#i wanted to incorporate more of morry in his design but i decided to have more of it in his personality and such instead

[cakesdown]

did someone say calimorry fankid everyone calls him bones cause he has crackly joints and he used to freak out the kids at camp with them  hes chaotic neutral and LOVES music (gets it from his papa) and i havent decided his psychic proficiency yet

#psychonauts #psychonauts oc #calimorry #lobotoly #sol's art #the garbage can #bones #i wanted to incorporate more of morry in his design but i decided to have more of it in his personality and such instead

[love-takes-work]

Notes on SU Commentary Tracks

I watched the commentary tracks on the Complete Steven Universe DVD Set and I took some nerd notes.

The episodes with commentary tracks are “Reunited,” “Change Your Mind,” and “The Future.”

I’ll bold stuff that was maybe bigger news or more surprising for easier reading. And yes, some of this was already known from podcasts, other Q&As, or interviews, but I listed it if they said it again here.

Read on after the jump to read these and other highlights:

Steven’s original wedding speech

Older ideas on dialogue for Lapis when she came back to the beach

Scrapped concepts for the scene that ultimately included Steven communicating with the others in a mindscape

Discussions of earlier concepts for White Diamond having a power to “freeze” Gems into statues to make them perfect and having a gallery of them on Homeworld

Pink Pearl’s original fate

The translation of the writing on Obsidian’s sword

The origin of Pink Steven’s design

What Rebecca did to pitch the “SHE’S GONE” scene

Earlier plans to include Shep in “Change Your Mind”

An unused concept of how Steven feels about Biggs

The inspiration for the Heaven and Earth Beetles’ healed design

How Volleyball/Pink Pearl was almost a mini-villain

Discussion of how they did not get to share the origin of the Diamonds

Jasper’s scrapped participation in the movie

“Reunited” - 

Commentary with Rebecca Sugar, Ben Levin, Matt Burnett, Hilary Florido, Joe Johnston, Ian Jones-Quartey, and Kat Morris.

In 2015, an episode idea called “If You Love Yourself So Much” was discussed but rejected. It included some early ideas that ended up getting incorporated into “Reunited,” most notably Garnet marrying herself and putting rings on both hands.

The idea of the Cluster arm wrestling was planned for a long time. A scrapped idea of Steven banging his fist on a vending machine to get some Chaaaaps was supposed to visually parallel some of that scene, but it was axed.

When they got pushback on the wedding idea, they kept adding more and more “high entertainment value” items like a big musical number so the episode would be absolutely unmissable and appealing to everyone.

The song at the beginning of the episode was meant to check in with the entire cast and sort of remind you they exist and what their state of mind is going into the wedding.

Ian made a comment joking about “All 15 people in Beach City” being in the audience.

Just about everyone on the Crew touched this episode, despite that there are four main storyboarders credited for “Reunited.”

In 2016 Ian Jones-Quartey proposed marriage to Rebecca Sugar. They felt like the characters based on them (Sapphire and Ruby) HAD to get married in the show now because otherwise it wouldn’t be honest. But then their characters got married before they did.

They really love the idea of having characters get married who have known each other for a really long time, versus the fairy tale trope of movies ending with weddings between people who have met very recently.

Steven’s speech as officiator at the wedding used to be longer in its first draft--it was described as being weird and full of jokes, and there would have been a scene with Pearl getting weepy and pulling tissues out of her pearl.

Ian mentions loving a joke Jeff came up with having Greg play one chord to make Steven fall asleep--it’s sort of a “dream” chord you hear in cartoons a lot before a dream sequence.

The Crew discussed what it might be like if someone had never seen the show before and started with this episode.

Ian really wanted Steven’s psychic powers to figure into the episode.

Blue using a sadness wave to attack the Gems was a very old idea they’d planned for a long time. So was Lapis’s arrival.

There was a discussion of having Lisa Hannigan performing her lines as Blue VERY early in the morning.

Ian was happy the sword got broken because it was so momentous but it was just a sword. And later appeared on a shelf in the house as an artifact.

Miki had drawn a torn dress for Garnet at one point so she could be shown fighting and moving around more accurately, and this led to a long discussion of whether Gem clothing can even actually get torn the way human clothes can. They concluded that no, it shouldn’t be torn, so they backed up and gave Garnet an open-front dress from the beginning so the fighting version would make more sense.

Lapis originally might have had a longer speech upon arriving back on the beach. They eventually decided to just have her say “Hey.”

The barn falling on Blue Diamond was an intentional Wizard of Oz reference.

They point out that Steven even once said “drop the barn on the beach” (in a previous episode, “Can’t Go Back,” which was also a Miki episode).

Destroying the house was a big deal, and they always thought they’d end up doing it but backed away from it until “Reunited.” They almost even did it back in “Coach Steven”! But it just ended up with a little damage to the porch.

The Crew thinks Miki is really good at drawing ensemble shots.

Rebecca was always overwhelmed whenever she got to have Patti LuPone record for Yellow.

Originally the giant figures of everyone’s statue bodies in the mindscape were too dark and had to be revamped so they could be seen.

An earlier idea of Steven’s “psychic-ghost-situation” had him as a ghost actually trying to interact with the other characters during fighting action, but it was pulled back to this mindscape so there wouldn’t be as much confusing action to keep track of and more focus on what Steven was doing to encourage his teammates and contact the Diamonds.

Hilary was glad not to have to block out a fight.

Ian mentions loving having Bismuth back in the group.

They originally wanted the “Diamonds sensing Pink’s energy” plot to happen when Steven was in the palace somehow, but everything got moved to this scene--which the Crew all agrees turned out incredible, like how cool it was to have Steven essentially reminding each character why they fight and summing up their whole arc in a sentence.

“Change Your Mind”

Commentary with Rebecca Sugar, Ben Levin, Matt Burnett, Hilary Florido, Joe Johnston, Ian Jones-Quartey, and Kat Morris.

They like to refer to this episode as “The movie before the movie.”

They loved incorporating “princess tropes” into Steven’s time on Homeworld, which is why there were so many references to “mice” (well, Pebbles) making clothes, being locked in a tower, being reminded of his manners, loving animals and freeing imprisoned pets, etc. 

Deedee did the voice of the rainbow worm pet. She apparently didn’t find it memorable and was surprised when she was reminded she did the voice.

Rebecca was super excited for the confrontation with Blue.

There was some discussion of how Steven would have died of starvation if he didn’t have someone practical like Connie to remember to bring food.

They love working with the huge scale the Diamonds present.

The Crew always wanted to put someone in Blue’s hair loop. Originally they wanted Blue to tuck Greg in there when she kidnapped him, but they didn’t end up being able to do any hair-loop-carrying until this episode.

The Crew bantered back and forth about what the heck those Pebbles’ names were and how hard it was to track them.

They agreed that Paul draws the best Yellow Diamond, which makes sense since he also drew the first episode with Yellow (and her stink face). 

The scene where Yellow asks Blue to stop using her powers on her and then realizing she’s crying on her own was one of Rebecca’s favorite scenes to get to finally.

Steven Sugar thought Gems would spend a lot of time in their own chambers/rooms just not really doing much of anything unless they had to fulfill their purpose.

Some of the Homeworld ideas were based on a Soviet artist’s concepts, Boris Artzybasheff, and also many ideas were inspired by Busby Berkeley regarding how people were objects and furniture.

The mech was an old idea. Once they had the hand ship from “Jailbreak,” they knew there had to be bodies somewhere.

They focused a lot about what could be the coolest and funniest way for something to happen. The concept of the yellow and blue spaceship arms appearing out of the sky to smack the White Diamond mech around was one of those.

Rebecca really wanted things to look more and more cartoony and bizarre as you get deeper into Homeworld.

They spent a very long time trying to decide on characters’ new outfits.

The trash can lid is said to be a reference to “a flying bear cartoon” and they dance around speaking a direct reference because they’re not sure they’re allowed to say its name.

In discussing the powers of the Diamonds, there were debates on what White’s power would be; with Yellow being physicality-based and Blue being emotion-based, they thought White as identity-based made the most sense.

Different ways to express this were played with before settling on the idea that she thinks she’s perfect and others’ colors make them less like her and less perfect. But then she becomes a hostage to her own beliefs about herself because if she does anything that reflects on everyone else, so it’s best to do nothing.

They had some cool earlier ideas of White’s powers making statues out of other Gems and having a gallery full of frozen Gems, frozen by White to make them perfect.

They also weren’t sure what fate befell the original Pink Pearl and discussed whether she might have been destroyed. 

Rebecca discussed how creepy it was to have White Pearl speaking in Christine’s voice and not Deedee’s--that we should find it fundamentally disturbing at this point.

Tom Herpich came up with the crack on White Pearl’s face.

In real life, pink diamonds aren’t understood as well as yellows and blues. It’s more known what makes a diamond yellow or blue, and some of those facts Rebecca researched were originally woven into the speech White gave about their “impurities.” But it turned out to be too dry and most of it got cut.

Rebecca loves having Lapis with pants and sandals for easier cosplay.

Ian had to draw the scene where Steven is falling and fusing with inert characters--he wasn’t able to properly explain it to Rebecca so she had him draw it.

They really wanted Rainbow Quartz 2.0 to have a scarf, but they couldn’t figure out how to get that into Pearl’s design. They miss the scarf.

It was really important to have these Fusions display call-forwards of the Gems’ new outfits which we hadn’t yet seen.

Rebecca points out that Sunstone’s design breaks a design rule and she feels like Sunstone should have Garnet’s pant leg colors on their legs, but at the same time she understands the rule of cool and likes it like this.

It’s discussed how none of Steven’s fusion weapons are exclusively offensive weapons either.

Rebecca still really wants a suction cup Sunstone toy.

Sunstone’s ability to transcend reality and break the fourth wall was a joke that exploded in the discussion room among the Crew. As soon as the idea was pitched everyone kept coming up with ideas. Sardonyx’s fourth-wall-breaking is more snarky, but Sunstone’s is helpful.

Rebecca was disappointed that the rule about Steven’s clothes wasn’t always followed with having his clothes appear on Obsidian’s hand, but she was delighted that you could see them in one scene.

They spent a lot of discussion time on making sure Steven-Obsidian was different somehow from Rose-Obsidian. The hair is different.

Old versions of Obsidian were drawn with wrapped-together Twizzlers legs, which sort of is reflected in the present design.

The sword had been planned forever--and it first appeared in “Bubble Buddies.”

Miki worked on the Ninja Turtles show so Rebecca was really excited to see her depictions of Bismuth and Sunstone.

An early plan to have Obsidian draw the sword from their mouth was complicated because fusion weapons should be combinations, so they finally reached the solution of having them combine to make the hilt, then get the blade out of Obsidian’s mouth.

The blade of the sword is thought to say “We’ll always save the day,” but you’d have to ask Steven Sugar.

Another really old idea was climbing into the White Diamond mech eye.

Rebecca was disappointed that some of the merch made of White Diamond did not feature her cape sparkles.

There were many debates early on about where Rose might “actually” be. There were tons of references to this fundamental question throughout the show--introducing Lapis as a Gem trapped in an object, having Pearl ponder pulling Steven’s Gem out as a baby, straight-up wondering what would happen to him in “Bubbled” when Eyeball was trying to take his Gem, etc. They all decided Rose was definitely gone but that the idea of her possibly being inside him should be on his mind a lot, leading to disturbing images like dreaming about coughing up her hair.

Yellow Diamond and Blue Diamond both challenged Steven about things he was very confident about, but White’s question of his identity got to him because he in fact is not confident about that.

The black and white eeriness of the fuzzy background and the other characters having their colors washed out helped make the scene in White Diamond’s head so disturbing and creepy.

The split screen showing Steven’s two perspectives was exciting to Rebecca, and was a pretty old idea. And she points out it sort of “breaks the show.”

The Gem Steven, Pink Steven, was represented by a slightly modified version of his model sheet. Everyone laughed when they saw what was getting used.

They decided that an earlier idea of Pink Steven looking angry should be replaced by an emotionless version of him. All the emotion should be with Organic Steven.

In the pitch meeting for this episode, Rebecca herself screamed “SHE’S GONE!!” and shocked the hell out of everyone. She pointed out how no one expected this of her because she’s pretty quiet, but she just wanted to shock everyone the way Steven would in the show.

They point out this is the first appearance of the geometric shield that got so much use in Future.

The fact that Steven is Steven is the ultimate reveal of the show. Usually in fantasy shows there’s some other kind of revelation, but Steven just being amazingly human and amazingly Gem and amazingly himself is wonderful here.

They like having the pilot reference with “What’s your excuse?”

If Rose had somehow still been alive in him, all of this would have been cheapened.

Ian loves that you can faintly hear Sadie’s concert from way out in space as the camera approaches Earth.

They got a lot more use out of the Beach-A-Palooza stage than they thought they would when it had to be designed for “Steven and the Stevens.” There was a joke about how at one of the conventions a real Beach-A-Palooza stage was constructed and they had a thought about how oh good, it’s getting reused.

Sadie having green hair in the finale was a late change but they liked showing her progression. 

They had originally kicked around the idea of Sadie already having her new partner Shep at this point, but decided to develop that in Future instead.

They compare White Diamond’s stepping gingerly into the fountain to skeptically getting into a public pool.

Some silliness they didn’t get to use was that Biggs would be “beloved by everyone” except Steven. They never got to cover it, but originally Steven was just going to not really understand why everyone loves her so much and doesn’t personally much care for her.

The Heaven and Earth Beetles are based on the Mothra Ladies.

The healed Gems’ horns are supposed to be side effects of the corruption that they continue to bear in the present.

Larimar and Orange Spodumene ended up different in the ending scene than they became in Future. Many of the designs were retroactively pulled into this scene after being designed for the movie.

Rebecca wrote “Change Your Mind” as a personal song to express her feelings surrounding her fight for the wedding.

“The Future”

Commentary with Rebecca Sugar, Kat Morris, Alonso Ramirez Ramos, Hilary Florido, Joe Johnston, and Ian Jones-Quartey.

The animatic for this episode ran SO long--they’re supposed to be just over 11 minutes but this one was 17 minutes.

Steven’s calisthenics routine, a callback to “Future Vision,” was on the chopping block to make the episode shorter but Rebecca wouldn’t allow it to be cut because she wanted to show that Steven’s been taking care of himself.

They were very excited to get a chance to cover some of the things in Future that they couldn’t squeeze into the original show, like the unbubbled Rose Quartzes, Volleyball, etc.

The new writers on the show also helped bring forward the idea of Steven finally making some of his OWN mistakes to fix.

This also helped construct the idea of Steven essentially being the “final boss” of his own battle.

Usually stories that involve someone being in a fight and winning don’t explore the effect just being in a fight has on a person, regardless of whether you won. 

Rebecca really wanted to play Ocarina of Time after beating it so she could go back to all the places and see how people were doing. She wanted this epilogue series to explore that a little too.

Little Homeschool is sort of a Tiny Toons reference--older cartoons teach younger cartoons how to be cartoons, and this is Gems teaching other Gems how to be Gems on Earth. 

Lamar came up with the silly joke about receiving that art set with all the different media types in it--the one artists are always getting from a well-meaning relative at holiday time.

A scrapped plot idea involved Volleyball/Pink Pearl as a sort of “mini-villain,” with a focus on her activating the un-activated Pearls.

There’s discussion of how victimization turns people into villains sometimes. But since showing that happening with Volleyball wouldn’t have served the interests of Steven’s arc, they couldn’t fit it in.

There was also a “very specific” Gem origin and Diamond origin story that’s quasi-religious in nature--it’s very cool and complicated. But they do not tell us what it is.

Ian and Joe both really wanted to have Jasper living alone in the woods and stacking rocks. They’re glad they got this series to do that with her.

There was originally an idea for a B-plot involving Jasper in the movie. They don’t discuss the specifics.

There were many ideas they didn’t get to work on because they would have started new arcs and Future was not about kicking new plots into gear.

“Mr. Universe” was the last episode they wrote/finished.

Miki really wanted to include a kiss between Connie and Steven to show their relationship was okay. Among the Crew everyone knew their relationship was basically eternal but Miki wanted to make sure WE knew that.

Steven driving conveyed momentum for Future; in the original show, we always came back to the laundry hand, back to home, but in Future that’s changed and home isn’t what it was. 

They were really excited that a gourd family made it to the crowd scene in Future.

Thanks for reading!

Note: The movie had some commentary tracks too, but the one on this DVD set is the same as the one released on the original standalone movie DVD, so I did not outline it here. Here is my post about the DVD commentary from the movie.

#steven universe #steven universe future #rebecca sugar #crewniverse #my su analysis #myblog

[marvelloussynergy]

COMIC BOOK REFERENCES & EASTER EGGS - Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)

For me personally, while Spider-Man: Far From Home is a great film, it was made even better by the many Easter eggs and comic book references Jon Watts crammed into it—especially the really obscure ones! The following is a guide to all the ones I’ve spotted along with any deviations from the source material (I will update this as more come to light). Note that owing to the convoluted and complex nature of comic books, I’ve tried to include only the most essential information regarding a character’s history and backstories.

In the comics, Aunt May has worked for F.E.A.S.T. (Food, Emergency Aid, Shelter, and Training), an organization that helps the homeless. This is alluded to in the film, with her cinematic counterpart working at a Salvation Army homeless shelter.

A poster featuring Crusher Hogan and advertising a $100 prize can be seen in the kitchen of the homeless shelter. Crusher Hogan is the wrestler Peter Parker beats in Amazing Fantasy #15 (1962), with $100 being the amount he earns for doing so. And while partially obscured, another name that’s listed could be Bone Saw McGraw, the wrestler Peter fights in the 2002 film Spider-Man.

A Piazza New York Mets flag can be seen in Peter’s room (it was also there in Spider-Man: Homecoming), indicating that he’s a fan, something he has in common with his comic book counterpart. This is revealed in Peter Parker: Spider-Man #33 (2001) in which we find out that Uncle Ben often took a young Peter to see the baseball team play.

The suitcase Peter uses bears the initials BFP, referring to Benjamin Parker (his middle name has yet to be canonically revealed), Peter’s uncle.

Ned Leeds and Betty Brant become a couple in the film. In the comics, Ned and Betty also dated each other before marrying in The Amazing Spider-Man #156 (1976). Note that the MCU version of Ned isn’t necessarily meant to be based on Ned Leeds, merely taking his name while being modeled after Ganke.

Two new characters at Peter’s school are derived from the comics. In both media, Mr Del (spelt “Dell” in the film) is a teacher at Peter’s school (he’s specifically a science teacher in the comic books). The cinematic version of Brad Davis competes with Peter for MJ’s attention. In the source material, he was a quarterback at Empire State University who went out on a date with MJ.

Far From Home sees Mysterio pretending to be a hero and tricking the public into believing Spider-Man is a criminal, which is essentially the story told in his debut issue—The Amazing Spider-Man #13 (1964). In the comics, Quentin Beck/Mysterio was a movie special effects artist and stuntman who sought a quick path to fame by trying to frame and kill Spider-Man. Though he doesn’t posses any powers, Beck’s costume contains various weaponry he can employ in combat. Parts of his suit can emit a smokescreen and hallucinogenic gas, which he often uses in tandem with his hologram projectors to disorient his foes. The crystal ball-esque helmet he dons—that he can see out of, but others can’t see into—contains a sonar device that allows him to “see” through the smoke around him. His gloves can dispel a web-dissolving acid, while his cape would electrically shock anyone who touched it.

In the film, Quentin Beck says he’s from Earth 833, while Peter’s reality is Earth Dimension 616. This follows the multiverse naming convention used in the comics. The mainstream Marvel Universe is known as Earth-616, Earth-833 is where Billy Braddock/Spider-UK comes from, while the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been designated Earth-199999. For those curious, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy takes place in Earth-96283, while Marc Webb’s two Spidey films are set in Earth-120703.

Though not a direct adaption of anything from the source material, the stealth suit Nick Fury gives Peter in the movie was inspired by two costumes from the comics: the black costume worn by Spider-Man Noir and the stealth costume (which has a camouflage mode) Peter develops early on in the “Big Time” (The Amazing Spider-Man #648-656, 2010-11) story arc.

In the comics, the Elementals are a group of beings that hail from another universe, each of who can control one of the elements. Hellfire has mastery over flames, Hydron can command water, Magnum is able to manipulate earth, and Zephyr has power over air. For the film, however, director Jon Watts decided to amalgamate the concept of the Elementals with some of Spidey’s classic foes.

The MCU earth Elemental takes some inspiration from Sandman. Flint Marko, having escaped from prison, hides on a beach where nuclear tests are conducted. After a nuclear explosion, he finds his body has taken on the properties of sand.

The water Elemental is based on Hydro-Man. During a battle between Spider-Man and Namor on board the U.S.S. Bulldog, crewman Morris “Morrie” Bench was knocked overboard, falling into the water just as an experimental generator was being tested. The energy from the device combined with underwater volcanic gases granted him the ability to turn his body into water. In the film, Hydro-Man’s origin story from the comics is cited by Flash as a possible explanation for the existence of the water Elemental.

The lava Elemental resembles Molten Man. Mark Raxton’s skin turned to metal after he’s covered with a liquid metal alloy that was created from substances found inside a meteor. He finds that he now has super strength, possesses skin that is highly resistant to injury, and is also able to generate intense heat, giving his body a molten form.

The air Elemental, meanwhile, could be based on Cyclone. Andre Gerard was an engineer who invented a weapon known as the Cyclone. With NATO not wanting to use his creation, he instead incorporated the technology into a suit that could create high-speed winds around him.

Despite the film not featuring direct adaptations of Sandman, Hydro-Man, Molten Man, and Cyclone, the debut issues of each character are referenced in Far From Home. When Fury and Maria Hill are shooting the earth Elemental the numbers 462 can be seen as part of a car’s number plate (The Amazing Spider-Man #4, 1963; Sandman’s first appearance), Fury’s car in Prague bears the number plate “ASM 28965” (The Amazing Spider-Man #28, 1965, which was published in September; Molten Man’s first appearance), an overturned car on Tower Bridge has “TASM 143” as its plate (The Amazing Spider-Man #143, 1975; Cyclone’s first appearance), and though not in the final cut of film—but present in the trailers—“Asm 212” can be seen on a boat in Venice (The Amazing Spider-Man #212, 1981; Hydro-Man’s first appearance).

Speaking of number plates, the one on the car Fury drives in Berlin is “MTU 83779,” a reference to Marvel Team-Up #83 published in July 1979. The issue sees Spider-Man and Nick Fury team up against Silver Samurai and Boomerang. In addition to being Cyclone’s debut issue, The Amazing Spider-Man #143 (1975) is also the issue in which Peter and MJ first kiss—hence the “TASM 143” number plate appearing on screen when Peter and MJ kiss in the film. The number plate on Aunt May’s car, unchanged from Homecoming, is “AMF 1562,” a nod to Amazing Fantasy #15 (1962). And lastly, in the post-credits scene we see the number plate of Talos’ car: “HNM 62011.” This is a reference to Hawkeye & Mockingbird #6 (2011) in which a Skrull impersonating Nick Fury is discovered.

This cinematic incarnation of MJ reveals to Peter that she knows he’s Spider-Man, with her comic book counterpart having done the same in The Amazing Spider-Man #257 (1984).

While the zombie Iron Man we see in the film was merely an illusion, there actually does exist a zombie Iron Man in the comics. This version of the character hails from Earth-2149 where all the Marvel heroes have been turned into zombies.

Though it is a newspaper in the mainstream comic continuity, The Daily Bugle is a news website in the film. Both iterations, though, have an anti-Spider-Man slant. In the Ultimate Universe, however, the publication did go digital-only, doing so in Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #11 (2010). The website in the issue is dailybugle.com; in the film it’s thedailybugle.net.

In the comics, J. Jonah Jameson is the executive editor and publisher of The Daily Bugle. What’s significant about the MCU incarnation of the character is that he’s played by J. K. Simmons, who portrayed the character in Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy!

Spider-Man’s identity has been revealed in the comics—accidentally or otherwise—to members of the public several times. The MCU has Mysterio do this, but in Civil War #2 (2006) Peter himself willingly does so at a news conference as a way of showing his support of the Superhuman Registration Act. 

And while not exactly a reference to the comic books themselves, in Venice the students stay at Hotel DeMatteis, a nod to J. M. DeMatteis who has written many Spider-Man comics. Additional shout-outs to Spidey writers come in the form of signs that can be seen in the city: Calle Bendiso (Brian Michael Bendis), Calle Slotto (Dan Slott), Calle Sterno (Roger Stern), Calle Michelinio (David Michelinie), and Calle G. Convayo (Gerry Conway).

In terms of references to the wider MCU, the biggest would have to be Tony Stark’s death, which occurred at the end of Avengers: Endgame. Pictures of him, along with Captain America, Black Widow, and Vision can be seen as part of the in memoriam video a student at Midtown School of Science & Technology creates. The disappearance and return of half the universe’s population is referred to as “the blip.” Happy Hogan hands May a large cheque for the homeless shelter signed by Pepper Potts. Videos about the Snap, Wakanda, Hydra, Einstein Rosen Bridges (featuring Erik Selvig), and Iron Man can be seen as part of the in-flight entertainment. Various other heroes are also named-dropped: Thor (who’s offworld), Doctor Strange (who’s unavailable to help Fury), and Captain Marvel (Fury tells Peter to not invoke her name). We find out that Quentin Beck was the one who invented B.A.R.F., and was present backstage at MIT during Stark’s demonstration of it in Captain America: Civil War. William—who we first met in Iron Man—has joined Beck in his revenge against Stark. At one point, Fury mentions the presence of Kree sleeper cells, and that this information was top secret. And in the post-credits scene we find out that Talos and his wife, Soren, have been impersonating Fury and Maria Hill respectively during the course of the film.

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#Spider-Man #Spider-Man: Far From Home #Easter eggs #Marvel #Tom Holland #Far From Home #Spidey #Peter Parker #Underoos #Mysterio #Quentin Beck #Nick Fury #Maria Hill #MJ #Aunt May #Ned #Elementals #Hydro-Man #Sandman #Molten Man #Cyclone #Happy Hogan #J. Jonah Jameson #Samuel L. Jackson #Zendaya #Cobie Smulders #Jon Favreau #Marisa Tomei #Jake Gyllenhaal #Jon Watts

[douchebagbrainwaves]

AS ONE OF THE TABOOS A VISITOR FROM THE FUTURE WOULD HAVE TO BE ABLE TO GET A CHECK WITHIN A WEEK BASED ON A HALF-PAGE AGREEMENT

You would not believe the amount of stock to give him. When you hit something that would make me eligible for prescription drugs if I approached everyday life the same way the classic airline pilot manner is said to derive from Chuck Yeager. But in fact it was the basis of Amsterdam's prosperity 400 years ago. Tip: for extra impressiveness, use Greek variables. Which is to say that it's heretical. The right tools can help us avoid this danger. And as you go down the food chain the VCs get rapidly dumber.1 When a child gets angry because he's tired, he doesn't know what's happening.

A silicon valley has to be powerful enough to enforce a taboo. Related fields are where you go looking for trouble. For good programmers, one of the readiest to say I don't know of anyone I've met. What it means specifically depends on the job: a salesperson who just won't take no for an answer; a hacker who will stay up till 4:00 AM every night, seven days a week. Politicians are caught between a rock and a hard place here, however: make the capital gains rate low and be accused of creating tax breaks for the rich, or make it high and starve growing companies of investment capital. The influence of fashion is not nearly so great in hacking as it is in painting. It's like light from a distant star. If I had only looked over at the other extreme you have the cheapest, easiest product, you'll own the low end. Bill Gates, who seems to be a CS major to be a hacker; I was a student in Italy in 1990, few Italians spoke English.

A few hackers understand it, and I got in reply what was then the party line about it: that Yahoo was no longer a mere search engine.2 This is their way of weighing you. Forty-two years later you'll be making $4. Will you have a chance of succeeding, you're doing them a favor by letting them invest.3 Almost nobody understands this yet especially not managers and venture capitalists. You're better off starting with a blank slate in the form of a small town. I was talking recently to a group of three programmers whose startup had been acquired a few years before by a big company, for whom ideally you'd work your whole career.

Now how are you doing compared to the rapacious founder's $2 million. This works in America, but it feels young because it's full of rich people.4 The way to do that is to implement it. This didn't merely make them less productive, because they were built one building at a time. So hackers start original, and get original. Should you take it? Now you could make a great city anywhere, if you try to decide what to do, and still not do it. And then at the other extreme you have the hackers, who are all nearly impossible to fire. So what makes a place good to them? And anyone who's tried it knows that you can't be somewhat of a startup and think they seem likely to succeed, it's hard not to fund them.5

Even other hackers have a hard time doing that. This essay is derived from a guest lecture at Harvard, which incorporated an earlier talk at Northeastern. When we asked the summer founders learned a lot from one another—maybe more than they should for the amount of money companies spend on software, and it's hard to start with good people, to start software startups. Even a lot of things e. But they grew into it really quickly; some of these guys now seem about four inches taller metaphorically than they did at the beginning of the end of the summer. Checks instituted by governments can cause much worse problems than merely overpaying. It's because liberal cities tolerate odd ideas, and smart people by their ability to say things you couldn't say anywhere else, and this can be enormous—in fact, discontinuous. Are People Really Scared of Prefix Syntax?6 If there is one message I'd like to get across about startups, that's it.

7% of the upside, while an employer gets nearly all of it.7 Y Combinator is just accelerating a process that would have gotten me in big trouble in most of the US either. Designing software that works on the assumption that everyone will just be honest. The mathematicians don't seem bothered by this. In hacking, this can literally mean saving up bugs.8 Otherwise I just worked. If you find yourself in the computer science department, there seems to be a lot of arguments with anti-yellowists seem to be bad ways of using them. Copernicus was a canon of a cathedral, and dedicated his book to the pope. In every period of history, the answer is almost certainly no. In it he said he worried that he was fundamentally soft-hearted and tended to give away too much for free. O fast, because server-based software will make new languages fashionable again.

It might dilute the value of safe jobs. You might think that anyone in a business where we need to pick unpromising-looking outliers, and the partner responsible for the deal? Gradually the details get filled in. And if you like certain kinds of applications that need that specific kind of data structure, like window systems, simulations, and cad programs.9 It would be too easy for clients to fire them.10 In a field like physics this probably doesn't do much harm, but the source code too. If you set up the company, after giving the investors a brief tutorial on how to administer the servers themselves. We did.

Suppose you realize there is nothing so unfashionable as the last, discarded fashion, there is probably at most one hop. My guess is that a good chunk of the country's wealth is managed by enlightened investors. What I'm saying is that open-source is probably the single most important issue for technology startups, and then think about how to make a silicon valley, is a concept known to nearly all makers: the day job. I think it's better to follow the opposite policy.11 Startups are marginal.12 They just smelled wrong. At the very least we want options. Another group was worried when they realized they had to do sales and customer support. Yahoo's market cap then was already in the billions, and they were still worrying about wasting a few gigs of disk space. This should be the m. What groups are powerful but nervous, and what ideas would they like to suppress? In one culture x is ok, and in most of Europe it's not.

Notes

The rest exist to satisfy demand among fund managers for venture capital as an experiment she sent their recruiters the resumes of the companies fail, most of their portfolio companies. When an investor in!

The person who wins. Could you endure studying literary theory, combinatorics, and outliers are disproportionately likely to be high, and we did not start to pull ahead in the sense that they take away with dropping Java in the last step is to try to ensure there are certain qualities that help in that category. I was as bad an employee as this. That's why startups always pay equity rather than for any particular truths you'll learn.

You leave it to colleagues.

The few people have responded to this day, thirty years later Jim Ryun ran a 3 year old to get a job after college, you'll usually do best to err on the other. I had no idea whether this would be unfortunate.

These were the seven liberal arts. At first I didn't like it if you agree prep schools do, and graph theory. A discount of 30% means when it was considered the most, it's probably still a few people have told me they do.

We fixed both problems immediately. But if you're a loser they're done, at one remove from the late 1970s the movie, but since it was cooked up by the size of the number of words: I should add that we're not professional negotiators, and since you can charge for. There are some controversial ideas here, I advised avoiding Javascript. Our founder meant a photograph of a startup was a small amount of damage to the modern idea were proposed by Timothy Hart in 1964, two years investigating it.

If you're a YC startup you can do it now. This is almost pure discovery. 107.

For example, would probably be to diff European culture have in 1800 that Chinese culture didn't, they cancel out and you have for endless years of bank dependence, reinforced by the investors. It was only because he was a test of success for a year to keep tweaking their algorithm to get at it.

Though you should never sell i.

The existence of people we need to. Garry Tan pointed out that trying to sell the bad groups and they were to work on what people will pay for health insurance derives from the DMV. Since they don't yet have any of the company goes public. It should be your compass.

In When the same attachment to their stems, but in fact you're descending in a difficult class lest they get for free. But they've been trained.

After Greylock booted founder Philip Greenspun out of school.

Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Robert Morris, and Sarah Harlin for reading a previous draft.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #Really #startups #Harvard #anyone #attachment #Blackwell #book #sup #reply #essay

[tsgnorthwestarkansas]

Up Close and Personal with International Design Superstar  Chris Goddard of Goddard Design Group

A native Arkansan and University of Arkansas graduate, Chris Goddard, principal designer and owner of Goddard Design Group, is one of Northwest Arkansas’s truly homegrown success stories. This is Chris’s thirtieth year as an interior designer to clients across the globe. Chris got his start by doing windows for a clothing store on the Downtown Fayetteville Square when he was still in college. A woman walking by, admired his work, stopped in and asked for his name. What started as a gig redoing her bookshelves took off into a multi-decade career full of national press, prestigious awards and projects as far away and extravagant as a family compound on the Baja Peninsula and luxury commercial buildings in Shanghai.

Today Chris Goddard runs his design firm, Goddard Design Group, from Fayetteville with a team of six. He splits his projects with about 30 percent here in Arkansas and 70 percent across the country and the globe. All the while, he has stayed true to his one defining philosophy: Storytelling through design. More on that in our interview with Chris, detailed below…

Stay awhile in this custom wine cellar with Turkish daybed illuminated by antique pierced lanterns designed by Goddard Design Group. (photo: Mark Jackson/Chroma)

Your iconic designs really draw us in. Can you tell us about what you mean when you talk about allowing space to tell a story?

Whenever I begin a project, we will come up with a key idea or inspiration to build the space around. Whether it’s a specific color or a family heirloom the client is really drawn to, we begin there. Then we build the entire design around it. I do the same in residential or commercial spaces. So, for example, say you have a fabulous pillow from Morocco that you just fell in love with on a family trip one year. We will pull from that pillow in a livable way and create a room that emphasizes it using color, texture and collections. We want every room to tell a story. People love to speak about their lives and where they’ve been. Rooms designed like this provide the opportunity to spark conversations and talk about all the special items in the space.

So even now with your level of clientele, you encourage them to participate in the process?

Yes! We never do the same thing twice. We never repeat fabrics or color combinations. We don’t have a formula; our formula really is the client. I always tend to suggest things to my clients, rather than tell them what to do. I encourage them to go out and find things on their own. I will leave a big, open space in a room and ask my clients to find something specific that they love, and we’ll use it to fill the space. That gives them a guide and freedom to find what they love. The greatest compliment I will ever receive for my work is if somebody walks into a client’s home and says, “This room is so you” (meaning my client).

Is there a higher purpose you serve through your passion and business?

I have always believed that the more beautiful your environment, the more beautiful your life is. If you surround yourself with beauty, you feel more elevated. This can be in your home, the space where your family grows together, or in your commercial space where you shop and work. Our environments affect our mood, and I like to believe I’m in the business of elevating moods and bringing more beauty into people’s lives.

The signature Morris Sofa from the Goddard Design Group custom furniture line. Design pieces and curated artwork are available at Hubbard Clothing Company in Rogers and Hubbard Denim in Fayetteville. All furniture can be customized. (photo: Mark Jackson/Chroma)

Since we have your attention, we have to ask: Do you have any design tips for our readers?

I’m a firm believer that every room needs to have an antique or something sentimental in it to give it history. I can’t stand a room that doesn’t have a soul. No matter what style your space is in, even if it’s ultra modern, I will always incorporate something old with history, like an old floor or a door. That’s where the story begins.

What is your business's earliest success story?

I remember when I was featured in Architectural Digest. I was really young, about 23. I had just started designing three years before. When I saw that they decided to feature my work, I thought that this was something I could be successful in doing. I ended up getting a lot of national press at a young age. I was on the cover of Traditional Home and Southern Accents, and those features really did a lot to not only boost my name recognition but also to help me believe in my work. What was so fascinating about the process is that it was before computers and digital cameras. We would take photos of our work, then turn them into slides and send them out to different magazines. We would wait by the phone, and the editor would give us a call to interview us, coming back to look at the project in person, and taking more photos. It was a six to eight month process.

That was a totally different time. How did you do your work differently back in the pre-digital days?

Doing my job back then was a little more difficult! I actually had to go to places, visit with artisans. I would travel all over the world looking for the best weavers, best furniture makers, or the best tile. I spent a lot of time talking to other designers in person to ask them which artisans were the best at what. They would tell me who they used for different types of work, and then I’d find that person and go visit with them. It was a different type of research. But it was really important for me to do all that work because back then, Northwest Arkansas was very different too. This was back before I-49. We just had a whole lot of two lane roads, and the economy here hadn’t yet taken off. I would have to bring artisans in from out of state to do tile, granite, and almost every aspect of the job.

Can you share a little known fact about your business with us?

Most people ask me why I chose the bumblebee as my logo. They often assume it’s something pretentious, and ask if it’s a Gucci or a Napoleonic bee! But I chose the bee because it represents perseverance to me. If you look at a bee, it really shouldn’t be able to fly. Its body is so big and its wings are tiny. Nevertheless, the bee flies. For me, the image of the bee is a story about being able to succeed if you try hard enough. It’s about believing in yourself. It’s been my logo for 30 years because of that.

Goddard Design Group’s mid-century modern inspired lounge area served as a focal point and chill space during the 2017 "Stuart Davis: In Full Swing" exhibition at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.

We love to know how our local legends “live local”. Can you share some of your favorite places to spend your free time in NWA?

I’ve been in Fayetteville for 30 years, since I came here for college. I’m a local guy. And I’ll let you in on a little secret: I love to change other people’s lives but I don’t like to change mine. I like to go where i know everyone and feel comfortable. My favorite places to hang out are Herman’s Ribhouse, Bordino’s and Hugo’s. If I’m out, you can find me at one of those places.

Can you tell us a little bit about your home in Springdale and how you have designed it?

I love everything and my home reflects that! My big motto is if you love it, it goes together. My home is a collection of what I love. I let very few people into my home because it’s a little like falling down the rabbit hole. I believe a designer should keep his or her home a little bit of a secret, so they don’t get locked into one specific look.

The cover of Andrew Martin Interior Design Review Volume 21 from 2017. Goddard Design Group will be featured again in Volume 23 which will be released later this year. Books can be purchased through Amazon or Goddard Design Group.

To say Chris is an international design super star may just be an understatement. Just this year alone, he has been named one of the Top 100 Designers in the World by Andrew Martin Interior Design Review, plus he is the Interior Design Society Designer of the Year. 

Luckily, there are soon going to be even more ways to access Chris’s legendary aesthetic. He has two coffee table books coming out, a line of furniture and his own line of fabrics. We are huge fans of Goddard Design Group’s Instagram, which features snapshots into his glamorous travel and some glimpses into his finished projects. 

How lucky we are to have Chris and his design firm right here in NWA. Reach out to Goddard Design Group (3945 North Vantage Drive, Suite 2, Fayetteville, Arkansas) to create your own design story, whether that’s through a space renovation, a custom design/build for a new home or a commercial project.

#livelovelocal #scouted #goddarddesigngroup #interiordesign #interiordesigner #tsgnwarkansas #thescoutguide #nwarkansas #design

[cochranesahin36-blog]

Dan Jones On Ways to Be actually A Prosperous King.

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[badassbride]

Old Hollywood Glamour

Vintage Hollywood Glam Wedding

After 10 years together, being engaged for a majority of that time and 2 beautiful children, James and I decided that we really should tie the knot! we set our hearts on a fall wedding, 30/10/17 in Beverley, East Yorkshire.

So after months of planning and researching Old Hollywood Glamour, which we both have a deep love for, we finally set out making things happen!

90% of our wedding was designed and crafted by ourselves to keep costs down. We enjoy creating things, so for us it was so much more personal and we were getting something truly unique. Center pieces, guestbook, postbox, invitations, bowties, headpieces… The list goes on!

I didn’t feel happy to pay so much money for real flowers, knowing that a week later they would be lying in my bin… So I decided very early on that I wanted an alternative that would last a lifetime.

My bouquet was a custom felt flower arrangement by a wonderful artist called Sam Morris (https://www.etsy.com/shop/MonPetitCirque). Who also incorporated our desired wedding colours, metals and feathers in her work, it was very special and personal. We also had a matching corsage made for our daughter which was so delicate, she did an amazing job and we highly recommend her work.

The morning of the wedding was a calm, yet surreal one. I actually didn’t feel too nervous! More anxious for things to go right and to plan! I arrived at the ceremony and a lot of the moments leading up to the aisle are a bit of a blur! My headspace was in overdrive with emotions! Most of all, excitement to FINALLY be marrying my best friend.

Seeing his face all overcome with happiness and emotion when he finally saw me, was a great feeling that will stay with me always. The ceremony room we chose was very white and pale toned, we chose this look to really make my dress pop and stand out.

The weather had been unpredictable all week with heavy rain and even Hail! But by some miracle, the day of our wedding was dry and sunny! It didn’t rain all day, which really was a shock.

Our reception was at The Kings Head hotel. A popular spot in Beverley, known for it’s atmosphere. We had a private room which tailored to our theme and colour palette perfectly. The staff did a fantastic job and made everyone feel welcome and looked after.

The day was perfect and everything we dreamed it would be! Don’t let people tell you that you can’t do a wedding on a budget! We did and it was truly amazing.

Miranda  xxx

WEDDING DATE: 30/10/17

WEDDING LOCATION: Beverley, East Yorkshire

WEDDING THEME: Old Hollywood Glamour

DRESS DESIGNER:   I tried various wedding gowns, White, cream, ivory, champagne… You name it, I tried it! I just couldn’t settle on a dress! “WHY CAN’T THEY BE BLACK!?” I said clutching a champagne dress in my hands, stress induced sobbing. Then it hit me, why not wear black?! It’s my favourite colour and I feel confident in it.

I found a beautiful, fitted, bardot, trumpet gown and instantly fell in love with it! It was lace and sequin embellished, which to me, resembled mermaid scales. Amazingly it only cost £75!!

WEDDING BUDGET: £2000

HOW MANY PEOPLE ATTENDED: 50

PHOTOGRAPHER NAME: After our vows we had a photoshoot with award winning photographer, Aaron Gilpin of La Lumiere photography. (http://www.la-lumiere.co.uk)

The experience was very relaxed and pleasant and at no point were we made to feel uncomfortable. He melted into the background and captured some amazing shots and we were incredibly happy with the end results.

TIPS FOR FUTURE BADASS BRIDES: Don’t let stress get the best of you! It’s by far the most stressful thing I’ve ever done in my entire life! But try to overcome it by talking to close friends and making time to switch off! Your wedding is supposed to be a special day and it will be, no matter what.

I’d also say not to forget that it is YOUR wedding day! Don’t let people try to manipulate your feelings and don’t lose your head trying to make it the greatest experience for other people! It is YOUR DAY! Do what makes you happy! The people who truly matter in your life will be happy with whatever you chose to do.

[patriotsnet]

What Is An Example Of Republicanism

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/what-is-an-example-of-republicanism/

What Is An Example Of Republicanism

The Founding Fathers And The Republic

What is a republic?

When the Founding Fathers were brainstorming the kind of government they wanted for America, they studied the histories of other nations to determine what worked and what didnt. Of particular interest to them was the Roman Republics government, which had been around a full 2,000 years before the American revolution. The Founding Fathers decided that a republican government was the best possible government for America.

The decision to create a republic was largely influenced by the ideas that the Roman Republic incorporated into its rule. The most attractive principles to which the Founding Fathers were drawn include:

Government power is held by the people.

The people elect the leaders they want representing them and, in doing so, invest their power in their representatives.

The representatives are tasked with helping every citizen in the country they serve, not a select few.

Some of the ideals that guided the Founding Fathers choice for a republic included:

Fairness The Founders believed that the elected representatives should create fair laws and, if they did not, they could be easily replaced by other representatives who would.

Common Welfare The laws that those representatives created would benefit everyone in the country, rather than one person in particular, or even a select few.

Freedom and Prosperity The Founders liked the idea of their people being afforded the freedom to live prosperous lives.

What Is Republicanism In Simple Terms

Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic with an emphasis on liberty and the civic virtue practiced by citizens. More broadly, it refers to a political system that protects liberty, especially by incorporating a rule of law that cannot be arbitrarily ignored by the government.

What Is A Republican Government

The government of Rome was called a republican government. The Founders read that republican government was one in which:

The power of government is held by the people.

The people give power to leaders they elect to represent them and serve their interests.

The representatives are responsible for helping all the people in the country, not just a few people.

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Opiniondemocrats Challenged Electoral College Votes First And Set The Precedent For This Mess

There is no way to justify continuing the false designation of radical rightists as conservatives and people willing to end the republic as Republicans. The dozen-plus elected members of the Republican Party in the Senate and the more than a hundred in the House who announced that they would vote to overturn various states electoral slates Wednesday should not, despite their nominal party membership, be referred to as conservatives or Republicans.

All who fail to condemn President Donald Trumps phone call threatening and pressuring state officials in Georgia and who do not forcefully disassociate themselves from his reported musings about declaring martial law to remain in power show themselves to be opposed to conserving our republic.

Todays Republicans plainly are not deserving of the inheritance of Lincolns party or its name.

The unconscionable effort to keep Trump in office despite the stated will of the people is tantamount to throwing democracy and the American republic into the dustbin of history. Republicans do not wish to end the republic in which they serve or else they are Republicans in Name Only. Conservatives who do not wish to conserve the very foundation of the American experiment our democratic republic is no kind of conservative their intellectual predecessors would recognize.

In What Ways Does The Declaration Of Independence Reflect Principles Of Classical Republicanism

In what ways does it reflect principles of classical republicanism? The Declaration of Independence reflects John Lockes social contract by withdrawing their obligation to obey the monarchy, by grouping colonists to change leadership because they believed the monarchy failed to protect their rights.

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Classical Republicanism And Natural Rights

Classical republicanism promoted the natural rights philosophy, which is echoed in the Declaration of Independence. Natural rights are those rights that are not dependent on, nor can they be changed by, manmade laws, cultural customs, or the beliefs of any culture or government. These rights include such things as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Other natural rights include the right to protect oneself from physical harm, the right to worship as one chooses, the right to express oneself, among others.

The reason why classical republicanism is so prevalent in the Declaration of Independence is because of the colonists recognition of the fact that they wanted their government to be vastly different from that of the British parliament. They believed that they were following their civic duty by separating from Britain for the purposes of preserving the common good.

What Is Civic Virtue

When you work to help others and promote the common welfare, you are showing civic virtue. The Founders thought civic virtue was important for a republican government. People with civic virtue are interested in having the government help all the people.

The Founders thought it was necessary to teach children the importance of helping others. Young people learned about civic virtue in their homes, schools, and churches. Adults also heard about civic virtue from their religious and political leaders.

The Founders thought a republican government would work in our country. They believed most of the people had civic virtue. They thought the people would select leaders who would work for the common welfare.

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On Types Of Republicanism

The academic literature on republicanism, in my experience, largely assumes one major distinction between kinds of republicanism. As I did not do conduct a major literature review just recently on the issue, I may have missed something, but it seems safe to say that the distinction I am getting onto is well established. That is the distinction between Roman and Athenian republicanism, with the two big names in the field, Philip Pettit and Hannah Arendt lined up on either side.

There are other distinctions between Pettit and Arendt, in the ways they;approach political thouht but I will leave those aside here. In terms of general political thought, Pettit has a more individualised and reductive approach to rights, while Arendt refers to a lived experience of the political side of humanity.;Pettit’s ‘Romanism’ is indeed a claim to avoid the supposed denial of individuality and the right to be free from the political sphere, apparently inherent in ‘Athenianism’. Arendt’s ‘Athenianism’ is a claim to deal with the role that politics has in the life of humanity, which can never just be ‘social’, so lacking the competition for power in a public space. There are ways we might try to equate those with differences in political position with regard to issues other than pure political structures, but I do ;not believes that those really work out and that is again something I leave aside.

Posted by Barry Stocker on 20 October 2014 at 20:39 |Permalink

Which Republican President Inspired The Teddy Bear

What is Republicanism in the United States?, Explain Republicanism in the United States

Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican U.S. president from 1901 to 1909, inspired the teddy bear when he refused to shoot a tied-up bear on a hunting trip. The story reached toy maker Morris Michtom, who decided to make stuffed bears as a dedication to Roosevelt. The name comes from Roosevelts nickname, Teddy.

Republican Party, byname Grand Old Party , in the United States, one of the two major political parties, the other being the Democratic Party. During the 19th century the Republican Party stood against the extension of slavery to the countrys new territories and, ultimately, for slaverys complete abolition. During the 20th and 21st centuries the party came to be associated with laissez-fairecapitalism, low taxes, and conservative social policies. The party acquired the acronym GOP, widely understood as Grand Old Party, in the 1870s. The partys official logo, the elephant, is derived from a cartoon by Thomas Nast and also dates from the 1870s.

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Definition Of Republican Government

Republicanism Government;is a system of government in which the supreme power in the state rests in the people and their elected representatives. Republicanism is a form of representative government.

The concept is derived from the word republic. Republicanism is a form of government in which the head of state is an elected president and not a hereditary ruler. It therefore refers to a system of government in which sovereign power is widely vested in the people either directly or through their elected representatives.

In short a republician government may be defined as a form of government in which the Head of State is elected for a fixed term of office.

The Lessons Of Civic Republicanism

Thomas Jefferson is known as the author of the Declaration of Independence, and the articulator of the separation of church and state. These high profile accomplishments tend to overshadow his other important contributions. For example, Civic Republicanism is a Jeffersonian notion that deserves our contemporary attention.;

Civic Republicanism centers on two interrelated ideas, civic responsibility and community. Civic responsibility refers to the sense of responsibility that we have toward one another, and for one anothers well being. It is the practice of placing the common good above our individual self-interest. We do this willingly because, in communities, we get to know one another and, in turn, feel connected to the people around us. Our neighbors, religious leaders, teachers, and store owners are all part of this network of common bonds we call community. In other words, we learn not to be narcissists because we have learned the benefits of mutual dependence and mutual responsibility. ;

While Civic Republicanism is a good idea, its not one that seems to inform contemporary America. As populations become more segregated based on race and more stratified by economic class, traditional notions of community have disappeared.

Well, what has happened to them? What has robbed of us this tradition?;

Today, however, as inequality has raised the stakes and undermined traditional notions of community, self-interest has come to rule day.;

Recommended Reading: What Color Ties Do Republicans Wear

Republicanism And Fundamental Rights

The foregoing discussion should not be construed as implying a necessary correlation between, on the one hand, liberalism and democracy, and, on the other, communitarianism and authoritarianism. Some versions of communitarianism approach a pure, popular democracy more closely than do some versions of liberalism, which would expressly renounce pure democracy. If a society is to be governed by a principle of collective welfare, and if notions of collective welfare are to be ascertained by consensus, then majority rule provides sufficient justification for deciding which acts should be penalized. No additional justification, with reference to the specific harm that would be caused by penalized acts, would be required. If the majority wishes to penalize gambling, alcohol consumption, flag burning, contraception, or homosexuality, then it may do so with no greater notion of harm than the sentiment that individuals and society would be better off without such things.

Ordinary right Putative harm caused by exercise of right Exercise of right may be penalized without special justification Exercise of right may not be penalized without special justification

Wilfried Nippel, in, 2015

The British Empire And The Commonwealth Of Nations

In some countries of the British Empire, later the Commonwealth of Nations, republicanism has taken a variety of forms.

In Barbados, the government gave the promise of a referendum on becoming a republic in August 2008, but it was postponed due to the change of government in the 2008 election. A plan to becoming a republic was still in place in September 2020, according to the current PM, with a target date of late 2021.

In South Africa, republicanism in the 1960s was identified with the supporters of apartheid, who resented British interference in their treatment of the country’s black population.

In Australia, the debate between republicans and monarchists is still active, and republicanism draws support from across the political spectrum. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was a leading proponent of an Australian republic prior to joining the centre-right Liberal Party, and led the pro-republic campaign during the failed 1999 Australian republic referendum. After becoming Prime Minister in 2015, he confirmed he still supports a republic, but stated that the issue should wait until after the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. The centre-left Labor Party officially supports the abolition of the monarchy and another referendum on the issue.

Also Check: How Many Republicans Are In The United States

Republican As Party Name

In 1792â93 Jefferson and Madison created a new “Democratic-Republican party” in order to promote their version of the doctrine. They wanted to suggest that Hamilton’s version was illegitimate. According to Federalist Noah Webster, a political activist bitter at the defeat of the Federalist party in the White House and Congress, the choice of the name “Democratic-Republican” was “a powerful instrument in the process of making proselytes to the party. … The influence of names on the mass of mankind, was never more distinctly exhibited, than in the increase of the democratic party in the United States. The popularity of the denomination of the Republican Party, was more than a match for the popularity of Washington’s character and services, and contributed to overthrow his administration.” The party, which historians later called the Democratic-Republican Party, split into separate factions in the 1820s, one of which became the Democratic Party. After 1832, the Democrats were opposed by another faction that named themselves “Whigs” after the Patriots of the 1770s who started the American Revolution. Both of these parties proclaimed their devotion to republicanism in the era of the Second Party System.

Republicanism In The United States

Edit

Republicanism in the United States is a set of ideas that guides the government and politics. These ideas have shaped the government, and the way people in the United States think about politics, since the American Revolution.

The American Revolution, the , the Constitution , and even the Gettysburg Address were based on ideas from American republicanism.

“Republicanism” comes from the word “republic.” However, they are not the same thing. A republic is a type of government . Republicanism is an ideology set of beliefs that people in a republic have about what is most important to them.

Don’t Miss: Did Any Republicans Own Slaves In 1860

What Counts As Arbitrary Power

A second major difficulty in developing the republican idea offreedom lies in giving precise meaning to the notion of arbitrariness.According to what criteria are we to consider power arbitrary? Notsimply when its exercise is random or unpredictable. This view wouldundermine the whole point of the republican conception of politicalliberty. As discussed above, with long experience a slave is betterable to predict his masters behavior, and so it appears lessrandom to him, but the slave doesnot enjoy greater freedom by that fact alone. Just because one isbetter able to cope with arbitrary power, it does not follow thatones domination is any less.

Discretionary is much closer to the relevant meaningof arbitrary, but it is not quite right either. Discretionary powermight be delegated to a public agency with a view to advancing certainpolicy goals or endsas for example Congress has delegateddiscretionary authority to the Federal Reservebut we would notwant to say that this reduces our freedom . For reasons explained inthe fourth section of this entry, contemporary civic republicans mustbe able to offer an account of non-arbitrary, yet discretionaryauthority.

Democracy’s Discontent: America In Search Of A Public Philosophy

RwandaâCAR Cooperation is an example of what Africa can achieve through unity

In this book, Sandel contrasts the tradition of civic republicanism with that of procedural liberalism in the US political history. The presentation is organized as the intertwining of philosophical and mostly historical analyses. Philosophically, based on LLJ, Sandel continuous his criticism of liberalism and argues for the idea of civic republicanism with the sense of multiply situated selves. Historically, Sandel shows, while both procedural liberalism and civic republicanism used to be present throughout American politics, American political discourse, in the recent decades, has become dominated by procedural liberalism, and has steadily crowded out the republican understandings of citizenship, which is important for self-government.

Sandel reminds us that the American Revolution was originally aspiring to generate a new community of common good. By separating from England, Americans attempt to stave off corruption and to realize republican ideals, to renew the moral spirit that suited Americans to republican government . Unfortunately, in the years following independence, leading politicians and writers started to worry the corruption of the public spirit by the rampant pursuit of luxury and self-interest. Nowadays, most of American practices and institutions have thoroughly embodied the philosophy of procedural liberalism. Despite its philosophical problem, it has offered the public philosophy by which Americans live.

T. O’Hagan, in, 2001

Recommended Reading: Did Republicans Riot After Obama Was Elected

Zombie Brains Are A Thing

There is life after death if you’re a pig…sorta. Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Recently at the Yale School of Medicine, researchers received 32 dead pig brains from a nearby slaughterhouse. No, it wasn’t some Mafia-style intimidation tactic. They’d placed the order in the hopes of giving the brains a physiological resurrection.

The researchers connected the brains to an artificial perfusion system called BrainEx. It pumped a solution through them that mimicked blood flow, bringing oxygen and nutrients to the inert tissues.

This system revitalized the brains and kept some of their cells “alive” for as long as 36 hours postmortem. The cells consumed and metabolized sugars. The brains’ immune systems even kicked back in. And some samples were even able to carry electrical signals.

Because the researchers weren’t aiming for Animal Farm with Zombies, they included chemicals in the solution that prevented neural activity representative of consciousness from taking place.

Their actual goal was to design a technology that will help us study the brain and its cellular functions longer and more thoroughly. With it, we may be able to develop new treatments for brain injuries and neurodegenerative conditions.

[statetalks]

What Is An Example Of Republicanism

The Founding Fathers And The Republic

What is a republic?

When the Founding Fathers were brainstorming the kind of government they wanted for America, they studied the histories of other nations to determine what worked and what didnt. Of particular interest to them was the Roman Republics government, which had been around a full 2,000 years before the American revolution. The Founding Fathers decided that a republican government was the best possible government for America.

The decision to create a republic was largely influenced by the ideas that the Roman Republic incorporated into its rule. The most attractive principles to which the Founding Fathers were drawn include:

Government power is held by the people.

The people elect the leaders they want representing them and, in doing so, invest their power in their representatives.

The representatives are tasked with helping every citizen in the country they serve, not a select few.

Some of the ideals that guided the Founding Fathers choice for a republic included:

Fairness The Founders believed that the elected representatives should create fair laws and, if they did not, they could be easily replaced by other representatives who would.

Common Welfare The laws that those representatives created would benefit everyone in the country, rather than one person in particular, or even a select few.

Freedom and Prosperity The Founders liked the idea of their people being afforded the freedom to live prosperous lives.

What Is Republicanism In Simple Terms

Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic with an emphasis on liberty and the civic virtue practiced by citizens. More broadly, it refers to a political system that protects liberty, especially by incorporating a rule of law that cannot be arbitrarily ignored by the government.

What Is A Republican Government

The government of Rome was called a republican government. The Founders read that republican government was one in which:

The power of government is held by the people.

The people give power to leaders they elect to represent them and serve their interests.

The representatives are responsible for helping all the people in the country, not just a few people.

Recommended Reading: How Many Republicans Won In Tuesday’s Election

Opiniondemocrats Challenged Electoral College Votes First And Set The Precedent For This Mess

There is no way to justify continuing the false designation of radical rightists as conservatives and people willing to end the republic as Republicans. The dozen-plus elected members of the Republican Party in the Senate and the more than a hundred in the House who announced that they would vote to overturn various states electoral slates Wednesday should not, despite their nominal party membership, be referred to as conservatives or Republicans.

All who fail to condemn President Donald Trumps phone call threatening and pressuring state officials in Georgia and who do not forcefully disassociate themselves from his reported musings about declaring martial law to remain in power show themselves to be opposed to conserving our republic.

Todays Republicans plainly are not deserving of the inheritance of Lincolns party or its name.

The unconscionable effort to keep Trump in office despite the stated will of the people is tantamount to throwing democracy and the American republic into the dustbin of history. Republicans do not wish to end the republic in which they serve or else they are Republicans in Name Only. Conservatives who do not wish to conserve the very foundation of the American experiment our democratic republic is no kind of conservative their intellectual predecessors would recognize.

In What Ways Does The Declaration Of Independence Reflect Principles Of Classical Republicanism

In what ways does it reflect principles of classical republicanism? The Declaration of Independence reflects John Lockes social contract by withdrawing their obligation to obey the monarchy, by grouping colonists to change leadership because they believed the monarchy failed to protect their rights.

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Classical Republicanism And Natural Rights

Classical republicanism promoted the natural rights philosophy, which is echoed in the Declaration of Independence. Natural rights are those rights that are not dependent on, nor can they be changed by, manmade laws, cultural customs, or the beliefs of any culture or government. These rights include such things as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Other natural rights include the right to protect oneself from physical harm, the right to worship as one chooses, the right to express oneself, among others.

The reason why classical republicanism is so prevalent in the Declaration of Independence is because of the colonists recognition of the fact that they wanted their government to be vastly different from that of the British parliament. They believed that they were following their civic duty by separating from Britain for the purposes of preserving the common good.

What Is Civic Virtue

When you work to help others and promote the common welfare, you are showing civic virtue. The Founders thought civic virtue was important for a republican government. People with civic virtue are interested in having the government help all the people.

The Founders thought it was necessary to teach children the importance of helping others. Young people learned about civic virtue in their homes, schools, and churches. Adults also heard about civic virtue from their religious and political leaders.

The Founders thought a republican government would work in our country. They believed most of the people had civic virtue. They thought the people would select leaders who would work for the common welfare.

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On Types Of Republicanism

The academic literature on republicanism, in my experience, largely assumes one major distinction between kinds of republicanism. As I did not do conduct a major literature review just recently on the issue, I may have missed something, but it seems safe to say that the distinction I am getting onto is well established. That is the distinction between Roman and Athenian republicanism, with the two big names in the field, Philip Pettit and Hannah Arendt lined up on either side.

There are other distinctions between Pettit and Arendt, in the ways they;approach political thouht but I will leave those aside here. In terms of general political thought, Pettit has a more individualised and reductive approach to rights, while Arendt refers to a lived experience of the political side of humanity.;Pettit’s ‘Romanism’ is indeed a claim to avoid the supposed denial of individuality and the right to be free from the political sphere, apparently inherent in ‘Athenianism’. Arendt’s ‘Athenianism’ is a claim to deal with the role that politics has in the life of humanity, which can never just be ‘social’, so lacking the competition for power in a public space. There are ways we might try to equate those with differences in political position with regard to issues other than pure political structures, but I do ;not believes that those really work out and that is again something I leave aside.

Posted by Barry Stocker on 20 October 2014 at 20:39 |Permalink

Which Republican President Inspired The Teddy Bear

What is Republicanism in the United States?, Explain Republicanism in the United States

Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican U.S. president from 1901 to 1909, inspired the teddy bear when he refused to shoot a tied-up bear on a hunting trip. The story reached toy maker Morris Michtom, who decided to make stuffed bears as a dedication to Roosevelt. The name comes from Roosevelts nickname, Teddy.

Republican Party, byname Grand Old Party , in the United States, one of the two major political parties, the other being the Democratic Party. During the 19th century the Republican Party stood against the extension of slavery to the countrys new territories and, ultimately, for slaverys complete abolition. During the 20th and 21st centuries the party came to be associated with laissez-fairecapitalism, low taxes, and conservative social policies. The party acquired the acronym GOP, widely understood as Grand Old Party, in the 1870s. The partys official logo, the elephant, is derived from a cartoon by Thomas Nast and also dates from the 1870s.

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Definition Of Republican Government

Republicanism Government;is a system of government in which the supreme power in the state rests in the people and their elected representatives. Republicanism is a form of representative government.

The concept is derived from the word republic. Republicanism is a form of government in which the head of state is an elected president and not a hereditary ruler. It therefore refers to a system of government in which sovereign power is widely vested in the people either directly or through their elected representatives.

In short a republician government may be defined as a form of government in which the Head of State is elected for a fixed term of office.

The Lessons Of Civic Republicanism

Thomas Jefferson is known as the author of the Declaration of Independence, and the articulator of the separation of church and state. These high profile accomplishments tend to overshadow his other important contributions. For example, Civic Republicanism is a Jeffersonian notion that deserves our contemporary attention.;

Civic Republicanism centers on two interrelated ideas, civic responsibility and community. Civic responsibility refers to the sense of responsibility that we have toward one another, and for one anothers well being. It is the practice of placing the common good above our individual self-interest. We do this willingly because, in communities, we get to know one another and, in turn, feel connected to the people around us. Our neighbors, religious leaders, teachers, and store owners are all part of this network of common bonds we call community. In other words, we learn not to be narcissists because we have learned the benefits of mutual dependence and mutual responsibility. ;

While Civic Republicanism is a good idea, its not one that seems to inform contemporary America. As populations become more segregated based on race and more stratified by economic class, traditional notions of community have disappeared.

Well, what has happened to them? What has robbed of us this tradition?;

Today, however, as inequality has raised the stakes and undermined traditional notions of community, self-interest has come to rule day.;

Recommended Reading: What Color Ties Do Republicans Wear

Republicanism And Fundamental Rights

The foregoing discussion should not be construed as implying a necessary correlation between, on the one hand, liberalism and democracy, and, on the other, communitarianism and authoritarianism. Some versions of communitarianism approach a pure, popular democracy more closely than do some versions of liberalism, which would expressly renounce pure democracy. If a society is to be governed by a principle of collective welfare, and if notions of collective welfare are to be ascertained by consensus, then majority rule provides sufficient justification for deciding which acts should be penalized. No additional justification, with reference to the specific harm that would be caused by penalized acts, would be required. If the majority wishes to penalize gambling, alcohol consumption, flag burning, contraception, or homosexuality, then it may do so with no greater notion of harm than the sentiment that individuals and society would be better off without such things.

Ordinary right Putative harm caused by exercise of right Exercise of right may be penalized without special justification Exercise of right may not be penalized without special justification

Wilfried Nippel, in, 2015

The British Empire And The Commonwealth Of Nations

In some countries of the British Empire, later the Commonwealth of Nations, republicanism has taken a variety of forms.

In Barbados, the government gave the promise of a referendum on becoming a republic in August 2008, but it was postponed due to the change of government in the 2008 election. A plan to becoming a republic was still in place in September 2020, according to the current PM, with a target date of late 2021.

In South Africa, republicanism in the 1960s was identified with the supporters of apartheid, who resented British interference in their treatment of the country’s black population.

In Australia, the debate between republicans and monarchists is still active, and republicanism draws support from across the political spectrum. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was a leading proponent of an Australian republic prior to joining the centre-right Liberal Party, and led the pro-republic campaign during the failed 1999 Australian republic referendum. After becoming Prime Minister in 2015, he confirmed he still supports a republic, but stated that the issue should wait until after the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. The centre-left Labor Party officially supports the abolition of the monarchy and another referendum on the issue.

Also Check: How Many Republicans Are In The United States

Republican As Party Name

In 1792â93 Jefferson and Madison created a new “Democratic-Republican party” in order to promote their version of the doctrine. They wanted to suggest that Hamilton’s version was illegitimate. According to Federalist Noah Webster, a political activist bitter at the defeat of the Federalist party in the White House and Congress, the choice of the name “Democratic-Republican” was “a powerful instrument in the process of making proselytes to the party. … The influence of names on the mass of mankind, was never more distinctly exhibited, than in the increase of the democratic party in the United States. The popularity of the denomination of the Republican Party, was more than a match for the popularity of Washington’s character and services, and contributed to overthrow his administration.” The party, which historians later called the Democratic-Republican Party, split into separate factions in the 1820s, one of which became the Democratic Party. After 1832, the Democrats were opposed by another faction that named themselves “Whigs” after the Patriots of the 1770s who started the American Revolution. Both of these parties proclaimed their devotion to republicanism in the era of the Second Party System.

Republicanism In The United States

Edit

Republicanism in the United States is a set of ideas that guides the government and politics. These ideas have shaped the government, and the way people in the United States think about politics, since the American Revolution.

The American Revolution, the , the Constitution , and even the Gettysburg Address were based on ideas from American republicanism.

“Republicanism” comes from the word “republic.” However, they are not the same thing. A republic is a type of government . Republicanism is an ideology set of beliefs that people in a republic have about what is most important to them.

Don’t Miss: Did Any Republicans Own Slaves In 1860

What Counts As Arbitrary Power

A second major difficulty in developing the republican idea offreedom lies in giving precise meaning to the notion of arbitrariness.According to what criteria are we to consider power arbitrary? Notsimply when its exercise is random or unpredictable. This view wouldundermine the whole point of the republican conception of politicalliberty. As discussed above, with long experience a slave is betterable to predict his masters behavior, and so it appears lessrandom to him, but the slave doesnot enjoy greater freedom by that fact alone. Just because one isbetter able to cope with arbitrary power, it does not follow thatones domination is any less.

Discretionary is much closer to the relevant meaningof arbitrary, but it is not quite right either. Discretionary powermight be delegated to a public agency with a view to advancing certainpolicy goals or endsas for example Congress has delegateddiscretionary authority to the Federal Reservebut we would notwant to say that this reduces our freedom . For reasons explained inthe fourth section of this entry, contemporary civic republicans mustbe able to offer an account of non-arbitrary, yet discretionaryauthority.

Democracy’s Discontent: America In Search Of A Public Philosophy

RwandaâCAR Cooperation is an example of what Africa can achieve through unity

In this book, Sandel contrasts the tradition of civic republicanism with that of procedural liberalism in the US political history. The presentation is organized as the intertwining of philosophical and mostly historical analyses. Philosophically, based on LLJ, Sandel continuous his criticism of liberalism and argues for the idea of civic republicanism with the sense of multiply situated selves. Historically, Sandel shows, while both procedural liberalism and civic republicanism used to be present throughout American politics, American political discourse, in the recent decades, has become dominated by procedural liberalism, and has steadily crowded out the republican understandings of citizenship, which is important for self-government.

Sandel reminds us that the American Revolution was originally aspiring to generate a new community of common good. By separating from England, Americans attempt to stave off corruption and to realize republican ideals, to renew the moral spirit that suited Americans to republican government . Unfortunately, in the years following independence, leading politicians and writers started to worry the corruption of the public spirit by the rampant pursuit of luxury and self-interest. Nowadays, most of American practices and institutions have thoroughly embodied the philosophy of procedural liberalism. Despite its philosophical problem, it has offered the public philosophy by which Americans live.

T. O’Hagan, in, 2001

Recommended Reading: Did Republicans Riot After Obama Was Elected

Zombie Brains Are A Thing

There is life after death if you’re a pig…sorta. Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Recently at the Yale School of Medicine, researchers received 32 dead pig brains from a nearby slaughterhouse. No, it wasn’t some Mafia-style intimidation tactic. They’d placed the order in the hopes of giving the brains a physiological resurrection.

The researchers connected the brains to an artificial perfusion system called BrainEx. It pumped a solution through them that mimicked blood flow, bringing oxygen and nutrients to the inert tissues.

This system revitalized the brains and kept some of their cells “alive” for as long as 36 hours postmortem. The cells consumed and metabolized sugars. The brains’ immune systems even kicked back in. And some samples were even able to carry electrical signals.

Because the researchers weren’t aiming for Animal Farm with Zombies, they included chemicals in the solution that prevented neural activity representative of consciousness from taking place.

Their actual goal was to design a technology that will help us study the brain and its cellular functions longer and more thoroughly. With it, we may be able to develop new treatments for brain injuries and neurodegenerative conditions.

source https://www.patriotsnet.com/what-is-an-example-of-republicanism/

[mrgodfrey]

Morrie’s Wigs: Behind The Curtain

‘And remember: Morrie’s wigs are tested against hurricane winds.’

Sight unseen, such a line doesn't sound like classic movie dialogue. But none of this is normal. This 18-second fake ad, 37 minutes into Goodfellas: what an absurdly quotable piece of footage, a joy for everything it is and everything it isn’t. What an introduction to Morrie, the loveable schmuck, who just seems so happy – if only we could all be as happy as Morrie – so utterly behind this endeavour, so brazenly into the hard sell. The clincher of course is the cheapness: it’s all so wonderfully unsophisticated.

I wrote about this before, briefly, in my investigation into all things Morrie and actor Chuck Low. But more has come to light. So down we go. Another rabbit hole. 

Goodfellas’ Morris Kessler was based on Marty Krugman, a 1970s bookmaker and owner of a hairdressers and wig salon, For Men Only, just up the street from Henry Hill’s Queens nightclub The Suite. As you can read here, the salon doubled as a collection point for betting slips and cash, and was also, in curtained off back rooms, a little den for a bit of gangster business. Henry and made man Paul Vario (Goodfellas’ Paul Cicero) bought hairpieces from Marty, whose wigs were known for their durability. Even underwater.

Much of the business’ reputation was due to Marty’s TV commercials, in which he himself hawked the hairpieces. They would broadcast late at night on Queens Public Television and featured Marty, according to Goodfellas’ source material, Nicholas Pileggi’s book Wiseguy, ‘swimming vigorously across a pool wearing his wig while an announcer proclaimed that Krugman’s wigs always stayed put.’

While researching Morrie a couple of years ago I found, via some audio footnotes on GQ’s Goodfellas oral history, that Scorsese had an idea to include a recreation of Morrie/Marty’s ad in the film. One night, according to Joe Reidy, the first assistant director on Goodfellas, Scorsese saw a crude TV commercial for a windows company called Aalco, and wanted it to look exactly like that. He had his people track down the company’s boss, a man named Stephen Pacca who, they discovered, was also the guy on screen, selling his own product. They called him in for a meeting in view of having him consult on the Morrie ad, then asked him make it himself, just as he did his windows ad. Scorsese left him to it.

I’d looked for Pacca and found that he’d died in 1994. But recently I got a message from his son, Stephen Pacca Jr, who’d seen my blog, loved the bit on his dad, and wanted to give me the whole story. I spoke to him, and to Joe Reidy.

“My dad had gotten into the business in the 1970s, we sold vinyl replacement windows,” says Pacca Jr of his father’s company, Aalco. In the 1980s, Pacca Sr separated from his wife and the business was hit with dire financial problems, and one night after work he and his cousin, the company’s general manager, went for a drink. “After a few drinks sat at the bar, my dad was looped,” says Pacca Jr. “He didn’t drink, so he didn’t have any tolerance for alcohol. He looked at my cousin and he said, ‘Johnny, I’ve got the solution to not go bankrupt – we’re gonna go on television.’ My cousin was looking at him like this was absurd. But my dad said, ‘We’re gonna make a commercial, we’re gonna go on television.’ And that’s exactly what they did.”

His father was probably inspired, says Pacca Jr, by the TV ads for electronics chain Crazy Eddie’s, which ran over 7,500 commercials throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s. The company was named after its Brooklyn owner Eddie Antar; many assumed he was the one screaming his lungs out in the ads, although the on-screen huckster was actually radio DJ Jerry Carroll. “His commercials were a lot more popular than ours,” says Pacca Jr. “The guy was screaming: ‘Our prices are insane!!’ His commercials were wild.” Yes:

Pacca had not previously made anything for television. He approached WNYW – New York’s Channel 5 – and got them to fund the commercial (for around $7,000, says Pacca Jr) in exchange for Pacca buying over $30,000 of airtime a week. But he wrote and made it himself. “He got the help of an advertising agency, but it was just a small guy and all he really did was print my dad’s storyboards,” says Pacca Jr.

“All people remember about our commercial was the money coming out of the window. They don’t remember my dad’s name, they don’t remember the company name. Somebody opens an old window and my dad says, ‘Homeowners, don’t worry about money,’ and then 5000 single dollar bills go through the window. We built a chute behind the window and we had five people just dumping the money in this chute, with big fans, so the money would all blow out the window.”

It worked. “The whole success of that business was the commercial,” says Pacca Jr. “Our business skyrocketed. We had six girls in the office just answering phones. In one year, we went from $1.7m in sales and a staff of five, to $15m in sales and a staff of 250.” And this is why. In all its breathless glory:

“They were so badly made,” says Joe Reidy, Scorsese’s first assistant director on Goodfellas, of Stephen Pacca’s commercials – after the success of the first one, he did a few more. That original one though, says Reidy, was “the one that got Marty’s attention.” Scorsese kept seeing it on TV and was fascinated by it. “The idea of making the wig commercial was just because of Steve Pacca’s ad,” says Reidy. “While we were in pre-production on Goodfellas, the content of the commercial didn’t exist. Then Marty had this idea that Morrie would have this commercial running and it would play in his shop as part of the scene. So that was incorporated in the script, he and [co-writer] Nick Pileggi must have spoken about it.”

You can see in the Goodfellas shooting script, dated January 1989, that it simply has Morrie swimming across a pool, just as Marty Krugman’s ad is described in Wiseguy, with the addition of some minimal Morrie voiceover.

“Marty wanted to make it like that,” says Reidy. “He wanted us to track down who directed the commercial that Steve Pacca was in – we didn’t know he had made it. I can’t remember who actually found him, it could have been me. But we basically called the company to find out who made the commercial, and the call got kicked upstairs quite quickly because it was not a very big company, it went to him. And he said, ‘We made it.’”

Then Scorsese got on the phone. Pacca Jr remembers it well. “I’m sitting in the office one day with the girls answering the phones, and the head girl, Diane, she says to me, ‘Stephen, I got a man on the phone who says he’s Martin Scorsese, and he wants to talk to your father.’ Oh my god, it was really him! And he told my dad he wanted to make a commercial exactly like our window commercial. He was very emphatic about that, he said ‘I want the exact same commercial, but I just want it to be about wigs.’”

Pacca was asked to go and meet Scorsese, “who got very very excited about it,” says Reidy. “It was not even a matter of, ‘Do you wanna meet him and see if it would work out,’ it was, ‘We’re gonna use this guy no matter what.’ And once Marty met him, it was over, it was decided Steve would do it.” After an initial meeting at Scorsese’s office was a follow-up, in which an excitable Pacca went full dog and pony.

“He made a presentation for Marty,” says Reidy. “The man came in with storyboards. They were primitive, but he had designed a commercial, how it would go, he had written a script. He had basically everything in line for shooting it. He drew the wig coming off. He drew off screen, off the edges of the storyboard, where the fan would be placed [to simulate the hurricane winds]. He drew the fishing tackle pulling the wig off, so that people would know how it would be done.”

Swimming pool aside, the ideas were Pacca’s. “Mr Scorsese didn’t tell him to have the guy jump in the swimming pool,” says Pacca Jr. “He didn’t tell him anything. My dad told him what he’d do, that he’d have the actor talking and then we’d print his name at the bottom and then he’ll jump in the pool and the wig’s gonna stay on. And Marty just said, ‘Okay, whatever you say.’ He gave him carte blanche to do what he wanted.”

“What we all agreed on,” says Reidy, “was that Steve would not only direct it, but he would put everything together. The only things we would provide would be the camera and our Director Of Photography, Michael Ballhaus, to shoot it, but he’d take direction from Steve Pacca. Michael had two assistants, and a sound mixer and boom operator, but again only under Steve’s direction. All of the special effects, all the prop work, all the make-up and wardrobe would be done by Steve Pacca’s group, which were really people who worked in his office or installed the windows. Someone operating a fan? His guy, with a fan that they brought. A normal house fan.”

Warner Bros, says Reidy, decided that it would be a kind of unofficial part of the production, giving Pacca freedom to do whatever he wanted. That caused some confusion, says Pacca Jr – his father didn’t realise that Scorsese’s team would give him whatever support he needed, so he just went ahead and took it all on, using his company staff. He rented the Lodi Boys Club in New Jersey, which had an indoor pool, for the interior shoot. It was all too much.

“My dad didn’t realise how time-consuming making this wig commercial was gonna be,” says Pacca Jr. The shoot was only a day or two, but with pre- and post-production, the project took a month. “I said, ‘Dad why don’t you ask the guy to help you?’ He said, ‘No no no, he asked me to make this commercial and I’m gonna deliver him the finished product.’ He wanted to be very proud of his work, you know?”

At some point, chiefly because he wasn’t able to do his day to day job while doing this, Pacca snapped. “He called Mr Scorsese up,” says Pacca Jr, “and he told him he quit! I wasn’t in the room when he had the conversation, he told me afterwards. Mr Scorsese said, ‘What?! You quit? Steve, you can’t quit! There’s too much involved here, we’ve got too much going on!’”

The Morrie ad was the first thing being shot for Goodfellas, which itself was now about a week and a half away from filming. “Mr Scorsese said, ‘Is it about money?’” says Pacca Jr. “And my father said, ‘No no no, I just don’t have time for this, it’s costing me too much money. It is about money, but it’s not the money you’re giving me!’ He was giving my dad $2,500. But my dad, I bet you he spent $10,000 of his own money making this commercial.”

On what? “Well I don’t think he asked for money to rent the boys club. I don’t know who he used for actors, but I know he paid people. This guy’s gonna jump in the pool and his wig’s gonna stay on, it looks like it’s not a big thing, but it is! And Martin Scorsese went crazy: ‘I’ll give you more money!’ And my dad says, ‘You don’t have enough money to give me, because this is costing me my business! It’s not about dollars, it’s costing me time.’ So Marty says, ‘Look, whether it’s about money or not, I’m gonna give you £5,000 instead of $2,500 – please finish this commercial for me.’ So my father finally agreed to finish it.”

And a rejuvenated Pacca did the shoot. He got satin baseball jackets made for his crew, imprinted with the film’s working title, Wiseguy. Scorsese stayed away, determined not to dilute the purity of the project. The Goodfellas hair and wardrobe department provided Morrie’s wig and outfit, and checked that Pacca’s supporting ‘actors’ were dressed accurately for the period. Other than that, Pacca was allowed to just “make the commercial the way he would have made it if he were the wig man,” says Reidy. “The guys who came to do this, they didn’t know anything about filmmaking. The other women in the background [of the commercial]: these were all people Steve Pacca knew. We didn’t interfere, we didn’t suggest any way to make it better.”

Michael Ballhaus, the Goodfellas cinematographer who had previously worked with Scorsese on After Hours, The Color Of Money and The Last Temptation Of Christ, didn’t bring lights. “Michael had seen plenty of bad commercials to know that he wasn’t going to light it,” says Reidy. “He wasn’t going to do anything except turn the lights on inside the pool. And it was just sort of drab as a result. Michael knew that and was very excited about it, he said, ‘It’s gonna be great!’ It was very surreal because he was taking direction from a man who didn’t know anything about directing. Excuse me, no: Steve Pacca knew what he needed to do, what he wanted to do. And Michael was in the spirit, he was very enthused about it.”

Martin Scorsese and Michael Ballhaus on Goodfellas. Photo taken from Alamy, can you tell

And Pacca got Chuck Low to those locations, and told him what to do, and how to do it. Pacca Jr was at the shoot for a bit but, 28 years on, doesn’t remember much. “I just remember him jumping in the pool,” he says. “That was a highlight.”

Pacca edited the ad and submitted it just as we see it in the film. “Marty was so, so pleased with it,” says Reidy. “So happy. He was laughing, he was thrilled, it really broke him up. He really loved it.” And that was that. Scorsese shot Goodfellas, and invited Pacca to the premiere.

Pacca set up another business, for second mortgages, and made an ad for that too. This time he had a horse. “He brought it up the elevator at the Channel 5 studio,” says Pacca Jr. “The horse had saddlebags, and in the saddlebags was money, which all came out somehow.”

Pacca Jr told me a lot about his dad’s highs and lows, about how he’d make millions then go broke, then make millions again, then go broke again. At one point he built a recording studio in his office, “with speakers that cost $15,000 a piece. I guess he always had wanted to be in showbusiness in some way. He would sing, he would record music, he made a couple of records with pictures of him on the front. But it never took off.” Having grown up poor, says Pacca Jr, his father deemed it important to always have a new car so bought a new Cadillac convertible every year, whether he could afford to or not. He would, says Pacca Jr, drive through Harlem and have people wave and call out his name, such was his fame from the TV commercials. He was known to pull over and give homeless people $200: “He just was very generous to strangers.”

I asked Pacca Jr how his father died. Around 1989, he says, Pacca had kidney failure, and was put on dialysis for two years. Pacca Jr pleaded with him to take one of his kidneys, but he refused right up to the last minute. Finally, after a third emergency visit to hospital in the space of a month, he insisted. “I looked at him that day in the hospital and said, ‘Look, if you don’t take my kidney, you’re gonna die. It’s as simple as that. You almost died tonight.” Pacca agreed, and the operation was scheduled for Christmas Eve morning: “It was a nice Christmas present for me to give to him.”

In 1994 though, Pacca had a heart attack. “He climbed up to the fifth floor of a building, surveying the building to do 500 windows for a guy, and he sat down in the guy’s kitchen, turned blue and dropped dead. But he got three or four good years when he wasn’t suffering. I was happy to be able to be a part of that.”

We’ve all got a lot of happiness from Stephen Pacca. So think of him when you watch that Morrie’s Wigs ad. Just a simple window salesman who made a piece of movie history. And please. Don’t throw money out of the window.

And that’s that.

My Chuck Low extravaganza lives here, and my unhealthy unraveling of the Goodfellas dog painting is here. 

#goodfellas #morrie #morrie's wigs #chuck low #martin scorsese #scorsese #stephen pacca #commercials #wigs #windows

[rebeccalartfoundation]

Printmaking 2 - Relief Printing and Artist Research- William Morris

Excited to continue with printmaking, I had set out some goals for this lesson. I wanted to experiment with relief printing using lino and use a stencil I had abandoned previously in term 2. I wanted to see how it would print and if successful, incorporating the image for one of my final pieces. 

Artist Research - William Morris

But before printing I sought inspiration and went back to a previous inspiration- William Morris. I have always been a fan of his wallpaper designs as it features botanical imagery in a repeat pattern.

William Morris, The Strawberry Thief. First produced 1883.

William Morris, Compton Wallpaper. First commissioned 1896.

I was inspired by the use of the motif for the Strawberry Thief, a distinctive focal point and possibly trying to create a print with a symmetrical pattern. However I feel this could be difficult to achieve precisely without dedicating a lot of time and working at a slower pace- we have limited studio time and always goes by so quickly! I was also drawn to Compton, the flowing nature of the print inspired me to want to create a similar print filled with foliage. 

Creating Relief Prints

With this inspiration in mind, I had created four new stencils all featuring plant based imagery and including my previous stencil of a woman’s face with plants. When creating the four new stencils, I wanted to explore marks, some thicker , some thinner and see how that would print. I also wanted to exploring shape and line through print. 

Stencils ready for printing. 

Printing on Paper

Brian suggested using an oil based relief print for lino. I had started off with newsprint paper for samples and and then printing solid colour to print a design on top (unfortunately had ran out of time for this). The prints were made with a relief press and used packing (extra paper or wood on top) to get right pressure to print. 

Relief print press 

Packing (with thickness noted) used to create right pressure to print for the newsprint.

Some prints came out a bit patchy, which Brian explained I needed to load the ink on more. However overall printing on paper turned to be a success. 

I also chose bold colours, drawing inspiration from my previous textile experiments with disperse dye and Hurvin Anderson’s tropical paintings. 

Printing on Fabric

As the prints came out really well on paper, I then moved to fabric. Brian kindly gave me some polycotton, which was thin enough to print. 

I printed by hand for the fabric and used a baren - a printing tool- for added pressure The samples came out really well! I was happy how rich and defined the print turned out and also explored layering with different colours (above). Happy with my samples, I moved onto my main goal to create a repeat print with interesting compositions.

Repeat print on fabric

I wanted to print on larger piece of fabric and had reused the stencil of the face and cut up the leaf stencil so it would flow better. I decided I wanted the print to flow naturally, as if leaves were being grown and surrounding the face. I did this by eye, creating a pattern similar to a half drop repeat but not exact.

Reflection

What went well -I am extremely happy with how my prints came out, particularly the repeat pattern print. I achieved my goal of creating a print inspired by Morris and received positive feedback from Brian and classmates. The design flows well and in keeping with my proposal. I’m glad I decided to give the stencil another go and use it for this project. The samples on fabric also came out quite well and I was able to experiment with different colours. It was great to try out relief printing and felt it was a quicker process than drypoint due to printing by hand.

What didn’t go well/Problem solving- Sometimes I didn’t get enough ink loaded onto the stencil, creating a weaker print. However I solved this by incorporating weaker prints as a motif within the repeat pattern, so there is a difference of ink strength within the print. There are also some smudges from my gloves within the repeat pattern but it is not that noticeable due to the foliage. 

What I could improve on/ do differently- If I had more time, I would’ve liked to print on an even bigger piece of fabric, perhaps A1 with the repeat pattern- although I would need all day for that! I also wished I had cut the fabric a bit better but it does not detract from the print. 

Next steps

I would like to do another repeat print to accompany this piece and include it as part of my final pieces for the exhibition. I plan to make another lino stencil, featuring a different body part and botanical in theme. In general I plan to explore printing on fabric more, with other printing techniques. I may revisit drypoint as I would like to depict lines onto fabric. I also wanted to try trace monotype again in this session but didn’t have enough time- perhaps I can try next session and with fabric to see how that would come out. 

[nathanielwharton]

My 2017 in Pop Culture

Same deal as usual. This is what meant most to me last year in pop culture.

Top Forty Things From 2017

40. The Mummy I liked it. It's definitely got the worked-over vibe that people most object to in these shared-universe experiments, and it goes a little bigger and more action-heavy than I'd probably prefer for a Universal Monster movie. But, I liked the way it fused a modern Tom Cruise narrative with a traditional monster story. I liked the genuine horror movie flourishes throughout. I liked the winks at monster fans in the Prodigium headquarters. I loved Sofia Boutella's Ahmanet. And I loved Russell Crowe's silly/creepy thug Mr. Hyde. This one also got bonus points for The Mummy: Dark Universe Stories, the iPhone game that came out a month after the film. The story plays out a sequel to the movie, but the real nerdy thrill of it was the way it incorporated a bunch of original Universal Monsters characters and ideas, including Lisa Glendon from Werewolf of London and Kharis and Boris Karloff's Ardeth Bay from the original Mummy movies! 39. Baby Driver This was just a delight, a combination of classic crime movie and classic musical with that Edgar Wright energy giving it that extra nitrous burst of excitement. 38. "Every Country Has a Monster" on Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return I'm one of those fans who loved Mystery Science Theater 3000 when he stumbled across it on cable in the 90s but has a little trouble with the way it gave license to a certain sourness and superiority about older movies among some audiences. Still, I found myself looking forward to the revival with a little trepidation as to whether it would find the right tone (or recapture the lo-fi public access charm of the original). The first twenty minutes or so of the first episode back (focused on the Danish giant monster movie Reptilicus, so they were doing well by me right off the bat) were pretty promising, but this song about giant monsters of myth across the world was where I decided I was on board for this revival. 37. Happy Death Day What a fun time this was! It's got a really charming lead performance and a fun story hook, but it's really the energy and inventiveness that it applies to slasher movie/Groundhog Day story of self-improvement that put it over the top for me. 36. John Wick Chapter 2/Free Fire/Atomic Blonde Hard to pick from among the three of these in terms of which action movie I had the most fun with this year. They've all got something special to recommend them. 35. The Scariest Story Ever: A Mickey Mouse Halloween This doesn't quite scale the heights of last year's Duck the Halls Christmas special, but it was still a funny, thoroughly delightful seasonal treat that I'll probably make a point of watching next October too. 34. My Favorite Thing is Monsters Vol. 1 I checked it out because I'd read it was a comic about a 10-year-old girl who was obsessed with monsters (picturing herself as a little wolfman) who tries to solve the murder of her neighbor. What I got was a moving story about historical injustice and personal revelation told with dazzling illustration. Really, this knocked me out. 33. Gemini/Murder on the Orient Express I think Gemini is actually going to be a 2018 release, but these two mystery films really scratched an itch for me this year. I was a big fan of director Aaron Katz's Cold Weather, a wonderful little mumblecore mystery story, but I wasn't prepared for how much I dug his twisty neo-noir, Gemini. And Murder on the Orient Express was kind of a similarly satisfying experience on the other end of the spectrum: a lavish, big-budget adaptation with a cast stocked with movie stars and exciting up-and-comers. I loved it, and now I'm all about seeing Branagh continue to work on his little proposed Agatha Christie universe. #thirtyBranaghPoirotmovies 32. Okja It's a new Bong Joon-ho film! That means it's got a bunch of thrilling filmmaking, wild performances, tricky tonal shifts, and a beautifully clear-eyed honest empathy. 31. The Get Down Season One, Part Two I was sorry to see this one cancelled after the still thrilling but also melancholy second half came out this year. I really fell in love with these characters, and it was always an exciting experience. And this was just one of the many Netflix shows I really loved this year (including Mindhunter, BoJack Horseman, Lady Dynamite, GLOW, Orange is the New Black, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt). 30. The ending of Split I loved the rest of Split, and I was already onboard the M. Night Shyamalan comeback train from The Visit (after riding like five movies on the “oh no, he’s lost it so bad!” train). But those surprising final moments of Split, while holding the potential for another dive into disastrous hubris, made me straight up gasp out loud in confusion & delight.

29. The Samurai Jack Revival/Finale I enjoyed a lot of the original run of Samurai Jack, but I wasn’t exactly a devoted viewer & hadn’t particularly missed it in its absence. So I checked out the revival largely just to see what the great Genndy Tartakovsky would to with it after spending time on other projects. And wow! It turned out not only to be a truly gorgeous & riveting experience, but it also took the characters & elements of the original & gave them some interesting psychology & moral challenges. 28. Nathan for You’s "Finding Frances" I love Nathan For You, but this year’s season finale, “Finding Frances,” was probably the most interesting thing he’s done with the format. In some ways it’s basically Nathan For You: The Movie, finding a sprawling emotional journey, still filled with nutball comic cul de sacs, that also digs into the “Nathan” character & finds a new place to take him by the end. 27. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events Season One I figured I’d check out the first season, despite the fact that it would mostly be covering the same material covered in the totally decent Jim Carrey movie, because I was interested to see Barry Sonnenfield finally get a shot at the material & because I wanted to see what they’d do with the later books. But from the first moments with Patrick Warburton’s Serling-esque take on Lemony Snicket (and that infectious theme song) I fell in love with the show. The cast is great, the adaptation work is clever and involving (including an ingenious side story with Will Arnett & Cobie Smulders that seems brilliantly designed to provide different-but-complementary experiences for fans and non-fans), and I stress again how much I loved Warburton. There’s also a wonderful flourish in the season finale that amped my love into adoration. 26. A Cure For Wellness If Gore Verbinski can keep getting people to give him huge budgets to make big, weird genre films about the rot at the center of capitalism and western civilization, I will keep seeing them and (presumably) loving them. 25. Opening sequence of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets The rest of the movie is a colorful bit of fun, but the opening sequence where we see, via montage, the establishment and development of the titular city of a thousand planets, is as sublime and moving a movie moment as any I saw this year. Thrillingly optimistic and hopeful, Besson briefly hits on something more than his usual enjoyably daffy nonsense. 24. Final seasons of The Leftovers & Vice Principals Two HBO shows I loved aired their final seasons this year. Both of them had set themselves up with particularly tricky tasks in providing satisfying resolutions without either ruining the mystique of what had come before or pulling their punches in a way that impacted the whole. And they both nailed it. 23. A Ghost Story I wrote about this one for SportsAlcohol.com. I found it bewitching and it stayed with me. 22. Star Trek: Discovery It was a long wait, but this new Star Trek show pretty immediately justified my subscription to yet another streaming service all on its own. I love the characters, I’m engrossed in the storytelling, and I’m challenged by the moral and intellectual ideas it’s exploring. Good Star Trek. (This also may as well be where I mention that I also watched, and pretty much enjoyed, the whole first season of Seth Macfarlane’s generic brand Trek cover, The Orville. Pretty well scratches whatever old school Trek itch Discovery could have left me with.) 21. Wormwood I love most everything of his that I’ve seen, but this is basically in competition with Tabloid for my favorite Errol Morris project.

20. Gorogoa Feels almost silly that I found what basically amounts to a puzzle game for my phone so entrancing & even spiritual. But I LOVED this thing. My only complaint is that it wished it kept going and going. 19. DuckTales Wrote about this for SportsAlcohol.com. A testament to how delightful this show is can be found in the fact that I put it in this slot instead of the also hugely enjoyable Milo Murphy’s Law. 18. Marvel Cinematic Universe While this year I definitely cooled on the Marvel television offerings (I still watched and enjoyed the Netflix shows despite some underwhelmed feelings, and I'm still pretty high on Agents of SHIELD, but Inhumans was a total misfire), it was perhaps the best year yet for Marvel Studios's cinematic offerings. I totally loved Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Thor Ragnarok. They each offered something fairly distinct and emotionally engaging (even Ragnarok, despite it's hilariously cheeky tone) and they were all a complete blast. Best Guardians yet, best Spider-man yet, best Thor yet! 17. Lady Bird Between 2016’s Edge of Seventeen and this,  guess I’m gonna hope for a wonderful teen girl coming-of-age movie every other year. And thanks to Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, and the idiosyncratic empathy of Greta Gerwig, this one was a true highlight of 2017. 16. Get Out The terrific horror-themed sketches on Key & Peele suggested a genuine feel for the genre, so it wasn’t a huge reach to expect Jordan Peele’s directorial debut horror movie to turn out well. But this one still felt like a revelation at the beginning of the year (not to mention a huge event when seen with an audience). 15. Your Name Another wonderful surprise, this one makes some clever and twisty shifts as what starts out as a charming body-switching comedy reveals an emotional core that really swept me away. 14. War for the Planet of the Apes I wrote about this one for SportsAlcohol.com. 13. Blade Runner 2049 I also wrote about this one for SportsAlcohol.com. 12. The Post I wrote about this for SportsAlcohol.com too! 11. Coco Look, I’m generally less excited about Pixar’s sequels than I am about its originals (and I generally really like or love their sequels! but still...), and Coco is a perfect example of why. It’s a great story with a bunch of lovable new characters, beautiful new worlds, and the fun of seeing something new. And as is often the case, it also packs a real emotional wallop. 10. S-Town Speaking of emotional wallops, this podcast miniseries was already shaping up to be an involving look at a fascinating character, but a bombshell dropped in an early episode spins the thing into something deeper and more powerful than anything else I listened to this year.

9. Colossal Wrote about this for SportsAlcohol.com. 8. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel While this show has many things that set it apart from the other Amy Sherman-Palladino shows I love (namely Gilmore Girls & Bunheads), it does share the qualities of being unstoppably effervescent and entertaining while offering hidden depths. We gulped the whole season down in two plane rides and can’t wait for the next batch. 7. Star Wars: The Last Jedi Wrote about the movie on SportsAlcohol.com. It was another good Star Wars year in general, with some excellent Star Wars Rebels episodes, the continuation of the fantastic Marvel comics, and some cool novels (generally I didn't read any bad Star Wars books this year, so that's good; personal highlights were Aftermath: Empire's End and Leia: Princess of Alderaan). But the real highlight was, of course, the movie. It was a joyful, powerful experience opening night (in a way that felt interestingly different from the experience of The Force Awakens), and it’s a movie that has lingered and deepened in my mind as I’ve thought about it. 6. The Shape of Water I run pretty hot and lukewarm on Guillermo del Toro (that is to say, I don’t particularly dislike any of his movies, but while I love some of them, others just don’t connect like I feel they should, despite how much the separate elements might appeal to me). But for every one that I just like okay, he connects with something like this, a gorgeous, perverse fairy tale retelling of the Creature From the Black Lagoon with tributes to Cold War paranoia, classic movie musicals, and a great Michael Shannon performance added to the mix. Just a lovely tribute to the way love can unite the disenfranchised and overlooked. 5. Kong: Skull Island An eye-popping fever dream of a monster mash, this movie assembled a stacked cast of actors I love and surrounded them with some of the most stunning monster movie images I’ve ever seen. A++++infinity 4. Stranger Things 2 What a wonderful surprise the first season of this show was, and what a relief and a joy to get this sequel that is, in most ways, even better. By the final scenes of the finale, I was more in love than ever. 3. The Florida Project I wrote a bit about this for SportsAlcohol.com, so I think it’s enough to say here that this is a very special movie. 2. American Vandal What a wonderful little surprise this was! Like Stranger Things last year, this was something that popped up on Netflix & gave me something I didn’t know I wanted. On one level, it’s just a silly, dirty joke really elaborately told. But on another level, it’s a sneakily moving portrait of the way that expectations and choices made when you’re young can really impact what you become in that transition from teenager to adult.

1. Twin Peaks: The Return I was looking forward to this, and I had a pretty open mind as far as what it could be or what to expect from it. But I still had no idea how amazing and immersive and gripping it would all be. I wrote about it over at SportsAlcohol.com and talked about it on the podcast and I STILL only scratched the surface of how I felt about it.

Top Twenty Things I'm Excited About in 2018

Arrested Development Returns! I adored both the original run of the show and the fourth season that hit Netflix five years ago. I cannot wait for this. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs It's the new Coen brothers project. And it's supposed to be something like six hours of new Coen brothers project. Holy smokes. The Last Best Story I really loved Maggie's last book, and the tidbits I've heard about this one make it sound terrific. Been anticipating this one for nearly three years and it's almost here! Isle of Dogs Wes Anderson movies pretty much automatically quality as "most anticipated" for me, and the trailer for this one looks thoroughly delightful. And it hopefully augurs an exciting year for stop motion animation. While I'm obviously into The Incredibles II and Ralph Wrecks the Internet, I'm even more intrigued with the untitled Laika film scheduled for this year. There's been so little news about it, it seems possible it won't actually hit this year, but even if it doesn't there's Early Man, a new Aardman film directed by Nick Park due out in February, and Jan Svankmajer's final film, Insects, that I hope makes its way to the US this year. Ready Player One I'm sure I'd see this one no matter what, but the fact that Steven Spielberg directed it means I'm actively excited to catch it on day one. Marvel Cinematic Universe After a stellar 2017 (and all the goodwill they built up over the last ten years in general) I'd be excited for their three pictures this year. So the fact that they've got Black Panther (a terrific cast in Ryan Coogler's follow-up to Creed!), Avengers: Infinity War (the beginning of this big two-year culmination event, written & directed by the folks who made my beloved Captain America movies), and Ant-Man and the Wasp (I had a great time with the first one, and Down With Love guarantees Peyton Reed my attention forever), gives me confidence that they'll have another great year in 2018. Star Wars I'm forever excited about Star Wars (or at least the current firehose volume of it still hasn't made me bored of it yet) so I'm pretty interested to see Solo: A Star Wars Story, and I'm also really on the hook to see the final batch of episodes of Star Wars Rebels. Roseanne Revival Maybe I'm just tempting fate because of how the Twin Peaks revival turned out, but I'm excited for this one. I love the original show (one of my favorite little things about getting cable has been that Roseanne is on one channel or another almost all the time) and I'm equally apprehensive about and intrigued by the news that's come out about the revival so far. But I'll definitely be watching the whole thing. Lethal White AND Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald A new Cormoran Strike book and a new Wizarding World movie with a screenplay by J.K. Rowling! I understand why neither of them are exactly the kind of cultural event that the Potter books and movies were, but I'm personally so excited for both. A Wrinkle in Time AND Mary Poppins Returns Two big Disney productions that are super up my alley, so I'm grouping them together. Wrinkle promises an adaptation of a wonderful book from an exciting director and a fantastic cast. And Poppins has the liability of a director I've been extremely mixed on in the past, but it also has a perfect cast and the original Mary Poppins is a movie a really love deeply. Really excited to have these bookending the year. A New Cloverfield The God Particle was on this list last year, and it's on there again this year. We're only a couple of weeks into the year and it's already been delayed again, so this is in hopes that it does really come out this April. But in any case, with God Particle and Overlord, another mysterious genre film from Bad Robot that fans have been speculating could be another Cloverfield movie, both scheduled for release this year, seems pretty likely we'll at least get one new Cloverfield picture. (UPDATE SINCE I WROTE THIS: the game is afoot again!) Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters It's got a killer premise and it's just hit Netflix! I'm excited for this one, and it seems possible that the second film in the announced trilogy could also hit Netflix before the end of the year. New Darin Morgan X-Files episode The new season of the X-Files revival already seems off to a stronger start than the last one, but no matter what it does hold the promise of another new episode by writer Darin Morgan. This is an event. Disenchantment Look, I still watch (and usually enjoy) The Simpsons. I adore Futurama. I am super excited for a new Matt Groening animated series, and tickled by the notion that it'll explore a new genre. My Favorite Thing is Monsters Vol. 2 The first half of the story was such a beautiful, engrossing, moving surprise this year, that I can't wait for the follow-up. Sense8 Finale Movie I'm glad they're getting a chance to wrap things up the way they want to here, and I'm looking forward to one more visit with this nutty, beautiful show. My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman AND Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee I don't keep up with all of Netflix's stand-up comedy offerings or the like, but I am super excited for these talk shows by a couple of my absolute favorite comedy curmudgeons. I actually watched (and really loved) the episode of Letterman's show with President Obama, and I'm looking forward to getting through all the rest of both of these throughout this year. Mute It looks like Duncan Jones's new film, some kind of spiritual follow-up to his great Moon, is finally going to show up on Netflix early this year! And they've also got the next films by Gareth Evans, Jeremy Saulnier, and David Mackenzie that could always drop sometime this year AND The Other Side of the Wind, a lost Orson Welles film! The Predator A new Shane Black movie is a cause for celebration, and while trying to revive the Predator seems like a dicey proposition, he's assembled an exciting cast and co-wrote the film with his Monster Squad collaborator Fred Dekker, so I'm looking forward to seeing what they've cooked up enough to put it here instead of the other genre sequels I'm intrigued by this year (like David Gordon Green's Halloween or J.A. Bayona's Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom). The Happytime Murders A Roger Rabbit riff with puppets would be enough to get my attention, but get Brian Henson to direct it in his first theatrical feature since his Muppet films from the 90s and I'm fully excited.

[love-takes-work]

The Art of Steven Universe the Movie: Outline & Review

The Art of Steven Universe The Movie was released March 3, 2020. It's a wonderful journey through the concept art, character development, and experience of fashioning these ideas into the movie we all love.

Nuts and bolts: The book is published by Dark Horse, and it was designed by Ryan Sands (a zine specialist), with commentary by Takafumi Hori, Kat Morris, and Rebecca Sugar. It includes art by Rebecca Sugar, Kat Morris, Takafumi Hori, Alonso Ramirez Ramos, Angie Wang, Ashley Fisher, Becky Dreistadt, Chromosphere, Danny Cragg, Elle Michalka, Hilary Florido, Ian Jones-Quartey, Jasmin Lai, Jeff Liu, Joe Johnston, Julian De Perio, Katie Mitroff, Leonard Hung, Miki Brewster, Patrick Bryson, and Paul Villeco.

Full review below with low-quality images.

[SU Book and Comic Reviews]

An introduction explains the same origin story that Rebecca Sugar told us in the movie DVD's commentary: that she accidentally restored her phone to factory settings and lost years of important stuff, and she ended up applying that devastating premise to her movie. That combined with the concept of "breaking" the main premise of a TV show to make a movie was how she got started developing the story. The opening of the movie styled like a storybook is blocked out with some great drawings and breakdowns of which narration would go to what storybook pages. This is combined with some partial sheet music for "The Tale of Steven." Rebecca writes about how she felt having to wrap pre-production on Season 5 only to take on this even bigger movie challenge. The biggest challenge was writing all these songs in such a short time--six weeks--and having to deal with the stress, being crushed under all that pressure while still wanting to do this story so badly, and it was humbling to still have to work so hard to sell the idea. The feeling of relief to finally be done that Steven expresses in "Happily Ever After" is very similar to what Rebecca went through feeling like she wanted to be finally done but still knowing what she had to do to climb an even bigger mountain. Some very cute Steven-at-age-16 and Connie in Space Camp clothes follow. Notes indicate that Steven and Connie are the same height now, but his poofy hair is just slightly higher than her head.

Notes from 2017 also give us the "Neckstravaganza": design notes on Steven's new form, with a neck and a jacket. It's very cool.

Some beautiful Joe Johnston boards follow, with sequences from the "Happily Ever After" song. We also get Angie Wang's final design (with Ashley Fisher's color) of the injector, including some sketchy concept art for it from Rebecca Sugar and Hilary Florido. In the rough concept notes, they call this the "Mega Injector," with notes for Takafumi Hori to use for scale. It looks beyond huge in a Leonard Hung drawing.

Spinel concepts are next. Some notes explain that aivi & surasshu (the usual composers) were involved very early since it was a musical, and Rebecca included them when pitching the story to the Crew so they could organically develop the sound. The heart shape was central to Spinel from the beginning, and early versions of her had an entire heart shape to her head.

(There's a doodle of what looks like a cartoon dog in the pile of drawings shown in this section. It's not clear what that was.)

Spinel was given the heart imagery partly because Rebecca had learned early on about the importance of symbols, and when it came time to assign one to Steven, the star was chosen because it's so positive and is read as gender-neutral. Rebecca still hadn't used hearts for anything, so it was time. They also incorporated really old, dated character design ideas to make Spinel feel like an outdated cartoon from the rubber hose era.

The aspect of her design with the running mascara versus cute eyelashes predated the rotation of her Gem. Rebecca likes to start with more realistic sketches when she's figuring out a character, and then she'll move to making it more cartoony. A quote from Miki Brewster is shared: "Spinel can do anything, as long as it's entertaining!" Her "best friend" form is described as "a doll for friendship fun & games! Of a different era--hokey, charming, weird...super gullible and trusting. Incredibly loyal, constant entertainment machine!"

When it comes to developing her "worst enemy" form, Rebecca explains a bit that she has a really complicated relationship with old cartoons because nostalgia is not compelling to her--the animation from the 1930s is so neat, but considering the social limits and the way the industry was at the time, Rebecca doesn't think she could have participated. Especially considering nowadays she even had to struggle to be allowed to tell the stories she needed to tell and it would have been impossible five years ago. The norms of the time aren't entirely extricable from the art itself.

Takafumi Hori weighs in with commentary on how fun it was to animate a scary but fun character on top of Miki Brewster's boards for the "Other Friends" fight sequence.

Next, moving on from the central new character, they also spend some time discussing Steg. Rebecca first explains "Steg Multiverse" as a character so uplifting he can make you fly, combining Greg's unending support and Steven's positive power. She makes reference to the early "stegosaurus" concepts they had for his look, but they didn't want to lose the opportunity to have his hair flow. Rebecca confirms that the pompadour idea was established in "Steven and the Stevens" so they wanted to give it to Steg, and she credits Paul Villeco for really finalizing his design and bringing him to life.

And of course the poofy hair from Steven and the double-necked guitar was essential for Steg.

Next, the book gives us a whole page of handwritten notes about "Drift Away." Kat Morris explains the intentional duality of the scene--how Spinel should be shown seeing her own past with new perspective, being embarrassed, blending together who she was with who she is. The partial lyrics to the song and some sketchy boards are offered.

Rebecca shares her personal connection with the subject matter--how she once left a stuffed animal in her garden and the side facing the sun faded. It really made a mark on her as a child that things changed without her, because of her actions, and that she'd left this treasured toy alone without thinking about it all that time, letting it be affected by the elements without her interference. She wrote "Everything Stays" for Adventure Time based on that plushie, and realized that she was writing about it again for the Steven Universe movie.

Many beautiful miniature boards are shown in this section.

Partial sheet music for "Drift Away" is also offered here. It's credited to Rebecca Sugar and Aimee Mann. The music sheet is followed by some lovely images of the garden by Julian De Perio, Patrick Bryson, and Leonard Hung.

Takafumi Hori returns for a discussion of the final fight sequence during "Change," which he animated from Jeff Liu's boards. He discusses trying to keep the fight feeling dramatic and serious even though Spinel's fighting style is funny. He wanted to keep her tension. Hori-san throws in a word of thanks for being allowed to work on his favorite show again, praises Jeff and Miki, and compliments Rebecca Sugar's demos. He hoped we'd get a soundtrack album. (Of course, we did.)

Some final boards by Rebecca Sugar and Becky Dreistadt of the characters in their show gear descending the steps close out the book. There are also some cute little doodles at the end on the credits page, like a head of lettuce with caption "lettuce adore you" and Spinel in a drifting go-kart laughing, captioned "drift away."

The back cover pictures Steven with his arm around a heartbroken Spinel, comforting her.

Overall, the book is wonderful--the accompanying information is generally not new to anyone who watched the DVD's documentary and commentary, and many of the sketches have been released one way or another directly by the artists through Instagram, Twitter, or Tumblr blogs. There was still plenty of wonderful new concept art that wasn't already out there, and looking at some of the iterations Spinel and Steg went through was particularly captivating. There was no new insight into the development of the plot beyond the premise and the Spinel-related conflict, though; nothing about how they decided to focus the Garnet storyline, the Pearl storyline, and the Amethyst storyline for how they would each get their memories back, and there was no spotlight on their movie versions--modern Cotton Candy Garnet, copycat baby Amethyst, and factory settings uncustomized Pearl. I was hoping especially for some Amethyst stuff because the movie was the first place we got to see her with the simple default outfit and segmented limbs. It was primarily an art book with commentary on some of the most definitive movie aspects--it didn't reach the depth that Art and Origins gave us. It has a start-to-finish feeling in a sense, but it's mostly just splashes of information that are fun to know. It's a great companion and definitely should not be missed by any fan of the movie. I recommend it heartily!

[SU Book and Comic Reviews]

#steven universe #steven universe the movie #the art of steven universe the movie #movie art book #myblog

[wordsmiff-blog]

The birth of Stickyfingerltd.com

January 2017, and I keep getting this mad intuition to call my pal Jack, he keeps popping into my thoughts a little more than he usually would…

I give Jack a bell…

‘Yo!? What’s good mate, yada yada yada… ’

Jack is my friend of about 7, maybe 8 years… In a past life, I was the frontman of a rock and roll band called ‘The Filthy Habits’ - and Jack played guitar.

At one stage we beat over 10,000 other acts from all over the country to be crowned ‘Best Indie Act in the UK’ and played at The O2 ~ we went on to play festivals here and on a tiny mini-whirlwind tour of France… point being, Jack is like a little brother to me.. I know him well, and I know just how talented he is…

We drifted somewhat as is to be expected after our band split up, and both Jack and the bassist from The Filthy Habits, Matty, went on to form a folk band with their childhood friends Glen and Lee… HNTR went on to build a solid reputation as one of the most talented bands in Essex…

Cut scene; back to me on the phone with Jack…

Jack: 'This is so weird, I have been thinking of you the last few days, I have been meaning to call you.. I need to talk to you about something…can we meet up?’ -

Law of Attraction in action right there… Jack had been springing into my mind, just as I had been his… anyways… we agreed to meet up. Curiosity and intrigue abound.

Long story short - I met Jack, Matty and Glen in a pub in Billericay, Essex and they explained that the current format of their band could not continue - due to unforeseen circumstances, and that they were gutted..

They were also more determined to carry on than ever - they explain to me how they wanted to develop their sound, showed me their inspirations, identified who they wanted to replace the outgoing members of HNTR and basically sold me the dream… they asked me to get involved in a project - they were building a new band and asked me to manage them…

No brainer.

I had already made my mind up after speaking to Jack on the phone days prior - I knew that this had been coming…

I think I called Eman that same day and spoke to him on my drive home… I sold him the new line up, explained that he would be fronting a new band - front and centre - and he has since told me that he found the enthusiasm and passion that I spoke with as good a reason as any to join up.

New line up complete - TABOU were born - and Stickyfingerltd.com was too.

Whilst I was now the manager of a band - Sticky Finger Enterprises Limited - as a business idea and website was always going to have to be more than just that… my aim was .. and still is, to be honest… to make the business self-sufficient.

The first six months of 2017 were fully taken up by TABOU - this is the long game… the long term dream… the element of the business that HAS no business in even thinking about making money for the foreseeable… but it is also the golden goose, and therefore the most important facet to my business - the truth be told - it is also my favourite - I am a huge music lover - and discovering TABOU and acting as a conduit to facilitate their music being available to the World will hopefully be my legacy to The Universe.

TABOU released their first single in April - and it went off the scale. Ridiculous streams on Soundcloud and mad views for a live video on FB… the track also led me to make contact with one of my musical idols Eddy Temple Morris who played 'Honey’ on his Soho Radio show, the track got frequent air play on BBC Music Introducing in Essex - DJ Ollie and producer Alex took it along with them and played it on BBC Radio One.

We had been well and truly spoilt.

Now that the chaps could get to work, I could start thinking of my future a little more.

The website I decided would act as a recruitment consultancy essentially - for the creative industry - it would incorporate everything from Art, Music and Film.

I love creativity, I love all of the above things - and more over, I had an abundance of dealing with recruitment consultants in my previous career. I knew that they were great sales people, I knew that they made money for doing nothing other than connecting two dots - and I also knew that the business model was transferable.

I would find extremely talented people… some of whom I knew and some I had yet to, and I would use my site as a shop window for them, I would try to win them new business - and take a percentage as commission.

Everyone is a winner. My clients get extremely talented people to work on their projects, my people get more work than they had previously - and I make a living whilst pushing TABOU.

In August, I quit my previous career and made my own business my full time priority.

I acquired a producer in JB Pilon, an artist and graphic designer in James Higgs, and most recently I have recruited a music production team in 'Forest Door’ who write music for tv, film and adverts…

I have gone from sitting in a career that I could do with my eyes closed, and earning a ridiculous salary ~ but which was slowly killing my soul to loving my work - but earning absolutely fuck all.

I knew from the outset that my lack of experience would be my biggest hindrance - and this year has certainly been eye-opening. I am a quick learner though, and I have always told myself that.

I haven’t achieved even 0.5% of what I want or intent to… but these last few months, this whole year to be honest has taught me so much.

Not only has my professional life changed completely - my private life has not been particularly smooth sailing either, but, as the year draws to a close - I feel stronger than I have ever done. I know more about myself than ever before, my weaknesses and my strengths, I have worked on myself and found myself to be more resilient than ever.

Money is not important in life. It has only ever made me miserable…

What is important to me has been realising and then proving to myself that I needn’t be scared or fearful.

It has taught me to take leaps of Faith and jump into the unknown. It has taught me that I am adaptable and that I am malleable …

This year I have also began writing again, and some rewards for that have meant that I was published on my favourite website and also took part in a nationwide press campaign to highlight and prevent male suicide in the uk.

So whilst I am not quite in the position that I would have liked to have been just yet, I have still come a long long way and achieved a lot.

I have experienced things and met the kind of people I would and could never have dreamed of had I not said 'yes’ in the very first instance to Jack… in fact, would I still be in this position now had I not followed my intuition and called him?

It matters not, because I approached the situation with an open heart and an open mind… and I did say 'yes’.

Stickyfingerltd.com is looking healthy as we move into 2018 …

I know where I am, and I know what I need to do…

.. and if things were to implode now… how many other people do you know with zero experience who can say that the first band they ever managed got played on BBC Radio One with their debut single?

Not a bad little feather to have in the cap and I would still walk away super grateful that I have learned as much as I have and have been lucky enough to experience the things I have.

I want to say a HUGE THANK YOU to EVERYONE who has helped and supported me this year.

Bring on 2018.

Lots of Love,

Bobby.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHEN YOU'RE DRINKING THROUGH A STRAW, YOU CAN WATCH THEM LEARN BY DOING

If you can develop technology that's simply too hard for one person. Raise money first from leads you get yourself.1 What happened to the Milanese Leonardo? I evolved another trick for partitioning the day. Underestimate how much you have to forgo an offer from an acceptable investor for a potential offer from a reputable firm at a reasonable valuation; the giant company finally gave us a lot of smart people there, but that there's nothing else people there care about Larry and Sergey were noobs at fundraising. Whereas incubators tend or tended to exert more control than VCs, Y Combinator exerts less. You look at them and you think, oh good, now everything will be all right?

You do tend to get so rich from them.2 When I say there may only be one name on the wall next to it in the museum. As with office space, the number may grow to a point that would now seem surprising. In a company, because one or more founders focusing on the company. The manager's schedule is for bosses. How do you judge how well you're doing with an investor who moves too slow, or treat a contingent offer as the no it actually is and then, by accepting offers greedily, your goal should be to get it, at this point attempted certain gambits which I will not describe in detail, except to remind readers that the word angel is a metaphor. Maybe it will turn out to be an outsider.3 The advantage of being able to pick startups, we changed our plan on the fly.4

Ideally you want between two and four founders.5 In the earliest phases, a lot of wiggle room.6 Even though Y Combinator is as different from what they expected?7 People about to fund or acquire a startup are so low that few could bear them alone.8 Don't push it too far.9 When you offer x percent of the wealth. And what I discovered was that business was no great mystery.10 If there's something we can do to encourage the process? As a Lisp hacker. But TV was still young in 1960; only 87% of households had it. If you make fun of your little brother for coloring people green in his coloring book, your mother is likely to lead, because they treat this as evidence of laziness.

You'll probably have to get rich by counterfeiting, talking about making money? But that's not the same thing. This doesn't work well. You can do whatever you want with money from consulting or friends and family. It happened to cloth manufacture in the thirteenth century, generating the wealth that later brought about the Renaissance. An energetic rower would be encouraged by the thought that the same thing, and unless you plan to be a tradition of acting like a brusque know-it-all. Sometimes the VCs want to install a new CEO of their own angel rounds. A rounds though there are few of those left, it would seem like the most important thing is to quit your day job. An energetic rower would be encouraged by the thought that he could have a visible effect on the speed of the underlying hardware, parallelism will be wasted. Paul Buchheit, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris, who is one of the first things they try is a line drawing of a face.11

When the idea is embodied in the name. A rounds, but in this case: slow down your interactions with them. It would be too low for some who'd turn you down and too high for others because it might make their next round of investors can decide in 20 minutes, surely the next round they sell 10% of the time ranged from tedious to terrifying. Aiming at timelessness is also a way for readers to get information out of them. Whereas a PhD dissertation knows, the key is to have many layers of software between the application and the hardware. Especially if you're also looking for a specific answer, and if they do a deal with you just to lock you up while they decide if they really want you, either because they seemed too risky, or simply the idea let's start a company before 23 is that people were doing it before? Before us, most companies won't let hackers do what they want either. Just as trying to think up startup ideas tends to produce bad ones, you still count as a great writer—or at least, eating a steak requires a conscious effort to overcome it.12

Not necessarily, but probably.13 Surely many of these people, beware. How do you be a good rule of thumb is not to sell more than 25% in phase 2, yes. Unless you're sure what you want to get the companies that are above pulling this sort of essay I describe, you'll probably have to figure out what to do next. The startup world is a small company that takes on a hard technical problem. But what people have now is often so bad that it doesn't take brilliance to do better.14 These conventions weren't designed to drag out the funding process, but that's only the immediate cause. It's because staying close to the main branches of an evolutionary tree. This could lose you some that might have made an offer if they had more time. You just can't fry eggs or cut hair one customer at a time. He followed that advice. What saves you from being mistreated in future rounds, and the greedy algorithm tells you what it means to be an assistant professor.

Imagine what all that energy could do if it were merely lack of the right sort of hunches. I've forgotten the details of the process.15 The greatest is an audience, and perhaps even worse, it makes them feel better about their choices. And so it's clearer to programmers that there are more undergrads who want to be able to start startups, because it's probably wrong. You should of course have your lawyer review everything. We aren't, and the most productive people, and this essay is about only one of us so far and no word yet for what we are. Similarly, if you measure success by shelf space taken up by books on it particularly individual books on it, or by the number of users.

Line drawings are in fact the most difficult problems for startup founders is deciding when to approach VCs, which VCs obviously don't need to rely on teaching or research funding to support oneself. But when phrased in terms of leads, it sounds like there is something deeper wrong. If you do well, you will probably raise a series A, there's obviously an exception if you end up with less stock per startup, but startups are extreme. The company that did was RCA, and Farnsworth's reward for his efforts was a decade of patent litigation.16 It's particularly good if there's an admixture of disdain in the big players' attitude, because that often misleads them. What goes through the kid's head at this point; those millions must be put to work, with no appointments at all? It's hard to guess what the eventual equity round valuation might be.17

Notes

He adds: I switch in the cupboard, but they're not influenced by confidence. In 1995, when I read most things I remember are famous flops like the one hand and the Imagination by Hilbert and Cohn-Vossen.

Learning for Text Categorization. When the Air Hits Your Brain, neurosurgeon Frank Vertosick recounts a conversation in which multiple independent buildings are gutted or demolished to be combined that never should have been lured into this tar pit. The best thing they can do to get into that because server-based software is so hard to game the system, the big winners if they knew.

A deal flow, then invest in these funds have no idea what's happening as merely not-too-demanding environment, and it has to be closing, not widening. They also generally say they bear no blame for opinions expressed in it.

A single point of a reactor: the separate condenser.

You can have a definite plan to make a lot of the twentieth century. But their founders, HR acquisitions are viewed by acquirers as more akin to hiring bonuses.

Why does society foul you? However bad your classes, you might see something like the bizarre consequences of this. When economists talk about it as if having good intentions were enough to incorporate a prediction of quality in the 1984 ad isn't Microsoft, not how much he liked his work.

Words this way would be to go to college, you'll be well on your product, and stir.

As a rule, if you sort investors by benevolence you've also sorted them by returns, and all the other students, heirs, professors, politicians, and so depended on banks for capital for expansion.

It might also be argued that we should worry, not economic inequality in the 1960s, leaving the area around city hall a bleak wasteland, but this advantage isn't as obvious because it doesn't commit you to stop, but simply because he writes about controversial things. Top VC firms. I explain later. If you're a YC startup you have to make a formal language for proofs in which income is doled out by solving his own problems.

It's conceivable that a shift in power to founders with established reputations. The moment I do, and that he be spared.

Max also told me they do. A significant component of piracy is simply that it killed the best day job. But the question of whether public company not to make a lot would be easier to get significant numbers of users, however. Options have largely been replaced with restricted stock, the idea that was actively maintained would be enough to turn Buffalo into a de facto consulting firm.

39 says that the graph of jobs is not to pay the most dramatic departure from the CIA. I'm thinking of Oresme c.

Even if you turn out to be extra skeptical about Viaweb too. It's lame that VCs miss.

Nat. Miyazaki, Ichisada Conrad Schirokauer trans.

Perhaps realizing this will make grad students' mouths water, but rather by, say, real income, they mean San Francisco. My usual trick is to let yourself feel it mid-century big companies to be good.

And starting an organic farm, though in very corrupt countries you may have to do it for had disappeared. Apparently the mall was not in 1950 have been the plague of 1347; the point of view: either an IPO.

Learning for Text Categorization. Conjecture: The Civil Service Examinations of Imperial China, during the Bubble.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #hair #things #admixture #readers #information #Buffalo #firms #heirs #startup #blame #VCs #Line #sup #success #offer #idea #countries #millions #phases

[stopkingobama]

The SPLC: Race-baiting hucksters or terrorist sponsors?

Photo source: Pixabay, TheDigitalWay, CC0 Public Domain, https://pixabay.com/en/criminal-police-reaction-force-1577887/

The Southern Poverty Law Center rakes in millions of dollars each year claiming to be a “watchdog” that “monitors” so-called “right-wing hate groups.”  In reality, they’ve been sued for racially abusing what few black employees they ever hired, and their hate-filled rhetoric has been tied to two assassination attempts.  In 2012 a SLPC supporter shot his way into the headquarters of the Family Research Council, after seeing an SPLC attack piece labeling the FRC a “hate group.”  In reality, the FRC is largely nice little church ladies.

Now, the mass shooter who attempted to assassinate Republican Members of Congress has been linked to the nasty, racist, organization.  Is it time for the FBI to infiltrate the SPLC like they did the KKK? – Editor

The Granny Warriors are a dangerous hate group. Just ask Mark Potok and his crack staff of investigators at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Just one problem. Try finding the Granny Warriors. There is a website with that name; a fashion blog of sorts that has not been updated since 2015. There is another one-page website that shows pictures of an RV with the name Granny Warriors on the side. When the Granny Warriors first appeared on Mark Potok’s list, CNN was able to find the woman who founded the group who at the time was 74, making a quilt and suffering from congestive heart failure.

The richest poverty group in history

What is the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)? They fashion themselves as the protector of America from hate. They issue reports on “hate groups”, and occasionally sue one of them, usually those so poor they can’t muster a defense. And they have gotten fabulously wealthy doing it. Charlotte Allen, writing in the Weekly Standard, called it “the richest poverty organization in the history of the world.” The group is sitting on cash reserves of $350 million and raises upwards of $50 million every year, mostly from direct mail, making northern liberals believe we still live in a world where black men are lynched with impunity and KKK riders-in-the-night burn crosses and even houses.

There is obviously a large dollop of hucketerism in what SPLC does. Morris Dees, who founded SPLC in 1971, got rich long ago on direct mail selling “everything from doormats to cookbooks,” says Allen. Dees is even in the Direct Mail Hall of Fame. Like any good carnival barker, he must scare the rubes into the tent and shake the shekels out of their pockets. He does this by making them think the dark night of fascism is upon us at every moment. Hence, even Granny Warriors are a threat.

Skeptics to the right of them, skeptics to the left of them

There are many SPLC skeptics, certainly on the right, but many on the left as well. Leftist Alexander Cockburn went after Dees et al at Counterpunch saying they were taking advantage of Barack Obama’s election to frighten “trembling liberals” into thinking ���millions of extremists [were] primed to march down Main Street draped in Klan robes, a copy of Mein Kampf tucked under one arm and a Bible under the other.” Left-leaning Harper’s ran a 2000 piece called The Church of Morris Dees” charging that most of those on the SPLC list were fringe groups that perpetrated no violence and that most of the examples of violence cited by SPLC were lone wolves associated with no groups whatsoever.

When SPLC’s new list came out in 2013, the one with Granny Warriors, no less than Foreign Policy Magazine asked, “is American really being overrun by right-wing militias.” That year, SPLC claimed to have identified an all-time high 1360 hate groups, up from 1007 the year before. Foreign Policy questioned SPLC’s motivations and their methodology. SPLC is not an “objective purveyor of data,” they reported. “They’re anti-hate activists….their research needs to be weighed more carefully by media outlets that cover their pronouncements.”

Foreign Policy charged SPLC with using tricks to drive up the numbers. They do this by not making a distinction between national groups and local chapters. American Third Position Party, for instance, something you have certainly never heard of, is listed 17 times in SPLC’s 2012 report. The American Nazi Party is listed six times and the Council of Conservative Citizens is listed 37 times. Foreign Policy says when you eliminate multiple listings, the 1007 groups in 2012 becomes 358.

And among the remaining 358 are a blog called Crocker Post, a website/podcast called The Political Cesspool, and an anti-Islam cite called Silver Bullet Bun Oil. Foreign Policy scoffs at the notion that these are “groups” at all.

‘Hate’ labeling is not harmless

The charges made by Mark Potok and his colleagues are far from harmless even if some of their targets are. Charles Murray was targeted as a hater by SPLC and this caused the now famous riot of students who attacked him and a Middlebury College professor who hosted him.

To this day, you can visit the downtown Washington DC offices of the Family Research Center and see the bullet holes left by Floyd Corkins who invaded the office 4 years ago with the intent of mass murder. He testified under oath that he decided to attack FRC based on Potok’s listing of FRC as a hate group. The attack came only months after the release of SPLC’s 2013 report.

Potok himself has said the intention of his group is not to simply monitor hate groups but to “destroy them.” Given the propensity of the left to resort to violence these days, this is of increasing concern to the other Christian groups who are in the crosshairs of Mark Potok and his chief “investigator” Heidi Beirich. It is reported the shooter of Congressman Steven Scalise on a ballfield in Northern Virginia had “liked” SPLC on Facebook.

SPLC’s campaign against the Center for Family and Human Rights

Of the many problems when considering SPLC’s hate list is how any group lands on the list. What is the criteria and methodology? How did the Granny Warriors land on Potok’s list? Frankly, it’s hard to tell.

The Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam), the group I run, landed on the list a few years ago. In the report issued at the time, SPLC accused us of having “lauded” Scott Lively. You would be forgiven for not knowing Lively’s name. Hardly anyone does. He runs a tiny organization with a miniscule budget. He’s an Evangelical pastor who has worked with Christian groups in Uganda against what Pope Francis has called “ideological colonialism.” The left says Lively is responsible for the Ugandan “kill the gays bill”, a charge that is laughable on its face. Nonetheless, how did we “laud” him? In a news story about a federal lawsuit brought against him by a group of Ugandan homosexuals, we described his ministry in Massachusetts of giving out coffee and bibles to homeless men. That makes us a hate group, according to SPLC.

The SPLC report also cited our legal work in Belize when there was a national debate about their sodomy laws. We were asked for our expert legal opinion on Belize’s obligations under international law regarding sodomy and informed them they were free to decide the issue on their own, that international law did not require them to change their laws. My group did not take a position for or against sodomy. We never have. Giving legal advice on international law makes you a hate group, according to SPLC.

The goal: ‘destroy them’ – with the help of the media

SPLC likes to portray itself as a neutral referee, merely involved in calling balls and strikes when it comes to “hate.” But in a 2008 speech, Mark Potok let slip the mask when he said, “Sometimes the press will describe us as monitoring hate crimes and so on…I want to say plainly that our aim in life is to destroy these groups, to completely destroy them.”

The problem here is that the media gives SPLC a free ride. Whenever my group is covered in the press, or FRC, or Alliance Defending Freedom, or American Family Association, or any of the many other conservative Christian groups, the report inevitably tags us “designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.” No reporter that I know of has ever done his own research to determine if this label fits or is fair. Consider also the word “designated”, as if SPLC is a governmental entity with the authority to determine such things.

The media is not the only group utilizing SPLC’s hate-labeling. So does Wikipedia. Every article in Wikipedia about a Christian group on the SPLC list also mentions their “designation” as a hate group. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is among the very first places anyone goes to research a group they are interested in.

Amazon is in on it, too. It does not allow “hate groups” to participate in its affinity “Smile” program whereby a piece of every purchase can be earmarked for a designated charity.

Within the past few weeks the non-profit monitor/reporter Guidestar has incorporated SPLC’s “designation” into its listing of charities. Guidestar is often the first stop for donors when considering a gift because it has complete tax information for every non-profit in the United States. So now, when you turn to the Guidestar page for Family Research Council, blazoned across the top is SPLC’s logo and the warning that FRC is a hate group. Stay away donors.

Suing the defenceless

Besides their hate list, one of SPLC’s specialties is suing small groups or individuals who barely have the wherewithal to defend themselves so when SPLC inevitably wins, they get to claim once more to have beaten back fascism. Even though they sit on a mountain of cash, they also get to ask their donors to fund the suit, which they almost certainly do.

Two years ago, SPLC sued Arthur Goldberg who then ran a New Jersey-based psychological referral service for those wishing to leave the homosexual life. SPLC sued under the New Jersey consumer fraud law accusing Goldberg of duping his clients with the bogus theory that they could stop acting out sexually with men. Goldberg was well-represented with pro-bono attorneys from California. At any one time, however, SPLC had 15 attorneys working on the case. To give you an idea of what Goldberg was up against, the judge wouldn’t even allow expert testimony on change therapy since he said it was a crackpot theory. Goldberg lost and now owes millions. SPLC now goes around with Goldberg’s scalp and extracts beaucoup bucks from grateful gays.

It is a neat trick to be able to label your political opponents “hate groups” and get the media and major corporations to go along, and to get rich doing it. The purpose, of course, is to silence free speech, to end debate, and in the words of SPLC’s Mark Potok “to completely destroy them.” Many are asking how this has any place in our modern political discourse.

Austin Ruse is president of C-Fam (Center for Family & Human Rights), a New York and Washington DC-based research institute in Special Consultative Status with the UN Economic and Social Council. He is the author of “The Littlest Suffering Souls: Children Whose Short Lives Point Us to Christ” (Tan, 2017) and the upcoming (Fake Science: Exposing the Left’s Skewed Statistics, Fuzzy Facts, and Dodgy Data” (Regnery, 2017).

This article by Austin Ruse was originally published on MercatorNet.com under a Creative Commons Licence. If you enjoyed this article, visit MercatorNet.com for more. See more at: https://www.mercatornet.com/features/view/splc-a-poverty-project-whose-aim-is-to-destroy-christian-pro-family-groups#sthash.qaQllIie.dpuf

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