#i.e. the photo of robert

[stylespresleyhearted]

I didn't follow the elvis promo closely: what happened between Austin Butler and Olivia Dejonge?

hiiii ohh well i’d say it’s more about what happened before promo ??? i.e more specifically during filming and covid lockdown. it might be a bit lengthy so bear w me sweet anon

*if you don’t like olivia don’t read won’t tolerate hate against my girl 🌚*

so sometime in dec 2019 deuxmoi got a tip about olivia and austin checking into a hotel together and keep in mind this is before any vanessa + austin break up that i know of although DM didn’t make this public until either 2020 or 2021. there’s also two infamous photos :

that’s bebe orleans (a best friend of olivia’s during the time of filming i don’t think they’re friends anymore tho opp-) and a shirtless austin butler hugging her (apparently during this time olivia would post A LOT of stuff and austin or something of his would be in the background and as soon as fans pointed it out she would delete it poor girl is still so spooked by social media to this day)

Then there’s the infamous shirt-gate. Olivia wearing Austin’s Hawaiian shirt and this was posted to Olivia’s IG jan 2 2020 about two weeks before vaustin break up hit any headlines. vanessa fans clocked this and tore olivia apart. i’m not saying it was alright for olivia to post but she was young, she was about 20/21??? and we don’t know where austin and vanessa stood during this time. idk just ~ drama really. filming continued, life went on, austin was in london filming mota and then DM was sent in this tip right after the austin x lily rose photos dropped

Olivia followed DM when this was posted and only unfollowed them *after* this had been sent in. Now as much as I love Olivia and Olivia x Austin I actually don’t think they ever officially dated either like where Austin was claiming her as his girlfriend or girl or anything. I think they were just something ya know? Fucking, hanging out, feelings unrequited maybe but no titles. So yeah I don’t think Austin “cheated” on Olivia with Lily Rose but maybe they were still hanging out or Olivia was still waiting on him when the photos dropped so she was just hurt/heartbroken? Personally I think someone Olivia knows (or maybe Olivia herself) sent this in and knew using words like cheated would just make Austin look worse so they went that route with those words.

If you watch Elvis promo interviews/videos Olivia and Austin seem to get along just fine and this is where Kaia (austin’s long term gf) comes in. the photo of olivia holding austin’s face in cannes with kaia sitting behind them will always make me laugh because its so relatable i too would be messy having to see the guy who broke my heart be in love with his new gf while we promote the movie we’re in. olivia and kaia follow each other so i think they’re friendly as well. i think its kinda obvious that olivia did have feelings for austin/was hurt by him and then had to do promo with him where he sometimes brought along his new gf. this is when i really started to feel for her and began looking into her.

But then of course press tour ended and so did anything between austin and olivia??? they have different friend groups, live in different cities but then comes austin’s aacta speech

now austin robert butler why in the damn hell were you waxing so poetically about your co star who by this point wants seemingly nothing to do with you? i love this speech and can rewatch it and cry especially when you realize olivia didn’t mention austin by name not even once in her acceptance speech. i don’t think she did that to be petty i think she didn’t want the drama of it which i can understand. so i think she was just distancing herself from the elvis experience already by this point and trying to move on. there’s one (1) photo of them at the Oscars greeting each other but idk as much as it hurts me i think olivia really just wanted to move on from this part of her life. she’s good friends with sophie turner (who i also love and think is so awesome) and one night last year went to dinner with sophie and taylor swift and unfollowed austin. she tried to play it off by unfollowing 100 people the next day lol but girlie u didn’t fool anyone!

fun fact and unrelated but in 2022 kaia was having a girls night with charlotte lawrence (her best friend) and this same night charlotte followed olivia on ig (olivia who was in australia) so i always wondered if kaia was maybe talking about olivia lmao

now i think i’ve covered the most important parts but honestly it’s a lot of lore and most of it unconfirmed you just have to use your basic common sense and critical thinking skills it is not hard to see there was obviously something between them and olivia was hurt. i think if timing and the elvis possession and austin’s identity crisis during all this played a big part in them not publicly dating but i think in a different time/life they could have been “the one” and i associate maroon and the 1 by taylor swift to them. i love olivia, she’s gorgeous, talented, chill, minds her business, kind, idk what everyone has against her.

also gonna tag @bcofl0ve on this because she knows a lot more than me on this subject and was auslivia president she can correct me on anything if im wrong.

[crossdreamers]

The real reasons for the anti-LGBTQA bills in the US

The transphobic laws of American states reflects a fear of the future and a longing for an idealized past that never existed.

Alejandra Caraballo has  compiled a legislative tracker for anti-LGBTQ bills, which can be found here.  It is a depressing spreadsheet, for sure, but it is necessary to make the sheer aggressiveness of the Republican attacks against trans and queer people visible.

Right now there are 27 bills banning gender affirming care,  15 bills banning trans people from sports, and 6 bills banning drag.

So why are the Republicans doing this? Here are some tentative answers:

1. The Party has been taken over by nationalist extremists who have no vision of a better future. They have no real policies. Instead they try to mobilize supporters by presenting some idealized past (MAGA!) that never existed and which was not that great in the first place. The idea is that this longing for simpler times will appeal to those who live in fear of the future. 

Putin’s aggressive anti-LGBTQA policies reveals a similar need for a cultural distraction.

2. The Republicans have, for all practical purposes, lost the Millennials and Gen Z. Since they have no policies that can appeal to them, they will have to mobilize the older generations, which  tend to be more conservative. When people get older, they become more invested in the status quo. They think they have more to lose, and they find the younger generations harder to understand. 

3. Like the anti-gay activism of 20th century, the anti-transgender activism of the 21st is based on a made up threat scenario. LGBTQA-people threaten “American values”, exemplified by the nuclear family understood as a married cis/straight couple with a couple of kids. 

This ideal family represents traditional gender values, which are seen as the basis for American white culture. As the acceptance of gay nuclear families shows, queer people are not really a threat to the nuclear family. People are free to make one, and the majority do. The number of queer and trans people is so low that it is hard to see them as a threat in the real world. But this is not about the real world.

Drag queens are seen as a threat to the traditional nuclear family, because they play with gender roles the traditionalists see as God given or defined by nature. Photo: Alessandro Biascioli.

4. Racism, homophobia and transphobia are deeply embedded in culture, in language, in media, in religious tropes, which means that a lot of people have adopted these prejudices without thinking much about them. 

If your parents and your friends have show disgust when queer and transgender people are mentioned, you are easily conditioned into feeling the same fear and disgust. 

The most effective medicine against this is exposure, i.e. for the fearful to meet marginalized people and see them for what they truly are: Real People. This is why the Republicans want to force all LGBTQA people back into the closet. As long as they are not revealed to be real and complex people, the anti-LGBTQA propaganda will have an effect.

Some have asked me why the gender critical TERFs, which are supposed to left wing feminists, go along with this. The answer is simple: The TERFs are either part of this reactionary movement themselves, or they have invested so much in finding an identity in a sexist world like this present, that a new world is seen as a threat to that identity.

So for the good news: The reason the Republicans in the US and  similar extremists in other parts of the world, are playing this card, is because they know they are losing. The Republicans do not have the majority of Americans behind them. The extremism makes them lose national elections. Putin is losing his war.  They need to do this now, before the new, more tolerant, generations take over. This is the tipping point, and they know it.

This is why queer and trans people and all good people, from the left to the right, need top keep on fighting the good fight.

Photo: H. Armstrong Roberts

[germanpostwarmodern]

Castelvecchio, the museum inside a 14th century castle, without doubt is Carlo Scarpa’s magnum opus: for almost two decades he worked on its transformation in a continuous process guided by the building’s history. Exploring it Scarpa frequently discovered new aspects and historical layers to which he reacted in his designs, a modus operandi pivotal to the understanding of his architecture. In line with the Castelvecchio’s importance it also takes up considerable space in Robert McCarter’s Scarpa monograph, first published in 2013 by Phaidon: along some 20 projects the author chronologically explores Scarpa’s oeuvre in a remarkably atmospheric manner, i.e. by describing his experiences of the buildings which are then supplemented with biographical and historical information. In so doing McCarter effectively brings the reader close to the first-hand experience of Scarpa’s architecture, experiences he seems to be very fond of as he (rightly) describes them as transformative.

Another well-known aspect of Scarpa’s work that bears repeating is his focus on craft and his ingenious ability to make the most of it: already in his introduction, tellingly captioned „verum ipsum factum“, McCarter emphasizes Scarpa’s infallible attention to detail that eventually made him a regular presence at each building site, a fact that is further underscored by his practice of drawing and sketching on site instead of handing working drawings to his craftsmen and workers. Unfortunately of these drawings there aren’t that many included in the book, a bearable flaw in view of the excellent photos and the numerous other publications on Scarpa’s work. Robert McCarter’s monograph surely is both a perfect introduction to Carlo Scarpa and an insightful read for those already familiar with his fascinating work and thus a highly recommended read!

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

“Like I said to the last guy, you're wrong. Children are absolutely being groomed by trans activists and pedophiles”

Wow I didn’t know that republicans were trans activists!

Republican anti-abortion activist Howard Scott Heldreth is a convicted child rapist in Florida.

Republican County Commissioner David Swartz pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 8 years in prison.

Republican judge Mark Pazuhanich pleaded no contest to fondling a 10-year old girl and was sentenced to 10 years probation.

Republican anti-abortion activist Nicholas Morency pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer and offering a bounty to anybody who murders an abortion doctor.

Republican legislator Edison Misla Aldarondo was sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping his daughter between the ages of 9 and 17.

Republican Mayor Philip Giordano is serving a 37-year sentence in federal prison for sexually abusing 8- and 10-year old girls.

Republican campaign consultant Tom Shortridge was sentenced to three years probation for taking nude photographs of a 15-year old girl.

Republican racist pedophile and United States Senator Strom Thurmond had sex with a 15-year old black girl which produced a child.

Republican pastor Mike Hintz, whom George W. Bush commended during the 2004 presidential campaign, surrendered to police after admitting to a sexual affair with a female juvenile.

Republican legislator Peter Dibble pleaded no contest to having an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl.

Republican Congressman Donald "Buz" Lukens was found guilty of having sex with a female minor and sentenced to one month in jail.

Republican fundraiser Richard A. Delgaudio was found guilty of child porn charges and paying two teenage girls to pose for sexual photos.

Republican activist Mark A. Grethen convicted on six counts of sex crimes involving children.

Republican activist Randal David Ankeney pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault on a child.

Republican Congressman Dan Crane had sex with a female minor working as a congressional page.

Republican activist and Christian Coalition leader Beverly Russell admitted to an incestuous relationship with his step daughter.

Republican congressman and anti-gay activist Robert Bauman* was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar.

Republican Committee Chairman Jeffrey Patti was arrested for distributing a video clip of a 5-year-old girl being raped.

Republican activist Marty Glickman (a.k.a. "Republican Marty"), was taken into custody by Florida police on four counts of unlawful sexual activity with an underage girl and one count of delivering the drug LSD.

Republican legislative aide Howard L. Brooks was charged with molesting a 12-year old boy and possession of child pornography.

Republican Senate candidate John Hathaway was accused of having sex with his 12-year old baby sitter and withdrew his candidacy after the allegations were reported in the media.

Republican preacher Stephen White, who demanded a return to traditional values, was sentenced to jail after offering $20 to a 14-year-old boy for permission to perform oral sex on him.

Republican talk show host Jon Matthews pleaded guilty to exposing his genitals to an 11 year old girl.

Republican anti-gay activist Earl "Butch" Kimmerling was sentenced to 40 years in prison for molesting an 8-year old girl after he attempted to stop a gay couple from adopting her.

Republican Party leader Paul Ingram pleaded guilty to six counts of raping his daughters and served 14 years in federal prison.

Republican election board official Kevin Coan was sentenced to two years probation for soliciting sex over the internet from a 14-year old girl.

Republican politician Andrew Buhr was charged with two counts of first degree sodomy with a 13-year old boy.

Republican politician Keith Westmoreland was arrested on seven felony counts of lewd and lascivious exhibition to girls under the age of 16 (i.e. exposing himself to children).

Republican anti-abortion activist John Allen Burt was charged with sexual misconduct involving a 15-year old girl.

Republican County Councilman Keola Childs* pleaded guilty to molesting a male child.

Republican activist John Butler was charged with criminal sexual assault on a teenage girl.

Republican candidate Richard Gardner admitted to molesting his two daughters.

Republican Councilman and former Marine Jack W. Gardner was convicted of molesting a 13-year old girl.

Republican County Commissioner Merrill Robert Barter* pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and assault on a teenage boy.

Republican City Councilman Fred C. Smeltzer, Jr. pleaded no contest to raping a 15 year-old girl and served 6-months in prison.

Republican activist Parker J. Bena pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on his home computer and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000.

Republican parole board officer and former Colorado state representative, Larry Jack Schwarz, was fired after child pornography was found in his possession.

Republican strategist and Citadel Military College graduate Robin Vanderwall was convicted in Virginia on five counts of soliciting sex from boys and girls over the internet.

Republican city councilman Mark Harris, who is described as a "good military man" and "church goer," was convicted of repeatedly having sex with an 11-year-old girl and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Republican businessman Jon Grunseth withdrew his candidacy for Minnesota governor after allegations surfaced that he went swimming in the nude with four underage girls, including his daughter.

Republican director of the "Young Republican Federation" Nicholas Elizondo molested his 6-year old daughter and was sentenced to six years in prison.

Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups, Richard A. Dasen Sr., was charged with rape for allegedly paying a 15-year old girl for sex. Dasen, 62, who is married with grown children and several grandchildren, has allegedly told police that over the past decade he paid more than $1 million to have sex with a large number of young.

Republican state senator Ralph Shortey from Oklahoma admitted to being involved in sodomy with a 17 year old male prostitute and transporting child pornography.

Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert in jail for the payments he made to cover up raping his wrestlers when he was a high school coach.

Republican Judge and campaign official for President Donald Trump, Tim Nolan, indicted for human trafficking and forcing a minor (9) to engage in sexual activity and giving alcohol to minors (results from the court pending).

Oh my God! Only one political party at a time can abuse children! You've done it. You've totally proved me wrong about trans grooming and sexual abuse in schools. It can't possibly be happening because it's the Republicans turn to be child molesters.

[newyorkthegoldenage]

The Algonquin Round Table Onstage

One hundred years ago today, on April 30, 1922, members of the Algonquin Round Table rented the 49th Street Theater for the evening and invited their friends to a satirical revue called No Siree. Its name was a takeoff on that of an immensely popular revue called La Chauve-Souris. Each performer chose his or her guests, ensuring an enthusiastic audience.

Heywood Broun was the MC. The first number was a parody of Eugene O’Neill’s plays Anna Christie and The Hairy Ape called The Greasy Hag (music by Arthur Samuels, played by Jascha Heifetz, no less). It featured an all-male chorus line of F.P.A. (Franklin P. Adams), Robert Benchley, Marc Connelly, George S. Kaufman, John Peter Toohey (a theatrical press agent), and Alexander Woollcott. The setting was up to the audience, multiple choice:

According to Connelly, the sketch included “a line so full of swear words that no one would quote it in mixed company” (the Twenties weren’t that far off from the Victorian Age).

The next number was He Who Gets Flapped, a not-so-subtle play on the title of a current drama called He Who Gets Slapped. It featured an original song by Dorothy Parker and Deems Taylor, “The Everlastin’ Ingenue Blues,” which included the lines

We are little flappers, never growing up, And we’ve all of us been flapping since Belasco was a pup. We’ve got the blues, we mean the blues, You’re the first to hear the devastating news. We’d like to take a crack at playing Lady Macbeth, But we’ll whisper girlish nothings with our dying breath. As far as we’re concerned, there is no sting in death We’ve got those everlasting ingénue blues.

It was sung by the 6’8” Robert Sherwood, in white flannels, blazer, and bowler, surrounded by petite chorus girls who included Tallulah Bankhead, Helen Hayes, Ruth Gillmore, Lenore Ulric, and Mary Brandon (whom Sherwood married later that year).

Above: Dorothy Parker in 1924 and Robert Sherwood in 1928.

Robert Benchley delivered a monologue (which was left off the program, to surprise the audience) that he had thought up in the cab on the way to the theater: a rambling, disjointed report delivered by an ill-prepared company treasurer at a meeting of the board of directors. It was so big a hit that it was filmed six years later, thus beginning a new career for Benchley in Hollywood. It was included, in modified form, in the 1943 film The Sky’s the Limit:

Other highlights of the program included a spoof of popular playwrights Zoe Akins, called “Zowie, or the Curse of an Akins Heart,” and A.A. Milne, called “Mr. Whim Passes By.” After the show, cast and audience (i.e., their friends) went to a party at the home of Herbert Swope, the editor of the NY World (newspaper), who often played poker with members of the Round Table. It lasted till 4:00 a.m.

A review in the Times the next day called the show silly and amateurish, but a later critic theorized that it marked a turning point in the Vicious Circle, ending their apprenticeship phase and moving into more serious comedy.

Photos: Painting of the Algonquin Round Table by Milton Yarensky via the Great Neck Record;  Dorothy Parker by Vandamm via NYPL; Robert Sherwood by Vandamm via Wikipedia; program from Ashcroft & Moore Auctions

[opera-ghosts]

OTD in Music History: Composer, pianist, and pedagogue Ignaz Moscheles (1794 - 1870) dies in Leipzig. Although Moscheles is far from a household name today -- even in many "classical" music circles -- he played a number of important roles in the course of 19th Century musical history, and he is certainly one of the most important "forgotten" 19th Century figures. Student of Muzio Clementi (1752 - 1832)... good friend (and sometimes competitor) to prominent virtuoso pianists Johann Baptist Cramer (1771 - 1858), Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778 - 1837), and Friedrich Kalkbrenner (1785 - 1849)... trusted helper to Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827), who was so impressed with the young man's abilities that he actually entrusted him with the preparation of the piano-vocal version of his only opera, "Fidelio"... music teacher to Felix Mendelssohn (1809 - 1847) and Arthur Sullivan (1842 - 1900)... close colleague to Robert Schumann (1810 - 1856) and Franz Liszt (1811 - 1886)... Moscheles knew everyone, and everyone knew Moscheles... PICTURED: An original c. 1828 copy of sheet music for one of Moscheles's virtuoso piano solos -- in this case, a four-hand two-piano arrangement of a popular song, which he dedicated to Cramer. Moscheles has also signed this copy on the front cover. This was known as a "control mark," and it was actually a somewhat common device deployed by composers at the end of the 18th Century and in the early 19th Century (i.e., in the days before a functional international copyright system came into existence) in an effort to help ensure that printed copies in circulation were authentic, and not pirated. The first photo in this series is interesting in that it illustrates a very early metronomic tempo marking: "[eighth note symbol] = 66 Maelzel's Metronome." As this rather unusual terminology suggests, in 1828, the metronome itself was still a new and novel device; Johann Maelzel (1772 - 1838) had only patented the first modern metronome 12 years earlier, in 1816.

The last photo in this photo set also contains another interesting note -- an instruction reassuring the player that they should feel free to disregard any notes indicated in the score that are "found beyond the compass of [their] instrument.”

By 1828, the keyboard element of the grand piano as we know it today had *largely* come into being -- at least in very broad strokes. (Substantial further refinements were still to come, of course, especially regarding the construction of the soundboard and the action.) But just a generation earlier, the pianoforte was still very much an evolving instrument, and the harpischord was still quite popular; hence Moscheles’s keen awareness that many of the keyboard instruments sitting in middle-class parlors across Europe would be earlier models that didn't have all of the latest bells and whistles (or keys) as the cutting-edge models for which Moscheles was composing his music. This instruction is a direct nod to that practical reality.

[tiadwyer]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Kenneth Roberts mens shirt *large.

[morganmccaskiecogc]

Photojournalism | News Research

Video Notes

Changing from physical papers to internet/online presence

Decline in newspaper sales

Fewer people are interested in physical newspapers

2.25 million readers lost interest in newspapers

Half a million people stopped buying Sunday papers

Advertising makes up the majority of newspaper pages

Adverts have moved from physical newspapers to online advertising

Local papers have taken the largest hit

Advertisements are the main source of income for newspaper businesses

Journalists, editors, and newspaper staff face job loss

The newspaper has faced revolutions before (radio, TV, etc.)

Modernisation began in the 1980s

Fleet Street was the newspaper 'hub' of the country up until the '80s

"Modernisation" was transferring to computerised offices

The only major British paper not to lose readers in the previous year was The Sun

The Sun won more awards than any other paper

They reduced their price to keep customers (still retaining good profits)

The Sun's main competitor is The Mirror

120-page newspaper, 30,000 copies per hour (40 pages in colour) upgraded to 80,000 copies per hour (all pages in colour)

Investing in new technology and processes

Due to these investments, some papers had to increase prices

Free giveaways are a technique used to boost sales i.e. when The Sun was giving away a free CD copy of McFly's newest album at the time - The Sun gained 300,000 additional readers and the McFly album reached 2.5 million listeners in one weekend

Metro 55% news and 45% advertisements

Robert Murdoch - CEO of News Corporation

The digital revolution is bringing more competition

If readers can't immediately find something on your website - they'll look elsewhere

Videos were being introduced as a form of news outlet on websites/online

Online news is generally free which has an impact on newspaper profitability

Two-thirds of the Guardian's readers are out with the UK

The market is global - no longer physically/geographically restricted

Reader-specific advertising to improve adverts and reader experience

Amazon released the Kindle - subscriptions to newspapers available (as well as books) portable, user-friendly

The younger population tends not to read traditional newspapers

Presentation Questions

Where do you get news?

Television

Radio

Social Media e.g. Twitter

Online newspaper websites

Word of mouth

Four tenets of a newspaper:

Accessible by the public

Published at regular intervals

Information is current

Covers a variety of topics

Why were newspapers so powerful?

The main or only source of news for a long time

Influential

With the inevitable demise of newspapers, what are the implications for photographers today?

Less work

Reduced pay

Stock photos over hiring out

More easily accessible images via the internet

No job security

Paparazzi dominating tabloids

"Citizen" Journalism i.e. newspapers buying images from citizens/pedestrians who happened to take a snap on their phone

Benefits of online news

Larger audience

More exposure

Opportunities for press photographers

Freelance work

Agency work

Can send images to papers rather than working for them

Don't have to wait to be "discovered"

Benefits of working for an agency

Guaranteed work

Additional opportunities

Job security

Benefits

Photo Agencies

Agent France Presse

Reuters

Corbis

Getty

Magnum

Broadsheets

The Times

Sunday Times

The Telegraph

The Guardian

The Observer

The Herald

The Scotsman

The Independent

Tabloids

The Sun

The Mirror

The Daily Mail

The Daily Record

Sunday Mail

Tabloid/Broadsheet Task

What is the photographic style of the paper? Why do you think that is? Daily Record - Attention-grabbing with various images to keep the reader's attention. The Independent - Takes a more organised/structured approach primarily full of informative articles and fewer images.

How many images are in the paper? 161 images in the independent vs. 189 in The Daily Record.

How many are credited? Only 18 of the 161 images were credited to The Independent

Comment on the layout of the paper. What proportion text, what proportion images? In The Independent, there is an even split of images and text, whereas The Daily Record has slightly more images than text.

Freelance or Staff - can you tell? When looking for credited images, sometimes the same names appear which might indicate these photographers are staff for the paper as their images are used consistently throughout.

Comment on the quality of the image and effectiveness; does it tell the story? The images with accompanying text work well to help convey the story.

Look for similar stories/events. An article regarding Russia and Ukraine.

Where is the article? Page 23 in The Daily Record, page 33 in The Independent.

[gctonki]

Chess plus score open

CHESS PLUS SCORE OPEN REGISTRATION

CHESS PLUS SCORE OPEN PLUS

Taylor (Closed Sundays)Īrtopolis Bakery, Cafe & Agora, 306 S.

CHESS PLUS SCORE OPEN PLUS

I left out some great photos of young players because we didnt have parental clearance. 2022 Washington Open plus various side events, 2022 Washington Barber + Rockefeller Qualifier, Northwest Regional. Polk (Closed Sundays)Ĭurry on File Indian Cuisine, 1030 W. TD Daniel Parmet (visit his website at ) was kind enough to share photos of the players at Saturdays Plus-score 11. There are several great restaurants in Little Italy and Greektown within walking distance, but we'd suggest waiting until dinner to visit them. Quick dining options within a half-mile walk include:įontano Foods 1058 W. DININGĪrgo Tea may be open on the second floor of Student Center East Chick-fil-A is open most Saturdays. Short taxi ride from all Loop METRA stations. Union Station is a 0.8 mile walk , Ogilvie Transportation Center is a 1.1 mile walk . Take Blue Line CTA train to UIC Halsted or 8 bus (Halsted) to Polk or 12 bus (Roosevelt) to Halsted. The KCF University Cup is an international online event which is open to teams. with purchase of parking sticker (normal all-day rate is $8.50). A team is made up of four players plus up to two optional alternates. The playing site, located in Gahanna OH, is conveniently located just east of Columbus, five minutes from Columbus. See below for the advantages over place-based scoring. You play 4 games, players are divided into 2 sections. There is no catch-up mechanic in Chess, and I would argue that 90 of the time, the better player wins, so sometimes it does feel like you are going through the. tournament that has an unrated section, until youve achieved at least one plus score. The Chess Enterprise presents, The Columbus Plus-Score, a one day OTB chess tournament. READ Chess pieces come alive: Industrialist Anand Mahindra hails superb. India A and India C will lock horns in a crucial sixth-round match in the open section at the 44th Chess Olympiad in Mamallapuram, Tamil Nadu on Friday. PARKINGĪll-day parking is available for $7 in the UIC Halsted/Taylor Parking Structure at 760 W. For those players rated under 1200 by the U.S. The open section has been a roller coaster ride with 12th seed Armenia shooting into sole lead with a 12/12 score. It’s only happened twice: Raj Chennareddy (pictured) in 2018 and Aren Emrikian in 2017. ½-point bye any round: request before rd. We do not guarantee that your child will become World Under-8 Champion by playing in our events. ENT: online or mail to Chicago Chess Center NFP Inc. $30 playup fee for players under 1700 in Open Section. $15 playup fee for players under 1200 in Under 1800 section. and round 1 is now at 9:30! (Round 1 byes available for sleepyheads.)Įach player with 4 points wins $240, 3½ $120, 3 $60, 2½ $30 UNDER 1800

CHESS PLUS SCORE OPEN REGISTRATION

Please note that round 1 registration now CLOSES at 9 a.m. Ponomariov, the only other player to finish with a ~, finished 2nd with +3-2=7, losing with the Black pieces to Kasparov.4SS, G/60 +5 seconds increment, Room 605 UIC Student Center East, 750 S. It was his first tournament as FIDE World Champion and the first time in his life that he would face Kasparov over the board. Players with minus scores discard the highest scoring opponent's score. Players with ~s discard only the lowest scoring opponent's score. The ex-world champion could easily draw the game. 2.5 in a five- round event) the same as the Median. With a fantastic score, 9.5 points/11 games, Rustam Kasimdzhanov is the winner of this year’s Ordix Open His opponent in this last round, Robert Ruck, did not have enough energy anymore after his battle with Morozevich in the previous round. Modified median treats players with even scores (i.e. In this game from the 2017 championship he made quick work of Grandmaster Yaroslav Zherebukh. One of his specialties is the ability to win with the Black pieces, often quickly, even against strong GMs. Continuing their remarkable run in the 44th FIDE Chess Olympiad, the 12th-seeded Armenia defeated second-seeded India 2.5-1.5 and maintained their sole lead with 15 match points at the end of the eighth round.The 11th-seeded India 2 defeated the top-seeded U.S. Hikaru Nakamura has won five US Championships, often with high plus scores. He also had success against other world-class grandmasters such as David Bronstein, Lev Polugaevsky, and Efim Geller. Nezhmetdinov won a number of games against world champions such as Mikhail Tal, against whom he had a lifetime plus score, and Boris Spassky. He won one, drew one and lost one against Spassky, who was the reigning World Champion at the time. What isn't remembered anywhere near as much is the fact that Larsen had a plus score on board one in the aforementioned 1970 Match of the Century.

[photographyatmit]

BlogPost #3

Eye Tracking

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Garry Winogrand

William Klein

Robert Frank

Imagined Photographs

Kasra and I decided on taking two pictures. Our intentions for the images were very different, but we merged them into something greater than the sum. Kasra was intrigued by the colors in the sky and clouds when the sun is setting/rising. He was also interested in adventuring with colors, i.e. color-grading. I was interested in the contrast of two locations in the city, along the same street and only 7 mins apart. For context, on one side of Massachusetts Ave near Boston Symphony Orchestra you can see beautiful buildings, The First Church of Christ, and Northeastern University. Going toward Boston Medical Center, you will witness a sudden change in surroundings; Beautiful buildings slowly changing place to neglected neighborhoods, pedestrians with Smart watches and brand clothing give way to a population of homeless people.

Despite our different intentions, they merged very well. The sunrise and its warm colors are a symbol of new beginnings, hope and prosperity, going well with the BSO picture. The sunset with its ominous red give visions of frailty, ends and lost opportunities. Below, we outline the details of these two pictures.

Frame 1: Sunrise

This picture will be taken near Boston Symphony Orchestra, facing northeast towards a pool. The ‘Mass Ave’ sign should be well lit and clear in the picture. The picture is taken specifically to have lots of open spaces, and at least 20% clear sky (to elicit hopefulness). The sun will rise between two buildings, when its color is almost bright yellow/orange. There are 2-3 people in the frame, all walking or running, spaced apart, on the other side of the street, about 10 feet away. They are indifferent to each other, as if consumed by their own livelihoods. They either don’t express emotion, or express joy to a small extent. Everything should be in focus, and nothing should be blurred. The colors should be slightly saturated, towards green and yellow to elicit life.

Frame 2: Sunset

This picture will be taken after crossing Boston Medical Center, facing southeast towards the homeless community that sit there with their belongings (e.g., shopping carts full of clothes and plastic bags).  Again, the ‘Mass Ave’ sign should be well lit and clear in the picture. This picture must have small bits of sky, ideally cloudy, and should be more filled with the chaos of the community (to elicit a sense of claustrophobia). The sun has mostly set, which casts an ominous red beneath the clouds. There are ~15 people in the frame, all sitting down, cramped together, about 3 feet from the camera. They are closer than the people in the other picture, albeit tired and depressed, as if they cannot forget the turmoil they are in. Their emotions are mostly a mix of fatigue, anger and care. Ideally, the focus should be on the people to guide the audience amid the chaos, but the sign must also be in focus. All colors except red should be undersaturated to give the chaotic population a grey and washed-out palette. Amid this grey, the sign should be bright green (if possible) to gather the attention of the audience and help them see the point of these two pictures.

We were very happy with these pictures and the message they entail. There is a great deal of ideality and opportunism in the conditions we like for the photos, but we believe the combination of people, symbolism of the sun, color palette and framing deliver our vision.

[tilbageidanmark]

Movies I watched this Week #87

I finally watched (transfixed!) Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles, Chantal Akerman’s feminist masterpiece. This detailed portrayal of middle-aged housewife Delphine Seyrig for 3+ hours was hypnotic and subversive. Akerman made it with an all-female crew when she was 25.

The meticulous dullness of her daily routine, her regimented obsessiveness were so tedious, so mundane, that when the tiniest cracks showed on the surface, they were shocking: like the split-second pause when she was peeling potatoes. So different, it reminded me of Polanski’s Repulsion.

Still, mysteries remained: What was the meaning of the flickering blue light in the living room? What was the arrangement with the baby? 8/10.

Next on my list: Her previous film ‘Je Tu Il Elle’.

🍿  3 more by Alejandro Jodorowsky:

🍿 The Dance of Reality (2013) was Jodorowsky's first film after a hiatus of 23 years. Magical realism like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, dreamy surrealism like Salvador Dalí, breathtaking poetry like Salman Rushdie - there’s nobody in cinema like Jodorowsky. If I were to organise the 1500+ films I’ve seen since the beginning of last year, this will possibly rank as my very best, No. 1 film. Wow! (Photos Above).

🍿 “I wanted to make a film that will give the people who took LSD at that time the hallucinations you get with that drug, but without hallucinating...”

Jodorowsky’s Dune, a 2012 documentary about his legendary lost masterpiece. He gathered a formidable team of participants, Orson Welles, Jean ‘Mœbius’ Giraud, H.R. Giger, Pink Floyd, Salvador Dalí (who was to get paid $100,000 per minute of screen time), Mick Jagger, Udo Kier, Amanda Lear, and others. But the 10-14 hour running time was eventually one of the reasons the film was never made.

🍿 The Severed Heads (1957) was his first film (which was thought to be lost for over half a century). It’s a low-budget, short mime adaptation of a Thomas Mann story, about a woman who sells human heads at her shop. Avant-garde film-school concept, that I found simple and unimpressive.

🍿  

2 special Beatles features:

🍿John & Yoko: Above Us Only Sky, a terrific documentary about the 1971 recording of the Imagine album at their Tittenhurst Park home. A must have for any Beatles fan. 9/10.

🍿 The complete Magical Mystery Tour 1967 movie is available for free viewing on the Internet Archive! I remember proudly owning the original double-EP with 24-pg booklet and listening the heck out of it, to "Magical Mystery Tour”, “Your Mother Should Know", “I Am the Walrus", “The Fool on the Hill”, "Flying", and “Blue Jay Way".

Joyful silliness, random drug-fueled hallucinations - No wonder it was misunderstood and poorly received at the time!

🍿 

2 starring Faye Dunaway and Robert Duvall:

🍿“The American people want somebody to articulate their rage for them !”...

I just learnt about ‘Culture Industry’, Theodor Adorno’s Marxist term that explains ‘Pop Culture’ as a 'factory which produces standardized cultural goods (I.e. entertainment, sports, news, politics, fashion, technology, slang., etc), that are used to manipulate mass society into passivity’. And at the very same day, I re-watched Paddy Chayefsky’s prescient masterpiece Network, still a perfect metaphor for exactly this concept.

Remarkable performances by all the actors, Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall and Ned Beatty as Arthur Jensen, terrific dialogue and prophetic satire. 

I didn’t realize that the Howard Beale story was based on a real on-screen suicide that happened two years earlier in Sarasota, Florida. 10/10.

🍿 I finally mustered up the courage to watch Margaret Atwood's dystopic The Handmaid's Tale. This Misogynist vision which is taking over America is the scariest shit I know. I'm literally heartbroken when thinking about the fate of women in the 2030 United States of Gilead, after the abolition of the constitution.

However, as a movie, this 1990 version was not scary enough, also not good enough. In spite of the talent involved: Screenplay by Harold Pinter, score by Ryuichi Sakamoto, etc. 2/10.

🍿

My first film from Tunisia, The man who sold his skin, was nominated for 2021 Oscar for 'Best foreign film’. A thought-provoking story full of pathos of young Syrian lovers who must separate after the start of the civil war. The girl is saved by marrying a wealthy man and moving to Belgium, and the boy agrees to have a large visa tattooed on his back by a controversial artist, so that he too can move to Europe, hoping he’ll win the woman’s back. Becoming a commodified living canvas becomes a flashpoint of meanings about art & politics. With Monica Bellucci. 8/10.

🍿

Buñuel’s nonredeemable world of Viridiana, “voted the best Spanish film of all time in a 2016 poll organized by Spanish film magazine Caimán Cuadernos de Cine”. Sacrilegious, blasphemous finger in the eye of all that is holy, charity, piousness, Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, forgiveness, progress. 9/10.

🍿 

First watch: I didn’t get Mildred Pierce. The story of an independent, single woman, who manages to build a successful business on her own, and which is framed as a murder mystery (that was not in the original James M. Cain novel) never got me engaged. And the clash of a self-sacrificing mother and her spoiled, ungrateful daughter, who hated her because she can never give her the lifestyle she deserves was muddled up for me.

🍿

In the thrilling French romance Two of us (Deux, 2019) two elderly women, who live across the hall from each other, have also been secret lovers for decades, and now plan to move to Rome together. But then one of them has a stroke and becomes mute and paralyzed, and is unable to tell her family the truth about her relationship. A beautiful Old People drama of the same level and maturity as Michael Haneke’s ‘Amour’, Charlotte Rampling’s ‘45 years’, and Stanley Tucci’s ‘Supernova’. Barbara Sukowa is magnificent in it. 9/10.

🍿

2 with Chinese actress Tang Wei:

🍿 Long Day's Journey into Night (2018, and unrelated to the Eugene O'Neill play of the same name), directed by the young Chinese prodigy Bi Gan. A strange and different Poetic Noir film about dreams and memories. Esoteric, literary and complex, it tells of a man coming back to the neglected mine town of his childhood after the death of his father, and of his looking for a woman he loved and lost 20 years earlier.

It end with a spectacular hour-long, single-take 3-D shot of a dream within a movie theater, that is as evocative and unique as any of Tarkovsky or Terrence Malick most artful scenes. (I streamed the 2D version, but read that watching it in 3D elevates the film even more.)

🍿 Decision to leave, my third by Park Chan-wook (after ‘Oldboy’ and ‘The handmaiden’). His latest is a poetic romantic Korean noir about a married insomniac detective who falls in love with a mysterious murder suspect. Plus for the use of Mahler’s symphony, but otherwise I could not fathom the subtext of the symbolic plot.

🍿

Pauline at the beach, my first of Éric Rohmer’s 1980s series ‘Comedies and Proverbs’. This sunny, airy, sensual and elegant story is the kind of film I can watch all day every day, like a sweet and light cup of citron mousse. 8/10.

🍿

Love Me Tonight (1932), a pre-Code musical comedy with Maurice Chevalier playing a Parisian tailor. It starts with an innovative opening of City awakening, that is nearly like a ‘Blue Man’ episode.

🍿

My first from Congo, Zombies by Baloji, is rather a 15-minutes music essay, a reflection on Kinshasa’s technology-obsessive generation. Wildly creative “in the style of Takeshi Kitano”. 🍿 

“…Are you tired of sloppy, cut-rate funerals?…”

While waiting for the upcoming ‘Weird’, which promises to be an excellent "Weird Al" Yankovic project, I tried his 1989 cult parody UHF. Unfortunately, except of a few gags and jokes, it fell flat for me. 3/10.

🍿 

I watched the new pulp trash Loving Adults only because it’s another Danish film, but this being an actual Netflix Production, it was generic, cheesy, cliched, and just downright awful. I need to write down what exactly makes the typical Netflix film so terrible! 1/10.

🍿

Throw-back to the art project:

The Handmaid's Tale Adora.

John and Yoko Adora.

Tattooed Adora.

Zombie Adora.

Adora with Buñuel.

Adora with Jodorowsky.

🍿

(My complete movie list is here)

[popblank]

Pretty Woman at the Dolby Theatre:

Thoughts below: 

I have never actually seen Pretty Woman the movie, but I have several questions, among them: Why was this show on Broadway? Why did this show need to exist? Who is this show for? What kind of development process does a musical like this go through? Why would I want a season subscription with shows like this?

Of all the places to see this show, I suppose the Dolby Theatre is more appropriate than most, what with it being in Hollywood, on Hollywood Blvd, and  being better known for its role in movies (i.e. the Oscars venue). In fact during intermission I saw several people taking selfies with a photo of Julia Roberts winning her Oscar for Erin Brockovich. I still don’t like the theater itself, which feels sterile.

The cast was quite good and enthusiastic and probably better than the material.  Neither lead was especially plausible in their role, but I’m not sure that the fault lies entirely with the actors; the story is so dated and the musical is so unremarkable that I think it really would take Julia-Roberts-level superstar charisma and acting ability (plus you know, singing and dancing) to pull these roles off. This is the second time I have seen Adam Pascal on stage (the first was in the tour of Something Rotten!), and I was kind of curious to see how he would be in something that wasn’t Roger or Roger-adjacent.  Early on I thought he might be going in that direction vocally, but later on it was his rock growl all the time. Not complaining too much because he sounded good (in songs that I now have no memory of).  I will say that the number with the hotel staff teaching Vivian to dance (I think it was “On a Night Like Tonight”) was a high point.

The plot is really dated. There is a certain glamorization of wealth and materialism that while not all that out of sync with the present day, has a sort of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” feel. It could just be me in that the idea of Rodeo Drive, status-symbol luxury cars (or really, cars in general), etc. are deeply uninteresting. The attitude toward policing as a profession and the cruise ship industry in general seems especially dated post-2020. On the whole I think audiences would be better off either going to the tour of My Fair Lady, or just rewatching the movie. Which again I have never actually seen, but it has Julia Roberts and Richard Gere so hey, there must be something there.

Re: the “who is it for?” question – on the way out I overheard a guy in front of me telling his companion that it was “an amazing show.” So I guess the show was for that guy.  But as for me, I left some pretty grumpy comments on the post-show ��how did we do?” audience email survey.

[blueeyedangell]

!!! MAJOR SPN SPOILERS AHEAD !!!

Okay, so this might be a far reach but, I really am starting to think Cas is gonna come back. I’m gonna focus on this main point of why I think he’s gonna come back and they’re just hiding his return. Now, I’m not saying that Cas is gonna come back because in all honesty, I really have no clue if he’s 100% going to or not but I can give you some evidence that points to his return. 

Going back all he way to 15x13, we see the scene where Cas goes to the Empty trying to find the Occultum and talks to Ruby. I always thought this scene was a little weird because Ruby only agreed that she would only give him location to the Occultum if he would get her out of the Empty. She tells him that it’s full of, “sorrow and despair” then further states, “You’re clearly connected, Castiel. Just try.” She then of course, tells him the location before fading back into the Empty and that was the last we heard of that.

Again, when Ruby is pulled out of her “sleep” to talk to Cas, this is what it looks like. 

I thought maybe this looked familiar? Then, I remembered Season 15′s title card.

They look pretty similar, and I can’t think what else that black goo would be other than the Empty. Generally, they put something referring to the season on the the title card like in S8 we see Leviathan goo or in S13 we see Jack’s eye.

In the first gif, you might notice Ruby’s outfit. She has on a black shirt underneath with a dark blue, almost black looking, velvet blazer on top. Comparing that outfit to the photo of Misha and the actor who plays Uriel (Robert Wisdom), their outfits are slightly similar color-scheme wise.

Taking it back even further to 13x03, we know that Jack is able to wake beings up from the Empty, as he did with Cas. It’s obviously shocking, as not even God is supposed to have sway over the Empty, and this is the first time since the very beginning anything like this has happened. 

Here’s where the whiplash comes in; jumping forward to the beginning of 15x18, Billie sends Jack to the Empty when he’s about to explode. After he explodes, he is met with the Shadow of the Empty, who says one thing to him: 

“You made it loud.”

Basing it off the influence Jack has over the Empty, it might be safe to say he just accidentally woke up every living angel and demon to probably ever be in the Empty. Which- might be nice considering they have to fight against God pretty soon, so an angel/demon army might come in handy. But, also not nice considering the Shadow is pretty PO’d and also has Cas with it. Rachel Miner is also listed to be in 15x19 playing as the Empty, so hopefully we’ll get to see Cas’s side of things.

A few extra things, we still have that photo of Cas in the onion field. And I know they had filmed other scenes that were in previous episodes during the photo of Misha and Robert, but who’s not to say they didn’t film scenes there that we haven’t seen yet? Plus we haven’t had any shots of Cas in an onion field either, and last time the Empty shot him out he was in a field, hopefully it’ll do the same this time.

There’s also the theory about Jack becoming the new Death, which now that Billie is dying, would make sense especially after that scene that we saw with him and the plant dying as he reached out towards it. But I’m not sure how that part is going to play out either!

Plus, there’s no way, absolutely no way, that the writers are going to leave Cas’s story so bluntly shut. They’ve been planning this deal since S13, and wrote Cas’s speech to Dean the first day in the writing room of S15. I can’t bring myself to believe that this is the end they chose for Cas, but, only time will tell!

[billiewena]

saw someone make a comment about how “there’s no proof sam winchester isn’t straight!!” and it made me realize how new this side of spn tumblr is to bi/pan/nonbinary/queer sam. the history of it, the evidence for it, and most importantly...how fun it can be!!

as someone who’s been in the trenches in both the samgirl/desticule side of tumblr over the years I thought it’d be fun to share some LGBT Sam Winchester History (Herstory? Theirstory?) for anyone new to queer sam headcanons (and canon) but still interested!

sam winchester: COULD he be any gayer??

disclaimer: it’s okay if you didn’t know these things before! a lot of destiel shippers got into supernatural for destiel. that’s not and shouldn’t be controversial? joining spn tumblr doesn’t come with a welcome pamphlet and it’s a show with 300+ episodes. people shouldn’t be expected to have analyzed every aspect of it and know every behind-the-scenes fact.  people are STILL discovering new details even in  2021. this is not a “why isn’t anyone talking about this??” post (I hate those posts) but hopefully a "queer sam for newbies.”

the facts

writer and s6-s7 showrunner sera gamble supported a MLM reading of sam as early as s2, revealed in the commentary for the episode “bloodlust”. in the episode, sam has a flirtatious exchange with the bartender eli (coincidentally played by ty olsson, later known for playing benny.) however it’s implied that gamble was shut down as robert singer referred to her queer sam headcanons as nothing more than “sick twisted fantasies”

while this is the only known and confirmed instance of fully intentional queer subtext (similar to dean’s moment with aaron in S8) there have been a few other questionable exchanges with sam and men on cases, i.e. patrick the gambler witch from 5x07 or paul the bartender from 5x17 (both featured in this great gifset). notably, both most instances including these two happen in episodes by gamble.

(sidenote: there’s theories that the main character on sera gamble’s The Magicians is VERY similar to sam and this was sorta her way of having a queer sam-esque character. it is a good show, just know it does NOT end happy for the character in question. the character of quentin doesn’t use any specific labels but is in relationships with men and women in the show all while being a floppy-haired, bookish but powerful nerd just like sam!)

while sam has interacted with both male and female crossroads demon, he has ONLY summoned male ones on his own (check my own breakdown of the history of crossroads demon gender on the show)

sam refers to past/potential love interests with gender neutral pronouns (examples). his actor has also done this in the past when referring to sam's relationships.

he understands terms used in the gay community, i.e. fifth base

some of the fun evidence we use for trans!dean (i.e. the photo ID that says “F” for birth sex) has also happened to sam!

his reaction to seeing a shirtless man in bed

brady is referred to as sam’s demon lover and crowley implies that the two have "history.” I’d compare the popularity of sambrady in the sam fandom to deanlee in the destiel fandom; it’s generally headcanoned that there was indeed a complicated, college relationship there that becomes even more complicated when a demon possesses him. it wouldn’t be the only past love interest of sam’s to be possessed by a demon either.

the 👀

when dean makes jokes like “could you be anymore gay?” sam actually looks pensive like “huh? COULD I be?” this is very much how I would respond to this kind of joke if my roommates made it and we are LITERALLY all queer

he owned a purple dog shirt...is that straight behavior to you.

he’s a canonical theater kid who took an art history course (for “picking up girls” which sounds a lot like an excuse he’d give to not reveal he did it for gay reasons) AND was attached to his high school English teacher, like pick a struggle

he had an imaginary friend as a kid (sully my beloved) with some light queercoding of his own i.e. rainbow suspenders. sully encouraged him to love himself and to not listen to/be like his family

dean has literally microaggressed sam 10x more than sam has microaggressed dean. I would literally go sleep with a guy just to spite him after the 60th comment.

in general, sam’s story is just...queercoded af. “son is treated as wrong and a freak by his father until he leave home at the age of eighteen?” that’s queer baby!! and I get it, I too moved to college in a state I knew my family would never visit as soon as I could!! alexa play The Village by Wrabel.

and lastly but most important (and I say this as a bi!dean truther because helloooo look at my blog)...at no point has sam ever said he is straight. dean has said they are (“we don’t swing that way” in response to victor henrickson) but sam never said anything regarding his sexuality.

are you into the idea of queer sam but don’t know where to start? here are some of my favorite arguments for the different readings along with some personal interpretations and headcanons!

why I think bi/pan/queer/labelless sam is sexy:

saileen, samruby and samjess all feel like bi4bi couples let’s be real here

demon lover brady could’ve actually been his demon lover! the trauma of your college boyfriend / probably first gay experience being a monster used against you??? lifelong disorders! it also wouldn’t be the first time a demon possessed a former sam love interest.

sam’s not hung-up on any of the things dean is hung-up on. labels or orientations, he’s always been open to all of it. just like how sam can listen to a celine dion album or drink “vegetable water” without thinking twice about it. to me, it’s all about how sam has always been comfortable with his sexuality and it not being a big deal for him, and dean just...hasn’t lol.

sexualty is a spectrum! sam can still prefer women and in fact has excellent taste in them (have you seen his girlfriends? have you? this may be the samcoding talking...)

while the majority of queer sam fans ship with him with castiel (and who can blame them, it’s CAS) there’s other cute boyfriends out there for him too:

- max banes, the cool and canonically queer witch from s12. in their first scene together, he defends sam from a stranger asking about his trauma! a man that respects sam’s boundaries? sexy af. also witch!sam and max banes?? sexy af. in general there was so much more the show could’ve and should’ve done with the banes twins, and exploring that through sam’s pov would’ve been fascinating because you know he would try to help max & alicia and understand why he did what he did!

- mick davies, aka sam’s “nerd soulmate” as dean refers to him. sam and mick get each other and bond over their love of learning and making the world of hunting a better place! mick even turns against the BMOL to side with them (but unfortunately dies before that can be realized.) oh, society if mick was resurrected instead of ketch and got to be nerdy bfs with sam...

- one episode-icons patrick the witch (what’s it with sam and witches amiright), paul (my personal beloved) and brady the demon and/or human (a given)

- crowley! while its peak popularity was probably pre-samwena and the drowley summer of love, the samcrowley fandom (formerly known as "moosely" now usually referred to as "cram") is STILL alive and kickin’. they even have cram mondays now!

- and can’t forget ol’ gabriel the archangel. sabriel is a classic “opposites attract” pairing that’s existed ever since sam puppy-dog eyed his way out of a timeloop and you know what? for good reason. two words: height differences.

sam being an ally isn’t nearly as fun to me as sam being out for years and just waiting for his idiot brother to catch up so he can get the stick out of his ass so he can then list of a list of microaggressions dean has made over the years. I think he deserves it.

why I think gay sam is sexy

this post is basically the gay sam manifesto so I’m stealing from there but

basically there are multiple instances where a girl comes onto sam and he very harshly rejects them (i.e. the iconic “I’m lactose intolerant”) and I think it’s funny okay. I love you gay sammy.

why I think nonbinary/he & they sam is sexy:

again, the whole “not hung up on labels” thing. sam using gender neutral pronouns for his past relationships means it makes total sense for them to also refer to themselves with gender neutral pronouns.

a lot of sam’s journey on the show is about their body autonomy and lack thereof (and whatever mother mother was singing about in “body” and ajj in “body terror song”) to me, trans/nonbinary sam is just him reclaiming their body and making it their own again. a chance to heal and be confident in their identity and sense of self.

sam/sammy is literally the perfect nonbinary name!! they struck the gender neutral name LOTTERY I’m so goddamn jealous

long hair, don’t care! nonbinary people have the freedom to mix & match whatever gender expressions they want because they owe no one androgyny.  I love the idea that sam’s always been into having more traditionally feminine hair that’s it’s become part of their identity, and one of the most iconic aspects of their character, while dressing and presenting traditionally masculine otherwise.

sam’s actor has vocally supported it he/they sam headcanons! am I a fan of his? of course not! does it still matter just as much as jensen saying dean’s side of the confession is open to all interpretation? yes! actors do not make and cannot make anything canon, but being supportive of it IS still nice and encouraging! can you imagine if misha hadn’t been so open to queer readings of cas? can you imagine if his support was taken away from you? it’d suck!

I’m samcoded and also a they/them, so like...they/them solidarity I guess????

why I think trans!masc sam is sexy:

see less love for this but so far every FTM Sam fic I’ve read has made me cry so that’s gotta be something right

speaking of “makes me cry”, THIS TRANS SAM COMIC BY @kimodraw MAKES ME FULL-ON SOB PLEASE READ IT

there’s lots of interesting show details that could be used as evidence just like trans!dean headcanons (sam being called “samantha” in mostly derogatory manners being deadnaming, the F on his ID that one time, etc.)

sam going from Baby Boy to Buff AF? that’s just the T!

sam + cahartt hoodie = transmasc swag

the john, sam and dean dynamic is only intensified if he was seen as the precious daughter that must be protected (and not as a living person) and adds even more layers when sam return to the family as a man

there is also something compelling about sam becoming a man in a family with such a warped view of masculinity & wanting to redefine the definition of a “man” for himself

as far as headcanons, this post has so many beautiful headcanons of sam growing up trans

sam coming to embrace who he is in college, jess being openly supportive of sam as soon as he comes out, jess joining sam on his appointment to get his top surgery, jess proudly loving her boyfriend as the man he’s grown to become...goddamn it I’m crying again...

why trans!femme sam is sexy (bonus points if it’s trans!lesbian sam):

update: I have been leaning away from this and think this post explains it well (thanks queersamofficial for sharing) but would love to hear from trans!femme fans who want to talk about it! in general, this is a very fanon-heavy interpretation (similar to witch!sam) and think it’s important to know that. tho I always support more trans headcanons over cisswaps/genderbends.

since this is the masterpost tho...all you DO need to know is that sam winchester is very popular with the lesbian spn fan community (science cannot explain this) and there are storylines and moments that I think resonate with sapphic fans similar to how dean resonates with trans!masc fans and cas resonates with ace/demi fans. I even made a post about one. would love to hear people talk about it!

anyways, if you are a fan of trans!femme sam...

known lesbian icon velma from scooby-doo having a crush on sam when they first meet? well...

trans!femme AND witch!sam? best combination known to man, the POWER that has, the IMPACT that has---

trans!femme divorcing herself from not only her old self but her family’s obsession with toxic masculinity? *chef’s kiss*

bonus trans!sam: stream thee t4t samruby post

why I think aro!sam is sexy

this post

sam always associated a “good life” with having a girlfriend or wife, but aro!sam comes to realize he doesn’t need that to be happy. his happy ending can look a lot of different ways.

...tho aro saileen and samruby does compel me

I don’t have much to offer in the asexual!sam departments, BUT my inbox is open to anyone passionate about it who want to talk about it (or anyone who has anything to add here!!)

counter arguments I’ve gotten sometimes:

"___ and ___” was clearly just a homophobic/misogynistic/joke, not evidence of anything

I mean I could say the same for 75% of bisexual dean and destiel evidence so. I approach LGBT sam the way trans!dean fans approach that interpretation (which I also love): taking what was nothing more than a shitty joke from cishet men and turning it into something beautiful that you can relate to and see yourself in instead.

"j*red is the straightest/most homophobic man alive I refuse to see any character he plays as queer”

yo I hate that guy and you should too. luckily these characters are fictional and you don’t need to like the actor to enjoy a character. in fact, actors shouldn’t exist at all anymore I think. I like headcanoning his character as queer/trans just to spite him even. while his actor may have kept him from being the queer icon he deserved to be, the writing (and most importantly the writer’s support) was there.

this is just a made-up version of sam that lives in your head :/

well, yeah? while there is canon evidence for some of these especially the bi!sam truthing, sometimes headcanons are just fanon...and that’s okay! the canon version of the show ended with dean a dead “heterosexual” alcoholic and sam married to some random woman we know nothing about it. what’s wrong with imagining a better more satisfying ending and story for these characters? also, if you think the differences between fanon sam and canon sam are bad you should see the differences between fanon dean and canon dean.

final argument: what queer!sam adds to destiel because they can (and should!) coexist!

“but wouldn’t have sam figured out that dean was lgbt if he was also lgbt?” no? one, there’s a LOT about dean that sam doesn’t know and that’s a major reoccurring theme (especially since dean is a parent figure to him in addition to an older brother). two, even then how do you ever know for sure? my “token straight friend” made jokes for YEARSSSS about her lady crushes and we never took them seriously since she said it was just her being comfortable in her sexuality. guess who came out as bi the past year?

“I’ve been out since Standford” Sam can judge dean for still being hung up on his outdated ideas of masculinity, sexuality, etc. (which he does anyways! now he just has more reason to!)

all of TFW and their friends being LGBT only makes sense because gay people tend to flock to each other like magnets!! science cannot explain this!! all but one of my friends I knew in high school / college has since come out as something!! even one we joked was the token straight realized they were bi this year!! another thinks they might be ace! it never stops!!!

the impala is basically now just the “down with cis” car

the chaos of sam and cas’s friendship is not only explained if they’re both queer but ELEVATED

jack gets THREE gay dads!! the literal dream

when dean does come out, he still has the most supportive brother in his corner ready to help him be more accepting of himself...but also to help educate him on queer issues because let’s be real, dean has some learning (and unlearning) to do. charlie and sam are preparing a powerpoint as we SPEAK.

but he’s allowed to still microaggress dean because 1) that’s what he deserves for helping make sam’s childhood one long macroaggression and 2) he’s funnier about it. dean and sam ARE a win for gay homophobe rights.

at the end of the day, the show never even let dean be openly bisexual so what better form of rebellion is there than headcanoning no spn character as cishet? you can’t give us one good gay movie kiss and now ALL your characters are gay & trans, bob singer <3

most importantly: sam, dean, and adam all being lgbt??? john winchester’s worst nightmare baby!

at the end of the day, they are literally all fictional and this is a sandbox in which we can do whatever we want! no one wins by keeping someone from headcanoning a character as any form of LGBTQIA, but we do have fun to gain!

on that note, here's some fun queer sam tumblr posts to start you on your journey: (x) (x)

I also highly recommend the blog queersamofficial (which shares fun posts & ships) and sambrosia’s sam slash anyone series if you want a fun introduction to all the sam ships out there! (includes m/m and f/m)

update: I also now have a side samblog (@alivegirlsam​) if you’re a multishipper who considers yourself sastielcurious or just want to talk more about queer sam, trans sam, sam in general.

[drcalvin]

Willkommen!

The Royal Dramatic Theatre of Sweden (Dramaten) has opened up again as restrictions lift, and we got tickets to their Cabaret! What a way to return to theater again

There was recently (i.e. recently minus some pandemic years...) a Cabaret set up at the  Stockholm House of Culture & City Theatre (Kulturhuset Stadsteatern), which I caught so it was inevitable to make comparisons.

I am torn on the Emcee, because I felt that there was more energy to Robert Fux’s brilliant performance at Stadsteatern - but some of the costumes and coreography here were so good, that I like specific numbers better than there. I guess my main issue is that Jonas Malmsjö gave us a very good Emcee, but compared to other versions I don’t think I felt he added anything new?

Sally Bowles, however, as performed by Ana Gil de Melo Nascimento was perfect. The voice and energy, the ignorance, the self-realization and destructive choice in the end - bravo, she did great.

Like all the costume choices and I enjoyed the scenography too - there’s a giant “skull head” thing in the back that confused me first, but after a while I saw what they were going for, and they make good use of it from the start. This is a play where Dramaten’s usually minimalist use of props and “forward scenery”, idk what it’s called, works well and they worked more with lights and backdrops than they have on a few other occasions. The inclusion of the orchestra (who were, of course, beautiful!) worked very well and it all sounded super nice. 

Fräulein Schneider (Marie Richardson) and Herr Schultz (Johan Holmberg) were super sweet and believable, and nearly stole the show with some numbers until the Emcee wrestled it back. 

Cliff Bradshaw (Alexander Salzberger) was mostly a bit drippy, sweet, oh-so-very gay like they went all out on that! It was all about the babby potential in Sally for him, which made the end when she finally sees the reality and makes her choice work very well. 

So, yeah, if you can get to it, definitely recommend it!

(all photos from Dramaten’s website. The 2 slightly blurry ones are screencaps from their trailer)

[popculturebuffet]

Static Shock: Shock to the System and Aftershock Review

“You know what? 13 years ago, me and some friends sat in a restaurant all night and daydreamed about the kinds of stories we would tell if we had the chance. We wanted to expand the concept of superhero to include characters that kind of looked like us, who had some of the same background, experiences and dreams as we did. We wanted to create something fun that a new generation would respond to the same way we responded to our childhood heroes -and damn if we didn't succeed beyond my wildest dreams. Today, Static Shock is a household name with millions of fans of all ages (Is there stuff I'd do differently? Yeah, almost all of season four but why nitpick?) Static is the most successful thing I've ever helped create and I'm both proud and gratified that people have taken it into their hearts. “ 

Dwayne McDuffie, Co-Creator of Static and Writer for Static Shock

This review is dedicated to Dwayne McDuffie and Robert L. Washington III.                                                        Rest In Power Static Shock is awesome. I grew up with the show watching it both first run on the WB and second run on Cartoon Network and loved it as much as I did other large parts of my childhood courtsey of DC like Batman the Animated Series, Teen Titans and both Justice League Shows. What makes this unique among the DC Properties is that Static wasn’t really a big name when he got a show. He wasn’t even part of the DC Universe. 

See as I had no idea for probably a good decade, Static actually came from Milestone Comics, a company ran by and focused on african americans. The goal was understandable: While black heroes existed at the time, and there were some fantastic ones like Storm, Jim Rhodes and Steel... these guys weren’t the center of their universes. The big faces of the big  companies, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Iron Man, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash.. were white. So milestone was a shakeup of that with the main teams and heroes all being black, from Icon, an alien who’d lived among man but rather than end up in kansas like say superman ended up imprinting on a slave woman centuries ago and has been with us since, who was encouraged by an energetic teenager named Rocket to put on a costume and do something with his powers and his community, Hardware, a tech genius who had his work stolen by a white asshole and wanted to fight back and BLood Syndicate, a group of gang members all caught in the “The Big Bang”, a huge fight between all of Dakota, the midwest city where the comics take place, that ended when the police released a bunch of experimental gas that gave them all super powers. 

As most of you who have watched the show already know, this is where Static comes from. Static was the company making their own Spider-Man, i.e. a nerdy teenager who suddenly gets super powers, in this case Virgil Hawkins who at the prodding of a friend took a gun to The Big Bang to get revenge on a bully. .but ultimately couldn’t go through with it, decided it wasn’t him and got rid of the gun and ran.. and still ended up in it, becoming Static, a young hero dedicated to using his powers to fight other “Bang Babies”.. a term that dosen’t really sound that great and they really should’ve thought through. But Phrasing aside the character was great and I look forward to reading more and only haven’t because I have to buy the issues gradually, but DC is currently re-releasing the individual issues of Static, Icon, and Hardware weekly in anticipation of a reboot of Milestone Coming in May digitally on Comixology at only 2 bucks a pop, and rereleased the original print collections that were long out of print for 10 bucks each, though i’m getting static on it’s own since i’ts really not that much less expensive as it only collects four issues while Icon and Hardware both collect 8, so I can wait a bit there on Hardware and already own Icon: A Hero’s Welcome.. and really need to review it at some point. 

While Milestone’s output was good, at least from the two books i’ve read, with Robert Washinton III, who sadly not only ahs also passed but was fucking homeless for a while  in the 2000′s.. what the actual hell, writing Static alongside Dwayne McDuffie, whose later moved onto animation writing tons of Static episodes all of them classics including the school shooting episode, the first three rubberbandman episodes and both Anasazi episodes. Point is it had good writers and artists and even had a distrbution deal with DC, so they had a leg up on the glut of other comic book companies.. but happened to start at the start of the comic book crash, a huge downturn in sales in the 90′s as the speculator boom, i.e. a bunch of people assuming every number one would be worth golden and silver age money, forgetting a character has to BUILD INTREST and this stuff takes time, and whose attempts to sell fast flooded the market with comics no one wanted,, caused the roof to cave in and with a bunch of assholes pegging milestone as a “Company for black people” rather than you know, a company trying to add fucking diversity and represntation to the comics industry, and that simply wanted a unvierse that was centered around people of color instead of white guys. The company eventually had to shut down, and was left to lisencing.  This is where the show comes in. Producers HAD been trying to make shows based on Milestone for a while, as far back as the mid-90s and the company was was all for it but the closest it got was an x-men style team series using various characters whose first draft was terrible and whose second draft by Alan Burnett, a producer on various DC Animated shows who’d go on to produce Static Shock, that McDuffie and others really liked but sadly did not get picked up. eventually though with presistance Static ended up getting a series and as I said McDuffie went on to write for it though he did not develop it. Some changes went into place naturally to make it work for an early 2000′s kids show and while i’ll probably miss so since again, only read one issue as we go. But due to Milestone coming back my intrest was peaking, hence finally reading the copy of Icon I had to buy from the library years ago due to keeping it overdue but am now EXTREMLEY glad I own as i’ts incredibly rare and really damn good, and wanting to read static, doing so lately since it’s finally on digtiial and again not too expensive. So join me as I give you a shock to the system and revisit this hell of a series to see if it holds up.. which just to cut that short it does and i’m only holding off binging MORE because I want the first two eps to be fresh enough in my head to review properly.. and also go over the various voice actors because that’s a thing with me now and charcter co-creator dwayne mcduffie because he’s awesome. 

As I like to do when covering a series first episodes, let’s run down the voice cast. 

First up is an UTTER LEGEND, and I use the term voice acting legend a lot, and mean it every time and have good reason to use it when I say it, and Phil LaMarr is a GOD in the buisness, having done a metric ton of voice acting roles, and being easily the most proflific black voice actor in animation. He’s also done some acting work, mostly in pulp fiction which I have not seen, but his true staying power and talent is in animation so here’s just the roles I feel are most notable or may not be very notable but i’m bringing up anyway because it’s my list. 

His roles besides Virgil include Lester Payton the Texas Ranger who showed up for one very good episode of king of the hill to be badass and show up the hickish, stupid and very punchable local Sheriff, Gearld’s obnoxious older brother Jamie O on Hey Arnold, Hermes Conrad from futurama, Carver from the Weekenders (PUT IT ON PLUS DISNEY), Axel Foley for exactly one bit in Clerks the Animated Series, but anyone whose seen it will know exactly which one, Micheal on the Proud Family, Black Vulcan on Harvey Birdman (In His Pants), Hector Con Carne and Dracula on Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and Evil Con Carne, Jack on Samurai Jack something I didn’t know for decades (and I didn’t know about the carver thing till today though i’ts obvious in hindsight), John Motherfucking Stewart on Justice League and later Steel and Adult Static in the Unlimited seasons, Osmosis Jones on Ozzy and Drix, Bolbi Strogofski on Jimmy Neutron (And yes i’m just as shocked as you are.), Wilt on Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Marcus on Life and Times of Juniper Lee, Bull Sharkowski on My Gym Partner is A Monkey and Also a Sociopath Please Help God My Life is a waking nightmare..... okay the rest of that title is implied but we all watched the same show, we all know in our hearts that was the title

Moving on, he was also, and yes there’s MORE: Maxie Zeus on The Batman, Philly Phil on Class of 3000, Both Robertsons AND Fancy Dan on the Spectacular Spider-Man, Jazz on Transformers Animated, Kit Fisto and Bail Organa on Star Wars the Clone Wars, Gambit and Bolivar Trask on Wolverine and the X-Men, Aquaman I, L-Ron and Green Beetle on Young Justice, J.A.R.V.I.S. and Wonder Man (Simon Williams) In Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Gabe and Carny on Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters (Really miss that game and have been snapping up what cards I can get lately), Baxter Stockman in the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (And there’s also an awesome photo of him with 2003 Baxter... the two best together in one place. I got chills), Dormammu (I’ve come to bargin) in various Marvel Shows, Noville in Mighty Magiswords, Zach’s dad Marcus in Milo Muprhy’s Law, Craig’s Douchey Brother Benard on Craig of the Creek, showing he’s clearly come full circle, And Mr. Scully on the Casagrndes. And given It took about two paragraphs to cover all of this, yeah, I MEANT legend. 

Next we have Kevin Micheal Richardson as Virgil’s Dad Robert, and it’s the first time since I started introducing Voice Actors on a show that i’ve overlapped. I already covered him during the second episode of legend of the three caballeros, but for the short version he’s also very acomplished, very damn good and I somehow missed he played the old blind guy in hey arnold> Needless to say the dude is awesome. 

Virgil’s Sister Sharon is played by Michele Morgan who was in the rap group BWP and did some smaller roles outside of this the one exception being Juicy on the PJ’s, which I have not watched much of but REALLY do not like, though i’ll at least give it credit for being a decently long lasted black claymation sitcom at at time when there were, and hoenstly still aren’t, many black animated shows. 

Back to long casting sheets, next up is Jason Marsden, who is one of my faviorites as i’ve realized recently as Ritchie. As I also found out only recently he started on the Sitcom Step By Step and while that show is .. ehhhhhhhhh, he is great in it because he’s great in everything. He also apparently has his own internet variety show which I have to watch now. His roles include Max Goof, ironically given I was just talking about that role a few days ago, Haku in the english dub of Spirted Away, Micheal, the kid being yelled at by a bunch of 80′s cartoons characters not to take drugs in Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue!, Nermal in the DTV Garfield movies and The Garfield Show, Tino on the Weekenders (SERIOUSLY DISNEY), Snapper Carr on Justice League, Rikochet on Mucha Lucha! for the last season (Why I do not knkow and while I love the guy he was not the right choice), Felix on Kim Possible, Chase Young on Xiaolin Showdown (WHich I did not realize was him and now I do easily his best role and I REALLY should’ve), Red Star and Billy Numerous on Teen Titans, Speedy on Batman Brave and the Bold, Impulse/Kid Flash II on Young Justice, and Fingers on Kaijudo. He hasn’t done as much lately which is a shame but hopefully i’tll pick up again. 

Next up is Hotstreak, Virgil’s brutal bully turned unhinted pyromancer played by DANIEL COOKSY, another actor i’m happy to talk about and another faviorite I haven’t seen much of lately. Daniel was an actor from childhood, playing Budnick on Salute Your Shorts, but he quickly gained a long and storied catalogue of VA Work: His first big roll was as Montana Max on Tiny Toon Adventures and if there is a god he’ll be back for the reboot, Stoop Kid on Hey Arnold, the incomprable Jack Spicer on Xiaolin Showdown, far and away his best role and part of why Chronicles sucked so bad was he was he didn’t get to reprise the role, The titular Dave the Barbarian, Django of the Dead on El Tigre (Had no idea), Kicks utterly insufferable big Brother Brad on Kick Buttowski and apparently he’s back at it again after laying low for a bit as he’s voicing Snag in Long Gone Gultch.. which I already really needed to watch but hot damn, I missed him. Sign me up. 

Frieda, Virgil’s crush and close friend who in the comics was his main confidante and love intrest but here is eventually pushed aside, is voiced by Danica Mckeller whose work didn’t seem all that familiar.. until I found out she was Ms. Martian on Young Justice. Hello, Megan. Very talented and she did get a major role in a dc show eventually so good for her. Can’t wait for season 4. 

So with our major players out of the way,  let’s talk about Dwayne. McDuffie is an AWESOME man and my respect has grown for him more and more with time. A writer and editor at Marvel, McDuffie has a decent resume doing smaller but awesome books, which I got most of for free last year when Marvel was giving out free digital collections due to the lock down, like Damage Control, a sitcom set in the marvel universe about the company that picks up after superhero battles and the logistics and antics that insue and Dethlok, about a pacfist trapped inside a cyborg zombie. He was as mentioned one of Milestone’s founders, and wrote Icon, Hardware and co-wrote the first few issues of Static. He’d go on to a pretty stacked career in animation, writing on this show and Justice League before becoming  story editor and show runner for Unlimited , even making a return to comics as a result writing the Marvel miniseries beyond and an arc of Fantastic Four in which Black Panther and Storm filled in for Reed and Sue while the two of them worked on their marriage after Reed did.. pretty much everything he did in Civil War. He also became head writer and show runner for Ben 10: Alien Force and Ultimate Alien, revamping the franchise a bit, and Alien Force, at least the first two seasons are awesome and I feel people overreacted on the changes. Ultimate Alien is okay, but has it’s problems but the finale was awesome and left the man’s legacy on a high note.. as he sadly passed in 2011 due to heart complications. He is truly missed and produced some utterly amazing stuff whlie he was alive. So on that melacholy note let’s see what happens when his creation hits the tv screen shall we?

Shock to the System:

This episode is written by Christopher Simmons, who is apparently a huge art designer guy.. but i’m not sure that’s the same chirsptoher simmons. Much more notable is the writer of the episode after this Stan Berkowitz, who was showrunner for season 1 and has done a LOT of DCAU work and is suprising talent, having written a lot of awesome Justice League episodes including Secret Society and The Royal Flush One. Point is we’re in first class hands.  Before the episode itself I want to talk about the intro and how it’s unique among DCAU shows. Like most Western Animation the intros for DCAU shows didn’t change much over the seasons with the most I can see is JLU changing up the footage to preview the current episode and later adding Hawkgirl to the intro after her return to the team. I THINK superman the animated series changed some of it’s footage too, but I can’t confrim it and may of just been imagining it. As i’ve talked about on my blog it’s normally a pet peeve of mine, mostly because shows you know, change after season 1, characters get added some one shot characters used for the intro never return, and after a while it can feel dated especially in more recent shows where the status quo is not at all set in stone and things change quite a bit. But sometimes it can be good enough that either the dated elements don’t matter or general enough that you don’t need to change it and i’ts just that good.. and given Batman the Animated Series has both in spades, you can see why i’ts probably my golden standard for intros and after superman the animated series DC mostly followed suit. But being part of the teen superhero boom of the 2000′s Static is unique in that it splits the diffrence: It’s intro gets the character across perfectly like a good intro should starting with Virgil getting out of bed and running a comb across his head before showing off to his sister to bug her and literally running into his dad who hand shim his bag and smiles, silently showing off his family. He then runs to school and runs into some trouble.. and said trouble changes for each intro, with Rubberband Man for season 1, Kanga (Whose name I only know because I happened to run across it) for season 2 and your guess is as good as mine for seasons 3 and 4, though Hotstreak is a constant. They still save some money for seasons 1 and 2 by recycling some animation.. but that’s alright with mea s it was good animation, and the improtant thing is cycling out old villians for new ones, while Season 3 is the only out and out redo to show off Richie taking on the Gear identity, adding about 10 seconds of intro to let him show off.  Seriously it’s an utterly great intro and like the other DCAU intros outside of superman, stuck in my brain. 

The other change that’s ENTIRELY diffrent from the rest of htem is that the music changes each time. The first two have the same formula just with a difrent vocalist and backing track: a superhero theme but with some hip hop beat boxing over it. The first intro is fine enough, not specattcular but stilll god. The second song.. is eh. Not really great and feels like a marked downgrade from season 1 and just dosen’t blend an ocrehstiral superhero theme with the beatbox elements NEARLY as well. The third song though is my faviorite.. even if I HATED Little Romeo as a  kid because I really did not like his nick show, it’s more a straight up rap song, but it has a faster beat that fits the intro better, and Romeo’s bragging fits Virgil’s character and penchant for Spidey quips perfectly. I also find it ironic that the theme that blends in with the dcau the most, the first season’s, is the one from BEFORE they decided to put it in the same universe. Still this season’s intro slaps, I just like the LIttle Romeo one a bit more.  The opening scene is picture perfect. Some masked crooks looting a warehouse are loading some stolen TV’s into a van when suddenly the lights come on one by one above one of the crooks before his tv switches to various channels before going haywire. Cue our heroes’ entrance. Let’s tak ea good look at him

Static’s Costume is awesome. While I prefer the season 3 redesign, and clearly DC agrees as the redeisgn was used for both pre and post new-52 when they used him, and while he’s getting a fresh design for the reboot, said design takes a lot of cures from said outfit. As for how the outfit differs from the comics itself  this is the design he had in the comics

It didn’t change much from the first issue, with the exception of his now iconic big puffy jacket which was added pretty early into the character’s history but I was unaware of that and just assumed he had the bodysuit the whole time. The more you know. But as you can see outside of the cool puffy jacket over a costume the two couldn’t be more diffrent. While the Dakotaverse outfit is more a standard superhero outfit, with some regular clothes touches on top the first cartoon outfit comes off more realistic, looking fantastic, but still coming off as something two teenagers could realistically have thrown together with what clothes they could buy, while still looking awesomely superheroy. IN short it’s perfect and only topped by the season 3 onward look...

But the slicker look, with an even cooler jakcet and the new colors all fitting the lighting ascetic better, but fits: not only has Virgil come along farther since he started, but with Richie now having a genius brain as Gear, he can provide a far slicker, far more professional superhero outfit on the budget the two have.  This show is just great  at costume design. 

So getting back to the episode at hand, Static puts up a huge sign in elecrticy saying “Bad guys here”, PFFFT, and then hides away and narrates that a few days ago he’d be the last person anyone would’ve expected to be a hero. Cue Flashback. 

We meet Virgil Hawkins on an average day: rapping into his razor, getting into a petty argument with his older sister Sharon, as a younger brother myself I relate to this, and talking to his dad who tries to get them to cut that out. We find out his mom has passed via his sister making really terrible eggs and saying that’s how mom made them. Exposition! Though we do get a great bit through this as when his sister gets distracted by her boyfriend calling, he uses the opportunity of her leaving the room to dump the eggs.. after having earlier jokingly prayed to his mom for a way out of breakfast. “Thanks for looking out for me mom” That’s both very sweet and very hilarious. 

This is a change from the comics it turns out as I was utterly flored to find Virgil’s mom alive and well when reading the first issue of Static. Turns out this was a change made during development and one Dwane McDuffie admitted in the interview I got the tribute quote from to not liking as he had a good reason for having Virgil have a nuclear family, as most black families in media at the time were just one single parent and a kid or two with the other having either left or died. He wasn’t too bothered by it as while he preferred what he came up with in the first place, the show DID get some really good stories out of her being gone and didn’t just have her be absent because shut up. Virgil is still working over her death and the way HOW she died ends up playing an important role in this episode and gives Virgil a dislike of guns, as she died to gang violence. So the change wasn’t for stupid or racist reasons, but likely both to keep the character count down while giving them something to work with for storylines. Or it could’ve been for stupid reasons and the writers simpily made lemonade out of that very dumb lemon, either way it ended up working.  Virgil also plans to ask his friend Frieda out. Frieda was a bigger deal in the comics, being Virgil’s friend and confidante as well as his ocasional love intrest, but here while she was inteded to at least be his love intrest here, that sorta fizzled out. As for the best friend role we meet her replacement in Richie, which McDuffie conceded was the kind of change a studio would make swapping out a female character for a male one. That being said the crew made the best of it and Richie is awesome, a bit of an overcompensating dipstick at times, but a good sounding board and pal for virgil and funny as hell too. He was also gay, something only revealed post series by McDuffie.. but unlike say Dumbledore, it’s a bit easier to swallow here: The early 2000′s were an even worse time for gay characters in tv let alone cartoons, and if they couldn’t kiss or have sex scenes on regular tv, there was no way we were getting any representation in a children’s show. So it was largely just hinted at by Richie overcompensating in how “into girls” he was and i’m once again fine with this being word of god as it was literally the best they could do and his counterpart in the comics was also gay, if not as relevant.  Ritch encourages Virgil to work on his opening to ask her out as it’s awkward as heck, hits a bit close to home.. but I do appricate the show just .. having him try and ask her out from the first episode. They likely would’ve drug thigns out a bit granted had they used Frieda more, i’m not blind to the convetions of the time. .but as someone who got the very wrong idea from tv that just waiting around meant a girl would like you eventually, when no you need to actually try even if rejection happens, I honestly wish we had more of this in media than the other garbage morals at the time. 

So he prepares to , not helped by her mentioning guy after guy is asking her out.... but before he can F-Stop, the future hotstreak, shows up.  F-STOP

That being said...... it’s not as bad as the original gangster name for the comic’s version, Biz Money B. Yes BIZ MONEY B

So yeah while F-Stop is no more intimidating, it at least means I can stop laughing. Francis, because I can’t type F-Stop without laughing and this review is already behind, shoves Virgil out of the way and agressively hits on Frieda, even saying “you smell good”, the international sign your a douchebag and also to call the police. Virgil steps up to the guy and gets PAINFULLY slammed into the lockers, something I give the animation team a lot of credit for, as you can FEEL how fucking painful that was. Virgil is saved by Wade, another local gangbanger who in the comics was a close friend of Virgils but here saves him seemingly just because.. seemingly. 

On the way home though Virg’s problems don’t end as naturally, the giant sized asshole with nothing better to do has his goons corner virgil before VIOLENTLY beating him.. off screen but the noises, and the clear brusies including a black eye, on virgil afterwords.. just holy damn i’m suprsied they got away with this but it shows just how horrifing it was and that this is a step above regular bullying, which make no mistake is absoluttley terrible and the series would later do an episode on it and school shootings, into straight up gang violence. Wade shows up again and gets the bastards to flee.. but also makes it clear he can’t keep doing this.. and forces Virgil to meet him at his base under the bridge. And it’s a tense sequence, with Virgil KNOWING this is a bad idea but having no real choice and Wade making it abundantly clear that he wants Virgil to join his crew, and makes a chilling point: while Virgils dad RIGHTFULLY dosen’t want his son to join a gang as Virgil points out.. he can’t be there for him all the time and eventually one of those times, Francis will be around. And he may not surivive that. Virgil nods noncomittaly.  At home it gets even more grim as he dosen’t open up to his family, understandably as his dad would jsut say to call the police and well.. we’ve seen how the police treat black people. At best they’d just try and use Virgil as an informant and that likely wouldn’t end fucking well for Virgil. Ritchie points out he can’t join a gang, virgil’s mom died that way.. see told you it’d be important to the plot.. but I like how the story dosen’t offer an easy answer.. well okay he gets electric powers soon enough but without the fantastic element this is just an innocent kid caught between either joining the very thing his mom hated or hoping a system not built to protect him will keep him alive. It’s utterly saddening and chilling and holy shit is it amazing a cartoon in the early 2000′s was able to get away with.. ANY OF THIS, and they handle it great, paired down a bit from the comics but even then it’s still incredibly balsy they got THIS much in. 

Naturally Wade calls in his favor and our hero is forced to come running.. and soon finds out Wade’s brought him in for a massive gang war. Welcome to the big bang, baby. He hands Virgil a gun as things get started and Virgil.. drops the thing and tries to escape, in a harrowing sequence.. and runs into Francis because god apparently REALLY hates this kid today. As if to prove that the police show up and while that prevents a beating, they demand they disassemble. then release untested gas on them because of course they do. 

As a result the big bang truly begins, with the various gang members getting mutated.. and naturally so does virgil. Though he wakes up the next day seemingly fine. How’d he get home? Does his dad know where he was?

I don’t know and we’re not getting any answers, but Virgil soon finds weird stuff happening like his clock shorting out, change being attracted to him and his razor going wild. It’s only once he get sback to his room he gets an inkling of what’s going on and calls Ritchie to meet him at the Junk yard.. though it is a bit of a dick move as he dosen’t you know, tell him anything about Wade or Francis right away. He does at the yard though.. and that he has powers, having finally figured out how to use them to a point. And the series does provide a decent justification later as to why he’d get this so quickly: Virgil is a smart kid, gets great grades at school and apparnetly there’s even an episode later where he gets a scholarship to a fancy genius school. So him getting how elctromagntisim works or being a quick study on it makes perfect sense. 

Richie suggest the obvious.. to become a superhero. And the thought.. hadn’t occured to Virgil. It’s honestly a nice twist on the old trope. That he hadn’t thought of it, not because he’s selfish or any of that or needs to learn a hard lesson, those have been done.. simply because the rush of getting his powers, and implicitly of having a way out of his current predciament, a way to keep Francis off his back and keep Wade from pulling him in further. His own path. But once i’ts brought up.. he jumps on it. Part of it is being a nerd like you or I, of course he wants to.. and being a good intetioned one, he knows this is the right thing to do. It’s waht makes a superhero a hero: Anyone can get powers in a universe like this, esepcailly the dcau, but it takes true courage and heart to use them selflessly and knowing you’ll be in danger. It’s why I love surperheroes: they often didn’t ask for this but they do it anyway because somebody’s gotta. We also get an intresting wrinkle is superman is, at least I think in this episode I could’ve missed it or misremembered things, mentioned as a fictional character. That’s because originally like the comics this wasn’t part of the DCAU.. but eventually the crew decided it shared staff from it, shared a network, both first run and on reruns, why not just make it part of the DCAU proper. I fully support this decisionf: While i’m midly annoyed unlimited never really used anything from static shock outside of Static himself in the time travel episode, despite you know Static and Gear having BEEN to the tower and not being much younger than Kara and defintely older than Courtney, I chalk it up to weird rights issues or something like that. But having Batman, Batman Beyond, Superman, Green Lantern and the Justice League itself all guest star was a good idea, and expanded both static’s universe and gave the DCAU something differnt as most heroes in it were older and more experinced in contrast to the up and coming virgil. Again really would’ve been nice if he and gear could’ve been a part of the expanded league but production might of just been too far ahead or, given he had his own series, they might just have wanted to stick to toher characters. Also begs the question why Icon or Hardware wasn’t adapted for the expanded League but hey, questions for later and the tricky logisitics of the milestone rights might’ve been the issue. I don’t know I wasn’t in the room. 

So we get a costume montage, including Black Vulcan from Superfriends, who again ironically would be voiced by Lamarr not too long after this, though weirdly they DON’T use his outfit from the comics for this montage. I mean why not? It fits the gag and would’ve been a good second to last choice.But what could’ve been aside we get our winner and cut back to present day...

Thanks boys. Static finds out one of the things in the warehouse is a shipment of computers for the school and can’t help but show off, showing up to the school, where Frieda and Richie are setting up for the dance, and dropping off the computers, and even saying his catchphrase for the first time “I’ll put a shock to your system” (Which Richie chimes in with awesome line and I agree, great catcphrase), before helping set up and flirting with frieda. 

Though as Richtie says he’s a natural. He’s not wrong as he can work a crowd. .but back it up too as his first run out had him easily taking out the crooks, and as many teen superheros and fans of heroes of hte type, myself included will tell you, getting it right in one is not easy. Not even Miles MOrales was immune. All Static needs now is a villian. 

And the end of the episode provides one as we see, in horrifc and once again damn suprising detail most of hte new metas aren’t doing so good and are melting and other stuff and we catch up with Francis whose burning up.. and naturally given that hair, though given he named himself F-Stop it’s the least of his problems, he’s got fire powers and escapes to “Have me some fun”

So with that we end episode 1. And it’s excellent, a great way to introduce the hero and while the warehouse opening is a bit superflous, it is a decent addition, showing our heroes first outing in costume and giving us a bit of an action scene to get us through the very heavy rest of the episode. But the rest of the episode is no less grippping, telling the tale of a teen caught in an unwinnable scenario who suddenly finds a way out. And speaking of which waht of Wade? Will we see him again? Is he perhaps Ebon, the series big bad as I thought when I was a kid? What comes of the man who directly caused static’s origin?

Yeahhh that’s the one mistep I think the pilot makes. Frieda is understandable as that was likely a simple change in creative direction. This though? Why build this guy up if your not going to bring him back. I mean where he went was probably the grave, as he probably did due to his mutation, but it’s still VERY weird to spend a whole episode focusing on this guy, building him up as a big personal threat to our hero.. and NOT have him become the series big bad. And maybe he WAS supposed to be ebon and they just changed their mind. I don’t know but it bothers me it bothers me a lot. Otherwise though flawless. ONe more to go. 

Aftershock: We open outside an electronics store, as our heroes watch the news reacap what happened in the first episode, with the media dubbing it the Big Bang and revealing their could be hundreds of “Metahumans”, as Virgil dubs after deciding the media’s term “Mutant” dosen’t fit, a nice wink to the fact that that’s the term used in dc comics and I believe milestone but could be wrong there. Me I like the term, has a nice ring to it. 

At the store while Richie mulls over waht this means Static finds out he’s a human CD player.... this was before mp3 players and streaming on your phone made them horribly obsolete mind you and if you don’t know what one is congradualtions you live in some sort of bubble and you made me feel really old junior. 

Frieda happens to be there and Virgil quips “What’s the matter they run out of britney cds”. Dude she’s not bad. Also be careful what you wish for man. Nickeback returned the year after this. You have not truly suffered through bad music yet my young friend. They spot a kid looking feverish, and he soon turns into a purple werewolf, as you do. It’s a bang baby.. those are richie’s exact word and you may not want to start a panic there bud. Just saying your best friend is one. THeir not all like this. Our heroes book it only to run into Francis who naturally refuses to let them leave and only doesn’t try to beat up Virgil because Virgil points otu the werewolf and nonplussed, he goes to fight it, scarring it off by revealing his own powers. He’s now dubbed himself Hotstreak which points for getting an actually good name kid. No points for what happens next as unsuprisingly getting powers did NOT mak ehim a better person and he attacks Virgil who blocks with a garbage can lid and thankfully is blasted into an ally. Richie tries to guard frieda for damn obvious reasons but gets hsi shirt burnt up because shut up Thankfully Static shows up, and we get our firsdt full on superhuman fight as both fight each other with aplomb, and it’s a damn good fight.. and one that goes pear shaped for Virg as he’s caught off guard when he finds out Hotstreak can use his powers to fly, and tackles him and his previous trauma causes him to freeze up. Thankfully , as Frieda put in a call earlier, the fire department arrive and HOt streak has to retreat, though Virgil is bummed that he “Choked”. And I love this as it not only shows Virgil’s inepxerince, as this is his first time fighting a bad guy but that just because he HAS power now dosen’t mean trauma and his previous fear of Hotstreak goes away or you won’t freeze up from time to time. It dosen’t make him weak or anything like some assholes would call it .. it makes him human. Humans make mistakes, and it makes him all the more relatable that he’s not pefect and that he did freeze up as I know I certainly would at last once in the circumstances. 

Things don’t get better at dinner as Sharon and Pops argue over the bang babies with Pops calling them a meance and Sharon pointing out Static exists so they can’t all be bad. See assuming a group of superhumans are bad because a handful of them ar edick sis why the x-men had to get their own island nation. You can only save an ungreatful populous so many times before you say “fuck it i’m getting my own island, pay me for life saving drugs, save your damn selves and stop doing genocides on us. Kay thanks”. But he does bring up a valid point that rattles his son: We don’t know anything about the Bang Babies or their biological structures and it’s likely they might further mutate into monsters, Static included. 

Virgil, understandably, wants to check this and thus he and richie compare blood samples in science, to no real conclusion. She he checks out with his doctor who assumes he’s sexually active in a great getting crap past the radar bit and a bit of realisim, but he agrees to the test though if something came up he would have to tell Virgil’s dsad and is up front about this. Nice dose of realisim.

That night City Council has a meeting and the Mayor TRIES to deflect Papa Hawkins questions about the bang babies which again, while being a judgmental ass as not every person hit was a gang member (Virgil, and as we discover later some others), and not every gang member is there by choice, some by circumstnace some, like virgil almost was, because they HAD no other option. Again years of reading x-men may of just made me a bit touchy on assholes admitely assuming superpower people bad. But it’s clear the public is upset and while she says an investigation is underway... Virgil and Richie are not only not convinced, but figure she’s actively covering it up. And unlike everyone else there who probably suspects the same, they can do something about it and tail her.  It’s during this, and cleverly as I didn’t realie till writing this using similar skills to his human cd player act, Virgil listens in and discovers whose behind it: Edwin Alva, whose apparently richer than bill gates and a beloved phinarophist Alva, as it turns out, was actually the arch enemy of Hardware in the comics, taking advantage of the guy in his civiliian idtentiy and thus casuing him to launch a war on the asshole. He does transition into this series well though, being the one behind the gas that caused it and with the mayor agreeing to back off, planning to simply dump the info about the big bang on a disc then destroy everything for now till the heat dies down. Yup sounds like a corprate douchebag. 

Static tails him, finds the lab and infiltrates it, stealing the disc.. but getting caught by Alva’s goon, and trapped in a glass prison, forced to use ALL his power to escape and barely getting out alive, but not before bouncing off alva’s car. Still he now has the proof.. and meanwhile Hotstreak, who I was wrong did get captured, is forced to take pill sbut spits them out once the orderly is gone. Dude.. WHY DIDN’T YOU WATCH HIM. Make sure he swallows that shit especially since, as he has no powers right now and can’t harm you. 

Hotstreak escapes off screen and our heroes discuss the disc before he shows up, and we get a REALLY fucking amazing scene: Virgil ducks into an Alleway and ritchie is worried.. and Virgil disarms him with just one word responses Ritchie: Virg you can’t take him.  Virgil: Gotta. Ritchie: Well at least wait for the fire department Virgil: Can’t.  It’s simpile but it gets the point across: This is his fight, he can’t wait for help, and people need him. And this is what makes a true hero: It’s easy to be a hero when everythings going well.. but it’s the true ones who stick it out against the odds and fight anyway. And he’s going to.  So we get one hell of a fight, though naturally Hotstreak burns up the disc. And I do like this as it dosen’t feel contrived.. yes Static could’ve left it with ritchie.. but he wasn’t thinking in the moment and dind’t really have time to think abotu the disc, only that people were being hurt and he was all they had between them and Hotstreak. It was no choice at all. Still that pisses Virgil off that the last night’s work is now worthless, and he fully charges up and curbstomps francis who retreats into a clearing. Hostreak brags when static follows, as even he’s figured out Static needs to be around metal, as he’s usually on his disc or the street, and in the park there suppodsidly isn’t any. But he’s not THAT smart as Virgil points out two things: one, he hoped to do this on PURPOSE so they wouldn’t be around people and no on e would get hurt and 2).. this is a city, there’s metal everywhere.. and he awesomely and cleverly proves it by unlodging a sewage pipe with his powers and dousing his foe, winning and proving his stuff. I love this solution, it’s a clever spider-man type way to disarm him, using smarts and the einvroment instead of just brute forcing it. Though the sewage part wasn’t intetional our hero still won and gets praise from the people dumb enough to follow the fight. 

However at home Virgil points out it was  Pyrrhic Victory and shows off his smarts by telling the tale behind it, which I didn’t know,because tv tropes didn’t exist yet: king pyrhus fought the romans and WON.. but had so little armies left that he still lost overall. That’s what this feels like to Virgil: he beat hotstreak but any chance at a cure for Bang Babies and Alva going to jail for causing them is gone. His mood does get a boost though as the doctor calls and reveals he’s fine, he just has a bit too much elctrolytes and just needs to lay off teh salt. He celebrates, we get a quick gag and the episode ends

Aftershock is another stellar episoe, giving us Virgil’s first super foe and a personal one at that, while showing some growth. As richie tells him he’s not virgil anymore he’s static and he can’t let his past get to him.. and he does’nt going from cowering in fear to easily beating his foe with simple logic. It’s a good followup that answers questions you may have from the first ep, like what does this do to virgil’s body, who supplied the gas, and why has no one done anything about this, and sets up another villian for Static in Alva. Great stuff. I highly recommend these episodes and the show as a whole: it’s fast paced, grounded and enjoyable, having just enough levity to not be too dour but just enough tension and stakes to be intresting. A throughly fantastic superhero show and one that i’d certainly love to revisit on this blog If you have an episode of static or the dcau in general you’d want me to cover, my comissions are open and details are on a tab on my blog or can be gotten simply by asking me via ask or dm. Tommorow we’re going deeper underground, there’s too much damage in this town as the Lena Retrospective continues. So expect gay ducks, straight ducks and some terrfirmains. See you next rainbow.