sitcom] in which gaslighting is a plot element.” Mullins went to Google and and found a web page titled “The Ten Best THE LUCY SHOW Episodes of Season Six” (perhaps proving that there is a web page for every conceivable topic). One of the 10 was “Lucy Gets Mooney Fired,” which aired in November 1967. The web page gives a plot summary and commentary:

Lucy inadvertently gets Mooney [Gale Gordon] fired after she covers up a bank shortage. To convince Cheever [the bank president] to give Mooney his job back, Lucy gives him the Gaslight treatment.

I love how kooky this episode is WITHOUT managing to insult its audience’s intelligence. Taking a cue from Gaslight (1944), Lucy decides to make Cheever think he has gone crazy, so that he’ll agree to rehire Mr. Mooney. The script itself isn’t that funny, but the bits Lucy does to make Cheever flip are great. This is, deservedly, a fan favorite.

The estimable Zimmer wasn’t done. Consulting with Josh Chetwynd, author of Totally Scripted: Idioms, Words, and Quotes From Hollywood to Broadway That Have Changed the English Language, which has an entry on gaslight, he located and watched a 1952 episode of The Burns and Allen Show called “Grace Buying Boat for George.” (It’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it.) Zimmer wrote, “At 16:20 in the YouTube video, Harry (Fred Clark) says to Gracie, ‘Give him the gaslight treatment!’ and then explains what that means. A bit later you hear George say, ‘So they sold Gracie on the gaslight bit.’”

Still no verb, you’ll notice. Zimmer took care of that a few hours later:

Here’s an example of the verb “gaslight” in “The Grudge Match,” an episode of Gomer Pyle: USMC that aired on 12 Nov. 1965 (antedating OED’s 1969 cite for the verb, as well as the Dec. 1965 cite for the verbal noun).

Duke: You know, you guys, I’m wondering. Maybe if we can’t get through to the sarge we can get through to the chief.

Frankie: How do you mean?…

Duke: The old war on nerves. We’ll gaslight him.

Leading me to muse on the fascinating possibility that the writer of the Reporter piece heard the verb on Gomer Pyle and put it into print just a month later.

The move from sitcoms to psychotherapy occurred quickly; the OED cites a 1969 text: “It is also popularly believed to be possible to ‘gaslight’ a perfectly healthy person into psychosis by interpreting his own behavior to him as symptomatic of serious mental illness.” The term was picked up, especially in reference to abusers of spouses, partners, and children, and was commonplace by 1990, when Pat Hughes reports starting to use it. I myself first heard it the year before, when I was interviewing the 19-year-old Uma Thurman for Rolling Stone. The word was new to me, and I meant to look it up, but I never got around to it.

Update: After this post was published, Stephen Goranson announced on the ADS list that he’d found an example of gaslight as a verb which predated the Gomer Pyle use by an impressive four years. The quote actually appears in the OED, but credited to a 1969 book in which it was reprinted. The initial appearance was in Anthony F.C. Wallace’s 1961 book, Culture and Personality:

It is also popularly believed to be possible to “gaslight” a perfectly healthy person into psychosis by interpreting his own behavior to him as symptomatic of serious mental illness. While “gaslighting” itself may be a mythical crime, there is no question that any social attitude which interprets a given behavior or experience as symptomatic of a generalized incompetence is a powerful creator of shame[....]

meta4mod • a year ago

A parallel phenomenon/meme should be added. The insistence that "There are Four Lights!" comes from a Star Trek Next Generation episode in which Capt. Picard is tortured by a Cardassian. The torture can stop if Picard admits there are 5 lights instead of 4. Picard insists on the reality of 4 lights despite being tortured, but admits later, after escape, that he began to doubt how many lights there were.

EconProf meta4mod • a year ago

That's a scene straight from the movie (and book) "1984" and copied many times in Hollywood torture scenes. Star Trek's various incarnations have frequently had episodes that paid homage to movies. The classic Star Trek episode where Kirk and the Romulan captain (who later played Spock's dad) was their version of Enemy Below (Kurt Juergens and Robert Mitchum) right down to many of details (and partly redone in the movie Star Trek II (Wrath of Khan). Other episodes in Classic Star Trek were on the Enterprise redos of Twilight Zone, itself drawing on sci-fi and science fantasy short stories (such as wishing into the cornfield).

https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2017/01/12/how-old-is-gaslight

#gaslights

0 notes

kristinejrosario · 7 years

Text

231: From Imposter Syndrome to Tech Influencer – One Tech Podcaster Shares His Story

From Imposter Syndrome to Tech Influencer – A Tech Podcaster Tells His Story

Today’s episode continues our series where I hand the podcast over to you, the listeners, to tell your stories and tips of starting and growing your blogs.

Today’s blogger is Neil Hughes from Technology Blog Writer. Neil shares how he started out writing articles on LinkedIn, and talks about some of his struggles, accomplishments, and goals.

Links and Resources for From Imposter Syndrome to Tech Influencer – One Tech Podcaster Shares His Story

Technology Blog Writer Blogger Neil Hughes

Start a Blog Course

Facebook Group

PB121: 7 Strategies for Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view

Darren: Hi there and welcome to Episode 231 of the ProBlogger podcast. My name is Darren Rowse and I’m the founder of problogger.com – a blog, podcast, event, job board, series of ebooks and a course all designed to help you as a blogger to start an amazing blog, to grow that blog, the traffic to it, the content on it, and to make some money from it as well. You can learn more about what we do at ProBlogger over at problogger.com.

In today’s episode, we’re continuing our little series of blogger stories which we are ending 2017 and starting 2018 with in the lead up to our Start a Blog course. My goal in 2018 is to see hundreds, if not thousands, of new blogs started. We’ve developed this great little course which you can find at problogger.com/startablog. It’s free and it will help you, all your friends, to start a blog.

As part of the launch of this new course, we wanted to feature the stories of bloggers who had started blogging and to tell the stories of the opportunities that came from that. Also, to share some tips particularly for those starting out but also for those who are on the journey.

Today I’ve got a tech blogger from the UK who is gonna share some of his tips. He’s actually used blogging, podcasting. He started out on LinkedIn. He’s got some expertise in that as well. He’s really built himself an amazing little business as a result of that, a business that has enabled him to leave his full time job and work for himself. He talks a little bit about imposter syndrome and pushing through that. He gives a brilliant tip that I wanna add some thoughts to at the end of his story as well.

I’m gonna hand over now to Neil Hughes from Tech Blog Writer. You can find his blog at techblogwriter.co.uk. You can also find a link to that on today’s show notes at problogger.com/podcast/231. I’ll be back at the end of Neil’s story to wrap things up and tell you a little bit about tomorrow’s show too.

Neil: My name is Neil Hughes. My blog, podcast, and everything that I do comes into the name Tech Blog Writer. My URL is predictably www.techblogwriter.co.uk. I’m hoping that you know what I do from the title there. That was the idea from the very beginning. My story really began in July 2014 when I published my very first post on the LinkedIn publishing platform. It was a simple post calling out gurus, ninjas and those self-proclaimed influences, you know the kind, the Instagram expert with 72 followers.

The post was called The Rise of the Social Media Guru. This is where my tech blogging journey started. At the time, I didn’t have any objectives, any hopes, goals or dreams for the blog. I just wanted to share my insights having spent 20 years working in IT. I gotta be honest with you, I was originally scared about blogging on the LinkedIn publishing platform and crippled with that self-doubt and imposter syndrome that so many of us go through.

I still, to this day, remember nervously hovering over the publish button full of fears and doubts. What would my professional colleagues, friends, and contacts say? This was my personal brand on a professional platform that everybody would say and judge but obviously, I did hit publish on that post. It was instantly picked up and promoted by LinkedIn themselves. It received thousands of views. More importantly for me, fantastic engagement.

A year later, I had over a hundred tech articles against my name on LinkedIn that seemed to act as my own portfolio and cement me as a thought leader in the tech industry. What was also great about writing on the LinkedIn platform at the time was that they displayed all their sharing and viewing stats for everyone to see so everyone could look at all the articles you’re creating and how many views, how many likes, how many shares that you have.

Suddenly I found myself with one million views and was voted the number two tech writer on the whole of LinkedIn. Quickly I started getting accolades from my way including being named one of the top nine influential tech leaders on LinkedIn by CIO Magazine. ZDNet included me on the list of you need to follow these 20 big thinkers right now alongside from million names which is Jack Dorsey from Twitter, Elon Musk, Sheryl Sandberg and Jeff Weiner to name a few.

I still struggled with that pesky imposter syndrome. When I looked back at the mistakes that I made and I’d advise other people to avoid in their blogging journey, I would say that my biggest mistake was to unwittingly become too reliant on one platform. That platform was also somebody else’s playground. Essentially, I was just a guest there. Obviously looking back, I should’ve diversified my work much soon.

My best advice to anyone who wanna be a blogger is that never have all your eggs in one basket and don’t rely on a game where you’re playing by somebody else’s rules and in their playground. Saying that, but I did make the most of so many great opportunities. My LinkedIn work suddenly catapulted me into the tech writing stratosphere. I now have columns in Inc. Magazine and The Next Web. Millions of article views no longer excite me, it was finding other ways to meaningfully engage with those million readers.

I launched my own podcast around the same time that Darren launched his ProBlogger podcast. I still remember, on launch day, we were featured side by side on the New and Noteworthy section of iTunes. I tweeted Darren a pic which he immediately replied to. This is where things got really exciting. Fast forward two years, I’ve now performed over 400 interviews with the most significant tech leaders and startups in the world such as Adobe, Sony, Microsoft, IBM, writers and even TV chat show host, Wendy Williams and movie star William Shatner.

I still have to pinch myself. This work has enabled me to leave my day job as an IT manager and setup my own business. I’m now living by my own rules and doing something that I love to do. I guess worth pointing out, for me it was never about the Neil Hughes show, it was about me sharing insights and my guest sharing insights.

I’m then throwing it out there to all the people listening and reading and consuming my content and asking them to share their stories. This was always my biggest motivation because if we think about it, our ancestors thousands of years ago went from town to town exchanging stories around the campfire. We’re doing the exact same now but around virtual campfires. We’re tearing down geographical barriers and stereotypes by talking, working, and collaborating with each other. That’s what this recording is doing right now, isn’t it?

My number one tip for any new blogger would be don’t get carried away with this age of instant gratification where everyone wants instant success, [inaudible 00:07:27] solution but it doesn’t exist. Do not believe anyone that offers you a shortcut. Remember, we all digest content differently. If you wrote two blog posts per week, you can also turn those two blog post into podcast and to videos too.

After one year, you could realistically have 100 articles, 100 podcasts and 100 YouTube videos. If your audience likes to read, listen or view their content, you’ve got all bases covered. Most importantly of all, think of the SEO there because all of that content is against your name. That will cement you and your reputation as a thought leader within your industry.

Think of the SEO on iTunes, on Spotify, on YouTube and your own personal blog as a hundred pieces of content that sits next to your name. However, most people will end up doing 5 to 10 pieces of content in the New Year and say this is a waste to time and give up by the time they hit February or March. It’s that grind of getting 2 of pieces of work against your name every week until you have a 100 or 300 if you repurpose your content. That’s where the value is.

I think this is the only real secret to success. It is hard work. As Gary Vaynerchuk often says, “Don’t complain that you haven’t got a few hours to spend each week when you binge watching TV shows on Netflix.” My number one tip for new bloggers in 2018 is two blog posts per week every week. Two per week becomes eight per month and that becomes a hundred over a year.

Along the way, don’t forget to build on your success and grab opportunities along the way. Just like a snowball rolling down a hill, your content and your portfolio will get bigger and bigger. That’s it for me. Guys, what are you waiting for?

Darren: That was Neil Hughes from techblogwriter.co.uk. You can again find the links to Neil and his blog on today’s show notes at problogger.com/podcast/231. I loved Neil’s story today. I love today that we’re talking a little bit about a podcast as well because I think a podcast is essentially, whilst a lot of people would differentiate it from a blog because they would say a blog is a written content, a podcast is an audio content.

In many regards, they’re a blog, they’re both a blog and they share many features, they’re both presented in chronological order with dates and usually with show notes and comments. I generally would say it is an alternative to a blogger and a nice addition to a blog. I love Neil’s story for a number of reasons.

Firstly, he mentions the imposter syndrome there. I know many of you who are thinking about starting his blog in 2018 are probably wrestling with that right now. There are others of you who have already started your blog, this is a very common thing to wrestle with. You have fear, you have doubt about whether you really have the credibility to say what you’re saying on your blog, whether anyone is gonna listen to you. It’s something that we all face in different stages of our blogging and podcasting career.

If you’re struggling with that, can I really encourage you at the end of this podcast to go and listen to Episode 121. In that episode, I gave you seven strategies for really dealing with imposter syndrome. It is something you need to push through. In that episode, I gave you some practical things that you can do to really push through that imposter syndrome. That’s Episode 121.

I also love Neil’s story because he mentions there a mistake that many bloggers make and that is becoming too reliant upon a platform like LinkedIn. This really could be any platform at all that you don’t have complete control over. Neil mentions there that he really built his asset, he built his archive of articles on someone else’s playground.

LinkedIn owns LinkedIn, LinkedIn ultimately controls the content that he put onto LinkedIn. With the algorithm changes that’s on their domain, ultimately what you’re doing by building on LinkedIn or Facebook or Instagram or Pinterest or any of these other places is building someone else’s asset. You put yourself at the mercy of other people.

This is something a lot of bloggers who are starting out fall into the trap of. They see a tool like Medium or LinkedIn’s blogging tools or even Facebook and they’ll say, “I can just blog there.” There are certainly some advantages of using these types of tools because they can help you to get some exposure. If that’s all you do, if all your eggs are in that basket, you’re setting yourself up for trouble down the track and you put yourself at the mercy of their algorithms and their rules and there are limitations on what you can do.

What Neil did in starting his own thing, in his case it was a podcast, in many other cases it’s a more traditional written blog, in other people’s cases a video blog. Setting something up of your own that you have control of on your own domain, on your own service is one of the best things that you can do. Certainly I’m not saying you shouldn’t be involved in these other platforms.

I think LinkedIn is certainly a place that some of you should be working and building a presence but do it to build your own presence as well, drive people back to your own blog, your own podcast, your own email list and build the asset there. I think it’s great to do those things in conjunction. That’s what Neil is doing today.

I also love Neil’s tip there of not getting carried away with instant gratification, there are no shortcuts in this. Do what he said, his great call to action there. Create two pieces of content every week, two blog posts every week and then repurpose those two blog posts into two audio files if you can or two videos. You have 100 articles by the end of the year if you do that. I think that’s a brilliant goal for a new blogger just starting out, 100 articles by the end of the year.

As you get going, you might wanna then start repurposing and aim for 200 pieces of content with 100 articles and 100 podcasts or 100 videos as well. Start with those articles, start with the medium, I guess, that you’re most comfortable with. In most people’s cases, that does tend to be a written content but you might wanna start with a podcast as well and then learn how to repurpose those things.

Ultimately, that grind of creating that content every week is going to pay off in the long term because you’re gonna end up with an asset. The asset will be, if you set up on your own blog, in your own home base, something that you control and gradually over time, that asset builds. Every one of those articles is a new doorway into your home base. It’s a new potential reader who you can get the email address of and you can build a relationship with.

Over time, the more articles you’ve got, the more doorways you’ve got into your site. It doesn’t happen overnight, there’s no instant gratification here. This is something that does take time to build but it’s an incredibly powerful thing. It can open up opportunities for you in the ways that Neil has talked about in new relationships in building a business as well.

Also, I love that he said that we all digest content differently. This idea of not just creating written content but also exploring some of these other mediums is a very powerful thing as well. I know many of you who are listening to this podcast today have already got blogs. Maybe 2018 is the year where you need to explore that idea of podcasting for the first time or maybe you do need to start creating some videos in some way as well.

I hope that you’ve got some ideas and inspiration from that. If you’ve been blogging for a while, you’ve already got this amazing archive, hopefully, of hundreds of articles that you’ve written. It’s not too hard to repurpose those in today’s other mediums. I encourage you to explore that in 2018.

Again, today’s show notes are at problogger.com/podcast/231. You can find our Start a Blog course. We’re just two days away from launching that course now if you’re listening to this in the day that this episode goes live. You can find where you can signup to claim your spot in the course at problogger.com/startablog. If you’re listening after the 10th of January 2018, then that course is, hopefully, live now for you to go to as well. If you go to that URL, you’ll be at a signup and start that blog as well.

As I’m recording this, over 1300 people signed up already for that course. There’s a whole group of people going through it together. We’re gonna have a Facebook group where you can begin to interact with one another, support one another, ask questions. We’re also going to help you to launch your blog as well. I’ve got some great things planned where we’re going to feature all the blogs that start as a result of this course over on ProBlogger and hopefully find you some new readers as well.

Again, problogger.com/startablog. I can’t wait to get going with that course in the next couple of days. I hope you are finding some inspiration in this series. If you wanna listen to a few more stories of this series that we’ve been doing, every episode between 221 and 232 which will be tomorrow’s episode will be these blogger’s stories. Thanks for listening today. We’ll chat in the next few days.

How did you go with today’s episode?

Enjoy this podcast? Sign up to our ProBloggerPLUS newsletter to get notified of all new tutorials and podcasts.

The post 231: From Imposter Syndrome to Tech Influencer – One Tech Podcaster Shares His Story appeared first on ProBlogger.