#circe re-visions

[that-one-english-nerd]

The Outsiders x EPIC : The Musical -

so i was listening to the new EPIC saga yesterday and naturally, because i can’t listen to music w/o relating it to my hyperfixations, i started thinking about the outsiders. specifically, i was listening to luck runs out and my friend and i were talking… and we were like “this song is so soda talking to darry about going to war,” so this sparked this post!

so i got to re-listening to the entirety of epic and was thinking how much it fits if soda were to genuinely survive the war but come back only a shell of himself… so this is what were going with.

(i will say before we even begin, i have limited knowledge on the vietnam war so if some of this is vague or inaccurate, forgive me)

i think there two ways you could picture this, a greek mythology au and realistic, vietnam war au. i was thinking, if we’re talking in reality standpoint, all the gods or even monsters are visions in soda’s mind (due to ptsd, other mental illness gained from war or physical injuries) as he’s traveling and committing more and more violence. is some of this a strench…? yes but this is js for kicks and giggles, humor me here lolol

either way, these are my assignments of characters. i need you to HEAR ME OUT (there’s explanations of songs under the list of characters) on these -

odysseus : soda

polites : steve

eurylochus : tim

zeus : dally

polyphemus : ……..bob

athena : darry

aeolus : cherry

circe : marcia

hermes : two-bit

penelope & telemachus : ponyboy & darry (these can be switched, doesn’t matter rlly)

calypso: sandy (…get it, cause calypso lives on an island)

poseidon : dally

tiersus : johnny (cause i HAD to include him somewhere)

song and character explanations under cut ~

song explanations :

the horse and the infant - i like to think that, while it was awful and so much worst than soda could of ever imagined, because of his constant optimism and general skills, he was someone many of his fellow soldiers looked up to. i’ll get into details when i get to luck runs out, but if we’re relating this specifically to epic, making him apart of the navy would work best (being all the time they spend traveling and at seas). anyways, therefore, overtime, due to his higher morale and just general skills, he gets a higher rank and a crew to care for. soda is rallying his crew for an attack, and thinking of who he was fighting for, ponyboy and darry.

now this is where it would differ from a greek mythology au, but just for the sake of making it easier on myself, this is the more realistic possibility. i like to think that being how in epic, this is the end of the trojan war, this would be a kind of flash forward, after soda had already been dealing w all this trauma. but, as i’ve mentioned, i like to envision dally‘s ghost (a vision soda has of him at least) as zeus, specifically before soda has to do something terrible to the enemy. dally is like, “you’re in a war man, just *do it*.”

for a less interesting but more realistic answer, you could say zeus was one of soda’s commanding officer or something but that’s less fun lolol

anyways, this is the beginning, as it is for odysseus, of soda completely losing his innocence.

just a man - (tw for child-related violence and war crimes) so, as it is in epic, you could picture this as an enemy leader’s son, and how this boy reminds soda of ponyboy in a way. this song is kinda self explanatory tho, soda takes this blow, and this guilt plagues his mind for the rest of the first act.

full speed ahead - so, with the vietnam war, there was an insaneeee draft process. and in relation to the story, those who were poor were more likely to be drafted than those who were going to college and able to pay tutition, being how they got an exemption from the draft. so i think the idea as tim of all people getting drafted and getting put under soda’s command (which is a shock to both of them) really interesting, being how we never really got to see their dynamic in the outsiders. so having tim, whose more on the ruthless side, as soda’s right hand and being more quick to violence makes sense to me. on the other hand, my favorite character headcanon, steve as polities. i think the idea of steve not giving a second thought to following soda into war makes a lot of sense, and being how soda had more of a responsibility on his shoulders, steve keeps more of his naiveness and “innocence” than soda does.

open arms - my stevepop heart loves this so much. over the time of war, soda became less and less like his normal self and steve knows that. he could always tell. so once they finally have time to themselves, he tries to remind soda of how life used to be, how there’s still good. the roles switch from soda normally being the optimistic one, reassuring everyone else, to steve doing the same for him. they mean sm to your honor :((

warrior of the mind - now, from a plot standpoint, i can fs see this as what soda pictures how darry would think of him now, or even how ponyboy would. soda kinda flashes back to their childhood, how both darry and soda were really close when they were kids, being how they both balanced each other out. but after their parents died, darry became a parental figure instead, athena-like you could say.

but ignoring plot, i think song really fits darry and ponyboy, espically with the “don’t disappoint me” and “he’s a warrior of the mind” because of ponyboy’s academic achievements.

polyphemus - now do i know how this would fit into the plot to be honest.. i just think the idea of bob (bob’s ghost if you will) or some soc showing up in soda’s path makes sense.

butttt once again, if you want something more realistic, you could make it someone on the enemy side.

survive - soda just seems like he’d be hella good with battle morale and strategy, what can i say? …also, as much as it breaks my heart, steve following soda into war and dying an early death makes sense but is equally as heartbreaking ;(

remember them - i think the slow fade-in near the beginning of the song gives very big soda energy. disassociating but then switching right back into gear (masking emotions for the sake of others) is something that comes natural to him. i also commented on this earlier but for as much as soda calls himself dumb, i think his street smarts are really good and being able to talk his way out of things or tricking people into believing lies is something he’s great at (which makes sense in context of the cyclops plot). plus the stupid decision of having mercy on…bob, a soc, an enemy, idfk, and then telling them his name makes more sense in the context of just losing steve and therefore making rash decisions because of this sudden lose.

my goodbye - soda seeming to “lose” darry’s positive view of him, at least in soda’s mind, because of all he had done and lost. this, of course, is simply what soda thinks darry would say if he was there. because of this, he pushes the “what would darry do?” mindset out of his head.

storm - not much to highlight in this song except for how soda is a badass captain™️

luck runs out - now of course, i keep mentioning this song as the beginning of this war au because while s.e. hinton technically said soda was drafted, i think it’s very possible that soda and his optimism view on life would easily be more swayed to propaganda to enlist rather than be drafted. plus, with becoming a soldier, a certain amount of money is given to you monthly (at least i think-). this, i think, is another pro to the idea of enlisting in soda’s mind because he wants to help better provide for his brothers.

but generally plot wise, soda taking on this positive mindset of “i can just go and ask for help” is almost a tribute to steve and what he wanted. but on the other hand, you have tim, who knows that not everyone is as welcome to help, especially after dally died from police brutality.

keep your friends close - not much to say about this either but for the fact that aeolous being cherry is very fun to think about. while the meaning of this lyric means very different things in the context of the outsiders versus epic, the line “keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” does really fit with cherry. ponyboy being the “enemy” that she quickly befriends and keeping him close. but soon, she starts giving info to the greasers, the socs in her eyes almost becoming the real “enemy”. might be wrong though, interpret it however you like, i just think it fits cherry!

also the “everything’s changed since polities” line really fits into how i think soda would grieve for steve while still at war. he has to stay strong for his crew but they all sense, *know* something’s off with soda, and put the pieces together that this is because of steve. without steve, soda doesn’t have as high of a morale on life in general, and therefore the crew doesn’t. which fits in with them (kinda accidentally) turning on him.

ruthlessness - now HERE ME OUT HERE, if bob is the cyclops, rather than dally seeing him as a “son”, him being like “you had mercy on a SOC.” but the “you had mercy on the enemy?!” also works. just in general, i think dally’s memory coming back to haunt soda, espically paired with dally also being zeus, is fitting honestly. while dally wasn’t always ruthless, we gotta keep in mind in this au, this is in soda’s mind. these “gods” or visions of people he once knew, in my eyes, are people coming back to haunt him in his most shameful state. no matter what dally would’ve really said, i picture soda thinking how disappointed the people he loved most would be in him if they saw him in that very moment. also, “ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves” is SO dally.

puppeteer - now again, being how circe is a witch, it’s a bit hard to fit this into a realistic setting but i js thought having marcia as her would be fun bc paired with…

wouldn’t you like - two-bit as hermes, i just think i’d be hilarious. i like to picture this as soda and two-bit on two ends of a phone, and for whatever reason, marcia is there distracting the crew from their goal. soda on one line would be like “so do you know of a soc named marcia” and two-bit on the other end like, “OMG WE WENT OUT ONE TIME, this is how to scare her off”

done for - self-explanatory, not much to say here tbh. marcia’s just iconic.

there are others ways - (with my stevepop heart) if like to think that *right after* steve’s death, it would be pretty much impossible for soda to be “seduced” as well as the idea of pony and darry waiting for him would keep him focused on the end goal in that moment.

the underworld - i kinda like the idea of the underworld not being the actual underworld but a very dark and dangerous place, with the visions of the dead and soda’s past traumas coming back to bite him in that moment. the line between reality and fiction is a hard line to draw in that very moment. ALSO STEVE AND SODA’S MOM😭😭

no longer you - you know i HAD to include him somewhere, so here’s johnny finallyyyyy. i don’t really have much of an explanation other than being johnny’s quieter personality, him seeing everything in a way, him being tierras just makes sense.

monster - soda losing his mind finally and willing to do anything to drive these ghosts of the past out of his mind and get home to his brothers. self-explanatory :)

being how all the songs aren’t out yet, i’m just gonna stop here. thanks for listening to my yapping my boredom has created :) enjoy listening!

[elkian]

The Many Benefits Of Distributed Officially Filmed Copies Of Plays

Wider audience. A show running four days in a building coded for a maximum of, say, 200 audience members can only be seen by so many people. In the digital age (and DVD players like... still exist), you can quadruple that number the first day of release and keep it going for literal years.

Accessibility. The first time I saw Into The Woods, it was the original Broadway production via Netflix streaming, and it had subtitles. Digital access means subtitles (with the other alternative being the audience memorizing the script, which means they’ll know when you deviate), as well as accessibility regarding vision and so on.

Accessibility doesn’t end there - motion-impaired viewers can watch from the comfort of their home rather than trying to wrangle a wheelchair into one of two wheelchair zones, for instance. Busy parents and other people without the time to dedicate an evening to play-watching (ie, someone with seven kids who’d have to buy god knows how many tickets and arrange babysitting for the rest) can view it without that committment, and so on and so forth.

Editing. Plays are live, naturally, but you can edit and re-take parts of a recording, so flubs that an audience might laugh off in public might be avoided in the slightly less forgiving digital version. The recording doesn’t have do be done during a live performance, after all.

More angles. A single viewer buys a single ticket to view from a single seat. Just like editing, recording a play means cameras can prioritize certain views as the scenes progress. This is especially helpful in unorthodox play experiments (ie, the inverted viewing-in-the-round play that I watched a few years ago. It was great, but would have been even better if I could have seen the actors’ faces at all times and actually heard all of the dialogue).

Generating popularity. That wider audience, and the fact that the play can be viewed any time, not just the two weeks in 2001 in the middle of Nowhere, Iowa that it was exclusively played during, means that that company and actors’ names can be spread far and wide. And developing a reputation for providing quality, accessible copies even for people who didn’t have the ability to pick up and go watch.

Lastly: This doesn’t have to preclude live performances. I bought a prerecorded DVD from a Circ Du Soileil performance I saw a few years ago, and that was hardly the sole piece of merch available. Actor meetups/photoshoots, merch, and the sheer magic of live performance are still huge draws, but with recording distribution that magic (and popularity, and income) can last decades past the original performance.

[evilpawnjewelry]

Last Chance!!! 💥 Today’s Last Chance is up! These beauties in the photo are the last and will discontinue when they have all found homes! They will not be re-released! Today through Saturday, they are 25% OFF! Patreon Promos apply! 💜 •3 Circe Crystal Vision Necklaces in Quartz •1 Circe Crystal Vision Necklace in Moonstone •1 Circe Crystal Vision Necklace in Labradorite 💜 The Circe Crystal Vision Necklaces can be found here: https://evilpawnjewelry.com/shop/necklaces/circe-crystal-vision-necklace/ 💜 •3 Veracity Heart Rings can be found here: https://evilpawnjewelry.com/shop/rings/veracity-heart-ring/ 💜 These items can be searched on the website with the search bar or found in the Sale or Last Season Categories. Appreciate all of your support! Last Chance posts will be up every Wednesday in January! 💜 Thank you for tuning in and connecting! I always post every Wednesday and Friday!  💜 This Friday, my Grandmother’s book will be released! So very LONG AWAITED release coming soon! 💜 Hop onto Patreon for the latest scoop on books, early ordering, new releases, extra promos, WIP, and voting on items! Plus, series posts! Happy MidWeek! ✨ https://www.instagram.com/p/CnSERSFOBj-/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[circeipertestodelmito]

CIRCE/RE-VISIONS

DIGITAL COLLECTION HYPERGALLERY ARTWORKS BY

ANDREA NERI ETTORE MARAGONI ANTONIO FASOLO/UNEVENEYE STEFANIA ROMAGNA PAOLA ACCIARINO CURATED by GIORGIA DIAMANTI

A selection of the most iconic images from the works of various artists who reinterpreted the myth of Circe. “RE-VISION -the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction- [...] we need to know the writing of the past, and know it differently than we have ever known it; not to pass on a tradition but to break its hold over us.” Adrienne Rich  

[haniawritesfiction]

Recent Reads-July/August 2021

The Psychology of Time Travel By Kate Mascarenhas

In a world where time travel was invented in the 1960s, two women become caught up in a murder that hasn't yet happened. For a book about time travel, The Psychology of Time Travel feels closer to realistic fiction than a sci-fi novel, honestly, if we ever invent time travel I could see this easily happening. For all that it technically a mystery, this book is more interested in the relationships, dysfunctions, and institutions that create these circumstances than the actual mystery. Don't go into this book expecting a murder mystery and you won't be disappointed. Mascarenhas masterfully uses pov's of minor characters to make this world feel truly immersive while never losing sight of her main characters, both of whom are flawed, fascinating, and very human. A great take on the time travel genre. -9/10

Devil's Ballast By Meg Caddy

A swashbuckling adventure focusing on the famed female pirate Anne Bonny. Devil's Ballast was.... a weird one. For a book that's meant to be a pirate adventure the pace is way too slow at times and then when it finally reaches the action, it rushes through it. The book also had a completely unnecessary pov of a pirate hunter that added absolutely nothing to the plot. I feel like I would've enjoyed the whole book way more if Anne herself had been more memorable, I'd just finished watching Black Sails, so Devil's Ballast's Anne Bonny and Jack Rackham are pretty boring in comparison to their Black Sails counterparts. But the part of the book that irked me the most was the romance. Anne spends the whole book seeming not that interested in Jack until the last second when he's her great love again. The strongest relationship in this book is the friendship between her and Mark Read, which was pretty cute and my favorite part of the whole book. -4/10

The Strangers Child By Alan Hollinghurst

In Edwardian England, while staying at a friend's house, a man writes a love poem that becomes famous. In the decades following, his family and friends are forced to live with his, and the poem's legacy. The Stranger's Child is an incredibly atmospheric book, with beautiful prose, but it felt like a bit of a letdown. Instead of an exploration of what if a famous love poem is actually gay, it's more of a meandering look at various moments in English history and the people living through it. There were chapters that just felt entirely pointless and there were only three sections that actually felt thematically linked. This book had so much potential, but it felt like the author's vision and the supposed premise were constantly at odds.-6/10

Crooked Kingdom By Leigh Bardugo

The sequel to Six Of Crows; political intrigue, gang wars, and magic all meet in the seedy underworld of Ketterdam. I read Six Of Crows about four months ago and mostly enjoyed it, though to be honest, I didn't quite get the hype. With this book, I get it. Crooked Kingdom weaves a complex and engaging plot to match it's superb worldbuilding and characters and I read it in one sitting. The fantasy elements were never too overwhelming nor predictable and the ending was the perfect amount of bittersweet. If you struggled through Six Of Crows, give this one a try, you'll find it hard to put down.-8/10

Circe By Madeline Miller

A re-imagining of an often maligned figure in ancient Greek mythology: the sorceress Circe. I had a massive greek mythology phase as a kid and so reading this was a blast. Miller's writing has an appropriately mythical feel, weaving multiple myths together to explore Circe's psyche. Circe herself manages to be incredibly likable despite her flaws and Miller expands her beyond her common depiction as a vindictive, promiscuous woman. Because of the nature of the plot, I feel like having basic knowledge of greek mythology enhances the reading experience, especially knowledge of the odyssey. To understand this Circe, it's important to understand the Circe of the odyssey and the way the common tropes of greek mythology are being deconstructed.-10/10

Honey Girl By Morgan Rogers

A young woman feels lost after getting her doctorate and runs off to spend the summer with a woman she got married to while drunk in Vegas. Honey Girl is not a romance novel or really your traditional romcom, instead, it is an exploration of family and coming of age in your twenties with a well-written love story at its center. From the prose and general atmosphere, this book has an almost magical feel, yet manages to feel incredibly raw and real. If you're burnt out on romcoms and want something that isn't too saccharine yet leaves you with that warm fuzzy feeling, this book is for you.-10/10

Bolla By Pajtim Statovci

In 1990s Kosovo, two men, a Serbian and an Albanian fall in love. Years later, the two men both struggle with the after-effects of the war and their circumstances. Bolla is not the sort of book that you can say you like, though I certainly didn't dislike it. The writing is fantastic and has a very unique quality (possibly due to the novel having been translated from Finish) yet Bolla is incredibly bleak. The romance presumably at the center of the novel is less of the focus and instead what anchors the two men's stories. Their relationship is over by chapter three and at first, I was honestly a little peeved that it got that little attention or description, however by the end of the book I honestly felt it worked. A haunting story of war and the human condition.-7/10

The Kingdoms By Natasha Pulley

When a man gets off a train in London, he can remember barely anything about himself or his life, except the sense that the reality he is faced with is wrong; Britain has been under occupation by the French since they won the Napoleonic wars 85 years ago. Determined to find out who he really is, he follows a century-old letter to an abandoned Scottish lighthouse and finds himself the key to winning a war that could change everything. The Kingdoms is a book that keeps on giving, just the premise of a Britain occupied by France is fascinating, but Pulley goes a step further weaving a complex plot that kept me on the edge of my seat. Her writing is fantastic and like the premise, it felt like entire books could be written about every single setting. The characters are also engaging, from Joe, our main character, who is just so immediately likeable, to Kit, a character who is the definition of morally grey. My only quibble is the female characters, who feel fairly underdeveloped and only really there to flesh out the male ones. -9/10

Cinderella is Dead By Kalynn Bayron

300 years after Cinderella found her happy ending her legacy has been twisted to create a dystopian life for the girls living in her kingdom. Four to five years ago, I think I would've really liked Cinderella is Dead; I mean it's a sapphic fairytale retelling! But my taste in books has changed a lot and this book just felt far too YA for me. The writing felt young, the characters underdeveloped and the plot cliched.-2/10

[dc-earth53]

#0002: Wonder Woman (Diana of Themyscira)

Age: 45

Occupation: Ambassador, author, adventurer

Marital status: Single

Known relatives: Hippolyta (mother, deceased), Gaea (mother),  Lyta Hall Trevor (half-sister. deceased), Daniel Hall (nephew), Ares (grandfather), Donna Troy (sister), Cassandra Sandsmark (great-aunt).

Group affiliation: Amazons of Themyscira, Justice League of America, formerly Star Sapphire Corps.

Base of operations: Themysciran Embassy, New York City.

Height: 6′0″

Weight: 165 lbs.

History:

45 years ago: Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, ashamed that she had to leave her first daughter behind in man’s world, petitions the gods of Olympus to give her another child. They take pity on her, and instruct her to mold the form of a baby girl from clay. Gaea, spirit of the earth itself, imbues this clay figure with a soul, and Hippolyta names the newborn child Diana.

29 years ago: Teenage Diana befriends Troia, another young Amazon who had been adopted by the tribe after washing ashore as a baby.

20 years ago: 

Sensing much trouble and discord in the world of men, the Olympian gods declared that Themyscira should send out an emissary of peace into the world. Hippolyta holds a contest to determine which Amazon would be sent, forbidding Diana to enter. Disguised, Diana enters the competition nonetheless, winning and claiming the uniform her mother had worn decades before her, as well as her Lasso of Truth.

Diana leaves Themyscira, arriving in Boston, Massachusetts, where she is detained by local authorities. The Olympians intervene on her behalf, appearing to her in animal form and granting her abilities beyond those of normal Amazons.

Diana is taken in by Harvard professor Julia Kapatelis, and her daughter Vanessa, and enrolls at the school to learn more about the world.

Diana is attacked by Decay, a minion of Ares, god of war, and the battle spills out onto the streets, garnering her attention from the media, who dub her “Wonder Woman.”

19 years ago: 

Diana foils a plan by Ares and his children, Phobos and Deimos, to cause a nuclear holocaust, using her lasso to convince the god of the error of his ways.

Diana becomes a founding member of the Justice League of America after teaming up with other heroes to repel an alien invasion of Earth.

18 years ago: 

Diana agrees to hire Myndi Mayer as her publicist.

Troia arrives in Boston, taking the moniker of “Wonder Girl.”

Diana gains the attention of Barbara Minerva, the feline femme fatale calling herself the Cheetah. Minerva attacks Diana, attempting to steal the Lasso of Truth. After subduing her, Diana decides to return home to Themyscira.

17 years ago: 

While on Themyscira, Diana is forced to partake in the Challenge of the Gods in order to sate Zeus’s anger for refusing to sleep with him. She fights monsters including the Hydra and Echidna on her way to freeing the imprisoned demigod Heracles.

Diana is first confronted by Valerie Beaudry, the Silver Swan, and Dr. Doris Zuel, alias Giganta.

15 years ago: 

While on a trip to Greece with Vanessa and Julia, Diana is captured by the sorceress Circe, defeating her with the aid of Hermes. 

When Diana returns to Boston, she finds Myndi Mayer dead, victim of a drug overdose.

14 years ago: Themyscira reveals its existence to the world, and the Amazons begin to take a greater part in world affairs.

13 years ago: Vanessa is kidnapped by the diminutive telepath Edgar Cizko, alias Doctor Psycho, beginning his long rivalry with Diana.

11 years ago: Diana, along with the rest of Earth’s superheroes, participates in the fight against the Anti-Monitor.

10 years ago: 

After the Dominator invasion, Cheetah attempts to steal the Lasso of Truth once more, leading Diana to find the lost city of the Bana-Mighdall tribe of Amazons, and their champion, Artemis.

Diana is caught up in a war between the various pantheons of gods on Earth, and is seemingly murdered by Circe during the fighting. With the aid of the Phantom Stranger, she returns to life and defeats Circe, ending the war.

9 years ago: Diana is briefly replaced by Artemis as Wonder Woman after Hippolyta has a vision of her daughter’s death. Artemis dies instead, and Diana reclaims her mantle

8 years ago: 

Diana joins the new incarnation of the Justice League, assembled to combat a team of rogue White Martians.

Vanessa Kapatelis is mutated into the new Silver Swan by Circe, who sets her loose against Diana.

7 years ago: 

Diana re-locates to Gateway City, befriending museum curator Helena Sandsmark and her daughter, Cassandra. Cassandra disguises herself, and using artifacts stolen from Diana’s belongings, helps defeat Morgaine le Fey as the new Wonder Girl.

Themyscira is destroyed by the forces of Imperiex and Brainiac, killing many of the Amazons, including Hippolyta. The survivors relocated to a new Themyscira - a floating island built in the Bermuda Triangle.

5 years ago: 

Diana takes a position as Themyscira’s ambassador to the United Nations, moving to New York City. She publishes a book, titled “Reflections: A Collection of Essays and Speeches,” which makes an enemy out of pharmaceutical tycoon Veronica Cale.

Diana confronts Maxwell Lord, who murdered the Blue Beetle and had Superman under his control, and snaps his neck. Afterwards, seeking internal peace, Diana makes a pilgrimage to Nanda Parbat, leaving her post to Troia.

4 years ago: 

Despite strained relationships with Superman and Batman, Diana joins the newly restructured Justice League.

Diana is placed on trial by the World Court for the murder of Maxwell Lord, with Kate Spencer as her attorney. She is cleared of all charges and returns to the embassy.

3 years ago: Granny Goodness, in the guise of Athena, and Circe, work together, leading an attack on the United States by Themyscira. Diana is forced to fight against her sisters.

2 years ago:

During the Blackest Night crisis, Diana temporarily becomes empowered by the Violet Light of Love, becoming a Star Sapphire.

The resurrected Maxwell Lord enacts a scheme to eliminate Diana from play, trapping her in a prison of her own mind with the aid of Doctor Psycho - all part of a scheme from Nemesis, goddess of revenge. Diana defeats Nemesis and returns to reality.

1 year ago: Diana is attacked by Grail, daughter of Darkseid, who wants the essence of the gods to restore her father to adulthood.

Present day: Diana continues working at the embassy, while also continuing to serve with the Justice League and aiding the Sentinels of Magic against the goddess Hecate.

Commentary:

If Superman embodies hope and Batman embodies justice, Diana embodies compassion. Her existence is almost paradoxical: she’s the most compassionate of the Trinity, but also the most willing to kill when it comes down to it. The New 52 took her character too far in the direction of being a warrior, emphasizing the sword as her main weapon rather than her lasso and bracelets - to the point where her lasso became part of a chainsaw in Death Metal (as badass as that was). This Diana largely rejects that part of her nature, leaning into her status as an ambassador of peace to the world and believing in an open hand rather than a closed fist whenever possible.

This version of Diana is largely based on George Perez and Greg Rucka’s interpretations of the character, although that raises a few issues with regards to the timeline. Since post-Crisis Diana was introduced without any of her prior history, her post-Crisis early career is spread out over several years in this timeline. Certain elements of the post-Flashpoint interpretation of the character are also included, namely her being detained as an illegal alien by immigration officials, and her battle against Grail after this universe’s equivalent of Final Crisis.

This Diana also adheres to her origin according to Perez, rather than Brian Azzarello’s revamped origin that was also used for the live-action film. Diana was originally envisioned as an inherently feminist character, and making her narrative a patriarchal one centered around her heritage as a descendant of Zeus detracts from that. Rather, she’s a daughter of Hippolyta and Gaea, empowered by the female members of the Olympian pantheon (as well as Hermes). Diana doesn’t need a man behind her to be powerful, she just is.

She also doesn’t need a love interest. I have no hatred in my heart for Steve Trevor, but the character works better in the setting of World War II. In this continuity, he’s Hippolyta’s lover who later settles down with Etta Candy after Hippolyta returns to Themyscira. Perhaps a lover is in the cards for her in the near future, however.

Diana’s costume in this canon is the one she currently sports in Rebirth canon. I am shocked that it took so long to give her a battle skirt, given how much sense it makes as a permutation of the classic culottes or leotard look. 

Got questions about Diana or anything else? My asks are open!

Upcoming:

#0003 - Hal Jordan

#0004 - Aquaman

#0005 - ?????

[gaad]

“The State as apparatus of capture has a power of appropriation; but this power does not consist solely in capturing all that it can, all that is possible, of a matter defined as phylum. The apparatus of capture also appropriates the war machine, the instruments of polarization, and the anticipation prevention mechanisms. This is to say, conversely, that anticipation prevention mechanisms have a high power of transference (...)”. “(...) (W)ar machines have a power of metamorphosis, which of course allows them to be captured by States, but also to resist that capture and rise up again in other forms, with other “objects” besides war (revolution?). Each power is a force of deterritorialization that can go along with the others or go against them (...). Each process can switch over to other powers, but also subordinate other processes to its own power.” (1) “The idea of a constitution (...) involves not only the idea of hierarchy of authority or power but also that of a hierarchy of rules or laws, where those possessing a higher degree of generality and proceeding from a superior authority control the contents of the more specific laws that are passed by a delegated authority.” (2) It is time for a new humanism. Time to set a place, a forum able to stage the powers of today. Time to call up the ancient, dispose them, squeez them, twist them to reassess todays world. We have lost the meaning of natural proportions, let us look at godly excess. Monotheic religion castrated our apprehension of the world, seeing things either good or bad. The polytheic family encompasses the world and beyond, spinning around our prosaic flatland. A figure founded on intricated concepts is a powerfull constellation naviguating above polysemic ambiguities.  As the grand daughter of the Philantropist eponym Elisabeth Murdoch, Elisabeth Murdoch feels the will to engage her vision in the public debat. Since her childhood she was confronted to a rigourous, competitive, mostly manly world. Inspired by her grandmother she cultivated a spiritual friendship with greek feminin characters. Grew up with them. Now her interest does not lie in presenting her various personal relations with them but to stage them. “(...)(A)dvertising, news, publicity, periodical literature.” This is Elisabeth's inherited background. “(...) They work to a single end: to give the stamp of authenticity and value to the style of life that emanates from the metropolis.They establish the national brand: they attempt to control the national market: they create a picture of a unified, homogeneous, completely standardized population that bears, in fact, no relation to the actual regional sub stratum—although in the course of time it partly succeeds in producing the thing it has imagined.” Take Paris for example: “(...) the Champs Elysées, become the goals of vulgar ambition (and a)dvertisement becomes the “spiritual power” of this new regime.” (3)

“This is the moment when the masterpieces of ancient sculpture are about to appear in all their glory in front of the eyes of France (...)  (they) have chosen to live amongst the French, and are to be adored in their living images. Ah! Who would be able to step into the temple of these divinities without saying to himself: these masterpieces, these gods had ceased to be gods for us; the cult of Antiquity had been forgotten; who would believe it?(...); it is Vien, it is David, who then made themselves into their apostles and ministers; it is through them that this great revolution, which has at least given us the hope of creating gods ourselves, has taken place in the arts.” (4)

The time of revolution is now back but as Foucault said : “il faut avoir une méfiance absolue et totale à l'égard de tout ce qui se présente comme un retour. L'une des raisons de cette méfiance est logique : il n'y a jamais, en fait, de retour.”(5) Therefore the story of Elisabeth's friends will intentionally follow the unfaithfull path. In Momus from Alberti “the extended climax (of the seventh book) occurs in an urban theater where the gods act as their own effigies(, Alberti) repeatedly uses the word persona (and so will we) (“mask” or “personality'') to underline the false, theatrical behavior of his characters.” (6) “Or, as is the case now, the mask assures the erection, the construction of the (new) face (of Elisabeth), the fascialization of the head and the body: the mask is now the face itself, the abstraction or operation of the face. The inhumanity of the face.” (1) So be it. Let them be the masked actors of a twisted tragedy, trapped in their performance, speculating above our heads, fertilizing our ground. A spectacle of a new kind. Let them play, individually, together, contradict each other, themselves. Let them work as technologies, systems, embedded in concepts and rituals. “They (a)re living geometry, lines and curves of color, entwined into a coalescing whole yet maintaining distinct identities.” (7)

Three personas. Pandora, Circe, Metis. Not the ones we usually know. Their Alter Ego. The ones who stand up, do not apologize. This is Elisabeth's Friends. Pandora has inherited a box, a jarre which contains unspeakable truth. She knows now how to sort things, pick up elements, unleash others. Circe masters metamorphosis by exploring with drugs and potions. She learned to articulate her recipes and to play with the right parameters and Metis is renowned for his wiseness and cunning, making problems no longer valid. As a constellation, they are powerful. As a unity, they can deal with the plenty, transform it. As an unfaithful story, it accesses the realm of discussion. As statuses, they need a sophisticated territory from which to operate, a palace. Three Faces where “(i)t is not the individuality of (each) face that counts but the efficacy of the ciphering it makes possible, and in what cases it makes it possible.(...) The face is a surface, (...) the face is a map.” (1 ) “How disappointing this answer seems to be! We asked what was the origin of Ideas and where problems come from: in reply we invoke throws of the dice, imperatives and questions of chance instead of an apodictic principle; an aleatory point at which everything becomes ungrounded instead of a solid ground.” (8)

“For each genre, now, the problem will be to decide whether its audience is such as to demand utility or delight or both, and what brand of either of these will be acceptable to it.” (9) To anchor ourselves we will now deepen our reflexion in space with Alberti and Vitruve. But keep in mind : “The mathematics that is needed here is of a new brand.” (10)  Their concept and ideas of proportions being a fertile ground from which we should elevate. This palace will be a theater, a circus and a amphitheater, simultaneously, as the temple of our time, able to adapt to change, suitable to glorify the unknown. If we follow Alberti and Vitruve who compare the three typologies as such: “(...) (W)e will describe both manners of spectacles. In the first, which is for the delight of peaceful times, are introduced the poets, musicians, and actors. In the second, which regard the studies of war, are performed different kinds of duels and contests having to do with bodily strength and dexterity.To the former is dedicated the theatre, a name which means both ‘spectacle’ and ‘a place to watch’.To the latter, which are spectacles of agility and dexterity such as running or jumping, is dedicated the circus. To events such as assaults and fights against animals or men is dedicated the amphitheatre. There are some things that are proper to all of these spectacles: first, that they are horn shaped and curved; next, that they have an open space in the middle; and finally, that they have steps all around and raised places where people can sit and watch.” (11) “But then they differ as to the Form of the aforesaid Area; for those which have this Area in the Shape of a Moon in its Decrease are called Theatres, but when the Horns are protracted a great Way forwards, they are called Circusses, because in them the Chariots make a Circle about the Goal.” (12) So if we follow them and we free this typologies from their form, we can imagine a place which could embody the spectacle. The Palace of Spectacle. This Palace will be entered through a garden where a fountain lies at its very center. Heron's Fountain one could claim. Another form of spectacle.

1) Deleuze Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus 2) Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty 3) Mumford, The Culture of Cities 4) Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815 5) Foucault, Le savoir, le pouvoir et l'espace 6) Alberti, Momus (Preface) 7) Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology 8) Deleuze, Difference and Repetition 9) Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance 1 10) Ayache, The Blank Swan 11) Williams, Daniele Barbaros Vitruvius of 1567 12) Alberti, 10 books of architecture 1755

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Further quotes: 

Vitruve

these vessels - ( poor vessels) large jars made of clay, but similarly resonant

THE plan of the theatre itself is to be constructed as follows. Having fixed upon the principal centre, draw a line of circumference equivalent to what is to be the perimeter at the bottom, and in it inscribe four equilateral triangles, at equal distances apart and touching the boundary line of the circle, as the astrologers do in a figure of the twelve signs of the zodiac, when they are making computations from the musical harmony of the stars. Taking that one of these triangles whose side is nearest to the scaena, let the front of the scaena be determined by the line where that side cuts off a segment of the circle (A B), and draw, through the centre, a parallel line (C D) set off from that position, to separate the platform of the stage from the space of the orchestra.

The circus was based, so it is said, on the heavens

Unlike that of the amphitheater, the central area of a circus was not empty, nor was it filled with a stage, like that of a theater --------------------------------------------------------------- Alberti

We have dealt with the theater; next we shall discuss the circus and amphitheater.All buildings of this type are derived from the theater: a circus is nothing but a theater with its wings extended along parallel lines, although its nature does not require the addition of a portico; an amphitheater, meanwhile, consists of two theaters, their tiers linked into a continuous circle.They differ in that the theater is a form of semiamphitheater; another difference is that the central area of the amphitheater is quite empty and free of any stage. In every other respect they are similar, especially in their tiers, porticoes, passages, and so on. The amphitheater, we think, was built originally for the hunt; this was why they decided to make it round, so that the wild beast, trapped there and baited, with no corner into which to retreat, would be easier for the hunters to provoke.

The rest of the ornament is taken from the temple

The theater takes the lineament of its area from the hoofprint of a horse.Once this is done, the uppermost portico is built on top. The facade and colonnade of this portico do not receive light from outside, as those we have described below it do, but face instead toward the central area of the theater, as we have mentioned already. This work prevents sound from escaping, and compresses and fortifies it; we shall therefore call the work the circumvallation.

--------------------------------------------------------------------- Perrault (on Vitruvius)

And the Paintings represented three sorts of Buildings, which made three sorts of Scenes, viz. The Tragick by Magnificent Pallaces, the Comick by Private Houses, the Satyrical (i. e. the Pastoral) by Fields and Groves.The Parascenium or Postscenium was the hinder part of the Theater, and the place whither the Actors retired and dressed themselves, and had their Rehearsals, and where the Machines were kept.Near the Theaters, were Publick Walks, in length a Stadium, which is about 90 Perches. There were Trees planted

[queenofnabooty]

tagged by @lordeasriel

five favorite books:

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

I’m Supposed to Protect You From All This by Nadja Spiegelman

Circe by Madeline Miller

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

American Monroe by S. Paige Baty

five favorite drinks:

Pimm’s Cup

Pornstar Martini

Wine

Cappuccino

Grolsch Beer

five favorite songs: 

Storms by Fleetwood Mac

I Am Not a Robot by MARINA

Let’s Go to Bed by The Cure

No Plan by Hozier

Wicked Little Town (reprise) from Hedwig and the Angry Inch

five favorite quotes:

“You want the truth, of course. You want me to put two and two together. But two and two doesn’t necessarily get you the truth. Two and two equals a voice outside the window. Two and two equals the wind. The living bird is not its labeled bones.” - The Blind Assassin

“I also saw how much the past, so long kept secret, pulled us into formations like a deep ocean current, from so far below that we barely knew we were not moving on our own.” - I’m Supposed to Protect You From All This

“Push a word for all it’s worth. Re-write it. Re-vision the image. Read and write in ways that extend the alphabet, that question what counts as the beginning of a sentence, that move around paragraphs, that see two worlds in one.” - American Monroe

“The enormity of the task silenced them. Lyra looked up at the blazing sky. She was aware of how small they were, she ad her daemon, in comparison with the majesty and vastness of the universe; and of how little they knew, in comparison with the profound mysteries above them. ‘We could,’ Pantalaimon insisted. “We came all this way, didn’t we? We could do it.’” - Northern Lights

“In a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.” - Circe

five favorite people fictional characters:

Iris Chase from The Blind Assassin

Clarice Starling from The Silence of the Lambs

Marisa Coulter from His Dark Materials

Padme Amidala from Star Wars

Ofelia from Pan’s Labyrinth

I tag @oceanssapart @thewanderingnaivety @theteadetective

[tshepiso-reads-books]

My Favourite Books of 2019

I had a pretty good reading year in 2019. Formulating my favourites list this year was definitely harder than it was in the past couple of years. This list has changed and shifted drastically as they year went by (if you’d like to know my favourites in the first half of the year check out this post).

I agonized for weeks trying to rank my favourites and eventually had to give up entirely. I read so many different books this year across genre and form and it was absolutely impossible to rank and compare them. So this year I’ll be talking about my favourite books from four categories: fantasy, science fiction, comics and contemporary. This is going to be a long one, so gird your loins.

Fantasy

2019 was a fantastic year for adult high fantasy. I finally dipped my toes into this category after years of hesitancy and discovered stories filled with rich worlds, pulse-pounding plots and fantastic characters.

The Fifth Season · N.K. Jemisin

If I had to choose a singular favourite book of 2019 The Fifth Season would definitely be it. Every single aspect of this novel was done to perfection our characters were fully rendered, the plot was absolutely gripping, and the worldbuilding so fleshed out and unique. This book was so perfectly realized and is truly a feat of master craftsmanship.

Circe · Madeline Miller

Even after all these months, Circe is still a stand-out story. Miller’s prose was breathtaking and cutting and our main character, Circe, so all-encompassing and well explored. The lens through which Miller views greek mythology was fascinating and the way she explored characters we already had preconceived notions of was fucking brilliant.

Jade City · Fonda Lee

This book was the perfect blend of inciting action, gripping family drama. The multi-layered and ever-changing landscape of the plot of Jade City kept me flipping the pages of this book, but the strong interpersonal relationships between the family at the center of this book kept me connected to every single plot point.

The Diviners · Libba Bray

The Diviners is the only YA fantasy on this list and I think it truly speaks to the heights that this book reached. What stood out most to me about this book was how politically relevant it was. Bray’s focus on the bigotry and hatred in America in the 20’s time felt pointed and relevant today. With fantastic characters, atmospheric writing and engaging mystery to boot The Diviners was a truly great story to read.

Foundryside · Robert Jackson Bennett

Foundryside was a genuinely fun time from beginning to end. I was gripped by Bennett’s unique magic system which I can only describe as “coding… but magic”. The great character work and entertaining character dynamics added to my absolute enjoyment of this story.

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Sci-Fi

I got really into sci-fi for the first time this year and absolutely adored so many of the stories in this genre. I glad I dove into this genre more in 2019 because I discovered some fantastic stories.

The Wayfarer’s Trilogy · Becky Chambers

The Wayfarer’s trilogy was like a warm blanket to me this year. Every time I picked up a new book in this series its themes and messages filled me hope and joy. Chambers is really writing the sci-fi we need in 2019. I loved every book in this series, but I wanted to shout out A Closed and Common Orbit in particular because it was definitely my favourite.

Ninefox Gambit · Yoon Ha Lee

Ninefox Gambit was a late entry into my favourites, but damn did it hit with a bang. It was certainly one of the most challenging books I read this year, but the reward for sticking through it all was just priceless. Lee crafted such an intricate world and delving deeper into it as I kept reading was enthralling.

Sleeping Giants · Sylvain Neuvel

It took me a while to fall for Sleeping Giants, but once I did I fell head over heels. Neuvel weaved in an interesting story through the interview format he utilized. I’m awed by his ability to capture the scope of the world and create a heart-pounding plot and intriguing mysteries exclusively through interviews.

Time Was · Ian McDonald

Time Was was an excellent novella. It captured everything I adore about time travel stories and historical science fiction. In a few pages, Ian McDonald sold me completely on every aspect of this story. I loved the sweeping romantic atmosphere imbibed into the story.

The Calculating Stars · Mary Robinette-Kowal

Another historical science fiction made its way into my favourites list and it truly deserved to. The level of detail poured into The Calculating Stars is amazing; Mary Robinette-Kowal delved deep into the space program and her accuracy to the time is astounding. Her ability to make me care about the minutiae of daily life is a credit to her character work because the protagonist of this book, Elma, was so charming and real that I couldn’t help but be invested in her story.  

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Comics

I read comic books for the first time this year and absolutely loved most of what I read. I discovered some fantastic authors and artists telling amazing stories and hope to only increase my comic reading in the coming year.

Nimona · Noelle Stevenson

What more is there to say about Nimona. I raved about it so much both online and in my personal life. Noelle Stevenson is writing the kinds of stories that sink their way into my heart and stay there. I adored every single panel of every single page in this story and encourage every single person to pick it up as soon as humanly possible.

The Vision · Tom King & Gabriel Hernandez Walta

I don’t even know what to say about The Vision other than, wow. This dark, psychological, tragedy affected me so deeply. It’s one of the three books I actively cried while reading this year and to this day I can’t eloquently express why I adored it so much. King really makes you care about the family at the center of this story which makes the tragic outcome of the story and the inevitability of that tragedy all the more painful.

Hawkeye · Matt Fraction & David Aja

I love Clint Barton with my whole heart and Hawkeye is the reason why. Fraction and Aja demonstrated a true understanding of Barton as a character and through their three-year run, they crafted what I believe is the best story about him out there.

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Contemporary

This year was pretty light on contemporaries both in number and quality but I did discover amazing stories that spoke to me deeply.

Radio Silence · Alice Oseman

Radio Silence is a book that directly spoke to an exact moment in my life. I read this at the start of my final exam season of high school so the failure of the education system really resonated. Oseman managed to capture the rat race that is school. This book was deeply affecting and emotionally resonant which is probably why it’s one of the books that made me cry in 2019.  

Fangirl · Rainbow Rowell

I’m kind of cheating by putting a re-read on this list, but I found rereading fangirl this year to be so impactful and moving that it would feel a right shame to leave it out of any ‘Best of 2019’ list. Fangirl spoke to me so much harder in 2019 than it did when I first read it. Rowell perfectly captured the reasons we go to fandom for solace and community and the struggles Cath faces in this book are all the more relatable with time.

Autoboyography · Christina Lauren

YA contemporary captures the melodrama of teenagerdom in a way other subcategories of YA never really do. Autoboyography distils the essence of what it feels like to be a teenager so well. And not only does it do that it also contains a beautiful love story at its center.

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Honourable Mentions

I read so many fantastic books this year and this list would feel incomplete without some honourable mentions. All of these were so close to making it on to my final list but sadly didn’t make the cut.

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So, that was my extensive favourites list for 2019. I had such a good reading year in 2019 and I want to bring that energy into the new decade. I’d love to hear about all your favourite books of the year in the comments below so please feel free to share them.

Happy reading!

[berniesrevolution]

IN THESE TIMES

In the weeks before the election, President Donald Trump tried to stoke fear over the so-called migrant caravan, a group of 3,000 displaced Central Americans heading north through Mexico toward the U.S. border. It was part of a transparently racist attempt to rile up his base. But Latino advocacy groups were ready to counter, using Trump’s own views against him in the final push of un-precedented voter mobilization efforts: Latino early voting participation increased by 174 percent compared to the 2014 midterm, and Latinos contributed to key victories in several states.

Spokespeople for these advocacy groups tell In These Times that Democrats cannot take such turnout for granted. Now, Democratic legislators must advance and defend a progressive immigration agenda.

Latinos, many of whom live in battleground states such as Florida and Arizona, represent an increasing share of the electorate, 12.8 percent. And they tend to vote Democratic: An estimated 69 percent of Latinos voted for the Democratic House candidate in 2018.

Still, Latinos have historically had the lowest turnout rates of any demographic. Latino engagement groups point to at least three causes: Political outreach and investment has been paltry and culturally inappropriate; many foreign-born Latinos come from countries where civic engagement is low, and often transfer their mistrust of previous governments; and most U.S. Latinos are young, and young voters tend to have low turnout rates.

An election-eve survey of congressional battlegrounds by the polling firm Latino Decisionsfound that, for white voters, border security ranked as the second priority behind healthcare—perhaps revealing why establishment Democrats like Nancy Pelosi failed to respond boldly to Trump’s xenophobia. For Latino voters, however, border security ranked low, while immigration reform and protecting Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) were second behind healthcare.

Immigration proved a powerful tool to drive Latino turnout. Mi Familia Vota, for example, released an English and Spanish ad campaign in five states critiquing the president’s “slaps in the face.” The group registered nearly 90,000 voters in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Texas, and knocked on more than half a million doors. According to Pew, Latino voter registration in Florida in 2018 rose 8.4 percent over 2016—nearly double the increase between 2012 and 2014. Mi Familia Vota alone registered 32,000 voters in Florida—nearly the same number registered during the 2016 presidential election, according to the group’s executive director, Ben Monterroso. It’s not just registering Latinos that is crucial, he says, but also re-registering, since they tend to move often.

The Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition (CIRC) Action Fund had more than 18,000 conversations with low-propensity voters of color in swing districts about Trump’s immigration policies. Every candidate CIRC Action Fund endorsed was elected, including the Democratic challenger against Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) in a race that many foreign-born voters considered a referendum on the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Coffman had tried to distance himself from Trump’s rhetoric and tout his connection to the district’s immigrant communities, but had a consistently anti-immigrant voting record. He lost by 9 points. “We kind of proved that having a hardline stance against immigrants does not work,” says Juan C. Gallegos, CIRC Action Fund managing director.

There’s evidence that the issue accelerated turnout among Democrats more broadly.

In Pennsylvania, for instance, a survey of roughly 1,000 registered voters showed that Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Wagner’s ad demonizing the migrant caravan not only failed to mobilize his supporters, but increased turnout for his opponent among both liberal-leaning and moderate women. Wagner barely garnered 40 percent of the vote.

Gallegos and Monterroso agree that outrage over family separations and detention at the border, along with the desire to protect DACA, were key in mobilizing Latinos and will remain a focus of get-out-the-vote efforts for 2020.

Tania Unzueta, policy director at Mijente, cautions that immigration isn’t the only issue that mobilizes Latinos. Mijente had conversations with 150,000 Latino voters in support of Stacey Abrams in Georgia. For many, she says, state-based issues, such as penalties for driving without a license, were critical.

Organizers also encountered Republican-voting Latinos about a third of the time, according to Unzueta, and found it difficult to engage with them. These voters often denounced Abrams’ positions on abortion and marriage equality while accusing her of being “socialist.” Unzueta says she heard repeatedly that Abrams is “not doing enough” to protect young women from trafficking rings. “It sounded like a well-learned talking point.”

That being said, Unzueta tells In These Times, “I do think Democrats have to be bolder in defending immigrants.” She says that in 2020, Democrats should push the agenda beyond what’s possible to do under Trump. “The calls to abolish ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], for example, are not done naively,” she says, but advance a vision for a post-Trump immigration policy.

(Continue Reading)

[grandhotelabyss]

Above is a little juvenilia—if something I wrote at age 26 counts as juvenilia—for this Bloomsday. (Everybody goes on and on about Bloomsday, but a full half of the novel, starting with “Circe,” takes place after midnight, which is to say on the 17th.) Anyway, I’ve written what I hope is at this late date in my life a mature essay on Ulysses over at the main site after having completed a marathon re-read over the past two weeks. Here is the first paragraph, which follows a brief prelude:

Ulysses has long been hailed as the greatest novel—or even the greatest literary work tout court—of the 20th century, and for three reasons. First, it almost exhaustively characterizes three of the most memorable (and two of the most lovable) protagonists in all of fiction. Second, it is an encyclopedia of fictional techniques ancient and avant-garde, literally containing within its pages every English prose style. Third—this is the most contentious point—it espouses social and political values the literati still tend to hold, much more unanimously and securely than in the moment when Joyce was composing his modern epic. The first and third points are related to one another, because the lovable characters espouse the moral vision; the second and third points are related to one another, because the heterogenous prose evokes the cosmopolitanism at the heart of Joyce’s politics; but I have never fully been able to reconcile—and am less able the more I read the book to reconcile—all three points together. That will be the burden of this essay.

More informally, I can’t help but conclude that Joyce got lucky with the book’s first 100 pages, perhaps the most perfect pages of fictional prose ever written, pages of bittersweet comic pathos in which we can’t help but fall in love with Stephen and Bloom and their city; and having fallen in love, we are willing to put up with the tediously impersonal trials of so much of the rest of the book and worship it for 100 years, even if among its difficulties, we all have our beloved moments. (I love the Shakespeare episode, for example, and I don’t actually think “Eumaeus” is as boring as its reputation suggests; “Circe,” with the exception of its extraordinary high points—“Nothung!”—is the book’s real bore, about 100 pages too long for “tell a dream, lose a reader” reasons.) 

Mine is a bad reading, I’m sure, a philistine reading, but better that than my grad-student’s attempt above, written as the capstone to a seminar on modernism, to try to square the circle of all the contradictory things Joyce wanted to do, his seeming simultaneous ambition to be Tolstoy and Gertrude Stein at the same time, to be the Picassos of all periods in one picture. 

My grad-school essay is obviously awful; the novel does not really, except in some meaninglessly general sense, represent its setting as “torn apart by capitalism,” for one thing; I was just (mis)reading the book through an ideological fog of Lukács, Jameson, Eagleton, and Moretti (and only the first of this red quartet need ever be read at all). But the overall point—that Ulysses is a liberal novel in the tradition of the liberal novel—still stands. And the essay was praised by the professor, who went on to advise my dissertation, as itself “reading like a novel,” a slightly backhanded compliment in academic precincts, but I’ll take it; I always aim to generate suspense in writing argumentative nonfiction; and making the reader wonder, “What’s this freak going to say next?” counts too. 

Browsing in a volume of Pound and Joyce’s correspondence, I found a Poundian exclamation that would have made a good epigraph for my seminar paper, and here I’ll conclude:

NO; Joyce was not a painter not a bohemian, a small bourgeois, to the UTMOST.

[evilpawnjewelry]

This week’s Last Chance is up! Their Sale prices will be posted until Saturday each week! The Circe Crystal Vision Necklaces are almost gone forever! I have added a few extras to the mix! All of these beauties will not be re-released!
💜💜💜 3 Ophelia Rings 3 Ophelia Necklaces 1 Andera Ring (Amethyst Oval) 6 Circe Crystal Vision Necklaces in Quartz 2 Circe Crystal Vision Necklaces in Moonstone 2 Circe Crystal Vision Necklaces in Labradorite 2 Circe Crystal Vision Necklaces in Garnet 6 Circe Crystal Vision Necklaces in Smoky Quartz 💜💜💜 These items can be searched on the website with the search bar or found in the Sale or Last Season Categories. Patreon promos apply! Appreciate all of your support! Thank you for tuning in and connecting! I always post every Wednesday and Friday! 💜💜💜 Happy MidWeek!  https://www.instagram.com/p/CZe4j9XuPmQ/?utm_medium=tumblr

[emo-rejects-archive]

Hey Chelsea, what's your most favorite/least favorite story trope? Can be from anything

My favorite motif is one that I feel like goes heavily under-used.

It’s giving the protagonist a taste of a better life. I have only witnessed this four times in my twenty years of existence.

The first time was in Percy Jackson, when (and my memories super foggy on this since I haven’t read Percy Jackson in YEARS) Percy gets sent to that island with the girl (I think it was Circe?).

In Season Six of Clone Wars, one of the last episodes has a part where Yoda gets shown a vision(?) of what life at the Jedi Temple would’ve been like if the Clone War never happened.

In ATLA, there’s that part where Zuko learns to be happy with his life working at Iroh’a Tea Shop in Bah Sing Seh.

Finally, in the recent season of Re: Zero, there was a whole episode where Subaru returned to his home and got to see his parents (WHO ARE FUCKING AWESOME) again. Although, at the end of the episode, it’s revealed that it was Echidna creating an illusion or something like that all of along.

[kholinoscopy]

hey beloved mutuals would you guys read my short story and tell me what you think? it’s about a witch who runs a tattoo parlor.

Bewitchink

Evanora the witch’s tattoo shop was famous, in the right circles, for its charms. Every customer that walked into Eva’s shop came without a design, or a theme, but a wish. Long life. Luck. Peace. Strength. Love. Evanora could ink them all, covering the body with intricate lines, stars, moons, and pentagrams to draw the power of the universe across the skin like thread through a loom. But magic clothing was Circe’s deal. Since she worked just down the street and could hex like a motherfucker, Evanora stuck with ink. Not that she minded. Circe kept her nose away from the needles because she knew better, too.

Eva’s shop was small, just two rooms. In the back she had two overstuffed couches and a big tattooing chair, with pieces that could be added or removed to suit the comfort of the customer, whether they needed work in an awkward place or had some extra limbs or tentacles or something that needed support. Eva worked with all kinds.

Up in the dusty front she did her drawings, consulted her assorted grimoires, and mixed her inks. The walls were papered with magical designs and astrological diagrams, as well as some traditional premade art (For the normals. A girl’s gotta pay her bills, after all.). Dragons, hearts, and at least fourteen different Jesuses, in various states of crucifixion. A neon sign hung in the window, announcing the shop in bright green letters to any passerby. Bewitchink: Charms, spells, potions, tattoos, and piercing. (No nudity, no walk-ins, no clients under eighteen without parental consent.)

“Oh, can we do it on my wrist?” The client asked. He was tall and pale, with greasy black hair and sunken cheeks. Eva was getting ready to ink a sunburst across his shoulder, to protect against burns.

“Sorry, hun. I don’t like to work on the wrist,” She ran her finger up his forearm, finishing at the hand between his thumb and pointer finger. “See that line? Can’t cross it. That’s your lifeline and interrupting it would be bad news for you, my friend. Cuts it right off. Everything gets thrown out of whack, you get all confused, and sooner or later you’re dead. Nasty results. The placement is just as important as the content, first rule of inking, magical or otherwise.”

She got into the rhythm of her work, pausing every once in a while to re-ink the needle or consult a diagram.

“So, uh. Are you, like, single, or. . . ?” The client asked, trying not to be awkward.

“Wrong tree bud. Not on the market.” Eva fell silent. She hated talking about this, but hated hiding it even more. “My boyfriend died last year. He was a vampire, too.” The client shifted uncomfortably.

“Don’t worry,” Eva said, her voice soft. “I won’t tell. He always gave the best kisses.” Damn. She hated this. This sudden silence. Stupid man was already awkward before, and then he gets dumped on about a stranger’s dumb dead boyfriend? Eva needed to defuse the tension. “How did you think I wouldn’t notice, anyway? You’re so pale, and you asked me for a sun charm. I’m not stupid. And you should still put on sunblock even when this is done by the way. You’ll always be sensitive. The good news is this is one tattoo you actually can expose to the sun.” He laughed.

The bell rang as the door to the shop opened, illuminating the motes of dust that hung in the stuffy stillness of the dirty shop, and two men entered.

“Close the door,” Eva called from the back over the hum of her needle gun. “You’ll let out all my dust.”

“Hey Eva, how’s tricks?” Finch called. He didn’t bother trying to disturb Eva as she worked, and made his way to the couch that sat between the shelves, flopping himself down and releasing into the air a plume of dust on impact.

Evanora didn’t look up. The client craned his neck nervously to get a better look at the new customers. “Be still just a moment longer, sweetie, I know we’ve only just started, but we’re gonna take a break in just a moment.” The client relaxed somewhat, closing his eyes and pursing his thin lips against the pain.

The other man, who had not been there before, glanced around the shop, curling his lip at his surroundings. He was tall, pale, and wiry, and wore a black leather jacket with the collar turned up and combat books with steel on the toes. Finch waved him over, and he silently made his way to the couch before mechanically taking a seat, all the while taking in the sights of the shop. He clearly wasn’t impressed.

“It’s all sterile when we do the actual work in back, I can assure you,” Eva looked up from her diagram with a toothy grin. “All this is atmospheric. Setting the mood.”

              The man stayed silent and returned her smile with a flat stare.

Eva adopted a mock eastern European accent and spoke in sing song. “Finch, who is this man you have brought into my shop, this man with no words?” She looked Finch in the eye and winked. He winked back.

“Friend of mine from work. I told him you’re the real deal and he said he wanted some work done. Can you?”

“Depends what he needs.” Eva looked the man in the eyes. “What’s he need?”

For the first time his composure broke. He cracked a grin of anticipation. “I was thinking something flashy, like make me stronger. Can you make it so my footsteps don’t make any sound? What if I had super-fast reflexes? Or what about if I could climb up walls with sticky fingers? I’d really like to- “

Eva interrupted. “Easy there, spiderman. I don’t do that kind of work. The shit you’re asking for is clearly illegal, and I do not aid burglars.” She gestured around at the dust, filth, and mysterious jars of animal parts the lined the walls. “Does this not look like a legitimate establishment? I do not help with criminal activities. End of story.”

The man looked affronted. “I wasn’t gonna do anything illegal, I was just- “

“Don’t push it, Christian,” Finch said from the couch, where he was idly flipping through an art book. “She’s not fooling around and absolutely will send you walking if you give her trouble.”

Evanora adopted a conciliatory tone. “Listen, man. I want your business. I really do. Lets find something to set you up with. I can do charms for luck, health, financial gain, and navigation. I can give you a green thumb, a silver tongue, or help you with blue balls,” She winked again. He stared impassively. “I can give you better vision, better skin, better hair, better nails, or better bones.” She held up her arm, showing the small but intricate design on the back of her hand, still fresh. “This is a disarming charm. People will trust you more easily if you get one like this. Ever wanted to run a marathon? Do it next week after a hard night of drinking. Run for office, make friends, make enemies, find work, find home, find adventure, find love, find- “

“Love?” He asked. “You can do love charms?”

Eva was surprised that was the one he would bite on. “That I do. Does it suit your fancy? It’s a little elaborate, and what’s really surprising is that its actual effects aren’t even a little bit rapey, which is awesome. It brings people together.” Eva walked back into the back room and got back to work on her other client while she spoke.

“H- how much would it cost?”

“Oh, we don’t pay here, not with money, anyway.” Finch gave an evil laugh from the couch.

“What? Oh god, is this one of those places?” He gave Eva a fearful glance. “What’s it take? My life? My future? I don’t have any kids so don’t even- “

“What?” Eva said incredulously. She looked up. “No. Finch told me you have a Nintendo Switch. All the stores in town have sold out and don’t restock for weeks. Bring it tomorrow. With the new Zelda. I want it.”

Finch stood up and ushered his friend out the door as he sputtered at the cost. “Now, now. She’s worth it, I promise.” He poked his head in through the closing door. “Later, Eva!”

Evanora got back to work, “Later,” She called softly, though the door had already closed.

“This shouldn’t take long,” Eva said as Abe entered the shop. “It starts on your chest, and then branches out from there a bit.” She held up the grimoire she had been studying, showing him the diagram she would be working from. “My inks heal instantly, so it won’t take more than an hour or two to finish. The ink will fade in a few years, but the magic will always be there.”

Christian nodded, shrugging off his bag and coat and setting them on the couch, rattling their contents. He made his way to the chair, took off his shirt, and sat down. A silver cross pendant glinted on his bare chest.

Evanora whistled. “You don’t eat much, do you? Maybe we should grab a burger after this.”

“No thank you.”

Eva rolled her eyes when he wasn’t looking, and got to work.

              She quickly lost herself in the art, letting it pull her below the surface so that her nervousness wouldn’t show. She couldn’t let it show. Not now. The black lines wound across his chest, starting at the heart, then working pentagrams into the shoulders.

              “So why a love charm? You got someone you want to bring a little closer?”

              Christian shook his head. “Nobody in particular. I’m in a lonely line of work, and I’d really like to change that.”

              Eva nodded. “I hate being lonely. It’s even worse going back to being lonely, when you weren’t before.”

              Christian smiled, relaxing. “Yeah, yeah. It sucks. What’s worse is when someone isn’t who you think they are. That betrayal. It’s like being lost at sea.”

              “And there’s no land in sight. Yeah.” Eva flashed him a smile. The star she was working on was coming along very well, etched into his wiry muscular chest.

              When they were taking a break from work, Eva studied Christian’s face. He was actually pretty attractive, with high cheekbones and big soulful eyes. He was beginning to open up and that face, which had once looked so hostile and rude, began to seem more soft and vulnerable.

              Eva took a sip of her coffee. “So what kind of work do you do?”

              “I’m sort of a policeman,” He said. “We can’t all be nice little witches in nice little shops.”

              Eva nodded. “There are some nasty types out there. It’s good that there’s someone to moderate things.”

              “Here’s your payment, by the way. He dropped his bag onto the table, holding it open. An almost new Nintendo Switch rested inside, resting atop a mallet and some dirty wooden stakes, with some silver bullets rattling in the bottom of the bag. Eva smiled and collected her prize.

              “How much is left? I’m getting hungry for that burger you mentioned earlier.”

              “Oh not much at all. I just have to do a few quick lines across your wrist and then we can go.”

              Once the tattoo was finished, Christian seemed dizzy, and forgetful. He smiled vacantly at Eva’s goodbyes, then made his way to the door without his bag or jacket and forgetting completely the plans they had made earlier. Finch entered as he left, nodding at Christian as he stumbled through traffic. “How did things go?” He asked.

              “Off without a hitch. Thanks for finding him for me.” Eva opened her payment from the plush carrying case. “Let’s play some games. I’m pretty sure the stupid asshole gave me Mario Kart.”

[chaj]

via www.pyimagesearch.com

In today’s blog post, I interview Dr. Paul Lee, a PyImageSearch reader and interventional cardiologist affiliated with NY Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Dr. Lee recently presented his research at the prestigious American Heart Association Scientific Session in Philadelphia, PA where he demonstrated how Convolutional Neural Networks can:

Automatically analyze and interpret coronary angiograms

Detect blockages in patient arteries

And ultimately help reduce and prevent heart attacks

Furthermore, Dr. Lee has demonstrated that the automatic angiogram analysis can be deployed to a smartphone, making it easier than ever for doctors and technicians to analyze, interpret, and understand heart attack risk factors.

Dr. Lee’s work is truly remarkable and paves the way for Computer Vision and Deep Learning algorithms to help reduce and prevent heart attacks.

Let’s give a warm welcome to Dr. Lee as he shares his research.

An interview with Paul Lee – Doctor, Cardiologist and Deep Learning Researcher

Adrian: Hi Paul! Thank you for doing this interview. It’s a pleasure to have you on the PyImageSearch blog.

Paul: Thank you for inviting me.

Figure 1: Dr. Paul Lee, an interventional cardiologist affiliated with NY Mount Sinai School of Medicine, along with his family.

Adrian: Tell us a bit about yourself — where do you work and what is your job?

Paul: I am an interventional cardiologist affiliated with NY Mount Sinai School of Medicine. I have a private practice in Brooklyn.

Figure 2: Radiologists may one day be replaced by Computer Vision, Deep Learning, and Artificial Intelligence.

Adrian: How did you first become interested in computer vision and deep learning?

Paul: In a New Yorker magazine’s 2017 article titled A.I. Versus M.D. What happens when diagnosis is automated?, George Hinton commented that “they should stop training radiologists now”. I realized that one day AI will replace me. I wanted to be the person controlling the AI, not the one being replaced.

Adrian: You recently presented your work automatic cardiac coronary angiogram analysis at the American Heart association. Can you tell us about it?

Paul: After starting your course two years ago, I became comfortable with computer vision technique. I decided to apply what you taught to cardiology.

As a cardiologist, I perform coronary angiography to diagnose whether my patients have blockages in their arteries in the heart that can cause heart attack. I wondered whether I can apply AI to interpret coronary angiograms.

Despite many difficulties, thanks to your ongoing support, the neural networks learned to interpret these images reliably.

I was invited to present my research at American Heart Association Scientific Session in Philadelphia this year. This is the most important research conference for cardiologists. My poster is titled Convolutional Neural Networks for Interpretation of Coronary Angiography (CathNet).

(Circulation. 2019;140:A12950; https://ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/circ.140.suppl_1.12950) ; the poster is available here: https://github.com/AICardiologist/Poster-for-AHA-2019)

Figure 3: Normal coronary angiogram (left) and stenotic coronary artery (right). Interpretation of angiograms can be subjectives and difficult. Computer vision algorithms can be used to make analyzations more accurate.

Adrian: Can you tell us a bit more about cardiac coronary angiograms? How are these images captured and how can computer vision/deep learning algorithms better/more efficiently analyze these images (as compared to humans)?

Paul: For definitive diagnosis and treatment of coronary artery disease (for example, during heart attack), cardiologists perform coronary angiogram to determine the anatomy and the extent of the stenosis. During the procedure, cardiologists put a narrow catheter from the wrist or the leg. Through the catheter, we inject contrast into the coronary arteries and the images are captured by X-ray. However, the interpretation of the angiogram is sometimes difficult: computer vision has the potential to make these determinations more objective and accurate.

Figure 3 (left) shows a normal coronary angiogram while Figure 3 (right) shows a stenotic coronary artery.

Adrian: What was the most difficult aspect of your research and why?

Paul: I only had around 5000 images.

At first, we did not know why we had so much trouble getting high accuracy. We thought our images were not preprocessed properly, or some of the images were blurry.

Later, we realized there was nothing wrong with our images: the problem was that ConvNets require lots of data to learn something simple to our human eyes.

Determining whether there is a stenosis in a coronary arterial tree in an image is computationally complex. Since sample size depends on classification complexity, we struggled. We had to find a way to train ConvNets with very limited samples.

Adrian: How long did it take for you to train your models and perform your research?

Paul: It took more than one year. Half the time was spent on gathering and preprocessing data, half the time on training and tuning the model. I would gather data, train and tune my models, gather more data or process the data differently, and improve my previous models, and keep repeating this circle.

Figure 4: Utilizing curriculum learning to improve model accuracy.

Adrian: If you had to pick the most important technique you applied during your research, what would it be?

Paul: I scoured PyImageSearch for technical tips to train ConvNets with small sample number of samples: transfer learning, image augmentation, using SGD instead of Adam, learning rate schedule, early stopping.

Every technique contributes to small improvement in F1 score, but I only reached about 65% accuracy.

I looked at Kaggle contest solutions to look for technical tips. The biggest breakthrough was from a technique called “curriculum learning.” I first trained DenseNet to interpret something very simple: “is there a narrowing in that short straight segment of artery?” That only took around a hundred sample.

Then I trained this pre-trained network with longer segments of arteries with more branches. The curriculum gradually build complexity until it learns to interpret the stenosis in the context of complicated figures. This approach dramatically improved our test accuracy to 82%. Perhaps the pre-training steps reduced computational complexity by priming information into the neural network.

“Curriculum learning” in the literature actually means something different: it generally refers to splitting their training samples based on error rates, and then sequencing the training data batches based on increasing error rate. In contrast, I actually created learning materials for the ConvNet to learn, not just re-arrange the batches based on error rate. I got this idea from my experience of learning foreign language, not from the computer literature. At the beginning, I struggled to understand newspaper articles written in Japanese. As I progressed through beginner, then to intermediate, and finally to advanced level Japanese curriculum, I could finally understand these articles.

Figure 5: Example screenshots from the CathNet iPhone app.

Adrian: What are your computer vision and deep learning tools, libraries, and packages of choice?

Paul: I am using standard packages: Keras, Tensorflow, OpenCV 4.

I use Photoshop to cleanup the images and to create curriculums.

Initially I was using cloud instances [for training], but I found that my RTX 2080 Ti x 4 Workstation is much more cost effective. The “global warming” from the GPUs killed my wife’s plants, but it dramatically speeded up model iteration.

We converted our Tensorflow models into an iPhone app using Core ML just like what you did for your Pokemon identification app.

Our demonstration video for our app is here:

Adrian: What advice would you give to someone who wants to perform computer vision/deep learning research but doesn’t know how to get started?

Paul: When I first started two years ago, I did not even know Python. After completing a beginner Python course, I jumped into Andrew Ng’s deep learning course. Because I needed more training, I began PyImageSearch guru course. The materials from Stanford CS231n are great for surveying the “big picture” but PyImageSearch course materials are immediately actionable for someone like me without computer science background.

Adrian: How did the PyImageSearch Gurus course and Deep Learning for Computer Vision with Python book prepare you for your research?

Paul: PyImageSearch course and books armed me with OpenCV and TensorFlow skills. I continuously return to the materials for technical tips and updates. Your advice really motivated me to push forward despite obstacles.

Adrian: Would you recommend the PyImageSearch Gurus course or Deep Learning for Computer Vision with Python to other budding researchers, students, or developers trying to learn computer vision + deep learning?

Paul: Without reservation. The course converted me from a Python beginner to a published computer vision practitioner. If you are looking for the most cost- and time-efficient way to learn Computer Vision, and if you are really serious, I wholeheartedly recommend PyImageSearch courses.

Adrian: What’s next for your research?

Paul: My next project is to bring computer vision to the bedside. Currently, clinicians are spending too much time on their desktop computer during office visit and hospital rounds. I hope our project will empower clinicians to do what they do best: spending time at the bedside caring for patients.

Adrian: If a PyImageSearch reader wants to chat about your work and research, what is the best place to connect with you?

Paul: I can be reached at my LinkedIn account and I look forward to hearing from your readers.

Summary

In this blog post, we interviewed Dr. Paul Lee (MD), an interventional cardiologist and Computer Vision/Deep Learning practitioner.

Dr. Lee recently presented a poster at the prestigious American Heart Association Scientific Session in Philadelphia, PA where he demonstrated how Convolutional Neural Networks can:

Automatically analyze and interpret coronary angiograms

Detect blockages in patient arteries

Help reduce and prevent heart attacks

The primary motivation for Dr. Lee’s work was that he understood that one day radiologists would one day be replaceable by Artificial Intelligence.

Instead of simply accepting that fate, Dr. Lee decided to take matters in his own hands — he strove to be the person building that AI, not the one being replaced by it.

Dr. Lee not only achieved his goal, but was able to publish his work at a distinguished conference, proof that dedication, a strong will, and the proper education is all you need to be successful in Computer Vision and Deep Learning.

If you want to follow in Dr. Lee’s footsteps, be sure to pick up a copy of Deep Learning for Computer Vision with Python (DL4CV) and join the PyImageSearch Gurus course.

Using these resources you can:

Perform research worthy of being published in reputable journals and conferences

Obtain the knowledge necessary to finish your MSc or PhD

Switch careers and obtain a CV/DL position at a respected company/organization

Successfully apply deep learning and computer vision to your own projects at work

Complete your hobby CV/DL projects you’re hacking on over the weekend

I hope you’ll join myself, Dr. Lee, and thousands of other PyImageSearch readers who have not only mastered computer vision and deep learning, but have taken that knowledge and used it to change their lives.

I’ll see you on the other side.

To be notified when future blog posts and interviews are published here on PyImageSearch, just be sure to enter your email address in the form below, and I’ll be sure to keep you in the loop.

The post An interview with Paul Lee – Doctor, Cardiologist and Deep Learning Researcher appeared first on PyImageSearch.

[gaad]

"When contemplating the Notre-Dame cathedral, one had better consider how its compares with other cathedrals and sacral buildings rather than begin by visualizing it as an accretion of mineral solids."(1) One also rarely judges the construction and constitution of it but rather contemplate it, astonished, without grasping the motive, as one could freeze in front of a monster. This accretion of mineral solids who stands in front of us, and those disseminated in Paris, are our rivals today. And we shall overpass them by our overwhelming greatest attention. By listening to you, you will listen to us. It is time for a new humanism. Time to set a place, a forum able to stage the powers of today. Time to call up the ancient, dispose them, squeez them, twist them to reassess todays world. We have lost the meaning of natural proportions, let us look at godly excess. Monotheic religion castrated our apprehension of the world, seeing things either good or bad. Even the Opera Garnier which claims to be an ecclectic, never-ending spectacle appears flat in its complicated oppulence. Sophisticated complexity is what we are longing to. The polytheic family encompasses the world and beyond, spinning around our prosaic flatland. A figure founded on intricated concepts is a powerfull constellation naviguating above polysemic ambiguities.  As the grand daughter of the Philantropist eponym Elisabeth Murdoch, Elisabeth Murdoch feels the will to engage her vision in the public debat. Since her childhood she was confronted to a rigourous, competitive, mostly manly world. Inspired by her grandmother she cultivated a spiritual friendship with greek feminin characters. Grew up with them. Now her interest does not lie in presenting her various personal relations with them but to stage them. (...)(A)dvertising, news, publicity, periodical literature. This is Elisabeth's inherited background. (...) They work to a single end: to give the stamp of authenticity and value to the style of life that emanates from the metropolis.(...) (T)hey create a picture of a unified, homogeneous, completely standardized population that bears, in fact, no relation to the actual regional sub stratum—although in the course of time it partly succeeds in producing the thing it has imagined. Take Paris for example: (...) the Champs Elysées, become the goals of vulgar ambition (and a)dvertisement becomes the “spiritual power” of this new regime.(2) Now we shall refute that. "This is the moment when the masterpieces of ancient sculpture are about to appear in all their glory in front of the eyes of France (...)  (they) have chosen to live amongst the French, and are to be adored in their living images. Ah! Who would be able to step into the temple of these divinities without saying to himself: these masterpieces, these gods had ceased to be gods for us; the cult of Antiquity had been forgotten; who would believe it?(...); it is Vien, it is David, who then made themselves into their apostles and ministers; it is through them that this great revolution, which has at least given us the hope of creating gods ourselves, has taken place in the arts."(3) So it appears appropriate also for us, architects, to call up and refer to past apostles of our art. Vitruve, Alberti, the one who in Momus places "the extended climax (...) in an urban theater where the gods act as their own effigies(, the one who) repeatedly uses the word persona (“mask” or “personality'') to underline the false, theatrical behavior of his characters."(4) Alberti will embody our urban theatre, Elisabeth's friends, our Personas. The story will therefore intentionally follow the unfaithfull path. And those masks will "assure(...) the erection, the construction of the (new) face (of Elisabeth), the fascialization of the head and the body: the mask(s) (are) now the face itself, the abstraction or operation of the face. The inhumanity of the face."(5) So be it. Let them be the masked actors of a twisted tragedy, trapped in their performance, speculating above our heads, fertilizing our ground. A spectacle of a new kind. Let them play, individually, together, contradict each other, themselves. Let them work as technologies, systems, embedded in concepts and rituals.

Three personas. Pandora, Circe, Metis. Not the ones we usually know. Their Alter Ego. The ones who stand up,do not apologize. This are Elisabeth's Friends. Pandora has herited a box, a jarre which contains unspeakable truth (she knows now how to sort things, pick up elements, unleash others). Circe masters metamorphosis by exploring with drugs and potions (she learned to articulate her recipes and to play with the right parameters) and Metis is renowned for his wiseness and cunning, making problems no longer valid. As a constellation, they are powerfull. As a unity, they can deal with the plenty, transform it. As an unfaithfull story, it accesses the realm of discussion. As statuses, they need a sophisticated territory from which to operate, a palace. Three Faces where "(i)t is not the individuality of (each) face that counts but the efficacy of the ciphering it makes possible, and in what cases it makes it possible.(...) The face is a surface, (...) the face is a map." (5)

"For each genre, now, the problem will be to decide whether its audience is such as to demand utility or delight or both, and what brand of either of these will be acceptable to it."(6)  Time to summon Alberti and Vitruve. But keep in mind : "The mathematics that is needed here is of a new brand."(7)  Their concept and ideas of proportions being a fertile ground from which we should elevate. If we follow them, we can see in the theatre typology a kind of mythical module. Take the theatre, elongate the arms along parallel lines and you have a circus, or duplicate it, set them in a circle and you have the amphitheatre. As such, they have most of their elements in common. Or as Alberti likes to say: "if I am not mistaken, (they) are totally composed of either stairways or, more especially, windows and doors."(8) Of course not. But we got the idea. Therefore Elizabeth's palace will be a theater, a circus and a amphitheater, simultaneously, as the temple of our time, able to adapt to change, suitable to glorify the unknown, a place which could embody the spectacle. The Palace of Spectacle. Our focus will lay on the didactic articulation of the elements in Alberti's treatise through the prisma of the theatre and how it can possibly be translated into contemporary logic. Keeping in mind that if "the whole matter of building is composed of lineaments and structure."(8) Alberti would be the first and our Personas the latter. So after we have chosen the locality and the area ,we should proceed to the "compartition (which) divides up the whole building into the parts by which it is articulated."(8) In our case: our three figures, one third for each, with their own structured language, tied together in a balancing whole "(j)ust as in music, where deep voices answer high ones, and intermediate ones are pitched between them, so they ring out in harmony." "We need to consider, therefore, which are the primary parts of the structure, their order, and the lines of which they are composed."(8) For this we should follow the generic category of Alberti which are walls, openings and roofs. The first will mostly be composed of "a row of columns (which) is nothing other than a wall that has been pierced in several places (...). For the second "The spaces between the columns should certainly be considered among the most important of openings"(8) encompassing doors and windows, maybe also inbetween categories. The third one, the roof, is in the case of the theatre a temporary element, which should provide the open area shelter from sun and rain. We can already foreshadow how a glass ceiling today could provide openness and protection. As we go further in Alberti's treatise, the categories receive subcategories and links between them are beginning to appear. "anything else that acts as a column and supports the trusses and roof arches (...) come under the description of bones. Also included in the bones are the coverings to the openings, that is, the beams, whether straight or arched: for I call an arch nothing but a curved beam, and what is a beam but a column laid crossways?"(8) Here we note the importance of the column (also in horizontal dimension). "The zone stretching between these primary parts is referred to appropriately as "paneling" (consisting) of two components, which (..) are common to the whole wall: the skin and the infill. There are two types of skin, the inner and the outer."(8)  Everything becomes clear. With this hierachy we almost feel the hardness of some elements, the softness of others and the possibilty to rreinterpret the layering and opacity of them. Now the connecting elements: the cornice which "binds the wall tightly together(, ...) binds the work (...) and in addition acts as a roof to the wall below,"(8) the roof which has almost the same categories and hierachies as the wall: "(...) the bones, muscles, infill paneling, skin, and crust" and "the (...) portico (which) facade and colonnade (...) do not receive light from outside (...) but face (...) toward the central area of the theater (preventing) sound from escaping."(8) Last but not least, the steps as the motive of the building. They shall throne on the structure for what they are, accretions of mineral solids. Otherwise, the material used will be mostly steel as we find it most suitable to depict the constituion of the building. Pandora, Circe and Metis "(...) (a)re living geometry, lines and curves of color, entwined into a coalescing whole yet maintaining distinct identities."(9) They shall express themselves following the articulation in each elements with different rythms, forms, proportions and nods.

1) D. Corfield, Towards a Philosophy of Real Mathematics 2) Mumford, The Culture of Cities 3) Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815 4) Alberti, Momus (Preface) 5) Deleuze Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus 6) Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance 1 7) Ayache, The Blank Swan 8) Alberti, On the Art of Building in ten Books 9) Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology