#Not sure if David's original plans changed due to the strikes...or if one of the massive projects is rhe stuff ge ended up doing 🤔

[tyttetardis]

Macbeth Donmar Supporter's Zoom Conversation

On the 9th of May 2023 Donmar Warehouse held a Zoom "meeting" for supporters where Michael Longhurst talked about their two newly announced productions - Clyde's and Macbeth. This was a week before tickets went on general sale and before they announced that Cush Jumbo would be playing Lady Macbeth.

At the time it was all, of course, quite exciting since everything they revealed during the talk was brand new info! Most of which wouldn't be known at large until the play was being perfomed (or later). I think only about 80 people participated, most of which I think either worked for the Donmar or were members at much higher levels.

Today it's no longer new information as such, but I thought it might still be interesting to make a post about what was said during this talk :)

Michael first spoke about Clyde's (which I didn't actually listen much too) and then introduced Macbeth as their Christmas show (using the word Christmas "incredibly tenuously") saying the cast was yet to be revealed, but called it a beautiful ensamble piece, and that they were in the process of casting with the cast to be revealed "shortly".

He then went on to say that the casting that was revealed the week before made a bit of a spark - David Tennant coming to the Donmar to play Macbeth :) He mentioned it being directed by Max Webster since Michael was so impressed with how he did Henry V the year before. He said they had a joyful process of going to their favourite actors trying to match slots and titles to the actors that they love - and that they were thrilled that Mr. Tennant was stepping up to the Scottish play - "we felt it was time!"

"He [David] has obviousley given amazing Shakespearean performances - Hamlet, Richard II at the RSC - I, yeah, I think his verse speaking is frankly unparalleled, it's a thing of beauty. He's quicksilver, but he can push himself into the most extraordinary characterisations."

He went on to say that David and Max were deep into discussions about what this production should be. He said there's always Macbeths, but he thought what they would do so spectacularly would be to allow it to be a deeply psychological take on the play (facilitated/inspired by the Donmar's space).

He said they had a very exciting Lady Macbeth who would be announced in a week. He said she was a Donmar alumni who had a great Shakespearean set of works under her belt. He was thrilled to reunite her with David, saying that they had just done a TV series together. "So you can go do some subtle googling, but please don't share it" :P "It's amazing, they are gonna be a fierce combination!"

Someone then asked about whether the show would be streamed to which Michael said they were having conversations about it since there was a LOT of interest and they knew demand for this show with David would be incredibly high. So they would be doing everything they could to get the show streamed, it was their absolute ambition. Not least since it would be amazing to be able to share it with students. So they were in those conversations "as we speak". He later talks about it again - saying that streaming is a way of mass sharing, even if it can't recreate the experience of closeness at the Donmar. That they would try to secure screenings of it since they were aware it would be very popular "It's almost a curse of having such an intimate theatre - that when you program a star like that, it becomes huge".

Choosing to stage Macbeth was down to Michael and Max having a conversation about a short list of Shakespeare plays Max was keen to have a go at and them talking about various leading actors (later he expands on this as Max having had conversations with potential leading actors on which titles they were inspired with/ to perform - sorta like an Actors dating spree, 6 months ago) to decide which one would be the best one for this moment - "David's availibity created this window between two massive screen projects and it felt like the one to grab". Macbeth hadn't been staged at the "Donmar" since 1976 - with the legendary Dench and McKellen version. Michael said he thinks that the Donmar stage is the perfect space for Macbeth since "it allows the director and the lead actor to utterly hold a room of people in a way that'd be thrilling and terrifying, that you can't necessarily do in other spaces". He then said that he didn't think Max was interested in the witches and the supernatural as real entities but rather looking at psychological, trauma related reasons to explore those devices within the play. He also said Max was very passionate about making it very Scottish and that he had already been meeting with Scottish folk musicians to create his ensemble team. Also that he was very interested in Lady M being from outside the Scottish hiearchy - that she's be unafraid to challenge that Scottish status quo.

For Michael it's about "the synergy of an actor who should be playing that character - and that is Mr. David Tennant because he is one of our greatest verse speakers, let alone the greatest Scottish verse speaker".

He said that the production would definitely be a contemporary set. A modern dress Macbeth.

He then said that the reason he wanted to back Max as a director is that he thinks he offers a brand of total theatre that is really exceptional. There was a question about the music used in Henry V, and Michael said he just knew about the Scottish folk music and that music would be a part of the show, and that music is always a big part of Max's shows.

Someone then asked if they consult with scools on what plays they are studying in order to choose what they put on. Michael says they were obviously very aware of Macbeth being part of the curriculum and that being one of the reasons they thought this was "the text. And obviousley with David and his DW background, he brings a huge appeal and accesibility for young people who might find Shakespeare challenging - and you know, being brought into that story by someone they know and love so well is...you know we saw the effect happen on Henry V, 40% of people coming to the Donmar were coming for the first time when we had Henry V on - and it's thrilling to expand that connection, and we know David will do the same".

[desdealgunlugardelsur]

Harrison Ford: 2020 summary

A year like no other, as you must have heard countless times. The pandemic changed almost everybody´s life on this planet and Harrison wasn´t an exception. Our lil´ bean is strong and healthy but also has to be safe at home, so this year didn´t deliver many news about Harrison. Still, we had a new Harrison movie, The Call of the Wild, released in February, and a few other events before the lockdown. 2020 was also marked by the death of 3 former Harrison´s costars: Chadwick Boseman, Sean Connery and David Prowse. May all of them rest on peace on Heaven.

A new year begins, and we all wish Harrison (and everyone by the way) a productive, happy and healthy 2021. Stay safe!

JANUARY

Early January:  Harrison Ford enjoying his holidays in the caribbean island of Bonaire

25th: Harrison Ford with singer Carole Bayer Sager in a dinner in support of US Democratic candidate Michael Bloomberg

28th: The Call of the Wild “Adventure Companions” Featurette.  Harrison Ford talks about dogs and companionship in The Call of the Wild’s “Adventure Companions” featurette.

28th: not sure where these pics were taken. Probably in Wyoming?  (pics from Rich Elali)

FEBRUARY

3rd: Verizon Super Bowl Ad Features Harrison Ford And New Pearl Jam Song

Kathleen Kennedy Says Harrison Ford Is Still On For ‘Indiana Jones 5’

Early-mid February: the national and international promotion  of The Call of the Wild  begins

5th: In Mexico City:

Harrison Ford: America Has Lost Its Moral Leadership And Credibility:  The “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” star calls out U.S. policy on immigration and climate.

11th: On the Jimmy Kimmel Show:

More here 

13th: Harrison Ford, actor and watch designer.  Newly adapted from Jack London’s literary classic, ��The Call of the Wild” transports us to the snowy expanses of Alaska in the 1890s, with Harrison Ford as prospector John Thornton. The actor talks about climate activism, technology and why mechanical watches beat smartwatches every time.

14th: Indiana Jones 5 Starts Shooting In Two Months Says Harrison Ford :  The long delayed fifth Indiana Jones film is finally about to get underway, as Harrison Ford reveals that he will begin shooting in two months. (that was what they were planning before COVID-19 hit the world...)

14th: Harrison Ford: Indiana Jones 5 Will “See Part of His History Resolved”

17th: “A Force ghost? I don’t know what a Force ghost is…I have no idea what a Force ghost is. And I don’t care!“. Legend.

21st: The Call of the Wild is released in cinemas

At the movie premiere in Los Angeles:

BRING ON THE PUPPIES:

More videos:

Call of the Wild Survival Tips!

SNACK??? (Kudos to that girl)

Find epic stories at your library! 

More news:

Of Course Harrison Ford Did His Own Call Of The Wild Stunts And 'Wore Out' The Stunt Team

Harrison Ford's shirtless chest is that buff (at 77) for his 'Call of the Wild' swim scene

26th: Steven Spielberg Won’t Direct ‘Indiana Jones 5,’ James Mangold in Talks to Replace  

27th: Harrison Ford Breaks Down His Career, from 'Star Wars' to 'Indiana Jones'  (Vanity Fair)

Late February: Harrison Ford visits Google´s offices in San Francisco to test the company´s self-driving car. [x] [x] [x] [x]

MARCH

14th:  Harrison spotted in South Hadley, Massachusetts [x].  Apparently Harrison and Calista went to Massachusetts to pick up their son Liam after college shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic.

MARCH

MARCH

MARCH

MARCH

...

APRIL

3rd: Disney delay multiple release dates including Jungle Cruise, The French Dispatch, and Indiana Jones 5  

(…) Another big reveal is that Indiana Jones 5 – which will reportedly be directed by James Mangold – is being pushed back a year, from July 9, 2021 to July 29, 2022.

29th: Harrison Ford under FAA investigation after making a mistake while operating an airplane on the runway

According to the audio obtained by TMZ, Ford, 77, did not follow the direction of a tower operator to “keep short” on the runway because of “traffic”. It seems that the actor did not hear the direction. He nevertheless started to cross the runway, which prompted the operator to reprimand him for not following his instructions.

“Cross this trail now!” I told you to keep it short! You have to listen, “said the operator.

“Excuse me, sir, I thought exactly the opposite. I’m really sorry, ”said Ford immediately.

TMZ said there was no risk of an accident. The other aircraft was allegedly 3600 feet from Ford’s aircraft.

MAY

6th: Lucasfilm Reportedly Wants Harrison Ford To Return For Han And Chewie Star Wars Spinoff (Note: this hasn´t been officially confirmed by Lucasfilm)

15th: No news but I think this is cute: 

From twitter.com/siikasele

21st: The Empire Strikes Back 40th anniversary. 40 years ago, TESB was released on theaters the 21st of May of 1980.

27th: James Mangold Confirmed To Direct Indiana Jones 5.  Producer Frank Marshall confirms James Mangold is directing Indiana Jones 5 and says he's only just begun to work on his own script for the movie.

28th: James Mangold plans to take Indiana Jones franchise 'someplace new'. 

Indiana Jones Writer on How Pandemic Will Affect Film's Script

JUNE

Nothing happens but look at this

You are welcome.

JULY

13th: Happy birthday king!

AUGUST

23rd:  Harrison Ford dropping off his son Liam at College with wife Calista Flockhart via private plane (from tinyrebelstuff)

28th: Chadwick Boseman dies of cancer at the age of 43

Harrison Ford Calls Chadwick Boseman "As Much a Hero as Any He Played" 

“Chadwick Boseman was as compelling, powerful and truthful as the characters he chose to play,” Ford said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. “His intelligence, personal dignity and deep commitment inspired his colleagues and elevated the stories he told. He is as much a hero as any he played. He is loved and will be deeply missed.”

SEPTEMBER

24th: Harrison Ford Cleared by FAA in Runway Investigation. "The FAA has closed the case involving the pilot who crossed a Hawthorne Municipal Airport runway without authorization on April 24, 2020. The FAA required the pilot to take a remedial runway incursion training course. When the pilot successfully completed the course, the FAA closed the case with no additional action," the FAA said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.

OCTOBER

19th: Harrison Ford & Ed Helms To Star In STX Seafaring Comedy ‘Adventures Of Burt Squire’ 

22nd: Actor and Pilot Harrison Ford Becomes Airlink Spokesperson. Video here

31st: Sean Connery dies at 90.

Sean Connery: Harrison Ford pays tribute to his Indiana Jones father and 'dear friend'

"He was my father... not in life... but in Indy 3," he said.

"You don't know pleasure until someone pays you to take Sean Connery for a ride in the sidecar of a Russian motorcycle bouncing along a bumpy, twisty mountain trail and getting to watch him squirm.

"God, we had fun - if he's in heaven, I hope they have golf courses.

"Rest in peace, dear friend."

NOVEMBER

2nd: Harrison Ford And Lincoln Project Back Anthony Fauci, Advocate Firing Donald Trump  

In the waning hours of the 2020 presidential election, the Lincoln Project has enlisted Harrison Ford to narrate a new ad that plays up President Donald Trump’s suggestion that he will fire Dr. Anthony Fauci.

The spot features a scene from a Trump rally on Sunday in which supporters began chanting “Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci!” and the president responded, “Don’t tell anybody, but let me wait til a little bit after the election.”

Ford then says, “Tomorrow, you can fire only one of them. The choice is yours.”

3rd: Harrison Ford and Bloomberg on Biden 2020

7th: Destiel becomes canon. Harrison doesn´t give a single fuck.

Also Joe Biden wins the US elections. Trump is defeated. Harrison, we know you hate Donald Trump. Congratulations.

21st: Harrison Ford back in Boston, Massachusetts, to pick up his son Liam for Thanksgiving Day.

28th: David Prowse, who played Darth Vader in the original trilogy, dies at the age of 85. Sorry, I didn´t find any words from Harrison on his memory... it seems they weren´t so close. Also, Jeremy Bulloch, the original Boba Fett, dies at 75 the 17th of december.

DECEMBER

10th: Indiana Jones: James Mangold, Harrison Ford Team to Close Out the Character  

Harrison Ford and James Mangold's Indiana Jones 5 will serve as the final chapter for the iconic character.

Disney changed the Indiana Jones logotype. I have a bad feeling about this.

15th: Rare, behind-the-scenes look at 'The Empire Strikes Back'

Including this jewel:

Gif from the @theorganasolo​

31st: And just at the very last day of this weird and strange year...

Disney Reportedly Wants Harrison Ford For Indiana Jones Streaming Show 

Thankfully, then, it seems that the fifth (Indiana Jones) outing may not be the last we see of the actor in the role, as insider Daniel Richtman claims that Disney wants Ford to appear in a series that’s being developed for their streaming service. Further details are unclear and the tipster doesn’t say if it’s an all-new show or a reboot of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, but as one of the Mouse House’s most valuable assets, it wouldn’t be a surprise if they wanted to continue mining the property once Indiana Jones 5 wraps up the big screen stories for good. 

Thanks everyone! Hopefully in 2021 the pandemic will fade and the world will return to normalcy. Luckily the production of Indiana Jones V will start this spring, as well as other Harrison projects such the tv show The Staircase and the movie starring with Ed Elms. Fingers crossed for a year full of (good) news about Harrison. Have a happy and safe 2021.

[fandumbstuff]

The Star Wars Saga, ranked best to worst.

1. The Empire Strikes Back Directed by Irvin Kershner

Upon close consideration, I’ve come to the shocking conclusion that Empire is the best Star Wars film. There’s a wealth of world-building and character development here that in many ways makes Star Wars the living breathing universe it is now. A richly complex melodrama lies at the heart of Empire, giving a whole new meaning to the term “space opera”. The performances here are some of the strongest in the entire franchise. Mark Hamill not only fleshes out Luke’s character, but in his training with Yoda and his duel with Vader he establishes the profound nature of the force, and how every future character interacts with it. As Han and Leia, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher create authenticity to their characters’ relationship. Often misinterpreted as playfully hostile or sassy, there’s a real and endearing sense of affection between them, particularly in the infamous “I love you”/”I know” line- shedding their previously petty flirtation and affirming their true feelings. The emotional crux of Empire lies not in the most memorable twist, but in the moments immediately following it - In Luke and Leia reaching out to each other, reconnecting a relationship that was lost, rekindling hope in the force after we thought it was lost.

2. A New Hope  Directed by George Lucas

I’ll be the first in line to make fun of dorky George Lucas and his woeful attempts at writing dialogue or romance. However, it’s pretty damn impossible to ignore what he achieved with Star Wars in 1977. The sheer audacity of his vision and his determination in executing it despite the naysaying from producers and supposed friends. Lucas had the bold idea of using cinema for it’s absolute worth- more than just a storytelling medium but a theatrical one. A cacaphony of sight and sound that could draw mass audiences and create a lasting impression. It’s a formula that every Hollywood and Bollywood blockbuster strives and more often than not fails to follow. It’s hard to dissociate A New Hope from the cultural phenomenon it helped create, but when you do, it stands as an impressive film on it’s own. Groundbreaking in terms of it’s visual effects and nostalgic in the simplicity of it’s sci-fi serial story, Star Wars ticked all the right boxes for so many people. If I was to boil Star Wars down to an essence, i think it lies in 2 scenes: Luke looking out at the binary sunset on Tattooine, and Han Solo yahooing after the Falcon saves Luke in the Death Star trenches. Those two scenes, Wistfulness and Exuberance, are the two sides of one concept- Adventure. Star Wars ignited those emotions in every child’s imagination, and it’s a flame that’s likely to never go out. 

3. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Directed by Gareth Evans

Hard to believe this is a Disney movie. While the house of mouse may have a reputation for emotional gut punches in kids movies, it’s never felt quite so... permanent. Rogue One is an unrelenting emotional journey barelling towards surefire tragedy. We spend moments with characters that seem to be carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. The sense of desperation that permeates the movie almost overpowers any sense of heroism. It’s so unlike anything we’ve seen in a Star Wars movie. Their courage comes from a place that is wholly genuine and believable. We see the rebellion for the despondent group that they are. Sorely outnumbered by the Empire, their actions in this movie show a reckless, darker side to them and makes the morality of Star Wars so much more complex. The first time we meet Cassian Andor- the stand out performace of the film by Diego Luna- we see him kill another rebel to protect their secrets. It’s a movie that reframes the original Star Wars trilogy, making it a richer, complex universe and more intriguing as a result. Also, the last five minutes might be the best five minutes in any Star Wars movie.

4. Return of the Jedi Directed by Richard Marquand

The one sore spot in the original trilogy for me are the Ewoks. I realise it's ridiculous for me to complain about kid-friendly creatures in a kid's movie, but Star Wars has done this a lot more tolerably in the form of Porgs and Baby Yoda. Just something about these furry, Tibetan speaking monsters who somehow have the wherewithal to defeat an elite and well equipped empire rubs me the long way. Anyway, other than that, the movie's pretty fantastic. The culmination of Luke's journey comes to a head in an extremely emotional and effective climax. John Williams score crescendos to operatic heights and Mark Hamill's stellar performance sells Luke’s torment. It’s also worth noting that in those final moments of moral dilemma, Darth Vader is silent- it’s David Prowse’s performance entirely that sells this. His incredible presence throughout the trilogy builds to this moment and you can feel the weight of it in those closeups on Vader. Every other cast member rounds the story out perfectly- from Lando and Han’s playful rapport to Leia’s more militaristic side in planning the rebellions final moves. I still bemoan the fact that they changed the final song- an opinion that I’m apparently a minority on- but it’s a pretty incredible ending altogether and wonderfully cathartic to watch over and over again.

5. The Last Jedi Directed by Rian Johnson

With Last Jedi, Rian Johnson analyzed the universe Star Wars inhabits, and what drives it’s characters. The characters that we love are pushed to their limits, struggle against insurmountable odds and their own innate flaws. And we see all of them fail in turn. It is remarkably bleak, but not without purpose. It is out of this failure that the Resistance needs to recoup and come back stronger. The performances here, are arguably the best you’ll find in the entire franchise. Daisy Ridley has to break down Rey’s naivete and find a deeper sense of self actualization. Adam Driver hands in some of his best work, by swerving the audience into believing Kylo Ren and then creating a desperate plea in THAT throne room scene, and eventually turning him into a snivelling villain, all in the same movie. Mark Hamill’s performance here is heartbreaking- revealing the bleakest version of Luke, and struggling to find his redemption. Last Jedi is a bold deconstuction of these characters, of what they stand for, and what makes Star Wars beautiful.

6. The Force Awakens Directed by J. J. Abrams

In many ways, a safe movie to announce the return of Star Wars. But it’s hard to fault this. Disney’s decision making was shrewd here, bringing on J. J. Abrams to pay homage to George Lucas’ original vision, returning the franchise to it’s roots of practical effects and shooting on film. There was something truly special about experiencing this film in theatres, so much so that I did it eleven times. It captured a sense of wonder for fans new and old- hearing the scream of Tie Fighters, John Williams herald the return of the Millenium Falcon, and the look of awe on Rey’s face as she clutches her destiny in her hand. I’ll be honest, the film loses some of this magic without the shared experience of an audience, and it’s flaws are more noticeable. But being swept up in the excitement of adventure felt so darn good in 2015, and that’s so key to this franchise.

7. Revenge of the Sith Directed by George Lucas

This movie has risen so much in my opinion, entirely due to the animated Clone Wars series. Revenge of the Sith depicts the overwhelming tragedy that frames the original Star Wars. Watching Clone Wars explains explicitly what makes this film so tragic. But it’s more than that- it’s a catastrophic failure on behalf of the Jedi Order. Ignorance and pride allow evil to fester and grow. George Lucas took the simplicity of the moral struggle he established in 1977 and tried to give it depth and complexity with the prequels, and it pays off in Revenge of the Sith. It leads into the original trilogy quite brilliantly, with a promise of hope and resilience.

8. The Phantom Menace Directed by George Lucas

It has not aged well. While the advent of CGI I’m sure felt exciting at the time, and you almost can’t fault George Lucas for his insistence on staying at the forefront of VFX innovation as he has always done, it’s his reliance on so much of it that fails horribly. Like a kid in a candy store, Lucas stuffs the pockets of this film with so many bizarre effects for absolutely no reason. That sea monster scene is one of the worst displays I’ve ever seen and it’s absurd that it sits in a Star Wars film. Add to that the boring political plotline and ridiculous midichlorian dilemma and there’s very little redemptive about this film. However, it does have podracing, and Duel of the Fates, and it’s remarkable how much that salves the wound.

9. The Rise of Skywalker Directed by J. J. Abrams

Alright, well obviously this film has been problematic. However, I’m not about to bemoan the idea that Disney has ruined Star Wars and I have nothing left to live for. So let’s all just calm down. Ultimately J. J. Abrams was faced with the impossible task of wrapping up the Skywalker saga, with very few Skywalkers to work with. I firmly believe this would have been a very different film if Carrie Fisher was around to complete her performance. But left with nothing but the new cast, Abrams is caught between summing up the past while also looking to the future. It forces an awkward plotline with Palpatine- despite Ian McDiarmid's solid performance, the writing here seems wildly derivative of the franchise. There are some truly beautiful scenes, most notably the chemistry that Adam Driver gets to share with Harrison Ford, and Joonas Suotamo’s critically emotional outburst as Chewbacca. Some of the production design and score is so entirely different from the rest of the franchise it's inherently intriguing. But there’s very little here to save some of the poorer choices the film makes: the open plot hole with Finn, the derailing of Rey’s character development, and most crucially, the deeply perturbing culmination of Rey and Kylo’s relationship. The audience literally went “ew”.

10. Solo: A Star Wars Story Directed by Ron Howard

The biggest problem with Solo is that it operates under the presumption that people will be enamoured and invested in it. Not just in one movie, but in an entire series of movies. Solo clearly operates as a setup for further sequels. As a result, many plot lines remain unresolved, and Qi’ra winds up being a completely under-baked character. Her motivations make no sense, and a twist ending that I assume was supposed to be exciting is instead downright confusing. There’s a lot of unnecessary exposition into Han’s past too. As an origin story, I don’t need to know every aspect of Han’s past- especially not cute winks at inane things like “Why’s he called Solo?”. All this being said, The movie features some solid performances- Donald Glover is expectedly phenomenal as Lando, and Alden Ehrenreich excels as Solo, adding some welcome flavour to the character- particularly his friendship with Chewbacca, and a brilliantly executed final scene between him and Woody Harrelson’s Beckett.

11. Attack of the Clones Directed by George Lucas

How in the world this film made it all the way to production and into filming, with no one pulling Lucas aside and saying “Hey George, those kids have no chemistry” is beyond me. And I’m not going to blame Hayden Christensen or Natalie Portman on this one, because the whole damn love story makes no sense. Maybe falling for a dude who admits he murdered women and children isn’t such a great idea? Then there’s the increasingly convoluted political climate set up in Phantom Menace, and the machinations of the dark side that would take the entire Clone Wars series to fully explain. All this being said, Temuera Morrison, Samuel L. Jackson, Ewan MacGregor AND Christopher Lee are all in this movie. And they’re pretty damn fantastic.

12. The Clone Wars Directed by Dave Filoni

It’s inexplicable that Dave Filoni would go on to have a hand in some of the best Star Wars content ever made in Clone Wars, Rebels and the Mandalorian. And yet he got his start in the franchise by putting up this piece of junk. And junk is being a little generous. The humour is so juvenile it’s insulting to even the youngest of audiences it’s intended for. The plotline feels way to thin to warrant a feature film, and if this was in fact intended as a pilot for the TV series, they sure picked to most uninteresting story to pique our interest. Skip the movie, watch the show. 

[majesty-the-king]

#public_review

#part One

My dear friends my dear readers,

I am happy to be here with you tonight after an absence, I find that I long to write in glorious Arabic, and I am drawn to the nostalgia for the high-ranking language of the Arabic language.

Times have passed by dragging them on the reality of the world today, time did not speed up as it does today, and the “rapids” of news did not speed up as it speeds up today, the world is changing rapidly around us, and people are accustomed or almost, until they are no longer stopped by nothing but the greatness of the news, as for its young ones, I became accustomed as if it was an evening talk.

I am writing to you today while I am in a different position and with a new responsibility that requires effort, time, arrangement and more accuracy, so I took some time, due to its tightness and urgency, to arrange my office and its shelves, and reorganize what I have to do with my new reality at the head of the “National Security Institution” The strategic “for a great old great new line is the line of the noble gentlemen, Ahl al-Bayt.

Our ancestors in the past were not absent from the reality of life and the world of this world in presence, attention, care and presence, that is hidden or less, hidden or apparent, announced or facilitated according to time and space and the necessities of the total existence of an honorable race that is destined to be the safety of the people of the earth, even if it is absent. The value of his existence for many of the people of the earth.

Since our grandfather Adam we have been on this earth and our existence continued throughout the period of our grandfather Idris, Noah, Abraham, Ismail, Jacob, Isaac, Yusuf, Yunus, Hod, Moses, David, Solomon, Jesus, the seal of the prophets, Muhammad, his guardians and the guardians of his lineage, peace be upon them.

We have been here since our grandfather Adam, peace be upon him, descended to this earth, and we will remain until God authorizes us to return to the motherland after the world is filled with justice and equity, as the oppressors “Satan and his evil descendants” filled it with injustice and aggression.

We were here, entrusting the one who is going to the next with the reins of the honorable existence on this earth until he comes who is the first and the last in the order of the immortal ones.

We were here, and we will remain here until God permits us to return to our homes. The land is ours, glory is ours, and woe to those who give us refuge.

This is the compass of existence for us, the people of the house of prophecy and the message, the houses of honor and the king.

Today, and close to the days of God, the world witnesses events that were transmitted by our ancestors, Kabra, from Kaber, they told us and they told all people, including what reached these generations healthy and unharmed from the forms of distortion, fraud and deception, and some of them were obtained by the hand of treachery, so I changed what I changed to People lose sight of the road and lose their compass.

Our mission on earth is to establish the pillars of the House of Glory so that God will be worshiped knowingly and people may live in safety, knowledge, security and prosperity, and coexist with nations and other creatures in harmony and peace. Satan wants to mislead people far astray, and his party wants to avoid the path of God and They abandon the teachings of Heaven, people fight and kill each other, diseases and injuries spread, and people live in distress, distress and anxiety, fighting over the small and despicable thing.

This is the battle of life that the world and the inhabitants of the earth live in today.

So, let's get out of this language of abstraction to the language of today's reality, and let us speak the language of analyzes and use the propane of strategies so that our language is in the language of our people, so that the Arab and the non-Arab alike can understand you.

#The reality of the Arab region

#sham_events

Do any of you remember “Donald Trump” today, surely many people today no longer remember him?

“Donald Trump” is the pre-current US president who acquiesced to the “Sheldon” project and thought that “the deal of the century would grant him a second presidential term, and when he felt that he would lose that in favor of the American Calvary Movement candidate, he mixed the papers of the region in a strange way outside the established decisions to make the days of his successor black.” in judgment.

Let me speed up the details so that we can go through what is hardly mentioned in the "media today except for a little bit."

#Salt_hospital events

Do you remember what happened then??? a

I think that many have forgotten, except for those sitting in the corridors of the "Jordanian Intelligence".

The answer received by "the Jordanian monarch" at the time, along with the Jordanian strategic depth in Salt Hospital, was a "rude response" from "Netanyahu" to not authorizing his plane to pass over the airspace of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Yes , it was a " rude response " that embarrassed even the " Emiratis " who were appalled that a " special force " belonging to the Gladio operating under the command of " Netanyahu " would commit this heinous act .

In order to do so, it will be planned to strike members of the royal family against each other and prepare the ground for the assassination of Prince Hamzah and accusing His Majesty King Abdullah of this until the Hashemite family’s contract is broken and Jordan disintegrates in the face of the weak social and economic situation in which it is living due to “brazen planning” since the time of the nineties, after the assassination of “Isaac Rabin” at the hands of “Gladio” himself, and then work is done to establish a republican regime under popular pressure that will be a puppet in the hands of “Netanyahu” and his team, and had it not been for the grace of God and the intervention of the Jordanian strategic depth in harmony with the general strategic depth in the region and the world, the world today would be witnessing the birth of A new Gladio regime under the name of the "Republic of Besan" is ruled by "Fertoot", similar to the famous banana states.

What can be said today regarding Jordan has been said, and the last word that must be said as clearly as possible is that the security of Jordan is all of Jordan, the people of Jordan, all the people of Jordan, and the security of the Hashemite royal family, the entire Hashemite royal family, and that His Majesty King Abdullah and the order of government In Jordan, the security of all the nobles of the world will not be allowed to be threatened at all, and this saying applies to every royal family of honorable origin in Arab, Islamic and even global geography and does not stop at the borders of Jordan only.

I hope that "Netanyahu" and his team are well aware of this, I hope so.

And I hope again that the Arab peoples will realize the following:

Through the “gladio agents” who are everywhere in the joints of administrative, political, economic, educational, media, governmental and other life, political action in every country and system is underestimated, and sabotage is done from within in order to strike peoples with their systems and plunge them into wars of attrition. absurd interior, until it is exhausted well in stages, then the stage of total overthrow comes with multi-use revolutions, even if one system falls after another until the whole world falls prey to the absolute demonic control of the systems and then the peoples are lost to be completely enslaved.

Of course, not all the policies of the Arab regimes are bad, and not all of them are good. As a result of the complexities of daily management and the intended mistakes of domestic agents, the efforts of states are underestimated and the moral existence of the state and the regimes as a whole is undermined.

Let us remember the recent past then,

When the Ottoman Empire fell, the citizens of the state dispersed and states appeared by virtue of "Sais-Pico", then the monarchies began to disappear in the Arab and Islamic world and the world in general, then "Gregory" took control of Europe and most of the governments of its regimes, in turn, in favor of emerging republican regimes, most of whose leaders are from lineages Overwhelmed, it looks at the ruling as a gain and not a debtor, so competition and then hatred increases among the parties to the competition greedy for power, so the poor of yesterday overcome the strong of today, who are supported by the forces of the “Gladio” and plunder what they are able to achieve, then the nation becomes dwarfed and its existence weakens whenever the ruler is overpowered by the people. They do not know their origin and they do not have a covenant of satiation, and here personal interests prevail over the higher interest of the nation, and the likes of “Netanyahu” and Netanyahu’s godfathers, who, of course, have nothing to do with their personal interests, do not represent a religion, a belief or a principle.

And when Gregory overthrew the Shah’s regime in Iran, another “problem” appeared for the region, which many think was an “opportunity.” Gregory wanted it to be a “religious problem with the taste of Shiism” so that people would be alienated from religion and from the love of the people of the Prophet’s house May God’s prayers and peace be upon him and his family, just as he took advantage of “the persecution of the Jews of the world” and their longing for a state that would gather them from the diaspora and protect them within the land of their ancestors, according to the “interpretations” of some rabbis of the prophecies of “Prophet Daniel” as explained by “Maimonides” in his books about the day of the end of time, in order to These people hit these people under religious names, in the midst of everyone forgetting that religions came and emerged through the prophets who were truly sent from God, and that politicians seeking interests did not establish them even if they were wrapped in black turbans or even black pants.

Neither those in the new “Iran” represent the Muhammadan religion in the same way as a Shiite, nor do those in “Israel” represent the Mosaic religion or the teachings of the tribes.

Simply put, "Netanyahu" is a politician even if he is a Jew by religion, and "Khamenei" is a politician even if he is a Shiite Muslim.

It is simpler than this..is that when he comes “who is to send” the final tribe of the Prophet, with whom the nations will gather, then people from all the heavenly religions follow him with their doctrines on the truth that he brought, and this is what the “Satan” and his followers do not want and cannot stand… That's why I said at the beginning #we were here and we will stay here the earth is ours the home is ours the mountain the plain the river is ours

#Our_We_The_Sons_of_Adam_And_Noah_Ibrahim_Muhammad_Khatem_of_Prophets.

#us_not_to_the_devil_nor_the charlatan_of_Samaria

#us_we_the_people_of_the_old_house

point, full stop

Therefore, all the peoples of the region and the world should be well aware of what is being woven and not fall into the traps of demons and their snares.

The first part is over

My respect and appreciation to all

#Princess_Shams_Aslan_Noor Al-Huda

#Princess_Shams_aslan_noralhoda

#National_Security_Advisor to the nobles_Ahl_al-Bayt

_______

This article was published on facebook in arabic on the page official of the princess Shams aslan Noralhoda. ( 30/05/2021)

[world-of-ryan]

Imagine the hospital of all our dreams…. its heroic doctors and nurses go to extreme measures to help all patients. no one is turned away, and the impoverished receive the best care, with dignity.

Now, imagine no longer. That hospital is New Amsterdam. Modeled after Manhattan's Bellevue, the country's first public hospital, it is at the center of the NBC drama series New Amsterdam.

Bellevue also houses a jail, a school and a psych ward, and the writer-producers of the series draw from all those settings for their topical stories.

Due to the coronavirus, New Amsterdam had an abbreviated second season. Even so, some 45 million viewers tuned in, landing it in the top 20 network shows.

Now — as a nation anxiously watches nightly statistics of new infections, ICU bed count and ventilator usage — the series heads into its season three, with an additional two-year commitment.

"We certainly had no foresight we would be arriving in this moment, with a pandemic," says executive producer–director Peter Horton, reflecting on life before Covid-19. "But having a show that is predictable and comforting may be what people need and want."

That predictability and comfort stem from knowing the harried doctors are good people determined to do good. While New Amsterdam provides solace, it also tackles hot-button issues, including opioid addiction, immigration, poverty and racism.

Although a broadcast-network series is an unlikely platform for subversion — especially one that's oddly reassuring — that's what Horton wanted to achieve.

That's why he and fellow executive producer David Schulner, who is also creator and showrunner, weave in current events. (Also executive-producing are Michael Slovis, David Foster and Aaron Ginsburg.)

An episode in season one, "Cavitation," told of a police shooting of a Black and a Latino child and the subsequent death of one of them, despite the best efforts of the hospital staff.

Weaving a discussion of guns, policing and racial injustice into an hour-long entertainment series "is really tricky," Horton allows. "Network shows are not known for wanting to be controversial. But because it is in the context of a hospital show, of people wanting to do the right thing, we are able to tell that story and have it get out there and have its impact."

In the coming season — expected to start sometime this fall — the producers plan to take a hard look at the health effects of climate change. They're also rescheduling an eerily prescient episode, "Pandemic," about a killer flu in New York City.

It was postponed because its original April 7 airdate found New York City in the grip of Covid-19. While Horton calls that the right decision (after all, this series is about making the right decisions), he acknowledges it was difficult to yank what he considered one of the best episodes.

"The challenge for us and the network was: is this perfectly unplanned timing a gift from the gods, with New Amsterdam stepping in to say, 'It's going to be okay,' and doing what we do well?" Horton asks. "Or is this exploitive?"

That episode was supposed to introduce the series' newest doctor, Cassian Shin, played by Daniel Dae Kim.

In a scary example of life imitating art imitating life, Kim contracted the coronavirus during shooting. He has since recovered. Dr. Shin — "this great cowboy of a surgeon," as Horton describes him — joins the ensemble cast, which is led by Ryan Eggold as Max Goodwin, the hospital's medical director.

Goodwin is the physician everyone wants. Despite shortages of time, staff and funds, he always puts patients first, taking on hospital administrators and insurance companies. As Eggold explains, "Max is willing to break the rules to get someone cared for."

Indeed, if Goodwin's signature line, "How can I help?" were the trigger for a drinking game, viewers would be tipsy by the end of each hour.

In the real world, the doctor's aggressively unorthodox style might not be received so benignly, but he remains a force for good.

Meanwhile, Eggold's laid-back manner belies the character's own life experience, which sounds like the makings of a country song. The doctor was recently widowed, fought cancer and has a newborn to care for, while his job is a daily reminder of the world's ills.

Though its plots and characters are fictional, the show strives for accuracy. Some scenes are shot in Bellevue's striking atrium, designed by famed architect I.M. Pei. Real Bellevue physicians have spent time with their TV counterparts, and some even appear onscreen as extras.

Like its TV doppelgänger, Bellevue stands as testament to a society that cares for all.

It dates to the 1660s, when it was an infirmary for soldiers in a city then called New Amsterdam. The hospital moved to its current location on the East Side of Manhattan in the 1790s. Plagues that ravaged New York over the centuries — scarlet fever, the 1918 flu, AIDS and now coronavirus — have all filled its beds.

The show's inspiration was Twelve Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital, the 2012 memoir by Dr. Eric Manheimer, who was medical director of Bellevue for 15 years. To understand him and the show, you need only consider this paragraph:

"How people die and how we participate in their deaths is as much about us as about them. Our own humanity is at stake. In a society that is increasingly mesmerized by efficiency, measurement by numbers, and a bottom-line mentality that extols profit and wealth over any other human value, the risk is clear to everyone I work with. When healthcare is now measured by 'medical loss ratio,' and the percentage of spending on healthcare is considered a 'loss,' then we are really lost."

Schulner brought Manheimer's memoir to Universal Television in 2016 when, he notes, all conversations revolved around immigration and health care.

"I thought, 'Why would I want to write about anything else?'" he recalls. "These conversations were passionate and angry and full of personal anecdotes and personal connections. The one thing missing was a sense of hope.

"Everyone agreed the health care system was broken, and no one had hope we could get out of it. I wanted to write about that."

Worried that the medical chief might seem saintly, Schulner made sure that among Goodwin's foibles is an inability to devote energy to his own life. "Max can't give anyone 100 percent except, of course, his patients," Schulner says. ...

For the rest of the story, pick up a copy of the latest issue of emmy magazine HERE

This article originally appeared in its entirety in emmy magazine, Issue No. 8, 2020

x

[jbuffyangel]

Entertainment Weekly Arrow Article

We never get any big articles of Arrow, so yeah I am posting the whole damn thing. There were some interesting little tidbits and of course discussion around Emily Bett Rickards’ exit. Is it wrong that I am low key pissed that of course Arrow gets the cover of EW after she leaves? Is it also wrong that while I’m happy Arrow is getting some attention, I’m annoyed it wasn’t an Olicity cover? Cuz that’s where I am at. (X)

How Arrow saved the TV superhero — and why it had to end

As 'Arrow' prepares for the end, Stephen Amell and the producers reflect on its origin story and preview the 'Crisis'-bound eighth and final season. 

Stephen Amell is dreading the eighth and final season of Arrow, though you wouldn’t know it on this hot, sunny July day in Los Angeles. Wearing Green Arrow’s new suit, the CW star seems perfectly at ease as he strikes heroic pose after heroic pose on a dimly lit stage. But once he’s traded heavy verdant leather for a T-shirt, jeans, and baseball cap, his guard drops and the vulnerability starts to creep in as he contemplates Arrow’s last 10 episodes, which was set to begin production in Vancouver a week after the EW photoshoot took place and premieres Oct. 15.

“I’m very emotional and melancholy, but it’s time,” Amell — who is featured on the new cover of Entertainment Weekly — says as he takes a sip from a pint of Guinness. “I’m 38 years old, and I got this job when I was 30. I’d never had a job for more than a year. The fact that I’ve done this for the better part of a decade, and I’m not going to do it anymore, is a little frightening.”

Developed by Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, and Andrew Kreisberg, Arrow debuted in the fall of 2012. The DC Comics series follows billionaire playboy Oliver Queen (Amell), who, after years away, returned to now–Star City with one goal: to save his home-town as the hooded bow-and-arrow vigilante who would become known as Green Arrow (it would take him four seasons to assume the moniker). What began as a solo crusade eventually grew to include former soldier John Diggle (David Ramsey), quirky computer genius Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards), lawyer-turned-hero Laurel Lance/Black Canary (Katie Cassidy Rodgers), and the rest of Team Arrow. Together they’ve defended their city from a host of threats — dark archers, megalomaniacal magicians, and the occasional metahuman — while Lost-like flashbacks revealed what Oliver endured in the five years he was away, first shipwrecked and then honing his skills around the world to become someone else, something else.

The premiere gave The CW its most-watched series debut since 2009’s The Vampire Diaries. But before they launched Arrow, Berlanti and Guggenheim had to suffer through a failure: 2011’s Green Lantern, starring Ryan Reynolds. The duo co-wrote the script but lost creative control of the film, which flopped. So when Warner Bros. Television president Peter Roth approached them in late 2011 about developing a Green Arrow show, they were wary. After much deliberation, Berlanti and Guggenheim agreed, on the condition that they maintain control. Says Guggenheim, “As long as we succeed or fail on our own work, and not someone else’s work then maybe this is worth a shot.”

Their take on the Emerald Archer — who made his DC Comics debut in 1941 — was noteworthy from the beginning. Taking cues from films like The Dark Knight and The Bourne Identity and series like Homeland, the writers imagined a dark, gritty, and grounded show centered on a traumatized protagonist. “As we were breaking the story, we made very specific commitments to certain tonal things, such as ‘At the end of act 1, he has his hands around his mother’s throat.’ And, ‘At the end of act 2, he kills a man in cold blood to protect his secret,’ ” says Guggenheim.

A hero committing murder? That was practically unheard of then. Having Oliver suit up in a veritable superhero costume by the pilot’s climax was radical too. Sure, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was deep into Phase One when the producers were developing Arrow, but TV was traditionally more apprehensive about comic books. Smallvillefamously had a “no tights, no flights” rule and only introduced superhero costumes in the last years of its 10-season run, and there weren’t any masked avengers running around NBC’s Heroes or ABC’s No Ordinary Family, the latter produced by Berlanti (Let’s not even mention NBC’s The Cape, which was essentially dead on arrival and never did get its six seasons and a movie). But Arrow not only fully committed to the idea of someone dressing up like Robin Hood to fight crime with a bow and arrow, it introduced a second costumed rogue, the Huntress (Jessica De Gouw), in episode 7.

“It’s just comic book to the extreme and the fans seem to really love it,” says Batwomanshowrunner Caroline Dries, a former writer on Smallville. “They still maintain it very grounded, but it’s very different with everyone in costumes. The appetite for superheroes has changed in my mind in terms of like they just want the literal superhero [now].”

Not that the team wasn’t meticulous about creating Green Arrow’s cowl. “We had to have so many conversations to get it approved, but that’s why we got [Oscar winner] Colleen Atwood [Memoirs of a Geisha] at the time to [design] the suit,” says Berlanti. “We were determined to show we could do on TV what they were doing in the movies every six months.”

“It’s really easy to make a guy with a bow and arrow look silly. We sweated every detail,” says Guggenheim, who also recalls how much effort it took to perfect Oliver’s signature growl. “I actually flew up to Vancouver. On a rooftop during reshoots on [episode 4], Stephen and I went through a variety of different versions of, basically, ‘You have failed this city,’ with different amounts of how much growl he’s putting into his performance. [We] recorded all that, [I went] back to Los Angeles, and then sat with the post guys playing around with all the different amounts of modulation.”

That process took eons compared to the unbelievably easy time the team had casting Arrow’s title role. In fact, Amell was the first person to audition for the role. “It was Stephen’s intensity. He just made you believe he was that character,” says Guggenheim, recalling Amell’s audition. “We had crafted Oliver to be this mystery box character, and Stephen somehow managed to find this balance between being totally accessible in a way you would need a TV star to be, but he’s still an enigma.” After his first reading, Amell remembers being sent outside for a short time before being brought back into the room to read for a larger group: “I called [my manager], and I go, ‘I know this is not how it’s supposed to work, but I just got that job.’”

In the first season, the show’s chief concerns were maintaining both the “grounded and real” tone and the high quality of the stunts, and investing the audience in Oliver’s crusade. Beyond that, though, there wasn’t much of an over-arching plan, which allowed the show to naturally evolve — from introducing more DC characters, such as Deathstroke (Manu Bennett) and Roy Harper (Colton Haynes), sooner than they initially intended (the shot of Deathstroke’s mask in the pilot was meant as a harmless Easter egg), to promoting Emily Bett Rickards’ Felicity from a one-off character in the show’s third episode to a series regular in season 2 and eventually Oliver’s wife. Even the whole idea of a Team Arrow — which, over time, added Oliver’s sister Thea (Willa Holland), Rene Ramirez/Wild Dog (Rick Gonzalez) and Dinah Drake/Black Canary (Juliana Harkavy) — was the result of the writers allowing the best ideas to guide the story. “Greg used to say all the time, ‘You have a hit TV show until you don’t, so don’t save s—,’ ” says Amell.

Also not planned: Arrow spawning an entire shared universe. “We went on record a lot of times during the premiere of the pilot saying, ‘No superpowers, no time travel.’ But midway through season 1, Greg started to harbor a notion of doing the Flash,” says Guggenheim. “I’m a very big believer that it’s great to have a plan, but I think when it comes to creating a universe, the pitfall is that people try to run before they can walk. The key is, you build it show by show.” And so they did. First, they introduced The Flash star Grant Gustin’s Barry Allen in the two-part midseason finale of Arrow’s second season. From there, Supergirl took flight in 2015, then DC’s Legends of Tomorrow in 2016, and Batwoman is due this fall. “It’s like the hacking of the machete in the woods and then you look back and you’re like, ‘Oh, there’s a path,” says executive producer and Berlanti Productions president Sarah Schechter. But even though Arrowis the universe’s namesake, Amell doesn’t concern himself with the sibling series outside of the now-annual crossovers. “I never think about any of the other shows,” he says. “I want all of them to do great, but they’re not my responsibility. My responsibility is Arrow, and to make sure everyone from the cast to the crew are good.” His sentiments are seconded by Flash’s Gustin: “I don’t understand how he does it — his schedule that he maintains with working out, the conventions he goes to, the passion he has for it, and the love he shows towards fans. He’s always prepared. He cares more about that show being high quality than anybody else on the set.”

That said, the universe’s expansion precipitated what is widely considered to be Arrow’s best season, the fifth one. After focusing on magic in season 4, the show returned to its street-crime roots as part of “a concerted effort to play not just to our strengths but what made the shows unique,” Guggenheim says of balancing their four super-series in 2016. “Because Arrow was the longest-running Arrowverse show, we were able to do something that none of the other shows could do, which is have a villain who was basically born out of the events of season 1,” he explains of introducing Adrian Chase/Prometheus (Josh Segarra), whose criminal father was killed by Oliver. “That gave the season a resonance.”

It was midway through season 6 when Amell realized he was ready to hang up Oliver Queen’s hood. “It was just time to move on,” the actor says of pitching that Oliver leave the series at the end of season 7. “My daughter is turning six in October, and she goes to school in L.A., and my wife and I want to raise her [there].” Berlanti persuaded him to return for one final season, which the producers collectively decided would be the end. “We all felt in our gut it was the right time,” says Berlanti. Adds Schechter, “It’s such a privilege to be able to say when something’s ending as opposed to having something just ripped away.”

But there’s one integral cast member who won’t be around to see Arrow through its final season. This spring, fans were devastated to learn Rickards had filmed her final episode—bringing an end to Olicity. “They’re such opposites. I think that’s what draws everyone in a little bit,” showrunner Beth Schwartz says of Oliver and Felicity’s relationship. “You don’t see the [love story of] super intelligent woman and the sort of hunky, athletic man very often. She’s obviously a gorgeous woman but what he really loves is her brain.” For his part, Amell believes the success of both Felicity and Olicity lies completely with Rickards’ performance. “She’s supremely talented and awesome and carved out a space that no one anticipated. I don’t know that show works if we don’t randomly find her,” says Amell, adding that continuing the series without Team Arrow’s heart is “not great. Arrow, as you know it, has effectively ended. It’s a different show in season 8.” And he’s not exaggerating.

The final season finds Oliver working for the all-seeing extra-terrestrial the Monitor (LaMonica Garrett) and trying to save the entire multiverse from a cataclysmic event. “[We’re] taking the show on the road, really getting away from Star City. Oliver is going to be traveling the world, and we’re going to go to a lot of different places,” says Guggenheim. “Every time I see Oliver and the Monitor, it’s like, ‘Okay, we are very far from where we started.’ But again, that means the show has grown and evolved.” Adds Schwartz, “This is sort of his final test because it’s greater than Star City.” Along the way, he will head down memory lane, with actor Colin Donnell, who played Oliver’s best friend Tommy Merlyn in season 1, and Segarra’s Adrian Chase making appearances. “Episode 1 is an ode to season 1, and episode 2 is an ode to season 3,” teases Amell. “We’re playing our greatest hits.”

But season 8 is not just about building toward a satisfying series finale. “Everything relates to what’s going to happen in our crossover episode, which we’ve never done before,” says Schwartz. Spanning five hours and airing this winter, “Crisis on Infinite Earths” will be the biggest crossover yet and may see Oliver perish trying to save the multiverse from destruction, if the Monitor’s prophecy is to be believed. “Oliver [is told] he’s going to die, so each episode in the run-up to ‘Crisis’ has Oliver dealing with the various stages of grief that come with that discovery,” says Guggenheim. “So the theme really is coming to terms, acceptance.”

If there’s one person who has made his peace with Oliver’s fate, it’s Amell. “Because he’s a superhero with no superpowers, I always felt he should die — but he may also not die,” says Amell, who actually found out what the show’s final scene would be at EW’s cover shoot. “I cried as [Marc Guggenheim] was telling me. There are a lot of hurdles to get over to make that final scene.” Get this man some more Guinness!

[stahlop]

Once Upon a Time 2x10 “The Cricket Game” Review

Reviews 1x01 1x02 1x03 1x04 1x05 1x06 1x07 1x08 1x09 1x10 1x11 1x12 1x13 1x14 1x15 1x16 1x17 1x18 1x19 1x20 1x21 1x22 2x01 2x02 2x03 2x04 2x05 2x06 2x07 2x08 2x09

I have to say, season 2 is really killing it. I don’t think I liked it much on my first viewing, just because everyone was separated. And I just skimmed it on my second viewing because I remember not liking it much the first time around. But on my third viewing, this season’s episodes are really amazing! I’m loving the sneak attack on Storybrooke by Cora and Hook. They’re very flashy villains and they are just laying low, surveying the land before striking. This episode also made me feel sorry for Regina. Regina! Not only as Regina, but also as the Evil Queen. Lots of pieces of the pre-curse puzzle were put into place as well.

Summary: A prominent member of Storybrooke is murdered and Regina is the prime suspect. In the Enchanted Forest Regina is captured by Snow and Charming and is sentenced to death.

Opening: Pongo

Character Observations:

Emma: She’s trying to get some sense of normalcy in her life. She just wants to parent Henry, get to know her own parents (and not while they’re making ‘tacos’), and sheriff the town. We start with the Welcome Home party at Granny’s. Emma has invited Regina to the party, much to the horror of everyone else in the town, especially David and Mary Margaret.  Emma tells them that Regina is trying to change for Henry, plus she saved their lives (although Mary Margaret points out that she was originally attempting to kill whomever came through the portal), and Henry wants her there and that’s enough for her. This is definitely a 180 change from Emma wanting to blame Regina for everything when they were in the Enchanted Forest in Into the Deep. Mary Margaret and David agree to give her a chance. Emma notices Regina leaving at one point and goes after her. She tries to appeal for Regina to stay by saying Archie made a cake, but Regina’s good. She thanks Emma for inviting her and Emma says she did it for Henry. Regina takes this as an opportunity to ask to see Henry more, and maybe let him stay the night. Emma doesn’t think that’s a good idea, which sparks sarcasm about Emma being a parent for barely five minutes. Emma’s not going to deal with that so she walks away, but Regina apologizes. Emma says Archie told her how she’s trying to change. She spouts off all the stuff Regina is working on with him that a therapist should not be telling other people about. Emma says she didn’t want to invite her, but Archie thought it would be a good idea. Regina once again thanks Emma, but has to get going. Emma turns to go back into Granny’s with an expression on her face that tells about how well things went there. Emma and Henry are eating breakfast before school. Emma wants to take him to the bus stop but he’s too old for that. Pongo comes running up without Archie. Ruby comes out claiming something is wrong (which Emma assumes is due to the wolf thing), so they go to Archie’s office where they find him dead. Emma wonders who would do this and Ruby thinks she might know.

 Regina is waiting in the interrogation/evidence room (not a good idea to leave someone alone in that room) when Emma and David walk in. David does most of the talking, accusing Regina of killing Archie, while Emma watches her facial expressions. The minute Regina finds out Archie has been killed you can see the realization dawning on Emma’s face that Regina had no idea about it. David tries to convince Emma that Regina is incapable of changing, but Emma can see that Regina is telling the truth. They go outside, where Mary Margaret has been watching the whole thing, and David says they need to lock her up. Emma says they can’t because she didn’t do it (that and the fact that there is no evidence linking her to his murder). Looks like Emma’s superpower is in working order again. Mary Margaret and David don’t think they can believe her, but Emma points out how the old Regina would have burned down the building instead of just sitting in the room waiting while they talk. They comment that Emma doesn’t know Regina like they do and Emma tells them that’s the point. She’s just Regina (you know, the woman who tried to put her under a sleeping curse and made her life a living hell just a few weeks ago). Emma says they have to let her go because of the whole innocent until proven guilty thing. They let her go and find the truth. Which is going through Archie’s files apparently. Um, I think they’re violating patient/doctor confidentiality there. David discovers Regina’s file is empty so he immediately implies that she’s guilty again and Mary Margaret (why is she helping in a police investigation? Shouldn’t she be teaching at school?) assumes that means she did it. Emma is getting a little tired of her parents blaming Regina. She tells them how evidence is usually hard to find. When it’s easy it’s usually a frame job. Mary Margaret says there’s probably a list a mile long of people who’d want to frame Regina for murder, her included, but Emma says there’s only one person in town who would actually murder someone. Cue the sheriff posse at Gold’s shop. Emma accuses Gold of killing Archie because all the evidence points to Regina. Belle finds this as absurd as her parents do. Gold points them to a witness, Pongo. Emma is skeptical because dogs don’t talk. Gold explains they’ll use magic, and when Emma calls him out on tampering with the memories, he tells her she’s going to use her magic to do it. Gold uses a dreamcatcher to grab the memory and then gives it to Emma to try and find it so they can see it. She looks extremely nervous about this whole thing. She tries and can’t do it, but Gold tells, quite forcefully, that she can, so she tries again. They see ‘Regina’ start to strangle Archie, and then, I’m not sure if Emma can’t hold onto the magic or thinks she’s seen enough, but they don’t finish the memory, so they don’t see the rest of what happened. That’s apparently enough evidence for them to believe that Regina is guilty. Emma immediately goes out to go get Regina and now David and Mary Margaret are discouraging her from doing it. Emma questions them (rightly so), but David is worried, because Regina has very powerful magic and Emma doesn’t even know what she has yet. You can tell that Emma is pissed that she’s been ‘played a fool’ by Regina, because she really wanted to believe she’d changed for Henry. Mary Margaret suggests using fairy dust again to contain her magic. David doesn’t think it will work because they’ve used that trick before and Regina will see them coming, but Emma thinks she can handle it. Emma, David and Mary Margaret go to Regina’s. She thinks they’ve come to apologize for thinking she killed Archie. Emma angrily tells Regina they saw her kill him. David tells her it was through magic so Regina thinks Gold is behind everything. Mary Margaret tells her Emma used her magic. Regina is shocked that Emma has magic. Regina warns her about magic always coming with a price and Emma says that Henry is going to be the one to pay it because he believed in Regina. Regina demands to see Henry, stating that he’s her son. Emma turns on her raging that Henry is not Regina’s son, he’s her son, and yells for Mother Superior to ‘do it’. Really, Emma? That was your big plan? Have Mother Superior hiding behind a tree and then yelling for her to do it instead of, I don’t know, having a code word or something so Regina wouldn’t suspect? Sigh. Emma is surprised when Regina catches the ball of magic instead of it taking her powers. Regina tells Emma that she won’t keep Henry from her and blasts her to the ground with magic. Emma says that Henry won’t come near her now that he’ll know who she really is and who she’ll always be. Regina poufs away. Emma is freaking out with her parents because now she actually has to be Henry’s mom, and she has to tell him about Archie’s death and who killed him. She doesn’t know how to be a real parent. David and Mary Margaret say they don’t either, but they’re all learning together. Emma is freaking out because they don’t know who she was before Storybrooke. She wasn’t parenting material. David says not to worry, because they know who she’s been since she’s been there (hmm, they’ve made this argument twice already about Regina and that didn’t stick). Emma is thinking along the same lines because she wonders what happens if she reverts back to who she was before, where she’d just run away when things got tough. David says she’s great with Henry. Emma says she’s been his parent for a total of 5 minutes. Again, David’s been there too. He says they’ll go through it together because they’re family. Emma takes Henry over to a bench and tells him about Archie.

Evil Queen/Regina: Here we have two sides of the same coin. Snow hoping against hope that the Evil Queen will change, and then Mary Margaret not believing that Regina can change. In the Enchanted Forest, the Evil Queen (looking fabulous in a sexy armor-type outfit) watches as a village burns. A guard comes and tells her that Snow and Charming have defeated King George and the kingdom is now there’s. No one knows where King George is and without his forces they can’t defeat Snow and Charming’s kingdom. She asks where Snow is now and is told that she’s on her way to meet Charming alone. The Evil Queen goes off to find Snow while she sends her guards to distract Charming. The Evil Queen finds her easily when Snow trips over a rock. Snow offers her parley to talk about the Evil Queen’s terms of surrender. The Evil Queen will only surrender at Snow’s death. Snow yells ‘Now!’ and the Blue Fairy throws magic at the Evil Queen incapacitating her. The Evil Queen realizes this was all a trap (well, duh!). The Evil Queen has been stripped down, wearing a simple muslin dress and her hair pulled back (but still in full makeup) while imprisoned in the castle. Henry, Sr. comes to see her and blames himself for being an awful father and not protecting her from Cora. He wants her forgiveness. The Evil Queen is crying just as hard as her father, and this scene is so lovely. Seeing the Evil Queen vulnerable is heartbreaking. I never thought I’d feel sorry for the Evil Queen. She has not reverted back to young Regina, she is still horrible and hateful, but she doesn’t like her father seeing her as weak. Henry, Sr. wants her to show regret and show them that she can change. He feels they’ll spare her if she does this. Regina is taken to the center of the castle for her execution. She is to be shot with arrows, which seems pretty painful and it doesn’t seem that they’d kill her right away (unless one of them gets her heart). They also seem really close and like they wouldn’t have the force to really go into her from where they’re situated. Jiminy asks her if she has any last words. She starts out sounding like she’s regretful and will apologize for all her wrong doings, but she can’t go out weak so she says she regrets not causing more pain and death. By the end of her tirade she’s seething that she regrets not being able to kill Snow White. Charming calls for arrows and Regina is blindfolded. Snow can see that the Evil Queen is afraid to die so she calls for the arrows to stop after Charming told them to fire. Luckily, the Blue Fairy is able to stop them right before they hit the Evil Queen. When the blindfold is removed she looks confused, but she has that evil smirk on her face when she’s taken back to her cell. Later that night Snow comes to visit the Evil Queen. She questions why Snow has come to see her. Snow remembers the good in her, but the Evil Queen said that woman lost much and is now gone. Snow thinks she’s still inside her, but the Evil Queen is insistent she’s not. Snow thinks she just needs help letting her out, so she opens the door and offers the Evil Queen her freedom, as long as she leaves the Evil Queen behind in the cell. She walks out and for a split second she has a kind smile towards Snow, and then she starts to strangle her. Snow gets out a knife she’s hidden up her sleeve, but the Evil Queen takes it from her. She finds it poetic justice that she’ll kill Snow with the blade Snow was going to kill her with. She stabs her with it, but Snow stops struggling and shows that the blade has no effect on her. The Evil Queen takes out the knife and sees no blood on it. She’s slightly scared in this moment. Snow tells her it’s magic and Charming appears, telling her that Rumplestiltskin took one of her hairs from the blindfold and fashioned a protection spell from it. She can no longer harm them in this land. The Evil Queen is flabbergasted that they tricked her. Snow is quick to tell her it wasn’t a trick, but a test; one she had hoped she would pass. But since she didn’t, they banish her. The Evil Queen is on the verge of tears during this entire scene. It’s fabulous. Snow says the queen saved her life once and now she’s saved hers, but if she tries to hurt anyone in her kingdom again she’ll kill her. The guards come to take her away and the Evil Queen is just shell-shocked. The Evil Queen is back at her castle and Rumplestiltskin comes to visit. He’s come to raise her spirits because it’s Snow and Charming’s wedding day. She’s furious with him for the protection spell. Rumplestiltskin makes sure to emphasize that the protection spell is for this land only, but if they were to go to another land, the spell wouldn’t work. The Evil Queen heads off to the wedding.

I never thought I’d feel bad for Regina, but here I am, feeling sorry for her this entire episode. Regina is truly trying to change for Henry since he’s all she has. Emma invites her to the welcome home party for her and Mary Margaret for Henry. She makes a lasagna which everyone eats, but no one talks to her, so she goes to leave. Emma tries to get her to stay. Regina thanks her for inviting her. She’d like to see Henry more, but Emma doesn’t think it’s a good idea. Regina makes a sarcastic comment about Emma being Henry’s mother for all of five minutes and asks her to talk to David since he trusted her with him while she was in the EF. And Emma’s done with her, but Regina realizes she made a mistake and apologizes. Emma accepts it and tells her that Archie told her she was trying to change. Regina realizes that Archie is telling people about their sessions. I don’t know why she’s surprised, he did it when Henry was seeing him too, although, it was to her advantage at the time. She didn’t really make him an ethical therapist in that regard. She thanks Emma for inviting her again and leaves. The next morning Regina confronts Archie while he’s walking Pongo. He says he was trying to help her (still not ethical!). Regina is pissed, and she has every right to be. He says that he said nothing specific, because he wouldn’t betray doctor/patient confidentiality (ha!). Regina reminds him he got his PhD from a curse. Ruby interrupts to make sure everything is okay. Regina sends her off. Archie tells Regina he can be trusted; she tells him he’s lucky she’s changed. We will skip over Archie’s ‘murder’ since it’s not actually Regina. We next see her in the interrogation/evidence room at the sheriff’s station. David and Emma enter and she comments about the sheriff’s station now being a family business, and she seems genuine. She, of course, asks why she’s there because she hasn’t got a clue. Emma mentions Archie and she thinks it’s about the argument they had that morning. David clues her into his untimely demise. Regina is shocked. David thinks she’s lying because Ruby saw her go to his office last night. Regina puts those walls up and tells David that Ruby is lying because she was at home last night. She asks Emma why she’d toss all the changes she made away to murder someone. She also lets them know that if she did kill Archie, they’d never know. She’d hide the body, not leave it for someone to find. David reminds her that she’s been caught before. Yeah, when she was going after Snow, that’s totally different then going after her therapist. David says she’s incapable of change and Regina looks like she’s going to pop a vein in her face from trying to hold in her magic. Emma releases her because she believes her. Later, Emma goes after her having seen Pongo’s memory in the dreamcatcher. Regina thinks they’re there to apologize for accusing her earlier. David tells her they saw it through magic, so Regina thinks Gold is setting her up. Regina is shocked when Mary Margaret tells her Emma used magic to see the memory. Eventually, she and Emma get into an argument about Henry. Regina is desperate to see him having gotten to spend the last week with him actually being his mother and not trying to manipulate him. Emma calls for Mother Superior to throw the fairy dust at Regina, but she catches it. Regina is heading into Evil Queen mode. She screams that Emma will not keep her son from her and magics her down to the ground. Emma tells her that Henry won’t believe her lies now and they know how she is and who she will always be. That hurts Regina. She looks briefly at her hands, like it doesn’t matter if she does magic now because Henry will be against her, and poufs out of there. She watches from her car when Emma tells Henry about Archie, tears streaming down her face.

Snow/Mary Margaret: Snow tries, she really tries to get the Evil Queen to become young Regina again. No matter all the bad that she has done, she really is optimistic that she can get the Evil Queen to change back to who she used to be. I love how snarky Snow is when they entrap the Evil Queen. Snow really does try to get her to come on her own volition, but the Evil Queen is so blinded that she really doesn’t see that Snow White running away alone in the forest (after they just defeated King George) is a trap. Snow and David tell her she really should have just surrendered, but now her reign of terror is over. Snow looks close to tears. At a war council meeting, they all discuss what to do about the Evil Queen. It is decided that they must execute her. After everyone leaves, Snow asks Charming if that’s really what they need to do. Charming says they don’t have a choice, but Snow says there is always a choice. Charming stopped her from killing the Evil Queen once, but that was Charming saving Snow, not saving the Evil Queen. David tries to convince Snow that this is the only thing that can be done about the Evil Queen. At the Evil Queen’s execution, Snow is watching her closely for a reason to stop it. The Evil Queen sounds regretful and then changes her tactic to say she wished she’d killed Snow. Snow’s face just falls. But Snow sees her trembling and crying once the blindfold is on and the arrows are released and tells them to stop (luckily, the Blue Fairy is there to stop the arrows right before they kill her). David doesn’t understand, but Snow is adamant this is not the way. David says the Evil Queen was totally unrepentant, but Snow saw someone who didn’t want to appear weak, even at the end. David says he’s only ever seen her be evil and that’s exactly Snow’s point. She knew her before she was the Evil Queen and she’s sure she can find young Regina again. David can’t believe that Snow wants to rehabilitate the Evil Queen. He doesn’t think they can risk the kingdom. David eventually relents to Snow’s wishes, but reminds her that either path, death or mercy, is basically one way. Snow is in the courtyard thinking when Rumplestiltskin appears (or never left from the aborted execution). They have a heart-to-heart about the Evil Queen. Rumplestiltskin finds it amusing that Snow wants to redeem her, and Snow isn’t even sure if it can be done. He says he can provide her with a test. Snow doesn’t think she can trust him, because he obviously wants the Evil Queen dead (he doesn’t), and he always has a price. Rumplestiltskin tells her that this is an opportunity she shouldn’t waste. Snow goes to see the Evil Queen. She tells the guard to leave, then she checks that she has a knife hidden in her sleeve. The Evil Queen wonders why she’s there. Snow says she remembers the young Regina who saved her life and she thinks she’s still in there somewhere. Regina promises her she’s not. Snow think she just needs someone to help her let her out, so she opens the cell door to let her out. She tells the Evil Queen she can leave the evil back in the cell and become the woman she used to be. Snow seems thrilled when the Evil Queen leaves the cell. She’s looking at her like a proud mama, and then the Evil Queen turns on her and starts to strangle her. Snow struggles and gets out her knife, but the Evil Queen takes it from her. And Snow looks like she’s frightened she’s about to die, but once it’s revealed that the Evil Queen can’t harm her, you realize that she’s angry at herself for believing that the Evil Queen could change. And then she’s practically crying once she sees the Evil Queen can’t change after she stabs her. Snow’s got that disappointed mom look on her face when she tells her it was magic. The Evil Queen is mad that they tricked her. Snow says it wasn’t a trick but a test, one she truly wanted her to pass, because they wanted to hope that she could change. They banish her instead Snow tells her they’re even on saving lives now, but if she hurts anyone in their kingdom again she’ll not hesitate to kill her.

Now, we start with a very happy Mary Margaret as she and David are reacquainting themselves with each other, having not gotten to do that since she went into a portal immediately after the curse broke. That is quickly shattered once Archie is ‘murdered’ and Regina is accused of the deed. The rest of the episode she is either in tears or close to them. Before that, at the Welcome Back party, Mary Margaret and David are not thrilled that Emma invited Regina without asking them first. They don’t believe she can change. Regina is brought in for questioning about Archie’s death and Mary Margaret is crying at the one-way mirror the entire time. I think she is feeling guilty that she didn’t let Regina die at her execution and that is now the reason Archie is dead. By the end of the interrogation Mary Margaret is now mad. She wants to know what they’re going to do about Regina, but Emma informs them they have to let her go because she didn’t do it. They don’t think Emma understands because they know how Regina was as the Evil Queen, and that’s Emma’s point. She sees her changing for Henry. Mary Margaret and David are both on the Regina did it side, but Emma promises she will find out who actually did it. They go to Archie’s office to look through his files (ILLEGAL!!!). Mary Margaret shouldn’t even be there, she’s not part of law enforcement. They come to the conclusion that Gold may be framing Regina. And Mary Margaret is near tears the entire time this scene is happening. They go to Gold’s and straight out accuse him of murdering Archie and framing Regina. Gold suggest extracting the memory of the murder from Pongo using Emma’s magic. Mary Margaret tells her she doesn’t have to do it, but Emma wants to know the truth. They watch ‘Regina’ strangle Archie which shocks Mary Margaret. I think it’s more about watching it happen, because we know she can’t be shocked about Regina actually killing someone. Emma wants to go arrest Regina right away, but Mary Margaret and David tell her they need a plan since Regina has magic. Mary Margaret reminds them that they have fairy dust now and they can use it on Regina again to contain her magic until the dwarfs can build a prison for her like they had for Rumplestiltskin. They go to confront Regina who again accuses Gold of tampering with memories, but Mary Margaret informs her that Emma used magic (barely containing her tears as she does it). When Emma has Mother Superior throw fairy dust at Regina, Mary Margaret and David are fearful when she catches the fairy dust instead of it containing her magic like they’d hoped. Mary Margaret looks appalled when Regina uses her magic to push Emma down (why?). Mary Margaret, David, and Emma go to pick up Henry at the bus stop. Emma is freaking out about being a parent to Henry. Mary Margaret keeps telling her she can do this; be a parent and tell Henry about Archie and Regina. Emma tells Mary Margaret and David they don’t have to try and be her parents, but Mary Margaret says they do. And they will all figure things out together.

Cora/Hook: They have landed in Storybrooke. Hook is dead set on his revenge but Cora prevents him from going after Rumplestiltskin when they realize there is magic there. A local bait shop owner happens upon them and tells them he can open early for them in the morning if they want to go fishing. He comments on Hook’s ship but Cora cloaks it and then turns him into a fish. She tells Hook they need the element of surprise before going for Regina and Rumplestiltskin. They later watch Regina leaving the party and Hook asks Cora if Regina is broken yet. Cora says no. Ruby notices Regina going into Archie’s office, but we later find out it’s Cora. Pongo knows right away it’s not Regina. Hey, Archie, when your dog is barking at someone they see all the time, something fishy is probably going on. Cora appears to strangle Archie, freezes Pongo so he stops barking, and then the magic poufing mist engulfs them. Regina walks out of the office, turns the corner, and then morphs into Cora. See, I think this would have been better if we didn’t know it was Cora until later. If we thought Regina had actually murdered Archie and then when Cora shows him on Hook’s ship we got a flashback of her or an explanation, it might have been more interesting. Cora comes to Hook after Regina has lost everything and is happy about it. Hook calls her Mum of the Year and Cora doesn’t take to kindly to it. She did what was needed. Hook wants to know when he’ll get his revenge on Rumplestiltskin, and Cora said she’s already started helping him. She mentions a gift on his ship. They disappear on to the cloaked ship and Cora shows that Archie is being held captive in the hold of the ship! She tells Hook that he’s privy to all the residents of Storybrooke’s secrets, including the Dark One. And then, the absolute funniest exchange ever. Hook asks who Cora killed if Archie is in the hold of his ship. Cora doesn’t know, it’s her first day in town. HA! Cora tells Hook it might take some work, but this cricket will chirp (yikes). Hook seems happy to have to torture the info out of him.

Charming/David: Really, they play the same part in both the Enchanted Forest and in Storybrooke. He’s all about killing the Evil Queen in the EF and he’s all about locking Regina up in SB. He doesn’t believe he can change in either place. Now, I understand as Charming that he’s only ever dealt with the Evil Queen and seen all the horrible things she’s done. And I get that he’s still biased toward Regina because of that, but just last week David was letting her watch Henry, so when did the blind hatred come back? Out of everyone, David has been seeing her change the most. But basically both Charming and David hate Regina and think she’s incapable of change. In the EF he tries to convince Snow that she can’t change and she’s disappointed when she doesn’t take the chance to change. In SB, he tries to convince Emma that Regina can’t change, and then she’s angry when she thinks Regina actually killed Archie because of what it will do to Henry.

Questions:

What is up with the guy on the dock? A man dressed as a pirate and a woman dressed like a queen are standing on the dock in front of a pirate ship that disappears and he doesn’t think any of this is weird? And where does he think they came from? It’s not like anyone can come in or leave.

What is up with Emma’s hair? It’s a big departure from how she’s normally worn it. It’s half up and piecey. We’ve only ever seen her in Storybrooke with her hair either down and curled, or in a ponytail.

I get that Mary Margaret was gone for a week or so, but Ruby was right there when she returned. Why are they hugging like they haven’t seen each other in forever?

David has been trusting Regina with Henry and with his own life (the sleeping curse) this past week. Why is he now so distrusting of Regina?

Why is Emma eating french fries for breakfast at Granny’s?

When did Emma find out Ruby is a wolf?

Why is David running the kingdom? Is it because he is technically King George’s heir?

Why does Emma assume Archie’s been murdered? It looks like he fell over and died. My first guess would have been a heart attack. Did she plan on doing an autopsy to find the cause of death before accusing Regina?

Why is Mary Margaret at Regina’s interrogation? She has nothing to do with the police investigation.

I couldn’t find an answer to this on Google, but isn’t it illegal to go through a doctor’s files, even if they’re dead? Wouldn’t Emma have to get a warrant of some kind? And even then, she’d have to have specific clients in mind to look through their files. 

Why was Regina brought in and questioned at the station but they just question Gold at his shop?

Where did the fairy dust come from? I thought Gold took all the fairy dust diamonds in Queen of Hearts.

Are the fairies going to stay nuns?

Why didn’t Emma take Henry back to the loft to tell him about Archie? I know, I know, it’s so we can see Regina’s reaction, but still. Telling your child that his adoptive mother killed his therapist on a public park bench doesn’t seem like the best idea.

Snow let the Evil Queen keep her castle? Wasn’t that Snow’s castle to begin with? Why would they let her keep the castle? Are the people in her kingdom part of King George’s (now Snow and Charming’s) kingdom since the Evil Queen doesn’t have a kingdom anymore?

Observations:

A swan swims by at the docks when Hook and Cora are leaving to check out Storybrooke.

The Welcome Home Mary Margaret banner is the same one they used when she got out of jail in The Return. They have added ‘and Emma’ to it.

Leroy grabs a cooking knife off the counter when Regina walks into Granny’s.

Archie is the worst therapist in the world. YOU DO NOT TELL OTHER PEOPLE WHAT YOU ARE TOLD IN A THERAPY SESSION!!!

Pongo hangs out for therapy sessions.

Rumplestiltskin’s souvenir and where he gets the hair for the spell is the blindfold Regina wore when she was going to be executed.

Gold is surprisingly good with dogs.

Dreamcatchers don’t catch dreams, they can hold memories.

Looks like no one told David about Emma possibly having magic.

It’s 3:15 when Emma is waiting for Henry’s bus.

Henry is calling Emma by her name instead of mom like he did in Queen of Hearts.

Sneaky Rumplestiltskin, making sure the Evil Queen would cast the curse where she’d be able to hurt Snow and Charming (except she hasn’t, 28 years and she never harmed them once).

This was a great episode. Lana Parilla made me feel sorry for her both as the Evil Queen and as Regina. It’s awful what some mothers will do to make their children dependent on them, and Regina doesn’t even know Cora is in town! I loved seeing all the pieces to make sure the Evil Queen cast the curse fall into place. And I’m glad Archie is alive, even if it looks like he might be tortured by Hook in the future.

Please leave comments and reblog! Let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future reviews.

@searchingwardrobes @thisonesatellite @justbecauseyoubelievesomething @laschatzi @profdanglaisstuff @mariakov81​

[deahsohun]

What Is Ensemble?

How Can ‘Ensemble’ Be Defined?

‘Ensemble’ can have a variety of interpretations, dependent on the situation it’s used in. The Collins English Dictionary (2009) brings attention to the Latin origin of ‘ensemble’ to mean ‘at the same time’. However, in Ensemble Theatre Making by Bonczeck and Storck (2013;7) they write ‘in our work, an ensemble may be a cast, a class, members of a program, students, amateurs, or professionals.’ which helps me to understand that no matter what the circumstance, ‘ensemble’ is used in relation to a group of individuals who come together in order to achieve the same goal. Although it is certain that individual members of the ‘ensemble’ have independent goals that they would like to meet, it is also found that they have a common ground which causes them to work together in order to ensure it is carried through, in turn making it a success. I believe that over time the true meaning of ‘ensemble’ has been lost, particularly in the world of theatre, as I often only see it being used to describe a cast of people who support main roles, when in actual fact, it is the entirety of the cast in a play, or is even relevant to builders on a construction site. All in all, whilst ‘ensemble’ in itself is defined, the people who make the ensemble up, cannot be. An ‘ensemble’ can and will appear at any point in life, there are ensembles all around us, everyday, which is something we fail to recognise. From the ensemble working at the on campus Starbucks, to the ensemble of flatmates working together to make the recent life changing venture seem less scary, the idea of ensembles are something that we have been a part of for a long time, and will be for a long time.

What Makes A Successful ‘Ensemble’?

If I was to be asked ‘what makes a successful ensemble?’ before starting at Bath Spa, I would have answered that it is simply having the co-operation and collaboration with one another to create synergy and order. But after the few short weeks of being here, it has become apparent that whilst those things are essential to creating a successful ensemble as they create balance, above all else there must be a deeper bond and connection between those involved -something that has been brought to particular attention in the work of Bonczek and Storck, in Ensemble Theatre Making (2013). Whilst reading through Chapter 1, ‘What Is Ensemble?’ of their book, their idea of ‘we hope for lightning to strike. Yet think about it: lightning doesn't happen by happenstance.’(pg.8) resonated deeply with me, as it had me thinking about the true roots that bind an ensemble. If we are all seeking the same end goal, then surely, no matter how different we may seem at face value, there is something deeper, something more that we have in common? There has to be a way for us to develop in one like-mindedness, where whilst we retain our unique individuality, we can put any and all judgement aside in order to produce and achieve the result we all desire. Bonzek and Storck make it clear that ‘...change is possible’(pg.8;Ensemble Theatre Making) emphasising that we should ‘...research it, create a plan, take specific actions, and assess those actions as you go...we sometimes hold back from taking action because we fear killing whatever good chemistry remains’(pg.8;Ensemble Theatre Making) this fear is something that I know to be true from my own experience as part of an ensemble, and I'm sure it is something heavily felt by people who have been/are too, as we have a sense of not wanting to hurt other peoples feelings, however from this it puts into the perspective that we have a duty as an ensemble member to do whatever it takes to make a situation work, even if it may feel like you shouldn't, everyone who is a part of the ensemble has the responsibility to step up and smooth out problems with solutions -and be one to ideas of hoe to doses well. ‘Fear of killing good chemistry’(pg.8;Ensemble Theatre Making) is sometimes needed in order to breakdown and re-build the ensemble in a way that everyones desires are met and understood fully, only after this can we move on to taking action and putting into practice what we feel needs to be done in order to succeed.

Within ensembles, or any part of life where we are presented with the opportunity to speak up and give our ideas or opinions, I will happily admit to the anxiety I feel paired with the fear of judgement that comes with it. It’s daunting -no one likes being wrong, let alone being told they're wrong in front of other people who they want to impress. I know I have a need to be validated, and a desire to be accepted by my peers; but this can often be my downfall. Out of consciousness of being told that what I have to say or think will be deemed as irrelevant or stupid, I often bite my tongue and hold back because the idea of rejection is far scarier than opening up -despite knowing in myself that feedback and criticism of my own ideas will be helpful in teaching me something. An ensemble should be a place that is safe. ‘We find that protection in the form of a safe ensemble. It is a place where, for better and worse, we can be ourselves and be accepted’(pg.9;Ensemble Theatre Making) this statement encapsulates why I love acting in general, and why I want to pursue a career into drama therapy, because having a space where you can fully just be, with no limitations is rare and so should be taken advantage of. Ensuring that the ensemble is fully un-judgemental and prejudice free allows for a space where members can feel at ease and ready to share ideas and express themselves fully, which in turn develops the ensemble into a more successful one as there are no limits to what people share, making possibilities endless and ideas to be built on and expanded to reach full potential.  It is through a shared struggle, a common love, and gaining a deeper knowledge that takes any ensemble to the next level, allowing it to blossom into one that is successful -due to being fully reared by the minds of its members giving all of themselves to their craft, without any boundaries. In turn of being ready to fully express ourselves, however, it is also important to learn how to readily accept other peoples ideas fully, and welcome them with a positivity and open mindedness, so we ensure that everyone feels the same sense of ensemble as we wish to experience ourselves.

What Are My Own Experiences With Being In An Ensemble?

One key ensemble I was a part of which stands out the most, is last year when I was part of my high school’s production of Grease. Now, it isn't the fact that I was a cast member and the acting ensemble is what I remember most, but in the final weeks before we were due to perform, the set, which was a mirage of 50s/60s features like jukeboxes and poodle skirts was left un-painted after the art team refused to paint it. With two weeks to our first performance, 13 or so of us worked together to paint, sketch, outline and bring to life the backdrop of our set. Now, putting drama kids who could barely even hold a pencil the right way in charge of creating an artistic set was always going to have it’s challenges, but we made it work. Our drive to get it completed and make our already stressed director feel some sense of release was enough of a common goal to work together during our free time during the school day, and after school, in order to make it look somewhat decent. From begging for paintbrushes, to climbing scaffolding and standing on stacks of chairs, it is a time that I feel wholly represents the true nature of what makes an ensemble -because of how we handled the challenges. We played to each others strengths, listened to each others ideas and our constant communication with one another fuelled us to finish as efficiently as we could. Despite being in the midst of exams and having other life stresses, spending time in the school hall, painting vibrant colours whilst practising the Grease songs and dances was an escape from it all, and it became something we looked forward to just letting go of whatever else was bothering us -and something we all missed when the show was completed. Whilst I would say it was a largely positive experience, as we did indeed manage to put aside the dramatic bickering you’d expect from leaving 13 drama students alone with paint, we relentlessly worked together to complete what needed to be completed. The common goal was to have a finished background -we all took pride in our acting and in how our drama department at school was presented and so we wanted to do everything we could to help, but I also believe it was deeper than that. These were people who were also my fellow actors, we’d grown up and been around each other from 11 years old, we were in many ways a small family -and our ability to bond together in the face of what could have been a disaster, and take that risk was what resonates with me most. And perhaps it felt easier because we were all friends, or maybe its because we used our natural intuition that came with our actor/director nature to divide and conquer and complete our tasks on time, but either way, it is an example of a positive, hardworking, and dynamic ensemble that I always aspire to replicate the values when working in ensembles now.

Bibliography

Collins English Dictionary; 2009; HarperCollins; Glasgow.

Ensemble Theatre Making; Rose Burnett Bonczek, David Storck; 2013; Routledge, London (Page 7/Page 8/Page 9)

[aion-rsa]

The Green Knight Ending Explained

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This article contains The Green Knight spoilers.

A man who would be king lies crouched, cowering on his hands and knees. It is the day he’s feared all year and, seemingly, the hour of his death. And yet, within this moment, after he’s seen his life flash before his eyes, Dev Patel’s Gawain has never appeared taller or more free from the terror of self-doubt. The character is still not technically a knight, but as he throws away a magical green sash and asks his executioner, a Green Knight made of bark and flower, to do his worst, Gawain truly has achieved the greatness he’s striven for in King Arthur’s shadow.

This is why Ralph Ineson’s imposing emerald warrior leans down and whispers like a kindly grandfather his approval. That’ll do, Gawain, that’ll do. “Now little knight,” he adds, “off with your head.”

I’m sure that jarring and abrupt final line has left many an audience shocked and maybe even a bit confused. After all that, did the vision Gawain had of himself assuming Arthur’s throne come to naught? And did the flawed hero we’ve watched for two hours only achieve true chivalric virtue in the same minute as his death, which the Green Knight promises is about to occur off-screen? Also why did any of this happen?

There is much to unpack about David Lowery’s poignant and often surreal interpretation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but there is sound reason for why the absolute happiest ending for poor Gawain is the one that concludes with his swift decapitation.

The Ending of the Original Green Knight Poem

Perhaps the most striking thing about the ending of The Green Knight is how it both complements and changes the resolution of the 14th century epic poem upon which it’s based. Tackling a ballad that profoundly affected him when he first read it as a teenager, and even more so when he chose it to be the template for a film, Lowery is unsurprisingly close to many of the smallest details in the 800-year-old story.

For instance, the first line of dialogue spoken by a character in the film—when Alicia Vikander’s Essel says “Praise the Lord, Jesus Christ was born”—is taken from how the anonymous author describes Gawain’s first thoughts every morning he’s awakened. However, in Lowery’s The Green Knight, that awakening occurs on the actual Christmas morning and the person who speaks the words to Gawain is a prostitute whom he spent Christmas Eve with. It’s hardly an auspicious time to be talking about Christ, but then again, Essel is arguably the most virtuous character in the film due to her guileless practicality. 

Such is one example of how the film follows the plot of the poem while adding often challenging context and subtext to its medieval values. Which in the film’s climax comes when we meet Vikander again in the role of a different character: the Lady of a manor married to a jovial Lord played by Joel Edgerton. They live in high Middle Ages luxury with an unexplained older woman who is apparently blind and mute, and they ensnare Gawain into an odd game: Edgerton’s Lord will gift any animal he kills in his hunts during the day, and Gawain will share with his Lord any gift he might receive in the house. When that gift comes in the unexpected form of seduction from the Lord’s wife, Gawain is forced to reluctantly kiss his host on the lips, all while still hiding that he received an allegedly magical green girdle as a present from her.

These events all occur in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, however they occur with a different meaning here. On the page, Gawain is able to resist the Lady’s advances on three separate occasions, as opposed to instantly capitulating on-screen. And while he proudly kisses his Lord on the mouth in the poem, he still hides that the Lady gave him a magical sash which will keep him safe from the Green Knight’s axe. This becomes crucial at the end of the poem since when Gawain encounters the Green Knight again in the Green Chapel, his grassy-hued foe reveals he’s the same Lord of the manor played by Edgerton in The Green Knight!

As it turns out, the Lord was turned by magic into the indestructible Green Knight by Morgan le Fay, King Arthur’s half-sister who also via magic disguised herself as the old blind woman living in that strange manor. Further, this entire charade was never meant for Gawain; it was orchestrated in the hopes of a king’s man beheading the Green Knight, who would then not die. It’d be such a shocking sight, Morgan thought, it would scare Queen Guinevere to death.

In 14th century Arthurian lore, Morgan le Fay was not yet the chief antagonist of the tales, but she was still an ambiguous presence. Gawain’s journey into learning that even for all his virtue he was still fallible since he hid the green sash from the Lord is almost narrative happenstance.

That is how Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ended in the 14th century. But is that actually what’s occurring at the end of the 2021 movie, with the Lord and Lady in league with an unseen Morgan le Fay? Yes… and no.

The Game Being Played By Gawain’s Mother

While the ending of The Green Knight’s source material reveals the titular character is Edgerton’s Lord in disguise, that’s obviously not what Lowery’s film is about. Indeed, we see how the Green Knight is summoned by Gawain’s unnamed mother in the film, risen from the weeds of the earth as if he were the pagan deity we call “the Green Man” made flesh.

There is definitely a pagan witchiness to the woman played by Sarita Choudhury. She openly refuses to go to her kingly brother’s Christmas Day feast and instead uses Wiccan-like magic to summon a champion born from nature. We know she is in league with the Green Knight, but it is not immediately clear to what end. All that’s evident is when she hides beneath a blindfold, she is at the Camelot feast in spirit when the Green Knight intrudes.

In Arthurian lore, Gawain’s mother is named Morgause, and she is one of Arthur’s several estranged half-sisters. In fact, before the sorceress Morgan le Fay was depicted by post-19th century texts as the ultimate villain of Arthurian tales, even birthing Arthur’s would-be usurper Mordred, it was Morgause who gave birth to both Gawain and Mordred in Le Morte d’Arthur, the latter by incest after sleeping with her half-brother Arthur.

When we spoke with writer-director Lowery about The Green Knight, we asked if he intentionally blended the Morgan le Fay of the original Sir Gawain and the Green Knight tale with Gawain’s mother.

Says Lowery, “Very pointedly we did not give any of the characters, other than Gawain, Essel, and Winifred, a name. No one is named. King Arthur is just ‘the King.’ Merlin is just ‘the Wizard.’ So Morgan le Fay in our story is Gawain’s mother. And we wanted to embrace what the original poem did, which was have Morgan le Fay be the character who is behind it all, but I wanted to make her aim, her plot integral to Gawain’s journey.”

He continues, “In the original poem, Gawain sort of just accidentally intercepts this devious plot to scare Guinevere to death, and he gets in the way. But he was not meant to play a role in what Morgan le Fay was conjuring that day, that Christmas morning. So I wanted to honor her role in the story but also make it still revolve around Gawain. And the way I ultimately realized I could do that was to combine the character of Gawain’s mother with Morgan Le Fay and make them one and the same.”

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The alteration also changes why the Green Knight came to Camelot that day, as well as what the green sash really means for Gawain. In the original text, it really did not matter who attempted to behead the Knight in the Yuletide game, but in The Green Knight, Gawain taking the challenge may or may not be the entire crux of his mother’s plan.

While it is open to interpretation, I think the Green Knight was personally intended for Sean Harris’ enfeebled King Arthur, who is the only man at the Round Table eager to meet the challenge. He’d have done it too, if not for the weakness in his hands (also a change from the original story). So there’s a scenario that could’ve occurred where Arthur beheaded the Green Knight and then was doomed to spend a year getting his affairs in order before meeting the foe again next Christmas.

However, there is the other added wrinkle in the movie that the Green Knight gives Gawain an out. He explicitly says that it’s Gawain’s choice to strike him as hard as he wishes or to leave but a scratch. Arthur cautions his nephew to remember “it’s just a game,” and Guinevere is clearly heartbroken when Gawain lops the Green Knight’s head clean off. The royals knew that was the losing strategy.

I would argue, then, that is why Choudhury’s Morgan gives her son his first green sash. She intends for her son to be king, just as how modern interpretations of Morgan le Fay have her angling for Mordred to usurp Arthur. (It should also be noted The Green Knight implies Mordred exists in this film’s universe since Arthur asks Gawain to take an empty chair next to him, intended for another who’s left.)

Who Is Alicia Vikander’s Lady of the Manor?

The green sash is supposed to be Gawain’s salvation, which brings us back to Vikander and Edgerton’s Lord and Lady. By the time that Gawain reaches their home, he has lost the girdle, and much of his integrity, while on the quest. Ergo, the house’s waiting occupants are there to tempt Gawain’s virtue, as opposed to test it.

As Lowery says, Morgan le Fay has much the same function here as she does in the original story, and that includes her being the mastermind disguised as a frail old woman. Consider that the blind woman Gawain always sees in the presence of Vikander’s Lady wears the exact type of blindfold Gawain’s mother wore while summoning the Green Knight. She is there to ensure her son receives a second green girdle that will have magical properties to keep him safe.

Which brings us to the actual seduction. In the text, Vikander’s Lady is there to test Gawain’s virtue. On the screen, she is determined to shatter it, hence the curious dual casting of Vikander as both Essel, the prostitute who Gawain maybe loves, and the courtly Lady who so easily dissuades him of his concerns about coveting another man’s wife.

A surface level reading might be about the limited ability Gawain has to adhere to the Chivalric Code, in which men strive to be noble and all women are reduced to wilting flowers and possessions for their lordly masters. In this sense, all women look somewhat the same to Gawain. Indeed, such assumptions are repeatedly challenged on screen as he’s bested by multiple women, beginning with the pair of thieves who actually capture him and steal his first green sash, and now again by the woman who gives him another sash by appealing to his lustful desires.

But such a reading misses the larger themes at work, as well as the implicit magic at play in Vikander and Edgerton’s home. Their castle is more than just a refuge, and her Lady is more than just a seductress. In the scene where she climbs atop Gawain, she only breaks his (meek) protestations by asking if he believes in witchcraft and magic. Like any good man of the Middle Ages, he says of course.

Only when she mentions magic and offers a green sash like Gawain’s witchy mother did, does Gawain abandon any pretense of virtue, succumbing to the lady’s beauty and her magic. He is surrendering to a fear of death as much as lust, knowing on a primal level if he gives in to her, the magic she promises will save his life from the Green Knight’s blade.

This entire house was designed by his mother and her coven as a trap to seduce and protect Gawain via his foibles. If you pay attention early on in the film, one of the nameless weird “sisters” who help Morgan summon the Green Knight has the same hairstyle Vikander does when Gawain first arrives at that house. As Gawain’s mother has taken on the countenance of an old blind woman, another witch (and possibly Gawain’s actual sister) has taken on the appearance of the woman Gawain loves but is too foolish to wed. He refuses to take Essel as a wife because of her lowly stature, yet allows himself to be beguiled by her face when it belongs to a highborn “Lady,” despite said Lady being another man’s wife.

Gawain’s mother wants her son to have the sash as it will keep him safe, and allow him to return to Camelot as a hero and true heir to Arthur. Which is why Gawain’s final decision is so significant.

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The End of Brave Sir Gawain

All of which brings us back to the Green Chapel and Gawain’s decision to confess he is wearing a magical green girdle—and to then throw it away. Moments before this, Gawain has a vision of what his life would be if he survived the Green Knight’s axe, either by magic or cowardice. He runs away and returns home, claiming to have survived his quest with honor.

In silent montage, we see what kind of honor playing political games and giving into ambition provides him. He becomes king and marries a woman he doesn’t love. Meanwhile, the woman he does love, Essel, is abandoned after Gawain steals their son from her. In the end, he lives a life of feigned honor, hidden behind the false security and protection the green sash gives him. Unlike his uncle, he does not offer Camelot a golden age: There is only death and ignominy from such a cautious self-serving path. And in 20 years’ time or so, he still will lose his head.

All of that flashes before Gawain’s eyes at the moment of his greatest fear: the Green Knight’s axe falling. Up to this point, he’s attempted to look as majestic as a knight (or king), but throughout the film he has failed time and again to be truly virtuous. He was taken by a band of ruffians in the wood where he begged for his life; he first requested payment from the ghost of a murdered girl instead of simply helping her find peace; and then he received the green sash through a moment of monstrous infidelity and carnal surrender.

As Vikander’s Lady says, red is the color of passion, and green the color of passion the morning after. His green sash represents both life and death, bloom and decay, and it’s stained with the literal seed of his sin. To wear it might allow him to cheat death today, but it instills a lifetime of cowardice. A stain on his honor.

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Likely his mother suspected second-guessing, which is why she also took the shape of a fox to warn her son that he may face his doom if he meets the Green Knight—we know the fox is really Morgan because in the animal’s final scene it speaks with the voice of Gawain’s mother.

So in the movie’s final moments, Gawain understands all of this, and the ignoble road his nature is leading him on, and he finds the courage his mother feared: He takes off the sash and faces the Green Knight’s axe fair and square.

This is the thematic crux of the original text, too. As Lowery tells us, “He ultimately fails [in the poem], Gawain does not live up to the Chivalric Code to which he’s bound. When he kneels before the knight with the girdle on, he is approaching his state with cowardice in his heart. So I wanted to take that fallibility and present a more binary version of it and have a character who is not yet the knight of legend but who has room to grow into that.”

And yet, Lowery has also changed the meaning of that ending, including Gawain’s fate. In the poem, Gawain does not tell the Green Knight he wears the sash (just as he hid it from the Lord), because he fears death in spite of all his virtue. In the film, Gawain is a man who spends Christmas morning in a brothel and has lived his whole life without real honor. But in the moment where it most counted, he became a true knight by taking the girdle off.

It is a complete reversal of the poem’s ending, turning this into a story about living in peace with yourself, as opposed to an impossible Code thrust on you by society. In many ways, it’s like Vikander’s Lady also saying she changes the stories she reads when she sees room for improvement—although Lowery tells us that line was not intended to be self-referential about how he adapted the poem.

“I knew I would get in trouble for it,” the director laughs. “I don’t know what was going through my head when I wrote that, but Alicia just fell in love with it.” He even almost cut the line in post-production until Vikander convinced him to keep it in.

Intentional or not, the Lady’s admission is what the entire ending of the movie is about. Gawain has found grace and true nobility, improving himself and his story. Unfortunately for Gawain, true chivalric virtue is no shield, and by finding it he’s also found his last act. Thus the Green Knight’s final line. “Now little knight, off with your head.”

If you can live with yourself, you can also die in peace. That’s chivalrous.

The post The Green Knight Ending Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[red-panda-12]

The list of films watched in July has equaled June’s tally of 16 films! Though its certainly been a mixed bag of movies! Let me know if you have watched any good films recently?

Extraction ✩✩✩

A black-market mercenary who has nothing to lose is hired to rescue the kidnapped son of an imprisoned international crime lord. But in the murky underworld of weapons dealers and drug traffickers, an already deadly mission approaches the impossible.

This wasn’t a bad film. Lots of action and suspense. I partcularily liked the on screen relationship between Chris Hemsworth and young actor Rudhraksh Jaiswal who plays the boy Hemsworth is fighting to save.

Extraction

Advent Children

Advent Children ✩✩

An ex-mercenary is forced out of isolation when three mysterious men kidnap and brainwash the city’s children afflicted with the Geostigma disease.

I only really wanted to watch this again due to recently playing the PlayStation game, Final Fantasy VII Remake. It was nice to see the beloved characters fighting the bad guys (again), but there wasn’t much of a story.

Greyhound ✩✩✩

U.S. Navy Cmdr. Ernest Krause is assigned to lead an Allied convoy across the Atlantic during World War II. His convoy, however, is pursued by German U-boats. Although this is Krause’s first wartime mission, he finds himself embroiled in what would come to be known as the longest, largest and most complex naval battle in history: The Battle of the Atlantic.

If you like your World War Two films, then you will like Greyhound, with its moments of tension and threat. It is quite amazing how anything got through the North Atlantic with German U-boats on the prowl.

Greyhound

The Wrong Missy

The Wrong Missy ✩✩✩ Disaster strikes when a man invites his dream girl to an island resort — but a previous blind date shows up instead.

I laughed at this film more than I expected. A comedy with no pretensions. Lauren Lapkus was hilarious as the bat-crazy Missy!

Stuber ✩✩✩

A quick-tempered cop who’s recovering from eye surgery recruits a mild-mannered Uber driver to help him catch the heroin dealer who murdered his partner. The mismatched pair soon find themselves in for a wild day of stakeouts and shootouts as they pursue violent criminals through the seedy streets of Los Angeles.

Another comedy I enjoyed, more silly fun to switch off too.

Stuber

Amundsen

Amundsen ✩✩

Roald Amundsen was the first researcher to reach both the North and South Poles. The British explorer Robert Scott was hot on his heels on the trip to the South Pole 1910-1911. The discoverers were in a bitter competition with each other. Amundsen’s expeditions were largely organised and financed by his brother Leon. However, there was constant conflict and conflict between the two.

I wished this film had been better than it was. Amundsen sure was a man who continued to explore until his death. Inspiring story but a rather lackluster way of telling it.

National Treasure ✩✩✩

Benjamin Franklin Gates seeks a war chest hidden by the Founding Fathers during the Revolutionary War. He must find it before his competitor does and also avoid getting arrested by the FBI.

One of Nicolas Cage’s better films, full of action and adventure. Another movie to switch off to at the end of the day.

National Treasure

National Treasure 2

National Treasure 2 ✩✩✩

Ben finds that his ancestor was implicated in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, a president of the USA. Through the help of a clue in a diary, he ventures out to clear the name of his ancestor.

Perhaps not as good as the first movie in the franchise, but an enjoyable romp as Cage follows a trail to the legendary City of Gold.

A Street Cat Named Bob ✩✩✩

A stray ginger cat changes the life of James Bowen (Luke Treadaway), a homeless London street musician and recovering drug addict.

Knowing that poor Bob had recently passed away, I thought that we’d give the film based on his origin a watch. I really enjoyed the portrayal of struggling man meets cat whose presence actually helps save his life. A heart-warming tale of redemption and how animals can offer solace in the darkest of times.

A Street Cat Named Bob

Fight Club

Fight Club ✩✩✩

Discontented with his capitalistic lifestyle, a white-collared insomniac forms an underground fight club with Tyler, a careless soap salesman. The project soon spirals down into something sinister.

I’d seen many references to Fight Club in popular culture but never actually watched it. Rather bizarre in parts, I think it was a well made foray into the instability of mental health.

Hotel Mumbai✩✩✩✩

A hotel staff risks everything to keep its patrons safe during a terror attack, especially a British heiress, her husband and her infant.

I really enjoyed this film! It was full of edge of the seat tension and being based on true events made it all that more poignant.

Hotel Mumbai

Old Dogs

Old Dogs ✩✩

Two best friends and business partners on the brink of finalising a huge deal are forced to take care of seven-year-old twins and get into a series of misadventures.

Not the best film of either Robin Williams or John Travolta. It tries too hard to be funny when its not!

Faster ✩✩

After serving a ten-year sentence, Driver sets out to avenge his brother’s murder while being pursued by a police officer and an assassin.

A rather forgettable film by Dwayne Johnson. That memorable neither David nor I could remember the plot.

Faster

Night at the Museum

Night at the museum ✩✩✩

Larry, a night security guard at the Museum of Natural History, gets some help from the exhibits who come alive at night to foil a robbery attempt of a magic tablet and proves that he is not a loser.

A staple family feel-good movie, always good no matter how many times you watch it.

Vacation ✩✩✩

Rusty Griswold plans a cross-country road trip with his wife and two sons in a bid to revive the lost ties between them. However, their trip turns into a series of mishaps for the family.

A sequel to the National Lampoon films, and if you like the humour of the first films then you’ll enjoy Vacation. David really enjoyed this film, more so than I did.

Vacation

Corporate Animals

Corporate Animals ✩

An egotistical megalomaniac CEO leads her staff on a corporate team-building trip that involves a weekend of caving in New Mexico. When they become trapped underground after a cave-in, the group must pull together to survive.

Another comedy that tries too hard to be funny and ends up being the antithesis. Sadly a waste of an hour and a half.

Have you seen any films recently that you have enjoyed or disliked? Any recommendations?

Thanks for reading!

Christine x

A Year in Film: July 2020 The list of films watched in July has equaled June's tally of 16 films! Though its certainly been a mixed bag of movies!

[gokinjeespot]

off the rack #1279

Sunday, September 15, 2019

 I'm posting this a day early because I've decided to go fishing tomorrow morning, possibly for the last time this season. It's been very windy this weekend which has kept me off the water. The winds tomorrow morning are supposed to be light so I will get on the lake and try my luck. My expectations are low as fall temperatures have settled in and my lake seems to be fished out. I've seen many boats in previous years and I am sure not everyone was following the rules of size and limits. I noticed a lot less boats out this year most likely because people aren't catching anything and not returning. I am happy if I land one fish and just enjoy my time doing something I love to do. I'll be busy doing the Capital Comic Book Convention next weekend, September 22. Dear friends from Calgary are visiting the weekend after that (September 29) and the weekend after that (October 5) we're doing a road trip to Freeport, Maine. I hope I don't get detained at the border.

 Guardians of the Galaxy The Prodigal Sun #1 - Peter David (writer) Francesco Manna (art) Espen Grundetjern (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). Prince Prah'd'gul returns home to avenge the death of his father. He has an extreme reaction to his brother's betrayal and the ending made me chuckle. Peter David likes a good pun so the Sun in the title is the joke in this issue, not the Guardians of the Galaxy. Prince Prah'd'gul is a very powerful new character and it will be interesting to see where he pops up next.

 Ironheart #10 - Eve L. Ewing (writer) Luciano Vecchio (art) Geoffo (layouts) Matt Milla (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). Riri and Shuri must stop a villain from gaining unlimited power but they are up against some group that includes a long lost relative of Riri's. This mystery is enough to keep me reading.

 Moon Knight Annual #1 - Cullen Bunn (writer) Ibrahim Moustafa & Matt Horak (art) Mike Spicer (colours) VC's Joe Sabino (letters). This is an "Acts of Evil" one-shot. The basic concept of "Acts of Evil" is a super hero versus a super villain story. Here we have Moon Knight trying to keep Kang the Conqueror from getting three Egyptian artefacts that will give the bad guy complete control over time and remake reality in his own image. I should have stopped reading as soon as I saw who the villain was. Marc Spector jumps around in time and gets help from other Moon Knights to thwart Kang. Reality is saved once again. The end. These kinds of stories don't thrill me.

 Detective Comics #1011 - Peter J. Tomasi (writer) Christian Duce (art) Luis Guerrero (colours) Rob Leigh (letters). This issue along with #1010 was a nice two-parter with Batman versus Deadshot but it wasn't very interesting. I liked the two old World War II castaways but I didn't like this version of Deadshot. I like it better when Deadshot is a semi-good guy.

 Punisher Kill Krew #2 - Gerry Duggan (writer) Juan Ferreyra (art) VC's Cory Petit (letters). This book is just too ridiculously fun. Frank finds an unexpected ally while hunting down the frost giant that killed a family during the War of the Realms. It's the last person that I would have expected to be in this story. The last page has another surprise appearance that makes me want to read the next issue for sure.

 Sabrina the teenage witch #5 - Kelly Thompson (writer) Veronica Fish & Andy Fish (art) Jack Morelli (letters). The first story arc ends with Sabrina saving the day. Yay. The next story doesn't hit the racks until 2020 and it should be good with Sabrina's secret identity in jeopardy.

 Black Cat #4 - Jed MacKay (writer) Travel Foreman (art) Brian Reber (colours) Ferran Delgado (letters). The Fox has enlisted the help of Felicia and her henchmen for his final heist before he retires. That's why the robbery at Doctor Strange's house last time and this issue it's the headquarters of the Fantastic Four. Johnny is the dupe but plans go awry and a super villain pops up to make matters worse on the last page. We haven't seen this blowhard in a while.

 Catwoman #15 - Ram V (writer) Mirka Andolfo (art) Arif Prianto (colours) Saida Temofonte (letters). I didn't mind Selina's move to Villa Hermosa after the non-nuptials but the change in writer and artist lowered my enjoyment of this title. I will be putting the cat out after this issue.

 Miles Morales: Spider-Man #10 - Saladin Ahmed (writer) Javier Garron (art) David Curiel (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). If you noticed the higher $4.99 US cover price and the higher page count it's because this issue is Legacy #250. The main story features villains from Miles's original Ultimate Universe and a shocking final page that brought back vague memories for me of what happened back in that universe. The bonus story is the origin of Starling by Saladin Ahmed (writer) Annie Wu (art) Rachelle Rosenberg (colours) & VC's Cory Petit (letters). She's the granddaughter of the Vulture which explains the suit she wears so she can fly. I like that she's a good guy.

 Young Justice #8 - Brian Michael Bendis (writer) John Timms (art) Gabriel Eltaeb (colours) Wes Abbott (letters). Wes Abbott (letters). The team wind up in Earth-3, home of the Crime Syndicate of Amerika. This earth's version of Young Justice is just as nasty as their missing elders and we go from fight to fight as Wonder Girl, Superboy, Red Robin and Impulse battle their evil counterparts. It's all narrated by a native good guy who wants to rid their world of the evil doers. It was a nifty surprise to find out who that was. I can't wait for them to get out of this universe because constant fight scenes get boring.

 Silver Surfer Black #4 - Donny Cates (writer) Tradd Moore (art) Dave Stewart (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). Reading this penultimate issue was a mind blowing experience. Part of this is Galactus's origin story and wow, was it ever cool. Tradd Moore really captures the cosmic scale of this story. The panels showing the Surfer towing Galactus's incubator were awesome.

 Batman Universe #3 - Brian Michael Bendis (writer) Nick Derington (art) Dave Stewart (colours) Carlos M. Mangual (letters). Batman's time on Thanagar doesn't last long and he's back on Earth healing up at the Hall of Justice. Now we know that Vandal Savage has his hands on a mysterious power source and he's trying to use it to conquer the world. This issue has Batman teaming up with Green Lantern on Dinosaur Island. It's nice seeing a lighter side of Batman in this adventure.

 King Thor #1 - Jason Aaron (writer) Esad Ribic (art) Ive Svorcina (colours) VC's Joe Sabino (letters). I can't believe I've been reading Jason Aaron's Thor stories for seven years and loving every issue. This final story takes place in the far flung future as the universe is dying and King Thor and his granddaughters are trying to save it from Loki the All-Butcher. Between this and Silver Surfer Black the universe is in dire straits all due to the god Knull. This book looks so pretty. When the big bad shows up on the last page I just knew they couldn't keep him dead.

 Powers of X #4 - Jonathan Hickman (writer) R.B. Silva (art) Marte Gracia (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). Each issue of this book and House of X builds on the new Mutant Foundation. Jonathan Hickman has made me care about the X-Men again. The beautiful art certainly helps too. I like when minor characters come to the fore. Mister Sinister and Doug Ramsey/Cypher are featured this issue.

 Batman #78 - Tom King (writer) Clay Mann (art) Tomeu Morey (colours) Clayton Cowles (letters). I loved this issue of True Romance. It's Selina and Bruce, wearing a Magnum P.I. disguise, getting all hot and bothered on a tropical isle. Batman continues to get stronger in preparation for his return to Gotham City and a confrontation with Bane. This single issue illustrates why I've enjoyed this title so much.

 Age of Conan Valeria #2 - Meredith Finch (writer) Aneke (art) Andy Troy (colours) VC's Travis Lanham (letters). I'm trying to decide if I want to continue reading this story of Valeria hunting for her brother's killer now that I know who it is. The art isn't bad but it sure doesn't do much for me.

 Gwenpool Strikes Back #2 - Leah Williams (writer) David Baldeon (art) Jesus Aburtov (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). As if Gwenpool wasn't hilarious on her own, this issue ups the frantic antics quotient by teaming her with Deadpool. Their adventure inside 4 Yancy Street made me laugh a few times. I need this kind of humour now and then.

 Loki #3 - Daniel Kibblesmith (writer) Oscar Bazaldua (art) David Curiel (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). I liked the little tour inside the House of Ideas with the Children of Eternity, Now and Then. I think they're a great new concept. This is a nice interlude issue before we get back to Loki's battle with Nightmare.

 Daredevil #11 - Chip Zdarsky (writer) Marco Checchetto (art) Nolan Woodard (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). I wish there wasn't so much @#%*!-ing in this book. My brain tries to substitute the appropriate swear word which disrupts the reading process. I eventually smoothed things out by going bleep in my head whenever those annoying symbols appeared. Matt still hasn't donned the red costume yet and he even turned down help from an ex-girlfriend. Meanwhile, one of Daredevil's followers is nabbed by the cops while stopping a guy from abusing his girlfriend. I'm really happy Marco Checchetto is on this book. His Kingpin and Owl made an impact on me.

 Invisible Woman #3 - Mark Waid (writer) Mattia De Iulis (art) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). If you passed on reading this solo adventure of Suzie's you're missing out on a great spy story and some gorgeous art, especially this issue. Sue looks hot in Adam Hughes's cover but she's even hotter inside going under cover to a posh party. This story is surprising me all to heck.

 The Amazing Spider-Man #29 - Nick Spencer (writer) Francesco Manna (art) Carlos Lopez (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). Here's another enduring love story. Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson have known each other for a very long time. MJ knows Peter's secret and she's cool with his super heroing. I'm glad they're a couple again. There's more action in this than Batman #78 with Spider-Man trying to rescue a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent from the bad guy with the outcome setting up more problems for the web-slinger.

 Event Leviathan #4 - Brian Michael Bendis (writer) Alex Maleev (art) Josh Reed (letters). The identity of Leviathan is still a mystery and it's the reason I'm reading this story. I also think that it's going to have a significant affect on the DCU after it's done. Brian and Alex have collaborated for a long time and I have enjoyed all of their projects. It's unfortunate that more fans don't appreciate Alex's art. This book should be selling a lot better than it is.

[bountyofbeads]

State Dept. employees ordered back to work as Trump nixes Pelosi trip and Davos delegation, citing shutdown

https://wapo.st/2FzKnMR

State Dept. employees ordered back to work as Trump nixes Pelosi trip and Davos delegation, citing shutdown

By Damian Paletta and Josh Dawsey |Published January 17 at 9:57 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted January 17, 2019 |

The State Department ordered its employees to return to work next week, saying it has found money to cover a half-month in salary, as the Trump administration continued to grapple with a federal shutdown that shows no sign of ending.

The unexpected yet temporary move came on a day when the White House and congressional Democrats halted even the pretense of negotiations. The political acrimony between President Trump and Democratic leaders reached new levels, worrying members of both parties that the chance of a near-term resolution has moved far out of reach.

Trump on Thursday sent Pelosi a letter informing her he was canceling her imminent flight to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan. This came one day after Pelosi suggested that Trump postpone his State of the Union address or present it in written form.

In his letter to Pelosi announcing her canceled trip, Trump wrote that “it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the Strong Border Security movement to end the Shutdown.”

Facing his own questions about plans to send a delegation of top officials to Davos, Switzerland, next week for the World Economic Forum, Trump late Thursday announced he would scrap the trip “[o]ut of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay.” Trump himself dropped out of the conference earlier this month but had planned to send top officials, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The cancellations came as White House officials, federal employees, government agencies and thousands of businesses are struggling to adjust to a new dynamic: a politically paralyzed capital that lacks funding for some of its core operations. The flurry of polls that show Americans largely blame the White House for the shutdown has rattled Trump, people close to him said, leading him to closely monitor the fallout.

Senior White House officials receive frequent updates on how many Transportation Security Administration staffers are calling in sick to work, aware that major delays at airports could prompt a huge backlash.

To try to contain other fallout, thousands of federal workers are being rushed back to work, almost always without pay, to prevent the shutdown from having a cascading effect on the economy and the United States’ standing in the world.

But it’s unclear how long this piecemeal approach will work.

Sen. Robert Menendez (N.J.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, questioned the legal justification the State Department was using to rapidly reinstate its workforce four weeks after the agency effectively ran out of money.

“As we await further clarity on this new funding scheme, I have serious questions about its impact on our embassy security, our efforts to combat terrorism and other vital programs,” he said.

The political standoff is leading to turmoil throughout the federal government, in thousands of households and in pockets of the economy, prompting frantic calls from families and business groups looking for short-term assistance.

The TSA acknowledged Thursday that the lengthy shutdown had affected its employees’ ability to come to work, with many calling in sick. Federal employees are generally barred from going on strike, even if they aren’t being paid, which has caused many to raid their retirement accounts, accept free food, or sell possessions online as they look for ways to pay bills.

“Many employees are reporting that they are not able to report to work due to financial limitations,” the TSA said.

And some agencies have had to deal with small-scale rebellions among the employees they are requiring to continue showing up for work. These employees have recently refused to put any work-related travel expenses on their personal credit cards, unsure when they will be repaid. Other agencies are ordering employees to return to work, without pay, to minimize the shutdown’s impact on a variety of industries, including agriculture, ranching, logging, banking and fishing.

The White House and federal agencies have received a blizzard of requests for help from lawmakers and industry groups, and Trump has remarked that he thinks his senior staff and Cabinet members are doing a good job blunting the impact.

“People are very impressed with how well government is working with the circumstances that we’re under,” he said to surrogates in a call Tuesday afternoon. “We’re working very hard to make sure that happens.”

Many federal employees were sent home without pay once the shutdown began, because Congress did not authorize the payment of their salaries. There are rules, however, that allow agencies to retain some staff, without pay, during a shutdown. Those workers are traditionally seen as ones essential to protecting public safety or government property, but the Trump administration also has activated workers it views to be essential to carrying out core agency operations. The White House Office of Management and Budget has some legal flexibility to determine who is essential and who must stay home, though some have argued that the agency is going too far.

“There is no credible justification” for some of these decisions, said Charles Tiefer, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and expert on government contracting. He said decisions to restart agency operations that had been closed to help farmers and energy-sector workers, for example, ran contrary to past government practice. “These are instances of the government working with some part of the private sector that is favored.”

White House officials, though, have argued that they are simply trying to minimize the impact of the shutdown on as many people as possible. They have reinstated Internal Revenue Service employees to help process millions of tax returns next month, and they have found a way to pay food-stamp benefits in the coming days as well.

“We are operating under duress in terms of trying to keep this government running,” a senior administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the operations.

Trump has not gotten involved in the minutiae of agency decisions but has told Russell Vought, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, and others to do whatever they can to bring employees back to work so agency operations can continue, if legally possible.

Still, the moves by federal agencies have been uneven.

The Small Business Administration, a key liaison to thousands of U.S. companies, has stopped originating new loans, and many consumer protection entities have halted inspections.

And some agencies are resuming certain operations while keeping others closed.

At the Interior Department, bureaus have modified their contingency plans to sustain current and future mining, drilling and grazing operations on public land.

On Friday, the Bureau of Land Management changed its plan to allow for 19 percent of its 9,260-person workforce to continue on the job during the shutdown.

According to BLM officials, employees who are back on the job are working on activities including law enforcement, grazing activities and preparing for March lease sales that will take place in several Western states.

Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, for its part, has also brought back employees to avert any delays in its March auction for offshore oil and gas drilling.

Randall Luthi, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, praised the decision.

“The offshore energy industry generates billions of dollars for the U.S. and state treasuries, provides thousands of well-paying jobs in the U.S. and bolsters our national energy security,” he said in a statement.

But some Democrats and environmental groups attacked the decision as political and dangerous.

On Wednesday, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) led a group of House Democrats in calling the assistance to the oil and gas industry “an outrageous step,” with a “farcical” justification in a letter to acting Interior secretary David Bernhardt.

“One of the most striking features” of the shutdown, the lawmakers wrote, “is the way the administration has bent over backwards to ensure that the pain of the shutdown falls only on ordinary Americans and the environment, and not on the oil and gas industry.”

On Wednesday, the Agriculture Department announced it would reopen Farm Service Agency offices in the coming days to help farmers process loans and prepare their tax returns. These offices had been closed since the shutdown began, but top agency officials were under pressure from farmers to reopen. Other parts of the agency remained shuttered, however.

In the past, agencies have had to deal with short-term shutdowns that lasted one week or two, but never anything of this magnitude. One reason they are looking to rework their contingency plans is that Trump has suggested this could continue for months or years.

Trump last month said he would not sign any bill funding government operations if it lacked $5.7 billion for the creation of walls and barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border. Democrats have rejected this demand, calling it ineffective and immoral.

During the 2016 campaign, Trump promised Mexico would pay for the wall, but since his inauguration he has insisted the project be financed with U.S. taxpayer money. Because Democrats control the House, Trump can’t pass a spending bill without their support. Last week he suggested he could get around their opposition by declaring a national emergency, but he has backed away from that threat in recent days.

Lisa Rein, Juliet Eilperin, Carol Morello, Michael Laris and Jeff Stein contributed to this repor

[chicagopdlover]

PETER NOONE: MY FAVORITE TEACHER?

PETER NOONE: MY FAVORITE TEACHER?

It’s not possible to name every person, who taught me about life. The prime focus is Peter Noone , as teacher . I view Peter Noone from a distance. The topic: How I apply his career to my writing life. I set out as a fan, nothing more. What I discovered, is a business model for a writer . This may evolve into multiple posts. We will see. PETER NOONE? Why Peter Noone ? How does a singer / entertainer reveal himself as, a business model for a writer ? I had no clue at first. I grew up a fan of Herman’s Hermits . Peter Noone is the original Herman of Herman’s Hermits . In 2005 , I discovered his website , his chatroom , and his Forums . I got to know the website well. By entering the Peter Noone Chatroom , I got to know his fans, known as Noonatics . Peter Noone popped into his chatroom , almost daily. This was loads of fun—and FREE! You could say, I ate it up. I was hooked! LESSON: Make yourself available to fans! TIME PASSES Time changes all things. Facebook , Twitter , Instagram , aging, and health means, 2018 is not 2005 . Most Noonatics moved to Facebook . Many are on Instagram . No idea the number on Twitter . Peter Noone moved with them. LESSON: A star must be where the people are to be seen. This is not hard to understand. Forums receive posts from time to time. The website remains reasonably popular. You can find the concert schedule and purchase products through the website . However, the chatroom is down to between 5 and 10 fans, who are regulars. Peter Noone comes to his own chatroom , probably less than 5 times a year, now. Plus, he does not stay long. AN EDUCATION What I relate is my on-going education , for the past 13 years. This is based on the distant observations , of the career, of Peter Noone . I apply his career to my writing career. Let us begin with my joining the Fan Club in 2006 and meeting Peter Noone , in a post-concert autograph line. This is over a year after getting to know, Noonatics and Peter Noone , in his chatroom . MEETING MY TEACHER Meeting Peter Noone in November 2006 was nice, but short. I have no complaints. LESSON: As my teacher, I saw Peter Noone engage each person, as an individual . His sales people— volunteer fans —sold merchandise, as people passed through the autograph line. The line moved swiftly. Despite this, Peter Noone engaged in long conversations with some, short conversations with others. The time spent with each person was spontaneous. I saw no sign, fan club members, got more time with him, than non-members—although I’m sure this happens, if and when time permits. I enjoy observing. What I observed was a polished, well-run, operation. Our meeting and all that surrounded it, stayed with me for days. You could say years. There’s been no doubt in my mind, Peter Noone is a teacher, worthy of study. A mentor , if you prefer that word. He had a concert the following night, his birthday! HEALTH IN WRITING I write a lot about poor Health . In all my years of following Peter Noone , I’ve never seen a concert cancelled, for health reasons . Once a concert was canceled due to a blizzard. He arrived to pick up his cancellation fee the day of the concert. At least, this is what I’ve heard. Talk about dedication and determination! The point? As a writer , you must meet deadlines , arrive on time for book tours and autographing books , and hope you’re blessed with fine health . If not, you MUST compensate for this. This applies to interviews , as well. I may take up Health , in a future post. LESSON: My writing life has a significant obstacle that is difficult to overcome. I must innovate ! Authors do succeed, despite poor Health . Yet, I now know, thanks to Peter Noone , being born with good health , is one key to writing success (or other forms of entertainment success). For me, Health is an obstacle . Health is a serious strike against my writing life . Giving up is not an option, if I plan to be published. MARKETING: THE PEOPLE PERSON Peter Noone taught me an important Marketing and Sales message, which I’ve gone on to observe, among accomplished writers I know. It’s best to own or develop , a People Personality . If you love to meet new people, you are a huge step ahead, of many very good writers. If you listen well , this helps too. If you love to talk about your book , chances are, you’re on your way to making sales . Sales are not always immediate. Talk seeds the mind of the listener . Not all seeds bare fruit. You must sow to reap. Recognizing that Peter Noone has over 50 years of experience in Sales and Marketing, here are a few ways, he does this. Interviews —radio, newspaper, TV, podcasts, and blogs. For a time Peter Noone had his own fan club newsletter. On Saturdays , Peter Noone is on SiriusXM radio, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. (Eastern Time). This is marketing yourself! Peter Noone appeared on American Idol as a coach, had a stint on a Soap Opera , and has played one-off roles, on television programs. All this is Marketing , leads to music Sales or Sold Out concerts. For Peter Noone , concerts, not new recordings, is how he earns an income today. Thus, book sales are like a concert. (PARDON MY RANT) While on this topic, allow me to be a writers’ critic . I write a music blog and this blog. It is easier to get a famous music entertainer to do an e-mail interview , than get an unknown writer , to do an e-mail interview . DO INTERVIEWS WRITERS! I’m not asking you to stop writing . If music people realize an interview is free marketing , why shouldn’t writers recognize this too? Nor am I saying music entertainers don’t say, no. They do. Writers , entertainers have taught me, if your book isn’t selling , not doing interviews, may be one reason why. I’m an introvert. This is a hard lesson I must learn too. ( Love people. Love interviewers and interviews!) WORKING FOR THE MAN What follows is not meant as bragging. This LESSON , took a year or more to learn. Out of nowhere, in May 2010 Peter Noone entered his chatroom . He volunteered me to do concert site research for him. Then he left the chatroom . It really was that quick. It was like being volunteered in the military . There’s no refusing. So, I began a duty, I’ve never perfected. A year or so later, my ego deflated , when I realized, Peter Noone rarely uses, the tidbits I find for him. Was like watching a balloon swirl about, as I deflated . Quite funny! (Note: He’s brilliant at finding his own tidbits!) I’m finding back-up material , in case it’s needed. Suddenly, I felt very unimportant. Here is why I still do the research . (By the way, Peter Noone knows I enjoy doing personal research — he knows his fans!) LESSON: Know your readers, if possible! WHY DO THE RESEARCH ? Since forced into retirement by health issues, research became my job. One with deadlines —like my old job. Good for my self-worth. Second, the research serves as a treasure trove of material, for fiction and blog writing. Third, story ideas can and do develop, from the research . Fourth, I realized, in working for the man , I’m training myself in writing. This, my friend, is a real eye-opener! I’m sure I’ve forgotten other important assets I’ve gained from this research . In my opinion, this simple assignment , turned into one of the best writing lessons , I’ve experienced. So, rather than brag, an ignorance gap in my writing, has been filled by the experience, of volunteer(ed) research . LESSON: Be open to experiences that seem to offer no reward. Where I was blind, I now see. CHANGE: A MUST YOU CAN’T AVOID Change is the hardest thing to write about. I’ve never enjoyed change , when I am comfortable with things, as they are. Whether it’s the Time Passes section above or constant changes I experienced with my last employer, I’ve learned a hard REALITY LESSON . It is best to embrace change . Doesn’t mean you won’t feel sadness and disappointment . You MUST move on. I should write a post on this topic. Maybe I will. Change can’t be avoided. Without change , this blog would not exist. I’ve watched Peter Noone change . Writers must change . Greater minds than I, are worth consulting about change . I’ve had to learn the hard way to embrace change . On my last job, I got pretty good at this. I hope I’m not reverting to old ways today. A writer must be in tune with change . This informs your writing. Change is not a matter of age. You can let age hinder you, but age does not prevent your ability to change . Let me leave off here. This is a lesson I’m still learning. Some people are naturally open to change and prefer change . No doubt, human personality and genes, play a role, in how we face change . Know as a writer, change is a must you can’t avoid. UNTIL NEXT TIME Peter Noone is my favorite teacher . He’s offered me Golden Opportunities in learning. I never expected Peter Noone to teach me anything. Especially teach me about writing . If I’m ever published as a short story writer, poet, or in book form, Peter Noone played a teaching role, in getting me there. While I live in Florida , Peter Noone lives in California . We are 3,000 miles apart, give or take a few miles. Yet, Peter Noone has taught me much. It’s Distance Learning , but an education . You learn by observing . I learned a lot about writing by observing Peter Noone . By the way, Peter Noone is a pretty good writer . I hope Peter Noone does not mind my sharing, our long distance connection , with you. When you can’t find a mentor , be open to those, who may be a good mentor to you— even at a distance . Thank you, Peter Noone. NOTE: Look for future posts on the above topics. This has not been easy to write.

from Christian David Biz https://ift.tt/2L01maf via Article Source

[newssplashy]

It’s the culmination of a 25-year effort to grapple with the reality of slavery in the home of one of liberty’s most eloquent champions.

The life it represents was anything but. The newly opened space at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s palatial mountaintop plantation, is presented as the living quarters of Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman who bore the founding father’s children.

But it is more than an exhibit.

It’s the culmination of a 25-year effort to grapple with the reality of slavery in the home of one of liberty’s most eloquent champions. The Sally Hemings room opens to the public Saturday, alongside a room dedicated to the oral histories of the descendants of slaves at Monticello, and the earliest kitchen at the house, where Hemings’ brother cooked.

The public opening deals a final blow to two centuries of ignoring, playing down or covering up what amounted to an open secret during Jefferson’s life: his relationship with a slave that spanned nearly four decades, from his time abroad in Paris to his death.

To make the exhibit possible, curators had to wrestle with a host of thorny questions. How to accurately portray a woman for whom no photograph exists? (The solution: casting a shadow on a wall.) How to handle the skepticism of those who remain unpersuaded by the mounting evidence that Jefferson was indeed the father of Hemings’ children? (The solution: tell the story entirely in quotes from her son Madison.)

And, thorniest of all, in an era of Black Lives Matter and #MeToo: How to describe the decadeslong sexual relationship between Jefferson and Hemings? Should it be described as rape?

“We really can’t know what the dynamic was,” said Leslie Greene Bowman, president of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. “Was it rape? Was there affection? We felt we had to present a range of views, including the most painful one.”

After a DNA test in 1998, the nonprofit foundation, which owns Monticello, determined that there was a “high probability” that Jefferson fathered at least one of Hemings’ children, and that he likely fathered them all. The new exhibit asserts Jefferson’s paternity as a fact.

The “Life of Sally Hemings” exhibit is perhaps the most striking example of the sea change that has taken place at Monticello, as the foundation has increasingly focused on highlighting the stories of Monticello’s slaves. The foundation has embarked on a multiyear, $35 million project aimed at restoring Monticello to the way it looked when Jefferson was alive. It rebuilt a slave cabin and workshops where slaves labored, and has hosted reunions there for the descendants of the enslaved population, including sleepovers. It removed a public bathroom installed in 1940s atop slave quarters.

And it is phasing out the popular “house tour” of the mansion, which made only minimal mention of slavery alongside Jefferson’s accomplishments, radically changing what is experienced by the more than 400,000 tourists who visit Monticello annually.

Thanks to a short description given by one of Jefferson’s grandsons, historians believe that Hemings lived in the slave quarters in the South Wing. But they aren’t sure which room. Curators decided to tell Hemings’ story in one of the rooms. Instead of making it a period room with objects that she might have possessed, they left it empty, projecting the words of her son Madison on the wall to tell her story.

The 1995 movie “Jefferson in Paris” imagined that Hemings and Jefferson loved each other. But no one knows how they really felt. Their sexual relationship is believed to have started in France, where slavery was outlawed. Hemings wanted to remain in Paris, where she could have been granted freedom, but she eventually returned to Virginia with Jefferson after he offered her extraordinary privileges and freedom for any children she might have, according to an account by Madison Hemings. Her children, who were all fair-skinned and named after Jefferson’s friends, were freed when they reached adulthood.

No portrait or photograph exists of Hemings. Even her skin tone remains a mystery, and a source of controversy. Cartoons in the 18th century, which aimed to derail Jefferson’s political career, portrayed her as dark-skinned. But her father was a white plantation owner and her mother, an enslaved woman, was of mixed race. One account described Hemings as “mighty near white.” Curators at Monticello opted not to recreate a physical image of her. Instead, they will project a woman’s shadow on a wall.

At a time when sexual abuses by powerful men have dominated the news, curators struggled for months over how to describe the relationship between Hemings and Jefferson — and in particular whether to use the word “rape” in the exhibit. The foundation held conference calls and meetings with historians, board members and descendants to discuss the question.

“There are a lot of people who believe rape is too polarizing a word,” said Niya Bates, a public historian at Monticello. “But it was a conversation that we knew we could not avoid. It’s a conversation the public is already having.”

In the end, historians opted to use the word “rape” with a question mark, knowing that some would criticize them for including the word, while others would have criticized them for leaving it out.

The question is asked on a plaque on the wall outside the Hemings exhibit titled “Sex, Power and Ownership.” It spells out the power dynamic between the two: Under Virginia law, Hemings was Jefferson’s property.

Curators acknowledged that the question could be difficult for some visitors to digest, especially schoolchildren.

“We’re still having a little heartburn” about the placement of the plaque, Bates said.

Lucia “Cinder” Stanton, a retired historian who spent 25 years collecting oral history from the descendants of slaves at Monticello, said it remains to be seen how the public will react at a time when political views have become so extreme.

“The words ‘rape’ and ‘rapist,’ what it conjures up is not a nuanced situation,” she said. “There were other relationships like theirs which were clearly love matches.”

Some couples moved to Ohio, where slavery was outlawed, she said, adding: “Jefferson wasn’t that. But he wasn’t violently accosting Sally Hemings every day for 30 years.”

At reunions of the descendants of Monticello’s slaves, the question of whether Jefferson is guilty of rape has sparked heated arguments.

“I really don’t think slaves had a choice,” said Rosemary Medley Ghoston, a retired hairdresser in Ohio who discovered in the 1980s, through genealogical research, that she was a descendant of Madison Hemings. “Maybe if it was not rape, it was a duty that she had to fulfill.”

But her distant cousin, Julius “Calvin” Jefferson, whom she met at a descendants’ event, feels differently.

“I think it was a love story,” he said, noting that Hemings was the half sister of Jefferson’s late wife, Martha, whose death had devastated him. “Did she look like Martha? I think she did.”

The exhibit has divided the white descendants of Jefferson’s acknowledged family, and stoked outrage among a small but determined group of Jefferson enthusiasts who insist that he didn’t father Hemings’ children.

“The charge is an extremely serious charge against him,” said Mary Kelley, a sculptor from Chevy Chase, Maryland, who took a tour of Monticello in 2013 and was shocked by what she considered to be the guide’s negative tone about a man she has always idolized.

Afterward, she joined the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, a group that was formed to dispute the growing historical consensus that Jefferson fathered Hemings’ children.

Now Kelley hunts down clues about who else could have fathered Hemings’ children and writes articles criticizing the plans for the Sally Hemings exhibit. She even created an artistically rendered drawing of the DNA used in the 1998 paternity test, and plans to attend a coming conference in Charlottesville, where heritage society members will share papers they have written.

“Some nights I just curl up in the semidark and just read his letters,” she says of Jefferson. “He just doesn’t seem to be a person who would do this.”

John H. Works Jr., a descendant of Jefferson’s who is among the founding members of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, accuses the nonprofit organization that runs Monticello of bowing to political correctness, and insists that the entire premise of the exhibit is flawed.

But his brother, David Works, who has embraced the descendants of slaves at Monticello as “cousins,” attended a special viewing Friday to celebrate.

“They are actually showing it as it was,” he said.

Annette Gordon-Reed, a history professor at Harvard University whose book, “Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy,” helped bolster Monticello’s transformation, said that it would take time for people to accept the changes.

“Some people come here and say, ‘I didn’t come here, to a slave plantation, to hear about slavery,'” she said. “There’s nothing to do but keep pushing back.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

FARAH STOCKMAN and GABRIELLA DEMCZUK © 2018 The New York Times

via NewsSplashy - Latest Nigerian News Online,World Newspaper

[politicalfilth-blog]

Noam Chomsky: ‘Most Of The World Is Just Collapsing in Laughter’ At Russian Intervention Hysteria

We Are Change

“Most of the World is Just Collapsing in Laughter” on Claims that Russia Intervened in the U.S. Election.

This interview took place at the University of Arizona, before a public audience, on February 2, 2017. I thank Marvin Waterstone for arranging the event, and Professor Chomsky, who approved this transcript for publication. The interview is presented in full, with only very slight editing for style. This interview originally appeared in the journal Class, Race, and Corporate Power. – D. Gibbs

Interview transcript via Digital Commons.

David Gibbs: The main issue on everyone’s minds is the inauguration of Donald Trump as president. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has emphasized the extreme danger that Trump poses, due to the augmented risk of nuclear war and uncontrolled climate change. After inauguration, the Bulletin’s metaphoric clock has been repositioned at two and a half minutes to midnight, with “midnight” signifying catastrophe. Do you agree with the Bulletin regarding the alleged dangers posed by the Trump presidency?

Noam Chomsky: One of the dangers is unquestionable. Of the two existential threats – the threats to the termination of the species basically and most other species – one of them, climate change, on that I think there’s no basis for discussion. Trump has been very inconsistent on many things; on Twitter he’s been all over the place, but some of it is very consistent. That is: Do nothing about climate change except make it worse. And he’s not just speaking for himself, but for the whole Republican Party, the whole leadership. It’s already had impact, it will have worse impact. We’ll talk about this next week, but if there are ways out of this, it’s going to be not easy.

With regard to nuclear weapons, it’s kind of hard to say. He’s said lots of things. As you mentioned, the national security experts are terrified. But they’re more terrified by his personality than by his statements. So if you read people like say Bruce Blair1 one of the leading, most sober, knowledgeable specialists, he says, look, his statements are all over the map, but his personality is frightening, he’s a complete megalomaniac. You never know how he’s going to react. When he learned for example that he’d lost the election by about three million votes, his instant reaction was insanity; you know, three to five million illegal immigrants somehow were organized in some incredible fashion to vote. On any little issue – Miss Universe, or whatever it may be – he’s completely unpredictable, he’ll go off into outer space. His guru Steve Bannon is worse, he’s much scarier. He probably knows what he’s doing.

Over the years, there’s been case after case when there were very narrow decisions that had to be made about whether to launch nuclear weapons in serious cases. What is this guy going to do if his vaunted negotiating skills fail, if somebody doesn’t do what he says? Is he going to say, “Okay we’ll nuke them? We’re done?” Remember that in any major nuclear war, the first strike destroys the country that attacks; it’s been known for years. The first strike of a major power is very likely to cause what’s called nuclear winter, leads to global famine for years and everything’s basically gone. Some survivors straggling around. Could he do it? Who knows.

Some of his comments can be interpreted as potentially reducing the threat of nuclear war. The major threat right now is right on the Russian border. Notice, not the Mexican border, the Russian border. And it’s serious. He has made various statements moving towards reducing the tensions, accommodating Russian concerns and so on. On the other hand, you have to balance that against expanding our nuclear forces, add to our so-called depleted military, which is already more powerful than the rest of the world combined; attack in Syria, send forces to Syria, start bombing. Who knows what could be next? Michael Flynn, national security advisor,2 [his reaction] to the Iranian missile test the other day was very frightening. Now the missile test is ill-advised, they shouldn’t have done it. But it’s not in violation of international law or international agreements. They shouldn’t have done it. His reaction suggested maybe we’re going to go to war in retaliation. Would they do it? If they did, you don’t know what’s going to happen next. Everything could blow up.

This crazy ban on the seven states, where we can’t accept immigrants, almost every analyst points out the obvious: It just increases the threat of terror. It lays the basis for terror. It’s just like the atrocities in Abu Ghraib and Bagram and Guantanamo. They’re the most fabulous recruiting techniques for Al Qaeda and ISIS. Everyone knows it. Now, you ban not the whole Muslim world. You ban seven states, seven states that have not been responsible for a single terrorist act. Those are the seven he banned. But, you leave the ones that really are responsible, like Saudi Arabia, which is the center for propaganda and funding and so on for radical Islamic Jihadism, well you can’t touch them because of business interests, also they have oil and so on and so forth. There’s actually an article in the Washington Post, I don’t know whether it’s tongue in cheek or not, which said the criterion for being on the list of banned states is that Trump doesn’t have business interests there. Maybe. But it’s this kind of wild unpredictability, megalomania, thin-skinned craziness that really has me worried, more than his statements. Now, on the climate change there’s just nothing to say, he’s perfectly straightforward.

Gibbs: Let us turn to the role of the media in reporting alleged Russian interference in the US electoral process. Mainstream journalists have called Trump a puppet of Russia, a modern version of the Manchurian Candidate. Others have criticized the media for accepting unsubstantiated claims about Russian influence, and reporting such claims as facts. Normon Soloman and Serge Halimi, for example, stated that press reporting on this issue amounts to a mass hysteria reminiscent of the McCarthy era, while Seymour Hersh called the media reporting on Russia “outrageous.”3 What is your view of this situation? 

Chomsky: My guess is that most of the world is just collapsing in laughter. Suppose all the charges are true, I mean every single one, it is so amateurish by US standards that you can hardly even laugh. What the US does is the kind of thing I described in Italy in 1948. Case after case like that, not hacking or spreading rumors in the media; but saying look, we’re going to starve you to death or kill you or destroy you unless you vote the way we want. I mean that’s what we do.

Take the famous 9/11, let’s think about it for a minute. It was a pretty awful terrorist act. It could have been a lot worse. Now let’s suppose that instead of the plane being downed in Pennsylvania by passengers, suppose it had hit its target, which was probably the White House. Now suppose it had killed the president. Suppose that plans had been set for a military coup to take over the government. And right away, immediately 50,000 people were killed, 700,000 tortured. A bunch of economists were brought in from Afghanistan, let’s call them the “Kandahar Boys,” who very quickly destroyed the economy, and established a dictatorship which devastated the country. That would have been a lot worse than 9/11. It happened: the first 9/11, it happened on September 11, 1973, in Chile. We did it. Was that interfering or hacking a party? This record is all over the world, constantly overthrowing governments, invading, forcing people to follow what we call democracy, as in the cases I mentioned. As I say, if every charge is accurate, it’s a joke, and I’m sure half the world is collapsing in laughter about this, because people outside the United States know it. You don’t have to tell people in Chile about the first 9/11.

Gibbs: One of the surprises of the post-Cold War era is the persistence of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and other US-led alliances. These alliances were created during the Cold War mainly or exclusively for containing the claimed Soviet threat. In 1991, the USSR disappeared from the map, but the anti-Soviet alliance systems persisted and in fact expanded. How do we account for the persistence and expansion of NATO? What in your view is the purpose of NATO after the Cold War?

Chomsky: We have official answers to that. It’s a very interesting question, which I was planning to talk about but didn’t have time. So thanks. It’s a very interesting question. For fifty years, we heard NATO is necessary to save Western Europe from the Russian hordes, you know the slave state, stuff I was taking about. In 1990-91, no Russian hordes. Okay, what happens? Well there are actually visions of the future system that were presented. One was Gorbachev. He called for a Eurasian security system, with no military blocs. He called it a Common European Home. No military blocs, no Warsaw Pact, no NATO, with centers of power in Brussels, Moscow, Ankara, maybe Vladivostok, other places. Just an integrated security system with no conflicts.

That was one. Now the other vision was presented by George Bush, this is the “statesman,” Bush I and James Baker his secretary of state. There’s very good scholarship on this incidentally. We really know a lot about what happened, now that all the documents are out. Gorbachev said that he would agree to the unification of Germany, and even adherence of Germany to NATO, which was quite a concession, if NATO didn’t move to East Germany. And Bush and Baker promised verbally, that’s critical, verbally that NATO would not expand “one inch to the east,” which meant East Germany. Nobody was talking about anything farther at the time. They would not expand one inch to the east. Now that was a verbal promise. It was never written. NATO immediately expanded to East Germany. Gorbachev complained. He was told look, there’s nothing on paper. People didn’t actually say it but the implication was look, if you are dumb enough to take faith in a gentleman’s agreement with us, that’s your problem. NATO expanded to East Germany.

There’s very interesting work, if you want to look into it by a young scholar in Texas named Joshua Shifrinson, it appeared in International Security, which is one of the prestige journals, published by MIT.4 He goes through the documentary record very carefully and he makes a pretty convincing case that Bush and Baker were purposely deceiving Gorbachev. The scholarship has been divided on that, maybe they just weren’t clear or something. But if you read it, I think it’s quite a convincing case, that they were purposely setting it up to deceive Gorbachev.

Okay, NATO expanded to East Berlin and East Germany. Under Clinton NATO expanded further, to the former Russian satellites. In 2008 NATO formally made an offer to Ukraine to join NATO. That’s unbelievable. I mean, Ukraine is the geopolitical heartland of Russian concern, quite aside from historical connections, population and so on. Right at the beginning of all of this, serious senior statesmen, people like Kennan for example and others warned that the expansion of NATO to the east is going to cause a disaster.5 I mean, it’s like having the Warsaw Pact on the Mexican border. It’s inconceivable. And others, senior people warned about this, but policymakers didn’t care. Just go ahead.

Right now, where do we stand? Well right at the Russian border, both sides have been taking provocative actions, both sides are building up military forces. NATO forces are carrying out maneuvers hundreds of yards from the Russian border, the Russian jets are buzzing American jets. Anything could blow up in a minute. In a minute, you know. Any incident could instantly blow up. Both sides are modernizing and increasing their military systems, including nuclear systems.

So what’s the purpose of NATO? Well actually we have an official answer. It isn’t publicized much, but a couple of years ago, the secretary-general of NATO made a formal statement explaining the purpose of NATO in the post-Cold War world is to control global energy systems, pipelines, and sea lanes. That means it’s a global system and of course he didn’t say it, it’s an intervention force under US command, as we’ve seen in case after case. So that’s NATO. So what happened to the years of defending Europe from the Russian hordes? Well, you can go back to NSC-68,6 and see how serious that was. So that’s what we’re living with.

Right now the threat to our existence is Muslim terrorists from seven states, who have never had a single terrorist act. About half the population believes that. I mean you look back at American history and American culture, it’s pretty striking. I mean this has been the safest country in the world forever, and the most frightened country in the world. That’s a large part of the source of the gun culture. You have to have a gun when you go into Starbucks, because who knows what’s going to happen. It just doesn’t happen in other countries.

There’s something deeply rooted in American culture. You can pretty much identify what it was. You take a look at the history. Remember, the US is not a global power until pretty recently. It was internal conquest. You had to defend yourself against what the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, an enlightened figure, called the attacks of the “merciless Indian savages,” whose known way of warfare was torture and destruction. Jefferson wasn’t a fool. He knew that it was the merciless English savages who were carrying out these acts. That is in the Declaration of Independence, recited piously every July Ffourth, the merciless Indian savages with no reason at all were suddenly attacking us. I mean, you can imagine the reasons. That’s one. Also you had a slave population, you had to protect yourself against them. You needed guns. One consequence of that was in southern culture, possession of a gun became kind of a sign of manhood, not just because of slaves but other white men. If you had a gun, you’re not going to push me around. You know, I’m not one of those guys you can kick in the face.

There was another element, which was kind of interesting. In the mid to late nineteenth century, the gun manufacturers recognized that they had a limited market. Remember that this is a capitalist society, you’ve got to expand your market. They were selling guns to the military. That’s a pretty limited market. What about all the rest of the people? So what started was all kinds of fantastic stories about Wyatt Earp and the gunmen and the Wild West, how exciting it was to have these guys with guns defending themselves against all sorts of things.

I grew up in that, when I was a kid. My friends and I used to play cowboys and Indians. We were cowboys killing the Indians, following the Wild West stories. All of this combined into a very strange culture, which is frightened. You look at the polls today, I think half the population supports this ban on these dangerous immigrants who are going to come in and do something, who knows what. And meanwhile the countries that really have been involved in terrorism, they’re out. It’s kind of like I think it was Oklahoma banning Sharia law. Now there’s probably fifty Muslims in Oklahoma, and they have to ban Sharia law, you know. This terror which is all over the country is constantly incited. The Russians were part of NSC-68, is a dramatic case. And that case, like most propaganda wasn’t totally fabricated. The Russians were doing a lot of rotten things, you can point to them. But the idea that if you consider what Hans Morgenthau called “I called abuse ofe reality,” the picture of the world was almost the opposite of what they presented. But somehow this sells and is continually repeated, at least in this kind of situation.

Gibbs: During the Cold War, the political left generally opposed military intervention. After 1991, however, the anti-interventionist movement collapsed and in its place has emerged the idea of humanitarian interventionism, which celebrates intervention as a defense of human rights. Military actions in the Balkans, Iraq, Libya have all been presented as acts of humanitarianism, which aimed to liberate oppressed peoples, and these interventions were at least initially popular among political liberals. Proposals for augmented US intervention in Syria often invoke the humanitarian principle. What is your view of humanitarian intervention?

Chomsky: Well, I don’t quite see it like that. Now, if you look back to the anti-intervention movements, what were they? Let’s take the Vietnam War – the biggest crime since the Second World War. Those of you who are old enough will remember what happened. You couldn’t be opposed to the war for years. The mainstream liberal intellectuals were enthusiastically in support of the war. In Boston, a liberal city where I was, we literally couldn’t have a public demonstration without it being violently broken up, with the liberal press applauding, until late 1966. By that time there were hundreds of thousands of American troops rampaging in South Vietnam. South Vietnam had been practically destroyed. The leading, the most respected Vietnam historian, military historian Bernard Fall7 – he was a hawk incidentally, but he cared for the Vietnamese – he said it wasn’t clear to him whether Vietnam could survive as a historical and cultural entity under the most massive attack that any region that size had ever suffered. He was talking about South Vietnam, incidentally. By that time, we did begin to get some protests. But not from liberal intellectuals; they never opposed the war.

In fact, it’s pretty dramatic when you get to 1975, very revealing, the war ends. Everybody had to write something about the war, what it meant. And you also had polls of public opinion, and they’re dramatically different. So if you look at the writings of intellectuals, there are two kinds. One said, l“Look, if we fought harder we could have won.” You know, the stab in the back. But the others, who were way at the left, people like Anthony Lewis of the New York Times, way out in left stream, his view in 1975 was the Vietnam war began with blundering efforts to do good. But by 1969, it was clear that it was a disaster, that was too costly to us. We could not bring democracy to South Vietnam at a cost that we were willing to accept. So it was a disaster. That’ is the left extreme.

Take a look at public opinion. About 70 percent of the population, in the polls, said the war was fundamentally wrong and immoral, not a mistake. And that attitude lasted as long as polls were taken in the early ‘80s. The pollsters don’t ask reasons, they just give numbers. So why did the people think it was fundamentally wrong and immoral? The guys who ran the polls, John E. Rielly, a professor at the University of Chicago, a liberal professor, he said what that means is that people thought too many Americans had beenwere being killed. Maybe. Another possibility is they didn’t like the fact that we were carrying out the worst crime since the Second World War. But that’s so inconceivable that wasn’t even offered as a possible reason.

Now what happened in the following years? Well, I think that among the educated classes it stayed the same. You talk about humanitarian intervention, it’s like Vietnam was a humanitarian intervention. Among the public, it’s quite different. Take the Iraq War, , it’s the second worst crime after the Second World War. It’s the first time in history, in the history of imperialism, there were huge demonstrations, before the war was officially launched. Actually it was already under way. But before it was officially launched, there were huge demonstrations everywhere. I think it had an effect. The public still was split.

And [after Vietnam] the type of interventions that are carried out are designed so as not to elicit public reactions. In fact, it was stated early in the first Bush [presidency], Bush I, in one of their documents they pointed out in the future, US wars are going to be against much weaker enemies. And they have to be won quickly and decisively before a popular reaction develops. And Iif you take a look, that’s what’s done. Look at Panama, for instance, over a couple of days; and Kosovo, no American troops. You wrote a great book about it.8 But I’m not convinced that it’s different from what it was.

Gibbs: With the end of the Cold War, there has been a decline of activism in the US and elsewhere around the issue of nuclear disarmament. Once again, this state of affairs differs from the period of the Cold War, when there was a mass movement that opposed nuclear weapons – recall the Freeze movement from the 1980s — but this movement largely disappeared after 1991. The danger of nuclear war remains as high as ever, but there is little public engagement on this issue, it would seem. How would you explain the disappearance of the anti-nuclear movement?

Chomsky: Well that’s absolutely right. The peak of anti-nuclear popular activism was in the early ‘80s, when there was a huge movement. And the Reagan administration attempted decided to defuse it and partially succeeded, by presenting the illusion of Star Wars, SDI, that somehow we’re going to eliminate nuclear weapons. The Reagan administration picked up the rhetoric of the anti-nuclear movement; they said “Yyeah, you’re right.” We have to eliminate nuclear weapons. And the way we’re going to do it is by having SDI, TStar Wars, the Strategic Defense Initiative, which prevent nuclear weapons from impacting. Well, that did defuse the movement.

And whthen the Russians collapsed, and it looked like as if maybe we can reduce the nuclear tensions. And for a while they actually were reduced. There was a reduction of nuclear weaponsreally were reduced on both sides. Various steps were taken. Nowhere near enough, but some of them were taken.

On the other hand, it’s very important to understand the official position of the United States. You should read it. So in 1995, this is Clinton, a very important document came out, still classified, but large parts of it were declassified. It’s called “Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence.”9 What does post-Cold War deterrence mean? Deterrence means use of nuclear weapons. This was released by the Strategic Command, which was in charge of nuclear weapons planning and running nuclear weapons. I wrote about it when it came out and have been writing about it since. . Since then, I’ve never seen a reference to it. But it is an amazing document. Here’s what it says basically: It says we have to maintain the right of first strike, the right of the first use of nuclear weapons, even against nonnuclear powers. Nuclear weapons, they point out, are really constantly used, because they cast a shadow over other military actions. In other words, when people know we are ready to use nuclear weapons, they’re going to back off if we do something aggressive. So basically, nuclear weapons are always being used.

Now that’s a point that Dan Ellsberg has made for years. He said it’s kind of like if you and I go into a grocery store to rob it, and I have a gun. The guy may give you the money in the cash register. I’m using the gun even if I don’t shoot. Well that’s nuclear weapons — essential to post-war deterrence — they cast a shadow over everything. Then, it goes on to say that we must present a national persona of being irrational and vindictive, because that’s going to terrify people. And then, they’ll back off. And this is not Trump, this is Clinton. It’s not Nixon, you know. We have to be irrational and vindictive, because that’s going to frighten people. And we have to maintain this for years. And then we’ll be able to carry out the actions that we want to carry out.

That’s our nuclear weapons strategy, as of the early post-Cold War years. And I think this is a real failure of the intellectual community, including scholarship and the media. It’s not like you had headlines all over the place. And it’s not secret, the documents are there. And I think that’s probably the right picture. You know, people talk about Nixon’s “madman theory.” We don’t really know much about that. It was in memoirs, by somebody else.10 But this is real. This is the real mad man theory. We have to be irrational and vindictive, so people don’t know what we’re up to. This is not Trump and Bannon, it’s from the Clinton era.

Gibbs: I think we have time for one more question. In popular discussion, the phrase “national security” has come to mean security against military threats almost exclusively. This narrative downgrades the significance of nonmilitary threats, such as climate change, antibiotic resistant bacteria, or viral epidemics. It would seem that there is an imbalance between perceived military threats, which receive overwhelming governmental funding and press attention on the one hand, and nonmilitary threats, which receive relatively little on the other hand. How do we account for the apparent overemphasis on military threats?

Chomsky: Well [with] military threats, you can see them actually, you can imagine it. People don’t think about it enough. But Iif you think about it for a minute, you can see that a nuclear attack could be the end of everything. These other threats are kind of slow, maybe we won’t see them next year. Maybe the science is uncertain, maybe we don’t have to worry about it. Climate change is the worst, but there’s others.

Take pandemics. There could easily be a severe pandemic. A lot of that comes from something we don’t pay much attention to: Eating meat. The meat production industry, the industrial production of meat, uses an immense amount of antibiotics. I don’t remember the exact figure, it’s probably like half the antibiotics. Well antibiotics have an effect: They lead to mutations that make them ineffective. We’re now running out of antibiotics that deal with the threat of rapidly mutating bacteria. A lot of that just comes from the meat production industry. Well, do we worry about it? Well, we ought to be. You go into a hospital now, it’s dangerous. We can get diseases that can’t be dealt with, that are moving around the hospital. A lot of that traces back to industrial meat production. These are really serious threats, all over the place.

Take something you really don’t think about: Plastics in the ocean. I mean plastics in the ocean have an enormous ecological effect. When geologists announced the beginning of a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, humans destroying the environment, one of the main things they pointed to is the use of plastics in the earth. We don’t think about it, but it has a tremendous effect. But these are things you don’t see right in front of your eyes. You need to think about them a little, to see what the consequences are. It’s easy to put them aside, and the media don’t talk about them. Other things are more important. How am I going to put food on the table tomorrow? That’s what I’ve got to worry about, and so on. It’s very serious, but it’s hard to bring out the enormity of these issues, when they do not have the dramatic character of something you can show in the movies, with a nuclear weapons falling and everything disappears.

Notes

1 For the recent opinions of Princeton University nuclear weapons specialist Bruce G. Blair, see Blair, “Trump and the Nuclear Keys,” New York Times, October 12, 2016.

2 Note that Michael T. Flynn resigned as national security advisor on February 13, 2017, several days after this interview took place

3 See Solomon, “Urgent to Progressives: Stop Fueling Anti-Russia Frenzy,” Antiwar.com, December 21, 2016, http://original.antiwar.com/solomon/2016/12/20/urgent-progressives-stop-fueling-anti-russia-frenzy/ ; Halimi, January, 2017, ; Jeremy , “Seymour Hersh Blasts Media for Uncritically Reporting Russian Hacking Story,”

4?: The End of the Cold War and the US Offer to Limit NATO Expansion,” International Security 40, no. 4, 2016.

5 On George F. Kennan’s warning about the dangers of NATO expansion, see Thomas L. Friedman, “Foreign Affairs: Now a Word from X,” New York Times, May 2, 1998.

6 Here, Chomsky references the National Security Council memorandum NSC-68, one of the key documents of the Cold War. This document was the topic of Chomsky’s lecture, which preceded the interview. The document text is now fully declassified and available online. See “A Report to the National Security Council – NSC 68,” April 14, 1950, made available through the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, https://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/coldwar/documents/pdf/10-1.pdf .

7 Regarding Bernard Fall’s writings on Vietnam, see Fall, Last Reflections on a War. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967.

8 The book Chomsky references with regard to the Kosovo intervention is David N. Gibbs, First Do No Harm: Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2009.

9 This e full text of this declassified document is now available online. See US Department of Defense, Strategic Command, “Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence,” 1995 [no exact date indicated], made available through provided by the Federation of American Scientists, Nuclear Information Project,http://www.nukestrat.com/us/stratcom/SAGessentials.PDF.

10 The idea that President Richard Nixon subscribed to a “madman” theory of international relations first appeared in the memoir by former Nixon aide H. R. Haldeman, in Haldeman and Joseph DiMona, The Ends of Power. New York: Times Books, 1978, p. 98.

This article first appeared on Digital Commons.

The post Noam Chomsky: ‘Most Of The World Is Just Collapsing in Laughter’ At Russian Intervention Hysteria appeared first on We Are Change.

from We Are Change https://wearechange.org/noam-chomsky-russian-intervention-hysteria/

[oneyear-sixteenstrings-blog]

Xenakis: ST/4

Arditti Quartet

Irvine Arditti, first violin David Alberman, second violin Garth Knox, viola Rohan de Saram, cello

Naive MO782137 Recording date: 1991 Duration: [11:11]

When I first listened to the Xenakis quartets in 2011, I thought Tetras, his second quartet, was the big prize. But now I'm returning to ST/4 which was the composer's first foray into the genre. The piece's title in full is ST/4-1, 080262, shorthand for 'the first piece of stochastic music for four instruments, using calculations made by computer on 8 February 1962'. Here the composer is only partially in control. He chooses or develops an algorithm that weighs the possibilities of random events and links those to musical parameters.  Algorithmic music differs from aleatoric music, which is created by chance-driven processes (like throwing dice or I Ching stalks) without adhering to a strict mathematical logic.

The algorithmic basis of many of Xenakis’ pieces turns them, in his own words, into “a form of composition which is not the object in itself, but an idea in itself, that is to say, the beginnings of a family of compositions”.

James Harley provides an interesting perspective on the emergence of ST/4: "In 1962, having succeeded in obtaining access to the computing facilities at IBM-France, Xenakis ran several trials of his algorithm, producing enough data to create a family of works for different ensembles. Each piece is based upon identical principles, with the various constraining factors being adjusted to fit the particularities of each compositional situation (number of instruments, ranges, etc.). The one exception, interestingly, is ST/4, which derives from the same data as ST/10. The basis for the quartet is the adaptation of the string parts of the larger ensemble, into which additional material from other instruments has been added." 

Harley points out that ST/4 is more than a simple transcription as Xenakis made many changes to accommodate new material into the existing string parts. One might perhaps see ST/4 then as a projection of ST/10 in a lower-dimensional space which inevitably led to loss of information and required adjustments to fit key musical material in the new setting. In doing so, Xenakis shows himself a resourceful composer. Some of the percussion material of the original work was adapted as drumming on the bodies of the string instruments. Harley: "Surely, however, the most incredible adaptation of them all comes in his treatment of a descending chromatic scale in the harp (mm. 222-248). In the translation of the computer data into musical notation, this material was in itself an adaptation of the glissando parameter to the distinct features of the harp. In transcribing it for strings, Xenakis opted to preserve the plucked-string character, trading off from instrument to instrument as the scale falls lower and lower. The range of the harp reaches an octave lower than the cello, and this particular gesture continues to the harp's lowest note. Undaunted, the composer requires the cellist to lower the C string with the tuning peg, retuning for each new note, until it is tuned an octave lower than normal. As anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of string instruments would know, it is treacherously difficult to tune a string onstage in the midst of a demanding performance. As a dramatic gesture, therefore, this manouevre (sic) completely upstages whatever else might be going on around it. Xenakis, however, treats it here as if it were a perfectly ordinary thing for the cellist to do." He concludes: "This audacity highlights an essential characteristic of Xenakis' music. In asking for the impossible from the cellist here, and indeed from the whole quartet in trying to emulate the rhythmic and textural density of an ensemble more than twice its size, Xenakis succeeds in creating a thrillingly intense musical experience for performers and listeners alike. Irvine Arditti, who has played in both versions of the piece, maintains that the quartet is the more successful of the two, simply because of the element of 'risk' that the performers must undergo and communicate in performance."

In an obituary Arditti reflected on his experience of playing the music of Xenakis. In the early 1970s he sought the composer's advice to prepare for the British premier of Mikka: "I had been pondering the very fast glissandi (covering more than three octaves), and told him this was impossible to play. His reply was that I might find it so now, but that in the future I would find a way to do it. Well, Mikka, never got easier, but my understanding of the way to perform Xenakis' music transcended the normal confines of traditional string playing. I was eventually able to understand and give an impression of what he intended. (...) It is still impossible to play the extremely wide, quick glissandi near the beginning, as the distance covered is just too far. A three-octave glissando in an eighth of a second is physically not possible. As an interpreter, one has to make decisions about limitations such as these and almost invent new ways of thinking. (...) Graphic representations of the music may help a string player to understand better the kind of sound Xenakis is aiming for. (...) Xenakis is not a traditional 'musician's composer', in that he comes from a completely other world. This other world has been fascinating for me, and I consider him to be at the forefront of expanding string sonorities in the second part of the twentieth century. Perhaps because of the origins, he is less inclined to be specific about exactly how to execute his music, preferring to leave it to the players to find a way."

So, what are my listening impressions? ST/4 strikes me as a busy piece, an explosive sequence of hard-edged pizzicati, tremolos, glissandi and percussive effects. While textures occasionally loosen up, I hesitate to second Arnold Whittal's description of the piece as revolving around "an extreme contrast between constantly changing durations, dynamics and dynamic patterns, and a far simpler texture which includes a descending chromatic scale with regular note values and a uniform dynamic level." The contrast is there, but it doesn't strike me as providing a reliable ground plan of the piece.

There is no discernible musical process, no way of anticipating what the composer's (or algorithm's) next move will be. You have to listen to it 'in the moment' and deliver yourself to what sounds like an aural picture of Blitzkrieg, with dive bombers, welcomed by ricocheting gunfire, screaming towards their hapless targets. Perhaps it is the sheer energy radiated by the piece that keeps us glued to our seats. The quartet's kinship with the original ST/10 version is unmistakable, but the latter strikes me as mellower and even more conventionally symphonic due to the differentiation of timbres and the more expansive soundstage. Also it strikes me that many individual phrases allotted to instruments found in the symphonic orchestra (clarinet, horn) resonate with my large database of remembered fragments from other modernistic pieces. This creates a hazy simile of an imagined and aborted musical process that in reality isn't there. Returning to the quartet one is struck by the ferocious energy that the members of the Arditti Quartet bring to bear on this piece.

I've also been reflecting about what it tells about me as a listener that I can sit through this piece coolheadedly and even with considerable pleasure. Am I genuinely making sense of this music, or is it just that my long listening experience makes me more or less imperturbable and slightly blasé? At one point I did a lot of travelling, and after a while, I was surprised that I didn't even feel even a tinge of dépaysement when touching down in remote countries such as Mongolia or Gabon. Was it sheer globetrotting experience or did I simply resort to shutting out the foreign elements to keep my composure and focus on the job? To this day I am not able to answer that question.

Sources:

Irvine Arditti (2002) ‘Reflections on performing the string music of Iannis Xenakis’, Contemporary Music Review, 21:2-3, 85-89, DOI: 10.1080/07494460216665. James Harley (1998) ‘The String Quartets of Iannis Xenakis’, Tempo, New Series, No. 203, pp. 2-10. Arnold Whittal (1999) Musical Composition in the Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press, pp. 292-294.