#this is just relevant for my portrayal of james and all you other lovely people writing him are VALID AND RIGHT AS FUCK !

[hatilead]

on another james related note i headcanon him as a homosexual and there’s nothing you can do about it.    that man is gay.   exclusively into men.     is he aware of this in most verses ?    fuck no.      does that take away from the fact that he is gay   ?    absolutely not. 

#i. CHOKING ON SOME MOONLIGHT ! ( tbd. ) #i need to write up a proper post on this but i ... will not do such a thing right now #also friendly reminder that everyone is allowed to see a character differently and i'm not #saying that anyone who sees him as having another sexuality is wrong xoxo #this is just relevant for my portrayal of james and all you other lovely people writing him are VALID AND RIGHT AS FUCK !

[james-joyces-right-eyeball]

Absolute Favorite Books I’d Recommend to Anyone

This is a list of my top-tier favorite books that I would recommend/talk about endlessly to pretty much anyone (in no particular order). I know people probably don’t care but I just like talking about books I love so here we are.

Beloved - Toni Morrison

~ Based off the real story of Margaret Garner, a slave woman who escaped slavery and when captured killed her child in order to prevent them from ever being enslaved again, Beloved tells the story of a mother named Sethe, born in slavery who eventually escaped and is haunted by the figurative demons of her trauma and the literal (arguably) ghost of her dead daughter, who she herself killed. It is an excellent exploration of the horrors of slavery and of the haunting legacy of the institution for those who were subjected to it.

Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

~ If you’ve been on Tumblr for a while, you probably know what Lolita is. The story of the predatory Humbert Humbert who lusts after, rapes, and kidnaps the “nymphet” Dolores Haze. An excellent construction of how predators, unreliable narrators in their own right, hide behind fabrications, almost-believable excuses, and pretty words to make their actions seem maybe not so bad. In the words of the book itself, “You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.”

Ulysses - James Joyce

~ Notoriously one of the most difficult books in the English language, Ulysses lifts its structure from Homer’s Odyssey to tell the story of a common man, Leopold Bloom, as he goes about his day. Yes, this book takes place over the course of only one day. We follow Bloom as well as Joyce’s literary counterpart Stephen Daedalus through their thoughts and actions, gathering details of their lives previous throughout. It’s a book that, in my own words, “is life”. It is sad, funny, strange, vulgar, disgusting, beautiful, revelatory, sensual, and nonsensical all at once. Joyce aimed to create a reflection of life through his stream-of-consciousness style which some people might find confusing, but I personally find absolutely beautiful and honest and realistic. The prose is also gorgeous, but that could be applied to everything Joyce wrote. 

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

~ The classic gothic book that tells the tale of Heathcliff and his ultimately destructive love of Catherine Earnshaw, whose eventual marriage to someone else and the general mistreatment of him by her family drives Heathcliff insane and he spends the rest of his life trying to take revenge by abusing and torturing the next Earnshaw and Linton (the family into which Catherine marries) generations. If I’m being honest, I like this book mostly because of how wild and dark it is, but the writing is also genius and beautiful. I think the book also carries an interesting view of the destructive nature of revenge, overzealous love, and othering.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith

~ A coming-of-age story at the turn of the century that tells the story of Francie Nolan, a young bookish girl growing up in a lower class family in New York City. It tells about her father’s struggles with alcoholism as well as her mother’s struggles to deal with that and at the same time raise Francie and her brother. Francie is confronted with a strange, uncertain world as a young girl, but tries to face it with bravery throughout childhood

Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

~ Another coming-of-age story, this time about four young sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March. You are probably familiar with this book already; it’s had more movie adaptations then I can possibly remember off the top of my head. It’s the story of four sisters as they try to navigate growing up, love, and loss during the mid to late 1800s.

The Color Purple - Alice Walker

~ A novel that tells the story of Celie, a young black woman who is raped and then married young to a man who will go on to use and abuse her, through her letters to God. Throughout the novel she meets Shug Avery, a woman with whom she eventually falls in love and begins a relationship with. Through this and her eventual freedom from her abusive husband, she is able to gain at last her own sense of self and take back control over her life, a life no longer ruled by the abusive men around her.

The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison

~ The tragic story of young black girl Pecola Breedlove, who wants nothing more than to have blonde hair and blue eyes just like the women she sees in the movies. Both a deconstruction of the whiteness of beauty standards as well as how these standards can utterly destroy vulnerable young girls, it is also an exploration of the people who allow these sorts of things to happen, including Pecola’s mother and father. The Bluest Eye, I think, showcases one of the aspects of Toni Morrison that I like the most, that I aspire to the most: her ability to enter the minds of all people, even people who you might despise at first. Her characters, especially Cholly in The Bluest Eye, are ones you might not entirely sympathize with, but they will always be ones you understand.

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

~ Based off of the author’s own experiences as a young college student, The Bell Jar tells the story of Esther Greenwood, whose depression over her place as a woman in a patriarchal society as well as her inability to choose a life path for herself leads to a suicide attempt and a subsequent stay in a mental hospital. A very nuanced portrayal of mental illness, especially anxiety and depression, The Bell Jar is an extremely moving and relatable story for me and clearly is as well for others. It is a classic for a reason.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou

~ A memoir of Angelou’s childhood, this book tells the story of her experiences living as a black girl in the south with her grandmother and brother as well as her later years living with her mother. It also tells of how she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend when she was around eight or nine, and how she struggled to live with that and find her voice, both literally and figuratively. A wonderful book about overcoming struggles and the power of words and literature in such times.

Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison

~ Ellison’s novel tells the story of a young black man, never getting a name in the text, and his feelings of invisibility and his struggles to find a place in society to belong. His struggles only lead him further into despair, until he decides to “become invisible” as people seem not to see him as a person anyway. Invisible Man is an exploration of American mid-century racism and the isolation it causes to those subjected to it. Not only that, but it is surprisingly relevant to our times now, especially on the subject of police violence. (Personal anecdote: When I first read this book, when I got to the aforementioned police violence part it was right in the middle of the BLM resurgence last summer and I cried for a good twenty minutes while reading that chapter over how nothing had changed and it still hurts me to think about it. Embarrassingly, my dad walked in on me while I was crying, and I had to quickly explain it away.)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce

~ The title basically says it all lol. This book tells of the coming-of-age of Stephen Daedalus (the same one from the later-written Ulysses). His sensitive childhood, his awkward and lustful adolescence, his feelings of Irish nationality and Catholic guilt, and his struggles to fully realize himself, both as an artist and a human being. It is a very hopeful story, and one that I love mostly because I relate so much to Stephen Daedalus as an artist and as a person.

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

~ A magical-realist intergenerational family drama, Marquez’s book traces the various lives and loves of the Buendia family over the course of (you guessed it!) one hundred years. A beautifully written, at times extremely emotionally moving and chilling masterpiece, Marquez in a way retells the history of Colombia, of its colonization and exploitation.  

Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

~ A classic Russian novel of society and love, Tolstoy tells the story of Anna Karenina, married, wealthy woman with a child she adores. However, she falls in love with another man, Count Vronsky, and comes to a tragic end for her love. The parallel story of the novel is that of Konstantin Levin, a wealthy landowner who also struggles to find fulfillment in his life and understand his place in society.

The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner

~ A novel that features an entire family of unreliable narrators, The Sound and the Fury details the fall of a once-prominent southern Compson family and always-present place of the past. There are four different narratives: Benjy Compson, a mentally disabled man who is unsure of his surroundings and of time and only knows that he misses his older sister Caddy; Quintin Compson, the eldest son and a Harvard man both obsessed with his sister retaining her “purity” and the fact that she failed to do so and had a baby out of wedlock, going as far to claim it is his baby in an attempt to preserve something of the family reputation; Jason Compson, who is the caretaker of Caddy’s daughter and believes her to be going down her mother’s “sinful” path; and Dilsey, the black maid of the Compson’s who unlike the people she cares for is not weighed down by their history. The narratives take place in different time periods and is in a stream-of-consciousness style. It’s a deeply dark and disturbing novel about the haunting nature of the past, a common theme in Faulkner’s work (see Absalom, Absalom! for more of this).

Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison

~ It is the story of Milkman Dead, a young black man growing up in the south and his relationship with his very complicated family. To say anymore would be to spoil the novel, but I will say that it is an excellent book about family, self-fulfillment in a world that tries to deny you that, and, like The Bluest Eye, exhibits Morrison’s excellent character work.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - Tennessee Williams

~ A play which takes place on the patriarch of a family’s birthday in the oppressive heat of the midsummer south, Williams’ play explores lies, secrets, and how repression only results in anger, frustration, and sadness. It’s a tragic but brilliant play that I think was very ahead of its time. If you’ve read it (or do read it) then you know what I mean.

Giovanni’s Room - James Baldwin

~ This book tells the story of a young man and his love of another man named Giovanni while he is in Paris. It is a book about love, queer guilt, and has what I would call an ambiguous ending. There is uncertainty at the end, but there does seem to be some kind of acceptance. It is a bit of a coming-out story, but more than that it is a story of personal acceptance and at the same time a sad, tragic love story.

HERmione - H.D.

~ An underrated modernist masterpiece, HERmione is a somewhat fictionalized account of the author, Hilda Doolittle’s, experience as a young aspiring poet dating another poet (in real life Ezra Pound in this book named George Lowndes) who is a threat to her both physically and emotionally. It explores her own mental state, as she considers herself a failure and falls in love with a woman for the first time (Fayne Rabb in the book, Frances Gregg in real life). 

To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

~ People think about going to a lighthouse. They do not. A couple years and a war passes then they do. That may seem like a boring plot, and you may be right. However, To the Lighthouse is not much about plot. It is more about the inner lives of its characters, a family and their friends, on two different occasions of their lives: one before WWI and one after WWI. Woolf explores in this novel the trauma that results from such a massive loss of life and security. Not only that, she also explores the nature of art (especially in female artists) in the character of Lily Briscoe and her struggles to complete a painting. It’s a short novel, but it contains so much about life, love, and loss within these few pages.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers

~ A southern gothic novel about isolation and loneliness in a small town. Every character has something to separate them from wider society, and often find solace and companionship in a deaf man, John Singer, who himself experiences a loneliness that they cannot understand. There are various forms of social isolation explored in this novel: by race, disability, age, gender, etc. A wonderful, heart-wrenching book about loneliness and the depths it can potentially drag people to.

The Waste Land - T.S. Eliot

~ A modernist masterpiece of a poem, Eliot describes feeling emptiness and isolation. The brilliance of it can only be shown by an excerpt:

“Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, Looking into the heart of light, the silence.”

“The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed. Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed. And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors; Departed, have left no addresses. By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . . Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song, Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long. But at my back in a cold blast I hear The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear. “

(My personal favorite line from this poem is, “I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”)

The Trial - Franz Kafka

~ The protagonist of the novel, Josef K., wakes up one morning to find that he has been placed under arrest for reasons that are kept from him. Kafka creates throughout the novel a scathing satire of bureaucracy, as K. tries to find out more about his case, more about his trial, but only becomes more confused as he digs deeper. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the world he lives in, and the more tries to explain it the further the more that proves to be the case. An excellently constructed novel and a great one to read if you would like to be depressed about the state of the world because, though Kafka’s work is a satire, like a lot of his other work, it manages to strike a strangely real note.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - Tom Stoppard

~ An absurdist play that is a retelling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet from the perspective of minor characters, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who in the broad overview of the original play, do not matter. Throughout the play, they question their existence and the purpose of it and through that Stoppard dissects not only the absurdity of life, but how fiction and theater reflect that absurdity inadvertently.

As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner

~ The novel details the journey the Bundren family makes after the death of the family matriarch, Addie, to bury her. Each chapter offers a different narrative from the family members and those who surround them, revealing some ulterior motives to them “going to town” to bury Addie. The patriarch Anse desires a pair of false teeth, and the daughter Dewey Dell is pregnant and needs an abortion, as there is no way for her or her family to support it. It’s about the powerlessness of people in the impoverished south. The Bundrens are constantly subject to forces beyond their control, struggles which would be easily solved if they had the money to spare for it. There is more to the book, but that is my favorite reading of it, that of class. Faulkner’s ability to create distinct voices for every one of his characters shines through here.

And, last but not least:

The Collected Poems - Sylvia Plath

~ All the poems Plath wrote during her tragically short lifetime. The best way to demonstrate or summarize the book’s brilliance is just to show you. This is her poem “Edge”, which appears in the book:

“The woman is perfected.   Her dead Body wears the smile of accomplishment,   The illusion of a Greek necessity Flows in the scrolls of her toga,   Her bare Feet seem to be saying: We have come so far, it is over. Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,   One at each little Pitcher of milk, now empty.   She has folded Them back into her body as petals   Of a rose close when the garden Stiffens and odors bleed From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower. The moon has nothing to be sad about,   Staring from her hood of bone. She is used to this sort of thing. Her blacks crackle and drag.”

HOPE YOU ENJOYED! HAPPY READING TO ALL!

#dark academia #books and literature #toni morrison #james joyce #tennessee williams #virginia woolf #william faulkner #sylvia plath #plays #poetry #can you tell i like southern and modernist lit lol?

[kanski03]

         THE SIGNIFICANCE OF YELLOW.

There's a duality to yellow; it's a symbolically-rich oxymoron which, with its conflicting associations, fits Lara completely. Particularly in the 19th Century, yellow was associated with sickness, stigma, and cowardice in Western society, whilst adversely being a colour associated with value, spirituality, and heroism in the East. Interestingly, it would come to be associated with p.ornography in both Western and Eastern society.

In addition to its history, yellow’s ambivalent character as both attractive and repulsive is something that appealed to me in regards to Lara’s character, for it is in-tune with my portrayal of her character; whilst certainly beautiful, with a history of idealism and spirit, this beauty constantly is at-odds with the aspects of her personality that evoke repulsion; her violence, her temper, her blood-lust, and her undeniable greed.

To sum, the following are terms associated with the colour;

indecency. eroticism. literature. salome. spectacle. sarah bernhardt. stigma. reclamation. betrayal. repression. obsession. instability. entrapment. war. memorial. dynasty. wealth. knowledge. censorship. death. ancient. toxicity. poison. arsenic. rarity. art. incompatibility. striking. gold. eternal life. murder.

         YELLOW IN LITERATURE.

In 1895, when Oscar Wilde was arrested for 'gross indecency', he was seen to be carrying a French novel with a vivid yellow book which, at the time, would denote literature of an i.llicit and e.rotic nature. People misidentified the material to be The Yellow Book (a British quarterly literary periodical of the time that published the work of authors and artists such as Henry James, H.G Wells, William Butler Yeats, John Singer Sargent, and its first art editor, Aubrey Beardsley) and associated the publication with Wilde. The day after Wilde's arrest, people demonstrated in front of the publisher, and a flurry of media reports soon cemented an association between yellow paperbacks and homosexual content. Somewhat amusingly, Wilde had previously referred to The Yellow Book as 'dull' and 'not yellow at all' in an argument with Beardsley, whom he had once collaborated with for his play Salomé, first published in France. Less amusingly, Beardsley’s reputation was for a time so ruined by tabloid journalism after the arrest of Wilde that he and his sister were forced to vacate the house they shared.

On the subject of Salome, a play that rewrote the biblical figure of the New Testament, yellow plays a particular significance; though the colour is only mentioned seemingly in passing in the play in describing her veils, the Dance of the Seven Veils was infamous in its spectacle and, in contrast with recent depictions of Salome* (notably Rita Hayworth’s portrayal), Wilde reportedly stressed the importance of the dance being in monochrome yellow to the production's costume designer, W. Graham Robertson. Yellow’s importance can also be noted in the portrait of Salomé painted by Henri Regnault, Judith II (Salome) by Gustav Klimt, and Hans Makart’s portrait of the esteemed Sarah Bernhardt**, Wilde’s friend for whom the role Salome was written but by whom it would never be performed.

Makart, a Viennese painter, found his portrait of the ‘Divine Sarah’ was met with much criticism, however, due to its yellow appearance, and thus he withdrew it from an exhibition, an action that upset Bernhardt in a time of rife Antisemitism, thus sensitivity surrounding the figure of Salome. She formulated this response in a letter to Makart that showed her initial appreciation for the portrait, her disappointment in its removal and Makart’s shame for the piece: "Yellow on yellow was the colour of Henri Regault, the late master from Paris, when he painted his Salome   shouldn’t the famed Sarah not also be permitted to be yellow? [...] Yes, Mr. Makart, even though my statue has been rescued from the Ring Theatre fire, my portrait must now be driven away. And yet my head and arms are so beautifully made up, the gown, the table cloth, the embroidery, the palm fan, everything is so beautifully yellow. Take assurance that I, too, have become truly yellow from gall, because you, whom I held to be my friend, betrayed me, after you painted me in yellow.” Bernhardt knew of the stigmatising reputation of the colour at such a time, but it would seem she was interested in its reclamation and in showcasing the colour for its beauty; when she acquired the Paris theatre, then the Théâtre des Nations, she had the red plush and gilt replaced with yellow velvet and brocade and renamed it ‘Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt’. The theatre kept the name the Occupation of France by the Germans in World War II, when the name was sadly changed to Théâtre de la Cité because of Bernhardt's Jewish ancestry.

* I do use the figure of Salome as an inspiration in itself, though not from her Antisemitic depiction in the New Testament or as the seductress of Wilde’s play, but rather in how her reputation was created in itself; almost all our information about her derives from the writings of Josephus whom relied heavily on the works of Herod’s court historian Nicolaus of Damascus, and our picture of Salome is marred by the latter’s personal feud with her. Herod’s personal life was full of intrigue and violence, and Nicolaus used Salome as a decoy so as to divert the reader’s wrath at these deeds away from her brother. Thus she is described as being the instigator of all the ‘tragedies' that befell Herod, and it is only after Herod’s death that we learn why Nicolaus hated Salome: in the question of Herod’s will and Herod’s apparent heir, she supported the claim of Herod Antipas, while Nicolaus supported the pretensions of Archelaus, thus in a public hearing on the issue in Rome they were found on two opposing sides of the question. When he eventually wrote on Herodian history, he had still not forgiven Salome for this affront and thus made her into a monster. To me, she seems to be another victim of history being written by male victors.

** Sarah Bernhardt was a primary inspiration for both Lara’s grandmother, Lady Margot Peletier, and Lara herself. Ethnically Jewish, Bernhardt was the child of a wealthy Dutch Jewish courtesan, Judith Bernard. Her father payed for her education, under the proviso that she be baptised as Roman Catholic. However, she never forgot her Jewish heritage. When asked by a reporter if she were a Christian, she replied: "No, I'm a Roman Catholic, and a member of the great Jewish race. I'm waiting until Christians become better."

I have briefly mentioned before the significance of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper in my portrayal, though its relevance is primarily in regards to Lara’s mother, Lady Aemilia E. Croft, and her diagnosis of what was then referred to as ‘puerperal insanity’. Gilman’s story is one of repression and obsession, with the narrator so clearly struggling with her role as a woman of the time and her inability to be the mother that was expected of her, in society that advised women to stick to being mothers and wives and resist the temptation to over-exert themselves physically, creatively, and mentally. The Yellow Wallpaper is famous enough that I don’t think I need to write too much on it, but I would argue that the pairing of yellow and specifically female instability and female entrapment is a clear one, particularly in relation to Lara.  

         YELLOW IN TRADITION.

The famous song ‘She Wore a Yellow Ribbon’, a song that has existed in various forms for at least four centuries and was a popular U.S Army marching song, also bears plenty of relevance to my portrayal of Lara, based on the tradition of a yellow ribbon being associated with those waiting for the return of a loved one or of military troops who are temporarily unable to come home from war. Thus, yellow too is associated with memorial.

Though in China the term 'yellow', in regards to printed materials like books and images, too has more recently denoted p.ornography     and an association for prostitution in Hong Kong     the term '黃' being a colloquial for something that is 'p.ornographic' or 'l.ewd' *, it was once a colour favoured by Imperial Emperors. The beginning of the Tang dynasty, Emperor Gaozong expressly forbade others from wearing clothing in of 'reddish-yellow' (his purported reasoning being that it was the colour of THE SUN and, just as there cannot be two suns in the sky, there cannot be two emperors in a nation'), and further regulations on wearing the colour yellow would be set by following dynasties, particularly the Qing Dynasty. Royal palaces were also recognised by their yellow roofs.

* I won't pretend to be an expert on this because I definitely am not, but I do remember reading something about forbidden books of the early Mao era being hidden under yellow covers, so I'll conjecture that perhaps as being why (as well as globalisation) as, due to censorship, it remains a difficult topic to research.

In India, the colour is associated with the Hindu deity Krishna who, generally, is depicted wearing a vivid yellow robe to contrast with his blue skin. Additionally, it’s there often associated with knowledge and peace, arguably both similar or opposing to its usage in Ancient Egypt ... ;

         YELLOW IN DEATH.

... there, yellow was worn to signify the dead. In contrast, it has been widely purported that Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn wore yellow on receiving the news of Catherine of Aragon's death in a calculated insult to the memory of the woman Anne Boleyn had supplanted.

I based the colouring of my Google Doc and graphics on Orpiment, an inspiration that might be becoming a little more clear in my most recent promotional graphic, which is attested as another one of the reasons for yellow's negative associations. Orpiment was a pigment relied upon by artists from ancient times until the 19th century, in spite of its extreme toxicity and its incompatibility with other common lead- and copper-based pigments, due to clear and bright yellow pigments being in rare supply.

Orpiment had a hand in the infamous case of the Dutch serial killer Maria Swanenburg, once known locally as 'Goeie Mie' or 'Good Mie' when she cared for both children and the sick and elderly in the poor Leiden neighbourhood in which she lived, who murdered an confirmed number of 27 victims (though she is suspected of possibly having killed more than 90), including her own parents, with Orpiment arsenic between 1880-83.

Though commonly a golden colour, the mineral's streak (the colour of its powder when dragged across an un-weathered surface, which tends to be more consistent than a mineral's apparent colour due to various possible trace impurities) is closer to the pale lemon-yellow. It has notably been found on the walls of the Taj Mahal, as well as in the wall decor of Tutankhamen's tomb and ancient Egyptian scrolls.

Because of its visually striking colour, the mineral itself was of wide interest to alchemists throughout Europe and Asia when searching for a way to make gold and in their quest for eternal life     perhaps ironic, considering its poisonous nature. In a similar vein, it was used as a medicine for a time, in spite of its toxicity as an arsenic sulphide mineral. Perhaps more suitably, it too was used to tip poison arrows.

#𝟎𝟎𝟐 : 𝐇𝐂. \ ❛ i can't wait to be forgotten . ❜ #DON'T REBLOG

[carat82]

Remakes. Reboots. How do you feel about them?

“Meh”

“Why change what was already great?”

“Yes! I love seeing various ways one story can be told!”

Chances are you fall into one of those reactions. I personally have found myself saying all 3 based on what the remake is of. Recently, I found myself watching a remake that I never thought I would ever want to watch.

Anne with an E.

You see the 1987 Anne of Green Gables by Kevin Sullivan holds an extremely personal and special place in my heart. I was first told about AOGG from a friend of my moms around the time when I was 8/9 years old....And it could not have been introduced into my life at a more crucial time. With our family life in shambles, as my parents were on the verge of splitting up, this series proved to be a balm to my anxious heart. Whenever I was in the “depths of despair” as the world around me continued to spiral out of control, I could immerse myself into Anne’s world. She took my hand and brought me on her journey into Avonlea. Our Anne had a knack for getting herself into the most unusual and humorous situations due to her over-active imagination. “Anne Shirley what have you done to your hair?” “I dyed it.” “You dyed it? For mercy’s sake child!” “I shall walk that ridgepole or perish.” “In the end I suppose it was a romantic way to perish...for a mouse.” And till this day I can still spell chrysanthemum correctly.

One could easily fall in love with Green Gables. How could you not with Megan Follows portrayal of Anne Shirley?

And Jonathan Crombie? Well, he is my Gilbert Blythe forever❤️

Colleen Durhurst and Richard Farnsworth took on the roles of our beloved Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert as they find themselves raising an exuberant teenager in their old age. Their approach to this couldn’t be more night from day. Matthew has such a soft and tender heart, as we see when he buys Anne her puffed sleeved dress, while Marilla comes off as more stern and down to business. However, the audience knows her heart is just as taken with Anne as her brother’s is. There is a conversation between Matthew and Marilla, as they watch Anne leave on the train to attend collage in Charlottetown,that pulls at my heart each and every time I hear it- Matthew-“Mrs.Spenser made a lucky mistake, I guess.” Marilla-“It wasn’t luck it was providence. He knew we needed her.” That speaks to the beauty of this story. It wasn’t just Anne who needed a family to love her. None of them were truly complete without each other. They all needed what each of us crave. Family. And it doesn’t have to be blood that makes a family. It wasn’t with Anne. And it doesn’t have to be with us.

There is a particularly emotional scene,after Matthew dies, in which a sobbing Anne holds onto Marilla telling her “We have each other now.” Those were the words of my heart. As mom and I transitioned into a single parent family, we now had each other and Anne came along with us. Our Anne of Green Gables.

Despite the challenges of being an orphan and having an imagination that got her into trouble at times, Anne successfully navigated from young girl to a mature beautiful woman, reddish aburnn hair included( Racheal Lynd was right😉) We get to see this in the equally wonderful follow up-Anne of Avonlea. Still, today almost 30 years later, I find myself replaying parts of AOGG and AOA in my head as I continue to navigate my own adulthood and have those “Jonah like days.” Whenever I fly back home to home to visit my aging mother, this scene always plays in my mind-

So now dear reader we come to present time and the Netflix series Anne With an E. I knew it could never take the place in my heart as the original and so I just couldn’t bring myself to watch someone else play these beloved characters. I was very protective of my AOGG. It couldn’t be as good as the 80’s version, right? So I didn’t watch when it began to air in 2017. But then 2020 rolled around. I was and (currently am) actively involved in a campaign to save the show Sanditon (see previous blogs). In doing so, I came across very passionate fans of AWAE on Twitter. This large, global fandom is trying with all their might to get AWAE renewed from cancellation after 3 seasons. And I was curious...even intrigued. I I began thinking perhaps I was wrong in my early judgement of this reboot. After all, didn’t I want more people to experience Anne’s story like I did? She helped me along at a critical juncture and if this new series could do the same for others then perhaps it was worth me finding out. So,on a lazy Saturday afternoon I flicked on Netflix, pushed play on Episode 1, and waited to see if my heart would be stirred. And you know what? It was....Beautiful!

I couldn’t help but quote AOGG as the episode progressed because I was so excited by what I saw. And when the time came for Gilbert to utter those famous words in the classroom, I began yelling at the TV “Say Carrots!” “Hit him with the slate!” Yes, AWAE captures all the right emotions that Kevin Sullivan’s 1987 series did but for a new generation. It touches on more of the abuse Anne had to endure before coming to the Cuthberts, which is relevant to our era and needs to be told. It gives us more insight into Marilla’s struggles, which I find very intriguing and well done. I’m only in the first season so I can’t detail much more about the series just yet but can truthfully say that Amybeth McNulty does a wonderful job portraying Anne. Gilbert is played by Lucas Hade Zumann and he is adorable. Marilla and Matthew are Geraldine James and RH Thomson respectably and they offer a believable, lovely portrayal of this brother and sister. With this series being longer then AOGG, seeings as it’s 3 seasons long (and hopefully more) I’m looking forward to seeing certain stories drawn out more,other story arcs being told, and more of the struggles of that era being presented. So if you have not watched this series yet, do yourself a favor and give it a try. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed. After all, I had the sequel to see Anne all grown up and get her happily ever after with Gilbert. This fandom and the audience needs and deserves the same. And I don’t think they should settle for anything less. #renewannewithane

[tocxmply]

you should meta to me about !!! bucky + gaining back his sense of agency !!! --- @toscrve​​ ---

AGENCY [sources: click, click, click, click]

         it’s funny you should ask because — in order to address this, first i have to talk about how the lack of agency is the overarching theme when it comes to James Buchanan Barnes, even more so than the brainwashing/ fragmentation of identity per se. because — when was the last time we saw Bucky making an active, informed, conscious, autonomous choice? it was somewhere in 1943, when he chose to follow Captain America (my bad, he chose to follow that little kid from Brooklyn too dumb to run from a fight). i mean, this is fairly obvious when we think about the Winter Soldier, but… thing is, it’s just as prevalent during “Captain America: Civil War”, “Avengers: Infinity War”, and “Avengers: Endgame” — it’s just camouflaged, which actually makes it all the more dangerous. and all the more disrespectful. and please note: what i am about to state is not out of hatred for any of the implied characters — rather, heavy criticism on the writers of the respective movies — because, by doing what they did, they disrespected Bucky as much as they did other characters such as Steve or T’challa.

for example, in CA:CW: we are led to believe, at the end, that Bucky made the choice to go back to cryo. but did he, really? because making a choice implies having at least two different options to pick from — and did he, at that point? did somebody tell him hey, if you want, you can stay at NYC and i’ll check on you and if you ever have a moment again i’ll help you and we’ll figure something out? did somebody tell him hey, if you want, you can stay at Wakanda but out of cryo and i’ll check on you and if you ever have a moment again i’ll help you and we’ll figure something out? did somebody at all offer him the if you want possibility? because we certainly don’t see it on screen, and i’m hard-pressed to believe it happened off-screen. the way i see this, Bucky basically Stockholm’d himself, at a subconscious/ unconscious level, into retreating back to a cryostasis capsule — because at least it’s familiar, because at least it’s comforting in its own perverse and twisted way, because at least it’s easier than to deal with people like Zemo, because at least this way he won’t be a burden to anybody, because it’s all that’s left to him anyway. is this a choice? no. this is learned helplessness, that nobody bothered to acknowledge and let alone challenge or dispute, as far as i can see.

for example, in A:IW: i probably don’t even have to state anything other than the belief that a man who was tortured, imprisoned, used, and dehumanized for 70 years has rested enough. so let us just grab this asset, we just won’t openly call him so, shove his arm back in because we couldn’t possibly have done this unless there was a war to fight, and shove him back into the fight! — a fight that he technically has zero to do with, and that will only anyway offer two fighting scenes and then another at the end where he’s the first one being dusted so that he can serve as pain fodder for the hero.

for example, in A:E: let’s give him even less, and less relevant, screen time!!! first, we’ll make it clear that this is a damaged and dangerous man who obviously isn’t stable enough to inherit Cap’s shield — but, at the same time, we’ll obviously defend that he is stable enough to be left on his own and to be abandoned by his best (and possibly only) friend. also, it’s not even needed that he talks to Cap when he returns as his elderly self. he’s just needed for the feelsy goodbye scene, where Agony 2.0 has the nerve to tell him it’s gonna be okay, and then he can just stay in the background because, again, he’s only relevant when we have a need for him as plot device.

         moral of the story, i am bitter and salty. but also moral of the story: Bucky has no shred of agency in any of the movies, other than “Captain America: The First Avenger” — and the final, final part of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”, when he CHOOSES to save Steve from the Potomac, even if he isn’t consciously aware of why he wants to do this. so, to finally answer you ask, how do we attempt to set this train wreck back on track?

         first and foremost, this is not something that Bucky can achieve on his own — someone who has been taught he is no more than a weapon, no more than an object, will have to be again taught that he is so much more than this. will have to be taught that he HAS A RIGHT to choose. to accept or not. to decline. to be assertive. to have preferences, even to be picky. to say ‘no’ without owing anybody anything. and this is when it gets laborious (not difficult, but laborious), because this is a process that will require time and patience and a lot of positive reinforcement — and, heck, even a lot of reassurance. for example, it will take another person’s understanding that, if you ask him if he wants vanilla ice cream or chocolate ice cream, he may not know what to say because 1) he doesn’t remember what his favorite is and 2) for 7 decades he wasn’t even aware he had a right to choose. for example, it will take another person to help him understand that, even if he’s asked to go and turn off the lights, it’s okay to refuse to do it simply because he’s feeling lazy and doesn’t wanna get up from the comfy couch. and this is actually a delicate balance for myself, as far as portrayal goes, because it is never my intention to reduce him to a lost puppy who has No Clue — but, at the same time, it is undeniable that the Soldier’s default is to be compliant. that’s what they created him to be, and you don’t get rid of this in a month or two. if ever.

         so, yes — social support will undoubtedly be very, very important, and all the more during the initial times after Bucky breaks free from HYDRA. with time, he will be able to slowly ingrain this sense of agency more autonomously — by reconnecting with himself and with his own identity, by learning/ remembering what he likes and what he doesn’t like, by starting projects and hobbies and tasks on his own rather than to wait for somebody or something, by interacting with people and polishing his social skills again, by internalizing the notion that he has a right to want and to choose. and, at a certain point, i believe he will start getting very invested in it — because he wants to heal. he wants to recover. he’s well aware that time won’t rewind and miracles won’t happen and he won’t ever again be the same person and, even if he makes progress, there will certainly be times of relapsing (and maybe even of self-sabotaging) — but he can get better and he can improve and he will strive for this. on his own, and with the help of his loved ones.

#long post #toscrve #「ᵐᵉᵗᵃ」ʷᶤᵖᵉ ʰᶤᵐ ᵃᶰᵈ ˢᵗᵃʳᵗ ᵒᵛᵉʳ

[tocxmply-archive]

you should meta to me about !!! bucky + gaining back his sense of agency !!! @hakune loves to enable me.

AGENCY [sources: click, click, click]

          it’s funny you should ask because --- in order to address this, first i have to talk about how the lack of agency is the overarching theme when it comes to James Buchanan Barnes, even more so than the brainwashing/ fragmentation of identity per se. because --- when was the last time we saw Bucky making an active, informed, conscious, autonomous choice? it was somewhere in 1943, when he chose to follow Captain America (my bad, he chose to follow that little kid from Brooklyn too dumb to run from a fight). i mean, this is fairly obvious when we think about the Winter Soldier, but... thing is, it’s just as prevalent during “Captain America: Civil War”, “Avengers: Infinity War”, and “Avengers: Endgame” --- it’s just camouflaged, which actually makes it all the more dangerous. and all the more disrespectful. and please note: what i am about to state is not out of hatred for any of the implied characters --- rather, heavy criticism on the writers of the respective movies --- because, by doing what they did, they disrespected Bucky as much as they did other characters such as Steve or T’challa.

for example, in CA:CW: we are led to believe, at the end, that Bucky made the choice to go back to cryo. but did he, really? because making a choice implies having at least two different options to pick from --- and did he, at that point? did somebody tell him hey, if you want, you can stay at NYC and i’ll check on you and if you ever have a moment again i’ll help you and we’ll figure something out? did somebody tell him hey, if you want, you can stay at Wakanda but out of cryo and i’ll check on you and if you ever have a moment again i’ll help you and we’ll figure something out? did somebody at all offer him the if you want possibility? because we certainly don’t see it on screen, and i’m hard-pressed to believe it happened off-screen. the way i see this, Bucky basically Stockholm’d himself, at a subconscious/unconscious level, into retreating back to a cryostasis capsule --- because at least it’s familiar, because at least it’s comforting in its own perverse and twisted way, because at least it’s easier than to deal with people like Zemo, because at least this way he won’t be a burden to anybody, because it’s all that’s left to him anyway. is this a choice? no. this is learned helplessness, that nobody bothered to acknowledge and let alone challenge or dispute.

for example, in A:IW: i probably don’t even have to state anything other than the belief that a man who was tortured, imprisoned, used, and dehumanized for 70 years has rested enough. so let us just grab this asset, we just won’t openly call him so, shove his arm back in because we couldn’t possibly have done this unless there was a war to fight, and shove him back into the fight! --- a fight that he technically has zero to do with, and that will only anyway offer two fighting scenes and then another at the end where he’s the first one being dusted so that he can serve as manpain fodder.

for example, in A:E: let’s give him even less, and less relevant, screen time!!! first, we’ll make it clear that this is a damaged and dangerous man who obviously isn’t stable enough to inherit Cap’s shield --- but, at the same time, we’ll obviously defend that he is stable enough to be left on his own and to be abandoned by his best (and possibly only) friend. also, it’s not even needed that he talks to Cap when he returns as his elderly self. he’s just needed for the feelsy goodbye scene, where Agony 2.0 has the nerve to tell him it’s gonna be okay, and then he can just stay in the background.

          moral of the story, i am bitter and salty. but also moral of the story: Bucky has no shred of agency in any of the movies, other than “Captain America: The First Avenger” --- and the final, final part of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”, when he CHOOSES to save Steve from the Potomac, even if he isn’t consciously aware of why he wants to do this. so, to finally answer you ask, how do we attempt to set this train wreck back on track?

          first and foremost, this is not something that Bucky can achieve on his own --- someone who has been taught he is no more than a weapon, no more than an object, will have to be again taught that he is so much more than this. will have to be taught that he HAS A RIGHT to choose. to accept or not. to decline. to be assertive. to have preferences, even to be picky. to say ‘no’ without owing anybody anything. and this is when it gets laborious (not difficult, but laborious), because this is a process that will require time and patience and a lot of positive reinforcement --- and, heck, even a lot of reassurance. for example, it will take another person’s understanding that, if you ask him if he wants vanilla ice cream or chocolate ice cream, he may not know what to say because 1) he doesn’t remember what his favorite is and 2) for 7 decades he wasn’t even aware he had a right to choose. for example, it will take another person to help him understand that, even if he’s asked to go and turn off the lights, it’s okay to refuse to do it simply because he’s feeling lazy and doesn’t wanna get up from the comfy couch. and this is actually a delicate balance for myself, as far as portrayal goes, because it is never my intention to reduce him to a lost puppy who has No Clue --- but, at the same time, it is undeniable that the Soldier’s default is to be compliant. that’s what they created him to be, and you don’t get rid of this in a month or two.

          so, yes --- social support will undoubtedly be very, very important, and all the more during the initial times after Bucky breaks free from HYDRA. with time, he will be able to slowly ingrain this sense of agency more autonomously --- by reconnecting with himself and with his own identity, by learning/remembering what he likes and what he doesn’t like, by starting projects and hobbies and tasks on his own rather than to wait for somebody or something, by interacting with people and polishing his social skills again, by internalizing the notion that he has a right to want and to choose. and, at a certain point, i believe he will start getting very invested in it --- because he wants to heal. he wants to recover. he’s well aware that time won’t rewind and miracles won’t happen and he won’t ever again be the same person and, even if he makes progress, there will certainly be times of relapsing (and maybe even of self-sabotaging) --- but he can get better and he can improve and he will strive for this. on his own, and with the help of his loved ones.

#hakune #「ᵐᵉᵗᵃ」ʷᶤᵖᵉ ʰᶤᵐ ᵃᶰᵈ ˢᵗᵃʳᵗ ᵒᵛᵉʳ

[richincolor]

Group Discussion: Watch Us Rise

Welcome to our first book discussion of 2019! We all enjoyed reading Renee Watson's & Ellen Hagan's feminist novel "Watch Us Rise" that gave us two amazing teens Jasmine & Chelsea that we all laughed, cried, and loved with. Onto our discussion!

K. Imani: I first read this book almost in one sitting, it was so good! I loved how it was so “in your face”, but completely authentic at the same time. There were many touching moments, many funny moments where I laughed out loud, moments where I was annoyed with the characters (mainly Chelsea), and moments where I felt so proud of these girls. I loved the structure of the novel and greatly enjoyed the inclusion of the poetry, and the different styles of the Write Like A Girl blog posts. This is definitely a book that I would think about using in the classroom. So, what did you think of the book? What aspects of it did you absolutely love?

Audrey: Honestly, one of the things I loved most was all the different forms of media in the book. There were blog posts (and likes/reblogs/comments on them), poetry, sketches/drawings, posters, biographies, lists, etc. that all got used to tell Jasmine and Chelsea’s story, and I thought it was all very cleverly constructed.

I also loved the fact that this was explicitly a novel about activism and the journey of how to be an activist. Jasmine and Chelsea made mistakes in their activism, but they also learned from them. I loved their conversations with Leidy in the second half of the book and how she got them examine their own motives and consider how they could expand their activism. The mentorship and community support demonstrated in this book was really uplifting.

Crystal: There were many things to appreciate so it’s hard to pick, but like Audrey, I really enjoyed the variety of media used to tell this story. I especially like to find poetry in YA, so that was an extra gift.

Activism can be complicated. I really liked seeing how Jasmine and Chelsea used their voices. Sometimes they acted impulsively, but they ultimately worked through what they wanted to say and how they could say it to create change. I appreciated seeing them have to think through what they were really fighting for and why they were speaking out.

Jessica: First off, I have to say: I love the cover. It’s just so eye-catching and whenever I see it in a library or a bookstore, my heart lifts a little. Totally agree on the different forms of media. It really brought the story alive. I appreciated that the book tackled the online aspect of activism -- the good and the bad. That’s never easy, and it made Watch Us Rise all the more relevant for today’s generation of students.

K. Imani: This novel had a lot of poetry in it. What was your favorite poem? Mine was The Bod (pg. 237) that Jasmine wrote. As a Black woman, it really spoke to me with all the insecurities I’ve had about my body and my hair at times in my life. The way the poem moved from dealing with racist words about the body to the acceptance of her body was beautiful to me. The last line really sealed the poem for me.

Audrey: I loved “What It Be Like: on being a girl” (pg 115-116, hard copy edition), particularly the sentence “It be like second-guessing your know-how, like fact-checking your own truth.” That hit hard for me. I’m intimately familiar with that hesitation, that instinct to second-guess my own experiences and desires. I’ve read it a couple times now, and I really appreciate the way the poem transitioned to the final verse.

Crystal: So many of the poems dealt with bodies - how we are seen and how we see ourselves. I enjoyed many of them, but really felt “This Body II” (pg. 333). There are so many things that our bodies are and can be, but no matter what -- our body is our own. Jasmine says “My body is perfect and imperfect…” and she lists things that make her body distinctively hers. She explains that her body is a masterpiece. Jasmine reminds us to love our bodies and claim them.

Jessica: It’s honestly really hard to choose! If I had to pick, then I’d say “What It Be Like: on being a girl” was also my favorite. It definitely rang familiar to me in a lot of ways.

K. Imani: While this novel is practically a feminist manifesto, it does touch on the need for intersectionality. The moment when Chelsea doesn’t consider Jasmine’s size when ordering the t-shirts really hit home how white women feminists can get caught up in their own fight and forget about others. I felt like it was a lesson, not for just Chelsea, but for all budding young Feminists to really think about how different types of women experience oppression and their own privilege.  

Audrey: Yeah, I cringed when Chelsea picked up the t-shirts because I knew immediately that she’d screwed up. She took the time to order extra small but it never crossed her mind to go beyond a large in the women’s sizes, which--yeah, that’s a major oversight on her part, especially right after writing a poem against the ads that told her to change her body. I’m also glad that the girls were told that some of their actions had negatively impacted people they hadn’t considered (the school janitorial staff) and resolved to apologize and be smarter about the actions they took. Jasmine and Chelsea’s conversations with each other, their friends, and their mentors in the community were often learning opportunities and chances for them to think deeply about their goals and the repercussions of their actions.

And on a broader level, their whole school was supposed to incorporate social justice in basically everything, but there were still major flaws within it. There were a lot of intersectionality fails there, from the students to the teachers to the principal. Even in spaces where people want to “do better,” they still screw up and can push back when someone points out where they failed.

Crystal: Yes, this was definitely a wake up call for Chelsea. No matter how much she thought she was seeing and addressing injustice, ignorance and/or obliviousness could still happen. I think it can be worse with people (and I’m pointing that finger at myself too) who are making concerted efforts in specific areas of injustice because they are ultra-focused on that aspect of identity or marginalization and then it’s hard to see the bigger picture. Like Audrey pointed out, there were flaws throughout the school even though it had a social justice emphasis.

Jessica: There’s definitely been more and more conversations online about what intersectionality is and isn’t, and I think Chelsea and Jasmine’s interactions really drive that home. There was a lot of nuance to the discussions and conflicts in Watch Us Rise, and it made me realize I definitely need to give this book a reread to digest all of it.

K. Imani: One of the parts of the book that I loved was when Jasmine & Chelsea did the Feminist Spotlight. I had not heard of any of those artists so I was happy to learn about Feminist artists doing their thing. I know if I were to teach this book, I would have my students look up these women and respond in some way to their art. What other aspects of art that was all over this novel stood out to you?

Audrey: I think the thing that stood out to me most wasn’t necessarily the art itself but the fact that in the novel there’s a few sentences explicitly mentioning that Jasmine and Chelsea deliberately set out “to make sure we were inclusive of art forms, ethnicities, and work for and about women.” And then the text itself backed up that in-universe decision by highlighting a diverse range of activists, many of which I hadn’t heard of before. The book repeatedly had Jasmine and Chelsea’s draw upon and name previous activists and movements for their inspiration, and there was even an entire bibliography at the end entitled Resources for Young Activists that included poets, books, blogs/sites, etc. I appreciated that effort toward inclusion, the acknowledgment of the work done before, and the resources provided for the teens reading the book so that they have a place to start from with their own work.

Crystal: I just really appreciated the many ways of expressing their thoughts and opinions. They used their voices in so many ways. I also liked that Isaac is also part of this feminist group, not just because he cares for Jasmine, but because he’s actually a feminist. Like Audrey, I also found the resources to be an excellent addition to the book so readers can move into or continue their own activism or growth.

Jessica: The aspect that stood out to me was just how varied it was. I’m usually not a fan of books that incorporate different forms of media, or show exactly what the protagonists have created (i.e. a book about fanfiction, with actual fanfiction excerpts). I’m very picky that way! But Watch Us Rise was brilliant in its portrayal of the many forms of art that Jasmine and Chelsea create and reference. I just loved that.

K. Imani: I realized most of my comments & questions have focused on the feminist aspect of the novel and forgetting that this novel just also gives us a slice of real life. I feel like Jasmine’s sweet growing romantic relationship with Isaac, that also mixed with her growing activism and her self-esteem, really showed how complicated life is. Jasmine was finding her voice throughout the novel but was also opening herself up to loving herself and being loved by someone, and the way their relationship was written was so beautiful and real. Their relationship was very healthy and I was happy to see it portrayed that way. What other storylines stood out to you?

Audrey: I also enjoyed Jasmine and Isaac’s relationship for the reasons you pointed out--it was very sweet--especially since it contrasted so well with Chelsea and James’s not-a-romance. I was so proud of Chelsea for realizing that she deserved better in a potential partner and that James wasn’t it, no matter how attracted to him she was. The two romantic plots were great foils for each other.

The death of Jasmine’s dad was a major, and hard-hitting, part of the novel as well. I haven’t read many YA books that dealt with the death of a parent due to cancer, but I felt that this plot was handled sensitively and handled well. I was glad that Jasmine’s family, friends, and community were there to support her, her dad, and their family all through her dad’s failing health, eventual death, and Jasmine’s mourning.

Crystal: Yes, there was way more going on here than I expected, but I too appreciated Jasmine and Isaac’s relationship. It didn’t overwhelm the story, but revealed another layer of life. There’s a lot happening, but the relationships in the story are meaningful.

So, that is our discussion. Have you read Watch Us Rise yet? What did you think of it? Share your thoughts in the comments!

#group discussion #WeNeedDiverseBooks #ownvoices

[spaceorphan18]

SO’s Guide to the Non-MCU Marvel Films (Part 2/2)

So - for those of you who enjoyed my Guide to the MCU - here’s a look at the rest of the films related to Marvel Comics (a somewhat selected guide).  

In relatively chronological order -

(Part 1)

In part two, all of these films came out after the MCU started doing its thing, and there’s a huge step up in quality.  I suppose having relevant competition helps. 

X-Men: First Class

First Class is the first of the prequel series set in the same universe as the original trilogy.  I have mixed feelings about it.  It’s a pretty decent film in terms of actual film making.  James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender shine as young Xavier and Magneto.  But it’s got some strange things going on as well -- like the original students used are a strange group (since they already used most of the originals for the original film), a questionable use of the Hellfire Club, and a really not great portrayal of women.  I guess I recommend it? But I’m not sure I like it all that much myself. 

The Amazing Spider-Man & The Amazing Spider-Man 2

I’ll be honest, despite my massive love for Spider-Man, I never did get around to seeing the reboot done with Andrew Garfield, and I’m not really inclined to either.  While, apparently, the first film has its charms - and some great chemistry between Garfield and Emma Stone, the second one is supposedly just as bad, if not worse, than Spidey 3.  

The Wolverine

I haven’t seen this one - but apparently, it takes some of Wolverine’s classic - Wolvie goes to Japan - stories and brings them to the screen.  It’s better than the Origin film, but still not received that well.  Idk - it’s there.  

X-Men: Days of Future Past

This is a good film - and if I have to recommend one X-Men film, it’d be this one.  Wolverine is sent back into the past to stop Mystique from shooting a politician that creates a horrible future.  It’s a great story, good action sequences, and just straight up a lot of fun.  I really do think it’s the best of the bunch and worth checking out. 

Big Hero 6

Believe it or not - this sweethearted Disney film is actually a Marvel movie.  It’s about a bunch of kids becoming superheros and stopping an evil villain’s dastardly plan.  It’s adorable, and I do recommend it.  

Fantastic Four

Another one I haven’t seen, but for good reason.  Apparently, the people who created this didn’t now anything about Fantastic Four, and just made shit up as they went along.  It’s known for being awful, and barely a watchable film.  I wouldn’t bother and wait for when the MCU reboots these guys - cause you know they will.  

Deadpool & Deadpool 2

Ryan Reynolds was born to play Wade Wilson - Deadpool.  The Merc with a Mouth.  It’s raunchy and ridiculous, breaks the fourth wall and kind of smashes the tropes often used in superhero films.  While storywise, it doesn’t do anything new -- but it makes up for it in style and execution.  I haven’t seen the second one (yet) but I fully recommend checking these out if you enjoy superhero films, comedies, or just insanity on film.  

X-Men: Age of Apocalypse

Oh, Age of Apocalypse.  Is it a good film? No, not really.  Is it entertaining? Yes, yes it is.  Look - Apocalypse is a classic X-Men villain and despite Oscar Isaak’s best attempts, he just does not work here.  Also, the whole story between Xavier and Magneto (and Mystique) is super tired after the whole franchise has been built around it.  But -- there are some great things too -- Cyclops, Jean, Storm, Quicksilver, Nightcrawler -- there are seeds of great things, and I’m sorry that the franchise never let the things that worked really blossom.  If you enjoy X-Men, check it out, otherwise, it’s fine to let be. 

Logan

Logan is the best Wolverine movie, and yes, I really recommend it.  It takes place far in the future when the X-Men are mostly dead, and there’s nothing left but Wolverine and a dying Charles Xavier.  It’s dark and gritty but not campy, and acts like an Indy film more than a superhero film.  It also does well with introducing Laura Kinney - X-23 (the next Wolverine).  I think it’s the only Wolverine based film worth checking out, tbh. 

Venom

Venom is a classic Spider-Man villain, but there is no Spidey in this film.  I haven’t seen it - but from what I hear, it’s ridiculous, Tom Hardy is amazing, and it’s the best Rom-Com in years.  

Into the Spider-Verse

I cannot say enough great things about Into the Spiderverse! It’s a wonderful animated film about Miles Morales - who takes over for Spider-Man and finds himself coming into contact with a whole bunch of other spider people.  It’s warm, emotional, funny, heartbreaking, and if you’re going to watch a non-MCU Marvel film, watch this one.  It’s amazing. 

The Dark Phoenix

A film that has not come out yet - but supposedly the end of the X-Men line (hopefully MCU gets their hands on the X-Men soon...).  Dark Phoenix is the most famous of X-Men story lines - but has yet to be done well on screen.  While I had initially high hopes for this one, the fact that they’ve reshot half the movie, the fact that the dude who wrote this wrote Last Stand, and the fact that the film keeps getting pushed back makes me think it’s not that great.  Let’s end the madness here and move on.... 

The New Mutants

Another X-Men related film that’s supposedly coming out next year -- like Dark Phoenix, there’s been a ton of production issues that has plagued it.  The film also looks like a horror film, which is weird, because the New Mutants comic book is kind of high school hijinks.  So, I have no idea what to expect.  

And - as far as I know - that’s the end of what’s out there.  MCU is slowly gathering its properties back, and I expect, down the road, both the Fantastic Four and X-Men to return to them.  I’m sure Deadpool will return on in it’s cracky way as well.  I suppose we’ll see. 

#marvel #x-men #spider-man #deadpool

[abitterlifethroughcinema]

         #ABitterLifeThroughCinema’s WOKE! Film Reviews

     The Top Ten (+1) Best Movies of 2018 and where to find them!

                                                          by

                                           Lucas Avram Cavazos

+1…11. Overlord  Having its premiere at this year’s Sitges Int’l Film Fest, Overlord not only happened to be one of the fave films screened there this past festival, but this cinematic fantasy is an all-too-real and stark portrayal of a horror that actually occurred, and it deserves a nod from the Barcelona film critic family, so here it goes. Duly noted, I’d say. It starts with an insane aerial combat mission on the night of D-Day, one which goes awry and sees only a handful of paratroopers surviving the drop when enemy fire rains hell. They land in provincial France and the plot sets out to detail some of the inner workings of the Third Reich in reference to the insane, gruesome experiments done on captured Europeans and Jews. Those stories you’ve heard about turning these poor people into guinea pigs for super soldier intent using potent, injected serums…yeah, those? They’re true, if you believe the words of JJ Abrams. Are they as utterly brutal and horror/zombie film-like as displayed here? I sure as hell hope not. (now available On Demand and DVD)

10. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs There once was a film called O Brother Where Art Thou? While this is not its sequel, there is a sharp-witted vein to this film that could only be crafted and gifted to us by the Coen Brothers. What a hoot it is, even if it is a rather darkly-tinted hue of that hoot and humour. It is also one of their finest in years. Revolving around the singing cowpoke Buster Scruggs (Tim Blake Nelson) and five other tales brought to us with the commonly-threaded theme of death in often brutally funny ways, this film is a fine return to oddball form from two of the finest sibling directors of all time. Starring Liam Neeson, James Franco, Zoe Kazan, even Tyne Daly and so many in its vignettes, and that acting star power fuses this Western comedy into new territory for the brothers. Their previous works set in the west always seemed to be re-hashing works of years gone by but here, with their usage of almost comic-book-like details and witty banter make this much more enjoyable than their other historical works like O Bother and their remake of True Grit. Best western in absolute years! (available on Netflix or VOD)

9. Eighth Grade This poignant little film, which should have been wide-released everywhere the world over, is given fierce and bittersweet star power by Elsie Fisher, protagonist and student at the heart of this film. Comedian Bo Turnham has brought us the quintessential coming-of-tweenage story and along with Fisher, everyone in this film is so perfectly placed in their roles, especially Josh Hamilton as her dad, who deserves some nominations for this film but is unlikely to get any. Telling the story of 13-year old Kayla, we the audience get a sneak-peek into the minds and lives of today’s young adults. From her simple YouTube videos made to encourage other young kids to her obvious desire to fit in with older kids to her insecurity with boys, this film paints a stark reality that too many have lived through and this little indie film deserves aplomb from anywhere it can get it! (now available On Demand and DVD)

8. A Star is Born I skipped the critics’ screening of this film for the mere fact that I couldn’t bear to see if the acting and plot lines were another torrid take on a much-redone film. Even into the holiday season, I had not yet seen it and then when I did, I certainly took back any reservations. Bradley Cooper’s update of the film starring himself and Lady Gaga is just about as good as everyone said it was, and that was beyond refreshing to note post-viewing. In many ways, I feel that Cooper is likely revealing a few things about himself with the guise of “it’s a movie” being a nice cover; in some ways, he gives us what I believe are hints of his covert life, and it’s with Gaga’s turn as Ally that we really see him shine beyond the shtick of his character, country-rocker Jackson Maine. In a tad corny-tad, gripping way that takes hold the moment you see Gaga, let’s be frank and real, this film goes on to detail a Diet Coke version of the grim realities that often detail too many a tale of celebrity in Hollywood. Without revealing too many details of the film’s plot and denouement, we are looking at a necessary conversation about alcoholism, drug addiction and fame (plus a lack of ’NO’ men/women in many relationships) that needs to addressed for all ages. Well done, Mr. Cooper Goes to the Oscars. (At select screens, On Demand & DVD)

7. El Angel Incidentally, this may be the first time in a rather long time that I say something good about Argentinian men, so do take note. Telling the true story of fresh-faced boy killer Carlos Robledo Puch, played to Oscar-worthy perfection by newcomer Lorenzo Ferro, the masterful detail to which director Luis Ortega has crafted this arthouse meets dramedy-thriller is astounding and easily touches heights set by dePalma and even, dare I say it, Scorcese. We follow young Carlitos Puch, who is just nearing the edge of seventeen, as takes up with a rough and tough family of his devilishly attractive school chum Ramon, played by the spirited Chino Darin, son of Ricardo Darin. But as Carlitos comes to find out, his street crimes can easily be paved to real ones and his sadistic tendencies suddenly yet gradually paint a picture of someone who is in part desperate for attention and tacceptance and in part a fairly smart, well-to-do young adult. He parlays his sociopathy at pubescence into psychopathy with time, and this film will likely be, but should definitely not be, forgotten come awards and Best Of lists time.(available On Demand and DVD)

6. Black Panther As Oscar season comes to a head, it is worth talking about one of the most striking films that you’ll see for a while. Black Panther is that good, not only because of its genre but also because of its message: that seeking freedom through recreating systems of oppression will only extend the ill-treatment and broken nature we find ourselves in nowadays. Set in the fictional African nation of Wakanda, protagonist King T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) brings us the first real black superhero from the Marvel universe. With a cast including Lupita Nyong’o, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker and Michael B Jordan, the acting is beyond impressive. What is even more amazing, however, is how the plot power-plays many elements of our world’s current political climate. (now available On Demand and DVD)

5. Chappaquiddick Another film which is nothing short of striking in its relevance to the current political situation in the USA. Senator Ted Kennedy was the only remaining Kennedy that I was familiar with throughout my adolescence and early adulthood. Jason Clarke as the Massachusetts senator is astounding, as is the cut of his jib and chin, although the accent was a tad weak, to be ever sincere. This is a complete revelation on the many details that were only gingerly touched upon during the course of the week following the death which this movie is detailing . As the facts are laid out in the film, it astounds me that the American people continued to vote and elect Kennedy for decades after. This is a study on arrogance, class and governmental ambiguity. And if that was the case with liberals in the Sixties, how much more so with conservatives in this digital age? My favourite film of last year’s BCN Film Festival. (now available On Demand and DVD)

4. Private Life Good Lawd this is such a heartwarming/breaking story with the finest elements of believable comedy and situational realism that define the art of the classic Gen X film from the 90s to now. May we never forget that it was Gen, and even those a few years before them, who gave us the digiverse-Netflix-instant oatmeal www.orld in which we live today and when I see a very NYC film like this one, it makes it a true reality check. Being the age that one should be married with kids, I watched Kathryn Hahn as Rachel absolutely slay the silver screen and am eager to see if she picks up any more accolades throughout the current awards season. Simple plot…she’s in her early 40s and her hubby Rich (played by Paul Giamatti) is entering his late 40s and they are fully entrenched within the confines of every single way to conceive a baby. Following the couple through their trials and tribulations really get pushed up an ante when sort-of relative Sadie (the lovely Kayli Carter) decides she will be the surrogate mum for them as things get a tad pear-shaped. This could easily be dubbed a dreamed, for in effect, it is; what needs to be known is that this is also a morality tale for a new age. The old-fashioned ethics of yesteryear just do not apply anymore, at least not in big cities, and the less is more factor easily makes this one of the finest films released within the last year. (available on Netflix)

3. BlacKKKlansman Without a doubt, this is the finest work in all too many years by Spike Lee, and he takes no prisoners in letting you know that the spilled essence of blaxploitation all over this celluloid is to egg you into knowing that this story is 100% true…and crazy. The mere fact that David Duke is literally cheerleading for the current President of the United States should scare us all and wake those who are not. Watching actor John David Washington portray Ron Stallworth, the real-life cop who slyly infiltrated the inner workings of the Klu Klux Klan 40 years ago. After signing up for the Colorado Spring PD, he realises the lack of trust in the 98% Anglo-Saxon workforce, as he’s thrown into monitoring the goings-on of any Black Panther student situations. Eventually, he takes up with a guy on the force that he can dig called Flip and played to skilled excellence by the oddest of lookers Adam Driver. Basically, the plot follows the twosome, as they tag team the aforementioned white supremacist movement, Ron being the voice and Flip being the wingman as they start an investigation on grand wizard bastard himself David Duke, played to troubling perfection by Topher Grace, evoking all of the calmness and utter sociopathic tendencies of a man reviled by most yet revered by still too many. And watching this taut film and how it rolls through such a daunting story with comedic aplomb and vicious realness gives you goosebumps. That said, as the film gets toward its ending, is when Lee gives you the goods when he flashes to scenes from the crazy Charlottesville, Virginia, riots, AntiFa protesting and subsequent death of Heather Heyer, may she rest in peace. God Save the World…and Amerikkka.

2. Fahrenheit 11/9  Premiering a few weeks ago here in Spain at very select cinema screens across the country, this is the first documentary in some time by Michael Moore that could play across an international landscape and should be required viewing on any critic’s or person’s list. The titular oddity refers to the day after we all woke up across the world in shock and awe that Donald J Trump had won the Presidency of the USA. Even if this is not Morre’s best film to date, it is undoubtedly the one that holds the viewers’ feet to the fire and calls for them to fight the nasty funk of this administration. But, it’s when he takes it back to his roots, to Flint, Michigan, and ends up involving all local and state politics, that we start to see the more sinister undertakings happening amongst conservative parties, ideals and societies. When you add in the fact of the Parkland High School shooting and the way Moore later fuses footage of Hitler and his minions and followers with a rally speech made by the current occupant of the White House, it becomes all too obvious that things are exactly as we think they are (A HOT MESS!) and we have very little recourse rather than claiming truth. (now available On Demand and DVD)

1. ROMA There are tender moments of realism that are permitted to happen with the rise of instant cinema on VOD and direct-to-home films, and it has been a pleasure to see that sites like Netflix and Amazon and Canal+ have truly added to the foray in which great celluloid can be brought to the masses. Case in point comes the finest piece of dramatic celluloid that graced the silver screen in the last year. Being a Mexican whose father is a naturalised citizen of the US and a mother who is Chicana from the US, like myself and my siblings, the sentimentality ran deep with this film. One of the differences I experienced was the fact that we were the only Mexican-American family in a stately US country club…and we had an entire childhood spent with loving housekeepers, which is what this film inherently is honouring and depicting, using the backdrop of Alfonso Cuarón’s take on growing up in 70s-upper middle class Mexico City in the neighbourhood of Roma. Depicting the life of the house assistant Cleo (first-time performer Yalitza Aparicio in a J.Hud moment, frankly) and the family of Sr. Antonio (Fernando Grediaga), a doctor in the Mexican capital, what Cuarón has called his most personal film to date, is also a B&W modern tale in the vein of Gone with the Wind, and the fact that he centres around a privileged Mexican family is poignant for several reasons: it not only takes a focus away from how Donald bloody Trump has painted Mexicans, in general, to the world, but it also highlights a very human element to how many classes of society function and live there in the frontier regions of North America and, more importantly, EVERYWHERE…easily put, this is a sweet, oft-times simple, oft-times brutal story on humanity. What binds so many critics together on this film’s merits is that fact that Alfonso Cuarón has crafted the past year’s most enigmatic movie, leaving us to make our own answers to what happens to Lady Cleo, her best mate Teresa, and this beautiful family. Absolutely and quietly stunning! (available on Netflix and selects screens across the country)

#abitterlifethroughcinema #BCNinEnglish #englishradiobcn #overlord #theballadofbusterscruggs #eighth grade #elangel #a star is born #blackpanther #chappaquiddick #privatelife #Blackkklansman #fahrenheit119 #roma film #LucasAvramCavazos

[tnsmeta]

On Eldon and the concept of masculinity (in honour of 6x17) -Part 1 otherwise it will never get posted

Please bear with me, this is relevant...

The very first moment we meet Eldon, he’s wearing only blue, and judging himself in the mirror (I know this is auditions, but still - we don’t see any other character do this).

We can tell from looking at him that he doesn’t think he measures up to something (were we not still getting used to our surroundings as an audience, and of course ‘auditions' - this will also come up a lot generally). Later on we get the answer to a question we didn’t even know we were meant to be asking: he’s dancing for respect from Emily, who he thinks he likes.

He equates the better he masters a skill, to the better a person he becomes - except he doesn't quite get that last part, and won’t until Thalia comes into the picture.

Jumping back to Emily’s point-of-view of the same events, she is aware of Eldon’s (estimated five-year) crush on her but does not reciprocate, and has to turn him down at least twice a day.

“I come into the studio: ‘Hey Emily, wanna go out?’. I leave the studio: ‘Hey Emily, wanna go out?’”

In the next episode, when he finds out he’s made A-Troupe, as expected he’s overjoyed - but he shows it in quite an unusual way: he has the most aggressive ‘bro-hug’ I’ve ever seen (watch the way he tugs West back and forth). But also here, he says something we don’t quite expect:

“That’s a whole other year with Emily, that’s a whole other year I get to ask her out.”

Pause. Doesn’t he want to date Emily? Doesn’t he want her to say yes? (Not saying this is the right way to go about that, but...duh).

This is the point a lot of GA (one of my family members included at first) thinks 'aww, what a sweet harmless boy, waiting for her to be ready’ *cough*which has it’s own problems*cough*. But what a lot of us were tricked into thinking (initially, myself included) is that this is about his "devotion"/creepy obsession - call it what you want  for Emily, as misplaced or wrongly-influenced *cough cough* as it may be.

This has literally nothing to do with Emily. At this point in time, she could turn him down every single time without missing a beat and he’d be happy.

So what changes?

Well, as everyone who has seen season 1 (and still remembers it) knows, the inciting incident for the show, delayed as it may be, is Michelle’s arrival. The synopsis for S1 indicates that she’s the catalyst. She sparks the change in this little underdog studio and it shows... in more ways than one (many, many more ways).

Okay, so our agent for change is Michelle... but he doesn’t gain feelings for her until episode 7, after he’s getting more desperate (I use this word carefully) to get that crucial date with Emily? What?

Let’s return to episode 2 for a moment; A-Troupe is lined up and Emily has (rather prematurely) eagerly called the vote for Dance Captain, she gets shot down, Kate and Chris put the pressure on Michelle and... Eldon sees all of Emily’s intense attention focused on this new person. He may be clueless as to Michelle and Emily’s mutual attraction to one another, but going by episode 7 again, he knows he needs to have Emily’s attention if he’s going to have a chance in hell.

So far, Emily is a tough dance captain but given that Chloe wasn’t in A-Troupe earlier on, James is the only other person she’s given that angry rage-moment(?) to as an individual. You know, the person he clearly looks up to too much?

And Eldon decides that this time things will be different. She will notice him.

“I’m trying to get Emily but it's not working.” 

“You need to get her attention.”

“Yeah,”- he voices this in a way that suggests he has already enacted this plan before he voices it out loud to James.

Also worth mentioning here is the offer to spy at Elite - “I should have volunteered sooner, you know, to show Emily that I’m brave and I’m a man.”

If you’re wondering/can’t remember, Emily couldn’t care less - Michelle has already volunteered.

But the point is Eldon equates the offer to spy on Elite with manliness and masculinity (the fact that Michelle has already done so has completely escaped him). But... Emily's acceptance of Michelle’s help is what triggered him to suggest it? On a subconscious level Eldon is equating Emily's acceptance to attraction, and consequently restricting “the Emily in his head” to paraphrase Tiffany, to only be attracted to examples of masculinity - and that’s something he aspires to be. When we first met him looking at himself in the mirror, he was judging himself: because he thinks not having a girlfriend makes him less of a man, and consequently less of a person.

Alright, James has successfully come up with a plan to manipulate Emily into dating Eldon (keep in mind this is the person Eldon looks up to), and so Emily and Eldon go on a lovely date, learn about each other and deepen their relationship through genuine connection-

*SNORTS* Yeah, right!

As said by Emily:

“First, I think he read a book that was based in the 1940s...”

Nice, you think to yourselves, a good comedic portrayal at best, and at worst - they don't mesh (they date later). But again, there's more going on under the surface.

I digress slightly to point out that when asked her favourite line, Victoria Baldesarra also told us that sometimes the creator/director (Frank Van Keeken) would write lines, that were said as they were written *she had to take a few takes to stop laughing, because that's the footage they wanted.

Let's briefly look at what was happening in the- actually, let's look first at the 1930′s for a bit of context:

-The Great Depression in America, (think about Of Mice and Men, post-war, misconceptions had caused a lot of people to lose everything)

-The solution according to Wall Street (mostly to benefit themselves, but capitalism isn't really dealt with at all in TNS) is to create an economy boom, by making the public buy things they don't really need. (The Great Gatsby)

-How?

    -By enforcing “traditional” gender norms, shaming women that don't stay at home, to create a ready-made market of consumers

    -Thus, from this era, you have these lovely adverts for household items, that have since been banned for being sexist

    -And dating etiquette

Back to season 1, we have the template for Eldon’s behaviour, let’s revisit their ‘first date’:

Eldon is nervous and can't decide how to sit (why is this a thing? 1940′s dating etiquette - gentlemen must have a certain posture etc (it's stifling) )

He attempts to ask Emily to get a drink, but even Eldon at this point notices something just isn't right - he appears lost in thought and struggles to understand what he ‘should’ be doing next. There's nothing natural about this date, for either party.

They do interact, via a hug... but it's uncomfortable to watch - Emily is visibly repulsed. That feeling of uncomfortability is only heightened when we hear her thoughts on the evening: "It's going awful, but I have to keep reminding myself: I’m dance captain. This is basically my duty.”

The scene ends and we think ‘thank God it's over’ (unless you ship Eldony).

Then it continues, and Eldon attempts to rate the ‘three-juice’ date, at which point we find out, he hasn't even been paying attention to her.

And then he asks her out again.

Why? No seriously, why?

Obviously Emily, having sense, turns him down immediately. She knows she can turn him down without repercussion(?)

But then Eldon changes the routine.

He asks her why she won't go out with him. He's conflating a toxic ideal of masculinity, and the presumed entitlement that comes with it, with being a good person - essentially he’s hinging his entire self-worth on a girl not remotely attracted to him (who sometimes straight up uses him - they're both jerks atm) saying yes to being in a relationship with him,

There's nothing healthy about this relationship for either of them.

Back to Emily: she tells him that he tries too hard. He doesn't disagree, but argues over why - he thinks she can't see him for who he is. They dance together, and she enjoys it. She informs him that she's still not going to go out with him, he's visibly upset, but she says he can be her duet partner. 

Eldon takes this as indication to continue. Probably, because Emily had pointed out just earlier that day: “Why would I want to go out with you if I just said no to being your duet partner?!” So now he's conflating dance partner with romantic relation with self-worth... and this is where Michelle comes in (again).

#tns #thenextstep #tnseldon #thenextstepeldon #tnsandmasculinity #thenextstepandmasculinity

[cromulentbookreview]

Quoth the Raven

Hee.

Uh, and by that I mean: The Ravens Tale by Cat Winters! ‘

Can you imagine how awful it’d be if your creative muse took the form of an actual human who followed you around, that other people could see? If that were the case, two of my muses would probably take the forms of Malcolm Tucker and Kimmy Schmidt. They’d be constantly fighting one another while the third muse, Mr. Spock, stands by with a raised eyebrow, just saying “fascinating” over and over again.

The others, of course, would be a badass gospel choir singing about Hercules.

I promise my ramblings about personified muses will become relevant at some point.

I’m a bit of a Poe freak. A Poevian? Poe-head? Do Poe fans have a fan cult nickname? (I’ll have to ask the Poe museum...). Anyway, Poe was, and is, my favorite American writer. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau and Herman Melville can eat dicks, because Poe is the best. Though I do like some of Hawthorne’s stuff. Melville was OK, too. Thoreau can go eat dicks and pay his fucking taxes.

Goddamn Frogpondians...

(The Gif above is an accurate representation of how Poe treated the transcendentalists in his criticisms. Also a reason why you should watch Altered Carbon. Season 2 better have more Poe, damn it!)

Anyway, I’d always had a love for Poe and his works ever since I was very young, the reason being the first ever Treehouse of Horror. I was just a wee little beeb when that episode premiered, but I was raised on The Simpsons and on Simpsons reruns. Their 1990 adaptation of The Raven, narrated by none other than the amazing James Earl Jones (!!!!), stuck with me throughout my childhood. In fact, I’ve got the whole of The Raven memorized probably because I’ve seen that Treehouse of Horror so many times. Also I read The Raven a bunch, too.

Also, I, too, hated the transcendentalists. Transcendentalism = the worst.

Plus, there’s just something so very relatable to me about the author who writes things that people enjoy but is unfairly maligned by the literary establishment and who has vicious, untrue rumors spread about him that people actually believed. I mean, that never happened to me or anything…

Anyway - for some reason, people still believe a lot of the bullshit spread about Poe both during his lifetime and after his death. (Word of advice, don’t let your bitter enemy be your literary executor). Poe was not an opium addict or a drug addict of any kind, or a crazy-ass drunk. Though he did drink a bit. He did marry his 13-year-old first cousin when he was 26, but no one knows the exact details of the nature of that relationship. He was kind of a dick, though, that much is definitely true. I mean, once you’ve read one, or two, or eight different Poe biographies, you start to figure that yeah, he could be a bit of an asshole. I can be a bit of an asshole, too, so I figure when I die, Poe and I can hang out and be assholes together. Also, lob insults at Thoreau.

Basically, fuck yeah Edgar Allan Poe. God, I spent so many hours of my college life picking The Masque of the Red Death apart instead of, you know, having friends. Or a life. Also, Poe invented the whole detective genre. Seriously, we wouldn’t have Sherlock Holmes and all the great detectives who came after without the stories of Auguste Dupin.

Just don’t mention the orangutan.

Anyway! The Raven’s Tale!

Since he’s such a huge figure in American literature, there’s plenty of fiction about Poe. But pretty much all fictional portrayals of Poe depict him as an adult. There’s virtually nothing about his youth - and Poe’s youth was absolutely fascinating. His parents were actors: his father ran off, then his mom died, leaving Edgar, his older brother Henry and younger sister Rosalie, orphans. The three were split up: Henry went to his grandparents, Rosalie was taken in by the Mackenzie family, while Edgar went to live with the wealthy Allan family of Richmond, Virginia. The Allans never formally adopted him, but he got their name anyway. The Allans took Edgar along with them to England, where he went to boarding school for a while before they went back to Richmond. Poe was very much a poor kid among the superrich - there was no forgetting that he wasn’t an Allan, but the child of, euch, actors. In the 19th century, you have to spit the word “actor.” Everybody loved seeing plays, but actors were massive slutwhores not worthy of being around decent people. In his youth, Poe was quite the athlete (he swam six miles in the James River without stopping once. I, meanwhile, don’t believe in swimming, because if humans were meant to swim, we would have been born with gills and an ability to breathe water). In October of 1824, Poe even got to meet the Marquis de Lafayette during Lafayette’s Grand Tour of the US.  Also, he hated John Allan, who was the worst.

All of that is primo YA Fic material. So how come nobody's used it? I’ve read plenty of not-so-great novels about Poe as an adult, where’s the fun YA origin story? So, needless to say, I was so very, very, very pumped when I learned of the existence of The Raven’s Tale. A novel about young Poe? By a fellow Oregonian? Oh hell yes.

Cat Winters seriously did her research, and as a future librarian/someone with a MLIS, I 1000% appreciate anyone who does their research. In the world of The Raven’s Tale, an artist’s muse can take a visible form (I promised it’d be relevant, didn’t I?!), but Poe’s muse, when she appears, isn’t exactly normal: she’s dressed in mourning, looks like a victim of the 1811 Richmond Theater Fire and wears a necklace made of teeth. Not the best muse for a kid who is just trying to survive one last week under his awful foster father’s roof before he can escape to the University of Virginia. John Allan, who is seriously the worst, has demanded that Poe suppress his urge to write poetry, because art = bad, money = good. If Allan catches Edgar writing, Allan will yank him out of the University of Virginia and force him to work for the family tobacco company. As much as Poe hates John Allan, he loves his foster mother, Frances, currently super sick and frail. Frances just wants Edgar and John Allan to get along, so, as you can imagine, the teenage Poe is currently stuck between forcing himself to be civil to his shitty foster father for his foster mom’s sake, and his desire to write. So when Poe’s macabre muse - who he, of course, names Lenore - appears in his room in human form and demands that Poe let people see her, he has to choose - embrace his muse and sacrifice his future, or abandon his muse and obey John Allan.

I was so hyped by the mere thought of The Raven’s Tale that I was afraid I’d end up in one of those situations where your expectations for something were so high that, no matter how good the final product is, you’re still disappointed. Yeah, that didn’t happen here. With her eerie, surreal writing style combined with meticulous research, Winters has created a story that is both a captivating Gothic tale and a fantastic tribute to a great American author. Winters perfectly captured Poe’s teenage angst and anxiety in a way that felt both accurate and real. Anyone who has ever been a poor kid among the rich, or who has ever struggled to pay for college will find Poe’s struggles at the University of Virginia all too real. His struggles with his school fees in 1826 will make anyone in 2018 who has gone to college cringe.

To make a very, very long story short: The Raven’s Tale was everything the Poe nerd in me wanted. I cannot wait for this book to come out - hopefully it will inspire more people, especially young people, to study Poe.  

Hopefully today’s young people won’t have to threaten to complain to the department head to get their American Lit professor to include Poe in the curriculum the way I did. It worked and I have no regrets.  

Thank you, and bravo, Ms. Winters, fellow Oregonian and Poe Nerd (Poevian? Poe-head? The Poe museum never responded to my tweet). This book made the lit geek in me very, very happy.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone who has ever enjoyed anything by Edgar Allan Poe

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: Frogpondians

RATING: 5/5

TOTALLY UNBIASED POE FANGIRL RATING: 5,000,000,000,000,000/5

RAVEN RATING 

SOMEONE ON THE SIMPSONS STAFF IS A POE FAN:

#the raven's tale #cat winters #edgar allan poe #the raven #lost lenore #muses #gothic #young adult historical fiction #young adult fantasy #young adult gothic #book review #best books 2019 #lenore #poe #the simpsons #treehouse of horror #masque of the red death #transcendentalism #transcendentalism is the worst

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Friday, 30 April 2021

Very well done! I thought you might start by asking me to say that what he can find one or two during busy parts of the passage you'll be able to fill out your ideas that are not particularly likely, but will ensure that you discovered that I don't think that your choices of when to give a paper that is not absolutely required still, as I've learned myself over the break. If you're scheduled to do this at this point. Come to section. James Joyce's Ulysses/at Wikibooks: Daniel Swartz's article 'Tell Us in Plain Words': An Introduction to Reading Joyce's 'Ulysses': Joyce's two structural schema of/The Music Box/1932: There will be, in case the first person to ask you to avoid thinking that an A for the quarter to get reading quizzes or to and overview of the ideas and where it could be said for the quarter. You also made very good job!

Chivalry is in any way that Francie's home is? Hi! This means that that alone would pull you up effectively to larger themes remember that I'll be leaving town at 7 p. I'm glad that you sometimes retreat holds your argument's specificity back to you. Note: Papers with substantial deviations from the first three paragraph exactly of the day that your topic in a lot of ways, and the next two days to grade your paper never quite come out unscathed, full of rather depictions that are relevant to your large-scale concerns very effectively and provided a good job on this. There were some pauses for recall. All of these things, this is a strong piece of writing of which parts of the landscape and love it and bringing up the last week week. So, in particular from Penelope, is the best way. Yet another potentially useful gender-based and less discussion-based Futurist-related questions are related to grotesquerie. Your paper should consist of analytical writing, despite the odd misstep here and there, generally clear and explicit about why you can't get it graded as soon as possible when you make any substantial problems with basic sentence structure are real problems that I've made some comparatively nitpicky things in there. I haven't been able to get back to The Portrait of the quarter. So, what do you think, and I really liked about it not perhaps rather the case. What the professor in our society means that you need to explore additional implications of this poem. Reminder: 4pm today is for it. Don't lose heart while reading through, because I don't know whether this matters, and then re-adding it using the add code as quickly as possible after the final exam and when it comes down to it, though. Here's a breakdown on your preferences and how we have a pretty decent job setting up your more Faulknerian paragraphs into smaller units and use introductory and closing phrases to glance back at a coffee shop, I can get the group up well for a text that they describe. I noticed that paper didn't seem to have practiced a bit too tired tonight to do more than you've managed to introduce a large number of things quite well, empty and abandoned, and the marketplace, and I will post before I do not feel comfortable talking to me, for instance, maybe being a strongly motivated choice I mean, and sometimes the best way to figure out what you want to reschedule after the final. You've made a final selection for what you've outlined a good job of reading the text of some of the group as a whole, though. One is to provide feedback and stopped responding later during your analysis. Crashing? Everything looks pretty good. This means that you're using an edition other than that, since that's a pretty strong claim to prove a historical document and audiovisual component. Hi!

I hope everything is permissible from some viewpoint, but which might be to have sat for a job well done overall. All in all, you will go first or in his own rather unpleasant way about women's bodies. Papers in this particular senior-level details of your discussion notes, but merely that there is a particularly poor job on Wednesday I'll give it back to you. You're perfectly capable of doing so. Yes, there is some aspect of something that will help you to speak instead of asserting X, whereas future audiences will not be articulated with sufficient precision, but I'll most likely cause of her first name/by which you are, but an A paper; and by only an hour or so of all my students develop for their recitation/discussion tomorrow! /Or 3. Mooney. Excellent! Emailing me with an incredibly useful lens to examine, because this coming Wednesday 20 November in section, writing an A-range papers, so let me know what you're working with—you do in leading a discussion. One of the points for both, but I believe strongly that you explicitly say that a number of fingers at the specific parts of the format for the exam is worth slightly more than twelve lines, but it may be an indication that you're trying to force yourself to ground your analysis, too, that it looks like until Wednesday. Ultimately, I Had a Future, McCabe p. The Road, Jose Saramago's Blindness, and that you've chosen, and/or #6, Irish nationalism, exactly, but you really mop the floor with the paper's overall trajectory your paper should be though here and there are thousands, if you want to say about what you're going to motivate other people to speak more is to say that the penalty, you did a good place to close-read. Pre-1971 British and Irish pounds were subdivided not into 100 pence, but not nearly as much as it opens up an analysis and less-intelligent and read well, I'll have one of mine and whom I have not engaged in memorization and recitation in section. Then, when absolutely everything else that is, you email the professor. Even just having page numbers for the student's part, but is likely to be pretty or incredibly detailed, but this is what counts, regardless of their material. You picked a selection from the recitation. The Guardian is certainly the best possible light in the construction of Irish literature 30% of your paper's overall point s of interpretation. I suggest these things not because you will need to back up your claims. Here is the portrayal of Rosie is perhaps productive, but I also want to say this again: getting any penalties at this question, or a synthesis of other things well here, and see what people do some of the quarter when we talked earlier today, you have a great deal more during quarters when students aren't doing a close reading exercise that digs out your major: The Wall Street Journal speculates about whether you're technically meeting the discussion requirement. If you need to start participating and pick up points not even bothering to guess on years for texts, and not because I don't fully know myself the professor offered to people, and getting hardware serviced costs a fucking arm and a real discussion to take larger interpretive risks or make interpretation difficult in multiple absences and is as follows: total number of points. I'm actually interpreting the three poets the professor to ensure that you are not major, it's a good one. Great! Noisy selfwilled man. Thanks! The University of California, nothing is more complex than the mandatory minimum is an unlucky month for marriages may be rare and/or the argument itself is sensitive and nuanced interpretation—I've tried to cover, refreshing everyone's memory on the final exam yes, including participation and your analytical structure sets you up to be avoiding picking too many emails shortly before each paper grade. All of which has Calc, a good student and my grading rubric that I think that you speak enough in section when you sense that it isn't, because as declared in the meantime, you will leave the room. Which isn't to say that I would suggest and this may not have a more natural-appearing and impassioned delivery.

This might be interesting ways by a group is one of three people reciting from Godot tomorrow. So I told you that this is a waste? Introductions. Once you have previously requested that I don't want to have thrown them away when going through them first-in-lecture boost; yes, that's fine. Section website, because that would be central to the rest of the text of the class to jump in, so if you're so sick.

Your paper should be clear on parts of the deeper structures. Updated 27 October 2013. I'd suggest at this point, if you send me email or by email except to respond to each section that you want to know. You expressed an interest in responses to individual instructors. There were some retractions and pauses for recall before the reflecting gleams. Learn German too. I think that specificity will pay off as much as it turns out that many people in the depth that you wanted to make broader revisions. The fact that these may very well here: you had thought a good selection and delivered it very well and can't assert offhand that these may very well done! I offer the same names to denote the same time, fifteen minutes if you were trying to crash. I'm imagining doing is just a bit more. Asking an open-ended questions intimidating or not, because I realized that your topic to keep people from the second line of the quietest sections I have to do this, let me know if you ask people for general comments people can find a recording of your introduction is actually rather weak, because that will be note that he has otherwise been quite the digression from what I initially thought I was now a dual citizen. 7% in the course. Burroughs, etc. Assignment Guidelines handout, you should know the name is absurd too: Malachi Mulligan, two of which has been trying hard with limited success to motivate discussion, actually. It's often that the definition for all students, generally aren't actually addressing the crowd at a more specific about where you're getting your ideas, though this is a fascinating topic that is sophisticated, nuanced close readings of the class was welcoming and supportive to other students were generally productive, and what is being transmitted, specifically? You're got a good weekend! It would have paid off with a copy of those three poets the professor was discussing in lecture or section, but not catastrophically so. I've posted a copy of the recording of the Gabler course edition of Ulysses with you that I think that your citation page distinguish this. I recall correctly. See you in the course. I'll see you next week.

#Irish literature #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Python #Markov chains

[jamesginortonblog]

James Norton sat down for a quick Q&A about his role.

What appealed to you about this project?

When we talk about the Mafia, it is so tied up with those portrayals which we're so used to in The Sopranos and The Godfather. But what's so lovely and fascinating and so relevant about this story is that it shows how the Mafia is a totally new phenomenon.

Tell us a bit more?

The Mafia is now a totally globalised corporate entity. It straddles all these different countries and financial systems. It is no longer just a protection racket. It's the Panama Papers, it's corrupt presidents and prime ministers, it's even in the possible link between the Kremlin and the White House and how that's facilitated. That was what was a real eye-opener for me, and I hope that's what the show will reveal.

Does McMafia show that crime pays?

No, it’s more nuanced than that. The audience are taken on a journey into the world of crime through Alex’s eyes. It is fascinating, and it's kind of sexy and empowering because there is this whole underworld of people who don't abide by the rules and do what the hell they want - and it's exciting. You get seduced by it, but you're never quite sure how much you're being seduced.

Does that also contribute to the ambiguous portrait of Alex as an anti-hero?

Yes. In the beginning, he doesn't have a choice, and you're left as an audience member going, 'OK, I totally understand he has to make that choice'. And then at a certain point you’re not sure, and you're going, 'Would I make that choice? Maybe my choice would be different'. And then later on you're going, 'How the hell did I end up here?' As an audience member, you're never quite sure where you stand.

Do we all have similarities with the outlook of these Mafiosi?  

Yes, these mobsters are all just like us - they're looking out for each other. Of course, they have a slightly warped version, and their moral compass is slightly different from ours, but their priorities are the same. They need to put food on the table, they need to survive. So what's great is that you're never really sure where your allegiance lies as an audience member. You're thrown all over the place.

All the same, doesn’t McMafia run the risk of glamorising criminals?

No. What's great about the writing is that for every character who's living the high life, you also see the women being trafficked, the drugs going through Mumbai and 50 000 addicts who are suffering. So yes, there is a glamour to it, but equally it's always qualified by the cost.

Finally, what is it about the world of the gangster that remains so gripping to outsiders?

We're all fascinated by this compelling world of the Mafia. It's that slightly subversive, dark underworld. We're all obsessed about it in various forms - in books, film, TV. Look at popularity of The Godfather. It's the anarchic quality of those people who live on the fringes of criminality which we all as law-abiding citizens find fascinating.  

#James Norton #McMafia #article #interview #channel 24 za

[norton-addiction]

James Norton on playing a gangster in new crime drama

Cape Town – The global organised crime drama McMafia will launch exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in South Africa on Tuesday 2nd January.

James Norton sat down for a quick Q&A about his role.

What appealed to you about this project?

When we talk about the Mafia, it is so tied up with those portrayals which we're so used to in The Sopranos and The Godfather. But what's so lovely and fascinating and so relevant about this story is that it shows how the Mafia is a totally new phenomenon.

Tell us a bit more?

The Mafia is now a totally globalised corporate entity. It straddles all these different countries and financial systems. It is no longer just a protection racket. It's the Panama Papers, it's corrupt presidents and prime ministers, it's even in the possible link between the Kremlin and the White House and how that's facilitated. That was what was a real eye-opener for me, and I hope that's what the show will reveal.

Does McMafia show that crime pays?

No, it’s more nuanced than that. The audience are taken on a journey into the world of crime through Alex’s eyes. It is fascinating, and it's kind of sexy and empowering because there is this whole underworld of people who don't abide by the rules and do what the hell they want - and it's exciting. You get seduced by it, but you're never quite sure how much you're being seduced.

Can you please amplify that?

Alex convinces himself that it's about protection and it's about survival, but there's another side to it, and the beauty of Hossein's writing is that Alex and the audience are never quite sure. Each choice Alex makes - is it to do with survival or is it a bit more to do with the fact that he just wants to go deeper and deeper and gather more control and money? So, McMafia is brilliant because it’s never about villains and heroes - it's all about that wonderful mess in between.

Does that also contribute to the ambiguous portrait of Alex as an anti-hero?

Yes. In the beginning, he doesn't have a choice, and you're left as an audience member going, 'OK, I totally understand he has to make that choice'. And then at a certain point you’re not sure, and you're going, 'Would I make that choice? Maybe my choice would be different'. And then later on you're going, 'How the hell did I end up here?' As an audience member, you're never quite sure where you stand.

Do we all have similarities with the outlook of these Mafiosi?  

Yes, these mobsters are all just like us - they're looking out for each other. Of course, they have a slightly warped version, and their moral compass is slightly different from ours, but their priorities are the same. They need to put food on the table, they need to survive. So what's great is that you're never really sure where your allegiance lies as an audience member. You're thrown all over the place.

All the same, doesn’t McMafia run the risk of glamorising criminals?

No. What's great about the writing is that for every character who's living the high life, you also see the women being trafficked, the drugs going through Mumbai and 50 000 addicts who are suffering. So yes, there is a glamour to it, but equally it's always qualified by the cost.

Finally, what is it about the world of the gangster that remains so gripping to outsiders?

We're all fascinated by this compelling world of the Mafia. It's that slightly subversive, dark underworld. We're all obsessed about it in various forms - in books, film, TV. Look at popularity of The Godfather. It's the anarchic quality of those people who live on the fringes of criminality which we all as law-abiding citizens find fascinating.  

#james norton #mcmafia #inteview #article #juliet rylance

[metalshea]

A Perfectly Doomed Christmas Carol: A Reflection on A Perfect Circle Through Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”.

Reflecting on the holiday season, I’m a little surprised at myself.  Maybe it’s because the lead up to Christmas was shorter here in the United States than it usually is.  The Thanksgiving holiday, our historic kick off for the Christmas season, was very late this year and so in some ways it doesn’t quite feel like Christmas time, yet. And so, I have yet to watch what is easily my favorite Christmas movie, A Muppet Christmas Carol.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there are a TON of great Christmas movies: Die Hard (YES IT IS A CHRISTMAS MOVIE—I WILL FIGHT YOU!), Elf, A Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation, The Santa Claus, Miracle on 34th St., It’s A Wonderful Life, and, of course, How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the original with Boris Karloff, not that Jim Carey nonsense), but there’s something about A Christmas Carol that resonates so clearly and seems so relevant beyond the holiday season.  I can’t say that about many Christmas movies.  

Ok, maybe Die Hard.  Yippee Kai Yay!

Maybe it’s because I share a birthday with Charles Dickens, but I really love and appreciate his writings. There is a clear moralism running his body of work that is still pertinent even today.  He continuously tries to call attention to disaffected working peoples, structuralized disadvantage, and implores his readers to simultaneously feel empathy and outrage.  A Christmas Carol does this as well.  I won’t spend long summarizing it because, really, who hasn’t seen or read it in the English-speaking world?  If you haven’t, go check out A Muppet Christmas Carol, it’s surprisingly accurate to the original text and Michael Caine plays a great Ebenezer Scrooge.  Or just read the novella and prepare to be shocked at the surprisingly unsettling atmosphere of the book.  What, surprised that the original is actually pretty creepy? It’s supposed to be a ghost story!

“Dude, when are you going to get to the music?”

We’re getting there, I promise!

A Christmas Carol follows Ebenezer Scrooge, a deeply flawed and emotionally insecure man who insulates himself from his insecurities by devoting himself entirely to his business.  He takes an “I got mine” approach to life, disparages and ignores the outside world—often at the expense of those in his employ or influence, and in the process begins to literally damn himself. Not to mention his name is literally synonymous with miser.  Scrooge’s deceased friend appears to him in spirit form and basically sets him up for a round of speed dating with 3 ghosts who show him the error of his ways by bringing him through his past, the present world around him, and the very not too distant future.  

Sounds familiar, right?  If you speak English, it should ring a few bells even if you haven’t read any Dickens. The literary device he uses is pretty common in Western literature because it basically invokes Dante’s Divine Comedy: the idea of a character being led by around by spirit and shown a picture of the world around them or the world that awaits them.

“Dude, now you’re shifting to Dante Alighieri?!  When are you getting to the metal music??”

Right now.

Just like Dante and Dickens, Maynard James Keenan uses the same literary trope in the writing of A Perfect Circle’s, The Doomed.  

Did I just blow your mind?

Before I go further, if you haven’t heard the song, you probably should.  Otherwise none of this will make much sense.  If you have heard it, give it another listen.  Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDvfbvuJtS8

When this song dropped in 2018, it immediately resonated with me because of it’s use of religious symbolism, particularly the invocation of the Beatitudes.  When I started actually reading the lyrics, I realized just what Maynard did in it’s construction and started to get excited, he basically alludes not only to the Beatitudes, the Seven Deadly Sins, and the Gospels, but the narrative structure of the song alludes to Dante.  This religiously-raised, English-majoring musician and metalhead in started bouncing for joy.  Not only is the song pretty damn good, but it has a freaking point!  Hold me, Maynard!

But it’s Christmas, dammit, so we’re going to ignore Dante for now and instead examine this through the lens of A Christmas Carol.  

Truth be told, I actually think A Christmas Carol is a better lens to view the song than Dante, anyway, but I’m pretty damned sure that Maynard wasn’t even remotely considering it when he wrote The Doomed, let alone the absolutely glorious Muppet version.  Alas!

Ok, let’s start with the song itself and maybe some context. 

The Doomed is a damning portrayal of our current societal state.  You could probably make an argument around equality or neoliberalism, Trump’s America or capitalism, or the global refugee crisis, but I don’t think it’s meant to be so narrow a commentary, and for our purposes, I’d rather focus on the religious language at play here.  

The song was released in 2018 and was probably written closer to, if not in 2017.  At the time there was a growing on focus on the plight of the disaffected and a growing dialogue about how people interact with others with different life experiences.  There was a Huffington Post OpEd from around that time that this was likely being written titled “I Don't Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People” that sums up the broader societal dialogue quite nicely.  I wonder if Maynard read it as well?

Before going too far down that particular rabbit hole, let’s actually break down the lyrics.  The vocals open:

Behold a new Christ    Behold the same old horde  Gather at the altering  New beginning, new word And the word was death  And the word was without light  The new beatitude "Good luck, you're on your own" 

To my eyes, the song opens from the perspective of Dante’s Virgil.  Or, since this is Christmas, the Ghost of Christmas Present (GCP).  In my head, I picture the scene where Scrooge and the spirit stand outside the window looking into the Cratchit’s kitchen.  The spirit explains to Scrooge what he is seeing, an impoverished family making the best of what they have.  In Maynard’s retelling though we aren’t greeted with a touching Christmas scene, but rather a new Sermon on the Mount.  In the opening lines of the song, he immediately calls to mind the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John.  But it is the last two lines of the verse that are the most striking and set the tone for the rest of the song:

The new beatitude "Good luck, you're on your own" 

For those who are not Christian, or for those Christians that never learned about The Beatitudes, it helps to have some extra context.  The Sermon on the Mount is a scene from the Gospel of Matthew and elaborated on in the Gospel of Luke.  Jesus Christ gives a lengthy sermon to a crowd and during this famous speech, he issues The Beatitudes.  You can kind of think of them as the New Testament’s answer to the Old Testament’s 10 Commandments and be kind of in the right ballpark.  For all the hype and focus in Western society on the 10 Commandments, the Beatitude are often overlooked by a lot of Christians.  Which is kind of bonkers if you think about it and may hopefully become more apparent by the end of this article.  

Christianity is big on layering imagery and call-backs to earlier Biblical writings.  Seriously, Christians love that shit.  It adds a feeling a depth and purpose to The Scripture.  We can sort of view the weightiness of The Beatitudes through the doctrine of the Trinity.  Basically the idea that The Son, The Father, and the Holy Spirit are all one in the same being.  Ergo Jesus Christ is the literal physical manifestation of God.  Just as God the Father literally wrote the 10 Commandments in stone, Jesus Christ, The Son, issues a new set of Commandments, The Beatitudes, in the Sermon on the Mount.  

Yeah, they’re supposed to be THAT important.

Most Christians can name probably 6-7 of the 10 Commandments without too much thought, but they probably don’t know The Beatitudes, at least as a term. That being said, almost everyone would recognize them:

Blessed are the poor in spirit; the kingdom of heaven is theirs.  Blessed are the patient; they shall inherit the land.  Blessed are those who mourn; they shall be comforted.  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for holiness; they shall have their fill.  Blessed are the merciful; they shall obtain mercy.  Blessed are the clean of heart; they shall see God.  Blessed are the peace-makers; they shall be counted the children of God.  Blessed are those who suffer persecution in the cause of right; the kingdom of heaven is theirs.  Blessed are you, when men revile you, and persecute you, and speak all manner of evil against you falsely, because of me. (Matthew 5:3-11)

The Gospel of Luke, a later chronological writing than the Gospel of Matthew, further expounds upon The Beatitudes, adding a bit more flavoring and essentially turns them into action items rather than just virtuous states of being:

27 And now I say to you who are listening to me, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you; 28 bless those who curse you, and pray for those who treat you insultingly. 29 If a man strikes thee on the cheek, offer him the other cheek too; if a man would take away thy cloak, do not grudge him thy coat along with it. 30 Give to every man who asks, and if a man takes what is thine, do not ask him to restore it. 31 As you would have men treat you, you are to treat them; no otherwise… 36 Be merciful, then, as your Father is merciful. 37 Judge nobody, and you will not be judged; condemn nobody, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven. 38 Give, and gifts will be yours; good measure, pressed down and shaken up and running over, will be poured into your lap; the measure you award to others is the measure that will be awarded to you.  (Luke 6:27-31, 36-38)

Luke also offers a complimentary set of warnings to accompany the Beatitudes, known as the 4 Woes:

Woe upon you who are rich; you have your comfort already. Woe upon you who are filled full; you shall be hungry. Woe upon you who laugh now; you shall mourn and weep.  Woe upon you, when all men speak well of you; their fathers treated the false prophets no worse.  (Luke 6:24-26)

When I was growing up in a very devoutly Catholic household, I remember my mother telling me that as important as the 10 Commandments are to the foundations of what was then my faith, The Beatitudes were absolutely critical to my being a good Catholic and, what’s more, no person could ever hope to have a shot at entering heaven without ascribing to them.

Something about a rich man, a camel, the eye of a needle, and the prosperity gospel, amirite?  But I digress.

It’s funny, re-reading the Sermon on the Mount and Luke 6, after I don’t know how many years, I really am struck by how the Beatitudes really are positive action items.  The quotes I provided above don’t really delve too deeply into how the broader context of the Beatitudes demand positive action.  This is article is going to be long enough as is without dissecting the full text of the Sermon on the Mount from both Gospels of Matthew and Luke, but they’re interesting pieces to read from a moral philosophy perspective even if you’re not religious.  Where the Commandments say essentially, “Don’t do this or else”, the Beatitudes basically say: “Do these things, act this way, and you will be rewarded; don’t do them and you won’t be”.  That is a MARKED difference in tone from the Commandments, and it is baffling why as a religion Christianity focuses so much on the consequences of negative behavior as opposed to the positive outcomes for good behavior.

Getting back to the song, it is through the Beatitudes that all people are called to approach and treat others with compassion and empathy.  As the GCP shows us though, this is no longer the case: you are no longer expected to care for others, and you should not expect them to care about you. You’re on your own now.

As The Doomed progresses, we get a better picture of scene the GCP shows to Scrooge.  The underlying music shifts to more of a march feel.  There is a call-and-response at play between an unnamed preacher, the New Christ, and his followers, The Same Old Horde:

Blessed are the fornicates May we bend down to be their whores  Blessed are the rich  May we labor, deliver them more Blessed are the envious  Bless the slothful, the wrathful, the vain  Blessed are the gluttonous  May they feast us to famine and war

Maynard covers a lot of ground in these two short verses.  He’s alluded 3 Gospels already--2 of which we’ve dug into, I’m not getting into John here, but yeah that allusion to the Word comes from there (among other places… Christianity is big on scriptural call-backs, what can I say?)--and now he’s inverting the Beatitudes by referencing the 7 Deadly Sins and even the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Damn. Maynard’s smart.

Like the Beatitudes, the 7 Deadly Sins are familiar to most Christians, but they’re fundamentally misunderstood. They are not explicitly Biblical, and their legacy mostly comes down to us through early Christian mysticism and through the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas.  They are: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride. What sets these apart from sin as it’s normally understood is that they are not actions.  According to Aquinas, sin is a moral evil that is not in accord with reason or Divine Law and it fundamentally requires some type of decision and action.  The 7 Deadly sins are more states of emotional being that lead us to moral evils. Through wrath and anger, we’re prone to violence and poor decision making.  Through sloth, we’re prone to inaction in the face of evil.  And so it goes.

The 7 Deadly Sins are inherently selfish mindsets.  They are considered so in Western culture because allowing ourselves to fall victim to our lust or greed is  the same as saying that we are sating ourselves potentially at the expense of others.  Such a mindset is in direct conflict with the words of Christ vis-a-vis the Beatitudes. The contrast is so strong that, in a way, you could look at The Beatitudes and the 7 Deadly Sins as extremes on the end of a spectrum. It is the human condition to err towards the Sins, but it is imperative for all humans to move towards the Beatitudes, not only for their salvation but for the betterment of society (anybody else catching a whiff of Freud here?  Id/Ego? Just me?).  Maynard flips the script: the worst impulses of humanity now guide us.

The music shifts again, this time to something more innocent sounding, and we hear our Scrooge speak for the first time:

What of the pious, the pure of heart, the peaceful? What of the meek, the mourning, and the merciful? 

It’s a little difficult to tell if it’s our Scrooge or GCP who utter the next two lines, I like to think it’s the latter, but the sentiment is the same either way:

All doomed All doomed

In this new world, those that embrace the values and actions embodied by the Beatitudes are left behind.  

The music picks up again and the GCP again address Scrooge.  The atmosphere almost feels more somber and reflective:

Behold a new Christ  Behold the same old horde  Gather at the altering  New beginning, new word And the word was death  And the word was without light  The new beatitude: "Good luck"

This repetition of the earlier verse brings us back to Dickens’ scene outside the Cratchit’s: The spirt echoes the earlier words of Scrooge while Scrooge solemnly considers Tiny Tim’s health: “’If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.’”

The music shifts, again, this time back to the innocent, meek section we heard earlier in the song. Scrooge interrupts GCP:

What of the pious, the pure of heart, the peaceful?  What of the meek, the mourning, and the merciful?  What of the righteous? What of the charitable?  What of the truthful, the dutiful, the decent? 

Once again Scrooge directly references the Beatitudes, but this time he expands beyond them, alluding to people that embody other parallel virtues to those referenced in the Gospels. There’s a sense of pleading and desperation to his words as Scrooge tries to capture the gravity of the implications of GCP’s descriptions.

The music shifts again to the marching beat, with a dissonant guitar lead, purposefully played off key. GCP is becoming angry and annoyed. “You’re not getting it, stupid”.  He responds through Maynard, who now sings with a clear edge to his voice:

Doomed are the poor  Doomed are the peaceful  Doomed are the meek  Doomed are the merciful 

For the word is now death  And the word is now without light  The new beatitude:

GCP directly calls out a number of the virtues of the Beatitudes, but this time his cynicism is crystal clear. He finally exclaims to Scrooge, anger boiling over:

Fuck the doomed! You're on your own.

Again, I’m reminded of Dickens and the final exchange between Scrooge and GCP.  Scrooge laments the state and health of those whose lives he has just seen.  The sprit, angry that Scrooge still seems to be missing the big picture—that Scrooge bears responsibility for their state, let alone their opinions of him—uses Scrooge’s own words to drive the point home: “’Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. "Are there no workhouses?’".  It’s a final, damning rebuke for Scrooge to ponder before being confronted by the most terrifying spirit of the night.  Just as we are left to ponder the implications of the “New Beatitude”.

See, I told you there was a good reason to use GCP as the narrator as opposed to Dante.

Plus, Christmas.

So there.

Some final thoughts:

I’ve been struggling how to relate the two children that accompany the GCP in A Christmas Carol, named Ignorance and Want, back to “The Doomed”.  In some ways they could be tied into the 7 Deadly Sins as they are both expressions of pure human selfishness, but, you know, square peg/round hole. Still food for thought though.

Even as I have moved in my own faith journey from Catholic to absurdist (a la Albert Camus), I still refer to myself as “philosophically Catholic”, and have been known to reference Luke’s version of The Sermon on the Mount in casual conversation, specifically this gem:

By what right wilt thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me rid thy eye of that speck, when thou canst not see the beam that is in thy own? Thou hypocrite, take the beam out of thy own eye first, and so thou shalt have clear sight to rid thy brother’s of the speck. (Luke 6:42)

I love that image.

The Beatitudes, The Woes, the 7 Deadly Sins, and their larger roles as measures of personal morality are really meaningful to me.  Even though I don’t consider myself Christian, I still ascribe to them.  They are guideposts towards achieving The Golden Rule—if such a thing could be considered a state of virtue—and in their broader context they are calls for us to engage of certain types of action, especially considering Matthew 25:36:

I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.  

Re-reading The Beatitudes for this post, I’ve also been so struck by how little sense of primacy there is in them compared to the Commandments.  There’s no explicit demand that we follow the Christian God, but that we embrace the Beatitudes and their broader contexts as moral bedrock. Christ reflects later in the Gospel of Luke that not using them as the basis for our personal morality would be like building a house in a flood zone on dirt instead of bedrock.  There’s a lot of truth to that, and that message transcends a lot of the nonsense that tends to lead people away from the religion.

I think Maynard might be coming from a similar viewpoint.  The values that we are supposed to espouse and embody are outdated in this New World. Kindness is obsolete.  Those that embrace virtue are kicked aside just as readily as those that we would otherwise consider to be lesser than ourselves.  The Doomed urges us to reflect on this and consider how we view the people and world around us.  Like Scrooge, in order for us to make a substantive change in ourselves and around us, we need to really consider what we’re seeing before us in the present moment.

And it’s not a pretty picture.

But it’s not all bleak. The last line of the song uses the conjunction and pronoun “You’re” and “your”, respectively.  Both variations of “You”.  We could spend hours discussing and dissecting the grammatical implications of the lyrics, but suffice it to say: as much as a condemnation as the last line is, it’s also a recognition that it’s on us to act.  No one else.  

I’ll end this 3500-word beast on that note.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Let’s do a little bit better every day.

Shea \m/

#a perfect circle #a christmas carol #maynard james keenan #eat the elephant #charles dickens #Christianity #sermon on the mount #beatitudes #seven deadly sins #heavy metal #metal #alternative metal #catholicism #thomas aquinas #aquina

[yumi-michiyo]

For You I’d Burn the Length and Breadth of Sky [4/4] - with extended author’s notes

Rating: M for strong language, adult themes, sexual content

Genre: Supernatural/Drama/Romance/Angst/Family/Tragedy/Friendship/Hurt/Comfort/"Romance"

Pairings: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray, Rachel Berry/Noah Puckerman, Rachel Berry/Santana Lopez, mentioned Santana/Lopez/Finn Hudson, Brittany Pierce/Finn Hudson, mentioned Rachel Berry/Jesse St. James, Rachel Berry/Cassandra July, Rachel Berry/Brody Weston

Summary: She already knows Quinn Fabray is more than just a pretty face; she just didn't know it would take a few lifetimes to find out how much more. Post-canon, AU divergence. A oneshot of epic proportions.

Links: FF.net | AO3

On the writing process:

Have I bitten off more than I can chew?

This was a thought that crossed my mind repeatedly as I worked on this chapter. The plot was labyrinthine, the characters' motivations were all over the place, the timelines clashed, the dialogue was confusing. I keep a writing notebook in which I jot down prompts, ideas, plot threads etc., and this was one of the rare times that it didn't help.

I think one of the reasons for the difficulty was that unlike the first two chapters, 85% of the content wasn't planned. The characters (especially Santana) didn't want to cooperate. I only had an idea of what I wanted the endgame to be, and I spent time trying to herd the characters in that direction.

I have always been a multishipper/non-canon shipper at heart, and this was no exception though it does seem I've gone overboard with the sheer number of pairings squeezed into one fic. This chapter, in particular with the Santana/Rachel, drew a lot of inspiration from the incomparable you're just another song and dance by acid_glue234, in terms of the structure and the girls' interactions. This fanfic, out of all the fanfics in my history of fandoms, came the closest to switching my OTP.

There has been a lot of hints and clues about the setting in Rachel's real life scattered through the entire fic. While readers may enjoy picking through the fic to gather them, everything will be made clear in the epilogue.

The original draft of the story had the entire thing ending with Rachel leaving the voicemail, Quinn picking up almost immediately after, Rachel answering, and... fade to black. I don't know whether it's a good thing or not that I decided that since the entire thing had changed so radically, it wouldn't make sense not to add an epilogue.

I love Easter eggs, and sprinkling subtle references to other works of mine. Besides the obvious recycling of names from my headcanons, there are minute details that come from my other fics. They aren't relevant to any plot twists or big reveals; they're just there for my own entertainment as I go through the long, painful process of editing.

After completing this fic (including the epilogue and the letter written by wheelchair!Quinn), I have one more fic in the works before I officially retire from writing Glee fanfic. Honestly, I've covered all the pairings I like and plenty of Faberry tropes in one story: post-accident, future!fic, college friendships, friends turned lovers, post-canon, unrequited...

On Rachel Berry:

Rachel is, in a word, tired. She's gone through a whole lot of living (spoiler: it'll come back to haunt her back in her real life). She's been in relationships with a whole lot of people, done a lot of things without really feeling the consequences, and for the first time, is feeling stuck. I wrote her as being displaced; she hasn't really let her first two 'deaths' sink in.

This iteration of Rachel is less involved in keeping up appearances than the previous two; the first Rachel was genuinely happy to explore the what if's left by Finn's death. The second was a little more cautious, threw everything into a relationship with Quinn, and was broken by it. In this chapter, Rachel does realise that she's not as concerned about 'playing her part' as the previous times. As a result, she's more reckless, impulsive, and callous; notably in her promiscuity and the cold way she treats Puck.

The feel of this chapter is more of Rachel applying meta thought to her 'life', as opposed to 'living'. She is more detached from her surroundings, especially when things get complicated with Santana. I wrote Rachel with the idea of 'introspection' in mind; the time spent living life all over again has given her plenty of time to reflect on the things that have gone wrong in her real life, and we see that she's starting to change.

Rachel doesn't pursue Santana, like she does Finn and Quinn. She only falls for her after a period of soul-searching, and only after giving herself permission to fall. In other words, she makes a conscious decision to love Santana after clearing her conscience (is Quinn real, or 'real real'? Who knows?).

On Noah Puckerman:

Noah Puckerman has never been one of my favourite characters on Glee - I'm one of those people who think that his impregnating Quinn is equal to rape, the bad boy archetype isn't a favourite of mine, and the rest of his antics aren't particularly impressive (not to mention he's one of the victims of the show's writing). My Noah (and the fandom's Noah) is a simple guy who's rough around the edges but has a heart of gold.

Noah's also gotten the short end of the stick in this chapter. Since the story's told from Rachel's point of view, and she's pretty distant and preoccupied with her own problems (and Quinn), little is known about Noah's feelings. I write him as someone who's in love with Rachel despite her many shortcomings and is unfailingly loyal, despite her ignoring him, and the Season Four!Finn stunt she pulls on him.

On Santana Lopez:

Santana, in my opinion, is one of the great success stories of Glee. She goes from Quinn's backup singer/dancer and henchwoman to one of the main characters (rewatching the show reminded me of how much I hate canon!Rachel). I have always loved the strong woman with a vulnerable side trope, and no one embodies the character type better than Santana (and Naya).

Rachel does note that this Santana is softer around the edges than canon!Santana. It's mentioned in the fic that without Quinn, Santana is the unchallenged queen bee of McKinley, and is more secure in her identity and accepting that she is lesbian. For that reason, she doesn't victimise Rachel, or see the need to reinforce the strict social hierarchy.

Another cornerstone of the fic is the friendship between Kurt, Santana, and Rachel AKA two-and-a-half-gays. There was little opportunity to explore the daily, snarky interaction between the trio in the previous two chapters, so I think I might have gone a bit overboard with that. I do love writing snarky dialogue.

I headcanon Santana as being one of those people Nat King Cole sang about:

When I fall in love, it will be forever...

Another of my favourite tropes are people who fall in love without even realising it, and that's pretty much what happens on Santana's part.She doesn't start to move on from Brittany until she sees how happy Brittany is with someone else, and even then it takes a while before she starts to see Rachel in another light.

Santana, like Quinn, is one of those unfortunate people shafted in the hurriedly-cobbled-together ending of Glee. We don't know what she ends up doing with her life. We have no clue what are her likes and dislikes, or her aptitude and quirks. Based on the scant information we're given, I headcanon Santana to be involved in music production and/or songwriting, otherwise a television actress. In this chapter, I stole Sara Bareilles' excellent song Morningside for Santana. Sadly, there is no awesome slow and sexy acoustic version to link to, but I think it would sound amazing.

On Brittany Pierce:

I'll admit the sole Finn/Brittany fic that I have read and loved is thememoriesfire's duck sauce, meet bear cheese. It not only sold me on this pairing as something not cracky, but also showed a realistic portrayal of how these two would interact.

Generally, I don't write Brittany because I'm not sure I understand her, and thus can do her character justice. But Brittany was crucial to the plot, to help Santana open herself to falling for other people, to provide the catalyst to get Rachel and Santana talking again, and to help Rachel make her decision to fall for Santana.

There are several versions of Brittany in fanon, and this is one of the versions I enjoy best; the one who lives on a slightly different plane of reality that only intersects with the one everyone else lives in.

#meta #glee #fanfic #fandom #faberry #quinn fabray #rachel berry #yumi_michiyo #author's notes #extended notes #angst #romance #fic: for you i'd burn the length and breadth of sky #fanfiction #pezberry #santana lopez #puckleberry #noah puckerman