#and the source of some of his most famous quotes

[charliethomascoxuniverse]

Charlie Cox: Star turn

Charlie Cox is taking a break from Hollywood to bring Pinter to London's West End. And the experience has proved to be truly terrifying, he tells Charlotte Cripps.

Tuesday 29 January 2008 (X)

I'm watching a preview of the Harold Pinter double bill at the Comedy Theatre on the night before I meet Hollywood's newest star, Charlie Cox, when I encounter his fan club in the row behind me. The girls gasp collectively at how good-looking he is, especially at the end of The Collection, when he strips off to a pair of tight white boxer shorts.

The English public school-educated 25-year-old is not only converting teenagers to Pinter, however; he also holds his own with his more experienced co-stars, Timothy West, Richard Coyle and Gina McKee.

The young star has just played the lead in the blockbuster family film Stardust, alongside such Hollywood luminaries as Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert de Niro, Sienna Miller and Claire Danes. Cox's character was the earnest, genuine Tristan, who transforms from boy to man on his quest for true love. In real life, too, the actor is growing up fast as he finds himself, right at the beginning of his career, rubbing shoulders with the acting elite. Although he had picked up some good roles – performing opposite Al Pacino in The Merchant of Venice and in Casanova alongside Heath Ledger – the actor was relatively unknown until a few months ago. Nowadays Cox, with his boyish, wide-eyed good looks, gets recognised wherever he goes.

When we meet the morning after the Pinter previews, the actor is cleaning his teeth in his dressing room at the Comedy Theatre. As he welcomes me inside, he takes off his porkpie hat to reveal a mass of bouncing, newly cut hair and clear brown eyes. His dressing room, which has the feel of a miniature flat, is nevertheless smaller than those of the other three members of the cast, because, he says as if he is still at boarding school, he is "the new boy".

His costumes for the character Bill – who in The Collection is accused by a husband (Coyle) of having a one-night stand with a married woman (McKee), despite being in a gay relationship with Harry (West) – are hanging tidily over a camp bed. There is a ‘Just For Today’ meditation book on the table – a 12-step recovery tool – because the actor no longer drinks. He has already begun pinning things neatly to the white walls, to create a collage that will document his four-month run in the play. So far it includes a line of fizzy vitamin C sachets, a Nurofen Cold & Flu packet, even three different Starbucks coffee cup sizes. He points out everything to me – "I will remember the bad cold I had at the beginning of the run" – but it is only day four. He is still warming up in his first proper job on a West End stage. "I am far out of my comfort zone. I am trying to keep up with actors who are consistently brilliant, not like me, this Disney kid Cox from Stardust."

Cox lives in World's End, Chelsea, above an art gallery, with his best friend, Ned, and dog, Ralph. He speaks with passion and maturity about his job, and has a calm presence as well as heaps of energy, which he uses both positively and negatively. "I am incredibly self-deprecating. It stems from self-doubt. With every job I watch, I can't find peace with what I've done. It's never good enough in my mind. I will never be happy if I'm in that mindset, unless I get a review that starts: 'once in a generation'," he says, laughing. "Fame terrifies me. I can say that with honesty. You're terrified that, when people know the real you, they won't like you."

The actor was born in 1982 and grew up in East Sussex with his publisher father, Andrew, his mother, Trisha, and his older brother, Toby. He also has three much older half-siblings, Ollie, Emma and Zoë, who were all leaving home by the time he was born. At the age of eight, he was sent to a local prep school and then to Sherborne School in Dorset. He won the school's Gerald Pitman Award for Drama twice, before leaving school for London at the age of 18.

He got a supporting role in the film Dot the I opposite Gael Garcia Bernal, before starting at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School at 19 years old. It was a miserable experience. "They start picking holes and I took it all too personally." Auditioning for roles was banned while pupils were still at the school, but after his first year he secretly auditioned for Pacino's The Merchant of Venice. "I remember feeling really panicked. I was meant to have learnt to play the recorder for the class nativity play when I got the call from my agent telling me I'd got the role. The next thing I knew I was hanging out in Luxembourg with one of my idols. Deep down I knew I'd never go back to Bristol. To slot back into my class after that would have been entirely weird."

He then played a warrior in an unwatchable Spanish film, Tirante el Blanco. "To call it a flop is an understatement. The film made no sense. It hadn't been translated properly. I wasn't even invited to the premiere." He returned to the UK to perform for no wages in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore to packed houses at Southwark Playhouse. The production, directed by Edward Dick, received rave reviews. "None of us got paid for it but it ended up being one of the shows to see in London."

This was the first time that the actor had a difficult decision to make, as he had already been offered a role in a big feature film when the Pinter play came up. "It really threw a spanner in the works because there is a pressure to continue to do films. If you disappear for a little while, they just lose interest. But if I want to be still acting when I'm older, the Pinter play is the kind of work I need to be attached to. The theatre is where I'm learning my trade," says Cox. "In Tim's [West] day he did years of rep theatre. Today we are in a manic rush to be rich and famous. None of us young stars has had time to learn our trade. There is a horrible misconception that you can either act or not. But experience is everything."

It is a challenge for Cox, playing a lead role in The Collection – one of the two rarely performed Pinter plays, the other being The Lover, which are being revived at the Comedy Theatre under the direction of Jamie Lloyd, who recently directed The Caretaker for Sheffield Theatres. "Harold [Pinter] has been involved in the production, but he hasn't told us whether my character Bill really did sleep with Stella or not. He is the only one who really knows. Gina [McKee] and I made a decision that we think helps us, but we are keeping that decision a secret." Bill is a million miles away from his Stardust role of Tristan, who wore his heart on his sleeve. "What is certain about my character Bill is that he lies all the time. Whether Bill did it or not, he still gives different versions of the story. He is a bit of a spoilt brat who doesn't think of what other people want. He just wants a bit of a drama. He craves power and manipulates people for his own amusement. He annoys Harry for no reason at all other than to entertain himself."

For Cox, who has been living out of a suitcase for so long, starring in the West End allows him something of a normal routine. He can walk his dog and hang out with the small group of friends whom he has known since childhood. Fame has not changed him, and he doubts it ever will. None of the older actors has ever sat him down for a pep talk either, but Pacino offered him some words of wisdom. "Al said, 'You're not an actor until you've got a leather jacket.' I took it very seriously and asked my parents to buy me this brown leather jacket for my 21st birthday. It's worn really well, hasn't it? Then Al rang me on the day to wish me happy birthday while I was in the middle of having a small party. Answering the phone to him was one of the most bizarre things that has ever happened to me."

Now Cox has another offer to star with Pacino, in Enclosure, a black comedy about a Jewish family. He has already finished filming Stone of Destiny, based on a true story, in which he plays Ian Hamilton, a committed Scottish nationalist who in the 1950s led a raid on Westminster Abbey to bring the Stone of Scone back to Scotland. The actor talks about his career with the excitement of somebody who is living his dream. In promotional TV interviews for Stardust he looked almost startled, but since he's been at home he seems to be more at ease. "It's so easy to become obsessed with the film industry and recognition that we can forget that we are not saving the world. We are just actors trying to entertain people. Doing this play, in front of a live audience, has reminded me of that."

~*~

[z0mbiefrank]

i have a lot of thoughts i'd like to document about mcr's auckland show, but here's just some of the things gerard said that hit me particularly hard.

first off, of course, we have the quote of the whole night, which i'll try not to dwell on too much.

"In the face of extermination, say fuck you."

there have been many posts about this. despite it not being included in the live stream, this video swept the dashboard. there is a pride flag front and centre in the audience. gerard is barely visible but all we needed was his voice. within hours it had inspired countless textposts and art pieces. i know i'm not the only one who cried. it is exactly what i needed to hear during this time of trans rights being rolled back all over the world. then came this video where you can see gerard. they walk right to the front centre stage, legs planted strongly in their skirt and tights, face set with intent, and he spits out those words for the whole world to hear.

now this next one i have not seen any posts about, but it struck a chord with me anyways. before planetary go they speak to the audience:

"You all look wonderful. You do. I see you when the lights are bright on us. I see you. Don't worry, I see you. There's some wonderful costumes. If they're costumes. Are they costumes?" The audience yells back with a resounding "No!" source video

every night my chemical romance performs, they look out to a crowd of visibly queer people staring right back at them. my mcr show was the first time i saw my trans best friend able to walk into the men's bathroom with his head held high. recently there has been a huge onslaught of anti-transgender laws across the world. i'm sure we've all seen posts pointing out that gerard's cheerleader dress they wore in Nashville would now be illegal. the new tennessee bill bans "male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest." many people have claimed the bill is 'only' about drag performers, as if that would make it okay, but we know that is not true. right-wingers have proven time and time again they view trans women as nothing more than "female impersonators". they treat transgender bodies as nothing but a fetish, or a prurient interest. they argue against gender-affirming medical care on the same phone they use to watch transgender porn. they believe transgender identity and queerness is a costume. it is something we can take on and off. something they can ban and eradicate from their country. but it's not a fucking costume. it's who we are.

which leads me to the encore. this was the only show during their tour with a planned one-song encore (excluding festivals), and that song was their most famous of all time, welcome to the black parade. the band walks back on stage and the only thing gerard says is

"Be who the fuck you are." video

an incredibly important statement that has always been a core part of my chemical romance's message. but with everything that's been going on, with frank saying one of his favourite thing about these tours is "g being able to just be himself", with gerard's gnc outfits making headlines, i feel like that was the perfect sentence to close the show

[theminecraftbee]

> check social links

(Which Social Link should I check on...?)

0 FOOL School Rescue Committee Should this really be an official school club? The group of Persona-users that I'm in now, whether I like it or not. At least I'm helping people by doing all this weird magic nonsense...

I MAGICIAN Scar A fellow Persona-user a year below me, although my senior in fighting Shadows. He's dragged me into his scam crystal-selling operation, which is actually weirdly fun.

II PRIESTESS Beef Pretty large and muscular for a priestess, but sure, I'll bite. A volunteer EMT who is trying to decide whether to follow his family's wishes for university.

III EMPRESS Gem A fellow Persona-user in my year. She wants me to help her study for entrance exams, apparently. Not sure why she's asking me, I missed an entire semester? But it's good enough study for me as well.

IV EMPEROR Impulse A fellow Persona-user in my year. He has a single-minded devotion to overworking himself, despite the fact he seems to be trying to prove it's fine for some reason.

V HIEROPHANT Xisuma An older man who hangs out in the local tea shop. Keeps trying to parent me for some reason, although it seems like his relationship with his actual family's a bit less good, so maybe that's why.

VI LOVERS Etho My lab partner. The whole school's obsessed with him for some reason. My only solace is that he seems to be just as disconcerted by that fact as I am.

VII CHARIOT Skizzleman A fellow Persona-user in my year, and my first friend in this town. I'm helping him find a part-time job. He's sort of ridiculously cheerful, but I know he understands me better than most people.

VIII JUSTICE Grian A fellow Persona-user a year below me, although my senior in fighting Shadows. Keeps dragging me into his pranks, although for such a gregarious guy, he's weirdly isolated.

IX HERMIT Joe Hills One of my teachers, and the head of the School Rescue Committee. He's, frankly, the most bizarre guy I know, and I don't know what to make of any of the "wisdom" he tries to impart on us.

X FORTUNE Tango Apparently, he's a bit of a prodigy in the robotics club, but he first came to me to confess he's considering quitting. I have no idea why this is my problem, but Impulse frowned at me about it, so here I am.

XI STRENGTH False A local martial artist who's been decorated with a number of titles. I just wanted her to teach me how to fight better, but apparently, she's starting to doubt her own fighting ability as well.

XII HANGED MAN Jimmy Igor's assistant in the Velvet Room. He's a bit of an idiot, but he's also my idiot. Mostly wants to request I escort him to places in the human world, although he wants specific fusions sometimes too.

XIII DEATH Cleo A "florist" in town who can source us weapons and fence goods from Altered Space. I'm pretty sure she's actually Yakuza, or at least criminal. She and Joe know each other, although strangely, she doesn't seem to remember from where.

XIV TEMPERANCE Iskall and Stress Two priests at the local shrine. I work for them occasionally to help them with odd jobs around town. They share some common past they don't like to talk about.

XV DEVIL Ren The student council president. He's bizarrely mad with power on a good day, which is weird, because he's also bizarrely kickable on a good day. Keeps on trying to rope me into the Student Council.

XVI TOWER Doc An inventor trying to invent a safe new clean energy source. According to rumors, his last try exploded, killing his lab partner, which constantly makes me question why I'm here.

XVII STAR Zedaph Proprietor of the famous local "Mystery Stir Fry Extravaganza". Frankly, his creations terrify me more than Doc's do. I have no idea why this is Impulse's favorite restaurant.

XVIII MOON Mumbo A fellow Persona-user in the year below me. Apparently, he still gets bullied a lot, but he has a scheme to, and I quote, 'learn to be something scary, like a horse.' Good luck with that, mate.

XIX SUN Pearl An artist that I've always admired. Recently, she was in a terrible car accident, and her hands now constantly shake because of it. I still think she can draw organic shapes better than me, though.

XX JUDGEMENT Soul Reappearance Committee Judgement. Hah. I guess you'd call this Judgement Day, sure.

XXI THE WORLD ... It's me.

[bambi-kinos]

Beatles Reading List (Introductory)

Hi guys. So I saw a post floating around asking about "where to start" with the Beatles and how to find out more about them. Moeexyz's recommendation on it was to read fanfiction and this alarmed me a bit. Fanfiction just isn't a good source to get information about the band for one simple reason: fanfic authors change stuff for dramatic purposes all the time. It's just not a great way to get more information about them because fanfiction by necessity shifts things around for the sake of storytelling.

That Beatles iceberg is nice but the only way you're going to get a good picture of the Beatles is by doing a lot of reading of published sources. That's right. You're in for a lot of homework.

In an effort to combat misinformation, I asked the McLennon discord server to help me put together a rough list of introductory level books for Beatle fans that want to learn more about the band. These books are either a) read by me or b) read by someone I trust and I have included her quotes about the books she liked. I'll have color commentary talking about what they are and why they should be read. I do not consider this post finished! My server is constantly reading and discussing (we're looking at podcasts right now because they're the ones doing interviews with Liverpool citizens who were peers of the Beatles!) and they're being very gracious by contributing to this list. That means that this post may be updated in the future as I read more! If you want to keep up with updates then give my blog a follow, I'll post every time I update this list.

Some of these books are available on Archive.org but others can be gotten through your local library or through piracy. If you buy something, buy it used. Never pay more than $20 for a Beatle book.

The Whole Story

Anthology This is the documentary made by the band after John Lennon's death in 1980. It is both a documentary as well as a book (essentially a script of the documentary) which makes it very accessible. This is the version of the story that the band wanted to put out and includes interviews with Paul, George, and Ringo. They cover their beginning to their end. Anthology can be found on archive.org if you want to read it: https://archive.org/details/beatlesanthology0000unse_y2k8 The episodes are also available on Archive.org. If you search for "Beatles Anthology" and select "movies" option to search for videos then you will find it there. It's worth the watch and is all around the best introduction to the Beatles.

The Beatles - Hunter Davies This is the only sanctioned biography of the band. It's written in older language since it is contemporary to the 1960s but it's still very readable and a good intro. It is part of the media image that the band wanted to present at the time so you should make sure to think about what you are reading, who is saying what, and contemplate why he is saying it. It it still a great resource.

150 Glimpses of the Beatles - Craig Brown This is a short book that describes 150 anecdotes about the Beatles and what it was like to experience them. I recommend this because it demonstrates what a unique and personal experience the Beatles are while also demonstrating their global reach and how they became the most famous rock band in the world. It's a short read but a good one and there are many charming and thought provoking anecdotes in it. The story of the Beatles is just as much about their fans as it is about the band and you cannot understand one without looking at the other.

Books About Each Beatle

This particular section is a bit of a minefield. Many books written about the Beatles are of questionable veracity or just out and out wrong. (I can think of two that were written as blatant cash grabs and filled with libel that someone should have been sued over.) My recommendations on this may change so please check back from time to time! John Lennon

The John Lennon Letters - John Lennon, edited by Hunter Davies Primary source documents of the various letters and missives John wrote through his life. This may be the most important book on the list because it shows us who John really is: just another ordinary guy like us, trying to get through life. Also gives insight into his mindset as the decades pressed on.

The Making of John Lennon - Francis Kenny This is a very vital and heartbreaking read for people who want more insight into John. John Lennon is the most famous Beatle but he is also the one who's image is the most obscured and distorted. Francis Kenny is a Liverpool native who puts John in his proper context. To quote my server friend who read this one: Kenny, himself a Liverpudlian, takes into account how life in Liverpool in the first half of the 20th century shaped not only John but everyone he knew and his entire family. Mimi and Julia get a good critical view, and Uncle George gets his moment in the sun. He also lays out how class divides affected the Stanleys and then how Mimi took it out on John and Julia. He quotes a 1880s travel guide of London that said Liverpool was called "the New York of Europe," because of its economy and place on the ocean, and like in the Gilded Age New York that was happening concurrently across the ocean, Liverpool had pockets of wealth and splendor surrounded by poverty and rough living. Definitely a pro-read and a great insight into the culture and time John lived in. It does not fall into the pitfalls of hero worshipping John but Francis Kenny still treats John with sympathy and respect, hard qualities to come by when it comes to the cashgrabs written about John and his family.

John - Cynthia Lennon John's first wife, Cynthia, wrote two autobiographies about herself and John. This is one of them. It's a tough read in many places but a good one. Hers is a voice that doesn't shy away from John's flaws and actions but she also takes care to tell us why she and so many other people love him and remain loyal to him.

Paul McCartney

Many Years From Now - Barry Miles This is Paul's only sanctioned biography. It is formatted as a quasi-interview with Paul where there are interruptions of regular prose in each chapter. There are eyebrow raising moments where you can tell Paul is not quite telling the truth but it's important to read and identify these moments since Paul's habit of embroidering the truth is important to know and understand. Nonetheless it is still a lot more honest than I was expecting when I read it.

Paul McCartney: A Life - Peter Ames Carlin Probably the best Paul McCartney biography on the market. Peter Ames Carlin also did a similarly great bio of Paul Simon for people who are into that. To quote my friend Betty who read it: Paul gets to be a whole person here: the preternaturally talented boy wonder, the guy casting around for meaning, the less than attractive moments and qualities described without getting preachy or turning to [Paul Derangement Syndrome]. Carlin treats him with dignity instead of something to be gawked at and gossiped about. His (many) sources are cited at the end of the book. What I really appreciated was the ideas he put forth that I've only seen on Tumblr and not in Serious Official Biographies, which says to me he's writing as a fan and scholar and not a journalist trying to fill column inches.

George Harrison

I Me Mine - George Harrison Make sure to get the extended edition! George Harrison in his own words. There's a lot to say about this biography but it won't make much sense without context so I just encourage you to read it. George Harrison was, in my opinion, the best Beatle.

George Harrison: Behind the Locked Door - Graeme Thomson A good no bullshit biography about George Harrison. This covers his life as the material musician and the man seeking the divine. Graeme worked very hard to be respectful of George and his life, did extensive interviews with George's wife Olivia. Such a pro-read and definitely the best George biography written to date.

Ringo Starr

Photograph - Ringo Starr Ringo has stated that this book is his autobiography. In a few bumpers on the Beatles Sirius XM channel Ringo says that he doesn't want to write a biography like the others did but he was happy with putting this photobook together and essentially writing a bio through the captions. This is the closest that we will get for a biography for him as of right now. In time that may change but this is your best option. Piracy is the way to go when it comes to getting a copy of this, iirc it was a limited run and getting a physical copy might be very expensive these days.

Brian Epstein

A Cellarful of Noise - Brian Epstein/Derek Taylor This autobiography was ghostwritten by Brian's assistant Derek Taylor. It's not a tell-all but Brian talks about his youth and how he met the Beatles, including giving his own personal (and accurate) insights into each band member.

Conclusion

There are many, many books about the Beatles. Almost all of them offer something but most are about very niche periods in the Beatles history. When it comes to understanding the band I tried to put together a list where you can get an overview of the band and then read materials that either come straight from the Beatle in question or are not as biased as the competition. I am a McLennon shipper but for a post like this I did my best to recommend books that don't have that kind of bias in them so this is a list you can send to non-shipper friends haha.

In another post I will put together a history book list in the order of their timeline as a band, starting from the Quarrymen and on to the present. There is a LOT of ground to cover in a historical arrangement and it will take a while to compile. Please check back here regularly or give me a follow: whenever I update this post or make a new list, I'll make sure to post about it.

My plan is to make a website with all of this information that anyone can reference but it will take a long long time to make such a thing so put a pin in that one.

[alexanderwales]

I went to the Churchhill museum in London, which is in the bunker that he spent most of his time in during WWII. Lots of neat exhibits, and I think it's the first time I ever went to a museum that was entirely focused on a single person, going into exhaustive detail.

However, as I kept reading the signs (these are not actually direct quotes):

"Winston Churchill had an excessive dislike of noise, loathed the sound of whistling and people eating, and had the typewriters silenced."

"Winston Churchill was very particular about the materials used to make his clothes."

"Winston Churchill was very particular about his food."

"Winston Churchill had a very tightly structured and predictable routine that he took pains to never have disturbed."

"Winston Churchill's famous witticisms were planned weeks in advance by studying the issues and imaging all possible social interactions."

"Winston Churchill often floundered when doing things he was disinterested in, but had an almost obsessive drive for things that had his attention."

"Winston Churchill was very blunt and direct, to the point of being considered rude by his colleagues."

And I'm reading all this thinking "Wait ... was Winston Churchill on the spectrum?"

(For what it's worth, I went looking for some sources after the fact, and the consensus is that he maybe had ADHD or bipolar disorder or both. But standing in that museum, reading all these plaques about his "quirks" and "eccentricities", I definitely felt like I was putting some pieces together.)

[whencyclopedia]

Hippocrates

Hippocrates was born on the Greek island of Kos in the 5th century BCE, and he became the most famous physician in antiquity. He established a medical school on the island, wrote many treatises on medical matters, and is, through his systematic and empirical investigation of diseases and remedies, credited with being the founder of modern medicine.

Biographical Details

Information regarding Hippocrates is patchy and unreliable. He was perhaps born c. 460 BCE, but details of his life were speculated upon even in ancient times. One of the oldest sources is the Life of Hippocrates credited to Soranus of Ephesus, himself a physician, who lived in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE. Soranus' method of quoting from now lost earlier texts has been an invaluable source of information on ancient medicine. He states that Hippocrates knew several 5th-century sophists, notably Gorgias of Leontini, and was taught medicine by both his father and Herodicus of Selymbria, a gymnastic trainer. We also know that Hippocrates set up and ran a school of medicine on Kos.

Plato mentions Hippocrates in his Protagoras, suggesting that he worked for fees and believed the body should be treated as a whole (Phaedrus). The Roman scholar and medical writer Cornelius Celsus claims that Hippocrates was the first to separate medicine from philosophy, and other ancient sources also suggest that Hippocrates believed in the importance of diet and exercise for a healthy body. Soranus goes on to inform us that Hippocrates travelled throughout his life and died at Larissa in Thessaly, c. 370 BCE.

In antiquity, many legends arose of Hippocrates' great talents but most of these are likely pure invention. He reportedly discovered that King Perdiccas II of Macedon's health problems were down to lovesickness, he eliminated the plague that hit Athens in 430 BCE by burning fires everywhere, and he treated the philosopher Democritus whom everybody thought mad (not without some justification). Hippocrates had three sons who carried on his work - Thessalus, Dracon, and Polybus.

Continue reading...

[paganimagevault]

Tomb of An Bei 589 CE. Sogdian tomb.

I couldn't find the translation for the epitaph for this one.

"Differently from the other tombs quoted in this paper, Anbei’s tomb was not excavated by archaeologists, but found and looted by the robbers, therefore the archaeological context of this tomb, even the date of this accidental finding are lost. Until now, all we know is that this tomb robbery happened someday between 2006 and 2007. Several stone figurines, a funerary couch and Anbei’s epitaph stone were found in the tomb. Two stone figurines, parts of the base of the couch and the epitaph are now exhibited in the Tang West Market Museum in Xi’an (Fig.20), four panels belonging to the private owners, including two processing and two banqueting scenes, were published, too (Fig.21).

Although owning the typical Sogdian name An, which means his ancestors migrated into China from Bukhara, his homeland was described in a completely different name, the state of Anjuyeni, which was never recorded by any source before. An’s family moved to China during the Northern Wei dynasty, some of his family members once served in the Bureau of Tributaries. For the court, it’s also an usual way to adopt expatriate immigrants to work in the diplomatic system. Anbei’s father, An Zhishi, served as a middle-rank commanding officer among the honour guards of the court.

As a, likely, third generation immigrant, Anbei’s life depicted in the epitaph was very brief, too. Except for the usual eulogies commonly written in every epitaph, two main parts of his experience were emphasized: his mercantile ability and simple bureaucratic career. The one who wrote the text made a metaphor, assimilating Anbei with two famous ancient Chinese merchants, Baigui and Xiangao during the Eastern Zhou Period (approximately between 8th c. - 3rd c. BC); After that, Anbei’s only short official career as a very lower status clerk of the military headquarters of vassal leader Xuchang was recorded, probably happened in 575 AD when he was 20 years old. Soonafter the Northern Qi was replaced by Northern Zhou dynasty in 577 AD, Anbei returned home in Luoyang, the place where he died and was buried in 589 AD at the age of 34.

The motivation for me to list this robbed tomb here, together with the other tombs which have detailed background obtained through scientific archaeological excavation is, however, mainly not for its elaborate funerary couch, but because of his distinctive identity depicted in the epitaph. Prior to the discovery of Anbei’s tomb, the deceased of all five tombs which constituted the most important foundation of the studies of the foreign immigrants in early medieval China, namely the tombs of Lidan, Kangye, Anjia, Shijun and Yuhong, owned high-ranked official positions such as head of a prefecture or Sabao, which may result in a misconception that only aristocrats of the foreign immigrants could be buried with such elaborate funerary furniture. However, Anbei’s tomb provided an additional possibility about the status of the tomb occupant who used the stone funerary furniture. What is expressly shown in the epitaph, during his 34-year-long life, Anbei was just a very ordinary person, without any notable ancestry from homeland, neither held any high-ranked post, nor received anyone as a posthumous reward.

Except for the basic information above, there is also a remarkable narration during the introduction in the beginning of Anbei’s epitaph, which may reflect the collective mindset among most of the foreign immigrants in China and their efforts in social integration, ‘Although he is a foreigner, after a long life in China, there is no difference between him and the Chinese’.

-Yusheng Li, Study of tombs of Hu people in late 6th century northern China

[pinkeoni]

The Big AIDS Metaphor Post

In her essay "Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?" from her book The Language of the Night: Essays of Fantasy and Science Fiction, science-fiction and fantasy writer Ursula K. Le Guin writes—

"The use of imaginative fiction is to deepen your understanding of your world, of your fellow men, and your own feelings, and your destiny."

It would be easy for me to claim that Stranger Things is a show that utilizes its science-fiction elements as an AIDS metaphor, but that only goes so far without being able to prove that the show is in fact employing said metaphor. "The show takes place in the 80's -> AIDS was a big part of the 80's -> therefore the show is about AIDS" isn't an airtight argument in itself. I can quote famous sci-fi writers all day but that still wouldn't prove that the Duffers themselves are actually following similar trains of thought.

So here's my big long post about why the show is utilizing it's science-fiction elements as an AIDS metaphor.

Lengthy discussion of rape, violent homophobia and drug use below the cut.

A Brief History of HIV/AIDS in America

For those not in the know about HIV/AIDS, and in order to all get on the same page, here is a short recap. For my information, I will be this timeline from hiv.gov as well as this timeline created by History Channel, as well as some of the supplemental hyperlinks provided. Any other sources I use will be linked throughout.

HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus is a virus that attacks the body's immune system, making it highly susceptible to infection and cancers. The virus can progress to a more severe version of the infection, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome or AIDS. The virus spreads through bodily fluids such as semen and blood. The most common ways for HIV/AIDS to spread was through unprotected sex and sharing needles while using drugs.

The initial cases of HIV were present in America in the 70's but become much more rampant starting in the early 1980s. Because cases of AIDS were most commonly seen in gay and bisexual men, there was a large misconception that AIDS was a "gay plague" or a "gay disease" as it was nicknamed. By 1984, 3,500 Americans had died from AIDS related illnesses.

The reason that AIDS epidemic got as deadly as it did is often attributed to the Reagan Administration's failure to act, something that President Reagan denied. Reagan would not publicly acknowledge AIDS until 1985, despite U.S. health officials being aware of AIDS since 1981.

Understanding just how entrenched this metaphor is in the story will include going through each season and examining in detail how each one plays into this metaphor.

Season One: Establishing Metaphor & Government Cover Up in Early Years of Epidemic

The AIDS metaphor is most closely connected with Will's storyline, although it's not exclusive to Will nor is his storyline exclusive to AIDS. Furthermore, the supernatural elements of this show are multifaceted. AIDS is but just one of the metaphors expressed in the show, but for the sake of this post it's what I will be focusing on.

The setup begins following Will's disappearance in episode 1, when Joyce introduces Will's queer coding to us.

By 1983 the terms "gay disease" and "gay cancer" had been in the public vocabulary for a couple years now. So when Joyce brings up his queerness in regards to to his disappearance in a show that takes place in the early 1980s, there is a subconscious correlation that can be made in the watchers mind. His sexuality is significant to the why he went missing, otherwise why bring it up?

We then hear through Troy exactly what the town believes happened to Will.

I think that Troy essentially being a mouthpiece for his father is significant to show that Troy's beliefs are not exclusive to him and they do not exist in a vacuum. Troy's homophobia is a product of his environment, which includes his home and by extension, Hawkins.

The specification that Will was killed by "some other queer" adds another layer under the surface of Troy's statement, one that implies that Will was raped before he was kill, otherwise, again, why bring up sexuality in the first place? This was the attitude toward gay men— they rape and kill little boys.

In early 1984, there was a study conducted by the American Journal of Medicine to trace the sexual partners of a cluster of patients with Kaposi Sarcoma, one of the common cancers that killed AIDS patients. The study identified a flight attendant as "Patient O" who was among the first to exhibit symptoms of HIV/AIDS and had a rather active sex life with a multitude of sexual partners. The study was soon misconstrued by the public to claim that there was a Patient Zero who was "a promiscuous or even malicious gay man who single-handedly and knowingly touched off the AIDS pandemic in the United States."

Another crucial factor of the metaphor is the cover-up and blame shifting from the government lab, the exact thing that allowed the problem to escalate and become as deadly as it did to begin with. In the early years of the epidemic, Reagan slashed the budget of public health agencies like the CDC, and it would be years until he ever made a speech about it let alone even mentioned AIDS publicly.

We see how adamant the lab is to cover up any supernatural involvement with Will's disappearance in an attempt to cover their own asses. Framing his death as an accident was their call, all while being acutely aware of what the actual problem was. This confrontation from Joyce to Brenner puts it pretty aptly.

Tangent About Barb

This AIDS metaphor is something that I thought of when I first watched the show back in 2016 (humble brag) but what tipped me off the most wasn't Will or the lab but it was the fact that Barb was the other victim shown.

Barb's queer coding was clear to everyone and their mother. Hell, there's even a joke about it in the Bad Lip Reading of the first season. Barb, Nancy's short haired female friend who takes issue with Nancy's new relationship and has a hard time fitting in with with all of the heterosexual antics of Steve's house party. She's singled out, and while the rest of the gang get to casually enjoy the pleasures of sex, while Barb, another member of the queer community, sadly loses her life. The show cuts between Nancy having sex with Steve with Barb being killed to emphasize this stark contrast.

Season Two: Personal Effects of HIV/AIDS & Social Stigmatization

Season one was surrounding Will while not really showing us much of his pov, but season two dives right in to his perspective.

So, remember when I talked earlier about how Troy, and by extension the town, believed that Will was raped? Well, he wasn't exactly wrong.

This moment wasn't lost on me when I originally watched the show, although I think I ignored the implications because I didn't want to believe what I was seeing. But it's pretty well spelled out— A long, tentacle-like organ used for the sake of reproduction (Will "births" D'Art as a result of this), is inserted inside of Will's mouth without consent.

It's been a year, and Will is still dealing with the trauma of what happened, along with all of these new changes to his life. Will frequently attends doctors appointments at the lab, where the lab themselves aren't completely confident what is happening with him either.

When cases of HIV/AIDS were first appearing in the U.S., health officials were unclear as to what exactly this virus was and how it worked, only that clusters of otherwise healthy gay men were suddenly developing rare and aggressive infections and cancers.

Owens refers to the spread of the Upside Down very clinically— describing it as some cancer. One of the first articles published about HIV/AIDS in America before more information was known was a New York Times article titled "Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals." The cancer the headline refers to being Karposi Sarcoma, the rare skin cancer developing due to their weakened immune system.

HIV/AIDS in itself isn’t the disease that patients die from, but instead the weakened immune system allows for diseases to take over the body without much defense. After his visit to the Upside Down, Will faces a series of “True Sight” visions as Mike puts it, which allows for a destructive foreign entity to invade Will's body and slowly take it over.

HIV.gov lists the following as some of the symptoms of AIDS:

"Rapid weight loss"

"Profuse night sweats"

and "Memory loss"

To the government agents in the lab, we see just how disposable Will is to them. In their words, if it kills him, it kills him. (thank you to @emblazons for being the one to point this out to me)

Owens may have held more concern for Will, but he still continues the government cover-up started by Brenner in season one. We also see the fallout of Barb's death, with Nancy and Jonathan fighting to uncover and reveal the truth. Owens is the one who tries to put a stop to their exposé of events to Barb's mom.

Not only is Will facing trauma and his body being ravaged by this new illness, but he's also facing social stigmatization, something common among gay men with positive HIV statuses at this time. There seemed to be some sympathy from the townsfolk when Will was missing and presumed dead, yet he faces animosity almost seemingly because he came back.

The "Zombie Boy" Nickname

I once made a whole separate post about this, but Will's "Zombie Boy" nickname from season two fits in with this AIDS metaphor.

On a surface level, the nickname is in reference to the fact that Will seemed to come back to life despite having a funeral and being buried. In a literal sense, however, his peers are quite literally referring to him a walking corpse that spreads disease. Individuals suffering from AIDS often have very short life expectancies, and zombies are the re-animated dead that aim to infect and kill as many people as possible. It is a very coded nickname.

In the post that I linked, I speculate the possibility that some people in town may even believe that Will has HIV. Remember earlier when I mentioned Troy's comment "he was probably killed by some other queer" which implies a belief that Will was raped. The town don't know about any of the supernatural goings-on, but they do know that Will went missing, was found in a cabin a week later, was hospitalized shortly after and attended frequent doctor visits through the following year. I don't see a reason that malicious rumors would cease, especially considering that they already continue to be cruel and ostracizing with the Zombie Boy nickname.

Look also at this moment of Will getting weird looks as he is being pulled from school to attend his doctors appointment. Why so much stigma around simply going to the doctor?

The 1984 Reelection of Ronald Reagan

In 1984, Ronald Reagan won reelection in one of the biggest election wins in history. And— subsequently continuing his and the governments silence towards the AIDS epidemic.

Season two takes place in the week leading up to the reelection. There are small set pieces that draw attention to this, such as this election sign in front of the library.

If the date November 6th sounds familiar, it should.

Dr. Owens mentions the anniversary of Will's disappearance. The one year anniversary of Will's disappearance is the same day that Ronald Reagan was reelected. Will's trauma is being purposefully associated with that day.

I've also made a separate post before just about the Reagan/Bush '84 signs that litter the lawns of Hawkins houses. They appear most notably in the Halloween episode, building to when Will has his true sight episode that night. There is one clearly in frame just before Will is separated from the group, called a "Zombie Boy" and a "freak" (two very coded nicknames) before he falls into his vision.

We also get a clear view of the Reagan/Bush sign outside of the Wheeler house before Will describes his experience to Mike.

A Tangent About the Wheelers

And now the question on everyone's mind: Are the Wheeler's homophobic?

Ted and Karen Wheeler are not violent, homophobic bullies. That would be a massive reach. But it would also be a reach to say that they are vocal allies. And maybe that's just what the average middle class family

In the very least, the Wheelers are passively contributing to a system that enables homophobia. To be honest, they are probably just going along with what everyone else is doing. Like I said earlier, Reagan was an incredibly popular candidate for the 1984 reelection. The Wheelers have the privilege of being able to comfortably conform without having to worry about much of the consequences. (I'll talk more about the Wheelers later)

In the episode where Will is possessed by the Mind Flayer, Joyce calls the school and we get an extended shot with Reagan's portrait in the background. The shot begins with the portrait slightly obscured, then the camera dolly's in towards the receptionist with the portrait still in frame. Shortly after this Will is possessed in the field. Here is one of the camera begins the shot and where the camera ends the shot.

I also wanna note that when Joyce calls in this scene, the receptionist makes a side comment about her and rolls her eyes. There's a clear animosity towards not only Will, but the whole Byers family, including the adults of the town. Including Reagan's portrait in this shot is meant to create a subtle correlation between him and the stigma that the Byers' face.

Season Three: The Façade of Patriotism Over a Dying Nation

It's 1985, Ronald Reagan has been reelected, and this season introduces Hawkins Mayor Larry Kline.

Is Larry Kline meant to be Ronald Reagan?

I would say that Mayor Kline is probably exemplary of American politicians in a broader sense (in fact the Duffers may have been making allusions to Trump with his connection to the Russians) although the fact that he's in office the same time as Reagan is still significant.

In the beginning of the season, Mayor Kline is being met with protesters outside his house, not unlike many of the AIDS awareness protests from the 80's.

The townsfolk are angered with Kline for building the mall and running some of the small businesses into the ground. During Reagan's run, he implemented a system of economics called "Reaganomics," which aimed to cut taxes and support economic growth. Although critics of Reaganomics will point out that his policies had actually increased the wealth gap, making the rich richer and the poor, poor. I want to keep this post about the AIDS metaphor, although I wanted to point this out as it is a connection between Kline and Reagan. And as I said earlier in this post, the metaphors are multifaceted and not just about AIDS.

But continuing, later in the season Kline puts on a big 4th of July festival to celebrate the independence of his country with neon lights and flashy fireworks. Meanwhile, the people of his town are dying right under his political reign.

During season 3, the AIDS metaphor actually moves away from Will, with the focus of his story shifting slowly to romance. This was setup at the Snowball at the end of season 2, and season 3 hints at some of Will's feelings for Mike which will be carried into season 4.

But the metaphor is carried on by Will's name twin, Billy.

Billy and Will sharing the same first name, that being William, feels significant as Will basically passes the baton to him and Billy now becomes the focus for this metaphor. We learn from Max that Billy is very sexually active, and in the beginning of the season he has eyes for Karen Wheeler. It is while he is on his way to this illicit sexual affair when he is "infected" by the Mind Flayer. (this was pointed out to me in the comment of one of my posts, but have since lost it. If you are reading this— thank you.)

Billy then passes the "infection" along to a girl he was flirtatious with, before the "virus" begins spreading over town.

There is also language and rape imagery associated with being flayed. There is the repeated lines "hold still" and "it'll all be over soon." When Heather's parents are flayed, they are tied up something is forcefully inserted orally, not unlike what we saw with the tentacle inside of Will in season one and his possession in season two. (I first saw this pointed out by @kaypeace21

The flayed begin to eat chemicals, and Nancy makes the comment that Tom, one of the flayed, appears to have been on drugs. Another common way that HIV is spread is through the sharing of drug needles.

HIV/AIDS in the Press

Nancy's arc with the newspaper this season reminds me a lot of how AIDS was first being reported in the press. Nancy begins her search for a story with stolen fertilizer and diseased rats, not realizing that there was a much bigger and much more dangerous story at hand. One of the first reports HIV in the media was from a CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from 1981, which cited five cases of pneumonia in previously healthy gay men in Los Angeles. While still a deadly number, it was relatively small compared to the massive number of AIDS cases and deaths that would soon follow.

When Nancy brings her story to work, Bruce, one of her higher-ups, sips from this rather patriotic coffee mug before telling Nancy to drop the story.

At the end of the 1985 summer in Hawkins, the flayed have died in a "mall fire" and Larry Kline is arrested for colluding with the Russians, and their patriotic façade is shattered.

In September 1985, shortly after actor and close friend of Ronald Reagan, Rock Hudson dies, of an AIDS related illness, Reagan makes his first public acknowledgement of AIDS.

Season Four: Further Stigmatization & LGBT Witch Hunting

In season four the town is finally privy to the fact that there is something wrong going on, although they are unsure of exactly what. When things begin to escalate, instead of blaming the actual guilty party, they go on an all-out witch hunt.

Once again, Will's pretty removed from the AIDS storyline in this season with his arc focusing on his romantic feelings for Mike. With Billy dead and Will out of town, the baton passes once again for the metaphor to be carried by Eddie Munson.

In the first episode of season 4, Eddie is reading a magazine with an article about the Satanic Panic, a real case of wide-spread hysteria in the 1980's regarding the fear of rising Satanism, supposedly promoted by D&D. The article links the game to violent behavior, Satanic worship, sodomy and murder.

Tangent on Sodomy and Sodomy Laws

Merriam-Webster defines sodomy as "anal or oral copulation with another person." The definition is often expanded to include copulation with animals, although the term sodomy, according to Merriam-Webster, means "especially: anal or oral copulation with a member of the same sex."

While definitions may vary depending on states, some states have specific laws outlawing sodomy, even between consenting adults. In 1986, the Supreme Court upheld Georgia's anti-sodomy laws in Bowers v. Hardwick, after a homosexual man and his partner were arrested after being caught while having sex in his own home. Sodomy laws would eventually be challenged again in 2002 with the Lawrence v. Texas case.

While sodomy can technically can refer to both homosexual and heterosexuals, it is especially and historically has been used in regards to homosexual sex. When Eddie reads the word sodomy here, gay sex is being lumped in and made equivalent to violent behavior, Satanic worship, and murder. Quite literally in season four, Hellfire Club is seen as the evil Satanic sodomizers who bring death to their town.

While trying to find a substitute for the D&D game, one of kids Mike asks mentions 60 Minutes in his rebuttal of Mike's request. This episode takes place on March 21st, 1986. On March 16th, 1986, 60 Minutes played a segment called "Life and Death in San Fransisco," a segment about the AIDS virus on CBS. (EDIT: I originally attributed this to the wrong person, but thank you to @aemiron-main for being the one to point this out. Apologies for my memory mixing up my ST analysts in my head 😔) The archived footage can be viewed on YouTube.

When Chrissy is killed by Vecna inside of Eddie's trailer, leading the town to suspect that Eddie was the killer, she was going there to do drugs. Again, a common way for AIDS to be spread was through the sharing of drug needles. After the town and cops suspect Eddie, the town goes on an all-out witch hunt for him and other members of Hellfire, invoking Christianity as their reasoning. In Eddie's words— "Hunt the freak, right?"

Does this mean that Eddie is queer?

The black handkerchief in his back pocket and Joseph Quinn's flirtatious ad-libs with Steve are not completely lost on me. And the AIDS coding here does seem to be pointing in that direction, but here's what I think.

Eddie's actual sexual orientation, and by extension that of Hellfire, is beside the point and doesn't actually matter in the eyes of the town. Every member of Hellfire could be straight and every member of Hellfire could be gay, but what matters is that Hellfire Club is a group of outsiders that participate in recreational activity that is deemed dangerous, and that in itself is queer, regardless of who they may actually be attracted to.

Another Tangent on The Wheelers

During Jason's religious spiel in town hall which invoked the witch hunt against Eddie and Hellfire, we get this shot of Ted and Karen Wheeler upon remembering that Mike is a part of Hellfire. And boy do they look terrified.

This moment, right here, is what I believe to be the Wheeler rug pull. They may not have been signing up to witch hunt their son when they put that Reagan sign in their front lawn, but this is what it leads to. They're being confronted with the most extreme end of their forced conformity and they fear what they see. I think part of what causes this change in character is because they know Mike, had Mike not been a Hellfire member, who is to say if they would have changed their tune or join in the witch hunt. At the end of the season, when the news reports that the giant gate in town is a "doorway to Hell," both Ted and Karen scoff at the report, calling it "hysteria." The conformists are beginning to un-conform.

Concluding Thoughts & Season Five

Providing a story about HIV/AIDS through a science-fiction metaphor is both practical and ethical. The metaphor allows the show to tell the story to a wide audience without the reliance on outside knowledge. You don't have to be an expert in HIV/AIDS history to understand the story that it's trying to tell. It's ethical as well in that it doesn't force it's incredibly young actors to have to act out being raped and developing HIV/AIDS.

With Eddie Munson dead and Zombie Boy back in town, I think that the AIDS metaphor will shift it's focus back to Will. I think we may see a colliding of the AIDS plot with his romance plot. How do you pursue romance with a HIV+ status? Can you?

The way I see, season 5 has the choice to go in one of two directions:

But first, a short tangent about my uncle

In recent years, I came to learn that my uncle was HIV+, something that wasn't known to me when I was younger. Him and his partner are both in their sixties, and they currently bought a plot of land in which they plan on building their dream house together.

But anyways, the two choices are this:

Will dies by the end of the season. He becomes one of the many gay men with HIV/AIDS who lived a short life, unable to grow into adulthood and pursue his love life. His story is a tragedy.

Will lives. He becomes one of the many gay men with HIV/AIDS who survived and is able to live a long and happy life full of love. His story is an uplifting one full of hope.

Tagging: @emblazons @italiantv @gaysmindpalace @ven0moir @punkwillbyers @mikesbasementbeets @quinterobb @drangues @basiltonpitch @howtobecomeadragon

[blushweddinggowns]

A Deep Dive into the Munson Marriage: Just Who is Steve Harrington?

By Fredricka Keith

The world has somehow been sleeping on the end of an era. The notorious bachelor Eddie Munson is married. But how did it happen? Who did he fall for? Surprisingly enough, those questions were very hard to answer, despite Munson’s past predilection to be an open book. 

He has been uncharacteristically tight-lipped about his new beau. Tight enough for the majority of his fans to be just as shocked as the general public at the new announcement. Even so, Steve Harrington hasn’t managed to stay completely out of the public eye.

The thirty-three year old has a dismal social media presence, but lucky enough for us, his husband and sister are much more giving. Though Eddie’s Instagram and Twitter mentions of his husband were quickly found to be useless in getting to know the man, despite the number of posts associated with his name. It probably shouldn’t have been surprising, considering how they were nearly all nonsensical compliments, written straight from his stream of consciousness. 

His sister, Robin Buckley, was better, especially considering that she’s been using the same Instagram account since 2012. Through her, we received a little more insight on the man. He had a penance for camping and exercise, often ready and able to drag both his sister and husband with him. According to a Birthday celebration post in 2017 it was mentioned his favorite movie is The Thing (1986) and his favorite cake flavor was southern caramel. 

As for his own career, Robin’s BrotherBartender hashtag was of some use, at the least showing us that the man was capable of creating gorgeous drinks, with a long past career in bartending. But that was it, the only information that was up for grabs.

While the newly Steve Munson has been to a number of events with his husband, he still remains an enigma. The only thing his red carpet showings have proved was that the former Harrington was a master at directing attention away from himself, and his husband was incredibly protective of his privacy. There have been many interviews cut short due to questions he found unacceptable, which was a brand new behavior for the star. His days of being an open book are officially finished. 

But the plot thickens. 

While neither Steve nor Eddie are open for insight, a thorough background check did reveal some interesting information. Surprisingly enough, marrying a rockstar was not Mr. Buckley-Munson’s first experience with the upper echelon. 

Through anonymous inside sources we were able to find that the Harrington last name was familiar for a reason, outside of Steve. His parents, celebrity lawyer Richard Harrington, along with his estranged ex-wife, Adriana Harrington, made headlines in 2012 due to their contentious divorce.

For those not in the know, the two C-list celebrities are most well-known for their continued campaigns against the LGBTQ community, as well as Richard Harrington’s unsavory choice of clients. Harvey Weinstein, Jeffery Epstein, Mitch McConnell, along with his earlier aid work on the OJ Simpson trial. 

His mother, Adriana, while not directly working with some of the most despised men in the country, is famous in her own right. The fifty-one year old has nearly two hundred followers on Instagram, her posts consistently centering around the sanctity of marriage, pro-life advocacy, and bible quotes. 

With this in mind, it is extremely hard to see how their son ended up in not only a gay marriage, but with someone who is flagantly against every single thing they stand for. Though after reaching out to his parents for comment, the picture of how they came together becomes more clear. 

Richard Harrington initially denied all allegations of having any children with his previous wife, despite direct evidence to the contrary. That was until Adriana Harrington settled the score, posting a series of photos of what appeared to be a young Steve Harrington alongside his father. Along with a caption reading: It doesn't surprise me that a liar would lie about his own son. But unfortunately, yes, Steve Harrington was ours. 

Though when asked for clarification on her own relationship with their son, she did not hesitate to reiterate that she had no regrets regarding how their relationship ended. 

“While I wish Steven had taken the tough love he was given to improve himself, I can not say that I’m surprised that he has turned out this way. It’s unfortunate that his deviant behavior has escalated to the level of making a mockery out of the institution of marriage, but that is out of my control. All I can do is rest easy knowing I tried to give him the best life possible. Him throwing that chance away is not of my concern.”

It was an odd choice of phrasing, considering how “throwing” his life away equated to marrying a multi-millionaire. When asked just what tough love she was referring to, she clarified: 

“Steven was given a choice to get help for his affliction or be completely on his own. He chose to be completely on his own. Whatever happened after that choice is a reflection on him. Not me.”

Though when further pressed on just when Steven was given this “choice” she only mentioned that he was “of age” but admitted he was still a teenager at the time of his disownment. 

When asked for comment after Adriana’s claims, the Harrington firm provided the following information:

“Richard Harrington has not spoken to his alleged son, Steven Harrington, legal name Steve Buckley-Munson for nearly fifteen years. While his name is present on Mr. Munson’s birth certificate, the biological relationship between the two has never been confirmed. Considering Adriana Harrington’s past history of infidelity, it is quite likely that there is no actual relation between the two men.

With that acknowledged, Mr. Harrignton would like to reiterate that he has no ties to Steve Buckley-Munson, Edward Munson, Corroded Coffin, or their label Virgin Records. He is a dedicated family man whose loyalties lie with his new wife, his two beautiful young children, and his clients. Those areas are where his focus will always be, first and foremost.”

It is a wonder that such a well-matched duo could ever end in divorce. But their answers only led to more questions. How could Steve Buckley-Munson have a sister if he was disowned as a teenager?

From the last chapter of this (finished) fic!

[iriascend]

I think I found new insight into purity culture. Hear me out.

I've recently stumbled upon TikTok videos from Christian Francis, a fiction author that shared his experience as a person with both aphantasia (no visual imagination, i.e. no mind's eye) and anauralia (no verbal imagination, i.e. no inner monologue). It was exciting to see, because I never saw anyone else that has both like I do! For him, thoughts were 'subconscious' and silent, and like for me - happened entirely 'under the hood' and only the end result of a thought process was expressed outwardly. Feeling a sense of connection, I went through his videos. Some were Q&A answering basic questions like "how do you write fiction, then?" and "do you dream???".

But the more videos I watched, the more of them were just replies and reactions to frankly... bonkers sentiments left by commenters. People would say he's lying, not believing that this set of conditions is even possible, or even accuse of being a psychopath that's just farming responses for views, clout or as source for dialogue in his books (?). Folks would say that doesn't have a soul and even get angry at him like it personally offended them that some stranger on the internet doesn't use words or images in his mind.

What caught my attention most, though, are the people who said it's impossible to have neither words nor images nor anything else in your mind, because he's speaking - people who said that an inner monologue of some kind is needed for expressing yourself, for thinking at all. Someone even referenced the famous quote from Descartes - "I think, therefore I am" - implying that Christian is an NPC, because he doesn't think.

As Christian noticed, these people seemed to be conflating an inner voice with the act of thinking, and were under the impression that that voice in their heads was their thoughts, as opposed to just a way to express them.

This reminded me of how often people mischaracterize intrusive thoughts. Internet tends to romanticize them as quirky desires, like the urge to dye your hair neon green at 4am in the morning, and then gets offended and horrified when people admit that their actual, clinical intrusive thoughts are more akin to "stab your neighbour's toddler with a knife 32 times". People online tend to be all "positive and accepting of psychiatric disorders" and say it's okay to have delusions/intrusive thoughts until people start actually having violent delusions and unsightly intrusive thoughts, because then that's "wrong" and "evil" and "crazy" to think those things.

And those two approaches melded in my mind to create a theory - people think that, contrary to what psychiatry says about it, your thoughts are you. With a worldview like that it means that whatever appears in your mind, whatever's part of your stream of consciousness and inner monologue - is you, is your thoughts and opinions, even if it appears against your will/without your input, even if you're horrified about it. With a worldview like that, perceiving violent or immoral things means having violent or immoral thoughts which makes you a violent and immoral person.

And that would explain a bit about purity culture's approach towards erotic or problematic fiction, wouldn't it? If you read a book that depicts violence and have an inner voice, you narrate it in your inner voice as you read it. The violence becomes part of your thoughts, part of you. If you believe that your inner monologue IS you, then reading 'problematic fiction' makes you a bad person, because it mixes in 'problematic' things into your inner monologue. Watching porn becomes functionally the same thing as sleeping around, because it has the same effect on your "soul" - it makes you have sex thoughts.

All because they took "I think therefore I am" a little too literally.

[mythserene]

AKOM “Fine Tuning,” Episode 6: A prolonged jealousy

Another really excellent episode that I will have to listen to at least two more times to fully ingest, despite having lots of diffuse, unconnected notes where I ranted about most of the same text. They really backed up and gave it context and meaning, including adding a lot of things that I didn’t have and making sense of some of the extras that I did. It was both satisfying and frustrating: more satisfying than I expected, and my frustration feels more coherent and focused now.

I definitely think it’s one of the most important episodes.

There is only one point I would add, and that is just that when you listen to the episode it’s important to realize that Paul’s “jealousy” is the most egregiously non-sourced. There are basically two quotes that Mark Lewisohn uses to support this entire theme. The theme which he so beats into the ground that even if you don’t look at the footnotes it feels excessive.

I’ve mentioned before that when I read “Tune In” I was still very, very new to Beatles’ history. A newborn without any of the historiographical context, no understanding of the long, strange, John-deifying background, and therefore I wasn’t on the lookout for it. And that’s important because I went into the book with implicit trust, loved the writing, and still it was evident to me, fairly quickly, that I was reading an opinion column.

It was the cigarettes that did it

Paul’s care with money was noted—Pete says that while they all passed their ciggies around, Paul would “sneak one of his own to himself”—and he was still needling everyone about the Bambi sleeping arrangements, made all the worse now because he was jealous of Pete getting the best girls.

The second time I read the book I remember thinking, “Surely not that many people spontaneously bitched about Paul being stingy with cigarettes.” And that was my tipoff.

There are two quotes in the book about Paul and cigarettes that appear to be organic—one being Pete’s “sneak one of his own” quote in this episode—but you’d think that half the people Lewisohn talked to about their memories of some of the most famous people ever, and certainly the most famous from Liverpool, just magically thought that one of the most important things about these four guys was that Paul was stingy with cigarettes. And there is just no way that that is true.

But I also know how this works, inside out. You get “an angle” as a reporter. You have a story you want to tell, and then you interview people with that story—that angle—in mind. You ask questions that you think will elicit the responses that back up your thesis. And then, on the other side of the process, you filter the quotes you choose (and don’t choose) that tell the story you want to tell. And to be fair, every reporter and historian does this to some extent. It may just be to organize ideas in a coherent way, or it may be to focus on a theme. But it has also notoriously been used by historians to warp the truth and further a broader historical lie. (A very good example of this and the one closest to me is “the Dunning School” of the US Civil War and Reconstruction, the first real and condensed story of that conflict that injected into US historiography many complete lies, including the especially insane one that after the Civil War the “Radical Republicans” inflicted pain and humiliation on the South, which despite being the exact opposite of the truth is still the story most Americans “know.”)

Mark Lewisohn had a story he wanted to tell, and I believe that story is most obvious in his “jealous Paul” theme because it’s based on nearly thin air and even then is so ludicrously overblown. But I think it was just too tempting a canvas for Lewisohn. Setting up a dead, pretty kid as a sort of saint that Paul persecuted does so much work for everything else he wants to say about Paul, especially in the upcoming books. Hamburg becomes a pressure cooker where Paul’s true colors come out, and if Lewisohn can use Stu—a sort of perfect near-blank slate who never had time to put any of his memories into context—as a foil to Paul and to paint Paul as petty and jealous and seething, then all the rest of his work is easy. Stu is a layup that paves the way to seeing Paul as a bad guy. The concrete dries and everything else falls into place.

And look, there just is no way to see this theme as organic, because it’s not. It just isn’t. It’s not based on quotes or stories. There are a few completely disconnected quotes stretched to breaking that he uses to try to prop all this nonsense up with, but there is simply no defense for even 90% of the primary usage of them, and certainly not of the whole, big-picture story he creates with them.

I’m going to give one example—and there are many—but I admit to liking this one best because it’s all there in one passage based on one quote that doesn’t say any of this.

Passage:

But, as much as Paul liked exhibiting versatility, he was unhappy—he felt he’d been lumbered, that his multi-instrumental ability was tying him down. Who looked at the drummer? By rights, his place was out front, especially with his new guitar. Here he was, paying off the Solid 7 at ten bob a week and hardly getting to play it. Jealousy of Stu was stoked: Paul was in the back line while he remained out front (even if he was hiding and in dark glasses). One thing was for certain: Paul wasn’t going to abandon singing.

The only citation for all that Maca-inhabited resentment is the brief Paul quote already in the text, (FN35) and the next footnote—FN36—is from George on a new topid. There is no citation whatsoever to support any of Lewisohn’s finely-sketched fantasies of Paul’s vanity and jealousy.

FOOTNOTE 35: “I was drumming with my hands, playing the hi-hat and bass drum with my feet and I had a broomstick stuck between my thighs on the end of which was a little microphone, and I’m singing ‘Tell me what’d I say …’ It wasn’t easy!”

*Note: This quote is also in the text right under the ‘lumbered Paul wanted to be out front’ passage, so in some ways it’s an even thinner spread, if that’s possible.

So, according to Lewisohn:

Paul liked “exhibiting versatility” (a whole lot because of the modifier “as much as”)

Paul was unhappy because he felt “lumbered”

He felt he was being punished because he was TOO TALENTED

BY RIGHTS his place was out FRONT

He wanted to be LOOKED AT!

Jealousy of Stu is grabbed from thin air, based on nothing, and “stoked” by Lewisohn.

because, again, Stu was out FRONT

Did you catch the point that Paul is CHEAP?

Again, all of that is cited to this:

“I was drumming with my hands, playing the hi-hat and bass drum with my feet and I had a broomstick stuck between my thighs on the end of which was a little microphone, and I’m singing ‘Tell me what’d I say …’ It wasn’t easy!”

There are at least two more things that I want to say but this is long enough so I will put them off. (Hopefully not for long.) ✌🏻

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

can you explain why you dont believe the titanic switch conspiracy theory? didnt they find a propeller with "olympic" written on it amongst the wreckage?

i feel like the phrase "you just activated my trap card" applies here but i have also never watched yu-gi-oh so dont fully know the correct use of that. anyway whats the text limit on a tumblr post because i think i might hit it with this response.

before we begin (if you wanna join me on this fucking journey), ill just drop some useful sources on the topic:

olympic & titanic - an analysis of the robin gardiner conspiracy theory dissertation by mark chirnside in july 2006

titanic or olympic: which ship sank? by steve hall and bruce beveridge

olympic & titanic: the truth behind the conspiracy by steve hall and bruce beveridge

with that shipkeeping housekeeping out of the way, lets jump into it after the cut

so hands up, how many people knew that this theory originated in a book from 1995?

yeah, its a pretty modern theory considering titanic sank in 1912. the theory originated in the riddle of the titanic by robin gardiner and dan van der dat.

and the theory argues that the ships were switched and titanic (actually olympic) was deliberately sank as part of an insurance scam. now they didnt do this at all for shits and giggles. instead, the theory posits that the navy enquiry that followed the 1911 collision between hms hawke and olympic was biased which meant white star line couldnt recover the costs of repair from lloyds (the insurance company), and therefore, they wrote olmpic off as too damaged to be repaired, lied about the amount of damage, switched the ships and sank olympic disguised as titanic to recover some costs.

far-fetched? oh definitely and it gets worse, but ill leave that til later in this gargantuan response because its really fucking funny.

(seriously, i recommend you read til the end or just skip to the part where i start talking about the sinking itself because fam, gardiners theory gets wild )

according to van der dat, who is a dutch journalist and naval history writer with an incredibly dutch name, gardiner had wrote the manuscript after researching the titanic for however many years and sent it to his literary agent. this agent had previously worked with van der dat and so sent it to him to double-check the information by going back to the original sources. he then rewrote the book with line-by-line consultation with gardiner.

and would you like to hear a quote from van der dat regarding the theory? i think you would:

"the publishers were disillusioned when the theory did not stand up"

he also, in correspondence with titanic author and researcher paul lee, called it "bilge" which is a fun ship joke alongside calling the theory bullshit.

anyway, the publishers went ahead with the book anyway because fuck integrity, i guess... thats kinda harsh considering this first book (oh yeah, theres more) was praised for stellar research and for being balanced, and the final chapter of the book literally acknowledges that the wreck has titanics shipyard number (401) on it, hence disproving the theory.

in 1997, it was published in the us under the name the titanic conspiracy - cover-ups and mysteries of the worlds most famous sea disaster, and it sold like sliced bread in 1928 because 1997 was titanic fever, baby!

unsurprisingly, gardiner's following books (titanic: the ship that never sank? in 1998; the history of the white star line in 2001; the great titanic conspiracy in 2010) were a lot less well-received and were not co-authored by van der dat.

-

"but wait, kai!" you might shout if youre up to date with issues of the times from 1914, "what about raymond asquith's comments? he was junior counsel for the board of trade at the sinking inquiry!"

and i would say, what about it? the letter asquith wrote to the times was a sarcastic letter in response to a prior stance taken by the paper.

yes, he said "the architect, the owner, and the captain to repair their desperate fortunes by sinking the ship and sharing the insurance money" but said letter also included the phrase "manipulating dummy icebergs".

if were taking sarcastic or satirical responses outside of their original contexts as serious quotes, then i guess i need to cancel my dropout subscription since the company holds the opinion that oj simpson is innocent.

and while were here, that single deathbed confession from james fenton is not evidence of anything. his name is not on any crew lists or survivor lists, and not a single payment was ever claimed by a crewman called james fenton. he was not on board the titanic and his claims hold no weight.

-

now, my go-to explanation as to why i dont believe the switch theory is that their insurance scam would have lost them money and they would know that it would have lost them money.

see, it cost white star (which was a subsidiary of the international mercantile marine) £1.5million/$7.5million to build titanic and they insured it by lloyds (you can check their records on their website) for £1million/$5million.

you dont have to be good at maths to see a problem here.

they didnt just not insure the rest; it was self-insured by imm's insurance fund, but that still means theyd have lost £500,000/$2.5million on the sunken ship.

this whole insurance thing was established by uh the united states senate inquiry report:

"the vessel fully equipped, cost £1,500,000 sterling, or about $7,500,000. at the time of the accident the vessel carried insurance of £1,000,000 sterling or about $5,000,000, the remaining risk being carried by the company's insurance fund."

oh and the £1,000,009 insurance was announced in the daily mirror on 16th april 1912

and the insurance scam seemingly thought up by someones whose first and only introduction to maths was golf isnt the only way white star would have lost money on this.

after the sinking, olympic was temporarily pulled from service to increase safety measures like adding more lifeboats. obviously, a logical move made by a company with a brand new, safer ship on their hands who were desperate for any money they can make.

white star also halted construction of britannic, titanics other sister ship, in order to alter the design and make it safer. this costs quite a bit of money and is, again, an odd choice for a company apparently desperate for money.

-

and hey, question for you guys: if you were alive in 1913 and needed to cross the atlantic, would you

a) choose the near identical sister ship of that ship that sank last year and was the deadliest sinking of a ship at that time

or

b) choose any other option such as the lusitania or the mauretania or the ss france or the ss imperator

personally id take my chances with option a, idk about you

yeah so the point im making here is that the sinking of the titanic was what the kids say

a marketing disaster

it was the loss of the newest flagship on its maiden fucking voyage and it had been touted as "practically unsinkable". maybe just maybe people wouldnt feel that comfortable getting on a white star line ship after that.

i dont have any figures for you because reading through a detailed account of white stars history just is not on my to-do list, but that doesnt even matter. what matters is that its clearly a massive risk and who the fuck is taking that risk?

as titanic author, senan molony states:

"one doesnt need to compare designs and count portholes - a moments serious consideration of the reputational risk involved - individually and collectively - is all that is required to end any entertainment of the notion"

-

anyway, you guys wanna compare designs and count portholes? yeah? okay, here we go!

may i present a non-exhaustive list of differences between the ships:

olympics wheelhouse was curved; titanics was flat

titanic was 4 inches longer

the porthole arrangements on shelter deck c were different

on b deck, olympic had a 1st class promenade; titanic had 2 private verandahs and suites (put a pin in this by the way, it comes back in the best of ways)

titanic had additional cabins on promenade deck a

olympics promenade was open all the way along; on titanic, the forward half of the 1st class promenade on a-deck was enclosed with retractable glass screens

on titanic, the forward bridge wings aft docking bridge on the stern extended over the ships side by a couple of feet; this would not be true for olympic until the 1912/13 refit

the officers deck house was pushed out more on titanic

the iron gates of the elevators were different between the ships and this is evident in the wreck itself

their propellers had different pitches and hence not interchangeable (pitch is a theoretical concept which is like the distance a propeller would move if it turned once through something solid, yeah i dont know either)

the wireless cabin had an outside window on olympic, but not titanic

further, it was placed on the port side of the officers deck house on olympic but amidship on titanic

they had different air vent arrangements around the funnels

white star line cut the ships names into the shell-plating at the bow and stern, four feet high and a ½ inch deep

now, please, close your eyes, take a deep breath and consider how much money it would cost to switch just the list above. now compare all of that to the -£500,000/$2.5million youre losing in the insurance scam.

truly, a spend less on candles situation.

and while we're here, shall we quickly talk about how much hush money white star would be paying to silence everyone about this since its apparently an illegal insurance scam.

not to make another non-exhaustive list but heres just who i can think of that youd have to silence:

the 15,000 workers employed directly by the shipyard

the 20,000+ workers in support services or sub contractors

any permanent or casual staff at the belfast dock and harbour comission

all of the officers and crew who came directly from olympic onto titanic such as the captain or stewardess violet jessop (puppet history fans rise up) who interestingly remarked on how improved titanic was compared to olympic

any staff at white star, imm and harland & wolff (where she was built) who would be in the know such as designers

passengers who had previously sailed on olympic who then sailed on titanic

just like anyone in belfast who walked past while the ships were docked together

olympics wreckers: thomas wards & sons who kept huge loose-leaf ledgers for each ships. the one for olympic was 72 pages long and funnily enough olympics yard number and builders I'd frequently appear in it, as seen below

bob ballard who was the one who found titanic. hes known as a very honest man and didnt even claim salvage rights on titanic because he assumed everyone else would also recognise it was a gravesite. he also said "i think it is the titanic at the bottom of the ocean"

every other explorer or researcher like james fucking cameron or us navy consultant and titanic wreck explorer, parks stephenson

its been estimated likely over 60,000 people were involved in just the building of titanic. this was ⅕ of belfasts population and ⅓ of the working population. heres a photo of them leaving olympic at the end of the day

now maybe im just a fool, but that looks like a lot of people you need to silence, and unless white star were blackmailing them or idk fucking killing them i guess, thats a lot of hush money just in the photo above.

i mean, theres also the claim, from noted liar james fenton, that the surviving crew were forced to sign the official secrets act of 1911, but that act was about espionage that benefits the enemy military so im not sure how this is relevant to the switch, and also, again, the guy was never on the ship.

are you perhaps starting to get the picture as to why i dont believe the conspiracy theory because im still going.

-

okay so as established, if the ships were switched, there would have clearly been a lot of work that would need to be done to switch the ships.

and i only mentioned some of the structural differences, i didnt get into the aesthetic differences like the floor tiles and carpeting being different colours, or how the lounge furniture in each ship having the ship name on them.

mind you, this is what titanic looked like (in the foreground) when olympic was first docked next to her:

this was taken around october 11. olympic docked next to titanic on october 7th for repairs after that whole catastrophic collision.

now how much time do you think it was before olympic sailed away? mind you, titanic has already been launched at this point and just needs to be fitted-out, and that normally takes around 4 to 6 months?

oh, what was that? 44 days? why, kid, youre going somewhere. it was 44 days exactly!

now, i dont think i need to get into the fact that the dock only had 1 crane (which you needed to install and uninstall funnels and machinery) that physically couldnt reach olympic unless she was moved or how olympic was painted white for her launch and then painted black and that the white paint would get exposed in rough weather so the same would have to be applied to titanic so it would look convincingly like olympic.

i mean, you have that information now, but im hoping just by the words "44 days", you might get how off the wall insane it is to suggest white star was able to switch the ships so well no one noticed for decades in 44 fucking days.

"wait kai, youre forgetting that they were docked together again!" you shout, "after olympic threw a propeller, they were docked together from march 1st to march 7th 1912"

and i dont know dude, im pretty sure white star cant warp space time so i really dont know what eight extra days is gonna do.

i hate to strawman but man, the late robin gardiner would have won a gold medal in scarecrow hide and seek.

-

lets also take a quick detour into the idea that olympics repairs were so expensive.

without getting into gardiners claims about the damage because theres no evidence of it and as mark chirnside states "there are no credible sources indicating that the damage to olympic was worse than reported at the time - and indeed ample sworn expert testimony to the contrary", lets just quickly go over some financial stuff.

during the case, it was unofficially estimated that the damage didnt exceed $125,000. imm, by including lost passenger receipts, wanted to claim for as high as $750,000, but they lost that case.

during the year 1911, imms surplus profit was $822,062. so weve got:

750,000 > 822,062

now as we might remember from key stage 1 maths, the bigger number eats the smaller number, aka, their surplus profit covered the costs of repair.

aka, no ill-advised insurance scam needed.

-

"thousands of people in belfast would have seen the switch operation - and yet there is not one word in the papers of reporters or photographers rushing out to find out what was happening."

-dr paul lee

so this is the section where i ask how did no one fucking notice?

no one on titanic, who had previously sailed on olympic, ever said anything about the switch other than one guy who was literally not on the ship at any point.

no one who has ever explored the wreck or done research on it has definitively stated it was olympic. rather, they have definitively stated otherwise.

for example, what remains of the base on the wheelhouse shows it to be straight and not curved, and as you might remember: titanics wheelhouse was heterosexual straight and olympics was curved.

(id be impressed if you did remember)

also, as parks stephenson has stated:

"weve got actual high def images of this wreck. ive seen with my own eyes. weve identified the name titanic on the port bow"

its difficult to make out but its there; the name is on the fucking ship.

also, as you might remember, titanics b-deck was different to olympics. the 2 suites there were nicknamed the "millionaire suites" and jim cameron has used rovs to go inside of them.

funnily enough, robin gardiner has gone on the record saying that these suites didnt exist so make of that what you will.

and further, no one noticed anything about olympic even though she sailed for 24 more years. theres no written record of anything, theres nothing in the board of trade reports, theres no photographic proof and theres not even fucking hearsay.

she served as a damn troopship in ww1, youd figure someone would figure it out as all of her fittings were ripped out.

but no, theres nothing.

as i mentioned above, olympic was scrapped in 1935, but some of her fittings were auctioned off and still exist today. and these have the number 400 on them because that was her shipyard number. titanics was 401 and the wreck reflects this also:

the wooden parts are from olympic; the other has been salvaged from titanics wreck.

theres even the famous myth that olympic or olympus as one person told me is written on the propeller at the bottom of the ocean. its not, but you can see the number 401 written on it:

-

and while were disproving myths about the name olympic being on the titanic, the story about olympic being engraved on titanics lifeboats is also false:

theres no written testimony, no sketches and no photographs of this.

white star didnt engrave names onto lifeboats, the names were on metal plates that were screwed on

do you really think they did all of this work but just didnt fucking swap the lifeboats? if theyre this stupid, how did it take until 1995 for someone to figure it out?

-

we can also discuss the stupid olympic room thing while were here. see theres a maritime superstition that changing the name on a ship is bad luck and obviously, if youre swapping the ships, youre changing the names.

so to... get around this? cheat luck? outsmart superstition? i dont fucking know, to take a detour to avoid this, white star named a room "the olympic room."

i cannot find any evidence at all that this room ever existed. its not in the design plans or the blueprints, and no passenger or crew has ever said it existed, so im pretty sure the room just didnt exist.

and even if it did exist, titanic was in the olympic class of ships. thats what olympic, titanic and britannic were. its not weird to have an olympic room on an olympic class ship. i mean it is weird in this case since the room didnt exist, but you get my point.

-

and heres some quickfire myths and falsehoods

the myth about the 14 vs 16 bow portholes is also a false. yes, titanic had 14 portholes on launch but an extra 2 were added before her maiden voyage so yes, the ship photographed departing southampton with 16 bow portholes is the titanic, and do you really think it would take 83 years to figure this out if it was this easy?

similarly, titanic did have evenly spaced b-deck windows on launch, but then the extra verandahs and suites were added so the window configuration was altered, so that photograph is off the titanic.

the idea that titanic had a 2 degree list to port like the olympic before her is evidence of the switch theory is, to borrow a word from dan van der dat, bilge. plenty of ships at the time and now have minor lists. the one on titanic was only recorded by 2 passengers and we know that the list was related to coal consumption. it means nothing.

jp morgan (owner of imm) did not cancel last minute. as mark baber points out on encyclopedia titanica, it was announced in the new york times that hed be in venice on april 23. at that time, transatlantic voyages took at least 5 days so it would at least be a 10 day round trip and likely not give him time to get to venice for the opening of a store of whatever it was.

also, j bruce ismays wife and kids also didnt cancel last minute. theyd already decided to go on holiday to wales rather than sail on titanic.

addendum to that point: if ismay knew it was going to be sank deliberately and so warned his wife, why would he get on board himself? further, why would harland and wolff designer thomas andrews (who did not survive by the way) get on board?

-

and we're finally at my favourite part of this entire mess: the sinking itself.

see, a deliberate sinking doesnt really make sense for titanic because the conditions under which she sank has led to the descriptor "freak sinking."

these are: a new moon meaning less light, unusually calm ocean that disallowed lookouts to watch for foam as waves hit any icebergs, ice having drifted further south than normal for that time of year, and a sideways glancing blow that breached more watertight compartments than the ship could handle and stay afloat.

and idk dude, is there not an easier way? like maybe some light arson. just call it an accidental fire that got out of control and led to the ship being a write-off, this isnt difficult.

but you see gardiner has an answer to this, and i am laughing as im typing this, he claims that:

titanic didnt hit an iceberg, it hit an imm rescue ship.

thats right, this guy fully says titanic didnt hit an iceberg. apparently it hit another ship and NO ONE FUCKING NOTICED

i mean we have testimony from survivors but fuck them i guess.

he claims that as titanic was apparently a "steel double-hulled vessel" so an iceberg simply couldnt inflict so much damage.

yeah titanic wasnt double-hulled. she had a double bottom, but it was only after titanic that shipbuilders were like ah maybe full double hulls arent an unnecessary expense after all.

theres also the issue of uh no evidence of this rescue ship ever existing? at all? i dont know where it came from, i dont know where it went, and who fucking knows, maybe it was called the rms cotton eyed joe.

yeah so weve got a theory riddled with problems and im just gonna introduce some more problems with this theory as gardiner has also alleged that:

the original plan was to open the seacocks and slowly flood the ship, but this was interrupted by titanic hitting another ship

1) titanic didnt have seacocks? and 2) was the rest of it a coincidence then? i think its meant to be a coincidence.

i believe his theory is alleging that the crew on titanic would open the seacocks that didnt exist to flood the ship slowly, and that the imm rescue ship that also didnt exist was in the area in advance to help evacuate passengers, alongside other ships such as the ss californian.

this is that ship that was like 10 miles away or something and didnt respond to titanics distress signals. according to gardiner, they were expecting a rendezvous with titanic according to the "original plan", but never received it.

instead, they saw the rockets of the fabled imm rescue ship and helped them instead.

this is fucking stupid.

i cant be charitable here, its a fucking stupid theory. i mean, that imm ship did not exist, and also californian is a ridiculous choice for a rescue ship. her capacity was 47 passengers and 55 crew; there were more than 2200 people on board titanic.

to counteract this argument, gardiner alleges carpathia was also in on the scheme as a rescue ship. she, at least, had capacity for the passengers, but theres also several problems with this too.

for one, it was fucking 50 miles away and famously arrived several hours after the sinking even though the captain had her running at top speed to get there.

for two, carpathia was owned by cunard, white stars rival. was their rival line in on the insurance scam??? how much money did they have to pay cunard for this????? why? just why?

do you understand why i dont believe it? please tell me you understand. i need you to understand. i need you to tell me that you understand that the guy who created this conspiracy claimed titanic didnt hit an iceberg.

[blacknwhitemood]

Depeche Mode - Condemnation / finding video's location "near God"

It was only 3 days after the Memento Mori concert in March, when I learned that Condemnation video was made in Hungary, not far from Budapest, near Göd, in a small village's border, Göd-Újtelep. When I wrote about it to @mijamija1234, she suggested that what if I visited its location? I liked the idea, I've started to make a research. Later I found some colored photos on Göd-Újtelep's website (under this text) and I posted them with words "Condemnation’s video was made near Göd". @mftm1987's reblog tag was hilarious: #well sure it was made near god. I felt love with the concept, so this is my "project's" name: Near God.

The only screenshot from the video (1st pic above) that I can use for finding the location is not very helpful, considering that it happened more than 30 years ago. 31 exactly. In 28th of July, 1993 the band and Corbijn went "into the f---ing woods" early in the morning after the day of they Devotional Tour concert in Budapest. Dave talked about it the gig's night in NME, while Gavin Martin was making his long interview:

I won’t even sleep tonight. I’ve got to get up and go and do some… I’ve got to go off with (Anton) Corbijn into the f---ing woods and do the ‘Condemnation’ bit. But, really, I have fun with doing that. It’s just the eight o’clock morning, you gotta get over it.

I quoted from this article first time here, my updated daves-first-tattoo post (scroll to the middle). Another source, Daryl Bamonte, Devotional Tour Diary, Bong magazine, 1994:

It was a long trek from Belgium yesterday, and we had to drive out into the Hungarian countryside today for Anton to shoot the “CONDEMNATION” video. Dave seemed to spend most of the day being dragged around by Sam and Hildia. He wasn’t complaining though. It could have been the other way round…

Near God

It's not easy to find a DM video's location (except Strangelove), Corbijn preferred countryside for his videos and the nature mostly in different countries in Europe (e.g. Belgium, France, Switzerland, Portugal, Scotland) or in the U.S. Hungary is famous for its "puszta", which is similar to prairie. Before the single's releasing he could shoot the clip during the tour. They stayed 3 days in Hungary, I read somewhere that Corbijn choosed Göd's area for the reason being very close to the capital. On imdb.com it is simply Göd.

I was searching for those dirt roads from the screenshot with the Google relief map, impossible task. 31 years. I googled many times a day if I got some new inspiration, suddenly I found a person on facebook who commented Göd's page' photo of the day: she was there in her 14 years, "half of Göd was there". I wrote to her, 3 days later she answered that she would help. Wow.

We met today and spent only 40 minutes together. She and her husband took me from the railwaystation on a truck to the location that she remembered - and of course that become famous in the village. She told me the short story: "My friend's sister was a big fan. We didn't have phones that time, someone brought the news by bike, no one believed that. Later many cars went to the place with 50-80 fans. We were hanging on the fence, like the children in the video. There were huge reflectors, the shooting took until the evening. Now there is a big battery factory in the fields."

When we arrived, we walked to a small road but it didn't resemble to the video's for the first sight. In fact it is a huge field with woods around, at the end of the road there was the factory, "It was built on that hill on the picture" she told. She was sure, so we took some funny photos with the printed screenshot (at the background with their truck), I wanted to walk more to find a better view but it was a very hot Summar day and my guide didn't have much time. To the right on this map I marked the point where we took the photos:

I think the trip was worth it. All this area from the village to the woods down was the location of the video making. 31 years later the fence with the small cabin and the sunflower field disappeared but there still have straw bales, dirt roads and habitants who remember.

The single released 6 weeks later, on 13 September 2013. Although MTV played the clip on time, its DVD version released much later in 2002 on Depeche Mode - Videos 86>98+ (I ordered the very last piece of it from Antal). This DVD originally released in 1999 but without the clip, you can find a live version instead of (I have the 2000 edition), because - it is said - Corbijn wasn't quite satisfied with the final result, the band seemed too tired in the video, especially Dave.

I love this song. Not my favourite, but it's in my DM top 20. One of its reasons that the video was shooted in Hungary and Dave loves it. He has frequently mentioned Condemnation as one of his favourite songs. In this interview from 2006 you can hear directly from him at 00:37. As fandom.com wrote, Dave still gets goosebumps when he recalls recording the song:

I immediately knew the song. It wasn't necessarily completely accurate to the way Martin wrote the melody line or the phrasing or the timing. I just sang it, and [after] I sang it, the tape stopped rolling and it went on quiet. I've got my headphones on and I hear [producer] Flood's voice go, 'Yeah, I mean, you could do another one. But I think we got it.' / 2021, Exclaim!

Well, at Memento Mori Tour they sang to us twice in Budapest, in 28 July, 2023 (yes, this day <3) together with 50000 people and in 26 March, 2024 to 16000 happy fans. Honestly, I like Waiting For The Night much better, I really wanted to hear it live, I hoped that they don't sing the same song at the same city as first encore duett, Condemnation is difficult to sing, they've sung Waiting For much often at this tour... but I was wrong. I was confused with my feelings, I was disappointed. I was looking for the answers of they decision, and later I understood that somehow Hungary might mean Condemnation to them. They gifted us with Dave's favourite song. Twice.

[taylor-on-your-dash]

SO, WHO IS THE SONG MINE ABOUT?

A couple of years ago I read this comment on r/Taylor Swift about Taylor dating a non famous guy who attended Belmont University.

I started college in Nashville in 2010, and the semester before I started, it was well known that Taylor was seeing a guy who lived on campus. It never made headlines because he wasn’t a celebrity like her other relationships. I have seen lots of random explanations for “Mine,” but many students at the university always assumed it was about this guy because the timeline fit.

At the time, I didn't think much of it. I thought that it could've been possible but still, the theory of Mine being about Cory Monteith made more sense to me.

While I was writing the Speak Now Timeline, one of the most important interviews was the Billboard one:

"Mine" was a turning point in the album’s development. It wasn’t until early 2010 when the album truly began to coalesce. Swift presented "Mine" to Borchetta in his office, just a few doors down the hall from the leather couch in the lobby. "We probably played that song four or five times," Borchetta recalls. "I’m jumping around playing air guitar, she’s singing the song back to me, and it was just one of those crazy, fun, Taylor teen-age moments." And then it got serious. "I said, ‘Keep going,’ " Borchetta says. "She kind of looked at me like, ‘You’re challenging me.’ And I said, ‘Yeah. You’ve found true north here. Keep going.’ " It was some time in the period after that challenge — between February and June — that Swift wrote “Innocent,” her response to the Kanye West incident.

That settled it then, no? Mine was written in late February, after Taylor had returned from Tokyo.

My certainties crumbled a few weeks ago, when @1989worldtour sent me an interview where Taylor says that she wrote Mine on the road, specifically in Texas.

Back To December was written in New York City, The Story Of Us was in Nashville, I wrote Mine somewhere on the road, I think in Texas, actually. (X)

Taylor was in Texas on March 10th (in Austin), March 11th (Dallas), and March 12th (Corpus Christi) for the Fearless Tour. At first, this didn't make any sense to me: Taylor had said that she wrote Mine in February! Then again, she often misremembers dates. I had shelved this date in my mind until I randomly found this comment on r/Fauxmoi while I was researching Starlight and the Kennedy craze Taylor went through.

She dated a guy from Belmont I think because a family friend went there and was friends with him and was there the night they met! “By the water” in Mine is apparently about Mozarts - a coffee shop in Austin on the water where they went on a date. I have no way to verify this because it didn’t happen to me but the family friend had pics with Taylor and stuff because of this guy she was friends with who dated Taylor. This might be the only piece of celeb gossip I’ve ever known haha.

Reply: This is true! He's now married with kids and not at all famous.

The return of the Belmont guy! We have two other sources claiming that she dated a non-famous person who attended Belmont. The mention of Texas cemented the fact that there might be a kernel of truth in this theory. At this point, I took this rumor seriously and chose to investigate further. the next question was, if Belmont is in Nashville and the Mozart bar is in Texas, didn't the guy miss a lot of classes? The answer is... no. If you look at the Belmont Academic Calendar, guess when Spring Break was? From March 8th to March 15th! So even if the guy was in college, he didn't miss any classes. There's was plenty of time for him to fly to Texas, attend the show, going on a date at the Mozart bar and then fly back to Nashville.

There's another problem though: according to the Billboard interview, Taylor brought Mine to Scott Borchetta in late February. We don't actually have a direct quote from Taylor or Borchetta saying that it was February. It could be Taylor or Scott misremembering, It could be the journalist inferring (it has happened before, for example on this Rolling Stone article from 2009, where the author said that Love Story and White Horse were for the same person, for some weird reason). After all, late February and early March aren't that far away. Nathan Chapman, the producer of the song, said that they worked on Mine on and off for 4 months. They finished it on July 21st, so March 10th still tracks.

Now, let's look at the actual bar. on the left, we have a screenshot from the Music Video, while on the right, a picture of the Mozart Bar. they look very similar to me, but I admit that I've never been to the USA, so maybe coffee shops all look the same?

Fun fact: The Mozart bar confirmed that she has been there in May 2013, after the Red Tour show.

Conclusions: Honestly, I believe those people on Reddit, but I realise that the sources are very unstable. What makes me believe it though, is the obscure mention of Mine being written in Texas, and the person on Reddit revealing that they had a date at a bar that casually is by the water. It fits perfectly. I don't have any more to say for now, but it's possible that I'll write a post of how Mine is one of the first post John Mayer song and how that relationship affected the themes of her songwriting.

P.S.: I would advise not contacting these people on Reddit. it's obvious that they're friends with him/know him and they wouldn't say anything to help identifying him. plus, it's not our place to gather information about a person that wants anonymity. it's not cool to doxx random people.

[milk-ly]

Fuuta and Wind

I was reading this post (super interesting btw!) and I want to address Fuuta’s connection to wind!

That post brings up that Fuuta’s Twitter name is “Pazupazu_Soccer” and if you didn’t know, Pazuzu is a God of wind.

More specifically, Pazuzu is the king of wind demons in Mesopotamian religion. He is believed to help and protect humans from other dangerous wind demons.

Now, that’s already painting a connection between Fuuta and Pazuzu. Some powerful and heroic person/creature that’s protecting the common folk from evil! But there’s MUCH more.

V more below the cut!! V

What is wind? Well, it’s a natural force that represents power. When it’s a simple breeze, it’s pleasant, it can bring about change such as the weather! But what happens when gusts of wind become too powerful or intense? Destruction.

Despite Pazuzu being a creature that wards of other wind demons, he too is still a wind demon. Specifically, one that was known to be destructive and powerful.

Fuuta wanted to be a hero that protects others from evil like Pazuzu! And yet, Pazuzu is a personification of the southwest winds, which associated with droughts, plagues, locust and famine.

Fuuta ends up being not much better than the people he’s attempting to punish. He is a wind demon too in the end. Like wind, Fuuta was powerful, causing destruction and ultimately, the death of a young girl.

And remember Fuuta’s whole fire symbolism? Keep in mind that Pazuzu is the personification of the southern west wind. So hey, what does wind do to a fire? It helps fire spread.

Fuuta wielded a fire sword, the fire being used to symbolize his justice and judgment. Fuuta, being the representation of wind, spread the flames until they were out of control.

Pazuzu also had an arch rival named “Lamashtu,” known as the goddess of monsters/demons.

I’m not sure of my interpretation here but since she is the Goddess of Demons, I believe she might be a representation of those who Fuuta believes have wronged in general. Lamashtu is often associated with very evil deeds. The most famous is how she would pray on children and pregnant woman and eat them.

BUT THERES MORE.

Kajiyama Fuuta written in Kanji is “梶山 風汰”

The “ta” (汰 )in “Fuuta” is pretty straightforward. It means "select," or “scour.” Scour means to clean something by rubbing it really hard. Pretty much what Fuuta is trying to do in a way. Trying to remove the scum, the dirt, plaguing society.

Bring it On quote: “I give up. Need to make it clean since it’s so dirty.”

However the “Fuu” (風 )in Fuuta’s name means “wind.” Sound familiar?

Another fun fact I want to share! From my knowledge, I believe in Japan, “Fuu” is the sound of blowing on something to cool it down. Hmm, now where have I heard that?

Salamander!!

A part of the lyrics in the song is

“Make sure to cool it down so you don’t get burned!”

And in Romaji, it’s:

“chanto fuu shite yakedo shitakunai nara”

Yup!! The Fuu used here means to blow on something to cool it down, the same kanji as Fuuta’s name.

And I just think that’s really neat even if it was probably only half intentional lmao.

Another thing is that that “Yama” (山) in “Kajiyama,” Fuuta’s last name means mountain.

In a lot of written sources, Pazuzu climbs a great mountain and fought other powerful wind demons, coming out victorious. It was a show of his power.

Anyway, kind of an abrupt ending but I just thought this was really interesting!! Thanks for reading!:D

Edit: somebody pointed out that it’s Pazuzu and not Pazupazu. Completely my bad, that is incredibly embarrassing💀I’ve fixed it all now, thank you for the correction @moibakadesu !!

[wingsoverlagos]

Beatles Radio Shows

My recent ~endeavors~ have led me to dig up a bunch of old radio shows by and about the Beatles, and I wanted to share them in one place.

These are unofficial uploads. If you've ever searched out old Beatles-related content - particularly audio or video content - you have likely experienced the crushing devestation of locating a download link to some obscure interview George Harrison gave in 1977, only to click it and find the link dead! If you're interested in listening to any of the shows listed here, or think you may be interested one day, I recommend downloading them now rather than suffering the bitter sting of a dead link in days to come.

By the Beatles

Paul McCartney's Routes of Rock (Host: Paul McCartney; Approx. Runtime: 2.5hrs)

A five-part series that aired on BBC radio in October and November 1999. It was part of the promo for Paul's mostly-covers album, Run Devil Run. In this series, Paul plays old rock 'n' roll tracks along with his recent covers, interspersed with discussion of his formative musical influences and some cute early-Beatles anecdotes.

Ringo's Yellow Submarine (Host: Ringo Starr; Approx. Runtime: 26hrs)

A twenty-six-part series that ran on the ABC Radio Network from June 4 to November 26, 1983. Unfortunately, I only have links to the first three episodes atm. Episode 1 // Episode 2 // Episode 3

About the Beatles

The Lost Lennon Tapes (Host: Elliot Mintz; Approx. Runtime: 221hrs)

Perhaps the most famous Beatles radio show of them all? The Lost Lennon Tapes ran from Januar 24, 1988 to March 29, 1992. The huge draw here is the inclusion of audio from the Lennon/Ono archives. I believe this is the only publicly available source for audio from many John Lennon interviews. Unfortunately, you only get to hear a few minutes of any interview at a time!

The show also features interviews with people from John's life (e.g. Julia Baird and Sean) as well as Beatles experts (including a young Mark Lewisohn!) There's huge depth here, and it's very much worth the listen.

The above link includes episode names, but this site has a more detailed list of what's included in each episode.

The Beatles - The Days In Their Life (Host: Ira Lipson; Approx. Runtime: 30hrs)

A 21-part series that aired in 1981 and followed the Beatles career from their genesis to the modern day. Includes archival interviews as well as (I think) new interview material with many people in the Beatles' stories.

The Beatles Story (Host: Brian Matthew; Approx. Runtime: 14hrs)

A BBC Radio 1 series that came out ~1972, with an extra episode that came out ~1974. Many original interivews were conducted for this series, but I believe we only see a subset of the existing material on this show. From the quotes in Tune In, it appears there are full tapes out there, perhaps in the BBC Archives - if anyone has any idea where the full interviews (conducted by Johnny Beerling) may be accessible, I'd love to know!

Collections of Misc. Radio Interviews

Series aside, here are a few accounts that have uploaded a number of one-off interviews with the Beatles:

The Beatles Interviews on YouTube. Lots of great, lengthy interviews, along with a few shorter clips. Disclaimer: the video titles don't always correctly identify the year/interviewer. Fortunately, Beatles fans live to correct things, so there is always lively discussion in the comments to sort out who the interviewer actually is, and when the interview was conducted.

Beatle Stories on YouTube. While the above channel's video titles are at times incorrect, this channel's titles are mostly straight-up unhelpful lol. Still, there's some good content here.

The Beatle Tapes 2 on the Internet Archive. This is the same user who uploaded The Beatles Story (see above). They have over five hundred uploads including many radio interviews, some video interviews, and several live performances as well. A treasure trove!