#Substance LA 2022

[nugothrhythms]

The lineup for Substance 2022, one of the biggest showcases of modern post-punk, darkwave, and electronic music acts in Los Angeles.

[limeade-l3sbian]

Who was Kagney Linn Necessary?

(the gofundme for her memorial/funeral will be at the end.)

Kagney Linn Necessary was born in Harris County, Texas in 1987, and raised in St. Joseph, Missouri and in Ridgway, Pennsylvania. [x]

In her early years, she moved to California with ambitions of becoming an actress and a singer but entered work as an exotic dancer before signing with LA Direct Models, a pornographic agency. Karter entered the adult film industry in September 2008.[x]

But that wasn't the entirety of who Kagney was. At face value, the only information I could find with a quick search was the basic information above from Wikipedia. All anyone seemed to know about her was who she was when she was in the "industry." I wanted to see what I could find about her, the person. Not Kagney Linn Karter, but Kagney Linn Necessary.

I raked through interviews she had, her personal social media accounts, and any other articles that I could find just to find any little facts about her that I could.

I thought about omitting her time within the porn industry to focus solely on everything else except that. But I feel it would be tasteless to keep it out. I think it needs to be mentioned. I think it is important to show that women pulled into the porn industry are not these separate beings from any other woman with dreams. This was a 36 year old woman who was just like any other woman who was preyed upon.

Necessary released an EP, The Crossover, in 2018. In 2022, Karter released her debut album, titled The Take Over. [x] She would post clips of her singing covers of songs as well as songs from her upcoming EP on her Instagram.

In 2022, she began learning how to play the piano, even posting a video of her progress.

Necessary was also a recovering addict. In 2021, she posted about the things that helped her stay clean and how she was pleased at having a second chance at life. In an interview, she was intentionally vague about the substances she used, only referring to them as "candy" and "a little bit of everything." But with no insurance or money for rehab, she opted to detox herself at her parents home, working at their tanning salon for free in exchange for "produce."

She moved from Los Angeles to Ohio in 2019 and got involved with pole dancing fitness studios before being involved the opening of one in Akron, called Alchemy Pole Fitness. She posted many videos of herself having fun and practicing new/old moves.

In November 2023, she was posting pictures of her new house and how well it was coming together,

[their website leads to a website called Alchemy Space Studios and says that it was founded and run by a separate woman. But upon looking up the LLC for the business, Kagney is named as the registrant and she is named as the owner of the space in two separate articles.]

In 2015, Carter claimed musician Chris Brown paid her $2,500 to be his escort. She reportedly tweeted things like 'I WILL NEVER F*** A WOMAN BEATER EW DISGUSTING' and 'HE IS PURE EVIL' about Brown.

I just felt like adding that because what a queen.

From her students from the studio and friends, she was known to love animals, including her dog, Murphy, and had a deep devotion to the community she was cultivating in Ohio. She was known to be fearless and empathetic, creating her studio as a place for people to feel safe and accepted.

These were the things I could find of her from her personal accounts and the people who loved her. She wasn't an object that will be missed for what "uses" it had. She was a woman who had dreams, who had a community who love her, who had a husband who loves her, dogs she cared for and loved who loved her, and a mother who loves her. I didn't want her story to be another reblog of a lost life.

I know this post is sporadic and clunky, but I wanted to just grab any information I could without crossing boundaries (ex. contacting the family or something tasteless like that). I just wanted to share what she had already shared with the world.

Her friend, Megan Lee, has posted a gofundme that has already surpassed their goal. But I would still suggest donating if you are able. Rest in peace, Kagney Linn Necessary. 💜

[jessicalprice]

christian universalism strikes again

(Reposted from Twitter)

So a rabbi I know came back from LA pretty jazzed about a Jewish addiction treatment facility there called Beit T'shuvah and so we talked about their approach and that got me curious about non-AA approaches to dealing with addiction which, my friends, was fascinating.

I’ll admit that almost everything I know about AA is more or less from The West Wing. I'm fortunate in that no one in my immediate family has dealt with substance abuse issues, and as far as I know, none of my close friends are alcoholics. My knowledge is pop culture knowledge.

But hearing about Beit T’shuvah was very interesting to me because:

I'd heard that a lot of people who aren't Christian have a hard time with AA because it's so Christian.

The difference in philosophy was subtle at first glance but actually paralleled a lot of the differences between Judaism and Christianity if you dug into it.

Anyway, I got curious about whether success rates were different for Christians vs. non-Christians and started googling. I didn't find much in the way of the data I was looking for, but I did find something a lot more disturbing, which is that the whole 12-step thing is not science-based. At all. For example:

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse compared the current current state of addiction treatment to medicine in the early 1900s, when there weren't a lot of standards for who could practice medicine. In order to be a substance abuse counselor in many states, you don't need much more than a GED or high school diploma.

A 2006 survey found "no experimental studies unequivocally demonstrated the effectiveness of AA or TSF approaches for reducing alcohol dependence or problems."

And I want to make clear here that I'm not saying AA is bad--clearly it's helped people. The problem is that it's touted as a universal approach, which is a problem when it's not based on any sort of actual science. 

AA claims that its success rates for people who "really try" are 75%. (And boy does that mirror gaslighting diet language.) But the most precise study out there that's NOT coming from AA (https://amazon.com/dp/B00FIMWI1O) put actual success rates at 5-8%. One of the major textbooks on treating addiction ranks it at 38th out of 48 on its list of effective treatments.

So just like most fad diets, it fails for almost everyone who tries it, and then blames the individual for its failure.

A glaring issue is that the 12 steps don't really acknowledge--or provide any guidance or structure for dealing with--other mental/emotional health issues. That’s a giant problem when people with substance abuse issues have higher than average rates of those issues. (Take a moment to consider how the victim-blaming approach of “if you didn’t succeed, it’s because you didn’t try hard enough” is going to intersect with someone’s major depression.)

Now, if 12-step programs were just one available treatment approach out of many, this wouldn’t be that big of an issue.

But 12% of AA members are there because of court orders. Our legal system is requiring people to undergo treatment that is: 

Christian-based

Not scientifically supported

A failure for the vast majority of people

I mean, here's a pretty comprehensive breakdown that talks about the lack of scientific support for it, alternative treatments (like those in Finland, and naltrexone), and the fundamentalist origins of AA. 

The founder was a member of the Oxford Group, an evangelical organization that taught that all human problems stemmed from fear and selfishness, and could be solved by turning your life over to divine providence, basically. Sound familiar? He based AA on those principles, and given that the only alternative was "drying out" in a sanatorium, and that AA members would show up at bedsides there and invite inpatients to meetings, it must have looked really enlightened to people. In 2022, it bears a queasy resemblance to evangelizing to people in prison, literally a captive audience. 

To be fair--to their credit--they were some of the first people out there saying alcoholism was a disease, and not a moral failing. But they didn’t treat it like a disease when it came to testing treatment options:

Mann also collaborated with a physiologist named E. M. Jellinek. Mann was eager to bolster the scientific claims behind AA, and Jellinek wanted to make a name for himself in the growing field of alcohol research. In 1946, Jellinek published the results of a survey mailed to 1,600 AA members. Only 158 were returned. Jellinek and Mann jettisoned 45 that had been improperly completed and another 15 filled out by women, whose responses were so unlike the men’s that they risked complicating the results. From this small sample—98 men—Jellinek drew sweeping conclusions about the “phases of alcoholism,” which included an unavoidable succession of binges that led to blackouts, “indefinable fears,” and hitting bottom. Though the paper was filled with caveats about its lack of scientific rigor, it became AA gospel.

And then Senator Harold Hughes, who was an AA member, got Congress to establish the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, which promoted AA's beliefs, and sometimes suppressed research that conflicted with them:

In 1976, for instance, the Rand Corporation released a study of more than 2,000 men who had been patients at 44 different NIAAA-funded treatment centers. The report noted that 18 months after treatment, 22 percent of the men were drinking moderately. The authors concluded that it was possible for some alcohol-dependent men to return to controlled drinking. Researchers at the National Council on Alcoholism charged that the news would lead alcoholics to falsely believe they could drink safely. The NIAAA, which had funded the research, repudiated it. Rand repeated the study, this time looking over a four-year period. The results were similar.

The standard 28-day rehab stay, prescribed and insured:

Marvin D. Seppala, the chief medical officer at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation in Minnesota, one of the oldest inpatient rehab facilities in the country, described for me how 28 days became the norm: “In 1949, the founders found that it took about a week to get detoxed, another week to come around so [the patients] knew what they were up to, and after a couple of weeks they were doing well, and stable. That’s how it turned out to be 28 days. There’s no magic in it.”

The last sentence here (bolded for emphasis) is especially chilling. 

That may be heartening, but it’s not science. As the rehab industry began expanding in the 1970s, its profit motives dovetailed nicely with AA’s view that counseling could be delivered by people who had themselves struggled with addiction, rather than by highly trained (and highly paid) doctors and mental-health professionals. No other area of medicine or counseling makes such allowances.

There is no mandatory national certification exam for addiction counselors. The 2012 Columbia University report on addiction medicine found that only six states required alcohol- and substance-abuse counselors to have at least a bachelor’s degree and that only one state, Vermont, required a master’s degree. Fourteen states had no license requirements whatsoever—not even a GED or an introductory training course was necessary—and yet counselors are often called on by the judicial system and medical boards to give expert opinions on their clients’ prospects for recovery.

And, again, the idea that this is the One True And Only Way to deal with alcohol abuse leads to medical professionals ignoring research and treatment options that could be helping people. They are, in essence, taking all this completely on faith. 

There has been some progress: the Hazelden center began prescribing naltrexone and acamprosate to patients in 2003. But this makes Hazelden a pioneer among rehab centers. “Everyone has a bias,” Marvin Seppala, the chief medical officer, told me. “I honestly thought AA was the only way anyone could ever get sober, but I learned that I was wrong.”

Stephanie O’Malley, a clinical researcher in psychiatry at Yale who has studied the use of naltrexone and other drugs for alcohol-use disorder for more than two decades, says naltrexone’s limited use is “baffling.”

“There was never any campaign for this medication that said, ‘Ask your doctor,’ ” she says. “There was never any attempt to reach consumers.” Few doctors accepted that it was possible to treat alcohol-use disorder with a pill. And now that naltrexone is available in an inexpensive generic form, pharmaceutical companies have little incentive to promote it.

I'm not saying that AA is bad. I'm saying its hegemony is bad. It clearly is effective for some people--a minority of people. But it's not for the majority of people, and that's a problem when it's being prescribed by courts (and doctors) as if it's a one-size-fits-all approach.

It’s not an accident that a Christian approach to treating addiction presents itself as the One True Way For All Humankind, insists that courts and doctors privilege it, demands that people take its effectiveness on faith, and blames anyone for whom it doesn’t work for not believing/trying hard enough.

Hegemony is a problem. 

(Photo credit: Pixabay)

[brian-in-finance]

Orlando Bloom /The Cut

Orlando Bloom And Sean Ellis Talk About Star’s Transformation Into Past-His-Prime Boxer In ‘The Cut’: “He Was Willing To Have His Nose Broken” – Toronto Film Festival

Sean Ellis’s sixth feature, following the deliriously atmospheric 19th-century vampire movie Eight for Silver (2021), is yet another curveball from the criminally underrated British director. Titled The Cut, it is the story of a past-his-prime boxer who goes behind his wife Caitlin’s back to accept a lucrative comeback fight in Las Vegas. But this is not yet another Rocky-style underdog story, the kind that culminates in the ring. Instead, it is a sometimes-shocking psychological thriller, a sort of boxing procedural that details the extreme lengths that cornered fighters will go to. On paper, it sounds like Southpaw, but in reality, it has a little more in common with this year’s Cannes hit The Substance, a visceral body-horror movie about a fading starlet (Demi Moore) and her desperate drive to maintain her fame.

Sean Ellis / Getty Images

In The Cut it is actor Orlando Bloom’s turn to defy expectations. As the boxer, the former Pirates of the Caribbean and Lord of the Rings star is a revelation. He’s not entirely unrecognizable as the matinee idol of the 2000s, but, thanks to the magic of prosthetics, he certainly looks like he’s been through the wringer, and his return to professional boxing is not a sure thing. In fact, the most suspense in the film is generated by the initial weigh-in, which will determine whether he even gets to fight in his own title category at all. Caitlin (Caitríona Balfe), his wife and his trainer, can only get him so far, and when the team gets to Vegas, the boxer meets the charismatic Boz (John Turturro). Boz hooks into the boxer’s insecurities, drawing him into an increasingly dangerous training and weight-loss routine.

With the film about to make its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, Deadline sat down with Ellis and Bloom to discuss the film and its themes.

DEADLINE: Where did the project start? Who was attached first?

ORLANDO BLOOM: I’d worked with our producer, Mark Lane, some years ago on a movie for Tea Shop Productions. We did a movie together in London called Retaliation, but it was released as The Romans. It was another small, British independent movie production. It was brutal, and I loved the brutality of it. One day Mark said, “I’ve got another one for you,” and he pitched me The Cut. We talked about it, and I loved it immediately. I loved the idea — the premise of a boxing movie without the boxing, where the focus of the fight wasn’t the boxing match itself but rather the fight within the character, who just happened to be a boxer. I thought that was really fascinating, an interesting commentary on the way masculinity operates within that space.

We worked on the script for about a year or two with [screenwriter] Justin Bull, who was fantastic. And then we were just over the moon when Sean read it and responded to it exactly as you’d hope a director with his kind of vision would. He said, “Yeah, I see this.” [To Sean.] Right, Sean? That’s the long and short of it, isn’t it?

SEAN ELLIS: Yeah, that was pretty much it. The first time I read it, actually, was over the Christmas period [in 2022]. Mark had sent it to me, and I was interested because I’d been looking to do a boxing movie. But how do you do a boxing movie? I mean, it’s become almost a genre in itself. They’ve become so clichéd. Like submarine movies: You’ve got to have a scene with one person trapping themself in the air lock and drowning, as they tap away at the little porthole.

With boxing, you’ve got to have an impossible match that they’re not going to win, and then they either do or they don’t. And I thought The Cut was just a really interesting take on that. It was the about the preparation that an athlete goes through, and the drama of that. I thought that was so much more interesting than anything we’ve already seen in a boxing movie. I called Mark back, and I said, “It’s great.” I mean, it grabs you and it doesn’t let go. And it really delivers. It doesn’t let you down, and it really takes you right through to the end. And as OB was saying, it’s pretty brutal.

BLOOM: It’s an assault on the senses — which was kind of what it was like for me, physically.

ELLIS: Yeah. But I love cinema like that. I love it when it grabs you and shakes you. I think that’s what cinema should do.

DEADLINE: Orlando, how much did you weigh when you started the process?

BLOOM: I was about 185 pounds. [Laughs.] Sorry to use pounds and not stone!

DEADLINE: Same as the character?

BLOOM: Give or take.

DEADLINE: How did you lose the weight?

BLOOM: We worked with a great nutritionist called Philip Goglia. He started me on a program about three months prior to filming, and I tiered down from there. I was eating more food than I’d expected, in order to maintain the muscle but drop the weight. There was a sort of science to how much and how often I was eating, like having a spoonful of honey at night, things like that, to hold the muscle but lose the fat. This was three months prior to filming, so when I landed in London to start — which was about three and a half weeks before filming started — I would say I weighed about 170 pounds. I’d dropped quite a lot of weight before I came to the UK, and then in that three-week period I was basically eating five tiny meals a day. A lot of it was tuna and cucumber, and nothing else. I dropped to 152 pounds for the weigh-in scene. We shot that at the beginning of the movie, and then we shot the whole movie backwards.

DEADLINE: Why was that?

BLOOM: Philip, the nutritionist was like, “He’s not going to have any brain function or energy to make the movie.” [Laughs.] He said, “You’ve got to start with the weight loss and then feed him through the movie.” So, we shot the movie in reverse. I remember, I had this massive drop [in weight], because I was sitting at about 163 pounds for what felt like forever. And the training regime was a lot. It was two hours of cardio every day, an hour in the morning and again at night, and then boxing, and then weights, and a very limited amount of food.

I’d already started training — I’d been doing boxing training in America before I came over — and then I dropped 10 pounds of water weight in one night, which was crazy. Philip had told me about this routine that boxers do — they have a hot Epsom-salt bath. I don’t know whether it’s down to osmosis or just some weird body science, but it worked. I had a photo of myself, and I sent it to my partner and my mates, who were tracking me through this wild experience. I sent it to Sean. And then I sat in this space of that weight for about two and a half weeks before we started filming. [Pause] Is that right, Sean? I have to say, my brain is very scrambled…

ELLIS: Yeah, he came to us at his lightest weight because you can’t lose weight and work. It’s almost impossible — you can’t remember your lines or anything else. So, Phil said, “He has to come to you at his lightest, and then you need to allow him to start eating again. But that means you have to shoot the movie in reverse chronological order.” Now, chronological order is a nightmare at the best of times. But reverse chronological order is a total Rubik’s cube. We only had 25 shooting days, and, obviously, Orlando was putting weight on as we were reaching the end of the shoot, which was actually the beginning of the film. But when you edit it in reverse, he starts off heavy and then goes to his lightest point. It was a big jigsaw puzzle, but we got there.

DEADLINE: How did you feel about him losing all that weight? Did you ever feel guilty?

ELLIS: Mark Lane said, “Look, he’s really committed to this. Have a call with him and see if you guys jell,” and I did, instantly. But more than that, what I saw in OB was a huge commitment to make this right. And he was willing to do anything. I think at one point we even spoke about him going to the dentist and having his teeth filed and recapped. There was also the idea that he was willing to have his nose broken. [Laughs.] I was like, “I’m not sure we have to go that far.” But Orlando’s a good-looking bloke, and we were thinking, “How do we convince the world that he’s a professional boxer and make him look like a professional boxer?”

[British makeup artist] Mark Coulier came in and did a lot of work on his face. Mark got an Oscar nomination for Elvis. I’ve worked with him on a couple of movies and he’s just amazing. He took a head-sculpt of Orlando and then showed us what he would be able to do with him. A broken nose; fake ears that were more like cauliflower ears from the fighting; a change of the jawline — there were these “plumpers” that went into his mouth — and the teeth. The eyes as well: Mark gave him a droopy boxer’s eyelid.

I remember when I saw him sitting in the makeup chair. He had the haircut and everything, and I thought, “I buy this guy as a professional fighter.” At that point, he didn’t actually look like Orlando, strangely enough. In fact, I remember when we were shooting, there were two girls in the hotel we were using — just were members of the public — and they were waiting for the elevator to go down. Orlando was down the other end of the corridor, in his pants, and one of them nudged the other one. She whispered, “That’s Orlando Bloom.” The other one looked up and said, “Nah,” and then they got in the lift. I was laughing, because they didn’t recognize him.

DEADLINE: Were you surprised by his dedication?

ELLIS: Even from that first call with him, it was obvious that he was just so committed to this film and was willing to immerse himself. We were referencing [Irish featherweight and lightweight champion] Conor McGregor for a while, to the point where we started talking about the character being Irish, and we loved that idea. Then we cast Caitríona [Balfe], who’s Irish as well, and it made even more sense. It felt like the journey from Ireland to Vegas was bigger, because in the original script he was American, I think. Those changes came about from just me and Orlando talking about the character. I love his accent in it. Honestly, he’s not giving us an Orlando that we’ve seen before, and I love that. I love the change.

DEADLINE: Why did you want Caitríona?

ELLIS: I’d seen her in a couple of movies, Belfast and Ford v Ferrari, and her TV show Outlander. And at the point when we were having these discussions about Orlando playing Irish, I was like, “Well, let’s find an Irish actress.” So, I spoke to Jamie Dornan about Caitríona, because he’d worked with her on Belfast, and I said, “What’s she like? Is she nice? I love her movies. Is she good to work with?” And he was like, “Oh, she’s the best.” So, I got that endorsement, we offered it to her, and, luckily, she said yes. [To Bloom] It was just the three of us a lot of the time, wasn’t it?

DEADLINE: How did her casting affect the script?

ELLIS: A lot of her character was really born out of a lot of the discussions that the three of us had about the relationship that the two characters had. How their past dictated their relationship, and how it was going to dictate their future. So, it was really lovely just to work with both Orlando and Caitríona on finding those characters and really giving them life without really having to spell it out. Boz has more of a visual background, because you see him in flashbacks, but what I love about Caitríona’s character is that there’s a lot of subtext in her performance. It’s not overwritten, but you still get a sense of her life and what’s happened to her in the past.

BLOOM: I remember a conversation I had with her when we first spoke. I called her up. In the early drafts, the script was really centered on this transformation that the boxer goes through, the inner torment and the fight. And I said to Caitríona, “Look at the script as a blueprint, because there’s so much more between the lines than there is in the lines.” I really wanted the authenticity of this relationship to play. Because I think he can’t live without her. He can’t function, he can’t operate without her.

DEADLINE: In the middle of these two you have John Turturro as his trainer, Boz. It’s a very interesting part, almost like a kind of sadistic Jiminy Cricket…

ELLIS: We had many conversations about the script before John actually came on board, but I think John wanted to reassure himself that he was right about how he was going to do it. Because when John turned up — am I right, OB? — he’d fully formed that character. You said, “Action,” and John just did it. There was no, “What do you think?” He’d decided how Boz was going to be.

BLOOM: Can I jump in, Sean? What was on the page for that character was completely different to what John brought to the film. I remember sitting next to him in the makeup chair, and I was in and out of consciousness, in terms of how I felt emotionally. I was paranoid as hell. It was a really weird time, because of my mental state: I wasn’t having any food. Or sleep. I wasn’t sleeping because you don’t sleep when you’re not eating — you keep waking up.

And then he said to me, “It’s love.” And I was like, “What?” He said, “It’s a love story.” And my mind exploded. Sean was like, “Yeah, of course it’s a love story.” But his part wasn’t really written like that. He was written as a pretty straightforward character, like a drill sergeant, very aggressive. And then when he told me that, it became this love triangle in my mind. Boz was seducing me, in a way, into his web. Like, “You’re my guy now.”

Obviously, I’ve been huge fan of the man and the actor for years, and everything he’s ever done. That part could have been so generic in the hands of anyone else, but he just knew what to do. He was sprinkling magic dust all around us. I think we had that conversation on the second day of filming because we were all a bit thrown to begin with. Do you remember that, Sean? I was, certainly. I was like, “Wait, what’s going on?”

ELLIS: I remember Mark coming up to me and saying, “So, is that how we want Boz to be?” Because Boz was very much on the page as a character like the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket. I remember saying to him, “That’s John Turturro, and he’s giving you Boz. It might not be the Boz you saw on the page, but it is a Boz, and he’s absolutely made it his own.” As OB said, he’s sinister, he’s conniving, and he’s also kind of a groomer, because he understands his victim and he knows how to take control. So, he really pulled himself into this in a very insidious way, which I find very creepy and just brilliantly executed.

BLOOM: Yeah, he totally transformed what the movie could have been.

DEADLINE: You’ve got the Toronto premiere coming up. What kind of reactions are you hoping for?

ELLIS: Well, I hope they don’t throw eggs at the screen. [Laughs.] Listen, I’m incredibly proud of the film and I’m incredibly proud of the performances that the actors have given. It was just such a privilege to record them, and be present, and see them craft those characters. That’s the thing I’m most proud of when I look at it. I think it’s very strong, and it’s a drama with very strong characters.

DEADLINE: Orlando?

BLOOM: Yeah, it’s funny, when I was at drama school, I remember working on The Seagull, the Chekhov play, and there’s a moment at the end where the audience goes silent, because it’s just so uncomfortable. And I think this movie has a similar impact. It’s such an assault on the senses. And, to his credit, Sean never takes his foot off the gas. You can’t hide at any point in this movie. It’s like we strap you into a rocket, and you’re off. And there’s a lot of commentary on the way athletes — male athletes in particular — operate. Obviously we haven’t taken this from a true story, it’s fictitious. But I think it deals with very real ideas about self-worth. It’s about what people will do to fill the void that’s in their stomach, or in their soul. It’s about the lengths they will go to.

Deadline

Remember… (about Caitlin, Caitríona’s character) I really wanted the authenticity of this relationship to play. Because I think he can’t live without her. He can’t function, he can’t operate without her. — Sean Ellis

[rjzimmerman]

A surprising byproduct of wildfires: Contaminated drinking water. (Washington Post)

Over the weekend, the Park Fire grew to more than 360,000 acres, prompting evacuation orders and warnings around Chico, Calif. in Butte, Plumas, Shasta and Tehama counties. In the days ahead, Cal Fire will seek to contain the blaze to reduce harm to people, structures and the environment. However, months from now when the rains come and the fires are extinguished, a hidden threat could put communities at risk once again.

When the mayor of Las Vegas, N.M., issued a warning in 2022 to its 13,000 residents, it wasn’t over a fire — they had recently lived through the state’s largest wildfire in its history: Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak. The dire warning was that the city had 30 days of clean water left. The 2022 monsoon rains covered the Gallinas watershed, where cleared trees from the Santa Fe National Forest and ash-covered grounds made for flash-flood conditions. The storms introduced massive amounts of carbon from burned trees and plant life into the streams and reservoirs. Water treatment couldn’t keep up, making their stores undrinkable.

Around 60 to 65 percent of the United States’ drinking water comes from forested areas. As fires burn in these areas, they increase the risk of cancer-causing and toxic substances entering water supplies. An estimated 53.3 million U.S. residents who live in areas with significant wildfire risk may face damaged drinking water infrastructure from those flames.

Megafires burn land at higher temperatures across wider areas than standard wildfires, putting watersheds across the United States at greater risk. Sheila Murphy, a research hydrologist at the U.S. Geological Survey working on the effects of wildfires on water quality, says burned areas fundamentally alter a watershed’s hydrology. As wildfires burn hotter and consume more trees and structures, water quality will continue to worsen, research suggests.

When watersheds burn, the threat starts in the forests, continues to water treatment plants, and can expand to communities and households. To meet these risks, it will take a coalition of informed community members, scientists and city officials to work toward solutions to protect clean water supplies.

[la-isla-blanca]

- suggestion de faceclaim pour le pré-lien big brother is watching you

tw - mention de fausse couche, maladie (cancer), décès, deuil, prise de substances / comportement autodestructeur (naia)

kenan, c'est l'aîné de la famille, ce grand frère avec qui naïa n'a que trois années d'écart. à la fois partenaire de bêtises, confident et protecteur, il est devenu un véritable pilier de son existence, kenan. tous les deux ont noué au fil des années cette relation privilégiée qu'ils ont réussi à préserver, à cultiver même. parce que même si les années passent et ne se ressemblent pas, il est toujours la première personne auprès duquel elle se réfugie quand elle va mal, quand elle a besoin de réconfort. du moins, c'est ce qu'elle faisait jusqu'au décès de maman, naïa. parce que depuis le décès de maman, elle a changé du tout au tout. un changement radical qui lui fait peur à kenan parce qu'il ne reconnaît plus sa petite sœur, parce qu'il voit bien également qu'il n'arrive pas à honorer cette promesse faite à leur mère - celle de prendre soin de sa petite sœur.

les dolan, c'est une famille originaire de barcelone qui est formée autour du couple de sully et summer. un couple partageant le même amour doux et sincère depuis de nombreuses années. un couple ayant réussi à passer à travers les hauts, mais aussi les bas ensemble. c'est presque naturellement qu'ils ont souhaité agrandir leur famille. et c'est ce qu'ils ont réussi à faire en accueillant leur premier enfant, kenan. rapidement après la naissance de kenan, summer est tombé à nouveau enceinte d'une petite fille, ena. une petite fille qui n'aura jamais eu l'occasion de pousser ses premiers cris. deux années à pleurer la perte de ce petit ange qu'ils n'auront jamais eu l'occasion de côtoyer, deux années à espérer et également se battre pour parvenir à agrandir de nouveau leur famille. et c'est chose faite avec celle qu'ils voient comme leur petit miracle, naïa. (...) et alors qu'ils semblent tout pour être heureux, tout bouscule en mai 2022 - ce fameux jour où maman leur a appris souffrir d'un cancer du sein. et si maman a peur, elle ne leur montre rien. elle reste cette femme digne et forte qui décide de faire de son mieux pour se battre pour son mari, pour ses deux enfants qu'elle a tant désiré. et si elle est affaiblie par les chimiothérapies, elle ne montre rien et demeure cette femme joviale et blagueuse qu'ils ont toujours connu. jusqu'à que tout s'effondre une seconde fois en octobre 2023. parce que summer a perdu son combat face à la maladie. et sans elle, rien ne semble plus avoir de sens. parce que sans summer il y a ce fossé qui se creuse chaque jour un peu plus au sein de la famille dolan. une famille où chacun semble dépérir à sa manière.

[lifestyletheblog]

Les cosmétiques thaïlandaises : ce qu’elles nous cachent réellement.

La cosmétique prend une place on ne peut plus importante dans nos vies. Ainsi, de nos jours, nous utilisons au quotidien des produits cosmétiques variés. Même si certains sont douteux, ils remplissent nos salles de bains. 

Cependant nous ne nous posons pas vraiment de questions sur leur composition (est-elle bonne ? moyenne ? ou médiocre ?), leur lieu de fabrication, s’ils ont- ils étés élaborés dans les normes et de la meilleure manière possible ? 

Pour répondre à nos besoins sur ce sujet, les marques de nombreux pays se battent pour se faire connaître et satisfaire leur clientèle du monde entier. L’un des plus grands exportateurs de cosmétiques du monde est la Thaïlande.  Ce pays connu pour ses plages, montagnes et îles tropicales nous cache en réalité bien des secrets en ce qui concerne ses cosmétiques.

Plongeons ensemble dans le monde des cosmétiques thaïlandaises, afin de découvrir ses secrets les mieux cachés en ce qui concerne notre beauté.

La Thaïlande, pays grandiose. Mais qu’en est-il réellement de ces produits ?

En 2022, la Thaïlande a  exporté 2,2 milliards d’euros de produits cosmétiques de beauté et d’hygiène aussi variés les uns que les autres à travers le monde tels que des produits capillaires, de maquillage, des parfums et bien d’autres.

Malgré tout le positif que nous pouvons entendre à propos de ces produits Thaïlandais, de nombreux problèmes ont cependant étés relevés. Parmi ceux-ci, des ingrédients non étiquetés sur l’emballage comme le mercure (substance toxique) que peuvent contenir les crèmes blanchissantes pour la peau. Ces crèmes  sont très recherchées notamment en Afrique alors qu’elles sont responsables de problèmes de peau, de développement de cancers ou de maladies cardiovasculaires. Mais le mercure n’est pas le seul ingrédient néfaste à noter. En effet, il y a également les conservateurs et additifs interdits dans de nombreux pays en raison de leurs effets néfastes sur la santé. De plus, des cas d’effets secondaires graves ont aussi été relevés (après usage de ces produits) tels que des réactions allergiques et de fortes irritations de la peau. 

Il ne faut pas oublier que les marchés locaux de la Thaïlande regorgent de produits cosmétiques contrefaits fabriqués par imitation de marques célèbres et sans respect des normes de sécurité pourtant obligatoire. 

De nombreux produits cosmétiques en Thaïlande sont commercialisés avec des promesses de résultats immédiats et miraculeux. Malheureusement ces promesses peuvent induire en erreur les consommateurs cherchant des produits particuliers qui deviennent donc inefficaces ou potentiellement dangereux. Ceux-ci peuvent également afficher de faux labels de certification prétendant avoir étés testés et approuvés par des agences de santé. Ils ont pour conséquence de tromper le consommateur sur la vraie qualité du produit et la sûreté de leur utilisation.

Pour pallier tous ces manquements, le gouvernement thaïlandais avait tenté de renforcer les contrôles. Cependant, la réglementation reste souvent moins stricte que dans d’autres pays ce qui permet à des produits de qualité inférieure de circuler librement. 

En ce qui concerne les plateformes de vente en ligne, celles-ci sont souvent inondées de faux avis positifs qui ont pour but d’induire en erreur le consommateur. Malheureusement, les acheteurs ne peuvent plus distinguer simplement les produits considérés comme de qualité.

Mais alors, pourquoi ces produits Thaïlandais attirent autant les consommateurs ?

En réalité, l'accès à ces produits est relativement simple, en un simple clic ou en se rendant directement en magasin, nous pouvons trouver une large gamme de produits pour tous types de requêtes. 

Ces produits sont souvent beaucoup moins chers que ceux des marques occidentales, japonaises ou même africaines. C’est cette accessibilité financière qui attire de nombreux consommateurs, en particulier ceux à la recherche de solutions moins chères pour leurs produits de beauté. Cependant les consommateurs sont également attirés par les emballages attrayants et colorés qu’utilisent les marques thaïlandaises. 

Concernant les produits cosmétiques, les consommatrices à la peau noire et métissée vivant en Afrique ou dans la diaspora ont une certaine image grandiose et exotique en tête de la Thaïlande et des pays d’Asie de manière générale. En effet, cette image contribue à l’attrait des produits cosmétiques Thaïlandais que les consommatrices associent à des remèdes traditionnels et efficaces.

Tout cela nous amène donc à comprendre l’importance d’une attention particulière envers les produits cosmétiques que nous utilisons qu’ils viennent de Thaïlande ou de n’importe quelle région du monde. Les nombreux risques existants de certains produits Thaïlandais ne veulent pas dire qu’il faut arrêter d’en acheter mais qu’il faut juste apprendre à dénicher les perles rares adaptées à notre peau et à nos besoins. Cela nous permettra de minimiser au maximum les risques tout en participant à l’économie de nos pays d’Afrique.

Emma THERON

[beardedmrbean]

A dangerous new drug has gripped Philadelphia and made its way west to San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Xylazine has been used to cut fentanyl to lower dealer costs, and extend the effects of the drug.

"It's too late for Philly," an outreach worker told The New York Times.

A disturbing new drug called xylazine — commonly referred to as "tranq" — has taken a foothold in major American cities like Philadelphia and Los Angeles, and has ghastly effects which can include the literal rotting of its user's skin, according to Sky News and LA Times.

Xylazine is a sedative, muscle relaxant, and analgesic. Veterinarians have used the drug for pharmaceutical purposes in large animals like horses and cattle.

Xylazine is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for veterinary use only, but is not considered a federally controlled substance, per the FDA. It has also not been approved for human use, thus existing in a legal grey area.

As early as 2012 it became a cutting agent for heroin and, in the years since, has been found in fentanyl and cocaine.

Sky News reported this week that fentanyl cut with xylazine can extend the effects of the drug.

Users experience a euphoric, semi-conscious state when used; however, if injected, raw wounds can erupt on a user's skin that become crusty over time and, if left untreated, lead to amputation in the worst cases, per a Sky investigation.

Overdose deaths have been reported

Philadelphia is regarded as a ground zero for the drug, and though cases are small it has found its way west, with the LA Times saying this week that xylazine has made its way to California's drug trade.

Overdose deaths have been reported in San Franciso and Los Angeles, the outlet reported.

"The main concern is we're already amid the worst overdose crisis in history, nationally and locally," Dr. Gary Tsai, the director of substance abuse prevention and control for the LA County Department of Public Health, told The Times.

"This would increase deaths from overdoses."

'It's too late for Philly,' according to an outreach worker

"Incidences of xylazine are concerning because it is not an opioid," Dr. Ponni Arunkumar, the chief medical examiner at Cook County in Philadelphia, told ABC 7 Chicago earlier this month.

"It does not get affected by naloxone, which is used to reverse [a] fentanyl" overdose, Dr. Arunkumar said.

Indeed, the FDA said in August 2022, that "naloxone may not be able to reverse" the effects of xylazine.

Xylazine has also been called "tranq," "tranq dope," or "zombie drug," according to the New York Times.

Though it's not considered common, an outreach worker called Shawn Westfahl told The New York Times: "It's too late for Philly."

A study conducted in June 2022 showed that xylazine was detected in the drug supply in 36 states.

[raisongardee]

“Des psychologues, orthophonistes, pédiatres tirent la sonnette d’alarme. Leurs observations cliniques établissent que la surexposition aux écrans est toxique, débilitante, qu’elle nuit à l’éveil de l’enfant, porte atteinte à la construction de la personne dans sa totalité, aussi bien sur les plans physique, cognitif que relationnel : le langage, l’attention, la mémorisation, les interactions avec les autres, l’imagination, la pensée, la créativité, la volonté, la sensorialité, les aptitudes corporelles et manuelles, la motricité globale et fine, l’accès aux mondes concrets et symboliques… Tout le développement de l’humain, tout l’élan vital se trouvent entravés par "cette machine effroyable qui broie les consciences", comme la nomme Sabine Duflo. Une psychologue qui, avec d’autres professionnels de l’enfance, appelle à se sevrer et à mener un combat civilisationnel contre une industrie du numérique invasive. Une véritable captation mentale est à l’œuvre, alors que les écrans devenus centraux accaparent le temps de cerveau disponible et engloutissent la vie de la jeunesse, que la distraction audiovisuelle happe les regards, occupe les esprits et siphonne l’intériorité. L’humain est vidé de sa substance, épuisé. La présence charnelle au monde s’échappe dans une cyberculture qui nous désincarne. Qui nous déduit à l’état d’homoncules prostrés, pousseurs de boutons, consommateurs inanimés pris dans un flot d’images, dépossédés d’eux-mêmes jusqu’à ne plus utiliser leurs corps. Aliénés.”

Pierre Thiesset, « Les écrans détruisent les enfants », in La Décroissance, n° 195, décembre 2022- janvier 2023. 

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

I'll be at the Studio City branch of the LA Public Library on Monday, November 13 at 1830hPT to launch my new novel, The Lost Cause. There'll be a reading, a talk, a surprise guest (!!) and a signing, with books on sale. Tell your friends! Come on down!

#20yrsago How (not) to negotiate an intellectual property treaty https://web.archive.org/web/20031203202931/https://www.wcl.american.edu/pippi/031119agenda.pdf

#15yrsago Saturn’s Children: Charlie Stross’s robopervy tribute to the late late Heinlein https://memex.craphound.com/2008/11/10/saturns-children-strosss-robopervy-tribute-to-the-late-late-heinlein/

#10yrsago All-purpose apology for corrupt, inept, thieving, substance-abusing Canadian politicians https://nationalpost.com/opinion/andrew-coyne-i-am-so-sorry-i-am-sorry-in-a-hundred-inadmissible-ways

#10yrsago Muzzling Canadian scientists: Comparing US and Canadian routine scientific secrecy https://www.terry.ubc.ca/2013/11/07/the-terry-project-on-citr-27-silencing-the-scientists/

#5yrsago Winners Take All: Modern philanthropy means that giving some away is more important than how you got it https://memex.craphound.com/2018/11/10/winners-take-all-modern-philanthropy-means-that-giving-some-away-is-more-important-than-how-you-got-it/

#5yrsago Researchers claim to have permanently neutralized ad-blocking’s most promising weapons https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.03194

#5yrsago ICE and the DEA have secretly hidden cameras in some streetlights https://qz.com/1458475/the-dea-and-ice-are-hiding-surveillance-cameras-in-streetlights

#5yrsago Apple’s war on repair continues: Amazon now bans refurb Apple products from third parties https://www.vice.com/en/article/bjexb5/amazon-is-kicking-all-unauthorized-apple-refurbishers-off-the-site

#5yrsago 7-Eleven accused of weaponizing ICE raids to shed troublesome franchisees https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-11-09/7-eleven-is-at-war-with-its-own-franchisees-over-ice-raids#xj4y7vzkg

#1yrago Amazon and Apple have an illegal price-fixing conspiracy https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/10/you-had-one-job/#thats-just-the-as

[armando-triplepapito]

I read an article where the actor who plays Hugo says they just grew apart after working long hours on set (and they barely had any scenes together) and there was no cheating involved. It's in Spanish though, but he basically says she did have a relationship but it was after they had separated. The cheating rumors have been going strong for years though, and at some point it's what we all believed. So who knows, maybe he just didn't want to keep adding fuel to this story and this was just the polite thing to say at the time, but I don't see why we should doubt his word either. I'll leave the link to this article below in case you wanna read it.

Speaking of another fallout / behind the scenes drama, I wonder what happened between Jorge and Lorna. They were crazy close, even starred in a play together, but after that I noticed they were no longer following each other on IG and nowadays they don't even acknowledge the other's existence.

https://elpopular.pe/cine-y-series-tv/2022/07/16/betty-fea-cuales-fueron-motivos-ruptura-ana-maria-orozco-julian-arango-set-telenovela-colombiana-139795#amp_tf=De%20%251%24s&aoh=16921591314826&csi=1&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Felpopular.pe%2Fcine-y-series-tv%2F2022%2F07%2F16%2Fbetty-fea-cuales-fueron-motivos-ruptura-ana-maria-orozco-julian-arango-set-telenovela-colombiana-139795

If AMO actually cheated I wouldn’t be surprised that Julian Arango denied it and would try to minimize damage to her reputation probably because of his love for her and to not disclose their privacy. I did hear that AMO started a relationship after they separated but idk if that means after their divorce was finalized or when they filed for divorce. I’m assuming they separated when they filed for divorce and she then started a relationship with the photographer and that’s how all the cheating rumor started maybe? (Am I talking in circles cause I feel like I am😭). Whatever happened during their marriage one thing for sure is that it left Julian Arango bitter for a while cause he was tough on AMO when they had to work together. I saw a clip of Jenny’s actor mentioning how Julian Arango would throw insults at AMO during their scenes together. So those insults we see Hugo throwing at Betty were real, they came from the heart🤣 I think one of those scenes was when Cecilia Bolocco visited Ecomoda, he called her miss moco, miss mamarracho, miss moscorrofio 😬🤭 The good thing is that they’re now in good terms and you could see them hugging during their interview for Betty en teatro!

Now that I think about it I did see a few videos of them together where Lorna was all happy trying to interact with JEA about he was not having it😬 I brushed it off as him being tired but his vibes were off it kinda looked like he was annoyed by her and was keeping his distance but idk maybe I’m misinterpreting his reaction. I think those videos were around the time they were involved in Betty en teatro. If they were still friends around that time let me know cause now I’m invested in the chisme!

Also random but a few months ago I saw a video where Jorge Herrera (Don Herme’s actor) went on some interview for a radio station or a podcast (something like that) and talked about AMO’s history of substance abuse. He mentioned that AMO confided in him that she was struggling with drug abuse. Idk if what he said is true but I think it was messed up of him to talk about that during some interview. Makes me wonder if AMO saw/heard about that interview but if she did she definitely lost trust in him 😔 Wouldn’t trust him either! How could he bring up such a delicate topic! I would send a link for the vid but I can’t seem to find it. I follow so many Betty La Fea accounts that I have no idea who posted it!

One thing I would like to talk about is on Natalia Ramirez and Lorna’s friendship! It’s crazy how they’ve been best friends over 20yrs!! It’s like they’re soulmates ❤️ I’m not sure but I think Julio Cesar is also part of that friendship! I get so emotional when I see them post videos of them hanging out and having fun! I love seeing strong friendships between actors so when you mentioned that JEA and Lorna had a fallout it got me depressed! They used to be besties when filming ysblf! Ig some friendships weren’t meant to be🤧

[volusfm]

Il est temps d'arrêter de défendre Cyberpunk 2077

Dans un peu plus d'un mois sortira le DLC de Cyberpunk 2077, Phantom Liberty. Et si je compte y jouer, ne serait-ce que pour la curiosité, je fatigue d'avance à l'idée d'entendre de nouveau les éternelles rengaines à base de "ça va, le jeu n'est plus si buggé maintenant". Parce que bon, le problème n'a jamais été là.

J'avais déjà écrit un fil au sujet des problèmes que je trouvais au gameplay du jeu, mais malheureusement, il y a plus à creuser.

Alors, peut-être que le DLC proposera quelque chose d'intéressant, qu'il y aura encore un patch qui améliorera les choses... mais en substance, on ne sauvera pas Cyberpunk 2077. Car au delà des bugs, on a un jeu qui ne tient pas ses promesses. Et ni les patchs ni un DLC n'y feront grand chose.

Soyez avertis : ce billet contient de (légers) spoilers sur le jeu.

L'ambition démesurée

A priori, tout le monde se doute que les ambitions de Cyberpunk 2077 étaient gargantuesques et que le jeu est loin de les avoir remplies. Ce qui est d'autant plus triste, c'est que derrière ce fantasme, il y a une catastrophe humaine et des dizaines, sinon centaines, de développeurs qui ont crunché pendant des mois pour tenir une deadline impossible. Rappelons que les développeurs ont déclaré qu'ils voulaient poursuivre le développement jusqu'en 2022 pour espérer faire ce qui était prévu - et les ambitions étaient si gargantuesques qu'il n'est pas sûr que cela aurait suffi non plus.

Et cet enfer vécu par les développeurs ne s'est pas arrêté à la sortie du jeu, étant donné tout le travail qu'il y a eu à faire pour stabiliser le jeu par la suite.

"Cyberpunk" ? "2077" ?

Au delà des évidents problèmes de scope, Cyberpunk 2077 a bien du mal à tenir une promesse presque banale en apparence : celle de son titre.

En surface, le jeu fait clairement le travail : on a un jeu qui fait très cyberpunk dans le visuel, dans les sons et dans l'ambiance. Le soin apporté à Night City et à tout un tas de détails est tout simplement monumental, et la quête principale, sans être extraordinaire, se laisse très bien suivre.

Seulement, quand on creuse... eh bien, en une centaine d'heures passées sur le jeu, j'ai eu bien du mal à voir dans ce jeu l'expérience cyberpunk implicitement promise dans un futur situé dans un demi-siècle, ni n'y ai vu de messages de lutte anti-corporations pourtant présents dans la promotion du jeu.

A vrai dire, j'ai dû croiser trois personnes travaillant pour des corporations dans le jeu. Meredith Stout (Militech), Haiko Arasaka et Goro Takemura (Arasaka). On peut "romancer" la première, conclure un pacte avec la seconde, et on est amené à collaborer avec le troisième pendant tout un arc. On pourrait y voir l'impossibilité de renverser le système en tant qu'individu, et il y a sans doute un peu de cela. Mais pour un jeu qui voudrait dénoncer la domination des corporations sur les états, je ne peux pas m'empêcher de penser qu'il y va de façon légère, pour ne pas dire superficielle.

Et de manière générale, Cyberpunk 2077 semble avoir une vision très superficielle du futur et du cyberpunk. La vision de la société qu'on nous propose, outre la domination des corpos, consiste à verser dans une sexualisation et un peu de trash à tout va, ce qui bien visible dans les publicités qu'on voit un peu partout dans Night City. Et... c'est tout. C'est tout ce que le jeu nous propose comme vision cyberpunk du futur en 2077. Des méga corporations qui sont plus mentionnées qu'autre chose, beaucoup de lumière, du cul et du gore.

Rien sur la vie "virtuelle" sur Internet ou son équivalent, rien sur les réseaux sociaux, rien sur le traitement des données et leur confidentialité. Comment, sur un jeu censé se dérouler dans cinquante ans dans le futur, a-t-on pu passer à côté d'un sujet aussi critique de notre monde actuel en 2020(3) ? Rien non plus sur l'utilisation croissante d'implants et la remise en question éventuelle de notre humanité, si ce n'est un vague commentaire sur Adam Smasher ("freak's barely even human anymore!"), perdu entre des milliers de lignes de dialogue.

Le cyberpunk est un genre qui s'est fondé sur la critique de son époque et d'une vision du monde, et ce que j'ai vu de plus provoquant dans CP2077, c'est l'hypersexualisation liée à la consommation.

Quant à la domination des corporations, on a du mal à ne pas déjà la sentir dans notre propre époque en 2020. Du coup, non seulement le futur dystopique que CP2077 veut nous présenter est assez creux, mais en plus, il a bien du mal à nous perturber, n'ayant pas été mis à jour pour refléter notre futur, et pas celui des années 80 (quand le genre est apparu).

Le jeu marcherait peut-être s'il s'appelait Cyberpunk 2020 (et encore). Manque de pot, il s'appelle Cyberpunk 2077, et quand on creuse sous l'esthétique du jeu, on ne trouve guère plus que du cyberpunk dépolitisé, vidé de sa substance et réduit à de l'hypersexualisation un peu cringe et beaucoup de néons.

Le mot de la fin

J'ai titré ce billet de manière volontairement provocatrice, mais je ne suis pas loin de penser qu'il faut effectivement arrêter de défendre Cyberpunk 2077. D'abord parce que ce jeu a été un échec sur le plan critique et une catastrophe sur les plans technique et humain. Et ensuite, parce que les bugs (les défenseurs du jeu aimant rappeler que Witcher 3, lui aussi, était sorti buggé) n'ont jamais été le problème du jeu. La superficialité de ses messages et de son contenu en sont un beaucoup plus sérieux. Et aucun patch ni DLC ne changera cela.

[denimbex1986]

'Become famous thanks to the British series, the Irishman is one of Christopher Nolan's favorite actors. At 47, he plays the leading role in the filmmaker's new film, where he gives substance to the enigmatic father of the atomic bomb.

With him, everything literally happens in his head. There is of course the facade, the face. This brown hair divided in two by a parting just in the middle of the skull. These piercing steel blue eyes, which constitute the high point of this figure and draw a gaze from which it is impossible to detach. And the rounded shapes that make it up – nose, cheekbones, chin, mouth – as if drawn by an artist. At the end of this quick inspection, one thing is clear: no one looks like Cillian Murphy. The 47-year-old Irishman also conducts himself like almost no other actor.

When he sees you enter the suite of the grand Parisian hotel where he gives his interviews, he brings up a bottle of water and pours you a glass: “You have to drink, it's too hot today. Once your glass is empty, the actor seems to feel safer . The conversation can start. “We have time to talk to each other and we will take all the time necessary,” he assures us. The promise will be kept. Despite the timed constraints of promoting a film, Cillian Murphy pays little attention to the passage of time, things last what they must last. This leaves time to still observe the very particular complexion of his face.

His gaze, therefore, seems to be that of an extraterrestrial, at least the idea that we have of it. Like the effect produced by David Bowie in the 1970s, he imposes a unique physique. “I was scared when I saw his eyes. Rounds. Worrying”, noted Christopher Nolan, meeting the actor for the first time, when he was considering giving him the role of Batman for Batman Begins (2005).

Neither quite the same nor quite another The British-American director had ended up offering him that of the Scarecrow in the film, the corrupt and mentally unstable psychologist of a mental asylum. “I remember very well the first effect produced by Cillian on the team when he arrived on set, recalls Christopher Nolan. He created a tension that I had never witnessed. He was very scary. » But the director did not stop at this first impression and then made him one of his favorite actors. Today, Murphy holds the title role ofOppenheimer, in theaters Wednesday July 19: that of the physicist, father of the atomic bomb.

What is remarkable about Murphy is the constancy of this face. In Oppenheimer and in all the films shot under the direction of Nolan: Batman Begins, The Dark Knight (2008), Inception (2010), The Dark Knight Rises (2012) and Dunkirk (2017), as in the British series Peaky Blinders (2013-2022) which consecrated him to the general public and in which he plays a gang leader, in Birmingham, in the aftermath of the First World War, Cillian Murphy is, apart from a pair of gles and a haircut , the same. Never the slightest prosthesis… We find ourselves imagining that he gets up early in the morning for his day’s work, arrives on time on set and presents himself in front of the camera without even going through the hands of a make-up artist…'

[thebuzztrack]

A Review of ‘Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend’ (2022)

If you are a fan of fast cars and automobile history, you might want to watch Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend (2022). It is a biopic about the founder of one of the most iconic brands in the automotive industry. The movie follows Lamborghini’s life from his childhood in rural Italy, where he developed a passion for mechanics and engineering, to his successful career as a tractor manufacturer after World War II. Along the way, he faces personal and professional challenges, such as his turbulent marriage to Annita, the rivalry with Enzo Ferrari, and a quest to build the ultimate sports car.

The movie is written and directed by Bobby Moresco and loosely adapted from the biography Ferruccio Lamborghini: La storia ufficiale by Tonino Lamborghini. It stars Frank Grillo as Ferruccio Lamborghini, a visionary entrepreneur who rose from humble beginnings to create a legacy of innovation and excellence. The movie also features Oscar winners Mira Sorvino as Lamborghini’s wife Annita and Gabriel Byrne as his nemesis Enzo Ferrari, respectively. Each of them delivers a solid performance. The movie also has a talented supporting cast, including Eliana Jones as Billie Alland, Lamborghini’s American lover; Giorgio Cantarini as Giorgio Lamborghini, his son, and heir; and Francesca Tizzano as Gabriella, his loyal secretary.

The movie is a tribute to Lamborghini’s genius and ambition, and the cultural and historical context stemmed from his vision. It features the evolution of Lamborghini’s designs, from his first prototype, the 350 GTV, to his masterpiece, the Miura. This movie will appeal to car enthusiasts and history buffs alike. It is a movie that celebrates the spirit of innovation and creativity that drove Lamborghini to pursue his dreams and leave a mark on the world.

Now for the downside of the movie. It is fragmented, filled with sound bite moments, and edited with the tropes of a modern biopic. It is enjoyable at a basic level. But it does not feel like it contains enough substance for a satisfying viewing. It is always great to see Gabriel Byrne and Mira Sorvino still acting after all these years. I give it a mid rating for solid production and good acting from the lead performers, despite the flaws in the delivery of its storytelling.

[ambipolis]

Vendredi 4 novembre 2022

La France qu’est-ce qu’il en reste ?

L’excellent magazine L’Incorrect dirigé par Arthur de Watrigant nous livre dans son numéro 57 d’octobre 2022 une passionnante rencontre inédite entre quatre intellectuels de notre temps sur le thème : « La France, qu’est-ce qu’il en reste ? »

Alain Finkielkraut, Pierre Manent, Chantal Delsol, Mathieu Bock-Côté échangent sur quelques vertiges qui « menacent la France dans son existence même : disparition du sacré, menace du wokisme, fin de la chrétienté, place de l’Islam et de la laïcité, rôle de la presse. »

Dans cette première note de lecture, je me limiterai aux deux premiers sujets abordés : d’une part Élisabeth II, la France et la place du sacré en politique ; d’autre part que penser - et faire. - face au wokisme. Je vous invite à lire ou relire cette « rencontre au sommet » dans son intégralité sans attendre la seconde note de lecture.

Chantal Delsol pose ainsi la première problématique : « Nous saluons avec la mort de la reine ce désir d’éternité que nous n’avons plus. » Alain Finkielkraut cite la grande méditation de José. Ortega y Gasset dans La Révolte des masses et fait référence au droit fondamental de l’homme à la continuité historique « si fondamental qu’il est la définition même de sa substance. » Pierre Manent relève que la République a été « ramenée aux valeurs de la République, ce qui introduit une rupture délibérée avec cette grande aventure que l’on appelait l’histoire de France. »

Rupture qui nous amène à la menace du wokisme. Pierre Manent y voit « un progressisme pessimiste, une imitation du christianisme ou plutôt d’une moitié du christianisme qui garde la pénitence mais exclut le pardon, qui nous condamne à un châtiment indéfini pour les crimes réels ou supposés de nos aïeux. » Alain Finkielkraut cite à nouveau Ortega y Gasset : « L’homme n’est jamais un premier homme. Il ne peut commencer à vivre qu’à un certain niveau du passé accumulé. » Enfin Mathieu Bock-Côté revient sur « l’expiation sans rédemption » en indiquant que ce mouvement n’est pas réservé aux universités américaines et « a colonisé le monde de la culture, des médias et de l’entreprise. »

La suite dans la prochaine note de lecture.

Jean-Loup ARNAUD

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[honeyblockm]

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My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

The crane wives. You agree. Reblog

920 notes - Posted November 9, 2022

#4

During Manberg, Quackity has been slowly poisoning Schlatt for months. Unbeknownst to him, Tubbo has been doing the same thing with a different poison. The two substances neutralize each other. It's driving both of them insane

1,989 notes - Posted June 10, 2022

#3

2,932 notes - Posted August 5, 2022

#2

from this post

2,968 notes - Posted April 3, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

murder mystery fic where schlatt turns up dead and everyone is suspect

3,302 notes - Posted May 9, 2022

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