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ofhelens · 5 years ago

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HELEN WORTHINGTON: AUDITIONING FOR THE ROLE OF LADY MACBETH

oh boy. okay, so without rambling too much..........originally, i wasn’t going to have helen audition for anyone. why would she? with the possible exception of lady macduff, macbeth is full of characters who are totally unlike helen & anyone she’s played up-to-date. plus, the subject of the play is just a little too on the nose for her - and given her self denial at the moment, that isn’t a can of worms she’s looking to open. however, as i was writing this, it became clearer and clearer to me that helen playing lady macbeth would go really well alongside her general trajectory in the roleplay (downhill, like a damn roller coaster) and i could definitely see the “out damn spot” monologue playing well alongside some juicy orson reveal stuff :) also poetically...seeing “the ingenue” go from basically being the embodiment of an angel to playing one of shakespeare’s darkest heroines is...chefs kiss.

it’s strange to say that my character surprised me...(because im writing them?!) but yeah...helen surprised me!! she’s absolutely terrified by the idea of playing someone who is a little darker, a little stranger - but that’s exactly why she should do it!! i also genuinely think it’ll help her grow as an actor, which is something i really want to see happen. helen is pretty mediocre - but she doesn’t have to be!!! the only way we can grow as individuals is by challenging ourselves - something i’m keen to see heidi make happen.

having said that, i am not ride-or-die for lady macbeth and do not expect her to be cast as her at all!! if orson was casting, helen would be lady macduff without a question (we stan a self aware queen!) - and now that she’s made that point explicit to heidi, i feel like the latter will be way more inclined to cast her as anyone-but-that. if not lady macbeth, i could definitely see her playing one of the witches. essentially, i just need helen to play someone with a little more meat, someone who is darker; meaning that as she tries to nail their characterisation, she’s forced to confront some ugly things about herself and almost deal with the darkness in a therapeutic way.

“Helen Worthington.” She had expected stepping out onto the stage to feel more poetic. There was supposed to be sorrow in finality, grief in endings. And this was it. This was the final time she would audition for a play as an Alderidge student - perhaps her final audition all together. Whilst her peers clamoured for the limelight, she would have been perfectly comfortable making this her swan song. A moment passed. “I’ll be auditioning with Cleopatra, Act 5, Scene 2.” She could still hear Zahra’s words of encouragement in the back of her mind, quelling any doubts.

A brief look of surprise crossed Heidi’s face, she glanced down at her paper, as if trying to match the person she saw before her with words on a page. Then, slowly, she nodded. “Alright...am I to assume you’ll be auditioning for Lady MacBeth then?”

It took a moment for Helen’s mind to make the connection. She shook her head firmly. “No - no...no. I could never play Lady MacBeth...she’s...” Too monstrous. Too big a part. Too much like everything I never want to be. Settling on diplomacy, Helen sighed. “I could never do her justice.”

This seemed to interest Heidi. “Why not? Looking at your previous roles - “ She shuffled the papers in her hand “- you seem to have done a standout job with Celia. Lady MacBeth isn’t such a jump. Lines wise, at least.”

Helen shook her head, adamant that Heidi see what she did. “Playing Celia isn’t hard. She’s soft. Dreamy. And a character in a comedy.”

Heidi frowned. “So it’s Shakespeare’s tragedies you’re opposed to? Or being challenged?”

She was so unlike Orson that Helen had to blink twice, just to be sure her senses weren’t tricking her. “No. I don’t like tragedies. Everyone dies. I love theatre because it’s an escape - because it’s a chance to live out someone else’s stories. But why would I want to live like...like Lady MacBeth? She’s a terrible person. She’s a monster. I’d hate to even feel an inch of who she is.” Because what if I’m good at it? What if it’s easy to become her? What does that say about me? About what I’ve done?

“And being challenged?” A dog with a bone, Heidi continued to tug at the remaining loose thread. “Is it a fear of letting people down? Are you afraid that you’re not talented enough?”

Back against the wall, Helen was forced to confront some uncomfortable truths. The purest of which was this: she never had been challenged. Any malevolent thoughts were packed in dusty boxes at the back of her mind, never to be opened. She was practically adored by her peers. Orson had never dragged her out of her comfort zone. She had no idea what being challenged was like. All she knew was that she didn’t want it. “I don’t know.” She conceded, sighing. “I’ve only ever played Celias.”

“And you want things to stay that way?”

Helen closed her eyes. Her mind was awash with a thousand memories - hanging out with Chandler in between As You Like It auditions, kissing Jonah backstage, laughing with Harry, cooking with Julian...she didn’t want things to ever change. That was why she poisoned Orson, wasn’t it? So that they could stay in a glorious summer, where no one ever got hurt. “Yes. Why fix what isn’t broken?”

Heidi shot her a thoughtful glance and opened her mouth as if she was about to ask another question, before shutting it abruptly. “Alright Helen -” She said slowly, nodding. “The stage is yours.”

Now nervous about her audition piece, about what it said about her and about whether she’d be able to deliver; Helen closed her eyes. She had never been to Egypt, never even left the country - but conjured the sensation of balmy evenings, a heart full of love and a crown weighing you down. “Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have immortal longings in me - “ Perhaps she and Cleopatra weren’t so different. She understood what it was to long for immortality of another kind. You could have even said she was desire itself. It was those parts of Cleopatra Helen chose to emphasise.

Pretending to shuffle on a robe, Helen stared out into the audience. Cleopatra saw a kingdom.

“now no more the juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip: Yare, yare, good Iras; quick. Methinks I hear Antony call; I see him rouse himself to praise my noble act; I hear him mock the luck of Caesar, which the gods give men to excuse their after wrath: husband, I come: now to that name my courage prove my title!” The love between Antony and Cleopatra, Helen had decided, was ugly. It was brutal. It should not be celebrated. But she also thought she understood it - the sensation of being bound to someone, of loving them so intensely you would do unspeakable, regrettable, things in their name. If someone dared lay a finger on Antony, would Cleopatra burn them to the ground? Helen was sure she would. As she came to understand Shakespeare’s heroine, she began to lose herself in Cleopatra’s skin in a way she never had before.

Opposite her, but unseen by Helen, Heidi sat up a little straighter.

“I am fire and air; my other elements I give to baser life. So; have you done? Come then, and take the last warmth of my lips. Farewell, kind Charmian; Iras, long farewell.” Her kiss brings death. It was a terrifying kind of beautiful. Against her better judgement, Helen’s mind began to wonder...to remember. A wine glass. A toast. Poison. A deceitful smile concealing burning hatred. Who was she to judge Shakespeare’s characters...when she had wrought such destruction...

Lips trembling, Helen paused - momentarily unable to continue with her performance. See, this was why she hated Shakespeare’s dark and decrepit creatures. They drew something carnal out of her...they overwhelmed her, threatening to seize her voice and take it as their own. To be on stage was to be exposed...and this was one reflection she refused to peer into.

Why did Zahra encourage her to use this piece? Did she know something? Or did she just want to see her falter?

Ten seconds later, she regained her composure. Her break did not go unnoticed by Heidi.

Kneeling on the floor, Helen took Iras’ imaginary body into her arms, cradling him as he took his last breaths. Childish and impulsive she may be, but Cleopatra had heart. She wasn’t wholly wicked. Maybe in her performance, Helen could find her a kind of redemption; a thousand years too late.

“Have I the aspic in my lips? Dost fall? If thou and nature can so gently part, the stroke of death is as a lover's pinch, which hurts, and is desired. Dost thou lie still? If thus thou vanishest, thou tell'st the world. It is not worth leave-taking.” Was Cleopatra brave to watch Iras take his last breaths? Was she a coward for letting Orson die alone? Panic’s familiar sensation threatened to take a hold of her. Breath quickening, her last sentence was slightly slurred as she raced towards the end, to the moment she could be done with Cleopatra, toss her aside and never wear her face again.

Her story was not Cleopatra’s. She and Jonah were not Antony and Cleopatra. She was just a role. It was all make believe.

“See -” Helen began, gentle, but sad. “There’s a reason I don’t get cast as the Lady MacBeth’s of the world.”

Wearing an expression equal parts confusion and sympathy, Heidi returned her smile. “It’s not your fault you’ve never had an opportunity to dig deeper with your characters. Now that isn’t to say that his comedic characters don’t have depth - but it’s like the other side of a coin. If you want to excel as an actor, it’s important you learn how to play both kinds. Life can’t always be sunshine and rainbows.”

Why not? Knowing better than to vocalise her disagreement, Helen swallowed her words. Idealism never...carried well with people. They thought she was a child, head in the clouds, living in a world of fantasy. Had she been a crueller person, she would have asked them why they were so adamant to continue living in a world of grey. So instead, she nodded politely. “Thank you for letting me audition.”

"Thank you for coming in Helen. And props for choosing something we wouldn’t expect.” Glancing down at her sheet, she tapped her nails against the paper. “You still haven’t told me who you’re auditioning for.”

Her first instinct was to steadfastly refuse to audition for any of them - and let the chips fall where they may. Or even to ask to be moved down a year, to the third year’s comedy. “Orson would probably cast me as Lady MacDuff.” It was the only character she ever could have volunteered herself for. Domestic bliss, it was something she embodied easily.

“Well - “ Heidi said, inclining her head, “I’m not Orson.”

No, Helen thought, you’re not. May that be a blessing, and not my curse.

“Would you toss your hat into the ring for Lady MacBeth?”

No, Helen thought. Not a chance in hell. But then, betrayed by her mouth, she nodded. “I’d consider it.”

As she exited the stage, Helen couldn’t help but wonder what the hell she’d gotten herself into.

#this is literally the first thing i have ever...designed myself #em did all the thinking on the main graphics #ensembletask

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queenofbaws · 5 years ago

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UD/MoM: Of Mummy Men & Bathtub Soup - 4

Chapter: 4/? Chapter title: (Spooky scary) skeletons in the closet Fic rating: T - Language, blood, light comedic body horror Chapter summary: Conrad says WAY too much. Author’s note: Reminder - this is also on AO3, where the texting actually looks like, uh…texting! Previous | Next ---

“You did.”

“I did not.”

“You absolutely did, and the more you say you didn’t, the more I’m convinced that you did!”

Drumming his fingers against the unpleasantly sticky surface of the apartment’s coffee table, Conrad exhaled an exhausted breath through his nose. “I’m a grown-ass adult who is perfectly aware of his bodily functions and I am telling you asshats that I know for a fact I did not piss myself.”

“Methinks the lady doth protest too much…” Hartley snickered, reaching over to meet Wash’s hand in a high-five.

Thirty minutes. He’d been in their grimy apartment for thirty fucking minutes and this had been the sum total of conversation: Ha ha ha, hee hee hee, isn’t it so funny how we almost gave Conrad a heart attack back at the house? We’re so whimsical and funny and smart, ho ho ho, har-de-har-har-har. Even Ash had gotten in on it, though Sam at least seemed to have enough decency inside of her to keep from outright jeering at him.

Didn’t have enough of that decency to, y’know, say ‘No guys, I won’t be part of this super stupid prank,’ but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

The details of their stupid goof weren’t important. They’d kept searching the basement. It’d been dark. Ash had ‘gotten sick.’ He’d been a good fucking person and gone to check on her—like good people do!—and what had he gotten in return? Well, he’d gotten the fuck (but not the piss!) scared out of him.

To his credit, he absolutely would’ve noticed something was off if he hadn’t been so distracted by the fact that the gang’s matching hoodies had the word ‘CREPES’ printed on them for some reason. If he hadn’t been trying to puzzle that one out, there was no question in his mind he would’ve noticed that Ash was acting suspicious or that there were lumps under the cuffs of her sleeves or something like that. As it was, though, he’d been trying to figure out why the fuck the CREEPS ghost hunting team had matching sweatshirts that said CREPES instead, so no. No, he hadn’t been expecting it when she’d lunged at him with her stupid white-out contacts and all that fake blood Wash was always carting around in the back of his car like some sort of discount dollar store Patrick Bateman.

Assholes. Oh, they thought it was the funniest thing that had ever happened in the history of the world. It had been days! Days! And they were still laughing!

He’d come here to watch the episode they’d put together and to okay the segments he was in—he had not come here to have a bunch of idiots without enough charisma between them to fill a teaspoon point and giggle at him. Of course, that hadn’t turned out a whole lot better because, see, these boneheads thought they were real funny; they’d turned his episode (the one they’d insisted on titling ‘MUMMY MANSION – EXPOSED!!!’) into the one offering on their stupid YouTube channel where everything was—surprise!—easily explained away by science and/or common sense. Not ghosts. Or ghouls. Or mummies. Or…shit, what else was there? Vampires? Goblins?

He was seriously beginning to doubt that working with these fuckers would be worth spooking Alex and Julia after all.

“Okay,” he groaned when the bullying became too much for his itty-bitty feelings to handle and a change of subject felt just as necessary as his next breath, “Serious question time, if you lugs are done busting my chops.” He adjusted his position on the couch, leaning in closer to the center of their group, “Have you guys ever seen anything that could possibly be real? Shit you couldn’t explain?”

Sam was the first to bow out of the conversation. “Don’t look at me, I’m the newbie here. I haven’t gone looking for anything creepy or crawly until I joined up.”

“Fair enough. Dorks?” He turned his gaze towards the other three, less than surprised when they all sort of grimaced.

“Uh…n…no. No, I don’t think so?”

“Hey, that’s not true! What about that Polaroid from Cochise’s aunt’s house? That shit was pretty convincing…”

“Dude. For the millionth time, that was a fucking moth.”

“Oh please. That was a top quality orb, my doubtful friend. Legit ghost material.”

“It was a moth.”

“Orb.”

“It had eyes!”

“Haunting, ghostly eyes. Stared right into my very soul. Laid my whole person bare. The pure sense of knowing in those eyes…the hatred in that stare…”

“It had wings and antennas!”

“Antennae.”

“Thanks, Ash. No one would’ve understood what I meant otherwise.”

He was used to their shtick by that point, so he just let them go, leaving them free to act out their little Three Stooges act to their hearts’ content. Really, he knew there wasn’t much on Earth that could stop them once they got started anyway…it was better to keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times when dealing with Wash and his horror harem, honestly, and he was in too good a mood today to risk getting one of his fingers caught in the gears of that particular merry-go-round. Way too good a mood.

He did have a date tonight, after all.

“Ghost moth,” he said with a nod, “Cool. Super spooky. Y’know, if you guys really wanted to scare your audience, not sure why you stopped with the whole comedy thing…shit sure gave me nightmares.”

Oooh, that one must’ve hit close to home, because Hartley actually turned around in his little swivel chair and looked away from his computer for the first time since Conrad had knocked on their door. “For your information,” he began, “We were hilarious. I-i-it’s not our fault Vine went defunct, that was all on—”

There was a snort from Ash’s side of the couch, and uh oh, trouble in paradise, Hartley’s attention shifted to her instead. “What? I mean…he’s right,” she said, a wicked curve to her lips. “Seriously though, the cooking stuff was wayyy scarier. Like geez Louise, did you guys pay attention in Home Ec even once?”

“The answer to that one’s gonna be a resounding, uh, no.”

Rolling his eyes and holding his hands up as though to defend himself from this bloodthirsty onslaught of (totally fair) criticism, Wash pointed out, “Hey, never once have I had a reason to know how to cook, okay?”

“Uuuntil the cooking show,” Ash interrupted.

“Until the cooking show,” he ceded. “If you hadn’t noticed, I’m an artistic, talented, wealthy individual with a solid metabolism and very generous genetics. I can afford to eat all of my meals fresh out of the microwave, thank you very much. Now Cochise, on the other hand—”

“Fuck you too, dude.” And aw man, was that an actual crack in his voice? Precious. So precious. Getting a rise out of Hartley was the easiest goddamn thing in the world—all you had to do was say anything, literally anything, halfway witty with Ash in the same room. Guy was twice as transparent as any ghost they’d ever claimed to come across.

…speaking of ghosts…

Conrad leaned back on the couch, not exactly thrilled at the strange lump poking him just underneath his left shoulder blade, and nodded towards Wash. “You fucks were too busy doing your whole Friday the 13th bullshit to really explain when I asked the other night, so pardon me for belaboring the point, but uh…what’s up with the breakfast club hoodies, huh?”

Washington plucked at the front of his own, looking down into the face of the dorky ghost on his chest, its comical nerd glasses cracked as though it had been beaten up by a bigger, stronger, less blobby phantasm. Then, eyebrows slowly rising the lower his eyes went, he reached the lettering. “Yeahhh…Cochise screwed the pooch on that one.”

“So what else is new?”

“Hey. Watch it, Connie.” There was a warning note in Ash’s voice, and why wouldn’t there be? She was just as easy to mess with—poke fun at Hartley one time too many and pow! God, he wondered if they realized they were so obvious. He doubted it. Highly. Sincerely. Ash and Hartley were two of the stupidest smart people he’d ever met in his life, and that was a stone-cold fact. The world was likely to enter a second ice age before either one of them made anything even resembling a move.

“Why don’t you get new ones, then?” he asked, “I mean, don’t get me wrong, something about the whole misspelling thing is def fairly representative of your group as a whole, but…”

Clearly rubbed raw over his typo, Hartley rolled his eyes and groaned, “Stop acting so high and mighty, Connie, it—”

Oh, good mood or not, that would never fucking do. “Dude, for the last time, don’t call me Connie.”

“Everyone calls you Connie! I just want in on that action.”

“Ohoho, no everyone does not.” He hunkered down to show them how dead serious he was about the whole thing (and he was, in fact, quite fucking serious), explaining in the careful tone of a kindergarten teacher telling a four-year-old about the dangers of sticking craft scissors in their nose, “‘Connie’ is exclusively for family and the ladies. Ladies such as our lovely, lovely Miss Brown, here.” He swept an arm out towards Ash, who promptly made a noise of disbelief…but unless he was wrong (he wasn’t), who also might’ve also gone a bit pinker in the cheeks and ears.

Wash leveled his stare at him. “Am I not a pretty enough lady for you? You are unbelievable, man. You come into my home, insult my feminine wiles…”

“You’re not a pretty enough anything for me, Washington.”

“This is why no one likes you, Bishop.”

“Uh, pretty sure your mom does. Pretty sure she likes me a whole lot, in fact.” Well, now this was a well-travelled path, wasn’t it? (Much like Wash’s mom.) Grinning, he leaned in again, preparing an all-out, full-frontal ‘Your Mom’ assault, when Hartley interrupted him.

“Heyheyhey, not to press the pause button on this meeting of the minds, but…let’s do this scientifically. Can I call you Connie?”

He bared his teeth in what wasn’t a grimace but wasn’t exactly a smile, either. “Only if I can call you Cochise.”

Ah, that seemed to drive the point home. Hartley’s mouth flattened into a line. “Okay, so that’s a hard no. Can Ash?”

“Yeah. I literally…” Conrad sighed, dramatically dropping his head into one of his hands. “I just said that. Keep up, Cochise.”

“I said no. How about Michelle Obama?”

This was why he didn’t hang out with these assholes more than once in a blue moon. This right here. He watched Hartley for a grip, blinking a single, tired blink when he saw there was no escaping the upcoming list. “I mean, sure? If she wants to. I wouldn’t turn her down.”

“Nic Cage?”

“No.”

“Wow, okay, rude, I’m sure you’ll be hearing from his people about that. The man is a national treasure. What about Josh?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely not.”

“Interesting! And Sam?”

“I—” He’d been too distracted by the others’ idiocy to really pay much attention to what Sam had been doing up until that point, but at Hartley’s mention, he found himself compelled to look her way. It was then, looking at her profile as she flipped through her notebook, that he realized with a fair amount of surprise that the answer that had immediately popped into his mind had been ‘no.’ “I mean…”

She perked up at the sound of her own name, eyebrows first arching upwards and then knitting. “Oh, uh. Should I be insulted?”

“No—no. You could call me Connie if the spirit moved you,” he said slowly, tilting his head this way and that, an itch tickling the grey matter at the very back of his brain. It was like there was something he was missing and it was on the very tip of his tongue…

“Uh, thanks.”

“Nice, man. Real nice. You come into my home, you insult Sammy’s feminine wiles…”

“No, I…it’s nothing personal, you just…” And then it clicked. Oh, holy shit did it click.

“What?” Wash taunted. “Say it.”

Without turning to him, Conrad flipped him the bird. Now that it had occurred to him, saying it out loud felt stupid, like running into your parents’ room to tell them how terrifying your nightmare had been only to realize, oh whoops, maybe there wasn’t actually anything inherently scary about being in an aquarium where the all the water and fish were purple. Then again, he needed to remember he was talking to a bunch of people who willingly told the internet at large that they poked around abandoned McDonald’s PlayPlaces to find ghosts, so like.

They could probably deal.

“You look just enough like my sister that it would be weird. Like, you don’t look exactly like her, but it’s really, really close, and—” Something else occurred to him then. This was a primo opportunity to get the creepy crawlies back on track! Forgetting Sam entirely, he whirled around to Wash, grinning that innocent down-home grin that showed his dimples so well. “Hey! So, speaking of my sister…do you remember the terms of our little arrangement?”

If he was moved by the dimples, Wash didn’t let on. “Uh, yeah. You took us to a dingy, late-80’s split-level with no ghosts and lots of dust, and in return, you got to pretend like you had friends for a night.”

“Ooh, burn!”

Conrad ignored Hartley entirely, sticking an accusatory finger in Wash’s face as he got up from the couch to more efficiently round on him. There was no way he was going to let this weasely weasel weasel out of their deal…sel. “And! And you said you’d scare someone for me.”

“Pretty sure we did that too.” With a wave of his hand, Wash had Hartley play (and replay…and replay again) the part of their exploration through the mansion where, wow, how hilarious, Ash had scared the fuck out of him. He was still fairly convinced they’d edited the video in some way to make his voice sound shriller than it actually was, but he knew damn well neither of them would ever admit to it.

“Ha ha. Funny. Real funny. You guys are a real Abbott and Costello, huh? Look, if you’re gonna be a little shit and renege on our deal…”

“Oh blah blah blah…would you quit yapping and get to the point already, man?”

He clapped once, rubbing his hands together in what was most certainly a very business-like manner and not at all reminiscent of a cartoon villain preparing to tie someone to the railroad tracks. “Okay, okay, so. The chump in question is JJ’s boyfriend. Just need to get a good scare in to fuck with his bullshit macho act—”

“Wait, Alex?”

For a second there, his brain cramped up. Something about hearing Alex’s name out of Hartley’s mouth just hit pause on the whole shebang. “How did y…oh shit, right, you’re friends with Brad, aren’t you?” Shit. Oh shit. If they mentioned any of this to Brad, he was SOL. “Ugh! God—don’t you bring him in on this! I think we all know Bradical’s a man of many talents, but subterfuge? Not one of ‘em.” Which was being kind, really. Exceptionally kind. The kinda kind only doddering old grandmothers could usually achieve.

Thankfully, he found no resistance from the peanut gallery. “Yeah, no.”

“Bless his little heart, he tries.”

“Does he?”

Meanwhile, Wash’s posture had changed in a small, subtle way, his head inclined at an angle that years of experience had taught him meant he was listening especially carefully. He sniffed disinterestedly, which again suggested that he was, in fact, extremely interested. “What, precisely, did the elder Smith do to get in your bad book? Never pegged you as the protective sort, Conman.”

He blew a raspberry that tapered off into a snicker. “Protective? Nah, not me. This is just, uh…” Ah, but here was…a crossroads.

The less these fuckers knew about his actual intentions, the better. He’d seen how they handled themselves, and he was not about to get himself into some sort of shitty Monkey’s Paw situation where he got them to agree to this prank only for them to fuck him over in the end. Like, say, how they’d managed to fuck him over with the stupid Mummy Mansion episode. Nuh-uh, no way. Not in this lifetime. Wash would find out about the inevitable wedding when his parents made their bi-annual call to check in on him and mentioned something about ‘that sweet Bishop girl getting married.’ No sooner. So help him God.

“Initiation! What are we older brothers good for, if not putting the fear of God into baby sis’s prospective datemates, right? I mean,” he chuckled, nudging Josh with his elbow, “You know what that’s like. It’s our job!”

It came to him a moment too late that, uh.

Fuck.

Wash’s sisters weren’t exactly in need of protecting anymore, were they?

Mmm.

Yikes.

Whoops.

Wash’s smile tightened. “I’ll fucking think about it.”

Conrad pretended not to realize this was a grade-A foot-in-mouth situation, doubling down in hopes that it would get them out of the conversation that much faster. “Think about it? You promised!”

“Yeah, and you promised us a mummy man, so…”

“I did not promise you a mummy. I said—”

“Ah, and now you’re gonna make up a whole new load of crap and try to sell me on it, huh? Not how it works.”

“I’m not making anything up!” He kept the indignation in his voice, but phew was he glad they’d waltzed their way out of Dead Sibling Station.

“Oh bull-fucking-shit, dude, you’re—”

“All I did was tell you what my mom told me, okay? I can’t control the information that’s passed on to me—I can only convey it to you…”

“Christ alive…”

“…in a manner that’s both truthful and entertaining! I didn’t say we’d find a mummy, I said someone else did! Once. A while ago. But—but!” Oh thank God for his dad’s big fucking mouth, and thank God he’d been attentive enough that night at dinner to get a workable story out of it, “That wasn’t the only story she got from the previous homeowners!” Oho, that got ‘em. The girls might not’ve cared, but Wash and Hartley were both watching him expectantly.

Fantastic. He had…such a story ready for them. “For real,” he continued, “Get this: The guy who owned the place before the most recent couple? He died in there!”

“Uh huh.”

“In the shower! He didn’t have any family or anything, so it took the mail people noticing that his mailbox was crammed full to go ‘Huh, wonder where this sad sap is.’ So they called in a welfare check, the cops came, and they found this guy in the bathroom, dead in the tub, with the shower still running! It’d been going the whole fucking time! They said by the time they found him…” He paused for dramatic effect, eyes flicking from Wash to Hartley and back again, “…they couldn’t tell the difference between him and the shower!”

“They…wait. Wh…what does…Conrad. What in the fuck could that possibly mean?!”

“It means—”

“D-d-did he fucking become a shower? Is that the scary part of this story?”

“No, asshole! His skin like—”

“Became porcelain tile?! I’m pretty sure I could tell the difference between a spongy-ass skeleton corpse and a shower!”

How were they not getting this?! This was the grossest story of the century! Why were they just looking at him like that, like he was some kind of loony rambling about the moon being hollow?! This was a serious tale from the crypt! A yuck-fest the likes of which no human had ever heard before! “You obtuse morons are missing the point!”

Fingers rubbing slow circles into his temples, Washington craned his head back until he was staring at the ceiling’s recessed lighting. “The point,” he repeated, “What would the point be, exactly? That through the alchemy of simple city tap water, a man in the house we found nothing—repeat: nothing—in was transmogrified into grout-proof ceramic?”

He was going to murder them. Both of them. Fuck strangling, he was just going to bash their heads together until they were nothing but pulp. “Don’t you do this,” he said, shaking his head with something like betrayal, “Don’t you dare pretend like this isn’t the sickest shit you’ve ever heard.”

“It’s not, though,” Wash said slowly.

“I-i-it doesn’t make sense,” Hartley agreed.

“How does it not make sense?! His body was eroded away until it was unrecognizable, and—”

“You can tell bones from a shower!”

He raised his hands, flexed his fingers, balled them into fists, flexed them again, dropped them to his sides with a groan that bordered on a scream. “He fucking disintegrated! The man became soup! Why don’t you get that?! The motherfucker became a goddamn stew!”

“Not possible. Absolutely not possible. I don’t claim to be a whiz at biology or anything, but—”

“Why is this an argument?” Hartley stood from his chair, shaking his head. “This is…this…fuck this! Fuck this and fuck you. Look.” He jerked his hand towards the back of the apartment, and the three of them filed through one of the bedrooms to make it to the bathroom. The shower curtain’s hooks screamed bloody murder when the curtain itself was flung open, making him recoil. “You look into that tub. And you explain to me. How a human being. Could be that.”

As he looked down into the basin of the tub, it did stand to be said that he realized perhaps he had worded his claims a little, well, loosely. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Conrad Bishop might’ve been a man who could recognize when he’d been wrong, but he was not a man who admitted when he’d been wrong. So he joined Hartley in front of the tub, pointing just as furiously. “He kicked it in the tub. The water kept running. His body plugged the drain, so it just collected, and the water beat at him until it—”

“The worst,” Wash interrupted, butting in between the two of them to also stare down into the tub, “That could’ve possibly happened…is that he fuckin’ filled the thing with little jelly-bits of himself that kinda coagulated or whatever, but I don’t think when the first responders got there that their initial thought was ‘Aw shit. Look at that. Man’s a shower now. Damnedest thing.’”

“They—”

“It’s not even scary, that’s the thing! Like, you get that, right? You get that it’s not scary? Are you trying to say that like, there’s some kind of gooey flesh-colored Jell-O ghost in that house? Th-that, what, we should’ve gone in there and shot something like ‘Mummy Man and Bathtub Soup Guy: The Sitcom?!’”

“He’s a desiccated raisin…and he’s human-flavored oatmeal,” Wash interrupted, speaking with a tv narrator’s projection and panache, “What hijinx will they get up to? Find out next week.”

“Really not sure I appreciate the tone, fuckwits.” …fuck! He was doing it again! He was letting their bullshit infect him. “Y’know, I don’t need to stand here and defend myself—”

“Uh, you kinda do. You came in here talking about—”

“I just need you guys to fucking agree that you’re still going to help me scare the pants off of Alex. That’s it. That’s all I need. I thought maybe you’d find my tale of bone broth man charming and delightful, but clearly I can see that I was wrong—”

“Clearly.”

Reaching into the deepest depths of his heart, he found it within himself to ignore that snide aside instead of yoinking Hartley’s glasses off his face and playing keepaway. “So? Are we still square? You’re gonna give him the works, right? The works.”

The two of them traded a look he wasn’t really the biggest fan of, but eventually Wash rolled his eyes and heaved a long-suffering sigh through his nose. “Yeah, sure. Fine. We’ll figure something out.”

The relief that washed over him was immense.

“After break.”

His eyes flew open from his impromptu moment of bliss, opening his mouth before the numbers added up.

After break?

After break.

Well that was…fuck. He still hadn’t gone through Julia’s Facebook to check their stupid anniversary date, but…he was still feeling spring. It was probably spring…right? Spring was, after all, the most romantic of seasons, what with the flowers and the sunshine and all the animals doing the deed to make a bunch of baby animals, so…after break was…probably okay.

“Suuure…” Conrad said slowly, stretching the word out until it had something like five or six syllables. “I…yeah, sure, after break. Cool. I have some ideas, by the way, in case you guys—”

“You insist on leeching off the wild popularity of my internet show,” Wash started up again, ignoring Harley’s low ‘Our internet show’ as he squeezed his gangly-ass body between the two of them to worm his way out of the bathroom, staying a few steps ahead even as they followed him into the living room. “You give me nothing to work with. You try to tell me about the finer points of decomposition. And then you have the audacity—the gall—to suggest that your ideas for scaring people are better than mine. I don’t know what they taught you in all those manners classes your mom made you take back in junior high, but I have half a mind to tell her she should look into getting a refund.”

From the floor, a new voice offered its two cents: “Oh, absolutely. She should definitely put in a formal request.”

“Okay, first off, wow, that was entirely uncalled for, but secondly, I sure don’t remember inviting you into this conversation.”

Ash wasn’t much in the way of a smirker, but she gave it her best shot. Kind of precious, really. “You guys have been literally screaming about dead guys in bathtubs this whole time. I’d be shocked if the neighbors didn’t start knocking on the door to give their opinions.” She pulled her knees up to her chest as she leaned back against the front of the couch, and for a horrendous moment he was positive she was about to launch into her own explanation of how human bodies decayed in water…but that wasn’t exactly what happened. Ash opened her mouth to say something (probably the aforementioned scientific explanation), simultaneously nudging Sam with her shoulder, and something must’ve felt off about the whole thing because her smile wavered as she turned towards her and away from him and the guys.

It was then that he realized Goldilocks wasn’t looking so hot. Last he’d actually paid attention to her, she’d been going through her notebook with a pencil tucked into the loose knot of hair at the back of her head and a highlighter in her hand, but now? Now she looked…to put it frankly, Sam looked like she was about to blow chunks all over Wash’s carpeting.

“Is she, uh…oookay?” Conrad asked under his breath, unsure whether he should be anticipating (another) stupid jumpscare.

“Uh…”

“Sam? Hellooo…Ground Control to major Sam?” Wash pushed past him and walked the few steps to the couch, crouching down to wave a hand in front of her face. “You feelin’ okay there, Sammy?” he asked when she seemed to shake herself out of it.

While he still wasn’t totally convinced this wasn’t about to be another dumb prank getting pulled at his expense, Conrad felt himself begin to frown. Ash might’ve acted sick back at the house, but Sam looked ill—like legitimately ill—sort of grey in the face and lips, and that shit was hard to fake.

A sympathetic puker by nature, he readied himself to make a beeline for the door, should it come to that.

“I…yeah, yeah, sorry…” Sam mumbled, sounding just as out of it as she looked. Without explaining what sort of stick she’d jammed up her ass, she started shoving her things into her bag, paying absolutely zero attention to what was going where. He could hear papers getting crumpled. Not a great sign. “I just, uh…I think I’m coming down with something.”

“Oh nooo! Really?”

“Yeah, it’s…I’m gonna, um, head out, I think?”

He didn’t say as much, but that sounded like an excellent idea. He’d seen that look on people’s faces before—that was the look that came after ‘I can absolutely handle one more shot, guys, seriously!’—not the sort of thing one wanted to see on their houseguest’s face.

“You want a ride?” Wash asked, ever the gentleman, reaching over to help her up before she waved him away.

Sam stood, wobbling unsteadily on her feet, and shook her head way too quickly for someone who was knock-knock-knocking on Good Lady Pukington’s front door. “Nope, I could use the air. It’s fine.”

Welp, this felt like as organic a time as any…Conrad checked his watch and made the all the requisite sounds of disappointment when he saw the time. “I should be heading out too.” Again he paused for effect, taking a moment to actually straighten his shirt out a bit as he added, “Got a hot date tonight.”

The other three were still obviously concerned with Sam…and yet it didn’t stop them from getting in one last jab apiece.

“Doubtful,” Ash said flatly.

“Sounds fake, but okay,” Hartley added.

“Aw, you didn’t tell me your mom was coming over!” Wash said, rounding out the three of them. There wasn’t, however, the usual smarmy grin accompanying the insult; nah, he was too busy watching Blondie stagger her way towards the door.

Well, whatever. Weirdness followed those freaks like a shadow in a well-lit room. All he knew was he had places to be, and those were places he’d prefer to go without any sort of vomit on his person, so he was gonna go while the getting was good. One last halfhearted wave to the CREEPs and he was off!

Unfortunately, it seemed Sam was heading the same way. He couldn’t just…overtake her in the hallway (he wasn’t a monster), but man, he didn’t need to be dealing with this on top of everything else he’d just had to endure back at Mystery Inc. “Hey, seriously, you sure you’re gonna be okay to get back to your place?” he asked as he caught up to her, slowing his stride so they were going at the same pace.

No answer.

Great. He watched as she shakily started down the stairs and goddamn his proper upbringing—he couldn’t just leave her to handle that alone! Moving at a speed that would’ve made a snail look like Speed Racer, he made his way down the stairs one riser at a time, watching Sam’s expressionless face from the corner of his eye. “If you want me to like, call someone or go get one of the idiots back there I ca—”

“Hey, so…weird question for you.” She said it so suddenly that he nearly banged his elbow into the railing in surprise.

Well, talking was a good sign, wasn’t it? Sure it was. “Lucky for you, weird questions are sort of my specialty! Right after mixing highballs and bullshitting essays. Hit me.”

He’d made it to the bottom of the stairs but she hadn’t. He turned to see her still standing there on the second to last step, her face grey and her arms hugged tightly around herself. …maybe talking wasn’t as good a sign as he’d hoped.

“Earlier, you said something…uh…this is gonna sound real dumb if it’s nothing, so I’m just gonna ask it anyway.” Sam heaved a sigh, and even that seemed to wobble. “You said something to Josh about wanting to scare your sister’s boyfriend?”

“Well yeah, just as a joke, though!” His grin took a decidedly defensive kind of edge as he backpedaled. How much of his motivation was he going to have to explain to her about this? If word got back to Wash, there was no telling what sort of bullshittery he’d have to deal with. “Alex is cool and all, just kind of super, super uptight, and God help me, sometimes it’s li—”

“No, I—no. Literally, I don’t care about that.”

“Oh!” He laughed…then paused, watching her warily again. “Wait, what?” He felt like he was missing a very important piece of this puzzle.

“When you guys were talking about that, you said he ‘knows what it’s like?’”

He continued to stare at her. When her words simply trailed off, his confusion only deepened. “Uh…okay? Did I?”

“Were you saying, like…he knows what it’s like to…I thought Josh was an only child?”

“I mean, he is…well, now, anyway.” It didn’t occur to him that maybe that was the sort of thing you didn’t say aloud to a person you didn’t know all that well until she grabbed his arm.

For how tiny she was, Sam had a hell of a grip. He could feel each of her fingers digging into his arm like she was Iron Man or some shit. Standing on that stair as she was, the two of them were almost of a height, so he had no choice but to look into her eyes, wide and scared and not totally there as she asked, “What does that mean? What do you mean ‘now?’ Like, like…like his parents have plans for more kids, or—”

He wasn’t sure why he didn’t pull away from her, considering she was absolutely acting like a crazy person (and a crazy person on the verge of hoarking up her lunch onto him, at that), but he didn’t. “Uh, I meant his si—” Conrad froze, his bafflement melting away into shock, then suspicion, then realization, then finally…fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck him sideways. “Oh holy shit, you don’t know about that, do you?”

Sam stared at him.

Well that was great.

“Fffffff—okay. Okay. I think maybe I should…stop…talking…”

“Conrad.” Sam’s voice had gone dry and cracked, making her sound exactly like a spooky ghost child from a bad horror movie. “I need you to tell me about his sisters.”

“Sam, I—wait.” Anxiously, he glanced over his shoulder towards the door of the apartment, turning back to her only once he was sure it was still closed. “How did you know I was gonna say sisters?” That was an awfully lucky guess she was about to make. Suspiciously lucky.

“Please.”

Oh this was fucked. This whole situation was fucked. This wasn’t something he should’ve been talking about—hell, when it had gotten brought up earlier, he’d just sort of made an ass out of himself until he and Wash had paraded themselves past it. But it didn’t look like Sam was going to be so easily swayed. Nope. Not even a little. “I probably shouldn’t…look, I’ve already…this is a real dick move, and—”

“Was it a car accident?”

It was his turn to stare blankly at her.

“Were they twins?”

Conrad did pull away from her then; slowly, yes, but deliberately. “So what’s the deal?” he asked, clearly trying to figure out what the fuck was happening, every inch as lost—as terrified—as she seemed. “Do you know the story or not? Make up your mind!”

A second, maybe two, and then Sam sprinted past him, the front doors to the apartment complex banging shut behind her as she all but flew out of the place. Then she was just gone, leaving him standing in front of the stairs like some sort of dipshit, his stomach tied up in knots and his mouth tasting like crushed-up aspirin.

He shot another nervous glance up the stairs, almost as though he expected the CREEPs to be standing at the top, shaking their heads judgmentally or…shit, throwing balled up garbage at him or something. Of course they weren’t—why would they be?—but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d just gone and done something he shouldn’t have.

Sam must’ve known something about Wash’s sisters…right? She sure seemed to know they’d been twins. And fuck, the thing about the car crash? Fucking spooky, that’s what that was! She had to have known. No question. It wasn’t like he’d just told her about them, he couldn’t have told her about them if she already knew, but…

Then why did he feel so absolutely godawful about the whole thing?

His phone buzzed in his pocket, causing him to jump about a mile into the air. The people walking by must’ve thought he was having some sort of fit, Jesus Christ…he grabbed his phone to check it, again expecting to see a flurry of furious, indignant messages (‘How could you?!’ ‘So not cool!’ ‘What gives you the fucking right?!’ ‘Who do you think you are?!’ ‘You’re such a douche!’). And again, there was nothing like that. Because…why would there be? The way Sam had run out of the place at full-tilt, he doubted squealing to the dorks was going to be her number one priority.

Fliss: You’re still coming, right?

He brought his other hand up to rake through his hair. Maybe Sam had the right idea after all. Maybe he just needed to take a good, long walk to calm the chaos going on in his chest and in his head. It was worth a shot, wasn’t it?

Conrad: Yeah, running a couple minutes late, my b! Conrad: Save me a seat, wouldya?

Without waiting for a reply, he pocketed his phone again and stepped out into the chilly air, hoping against hope that he hadn’t just really, really, really gone and fucked up.

He had a sinking suspicion, though, that he had.

#man of medan #until dawn #queenie writes supermassive #my fanfiction #ghost hunting au

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douxreviews · 6 years ago

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The Merchant of Venice (2004) Review

"I am a'weary of this world."

When a merchant's ships are all lost and he forfeits a debt, his debtor Shylock demands exactly what the bond stipulates – a pound of his flesh...

The Merchant of Venice is a tricky play, because although popular and including some of Shakespeare's most famous lines, the themes of the play make it difficult to produce for modern audiences. As far as Shakespeare was concerned, the play was clearly a comedy. It ends in marriage, generally a marker of comedy in Shakespearean drama (it was written before the late 'Romance' plays). Most of the plot is clearly ridiculous; Portia's late father's method for choosing a husband for her is obviously ludicrous, there are women dressing up as men and tricking their new husbands, and even Shylock's demand for a pound of flesh has a comedic aspect (note that although in the court the bond is written to stipulate a pound of flesh from near the heart, when he first suggests it, Shylock says he'll take it from 'what part of your body pleaseth me' – and if I've learned anything about Shakespeare's sense of humour over the years, I can guess what that refers to). But we in the twenty-first century don't generally find anti-semitism, condoning slavery, implied homophobia, references to racism and forcing people on pain of death to change their religion terribly funny.

There are only really two solutions to this – play the romantic scenes for comedy and the Shylock scenes for drama, or play the whole thing for drama. Michael Radford's film goes all out for drama, and it mostly works very well. Unlike Hamlet, which I quite like modern dress versions of, The Merchant of Venice is a film set in a very specific time and place (here it's given it a date of 1596, when the play was probably written) and the film places it firmly within history by outlining the history of anti-semitism in early modern Venice in title cards at the beginning. This is pretty much essential to understanding the story, and the visualization of Antonio spitting on Shylock (referred to later in dialogue) also helps to set up the characters and the root of Shylock's anger effectively.

Shylock is a character much like Euripides' Medea – he has a wonderful speech outlining how badly he's treated and arguing passionately for better, but his actions later in the play suggest that the author did not intend him to be entirely sympathetic (rather under-cutting the suggestion that Shakespeare was making a plea for tolerance or Euripides a feminist). For modern audiences, though, he is a compellingly conflicted character, and here he is played brilliantly by Al Pacino. Pacino's performance is captivating and heart-breaking and the courtroom scene is absolutely gut-wrenching.

The decision to play the story completely straight (there are elements of humour, of course, but none of the really broad comedy or light atmosphere of, for example, the lighter scenes in Much Ado About Nothing) mostly works. Some of the romantic scenes come across as a bit overblown and melodramatic, but the conflict between working from a script written as comedy and making it a drama only really becomes an issue in the courtroom scene and especially in the final twenty minutes or so after it. It's great that Portia saves the day with her quick thinking, but the fact that she makes the least convincing man since Bob in Blackadder is a bit distracting, and there's just no way we can feel really invested in the lovers messing around with rings and easily broken promises after watching the absolute devastation of Shylock's defeat.

Still, these are pretty much unsolvable problems in this play, and it would be a terrible shame never to produce it because its attitudes are out of date (it's hardly alone there). I think this film really does the best possible job with this material. All of the cast, as well as Pacino, are fantastic, and the American actresses playing Portia and Nerissa are doing the best and most convincing fake English accents I've come across. It looks absolutely gorgeous and it has one of the most beautiful film scores I've ever heard. A combination of medieval-inspired music, Tudor-inspired music, a boy soprano and a song sun by Hayley Westernra, the score is utterly gorgeous and is matched by the incredible cinematography and beautiful costuming.

According to Wikipedia, both Jeremy Irons (playing Antonio) and director Michael Radford thought that they had portrayed Antonio and Bassanio's relationship as just platonic good friends. I'm not sure what film they were watching, because one of the first observations that came to me as I re-watched it was "this version really plays up the suggestion that Antonio is in love with Bassanio." Joseph Fiennes (as Bassanio) did deliberately play up the idea of a homoerotic attraction (possibly a history) between them. I am a person who will argue for hours that Frodo and Sam have an entirely platonic relationship, and I can see how you could play Antonio and Bassanio as just good friends, but I don't think that's what they've actually achieved here – and I think that's a good thing.

Because of the dramatic approach taken to the material, the film has a deliberately melancholy air, and rather than ending on everyone going off to finally get laid, as the script does, the film finishes on a shot of Jessica, who is revealed not to have given away her mother's ring for a monkey after all, looking sad and pensive. This melancholic atmosphere is enhanced by the shots of Antonio looking on wistfully as Bassanio and Portia embrace. The film has turned Shakespeare's bawdy comedy into a serious drama about love and pain and betrayal and acceptance, or lack thereof, so it seems entirely appropriate to interpret Antonio's love as another example of a character constrained and made to suffer for what he is, and every choice both director and actor make seems to reinforce that, from Antonio gazing out at Bassanio and denying that he's in love (methinks he doth protest too much) to his emphasis on his willingness to put his body on the line for Bassanio. You almost have to be trying not to see it to miss it. If that wasn't what Radford and Irons intended, they've gone wrong somewhere.

This is a difficult story, but this film does a fantastic job making it accessible, approachable and absolutely beautiful. I love me some Kenneth Branagh, as you know, but in terms of tackling something really difficult really well, this has got to be one of the best Shakespeare adaptations I've ever seen, and much as we might have come to expect it of him, it's worth saying again that Pacino completely blew me away. Beautiful in every way.

Notes and Quotes

The cast is absolutely full of familiar faces, some known before this film, some after; Joseph Fiennes, Kris Marshall from Love Actually/My Family, Charlie Cox from Stardust/Downton Abbey, Zuleikha Robinson from Rome, Mackenzie Crook, John Sessions, Jeremy Irons...

The quote at the top of the page is the version of Portia's opening line used in this film, but the full line is usually "my little body is a-weary of this great world." It's one of my Mum's favourite Shakespeare quotes, partly because of the 'little body' bit.

Prince of Morocco (reading from a scroll): All that glitters is not gold...

Shylock: I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?

Portia: The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

Juliette Harrisson is a freelance writer, classicist and ancient historian who blogs about Greek and Roman Things in Stuff at Pop Classics.

#The Merchant of Venice #William Shakespeare #Al Pacino #Jeremy Irons #Joseph Fiennes #Doux Reviews #Movie Reviews #something from the archive

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ajanefantasy · 7 years ago

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Simm - Rise of Trouble Vol. 3: Ch1

Rythwaen Hall

Stille, Berja

“What mess have you gotten yourself into this time, Rythwaen?” Arno entered the study, his boots ringing on the slate flooring.

Jayd’s head shot up and he just kept from swearing. He looked towards the fireplace to check on Magic, but remembered his son was with the cook in the kitchen, supervising the making of a tartberry pie. Magic seemed to have an affinity with all those who baked. Upon Ganos, Magic had charmed Mistress Horn so much, she gave him a sweetbun each time they saw her. Even if they did not go into the shoppe, she would come out and give him a sweetbun slathered in icing.

He stood. “What might I do for you, Your Majesty?”

“You can answer my question.”

“And what mess am I accused of getting myself into?”

“Insulted you have Princess Sari. Insulted her so grievously that I have heard of it. I expect you to apologize to her, Simm.”

Jayd narrowed his eyes, trying to decide which was worse, being called by his Title or by his first name. He was leaning, in this instance, with the king using that tone of voice, towards his name. “’Twould be appreciated did you keep from my business.”

“Your business is my business.” Arno stopped in front of the desk, planted his hands upon it. “Do you ruin any chance of a connection to Artezan, you will care little for my reaction. You will apologize…”

“Tired I am of being ordered about. And tired I am of being informed on. Was it Aunt Fai?”

“You, Simm, understand not the embarrassment you have caused me with your foolishness. I only wish ‘twas from Fai I heard it.” Arno’s green eyes were trained on Jayd like a cat cornering a mouse. “Understand I do that you were recently upon Ganos.”

Jayd blinked at the change of subject. “I was. Magic wished to play with some yullies. Acquainted I am with one whose father raises the animals.”

“I have been informed that Princess Sari was there visiting her grandmother and uncle. ‘Tis the uncle you are acquainted with, yes? ‘Tis his father who raises the yullies?”

“Yes.”

“’Tis good to have that cleared up. And ‘tis the father who is married to Princess Sari’s grandmother, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Know you who her grandmother is?”

Jayd sat, tried to do so without showing his growing apprehension. He disliked the way Arno was smiling at him. “Vylla van Jyn.”

“Very good, lad. Vylla van Jyn. Are you aware of exactly who Vylla van Jyn is? Allow me to enlighten you if you were not. The Dusalla of Fyrwyn she is, mother to Artezan’s fucking king! That is who Vylla van Jyn is.”

He knew all of that, of course he knew all of that, but he thought it best to ignore the genealogical lesson. “Then ‘tis King Usan who informed you?”

“No, if only that were so, ‘twould be easier to bear, but I hear you not accusing the princess of informing upon you.”

“The princess knows not who I am.”

“She knows not who you are?”

“No. Did she, and certain I am that she would have said.”

Arno’s voice turned silky as he glided about the desk, still upon the hunt, his smile dangerous, “And yet you dared insult her for being a princess? Wonder I do if mayhap when lightning struck you at nine, it caused damage to your mind. To be such a hypocrite… No, I go too far by offering you such an excuse. Methinks the House of ayn Gyl flows more through you than the fai Lynn with how fucking hard your head is!”

“Only did I learn she was princess through…”

“I care not! Upon learning that Sari was the crown princess, mayhap you should have confessed exactly who you are. Mayhap upon learning she was princess, a closer connection you should have forged.”

Arno held up a hand, taking a moment to pull in a calming breath. “This is not the path I was upon. We were discussing how I learned of this exchange of words, these insults. I learned not that you insulted Princess Sari from her father—though certain I am by this time he is aware. No, it turns out that Dusalla Fyrwyn has long held a friendship with your grandmother! A fucking lecture I received from your grandmother. Mind you, I received this lecture long after she claimed you to be my problem! But still she wishes not to take you on; still are you my problem because you are fai Lynn and the fai Lynn are of Berja!”

Jayd wished not to be anyone’s problem. He wished Arno would leave him be. To The Firebreath with his constant lecturing. He opened his mouth to say just that, willing to risk the loss of his boat for some peace, “I…”

“You will fix this, lad, and you will fix it soon. I want a connection to Artezan.”

He bit his tongue. Fuck! “My son has Title in Artezan through his mother. There is your connection.”

“Do you think so? Do you think, because he is citizen of Artezan it gains me a connection?”

“That I am his father…”

“Truly you understand very little about the way the world works. You think ‘tis all about you and if ‘tis not about you, then you step upon it. That is not how it works. ‘Twould indeed serve you well did I make you king for the six months next and then mayhap you would gain an appreciation for what I need deal with all before I deal with you! Were Paden about, I would thrash him for allowing this mess. Since he is within The Everafter, I will lecture your father instead, and lecture him well. Mayhap he will finally put aside the guilt and self-loathing he suffers and take you in hand.”

“I owe the princess no apology.” No they had parted on good terms. At least mostly good terms. And she had yet to write him. Wait. Why had she yet to write him? Should she not have written to him? They were to meet for the Winter Celebration. And…

“Oh indeed you do! But that is not all I heard. Aware I am that Princess Sari demanded you bring Magic before her at least twice a year. I expect you to comply.”

“Or what?” He was forced all the way back in his chair when Arno leaned over him, their noses nigh touching.

“Do not push me to such a point, Simm.”

“She wants not a Titledman for husband!” And he told no lie. Sari wished not a stuffy Titledman for a husband. Did she not marry him as pirate? But that was something Arno need not know, that he and Sari were married. He would not have Arno crowing with smugness.

“Then change her mind!”

Jayd was wondering if he should just set fire to his boat and be done with this mess, then naught would there be for Arno to hold over his head. And if his uncle wanted to take Title from him, well, Arno could fucking have it.

©A. Jane

<—— Read: Summer Dae - Rise of Trouble Vol. 2: Ch1 ��

Where to buy: Simm - Rise of Trouble Vol. 3: Amazon | Smashwords

Website | Bookshelf |

#Rise of Trouble #First Chapter #Simm: Rise of Trouble Vol. 3 #Simm: Rise of Trouble #Rise of Trouble Vol. 3 #Oh look #Jayd's in trouble again #swearing #Arno is really serious #my writing #fantasy romance

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omfgtrump · 5 years ago

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Tale of Two Viruses: Part 33

Guess what? The Don didn’t win the Nobel Peace prize. It was a tough decision. The U.N., who The fly took residence on Pence’s hair like it was an Airbnb.helped feed 100 million people around the world, or The Don, whose heinous response to the pandemic continues to increase the number of Americans with food insecurity? He also planned to cut food stamps to 700,00 people, but decided to reverse course, due to heavy opposition and a decision by a federal judge. Just another example of the world’s lack of appreciation of The Don.

As predicted in my last piece, The Don emerged from his battle with Covid-19 more emboldened than ever. The NY Times reported that he said, he would fake a frail walk at first, then open the shirt to reveal the iconic “S” insignia to demonstrate he was strong and free of the coronavirus, a superhero for the ages. Here is what he said when he left the hospital:

“Don’t let it dominate you. Don’t be afraid of it,” Trump said in a recorded video message. “We’re going back, we’re going back to work. We’re going to be out front. Don’t let it dominate your lives. Get out there, be careful.”

I thought Superman was supposed to protect people, not give them license to do things that could harm them. Where’s kryptonite when you need it?

The Don learned so many things about the virus, and promised us that he would reveal his wisdom to the American people. And what were these wise words he uttered while standing on the balcony of the White House? “It’s going to disappear. It is disappearing.”

While the virus continues to ravage our country and as cases rise throughout much of the country, The Don declared himself immune. And since he is now cured and immune what’s the worry as only he matters.

Pivoting from the virus, he tried to distract us by ranting and raving that Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden should go to jail! Methinks there is a case of major projection going on here, as if The Don loses the election, it is he who will be going to jail.

His desperate antics keep peeling away voters and he can see the handwriting on the wall. (Now there’s a wall I can get behind!) If Biden goes to jail, then he won’t have to run against him and can run against the “Monster,” Kamala Harris. Me thinks there is a case of projection going on here, as we all know who the monster is.

The real monster suddenly decided that he wouldn’t support any relief package for Americans who are hurting from the impact of the virus. In particular, the monster wants no relief for all the blue states that don’t love him. (He then changed his mind because is precious stock market went down, not because he gives two shits about anyone’s suffering.)

The real monster did not condemn an attempted kidnapping of Michigan Governor, Whitman, by White Supremacists. All he could say is that she didn’t thank him for “his FBI” who thwarted the plot- an FBI that he has demeaned and undermined throughout his presidency. Let’ slow that down: A governor of our country is the subject of a kidnapping and his response is to feel aggrieved that she didn’t thank him. Rumor has it that he was disappointed in the botched mission. “Man, those Boogaloo Boys need to get their act together,” he lamented to one of the few people left in the White House who would go near him, fearing infection.

He is a monster because he is even incapable of protecting those that do stand by him, unconcerned that he is exposing them to a deadly virus.

And then we have the fly that decided to hangout on Mike Pence’s head during the debate with Kamala, the “Monster.”

Have you ever seen a fly just sit on top of someone’s head for so long? It was like Pence’s head was the fly’s Airbnb. After all, besides booking a place in a mound of dog shit, Pence’s perfectly coifed silver hair was a pretty good choice. Given Pence’s passivity and capacity for acquiescence in putting up with The Don’s amoral actions, the fly hit the jackpot. When does a fly get a chance to sit on a human’s head without being swatted at, shooed away? If you looked closely, you could see the fly putting on some white goop: the fly had read in the amenities section of the Airbnb that anything black was frowned upon. When asked to rate its experience, the fly gave it a big thumb’s up. “Just loved the spot, like sleeping on silk sheets. Just wish I didn’t have to try to hide my blackness.”

The fly went on:

“But there was a great view of a beautiful black human that I stared at the entire time. At one point I debated taking off and flying over to her, but she seemed strong and powerful and maybe wouldn’t have been so happy having me nesting in her hair. I heard her say: “they’re coming for you.” (Referring to taking away pre-existing conditions.) Then I heard him say: The president was right. She is such a monster… a monster, a monster.’ “

I was aghast and outraged. Immediately, I changed my Airbnb rating to the lowest number. This man was the monster and this president, whoever he was, was even more of a monster. Here was this poised, warm, brilliant black woman outshining this white guy. In America, that stuff is not supposed to happen. The only way for the white guy to tolerate her superiority was to make her into an evil monster. I had enough. I flew off his head and went right over to her and buzzed in her ear and said: ‘This idiot thinks you are a monster.’ She smiled and said: “Maybe I should do what any monster worth its weight would do: Eat him. And with those words in my ear, I flew away.”

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rubbersoul23 · 8 years ago

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Ranking The Jobs Of Weston Scott

“To mold the mind of an actor is to bring the clay of life to God and allow him to directly shape a perfect being” – Oliver Platt Part I. Donut Ask, Donut Tell Imagine this scene, if you will. The sun has just risen and the sleepy town of Buellton, California is beginning to thank their pillows for and excellent night’s sleep and exchange their pyjamas for a more formal attire. However, not everyone has spent the past 8 hours with Little Nemo in Dreamland – one soul has been hard at work for several hours. This individual has been toiling away inside the confines of Donut Time as Korean News blares in the background and an old transistor radio exhumes the dying notes of “Walk Like A Man.” The goode toiler cares not for the current events nor the music of yestertear – only to craft the most perfect pastries, pastries that resemble the likeness of a higher power. Though he is a man who you may count on to grab the tongs of power and point you in the direction of the ��$5 minimum charge” sign, his name remains a mystery. Of course, it’s only a mystery until you rub the last grain of Mr. Sandman’s magic from your eye and look upon his icing-encrusted nametag – Weston E. Scott.

In early 2016 you may have found him at Donut Time flipping a strawberry fritter into a bag or tickling a buttermilk bar onto a tray for the patron who boldly dines in. Ask him to sing and he’ll belt out a song. Beg him to dance and he’ll float into the air. Offer him a comedy and tragedy mask and he shall embody the spirit of Polonius right before your very eyes. By all accounts, Weston was the world’s most theatrical donut shoppe employee. but what maketh a man of theater so vibrant? Is it the old-fashioned rings and colored sprinkles that inspires one to ascribe to a level of such profound thespian behavior? Or is it the stage and city lights themselves that embue a man with the dramatic strength of 17 oxen? Methinks it is the latter.

Part II. All The World is A Stage and Every City-State A Handsome Stagehand After the donuts had been served and the gorgeous pink boxes had lilted out of the store with a melancholy wave to their friends in waiting, many would think that Weston would prefer his cot and a quilt to the classroom and a chalkboard. What dreams lie ahead of a man who has served sugarplums and festive foodstuffs to loyal subjects? One can only imagine, for Weston does not dream following Donut Time. Nay, instead his automobile propels him to a locale acting academy, where students of the muse stand and pray to the benevolent Dionysus, begging for a mere thimbleful of the wine that shall transform them into an esteemed player. As the children kneel to the works of Bacon, Weston dons his headmaster cape and greets each theater-hopeful individually, straightening their student caps or applying a bit of mascara for those who appears ghostly. As the children take their seats, Weston stands behind his lectern and looks upon each smiling face, channeling the energy of the Bard as he begins to chant, “Power, power, power!” in succession.

The children take notes upon their slates. Simply observing Weston is enough to overwhelm the likes of Kenneth Branaugh, much less a moon-faced child who has been digging through their knapsack for a pen and eraser. As Weston looks upon his pupils, he frequently sees a familiar l’object d’art. Circular, sugar-laden and primed with a hole in the center, he sees a past life looking straight towards him, a donut, incapacitated on the desk of a babe. Still, he does not let this distraction take him away from the stage. Offering a hand to the nearest young mind, he hoists them on the practice stage and allows them to work opposite him in a scene from one of his original productions. For the class session, one lucky individual will have the supreme pleasure of working alongside Scott in order to feel his power as he treads the boards. The thought alone has caused the students to suffer 4 concussions and an assortment of nosebleeds that are quite frankly, too numerous to catalogue. Part III – A Production Reaches Heaven, Kisses The Christ Child, and Swoons Back Down To Earth To best benefit the children, Weston has traditionally used his own works to display range, character and enthusiasm in the theater. Over the years, such titles as Lambs, Are We? and A Cherub Unites Us All have been popular and proven methods in which to reach the students. Currently, Weston is drawing from scenes of his yet-unfinished production, A Sunflower For Icarus. Following the life of a boy (Icarus) who was raised by meadows, many of Weston’s students have found the opportunity to play roles opposite Weston such as “Patient servant” and “Ally of bumblebee.” No other program in the world can offer the original and inventive roles that Weston has crafted, giving those he works alongside a most premium opportunity. “Lease On Life?” reads the front of Weston’s sweater whenever he enters the thespian training grounds. When he whips around, the back reads “Want To Change Your.” To some, this may seem like an audacious sartorial statement. To others, it is the very crux of Weston’s life methodology.

All students in Weston’s classes have received numerous vouchers over the years for 10% off tickets to his productions – when the local playhouses are feeling up to the idea of allowing the man to unleash his feral strength upon the town. To behold Weston teaching is one thing – to see him drift down from the marquee and play the fool and the wise man upon the tortoise? It is nothing short of remarkable. One review of Weston’s one-man show, I, The Cave Within The Mountain, simply read, “To my wife, Helen; dust off my hat. I am lying down in my coffin and reflecting upon the art I have witnessed until I perish.”

Part IV – Shall We Rank The Bakery or Cry Upon A Program

In ranking Weston’s two most recent positions, placing on another is nearly impossible task. In what as truly a blood, sweat, and tears endeavor, your humbled scribe has taken it upon himself to do the unthinkable.

Please note that this list endorses both positions and acknowledges the sacrifice of the workers, the community, and the grace of God’s creatures involved over the course in which Weston has held both positions.

1. “Director’s Assistant”

2. Donut Time Professional

I will accept no contest of this list. If you wish to file a complaint, please send notice to the local list-making guild, who will then pass correspondence on to me. THEN AND ONLY THEN will I entertain the notion of reading dissenting opinions.

Faith in days.

- JT

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voodoochili · 8 years ago

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A Special, EXTRA BIG Edition of Reviewing the Hits (2016/2017)

It’s that time again! It’s time to review every song that topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 2016. Wait, you’re saying “that time again” passed sometime in December, or at the very least January, when people still gave a shit about reviewing the year that was? Fair enough. In my defense, I like to let the dust settle a bit on these hits before I review them to try to get a big picture on the previous year’s pop trends. Either that, or I am unforgivably lazy. Probably a combination of the two. My apologies to my three or so loyal readers who look forward to this column every year!

As a special treat, and so people might actually want to read this in May 2017, I’m not only gonna review all of last year’s number ones, but review all of the current year′s number ones up to this point as well. Relevance!

Just gonna do a quick rundown of 2016 (and I guess 2017), because it already feels like a billion years ago, but the most important trend on the charts in 2016 was the appropriation of Caribbean styles of music, particularly dancehall, into mainstream pop music. Hooray! Another fun, vibrant style of music for the pop charts to chew up and spit out until Ed Sheeran thinks it’s ok to use it.

The parallel story was the resurgence of Hip-Hop, the biggest beneficiary of new Billboard methodology that rewards stream counts as much as radio play. There are still many issues about Billboard methodology and the weighting and averaging of certain metrics over others, but the inclusion of streaming seems to me to be a positive development. Despite the surge in popularity of Hip-Hop in recent years, Top 40 radio is as segregated as it ever has been. Radio programmers are completely stuck in their ways, and less willing than they once were to shift genre or format boundaries to accommodate a rising hit song. The influence of streaming forces programmers hands, but they often don’t succumb to the popularity of the latest Hip-Hop or dance track until well after many genre fans are sick of it. Still, radio programmers still have control over what they play, and this can create a weird incongruity between the top song on the Billboard charts and the top song on the airplay chart--”Panda” and “Black Beatles” topped the charts, but you weren’t exactly hearing those tracks at shopping malls.

I guess what I’m getting at is this: Billboard is the culture now! Songs that would peaked in the outer reaches of the top 40 five years ago routinely reach the top ten--”Broccoli,” “2 Phones,””Don’t Mind,” “XO Tour Llif3″etc. Sometimes when I look at the charts these days, it feels like Billboard charts 80 of the most popular songs in America and leaves it to Complex and The FADER to pick the rest.

Edited to add: Can’t believe I forgot to mention this the first time around, but we are currently amidst a record run of men topping the Billboard chart. It’s been nearly a year since Sia topped the charts with “Cheap Thrills” and since The Chainsmokers’ and Halsey’s “Closer” came off the number one spot, there haven’t even been any female featured artists. I honestly have no idea what to make of this, and I have to think that it’s a blip. Hopefully, this will change soon and it won’t take another Taylor Swift or Adele to wrest the Billboard charts away from the grubby hands of Drake and Ed Sheeran and the rest of their male friends.

Anyway, onto the hits.

2016 - Pirates of the Caribbean

“Hello” – Adele; 11/14/15-1/16/16 (10 weeks)

Wrote about this song in last year’s recap! Here’s what I said (I still agree with most of it, though I probably would dock a point off the final score):

“Adele is the biggest star in music. It’s taken as a given nowadays, but let’s take a moment to contemplate how strange this is. Taylor Swift, Rihanna and Beyoncé have bigger Internet cults of personality and maybe more “cultural relevance,” but Adele is the only true four-quadrant star in today’s music business. Adele is treated like a unicorn by the music press—“so she sold 3 million albums, but Adele is the exception.” Well, yeah, she’s the exception now, but she didn’t magically fall from the sky on a pile of platinum albums. She developed. She stopped being that Amy Winehouse-imitator that many pegged her as when she first came to America in 2009, and developed her own take on that retro-style, foregoing the brassy horns of ‘60s soul in favor of the revealing songwriting and acoustic bombast of ‘70s singer/songwriters like Carole King. People these days seem to forget that Tapestry sold more albums than Off The Wall. Adele’s unique combination of affable and engaging personality, polished songcraft and unmistakable voice got her to the top of the music world, but she’s no unicorn. There can and probably will be another Adele, but only if they can belt out choruses as memorable as “Hello.”

Now for “Hello”: It’s alright. The chorus is great and ridiculously fun to sing along to and the song and the production perfectly build until the chorus explodes. Still, is this a song or just a chorus? The verse lyrics do not add much to the chorus and they don’t provide a coherent emotional arc and too often it seems like Adele and her backing band are biding time until the chorus comes again. Still, what a chorus!”

7/10

Justin Bieber - “Sorry”; 1/23-2/6 (3 Weeks)

A deceptively simple pop song with three chords, a dancehall beat, lots of cool sounds courtesy of Skrillex, and a maddeningly catchy chorus, “Sorry” feels like it should be better than it is. After a quatrain of massive hits in ‘15 and ‘16, Bieber enjoyed something of a critical rehabilitation, especially since most of pop radio seems engineered to recreate the hitmaking magic of “Sorry.” If you haven’t heard yet, Justin is an adult now, who likes to sing about “mature” subjects without any emotional maturity. I’ll give props to the man for trendspotting, but I’m not quite sold on his transformation. The superficially earnest and skin-deep faux-introspective lyrics are a bigger problem in his follow up hit, but the main thing that sidelines “Sorry” is Justin’ vocal, which is overly breathy, melodramatic, and often irritating. Still, it’s hard to deny the chorus melody and the production by Skrillex and Blood strikes an impressive balance between bubblegum pop and the harder-edged sounds for which Skrillex is famous. I don’t need to hear this song ever again, but it doesn’t make me mad.

5/10

Justin Bieber - “Love Yourself”; 2/13, 2/27 (2 Weeks)

“Love Yourself,” co-written by Ed Sheeran and produced with admirable restraint by Benny Blanco, recently won “Best Lyrics” in the 2017 IHeartRadio awards. Leaving aside award-winning couplets like “You think you broke my heart, oh girl for goodness sake/You think I'm crying on my own, well I ain't” and the censored title insult, “Love Yourself” is a cripplingly, hopelessly petulant song. It’s “methinks the lady doth protest too much” in musical form. To his credit, the Biebs does a decent job selling the performance--whatever sweetness there is comes from his voice not the composition. The stripped down arrangement, with amateurish, whispy electric guitar and a trumpet teleported in from a happier song, shines a spotlight on the nasty and vindictive words. I’m thinking that whomever Justin is singing about isn’t missing him too much.

2/10

Zayn - “Pillowtalk”; 2/20 (1 Week)

For a minute there it felt like 2016 would be dominated by former teen stars who are now all-too-proud to boast “Hey, I’m having sex now!” through their music. "Pillowtalk” is an oversung, oversexed, overproduced slog--clocking in at 3:25 that feels like an eternity. It aims for “Climax,” by Usher, but it barely reaches “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons. The song is called “Pillowtalk,” Zayn, so please stop shouting at me!

2/10

Rihanna - “Work” ft. Drake; 3/5-4/30 (9 Weeks)

A refreshingly minimalist, slinky slice of music box dancehall from the best damn pop star working. Nobody stood out on the radio in 2016 like Rihanna. The songs that tried to imitate “Work”--oh and there were plenty--failed to capture the confident spontaneity, effortless melodicism, and sheer force of personality exhibited by RiRi on the track. Most importantly, and the thing that makes “Work” such a radio standout, the producers know to stay out of Rihanna’s way, barely embellishing the original “Sail Away” riddim and letting the diva do her thing. “Work” sails towards a 10, but then Drake shows up to talk his favorite subject: what the object of his affection “used to” do. Ease up, man.

8/10

Desiigner - “Panda”; 5/7-5/14 (2 Weeks)

A bombastic trap anthem from an excitable Brooklyn teenager on the mic and a former Mancunian cell phone salesman behind the boards, “Panda” is one of the more unlikely number ones in a while. Desiigner bought the beat that eventually became “Panda” from producer Menace for the low low price of $200, after discovering the beat on YouTube. The track quickly caught fire, reaching the ear of Kanye West, who slapped his own version onto The Life of Pablo. Strangely enough, “Panda” caught more heat than any of Kanye’s solo tracks, climbing up the charts to become first solo rap hit to reach the top of the Hot 100 since 2011 (Wiz Khalifa, “Black & Yellow).

All that stuff is super cool and all, but besides the origin story, I'm fairly conflicted about this song. There are some truly unique aspects to the track that help me understand why it caught on so quickly. In an era where artists are encouraged to throw a hook at you right off the bat, it takes some balls for Desiigner to let the beat build--holding back for the first 40 or so seconds of the track, letting the natural contours of the instrumental and his wild ad-libs do the work. Did I say natural contours of the instrumental? Yeah, the beat is great. At first blush, it seems a bit rudimentary, but so few radio rap tracks actually have any dynamics--they’re all full steam ahead all the time. It’s refreshing and kinda weird to hear the LOUDquietLOUD formula that’s been done to death in alt-rock in a trap song.

But overall, despite the more interesting aspects, the whole of “Panda” is just garden-variety trap, but without the hook that makes trap music interesting--a unique personality. Desiigner can’t help if his rhythmic baritone sounds similar in timbre to Future, but he uses the EXACT SAME FLOW as Future as well. In fact, I bet there are STILL people out there who think that “Panda” is a Future song and the fact that it topped the charts before any real Future song feels a little bit like Pat Boone’s “Tutti Frutti” outselling Little Richard’s.

6/10

Drake - “One Dance” ft. Wizkid & Kyla: 5/14, 6/4-7/30 (10 weeks)

Leave it Drake to litter a scorching sample and piano loop with his atonal ramblings, magically transforming a potential banger into a Pavlovian stimulus to change the station. Do me a favor and listen to the original instead.

3/10

Justin Timberlake - “Can’t Stop The Feeling”: 5/21 (1 Week)

Like Pharrell’s “Happy,” JT’s “Can’t Stop The Feeling” is a feel-good cash grab from the soundtrack to a kids’ movie. Also like “Happy,” it’s a song that sounds a lot more like a jingle from a Coca-Cola commercial than a pop song that has any business near the radio. JT is a more engaging performer than Pharrell, so this has some sterile charm (and I dig the finger snaps), but mostly, this song is the sound of a once-great pop star grasping for a niche in today’s crowded marketplace now that the other Justin captured his sex appeal and Bruno Mars eclipsed him as the most beloved translator of ‘80s R&B slickness.

4/10

Sia - “Cheap Thrills” ft. Sean Paul: 8/6-8/27 (4 Weeks)

The second catchiest dancehall-influenced track to top the charts in 2016! (Due respect to “Work,” get lost “One Dance”). With the sound of pop music ever drifting toward the Caribbean, it was inevitable that one of pop music’s biggest dancehall crossover stars would rear his head for a comeback. And voila! Here is Sean-a Paul bringing back his bi-di-bam-bam to the pop charts, livening up an otherwise blah track. Sia, as usual, delivers a solid melody and a strong vocal, but the backing track is punchless with no memorable instrumental hooks and a barely noticeable rhythm section.

5/10

The Chainsmokers - “Closer” ft. Halsey: 9/3-11/19 (12 weeks)

When future social scientists study the popular music of America in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, they will find that a single turning point plunged the quality of the artform into an irreversible decline: the moment that one dude from the Chainsmokers psyched himself up in the mirror and convinced himself he could sing.

2/10

Rae Sremmurd - “Black Beatles” ft. Gucci Mane: 11/26-12/31; 1/14/17 (7 Weeks)

I’M A FUCKIN’ BLACK BEATLE CREAM SEATS IN THE REGAL ROCKIN’ JOHN LENNON LENSES LIKE TO SEE ‘EM SPREAD EAGLE...

ahem. excuse me.

It’s hard for me to retain my critical faculties when listening to this song, but I’ll try my hardest to succinctly describe why I think "Black Beatles” is one of the greatest rap songs of the past decade or so.

First, Mike WiLL’s beat--with those strange, Eastern-style modal ascending fourths, the Glass-like arpeggiated synth riff that hangs in the air, the brilliant use of negative space in the bottom that transforms any room into a haze-filled cavern, those hi-hats that sound like a million monkeys crafting a masterpiece on a million typewriters...I can go on and on.

Second, I would like to congratulate Swae Lee and company for creating a five minute long song where nearly every moment is a hook. Seriously, there are at least seven or eight lines in Swae’s verse that could be the key line in a massive single (”New day, new money to be made,” “Like clockwork, I blow it all” “She think she love me, I think she trollin’”).

Third, while this might feel like a participation trophy for Gucci Mane and Slim Jxmmi, it’s not. Slim’s absurd lyrics and crazy high energy provide the perfect anchor lap, and Gucci’s verse provides some twisty wordplay as the cream filling the Rae Sremmurd oreo.

Are Rae Sremmurd the next Beatles? Probably not. Are they the trap N’Sync? Warmer. Either way, here’s to many more number one hits and trashed hotel rooms for these crazy kids, who hopefully never grow up.

9/10

2017 - THE YEAR THAT IS NOW

The Weeknd - “Starboy” ft. Daft Punk: 1/7 (1 Week)

In which Abel Tesfaye chops off his famous ‘do and magically transforms into Tears For Fears. Three-and-a-half minutes of build-up that never quite resolves into a climax. I’m not sure what Abel was going for with that chorus--”starboy” is a silly phrase that the song demands you take very seriously. I’m sorry--to me a “starboy” calls to mind the “Star Child” from the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey or a superhero’s sidekick. Maybe he’s trying evoke David Bowie (”staaaarmaaan”), but this is a lot more Starship than Stardust.

5/10

Migos - “Bad and Boujee” ft. Lil Uzi Vert: 1/21, 2/4-2/11 (3 Weeks)

A sinister, cavernous, evil trap banger like this topping the Billboard charts?--momma we made it. This year, people finally realized that putting three uniquely talented, rappin’-ass-rappin’ emcees who finish each others sentences and help each other out with absurd ad-libs on every track was a very good idea. Failing that, just grab Quavo and let him sang. As great as Quavo is on everything, and he comes through here with a brilliant secondary hook (”yeah..dat way”), the real star of “Bad and Boujee” is Offset, who peppers Metro Boomin’s track with rhythmic witticisms and provides the year’s most memeable chorus. As for Lil Uzi Vert (eyeaaah)...well... it would have been nice to hear Takeoff on this track, but no matter, he shines on the follow-up hit, and our nation’s new national anthem, “T-Shirt.”

Is Migos better than The Beatles? No. Is “Bad and Boujee” better than “Black Beatles”? Almost.

9/10.

Ed Sheeran - “Shape of You”: 1/28, 2/18-4/29 (12 Weeks)

RIP Dancehall (1985-2017) -- Killed by a charmless, rhythmically challenged chia pet and the tinniest, rinky-dinkiest production to ever top the charts.

1/10

Kendrick Lamar - “HUMBLE.”: 5/6 (1 Week)

Considering all that Kendrick Lamar has done in the past five years, it’s kind of remarkable that people were concerned that Kendrick Lamar might have to sand off his rougher edges to achieve mainstream acceptance. Well, here he is in 2017, the biggest pure rap star in the world, and he gets his first number one, not with an attempted crossover but with a lyrical exercise, with a spare, pounding, piano beat by Mike WiLL Made It. Kendrick’s long-awaited successor to “Backseat Freestyle,” “HUMBLE.” is a bracing listen with the rapper delivering memorable line after memorable line in lockstep with the beat. “HUMBLE.” doesn’t quite have the emotional range or level of detail as some of the better songs on DAMN., but then again, I can’t think of a number one hit since the heyday of B.I.G. that has this level of pure, athletic rapping.

8/10

Bruno Mars - “That’s What I Like”: 5/13 (1 Week)

I’ve been doing this post every year for over a decade, and in that time, Bruno Mars has had SEVEN number one hits. So I’ve had plenty of chances to write about Bruno and I’ve made my opinion on him very clear: dude is a skilled craftsman and talented performer who’s never had an original idea in his oft-fedora’d head. In the past, I’ve levied that as a criticism, but now...I kinda like the dude. All it took for me to change my opinion was for Bruno to stop aping people like Billy Joel and start aping people like Zapp and Roger, or the Gap Band, or Teddy Pendergrass. “That’s What I Like” echoes the adult-oriented R&B of the ‘80s, but it doesn’t feel like as much of a retread as Bruno’s other big hits—borrowing stylistic elements but not in an obvious way. It’s a well-constructed song, written in 2/2 time with jazzy chords, endearingly dumb lyrics (“wake up with no jammies” “Julio cook that scampi”), and a big fat ‘80s-style analog synth on the bridge. What’s not to like?

8/10

DJ Khaled – “I’m The One” ft. Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance The Rapper, and Lil Wayne: 5/20 (1 Week)

Ever the master of A-List posse cuts, DJ Khaled built upon his recent Snapchat celebrity and earned his first number one hit with this beach bbq-ready slice of summer. This is possibly the most impressive combination of talent that Khaled has ever assembled on a song...so why is this so boring? I like most of the individual parts in the song, though I could really do without Bieber’s Caribbean patois at the end, but they come together to form this overlong mish mash. The main culprit, unfortunately, is the instrumental from Nic Nac, who I normally like a lot, which uses and abuses the ‘50s doo wop chord progression without dressing it up with sounds to make it more novel or interesting. I’m happy for Chance and Khaled for earning a #1, and I won’t change the station when it comes on, but “I’m The One” is overstuffed, brimming with wasted potential.

5/10

Luis Fonsi – “Despacito” (Remix) ft. Daddy Yankee & Justin Bieber: 5/27-6/10 (3 Weeks [so far])

The first Spanish-language track to top the Billboard charts since the “Macarena” propelled Bill Clinton to victory over Bob Dole in 1996, “Despacito” is an infectious, if rote, slice of Latin Pop, anchored by Puerto Rican cuatro and an expressive vocal from Luis Fonsi (who I’d embarrassingly never heard of before hearing this song). As the American monoculture fragments into dozens of competing scenes and genres vying for attention, the Billboard reign of “Despacito” demonstrates the positive effects of putting the charts in the hands of streamers instead of radio programmers.

Then again, those dastardly programmers had to sully this with a Justin Bieber intro. I understand that adding Justin Bieber to “Despacito” was the only way to convince English-speaking radio to play it, but its melody is plenty strong enough to stand on its own. The original version benefits from the counterweight between Fonsi’s verse and Daddy Yankee’s rap, which the Bieber intro throws out of whack. Add the fact that Bieber seems to lack respect for the original artists and it looks like a transparent cash grab from a guy who probably doesn’t need the cash. Still, 30 seconds at the beginning of the song can’t take away from the remarkable achievement from the two artists, nor the the Cuatro wizardry of Luis Fonsi.

6/10

BEST #1 of 2016: “Black Beatles”

WORST #1 of 2016: Lots of competition, but let’s go with “Pillowtalk,” narrowly edging “Closer”

BEST/WORST of 2017 coming at the end of the year--this is shaping up to become one of the best ever years for number 1 hits (no thanks to you, Ed).

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