#and i like to think its a subversion to blue being good and red being evil

[txttletale]

could you explain what you mean about neon white? bc I felt the same way when I finished it but couldn't quite articulate what I didn't like about the story

sure--on a pure plot level, right, 'believers have usurped the true will of god by being self-righteous and self-serving and it must be restored' is the core premise at the heart of the game. god is Good, god's system of judgement and mastery of the cosmos is Good, restoring it is Good. "christianity is fundamentally good, but the people who practice it have lost sight of the Real (Good) Christian Morals" is not an uncommon take among liberal christians, but i think it is silly and wrong because religion is not true, it only exists as a social fact, there is no 'christianity' that can be divorced from christians, because 'christianity' can only be located in the world within the actions and beliefs of christians.

and then on the thematic level, the game has a singleminded obsession with the nobility of forgiveness, a moral it beats in with a sledgehammer like a sonic sez segment every chance it gets. red forgiving white, white forgiving green, violet and white forgiving each other, green not forgiving blue--the game is very very explicit that forgiveness is the be-all and end-all of morality. and this is like a spectacularly christian concept!

so yeah depiste the like edgy demon 2006 scene kid aesthetic i think neon white is ironically much less subversive than the edgy anime and pop punk music it takes its aesthetic cues from because it essentially comes out swinging wholeheartedly for christian morality. embarassing tbh

[richardsphere]

Leverage Redemption Log: The Bucket Job

Title makes me think "bucket list"? either that or Keeping Up Appearances? (had to google "that show with the bucket woman" to remember the name) --- bells are playing and there is a giant semi-hollow pipe-structure of a snowman outside the building we're in. Its Christmas Special Time.

Librarian is giving the children some classic reading recomendations based on his knowledge of their likes (the girl likes pirates, which is a nice little gender-stereotype breaking to sneak in there without drawing attention to the subversion. Love it when shows feel confident doing that without the need to detract by boasting about it.) Young Man used to get Sherlock Holmes.

And the librarian is having a heart-attack... --- Harry is calling his daughter. His daughter doesnt want to spend the holiday with him because Mom is going on vacation to some resort (I think Aspen is a resort town in the states?) Ok either he has a son as well as a daughter, i am misremembering him as having a daughter, The daughter might be trans, or Nick is short for Nikita/vero-Nic-a, or Nick is more gender-neutral as a name then i thought (wouldnt be the first time, i went years thinking Sam was exclusively a female name because the only "sam" i ever heard of was from Totaly Spies). I am not sure which is the case. (im gonna place money on its a shortened-nickname though) Ok Sophie confirms its a daughter.

Elliot has been cooking, Parker is taking the long-distance part of Long Distance Relationship a bit hard around the holidays.

Knock on the door: its Doyledude. He's asking for Elliot by full name (sus). --- Doyledude's gay and his dads a preacher who didn't aprove of "woke" books like Charlie and the chocolate factory. (Yes Christians are that bad. Source: My dad got a chainletter that refered to the antichrist as an "avatar" of satan once and "The last airbender" and the blue smurfs were both insta-banned from the household forever).

--- "I am totally fine with revenge it allows us a range of outcomes the mark deserves". good line.

"Guess theres a lot of maurice's out there" KNEW IT, the moment they named him "blanche" i suspected we were gonna be getting a Maurice Leblanc reference. (of course they'd go for Arsene Lupin in an episode about the importance of libraries)

Harry's "so do I" is a simple joke but it lands well. 8/10.

I think we found todays villain: Its the guy harassing a homeless man for using the library. (fuck that guy) Ok ominous cut of someone taking pictures of Elliot. --- Sophie is walking around the theatre loading 100 checkov's guns at once (confetti cannon, Parker is booking a helicopter, red sportscar, Harry has a cane)

Sophie does a speech about the team needing to remember that this is a good person.

Elliot has gotten some of his old budies to work stuntmen. Parker is asking the very crucial heart-attack related question. Our safeword is Winnebago (google says its a campervan? Honestly, if it werent for the whole "automobiles are deathmachines I dont trust myself with" angle, i'd like one.) --- Librarian dude takes one look at the red sportscar and just thinks "dafuq kinda spy are you?" before stealing a regular car like a sensible person on the run from crooks would.

So, clearly the guy is either a someone bad upbringing who brought himself around, or an actual retired spy himself, who reads those books primarily out of nostalgia.

Ok its misspent youth, also the way he casually tosses the phone out the window. Love this guy. --- Im gonna be honest, while i apreciate the consistency of parker still being the Christmas Monster, the way her characterisation has mellowed out to using store-brand santamugs after she was first introduce as off-the-wall enough to use priceless jewelry as garlands is weird to me.

Breanna carelessly dismisses an attack on their own firewalls and servers. Harry's moustache is bad but the eyepatch is worse. --- Four stars? Comeon man. (good improv)

Actual Goons are here! "take spencer" knew it! no way that Doyledude would know Spencers full name. Mr Blanche has stolen a sportsbike. --- Turns out yeah, he was a former spy. Its RIZ bitch (did we get a name? I dont remember) she's looking for "the ledger" (presumeably a list of secret identities. We're looking for a book kept by a librarian. Its in the library. Probably that book samurai book he's been reading regularly) Ok so this is definitly becoming a recurring thing with the way she first used Elliot to find which guys to hire and is now talking about making him an instructor. Is she the secret person he's been phone-ing that breanna was asking about this whole episode? (i thought it was the Supercop from Arlo) --- Blanche has a gun pointed at our heroes. PTSD in a bottle, cause thats a thing that exists now. Wilson is still holding old job secrets from them? Thats... weird. --- Wait, Elliots dad is alive? But I thought that the episode ending implied otherwise? (Might be me being bad at understanding the subtext of that scene, might be a retcon) --- Mr Blanche has already beaten all the guards in the time it took a drugged out Elliot to break a chair. (Pretend to be the new guy, classic "heavy object in a sock" prison-improv weapon. 8/10, guy knows what he's doing, but is also a bit rusty and forced into improv mode) --- Turns out, he didnt retire because he wanted to retire but because no one would believe the ledger was destroyed. Luckily floppy disks suck at long-term storage.

Harry is talking with his old boss, trying to be the angel on his shoulder while the boss is trying to be the devil on his. (still really odd that we went through the trouble of establishing our heroes broke in to find Harry's ledger of old sins and that we're now going the "Harry wont tell them his old sins" route.) --- Copperhead and Elliot are talking. Copperhead does not want to go out by cancer. (we're faking his death and assigning him to International arent we?) --- Confetticannons are a go-go! (they're meant to simulate pages being shot by guns)

Blanche got disarmed and shot with his own gun. (definitly a death-fake) --- Huh, RIZ-woman doesnt actually kill the guards who fail her objectives. She just blackmails them into following their NDA's. (profesional)

Yup it was in the big samurai book. (obviously) and he's getting the rental.

OK so Hardison sent the library boy. (explains why he knew Spencers name)

Ok So Elliots dad is alive just not around for the holidays ever.

[re-ikrmso]

small RAMBLE ABOUT Pokemon Fire Red Rocket (Romhack)

dude. listen, i know it's like. a cruel subversion for some people but I LOVED THAT ROMHACK. i don't have that same attachment and i write it off as an alternate universe. there is so much like headcnaons so effortlessly weaved into the story. its so. URGHHH. SO GOOD.

But just a small ramble here and there:

Personally, I believe Red in that Rom Hack...is just sociopathic/ or just has something that accounts for his lack of empathy. He CAN be taught different, except his uh...main caregiver/parent is Prof. Oak who is clearly...not the best influence. at all. Because I feel that some people may take Oak's words to heart when it's not really the case. Oak just thinks Red is just a puppet because that's what he thinks. We haven't seen much or ANYTHING from Red's perspective within the Rom Hack, but we do know these things at least according to oak:

Oak's word is law to Red

He "lacks" an emotional core+conscience.

"innately aggressive" with "unconstrained intelligence"

now while you can argue that "well if oak thinks red is a puppet and if red believes oak then he's just a puppet"

but me personally, i like to think Oak was just wrong on many levels, on regards to Red and the main character. They didn't need to be created in some lab (well i mean red's kind of. but whatever) to be fuckin prodigies. they just needed a REASON. Like, You don't Need to be a RED to be Champion. BLUE IS RIGHT THERE! Like, just how ironic would it be if it turned out Red and the main character were just naturally psychopaths but Oak chocks it up to something much larger? also, i like to think it leaves up room for pain. red looks up to oak, obviously but i do think he was listening the entire time. i dunno, like...it just feels it was NATURAL within Red's circumstances to go on the journey the way he did. he was always GUIDED by Oak. Well DUH, NO WONDER HE DID WHATEVER OAK WANTED! He also always had an interest in Pokemon! I do think that was genuine to some degree! Like, if Red was taught everything by Oak, then NO FUCKING WONDER HE FOLLOWS HIM! FOLLOWS HIS FATHER FIGURE! LIKE RED'S NOT A PUPPET. HE'S most likely JUST A KID who's NEVER had the chance to think twice on anything because Oak's word is law to him! and he also probably lacks self-awareness needed to properly look at his impacts on other people and why it should matter ot him but whatever. we don't know that much about the protag's or red's personality (WAHH) but we do know copycat is the best reflection we have. due to Fire Red Rocket being mostly paraell to an actual gameplay of Pokemon Red, we can assume most things said to Red are still applicable in THIS canon.

also another like slight thing that is very unrelated, but sometimes when character's are talking to a character but aren't facing them, i assume that the taking person is actually turned at a diagonal angle, or is like talking to them as they pace or something. i dunno, i think it gives the from more life that way.

so yeah wahh

[laurelier]

Wearing white: some thoughts on the subversion of purity and Christ-figure symbology in OFMD.

Specifically with regard to episode 3, but, like, it’s all over the (treasure) map. I finished this show for the first time, like, less than a week ago and I have actually not been able to think about or do anything else since so. Have this. 

I’ve seen a few real sharp metas floating around from some lovely people who have been on the ofmd beat since the beginning about a) the masterful and almost frighteningly detailed use of color symbolism in this show and b) the subversive use of Christian imagery in its visuals, and I wanted to submit a few (non-exhaustive, this is the tip of the tip of the iceberg) thoughts about white (and black, sort of) clothing to that general discourse, because it kind of. Is a thread that ties in with both tapestries. 

Under the cut— a few thoughts on when Stede wears white, when he wears black, and when Izzy accidentally channels Pontius Pilate, if pilate had taken, like. A more homoerotic and hands-on approach. I'd probably get kicked out of catholic school for this, unless it was one of those ones where they teach you how to throw knives.

Little tiny TW section before I begin: I don't get graphic in this post, I don't think, not any more than the show is, but I do mention the Concept Of Virginity a few times, so if discourse around that is in any way sensitive for you, just be aware. I tried to be gentle, but it's never a bad idea to warn.

Can’t touch this dadadadaaaa

Every color in this show is a multilayered symbol— red blue gold black purple green orange white, all of em, it’s fascinating and I am having a FIELD day thinking about how the visuals of this show use colors to suggest whole other worlds of meaning. And each color in turn represents lots of different things, but I do think that one important meaning of white, in OFMD, is the presence of emotional invulnerability. I think of it as a play on the Christian-canon virgin myth, in that when we think of white (in a Western, Christian symbolic tradition, ofc; I don't think the entire show operates from within that logical frame, but given Stede's background, I think you can certainly say he as a character is subject to it) we’re usually supposed to think of “virginal” purity, the idea of being Untouched and therefore Perfect, Holy, Godly, In Need of Protection, all that; I think the show/Stede kind of take that pervasive reductive tired idea and twist it around in a very cool way.

Opportune moment to reaffirm that I think the only good use of this Virgin Trope is when it’s turned on its head, as OFMD does— bc in the show, those characters who favor white in their clothes and, as such, create an association with this idea of being Virginal and Perfect appear to me not to be so much passively untouched as they are actively untouchable. And unlike in the traditional mythos, where virginity/“purity” (ack) is the ideal state (for women in particular), in OFMD, a show that’s so much about the deconstruction of rigid masculinities and, really, just rigid, isolated ways of being human— being unaccessed and untouchable is canonically not a desirable thing.

Stede’s the main one this applies to, I think (aside from Mary, at times, but the colors of her dresses are another post and a half). Stede’s a blue-coded character, @weirdgirlcore lays that out here, and that means so many things, but he also wears a lot of white— to start, we've got his white shirts, which are period costuming, sure, but. They’re also the closest layer of clothing to his skin, and he’s, like, always got them on, and there’s a good argument to be made that Stede is one of, if not the, most emotionally unavailable characters in the show. 

The scene where he's talking to the crew about talking things through, ironically enough. The shirt is so bright white and it's, like, right over his heart?

This isn't always applicable, and I think it moves around a bit, but I tend to think of these shirts as something of an insulating, protective layer: they’re almost always there, and they’re almost always white, and considered in the context of ep 3, I wonder if they, like. Serve the function of a bulletproof vest kind of deal. (Which makes it all the more interesting that Izzy shreds Stede’s shirt in the absolute horniest way possible in ep 2— maybe foreshadowing the way Ed will do the same to Stede, kind of break through his defenses, I don’t know; the way that even in his most vulnerable-looking states, such as in his pajamas and in his underclothes, Stede is still walled-off— but that’s a different barrel of fish.)

The cream of the Caribbean

Ruffly white undershirts/pjs aside, white color symbolism gets its moment to really shine in “The Gentleman Pirate”, when the crew visits the Republic of Pirates and Stede and Lucius wear those bright white outfits cringe. The bright ivory color, on the surface, evokes Stede’s, shall we say, inexperience with the world of piracy, his softness to that world and naïveté. Lucius, though, as well as the bloody, exhausted, sunburned hostage, also wear white— and no sooner does Lucius step off that boat than his brilliant, beautiful, pristine white coat is spoiled rather grotesquely by a man in an Unfortunate State who smears blood all down it. 

Grisly.

To this, all Stede can say is, “Really? You couldn’t have sidestepped?” which is a line that makes me gnash my teeth and pull my hair, because what else does Stede Bonnet do better in the first nine episodes of this show than sidestep everything that is represented by the symbology of the color red as expressed in this post by @edwardsilkheart— vulnerability, human emotion, real desire, Ed himself?

Even so early in the season, Lucius is already the direct opposite of Stede’s unavailability— he’s open, he’s vulnerable, he’s loving because of those things, he’s warming up to Stede— @weirdgirlcore again, hi, I’ve been reading your posts like my life mfing depends on it, this one explains this well, but the idea that Lucius is the red-coded emotional heart of the ship is just, yeah— so it makes sense that he’d be the one to be open enough to receive the ~redness of the pirate world and all the good and bad it’s got to offer. Stede, though, is so adept at keeping himself clear of all of that, even as he’s physically in the thick of it. The image of Stede walking entirely unscathed through the pirate world in his bright white little matching set is so evocative for me, like, a), you go girl, but b), you’d think those very, very white Virgin Mary ass clothes would make him more vulnerable to getting dirty or being singled out as a target, but they don’t, which makes me think there’s a way to read the moments when Stede wears white as when he’s at his most defensive, not least— and I think that’s such a cool reversal.

landed gentry lookin ass

When they get to Spanish Jackie’s, Lucius is again the one who gets blood thrown all over him, and walks around the rest of the time with that giant red stain all over his front. Hostage is looking rough too, but Stede remains perfectly spotless until he gets on the boat with the Spaniards and they stab him— and the red of his own blood soaks him, as opposed to Lucius, who’s sporting the blood of others. Stede has no contact with the color red at all, really, until moments before he’s lying in a pool of his own blood at Ed’s feet. 

And almost the literal next scene, like, that’s the final moments of ep 3, the “I’ve heard all about you” (knife me)— almost the literal next scene is Stede and Mary’s wedding. Like, that’s one of the opening scenes of ep 4, and Mary’s of course there in her white ass wedding dress, and we see her and Stede come into frame right after we see the lighthouse, I absolutely cannot stand this progression, it’s too smart.

I hate this shot. I hate it. Look at the lighthouse. Look at Stede in his stupid green cravat and Mary with her stupid green flowers. Look at the red on the officiant's neck tie thingy the nuns who taught me religion class in 6th grade would be so disappointed to know i don't remember the name of that shit but did it ABSOLUTELY have to be that bright red? Was that, like, an ecclesiastical necessity? God. GOD.

BECAUSE in order to get to this ^ scene, we have to go through Stede getting stabbed in his all-white fit at the end of ep 3 and his red blood spilling all over it: we have to watch him lying there in what is essentially his own white ass wedding dress, wearing blood for the first time (oh my GOD the implications) with Ed looming over him bathed in red light, wearing all black— like, they just got married. That’s what just happened. Symbolically they are wifed up and the suggestion is so heavy because of the close proximity of Stede’s actual legal wedding to Mary in the narrative and— all of that just underscores that now, Ed poses a big emotional threat to Stede. And having finished the show, we know that Stede, in the infinite depths of his self-hatred and subsequent capacity for cruelty to those he loves, will run from that. Will try to go back to being untouchable, before he really ever touched anyone; will try to go home and resume his former life, for a number of different reasons— a big one being that he believes he’s a ruiner, that he ruined Blackbeard, which calls up the way that, in a world that subscribes to the myth of virginity, virgins are considered “ruined” after certain intimate events unfold. Stede, the wearer of the supposed virginal color, believing himself a ruiner. I can’t believe this show, I honest to God cannot believe it.

But, of course, no matter how hard he tries, Stede can’t go back to being untouchable anymore, from that moment on the Spanish boat he loses his rather uncanny ability to stay completely lily-white— he’s found something that affects him, can break through his armor of, like, snow-white emotional blankness, and that could be so good for him if he could just let it. 

Jesus christ superstar but make it goth

One last final, kind of different note, because I was planning to write here about black and what I think that means but as I was writing I found that I don’t think I really know, lmao— but I do think it’s important that Stede is wearing black when Izzy stabs him against the mast in ep 6. Because, like. That’s, a) of all, such a deranged crucifixion nod. Stede??? As a Christ figure? Nailed to a pirate mast after a homoerotic swordfight that’s also a stand-in for, like, the romantic competition between Izzy and himself for Ed? Are you joking? 

Like— come again. Stede???!? As Jesus? It’s so good. It’s SO good. Stede isn’t Jesus! But he is. He is! Like, the best part is that Stede being Jesus here makes sense: he just forgave Ed, no questions asked, for attempting to murder him and right after that, he’s like, dying, and then oop he’s alive nvm what!— and all the while the whole thing is so gay, and his knowlege of how to survive the stabbing ordeal is rooted in such a gay moment, and he’s nailed to that fucking cross mast— and he could easily have killed Izzy afer he threw the gunpowder in his face, and even Olu was telling him to stab him but he didn’t, he showed Izzy mercy— and then Izzy’s sword breaks off in his guts and Stede is there stapled to that blessed mast metaphorically absolving everybody’s sins, most notably Ed’s, and there’s not a damned thing Izzy can do about it. 

The lighting in the scene where Iz actually stabs Stede is so dark that I couldn't get a good screenshot so here just have this pic of S in his little sweater with his little blue ring.

And b) of all, he’s wearing black while all of this happens, an uncharacteristic color for him, and which is also the color of Ed’s clothes: black likens Stede to Ed, in this moment (as well as Izzy). The last time Stede wore black, he was in Ed’s actual outfit, and he felt the burden of the real, dangerous, immediate responsibility that Ed bears. Stede’s adoption of the color black here from head to toe is such a cool choice on the part of the show in part because much, much more often, like, almost always, white is associated with Christ figures, as it is with virgins. But Stede-as-Jesus is wearing black— mourning, death, night; black being, maybe, the color associated with the times in our lives when we really have to, as Stede says, “face the music”, face the depths of ourselves.

Get crucified bitch.

Like I said, I don’t know what I think about symbolism of black, but. I do think if Stede were wearing white here, as he was the first time he got stabbed, I think that would kind of put a symbolic edge of unreality over the scene— the way he's used white to fabricate things, create an escapist reality around himself that insulates him from what’s really going on, as he does in the Republic of Pirates. The fact that he’s wearing black, to me, suggests him grappling with the weight of his situation, with his proximity to both death and love/Ed, with the responsibilities of captainship, and maybe most importantly, with the very, very real emotional honesty that Ed gives him to hold in this episode, directly before this scene.

Every time I rewatch this show I am struck anew at the sheer depth of the attention to detail in the script and costuming and lighting and set design and just. In everything. I don’t know how people make things that are so good, but I am thanking all the Jesuses I personally am aware of that this exists, long live.

[voughtcorsair]

who r your meow meows. heres MY meow meow

[ID: a gray tabby cat, sitting upright on a couch like a dad watching TB. he is looking into the camera with huge round eyes pathetically. end ID.]

OHHHHH BABBY!!!!! so small very cute very endearingly pathetic, im kissing his nose.

anyways......My poor little meow meows . let us see....

the red baron since he is officially listed on my carrd

...... Sorry........

ernst birkholz, ludwig breyer, georg rahe, valentin kosole, willi, albert, bethke, etc.....from the road back. kosole is funny and violent i love himmmm :-) albert straight up killed a man because he is a # women respecter, i think everyone has been subject to my ernst/ludwig/georg essays so ill spare you those but they are easily the poorest of my meow meows, bethke is genuinely a little pathetic at times, willi is sort of stereotypical jolly big football-player-type but i think hes like. Nice and good and he does case about his friends very very much. Ok sorry i love them your honour

paul baümer all quiet on the western front is specifically the POOREST little meow meow by DEFINITION. all his friends died and then he died like 2 weeks before the war ended. also included in this are kat ( :( ) though he would object to being called a poor little meow meow, franz kemmerich is also a very very poor little meow meow and i miss him dearly, most of the second company could qualify actually...

otto heidemann from the blue max 1966 . i don't know if hes like a poor little meow meow but hes My poor little meow meow because he's Trying btw . and also to an extent bruno stachel but like not really because he sucks but like. if he got therapy.

sigh. the pilot and soldat baümer from 1917. my fandom experience was ruined Early so im #gatekeeping and now they are my poor little meow meows i do not care about sch*field or what fucking ever. btw. the pilot is my friend and baümer is bapy . IDC if they killed people theyre getting the poor little meow meow stamp

jack powell and david armstrong from wings 1927. hooohgha booga hrrrbrgghrhrh. the POOREST little meow meows with so many miserable romantic mishaps and then jack being responsible for davids death and then they make up and kiss on davids deathbed which iirc is a fucking church or something that he crashed his plane into . Holy fuck man it makes me go crazy insane

Mary preston gets her own section because while she is not pathetic she is a poor little meow meow because she gets left behind so often and i feel so so so bad for her like i love you babe i understand .. have you considered polycules or dating girls? she's so pretty too :-)

billy prior regeneration. fucked up little man easily a poor meow meow if ive ever seen one. slutty bisexual stereotype tragic backstory just a bit messed up in general my beloved meow meow i love him to bits thinking about him makes me so happy

andrew from the charioteer is the best defined poor little meow meow of the century because he's a little pathetic and cute and nonthreatening and i think he's very sweet he just needs therapy

ralph is a subversive meow meow because hes not but like yes he is its extremely fucked up that we act very similar btw feel free to psychoanalyze all that. laurie is also definitely a poor little meow meow because i think he is a bit pitiful in a way that makes me want to scoop him.up and kiss his forehead love that gay little bitch

Oh shit I'm falling asleep

btw sorry so many of these guys r german i kind of skipped half the british wwi literature and said ok erich maria remarque moment. :-) yahoo

[smalltowndetective]

Orange Blossoms-From F’s POV

Hello everyone!

I was not able to do much for F’s birthday as I would have liked, but here is my submission to that! A while ago, I wrote Orange Blossoms, and it is one of my favorites that I have written, so I went ahead and wrote Felix’s POV. I hope you like it!

And to the requests that I have- The one for Mason should be out late tonight, and the one with Adam should be tomorrow. :)

Ao3 Link

Pairing: Felix and Thea

Words: 2.1k

Felix again paced the warehouse floor, his pulse quickening when he thought about tonight.

               He had asked Thea to their first official date two days ago, but now he wished he would have asked her closer to the actual date, because at least he would not have this agonizing wait, and these nerves that threatened to ruin his composure would at least not be quite as bad.

               Thea had chosen him, out of everyone else in the world, and he wanted everything to be perfect tonight for her, because she deserved nothing less. He had never felt this way about anyone before, and he wanted everything to be amazing.

               Felix was just unsure about what to do to make it so. Adam had put his foot down on them leaving Wayhaven, and truthfully it did not leave much options on what they could do. Thea did not drink, so that left the bar out of it, but there was one place that she had mentioned on the car ride over for the carnival mission; Hamlin Point.

               He had asked her about where her favorite place in all of Wayhaven was, and Thea’s answer had been a small overlook over the bay, where the sunset was its most striking, and Felix could not say he was surprised by her answer, and as he thought about it, he could not think of a better place to take her.

               The date had all that he talked about the last two days, and he knew that it was driving the others crazy, but it was the only out he had for the nervous energy that was building inside him, wanting desperately to not ruin the night.

               Felix had been so distracted, he hardly noticed Nate come in, whose voice soon broke his thoughts.

               “You alright, Felix?”, he asked, and Felix answered, talking to himself more than Nate.

               “I really don’t want to mess this up”, and he felt Nate rest his hand on his back.

               “You’re not”, he firmly said, and Felix then looked back up at Nate.

               “Nate, you’re better at this then I am.”

               He raised an eyebrow, “At what?”

               “The whole…dating thing”.

               Nate chuckled, “Ah”.

               “Do you have any advice for tonight?”, Felix asked, curious to what he might say.

               Nate’s eyes widened in surprise, as if it was shocked that he would ask, but he said, “The best advice I can give you is to just be yourself. Thea likes you for you. There is no reason why you shouldn’t act like you always do around her”.

               Felix gave a nod, feeling slightly encouraged by his words, “Anything else?”

               “Flowers are a pretty good idea”, Nate said, laughing as he said it, “I can help you out with that, if you’d like?”

               “Yeah, I would”, Felix grinned up at him.

               “Then you go get ready for tonight”, Nate said, “And I’ll handle the flowers”.

               A smile lit across Felix’s face, and he went back to his room, and even the doubts were still there, he was also at the same time somehow more excited than he already was.

                During the entire drive over to Thea’s apartment, Felix was full of nervous, but excited, energy, and he was constantly looking at where the bouquet of small white orange blossoms with tendrils of ivy mixed through it that Nate had given him, wondering whether Thea would like it, and it was not long until he made his way inside her apartment building, holding the flowers in his right hand, his steps quickening as he got closer, and he rang her doorbell.

               He could hear footsteps after he rang, and it was not long before he opened the door, and Felix allowed himself to drink in the sight of her. She was wearing a dark blue dress, a darker color then she normally wore, with small white flowers adorned over the fabric, and even with her silver heels, he still stood a few inches taller than her. Her long hair flew in a wavy cascade down her back, and she gave him a smile when they met eyes.

               “Good evening Thea”, he said, trying to sound as alluring as he possibly could, “You look gorgeous”.

               Felix watched as bright red blush went over her checks, never failing to make his heart skip a beat, and Thea eventually muttered a quiet “Thank you”, and then she turned to face him, a bright smile on her face, “You look very handsome tonight”.

               He gave her a bright grin, but as he watched Thea’s blue eyes go a little downcast, and a small frown on her lips, Felix could feel his pulse quicken.

               Crap, did I do something wrong?

               ‘Everything okay?”, he asked, unable to keep his worry to himself, and Thea seemed to be jolted out of thought.

               “I’m fine”, she said breathlessly, and Felix felt himself frown, and after a pause, Thea added, “I just want to enjoy tonight”, and he was not sure if she said it for him or for herself.

               Hesitantly, Felix stepped closer to her, and gently cupped her cheek with his free hand, almost expecting her to pull away, but Thea leaned her face into his hand and closed her eyes, as if she drinking the moment in, and he realized he had been holding his breath, and finally let himself breathe and enjoy the peace.

               “The flowers are pretty”, Thea said after a moment, opening her eyes and looking down at the orange blossoms.

               “Yeah, Nate thought it was a good idea”, he replied, reluctantly moving his hand away and handing her the bouquet, “I hope you like them”

               “I love them”, she said quietly, and Felix noticed she swallowed hard before giving him a smile, “So, what are we doing tonight?”

               “You’ll see”, he winked at her, and a smile so bright went across Thea’s face it almost made him forget about the uncertainty before.

               “You’ve thought about this, haven’t you?”

               “More then you can now”, Felix said, a smirk on his face, but the deeper meaning shining through anyway.

               Thea set the bouquet inside, and he offered her his arm, which he took, curling hers into his, and as they walked out together, both of their hearts were racing, but Felix was pretty sure his was faster.

               “So”, Thea said as they climbed into the car, “Where are going?”

               “That would ruin the surprise”, he joked, “And we both know how much I love surprises”.

               “Really?”, she said, “Not even a hint?”

               “Nope”, he said, throwing her a grin, “You’re just going to have to wait”.

               She stared at him wide-eyed for a second, and then she nodded, and it was not long afterwards that they were there, and Felix stopped the car, and Thea looked at him confused, but then recognition seemed to flood her.

               “Hamlin Point?”, she asked, turning to him, “You remembered!”

               On the way to the carnival mission a few weeks ago, Felix has asked her what her favorite place in Wayhaven was, and Thea’s answer had been this small point that overlooked the bay, where the best sunsets could be seen, reflecting with the bay water below. They had not spoken about it long, but it had stuck with him.

               “How could I not?”, he said, throwing her a joking grin, then feeling like he had to explain why he had taken her here, he continued, “To be honest, I was having trouble deciding what to do. I know you don’t drink, and I know you mentioned you would take me bowling at some point, but of course, there isn’t of that in Wayhaven, and the others weren’t as keen on us leaving the town”.

               “It’s perfect”, she smiled, “Thanks Felix”.

               They both then made their way out of the car, and Felix entwined his fingers into hers as they made their way to a small bench that sat at the edge of the point, and they sat together, her entwined hands now on Thea’s knee, and as beautiful as the scenery was, Felix did not pay much attention to it, looking back at Thea instead.

               Both of them spent a moment gazing at each other in silence before she broke it, “With your normal subversion to quietness, I’m surprised that you would take me here”.

               “Don’t you know?”, Felix said lightly, his lips forming a smile “I like the moments I spend with you, no matter where they are”, and a small blush went over Thea’s face, but suddenly she took her hand out of his, holding her head in her hands, and Felix could feel himself beginning to panic, wondering if he had said something wrong.

               “Thea, seriously, are you sure your alright?”, he said, his voice almost trembling, and Felix could feel his hand shake as he placed it on her shoulder, not sure on what to do, and fully expecting her to push him away.

               “I’m sorry”, she whispered, her voice shaking, and it made his chest ache at the sound of it, “I’m ruining everything”

               “You’re not”, Felix said with a firmness in his voice he was not expecting, and he tightened his grip on her shoulder, wanting to let her know that he was here, “Talk to me please. Something is obviously bothering you”. He then paused, realizing he did not want to seem like he was forcing her to talk about it, and then added, “If you want to that is”.

               Thea finally met his eyes, and almost tearfully said, “I just-really don’t want to mess this up”.

               Wait, Thea’s worried about messing this up?

               Ever since they made it official, Felix had been having the worry that he would say or do something stupid and push her away, and he would have never imagined that Thea had the same fear, and he could not think of a single reason why she would be the one who ruined this.

               He moved his hand to brush some of her hair out of her face, wanting to see her face better, and he said resolutely, trying to leave Thea no room for doubt, “I find it very hard to believe you’ll mess this up”, and he gave her a grin, “Because you are probably the sweetest person I’ve ever met, and if want, I’ll never leave your side”

               Felix watched as her eyes widen, her face growing red, but what she said afterward was enough to leave him astonished.

               “Then I hope you know I feel the same about you”.

               What?

               He could feel his insides twist, and for a moment, he wasn’t quite sure what to say. Felix had become so used to the feelings being stronger on his side then the other, but to have Thea say that, well, he just was sure there was not a thing he could say to her that would explain what that had meant to him.

               “I’m-really happy to her you say that”, he stammered out, and he gave her a smile, trying to fight the nerves down that threatened to engulf him.

               “It’s the truth”, Thea said, sounding relieved, then her eyes cast apologetically, “Sorry I’ve downer tonight”.

               “What are you talking about?”, Felix rushed out, trying to assure her that she was not, “Talking about how you feel doesn’t make you a downer”.

               Thea gave a bright smile, and Felix gave in to the urge to move closer to her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders to pull her close, and noticing a slight quiver in her lip, he said, “I’m not going anywhere babe, I promise”.

               “Babe?”, she asked, and it was not until Thea asked that Felix realized he said it.

               “Yeah”, he shrugged, not really sure what compelled it, but it felt right, “I don’t know, it just feels right to use with you”.

               Thea gave him a wide smile, “I like it”.

               Felix then turned to her, bringing his hand to rest on her cheek, and gently kissed her.

               It was barely a kiss, there lips just on the edge, but it made his heart pound.

               They gently pulled apart, and Thea looked over the bay, and Felix allowed himself to enjoy the moment, watching the sunset reflect on her eyes.

               “Have you ever skipped stones, Felix?”

               “No”, he said, curious to what she was talking about, “What do you do?”.

               Felix watched as Thea got up from the bench and picked a pebble off the ground, and threw it into the bay, it skipping three times before sinking into the water.

               “Oh, let me try!”, he beamed, and he grabbed a pebble of his own, and tried to do what Thea did, but his did not skip and it sunk it the water immediately.

               “How did you do that?”, he asked her, and Thea gave a laugh that sent happy shivers down his spine.

               “It just takes practice, try again!”.

               They spent the rest the daylight skipping stones, laughing with each other, a bliss that was unmatched flowing through both of them.

I hope you enjoyed! 

 And, feel free to send me requests if you have any! I’d love to do them!

[chiseler]

The Second Most Dangerous Anarchist in America

{NOTE: September 16th, 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the Wall Street bombing, an event which the city, for some reason, refuses to commemorate.}

A little after two on the afternoon of April 15th, 1920, the paymaster of one of the two shoe factories in Braintree, MA, together with a security guard, decided in a change of pace to simply walk that week’s payroll the few blocks from the office to the factory. The payroll, a little over $15,000 in cash, was divided between two strongboxes, each carried by one of the men. Along the way, and in front of over fifty eyewitnesses, a gang of five men, strangers to the small town, gunned down the paymaster and the guard, grabbed the strongboxes, hopped into an idling blue Buick, and sped away. The Buick, later determined to have been stolen a few weeks earlier, was a fancy model with curtained windows, plenty of chrome, and fat tires.

Two days later, on April 17th, two men on horseback discovered the car abandoned in the woods along the western edges of Bridgewater, just a couple miles south of Braintree. Much thinner tire tracks leading away from the scene were assumed to belong to the car into which the killers piled after ditching the Buick.

Bridgwater’s police chief, Michael Stewart, was a cigar-chomping, two-fisted type who’d been raised in Boston. Despite being the son of Irish immigrants, Stewart harbored a deep distrust of more recent immigrants from Germany, Poland, and Italy, especially the political types, suspecting them of being responsible for most of the crime in the region. He was proud to have been able to turn over six bona-fide Reds living in Bridgewater during the Palmer raids of the previous year.

Upon hearing about the Braintree killing, Stewart was reminded of a similar attempted heist in Bridgewater four months earlier on Christmas Eve. Again a shoe factory payroll had been targeted by a group of armed men in a getaway car. That time, however, they were thwarted when the truck containing the payroll crashed, and the would-be thieves were blocked by a passing trolley. Frustrated, they hopped back into the getaway car, another fancy, recently stolen model, and fled empty-handed.

During his abortive investigation into the failed heist, Stewart had been pointed to a ramshackle two-story house in the woods. Locals referred to it as Puffer’s Place, and believed it was home to a group of Italian anarchists. Those who’d heard of Puffer’s Place had no idea what went on there, but if it was full of anarchists, you knew it couldn’t be good. It sounded like a promising lead—Stewart was convinced Italian anarchists were responsible for the job—but he wasn’t able to find the shack, and gave up on the investigation.

All that changed a day after the Braintree attack, when Stewart received a call from the immigration bureau asking after  one Feruccio Coacci, a known anarchist who lived in the area and was scheduled for deportation.

Coacci, who’d been living with his wife and a housemate at Puffer’s Place, was quickly tracked down and deported on the 19th. In fact, after weeks of delays and excuses, he insisted on being deported on the 19th. Upon learning Coacci had coincidentally worked at both targeted shoe factories, and just as coincidentally failed to show up for work the day of both heists, Stewart became suspicious. On Tuesday the 20th, he headed back out to Puffer’s Place with another investigator.

They were met at the door by a small, funny-looking man who introduced himself as Mike Boda. Bona invited them in, showed them around, and answered their questions. He even showed them his revolver. Coacci, he said, had some friends who were anarchists and very bad men, but he had nothing to do with them himself.

When they were done looking around the cluttered house, Bona led them to the dilapidated car barn out back, explaining his car, a clunky 1914 Overland, was in the shop to get its magneto repaired. Although Overlands had very thin tires, there were also fatter tire tracks on the garage’s dirt floor. Buda explained this away by telling the officers he sometimes pulled in at a funny angle.

Satisfied, Stewart thanked Mr. Voda for his time and cooperation, and left.

Realizing later what a horrible mistake he’d made, that the tire tracks were just the clue he needed, Stewart rushed back to Puffer’s Place the next morning, arriving on the front stoop about twenty seconds after Bona slipped out the back door and vanished. By the next day, when Stewart stopped by again hoping to find Buda, Puffer’s Place had been cleaned out.

A few people at the time described him as resembling a clown without makeup. He was short and balding, with a great bulbous nose poised above a black mustache. But Mario Buda was not a man known for his rollicking sense of humor. Those who knew him said he was quiet, serious, enigmatic and a little arrogant. Still, there was something of the clown about him. At least he took his slapstick very, very seriously. Instead of cream pies or seltzer bottles, however, he leaned more toward dynamite. Now, a century after his most famous performance, he’s become the stuff of myth, both in anarchist and law enforcement circles.

Buda was born on October 13th, 1884 in Savignano sul Rubicone, Italy, a region known at the time as a hotbed of anarchist thinking.

In 1907, after a few minor scrapes with the law and an increasing sense he’d never be able to make a go of it in Savignano, a then-23-year-old Buda sailed to America. Although already an avowed anarchist, Buda had also apprenticed as a shoemaker, a skill he hoped might come in  handy in the land of plenty. It didn’t, and after working a series of menial jobs, starving and getting nowhere for two years, he returned to Italy in 1911. In 1913, he decided to give America another shot, this time settling in Boston and finding work at (depending on the account) a shoe factory, a hat factory or, together with his brother, a shop that sold cleaning supplies. That same year he became friends with another shoemaker named Nicola Sacco, whom he met when both took part in a protest at a nearby textile factory. Along with being a shoemaker, Sacco was also an anarchist, a follower of Luigi Galleani. In the pages of his magazine, Cronaca Sovversiva,  Galleani advocated what he called The Propaganda of the Deed, which called for the violent annihilation  of all government institutions through a relentless program of bombings and assassinations. Although the magazine never had more than 5,000 subscribers, it was considered the most influential anarchist periodical in America, while Justice Department insiders had labeled Galleani himself, who lived in Barre, Vermont, the country’s most dangerous anarchist.

Buda began attending local Galleanisti meetings where, sometime around 1916, he also met a fish peddler named Bartolomeo Vanzetti. He would later cite Sacco and Vanzetti as two of his best friends in the world.

The image of the swarthy, bomb-tossing anarchist in a long dark coat and low-slung hat solidly entered the American popular consciousness in 1919 (see below), but anarchist bombings across the country were not that uncommon prior to 1919, and in fact can be traced back to at least the Haymarket Square bombing of 1886. Still, there’s something so simple, even comforting and Romantic, in attributing all these incidents to a single figure, a lone super villain with a taste for black powder. Apart from a few scattered basic facts, precious little is known about Buda. He gave no speeches, left no writings, never married, played things very close to the chest, yet still seemed to be everywhere in the country at once. Over the past century this mysterious little man with the big nose has become as prime a candidate as anyone for supervillain status.

So this is where the speculation begins, most of it based on hindsight which itself is based on speculation.

On New Years Day, 1916, a security guard at the Massachusetts State house discovered a wicker suitcase packed with dynamite in the building’s basement, but was able to dispose of it before it went off. The following day another bomb planted in nearby Woburn was a bit more successful, detonating inside a factory belonging to The New England Manufacturing Company. No one was hurt, but the building suffered extensive damage. Was Buda involved in either incident? It’s unknown, and in fact it’s fairly unlikely, but in recent years armchair radical historians have been including them as possible early examples of Buda’s handiwork.

Seven months later on July 22nd, as America began prepping to dive into World War I, cities across the country staged what were called Preparedness Day parades to express public support for the military. Radical and labor groups assailed the idea, not only because they saw it merely as a cheap excuse for large businesses to angle their way into fat government contracts, but also because part of what was termed preparedness was the institution of a new military draft which would mostly, if not exclusively, affect the working class.

The parade in San Francisco, which attracted an estimated 50,000 marchers, was thrown into chaos when a suitcase packed with dynamite and left on the sidewalk exploded. Ten people were killed, and another forty were sent to the hospital with serious injuries. Suspicion immediately focused on socialists, labor groups, subversives and other radicals. The local chamber of commerce and business leaders, happy to cooperate with the police, compiled a list of known labor agitators who’d been involved in recent strikes. They passed the list over to the cops, who started rounding up Reds. In the end Warren Billings and Tom Mooney, both of them low-level labor activists, were charged with the bombing. Both men had solid alibis, both had been out of town that day, but thanks to the testimony of one well-coached prosecution witness, Billings got life, and Mooney was sentenced to death.

In the uproar that followed, Billings and Mooney became poster boys, early martyrs for the labor movement, but, twenty years later, received full pardons. That still left the question, who built and planted the crude bomb? Assuming it was the work of anarchists and not German saboteurs, every notable anarchist in the country—beginning with Emma Goldman—fell under suspicion, with the smart money leaning toward Boda. There exists no evidence linking him to the explosion, but there was no evidence linking anyone to the explosion, so whose to say it wasn’t a Buda job?  The case remains unsolved to this day.

Later in 1916—and this we do know—Buda was arrested at a Boston anti-militarism protest that turned violent. At his hearing, like so many anarchists at the time, he refused to take the oath on a Bible, and was sentenced to five months in jail for contempt. Upon his release in early 1917, and hoping to avoid that newly-instituted draft, he reconnected with Sacco and Vanzetti and the trio spirited away to join a growing collective of Italian anarchists living in Monterey, Mexico.  

There, Buda worked in a laundry and—here we’re back to speculation—may have spent his free time honing his bomb-making skills. What evidence there is to support this idea came later in 1917.

On November 9th, a Milwaukee, WI-based Italian evangelical minister, fed up with these slacker anarchists giving speeches badmouthing America when the country was at war, held a loyalty rally in front of the city’s anarchist headquarters. A fight broke out, the police were called, and in the end two anarchists were shot and killed. In retaliation, a group of ten anarchists, Buda among them, left Mexico and returned to the States with a mission. On the night of November 23rd, they left a bag containing a bomb in the basement of the offending evangelical church. Before it detonated, however, it was discovered by a janitor, who brought it to the local police station.

That’s where it exploded, killing nine cops and one civilian. Although several anarchists, including Buda, were rounded up and questioned, there was no solid evidence against any of them, and they were all released. No charges were ever filed. Today the Milwaukee blast is generally accepted without question as a Buda operation.

Buda, who upon his return from Mexico adopted the pseudonym Mike Boda, moved back to Massachusetts in early 1918. His precise whereabouts and doings over the course of the next two years remain foggy, though a few people think they know what he might’ve been up to.

On the afternoon of April 29th, 1919, a small package wrapped in brown paper arrived in the mail at the home of Georgia senator Thomas W. Hardwick. Hardwick wasn’t home, so his housekeeper brought the box inside and, together with Hardwick’s wife, set about opening it at the kitchen table.

The package turned out to be a novelty sampler from Gimbel’s. Or so the box claimed, anyway. When the housekeeper tore open the flap marked “OPEN,” she unwittingly released a spring that allowed a small vial of acid to spill on three blasting caps, which detonated the stick of dynamite packed in the wooden box. The explosion blew off the housekeeper’s hands and left Hardwick’s wife badly burned and lacerated.

That same day, an identical package arrived at the home of Rayme Weston Finch, a Bureau of Investigation agent with the Justice Department. One of Finch’s staffers took the initiative and opened the curious package, but ignoring the clearly-marked instructions, opened it from the wrong end. The acid vial merely tumbled out onto the table, and the bomb didn’t detonate.

After these two incidents, law enforcement departments, the post office and the media all began posting nationwide warnings about any similar packages. Even before word started to spread, a sharp-eyed postal clerk in New York had already set aside over a dozen identical packages for lack of postage. A total of thirty-six bombs had been mailed around the end of April, apparently in the hope they would be received and opened on May Day. Scanning the list of those politicians, judges, law enforcement officials, wealthy businessmen and newspaper editors who’d been targeted—including  J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Attorney general A. Mitchell Palmer—gave investigators a reasonably clear insight into the motivations of the Mad Bomber.

In a paranoid frenzy following the Bolshevik Revolution, city, state, and federal governments passed a series of sweeping anti-immigrant and anti-sedition laws, making it all but illegal to be an outspoken socialist, communist or anarchist, especially if you also happened to be Italian. All those people slated to receive mail bombs had either supported or enforced the legislation. Fisk, for instance, lead a raid on the offices of Cronaca Sovversiva in 1918, arresting three Galleanisti. Hardwick, meanwhile, had sponsored legislation aimed at crushing the labor movement and driving Left-leaning immigrants (mostly Italians) out of the country.

Two thoughts at this point. First, if Boda built the bombs in question, and if it was his idea to disguise an exploding box as a “Gimbel’s Novelty Sampler,” then he clearly had a much wackier sense of humor than most people realize. And second, again if Boda was responsible for the bombs used in the April campaign, they represented a marked leap forward in design. The earlier bombs attributed to him had been crude devices, just bundles of dynamite with primitive timing mechanisms, while these mail bombs were sophisticated and intricate. So who knows? Maybe he really had honed his skills during those months in Mexico.

On June 2nd, as federal investigators were still trying to narrow down their list of suspects for April’s mail bombs, eight much more powerful bombs, once again targeting judges, politicians and Attorney General Palmer, were detonated simultaneously in cities across the country. Bombs went off in Pittsburgh, Washington, New York and Chicago. Along with being packed with metallic shrapnel, each of the devices also contained a leaflet which read:

War, Class war, and you were the first to wage it under the cover of the powerful institutions you call order, in the darkness of your laws. There will have to be bloodshed; we will not dodge; there will have to be murder: we will kill, because it is necessary; there will have to be destruction; we will destroy to rid the world of your tyrannical institutions.

The flyers had been signed “The American Anarchist Fighters.”

This time there were two casualties. One was a night watchman, the other the former editor of Cronaca Sovversiva, who was in the process of depositing a 25-pound bomb on Palmer’s front steps when it prematurely exploded. The bomb demolished the front of the house, but Palmer, who was at home with his family at the time, was in a back room and remained unharmed. The bomber, meanwhile, was scattered in small pieces all over the genteel Washington, D.C. neighborhood.

Combined with the flyers, when the bomber was eventually identified as a Galleanista the feds had all the evidence they needed to deport Luigi Galleani back to Italy. But that was only the beginning of Attorney General Palmer’s revenge.

Although no one was ever arrested or charged for the bombing campaign, toward the end of 1919, the Attorney General, a long-time hardliner when it came to immigration, Sedition, labor unions an radicalism, launched what came to be known as The Palmer Raids. Cops across the country (including Police Chief Stewart in Bridgwater) rounded up roughly 10,000 suspected anarchists, communists and socialists, most of them Italian. In the end over 500 were deported. Meanwhile, American intellectuals whose own political views edged into the pink found themselves subject to federal and local suspicion and persecution. While the Palmer raids only lasted a few months, the first Red Scare would linger much longer.

Sacco and Vanzetti

On the evening of May 5th, 1920, two weeks after Mike Boda slipped away from Police Chief Michael Stewart, word began to spread the cops were going to start rounding up local radicals in their as yet fruitless search for the men responsible for the Braintree and Bridgwater crimes. Members of the local Galleanisti cell, including Sacco, Vanzetti, and Boda, decided it might be wise to quickly dispose of any stray dynamite and anarchist literature anyone might have laying around their homes. It was also decided the best and most efficient way to do this would be by car. Boda had the only available car, and though it was still in the shop, it was ready to be picked up. Boda, Sacco, Vanzetti and another friend made their way to the mechanic’s house about nine, but when the mechanic and his wife made a hamfisted attempt to stall them, it became clear something was afoot.  Boda  correctly smelled a set-up, and told the mechanic he’d come to pick up his car the next morning instead. The four men quickly left, splitting up as they did so.

Boda went into hiding in East Boston, but on their way home on the trolley that night, Sacco and Vanzetti were picked up by a cop who considered them suspicious characters. The pistols they were carrying and all the anarchist pamphlets in their respective homes only strengthened Stewart’s belief he had two of the killers in custody.

While keeping a very low profile in Boston, Boda closely followed the growing case against his two friends in the local papers.  On September 11th, 1920, Sacco and Vanzetti were officially indicted on first-degree murder charges.

Five days later, a little before noon on September 16th, as the sidewalk began to fill with the lunch hour crowds, a man drove his old horse and cart down Wall Street, coming to a stop outside the corporate headquarters of the J.P. Morgan bank, just down the street from the Stock Exchange. The man, whom nobody would later recall seeing, climbed down, tied up the horse, and  strolled away, one would like to imagine with his hands in his pockets and whistling a casual tune. Nobody paid much attention to the horse and cart, a common sight around New York at the time. Besides, everyone was too focused on lunch and that afternoon’s business meetings.

At a minute after twelve, the hundred pounds of dynamite packed in the cart exploded, sending nails and 500 pounds of iron sash weights ripping into the junior executives, bank tellers, secretaries, stock brokers and office boys who filled the streets. Cars were tossed around like cheap toys, trolleys a block away were blown off the tracks and windows throughout the financial district were shattered, as a fiery mushroom cloud arose above the gaping hole where the horse and cart once sat.

The streets and sidewalks were littered with broken glass, bleeding bodies, and parts of bodies as an eerie silence fell over the area. Then the screaming began.. In the end, thirty-eight people were killed, with another 300 hospitalized.  

William Flynn, director of the Bureau of Investigation, insisted on handling the case himself, ordering the immediate arrest of any known anarchists and, for good measure, the IWW’s Big Bill Haywood, who was in Chicago at the time of the bombing. Along with Haywood, eleven anarchists from the New York area were arrested, but all were soon released for lack of evidence.

Although a $100,000 reward was offered for information leading to an arrest, Flynn only had two clues to work with.

One was a handful of flyers discovered by a mailman in the minutes before the bomb went off. In prude red letters on yellow paper, the flyers read:

“Remember we will not tolerate any longer. Free the political prisoners or it will be sure  death for all of you.”

It was signed by “American Anarchist Fighters,” the same group behind the 1919 bombings.

The other was a blacksmith from Little Italy who told police that a day before the bombing, a short, balding Sicilian came into his shop to either (depending on the telling):

1. Rent an old horse and cart.

2. Rent a horse to pull a cart,

Or 3. Have his old horse, who was already pulling a cart, fitted with new shoes.

Flynn didn’t have much to go on, and his investigation went nowhere. In retrospect, he would later insist he knew from the start his primary suspect was Mario Buda, but Buda was never brought in, never questioned, and no charges were ever filed against him.

Buda, meanwhile, still going under the name Mike Boda, slipped off to Providence, and by the end of the month was on his way back to Savignano where, despite ongoing political activity and occasional trouble with the police (including a five-year exile), he would spend the rest of his days as a quiet and serious shoemaker. He died on June 1st, 1963.

According to Buda’s nephew, in 1955 his uncle confessed to him that he had indeed built and delivered the Wall Street bomb, though it’s unclear if he confessed to any of the other bombings attributed to him. It’s also unclear if Buda, eight years before his death, clarified to his nephew whether the Wall Street bombing was done in reaction to the indictment of his friends, as a final Puck You to Attorney General Palmer—or, hell, merely as a kick in the balls to the whole damn capitalist system. We’ll likely never know. To this day, the shrapnel pockmarks from the bomb can still be seen on the facades of several financial district buildings, and the case remains open.

Buda was, without question, a shadowy and slippery character. Over the years he’s taken on the aura of a Dr. Mabuse or Professor Moriarity. And who knows? Maybe he really was a mad anarchist genius. After all, no clues were ever left behind at the scenes of the bombings attributed to him, so there’s no saying he wasn’t responsible for all of them and more. Maybe he really was that good. I’d like to believe so.

by Jim Knipfel

[monkey-network]

Larva is a Cartoon I Enjoy

It’s a cloudy morning outside as I type this. *inhale* *exhale* Alright.

Western mainstream media can disappoint me sometimes. The MCU? Gotten stale. Steven Universe? Hurt my brain. Voltron & She-Ra? Sucked the life out of me, they’re so bad. Barbie’s Princess and the Pauper? Pretty alright, kinda want a remastered version. Even the good shows like Teen Titans Go!, modern Spongebob, The Loud House, and Unikitty fall under a tiresome conventional taste. There are some gems out there but actual gems can be few and far in between and even then you might tire of singing their complex praises. Sometimes you just want a modern show that doesn’t devise some deeper themes, be subversive, or push that you’re a valuable part of society. You want a good show that doesn’t require thinking. So, out of the blue, World said “fuck it” and got South Korea to make a cartoon about dumbass bugs that eat, survive, and fart.

Said farts puts hair in all the right places

Listen, I review media, nice hobby of mine. And over many years, I’ve seen some thoughtful, introspective features and shows and I’ve committed my darnedest to sharing my feelings about them. Then again, I’m a tired, stupid, hairy, lazy, terribly honest baboon that sometimes hates when people enjoy things I can’t, when I get my hopes up only to wish I never bothered, and when people have an hot take about something they, in truth, are not gonna see so really the pompous cunt that they are should’ve not bothered opening their fugly ass mouth in the first place. To get to the point, I really have no explanation as to why I like this because it speaks for itself. It’s essentially A Bug’s Life meets Happy Tree Friends but without the gore. The characters, name the Red and Yellow ones, go from a sewer setting to a house setting to the NY streets to an island and whatever happens happens. This series is the equivalent of a good high. It’s goofy as shit, you chuckle feeling light in the face, and you feel compelled for more. The ugliness of it can take some getting used to but hey, I was actually high when I first started to love it. It isn’t like some those twitter accounts that essentially repost the same cartoon clip with different audio, this is some actually entertaining stuff.

It got me to enjoy Power Rangers for God’s Sake

I’m just saying, we typically tend to dive into these wannabe complex shows and movies, analyze what’s great about it, bitch about what other people think and do with it to accommodate the fact they have little else to show for themselves and will make no radical effort to change that. And that’s fine, but I say we need true balance. A chance to stop thinking about how Avatar: The Last Airbender and Redline are the greatest of all time and enjoy some good stupid bliss. A show that allows you to have fun with the madness that ensues. A cartoon that’s able to evolve itself and yet feels just the same YET never feels old. That’s what Larva is in its entirety and I just love it. I can drone on about the caveats but positives far outweigh the negatives as it’s mostly personal preference and taste. It's like my 4th Grandfather once said...

Now you can disagree, and you’d be wrong but welcome regardless. The point I want to get across is that sometimes you deserve, no, need a show that’s dumb, silly and proud of it. Not saying they’re better than your Disney, Cartoon Network shows or your all angle anime extravaganzas, but I say it’s vital that you should have something to freely turn to to turn your brain off and enjoy. And I also don’t mean media that’s bad but apparently good IF you turn off your brain, I mean media that revels in just being profoundly stupid. You can have some rough days, weeks even, and sometimes turning to the revolutionary big brain writing doesn’t pick you up like expected. Even if they’re your high class comfort food, that doesn’t mean you’ll be as into it as before. Junk food isn’t healthy for you, but we shouldn’t be snooty enough to pass it and appreciate it any differently.

So Enjoy Yourself, you Magnificent Bastards

[saucerfulofsins]

God your fic-idea under that redditpost just sent me!!! I can only imagine pat as the hedonism-bot tho, he’d fit so perfectly in that role

LISTEN I am So Inclined to roll with this! Because he absolutely fucking would, sipping his orange juice from a wine glass and smirking at Jonny working out!

But at the same time I also like the idea of Jonny being this rich kid and Patrick’s already kind –

No. No you know what? I really wanted to say I can see this from both sides. That’s why I wrote the tags the way I did. Even if at some point I deleted and rewrote a few putting “Patrick” in for rich kid and “Jonny” for hockey player. I love subversive roles! But no, you, my friend, you are 100% right. He fits the role perfectly. I’m gonna roll with it so hard.

[post + tags]

So yeah, it’s Patrick lying on his little sofa in the gym, watching all these hot hockey players. And honestly, it should be weird, because everyone knows Pat’s gay and they still go there and work out with him. He commands their respect though, he doesn’t play on their team but he knows his hockey and that holds its appeal. All the free food does, too, of course.

But Jonny realises he likes the way Pat looks at him. They’re college students; they all appreciate it when people like the hard work they put into their bodies, of course they do. He hopes to make the fucking NHL, his looks are a testament to the effort he puts in. 

And he’s awkward about being around Patrick, and he knows it, because he’s not used to this shit and he hates it. But then Pat taps on his shoulder after practise one day, and asks Jonny if he wants to help him out with his ‘posture’. Pat’s posture, that day, is supremely bad. Like, if Jonny didn’t know any better (and honestly he should, but he does go fucking stupid around Patrick) he’d say Patrick’s mostly trying to keep a bad posture during his deadlifts, because his body sure as hell says something different.

He corrects Pat though, gentle touches like he does with his teammates but this time not immune to the soft way Patrick sighs as he widens his legs a little, pushes his ass back a little farther, straightens his spine like he’s done this a million times before. He smirks at Jonny but still does it again the next time they’re invited over; then again, again, again. 

He’ll pat Jonny’s arm after it’s over and smile at him like he’s got Jonny all figured out, eyes flicking down to Jonny’s mouth, licking his lips like he’d lean in if Jonny wanted him to–

And Jonny begins to think maybe he wants Patrick to. Begins to think about it more and more, and then summer hits and he stays in town and begins to work out with Patrick, who wants to try out for the college team. He used to play, he says. Quit a few years ago, but never stopped skating, never stopped working out. He’s rich, Jonny knows, but more than that, he thinks Patrick might actually have it in him–he realises he’s been lead on all this time, Pat faking the bad posture for sure because he falls easily in step with Jonny during training, and afterwards they watch old games together, dissect them, take what’s good and hypothesise on what could be better.

By that time, he knows he’s got it bad. He does, and he’s pretty sure he’s not hiding it well, but still it’s a surprise when after one session Patrick pushes him up against the wall in the gym, smiling softly. Jonny’d expected a smirk, a chirp, but none of that comes as Patrick thumbs his cheek.

“I’ve wanted to, you know,” he tells Jonny. “You’re all hot, but you–I don’t know, man. You’re intense.”

“Yeah,” Jonny responds, voice hoarse. His head thumps back against the wall, but he barely feels it, Patrick’s thumb still trailing over his face.

“And I didn’t wanna like–I didn’t wanna come on to you. Didn’t wanna ruin this, or my chances of getting on the team.”

“Your dad could pay,” Jonny says. “Anything. We’d–any of the guys, we’d just–”

“I know,” Patrick shushes him, breath ghosting over Jonny’s lips. He’s close enough that he can smell the Gatorade, almost taste the fruity-sweet taste of its red still clinging to Patrick’s lips.  “Didn’t want that, though. I’m not gonna get close to someone who doesn’t want me.”

Pat frowns for a moment and Jonny breathes in, shaky and unsteady, his hand coming up to rest on Patrick’s hip. He’s done this before, but only with girls. “No? So why this?”

Blue eyes staring back at him, inescapable, and Jonny goes weak at the knees. “You watch, Jonny,” Patrick tells him. “The other guys–they might look at me sometimes, but you watch me.”

He’s not wrong. Jonny’s not had a lot of time to come to terms with this side of himself, but when Patrick presses their lips together it still feels right, still feels good; he still threads his fingers into the back of Patrick’s hair, curls winding around his fingers as he deepens the kiss and thinks yes.

[tomakeitbeautifultolive]

Hey I was just wondering on your interpretation of Jonerys in the books? Because according to the bad leaks we will get Jon killing Dany, but in the book version its pretty clear that these two will marry and I don't necessarily see how those two things jive with each other, unless we get a literal repeat of the Azor Ahai/Nissa Nissa bs with them🤷🏼‍♀️ Thoughts? Because I have given up hope for the show and need some reassurance on the books after reading all of them plus the history books,,

Look, anon. Even in the fucking show these two have been paralleled to death - in a way that inextricably links their lives together, as seen here and here and here. When you learn that when Ian McElhinney (Barristan Selmy) confronted D&D about how he thought it was too early to kill off his character, it made them want to kill him more, out of spite… it makes it pretty clear what D&D are doing.

In their effort to adhere to shock and subversion… they’ve left mounds of unused foreshadowing all over the place (I’m still working on a master post of unused foreshadowing and plot elements). As you might’ve guessed, Jonerys foreshadowing is among those casualties - such as Dany mentioning she may have to enter in a political marriage at the end of season 6 before setting sail for Westeros, or the four different instances that challenge Dany’s belief that she can’t have children, that her family hasn’t seen its end, and that Longclaw will go to Jon’s children after him. As of right now, none of the leaks indicate that any of this meant anything other than dialogue filler. If it was never intended to amount to anything, then the writers should not have included these lines at all, especially in a show that was cut down from ten episodes to seven. Way, way too much emphasis was put on challenging the notion Daenerys can’t have children. It’s what a good writer might call ‘trimming the fat’ from the story, otherwise, it does nothing but muddy up the story unnecessarily.

Jonerys aside, D&D have killed so much foreshadowing in the series just to make a shocking ending (which by the way, makes no sense at all). I was flabbergasted when I read this quote from 2013:

When I asked Benioff and Weiss if it was possible to infer any overall intentionality to the upcoming 10 episodes, they sneered. “Themes are for eighth-grade book reports,” Benioff told me.

Uh, what?

As you may have seen, I already recently covered why Jon shouldn’t care so much about the incest aspect - in the comments I received, there was a great point about how Jon has borderline romantic feelings toward his cousin Arya (who he believes is his half-sister), tending to think of her when he wonders what his love interest’s (Ygritte) body looks like under all those clothes. In the original outline for the series, Jon and Arya were supposed to end up together or at least be involved in a love triangle with Tyrion.

As you see, in the books, Daenerys has already been groomed for the reality of being wedded to her brother, so her nephew won’t be some grand depature from this. She’s a dragonrider, and if the shows are to be believed, Jon will be, too - and if the majority of fans are to be believed, then there might be something magical about Targaryen blood that makes them different or unique or magical, hence the incest.

When you look at just how finely crafted this book series by GRRM is… it makes it really hard to believe that he’d throw out all of his foreshadowing for shock value.

“It’s easy to do things that are shocking or unexpected, but they have to grow out of characters. They have to grow out of situations. Otherwise, it’s just being shocking for being shocking.”—George R. R. Martin

I think we can all agree that season eight of Game of Thrones is all about futility, shock, nihilism. So, check out this quote:

Q: Early on, one critic described the TV series as bleak and embodying a nihilistic worldview, another bemoaned its “lack of moral signposts.” Have you ever worried that there’s some validity to that criticism?

A: No. That particular criticism is completely invalid. Actually, I think it’s moronic. My worldview is anything but nihilistic.—George R. R. Martin

It was George who said we’d get a bittersweet ending, not D&D. It was George who said he wanted a LotR-style ending, not D&D.

While there are many conflicting quotes out there about GRRM’s ending vs. D&D’s… This recent article published right after episode 3 had some interesting lines:

“Of course you have an emotional reaction. I mean, would I prefer they do it exactly the way I did it? Sure. It can also be… traumatic. Because sometimes their creative vision and your creative vision don’t match, and you get the famous creative differences thing — that leads to a lot of conflict.”—George R. R. Martin

My interpretation currently is that yes, Jonerys is real in the books…

(just as it was in the fucking show until they decided to abandon all preestablished groundwork and foundation) …and has been thoroughly foreshadowed - and not in a tragic way.

First of all, the series is called ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ - while this stands for many things from literal to metaphorical, I’d say it absolutely encompasses Jon and Dany. I have some very unpopular ideas that ice actually represents Daenerys and fire, Jon. Whether or not I’m right about that, we have some hints that Jon will ultimately accept his Targaryen identity…

Subtle clue about who he is, in one of his true house’s colors:

“The next time I see you, you’ll be all in black.”Jon forced himself to smile back. “It was always my color.”

He idolizes historical Targaryens:

“Daeren Targaryen was only fourteen when he conquered Dorne,” Jon said. The Young Dragon was one of his heroes.

He’d pretend to be Targaryens while playing as a child:

“I’m Prince Aemon the Dragonknight,” Jon would call out.

For Daenerys, we get this curious line:

“Mother of dragons, bride of fire…”

Bride could also be metaphorical in some way, sure, but let’s just say it’s literal. Jon is the dragon, the fire.

Okay, so for the books, I’ll try to hit the bullet points:

First and foremost, the pair are incredibly similar, both stepping into positions of rule after immersing themselves into a foreign culture, adapting to their way of life before making allies. Both Jon and Daenerys make grave mistakes while wielding power, and they learn from their mistakes. They’re being shaped into rulers.

Both fall in love, yet still feel alone:

“Her captain slept beside her, yet she was alone.” / "Even with Ygritte sleeping beside him, he felt alone.“

Daenerys dreams of her lover:

“It was never Jorah Mormont she dreamed of; her lover was always younger and more comely, though his face remained a shifting shadow.”

Jon is described as a shadow:

“A shadow half-seen behind a fluttering curtain.” / “He would be condemned to be an outsider, the silent man standing in the shadows”

Daenerys also dreams of life as a wife and mother:

“In her dream they had been man and wife, simple folk who lived a simple life in a tall stone house with a red door.”

Both dream of children they will never have:

“I might someday hold a son of my own blood in my arms.” / "I will never have a little girl.“

From Jon’s first chapter, there are hints that Benjen knows his identity and that family might someday be important to Jon:

"You don’t know what you’re asking, Jon. The Night’s Watch is a sworn brotherhood. We have no families. None of us will ever father sons. Our wife is duty. Our mistress is honor. You are a boy of fourteen, not a man, not yet. Until you have known a woman, you cannot understand what you would be giving up.”

“I don’t care about that!” Jon said hotly.

“You might, if you knew what it meant,” Benjen said. “If you knew what the oath would cost you, you might be less eager to pay the price, son.”

We have those quotes from Maester Aemon, that hint that Jon might choose love or a child over duty:

“What is honor compared to a woman’s love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms … or the memory of a brother’s smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.”

While yes, Aemon hints that it is both glory and tragedy, we’re coming off a long, long line of tragic Targaryen love stories - the difference here being that one of these Targaryens is out to break the wheel that destroyed so many of these star-crossed, doomed Targaryens loves (Rhaegar/Lyanna, Duncan/Jenny, Daemon/Daenerys, Aemon/Naerys, etc).

Blue roses are linked to Lyanna Stark or even House Stark in general. In a vision, Daenerys sees:

“A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness.”

Meanwhile, there is foreshadowing that Dany will help Jon’s effort against the white walkers with lines like these:

“He might as well wish for another thousand men, and maybe a dragon or three.”

Daenerys, herself, has a weird moment with some ants while she wakes in the Dothraki Sea, brushing them off of her body as they swarm over a wall:

“To them these tumbledown stones must loom as huge as the Wall of Westeros. The biggest wall in all the world, her brother Viserys used to say, as proud as if he’d built it himself.”

Around the same time, Jon is killed, whispering to his wolf:

“Ghost,” he whispered. Pain washed over him. He gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold…

Meanwhile, after ‘opening her third eye’ with some berries, Daenerys hears the call of a wolf all the way over in Essos:

“Off in the distance, a wolf howled. The sound made her feel sad and lonely.”

We can extrapolate that this is, in fact, Ghost… as first, there don’t seem to be wolves in the Dothraki Sea, but also this line from Bran also provides context:

“Here in the chill damp darkness of the tomb his third eye had finally opened. He could reach Summer whenever he wanted, and once he had even touched Ghost and talked to Jon.”

Now that we know Jon’s true name (at least according to the show), this curious line from Daenerys also hints she might marry Jon:

“A crown should not sit easy on the head. One of her royal forebears had said that, once. Some Aegon, but which one? Five Aegons had ruled the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. There would have been a sixth, but the Usurper’s dogs had murdered her brother’s son when he was still a babe at the breast. If he had lived, I might have married him.”

Meanwhile, Jon is infatuated with Val, a woman who sounds an awful lot like a precursor to Daenerys, who is a warrior woman with silver-pale hair… Jon is also reminded of Val’s hips and breasts and that she’s 'well made for whelping children’…

“The light of the half-moon turned Vals honey-blond hair a pale silver and left her cheeks as white as snow. She took a deep breath. The air tastes sweet.”

“Lonely and lovely and lethal, Jon Snow reflected, and I might have had her.”

“A warrior princess, he decided, not some willowy creature who sits up in a tower, brushing her hair and waiting for some knight to rescue her.”

As for GRRM, he told a helpful clue to director Alan Taylor circa season one of Game of Thrones:

“Anyways, he alluded to the fact that Jon and Dany were the point, kind of. That, at the time, there was a huge, vast array of characters, and Jon was a lowly, you know, bastard son. So it wasn’t clear to us at the time, but he did sort of say things that made it clear that the meeting and the convergence of Jon and Dany were sort of the point of the series. So, I was happy that a big step forward was taken in the episode I got to do this season is where he has fallen for her both, you know, emotionally and politically I think.”

But that’s not all. I did write a meta about the mother goddess Danu and her parallels with Dany - and this, to me, rings much more true to who Daenerys is in the books rather than whatever impostor is parading around in Dany’s skin on screen in season eight.

There is a lot of proof that GRRM puts a LOT of thought and detail into his books - even down to the Starks ‘howling’ and ‘growling’ and the Lannisters ‘roaring’. I’ve uncovered a cool trend where many of the names he assigns to characters reflect their numerological gemstone house colors - and the names he chooses all shed some light on the characters they are given to, such as Bran meaning ‘raven’ or Sandor meaning ‘defender of man’ or Gendry meaning ‘son-in-law’.

I’ve done a lot of thinking about these things, and I just cannot see GRRM throwing out all of his foreshadowing or all of the clever little things he’s been hinting at since book once, all for the sake of shock value or subverting expectations… That’s not his style and he speaks out against it.

Bearing that in mind, the clear mad queen is Cersei, who shares virtually every parallel to Aerys Targaryen - the way she tortures parent and child chained just out of reach from one another, the way torture sexually excites her, the way she was tortured into madness, and straight down to her wildfire use. Daenerys better fits the archetype of an anti-hero rather than a straight villain. With only two books left and still no signs of madness… I just don’t see it going down this way in the books.

As for whatever just happened with Daenerys, I’ve been given a compelling argument that in the books, as she squares off with (f)Aegon Targaryen, or, Young Griff, in an effort to expose the Mummer’s Dragon, she might accidentally set off these wildfire traps that make her look just like her father, and perhaps she even goes a little mad with grief.

Especially considering that ASOIAF is so heavily based on Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, which share countless parallels, such as:

Norn (White foxes)  → The Others (White walkers)

Sithi (Dawn children) → Singers (Children of the forest)

Witchwood  → Weirwood

The Storm King → Night’s King

Ineluki → Azor Ahai

Sorrow → Lightbringer

Black iron → Dragonglass

Nisse → Nissa Nissa

Hayholt Castle → Winterfell Castle

Green Angel Tower → Winterfell Crypts

Simon Snowlock (secret heritage) → Jon Snow

Princess Miriamele (disguised as a boy) → Arya Stark

Warring brothers King Elias/Josua → Stannis/Renly

Tailed star → Red comet

Black priest Pryrates → Red priest Melisandre

Daenerys is suspected to be the Princess Maegwin figure, a woman who “is forced to watch as forces conquer her people and is eventually driven to madness in her desperation to save them.”

You make a good point about Fire & Blood and ASOIAF prehistory, too. Aside from the doomed Targaryen love stories I mentioned earlier, we get another history book that basically gives us a rundown of various Targaryen ladies who never got to be queen. I’d say this book has a strong feminist message - and might even hint that the last vestige of House Targaryen just might accomplish what her foremothers could not - finally becoming the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with a clip from the man, himself, about Dany:

“From my mother’s stories, I always had this kind of sense that I was like disinherited royalty. Here was this dock that my great-grandfather built - it wasn’t ours anymore. Here was this house that my mother had been born in - we didn’t own this house anymore. We didn’t own any house, we had an apartment. So it was like, ugh, I came from greatness - like Dany! And I will take back what is mine with Fire and Blood! I think on some level, that must’ve gotten to me.”—George R. R. Martin

I could be wrong about all of this, of course… but that’s my current take. 🤷

[fillystick]

week 9 and 10 lecture

NIE WIEDER KRIEG!!! NO MORE WAR – ACT NOW – Urban street art sticker

RESPECT MY EXISTENCE OR EXPECT MY RESISTANCE - Urban street art sticker 

photos from Markus Spiske 

I was catching up on past lectures when I realized week 10′s content ties back to what is happening in the US right now, which made me decide to create my cover photo in relations to the event. 

My intention is to pay my respect- as well as acknowledge- the rights of the community that is in pain at the moment, and reflect on ways of improvement when it comes to racial equality.  

knowing that design is closely related to activism really gave me a new perspective, which is the power of design: the fact that we can make a difference by creating, expressing, and voicing an opinion. Design is so much more than just making a profit, it is a tool that comes with great responsibility and potential. Learning how to utilize it to spread importance is what I shall be thinking in my future years. 

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WEEK 9

PUNK: a counter-cultural movement

PUNK DESIGN, A SUMMARY: despise typesetter, prefer DIY

collage-style 1: ripping up and starting again

Takes a commercial image and repurposes it for revolutionary purposes.

collage-style 2: the use of stencils

stencils had frequently been used for their ease of use and acquisition, their association with the underground through graffiti, denoting something raw and urban, as well as its nature as simply being flawed by design. 

zines: using illegible and garish styles to shock the viewer out of apathy, the punk movement gave little thought to the commonly perceived ‘good’ design practices.

parody and politics: using images from a media-saturated culture for a new purpose, they meant to trigger recognition in the viewer and include them on the subversive in-joke.

All ripped up: Punk influences on graphic design

MALCOLM MCLAREN: A multi-talented man

promoter and manager of bands the New York Dolls and the Sex Pistols

he was one of the first white music producers to bring hip-hop to a wider audience and one of the first to popularise world music in the west

partnership with fashion designer Vivienne Westwood: SEX

In a new, in-depth biography, Paul Gorman offers a vivid portrait of the postmodernist impresario who conjured up punk’s angry pose, the Sex Pistols, and much more.

Malcolm McLaren's Life of Chaos, Music, and Art

JAMIE REID Jamie Reid’s artworks

 A GUIDE FOR ANYONE WANTING TO DO IT THEIR WAY, FROM REID:

Destroy Your Computer: The more we get drawn into this mad digital world, the more we lose contact with each other. “Most jobs are about enslavement, break free if you can”

Study Art: If I hadn’t gone to Croydon I would never have met Malcolm McLaren, not just for what he did with the Pistols but for everything else he did. The irony is that neither Malcolm or I would have got into Croydon if it was today. What does that tell you about what’s happened to our education system?

Have a Sense of Humour

Learn from the Past

Look to the Future: Radical ideas will always get appropriated by the mainstream, people in authority lack the ability to be creative, and they rob everything they can. you have to keep moving on to new things. 

Iconic Punk Artist Jamie Reid Has Some Advice for Young Creatives

XEROGRAPHY ART: is an art form that began in the 1960s. Prints are created by putting objects on the glass, or platen, of a copying machine and by pressing "start" to produce an image.

What Happens When a Photocopy Machine Becomes an Art Tool?

MEMPHIS DESIGN (MILAN 1980’S): its aesthetic embodies the 1980s

Simple geometric shapes; flat colours combined in bold, contrasting palettes; stylised graphic patterns defined by black-and-white stripes and abstract squiggles – these are the ingredients of Memphis-inspired design, fuelled by influences from earlier movements such as Pop Art and Art Deco.

10 iconic examples of Memphis design

ETTORE SOTTSASS: One of the most influential and important figures of the last century, Architect and Designer, founded the Memphis group In 1981, a group that has radically changed the scenario of Italian and world design.

Ettore Sottsass’ works

DAVID CARSON: RAYGUN   David Carson design

David Carson’s deconstructed style for Ray Gun, was very much a design aesthetic that blurred the lines of visual communication and challenged its readers to interpret the text in their own way. Much like the youths that he targeted throughout the 90s, they were rule breakers themselves that rebelled against society. His use of non-hierarchical text and visually complex, layered compositions, spoke ‘their language.’ 

“I’ve never used grids; I still don’t. I never studied or learned about them, and when I did I saw no reason to use them.”

STREET PRESS ANALYSIS: RAY GUN COVER — David Carson, Anti-grid Design Icon David Carson Says Computers Make You Lazy, Contextual Studies: David Carson

NEVILLE BRODY: THE FACE

The Face, drawing freely for his visually exciting layouts and typography on avant-garde artistic ideas. Brody was thoughtful to the construction of its layouts, with blocks of texts often placed horizontally or vertically on the page, the layouts contrasting strikingly with hand-mediated imagery and photography. Such ideas exerted a significant international impact on the appearance of the magazine, advertising, and retailing design.

POST 14 – 1980's – 'The Face' Neville Brody – Monique

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WEEK 10 

MIMMO ROTELLA 

'With a Smile', Mimmo Rotella, 1962

Mimmo Rotella - 324

ROBERT RAUSCENBERG

Robert Rauschenberg 1925–2008

JACEK TYLICKI

Jacek Tylicki Art and Artworks

FISCHLI & WEISS 

Fischli & Weiss: Flowers & Questions. A Retrospective – Exhibition at Tate Modern

GILBERT BAKER: RAINBOW FLAG

“Our job as gay people was to come out, to be visible, to live in the truth, as I say, to get out of the lie. A flag really fit that mission, because that’s a way of proclaiming your visibility or saying, ‘This is who I am!’” 

Baker saw the rainbow as a natural flag from the sky, so he adopted eight colors for the stripes, each color with its own meaning (hot pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for art, indigo for harmony, and violet for spirit).

How Did the Rainbow Flag Become a Symbol of LGBTQ Pride?

FLAG IN DESIGN: the lecture talked about how flags influence to power of design, this is an interesting article of how flags can go beyond the rules of design, but still make it work.

7 fantastic flags that break every design rule

ACTIVISTS (ADBUSTER, TIBOR KALMAN, GUERRILA GIRLS, BENETTON: COLORS MAGAZINE)

A Review of COLORS

“Oliviero Toscani and Tibor Kalman launched “a magazine about the rest of the world” for United Colors of Benetton in 1991. It seems only fitting that an unconventional title like this should be documented in an unconventional way.” 

“Toscani wanted a magazine without any stars, without any celebrities, and without any news. He decided they’d interview people nobody knew, and they’d use the internet to find stories. This approach- a combination of dynamic graphics, striking photographic imagery, provocative themes, and an unwaveringly global outlook—has become familiar to magazine readers now, they hope to firmly establish COLORS’ status as the founder not only of today’s independent magazines, but of mainstream media as well.”

SHEPARD FAIREY: HOPE POSTER   Visual Analysis of Shepard Fairey's 'Hope'

Color: Red, blue and beige are representative of the American flag, illustrating his patriotism. Blue help to define his features, the beige on his face might be to say that race doesn’t matter.  

Typography: provides the concept that the poster is trying to communicate. HOPE’s typeface used is Gotham, a strong slab sans serif, the use of Gotham in this work creates a sense of authority and a bold assertive statement in which there is no uncertainty. These clean letterforms grab the viewers’ attention and makes a statement, permitting for maximum legibility and objectivity.

[scrumptiousalpacadeer]

Post Covid joyfulness; vole death; and why I love my Frida Cagnolino

Good morning dear reader(s),!.. indifferent universe, loving universe...

I hope you are very well this Tuesday. Things have been rather eventful since my opening post; yesterday I staked my row of snapdragons; planting sticks like crutches for them to lean on so they could bloom to their full potential, on Sunday I went to my FIRST OPEN AIR CAFE FOR THREE MONTHS!!! (that's a whole other story)  

This morning my daughter very nearly saved a vole’s life; she shook our murderous cat Laura down by the swing until she released the vole from its jaws before yelling at me through the kitchen door that she needed a Tupperware container IMMEDIATELY. We both kind of knew the vole wasn’t gonna make it; it was in full shock, quivering in the corner of the container, in that way that humans do after a car crash or some terrible news... the last energies go into the death shake - the ‘crossing over’ between life and death. However, vole didn’t give up without a final adventure - it escaped the container and dashed to the bathroom for one last foray in this world. Minutes later my daughter said; ‘I was wrong mama. He died. One minute I looked up and he was alive. And the next minute I looked up and he was dead.’ I resisted the temptation to say, ‘well, that's just life, kid!’ and instead told her she’d given him the best death a vole could ever ask for; passing away in a girls den along side her collection of Jacqueline Wilson books; if it hadn’t been for her interception he would have been de-bowelled; torn limb from limb, departing this earth is a chaos of blood and terror. ‘Can I bury him?’ she said. 

Vole is buried along with two of his brethren and a few mice down by the Camelia tree.   

However, the strangest thing that has happened since last waxing is that according to my daughter I said the words ‘Spicy Man’ in my sleep last night.....! Now that's funny. ‘Spicy Man’....!??????? Sometimes words fail. This is one of those times.                                                                                That's the gap where words fail. 

OK, so I promised you the story behind my background picture. Here it is in all its glory; it’s called ‘Frida Cagnolino’ - oil on Gesso - and was created by a lady called Kate Milson in 2015. 

I purchased it at the Battersea Affordable Arts Fair in April 2017. As with any creation there is the story of its creation and the story of its procurement; how it passes from the creator out into the world and lands, lovingly, into the hands of its receiver. And the story of how I came to buy a collage of the Virgin Mary with an owl on her head is quite something. 

First off, this original piece of art cost £1500. I want to be less of a twat about money Post Covid - there’s too much weirdness and shame attached to coins and notes - so there it is. I paid £1500 for this work - much more than I pay in a month’s rent now; far more than I could ever afford to pay for anything right now - but back then, in this other life, I was RICH BEYOND MY WILDEST DREAMS... I had come into a very large amount of money, having been furnished with half the assets of the sale of my father’s house following his death. In short; it was ‘sad money’; ‘dad’s money’ - and the story of ‘how I sp**ked my father’s inheritance up the wall on facials in exactly the same way he sp**ked his life away on a bullshit suburban life that he never believed in for one second’ is a whole other BLog post entirely. 

So anyway, at the Battersea Art Fair 2017 I have money to spend and I’m giddy on the freedom of it. That day I spend £2500 on three pieces of art. What’s interesting and highly significant is that I was also in a wheelchair that day; my beloved *David are *Boo are wheeling me around the various collections at Battersea Evolution Venue,  because, at that time, I was pretty much immobile due to having contracted six blood infections courtesy of some rank and highly illegal black mould in our basement Richmond flat. I was helpless; powerless; hopeless; but I had money to spend and it felt so damn good. I knew deep down that that I’d been corrupted entirely by my father’s fat wad; that I should be shelving it responsibly for my daughter’s college fund or some such; but screw that - I was gonna blow it on art.  And I could pretend I was an arts aficionado. I might not be able to walk 100m straight but I could converse with artists’ agents and immerse myself in astonishing beauty.   

And then it happened. I’m wheeling past a collection, about to turn down the next aisle, and all of a sudden Mother Mary catches my eye. I am drawn like electricity to this burst of read crazy colour, and a blue cloaked magnetic woman just looking at me... I instruct *David to put the brakes on and move towards this glorious work, basking in it for a while. I think I knew I was going to buy this thing from the very first second I laid eyes on it. I felt like Mona Lisa was looking into my soul but at the same time reminding me that life was a gas. 

Its largely a mystery as to why we’re drawn to particular objects. Why do I love this piece of art so? Let me count the ways. Well, it manages at once to be subversive, heretical, beautiful, chaotic, surprising, highly weird, spontaneous, and deeply joyful all at the same time. I love the singularity of ‘her’ - this figure; and I realise now that she represents this beautific mother figure - with infinite love, understanding and kindness - that I’ve been searching for my whole life. Even now as I look at the picture, hanging on the wall to the left of my bed, it’s her blue blue eyes I must meet first. I love her wild and free relationship to animals;  she has an owl on her head but manages to not only retain her dignity, but somehow embrace and be in partnership with this wild gesture. She’s composed, wholly and entirely a woman, but entirely humble and at one with nature and her environment. Somehow, even though she has inherent grace and a natural regality, she doesn’t stand on ceremony. This woman is all knowing; entirely free; a true punk. And I get to hang out with her every day.  

I love the unspoken bond between her and her beloved dog (a Bichon Frise?). ‘Cagnolino’ means ‘lapdog’ in Italian. They both challenge the viewer, inviting us to the party. I like to think the Post-Covid world we’re being asked to form is something akin to this; we have a chance now to choose punk joy and reverence to wild nature over stifling rules and dank conformity.

I love the fact that its a collage - bit and pieces from here and there brought together in one woman’s determined imagination.

 I love the way the brightest yellow surfinia bursts out of  pure blue sky of the most gentle hue, and how this sky in turn bursts out of the blood red streets of Venice; I love the way butterflies flitter all over the place. Perhaps most of all, I adore the purple crown sitting atop the dogs head - and how he wears it so well. 

I love the violent effrontery growingness of it. I love its revolutionary impulse. I love how it reminds me to be free and brave and enjoy the moment; and that when things get really hairy and scary, as they are prone to do from time to time, that there will always and forever be butterflies and surfinias throbbing into life, and if you’re really lucky, you might just get an owl landing on your head, bestowing upon you a scratchy blessing with its razor claws.  And I love the fact that I am the only person in the whole world who has this treasure.   

The artist Kate Milson wrote to me most generously days after I’d settled her art in my house. This piece, she told me,  was largely a collation of images from a bundle of old art magazines bought from a second hand book shop in Venice some years previous. The name Frida is a nod to Frida Kahlo - a woman who created art from a state of paralysis - having survived a near fatal bus accident in her youth. I like this nod to a woman who despite physical confinements, drenched herself in colour and beauty. 

She wrote that she recalled surfinia plants  in her garden when she was a child; how they ‘seemed tough, but once picked die almost immediately’ - and how there seemed to be ‘this combination of strength and fragility to everything in the natural world’. 

I like being reminded of this each morning; that being strong can come directly out of fragility - that they’re intertwined. 

So...there we have it. That’s how Frida came into my life, and actually, even though she felt very ‘costly’ at the time, and I was kind of basking in a wealth I knew couldn’t last, it is of great comfort that this piece will last through my lifetime and maybe beyond. And actually, considering all the hours that went into her making, considering that I may have, in my small way, contributed to an independent artist continuing her craft; and considering all the hours I’ve spent with Frida Cagnolino’s loving gaze  on me, well......she was worth every penny and much much more. 

[leowyattv]

Steep Grade Fadeaway

Day is a Monday, lease On life’s right side of the low- Lying greens, order’d by law, Creases, offering a hand to hench- Men handy for odd-jobs re- Pression & phobia with wolf spider Ire stocking its stuffing, venom Plenum spokes from eight- legged gait, unipolar police Police who didst to citizen do South bayway sword maneuver —dune ballooning din—kill them :: moths from mothta spread— I’m a member of.— online soap seas cap’n gown loan shark says-he’s—sore lark admin the sole soul food restaurant— vessels contain company that’s it—company THE THING IS IS VANDAL SURE-FOOT’D SHOE YOU’LL DISAPPOINT ME —Dianne of diagnostics Prism blend’d light, you mean honestly ~ i ~, ere Administration's penchant for pens & Cagey humors, pent up & alloted limited stock On pinterest’s pinner plot Would extraction begin, even Helices interr, interject Baby Christ’s liverwurst extrusion, Redux of suede luxe ever does thine slow- f[x] fool on a lark's wing in folly err; But general, the nut sacks, please, topp'd Sweetener glaze (never for gays) Sweat frosting from ecclesiast's evac- Uation jizzum, eat- ery just a- Round the bend over good That IndyCar 500 cock. So: so-so soho block where— Erstwhile free- thinking myth- ology passes heavy limbs Creaking in wind [was thinking we’d] Flower fourteen curls Back & forth, Codify desert sublation, Cue gay porn infinity loop on eternity's Cloud backup-drop forever projected, For your children, Mike, your kids. & this — this (my) ((his)) cursive slick mercurium thick, pen flood in- flux counter-sunk & dumb- Bows, ties, sells quill at marketplace With expertise’s durable advisory, reed Screeching in its rubber friction drift, which quells not squad disruption, squall, Abuts up with a spade to fabled proprietary lines; Umpire enraptured, raptor Pack kinetics study anonymous groups, For scrimmage near miss Miss, the MRSA Merck's Near-fatal tithe. < h o w t i g h t b i r c h b a r k f l a k e s o f f t o g e t h e r ash :: coils :: winch :: draw- in-the-dark rhythms inn-like, quiet, keeping with Queen Mariah Carey's Kierkegaardian wish :: Of lactic acid & Jehoshaphat Edicts, alliances spat at by Jehu So cordage tension its elastics tests :: Hell moans red Waves a porcupine pelt let through Spires sharp with bone, in- Scriptions of pass’d down teaching King-toppling :: hull groan gore, little system submarine ultrasonics, Realty a reality drive, divisions Splints tack’d on ulterior Versions, separation goods Another marketplace subsumption, a- Ah ah, Monarch’s ampersand Armory & orphanage growth paradigm. Mama, in the maw Of a monster it appears When spat to mangrove’s entanglements In whose rootless cloak Womb-like repair’d did I float On Tidal pressure’s pat turns Of wave phrase & coastal sound. Grammy’s telegram Faroff drawing graph’d out In double bass clef, whitebread from the top of Wonderbread ridge, Omi? [[[ hives, hexagon life-rafts Ashkanazi Jews descendents in whose Nameless lineage bow’d heads lean past stalk & branch ]]] Holocaust a hologram to fool’s corner; Survived, devised lives, could I Then, they this disbelief hold After the fact hush, scattering creed, Belief like layers of sound same Overlaid, distortion via copying; this Terrain vague makes us Hungry for disbelief & away,— Shame at sensation’s predicate, we’re not we’re not were not them—then. Characters glynne & surrowe, iyse foes may say will not into world will For will’s sake. Gardner rescinds Offer for cylinder Heads, standing wave pressurized In tubular body, met with lip Aperture shifts & valve Select valve depressions trumpet Walls down, & Solomon’s temple’s walls Shake each brick laid If coded into video- game; mechanics of Megafauna’s jaws dent don’t puncture, dental spread of broom’s Bristles or concrete finishing screed. The lady grabs the keys & allows generations a soul’s Movement to buoy faith :: Clay takes on new shapes for Good, naked bracing Against surface, thrust short Rink’s fire firefly-stud’d, freight’d glows The fright force against density Darkness offers, suspension Cradle, safe durational rock shock’d By freight trains penetrative Expansion, gaseous fits in confines small; Cobbler’s shop a shack, canister Tremolo goes to tumble-wash, Eviction of nuns at Juniper Monastery, things object through Inaction, plants guard fruit from gulls’ gullets, Gourd raft or instrument & species disembark :: Parnassus lamb on spits, spurn Wager’d against poignant Stellation of spur’s star’d points, stud’d. It is rather lonely. Welter Weights waste excess swells In waist’s weight-gain, Spotted once then trimmed, deemed High hinderance if loot’s to be tuned up, then taken; Blood from thin laceration Above the right eye releases threads Of blood; hand held, yes Triads, amps per kilojoule of One grain of sand, which Between toes react, duststorm Shakes clapboards & window-garments, The fornification of conceivable indivisible parts :: Things poole gryn, Graham to you This, saturate, this saturnalia. Wherever sea rummages earth’s crust Sage’s city wisdom, said to overturn off- Compass underpass or Souls inhabitance Herenow splatoon ever in unum Pluribus, A well. If it gets to, it’s off in bramble patch again; Cavernous sediment down- Loads by way of remaining in stasis, Adaptation & change proceed With gradients of such nuance one is Sure as one can be Organisms are a constancy unmoved. English ivy, spry & welcoming Enough to juncos & finch-song, Strangles any individual offering A vertical support, a tall host, From whose apex, were One to climb douglas fir In that Spanaway house’s lot, one would note Yellow blazes from Scotch broom, an infantry Under which camas flower & prairie grass Die off; ecologists hear & provisions provide public. Nova scorch Canopy, What’s happened to it all Primates of later eon ask? Sand shook; mud slid, loosed from Roots once anchoring mass, Hook enters the base Of the bait, loop line Doubles & knots, casting out guesswork When fisheries bring ghostnets to Foreground & shore. Rasas. & family still Standing :: Burgess brothers Twin lute & nylon-string, Summerfield Tectosilicate feldspar recovers & with Katy & makes musical games to train good weapons, voice leading & harmony Accompaniment, just.— It promised. no ~ i ~, quotient, quarrel Quest-kill objective, quarantine, Can inquiry proceed experimental Without explorational? INgenuine (this venue, come now) To even ask, but to Figure this out buy redrawing What was that, Those shapes making layers first, Maybe dimensions, second? Sinkholes clog eventually. Can yonder’s crayon-wax Out rear windshield Make out landscape’s Attendees & absentees alike? The tipoff bid for children’s hospital Sutures lawmaker to industry Profit-centers, pediatric morbidity rallies, Shipping vessels on glass beds spit Beads of bleach, sleet freeze Hardening to barnacles, sharkfin decor, Trim efficiencies, sin, sign, nature, what Remains in speech decoder’s translation? Mama’s got through villanelle Format, perforated loss, refrains Rebounding sound given shape By lack surrounding it, cradling it, even. Shedding it, scalar skin or bark; Magnitude without direction; A temper vestibule in- Vests, jackets a body in Truncated coat, technics fold, inter- Ruptions :: hundreds die as baseline Nuclear arsenal refill Fun, a planting pot fresh with Manure, fertilizer funds, & dirt With paradox, halving lives A speculative endurance, Populating a futurity with Untraceable elegance, Like mycological spore, or mycelial Masses; like cryptocurrency Exchanges in blockchain Relationship & exchange verifiable With uncompromising math With extraneous dialogue In the wind; like let them be naked Physicists sporting labcoats Only, as a group Sure of dark matter’s Not being there, its criminality A subversion, defying Paradigm parameters, & the glottal Stop at this epistemological Dissolution, erotic even, A flush heating bodies up At the limits, the proximity Of other bodies, the desire For physical embrace & exchange enough, nearly, To assume such kingmaker species a half-life well off Into future, plutonium megawatt power-station Giving life to groups finding Each other, once again, beneath Night’s luminous bodies, Beneath moon’s thievery, Held by shadows, deep black density In whose unmappable infinitude a species Approaches a release from print, rose Compass, gold arrow, landscape & waterway Florescent with spectra of blue & volcanic reds, shorn from it, then, Held in what is after all, unnamable, Of near-absolute incompatibility With kingmaker species & yet, That which gave any of it The possibility of accidental beginning.

[en241]

Wednesday, 22 April

Extra Textra 

Here are your Questions & Comments on The Sweater.  But first, my assignment for Friday:

Please watch The Sweater again. This time, instead of watching for the maturation plot, consider the identity problem (the adult’s recognition that they were once someone different, as well as the child’s recognition that adults are different from who they are -- and that someday they too will be an adult). 

Also, try try try to look beyond the didactic reading to the subversive reading; beyond the lesson reading to the message reading. Flip the burger. What if the kid is actually the mature one? No really. The one with fresh batteries in his bullshit detector. (You’ll enjoy the story much more the second time! Have fun!)

Now, on to the comments:

I thought that by the end of the film, the kid would learn a moral lesson like what his mother told him but he didn't. It just ended with him in the church praying that his sweater got eaten by moths. It felt a bit like a letdown but I understand since kids are like that. He is very immature while the mother is the opposite. She is very mature. This makes sense, as adults are usually the mature ones. The kid acted like a typical child. He didn't care about morals he just wanted the right sweater. I think if the film extended beyond 10 minutes, we would see the child eventually mature and realize that what the mother said was correct. 

This was definitely cheerier!I can appreciate how well the introduction is able to portray the overall concept despite it not being in English.Like in Treasure Island there is this idea of a role model or someone to aspire too. Where Long John Silver and Billy Bones were not necessarily healthy role models for a young boy, this hockey player seems much more innocent.Not going to lie, the part where the priest comes in to play was a little weird and kind of did not fit with the narrative in my opinion.It reminds me of the discussion we had about "Where the Wild Things Are" and the idea of teaching lessons through narrative. While WTWTA does so in a less obvious way, "The Sweater" is obvious in its message. The idea of respect and consideration comes into play when the mother explains that if the boy would not wear the blue sweater that Mr. Eaton's feelings would be hurt. The boy is punished for if he does not wear the sweater just as much as if he does which is where this story kind of loses me. The church scene comes off as a kind of easy way out.A salvation story maybe, I don't know this one was a little odd for me.

I believe that was a very good illustrated video. I really enjoyed the story line as well. My first reaction to the video was this kid is just like everyone else. They love the game and love the player. Once the video continued it seemed he was ungrateful. The player everyone looks up to actually took the time to send him something. He did not want the sweater because he did not fit in with the rest of the kids. He did not value what he received because it was not what he wanted. The kid having a blue sweater also showed a form of discrimination. They did not let him play in the game because of the color of his sweater. They did not consider who gave it to him and how much that person meant to him. In relation to our maturation plot, I feel he never made it to that second house. He got lost in the woods and is still trying to find his way.

In watching this video, that character never matured. He still in the end refused to be happy with what he had. In a way, this is what happens in many children's books. Children are never happy with what they are given and just wish everything would work out for them. This is similar to "Where the Wild Things Are." Max just got his way in the end. He was not happy about what happened and what he was given, so he left. When he come back, he was the same as before and was even given his meal after all he had done. In the end, this character is not maturing. He is staying near the very low levels on the mature-meter. 

Moving onto the short story on youtube there's a lot of things happening with this boy, but I think this short story mostly relates to the secret garden because of the effect of negative thinking. I didn't come to this conclusion until he got the wrong sweater and spoke a lot of negativity into existence which brought him a lot of trouble the following time wearing the sweater like getting benched, getting a penalty, breaking his hockey stick then getting yelled at by his mom. His mom said “if you make up your mind before you try it you wont go very far in life,” and “its not what you put on your back its what you put in your head.” I’m stuck between feeling like she’s a wise lady and meant well by writing the letter and getting her son the sweater, and feeling like she noticed how unhappy he was and she could’ve written another letter so he could get the right one but if that happened then he would never learn. 

"The Sweater" is a story about a young boy who started out being a part of a group of boys all wearing the same red white and blue hockey sweater. The group mentality ruled and each individual couldn't see their identity beyond the group. When the boy received the new sweater and was forced to wear it, marked a changing point in his life. He had live with the embarrassment and disgrace of not being like the rest of the group. He had to mature so that he could break away from the group mentality and find his own individual identity.  The mother in the story the driving force because she refused to to return the sweater and made him wear it. You can't get angry and lose your temper. Growing up means taking what you have and learning from it. At the end this boy's efforts were symbolically rewarded by a handshake from the treasured hockey player. 

Well, the video left me at a cliff hanger. I feel as if the lesson wasn't executed very well and had a very abrupt ending . I am not entirely sure what exactly the lesson was,  there could've been a few such as teaching children the importance of not idolizing objects, a healthy balance between your thoughts and your friends. But I do also agree that this could teach adults a lesson, at the end of the video this big scary lady tells him to go to the church and pray for forgiveness and he prays for his shirt to be eaten up by bugs. Sometimes as adults we do a lot of finger-pointing and give a lot of chores and we don't really get that full instruction on how a child should go about it and why which creates a huge gap leading into a place for miscommunication. 

(that’s actually the town priest, wearing his surplice)

After watching the short film "The Sweater" I would like to address the concept of a maturation plot in relation to the short film's storyline. The film portrayed the boy as one who is ungrateful with the gift he received from his mother. This is definitely a realistic possibility for children who do not get what they want. As the story progresses he becomes so concerned with what others will think about him because he did not maintain the socially accepted appearance. This is also a reality for many in society. Just when I thought he would go to church and realize that he was being ungrateful, he instead prayed for the sweater to be taken from him. He failed in his own maturation. This is why I do not see the story having any sort of maturation plot.

The boy did continuously look up to an adult figure as his idol however he did not act as an adult but rather maintained his childish ways. He did not display any sort of personal growth throughout the story but considering his age (10), this is expected.

The plotline of the story set the viewer up to think that after the boy went to church to pray for his sins, but then twisted it and didn't actually resolve the problem at hand. I thought this was interesting because most of the children's literature we have covered resulted in growing, maturing and/or learning some type of lesson throughout the story. I also found it interesting that throughout all of the material we have covered, the children have looked up to and admired an adult figure of some sort and aspired to be like them (coming of age/growing into an adult) and this still reigns true for this story as well (a common theme throughout each reading).

I think the short film was good and the accent was a little hard to understand in the beginning. It seems to me like someone walking into a high school, wearing a rivals team jersey then being shunned. There is a lesson in it and I caught on. I wonder why children shun others, even if it is a rival. Everyone should still talk to you, because it is your preference on what you like. No one should discourage you from something you love.

In this story, the children all wanted to be someone else. Often times children want to be someone famous and well known. This is what the children do in this story. They are looking for a form of identity that all children look for. They never understand that they are all different and that even though they can all be the same person their is nothing wrong with being different. Children look for identity and when they find it, they cling to it. This is what the main character did. The adults in the story have a form of identity but they are not fully aware of it yet. Some laugh at the child for his reaction to the sweater. It shows that even when you become an adult, you still struggle with identity. The lesson in the story at first seems to be don't be different and that children often struggle in accepting that they will grow and change. The reader would learn the lesson of how people will always try to be like others and society often ridicules people for this, but also ridicules them for being different. 

[drink-n-watch]

Fire Force is on a real roll if you ask me. It’s been really good for a while and this week…well if you want to read all my thoughts on it, you can do so over on 100 Word Anime, I would really appreciate it.

In the meantime though, feel free to appreciate some of the fine production elements Fire Force has to offer!

I touched on it a bit in my other Fire Force post this week. As I was saying the production for Fire Force is pretty impressive and I’ve come to realize that every narrative arc has slight production adjustments that fit the story. Like atmospheric tint, camera angles or tricks, framing… that sort of stuff. And it is impressive.

There’s going to be a lot of text here so forgive me for breaking my format a bit and talking in general rather than about these specific images. I will get back to it next week. Do please take note of the top right picture though (for later!)

The opening arc of Fire Force had a fiery orange filter and in fact favoured yellows, oranges and reds a lot in its palette. It was a much more monochrome arc that got broken up by scenes of also fairly monochrome cool dark blues for the highest contrast possible. Jump cuts were used a lot and the framing favoured off centre close up characters.

Those first episodes felt stifling and full of a sort of nervous energy. Exciting yet a little uncomfortable.

This time I direct you attention to third row right and bottom pics.

For the Hibana arc, everything got a sudden wash of unnatural grey or green. Action mostly took place in the shadows or at night. Motion speed was played with a lot and the camera favoured low angles looking up at the action. It all seemed to point to something being very off. Something tricky, a big unpleasant secret being kept from us. Something was definitely brewing.

Then we moved on the the company 1 arc and there was light! Blindingly white light. It bled into everything, washed out colours and cast sunspot or refracted rainbows all over the place. The camera moved in thight, holding characters front and centre. Action came in spurts. As the narrative became more of a mystery the visuals shed a useless light on everything. All those characters shown in such a straightforward framing seemed so suspicious. It was visual language subversion on every level.

In the last episodes, the visuals returned a bit closer to the opening arc which I guess is fitting, as the mid point was just around the corner and the series would get a new start so to speak.

The Asukasa arc favoured a much more natural and earthy palette. Light stopped being bleakly white and took on a more natural warm hue but it was also slightly muted. The type of light you get in huge cities with lost of skyscrapers as opposed to big open plains.

The camera moved away, larger group shots were more frequent during this arc than any other and fights were shot like a big budget action movie. A little slower and more deliberate so that the viewer could easily follow everything that was going on and pause for the epic moments.

Everything was more natural during the Asukasa arc. There were a fey perspective tricks and some fun colour moments but generally, the production took a more classical approach in line with Asukasa’s traditional values.

  And here we are, in what I like to call the Vulcan arc.

It has the widest range of bright colours we’ve seen so far from Fire Force. What I mean is that Fire Force has always had beautiful and saturated colours but it does tend towards more monochrome or single colour tint palettes. This time all the bright colours are right there.

Very often the camera goes for aerial shots. I did not actually bother to screencap most of them but believe me, it’s way more frequent than it has been up until now. It also does something else that is not only new to the series but a visual trick I have not seen much anywhere. It deliberately restricts the frame either through the use of frequent photographs on unified backgrounds or by showing the image through a slot. Other than playing with the aspect ration which has lots of effects, I’m not sure why this visual trick is being used here. And I really want to know.

After all, everything seems to have been a carefully thought out choice. The visuals always either fit with the story or got directly subverted by it. They always served the mood so this arc has to be the same.

As I said in my other post, I do believe this episode to be one of the most difficult for the main characters (one of the darkest if you will) so setting it in the most colourful environment is deliciously ironic. (Man I hope I used that right…) The aerial views create this huge sense of space which contradicts the fact that the narrative is stuck in this tiny workshop in the middle of a small but overstuffed junkyard. It should be claustrophobic but it’s not. If anything, it’s a little agoraphobic.

Except for those restricted frames. I still don’t know what that’s about…

Also, I said it in the other post but I think it bears repeating. I think Arthur may be Don Quixote and it fills me with joy!

Fire Force Episode 16 – The Impossible Dream – Gallery Fire Force is on a real roll if you ask me. It's been really good for a while and this week...well if you want to read all my thoughts on it, …

[justincaseitmatters]

Rewind: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Dr. Strangelove after 50 Years

Originally Published in KCActive.com in January 2014. On January 29, 1964, the world discovered something that Bronx-born director Stanley Kubrick had known for a few years: that the only appropriate reaction to the arms race was a dirty joke. In the five decades that have passed since then, countries that once frightened the world have fallen, alliances and rivalries have reversed, technologies have changed and Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb has become more enlightening, infuriating and, yes, hilarious with time. The Chess Master I almost feel sorry for anyone who is forced to discover this movie in a manner that's different from the way I did at age 11. For some reason, Kansas City's KCMO (now KCTV) broadcast the movie for a 10:30 p.m. showing, probably on a Saturday night. My mother, my younger brother and I congregated around the used black-and-white TV in my bedroom, knowing only that the film in question starred our favorite comedian Peter Sellers, from the Pink Panther movies, and that it might be important because the local paper said it was.   I was delighted that my bedroom had turned into a mini-theater and that we wouldn't miss any beautiful color images. Gilbert Taylor's cinematography and Ken Adam's grand sets look just fine in monochrome. Other than the fact that the movie was in black-and-white, we knew nothing about the assault that was coming our way. For most adult viewers, Dr. Strangelove states its devilishly comic intents up front. The movie's notorious opening credits by Pablo Ferro feature a phallic arm fueling a plane in mid-air as a soft instrumental track of "Try a Little Tenderness" plays in the background. As the geeky son of a Baptist deacon, these amorous aircraft completely escaped my notice.

My mother curiously remained silent, but soon the three of us were so thoroughly entertained that we stopped caring that Kubrick and co-screenwriter Terry Southern (the mind behind the kinky novels Candy, Blue Movie and The Magic Christian) were about to turn all three of us into "deviated pre-verts."

It's not surprising to learn that Kubrick once hustled chess in New York as a young man because he reveals his comic intentions gradually. During the the run up to General Jack D. Ripper's unauthorized nuclear assault upon the Soviet Union, my family and and I thought we were watching a straight nuclear war drama. It wasn't until General Ripper made the following declaration at 24 minutes into the film that we discovered that Kubrick was taking the movie into a direction all his own:

I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

Hearing deep-voiced actor Sterling Hayden utter the word "fluids" without a hint of levity in his voice sent all three of us into hysterics. From here on we knew something was up and that the footage we saw previously was laced with comic venom. We finally noticed Ripper's name and that the pilot of one of Ripper's B52s is Maj. T.J. "King" Kong (played by former rodeo clown Slim Pickens). All Too Real Dr. Strangelove is loaded with characters afflicted with gag names, and sometimes these absurd monikers aren't obvious on an initial viewing. The Soviet Ambassador is Alexi Desadesky (British actor Peter Bull), the President of the United States is Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers), and his top strategist is a former Nazi known as Dr. Strangelove (Sellers, again). While Kubrick and Southern came up with a cornucopia of silly names with sexual connotations, the scenario in Dr. Strangelove is uncomfortably realistic. As more information from the Cold War has become publicly available, the scenario Kubrick, Southern and a Welsh Royal Air Force officer Peter George (from George's 1958 novel Two Hours to Doom a.k.a. Red Alert) cooked up was far from outlandish. Throughout history wars have been started for causes as inexplicable as fluids and water fluoridation, which General Ripper believes has made him impotent. Mental illness and just plain foolishness can strike at anytime  At the beginning of Dr. Strangelove, a disclaimer informs the viewers that the U.S. Air Force has safeguards to prevent the deadly events in the film from occurring. Not really. Around the time that George was writing his thriller about facing nuclear annihilation, Daniel Ellsberg, the future leaker of The Pentagon Papers, discovered that Washington's policy toward who could launch a nuclear attack and when was a mess. In theory, only the president had authorization. Ellsberg, a recent Harvard PhD grad from  working for the RAND Corporation, recalled in his 2002 book Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers:

I learned, for example, the secret that contrary to all public declarations, President Eisenhower had delegated to major theater commanders the authority to initial nuclear attacks under certain circumstances, such as outage of communications with Washington--an almost daily occurrence in those days--or presidential incapacitation   (twice suffered by President Eisenhower). This delegation was unknown to President Kennedy's assistant for national security, McGeorge Bundy--and thus to the president--in early 1961, when I briefed him on the issue. 

In other words, Gen. Ripper and his ilk had already been given a sort of green light. On both sides of the Iron Curtain, only whims of fate seem to have prevented nuclear first strikes. According to David E. Hoffman's The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy, on September 26, 1983, Soviet Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov received a warning on his instruments informing him the Americans had launched a missile strike on his country. His satellites told him that five missiles were on their way to Mother Russia, but there were no visual sightings to match the alarms wailing at his base. Working simply on instinct, he correctly informed his superiors that no attack was taking place and that the warning system was malfunctioning. It's a good thing he did. Doing so prevented an unprovoked Soviet first strike. Petrov's hunch saved countless lives. Sadly, he had only minutes or seconds to make his fateful decision. The Killing Joke Unfortunately, decisions like Petrov's were all too often made at the last minute and in a state of panic. This is one of the reasons Dr. Strangelove is so entertaining and why satire might be a more effective way to point out the horrors of nuclear war. George's novel is a dark thriller, and Kubrick and George initially set out to make a straightforward adaptation of the book. During pre-production, however, Kubrick noticed that some of the situations described in the book, like the President informing the Soviets how to shoot down his own planes, seemed weirdly comic. George was disappointed by Kubrick's change of heart but later wrote a novelization of the film that even included gags that Kubrick didn't film or eventually cut from the movie (like a coda where space aliens wonder how the planet they've discovered called Earth is now a radioactive graveyard). George's later writing focused on the grim potential of nuclear weapons. Sadly, his concern for the subject may have been a factor when he chose to kill himself in 1966. Strangely, in the finished movie, the humor seems to emphasize how fragile a world with nuclear weapons really is. When word of Gen. Ripper's assault reaches the Pentagon, the news arrives, not to a commander ready to deal with the crisis, but to Gen. Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) cavorting with his bikini-clad mistress (Tracy Reed). Actually, he's in the bathroom when the urgent call comes. 

Similarly, the Soviet Premier Dimitri Kissoff (who, curiously, is never seen or heard in the film) is not at his office in the Kremlin toiling to make his nation a worker's paradise. So where is he when the Soviets need his attention the most? "You would never reached him at that number," says Ambassador Desadesky. "Our Premier is a man of the people, but he is also a man, if you follow my meaning." 

I should probably add that he's also drunk. Disasters, whether natural or man made, rarely happen at moments that are convenient for us mortals. Kubrick and Southern spent a great amount of time figuring out where leaders might be and wondered what they might eat or drink during the crisis. That explains the improvised buffet table in the Pentagon's War Room. They also knew that leaders are human beings and that they are as prone to mistakes and panicking as anyone else. In most of the dramas that preceded or followed Dr. Strangelove, world leaders appear as conscientious or calm despite the heavy stakes involved. President Muffley, however, is understandably nervous and awkward in explaining the crisis to Premier Kissoff. Sellers improvised much of his dialogue, and the call between the two leaders is hysterically funny because it's impossible to think of a polite or an effective way to relay the grim message at hand.

Kubrick's willingness to embrace panic eventually influenced more mainstream nuclear thrillers. In an interview I conducted with director Phil Alden Robinson for NitrateOnline.com over his 2002 adaptation of the late Tom Clancy's The Sum of All Fears, he readily acknowledged how Kubrick's comedy affected his own, more serious movie:

Kubrick is the best who ever lived. I have to believe that's what goes on behind closed doors. Once in a while, the President's emotions must get the best of him. Clancy once said, "If you put the leaders of a country in a room and tell them the decisions they make might lead to blowing up the world, only a sociopath would not have an emotional reaction." The most reasonable people in the world, by virtue of their reason, are going to be emotional and distraught and kind of at wit's end at some point.

Why I Still Love the Bomb As I've grown older Dr. Strangelove has become less of a movie to more and more of an old friend. Yes, it's odd that this cynical, fatalistic movie has such a fond spot in my heart. It's no spoiler to reveal that all of the human machinations in the movie fail to stop a nuclear Armageddon. It's also hard to think of a more clever or even nourishing film. Every time I come back to I learn new things. I spot gags that I missed when I saw the movie earlier. Kubrick consulted over 50 books during the making of Dr. Strangelove, and his attention to detail only shows up on repeated viewings. A friend of mine politely told me that Kubrick's movies like Lolita, A Clockwork Orange and 2001: A Space Odyssey are an acquired taste, but those of us who have   picked up an appetite continuously love coming back to his films, waiting for new treasures hidden in their frames. One aspect that does hit me from watching the movie again and again is that Kubrick, contrary to what his detractors have contended, actually could create sympathetic and completely human characters. Kubrick skillfully manipulates the audience into liking the crew on Maj. Kong's B52. When a Russian missile stalks the plane, Kubrick wants viewers to feel for the crew. Unlike their commander, Gen. Ripper, their intents are not tainted by his madness. For the sake of the story, it would be best if the missile sent them to a fiery grave. Nonetheless, watching the crew trying to stay in the air is nail biting. Unlike his make believe characters, Kubrick understands that real people are the casualties of war. Gen. Turgidson is little better than Gen. Ripper because he has no sense of proportion or consequence. He suggests that proceeding with Gen. Ripper's strike would be worth it, even if millions die. "I didn't say we wouldn't get our hair mussed," he says. Curiously, time has actually made Dr. Strangelove funnier. When I've discussed the movie with younger people, they've told me that the reasons we and the Soviets looked at each other with dread now seem remote and ridiculous. They're fully aware that the world is still a dangerous place, but they understandably think that fluoridation is not good reason to risk the lives of troops. Kubrick was only 32 when he made Dr. Strangelove, but he wound up making something that continues to enrich our lives long after his death in 1999. Through his love song to the bomb, he's revealed how far we as human beings have to grow to become responsible stewards of the technology we have. It's doubtful he could have conveyed this message so eloquently with a straight face.