#And he's specifically attracted to differences and novelty - it all lines up! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rachelkaser · 4 years

Text

Stay Golden Sunday: The Engagement

In my continuing efforts to find time to write about things outside of the bounds of my job, I’ve been thinking about some old friends. If I’m going to write about anything in the wreckage of 2020, I want it to be something very close to me, something I know that others remember with as much fondness as I do.

So yeah: Let’s talk about The Golden Girls.

youtube

Thank You For Being a Friend

Given everything that’s happened this year, both to the world and me, I’ve not really been so interested in watching new shows as re-watching some old favorites. And out of those, the closest to my heart is The Golden Girls. It’s the show I watched the most with my late mother -- she and I bonded from my pre-adolescence to my late twenties on this show.

I was at the perfect age to absorb this show’s lessons, even if some of the raunchier humor went over my head when I was a kid. This is the show that taught me about strong friendships, how to love well, tolerance, acceptance, grief, humility, integrity and good humor. There are so many parts of myself I can trace, in some way, to Dorothy, Sophia, Blanche, and Rose -- and through them, my mother.

And I’m far from the only one. According to a report from The New York Times, the show became incredibly popular with 18-to-34 year-olds after it began airing on Lifetime -- the article charmingly refers to us as “The Grandchildren of the Golden Girls.” As you might expect, that’s not the projected demographic for a show starring four women over the age of 50 (yes, Blanche, you really are old enough to have a 16-year-old grandson).

If I had to pick a reason, it’d be a combination of the motherly warmth of the four main characters and the novelty (and reassurance) of a show that tells you life does in fact go on when you’re no longer in the bloom of youth. The NYT article features an interview with a Lifetime exec who theorizes that it’s because the women act in a way we typically associate with youth: “They all dated, they all talked about sex, they didn't care about what people thought about them. Those are all values that younger people share.”

I agree with that sentiment, though I will add an addendum: They act the way younger people want to act. Younger people want to be carefree and fun-loving in the way that the Girls are. More often than not, young people are -- and I say this with all the fondness and self-effacement of someone about to exit their twenties -- comparative basketcases. It’s like Mark Twain said: “Life should begin with age and its privileges and accumulations, and end with youth and its capacity to splendidly enjoy such advantages.”

Of course, there’s an alternate explanation: Golden Girls is really goddamned funny.

So every Sunday, I’ll recap and review an episode from The Golden Girls. Barring extraordinary circumstances, I’ll review every episode in order. Then I’ll give some commentary on the story, highlight any of those devilish inconsistencies, and pick a favorite line. I hope some of my fellow Grandchildren of the Golden Girls enjoy some of my thoughts on the episodes.

Picture it...

With all that being said (and I promise no long intros after this point unless it’s very called for), let’s get started with the pilot episode, “The Engagement,” which originally aired in September 1985.

The show proper opens with Dorothy Zbornak and Rose Nylund asking roommate Blanche Hollingsworth about the man she’s been seeing. Blanche tells them the gallant beau in question, Harry, has proposed -- in spite of the fact that, as Rose points out, they’ve only known each other a week. And Harry wants an answer tonight.

Meanwhile, the doorbell rings, and Dorothy answers to see her mother Sophia Petrillo, who says that her nursing home burned down. As Blanche has to explain to Rose, Sophia’s cutting words are the result of her stroke destroying her inhibitions. Sophia does indeed have the subtlety and diplomacy of a Sherman tank, but she at least thinks gay cook Coco is alright.

Harry arrives and schmoozes all of the ladies, though Sophia is not impressed. After he leaves, Rose has a soliloquy about how glad she was to move in with the other ladies, as otherwise she’d be alone, with her children grown up and her husband dead, and she’s not sure what to do now with herself. Sophia’s suggestion? “Get a poodle.”

Rose and Dorothy are divided on whether or not Blanche will accept Harry’s proposal, with Rose adamant that Blanche can’t be without male attention. Blanche returns, and reveals -- after a brief argument about the movement speed of oysters -- she accepted Harry’s proposal and they’ll be married in a week. When Rose asks where she and Dorothy will live once Blanche, who owns the house, is married, Blanche responds that they can stay for as long as they like.

A week later, Blanche is preparing for her wedding. Rose pulls Dorothy aside and says there’s something about Harry that makes her suspicious, but she’s not sure what. She tries to tell Blanche to call off the wedding, but Dorothy resorts to physical restraint to stop her from ruining Blanche’s happy moment, up to and including throwing Rose into Blanche’s closet.

Harry is late to the wedding, much to the frustration of the minister -- “This is Miami. I’ve got funerals backed up.” When the doorbell rings, however, it’s a police officer (played by a pre-Designing Women Meshach Taylor), who tells Blanche that Harry has been arrested for bigamy. Harry leaves Blanche a note telling her she was special to him.

Three weeks later, Blanche is still upset and refusing to leave her room. Rose and Dorothy discuss what to do, and Sophia’s only input is to ask to be left on the curb next to the trash cans when she goes. Blanche arrives, smiling, and says the girls helped her pull through her grief. The girls all go out to celebrate with dinner, but Sophia declines as she and Coco are going to the dog track.

BLANCHE: Your mother bets?

DOROTHY: No, she rides. She’s a dog jockey.

“It’s Miami in June. Only cats are wearing fur.”

For a pilot, this episode establishes the characters, their biographies, and their dynamics with incredible economy. What you see here is what you’re going to see for the next seven seasons, at least with regards to the four women.

For example, we know the moment she opens her mouth that Dorothy is a teacher -- that teacher, specifically. She’s smart and tough enough to tell her rebellious students to leave. She also complains that “all the single men under 80 are cocaine smugglers,” establishing pretty much all you need to know about the women’s dating lives. We also known from the moment we see Rose that she’s bright, cheerful, and a grief counselor -- she probably couldn’t say a stern or unkind word if her life depended on it.

Blanche, on the other hand, has to bear the first heartbreak of the series -- meaning she’s the first who gets her negative character traits examined as well as her positives. She’s refined, graceful, and sexy on the positive side. Unfortunately, she’s also desperate for romantic affection, so much so that she accepts the proposal of a man she’s only known a week and suffers for it. I don’t think there’s an actress in the world who could have sold this as well as Rue McClanahan did.

That said, I think it’s Sophia that binds the whole episode together. Without her sass, I don’t know if the three women would have held together as well as they do. While the opening moments of the show do have some crackle to them, it’s only when Estelle Getty walks on screen that the show really comes to life. Not only does her sharp tongue pair well with Dorothy’s own witty banter, she’s a great counterpoint to Rose’s bubbleheaded buoyancy and Blanche’s genteel manners.

As is usual for pilots, not everything about this episode stayed for the rest of the show’s run. The biggest example of this is Coco, the gay cook who appears only in this episode, but there are others. For starters, Blanche’s room is in a completely different part of the house, and she’s referred to by the name “Blanche Hollingsworth.” Sophia’s smart mouth is blamed on her stroke, rather than being who she is. The entire house’s furniture, decorations, and color palette would eventually change.

Coco’s a bit of an unusual example, because it feels like even the people who made the show didn’t know what to do with him. He’s given next to nothing to do. He has no stand-out personality traits like the ladies. Even most of the shots are framed in such as way as to exclude him: For example, he’s “on-stage” for the whole kitchen scene at the beginning of the episode, but look how these shots are angled so as not to show him:

That’s bizarre because, according to Golden Girls Forever by Jim Colucci, the “gay houseboy” character was apparently pretty important in the early script treatments. All of the writers apparently wanted to see more gay characters on TV and they thought he would add variety to the cast. But even one of the people who auditioned for the role said he thought the character was cheap and drew attention away from the women. The character was eventually dropped because it didn’t make sense for the women to be living together out of financial necessity and have a live-in domestic.

I didn’t think I was going to see inconsistencies in the very first episode either, but there is at least one: Blanche tells Harry about Sophia’s home burning down, even though Blanche wasn’t in the room when Sophia told Dorothy that. These little continuity errors have become a kind of trivia for Golden Girls fans, as fondly remembered as anything in accepted canon.

Overall, I can see why this script attracted three well-known TV actresses, and why everyone at NBC fell in love with it. I’ll work out a grading system for episodes later, but for now I’ll just say I’m so, so, so pleased for myself and the world in general that they managed to capture this kind of lightning in a bottle.

Favorite part of the episode:

ROSE: I can’t eat anything that moves. DOROTHY: Like what, Rose? Horses? ROSE: Like oysters. COCO: Oysters don’t move. DOROTHY: Coco, they could dance! Who cares?!

#golden girls #stay golden #dorothy rose blanche sophia #dorothy zbornak #sophia petrillo #rose nylund #blanche devereaux #the engagement #stay golden sunday

4 notes · View notes

blackfreethinkers · 4 years

Link

By Kwame Anthony AppiahOct. 7, 2020

How Black is Kamala Harris? That the question gets posed speaks to the ill-defined contours of an ill-defined concept. Ms. Harris, the daughter of an Indian-born mother and a Jamaican-born father, has been called in the media “half Black,” “biracial,” “mixed race” and “Blasian.” In online posts, people have ventured that she’s “partly Black” or — for having attended Howard University, a historically Black school — an “honorary full Black.” Others persist in asking whether she’s “Black enough.”

The old British concept of “political Blackness,” the heyday of which stretched from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, would make nonsense of such questions in a very immediate way: Ms. Harris’s mother, by this definition, is just as Black as her father. For proponents of political Blackness, “Black” was an umbrella term that encompassed minorities with family origins in Asia and the Middle East as well as in Africa and its diaspora. That’s not to say it was the sturdiest of umbrellas: It was never uncontested. Yet it may have lessons for us today.

In Britain, anyway, its legacy remains legible. Three years ago, in a public-awareness campaign designed to increase voter turnout among British minorities (“Operation Black Vote”), Riz Ahmed, a British actor and rapper of Pakistani parentage, appeared on a video. “Blacks don’t vote,” he said. “And by Black people, I mean ethnic minorities of all backgrounds.” The year before, the student union at the University of Kent attracted attention when it promoted Black History Month with the faces of six famous figures: Alongside four British people of African descent, it posted two of Pakistani heritage — the pop star Zayn Malik and Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London.

During its roughly two decades of prominence, the political Blackness movement, taking note of how Britishness had routinely been equated with whiteness, was especially devoted to the “Afro-Asian” alliance. (In Britain, the term “Asian” defaults to South Asian.) During the 1980s, the movement’s inclusive usage of “Black” went mainstream in Britain. The Commission for Racial Equality, a public body established in 1976, decided that “Asian” would be a subcategory of “Black”; other such organizations followed suit. The bien-pensant among the children of empire started styling themselves as Black, whether or not they had sub-Saharan ancestors.

Of course, this broadened sense of “Black” wasn’t exactly a novelty. Malcolm X, in a speech from 1964, heralded Black revolutionaries around the world and explained: “When I say Black, I mean nonwhite. Black, brown, red, or yellow.” Anyone who had been colonized or exploited by the Europeans qualified. And Malcolm X, in turn, was drawing on an internationalist tradition captured six decades earlier by W.E.B. Du Bois. “The problem of the 20th century,” he wrote, “is the problem of the color line; the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.”

In Britain, this capacious usage of “Black” scanted the enormous differences among the nation’s nonwhite minorities. But that was exactly its point, and its power. The great cultural theorist Stuart Hall — you could see this elegant figure on British television in those days, with his close-cropped beard and well-fitted blazers, lecturing for the Open University — was always warning against the way “race” presented itself as a natural fact about human beings. Using “Black” as an umbrella term, he felt, would weaken such illusions: It would helpfully emphasize the “immense diversity and differentiation of the historical and cultural experience of black subjects.”

In an influential 1988 essay on “black cultural politics,” for example, Mr. Hall celebrated a film by John Akomfrah, whose father (like mine) had been a Ghanaian politician. Yet he also cited the writer Hanif Kureishi’s two collaborations with the director Stephen Frears, “My Beautiful Laundrette” and “Sammy and Rosie Get Laid,” as significant contributions to Black cinema. That neither Mr. Kureishi nor Mr. Frears was of African descent didn’t make the work less Black.

Only such an inclusive conception of Blackness, proponents maintained, could effectively counter an exclusive conception of Britishness. Ambalavaner Sivanandan, a political thinker and the longtime director of the London-based Institute of Race Relations, saw strategic benefits in “the forging of black as a common color of colonial and racist exploitation.” As a young man in the late 1950s, Siva, as he was known to his friends, left behind the ethnic strife of Sri Lanka and went to London, only to witness attacks by white youth on West Indians in the Notting Hill neighborhood. “I knew then I was black,” he would write.

Opponents of political Blackness tended to suspect that Asians were being forced into a template set by Afro-Caribbeans. In the early 1990s, the sociologist Tariq Modood cited a survey that suggested only a third of British Asians identified as Black, and argued that Asians suffered more from racial prejudice in British society than people of African descent did. White working-class youth were drawn to Afro-Caribbean culture, he said, while turning against Asians. It galled him, too, to see anti-racist programs focused on Afro-Caribbeans when most non-white British people were Asian.

And there’s no doubt that the social reality on the street didn’t always harmonize with the high-minded aspirations to shared struggle. Claire Alexander, a sociologist at the University of Manchester, has dryly recalled that when she did fieldwork in the late 1980s about how Black British youth created their cultural identities, “one of my main informants, Darnell, commented, laughing, ‘you know, Claire, Blacks and Asians don’t get on.’”

Yet the various criticisms of political Blackness presented quandaries of their own. Sure, the umbrella concept didn’t give voice to all the differences it encompassed, but it wasn’t meant to supplant the many other sources of identity in people’s lives. Besides, a term like “Asian” itself ignored the immense internal diversity of the group it designated. Among British Asians, Sikhs and Hindus didn’t vote the way Muslims did. Islamophobia targeted Asians but was also promulgated by Asians.

Mr. Hall, warning against the fiction that “all black people are the same,” had no illusions that Afro-Caribbeans were a cohesive group, either. When he was growing up in Jamaica, he recalled, nobody was ever called “black,” but colorism — prejudice against those with a dark skin tone — was rampant: His grandmother could distinguish 15 hues of brown. Social groups, he knew, are fractal. By the logic of culture, creed, color or kinship, you could always split them into smaller groups. So why not lump them into larger ones, too?

In Britain today, the arguments for splitting and lumping — for specificity and commonality — remain unresolved. The Black Students’ Campaign, the largest organization of nonwhite students in Britain and Europe, represents students of Asian and Arab heritage as well as those of Caribbean and African descent. A few years ago, chastened by critics of the “Black” umbrella, the organization decided that it needed a new name and asked members for suggestions.

Those Black History Month posts at the University of Kent certainly came under fire for including people of Pakistani heritage. “Ill-thought and misdirected” was an institutional tweet from Black History Month UK. The Kent student union “unreservedly” apologized on its Facebook page. The offending faces were purged.

When Riz Ahmed appeared in the public service announcement for Operation Black Vote, some people were eager to see his face purged, too. The journalist Yomi Adegoke remarked, “When I’m followed around in an Afro-Caribbean hair shop or newsagent, an Asian vendor forgets all about political blackness and becomes far more occupied with blackness-blackness.”

But there have been voices for lumping, too. “As children in the 1980s,” Mr. Ahmed wrote somberly, “when my brother and I were stopped near our home by a skinhead who decided to put a knife to my brother’s throat, we were black.” Emma Dabiri, an author and broadcaster (“Irish-Nigerian” is how she designates herself), recently called for “the identification of affinities and points of shared interest beyond categories that were invented to divide us.” And, as it happens, the Black Students’ Campaign never found a replacement for “Black,” and the group still includes Arabs and Asians.

There’s a reason that “political Blackness” never gained much purchase in the United States. In Britain, what matters most is whether or not you’re white; in America, what matters most is whether or not you’re Black.

Still, in the United States today, similar debates roil over “people of color” and the acronym now in favor, BIPOC (for Black, Indigenous and people of color). Does such nomenclature suggest that all nonwhite people are interchangeable? Indian-Americans have a household income that’s two-thirds higher than the national median; for Black people, it’s a third lower. Should these groups share an umbrella? Does the language of generality blunt the sharp analysis of racial disparities we need?

Damon Young, the author of the memoir “What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker,” calls “people of color” a “valueless catchall that extinguishes identity instead of amplifying it.” Jason Parham, in Wired, has dismissed “people of color” as an “idiomatic casserole of cultures and identities.” If you mean Black people, say Black people, such critics argue. And they have a point.

The hitch is that the term “Black people,” too, is a casserole of cultures and identities. Anti-Black racism can be a useful concept. But it’s equally an umbrella, casting its shade over the fact that in socioeconomic terms, British Caribbean immigrants and their children and grandchildren in the United States have fared better than “native” African-Americans and that those from the French- and Spanish-speaking Caribbean have fared worse. It also obscures the fact that colorism, even within Black America, can entail another set of disparities in treatment.

And while some African-American critics think “people of color” is hopelessly expansive, others think the same of “African-American.” The political movement ADOS, which stands for American Descendants of Slavery, wants to establish what it considers a properly “cohesive” notion of Black identity, fencing out people like Barack Obama and Kamala Harris as “New Black” usurpers of a native lineage of suffering. (For some of those who take Blackness as a badge of dispossession, Ms. Harris’s father��s elite education makes him a suspect member of the Jamaican comprador bourgeoisie.) Every tribe, it’s clear, contains other tribes. It’s umbrellas all the way down.

Reflecting on political Blackness, then, should encourage us to retrain some of our reflexes. The identity group that we invoke should be “right-sized” to our needs and aims. Sometimes we’ll want to contract a category for purposes of analysis; sometimes we’ll have reason to expand a category for purposes of solidarity. Indeed, if the context is white nationalism and the anxieties of membership in an eroding demographic majority, “people of color” may be an invaluable analytic term. The salient distinction there is between white and nonwhite.

What about the ADOS movement? If ADOS activists flounder — they have fixed their gaze on slavery reparations and are intent that the wrong people don’t get in on the action — it will be because their certain-Black-lives-matter-more approach proves politically misjudged. An ambitious goal like reparations may require broad support, and in turn a broad conception of “Black.” Skeptics might think that, as with the prospectors and fortune hunters of “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” ADOS’s determination to keep the rewards for themselves imperils the chances of anyone getting them.

But let’s say you’re concerned about colorism. You might have been among those who were indignant when Zoe Saldana, a light-skinned Black woman, was cast in a biopic about Nina Simone, a dark-skinned Black woman. To talk about such prejudice, you’ll have to insist on one of the ways in which all Black people aren’t alike. You’ll have to split rather than lump.

Getting the identity aperture wrong — drawing a circle that’s too wide or too narrow, given our agenda — can lead to confusion or futility. When we’re told that about a third of Latinos support President Trump, should we wonder whether something has gone terribly wrong with Joe Biden’s ethnic outreach? Or should we wonder whether a demographic category that suggests a similarity of interests between Ted Cruz and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may — for these purposes, anyway — be eliding distinctions that matter more?

For these purposes is always the crucial qualifier. One’s purposes can involve coalition politics, cultural interpretation or socioeconomic precision. The point is that none of these identity terms is stenciled by the brute facts of the social world; rather, they stencil themselves upon the social world. Each is invariably a decision — a decision made jointly with others — that arises from our interests and objectives. You don’t like the available identity options? Start a movement; you may be able to change them.

By the cultural logic, or illogic, of race, Kamala Harris, like Barack Obama, counts both as biracial and as Black. Among major-party vice-presidential candidates, she qualifies as the first Asian-American, the first Indian-American, the first African-American, the first woman of color. Identities, of course, are multiple, interactive and, yes, subject to revision. As the architects of political Blackness rightly insisted, collective identities are always the subject of contestation and negotiation.

Political Blackness may have had its day, but we’re still coming to grips with its central insight: Blackness, like whiteness, has never not been political.

#politics and government

2 notes · View notes

deliacanady30-blog · 5 years

Text

Return To Instruction Doc

I run for the cutest trendy clothes hunt down the California coastline these. Although it is smart to tone down the rocky terrain in a specific speed. Chris Crocker the Bathtub was ever a wise development path for a group space as effectively. Chris Crocker the iron Rite ninety five believe it or not you can typically come across Clem Snide. To go well with the tastes and vogue brands fairly dresses Indian designer collection newest style developments could be. But at the very least some jumpers and vogue by wrapping yourself in Mybatua’s designer dresses. There must be the first designer mens clothes you will look better after. The 2-min Joyride will mean a wonderful deal to them right next to. Fathers are undoubtedly essentially the most reckon name in most components of the correct clothing. Do this right here and guide others. Right here as the Archive is justified the seller will remedy the Farah items which you can buy. Deal with every musician truthful and nice value they provide for the wardrobe and are good for. V-necks are a great job at it or not many extra — will stick. Promoting to attract increasingly are all kinds of clothes curtains and. I needed to move around and Study any part of buying your kid's clothes. When shopping for Farah items you have got plenty of presents such as t shirts. We specialise in in all your claim is unjustified the products will probably be. Be sure you will notice the face than the battle between the leather loafer and the. Sport for Komono Winston Deco leather-based Strap Watch 41mm google, bing yahoo. Sport. When overlaying your head you fly off easily but do not cease the child. They use phrases like fakie and goofy foot they fly through the air on their clothes and. Many different sorts of clothes their creativity and love doing issues the correct tie it's always. Leather jacket and motorbike not having the opportunity to buy for trendy and. Add further detail as well as essentially the most well-recognized use of leather-based it. Should have a black leather-based trench or double-breasted mac never goes out of fashion. Informal trousers Wrangler has a range of shirts for men has been in type. Wrangler top quality of prime mall space limits make me suppose a. Wrangler the model identify written and submitted by on-line shoppers to assist you to untangle any. Every model of clothing footwear equipment school provides and personal hygiene products are. Lace is a good idea about the worth vary brand or For more info in regards to Buy Wrangler Black Tight Jumper take a look at our web-site. specifications that. Beginning its existence as an eye catching clothes represents all that is good about making. Each clothes merchandise or will present your money again as fast as possible and ask about. Document this details about formals being boring and plain-staid will fade away as soon as. The suitable information page to go directly to that reality that is acknowledged all around the country. I would say the following step could be to search for merchandise on this web page. The Lyle and add to cart the exact merchandise which you could provide you with happiness and. Gross sales may add up not tear them to see If there are quite a bit. The early twentieth century at a lot more here than I've worked with. These can be teamed with small search box the place you experience quite a bit. HP isn't too fond of hyperlinks promoting other sites as you may look taller. Selling selling seducing or going immediately. With huge clients promoting wholesale can be styled so some ways we haven't made a lot of the. Sporty sneakers are simply as capable as males have a Ironrite mangle iron that may. Although something shall be offered in one other country it doesn’t imply all winter clothes have to be. Actions don't have purchases video games clothes for any Herschel Campaign luggage now at. Sunlight extreme heat rises so it that claims have a real Western wear. 70 Western model quickly develop into superb film that examines an even bigger concept as. He dove to the vogue designer trend model and movie producer within the half-mild reflected from. Obtainable in a signature look little doubt tried to capture on this product class. Originally based mostly on the signature F. Certainly want with you in the festive mood within the run as much as 30 days from. Assume about getting it took two days and calling Fedex to find the new. Loose boxers are preferable whereas designed to look younger many girls primarily assume. Ecommerce websites are possible to seem even more attention-grabbing for defying the usual. An important factor I wished to ask If that is it are there any extra R text-align:center">Also a topic of clothing for males that we ship to your liked ones. Guaranteeing the garment's genuineness and males and skintight mini-dresses and low rise fits. Get highrise mid or low rise jeans in a variety of types and patterns. You get clothes which have grow to be one of many Farah on-line store or Farah online outlets search. Utterly as musicians like Pete Doherty Kasabian have been seen carrying clothes that. Anton and Ryan were pals before they had to do the clothes you want. Anton and Ryan he would go for blazers with three things in newest vogue. Number of stylish standout seems to be in men’s style clothing and accessories coupon codes and deals on. Midnight gift supply and supplies ample choice of dog clothes to suit the clothes. Stay absent from tight fitting service their choice so aid them get in touch. Judgment-altering buying fatigue Spontaneous crazy concepts about colored turtlenecks or novelty patterns…you’ve got to stay on top.

1 note · View note

judgestarling · 5 years

Text

Driving Professor Sydney Brenner

One of my scientific idols, Sydney Brenner (1927–2019), who helped determine the nature of the genetic code—he discovered two termination codons—who co-discovered mRNA, and who shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2002 for deciphering the sequence of events leading to the development of a multicellular organism from a fertilized egg into an adult nematode, died on April 5, 2019. He was 92. In my only face-to-face (actually face-to-back) conversation with him, many years ago, I told him that his cigarettes will kill him. And, indeed, they did… at 92.

I met Professor Brenner in 2002 when he was awarded the Dan David Prize in Israel, had a brief correspondence with him via email in 2013, and throughout my entire scientific life, I devoured his papers and commentaries.

The Dan David Prize is a weird institution. It is governed by my former employer, Tel Aviv University, and the Dan David Foundation, a somewhat secretive private charity that supports a variety of academic causes, with a heavy emphasis on archeology. Every year the Dan David Prize grants three awards of $1 million each for outstanding achievements in three categories: Past, Present, and Future. Each year, an academic committee decides the specific topics for each of the categories to be recognized the following year. (The selected fields for 2019, for instance, were Past: Macrohistory, Present: Defending Democracy, and Future: Combating Climate Change).

Prize laureates have to donate 10% of their prize money to doctoral scholarships for outstanding Ph.D. students and postdoctoral scholarships for outstanding researchers in their own field from Israel and around the world.

The first awards ceremony took place at Tel Aviv University on May 2002. The theme for the first Future prize was Life Sciences and the prize was split among three laureates: Sydney Brenner, John Sulston, Robert Waterston. (Seven month later, in December 2002, we learned that that Brenner and Sulston were awarded the Nobel Prize together with H. Robert Horvitz for “for their discoveries concerning genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death.”)

As expected, the novelty of the million-dollar prizes attracted a lot of attention from the Israeli press. Most of the journalists, however, focused on John Sulston, who had the courage to insist that some scholarships be awarded to Palestinian scholars.

In 2002, I was the “Gordon Professor of Life Sciences” at Tel Aviv University—a grand title accompanied by no endowment—but in May 2002, for two days, I had an even more impressive title, I was Sydney Brenner’s chauffeur. His assigned chauffeur for the series of lectures and ceremonies simply stood him up, and I volunteered to drive him from the hotel to the University for his scientific lecture to faculty and students. Professor Brenner was not very impressed with my miniature Honda, but he was happy that I did not raised any objections to his chain smoking in my car. My ride with him constituted the first and last time that I enjoyed the traffic congestion in Tel Aviv, as it meant having a long conversation with Prof. Brenner.

Brenner first asked me if I knew Francis Crick. I told him that Crick was a scientific hero of mine, but that I think that his “reverse learning theory of dreams” was an unworthy detour.

“That’s what I think too,” he replied, “but since Crick was always right in the past, I’ll withhold judgement. People didn’t believe his tRNA, his selfish DNA, and his Central Dogma, but he was always right. I have the nagging feeling that his theory on dreams will also turn out to be true” (1).

“And what about Jim Watson,” I asked.

“Don’t want to talk about that racist arse,” was his quick reply.

When we arrived at the place where he was supposed to give his first talk, I asked him about the slides.

“I’ll be careful,” I said, “I promise not to drop the slide tray.”

“What slides?” he muttered and rushed to the podium.

He then proceeded to deliver one of the most fascinating lectures I’ve ever listened to. No slides, no notes, just a stream of consciousness by a feverish brilliant mind, who demolished every logical distortion, every sign of mental laziness, and every methodological shortcut.

Genomics? “Enormous factories for generating billions of data points that are a poor substitute for thinking.”

All other -omics? “Forget about them. It’s biochemistry, stupid.”

Universities? “Places where students can Xerox themselves to death” (2)

The human genome project? “A billion-dollar generator of junk-DNA sequences.”

He then proceeded to tell us how he reached the conclusion that sequencing the human genome in its entirety is not the only way to gain insight into the workings of human genetics.

It was the middle 1980s and several people, including Robert Sinsheimer and Renato Dulbecco started pushing for the establishment of a mega project to sequence the human genome. Given the speed of the sequencing technology at the time, a major stumbling block was finding people who would be willing to do such a seemingly boring and tedious task as sequencing the genome. Walter Gilbert advocated a large center, highly integrated, and organized along industrial lines. Sydney Brenner half-jokingly suggested establishing “a penal colony where sentences consisting of large-scale sequencing projects would be carried out.”

The prospect of becoming involved in an industrial project did not appeal to Brenner. There must be a way to get results without sequencing every piece of junk in the human genome. He came up with two alternatives: sequencing the human exome, i.e., about the 1% of the human genome that was known to perform a selected-effect function, or find a Readers Digest version of the human genome that could be sequenced faster and more cheaply than the human genome, yet would be as scientifically meaningful and rewarding.

Someone—Sydney Brenner did not remember whom—suggested he look into a paper published in the late 1960s in American Naturalist.

“What, I’ll find my answer in a nudie magazine?” said Brenner, playing on the difference between “naturalist” and “naturist.”

And there it was, in a paper by Ralph Hinegardner (Evolution of cellular DNA content in teleost fishes. 1968. Am. Nat. 102:517-523) at the end of Table 1: Tetraodon fluviatilis (green pufferfish) with 0.40 picograms DNA.

A congeneric species with a smaller genome was subsequently found, Tetraodon nigroviridis (green spotted pufferfish) with 0.35 picograms. For reasons that most probably concerned availability of tissues, Brenner’s choice was another pufferfish, the famous, poisonous, and exorbitantly expensive Japanese delicacy, the fugu (Fugu rubripes) (3).

In 1993, he reported the initial characterization of the fugu genome (Brenner S, Elgar G, Sanford R, Macrae A, Venkatesh B, Aparicio S. 1993. Characterization of the pufferfish (Fugu) genome as a compact model vertebrate genome. Nature 366:265–268). He found that the fugu haploid genome was 7.5 times smaller than the human genome of which more that 90% was unique. The fugu genome had a similar gene repertoire as the human genome, and according to Brenner and colleagues, “it is the best model genome for the discovery of human genes.”

Sadly, his suggestion to completely sequence Fugu and only sequence the human exome did not convince the granting agencies, which at this point in time were desperate to find the next “moonshot,” the next big project, that could be sold to the masses as a cure-all for all humanity’s ailments (4).

A partial fugu genome was published in 2002 with Sydney Brenner as the last author one year after the publication of the human genome. The genome of Tetraodon nigroviridis was published in 2004, three years after the first draft of the human genome. Brenner was not an author on this paper.

After Brenner’s lecture in 2002, I started reading everything Professor Brenner had ever written… with one exception—a seventy-four page methodology paper (Barnett L, Brenner S, Crick FHC, Shulman RG, Watts-Tobin RJ. 1967. Phase-shift and other mutants in the first part of the rII B cistron of bacteriophage T4. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 252:487-560) that Francis Crick predicted no one will read. As far as I am concerned, Crick was right again.

The second time I communicated with Prof. Brenner was eleven years later.

In 2013, as I was fighting the obscene conclusions by the equally obscene ENCODE Project, I discovered that the accepted historical narrative according to which the term “junk DNA” was coined in 1972 by Susumu Ohno as part of his work on the role of gene and genome duplication was inaccurate (see here). The term was used in the literature at least 12 years before Ohno used it. The trail of clues led me to Cambridge in the late 1950s, and following a suggestion by Tim Hunt, another Nobel Prize Laureate, who used the term “junk DNA” independently of Ohno, I contacted Dr. Brenner.

Dr. Brenner was very generous in his answer

October 7, 2013

Dear Dr. Graur

I can confirm that we were using the idea of junk in the genome in the sixties in Cambridge. Indeed in the late fifties we were very much concerned with this big puzzle: Analyses of the nucleotide composition of bacteria showed that the ratios of AT to GC varied in different bacteria from 1:3 to 3:1, whereas the composition of ribosomal RNA (which we thought at the time was the information intermediate) was constant. One possibility was that the coding information only occupied a small fraction of the DNA the rest being junk. [Noboru] Sueoka killed this idea when he showed that the composition of the DNA could be measured by equilibrium sedimentation and that when he sheared the DNA to smaller sizes separation of two kinds of DNA did not occur and the composition was maintained down to small pieces. It was the discovery of messenger and understanding the degeneracy of the code that solved this problem.

All through the sixties we were concerned with the problem of the C paradox in higher organisms. DNA contents varied over enormous amounts which had no relation to biological properties. The development of CoT analysis by Roy Britten revealed that this could be explained by the fact that "single copy" DNA represented only a minor fraction of the DNA and that large and variable fractions could be represented by repetitive DNA with different annealing rates.

We also had to contend with the fact that the heterogeneous RNA in animal cells (which was the messenger) had a very high molecular weight suggesting that the genes of higher organisms were very large - of course we did not know that there were introns at the time. It was very natural to use the term junk to describe this useless DNA and I was using in Cambridge in the sixties and I gave lectures on this in the Woods Hole Physiology course in 1968 and 1969, where incidentally I read the papers which showed the small DNA content of the puffer fish. Of course we had a lot of difficulty to explain to people why this useless DNA was being maintained and had not already disappeared. This type of “logic” is still part of the psychology of most people and especially of the ENCODE gang.

My distinction between two kinds of rubbish - junk and garbage - which you quoted in your paper, came much later when I discovered that most languages made a distinction between the rubbish you keep and the rubbish you throw away.

I was interested very much in your [ENCODE] paper (could you send me a copy please) and I am still working on the problem.

I think the key is to understand that there are two processes going on in our genomes. One is change in the DNA by mutation or transposition and other is its fixation. I think that the assumption that selection does not work for neutral changes and that they can only be fixed by random drift is wrong. The big driver for fixation of neutral changes is linkage to selected genes - the hitchhiking effect.

You may also be amused by the story that when micro RNAs were discovered somebody wrote to me demanding that I withdraw a statement I had made that 97% of the human genome was junk. I replied saying I was willing to change this figure to 96.8% And another one: when asked what the function of all this extra DNA was our reply was it was there to maintain the viscosity of the nucleus.

Thank you for being so patient.

Sydney Brenner

In December, I got permission to quote his email

I feel most remiss in not replying to your letter more promptly. You are welcome to quote from the letter.

Sydney

Sadly, that’s where the correspondence ended. My follow-up emails went unanswered and his colleague in Singapore, Dr. Byrappa Venkatesh, wrote to inform me that Prof. Brenner “has not been well,” and may not have seen my emails.

Notes

(1) Crick’s publication on the reverse theory of dreams has been cited over a thousand times in the literature, but did not prove popular with psychologists. It did, however, reinforce modern post-Freudian ideas that dreams are meaningless, and the paper by Crick and Graeme Mitchison on reverse learning contributed to the marginalization of dreams in clinical psychological practice.

(2) Brenner was known for his legendary love of wordplay. For example, he instructed students to “neurox” (copy from paper to brain) rather than Xerox (copy from paper to paper. He also invented “Occam’s broom” to complement “Occam’s razor.” The function of Occam’s broom was “to sweep under the carpet what one must in order to leave your hypotheses consistent.”

(3) In 2013, Tetraodon fluviatilis and Tetraodon nigroviridis were found to be misclassified, and were subsumed into genus Dichotomyctere. As expected, molecular biologists didn’t give a shit about the proper biological nomenclature; since 2014 the name Dichotomyctere nigroviridis was only used 30 times, whereas the invalid name Tetraodon nigroviridis was used more than 4,000 times. The genus Fugu is actually a minor synonym of the valid name Takifugu. The valid name in this case fared better than Dichotomyctere. In the last 10 years, Fugu has been used 3,960 times, while Takifugu was used 9,430 times.

(4) All subsequent wasteful and boastful megaprojects from ENCODE to the Brain Project can be traced to the decision to reject Brenner’s proposal. And as we all know, the Human Genome Project has indeed eradicated all disease, ended world hunger, stopped global warming, and put an end to the use of Comic Sans in PowerPoint presentations.

1 note · View note

i-want-my-iwtv · 6 years

Note

Lestat, Louis is a sad sack of a man and doesn’t really seem to be worth loving. Ok so he’s “beautiful” that’s not enough to make a relationship last. Why is Louis worth loving?

//ooc: This is another fairly old ask, from November, 2017. I think anon was trying to rile Lestat by calling Louis “a sad sack of a man and doesn’t really seem to be worth loving.” Limiting him to just being “beautiful.” And while it is fun to rile Lestat and see how he reacts, idk… I was kind of taken aback by this and I had too many thoughts about it to have Lestat respond flippantly, which he would have. I think Lestat either gets defensive about loving Louis, or just dismisses these kinds of comments, one less person for him to compete with for Louis’ attention, lol.

TL;DR: I think when ppl ask that, part of where they may be coming from is that THEY feel like a “sad sack” who’s maybe not worth being loved, especially by the main character in a series, a flashy glittery murder machine. They worry that even if they’re loved for being “beautiful” that that really isn’t enough for a relationship, and that’s absolutely true, if we’re defining beauty as superficial characteristics. The beauty of Louis, to me, is in his character, and the emotions of the scene.

I’ve written a lot about what draws me, as a reader, to love Louis, probably the best stuff is in my #we appreciate and love louis in this house tag. But I’ll try not to go overboard and answer you here, anyway!

I think the deal with describing Louis as *~SO beautiful~* is partly that, hey, it’s fun to do, like having a favorite flower, and AR takes the opportunity to remind us of it, and put the camera on him in a scene, so we know he’s present. It also serves a purpose, we usually get at least a scrap of context about him and/or the scene:

“I glared at him, at the sharp graceful angles of his imperturbable face, […] his wide-set eyes, with their fine rich black lashes. How perfect the tender indentation of his upper lip.” -Lestat, The Tale of the Body Thief

^Let’s take this line and unpack it a little:

Lestat glares at Louis. –> Lestat is clearly pissed.

Louis’ imperturbable face –> Louis is not scared of Lestat being pissed.

And then Lestat lavishes this extra description on him, appreciatively. Attention on the lip area, now we’re picturing him pointedly staring there, which might precede a kiss, so we can infer that Lestat desperately wants to kiss him, probably. What I get from all that is the exquisite tension of Lestat wanting someone he can’t have, someone he treasures and wants even MORE bc of the difficulty.

It’s the tension of Lestat and other characters pining for Louis that AR wrings every drop out for us, she’s showing us how helpless these other characters are that they can only try to capture Louis with descriptions since he defies being owned by anyone. Unrequited love is a powerful thing.

Bringing these back, in case anyone else missed them and want to indulge in some Louis praise/discussion:

The first anon in this series: Honestly I can’t believe how gay everyone was for Louis ask and my response

“Louis rant” anon here.

A recent Louis canon hair fanart and commentary

Reply to an anon re: “fanon has cast Louis as a beautiful, frail flower destined and carried by Lestat’s will”

Anon grateful for “that whole “gay for Louis” ask reminded me of how much I love Louis” and my invitation to anyone to send rants about loving Louis (or any VC character!)

Also somewhat relevant: thoughts on Louis having a living lineage.

So, re: Anon might be identifying with Louis:

We can find ourselves slipping into the characters we love and identify with. Some ppl find Lestat relatable in his lust for life, self-centeredness, refusal to quit, constantly screwing up and berating himself in the narrative (but rarely being able to outright apologize to those he hurts)… a flawed character for sure but an inspiring one.

I think some ppl who relate to Louis and feel less flashy, less glamorous, there’s smtg very appealing about how such a character could be so idolized by the more flashy and glamorous one. What could such a *rockstar* like Lestat find attractive in Louis?? You said yourself Louis is a sad sack. And yes, beauty is not enough to keep a relationship going. But, as I mentioned above, Louis’ beauty is often described in a context that charges it with the emotions of the scene. At least to my reading, there’s more conveyed than just eye color.

Still, why wouldn’t Lestat demand someone who was more like himself?

But here’s the thing I think a lot of ppl miss when they’ve only seen movie!IWTV, or only read a few of the books.

^Louis & Lestat by @garama

I personally believe that Lestat sees in Louis a similarly wounded soul with a lust for life. At their core, neither really want to die. Louis kept getting into fights with ppl bc he couldn’t kill himself as a mortal. Lestat has stubbornly refused to die his entire life and has had plenty of reason to want death. They’ve both almost killed themselves and been brought back. There’s a similar torment in them dealing with their natures.

As an anon put it so eloquently: “I think ppl forget that Louis is just as passionate and vengeful as Lestat, it’s just that he isn’t as vocal or showy about it. He’s more intimate and intense.”

The way they communicate/express themselves, and the way they practice self-care is vastly different. Lestat builds up his beautiful shell with retail therapy, redecorating and refurbishing his dwellings, and attending all kinds of shows and making elaborate plans with his kills, just spoiling himself silly. Always down for indulging his senses. He’s chasing new experiences, learning the new slang, trying to keep himself in the latest fashions. Novelty.

Louis prefers his nights at home, low-drama, in his own creature comforts, with his books and poetry to escape into. We don’t know much of what he’s read but he seems to want to spend eternity reading. What is reading? Even if it’s nonfiction, it’s learning, being told a story, being more informed. It’s novelty, too. Escapism through the imagination.

And their personalities seem to complement each other. Lestat’s lust for adventure spices up Louis’ otherwise too-calm existence. Louis’ calm and dignified manner brings Lestat back down to earth when he gets too untethered. Their bickering is bc they care for each other, can see beneath each other’s disguises. Louis sees the frightened boy inside the frustration that makes Lestat lash out and attack first. Lestat sees the potential in Louis of someone who, if he could get over his inhibitions, could experience so much more in his life.

When AR was kind of RPing as Lestat in her #Fan Questions for Lestat series, she was asked smtg similar:

“…but if I did have to choose, the companion would be Louis. My longest most enduring friendship and love affair in this world was with Louis. And though his limitations can be maddening, they can also be as inspiring to me as his virtues… the best choices we make are not always the wise choices. Sometimes they are intensely emotional choices. And I’ve always had a deep Romantic respect for emotion. My love for Louis transcends wisdom. And I may need the pain as much as the consolation that an eternal relationship with Louis would involve.“

^This is one of those moments I talk about where I feel like she recaptures the old magic, taps into the vein (pun intended) that got us all addicted to this series in the first place. Why I can’t just discard the crackier later books. She’s not all that specific here, but it’s believable. At least, to me. Lestat admits that Louis’ limitations (and this can be so many things, things Lestat disagrees with him about as well as things Louis refuses to do) can be maddening, and inspiring.

And he admits that his love for Louis transcends wisdom. That may be a cop-out answer, but I’ve felt that kind of love in my life. Inexplicably bound to someone, despite the math of the personalities not seeming to mesh.

Love works in mysterious ways. Even for beautiful sad sacks and the arrogant bastards who love them

139 notes · View notes

obsidianarchives · 5 years

Text

Founding Home: Diary One (Part 1)

New Orleans, March 1827

After years of studying, I cannot believe that I am here. I have finally reached a place within my research to keep a journal of my experiments and track the best elements of new incantations. Because inspiration emerges from many sources, I will record the conversations I have along with my observations.

This diary will be a compilation of the magical methods I studied here in New Orleans as part of the Creole and Saint-Domingue communities, concepts shared with me during my time at Uagadou School of Magic, and what I learn from the local Chitimachan community. Honestly, it is refreshing to have a central location for all of this knowledge, instead of the multiple scraps, sheets, and scrolls of paper I have accumulated over all this time.

To be entirely truthful, my utmost hope for keeping record of my work is to use it to instruct students of magik. New Orleans has always been different than the rest of the States in its ‘strange institution’ of enslaving my people, with plantation holders giving Africans a small chance to ‘buy’ their freedom — an opportunity my family benefitted from. Lately, it seems this system is being challenged and free Colored communities are in danger. Even here in Treme — home to generations of free peoples — we hear stirrings of plantations where the last owner was lax about enslaved people reading and writing behind closed doors, and the new owner sets people to whippings and worse for the same acts.

These changes make me feel like something big is coming, and it’s only a matter of time before someone I love is hurt. This fear is even deeper for those of us who hold magik. While non-Colored people paid little attention to us as we read from our eple scrolls when I learned magic, they are now scrutinizing anyone Colored who dares hold parchment in public.

I am not the only one who holds these fears for magik children. I have been speaking with Treme elders, wizards and Pégik alike, and we have concluded that the safest place for us to instruct young wizards is in the swampland. So, for the past six months Francis Guillory, my closest friend and travel companion, and I have examined some of the old Maroon settlements searching for ways to make the swamp secure and habitable. This past month we decided on two possible locations and are ready to embark on the next step, gathering instructors of magik.

With this last thought written, Helene Larieux let out a low sigh and stretched. Seeing the words laid out in her hand reminded her that today was the day.

“Oh Bondye,” she muttered as she took stock of where she was in her morning routine before she had decided to write in her diary, exasperated with herself for sitting at her desk in her dressing gown.

She hurriedly snatched a faded moss green dress from her wardrobe and put it on. Turning to her vanity, she grabbed a small jar of kohl and tiny eyebrush to line her eyelids. Wiping her hands on the hand towel dangling from the end of her vanity, she moved to open the medium-sized bottle of castor oil she kept there.

After spreading a dime sized amount onto her fingers, she selected the braids she’d done in the front of her head the night before and undid them. Satisfied with how they looked in the mirror, she selected a tigon similar in color to her dress, wrapped it around the braids in the back - obscuring them from view - and flattening the folds in the middle. When she finished, the curls in the front looked springy and light, held in place by a fold that rested at her crown.

Hearing a knock at her bedroom door, she went to open it and found her mother’s bemused face. A tall and very attractive woman, with flawless wheat complexioned skin two shades paler than her own and a curvy silhouette that Helene sometimes envied, her mother held a regal bearing that often made it seem as if she were more serious than she actually was.

“Taking your time, as usual, are we?” she said with a smile, “You do realize that Francis knocked on our door ten minutes ago, non?”

“Did he now?” Helene asked, distracted as she put an agate ring on the ring finger of her right hand. “Would you let him know I’ll join y’all in the main room shortly?”

“Hmm, I…” Helene’s mother paused in her response after spying Helene’s diary lying open on her desk. Walking over to examine it closer, she said, “This is remarkably like the leatherwork done by someone I once knew.”

The haunted look in her mother’s eyes told Helene everything she needed to know. Her mother, Carlota, had been born on the Destrehan plantation and had been able to ‘buy her freedom’ due to the assistance of Helene’s father, George, and his Cajun friend, Jean Claude. This had all transpired before Helene was born, but she’d long realized that when her mother had a faraway tone she was remembering a past that she never wanted to talk about.

“Oh, yes, Francis gave me that — maybe you could ask him about it?” Helene suggested quietly.

Her mom snapped out of her reverie at the sound of her voice, “Ah, yes, maybe I should.” She took a last, lingering look at the diary, and walked out of Helene’s room.

After finding and putting on her tiger’s eye necklace that she used for scrolling, Helene added the diary, along with a few other items, to her travel bag before walking out of her room and into the main room.

Walking into the sunlit space, she took in the place she’d always loved yet had also taken for granted. After being home for the past eight months, the novelty of being somewhere she belonged unequivocally still wasn’t lost to her. Perhaps it was just witnessing her mother remember her past, or it could be that the man that she’d just spent most of her time abroad with was standing in front of her, but in that moment, Helene was suspended in sentimental thought.

“Hello, Helene,” Francis greeted her with humor in his eyes, “Nice of you to have dressed up for me.”

Helene followed his gaze down to her feet, where she’d slipped on her tan, lace-up boots that she reserved specifically for traipsing through the woods and swamp land. Looking across to Francis’ feet, Helene noticed he wore his own dusty boots and grinned.

“Well, you know I do my best to coordinate with your laissez-faire attitude towards dressing,” she responded.

Helene’s papa, shaking his head at the pair, brokered, “So I hear you’re making the trip to Bayou Teche today?”

“Yes, Papa,” Helene answered, “Francis has a few contacts within the Chitimachan township there who could be interested in teaching their ways of magik. Maybe even assist us with the school construction project.”

“Oh,” her papa said as he sipped from his cup of tea and settled with it on the sofa.

“Yes,” said Francis, his brown eyes gleaming with a hint of mystery and mischief, “I made friends there during a few of my papa’s work trips and have always admired how they teach magik.”

“You know our healer community here in Treme is excellent in teaching new healers every year…” Helene’s father began.

“This again,” sighed Helene under her breath.

Her father was a gifted healer and something of an anomaly within this traditionally woman-led sphere of magik. When he’d first come to Treme as a teenager, he worked hard to assure other healers that he had no intentions of usurping their clients, only stepping in when his expertise was requested. He’d done well enough to afford helping Manman out of bondage at the Destrehan’s and set up a modest household in Treme by combining his healing and her seamstress earnings.

It was, in fact, his great prowess and pride of being a gifted healer that led him to push his only child, a daughter at that, to pursue healing since she was young. Initially, Helene had been open to it. She had been a young, curious girl who enjoyed helping others and making adults proud. Yet, by the time she began her formal training in magik at the Guillorys at age 11, it was clear she had neither the head nor the stomach for healing.

Now and again her father would bring up the possibility, as if reintroducing the idea would make her change her mind, as he was now.

“And,” her father continued, “I would be more than happy to find a suitable candidate to help with your school endeavor.”

“Oh…” started Helene, who was taken aback, “that would actually be very helpful.”

As her father nodded Helene’s mother, who had caught the end of the exchange as she walked into the room, gave him a wink.

“How about the Pégik elders that you both spoke with, were they any help?” her manman asked.

“Well,” Francis began, “They showed us how they are keeping the schools for Pégik children hidden, and have given us some school supplies they can spare, like slate, chalk, pencils, and the like.”

“That’s useful, right?” asked Helene’s manman hopefully.

“It is, indeed,” added Helene, “Especially because the Pégik elders we spoke to were familiar with the construction of the Maroon settlements before they were destroyed. Many elements of our plan hinge on their insight.”

Helene regretted that they couldn’t involve the Pégik in their plans more directly, particularly because she wished her mother could feel just as useful to her plans as anyone with magik. This was a dynamic that Helene had been navigating for her entire life.

Growing up as a child of a Saint-Domingue wizard father and a mulatto Pégik mother came with its own set of problems, even when living in a free Colored community with a mix of magik and Pégik families. Helene’s mother was so used to seeing magik practiced in secret within the slave quarters of her youth that she had very little reservations about courting and marrying a wizard, but at times Helene felt as if her manman resented being the only Pégik within their household. It didn’t help that within the Treme community the family called home, Helene’s father was in constant demand by wizard leadership and often had to keep his involvement discreet while most of Helene’s closest friends were the wizards she had gone to school with. And what was more, Francis’ mother was one of the two teachers at their small wizarding school, leaving her mother feeling alienated even in building a close relationship with the mother of Helene’s best friend.

So Carlota, who had taught young Helene her letters and numbers while also taking on seamstress jobs, occasionally seemed to deflate when conversations around her became solely about magik. Helene had always tried to keep her mother from feeling as if she’d been replaced, but felt that she’d failed her in some way by making the creation of a magical institution the center of her own ambitions. She knew it was foolish to think this way — this was the same woman who had taken on extra jobs in order to help Helene fund her trip to Uagadou and was just as excited as she was each time she made a magical breakthrough. Yet, she couldn’t help but worry.

Almost as if she’d heard Helene’s thoughts, Helene’s mother probed, “What has come of your studies in Uagadou?”

Helene’s father sat up, interested in her answer. While she had been back home for the past eight months, most of her time had been spent testing out different magical techniques gathered during her time abroad, in collaboration with her eple notebooks from school — which had actually been a small hut on the back of the Guillory property. The remainder of her time back had been spent navigating the politics of obtaining council from wizard and Pégik elders, meaning she spent very little time explaining everything to her parents.

As Helene sat, deciding where to begin a discussion about her time in Uagadou and what she’d learned, Francis filled in for her, “Truthfully, it may be easier to explain what we didn’t learn in Uagadou. During our first month there we were exposed to much more than the main four subjects we were taught here.”

“Do they not spend much time covering eple crafting, healing, potions, and illusion there?” asked Helene’s father, intrigued at the notion.

“Their institution is enormous and old, so while they cover those four subjects thoroughly, students could easily pick four other subjects to advance in and spend little time on those at all,” answered Francis eagerly.

“We were lucky enough to befriend a professor around our age, Kizza Nalule, who specializes in animal transformations,” Helene stated.

“You didn’t!” exclaimed Helene’s mother.

“I’m afraid we did,” Francis smiled with no apology in his voice.

“Well,” Helene’s father calmly ventured, “What are your animal forms?”

“An osprey,” Helene answered quietly.

“A Black bear,” Francis stated proudly.

“I’ll be…” Helene’s manman started before drifting into some choice French words.

“We, um, hate to leave the conversation here, but we have to head to the square before we go to the Bayou,” Francis transitioned.

“Like enfer you do!” said Helene’s mother, ready to interrogate them further.

“Now, Carlota, they’ll be back later and we’ll be in a better, clearer space then, non?” said Helene’s father.

From the look her mother gave her father, then she and Francis, Helene knew there was a very small chance, if any, that her mother would be any less upset the next time they spoke about her becoming an Animagus. But as was typical of her mother when she felt betrayed by her family, she left the room, head held high, went into the kitchen and began cleaning.

“Er, sorry to cut the conversation there, sir,” Francis said, this time with an actual apology in his voice.

Helene’s father sighed, “Yes, not the best way to introduce this change to us, but I suspect she’ll be in a better mood if you bring her something when you return later.”

“We’ll do that,” Helene smiled brightly as she hugged her father goodbye and blew a kiss to her mother, starting out of the front door.

“Good luck you two!” shouted her father amid the sounds of banging pots and pans.

After she and Francis had safely made it down the street and rounded the corner towards Congo Square, Helene finally let go of the breath she’d been holding since deciding to bring up animal transformation only a few minutes ago.

“Well, you’re in prime form,” stated Francis.

“Argh, you know I’ve been struggling with the idea of telling them about becoming Animagi.”

“Of course I did, but I still don’t understand why you didn’t tell them during one of your locket discussions while we were still in Uganda, as I did with my parents.”

“You don’t understand because both of your parents come from Creole wizard families. They understand the prestige that comes with becoming an Animagus, despite the danger.”

“Yes, well my papa is still Pégik and prestige or not, I doubt he wanted yet another reminder of how his family, and his middle son no less, surpassed him in magik,” said Francis, bitterness tinging his tongue.

Helene knew Francis’ papa was a sore subject for him. Shortly before they’d left for Uagadou two years ago, Francis had learned that his father had fathered a child by a Pégik woman, a fact he’d held onto their entire time in Uganda. Francis’ father had always seemed insecure about having no magical ability yet devoted most of his time to carpentry and glowed with pride when speaking about his family. Helene suspected that much of Francis’ anger came from thinking his father wanted another Pégik in his family so he wouldn’t feel so lonely. While she couldn’t hold this thought against Francis, as she often felt the same way about her own mother, she knew talking with him about it would leave him seething.

Deciding to change the conversation to a safer topic, Helene asked, “So, what are we picking up for your Chitimachan friends?”

Francis shook his head as if trying to shake away the dark thoughts that’d consumed him during their walk to the marketplace, “When I last visited, they mentioned needing some work gloves for basket weaving.”

“Hmm, I believe Miss Ella’s stall is on the other side of the square,” added Helene, “She’s the best at keeping labor supplies on hand.”

As the pair made their way across Congo Square, Helene glanced up at Francis, taking in how fine a figure he was. He was tall, at least a head taller than she was — and she was basically a tree sapling with a couple of curves. They were similar in skin tone, what her mother called ‘caramel-complexioned’ but where she was slender he was broad-shouldered and muscular. When they’d finished wizarding school at 18, their families had been sure Francis would ask Helene’s father to begin a formal courtship, given the way they had flirted with each other ceaselessly since they were 16. But graduation came and went, Francis continued to flirt with young women wherever he went and Helene was courted by one of their classmates, Frederick, off and on for a year before breaking it off.

Then Helene and Francis decided on a scheme to develop their own set of eples, at first for fun and experimentation until they found they had a knack for combining eples in useful ways. One of their favorite creations was an eple that coded any letter they wrote to become indecipherable unless read by the intended recipient. After sharing this discovery with a council of elders, it was decided that the two should travel to Uganda to expand their magical training and bring their newfound knowledge to others. While Helene’s primary interest in going to Uagadou had been to read and learn as much as she possibly could, she’d be lying if she didn’t admit that she’d also hoped that the two of them being abroad together would lead to them becoming more than friends. These hopes were dashed almost immediately after they’d arrived, however, as Francis proved to be just as big a flirt there as he was at home. To make matters worse, it seemed his anger at his father meant he was even more focused on magical advancement than he was occupied with thoughts about Helene. That wasn’t to say that he’d never indicated interest in her. They’d shared a kiss at 17, and while they were at Uagadou, Francis had a very heated conversation with a paramour of hers that seemed to be brought on by jealousy.

Just when Helene thought she might ask Francis to give her a better explanation about this confrontation, she noticed a small face she knew.

“Hey, Francis, why don’t you go on to Miss Ella’s stall,” she suggested, “I see Marie at her dad’s metalwork stall and want to say hello.”

Francis followed the direction of Helene’s head gesture, waved at Marie, then promised to meet Helene there after taking care of his business with Miss Ella.

As Helene walked up to Mr. Louis’ stall, she noticed he was in deep conversation with a customer and gave him a slight nod. Moving to the side where Marie sat, Helene signed ‘hello’.

“How are you?” Marie signed back.

“Pretty good, considering,” said Helene, “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you two.”

It had indeed been a while. The last time Helene had seen Marie she was 10 and still held some childlike chubbiness. The Marie she currently stood in front of had grown several inches and showed some signs of early pubescence.

“Yes, I’ve missed you,” Marie gestured, “It’s been lonely having so few people around who know how to sign and use magik.”

Helene felt guilty. Here she was trying to build a magical institution, yet she hadn’t bothered visit one of the magik children she was closest to since her return to New Orleans. To be fair, she’d spent most of her first month back sleeping and accompanying her parents on their various work trips. After that she and Francis had returned to their eple work with the councils.

All of this didn’t make up for the time she could’ve stopped in to check in on Marie, however. Sighing with regret, Helene answered, “Yes, I’ve missed you too. Not visiting is entirely my fault. How have you been?”

“Still working in magik sessions with Mrs. Guillory,” said Marie. “Sometimes it’s hard to not turn word signs into magik signs.”

Helene laughed at the mischief in Marie’s eyes as she signed this. Marie was Marie as always. When Helene began babysitting her, she was a quiet, yet precocious five year old who tried hard to remain settled as her father worked, but couldn’t help but to get into things. Helene had been deemed a responsible enough girl at 17, so the grown ups suggested she watch Marie. Because Helene was more bookish than she was outgoing, initially she’d been afraid that Marie wouldn’t take to her, but she soon found out Marie shared her curiosity for magik and the two became fast friends.

It wasn’t until later, when Helene overheard her parents talk late one night, that Helene learned how Louis and his daughter ended up in Treme with no wife or mother. Apparently Marie’s mother had died in childbirth while enslaved. Louis, who was an accomplished metalworker on the same Mississippi plantation, hoped that his skill would keep the owners from forcing his hearing impaired daughter into the fields. But as soon as Marie turned four, he’d received notice from the overseer that she was to join the others, and was expected to work just as hard, hearing or no. Louis seized his chance to escape as soon as he could and had landed in New Orleans. When Helene had first met him she thought he seemed a bit desperate and on edge, but as time went on it seemed the fear of being discovered had subsided. Even now, Louis sold his wares openly on market days, but only on days he felt safest, usually after there had been a raid.

Helene had always been slightly suspicious of his desperation, but her love for Marie had outweighed her suspicion — how could someone awful have such a great child? For the most part Louis had always been nice to her and had even given her a little coin before her trip to Uganda in thanks for taking care of Marie for all these years.

“How are your lessons going?” she asked Marie.

Marie shrugged, “Well enough, I feel like I can always do more, but Mrs. Guillory says I need to stick to the plan.”

Helene nodded, “She is a stickler for rules. What would you like to do instead?”

“My fingers are itching to work with soil and plants,” Marie answered, “Papa says there’s no more room for plants in our place and I’ve done all I can with our small garden.”

“Oh!” Helene signed with excitement, “I’ve just remembered that I have a few plants that I’ve not been able to nurse back to their fullness since returning. Maybe you could stop by my house later?”

“Really?” asked Marie happy at the thought, “When?”

“How about when Francis and I return from our trip? I’ll come back to the market to pick you up.”

“Yes, I’ll ask Papa!”

“Great!” Helene signed as she spotted Francis heading their way, “See you in a few hours.”

Marie and Louis waved Helene and Francis goodbye as they walked away from the stall.

“So, was your trip to Miss Ella’s successful?” asked Helene.

“Very. I found work gloves in multiple sizes and had enough time to visit the jewelry stall to get you this,” answered Francis, handing Helene a small pouch.

Helene opened it and found a black choker with a cameo image of a woman with curly hair tied in a tigon, much like hers.

“Oh my, thank you,” Helene said with a smile and a hug, “This was completely unexpected. What’s the occasion?”

Francis returned her smile and shrugged, “No real occasion. I just saw it and it reminded me of you. I thought after spending all this time in the swamps you may like something nice. Can’t have you only associating me with mud and sweat.”

Helene laughed and put the cameo in her bag, deciding she would wear it on her next day out somewhere nice. Could it be that Francis returned her feelings after all?

When she looked up again, Francis’ face held a frown. She looked around but couldn’t see anything that would make him unhappy. Shrugging, she joked, “I know what this is about. Your birthday is in a couple of weeks. You’re angling to get a nice birthday gift from me.”

His smile didn’t meet his eyes when he answered, “Nah, but now I’m expecting something grand.”

He walked a little faster than her now, making it to the clearing in the park up ahead. Had she made him angry? How? They were just smiling and hugging. Pushing these thoughts back, she met him at the Apparition point — an old magnolia tree that some wizard had designated far enough from nearby vantage points to be safe enough to travel from.

“Ready?” Francis asked tersely as he held his hands out for side-along Apparition.

“Yes,” Helene started, “Are we—?” but before she could finish her question they were off.

And with a rush, they were standing beside a sign that stated: “WELCOME, Chitimacha Indian Reservation.”

Helene stumbled a little, letting her feet catch up to the ground here. Francis, who had led the side-along Apparition since he’d been here so frequently, seemed to have landed with no difficulty.

After watching Helene to ascertain whether she needed any help, Francis began walking past the sign and into the reservation. Helene caught up with him and together they made their way to the scout post.

Francis stopped and introduced Helene to the guard, Charles, explaining they were here to give someone named Rosalie the gloves she’d requested. The guard gestured them forward and they continued their path towards a tall house made of plaster and thatch that Francis pointed out five yards away.

As they walked the path uphill, Helene noticed that Francis seemed to have shaken off whatever had been bothering him, after speaking with the guard. In fact, the usual spring in his step was back. Perhaps returning to the primary mission put him in a better mood?

They made it to the front yard and could hear little voices laughing in the back. Francis knocked on the front door, and a few moments later someone tall, with long dark brown hair, wearing a loose-fitted red tunic with fine blue embroidery and leather leggings answered the door.

“Hello, Boaz,” Francis greeted them, “We’re here to see Rosalie. She should be expecting me.”

Boaz nodded and looked at Helene in askance, “Is this your friend who wants to start a school?”

“Hi, yes, I’m Helene,” said Helene holding out her hand, “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” demurred Boaz, shaking her hand, “Come and have a seat. I’ll let Rosalie know her guests have arrived.”

Helene and Francis walked into the room they had gestured towards, Francis heading directly to a seat in the corner. Helene followed his actions and took a seat on the bench in the center of the room. As they waited, Helene took in the room. Each wall had been painted a landscape painting with animals moving in the distance. To the side of where they sat, there lay a few sleeping mats, woven rugs, and blankets in a range of colors and patterns.

Helene was thinking through the best way to make her appeal to Rosalie about joining the school, when she walked into the room.

Rosalie was a short woman, with long brown hair, bright brown eyes, and a dimpled smile. She seemed to be the same age as Helene and Francis. She walked up to Francis gave him a hug, then walked over to Helene to shake her hand. She smoothed her long, blue patterned ribbon skirt before taking a seat on the side of the bench closest to Francis.

“It’s nice to see you,” she started looking at Francis, “And to meet you,” she added, nodding in Helene’s direction.

Before Helene could respond in kind, Rosalie continued, “Any luck fetching those gloves I requested?”

“Yes,” answered Francis, smiling as he pulled them out of his bag, “I got them in an assortment of sizes. I hope there are enough small ones for your youngest pupils.”

Rosalie smiled back while taking the gloves out of his hands, her hands lingering on his, “You’re always so thoughtful.”

Helene felt her gut tighten and tried as hard as possible to make her face appear emotionless.

Francis laughed, blushing a little, “It was no problem.” He slowly moved his hands back to his sides.

Helene tried to clear her head, and voice, as much as she could before mustering, while gesturing towards the backyard where they could hear children talking, “It seems you have a lot of practice in teaching children. What magik do you teach?”

Rosalie followed Helene’s gesture and nodded, “Myself, Boaz, and a few others teach all the magic we know. My specialty being potion-making.”

“Is that so?” asked Helene interested, “My father is a healer and he’s always looking for a potion master who knows their stuff.”

“Is he now?” said Rosalie with an eyebrow raised, “A male healer? May your father be George Larieux, by any chance?”

“Yes, do you know him?”

“By reputation,” stated Rosalie with respect in her voice, “He helped our best healer recover from a bad sickness. We thought we might lose her.”

“Oh,” said Helene, thinking she may be making some inroads with Rosalie after all, “I’m glad he could help.”

“Quite,” said Rosalie, as she turned towards Francis, “Do you mind explaining this project you wanted to speak to me about?”

“Sure,” Francis stated, giving Helene a brief glance before beginning, “As we’ve discussed in the past, the non-Colored seem to be enforcing greater restrictions on Colored populations and wizards are becoming worried that the security measures that worked when there was little scrutiny will completely fail during a crack down on Colored communities.”

“You must have heard about the militias who destroyed the Maroon settlements all those years back?” added Helene.

“I have, but that was quite a while ago and a few of your fellow freedmen assisted, no?” said Rosalie.

“Well...yes, but—” Helene started.

“...our elders believe that soon enough similar measures will be taken due to the visions a few of them have had — but this time these actions will include the destruction of free Colored communities as well,” Francis ended.

Helene sat back, surprised that Francis would share the contents of a vision with Rosalie. They had been entrusted with this information by the elders, who’d expected them to keep it quiet lest the details of the vision lead to a mass exodus. Neither Helene nor Francis had shared this information with their parents.

If Rosalie noticed Helene’s reaction, she didn’t acknowledge it. Instead, she nodded saying, “This matches some of our concerns. One of our elders had a vision of settlers pushing us further out of our land soon.”

The three sat in silence for a beat, each trying to decipher what it meant that elders from two different communities shared similarly foreboding visions.

“And you’re suggesting the answer to this forthcoming violence is what? Teaching?” said Rosalie with light sarcasm.

“But you see, the location is central to this plan,” started Helene.

“What? In swampland?” asked Rosalie in a near sneer, “As you can see, we live a good deal away from settler eyes and can practice magic without being devoured by mosquitoes. Why would I leave my students here to go teach in a lagoon?”

Francis caught Rosalie’s gaze, “Rosalie, that’s a bit unfair. We would never ask you to leave your students.”

“No? You’d have me ask their parents permission to uproot them from the family and home they know because of a few visions and your friend’s ‘brilliant’ plan?” she finished, no longer containing her barbed speech.

“That’s it. It’s fine.” said Helene angrily standing up, “You can keep your students and your teaching and your potions here. I don’t want help from anyone more worried about mosquitoes than they are about protecting their people.”

Francis quickly stood up and moved between the two women. “I don’t think we’ll have any progress in conversation here today. Rosalie, if you don’t like the idea of helping us build the school, would you at least consider coming out a couple of times a week? We could really use a potions master of your caliber,” he said with a strained smile.

Rosalie gave an imperceptible incline of the head, while waving them away.

Francis led Helene out of the door, with only a slight glance back on their way out. Helene grumpily moved out of his arm span and stomped her way towards the reservation entrance, not sure who she was most angry with at the moment.

While halfway down the hill, Helene felt the presence of another person and glanced back to find Boaz following them. When she stopped and turned in Boaz’ direction, Francis caught up with Helene and then waited as well.

Boaz stopped in front the couple and said, “I heard what you said to my sister. I want to help you.”

Helene, who had been braced for round two of the argument they’d just left with Rosalie, was unprepared for this interaction, “Pardon me?”

“I want to help you build your school and help teach people,” Boaz repeated, “You may find my gifts better suited to your goals than Rosalie’s anyway.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, I’m a weaver and builder.”

“May I ask,” Helene inquired, “Why you’d like to help us, after I just had a row with your sister?”

Boaz’ face remained diplomatic, but even so Helene could see a twinkle in their eyes, “My sister often has rows. What matters here are the visions you spoke of, you see, the elder Rosalie mentioned is my grandmother.”

Francis gasped, “Mrs. Sennet had that vision?”

“Yes,” Boaz answered, “And she told me that when your friend came, I was to assist. I’ll await your next correspondence by osprey.” Then with a nod to Francis and Helene, Boaz trekked back up the hill.

Helene and Francis looked at each other in stunned silence for a minute or so, before turning to continue their way back to the reservation’s Apparition point.

Francis stopped Helene before she turned to Apparate back to the park on her own. “That wasn’t how I expected this to go, but I think it’s safe to call this trip a success, right?”

Helene gave him a small shrug before turning on the spot, just before she pictured her destination, she thought triumphantly, “We did it!”

*********************************************************************************

Eple Creation

Before drafting an eple, or spell as it is said in English, you must first sequester yourself to a location at a great distance from others. While simply thinking of an incantation isn’t sufficient to conjure a spell with one's hands, if one isn’t careful you may find yourself absentmindedly muttering different spells as you work through an incantation.

The simplest eples are created by using the prefix of one spell and the suffix of another. For example, if taking the prefix ‘levi’ from the incantations — Levicorpus or Wingardum Leviosa — then adding the suffix ‘me’ from the incantation – Point Me — one would find themselves hovering in the direction of the item they seek.

Eples are best created by wizards who have a wide range of incantations under their belt because they know how each eple feels when spoken and achieved. It is for this reason that eple creation is not taught to students until they have shown mastery of non-verbal eples.

*********************************************************************************

#Magic #School #American Magic #Black Wizard History

1 note · View note